PHELLUS
PHELLUS
Ancient Lycian City
Phellus is a town of ancient Lycia, now situated on the mountainous outskirts of the small town of Kaş in the Antalya Province of Turkey. The city was first referenced as early as 7 BC by Greek geographer and philosopher Strabo in Book XII of his Geographica , alongside the port town of Antiphellus which served as the settlement's main trade front.
Its exact location, particularly in regard to Antiphellus, was misinterpreted for many years. Strabo incorrectly designates both settlements as inland towns, closer to each other than is actually evident today. Additionally, upon its rediscovery in 1840 by Sir Charles Fellows, the settlement was located near the village of Saaret, west-northwest of Antiphellus. Verifying research into its location in ancient text proved difficult for Fellows, with illegible Greek inscriptions providing the sole written source at the site. However, Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt details in his 1847 work Travels in Lycia that validation is provided in the words of Pliny the Elder, who places Phellus north of Habessus.
Category: Ancient City
Civilisation: Lycia
During the early 1840s, an expedition to Lycia led by the English naval officer Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt took place. The expedition continued Hoskyn's work of Hoskyn and his assistant, W.S. Harvey, in the restoration of the archaeological sites discovered by Charles Fellows, with work commencing on recently discovered settlements that included Rhodiapolis, Candyba, and Phellus. Phellus had been explored by Fellows, but Spratt wanted to charter and survey the site himself, and consulted the works of Roman scholars to verify the location of the ruins; citing Livy's claim of a town near Phoenicus that acted as "the port of Phellus", and Pliny the Elder's writings, which suggested that Phellus was directly north of Habessus, a pre-Hellenic name for the settlement's port, Antiphellus. Spratt journeyed to the small farming village of Saaret north of Antiphellus, accompanied by Panayotis, the same guide Fellows had used to discover the settlement.
