🔼The name Cappadocia: Summary
- Meaning
- Low Place
- Hollow Imagined
- Etymology
- From (1) κατα (kata), down from or upon, and (2) πους πεδον (pous, pedon), foot or place.
- From (1) καππα (kappa), hollow, and (2) δοκεω (dokeo), to imagine.
🔼The name Cappadocia in the Bible
The name Cappadocia belonged to a region in central Anatolia, directly north of the coast of Israel, south of Pontus and north of Cilicia and Syria. It's mentioned only twice in the New Testament, in Acts 2:9 and 1 Peter 1:1, which are both summaries of places where righteous refugees had settled. In the Greek classics, Cappadocia was considered peopled by several independent tribes, one of which being the tribe of Mash/Meshech, son of Japheth (according to Josephus Ant.1.6.1).
In deep antiquity, Cappadocia had hosted the seat of the Hittite Empire, which came to an end in the Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BCE. Whatever remained was conquered by the Lydians, and particularly king Croesus, the patriarch of capitalism (see our article on Sardis). Even after the defeat of the Lydians by the Persians, the Cappadocians retained their independence and ruled by means of a kind of feudal oligarchy, whilst paying tributes to their imperial overlord. When Alexander defeated the Persians, Cappadonia kept going and even became a kingdom.
That kingdom remained more or less independent even into Roman Imperial times, although the name of its capital clearly showed its subservience to Rome: Caesarea (not to be confused with either of the towns called Caesarea in the Bible). Finally, in 17 AD, during the reign of Tiberius, Cappadocia's kingdom was terminated and the region became a Roman province.
🔼Etymology of the name Cappadocia
The name Cappadocia appears to have originated in a Hittite term Katta Peda, meaning Low Place (or The Netherlands, if you please), with its elements clearly reminiscent of the Greek cognates κατα (kata), down from, down upon, and πους πεδον (pous/pedon), foot/place:
πους
The very common noun πους (pous) means foot, and indeed gave English the word foot and words like antipode, pedicure, expedite, impede, pajama, pawn, pedal, pedigree, pessimism, pew, pilot and podium. In Greek, our word yielded the noun πεδον (pedon), literally a place of footing, or simply: base. Verb πηδαω (pedao) means to jump or leap. Noun πηδαλιον (pedalion) describes a steering paddle of a ship (hence the English word "pedal").
However, it is doubtful that any Greek speaker in the first century would have remembered the Hittite term Katta Peda, or what it might have meant, or that it morphed from something like Ka' Ped'a to something like Kapedoia and finally Kappadokia.
Instead, the name Cappadocia rather resembles two formally unrelated but familiar terms: the first being the noun καππα (kappa), which is the name of the tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, the Κ (kappa), which was adapted from the Hebrew כ (kaph), which in turn stemmed from the verb כפף (kapap) means to bend or curve:
כפף כף
The verb כפף (kapap) means to bend or curve, and most often speaks of curving around something, and particularly in order to contain something, or to apply pressure so that the contents come out. Noun כף (kap) describes an opened hollow hand, or a utility vessel, or anything that contains something in order to pour it out or otherwise produce it. Noun כף (kep) describes a smooth or rounded stone, particularly one that provides spaces to hide within (when positioned flat on bedrock or when stacked).
Of unclear relations to the former, verbs נקף (naqap) and קוף (qop) mean to go around and could refer to catching something in a net or wrapping a captured animal with rope. Noun קוף (qop) is thought to describe an ape, perhaps because of its round head, perhaps because it was caught with a net or snare, or perhaps because it was paraded around.
In Aramaic, verb כפף (kapap) and noun כף (kap) are also spelled כפיף (kpyp) and כפא (kp'). Participles כאיף (k'yp) and כיף (kyp) describe anything bent or curved. Noun כוף (kop), literally a "round one", describes a round basket: in Greek κοφινος (kophinos).
Verbs כפה (kapa), כפא (kapa'), and כפי (kapay) mean to bend over or turn upside down. Nouns כף (kep), כיף (keyep), כיפא (keyepa') and כיפה (keyepa) refer to any sort of ball (or honey comb), and specifically to smoothly curved water-worn stones, or pearls and smoothly polished gems. Noun כיפא (keyepa') means pressure or necessity (something that bends or smooths one down over time). Noun כיפה (keyepa) means a bending, or an archway or arched doorway. Noun כפותא (kpota') describes a ball of excrement. Verb כפת (kapat) means to twist or tie together. Noun כפות (kapot) means bandage.
Noun קוף (qop), meaning ape or "round one", is also spelled קופא (qopa'), which could also describe an archway or a large round basket. Noun קופה (qoppa) means heap or pile, archway, or large basket. Noun קפה (quppa), a.k.a. קיפה (qayapa), a.k.a. קיפא (qayapa'), describes a residue or sediment that remains at the bottom of a cook pot, or a glob of coagulated fat floating in water.
The second part of our name, namely -δοκια (-dokia) may have looked like it had something to do with the formidable verb δοκεω (dokeo), to imagine or realize by imagination:
δοκεω δοξα δεχομαι
The verb δεχομαι (dechomai), meaning to receive, relates to the verb δοκεω (dokeo), meaning to imagine, and its important noun δοξα (doxa), usually translated with "glory" but rather meaning "imagination" or "image-formation." The noun δοκος (dokos) means carrier beam; the beam that carries a building's entire roof or floor, and which was famously found stuck in one helpful brother's eye.
All these words stems from the huge Proto-Indo-European root "dek-", meaning to take or accept, which also gave us words like decent (i.e. acceptable), decor, dignify, disciple, discipline, docent, docile, doctor, doctrine, dogma and orthodox. Negatively it spawned indignation and indoctrination, and approximatively it yielded paradox.
🔼Cappadocia meaning
The name Cappadocia most literally means Low Land, but a creative Greek mind may have been reminded of the figurative hollow of the Underworld, and taken our name to mean Hollow Imagined in a memento mori sort of way.