Myra was a Lycian, then captured by Ancient Greece and lived under their rule, then the Roman Empire and then Ottoman town in Lycia, which became the small Turkish town of Kale, renamed Demre in 2005, in the present-day Antalya Province of Turkey. It was founded on the river Myros, in the fertile alluvial plain between Alaca Dağ, the Massikytos range and the Aegean Sea.
The theater of Myra, with the rock-cut tombs of the ancient Lycian necropolis on the cliff in the background.
Cities of ancient Lycia. Red dots: mountain peaks, white dots: ancient cities
Rock-cut tombs in Myra
Rock-cut tombs in Myra
Lycia was a historical region in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğla in Turkey as well some inland parts of Burdur Province. The region was known to history from the Late Bronze Age records of ancient Egypt and the Hittite Empire.
Lycian rock cut tombs of Dalyan
Partial reconstruction of the Nereid Monument at Xanthos in Lycia, c. 390–380 BC.
Inscribed Xanthian Obelisk (c. 400 BC), a funerary pillar for a sarcophagus that probably belonged to Dynast Kheriga.
Lycian rock cut tombs of Dalyan.
