Guide
Derinkuyu is an underground city cut into the rock in the Derinkuyu district of Nevşehir, in Cappadocia, on the Nevşehir–Niğde road thirty kilometres from Nevşehir.
Its date is not certain. It is said to have been used in the Proto-Hittite, Hittite, Roman and Byzantine periods, and the marble eagle statue found here speaks for the Roman presence, while the missionary school and the church speak for the Byzantine. In the second century the first Christians, fleeing persecution in Rome, reached Cappadocia by way of Antioch and Kayseri and founded the underground cities of the region.
These cities were built to be lived in for long stretches, and hold everything needed for physical and communal life: churches, stables, wine presses, a missionary school, water wells, stores for provisions and ventilation shafts. Security came from the narrow tunnels built between the levels and the areas within them, and from the great stone wheels set at points along those tunnels, which could close a passage at any moment of danger.
Only eight levels have been cleared and opened to visitors. If all the levels were cleared, the total depth of the city is expected to rise from fifty metres to as much as eighty-five, and the number of levels to about twelve or thirteen.
