History in Pictures

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Athens, 1812.

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The Story Behind Turkey's Underground Cities

In The Culture Trip.



Cappadocia Underground City.

The amazing underground cities in Turkey's Cappadocia have become famous all over the world, just as much as the eerie yet fascinating fairy chimneys. Built to protect the ancient inhabitants, the underground cities allowed thousands of people to live their lives in total secrecy. One of Cappadocia's most famous underground cities is Derinkuyu, which was built during the Byzantine era when its inhabitants used it to protect themselves from Muslim Arabs during the Arab-Byzantine Wars between 780 and 1180. The multi level city was composed of many passages and caves used for various purposes, the city lies around 60 meters under the ground and was able to shelter around 20,000 people including their livestock and food. Certainly the largest underground city in Cappadocia (and of course in all of Turkey), Derinkuyu was opened to visitors in 1969 with only half of the city available for viewing.



In its heyday, the city had two large stone doors that were closed from the inside in case of imminent danger. With each floor also having its own door, the caves also had all the extra space expected of a city, including storage rooms, wine cellars, stables, and chapels. Though the inhabitants might have been hiding, they lived their lives to the fullest, as much as they would have in an above ground town. One of Derinkuyu's most striking spaces is a large room with vaulted ceilings, which is believed to have been a religious school with separate study rooms. Walking up and down the staircases that lead visitors to the many levels of the fascinating city, a ventilation shaft or an old cruciform church reveal how the caves were once filled with ordinary everyday life. Derinkuyu was also connected to the other underground cities through a sophisticated network of tunnels.



It is believed that the underground cities were initially built by the Phrygians during the 8th through 7th centuries BCE, who carved their living spaces into the region's soft volcanic rock. Later on, during the Roman era and the replacement of the Phrygian language with Greek, the then Christian inhabitants continued to work on the underground cities adding their own cultural and religious necessities such as chapels and Greek inscriptions. Underground cities like Derinkuyu continued to protect their citizens as far as the 14th century when Christians once again needed a safe haven from the threat of the Mongolians during the assaults on Timur, and once again during the Ottoman era, when protection was needed from the Turkish Muslim powers.



Even during the 20th century, the caves allowed for people to save themselves from persecution administered during the Ottoman Empire. It was not until 1923, after the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, that the underground cities were completely abandoned and then not rediscovered until 1963. The story goes that a resident found a strange room behind a wall inside his house, and the rest is history!

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Hilarious.

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Coin of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180), minted of electrum - natural gold and silver alloy, excavated at Ždrelo-Gorevine site in Gojmanovac, vicinity of Svrljig, south-eastern Serbia.

Diameter - 32 mm, weight - 4.3 grams.

Collection of Museum in Niš, south-eastern Serbia.

On the reverse there is depiction of Emperor and St. Theodore holding Cross together. Both of them are holding swords. On the averse there is depiction of the Christ holding the Gospel and two stars around him.

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Byzantine forces:

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Pius VII in exile at Fontainebleau. Paintings by José Frappa.



Here with Napoleon:



Historical context:

Pius at first attempted to take a cautious approach in dealing with Napoleon. With him he signed the Concordat of 1801, through which he succeeded in guaranteeing religious freedom for Catholics living in France, and was present at his coronation as Emperor of the French in 1804. In 1809, however, during the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon once again invaded the Papal States, resulting in his excommunication. Pius VII was taken prisoner and transported to France. He remained there until 1814 when, after the French were defeated, he was permitted to return to Rome, where he was greeted warmly as a hero and defender of the faith. (Source)

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Albanians in Cairo, Egypt, 1861.

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1050 years ago today in 969 A.D., one of the most astonishingly ruthless leaders of all time, Princess Olga of Kiev, died. Though Olga is often remembered for her later role in being one of the first Kievan leaders to spread Christianity, her reign over Kiev is better characterised by the unrestrained wroth and fury she unleashed upon the rival Drevlian people, virtually wiping them off the face of the earth in one single blow.

