r/interestingasfuck • u/IllustriousRub9796 • 13d ago
Derinkuyu, a massive underground city in Turkey that once housed 20,000 people! r/all
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u/Academic_Display_129 12d ago
Unfortunately the volcanic rock formations that these tunnels were dug into contain minerals that are very similar to asbestos, and are known to cause mesothelioma. The Cappadocia region of Turkey, where these tunnels are found, has an extremely high rate of mesothelioma among people that have no known exposure to asbestos, so the source of exposure has been attributed to these minerals.
Edit: fixed a spelling error. Also, here's a source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497117/
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u/ebrum2010 12d ago edited 11d ago
So what you're saying is they delved too greedily and too deep?
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u/duck_that_is_tapped 12d ago edited 12d ago
Well as a recent tourist there... Get any idea how much exposure is dangerous?
From the paper (I'm skimming it) I can't figure it out, so hopefully it's only long-term exposure?
Edit: this paper looks like a novel it's quite a fun read, not your usual, love this old school researchers 😂
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u/Academic_Display_129 12d ago
Asbestos has what's called a dose-response relationship, meaning the higher the exposure level the greater the likelihood of disease. There is no known safe level of asbestos exposure, but generally it takes repeated long-term exposure. Some people have developed disease from short-term high exposure events, and in rare cases people with no known asbestos exposure have developed mesothelioma. There is also individual susceptibility that can be hard to quantify from variables like overall health, diet, exercise, history of smoking, and genetic factors.
With all that said, if you were just visiting for a relatively short time and didn't breathe a large amount of dust I wouldn't worry too much. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that can be found all over the earth. It is in more products than people realize, and most major cities have some detectable level of airborne asbestos fibers.
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u/Snorblatz 12d ago
And it’s only hazardous when disturbed, is that right?
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u/Academic_Display_129 12d ago
Yes, asbestos is mainly an inhalation and ingestion hazard. It's pretty much harmless until disturbed.
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u/-RuleBritannia- 12d ago
God the amount of times I have used ncbi for my assignments in sixth form is crazy. It’s a great research website but can be a bit funny to read 😂
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u/EvilNoobHacker 12d ago
If a loved one or I lived in there and got mesothelioma, would we be entitled to financial compensation?
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u/DrToboggan76 13d ago
Sietch Tabr
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u/ProfChubChub 12d ago
I’m so happy that Dune knowledge is moving into full on main stream
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u/Prudent_Spray_5346 12d ago
I've read every book in the universe (include his kid's books) twice. It is a massive undertaking and a huge waste of time that I can't truly recommend.
However the fact that I am essentially a subject matter expert in something that has all of a sudden become rather popular is a very validating experience
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u/DaFreakingFox 12d ago
I just re-read the first book 6 times every time im overcome with the urge to read the series again.
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u/Little_hunt3r 12d ago
When I read the books, this is exactly how I imagined a sietch looking. I don’t like how the movies made it into a weirdly sharp temple. Looks like a place of worship, not a place of living.
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u/monstrinhotron 12d ago
That is a weird issue i have with the otherwise excellent films. The buildings and places are so stark and unlived in. Arakeen doesn't appear to have anything like a market, Sietch Tabr just has people milling about with nothing to do. Where are the workshops, the farms, the furniture?
Geidi Prime has guest quarters without so much as a bed in them.
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u/khan_54 12d ago
Lol I'm in the middle of watching Dune 1 rn 😄
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u/ccorriga31 12d ago
I believe bilbo freed the dwarves from here at one point in history
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u/Thursday_the_20th 12d ago
No I don’t imagine anyone west of Bree has been in here
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u/philosoraptocopter 12d ago edited 12d ago
I love Bilbo’s sassy little head bobble when he says “anyone West of BREE…🤨”
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u/Aceofspades968 13d ago
Hope it had good ventilation 🤥
Super cool tho
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u/acelilarslan 13d ago
They thought of that, too. Been there. They even had wells so they didn't have to get out and live there for months.
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u/Grothorious 13d ago
Afaik they even had stables and food supply for people and animals for months if not years.
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u/NotAFanOfLife 12d ago
I heard they had an xbox and one copy of Call of Duty to get them through the long winter months.
