Cappadocia: "Land of the Beautiful Horses"

Cappadocia, like Polynesia, “Africa”, Sahara, is such a famous land to be synonym with a stereotype.

The very name makes us thinking of strange looking geological formations, with hot air balloons flying among them. How to tell the story of a voyage in such a well-known place?

Maybe, beginning with its name:  “Land of the beautiful horses”, was called by Persians, and the etymology never fails to inspire a delighted giggle among tourist carried on hack-pulled carts.

The ancient region called Cappadocia, in fact, was much larger than what is now the mere province of Nevsehir. It was rightly famous for horse breeding, and in those times, sparing from the Hittites to the Crusades, it was not a tourist curiosity: when, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Emperors lost this region forever, they lost forever the chance to field a cavalry force, until then the core of their military power. Not the battle itself, not the loss of land, but the loss of a strategic asset.

So this region, the very heart of Anatolia, rich with gorgeous agriculture, water, and strategic passes, was the key for dominating Asia Minor. So the anthill looking castles carved inside of imposing rocks, the famed “underground cities”, the valleys dotted with fortifications, had a very different importance in the past centuries…

To “tell” about Cappadocia, it should be seen as a place where people did live in, and where people fought, and died, for.

Landscapes are so peculiar to look unearthly, to the point that they have been often chosen as extra-terrestrial location set for sci-fi movies.

It’s not the vegetation or the human activities to dominate the region, but the earth, in shapes making it to look alive and colors contrasting with the sky. The famed Cappadocian wines seem to sprout directly from the heart of the land, and to taste like its very essence.

Nemrut Dağı : the mountain of dreams.

The mountain is steep, and the stones on the path have been smoothed by visitors feet.

It's still dark, but the billions of stars visible at 2000 meters a.s.l. make the sky so clear that the impression is to climb under a white ceiling. The air is so thin that even at a slow pace, panting is the only noise. It is so dry and cold to make nostrils burn. But right below the top of the mountain, while East is tenuously lighted by the incoming dawn, dark, headless stone giants are waiting. The Gods of the mountain, on their thrones.

Mount Nemrut is unreal.

It must have been such even on that 7th of July, in the year 62 BCE, when the fabulous dream of a sovereign came true. The date is carved on a stone, in the most universal calendar: the position of stars and the crescent moon, and planets Mars, Jupiter and Mercury, in the Lion constellation, on that unique day.

The East Terrace at dawn

The king of Commagene, Anthiocus I Theos, wanted a temple, more, twin temples on the top of this mountain, and he had them built. On a large terrace facing East, stone lions and eagles flank five enormous statues of gods: Anthiocus himself, and Zeus, Tyche, Apollo and Heracle, each represented as the syncretistic version worshipped in that crossroad of ancient cultures. The Lion and the Eagle were the symbol of Commagene, a realm enclosed between the Persian Lion and the Roman Eagle. But all the statues have been beheaded, in time, by lightings and earthquakes.

The East Terrace was the place where common people were summoned for celebrations. No grumpy attitude was allowed in those days, only joy and happiness had to accompany the "fabulous sacrifices" offered to the Gods. Those Gods, like Commagene people, were of mixed heritage: the Greek Zeus has attributes of the Armenian god Orosmasdes, the Persian Ahura-Mazda. Apollo is also Mithra, and has Hermes and Helios attributes, and Heracles is depicted as Ares, the Greek god of Warfare,  and Artagnes, his Armenian counterpart.

The West Terrace

When the sun rises over the ragged edge of the lower mountains at the horizon, its light flows to the statues from below, with all the clearness of pure air. The Gods' heads seems to come to life, with the background of the very strange mountain top.

Walking around that tumulus shaped top to the West Terrace, we meet other heads of the same Gods, also beheaded by earthquakes. Here the limestone of the sculptures is of much better quality: the West Terrace shrine was reserved to aristocrats, and probably to initiated ones. Anthiocus, conscious of its achievement, left detailed instructions carved in rock to be buried here, in the place where everybody had to feel happy, among his Gods, his peers. That explains the unusual shape of the mountain top: it is not only shaped like a tumulus, it is a real one, obtained breaking the rock of the whole peak into fragments. It hides forever the grave of the king who dreamed of all this, and made it true.

The tunnel at Arsameia

Not far from the mountain, other remains from the kingdom of Commagene tell the rest of the story.

At Arsameia, his capital, Anthiocus dedicated a monument to his late father, Mithridates I, depicting him shaking hand with Heracles: just below the bas-relief, a ponderous inscription in Greek alphabet frames the entrance to a mysterious tunnel. It is said that it leads down to the basis of the rock, but after less than 100 meters, we had to turn back, defeated by hanging rocks and sudden holes in the ground.

The kingdom of Commagene did not last long after the death of king Anthiocus. Less than a century later, it was annexed to the Roman Empire for good, and the shrine on top of the mountain fell into neglect. Romans had no attitude for dreaming of  temples among the clouds: the remarkable remain of their domination is a solid stone bridge, still in use, dedicated to Emperor Septimius Severus by the Legio XVI Flavia Firma, sent here to confront the Parthians.

The bridge of Septimius Severus

The time for syncretism and mixed heritage was over, the place was a border again. And later, zealous Byzantine or Islamic iconoclasts took the trouble to deface all the statues, a hard job at this altitude.

Only in 1881 the shrine was rediscovered, to be excavated in 1953 by an American team of archeologists lead by Theresa Goell. Then, in 1987, UNESCO included the mountain among the World Heritage sites: people from at least fifteen countries were there when the sun lighted the East terrace that morning.

Maybe the time to enjoy common heritage has come again.

