Trysa Antik Kenti

Trysa Ancient City is located to the east of the plateau near the Gölbaşı Neighborhood of Davazlar Village on the Kaş-Kale road. Its name is not encountered in any ancient sources. In the Lycian League formed in the 2nd century BC, Trysa appears as one of the member cities. It is known by its coins from the Lycian League period with the abbreviation 'TP', in which the first two letters of the city’s name are written. In archaeological literature, Trysa, whose name and especially whose Heroon have been mentioned since the end of the XIX century, has the appearance of a well-preserved fortress where a minor lord or king resided, like Phellos, Istlada, and Sura.

Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism

The ruins of Trysa Ancient City, in the form of a long, narrow acropolis extending east-west, stand on the summit of a very steep cliff to the northeast and south, 30 meters above today’s Gölbaşı Village, and cover an area 550 meters long and 150 meters wide. Some parts of this area have been terraced. It is surrounded on the north and west sides by a wall built of irregular stones, still standing, dated to the 5th century BC. Apart from the wall, the remains in Trysa today consist of the walls of the Heroon, small remains belonging to the temple, and many sarcophagi. Most of the sarcophagi are plain or have pediments in the form of busts or animal heads.

Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism

The only structure of the city whose nature can be determined is the heavily damaged temple located on the southwestern slope of the Acropolis. As understood from its architectural elements, nothing remains of the two columns that stood between the anta walls on the front façade. Fragments belonging to an inscription honoring a citizen who served as priest to Zeus and Helios were found here. According to this inscription, the temple belonged to one or both of these gods. Trysa’s greatest monument is the Heroon, located at the northeastern end of the city, standing within an enclosed area of eighteen square meters, and dated to the second quarter of the 4th century BC. It is surrounded on four sides by a wall built of rectangular blocks. On its outer face, on the south side, there is a frieze bearing mythological scenes in two horizontal bands. Among these scenes are episodes from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the exploits of Theseus, parts from the Seven Against Thebes, the battles of the Greeks and Amazons, and of the Centaurs and Lapiths, as well as many other figures whose identities cannot be determined. The architrave blocks decorated with a double row of friezes and ornaments on the walls of this sarcophagus, carved out of the native rock and prepared for a family, whose walls are one meter wide and three meters high, were taken to Vienna, and today only one ion kymation block from this frieze remains near the eastern corner.

Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism

In addition, the sarcophagus standing outside the Heroon at the southeast corner, called the sarcophagus of Dereimis and Aiskhylos, with a Gothic pediment, with a relief of a quadriga (four-horse chariot) on both sides of the lid and reliefs showing a funerary banquet on both sides of its strip-like upper piece, was taken by the Austrians together with the friezes of the Heroon to Vienna in 1882-1983 and is exhibited in the Museum of Art History. Trysa is an important center because some of its monuments are the earliest examples in all Lycia.

Source: "Trysa", Dünden Bugüne Antalya [II. Volume], Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism (2012)

Places to Visit in Antalya Address: Trysa Ancient City, Davazlar, Demre / Antalya