THE GREAT FROST AND THE UNDERGROUND CITIES
In the ancient texts of Zoroaster, there is a story of a catastrophic event that devastated the Earth: a sudden and brief ice age, called the days of Malkush, which lasted about three years. Before this disaster occurred, a deity, Ahura Mazda, offered a means of salvation: to build underground cities to protect themselves from the frost. Could there be some truth in this story, which seems to come straight out of a science fiction novel?
What you see in the photo is Derinkuyu, a mysterious underground city located in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. According to archaeologists, the center of this city already existed 2,800 years ago, at least 8 centuries before Christ. We're talking about an entire city, excavated at a depth of 85 meters, capable of housing up to 20,000 people. But it's likely that the natural caves also predate that date.
Derinkuyu is not a simple cave: it is a complex structure, with 18 underground levels, including wells, chapels, stables, schools and even areas dedicated to the production of wine and oil. Some parts of the city show traces of reuse in medieval times, with the addition of Christian religious structures, but the original nucleus dates back to a much more ancient era.
The city was rediscovered only in 1963, when a man, during renovations to his house, accidentally found a tunnel leading to this underground world. Since then, Derinkuyu has become one of the most fascinating examples of ancient human ingenuity.
Derinkuyu is not an isolated case. As modern technology allows us to explore the underground world, we are discovering that underground cities and tunnel networks are a widespread phenomenon all over the world:
Egypt: Beneath the Giza Plateau, there is a vast underground system of caverns, artificial tunnels and rivers. Some researchers, such as Dr. Selim Hassan, have documented passages that extend for kilometers, suggesting that the ancient Egyptians (or perhaps an earlier civilization) knew advanced excavation techniques.
Guatemala: Beneath the Mayan pyramid complex of Tikal, 800 kilometers of tunnels have been mapped, many of which are still unexplored.
China: In 1992, 24 artificial caves were discovered in the province of Zhejiang, excavated with incredible precision. It is estimated that 36,000 cubic meters of stone were removed to build them.
Europe: Thousands of Stone Age tunnels, called Erdstall, extend across the continent, leaving archaeologists perplexed as to their original purpose.
Today we know that about 12,000 years ago, the Earth was hit by a sudden and intense ice age, called the Younger Dryas.
This event, which lasted about 1,300 years, caused a drastic drop in temperature and disrupted global ecosystems.
Is it possible that the days of Malkush narrated by Zoroaster are a distorted memory of this cataclysm? And if so, were underground cities like Derinkuyu built to protect themselves from the frost?
But there's more: what, or who, were the ancients protecting themselves from when they dug these cities?
How could people who, theoretically, didn't know iron or the wheel, create such complex works? Even with 21st-century technology, building a city like Derinkuyu would take decades of work.
What is our past hiding from us? Is it possible that advanced civilizations, now forgotten, have left traces of their passage under our feet?