Been to Alahan Monastery, or dreaming of it?
Join BucketList to rate it, put it on your bucket list, and see where your friends have been. It's free.
22,000+ places in 198 countries to rate and rank
Photo: Nedim Ardoğa · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mut, Mersin, Turkey
Alahan Monastery is a complex of fifth-century buildings located in the mountains of Isauria in southern Asia Minor. Located at an altitude of 4,000 ft, it stands 3,000 ft over the Calycadnus valley and is a one-hour walking distance from the village of Geçimli. Although termed a monastery in many sources, this attribution is contested and more recent scholarship consider it to be a pilgrimage shrine. The complex played a significant role in the development of early Byzantine architecture, and practically everything known about it can be attributed to the excavations of Michael Gough.
