Guide
The Amintas tombs are a group cut into a sheer rock face at Fethiye, and among the many of them three are of the temple type. The one that survives best of those three is known locally as the King's Tomb, and it has become the emblem of Fethiye.
Its inscription names the occupant: on the middle of the eastern ante wall is written Amynthas, son of Hermapias. He is thought to have been a ruler of Telmessos, and the monument was built in his memory — which is how the whole group got its name.
The tomb is the front of a fourth-century BC Ionic temple projected onto the rock, on the in antis plan, with two columns standing between the antae. A long stepped path has been added to the existing track so that visitors can reach it; four rows of steps lead up to the tomb itself from the left of that path. Where the burial chamber opens there is a carved representation of a door divided into four main panels, and inside the room the ceiling is flat and roughly worked, with three klinai.
The ministry counts this tomb and the others just east of it, which reflect the domestic architecture of their time, among the best evidence there is for metalwork and woodwork in Lycia.
