Sidyma

 

Sidyma is little-visited, and this is a shame because it is a beautiful place.  I think this may be due to little publicity and reports that the road leading to it is poor.  In any case, the road must have been improved in recent years because even though the last part of it is a track road, it is a good road and a car can easily reach the site.  The drive up is gorgeous with beautiful views along it.  To get to Sidyma, turn off the main Fethiye-Kalkan road about 6 km south of Eşen and continue on about 14 km to Sidyma (village of Dodurga).

The site is interesting not only for its ruins, but for the fact that the lovely village of Dodurga has been built among the remains, charmingly reusing pillars and other ancient pieces in the villagers' houses and other structures.  The site is virtually untouched and gives visitors the chance to see a Lycian site much like those seen by the first European explorers.

Not much is known about this site.  However, the form of the name -yma, is proof of its high antiquity.  There is evidence of settlement at least in the early classical period (including the ruin of a pillar tomb and a wall of ashlar and polygonal masonry) but most remains are from the Roman Imperial age.  Remains include numerous sarcophagi, impressive monumental tombs, a badly-preserved theatre, bath, stoa, temple, church and others things.

One very striking temple-type monumental tomb is located not far from the village center.  It is large, raised on two steps and seems to have originally had two columns in antis.  A large slab remains in place, decorated on the underside with beautiful carved reliefs of human heads (believed to be women) and flowers.  Traces of bright red paint can still be seen on one of the flowers.  More photos and details of this beautiful tomb.

Although the city is recorded by geographers throughout history to Byzantine times, only one story is recorded of its history.  While still a simple soldier, the future emperor Marcian (450-457 AD), fell ill while on his way through Lycia and was left behind in Sidyma.  He was befriended by two brothers who took him into their home and nursed him back to health.  When he recovered they all went hunting and while taking a siesta, one of the brothers awoke to see a huge eagle shielding Marcian with its outstetched wings.  He later asked Marcian "If you become emperor, what favor will you do us?"  Marcian replied that in that unlikely event he would make them Fathers of their city.  When he did indeed become emperor, he did one better and appointed them to a high position in Lycia.

Those living in Sidyma (Dodurga) are still very friendly, kind, gentle people (only about 80 people) and they would love to see more visitors.  Some of the young people that we met speak some English. The village is along the Lycian Way walk and the muhtar (village headman) who is also the imam, has told us that anyone may camp in the courtyard of the mosque if they wish.  In case of bad weather, seek him out for permission to sleep in the mosque - he speaks a little English and is a very kind man.  There isn't a shop in Sidyma, but water can be found at the mosque.  Some of the people of the villagers sell carved wooden spoons of sandalwood (we bought some, they are inexpensive and very nice) and kilim articles woven in the village.  But don't worry, they aren't pushy.

Some of my friends recently returned from a camping trip to Sidyma and said that the people there were just wonderful, so friendly and helpful, and that they are the friendliest villagers they have met on their many camping/walking trips in the Turkish mountains (and most villagers in Turkey are very friendly).  The villagers brought them some food and invited them over for tea and the imam had them park their motorcycle at the mosque. My friends found an area near the necropolis to be an ideal camping spot and walked to the top of the hill behind the mosque where the views were spectacular.
  

View over the village, you can see the remains of a tower peeking out.

 

Remains of a bath

Tomb in the village next to a millstone

This is the corner of the village mosque, largely constructed from blocks and pillars of Sidyma.  Here we seen an unusual inscription embedded in the wall headed with "The Gods Here", followed by a list of twelve deities including Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite.

Path through the village leading to ruins

This sacrophagus has become a support for a shed

Sarcophagi belonging to a father and son, one of the occupants was a court physician honored by the emperors.

Off the beaten track – Sidyma in Lycia-by Heinrich Hall on Jun 25, 2015 •

 

A group of Roman-era Lycian tombs of different types at Sidyma.

A truck parked on the overgrown steps of a long-gone portico, goats scratching themselves on the doorway of an ancient grave, a Greek inscription built into the wall of a recent mosque, ornate tombs sticking out between terrace walls and olive groves, traversed by age-old cobbled trackways and shaded by enormous oak trees…

These bucolic images conjure up an impression of what an archaeological site might look like before discovery and exploration – the type of image that would have been normal for the early travellers of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the physical heritage of the Mediterranean’s ancient past was being rediscovered. Early reports of places like Agrigento in Sicily, Ephesus in Turkey or Delphi – even Athens – in Greece, describe just such Arcadian and picturesque scenes, the remains of ancient glories in a state of romantic decay, embedded in simple peasant life or even in remote wilderness.

…goats scratching themselves on the doorway of an ancient grave…

But the description above is a current one, of ancient Sidyma (modern Dodurga), a few kilometres inland from the Lycian Shore of Turkey.

One of the pleasures of exploring the more remote areas of the countries we travel is to veer off the proverbial “beaten track”, to scramble through rocky landscapes, ramshackle traditional villages or dense undergrowth for those very special discoveries. What we seek on those occasions are the ruins of ancient cities, sanctuaries, forts and cemeteries, not yet (if ever) developed for conventional tourism, still standing proud in their landscape, seemingly untouched, oblivious to the millennia of change that have been going on around them since they were created, used and abandoned. In many ways, such sites are a far better impression of the vast gulf of time that separates us from antiquity than are their no less impressive and often more accessible and informative “must-see” contemporaries – although even those can be shrouded in mystery.

