Finike, Turkey

History

For centuries Finike, then named Phoenix or Phoinix (Φοῖνιξ) was a port town of ancient Lycia, near the mountain of the same name. It was a trading port and the main port of Limyra, the capital city of Lycia. Phoenix was said to have been founded by Phoenicians in the 5th century BC, and thus named after its founders.

The area has been inhabited for much longer than that; archaeologists have found evidence near the town of Elmalı showing that the Teke peninsula has been settled since 3000 BC (although on the coast nothing has been uncovered dating before 2000 BC).

Trade along the coast was established first by the Persians, who relinquished Lycia to the armies of Alexander the Great. However, the coast was always vulnerable to forces from Syria, Egypt and Rhodes until it was brought within the empire of the Ancient Romans and the succeeding Byzantines. Even then the Byzantines were threatened by the Arabian armies coming from the Arabian Peninsula. The Battle of the Masts between the Arab and Byzantine fleet took place near Finike in 654. Eventually the area was conquered by the Seljuk Turks in the 13th century. These were succeeded by the Ottoman Empire from 1426.

The town was inhabited by Greeks prior to the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

From the History section of Finike on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.