Doliche or Dolichiste ( or ; '' Eth.'' or ) was an island noted by ancient geographers in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

off the

Lycia Lycia (; Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; , ; ) was a historical region in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğ ...

n coast, in

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, now called

Kekova Kekova is a small Turkey, Turkish island near Demre (Demre is the Lycian town of Myra) district of Antalya province which faces the villages of Kaleköy, Kaş, Kaleköy (ancient Simena) and Üçağız (ancient Teimioussa). Kekova has an area ...

(or Kakava (Κακαβάς) in Modern Greek), which is located in present-day

Antalya Province Antalya Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. It is located on the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean coast of south-west Turkey, between the Taur ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

(''s. v.'') describes Doliche as an island close to the Lycian coast, on the authority of

Callimachus Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which ...

; and he adds that Alexander, in his Periplus of Lycia, calls it ''Dolichiste''. It is mentioned by Pliny (v. 31) and

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(v. 3). Pliny places it opposite to Chimaera (geography); and both Pliny and Ptolemy name it ''Dolichiste''. Doliche or Dolichiste, is a long island, as the name implies. It lies near the southern coast of Lycia, west of the ruins of

Myra Myra (; , ''Mýra'') was a city in Lycia. The city was probably founded by Lycians on the river Myros (; Turkish: ''Demre Çay''), in the fertile alluvial plain between, the Massikytos range (Turkish: ''Alaca Dağ'') and the Aegean Sea. By the ...

, and in front of the spacious bay now named Kekova. The island is a narrow ridge of rock, incapable of yielding a constant supply of water; each house had therefore a tank hollowed in the rock, and lined with stucco.

William Martin Leake William Martin Leake FRS (14 January 17776 January 1860) was an English soldier, spy, topographer, diplomat, antiquarian, writer, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He served in the British Army, spending much of his career in the Mediterrane ...

''Asia Minor'', p. 127. speaks of the ruins of a large city, with a noble theatre, in a fine harbour formed by a range of rocky islands. But this theatre appears, from what Leake says, to be on the coast of the mainland; and Beaufort observes that the whole of these islands and bays may be included under the general Greek name ''Kakava''. By the 1850s, the island was uninhabited.

References

Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Islands of Turkey Geography of ancient Lycia {{Antalya-geo-stub

See also

References