m 



THIS IS A PICTURE OF SOGHANUU DERE (ONION VAEEEy), WHICH LIES A FULL DAY'S 



JOURNEY SOUTH OP THE UDJ ASSARU (SEE PAGES 286, 287) 



AND URGUB REGION (SEE PAGES 3 12, 314) 



It is a canyon branching from the larger canyon of Ortakieui (Middle Village). (See 

 pages 328, 329). Its cliffs are mere shells and they contain thousands on thousands of cham- 

 bers, churches, chapels, and graves. Cones, though they do occur even here, are rare, but 

 there are no temple or church fagades, as at Martchan (see pages 303, 308). In this picture 

 one sees five entrances, while all fne numerous other openings are windows. Story rises upon 

 story. Thousands of pigeons now have their homes in these dusky chambers in the rocks, 

 for at this place they are no longer inhabited by man. Notice the windows painted on the 

 outside. The author can give no explanation of the painting. In the numerous chapels pic- 

 tures of Greek saints may still be seen on the walls; many of the saints represented in the 

 pictures are named in Greek. In the floors of the chapels graves are cut, and in some of them 

 we found human skeletons quite exposed. Indeed, graves are frequently found in the dwell- 

 ings themselves, and so it seems clear that the people lived in the same rooms with their 

 pigeons and their dead. 



ings, and that he had been told that on 

 the other side of the valley a still greater 

 number were to be seen. 



"Can anything be more incredible than 

 that there can exist such a vast host of 

 pyramids excavated into ordinary dwell- 

 ing-houses ? For they certainly did not 

 spring from the earth like mushrooms. 

 Moreover, not a single word about them 

 is to be found in any ancient author nor in 

 the narrative of any other traveler. We 

 might understand this silence if Lukas 

 had discovered the pyramids in the great 

 Syrian Desert, but in a land as well 

 known as Cappadocia — ! 



"However, since Paul Lukas affirms 

 that he saw them with his own eyes, they 



must be there. But we shall have to 

 strike out at least one nought from the 

 number, which, according to his estimate, 

 is more than 50,000. Five thousand such 

 pyramids is still a very respectable num- 

 ber, and in view of the hasty and super- 

 ficial way in which Lukas saw them {for 

 his caravan did not stop, nor was he per- 

 mitted to leave it), he should have dis- 

 trusted a calculation made by his eyes 

 alone." 



THEIR ANCIENT STORY WAITS UPON 

 ARCH^OEOGISTS AND EXCAVATORS 



And yet Lukas was right, except in sup- 

 posing that the cones were constructed by 

 man, if indeed he did actually entertain 



325 