Olga's exact date of birth is unknown though it is reckoned that she was born somewhere in the late ninth and early tenth century. According to the chroniclers of the age she was of Varangian Viking origins, leading her to be known sometimes as Helga in Old Norse. She reportedly grew up around what is now Pskov before finally travelling south towards Kiev to marry Prince Igor I of Kiev, son of Oleg of Novgorod. Kiev at this point in history was also being ruled by the descendants of Varangian Vikings whom had come east and then south from Scandinavia. Olga was thus a worthy bride for the Princely Igor. Under Oleg, the Kievan civilisation was gradually expanding and consolidating its power in the region which is now Ukraine, Belarus, and Western Russia. Kiev however was not alone at this time. Another people in the area were the Drevlians. Though Oleg had brought the Drevlians to heel, and forced them to pay tribute to him and fight in his wars, the moment he died they were no longer willing to be relegated to such a subordinate position and they refused to continue paying tribute to Kiev.

As the new prince, Igor could not allow this insult to go unpunished. He could not allow them to make him appear weak in front of the rest of his kin. In 945 A.D., Igor thus chose to rally his army and march on the Drevlian capital of Iskorosten and demand the payment that was rightfully his. Facing almost certain defeat, the Drevlians submitted to Igor's will and paid him. However as Igor was marching home he decided that the payment was insufficient for the insult they had inflicted and returned to Iskorosten, this time with only a small escort. The Drevlians captured him, tortured him and then reportedly tied his legs to two bent-over trees and ripped him in half. Igor was succeeded by his son Svyatoslav. Though Svyatoslav in time was to become a great ruler, he was as yet only a boy. This left his mother Olga to rule in his place as regent.

Having killed the Grand Prince of Kiev with almost total impunity, the Drevlians now sought to press their advantage, calculating that the Princess and her little son would be no match for them, that they would be gripped with fear upon hearing of Igor's gruesome death. As it so happened however, the Drevlians had greatly underestimated the Varangian princess. Their leader, Prince Mal, whom had killed Igor, sent Olga a message proposing that she marry him. The message arrived with twenty Drevlian warriors sent to ensure that she accepted the marriage proposal. Olga carefully listened to the proposal and then casually and calmly responded that she would be more than happy to accept since her husband was dead. She also added however that she wished to properly honour the Drevlians in the presence of her people and ordered that they return to their vessel for the night before returning on the morrow. The Drevlians complied with this and returned the next morning to receive this great honour, the people of Kiev reportedly picking up the Drevlian boat with all of them in it and carrying them through the city as though they were in a palanquin. The Drevlians were overjoyed with themselves at this hospitality until they were suddenly carried to a trench and hurled into it where Olga had them all buried alive, their last moments spent choking on mud and soil.

Olga thereat sent a message back to Prince Mal, who was blissfully unaware of what had happened to his men, that she had accepted his proposal but that she would require the escort of the wisest and most respected of the Drevlians as would be equal to her own status. Not knowing any better, Mal sent the best and most distinguished of his people off to Kiev. When they arrived Olga greeted them politely and sympathised with them that they must be tired from their journey. She offered them the succour afforded by a bathhouse to relieve themselves before they all took off for Iskorosten. The 'wise' men gladly accepted her hospitality and entered the bathhouse. Just as they were relaxing themselves, Olga had her servants light the bathhouse on fire, the first flames being lit at the doors so that no one could escape. They were all burned to a crisp. Then she sent another message to the Drevlians, asking that she might have a feast with them at the grave of her murdered husband so that she might at last weep some tears of grief. The Drevlians once again made this concession to her and the two sides feasted. Once the Drevlians had become completely drunk on their mead, Olga gave a cool nod of the head and her men rose up and butchered the Drevlians to a man, cutting them down like chaff to the words of encouragement from Olga. Five thousand of them were reportedly killed that night, though this is most likely an exaggeration.

