A two-day drive across Anatolia between two sites that hid in plain sight: the oldest known monumental structure on Earth, deliberately buried by the people who built it, and an underground city carved to hold thousands, sealed behind stone doors and forgotten for centuries.
A Neolithic archaeological site in southeastern Turkey featuring monumental circular stone enclosures with carved T-shaped pillars dating to roughly 9500 BCE, among the oldest known monumental structures built by humans.
Start at Göbekli Tepe, whose carved megaliths predate Stonehenge by roughly six thousand years and were deliberately buried by the people who built them, for reasons still debated.
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An 18-story subterranean city beneath central Turkey, capable of sheltering thousands of people and their livestock, that was lost to modern memory entirely until a homeowner broke through a wall into it in 1963.
Drive northwest into Cappadocia to Derinkuyu, an underground city carved to shelter thousands of people and their livestock, sealed behind rolling stone doors and rediscovered only in 1963. Underground sections run on guided tours -- book ahead in peak season.
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