 |
NEVSEHIR
The
road to Nevsehir and Cappadocia passes through
Hacibektas, the town where Haci Bektas Veli settled
and established his Bektas Sufi order in the 14th
century. The dervishes who followed the sect's tenets
of love and humanism were housed in the monastery
which includes a mausoleum and mosque. The complex is
now a museum open to the public.
Onyx,
plentiful in the region, was used by the disciples of
this order and has come to be called Hacibektas stone.
In town there are many onyx souvenirs for sale. It is
worth stopping to wander through the interesting
Archaeological and Ethnographical Museum. Nevsehir, a
provincial capital, is the gateway to Cappadocia. In
the town itself the hilltop Seljuk castle, perched on
the highest point in the city, and the Kursunlu
Mosque, built for the Grand Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha,
are among the remaining historical buildings. The
mosque forms part of a complex of buildings which
includes a medrese, a hospice and a library. An
ablution fountain in the courtyard still bears its
original inscription. The Nevsehir Museum displays
local artifacts. Violent eruptions of the volcanoes Mt.
Erciyes (391 6 meters) and Mt. Hasan (3268 meters)
three million years ago covered the plateau
surrounding Nevsehir with tufa, a soft stone comprised
of lava, ash and mud. The wind and rain have eroded
this brittle rock and created a spectacular surrealist
landscape of rock cones, capped pinnacles and fretted
|
