habitat rupestre.pdf - Società Friulana di Archeologia

RUPESTRIAN CULTURES OF TURKEYCRHIMA-CINP projectrupestrian culture not only of Turkey, but of the whole Mediterraneanbasin. Our contribution will focus on this and wewill suggest some reflections on the analysis and classificationof the fragile heritage that characterizes it.CappadociaCappadocia is an historical region in Central Anatolia (Figs.1b-2), with a medium height between 1.000 and 1.500 m on sealevel. The area is made-up mainly by rocks of volcanic origin,that covered an area of about 25.000 km2, produced by 19great volcanic apparatus, among which the Erciyes dağı, 3.916m, and the Hasan dağı, 3.268 m, and by hundreds of smallermonogenic volcanic centres (Fig. 1a). They originated a powerfuldeposit, few hundred meters thick, from which, in fewcircumscribed points, the limestone bedrock emerges.The most relevant feature of the district is given by the extendedtufaceous deposits that, thanks to their softness, havebeen deeply modelled by meteorological agents (erosion,deflation, corrosion, cryogenic action) in very characteristicshapes (canyons, cliffs, calanques, pinnacles and buttes, i.e.low hill with flat top).Inside these rocks man has dug, during the centuries, roomsof several types, developing a ‘negative architecture’ (undergrounddwellings, working spaces, churches, burials, shelters,hydraulic tunnels), exploiting the lithological and morphologicalcharacteristics of the environment, pressed by climaticconditions or historical events.Since the 1990s’ years the Centro Studi Sotterranei (Centrefor Underground Studies), located in Genoa (Italy), has beenperforming research’s campaigns in the region, riddled withunderground and rocky structures of extreme interest, at thatmoment largely unknown to the public and only partiallystudied by scholars.The underground sites that have been identified and exploredin large part are 183. We divided them in six districts, namedafter their main towns (Figs. 3-14): Aksaray (59 sites), Kayseri(24 sites), Kırşehir (3 sites), Nevşheir (71 sites), Niğde (22sites), Yozgat (4 sites). Other 24 sites have been reported butnot localized. The total is 207 sites.The aim of the researchers of Centro Studi Sotterranei wasto locate, explore and document a substantial sample of thesestructures, in order to achieve an overview of their main characteristics.The main result of the investigations is a typological classificationof the structures, together with an urbanistic analysis ofsome selected underground settlements, integrated by a largephotographic and topographic documentation.We considered appropriate to distinguish two categories of artificialcavities: rocky structures and underground structures.The former ones are made up by rooms dug in the portionof rock close to the exterior and above ground level, and arefound on the walls of canyons, buttes, pinnacles (rocky cones).The latter ones penetrate deeply into the rock, either directlyunder the ground level, or into a butte or a hillside.Fig. 1b The historical region of Cappadocia at the time of Strabo (60 B.C. - 20 A.D.) (drawing R. Bixio)volumeRicerca_OK_2012-11-15.indd 192 16/11/2012 15:03:18