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Zamacona discovers the history of the mysterious world. The K'nyanians are not the first advanced civilization of the world and have in fact built their society on top of another realm, which in turn had been built on another dark world even further beneath. They know little of the previous inhabitants, though it is implied that the K'nyanians' beasts of burden, a kind of quasi-mammalian quadruped, are the non-sentient degenerate descendants of the previous race, as they had first been found in the ruins of the older civilization. They also tell him of their exploration of the lightless realm, whose inhabitants worshipped a being known as
Tsathoggua, a worship the K'nyanians brought back with them, but was eventually outlawed after the discovery of a hideous secret in the dark realm that may have caused the extinction of its inhabitants (the descriptions of which resemble a
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encounters dematerialized beings patrolling the tunnel (they are prevented from making the narrator one more victim by the talisman of unidentifiable metal) as well as the remains of equipment brought by explorers before him, some of which now has become partially dematerialized. Driven to near-hysterics already, the narrator finally comes across a fully material entity at the sight of which his nerves completely break down, sending him fleeing wildly back to the surface. That entity is revealed to be the completely mutilated and reanimated corpse of
Zamacona with a message inscribed onto his chest in broken Spanish by the underground race. The message reads "Seized by the will of
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betrayed by one of his biologically modified slave creatures and was captured. T'la-yub was sentenced to unspeakable tortures and mutilations at the amphitheater and ended up as a headless zombie guarding the entrance, while
Zamacona was spared because they wished to extract more of his knowledge. Later on, he attempted another escape, which apparently resulted in the cylinder containing the scroll being deposited on the mound. His narrative ends quite hurriedly and abruptly.
302:, rather than Binger. It does not look like how Lovecraft described it, and is a natural formation. This is most likely the mound that inspired Zealia Bishop to present her story idea to Lovecraft. It is possible a second nearby mound, known as Dead Woman Mound, may also have inspired her. Unlike the first, there is no ghost story connected with it, though it gained its name when the buried body of a dead woman was found there.
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outside world until the last Ice Age forced them underground, fear it and refuse to let him leave, out of fear that he would tell his countrymen of their realm, and their boundless greed for gold would attract an invasion, something
Zamacona fears is inevitable, as more and more Europeans are arriving in the New World.
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As
Zamacona observed their decaying social condition and their reactions to his telling them of the surface people, he feared that they would one day decide to invade the outside world, where, given their advanced powers, they would be unstoppable. However, his hosts, who once had settlements on the
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explorer, almost 400 years prior. Zamacona recounts how he was a part of an expedition from Mexico to North
America, and how, through the help of a Native American, he discovered a vast underground world filled with grotesque temples, and populated by strange beasts and a highly advanced telepathic
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Eventually, Zamacona attempted to escape with T'la-yub, a female K'nyanian native who knew of an unguarded entrance to the surface world, carrying with him a cylinder containing a scroll that recorded his story, which he hoped would warn the surface world of the underground threat. However, he was
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which is haunted by a headless ghost. Lovecraft expanded the story into a tale about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan. The story was not published during
Lovecraft's lifetime. A heavily abridged version was published in the November 1940 issue of
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Lovecraft did not like this premise of what seemed to be a conventional ghost story. The outline was so brief it allowed for a great deal of license, so he made it into a 29,560 word story about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan, which one of the
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The narrator is shocked by this scroll but remains skeptical, so the next day he goes to the mound again for further investigation, repeatedly telling himself that this is an elaborate hoax. Upon digging in a depression on the mound, he discovers a staircase leading deep underground, where he
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orgies, and unspeakable horrors such as random body modifications and mutilations of other slave species as entertainment, in order to gratify their time-dulled senses. The bored inhabitants, desperate for new stimulation, are thrilled to have a visitor from the outer world, and through them,
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The K'nyanians had attained immortality and subjugated other races before them, had the technology to biologically modify vanquished races and other life-forms and reanimate the dead for use as slaves, and could dematerialize and rematerialize at will. The underground people also engaged in
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Upon discovering a scroll written in
Spanish in the cylinder, the narrator returns to his host and begins to translate it. The contents of the scroll, covering a large part of the narrative, describe the travels of one Pánfilo de Zamacona y Nuñez, an
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There are several mounds in the area, but not as described in the story. One of them is called the Ghost Mound and according to a local legend is haunted by ghosts. It is located closer to
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The story was not published during
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main characters enters and lives in for a while. The story is one of only three by
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to create a story based on the following plot synopsis: "There is an Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost. Sometimes it is a woman."
