Legends about underground inhabitants are found among a wide variety of peoples. But do these legends have a real background? Could there really be a mysterious world deep underground somewhere? Previously, only non-professional historians and enthusiasts of a romantic nature thought about this. The discoveries made today allow us to study this issue from a scientific standpoint
Secrets of the dungeons of Kievan Rus
The first dungeons on the territory of Kievan Rus appeared before the X century, but all this was amateurishness in comparison with the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. According to the official version, many kilometers of underground passages, cells, tombs and churches were created as an underground monastery. According to the modern Kiev archaeologist and art critic Julius Lifshits, the caves emerged as a monastery cemetery. The monk died - they dug the cave further, made a tomb-cell, placed the holy relics in it and hid the shovels until the death of the next elder monk. A little later, they dug out and built an underground church in the same place: it is supposed, according to Orthodox canons, to have a church for funerals in the cemetery. But this version is not welcomed at the official level. It deprives the Slavs of that mysticism, which seems to justify the need for the Slavs (especially the southern ones) to follow a special historical path. Europeans built fortresses and castles, and our ancestors built dungeons and catacombs.
Despite the fact that the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Holy Dormition Lavra have been studied, they keep many secrets. Some corridors have not been used for a very long time due to landslides. This is especially true of the Distant Caves, all the exits of which towards the Dnieper have long been abandoned, and in the 1930s they were bricked up and tightly cemented … Today, in the Near Caves of the Lavra, there are 73 tombs with the relics of the monks and in the Far - 51. In addition, there are 32 chapters of myrrh. These Orthodox shrines are worshiped by tens of thousands of pilgrims who visit the monastery dungeons.
The undergrounds of the Urals keep many secrets
"… Divya people live in the Ural Mountains, they have access to the world through caves. Their culture is the greatest …" - so even in the 20s of the XX century they spoke about the underground inhabitants of the Urals. And local old-timers today will tell thousands of legends about the underground people. Some of them will feature light-eyed and soft-voiced dwarfs, in others - tall and beautiful people, and in the third - even heroes. But all of them, so different, are called by the same name - chud. Russian historians have long argued about this mysterious people, mentioned in the Laurentian Chronicle (1377), but they have not yet come to a consensus.
The Ural legends were started by explorers and the first Russian settlers, who heard voices coming from under the ground and the sound of metal hitting stone: then a chud was mining precious stones and metals. The riches allegedly collected by the Chud for many centuries have haunted treasure seekers for hundreds of years. But all attempts to penetrate the secret of the underground inhabitants ended in failure. And many treasure hunters simply did not return, disappearing into the intricate labyrinth of mysterious caves. In general, storerooms with precious stones and gold were not found, but ancient mines were discovered in the depths of the mountains, and in them are real masterpieces of metallurgical production. And here the tale gives way to reality - though even more mysterious.
The fact is that practically all the ore deposits discovered in the Ural Mountains were marked with special signs. At one time, Nikita De-midovich Antufiev, the ancestor of the Demidov breeders, was looking for such marks and solely using them to determine places for the construction of metallurgical plants. In our time, deposits are looked for in a different way, but in the explored areas, as a rule, signs left by a chud are found …
It turns out, not a fairy tale, was there anyway? It was, but it was gone: traces of it, still noticeable in the Perm, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions in the 1940s, led to Altai, but it was there that they were completely lost.
Folk legends offer two versions of the disappearance of the underground people. The first is the self-burial protests of an entire people:
"… frightened by the Russians, she buried herself alive." The second is his departure by "secret dungeons" to an unknown country. “Only the chud has not gone forever. When the happy time returns, and people from Belovodye (the Russian analogue of Shambhala. - Ed.) Come and give the whole people a great science, then a chud will come with all the treasures that have been obtained. " That is, in fact, this version assumes the existence of the Chud underground civilization in our time. It seems to be absolutely impossible to believe in this …
Legends of our days
Meanwhile, the most authoritative archaeologists of Peru today do not in the least doubt the existence of an underground empire: it has not yet been explored, it, in their mind, extends under the seas and continents. And above the entrances to this grandiose underground in various parts of the world, there are ancient buildings: for example, in Peru it is the city of Cuzco … Of course, not all scientists share the opinion of Peruvian specialists. And yet, many facts speak in favor of the underworld, indirectly proving its existence. The 1970s were the most fruitful for such evidence.
