Latest news with #Lycia
Daily Mail
14-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Ominous message found at the entrance of an ancient Christian church delivers a chilling warning to all who enter
A message has been found sprawled out in front of a fifth-century church, left as a warning for all who dared to enter. Archaeologists uncovered the ominous text while excavating Church No. 1 at the ancient city of Olympos, located in the Kumluca district of Antalya, Turkey. The message, laid out as a stunning mosaic, reads: 'Only those on the right path may enter here.' The team said it was intended to direct the conduct of those entering the sacred space, and was meant to deter those who did not follow Christianity. They have found other floor mosaics throughout the ruins of the church, featuring geometric shapes and botanical designs. In addition to the church, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a civilian home built over what was once a Roman-era necropolis or burial ground. During the Byzantine period, the area was likely repurposed due to population growth, with residential buildings replacing older tombs. The home, also constructed in the fifth century AD, was later rebuilt after a fire in the sixth century. It featured stone-paved floors and multiple rooms, and researchers found that the building's original layout and function remained mostly intact during the reconstruction. Gokcen Kutulus Oztaskin, associate professor at Pamukkale University and excavation director on the project, said: 'These finds confirm Olympos as one of the richest ancient cities in the Lycia region in terms of mosaic flooring. 'Olympos continues to surprise us with its rich mosaic heritage.' The message was created using colored tiles laid out in the dirt, forming a circular shape. 'A mosaic inscription placed directly at the church's entrance reads, 'Only those on the righteous path may enter here,'' Öztaşkın added. 'We also found mosaics bearing the names of the church's benefactors. Excavations at the site have been ongoing since 2006, and for the past four years, archaeological teams have continued work year-round without interruption. 'Olympos is full of surprises. In 2017, 2022, and 2023, we uncovered richly decorated mosaic floors in various structures,' Öztaşkın said. 'In 2024, we revealed the floor mosaics of Church No. 1, including an inscription right at the entrance.' To date, archaeologists have uncovered several important structures in Olympus, including Churches No. 1 and 3, the entrance complex, the Episcopal Palace, a bridge, the mausoleum of Lycian ruler Marcus Aurelius Arkhepolis, a mosaic-decorated building, the Antimachos Sarcophagus, and monumental harbor tombs. 'Our work at the site is still ongoing,' said Öztaşkın. 'We've preserved the building's general structure, and we're now preparing to explore what we believe may be a temple. 'Toward the end of last year, we identified bossaged stone walls that suggest a religious structure. Excavations in that area are set to begin in the coming days.' Öztaşkın noted that efforts in the northern part of the city are expected to be completed within two years, after which attention will shift to the southern zone. Among the discoveries this year was a large storage jar unearthed in the civilian settlement. Many of the artifacts recovered from the city are now on display at the Antalya Archaeological Museum. Christianity first appeared in the region of modern-day Turkey in the first century AD, shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The area played a crucial role in the early spread of Christianity due to its location in the Roman Empire and its many urban centers. Olympos, originally a Lycian city and later part of the Roman Empire, also became an important Christian center in the early Byzantine era. By the fifth century AD, Christian churches and residential buildings were constructed over earlier pagan and Roman structures, showing how the city transitioned from its classical roots to a Christian identity.
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- The Guardian
A hidden delight on Turkey's Turquoise Coast: my cabin stay amid olive trees and mountains
Aged seven or eight, planting onions on his father's land above Kabak Bay, Fatih Canözü saw his first foreigner. Before the road came in 1980, his village on the jagged coast of south-west Turkey's Lycia region was extremely remote, isolated by steep valleys and mountains plunging into the sea. It took his family two days to get to the city of Fethiye on winding donkey tracks, to sell their apricots, vegetables and honey at the market. Despite his shock at seeing the outside world intrude for the first time, Canözü remembers thinking even then that tourism was the future. Four decades on and having trained as a chef, Canözü has not only built a restaurant and 14 tourist cabins in Kabak, he has married a foreigner too: a former Middle East correspondent from England, who came here to research a novel and ended up falling in love. Now they are raising their family on this wild fringe of Anatolia's Turquoise Coast, a region that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founding father of the Republic of Turkey, is said to have called the most beautiful in the country. The Olive Garden takes its name from the 200 to 300 olive trees growing on the terraced hillside above the sea. Canözü's father dug them up in the mountains and lugged them here on his back, a testament to the years of hard work it took to make this place. Canözü designed the cabins himself, building them in wood and stone to minimise the environmental footprint. Then he installed an infinity pool where his family once threshed grain. When