Arykanda Örenyeri

About Arykanda Örenyeri

Arykanda is a hillside city south of the Bey Dağları, built at the foot of Şahinkaya, a sheer crag that closes the settlement off to the north like a wall. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism explains that its name comes from the Luwian Arykawanda, meaning the place beside the high rock. The British traveller and researcher Charles Fellows first identified the site in 1838, from tomb inscriptions and coins he found on the surface. The city was most densely settled in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Its earliest architecture is a group of rock tombs from the late 4th or early 3rd century BC. Arykanda played little part in the political events of Lycian history, but it stood on one of the main roads of eastern Lycia and grew rich on the timber trade. In Roman imperial times its plentiful water made it a safe place to stay and rest, and the city was at its height in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The city is laid out on terraces, bounded by cliffs to the east and west and by Şahinkaya to the north. It had no city walls; the terrace walls did that job instead. On the lower terrace are the gymnasium and a bath, and on the upper terrace the theatre, odeon, stadium, agora and a small bath. The acropolis has temples of Trajan and Helios, there is a basilica on Nal Tepe, and a church stands in the eastern necropolis. The Ministry lists the site as open every day with free entry; when checked in November 2026 the hours given were 08:00 to 19:00.