Andriake Ören Yeri

About Andriake Ören Yeri

Andriake lies in the area known as Çayağzı in Demre, the ancient Myra, and is known as the harbour of Myra and the settlement that grew around it. A city named Andriake is recorded at the mouth of the Andriakos (Kokarçay) river around 200 BC, and in 197 BC Antiochus III came here with his fleet while taking places held by the Ptolemies. Effectively an outer quarter of Myra, it was used intensively from the Classical period and remained the central harbour of the region through the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras. Trajan, staying at Myra while planning his Parthian war, called for a fine harbour in southern Lycia, though its planning and building belong to the time of Hadrian. Statues set up at Andriake honoured the visit of Germanicus and his wife to Myra in AD 18, and Saint Paul is said to have stopped here to change ships on his way to Rome in AD 60. Most of the ruins spread along the foot of the hill south of the harbour. Coming from Demre, the first structure is the aqueduct that brought fresh water to Andriake, and a Roman nymphaeum with an arched entrance and niched inner walls stands on the east side. Between the granary and the harbour runs the harbour street, with half-open ship sheds in front of it. The largest structure is the market place or agora known as the Plakoma, lined with shops on three sides and with a cistern in its centre. The most important building is the Hadrianic granarium, an eight-room imperial granary with eight doors on its facade, each opening into one room, and windows above them to light the interior. Two busts of the emperor Hadrian and his wife Sabina stand beside the main door, and a relief of Serapis and Pluto with a griffin between them was made, as its inscription explains, after a dream of the granary official. Preserved up to its roof, the granary now houses the Lycian Civilisations Museum (Likya Uygarlıkları Müzesi). The harbour has since turned into marshland and is cut off from the sea. The northern part of the harbour area is a necropolis with Lycian-type sarcophagi and the remains of two Byzantine churches. Andriake is one of the Lycian ancient cities proposed for the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2009, and can be reached by Demre buses or by private vehicle.