2009 Holy Land Tour - Turkey
Part 2 - Cappadocia
John Hoole
Last week, I began telling you about our recent trip to the nation of Turkey. I shared with you how much of the Bible, especially the New Testament, involves places that are located in modern-day Turkey. In fact, there are 33 places named in the Bible that are located in this country. In addition to the places, many civilizations or tribal groups (i.e. Hittites), along with names of people who lived in these provinces.
Half the Book of Acts is a narrative of events taking place in Turkey. Chapters 13 through 27 take place there, except for the church council mention in Acts 15, which took place in Jerusalem. All of the Seven Churches in Revelation 2 & 3 are located in Turkey. The first place where the followers of Jesus were called “Christians” was in Antioch, which today is in Modern Turkey.
The first leg of the trip is a lengthy 9½ hours to Frankfurt, Germany. Here we are in the Frankfurt airport awaiting our next leg. This leg from Frankfurt to Istanbul is about 3 hours. Last week, I took you to Istanbul. We visited the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, TopkapiPalace and the ArchaeologicalMuseum.
Cappadocia
Then we boarded Turkish Airlines to Cappadocia. The city we flew into was Kayseri. As we walked out of the Terminal to board our bus, we got our first sight of Mt.Erciyes. It rises 12,848 feet, and is Turkey’s third highest. Mount Ararat is the highest at 16,854 feet. Here is another photo of Mt.Erciyes.
Cappadocia is an extensive inland district in eastern Asia Minor. The Cappadocian region has an altitude that ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 feet. In many ways, this area is unlike any other in the world, both in is above ground landscapes and its many underground cities. The unique pointed landscape are sometimes called “Fairy Chimneys.”
Let me show you a map of the Cappadocian area where we spent most of our time there. The city of Kayseri, where we landed is off the map to the right.
Gorë
When we arrived in Cappadocia, it was still morning, so we visited several places prior to going to our hotel. The first place I took you last week was to the abandoned city of Göre. What you see here is the empty façades of cave dwellings. I have been told that some of these place are being utilized for dwellings once again. They are modernizing them with water and electricity. Here you see Nola with one of the local girls.
KaymakliUndergroundCity
We travel further south, and twenty minutes later we are at the entrance to one of the many underground cities in Cappadocia. This one is KaymakliCity, and is built into a hill. Here are a couple of depictions of underground cities. The brown picture is of Kaymakli, and is built into a large hill. The other is not Kaymakli and shows one that is totally under an existing village.
Near every tourist area, you will find many sellers of their products. Kaymakli lies at an altitude of just under 5,000 feet. The name Kaymakli means, “cream made of milk.” The underground city was discovered and opened to tourists in 1964. The inhabitants of the region still use the most convenient places in the tunnels as cellars, storage areas and stables, which they access through their courtyards.
Here is the entrance to the underground city. In Kaymakli, there are 8 levels and over 100 tunnels, and from the first to the eighth level is a height of about 200 feet. Visitors are allowed only in the top 4 levels. As you walk through the tunnels you will see red arrows and blue arrows. Red arrows show the way in and blue arrows shows the way out.
Here we are just inside the entrance. The next picture show a small part of the labyrinth of passageways. And Dr. Braddy is peeking through a side opening in one of the rooms.
The next picture gives a view of the complexity in these underground pathways. It is certain that Kaymakli is one of the largest underground settlements in the region. The number of the storage rooms in sucha small area supports the idea that a great number of people resided here. Archeologists think that this can be up to 5000 people.
During the Christian era, these underground cities became important places of refuge for thousands of Christians. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, they could escape persecution by Roman soldiers. Churches were also created in these cities when the Christians inhabited them.
As can be seen in the photo to the right, at strategic places throughout the city they placed circular stones that could be rolled across the opening if it was necessary to stop intruders. And they could be opened only from the inside.
Some of these cities were very large, like the city of Derinkuyu, which had as many as 10,000 residents,having a minimum of 12 layers, going underground nearly 300 feet. In the larger cities, there would be 2 or 3 or more churches.
Let me show you a few more pictures taken in Kaymakli. Here is one of Felix and Lily Mendoza. The next picture shows us in a little larger and higher room. Here is a similar room, but I want you to look at the ceiling. It is thought this area was probably the kitchen, with the smoke causing the blackened ceiling. And here you see one of those red arrows. This passageway is quite short, requiring you to duck down as you make your way.
