Rock-Cut Tombs

These are the most numerous of all types of Lycian tombs and some are perhaps the most visually striking - elaborate funeral chambers carved directly into the rock face, usually into a cliff. Most often, the tombs are carved like the facade of timber Lycian houses with protruding beams (house-type tombs), usually with one or two stories, sometimes three. The imitation of wood is sometimes even carried to the copying of pegs to join the different beams and the tombs resemble the frontage of houses built solidly of timber with ceilings of unhewn trunks of trees. There is normally a row of round or square beam ends above the door. Later these developed into a dentil frieze. Sometimes there is a pediment above, in a few cases in the shape of a Gothic (pointed) arch. It is believed that the first house-type rock-cut tombs were carved in the 5th century BC.

The most elaborate rock-cut tombs are those carved in the form of Ionic temples, the largest and most famous at Telmessos (Fethiye) - the ‘Tomb of Amyntas’. These rock-cut temple-type tombs usually have two columns (the tomb at Cyanaea only has one), an epistyle and a pediment and usually have elaborate reliefs, such as the ‘Royal Tomb’ at Pinara and the ‘Painted Tomb’ at Myra. This temple-style of tomb is not specifically Lycian and can also be seen in Caunos (some impressive examples are in the town of Dalyan) and other parts of Anatolia.

Rock-cut tombs often held more than one body - many tombs have several stone couches inside upon which gifts were left and the dead were laid, often families. The entrance was sealed with a sliding stone door that ran sideways along a groove. At Pinara's southern necropolis, there is one tomb with a surviving fragment of a sliding door, it has a notch at the bottom to help crowbar the door into place.

The tombs of wealthy Lycians were finely worked with elaborate relief carving. On some of the rock tombs the exterior is decorated with reliefs depicting the specific features of the deceased and the main events of the period. Symposium scenes relating to the funeral feast are frequently included in the reliefs. Othertimes, mythological scenes are depicted. These reliefs were once brightly painted. Myra's "Painted Tomb" still has some traces of paint on its life-sized figures.

The tombs of the poor and less wealthy were plain, without relief carving. A good example of these simple tombs can be seen at Pinara - they are also the oldest form of the rock-cut tombs, hundreds of roughly-hewn pigeon-hole caves honeycombing a cliff face. These tombs were usually bricked-up to a small access hole, which was then locked with a stone plate.

Rock-cut tombs are not exclusive to Lycia, for they have been found in other places in the Mediterranean, in the Palestinian and Nabatean area, Cyrenaica, eastern Anatolian Urartu, in the Kurdish border area between Iran and Iraq, in the surroundings of Persian Persepolis, in Saudi Arabian Hegra and in Egyptian Beni Hassan. These places all have one thing in common: geography, for this type of tomb normally occurs in landscapes with deep ravines and steep cliffs.

Monumental Tombs

Monumental tombs were built by the rich and were grand and some were in the form of temples. Such a tomb could confer prestige, make a political statement, or illustrate the biography of the dead person.

There are only a few "heroon" in Lycia - these were the grandest monumental tombs of all and were ususally built by important rulers. The earliest examples, at Lymra and Apollonia, may not have been actual tombs, but rather hero-cult centers. The remaining four of these tombs of fourth century BC were most likely genuine ‘ruler- tombs’, the earliest being the beautiful ‘Nereid Monument’ from Xanthos (now in the British Museum).

The Nereid Monument from Xanthos, British Museum

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29