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Cappadocia
For many people, Cappadocia is one of the wonders of the world. It is a place of underground cities, churches and homes, carved out of volcanic rock. It is like nowhere else on earth.
The area is very old, dating back at least 30 million years. At this time, the three mountains in the area were active
volcanoes. During the course of time they have often covered the whole area with a kind of rock called volcanic tufa. This is quite a soft rock and easily changed by wind and water.
It is also possible to cut into it to make small caves for people to live in. Cappadocia, therefore, became a good and unusual place to live, and at the beginning of Christianity many thousands of Christians, who were trying to escape from people who
wanted to kill them, came to live in the area.
Apart from the strange surface of the area, it is also famous for its underground cities. So far six of these have been discovered, though no one knows exactly how large they are or how far down they go. However, they were so large they could have had populations or several thousand each, and they are all joined by tunnels.
They contain what is left of churches, dining rooms, and graves and all have ‘blocking stones’ – huge stones that could be moved across the entrances to keep unwanted enemies out.
It is not known how large these cities were, who built them or even when they were built. In the Middle Ages, Christians lived in them, but there is evidence of Roman and Hittite peoples living in them, which means the cities must be older than Christianity. Equally surprising is why they were built. The number of people living in Anatolia, which is where Cappadocia is, was never large.
However the amount of work – and workers – needed to build them musthave been enormous. Where did these workers come from?
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