habitat rupestre.pdf - Società Friulana di Archeologia

A. De Pascale, R. Bixio, V. Caloientrances to the underground are located, generally hidden insidemasonry buildings.From here one goes down to the second belt, through descendingcorridors, defended by millstone-door, where we foundmany rooms excavated in sequence, that may be considered asthe ‘residential area’.From this area other tunnels start, steep and narrow, with a lotof sudden changes in direction just before operating rooms formillstone-doors that defend the rooms in the deepest belt: thezone for the last shelter (redoubt) in case of raids. Other adjoiningsystems appear built in a similar way, and connected eachother through tunnels, now occluded or partially destroyed.Figure 19 shows, in short, the likely excavation phases of theunderground city of Derinkuyu. Phase 1: excavation of independentvertical shafts. Phase 2: radial excavation of roomsand tunnels, on underlying levels. Phase 3: connection of differentsystems. An organization of this type allows to moveeasily from one point to the other, in case of conquest of asection by the enemy, as well as to counter-attack through alternativepassages.Hydric systemsThe investigations in the territory of Cappadocia have revealedthe presence of other ancient structures excavated under theground that testify, as much as the underground settlements,the intelligence and the determination of the population in theexploitation of all the opportunities offered by the natural environment.Along the valleys a large number of entrances to tunnelshave been observed, some of which are by now developed inwrecks (Fig. 20), but that mostly are still in use, whose originis unknown to local people themselves.The morphology of the tunnels appear very similar to that ofthe well known ancient hydric tunnels, so common in the volcanicterritory in Central Italy (Castellani, 1999).Surveys has been performed, in particular, in the valleys ofMeskendir and Kılıçlar. The first part of each valley consistsof a deep canyon, dug by the running waters. However, advancingin the valley, the bottom does not show any sign ofa stream bed. Terraces, mostly cultivated with fruit trees andvegetables, cover instead the bed almost entirely.The system to obtain this result is composed by three elements:main collector, draining cunicola and tapping cunicola.Sometimes the hydric systems are integrated with collectingbasins, in surface or underground. The whole complex systemgives an idea of the quality and the dimension of the impressivework performed by the population to rescue the valleysfor agricultural purposes (Castellani, 2002c).Thanks to some very impressive evidences of deepening ofthe original section of the tunnels, from 180 cm of height upto 4 metres, we note that erosion must have been working fora very long time, suggesting quite an old age for the system,perhaps Byzantine, perhaps older.As a concluding remark, we notice that the incentive for sucha complex and hard work of water regulation likely came fromthe harsh winter climate and scarcity of water in surface. Thedeep valleys, protected from the winds and supplied of waterthrough the tapping tunnels, allowed a flourishing agriculture,otherwise impossible if they had not been freed from riverwater, probably since a very long time.Fig. 10 Nevşehir district: map D (drawing R. Bixio)Fig. 11 Nevşehir district: map E (drawing R. Bixio)197volumeRicerca_OK_2012-11-15.indd 197 16/11/2012 15:03:21