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In ancient geography, Cappadocia or
Capadocia, Turkish Kapadokya (from Persian:
Katpatuka meaning "the land of beautiful
horses" was the name of the extensive inland
district of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The
name continued to be used in western sources
and in the Christian tradition throughout
history and is still widely used as an
international tourism concept to define a
region of exceptional natural wonders
characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique
historical and cultural heritage. The term,
as used in tourism, roughly corresponds to
present-day Nevşehir Province of Turkey.
It
is impossible to define Cappadocia's limits
with any real accuracy. In the time of
Herodotus, the Cappadocians are supposed to
have occupied the whole region from Mount
Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black
Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded
in the south by the chain of Mount Taurus,
to the east by the Euphrates, to the north
by Pontus, and to the west vaguely by the
great salt lake, Lake Tuz, in Central
Anatolia. But Strabo, the only ancient
author who gives any circumstantial account
of the country, greatly exaggerated its
dimensions. It is now believed that 250
miles in length by less than 150 in breadth
is a more realistic appraisal of
Cappadocia's extension.
Etymology
The
earliest record of the name of Cappadocia
dates from the late 6th century BC where it
appears in the trilingual inscriptions of
two early Achaemenid Kings, Darius I and
Xerxes, as one of the countries (Old Persian
dahyu-) which are part of the Persian Empire.
In these lists of countries the Old Persian
name is Katpatuka but it is clearly not a
native Persian word. The Elamite and
Akkadian language versions of the
inscriptions contain a similar name from
Akkadian katpa "side" (cf. Heb katef) and a
chief or ancestor's name, Tuka.
Herodotus tells us that the name of the
Cappadocians (Katpatouka) was applied to
them by the Persians, while they were termed
by the Greeks "Syrians" or "White Syrians" (Leucosyri).
One of the Cappadocian tribes he mentions
are the Moschoi, associated by Flavius
Josephus with the biblical figure Meshech,
son of Japheth, "and the Mosocheni were
founded by Mosoch; now they are Cappadocians."
AotJ I:6. Also see Ketubot 13:11 in the
Mishna.
Cappadocia is also mentioned in the Biblical
account given in the book of Acts 2:9, with
the Cappadocians being named as one of the
people groups hearing the Gospel account
from Galileans in their own language on the
day of Pentecost shortly after the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Acts 2:5 seems
to suggest that the Cappadocians in this
account were "God-fearing Jews". See Acts of
the Apostles.
Under the later kings of the Persian empire
they were divided into two satrapies, or
governments, the one comprising the central
and inland portion, to which the name of
Cappadocia continued to be applied by Greek
geographers, while the other was called
Pontus. This division had already come about
before the time of Xenophon. As after the
fall of the Persian government the two
provinces continued to be separate, the
distinction was perpetuated, and the name
Cappadocia came to be restricted to the
inland province (sometimes called Great
Cappadocia), which alone will be the focus
of this article.
The
kingdom of Cappadocia was still in existence
in the time of Strabo as a nominally
independent state. Cilicia was the name
given to the district in which Caesarea, the
capital of the whole country, was situated.
The only two cities of Cappadocia considered
by Strabo to deserve that appellation were
Caesarea (originally known as Mazaca) and
Tyana, not far from the foot of the Taurus.
History
Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late
Bronze Age, and was the homeland of the
Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the
fall of the Hittite Empire, with the decline
of the Syro-Cappadocians (Mushki) after
their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in
the 6th century, Cappadocia was left in the
power of a sort of feudal aristocracy,
dwelling in strong castles and keeping the
peasants in a servile condition, which later
made them apt for foreign slavery. It was
included in the third Persian satrapy in the
division established by Darius, but long
continued to be governed by rulers of its
own, none apparently supreme over the whole
country and all more or less tributary to
the Great King.
After bringing the Persian Empire to an end,
Alexander the Great met with great
resistance in Cappadocia. He tried to rule
the area through one of his commanders named
Sabictus, but the ruling classes and people
resisted and declared Ariarthes, a Persian
aristocrat, as king. This sent a message to
Alexander that not all Persians would submit
to his rule. Ariarthes I (332 - 322 BC) was
a successful ruler, and extended the borders
of the Cappadocian Kingdom as far as the
Black Sea. The kingdom of Cappadocia lived
in peace until the death of Alexander, when
the kingdom fell, in the general partition
of the empire, to Eumenes. His claims were
made good in 322 BC by the regent Perdiccas,
who crucified Ariarathes; but in the
dissensions which brought to Eumenes's death,
the son of Ariarathes recovered his
inheritance and left it to a line of
successors, who mostly bore the name of the
founder of the dynasty.
Under Ariarathes IV Cappadocia came into
relations with Rome, first as a foe
espousing the cause of Antiochus the Great,
then as an ally against Perseus of Macedon.
The kings henceforward threw in their lot
with the Republic as against the Seleucids,
to whom they had been from time to time
tributary. Ariarathes V marched with the
Roman proconsul Publius Licinius Crassus
Mucianus against Aristonicus, a claimant to
the throne of Pergamon, and their forces
were annihilated (130 BC). The imbroglio
which followed his death ultimately led to
interference by the rising power of Pontus
and the intrigues and wars which ended in
the failure of the dynasty.
