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The Use of Underground Settlements Aude Aylin De Tapia Negotiating Above and Underground Sacredness in Nineteenth-Century Cappadocia: The Use of Underground Settlements Aude Aylin de Tapia To cite this version: Aude Aylin de Tapia. Negotiating Above and Underground Sacredness in Nineteenth-Century Cap- padocia: The Use of Underground Settlements. International Congress of Speleology in Artificial Cavities (HYPOGEA 2017), Mar 2017, Ürgüp, Turkey. pp.431-438. hal-01733354 HAL Id: hal-01733354 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01733354 Submitted on 14 Mar 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SPELEOLOGY IN ARTIFICIAL CAVES HYPOGEA2017 Cappadocia, Turkey, 6/10 March 2017 Proceedings of International Congress of Speleology in Artificial Caves HYPOGEA2017 Cappadocia, Turkey, 6/10 March 2017 Editors Mario Parise, Carla Galeazzi, Roberto Bixio, Ali Yamac Scientific Committee Kyung Sik Woo, George Veni, Fadi Nader, Mario Parise, Boaz Zissu, Anaïs L amesa, Roberto Bixio, Andrea De Pascale, Carla Galeazzi, Stefano Saj, Eric Gilli, Hakan Egilmez, Edwige Pons, Mario Mazzoli Organization Committee Ali Yamac, Carla Galeazzi, Mario Parise, Roberto Bixio, Eric Gilli, Ezgi Tok, Elena Alma Volpini, Murat Gulyaz, Hakan Egilmez Graphic Design Ali Yamac, Cagan Cankirili Photos Front Cover: Ali Ethem Keskin, Belagasi Underground City, Kayseri Back Cover: Cagan Cankirili, Mimar Sinan Underground City, Kayseri Patronages and Sponsors UIS, International Union of Speleology BSU, Balkan Speleological Union SSI, Societa Speleologica Italiana TMF, Turkish Federation of Speleology OBRUK Cave Research Group IRPI, Institute of Research for Hydrological Protection of the National Research Council Paris 8 University Istanbul Technical University – EURASIA Institute of Earth Sciences Municipality of Nevsehir Directorate of Nevsehir Museums ÇEKÜL, The Foundation for the Protection and Promotion of the Environment and Cultural Heritage Negotiating Above and Underground Sacredness in Nineteenth-century Cappadocia: The Use of Underground settlements Aude Aylin de TAPIA* * Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France) and Institut Français d'Etudes Anatoliennes (Turkey) [email protected] Abstract Today, the underground settlements of Cappadocia are regarded as places of mystery and therefore attract tourists in search of unusual experiences. Most of these places are closed these days, with only a few open to visitors who have become the main actors in these ancient places. However, although the underground settlements of Derinkuyu and are said to have been discovered in the 1960s, these and many others had been known to and were used by local villagers at least since the 19 th century. This presentation aims to elucidate the ways in which these villagers, mostly Orthodox Christians but also Muslims, made use of the underground settlements for profane purposes, for example as storage space for agricultural products, as permanent living spaces, or for refuge in times of war, but also as sacred places. Comparing the communal use of the underground settlements, we arrive at contradictory views of sacredness. In most cases, the underground settlements were not considered as “places of everyday sacrality,” since the modern church (or mosque) was usually not included in the underground space, but rather built above ground. Notwithstanding, old underground churches did exist and were sometimes used as “places of occasional sacrality,” namely as thaumaturgic places, often shared between Christians and Muslims. Only the villagers of Misti (today’s used their underground settlement as a permanent living space. But, paradoxically, their underground settlement was not a sacred space since the only building in Misti built above ground was the main church and, therefore, the main sacred place of the village. The villagers of Misti were known to inhabitants of the neighboring areas as particularly savage and backwards. Contrary to other Orthodox Christians of Cappadocia, they derived their livelihood from livestock farming and the preparation of keçe fabric, while other Rum communities had largely given up on agriculture and lived from trade. Through examples of several communities of Cappadocia, I will attempt to understand how different ways of life influenced the way underground settlements were used and especially the diverse ways in which local communities negotiated sacrality between the above and underground realms. Keywords Cappadocia, Underground settlements, Ottoman period, Nineteenth