Man discovers vast underground city

Jeff Parsons (metro.co.uk, 12/28/22); Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The underground city is now open to the public (Getty Images/iStockphoto/© Metro)

Tunnels of Derinkuyu were found by a man in 1960s (Shutterstock/Wirestock Creators © Metro)

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Man knocks down basement wall and discovers vast underground city

On the list of surprising things to find in one's basement, a vast underground city dating back centuries is probably high up there.

The tunnels of Derinkuyu were found by a, presumably very surprised, man in the 1960s. But that’s exactly what one man discovered in 1963 after taking a sledgehammer to the wall of his cellar in Nevşehir Province in Turkey [between Europe and Asia].

The man – who has stayed anonymous in subsequent reports – found a tunnel lurking behind the wall during a bit of home renovation. The tunnel led to another one then another behind that. He had unwittingly located the entrance to a huge underground city called Derinkuyu.

The Derinkuyu cave complex in Cappadocia, Turkey (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

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The subterranean warren had been abandoned for centuries and was eventually found to be 18 stories deep and capable of housing up to 20,000 residents [to preserve humanity during times of periodic catastrophe, just as the Native Americans were saved by the "ant people" in the region of the Grand Canyon].

The Derinkuyu cave complex in Cappadocia, Turkey (Getty Images/iStockphoto/Metro)

Experts believe the city may have housed 20,000 inhabitants (Getty Images/iStockphoto/Metro)

There were chapels, schools, and even stables down there. According to archeologists at the Turkish Department of Culture, Derinkuyu was carved into the volcanic rock and became a sort of human-made ant colony.

The experts believe it was crafted between the 7th and 8th century BCE by the Phrygians, an ancient Indo-European culture.

It reached its peak in the Byzantine period (about 395 CE to 1453 CE) and extended to include wells and water channels.

While early uses for the underground complex were likely storage, it grew to the size it was for the purposes of defense.

As on Mars, life has to go underground to survive a cataclysm (Getty/iStockphoto/Metro)

Tunnels of Derinkuyu were found by a man in the 1960s (Shutterstock/Wirestock Creators/Metro)

According to records, different people sheltered in the city over centuries. Early Christians lived there, fleeing persecutions from the Romans, and Muslims used it to hide during the Arab-Byzantine wars between the 7th and 11th centuries.

Derinkuyu is now open to the public to visit, although only 10% of the city is accessible. What would someone do if one were to find a massive underground city behind a wall in a cellar [or in the deserts out West where large caverns have been stumbled upon that clearly housed thousands]?

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