Well, it all goes back to a day when I was frantically trying to track down an unrestored cave-house to show to visitors on our biannual Open Houses tour of Göreme. Our usual house had just been swallowed up inside yet another luxury hotel development, and frankly, it was getting increasingly hard to find a property that was a) undeveloped, b) interesting and c) had owners who didn't mind people wandering in and out of it. I was looking round with Nico, the Dutch owner of the Mehmet Paşa Konağı, the frescoed governor's house which also featured in the tour, and we were taking a tea break in the last house still in private hands in the neighborhood.Then -- “I want to show you something,” he said.
We wandered into a rear cave that was used for storage, and he started pulling pots, pans and assorted pieces of furniture away from the wall. Then he pointed upwards, and I saw what looked like half a charred and hollowed-out tree trunk embedded in the roof. Pieces of charcoal had broken away from it and lay scattered on the floor below.
“What is it?” I asked Nico.
“That tree is 3 million years old,” he replied. “When the last volcano exploded, the force of it would have knocked down all the trees and burnt them. This one was knocked down but only partially burnt. Then it fossilized and has been here ever since.”
I picked up a piece of the coal and turned it over in my hands. Three million years old? That was a rather remarkable thing to get my head around.
We put all the household artifacts carefully back and covered them with a homemade quilt that I then tried to persuade the owners to sell to me. Unfortunately, they were having none of it, and with no sign that they wanted visitors pouring through their house either, we took our leave and I bore off the chunk of coal as a souvenir.
Later I ran Nico's suggestion past a professor of geology at Hacettepe University in Ankara who also happens to own a hotel in Ürgüp (the Kayadam, since you're asking). “Could it really be 3 million years old?” I asked him.
His reply was a tad disappointing. “I doubt that the charcoal is from the last eruption of any volcano. There were hundreds of volcanic eruptions in Cappadocia, so it's difficult to say from which one it comes. However, apart from the age, the phenomenon could be true. A trunk can survive without burning as the ash flows over the trees.”
It would have been lovely to receive confirmation that it really was 3 million years old, but even if it isn't, that piece of coal still seems to be a direct link with the volcanic activity that created the local landscape. Call me an old softy, but I won't be tossing it on the bonfire.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia. 
