100% guess: natural walking path that ended below a natural cave. (You can kind of see the top of the cave?) stairs are carved into the rock face up to the cave. Foundations are flattened and the cave mouth is formed for temporary living. Then you can continue to harvest blocks from the cave and start your outer walls.
Water supply might be from the cave or a river/creek nearby. Food has to come up from the stairs or possible lowered from a terrace above?
Again 100% conjecture and by no means an easy feat.
eezyE4free t1_jacgs58 wrote
Reply to comment by Dream_Streamer_ in Sumela monastery, Trabzon, Turkiye by Drunkcodes
100% guess: natural walking path that ended below a natural cave. (You can kind of see the top of the cave?) stairs are carved into the rock face up to the cave. Foundations are flattened and the cave mouth is formed for temporary living. Then you can continue to harvest blocks from the cave and start your outer walls.
Water supply might be from the cave or a river/creek nearby. Food has to come up from the stairs or possible lowered from a terrace above?
Again 100% conjecture and by no means an easy feat.