Letoon - Mugla

Letoon - Mugla

Letoon Antique City: According to a legend told by the poet Ovidius, Goddess Leto, who was pregnant by Zeus, gives birth to her twin children Artemis and Apollo in Delos, then comes to the place where Xanthosnehr reaches the sea and walks along the river to the source where Leto temple is today. . The goddess who wants to wash her children at the source but is blocked by the local people, turns the local people into frogs as a result of not allowing them. The foundation of the Letoon ruins is based on this mythology. According to the finds recovered during the excavations in the Letoon ruins for 30 years, the first settlement goes back to the 7th century BC. The ruins and inscriptions revealed that Letoon was a political and religious center during the Lycian union. There are 3 temples arranged side by side in the center of the ancient city. The westernmost of these is in the ionic order and belongs to the Mother Goddess Leto. The smaller and central temple was dedicated to Artemis and the easternmost temple was dedicated to God Apollo. The mosaic panel located in the middle of the Temple of Apollo, known as the Apollon Mosaic, was removed by the excavation team and moved to the Fethiye Museum Directorate since it is open to natural destruction in the excavation area. It is of great importance to the three-lingual inscription, which is located in the Hellenistic dump site near the Temple of Apollo, and exhibited today in the Fethiye Museum. The inscription, written in Lycian, Aramaic and Greek, played a major role in the dissolution of the Lycian language. There is a fountain building dedicated to the Nymphe cult in the south-west of the temples and an early Christian church on the east side of this fountain. A stoa and the Hellenistic theater are among the ruins worth seeing.