Short Stuff: Longyou Caves | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too Dave's here in spirit like Obi-Wan. Kenobi so let's get. started that's right and uh you cobbled. this together and this is about the long. u caves I think cobal is generous here. no it's fine uh these caves in China uh. specifically the uh how would you. pronounce that Josh The Province yeah.

juang the xuang Province in China um. where in the early 90s in 1992. specifically uh the people that lived in. The Villages near these uh ponds there's. ponds all over the place there yeah uh. but they all these sort of historical. rumors of the some of them being. bottomless these bottomless ponds kind. of uh Chinese lore and one day this guy. and actually found his name and now I. can't find it uh uh his name was woo I.

do know that but he said you know what. I'm going to find out what's going on I. saw some places say that he caught this. enormous fish in one but I think that's. not true because part of the thing about. these ponds is that they had no fish. yeah that they were totally devoid of. Life uh but I saw two different things. said he caught this giant fish and was. intrigued but I just think that's made. up BS okay that's great that you laid. that out there because we should. probably say there's a lot of questions.

about all of this there really is it's. surprisingly hard to get a lot of stuff. on this um so anyway he he was intrigued. and said I'm going to buy a water pump. and I'm going to drain that thing and as. The Story Goes they ended up investing. as a village into several more water. pumps and after 17 days of pumping uh. drained this thing to see if it was in. fact a bottomless Pond what did they. find they found not just in that one. Pond but five ponds uh really deep.

Caverns that you'd be like Oh okay. that's kind of a neat thing to find a. cavern that was filled with water that. everybody thought was a pond but wait. yes all you had to do was peer over the. surface into this Cavern and you would. see a staircase that had been carved. into the Rock descending below into the. darkness what. yeah yeah and these are the this is the. mystery of the long u caves because they. still don't know and this is what we'll.

talk about you know probably in part two. they still don't know why these things. were built these this amazing system of. underwater Caverns or well originally. underwater but just underground Caverns. now uh how many were there in total I. think 24 they ended up finding yeah they. found 24 of them five major ones and 19. slightly smaller ones yeah one is a. tourist attraction now maybe more that. was even hard to find out for sure but. at least one and the whole thing this.

whole system of what they call Grotto of. 24 grados covers 7 and 1 12. acres and the biggest one has a ceiling. that's 100 feet off of the floor yeah. soaring 30 M plus that's a really tall. cave and a really long staircase and. also you would say well wait a minute. how is this thing even being held up my. friend they carv pillars that held this. thing up and that's just the very. beginning of all the astounding stuff.

that there is to say about these caves. do you carve a pillar or do you carve. everything around what will eventually. be a pillar they say that I think. Michelangelo uhhuh uh saw like in a slab. of marble like raw marble what he was. supposed to chip away to to reveal you. know David beneath or something like. that so I mean just what a great way of. looking at things he stared at it and he. could just see that flaccid penis right. he could. hear.

uh all right so let's talk a little bit. more about these because when you walk. down those steps uh you're going to find. those pillars and then you're going to. look around on these walls and you're. going to be like hold on a. second if I look at all these walls I. will notice and the ceilings mind you. like basically all of the surface except. for the floor right I don't think the. floor has them no um you will find it is. made up of these carved out parallel uh. or I saw one sort of pooo or call them.

parallel. is uh parallel lines that are how wide. are these things well it depends so if. you're talking about the parallel lines. that go that Circle all the way down a. pillar they're usually about 24 in wide. I'm talking about the ones on the walls. they vary in length okay or width both. okay but but they they'll vary in width. from like say this wall to that wall in. a local area they're all going in.

generally the same direction they're. generally the same length they're. generally the same width right but when. you put it all together it has this um. amazing effect of creating a uniform. textured background MH to everything. that's on these walls and to the walls. themselves the pillars themselves. they're adorned with texture that's. right and within each of these sort of. carved out lines are smaller. vertical uh clearly like chisel marks uh. that are chisel at a 60° angle to the.

vertical surface of the wall or the. pillar or whatever it is yeah so there's. definitely human hands had a big role in. shaping these things lots and lots of. human hands and I guess we can take a. break now and we'll talk about all this. other good stuff right after. [Music]. this.

[Music]. [Music]. so first of all how how old is this. stuff we should talk about that for a. second that's a great question. Chuck well probably about 2,000 years. old that's the guess and the reason that. they're saying that is that found.

Pottery um embedded in the silt on the. floor of this thing when they drained it. of these caves and that this Pottery. dated to about the reign of Emperor. Schwan I think the 10th emperor of the. Han Dynasty and his Reign was up to 48. BCE so over 2,000 years ago is is when. these caves would have been dug yeah. exactly and another weird thing about. the this uh system is that usually you.

would know because the Chinese were. great about keeping records and. documenting stuff like this like exactly. like this yet they have found no. documentation anywhere ever about what. how this was done or what these things. were used for yeah the closest they. could come was a poem from the 17th. century um written by yuun who uh was. writing over 1500 years after these. caves were ESS sensibly car.

yeah and that's the only mention they. have and it's really weird like why. would it not be documented by a culture. that documented everything the other. thing about it Chuck is that it doesn't. it doesn't match any of the other mines. quaries Gros um ceremonial sites uh um. palaces it just as it's they're their. own thing there's one other group of. gratos called the huashan grados they're. also building is mysterious but.

