The Sky Caves of Mustang
In the cliffs of a remote Himalayan kingdom are some 10,000 caves, many high above the ground, with no obvious way to reach them.
What was reported
In Upper Mustang, a remote former kingdom in northern Nepal near the Tibetan border, the cliffs of the Kali Gandaki valley are honeycombed with caves, some stacked several storeys high and cut into sheer rock faces far above the valley floor. There may be around 10,000 of them.
Who carved them, when, and how people climbed up to them has long been a mystery. Local people had no clear memory of their origins.
Explanations offered
Since the 1990s, teams of climbers and archaeologists have reached some caves and found that they were used over thousands of years, as homes, storage, meditation chambers and places for the dead. They found Buddhist manuscripts, wall paintings and everyday objects. How people reached the highest caves is still not fully understood.
- When
- Carved up to 3,000 years ago
- Where
- Upper Mustang, Nepal
- Witnesses
- Villagers, climbers and archaeologists
- Status
- Partly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.