Cappadocia

The Cappadocia region in east-central Turkey, north of the Taurus Mountains, is well known for its pinnacles of eroded volcanic ash (known as ‘fairy chimneys’), and for its churches and underground cities, carved in the soft rock. It has been inhabited by the Hittites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines, and is now a popular tourist attraction.

Ancient region of Asia Minor, in eastern central Turkey. It was conquered by the Persians in 584 BC but in the 3rd century BC became an independent kingdom. The region was annexed as a province of the Roman empire in AD 17.

The area includes over 600 Byzantine cave churches cut into volcanic rock, dating mainly from the 10th and 11th centuries.

Under the Persian (Achaemenid) empire it included the whole region east of the Halys River and north of the Taurus range. At some date before 401 BC, this territory was divided to form Pontus and Cappadocia. Cappadocia became independent of Persia when Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, overthrew the Achaemenids. It was then governed by a line of native princes, with some interference from Pontus, until Mark Antony gave the kingdom to Archelaus, son of the high priest of Comana. Archelaus was deposed AD 17, and the emperor Tiberius made Cappadocia a Roman province to which Vespasian added Armenia Minor in 70. Cappadocia was an important centre of the slave-trade: it was also famous for its horses, its great flocks of sheep, and its mines of silver, salt, and quartz.