An Ancient Stairway to Heaven: The Mystery of Kalavantin Durg in India | Ancient Architects
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- Опубліковано 22 бер 2021
- When I first saw a picture of Kalavantin Durg, I thought it was just an unusual natural rock formation, but then I saw that it contained steep rock-cut steps all the way up to the summit. I needed to know more - what is this place?
Kalavantin Durg is located in Western Ghats, next to the Prabalgad fort in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, India, a popular trekking destination for locals and tourists alike.
It is 2,300 feet or 701 metres high and is often quoted as the world’s most dangerous fortress, yet is also famed as the ‘Climb to Heaven’ because of its dangerous nature and the incredible view that awaits when you reach the summit.
But when were the steps up to the summit of Kalavantin Durg made? And by who? And what's at the top? Watch this video to learn more.
All images are taken from Google Images for educational purposes only.
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My question how much more out of place structures are just sitting there unknown to us all
Incredible! Never heard of this but I'm glad you showed it to me. Absolutely breathe taking. Thanks and keep up the great vids!
I was fascinated but disapointed that being a geologist you do not remark on the nature of the rock. Is it volcanic?
Wonderful giant tree stump. I wish there was one old world tree left alive. Watch WIZE UP and MudFossil University on here, you wont regret it I promise.
I thought about it but thought I’d just focus on the historical side. But noted. Wish I had now!
I could spend 100 years in that country and not know 1% of what’s going on with how much historical data is there
True its vast, most people have no idea.
india is the birth of so many religions. there is something sacred there
Couldn't agree more!
Because they dont sell it out and turn it into a tourist hole then put up shops everywhere with souvenirs and t shirts and cheaply packaged food with waste and bins and then a rubbish depo and a management building and then a guard station and a ticket office and a theater and then start selling irrelevent hyped up novelties then demolish the original site to make room for the economy then fight over leases and rent and start a council to settle disputes and abuse their status and hire policing staff they can order around who arent fully aware of the structure and network and then need weapons to defend against irrational cases and retribution and start a media and news network to push their one sided story of how they are the good guys and the victims and breed a generation to educate their way to reinforce their corruption with a story of heroes and glory and parades and medals and show of force against who ever disagrees.... what temple? There was a temple?
Most Indians don't know either. It's quite overwhelming
Going up would be scary. Going down would be terrifying.
Damn straight!
My thoughts too. How do you pass someone going the opposite direction?
I could get to the top and fall all the way down
One gust of wind and you will be in heaven pretty quick
totally agree, if that guy didnt die 15 feet from the top he certainly would have on the way down.
India has some of the most impressive and beautiful sky temples.
Very true!
For sure, Asia in general
And they did not make any mistakes building them... (So they weren't human builders)
no stfu
@@sdaniel9129 bruh are you tripping or what
All you would need to defend that fort would be a bottle of baby oil.
I laughed out loud at that 😂
and some big stone marbles^^
@@AncientArchitects but seriously, though: brilliant idea. just look how steep, slender and polished these stair cases are. why wasting soldiers and weaponry when all you need is a mix of animal fat and palm tree oil! just climb up and butter the stairs. enjoy your safety and solitude.
@@phoneguy4637 ...and presumably wait until the rain washes away the animal fat and palm tree oil, otherwise you too will get to heaven sooner than intended :)
@@tccummins why so? just make sure the coast is clear and set the stuff on fire to burn it away.
You roll from the top down to get to heaven.
So true! 😂
Haha true true 😆
Lol
Without a doubt!
Heaven is a place on earth
This place still gives me nightmares! I don't have a huge fear of heights - I've claimed the Great Pyramid - & spent time in the mountains in South America,Greece,Scotland,Africa & Nepal, but,this was a last minute surprise trip & I really wasn't prepared for the sheer terror factor, it sounded far less steep ,like an easy up& down . I think that the Buddhist roots are the most likely, particularly listening to our tour guide. Truly terrifying climb,both going up AND possibly worse coming down,much of which I did backwards! The view was staggering, from the top,where we spent about an hour or two,before being prepared for the descent, thank goodness it was dry ,not too hot or windy. Thank you for doing a great piece on such an amazing and enigmatic place,it's incredible how many of these strange places there are around the world?! Very best wishes to you&your👋🌟💯✌
You climbed it!! My word - you are a braver person than me!
