There is a wall with figures in the cave #1, the main tourist attraction cave. The other caves don’t have any carvings of scenery. I could not find any explanation of who these figures are or what they represent. [Cosmick Traveler]
Posted on 11/27/2018 11:13:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv
There is a wall with figures in the cave #1, the main tourist attraction cave. The other caves don’t have any carvings of scenery. I could not find any explanation of who these figures are or what they represent. [Cosmick Traveler]
Detailed paper at Science Direct:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674775515300950
The style looks familiar.
Can’t place it though.
The carvings are in such great shape, are unique to one cave, and have a Great Leap Forward look about them, and not much in the way of familiar imagery, so I suspect, tentatively, that they were added in the 1990s. The main reason for their existence *may* be an ancient decree from the emperor that each town construct warehouses for the keeping of supplies and weapons, in case of war; but the fact that they'd been used locally as a water supply makes me wonder if they weren't constructed as cisterns.
An awful lot of man-hours put into this work.
Yes, and no local folklore about it, no record anywhere, very odd. A lot of the info I found online was from goofy sites, one of them pointed out the striations left from the excavating technique matched those found in other parts of the world -- but of course, there were not that many options for digging underground rooms at that time.
This was the perfect article to read before bed! Now I'll dream of an advanced civilization creating durable structures to house the first seeds of intelligent life that they planted on our planet. That's the only logical thing to do when an uninhabited livable planet is discovered after all...
Three years ago, I was watching some documentary about western Australia (some remote mining region), and they had snow-blower sized machines that they run through a underground area and make ‘apartments’ (sheltering you from the summer heat). The guy had a dozen apartments built and continuing to build more.
I look at these caves and think that you’d have to have the same type of ‘grinders’ to do that much work. Out in Turkey (far east side) there’s some underground cave network that was dug out....has to be well over 10,000 years ago. If you look at the size and scope, you’d think the same thing....some type of grinder machine. A few months ago....I saw another documentary on an Indian temple complex...all dug in a difficult way, and it had to be a grinder operation but well over 2,000 years ago.
Modern addition of carvings would fit with previous known behavior of the Chinese “sciences” if the 1990’s.
(Faked fossils from around that time were quite rampant. Example, glued on feathers on a fossil “find”.)
One of my ancestors cleared the 80 acres of the original farm by hand. I can't imagine doing that. So, no, they didn't have modern style machinery, they just had hand tools and enough time.
If you were trying avoid the cold weather 10,000-13000 years ago you would go underground. The average internal temp of the earth is actually comfortable.
I would suggest that there eas a time in our history when man was required to live underground to survive. There are thousands of underground living areas all over the world.
Fascinating.
Fascinating. Must study more later in depth.
Coober Pedy converted opal mines. Same reason Wisconsinites ate called “badgers.” Settlers working the area had better mining tools and skills than carpentry tools and skills so they lived underground. Saves a lot of effort and of course resources for building are limited in a place like Coober Pedy.
Derinkuyu, Cappadocia?
Derinkuyu.
It’s on my list of places to see in the next three years. I was wanting to tie it and Gobekli Tepe into one single trip...but I’d prefer not to do some bundled bus tour deal.
Those things are possible I suppose. It also could have been a failed underground community, a hive. The pit dwelers of Yaodong have been digging private residences for 4000 years. Its possible that somewhere along the line some powerful chieftan had the “great idea” to get everyone to share the work, a sort of ancient communism.
Sounds like a great trip, I might even be willing to ride the bus. One of my few regrets is that I didnt do more of this kind of thing when I was living in Europe. I was too young and easily distracted by things both in the one pint and 120lb ranges.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