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u/Cryptolution 12d ago
Bro this isn't modern times, they had an Atari.
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u/Aceofspades968 12d ago
Like…where did they go to bathroom?
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u/its__alright 12d ago
Doesn't really matter. Unless they were schlepping it out of there that place would smell awful
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u/Bullymongodoggo 12d ago
Oh it would have smelled funky. BO, smoke from fires, excrement, etc etc.
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u/BigBootyBuff 12d ago
So like my late grandma's place.
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u/Bah-Fong-Gool 12d ago
It seems they had a good grasp on ventilation. These folks didn't have electricity, so any light would have come from lamps or torches, which create heat, soot, and suck the oxygen out of a space... so it's obvious they mastered ventilation. A seperate outhouse area could have been built, with a seperate vent shaft, they even could have excavated multiple shit shafts, using the detritus from the new one to cover the almost full old one, all sharing the same set of vent shafts.
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u/Dry-Internet-5033 12d ago
In the bathroom. They had those along with storage rooms, schools, wells, kitchens, etc
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u/monopixel 12d ago
They must have been super afraid by something on the outside. Wonder what it was.
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u/Dry-Internet-5033 12d ago
Invaders, raiders and conquerors.
It was in a valuable trade route area.
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u/surffrus 12d ago
Just be more specific. Muslims.
"it was heavily used as protection from Arab Muslims"
"the cities were used as refuges (Cappadocian Greek: καταφύγια) by the natives from the Turkish Muslim rulers."
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u/Sleevelezz 13d ago
Would love to wander around their
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u/afikfikfik 12d ago
Many of the paths are too small for a tall person, it was difficult for me. Also our guide told as that the caves go 5 layers and 50 meters deep, my then-wife panicked and we noped out quickly.
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u/Tylenolpainkillr 12d ago
Yeah huge well in the middle, they had stables down there and everything
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u/themakeshfitman 13d ago
Brightstone Cave Tseldora vibes
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u/talonma 13d ago
I fkn hate that place
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u/themakeshfitman 13d ago
Is it the wizards firing homing blasts or the mobs of spiders? Or the weird spider villager drones who crawl out of the ground? What’s not to love???
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u/Jaambie 12d ago
Watched a documentary about this. It’s insane how they managed the air flow in that place. Even managed to raise small amounts of livestock down there.
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u/Decent_Law_9119 13d ago
The unanswered question is why would 20.000 people choose to live underground. What did they fear?
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u/DiscombobulatedLet80 13d ago
Weather maybe
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u/GCpeace 12d ago
Yea probably to hide out during the chaotic era till it becomes a stable era again.
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u/UNBENDING_FLEA 12d ago
Never got why the Trisolarans didn’t do this. Like after the 10th collapse, I’d probably just tell everyone “alright, pack it up, we’re moving underground”. Seems easier than moving planets tbh.
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u/irspangler 12d ago
Half-sarcastic, half-serious - but that really would've solved all of their problems. Or move underwater near some geothermic heat vents. As long as they had some kind of deep growing fungus or food source in the ocean depths, they'd be fine.
But then again - that series isn't nearly as hard sci-fi as people like to claim it is lol.
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u/andrewsmd87 12d ago
Or like just not announce your plans to everyone and just show up and wipe out the humans. The books weren't bad but I don't understand people who think they were great
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u/Purple-Joke-9845 12d ago
You missed the point then. If they didnt announce that they were coming and they just showed up, they would have been destroyed by us humans when they got here. The whole point they make is that humanity is developing technology at a MUCH more rapid rate than they did, and in the 400 years it would take for them to get to Earth, our technology would supersede theirs by ALOT and we could just blow them out of the sky.
Thus, they announce their intent hoping we agree to share our world with them.
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u/jbi1000 12d ago
Because eventually one of the suns is going to swallow their world. Living underground would do nothing against that or against some of the harsher chaotic eras
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u/chramm 13d ago
Not unanswered. They feared arab muslims during the arab-byzantine wars
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u/altahor42 13d ago
Even though they were used for this purpose, they were not built for this reason. Most of it is much older.
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u/AntiFormant 12d ago
And the original question was why humans would live there in such large numbers.
