Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

You would have had to live a sheltered life indeed to have been born in the modern era and not have at least some association with the concept of a fallout shelter. Even if you have zero interest in the news, the concept has inserted itself quite deeply in our cultural psyche, probably starting the day after mankind split the atom and gave birth to nuclear warfare.

Video games, such as the aptly titled Fallout series, aren’t the only cultural homes for these last ditch shelters for humanity. They pop up in movies, like Blast From the Past, starring a young Brendan Frasier, and X-men, where the large concrete structures beneath Professor X’s stately home were originally his step-fathers elaborate bomb shelter. Literature uses them too, though naturally you see them most often in post-apocalytic novels, rather than say, romance.

The theme of preserving mankind by moving them below ground has existed since well before atomic warfare was a possibility. Several early science fiction writers proposed that those living on the moon did so in shelters built beneath the surface, a few going so far as to claim the entire lunar body was actually a hollow ship, with a surface only a few miles deep. Arguably, H.G. Wells Time Machine shows a similar pattern here at home, though of course, only half the population lived below ground.

Funny thing is how long we’ve been doing just that. I mean, hiding in holes in the ground. Sure, they didn’t call cave men that for nothing, and the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians are pretty amazing, but they really don’t have much on Turkey.

More than two hundred underground cities, with evidence to date at least some of them as far back as 3000 B.C., lay hidden beneath the feet of modern people, especially in the Cappadocia region, where the newest find is. Lest you think we’re talking about simple caves, or even Hobbit hole inspired homes, let’s take a look at what you would find in one of these larger cities. First, room for about 20,000 people, including livestock.

That, my friends, is a very big hole.

They also contain kitchens, presses for the linseed oil that lit their lamps, living areas, ventilation shafts, tunnels wide enough to drive a car through, temples, stables, and even tombs. Though what they were originally built to protect the people from is not entirely clear, the reason they exist here and not in other locations is. Volcanic rock, hardened, but easily carved underlies the entire area, making permanent excavation relatively simple. Perhaps, originally, the first of these was a natural crevice, widened by those in need. By the time the Turks of the region adopted Christianity, they were the first of their neighbors to do so, and sheltering entire populations in these underground cities became a necessity yet again.

I find the history contained within those walls quite fascinating, the stories that must have been contained within compelling, and the engineering amazing. Yet, you must forgive me if I still find the story to be a touch depressing. Two thousand years ago humans had to hide underneath the earth to survive, simply because they disagreed with their neighbors over the nature of an unseen God. Doesn’t look like we’ve made a lot of progress from here.

Cheers,

Michelle