here is perhaps no site more arresting for the traveler in the Middle East than the strange rockscape of Cappadocia in central Turkey.

The region once contained the active volcanoes of Erciyes, the former mount Argeus, and Hasan Dagi. Various eruptions from these two volcanos covered the surrounding region with tuff, a thick layer of mud and ashes. Lava spread over the tuff and wind erosion in the area has created the formations we now call the "fairy chimneys". Various geological changes such as the sinking of high plains have created valleys, like the Ihlara valley; such as Göreme and Soganli through which rivers flowed provided human beings with many places of refuge over the centuries. People created shelter for themselves by hollowing out the soft tuff, even creating cities underground. Perhaps the large number of rock awellings in this area was due to the lack of trees.

The vast region once known as Cappadocia extends from the Taurus mountains in the south to Galatia in the north. Now we call the area within the triangle formed by Kayseri, Nevsehir and Nigde the "land of the fairy chimneys". The region has been the home of various peoples from the Stone Age onwards. During the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze age there are signs of habitation, as later during the Hitite, Phrygian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods and especially during the Byzantine period.

The local people of the area have always preferred to live in rocky Cappadocia. On the hills, in the eroded valleys and on the banks of deep ravines, they built their houses. Some preferred to use stone. Some hewed out the living rock and lived in it. The second method had always been more popular than building houses.

They were mainly engaged in agriculture. Viniculture and livestock breeding were among the major occupations. The land and pastures belonged to the large landowners who lived in the cities.

The early Christians first fled from the persecution of the Romans, then from the raids of the Arabs who captured all the area south of the Taurus range in the 7th century. Those who fled to rocky Cappadocia created a museum of monasteries, hermitages and monastic dwellings of all kinds. They hewed the hillside into actual churches and decorated them with frescoes.

After the Selçuks defeat of the Byzantines in 1071, the Selçuk took over Anatolia, but left the inhabitants of Cappadocia free to practice, there must have been more than a thousand religious establishments in Cappadocia. Relations between the Christian communities of Cappadocia and the Moslem Selçuk Turks were very friendly.To this day in some churches, there are inscriptions referring to the ruling Selçuk Sultan of the period.

The Selçuks built roads and Kervansarays to meet the requirements of their economic system. The route part of it known as Silk road. When the Selçuk Empire was defeated in the middle of the 13th century by the Mongol invaders, small Turkish principalities were established, and Cappadocia fell to the share of the strongest of these; the Karaman with their capital Konya. In the 14th century the area was incorporated into the great Ottoman Empire.

The last of the Christian Greek population of Cappadocia left the area in the 1920s after an exchange of population minorities between Turkey and Greece. The area become the most popular sightseeing spot in Turkey.