10: Derinkuyu It was 1963 when one of the most amazing underground
places in the world was discovered by accident.
A man in Turkey was remodeling his house when he stumbled across the entrance of a hidden
underground city that hadn't been entered for at least a thousand years.
The tunnel led from a secret chamber underneath his house to what we now know as the underground
city of Derinkuyu, constructed sometime around the 15th century BC.
The mountain people of the region carved it from the soft volcanic rock so that they could
live underground, be safe from invaders and stay cool in the brutally hot summers.
How had nobody discovered this mysterious place before?
It's because there are only a handful of entrances into the subterranean city, and most of them
are buried under modern structures.
Archaeologists believe it was likely the Hittites who built the subterranean metropolis, probably
to hide from their arch-nemesis, the Phrygian Empire.
The Hittites were a major power in the upper Mesopotamia region, but their empire collapsed
before the Romans ever came around.
As for how big the city is, it extends 280ft (61m) down and consists of 18 different levels.
Hundreds of people lived down here, navigating through tunnel systems and narrow corridors,
into underground schools, houses, workshops, and everything you can think of.
There was even an underground river that gave Derinkuyu access to constant fresh water.
Could you live underground like this civilization?
Let me know in the comments below!
9: Ancient English Cave A group of rail workers were doing some repairs
near a small English town when they came across a mysterious cave from the 14th century.
The sandstone cave is located just outside Guildford and isn't very big.
The cave is shallow enough that if you were walking by it, you probably wouldn't think
twice about it.
But researchers believe it may have once been a lot deeper.
Archaeologists who showed up on the scene to investigate believe the cave was probably
used as a medieval shrine and may have even been associated with a nearby chapel.
The Chapel of St. Catherine is currently in ruins, sitting on top of a nearby hill.
But its history is quite frankly astonishing.
A spokesperson from Archaeology South East said the hill upon which the chapel sits was
known as Drakehull over 600 years ago, translated in modern English to The Hill of the Dragon.
The spokesperson also said that based on markings carved inside the cave and the evidence of
a shrine, the whole area may have been ripe with cultic activity.
The big mystery now is trying to figure out what kind of cultic activity was happening
here exactly.
We don't know what kind of strange Pagan gods may have been worshiped in this mysterious
cave, or what kind of creepy sacrifices and ceremonies could have happened in its dark
shadow.
Scientists are currently analyzing soot found on the cave’s floor from ancient fires to
see if they can learn more about it.
What kind of cultic activity was going on here?
8: The Znojmo Catacombs The Znojmo Catacombs in Czechia, formerly
known as the Czech Republic, is a system of defensive catacombs built centuries ago to
help protect the townspeople from evil invaders.
What's truly incredible is that the underground system used strategies that almost feel like
they came out of a cartoon.
Here's the deal.
First of all, even though it's called a catacomb, there aren't any bodies buried down here.
Instead, it's a winding series of tunnels created around the 14th century.
The tunnels link up cellars beneath various houses to create one massive warren.
There were wells built for water, sewage and drainage systems, and ventilation for air.
It was all designed for people to live inside of it for short periods of time.
There were also tunnels added later on that led directly out of the city in case everyone
needed to escape.
The whole point was to hide from invaders.
However, if invaders managed to get their way into the underground city, they were met
with terrifying traps.
Slippery slopes sent enemies sliding down into caverns of death.
There were trap doors that opened onto beds of spikes.
And there were narrow chokepoints where the villagers could easily fight back against
the invaders one by one.
It was like something from Indiana Jones, with the most basic and yet functional traps
imaginable.
Sadly, the tunnels are mostly flooded these days.
The few subterranean areas that are still open are creepy – and some say rumored to
be home to goblins and ghouls.
Would you dare explore such a place knowing it was booby-trapped?
Tell me how brave you are in the comments.
7: Britain’s Mysterious Underground For a very long time, rumors have circulated
in London of a mysterious underground network of tunnels hidden from public view.
Interestingly enough, these rumors are perhaps truer than most people think.
