Knidos (Cnidus) an ancient city situated in the southwest Turkey, on the Datca Peninsula promontory, founded by the ancient Spartan colonists from the mainland Greece in 7C BC.
Inhabitants rivalled the Phoenicians in seamanship and when faced with the Persian threat in 546 BC they cut the neck of the peninsula where they lived to isolate their city from the land. They suffered injuries soon in their faces from the flying rock chips and abandoned this ambitious task prophesying that 'if the gods wanted Knidos to be an island they would make it one'.
Apart from the Goddess's temple site there is the theatre which is an Hellenistic construction with a capacity of 8000 seats facing the harbour.
Shrine of Demeter and Kore, the statue of Demeter is now in the museum in London and a number of tombs in the area.
Knidos is at 38km from datca and Datca is connected to Marmaris by a 75 km long good road through the pine woods.
Colossal marble lion from one of the tombs, 350-200 BC, in the London museum.
Knidos is best known for its free standing nude Goddess Aphrodite statue which was the work of the famous Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Knidians had this statue erected in their city at the temple of Aphrodite. The statue was so beautiful that the temple became a pilgrimage site among the sailors and the people all over the ancient world. This statue has not been found to date.
