10: Belagasi In Turkey, some shepherds were out herding
sheep when they discovered an entire underground city.
Researchers have actually been in the area since 2014 looking for underground settlements.
They were shocked when a group of locals from the Gesi district approached them with what
they had found.
The researchers went to take a look and couldn't believe their eyes.
It was a legitimate underground city, containing over 52 chambers.
According to the researchers, members of the Obruk Cave Research Organization, this is
proof that there are underground cities everywhere in Turkey, built between the 6th and 11th
centuries by Christian people.
They also discovered a church built into the mountainside, as well as some other very old
buildings.
There are other caves nearby, but this one is truly enormous.
It's the first one they've found with over 50 individual chambers inside.
They believe the city likely got bigger as the population slowly grew.
Why were people here living underground and building maze-like cave cities?
Researchers say underground settlements were inhabited because they protected people from
being invaded and from unpleasant weather.
They were never meant to be long-term housing solutions, but rather temporary retreats in
times of danger.
This cave city contains a drainage system, storage for food, and would have even had
shops where the locals could buy whatever they wanted!
Could you imagine living underground?
Let me know in the comments below!
9: The Orvieto Underground The ancient people of Orvieto had a city above
ground, built on a rocky bluff to form a natural defensive barrier against enemies.
Despite having perfect access to this incredible city with the sky overhead, they started digging
an additional city underground.
They managed to carve a complete medieval city underneath the flat summit of a volcanic
bluff, a place that has been occupied by ancient human beings since the days of the Etruscans,
who were the people that came before the Romans, about 2500 years ago.
Archaeologists believe the underground city may have started when the Etruscans dug wells
deep beneath their city to collect and channel rainwater.
The wells dug by the Etruscans helped withstand an invasion when Rome besieged their great
city for two long years.
But it fell in the year 264 BC.
The Etruscans were wiped out, but their city remained standing.
The city became known as Orvieto, and its occupants continued digging deep into the
Middle Ages.
They expanded the wells to create a labyrinth of unbelievable proportions.
Not only were there wells and cisterns now, but also quarries, cellars, tunnels, and galleries.
All these spaces overlap and connect through a dizzying system of passageways.
By the time the place was finally abandoned, there were 1200 permanent structures dug into
the rock.
There's a city above, and a city right beneath it.
Nobles who lived above ground had escape tunnels that led into the underground passages in
case they needed to flee the city.
8: German Cave Town In the year 1855, a cluster of cave houses
were dug into the rock near the German village of Langenstein.
Back then, there were about 2000 inhabitants here, living a quiet life in the mountains.
Five of the cave dwellings are still preserved today, with the rest of them having fallen
into ruins.
The locals probably got their inspiration from a group of underground caverns on the
mountaintop overlooking their village.
It had once been the location of a great castle, and to this day is riddled with natural caves.
People dwelled inside the caves back in the 1700s.
Because they were formed naturally, it was easier to dwell inside of an existing cave
than to build a house.
Makes sense right?
Plus, they were protected from people living in the valley below by hiding inside the mountain
caverns.
Here's where we can really see how the world changed in the 19th century.
It was in the 1800s when the population of Germany doubled and people started having
their lands seized by the government.
There was mass emigration and internal migration, and rural people who had lived as farmers
for generations suddenly found themselves broke and hungry.
This was part of the motivation for the Langenstein cave houses.
A local farm owner used the caves to house migrant workers while paying them extraordinarily
low wages.
Would you work for little or no wages if housing was guaranteed?
What about a cave house?
Let me know in the comments.
7: The Ajanta Caves The Ajanta Caves in India were forgotten for
thousands of years.
Buddhist monks carved these amazing caves into a horseshoe-shaped cliff face high up
in the mountains, about 280 miles (450 km) from Mumbai.
They were discovered totally by accident in the year 1819 by a tiger hunter named John
Smith.
They had been unknown to anyone except the wild animals living in the hills.
The Ajanta Caves were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983, with archaeologists
saying they were probably abandoned by whoever created them roughly 1500 years before.
Here's everything we know about the creation of the caves: It was likely Buddhist monks
who made them, filling each nook and cranny with some of the most impressive artwork found
anywhere in India.
