Lycian Civilization

Myra

Location Demre, Antalya, Turkey

Official Date c. 500 BCE

Visited February 2019

◈ 6 Anomaly Score

Myra is a Lycian city in the Antalya province of Turkey whose cliff face above the ancient settlement is covered with rock-cut tomb facades, among the most elaborated in the Lycian tradition, their carved temple-fronted porches, pilasters, and architectural details retaining traces of original polychrome paint in red, yellow, and blue. Projecting stone bosses and polygonal rectangular masonry in straight-edged blocks of varying dimensions are visible throughout the finest construction. Metal clamp recesses reinforce the joints of the civic construction. A well-preserved Roman theatre seats approximately 11,000 and produces the focused acoustic environment documented across the Anatolian theatre tradition. The city was home to Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Official Attribution

Date c. 500 BCE

Photo Gallery · 12 photos

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 1 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 2 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 3 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 4 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 5 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 6 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 7 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 8 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 9 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 10 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 11 of 12

Myra, Demre, Antalya, Turkey — photo 12 of 12

Tags

Tag Analysis

Devolution

Myra's construction sequence spans the Lycian period, the Roman period, and the Byzantine period. The finest carved elements at the site — the temple-fronted tomb facades with their polychrome painted decoration — are Lycian, c. 500–300 BCE. The Roman theatre below them is competent Imperial construction but uses standardised architectural elements without the individual carved ambition of the Lycian tomb programme. The Byzantine modifications and the later addition of St Nicholas's church are the simplest construction at the site. Three successive cultures, oldest finest — the strict standard is met by the contrast between the elaborately carved and painted Lycian tomb facades and the standardised Roman civic construction immediately below them in the same landscape.

Keystone Cuts

The T-shaped recess cut into the top surface of this block is unambiguous — a classic metal clamp socket of the form documented at Dendera, the Parthenon, Baalbek, and across the Lycian sites at Arykanda and Limyra. The recess is wider at its base than its opening, designed to grip a poured or inserted T-shaped metal clamp that prevented adjacent blocks from separating under seismic shear forces. The metal has been extracted — the empty recess is all that remains. Its presence at Myra adds a third Lycian cluster confirmation alongside Arykanda and Limyra, reinforcing that keystone cut construction was standard practice across the western Taurus Lycian cities rather than an anomaly at any single site.

Knobs / Stone Bosses

Also correct. The foreground block carries clearly visible projecting stone bosses on its face — deliberate raised protrusions on an otherwise prepared limestone surface, the same feature documented at Hatunrumiyoc, the Serapeum, and across the Lycian sites at Arykanda and Limyra. On a block of this scale in a Myra civic or funerary context, the bosses are not incidental surface irregularities — they are retained through the full preparation of the stone as deliberate elements whose function remains undetermined across the entire catalogue.

Polygonal Rectangular

You are right. The wall section shows limestone blocks with straight edges and right-angle corners but varying dimensions across the courses — the characteristic polygonal rectangular signature rather than the puffy stone profile I misidentified. Each block has exclusively straight edges meeting at right angles, but no two adjacent blocks share the same dimensions, with the joint lines following irregular vertical offsets rather than continuous horizontal courses. The polygonal rectangular tradition at Myra connects the site to the same construction philosophy documented at the Giza pyramids, the Valley Temple, and across the Italian polygon wall sites — straight-edged blocks individually sized to their specific position rather than cut to a repeating module, here in the Lycian cliff-city tradition of the western Taurus.

Sarcophagi

Myra contains Lycian sarcophagi of the characteristic ogival lid form placed throughout the lower necropolis and civic areas — the same tradition documented at Limyra and Arykanda, here in one of the most extensively photographed Lycian contexts. The finest sarcophagi at Myra show carved relief decoration of high quality on all visible surfaces, and some retain traces of the same polychrome paint programme documented on the cliff-face tomb facades — confirming that the painted decoration was not unique to the carved facades but extended to the freestanding funerary objects as well.

Subterranean Complexes

The rock-cut tombs of Myra constitute the finest and most extensive Lycian cliff-face necropolis in the entire Anatolian catalogue — dozens of elaborately carved temple-fronted tomb chambers cut directly into the towering limestone cliffs above the ancient city, their interiors genuine subterranean spaces carved from bedrock. What distinguishes Myra from Limyra and Arykanda in this tag is the quality and preservation of the carved facades — temple-fronted with full Ionic or Doric columned porches, pediments, and figural reliefs carved in the rock face, many still bearing traces of their original polychrome paint in red, yellow, and blue. The tomb chambers behind the carved facades are genuine underground rooms of considerable spatial complexity — multiple burial niches, carved ceiling beams, and floor channels — making Myra's necropolis the most architecturally elaborate rock-cut subterranean complex in the Lycian catalogue.