Olympos Ancient City - Olympos Antik Şehri ( Kemer - Antalya / Turkey )
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Olympos Ancient City - Olympos Antik Şehri (
Kemer -
Antalya / Turkey )
Olympos was an ancient city in
Lycia. It was situated in a river valley near the coast. Its ruins are located south of the modern town
Çıralı in the
Kumluca district of
Antalya Province,
Turkey.
Together with the sites of the ancient cities
Phaselis and Idyros it is part of the
Olympos Beydaglari National Park. The perpetual gas fires at
Yanartaş are found a few kilometers to the northwest of the site.
The exact date of the city's foundation is unknown. A wall and an inscription on a sarcophagus have been dated to the end of the
4th century BC, so
Olympus must have been founded at the latest in the
Hellenistic period. The city presumably taking its name from nearby
Mount Olympos (
Turkish:
Tahtalı Dağı,
Timber Mountain), one of over twenty mountains with the name Olympos in the
Classical world.
The city was a member of the
Lycian League, but it is uncertain when it joined the
League. It started minting Lycian League coins from the end of the second century BC, possibly the 130s. At this time Olympos was one of the six largest cities of the League, which possessed three votes each.
Around 100 BC Olympos started issuing its own coins separate from the League. At this
point the
Cilician pirates had taken control of the city, either through conquest or profitable collaboration with the inhabitants. As a consequence the city abandoned the League or was evicted from it.
The pirate chief Zenicetes made it his stronghold from where he controlled the rest of his possessions, which included
Corycus, Phaselis and many other places in
Pamphylia. His rule ended in 78 BC, when the
Roman commander
Publius Servilius Isauricus, accompanied by the young
Julius Caesar, captured Olympos and his other territories after a victory at sea. At his defeat Zenicetes set fire to his own house and perished. At the time of the Roman conquest Olympus was described by
Cicero as a rich and highly decorated city. Olympos then became part of the
Roman Republic. The emperor
Hadrian visited the city after which it took the name of
Hadrianopolis for a period, in his honour. Olympos is missing from the
Stadiasmus Patarensis and the
Stadiasmus Maris Magni. However, both include the already mentioned Corycus, which is described in ancient sources as a port of some significance. There is no evidence that Olympus was a maritime city prior to the
2nd century AD. On this basis
Mustafa Adak has argued that Olympos was initially founded on
Mount Olympus, which he identifies as
Musa Dağı instead of Tahtalı Dağı. In his theory, the
Romans destroyed Olympos, after which the population moved to Corycus, and the name of Corycus was changed to Olympos when Hadrian visited the city in
131 AD.
In the Middle Ages,
Venetians, Genoese and Rhodians built two fortresses along the coast, but by the
15th century Olympos had been abandoned.
Today the site attracts tourists, not only for the artifacts that can still be found (though fragmentary and widely scattered), but also for its scenic landscapes supporting wild grapevines, flowering oleander, bay trees, figs and pines.