cappadocia geohistory

The Geohistory

60 million years ago in the Oligocene and Pliocene, the Taurus mountain chain arose as a subsidiary of the Alpine system. The consequent warping of the Anatolian Plateau to the north resulted in the appearance of volcanoes, of which the two most massive are Mounts Erciyas and Hasandagi, the one in eastern and the other in western Cappadocia. Midway between them is situated the smaller Mt. Göllüdağ.

Although no historical record exists of activity from these ancient volcanoes, an eruption is depicted in one wall painting at Catalhöyük, a painting which in fact is among the oldest known to archaeology. A temple of fire near Mt. Erciyas bears evidence that the Persians held this volcano sacred. And a coin from Ceesarea is engraved with an image of Erciyas spewing lava. In all likelihood these representations stem from an awed receptiveness to ancient legend, rather than from direct experience.

Over millions of years the ash laid down by these two volcanic furnaces gradually formed a layer of soft tuff. This in turn was patched over in places with a thin layer of basalt lava. This basalt cracked and then split under weathering, allowing rain water to seep down through the fissures and slowly erode the underlying tuff. Time and widening gaps ushered in a thermoclastic effect, alternating heat and cold that broke down the rock's resistance, and to this was added the constant rub of wind. What emerged were tall cones surmounted by caps of hard basalt, in clumps or teeming ranks to which the Turks - sensing some mystery or spell - have giv­en the name "fairy chimneys."

Where there is no protective basalt layer, or where it has been worn away, eroding wind and water have sculpted out lovely valleys, nearly all of which lie south of the Kızılırmak.

Steep canyons of andesite and basalt, in the rocks of which have collected softer formations, join these valleys to the plateau. Soganlı and Ihlara are canyons in this mold, the latter truly vertiginous, attaining a depth in places of 650 feet.

Nooked and recessed, sheltered from the pressing north wind, these valleys have developed a near-temperate climate with soil that attracts the small­holding farmer and blooms forth in orchards and basking vineyards.

Cappadocia Through the ages

The Neolithic and chalcolithic Ages

The most highly-developed form of Neolithic culture was found in Anatolia to the north of the Taurus. Settlements dating back nine to ten thousand years have been brought to light at Hacılar, Canhasan, Çatalhöyük and other locations on the plateau. Here dwelled small communities which depended for their livelihood on agriculture and livestock, and who wor­shipped the mother goddess. Artifacts which remain as testimony to the well developed taste of these peoples include mirrors of polished obsidian, elegant personal ornaments, colorful ceramics and what to our eye are surprisingly contemporary statuettes of the mother goddess, coarsely but earthily voluptuous.

At the best-preserved site, Çatalhöyük, archaeological digs in the 1960s uncovered some one thousand earthen dwellings, together with the oldest extant weave fabric and the oldest wall paintings in the world.

The discovery of copper and its fashioning ushered in the Chalcolithic Age, which in Anatolia corresponds to the 6th millennium B.C.

Early Bronze Ages

As mining and metal-working grew in importance, the population centers of inner Anatolia were drawn northward and eastward. Minor kingdoms rose up to unite the towns which tended to concentrate along the Kızılırmak River. The result was a people referred to in Assyrian and later Anatolian sources as the Hatti, with a civilization that modern-day archaeology describes as ProtoHittite. The refined taste and skill of these people in metal-working, whether using alloys such as bronze and electrum or shaping precious metals, particularly gold and silver, command our respect even today and serve to define an age whose broader description is Early Bronze. It falls roughly within the 3rd millennium B.C.

The richest Hatti finds have come in the royal tomb at Alacahoyuk; traces of the culture are encountered in Troy and at the far western end of Asia Minor.

The Early Bronze saw a revolution in pottery making with the introduction of the potter's wheel and the appearance of a new kind of ceramic, the Cappadocian. The tradition begun five thousand years ago continues today in the heart of Cappadocia at Avanos, where the same wheel, the selfsame methods, are still used to produce elegant and servicable ware.

