Anatolia, due to its geographic location, is functioned as a gate and bridge between west and east as well as being a place on where various civilizations are founded and developed since ancient ages. As a result of this, during various periods, road webs with various directions and character such as Kings Road (VIth century B.C., Roman Era Roads (IInd century B.C.), have surrounded the Anatolia.

Transportation of silk and spice as well as other products of east to west, is formed commercial roads named as “Silk Road” today and reaching Europe from China. But, Silk Roads were not only the commercial roads but also maintained cultural relations between east and west for centuries.

Anatolia, is formed one of the most important junction points of Silk Road. During Medieval Age, silk roads have reached Europe over Thrace with passing Anatolia, which has a characteristic of being a bridge with following more than one routes in Middle Asia, beginning from China. Also, Europe is reached by maritime lines with using important harbors such as Efes and Milet, at Aegean coasts, Trabzon and Sinop, in Black Sea Alanya and Antalya in Mediterranean.

The cavern is at the Geyikbayırı village which is 26 km to Antalya. In order to reach Geyikbayırı village, Çakırlar Köyü which is to the west from Antalya could be used. To reach the cavern, a 5 minute trekking from the center of the village is enough.

Properties: The deepest point of the cave with a total length of 120 m is 6.5 meters in respect to the entrance. The cavern was found precious enough for cave tourism and the studies are still progressing. The cavern displays generally dry characteristics but it is sometimes in the kind of active cavern. It is completely dry in summer months. In precipitant seasons, as the floor water level rises, the floor of the cavern is flooded. The temperature inside the cavern is mostly cool according to the open air in summer. In Autumn, the temperature displays equivalence with the open air temperature.

Karain Cavern

Location: Antalya
The cave is found inside the borders of Yağca Village which is at 5 – 6 km. distance to the old Antalya – Burdur highway, 30 km northwest of Antalya.

Properties: The Karain cave which is one of the greatest natural caves of Turkey, is 150 m high from the travertine valley in front, ve430-450 m. high from the sea.

The cave stands in the period of the beginning of the history of the mankind, as the cavern was continuously accommodated by early humans during the prehistoric and classic periods starting from lower Paleolithic, medium and high Paleolithic, Neolithic, Calcolithic and Ancient Bronze stages. As a natural result of this, the cavern contains a thick cultural layer which can be 11 meters. But the longest and most important accommodation period of the cave is relevant with the Paleolithic period.

The usage at the classical period is more likely as an Offering Cave(Temple) and there are Greek inscriptions and niches at the cave exterior walls and ceiling. The archeological findings discovered from the archeological excavations done inside Karain Cave are displayed at the Antalya Museum and at the Karain Museum which is just near the cave.

Caverns from Byzantium Period

Location: Ankara, Güdül District

Caves are at the location of Ankara, Güdül District, near Kirmir Creek at the locality of İnönü.

Properties: This historic surface caverns are estimated to be from the Byzantium Period.

In this caverns formed by stone masonry, there are stairs heading to upper caverns. They display similarities with the caverns of Ürgüp – Göreme which are at the Inner Anatolian Region. This locality resembles a village community with a church located at central. As Kirmir creek carved the bottom of the mountain causing the mountain to be broken into pieces the stairs leading nowhere display a historical view.

With an approximate number of 40.000 caves and caverns present, our country is like a ‘ paradise of caverns ‘ when compared to other countries. An important geologic – geomorphologic fact in the formation of caverns is karstification (karstic fields) and this karstification is present in Western and Central Taurus Mountains (Muğla, Antalya, Isparta, Burdur, Konya, Karaman, İçel and Adana) of our country. The longest (Pınarözü Cavern, 16 km west of Beyşehir Lake) and the deepest (Çukurpınar Sinkhole, 1880 meters at the south of Anamur) caves of Turkey are present on this mountain belt.

In our country, the cavern investigations initiated by the Cavern Research Society (MAD) founded in 1964. Later on, the first university club, Bosphorus University Cavern Research Club (BÜMAK) has been founded in 1973. In 1979, Karst and Cavern Exploration Unit founded under the authority of MTA Geology Studies Department is executing most of the cavern explorations nowadays.

The exact number of caves investigated and documented by all local and foreign cave explorers is 800 so far.

Various geographic characteristics, climate variety, caused by geographical differences, being a natural bridge between three continents, caused Anatolia Peninsula to have a rarely encountered vegetation in the world. While vegetation number, present in all along Europe is a total of 12.000, this figure is 9.000 in our country.

Our country is superior than Europe according to vegetation variety. Because, our country is not only superior than Europe in connection with endemic plants which grow only a certain region or whose homeland is a certain region in the world but also one of the a few regions of the world. While endemic plant number of Europe is 2.750 this number equals to 3.000 in our country. Endemic plant number is only 600 in Antalya. Total plant number of England is 2.000. (9.000 in our country). It is known that one of the Mediterranean states, Spain as well as Former Yugoslavia have 500 endemic plants each. It is known that Bulgaria has 3.650, Greece 5.000, Cyprus 2.000, Syria – Lebanon 3.500, Iraq 4.000, Iran 8.000, France 4.500, Germany 2.500, Italy 5.600, Spain 5.000, Romania, 3.400, England 2.000, Hungry 2.214, Island 377 and Norway 1.715 plants on the basis of total plant number.

3 city of our country which have most endemic plants are Antalya with 578, Konya with 478 and İçel with 366. As you can see city of Antalya is richer than countries such as Spain and Former Yugoslavia. It can easily be estimated that city of İçel is richer than most of the European countries in connection with Endemic (and Non – Endemic) plant richness. If Antalya and İçel are thought together, it can be easily found that this two city become unrivalled against European countries with their plant potential.

Europe’s most endemic plant owning country except Turkey, is Greece has 800 endemic plants. Rival country, Italy’s endemic plant number is 712. Endemic plant number of Japan is 2.000, USA’s 4.036 and Switzerland’s is 1. As it can be considered that cities of our country can be compared with countries of Europe but Europe continent is poorer than Turkey as a total.

One of the most important reason for plant richness of Turkey is being Anatolia a shelter for plants during the ice age. Today Turkey is at the intersection point of 3 different plant area which is not present in either of the European country. These plant area are Mediterranean Plant Area (includes Mediterranean and Aegean regions), European – Siberia Plant Area (includes Black Sea and Marmara region), Iran – Turan Plant Area (includes Central Anatolia and Easter Anatolia regions.).