Early explorations of Cappadocia and the monastic myth

Abstract

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European travellers and explorers who discovered Cappadocia’s exotic landscape of volcanic rock formations introduced the notion of a region populated by monks. Although written sources of the medieval period are silent in this regard, scholarship has persisted with this notion about the region ever since. Perhaps the general eighteenth- and nineteenth-century understanding of Byzantium as a period of decline following the Golden Age of Classical Antiquity reinforced the monastic interpretation. According to Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), the later history of the Roman Empire in the east was ‘a uniform tale of weakness and misery.’

La Cappadoce chrétienne ottomane : un patrimoine (volontairement) oublié ?

“…Bien que l'Empire ottoman se lance timidement dans le développement du tourisme dans les années 1870, il faut néanmoins attendre plusieurs décennies après la naissance de la République de Turquie et le début des années 1960 pour qu'un réel essor touristique voie le jour. Alors qu'en 1950, le tourisme international dans le pays se limitait à 30 000 visiteurs, en 1965, le nombre atteignait les 500 000 visiteurs (TÜRSAB 2013 (Kalas 2004), le tout sur un territoire assez restreint qui facilite la mise en tourisme.…”

The Unusual Separation Of Cappadocian Refectories And Kitchens: An Enigma Of Architectural History

“…According to Popović (1998, 303), who emphasizes the commemorative meaning of the communal meal for the first Christians, the "two buildings provided a joint setting for an 8. For a summary of the different approaches of scholars to Cappadocia, see Kalas (2004).…”

“…For a critical approach to this "misinterpretation" see Ousterhout (1996a;1997a;2005a, 176-181;2005b; and Kalas (2004;2009a).…”