As farming and livestock breeding, metal-working and pottery developed and flourished, and as townships arose, some type of trade was inevitable on both a local and more farflung scale. Assyrian traders were more than willing to assume this responsibility. Alongside every Hatti principality-township, local authority permitted the establishment of an As­syrian trading colony or kharum. The largest of these colonies, and a sort of headquarters for all of them, was that at Kültepe (Kayseri), known as the Kanech Kharum.

An invaluable archive comprising some thousands of Assyrian cuneiform tablets in clay has been found at Kültepe, giving us a record of the day-to-day correspondence carried on by these merchants. Quite detailed information can also be drawn from them about the land of Hatti, and thus of the inhabitants of Cappadocia.

Seals imprinted on clay were first employed in Assur, and their use became widespread in Anatolia; so much so that they are referred to by some scholars as "Cappadocian seals."It is now wellestablished that the Hatti language bears no relation to any still living language. It was an isolated tongue peculiar to inner Anatolia, but in that domain it was undisputed at the time, with Luwian, the language of south western Anatolia, having a secondary role.

The Hittites

Somewhere around 1900 B.C. there appears in the land of Hatti a folk who call themselves the people of Nesa. Where they originally came from is a mystery, nor is it known what they were called there. Even the name Nesa is now presumed to derive from "Kanech," mentioned above, which was their first home in Asia Minor.

These people merged with the indigenous Hatti, forging from the two cultures one that was new and unique. In time they even came to take their name from that of their adopted home, and henceforward were known as the Hittites.

The Hittite period stretches from 1900 to 1200 B.C. To begin with there were small city-kingdoms, sometimes resolving their differences through warfare. The first to gain the ascendancy was King Pitkhana of Kussara, whose son Anittas established absolute dominance, destroying rival Hattusas in the process. A succeeding king, Labarnas, was to real­ize the strategic importance of Hattusas and in fact rebuild it as his capital.

Labarnas (1680-1650 B.C.) founded a dynasty. His successor had the appellation "Hattusilis" or He-of-Hattusas. These two kings, and Mursilis I who followed them, expanded their domains in every direction, with particular distinction earned to the south in victories over Babylonia.

It was Telipinues (1525-1520 B.C.) who refashioned the state through the giving of new laws. Suppiluliumas, however, was unquestionably the greatest Hittite king. Reigning from 1375 to 1335 B.C., he suc­ceeded in settling accounts with the Mittani Empire, which had established itself as a formidable rival. It was this king's practice to make treaties with conquered nations rather than take slaves: thus, the Hittile Empire begins with his reign.

The neighboring empire to the south was that of Egypt. At one point the widow of the boyking Tutankhamun beseeched Suppiluliumas for the hand of one of his sons, but the plan was not consummated.

Mutwattalis completely outgeneralled the proud pharoah Ramses II to win what must rank among the most important military triumphs in history: the result was the first written peace treaty and pact of non-aggression ever, signed between the Hittites and the Egyptians.

The Hittites were keen breeders and trainers of horses, and developed the first light war chariots. They were also the first to fight with iron weapons. The plumed helmet and warrior's tunic later encountered in the Greek and Roman armies also made their first appearance with the Hittites. Assailed from every direction in the 13th century B.C., the Hittite Empire staggered.

The invading Mushki (as the Phrygians are referred to in Assyrian sources) overran the kingdom as the confederacy broke up.

The Tabal Kingdom

When the Great Hittite Kingdom collapsed there sprang up a number of smaller kingdoms which saw themselves as its inheritors. Among these was the Tabal kingdom founded in Cappadocia. Forming a confederacy with Carchemish and Kuwaliya, it was known as the Great Kingdom to distinguish it from these latter.

Contemporary with the later Hittite states were Phrygia to the west and Urartu to the east. Pillaging hordes of Phrygians poured through the passes into Anatolia around 1250 B.C., later establishing dominion in west central Anatolia, where they merged with the local folk and took up an agricultural way of life.

To the east Urartu, whose people were descended from the Asian Hurrians, were noted for their archi­tecture and skilled metal-working. Cappadocia trad­ed with both slates, and each influenced the other.

The Phrygian kingdom was overthrown by the Cim­merians: their last king, Midas, took his own life upon his defeat at Cimmerian hands in 676 B.C.

