Guide
Bahattin Samanlığı is a rock-cut church in the Ihlara valley, within the bounds of Belisırma village. Architecturally it is simple — a single nave with one apse under a barrel vault — and everything here is about the painting. The niches in the north and south walls, and the vault above, carry an unusually complete cycle of the life of Christ drawn from the Gospels. The paintings are dated to the middle or end of the tenth century or the first half of the eleventh.
The cycle can be followed round the building. In the apse semidome is Christ enthroned with Michael and Gabriel and, in medallions, Peter and Paul; on the triumphal arch Christ with two angels, and prophets within the arch. The southern half of the vault carries, in its upper band, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the ordeal of the bitter water and the journey to Bethlehem, with the Nativity on the western pediment; the northern half continues with the Adoration of the Magi, Joseph's dream and the Flight into Egypt. Lower bands take up the Massacre of the Innocents, the killing of Zechariah and the pursuit of Elizabeth on the south, and the Presentation in the Temple and the sending out of John the Baptist on the north. The niches carry the later episodes: the Raising of Lazarus and the Entry into Jerusalem on the south wall, the Last Supper on the west, and on the north the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, the Entombment, the women at the tomb, the Anastasis and Christ appearing to the two Marys. Belisırma is 33 kilometres from central Aksaray, with public transport at set hours.
