Turkey 2016–Part Twenty Seven— Kaunos

One of our last stops before going into port at Marmaris (a truly touristic town, where apparently even Jesus has a shop)….. is the ancient city of Kaunos. Here is the sign at the site….. Kaunos was once a port city but as with Ephesus and other such cities, the harbor silted up….. We did not visit the high fortifications at Kaunos see here… Rather we toured the ancient theater….. here’s the vomitorium or exit ramp for the actors… One can tell from the size of the theater this was once a considerable city…. The most interesting feature of this theater is the pivot, which is not the same as the speaker’s spot…. This thing, called a periaktos in Greek, actually revolted, as described below….

The city lasted well into the Roman era, for here are the ruins of the Roman baths…. There was a circular temple near by….

For best orientation, here is a grid plan of the city…. There were narrow streets down into the agora, where there was a chesme, or fountain…. The walls of the city were formidable… But without question the most impressive feature of the city was its necropolis, or city of the dead, carved out of the cliffs nearby….

In some ways it was nice to return to land at beautiful Marmaris, the favorite vacation spot for the British of all these seaside towns…

The basic three part structure of these ancient towns entailed— a city of the dead, a city of the living, and on the acropolis the city of the gods…..