SYEDRA
Turkey.
Site in Cilicia Aspera near
Demirtaş, 15 km SE of Alanya; the hill itself is called
Asar Tepe. The ancient name survives in the neighboring
Sedra and Sedra Çayi. The city is mentioned by Lucan
(
Phars. 8.259), and is listed in Ptolemy, Hierokles, and
the
Notitiae, but has no other history. (The conjectural
emendation of Arsinoe to Syedra in Strabo 669 is to be
rejected.) The coinage runs from Tiberius to Gallienus.
The ruins are extensive but overgrown. The city wall,
of large squared blocks, is well preserved, especially on
the SE, but the other remains seem all to be later. On the
E slope are the foundations of a temple, roughly constructed of reused stones and originally veneered. A tower on the summit, a large church, and numerous other walls and buildings may be seen among the overgrowth,
and many inscriptions are built into them; over a dozen
of these record agonistic victories. The necropolis lay to
the S, between city and sea, but it has been destroyed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Heberdey & A. Wilhelm,
Reisen in
Kilikien (1896) 141ff; G. E. Bean & T. B. Mitford,
AnatSt 12 (1962) 191-94; id.,
Journeys in Rough Cilicia
in 1962 and 1963 (1965) 21-24; id.,
Journeys in Rough
Cilicia 1964-1968 (1970) 106-7; L. Robert,
Documents
de l'Asie Mineure Méridionale (1966) 91-100.
G. E. BEAN
