Cennet Island

Cennet Adasi, Heaven Island in English and Paradise Island on most boat-trip boards, lies about 8 kilometres from Marmaris at the eastern side of the gulf: wooded, quiet and, despite the name, not actually an island. It is one of the standard stops on a day out from the harbour, but the reason the whole landmass is protected has less to do with its coves than with a cave near the summit that has been sheltering people since the end of the last ice age.

An Island in Name Only

What is universally called an island is really a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a low natural spit the locals call Yalanci Bogazi, the Fake Strait, narrow enough to look like open water from a distance and solid enough to walk across. The landmass is also known as the Nimara Peninsula, and it closes off one side of Marmaris Bay as a long pine-covered ridge. In 1999 the whole area was placed under protection as a first-degree archaeological site as well as a natural conservation area, a double designation that kept development off it while the rest of the Marmaris shoreline filled up with hotels.

Because of that status the peninsula has stayed green. Pine forest runs almost to the waterline, the coves on the seaward side are shallow and clear, and a handful of small restaurants near the landing stages are effectively the only buildings on it.

Nimara Cave and 12,000 Years of Company

The cave sits high on the ridge, at around 350 metres above sea level, and is a limestone karst chamber whose stalactites and stalagmites have been dated to roughly 100,000 years old. People arrived far more recently but stayed far longer than anyone had assumed: excavation has turned up traces of occupation running from the Paleolithic through to the Bronze Age, with the earliest evidence pushed back some 12,000 years. That makes it the oldest securely dated human presence anywhere in the Marmaris area.

Serious archaeology here is recent. Two small sandstone figures of women were found in the cave in 1998, and formal excavation followed in 2007, carried out under the Marmaris municipality by a team of around twenty-five archaeologists, geologists, engineers and architects; the cave was opened to visitors the following year. The finds were unusually rich for a site of this size: some 500 coloured glass beads, stone and bone tools including drills and chisels, around fifty terracotta human figurines, a scatter of Roman coins, and two built stone terraces read as offering platforms. Research connected with the Marmaris Museum has linked the later use of the chamber to the cult of Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis and a goddess with deep roots in this part of Anatolia, which would explain the votive character of much of the material.

The cave has a living population as well. It shelters trogloxene butterflies, species that use caves for part of their life cycle but feed outside, of the same kind found in the Butterfly Valley near Fethiye further along the coast.

The Hilltop Ruins and the Sea Cave

At the highest point of the peninsula are the remains of an ancient settlement, with sections of city wall, a watchtower and house foundations still traceable among the pines. It represents one of three known clusters of ancient settlement around Marmaris, and the position makes obvious sense: from up there the entire approach to the bay is visible. A walking route of roughly an hour links it back to Marmaris for anyone who would rather arrive on foot than by boat.

Down at sea level is the Phosphorus Cave, the peninsula's other well-known feature. Nothing about it is phosphorescent in the chemical sense; the glow comes from sunlight entering through the water and bouncing off pale rock, at its most intense around midday, and swimmers reach it in about ten minutes on foot from the boat landing.

Getting There

Roads reach the neck of the peninsula, but the sensible approach is from the water. The coves offer easy anchorage, the crossing from Marmaris or Icmeler takes a matter of minutes, and the shoreline is a great deal more interesting seen from a deck than from a car park. It is a stop best reached during a Marmaris gulet cruise, usually combined with a swim in one of the bays and the climb up to the cave before the afternoon breeze fills in.