Pardon Tillinghast wrote:
>I was just in those caves in Cappadocial a yr ago; you did know that the
>caves with altars & frescoes are different from the 'undergrd city"
>nearby? We were told that those caves were occupied till l922 in some
>cases, but not by monks in recent times. Pardon Tillinghast
>
The big difference between the monastic settlements and the underground
cities is that the former are above ground (though, in places such as the
Ilhara Vadisi, in a ravine rather than in the hills) and the latter are
decidedly below ground, subterranean in the strict sense.
There are plenty of places inKappadokya where caves are still inhabited.
In fact National Public Radio over here carried a story just last week of
how the popularity of cave dwelling is on the rise. The bourgeoisie are
moving in, renovating them, supplementing or adding electricity and running
water. In many places caves of various kinds continue to be inhabited,
after centuries, by local villagers and farmers. These are all
above-ground caves, however; the below-ground "underground cities" were
something of a different matter, and were largely abandoned at the same
time as (most) of the monastic settlements, around the eleventh or twelfth
century. Even some of the monastic settlements, though, were active, or at
least their churches were still in use, by groups such as Syriac Christians
and Armenians into the nineteenth century. The underground cities date, in
same cases, to the third or fourth century before Christ (though I don't
have the literature handy to say exactly when). Our tour guide insisted
they went back to the Hittites, though our party (which included several OT
scholars) was deeply skeptical of this, and we concluded informally that he
was confusing the underground cities with sites such as the Uçhisar natural
citadel. But I have not researched this question.
As an aside, an interesting by-feature of the underground cities is that
they nurture species of mold and lichens on their walls uniquely adapted to
the setting, and as yet unresearched. The failed biologist in me finds
such things fascinating: the mold and the frescoes survive, the citizens
and the monks pass.
Thanks to Jim B. for suggesting the book on the monastic cave settlements.
__________________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 983-1413
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