Ancient City of Kaunos

When we were looking at our Meetup for 2020, the idea had been to go to Rhodes and take a day trip to Turkey. As such, I had been researching the sites in and around Fethiye, the Turkish ferry port for Rhodes. In the process, I stumbled across Kaunos and felt intrigued.

The default picture for Kaunos is the one shown at the top of the page: the Royal Tombs. The cliffs also hold more simple tombs than the fancy royal ones, just holes drilled into the rock. It's interesting to compare the designs and track their differences. It will be interesting to see what if any additional locations will be included.

Apart from the tombs, the site also contains a Persian/Greco/Roman archaeological site. It consists of an acropolis, an amphitheatre, a well preserved temple, ruins of a early Christian basilica .. Things you come to expect. In addition, it's a harbour that you can still make out to this day. From the "pier" you can look out onto the sea and the former harbour basin is still filled with water.

The historic town was eventually abandoned when the port silted. The river swamps were also a malaria nest and one idea is that the locals left the ruins mostly intact due to the malaria. 

Currently, excavations and restorations are still ongoing, but there is plenty to see as is.

OUV

I think Kaunos has two things going again, that warrant the inscription of …