The mystery of the Longyao caves: how a huge temple complex was created and classified in China (8 photos)

It is underground and stretches for several kilometers.





Longyao is a village in Zhejiang province. And next to it is small pond. The locals washed their underwear there and fished, while constantly gossip about the fact that the reservoir is bottomless and hides something ancient and frightening.

One of the villagers, named Wu Anai, was tired of listening to these tales: he did not spare money for the pump and pumped out water for two weeks. It is strange that his fellow villagers did not beat him for this. But he got it and drained the pond to the last drop.

And here the most interesting began - at the bottom of the reservoir turned out to be the entrance to an ancient temple complex. It has 30 caves with huge tunnels. Scientists believe that it was built around 212 BC. AD



It has man-made pools, carved stairs and carved columns. One of the caves with an area of 2000 squares, and its wall reaches a height of 30 meters. Well, the largest room is 12,600 square meters. The patterns on the walls are reminiscent of those made by ancient potters on their dishes.





There are also drawings: horses, fish and birds. It is believed researchers, this symbolizes the three elements - earth, water and air.



Why this complex was built is not clear. About him no no evidence, literally no document. Most likely all the mention of the temple was destroyed, and the entrance was deliberately flooded, for this and needed a pond. Therefore, some scientists consider it imperial tomb, which for some reason was not used.



As soon as the temple was discovered, conspiracy theorists immediately appeared with ideas that it was built using “then unknown technologies”. The scale of the sanctuary and its decoration are really impressive, but nothing "cosmic" or "unidentified" was found. And here is that tens of thousands of people worked on it - this seems to be true.