Why were towers built without windows and doors?

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

An unusual walker was discovered on the ground, where to this day you can see the ruins of about five hundred mysterious ancient structures. Most of them are tapered. And in the dense masonry there are neither windows nor doors.

Did the devil create?

In the middle of the 18th century, the Portuguese poured here. And after them and many others. And everyone made their own assumptions, put forward their own version.

Some are convinced that the ancient builders of Zimbabwe were of the white race and erected all of these structures around 1,200 BC. purely for astronomical purposes. Other researchers suggest that the buildings were created by some prehistoric people, like the builders of Stonehenge. The only thing that was known for sure: the local population called these ruins the word "Zimbabwe". But none of the locals knew who, when and why built all this. Since people did not know how to write, there could be no records of the history of this region. Well, the descendants of those ancient builders knew only one thing for sure - all this was created by the devil!

One of those who visited the Great Ruins of Zimbabwe was the German ethnologist and archaeologist Leo Frobenius. And this is what he wrote: “No mortar was used. The stone was hewn and the blocks were given a rectangular shape. Many relics were found among the ruins, including statuettes of Astarte, the ancient Semitic goddess of love and war, in the form of a hawk, phallic symbols of various sizes, bowls, and all kinds of trinkets. There was a theory that the builders of Zimbabwe came to the south of the mainland from regions of North Africa, but not a single written source was found that would support (or refute) such an assumption. But they found many valuable artifacts, including jewelry, pearls, bracelets from Arabia, handicrafts from India, thousand-year-old Chinese porcelain …

In the citadel, they found birds made of steatite (soapstone), installed on one and a half meter stone pedestals. A number of finds evoke associations with the civilizations of Ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian America. But, one wonders, what could connect the builders of Zimbabwe with these ancient civilizations? Let's say a falcon is one of the first living creatures to be worshiped in Egypt. There, this bird personified the god Horus, who created the sky. His cult was spread throughout the Nile valley, because there Horus symbolized the sun, life, and therefore was revered as the patron of the power of the pharaoh. Moreover, the pharaoh was considered the earthly incarnation of Horus, born of Osiris and Isis. The bird figurines found in Zimbabwe clearly bear a resemblance to the Egyptian god Horus. Other researchers believe that this is not a falcon, but a steppe bittern and that in Zimbabwe, bird figurines were also made in honor of each ruler. But the main thing here is the outlandish towers.

The abode of the winged people

French archaeologist and journalist Robber Charro wrote: “Among the ruins we find well-preserved, as in the Peruvian Machu Picchu, high oval towers like silos, and there are no holes in their walls, as if they were inhabited only by winged creatures …

In Machu Picchu, the towers are actually called “dwellings of winged people”. And what is curious: similar conical towers can be seen on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, and on the Shetland and Orkney Islands near Scotland, and in many other places on the planet. In Sardinia, there were about 7,000 of these buildings, built of solid basalt and granite. These are some kind of monuments of the Bronze Age, they are more than 3,000 years old. And although here, too, no one knows their true purpose (fortress, storehouse, dwelling?), Now it is, as it were, an integral part of the local landscape. About a three-story building in height, they are by no means hollow: inside there are a lot of different rooms, passages, cells, stairs, dead ends, niches, secret doors. A, the main tower is usually adjoined by several (up to 18) auxiliary ones. In the north of Scotland and on some of the adjacent islands, many rounded structures with a height of 5 to 13 meters have survived, which arose between 100 BC. and 100 A. D. Apparently, their purpose was different. Someone believes that these are defensive structures, someone is a refuge for the besieged, and someone is sure that people and livestock lived in them. But none of the versions is sufficiently substantiated, especially since deep wells or springs were found in some towers.

Forgotten knowledge

In Tibet and in the Chinese province of Sichuan, there are also strange ribbed towers, some of which are ten-story buildings. There are more than 1,000 such ancient structures in the southwest of China. The local population does not know who, when and why created them

Maybe these are religious shrines - a symbol of the connection between earth and sky? Maybe forts? Or sentinels, signal towers? But then why not on the tops of the hills, but at the foot of the Himalayas, in the lowlands? And yet in different countries in all these towers there is usually at least some semblance of windows or doors. Everywhere except Zimbabwe. Questions arise: for what purposes were all these strange, but very reliable structures built in Zimbabwe without doors and windows, even without loopholes? Why was it necessary to make such monstrously thick walls? What kind of winged creatures have lodged in such shelters? Nobody knows this. But, be that as it may, those who built these elliptical walls (ten meters thick!) And conical towers knew their business very well.

And the structures that they erected have stood for many centuries as an impressive monumental evidence of building skill and now forgotten ancient knowledge.

The mystery of the "star" towers of Tibet

The Himalayan Towers are a series of stone structures located mainly in Tibet. Radiocarbon analysis shows that they were built about 500 to 1200 years ago. Some of them are 60 meters high.

As the publication "Science and Life" wrote, almost twenty years ago, the French traveler Michel Pessel, known in particular for discovering the sources of the Mekong, penetrated into inaccessible areas of Tibet and the neighboring Chinese province of Sichuan. In the valleys of the Himalayas along the Chinese border, he discovered mysterious stone towers, star-shaped in plan. The Chinese authorities have only recently allowed foreigners to visit these areas. Later, Frederica Darragon joined Peisel's research, traveling to the Himalayas to study the snow leopard population, but forgetting about the original purpose of the trip after seeing these towers.

Some of these mysterious structures stand in the middle of villages, others in secluded mountain valleys. The inhabitants of the Himalayas do not know anything about the origin of the towers and some of them are used by local residents as barns for yaks and horses, in others something like an idol has spontaneously emerged - peasants bring clay figures there as a sacrifice to powerful spirits. But mostly these buildings are empty. The wooden stairs, ceilings and rafters that were inside have collapsed or have long been used up for firewood and other household needs.

Traveling in this area is extremely difficult, as there are practically no roads. In the summer, during the rainy season, mud and mudflows are prevented from passing, and in winter, there is deep snow and the danger of avalanches.

Darragon turned to local Buddhist monasteries for help, but the monks did not find any records of the towers in their archives. However, these structures are mentioned in Chinese scientific treatises during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and there are records about them in the travel diaries of some English explorers who wandered here in the 19th century. But nobody studied them in detail.

Over the past three years, Darragon has taken wood samples from 32 towers, and at her request, a radiocarbon analysis was carried out in a US laboratory to determine the age of organic materials. Most of the towers are from 600 to 700 years old, but one of them, located in the daytime transition from Lhasa, is from 1000 to 1200 years old. It turns out that it was built before the Mongol tribes invaded Tibet. True, the dating results cannot be considered definitive: it is possible that the builders were already using very old wood.

As the researcher suggests, the star-shaped form of the towers gives them seismic resistance. Some towers represent 8-pointed stars in the plan, others 12-pointed. Local residents still build houses with sharp corners to protect them from tremors.

Who built these mysterious buildings and for what - it is not yet clear to the end. It is assumed that the towers were built as watchtowers. Some historians speak of a cult purpose: the towers may symbolize a rope, which, according to Tibetan legend, connects the earth to the sky. They could also be used to drive out demons.

According to one of the Taiwanese historians, who traveled a lot in these places, the towers could serve as communication stations for the optical telegraph. As a rule, each is located so that from its top one can see the tops of two neighboring towers. Signal lights may have been lit on them. According to another version, the towers, which at first had a specific practical purpose, later became, rather, a symbol of status and family wealth. According to one of the legends, when a son was born in the family of a local ruler, the foundation of the tower was laid, and every year on his birthday another floor was added to the building.