The grandiose Yanshang quarry. For centuries, material has been extracted here for fortress walls, palaces and monuments of the Chinese empire. Since the rise of the Ming Dynasty, the residence of the rulers is transferred to Nanjing, and this place becomes the main source of stone for the most important state building projects.
The most ambitious work in the Yanshan quarry began with the accession to the throne of Emperor Yongle. In honor of the famous father, he orders the construction of the Xiaolin Mausoleum, the main decoration of which would be a memorial stele of unimaginable size. It was supposed to consist of three elements - the head part, the base and the body. The total design height of the megalith was 73 m, and the estimated weight of the entire stone statue was more than 31,000 tons.
All three fragments were cut down and almost completely separated from the natural massif, so their dimensions can be calculated with high accuracy. The dimensions of the base are 16x30.35x13 m, the oval head is 10.7x20.3x8.4 m, the body is 49.4x10.7x4.4 m. The largest element is the pedestal, the mass of which exceeds 16,000 tons.
Gigantic blocks are decorated with drawings depicting fantastic monsters, and rectangular recesses are made in their lower parts. It is interesting that the entire area in the quarry and even the surface of the surrounding rock massifs around the megaliths has been carefully cleaned up.
It is believed that the ancient architects abandoned the work almost at the end, realizing the impossibility of transporting heavy fragments to Nanjing. The version is plausible, but it has shortcomings. By that time, the construction of grandiose monuments was not new to the practical Chinese, and they could calculate in advance all the risks associated with the transportation of blocks over a long distance.
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Ufologists and fans of alternative versions are also on the alert. According to their versions, the monuments should have remained in the quarry from the very beginning in order to serve as a kind of astronomical compass for space aliens. As proof, the adherents of this theory note that the location of the megaliths in space accurately indicates the most important objects of antiquity - Angkor and Teotihuacan.