Archaeologists have discovered the largest underground city in the world. It is located in Turkey.
In the district of Midyat, in the southeastern province of Mardin, archaeologists have discovered a cave that is just the beginning of a tunnel of many passages leading to a complex of wells, silos and places of worship, all of which date back to the second and third centuries AD. Sabah newspaper.
“The mussel has been in continuous use for 1,900 years,” said Gani Tarkan, museum director in Mardin, who is leading the excavations. “It was first built as a hiding place or a place to escape.”
A massive ancient underground city was discovered in the town of Midyat, in Türkiye’s Mardin province, which experts believe could potentially be the largest in the world pic.twitter.com/0v5uDd5vv9
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Since Christianity was not an official religion in the second century, families who converted to Christianity took refuge in underground cities to escape persecution from the authorities. “Probably the underground city of Midyat was one of the living quarters built for this purpose,” he added.
Similar underground cities have been discovered throughout Turkey. There are about 200 ancient settlements in Cappadocia in eastern Anatolia, now central Turkey, carved into the soft volcanic rocks of the region in the 7th and 8th centuries. Historians believe that initially these caves served as a refuge in the region from foreign invaders, and in the 14th century they were used as a refuge for Christian minorities hiding from the occupying Ottoman troops.
The cities were completely abandoned only in 1923, after the end of the Greco-Turkish wars.
They were rediscovered by accident in 1963 when a man discovered a secret room behind the wall of his house.
Cappadocia’s most famous underground city, the Derinkuyu multi-storey complex, built between 780 and 1180 AD, is located about 60 meters underground. It can accommodate about 20,000 people as well as livestock. Wine cellars, stables, chapels and a religious school have been found among the tunnels connecting Derinkuyu with other similar settlements.
However, the newly discovered city of Midyat is ahead of Derinkuyu. It can accommodate “60,000 to 70,000 people,” Tarkan says.