Belevi Anıt Mezarı

Standing beside the İzmir-Aydın road in Selçuk's Belevi neighbourhood, this monumental tomb is one of the largest examples of Hellenistic funerary architecture in Anatolia. According to Aktüel Arkeoloji, the monument rose about 15 kilometres north of Ephesus, near the ancient road from Ephesus to Sardis. Local people call it Yatık Kale, the Leaning Castle; from a distance it looks like a giant block of rock broken off the hillside. The monument was designed on the model of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Because the original at Halicarnassus has vanished, Belevi is one of the rare places where you can see this type of monument still standing. Who the monument was built for is still disputed. Büyükkolancı and Baranaydın consider it likely that construction was begun around 300 BC by Lysimachus, the founder of Hellenistic Ephesus. The latest study published by the Austrian Archaeological Institute in 2016, on the other hand, dates the construction to between 310 and 280/270 BC and proposes Antigonus Monophthalmus as the owner of the tomb. According to another view based on ancient sources, the unfinished tomb was used in 246 BC for the Seleucid king Antiochus II. This uncertainty makes the monument all the more interesting; the visitor walks here through the tomb of a king whose name is not known for certain. The structure was created by trimming a natural mass of rock and cladding it with dressed stone blocks. On a three-stepped krepis rises a square podium with sides of about 29.6 metres; Aktüel Arkeoloji gives the height of the podium as 11.5 metres. The top of the podium was ringed by a Doric frieze of triglyphs and metopes. Above it stood a temple-like second storey with eight Corinthian columns on each side; this storey was also about 11.5 metres high. The coffered ceilings of the colonnade carried painted reliefs of funeral games and a battle with centaurs. Along the edges of the roof were groups of lion-griffin statues facing large stone vases, with pairs of horses at the corners. The research of 1998-2000 found no evidence of a pyramidal roof; the rainwater channels in the floor of the colonnade suggest the top was open. On that basis the total height of the monument is about 23 metres; older reconstructions with a pyramid roof reach as high as 35 metres. According to Wikipedia some 2,500 cubic metres of marble were used for the cladding, and the stone came from quarries around Ephesus. The fact that some mouldings were left unworked shows the monument was never completed. The burial chamber is cut into the rock core on the south face of the podium. The chamber measures 7.5 by 4.5 metres, is 8.5 metres high and is covered by a barrel vault; it is reached through a small antechamber and was sealed from the outside. Inside stood a sarcophagus whose lid carried a high-relief statue of the tomb's owner reclining on a couch, together with the statue of a servant attending him. The sarcophagus was moved to the Ephesus Museum in 1963; according to Aktüel Arkeoloji it was transferred to İzmir in 2023, so confirm its current location with the museum. Some of the lion-griffin statues are displayed in the Ephesus Museum and some in the İzmir Archaeological Museum. It was the Austrian Archaeological Institute that introduced the monument to the scholarly world; Camillo Praschniker and the architect Max Theuer excavated it in the 1930s, Wilhelm Alzinger continued the work in the 1970s, and the results were published in 1979. The new research carried out by Peter Ruggendorfer from 1998 onwards was gathered in a separate volume in 2016. Today the monument stands right next to the road, among the fields; the sources do not mention a regular entrance system, so ask the Ephesus Museum Directorate about visiting conditions. The Selçuk Municipality and visitizmir pages give the coordinates and directions; it is a drive of about 15 kilometres from Selçuk. Look first from the south-east; the carved face of the rock core and the steps of the podium are read best from there. Then examine the Corinthian capitals, coffer fragments and frieze blocks scattered around; some are half buried in the grass. In summer the site has no shade and the grass grows tall; a spring visit is both cooler and gives a clearer view. Taking in the monument on the same day as the Çamlık Steam Locomotive Museum and Ayasuluk Castle is a good plan for getting to know the face of Selçuk beyond Ephesus.