State Agora of Arykanda

The State Agora is one of the civic open spaces of Arykanda, an ancient Lycian city built across five steep terraces on a mountainside in Antalya province. Laid out in the fourth century BC during the Hellenistic period, the agora was a wide, flat square enclosed by a colonnaded portico on three of its sides, leaving the fourth side open toward the view over the valley below. At its centre stood a small temple dedicated to Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune who was closely tied to the prosperity and civic identity of ancient cities. The agora reflects the wealth Arykanda built up despite its remote mountain location, drawn mainly from its textile production and its control of mountain routes. It stands among the other terraces that carried the city's theatre, baths, and necropolises, forming part of one of the best-preserved examples of a Lycian mountain city.