In southeastern Turkey, archaeologists have discovered a huge underground city, built almost 2,000 years ago, in
“Christianity was not the official religion insecond century, [and] families and groups who converted to Christianity typically took refuge in underground cities to escape persecution by Rome. Perhaps the underground city of Midyat was one of the living quarters built for this purpose,” Ghani Tarkan, director of the Mardin Museum and leader of the excavations, told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.
Lozan Bayar, an archaeologist with the Mardin Defense and Surveillance Office, agreed that the early Christians may have used the city to avoid persecution by the Romans.
The first underground rooms of the ancient complexwere discovered about two years ago during a project to clean up and preserve historic streets and houses in the Midyat district of Mardin province. Workers first discovered a limestone cave, and then a passage to the rest of the hidden city.
Now 49premises, as well as connecting passages, wells, silos for storing grain, premises of houses and places of worship, including a Christian church and a Jewish synagogue.
Artifacts found in the caves and decorations on the walls indicate that the underground complex was built sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
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