ABSTRACT
Civilisation and the world as we know rest on foundations that extend beyond the surface, to the real and imagined subterranean realms and their exploitation, and this chapter explores this underworldly dimension with regard to cities as the main hubs of civilisation. The strange and extraordinary subterranean world and worlds ‘beneath the surface’ more generally have been incorporated into urban space and fabric in diverse ways. This chapter examines how cities are experientially, culturally, mythically, and materially entangled with beneath-the-surface worlds, employing the notion of the labyrinth and the idea of cities as ‘inverted mines’ as starting points. Cities are complex, labyrinthine entities, with some elements that could well be described as monstrous. They are layered and ‘dense’ experienced environments, potentially disorienting, and form an ‘infrastructure of enchantment’. They provoke a sense of mystery and of something laying underneath the immediately observable surface of urban space. This sense of richness has taken a broad range of cultural expressions that are discussed in this chapter. This chapter employs mythical, historical, archaeological, and present-day material to discuss the ‘ritual’ and subsurface aspects of cities, such as ancient foundation deposits, underground urban environments (like the metro), and mediaeval processions, as well as various present-day types of ‘wanderings’ in cities, such as urban exploration.
