Obsessed with death?
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It is, of course, a popular selfie spot — with some hardcore snappers sitting it out until closing time to get a prized shot of themselves with no other tourists in the picture. But being a little off the beaten trail, it’s not overwhelmed with visitors,
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Other than the fact that tomb occupant Aminthas was the "son of Hermapias," little is known about it, or any of the death rites performed by the Lycians. Did these elevated resting places signify being closer to the heavens or further from the
underworld?
Local legend, according to Önder Uğuz, a
guide based in the region, claims the Lycians placed their dead in cliff crevices or beach tombs so that a winged siren-like creature could carry them to the afterlife.
There’s no archaeological evidence to support this, however.
It’s a mystery, says Catherine Draycott, an associate professor of archaeology at the UK’s Durham University, who has studied Lycian cliff tombs, as well as sarcophagi and another rarer variation — sarcophagi placed atop pillars.