Massive 5,000-year-old underground city uncovered in Cappadocia, Turkey

The region of Cappadocia in central Turkey is home to one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world – deep valleys and soaring rock formations dotted with homes, chapels, tombs, temples and entire subterranean cities harmoniously carved into the natural landforms. Cities, empires and religions have risen and fallen around these unique underground havens, and yet it seems they still hold a few more secrets. Archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered another massive underground city in Cappadocia, consisting of at least 7 kilometers (3.5 miles) of tunnels, hidden churches, and escape galleries dating back around 5,000 years.

Calling it the “biggest archeological finding of 2014”, Hurriyet Daily News announced that the ancient city was found beneath Nevşehir fortress and the surrounding area, during an urban transformation project carried out by Turkey’s Housing Development Administration (TOKİ). 

“Some 1,500 buildings were destructed located in and around the Nevşehir fortress, and the underground city was discovered when the earthmoving to construct new buildings had started,” writes Hurriyet Daily News.

Nevşehir province in Cappadocia, Turkey

Nevşehir province is already famous for its incredible subterranean city at Derinkuyu (pictured in featured image), which was once home to as many as 20,000 residents living together underground. It is eleven levels deep and has 600 entrances and many miles of tunnels connecting it to other underground cities.  It incorporates areas for sleeping, stables for livestock, wells, water tanks, pits for cooking, ventilation shafts, communal rooms, bathrooms, and tombs.

A reconstruction of what the Derinkuyu underground city is believed to have looked like (Wikipedia)

It is hard to imagine anything surpassing the Derinkuyu underground city in both size and scope, but archaeologists are saying they have reason to believe the newly discovered subterranean city will be the largest out of all the other underground cities in Nevşehir and may even be the largest underground city in the world.

Details regarding the dating of the site and how this was carried out, have not yet been released by those involved. However, researchers have reported retrieving more than forty artifacts from the tunnels so far, so archaeologists may have reached the estimated date of 5,000 years based on those. Numerous other known underground sites in Cappadocia have also been dated to this era.

Despite pouring 90 million Turkish Liras into the urban transformation project so far, the TOKİ has said it will move now move their project to the outskirts of the city so that the newly found city, which is now officially registered with the Cultural and National Heritage Preservation Board, can be investigated and preserved. TOKİ Head Mehmet Ergün Turan told Hurriyet Daily News that they do not view this as a loss considering the importance of the discovery.

“Hasan Ünver, mayor of Nevşehir, said other underground cities in Nevşehir’s various districts do not even amount to the “kitchen” of this new underground city,” reports Hurriyet Daily News.

Through the ages, the Hittites, Persians, Alexander the Great, Rome, The Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire, and Turkey have all governed the spectacular region of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia. One hundred square miles with more than 200 underground villages and tunnel towns complete with hidden passages, secret rooms and ancient temples and a remarkably storied history of each new civilization building on the work of the last, make Cappadocia one of the world's most striking and largest cave-dwelling regions of the world. Now a discovery has been made that may overshadow them all.

The incredible cave houses of Cappadocia, Turkey. Source: BigStockPhoto

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10,000-year-old rock paintings depicting aliens and UFOs found in Chhattisgarh, INDIA

Archaeologists in India have discovered 10,000-year-old rock paintings that appear to depict extraterrestrial visitors and UFOs that once landed on earth. We’re not saying it was aliens, but it was definitely aliens.

The Times of India carried the story this week from Charama in the state of Chhattisgarh, where archaeologist JR Bhagat pointed out that ancient cave paintings appear to show representations of extraterrestrial visitors.

“The findings suggest that humans in prehistoric times may have seen or imagined beings from other planets which still create curiosity among people and researchers,” Bhagat told the Times. “Extensive research is needed for further findings. Chhattisgarh presently doesn’t have any such expert who could give clarity on the subject.”

According to archaeologist JR Bhagat, these paintings depict extraterrestrials. The Chhattisgarh state department of archaeology and culture is planning to seek the help of NASA and ISRO for research regarding the paintings.

“The findings suggest that humans in prehistoric times may have seen or imagined beings from other planets which still create curiosity among people and researchers. Extensive research is needed for further findings. Chhattisgarh presently doesn’t have any such expert who could give clarity on the subject. The paintings are done in natural colours that have hardly faded despite the years. The strangely carved figures are seen holding weapon-like objects and do not have clear features. The nose and mouth are missing, and in a few pictures they are even shown wearing spacesuits. We can’t refuse the possibility of imagination by prehistoric men but humans usually fancy such things.” – JR Bhagat

According to the times of India:

“There are several beliefs among locals in these villages. While few worship the paintings, others narrate stories they have heard from ancestors about “rohela people” -the small sized ones -who used to land from the sky in a round shaped flying object and take away one or two persons in the  village who never returned.”

Antiquity is filled with stories of beings, materials and flying objects that, according to modern day thinking, should not have existed. For anybody who has studied ancient mythology, they would know that a large amount of evidence exists today to turn those ‘mythical stories,’ (as we interpret them) into stories of a possible ancient reality.

More Ancient Art

Ancient cave paintings depicting possible UFOs and extraterrestrials have been found all over the globe. This one (one of the earliest known forms of human art) is from the French cave of Pech Merle. In the paintings within this cave there are several objects that resemble flying saucers. The paintings here are approximately 20,000 years old, and of course we can never really know what the true meaning of the painting is, but it is interesting nonetheless.

This is a cave painting found in Kimberley, Australia. They were painted by the native Aborigines approximately 5,000 years ago. These are depictions of what they called Wandijina, or sky beings. In their tradition these beings were part of the beginning of creation, and had great power of nature. The first thing I took from this were the large heads, a common theme among today’s purported extraterrestrial visitations.

 There are paintings like this all over the world. Just like there are many ancient pyramids built all over the world by different civilizations at different times that had no contact with each other, these cave paintings share the same anomaly. These are petroglyphs discovered in Utah, in the Barrier Canyon, which depict a number of tall beings with similar shaped heads as to the ones in Australia. There are also similar beings painted on rocks in Utah’s Sego Canyon.

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