A temple façade in living rock
Two Ionic columns and a four-panel stone door imitating timber, all carved from the mountain some 2,400 years ago.
Johnragla — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jwslubbock — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jwslubbock — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jwslubbock — CC BY-SA 3.0
Around 2,400 years ago a man named Amyntas, son of Hermagios, decided he would be buried inside a temple, so the stonemasons of Telmessos, as Fethiye was then called, carved him one straight out of the mountain: two Ionic columns, a frieze, a triangular pediment and a stone door divided into four panels with raised studs, imitating a wooden door that was never meant to open. His name is cut in Greek on the pilaster beside the door, and that is all anyone knows about him. The façade he commissioned for himself is now the picture of Fethiye on every postcard, gazing down over the town as if keeping an eye on whoever arrives at the harbour. Getting there means a ten-minute uphill walk from Atatürk Caddesi to the ticket kiosk, then well over a hundred stone steps to the upper terrace. The stairway is almost entirely without shade, some treads are uneven and turn slippery under dust, so it is no place for a pushchair or for anyone who finds climbing hard; school-age children bound up it, toddlers get carried. In August heat do not attempt it at midday. Wait for the last hour before sunset, when the low sun catches the façade and the whole rock glows honey-coloured with Fethiye and its gulf spread out beneath you. To be frank: the chamber behind the door is empty, three stone benches where the bodies once lay and nothing more, whatever it once held long gone. What you are visiting is one magnificent façade, a handful of smaller tombs cut into the same cliff on either side, and a view that justifies the steps. Anyone expecting a museum will be disappointed; anyone who comes for the photograph and the sunset will leave content. Foreign visitors pay three euros, settled in lira, which is fair for half an hour that pairs a monument with a viewpoint. The site opens daily, 08:30 to 20:00 in summer and considerably earlier to close in winter. Fold it into the same evening as a wander through the lanes of Paspatur, the old bazaar quarter fifteen minutes downhill on foot, and dinner along the seafront; arranged that way the tomb becomes the natural close to a Fethiye day rather than a separate excursion.
Two Ionic columns and a four-panel stone door imitating timber, all carved from the mountain some 2,400 years ago.
From the upper terrace Fethiye and its gulf open out below, and the rock glows in the last hour of daylight.
Several smaller Lycian tombs cut into the same cliff can be seen for free from the street below.
Kesikkapı Mahallesi, 117. Sokak No:3, 48300 Fethiye, Muğla
If time is short or you have small children in midday heat, the façade is clearly visible from the street at the foot of the hill and that is enough for the photograph. The climb rewards those who want to stand at the stone door and see the town and gulf from above, ideally in the last hour before sunset.
No. The chamber holds three stone benches and nothing else, with no exhibits and little signage. The visit is a façade and a view, not a museum.
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