Anatolian Civilizations and Historical Sites - TEDA

ANATOLIAN CIVILIZATIONS:10x19 antik kentler 8/1/11 10:51 AM Sayfa
Phaselis
If you are driving towards Antalya along the recently opened coastal
highway, which allows the most spectacular view of the beauty of the
Mediterranean, you will encounter a road sign at the exit some 35 km.
before Antalya that points in the direction of Phaselis, which is down a
forested road in the village of Tekirova. Although the nearby Beldibi Cave
shows some signs of prehistoric dwellings, we can trace the city of
Phaselis back no further than the 7 th century BC. As it possessed three
harbors and was in close proximity to a rich forested region, Phaselis was
established as a colony of Rhodes in 690 BC Phaselis, which derived its
existence from the sea in the 6 th -7 th centuries BC, was captured by Persia
after they took Anatolia, and later by Alexander the Great after he
defeated Persia. However, the inhabitants of Phaselis opened their gates
to Alexander and accommodated him in their city. It was here that
Alexander accepted many of the envoys from the cities of Pamphylia, then
advanced to Gordion, taking each of the coastal cities in quick succession.
After the death of Alexander, the city remained in Egyptian hands from
309-197 BC under the the Ptolemiac Dynasty. With the signing of the
Apameia Treaty, it was handed over to the Kingdom of Rhodes, along with
the other cities of Lycia, where it remained under the sovereignty of
Rhodes from 190-160 BC. Soon after, it was absorbed into the Lycian
League under Roman administration. Like Olympos, Phaselis was under
constant threat of pirates in the 1 st century BC, and the city was even
taken over by the pirate Zenicetes for a spell. The threat was eliminated
when Zenicetes was ignominiously defeated by the Romans. In 42 BC,
Brutus had the city annexed to Rome. During the Byzantine Period, the
city became a bishopric. In the 3 rd century AD, its convenient harbor had
fallen under the threat of pirates once more and it began to lose
importance, suffering further losses at the hands of Arab hordes until
becoming totally impoverished. Phaselis’ fate was permanently sealed
when the Seljuks began concentrating on Alanya and Antalya as their
ports of preference. As we previously indicated, Phaselis was a city of
harbors, of which it possessed no less than three. The north harbor is
beyond the place where we parked the car, next to that is the naval base,
and the southern harbor is to the south. It was with the sealing off of two
small islets with a breakwater that the north harbor was made secure,
whereupon it was subsequently enlarged and dredged to accommodate a
large number of ships. The military harbor to the south of this was
An aerial view of Phaselis.
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