Hydas (Kamışlı Bay- Turgut) and Pyramidal Tomb

It is located in Turgut Village on the west coast of Bozburun Peninsula. You can go to Turgut Village by your own car or you can use the minibuses departing from the center of Marmaris. Doubtlessly, villagers will help you when you arrive in the village.

The peninsula located in the Caria region in the southwest Anatolia has a location which controls well the sea trade routes between the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Surrounded by defensive walls, the settlement is built on a rocky ridge in the narrowest part of a 6-km mountain range stretching in the direction of the castle and northwest-southeast. The Acropolis and the western residential area cover an area of about 3.5 ha. In the city there are ruins such as a cemetery where unique stepped pyramid tombstones are used, many cisterns, and traces of bases of the building remains, a sanctuary, a port and a pyramid roof memorial tomb. In the city, traces of the Hellenistic, archaic and geometric periods are seen according to the architectural technical and small findings.

With the permission of the Directorate General of Monuments and Museums, German Mathias BENTER carried out archaeological surface surveys in the ancient city between 1997 and 2005.

Hydas's most prominent and intriguing value, the pyramidal tomb, is built on a rocky area in the southeast 1 km from the modern village settlement. The tomb is known as the "Çağ Father" and it was mentioned by some travelers and scientists. However, a detailed study has not been made so far.

Terrace walls were built in different sizes and heights along the western slope of the hill where the tomb is located. A stepped entry leads to the terrace where the grave is located. The area of the grave was selected specifically and its front was directed to the Hydas acropolis in the south.

The burial chamber is in the form of square of 3 m. x 3 m. The tomb is covered with a pyramidal roof from the outside and with a false dome inside. While the tomb and walls of the terrace were built with local stones, gray marble blocks were used at the door only. Despite monumentality of the tomb, the front area arrangement and the inner chamber of the tomb was made quite plain. Klune or sarcophagus has not been determined in the chamber.

The inscription provides information about whom the tomb belongs to and its architectural arrangement. According to these, the tomb was built for warrior Diagoras and his wife Aristomakha. It is understood from the inscription that there are lion statues on the front façade of the tomb and there is the tomb owner’s statue on the pyramidal roof.

The residue is singular in the Peraia of Rhodes with its architectural form. Connection can be established with the stepped pyramids in the region due to its form. However, the use of the pyramidal roof in monumental tombs is a tradition which especially began with Maussollos in Caria.

There is no data beyond the grave inscriptions about dating of the Turgut Pyramidal Tomb. The inscription is dated to the Hellenistic period by epigraphs. The increase of production of pyramidal tombs in the Hellenistic Period also indicates that the tomb might have been built in the mid-2nd century BC within the Hellenistic Age. Evaluating the outlay and characteristics of the tomb, it can be said that the grave was used, still not not completed because of the missing parts.

Grave drawing. On the pyramidal tomb, the eight lines of verse, written in meter of poetty, read as following:

“You white toothed animals, always stay where you are envisioned

Because I will watch everything from top

So no coward man will come and damage the grave.

Because this is the tomb of a man called Diagoras

who died in the war and his wife superior to anyone thanks to raising model children and with her understanding and loyalty to her husband and called as Aristomakh compared to gods.”

The people's names in the inscription are in Greek; however, thre are no other inscriptions mentioning these names in publications by G. E. Bean and W. Blümel. There is no written information regarding who the mentioned person is and when he lived in the historical process of the area. Inscriptions give information about what kind of architectural features the tomb has. The term white toothed animals must be pointing to the lion statues that should be in the grave.