Ruins

Ruins Review

Kas was ancient Antiphellus, and has a few ruins, including a monumental sarcophagus under a massive plane tree, up the sloping street that rises behind the main square. The tomb has four regal lion's heads carved onto the lid. In 1842, a British naval officer counted more than 100 sarcophagi in Kas—then called Antifili—but most have been destroyed over the years as locals nabbed the flat side pieces to use in new construction.

A few hundred yards west of the main square, along Hastane Caddesi, is a small, well-preserved antique theater, amid the olive trees at the edge of town, with a superb ocean view. Next to the district prefect's office, east of the harbor, is an old wooden barn of the type once universally used as granaries in Lycian villages—and still clearly modeled on old Lycian architectural forms. Ask at Echo Bar to see their 3rd-century-BC cistern, carved from the solid rock. Kas makes a good base for boat excursions, and a profusion of scuba-diving boats shows the growing demand for the area's rich underwater sights.