Labraunda

Ancient City

High in the pine forests of the Beşparmak range, Caria’s sacred mountain sanctuary — terraces, monumental tombs and a holy spring in rare stillness.

Hidden among the pine forests of the mountains rising north of Milas, Labraunda was the most sacred sanctuary of ancient Caria. Dedicated to Zeus Labraundos, this mountain shrine was linked to the city of Mylasa (Milas) on the plain by a sacred road; on festival days priests and people would process up this paved way toward the temple. Zeus was depicted here in a distinctive form, holding a double-headed axe (labrys) in one hand — the very axe that gives the sanctuary its name.

On terraces cut into the steep slope stand the temple, the fountain house of the sacred spring, the great banqueting halls known as andrones where priests dined, and monumental tombs carved into the rock. Magnificently rebuilt in the 4th century BC by the Carian satraps Maussollos and his brother Idrieus, the structures still astonish with the refinement of their stonework. Because access is a little demanding, the site has kept its untouched silence; amid mountain air, the scent of pine and the weight of history, Labraunda offers a true sense of discovery.