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."

[Tailback]

Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

That's how it affects you now.

[rageaholic]

Cool, lemme go check under the tiles in my basement.

[lepton]

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.”

I see your point, but if you picked picked 10 people out of NYC, I'd be surprised if half did better.

[Cultural Jihad]

Sinan was chief court architect under three sultans: Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), Selim II (1566-1574), and Murad III (1574-1595). He was appointed to this post in 1538 and held it until his death in 1588. During those fifty years, he was responsible for hundreds of buildings commissioned by the imperial family and important viziers. Sinan built from the shores of the Adriatic to the Persian Gulf and from the Crimea to the Hejaz. But more significant than the impressive number of buildings he designed is their remarkable quality.

Sinan brought Ottoman classical architecture to its logical conclusion. Under his dynamic direction and through his astonishing output, Ottoman architecture was transformed into a universal style as forceful and as refined as that of the contemporary Renaissance.

[D Rider]

Yes and the Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians stole it from the Hittites.Beat me to it!

Anyway, should we also force the Armenians back to Northern Iran where they belong? This always cracks me up. Because Noah's ark was to be in the mountains of Ararat in ancient Armenia. Yet everybody looks for it in modern Armenia (actually turkey.) It's funny because the Armenians didn't even call it Ararat until the 12th century, when the Bible was translated into Armenian.

[editor-surveyor]

"Why should the poster add something to the story?"

Because that is a large part of what Freerepublic is about. When most of us post a story we try to convey as much as we can in the way of background because we know that the majority of the readers are likely to be "in the dark."

[Allan]

ping

[editor-surveyor]

"In the old world you can't stick a shovel in the ground without hitting an artifact."

I think that I can beat that. A few months ago, my cousin who is a foreman in a coal mining operation showed up with a bag of ancient gold coins that were embedded in a seam of anthracite, 4800 feet under the surface!

[LibKill]

I think that I can beat that. A few months ago, my cousin who is a foreman in a coal mining operation showed up with a bag of ancient gold coins that were embedded in a seam of anthracite, 4800 feet under the surface!

Uh-huh.

In Egypt I knocked an over-aggressive beggar on his backside, the furrow his sorry ass plowed exposed the lost library of Alexandria.

This was back in 1980, Ronald Reagan confiscated the library and G. Gordon Liddy will probably be trying to hunt me down for posting this.

[Fred Nerks]

please tell me, have the ancient gold coins your cousin found been identified? You may find the book 'Earth in Upheaval' by Velikovsky interesting; he discusses the subject how and when coal was formed on page 188.
It's probably out of print.
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovsky/earth.htm

I would love to hear more about this find.

[an amused spectator]

I think that I can beat that. A few months ago, my cousin who is a foreman in a coal mining operation showed up with a bag of ancient gold coins that were embedded in a seam of anthracite, 4800 feet under the surface!

Where? Any general vicinity? United States? How ancient?

[editor-surveyor]

Where: W. Virginia; I don't know exactly where, as I've not been there.

How ancient? How old is the coal that they were embedded in? This is info that may not get back to the crew. Stuff found is property of the owner of the mineral rights, not the person finding it, and if you get caught taking anything away from the mine you get fired. It's not the first time that things have been found, but it may be the first find that has cultural implications (coins = commerce).

[an amused spectator]

A bag of ancient gold coins embedded in a seam of anthracite, in West Virginia? Hmmmm.

[Ichneumon]

Nothing dangerous in a simple request for a location, you vacuous hypocrite. This should be back in chat, where people of your ilk waste their time in mutual self-congratulations for being oh-so-clever while pontificating on items of great academic concern -- that is to say with no particular relevance to anything.

He obviously spanked you badly in some prior discussion.

[freedumb2003]

He obviously spanked you badly in some prior discussion.

Nope. Never encountered his/her before. I dislike vacuous, self-important jerks of no significance on first sight.

[SunkenCiv]

A Blast from the Past.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[ValerieUSA]

You dug this one up from under 2 years and 2 months of settled Freeper dust. Go wash your hands now.

[RikaStrom]

How come we never get pics with these really cool ones?

;-)

[lepton]

That Anatolia is in Turkey is about the same level of geographical information as knowing that Ohio or Texas is in the USA.

Knowing where Anatolia is about like knowing where Iberia is, or the Balkans.

[lepton]

wow...two years ago.