With the Phrygian kingdom gone, Lydia rose to prominence in western Anatolia. Apart from being able seafarers, the Lydians took full advantage of the fact that their kingdom lay athwart the trade routes linking the Aeolian and Ionian confederations with central Anatolia. The Lydians invented money, and the name of Croesus, their king, stands for vast riches even today.

The Persian Empire

When Lydia expanded eastward and crossed the Kızılırmak , they ran up against the Medes, by far the most powerful nation in near Asia. As the na­tions battled on a day in 585 B.C., the sky grew dark. This eclipse of the sun led the two hosts, in terror, to lay down arms and declare a peace. The Kızılırmak became the boundary dividing the Lydi­ans from the Medes in Asia Minor.

Thirty years later, when the Persians supplanted the Medes, they divided their empire into semi-autonomous provinces called satrapies. The lands which this Iranian people acquired to the south and east of the Kızılırmak they named "Katpatukya," meaning in Persian "Land of the Beautiful Horses." We learn from Herodotus that the Greeks knew the Cappadocians as Syrians, in which they were of course mistaken.

In 547 B.C. King Croesus of Lydia crossed the Kızılırmak to attack Persia, but incurred defeat at the hands of Cyrus. A second battle, in the vicinity of Sardis further west, spelled Lydia's doom. Not until the invasion of Alexander would the Persian yoke be cast off in Anatolia.

Though   the   Persians'   religion   was   Zoroastrian, theirs was a tolerant rule which left subject peoples free to worship as they pleased. Local languages, too, went unmolested. In the reign of Darius I Anatolia was divided into three great satrapies. Cappadocia, which was one, paid the emperor annual tribute of 360 talents, 1500 horses, 2000 mules and 50,000 sheep.

In 407 B.C. Darius III made his younger son Cyrus satrap (governor) of Greater Phrygia and Cappadocia. When the elder brother, Artaxerxes Memnon, assumed the throne in 404, Cyrus brought against him an army of one hundred thousand Anatolian conscripts, with an additional levy of ten thousand Greek mercenaries. It is this mighty adventure which Xenophon - one of the Greek generals -recounts in his Anabasis (The Retreat Of The Ten Thousand)

It was this same Artaxerxes II who in 362 quashed the revolt of the Cappadocian satrap Damates and divided the province into two smaller satrapies, northern and southern. The road network which had already begun to take shape under the Hittites was further expanded by the Persians. The Royal Road which joined Persepolis, Aegean capital, to Mesopotamian Susa quite naturally made its way through Cappadocia.

The Persians brought with them into the new land stirrings of Zoroastrianism. A belief that pitted Ahura Mazda, the force of good, against Ahriman in eternal warfare also held that fire was sacred, and turned the volcanoes Erciyas and Hasandagı into objects of worship. A fire-worshipper's altar with a relief depicting a priest who holds sacred fire-stick scan be seen today in Bünyan near Kayseri.

The later stages of the Persian Empire saw the cull of Mithra and Anatita reach Cappadocia. Mithra was the god of light, Anatita the mother goddess, one in a long succession beginning with she of Anatolia and maintained ultimately in Cybele, Artemis and Aphrodite.

Alexander And The Diadochi

In 333 B.C. Alexander assembled his armies at Gordium. He remained a while in Ankara, at which time he gained Cappadocia and left it under the rule of a governor. The Macedonian assault had upset the balance. The ruling class in Cappadocia, joining forces with those who had a stake in the old order, in 332 B.C. declared Ariartes I king of the domain. This Persian aristocrat succeeded in extending the frontiers of his realm as far as the Black Sea, but Alexander's stepson Perdichas marched on him to complete the conquest of the region.

Now the governorship of Cappadocia was placed in the hands of Eumenes, archivist to Alexander. It was around this time that what was to prove incessant conflict among the diadochi (Alexander's generals) began. In Cappadocia Eumenes defeated the renowned Crateros, the death of the latter resulting. The other diadochi banded together against Eu­menes and, meeting in Antioch in 321 B.C., redivided the empire among them. To rid Cappadocia of Perdichas and Eumenes, Naib Antipatros made Antigonus commander-in-chief of the armies in Asia.

