Massive ancient underground city discovered

This sounds promising, a massive underground city located dating back 5,000 years, which seems much older than the dates generally given for such.



Massive underground city discovered.

Another underground city of Cappadocia

One hundred square miles with more than 200 underground villages and tunnel towns complete with hidden passages, secret rooms and ancient temples and a remarkably storied history of each new civilization building on the work of the last, make Cappadocia one of the world's most striking and largest cave-dwelling regions of the world. Now a discovery has been made that may overshadow them all.

Some pictures here

With 2014 soon coming to an end, potentially the year’s biggest archeological discovery of an underground city has come from Turkey’s Central Anatolian province of Nevşehir, which is known world-wide for its Fairy Chimneys rock formation.

The city was discovered by means of Turkey’s Housing Development Administration’s (TOKİ) urban transformation project. Some 1,500 buildings were destructed located in and around the Nevşehir fortress, and the underground city was discovered when the earthmoving to construct new buildings had started.

TOKİ Head Mehmet Ergün Turan said the area where the discovery was made was announced as an archeological area to be preserved.

“It is not a known underground city. Tunnel passages of seven kilometers are being discussed. We stopped the construction we were planning to do on these areas when an underground city was discovered,” said Turan.

The city is thought to date back 5,000 years and is located around the Nevşehir fortress. Escape galleries and hidden churches were discovered inside the underground city.

A very large one too...

Hasan Ünver, mayor of Nevşehir, said other underground cities in Nevşehir’s various districts do not even amount to the “kitchen” of this new underground city.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Brilliant find mate, love to see discoveries such as this one come to light!

a reply to: andy06shake

Yes it's good especially given dating it back thus far to 5,000 years old;

That’s because the find appears to be nearly unmatched in both its scale and its age. Experts believe that the underground city dates back 5,000 years, to the time of the Hittites. The seven-kilometer tunnel that was discovered connects to other underground living spaces in the area, covering an area of bout 800,000 square meters.

Nevsehir area is already home to several well known underground cities, however, relatively speaking the latest find is many times larger than all of them put together.

Underground city discovered Turkey

An interesting fact of note is that the famous underground city of Derinkuyu is also located in the same Turkish province of Nevşehir. However, this new discovery is estimated to be larger and about 2000-2500 years older than Derinkuyu.

Furthermore, Nevşehir Province has several other historical underground cities. Derinkuyu connects to another underground city called Kaymakli via an 8 km tunnel. It would be amazing to see if this new discovery also connects to the aforementioned underground dwellings.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

I have to agree considering 5000 years is pretty much as far back as our recorded history stretches. Its great to find archaeological sites such as this considering how little we know or understand regarding our ancient past.

the only question i have, on repeat is:
"when can i visit it?,when can i visit it?,when can i visit it?,when can i visit it?"
beautiful discovery!
let's hope we find something that "documents" how our brothers and sisters from the past lived.

a reply to: Pistoche

I wonder if this site has similar doors to the ones discovered at Derinkuyu? Those things are engineering marvels in themselves considering there weight, location and the fact that only one individual was required to close them into place.

a reply to: Pistoche

It will be interesting to see how this has been dated, as you say up to now they haven't been thought to date much earlier than the Byzantine period, so it will re-raise the issue of who first constructed them and why.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Fascinating! You mentioned here what I have always wondered. That is why were these types of cities constructed. What was going on, on this planet that made these necessary? Was it too hot on the surface? Were there storms of meteors going on??? Were there perhaps Giants, or other nasties to hide from on the surface? Also i see that some of these have very low ceilings. Short statured inhabitants, or maybe it was simply that less material was removed this way, and that made it a little easier for construction. Not that removing solid rock would be very easy anyways......
Good Thread!
Thanx for the share. Syx.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Awesome find, seems they discovered it in 2013 but have only found 44 artefacts there - it will be fascinating to learn what these artefacts are - but it seems a tiny number to me, they could even be trash which would suggest that the place was pretty comprehensively emptied at some point in the past. Perhaps abandoned due to conflict, i think that these underground cities in Turkey were built to act as refuges from opposing factions (iirc).

I've never read so much detail about Cappadocia (i really should) and don't know if such a low number of finds is typical or not but i am surprised, especially given the suggested size of this new site.

