Aperlai Antik Kenti

About Aperlai Antik Kenti

Aperlai (Aperlae) lies at the head of a long, narrow bay on the Sıçak Peninsula, between Kaş and Kekova. Its original Luwian name, Aprillai, is understood to mean a river gorge, and Byzantine bishopric records give it as Aprillae. It was a small Lycian harbour town. Silver coins in the Lycian language with the abbreviations apr and prl, dating from the 5th and 4th centuries BC, show that it existed before the Lycian League, and its name appears in later writers such as Pliny, Ptolemy and Hierocles. By the 16th century it had been abandoned, and Piri Reis mentions it in his Kitab-ı Bahriye as a sheltered harbour. Under the Lycian League, Aperlai headed a group of three, or by some accounts four, cities that shared a single vote, and it formed a sympoliteia with Simena, Apollonia and Isinda. Like other Lycian cities under Rome, it was allowed to mint coins only in the reign of Gordian III. Most of the visible remains are Roman, though the earliest known remains are Hellenistic. The ruins sit on the slopes of a hill running down to the sea on the north side of the bay. Walls reinforced with towers climb from the shore to the acropolis; three square defensive towers stand on the northern walls, and the best preserved western wall has three gates, two flat-topped and one arched. Near the harbour are the remains of two Roman baths, and two small basilica-plan Byzantine churches dated to the 6th and 7th centuries AD stand at the north-west and south-east corners of the acropolis. The necropolis, east of the walls, holds many Lycian sarcophagi, while the quay and the buildings beside it now lie underwater. Aperlai is one of the Lycian ancient cities proposed for the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2009. The Culture Portal notes that the easiest way to reach it is by sea from Kaş or Üçağız to the Sıçak landing.