We joined an all-day sightseeing tour, led by a mild-mannered guide named Jihad. We needed to cover a lot of ground, including the Selime monastery carved into the side of a cliff, a hike through the lovely Ihlara valley gorge, and a trip to Cappadocia largest underground city at Derinkuyu.
These underground cities would hide a couple thousand Christians for months at a time when unfriendly invaders came through town. They hid their air shafts, diffused their chimney smoke, and choked their entrances with livestock to disguise their cities as simple animal barns. If all else failed, they forced their enemies to come down hunched over in narrow tunnels, where they could take them out one at a time.
I’m hanging here in the main gathering hall, over 50 meters underground. Historians aren’t sure if this wall held a cruxifiction scene, or if they used it for actual torture of captured enemies. I couldn’t feel the answer myself.