I'm kinda surprised that after only a year or so that they are already working on installing galleries and opening the place to the public too, perhaps it will only be partial and will fund further examination of other parts of the site. One can hope, at least.

a reply to: SyxPak

The dating may be a key part of the answer in that 5'000 years ago is around the time of the rise of the city state empires. It may really be as simple as an underground city with numerous escapes being far easier to defend than an above ground city.

It may also be worth checking the geological record for that era. Cappadocia is very volcanically active (or has been at various points). Possible shelter cities?

Basically, there are loads of possible variations of the needs for such a location. Much further investigation is surely needed.

a reply to: skalla

Possibly the reason for such a lack of artifacts is the very location - Cappadocia has been one of those areas heavily involved throughout human history. Many major conflicts have taken place in the region and many refugees and displaced peoples have been in the era through the millenia. Underground cities, as such, would be amazing hiding places in these circumstances and also an excelletn opportunity to pick through whatever you find down there.

a reply to: skalla

It seems odd if they were first discovered in 2013 that they are only now being announced publicly, obviously they have been considerably explored to have a general idea of the size yet only images from around the entrance are released, so that's not good.

The number of finds as you say is surprising, you'd expect that what went down there stayed down there unless it was of obvious value, there should be more trash artifacts. Pushing back earliest date to 5,000 years ago does raise obvious questions as to who could have constructed the first depths, that pre-dates even the Hittite empire by some 1,400 years.

My own hope on these is that they constitute the basis for the Vara of Yima, the underground version of the Ark mythos were all the people and their animals took refuge to escape the cold above, most probably relating to the end of the last ice age, but that of course would require the first basis to be considerably older even than 5,000 years.

a reply to: SyxPak

As i mention above there is the tradition of building an underground Vara to escape from the frozen world above, it's just that i'd expect that to be further North and back in time...

I would like to know if a super volcano was a reason to go under. My problem with this idea is reaction time to such a cataclysm.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Here yet again, is one of those places where the older the site, the more extensive and elaborate it seems to be. Like the knowledge to do these things was ancient, and as time went on, much of it was gradually forgotten.

I also wonder what may have necessitated so many underground dwellings, obviously built for the long haul. I also wonder if these may be much older than they think at this point. Guess we'll have to wait and see if any portion goes back to the ice age.

I have a feeling this isn't the last one of these they're going to find. Thanks Kantz.

a reply to: Klassified

I think the basis of these sites could be much older, even though they all seem to have seen later development and additions, and like i said it's very odd that they have been sat on these for what must have been the best part of two years and explored as far as possible before announcing, and even then talking rubbish as far as 5,000 year dating possibly relating to Hittites...









Pictures from Turkish article

I can't imagine these were built for any kind of natural disaster escape of hiding from conflict. The amount of time it had to take to actually remove the material would have been lifetimes and generations for a place this size.

Great thread!

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
I can't imagine these were built for any kind of natural disaster escape of hiding from conflict. The amount of time it had to take to actually remove the material would have been lifetimes and generations for a place this size.

Great thread!

There appears to be conflicting data regarding climate change around 5200 years ago. For example, Ohio State University have drilled ice cores in South America (Peru) and found many interesting things, amongst them a wetland plant preserved below the ice sheets / glaciers, with enough DNA present to allow dating to 5200 years ago. This is remarkarble as it showed it was preserved in one hit and then never saw the sun again - indicating a massive snowfall. As Dr Thompson himself said "

This is a soft-bodied plant, he said. It had to be captured by a very large snowfall at the time, a snowfall and climate change that began very abruptly fast enough to capture a plant but not kill it. That is astounding. We know the first plant could not have been exposed at any time during in that 5,200-year history or it would have decayed, he said.

And yet we also have evidence suggesting that around 5'000 years ago, we have already transformed around a fifth of the land mass, freeing enough Carbon Dioxide to alter local climates. As Turkey was right at the front of the queue in terms of agricultural development, this would appear to mean that Turkey would have been warming rather than freezing. Humans indelible stamp on Earth clear 5000 years ago.

Combine this with a tectonically active region and the rise of warring city states and i do not believe it would be too much of a stretch to want to go underground!

Regarding carving the rock etc. One thing we also dismiss for some reason is that we are significantly weaker these days than we were 500 yeras ago. People 500 years ago were significantly weaker than people 5000-7000 years ago - this is scientifically verifiable through testing on bones, muscle joints, etc, etc. Physically, what our ancestors could achieve significantly outweighs what we could achieve.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Great find. This kind of stuff really intrigues me.