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In China the Longyou Caves are known as the ninth wonder of the ancient world. Source: Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0

Ten Enduring Mysteries of China’s Longyou Caves

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Located near the village of Shiyan Beicun in Zhejiang province, China, lie the Longyou Caves - an extensive, magnificent and rare ancient underground world considered in China to be “the ninth wonder of the ancient world.” Thought to date back at least 2,000 years, the Longyou Caves, also known as the Xiaonanhai Stone Chambers, represent one of the largest underground excavations of ancient times and are an enduring mystery that have perplexed experts from every discipline that has examined them. 

Scientists from around the world in the fields of archaeology, architecture, engineering, and geology have absolutely no idea how the Longyou Caves were built, by whom, and why. First discovered in 1992 by a local villager who set out to drain some ponds which locals believed to be bottomless, to date 24 hand-carved caves have been discovered covering a massive 30,000 square meters (322,917 ft sq).

Carved into solid siltstone, each grotto descends around 30 meters (98 ft) underground and contains stone rooms, bridges, gutters and pools. Within the Longyou Caves there are pillars evenly distributed throughout the caves which are supporting the ceiling, and the walls, ceiling and stone columns are uniformly decorated with chisel marks in a series of parallel lines.

Only one of the caves has been opened for tourism, chosen because of the stone carvings found inside which depict a horse, fish and bird. The Longyou Caves of Zhejiang province in China truly are an enigma and here we will explore ten enduring mysteries that remain unresolved, despite more than two decades of research.

Carvings discovered within the Longyou Caves. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Carvings discovered within the Longyou Caves. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

1. How Were the Longyou Caves Constructed?

A rough estimation of the workload involved in building the Longyou Caves is awe-inspiring. The quantity of rock that would have been removed in the overall excavation of the grottoes is estimated to be nearly 1,000,000 cubic meters (35,314,666 cu ft). Taking into account the average digging rate per day per person, scientists have calculated that it would take 1,000 people working day and night for six years to complete.

These calculations are based purely on hard labor, but what they haven’t taken into account is the incredible care and precision of the sculptors, meaning that the actual workload would far surpass the theoretical estimation. As for how they were constructed and what tools were used, it is still unknown. No tools have been found in the area, and, as we will explore later, scientists still don’t know how they achieved such symmetry, precision, and similarity between the different caves.

2. No Traces of Construction

Despite their size and the effort involved in creating them, so far no trace of their construction, or even their existence, has been located archival sources. Although the overall excavation involved almost a million cubic meters of stone, there is no archaeological evidence revealing where that quantity of stone went, and no evidence of the work. Moreover, there is not a single historic document that refers to them, which is highly unusual considering the sheer scale of the project. The origin of the Longyou Caves is a complete and utter mystery.

Experts wonder why the walls at the Longyou Caves in China are covered in chiseled parallel lines. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Experts wonder why the walls at the Longyou Caves in China are covered in chiseled parallel lines. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

3. Why Were the Walls Chiseled?

Every single one of the Longyou Caves is covered, from floor to ceiling, in parallel lines that have been chiseled into virtually every surface. The effect is a uniform pattern throughout the caves, which would have required immense manpower and endless hours to create. The question is why? Was such labor-intensive work purely for decoration? Are the lines or patterns symbolic in some way? All that is currently known is that the markings are similar to those found on pottery housed in a nearby museum, which is dated between 500 and 800 BC.

4. Lack of Fish in the Longyou Caves

When the caves were first discovered, they were filled with water, which presumably had been there for a long period of time. They had to be pumped out in order to realize that these were not just like the other “bottomless ponds” found within the area, but rather man-made structures. Most villages in southern China contain very deep ponds, which have been called "bottomless ponds" by generations of villagers. These ponds teem with fish, which are easily caught. However, after the first cave was pumped dry, not a single fish was to be seen, or any other sign of life.

5. How Did the Longyou Caves Remain So Well Preserved?

One of the most interesting and challenging questions is how the Longyou Caves have been able to keep their structural integrity for more than 2,000 years. There are no signs of collapse, no piles of rubble, and no damage despite the fact that in some areas the walls are only 50 centimeters (20 in) thick. Over the centuries, the area has gone through numerous floods, calamities and wars, the mountains have changed their appearance and exposed stones have been weathered, but inside the Longyou Caves, the form, patterns and markings are still clear and precise – it is as though they were built yesterday.

6. How Did the Builders Work in the Dark?

Due to the great depths of the caves, some areas at the bottom, which are not exposed to the opening above, are pitch-black. Yet even those dark areas are decorated with thousands of parallel lines on the walls, columns, and ceiling. So how did ancient people work in the dark? 

According to Jia Gang, a Tongji University professor specializing in civil engineering: "There should be lamps, because the cave's mouth is very small, and the sunbeam could only shine in the cave at a certain angle during a certain period of time. As one goes deeper into the cave, the light becomes dimmer. At the cave's bottom, which is usually dozen of meters from the mouth, one could hardly see anything." However, this was at least two millennia ago and nothing that could have been used for lighting has been found.

