The Zağ caves are cut into a steep rock face above the Murat river, between the villages of Gokceli and Yenidal in Bingöl province, and they consist of a large number of shelter rooms made by hand. They are thought to have been cut at the beginning of the fifth century AD and used by Christian communities under pressure from the Roman empire as a hidden place to live and worship.
The rooms spread over nearly the whole front of a natural rock mass with its back against the mountain, and inside they are linked to one another by stepped passages. The complex has several levels: movement between them was by round shafts, and between rooms by doors, with a different number and size of rooms on each level. The rooms are square, rectangular or circular, and cut into the rock in them are benches, recesses that served as shelves, windows and flues, ovens plastered with lime inside, niches large and small, handholds, platforms, the negative impressions of bowls and jars, wells and socket-like hollows.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bingöl as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -2.1 °C in January to 26.7 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June and September; rainfall is heaviest in January (137 mm) and lightest in August (4 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
