The Temple-Tomb at Kayseri-Felahiye in Cappadocia

Abstract

This article deals with architectural evaluation as well as hypothetical reconstruction of a temple-tomb which is located in Caesarea, (modern Kayseri) in Cappadocia. The temple-tomb is situated on top of a hill facing a valley approximately at 7 km northwest of the town of Felahiye in Kayseri. Our works carried out on the temple-tomb revealed that the building was built as tetrastyle prostylos in plan during the Roman Imperial period, most probably, in the second half of the 2nd Century AD. The tomb has a podium in a rectangular form and its pronaos was demolished. The naos and its vaulted ceiling have remained preserved to a large extent until today. The waUs of the building were built with rectagonal marble blocks which were connected to each other with clamps. Corinthian capital plasters adorn the four corners at the exterior of the building. The entablature of the building comprises of architrave -frieze blocks and cornice (console-geison and sima blocks). The building was published by H. Gregoire in 1909 after his visit to the region and some photographs of the building were also provided his publication. The building is a good example for Roman templetombs in Cappadocia, particularly with its architectural and technical characteristics. This article proposes a hypothetical restitution of the temple-tomb based on recent works and new research carried out by the author.