~18 km north-northeast of Mesudiye · 5th–11th centuries
Rising abruptly from the Karaman Plain, Karadağ — an extinct volcano with the Mahalaç peak at 2,288 m — hosts one of Anatolia's most important early Christian archaeological complexes: Binbir Kilise, "The Thousand and One Churches", with 50+ ruins of churches, monasteries, and ancillary buildings that Ramsay dated to the 5th–11th centuries.
Karadağ ("Black Mountain") is an extinct stratovolcano at the southern end of the Central Anatolian volcanic region, built of andesite and dacite and covering roughly 600 km². Its highest point, Mahalaç (2,288 m), sits beside the Uluçukur caldera — 1.5-2 km in diameter and approximately 150 m deep. A past lava plug caused pressurised magma to erupt explosively; the strongest pyroclastic flows occurred on the mountain's northern slopes.
The name Binbir Kilise reflects the folk perception of the dense cluster of religious and ancillary structures across Karadağ's slopes and foothills. The site consists of three settlement areas:
The area is identified with the Lycaonian bishopric of Barata.
Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), the British writer, archaeologist, and political officer, toured Binbir Kilise in 1905. She and Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), the British archaeologist and biblical scholar, documented it together in 1907. Their findings were published as The Thousand and One Churches by Hodder & Stoughton in 1909 — still the foundational reference for the site.
Mesudiye village, founded in 1907 by Bulgarian-Turkish migrants on the Durayda land, lies about 20 km south-southwest of the archaeological site. The village predates organised excavation but post-dates the centuries during which Karadağ was a thriving Byzantine ecclesiastical centre. The settlement was unaware of its proximity to a major Christian archaeological complex when chosen for resettlement.
Karadağ lies in the northern part of the province of Karaman. It is an extinct stratovolcano at the southern end of the Central Anatolian volcanic region, built of andesite and dacite, and it is its broad base that spreads it over so wide an area.
The great eruption of the past also brought about the formation of the caldera. The lava domes that surround the caldera, and the old lava flows spread across the foothills of the mountain, form the visible traces of Karadağ's volcanic past.
The region is identified with Barata, an important episcopal centre belonging to the Lycaonia (Likonya) region of medieval Anatolia; Barata continues to be present in the episcopal records from the 4th century to the 12th century. Ramsay notes that he and Bell found no inscription to prove the identification.
Ramsay dated the churches on Karadağ to the 5th–11th centuries; the dating is still debated. In the 3rd to 8th centuries the region became a cultural and pilgrimage centre for Byzantine Christianity. Binbir Kilise, where the pilgrims travelling from Europe to Jerusalem halted along the way and which is remembered as one of the three most important centres of late antiquity, carries the densest traces of the rural Anatolian piety of the period.
The architecture of the buildings is also striking: because timber was scarce in the region, the master builders worked with large blocks of cut stone and raised domed basilicas in a style close to the Syriac Orthodox tradition. This idiom is an original Anatolian solution adapted to the volcanic stone of the region.
Basilica No. 1 at Madenşehri is the largest and most imposing structure of Binbir Kilise. Standing at the entrance of the village, this church is regarded as the symbolic monument of the region on account of the height of its surviving walls and the completeness of its plan. Recent excavations have also brought to light a pyramid-shaped monumental tomb of a kind not previously encountered in Central Anatolia; it is assessed that this structure belonged to a commander who lived in the region.
The academic history of Binbir Kilise begins at the start of the 20th century with two English names: Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939) and Gertrude Bell (1868–1926).
Ramsay, the archaeologist and New Testament scholar of Scottish origin known for his work on the geography of Anatolia and on early Christianity, had been travelling through and studying Karadağ and its surroundings for decades. Gertrude Bell, on her great journey of 1905 that reached Anatolia by way of the Syrian Desert, met Ramsay in Konya. That encounter became a decisive stopping point for the Byzantine archaeology of Anatolia.
