Hi guys. Today I want to discuss a Chinese royal tomb which is a megalithic site built
more than 2100 years ago. It not only shares similar tool marks found at Baalbeck, Petra,
Yangshan Monument and other ancient sites around the world, but also shares the same
smooth stone finish with sites in Peru. I believe it is highly likely that this tomb
along with several other Chinese stone tombs were initially built with advanced technology
for reasons unknown and then 2100 years ago were rediscovered and repurposed as a kings’
tomb.
Guishan Tomb is the burial place of a king and his queen who passed away more than 2100
years ago during the Han Dynasty. The tomb was tunneled inside a granite hill. The Han
Empire began in 206 BC and spanned over 4 centuries. It had a central government and
a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms which were bestowed to the emperor’s relatives
who also became Kings. The site was raided a long time ago and sadly few artifacts remain.
A small silver seal that contains the King’s name is the sole identification of the tomb.
There are actually two caves carved into the Guishan hill in Xuzhou, Southern China. One
cave is for the king and the other the queen. The two are connected by a small pathway.
Both caves have the same sized stone entryways and shaft-like long corridors which lead to
the chambers. As an embodiment of upper class burial culture of Han Dynasty, the royal couple’s
tombs are adjacent with a connecting path so they can spend their afterlives together,
how romantic. Both caves were built in the exact same style though the king's tomb is
bigger. Please remember this bizarre crooked pathway connecting both tombs because I will
come back to it later. Today this tomb is a tourist site and the funeral offerings you
see are reproductions.
Five Unusual Characteristics of Guishan Tomb
1. The caves were built with sophisticated engineering knowledge and carved directly
into the granite hill - The construction of the tombs is incredibly advanced showing great
accuracy. Granite is a very hard stone being a 6.5 on Mohs scale with diamond being 10.
So how hard is granite? Well, consider steel is also a 6.5 on Mohs scale. This means the
Guishan caves could only be carved with tools that have gem tips at least as hard as quartz.
Today diamond drills are used to work on granite. One can only imagine what incredible tools
were used thousands of years ago on these granite structures. Here is a scenery model
at Guishan museum, representing the assumed cave construction being done by chisels and
hammers, which I think is inaccurate and misleading. There are 15 chambers in total. Each tomb
has a round water well with a complete drainage system. Once well water overflows it runs
into the drainage system. This is an impressive feature. Btw having a well is uncommon in
Chinese tombs. The chambers are precisely shaped with sharp conjunction lines between
surfaces. The exquisite roofs of the chambers are in various styles, some have Cathedral
ceilings or called hip roofs, some are flat, and some have the pyramid hip ceilings. All
the hallway corners were carved at 90 degrees and show the walls’ sharp edges. We can
also find multiple beam holes and post holes. Here are the mortise and tenon joint looking
niches at the entrance. These details were intended to serve designated purposes. Having
been built in ancient times with amazing accuracy, these details highlight an impressive technological
sophistication even by today's standards. The entryways are shaped like a trumpet, wider
at the very beginning followed with eerily low and narrow long paths. They are about
1 meter or 3.5’ in width and 56 meters long (about 61 yards), almost perfectly parallel
with a tiny deviation of 5 millimeters or 1/5 of an inch. This insane level of accuracy
is hard to achieve even with today’s technology. The ceiling height of the paths is 1.78 meters
or 5’10” high, anyone who is taller needs to bend to get through.
This whole structure reminds me of a nuclear bunker or an emergency shelter. The hidden
entryway, long descending paths, wells that provide water - all seem better suited for
a world-war II bunker.
The tombs cover an area of over 700 square meters or more than 7500 sqft, which means
the builders carved out stone that can fill more than two Olympic-sized swimming pools,
and they transported the debris out through the long narrow paths. That is an extraordinary
achievement considering the accuracy and consistency of the stone work. How did ancient masons
follow the plan and carve the shafts and chambers in granite without deviation?
2. In this well-designed and well-executed cave system, there is one anomaly: the short
pathway between the king and queen’s tombs. This 1.9 meter or 6’ path was crudely done,
awkwardly angled and lopsided. The pathway is not symmetrical with the Queen’s side
being larger and square while the King’s side smaller and curved. This path, even though
sharing the same tool marks, is inconsistent with the rest of the structure. This is very
odd given the fact that these two adjacent caves were made so remarkably. The structure
clearly shows sophisticated abilities in the fields of architecture, engineering and construction.
So why was this path made in subpar quality? If indeed the two caves were originally designed
to be tombs for the king and queen, then the pathway between the caves would have been
excavated the same way with the same precision. But this path is quite different. I believe
this is evidence that whoever constructed the original caves, for some reason didn’t
finish the project. If the caves were constructed by the King’s masons, the king would never
accept this incomplete path. I theorize, the king’s men discovered the caves, thought
they would be a perfect burial location, which only required they fix or complete a path
connecting the king and queen's resting places. Though they didn’t succeed as we see the
path is still crooked.
3. There are two different finishes in Guishan tomb. One smooth and one with distinct tool
marks, which resemble 'machine marks' found at other ancient sites.
In most areas of the tombs, we see these big tool marks covering walls, pillars and ceilings.
These marks are uniformed, large and resemble machine marks, which I discussed in my previous
videos. Here are a few sample comparison photos of Guishan tombs with Yangshan monument also
known as Yangshan quarry, the giant Baalback foundation stones, and the caves in Petra
Jordan. All around the planet we find ancient sites with similar marks, which resemble marks
that come from modern-day heavy mining and tunneling machinery.