The painters, masons, and sculptors must have been of the highest order to complete their
amazing masterpieces here.
There are unbelievable paintings combining Greek and Indian culture, likely thanks to
the expeditions of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.
There are also images of Buddha, statues of princes and princesses, and one giant sculpture
of the sleeping Buddha.
But we don't know who lived here or who carved the caves for sure.
They must have done it around 2000 years ago, creating an entire city of cave monasteries
where monks lived and meditated.
But why they abandoned the place 500 years later is a total mystery.
6: Colombia’s Salt Cathedral In the South American country of Colombia,
there is a famous church deep underground.
It's known as the Salt Cathedral, and the tunnel leading down into it is like taking
a journey into the underworld.
It's dark, wet, and it smells strongly like sulfur.
As you move deeper down the corridor, you begin to see the amazing relics left behind
by the people who dug the ridiculously large shaft.
There are statues of Roman Catholic icons, images of the Archangel Gabriel, and even
the Stations of the Cross carved out of pure salt.
The Salt Cathedral is 600 feet (182 m) underground, located in a former salt mine near the capital
of Bogota.
It's an architectural wonder, carved within the caverns that were abandoned by the miners
over two centuries ago.
Yes, there is a massive cathedral found here, with details like incredible chandeliers illuminated
by purple lights, and jammed full of worshippers on every major holiday.
But there are also the remains of the underground abodes the salt miners used to live in.
They didn't live there permanently, but had built a small city underground to make mining
operations easier.
It was the salt miners who first carved a sanctuary inside the caverns.
It was there, in a small niche, where they prayed to the Virgin of the Rosary of Guasa,
patron saint of miners.
They prayed for protection from the toxic gasses and from the occasional explosion.
This was way back in the 1930s, though operations started here in the early 1800s.
When the mine shut down because of structural problems, sculptors were brought in to build
the cathedral.
It's now one of the biggest tourist attractions in Bogota.
It may not be that ancient, but it’s still a fascinating underground world rich with
history.
And now for number 5, but first wanted to say a big thank you to Bella Ed and Thunderator!
Thanks so much for watching and be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already for more
videos like these!
5: Nushabad Nushabad translates roughly to “city of
cold, tasty water.”
In the days of the Sassanian Empire, which ruled over Persia until the Muslim conquests
of the 7th century, a king was on a journey across the central desert.
He stopped one day to drink water from a small well.
The water was so clear and cold that he ordered a city be built around it.
It was named Anoushabad, then later Noushabad.
The city itself is approximately 1500 years old.
But this city is unique for one main reason: it's entirely underground.
Not only was the city built because of its direct access to some of the best water in
the region, but also to escape the scorching heat of the desert.
The underground city was carved about 60 feet deep, reachable through several openings at
the surface.
People actually lived down here in houses, and could reach important places on the surface
by going through subterranean tunnels.
There's one other feature of the underground city that's a little different from others.
It was built with three main levels, each one designed to be harder to reach than the
last.
This was to stop invading armies from perforating every last inch of the city.
Plus, all the passages were made curved so that the inhabitants could ambush their enemies
as they tried to get into their anthill.
There were even boobytraps, holes dug in the middle of rooms and covered over so that the
invaders would fall in them and break their necks.
4: Ani Ani is a city over 5000 years old located
in Armenia, near the border of Turkey.
It's been known under many different names, such as the City of 1001 Churches and the
City of 40 Gates.
At its height, it was just as influential as some of the other major cities in Mesopotamia,
like Constantinople.
In the 11th century, the city of Ani had over 100,000 people living within its walls.
Excavations have revealed the earliest humans lived here in the Bronze Age.
Ani didn't really become a major fortress until thousands of years later in the 5th
century AD.
It truly began to grow in the year 961 under the rule of King Ashot III of the Bagratid
Dynasty.
Within just 50 years, Ani turned from a formidable fortress into a giant medieval city unlike
anything the world has seen since.
In the 1880s, locals stumbled upon an entrance into a subterranean realm of dark caverns
and large, spacious rooms.
As it turned out, there was an entire city hidden underneath the surface of Ani that
nobody had known about.
