Olympos Antalya

The ruins of Olympos lie in a wooded river valley on Turkey's Antalya coast, beside the modern village of Çıralı, where the ancient harbour opened directly onto the sea. First recorded as one of the leading members of the Lycian League, with three votes in its federal assembly, the city later gained a darker reputation in the 1st century BC as a pirate base, until the Roman commander Publius Servilius Vatia crushed the pirate leader Zeniketes here around 76 BC.

From Pirate Stronghold to Roman City

Olympos appears among the cities named on the earliest Lycian League coinage, struck from around 167 BC, and its three votes placed it in the small top tier of league members representing eastern Lycia. Its oldest defences date to roughly 300 BC. The city's fortunes turned in the 1st century BC, when the Cilician pirate chief Zeniketes made it his base; cornered by the Roman campaign against the pirates, he chose to burn himself and his family alive rather than be taken. Olympos was expelled from the league as punishment and was not readmitted until the 1st century AD, after Lycia had been absorbed into the Roman Empire. It recovered thoroughly: an inscription records a citizen, Marcus Aurelius Archepolis, holding the office of Lyciarch, the highest post in the league, and Emperor Hadrian's visit in 129 AD brought new building work, including a granary on the south bank of the river. The city was renamed Hadrianopolis in his honour.

A Christian City of Mosaic Basilicas

Christianity reached Olympos early. Methodius, remembered as the first bishop of Lycia and Olympos, was active in the late 3rd century and was probably martyred in 312 AD; the see survives in the Catholic Church today as a titular bishopric. The city then entered its most intensive building phase in the 5th and 6th centuries, when as many as nine three-aisled basilica churches went up, each with mosaic floors laid in opus tessellatum. That prosperity ended with the Arab raids of the 7th century, after which the site was progressively abandoned; a Byzantine fortification still crowns the acropolis above the valley, and the ruins were finally left to shepherds, who are thought to have used them as winter shelter into modern times.

What Survives in the Valley

The stream that splits the site was canalised in antiquity so it could serve as a quay, and the two halves of the city were joined by a bridge whose abutment still stands. Walking paths lead past bath complexes, a small Roman theatre, stretches of city wall and a temple portal 150 metres west of the river mouth, dated by a dedicatory inscription to Marcus Aurelius in 172 AD. Rock-cut chamber tombs line the southern bank, and the most celebrated find here is the sarcophagus of Captain Eudemos, excavated by the Antalya Museum near the river mouth, carved with a relief of his beached ship and an inscription naming him — a rare, personal trace of the maritime trade that made the city rich. Set against this backdrop, many gulet cruises in Turkey call in here, anchoring off Çıralı so guests can wander the ruins before an afternoon swim.

The Eternal Flames of Yanartaş

A short walk uphill from Çıralı, natural gas seeping through fissures in the rock feeds clusters of flames that have burned more or less continuously for millennia. The site is Yanartaş, "burning stone", identified with the ancient Mount Chimaera of the Bellerophon myth, in which the hero mounted on Pegasus drove the fire-breathing beast into the mountain. Ancient mariners used the glow as a navigational landmark on this stretch of coast, and the ruins of a temple of Hephaestus, the smith god of fire, lie immediately below the flames. The flames are at their most impressive after dark, which is when most visitors make the climb.

Çıralı Beach, the Park and Practicalities

Olympos sits within the Olympos Beydağları Coastal National Park, protected since 1972, which also takes in the ancient cities of Phaselis and Idyros further up the coast. The long pebble-and-sand beach at Çıralı is a nesting ground for the loggerhead turtle, Caretta caretta, with the season running from roughly May to October; both ends of the beach fall inside the protected zone, and building has been kept low and sparse as a result. The archaeological site is ticketed and reached on foot through the valley, ending at the shore, so a visit combines ruins and swimming in a single walk. Roughly 80 kilometres from Antalya, it is one of the better-preserved Lycian port cities on this coast, and its mix of history and easy beach access keeps it a fixture on itineraries through the Kemer area.