page_title: Rock-cut architecture of Cappadocia
section_title: Castles and cliff cities
hierarchical_section_title: Rock-cut architecture of Cappadocia / Castles and cliff cities
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Burgberg von Ortahisar, Kappadokien, Zentraltürkei
context_page_description: Rock-cut architecture in Cappadocia in Central Turkey includes living and work spaces as well as sacred buildings like churches and monasteries, that were carved out of the soft tuff landscape.
  Mount Erciyes south of Kayseri, Mount Hasan southeast of Aksaray, Mount Melendiz in Niğde, and some smaller volcanoes covered the region of Cappadocia with a layer of tuff stone over the course of a twenty million year period ending in prehistoric times, after which erosion created the well-known rock formations of the region. The process is a special form of the rill erosion which affects much of Turkey, in which the solidity of the volcanic tuff and ignimbrite creates particularly deep and steep-sided streams, which create tower-like shapes were they meet at right angles. Since this soft stone is comparatively easy to work, people were probably carving it into dugouts by the early Bronze Age. In the course of time, this progressed to living complexes, monasteries, and whole underground cities. Since 1985, the 'rock sites of Cappadocia' have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
context_section_description: In contrast to the underground cities, are the so-called castles or castle-mountains, like Uçhisar or Ortahisar. These are 60-to-90-metre-high (200 to 300 ft) rock outcrops, which are also crisscrossed by a tangle of passageways and rooms. As a result of erosion and earthquake damage, parts of these are often now open to the air. The castles also served as refuges from danger and could be sealed with door-stones similar to those in the underground cities. They could accommodate around 1,000 people. The ground-level caverns have been partially integrated into the houses built in front of them and continue to be used as stables and storerooms to this day. 
  In addition, there are also a series of places, which consist of collections of residences and other rooms carved into cliff faces. The largest of these is Zelve and the best-known is Göreme, but whole cities of these cliff buildings can also be seen at Soğanlı valley, Gülşehir, and Güzelyurt. At these sites, underground cities are mixed with residential complexes, cloisters, work spaces of other sorts and churches in the steep cliffs.
  In these cases too, a large portion of the rooms are connected by a branched tunnel system. The entrances are usually open, since the main point was not really to be hidden, like the underground cities. Nevertheless, entry is sometimes made very difficult by the fact that the vertical cliff-faces had to be clambered up using simple hand and footholds. Inside the internal tunnel system, too, moving around is made difficult by steep, narrow passageways and vertical chimneys. In many of these places, dovecotes are carved in the high cliff walls, often with colourfully painted entrance holes. The colour would attract the birds, which then made their nests in them. These dovecotes were accessed once a year by difficult climbing manoeuvres and the birds' excrement was then collected for use as fertiliser. Pre-existing holes were also converted into dovecotes by cutting niches for nests and walling up entrances.
caption: Rock castle of Ortahisar
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