@@AncientArchitects Not brave at all,just more scared of loosing face in front of the group I was with!! In those days we all pushed each other into doing crazy things; the only regret I have though is it it was before mobile phones/cameras,so awesome memories,but,we travelled light. A bottle of water was more important than a camera,also there was nowhere to "post" the photos ,apart from an album & I was never that organised! On many of those trips/experiences it was more amazing ,getting your head around the fact that at some point ,people had climbed & cut those insane steps!
Yes, it's spine chilling , more than it looks in pics.
And coming down is more scary , when you face the big drop all the way.
In fact, the first time I climbed , thete was this thought popping up in my mind on many stretches... How will I manage coming down on this stretch?
Even more scary in monsoon.. yes , we too did some crazy adventures then
You can't climb the Great Pyramid. They'd arrest you if you tried.
@@JohnDoe-sr1dd many, MANY people have and will climb the pyramid. Although illegal
Drives me crazy when he keeps hanging on the last syllable!
Concurrrrrrrrrrr
That's the one thing I would change about this channel. At least he's not chills.
It makes him sound like a robot and makes me want to click off
born and brought up in this region and being a marathi myself I appreciate and thank you for your effort of bringing this beauty out for the world :) There is a tons of wonderful stuff in this region that needs to be properly explored.
btw, Queen Kalawantin is just a folklore. This region, as you showed, is mountainous and locals were/ are pretty adept in scaling to the top in no time. These stairs were built by the locals which helped them greatly for the purpose of surveillance.
@Lord K lol, why all grumpy, pumpkin?
Thank you for this local view, certainly appreciated. Lord K seems to be a very sad person.
Yeah, actually, people do care and people care that you needlessly spread negativity - Sort it out, you don't want to be a miserable person, your whole life. That's on you and you can start by not leaving comments like "nobody cares".
@Lord K unlike your comment, his actually relates to the content we all came here to see. You need a hug or something lol
Thanks for the information.
They probably had long ropes made of ganja back in the ancient times to help pull yourself up and also to hold on to in case you were about to fall. Even now, some well placed ropes could help people from falling to their deaths when trying to climb it.
India is a fascinating place , good to see you made this .
It really is!
that looks like one hell of a climb , think i'll pass on that .
@@kawasakikev8905 They've installed an escalator
Ya right... Poverty, misery and this..F&*k that. Nothern Greenland is more appealing
@@TravisFX so u r not gonna talk about homeless people of ur country
After seeing those photos, it's definitely off of my bucket list! sheesh!
Me too
There are many places in the world that I would love to go to, and at least as many that I have no desire to ever go to, this definitely one of the latter for me as well.
@@rofflestomp684 Those slippy steps to oblivion still haunt me!
@@claudiaxander Yea, definitely got some anxiety vibes, that guy on the wet and muddy steps on all fours a thousand some odd feet up told me everything I need to know. That, that climb is indeed the stuff of nightmares and that he is a fool who should at least pay more attention to the weather. Just insanity imo.
@@rofflestomp684 Anyone who goes there in the monsoon season is insane. Especially since this area is in the Western Ghats region which receives a lot of the rainfall
2:48 I swear his accent makes it sound like he said “he took over the fort from the Muggles.” 😹
Breathtaking indeed. I got winded just looking at all those steps.
No way I could do it 😂
No way I could do it 😂
Gave me vertigo
@@AncientArchitects, but just think Matt, once at the top, you could don a Wing Suit, and jump off and glide down.
I live just 30 Km away from the Fort. Yes you have described the fort perfectly as we know. However, word "Kalavantin" means a women with art skills...
@Abhi - thank you for translating "kalavantin". Wonder if it was a female artist who designed the stone steps leading all the way up; quite possibly a female disciple of the Buddha.
Your body of work is so fascinating and the pictures which are shown while you‘re telling everyhing are so accurate, entertaining and so well fitting! Keep it up, love from Germany
Thank you
I can't believe all these amazing places in India that Iam finding out about now.
Thanks for today's upload Matt.
Peace out!
❤
🐀🌸🐈🏵
Thanks for watching
there is a ton of amazing stonework in india. some much more intricately detailed than anywhere else on earth.
There are 2 million stone cut Hindu templates of all sizes and types qnd ages in India..
It's the stairway to heaven because when you trip/slip, that's where you're going
The Final Selfy
If I travel India this is on my list of places to go to. Thanks for that!
I am from India & I can say that our lifetime won't be enough to fully explore the country
@@Sathish_12 so true
It’s much easier to climb up than climb down big stairs like these. Wow!
I would climb up but need to take the elevator back down to the gift shop !
