According to Leo the Deacon, a tenth-century Byzantine historian, the inhabitants of the Anatolian province of Cappadocia were troglodytes: “They went underground in holes, clefts, and labyrinths,” he reported. This remote, mysterious people lived “in dens and burrows.” The surviving ancient architecture of Cappadocia—a region in central Turkey about 60 miles long and 60 miles wide—is indeed almost exclusively rock-cut, with elaborate cavelike dwellings carved into a fantastic volcanic wonderland. In 1712 French surveyor Paul Lucas traveled through 024Cappadocia, where he saw sculpted busts of hooded monks, along with depictions of the Virgin and Child, adorning some of […]