Derinkuyu underground caves in Turkey held 20,000 people

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

When in 1963 a Turkish citizen decided to renovate his own home, he could not even imagine what he would see behind the rubble of the wall. However, this discovery shocked not only the owner of the house. Sometimes the results of human activity are much more striking than fiction.

Star Wars hero Luke and his relatives lived underground. Viewers perceived this as fantasy, although the filming of the semi-underground town was carried out in Tunisia, in a very real place with underground tunnels and rooms. It turns out that quite a lot of such underground dwellings have already been opened. The largest of them became a place of pilgrimage for tourists not so long ago, just a few decades ago.

A resident of the small village of Derinkuyu in Turkey in 1963 decided to make repairs in his basement. He was embarrassed by the slight sweat of fresh air coming from behind the wall. Armed with the necessary tools, the man began to dismantle the problem wall stone by stone.

At some point, he realized that the flow of fresh air became stronger, and the collapsed wall opened the entrance to the real underworld. This was not a bunker or a basement, it was a passage leading to a large underground city! Thanks to the renovation, the owner of the house discovered the same underground city, which today is considered the largest underground complex found.

Two years later, when scientists completed their first research in the amazing city, the complex became accessible to tourists. A unique city was discovered in the same region of Cappadocia in Turkey, where there were already open underground settlements. However, their scale is incomparable with the underground city of Derinkuyu.

The city is located in several tiers at a depth of about 65 meters. The entire system is designed in such a way that city residents can avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. All rooms are connected by tunnels and passages, and fresh air is supplied through a well-designed ventilation system. The lowest tier provides access to groundwater.

According to the information that the researchers could glean during the excavations, individual rooms served not only as housing. In the underground Derinkuyu there was a school, a church, warehouses with huge supplies of food, weapons rooms. Particularly surprising was the fact that the inhabitants of the city kept large animals underground, and in some rooms there are still impressive presses for pressing oil. It is believed that about 20,000 people lived in Derinkuyu at a time.

The transitions connecting all the rooms to each other are very different from each other. There are those where several people can pass at once, and in others it is difficult to squeeze even one, and even then not in full growth.

The reason why the construction of this city was needed is still a mystery. There is an assumption that the beginning of construction dates back to the VIII-VII centuries BC, and the city was built by fire worshipers. This version is indirectly confirmed by the mention of underground cities in "Vendmdad", the sacred book of the Zoroastrians.

And already in the 5th century AD, Christians began to use underground cities to hide in times of persecution by various ill-wishers.

The building material for the city was volcanic tuff, in which all rooms and passages were carved. The most amazing thing is that after millennia from the moment of its construction, there are no signs of destruction in the city. According to research, the underground Derinkuyu was expanded and rebuilt many centuries after its construction.

The entire system of transitions is designed not only for ordinary life, but also to protect it as much as possible from uninvited guests. Some passages and rooms even have heavy round doors made of solid stone. In their shape, they are very similar to millstones. Opening such a "door" is possible only from the inside thanks to the efforts of at least two people.

The entire underground complex has many well-camouflaged exits, some of which are several kilometers away from the settlement itself.

Research of this unique city continues today, as 8 floors have been put in order so far. However, scientists agree that there may well be tiers that are even deeper.