History & Cultural Sites

History of the Region

The Datça Peninsula is known by the Turks as Yarim Ada (‘The Half Island’) and is surrounded on three sides by sea, and connected to the mainland at its narrowest point by a mere half mile (known locally as BalıKaşıran Isthmus, meaning ‘fish leap’). According to the historian Herodotus, after the Persians invaded Ionia, the locals of ancient Knidos thought of digging up the narrow strip of land in the BalıKaşıran region and turning the area into an island. They tried very hard according to history but the peninsula resisted being sepa- rated and they were forced to give up their efforts.

The Datça peninsula nowadays has a local population of about 10,000. Datça town itself has roughly one half of this (approximately 5,000 people) in three settlements (mahalles) – Iskele, Old Datça and Resadiye – which are within a few kilometres of each other. Iskele is by the sea and for a long time it was the settlement with the least number of houses. However, this changed in the 1970s, and it’s now the most important mahalle.

The high-ceilinged, straight-roofed and whitewashed stone houses in the Reşadiye district suggest that a wealthy community once lived in Datça. In this respect it conforms to the ancient topographical rule that plebeians would be settled on the seashore and the well-to-do went inland to provide for greater security. However, driving through the small villages you’ll be surprised to find how the simple, traditional life continues.

Within these villages you can find traditional local handicrafts. The most precious handicraft of this region is the special lace edgings made for headscarves and scarves. This edging is made of silk, and is created by women who work from home. The hand-made motives are worked by needle, using the special thread. You can buy these wonderful pieces in the market on Saturdays, in boutiques and souvenir shops, or you can get them directly from the women who make them.

The school building in Resadiye was built in 1940, and was restored by the Office of the Governor and turned into a handicraft centre. Rugs, material and trims are all made in the centre by the women of Datça.

Mehmet Ali Ağa Mansion

No history of the region would be complete without reference to our magnificent property - Mehmet Ali Ağa Mansion. Literally a 'Museum Hotel' which provides a unique insight to life in the region over 200-hundred years ago. 

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Knidos

One of our favourite sites in Turkey.

The ancient city of Knidos is situated on the Datça Peninsula. It was built partly on the mainland and partly on the Island of Triopion or Cape Krio, and was connected by a causeway and bridge (today the connection is formed by a narrow sandy isthmus). The channel between island and mainland was formed into two harbours, and the larger, southern one was further enclosed by two strongly-built moles that are still visible today.

Knidos was a city of high antiquity and as a Hellenic city probably of Lacedaemonian colonization. Along with Halicarnassus (present-day Bodrum), Kos, and the Rhodian cities of Lindos, Kamiros and Ialyssos it formed the Dorian Hexapolis, which held its confederate assemblies on the Triopian headland, and there celebrated games in honour of Apollo, Poseidon and the nymphs.

The city was at first governed by an oligarchic senate, composed of sixty members, and presided over by a magistrate. The Knidians acquired considerable wealth, and were able to colonize the island of Lipara, and founded a city on Corcyra Nigra in the Adriatic. They ultimately submitted to Cyrus, and from the battle of Eurymedon to the latter part of the Peloponnesian War they were subject to Athens.

In their expansion into the region, the Romans easily obtained the allegiance of Knidians, and rewarded them for help given against Antiochus by leaving them the freedom of their city.

During the Byzantine period there must still have been a considerable population, for the ruins contain a large number of Byzantine-style buildings, and Christian sepulchres are common in the area.

Knidos was once famed for its nude statue of the Goddess Aphrodite, carved by the artist Praktiteles. It was so beautiful that people from other cities would come to see it. Up until then, goddesses were usually carved to show them partially covered, although statues of gods were nude. Praktiteles' Aphrodite was the first nude statue of a goddess in the world. Even when Knidos went though financial hardships the people refused the offer of a large sum of money from the King of Bithynia for the statue and preferred to keep their Aphrodite and stay in poverty. This statue has never been found but its plinth still remains.

Knidos used to be a very advanced city in terms of science, architecture and arts. Among the famous people to have lived there were: the astrologist and mathematician Eudoksus; the physician Euryphon; the famed artist Polygnotos; and Sotratos, who built the lighthouse of Alexandria which today is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The sundial was developed by Eudoksus, a great inventor of his time, and at the historic site you can still see the sundial he invented. Euryphon’s students also founded a famous medical school in Knidos.

The historian Strabon drew a parallel between the city and a theatre, comparing it to an amphitheatre that rose up towards the acropolis. The private buildings are on the part of the peninsula that divides the inner and outer ports, with the hills slightly rising over the inner port towards the acropolis. There are four main streets, ten metres wide, running in an east-to-west direction that cross the flat area of the city. The streets running north-to-south and up hill are either steep or include stairs. The city was surrounded with defensive walls four kilometres long. Knidos covers a large area between the military port, the acropolis and the southern commercial port.

Knidos had two theatres: one with the capacity to seat 20,000 people and the other 5,000. The smaller one is to the south, near the port and the larger one was on the top acropolis – although little trace of it remains since its marble and stones were removed in the nineteenth century. The most beautiful part of the ancient city ruins is the Temple of Aphrodite that overlooks both ports. The circular temple is 17 metres in diameter, and the statue of the Goddess Aphrodite was in the centre, the doors of the temple opening towards the statue. Now you can only see the bottom plinth of the statue. However, you can still see Eudoksus’s sundial (which also measured the seasons). On top of the hill there’s the temple of Apollon. The Corinthian-style temple right above the theatre was built by architect Stratos. On the terrace in the middle of the road leading to the Temple of Apollon there was once a Doric temple that was later converted to an early Christian church. Today, you can still see the colourful mosaic floors of the churches.

In one of the temple enclosures Newton discovered a beautiful seated statue of Demeter, which he sent back to the British Museum. About three miles south-east of the city he also came upon the ruins of a splendid tomb, and a colossal figure of a lion carved out of one block of Pentelic marble, ten feet in length and six in height, which is thought to have commemorated the great naval victory, the Battle of Knidos, in which Conon defeated the Lacedaemonians in 394 BC. The superb marble lion can now been seen on display in the British Museum.

Cultural Sites on the Bozburun Peninsula

The Bozburun Peninsula is easily explored from Datça and Bördübet. Please follow this link to discover more of the Cultural Sites in the Bozburun region.

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