In 1992, farmers in the small village of Shiyan Biecun decided to try to settle an age-old mystery handed down for generations. The local hills were dotted with ponds of which one had long been the source of legends that claimed it was bottomless. Moreover, this one in particular contained no fish, which puzzled the locals who caught plenty of them in the other nearby ponds.
One villager Wu Anai was not satisfied with the explanation given in the local folklore. He decided to find out the truth. After persuading his neighbors to help, they pooled enough money to buy a water pump and began siphoning the water out the mysterious pond close to the village.
It was one of many in the area that had been used for washing clothes, fishing, and other chores for as long as anyone could remember. The villages thought it was an endlessly deep pool of almost magical water.
Anai and his fellow villagers had no idea of what they would find when the water was pumped out. After 17 days of continuous pumping the pool was finally drained. To their utter astonishment when it was completely emptied of water, they found that it wasn’t really a pond at all, but the flooded, vertical entrance to an ancient, artificial cave.
After cleaning up the mud sediments they inspected the cavern and found it to be a very large underground space about 90' high, at the tallest point, which exhibited a carved rock staircase; several fairly slender rock pillars; and the walls and inclined ceiling revealed evenly-spaced, curved imprints on their surfaces.
Longyou Cave, interior, open to the public today
The large open space, the carved rock staircase and the grooved imprints told them that it was not natural; the cavern had been carved out of the native bedrock they knew that for sure. But who did this sublime work? None of the local legends, circulated in the village, had ever mentioned the existence of any caves in the region.
The farmers, turned amateur archaeologists, by accident, were excited and continued to pump water out of another four, adjacent pools. Again, four similar rock caverns were drained, one by one. What they revealed was simply incredible. (See below insert)
The group decided to try to find out if there were any historical records that mentioned these caves. When consulted the Chinese government said that they had no knowledge of, nor any written documents about, these caves. The villagers then turned to academia; Chinese scholars also concurred that they could not find any records documenting their existence.
This is a most unusual situation. There are very few ancient artifacts on the planet that pose such a complete mystery. I found one similar case in Japan with the monolithic stone cube, the Ishi-no-Hoden. However, the Longyou Grottoes present an even more impenetrable, complicated enigma wrapped within a conundrum.
The news of their discovery actually travelled slowly through the historical community at first. It was not until 1998 that the first scholar learned about and visited them. His initial conclusion was entirely erroneous as he stated that they were naturally produced and not artificial.
However, succeeding trips back to the caves convinced him otherwise and he broadcast that fact to his academic peers.
These recently discovered artificial caverns have utterly baffled geologists, engineers, archaeologists and scientists who hurried to the sites, alike. No one has come up with a convincing explanation as to how they were originally created; nor how they stayed intact for so long -- when other manmade caves of more recent origin -- have eroded badly and even collapsed.
Regarding the final point, geologists have studied the grottoes and wrote the following introduction in a report published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences:
They were carved manually in pelitic siltstone in the Quxian Formation of Upper Cretaceous. They have the following five characteristics: 1) more than 2000 years old, 2) man-carved, 3) large spanned, 4 near ground surface and 5 medium to hard surrounding rock… This discovery called the attention of many specialists from China, Japan, Poland, Singapore and the USA. One of the most interesting and challenging questions is why the five caverns have been able to keep their integrity for more than 2000 years… (Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering) geological characteristics, failure modes and protective measures of Longyou rock caverns of 2000 years old)
The integrity of the grottoes naturally raises many questions and issues. How could ancient engineers have known exactly how to design and build these caves so precisely that they outlast more modern, manmade cave systems? Of course, this is what baffles geologists and engineers who have descended on them to try and get a grip on this anomaly.
We simply should not find artificial, ancient caves exhibiting such a high level of structural integrity made by unidentified, unknown builders. But the fact is that we do. Additionally, we should also not find such sophisticated ancient craftsmanship devoid of any historical records. But the fact is that we do.
Lastly, though tentatively dated to be about 2,000 years old, we must ask how this date was established by whom using what technology?
