Erdstall Tunnels were dug by kobolds

[Scott Anderson]

Okay, maybe not, but that's what I think of when I see how tight they are.


www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-mystery-of-europes-erdstall-tunnels?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_2592421

[scottenkainen]

I'm not sure why the article tries to attach so much mystery to these; the term "mining tunnel" is right there in the third paragraph, but then the article spins all these more fanciful theories.

[Deleted]

I live in Barovia Bavaria, and there are tunnels like that surrounding every bigger settlement here. Basically, there are two sorts of "Erdstall" tunnels:

Ones that are, simply, abandoned mining shafts from a time when mining operations were often based on trial-and-error digs. Like, you drive around here, you will find stuff like that everywhere.

The other ones, which apparently form only a very minor group, are more intriguing from a storyteller's point of view: Some of those tunnels are possible to have been underground churches, or Christo-pagan sanctuaries and gravesites. One of the more specific explanations I've heard was that they might have been shrines dedicated to the Roman "lares" - house and clan deities whose worship might have endured way beyond Christianization. Pagans went into hiding/were persecuted in Germany since the 9th century, so that checks out with the dates given for many of those tunnels, as well.



Now, the article in question is just responding to some German tinfoil-hat people apparently trying really, really hard to make this "a thing"; much serious, so Ancient Aliens.