Hiya everyone!
I'm a Canadian girl who speaks both English and Persian with a funny accent (long story and we're not gonna go there). I visited the Underground City of Nushabad in Iran in early January of 2020. Here is my amateur virtual tour of the place. Do like and subscribe to my channel if you enjoyed this video.
This remarkable complex of tunnels, 8km north of Kashan is a major tourist attraction in Iran since its opening to tourists about a decade ago. Only part of the tunnel system is open to visitors today though, and those parts are often subject to flooding, but even a quick descent to the first level (of the total three) gives an idea of the complexity of this ancient engineering project. Considered a masterpiece of Sassanian dynasty architecture, these tunnels were constructed on three levels between 4m and 18m below ground level.
The original purpose of the tunnels and chambers that were dug is assumed to have been to provide an escape from the desert's summer heat. Also, they appear to have had another function: allowing inhabitants of the City of Noushabad to move from one part of the town to another without having to encounter enemies. As this city was very close to the Silk Road, many raids to the city would have been possible. The three levels of the tunnels included a number of ingenious devices to trap and ambush hostile intruders, such as curving corridors and disguised pits covered with stones. The tunnels, which were put to good use during the Mongolian invasion of the 13th century, worked particularly well as an emergency shelter because there were several entrances to the underground chambers, most of which surfaced within the town's residential homes. Ventilation shafts allowed for prolonged residence underground and fresh water was assured by the spring. The tunnels were clearly designed with private chambers / rooms for each family. The tunnels were eventually abandoned in the 1920s and found by accident when someone dug a well in their house in 80s (I believe) and stumbled through to the labyrinth of chambers below - the story goes that he thought he had seen ghosts and lost the ability to speak. His son (an adolescent back then), came back to his father's home in the 2000s when he was in his 20-30s and knowing that the ghost story is not true, started digging further down to see what his father had seen years prior. He then notified Iran's Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts about the discovery.
