Archaeologists digging beneath Hagia Sophia have removed 3,000 tons of mud and uncovered a vast Roman underground networ...

Archaeologists digging beneath Hagia Sophia have removed 3,000 tons of mud and uncovered a vast Roman underground network that had been sealed off and forgotten for centuries. The find, presented by Professor Hasan Fırat Diker of the Hagia Sophia Scientific Committee, includes tunnels, chambers, and passageways that predate the famous church itself. Work began in February 2025 and has since exposed a 170-metre underground route connected to a 5th-century Roman road running from the Sarayburnu waterfront area all the way to Little Hagia Sophia. Diker compared the scale and engineering of the tunnel system to a modern metro network, built roughly 1,600 years ago by Roman engineers to move rainwater to the sea, supply the city with fresh water, and provide protected passageways beneath Constantinople. On the northeast side of the site, the team cleared four connected chambers first discovered in 1946 and dug an additional 1.5 metres deeper into them. Those chambers, Diker confirmed, are older than the Hagia Sophia that stands today. The foundations of the very first church on the site, destroyed by fire in the 5th century, sit 2.3 metres below the current floor. That means the structure most people know as Hagia Sophia is only the latest layer of a much older sacred and civic complex. The Scientific Committee plans to make large sections of the tunnels safe and open to visitors, with an exhibition program also in the works. For now, the find confirms that what lies beneath one of the world's most recognizable buildings is as significant as the building itself. #HagiaSophia #Byzantium #Archaeology