If only the world’s buried cities would rise up someday…but they won’t. They are almost impossible to find but stories about rediscovered cities once inhabited by a race of giants will always fascinate us.
Amazing discoveries require great efforts or an even greater amount of luck. If we’re to trust early 20th century journalism, we learn that serendipity led to the doorstep of the most famous underground city of giants.
According to an article published in The Arizona Gazette on April 5, 1909, the Grand Canyon was once home to civilization that most likely consisted of individuals of cyclopean proportions. If such a civilization ever lived, surely it would have left behind some structure as a testament of its existence.
The article mentions the discovery of an enormous underground citadel by an explorer named G.E. Kinkaid, who stumbled upon it while rafting on the Colorado River. It is worth mentioning that Kinkaid was an established archaeologist and had financial backing from the Smithsonian Institute.
The entrance to the city was at the end of a tunnel that stretched for almost a mile underground.
First, I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible,” Kinkaid wrote. “The entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall. It is located on government land and no visitor will be allowed there under penalty of trespass.”
[…]Above a shelf which hid it from view from the river, was the mouth of the cave. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I became interested, secured my gun and went in.”
The architecture suggested the builders of the underground city possessed advanced engineering skills.
The central hub of the subterranean city was a mammoth chamber out of which passageways radiated like spokes on a wheel. The walls of the main chamber were adorned with copper weapons and tablets covered in hieroglyphic symbols, not dissimilar to those found in Egypt. Another finding that pointed to an Egyptian link were the mummified bodies, by far the most intriguing things inside the citadel.
No mummy measured less than 9 feet and all of them were wrapped in dark linen. Kinkaid wrote he had stood one of them up and photographed it by flashlight, but that photo is nowhere to be found.
Further exploration revealed something about the religion of the city’s giant inhabitants:
Over a hundred feet from the entrance is the cross-hall, several hundred feet long, in which are found the idol, or image, of the people’s god, sitting cross-legged, with a lotus flower or lily in each hand.
The cast of the face is oriental, and so is the carving of this cavern. The idol almost resembles Buddha, though the scientists are not certain as to what religious worship it represents.”
The article records the discovery of pottery and instruments, all bearing the signs of having originated elsewhere in the world. Such a melange of cultures is rarely encountered in archaeological finds, making this discovery one of unprecedented importance.
The last chamber that awaited exploration was what Kinkaid and his partner, Prof. S. A. Jordan believed to be a ceremonial crypt. It was located at the end of the large room where all the other mummies had been found.
There is one chamber of the passageway which is not ventilated, and when we approached it a deadly, snaky smell struck us. Our light would not penetrate the gloom, and until stronger ones are available we will not know what the chamber contains.
Some say snakes, but others think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals used by the ancients.
The whole underground installation gives one of shaky nerves the creeps,”
In this Canyon area were such names as the Cheops Pyramid, the Buddha Cloister, Buddha Temple, Manu Temple and Shiva Temple. Was there any relationship between these places and the alleged Egyptian discoveries in the Grand Canyon?
A state archaeologist at the Grand Canyon said that the early explorers had Egyptian and Hindu names, but it was true that this area was off limits to hikers or other visitors, because of “dangerous caves”.
Indeed, this entire area named after the Egyptian’s and Hindu’s in the Grand Canyon is a forbidden zone – no one is allowed into this large area. Our research could only conclude that this was the area where the vaults were located. Today, this area is still curiously off limits to hikers and even, in large part, to park personnel. Conspiracy theorist John Rhodes once said he knew the exact location of the entrance to the city but that it was guarded 24/7 by soldiers carrying M-16 rifles. Another idea floating around the internet says that the underground city now serves as a museum for the shadowy ruling class.