With it being finally clear now to the rather stupid Prince Mal that Olga was not going to submit as easily as hoped, all out war broke out. The previous atrocities however had already deprived the Drevlians of some of their best leaders and warriors. When the hour of battle finally came the Kievans easily thrashed their enemies and drove the survivors back to Iskorosten. The Drevlians were now thoroughly terrified at this stage of Olga and chose to hold out against her as long as possible lest she unleash her full fury upon them. Finally after a year of besieging the city with no result, Olga tricked them once again, telling them that she was done avenging her husband and that she would allow them to return to paying tribute as they had before if they surrendered. There was however one condition to be met for this surrender. Every household in Iskorosten had to give up three pigeons and three sparrows. Blinded by their longing to end their suffering, the Drevlians accepted these terms without question and every household gave up six birds each. At this time, all houses were constructed from wood and had thatched roofs where these birds nested. That night, Olga told her men to attach pieces of cloth and sulphur to each bird and to set them alight before releasing them. The birds all naturally returned to their nests in the city and within a couple of swift minutes the entire city was consumed with flames. Not one household was spared from this fiery doom. The entire Drevlian nation, down to the last child, was ignited into spectacular conflagration and incinerated into ash and cinders. With that, Olga was finally satisfied and she marched home.

Following this war of annihilation, Olga was said to have governed Kiev wisely and well, expanding the kingdom's frontiers and leading the defence of Kiev when it was besieged by the Pechenegs in 968 A.D. She maintained good relations with Otto the Great of the Holy Roman Emperor and at one stage travelled to Constantinople where she converted to Christianity and then tried to spread the new religion amongst her own people. What her exact motivation was is unknown but it is not unlikely that it was similar to that of her grandson Vladimir the Great who used the religion to bind his scattered and disparate people more closely together. As a result of these efforts, Olga was made a saint. She became ill not long after the Pecheneg siege on the city and thereat began to slide into the kingdom of death. It was said that all Kiev wept at her death. Though he did not approve of Christianity, Svyatoslav respected his mother's wishes that she be given a Christian rather than pagan funeral. Her tomb remained untouched until the Mongol invasion of 1240 A.D.

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Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia (Viktoria Luise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte; 13 September 1892 – 11 December 1980) was the only daughter and the last child of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. She was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria through her father. Her 1913 wedding to Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover was the largest gathering of reigning monarchs in Germany since German unification in 1871, and one of the last great social events of European royalty before the First World War began fourteen months later.

Shortly after the wedding, she became the Duchess of Brunswick by marriage. Through her daughter Frederica, Princess Victoria Louise was the maternal grandmother of Queen Sophia of Spain (mother of Felipe VI of Spain) and the former King Constantine II of Greece.



Here the Prussian Princess poses as Honorary Colonel of the II. Prussian Life Hussars Regiment:

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Circa sixth century basilica floor mosaic, Aluma in Southern Israel – The beautiful and colourful mosaic was made in Late Antiquity for a large Byzantine period country basilica.

The mosaics are elaborately decorated with geometric designs, images of various animals and birds, and Christograms. The image shown the Greek letters A ?, the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet, symbolizing Christ as the beginning and end of all things. There is also a Greek inscription recounting the basilica's dedication naming its benefactors Demetrios and Herakles.

The basilica was located on the road between the coastal city of Ascalon and Jerusalem. Archaeologists believe that this large and impressive basilica was the main church for the surrounding area. Many Byzantine settlements in the vicinity, such as the garrison town of Beersheba were destroyed and abandoned in the seventh century during the Arab conquest and it is likely that the church was destroyed at this time. The mosaic was rediscovered in 2014 during an archaeological survey that was conducted for planned construction. The site of the basilica was reburied and the mosaic removed to be conserved in a local museum.

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The Scola Tower - or the tower of John the Baptist - is an ancient military structure in the Gulf of Poets in La Spezia, Italy, just off the northeastern end of Palmaria in Porto Venere. Palmaria's defensive positions include Fort Cavour and Umberto I and Batteria Semaforo.

[red solo cup]

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Ottoman Pilot Ahmet Ali Efendi, World's First Black Pilot, 1916. He was Born in Izmir in 1883:

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Justinian's war against the pagans:



Mosaic of Justinian I at Ravenna.

No roman emperors fought the pagans more than Justinian. We know him mostly for important reforms in matter of law and for the partial reconquest of Pars Occidentalis; but he had a real obsession for the heathens. What can we say about the pagans in the 500's? Being not so accurate, we can split them into two major groups around the year 520: the hellenes and the "easterns bagauds" or "countryside pagans". The first were followers of eastern religions and philosophy (Neo-platonism and the One of Plotinus for example) and they were standard roman citizens living in the society and worshipping in private. The second and the most numerous group included people living in the remote areas of the empire: mountains, islands, countrysides and they worshipped the idols openly, even refusing the intrusion of the roman authorities in their businesses; making them a formidable counter-power for the authorities.

