The Huashan Mystery Grottoes belong to Huangshan City, not Ma’anshan. A Ministry of Culture report places them east of Huangshan’s urban centre, among hills on the south bank of the Xin’an River. The report says they were formerly called the Ancient Huizhou Grotto Group. This setting matters: the chambers sit within the landscape of the Xin’an River and the historic Huizhou region, while remaining a distinct archaeological site from Mount Huangshan itself.
From the journal
Huashan Mystery Grottoes: chambers without a settled story
Human-cut chambers east of Huangshan City hold evidence of labour, while their date, purpose and makers remain unsettled.
In the same city · Huangshan ↗East of Huangshan City
Cut into rock, not a natural cave
The 2005 report describes the grottoes as human-cut rather than natural caves. It recorded 36 chambers found by that date and an archaeological area of seven square kilometres. The dated count conveys the scale of the discovery: people removed stone from inside the hills, leaving chambers whose shapes and distribution continue to invite investigation.
What the record does not resolve
The 2005 report notes objects used by experts to argue for a Western Jin date, then lists questions still open at that time: when the chambers were cut, what they were used for, where the stone went, how long the work continued and who carried it out. The proposed date sits beside these unresolved details. The grottoes remain striking precisely because their scale is visible while their makers and purpose are not.
Labour without a name
The Ministry’s account says no historical record explained such a large undertaking in the cultural centre of Xin’an. The cut chambers preserve evidence of labour, but not the names of the people who made them. Their scale invites questions about organization and purpose; the 2005 report leaves those questions open rather than assigning the site a military, religious or domestic function.