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Archaeologists Found Something Strange in India — Transcript

by Michael Button · 2,677 words · 452 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Everyone assumed the ancients carved
0:01[music] these caves as simple shelters,
0:04rough work for a rough purpose. But when
0:06modern technology scans the interior,
0:08[music]
0:09it finds geometric precision measurable
0:11in millimeters, mirror-polished
0:13surfaces, bilateral symmetry across
0:16entire chambers. And that discovery
0:18forces a question. If this was [music]
0:20just a shelter, why did they build it so
0:22precisely? And how on earth did they do
0:25it? Hi guys, welcome back. If you're new
0:27here, my name is Michael. I have a
0:29degree in ancient history and on this
0:31channel [music] we discuss the
0:32unexplainable mysteries of our past.
0:35Let's get into it.
0:39We're told these caves were carved over
0:412,000 years ago into solid granite with
0:44no modern machinery, no known tool
0:46system that easily explains the speed,
0:48finish, and precision. Just people and
0:51according to the historical record, they
0:53did this to give wandering ascetics
0:56somewhere to wait out the monsoon rain.
0:58But when researchers scan the interior
1:00of those caves today, they find
1:02geometric precision measurable in
1:04millimeters, surfaces so flat and so
1:07smooth they reflect light like a mirror.
1:09Now, you don't need millimeter-level
1:11geometry to stay dry. So, how did they
1:13achieve this? Well, let's start with
1:16what we actually know. The Barabar Caves
1:18sit in the Jehanabad district of Bihar
1:21in northeastern India, carved into
1:23exposed granite outcrops in a low rocky
1:26hillside. Seven main chambers spread
1:28across two adjacent groups, Barabar and
1:30Nagarjuna, close enough that most
1:32researchers treat them together. And
1:34they are, by current academic consensus,
1:37among the very oldest surviving rock-cut
1:39caves in India, possibly the oldest. The
1:42dating places them in the Mauryan
1:44period, roughly the 3rd century BC.
1:46That's the era of Ashoka, the emperor
1:49who, after a bloody military campaign,
1:51renounced violence, embraced [music]
1:53Buddhism, and spent the rest of his
1:55reign building infrastructure, carving
1:57edicts into rock faces across the
1:59subcontinent, and reportedly donating
2:01these specific caves to a sect of
2:03wandering ascetics called the Ajivikas.
2:06Inscriptions inside the caves reference
2:08Ashoka. Some reference his grandson,
2:10Dasaratha. And while mainstream
2:12archaeology firmly attributes the
2:14construction to the Mauryan era under
2:16Ashoka, the inscriptions themselves
2:19primarily record royal donation rather
2:22than the act of carving. There is no
2:24mention of when they were carved, how
2:26they were carved, or by whom. But they
2:28are attributed to Ashoka. That is the
2:31official account. But here's the thing
2:33about that account. It tells us who once
2:35gifted the caves, but it tells us
2:37[music] absolutely nothing about who
2:39made them. When most people picture
2:42ancient Indian rock-cut architecture,
2:44they think of Ajanta or Ellora. They
2:46think of elaborate facades, sculpted
2:48reliefs, painted ceilings, columns
2:51carved to look like bundled reeds,
2:53figures frozen mid-gesture in stone.
2:55Grand, visual, and decorative. But
2:57Barabar is none of those things. The
2:59interiors are nearly empty. There are no
3:01carvings, no ornamentation, no figures
3:04on the walls, just the stone itself,
3:07>> [music]
3:07>> shaped into precise chambers. And that's
3:09minimalism. That's complete absence of
3:12decoration is the first strange thing.
3:14Because everything that came later in
3:16Indian rock-cut architecture reached for
3:18more, more detail, more surface, more
3:21visual complexity. Yet Barabar reached
3:24for something different. [music]
3:25Smoothness, geometry, control. And for a
3:28long time, that wasn't especially
3:31examined. The caves were acknowledged,
3:33dated, attributed, and filed away.
