Karaman Karadağ transmitting station, Turkey

Karadağ (literally: ''Black mountain'') is an

extinct volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

Karaman Province Karaman Province ( tr, ) is a province of south-central Turkey. It has an area of . A 2010 estimate puts the population at 232,633 people. According to the 2000 census, the population was 243,210. The population density is 27.54 people/km. The ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

Geography

The

crater Crater may refer to: Landforms *Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet *Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...

of the volcano, which is now a

lava plain Lava fields are large, mostly flat areas of surface or subaquatic lava flows. Such features are generally composed of highly fluid basalt lava, and can extend for tens or hundreds of miles across the underlying terrain. Morphology and stru ...

, is approximately north of

Karaman Karaman, historically known as Laranda (Greek: Λάρανδα), is a city in south central Turkey, located in Central Anatolia, north of the Taurus Mountains, about south of Konya. It is the capital district of the Karaman Province. According to ...

at at

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. The peak of the mountain is east of this plain at an elevation of . Since the average elevation of the Karaman plains is about , the height of the peak with respect to surrounding area is more than . Up to a century ago there was a volcanic crater lake in the mountain which has since dried up. The shape of the mountain is roughly conical with a base diameter of .

History

The slopes of the volcano have always been inhabited. In fact,

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from appr ...

(ca 7500 BC), one of the earliest

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

settlements in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, is located at the north-west of the volcano, and there are Hittite inscriptions on the hills at the south-east of the mountain. The mountain was called Boratinon in late antiquity. Ancient

Derbe Derbe or Dervi ( gr, Δέρβη), also called Derveia ( gr, Δέρβεια), was a city of Galatia in Asia Minor, and later of Lycaonia, and still later of Isauria and Cappadocia. It is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles at , , and . Derbe i ...

, which is one of the towns

Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

had visited, is situated on the east slopes of the mountain. During the early ages of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, the towns on the mountain were religious centers. There are ruins of early

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

settlements all around the mountain and the region is called

Binbirkilise Binbirkilise (literally: Thousand and One Churches) is a region in the antique Lycaonia, in modern Karaman Province of Turkey, known for its around fifty Byzantine church ruins. The region is located on the northern slopes of the volcano Karad ...

( en, Thousand and One Churches).

Madenşehri Madenşehri (literally “city of mines”) is a village in the central district (Karaman) of Karaman Province, Turkey. It is situated on the northern slopes of Karadağ, an extinct volcano, and is north of the town of Karaman. The population of ...

ruins are situated to the north of the crater. However, after Christianity was well established in big cities, the settlements on the mountain lost their religious importance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karadag Mountain Volcanoes of Turkey Mountains of Turkey Central Anatolia Region Landforms of Karaman Province Extinct volcanoes Stratovolcanoes of Turkey Two-thousanders of Turkey

Geography

History

See also

References