There is a vast amount of evidence dispersed all over the world that lends credence to the theory that an ancient civilization of intelligent beings once inhabited our planet, guiding us toward a better future by sharing their wisdom with us and teaching us their ways. However, there are many mysteries surrounding this theory.
For some unknown reason, at roughly the same time, most ancient civilizations suddenly started building megalithic structures. Although various explanations have been developed and elaborately articulated over the previous couple of years, this remains unexplained. The Ancient Astronauts theory suggests that an extraterrestrial civilization from long ago is responsible for this development.
The Yangshan Quarry megaliths
The Yangshan Quarry, on the other hand, is quite different from most other structures because of how mysterious and massive it is. Twenty kilometers to the east of Nanjing, China, on the Yanmen Shan mountain, is where the legendary Yangshan quarry can be discovered.
One part of the stele that was claimed to have been cut out for the Emperor; it is hundreds of times bigger than anything man has ever been known to have moved. © Wikimedia Commons
A massive incomplete stele that was left unfinished in the Yangshan Quarry during the era of the Yongle Emperor, the third emperor of China’s Ming Dynasty, who ruled from 1402 to 1424, is the quarry’s claim to fame.
In 1405, the Yongle Emperor, ordered the cutting of a giant stele in this quarry, for use in the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum of his deceased father.
Three separate pieces were being cut and crafted from the mountainside. After most of the stone-cutting work had been done, the architects realized that the blocks they’d been cutting were far-too big, and moving the stone blocks from the quarry to Ming Xiaoling and installing them there in a proper way, would not be physically possible.
The unfinished stele body (right) and the stele head (left). The work on the dragon design had been started on the head before the project was abandoned © Wikimedia Commons
As a direct consequence of this, the project was abandoned, and the three unfinished stele components have been there ever since.
Size of the giant stone blocks
The Stele Base has dimensions of 30.35 meters in length, 13 meters in thickness, and 16 meters in height, and it weighs 16,250 metric tons. The body has dimensions of 49.4 meters in length, 10.7 meters in width, and 4.4 meters in thickness, and it weighs 8,799 tons. The head of the stele measures 10.7 meters in height, 20.3 meters in width, 8.4 meters in thickness, and weighs 6,118 tons.
Size comparison of the 30,000 ton megalith © Michael Yamashita
If assembled, the stele that they were said to have mistakenly attempted would have been over 73 meters high—and weights over 31,000 tons. As a basis of reference, a standard car weighs between 1 and 1.5 ton. The largest monolith in both the ancient and modern worlds is the 1,250-ton Thunder Stone, which Russia relocated in 1,770 and resembles a rough outcropping that was never carved.
A construction failure?
Several red flags should go up if we assume this account is based on actual historical events: What made the Emperor’s master masons think they could move 31,000-ton blocks 20 km through the mountains?
The fact that the cuts are very different in size, shape, and placement shows that they were never meant to be put together or even moved. If they were, they wouldn’t have been cut all at once and in so many different ways.
Another unfinished gigantic stone structure is located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan, Egypt. The obelisk’s creators began to carve it directly out of bedrock, but cracks appeared in the granite and the project was abandoned. Originally it was thought that the stone had an undetected flaw but it is also possible that the quarrying process allowed the cracking to develop by releasing the stress. The bottom side of the obelisk is still attached to the bedrock.
Incredible amounts of rock were shifted
There appears to have been a significant amount of stone moved at the site, which is one of the most peculiar features of the site. Looking at the areas between the large blocks and the surrounding mountains, it appears that millions of tons of rock have been removed.
Although it is common knowledge that the area was once used as a quarry, this fact alone cannot possibly explain the massive quantities of rock that appear to have been moved.
Furthermore, if the location was used to quarry rock and transport it somewhere, it was done so in a very peculiar method; as if there was a deliberate attempt to leave behind soaring, flat walls, which is not seen at any other ancient quarry.
Unanswered mystery
Artistic representation of unknown advanced technology building pyramids
So, either we assume that someone or something gave them a helping hand, or we believe that they magically figured out the same way that most ancient civilizations figured out in order to move around very heavy objects and use them in constructions, only to lose this knowledge simultaneously and never mention it again in any scroll or anything of this sort.
