Cave cities of Crimea, China and the Himalayas - how and why were they built?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Why did the ancient inhabitants of Crimea and other places cut down rooms in the rocks - even historians have no definite answer. There is an official opinion, roughly close to logical reasoning. According to popular belief, their main purposes are from the category: suppose everything in which there is logic. Namely: monasteries, crypts, tombs, cattle stalls, warehouses, cellars. As you can see, there are no dwellings in this list. Well, it doesn't make sense to live in caves on steep slopes when you can build a house on the surface.

But what if, after all, these were dwellings? Forced. For what reason did people make them in the rock, and even more so on the steep slopes near high cliffs? Escaping from something? Let's talk about this further, but for now let's see what the cave cities are …

Cave cities of Crimea

The cave city of Mangup-Kale. Premises cut in steep slopes

Cave city "Chufut - Kale"

Cave city of Crimea - Eski-Kermen

Decent volume of the selected breed

In the case of this place in Chufut-Kale, it can be assumed that these were food storage facilities, warehouses in rocks, where the temperature is more or less always the same. Or a gunpowder warehouse - for the safety of the inhabitants of the fortress.

But this is not the only place. Perhaps the fortress was built later, adapting part of the caves.

Cave city Bakla in Crimea. More details

1. How were the cave cities built?

There is such an analogy:

If we assume that the rock in those days was not yet petrified, but was a semi-crumbly, semi-plastic mass, then one person can cut down a room, a cave, almost in one day. Fortunately, there is no need to carry the dumps far - everything is thrown down.

The Pudotsky stone in the clay deposits near St. Petersburg, which turns to stone in the air and from which a lot of things are built there, is a confirmation of this.

Those. such a situation when the ancients did not cut down with a chisel in the limestone rock, but raked out semi-plastic semi-crumbly soil is quite possible.

Another confirmation of this is the marks on the walls in cave cities:

There is no need to make such furrows in hard rock. But if the rock was soft, and it was chosen as a tool, such as a pickaxe, then everything becomes clear.

Another place where the cave city is located in similar conditions:

Vardzia is a cave city in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, Georgia

Photos from blog

The premises, as in the Crimea, are located on a steep wall.

The construction of the city is attributed to Queen Tamar, but the first caves were created during the reign of her father George III (1156 - 1184). Further, under Queen Tamar, construction took place in several stages until 1205.

Here, the inner vaults are processed better than the Crimean ones.

Two types of masonry according to the level of performance as machine and manual processing of blocks

Cave city in China

Luoyang is the ancient center of the Eastern Han Empire. Approximately 12 km to the south, on the banks of the Ihe, in the thickness of massive limestone rocks, up to 2,000 grottoes, up to fifty pagodas and an incredible number of Buddha statues have been cut. A system of artificial caves stretches along the coast of Ihe for about a kilometer.

According to information from historians, the active part of the construction was carried out from 493 until the middle of the 8th century.

Bignan cave

Cave cities in the Himalayas

Ten thousand mysterious artificial grottoes have been discovered on the territory of the former kingdom of Mustang in the northern region of modern Nepal.

Ask: well, why was there to build them here? This will be clear from further information.

2. Why did they build on a steep wall?

When asked why the cave cities were built on steep walls, in fact, canyons, cliffs - I have two versions.

First version. These caves are the salvation of the inhabitants of these territories who survived the flood. Imagine that streams of water and mud are flowing almost over the entire surface. They come out of the mountains (in the case of Georgia), mud volcanoes (Crimea). Moreover, over time, they change their flows, power. Except how to hide from them indoors on sheer cliffs - there are no options. The ubiquitous layers of clay (from water erosion) - speak of this.

Those. mud streams flow into a canyon or sea. It was useless to build houses on the surface. It is highly likely that the vacated land area could again be flooded with clay streams.

The city of Tiritaka. All the Greek cities of the Crimea have such a level of clay and rocky soil. Terrestrial life was completely obliterated by the currents.

Excavations of Finagoria. Estimate the thickness of the top layers removed. These are not cultural layers

In the case of grottoes and caves in the Himalayas, water was leaving the gorge in the photo above during the flood. The grottoes are the temporary dwellings of the surviving residents. As in the Crimea.

Second version. The sea was on a much higher level than it is now. And, which, approached these sheer cliffs. It was impossible to live on the surface due to the first version or not yet dried clay. Those. there were still swamps, liquid clay lay. It was possible to swim to the rocks by boat, to your dwelling and spend the night after fishing.

When the Black Sea level dropped, the caves were cut down lower and lower, closer to the water level. After the water left and the surface dried up, the inhabitants returned to land.

The water approached the cave cities of the Crimea. There was no flood (like a giant tsunami), but there was a different level of the Black Sea mirror. It is described that on the slopes of the steep cliffs in 1826 there were still bolted rings for tying vessels or even ships. In that source, it is written that there were not many of them, but traces of others were recorded and there is evidence from ancient authoritative local residents that all the slopes were dotted with these rings.

Fact confirming this information:

Silver dish of the 18th century - a gift to Catherine II. An exhibit from the same Hermitage. Crimea and the entire Black Sea coast - depicted in bays, has a completely different shape than it is now. Obviously, the Black Sea level was higher

Compare to the modern look of the peninsula

Of course, there are other versions that people were hiding from something that fell from the sky: dust, stones, meteorites. Or from solar radiation. In Cappadocia, in Turkey, people also went underground.

Another fact about the high level of the Black Sea from a respected scientist: Ya. A. Kesler on the rise of the Black Sea

This is an excerpt from the work: Another History of the Russian Empire. From Peter to Paul

This is an alternative hypothesis for the purpose of these cave cities. I believe that it also has logic (and the right to exist) in explaining many points that are not explained by official information from historians.