Huge cave discovered in China cave in china

today blogger namecris shared his question with me, asked me to look for information, we read:

This morning, when I was driving in a car, I heard on the radio about the Huashan Caves (this is in China). I immediately wanted to know more about it. There, such passions were told about them, such as that they were not made by hand and that they are on the same line (though I didn’t hear on which one) with the Egyptian pyramids and the Bermuda Triangle.

It turns out that there are so many secrets that many just shrug. Sinologists (sinologists), historians, geologists are trying to solve them. For what and who many centuries ago cut down many huge caves in these hard-to-reach rocks? Why were they set up? What exactly happened in them? Why are they not mentioned in historical chronicles? And the most interesting fact- the Huashan caves were discovered relatively recently - in the late 90s of the last century.

In 1999, they were accidentally found by one of the local peasants, who wrote about the caves to the authorities. Many researchers, employees of various institutes, and then tourists immediately rushed there. And what is surprising: although these are the largest caves in China, created not by nature, but by man, there is no information about them in ancient chronicles. Who created them and why? Where did this disappear a large number of stone? And if the goal was precisely the extraction of stone, then why are the caves made to look like temples?

Huashan caves are located in the rocks in the south of Anhui province. It is in these places that the Yellow Mountain, sacred to Taoism, is located, which, in fact, is five great mountains located a mile or two apart. They seem to point to the cardinal directions: center, south, north, west and east. Mount Huashan is the western great mountain, there are several Taoist monasteries on it. At the moment, 36 caves have been discovered here, and their exact number is unknown. In addition, it is not known whether they are connected in some semblance common complex, or each is located separately.

There is another intriguing feature: the Huashan caves are located at 30 degrees north latitude, and it is on this parallel that Mount Kailash in Tibet, the Bermuda Triangle, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, and other “anomalous” points of the planet are located. Is this a coincidence, or did someone deliberately gouge the caves at this particular latitude?

At one of the caves with the name Huanxi, the area reaches 4800 square meters. m, and the length is 140 meters. Inside there is a spacious hall, columns, pools and several small rooms on both sides of the cave tunnel. The most big cave became known as the "underground palace". Its dimensions are amazing: 12600 sq.m. The artificial origin of the caves is confirmed stone bridges across the river, stairs, passages and large columns. In addition, numerous traces of chisels remained on the surface of the ceilings and walls. Another interesting question: where did the stonemasons remove a huge amount of stones and rubble? And how did they manage to determine the angle of inclination of the inner walls so that it coincides exactly with the angle at which the outer surface of the mountain is inclined? What technologies did the ancients use to create such an unusual interior? How and with what was the interior space illuminated?

Different versions can be put forward for each of the questions, but none of them has yet received an evidence base. However, this is far from the only case when scientists have only assumptions. For example, the famous ribbed towers in Tibet with the shape of a star: there is also no written evidence about them and about their creators.

The only written mention of Mount Huashan, but not of its caves, is contained in the writings of a historian during the Han Dynasty.

It says that many famous Chinese emperors loved this mountain and often came to it to pray to the gods and ancient ancestors. How people could climb its steep slopes, and how long it took, is also unknown. Since ancient times, you can get to the top of the mountain only along one narrow winding path 12 kilometers long. Those who wanted to perform any religious ceremonies or rituals on its summit had to have considerable determination.

All of the above leads to the conclusion that Mount Huashan, striking in its beauty, had a special status among the ancient inhabitants of these places. But we don't know any details yet. And if we knew this, we could guess what made the inhabitants spend a huge amount of effort, gouging passages and caves inside the sacred mountain. by public administration PRC Tourism has taken many serious steps to provide access to these caves for travelers and tourists. Experts from one of the universities have developed a project for the development of the cave complex, which includes cave lighting. Illumination with different colors is extremely beautiful. It gives the caves a truly fabulous flavor. Each cave is numbered and some of them are accessible to visitors.

According to travel sites, it was only during the preliminary inspection of the caves that the experts were struck by the scale of what they saw. None of the already known complexes surpasses the Huashan one. Eg, total area only two of the second and thirty-fifth caves exceed 17,000 sq.m. The volume of rubble and soil removed from these caves reached 20 thousand cubic meters. It took three pumps and more than 12 days to pump out 18 thousand tons of water. Now these caves are open to the public, in cave No. 35 there are 26 stone columns, all rooms have a bizarre multi-tiered shape. Here you can admire stone terraces, pavilions, pools and ponds, stone bridges. Somewhere there are bas-reliefs.

