10,000 Ancient Caves Cover the Cliffs of Nepal’s Mustang Region

If you travel to the Mustang region of Nepal, you find yourself high up in the Himalayas. It is a harsh, dry, and windy landscape. But if you look closely at the steep, sandy cliffs rising above the Kali Gandaki River, you will see something strange. The rock walls are completely covered in small, dark holes.

These are the Mustang Sky Caves. There are an estimated 10,000 of these caves clustered together in the rock. And they were not made by wind or rain. Humans carved every single one of them directly into the side of the cliffs. Some of the holes sit more than 150 feet above the valley floor.

Built High In The Rock

The cliff walls here are made of a soft, crumbly sandstone. Thousands of years ago, people figured out they could easily dig into the rock to create shelters. But getting up there was not easy. To reach the caves, they had to scale the sheer cliff faces or use ropes and long wooden ladders.

Archaeologists think the caves were used for several reasons over the years. Around 3,000 years ago, they started as burial chambers. Hundreds of years later, when violent conflicts broke out in the area, people actually moved their families into the caves to hide from invading armies. The high spots made it impossible for enemies to surprise them. They could pull their ladders up and wait it out.

A Hidden Buddhist Center

Later on, the purpose of the caves changed again. By the 1400s, local people turned many of them into Buddhist monasteries and quiet meditation rooms.

Modern researchers have managed to climb into these high caves and found incredible things left behind. Some of the rooms are still covered in bright, painted murals showing Buddhist teachings. They also found thousands of ancient manuscripts hidden under the dust. Because the air up in the mountains is so dry and cold, the paper and paint stayed perfectly preserved for centuries.

Most of the caves are empty now. The wooden ladders rotted away a long time ago. This makes them incredibly difficult to reach today. But they still sit up on the cliffs, leaving a massive, artificial mystery right in the middle of the Himalayas.