Tomb of Amyntas

Carved into the cliffs above the harbour of Fethiye, in Muğla province on Turkey's southwest coast, the Tomb of Amyntas is one of the best-preserved rock-cut monuments left by the ancient Lycians. Modern Fethiye occupies the site of the ancient city of Telmessos, once the largest settlement in Lycia, and the tomb sits on the hillside just south of the town centre, overlooking the bay.

Telmessos, the City Beneath the Tombs

The city under the cliffs has been continuously important for well over three thousand years. Hittite records of the thirteenth century BC appear to name it Kuwalapašša; in the Lycian language it was Telebehi. In the Iron Age it built a reputation as a centre of divination, and its school of seers was famous enough to be consulted by the Lydian king Croesus. Telmessos was a member of the Delian League in the fifth century BC and was taken by Alexander the Great in 334 BC, and its well-protected harbour, screened from the open gulf by an island, kept it prosperous through every change of ruler.

Politically the city belonged to the world of the Lycian federation, the league of city-states that Strabo described as numbering twenty-three cities and which received its autonomy from Rome in 168 BC, two decades after the Treaty of Apamea had briefly placed Lycia under Rhodian control. The league is often cited as one of the earliest recorded federal systems: each member city kept its own local government while sending representatives to a common assembly, and voting weight was scaled by size, with the six largest cities — Xanthos, Patara, Pinara, Olympos, Myra and Tlos — casting three votes each and smaller members one. Later the city was renamed Anastasiopolis in the eighth century AD, apparently in honour of the emperor Anastasios II, though the name did not stick; from 879 AD the written records call it Makri, which survived in Turkish as Meğri. The present name dates only from 1934, when the town was renamed Fethiye in memory of Fethi Bey, one of the pioneers of Turkish aviation.

A Temple Carved Out of the Cliff

The tomb dates to around 350 BC and takes its name from a Greek inscription cut beside the entrance, "Amyntou tou Ermagiou" — "Amyntas, son of Hermagios." Nothing else is known about the man, which is part of the monument's appeal: the grandest tomb on the hillside commemorates someone who is otherwise a blank.

What makes it exceptional is the façade. Where most Lycian rock tombs imitate the timber-framed houses of the living, this one reproduces a Greek temple of the Ionic order in the "in antis" form, with two columns standing between the projecting side walls, an entablature above them and a triangular pediment crowning the whole composition. The carving extends to details that only make sense in wood: the doorway is worked as a relief divided into four main panels, imitating the beams and studded planking of a real temple door. It is the finest example of the temple-type Lycian rock tomb, and the largest and best preserved of the several tombs cut into this slope.

The chamber behind the false door is unusually spacious for a rock tomb of this kind. Inside are three klinai, the stone couches on which the dead were laid, beneath a flat and roughly hewn ceiling — a deliberately plain interior behind a highly worked exterior, which tells you where the effort and expense were meant to be seen.

Looters, Earthquakes and Early Travellers

The tomb has been empty for a very long time. It was plundered during the Hellenistic period, and the monument sustained further deliberate damage in the Christian era. Erosion has done the rest: the Ionic columns are considerably worn, though remarkably they are still standing after more than twenty-three centuries.

Its survival is all the more striking given the seismic history of the coast. The 1957 Fethiye earthquakes — a doublet of magnitude 7.1 on 24 April and 7.3 the following day — flattened most of the modern town, yet the tomb, cut directly into the living rock rather than assembled from blocks, came through essentially intact. The site also carries a nineteenth-century footnote: the French traveller and archaeologist Charles Texier, who surveyed Asia Minor in the mid-1800s, carved his own name into the upper left corner of the monument, a habit of the period that would horrify any conservator today.

Visiting the Tomb Today

The tomb is genuinely in the town, only a few minutes' walk inland from the promenade and marina, and reached by a flight of steps climbing the hillside. The terrace in front of the façade is the reward: it looks out over Fethiye's harbour and the islands scattered across the bay, and it is a favourite spot at sunset, when the low light picks out the carving on the columns and pediment. Smaller rock tombs lie about 500 metres to the east along the same slope. More Lycian sarcophagi stand free in the streets of the town below, some of them wedged awkwardly between modern buildings: the Lycians developed a distinctive tomb chest with a high, pointed lid that archaeologists have suggested imitates an upturned boat, and unlike the Greeks they rarely arranged them into a tidy necropolis, leaving them scattered wherever the family plot happened to be.

Fethiye's other classical remains are close by. The ancient theatre beside the harbour, uncovered in 1993, was founded in the Hellenistic period and rebuilt on a larger scale under Rome, when it was adapted for gladiatorial contests and public assemblies as well as drama; more than twenty rows of seating survive, and estimates of its capacity run to several thousand spectators. Taken together with the tombs on the slope above, they are the reason the ancient cities of Lycia sit on Türkiye's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Practically speaking, the climb is short but steep and offers little shade, so early morning or late afternoon is the sensible choice in high summer; the same timing gives the best light on the façade. Because the site sits directly above the waterfront, many visitors combine a day of sightseeing with a private gulet charter from Fethiye, pairing the ancient tomb with an afternoon on the water.