Grishchenkov V. "Secrets of the Huashan Cave"

Cave No. 35, now open to the public, contains 36 objects, 26 columns (the circumference of one column is more than 10 m). All rooms have an irregular, bizarre multi-tiered shape. Experts note the high technical and aesthetic sophistication of the caves. In caves No. 2 and No. 36, 18 bas-reliefs were found. You can see stone terraces, ponds and pools with green water, stone bridges. Traveling through the cave complex, you find yourself either in a vast hall, or in a narrow gallery - as if you are walking through a bizarre palace.

Comrade Jiang Zemin visited the cave complex in May 2001 and wrote four characters, giving the cave complex the name Huashan Miku. He noted that the Huashan caves are a national treasure of China. In January 2003, Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Yingfang visited the complex and said that unraveling the mystery of these caves would put this majestic complex on a par with the Great Chinese wall and the Tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

Like Egyptian pyramids, Huashan caves are fraught with many mysteries. Who and when created these caves? Where hundreds of thousands of cubic meters were exported. m stones? Why don't historical chronicles mention these caves? Why were they discovered only in our time?

During the cleaning of the caves, pottery items were found, attributed by experts to the era of the Jin Dynasty (265-420), which gives reason to attribute the caves to this time by the time of creation. This conclusion is tentatively confirmed by studies of stalactites.

The caves have pools and lakes. The water is so clear that you can see the bottom. It is curious that the level of the water in the lowest lakes is seven feet below the level of the Xinyang River, which flows in the valley of the sacred mountain.

From the very moment the caves were discovered, they talk about their man-made. However, it is possible that the ancient builders simply used what had already been created by nature. In the event that they really completely cut down in sacred mountain these halls, the project is striking in its scale. After all, only stones during the drilling of caves would have to be taken out of these places more than 100 thousand cubic meters. However, (remember the Great Chinese wall) the Chinese have never been afraid grandiose projects. But then it remains unclear why the project, which now claims to be a new wonder of the world, was built so imperceptibly - not a single chronicle or record mentions the creation or use of the Huashan caves. Meanwhile, created in the bowels of the sacred mountain, the caves were most likely very important for the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. And then another assumption is born: the caves were created as secret object, perhaps - a military man, maybe troops were quartered there. Or the caves were a place of secret spiritual practices, it is quite possible that they were intended for the monastery.

However, when the caves were cleared, no traces of fires or soot were found on the walls. Again the question is: how did the inhabitants illuminate these halls?

And here is another mystery of the caves: they are almost completely devoid of echo. For some reason, those who conceived these shelters needed complete silence, and they developed such a device for walls and vaults that the stones absorb the echo instead of reflecting it, as usual.

When exactly the caves were built or equipped is not known, but samples of stones say that the caves are about 1700 years old.

Huashan (blossoming mountain) is a complex of five mountains of China, which got its name due to the similarity of its peaks with a lotus flower. The Chinese say: "If you have visited the five sacred mountains of China, then you can not go to other mountains." Mount Huashan is one of the places of Taoist religious practices and alchemy. Lao Tzu himself lived in these places.

These mountains are amazingly picturesque, but climbing to their peaks is extremely dangerous. Narrow mountain paths wind through the rocks, joining together at the highest peak - 2100 meters. Pilgrims, ascending to the top, often pass through numerous bridges hanging in sheer cliffs on chains, some of which were built many centuries ago.

Along the trails are Taoist monasteries and pagodas. Even buildings of the 11th century (Yuquan Temple), palaces of the Yuan Dynasty have survived. But most of the buildings belong to the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). It is no coincidence that UNESCO has included Huashan in the list of natural heritage sites.

As for our caves: Huashan caves and Mount Huashan (which is near Xi'an, and not others) are at least a day away from railway from each other, from the Mountain to the Cave - 24 hours by train and a few hours by bus to the place.

If the Chinese built such a grandiose complex that can claim to be a wonder of the world, then why was this construction not covered in the chronicles of Chinese history?

