Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 24, 2014 15:59:50 GMT -5
Secret Ancient Underground City Hidden Beneath Death Valley
The idea there could be a secret 5,000-years-old underground city hidden somewhere beneath California’s Death Valley is fascinating. According to those who entered the subterranean tunnels and visited this marvelous place, the city was once inhabited by an unknown race.
Now, thousands of years later, the place had been abandoned, but the visitors saw strange mummies and curious old artifacts.
It is possible that such a mysterious underground world existed? Where is it located? Who was this strange and unknown race that once dwelled underground? Could they have been the Serpent People?
Before we can enter the realms of this mysterious subterranean world, we must first listen to the words of the Paiute Indians who have legends describing an underground world. The story, as described in Jim Brandon’s very interesting book Weird America tells of how several thousand years ago the great Paiute chief lost his wife. Filled with sorrow and convinced that life was not worth living, he entered the spirit land. His journey into the land of the dead was a long ordeal. He passed through an endless underground passage following the trail of all brave Indian spirits, where he was beset by fierce beasts, evil spirits and supernatural demons. But the courageous chieftain fought his way onward through the ghoulish cavern. He entered the sunlight at the far end and his feet resolutely carried him across the narrow ribbon of rock arched over a bottomless chasm. He stepped from the bridge of rock into the green meadows of the land of the dead, a great kingdom ruled by Shin-au-av. One daughter of Shin-au-av took the chief by the hand and led him to a vast natural amphitheater. It was a dancing place and many thousands of dead and happy Paiutes were dancing in a huge circle.
The chief said he wanted to see his wife. The female told him that once he seized his wife, they must both leave the valley quickly without a single, backward glance. He promised he would do just that, then waited for several days and nights until he finally spotted her. Together they fled across the valley to the rock arch which spanned the bottomless chasm and joined the land of Shin-au-av to the long cavern and the world of human life.
The chief forgot he promised not to look back and turned around to take a last look at the valley. The instant he looked back, his wife vanished into thin air and he found himself standing alone. He rejoined his tribe and spent the remainder of his days describing the beauties and luxuries of the land of Shin-au-av. His story became well-known to all the Paiutes.
This was the legend of the underground world Shin-au-av. Now, let’s move forward in time and investigate what some curious modern-day discoveries. Very little is known of the ancient secret underground kingdom of the Shin-au-av people. In Weird America, Brandon tells of a Piute, or Paiute, Indian legend of an underground city beneath Death Valley called Shin-Au-av.
Tom Wilson, an Indian guide in the 1920s, claimed his grandfather discovered catacombs below the ground in the area. After wandering into a miles-long labyrinth of bizarre caves beneath the valley floor, he discovered an underground city where people spoke an unknown language and wore leather-like clothing.
In the book Death Valley Men, Bourke Lee describes how he met two men, Jack and Bill, who described their conversation with two other men named White and Thomason about an “underground city” which they claimed to have discovered. In Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of the Southwest, David Hatcher Childress writes that “White and Thomason claimed that they found the catacombs after one of them had fallen through the bottom of an old mine shaft near Wingate Pass, which is in the southwest corner of Death Valley.” Wingate Pass was the old route the mule teams took when hauling borax out of Death Valley in the 1800s. The men said they found themselves in a natural underground cavern they claimed went for about 20 miles north into the heart of the Panamint Mountains. To their amazement, they allegedly found themselves in a huge, ancient, underground cavern city, where they claimed to have discovered several perfectly preserved “mummies” clad in fine leather and wearing thick gold armbands. Beside the mummies lay spears of gold.
The city had apparently been abandoned for ages, except for the mummies, and the entire underground system appeared ancient. It was formerly lit, they found, by an ingenious system of lights fed by subterranean gases. They claimed to have seen a huge, polished round table which looked as if it may have been part of an ancient council chamber, giant statues of solid gold, stone vaults and drawers full of gold bars and gemstones of all sorts. There were also heavy stone wheelbarrows, which were perfectly balanced and scientifically constructed so that a child could use them, huge stone doors almost perfectly balanced by counterweights, and other incredible sights.
They brought some of the treasure out of the caverns and tried to make a deal with certain people, including scientists associated with the Smithsonian Institution, in order to gain assistance to explore and publicize the city as one of the “wonders of the world.” These efforts ended in disappointment, however, when a “friend” stole the treasure – which was their only evidence – and they were scoffed at and rejected by scientists when they attempted to lead them to the “mine” entrance and could not locate it. A recent cloudburst, they claimed, had altered and rearranged the entire countryside and the landscape did not look like it had before.
It is a fascinating story and an unsolved ancient mystery. Does the underground city of the Shin-Au-Av really exist? Will it ever be found?
Once again, we are left with so many questions and few answers ....
Source: Ellen Lloyd, Message to Eagle, June 7, 2014.
