Knidos Ancient City

This guide to Knidos Ancient City on a Muğla peninsula opens with a ring of eighteen column bases where a rectangular Greek temple should stand. It traces the sculptor Praxiteles's groundbreaking nude Aphrodite, rejected by the nearby island of Kos and claimed instead by Knidos, and the round temple built so pilgrims could walk a full circle around her — a design so admired that a king once offered to cancel the city's debts for the statue alone. Stand among the column bases and picture pilgrims circling the goddess from every side.