From all of the above, the conclusion suggests itself that Mount Huashan, famous for its beauty, was of particular importance for the ancient inhabitants of these places, but what exactly is unknown. But if we knew this, then, obviously, we would have guessed why these people needed to make so much effort, gouging caves and passages in the sacred mountain.

These caves were accidentally found by one of the local peasants, who wrote about them to the authorities. Many researchers, employees of various institutes, and then tourists immediately rushed there. And what is surprising: although these are the largest caves in China, created not by nature, but by man, there is no information about them in ancient chronicles. Who created them and why? Where did such a large amount of stone disappear to? And if the goal was precisely the extraction of stone, then why are the caves made to look like temples?

And the most interesting fact is that the Huashan caves were discovered relatively recently - in the late 90s of the last century, or rather in 1999.

Huashan caves are located in the rocks in the south of Anhui province. It is in these places that the Yellow Mountain, sacred to Taoism, is located, which, in fact, is five great mountains located a mile or two apart. They seem to point to the cardinal directions: center, south, north, west and east. Mount Huashan is the western great mountain and is home to several Taoist monasteries. At the moment, 36 caves have been discovered here, and their exact number is unknown. In addition, it is not known whether they are connected in some semblance of a common complex, or whether each is located separately.

The largest cave is known as the "underground palace". Its dimensions are amazing: 12600 sq.m. The artificial origin of the caves is confirmed by stone bridges over the river, stairs, passages and large columns.

In addition, numerous traces of chisels remained on the surface of the ceilings and walls. Another interesting question: where did the stonemasons remove a huge amount of stones and rubble?

The flower mountain, due to the construction of stone caves, has become almost hollow inside. Today it remains a mystery where the excavated stone disappeared. It was calculated that the excavated stones could pave a road with a length of more than 240 kilometers. However, it is strange that the local peasant houses are built mostly of blue stone, but there is not a single one that would be built from the stone of the Flower Mountain. This stone is colorful.

And how did they manage to determine the angle of inclination of the inner walls so that it coincides exactly with the angle at which the outer surface of the mountain is inclined? What technologies did the ancients use to create such an unusual interior? How and with what was the interior space illuminated?

The only written mention of Mount Huashan, but not of its caves, is contained in the writings of a historian during the Han Dynasty.

All of the above leads to the conclusion that Mount Huashan, striking in its beauty, had a special status among the ancient inhabitants of these places. But we don't know any details yet. And if we knew this, we could guess what made the inhabitants spend a huge amount of effort, gouging passages and caves inside the sacred mountain. The State Administration of Tourism of the People's Republic of China has taken many serious steps in order to provide access to these caves for travelers and tourists. Experts from one of the universities have developed a project for the development of the cave complex, which includes cave lighting.

Illumination with different colors is extremely beautiful. It gives the caves a truly fabulous flavor. Each cave is numbered and some of them are accessible to visitors.

According to travel sites, it was only during the preliminary inspection of the caves that the experts were struck by the scale of what they saw. None of the already known complexes surpasses the Huashan one. For example, the total area of only two of the second and thirty-fifth caves exceeds 17,000 sq.m. The volume of rubble and soil removed from these caves reached 20 thousand cubic meters. It took three pumps and more than 12 days to pump out 18 thousand tons of water. Now these caves are open to the public, in cave No. 35 there are 26 stone columns, all rooms have a bizarre multi-tiered shape.

Here you can admire stone terraces, pavilions, pools and ponds, stone bridges. Somewhere there are bas-reliefs.

Grishchenkov V. "Secrets of the Huashan Cave"

The purpose of building such caves remains extremely incomprehensible. Among the similar ancient caves already discovered in China, there are those that were intended for housing, for worship or for meditation by Buddhist monks. But the stone caves of the Flower Mountain were clearly not built for habitation. Moreover, in these caves there are no wall paintings or Buddhist deities. Therefore, they do not seem to serve a cult purpose.

There are many versions regarding the purpose of building caves, but they all have no scientific basis. If the caves were dug for the purpose of extracting stone, then such operations could easily be carried out under open sky. There was no need to engage in such a titanic work. If they were created to store grain, then these places cannot be considered dry. Maybe they were created with the aim of building imperial chambers? But not a single historical record mentions them. Therefore, they really remain an outlandish mystery for the Chinese.

