The question that I was never able to answer, namely why the Ecuadorian tunnel system was built, also applies to the paradolmens and systems. The Ecuadorian tunnel system is a mixed system of natural caves and man-made crossroads, and so is Chinkanas in Peru.
The word Chinkana refers to a labyrinth of artfully carved rock tunnels and of natural caves that intersect, turn, bend, and cross above and below each other in all directions. One of the entrances to this labyrinth lies just below the main altar of the Santo Domingo church in Cuzco, Peru. Only a few experts dare enter the vaults with breathing masks. Even the annalist Garcilaso de la Vega (1501–1536), son of conqueror Capitan Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega, ventured only as far into the vaults as the daylight reached and the candle stayed lit.
Side tunnels of the Tayos caves in Ecuador
These subterranean systems, connecting tunnels, halls, ceremonial rooms, and so forth existed during ancient times. But we don't know who created these tunnels and spaces, and by what means and when they were created. But we might be able to answer the question as to why they were created.
As a Swiss citizen who lives in the Swiss mountains, I know some of the kilometer-long military installations from World War II. At they time they were built, my compatriots feared a raid from Nazi Germany. Bunkers, hospitals, ammunition depots, crew quarters, sleeping rooms, and also halls for tanks and war material were all underground, blasted into the mountain rocks. The entrance to one of these facilities is less than 2 kilometers from my house and is now open to the public. I have visited it, and you step back and learn to be amazed again. All rooms are interconnected by tunnels. In the area of the Grimsel water dam in the Bernese Oberland alone, there are over 50 kilometers of tunnels one can drive through. How will archeologists of the future judge these rock labyrinths in 1,000 years? Will they classify them as tombs, crypts for ritual ceremonies, or as a safe site for the persecuted? No one will think of the most logical explanation for them: safety.
Thousands of years ago, there were no world wars and no one had to get to safety from the threat of nuclear bombs or fighter planes. The enemies from neighboring countries were all familiar. They would also have known about the underground facilities, because such achievements as the creation of labyrinths underground don't go unnoticed. Enemies would only have to block the entrances to the tunnels and starve their opponents. Does this argument not also apply to the military installations of Switzerland during the Second World War? No. All entrances were in the range of gun positions, which were placed in the surrounding mountains. Troops trying to block the openings would have been shot from a distance. Millennia ago, however, there were no long-range guns that could protect the tunnel entrances from besiegers. Moreover, in the military tunnels there is not just one entry or exit. There are plenty of them.
But subterranean facilities from prehistoric times do not exist only in distant lands. They are present at one's own doorstep. In Styria, Austria, alone, around 800 so-called Erdställe (literally: “earth stables”) have been investigated. In his book Geheimnisvolles Österreich (Mysterious Austria), my colleague Reinhard Habeck, one of the researchers whose statements can be relied on, explains the term: “Even the word ‘stall’ (literally ‘stable’) seems strange. The word here stands for ‘spot,’ ‘place’ or ‘location’ and has nothing to do with a building for housing animals. Upper Austria is perforated like Swiss cheese with such artificially created ‘earth stables’ . . . But these places can be found far beyond this area. Lower Austria, Bohemia and Slovakia as well as Poland and Hungary, but also Bavaria, France and Spain, point to this mysterious underworld. There are more than 2,000 of these sites in Central Europe.”43
These estimated 2,000 installations are those in Greece, Turkey, and Israel. Even decades ago, Turkish and Greek researchers showed me such subterranean “dwarf tunnels.” At that time, I did not pay much attention, because the general view was that these were the passageways of animals. Now, that opinion has changed. The Austrian researcher of prehistoric times, Dr. Heinrich Kusch from the Karl-Franzens-Universität in Graz, together with his wife Ingrid, has been researching several of these curious Erdställe for decades. There are supposed to be hundreds of them, and quite a few of them can be reached by walking through tunnels. The results of the age determinations, which were created by Dr. Kusch, are absolutely astonishing. A ceiling plate in the Kandelhofer Erdstall near Puchegg in Styria, Austria, showed an age of 23,965 years (+/– 694 years). Processed stones in several other places were dated at an age of 10,000 to 12,000 years.