According to new data published in 2017 by the Land Registry, there are roughly 2.5 million
miles (40 million kilometers) of lines and networks underneath the city.
Most of them were constructed in secret either by British Telecom, the post office, or the
Ministry of Defense.
Many of the tunnels go back to the Cold War era, developed completely in secret in case
things ever spiraled out of control with the Soviet Union.
There’s even a secret tunnel underneath the heart of the government buildings at 57
Whitehall to protect the most sensitive pieces of machinery in case of an atom bomb.
In 2014, the Raffles hotel chain purchased a small chunk of these mysterious tunnels
for a massive amount of money.
Raffles is hoping to open them as luxurious hotels in 2022.
But this is only scratching the surface.
The truth is that there is no public access to any of the underground tunnels beneath
London.
Not the abandoned subway stations, not the bunkers from World War Two, not anything.
And even though the government has admitted to some extent that there is an entire subterranean
world under London’s streets, chances are there are still some disturbing secrets they’re
keeping from us.
6: The Underground Galapagos In the dark and gloomy depths of Canada’s
Kidd Mine, something strange has been discovered.
The mine is located 350mi (563km) to the north of Toronto, and it's the deepest place that's
ever been explored on land.
It also happens to be the reservoir holding the oldest water known to scientists.
Kidd Mine is an amazing place, used these days for scientific studies and the mining
of zinc and copper.
Scientists recently took a look 7900ft (2633m) below the surface to a place of darkness and
water that has remained undisturbed and unconcerned with the surface world for 2 billion years.
The biggest shock that came from this underground region is that it's teeming with life forms.
There's so much unique life here that scientists have dubbed it the underground Galapagos after
the famous Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.
Of course, the life down here isn't very big.
Scientists have identified single-celled organisms that live without oxygen, surviving solely
by breathing sulfur compounds.
And instead of using sunlight to live, they rely on chemicals produced in the surrounding
rocks.
In particular, pyrite is hugely important to these underground organisms.
They eat fool's gold to survive, which is something nobody could have anticipated a
few decades ago.
It's truly amazing because even without air and without light, and with no connection
to the surface, there is a shadowy realm underground where alien-like life thrives.
It means that if there are organisms that eat pyrite and breathe sulfur right here on
our planet, there are almost definitely alien creatures on other planets finding even stranger
ways to survive.
5: The Tunnels of the Inca The modern city of Cusco was built over the
bones of the ancient Inca city of Cusco in Peru.
Today, the city sits at an altitude of over 9000ft (3000m), high up in the Peruvian Andes.
There are great archaeological sites to explore throughout the region.
For example, the mighty temple walls of Sacsayhuaman can be found here, so incredible and so imposing
they look as though they were made by giants.
But an even greater mystery is underneath Cusco.
It is said that there are miles of underground tunnels which have never been seen by modern
people.
And whoever tries to explore them ends up dying in horrible agony!
These tunnels are called Chinkanas, and it’s honestly hard to say if they exist or not.
The tunnels are said to connect Cusco with the Koricancha Temple.
The temple was the biggest and grandest of them all in the 15th century, allegedly gilded
on every internal wall with gold.
But when the Spanish came and destroyed the city in 1533, it was plundered and lit on
fire.
They built a church over its foundation, and indeed built their structures over the entire
ancient town.
Nobody can dig underneath the Santo Domingo church now to look for the passage into the
underground because it’s a historic building.
But the true history is almost certainly underneath, hidden under layers of time.
4: Underground Neanderthal Rings Inside of a French cave, deep below the surface
where not a single ray of light can penetrate, archaeologists found something shocking in
the early 1990s.
They found rings of stalagmites broken off the cave floors and arranged to form what
can only be described as a short stone fence.
When it was discovered over 30 years ago, scientists had no idea what to make of the
formations.
They noticed the ground of the cave was scorched from fire, and it was obvious to them that
Neanderthals had something to do with it.
After much time and patience, researchers believe they have finally put together the
puzzle.
