Deep down into Derinkuyu

 

My Coilhouse piece on this ancient underground city (a social collapse and wartime refuge with capacity for 30,000 (!) people) is up: 

Massive millstones would be rolled in front of the entrance in time of attack, and there were, reportedly, many attackers, with Derinkuyu’s labyrinthine rooms serving as a refuge for early Christians persecuted by the Roman Empire (including other Christian sects), Byzantine Greeks fleeing Arab raids. Going back much farther, it’s not hard to imagine the site being used by fleeing Hittites in the nigh-total social collapse of the first dark age. 

The sheer engineering prowess necessary to create and maintain something like this is even more incredible when you think about the primitive technology and limited resources available (Cappadocia’s never been a rich place). Derinkuyu had a large church, many separate living quarters, space for livestock, a winery, a religious school, wells, ventilation ducts that doubled for communication purposes (the original system of tubes)

Comments

[m1k3y]

That place is amazing.

I went down there when I was touring the middle-east, back in 2000.

One of several hard-core Indiana Jones moments I had.