Derinkuyu and Kaymakh: Underground Marvels

Mysterious and alluring, the underground city is a motif often used in science fiction.
Derinkuyu and Kaymakh: Underground Marvels
9/7/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Derinkuyu.jpg" alt="A sprawling maze of rooms and corridors that was once home to thousands of people can be found hundreds of feet below the Turkish city of Capadocia. (Haluk Ozozlu)" title="A sprawling maze of rooms and corridors that was once home to thousands of people can be found hundreds of feet below the Turkish city of Capadocia. (Haluk Ozozlu)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1826375"/></a>
A sprawling maze of rooms and corridors that was once home to thousands of people can be found hundreds of feet below the Turkish city of Capadocia. (Haluk Ozozlu)

Mysterious and alluring, the underground city is a motif often used in science fiction. But there are two ancient Turkish cities that represent one of the many cases of a reality greater than fantasy.

Like a society of actual mole people, the inhabitants of Central Anatolia carried the concept of underground living to the extreme.

Found more than 100 feet below the surface, the ancient city of Derinkuyu is probably the most impressive of the underground cities found in this area. Archeologists have determined this sprawling subterranean complex of tunnels and rooms once offered secure refuge to about 100,000 people.

Derinkuyu was accidentally discovered in 1963 when a Capadocia resident, working on expanding his cave home, broke through a wall to find a mysterious room carved in the rock next to his dwelling.

Inspired by the find, the cave-homeowner continued to dig, uncovering one previously carved space after another. The discovery opened up one of the more interesting archeological adventures of the past century.

Archeologists have explored an extensive 130 feet below the surface, uncovering an impressive array of rock-carved dwellings. But some estimate that there is still much more to explore as the city is thought extend at least 260 feet into the earth.

Although this popular tourist attraction offers eight levels of underground adventure for those looking to explore Derinkuyu, there are still another 10 or 12 levels that only archeologists are currently permitted to investigate. The city’s total number of levels is still unknown.

Safe Refuge

Not intended for permanent residence, these underground dwellings instead functioned as temporary hideaways during times when the surface city was under siege. They were designed so that tens of thousands of people could live underground, safe from invading armies, for months at a time.

To account for the prolonged subterranean stay of so many, Derinkuyu city planners included over 50 ventilation tubes into the design. In addition to many wells, the city also had a natural underground river to help meet citizens’ water needs.

Carving just one room into this underground rock with primitive tools would have been a laborious task, but this sprawling city has a vast maze of hallways that connect rooms, city areas, and various levels. There is even one corridor that extends 8 miles, connecting Derinkuyu with another more ancient underground city—Kaymakh.

Derinkuyu has rooms for all the same daily activities that these ancient people enjoyed when they were surface dwellers. There are tables, kitchens, dining rooms, taverns, cisterns, stores, wine and oil cellars, and a school. There are even places of worship, including a 65-by-30-foot chapel with a nearly 10-foot ceiling.

There were accommodations for many families as well as space for domestic animals, a farm, and enough feed for at least half a year. The kitchen oven is a feature present in both cities, and in the case of Kaymakh, some of the corridors are adorned with Byzantine paintings.

Security System

As these subterranean cities served as a refuge from foreign invaders for several months, keeping intruders out was of prime importance.

Derinkuyu features enormous mobile doors in the form of very heavy stone discs nearly 2 feet thick and over 6 feet in diameter. These doors could be rolled away to let people in and rolled shut to keep enemies out.

Because they were carved over many centuries, these amazing subterranean cities are actually the products of several cultures.

Kaymakh, for example, was constructed between the 5th and 10th centuries. Although Kaymakh’s complete structure is much older than Derinkuyu—which saw its initial construction in the 7th century by the Phrygians—many archeologists think that the first level of Kaymakh could have been built by the Hittites around 1,400 B.C.

Evidence found at the site suggests that these dwellings may have first served the remaining Hittites when their empire was destroyed by invaders from Thrace.