Courtyard complexes formed entirely out of the volcanic rock mass in Cappadocia, in Central Anatolia, differ from the other rock-cut structures in the region, in both scale and elaboration of design. There are more than ...

Paul Lucas, who visited Cappadocia in the early eighteenth century, claimed that the “strange carved spaces in the volcanic cones were the hermitages of Byzantine monks” (1) (2), which was echoed by the early European ...