11–20 of 57 posts
Maybe it was like a safe. If people wanted to steel something it would take them a very long time and they would be very easy to stop from ever coming out alive.
Based on just this article, it seems far most likely to me that it was a place to hide during an attack. > And while three brave explorers in the 21st century once spent 48 hours in an erdstall, crawling to new sections whenever oxygen became scarce, it seems unlikely that they would have been constructed as hiding places, even temporary ones. Though they could have provided refuge for a small family, why would they…
This clandestine treatment would have made sense had the erdstall been built as escape routes in case of invaders, but this can’t have been their purpose. They only ever have one entrance, usually located beneath the floor of a church or farmhouse, or simply under the flagstones of a town square.
That SCREAMS "hidey hole in case of invaders", to me. Like the hole Saddam Hussein was discovered hiding in.
If the countryside is overrun with invaders, there's literally no place for peasants to escape to. But if you can safely hide until dark, you have a chance. If you can wait out until the invaders pass through to their objective (strategic castle, opposing force...), you survive.
Based on just this article, it seems far most likely to me that it was a place to hide during an attack. > And while three brave explorers in the 21st century once spent 48 hours in an erdstall, crawling to new sections whenever oxygen became scarce, it seems unlikely that they would have been constructed as hiding places, even temporary ones. Though they could have provided refuge for a small family, why would they…
There's zero reason to expect remnants of food, as well. It was not shelf(tunnel)-stable.
Maybe they needed a place to store the dodecahedrons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron
Weren't people much smaller in those days? Maybe adult men could have fit just fine.