"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" one of the classics in children's literature describes an unusual event in the town of Hamelin. This legend tells of a plague of mice that hit this town and none of its residents knew how to get rid of it.
Haim Mazar
(Editor's note: Who among the thousands of Israelis who come to the Savit exhibition in Hanover, which is held every year in March, must have come across the fact that the suburban train line - numbered S5, which starts at the city's airport and crosses it, reaches the town of Hamelin on the other side. I took advantage of this and arrived at the center of the town, which is entirely dedicated to flute players The mice's feet along the 'route' and whether in the sculptures or in a small museum, AB).
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" one of the classics in children's literature describes an unusual event in the town of Hamelin. This legend tells of a plague of mice that hit this town and none of its residents knew how to get rid of it. To the surprise of the town's residents, a young man with a strange appearance appeared out of nowhere and promised to burn the plague of mice for a sum of one thousand crowns. The town's finance promised that they would indeed pay him as his reward. This visitor fulfilled his task with the help of sounds produced by a magic flute, the mice followed him and drowned in the river. When the city officials broke their promise and did not pay him his reward, the young man took revenge on them with great cruelty. He began to play his flute again and this time the young people of the village fell under the charms of the melody, they followed him to a nearby mountain where a hidden door opened and they all entered a cave. When the last of the children entered the door was closed and for a long time it was told "because somewhere among the mountains there is a strange tribe that differs in their customs, their clothes They are miraculous and say that they are the descendants... They are the sons of people who in the past came up from the recesses of a tunnel deep in the mountain where they were held for years by a flutist who played amazing music."
Within this innocent story and its message that promises must be kept are two disturbing and question-provoking items that raise the possibility that there is a historical kernel in it. The first item is the flute and the second item is the cave. The thought that arises in relation to the flute is that it is about frequencies that can influence the behavior of animals and humans. It has been known for a long time that low frequency sound waves can cause health damage and equally other frequencies can have a hypnotic effect. There is no one who does not know the calming effect of the sounds of music and to the same extent there are sounds that have a meditative effect. In this story it is a hypnotic effect that the listeners respond to the call of the creator. The second item is the cave. People live in it. How many people live in it was not disclosed. The scripture says that there is an ability to pass from the world of the cave to the outside world through a concealed opening which can be locked from the inside. The clothes they wear - what style of clothing and what they wore is unknown, but it is clear that they are different from what was customary for the people of the time. It was not disclosed who the people are who appeared out of nowhere as the descendants of the town children that the flutist led. It is about an entire generation that disappeared and whose descendants suddenly appeared. One gets the impression that when they entered the cave as children they moved to a settlement that had disappeared from their natural environment. How many people lived there and what kind of culture developed there is not given. Maybe the author knew what it was and he didn't attach any meaning to it because it exceeded the limits of his story and message.
Similar stories about the appearance of people from the thick of the earth and their transition to life on the surface of the earth are found in various mythologies. To illustrate, we will give several examples from two continents that are far from each other, America and Australia. In the USA, the members of the Hopi tribe believe that their origin is from a world that is underground and that they came to the surface through a tunnel located on the highest mountain in San Francisco near Flagstaff. Among the members of the Mayan tribe, there is a tradition that says that the founders of the Inca dynasty came to the world through one of the openings of a rock or a distant structure 32 km from the city of Cuzco. They differed from the local residents in their clothes and behavior. They came to this place in order to find a place where they could live and build their home. On the other side of the earth, the aborigines, the original inhabitants of Australia, say that during the period defined by them as the "Age of Dreams", giants suddenly emerged from the earth, their own creators, who taught them how to live their lives, guided them how to drive, legislated for them the laws of the tribes and as suddenly as they appeared they disappeared. If we sift through the cultural differences between these tribes we will reach a common core and that is that they were those who lived underground.
If we accept the assumption that similar stories exist in ancient cultures and that there is a real historical core in them, it must be understood that for this there must be large spaces that allow a reasonable life and even more, for hundreds and maybe even thousands of people. A large community cannot live inside a natural cave, even if it is large (for example, caves with an area of hundreds of square meters). The cave must be trained and for this, different technologies are needed. The caves must be ventilated, they must have residential buildings, power sources must be taken care of, there is a need to grow food and different mechanisms for garbage disposal are needed. And here, in a random manner, caves of appropriate sizes are sometimes discovered, and what is found inside indicates that communities indeed lived in them.