They think Neanderthals were living way down in this forsaken place about 175,000 years
ago.
And what they were doing was building rings out of stalagmites, heaping the stones into
a pair of giant circles.
This very well could have been the first attempt at building a house!
These aren't small rings either.
The biggest is around 18ft (5.5m) across and is made up of over 400 stalagmites, with a
weight of two tons.
All the pieces were broken to be about the same length, proving the Neanderthals had
made some kind of plan.
It's truly amazing because it means that before humans were even around, some group of Neanderthals
living in Europe tried to teach themselves construction techniques.
They had enough brains to plot out their structure in advance and make each piece fit with the
next.
But still, we don't know what the structure was supposed to be.
It may have been a primitive house, maybe just a wall built for the sake of it by a
bored Neanderthal.
It really could have been used for anything.
It's difficult to look back almost 200,000 years and recreate what happened inside of
a cave.
What do you think it was used for?
3: Under the Provincial Assembly Underneath the grounds of the Nova Scotia
legislature in Canada, a mysterious underground vault was uncovered.
The stone chamber is about the size of a living room and was found during a project to remodel
the gardens of Halifax’s Provincial House.
But because of its precarious position underneath the actual structure, experts were unable
to enter the mysterious vault.
Instead, they had to use remote cameras to look inside.
What they discovered isn't too groundbreaking.
They found shattered pieces of ceramic items and a stoneware bottle.
But the stuff does look old.
As of right now, experts don’t know for sure what the mysterious room could have been
used for.
But considering the Provincial House was built in 1811, it's over 200 years old.
Experts say it could have been part of a powder magazine from the 18th century, part of a
great military structure constructed by the British colonists to defend themselves from
attack.
The British Army built plenty of structures like this near the end of the 1700s, such
as Fort Anne which still stands to this very day.
2: The Underground Shell Grotto The Margate Shell Grotto in England is one
of the country's strangest cultural treasures.
The grotto itself is a subterranean passageway decorated with roughly 4.6 million seashells.
These shells line the walls in fascinating mosaics that can almost take your breath away.
Even looking past the fantastic art and craftsmanship it took to create such displays, just imagine
how long it took to put 4.6 million shells on the walls.
It would have been a monumental undertaking.
And to make it even more stunning, nobody has any clue who did it or why.
The underground shell grotto was discovered totally by accident in the 19th century.
According to the historical accounts, it was a farmer named James Newlove who came across
it in 1835 while digging a duck pond.
James broke through the ground and into a subterranean cavern, only to discover an underground
miracle of artwork in the form of oyster, mussels, and other mollusk shells all glued
to the walls.
The grotto itself is over 2000 square feet, intricately designed and extremely colorful.
Some of the pieces of artwork are abstract, while others clearly represent animals, mostly
birds and reptiles.
That makes it even more mysterious considering there aren’t really that many reptiles in
England.
The builders must have gotten their inspiration from somewhere else.
To this day, the grotto remains a mystery.
It's not just a cavern or a few roughly carved tunnels.
It honestly looks like an underground temple sanctuary – and no one knows how old it
is and there are no records or stories of it anywhere in history.
1: The Tomb of the Prophets The Tomb of the Prophets is a very old burial
site near Jerusalem on the western slope of the Mount of Olives.
What makes the tomb so mysterious is that it's believed to be the burial place of the
last three prophets in the Hebrew Bible: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
It's believed these prophets lived in the 6th or 5th century BC.
The problem is that archaeologists have dated the burial chambers within the tomb to be
no older than the 1st century BC.
As you can see, the science contradicts the myth.
Of course, they didn't have scientific dating processes in the Middle Ages.
For that reason, the Tomb of the Prophets has been considered a holy site for centuries.
Somebody simply decided it was where the three prophets were buried, and that was good enough
for everybody.
But even with the science clearly disproving the religious significance of the tomb, Jewish
people still go down into the underground darkness to worship.
Thanks for watching!
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Let me know all your thoughts in the comments.
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