Cappadocia

CAPPADOCIA, Kap-pa-do'-she-a, a sphere.—A country having the Euxine Sea on the north, Armenia on the east, Phrygia and Pamphilia on the west, and Cilicia on the south.  It is mentioned Acts ii. 9; also by St. Peter, who addresses his first Epistle to the dispersed throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Asia. (The Proper Names of the Bible, Farrar, 1866)

Cappadocia is one of the most mysterious regions of the world...

The underground cities that are in the region of Cappadocia have not been examined carefully yet, and for this reason it is not known how many underground cities there are, or their exact locations...

The passages are closed by large stones moving on a baring...

The following is an excerpt from The International Year Book: A Compendium of the World's Progress During the Year 1901, edited by Frank Moore Colby.

    Important results are also reported from an exploring tour of Dr. Belck in Pontus and Cappadocia.  His first centre was Amasia, an impregnable fortress of antiquity, where he found a new Greek inscription of Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, and his first work was the examination of the neighboring districts, including Comana Pontica and Cabira, the treasury of Mithridates.  He then marched south and passed through the hill of Uyuk, where he found new Hittite monuments and decided that the entire hill is artificial, covering probably the ruins of a temple which he assigns to the period between 2000 and 1500 B.C.  His next pause was at the celebrated Boghaz-Keni, where the rock sculptures were carefully studied, and part of a badly damaged Hittite inscription copied.  Belck refuses to admit that the neighboring ruins are those of the ancient Pteria.  He considers that the city is of Turanian origin, and was destroyed c. 700 B.C.  Here were found many clay tablets with Assyrian cuneiform writing.  Cæsarea in Cappadocia was then made the headquarters, and the Troglodyte region to the west visited.  Belck is convinced that in Cappadocia a great Cimmerian kingdom existed from c. 700-585 B.C., which had destroyed the Hittite states, and itself fell before Cyaxares.  The Moschi, who are declared to be ancestors of the modern Georgians, occupied the region between 750 and 680 B.C., when they were driven out by the Cimmerians.  To them are due the mysterious "Cappadocian" cuneiform tablets, whose source Belck has discovered in a ruined temple not far from Cæsarea.  The longest known Hittite inscription covers four sides of a stele, and the remainder of an inscription is engraved on the body of a statue, of which the beginning on the head of the statue is at Constantinople.  The expedition was to continue its work as long as the weather permitted. (The International Year Book: A Compendium of the World's Progress During the Year 1901, edited by Frank Moore Colby)

CAPPADOCIA: The Asmabæan Well

    The Asmabæan Well was a mysterious hot Spring that rose in a cold lake near Tyana the capital of Cappadocia.
    Not less strange was the circumstance that though the lake had no visible outlet the unvarying depth of the water showed there was no increase in volume.
    The Spring was sacred to Zeus, and on the border of the lake a temple was erected to that divinity in which he was worshiped with the surname of Asmabæus, derived from the Spring.
    The waters were shut in by perpendicular hills in which were cut steps that led to the temple.
    Tyana, however, produced a human mystery more widely known than the phenomenal fountain; a mystery that traveled in person to all parts of the world; of whom books were written and to whom altars and temples were raised, and who might, under different conditions, have prolonged the life of paganism.  This mystery was Apollonius of Tyana, who was born in the city four years before the Christian Era.
    His mission was to restore pagan worship to its primitive piety, and free it from corruption and the effects of its association with the fables of the poets; to abolish sacrifices; and to emancipate prayer from service of the lips, for he held that the heart's sincere desire was prayer and that it became polluted when touched with the tongue or passed through the lips.
    But in Apollonius' time it was too late to attempt to cure the cancer, that had spread throughout the pagan body, by lopping off a few obtruding particles, and the more radical method of the new school of salvation was adopted, that of complete excision and the substitution of Christianity.
    Apollonius was said to be an incarnation of Proteus, and of the bookful of prodigies related about him two in particular were of a nature to confirm such a claim, they both occurred in Rome, but at different times; one, when an indictment, under which he was about to be prosecuted, was found to have become blank, Apollonius having caused the writing to vanish; and the other, when, in similar peril, he himself vanished, appearing within the same hour at Puteoli 160 miles distant.
    In the temple of Diana at Castabala, to the northeast, the priestesses walked barefooted but unhurt over beds of burning coals, a feat that was, maybe, more of a marvel to foreigners than to the natives, as the country of Cappadocia contained many underground fires which sometimes burst through the surface to the injury of cattle and incautious strangers; and to one of such hidden furnaces the Spring no doubt owed its mysterious heat.
    A long search for the ruins of Tyana was concluded when the Asmabæan Well was found two miles north of what is now called Kis Hissar where it continues to bubble up, like a boiling cauldron, in a pool of cold water. (Springs and Wells in Greek and Roman Literature: Their Legends and Locations, by James Reuel Smith, 1922)

