Message #19161

[Bianca]

In 1936, alongside the Olguidakh ("place with a cauldron") River, a geologist directed by elderly natives came upon a smooth metal hemisphere, reddish in colour, protruding from the ground with such a sharp edge that it "cut a fingernail". Its walls were about two centimetres thick and it stuck out of the ground roughly a fifth of its diameter. It stood leaning over so that it was possible to ride under it on a reindeer. The geologist despatched a description of it to Yakutsk, the regional centre. In 1979, an archaeological expedition from Yakutsk attempted to find the hemisphere he had discovered. The team members had with them a guide who had seen the structure several times in his youth, but he said that the area was greatly changed and so they failed to find anything. It must be said that in that locality you can pass within 10 paces of something and not notice it, so earlier discoveries have been pure luck.
Back in 1853, R. Maak, a noted explorer of the region, wrote: "In Suntar [a Yakut settlement] I was told that in the upper reaches of the Viliuy there is a stream called Algy timirbit (which translates as "the large cauldron sank") flowing into the Viliuy. Close to its bank in the forest there is a gigantic cauldron made of copper. Its size is unknown as only the rim is visible above the ground, but several trees grow within it…"
The same thing was recorded by N. D. Arkhipov, a researcher into the ancient cultures of Yakutia: "Among the population of the Viliuy basin there is a legend from ancient times about the existence in the upper reaches of that river of bronze cauldrons or olguis. This legend deserves attention as the areas that are the supposed location of the mythical cauldrons contain several streams with the name Olguidakh— 'Cauldron Stream'."