the restaurant opened in 2005, he waited a nerve-racking 45 days for his first customer. Slowly, people came. My wife and I stay here for four nights, sleeping first in a standard cabin and then in one of two luxury cabins overlooking the sea. The room is airy, glass and pine, but we spend most of our time sitting on the deck outside, continually astonished at the view. On the far side of the forested valley rise immense limestone walls that mark the southern reaches of the Taurus mountain range – the summit nearby is slightly lower than Ben Nevis. On the beach below, a sliver of sand meets startlingly blue water. Kabak beach has long been known for its alternative vibes, a place where groups of hippies sunbathe alongside Muslim families, women in burkinis and dogs dozing on the sand. This sense of coexistence – something that many see as the heart of modern Turkishness – extends to the marine life: at sunset, half the beach is cleared for nesting loggerhead turtles. By road, the village of Kabak is literally the end of the line, which, along with the rugged terrain, has helped shield it from the overdevelopment suffered by resorts elsewhere. On foot, it is a resting place on a longer, slower journey. One of the things that brings travellers here is the 470-mile Lycian Way, established in 1999 by a British-Turkish woman called Kate Clow, who still lives locally. We hike sections of this world-renowned walking trail, first along a rocky path through pine forest and strawberry trees to visit a nearby waterfall. Some beach party stragglers have landed after a long night, so we take our plunge to the thump of techno. A few minutes' scramble and the trail brings us back to wild silence. The following day I walk south for two hours while others go ahead by boat; we meet on Cennet Koyu, which translates as Paradise Bay. No road has made its way to this beach, and it fully deserves its name. Swimming here, in water as clear as glass with steep green mountains rising behind, is as close to paradise as can be imagined. Up in the forest is one of the 'camps' that were founded before gentrified tourism arrived – vaguely piratical travellers' outposts that keep things reassuringly scruffy. Dogs, chickens and donkeys wander among the trees. The boat, steered by a local man with an anchor tattooed behind his ear, takes us around the next headland to the site of a ruined village. Its archway and collapsed stone walls, half swallowed by greenery, are a testament to the darker history of this stretch of coastline. Kalabantia was once inhabited by Greeks, forced to abandon their beautiful home during the brutal 'population exchange' that followed the Turkish war of independence in the 1920s. No one came to take their place – it was too remote even for local Turks – so now its stones are sinking back into the land from which they came. A 45-minute drive away is the much larger settlement of Kayaköy, formerly Levissi, from which over 6,000 Greeks were deported in 1923 to a 'homeland' they had never seen. This melancholy ghost town of 500 roofless houses is almost entirely abandoned, but for roaming goats and tourists. There is something particularly tragic in its Orthodox chapels and churches, with their painted stars still pricking the ceilings. Strangely, I realise I've been here before: under the fictional name Eskibahçe, this was the setting of Louis de Bernières' novel Birds Without Wings, which describes how nationalism tore apart multicultural communities that had lived side by side under Ottoman rule for centuries. Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion The Greek influence is also apparent in Lycia's most famous ruins: the rock-carved tombs that we saw on our way here from Fethiye. They were made by the ancient Lycians, who blended Hellenic architecture with the Persian technique of hewing structures from the living rock. Smaller tombs, which resemble lidded caskets made of stone, are scattered throughout the mountains and along the Lycian Way, monuments to another of Anatolia's vanished cultures. Life has never been settled here. Kabak might still be remote but the road has inevitably brought change, and since the Olive Garden opened, trees have been bulldozed and concrete poured, although the pace of construction has apparently slowed in recent years. With increasing visitor numbers, the water supply is a big concern, followed closely, in this time of ever-rising temperatures, by the risk of forest fires. But other things stay much the same. Where the road terminates the mountains are still vast and wild, the forests are still full of boar, and the turtles still return to the beaches every year. As in other places where beauty masks a harder existence, there's a balance to be struck: without tourism – including the hikers slogging along the Lycian Way – many of Kabak's young people would be forced to move elsewhere instead of working locally, as the Olive Garden's staff do. At least for now, Kabak feels on the right side of that balance. On our last night we eat imam bayildi, which translates as 'the imam fainted' – presumably because the dish is so good – roasted aubergine stuffed with onions, tomatoes and garlic, drenched in olive oil and smothered with melted cheese. The food has been consistently fresh, local and delicious. The moon shines on the walls of the valley, which glow as bright as bone. We have learned a new word, yakamoz, my favourite in Turkish or any other language: it describes the sparkling of moonlight on dark water. There is poetry in this land. Any culture that has a word for this must be doing something right. Standard cabins at Olive Garden Kabak ( from £70, luxury cabins £120 (both sleep two), breakfast included
