Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:31:04.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Monastery of Eski Gümüş—a Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Michael Gough
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 14 , December 1964 , pp. 147 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Grégoire, H., “Rapport sur un voyage d'exploration dans le Pont et la Cappadoce,” BCH., Vol. XXXIII, 1909, pp. 132–4Google Scholar.

2 Arık, Remzi Oğuz, TT. IV (1940)Google Scholar.

3 Nicole, and Thierry, Michel, Nouvelles Églises Rupestres de Cappadoce, Paris, 1963, Pls. 17Google Scholar, a and b, 20 a.

4 Grégoire, op. cit., fig. 22.

5 Kitzinger, E., Early Mediaeval Art, London, 1955, pp. 8–9, Pl. 4Google Scholar.

6 Although the orthography is peculiar, the names of the three shepherds are clearly derived from the first three of the five words of the famous magic square. By the addition of an N to Arepo and of OP to Tenet, the names have been nicely Hellenized. All five words are used to name shepherds at Pürenliseki kilisesi and at Kokar Kilise, both in the Peristrema valley (see Thierry, op. cit., pp. 120–2 and 145; also p. 122, n. 17).

7 Luke, II, 35.

8 Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 9.

9 See Lafontaine-Desogne, J., “Nouvelles notes cappadociennes,” Byzantion XXXIII (1963), Planche XXIIIGoogle Scholar; also Thierry, op. cit., Fig. 51.

10 See Grabar, André, Byzantine Painting, Skira, Switzerland, 1953, p. 129Google Scholar.

11 ibid., p. 115.

12 Rice, D. Talbot, Art of the Byzantine Era, p. 151, Pl. 140Google Scholar.