Hi guys. Today I want to bring you to the Land of a Thousand Caves, Beit Guvrin- Maresha
in Israel. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with over 2,500 years of history. This significant
archaeological site houses numerous underground caves - some are linked by underground tunnels.
These caves show signs of advanced technology and could be products of a prehistory sophisticated
civilization. There is a lot to talk about on this site. Today I will focus on two types
of caves: the enormous bell caves and the intriguing columbarium caves to house pigeons.
This fascinating site, called "city under a city" is a 1,250-acre national park with
two parts: the southern part is Tel Maresha, the mound of the biblical city of Maresha
during the time of the First Temple which is 10th to 6th century BC. All the man-made
caves are located here. Many of the caves are linked via an underground network of pathways
that connect groups of 40–50 caves. Maresha was destroyed in 40 BC by the ancient Iranians
known as the Parthians. After Maresha’s demise, the neighboring town of Beit Guvrin
succeeded it as the main settlement in the northern part. It was an important town in
the Roman era known as Eleutheropolis. Today it contains the remains of a roman amphitheater.
Maresha’s caves were excavated from the thick and homogeneous layer of soft chalk,
a marine limestone in Lower Judea. It includes over 800 bell caves, chambers and tunnels.
The caves were alleged to be quarries, and later on converted for various agricultural
and craft industry purposes, including olive oil presses, columbaria, stables, cisterns,
baths, tomb complexes, places of worship, and hiding places during troubled times.
Let’s look at these spectacularly unique bell caves. They are large, over 60 feet (18
m) high, airy, and remain cool in the desert summer. The Bell Cave complex has 70 connected
bell-shaped caves, which are acclaimed quarries for mining stone for mortar and plaster, and
to extract lime for cement. Arabic inscriptions on the Bell Cave walls indicate roughly 2,000
years of activity here. Some of the bell caves collapsed but many are still standing. It
is very impressive that these cavernous caves maintained their structural integrity for
thousands of years. The current explanation of the ancient quarry
method is to open a small hole in the hard surface, which is gray limestone on the ground
level. When the diggers reached the soft chalk below, they enlarged it and made all the caves,
each bell eventually cut into the ones adjacent to it. Rectangular blocks were removed from
the caves with ropes. These caves could well be quarries though the excavation theory doesn’t
sound convincing to me. Here I am showing some ancient quarry sites
and limepits in Israel, which are from about the same time frame. We can see how different
these open pit quarries look in comparison to the bell caves. The techniques that created
the bell caves are strikingly more advanced. Open pit quarrying is much easier and safer
than underground quarrying. Why did the ancient workers at Maresha decide to quarry stone
underground, unlike the other nearby quarries? Why were the quarry pits created in such unusual
bell shapes? Bell caves are similar to structurally secure parabolic domes, which required careful
calculation and planning. How did ancient workers know that these domes would be stable
and wouldn’t collapse on themselves? What kind of lighting did they use inside these
caves? Also, I want to point out the obvious tool
marks in the caves. Even though the various caves at Maresha are
distinctly different, there is one thing they have in common. They all have large, uniformed
parallel tool marks. The tool marks here look just like the ones I have been pointing out
on many ancient sites such as Balbeck, Petra, Yangshan Monument, Longyou caves and many
more. I explained why such marks cannot be done by hand tools such as chisels or pickaxes.
Click the link above to see that video. In short, the uniformed large ridge and groove
tool marks resemble modern day machine marks. Manual labor cannot achieve this level of
consistency even on stone that is soft enough to dig with fingernails. We can’t even draw
such marks with the same consistency let alone carve them by hand on stone in this massive
scale. So I believe this is a perceivable sign that the sites with such tool marks were
made by a prehistory advanced civilization with machinery similar to what we have today.
Are there other clues that existed to support this theory? How about the curious looking
columbarium caves with many niches? It’s stated that the caves were dug during the
third century BC. Roman columbarium is a place with niches for the storage of the deceased’s
ashes in urns; but no trace of ash was found at Maresha. Moreover, cremation was not the
burial practice for the land at that time. So what were the niches meant for?
The most commonly accepted theory is that the columbarium is a place to raise doves
and pigeons. The word comes from Latin colomba, which means dove. The national park has 85
columbaria, which are still inhabited by many pigeons. The so-called Polish cave was said
to be a cistern initially then repurposed as a columbarium where visiting Polish soldiers
carved an inscription in 1943. I have never seen anything like this before: caves with
many carefully carved rows of niches. It turns out that doves were used intensively in the
ancient world – their meat and eggs were nourishing food sources and their droppings
used as fertilizer.
During my research, I found that Tel Maresha is not the only one with such a complicated
cave system, there are more in the nearby region; such as Luzit Caves, Beit Lehi and
Adullam-France Park just to name a few. They all have the same uniformed, large parallel
tool marks as we can see here; and they all have columbaria with rows of niches. The caves
are connected through narrow pathways or tunnels which form a complex system that can be considered
as underground cities. The amount of excavation work is stunning. Look at the bell caves at
Luzit. The scale and shape are pretty close to the ones at Maresha though some niches
are higher up which could be a sign that certain bell caves were created with niches initially.
The central round opening and oversized scale reminds me of the magnificent landmark Pantheon
in Rome, which could well have been inspired by bell caves like these.
