- Myra
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/muy"reuh/, n.1. an ancient city in SW Asia Minor, in Lycia.2. a female given name: from a Latin word meaning "extraordinary."
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Its location is now in Turkey. Ancient ruins dating from the 5th–3rd centuries BC include an acropolis, a magnificent theatre, and several rock-cut tombs that resemble wooden houses and shrines. As a prisoner on his way to Rome in the 1st century AD, St. Paul changed ships in Myra. St. Nicholas was bishop of the city in the 4th century AD. It declined in the 7th century after Arab raids.* * *
▪ Turkeynear modern Kale (Demre)one of the most important towns of ancient Lycia, located near the mouth of the Andriacus River on the Mediterranean Sea in southwest Turkey. Its early history is unknown. St. Paul is known to have visited the city, and in the 4th century St. Nicholas (Nicholas, Saint) was its bishop. The Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II made Myra the capital of Byzantine Lycia until the city fell to the caliph Hārūn ar-Rashīd in AD 808. The western scarp of its acropolis, dating from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, was sculptured into a large number of rock-cut sepulchres, imitating wooden houses and shrines, with pillared facades and reliefs. At the foot of the acropolis are the remains of a magnificent theatre, one of the largest and finest in Anatolia.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
