The oldest dental cavities on a mammal date back 54 million years. As a matter of fact, experts have stated that cavities were actually quite common in early primates, specifically Microsyops latidens which were alive during the Early Eocene Period. Dental cavities have been found in more than 7% of the fossils belonging to that species.

While there isn’t much information regarding the Microsyops latidens species since they have no living descendants, experts believe that they lived in trees and ate fruits as well as insects.

There were a total of 1,030 dental fossils (jaws and teeth) that were found in Wyoming’s Southern Bighorn Basin that span a time frame of approximately 544,000 years during the Early Eocene Period. Of those samples, 77 of them (or 7.48%) contained cavities. The researchers stated that this is the “largest sample to date of fossil caries in a single extinct mammal species,” and the “earliest known sample of dental caries in an extinct mammal.” Another extinct primate that lived about 12.5 million years ago previously held the record for the oldest dental cavity until now.

As for what caused the cavities, scientists think that they were probably due to the consumption of sweet fruits and other sugary foods. Cavities form when mouth bacteria eats away sugar that is on the teeth and delivers a very acidic by-product that then eats the dental tissue; therefore creating a hole (cavity).

Additionally, the changes in the cavities throughout that time period suggested that the primates varied their food habits with some containing more sugar than others (the oldest and youngest fossils had the fewest number of cavities). This may have been caused by the climate fluctuating during the Early Eocene Period that could have affected vegetation and food.

Keegan Selig from the University of Toronto Scarborough explained this further, “We cannot be 100% certain that it was fruit that caused these cavities in M. Latidens. Other factors such as the pH and biochemistry of the mouth might also produce cavities,” adding, “But fruit, and specifically sugar, are major culprits in producing cavities, just like in our own mouths today.”

Some of the cavities found in the Microsyops latidens teeth were quite minor while others were severe. Experts are unsure whether or not the cavities had an effect on the primates’ health, but as Selig explained, “…having cavities, especially large ones, can lead to many health problems” like having an infection, soreness while chewing, and even losing the tooth. (A picture of an upper jaw with two cavities can be seen here.)

Part of the upper jaw from Microsyops latidens with two caries (cavities).

Credit: Keegan Selig

The study was published in Scientific Reports where it can be read in full.

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12-09-2021 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

It’s no secret that current Americans and residents of North American going all the way back to the first European on this land give the indigenous people of the land little credit for much of anything. A recent discovery in Louisiana changed that for some archeologists and possibly for some engineers – the massive earthen structures at a place ironically called Poverty Point were constructed in mere weeks yet have managed to solidly survive for 3,400 years. Some people living in buildings in the path of recent hurricanes may want to pay attention.

“We as a research community — and population as a whole — have undervalued native people and their ability to do this work and to do it quickly in the ways they did. One of the most remarkable things is that these earthworks have held together for more than 3,000 years with no failure or major erosion. By comparison, modern bridges, highways and dams fail with amazing regularity because building things out of dirt is more complicated than you would think. They really were incredible engineers with very sophisticated technical knowledge.”

Tristram R. “T.R.” Kidder, anthropology professor and lead author of the study published in the journal Southeastern Archeology, explains in a Washington University in St. Louis press release how his team of anthropologists used radiocarbon dating, microscopic analysis of soils and magnetic measurements of soils to study the Poverty Point World Heritage site in northern Louisiana. The massive mound is 72 feet high with concentric circles in front of it. It was made, starting in 1700 BCE, with nearly 2 million cubic yards of soil hauled, mixed and assembled by a hunter-fisher-gatherer culture without sophisticated tools, domesticated animals, wheeled carts or any other aids. Kidder believes the construction was completed in lifts, or layers of sediment deposited to increase the ridge height and linear dimensions before another layer was placed to expand the mound vertically and horizontally. Amazingly, there is no evidence of weathering between the layers, indicating they were built rapidly and the entire 2 million cubic yards hit 72 feet in a matter of weeks.

“Similar to the Roman concrete or rammed earth in China, Native Americans discovered sophisticated ways of mixing different types of materials to make them virtually indestructible, despite not being compacted. There’s some magic there that our modern engineers have not been able to figure out yet.”

Will they ever figure it out? Kidder thinks these Native American engineers descended from the original people who crossed the Bering Strait land bridge 15,000 years ago. The variety and magnitude of artifacts found there indicates it may have been a major trading center when the mound was built, providing the engineers with a large labor pool to haul, mix and pile the soil. Holes indicate that houses were built on the mound, but it appears news of the sheer magnitude of it spread and the mound became an important religious site where Native Americans came in pilgrimage.

An aerial view of the earthworks at Poverty Point. Excerpt from USDA Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service aerial photograph CTK-2BB-125.

Aerial photograph taken November 11, 1960.

While the mounds have stood for 3,400 years through hurricanes, heavy rains, flooding and erosion, the Native American builders didn’t. It appears they moved out around 1100 BCE due to hurricanes, heavy rains, flooding and erosion – i.e., climate change.

The mound at Poverty Point is not the most famous – the Serpent Mound in Ohio is – but perhaps it should be. Will modern engineers learn anything from these underappreciated yet obviously talented Native American builders? Possibly. Will the mound help today’s Americans better appreciate the talented people who lived here long before the Europeans? Has anything else managed to do that? Will climate change force modern people to abandon the structures they build? Definitely. How long will those structures last? You know the answer.

We must never stop learning about – and learning from – the past.

RELATED VIDEO AND PHOTOS, selected and posted by peter2011

The mounds still rise as much as 66 feet above ground, more than 3,000 years after they were constructed. 

(howderfamily.com via Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Archaeologists investigated the construction process for the earthworks. 

(Southeastern Archaeology)

A new study sheds light on the "sophisticated" engineering work by early Native Americans at the World Heritage Site at Poverty Point, Louisiana.

Phys Org.

“This in and of itself is remarkable because hunter-gatherers aren’t supposed to be able to do these activities,” Washington University anthropologist Tristram Kidder said.

Phys Org.

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12-09-2021 om 22:59 geschreven door peter  

Wetenschappers ontdekken fossiele ‘vliegende draak’ in Chileense woestijn

In de Chileense Atacamawoestijn hebben archeologen fossiele resten ontdekt van een prehistorisch dier dat zich laat omschrijven als ‘een vliegende draak’. Zo'n 200 tot 150 miljoen jaar geleden vloog de pterosaurus, voorzien van een lange staart, vleugels en scherpe uitstekende tanden, er zijn rondjes.

David van der Heeden  

Het vliegende reptiel behoort tot een groep die al eerder op het noordelijk halfrond werd ontdekt. Naar nu blijkt heeft het zo uit Jurassic Park weggevlogen monster ook in Zuid-Amerika zijn vleugels uitgeslagen. De versteende botten van het dier werden al in 2009 ontdekt door de directeur van het natuurhistorisch museum van de Atacamawoestijn en werden jarenlang onderzocht door wetenschappers van de universiteit van Chili.

De ontdekking vormt het eerste bewijs dat de pterosauriërs - de eerste gewervelde dieren die konden vliegen, voorlopers van de Pterodactylus - ook op het zuidelijk halfrond voorkwamen. “Dit toont aan dat de dieren in deze groep wijder verspreid waren dan we tot nu toe wisten”, zegt onderzoeksleider Jhonatan Alarcon. De bevindingen van het team zijn gepubliceerd in wetenschapsjournaal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Migreren

Het is overigens niet zo dat deze Rhamphorhynchus - vernoemd naar de groep waartoe de voorwereldlijke fladderaar behoorde - ongeschonden uit de grond werd gehaald. De deskundigen moesten het doen met een stuk bot uit de voorpoot, een mogelijke ruggenwervel en een gedeeltelijk vleugelkootje. Genoeg bewijs echter om de ‘koning van de lucht’ aan Zuid-Amerika te linken.

Wetenschappers denken dat de zuidelijke landmassa’s tijdens de Jura-periode aan elkaar zaten. Een supercontinent dat Gondwana wordt genoemd. Mogelijk de reden waarom andere leden van de dierengroep ook op Cuba zijn gevonden. “Waarschijnlijk vlogen ze van noord naar zuid”, aldus Alarcon. “Misschien zijn ze hier ooit aangekomen en gebleven, we weten het niet.”

