Pyramids in China: a private trip

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

The height of the largest of them is about 300 m, 2 times higher than the pyramid of Cheops, but there are also very small ones - there are more than a hundred of them.

Xi'an city. In 80 kilometers from it there is that pyramid, which we went to inspect. We took a taxi. At some point, among the Chinese agro-industrial landscapes, we saw a chain of pyramids on the horizon.

I made a panorama for you, click on it it will enlarge. The far left is the pyramid we are going to:

Here it is - our goal, the pyramid. The road on which we are going rests against it. The taxi we're taking.

She is closer:

If you look to the right, there is a clay quarry where clay bricks are made, over the very edge of the cliff there are 2 small pyramids. On the right, above the horizon, two more are visible (but no, as many as 5, it turns out!). Left too:

The road approaches the pyramid, turns right and bifurcates: one part goes around the pyramid and goes beyond it, the other goes right. Here is a panorama of this intersection with a beautiful pyramid (click, it will enlarge):

View this pyramid on Google map

Information on the Internet: Pyramids of China

I walked around the pyramid. From the opposite side, it looks like this (click to enlarge):

I came closer - here, at the foot of the pyramid, apples are grown in plastic bags:

I greeted the Chinese woman who worked on this plot all alone, I go on to the pyramid:

Stop! Barrier. Two rows of solid wire fences:

Fencing panorama (click):

We go back, i.e. to the left when looking at the panorama. Below is a photo from the extreme left point - you can see how the path goes up the edge of the pyramid:

Panoramic view of the same edge of the pyramid (click), - on the left, on the road, we, tourists:

And if you look to the left of the road, you will see another small pyramid:

Another panorama of our pyramid (click):

We walk through the thickets of cypress trees, all together, to the slope where we came from - we are looking for a path - you never know, what if there is a passage to the top of the pyramid?

But no, and here the same pillars with wire appear:

We go along the pillars, there are signs "Akhtung!" in Chinese:

Museum stele, then a blue iron fence (in the photo it is on the left):

We go along the fence:

The fence ends with a stretched wire tied to it, so that it can be seen better, with a blue ribbon and a sign (Victor translates) prohibiting everything:

I dive boldly under the wire and take 1 frame. Only one. Crisis players know that sometimes you only have one shot. I didn't have time - Koreans immediately come running in and kill you. I made it. The Chinese immediately ran up and demanded that we immediately remove the camera and leave no less immediately. Here is this shot. This is an excavation site at the foot of the pyramid:

In fact, the Chinese dig very little and very carefully. Of the 60 kilometers of the army of terracotta warriors (including the fortress and the palace), 10% have been excavated, even less is exhibited for the public, but it is impressive (I will tell you, I will show you in one of the posts). The mound of the Emperor Qin-shi Huangdi (really a mound, not a pyramid) - it was announced that they would be excavating in 100 years. And they dig very secretly, the Europeans are not allowed. Where the pyramids came from, who built them, what they contain is unknown. But, for example, in the army of terracotta warriors, each military leader held a sword with MOLYBDENUM SPRAYING, which is absolutely impossible with that level of technology. What the pyramids contain is unclear, but the Chinese assume that they can contain anything, so they secret excavations, plant pyramids for camouflage with cypresses and Christmas trees, they lie that these are just mounds of sand and clay, calling the names of the ancients who lived 2000 years ago and more, emperors and military leaders, whose, as the Chinese scientists have found out in the last 20 years, these are supposedly burial mounds.

In short, the Chinese demanded that we get out. In return, I demanded that they invite the chief. The chief came, introduced himself as a graduate student of a local university, asked us to leave. I asked him to answer 3 questions and after that we will leave. He agreed. I asked what is it? what are these pyramids? He said - the mounds of the ancient commanders of sand and clay. I asked, how is it possible to make sand and clay, if they have such clear edges and edges? what if they were made of sand and clay, then the forms would blur in a couple of hundred years, but here they stand for more than 2000 years and are so clear, and only slightly dusty? that, probably, it is, nevertheless, pyramids? He said, yes, there are no pyramids, mounds, just well preserved, that the name of the general whose mound is written on the stele that they put here, you see, several years ago, and that someday this place will open to visitors, and now they just started digging and there is nothing to look at, and that goodbye.

We asked him to take a picture with us as a keepsake and said goodbye. It was on May 24, 2010.