It wasn't until excavations in 1915 that Italian archaeologists started really understanding
the depth of it all.
We now know there are over 823 underground structures in Ani.
There are underground stables, monasteries where monks used to live, tombs where people
were buried, and dozens of dwellings.
Yet there are no historical records that even mention an underground world beneath the city,
leaving archaeologists unable to figure out why it was built.
3: Egypt Underground A team of archaeologists from Austria used
radar imaging to discover an underground Egyptian city.
They wanted to see just how extensive the ruins of a 3500-year-old city are, and this
led to the unexpected discovery.
The researchers were looking at the ancient capital of Avaris, once the seat of the Hyksos
invaders.
This was a group of warriors who entered Egypt from Asia and took over the whole country
for 100 years.
They ruled Egypt between 1664 and 1569 BC, then were beaten back and pushed out of the
country.
According to Irene Muller, head of the research team, almost all the city is underground.
The Hyksos didn't actually carve the city out of rock to be their subterranean stronghold.
Instead, it's been the thousands of years of desertion that have literally turned the
city into an underground mystery.
The team only managed to identify houses, a harbor area, neighborhoods, and other pieces
of the old capital by scanning the ground.
Everything is deep under the dirt, including temples, cemeteries, and long-lost avenues.
This is just one of those things that happens to ancient cities after they’re abandoned.
Plus, the densely populated area has been heavily farmed since the 1970s, which has
helped bury the city even more.
It may not seem possible, but the same thing could happen to any major city.
Even somewhere like Detroit could be buried under feet of dirt in 3000 years.
2: Chislehurst Caves The origin of the Chislehurst Caves isn't
exactly clear.
Even though they're called caves, they are entirely man-made.
Experts believe they may have come to life several thousand years ago when ancient people
carved passages underground to extract flint deposits.
However, nobody really knows for certain.
The cave system is located under the capital of London, England.
Parts of the system date back at least 8000 years, though the first mention of them comes
from a medieval document in 1250 AD.
It’s really all quite confusing.
In the 20th century, William Nichols of the British Archaeological Association guessed
they had been carved either by the Romans, the Saxons, or the Celts.
But this doesn't really help us get to the bottom of who made the caves and who lived
in them.
To make matters more confusing, the entire system was turned into an underground bunker
in World War Two.
Thousands of years of history was torn apart as the military began storing explosive materials
and ammunition in the dark pockets of the caverns.
Electric lighting was brought in, running water, and even an air ventilation system.
At its peak, 15,000 Londoners were sleeping in bunkers down here to keep safe from the
German bombing campaigns.
It only got worse.
The caves were used as a music venue in the 1960s.
Basically, all history has been lost.
They're now abandoned underneath the suburbs of South London, and archaeologists know pretty
much nothing about how they were formed.
1: Civilization Under the Earth Mainstream archeologists and historians agree
human civilization emerged between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago.
It's not something that's debated by a lot of people.
Yet Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist and the director of the Natural Science Research
Center in Russia, believes something dramatically different.
Alexander has analyzed ancient underground structures found across the Mediterranean,
identifying similarities between them.
He believes there was once a massive underground city spanning much of Europe.
He also believes the structures date back up to 1,000,000 years ago.
According to him, there was once an advanced civilization living underneath the surface
of the planet.
One such piece of evidence comes from Antalya in Turkey, at the Jernokleev site.
This is an ancient city that most archaeologists believe was built in the Middle Ages.
Not Alexander.
He says the materials indicate it's been around for at least 500,000 years, and was once underground.
But because of geological shifts, the underground structure slowly pushed itself to the surface.
He says there are plenty of complexes across Europe just like it.
They were once underground but either plunged into the sea or were pushed upward because
of the Earth’s moving crust.
To be totally fair and honest, I wouldn't put too much stock into what this guy says.
His belief is that some advanced civilization, maybe not even human, lived in an impossibly
massive underground structure that spanned from Turkey to England.
This was during a time when human beings hadn’t even fully evolved yet.
Maybe he's right, but there doesn't seem to be much proof of it.
Do you think it is possible there were people living underground 1 million years ago?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe!
Thanks a lot for watching and I’ll see you again next time for another amazing video.
Bye!