The “Doric Tomb” of Sidyma, according to its inscription the resting place of a young girl who was priestess to the cult of the Roman emperors in the 1st century AD.

A great example of this type of site is Sidyma. Historically speaking, this Lycian city is virtually unknown. Ancient writers rarely mention it, and never before the 1st century BC, but the linguists tell us that the name should have more ancient Anatolian origins. Virtually nothing is known of its history, except a legend about the Byzantine emperor Marcian, before rising to power, having received a prophecy or omen about his future career while staying there. We also know that the place was important enough to become the seat of a Christian bishop by the 5th century AD, and that it remained so until the 13th century. In terms of written records, that’s pretty much it.

In the field, as an archaeologist would say, there’s a little more to Sidyma – but not enough to break its sense of enigma. The site is located in – nay, scattered throughout – an inland plateau, not far from the shore, but entirely invisible from both the sea and the main land-based routes of communication. In spite of its relative aridity, the area is covered in fine and very old olive trees today: in combination with the numerous goat and sheep grazing the nearby slopes, that suffices as the economic basis for the small village that now rubs shoulders with the ancient remains.

The medieval (?) fortress overlooking Sidyma.

Those remains cover a reasonably large area, but few of them are indicative of an actual city. Some ruined structures can be interpreted as colonnades or other public buildings; there are substantial terrace walls that may have supported houses or shrines (and are now incorporated into modern farmyards); and old reports describe a now-obliterated theatre. A fortification on a nearby hilltop may have ancient origins, but its visible structures are – probably – of Byzantine date. The ruins of two sizeable churches stand clearer witness to the Byzantine (and Christian) presence.

What makes Sidyma spectacular – albeit in a modest and very intimate way – is its wealth of tombs. They follow the distinctive Lycian tradition, established in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, but adhered to by the fiercely traditional population of that region even when first Greek influences and then Roman ones dominated the region and its place in the world. For the sufficiently intrepid explorer, Sidyma is a treasure trove of ornate tombs of the various Lycian types (sarcophagi, house tombs and even pedestalled graves), but all seem to be of Roman date, most likely of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. A stroll on tree-shaded pathways and a scramble through the olive groves and pastures beside them reveals dozens of these monuments, some of them virtually pristine, others badly damaged and incorporated into more recent and more prosaic structures.

The ceiling of one of the Sidyma tombs: a single slab of stone, carved with coffers holding flowers and faces.

There is much detail to be found here: carved ornaments and figures, such as the god of love, Eros, in the corner of a sarcophagus; a phallus, probably to bring luck, on the edge of a structure that may be a very large tomb or even a temple; flowers and faces or masks carved into the highly ornate ceiling of a collapsing grave chamber… Badly worn inscriptions, all in Greek and many far beyond legible, are trying to tell us of the importance and power of the men buried in the graves that bear them. A small Doric temple, also a tomb, tells of the cultural ambitions and connections of the inhabitants, clearly expressing a knowledge of Classical Greek architecture and a desire to emulate it. All of these fragmented details are testament to the rich and complex culture of the eastern regions of the Roman Empire and their deep cultural background, embedded in both local Anatolian and more international Greek traditions. Those tombs do, as do all their equivalents in antiquity, represent a considerable investment into the memory of the deceased and the prestige of their descendants.

A pair of finely carved and inscribed sarcophagus tombs at Sidyma.

We cannot currently tell how such a remote and apparently insignificant place could afford such ostentatious grave markers, nor how or where those buried there made their fortunes. Maybe they lived and acted in nearby Xanthos and Patara, the much better-known, much bigger, much wealthier and much more important urban settlements in the coastal valley below, expressing their allegiance to their rural home community by being buried there. Or maybe, the community thrived through the importance of its harbour, a few kilometres away and largely unexplored so far, and through the trade and export of its produce, such as honey, olive oil and cheese, all of which are still made there.

Many questions and few or no answers – but who doesn’t love a mystery? To explore the romanticism, the beauty, the grandeur and indeed the mystery of ancient Sidyma, you can join us on Walking and Cruising the Lycian Shore or on Walking and Cruising Western Lycia!

Sidyma (and nearby Pinara) are the places that made me fall in love with Lycia and I certainly was not the only one. We were fortunate to have John Onley in our group, who was so inspired by the place that he wrote a poem about the site as soon as we were back on board of the Almira.
S I D Y M A
Merhaba! Ingiliz? comes the modern greeting
To seekers of an ancient Sidyma.
A tractor-driver waves. Beside the well
An old man, timeless, waters his black goats.
They live among the rubble of the past,
Recycled blocks of stone in homes and barns,
Tread fractured marble on their village tracks,
See Lycian pillars rear above their fields.
A cow reclines against a fallen column,
Carved capitals shore up the terraces,
The garnered dead, inside their rock-hewn tombs,
Survey the stubbled land where once they reaped.
The curved apse of a lost Byzantine church
Strengthens a farmhouse wall. And in the mosque
Illiterate masons sideways lodged a slab
Inscribed in Greek with Homer’s pantheon.
Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite,
Cohabit here with Jesus and Mohammed.
Time, and neglect, have fudged a harmony
Of jumbled stones, of peasants, and of gods.

Sadly John died last year, but his impression of Sidyma is sublime and will live on forever.