Niğde Gümüşler Monastery and Underground City

Gümüşler Monastery and Underground City, located in Gümüşler Town, 8 km from Niğde, is one of the most beautiful and preserved works of Byzantine art. The ruins, which were accepted as an archaeological site in 1973; it was engraved in a rather large and wide rock mass. The length of the eastern and south-facing face of the rock mass is about 1.5 km. The front facade, which is completely rock, was used as a settlement center.

The monastery was carved from the main rock between the 8th and 12th centuries. It consists of a middle courtyard and outbuildings such as the church, underground spaces, etc. connected to this courtyard. The height of the steep walls of the courtyard is up to 14 meters. The large room to the north and the base of the central courtyard were used as cemeteries. There is a two-story underground city on the south side of the courtyard and a church on the west. Inside the church with a closed Greek cross plan, four columns formed from the bedrock were plastered and decorated with rosette motifs. It is thought that at least three different masters worked on the wall paintings of the church. At the top of the three stripes in the main apse, there is the Deesis scene and the symbols of the Bible writers, and on the bottom strip, there are pictures of church fathers such as Basil the Great from Kayseri, Gregorios from Nyssa (Nevşehir), Gregorios from Naziyanz (Bekarlar-Aksaray). The scenes of the Annunciation to Mary, the birth of Jesus and the Presentation to the Temple, and the figures of John the Baptist and St. Stephanos on the northern arm of the cross must have been created by a second artist. The figures of Mary and child Jesus on the south of the entrance door from the inner narthex to the naos and the archangels Gabriel and Mikael on both sides belong to the third artist. On the walls of a room above the narthex, a composition consisting of hunting scenes and various animals, which cannot be seen in Cappadocia, draws attention. According to the iconographic and stylistic features of the paintings in the church, it is possible to date them to the 11th and 12th centuries.