Turkey, highway of trade routes, abridge between the continents of Europe and Asia is our next destination. AsiaMinor or Anatolia as this region was historically known constituted a majorpart of the country and was the kingdom of the Hittites. However, Cappadocciabecomes our entry point for its dreamlike landscape, replete with fairy chimneys,subterranean cities, tuff carved sculptural churches and frescoes score thebrownie points over Istanbul the capital and a great city.
This region was born of uniquevolcanic eruptions of the Erciyes, Hasandagi and Golludag mountains, creating alandscape of continuous tuff escarpment or individual protrusions called fairychimneys. The lava accumulated and formed a soft tuff which later got coveredby basalt. Erosions caused when rainwater cracked the basalt created uniqueformations called fairy chimneys. People live in fairy chimney houses and fairychimney rooms carved into these protrusions, where you literally sleep withtons and tons of conical spiraling rock over your head.
Our bed and breakfast place was withinwalking distance of the Goreme Open Air Museum. This museum complex is where a largeChristian community with two bishoporics and lively priests changed the regioninto an area, so that Cappadoccia came to be known as the land of saints. The Goreme complex is huge but well maintainedand visitor friendly. The first structure at the entrance is the Chapel of StBasil dating back to the 11th century. It has some icons of Jesusand the Madonna and child. Here you can see churches and chapels, tombs ,cellars and larders and most importantly development of church architecturefrom 7th to the 12th centuries. Cappadoccia has thousandsof churches and chapels. A few of them well preserved, others neglected andstill others a grim reminder of the ages of iconoclasm in Christian history.
The most unique church in the Goremecomplex is the Karanlik” a barrel-vaulted dark church excavated on a cruciformplan. This church whose only natural light comes from a tiny windows in thenarthex, has several brightly coloured frescoes well preserved by the vacuumand the darkness. The visual narratives depict the annunciation, nativity, journeyto Bethlehem, the last supper, the betrayal by Judas, and the Ascension amongothers. Going through this beautiful frescoes, I am stunned by the parallelbetween the themes and their execution by Cappadoccian icon painters and thework of Goan Christian painter Angelo da Fonseca.
There is constant reference to theimage of King Leo II his wife and daughters who appeared painted around theenthroned Virgin at Blanchern, an important site of the cult of the Virgin inConstantinople. In 721, Caliph Yezid II had all images in the sanctuaries andhomes in provinces destroyed. The monasteries were owners of large lands andmajor producers of images. In 726, the image of Christ of the Chalkitis believedto be protecting Constantinople was destroyed from above the golden gate inConstantinople. The act of iconoclasm was considered to be an act ofpurification, but those images that iconoclasm did not proscribe as art weredestroyed.
This city, very innocuous when oneapproaches the terrain, goes into the ground for eight levels and had severalfeatures like a confessional, baptismal pool, a church with early alters, nave,air shafts, wine cellars, a stable for horses and boulder-like locking devicesto close up the entrances. You can go down all eight floors and marvel at thetechnology behind such creations that allowed a city to grow under the ground.
Savia Viegas isan art historian writer and artist. Herrecent novel ‘Let me tell you about Quinta’ has been published by Penguin India