The dating of the objects was carried out with the so-called terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCN) method. TCN is a chemical-physical measurement method that has been tried and tested in archeology and geology. Of course, the approximate age of 24,000 years of the processed Kandelhofer stone slab has been criticized by skeptics: it could be that the slab weathered for a long time outdoors and was only much later moved by human hands into the Kandelhof Erdstall, but this is contradicted by Dr. Kusch's thorough research. He suggests that the stone slab was fitted precisely, down to the centimeter, into the space delimited by rock walls, and thus only specially manufactured for this place. In the so-called French cave, his team was able to pinpoint the date of creation for a processed ceiling plate to 10,893 BC (+/– 393 years), and for another plate in the Grubergang to 10,382 BC (+/– 288 years). In his books, which he published with his wife—Tore zur Unterwelt (Gates to the Underworld) (2009) and Versiegelte Unterwelt (Sealed Underworld) (2014)—Dr. Kusch states that these stones are not boulders that a glacier left behind millennia ago. Furthermore, surfaces of local boulders from earlier ice ages were dated to around 55,000 years apart from the processed stone slabs. This age corresponds to the true age of boulders in this region because in the last ice age there were no glaciers in this area that could reduce the age of the stones. Also, weathering of the rock would trigger an older age.
Perfectly shaped tunnel systems in Austria
However, the classical opinion of some researchers dates the Erdställe to a time period from about 800 to 1200 AD, although this has not been proven by any scientific evidence. The archaeological finds and organic materials used to arrive at this date were put inside the earth stables at a later date. There are many hundreds of such finds, which originate from the Bronze Age or from the Neolithic age, but which have also been put there by humans. This means that the earth stables with the prehistoric finds were already present at that time.44
So the classical explanation is incorrect. Also, the time period from 800 to 1200 AD is, more or less, well known. For example, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II issued his call for the Crusades. In July 1099, Jerusalem was conquered, and in 1207 Pope Innocent III ordered the annihilation of the Cathars. Yet, the construction of earth stables is not noted in any local chronicle. But tens of thousands of workers across Europe would have to have been involved. The vastly different dates make everything even more confusing. Additionally, several of the earth stables are located under monasteries, but the monastic chronicles contain nothing about them. Why were the Erdställe created?
Reinhard Habeck comes up with every conceivable approach to answering this question. Did they serve as refuge? If so, for whom? There was not much room in the earth stables. Were they storage areas? Why did we not find any decayed stocks? In addition, the entrances are narrow. Did people dig for raw materials? Habeck rejects the assumption and refers to the fact that for a “mountainous exploration,” one tunnel shaft would have sufficed. “But at a distance of only a few meters, elaborate and irrational tunnel systems were constructed.”45 Did children create the earth stables as playgrounds? Forget it! The earth stables exist in different rock layers.
Did they serve as rooms for cults? Were they roaming places for the spirits of the dead? Did they serve as a place for healing magic where patients would become healthy again? Were they hiding places for valuable items? I don't think so; how could this idea have suddenly occurred to farmers
all over Europe? There are now great organizations, clubs, research groups, books, and newsletters dealing with the mystery of earth stables. All possible reasons for the construction of these underground facilities have been thought through, and none is convincing.
In northern Styria alone, says Kusch, “there are more than eight kilometers of walk-in corridors at different sites. And the absolutely inexplicable thing about it: At least in some tunnels, machines have been used for drilling.” Kusch assures us that his team scanned these corridors' spaces to an accuracy of 0.2 millimeters and found that “there are only deviations of 16 millimeters from the tool tracks on meter-long routes.”46
What may have happened unknown millennia ago in the territory of Styria, Austria? What kind of technology was used? Who operated the machines and where are their remains? And every month, more of these inexplicable corridors, shafts, and underground spaces appear. From the year 2012 on, representatives of the Church connected with Dr. Kusch and provided him with information about the likely purpose of these old underground facilities.
