Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.04.2017
Brewminate Editor-in-Chief
Kaymakli
A large room several floors down into the city. / Wikimedia Commons
Kaymakli Underground City is contained within the citadel of Kaymakli in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. First opened to tourists in 1964, the village is about 19 km from Nevşehir, on the Nevşehir-Niğde road.
History
A view showing several floors at once. / Photo by Nevit Dilmen, Wikimedia Commons
The ancient name was Enegup. Caves may have first been built in the soft volcanic rock by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries B.C., according to the Turkish Department of Culture.[1] When the Phrygian language died out in Roman times, replaced with Greek, to which it was related, the inhabitants, now Christians, expanded their underground caverns adding the chapels and inscriptions. The city was used in the Byzantine era for protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180).[2] The city was connected with Derinkuyu underground city through miles of tunnels. Some artifacts discovered in these underground settlements belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th and the 10th centuries A.D. These cities continued to be used by the Christian inhabitants as protection from the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th century.[3] After the region fell to the Ottomans, the cities were used as refuges (καταφύγια) from the Turkish Muslim rulers, and as late as the 20th century the inhabitants, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution.[4] Dawkins, a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greeks in the area from 1909-1911, recorded that in 1909:
when the news came of the recent massacres at Adana, a great part of the population at Axo took refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground.[5]
When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the tunnels were abandoned.
Description
A remarkable block formation of andesite (a volcanic rock) with several holes, used in Kaymakli for cold copper processing. / Photo by Nevit Dilmen, Wikimedia Commons
The houses in the village are constructed around the nearly one hundred tunnels of the underground city. The tunnels are still used today as storage areas, stables, and cellars. The underground city at Kaymakli differs from Derinkuyu in terms of its structure and layout. The tunnels are lower, narrower, and more steeply inclined. Of the four floors open to tourists, each space is organized around ventilation shafts. This makes the design of each room or open space dependent on the availability of ventilation.
A stable is located on the first floor. The small size of the stable could indicate that other stables exist in the sections not yet opened. To the left of the stable is a passage with a millstone door. The door leads into a church. To the right of the stables are rooms, possibly living spaces.
Located on the second floor is a church with a nave and two apses. Located in front of the apses is a baptismal font, and on the sides along the walls are seating platforms. Names of people contained in graves here coincide with those located next to the church, which supports the idea that these graves belonged to religious people. The church level also contains some living spaces.
The third floor contains the most important areas of the underground compound: storage places, wine or oil presses, and kitchens. The level also contains a remarkable block of andesite with relief textures. Recently it was shown that this stone was used for cold-forming copper.[6] The stone was hewn from an andesite layer within the complex. In order for it to be used in metallurgy, fifty-seven holes were carved into the stone. The technique was to put copper into each of the holes (about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in diameter) and then to hammer the ore into place. The copper was probably mined between Aksaray and Nevsehir. This mine was also used by Asilikhoyuk, the oldest settlement within the Cappadocia Region.
The high number of storage rooms and areas for earthenware jars on the fourth floor indicates some economic stability. Kaymakli is one of the largest underground settlements in the region. The large area reserved for storage in such a limited area appears to indicate the need to support a large population underground. Currently only a fraction of the complex is open to the public.
Derinkuyu
Christians fled the enemies and hid in this underground cities. / Photo by Nevit Dilmen, Wikimedia Commons
The Derinkuyu underground city is an ancient multi-level underground city in the Derinkuyu district in Nevşehir Province, Turkey. Extending to a depth of approximately 60 m (200 feet), it is large enough to have sheltered as many as 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is one of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.
It was opened to visitors in 1969 and about half of the underground city is currently accessible to tourists.
Features
A “school” / Photo by Martijn Munneke
The underground city at Derinkuyu could be closed from the inside with large stone doors. Each floor could be closed off separately.
The city could accommodate as many as 20,000 people and had all the usual amenities found in other underground complexes across Cappadocia, such as wine and oil presses, stables, cellars, storage rooms, refectories, and chapels. Unique to the Derinkuyu complex and located on the second floor is a spacious room with a barrel vaulted ceiling. It has been reported that this room was used as a religious school and the rooms to the left were studies.[7]
Between the third and fourth levels is a vertical staircase. This passageway leads to a cruciform church on the lowest (fifth) level.
The large 55 m (180 foot) ventilation shaft appears to have been used as a well. The shaft also provided water to both the villagers above and, if the outside world was not accessible, to those in hiding.
History
Caves may have been built initially in the soft volcanic rock of the Cappadocia region by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries BCE, according to the Turkish Department of Culture.[8] When the Phrygian language died out in Roman times, replaced with its close relative, the Greek language, the inhabitants, now Christian, expanded their underground caverns adding the chapels and Greek inscriptions.
The city at Derinkuyu was fully formed in the Byzantine era, when it was heavily used as protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180).[9] It was at this time that most of the chapels and Greek inscriptions were added. The city was connected with other underground cities through miles of tunnels. Some artifacts discovered in these underground settlements belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th and the 10th centuries AD.
These cities continued to be used by the Christian natives as protection from the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th century.[10]
After the region fell to the Ottomans, the cities were used as refuges from the Turkish Muslim rulers.[11] As late as the 20th century the locals, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution.[12] R. M. Dawkins, a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greek natives in the area from 1909-1911, recorded that in 1909, “when the news came of the recent massacres at Adana, a great part of the population at Axo took refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground.”
When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey the tunnels were abandoned.
The tunnels were rediscovered in 1963, after a resident of the area found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home. Further digging revealed access to the tunnel network.
References
- Turkish Department of Culture
- Darke, Diana (2011). Eastern Turkey. Bradt Travel Guides. pp. 139–140. “The area became an important frontier province during the 7th century when Arab raids on the Byzantine Empire began. By now the soft tufa had been tunneled and chambered to provide underground cities where a settled if cautious life could continue during difficult times. When the Byzantines re-established secure control between the 7th and 11th centuries, the troglodyte population surfaced, now carving their churches into rock faces and cliffs in the Goreme and Sogamli areas, giving Cappadocia its fame today. […] At any rate here they flourished, their churches remarkable for being cut into the rock, but interesting especially for their paintings, relatively well preserved, rich in coloring, and with an emotional intensity lacking in the formalism of Constantinople; this is one of the few places where paintings from the pre-iconoclastic period have survived. Icons continued to be painted after the Seljuk conquest of the area in the 11th century, and the Ottoman conquest did not interfere with the Christian practices in Cappadocia, where the countryside remained largely Greek, with some Armenians. But decline set in and Goreme, Ihlara and Soganli lost their early importance. The Greeks finally ending their long history here with the mass exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1923.”
- Dawkins, R.M. (1916). Modern Greek in Asia Minor. A study of dialect of Silly, Cappadocia and Pharasa. Cambridge University Press. p. 17. “these excavations are referred to as long ago as the campaigns of Timour Beg, one of whose captains was sent to hunt out the inhabitants of Kaisariyeh, who had taken refuge in their underground dwellings, and was killed by an arrow shot through the hole in one of the doors.”
- Dawkins. Modern Greek in Asia Minor. p. 16.
- Dawkins. Modern Greek in Asia Minor. p. 16.
- Nevşehir > Underground Settlements > Kaymakli Underground City
- Nevşehir > Underground Settlements > Derinkuyu Underground City
- Turkish Department of Culture
- Woodard, Roger D. The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 72. “Unquestionably, however, Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek.”
- Dawkins. Modern Greek in Asia Minor.
- Dawkins. Modern Greek in Asia Minor.
- Dawkins. Modern Greek in Asia Minor.