Oenoanda (Incealiler)

OENOANDA (Incealiler), ancient Lycia (Asia Minor), modern Turkey.

COORDINATES: 36º48’35.27” N // 29º32’59.47” E

TIPOLOGY : Greek theatre. Urban.

DATE: II B.C.

TRANSFORMATIONS: Scene building in roman times, second half I A.D.

CAPACITY: 2.000 spectators.

CAVEA: Facing south. Exceed semicircle, horseshoe-shaped. Built on natural slope. 55 m. diameter. Only one maeniana, with at least 17 rows of seats in 11 cunei.
ORCHESTRA: 17,5 m. diameter.

SCENEE BUILDING:  25,5 x 5,75 m. Five doorways.

LOCATION: North side of town. Ancient Oenoanda is up in a hill, you reach it from modern Incealiler, a very small turkish village.

MY BEDSIDE TABLE: Sear, Frank; “Roman theatres: an architectural study”. Oxford University Press, 2006. // Ciancio Rossetto, Paola; Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio (eds); Teatri Greci e Romani: alle origini del linguaggio rappresentato. Rome: SEAT, 1995. // Bean, George; “Lycian Turkey”. London, Ernst Benn, 1978. // Freely, John; “The Western Mediterranean coast of Turkey”. Istanbul, Matbaacilik ve Yayincilik A.S., 1997. // Yilmaz, Yasar; “Anadolu Antik Tiyatrolari”. Istanbul, Yem Yanin, 2010.

OUT OF PRINT: First time I visited Incealiler was in 2005, it was Kurban Bayrami's day, a religious festival in which sheeps are slaughtered. The day before it had snow very much, when I arrived early in the morning to Incealiler some young people invited me to have tea in the local canteen. They all dressed like requires a special day like these, with the best clothes they have. I had read that it was dificult to find ancient Oenoanda´s remains in the hill if you do not know the right way, so I tried to convince a young boy to accompany me on my climb to the theatre, something that was no dificult because turkish people is always very friendly and helpful. We were walking up for about three quartes of hour, but we have to walk away because the snow was starting to be too bulky and my young turkish friend was not wearing "prooper footwear", that surprised me, his Sunday black and bright shoes were absolutely clean and dry, while my goretex hiking boots were soaked. He did not speak english but explained me that the theatre was far and not visible for the snow; we return to Incealiler and I felt quite disappointed. In 2009 I returned to Incealiler with the same intention to arrive ancient Oenoanda; an ancient man, 80 years old, ask me to go with him, he would learn me the way; he did not speak anything of english and I do not speak any turkish but after ten or twelve steeps he always stoped and tried to speak with me, always laughing, like if I could understand anything. We spend more than one hour climbing the hill and finally I could visit ancient Oenoanda´s theatre, 1450 m. high. When we started to go down we found one hunter, the old man changed some words with him, a real hunter dressed with animal skins. We continued going down but the old man was all the way in silence, he seemed sad and I really felt bad for that, trying to imagine what was in his mind... You can see in the photograph that ancient man who was so polite with me.