The two researchers decided to work together in order to document the buildings on Karadağ systematically. The excavations they carried out at Binbir Kilise in 1907 revealed the plans of the churches, their architectural details and a photographic record. Bell's comprehensive photographic archive on its own carried into the future the image of many walls that have since disappeared.
The outcome of their work was the book The Thousand and One Churches (Binbir Kilise), published in 1909. The two middle parts of the book contained Bell's study of the chronology and architecture of Byzantine churches, while the first and last parts contained Ramsay's historical and geographical assessments. The work is still considered one of the most enduring reference sources on the post-Classical period of Anatolia.
The fact that Bell, on returning to the region years later, noted with regret that a significant part of the buildings she had documented had been plundered for building stone multiplies the value of this early documentation many times over.
Archaeologist — Sir William M. Ramsay, 1851–1939. Archaeologist and New Testament scholar of Scottish origin. He is regarded as the leading authority of his time on the ancient geography of Anatolia and on the history of early Christianity. He carried out decades of fieldwork in Karadağ and the Lycaonia region.
Archaeologist & writer — Gertrude Bell, 1868–1926. English archaeologist, writer and traveller. In 1905 she met Ramsay in Konya; two years later they excavated together on Karadağ. She is one of the first researchers to have established the chronology of Byzantine churches through a meticulous architectural reading.
"The Thousand and One Churches" has remained one of the most enduring works written on the post-Classical monuments of Anatolia, because many of the buildings on Karadağ have long since disappeared and Bell's photographs preserve a landscape that can no longer be seen on the ground today.
Looking at the local history of Mesudiye village, a remarkable historical coincidence with Karadağ comes to light. In the years 1906–1907, while the Karabağlar oymak (tribal clan) migrating from Bulgaria was being settled on the land known as "Durayda", in those same years, on the northern slopes of Karadağ, about 20 kilometres north-northeast of the village, William Ramsay and Gertrude Bell were conducting the 1907 excavation of Binbir Kilise.
In other words, the year in which the foundations of Mesudiye were laid is at the same time the year in which the first systematic records of Karadağ's Byzantine heritage were made. On that horizon which the eyes of the village's first muhacir (migrant) households fell upon stood the ruins of fifty churches not yet announced to the world. Even if this simultaneity is coincidental, it is meaningful in placing the village's story within the deep historical layers of Anatolia.
1907 — Two events, one geography
On the plain: The 94 muhacir households of the Karabağlar oymak settle on the Durayda land. At the end of 1907 the village is given the name "Mesudiye" (Tercüman-ı Hakikat, 15 December 1907).
On the mountain: About 20 kilometres to the north-northeast, Sir William Ramsay and Gertrude Bell excavate at Binbir Kilise. Two years later the results of the work will be published in London under the title The Thousand and One Churches.
The Binbir Kilise area on Karadağ today has the status of an archaeological protected site (sit alanı). The ruins, which can be seen by walking around the villages of Madenşehri and Değle, are open to individual visitors. The surviving walls, arches and bases — Basilica No. 1 above all — offer visitors the atmosphere of one thousand five hundred years ago.
The surface surveys carried out in recent years have brought to light previously undocumented new religious buildings and findings showing that the traces of early settlement in the region reach further back. The pyramid-shaped monumental tomb uncovered at Madenşehri is an indication that the excavations are still proving fruitful.
Because of its architectural value, its density and the fact that it is one of the most complete rural landscapes of early Byzantine Anatolia to have come down to the present day, Binbir Kilise is an area that has from time to time been raised in the context of UNESCO World Heritage. Today it is protected as one of the most important cultural heritage assets of Karaman.
Ramsay, William M. & Bell, Gertrude L. — The Thousand and One Churches, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1909. (New edition: Ousterhout & Jackson, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.)
Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University — photographs and travel notes from Bell's Anatolian journeys of 1905 and 1907.
Binbirkilise — The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks, Oxford University Press.
Current geological and archaeological surface surveys on Karadağ and Binbir Kilise (Environmental Earth Sciences, Springer Nature, 2022).