One of Cappadocia’s underground cities may yet yield clues about its history.
The landscape of Cappadocia in central Turkey is dry and jagged and strange. Winding roads look out onto mountain peaks rising to almost 13,000 feet, and vast canyons and cliff faces have been striped dark brown, rusty red, and sandy yellow over the epochs. Pigeons, first introduced into the region by the Romans, wing by at eye level. Fantastical 40- to 50-foot-high “fairy chimneys”—spires of soft volcanic tuff—rise up from the desert floor. Carved into some of these hillsides are houses—some recently built and some centuries old—with rough wooden doors, small windows, and storage areas overhung by high shelves of stone. There are even rock-cut garages where drivers swoop into the dark and then cut their engines.
This picturesque region draws more than two million tourists a year, and everywhere there are road signs directing visitors to ancient settlements carved into the rock, such as Derinkuyu, a large underground city that plunges 280 feet into the earth. It dates to at least as far back as the Byzantine era, features stables, wineries, and churches, and may once have been home to tens of thousands of people. There is also Göreme, where an array of tombs and temples were carved directly into the hillside starting in the eleventh century a.d. Another of these sites, an impressive honeycomb of rooms intended as a year-round rock settlement, overlooks the modern downtown of the provincial capital of Nevsehir, or “New City.”
Denne historien er fra March/April 2017-utgaven av Archaeology.
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Denne historien er fra March/April 2017-utgaven av Archaeology.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Digs & Discoveries - A Friend For Hercules - Archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
Digs & Discoveries - A Fortress Sanctuary - A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
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At the beginning of the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 810-1000), many of the great kingdoms of the southern Maya lowlands-among them Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul-were being abandoned or collapsing. For many years, scholars have assumed that most, if not all, the other kingdoms across the Maya world must have also been in steep decline.
Medical Malfeasance - Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy.
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. Starting in 1847, medical students were required to have practical experience studying human anatomy, but legal options to procure cadavers were limited
RISE AND FALL OF TIWANAKU
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Making a Roman Emperor
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The Assyrian Renaissance
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Java's Megalithic Mountain
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