Lycian rock cut tombs

LYCIAN ROCK CUT TOMBS

These are the most numerous of all types of tombs and some are perhaps the most visually striking of all Lycian
tombs - elaborate funeral chambers carved directly into the rock face, usually into a cliff.
Most often, the tombs are carved like the facade of timber Lycian houses with protruding beams, usually with one or two stories, sometimes three. 
The imitation of wood is sometimes even carried to the copying of nails and pegs to join the different beams and the tombs resemble the frontage of houses built solidly of timber with ceilings of unhewn trunks of trees.
Rock-cut house type tombs often held more than one body. Many tombs have several stone couches inside upon which gifts were left and the dead were laid, often families. The tombs of wealthy Lycians were finely worked with elaborate relief carving.  On some of the rock tombs the exterior is decorated with reliefs depicting the specific features of the deceased and the main events of the period. Symposium scenes relating to the funeral feast are frequently included in the reliefs.  Othertimes, mythological scenes are depicted.The tombs of the poor and less wealthy were plain, without relief carving.