1. Introduction
For centuries, China has remained a mysterious eastern country for the whole world. The Great Silk Road was the only link between the civilization of the West, represented by Europe, and the civilization of Asia, represented by China for many centuries. Rare travelers, among whom was the great Marco Polo, ventured thousands of kilometers into uncharted lands, where representatives of other cultures lived, speaking a foreign language and worshiping their gods.
Only at the end of the 20th century, when borders and spaces did not become decisive for the dialogue of countries and cultures, China acquired the status of one of the most visited countries in the world by tourists. The Great Wall of China, palaces and parks of Beijing, temples and monasteries of Luoyang, skyscrapers of Shanghai and Xianggang (Hong Kong) attract millions of people with their uniqueness and beauty.
And it would seem that everything has already been researched and studied in China - after all, this is the 21st century. But in the very center of the Middle Kingdom, in the vicinity of the provincial capital of Shaanxi, in the city of Xi'an, there are several hundred ancient pyramids of various shapes and sizes with equal sides and truncated tops.
The first mention of pyramids in China was in 1912, when trade agents Fred Schroeder and Oscar Mehman reported on the huge structures they saw in China. Schroeder mentions eight pyramids, but he especially remembers the largest one:
“Located at the end of the world, these colossal structures are completely unknown to Western countries. The height of the large pyramid, according to our most conservative estimates, is about 300 meters, the length of the side of the base is more than half a kilometer, which thereby makes this pyramid twice as high as the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. Its four sides are oriented to the cardinal points, as the compass showed us,”the agents wrote in their diary.
When Schroeder and Meman asked Buddhist monks about the pyramids in the monastery, they replied that in the oldest texts stored in their monastery for more than five millennia, these structures were already considered very ancient and unknown.
Promotional video:
In 1945, US Air Force pilot James Gausman flew through central China. His memories were incredible:
“Having flown over the mountains, I turned to the left and found myself above a flat valley, in the middle of which was a giant white pyramid. It looked like something indescribable from a fairy tale, as it reflected a very bright white light. It could be metal or a special type of stone that emits pure white light from all directions. We no longer wanted to fly anywhere else, we wanted to land right there."
Having told the world about it in 1947, this story was forgotten for several decades. Until the moment when in 1994 the German traveler Hartwig Hausdorff was the first European in modern history to visit the valley of the pyramids.
Hausdorff's book in German "The White Pyramid" pays little attention to the pyramid of the same name and does not even contain its photographs, which further covers its location with an area of secrets. But, nevertheless - it was the first book in the world about the Chinese pyramids. From that moment on, the press and then the Internet created many myths around the White Pyramid. In more than 10 years, the valley of the Chinese pyramids has been visited by only a few people who posted their impressions on the Internet. Chinese scientists have not carried out detailed studies of these structures.
2. The Crisis of Official History
Official science classifies the pyramids as imperial tombs of the Qin dynasty in 221-207. BC, Western Han 206 BC - 07 AD, Eastern Han 25-220. AD, Jin 265-419 AD and the Tang dynasty 618 - 907 AD Let's try to determine why the Chinese authorities attribute the pyramids to the tombs of the emperors and their approximate listed dynasties.
Take as an example the most famous "tomb" of the emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, who left behind the great Terracotta Army 60 km away. from Xi'an. Starting construction in 221 BC. At the age of 30, Qin Shi Huang had employed 700,000 workers from all over western China. A huge "tomb" was built with a spacious burial room, on the ceiling of which the starry sky was depicted, along which the stars and the moon moved with the help of complex mechanical devices, day gave way to night; the floor was paved with elaborate tiles depicting all the lands of China and the five sacred mountains. This is how the historian and poet Sima Qian described the "tomb" of the emperor. In the 60s. scientists calculated that the height of the building reached 115 meters, the length of the east and west sides was 345 m, and the south and north, respectively, 350 m!Today the height of the "tomb" does not reach 60 meters. Google Earth satellite images clearly show the pyramidal shape of the structure.
Google Earth aerial view of the pyramid, the "tomb" of Qin Shi Huang.
