Lake Bafa

Lake Bafa occupies the former Gulf of Latmos on the western Anatolian coast. Sediment from the Maeander gradually separated this inlet from the Aegean, changing the relationship between the old harbour country and the sea. Above its eastern shore rise the Latmos mountains, where caves, rocky slopes and islands became settings for Byzantine religious life. Monasteries and hermitages reused a landscape already rich in ancient settlements and sacred associations.

Many surviving Christian sanctuaries date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and religious establishments remained active into the early fourteenth century. Kahve Asar island preserves a fortified monastery of the thirteenth century; other foundations occupied the mainland slopes and islands within the lake. The advance of the Menteşe principality ended Byzantine political control of the region. Walls, churches and painted caves remained as traces of the monastic landscape beside a body of water whose gradual separation from the sea had already transformed access to the surrounding settlements.