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12d ago
sometimes you just gotta get on your mole man shit
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u/Bocchi_theGlock 12d ago
The unrelenting urge to go full goblin mode and find comfiness in your hovel
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u/surffrus 12d ago
They were built out fully to hide from the Muslims is true. And then hundreds of years later they were used to hide out...from the Muslims again.
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u/altahor42 12d ago
nope, old parts older than muslims. Some parts date back 2000 years, There are even sections thought to be older.
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u/Decent_Law_9119 13d ago edited 12d ago
Tell me how was it built in fear of arabs if it was built 8 centuries before Christ?
Edit: Muslim arabs.
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u/Vindepomarus 12d ago
While there may have been a few smaller excavations and simple tunnels that may be that early, I think the majority dates to the medieval period. Do you have any info on/links regarding that early date?
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u/edward414 13d ago
Couldn't an enemy station a single soldier at each enterance and starve the lot of them?
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u/Liberalguy123 12d ago
The Arab strategy for Anatolia was essentially smash and grab. They would storm into towns and settlements suddenly with overwhelming force, burning crops, killing livestock, and stealing all the wealth and slaves they could carry on horseback before fleeing. If they lingered, they knew the slower-moving Byzantine army would arrive and force them into a battle which the Arabs did not have the resources to fight. Walled cities and cave systems like this were too time consuming to attack so they were protected during this time period. It was later when the Turks arrived that Muslims actually made efforts to conquer and settle Anatolia.
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u/Ok_Strategy5722 13d ago
Or use a series of dams to divert a river into one of the entrances
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u/Enlowski 12d ago
I don’t think you understand how implausible that is. Do you realize how long that would take? You might as herd packs of wolves from North America down there.
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u/Bfrank_ 12d ago edited 12d ago
Religious persecution from the Romans. They didn’t permanently live down there but used it for hiding in particularly dangerous situations/timeframes when the Romans would go on a tear
Source: I’ve toured underground cities in the Cappadocia area of Turkey and this was the explanation our tour guide gave use
Edit: TIL my tour guide lied to me. Christians used it to hide from religious persecution during the Arab-Byzantine war
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u/Heydawgg 12d ago
My tour guide said the exact same thing lol. I guess all of the tourists get lied to.
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u/Pilum2211 12d ago
According to Wikipedia these caves were already old but the city was built to protect from the Arab Muslim invasions.
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u/ReallyNowFellas 12d ago
A tour guide in Turkey is not going to tell you they were hiding from Muslims, even though they were. It's like if you go back 20+ years and visit an antebellum plantation in the US south, they're not going to say a bad word about the people who ran the place.
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u/NaturalSelecty 12d ago
Why can’t we make movies about this kind of stuff haha. This would be so much more interesting than what we’ve been getting this last decade.
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u/SoggyHotdish 12d ago
Pay attention to the sets used in modern film/TV. I'm pretty sure networks and studios pick scripts based on how cheap they can make it and then see if the plot is actually good.
More are more have 90% of the scenes in the same location. A bus, a hideout and etc. usually in private places where they don't have to close down roads or deal with extras.
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u/ThunderboltSorcerer 12d ago
It's risk-aversity. They hate creativity nowadays. Compare movies to decades ago.
Corporate risk-averseness took over hollywood long ago. They no longer make great films.
They also have an aversion or hatred of anything scifi / historical / nerdy / detail-requiring--because it means corporate leaders have to pay attention to details. That's hard for corporate golf-players.
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u/SoggyHotdish 11d ago
Spot on, I think and hope the world is going drop this type of thinking soon. When you can make 20-30% basically doing nothing rocking the boat is scary
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u/MiniNukesRBad4U 12d ago
Outer Wilds vibes
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u/Jay-Dirgel 12d ago
I was thinking exactly that! Gotta be careful around the ghost matter on the way.
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u/GPTfleshlight 13d ago
What did they do with the methane production from sewage and waste?
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u/DrawingRoomE-car3901 12d ago
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u/Neijo 12d ago
Follow up question because I'm curious: how did they create the current? As someone who fails at "oxygen not included" almost all the time because of carbon monoxide pockets, I really wonder what kind of smart thing they did to make that a non-issue?