The stone caves with rows of niches are so fascinating that I want to find more information
about them. I realize that they are a wide spread phenomena: not only in Israel, but
also in Jordan, Turkey, Italy, and France. Here are some photos from these sites. I also
found a paper online providing evidence for pigeon breeding in columbaria in Jordan. Pigeon
Valley in Capadoccia, Turkey, was named for the many pigeon houses or columbaria carved
into the cliffs. The niches are in slightly different shapes, though the composition features
are very much the same as the ones we saw in Maresha.
However, that doesn’t prove the original columbaria were designed to raise pigeons
nor does it prove that the columbaria or bell caves were created 2,500 years ago which is
the currently acclaimed time. As I said earlier, the caves at Maresha show machine marks and
might have been excavated by a previous advance civilization, thousands of years before ours.
Are the columbaria/ pigeon farms from that civilization?
I want to take a minute to explore a little further on the dove/pigeon raising culture.
I was a bit surprised to learn that the pigeons would come back to the columbarium, the pigeon
farm even though they could easily fly out. Then I realized that doves or pigeons were
domesticated and in fact the rock dove was the first bird that got domesticated. In nature,
rock doves nest in cliff sides or caves. Mesopotamian clay tablets mention the domestication
of pigeons more than 5,000 years ago, as do Egyptian hieroglyphics. Research suggests
that domestication of pigeons occurred as early as 10,000 years ago around the alluvial
plains of the Tigris and Euphrates. Dove is an important symbol in multiple cultures and
religions. And doves were a historically important food and fertilizer source in the Middle East,
North Africa and Europe. Here are photos of the mesmerizing old dovecotes in Iran, Egypt,
and Britain. In Medieval times, the possession of a dovecote was a symbol of status and power.
Now that we know pigeons were domesticated a long time ago. How long did it take to domesticate
an animal like a pigeon or dove? The short answer is we don’t know. Probably
several thousand years for true domestication. Domestication is not the same as taming. A
wild animal, or wild animal born in captivity, may be tamed, but they are not truly domesticated
and remain genetically wild. The cubs of a tamed animal won’t have the intrinsic taming
behavior. Domestic animals are believed to have been selectively bred and genetically
adapted over generations to live alongside humans. They are genetically distinct from
their wild ancestors or cousins sort of like current day dogs to wolves.
Historians have learned about animal domestication from fossils. It seems that animal domestication
is partly tied to human domestication, or the humans shift from hunter-gatherers to
farmers. As some people became farmers and started to settle in one place, raising domesticated
livestock offered them the convenience of fresh meat as well as manure for fertilizing
crops. It is believed that the civilizations which domesticated animals and plants consequently
wielded more power and were able to spread their cultures and languages.
Because most major acts of animal domestication began before recorded history, we don’t
know much about the exact process though scholars consider animal domestication a millennia-long
process, similar to plant domestication.
In 1959 a Soviet biologist started an experiment to domesticate silver foxes. Within a decade
he claimed he successfully domesticated them. A recent review found the results of the "Farm
Fox experiment" were overstated. The foxes were not really domesticated but selectively
bred for subservient and “tame” behavior.
So far there is no consensus on how animals got domesticated. The current theories are
only as good until the next archeological dig where new evidence shows up, which may
change the current paradigm of thought dramatically.
Based on the evidence we have today, pigeons became domesticated 10,000 years ago. Two
potential explanations could result in this outcome.
1. Our ancestors consistently practiced selective breeding generation after generation. They
eventually achieved to genetically change and domesticate the bird. How did prehistoric
people manage to pass along this tradition for thousands of years? Was the method of
systematically domesticating animals passed along orally or in written language? The earliest
written language known today was the Egyptian hieroglyph from 4,700 years ago, which is
5,300 years after the domestication practice. That means the message was transferred through
spoken language which is rather incredible.
The 2nd explanation is that domesticated animals were genetically changed through DNA manipulation
by a previous advanced civilization. I know this is an unusual even far-fetched theory
but technologically it is possible. This remote possibility could go hand in hand with the
hypothesis of a prehistory advanced civilization creating the complex cave systems.
Civilizations rise and fall in cycles. We should consider that current theories are
ever progressing, and thus not set in stone. With new technology, archeologists are finding
new evidence which changes our thoughts on human history. There is so much that we don’t
know and can’t explain. It’s ok if we don’t have all the answers. The seeking,
unraveling and discovering makes life both fuller and more meaningful.
Lets go back to the caves at Beit Guvrin-Mareha in Israel. Let me summarize.
1. The caves at Maresha, despite being in different layouts, show tool marks that resemble
modern day machine marks, which can be only accomplished by an advanced civilization with
highly developed technology. 2. The large-scale bell caves present sophisticated
engineering knowledge. 3. The columbaria for raising pigeons means
the pigeons were domesticated when the caves were excavated. How did animals get domesticated
is still unknown but it happened before our recorded history.
If we accept the hypothesis that such amazing cave systems were created by a prehistory
civilization, with columbaria to raise pigeons, then maybe the same civilization was the one
which started domesticating pigeons, possibly among other domesticated animals, and maybe
they even utilized genetic manipulation. What do you think? If you have any insights, please
leave a comment. I would love to hear from you. If you like my video, please give me
a thumbs up and subscribe. This is Curious Being, I am Tina. Thanks for watching and
see you next time!