Written by Russell Burrows
I next began to look closely along the walls of the cave, and in so doing I came across another portal. Like the portals in the trap and in the cave’s entrance, it was sealed with cut and fitted blocks of stone. (Later I found more of these portals; I have explored no more than five hundred feet of the cave, but I have found thirteen of these so far.) I began to try to remove the fitted stones in this portal to see what lay behind them.
Those sealed-up doorways are, for the most part, hidden by the silt which has filled the cave and only the very top edge of the doorways can be seen. The blocks are of limestone, and most likely were cut from the inside of the crypts themselves, as these were hewn out. The measurements of the doorways are eight feet or so in height and three to four feet in width. These, of course, are just estimates.
After removing the top center block (not an easy task, as these are tightly fitted and obviously were placed there by expert stone workers) I poked my head inside. I was met with a strong, musty odor. Not of decay, but musty. As I moved my head and light around, I saw a full human skeleton reposing on a large block of stone. It scared the hell out of me! Then I began to see other things lying there with those bones. I saw axeheads, spear points, and something else – metal!
I knew that I was going to have to go in there. I really didn’t want to, but I just had to. While I had my head in the opening, I had the presence of mind to look over the inside of the doorway, to make certain that I could get back out. Then I backed out of the opening and re-entered feet first, so I could ease down to floor level. (The crypts are not filled with silt as the rest of the cave is.) I also noticed that the floor has a thick layer of dust, and I did not want to just drop down there and raise a cloud of the stuff. It would take forever to resettle.
I was able to just reach the floor by easing into the crypt, grasping the inner edge of the blocks and lowering myself down. At first I stood stock-still and had a good long look around before moving. It was obvious that this was no native American burial. It was something else.
I approached the bier upon which the skeleton lay. It was then that I could see that the metal tools I had observed from the doorway were made of bronze or copper.
The skeleton was laid out upon a solid block large enough to hold not only the remains but artifacts as well. The artifacts include axe heads of marble and other stone material, an axe head of what appears to be bronze, a short sword of what appears to be bronze, and other artifacts which might be considered personal weapons. There were also a set of three bronze spears, the longest being about six feet long and the shortest about three feet. These are just rough estimates, as I have never measured them exactly. I also noted several jars standing around in the crypt, and they are filled with a substance which appears to be some kind of clay.
The jars are very narrow with rounded bottoms and slightly flared tops. If memory serves, those jars range from a foot and a half to three feet or so in height.
The skeletal remains bear several fine artifacts such as arm bands, head bands and other such items, all of gold. I carefully looked over the bones of the skeleton for some sign of injury, but could find none. As far as I could determine from my own observation, this person must have died of natural causes.
There are many fine pure marble items lying there, arranged around the skeleton; the remains have some very fine artifacts lying both on the bones as well as inside the skeleton.
I later measured the remains and found that from the top of the skull to the bottom of the heel is close to six feet. I am not saying the fellow was six feet tall because I know that a skeleton is, after being denuded of flesh, longer then when the person was alive, this due to the bones and joints becoming detached.
By this time I had discovered other portals, and my next step was to open another crypt to see if the remains in the second were laid out in as fine a manner as in the first one. I chose the crypt next to the one I had just opened and gained entry. This crypt is most interesting. I entered in the same manner as before, that is, I removed a block from the top row.
The difference in this crypt is in the occupants. There are three, a female and two children. They are laid out side by side on a bier of stone.
When I first stuck my head through the opening of the second crypt and my light fell upon the skeleton of that woman, I noticed a glint of metal from her chest. After entering the tomb, I was surprised, and horrified, to see that the reflection I had seen was from a metal spear point embedded in a rib, in the area of the heart. It was gold. That woman had been murdered!
I was even more horrified to see that the children had also been murdered. Their skulls had been punctured in the area of the forehead. It was not until my third visit into that crypt that I was able to determine that those children had been killed with one of the marble axes which lay with other objects on the bier, between the woman and the children.
I tried fitting the axe heads into the wounds in the children’s skulls, and I found that one fit. Were these three people killed for a purpose, and was that purpose connected to the male entombed next door?
There was also a mask on the bier. It looked as though whoever had done the killing had covered his face with the mask, and left all the implements right there beside the bodies. This is my interpretation; someone else may see it in quite a different way.
The question “Why?” tormented me. I could not understand why something like this had been done. Who would kill a mother and her children, and why? Then it hit me! All three had been sacrificed.
As I knelt there beside that bier, looking at those pitiful remains, I became aware of the richness of their final resting place. There had to be a connection between this tomb and the one next to it. This woman and her two children could be the family of the man in the other tomb. I would have a revelation sometime later that would answer these questions, but it would come in such a way that it would frighten me half to death. I will explain that remark.
This event occurred on my last visit to that tomb. I had entered the cave and progressed inward to the burial crypts. As I stuck my head through the opening of the second tomb, I felt someone or something kiss me on the cheek. I also heard a woman’s voice say, “Where have you been for so long?”
I backed out of that crypt at the speed of light, and looked around to see who was in the cave with me. The experience was so startling that I did not realize that the kiss and voice had occurred inside the tomb. Did I actually hear the voice or was it a thought? I don’t know and I will never know. All I can say is, I did hear it, very clearly and distinctly. It was not an unpleasant voice, but rather it was rich and full of emotion. The kiss upon my cheek was not cold. It was very soft and warm and given with genuine affection, or so it seemed.
Now before any of you reach the conclusion that I am certifiable as a lunatic, let me tell you that I am not! That actually happened and I will never forget it.
I believe there are spirits there to guard the cave. Those spirits are not going to do anything as long as the cave and the remains of those buried there are treated with respect. Neither will they do anything so long as those studying the cave do not make an effort to use the cave to further their own interests.
I do not like being in those tombs: they give me a haunted feeling, worse than the cave itself does. I am reporting things just as I found them and describing them to the best of my ability. I did make several attempts to photograph these tombs, but up to now I have yet to have a single picture develop satisfactorily. To be sure, I don’t have a good camera and obviously my techniques are not the best, but I just have to wonder.