Viseter

Hoe groot het fabelachtige wezen precies was, schrijven de experts niet. Er zijn aanwijzingen dat het om een dier van ‘gemiddelde grootte’ ging. Een volwassen exemplaar. Sommige familieleden konden echter een vleugelspanwijdte van bijna twee meter bereiken, zo is bekend. Van Rhamphorhynchus zijn meer volledige skeletten gevonden dan van welk andere pterosauriërs maar ook. Hij had een spitse kop, zwemvliezen en at vis.

De Atacamawoestijn is een immens groot gebied, dat ooit onder het water van de Stille Oceaan schuilging. Nu oogt het als een maanlandschap. Sommige delen van de woestenij hebben al tientallen jaren geen regen gezien. Er zijn alleen stenen en zand te vinden. En fossielen voor wie zijn schep in de grond steekt. Het gebied staat bekend om zijn fossiele vondsten. Veel ervan worden net onder het dorre oppervlak gevonden.

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12-09-2021 om 00:32 geschreven door peter  

The Great Salt Lake Enigma: Science Shows Anomalies – Evidence of a Global Flood?

When the first American settlers reached the shore of the Great Salt Lake in the middle of the 19th century, many of them believed that this vast inland sea was a remnant of the floodwaters that had swept across the whole Earth in the Great Deluge. At that time, the acceptance of the Biblical deluge as a real and historical event was as universal as the flood itself was believed to be, among the educated and uneducated alike.

The Great Salt Lake of Utah, USA. 1875.

( CC BY 2.0 )

The currently accepted explanation of the Great Salt Lake’s formation is much more prosaic. According to geologists, the Great Salt Lake (Utah, USA) is a remnant of a once much larger lake named Lake Bonneville that has since largely evaporated away. Supposedly, Lake Bonneville grew to such a large size because the region experienced much more precipitation during the Ice Age compared to today, and has shrunk to its present size due to decreasing rainfall following the ending of the last Ice Age. Also, scientists say that the Great Salt Lake’s salts originate from the rivers that bring in small amounts of dissolved salts, which then accumulate in the lake because it has no outlet. Utah’s official state website confirms this: “[it] is salty because it does not have an outlet. Tributary rivers are constantly bringing in small amounts of salt dissolved in their fresh water flow. Once in the Great Salt Lake much of the water evaporates leaving the salt behind.” In this article, I shall argue against the currently accepted explanation of the Great Salt Lake’s origins and attempt to rehabilitate the long-dismissed hypothesis of its oceanic origins.

Origins of The Great Salt Lake

Let us examine the official explanation of the origin of the Great Salt Lake’s salts line by line.

ISS/NASA imagery of the Great Salt Lake. Great Salt Lake, Utah, to the right (east) are the Wasatch Mountains, to the lower right is Salt Lake City, Utah.

( Public Domain )

First, it is stated that “[the Great Salt Lake] is salty because it does not have an outlet.” I will not dispute that the second part of this statement, namely “it does not have an outlet” is true. The Great Salt Lake certainly does not have an outlet, meaning that rivers flow into the lake (the Bear, Weber, and Provo/Jordan rivers), but no rivers flow out. Such a lake is a specific example of a general class of lakes called endorheic lakes, and the drainage basins within which these lakes are found are called endorheic basins, which are drainage basins from which no rivers flow out. The vast majority of the millions of lakes found across the world are not endorheic lakes; that is, almost all lakes have rivers that flow out of them, as well as into them.

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The second statement in the Utah state website’s official explanation reads: “tributary rivers are constantly bringing in small amounts of salt dissolved in their fresh water flow.” This statement is also true, as can be verified by a Scientific American article written by Arthur Pillsbury:

“All natural waters, including those described as fresh, contain salts. A virgin stream emerging from a mountain watershed may contain as little as 50 parts per miIlion p.p.m.) of "salt," or total dissolved solids. Ocean water averages about 35,000 p.p.m., or about 3.5 percent, of dissolved solids.”

Mr. Pillsbury then goes on to emphasize that the word “salts,” in this context, does not mean only sodium and chloride, which are the primary constituents of the familiar table salt, but other ions, including but not limited to sodium, chloride, sulfate, potassium, calcium, and carbonate. Later on, he explains how these streams end up containing these minute concentrations of salt, namely through the action of weathering and erosion:

“Weathering takes place under conditions where there is ample opportunity for the mineral crystals that constitute rock to oxidize. Although weathering embraces physical, chemical and biological processes, the physical processes are pervasive and central. Mechanical action fractures rock, exposing a far greater surface area to weathering agents. For example, the alternate freezing and thawing of water in the crevices of the rock exerts forces of compression and expansion that can break down the strongest material. Flowing water, wind and the grinding action of rocks in the bed of streams and the bottom of glaciers all contribute to physical weathering. Weathering manufactures both salts and the particles of rock that are borne from the uplands to the lowlands, where they are the principal constituents of soil. ”

So far so good, or so it seems. What, then, are some inferences that can be drawn from these facts?

The Source of the Salt

First, is that the specific salt composition of rivers that drain a watershed will differ depending on the specific rocks and soils that make up the watershed. Given that different regions of the earth exhibit a great diversity of rocks and soils, one should expect that the profile of dissolved salts found in different rivers should correspondingly exhibit a great diversity. These conclusions are not merely plausible, but are in fact true, as can be verified by Table 5.3, which confirms that fresh waters that drain different types of rocks differ significantly in their distribution of dissolved salts.

Table 5.3 [Chart obtained from Tundisi, J. G., and Takako Matsumura. Tundisi. Limnology. Boca Raton: CRC, 2012. Print.]

And by extension, since it is these very salts dissolved in these rivers that are carried to the endorheic lakes, the salt compositions of these rivers determine the salt compositions of the lakes. So we should expect the distribution of dissolved salts in a river flowing into an endorheic lake to be similar to the distribution of dissolved salts in the endorheic lake itself—as the salts dissolved in the endorheic lake originate from these selfsame rivers.

By contrast, the salt composition of seawater is not determined by merely the salt composition of a particular river and the rocks and soils that are found in the specific watershed that this given river drains, but is rather determined by the average of all of the salt concentrations of all of the world’s rivers and the corresponding watersheds that these rivers drained averaged over the entire billions of years over which the oceans have existed.

Great Salt Lake, Utah.

(John Morgan/ CC BY 2.0 )

Given these facts, if the currently accepted geological theory of the origin of the Great Salt Lake’s salts is correct, which is, as was described earlier, that these salts were eroded from the rock and soils within the Great Salt Lake’s watershed and then carried by rivers into the lake, then one would most certainly not expect the Great Salt Lake to have a salt composition that is nearly identical to that of seawater, as this would mean that the chemical composition of the rocks and soils that comprise the Great Salt Lake’s watershed and the salts that they generate upon being eroded happened to be nearly identical to average of the salt compositions of all of the worlds’ rivers averaged over billions of years.

Given that the Great Salt Lake watershed comprises less than a thousandth of the Earth’s total land area, this would be, to say the least, a most remarkable coincidence, since that would imply that a randomly picked and relatively tiny swath of the surface of the earth would have nearly the same distribution of rocks and soils as the average distribution of rocks and soils over the entire earth.

Table 4.5 [Adey, Walter H., and Karen Loveland.

"Physical Environment." Dynamic Aquaria: Building Living Ecosystems. San Diego: Academic, 1991. N. pag. Print.]

Chart of Various Salts in Lakes [information for chart obtained from table shown in table2.png + information about ocean from public domain Adey, Walter H., and Karen Loveland.

"Physical Environment." Dynamic Aquaria: Building Living Ecosystems. San Diego: Academic, 1991. N. pag. Print.]

And yet this most unlikeliest of coincidences happens to be true, for the Great Salt Lake’s salt composition is nearly identical to seawater, differing only in that its waters are slightly enriched in potassium and depleted in calcium compared to the ocean, as can be seen in the table (potassium was omitted in the chart because there was no potassium concentration data for the Bear River).

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In fact, the salt composition of the Great Salt Lake is more similar to the seawater than it is to the very river, namely the Bear River, that feeds it, and is supposedly the source of its salts!

A Lake of Seawater

This chart weakens the currently accepted theory in two different ways . First, I have demonstrated earlier that an endorheic lake and the river which feeds it should have similar salt profiles, and this is clearly not the case. Secondly, I have also demonstrated that it is extremely unlikely that the Great Salt Lake, an endorheic lake, and seawater should have similar salt profiles, provided that the currently accepted theory of the origin of the Great Salt Lake’s salts is correct .

