|
It was, what had been known, as Asuai, the mountains with huge underground caves.
Known as a ‘HOLY’ site for those who chose to travel to it as ‘ pilgrims’.
Natives not iClones or assimilated beings.
The thermal volcanic magma had long before this moment in time.. left channels carved by the lava flows.
Tunnels with huge caverns that now housed the ones who had been revered as the ‘guardians; of the sheif.
The ones who had been waiting, to take their army out and slaughter any who dared oppose them.
Shansu. The one who had been revered as their God.. Bai Yu. NO ordinary Human(a).
Her people had seen over the centuries the evolution of these ‘ primitives’
Earlier settlements had seen the Shansu help them to build their civilization.
Trading with others. Established routes with outposts that overlooked and became secure places to stop, take a break, refresh, revitalize. The spread of skills.. knowledge and so much more in its wake.
Language. writing, knowledge, A water system. drainage, crops for food, their animals, husbandry.
Shelter with elaborate building structures. Protection with massive stone walled encampments.
The thermal springs giving them temperate pools within cavern to lay back, bathe.
Some early discoveries within the former lava tunnels had seen the highly toxic gases such as Hydrogen Sulfur Dioxides.. but also some acidic stalgnites, formed in lava tubes while molten and fluid lava is still active inside.
Their mineralogical composition, close to that of siliceous minerals commonly found in basalt for example, obsidian the main constituent of volcanic glass, is different. Found amongst the great granite enclaves..
Reinforced the defenses.
Formation / crystallization is also notably different from that of limestone stalagmites (CaCO3) but the common point is that it remains driven by gravity. Drops of molten lava (siliceous material, SiO2) solidify onto the floor of the already emptied lava tube, when the lava temperature sufficiently decreases after the passage and the complete purge of the main lava flow. Essentially, it is still the gravity deposition of material onto the floor of a cave (or a void).
However the difference from calcareous stalagmites is that the transport of siliceous material occurs in the molten state and not dissolved in aqueous solution; CO2 degassing does not play any significant role. With lava stalagmites, their formation also happens very quickly in only a matter of hours, days, or weeks, whereas limestone stalagmites may take up to thousands or hundred thousands of years.
A key difference with lava stalagmites is that once the molten lava has ceased flowing, so too will the stalagmites cease to grow. This means that if the lava stalagmites were to be broken, they would never grow back.
Stalagmites in lava tubes are rarer than their stalactite counterparts because during their formation, the dripping molten material most often falls onto still-moving lava flow which absorbs or carries the material away.
Molten rocks ie rocks that were heated or had been heated to extreme temperatures in some instances far higher than those used for Kilns to produce finished ceramics / pottery; could be used to process METALS..
Iron, Tin, Copper, Gold, Silver? !
Bronze ah yes. The sudden discovery of merging tin (or aluminum) with copper to produce it had seen it used extensively. The ancient ones known as the 三星堆; pinyin: Sānxīngduī. The holy site was protected by a race who were not interested in these or those primitives.
The main ‘hall’ had statues and other bronze now artifacts which for those allowed to enter had left them in some shock. Rituals with those wearing masks but each showed the elite amongst them AND represented the leaders of each ‘clan’.
Trespassing by those who sought to plunder or were simply hostile was NOT a good idea.
No mercy was shown to such intruders. Often beheaded.. and the heads sent back to the primitives to remind them NOT to enter their lands..
The Shansu.. were later inhabitants. Their culture was far later than the original 三星堆; pinyin: Sānxīngduī.
BUT they knew of them. Had acquired some of the knowledge left behind. Ancient tablets that were engraved with a strange language that they did not know.
Ancient Chinese well not so. A language a culture and so much more re that civilization; one that would leave those future wise astonished, bewildered by the sudden discovery and the realization after carbon dating of how old, how the chronology of this race had rewritten their time line.
|
