Columns and arches with script are set like relief mansions into the earth. The boat stops and some of us climb to the ruins of the town that left these monuments. Kaunos was founded in the early 9th century b.c.e., and being at the Lycian border with Carian, it shared aspects of both cultures. The town suffered from endemic malaria, and its people were famous for their yellow skin and eyes. Now, there are just remnants of the baths, a basilica, and a great compass.
Trees grow where the audience once watched plays and listened to concerts.
Today, it is serenely quiet. We climb the steep hill to the acropolis, the highest and most defensible part of the city. Nothing remains but the crumbling rock of two high defensive walls overlooking the sea and a few archways. There's a herd of goats ignoring us, eating grass that encroaches on the ruins. I wander through the remains of a culture that managed to live amidst two worlds, East and West.