England. Miners digging an underground tunnel heard the sounds of working mechanisms coming from somewhere below. After breaking through, they found a staircase leading to an underground well. The sound of the working equipment increased, and therefore the workers were frightened and fled. Returning after a while, they found neither the entrance to the well, nor the stairs.
USA. Anthropologist James McKenna and his colleagues surveyed a cave in Idaho that is notorious for the indigenous population. Locals believed that there was an entrance to the underworld. Scientists, delving into the dungeon, clearly heard screams and groans, and then discovered human skeletons. Further exploration of the cave had to be stopped due to the growing smell of sulfur.
Under the Black Sea town of Gelendzhik, a bottomless mine with a diameter of about one and a half meters with strikingly smooth edges was discovered. Experts unanimously assert: it was created using technology unknown to people and has existed for more than one hundred years.
Speaking about the underworld, one cannot discount the legends that have already appeared in our days. For example, modern Indians living in the mountainous regions of California say that very tall golden-haired people sometimes come from Mount Shasta: they once descended from heaven, but did not manage to adapt to life on the earth's surface. Now they live in a secret city, which is located inside an extinct volcano. And you can get into it only through mountain caves. By the way, Andrew Thomas, the author of the book about Shambhala, completely agrees with the Indians. The researcher believes that there are underground passages in Mount Shasta, going in the direction of New Mexico and further to South America.
Another underground people "discovered" by cavers: they are sure that deep caves all over the world are inhabited by troglodytes. It is said that these cave dwellers sometimes appear before people; help in trouble those who respect their world, and punish those who desecrate the caves …
Believe or not believe?
Believe or not believe all these stories? Any sane person will answer: "Don't believe!" But not everything is so simple. Let's try to reason logically. Let's think about how real a fulfilling human life is under the ground? Could there be an unknown culture or even a civilization next to us - or rather, below us - managing to limit contact with terrestrial humanity to a minimum? Going unnoticed? Is this possible? Is this “living” contrary to common sense?
In principle, a person can exist underground, and it would be pretty good - there would be money. It is enough to recall the bunker house, which is now being built by Tom Cruise: The earth. In less "exposed", but no less solid bunker cities, the "chosen ones" are preparing to wait out the nuclear winter and the post-radiation period in the event of an atomic war - and this is a period during which more than one generation will get on their feet! Moreover, in China and Spain today many thousands of people do not live in houses, but in comfortable caves with all the conveniences. True, these cave dwellers continue to actively contact the outside world and take part in terrestrial life. But the inhabitants of the cave monasteries scattered all over the world - like the Greek Meteora - have always been almost completely cut off from the vain life. By the degree of isolation, lasting centuries, their existence can be considered underground.
But, perhaps, the most striking example of the adaptability of a huge number of people (and what is there - an entire civilization!) To the "lower" world is the underground city of Derinkuyu.
Discovery of the century
Derinkuyu, which means “deep wells”, got its name from the small Turkish town currently located above it. For a long time, no one thought about the purpose of these most strange wells, until in 1963 one of the local residents, who discovered a strange crack in his basement, from which fresh air was drawn, showed healthy curiosity. As a result, a multi-tiered underground city was found, numerous rooms and galleries of which, connected to each other by passages, tens of kilometers long, were carved into the rocks …
Already during the excavation of the upper tiers of Derinkuyu, it became clear: this is the discovery of the century. In the underground city, scientists discovered objects of material culture of the Hittites, a great people who competed with the Egyptians for dominance in Asia Minor. Hittite kingdom, founded in the 18th century BC e., in the XII century BC. e. sunk into obscurity. Therefore, the discovery of an entire Hittite city became a real sensation. In addition, it turned out that the gigantic underground city is only a part of the colossal labyrinth under the Anatolian plateau. Scientists have come to the conclusion that underground construction was carried out for at least nine (!) Centuries. Moreover, these were not just earthworks, albeit of a colossal volume. Ancient architects equipped the underground empire with a life support system, the perfection of which is striking even today. Everything here was thought out to the smallest detail:rooms for animals, warehouses for food, rooms for cooking and eating, for sleeping, for meetings … At the same time, religious temples and schools were not forgotten. A precisely calculated blocking device made it easy to block the entrances to the dungeon with granite doors. And the ventilation system, which supplied the city with fresh air, continues to operate without fail to this day!
