From Emperors to Pigeons

In Cappadocia nothing meets the eye. As we hike through the valleys, we frequently find carvings in the rock formations that resemble honeycombs. They are the remnants of pigeon houses—a feature of the landscape from modern times back to antiquity. Housing pigeons is crucial for the agriculture of this region, as their droppings are used by farmers in order to lower the acidity of the volcanic soil.

Yesterday, on our way along the road winding from Avanos to Göreme we stopped near the village of Çavuşin. On the outskirts is a rock-cut church that was used as a pigeon house up to the early twentieth-century. Many of the abandoned churches in Cappadocia that we study were converted into such pigeon houses. After climbing up the entrance of the church we stepped inside and let our eyes adjust to the dim light. Frescoes carpet the walls of the naos with rich reds, bright greens, and dark blues. The frescoes are executed with great skill. The wings of angels gracefully extend above figures and even melt into the surrounding architecture. While we allowed ourselves to be awed by the beauty of the interior, we spent our time inside noting the similarities of the visual program between Çavuşin and Meryemana. Our examination led us to make some exciting discoveries and prompted us to reconstruct an apse of Meryemana in an unusual way surrounding Dr. Jones's bathroom door, which we will post here shortly.

While the church at Çavuşin later served as a pigeon house, it is the only rock-cut church in the region with portraits of the Byzantine imperial family. Nikephoros Phocas, a tenth-century Byzantine emperor, and four of his family members are depicted in the north apse of the church. Çavuşin is the perfect example of the surprises that can be found in every darkened corner of every remote rock-cut church. In Cappadocia an emperor and pigeons can reside in the same rock-cut church, and as we scale up into the more inaccessible rock-cut churches, we now expect to find nearly everything in between.

Hiking the Valleys

May 7, 2011

Yesterday we spent our first day in the field, hiking the steep, tourist-cluttered hills of the Göreme Open Air Museum, visiting approximately fifteen rock-cut churches. We were surrounded on all sides by amazing vistas and Cappadocia’s unique landscape. First we trekked uphill to El Nazar, a free-standing rock-cut formation outside of the museum proper. After this introduction to a relatively standardized fresco program, we marched onward to the open air museum. We stooped, crawled, and climbed to access the many churches.



The vibrant frescoes and precisely-carved "architecture" awed us as we entered and studied one church after the other. We spent the most time in Tokali Kilise, the largest church in Göreme which features extensive frescoes of lapis and gold. Tokali Kilise also contains an enchanting image of the Eleousa, or Virgin of Tenderness, an iconographical type of the Theotokos (Mother of God) and Christ Child.




We are exhausted by our first eleven-hour day in the field yet excited for the week ahead. After drying our socks and airing out our rain jackets and backpacks, we are heading into Çavuşin and the surrounding area. Check in tomorrow for our next update!

The Hunt Begins!

For the next two days we will head out at the crack of dawn for the open-air museums of Göreme, Zilve, and Ihlara. The greatest concentration of Middle Byzantine rock-cut churches are located in Göreme and these museums are visited by many tourists throughout the year—we shall elbow them aside, politely. After this, we load into our Fiat to trek along the bumpy farm roads from valley to valley and village to village in search of lesser-known rock-cut churches in Gülü Dere, Soğanlı, Güzelyurt, Mustafapaşa, Karlık, and Çavuşin. We will also stop at Açik Saray, a rock-cut ‘palace’ complex off the road between Nevşehir and Gülşehir. The places where we will be working are marked with red pins on the Google map; Avanos is marked in blue. Check our blog daily as we report our findings.


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Welcome to the third and final season of field work in Cappadocia!

I was privileged to work in the Middle Byzantine rock-cut church of Meryemana during the summers of 2008 and 2009, funded by The Florida State University's Council on Research & Creativity. Meryemana has suffered from erosion and geologic instability but retains approximately 2/3 of its original interior fresco program. Close examination of the frescos over two summers allowed for the identification of several previously-unidentified images and corrected several previous mis-identifications.

Sanctuaries in Byzantine churches were closed to women, yet the sanctuary of Meryemana retains depictions of eight female saints--a number unequaled in any other rock-cut church. The decorative program of the south apse, vault and wall of the church features depictions of Anastasia, the Archangel Michael, Paraskeve, Kyriake, John the Baptist, John the Theologian and the Prophet Daniel. The grouping together of these images led me to connect this part of Meryemana's decorative program with the Apocalypse of Anastasia, a Middle Byzantine apocalytpic text. The text describes the spiritual journey of the nun Anastasia, who dies, is taken on a tour of Hell by the Archangel Michael and witnesses events featuring the saints with whom she is depicted in Meryemana. None of the surviving copies of the Apocalypse are illustrated. I suggest that the southern wall, vault and apse of Meryemana functions as an illuminated Apocalypse, evoking the familiar story by depicting the main characters, grouped together in one section of the church.

This summer, with continued funding from FSU's Council on Research & Creativity, we move away from Meryamana to look for other depictions of Anastasia in Cappadocian rock-cut churches. We will explore the rock-cut churches of Göreme, Ilhara and Soğanlı. Some are now enclosed in state-run Open Air Museums, some remain on private lands.

Four FSU graduate students--Stephanie, Brad, Sarah and Chris--will accompany me this summer. They have planned a strategy of attack that is breath-takingly thorough and precise, targeting some 80 churches. Their admirable plan is unfortunately almost certain to be derailed at our first stop. Cappadocia is an imprecise land, and the rock-cut churches, preserved in varying degress of erosion or collapse, are difficult to locate and, when found, are frequently inaccessible. It will be a summer of quick thinking, of adapting well-laid plans to suit the circumstances or of jettisoning them altogether and simply figuring out what to do next. We will look for images of Anastasia, of the Archangel Michael grouped with other saints, and for solitary images of John the Theologian. Finding any of these---or not finding any-- will allow me to further contextualize the fresco program of Meryemana. A preliminary article based on work done during 2008-09 is forthcoming in Eastern Christian Art vol.7, 2011. This summer's findings will enable me to write an in-depth publication.

We will travel by foot, bus and car. We will read maps, use compasses when the maps prove inaccurate and will become comfortable with being lost. We will spend our days climbing the slippery volcanic-ash slopes, fording rivers and streams, and will learn (quickly) how to fall backward and slide on our bottoms rather than on our faces. We will not squeal and run about when we disturb bats, mice, and the many pigeons who make their homes in the rock-cut structures. We will avoid ravines, snakes and thorny plants, and will gamely negotiate the challenges posed by the lack of both trees and bathrooms.

We are fortunate to be able to return every night to the Kirkit Pension in Avanos and to Osman, our gracious host, who is remarkably informed on the location of little-known sites, and who remains preternaturally calm in the face of almost anything.

Subsequent entries will be posted by Stephanie, Brad, Sarah and Chris. I am very lucky to have them with me. Their dedication, their willingness to take on responsibilities and to do the mundane chores, their diverse knowledge of the art and languages are indispensible. We will undoubtedly learn a great deal and we will undoubtedly have many adventures--hopefully none of them apocalyptic.

We hope you enjoy following our progress; for appropriately byzantine reasons we cannot allow comments.

Lynn

Lynn Jones
Assistant Professor
Department of Art History
Florida State University