Breathtaking in more ways than one!
Wonder what the body count is for that stairway since it was carved
Put this in the search bar. The drone footage of this place is incredible. Makes your palms sweat. - Harihar Fort Trek | Trimbakeshwar | Maharashtra Trek | Drone Video
Love your channel man, always informative, keep up the great work sir!!
Thank you
The fort wall seen around 2:40 has a lot of "fitted" polygonal stonework blocks similar to the megalithic (but much larger) technique used in many locations, such as Cuzco, Peru. Very interesting.
Please keep the content coming, not biased and accurate,always interesting!
Another great video Matt, I look forwards to your uploads!
Its Awesome to have so much new content from the greatest channel on the tube. Thank You!🙏❤️👍
Check out Harihar fort & Malang gad fort from the same state! They also has amazing rock cut steps!
Actually State of Maharashtra has 350 ancient/medival forts!! They so beautiful!!
Showing your researching prowess Mate, a true Ancient Architecture enthusiasts channel, I'm glad you're here doing what you do so well.. Aussie Dazz.
Probably a path of enlightenment/meditation for the monks
I think you’re right
At 4:36 you can see that there is what seem to be older eroded stairs. And that they later made more new stairs on top of it.
Do you also see the big whole looking like a entrance @ 3:39 left bottom corner ?
@@T0Mdisstroya Wow, that hole is pretty big. I wonder if it is an entrance?
I wonder if those "old stairs" are for a person going up to stand on to let someone else pass by and continue going down? Just a thought.
I really liked this short video. I never heard of this before.
i'd go two steps up and be like, there, i climbed it. no way i'd go much higher than that. thanks as always Matt! great find and presentation.
Wow, imagine the hard work that went into making those stairs. Amazing.
Thanks for another fun vicarious trip. My knees are shaking...
I love seeing evidence of people from ancient times. To be able to look at something like this, and to know they were made by people thousands of years ago, really lets me feel that connection to them.
Dude! I'm sure you must get this a lot. I love your videos :) They are so informative and your enthusiasm is great. Its just your inflection man! The way you end each sentence doesn't need to end like that. You always seem to hit the same note. No disrespect but it kind of distracts me. Still I do like your videos . Its hard to get over.
This durg is really pops in the monsoon as everything turns green, but its comes with a great risk, because of the rain
I'm so stoked when I see a new video from you.
Thanks for the tour. My legs tingled at the climb. Incredible.
It's true . It's scarier and more dangerous coming down ,but more psychologically too. The steep incline and you are facing the drop . Sometimes we used to sit and get down, some places ,turn towards the mountain and crawl down. Specially in monsoon , one of my favourite and thrilling treks.
Like a cat stuck in a tree. Call the fire dept!
You...are...insane...
😀 I was
Beautiful - thank you
Cheers
Felt vertigo looking at the picture of the climber in the rain
Wow! That is amazing! Thank you for showing this to us.
That is why I am subscribed. More like please. You rule, Matt.
How many died cutting those steps? Looks like some Buddhist sites in Nepal and Tibet with the height and danger.
This is in Maharashtra, in shyadri range, in india
There is a similar structure in France with a chapel on top of it, I believe it is a former volcanic outplume that the weather erosion has removed the outside of, obviously it would make a terrible fort as it has no water reservoir
This region is part of the ancient Deccan Trapp eruption that happened 66 millions ago.So i too think this could be one of those volcanic vents.
That's at Le Puy-en-Velay. It is a St Michel chapel though.
I live near it. And do trekk here often. It's weird hearing so much about Kalavintin even when I'm a regular. And yes it's deadly and it's illegal to climb it after 6:00pm.
🇮🇳🚩
Wow, that's pretty impressive.... Thanks for making this informative video, always look forward to what's next.
Perhaps this is a petrified tree stump from the era of the smaller Earth, when gravity was weaker than it is now, and when flora and fauna grew much bigger than they are now.
For instance: 4th Revolt - Dennis McCarthy - Expanding Earth. Or Expansion Tectonics by Dr. James Maxlow. And maybe the smaller Earth without oceanic plates has been not two hundred millions years ago but much closer to present time. Possibly the conventional age dating of the basalt is based on wrong premises.
Great information, thank you!
Excellent. I've watched every video available on Kalavantin Durg.
Fascinating place. This is really just an introductory video.
@@AncientArchitects Brilliant. I'll look fwd to seeing your next instalment.
"It's called the stairway to Heaven..."
Because if you trip that's where you'll wake up!
