The World Beneath İstanbul

Accessing and discussing the underground world beneath İstanbul is truly an ambitious enterprise. Suprisingly few archaelogical excavations have taken place for various reasons and most of the serious work conducted by scientists devoted to the issue of İstanbul's subterranean features has been left incomplete. Archeologists, eho found the acquisition of sponsorship easy for excavations and research conducted on the historical sites of the Hittites, Urartus, Sumerians, and Lycians, appear to have faced great financial difficulties when it came to exploring İstanbul's hidden depths.

Consequently, we do not really have a good acount of what is hidden in the subterranean world of the city. Despite the hundreds of different resources available to us, somehow they are never quite sufficient enough to guide us to that world as we follow the footsteps of history; this is mainly dueto the continual construction work that changes the layout with each passing day. Even street names change regularly and every day more underpasses, overpasses, bridges, and viaducts are being constructed in the city. This means, therefore, it is inevitable that researchers will lose these traces of history and the hope they have of finding valuable information. This has been my experience and I decided to write this book in order to help others find their path and not endure the difficult experiences I have encountered. İstanbul is truly a boundless ocean.

This is not a history book merely telling the story of İstanbul. We could call it a tribute to the remains of the many civilisations that have been sleeping under the city for many centuries.