It is located on Kepez Hill, near the village of Güzören, 12 km from Kumluca. Until the discovery of Patara Road Monument, identity of the ruins was not known. The routes listed in the Patara Road Monument matched the location with the city of Pygela, and the later discovery of the name Pygela on a tomb inscription in the city by Mustafa Adak and Nihal Tüner confirmed its location. The remains of the walls from the Hellenistic Period can be among the dense vegetation on the hill. The building remains can be seen mostly to the south of these city walls. No excavation work has been carried out to date. The functions of the building remains are not identified. However, since it was not inhabited during the Byzantine Period, all of the existing structures must belong to the Roman and Hellenistic periods. All of the sarcophagi in the necropolis area to the southwest belong to the Roman Period. Many of the sarcophagi are inscribed, but most of them are highly weathered and unreadable. A rock-cut tomb imitating a classical wooden structure was found near this settlement, in the Yukarı Savrun neighborhood. Since Pygela is a very small settlement, it is unlikely that it was an independent city and may have formed a sympoliteia with nearby cities.
References:
Adak, M. & N. Tüner. 2004. ‘Pygela. Doğu Likya Dağlarında Yeni Keşfedilen Küçük Bir Kent’, Arkeoloji ve Sanat, Kasım-Aralık 118, 43-50.
Çevik, N. 2021. Lykia Kitabı: Arkeolojisi, Tarihi ve Kültürüyle Batı Antalya, Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara.
Tüner, N. 2002. ‘Likya’nın Yerleşim Coğrafyasında Yeni Lokalizasyonlar’, Likya İncelemeleri 1, 63-78.
Image sources:
Wikiloc, 2021