The underground city at Dulkadirli lies about fifty kilometres north of Kırşehir, and what makes it unusual is its plan: in architecture and layout it recalls the caravanserais of the Seljuk period rather than the other underground cities. The entrance begins with a vaulted tunnel 22 metres long and opens into an unroofed courtyard 30 by 50 metres and about twenty metres high. Five halls and eight rooms, all cut into the rock, open off the east, west and north sides of that courtyard.
The lower level is reached only from room number 5, by a fan-shaped stair; there is also a well in that room. In the gallery section are two stone masses thought to be millstones, which may also have been used to close the round-arched doorways. In the room at the far end of the gallery is another smaller millstone, inside a well, and in the same room is a small place of worship, decorated with niches cut into the rock and thought to have been used by Christians. A hundred and thirty metres east of the underground city is a further settlement with two courtyards, effectively a continuation of it. The site is at Dulkadirli Inlimurat village.
Getting there
- Access
- In Dulkadirli İnlimurat village.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kırşehir as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.1 °C in January to 23.2 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (48 mm) and lightest in August (8 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
