The Israeli city of Hebron is located in a valley surrounded by mountains, beyond which you can see the lifeless desert. The Makhpela Cave hides the tombs of an unknown people who have lived in this place since ancient times.
The Bible will tell readers about Abraham, who, along with his family and herds of livestock, roamed the lands near the Mesopotamian city of Ur. But one fine day the Creator ordered him to leave here for Canaan, after which his wife Sarah died in Hebron. This corner of the country is one of the four oldest buildings of mankind, and it was also built earlier than Egyptian Memphis. In addition to historians, sacred texts mention the city, since the heir to our hero Isaac was born in it, which also refers to the grandson of Jacob.
After the death of the chosen one, Abraham paid the Hittites 400 silver coins to redeem the cave and bury the woman's body, and then his descendants and their wives also found rest in an underground burial, except for Rachel. Muslims considered the land a sacred place and erected a mosque, and the Jewish community lived in the city until the 19th century, but after a conflict with representatives of another faith, it ceased to exist. Now it has revived, but the underground labyrinths of Machpela have never been explored by scientists.
Only a rabbi in the 12th century managed to visit the inside of the cave, describing a room for prayer and burning lamps near barrels with the remains of the deceased Jewish people. In our time, the entrance is closed, but the Muslim shrine is surrounded by a huge 12-meter wall. Scientists noticed that almost 8-meter limestone blocks were processed by craftsmen, but before the structure did not have a roof. Only during the rule of Byzantium was a church built, which later became the property of the slaves of Allah, but no one knows when these fortifications were built.
The prayer hall has a dome with columns that have been preserved since 1423. Legends speak of daredevils who died and lost their voices after descending underground, but in the 60s Moshe Dayan decided to check such information. The country's defense minister noticed a 28-centimeter hole through which only a thin military heiress from his entourage could pass. The girl noticed strange tombstones with niches and steps inside, as well as inscriptions in an unknown language.
The witness of the event herself described her journey in detail, landing after descent on paper and money in the room where the burials were located, one of which was decorated with ornaments. Then she continued her way through the opening in the wall, finding herself in a hallway with a staircase against the wall. The objects found earlier belonged to the dervish, who used to sit near the entrance and predict the future, throwing paper into the cave.
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A new attempt to enter the forbidden place took place in the 80s, when a group of young people lifted a slab of marble and descended into a room with tombs. There was nothing inside them, but below, under the stones, the participants of the hike felt a breath of wind. When they opened a new passage, it turned out that the cave had a double structure. People decided to continue their descent downward and found new halls covered with earth, but then they noticed that they were moving over the remains of the dead and decided to go back.
Experts noticed that the stone structures above the real underground miracle were made much earlier than the subsequent burials. They resembled passages in the Egyptian pyramids, which were notable for their narrowness and led to dead ends, hiding real artifacts.
While they cannot figure out when the megaliths were built, Abraham bought a real underground fortress with walls that could protect the tombs from ruin. It is possible that before such events, the disappeared civilization kept its values in this place. In addition, scientists still cannot find the remains of the biblical patriarchs, because the secret will not soon be revealed to people.
Reshetnikova Irina