Kaymakli Underground City

Cappadocia Kaymakli Underground City

Kaymakli is 20 km from Nevsehir, and 9 km from Derinkuyu. The city’s old name of Enegup was changed by the Anatolian Greeks to Enegobi, and changed again after 1924 by the Turks to Kaymakli.

The typology of the entry floor of this underground city can be dated to the Early Byzantine Era. Kaymaklı was discovered in 1964 and the first four storeys are open for tours. The four storeys of the city that have been cleaned and opened to visitors contain depots for food and wine, a church, ventilation shafts, water wells and round cylindrical doors. The doors, 55-60 cm thick, 1.70-1.75 m high and weighing 500 kilos, can only be opened from the inside. The rooms are connected to one another by narrow corridors.

There was a cemetery above the city. Because not all the storeys of Kaymaklı have been cleaned out, it is not possible to visit the entire city. There is only a single kitchen on the first floors. On the second floor of this underground city are hollows that were used as graves.