Cave number 35 has a depth of 170 meters, an area of about 12 thousand square meters. meters. The entrance to the cave is small. From it comes a tunnel 20 meters long and then suddenly a huge underground palace appears in front of you. In the middle of the palace there are 26 tall huge stone columns, the circumference of which is more than ten meters. These columns diverge, forming a triangle shape, and look very majestic. They support the caves and prevent them from collapsing.

In cave number 35 there is another place that involuntarily evokes admiration from visitors. This is a wall stone cave, stretching to the ground at an angle of 45 degrees. It is 15 meters wide and 30 meters long.

All rooms have an irregular, bizarre multi-tiered shape. Experts note the high technical and aesthetic sophistication of the caves. In caves No. 2 and No. 36, 18 bas-reliefs were found. You can see stone terraces, ponds and pools with green water, stone bridges. Traveling through the cave complex, you find yourself either in a vast hall, or in a narrow gallery - as if you are walking through a bizarre palace.

But why did the cave-makers want to give it such a shape? With the help of infrared rays, they found that this wall is just a natural slope of the mountain. This wall is not all the way from the peak of the mountain a distance of five meters. If, having reached this place, the builders did not change direction, then they could dig through the mountain.

Traces of human labor are clearly visible on this wall. Pay attention to the texture of the surface - what tools did the builders use to create such grooves? Solely for aesthetic reasons, or was the stone taken out all the way at once, in one pass? Did they use "forests"?

Obviously, the builders specifically designed just such a slope of the wall. But how in those ancient times, when everything was primitive and there were no measuring instruments, they were able to calculate the angle of the mountain so accurately? This also remains a mystery.

The caves are between the following coordinates: 29°39'34" and 29°47'7"

Comrade Jiang Zemin visited the cave complex in May 2001 and wrote four characters, giving the cave complex the name Huashan Miku. He noted that the Huashan caves are a national treasure of China. In January 2003, Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Yingfang visited the complex and said that unraveling the mystery of these caves would put this majestic complex on a par with the Great Wall of China and the Tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

Like the Egyptian pyramids, the Huashan caves are full of mysteries. Who and when created these caves? Where hundreds of thousands of cubic meters were exported. m stones? Why don't historical chronicles mention these caves? Why were they discovered only in our time?

From the very moment the caves were discovered, they talk about their man-made. However, it is possible that the ancient builders simply used what had already been created by nature. In the event that they really completely cut down these halls in the sacred mountain, the project is striking in its scale. After all, only stones during the drilling of caves would have to be taken out of these places more than 100 thousand cubic meters. However, (remember the Great Wall of China), the Chinese have never been afraid of grandiose projects. But then it remains unclear why the project, which now claims to be a new wonder of the world, was built so imperceptibly - not a single chronicle or record mentions the creation or use of the Huashan caves. Meanwhile, created in the bowels of the sacred mountain, the caves were most likely very important for the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. And then another assumption is born: the caves were created as a secret object, perhaps a military one, maybe troops were quartered there. Or the caves were a place of secret spiritual practices, it is quite possible that they were intended for the monastery.

However, when the caves were cleared, no traces of fires or soot were found on the walls. Again the question is: how did the inhabitants illuminate these halls?

When exactly the caves were built or equipped is not known, but samples of stones say that the caves are about 1700 years old.

Huashan (blossoming mountain) - a complex of five mountains of China, which received its name due to the similarity of its peaks with a lotus flower. The Chinese say: "If you have visited the five sacred mountains of China, then you can not go to other mountains." Mount Huashan is one of the places of Taoist religious practices and alchemy. Lao Tzu himself lived in these places.

As for our caves: Huashan Caves and Mount Huashan (which is near Xi'an, and not others) are at least a day away by rail from each other, from Mountain to Cave - 24 hours by train and several hours by bus to the place.

If the Chinese built such a grandiose complex that can claim to be a wonder of the world, then why was this construction not covered in the chronicles of Chinese history?

Adventurers descended deep underground to explore previously unexplored caves in Chinese province Guangxi. 33-year-old Belgian photographer Francois-Xavier De Ruydts, along with a team of speleologists, wandered through the underground worlds for a long time in early 2014 to get these pictures.

