Derinkuyu: Turkey’s Underground City

At first glance, Derinkuyu looks like a perfectly ordinary Turkish town. A few dusty streets. A couple of mosques. The odd tea shop. Some sleepy cats slinking about like they own the place (because of course they do). But beneath the humdrum surface of this unassuming settlement in Cappadocia lies something that makes even the most jaded archaeologists do a double-take, then possibly drop their clipboard: an entire underground city. Yes, a proper city. With rooms, stables, kitchens, wells, churches, and ventilation shafts. All dug deep into the earth by people who, for whatever reason, decided that sunlight was overrated.

Derinkuyu wasn’t just some oversized bunker. It went full-on subterranean metropolis. At its peak, it could shelter up to 10,000 people. That’s ten thousand humans. Plus their livestock. Plus their wine. Priorities, clearly. The city spans at least eight storeys deep that have been explored and opened to tourists. Some believe there could be more levels beneath, but these remain unexcavated or inaccessible.

Nobody knows exactly who built it. The popular theory gives credit to the Phrygians around the 8th or 7th century BCE, although others suggest it might go back even further to the Hittites. Over time, it was expanded by various groups: early Christians fleeing persecution, Byzantines avoiding Arab raids, and possibly a few medieval introverts tired of their upstairs neighbours. The name “Derinkuyu” means “deep well” — an apt name when you consider the city stretches around 60 metres underground. If you dropped your phone down there, forget it. It now belongs to history.

The idea wasn’t just to hide. This was strategic brilliance. The entrance tunnels are so narrow, you’d have to walk sideways if you’ve had one too many manti dumplings. That made it easy to block invaders. Giant rolling stones (no relation to Mick Jagger) could seal off passageways. Ventilation shafts kept the air fresh, and wells ensured water supply. They thought of everything. There were even schools and chapels underground. Imagine holding Sunday service in a candle-lit cavern with impeccable acoustics and zero Wi-Fi. Heavenly.

The real question, though, is why. Why build down instead of up? The short answer: survival. Cappadocia was, shall we say, a bit volatile. Hordes came and went. Assyrians, Hittites, Persians, Romans, Arabs, Mongols. Everyone wanted a piece of Anatolia. It was like the 2-for-1 deal at a kebab shop, and everyone was queueing. Building underground was a way of saying: fine, raid the village, but we’ll be sipping goat milk six storeys below, thank you very much.

Also, the local geology helped. The region’s volcanic rock, called tuff, is soft enough to carve but firm enough to stay put. It’s the same rock responsible for those peculiar fairy chimneys popping out of the ground like stony mushrooms all over Cappadocia. Nature provided the material, humans brought the paranoia and engineering.

Visiting Derinkuyu today is a bit like crawling through the nervous system of an ancient civilisation. You start at a modest doorway that gives zero clues about what awaits. Then it’s down, down, down through dimly lit corridors, past crumbling chapels and ghostly kitchens. The ceilings get lower, the walls narrower, and before you know it, you’re two hundred steps beneath the earth trying to recall if you’re claustrophobic or not.

Some of the most fascinating spaces are the communal rooms. You can imagine families huddled together, gossiping by candlelight while baking flatbread in a smoke-blackened oven. There are barns and wine cellars too, because what’s a siege without a little fermented morale boost? Then there’s the missionary school, a long rectangular room with a vaulted ceiling and stone benches. Presumably, this is where young monks were taught not to make noise and definitely not to ask, “Are we there yet?”

As for the ventilation shafts, they’re marvels in their own right. These vertical tunnels run through multiple levels, ensuring breathable air for everyone from chickens to clergy. If they had Tripadvisor in the 10th century, the reviews would read: “Dark, damp, and oddly cosy. 5 stars for airflow.”

Of course, Derinkuyu wasn’t the only one. Cappadocia is riddled with underground complexes. Over 200 of them have been discovered, though Derinkuyu is the granddaddy of them all. Some of these cities may have been connected by tunnels, including Kaymakli about 9 kilometres away, although the full extent of these connections is still debated.

The city remained a local secret for centuries. It wasn’t until 1963 that the modern world got a peek. A man in Derinkuyu knocked down a wall in his basement and found… another room. Then a tunnel. Then more rooms. The Turkish equivalent of, “Honey, you’d better come see this.” Eventually, archaeologists got involved and unearthed the whole thing. The poor guy just wanted a wine cellar.

It all raises a delightful question: what else is under our feet? How many ancient civilisations quietly went underground while the surface world tore itself apart? Derinkuyu doesn’t just remind us of human ingenuity. It whispers about everything we’ve forgotten. And frankly, it makes most modern panic rooms look like IKEA flatpacks.

There are whispers of even older layers beneath Derinkuyu. Some speculate the tunnels could predate the Phrygians. While fringe theories about aliens or Atlantis pop up from time to time, mainstream archaeology rolls its eyes. The lack of definitive answers, though, leaves plenty of room for imagination.

And that’s part of the charm. Derinkuyu doesn’t give you the whole story. It hands you a torch and lets your imagination wander. Who lived here? What jokes did they tell? Did they have arguments about whose turn it was to clean the sheep pen? Probably. Humanity doesn’t change that much. Only the scenery.

So if you ever find yourself in Cappadocia, take a break from the hot-air balloons and the Instagram-perfect vistas. Get underground. Walk the halls carved by hands long gone. Breathe the cool air of tunnels that once buzzed with life. And when you come back up to the surface, blinking like a mole, try not to feel too smug about your house having windows. Derinkuyu might not have sunlight, but it’s got something arguably more impressive: history stacked in layers like an ancient mille-feuille, each crumb whispering tales of survival, stubbornness, and stone-carved brilliance.