The
Cappadocians, supported by Rome against
Mithridates VI of Pontus, elected a native
lord, Ariobarzanes, to succeed (93 BC); but
in the same year Armenian troops under
Tigranes the Great (Tigran) entered
Cappadocia, dethroned king Ariobarzanes and
crowned Gordios as the new client-king of
Cappadocia, thus creating a buffer zone
against the encroaching Romans. It was not
till Rome had deposed the Pontic and
Armenian kings that the rule of Ariobarzanes
was established (63 BC). In the civil wars
Cappadocia was now for Pompey, now for
Caesar, now for Antony, now against him. The
Ariobarzanes dynasty came to an end and a
certain Archelaus reigned in its stead, by
favour first of Antony, then of Octavian,
and maintained tributary independence till
AD 17, when the emperor Tiberius, on
Archelaus's death in disgrace, reduced
Cappadocia at last to a Roman province and
later to a region of the Byzantine Empire.
Cappadocia contains several underground
cities (see Kaymaklı Underground City),
largely used by early Christians as hiding
places before they became a legitimate
religion. The Cappadocian Fathers of the
fourth century were integral to much of
early Christian philosophy. It also produced,
among other people, another Patriarch of
Constantinople, John of Cappadocia who held
office 517–520. For most of the Byzantine
era it remained relatively undisturbed by
the conflicts in the area, first with the
Sassanid Empire and later against the
Islamic expansion led by Arabs.
Cappadocia shared an always changing
relation with the neighbouring Armenia, by
that time a region of the Empire. The Arab
historian Abu Al Faraj purports the
following about Armenian settlers in Sivas,
during the 10th century: “Sivas, in
Cappadocia, was dominated by the Armenians
and their numbers became so many that they
became vital members of the imperial armies.
These Armenians were used as watch-posts in
strong fortresses, taken from the Arabs.
They distinguished themselves as experienced
infantry soldiers in the imperial army and
were constantly fighting with outstanding
courage and success by the side of the
Romans in other words Byzantine.” As a
result of the Byzantine military campaigns,
the Armenians spread into Cappadocia and
eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous
areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
This immigration was increased further after
the decline of the local imperial power and
the establishment of the Crusader States
following the 4th Crusade. Cappadocia became
part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, a
state formed in the 12th century by Armenian
refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of
Armenia and a close ally of the Crusaders.
Following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071
various Turkish clans under the leadership
of the Seljuks began settling in Anatolia.
With the rise of Turkish power in Anatolia,
Cappadocia slowly became tributary to the
Turkish states that were established to the
east and to the west and some of the
population converted to Islam. By the end of
the early 12th century, Anatolian Seljuks
had established their sole dominance over
the region. With the decline and the fall of
the Konya based Seljuks in the second half
of the 13th century, they were gradually
replaced by the Karaman-based Beylik of
Karamanoğlu, who themselves were gradually
succeeded by the Ottoman Empire in the
course of the 15th century. Cappadocia
remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the
centuries to come and remains now part of
the modern state of Turkey. A fundamental
change came in between when a new urban
center, Nevşehir, was founded in early 18th
century by a grand vizier who was a native
of the locality (Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim
Pasha), to serve as regional capital, a role
the city continues to assume to this day.
In
the meantime, many former Cappadocians had
shifted to a Turkish dialect (written in
Greek alphabet, Karamanlıca) and where Greek
language was maintained (Sille, villages
near Kayseri, Pharasa town and other nearby
villages), it became heavily influenced by
the surrounding Turkish. This dialect of
Greek is known as Cappadocian Greek.
Following the 1923 population exchange
between Greece and Turkey, the language is
now only spoken by a handful of the former
population's descendants in modern Greece.
Modern Tourism
The
area is a famous and popular tourist
destination, as it has many areas with
unique geological, historic and cultural
features.
The region is southwest of the major city
Kayseri, which has airline and railroad
service to Ankara and Istanbul.
The Cappadocia region is largely underlain
by sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and
streams, and ignimbrite deposits erupted
from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3
million years ago (late Miocene to Pliocene
epochs). The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme
eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars
and minaret-like forms. The volcanic
deposits are soft rocks that the people of
the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia
Region carved out to form houses, churches,
monasteries. Göreme became a monastic center
between 300-1200 AD. First period settlement
in Göreme reaches to the Roman period from
Christianity. Yusuf Koç, Ortahane, Durmus
Kadir and Bezirhane churches in Göreme,
houses and churches carved into rocks till
to Uzundere, Bağıldere and Zemi Valley
carries the mystical side of history today.
The Göreme Open Air Museum is the most
visited site of the monastic communities in
Cappadocia and is one of the most famous
sites in central Turkey. It is a complex
comprising more than 30 rock-carved churches
and chapels containing some superb frescoes,
dating from the 9th to the 11th centuries. |
Cappadocia