Antigonus had earlier overcome Eumenes without, however, being able fully to subdue him. Polypheron, succeeding Antipatros, took sides with Eumenes, but the latterthough he had seized the treasury in Cilicia and acquired new supporters in the southsuffered another defeat at the hands of Antigonus. He was captured and put to death (316 B.C.)

In the years that intervened, the Seleucids, embroiled with Rolemy and his followers, were unable to prevent these uprisings in Asia Minor, Mithridates on the Black Sea and Nicomedes along the eastern Marmara proclaimed the kingdoms of Pontus and Bithynia respectively. Celts, or as they were called Galatians, had been instrumental in the founding of Bithynia and now were granted territory in Anatolia around presentday Ankara and Eskişehir. This region to the northwest of Cappadocia would henceforth be known as Galatia.

The Kingdom of Cappadocia

Meanwhile Ariartes II, adoptive son of the first Cappadocian king, returned from hiding to establish the kingdom anew. Although the coasts of Asia Minor were lastingly transformed by Hellenism, this culture seems to have made little impression on Cappadocia.

Ariartes III extended his domains by the addition of Malatya and Marash to the east, while Ariartes IV expanded westward with the acquisiton of Konya. The latter king allied with Pergamum to impede for a while the Roman advance into Asia Minor. By the time of Ariartes V, Mazaka (Kayseri) and Tyana (Kemerhisar) were beginning to fit the Hellenistic architectural mold.

In the reign of Ariartes Epiphanes VI (125-111 B.C.) the kingdom was annexed by Pontus. The ensuing years saw Cappadocia change hands frequently, with Pontus and Rome alternating as masters. The region was a constant battlefield, with its own rival kings often at war. Finally, in 66 B.C., Pompey invaded Cappadocia and set Ariobarzanes I on the throne as vassal. He in turn was followed by his son Ariobarzanes II (66-52 B.C.) and Ariobarzanes III (52-42 B.C.)

When Julius Caesar waged war against the king of Pontus he set up camp in Mazaka, whose name then changed to Caesarea, today's Kayseri. These wars led once again to the plunder and ravaging of Cappadocia.

When Caesar had been assassinated, Cassius made his way to Cappadocia where he ordered a further killing, the murder of Ariobarzanes III. This king's successor, Ariartes Eusebes Philadelphos, was fallowed by Archeleos, who received the firm support of Anthony and then of Augustus, the latter of whom went so far as to bestow on the king a portion of Cilicia. Meanwhile, in what was now Caesarea, a mint was set up and began producing coin.

Archaleos, who at all times acted strictly in the interests of Rome, was the last Cappadocian king. Upon his death the domain became a Roman province, beginning in A.D. 17.

The Roman Era

Under Rome, Cappadocia was a vast province extending from the Taurus to the Black Sea, from the Salt Lake (Tuz Gölü) to the Euphrates, and including all of Galatia. Legions were stationed here against potential incursions from the east, and major road construction was carried out. At this period the eastern frontier was subjected to harrassment by the Parthians.

During the reign of Septimus Severus (192-211 A.D.) Cappadocia was the scene of military disturbances. However, economic ties between Smyrna (Izmir) on the Aegean and Kayseri in Cappadocia became so strong that coins were impressed that bore the legend "Union."

In the decade following A.D. 220 Cappadocia was invaded by the Sassanid king Artaxerxes. The re­sponse from Gordianus 111 of Rome was to gird the city of Kayseri with defensive walls. In the time of Valerius I a Sassanid attempt to take Kayseri failed, but in 251 the city was sacked and razed. During this Sassanid campaign Valerius suffered the ignominy of falling prisoner. Then in 254 a wave of Goths swept through, and in 257 the Sassanids again put this province to the torch. In 267 it was again the Goths. During these troubled times Cappadocia was involved in the gradual spread of Christianity. A bishopric was established at Kayseri, with Alexander Phrmilien, pupil of Clement of Alexandria, as one of the first prominent bishops. In the 4th century Kayseri was to produce three great clerics: Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nysse and his friend Gregory of Nasiensis. Basil, bishop of Kayseri from 370 onward, was the author of many precepts and doctrines still adhered to in the Christian world.