1. As already mentioned, this cave is located in China in the province of Guangxi. We approach the entrance.

2. In most caves, the air is breathable due to natural circulation, although there are caves in which you can only be in gas masks. For example, guano deposits (naturally decomposed remains of seabird and bat droppings) can poison the air. However, in the vast majority natural caves air exchange with the surface is quite intense.

3. The reasons for the movement of air are most often the temperature difference in the cave and on the surface, so the direction and intensity of circulation depend on the season and weather conditions. In large cavities, the movement of air is so intense that it turns into wind. For this reason, air draft is one of the important features when looking for new caves.

4. On Earth, karst caves have the greatest extent and depth. Karst caves are formed due to the dissolution of rocks by water.

5. By the way, there are caves not only on Earth, they are found on and. Apparently, these are volcanic caves, ancient traces of volcanic activity.

6. Primitive people used caves around the world as a dwelling. Even more often, animals settled in the caves. Many animals died in the cave-traps, starting from steep wells.

7. The extremely slow evolution of caves, their constant climate, and protection from the outside world have preserved a huge number of archaeological finds to us. These are the pollen of fossil plants, the bones of long-extinct animals, cave drawings ancient people and tools of their labor.

8. Although the living world of caves is usually not very rich (excluding the entrance part, where sunlight), some animals live in caves or even only in caves. First of all, these are bats, many of their species use caves as a daily shelter or for wintering. Moreover, bats sometimes fly into very remote and hard-to-reach corners, perfectly orienting themselves in narrow labyrinth passages.

9. In addition to bats, several species of insects, spiders, shrimps and other crustaceans, salamanders and fish live in some caves in warm climates.

10. cave views adapt to complete darkness, and many of them lose their organs of vision and pigmentation. Often these species are very rare, many of them are endemic.

11. The depth of the cave is the difference in height between the entrance (the highest of the entrances, if there are several) and the lowest point of the cave. If there are passages in the cave located above the entrance, the concept of amplitude is used - the difference in levels between the lowest and highest points of the cave.

12. According to estimates, maximum depth the occurrence of cave passages under the surface (not to be confused with the depth of the cave!) can be no more than 3,000 meters: deeper than any cave, the weight of the overlying rocks will crush.

13. By myself deep cave planet is considered karst cave Krubera-Voronya, located in the Arabica mountain range in Abkhazia. Its depth is a depth of 2,199 meters.

14. The world's longest Mammoth Cave (USA) - karst, laid in limestone. It has a total length of passages of more than 600 km. The longest cave in Russia is the Botovskaya cave, over 60 km long.

15. And we are in a cave in China, Guangxi province. This picture gives an idea of the dimensions underworld. It's time to go outside.

Ancient grottoes and mining machines

I will start this article with a picture. This photo shows a golden figurine found among others in Panama. The golden treasure belongs to the unknown science of civilization. We draw our own conclusions.

Official explanations of the origin of the huge Longue Grottoes in China, during the creation of which about a million cubic meters of stone were somehow removed, do not stand up to scrutiny. What is their similarity with the workings made by special mining equipment today?

For archaeologists and historians, of course, all this is cut down by hand. Then in the comments I made an assumption:
The working out of the material is similar to the traces that were left when trying to cut down the Aswan obelisk in Egypt. It seems that the material was scooped up or a huge cutter went through layer by layer in stages.

Now I will try to compare this ancient object with the one (or rather, the traces in it on the walls and ceilings) that is obtained in the mines when the milling cutters go through the tunneling machines.

But first, remember Longue Cave:

Footprints on the walls taken close up

Grottoes before pumping water

I will not write official nonsense about these lines-drawings. I will write dry data on the caves. Let me remind you that there are 24 caves (according to other sources - 36), the first were found (water was pumped out) in 1992. The volume of excavated rock: a little less than a million cubic meters!!!

Huashan caves are located in the rocks in the south of Anhui province.

At one of the caves with the name Huanxi, the area reaches 4800 square meters. m, and the length is 140 meters. Inside there is a spacious hall, columns, pools and several small rooms on both sides of the cave tunnel.
The largest cave is known as the "underground palace". Its dimensions are amazing: 12600 sq.m. The artificial origin of the caves is confirmed by stone bridges over the river, stairs, passages and large columns.

There is one feature: the builders managed to determine the angle of inclination of the inner walls so that it exactly coincides with the angle at which the outer surface of the mountain is inclined. What technologies did the ancients use to create such an unusual interior? How and with what was the interior space illuminated?