Today’s Rotary drum cutter machines have highly resistant and replaceable teeth that
can excavate hard rock. This kind of machinery is very big and can not pass through the low
narrow shaft corridors of Guishan. This means even with our most advanced excavation technology
it would be likely impossible to duplicate the Guishan caves. Then how do we explain
the creation of these caves built over 2100 years ago?
Not all the tomb chambers show the big tool marks; some rooms and the shaft corridors
have smooth surfaces. The walls of both shaft corridors are so smooth that they are on par
with modern stone walls. We can see here that some rooms have smooth walls though the ceiling
is covered with the large ridge and groove tool marks, which might indicate that the
caves were never completed and the original constructors didn’t have time to get the
consistent smooth finish. The smooth finish reminds me of the megalithic sites at Peru.
Many Peruvian sites have giant stone blocks with smooth finishes very similar to what
we see in Guishan.
Another object worth mentioning is the knobs on the ceiling and pillar of one chamber,
which is baffling. Such knobs are seen in so many ancient sites all around the world
and still no one knows for sure what they were used for. At Guishan, only one room has
such knobs, which adds to the mystery. Some scholars proposed that the knobs could be
an astrology map but no known research was ever done into these knobs.
4. This tomb, along with about 10 other tombs, reveals a very unique design. The asymmetrical
layout, the structure, material and building method are all very different from many tombs
that were built in the same era.
The Han emperors’ mausoleums are similar to their anterior dynasty Qin, which have
the signature rammed earth mounds with several layers of wood coffins buried underneath along
a center axis. These mounds are shaped like pyramids thus sometimes referred to as Chinese
pyramids. I will do a future video discussing them specifically. A well-known Han Tomb around
the same time called Mawangdui has a similar mound on top and large wood planks underneath
– this is a reconstruction of the burial customs. The structure with layers of special
wood planks was considered the highest standard for Han royals. The outside of the tombs were
layered with white clay and charcoal then filled with earth. Most such royal tombs have
massive rammed earth mounds. The actual tomb burial areas are square or rectangular; the
pits for other funeral offerings such as terracotta warriors were separate from the tomb area.
Now let’s go back to Guishan tomb, which is a fine example of a group of particular
Han tombs that were carved into stone on mid-hills and are not symmetrical. Such stone cave tombs
only existed within a certain period of time within a certain region. Why is that?
Here is another King’s stone tomb at Mancheng, which was constructed during the same time
as Guishan tomb. These two sites are about 400 miles apart. This tomb is also located
mid-hill and excavated inside a stone mountain, however, there are dramatic differences in
both design and method of construction from Guishan. Mancheng tomb was allegedly built
by burning and heating up stone first then splashing cold water to make the stone crack
and break off, resulting in a tunnel-looking space with a crude finish. This fire and water
excavating method was documented in the later Eastern Han dynasty. Why didn’t this Mancheng
King use the same technology implemented at Guishan tomb? Were the kingdoms not sharing
their knowledge? I don’t know.
5. Despite being a king’s tomb, Guishan tomb is shockingly austere.
Yes the structure is impressive but the tomb chambers lack of built-in decoration which
is not the norm since Han tombs are famous for their extravagance.
Here I am showing some reliefs adorned tombs in the same era in nearby regions. They were
made of bricks, which are considerably easier to create and assemble than the tombs carved
entirely in stone. We can see these caves were beautifully decorated with reliefs which
were originally painted btw, stepped cove ceilings and sculpted pillars with nice details.
Here are murals and frescos from other western Han tombs, which prove that the Han tombs
were heavily decorated. This means Guishan is an outlier in sharp contrast to the prevailing
customs of that time.
The king had much more money, resources and labor at his disposal – so why was his tomb
was less decorated than civilians’? In my opinion this is not because this king was
frugal or into a simple lifestyle. After all he chose to have a very elaborate tomb. The
smooth paths to the tomb chamber would have been the right place for murals, motifs or
reliefs, like in most of the Han tombs – though there was none found at Guishan. Yes, the
tomb had been raided many times through thousands of years though most tomb raiders didn’t
take built-in decorated slabs, murals or frescos. Even if there were such tomb decorations,
the removal of slabs or frescos would have left some kind of trace. Again, there is none
to be found. This means the tomb had no such decorations from the beginning. This king
reigned for 12 years. Most Chinese emperors and kings started planning and constructing
their tombs right after they ascended to the thrones; so there should have been enough
time for this king to get the proper prep work done before his demise. Most importantly,
if the King’s stone masons could create such advanced stone structures and finishes,
it shouldn’t be too difficult for them to add decorated reliefs. Then why didn’t they
do so? Don’t you find that strange?
I believe it is because the stone caves at Guishan were built long before the King’s
time. I hypothesize that these caves were stumbled on by the kings men, who then subsequently
repurposed them as the king’s tomb over 2100 years ago. The kings masons could not
fix the finish, add decorated reliefs, they couldn’t even complete the short pathway
between caves because granite is incredibly difficult to work with. Considering such stone
tombs show tool marks that resemble modern machine marks and highly-sophisticated technology
that we probably can’t even achieve today, it is very possible that these caves were
built by a lost civilization with advanced machinery.
What do you think? If you have any insights, please leave me
a comment. I would love to hear from you. If you like my video, please give me a thumbs
up and subscribe. I have a wide range of topics that I want to share with you. This is Curious
Being, I am Tina. Thanks for watching and see you next time!