Archeologists discover 5,000-year-old underground city that could be the largest ever

[shunyadragon]

Source: http://inhabitat.com/archeologists-dig-up-5000-year-old-underground-city-that-could-be-the-largest-ever-found/

Archeologists discover 5,000-year-old underground city that could be the largest ever found

© Copyright Original Source

[rogue06]

Source: http://inhabitat.com/archeologists-dig-up-5000-year-old-underground-city-that-could-be-the-largest-ever-found/

Archeologists discover 5,000-year-old underground city that could be the largest ever found

© Copyright Original Source

I was reading about this earlier this morning. Discovered in Cappadocia in central Turkey with one source declaring that it consists "of at least 7 kilometers (3.5 miles) of tunnels, hidden churches, and escape galleries dating back around 5,000 years." I think the dating back 5000 years part is a bit suspect in that most of these underground cities date from much later.

The source above brings up another multi-level underground city in Nevşehir Province called Derinkuyu that could hold up to 20,000 people. The article describes it as being eleven levels deep although the Wikipedia article on it says it has five levels. They also say such structures started out as caves which were later expanded and were likely first constructed "by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 7th–8th centuries B.C." That would push their origins back to less than 3000 years.

An ABC article includes numerous pictures

[One Bad Pig]

Some of the pics at the ABC site look more like random pictures of Kayseri.

[Cow Poke]

Some of the pics at the ABC site look more like random pictures of Kayseri.

Kayseri, seri, whatever will be will be.

[DesertBerean]

I'm guessing that PARTS of the city date back 5,000 years since churches can't go back more than about 2,000...

[rogue06]

I'm guessing that PARTS of the city date back 5,000 years since churches can't go back more than about 2,000...

Apparently they are basing the age on some artifacts uncovered there but they are not releasing how the dating was done.

[One Bad Pig]

Kayseri, seri, whatever will be will be.

Well, aren't you punny.

[shunyadragon]

I'm guessing that PARTS of the city date back 5,000 years since churches can't go back more than about 2,000...

I believe what they may be referring to is temples, or possibly churches used much later in history.