KYANEAI
(Yavu) Turkey.
City in Lycia, 18
km E of Kaş (Antiphellos), 5 km from the coast. It is
listed by Pliny and Hierokles, but otherwise unknown
except from coins and inscriptions. It was nevertheless
the principal city in the region between Antiphellos and
Myra and possessed a considerable territory. The coinage is of Lycian League type and of Gordian III. There
are also coins of Rhodes countermarked with a lyre and
the letters
ΚΥ; these belong presumably to the period of
Rhodian possession of Lycia, 189-167 B.C., and were
intended for circulation in the central area. In Byzantine
times the bishop of Kyaneai ranked 36th and last under
the metropolitan of Myra.
The ruins are on a high, steep hill directly above the
village. Most of the circuit wall is well preserved; it is
of irregular ashlar of moderate quality and late date.
Many buildings remain in ruined condition and heavily
overgrown, including a large bath building, a library, and
many wells and cisterns. The theater, on a lower summit
to the W, is of medium size, with 25 rows of seats and
one diazoma; the retaining wall is of small polygonal
blocks, collapsed at either end. Of the stage building only
scanty traces remain. There are countless Lycian sarcophagi everywhere, and in the precipitous S face of the hill
is a well-preserved temple tomb with a single fluted Ionic
column in the porch; farther E in the same face is a
pleasing group of two fine sarcophagi and two house
tombs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.A.B. Spratt & E. Forbes,
Travels in
Lycia (1847) 112-17; E. Petersen & F. von Luschan,
Reisen in Lykien II (1889) 18-22; G. F. Hill,
BM Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycia, Pamphylia and
Pisidia (1897) 1v.
G. E. BEAN