The most interesting thing is that the historian Sima Qian lived a century after the death of Qin Shi Huang-di and wrote a biography of the emperor, based on unknown sources. Maybe Sima Qian wrote without relying on any source from the times of Qin Shi Huangdi? Thus, there is no written evidence that the huge pyramidal structure was the tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di 2,200 years ago. Research around the pyramid has been going on for over 40 years, thousands of statuettes, gold and silver items have been found, but not a single evidence of the emperor's tomb. On the pyramid itself, excavations are prohibited.
The Terracotta Army is located two kilometers from the pyramid.
On July 2, 2007, a sensation occurred, Chinese archaeologists announced the results of a five-year study of the pyramid using a sensory method. Bottom line: inside a structure was found in the shape of a large 30-meter nine-step pyramid! However, what this inner pyramid is made of: from stones or, like everything from clay, the Chinese scientists did not say. However, it becomes clear that in the beginning they built an internal stepped pyramid, which was then covered with clay, giving it its modern shape.
Terracotta Warriors of Emperor Qin Shihundi.
Chinese archaeologists have stated that this complex structure is not the tomb of the emperor. Duan Qingbo of the Shanghai Institute of Archeology, in order to save Chinese archaeological science, said the pyramid was built for the emperor's soul. But this evidence is not based on any scientific evidence. Sensory techniques, ground penetrating radar did not find evidence of a sarcophagus or other things indicating burial inside a nine-step pyramid, as well as the complex mechanical structures described by Sima Qian. Archaeologists have suggested that the real tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di is hidden nearby. However, on the pyramid itself there are stands stating that the tomb of Qin Shi Huang is here. Therefore, for further clarity, we will call this object the Linton pyramid due to the proximity of the city of Linton or the Qin Shi Huang di pyramid.
3. Classification of pyramids
Before proceeding to the description of the pyramids around Xi'an, let us designate the territorial boundaries, make the classification of the pyramids: identify common features.
3.1 Territorial boundaries
The following map from a book on the history of Xi'an published by the International Department of the Municipal Government of Xi'an indicates the location of the main "tombs of emperors" over 30-40 meters high. Near each such pyramid, within a radius of one kilometer, there are from 5 to 20 small pyramidal structures. It is very difficult to calculate their total number. Google Earth does not allow you to see the center of Shaanxi province clearly, and in order to go around everything, you need a good car and a month of free time. In addition, the territorial boundaries of the pyramids are very conditional and will not be accurately marked yet.
Map of the location of the largest pyramids.
While it is safe to say that the pyramids surround the city of Xi'an from all sides, moreover, they exist even within the city limits. In the northern outskirts of the neighboring city of Xian, there is a huge valley of the pyramids! Stretching 50 km from east to west. the valley resembles a milky way. It is about her that the world is best known, thanks to Hausdorff.
But this is not all: northwest of Xi'an and Sanyan there is another valley of pyramids, more interesting, ancient, high and completely unknown to the world. It is there that the legendary White Pyramid is located. 70 km. to the northeast of Xi'an is another area of unexplored pyramids. It is possible that there are pyramids further south of Xi'an.
4.2. General
A common characteristic of all pyramids is the material from which they are built - loess. In the indicated valleys, the soil is a sedimentary, homogeneous, loamy-sandy loam, pale yellow rock, otherwise referred to as loess. Loess is approximately 30% clay, as well as limestone particles, it is a fairly durable material; it looks very much like clay, which is why it is often called clay. Like everything in Xi'an, ancient and not very ancient stone monuments are made of this material: the city wall around central Xi'an, pagodas, souvenirs of terracotta warriors, etc.
3.3. Location
All pyramids are divided into strictly oriented along the four cardinal points, and pyramids with a slight deviation to the northwest towards Greenland. Why some are oriented in this way and others in a different way is a big question, the answer to which remains to be found.
3.4. Types of pyramids
The most interesting and important at the moment in the study of the Chinese pyramids.
3.4.1. Base
Most of the pyramids are square at their base, but there are rectangular, more like cone-shaped artificial hills of pyramidal shape, but since their parallel sides are equal, we will refer them to a special type of pyramids.
There are also pyramids that stand on large in area, but not high (up to 3 meters) square embankments, platforms that are poorly visible on satellite images, but are clearly visible on the ground.
