The Monastery of Eski Gümüş—a Preliminary Report

Gümüş—“Silver” in Turkish—is the name of a small town of something over 2,000 inhabitants about 7 kilometres north-east of Niğde, capital city of the Turkish vilayet of the same name, and not far to the south of an earth road which branches from the main Niğde–Kayseri highway. Another 3 kilometres towards Kayseri is the modern hamlet of Andaval, the ancient Andabilis, where the so-called Church of Constantine is a familiar sight to travellers on the Orient Express as the train makes for Niğde, Ulukışla and the Cilician Gates. Andabilis existed as early as the principate of Hadrian, and thus was on the main route from Caesarea Mazaca (Kayseri) to Tyana (Kemerhisar). Gümüş, whatever may have been its ancient name, was then at no great distance from an arterial road linking Constantinople with the Orient by way of the great Taurus pass. The modern town, its economy almost entirely based on extensive apple orchards, now consists of two closely linked villages, divided by a shallow stream with steep banks, and the monastery is in Eski Gümüş—Old Silver—where an outcrop of volcanic tufa, honeycombed with caves, natural and artificial, rises to a height of between 12 and 25 metres

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Capital (architecture · Cave · Geography · HAMLET (protein complex · Tufa · Turkish · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Byzantine Studies and History · History

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