Andaval Archaeological Site

The settlement appears in historical sources as Andabalis, Adualis and Ambabalis. In Late Antiquity it was a military garrison on the road that ran from the capital Istanbul to Cilicia and, from there, on to the Holy Land. Tradition says that Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, had churches built in the area during her pilgrimage in the first half of the 4th century.

The church that survives, the Church of Constantine and Helena, is thought to date from the 5th or 6th century, standing on or near the site of a church Helena built. It lies in the Yeni Mahalle quarter of Aktaş, about eight kilometres north-east of Niğde. It has a basilica plan with three aisles, a single apse and a flat wooden roof, a layout typical of the Byzantine architecture of that period.

After the Turkish conquest of Anatolia in the 11th century the church stayed open for the worship of local non-Muslim communities. Wall paintings, some in fresco and some in secco, survive on the west wall, on the window arches of the middle aisle and on the wall between the middle and north aisles. Researchers of the 20th century recorded that the paintings had three layers, and that the side aisles had been removed in earlier times, so the building you see is a survivor of a larger church.