When someone hears the words “Great Wall,” they usually think of the Great Wall of China. However, Texas has its own great wall, 5.6 km wide and 9 km long. Of course, compared to the Great Wall of China, it is small. But to build such a structure with a height of 12 m is quite a great achievement if it was really created by human hands.
The wall was discovered in 1852 by three farmers who were digging a well. Scientists and archaeologists pay little attention to this discovery. Architect John Lindsey and geologist James Shelton are some of the few scientists who believe this mysterious structure needs to be thoroughly investigated.
If this is a human-made structure, and not a natural formation, then it may well lead to a revision of history. The Caddo Indians living in this region did not leave any buildings, it is believed that they did not know how to build such structures.
“After analyzing previously collected data and documents, including recent studies, the chances that this is a man-made prehistoric structure are increasing,” said architect John Lindsey in 1996.
After the discovery of the farmers, parts of the wall were excavated. They are thought to form a 5,180-hectare rectangle. The nearby town and district of Rockwall are named after this wall.
Some geologists consider it to be a natural formation, but Shelton and Lindsay noted elements that look like architectural details, including arches, buttresses, which may have even been renovated at some point. A piece of stone with an ancient inscription was also found.
Finding an excavated wall
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In 2013, geologist Scott Walter and Dr. John Geissman of the University of Texas at Dallas surveyed a wall for a History Channel documentary. Walter had never seen anything like it.
But after research, he suggested that this is a natural formation. “The geologic formation created by the lifting of fine sand through faults in the hard clay above is unique, to say the least. Under the influence of calcite, the sand hardened and turned into a dense and hard stone. The most striking thing is that the faults in the sandstone wall have become like brickwork,”he writes in his blog.
Dr. Geissmann examined the stones and found that they were all equally magnetized, indicating that they were formed where they are and not brought from elsewhere. But other scientists were dissatisfied with this single analysis made for the telecast and warrant further research.
The writing on the wall
Shelton also studied the possibility of the natural formation of the wall, but he could not ignore some of its features. In his report “Rokvola anomaly” he writes: “The system of Rokvola ramparts is similar to the structure, in contrast to many sandy ramparts, in which there is no trace of staggered masonry. Entrances and arched openings with cornice stones were found along the wall.
Many of the voids in the wall are square and resemble windows or aqueducts. On one of the lintels, excavated in 1949, there is an image that looks like an ancient text embossed in a line across the stone. Even more mysterious is that in 1870 in Illinois, while drilling a well, at a depth of 38 m, objects were found that looked like copper coins depicting two people. They have exactly the same written signs as on this stone."
These copper coins are currently in storage at the Smithsonian Institution. The layer where they were found is between 200,000 and 400,000 years old.
When the wall was discovered, part of it had a passage leading to an underground vaulted chamber, which is now under the town square. In 2000, when Shelton wrote his report, Lindsay was in talks with the site owner to investigate this passage, which has not been explored since the beginning of the last century.
The wall was discovered by farmers Benjamin Boydtun, Terry Utley Wade and William Clay Stevenson, according to the county's historical records. It mentions that Wade was digging a well at his site, near the western border of the present city, and discovered a wall.
Wade's granddaughter Mary Patti Wade Gibson left a record of how two men excavated the wall and discovered passages and corridors. One of the corridors led to the cell already mentioned. Another resident of Rockwall who remembers the excavation of the wall was the daughter of Mrs. Diviz, an early settlement of Rockwall.
She remembers that a passage with diagonal stones was discovered in Wade's territory. It was open to the public from 1936 to the 1940s. But then the site was again filled up for fear of damage to the structures.