He denounced as heresy the Arianism that was being espoused by the emperor, and at the same time opposed the excesses of the landed aristocracy. In the environs of Kayseri he built a home for the aged and infirm, a shelter for the poor, and an inn to welcome travelers. Julian the Apostate, who tried to restore the pagan religion to his empire, abhorred Basil and even forbade all mention of Kayseri itself. The emperor Diocletian, to reduce Basil's influence, divided Cappadocia in two.

The Byzantine Era

In A.D. 396 when the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves, Cappadocia naturally fell within the boundaries of the former.

Byzantium was a cauldron of religious sectarianism, the nature of Father, Son and Holy Ghost a never-resolved question. Councils were convened to debate the nature of Christ, whether divine or human or in some way both. Each new council overturned the decrees of the last, and divisiveness ultimately blossomed into armed conflict.

In A.D. 449 the emperor Theodosius declared for Monophism, a doctrine which held that Christ partook of the divine nature only. Then in 451 the emperor Marcianus convened a spiritual council in Chalcedon (now Istanbul's Kadiköy) to reject the doctrine. Under Justinius and Justinianus, Monophisites were severely persecuted.

At the beginning of the 7th century there was instituted a system of governing by themes, according to which lands were parcelled out in return for military fealty. One of the themes thus created was Cappadocia. The enemy to the east of Byzantium were the Sassanids, whose elimination by the Arabs gave respite until the Arabs themselves began to pose a threat. Indeed, under the caliph Othman, Syrian Moslem troops advanced as far as Kayseri, the environs of which they occupied. In later years these Arab invasions took on a character that was annual and even seasonal.

In 708 the Arabs captured Tyana (Kemerhisar). In 712 Amasya and Yalvac. fell, and in 713 Heraclea (Eregli), thus bringing practically all of Cappadocia under Arab occupation. In 726 Moslem armies pil­laged Kayseri. However, the Arab tide was stemmed by the Byzantine victory at Akroines, near Afyon.

After this battle, in which the renowned Seyyit Batal Ghazi was killed, Byzantium regained control of the lands as far as Malatya. It was the emperor Leon III who achieved this success. Of Syrian extraction, he was also the emperor who initiated the iconoclastic movement. During the 4th and 5th centuries the love of icons and images among Christians had reached the point of idolatry, and this led to a reac­tion. Partly under the influence of Islam and partly to weaken the grip held on society by the priests, Leon III in 726 banned all images of Mary and the saints. When an enraged crowd lynched the officer charged with removing Christ's image from above the palace gate, Leon quelled the uprising savagely.

The iconoclastic movement lasted more than a century, and in fact the antagonism between the iconoclasts and those who cherished images never fully abated. Cappadocia's role in the troubles was ambiguous: although there was an iconoclastic influence in the region, devotees of the image easily found a place to hide here and continue their forms of worship. In 780 Harun, heir apparent to Mehdi the Caliph of Baghdad, displayed such valour on a campaign to Cappadocia that his father declared him rashid, mature and ready. With Harun al-Rashid on the thone. the Byzantine empress Irene was able to stop the advance of the Arab armies only by paying tribute.

In 802 Irene was deposed and replaced by her treasurer, Nicephorus. When he refused to pay the tribute, Harun marched and captured Tyrana. He then demanded, and received, even greater tribute than before.

The emperor Romanos Diogenes, who was defeat­ed by Alp Arsian at the epoch-making battle of Manzikert in 1071, was Cappadocian in origin. For long, the empire had lought to hold back the advancing tide of Patzinak and Seljuk Turks. With Manzikert the dam broke, and the issue was never again in doubt.

The Seljuks in Anatolia

From the early 11th century onward there were Turks concentrated in eastern Anatolia. In 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest of England, the Seljuk Bey Elbasan rebelled against his sultan, Alp Arslan, and fled with his armies to the heart of Anatolia. Intent on taking him, Afshin Bey carried the pursuit as far as Kayseri, which he in fact captured. Elbasan was forced to do battle with Byzantine troops, and carried the day. Nevertheless, with Afshin breathing down his neck, Elbasan crossed over and sought refuge with the Byzantines he had just defeated. This was the first of many incursions into Anatolia by the Turks and Turcomans. It was the aim of Romanos IV Diogenes, in raising an army to meet Alp Arslan, to dispel the threat once and for all. But the battle, fought on August 26, 1071 at Manzikert near Lake Van, ended in an overwhelming Turkish victory during which the Byzantine emperor was taken prisoner. Although Alp Arslan delivered up his captive, in Byzantium pretenders to the throne were waiting for Romanos on his return. They blinded and then murdered the emperor, rendering the pact he had concluded with Alp Arslan void. With a free conscience, Artuk Bey and his hosts now advanced to the shores of the Marmara.

