Who built this Siberian summer palace… and why?

Just found this to me very interesting article. I never heard about this place or have any before hand knowledge about it, so i thought it might be the same for others in here, and we all like a little mystery.

Enjoy.

Experts still divided over mysterious 1,300-year-old fortress-like structure located on island in middle of lake.
With its island location and towering square walls that were once impenetrable, it looks at first glance to be an ancient fortress or kremlin to keep out enemies. Others believe the 1,300-year-old structure in rural Siberia has more mystical properties and might have been a summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory.

Archaeologists found clay tablets of human feet, faded coloured drawings on the plaster of the walls, giant gates and fragments of burnt wood. But nothing yet has provided a definitive answer as to why the structure was built, and excavation work continues.

SOURCE More pic's and info inside

Nice find!

What is more interesting to me is how we as a civilization can't explain something built a mere 1,300 yrs ago.

There has to be some record of it as it would have taken more than a few people to create, plan and then the inhabitants, either owners or servants must have at least talked about the project to family, friends through the years.

It's remote but certainly no summer cabin.

Thanx,

Peace

From the 2nd pic it looks kinda chinese, I'm curious why they chose to represent it that way.
Could be some sort of Chinese outpost or trade center maybe?
Are/were there any exploitable resources in the area?

Siberia is definitely a place with lots of history and some interesting mysteries!

S&F

Look likes a Summer Palace or Buddhist temple - the surrounding water would have helped to keep the temperatures down in the local micro-climate. A similar thing happens in the SF Bay Area where counties close to the water are cooler than the inland areas.

Here's a map layout of a Summer Palace in China:

4.bp.blogspot.com...

originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
From the 2nd pic it looks kinda chinese, I'm curious why they chose to represent it that way.
Could be some sort of Chinese outpost or trade center maybe?
Are/were there any exploitable resources in the area?

From the link look at the map and notice where it is located and you will notice it is in mongolian territory and just above Tibetan empire so I would expect it to look that way.

a reply to: jude11 im wondering if this place has only recently thawed out! maybe it has being covered in snow or ice for a milleinia an the last three hundred years its been on show to the puzzled locals

Anyone find this on any satellite imagery yet? I just spent a minute looking around the supposed area and am yet to pinpoint it.

Very cool stuff though; I'd like to pay a visit myself

a reply to: Mianeye

Further answer may lie at whatever dock once served this complex and there may be relics related to it in the lake sediment.

There are quite a few lost kingdoms and even empires whose name are now forgotten and whose civilizations passed from history, siberia is a huge portion of the worlds surface and is actually underpopulated though that was not always the case but raiding nomads and even hunnic and mongal as well as other hordes have all taken there toll and wiped entire cultures from history, look's kind of like an imperial enclosure in the chinese style though temple is probably more likely due to it's isolation with a monastic community, the large building would have been the temple as you walked through the gates and meant to impress so it would have been grandly decorated while the walls probably served as both defence and to created a sanctum, the number of buildings would suggest a sizable number of inhabitants but maybe buddhist monk's rather than christian.

Looks like a Tang dynasty piece of work to me, interesting. I would suggest it came about as a result of the An Lushan Rebellion and the fortress was a place of exile or retreat. Built with Chinese expertise and local workmen.

Neat find! My first thought was a religious retreat but perhaps it wasn't an island at the time of building, they do say the water level has risen since then. Since there's no heating in place it would have to be a summer retreat but what an idyllic place to spend the summer. Reminds me of the Scottish lochs that inspired so many poets.

Prester John's pad?

But really, lost kingdoms are only lost to succeeding generations, after all... most contemporary folks in the region knew about them.

Neat place, though... except for the mosquitoes, I'd imagine... which might explain the deserted and forgotten status?

a reply to: stormcell

Look likes a Summer Palace or Buddhist temple.

Could be both. There are, or rather were, cultic strains of Buddhism in which the ruler was venerated as a bodhisattva, a kind of god-king. Such cults existed in ancient Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Siam, the Khmer kingdom and elsewhere.

a reply to: Mianeye

Brilliant find, thank you for sharing.

It links the site to the Uighar mongols, who were the Mongol tribe in most contact with the Chinese (principally the Xi Xia) - therefore the Chinese style design is no surprise to me. They were also the only Mongol tribe to bother with reading / writing, etc so possibly this was a "cultured" site to receive embassies?

The location is certainly intriguing though.

As to why no explanation of the site, during the great migrations of Genghis Khan, the Uighars were basically the last to join and the reason for this being that they were busy moving their temples (dismantling and relocating) and moving all their scrolls, etc. This will all then have been absorbed into the new nation and then potentially lost. Few Mongol records survive - even the "Forbidden History of the Mongol" is based on Chinese copies rather than the original. Whilst this was centuries after this site was abandoned, it gives a clue as to what happened to Uighar records.

originally posted by: DigitalJedi805
Anyone find this on any satellite imagery yet? I just spent a minute looking around the supposed area and am yet to pinpoint it.

Very cool stuff though; I'd like to pay a visit myself

N50°37 - E97°23, you can search for "teri nuur" in google earth.

The lake seems very shallow, maybe the place was once on the shore?
The entire zone resembles a marsh so it could have been flooded progressively and made it an island.
It could be an outpost to protect the valley on the west side.

very nice btw

Did Marco Polo "Discover" America?
www.abovetopsecret.com...
At first I thought it might a complex far to the East as I was tempted to see if the Chinese had ventured that far east which they still could have,but obviously the complex was too far to the west and a long way off so it would be improbable that Marco Polo would have shilled there if he was hitching a ride to America,in any case nice find.