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in the story. Archaeologist and Lovecraft scholar Marc A. Beherec argues that the Tucson artifacts also influenced some of Lovecraft's other writings.
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Beherec, Marc A. (August 2008). "H. P. Lovecraft and the Archaeology of "Roman" Arizona".
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Short story by H. P. Lovecraft (ghostwriter) and Zealia Bishop (original idea)
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by Wordsworth Editions continue to use the abridged Derleth version.
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The story is narrated by an ethnologist who visits the town of
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from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by
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from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by
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Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
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1179:Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity
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561:A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson
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108:(Volume 35, Number 6, pages 98-120)
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1165:Supernatural Horror in Literature
967:The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
1529:Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft
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624:The Statement of Randolph Carter
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338:— film serial on a similar theme
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1309:An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia
1013:The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
1466:Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
435:An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia
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921:The Dreams in the Witch House
617:The Doom That Came to Sarnath
596:The Transition of Juan Romero
271:Lovecraft refers to the hoax
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981:At the Mountains of Madness
259:At the Mountains of Madness
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575:Beyond the Wall of Sleep
229:in the headless body of
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949:The Haunter of the Dark
876:The Colour Out of Space
750:Herbert West–Reanimator
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1316:Lovecraft: A Biography
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820:The Horror at Red Hook
265:The Shadow Out of Time
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335:The Phantom Empire
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708:The Nameless City
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1524:Ghostwriting
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1383:Robert Bloch
1356:Necronomicon
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1227:Herbert West
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892:Necronomicon
891:
834:In the Vault
806:The Festival
729:The Outsider
722:The Moon-Bog
694:Ex Oblivione
680:Nyarlathotep
516:Bibliography
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1460:Dream Cycle
1429:Adaptations
1287:Books about
673:From Beyond
370:"The Mound"
312:Weird Tales
306:Publication
246:ghostwriter
206:ritualistic
168:Weird Tales
154:ghostwriter
105:Weird Tales
95:Publication
36:ghostwriter
28:Short story
22:"The Mound"
1513:Categories
1215:Characters
652:The Temple
610:The Street
375:2010-10-07
352:References
194:Tsathoggua
59:Wikisource
1340:Cosmicism
1189:Locations
1073:The Mound
778:The Hound
666:CelephaĂŻs
468:The Mound
412:1935-6102
392:, Tucson.
346:The Mound
134:The Mound
1498:Category
1253:Azathoth
959:Novellas
942:The Book
841:Cool Air
771:Azathoth
638:The Tree
589:Old Bugs
547:The Tomb
420:26868379
328:See also
279:Location
231:T’la-yub
211:Shoggoth
189:Asturian
117:Magazine
81:Genre(s)
73:Language
1448:Related
1258:Cthulhu
1246:Deities
568:Polaris
237:Writing
227:K’n-yan
146:novella
76:English
65:Country
1402:Legacy
1273:Hastur
1206:R'lyeh
1196:Arkham
1150:Essays
1132:Poetry
1005:Novels
757:Hypnos
582:Memory
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285:Binger
202:sadism
139:horror
89:Horror
38:) and
1278:Dagon
554:Dagon
416:JSTOR
300:Hydro
137:is a
1455:Aklo
907:Ibid
439:ISBN
408:ISSN
262:and
175:Plot
287:in
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