Kaymakli underground city (; ) is contained within the citadel of Kaymakli in

Nevşehir Province Nevşehir Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province in central Turkey with its capital in Nevşehir. Its area is 5,485 km2, and its population is 317,952 (2024). Its adjacent provinces are Kırşehir Province, Kırşehir to the northwest ...

, in the Central Anatolia Region of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. First opened to tourists in 1964, the village is about 19 km from

Nevşehir Nevşehir (; from 'new' and 'city') is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Nevşehir Province and Nevşehir District.Niğde road.

History

The ancient name was Enegup. Caves may have first been built in the soft volcanic rock by the

Phrygians The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term t ...

, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries BC, according to the Turkish Department of Culture.Turkish Department of Culture
'www.nevsehir.gov.tr'' After the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

colonized the region, the

Phrygian language The Phrygian language () was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Anatolia (in modern Turkey), during classical antiquity (c. 8th century BCE to 5th century CE). Phrygian ethno-linguistic homogeneity is debatable. Ancient Gre ...

gradually died out in

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

times, replaced with

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, to which it was related. The city was greatly expanded and deepened in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) era, when it was used for protection from

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

raids during the four centuries of

Arab–Byzantine wars The Arab–Byzantine wars or Muslim–Byzantine wars were a series of wars from the 7th to 11th centuries between multiple Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim Arab Caliphates conquered large parts of the Christian Byzantine empir ...

(780–1180). The city was connected with the

Derinkuyu underground city Derinkuyu () also known as Elengubu, is an ancient multi-level underground city near the modern town of Derinkuyu in Nevşehir Province, Turkey, extending to a depth of approximately . It is large enough to have sheltered as many as 20,000 peopl ...

through of tunnels. Some artifacts discovered in these underground settlements belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th and the 10th centuries AD. These cities continued to be used by the Christian inhabitants as protection from the Mongolian incursions of

Timur Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1320s17/18 February 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeat ...

in the 14th century. After the region fell to the

Seljuk Turks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; , ''Saljuqian'',) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turks, Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate society, Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persi ...

of Persia, the cities were used as refuges () from the Turkish Muslim rulers, and as late as the 20th century the inhabitants, now called

Rûm Rūm ( , collective; singulative: ''Rūmī'' ; plural: ''Arwām'' ; ''Rum'' or ''Rumiyān'', singular ''Rumi''; ), ultimately derived from Greek Ῥωμαῖοι ('' Rhomaioi'', literally 'Romans'), is the endonym of the pre-Islamic inhabi ...

('Eastern Romans') by their Ottoman Turkish rulers, were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution.

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins Richard MacGillivray Dawkins FBA (24 October 1871 – 4 May 1955) was a British archaeologist. He was associated with the British School at Athens (BSA), of which he was Director between 1906 and 1913. Early life Richard MacGillivray Dawkins w ...

, a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greeks in the area from 1909–1911, recorded that in 1909, When the Christian (

) inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the

population exchange between Greece and Turkey The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. It involv ...

, the tunnels were abandoned.

Description

The houses in the village are constructed around the nearly one hundred tunnels of the underground city. The tunnels are still used today as storage areas, stables, and cellars. The underground city at Kaymakli differs from Derinkuyu in terms of its structure and layout. The tunnels are lower, narrower, and more steeply inclined. Of the four floors open to tourists, each space is organized around ventilation shafts. This makes the design of each room or open space dependent on the availability of ventilation. Kaymakli underground city 9003 Nevit Enhancer

Kaymakli underground city 9003 Nevit Enhancer

A stable is located on the first floor. The small size of the stable could indicate that other stables exist in the sections not yet opened. To the left of the stable is a passage with a millstone door. The door leads into a church. To the right of the stables are rooms, possibly living spaces. Located on the second floor is a church with a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and two

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

s. Located in front of the apses is a

baptismal font A baptismal font is an Church architecture, ecclesiastical architectural element, which serves as a receptacle for baptismal water used for baptism, as a part of Christian initiation for both rites of Infant baptism, infant and Believer's bapti ...

, and on the sides along the walls are seating platforms. Names of people contained in graves here coincide with those located next to the church, which supports the idea that these graves belonged to religious people. The church level also contains some living spaces. Kaymakli underground city 8949 Nevit Compressor

Kaymakli underground city 8949 Nevit Compressor

The third floor contains the most important areas of the underground compound: storage places, wine or oil presses, and kitchens. The level also contains a remarkable block of

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

with relief textures. Recently it was shown that this stone was used for cold-forming copper.Nevşehir > Underground Settlements > Kaymakli Underground City
The stone was hewn from an andesite layer within the complex. In order for it to be used in

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

, fifty-seven holes were carved into the stone. The technique was to put copper into each of the holes (about in diameter) and then to hammer the ore into place. The copper was probably mined between Aksaray and

Nevşehir Nevşehir (; from 'new' and 'city') is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Nevşehir Province and Nevşehir District.Aşıklı Höyük Aşıklı Höyük is a settlement mound located nearly south of Kızılkaya, Gülağaç, Kızılkaya village on the bank of the Melendiz brook, and southeast of Aksaray, Turkey. Aşıklı Höyük is located in an area covered by the volcanic tu ...

, the oldest settlement within the

Cappadocia Cappadocia (; , from ) is a historical region in Central Anatolia region, Turkey. It is largely in the provinces of Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. Today, the touristic Cappadocia Region is located in Nevşehir ...

Region. The high number of storage rooms and areas for earthenware jars on the fourth floor indicates some economic stability. Kaymakli is one of the largest underground settlements in the region. The large area reserved for storage in such a limited area appears to indicate the need to support a large population underground. Currently only a fraction of the complex is open to the public.

References

External links

ChurchesAksaray Governor's Office
er)
Underground Cities of Cappadocia - Myth and Truth
German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaymakli Underground City Underground cities in Cappadocia Archaeological sites in Central Anatolia Christian buildings and structures in the Roman Empire Buildings and structures in Nevşehir Province Tourist attractions in Nevşehir Province

History

Description

See also

References

External links