Cappadocia: underground cities , Turkey

Cappadocia, a region of central Anatolia in Turkey, lies within the triangle of Nevsehir, Aksaray, and Kayseri. It is bounded by the now dormant Mount Erciyes in the east and Mount Hasandag in the south. Prehistoric eruptions of these volcanoes blanketed a wide area with a 1,500-foot (450-meter) layer of ash and detritus. The hardening tufa was carved by nature into thousands of distinctive pyramidal rock formations known as “fairy chimneys,” within which generations of settlers have created astounding subterranean cities. Guesses at the total number vary from 30 to 200. Carved from the living rock to a depth of at least twenty stories, and each able to house tens of thousands of people, the underground cities result from 3,000 years of continual adaptation and extension. Derinkuyu and Kaymakli, described below, are only two of such architectural feats in the region.

Who were these intrepid constructors, who built downward instead of upward, and whose houses were framed with shafts and corridors rather than columns and beams? Over millennia Cappadocia has been occupied in turn by invading Lycians, Phrygians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, and Seljuk and Ottoman Turks. The indigenous Hittites were probably first to build underground. In the fourteenth century b.c., retreating from Phrygian invaders, they made excavations, normally of no more than two levels. The next major wave of building was not until the fourth century a.d. Always strategically vital, fertile Cappadocia became a Roman province in a.d. 17, and its towns flourished under stable Roman rule. Within about 200 years it became a center of eastern Christianity and when the persecution reached its final peak around a.d. 305, the Christians withdrew to the mountain fastnesses, building secure subterranean places in which to live and worship. The peril passed with the Edict of Toleration (a.d. 313) but reemerged for different reasons under the excesses of iconoclasm (726–843), as well as the incursions of Arabs. The Christian response to renewed threats was to build rock-cut churches and monasteries, often adapting and extending much older underground houses. The Göreme Valley abounds with well-hidden churches and monastic buildings—the number has been estimated at 600 to 3,000—carved out of the soft tufa. Most were built in the tenth century. The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert (a.d. 1071) and then spread over Anatolia. They were followed in the fourteenth century by the Muslim Ottoman Turks. None of these changes put the Christian communities of Anatolia under threat, but by then rock-hewn architecture had become an established cultural expression.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a Jesuit named Guillaume de Jerphanion began a long study of the well-preserved wall paintings that adorned many of the churches. International interest in Cappadocia was awakened when he published his research in 1925, but the great underground cities were not discovered until the 1960s. Two of the largest so far unearthed are Derinkuyu, located in 1963, and Kaymakli, 6 miles (10 kilometers) to the south, a year later. They were once joined by a well-ventilated tunnel, almost certainly wide enough to allow three people to walk abreast.

Derinkuyu, probably dating from the eighth century and capable of housing a population of between 10,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, was built around a 280-foot-deep (84-meter) main air shaft. The ventilation system had at least fifty smaller vertical vents linked by narrow horizontal corridors. This network formed a multistory building “frame,” so to speak, and rooms—very comfortable living spaces, community kitchens, meeting rooms, chapels, stores, and even cemeteries—were cut to open from it. To date, eight levels have been excavated to a depth of 165 feet (55 meters), with twelve or more still buried. The top three levels appear to have been used as private and communal living quarters. Some scholars believe that each family unit had its own living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet, and assorted storerooms. The lower levels housed storerooms and churches, and the lowest was a last resort of retreat in times of danger. It is possible that Derinkuyu was not permanently inhabited but served as a refuge at such times. Security was thus the main determinant in its planning: entrances were small and defensible, the ventilation outlets were carefully hidden, and there were several wells and a large cistern at the lowest level. Each section of the city could be isolated by large stone gates. Kaymakli was much the same, but only four of the eight levels remain accessible. The cities were last occupied during an Egyptian invasion in 1839.

Because of its unique geomorphic and cultural features, the entire region was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1985. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the underground cities, constructed as they are of soft tufa, are under threat from two main sources. Increasing tourism is exposing them to accidental and, sadly, deliberate damage. More significant, climatic changes are turning the once-fertile surrounding agricultural land to desert. As farmers leave, the ecology changes: rainwater, once absorbed by vegetation, now permeates the soil, damaging the subterranean structures. Although appropriate technology is available to at least reduce deterioration, the severity of the problem and the fragility of the stone limit its application to the fascinating underground cities of Cappadocia.

