Kaya Village is situated in Western Lycia in an upland valley surrounded by forested hills descending steeply to the sea. The earliest remains are the Lycian tombs dating back to the 4th century BC forming part of the ancient settlement of ‘Karmylassos’. Since that period the site has been habituated through Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Selcuk and Ottoman periods. During the 19th century the town expanded under the name of ‘Levissi’ with its’ mainly ‘Rhum’ Romeric population.

The First World War crushed the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and later, Turkey had to draw on all its resources to defeat the Greeks in the ‘Kurtulus Savasi’ War of Independence. This led to the ‘Treaty of Lausagne’ signed by the international powers which decided the borders of the modern Turkish republic. A ‘mubadele’ population exchange (circa 1923) followed and the Christian populace of the town were removed and exiled to Greece by boat from Fethiye (Makri) Harbour. The exchange also saw Turks expelled from Greece with many families sent to settle in Kayakoy.

International bestselling author ‘Louis de Bernieres’ describes these events vividly using Kayakoy as the setting for his novel ‘Bird Without Wings’. Today a ghost town is left crowding the hillside, testament to the birth of the modern Turkish nation.

Today, Kayakoy is an open museum, the valley is protected for the time being keeping its character and saving it from the destruction of development through tourism.

Levissi was vacated in line with the stipulations of the agreement of the Turkish-Greek Population Exchange on 30th June 1923 leaving behind them 2 large churches, 14 chapels, 2 schools, 2 fountains, 2 windmills and about 500 houses with cisterns and toilets the remnants of which can now be seen in ruins.

The buildings in Levissi were constructed without a specific development plan but in line with the slope of the land, not blocking the light and the view of each other. The main feature was the preservation of the northern panorama rather than getting the sunshine. The overall settlement plan was not enforced and buildings were constructed to fit in with the natural grounds. Their needs were met with simple solutions; local gravel and a certain type of cement and lime plaster from the caves to the south of the Upper Church was used in the buildings. The large cornerstones with smooth surfaces, used in some constructions, seem to have been brought here from other, earlier buildings.

Most of the buildings in the Levissi settlement are houses. These are of one or two stories according to the lie of the land, the ground having generally been used as stables or storage rooms. Most of the houses have one or two rooms. Those with three rooms are limited in number. In general there are living quarters and cisterns at the entrances to the houses. The top of the cisterns were also used as a living area. As you go up the slopes, the close and narrowly built houses become sparse and are replaced with wider and more comfortable residences. All the floors and the ceilings, as with the doors and windows, were made of wood. However, after the population exchange, the woodwork of the abandoned houses was dismantled either to be mounted in houses by the new residents or used as firewood. Almost all the roofs were flat and covered with compressed earth. There are traces of fireplaces, niches and curtain rods in the interiors. The cisterns and toilets are outside the houses. There are no bathrooms in the houses; they must have taken their baths either in zinc-lined bathing cubicles in cupboards partitioned by woodwork, or in washtubs placed in the interior.

There are significant numbers of cisterns for collecting rainwater as there is a lack of spring water in the region. Many of the buildings have remains of chutes carrying the rainwater to the cisterns. The oval-shaped toilets adjacent to the house and sometimes at the end of the garden are connected to cesspits. The garden walls are built quite low and serve only to indicate the boundaries.