Ruins of Kaunos

Photo by flickr user Astolath

All that remains of the ancient Greek town of Kaunos are the ruins of its theatre, some tombs carved into the rock of the cliff face in the Lycian style, a Byzantine church and the rectangular ruins of what’s thought to have been a temple. The tombs are the most noticeable, they appear suspended, cut half way up a sheer rocky cliff. Their design is like the gateway of a Greek temple, with a pointed roof and two pillars on either side. Built for the city’s dead kings and dating from around 700 BC, at night they’re illuminated with spotlights so you can get a better idea of the detail that remains in the carvings – considering how many hundreds of years they’ve been weathered by the weather they must have been very ornate when they were designed and completed. The smaller tombs are the oldest.

Some of the temple’s Doric columns have survived and the stepped tiers of the theatre are still in their places so though the city is ruined there is still a lot to see.

Written by  World Reviewer Staff.

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