Don land keeps many secrets. We have such places about which the most incredible legends go. Some of them are real mysteries for researchers โฆ
Ten years ago, in the Don steppe, 120 kilometers from Rostov, huge standing stones were found that vaguely resemble the British ancient temple of the Sun - Stonehenge. The find was immediately nicknamed the Don Stonehenge, and the place where the stones stand, the Valley of the Stones โฆ
However, in contrast to the British structure, the Don one consists not of cromlechs (blocks crowned with transverse stones), but of vertical large stones, the so-called menhirs. According to the results of the geological examination, the age of the stones is at least 7 thousand years BC. Thus, the Don megaliths are much older than the British and others known in our time. And, according to researchers, this even suggests that the megalithic culture originated on the Don, later passing into the tradition of making Scythian stone women.
These stones stand in the Oktyabrsky (rural) district of the Rostov region, near the Kamenny mound near the Kerchik-Savrov farm, in the valley of the Kerchik river, one of the tributaries of the Aksai river. Whole stone alleys of menhirs stretch from west to east โฆ
This is the first such find in the Rostov region. Previously, ancient stone structures - megaliths, cromlechs and dolmens were found only in the Transcaucasus and Siberia.
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โThe most surprising thing is that these menhirs are not made of limestone or another rock widespread in our steppes, but of quartzite,โ says the Don local historian Alexander LUDOV, who found strange stones in the Don steppe. - We can only guess about the true purpose and the previous forms of the megaliths. For many centuries to the present day, people have been taking away ancient stones for their needs, but even for such a long time it was not possible to destroy all the structures.
UFO in the Valley of stones
While the researchers are studying the find, trying to prove various hypotheses of the appearance of mysterious stone structures in the form of giant alleys, circles and squares (along with the famous circular menhirs, stones installed along the perimeter of the square were also found), the locals put forward their own version of the origin of the megaliths - alien.
However, the inhabitants of the Savrov farm are reluctant to talk about the mysterious stones, believing that there is something unclean in them. The fact is that the farmers sometimes see in the dark in the sky over the Valley of Stones โฆ UFOs. Many are even afraid to go there alone during the day. Although the fear of stones is inexplicable: nothing bad happened to anyone here.
โEvery morning, even after dark, I get up to milk the cow,โ says Taisiya Meretikova, a resident of the farm. โAnd then one day I saw a long thing with glowing windows flying near the substation, which did not look like an airplane, or a helicopter, or anything else. Silently flew by and disappeared behind the forest belt. They say it was a flying saucer. And who knows โฆ
Such observations happen here quite often, but ufologists, unlike archaeologists and geologists, have not yet become interested in mysterious stones. But the rich imagination of tourists who come to see the menhirs managed to give rise to rumors that the Valley of the Stones was once an airfield of an ancient civilization. Maybe extraterrestrial. Like, otherwise what is the point in giant stone alleys, clearly visible from a bird's eye view?
An ancient observatory?
There are also more earthly versions of the origin of the Don Stonehenge. According to one of them, standing stones are a kind of observatory of the ancients. They were used as a calendar by which people followed when to plow the land, sow, harvest, celebrate holidays, etc. Perhaps the ancients observed the shadows falling from the menhirs, thus determining the time and date.
The astronomical version is also suggested by the geometry of the figures laid out on the ground from menhirs - a circle and a square. Even in ancient cosmogonic theories, the square personified the planet Earth, and the circle - the Universe itself.
According to another version, such stones were installed in the so-called places of power. It is not for nothing that people still show interest in various megaliths - cromlechs, menhirs, dolmens, sincerely believing in their positive energy and healing powers. Perhaps this place is an ancient temple, and the menhirs are stone idols that our ancestors worshiped.
- Another mystery of the Don Stonehenge is the strict orientation of the buried stones in the parts of the world, - says Alexander Ludov. - The bulk of the menhirs are oriented east-west.
There is even a version that these are the most complex engineering structures of unknown purpose. Quartzite is an unusual stone. It is capable of emitting ultrasonic waves.
โOn the days of the spring and autumn equinox, the radiation of quartzite stones is activated and the stones seem to start singing songs in the ultrasonic range of a variable frequency,โ says Alexander Ludov. - Perhaps, it is precisely because of these features that quartzite was chosen as a stone for religious buildings. However, what the ancients knew about the properties of the stone, for what purpose the menhirs and cromlechs were installed, remains a mystery.
Serious studies of the Don megaliths have not yet begun, and hypotheses of the origin of the stones are multiplying every day. So far, scientists have managed to establish only the approximate age of the archaeological site.
โIf we can prove such an ancient age of buildings, this find will become a world sensation and can claim the title of the most ancient megaliths on the planet,โ says Alexander Kozhin, chairman of the regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments.
Perhaps, over time, it will become clear for what purpose the mysterious structures were built on the Don land. So far, it is only clear that we have one more unsolved mystery of human civilization before us. But will they have time to solve it? Unfortunately, this find, like many monuments of ancient culture in the open air, is defenseless against vandals. Over the years, stones become less and less. Perhaps, soon only memories will remain from the Don Stonehenge โฆ
Meteorite fall site
In the Kamensky district of the Rostov region, unusual stones were also found.
Bolshoy Kamen is a place a few kilometers from Kamensk-Shakhtinsky. The relief of the area here is unusual: melted, like foamed earth, bizarre stones, grottoes and small craters, as if on the Moon โฆ
There is a lot of inexplicable here: for example, absolutely round through holes half a meter long or more in stones, the trace of a human foot imprinted in stone โฆ
Right in the middle of the field is a large area that looks like a lunar surface with craters. In places, rock formations rise, reminiscent of tiny volcanoes. The stone foam froze in bizarre shapes: a Halloween mask, a stone cheesecake, an absolutely round ball โฆ Many such round stones with a diameter of 10 to 30 centimeters are scattered across the steppe. And also - bizarre stones with the outlines of a turtle, sphinx, crocodile โฆ There is also a square, as if lined with stone slabs of the correct shape. A real play of nature.
Esotericists call the Big Stone a place of power and come here to meditate. Some believe that a UFO once landed here - it was he who melted the stone, and the holes in the stones were drilled by aliens, taking a soil sample. However, scientists explain that all these bizarre geological formations were the result of a meteorite falling โฆ almost 50 million years ago. More precisely, even two - the big Kamensky and the smaller Gusevsky. Even the 25-kilometer-long remnant of the meteorite crater has survived. The anomalous zone has long attracted the attention of scientists and is described in scientific papers.
True, ordinary tourists are much more interested in legends about aliens and bizarre terrain.