The total area of only two of the second and thirty-fifth caves exceeds 17,000 sq.m. The volume of rubble and soil removed from these caves reached 20 thousand cubic meters. It took three pumps and more than 12 days to pump out 18 thousand tons of water. Now these caves are open to the public, in cave No. 35 there are 26 stone columns, all rooms have a bizarre multi-tiered shape.

Cave number 35 has a depth of 170 meters, an area of about 12 thousand square meters. meters. The entrance to the cave is small. From it comes a tunnel 20 meters long and then suddenly a huge underground palace appears in front of you. In the middle of the palace there are 26 tall huge stone columns, the circumference of which is more than ten meters. These columns diverge, forming the shape of a triangle.
In cave number 35 there is another place that involuntarily evokes admiration from visitors. This is the wall of a stone cave, stretching to the ground at an angle of 45 degrees. It is 15 meters wide and 30 meters long.

The caves are between the following coordinates: 29°39'34" and 29°47'7"

This is what archaeologists call wall carving! The question is why? It does not make sense, trying to make exactly parallel lines when working with a chisel is a complication of work. official explanation it doesn't really explain what we see.

End of the first part....

SECOND PART -

The Chinese have a saying: "If you have visited the five sacred mountains of China, then you can not go to other mountains." We are talking about Mount Huashan - the center of Taoist religious practices and a place for practicing alchemy. It is said that Lao Tzu himself lived here. Not so long ago, a complex of mysterious caves was discovered in the bowels of the Blossoming Mountain.

Huashan Blooming Mountain is called because the peaks of this complex of five mountains form a lotus flower. The mountains stand at a distance of about 1-2 miles from each other and are oriented to the cardinal points: center, south, north, east, west. Mount Huashan - Western sacred mountain. It should be noted that this is an unusually picturesque area, but the ascent to the peaks of the complex is very dangerous.

The paths leading to the peaks are very narrow, winding, 12 km long. Entangling the rocks with their serpentine, they eventually converge in the very high point complex at an altitude of 2,100 m. Basically, only pilgrims decide to make this path.

In some places they have to overcome the path along narrow bridges attached by chains to sheer cliffs, which requires considerable physical strength and endurance from people, and most importantly, enviable determination. After all, most of the wooden bridges were built many centuries ago.

The trail leading to the summit passes Taoist monasteries, some of which date back to the 11th century, such as the Yuquan Temple and the palaces of the Yuan Dynasty. But the main part of the buildings of a later period, relating to the reign of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The Huashan complex is included in the UNESCO List of Natural Heritage Sites.

SECRETS HIDDEN IN THE MOUNTAIN

Unusual and hard-to-reach mountain Huashan today has become even more famous thanks to the grandiose man-made caves found in it at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. All those who were lucky enough to see them unanimously consider the caves one of the wonders of the world. These unique dungeons in the rocks of the southern part of Anhui Province (China) east of the city of Tunxi were accidentally discovered in 1999.

They were discovered by a local peasant, who was so amazed by what he saw that he felt it necessary to report his find to the authorities. And he was not mistaken: the caves were called in scientific world real sensation. Scientists, researchers, journalists and tourists rushed to the Huashan area.

The caves are located at 30 degrees north latitude, that is, on the same parallel with the pyramids of Giza, sacred mountain Kailash in Tibet and bermuda triangle, and, as it were, close this mysterious circuit. It is unlikely that such an arrangement can be considered an accident.

To date, scientists know about 36 caves, and no one really knows how many of them. It remains a mystery and the answer to the question whether there is a message between them or each of them is an independent structure.

UNDERGROUND COMPLEX

When they conducted a preliminary inspection of the caves, the researchers were struck by the scale of what they saw. Underground complex Mount Huashan exceeded in size all known similar structures. All 36 caves have been assigned serial numbers, and many of them do not yet have a name.

For example, the total area of the 2nd and 35th caves exceeded 17 thousand square meters. m. With an approximate calculation, during their clearing, 20 thousand cubic meters were taken out. m of crushed stone and soil and pumped out 18 tons of water. Three powerful pumps worked there for 12 days. The premises are now open to the public.

