Russian scientists have discovered in Altai a large complex of walls that once protected the inhabitants of the mountains from attacks from the north, and now hidden under a thick layer of earth.
Archaeologists are sure that the wall was built in the 1st millennium BC. e., at the same time when the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain were erected. However, the wall in Altai is now almost impossible to see with the naked eye: part of the structure was destroyed during the development of the lands by the Russian Empire, and after the modernization of the Soviet Union, the wall finally disappeared under a thick layer of turf.
At present, scientists have discovered six rows of parallel walls that limited access to the Altai mountain complex from the north through the Katun River valley. In addition, nine more walls adjoined the mountainside. The width of the structures was 10 M, and the height, according to experts, could reach 8 M.
"To the east of these walls there is a fairly wide passage, which is bounded on the side of the mountain by another row of walls stretching west-east through the Katun valley," said Professor Andrei Borodovsky of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk.
Scientists do not yet know who built these walls, but they are sure that it was done to divide the crowd of people and force them to pass through the narrow passage in the direction necessary for the builders. Thus, it was possible to control access to the mountains where representatives of ancient civilizations lived.
Borodovsky plans to scan the area with geophysical equipment to prove that the wall is indeed a creation of man, writes The Siberian Times.
Until now, scientists believed that people began to develop the areas around the discovered wall in the Middle Ages, but Borodovsky is convinced that the structure he found will prove the earlier appearance of people in this area.
“It is not easy to determine the age of such structures, but I believe that it was built between the 1st millennium BC and the beginning of our era. This is the Iron Age or even the Bronze Age, but rather the Iron Age. I am based on the fact that such structures were created then all over the world, for example, the famous Hadrian's shaft , - said the scientist.
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