A Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia


Book Description

Based on four seasons of fieldwork, this book presents the results of the first systematic site survey of a region rich in material remains. From architecture to fresco painting, Cappadocia represents a previously untapped resource for the study of material culture and the settings of daily life within the Byzantine Empire.




Cappadocia


Book Description

The two authors have been travelling around Cappadocia since 1986 and by now have found another home in the pottery town of Avanos. They are fascinated by the archaic landscape: semi-desert, semi-oasis, almost paradise-looking green valleys surrounded by fairy-like rock formations. For milleniums, people have lived here in comfortable cave dwellings. The early Christians took refuge in the secluded beauty of Cappadocia, decorating their cave churches with valuable frescoes and making church history. For centuries, Christians and Muslims lived side by side by the foot of the almost 4000 m high Erciyes volcano in one of the most fantastic erosion landscapes on earth. Cappadocia - a region where you can still feel like an explorer - provided you are courious enough. Wherever you go, you can feel history here. This guide provides a wealth of information, and many a little story will put you in the right mood for the enchanting cultural landscape. You will also find all the important travel tips for Turkey and Cappadocia, walks with detailed descriptions, a short dictionary of all the necessary vocabulary and more than 100 photos and 30 local area maps.




Cappadocia


Book Description




Caves of God


Book Description

Cappadocia, a province in central Turkey, offers the traveler a startling rockscape whose cones, pleats, and folds conceal hundreds of monasteries and churches carved from the soft, porous "tuff" and used by Christian communities over nearly two millennia for shelter, burial, and sanctuary. This region in the Turkish hinterland is recognized as one of the centers of Byzantine mural painting. However, numerous hermitages, monasteries, and independent chapels dating from the seventh century onward reveal it also as one of the most concentrated areas of Eastern monasticism.This book serves a double purpose: it provides a thorough and lucid introduction to the rockcut churches and monasteries and their painted decorations, while it critically examines current scholarship on the monastic environment of Byzantine Cappadocia--particularly in regard to the architecture, which has been generally neglected by art historians.Scooped out rather than constructed, this anonymous architecture has its own unique appeal. Kostof writes: "The Cappadocian carver-architect was not inhibited... by statics or the nature of materials. His structure stood, a monolith, before he started to work on it. And he could cut into this monolith quickly, effortlessly. It might take a single man about a month to carve out a large room of two to three thousand cubic feet. Loads and thrusts were negligible. One was free to try any structural symbol with little concern for structural safety. Cupolas could bubble from flat ceilings, or be placed over square bays by means of the most cavalier transition elemenis. No shape need be perfect: extemporaneous geometry is everywhere the rule. Wall lines sag, one half of an arch doesn't quite match the other, carefree deviations, here and there, mark the general outline of the building."Following an account of the region, its environmental, political, and religious history, the author discusses in detail the building types and painting programs in the context of their creation--answering such questions as what was the nature of monasticism in Cappadocia, and who were the builders, the artists, their patrons? The author was born and educated in Turkey, and his personal knowledge of the monuments is a convincing factor in his handling of chronological and stylistic uncertainties. Throughout, Kostof's mind's eye never leaves the total environment, observing the inseparability of landscape, buildings, paintings, and the ritual that informs them.




Byzantine and Medieval Cappadocia


Book Description

The focus of the book is a particular region of the Byzantine Empire, Cappadocia, within Anatolia, in the centre of what is now Turkey. Its history as a part of this confederation of territories coincides with the medieval period in Europe. This monograph deals with various aspects of the province; it begins with its environment and climate, goes to some of its institutions and buildings, and ends with the paintings which the art-ists employed to decorate the latter, as well as with a particular type of inscriptions (those along the frontiers). It also considers education in Cappadocia during the Byzantines. The study is a scholarly/professional work that draws on the author's current research as well as on the material which the author developed in the last four years while teaching for the University of Ox-ford.




Life and Society in Byzantine Cappadocia


Book Description

This is the first in-depth historical study of Byzantine Cappadocia. The authors draw on extensive textual and archaeological materials to examine the nature and place of Cappadocia in the Byzantine Empire from the fourth through eleventh centuries.




Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Cappadocia


Book Description

This book traces the history of everyday relations of Greek-Orthodox Christians and Muslims of Cappadocia, an Ottoman countryside inhabited by various ethno-religious groups, either sharing the same settlements, or living in neighbouring villages. Based on Ottoman state archives, testimonies collected by the Centre of Asia Minor Studies, and various pre-1923 hand-written and printed sources mostly in Ottoman- and Karamanli-Turkish, and Greek, the study covers the period from 1839 to 1923 and proposes an anthropological perspective on everyday cross-religious interactions. It focuses on questions such as identification and mapping of communities, sharing of space and resources, use of languages, and religiosity in the context of conversions and of shared sacred spaces and beliefs to investigate everyday realities of a multireligious rural society which disappeared with the fall of the Empire.




Excavations at the Cappadocia Gate


Book Description

The city on the Kerkenes Dag in the high plateau of central Turkey was a new Iron Age capital, very probably Pteria. Founded in the later seventh century BC, the city was put to the torch in the mid sixth century and then abandoned. Between 1999 and 2011 what we have called the Cappadocia Gate, one of the seven city gates that pierce the 7 km of strong stone defenses, was excavated in its entirety. This volume documents as fully as possible the results of those excavations. The location of the gate and its architecture are discussed and illustrated, with a chapter devoted to its partial restoration. Cultic installations within the gate structure include a built stepped monument with semi-iconic idol, an aniconic stela, and graffiti representing similar stones. Sculpture set up at the back of the gate comprised many fragments of a life-sized statue supported by a plinth bearing adorsed sphinxes carved in relief. The remains of two human victims of the destruction are examined, as are animal bones that perhaps provide evidence of meals consumed by builders of the gate. Pottery and other finds, including well-preserved iron door bands, are presented, as is an exceptional ornament of gold and electrum. A final chapter attempts to place these remarkable discoveries in a wider context. The gate plan and the cultic installations and sculpture set up inside the gate appear to be entirely Phrygian. Combined with evidence of Paleo-Phrygian inscription and graffiti already published (OIP 135), this volume sheds dramatic new and unexpected evidence for the power, wealth, and sophistication of an eastward expansion of Phrygia. The brief existence, hardly more than 100 years, together with the excellent stratigraphic context of the destruction level, provide an unparalleled window onto the first half of the sixth century BC on the Anatolian Plateau.




Aspects of the Liturgical Year in Cappadocia (325-430)


Book Description

The fourth century was pivotal in the evolution of the feasts and fasts of late antique Christian communities. While earlier scholars have focused on developments in Jerusalem, Rome, and the Gallican West, the liturgical year in Cappadocia remains largely uncharted territory. Aspects of the Liturgical Year in Cappadocia (325 to 430) fills that gap, relying primarily on the liturgical year homilies of the Cappadocian Fathers in order to provide for the first time a comprehensive study of liturgical calendars from Cappadocia and environs during the period between the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus. This volume is a valuable resource for students of liturgical time, the Cappadocians, and fourth-century doctrinal controversies.




St. George of Cappadocia


Book Description

St. George of Cappadocia is a historical novel set in the early days of Christianity. Through the eyes of the titular character, readers will experience the trials and tribulations of the early church, from violent persecution to internal strife and political intrigue. With vivid characters and an engaging plot, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Christianity. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.