Derinkuyu: The ancient Turkish underground city created as a hideout 

Today, you travel by underground trains and have multiple levels of basements everywhere starting from cinema halls to shopping malls. But, what if we told you that in the ancient times there used to be cities operating entirely below the ground with schools, places of worship, food stores and all facilities? In fact, these full-fledged underground cities were a common feature of Turkey in ancient times. Now, that’s a little odd, you might be thinking! But what would drive anyone to create such cities in the first place? No, not space crunch. It was fear! Let us talk about one such city, Derinkuyu, the deepest and biggest underground city in the world from those times.  

Derinkuyu at a glance 
The Derinkuyu underground city is the largest excavated underground city in the Derinkuyu district in the Nevşehir Province of Turkey. The city extends to a depth of approximately 279 feet underground and sheltered as many as 20,000 people together with their livestock. The access to the whole city could be easily shut off just by closing its large rolling stone doors from the inside. Also, each floor could be closed off separately. It seems from the structure that the city had a total of 11 floors though some of the floors have not been excavated yet. It used to have all amenities such as wine and oil presses, stables, cellars, refectories, food stores, storage rooms,  and chapels too. There is also a spacious room located on the second floor which was reportedly used as a religious school. Starting between the third and fourth levels are a series of vertical staircases, which probably led to a church on the fifth level. The large 180 ft ventilation shaft appears to have been used as a well that provided water to both the villagers above and, if the outside world was not accessible, to those in hiding., stables, cellars, refectories, food stores, storage rooms,  and chapels. There is also a spacious room located on the second floor which was reportedly used as a religious school. Starting between the third and fourth levels are a series of vertical staircases, which probably led to a church on the fifth level. The large 180 ft ventilation shaft appears to have been used as a well that provided water to both the villagers above and, if the outside world was not accessible, to those in hiding.. There was also a spacious room located on the second floor which was reportedly used as a religious school. Starting between the third and fourth levels were a series of vertical staircases, which probably led to a church on the fifth level. There was also a large 180 ft ventilation shaft. It was used as a well that provided water to both the villagers above and also to those in hiding. 

The story of origin and abandonment  
But what prompted the building of such a city? Apparently, it was built to escape periodic persecutions. In the 8th–7th centuries BC, caves might have been carved out in the soft volcanic rock by the Phrygians, who lived there. Later on, when the Phrygian language was replaced with the Greek language, the Christian inhabitants of the region expanded their caverns to deep multiple-level structures adding chapels and Greek inscriptions. But the city was fully developed only in the Byzantine era when it was heavily used as a protective haven from Muslim Arabs during the Arab-Byzantine wars (780–1180 AD). The city is also found to be connected with another underground city named Kaymakli, through 8-9 kilometres of tunnels. Later on, these cities continued to be used by the Christian natives as hideouts during the invasion by Timur, a Mongolian conqueror in the 14th century. After the region fell to the Ottomans (Turkish tribes) over the next century, the cities were largely used as shelters by the natives from the Turkish Muslim rulers.  

In fact, records say that even in the early 20th century, the local population of Cappadocian Greeks was still using these cities to escape periodic persecutions. It was only in 1923 that the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled from Turkey and moved to Greece in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, whereupon these tunnels were abandoned.  

Discovery of the city  
But how and when did this city come into the public eye? This was just a matter of chance. Actually, in 1963, a local resident found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home while renovating.  Further digging revealed a network of tunnels located underneath. In fact, to everyone’s surprise, an entire civilisation was found tucked safely underground. In 1969, the site was opened to visitors and the cave city was soon flooded by thousands of tourists. In 1985, the region was added to the Unesco World Heritage List.  

Other underground cities 
But this is not the only such city. More than 200 underground cities of at least two levels have been discovered in the area between Kayseri and Nevşehir including the Kaymakli  Underground City. But why are there so many underground cities in this region? What makes the region fit for an underground living? The answer is lack of water in the soil and its malleable and easily mouldable rock.