We first heard of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia while watching the Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse, hosted by Graham Hancock. Throughout the series, Hancock attempts to make the case that an advanced human civilization — with agriculture, knowledge of astronomy, and organized power structures — existed on Earth much earlier than conventional archaeology allows (arriving from another galaxy, perhaps??). He hypothesizes that a sophisticated Ice Age civilization thrived before ~12,000 years ago and that a catastrophic event wiped them out, with a few straggling survivors transmitting their superior knowledge to later (I guess, dumber?) cultures. In contrast to Hancock’s theory, mainstream archaeological and paleoanthropological consensus dates the agricultural revolution and emergence of complex civilizations much later in the historical arc — around 6,000–5,000 BCE — in places like Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, and the Indus region. Throughout the Ancient Apocalypse series, Hancock routinely implies that mainstream archaeology either ignores or suppresses evidence of advanced civilizations thriving in the Ice Age… not sure why “they” would do that, but that’s his premise. Facts aside, the show was fun to watch and put a bunch of new places on the map for us to explore.

In the “Fatal Winter” episode, Hancock travels to Derinkuyu to offer its underground network of caves and tunnels as evidence backing his theory. He asserts that these “advanced” humans residing in Ice Age Derinkuyu had the ability and/or technological know-how to predict and plan for the catastrophic disaster known as the Younger Dryas period. In preparation, they built subterranean “bunkers” down to a depth of 85 meters (275 feet) as a long-term survival strategy…perhaps enabling them to survive an apocalyptic winter initiated by a meteor impact or other cosmic event.

Or maybe the origins of Cappadocia’s underground cities are more straightforward? Most scholars date Derinkuyu’s earliest layers to the Bronze Age Hittites (1600-1180 BCE) or the Iron Age Phrygians (1180-600 BCE), most likely hand-carved out of the soft tuff stone as storage rooms. Vast, multi-level expansion occurred a Millenia later during the Byzantine era (~330-1450 CE), when the region was under constant threat from Arab invaders between the 7th to 10th centuries. As Arab raiders pushed into Anatolia from the south, Christian communities in central Turkey needed places to hide, survive, and wait out danger. Derinkuyu offered just that: a subterranean city carved 18 levels deep into soft volcanic rock, complete with ventilation shafts, rolling stone doors, stables, churches, a winery, cisterns, and living quarters for up to 20,000 people. These were not crude temporary hideouts; they were engineered for long-term survival, adapted to withstand sieges and provide refuge during times of chaos. The Arab-Byzantine wars left many surface cities devastated, but Derinkuyu and similar underground cities in the Cappadocia region enabled Christian communities to endure through centuries of conflict and instability. This all sounds more plausible to me, and just as interesting!