The size of the shallow lake fluctuates due to evaporation. Salt on the dried ground at Great Salt Lake.

(Bruce Tuten/ CC BY 2.0 )

Therefore, one may conclude, that in all probability, the currently accepted explanation for the origin of the salts of the Great Salt Lake—namely that the salts have been eroded from the rocks and soils found in the lake’s watershed, and carried to the lake by the rivers that flow into it—is incorrect with a very high probability, for one can only maintain that it is true by resorting to coincidence (which is by definition of very low probability).

Since there is only one other point of origin of these salts, namely the ocean, one is compelled to admit the possibility that these salts originated from the ocean. But this must mean that the ocean, at one point in the past, penetrated the Great Salt Lake’s watershed, which is located almost 600 miles away from the nearest ocean (the Pacific Ocean). Perhaps the impressions of the American settlers who first cast eyes on the Great Salt Lake, and thought that it was the work of God, were correct after all.

Brady Yoon is a software engineer and writer. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and a minor in anthropology at UCLA. He researches and writes about lost civilizations and other ancient mysteries.

Brady has presented his theories with Ancient Origins Premium in a series of talks on ancient legends, science and geology:

• ‘They Might Be Giants: Carl Baugh’s Hyperbaric Atmosphere’ ,
• ‘Mysterious Depths: Ancient Underworlds, and their Connection to the Prehistoric Caribbean Sea ’ and
• ‘Ancient Floods and Pole Shift: Legends of the Underworld ’

are some of the fascinating talks he’s given - only at AO Premium!

--

• Top Image: Morning on the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA (Cliff Johnson/ CC BY-SA 2.0 )

By Brady Yoon

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09-09-2021 om 01:14 geschreven door peter  

Footprints that date back about 200 million years were discovered in India’s Thar Desert and were made by three different dinosaurs. The prints, which were found in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district close to Thaiat village, were made in the sediment of the seashore to the Tethys Ocean. This proves that the three-toed carnivorous dinosaurs did in fact inhabit the western part of the state millions of years ago during the Mesozoic Era.

The three dinosaur species that made the footprints were Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis, and Grallator tenuis. The prints belonging to the Eubrontes cf. giganteus and Eubrontes glenrosensis species measured 35 centimeters (13.8 inches), while the one made by the Grallator tenuis was only 5.5 centimeters (2.2 inches).

(Not any of the dinosaurs mentioned in this article.)

In an interview with The Hindu, Virendra Singh Parihar, Assistant Professor, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, stated that the three species were all types of theropods. Theropods were bipedal dinosaurs and the ancient ancestors of more than 9,000 of today’s birds. In fact, they were quite similar to modern birds as they had three toes and air-filled hollow bones. Some theropods had feathers and even built nests for their eggs. They were fast and agile which helped them to hunt.

Both of the Eubrontes species were believed to have measured between 12 and 15 meters in length (39 to 49 feet) and weighed between 500 and 700 kilograms (1,102 to 1,543 pounds). The Grallator tenuis, however, was much smaller and about the same height as a really tall human, measuring about two meters tall (6.6 feet) and three meters in length (9.8 feet).

The climate in the region where the dinosaur prints were found was different millions of years ago. Geochemical analysis revealed that the environment in which the dinosaurs lived in was seasonal to semi-arid (this means that it was dry but they did receive some rain) and the researchers also believe that the sea levels changed numerous times during the early part of the Jurassic Period (this was around the same time that the prints were made).

(Not any of the dinosaurs mentioned in this article.)

This is hopefully just the first of many more dinosaur-related discoveries in the region as stated by Dr. Parihar, “It is just the beginning of the findings of dinosaur remains in Rajasthan. More discoveries of dinosaur fossils will be made in the near future.” I look forward to seeing what more they will find.

A picture of the footprints can be seen here.

Footprints of dinosaurs found in Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan.

Photo: Special Arrangement  

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07-09-2021 om 00:37 geschreven door peter  

Astonishing Human Heads: Do Satellite Photographs Now Prove Existence of Humans on Antarctica…6000 Years Ago? – Part I

Accurate geographical and cartographical information concerning the continent of Antarctica has only really been uncovered since AD 1822. However, in direct contradiction, ancient maps reveal Antarctica completely free of glaciation thousands of years beforehand.

According to experts in ancient cartography and oceanography, only a very advanced maritime culture exploring Antarctica after the end of the last Ice Age, 11000 years ago, could possibly have created such maps. So, who was this suddenly, incredibly advanced civilization?

The beautiful but formidable landscape of Antarctica.

( Public Domain )

The failure to find an acceptable answer to this cartographic mystery led to speculation that ancient maps were produced by highly advanced aliens, because to produce maps of huge continental land masses, they could only be plotted accurately from an aerial perspective using surveying equipment especially designed for the purpose!

So, aliens excluded, which highly technically advanced cartographers could traverse our planet many thousands of years before the likes of Columbus, et al? Where did they come from and how did they come to possess the expertise and navigational ability to sail vast oceans and, most importantly, to record their findings on maps alleged to have been the sources of information passed on to ‘modern’ explorers like Columbus, Cook, Magellan or Vasco da Gama, for example.

Surprising Satellite Photography Reveals Antarctica’s Distant Past

To quote an example, there is the 16th Century ‘Buache’ map which he (Buache) claims to have been made by a very ancient civilization which accurately mapped the continent of Antarctica completely free of its one-mile deep ice cap. However, with no concrete proof to substantiate his claims, experts suspect Buache's map was probably the product of a vivid imagination. But was it? We shall see later.

“Map of the Southern Lands contained between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Pole, where the new discoveries made in 1739 to the south of the Cape of Good Hope may be seen” by Philippe Buache.

( Public Domain )

Author, space archaeologist, and independent researcher, William James Veall has taken advantage of Antarctica's present narrow extension of coastal deglaciation and used remote sensing satellite photography to expose a number of absolutely astonishing human heads and animal portraits together with inscriptive material clearly demonstrating someone had touched down on at least three separate areas of Antarctica coastline in the distant past.

FIGURE 1:  Modern map of Antarctica indicating the section of the Ross Sea coastline, the subject of Space Archaeologist William James Veall's probing by remote sensing satellite (in red) and the extended ice-free section of the Ross Sea coastline as shown on the AD 1512 maps of Oronteus Finaeus (marked green).

William Veall continues: Many readers of Ancient Origins already know I use the technique of remote sensing satellite photography to expose ground-based imagery: rock sculptures, intaglios, pictographs, petroglyphs and epigraphy symbols. Currently, I am also involved in using satellite technology for the extremely important service of detection, preservation and protection of archaeological sites world-wide from theft and acts of vandalism. (GlobalXplorer)

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Utilizing this same technique, I have been very successful tracing the coastline 'hops' of trans-oceanic voyagers around South America, the seaboard of North East America, Newfoundland, the West Coast of Africa, Uruguay and even down the eastern coast of Australia (see table 1) with some most incredible revelations.

FIGURE 2:  Table 1. Ancient symbols discovered along the eastern coastline of Australia by William James Veall, March 2017. 

(Copyright WJV 2017)

Was Antarctica Once Ice-Free?

Following the rather fruitful foray along the east coast of Australia I decided to chance my luck and put to the test the statement made by the Greek geographer, cartographer and mathematician, Marinus of Tyre who in 400 BC reported he had knowledge of an ancient map depicting Antarctica free of ice.

Logically, the nearest point of any trans-oceanic contact with Antarctica using the eastern Australian coastline as a guide would be to cross the South Atlantic, sail into the Antarctic circle, and come ashore at some point roughly in the region of Wilkes Land; the same area selected by Ross in AD 1840-1843.

It is not unreasonable to assume on the premise that the extreme eastern Australian seaboard runs southwards following roughly the 153º anti-meridian that ancient explorers would have 'coast hopped' this meridian in easily measured steps of latitude known in ancient navigational parlance as 'running the latitudes' in conjunction with certain overhead constellations, thus enabling them to cross the oceans until they reached the continent of Antarctica.

After a preliminary scanning of most of the Antarctic perimeter, a deglaciated section of the Ross Sea region appeared to be the only area that might yield sufficient arcti-factual data to make this 'shot in the dark' have any real significance to answer the question: Are there any signs of indigenous or external activity which may account for the fact that various ancient sea maps purport to show all or parts of the Antarctica coastline free of ice?

