Cappadocia Tours

 

MORE LIKE SCIENCE FICTION THAN FAIRYLAND

In the heart of the central Anatolian plain lies a triarigle of land, roughly between the salt lake, TUZ GOLU, and the towns of NIGDE and KAYSERI, which has retained the name of what was once an extensive kingdom Cappadocia. Beyond KAYSERI stands the mighty ERCIYES DAG, the third tallest mountain in Turkey nearly four thousand meters high. Massive eruptions of this volcano, and of others in the region, probably about ten million years ago, have given the area a unique and extraordinary geological complexion. Torrents of lave covered the surrouding land with a deposit of volcanic matter that was sometimes as much as 150 meters thick. Some of this hardened with time, but other layers, consisting of volcanic as hes clay and the like, remained soft Erosion by rain, wind, streams and rivers found of formed fissures in the top layer and began to eat away at the levels beneath. In this way was created an extravagant landscape of weird and wonderful shapes which are unique in the world. The so-called 'fair chimneys' are the most striking results of the ages, in which a solid cap has protected a slender column of softer stuff causes from the action of the weather. The finest examples of these can be found in PASABAG. Writers have struggled to find words to describe what they have seen here. ''A luanr landscape'', they say yet it is weirder than that. ''A land from a fairy tale or dream', they write, yet it is not fairies that one might expect to see-creeping out at night from the numberless chambers and grottos, but something goblinesque from the pages of J.R.R. Tolklen or Michael Moorcock, for these strange pillars of rock, often topped by peculiar mushrooms of stone, are sloser to the work of Sci-Fi artist Roger Dean Than to any of the illýstrators of fairy tales.

NATURE'S OWN CONCRETE

Inhabitants of the area long ago learn that tufa provided a perfect medium for the excavation and sculpting of dwellings, storehouse and places of refuge. For the soft tufa hardens on exposure to air. It acts, in fact, like a sort of natural concerte, w,thout the bother ofmixing or building. Hollow it or shape it as you wish and without any great effort. Leave it and it hardens. Thus it has given amateur architects and home builders and farmers and church founders down the ages limitless opportunities for experiment and the place has become honey combed with celles, chapels and even entire. Geography and geology conspired to produce this eonderland. For it happened this wonderland. For it happened that the ancient kingdom of Cappadocia between hostile powers and lay on the great east west highway through Anatoliai sa that it was continually invaded and.fought over and threatened. Tje usual list of cunquerors possessed it at one time or another. Assyrians, Hittites, Phrygians, Persians the Greek of Alexander the Romans the Byzantine Emperors the Seljuck and the Ottomans. So dwellers here have often needed to make themselves scarce. They have needed not only homes, but refuges, and the most fantastic of these, perhaps of all the man-made features of the region, are the cities underground.

SUBTERRANEAN REFUGES

here are said to be two hundred underground cities in Cappadocia. Most are small and unsafe, dark and forgotten, but fouur of them are open to visitors and provided with electric light to varying depths. Of these, the most important are those as KAYMAKLI and DERINKUYU. KAYMAKLI, 19 km. from Nevsehir on the Nigde road consists of nearly a hundread tunnels perhaps 30 kilometers of them. The city is on eight levels, four of which can now be visited. There are living quarters, storehouses, kitchens and churches. Vertical shafts provided fresh air even to the lowest levels. Iy is know that Christian communities used these places to hide and shelter, but the evidence points to much earlier uses too. Greek communities used them as early as four centuries before Christ and some archaeologists suggest that the Hittites knew them and may even have been the original excavators. Underground passages are fund in other Hittite settlements. Some of these underground cities covered many square kilometers. DERINKUYU the largest of them all could have housed mostly 10.000 inhabitants. Acces from the ground is by narrow passages closed from below by ingenious pivoted doors resembling mill wheels. There are 52 separate air shafts and the bottom level of all, 85 meters below the surface of the ground, acted as a water reservoir. The chimney like rock formations around Cappadocia are as remarkable as the fantastic underground cities you'll find there, dug during the 7th century as deep as 8 stories. In the event of an enemy attack, it would have been possible for the entire population of the town, which was built immediately above the underground city to disappear without trace and to survive without surfacing for an almost indefinite length of time. What the historian wauld give for a record of some of there episodes. Squadrons of these episodes. Squadrons of horsemen bent on plýunder and slaughter wandering with puzzled expressions around the deserted township trying to work out what had happened to everybody. And directly below their feet sitting in anxious silence, heads turned upwards, an entire population men, woman, children, their animals, their blankets, their stores, their lamps and candles and their prayers.

CHRISIAN KNIGHTS AND MONASTIC ARTISTS

It was a land of prayer and for the most remarkable millenium of it's history these prayers were addressed to a Christian God. In the fourth century Bishop Basil of Caesarea (now Kayseri) began encourding monks to leave the sinful cities and to head for the purity arid simplicity of the wilds. It was at this time that Cappadocia first became a center of monastic Chrisianity and it was to remain so for more than a thousand years until the Ottoman conquest of the fifteenth century.

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Geographical Position

The surface area of Turkey is divided by the Dardanelles, the sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. In the west, Turkey has boundaries with Greece (212km) and Bulgaria (269km). In the east and south east, Turkey has boundaries with four countries: The Soviet Union (610km) , Iran (454km), Iraq (331km), and Syria (870km). Geographically, Turkey is a land-bridge between Europe and Asia.

The european section of Turkey is a fertile hilly land. The Asian part of Turkey consist of an inner high plateau (1000m) with mountain ranges along the north and south coasts. The plaeau extends from the west to the Aegean coast, with many river valleys.

The western part is the most fertile section of the country. In eastern Turkey, the northern Pontus Mountains meet with the southern Taurus Mountains and from here the 1800m high Anatolian plateau. From this plateau rise the particularly high Vulkan Mountains over 3000m, while further south is the 5165m high Mount Ararat, the highest mountain in the country.