Turkey: from Catal Huyuk to Gobekli Tepe
Summary
A journey through Cappadocia and south east Turkey
Join us on a kaleidoscopic journey through the heartlands of Turkey from Çatal Hüyük, arguably the earliest city in the world, to Göbekli Tepe, a remarkable early Neolithic complex in upper Mesopotamia. We discover the other worldly geology of Cappadocia, a bizarrely beautiful landscape matched by its unique archaeology, underground cities and vividly frescoed churches and the elaborate ritual sites of the ancient kingdoms in South East Turkey. We travel through The Fertile Crescent, arcing around the flat lands of Mesopotamia, which saw the birth of agriculture and the first domestication of cattle, goats, sheep and pigs and we see the spectacular Roman mosaics in Gaziantep, rescued from the flood waters of a dam on the nearby Euphrates. Our journey includes an astonishing array of world class sites, four of them UNESCO listed, as we chart the many civilizations which rose and fell here over the millennia.
What to Expect
- View the extraordinary volcanic landscapes underground cities and rock cut churches in Cappadocia
- Walk up to the World Heritage Site of Nemrut Dag, where huge statues of syncretised Greek-Persian gods and the kings of Commagene gaze imposingly from the summit of a remote peak
- Discover one of the oldest settlements in the world at Çatal Hüyük
- Visit the excavations at Göbekli Tepe, with megaliths pre-dating Stonehenge by an impressive 7,500 years