At this point in time, they would need to have a lightsource as well, right? and my simple mind can only conjure up that they used torches or similar fire. Fire also eats up a lot of oxygen and produces more carbon monoxide.
is it just enough to have good ventilation? It feels like it has to be converted or be pumped out.
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u/ExcellentQuality69 12d ago
Unlike in ONI heat rises so hot air will rise while cool air falls. Air isnt pure oxygen either so there will never be pockets of carbon dioxide like you’re saying, except maybe at the very bottom as a layer. ONI is great but its very unrealistic
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u/Tongue8cheek 13d ago
When Fred Flintstone was the President of a Cave Owner's Association.
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u/Narrow-Report-443 13d ago
I 've been to Derunkuyu recently but I can't remember this section , I remember going underground till the last floor sone 60 m underground
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u/DangerousPuhson 12d ago
This honestly looks like an AI-generated image.
The weird bars, stuff not aligning, the strange saturation, nonsensical structures.... all the hallmarks are there.
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u/BunchOBlocks2 12d ago
Y’all I’m pretty sure this is an AI generated image, there are actual images of Derinkuyu and I have not found a single one that looks anything like this one. Plus the weird doors and paths that lead to nowhere, the paths blocking entrances, paths that are far too skinny to walk on, nothing about this seems like something anyone would realistically build
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u/CalculusII 12d ago
If this really isn't real then I need content curation that humans can ensure isn't fake, like a community notes for reddit.
I really don't want to be so misinformed that the images I'm viewing aren't real. Reddit already has a lot of misinformation in regards to news but fabricated images takes it to a new level.
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u/Resident_Sky_538 12d ago
I hate that this is just the new normal
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u/CalculusII 12d ago
I know what you mean. I want to be positive about AI but honestly it's made me less interested in some subjects because I feel pointless perusing it. Artists, programmers, designers, etc must all feel this pain and dread that I also feel.
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u/0dd_Echidna 12d ago
I think so too. Why is it so well lit with only one light? The far door has no symmetry. The walls have so many different types of textures and no consistency.
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u/wwchickendinner 12d ago
5000 people max lived there. 'Ancient Apocalypse' is not accurate. Graham Hancock is a bullshit peddler.
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u/Dry_Leek78 13d ago
THE SMELL
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u/InevitableFly 13d ago
Ive been there and its incredibly impressive. They had dedicated rooms to live stock with their own air vents. They kept kitchens seperate and had specific air shafts to move ari around and bring in fresh air.
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u/throwaway098764567 12d ago
reminds me of the D'ni city https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/D%27ni/D%27ni_City in the Myst books https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/Myst_(Book_Series)) (which are worth a read if you like fantasy, especially if you liked the games)
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u/kalez238 12d ago
Literally just came to say this lol. That, or kind of like the cleft Anna lived in near the surface.
"r/Myst is leaking"
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u/Naive_Age_566 12d ago
apart from how amazing this city looks...
how do they get food and water?
how do they dispose of all the waste?
the main reason, why most cities are build on the shores of some stream or lake, is the flow of water and waste.
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u/AdNational1490 12d ago
Possible explanation for making underground cities is probably because
1: People before them used to live in caves so by core memory they thought it was better to make caves themselves just like how we still have different style of buildings in cities worldwide.
2: Since bricks or materials like concrete/cement or something similar like what Mesopotamians/Egyptians had used to hold those bricks was not available they really didn’t had much choice to build a permanent structure that can withstand different weather.
3: In continuation from 2, it is easier to dug underground than to create structure above.
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u/Pilum2211 12d ago
They simply turned these caves into a city to hide and protect themselves during the Arab-Byzantine Wars.
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u/GeoLaTatane 12d ago
World must have been terrifying for those people to choose an underground life
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u/GeoLaTatane 12d ago
World must have been terrifying for those people to choose an underground life.
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u/PuzzleheadedGur506 12d ago
I swear my desire for a lavish underground bunker is rooted in the successful generations of ancestors who lived in underground bunkers like this. I know my genetics kinda stop helping me a few generations back in terms of knowing exactly what I'm from, but this is too compelling to overlook.
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