So firstly, how did Marinus of Tyre learn of the existence of ‘Antarctica’ in 400 BC and secondly, did Buache really have access to ancient maps which allowed him to construct what he claimed to be a true representation of the continent of Antarctica... minus its covering of frozen ice and snow?

Apparently, it was Aristotle who told Marinus of the existence of a continent named 'Terra Australis' surrounding the South Pole. Marinus then marked the world map he was compiling from other ancient maps with this same title. But, most fascinating of all, his map showed Terra Australis (Antarctica) without the traditional ice shield. However, the ancient maps Marinus allegedly used mysteriously 'disappeared' so we have no way of verifying his story.

By the same token; this does not explain how other ancient cartographers, like Oronteus Finaeus and Hadji Ahmed could also claim they had access to maps 6,000 years old (4000 BC) depicting the continent of Antarctica completely free of an ice cap.  From where did their maps originate and who compiled them? I believe I may have chanced upon an answer.

Oronteus Finaeus (or Oronce Finé),

( Public Domain )

Searching the Explorers’ Sea Route

I must confess, prior to my Antarctica 'shot in the dark'—apart from knowing Antarctica housed the South Pole... and a few penguins—I really had no preconceived ideas about this ice-coated region at the southernmost tip of Planet Earth. Imagine my surprise to discover quite by chance I had followed the now familiar 'modern' explorers’ sea route to Antarctica and coincidentally landed my remote sensing satellite probe virtually at the same anchorage chosen by Amundsen (1911-1912) and Scott (1910-1913).

Rounding Cape Adare and into the Ross Sea, I scanned the eastern coastline along a stretch where the Ross Sea borders Victoria Land. Quite coincidentally, a section of deglaciated shoreline had retreated a little inland leaving a roughly two-kilometer (1.24-mile) stretch exposed, albeit, some places still covered with traces of glaciation. According to the most recent scientific surveys, the Eastern Antarctica ice shield has, even over just the last twenty years, begun to melt at an alarming rate suspected to be as a result of global warming.

I had barely crossed the halfway mark along the Ross Sea shoreline when I had the shock of my life!

Human Heads

The satellite had captured very clearly a human head image (portrait) staring out from the rocky terrain. (Figures 7 and 7a) This was not supposed to happen: the presence of Mankind in any form, prehistoric or otherwise had never ever been detected on Antarctica—a continent currently believed to have been ice covered for eight to nine million years, and would logically be virgin territory free of any prehistoric indigenous inhabitants until well after the end of the great Ice Age, 12,000 years ago.

FIGURES 7 and 7a:  The very first portrait I discovered on Antarctica; this amazing figure wearing a tricorn hat is carved into a deglaciated rock surface, some 25 meters in height x 32 meters width, it features a human head, Caucasian in appearance, with gentile facial features and lightly epicanthic, expressive eyes.  The left cheek (facing) is pecked with a Cretan style 'star'; the forehead with a diamond point GIS. Beneath the right eye (facing) is a small pecked triangle. Just opposite are pecked two Linear A characters.

Research carried out by Reading University in the UK strongly suggests an advanced civilization did exist many thousands of years before the Egyptians, Sumerians or Babylonians; this culture of Black Peoples (the Kiffian Era) due to climatic changes were driven south from their homelands of the "Green Sahara" (9000 – 4000 BC) to eventually merge their allegedly quite advanced technology with the less developed peoples in the southern regions, Egypt, for example. (see References: ' Black Mummy of the Green Sahara' - an excellent video).

Scanning the Ross Sea rocky coastline eventually exposed some forty or so human head portraits, including animal heads and, including those in Table 2, nearly one hundred pecked symbols. My method of analysis has been developed over many years studying literally hundreds of satellite imagery situations across the mountains and deserts of the world, enabling the creation of extremely critical rules for precise imagery interpretation.

FIGURE 3: Table 2 Chart depicting the ancient symbols uncovered along the Ross Sea coastline of Antarctica by Space Archaeologist, William James Veall in April 2017. (Copyright WJV 2017)

FIGURE 4:  Table 3: Comparing Linear A and Linear B scripts from Tables 1 and 2.

[Authors note: The backgrounds to Figures 5 to 12 have been lightly diffused to improve image clarity, but this original satellite imagery has not been retouched in any way. The added silhouette is not intended to be a 'portrait' but simply an aid to identifying the pose of the satellite image. Figs 5 to 12 are published under the Google Earth 'Permissions of Fair Use'.]

FIGURES  5 and 5a: A petroglyph, located on Marambio Island in the north-west corner of the Antarctic, has a most unusual monkey-face profile, subtending the head of an eagle. The head is marked with an open loop GIS symbol on the left cheek. Three circles (stones) are conjoined at the rear of the eagle's head. A date perhaps?

Which particular culture used this motif as its signature icon to announce its presence on Antarctica? The head is 34 meters high by 50 meters wide (111.5 feet by 164 feet), the Eagle 18 meters high by 39 meters in length (59 feet by 128 feet). The two conjoined 'Gods' appear to represent Hanuman, the all-powerful Hindu Monkey God and the Eagle, the Hindu God, Garuda … but in the ANTARCTIC?

FIGURE 6: I originally ignored this rock-strewn debris but careful maneuvering of the remote sensing camera shot exposed a pattern of rocks seemingly set in the form of an ancient legend embedded into the seashore. Unfortunately, the seaward portion of the text is now submerged under (melt) water. Exposed size 50 meters in length x 25 meters (164 by 82 feet) wide.

Was this message a Dedication to celebrate a long-held dream of stepping ashore on Planet Earth's most iconic land mass; acting as a counterweight to balance Global Earth with another great land mass in the north—the Arctic? I believe so.

The characters appear very similar to the Minoan Linear A 'accountancy' script, circa 1800 – 1400 BC; this is immensely interesting because the 'dots and dashes' just might translate into chronological data, in other words - announcing the arrival and date of European mans' first footfall on the continent of Antarctica?

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Interestingly, Table 3 quite clearly depicts characters are both Linear A and B types, whereas virtually all the subsequent inscriptive material (see table 2) along the Ross Sea coastline is 'pecked' in a more advanced alphabet of Phoenician genre. Thus, by inference, the landing must have taken place well before 1200 BC because after that time the Phoenician genre (1100 BC) began to dominate 'writing'.

One further fact that might confirm that the message was a 'Dedication of Arrival' ; the triangle symbol gives an exact latitude 72 21 04 00 S and longitude 170 15 37 00E. In my experience, a triangle followed by a capital 'A' almost always signified a geodetic of importance.

Further, why set this co-ordinate on a fragile shoreline when all others are carved into the cliff face? Answer: many years earlier the coastline was greatly extended, as proven  by both the Oronteus Finaeus and Buache ancient maps (see Figure 1 map, green extension).

FIGURES 7 and 7a:  The very first portrait I discovered on Antarctica; this amazing figure wearing a tricorn hat is carved into a deglaciated rock surface.

FIGURES 8 and 8a: This figure, 23 meters high x 20 meters in width is clearly of 'Native' ancestry. The head appears to have an unusual projecting jawline. A gnomon records the 170.16.26.00 longitude co-ordinate of this particular image.

Reading the back history of Antarctica, references clearly state that there was never any indigenous flora and fauna of any kind present on the continent because the land mass had been completely covered in an ice sheet for at least nine million years... before even prehistoric Man.

[Read Part II]

Space archaeologist and independent researcher, William James Veall is Director of Nascodex and Consultant to Nascodex Publications , and author of Portraits of the Gods .

• Top Image: Antarctica ( Public Domain ) and Figure 7a © William James Veall: a drawn image of the very first portrait the writer discovered on Antarctica; Deriv.

By William James Veall

{  https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

01-09-2021 om 23:43 geschreven door peter  

A Message on the Shore: Do Satellite Photographs Now Prove Existence of Humans on Antarctica…6000 Years Ago? – Part II

Reading the history of Antarctica, references clearly state that there was never any indigenous flora and fauna of any kind present on the continent because the land mass had been completely covered in an ice sheet for at least nine million years... before even prehistoric Man.

[READ PART I]

According to experts in ancient cartography and oceanography, only a very advanced maritime culture exploring Antarctica after the end of the last Ice Age, 11000 years ago, could possibly have created accurate geographical and cartographical information in maps. Yet such maps seemingly exist. So, who was this suddenly, incredibly advanced civilization?

