Guide
The Terelek rock tomb is cut into the western slope of the Kepez rock, fifteen kilometres from Durağan in Sinop province, five or six metres above the ground. Its facade imitates architecture: cylindrical column bases tapering upwards, cut off at the top in a half-circle, with the shafts rising from the cut and near-square openings between them. The left edge has three plain mouldings and the right two, and beneath the three mouldings on the left is a lion carved lying with its two front legs stretched forward; the head, which projected beyond the face of the tomb, is broken off.
Behind the columns is a rectangular antechamber, uneven at floor and ceiling, and a door near the right of its wall leads into the burial chamber — a rectangular room with two couch-like cenotaphs against the walls on the left and in the middle, cut away in places. The reliefs on the facade are what make the tomb worth the trip. On the upper face, in line with the first column from the left, a man wrestles a lion: turned to the right, he has taken the animal by the neck and subdued it, bracing on his right leg with the left thrust forward and the body bent, while the lion, overpowered, has its forelegs in the air and resists weakly on its hind legs, its long tapering tail curled back at the tip. The contours are not marked out. Also in line with the first column is the bust of a person, shown winged, whose features have been lost entirely. You need your own vehicle.
