Underground City Found Underneath Architect Sinan's House

Zaman Online ^ | 04.08.2004 Thursday | Ersan Temizel

[vannrox]

Underground City Found Underneath Architect Sinan's House

During restoration of the architect Sinan's house in the town of Kayseri, a Central Anatolian city in Agirnas, an underground city was found.

Approximately 4000 square meters of the city, the age of which cannot be estimated, have been excavated so far. Nuvit Bayar, the Project Director of Guntas, the company responsible for the restoration, says, "We plan to finish this delicate job, which has been going on for two years, by the end of this month."

Saying that when looked at from outside, Sinan's house looked like a two-story building, Bayar said they had found a whole new world during restoration. The architect Bayar summarized the state of the house in Agirnas of Melikgazi County:

"We thought that there might be storage space for food or a stable beneath the house. But had no idea that it was part of an underground city. The underground city that we found by accident during restoration begins a few meters under the ground and has two levels. There are parts resembling underground remains of settlements in Cappadocia. Wonderful structures emerged everywhere, like an iron workshop and a loft. We know that there are small prayer sites but we could not find them. We guess the underground city dates back to the 1600s. But archeological research should be conducted."

Agirnas Mayor Mehmet Osmanbasoglu has claimed that the underground city could be linked with the neighboring towns of Turan, Gesi and Zincidere. "The light installations and the internal furnishings of Sinan's house will be restored by the lowest bidder, "said Osmanbasoglu, adding: "The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has spent TL 550 billion (app. $420,000) for the restoration. We have also benefited from the great assistance of the Kayseri Governorship. Thanks to these contributions, history of our town will be brought back to life."

Osmanbasoglu said that structures in adjacent rooms could not be excavated, since they were choked with soil.

"We predict that these [rooms] will also have two levels when they are opened. We think that the underground city was active in the Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk eras and other stone buildings there were built in the Ottoman and Republican periods."

[vannrox]

Cool

[plain talk]

I think a story like this should state what country these cities are in.

[jocon307]

Where is this? Turkey?

[XHogPilot]

Where is this, somewhere near Atlantis?

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[ItsOurTimeNow]

So THAT'S where my car keys went!

[RetiredArmy]

Ok. Tell me again why I should care about this please?

[RightWhale]

Who knows what would be found in Turkey.

[MineralMan]

"I think a story like this should state what country these cities are in."

They did. Anatolia is in Turkey, and the normal readers of the site knew that. Not everything is geared towards Americans who know no geography, nor should it be.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Because the Turks stole Asia Minor from the original Greeks, Armenians, ASsyrians, and on and on, and it is really great to find something that our Muslim "allies" did NOT destroy over the last few centuries.

[Porterville]

[Allan]

Because the Turks stole Asia Minor from the original Greeks, Armenians, ASsyrians... blah, blah, blah

Yes and the Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians stole it from the Hittites.

Give Turkey back to the Hittites, I say.

[MineralMan]

Thanks for posting the map. I was stationed in Samsun back in 1967-8 in the USAF. Fascinating country, Turkey, with more history than you can shake a stick at.

[plain talk]

Well, what was posted did not list the country. Just offering a suggestion for future posts. Next time I need condescending remarks from a snobby, elitist aetheist I'll call you.

[MineralMan]

"Give Turkey back to the Hittites, I say."

---

I don't know. The Hittites lived in Mesopotamia, now Iraq. I don't think we want Turkey to be run by the Iraqis.

[dead]

Not everything is geared towards Americans who know no geography, nor should it be.

I was in a bar in Hong Kong last week, and some idiotic Scottish lout brought up the same dopey “geographically-ignorant Americans” nonsense. My brother asked him where Ohio was, and he answered knowingly, “On the west coast.” My brother told him, “Yeah, the west coast of Pennsylvania.”

The bottom line is most people don’t know where most places in the world are, outside of the globally-obvious or their own world experience.

How many Turks are going to tell me what state Lolo Pass is in? How many Swedes can point to Paterson on a map?

[MineralMan]

"Well, what was posted did not list the country. Just offering a suggestion for future posts. Next time I need condescending remarks from a snobby, elitist aetheist I'll call you.

"

What was posted came from a site in that region. By your words, US newspapers would have to add United States of America whenever they referred to Utah.

As for my remarks, you're free to ignore them. You could just Google for "Anatolia" and get your question answered without wasting space on the FR servers.

Why should the poster add something to the story?

[RetiredArmy]

And, like, ok, so how does this affect me, today, now??

[MineralMan]

"The bottom line is most people don’t know where most places in the world are, outside of the globally-obvious or their own world experience. "

That's kinda sad, in my opinion. At least your Scottish guy knew that Ohio was in the USA. That Anatolia is in Turkey is about the same level of geographical information as knowing that Ohio or Texas is in the USA.

Geograpy is no longer taught in schools, apparently, and it should be. Perhaps we'd all be a little better off if we could point to Iraq on a blank map, or name the countries that contain the Alps.

In any case, it's easy enough to find out where Anatolia is. In fact, you don't even have to go to a site. Google "Anatolia" and you'll see the answer in the first hit's description.

I just think that geography is an important thing to know, and regret that it's not taught in this country.

[B Knotts]

The center of Hittite culture was central Antatolia.