Episode #380: "Cart Ruts" in Stone II - Mystery Continues to be Unsolved

Summary

Brothers of the Serpent hosts Russ and Kyle Allen return to the mysterious 'cart ruts' carved into volcanic tuff in Turkey's ancient Phrygia region, reading listener theories ranging from ancient boats and dog sleds to flood-control rippers and 'Anunnaki segways.' Using drone footage and photos, they test each idea against puzzling features: ruts that cut through hard pebbles, climb hillsides, cross each other at random, and vanish into nothing. Despite comparisons to the Oregon Trail ruts and some back-of-the-envelope physics, they conclude the mystery remains unsolved.

Key takeaways

• 1The ruts in Turkey appear to have been cut after the volcanic tuff hardened, since embedded pebbles (some apparently basalt) are sheared flat flush with the rut walls instead of being pushed aside
• 2Listener 'the Watchman' proposed that dual-ruddered merchant ships in ancient Phrygia scraped the tracks, or that boats were hauled onto steerable carts for beaching, citing Herodotus, a stela from the reign of Ramses II, and the Persian Royal Road
• 3Oregon Trail ruts at Guernsey, Wyoming (Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site) were compared; they are up to five feet deep and are attributed to iron-rimmed wagon wheels grinding soft sandstone
• 4A listener described an Australian land regenerator who uses ripper tines on a front-end loader to cut water-catching trenches, suggesting the ruts were ancient flood-control channels above the valley town, where a modern flood wall now stands
• 5Sled, ski, and tracked-vehicle theories were rejected because rigid runners would jam in the ruts' gentle curves; the hosts floated a vehicle with small front steering wheels and wide rear drive wheels as a possible fit
• 6Joke theories included 'Anunnaki segways' fitted with Shamir-powered vibrating spiked wheels, and megalithic blocks whose 'nubs' slotted into the ruts to guide them

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

cart ruts are hard ladies and gentlemen like nubs but worse this is brothers of the serpent podcast i am russ allen i am in my studio where i am hiding from sam squanch and elder tours in the foothills of the appalachian mountains happy to be back yep i'm kyle allen and i'm in the still high atop the edwards plateau in the 10 by 10 by 10 tangent cube of science i haven't done an intro in a long time so nailed it you nailed it and we are also joined classically so oh yes by our good buddy the watcher the watcher let's bring the watcher in hey buddy uh-oh classic watcher hold on there we go fixed i'm coming to you slightly south of the edwards plateau looking up to kyle as i normally do great to be back um so excited every time we podcast so let's get to it thank you oh yeah man thank you cheers all right get out of here anyway the watcher will be in the background for those of you who aren't familiar with what he does uh he hasn't been able to be on the show uh for a long time recently but we're trying to we're trying to bring him back in so he sits in the background he's like a jamie but better our watcher so uh we'll you'll sometimes hear us ask him to pull stuff up or to look things up for us or and he just does it on his own he's constantly pulling things up and oh i have uh hold on i've got i have another guest hey oh a cat yeah come here come here he's he's never been on the show either come here oh gigantic oh my gosh...

Excerpt from Brothers of the Serpent, Jul 16, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.