Dust of Ages
No one dies simply in Lycia. Here, death is design.
In Olympos, everything related to graves is extravagant and intentional. The sarcophagi don’t hide — they jut out of the earth, stare down from hills, stand along the path like old guards who were never told it’s over. Some are taller than a man. Some have rooftops shaped like nomadic temples. Some bear inscriptions that still whisper if you press your ear to the stone.
Tombs Taller Than Houses
In Lycia, death was an architectural challenge. Rock-cut tombs weren’t dug below but carved high — so the soul could ascend to the mountains, not descend into the ground. There are only a few of these in Olympos, but they exist — on slopes among the pines, where the air is drier and the landscape feels more ancient.
Sarcophagi here are their own monument type: stone boxes with heavy lids, as if holding not just bodies but memory itself. Some are Roman, like the sarcophagus of Eudemos, a fleet commander. His inscription — about the sea and the soul — has outlived its Latin, now a dead language.
Who Were These People?
We don’t know. Their names — at best — are guesses. All we have are inscriptions no one has fully deciphered. We don’t know where the Lycian heroes are buried. We’re not sure where the necropolis even was. Archaeologists argue. Tourists take selfies. But between these actions lies a gaping grave.
The Grave as Simulation
Sometimes, it feels like these tombs aren’t real. As if they’re props. There’s something theatrical about it: stone sarcophagi with hollow cavities, shattered lids, faded names, missing bases. As if the dead have left — and forgot to take their scenery with them.
Why Are We Still Here?
Maybe because they are still there — the sarcophagi that remember Romans, pirates, Lycians, those who lit fires near the Chimera. This isn’t a museum. This is a graveyard of meanings. And we walk it like children pretending to be archaeologists.
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