Turkey’s Ancient Underground Cities

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Welcome to Spotlight. Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I’m Alice Irrizary.

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A man is working on his home in Derinkuyu, a city in Türkiye. The build is going well. But there is one problem: his pet chickens keep disappearing. He watches one of these birds go down a hole in the floor. It never returns.

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One day, the man decides to follow his disappearing chickens. He starts hitting the sides of the hole that leads into the ground. The hole opens up onto a large passageway in the rock. This is not a natural place. The man discovers rooms, doors, and even Christian churches. He has found a whole underground city cut into the rock. One day, experts will call this place Derinkuyu. They will find that it is eighteen stories deep and once held twenty thousand people.

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On today’s Spotlight, we will explore the mysteries of Derinkuyu’s underground city. We will ask how such a huge place could remain hidden. We will examine the lives of the people who lived there.

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The Derinkuyu underground city is the largest below-ground settlement in Türkiye’s Cappadocia area. This area is known for its “fairy chimneys.” These rock formations seem like tall structures. But they formed from a natural process.

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Long ago, ash from volcanoes covered the area. The ash ultimately turned into rock called tuff. Tuff is very soft rock. Wind and water can easily push it away. This leaves castles of harder stone that stick up out of the surface.

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Tuff also makes for easy digging. Andrea De Giorgi is an expert at Florida State University. He told the British Broadcasting Company:

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“Cappadocia is specially good for this kind of underground building. This is because of the lack of water in the dirt and its flexible, easily shaped rock.”

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It is difficult to know who first began building in Derinkuyu. Some experts believe some parts of the city were built as far back as 1200 BCE. But these buildings were only the first parts. Probably, many generations of people built the city together. Each one used the space for different reasons.

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The people who built the first several floors of Derinkuyu were either the Hittites or the Phrygians. These ancient kingdoms either used the city for defense or for storing food. In times of war, the underground would be a good place to hide. In times of peace, it would keep food cool from the hot Cappadocian sun.

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Whatever the reason, whoever built the city hid it with purpose. Most entries are cut into natural holes in the rock. Builders used the land to hide their buildings. Even ventilation shafts, holes that brought air to those below ground, were hidden. Builders hid these as wells, places where people pulled up water from the ground. Interestingly, this is exactly what Derinkuyu means: deep well. 

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Derinkuyu only reached its full size and population in the seventh century CE. During this time, the Byzantine Empire occupied Cappadocia. This Christian kingdom often warred with nearby Muslim groups. Various Arab Caliphates controlled parts of Cappadocia from time to time. The Byzantine Empire could not always protect its people.

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To stay safe, the Cappedocian Christians dug farther down. Much of the Derinkuyu underground city shows their clever inventions. Hidden traps caught attackers off guard. Before reaching the living spaces, the holes were very small. Invaders would need to walk one by one to reach the inner parts. Special stone doors could close off each entrance. Each door had a hole in its center. Those inside could fight off invaders if needed. But behind the door, they would be safe.

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Suleman is a guide guides who brings visitors through Derinkuyu’s underground city. He said:

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“Life underground was probably very difficult. The citizens used special jars as toilets. They lived by the light of fires. They placed their dead in special areas.”

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Each place in the city had its own purpose. People lived in the middle floors. Livestock, like cows and goats, lived on the upper floors. This had two purposes. First, it made the smell from the animals easy to remove. Second, it kept the people living underneath warm in the winter. The lower floors were probably used for storing food.

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But Derinkuyu’s underground city was not without its pleasures. Explorers discovered places in the city used for making wine. The city’s many churches show their devotion to their religion. Life may have been difficult. But these underground people must have taken comfort in their community. They were pulled together by a common cause and a common fear.

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People lived in this underground city for many centuries. This was not a continuous occupation at first. Citizens would have fled to this city in times of war. For example, they would use the city as protection from the Mongolian invasion led by Timur. This model may have changed in the twelfth century, when the Seljuk Turkic people took over the area.

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Cappadocia came under control of Muslim rulers. Most Muslims respected Christianity, calling them “fellow children of the book.” But Christians in the area outnumbered their Turkish rulers. These new leaders punished the Christians for their faith, trying to weaken their hold on the area. Many Christians fled underground for months and even years, hoping for a change.

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This change never really came. The Turkish people came to Cappadocia and stayed. The state became the Ottoman Empire, one of the largest Muslim Empires in history. The Ottoman attitudes toward Christians changed over the years. And the Christians would often flee to their city underground during times of strife.

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The last people to use Derinkuyu’s underground city hid there in 1919. These people were fleeing the violence of a war between Turkey and Greece.  After this war, Derinkuyu’s inhabitants left the country. People in the area forgot it even existed until a man building a house went searching for his chickens.

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Today, Derinkuyu is one of the area’s most famous places to visit. It is a part of UNESCO’s World Heritage site in Cappadocia. For a small price, guides take visitors through some of the places its citizens lived. To an invader, the underground city would be huge and complex. But now, guests can wonder at the literal depths a person will go to protect their faith. Fernanda Cerdio is a writer at Cultura Collectiva. She said:

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“Derinkuyu is not just a wonder of building. It is a look into humanity’s strength and ability to change. As we uncover its secrets, this ancient city reminds us that modern society is built on layers of history waiting to be discovered.”

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Are you a person of faith? What would you do to keep your faith alive? What things would you do to protect your family in times of trouble? You can leave a comment on our website at wwww.spotlightenglish.com. You can also find us on Youtube, Facebook, Tiktok, and X. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.

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The writer and producer was Dan Christmann. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called, ‘Turkey’s Ancient Underground Cities’.

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We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.

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Are you a person of faith? What would you do to keep your faith alive? What things would you do to protect your family in times of trouble?