3.4.2. Vertex
The truncated pyramid is the most common shape. For structures reaching a height of 40-50 meters, the upper platform is of an impressive size 50x50 meters.
They all resemble the Mexican pyramids, and if we turn to geometry, they represent a geometric figure - a prism. There are also pyramids with a relatively sharp top, similar to the Egyptian ones, but there are few of them and most of them do not reach a height of 40 meters. But there is also a third type of tops - sunken, forming a spherical depression of ideal shape, which excludes the version of subsidence and failure of clay. In the valleys of the pyramids around Xi'an and Sanyang, I know of only one such pyramid with a height of 17-20 meters.
3.4.3. View
Chinese pyramids are also divided into stepped and non-stepped ones. Staged, in turn, are divided into multi-stage and single-stage. The steps of the pyramid represent terraces reaching heights of 1 - 2 meters. For what purpose they were erected is not known, especially in those cases when the steps reach the middle of the pyramid, then are absent and appear only at the very top.
The pyramids with one steps are small, do not exceed a height of 10-12 meters. Multistage ones consist of 3 or more terraces. Pointed pyramids are generally not stepped. Whereas with a truncated top (prism pyramids) are of different types. The pyramids with terraces and platforms at the top strongly resemble the Mexican Pyramids of the Sun and Moon in Mexico.
3.4.4. Antipode pyramid
40 km. from Xi'an there is a very unusual pyramid resembling a quarry.
However, being directly on the terrain with satellite images, it becomes clear that this is a mirror image of the pyramid. One gets the impression that the pyramid was turned over, dug into the ground, and then pulled out. It turns out that the "mirror image" is the antipode of the pyramid.
3.4.5. Mixed
Almost all small pyramids up to 10 meters in height belong to the mixed type. Among them there are cone-shaped structures with steps on only one or both sides. Since the number of small pyramids can amount to several hundred, study their case for future research.
There is one more type of pyramids, but it does not fit any of the presented classification, since it characterizes only one White Pyramid, more about it on the corresponding page.
4. Pyramid and Artifacts
An hour's drive from Xi'an railway station in the southeast are two thirteen and sixteen step pyramids 35-40 meters high. From the top of the thirteen step, almost nothing was visible due to the approaching cyclone, while even in good weather visibility was very poor due to heavy smog. All around there are agricultural fields and gray one-story peasant houses in the distance.
The most interesting and important discovery was made near the pyramid. Standing at the edge of the field, I discovered a clay shard with a square ornament. Looking closely to the ground, I saw more and more, and then an endless field of stone fragments and shards of different sizes with beautiful ornaments in the form of rhombuses, straight lines, squares, etc. Most of the stones were on the outskirts of certain sections of the fields. It seems that the peasants, cultivating the land, threw the artifacts found in the ground like stones on the side of field roads and into ditches. There were so many of them that, having passed a large section of the field up and down, it was possible to pick up several trucks.
Obviously, never before have archaeologists excavated in the vicinity of the pyramid. The study of the artifacts showed that they are made of baked clay, have porosity, and when immersed in water, the hiss lasted for more than three minutes. Interestingly, after being removed from the water, the stones continued to hiss and emit a characteristic clay smell, while the water did not affect their strength.
Photos of clay stones found near the pyramid.
Artifact # 1 with a square ornament has a rough surface on the inside and is also too wide to be considered a fragment of kitchen or other utensils. Whereas artifact No. 2 with straight vertical lines has a semicircular shape and a smooth inner surface in order to refer it to a bowl or jug.
Most of the stones found on the field and presented in the photographs have characteristics similar to artifact # 1. Consequently, most of the thousands of stones scattered throughout the field are anything but fragments of ancient utensils, but could well be the facing plates of the pyramid!
The adobe pyramid was built using a special technology that is not known at the present time. Stone slabs with a certain pattern on each terrace could have several functions. Firstly, it was protective from winds and rain, and secondly, it was artistic and aesthetic: from a bird's eye view or from afar, the pyramid looked like a painted canvas. Thirdly, symbolic, each ornament at a certain level and at the top could carry one or another semantic meaning, reflecting the language, culture and history of the builders of the pyramid.
Facing stones could have beaten off from the pyramid in ancient times or during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, when hundreds of ancient monuments were destroyed throughout China.