Hekatomnos Monumental Tomb (Uzunyuva)

Historical Site

In the heart of Milas, beneath a lone column crowned by a stork’s nest: the painted-sarcophagus tomb of Mausolos’ father, revealed by looters in 2010.

In the centre of Milas, on the eastern slope of Hisarbaşı hill, a single fluted column crowned by a stork’s nest has stood for centuries. For generations the town simply called it “Uzunyuva” — the long nest — without knowing what lay beneath it. In 2010 a tunnel dug by looters changed everything: under the huge stone podium carrying the column lay a vaulted burial chamber, and inside it a marble sarcophagus covered in relief carving. The looters had worked for months from a shed rented above the sacred area, and were caught only when they tried to sell their finds online.

The sarcophagus belonged to Hekatomnos, founder of the Carian satrapy — the father of Mausolos, who built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and gave the word “mausoleum” to the world. Dated to the 4th century BC, the chamber walls carry rare surviving examples of Classical painting; one face of the sarcophagus shows Hekatomnos himself, another his son Mausolos hunting a lion. Rising on a terrace of roughly 91 by 110 metres, the monument’s dimensions echo those of the Mausoleum in Bodrum almost exactly — as though the son had rebuilt his father’s tomb at the same scale.

The site is now arranged as the Uzunyuva Monumental Tomb and Museum Complex; to protect the painted surfaces, the burial chamber is held at constant temperature and humidity under a dedicated climate-control system. The tomb and its sacred area have been on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 2012 — an official candidate, not yet inscribed. It combines comfortably into one day with the Milas bazaar, the Gümüşkesen monument and Beçin.