Carved into tuff directly beneath the town of Mucur in Kırşehir, this two-level underground city is only a small part of a far larger settlement below.
Mucur Underground City is a place (Underground city) in Turkey, Kirsehir.
Visitors who descend at Mucur walk through a maze right under the centre of the district town, and the part they see is only a fragment of a much bigger settlement below. Mucur lies about 20 km from Kırşehir, and the Ankara-Kayseri highway passes through it.
History
Underground cities of this kind are generally thought to have been dug in the early Christian centuries (3rd and 4th centuries AD) by believers hiding from pagan emperors. Similar refuges were also made in the Middle Byzantine period (8th and 9th centuries AD) against Arab raids. The settlement at Mucur is discussed within this general picture.
The area was registered in 1989 as an archaeological site requiring first-degree protection. Today it is run as a heritage site attached to the Kırşehir Museum.
Layout
The city was cut into soft volcanic tuff on two levels: rooms and halls linked by corridors. Forty-two rooms can be visited. Almost every room has large storage and water jars sunk into the floor, and many also hold wells and wall niches. One round room has an unusually large number of niches, which supports the idea that it served as a small place of worship.
The corridors are tight, roughly one and a half metres high and between half a metre and a metre wide. They were most likely built that way to slow down an attacker. Entrances to corridors, main passages and private chambers could be shut with big round locking stones, heavy stone discs that roll across a passage to block it. Of the air shafts that open to the surface, five are still open and bring air underground.
Visiting
Conditions can change; check the official page on muze.gov.tr for current information.
