More than a dozen tunnels have been found in Cornwall, England, the only one in the British Isles. No one knows why Iron Age people created them. The fact that the ancients used stones to support their tops and sides, suggests that they intended them to last for about 2,400 years.
Many of the misters, as they are called in Cornish by their cave name, ogo, were excavated by antiquarians who did not keep records, so their purpose is difficult to understand, one BBC Travel’s story about the mysterious structures says.
Cornwall’s landscape is covered with hundreds of ancient man-made stone features, including boundary walls, cliff castles, roundhouses, ramparts and forts. In terms of stone monuments, the Cornwall countryside has tombs, menhirs, dolmens, cairns and of course stone circles. There are also 13 engraved stones.
The Cornish landscape is dotted with ancient megalithic structures such as this Lanyon Quoit Megalith (public domain)
“It is clear that the entire construction of this monument did not take place at the same time. The Cornwall in Focus website says humans have left their mark on the planet’s surface for thousands of years, and each civilization has its own methods of honoring the dead and/or their gods ” .
The website says Cornwall has 74 Bronze Age structures, 80 Iron Age structures, 55 Neolithic sites and one Neolithic site. In addition, there are 9 Roman sites and 24 post-Roman sites. The Neolithic period dates from 8000 to 4500 BC, so humans have occupied this southwestern British peninsula for a very long time.
About 150 generations of people have worked on that land. But it is believed that the mist dates back to the Iron Age, which lasted from about 700 BC to 43 AD. Although unique, the fog tunnels in Cornwall are similar to tunnels in Scotland, Ireland, Normandy and Brittany, the BBC said.
Carn Euny Fogou in Cornwall (public domain)
The BBC said the smog required a significant investment of time and resources “and no one knows why they did it”. It is interesting to note that all 14 mists were found within the limits of prehistoric settlements.
Because this society was not yet literate, there were no documents explaining the mysterious structures.
Susan Greaney, head historian at English Heritage, told the BBC: “There are only a few structures that have been excavated in modern times – and they don’t seem to be really easy structures.” reveal their secrets”.
The mystery of their work is amplified at Halliggye Fogou, the best-preserved tunnel in Cornwall. It is 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) tall. The 8.4 meter (27.6 feet) long passage narrows at the end into a tunnel 4 meters (13.124 feet) long and 0.75 meters (2.46 feet) high.
Main room of Halliggye Fogou (public domain)
Another 27-meter (88.6-foot) long tunnel veers off to the left of the main chamber and gets darker as it goes. There is what the BBC calls “finally” at the end of this passage a cliff that one might stumble over.
“In other words, none of it seems designed to be easily accessible – a feature both iconic of the fog and disconcerting,” writes the BBC’s Amanda Ruggeri.
Halliggye Fogou. One of the largest and best-preserved mists (curious underground passages), this passage originally passed through the ramparts of a protected Iron Age settlement. ( geography.org.uk )
Some speculate these are places to hide, although the exteriors of many of them are visible and Ruggeri says they would ban the places if one sought refuge.
Still others speculate that they were burial chambers. An antiquarian who visited Halliggye in 1803 wrote that it contained urns. But the others entered through the hole he made in the roof, and all the pots disappeared. No bones or ash were discovered in the six tunnels that modern archaeologists have examined. No remains of grain were found, perhaps because the soil was acidic. No ingots from mining have been discovered.
This exclusion of storage, mining or burial purposes has led some to speculate that they were perhaps ceremonial or religious structures where people worshiped gods.
“These are lost religions,” said archaeologist James Gossip, who led Ruggeri on a tour of Halligye Fogou. “We don’t know what people are worshiping. There is no reason why they should not have a ceremonial and spiritual purpose as well as an archival purpose.”
He added that the purpose and uses of fog may have changed over the hundreds of years they have been in use.
