Derinkuyu and Kaymakli

Recently the underground cities at Kaymakli Underground City and Derinkuyu Underground City near Nevşehir have been opened up for tourists. These also were early Christian centers and must have housed several thousand people in the eighth and ninth centuries. They extend downward in the earth for at least eight floors in a maze of tunnels and rooms and were easily defended by blocking the entrance with large rocks.

The sheer mechanics of organization, supply, and administration of such communities are staggering. A short, interesting description of life in such a place can be found in Xenephon’s Anabasis. In relating the retreat of the Greek army of Ten Thousand from Babylon to the Black Sea he describes a village in which they were entertained briefly in the winter:

“The houses here were underground, with a mouth like that of a well, but spacious below; and while entrances were tunnelled down for the beasts of burden, the human inhabitants descended by a ladder… It was here also that the village chief instructed them about wrapping small bags round the feet of their horses and beasts of burden when they were going through the snow; for without these bags the animals would sink in up to their bellies.”