SURA
Turkey.
Town in Lycia, ca. 4 km W of
Myra (Kale, formerly Demre) and still known by its
ancient name. Sura was not an independent city, but a
dependency of Myra; as such it naturally struck no coins.
It is in fact virtually unknown apart from its celebrated
fish oracle.
The village extends around a low hill which on the E
rises only some 12 m above a small level plain, but on
the W descends steeply over 100 m to sea level at the
head of a marshy inlet. The buildings on the hill seem
all to be tombs; several are rock tombs of Lycian type,
and two carry inscriptions in the Lycian language. On
the S side of the hill is a row of stelai with inscriptions
listing the names of Prostatae of Apollo Surius; there
seem to be 21 names in each case. Scattered about the
plain to the E are a dozen Lycian sarcophagi with Greek
inscriptions.
The Temple of Apollo still stands up to 8 m high at
the W foot of the hill close to the marshy inlet. On its
interior walls are a number of inscriptions recording the
devotions paid by suppliants—not, however, to Apollo
Surius but to Sozon and in one case to the Rhodian deity
Zeus Atabyrios. The site of the fish oracle is clearly recognizable from the ancient accounts (Ath. 8.333-34;
Plin.
HN 32.17; Steph. Byz. s.v. Sura; Plut.
De sollertia
animalium 23). It appears that a whirlpool arose on the
shore of the harbor; into this consultants threw spits
bearing pieces of meat, whereupon the pool swelled up
and a variety of fishes appeared, from whose species and
behavior an oracle was drawn. Pliny also mentions a
fountain of Apollo whom they call Curius (or Surius).
These features are still identifiable. The harbor is the
marshy inlet, which was certainly sea in antiquity; the
fountain, with an abundant head of water, issues from
the ground a few paces from the temple and forms a
stream which flows through the marsh to the sea, 1-2 km
away. In this stream, just in front of the temple, a number of springs well up, creating a swirling effect which
resembles a whirlpool; this answers exactly to the account given by the local inhabitants in Athenaeus (l.c.).
The swelling of the pool was presumably managed by
the priest's controlling the flow of water from the large
spring. No actual oracles obtained at Sura are recorded.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.A.B. Spratt & E. Forbes,
Travels in
Lycia (1847) 135-37; E. Petersen & F. von Luschan,
Reisen in Lykien II (1889) 43-46; G. E. Bean,
AnzWien
(1962:2) 6-8.
G. E. BEAN