We have to keep in mind that we (modern people) consider the Roman Empire as a strong and united empire but in fact there were uncountable "grey zones" were the Roman civitas and laws were only words blown in the wind and the Roman state made private agreements with tribal chiefs based on the idea of "you swear your loyalty to the empire and the empire will not bother you"; those agreements were old as Rome and were very helpful to help the expansion of the city during the republican era.

Against the first group of pagans, Justinian used a set of new laws that were more and more restrictive and in 529 he ordered the academy of Athens to be closed, destroying the last light of the hellenic worshippers and making it mandatory for them to be baptized. The emperor said that the philosophers inside the academy were impostors and ruffians, no closer to the ancient philosophers; the last scholarch, Damascius, didn't accept that insult and wrote many letters to the emperors but he was ignored and every attempt to have a contact with him was unsuccessful. In the end, because Platonism and Christian religion were somewhat compatible, Justinian conceded a sort of amnesty to the pagan philosophers and, after some years in exile, they were allowed to return in 532 but being forbidden to teach and keep classical texts. In fact, the Greco-Roman philosophy was already dead and survived only as an intellectual interest subordinated to Christian philosophy.

The events against the "pagans outside of the cities" were different. The stake was not just to show the superiority of Christians against the barbarians but to bring Roman civilization (and tax system) to those lands outside Roman control, obtaining a decisive victory in the eternal war between city and countryside, old as humanity itself. The pagans didn't want to disappear without a fight, though, as the hellenes did, because accepting Christianity would have been tantamount to destroying a social system that was 1000 or more years old. Justinian knew it, so he unleashed all the force he had against them.

In 542, at the same time of the war to recover Italy, the imperial army fought harshly in Syria, Armenia, Greece, Anatolia and Egypt. The army was helped by bands of irregulars lead by zealous monks thirsty for blood and spoils of war, turning that war into a sort of crusade ante litteram. It's not easy to have information about that war but we know it lasted for all the reign of Justinian and in Anatolia around 70.000 people were converted. In Syria, some cities resisted until 580, while the city of Carrhae was pagan until the era of Islam. In Egypt, the Christians defeated the pagans on the island of Philae where the last temple of Isis was present. Minor battles also happened in Cyrenaica during the imperial reconquest against the Languatans. In Sardinia, fortresses were erected to control the pagans of the mountains and the same thing was partially done in the Alps and Apennines. In the end, the war was a partial success. In fact, many pagans outlived Justinian and after him the emperors changed their strategy: soft action made by the preaching of missionaries and gold sent to the pagan chieftains was ultimately more efficient in the conversion of the last pagans.

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Mâlik al-Mulk: The Master of the Kingdom, the Owner of All Sovereignty,  the Lord of Absolute Ruling Power.

The one who is sole owner, possessor and ruler of all kingdoms. The one whose ruling power and authority have no limit. The one who possesses all authority to act in any manner, at any time, in any way. The one who is lord and master over all worlds, whether manifest or unmanifest. The one who has all mastery and authority to decide what shall be created, what shall be sustained and what shall be cease to be.

From the root m-l-k which has the following classical Arabic connotations:

to possess, to own exclusively
to exercise authority to command
to have power over, command, reign
to have dominion over, to have ruling power
to have kingship

The name Mâlik al-Mulk appears in the Qur'ân 3:26: "Say, O Allah, Owner of Sovereignty, You give sovereignty to whom You will and You take sovereignty away from whom You will. You honor whom You will and You humble whom You will. In Your hand is [all] good. Indeed, You are over all things competent."

The name Malik signifies king, while the name the name Mâlik, by virtue of the â which intensifies the meaning, signifies something that is in some way greater than a king, and is often translated as master or lord. However, the exact differences between these names are not universally agreed upon. By some traditions, al-Malik is considered to be the owner and king of this world, or of the beings of this world, while Mâlik al-Mulk is considered to be the supreme lord and master of all worlds, the known and the unknown, the manifest and the unmanifest.