Buried Secrets: The Underground Cities of Ancient Civilizations

Ancient Zoroastrian texts tell the 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: building underground cities to protect against the frost. Could there be some truth to this story, which seems 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 are talking about an entire city, dug 85 meters deep, capable of housing up to 20,000 people. But it is 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 core dates back to a much older period.

The city was “rediscovered” only in 1963, when a man, while renovating 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 discover that underground cities and tunnel networks are a widespread phenomenon around the world:
Egypt: Beneath the Giza Plateau lies a vast underground system of caverns, man-made tunnels and rivers. Some researchers, such as Dr. Selim Hassan, have documented passages that stretch for miles, 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 remain unexplored.
China: In 1992, 24 artificial caves were discovered in Zhejiang Province, excavated with incredible precision. It is estimated that 36,000 cubic metres of stone were removed to build them.
Europe: Thousands of Stone Age tunnels, called “Erdstall,” stretch across the continent, leaving archaeologists puzzled 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. Could it be possible that the “days of Malkush” recounted by Zoroaster are a distorted memory of this cataclysm? And if so, were underground cities like Derinkuyu built to protect against the frost?

But there is more: what or who were the ancients protecting themselves from when they excavated these cities? How could people who, in theory, did not know iron or the wheel, create such complex works? Even with 21st century technology, building a city like Derinkuyu would require decades of work.
What is our past hiding from us? Could it be that advanced civilizations, now forgotten, have left traces of their passage beneath our feet?