Published on : Wednesday, May 15, 2019
This was recently announced by the city’s Mayor Rasim Arı.
The new underground attraction for tourist is believed to rival Derinkuyu that could house 20,000 people and was the largest excavated underground city in Cappadocia.
The site dates back to the early Byzantine times and was discovered beneath a Byzantine-era hilltop castle in Nevsehir. The expected area of the site is 460,000 square meters by scientists from Nevsehir University.
Mayor Arı stated that the site of the underground city will be opened for tourists once it goes through hte necessary excavation and restoration works.
This is expected to make Cappadocia one of the biggest tourist attractions in Turkey.Construction workers at the castle discovered entrances to a network of rooms and tunnels in 2013.
After the archaeologists followed the tunnels it was announced that they discovered a multilevel settlement of living spaces, spaces, kitchens, wineries, chapels and staircases considered to the biggest underground city discovered.
The greatest states of the time including the Hittites, Phrygians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans were lured by the region.
During the early Roman era when the locals converted to Christianity they wanted hideouts to survive, hence these underground cities were created to protect themselves from the pagans.