Derinkuyu ("deep well") (Cappadocian Greek: Μαλακοπή; Latin: Malacopia) is a town in Nevşehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the seat of Derinkuyu District.İlçe Belediyesi, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 22 May 2023. Its population is 10,912 (2022). The town sits at an average elevation of above sea level.
Geography Located in Cappadocia, Derinkuyu is notable for its large multi-level underground city, which is a major tourist attraction. The historical region of Cappadocia, where Derinkuyu is situated, contains several historical underground cities, carved out of a unique geological formation. They are not generally occupied. Over 200 underground cities at least two levels deep have been discovered in the area between Kayseri and Nevşehir, with around 40 of those having at least three levels. The troglodyte cities at Derinkuyu and Kaymaklı are two of the best examples of underground dwellings.
The geomorphology of the area lends itself to underground construction. The soil is generally dry, and the tuff rock typical of the area is easy to work.
The city contained food stores, kitchens, stalls, churches, wine and oil presses, ventilation shafts, wells, and a religious school. The Derinkuyu underground city has at least eight levels constructed to a depth of and could have sheltered thousands of people.
History
The oldest written information about underground structures is in the writings of Xenophon. In his Anabasis (circa 370 BC), he writes that the people living in Anatolia had excavated their houses underground, living well in accommodations large enough for the family, domestic animals, and supplies of stored food.Xen. An. 4.5.24-7. The first two floors of the Derinkuyu Underground City have been dated to this early period.
From Byzantine times (4th century AD) through 1923, Derinkuyu was known by its Cappadocian Greek inhabitants as Malakopea ().Peter Mackridge, "Some Pamphlets on Dead Greek Dialects': R.M. Dawkins and Modern Greek Dialectology", 1990. p. 205. "Anyone who attempts to find the Greek villages of Cappadocia today, either on the map or on the ground, is first faced by the problem that their names have been obliterated, a chauvinistic practice not only prevalent in modern Turkey, but practiced in Greece as well. Visitors to the so-called 'underground cities' at Kaymakli and Derinkuyu have difficulty in ascertaining that until 1923 they were called Anaku and Malakopi respectively (the latter being the Μαλακοπαία of Theophanes. Once located, however, these villages bear obvious traces of their Greek Christian past in the shape of sizable churches (some of which have been converted into mosques and are therefore well preserved, but with their frescoes covered with whitewash), and a number of rather elegant houses, whose Greekness is betrayed only by the initials and dates (usually about ten years before the 1923 exchange of populations." The underground city was greatly expanded in the middle Byzantine period to serve as a refuge from the raids of the Umayyad Arab and Abbasid armies, during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180). The city continued to be used as protection from the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th century. After the region fell to the Ottomans the cities were used as refuges (Greek: καταφύγια). As late as the 20th century the town's inhabitants, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using the underground chambers to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution.
Cambridge linguist Richard MacGillivray Dawkins] spent time in the towns from 1910-1911 while writing his book on Cappadocian Greek. He wrote:
The Cappadocian Greeks were required to leave in 1923 in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the tunnels were finally abandoned.
Images
See also Avanos Churches of Göreme, Turkey Eskigümüş Monastery Ihlara Valley Mokissos Özkonak Underground City Zelve Monastery
References
External links
General information on Derinkuyu, Governorship of Derinkuyu. District municipality's official website