In the presence of provisions in the underground city, up to two hundred thousand people could live at the same time indefinitely. The issue of restocking food stocks could be addressed in many ways, from domestic production to the use of "intermediary services". Apparently, there was no single scheme at all times.
But in the legends of different peoples, underground inhabitants get their food by barter trade, secret fishing or even theft. The latter option, however, is only suitable for small underground communities: Derinkuyu could hardly feed himself in this way. By the way, most likely, it was the production of food that became the reason that the inhabitants of the land had thoughts about the existence of "children of the dungeons" …
The traces of the Hittites who lived underground can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and then are lost. The developed underground civilization managed to secretly exist for almost two millennia, and after its disappearance, it did not open to the terrestrial world for more than a thousand years. And this amazing fact alone allows us to make an unambiguous conclusion: yes, it is still possible to live underground secretly from people!
Always +27
Derinkuyu is not the only underground city found in Turkey. In 300 kilometers southeast of Ankara, Turkish archaeologists unearthed another, the creation of which dates back to the 7th century BC. e. Now it is called by the name of the nearby village - Kaymakli. On its seven floors, going deep into the ground, there are two-room “apartments” with compartments for food and food storage. The baths - smooth grooves in the stone - were designed to be filled with water from underground springs. And at any time of the year, thanks to a precisely calculated system of ventilation shafts, a constant temperature of +2 C was maintained in the premises
. Waiting for answers
What prompted the ancient people with highly developed culture and knowledge to go underground? Natural disasters? Enemies? Fear and desire to protect your culture from the aggressive outside world? It is quite possible that we will find out the answers to these questions in the very near future, when the latest results of archaeological expeditions conducted in various parts of the world become known.
One of the most promising studies is currently underway in Ukraine. Trypillian civilization (name - from the village of Tripolye near Kiev) - much older than Sumer, and Ancient Egypt, and Babylon. According to scientists, it was this highly developed culture that existed in the IV-III millennium BC. e., invented the wheel and the solar calendar. The end of the Trypillian civilization, as mysterious as the birth, for a long time provided food for a variety of hypotheses. Among the assumptions was the following: Trypillians left to live underground. However, until recently, historians preferred to this fantastic idea the version about the resettlement of Trypillians to the south and west. But the sensational results of archaeological expeditions in the Ternopil region of Ukraine confirmed: people not only went underground, but for a very long time they were active in economic activity there. Five underground settlements were discovered at once, which are currently being investigated by scientists.
The Gobi caves are also under study. Because of their inaccessibility - and the caves are located on the so-called "forbidden territory" associated with Shambhala, the habitat of the highest initiates - the Gobi dungeons have practically not been explored. In addition, most of the information about them is mystical: the mysterious halo of the area affects. However, already since 1988, the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia began to systematically send its expeditions to the Gobi caves with the aim of their comprehensive study. And let's hope that the result of the work of scientists will be discoveries that will answer the question: is there a connection between the Gobi caves and Shambhala, which gave rise to one of the most attractive legends of mankind?
Legends about the existence of underground cities in the jungles of South America also have amazing vitality. Even the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, in his reports to the Spanish king, reported that he had discovered the entrances to underground tunnels located on the sacred mountain of the Incas of Guascarana. Whether Pizarro was able to investigate them and, in general, what happened next, history is silent. But in 1991, a group of Peruvian cavers also discovered a system of underground caves in the area of the Rio Sinju River, in which traces of human activity were present. So, one of them was equipped with a stone slab rotating on balls. This mechanism for blocking the entrance could only be created by enlightened people. A tunnel of many kilometers stretched behind the door. And although several expeditions that have been there have not yet managed to find out where it leads, there is hope,that this riddle too will be solved …
V. Konstantinov “Interesting newspaper. Secrets of history №16 2008