Before long Alp Arslan himself fell to an assassin and was replaced by his son Melikshah. When the uncle of the latter waged internecine war against him, Artuk Bey's conquests had to be halted. In the confusion, Suleimanshah, son of Kutalmish, seized lands extending from Konya (Iconium) to iznik (Nicaea) and on these territories established the Seljuk Sultanate of Anatolia. The governorship, or beylik, of the vilayet embracing Kayseri and Nevşehir was bestowed upon Ebu'l Ghazi Hasan. It is from him that the towering Hasan Dagi (dag = mountain) near Aksaray takes its name.

North of the Kızılırmak lay the Danishmandid Emirate. The Seljuk sultan, Kilidje Arslan I, had been thrown together with the Danishmandid ruler Gumüshtekin in breasting the First Crusade, but a later dispute over possession of Malatya made rivals of them.

Kilidje (Kiliç) Arslan II (1155-1192) divided the sultanate among his eleven sons. This misguided attempt at fairness led to dissension and finally war. The Emirate of Kayseri and Nevşehir had fallen to the lot of Nureddin Sultanshah. The Emir of Sivas, Kutbeddin Melikshah, took Konya to compel his father to march on Kayseri. But Kilidje Arslan II did the opposite: he took refuge with Nureddinshah instead. The treatment he then received, however, convinced him to (lee into the camp of his youngest son, Giyaseddin Keykhusrev the Emir of Uluborlu. Kilidje Arslan later advanced in strength on Konya to wrest the throne again from Kutbeddin. At his death in 1192 he bestowed his rule upon Giyaseddin, then at his side.

Meanwhile Kutbeddin was effecting the conquest of the Kayseri-Nevşehir region (1195). Rükneddin Suleiman shah, the Emir of Tokat who until that time had remained on the sidelines, seized the opportunity created by Kutbeddin's death in 1196 to march on Konya. Banishing Giyaseddin Keykhusrev, he took possession of the Seljuk throne, whereupon his first act was to attach Kayseri Nevşehir administratively to the capital.

The zenith of Seljuk power came in the reign of Alaeddin Keykubat (1220-1237), when the Anatolian Seljuks expanded their trade routes and erected the most graceful mosques, tombs and public buildings, while founding the medical colleges known as Daruşşifa. These works were bestowed not only on the two capitals, Konya and Sivas, but also on such Cappadocian cities as Kayseri, Nigde, Bor and Aksaray.

In 1243 Anatolia suffered invasion by the Mongols, during which Kayseri was put to the torch, thousands dying and further thousands falling prisoner. In 1246 Izzeddin Keykavus II ascended the Seljuk throne, but his brother Kilidje Arslan IV disputed the claim, and withdrew from Konya to Ürgüp where he for a time hid, after which he went on to Kayseri and proclaimed himself sultan. When the armies of the vying brothers met near Develi, Kilidje Arslan was defeated and sent captive to Amasya.

1256 saw the return of the Mongols under Baydju Noyan. They set Kilidje Arslan IV on the Seljuk throne in place of Keykavus II. An influential figure at this period was the vizier Mueniddin Suleiman Pervane, who manipulated the accession to the throne, in 1265, of Giyasseddin Keykhusrev, as yet a child. Although he at first had the support of the Mongol rulers, he went ahead and concluded a pact with Baybars, the Egyptian Mameluke, who proceeded up to Kayseri with his forces and on the plain of Elbistan dealt a defeat to the Mongol host. When Baybars had retired to Egypt, Abaka Khan (1264-1282) mounted a campaign of vengeance which reached into Kayseri, exacted retribution from the perfidious Mueniddin Pervane, and according to some reports concluded with the massacre of some half million Moslem Turks in Cappadocia and eastern Anatolia. In the decades that followed the Seljuks persisted only as a client state to the Khanate of Persia. There were frequent uprisings by the Karamanians, who managed in the reign of Mesut II to seize Kayseri. Geyhatu Khan responded with an expedition to this city, with resulting Karamanian defeat and the slaughter of thousands.

