Yanartaş

Yanartaş, anciently "Chimaera", is the name of a geographical feature near Olympos valley and national park in Antalya Province in southwestern Turkey, at a distance of about forty kilometers to the southwest from the city of Antalya, between the district center of Kemer and the township of Beldibi, near present Tekirova.

It is characterized by a permanent fire caused by methane emissions and the area is located on a track popular with hikers and trekkers on the Lycian Way.

Called in Turkish "Yanartaş" (flaming rock), the spot consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaistos about 3 km north of the village of Çıralı, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which can spontaneously ignite. In ancient times sailors could navigate by the flames, but today they are more often used to brew tea, the flames being of little use for navigation now.

The site was identified as the ancient Mount Chimaera by Sir Francis Beaufort in 1811, and described by T.A.B.Spratt in his "Travels in Lycia, Milyas, and the Cibyratis, in company with the late Rev. E. T. Daniell." The discussion on the connection between the myth and the exact location of Chimera was started by Forbiger in 1844, and the George E. Bean was of the opinion that the name was allochtonous and could have been transferred here from its original location further west, as cited by Strabo, owing to the presence of the same phenomenon and the fires.

Yanartaş is also the title of a 1970 novel by the Turkish novelist Mehmet Seyda, although not associated with the locality in question.

ee also

*Çıralı
*Lycia
*Kemer

External links

* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064&layout=&loc=chimaera-geo Smith's Classical Dictionary]
* [http://www.anatolia.luwo.be/cirali.htm Pictures of Yanar taş]

Books

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