Oenoanda

Oenoanda: town in Lycia, modern Incealiler. A satellite photo is here.

The ruins of ancient Oenoanda -the picture shows the southern access to the site- are situated on a hilltop that is rather inaccessible. Nevertheless, the inhabitants built a large wall around their town, which is well-preserved. Of course, stones and other elements have been removed by the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, but the site is simply too isolated to be looted.

Ancient-Warfare.com, the online home of Ancient Warfare magazine

Another result of the difficulty to reach Oenoanda is that only a few archaeologists have paid attention to the site. It was not discovered until the end of the nineteenth century. Between 1884 and 1895, French and Austrian archaeologists identified eighty-eight fragments from a now famous inscription by a man named Diogenes (more...). It was only in the 1968 that professor M.F. Smith started to investigate the remains of the old town and the inscription.

The picture shows the wall of Oenoanda, which is a nice specimen of Hellenistic military architecture. It must have been 10 meters high.