Is Architectural history a lie? 

– The Tartarian Mudflood Conspiracy.

 

A basement window looking out to Murray Street - Gawler.

 Recently on the Haunts of Adelaide Facebook page, we have had a few conspiracy theories that certain older buildings in Adelaide were built by a highly advanced global empire that visited Australia (and other locations around the globe) pre-European settlement. The conspiracy is that the Tartarian global empire was intentionally erased, and that history was rewritten to make buildings seem younger and more modern.[1] Subscribers to the theory believe that a vast, technologically advanced empire arose in north-central Asia, and spread peacefully across the globe. They believe that approximately one hundred years ago a great cataclysm occurred that toppled the empire which led to many of its buildings being destroyed, and its history erased from records.[2]

European Cartographers often used the toponym ‘Tartary’ to describe Central Asia. The area was bound by the Caspian Sea, the Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. There were a multitude of different cultures living within this area. Tartary was not defined, nor did it represent one race of people. In modern terms, this area spans from the east of the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea and includes Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and Siberia.[3]

The Tartarian ‘theory’ was originated and perpetuated by pseudo-historians who combined a Russian fervour for their allegedly lost empire (Tartaria being the supposed real name of Russia according to some conspiracy believers) with an alternative historical chronology. Basically, the timeline we all know is actually much shorter in reality. This theory has then been picked up by influencers and shared as a fact being hidden by someone in authority – usually a shadow Government, the Rothschilds, the Illuminati or the Secret Owl Society. [4]

Buildings such as the Capitol in Washington, the Pyramids in Egypt, The Great Wall of China, and Bastian Star forts, such as seen in Portugal, Netherlands, and Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka was a Portuguese and Dutch colony, so no mystery how the design was utilized there). Here in Adelaide, buildings being assigned to the Tartarian include the Adelaide Town Hall, the General Post Office and the Edmund Wright Building. This is despite detailed records of design and photographic evidence of construction.

 One of the things that Tartarian conspiracy theory believers love to argue as a feature of Tartarian architecture is buildings with basement windows. If you look around Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Gawler, or Kapunda, you’ll see this common feature that allows light to get into basement rooms with pre-electric light (it is widely believed that Port Adelaide has lower basements because the city was ‘built up’ to stop tidal floods, however, there is no evidence of this. One would think if this were the case the original ground-level doors would be visible in what are now basements, and sub-basements, that were originally basements, would be present in all buildings).

Another feature of the conspiracy is that much of our history has been intentionally razed or destroyed by disasters and war. An example is the fire in the Norte-Dame de Paris, the 12th-century Roman Catholic cathedral in France was seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy more Tartarian architecture by conspiracy believers.[5]  Some believers in the theory cite Napoleon’s invasion of Russia as the beginning of the rewriting of Tartarian history and add that further World Wars destroyed much of what was left of the empire in the 20^th century. However, they do not cite how Napoleon’s army overcame the vastly superior weaponry of the Tartarian – as one must assume, a world power with such great architectural stills, would also have an advanced military and weaponry.[6]
  There is little reasoning offered on why such a coverup and rewriting of history has occurred. Much of the rhetoric involves believers riffing on old maps, weaving together narratives based on conjecture picking out small inconsistencies, and a flagrant disregard for documented history.
 There also seems to be little or no understanding of economic differences between now and two hundred years ago. Today, glass, steel and concrete are reasonably cheap to build with; stone, terracotta and marble are not. It was also much cheaper to hire skilled workers and labourers two hundred years ago than it is today.

© Allen Tiller 2025

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[1] Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, What Is the Lost Empire Of Tartaria?, Discover, (2023), https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-is-the-lost-empire-of-tartaria.

[2] Zach Mortice, ‘Inside the ‘Tartarian Empire,’ the QAnon of Architecture’, Bloomberg, (2021), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-27/inside-architecture-s-wildest-conspiracy-theory.

[3] Mark C. Elliot, "The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies". The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 59, (2000), pp. 603–646.

[4] Josie Adams, Inside the wild architecture conspiracy theory gaining traction online, The Spin Off, (2022), https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/14-01-2022/inside-the-wild-architecture-conspiracy-theory-gaining-traction-online.

[5] Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, What Is the Lost Empire Of Tartaria?, Discover, (2023), https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-is-the-lost-empire-of-tartaria.

[6] Zach Mortice, ‘Inside the ‘Tartarian Empire,’ the QAnon of Architecture’, Bloomberg, (2021), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-27/inside-architecture-s-wildest-conspiracy-theory.