Craggy mountain landscape in Antarctica

( Public Domain )

 [Read Part I here]

Satellite Images Reveal Surprises

Now this discovery by William James Veall asks the question: who carved with such finesse two massive deer heads, which by their conformation suggest they may be of the Huemul species? Sculpture size (per each) averages 18 meters length by six meters width (59 by 20 feet).

FIGURES 9 and 9a: Amongst the plethora of Antarctica imagery I have recorded each piece of imagery brought forth its own particular surprise. The two animals depicted in this exciting figure were no exception.

Were the two sculptures homeland icons or had successive waves of immigrants imported deer as a source of live food or milk provision; this poses another question: from where? The nearest habitat for the Huemul species of deer would likely be Patagonia, South America.

A Heumul, male south Andean deer (Hippocamelus bisulcus) in Cerro Castillo National Reserve, Aysén Region, Chile.

( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

There is a possible solution. During a period of temperate climate, did a sea route open between Cape Horn (Patagonia) and the Shetland Islands? I am quite confident in putting forward this suggestion because distinct traces of rock art activity are visible on the rock faces of some of the islands in the Shetland group. (to be published later)

Also, Nelson Island directly faces Peninsula Antarctica where I have recorded more human head portraiture, one of which is MS 3815 depicted in Figure 5, located on Marambio Island.  Did some peoples set foot on Antarctica before or after those who landed at Ross Sea? Also, did the same people in a great period of climatic change either circumnavigate or use a deglaciated land route across Antarctica to reach the Ross Sea community? Hence, explaining why there are different races immortalized in its human head portraiture.

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The answer to such questions is a huge and separate project in itself, probably even greater than the Ross Sea investigation because it must take into account transient movement of humans and animals between the tip of South America and Peninsula Antarctica, likely intervals of glaciation and deglaciation during periods of climatic change.

If the current glacial melt-down continues there will inevitably be the discovery of more human head portraits, with, perhaps, some very important inscriptive material; all of which will make fascinating comparisons with the Ross Sea anchorage and solve the question of who really were the first to set foot on Antarctica.

FIGURE 10 and 10a   What an amazing discovery! Carved entirely from white rock, an oval shaped human head with a round eyed, rather chilling stare marked with ancient symbols. Dots in a circle about a center point motif is typical late 13th century BC. Mycenaean. (Size 44 meters high x 33 meters width).

FIGURE 11 and 11a: A superbly sculptured human head in a 'Romanesque/Greco' style helmet with an open loop GIS mark on the front panel. The portrait, nearly 800 meters in height by 400 meters wide is carved into the steep face of a mountain ridge. Immediately to the right (facing) is a very distinct GIS symbol which gives a latitudinal reading of 82º 25 15 00S. Six hundred meters to the east is 'pecked' a diamond point GIS indicating the longitude of the site.

Satellite photographs show the sculpture is on a mountain side in the Holyoake Range. The very fact this colossal bust was carved in such a remote snowbound location greatly puzzled me, although I do accept the bust may have been carved if this area of Antarctica had once upon a time become ice-free and accessible. When and by whom, and for what purpose was this massive figure set in this particular location?

Satellite Navigation Reveals Ancient Records

And then, I remembered reading from an excellent book by the late Prof. Charles Hapgood, (FRGS) " Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings " that Oronteus Finaeus had plotted the position of the South Pole from ancient maps he had acquired. Hapgood cannily computed that Oronteus Finaeus' South Pole was in fact 7.5º (800 km/497 miles) from the true South Pole we recognize today.

Now came the moment of truth!  My satellite navigator had, on the 9th May 2017, recorded a latitudinal reading of 82º 25' for the statue, almost the 7.5º from the true South Pole. I then checked out the longitudinal co-ordinate, 160º 32'.

Each co-ordinate confirmed almost exactly the position of the South Pole—precisely as Oronteus  Finaeus had marked upon his 1531 AD map.

I firmly believe the gigantic 800-meter-high (2625 feet) sculpture was carved, not only to permanently mark what was believed to be, at the time, the true South Pole, but to honor and record in Memoriam the first peoples ever to knowingly reach the 'South Pole'.

Messages on the Seashore

The very last thing I expected to end up doing was writing an in-depth article, analyzing and creating artwork for numerous portraits, drawing maps, plus epigraphy tables, all resulting from a fun-loving hunch to circumnavigate the vast continent of Antarctica by remote sensing satellite—all out of sheer curiosity.

To find a whole host of human head portraits, seemingly of at least five differing cultures, plus animal heads, all interspersed with a mass of inscriptive material and, romantically, ' a message on the seashore', was mind-blowing to say the least.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, against all the known odds, that Antarctica had been visited in the ancient past with possibly some long-term habitation along, at least, the coastal regions in periods of more temperate climate; this proof completely rebuts the long-held belief that "Antarctica NEVER had any native people living there, in fact until AD 1822, NO ONE had even set eyes on Antarctica."

But surely the 'icing on the cake' was when I discovered the importance of the massive figure carved in the Holyoake mountain range to commemorate the discovery of and record the exact location of the South Pole as extrapolated from Oronteus Finaeus' ancient maps.

I have a slight reservation about this point, having recorded by remote sensing hundreds of GIS (Geodetic and Identification) markers. I have always been astonished at the incredible accuracy achieved by the ancient map makers— and I am not talking in 'degrees' but 'minutes' of accuracy—quietly suggestive of an ancient civilization possessing knowledge of astronomy, navigation and map-making with superlative scientific equipment not equaled by 'modern' man until at least the 19th century.

Dating of artifactual material is at best very much trial and error. The dress code of any ancient statue or portrait is almost always a sound clue to provenance. Here, one clue is in the rather 'Romanesque/Greco' style of helmet as seen above. In fact, along the Ross Sea section there appears to be at least four busts similarly helmeted, suggesting an expeditionary force from the Mediterranean had indeed succeeded in reaching Antarctica.

As a space archaeologist, I make no claims to having expertise in epigraphy; this does not preclude making observations about the material I have uncovered in the course of my research. Therefore, is it possible to derive a time frame simply from the inscriptive material I have charted in Tables 1 – 3)?  The answer is yes. Firstly, by observing the historical extremities of the tabulated charts.

The very earliest stage of the Antarctic epigraphy chain would need to have Egyptian hieroglyphs: there are NONE. An end point to my tabulated chain would need to include the 'modernized' Greek alphabet, Hebrew, and perhaps even Roman lettering. There are NONE. Thus, we have established the limits of the charted inscriptive material.

Table 1 "Symbols discovered along the east coast of Australia".

(Copyright WJV 2017)

Table 1 "Symbols discovered along the east coast of Australia" . MS 3755, Col 5, depicts a Proto-Sinaitic character, (man joyously waving arms about) circa 1850 BC. Is this the first link in the hypothesis? As we examine other characters in Tables 1 and 2 we find a bias towards the Minoan script, Linear A. Now, Linear A was developed, circa 1800 BC - 1400 BC, and used essentially as an 'accounting script'. Hence ‘dots and dashes’ signifying a base 10 script. (see table 3 and the "message on the sands" )

Table 2. Chart depicting the ancient symbols uncovered along the Ross Sea coastline of Antarctica by Space Archaeologist, William James Veall in April 2017. (Copyright WJV 2017)

Table 3. “Message on the sands”

(Copyright WJV 2017)

However, one will notice within the 'mix' (Tables 1, 2 and 3) are characters from the Mycenaean script Linear B, developed circa 1500 BC – 1200 BC and mainly used for communication.

Thus, we have a start date in our timeline made up from Proto-Sinaiatic (1850 BC) paralleled with Linear A (1800 BC - 1400 BC), followed by Linear B (1500 BC – 1200 BC). Linear B was followed by the Phoenician alphabet (1100 BC) which continued down into the Iron age (1050 BC) thence to be taken over by Greek alphabetical variants (800 - 750 BC). 

According to the inscriptive material, the Ross Sea region of Antarctica was subject to visitations and possible semi-permanent habitation during a period(s) of deglaciation 1850 BC through to, say at least 1050 BC, a time scale allowing for overlap—not far off 1000 years.

Also, I believe, over this 1000-year time span Antarctica was eventually circumnavigated 'en total' hence the map of Antarctica was actually bit-mapped, thus producing the historically reported series of slightly disjointed local maps.

