A Hittite inscription at Karadag

History of the city of Karaman and its regions goes back over 8.000 years. From a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to working the soil and animal husbandry by the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük, Pınarbaşı, and Canhasan to Hittites and then Romans,followed by Byzantine Empire not to forget mentioning the two centuries of Persian rule followed by the invasion of Alexander the Great’s army in between.

1001 churches

The town owes its name to Karaman Bey who was one of the rulers of the Karamanids (Karamanoğlu). The former name comes from the Greek Laranda which in turn comes from the Luwian language Larawanda, literally "sandy, a sandy place". Artifacts found in the area shows it was inhabited since Neolithic age (8.500 B C-5.000 BC).It was destroyed by Perdiccas, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, in about 322 BC and later became a seat of Isaurian pirates. Served as a safe haven for early Christians, including St. Paul of Tarsus. It belonged to the Roman and later the Byzantine Empire until it was captured by the Seljuk Turks who brought in the Turkish-Islamic civilisation to Anatolia in the early 12th century. Karaman was briefly occupied by Frederick Barbarossa in 1190. In 1256, the town was taken from the Seljuks by the Turkish warlord Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey and was renamed Karaman in his honour. It was again this same ruler , Mehmet bey, who in May 13, 1277, coined Turkish as the language of the land by procliaming “ From this day on, no one in the court, the lodge, in private, in council or in public, will speak any language other than Turkish” From 1275, Karaman was the capital of the emirate (and later Ottoman province) of Karamanid. In 1468 Karaman was conquered by the Ottomans and in 1483 the capital of the province was moved to Konya. Karaman has retained ruins of a Karamanid castle and some walls, two mosques and a Koran school (madrasah) from that age. An exquisite mihrab from a mosque from Karaman can now be found in the Çinili Pavilion near today's Archeology Museum in Istanbul. The surname of the well known political dynasty of Greece, Karamanlis, ows its origin to this city.

Manazan Caves

Early Christians lived in and around Karaman for a long period. Binbirkilise (1001 churches) with its unique architecture, is located in Karadağ mountain which was an important religious center. One must mention that the architectural style of the area has laid a strong impression on the Byzantine religious structures. The holy city of Derbe, mentioned in the bible, where St. Paul built one of the earliest churches, is near Karaman. St. Paul came to Karaman area at least three times to spread Christian religion and to establish congregations between 47 and 53. A.D. In his first visit to the area he is said to have been accompanied by Barnabas (Barnaby). Another important early Christian settlement nearby is the Manazan Caves. Here one would find rocky cliffs of limestone, on the face of which are five storey caves that served as homes and and a church, connected to each other by hand and footholds to allow ascent and descent,.
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Karaman Castle

It was constructred as an exterior,middle and interior castles on a tumulus in the city centre.The exterior walls were completely destroyed, some parts of the middle walls and the interior walls remained up till now.The exact construction date of the castle is not known but it is estimated that it was built at the end of the 11th and the begining of the 12th centuries.The castle held a significant role during Seljuks,Karamanoğlu and Ottoman periods.

“I love the created for the sake of the Creator” Yunus Emre.

Yunus Emre (c. 1238-1320), the poet resided in Karaman and is believed to be buried beside the Yunus Emre Mosque. A small adjacent park is adorned with quotations from his verse,. In 1222, the Sufi preacher Bahaeddin Veled arrived in town with his family, and the Karamanoğlu emir built a madrasah to accommodate them. Veled's son was the famous Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, who married his wife, Gevher Hatun, while his family was living in Karaman. It was here, too, that Rumi's mother died in 1224. Today she is buried, along with other family members, in the Aktekke Mosque (also known as the Mader-i Mevlana Cami), which Alaeddin Ali Bey had built to replace the original medrese in 1370.