In Cappadocia, which is in Turkey, an underground city was discovered in 1964 with several floors and corridors with a width of 3.3 meters and a height of 2.15 meters. Openings with internal closure were found in it. using round stones. In another underground city, also in Turkey, near Derinkuyu, 8 floors were found that could house 20,000 people. 3.5 years ago near Huanghan in Anhui Province in China, 36 underground caves were discovered that are at least 1500 years old and they are very large caves. Huanxi Caves is 140 meters long and has an area of 4800 square meters. What is special about this cave is that the inclination of its slope is identical to the inclination of the slope from the outside, which indicates that the thickness of the walls is the same throughout their entire length. This required precise measuring tools for its excavation, a technological ability that was unknown to the inhabitants of the area at the time. The Quingliang cave is larger. It is 170 meters long, has an area of 12,600 square meters and a volume of 50,000 square meters. Interesting items such as a stone bridge over a river, paved passages leading to different halls and a two-story stone structure were found there. What was not found were food and signs of smoke or fire. What were the means of lighting? What all the caves have in common are sculpted walls, large columns and stone steps.
In an article that appeared in the Phoenix Gazette in 1909, a member of a research expedition that operated in the Grand Canyon in the USA on behalf of the Semistonian Institute said that underground was a large room 488 meters long with straight passages coming out of it similar to the spokes coming out of a circle. In some of them were found various devices and weapons made of copper of a type that was not It was known to the original inhabitants at the time. Other interesting items found here are mummies of men covered in cloth or what appears to be cloth made from tree bark, an altar with a seated Buddha-like statue with his legs crossed and a lotus flower in each hand. Stone tablets engraved with writing similar to the Egyptian Khartoum script were also found.
In addition to this, there are persistent rumors about very long tunnels underground in South America and originating from the legends of the Indians. According to the narrator, these are tunnels that are hundreds of kilometers long and that treasures buried by the Indians are hidden in them. In some places there are also golden plaques and on their bright side you can see golden engravings. In 1971, a research expedition arrived in the Peruvian village of Otosco to investigate claims regarding the discovery of underground tunnels there. When the members of the expedition descended to a depth of 60 meters, they encountered huge stone slabs that required a lot of effort to move. According to what was provided by a Peruvian reporter, the excavation of these tunnels required an engineering ability that qualified the current knowledge in the hands of quarrying contractors. These tunnels lead to the coastline along a slope inclined at an angle of 14 °. The floor of the tunnels is made of huge stone slabs connected to each other in a technique that prevents them from sliding downwards. The length of the tunnels is 96 km and they end below sea level. At this point they are flooded with sea water. This is a technology that went beyond the ability of the natives and the obvious question is who built them? The fact that the tunnels are flooded at the bottom means one thing, and that is that at the time they were cut, the sea level was low. Another place where tunnels were found and randomly is Lima, the capital of Peru. Following an earthquake that occurred in the city in 1972, a network of tunnels was exposed beneath it. During the rescue operations, a long passage was revealed that no one knew existed. As a result of the investigation that was carried out on the spot, it became clear that the city is divided under it by tunnels and they all lead to the mountains. Since they have collapsed over the years it is difficult to know where they end up.
Tunnels are not intended for residential use. They should be used as a transition between different points or as storage places. What points were connected by these tunnels? Is it possible that following the discovery of huge tunnels in different places, there are cities deep underground that were once used as places of residence? And maybe they still exist today? On the face of it, it sounds like science fiction. If so, does this mean that humanity has been accompanied for centuries and perhaps thousands of years by intelligent neighbors in the backyard (in this case underground)?
Sources
Browning - The Pied Piper of Hamlin, Tammuz-Moden Publishing House, 1989
Ancient underground cities in Turkey
http://www.expeditionmagazine.com/magazine/articles/turkey/turkey .html
"Caves of mystery at Hausan" Shanghai Star 1.9.03
http://appl.chinadailly.com/star/2003/0109/tr17.html
"Mysterious tunnels"
http://paranormal .about.com/library/weekly/aa081698.htm
"Childress DH -"Subterranean tunnels & hollow earth-my search for tunnels in the Earth" part 2
http://sphinextemle.virtulave.net/articles/tunnels2.html
Osborne H. - South American mythology 1983 p. 125
Warren S.- "The Mystery of South America's subterranean tunnels"
http://stangist.com/tunnels.htm
William H. III- “Dulce & other underground bases and tunnels”
http://www.ufoarea.bravepages.com/bases_dulce_hamilton.html
