Sedir Island (Kedrai)

The settlement in which the Sedir Island is located in the Gokova Gulf was called Kedrai, a similar name, in ancient times. You can go to the Sedir Island by participating in safari-boat tours departing from Marmaris. Depending on your preference, you can access to the boats departing to Sedir Island through the Çamlı Village turn at the 17th km in the direction of Muğla. Entrance fee is paid for Sedir Island or Museum Card can be used.

Also named Kedrai, the island’s name is thought to come from the Luwian language. Probably it has changed from the Hellenic language into Kedrai or Kadrai, meaning "the city of Kadre people". There is only limited information about the history and establishment of this city, whose people are described as semi-Greek and semi-Barbaric by Xenophon. Hekataios of Miletus refers to the settlement in this place in the 6th century BC. The city joined the Carian troops in 404-428 BC. Then, it joined the Attica Delos Sea Union and paid annual fees of 3000 drachma, which was reduced to 2000 in the year 439 BC. Xenophon besieged the Spartan commander Lysander's Kedrai during the Athens-Sparta War in 405-406 BC and seized the city located alongside the Athenians. He also sold its people in the slave market to punish them. After this incidence, Kedrai could not regain its previous brilliant times.

Sedir Island (Cleopatra Island)... one of the most important touristic areas in Marmaris even in whole Turkey as a unique destination with all shades of blue in the sea.

It is believed that Cleopatra and Antonius Caesar lived a great love on this island thousands of years ago. According to the legend, Antonius, the king of Egypt wanted to give a gift to Cleopatra out of his enthusiasm as she agreed to marry him. Approximately 3000 years ago, he brought the special sand in 60 big ships from Egypt to the island where he would take Cleopatra to spend the honeymoon. Each grain of the sand had a diameter smaller than 1 millimetre and each of them had the same size. This sand is known to exist only in two parts of the world. It is special due to two other features as burning in the fire, automatically multiplying in soda water and moving as observed under a magnifying glass. Another feature of the island worth seeing is the uniquely beautiful color given to the sea by the sand formed by accumulation of carbonated mud around a core. It is also known that there is a similar type of sand in the Red Sea.

   The sand is so unique that various measures are being taken in order to protect the sand receiving a lot of interest especially from foreign tourists.

   On the island covered with olive trees, the ancient theatre, agora and ancient port's ruins from the Hellenistic and Roman periods exist as well as the natural beauty. The historical monuments dating back to the Dorians, Persians and Romans as old as 1000s BC, and the ancient theatre are among the other factors attracting tourists to the island.

Besides its historical texture, the island is interesting with its sand which is not seen on another coast around Anatolia. The myth that this unique sand was brought from Egypt by the famous Roman commander and orator Mark Antonius for Princess Cleopatra led to naming of the island after Princess Cleopatra of Egypt. Crystal sands were formed by accumulation of the carbonated mud around a core. The carbonate in the carbonate-rich fresh water mixing with the sea water constitutes the oolites and pisolites accumulating into thin rings around a fine grain of sand. The factors forming the ooid sand on the beach of the Sedir Island could not be determined with certainty until today.

Situated on an important transit route with its commercial and strategic location linking the Gökova Gulf with Datça-Bozburun Peninsula by both land and sea, the Kedrea city is known to have existed in the Classical Age, still the settlement lived its heyday during the Hellenistic Period as far as understood from the ruins and inscriptions.

On the island, the most important ruins surviving from the Hellenistic age and before are the walls. The eastern part of the isthmus separating the island nearly in the middle is surrounded by walls. The city walls directed towards north and south on the eastern side of the theatre encompass the civil and religious buildings by following the elevations close to the island's coastline. Separated walls were also used after being restored in the Roman and Byzantine period.

The most striking building of the island is the theater. The theater that has survived intact is located outside the eastern side of the walls on the northern slopes in the center of the urban settlement. The stage building of the 2500-seat theater was largely destroyed, whereas the caveau (seats) are very well preserved. Excellent masonry is an important document revealing that the theated originated during the Hellenistic time. Another aspect of the theater in Kedrea is that it is one of the three major theatres known to exist on the other side of Rhodes.

It is understood from the inscriptions in the city that the culture of God Apollon was dominant in Kedreai during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Apollon is the head god of Caria and was worshiped in Kedreai. His temple is located on a terrace built specifically for him. In Kederai, also the inscriptions documenting the existence of the culture of Apollo Pyhlos and Apollon Kedrieus dating to the 1st quarter of the 2nd century BC were found in the temple terrace. The temple walls have been largely destroyed. The garland altars in the sanctuary are dated to the 1st century BC.