I wonder how many people climbed those stairs but regretted that when they had to go down again.
Good point... going up something is always easier than going down.
Every single one of them!
A superb explanation
ಬಾರೀ ಎಡ್ಡೆ ಉಂಡು ಮಾತೆರ್ಲ ತೂವೋಲಿ 👍👍🙏🙏
That's a good one, I hadn't seen this before. Cheers. I love solid old stone staircases, always a joy when visiting old castles.
That was interesting, I never heard of the place. Learned something new
I'm excited to be here!
Always interested in this area. Thanks for finding this!
Thanks for being here
I'll be chanting mantras for Maa Durga if I ever go there. It's too scary.
If you’re going to explore, this place will test you your metal...... It’s mental.
Excellent content! Well presented! Thank you!
Never heard of this before. Very cool!
Jai Maharashtra! Jai Shivaji!
Super bad ass! Love the stuff you come up with!
Looks like a tower of babel. Lol. Literally. Like the ones you see in all the paintings. AMAZING. I guess if u climb it, it's your funeral lol that's CRAZY 🤪
The one we've see in paintings is real too. It is in Iraq.
Yeah. The new one is in Strasbourg. The EU Parliament building. lol
amazing , thank you
New one for me as well. Thanks brother!
I imagine it to be both, fort and meditation place. and yes, I wouldn't dare to try the stairs. just imagine being on your way on one of these stairs and other hikers are coming down... how would you solve this?
one way would be having only one set of hikers go up and wait til they all come back down before sending another set.either way its a ridiculously terrifying set of stairs. there seem to be some rest areas, its not all nightmare fuel, but there is no saving you on those stairs.
"How high did you say the global flood was gonna be?"
"2280 feet"
"K we should be good"
In monsoon it's looks next level
Amazing!!!🙀
Awesome place!
In this video at 3:38 there appears to be an opening into the interior! I am quite curious; if there have been explorations of the same. Could this tower be the remaining ruins of a precataclysm/ante-reset building? I say, "yes."
Perhaps the man who fell, in 2018, was attempting to reach it.
Fascinating. 👍.
I think its more likely a place that was made for sky burials. There was a lot of migration during that period of history so it was common for for displaced people from the more Northern regions to seek out natural spires to offer corpses for vultures to consume and take to the heavens. There are similar occurrences around India that match that time frame.
That's insane.
Yep!
Yes, it's spine chilling , more than it looks in pics.
And coming down is more scary , when you face the big drop all the way.
In fact, the first time I climbed , thete was this thought popping up in my mind on many stretches... How will I manage coming down on this stretch?
Even more scary in monsoon.. yes , we too did some crazy adventures then
I went there recently awesome experience.🚩
🤘😜🤘
🤘
Awesomeness
It's very very hard to climb. It took 2+ hrs for climbing. I live 70miles from it
How long to come down? Seems like coming down would be the scary part.
@@imnotabotrlyimnot 1 hr or so. Yep it's really scary to come down lol. Also during rains it becomes 10× scary as everything is slippery and it's foggy up there. But it's very adventurous/ adrenaline pumping. And the view is dope
Really informative content, subscribed. Interestingly the Anglo Saxon for fort is Burg.
Any etymologists in the house?
If you explore photos on google maps/earth the amount of locations carved out of the mountainside is seemingly uncountable
Thanks
👍
Awesome👍👍
How much of the Kalavantin Durg was excavated out? I saw multiple cave entrances in the photos.
Thank you for speaking !!!!!
I'm going blind and can't read the print that is on the screen ,,,, but I can listen and gain knowledge
Thank you !!!!
@D Hill ,,,, I use a bright light so I can see the keyboard and a strong magnifying glass ,,,, my nephew helps me sometimes
That's actually pretty cool
I were you, I would try to pick a clear day in Scotland (good luck) and climb to the peak of Tap 'O Noth. Incredible views on a clear day. I was lucky back in 1981 when I visited. It is a lot closer to you.
Absolutely frightening
thanks.
👍
Dude that was awesome 🙂
I got light-headed just looking at the downward-view step photos.
Nope Nope Nope
I'd like to see a full lidar scan of both peaks, surely there's caves!
GREAT VIDEO ! - THANKS ! ; )
No way I climb up that death trap!
Amazing and beautiful but N to the OPE! I'm not particularly afraid of heights and loved skydiving, but something about that made my stomach twist. (Shudders)
Asia has so many hidden mysteries
Talk about the al magar civilization and great work man 🌹