Artemiseion , Ephesus, Turkey

The Artemiseion, a huge Ionic temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis, stood in the city of Ephesus on the Aegean coast of what was then Asia, near the modern town of Selcuk, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Izmir, Turkey. The splendid building was acclaimed as one of the seven wonders of the world, as attested by Antipater of Sidon: “When I saw the sacred house of Artemis 1/4 the [other wonders] were placed in the shade, for the Sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus.” Among several attempts to identify the architectural and sculptural wonders of the ancient world, the seven best known are those listed by Antipater in the second century b.c. and confirmed soon after by one Philo of Byzantium.Artemis was the Greek moon goddess, daughter of Zeus and Leto. Whatever form she was given, it was always linked with wild nature. On the Greek mainland she was usually portrayed as a beautiful young virgin, a goddess in human form. In Ephesus and the other Ionic colonies of Asia, where ancient ideas of the Earth Mother and associated fertility cults persisted, she was linked with Cybele, the mother goddess of Anatolia, and her appearance was dramatically different, even grotesque. The original cult statue has long since disappeared, but copies survive. That is hardly surprising, because the trade in them flourished in Ephesus at least until the first century a.d. They portray a standing figure, her arms outstretched like those of the earlier décolleté figurines common in Minoan Crete. Artemis was fully dressed except for her many breasts, symbolizing her fertility (although some recent scholars have suggested that the bulbous forms are bulls’ scrotums). The lower part of her body was covered with a tight-fitting skirt, decorated with plant motifs and carved in relief with griffins and sphinxes. She wore a head scarf decorated in the same way and held in place with a four-tiered cylindrical crown. Ancient sources say that the original statue was made of black stone, enriched with gold, silver, and ebony.

The Artemis shrines at Ephesus had a checkered history. The earliest was established on marshy land near the river, probably around 800 b.c.; it was later rebuilt and twice enlarged. The sanctuary housed a sacred stone—perhaps a meteorite—believed to have fallen from Zeus. By 600 b.c. Ephesus had become a major port, and in the first half of the fifth century, its citizens commissioned the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes to build a larger temple in stone to replace the timber structure. In 550 b.c. it also was destroyed when the Lydian king, Croesus, invaded the region. Croesus, whose name has passed into legend for his fabulous wealth, contributed generously to a new temple, the immediate predecessor to the “wonder of the world.” It was four times the area of Chersiphron’s temple, and over 100 columns supported its roof. In 356 b.c. one Herostratos, a young man “who wanted his name to go down in history,” started a fire that burned the temple to the ground.

The Ephesian architects Demetrios and Paeonios (and possibly Deinocrates) were commissioned to design a more magnificent temple, built to the same plan and on the same site. The first main difference was that the new building stood on a 9-foot-high (2.7-meter) stepped rectangular platform measuring 260 by 430 feet (80 by 130 meters), rather than a lower crepidoma like the earlier stone building. Another departure from the normally austere and reserved Greek architectural tradition was the opulence of the temple, which went beyond even its great size. Its porch (pronaos) was very deep: eight bays across and four deep. The Ionic columns towered to 48 feet (17.7 meters); each had, in place of the usual Ionic base, a 14-foot-high (3.5-meter) lower section, carved with narrative decorations in deep relief. The other difference was in the quality of the detail. The wonder of the world was decorated with bronze statues by the most famous contemporary artists, including Scopas of Paros. Their detail can only be guessed at, as can the overall appearance of the great temple. Attempts have been made at graphical reconstruction, but they vary widely in their interpretation of the sparse archeological evidence. Antipater described the Artemiseion as “towering to the clouds,” and Pliny the Elder called it a “wonderful monument of Grecian magnificence, and one that merits our genuine admiration.” Pliny also asserted that it took 120 years to build, but it may have taken only half that time. It was unfinished in 334 b.c. when Alexander the Great arrived in Ephesus.

By the time the Artemiseion was vandalized by raiding Goths in a.d. 262—it was partly rebuilt—both the city of Ephesus and Artemis-worship, once flaunted as universal, were in decline. When the Roman emperor Constantine redeveloped elements of the city in the fourth century a.d., he declined to restore the temple. By then, with most Ephesians converted to Christianity, it had lost its reason for being. In a.d. 401 it was completely torn down on the instructions of John Chrysostom. The harbor of Ephesus silted up, and the sea retreated, leaving barely habitable swamplands. As has so often happened, the ruined temple was reduced to being a quarry, and its stone sculptures were broken up to make lime for plaster. The old city of Ephesus, once the administrative center of the Roman province of Asia, was eventually deserted.

The temple site was not excavated until the nineteenth century. In 1863 the English architect John Turtle Wood set out to find the legendary building, under the auspices of the British Museum. He persisted through six expeditions and in 1869 discovered the base under 20 feet (6 meters) of mud. He ordered an excavation that exposed the whole platform. Some remains are now in the British Museum, others in the Istanbul Archeological Museum. In 1904 and 1905 another British expedition, led by David Hogarth, found evidence of the five temples, each built on top of the former. Today the site is a marshy field, a solitary column the only reminder that in that place once stood one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.