It is not possible to date bedrock. The date seems more a matter of guesswork than one achieved by any reliable dating technology. As already noted, no historical records have been found that can be used to roughly establish an approximate time for their construction or to establish who built them.
That is always very problematic for historians and archaeologists, especially since no carbon-based materials, ostensibly left by the builders, have been found in the caves. Therefore it appears that these caves were never lived in.
That brings up the issue of why the caves were built in the first place. No scientist has yet come up with a convincing answer to this basic question. They were not tombs; nor was any mining operation conducted in them; and no storage items were found either, ruling that option out as well.
Now we turn to several critical issues: a) the technology used to excavate the bedrock and b) the carving method that left evenly spaced grooves, and ridges, in the solid rock.
First, the initial excavation was a monumental undertaking. The caves are very large: the average floor area of each is over 1,000 square meters (11,000 sq. ft.), with heights of up to 30 meters (98 ft.), and the total area excavated was in excess of 30,000 square meters (320,000 sq. ft.).
We are talking about a floor area that is equal to about a quarter of an acre of ground. But a total volume of rock in excess of 10 acres had to be cut and removed to create the total cubic volume of the interior horizontal and vertical space. That means in excess of 1 million tons of waste rock had to be cut away and removed from the 36 known caverns.
Clearly the job was an enormous labor that cost both much time and a huge amount of effort. There is simply no way to overstate the total work-load involved. Now, to add to the initial task of opening up the space and removing the waste rock from it, we must include the final, finishing phase. This included stonemasons and sculptors chiseling regularly-spaced grooves, and creating exquisite artwork on the walls and pillars.
The final phases of the work required master stonemasons and sculptors, no novice craftsman using primitive tools could have created the precision finishes we see today. Now, in order to ascertain the technology required to execute the cutting and carving of the caves out of solid bedrock we need to establish the type of rock involved.
In the case of the Longyou caves we are dealing with siltstone. This type of rock is moderately hard, 6-7 (on the MOHS hardness scale), harder than limestone and softer than granite. It is a fine-grained, porous type of stone that is heat, impact, pressure and water resistant. Today, siltstone is used for countertops, facing stones, and cement.
From the above description we can see that a very hard stone tool made of granite could have been used, at least for the initial rough phase of excavation. But it would appear that hardened metal tools made of bronze or iron would have been required for the finishing phases. As the following photo shows, the grottoes contain sculptures representative of the work of a master craftsman.
Our problem is that no such tools whatsoever have been found at or near the caves. Like the lack of records this is highly problematic for historians and archaeologists. Certainly some kind of relatively sophisticated technology was used to create the grottoes. That is evident in the level of sophistication they exhibit.
However, no equally sophisticated tools have been found anywhere in the region to match the work achieved. This poses another mystifying fact to add to the growing list. On top of that anomaly we must also add that there are no ancient stone villages or megalithic stone works in the area either.
If present, they would indicate the existence of an ancient people who worked with and used stone for a main construction material in the remote past. We could then extrapolate that perhaps this hypothetical culture built the caves. But there is no evidence that such a people once existed in the region.
Beyond those things we have yet another missing piece of the puzzle to consider. Tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of tons of waste rock had to have been removed from the dozens of grottoes excavated thus far. They should be found heaped up into piles somewhere in the vicinity outside of the caves. The problem is that no such heaps have ever been located to date!
Obviously, that fact is beyond strange as it borders on the miraculous, and makes it appear that someone had the technology to vaporize the waste rock. I was not at all exaggerating when I wrote that the Longyou Grottoes are an enigma wrapped within a conundrum earlier in this chapter…
Whoever constructed them possessed the technology and knew how to 1) To design an underground complex, created out of natural bedrock, in such a way that it would withstand the internal pressure dynamics and forces working to collapse it and 2) had the engineering, technology and construction skills to fully execute the design.
The above is all but impossible to explain and is the main reason that so many scientists have studied the caves in recent years. Here we turn once again to the expert study quoted above to gain a deeper, crucial insight into the sophisticated design:
“Human beings have constructed and used a large amount of underground spaces at different depths for various activities such as hydropower houses and oil and gas storage… When more and more and larger and larger rock caverns are constructed and utilized, human beings are facing one of the most challenging and difficult issues. This issue is the prediction and assurance on the long term stability and integrity of underground projects for the coming hundreds or even thousands years.