The next picture shows us near Kaymakli. It shows some of the unique land formations that have developed over millennia. It was time for lunch – and here is Mike and Cathy Maas. Here are some of the others.
ZelveValley
Let me show you the next place we visited on the map. It is called ZelveValley. Here you see most of the group. I show you this picture because of something we saw all across Cappadocia. In the middle of the picture you see some of the spires. Right behind them, still part of the mountain, you see new ones begin formed. Given time, they will also be stand-alone spires.
Our guide shows us a few places and then we were turned loose to explore for about half an hour. This room was probably a cave church at one time. Along the trail we saw this turtle – and Danielle Stott picked it up. Here is another carved home – you can still see some of the frescoes. In my exploring, I saw this multilevel home.
We head for our hotel – the Peri Towers Hotel – in Nevşehir. In Turkish, the word “Şehir” means “city.” And Neşehir means “new city.” The ghost town I showed you earlier across from the village of Gorëwas the abandoned old city of Nevşehir. Here is a picture of the lobby area of the PeriTowers. Again, our only way to communicate with home was through the free computer.
GöremeOpenAirMuseum
In the morning we head for the city of Göreme. Göreme is about the first name one thinks of when Cappadocia is mentioned, since it was the first place that became widely known for its marvelous “fairy chimneys” and other rock formations. The valley in which the city of Göreme lies at an altitude of approximately 3,400 feet.
Göreme, was earlier called Göremi, which was supposed to mean “you cannot see.” Later it was changed to Korama and then finally into Göreme. People still live in some of the rock houses or use them as storerooms today.The village of Göreme does not only have rock houses, but also rock restaurants and rock hotels which visitors find amazing.
There are over 400 churches in the Cappadocia area. There are at least 10 cave churches in Göreme. The Turkish word for church is KILISE, if it has a masculine name. If the church is named after a female, the word for church changes to KILISESI.
We visited most of the churches in Göreme. I will show you only a few. The first one you see is this 7 or 8 story Kislar monastery, and was used only by women. I haven’t misspelled monastery – that is they spelling in Turkish (Manastiri). We did not go inside this building.
When the churches were discovered, they were given names that related to its shape or some of the frescoes found inside.
This one is the Elmali Kilise – the AppleChurch. I show this first to make a statement about the tile covering of the outside of this church. This and other church have been covered on the outside to preserve them. Because of the altitude – about 5,000 feet – it gets cold in the winter. And if rain water would fall into the cracks of the outer shell and then freeze, the expansion would cause more damage to the structure.
Inside some of these church, including this one, you find amazingly preserved frescoes. Frescoes were used to teach a largely illiterate population the stories of the Bible. Most of the depictions are from an Eastern Orthodox view. Their talent at painting is amazing.
In the middle of our visit to these underground or cave churches, we stopped because there was a lineup of groups waiting for the same place. So someone suggested we take a group picture. This is the one taken with my camera.
There were more than churches to visit. Some places required climbing up ladders to get a look inside. Here, we are listening to our guide tell us about this place. At a different place, I climbed up to look at a cave, then took a couple of pictures from an elevated view.
The next few pictures are taken inside the Tokali Kilise – The Buckle Church. The frescoes inside this church were outstanding. And, again, we are listening to our guide.
After leaving the GöremeOpenAirMuseum, we stop for people to browse the many shops. I did buy a set of fancy napkins for Paula.
Our guide takes us to a carpet factory for a demonstration. And, of course, if you wanted to purchase a carpet of any size and price, they would ship it for you. Some of the carpets were made of silk, but what was interesting to me was the way they extracted their silk.
The process of a silkworm becoming a moth involves weaving a cocoon around itself. In this picture are many such cocoons being soaked in a solution – water, I think. A single strand from the cocoon is fed through a loop, then to a spooling device. Once the process is started for a cocoon, no further monitoring is needed, since the cocoon is spun by the worm from a single strand of silk. From that day, we referred to our bus as our white cocoon.
Avanos
That afternoon, we headed north to the city of Avanos. This city is located on the Red River – in Turkish, the KizilirmakRiver. Avanos is known for their pottery, so we visited a pottery factory.
I’ll show you only a couple of pictures. Here is one of their finished products. And here is a lady is doing the tedious job of that same ceramic platter. It will go into the fire and come out brightly colored.
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