King Anthiocus, that declared he built the site for ages and generations after him, and wanted only happy people on his mountain, would be pleased.

The First Step

The gate of Turkey has to be Istanbul, but after entered the country, what to look for to begin the visit?

History, of course. And Archaeology, the footprint of history.

But the Land of the Turks is so rich of both, its History goes so far behind that it is hard to choose a landmark worth the beginning of an exploration, even only a photographic, no-pretense one.

When Hector and Achilles duelled in Çanakkale plains, ruined cities layed already under thousands years old dust. And less than one century ago, the Ottoman version of the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Mehmet II Fatih, was still a Great Power.

So, even for archaeological remains, Turkey is a melting pot. The very definition of "East" and "West" are confused, and the boundary between them has never been a thin line.

But far to the East, where Anatolia fades into Middle East, and Asia is no longer "minor", there is a place where they melted for a long time, and where their clashes produced a remarkable civilization.

Even that distant realm's name is now forgotten by most, but monumental remains are still there, to remind travellers venturing that far, the name and the power of the kings of Commagene.

Commagene was the result of empires disgregations and confrontations. Its kings were descendants of both Darius and Alexander, its culture the best of Greek and Persian heritage. And its immense richness, coveted by Romans, were owed to its position, where the Silk Road crossed the valleys that commanded Mesopotamia, the heart of Persian Empire and then of Alexander's conquests.

It sounds like the perfect blend of Turkey's oddities, and it also produced unique relics.

Nemrut Dağı, the mount Nemrut, is such a peculiar place that even among the countless Turkish archaeological sites, it stands like one of its kind.

A good beginning, for a photographic exploration. But to explore a place, it must first be reached...

The crescent, the star and the blood

A common view in Turkey, that invariably strikes the new visitor, is the large amount of national flags, of every size and in every occasion, waving on poles, flagstaffs, houses, official buildings and even from car or shop windows.
It is easy to understand that it is a symbol of National pride and unity, but it should be noted the many reasons of disagreement and divide that Turks do have on almost every issue, to appreciate how important a symbol can be for the country.
The flag has controversial, yet undisputably ancient origins.
Whatever are its origins, they are deeply rooted in Turkey' history: the crescent was the symbol of Byzantium, from the lunar goddess Artemis, and then it became the mark of Constantinople. In ancient Persia, source of most of the islamic Ottoman culture, crescents were used extensively in symbolism, and in the Altai region, from which the turkic tribes came to Anatolia, crescent and star were magic symbols. Red was a sacred color for the turkic nomads, and also the color of Roman Empire, the official name of the byzantine state.
The modern flag seems to merge all of these traditions.
A legendary tale claims its origin to the battle of Manzikert, the turning-point of the long struggle between the declining Byzantine empire and the raising turkic sultanate. The seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, wandering on the battlefield after the costly victory, saw the crescent moon and a star reflected in a pool of blood, as a projection of the future greatness achieved through the slaughter. It's telltale that an apocryphal legend sets the story in Atatürk's time, at a battle of the war of Independence: any achievement costs blood and sacrifice, and must be preserved for the future. Whatever their religious way, political opinion or football team is, any individual Turk will agree on this principle, and show his flag to remark it.
A remarkable way, indeed.

Byzantium, Nova Roma, Constantinople: Istanbul

Istanbul is Turkeys' smaller version of herself.
Turkey has historically been a crossroad of Civilizations, and Istanbul is where all the crossroads meet and overlap onto each other, entangling inextricably into a maze.
Every traveller can find amusement here. For thousands of years people have lived in this city, leaving layer after layer of relics and landmarks. In a short walk, one can see roman columns, byzantine churches, ottoman public wells and art nouveau buildings. And all of them seem to have been absorbed and reused by the successor civilization, modelling itself on the predecessors.

Istanbul is the real melting pot of Turkey. Well after the traumatic events of the War of Independence (1919 - 1923), different populations lived side by side their own way. But even after the loss (because such it was for the city) of most of her Greek citizens, Istanbul attracts so many foreign residents that cosmopolitanism is still a very evident feature.
As in a true sea town, as Byzantium, and then the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Constantinoples were, the traveller feels at home in Istanbul. Maybe for it reminds of everyone's home, or because it looks like something so totally different to give a constant feeling of renewal, in spite of its own antiquity.
From Alexander the Great to the Oriént Express, a stop by the Bosphorus has been in every travel story.

If Turkey is a stream of emotions, Istanbul is its source. And as such, the natural entry gate to the Country.

Türkiye: the "Land of the Strong Ones"

The etymology of the name of Turkey is telltale: "Türk" means "strong" in the old turkic languages, and indeed a striking characteristic of Turks has always been their sturdiness, intended as moral strength, and not only physical power. A glimpse into a history book is enough to understand how many times this land and her inhabitants have been subjected to hard tests.
And though, no matter where those people came from, they seem to have been shaped up by the harsh nature of this land. Hatti, Hittite, Phrygians, Greeks, Lydians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans, all of them had to deal with an indomitable land, source of endless contrasts.
A land of beautiful landscapes and dark caves, sunny beaches near snowy mountains, the most fertile earth shaked by merciless eartquakes, ragged mountains enclosing flat plains, large lakes and dry desert valleys, all are peculiar to a land which was the inspiration for the oldest cult of the mother goddess, later called Kybele. The Greeks called this land "Μικρά Ασία", that we translate as "Asia Minor", but could be read as "Little Asia", a smaller version of the largest continent.
A land so fickle, gorgeous and harsh that seems to enclose a feminine soul. Whoever has settled here, had to be "the strong one". Strong enough to live in such a land. Strong enough to deserve her. Strong enough to love her.