THE CAVATE DWELLINGS OF CAPPADOCIA
by G. E. White

While all of Asia Minor is rich in archaeological remains, the laces of greatest interest visited by me are Troy, Boghaz Keuy and the Cappadocian cavate dwellings.  Troy is attractive chiefly because of Homer.  As one stands on those ruins of moderate extent and views the meadow where run the tiny rivulets dignified as the Scamander and the Simois, he feels that Homer made better use of the literary materials at his disposal than any other writer that ever lived.  Boghaz Keuy, the ancient Pteria, represents the Hittite civilization, old, peculiar and but partly understood.  The cavate dwellings of Cappadocia represent the Christian religion, the Greek language and the Byzantine government.
    An extensive region in central Asia Minor, of which Cesarea Mazaca is at the northeastern corner, is largely volcanic in formation, the rocks being composed of soft tufa or trachyte, and the soil, one of the most favorable for the production of grapes, being formed of the same grayish material reduced to powder.  This rock is so soft that it can be slowly whittled with a knife, and doors, windows, stairs, pillars, arches, and rooms greater and smaller, are easily worked in it, though it does not wear away rapidly under natural agencies, and its surface hardens on exposure to the air.
    It was a fine summer morning when a party of 3 Americans, amateur archaeologists bent on sightseeing, left Urgub to visit the remarkable collection of abandoned cavate dwellings in the valley of Guereme.  On the way we passed many huge tufa cones 4 to 80 ft. high, the material between them having been cut away by the action of water, but the material of each cone being held by a conical flat cap of still harder stone tipsily balanced on the apex.  As we ascended the last ridge beyond which lay the valley of our quest, our guide excitedly covered my eyes with his hands, and led me to the top, whence the eye takes in the whole panorama beyond and below.
    It was indeed a weird picture that burst on my sight.  The main valley was over half a mile long, deepening and widening toward the open plain.  The sides, which were 100 to 200 ft. high, and various cones and eminences tossed up in the middle of the valleys, were honeycombed with old cavate dwellings to the number of hundreds, the work mostly of monks, and I think, in the generations soon after Constantine and Helena.
    The custom of hewing out dwellings in the rocks is old.  The prophet Obadiah says to Edom: "The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high: that saith in his heart who shall bring me down to the ground?"  Edomites like Cappadocians were troglodytes.  Asia Minor as well as Syria has abundant magnificent rock-hewn tombs, habitations not of the living but of the dead; for example witness the "5 Mirror Tomb" near Amasia.  Rooms cut in the rock overlook the Halys River where it is crossed by the Samsoun Cesarea Raod, doubtless a trade route from time immemorial.  Excavations in the living rock for cisterns, granaries, snow-pits, dove-cotes, and even houses, are very common in the region over which Mt. Argæus stands sentinel.  Some villages are double, consisting of a series of houses above ground habitually occupied, and another series under ground, reached by shafts and connected by tunnels, to which the inhabitants resort in time of danger.  When Ibrahim Pasha invaded Turkey half a century ago with the Egyptian army, the villagers of Misli fled below ground, cutting off their rear by stone doors like mill stones, which they rolled across the passageways.  The army could not force an entrance.  When they lowered buckets into the wells to draw up water, the refugees below cut off the buckets, and finally the invading army swept on, leaving a village of cavate dwellers behind it unconquered.  Soghanly Deresi has a wonderful collection of these excavations, but we could not visit it on this trip.
    Cesarea was the home of Basil, the great organizer of monasticism in the East.  Indeed in the Orient, religion has always assumed more ascetic, in the Occider^↑ more practical forms.  When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the State, not only was there an impression that the monastic life was the most virtuous, but many devout men felt that the only way left to escape the temptations of the world was to withdraw from them to the practice of religion in seclusion.  So when my eyes were uncovered and I looked full into the valley of Geureme I saw hundreds of excavations in the rock, the first of which may have been begun long ages ago by some primitive race of men, but most of which were certainly completed and occupied by the early monks of the Orthodox Eastern Church.

The Mirror Tomb, near Amasia, Asia Minor.

