Alinda Ancient City

Ancient City

The city where Queen Ada of Caria took refuge — the woman who adopted Alexander the Great and regained Halicarnassus — and its three-storey market hall.

Set on a slope commanding the plain in the Karpuzlu district of Aydın, Alinda is a little-known Carian city directly linked to Bodrum’s history. The heroine of the story is Queen Ada: sister of Maussollos, who built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Ada withdrew to Alinda after being deposed by her brother Pixodarus, living here in a kind of exile. When Alexander the Great came to Caria in 334 BC, Ada handed him the keys of the city; Alexander formally declared her his “mother.” With his support, Ada returned to Halicarnassus as satrap — meaning the thread of Bodrum’s ancient rule passed, for a time, exactly through here.

Today the city’s most striking structure is the great three-storey market hall (agora) set against the slope: about a hundred metres long, it is considered one of the best-preserved Hellenistic buildings in Anatolia, its rows of columns still standing. Around it, the theatre, a tower, city walls and necropolis remains can be explored among olive groves. With both its closeness to Bodrum and this direct tie to Halicarnassus, Alinda is a special stop for those who want to complete the story after visiting the Mausoleum.