3:36Interesting, ancient, noted. It wasn't
3:39until researchers started applying
3:40modern measurement like 3D scanning,
3:43point cloud analysis, and systematic
3:45geometric surveys that the full picture
3:47started to emerge. These detailed
3:49measurements come primarily from
3:50independent 3D laser scanning conducted
3:53in recent years by researchers including
3:55a team of former stonemasons often
3:57associated with projects like those
3:59[music] featured in this Giant Films
4:00documentary. Using high precision tools
4:03such as Faro laser scanners, they
4:04captured millions of data points across
4:06the chamber surfaces. But what they
4:08found didn't simplify the story. No,
4:11it's complicated it considerably. Now,
4:13before we dive into that, a quick thank
4:15you to Opera for sponsoring this video.
4:17If you've seen my workflow, you'll know
4:19it's chaos. I have 25 tabs open,
4:21academic papers, excavation reports,
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4:27archaeology. That's why I've been using
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4:59them and even choose a color. Split
5:01screen is brilliant, too. I'll drag a
5:02tab down and compare two sources side by
5:05side, sometimes even four at once,
5:07>> [music]
5:07>> which makes fact-checking way faster.
5:09And when I'm watching an interview or a
5:10lecture, I just pop the video out and
5:12move it anywhere on my screen while I
5:14keep working. So, if you live online
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5:18smoother. So, check it out by the link
5:20in my description and my pinned comment.
5:22Thanks so much to Opera for sponsoring,
5:24and now let's get back to the video.
5:25Here's a distinction that matters. There
5:27is a difference between [music] smooth
5:29and flat. A surface can be smooth to the
5:31touch, soft, frictionless, and polished,
5:34but still subtly curved or uneven across
5:37a larger span. And a surface can be
5:39geometrically flat, mathematically
5:41planar, but rough in texture. Getting
5:44both simultaneously [music]
5:45across a large surface area in hard
5:48stone is significantly harder than
5:50getting either one alone. But at
5:52Barabar, the interior surfaces appear to
5:54be both. The walls and ceilings of
5:56certain [music] chambers have been
5:58polished to a near mirror finish, not
6:00coated, not treated with a separate
6:02material, polished directly. The granite
6:05itself worked until it reflects. The
6:07finish is consistent. It runs across
6:09curved sections, across the junctions
6:11between wall and ceiling, across
6:13vertical surfaces that would require
6:14working upward in space. And granite is
6:17not a cooperative material. It is one of
6:20the hardest stones that occurs
6:21naturally. [music]
6:22It resists tools. It chips
6:24unpredictably. When modern stonemasons
6:26examine what was achieved here, their
6:28reaction is consistent. Not admiration,
6:30although they are impressed, but [music]
6:32confusion. isn't just good craftsmanship
6:35for the period. This is precision that
6:37working professionals with modern tools
6:39and modern training describe as extreme.
6:42[music] Extreme precision, at least
6:432,000 years ago. With no record of
6:46construction, it's odd. The scans change
6:49how you see the problem. [music]
6:50Researchers applying 3D point cloud
6:52analysis to several of the chambers
6:54captured millions of individual data
6:56points. From those points, they were
6:58able to reconstruct the geometry of the
6:59rooms with high accuracy. And when they
7:01analyzed [music] it, they found
7:02something that isn't visible to the
7:04naked eye standing inside. Measurable
7:06bilateral symmetry. Not approximate or
7:08rough, but symmetry holding within
7:11tolerances of about 2 to 3 mm. And not
7:14just across small sections, but across
7:16the full span of the entire chambers.
7:18Now, that's worth thinking about. 2 to 3
7:20mm [music] across rooms carved by hand
7:23into solid granite over 2,000 years ago.
7:26The geometry isn't just visually
7:27pleasing, it's structural. The ceiling
7:30curves in a consistent cylindrical arc.
7:32The walls angle inward at controlled
7:34gradients. The transitions between
7:35surfaces, wall to floor, wall to
7:37ceiling, are clean, deliberate, and
7:39repeating. What the scans show is not a
7:42space that grew organically [music]
7:43as workers chipped away. It was a space
7:45that was planned, modeled in some form
7:48before the cutting began. But, here's
7:49what the scans cannot show. They cannot
7:52show how it was done. Every craft
7:54tradition leaves a record of its own
7:55development. You can trace the evolution
7:57of Greek temple architecture through
7:59increasingly refined prototypes. You can
8:01watch Roman masonry techniques improve
8:04across centuries of practice. [music]
8:05You can see in the archaeological record
8:07the errors and experiments that preceded
8:10mastery. The rough attempts, the
8:12slightly off-center columns, the walls
8:14that lean a degree too far. That
8:16developmental path is how we understand
8:18capability, and it's how capability
8:21actually works. You don't arrive at
8:23extreme precision. You inch toward it,
8:26trial, error, [music] refinement,
8:27repetition over generations. The
8:29finished thing, when it comes, shows the
8:31marks of everything that came before it.
