It was a small settlement about 1 km north of Gökkaya port behind Aşırlı Island. Today, the region is known as Hayıtlı. It is surrounded by Hoyran in the north, Tyberissos in the west, Simena and Teimiusa in the southwest. Although not mentioned in ancient sources, the Istlada name has been read from the inscriptions found in the city. The tomb inscriptions show that during the Roman period it was subjected to Myra, the great metropolis of the region, but it may have been an independent city for a while in the Hellenistic period. Most of the remains are located on the southeast slope of a hill extending in a northeast-southwest direction parallel to the coastline. The remains of many houses built with cut stone walls on the terraces are well preserved. Many of the doorposts and beams are still in place. There is nothing that can be dated to the dynastic period, and all of the remains belong to the Hellenistic or later periods. Almost all of the 30 sarcophagi with Lycian-style ogival lids in and around the small plain to the south of the residential buildings belong to the Roman period.
References:
Çevik, N. 2021. Lykia Kitabı: Arkeolojisi, Tarihi ve Kültürüyle Batı Antalya, Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara.
Marksteiner, T. 1996. ‘Der Istlada Survey: Die Kampagne 1994’, AST 13.2, 89-102.
Marksteiner, T. & A. Konecny. 1997. ‘Der Istlada-Survey: Die Kampagne 1995’, AST 16.2, 463-475.
Schuler, E. 2006. ‘Inschriften aus dem Territorium von Myra in Lykien: Istlada’, Chiron 36, 395-451.
Image sources:
Antalya KTM
Bora Bilgin, 2022
Tayfun Bilgin, 2022
Reha Özer, 2022