Guide
Andaval lies at Aktaş, in the central district of Niğde. Historical sources give the settlement three names — Andabalis, Adualis, Ambabalis — and in late antiquity it was a military garrison on the road running from the capital, Constantinople, into Cilicia and on to the Holy Land.
Legend holds that Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, had churches built in this region in the first half of the 4th century while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The church that survives here is known as the church of Constantine and Helena, but its architectural plan indicates it was put up at a later date, on or near the site of the one Helena founded. After Anatolia passed to the Turks in the 11th century the church remained open for worship by the non-Muslim population of the district.
What a visitor finds today is much less than what is described. H. Rott, who visited in 1908, recorded that shortly before his visit the side aisles had been removed and the piers dividing them walled up between. M. Restle, who worked on the building in the 1970s and published in 1979, still saw the vault covering the central aisle and part of the wall paintings, and noted that the paintings ran in three separate layers. The central aisle was demolished in 1977. The address is Yeni Mahalle, Aktaş, Merkez, Niğde.