8:33But, at Barabar, that path is largely
8:36absent. There are no obvious prototypes,
8:38no nearby caves that display anywhere
8:40near the same level of ambition at a
8:42cruder level of execution. No visible
8:44sequences of attempts [music] getting
8:46progressively closer to what we see in
8:48the finished chambers. And when
8:50stonemasons are showed the interior
8:51work, the assessment that comes back is
8:53specific. This doesn't look like the
8:55beginning of something. It looks like
8:57the end, like a tradition already fully
8:59formed, already [music] at the top of a
9:01long curve of mastery we simply cannot
9:03locate. You can't just start here, and
9:05that's the uncomfortable part. Work like
9:08this is what mastery looks like after
9:10[music] a long process of learning. So,
9:12that process itself should be visible
9:14somewhere. At Barabar, it isn't. But,
9:17let's go back to the inscriptions
9:18because this is where the story gets
9:20genuinely ambiguous, and the ambiguity
9:22is important. The inscriptions
9:24themselves are not the controversial
9:26part. Several reference Asoka by name,
9:28recording that he donated the cave to
9:30the Ajivikas in the 19th year of his
9:32reign. Others reference Dasaratha, his
9:34grandson, making similar donations.
9:37These are genuine historical artifacts
9:39and they are accepted as such, but
9:40donation is not the same as
9:42construction. When a modern government
9:44donates a building to a cultural
9:45institution, it doesn't mean the
9:47government built it. When a wealthy
9:49patron gives an ancient church to a
9:51religious order, the inscription
9:52recording the gift tells you about the
9:54patron, not the architect. The
9:56inscriptions at Barabar tell us with
9:58reasonable confidence who assigned the
9:59caves, who gave them over to use, who
10:02formalized that relationship in carved
10:04text, but they do not explicitly state
10:06these caves were built during the reign
10:08of Ashoka. Some researchers have noted
10:10that certain inscriptions appear to have
10:12been added to already existing surfaces,
10:14rather than carved as part of the
10:16original construction. Some names within
10:18the text appear to have been modified.
10:20The inscriptions, in other words, may be
10:22later than the caves themselves. Now,
10:24that is not a fringe position. It is an
10:26open question in the literature and it
10:28matters because if these caves predate
10:31their inscriptions, the Mauryan
10:33attribution may describe who used them,
10:36not who made them. But now onto
10:38something yet more mysterious, the
10:40function problem. This is where the
10:41mainstream explanation becomes hardest
10:43to defend. What were these caves for?
10:46The Ajivikas were ascetics, wanderers,
10:49associated with austerity, renunciation,
10:51and extreme ascetic practice, a sect
10:53that regarded material comfort as
10:55spiritually beside the point. And the
10:57standard account proposes that the
10:59Barabar caves were donated to them as
11:01rain shelters. Now, set aside for a
11:03moment the precision. Set aside the
11:05polish and the geometry. Just ask the
11:06question on its own terms. Why would the
11:08most austere ascetic sect in Mauryan
11:11India require rain shelters polished to
11:13a mirror finish? A rough cave does the
11:15same job. An unfinished overhang stops
11:17rain. A basic rock shelter keeps a
11:20person dry. The functional requirements
11:22demands none of what Barabar actually
11:24contains. The polish serves no
11:25sheltering function. The bilateral
11:27symmetry serves no sheltering function.
11:29The precise geometric volumes also serve
11:31no sheltering function. The explanation
11:34and the object do not match. Not because
11:36the caves are mysterious, but because
11:37the stated purpose doesn't account for
11:39the stated features. And when that gap
11:41opens up in any historical explanation,
11:43[music]
11:44the honest response isn't to ignore it.
11:46It's to ask what the explanation is
11:48missing. Here's the comparison that
11:50sharpens the problem most clearly.
