magic names

I've always saved Rome and Vatican City in the back of my head as places I would surely visit one day— after all, the Eternal City would always be there. Summers were meant for grand adventures like Nepal or driving through Anatolia, but this one would be a low-key affair spent close to home in order for us to complete various projects. At some point however, boredom had me looking for flights that flew out of the nearby Rabat-Salé Airport in August— there aren't that many, but there was a flight to Rome.

Rome. Vatican City. Caravaggio, Bernini, Michelangelo. The Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Tiber. Magic names that filled my heart— there were works of art I had longed to see since I first discovered my mother's art books. I remember studying every panel on every page about the Sistine Chapel— the curve of the Delphic Sibyl's upper lip I practiced in pencil until it was right. I wanted to see how Pluto's fingers pressed into Persephone's thigh, the way the light bounced through the leaves that grew from Daphne's hand. I wanted to know just how dark Caravaggio's shadows really were. I wanted to stand beneath the oculus of the Pantheon.



What on earth had I been waiting for?

peeking through the keyhole

the rose valley

Even though at times it felt like we were hiking on another planet without a soul in sight, it was inevitable that we would run into someone selling çay— after all, even the volcanoes in Turkey have a çaycı. This man had something even better: fresh pressed pomegranate juice, and a cave church.



The Haçlı Kilise is home to some fine 9th Century frescoes and a large cross carved into its stone ceiling. Unfortunately, like many of the early Christian frescoes across Turkey, the faces within reach have been scratched out, though you can still make out some sideways glances and stern expressions.



Actually, this was one of the better preserved churches outside of the Göreme Open Air Museum, and the artists' choice to use a malachite green for parts of the background made it quite special.



On our loop back to where we left our car, an unassuming pointed rock with a rickety wooden foot bridge promised something interesting inside. There was a green mashallah in Arabic script with simple botanical patterns decorating the pigeons' entrances to the cave.



Carved straight out of the rock itself, the Kolonlu Kilise is truly impressive. That high vaulted ceiling supported by all those columns... I am still at a loss for words.



Here I felt I had been swallowed by a whale, its ribs expanding and contracting above my head:

secrets hidden in caves

The Göreme Open Air Museum has some of the loveliest cave churches in Cappadocia; two of the most famous being the Elmalı Kilise, or Apple Church (pictured above), and the Karanlık Kilise, the Dark Church (below). The vivid frescoes of the Apple Church date back to the 11th and 12th Centuries, and the intense, highly detailed scenes depicted in the Dark Church were painted during the end of the 12th Century. Imagine a small gathering of people in these spaces, worshiping under the stern gazes of saints illuminated by candlelight— imagine the artists and the architects carving arches and columns out of stone, painting in the little light that a cave allows.



Waves of tourists from all corners of the globe look up at those same saints, now bathed in electric light.

the serpent church

the missing faces of saints

The Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia is riddled with caves, many of which were constructed into early churches. This particular beauty, the Ağaçaltı Church, has biblical frescoes that date back to the 9th–11th centuries CE.



As is typical of any early Christian structure in Turkey, there is an unbelievable amount of vandalism and graffiti, with many of the faces of saints scratched out. Much of the graffiti dates back over decades and sometimes even centuries, but some of it is as recent as the week before last. Having always been told that Muslims ran rampant across the land, chipping off faces and eyes in disagreement with the depiction of the human form in art, I am confused by the amount of Greek, Armenian, and Georgian text etched into the painted surfaces. There is everything from names to entire paragraphs in these languages, and I have to wonder what the intentions were behind all of this destructive expression...  

It's all a shame really; it doesn't matter what religion these frescoes depict, they are part of our human history. I do hate to see the beautiful faces destroyed, and I wonder what kind of tacky individual needs to profess their love for a girl by carving her name in a heart on a 9th Century fresco. Was she impressed?

basilica

a last look at ani