Arykanda Building with niches

Arykanda's building with niches is identified with the Sebasteion, or Traianeum, a temple built for the cult of the Roman emperor Trajan during his reign in the early second century AD. The structure takes its name from the series of niches set into its walls, with doors placed symmetrically on its eastern and western sides, a design meant to display statues or offerings connected with the imperial cult. It stood on one of the upper terraces of Arykanda, a Lycian city built across five mountainside levels in what is now Antalya province. Once the empire's religion shifted to Christianity, the building's stone was reused in the fifth century to help build a basilica church and bishop's residence on the same site, so the niched walls represent the earliest architectural phase of a monument later adapted for very different religious purposes.