Urban Microcosms: Syngeneiai and the Sanctuary of Sinuri

Abstract

Whereas Labraunda was gradually, and not without resistance, transformed from a dynastic and regional religious center into a polis sanctuary for Hellenistic Mylasa, the shrine of the Karian god Sinuri underwent a similar transition, but at a smaller scale.1 Sinuri was a local deity about whom we know very little, other than that his sanctuary was also embellished by the Hekatomnids and was the focus of a highly vocal syngeneia, or kinship group. Very different from the commanding heights of Labraunda, the sanctuary of Sinuri is located in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains, some 15 kilometers southeast of Mylasa (Figures 4.1–4.4). Despite the modest setting, this