We anchored Missy Bear in Round Bay, launched Ursa Minor, and we four glided silently around he headland and into Tomb Bay. We were on an adventure to search for ancient treasure.
We beached the dinghy on a shingle shore, beneath steep, rocky cliffs clothed in pine. Godfrey and Emily stayed to guard our means of escape, while Skipper and Lewis (Tomb-Raider, aged 12) set off up the wooded hillside, in wet flip-flops, alert and beady-eyed. We had already spied some basic, ‘pigeon-hole’ rock tombs from the water – a sort of bee-hotel in the cliff face – but we knew more elaborate, architectural, monolithic-mausoleums were about. We had spotted a couple of them from the beach. But now that Skipper and young Tomb-Raider were scrambling up rocks within the trees, we had lost sight of our goal above. And, we had lost our way.
We continued uphill, but there was no path. We tried to follow what looked like bits of trodden earth between the rocks, but should we head left, or maybe right? Luckily, we climbed onto a ledge where there was a clear view down to the beach through a gap in the vegetation.
“Ahoy, there”, we yelled, waving our arms towards our shipmates. “Where are the tombs?”
“You need to go up to your left, maybe 300 metres”, came a faint, hollow, echoey reply from far below.
So off we scrambled to our left, often clinging onto trunks and overhanging branches to haul ourselves up. Soon, Skipper rounded a ridge and got a clear view of our target.
“I see it, Lewis. Come on!!”
In no time, we were gasping in front a series of three terraced, Lycian tombs, carved by hand into the solid rock face. The façade was a series of portrait openings, some blind, with recessed surrounds, all covered and linked by a single, immense, chiselled lintel.
We stepped up on the ledged apron in front of the opening and peered inside, searching for who-knows-what. Maybe gold, jewels, maybe a mummified body or simply a bag of bones. Our eyes adjusted to the gloom for a second. I tentatively stepped up and inside. The tomb was quite small and roughly hewn, with a low stone bed running around the three inner sides. This is where the bodies would have been laid, we supposed.
Lewis gasped, and we both thought about taking the treasure!
But then, we thought that maybe that dastardly act could release a large boulder that would roll down and crush us. Or perhaps a curved blade would swing from the ceiling a cut is cleanly in two. Not to mention the crossbolts that were no doubt trained on us right now.
So, the only thing we took was - a photograph.
The two of us scrambled down the slopes back to base camp at the water’s edge, hot and sweating after our big adventure.
“Come on, let’s get back to Missy Bear for lashings of Coca-Cola and a plate of Oreos.”
******
Alix and I had seen our first Lycian tombs two weeks earlier. We had moored Missy Bear at Ekincik, and chartered a local timber motor boat, replete with Turkish rugs on the floor, to take us up the Dalyan river. The river entrance is guarded from deep, fin-keeled yachts by a shallow, sandy bar. We chug-chugged around the bend in the entrance, and cut a wake up the river into a huge lagoon. There were hundreds of acres of reeds on our left, and a long, curved sandy beach to our right, which is a famous nesting place for turtles.
Narrow river channels split and re-joined in the reeds. It was a timeless, biblical landscape, framed by high, wooded mountains on three sides. I almost expected to see a baby curled up in a basket at the water’s edge as we glided by. Kingfishers “peeked” and then darted by like a blue arrow. A harrier flew low over the reed tops, hunting.
And just as we rounded another bend, we saw them! Halfway up a crag, carved into the rock, Greek-looking buildings appeared, complete with columns, corbelled entablature and pediment. And with no obvious means of approaching them. These were the Lycian tombs of ancient Kaunos. These elaborate tombs were carved around the 4th century BC, and were later used by the Greeks and Romans, who had built the now-ruined town nearby.
So, who were these mysterious Lycians, who gave this region its name? Lycia is the bulge from Ekincik to Antalya, and is hemmed in by mountains. Maybe these people were indigenous. They were known as the ‘Lukka’ by the Egyptians and the Hittites, who occupied Anatolia or Asia Minor. The Hittites pushed the Lycians westwards and southwards during the Bronze Age. And they were later pushed back from the coastal strip by the colonising Greeks.
The landscape here is wild and mountainous, and the Lycians were famed by both Persians and Greeks as being fiercely independent. The Lycians sided with Troy, and then, much later, with Xerxes against the Greeks. Famously, on two occasions they fought to the last man: once against the Persians (546 BC, at Xanthos, the capital); and then against the Roman, Brutus (also at Xanthos in 42 BC). On both occasions the Lycians first killed their women and children, then burnt their city to the ground – most of their buildings were wooden - and finally fought a suicidal defence. The Lycians were well-respected by their conquerors, and were offered some degree of autonomy. Nevertheless, their culture and language simply faded over time.
Their burial chambers, however, were made to last! I vaguely remember visiting the British Museum years ago on a trip into London, and seeing a large, distinctive, free-standing Lycian sarcophagus on display. You could get close to its base on the ground floor, but could study its top from the first-floor gallery. The British explorers who rediscovered these ancient sites in the 19th century were the real tomb-raiders I suppose.
So, after arriving in Gocek, I was eager to find some more Lycian sites. Alix and I hired a jeep and set off to track down two of the sites: Tlos and Xanthos. Like most of these sites, their locations are stunning, expansive, lofty and offer panoramic views. As a result, subsequent civilisations have re-used the sites. And the building materials. First Lycians, then Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and then Ottomans. Walls are often built with remnants of materials from earlier generations, and at Tlos we saw a course of stone formed by the round sections of Greek columns set on their ends.
(It is interesting that the classical structures that always seem best able to survive earthquakes and robbing are the theatres, which are often built into the natural hillside.)
But we were here to focus on the Lycians. At Tlos, the rock tombs are extensive and elaborate, peppering the lofty acropolis. There are also several free-standing sarcophagi dotted around.
At Xanthos, there are more sarcophagi, and the smaller, less-elaborate ones are probably later Roman affairs. But there are impressive pillar tombs, inscribed with Lycian texts. The grave sits atop the pillar, if it is still present. The Lycian alphabet was like Greek, but with a few more letters and the Lycian language was eventually cracked when the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone was found (i.e., the same text repeated in three languages).
The most important temple tomb at Xanthos was the Harpy Monument. It is now in the British Museum, probably “smuggled” out in the early 19th century.
Would it have survived as well if left in situ, during the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire? I don’t know. Were these British ‘tomb-raiders’ scholars interested in preserving history for the benefit of mankind, or greedy trophy hunters? Again, I don’t know. Another topic for the next dinner party…