Thurs July 11 [11 July 1907] Off at 6.30 with 2 Greeks and Haidar and
rode over the hill east to Sivri Hissar. It is the little point one sees from
far off. There is a small castle on top and the village lies below to the
east. We went first still further east down into the valley where I found
a great church standing all by itself with heaps of featureless ruins
round it. It has the same ground plan as Chukurken and I think I can
safely correct my plan of the latter from it. The nave had an aisle only
on the N side, 2 double columns form the arcade. The nave and
transepts are barrel vaulted, the vaults not horseshoed. All the
windows and arches and the apse are horseshoed. No decoration
over windows or doors, a Greek cross in a circle over the door lintels.
The dome over the cross is octagonal, 4 sides broken by windows, 4
sides scooped out into quarter vaults. Above the octagon a round
dome. The dentil appears on the upper member of the cornice
outside. The column caps were much weatherworn and I cd not make
out whether they had been decorated but I think not. The chief
difference from Churkurken was that the aisle vault was lower than the
nave, the W front coming down in a steep gable. I am not quite sure
about this but the photographs will show. A penthouse narthex. S of
the church a spring of good water with a sarcophagus shaped water
trough by it. I then went into the village where I saw 2 rock cut
churches, one only 30 years old made out of an old cave, the
columns I understood recent. Certainly the decoration of the caps
was quite modern, sort of tassels. Higher up there was another, half of
it rock cut half built, the building recent. This may have been old but
there were no interesting details. Carved marble candelabra which I
photographed - not very old I think. The priest lived in a rock cut
house of one room opening into a narthex with 3 arches. They make
the most excellent sort of dry kaimah here. So back to my tents at
11.30 and lunched. I started out again about 1, went into the town and
saw the great church of St Gregory Nazianzos. It is a domed church of
the Selleh type - I ought to have planned it but I did not partly because
it has been so much rebuilt. The apse is octagonal outside. The
bare rock cut, then a few layers of old stone work and the rest newer
stonework. The original narthex seems to have been an open porch
of 4 arches. The S wall is niched and looks old. Inside everything is
covered up with plaster. There are 3 apses, the central one has 3
goes[?] of steps round it for seats. A new chamber runs all along the
N side so that one does not see the old wall there. The dome is very
high, the tambour circular and broken by windows. 4 piers support it.
The whole is I fancy as it stands a much later type than Sivri Hissar.
They showed me a cross enclosed in a modern silver case; they
said the cross had been given by the Athos monks. It was found in a
little iron box in one of the piers - no that was another cross. I saw too
the bones of St Gregory. Then I went and saw his house which is a
large cave of 3 chambers. There is some horseshoe niching outside.
Inside the roof is decorated with panels and crosses and the walls
with panel niches. There was a well, now dry, in the first chamber.
They said the water came from the monastery. The Greek women
were an awful nuisance. All these people speak Turkish; scarcely
any of them know Greek at all. I then went to the monastery which is in
a beautiful rocky valley. Lots of rock cut rooms with steps leading up
into upper rooms high up in the rocks. I noticed in a chapel here, said
to be 690 AD as in the one at Sivri Hissar that the nave has only one
aisle, to the N. This is so like the big churches at Sivri Hissar and
Chukurken that I planned this chapel. There is also another little
chapel, the Panagia higher up the valley. It is a dome resting on 3
engaged piers and a fourth pier, the NE which stands clear and
allows of a little chamber by the apse this way [sketch] a door at the
SW leads up to an upper chamber with a little raised room at one
corner and tiny windows looking out onto the wonderful rocky valley.
The spring here is said to be the best water in Gelvere [Gelveri]. I
ought to have done more work here but I wont. Back to my tents about
5 and drew out some of the Hassan Dagh [Hasan Dagi] work.
Delicious evening. This place was the country estate of St Gregory.