    Picking our way down into the valley, we began to enter and explore the excavations.  They were chiefly of two kinds, sanctuaries and habitations.  My notes made on the spot first describe a chapel, such as we afterward saw duplicated with slight variations in numbers of cases.  Such a chapel is from 12 to 15 ft. square, hollowed out in the living rock, and with a seat of stone left running all about the sides.  The doorway is low, with an open hall before it.  Within, the ceiling is in the shape of a rolling dome, or the arches rise from the 4 corners to the center.  Opposite the entrance a Holy of Holies is hollowed out, connected with the main room by a door and 2 window-frames, and containing an altar in the center, of course of stone, and a seat for the priest at the right hand as one enters the door.  Oftentimes the vestibule before the main entrance has several graves cut in its floor, sometimes ostentatiously arranged so as to be trodden upon by comers and goers.  The grave has a horizontal ledge just below the mouth for the purpose of supporting a stone slab as a cover, and frequently a grave is seen intended for a tiny child.  Among the most remarkable features of these sanctuaries were the painted decorations, usually in red color, and arranged in lines, series of dots, wheels, checkerboards, square, diamonds, and often representing figures human or superhuman.
    The rooms intended as dwellings seemed each originally to have had a shrine in one corner.  They were usually 10 to 12 ft. square in size, low and bare, cold and dark.  Each room had one opening cut to admit the light.  Often overhead a shaft like a chimney about 18 in. square rose perpendicularly to another room above.  Each of the 4 sides had hand holes or foot holes cut out of the rock for climbing, but so narrow was the shaft that one had difficulty in bending his limbs sufficiently to make the ascent.  At the top a ledge was once fitted with a trap door, hinged and bolted, securing the lonely occupant from unwelcome intruders.  In this way the rooms rise often to a height of 5 or 6 stories, and sometimes to 10 or 12.  A shelf let into the wall, is the only existing sign of furniture in these apartments.
    In different places there are refectories.  Take for example one finely cut, 20 ft. by 30 ft. in area, having a table along the side with seats in front and behind, and all of stone, in excellent condition and preservation.  At the head an alcove is rounded out for the abbot.  Two fireplaces furnished conveniences for cooking the viands of a country whose native food products are among the best in the world, and a wine press with a vat scooped out in the floor was ready for pressing the grapes that grew to hand on the top of the cliff overhead.
    Elsewhere were stables about the size of the smaller rooms with mangers in the side walls and halter handles for typing horses, asses and perhaps cattle.
    Several larger churches, each with many columns and with domes up to the number of 9, were excavated partly under ground, their entrances being now much choked by debris.  The largest had a transept of 18 by 36 ft., the stem of the nave 16 by 16ft., the apse 18 by 40 feet and a side chapel with its own separate apse.  In the days of its glory it could accommodate several hundred persons.  The main dome at the base of its arches was 18 ft. above the floor, and its highest point not less than 25 ft.  Here, as in the other churches, were seen scores and hundreds of frescoes, that in their time were finer than any decorative art found in the modern Oriental churches of the Levant, but they have been terribly defaced by Turkish and Mohammedan hostility to pictures as ministering to idolatry.  A single overhead figure, life-size or larger and beautifully executed, may be injured in a hundred places by stones thrown at it with the especial aim of knocking out the eyes.  The frescoes represent Scripture and other religious scenes.  Christ and His apostles figure frequently, also the prophets and other Old Testament characters, Constantine and Helena, and the early fathers of the Church.  The dragon is repeatedly slain by St. George.  In one case our Lord and His disciples appear eating fish.  The Transfiguration, the Triumphal Entry, the Holy Family, the Baptism of Christ, the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace are favorites.  A lifelike representation of the Baptism includes Satan blowing a horn, while an angel stands near with a towel extended on both hands, as if to receive a newly baptized Greek baby.  In one instance the pillars of a dome are adorned with the figures of 8 of the Old Testament worthies, with a verse from the writings attributed to each.  Once a tonsured head appears.  Red, white, brown, black, yellow, green, slate and blue, in varying shades are among the colors used, and this imperfect description by no means does adequate justice to the great beauty of these frescoes, even in their neglected and damaged condition.
    One of the most curious scenes represents Abraham entertaining his Three Angel Visitors.  The latter sit at a table on the backs of 3 chairs with their feet in the seats.  Before each are a knife and a fork with black handles, while the blades and tines are white.  On a platter on the table is an ox head with its hair and horns and a pile of cakes.  Two goblets stand on the table, and a third is extended by one of the visitants to Sarah, who is pouring wine into it.  At the other side of the table is the figure of the patriarch, while under the table a cow suckling its calf completes the picture.
    There is a peculiar variety in the pictures showing the ecclesiastic making the sign of the cross.  The thumb is placed now on the third finger, now on the third and fourth, and again on the second and third.  This doubtless indicates a time prior to the establishment of the present custom, whereby the thumb is placed on the third finger and the sign is made with 3 fingers extended in honor of the Trinity.  Similarly the representations of the cross show many different forms.  The inscriptions are quite frequent and consist for the most part of proper names, designating the figures that they accompany.  They are all in Greek, and the words usually read from top to bottom, a form adapted to writing on columns.  The shapes of the letters vary, as is common in Greek, and particularly the sigma, which takes a form not familiar to me elsewhere. (Records of the Past, edited by Rev. Henry Mason Baum, assisted by Frederick Bennett Wright, vol. 3, 1904)