Archaeologists Dug Under 5 Historic Homes in the Desert—and Found an Underground City

Yahoo

10-03-2025

Archaeologists discovered an ancient underground city beneath Abarkuh, Iran, where residents in Iran escaped above-ground heat.
In the subterranean settlement, they found an aqueduct to transport water throughout the ancient city and gathering places for its residents.
Experts believe this find could be just one of many under the historic city of Abarkuh.
When life got a little too warm in the desert climate of ancient Iran, some residents of an ancient city had a backup plan: going underground, literally.
In a new find under five historic homes in the Iranian city of Abarkuh, archaeologists discovered an underground settlement where, beneath the city's foundation, there were large halls and alcoves and a stone aqueduct system to transport water through the settlement.
'The spaces between these stone beds were turned into gardens by the ancients, and they had paths under these stone sections for ease of access, security, water transportation, and their lives,' Hossein Hatami, Abarkhu governor, said in a translated exclusive interview given to Islamic Republic News Agency.
Hatami said that when the ancient people of Abarkuh dug water transfer tunnels, known as a qanat, they added stairs connecting the houses along the route to the tunnels. The links to the tunnels allowed residents to control the water management for the larger good of the community and for personal needs.
With the passage of water located under the city's stone bed, the area provided a 'cool and peaceful atmosphere,' Hatami said, during the hot seasons. This respite appears to have contributed to the gradual creation of larger halls and areas around the flowing water, which he said were added to the underground complex for use as a resting place.
That same system may have provided security when a different kind of heat got turned up: enemy invasions.
'It is said that another use of this underground complex was a hiding place or shelter,' Hatami said, 'in times of war or [foreign] attack.'
Archaeologists discovered the underground canals across about 150 acres, but there could be plenty more across the area, Hatami said. Some of them, though, will never be located because after some aqueducts dried up, construction projects in the city replaced the water-carrying tunnels with sewage repositories.
The Abarkuh system, within what is considered the ancient golden triangle of centuries-old settlements of Shiraz, Yzad, and Isfahan, was likely created by the Qajar people, a Turkmen tribe from modern-day Azerbaijan that grew in prominence in the 10th century A.D. and controlled an Iran dynasty in the 18th through 20th centuries.
The qanat was a key feature of Qajar construction, and the stones used in the newly found qanats were the same as the ones used in Qajar-era building. 'The qanat tunnels are often quite deep and well-ventilated,' Irina Tsukerman, a geopolitical analyst, told All That's Interesting, 'ensuring that the water remained cool as it traveled through the underground channels.'
Hatami said there's a possibility of more examples of the underground complex in other neighborhoods and potentially throughout the entire historical areas of Abarkuh.
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