Ever watch those dramatic history shows? The announcer tells you the story of an ancient civilization. Simple words transform a pile of rock in the home of ancient people with strange and dangerous customs. Let’s flex some imagination muscle and write our own.
My Pick
While hiking with my dog, I saw a hold-ridden log. The shape reminded me of a show I watched about machu picchu. I looked more closely and while they were most certainly bug holes, there was not a single bug currently in the log. Where had they all gone? And suddenly I’m off, inventing my own dramatic narration for this wooden ruin.
What to see what I came up with? Read on.
The Mysterious Ruins At MacArthur Log
For years, the ancient ruins at MacArthur Log have been a mystery. With hundreds of carved dwellings and terraces at the base of a small mountain, it is clear this was once a bustling metropolis for the exoskeletal. Now deserted, the mystery remains of how this log was used and what led to the site’s development. Was this an ancient worshiping ground dedicated to a mythical God or a once ordinary community that thrived until an unseen catastrophe?
Wild Terrain
Situated adjacent to MacArthur Road, the land on which the log rests has never been civilized. Rain and wind ravish the landscape. Large mammals trample the undergrown, eating or running at random. So what drew the ancient log inhabitants to such a place? Could it have been a stop along the trade route? For a clear trail lay just North of the log. Perhaps it was how early settlers arrived and traded with others at hidden insect marketplaces. Imagine them, bustling around sapling stalls – mushroom caps for roofs. The air smelling like black earth and filled with the buzz of a hundred antenna.
Or, perhaps the mountain was a sacred site, with the moss cultivated to look like the grass lawns of the two-legged giants. Though they live far to the North, across a lake of hard packed ground where no plants grow, they occasionally roam the woods. Could the log’s inhabitants have wanted to pay tribute to these massive mammals? Did they dance during full moons or hold feasts hoping to avoid the giant’s deadly wrath? Researchers are still speculating.
Insect Engineers
Clues to how the log was used may lie just below the surface. Beneath the peak and moss are a series of paths, caverns and terraces. Dozens of them were bored out, one atop another. The mastery of wood cutting and tunnel stabilization would be legendary in this time.
Many of the openings are circular, suggesting that the inhabitants might have had mandibles. The large outer jaws could have created such smooth and circular openings. What are beyond those openings? Homes? Food stores? With the erosion of the outer wall, we can see there are many holes and tunnels, of varying shape.
It’s been proposed that some of the holes served an industrious purpose. Situated at the top, these openings would have been ideal ways to catch and divert rain water. Instead of the the water simply draining to either side and being absorbed by the ground, the builders of this log estate might have created internal river ways and water holding areas. The water would come in and be led safely to a place it could be used later. Imagine the sound such rushing water would make inside small wooden tunnels. Did it wake small insects with its roar? Was the water storage part of the civilizations undoing?
Standing water is known to grow bacteria. Many are undetected, but lethal. Perhaps the population was sickened by the water stores and abandoned the log.
Another theory is that the water might have overflowed the stores, flooding the tunnels and forcing the inhabitants to flee.
Whatever happened, it took generations of inhabitants to create set an estate. They leave a fascinating legacy for us to wonder at if we only look and imagine.
Emily Refermat 