Urumkuş Rocks ( tr, Urumkuş Kayalıkları) are natural
tuff
Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...
rock formations located in
Afyonkarahisar Province
Afyonkarahisar Province ( tr, ), also called more simply Afyon Province, is a province in western Turkey.
Adjacent provinces are Kütahya to the northwest, Uşak to the west, Denizli to the southwest, Burdur to the south, Isparta to the sout ...
, western Turkey, which were used historically as dwelling and sanctuary.
Urumkuş Rocks are situdated in the Alanlı area, northeast at Döğer town in
İhsaniye District
İhsaniye District is a district of Afyonkarahisar Province of Turkey. Its seat is the town İhsaniye.
The rock formation has quite steep sides. There are rock-cut dwellings and a chapel on one of the two large cliffs. On the other rock, there are only burial chambers. At the entrances of the burial chambers, reliefs as well as figures made with madder are found that belong to the
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 ...
period. There are traces of foundations carved into the rock, niches, sacrificial pools, rock altars and
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
s on the top and sides of the rock. This shows that the rock was used as a sanctuary and perhaps a residential area during the
Phrygia
In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...