BILDER:
DAG 2
BILDER:
XXX
Ja, så er jeg her – I Cappadocia 
Reiste med buss fra Konya i går og ankom Nevsehir etter en tre timers reise. Bussholdeplassen befinner seg midt i ødeland, så jeg fikk en veldig hyggelig person, som viste seg å være en lazisk (georgisk) turistguide, til å hjelpe meg. På bussen inn til Nevsehir, bare 1-2 km unna, ga sjåføren meg et papir med navnet til et hostel, hvor jeg nå sitter. Hostellet ligger i den andre, langt mindre byen Ürgüp som ligger midt mellom de cappadociske dalene. Vi stoppet med andre ord i Nevsehir, som virker som en kjempespennende by som jeg har lyst til å utforske og reiste videre til Ürgüp, som det tok 20 minutter på å kjøre til med en annen buss. Min laziske turistguide skulle samme veien. Han hjalp med å finne hostellet, som viste seg å være riktig så hyggelig og trivellig og ikke minst billig. Etter å ha lagt fra meg sekken dro vi ned til sentrum av stydet her, spiste og plapret i vei om historie, lazere og armenere, som jo er en av mine yndlingstemaer.
I dag våknet jeg og ventet på en turistbuss, som min laziske turistguide hadde skaffet meg for en billig penge (nesten gratis for meg). Den kjørte oss (nærmere 10 stykker) til ulike utkikksposter hvor vi kunne se de fantastiske fjellformasjonene, hadde en tur ned i en undergrunnsby og gikk ned en 4 km lang dal. Herlig!
XXX
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province, in Turkey. The name was traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history and is still widely used as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage.
Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late Bronze Age, and was the homeland of the Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the fall of the Hittite Empire, with the decline of the Syro-Cappadocians (Mushki) after their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century, Cappadocia was ruled by a sort of feudal aristocracy, dwelling in strong castles and keeping the peasants in a servile condition, which later made them apt for foreign slavery.
The region was included in the third Persian satrapy in the division established by Darius, but continued to be governed by rulers of its own, none apparently supreme over the whole country and all more or less tributaries of the Great King.
The earliest record of the name of Cappadocia dates from the late 6th century BC, when it appears in the trilingual inscriptions of two early Achaemenid kings, Darius I and Xerxes, as one of the countries (Old Persian dahyu-) of the Persian Empire. In these lists of countries, the Old Persian name is Katpatuka, which is of uncertain origin.
In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia, to the east by the upper Euphrates and the Armenian Highland, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia.
Herodotus tells us that the name of the Cappadocians was applied to them by the Persians, while they were termed by the Greeks as “Syrians” or “White Syrians” Leucosyri. One of the Cappadocian tribes he mentions is the Moschoi, associated by Flavius Josephus with the biblical figure Meshech, son of Japheth.
The Leucosyri have also lived in Cappadocia amongst the Greeks, Persians, Armenians, Diauekhi, Taochi and other Anatolian tribes such as the Galatians. Like the Leucosyri of Pontus, the remaining Leucosyri assimilated into the Cappadocian Greek population.
It have never been clear of the background of the Leucosyri as history had mention them a few times. Whether they are a subgroup of the Syro Hittites or Iranians or some form of relation, it’s been believed by most scholars and people that the Leucosyri are of Iranian and Syro-Hittites origin with possible mixed Anatolian blood.
The religion have never been clear of what deities the Leucosyri worshipped. Leucosyri may have worshipped Iranian, Anatolian and to some extent Aramaic gods and goddesses throughout eastern Anatolia. It is then known that throughout the late Roman Empire they were introduced to Christianity. Like the rest of the Anatolian population, some were willing to convert but others were subjects to persecution due to their pagan faith.
The Mushki were an Iron Age people of Anatolia, known from Assyrian sources. They do not appear in Hittite records. Two different groups are called Muški in the Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to 9th centuries, located near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates (“Eastern Mushki”), and the other in the 8th to 7th centuries, located in Cappadocia and Cilicia (“Western Mushki”). Assyrian sources identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, while Greek sources clearly distinguish between Phrygians and Moschoi.
Identification of the Eastern with the Western Mushki is uncertain, but it is of course possible to assume a migration of at least part of the Eastern Mushki to Cilicia in the course of the 10th to 8th centuries, and this possibility has been repeatedly suggested, variously identifying the Mushki as speakers of a Georgian, Armenian or Anatolian idiom.
The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture notes that “the Armenians according to Diakonoff, are then an amalgam of the Hurrian (and Urartians), Luvians and the Proto-Armenian Mushki (or Armeno-Phrygians) who carried their IE language eastwards across Anatolia.”
Cappadocia is also mentioned in the biblical account given in the book of Acts 2:9. The Cappadocians were named as one group hearing the Gospel account from Galileans in their own language on the day of Pentecost shortly after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Acts 2:5 seems to suggest that the Cappadocians in this account were “God-fearing Jews”. See Acts of the Apostles.
Under the later kings of the Persian Empire, the Cappadocians were divided into two satrapies, or governments, with one comprising the central and inland portion, to which the name of Cappadocia continued to be applied by Greek geographers, while the other was called Pontus. This division had already come about before the time of Xenophon. As after the fall of the Persian government the two provinces continued to be separate, the distinction was perpetuated, and the name Cappadocia came to be restricted to the inland province (sometimes called Great Cappadocia).
The kingdom of Cappadocia was still in existence in the time of Strabo as a nominally independent state. Cilicia was the name given to the district in which Caesarea, the capital of the whole country, was situated. The only two cities of Cappadocia considered by Strabo to deserve that appellation were Caesarea (originally known as Mazaca) and Tyana, not far from the foot of the Taurus.
Cappadocia contains several underground cities (see Kaymaklı Underground City), largely used by early Christians as hiding places before Christianity became an accepted religion. The underground cities have vast defence networks of traps throughout their many levels. These traps are very creative, including such devices as large round stones to block doors and holes in the ceiling through which the defenders may drop spears. These defense systems were mainly used against the Romans. The tunnel system also was made to have thin corridors for the Roman fighting strategy was to move in groups which was not possible to do in the thin corridors making it easy to pick them off.
The Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century were integral to much of early Christian philosophy. It also produced, among other people, another Patriarch of Constantinople, John of Cappadocia, who held office 517—520. For most of the Byzantine era it remained relatively undisturbed by the conflicts in the area with the Sassanid Empire, but was a vital frontier zone later against the Muslim conquests. From the 7th century, Cappadocia was divided between the Anatolic and Armeniac themes. In the 9th–11th centuries, the region comprised the themes of Charsianon and Cappadocia.
Cappadocia shared an always-changing relationship with neighbouring Armenia, by that time a region of the Empire. The Arab historian Abu Al Faraj asserts the following about Armenian settlers in Sivas, during the 10th century: “Sivas, in Cappadocia, was dominated by the Armenians and their numbers became so many that they became vital members of the imperial armies. These Armenians were used as watch-posts in strong fortresses, taken from the Arabs. They distinguished themselves as experienced infantry soldiers in the imperial army and were constantly fighting with outstanding courage and success by the side of the Romans in other words Byzantine”.
As a result of the Byzantine military campaigns and the Seljuk invasion of Armenia, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia and eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia, and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia was eventually formed. This immigration was increased further after the decline of the local imperial power and the establishment of the Crusader States following the Fourth Crusade. To the crusaders, Cappadocia was “terra Hermeniorum,” the land of the Armenians, due to the large number of Armenians settled there.
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