Xanthos capital and Letoon archaeological site

The Unesco Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization has recognized the capital Xanthos and the Letoon archaeological site of Turkey as the World Cultural Heritage in 1988.

Xanthos is the ancient capital of Lycia, which is also the cultural and commercial center of Lycian. However, the capital was once ruled by many empires. Persians, Greeks, and Romans conquered this city and the surrounding areas respectively.

Later archaeological excavations at Xanthos made archaeologists find many Lycian-language texts.

About 8 km from Xanthos is Letoon - a very famous archaeological site appreciated by archaeologists around the world. This was also one of the most important religious areas of the Lycian region. Archaeologists have organized many archaeological projects here for a long time and discovered three types of writing: Greek, Lycian and Aramaic. These demonstrations are the key to decoding the Lycian language . The investigators have investigated and translated the words carved in stone or on the giant stone columns left intact at the archaeological site. Through the study of this writing, the history of the Lycian people and the language was built on the combination of European culture - the Indian seal of this writing gradually became clear.

Around the Xanthos area formed settlements forming an extremely important archaeological complex . This area holds the remnant architecture of an ancient, now extinct, empire, the Lycian civilization . This is the most important civilization of the Iron Age.

At the archaeological site, the most obvious vestiges are stone tombs. The graves here are built entirely of stone with Lycian's own architecture. The surrounding pillars and a central place are an extremely unique image of stone tombs created by the ancients. Understanding the form of tomb also sheds light on the question of funeral rites in the Lycian civilization. The perfection in the design and grave of the Lycian people is clearly demonstrated by the British learning this architectural style as well as using some sculptures on these tombs to perform on the throne. grave in England in the 19th century.

Along with the stone tombs in this ancient city, there are still structures of monuments, theaters and churches . These architectures are currently not intact, most of them are left with foundation. or pillars but enough for historians to rebuild an ancient and powerful culture. According to historians and archaeologists, there have been three important temples built here: Apollo temple, Artemis temple and Leto temple .

Xanthos capital and Letoon archaeological site of Turkey are recognized as world cultural heritage according to criteria (ii), (iii).

Criterion (ii): Xanthos Capital and the archaeological site Letoon possess architectural works that greatly influenced the architecture of the main city of Lycia such as Patara, Pinara and Myra as well as the surrounding areas.

Criterion (iii): Capital Xanthos and Letoon archaeological site contain special evidence of Lycian civilization. This is reflected in the inscriptions written on the stone and on ancient texts as well as at the remains. The most important written texts are found at Xanthos and Letoon. Most of these documents exist on stone, including inscriptions on monolithic stone. Besides, the tomb construction structure of the Lycian civilization strongly influenced the construction of the tomb afterwards, even a part of this architecture affected the construction of graves in England in the 19th century.