Teimussa Ancient City

Teimiussa stood where the village of Ucagiz stands today, on a sheltered inlet of the Antalya coast between Kas and Demre. It was never a city in the Lycian sense. Administrative records and tomb inscriptions describe a village settlement whose value was its harbour, and the ruins match that description: a small fortification, a handful of rock-cut tombs and, along the waterline, a dense field of sarcophagi.

Location

Ucagiz lies roughly 35 kilometres east of Kas and about 20 kilometres from Demre, reached by a side road that turns south off the Kas-Demre highway around its twentieth kilometre. The village faces Kekova Island across a channel of protected water. Kalekoy, the ancient Simena, is a short boat ride further east and cannot be reached by road at all.

Names and Neighbours

The site is also recorded as Tristomon. The nearest inland Lycian settlement was Tyberissos, in the hills to the north, and tomb inscriptions at Teimiussa refer to judicial ties with Myra and Kyaneai. That is the strongest single clue to what the place was: a maritime outlet for larger towns inland rather than an independent power. Inscriptions in the Lycian alphabet are also the reason the site can be identified at all - no ancient author describes its founding, and the identification rests on epigraphy. The village occupies a narrow strip of level ground between the hills and the water, room enough for a harbour and its cemetery and not much else.

What Is Still Standing

Near the shore is a small fortification built of rectangular ashlar blocks, with an acropolis in the same masonry. It is a modest structure rather than the castle it is sometimes called; the fortified village that ends up in most photographs is Simena, across the water.

Within the site is a double rock-cut tomb carrying the figure of a naked young man and a Lycian inscription naming the owner as Kluwanimi. It dates to the fourth century BC. East of it, a channel walled in stone on both sides is lined with sarcophagi of the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods, standing so close together near the water that they look stacked. At the northern end of the channel is an Early Byzantine structure whose function is not known.

Kekova and the Sunken City

Ucagiz is the usual departure point for Kekova Island, Dolichiste in antiquity. Part of the settlement on the island's northern shore dropped below sea level in a second-century AD earthquake; foundations and stairways are visible through the water. The town revived under Byzantine rule and was abandoned after Arab raids. Small boats can be hired in the village, and day boats also run from Kas.

Protected Status

The Kas-Kekova Specially Protected Area was declared on 18 January 1990 by cabinet decision and covers about 258 square kilometres of coast, islands and sea in Antalya province, a figure usually rounded to 260. It takes in Kekova Island, the villages of Ucagiz, Kalekoy, Kapakli and Cevreli, and the ancient sites of Simena, Aperlae, Dolichiste and Teimiussa. It is not a national park. The designation is a planning and conservation instrument administered by Turkey's environment ministry, and it regulates building, anchoring, diving and fishing across the zone. Swimming and diving directly over the sunken city are prohibited.

What the UNESCO Status Actually Is

Teimiussa is named in the group nomination Ancient Cities of Lycian Civilisation, added to UNESCO's Tentative List in February 2009. A tentative list records the sites a country intends to nominate; it is not the World Heritage List, and Teimiussa has not been inscribed on it. The distinction matters, because the protection that actually applies here is the Turkish one described above, not a UNESCO one.

Visiting

Ucagiz can be reached by road, but the sarcophagi stand at the waterline and the island is a boat ride away, which is why many visitors combine a day of sightseeing with a private gulet charter from Kas rather than driving in and out along the same narrow side road. The village has restaurants and pensions along the front; it fills in the middle of the day when the tour boats come in and empties again by evening.