Timurtash, son of the Khanate vizier Choban Bey, was appointed vali (governor) of Anatolia, and he selected Kayseri as his capital. After several successes he declared independence from the Khanate and proclaimed himself a mahdi or messiah, whereupon sermons were preached in his name at Kayseri.. Following Timurtash, Erelna Bey became sole ruler in Anatolia. He received trie Mamelukes' blessing to act as their vali, and moved his capital from Sivas to Kayseri. He died in 1352, after which the Karamanians took Nigde and Aksaray. The Beylik grew progressively weaker, and the cadi Burhaneddin became vizier to assert control.

The reign of the Beys was one of perpetual turmoil. In 1466 the Ottomans took Nevsehir from the Karamanians. Following Bayezid's defeat by Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara (1402) Tamerlane revived the old Beydoms. 1515 marks the definitive addition of Kayseri to the Ottoman realm, its capture being achieved by Selim.

Caravanserais of the Crossroads

The Royal Highway and the Silk Road are known as ancient arteries of transport, and it is to the genius and thoughtfulness of the Turks that we owe the secure caravanserais (hans) which came to stand beside these roads.

The first caravanserais were built in the time of the Karakhanids, but the most imposing examples were left by the Seljuks in Anatolia. And the crossroads of Anatolia was Cappadocia. Here the routes joining northeast to southwest, northwest to southeast, and the Mediterranean to the Black Sea met, and their crisscrossing led to a blooming of caravanserais, the most beautiful of all the hundred and more which the Seljuk sultans and viziers had built during their reigns. The largest of these, called "sultan hans", were of monumental proportions. An imposing portal leads to a large courtyard, at the center of which is a small mosque. A second portal, and one is in a cathedrallike space which may have from three to five "naves."

To foster commerce, the caravanserais were main­tained by the sultanate for the benefit of merchant caravans. All the services were free, including baths, blacksmith, doctor, horse (or more properly, came!) doctor, and food.

Cappadocia Under The Ottomans

The 161h century witnessed frequent rebellions in and around Kayseri by a bandit fraternity called the Jelali. By the early 17th century they had become an army ten thousand strong. In bands of 500 or 600 they would conduct lightning raids on cities such as Kayseri, Ürgüp, Nigde and Aksaray. They were only checked in the end by the stern measures of Murat Pasha.

The region known to history as Cappadocia was, during the Ottoman reign, comparitively free of major incident, thanks to its distance from the borders of the empire. There was not, however, a flourishing architecture and the arts such as had been experienced under the Seljuks.

One incident deserves mention. Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehmet Ali Pasha the Ottoman vali in Egypt who rose up against the empire, gathered an army to march on Istanbul and was able to thrust northward as far as Kutahya, passing through Cappadocia on his way. In the 181h century the tiny village of Muşkara produced a vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, who remembered his home and bestowed on it several elegant buildings. Then in 1779 another vizier, Mehmet Seyyid Pasha, gave his village, Giilsehir, a similar memorial in the form of public works.

Let us not forget that Mimar Sinan, founder of classical Ottoman architecture and one of the greatest architects the world has known, also was born in Cappadocia. But though at his death he left behind more than four hundred works in Istanbul, only one building in Cappadocia bears his signature: the Kursunlu mosque in Kayseri.

During Ottoman times Kayseri maintained its status as a leading center of commerce and trade, with carpet-making that prospered throughout the region. As one of the defeated powers after the First World War, the Ottomans saw their territories occupied by foreign armies. For the Turks, fighting under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to liberate their soil, central Anatolia was a safe, unoccupied zone from which to launch operations.

Turkey emerged victorious from this war of independence. On October 29, 1923, the Ottoman Sultanate came to an end with the Proclamation of the Republic. The region whose history we have rapidly reviewed now falls within the provinces of Nevsehir, Aksaray, Kayseri, Nigde and Kirşehir, all part of the Turkish Republic.