An in-depth appraisal of glaciation and deglaciation of Antarctica even over just 10,000 years is extremely complex and outside the remit of this article. Suffice it to say, if perchance the 'message in the sands' was one of farewell, why was it 'written' in Linear A / Linear B and not the same alphabet as the mass of inscriptive material shown in Table 2? Were there successive visitations over the 1000-year period? Perhaps with the latter waves using a more 'modern' form of written communication.

Who Could have Created Such Works?

We have already discussed it was Aristotle who informed Marinus of Tyre in 400 BC of the existence of a Continent called Terra Australis (Antarctica) which he had gleaned from (local) maps hundreds of years old.

Now, if we accept the ancient maps Aristotle referred to, stretch back hundreds of years, 1450 BC is well within an acceptable time frame. A time frame that encompasses the period when the Minoans were extremely active commercial maritime traders, superb artisans at producing amazing gold and bronze human figurines and natural forms (animals (deer), birds, flowers and fish) and obviously would have included a range of iron and bronze tools for shipbuilding to fine arts.

A detail of the dolphin fresco, the Minoan palace of Knossos, Crete, (1700-1450 BCE)

(Mark Cartwright/ CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

The Ross Sea sculptures could only have been carved by highly skilled artists working with possibly some of the hardest rock known to man; these artisans would surely have needed 'mauls and chisels' made from durable bronze or iron. This fact is very important because the dates of the Minoan Bronze Age (1500 – 1200 BC) and subsequent slight overlap into the Early Iron Age (1050 BC) firmly keep the Minoans in our postulated timeframe.

Many Different Cultures?

One very interesting point arises when considering, in such a short stretch of shoreline, there are at least five completely differing cultures depicted by the physiognomy of the busts; I do not believe they are a generation arising from linear development because quite simply we would be looking at tens of thousands of years, not just 10,000 years of deglaciated history.

What is more, the ancient artists have carefully selected their rock face work-pieces to reflect the color tones of the faces they desired to portray, hence, presenting us with everlasting original portraits of inhabitants 'in the flesh' exactly as they were centuries ago.

Strangely, even the portraits of the most primitive peoples are marked with the same 'international' loop or diamond point GIS, clearly indicating the statues are contemporaneous alongside the copius amounts of inscriptive material; this, as we have already said, is readily dateable between the limits of 1850 BC – 800 BC.

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I cannot state categorically that Minoans were the very first to see or set foot upon the shores of Antarctica; that is something we will never know for certain. The very fact that 'primitive' busts were evident amongst the sculptures suggests local native 'Fisherfolk' from say Patagonia, New Guinea or Southern Australia, for example, could equally have taken advantage of a temperate climate window and were actually in residence before the Minoans arrived.

Clearly without close forensic examination I am unable to say one way or the other whether the Minoans with their passion for recreating all living creatures in paintings or sculptural form conceived the Ross Sea shoreline as a museum masterpiece, or whether the more primitive residents had the capability and tools to fashion imagery according to their own likeness before the Minoans arrived... and used a GIS insignia. (I don't think so?)

And to finish, some HOT NEWS:

FIGURE 12 and 12a:  Fig 12 is the original untouched satellite photograph. Fig. 12a has been lightly retouched by pencil only.

This latest satellite capture shows here again we have the strange juxtaposition between the primitive form and symbolic material. Just where does this 'prehistoric' specimen of humanity fit into Antarctica's exposed chain of humanity?

Note the low forehead embellished with floral headband, small eyes set under a heavy brow (cranial) ridge. See the broad, squat nose over a large mouth showing very clearly a set of protruding sharp canines. Notice the flower, lower bottom right, amongst the inscriptive material.

Bearing in mind the previous Australia/Antarctica contact mentioned above, I suspect the image represents an early Aboriginal arrival on the Continent, but associated with inscriptive material… it’s a continuing mystery!

Finally, the fascinating question everyone will ask: Do you believe, now that Antarctica has been partially exposed, this continent will turn out to be the real 'Punt' and mysterious island of 'Atlantis'?

Space archaeologist and independent researcher, William James Veall is Director of Nascodex and Consultant to Nascodex Publications , and author of Portraits of the Gods .

• Top Image: Antarctica ( Public Domain ) and Figure 6 © William James Veall: a drawn pattern of rocks seemingly set in the form of an ancient legend embedded into the seashore; Deriv.

By William James Veall

{  https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

01-09-2021 om 23:40 geschreven door peter  

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been shrouded in mystery since their discovery, with the biggest being the identity of their authors. Close behind is the identity of who placed them in the Qumran Caves in the Judaean Desert near Ein Feshkha on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank. A scroll researcher reveals in a new paper that he believes a passage in a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered in Cairo in the 19th century may explain the purpose of the nearby area known as Qumran, why archeologists have not found any private dwellings there, and ultimately how the scrolls got there and why they were kept in these particular caves.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have long been associated with the Essenes, a mystic Jewish sect that lived in a number of towns from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. Some scholars believe the Essenes inhabited the settlement at Qumran and they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and stored them in the local caves. In his preprint paper, “The Covenant Renewal Ceremony as the Main Function of Qumran,” Daniel Vainstub of the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East at Ben-Gurion University, lays out the reason why he disagrees that Qumran was an Essenes settlement.

“Unlike any other group or philosophy in ancient Judaism, the yaḥad sect obliged all members of the sect to leave their places of residence all over the country and gather in the sect’s central site to participate in a special annual ceremony of renewal of the covenant between God and each of the members.”

Vainstub says this annual celebration was called the “passing of the covenant” and modeled after one described in Deuteronomy. However, Vainstub also found a description in a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments found in Cairo, thus giving them the name Cairo Geniza. One in particular, the Damascus Document, includes instructions about the celebration that say: “And all [the inhabitants] of the camps shall assemble in the third month and curse anyone who deviates either to the right [or to the left from the] Torah.” That means the gathering took place in a specific time – the month of Sivan, when the festival of Shavuot falls – and that people from different places or camps were called to convene in one site. Vainstub concludes from this that Qumran was the site and may have been built for this specific purpose – which explains why there are no residences there. Those gathering either slept in caves or outside.

Qumran contains remains of a mikvaot (Jewish ritual bath), assembly hall and pantry where thousands of vessels were stored, and a southern esplanade that could handle many hundreds of people arriving annually from camps and towns. That leads to Vainstaub’s second revelation, which he explains in The Jerusalem Post.

“My theory is also consistent with the fact that the scrolls did not necessarily originate from Qumran, but rather were brought to the caves from all over the country and were left in the caves over the decades.”

Vainstaub maintains the scrolls were stored there for years specifically to be used for the annual celebration, growing in numbers as the celebration grew with people from other towns. That would explain the different styles and ages of the scrolls and fragments. Put that all together and Vainstaub concludes the location was inevitable for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“The site of Qumran, with its facilities, caves and surfaces, accords with the evidence for the annual gathering that emerges from the scrolls. No other known site is suitable for such a purpose.”

Will this help solve the mystery of the authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Only time will tell.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-09-2021 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

The 10 biggest archaeology discoveries of 2020

With the pandemic and accompanying economic recession clouding 2020, it goes without saying that the year will not go down as the happiest for humanity. The archaeology world also felt the effects, as numerous digs were canceled or curtailed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the difficult year, many archaeological and historical discoveries came to light, including a sprawling geoglyph in Peru, a trove of mummies, the tomb of the legendary Romulus and more.

1. Cat revealed at Nazca

A 120-foot-long geoglyph of a cat discovered in Peru in 2020 is the most recent example of a Nazca Line to be found. The geoglyph was heavily eroded and barely visible, but conservation work revealed a more complete picture of the cat, which looks a bit like a child's doodle. Archaeologists estimate that the geoglyph was constructed sometime between 200 B.C. and 100 B.C., a time when many Nazca Lines were being built.

2. Amazon ice-age art

In 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of an 8-mile-long (12.9 kilometers) "canvas" of ice-age art that dates back 11,800 to 12,600 years. Drawn using ocher, the images include depictions of mastodons, giant sloths and other now-extinct beasts that lived at the time. The images were drawn in the hills above three rock shelters in the Colombian Amazon. 

The drawings also include human handprints, geometric designs, and images of deer, tapirs, alligators, bats, monkeys, turtles, serpents, porcupines, camelids and horses, among other animals. There are also drawings showing people hunting animals and interacting with plants and trees. The excavations were made possible thanks to a 2016 peace treaty that put an end to hostilities between the Colombian government and FARC, a rebel guerrilla group. With the onset of peace, the region became accessible to archaeologists. 

