Karahisar-i Develi

Develi, long known as Everek, lies in the high interior of central Anatolia, in the country of Kayseri. Its surroundings preserve cultural traces of the Copper and Bronze Ages, of the centuries around 2500 to 2000 BC, and of the Seljuk period, showing that the district’s importance did not begin with the medieval city. A fourteenth-century historian and geographer described Everek as a medium-sized town whose walls had been rebuilt by the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin.

A seventeenth-century Ottoman geographical work calls it Davahlu, and the Armenians called it Averak, “ruin”, illustrating how names changed while settlement continued. After the Turks entered Anatolia in 1071, the Oghuz Develioğulları clan settled in the district, and it was added to Ottoman lands under Mehmed II. Armenian and Greek communities also lived here alongside the Muslim majority.