Cappadocia caves - Turkey and the camel

In the photograph of the camel, you can see the holes, or doorways, in the background mountains in the city of Cappadocia. It is believed there are hundreds of undiscovered cave-homes dating back to the Bronze Age. Some are still occupied today.  Once inside the caves, we discovered they had been hand carved up to eight floors deep. The first floor is where they kept their animals. There were rooms for sleeping, storing food and wine, cooking and eating. They built community rooms and churches. The churches are elaborately decorated with painted Bible stories of early Christianity. The paintings are believed to be over 1,000 years old. Up to 20,000 people live d and hid from Roman enemies in the caves. They even had a necropolis, where the bones of the deceased were kept in large clay pots.

 

In this photo, we are sitting at one of the carved benches and table in an eating room. This room had 3 carved structures, seating up to 40 people.