supposedly they were built about 1500. years after the ones in long u the long. u caves uh yeah another couple of. remarkable things is that each one of. these has only one entrance like you're. talking about that vertical shaft uh. staircase um so it's not like they're. connected together although they are um. beside one another they neighbor one. another sometimes to the point where. these walls are just a couple of feet. thick between them mhm but you can't. move from one to another while you're.

down there uh and then once you get down. there they found that they they used to. have these um drainage channels and ways. to drain them uh in this like sort of. central water pool that would collect. water yeah but they eventually. completely filled with water and a lot. of this still is you know guesswork. because they really just don't know much. about it but they think that they. flooded over time because these drains. stopped working yeah and clearly the. people who built these were incredibly.

talented because like you said they. shared walls and those walls in some. cases were only 2et thick and if you're. carving out spaces independently and. you're using a shared wall you're at a. really high risk of carving into the. other chamber the other room through the. wall they didn't they they figured out. that precisely how to carve the next. chamber that shared the wall with the. first chamber without puncturing that. that shared wall That's. really tough to do oh totally and they.

didn't just go in there with like the. biggest tools that were available to. them at the time uh they and you know. it's sort of these these little lines. that are carved they've basically. settled on the fact that like lots and. lots of people did this with pretty. small tools uh like chisels and hammers. basically when they could have used. bigger things at the time yeah I saw. that they think that they actually. carved from the surface of the ground. downward layer by layer that that's how.

they they carved it out so they're. carving this pillar over here by you. know along the way they're carving. another pillar over here along the way. they just kept carving down with chisels. so there's a estimate I'm not sure who. estimated this this is all over the. Internet though which makes me worried. it for sure um we got it from. interesting engineering so blame them we. tried to go as legit a source as we. could and they said that in an estimate. um with with tools at the time just.

removing the rock not not the like. intricate carving or anything like that. but just to remove the rock to create. the caverns would have taken a thousand. people six years if they worked 24. straight. hours yeah so that's pretty nuts because. they they would have moved a million. cubic meters of rock what this is soil. everybody this is silt Stone it's very. hard rock that they carved into yeah and. there's no evidence of where all that.

stuff went that million cubic meters of. of rock uh because it's not like there's. you know a big mountain nearby of. stacked siltstone uh there were no tools. that they found um they're they're. surmising this chisel and Hammer thing. from how you know like the end result. not the fact that they found a bunch of. chisels and hammers down there right. like after some great flood or something. uh and then you mentioned the intricate. patterns there it's not just the carving. and the walls and the ceilings and these. pillars but there is art down there like. bass relief carvings uh all over the.

place and almost everywhere I found said. that this is almost certainly came much. much later and was not done at the time. well let's let's get into it because I. think we should finish on skepticism. shall We Shall We Shall um so some. people are like that boss relief thing. is a great example of questioning. anything we know about this because. sources legitimate sources will be like. it this boss relief is in shockingly.

good good condition having been. underwater for centuries and uh. skeptical sources say probably it's. because it was carved after these things. were um drained in the 90s to enhance. their attraction for tourists and that. over here in the west we're like wow. look at that boss relief it's like it. was carved within the last 30 years yeah. um where and it's just a. misunderstanding so when you learn about. that it starts to make you question well. okay what else is just misunderstanding.

what else is just the tourist board in. China saying something and we're not. quite getting it and we think that this. is a mystery more than it is exactly uh. because you do have to keep that in mind. like what we're talking about uh or. where we're talking about um there have. been theories over the years of what it. could have been um none of them. completely make sense uh if it was like. a mine it wouldn't have been they. wouldn't have taken so much time to make. it so sort of precise and intricate mhm. uh if it was a palace cuz some people.

put that forward it would have had rooms. and this is like I don't know if we got. it across each one is like its own just. huge room uh and that's not how palaces. were they had different chambers and. different rooms uh and another thing was. maybe it's a Garrison for troops uh but. they wouldn't have taken so long to do. something like that probably no they. would have needed Garrison like much. more quickly you don't you know it's not. something that you would take uh you. know six years using a thousand people.

for 24 hours a day that's a heck of a. foxhole do exactly right I did see one. video of this woman. online uh put forward the idea that it's. sort of like an aam's Razer thing wait. is aam's Razer yeah that's the simplest. explanation right yeah yeah that they. were. sisters uh and she had a lot of. compelling reasons why she thinks they. were.

sisters uh and a lot of people in the. comments this is YouTube of course um. they were like I'm going to kill your. family no a lot of people are like that. actually makes a lot of sense and she. compared them to different sisters at. other places in the world that kind of. had some similar looks uh and that you. know they they functioned well as Sans. because they collected a ton of water uh. that they had still been using for fresh. water yeah yeah and I'm sure the. ancestors the ghosts were like what are. you doing when they saw the villagers.

pumping these things out yeah maybe but. I don't know uh I think there were some. things that don't quite hold water well. no oh boy Chuck the the biggest one is. um I'm sorry we didn't finish on that. but that was beautiful the biggest one. for me is why would you make such. intricate carvings in a. sistern I don't know that's a great. question none that makes sense so from. what we can tell there is a pretty. decent amount of mystery to the long u. caves it's not just misunderstanding. yeah and I don't think we're probably.

ever going to find out for sure uh so. Chuck what do you think about the idea. that they were. sisters I think it doesn't hold water. beautiful short stuff is. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts ihart radio visit the iHeart. Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite. [Music]. shows.