Monumental loss

 “We're going to try and raise money for the Meryemana [Mother Mary] church,” Ahmet told me as he pulled up images on his computer. “We've already done it for the Red Church in Güzelyurt, you know.” Yes, I did know, and now suddenly I'm focused on this gaping gap in my knowledge.

 Actually, it is not quite the first time I have heard about this church, apparently a masterpiece of 11th century Byzantine rock-cut art. The previous occasion was on a not entirely successful visit to the authorities at Nevşehir Museum. A friend and I had heard that a group of retired stone masons were prepared to offer their services for free if only we could come up with a way to utilize them. What could be simpler, you might ask, in an area such as Cappadocia with an almost limitless need for conservation work? But therein lay the problem -- conservation work rather than straightforward building. Unable to come up with any obvious project that could keep a whole group of stone masons busy, we'd gone to Nevşehir to see if anyone there had any bright ideas.

 The people who look after things like this have to work in offices of such soul-corroding ugliness that I can quite understand why they may not always be brimming over with enthusiasm. My friend and I strolled along a corridor lined with wonderful black and white photographs taken at the start of the 20th century by a missionary who had made it his task to map out all the churches of Cappadocia. Beside them were photographs taken more recently, which rarely suggested any improvement to the surrounding scenery.

 The person we'd come to see was snoozing at his desk, and, when woken, began combing sorrowfully through a collection of demoralizing photographs of damage done to the landscape. Stone masons, we said, willing to work for nothing.

 It was then that the Meryemana first came up. It was, he said, a wonderful thing, magnificent, its paintings breathtaking. My friend, who has lived here twice as long as me, had been privileged to see it; she too was soon singing its praises. The problem was that a huge crack had opened up inside it. The staircase that used to offer access had already slithered into the valley below, and there was fear that the church would soon follow it.

 How I wish we could have come up with a plan there and then to save it, but in truth it sounded like a job for geologists and engineers rather than stone masons. With no prospect of being allowed to see it, I soon forgot about the Meryemana -- until Ahmet reminded me, that this. Now I've checked on the fund's Web site (www.wmf.org), and sure enough, there is the whole sorry story. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody, anybody, could come up with some ideas?