MS 



Discovi-.m' 



Rock Dwellings in 

 Cappadocia 



By W. R. llalliday, B.A., B.Litt. 



Pro/essor o/ Ancirnl llisliiru in llw VitivcrsHii "/ /.iinT/iio/ 



The soft volcanic tufa of many parts of the Kastern 

 Mediterranean has given a long life to the primitive 

 practice of cave-dwelling. In the Cycladcs, notably 

 in Santorini (Thera), the houses are often little more 

 than fai;ades built on to hollows in the rocks, and the 

 back rooms arc in fact caves. For this casual practice 

 of cave-dwelling convenience may no doubt account 

 and the desire to expend as little trouble as necessity 

 demands. Further East, however, in Asia Minor, a less 

 fortuitous trot;lodvtic existence has been deliberatelv 



food. There were stores within of wheat and barley and 

 vegetables, and wine made from barley in great bowls." 

 Of this beer Xenophon adds that it is very potent and 

 " of a delicious flavour to certain palates, but the taste 



must l)e acquired."' 



A good deal to the west of Xenophon 's line of march, 

 in the Cappadocian Plain between the southern bend 

 of the River Halys and the Taurus Mountains, very 

 similar burrows can be visited to-day. The present 

 villages above ground are composed of miserable houses 

 built of sun-dried brick and plastered with dung. In 

 summer the latter commodity, which is also dried to 

 serve as fuel cakes in a country of cold winters but 

 destitute of trees, somewhat obtrusively pervades the 

 air. In winter the snow lies deep on this plateau five 

 thousand feet above the sea. In severe weather the 

 animals arc all taken indoors as Xenophon saw them in 



-VILLAGli OF .VXO, .>^HOWING SUN-UKIIU) BRICKS .\NU l-llvl. 



adopted and whole settlements have been excavated 

 underground. Here the motive seems more probably 

 to have been the desire for security in a troubled land. 

 When Xenophon and the Ten Thousand were fighting 

 their adventurous way to the sea after the Battle of 

 Cunaxa had stranded them masterless and friendless in 

 the heart of hostile Asia, they encountered upon the 

 borders of Armenia a people who lived in underground 

 burrows. " The houses were underground structures 

 with an aperture like the mouth of a well by which to 

 enter, but they were broad and spacious below. The 

 entrance for the beasts of burden was dug out, but the 

 human occupants descended by a ladder. In these 

 dwellings were to be found goats and sheep and cattle 

 and cocks and hens with their various progeny. The 

 flocks and herds were all reared under cover upon green 



December 401 B.C. Over a brazier a large felt rug is 

 spread, and round it the members of the patriarchal 

 household recline with their lower extremities beneath 

 the rug. Thus through the worst of the winter 

 man and beast hibernate together in an atmosphere 

 which, if warm, must jiossess other less pleasant 

 qualities. 



Beneath these villages, which are inhabited for the 

 most part by a Christian Greek-speaking population, 

 there lies a rabbit warren of subterranean dwellings, 

 and in them the inhabitants may formerly have lived. 

 Local tradition at Misti, a large village of 800 house- 

 holds, which lies on the high road from Xigde to 

 Kaisarieh. assigns a recent date to the emergence of its 

 population from these burrows, and it is improbable 

 ' Xenophon, Anabasis, iv. 5 (trans. Dakyns). 



