A Companion to Mediterranean History

(Rick Simeone) #1

224 valerie ramseyer


Cappadocia contains a variety of cut-rock structures. Some were carved horizon-
tally into the walls of valleys, as in southern Italy and Sicily. Others were sculpted out
of rock or excavated in the volcanic deposits shaped like towers or cones—the
so-called fairy chimneys. Multilevel underground structures were created in the area
as well, and in some cases constructed buildings were built on top of hypogea (Bixio,
Castellani, and Succhiarelli, 2002: 33–34, 172–75; Kalas, 2000: 126). At some sites,
such as the settlement of Çanli Kilise, masonry buildings may have been as prevalent
as rock-cut structures in the Middle Ages, but have not survived as well because they
have either fallen down, or their materials have been taken away for reuse by the local
population (Ousterhout, 2005: 171). Thus the medieval population of Cappadocia
combined the techniques of cut-rock and masonry architecture.
Some of the most impressive examples of medieval cut-rock architecture were the
courtyard manor houses of the local military elite in Cappadocia. Designed for
comfort, they included stables, granaries, and storage rooms as well as kitchens, baths,
ceremonial halls, chapels, and dovecotes. Outside the houses were placed lavishly-
detailed portico façades meant to announce the high social status of the inhabitants.
Other decorative features included arcades, arches, vaults, cornices, niches, molding, and
paint. The manors also incorporated masonry work for terracing walls, fortresses,
and churches. These cut-rock manors demonstrate well the comfort, sophistication, and
practicality of medieval cut-rock architecture in Cappadocia. Moreover, an examination
of an unfinished manor house shows that the workers who built the residences did not
cut out rooms randomly, but had a plan in mind before they began their work, in the
same manner as masonry builders (Kalas, 2000: 80–128; Ousterhout, 2005: 91–92,
141–154).
Tunisia and Libya also have a long history of cut-rock architecture, in particular on
the mountain range called the jbel, which extends from Matmatah in Tunisia to Tripoli
in Libya. Underground courtyard-style houses still exist today in a few regions, and
horizontally-excavated houses were built in the jbel nefussa in the Middle Ages, prob-
ably starting in the eleventh century. The troglodyte village of Douiret, whose origin
has been placed between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, included five levels of
residences, a citadel built for refuge, and communal structures such as oil presses, a
granary, a cemetery, and two mosques. Canals collected and transported water into
cisterns and protected the residences from heavy rainfall. Satellite villages were also
built at some point (Besana and Mainetti, 2000: 6–8, 21–34, 59–70). Jewish troglo-
dyte villages in Libya from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries contained multiple
residences radiating out from a central courtyard, along with kitchens, storerooms,
workshops, and stables. It is unclear when Jewish communities began building trog-
lodyte residences in this region (Goldberg, 1972: 35).
The island of Malta also has a long history of troglodyte living, dating at least
back into the Middle Ages. The Maltese language even has separate words for
natural versus artificial caves. On northern Malta, a number of cave settlements
with residences were carved along the face of mountains sometime in the Middle
Ages. A large cave settlement at Ghar il-Kbir also dating to the Middle Ages con-
tained courtyard-style houses similar to those in Tunisia. On Malta the practice
developed of building walls inside the cave dwellings to create distinct spaces.
Separate rooms were created for storage and for animals as well (Messina, 1989:
110–114; Buhagiar, 1986: 42–43).

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