11:52Ellora, Ajanta, the great rock-cut
11:54complexes that came centuries after
11:56Borobudur. These are the sites that draw
11:58the crowds, the photographs, the
12:00documentary coverage. And they deserve
12:02it. They are extraordinary achievements,
12:04massive multi-story facades, columns
12:06rising from single granite blocks,
12:08sculpted figures of enormous scale and
12:10detail, painted ceilings, complex
12:12spatial sequences that move through
12:14light and shadow with apparent
12:15deliberateness. Later India built
12:17bigger, but not more precise. Visually
12:20and technically, Ellora appears to be
12:22optimized for grandeur rather than the
12:24same minimalist precision. The surface
12:26finish, impressive as it is, does not
12:28achieve the same reflective quality.
12:30What was being optimized for is clearly
12:32different. Ellora was optimized for
12:33grandeur, for visual experience, for
12:36religious narrative expressed in stone.
12:38But Borobudur was optimized for
12:39something else, something that later
12:41Indian rock architecture, for all its
12:43extraordinary ambition, did not pursue.
12:46And that inversion, earlier and more
12:48precise, is not the pattern you'd expect
12:50from a tradition developing forward
12:52through time. Usually things get better,
12:54more refined, more capable. At
12:56Borobudur, you are looking at the oldest
12:58examples [music] and some of the most
13:00exact. Now, on top of all of this, there
13:02is one more dimension to the caves that
13:04researchers have begun examining more
13:06carefully, and it's a weird one: sound.
13:10These spaces don't behave like normal
13:12rooms. The interiors of certain
13:13Borobudur chambers produce unusual
13:15acoustic behavior, long reverberation
13:18times, decay that extends well beyond
13:20what you'd expect from a volume this
13:21size. Certain frequencies appear to be
13:23amplified selectively. Spoken words at
13:26certain distances become strangely
13:28difficult to resolve, consonants
13:29blurring into a sustained hovering tone.
13:32It is possible this is simply a natural
13:33consequence of the geometry. Sound
13:35bounces off flat, highly polished
13:37surfaces differently than it bounces off
13:38rough ones. A precise dome or cylinder
13:41holds waves in particular ways. The
13:43chambers may produce these effects
13:44simply because of what they are, not
13:46because anyone planned for them. But,
13:48the possibility cannot be entirely
13:49dismissed that the acoustic behavior was
13:52understood and that this is part of what
13:54these spaces were made to do. We don't
13:56know. That is the honest position. What
13:58we can say is this, the geometry that
14:00produces the visual precision also
14:02produces the acoustic signature. They
14:04are not separate properties. They are
14:06the same object experienced two
14:08different ways. And that's coherence,
14:10where everything you examine turns out
14:12to be [music] connected, is usually a
14:13sign that something was thought through
14:15very carefully indeed. So, where does
14:17that leave us? Not with an answer, not
14:20with a confirmed conspiracy, not with a
14:22lost civilization neatly identified. No,
14:25what it leaves us with is a set of
14:26observations that don't fit comfortably
14:29into the space the standard explanation
14:31provides. Surfaces polished beyond any
14:33functional requirement, geometry precise
14:35to millimeters measurable only with
14:37modern technology, bilateral symmetry
14:39across entire chambers, acoustic
14:41properties that emerge from the same
14:42geometry, a tradition that appears to
14:44arrive fully formed with no visible path
14:47of development behind it, inscriptions
14:49that record donation not construction, a
14:51stated function rain shelter that
14:53explains none of the features we are
14:55actually looking at. And modern
14:57stonemasons, with all their knowledge
14:58and their tools, describing the
15:00precision as extreme. Each of these
15:02alone can probably be rationalized.
15:04Together, they accumulate into something
15:06harder to resolve. Not a proof, a
15:09pressure. The sense that the box we
15:11filed this in is slightly the wrong
15:13shape for what's inside it. These caves
15:15do not prove a lost civilization. They
15:17prove something subtler and maybe more
15:19important. That's the explanation we
15:21inherited may not fit the caves
15:23themselves because we still haven't
15:25fully explained them. Thanks so much for
15:28watching, guys. If you enjoyed this
15:29video, please consider leaving a like, a
15:31comment, or subscribing to my channel
15:33down below. I'll see you next time.

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