Myra Rock Tombs

The Myra Rock Tombs are a group of Lycian rock-cut burial chambers carved into the cliffs above the ancient city of Myra, near present-day Demre on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Myra was one of the leading cities of the Lycian League and later served as the seat of its bishop, Saint Nicholas, in the fourth century AD. More than a hundred tomb facades survive across two main clusters, known as the river necropolis and the sea necropolis, most dating to around the fourth century BC. Carved directly into the rock face, the facades imitate the timber houses the Lycians once built, with beam-ends, doorframes, and gabled roofs all rendered in stone, while a few take the form of small temple fronts. Several tombs still show traces of the original paintwork in red, blue, and yellow pigments. The best known among them, called the Painted Tomb, carries life-sized carved reliefs of a family group on both its exterior and interior walls.