…Therefore, current design life for the serviceability of underground cavern projects is only 50 to 100 years, which is short for some important projects, including permanent storage of heat-emitting highly radioactive waste and hydrocarbon gas in deep rock formations.”
Now, framed in the full context, we can understand why scientists have focused so much attention on the Longyou caverns. Some of them have maintained their structural integrity for thousands of years! Obviously engineers, geologists and scientists want to know the specific reasons for how this was achieved, so the design elements can be duplicated today.
Obviously, this underlines the great mystery that lies behind the construction of these unique caves. Who had rock engineering knowledge that exceeds our modern levels thousands of years ago?
Now turning to the specific details of the structures we find the following pattern: vertical portals, carved rock staircases, cut-rock water traps, and slender carved-rock pillars. All of the five dry caverns are made of the native, argillaceous siltstone bedrock. The ceiling surfaces are inclined and curved. The sidewalls are usually inclined as well.
The following diagram shows the general pattern of the design the caverns follow:
Each complete cavern has only one portal, top left structure, associated with a vertical shaft. The vertical portal is normally located on the southern boundary of the cavern. The cavern longitudinal directions are usually oriented toward the vertical portal and extend to the south-southwest. This orientation maximizes the amount of sunlight that penetrates into each cave.
It is evident that the ten complete caverns have adopted the inclined ceiling structure. The average dip direction of the ceiling slopes of the complete caverns No.1–5 is N17.6°E and closely equal to the average dip direction of the argillaceous siltstone beddings of N19°E. The average dip angle of the five ceiling slopes is 21.6° and also closely equal to the average dip angle of the beddings of 24°.
These data demonstrate that the inclined ceiling design and construction are based on a solid understanding and utilization of the surrounding (rock) bedding strata. This represents a high level of geological knowledge obtained via ancient surveys so that the structure would be in-synch with the geological strata of the bedrock.
Scientists also carried out a three-dimensional numerical analysis to assess the stress and deformation fields in two rock cavern models. One was based on the actual inclined ceilings of the Longyou caverns. The other was an assumed comparative model with a horizontal ceiling.
The numerical results showed that the inclined ceiling design -- not only improves the stress condition of the surrounding rock -- it reduces the settlement of the roof and the lateral deformation of the sidewalls as well. In other words, the builders already knew that the inclined ceiling was the most effective design to achieve structural integrity!
Once again, how are we to explain this high degree of sophisticated knowledge existing in an unknown, ancient culture? In truth, we cannot.
While scientists have analyzed many important physical engineering and geological issues to date, as shown above, historians and archaeologists have not addressed many in their respective domains, unfortunately. For example, why do we not find equally sophisticated stone dwellings and other structures and artifacts in the vicinity?
The question raises a very serious problem that historians are no doubt painfully aware of but would rather not discuss in public. Moreover, how are we to piece together any rational progression leading up to the construction of the Longyou Caves without them, written records or tools?
Human cultures do not suddenly appear on the scene as if by magic, build very sophisticated caves out of bedrock, leave no trace of their identity, then disappear. Is it any wonder then why some alternative historians, (yours truly included), argue that extraterrestrials visited earth with their own advanced knowledge and technologies.
(Nonetheless, Ancient Aliens are not the focus of this article)
After the first four ponds were drained, another twenty were found. One would be quite enough to ponder, 24 represent a stupendous achievement and a baffling, inexplicable mystery as well. But the discovery process did not end there in recent years another 12 have been located.
Why on earth would anyone design and excavate 36 highly, complex caverns in a remote area of China? Who were they, where did they come from, where did they live and where did they go? All practical questions that we cannot answer.
Of great interest is the fact that they were built on the same latitude as the Great Pyramid, very near the mystical 30 N. parallel. The Longyou Caves need consideration as one of greatest and most spectacular mysteries and ancient wonders of the world!
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