The ancient Lycian city of Xanthos sits on a hill on the left bank of the Esen Creek, in Antalya Province. Of course, today, we can only see what’s left of it after many attacks and battles over the ages. Still, it is quite a remarkable sight when you approach it. The first things I noticed, as we drove nearer, were the pillar tombs and pillar-mounted sarcophagi. I haven’t seen anything like that anywhere else. No wonder Xanthos, together with Letoon situated close by, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Pillar tombs in Xanthos.

According to the information on the site, in Lycian times, the settlement was known as Arnna. And in the Lycian League, there were six large cities, which were entitled to three votes each. These were Xanthos, Tlos, Myra, Olympos, Patara and Pinara.

We saw beautiful inscriptions written in the Lycian language. They even looked a little like Nordic runes to me. And the tombs, high up, mounted on the pillars, were really impressive. How did they get them up there? The pillar tombs were built for the Lycian Dynasty rulers between the 6th century BC and the 4th century BC.

Xanthos is also known for its magnificent Nereid Monument, but that is no longer in its original place. Its ruins were shipped to the British Museum by the traveller Charles Fellows in the 1840s. It was named after the female figures of the monument, thought to be the sea-nymphs. The Nereid Monument inspired the architecture of the famous Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, present day Bodrum.

Xanthos was an administrative, commercial and cultural centre of Lycia and the earliest ruins date from the 8th century BC (turkishmuseums.com). In 540 BC, the Persians attacked and defeated the Lycian army in the flatlands near Xanthos and besieged the city. The citizens of Xanthos, as an act of heroism, killed their wives, children and slaves, and then engaged in a suicidal attack with the Persians. Later, Alexander the Great ended the Persian rule in Xanthos. This was followed by the city being ruled by the Egyptian Dynasty, and then by the Romans. When Xanthos was the Roman province, in 42 BC, Brutus came to demand funds. The Lycian League refused him and Brutus then besieged and destroyed the city. For the second time, the citizens committed mass suicide by setting fire to their city. In the end, Xanthos lost its importance during the Eastern Roman period as a result of Arab raids.

A pillar in Xanthos.

During the excavations in Xanthos, a poem was found inscribed on a tablet (translated by Azra Erhat):

We made our houses graves.
And our graves are homes to us
Our houses burned down
And our graves were looted
We climbed to the summits
We went deep into the earth
We were drenched in water
They came and got us
They burned and destroyed us
They plundered us
And we,
For the sake of our mothers,
Our women,
And for the sake of our dead,
And we,

Inscriptions in Lycian language in Xanthos.

In the name of our honour,
And our freedom,
We, the people of this land,
Who sought mass suicide
We left a fire behind us,
Never to die out.

What an exit. That really puts things into perspective. People often tend to think that the present times are the worst, but are they really? Isn’t it the nature of this planet to have violence and destruction amidst the beauty and tranquillity? It seems, both ends of the spectrum are always present. And so it was in Xanthos – beauty and prosperity followed by devastation and death. But this city of heroes lives on in our memory and the ruins it left behind.

Ruins of Xanthos.