|
Imagine a place that has
been inhabited for more than
25,000 years. That would be Karain
Cave, north of Antalya on
Turkey's Mediterranean
coast.
Not impressed? Well, most of the happenings
in the Bible were
no more than 3000 years
ago. The Egyptian pyramids on the Nile were built a mere 5000
years ago.
Very few places on this
planet have been inhabited for more
than a few millennia. Karain has
been continuously inhabited
for twenty-five of them!
You can visit Karain cave on
a day-excursion from
Antalya in combination with the trek
to nearby Termessos
(map), and if you
move right along, you can be
back in the
city for a late lunch and an afternoon
swim.
On the Burdur-Korkuteli
highway north of Antalya, the road
to Karain is a right turn just before
the left turn to Termessos. Watch for
the sign.
The narrow road wanders through farming
villages and the town of Çığlık
(CHUH-luhk, where
you can buy drinks and snacks), narrowing
in some places to one lane. Signage
is barely adequate, but if no one steals
one of the "Karain" signs,
you should make it the 12 km (7.5
miles) from the Burdur-Korkuteli highway
to Karain.
The road dead-ends at the little Karain
Museum, so you'll know when you've
arrived.
Pay your TL5 admission
fee, have
a look at the prehistoric animal teeth,
arrowheads and Paleolithic tools in
the small museum, then begin the steep,
hot climb up the rough rock
path to the cave, high on the mountainside.
(It took me 15 minutes to make the
climb in high
heat.)
The cavern entrance bears vestiges
of the archeologists' excavations.
Beyond the entrance are several large
rooms with weirdly-shaped walls and
ceilings, luridly lit by high-powered
electric lights.
It's spooky, but fascinating.
Feeling the coolness inside the cave,
it begins to dawn on you how people
could have lived here for millennia,
all the way up to the 1700s AD:
—Temperatures in
the cave remained moderate in the heat
of summer and the chill of winter (as
the Antalya region has a moderate
climate); and winters here are mild.
—The well-watered plain below
must have furnished plentiful nuts,
berries and game to early hunter-gatherers
and, later, crops to primitive farmers.
Indeed, the plain is still rich
farming country tilled by
Turkish farmers.
—The cave's location high on
the steep mountainside is excellent
for defense: some enemies would simply
not have noticed it, and others could
be sent rolling down the jagged limestone
face fairly easily.
It doesn't take long to visit the
cave interior, after which the trek
back to the museum takes less time
than the ascent, for sure.
If you have not yet visited nearby
Termessos, that should be your next
stop. In any case, backtrack to the
Burdur-Korkuteli-Antalya highway, no
matter where you're headed next.
|
