Letoon

Situated 55 km far from Fethiye, Lettoon was the religious centre of the Lycia Federation.

Letoon - Temple of Apollo by Traces in the Sand

It is well known for three temples dedicated to the Goddess Leto, Goddess Artemis and God Apollo. Archaeological excavations have been carrying on since 1962 in Lettoon and the churches of the early Christian period are uncovered.

 The Letoon, located on the west bank of the River Xanthos (Eşen Çayı), was the centre of the Lycian federation. This sanctuary of Leto contained a terrace with three temples, as well as other monuments and buildings, including a nymphaeum and theatre. The middle temple was dedicated to Artemis and the other two are attributed to Leto and Apollo. The site has been excavated since 1950 by a French expedition, currently led by Didier Laroche.

2005

In 2005 reconstruction of the Temple of Leto continued, concentrating on the east, west and north walls of the cella. Some 95 per cent of the north wall has been preserved and its characteristic form has allowed the exact location of each block to be identified. This wall thins towards the top and has an Ionic order on its exterior and Corinthian on its interior. The wall has been prepared on the ground to estimate the number of new blocks required. New bases were made for five columns and work was undertaken on the inner colonnade. Excavations parallel to the temple on the west Side also continued from 2004, and many unguentaria dating from the abandonment of the terrace, before the destruction of the temple, were uncovered. Other work included study and restoration of the imperial Cult Room (Exedra of Hadrian) and preparations for the restoration of the north entry to the theatre. A mosaic in the Paleochristian church was restored.

2004

In 2004 work continued on restoration of the western temple, dedicated to Leto and dated to the 2nd century BC. Limyra limestone was used. For the north wall of the opisthodomos eighteen new blocks were made to add to the original 101 for a total of 119 blocks. As the wall gets thinner towards the top it was easy to sort the blocks, especially as the exterior was Ionic and the interior Corinthian. The north-west column had harder stone at the bottom and softer at the top.

In 2002 a sounding in the cella had detected an earlier temple and in 2004 15 square metres were opened to corroborate the dating and find the terrace wall that had been identified in a 1972 sounding. The top two levels (US1 and US2) contained Byzantine material, while the third (US3) revealed a ritual layer of ash with animal bones and teeth and cups on top. A 14 cm high terracotta figurine with arms open and adorant was also found. US4 also contained burnt remains and animal bones, and dates to Roman at the earliest. Work will continue here in 2005.

In other areas, the north door of the theatre was found, associated with coarse Roman ceramics, and the Early Christian church mosaic found in 2003 was restored and displayed in the museum. Inscriptions of the Letoon were also studied.

The sanctuary of Leto called the Letoon, sometimes Latinized as Letoum, near Xanthos, was one of the most important religious centers of the Lycian region in Anatolia. The site is located between the towns of Kaş and Fethiye in Antalya province of Turkey, approximately four km south of Xanthos along the Xanthos River.

Archaeological finds at the site, which was never a fully-occupied settlement, but remained essentially a religious centre, date back to the late sixth century BCE, before the Greek cultural hegemony in Lycia, which began in the early fourth century. In earlier times, the site was probably already sacred to the cult of an earlier mother goddess— she is Eni Mahanahi in Lycia— which was superseded by the worship of Leto, joined by her twin offspring.

In Greek mythology, a claim for an early cult of Apollo in the valley of the Xanthus, unsupported by history or archaeology, was provided by two myths, each connected to an eponymous "Lydus". One sprang from the autochthonous Telchines of Rhodes and would have colonized the region at the time of Deucalion's flood; the other Lycus was an Athenian brother of Aegeus driven from Athens, a seer who introduced the cult of Lycaean Apollo, which a folk etymology connected with Lycia and therefore made him its Athenian colonizer:

The foundations of the Hellenistic temple dedicated to Leto, and her children, Artemis and Apollo, have been excavated under the direction of H. Metzger from 1962. Archaeologists have excavated much of the ruins; discoveries include the Letoon trilingual, bearing inscriptions in Greek, Lycian and Aramaic, which has provided crucial keys in the deciphering of the Lycian language; it is conserved in the Fethiye Museum.

The site remained active through the Roman period. The site was Christianised by the construction of an early church, which reused cut stone from the sanctuary, but was abandoned from the seventh century CE.