What do you think about this?
In 1992, in a village in Zhejiang province in eastern China, a few farmers decided to pump out a pond they had always believed was bottomless. Days of pumping later, the water level dropped and revealed something no one expected. The pond was not a natural pool at all. It was the flooded mouth of an enormous man made cavern, carved by hand out of solid sandstone.
It was not alone. In the end at least twenty four of these caves were found beneath the small hill, each one a vast chamber with pillars, sloping walls, and ceilings cut with careful precision. The largest are the size of a cathedral. Every surface is covered in the same deliberate parallel chisel marks, millions upon millions of them, as if the stone had been combed. Together the caves represent the removal of nearly a million cubic meters of rock.
Here is the mystery. There is no record of them anywhere. Not a line in China’s vast and meticulous historical archives mentions who dug them, when, or why. There are no soot marks from lamps, no discarded tools, no inscriptions. A project this huge would have taken thousands of workers years to complete, and yet an entire civilization seems to have swallowed the memory of it whole.
Could it be that something so immense was built, used, and then deliberately forgotten, its purpose sealed underwater and out of every book?
An ancient quarry, a hidden storehouse, or something we have not guessed at all? What do you think the builders of Longyou were really making?
