Posted: February 9, 2015 in Interesting History, Theology, Unusual Findings, Weird
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An Erdstall seems to be a mystery even to historians, they are a type of tunnel found in various locations around Europe. They are usually low and narrow tunnels with a feature that goes from a tunnel into a lower tunnel called a ‘schlupf’ and is too narrow for the elderly or large to navigate.

They only have one concealed entry point, there is no second exit and they are not often larger than 50 foot in length.

They have no materials to give any archaeological clues as to their use. the nature of the constructions do not suggest them being used a dwellings. Coal fire pits and a few other hints give a date range from 10-12th Century.

There are a fair few but they are not listed in Christian Kingdoms of the time. It is possible however it is due to them being used for Spiritual purposes of a non-Christian cult of belief. They have have been used to crawl through, in order to ritually remove the person from disease or from feelings of guilt.



Erdstall Ratgöbluckn Perg Eingang” by Pfeifferfranz (talk) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 at via Wikimedia Commons.

  1. Adeneye says:

    I think it’s funny that when historians don’t know what something was they always seem to say that it probably had religious (spiritual) significance or purpose. It’s like the default setting – I’m guessing because we we used to attribute more world phenomenon to superstitious origins that we would be idiotic enough to build a tunnel to get rid of bad hoodoo.

    Interesting article – thanks.

  2. psudowolf says:

    Possibly a kind of campsite? Being small like that would make it easy to defend as well as heat, providing a safe place to rest for the night. Additionally, no one would bother mentioning them for the same reason no one ever bothers to really describe what a modern campsite looks like-because everyone already knows what they are.

    Not that a spiritual site isn’t a bad guess, while humans are strange any time of day, they’re definitely at their strangest when the supernatural is involved, and there’s no telling how they’re going to express it from one day to the next.

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