Page 37 - Turkey Tour 2018 27th February (compiled)_Classical

the Byzantine era for protection
from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars(780-
1180). [5][6] The city was connected with Derinkuyu
underground city through miles of tunnels. Some
artifacts discovered in these underground settlements
belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th
and the 10th centuries A.D. These cities continued to be
used by the Christian inhabitants as protection from
the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th
century. [7][8] After the region fell to the Ottomans, the
cities were used as refuges (καταφύγια) from the Turkish
Muslim rulers, and as late as the 20th century the
inhabitants, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using
the underground cities to escape periodic waves of
Ottoman persecution. Dawkins, a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greeks in the
[9]
area from 1909-1911, recorded that in 1909,

“ when the news came of the recent massacres at Adana, a great part of the population at Axo took [10] ”
refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground.

When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the Population exchange between Greece and
Turkey the tunnels were abandoned. [6][11]

Description[edit]

The houses in the village are constructed around the nearly one hundred
tunnels of the underground city. The tunnels are still used today as storage
areas, stables, and cellars. The underground city at Kaymakli differs
from Derinkuyu in terms of its structure and layout. The tunnels are lower,
narrower, and more steeply inclined. Of the four floors open to tourists, each
space is organized around ventilation shafts. This makes the design of each
room or open space dependent on the availability of ventilation.

A view showing several floors at once.
A stable is located on the first floor. The small size of the stable could
indicate that other stables exist in the sections not yet opened. To the left of the stable is a passage with a millstone
door. The door leads into a church. To the right of the stables are rooms, possibly living spaces.
Located on the second floor is a church with a nave and two apses. Located in front of the apses is a baptismal font,
and on the sides along the walls are seating platforms. Names of people contained in graves here coincide with those
located next to the church, which supports the idea that these graves belonged to religious people. The church level
also contains some living spaces.
A remarkable block formation of andesite (a volcanic rock) with several holes, used in
Kaymakli for cold copper processing.

The third floor contains the most important areas of the underground compound:
storage places, wine or oil presses, and kitchens. The level also contains a
remarkable block of andesite with relief textures. Recently it was shown that this
stone was used for cold-forming copper. The stone was hewn from an
[12]
andesite layer within the complex. In order for it to be used in metallurgy, fifty-
seven holes were carved into the stone. The technique was to put copper into
each of the holes (about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in diameter) and then to
hammer the ore into place. The copper was probably mined
between Aksaray and Nevsehir. This mine was also used by Asilikhoyuk, the oldest settlement within
the Cappadocia Region.
The high number of storage rooms and areas for earthenware jars on the fourth floor indicates some economic
stability. Kaymakli is one of the largest underground settlements in the region. The large area reserved for storage in
such a limited area appears to indicate the need to support a large population underground. Currently only a fraction
of the complex is open to the pub
Sources Wikpedia
Compiler Alan McGrath