The Survival of Byzantine Sacred Art from Cappadocia in the 21st Century

Located in Central Anatolia, the historical region of Cappadocia (approximately 91,000 square kilometres ) in antiquity included parts of the current provinces of Kayseri, Kırşehir, Aksaray, Niğde and Nevşehir in Turkey. The earliest mentions of Cappadocia date back to the end of the 6th century BC, when the region was inhabited by the Hittites, Phrygians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, and Ottoman Turks. In this region, inscribed on the UNESCO heritage list, around 1,000 Christian churches were built, starting in the 1st millennium AD, with many dating from the 4th-5th centuries. Based on ancient and medieval sources, as well as an extensive specialised bibliography, 65 Christian rock-hewn churches from the Byzantine period of the region are described and analysed for the first time in Romanian historiography.