century 1. INTRODUCTION sacred place. By comparing several villages of Cappadocia Today, the underground settlements of Cappadocia are where underground settlements were already known by regarded as places of mystery and therefore attract tourists locals in the nineteenth century I will try to show how in search of unusual experiences. We know today around villagers used to negotiate sacredness and spirituality 150 underground or smaller undergrounds composed of a between the above and the undergrounds. few rooms, generally on one or two stories. For that purpose, I have based my analysis on descriptions Most of these places are closed these days, only a few are available in publications of the nineteenth and early opened to visitors who have become the main actors in twentieth centuries, mainly travelogues and in Greek and these ancient places. Although the underground settlements Karamanli books and articles about Cappadocia. But our of Derinkuyu and are said to have been main sources are actually testimonies today available in the discovered in the 1960s, these and many others were Center of Asia Minor Studies in Athens. already known to and used by local villagers in the 19 th These testimonies have been collected from the late 1930s century. My presentation will thus focus on these actors of to the beginning of the 1960s by collaborators of this center the 19 th century, on their use of undergrounds as profane or founded by a woman, Melpo Merlier, who aimed, with Figure 1: Main known underground settlements of Cappadocia (Source: Google Earth) quite precursory methods of oral history, to collect the large plain of Derinkuyu. We will thus focus on this information on the way of life of Greeks who lived in western part more in details and let the region of Kayseri Anatolia in 1920s. These oral archives contain all kinds of aside, except for the village of and its underground information about villages and villagers, about geography, settlements about which we have interesting data economy, cultural and religious aspects of everyday life. concerning sacrality of undergrounds. Particularly important for our purpose, descriptions of In the nineteenth-century, the population of Cappadocia sacred places, celebrations and rituals bring very interesting was, for a large majority, Muslim but an important minority details on local religiosity and interpretations of sacredness. of Greek-Orthodox was also present in towns and in Before getting in our specific issue of the use of villages. Very small communities of Armenians were undergrounds and especially on the sacredness issue, it is settled in the western part but, as we move toward the east, useful to have a general introduction on nineteenth-century from the region of Kayseri and Develi, the number and size Cappadocia and especially on the ethno-religious and of Armenian communities tend to increase while that of linguistic sharing of local population. Rums to decrease. Then, through examples of different village communities, I Many settlements of the region (Fig. 2) were actually will focus on the communal and individual use of mixed, inhabited by Orthodox Christians and Muslims. In a undergrounds, considered as profane or sacred places. town like the Rums were around 30% of the total 2. COMMUNITIES OF CAPPADOCIA population, and more than 20% in Until the 1923 exchange of population between Greece and By the way, in the early nineteenth century became Turkey that was decided during the conference of the official seat of the metropolitan of Ikonium because Lausanne, the region of Cappadocia was inhabited by a most Orthodox of the diocese actually lived in the pluri-religious, ethnic and linguistic populations. In this surroundings of presentation, I define Cappadocia as the region located approximately between the Kizilirmak in the north, the Linguistically speaking, the majority of the Orthodox Taurus in the south and east and the Tuz gölü in the west, communities of the region spoke Turkish are called centralized on 4 main centers which are Aksaray, Karamanli and used to write Turkish in the Greek alphabet, and Kayseri. The underground settlements were but there were also several communities speaking different more concentrated on the western part of Cappadocia, Greek dialects who, however, tended to be turkified in the especially in the regions of Aksaray and but also in course of the late nineteenth-century (Fig. 3). Figure 2: Population of main Towns and Villages of Cappadocia by Religious Affiliations (circa 1895) (A.A. de
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