For example, Frenchman Luc Stevens reported the discovery of a 120-meter-long earth stable in Prinçay (a municipality of Availles-en-Châtel-lerault, Vienne district, France), and during construction work in the parish garden of the municipality of Aying in the district of Munich, an earth stable with a 40-meter-long main tunnel and a spacious back area was discovered.
In his book Überirdische Rätsel (Celestial Riddles), Reinhard Habeck reports an additional mystery that was detected in one of the earth stables.47 Under Klosterneuburg, a town northeast of Vienna, a labyrinth was discovered “with cellars, corridors, and vaults.” A wooden chest with black stones was also found. “When sunlight strikes, the stones turn a bluish tint, and when they are illuminated in the dark with ultraviolet light, they reveal glowing symbols on their surface like the omega sign.” Habeck wonders if the black stones are the product of “magical practices.” Perhaps they are, but why do their chronicles not show any report of building a labyrinth under their own monastery walls? If all this had arisen in the twelfth century at the same time the monastery was built, the monks would probably have written about it and about the purpose of the stones, which reveal their message only under ultraviolet light. And the magicians who mysteriously engraved invisible messages on the stone surfaces during the day were supposed to know that long after their time, someone would come up with the absurd idea of illuminating the stones with ultraviolet light!?
The world under the earth is more spacious than we think. Luc Bürgin, editor-in-chief and publisher of the magazine Mysteries, tells us in his Lexikon der verbotenen Geschichte (Lexicon of Forbidden History) about a case from the Nazi era.48 Toward the end of World War II, a group of soldiers hid some valuable objects under the town of Bühl (near Baden-Baden, Germany). The objects were not in tunnels that they dug or blasted, but in tunnels that already existed. To this day, it is unknown what the soldiers hid, because the entrance to the underground world was walled up by the authorities.
Miles of corridors and spacious underground halls also exist far away from Europe. For example, the astute journalist Luc Bürgin visited a gigantic cave labyrinth in distant China several times. In the southeast of the gigantic country, in Anhui Province, not far from Huangshan, lies the largest man-made bunker system in China. In his book Chinas mysteriöses Höhlenlabyrinth (China's Mysterious Cave Labyrinth), Bürgin shows over a hundred crisp images from thirty-six caves—all carved in ancient times “from quartzitic-bound, partly coarse-grained, partly medium-grained sandstone.”49 Bürgin describes “multi-level caverns” with the type of massive support columns, “that three adult men can hardly encircle with their arms.” The gigantic sites are now mostly under water. The largest hall yet uncovered resembles “a gigantic underground palace or huge cathedral.” Bürgin and his companions Floyd and Jenny Varesi walked through miles of corridors and rooms reminiscent of mausoleums. Only a small part of the endless tunnels has been made accessible to tourists. Structures with several floor levels, all carved out of the rock by human hands, are under water. And again and again the researchers came across curious engravings. These are not writings, but serpentine lines carved in the rock, crescent-like notches, or tapering grooves. Bürgin knows the subterranean Hypogea site on Malta and calls it a “speck” compared to China's underworld.
More underground sites have been discovered west of the Chinese province Zhejiang. Zhejiang is located in southeastern China on the coast of the East China Sea.
Over 70 percent of this province consists of mountainous terrain. Forty-five man-made domes of rock have been discovered; five of them “with pillars of up to twelve meters in height.”50 The Zhejiang site is only about 200 kilometers from the site in Huangshan. It cannot be ruled out that both systems are connected. In the meantime, Bürgin visited the tunnel and rock world of Zhejiang with a group from the Research Society for Archeology, Astronautics and SETI (A.A.S.) (see last book pages). The researchers marveled at underground halls of up to 3,000 square meters in size and 27 meters in height.51 This is equivalent to a six-story building.
In one of the grottos, an engraved script read “Emerald Cave.” And this very term appears in a poem from the Song era. (The northern Song period lasted from 960 to 1279 AD; the southern one from 1126 to 1279 AD.) Even then, the poet writes, the cave was very old. So the subterranean dome already existed before the Song era.
