Late in the afternoon, we arrived at Avanos – Cappadocia’s Pottery Hub. The pottery industry probably dates back to Hittite times when they started using clay from the red silt of the Kızılırmak. Old Avanos is riddled with a network of small underground “cities” that may once have been residential but now are mainly used by the many pottery enterprises. As Venessa, the ancient Avanos was the third most important town in the Kingdom of Cappadocia (332 BC – 17 AD), according to the geographer Strabo. Most of the visible remains of Avanos’ history date from the 19th and early 20th centuries and take the form of many impressive stone houses built mainly by Greek and Armenian.
