Mountain and Plain

"In the classical period, the remote region of Lycia supported up to forty cities. The coastal centers grew to considerable size and importance, perhaps owing their prosperity to the fact that the main shipping lanes from wealthy Egypt and Syria lay right along the Lycian coast, with its numerous safe harbors. In late antiquity, a population shift seems to have occurred. The urban populations along the coast appear to have declined, while smaller settlements (monasteries, villages, and towns) began cropping up in the sheltered mountain vales farther up and farther in. To be sure, the coast…