This mountain town in the Lycian region was built on terraces opening onto the steep and rocky slopes of a high hill. After successful excavations and restoration work carried out in recent years by Turkish archaeologists, a beautiful town has emerged, with a well organized plan that gives the appearance of an architectural model. The “nd” in the name “Arycanda” provides linguistic evidence that the city’s past goes back as far as the third century B.C. The oldest existing textual references date to before the fifth century B.C.
From what we have learned from coins of the Lycian League type that have been recovered, Arycanda lies within the general historical currents of the Lycian region and was one of the twenty three cities bound to the League. Arycanda’s principal official buildings, which are not enclosed by city walls, are situated on terraces. A stadium in the form of a running track is located on the uppermost terrace. Measuring 106 m. long and 17 m. wide, it is much smaller than the norm. A few step like seats on its north side are all that remain of the stadium.
On a lower terrace is a small but rather well preserved theatre of Greek plan. The cavea section, which lies in the natural slope of the land, consists of twenty rows of seats. At the edge of every row are holes for awnings which unfurled to protect the spectators from rain and sun. The stage building appears to be of separate construction, with architectural features that date it to theArykanda second century A.D.
On the terrace below this theatre is a second century A.D. odeon with a long mosaic-floored portico. Almost square in plan, the odeon is an extremely ornate building with its orchestra, seats, and walls all faced in coloured marble.
From the south it opens onto the portico in front via three large doors. To the front of the odeon is the city’s wide, flat agora enclosed on three sides by a portico. On the north west slopes of the city at the west end of the 137 m long stoa lies the bouleuterion, the building in which the people’s assemblies met. Inside the building, which Arykanda theatre is set into a slope, rows of seats for the members of the assemblies are cut into living rock. Vote chits made of fired clay, which, according to the number of holes piercing them, indicated “yes”, “no”, and “abstain”, were unearthed during excavations in the bouleuterion.
They provide the best possible proof of the existence of democratic government hundreds of years ago. Other ruins worth seeing are vaulted tombs constructed to temple plan and with podiums, which are found in the necropolis of the theatre. Southeast of the eastern necropolis are the remains of a large complex consisting of a gymnasium and a spacious four chamber bath.