Değle lies on Karadağ, the volcanic mass north of Karaman, and what makes it worth the climb is unusual: alongside the churches there are Byzantine houses, and they give a rare picture of how ordinary people built. They are plainer and rougher than the religious buildings, laid out with two or three rooms according to need.
The burials are the other reason to come. There are Byzantine rock tombs and grave covers, and on the eastern slopes of the hill chamber tombs of cut stone roofed with pyramids. One monument here is older than all of it: a pre-Byzantine altar, later converted into a rock tomb. On the eastern face of that great block of stone is a carved scene — a man in the foreground holding a bowl in his left hand and scattering seed with his right.
Getting there
- Access
- The site is on Karadağ, a volcanic massif 37 km north of Karaman, reached by private car.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Karaman as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.7 °C in January to 23.5 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (47 mm) and lightest in August (6 mm). Long-term means for 1951-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