Cave number 35 is also called the underground palace. Apparently, such an honorary name was given to her because of the truly royal size. It is located at a depth of 170 m, and its total area is 12,600 square meters. m. The entrance to it is small. To get into this splendor, you need to pass a 20-meter tunnel.

In the middle of the underground palace there are 26 huge stone columns supporting the vaults of the cave. These gigantic pillars are more than ten meters in diameter. As you move into the cave, it seems that they seem to diverge, forming a triangle.

The palace impresses not only with this: one of its walls, having a width of 15 m and a length of 30 m, is located at an angle of 45 degrees. Scientists using infrared rays managed to establish that this wall was created by nature and is a natural formation.

Here you can also see underground lakes and pools with transparent clear water through which you can see the bottom. Separate halls, stone stairs, bridges across underground rivers... It is curious that all these reservoirs are seven feet below the level of the Xinyang River, which flows in the valley of Mount Huashan. Scientists are also surprised by a strange two-tiered structure with a balcony, from where the entire panorama of the cave opens up to visitors.

Another cave called Huanxi is also different huge area- 4,800 sq. m with a length of 140 m. Inside it there are several rooms: a spacious hall with columns, pools and several small rooms on two sides of the tunnel.

It should be noted that all underground rooms are multi-tiered and have an irregular, bizarre shape. However, it seems that the one who created all this thought through the details to the smallest detail. Most recently, 18 bas-reliefs were discovered in the 2nd and 36th caves.

Can't all these stone bridges, stairs, balconies, columns be evidence that the caves are of artificial origin?

HOW?

The fact that the caves were built by people is no longer in doubt. Take, for example, tool marks that look like a chisel mark, which are visible on the surface of ceilings and walls. But what kind of tool it was that created such grooves, and how the stone was hollowed out: in pieces or taken out completely, and whether the ancient builders used scaffolding is still not clear.

Perhaps people simply made the most of what had already been created by nature. If we assume that the rock was nevertheless hollowed out, then they would have to take out at least 100 thousand cubic meters from these places. m stone! With this amount of rock, it is quite possible to lay out a road with a length of 240 km. Actually, the Chinese can do a lot.

The mystery remains where these dumps have gone, because no traces of the extracted rock have been found. Built houses? No, all the houses in the area are built of blue stone, and Huashan is made of motley rock.

The next question that baffled scientists: what technologies did the builders use if the angle of inclination of the internal walls exactly repeats the external angle of the mountain and its bends? If they had not done so, they would surely have punched a hole out. How did people manage to achieve such an unusual interior? Again, they couldn’t work in complete darkness, which means they somehow illuminated the premises, but no traces of fire or soot were found ...

It seems absolutely amazing that the caves are completely devoid of echo, the vaults and walls are arranged in such a way that they absorb sounds, providing complete silence. For what? Perhaps the echo could interfere with the prayer.

FOR WHAT?

It is surprising that such a large-scale structure is not described anywhere. Only in the manuscript of the Chinese historian of the Han Dynasty (135-87 BC) is there a mention of Mount Huashan, but no caves. He wrote that the Chinese rulers came to the mountain to pray there to the gods and their ancestors. Perhaps it was in the caves that these prayers sounded, because it is unlikely that the emperors made a difficult path to the top.

The purpose of the construction of the caves remains a mystery to this day. There is no doubt that they were not built for habitation. Then what for? Still for meditation and worship? However, they do not contain any wall paintings or any deities, so it is doubtful that they served cult purposes. If these are still ancient temples, then what rituals were performed in them, and most importantly, by whom?

Maybe the reason is much more prosaic and they just mined a stone there? But why make it harder for yourself? The stone can be mined on the surface of the mountain, and not inside it. They are also not suitable as grain storage due to high humidity.

Or was it some kind of secret object? Location of troops, for example. You can come up with a great many versions, but none of them has yet been confirmed by the evidence base.

IN SEARCH OF TRUTH

The exploration of the caves continues. Scientists are trying to find passages and tunnels that could connect separate rooms. In the process of research, new discoveries appear. So, ceramic products were discovered, according to experts, created in 265-420. during the Jin Dynasty.

Based on the analysis of stalactites and cave walls, their approximate age- 1,700 years. But it is possible that the caves are much older than scientists suggest. A lot of questions have accumulated, the work of researchers will be enough for many years to come.