Gigantic halls and tunnel systems in China
I have known Luc Bürgin since he was a boy. He became a journalist and the eloquent editor-in-chief of a newspaper in Basel. Bürgin is one of those men who doubts everything and thinks nothing is impossible. The young man became a globetrotter and lateral thinker, writing only about things he can prove. That's why I believe him when he talks about 800,000 cubic meters of rock mass that had to be carved out of the rock for certain caves, or about the mysterious fact that seven of the caves from a “bird's-eye view resemble the constellation of the Great Dipper.”52
They are similar to the great dolmens, the temples under the earth, the labyrinths of underground passageways in Ecuador or Peru, or the smaller earth stables in Europe.
Nowhere have the builders shared their working methods, nowhere do we find inscriptions with a date, and nowhere do we learn the purpose of their laborious work. We do not know how the people of the Stone Age hoisted 300-ton blocks over side stones, or when the worldwide drudgery got started. The Huangshan sites are located in the geographical area where, millennia ago, the legendary yellow emperor used to travel from the summit of the surrounding mountains to the stars. Did this heavenly emperor command the construction of the subterranean world? Why should people carve huge rooms and connecting tunnels out of the rock? Did the earthlings want to be close to their supernatural teachers, and was this somehow only possible underground, or was there at least a temporary danger on the earth's surface? Were there things that could only be stored underground, and if so, what were they? No traces have been found. What is certain is that China has been the land of mystical dragons for millennia. All Chinese rulers considered themselves Tianzi, which meanssons of heaven. They all lived by the rules of Tianming, the mandate of heaven. And the largest temple in atheist Beijing still bears the name Temple of the Heavenly Emperors today.
We even find subterranean cities on our unhurried planet—yes, cities!—big enough for hundreds of thousands of people. Following is the story.
The word Derinkuyu is Turkish and means deep shaft. The village of the same name is located in Cappadocia, 29 kilometers south of the provincial capital Nevşehir. In autumn 1963, a farmer stored two sacks of potatoes in his cellar. When he wanted to get these potatoes weeks later, the bags were half empty. The farmer looked for rats and other animals and discovered a hole in the ground. Obviously the potatoes had fallen down the hole. Using a flashlight, he discovered a shaft in the ground, but he didn't see any potatoes when he shone his light into the darkness. Neighbors brought tools and helped
him dig into the ground around the hole. The hole led to a shaft, which was clearly man-made. The following days and weeks became more and more exciting. Additional tunnels led to larger and smaller rooms, then to other floors underground. Most amazing was the ventilation. Wherever the search party crawled, there was a slight breeze in every hallway, and the temperature was the same everywhere. Hunched over, the men hobbled through a tunnel that seemed as if it would never end. After half an hour of walking straight ahead, the flashlight batteries died. Four days later, another group set out, equipped with new batteries and two lamps with dynamos. In addition, torches and candles were available for emergencies. Hours passed, and they walked many kilometers under the earth. Men and batteries were replaced, and food and drinking water was brought in. Finally, after walking many kilometers in a constant temperature, the searchers encountered a bend and a larger space. Then, they came to a flight of stairs and finally to a mighty, wheel-shaped monolith. It lay in a side niche and clearly served to seal off the subterranean world from the inside.
Back on the surface, the men were stunned to find that they were in Kaymakli, twelve kilometers from Derinkuyu. Derinkuyu and Kaymakli were just the beginning of an adventure leading to the discovery of an incredible labyrinth under the Earth. Fifty subterranean cities have now been verified, all interconnected by tunnels. UNESCO has long declared the area a World Heritage Site. Derinkuyu alone provided shelter for twenty thousand people. All cities together can house 1.5 million persons. Unknown millennia ago, when the cities were hewn out of the rock, they could not have been fast, improvised refuges. There were common rooms, sleeping areas, and even stables. All subterranean cities contained multiple floors. There are thirteen of them in Derinkuyu alone. The various living silos are all interconnected, the entrances to the outside could be sealed by large, round stone doors. At a depth of 85 meters, shafts stretched down to the groundwater level. A total of 15,000 of these water shafts exist in the site that have been examined so far, which also ensured even ventilation using the cool temperature of the water. Independently from the water shafts, the searchers also found pure fresh air shafts; so far, fifty-two of them. A gentle breeze still circulates today into the very last corner.
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