Those are all fictional examples. But in 1963, that barrier was breached for real. Taking a sledgehammer to a wall in his basement, a man in the Turkish town of Derinkuyu got more home improvement than he bargained for. Behind the wall, he found a tunnel. And that led to more tunnels, eventually connecting a multitude of halls and chambers. It was a huge underground complex, abandoned by its inhabitants and undiscovered until that fateful swing of the hammer.
The anonymous Turk—no report mentions his name—had found a vast subterranean city, up to 18 stories and 280 feet (76 meters) deep and large enough to house 20,000 people. Who built it, and why? When was it abandoned, and by whom? History and geology provide some answers.
When commenting on HN, it is good form to read the article before commenting.
Presumably it was discovered before 1963 by whoever built this man’s basement and walled it off. You have to wonder what other great findings of history were also just shrugged at and passed over without mention.
The article is not very good and doesn't mention it but I believe excavations are ongoing on a new site much closer to the city center of Nevşehir. (It's the big municipality the other sites are also part of)