7. Were the Longyou Caves Meant to be Connected?

All of the Longyou Caves are distributed across an area of only one square kilometer (0.38 sq mi). Considering such a high density, one cannot help asking whether some grottoes were meant to be connected. What would be the purpose of making so many separate caves in such a tight area without connecting them? In many areas, the walls between the caves are very thin, only 50 centimeters (20 in), but they were never linked so it appears they were intentionally kept apart. What’s more, many of the Longyou Caves are almost identical to each other.

Geological cross-section of cave 3 (left) and photo showing rock pillars in cave 3 (right). (Yang et. al. / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Geological cross-section of cave 3 (left) and photo showing rock pillars in cave 3 (right). (Yang et. al. / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

8. Who Built the Longyou Caves?

Nobody has any idea who built the caves. Some scientists have claimed that it was not possible or logical for such as mammoth job to have been undertaken by regular village people. Only the emperor and the leaders could have organized such a huge project, like the construction of the Great Wall, which was built to defend against invasion from the outside world. But if it was commissioned by an Emperor, why are there no historical records of its construction?

9. How Did They Achieve Such Precision?

The scale of the Longyou Caves is magnificent and momentous, the design was delicate and scientific, the construction was sophisticated, and the precision is indicative of superior craftsmanship. The model, pattern and style of each cave is extremely similar. Every grotto is like a grand hall. One side is steep and another side is 45% inclined. The four walls are straight; the edges and corners are clearly demarcated. The chiseling marks within the Longyou Caves are uniform and precise.

"At the bottom of each cave, the ancient [builders] wouldn't be able to see what the others were doing in the next grotto,” explained Yang Hongxun, an expert at the Archaeological Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Nevertheless, “the inside of each cave had to be parallel with that of the other, or else the wall would be holed through. Thus the measure apparatus should have been very advanced. There must have been some layout about the sizes, locations, and the distances between the caves beforehand."

With the help of modern equipment and methods, the investigators measured the sizes of the walls, and surprisingly found that the overall construction is extremely accurate. The walls between the caves are of the same thickness in different sections. So how did they achieve this precision? What were their methods?

Stairs leading down into one of the once-submerged Longyou Caves. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Stairs leading down into one of the once-submerged Longyou Caves. (Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0)

10. What Were the Longyou Caves Used for?

Following extensive investigations and study, scientists and scholars have attempted to put forward explanations for the grottoes, but none so far provide a convincing explanation for why they were built and what they were used for.

Some archaeologists have suggested that the grottoes were the tombs of old emperors, emperor halls, or places for storage. But this interpretation is far-fetched. No funeral objects or tombs have been found and no artifacts left behind. If it were used like an emperor’s palace, the caves surely would have been designed differently, with separate rooms for different purposes like entertaining, meeting, and sleeping. But no evidence can be found of this and no traces of habitation have been found.

Another hypothesis is that the Longyou Caves were used for mining and extracting some type of mineral resource. However, mining operations would have required equipment and apparatus to extract the rocks and transport them. Again, no traces of this have been found, nor any evidence of where the rocks were taken. And of course, if the caves were just for mining, why create such intricate decorations on the walls, columns and ceilings?

Finally, some have suggested that these caves were the places for troops to be stationed and that an emperor of the past wanted to keep his soldiers out of view in order to keep his war preparations secret. However, these caves could not have been built in a short period of time. They would have taken many, many years to build so it is unlikely to have been done in preparation for war, which tends to come about much more quickly. Furthermore, there are no signs of people having stayed in the caves.

Despite decades of research, very few answers have emerged to explain the enigma of the Longyou Caves. Our ancient ancestors have achieved many wondrous things throughout history, but this discovery from China is truly an unsolved mystery which has yet to be cracked.

Top image: In China the Longyou Caves are known as the ninth wonder of the ancient world. Source: Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 4.0

By April Holloway

 

Comments

The walls markings look very clearly like they were made by a machine. As another poster mentioned, they are nearly identical to modern mining/tunnel boring machine markings. My total guess on this is that they were created around the fall of the last golden age of humanity as an escape and place to live in relative safety while all hell broke loose on the surface. there are countless writings of humans having to go underground due to warring on the surface and natural cataclysms (that might not have been so natural). Bottom line, what we are taught about human history in school is complete garbage. We are not the most advanced/evolved, both technologically and spiritually, humans to have lived on this planet.

There are similar machining marks in the cavities at Petra and at many megalithic quarries.

AintGottaClue's picture

To me, what is really amazing here is the utter lack of historical references by local, indigenous tribes to these caves. There are no myths, legends, historical references..... nothing! Not to mention the disappearance of at least a million cubic meters of excavated rock, which apparently was NOT used in constructing any villages nearby. It is EXTREMELY unusual in Chinese history for there to be a complete lack of reference for something like this.

History is nowhere near as well known as we think it is.

Zhau,Mizo or ZO people now settled in india an Myanmar has a falktale that their ancestors came out of a cave called Chhinlung or Sinlung or Khul,somewhere in China. Could this be the same cave the Zo people talked about in their falktale?
In the falktale the Zo people were let out from a cave from where the move to their present settlement.
Were they slaves who constructed these caves by Some chinese emperor who let them.out after the construction was finished?

The walls of modern mines made with continuous mining machines look very much like the walls of the Longyou caverns.
Could these caves be indeed a modern creation of the Chinese government?

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April

April Holloway is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan.

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