Knidos Ancient City
Knidos ancient city known as the Rhodes Regional Unit is one of the most important Western Anatolian coastal cities. It is located on Tekir Cape at the far end of the Datça Peninsula. the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas meet around Datça. Knidos used to have a developed trade thanks to the wine export. The city was surrounded by walls reinforced with round and angular towers. She had two harbours, a military and a commercial one. Important buildings and areas in the archaeological site are the Doric Temple, the Temple of Apollo, The Round Temple, the Altar, the Assembly Building, the Corinthian Temple, the sundial showing the season and the time, the Theatre, the Temple of Dionysus and the Slope Houses, the Odeon, the Sacred Place of Demeter, the Necropolis and the Krio Peninsula.
British archaeologist Charles Newton note down on his diary during the excavations in Knidos in 1858: “…a monumental tomb that Halicarnassos would be proud of: His mausoleum, a monumental statue of Rhodes cast from bronze: If there is Helios, the small town of Knidos, also likewise there is a statue of Aphrodite that he can be proud of; it is the statue that Nikomedes, King of Bithynia (north of Aegean region), reveals all the income of the city in return; All the debts of Knidos have been erased, but in vain…”Although the naked Aphrodite sculpture made by the sculptor Praxiteles for Knidos has not been found and only its pedestal can be seen today.
