Ever thought about the mysteries and what it would feel like to explore the deepest underground city? Well, only 10 percent of the Derinkuyu underground city is accessible to visitors, down to the 8th level. Out of the several underground cities in Cappadocia city, Derinkuyu is the deepest underground city discovered in Turkey.
Derinkuyu is an ancient underground city located in Turkey, near the Nevsehir province of Cappadocia. In 1963, the mysterious multi-level city was discovered by a local man when he took out a wall in his basement while renovating his house. The man was flabbergasted when he found a secret room behind it that follows a network of tunnels excavated extending to a depth of 85 meters (280 ft) beneath the earth’s surface.
The mysterious city was home to 20,000 people. We can think of this place as an 18-floor skyscraper that was built underground, out of which only 8 floors are open for tourists to view. Shelters, supply rooms, a religious school, a church and a big grave room were revealed looking like the actual city that we reside in. Freshwater supply with several ventilation ducts to breathe fresh air, the inhabitants were creative enough to modify the tunnels and organize all the elements a person requires to live.
The secretive underground city was built to safeguard its citizens from wars with the capability to protect 20,000 people. The entire city was intricate with sharply crafted caves. Caves were designed differently on each floor. Some of them were narrow just to worsen the situation for the enemies to pass through it with their weapons. Each floor could be closed from inside with sliding stone doors of around 660 pounds to protect the inhabitants from invaders.
If you follow the tunnel at some point you will be able to find a church where its inhabitants used to pray and could see visible cross symbols engraved on the walls. Further exploring the tunnel will lead you to a graveyard where they buried the corpses. The graveyard is also known as the prominent place of the underground city. There are small holes in walls through which animals were tied, and a separate room for them to eat and drink. There exists a place where people used to produce wine. One can even identify a religious school further in the underground city.
The history of Derinkuyu underground city lies way back when Derinkuyu city was formed in the Byzantine era. The secretive place was used as protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab-Byzantine wars.
The stones on the top are volcanic formations and in contact with air they can get even more hardened. Without modern tools and technologies, how have they made the underground city?
