ARYKANDA
Turkey.
Ruins of an ancient city
near the village of Arif, midway on the Elmali-Finike
road. Its name seems to indicate Anatolian origin of the
second millennium, and documents from nearby Karataş-Semahülyük support this conjecture. The name appears in the inscriptions of the monument erected in Rhodiapolis
to Opramoas, a wealthy man from Lycia who provided
many cities with financial help.
The city was built on terraces which still survive on
sloping land at the S foot of Akdağ. The walls that surround the city to the E and W are well preserved and
characteristic of Hellenistic masonry. On the W side of
the torrent bed that divides the city N-S are the private
and public buildings. The stadium, probably Hellenistic
with Roman additions, is on the highest level of the
terraces. The theater, which is well preserved, has a horseshoe-shaped orchestra, and the cavea is built against the
slope of the hill. The scaena, built separately, is trapezoidal; it opens through three doors into the lowest part
of the proscaena, now completely ruined. The remains of a
triglyph-metope decoration confirm its origin in the 2d c.
B.C. The necropolis is on the E side of the torrent bed.
In the necropolis there are more than a dozen tomb
buildings, one completely excavated. Usually each tomb
rests on a podium, and the grave chamber is generally
vaulted. One tomb is in the shape of a temple in antis.
The sarcophagi appear to date to the end of the 2d c.
A.D. or the beginning of the 3d to judge from their inscriptions and architectural elements. The many rock-cut
tombs, probably built in the 4th c. B.C. and still in use
in the Christian era, have nearly all been robbed. To the
S of the necropolis a great building stands intact to the
level of the second floor. It consists of three large rooms,
and the water pipes indicate a bath or gymnasium.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
RE II, 2 (1896) 1497.
C. BAYBURTLUOĞLU
