Letoon Ancient City

According to a legend told by the poet Ovidius, the Goddess Leto, who got pregnant from Zeus, gave birth to her twin children Artemis and Apollo in Delos, then came to the place where the Xanthos River reaches the sea, along the river until they reach the source where the Leto Temple is located today. walks.

The goddess, who wanted to wash her children at the source, but was prevented by the local people, turned the local people into frogs as a result of not allowing them. The foundation of Letoon ruins is based on this mythology.

According to the finds unearthed in the excavations carried out for 30 years at the Letoon ruins, the first settlement goes back to the 7th century BC. The ruins and inscriptions uncovered here show that Letoon was a political and religious center during the Lycian League.

There are 3 temples lined up side by side in the ancient city center. The westernmost of these is in the ion order and belongs to the Mother Goddess Leto. The smaller temple in the middle was dedicated to Artemis, and the easternmost temple was dedicated to God Apollo.

The mosaic, which is located in the middle of the Temple of Apollo and known as the Apollon Mosaic, was removed by the excavation team and moved to the Fethiye Archeology Museum, as it was open to natural destruction in the panel excavation area. The Trilingual Inscription, which was found in the Hellenistic dumpsite near the Temple of Apollo and exhibited at the Fethiye Archeology Museum today, is of great importance. The inscription, which was written in Lycian, Aramaic and Greek, played a great role in deciphering the Lycian language. There is a fountain building dedicated to the cult of Nymphe in the south-west of the temples, and an early Christian church on the eastern edge of this fountain. A stoa and a Hellenistic theater are among the ruins worth seeing in the ruins.