Kaymakli Underground City
|
|
Kaymakli Underground City is contained within the hill named the Citadel of Kaymakli. First opened to tourists in 1964. The city is in the center of the town about 19km from Nevsehir, on the Nevsehir-Nigde road.
In the village of Kaymakli,(ancient name was Enegup). Each house in the village was constructed around nearly one hundred tunnels of the underground city. The tunnels are still used even today as storage areas, stables and cellars. Kaymali Underground City differs from Derinkuyu Underground City in terms of its structure and layout. The tunnels are lower, not as wide, and at a sharp decline. Of the 4 floors which are open to tourists, each the space is organized around the ventilation shafts in its area. This makes the designs of each room or open space area dependent on the placement of ventilation shaft or shafts.
A stable to hold animals is located on the first floor. The lack of a lot of space in the stable could be indicative of other stables in sections that have not yet been opened. To the left of the stable is a passage with a millstone door. The door leads into a church. To the right of the stables are rooms or living spaces.
Located on the 2nd floor is a church which has a nave and two apses. Located before the apses is a Baptismal font, and on the sides along the walls are seating platforms. Names of people contained in graves here coincide with those located next to the church, which supports the idea that these graves belonged to religious people. The church level also contains some living spaces. The 3rd floor contains the most important areas of the underground compound. It contains storage places, wineries and kitchens. The level also contains a very interesting block of andesite with relief-textures. Recently it was shown that this stone was used as a pot to melt copper. The stone was hewn for the andesite layer stone from within the complex. In order for it to be used as a melting pot, 57 holes were carved into the stone. The prehistoric technique was to put into each of the holes copper ore, about 10 cm in length, and then hammer each of them into place using a hard piece of rock.
The copper brought was probably dug up from a quarry between Aksaray and Nevsehir. This quarry was also used by Asilikhoyuk, the oldest settlement within the Cappadocia Region.)
Economic stability could be seen in the high number of storage rooms and areas to store earthenware jars in the wineries on the fourth floor. Kaymakli is considered one of the largest underground settlements in the region. The high number of the storage rooms in such a limited area appear to be indicative of the need to support a large underground populace. Currently only a fraction of the actual city is open to tourists.
|