3. Mummies galore!

More than 100 sealed coffins with mummies have been found at Saqqara, in Egypt. Excavations are ongoing, and more mummies will likely be found.)

Since summer 2020, Egyptian archaeologists have been excavating a series of burial shafts at the site of Saqqara and have found an ever-growing number of sealed coffins with mummies inside. As of Nov. 14, the count was up to over 100 coffins containing mummies, and as the excavations continue,  more will likely be found. In Egypt, tombs were frequently robbed in both ancient and modern times, and to find so many undisturbed, sealed coffins with mummies is a remarkable find. 

Numerous artifacts have been found within the coffins, including 40 statues that depict Ptah-Soker, a deity who was an amalgamation of Ptah, the god of Memphis, andSoker (also spelled Sokar and Seker), who was the god of Saqqara. All of the finds date to between roughly 712 B.C. and 30 B.C., a time when Egypt was often controlled by foreign groups, such as the Assyrians, Persians and Greeks.

4. Tomb of Romulus

In February 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of the tomb of Romulus beneath the Roman Forum's Senate House. According to legend, Romulus founded Rome in the eighth century B.C. He and his brother Remus were supposedly abandoned as infants and raised by a she-wolf. When they reached adulthood, the two brothers got into a dispute over which hill Rome should be built on, and Romulus killed Remus. Today, most historians regard the story as mythological and doubt that Romulus really existed. However, the ancient Romans took it seriously and placed his tomb beneath the Senate House, the heart of Roman politics.

Inside the tomb, archaeologists found an empty 4.5-foot-long (1.4 m) sarcophagus made of a light volcanic stone, called tuff, that was quarried from the Capitoline Hill beneath the Roman Forum. The tomb has been 3D laser scanned, and future excavations may reveal more details about it. 

5. Female hunters

In 2020, the idea that males did all of the big-game hunting while females gathered herbs and plants was proved wrong, as archaeologists found a 9,000-year-old burial of a female hunter in Peru. She was buried with a hunter tool kit that included projectile points and flakes, and she may have hunted vicuñas, wild ancestors of alpacas. 

The archaeologists who excavated the woman's remains do not believe she was an unusual case. When they analyzed over 400 skeletons that had been previously excavated in the Western Hemisphere, the archaeologists found that 27 were buried with tools suitable for hunting big game and 11 of those individuals were female, suggesting that females often hunted big game in the Western Hemisphere. 

6. Polynesians meet Native Americans around A.D. 1150

A large study that involved gathering DNA from 807 Indigenous individuals from Polynesia and the Pacific coast of South America has revealed that Polynesians and native peoples of Colombia not only made contact but also bred with one another around A.D. 1150. It's not clear how the groups met; the Polynesians may have sailed to South America or vice versa. 

Either way, their descendants were living in the Marquesas Islands —  about 4,350 miles (7,000 km) from the coast of Colombia  — by A.D. 1200, and gradually branched out to other islands in Polynesia. 

7. Biggest prehistoric monument in the U.K.

The biggest prehistoric monument in the U.K. was revealed in 2020. Dating to around 4,500 years ago, during the Neolithic period, it consists of 20 giant holes that appear to mark the boundaries of an earlier enclosure circle. Each of the holes is 32 feet (10 m) in diameter and 16 feet (5 m) deep. The holes form a circle stretching 1.2 miles (2 km) and covering an area larger than 1.2 square miles (3.1 square km). It's so large that it has Durrington Walls, the largest henge in the U.K., at its center.

It's not clear why the giant circle of holes was created. It's possible that it formed a symbolic barrier that told certain members of society how close they could get to Durrington Walls. Another possibility is that the holes were used to hold water during the wet season. In any case, the circle of holes is one of a kind, with no comparable prehistoric monuments known elsewhere, archaeologists said. 

8. Assyrian rock panels

Ten ancient Assyrian rock panels showing carvings of Assyrian deities were discovered at a canal that dates back more than 2,700 years. They include carvings of Ashur, the main Assyrian god, who is shown on a dragon. They also show Ashur's wife, Mullissu, who is seated on a decorated throne supported by a lion. Other depictions include the sun god Shamash on a horse and the moon god Sin on a horned lion. All of the deities face in the direction of the water that flowed in the canal. 

The panels and canal were likely built during the reign of the Assyrian king Sargon II, who ruled from 722 B.C. to 705 B.C. In the rock panels, Sargon II is shown at the beginning and end of the procession of deities. 

Archaeologists announced the discovery of the canal and rock panels, found near Mosul, Iraq, in January 2020. Work on uncovering the panels began in 2012, but when the terrorist organization ISIL (also known as ISIS or Daesh) approached the region,archaeologists hid the panels to prevent their destruction by ISIL. As a result the panels were not fully uncovered until recently. 

9. Rich ninth-century Viking longhouse on Iceland 

In June 2020, archaeologists in Iceland announced the discovery of a 130-foot-long (40 m) longhouse that was built in the ninth century. It is one of the earliest Viking structures in Iceland to be discovered and  has lavish hoard of ornamental beads and coins archaeologists found. 

The finds include Roman and Middle Eastern silver coins, as well as "hacksilver" — cut and bent pieces of silver that the Vikings and other peoples used as bullion or currency. The hoards also contained glass beads, rings, weights and a tiny fragment of gold. The Vikings who lived there may have acquired the goods by trading whale and seal meat and skins for them. 

10. Mammoth structure

A circular structure constructed out of the remains of at least 60 mammoths was discovered in Russia. Bones from reindeer, horses, bears, wolves, red foxes and arctic foxes, among other animals, were also used to build the structure, archaeologists said. Dating back around 20,000 years, the structure is 36 feet (11 m) in diameter and may have had a roof made of animal hides, the researchers said. 

The purpose of the structure is a bit of a mystery. It might have been used for rituals, or possibly food storage. At the time, pieces of animal meat were still attached to the bones, which would have made the structure smelly. Archaeologists could tell that they had meat on them because some of the bones were articulated (joined together) in a way that could only have been done if flesh was still on them. 

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

29-08-2021 om 21:29 geschreven door peter  

An ancient “pre-human” civilization was destroyed by a comet (Video)

Graham Hancock , one of the most controversial researchers of recent years, wrote a book entitled “Wizards of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth’s Lost Civilization.”

In it, he mentions an ancient pre-human civilization on Earth and how it was destroyed by a giant comet more than 13,000 years ago.

An ancient civilization died out before mankind was born

The remains of a giant comet pierced the atmosphere, generating a global cataclysm similar to that of the destruction of the dinosaurs.

Hancock says that at least eight fragments of the huge comet hit the North American ice sheet , and others hit northern Europe.

The heat generated by the approach of the giant fireballs, at more than 150,000 kilometers per hour, melted millions of square kilometers of ice instantly.

As a consequence, the earth’s crust was destabilized like never before and a global flood was generated that destroyed an ancient civilization . This cataclysm was named in different myths of ancient cultures, including the bible .

This theory was ignored for decades as it was considered “unlikely.” In fact, several experts pointed out that it was impossible for a developed civilization to live on Earth thousands of years ago .

Some even ridiculed the researcher, as always happens when an alternative history is proposed for humanity

It is not a simple theory

In order to find such an ancient catastrophic event , one has to search the oldest known remains of an ancient civilization. And that’s Göbekli Tepe .

Archaeologists from the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh, carried out an investigation in these ruins.

Apparently, evidence was found that a comet collided with Earth in 11,000 BC. C. approximately. This cataclysm generated drastic changes that exterminated an advanced civilization.

Based on that investigation, Hancock added that such an event could occur again . Earth will be in the path of a meteor shower in 2030 .

It should be noted that the oldest layer of Göbekli Tepe dates from the year 9600 BC. C. , this means that it is 7000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt .

There were stone carvings with astronomical symbols linked to a global catastrophe that occurred in 10,950 BC. C., as explained by Dr. Martin Suetman .

This artifact was called the “Vulture Stone” and clearly shows human suffering through symbols.

• This means that an ancient civilization, with astronomical and mathematical knowledge, as well as civilized, existed long before human beings.

RELATD VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011 

{ https://mysteriousthing.com/ }

29-08-2021 om 20:19 geschreven door peter  

13 strange things about the new tapejarid, ‘Tupandactylus navigans’ GP/2E 9266£

{ https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/ }

28-08-2021 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

A Super Civilization Existed in Prehistory, then Something BIG Happened

Intelligent people lived up to 100,000 years ago.

