TURKEY KEMER- YANARTAS

YANARTAS

YANARTAS, the eternal light for seafarers and the legendary fire setting alight the Olympic torch.

Yanartas is about an hour’s walk from the Olympos ruins and famous for its role in mythology.The tale talks the story of the hero Bellerophon, who captured the legendary winged horse Pegasus and vanquished the monster Chimera, which had a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail.

Bellerophon had been slandered as he refused the love of the wife of Proetus, King of Argos. The Queen lied to her husband and told him that Bellerophon attempted to ravish her and that he should be killed. Proetus, could nothing kill Bellerophon since he was a guest at his table and was afraid of Zeus, an enemy to those who broke the rules of hospitality between host and guest.So he devised a scheme which would result in the death of Bellerophon , asking him to carry a letter to the King of Lycia. 

The letter explicitly said that Bellerophon should be punished with death. The King of Lycia, similarly fearing the wrath of Zeus, could not kill Bellerophon directly, but charged him with killing the monster Chimera; a task he believed would be fatal in the attempt. However,  Bellerophon overcame all difficulties with the aid of his winged horse, Pengasus and he managed to buy Chimera to the seventh layer under the earth. Proetus gave Bellerophon further difficult tasks, but was finally unable to overcome his luck and courage. Bellerophon won Proetus’ benevolence and was given his daughter’s hand.

As the legend goes, the fires of Yanartas, which have not been extinguished for thousands of years, were the flames pouring out of the Chimera’s mouth. It is also claimed that the Olympic torch was originally lit by from those flames. The holy site, which was renowned as the seat of the cult of Hephaestus, the god of fire and metalwork in the distant past, bears the ruins of a church from the Byzantine Period and reflects the zeitgeist with its charming flames.