Ağırnas Underground City

I’ve found out history is a very popular topic in Turkey, and Kayseri and its surroundings are loaded with historical proof and stories.  One if the most popular historical attraction is the Ağırnas area, which is included in the metropolitan area of Kayseri, but is a town with its own municipality. We had to take a bus to get there, because it’s about 25 km from the city center.

The guide, which is now hired by the municipality, used to offer tourists his guidance for free, because he is very fond of these places, and loves this job.

These structures are both well-known and at the same time extremely mysterious because almost no written records have survived to provide information about what went on inside them.

The excavations are far from being finished, so there are much more to be revealed about the Christians who lived there to hide themselves from the roman persecution. This is one of the hundreds underground cities from Cappadocia. The most knows underground city is Derinkuyu, but the looks are very similar among all of them, all having numerous tunnels, halls, meeting rooms, wells and passages.

Church

The place where the dead were burned

The region is well known for its unique geography, which is special because volcanoes in the area covered it with a thick layer of ash. That is why ancient people began to carve the soft ash rock into tunnels and rooms to be used as residences, storage, stables and religious temples.

Ventilation... this was the chimney from the kitchen

The underground city is more like a network of tunnels, linking from one room to another, each room having a predefined purpose. The kitchen had the oven in the floor, to cook bread, the dining room was equipped with a place to sit and a table (sculpted from in the rock), the place where they kept the animals had special places to tie them and a sculpted whole in the wall to keep the food.

Dining room

The rooms were sculpted of different size, depending of its purpose. Big rooms were colder, while the smaller ones offered the comfort of a warm place during cold weather.    

Tunnel

At the end of the tunnel, there was a trap for the unwanted guests

storing places

Us being silly

The tunnels are really small

Outside there were beautiful poppies

Make sure to visit one of the many underground cities found in these amazing grounds.

Iulia