Evidence found in ancient documents maps appears to suggest the existence in remote times, before the rise of the known cultures, of a truly worldwide culture.

Now we know what happened to them and where we might find remnants of their culture!

Matrix Wisdom
YouTube

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://bendedreality.com/ }

18-08-2021 om 15:35 geschreven door peter  

Scientists in the Chinese province of Heilongjiang have located a crater from what they believe was the largest asteroid impact to have hit our planet in the last 100,000 years. The speed as well as the way it impacted the planet would have been catastrophic to anyone living near the impact zone – it could very well have been the most powerful asteroid impact witnessed by modern humans.

Described as being “impossibly deep”, the crater was found in Yilan County close to Harbin and was believed to have been made by an asteroid that hit Earth approximately 49,000 years ago. The crater is 1.85 kilometers wide (1.1 miles) and 579 meters deep (1,900 feet deep). Professor Chen Ming from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated, “Yilan is the most deeply formed crater we have ever seen.”

According to their calculations, experts believe that the asteroid would have been about 100 meters in width (328 feet). While it was much smaller than the 10-to-15-kilometer-wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, this impact would have caused a lot of destruction as it was traveling at a much faster speed and it came down vertically.

The blast from the impact would have been between 500 and 2,000 times stronger than the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Everything within a 10 kilometer radius (6.2 miles) of the impact zone would have been devastated. Furthermore, the shock waves and heat caused by the impact would have been strong enough to melt granite and turn it into glass.

Drill samples taken of rocks and tear-shaped shards of glass from the crater revealed that there was an asteroid impact many years ago, and the charcoal found there provided the researchers with a date of the event.

Those living in the area would have been strongly affected by the blast as well as numerous animals (such as elephants) since the crater is next to a fertile plain caused by the Songhua River that humans and animals would have enjoyed. (An aerial view of the crater site can be seen here.)

The Yilan crater in Heilongjiang province.

Photo:Heilongjiang

A picture of Professor Chen Ming at the Yilan crater drilling site.

Photo: Handout

The study was published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science where it can be read in full.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-08-2021 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

August 10 612 BC: Nineveh, the Largest City in the World, Fell

On this day, 2,632 years ago, the ancient metropolis of Nineveh fell. “ ABC 3 ” is a historiographical text from ancient Babylonia which records August 10th 612 BC as the date of this dramatic occurrence. At that time, Nineveh was the largest city in the world and the capital of Assyria. This all came to an abrupt end when Nabopolassar, the Chaldean king of Babylonia and a central figure in the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, siezed Nineveh. This marked what historians know as one of the most shocking events in ancient history: The “First” Fall of Nineveh. The “second” Fall of Nineveh occurred in 2015 with more destruction by ISIS.

The Discovery of Nineveh: A Unparalleled Archaeological Find

Ancient Mesopotamia was a cradle of civilization in the northern part of western Asia’s Fertile Crescent, corresponding to modern Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and areas along the Turkish–Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. In 1839, Paul-Émile Botta of France excavated a series of mounds in the Iraqi desert that led to the incredible discovery of Nineveh, the vast ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia located on the outskirts of modern-day Mosul in northern Iraq.

This discovery in mid-19th-century Europe was truly amazing, because it meant that at least one of the ancient cities and cultures mentioned in the Bible actually existed. This gave the Holy Bible a breath of newfound esteem at a time when scientists were demanding the empirical testing of supernatural claims, replacing time worn myths with logic and reason. The discovery of ancient Nineveh changed everything.

Ancient Nineveh: A Royal City Envied Far And Wide 

The Assyrian Empire started to become unstable after the death of King Aššurbanipal in 631 BC when the Babylonians ended their independence. Around 627 AD the Babylonian general Nabopolassar defeated the Assyrians in a battle near Babylon and became king, marking the beginning of the Babylonian Empire which lasted until Nineveh was captured by the Persian Cyrus the Great in October 539 AD.

Assyrian military campaign in southern Mesopotamia, 640-620 BC, from an alabaster bas-relief located in the South-West Palace at Nineveh.

(Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Although he had liberated Babylonia, Nabopolassar also wanted destroy its capital cities including the religious center at Aššur, the first Assyrian city, and the administrative center at Nineveh. To prevent this, which would have caused a major shift of power in the Near East, the Egyptians offered military support to Assyria. The Fall of Nineveh Chronicle says that on 25 July 616 AD Nabopolassar defeated an Assyrian force on the banks of the Euphrates to the south of Harran. However, soon after he retreated when an Egyptian army closed on his forces. By at the end of the following year, the Medes, a tribal federation living in modern Iran, seized the moment, amidst all the unrest, and had took control of Nineveh.

This image, taken in April 2017 during a UNESCO mission to Nineveh, which was heavily destroyed and excavated by ISIS in the "second" Fall of Nineveh in 2015.

(UNESCO / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Nabopolassar tactfully signed a treaty with the Medes king Umakištar (Cyaxares). The Babylonian crown prince Nabû-kudurru-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) is said to have married Amytis, who many historians hold to have been the daughter of Cyaxares' son Astyages. The joint Medes-Babylonian army invaded Nineveh in May 612 AD the city finally fell in July. According to an article on Livius after the suicide of King Sin-šar-iškun, “the looting of Nineveh continued until 10 August, when the Medes finally went home,” and that the fall of Nineveh “shocked the ancient world.” From distant Greece, the poet Phocylides of Miletus reported of the destruction of this ancient city.

ISIS soldiers in the Museum of Mosul destroying ancient Nineveh artifacts with sledgehammers in 2015.

(Aljazeera / Screenshot)

2015: The “Second” Fall of Nineveh By ISIS Destruction

While Nineveh fell for the first time over 2500 years ago, destruction of the ancient city continued in 2015 when a priceless Assyrian winged bull was demolished at the Nineveh site. An article in The Guardian discussing the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) described the destruction as a “war crime.” At the same time, the terrorist organization attempted to attract a sympathetic audience to gain new recruits in their homeland, while provoking reactions in the West.

• Tragedy as militants bomb 2,700-year-old Nineveh Wall in Iraq
• 3000-Year-Old Assyrian Reliefs Unearthed in ISIS Stomping Ground
• Three ancient cities to rival London, Paris and New York

A 2015 Aljazeera video shows the destruction of several 7th century artifacts from Nineveh on February 26 2015, when ISIS publicly destroyed the Mosul Museum. Many other artifacts were stolen and put up for sale in foreign markets. However in 2019, the BBC announced that since Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul in 2017, part of the Mosul Museum has been restored and reopened to exhibit contemporary art, while the rest of the museum remains closed “to protect what is left,” said the museum director. If the first Fall of Nineveh was incredible, the second fall of Nineveh was both tragic and disturbing.

• Top image: Assyrian soldiers carry beheaded heads of their prisoners as depicted on a wall in the South-West Palace at Nineveh, during the “First” Fall of Neneveh.         
• Source: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin / CC BY-SA 4.0

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

12-08-2021 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

Anunnaki Revealed: Who Were These Beings of Ancient Astronaut Theory? – Part I

The modern era has witnessed an incredible surge in the popularity of all forms of media concerning the mythology of the ancient Mesopotamians. Fueling this ever-growing trend are the writings of a number of researchers who propose connections between several Sumerian myth cycles and the theory that the human race was engineered or created by a group of extraterrestrial beings. Known as Ancient Astronaut Theory , this field is largely reliant upon the translations of cuneiform tablets supposedly made by Zecharia Sitchin, whose series of Earth Chronicles books form the foundation upon which the modern church of the alien gods has been built.

Central to Sitchin’s narrative is a group of mythic beings known as the Anunnaki, whom he claimed crossed their own DNA with that of Homo erectus in order to create mankind—for the purpose of using humans as slaves to mine gold and other minerals. Today these Anunnaki are often portrayed as the equivalent of the Old Testament creator God.

Anunnaki created mankind?

( Public Domain )

But what does the cuneiform corpus actually say about the Anunnaki and other mythic beings? How does the version of these beings and their activities presented in Ancient Astronaut media compare with how they were truly represented in the ancient world?

• Ancient Mesopotamia and the Rise of Civilization
• Ancient Angels: Heavenly Messengers or Myths? The Origins of Cherubim – Part I
• The Disc of Life in Ancient Texts

Princely Blood

To begin with, Anunnaki translates to “princely blood” or “seed of Anu”, not “those who came down” or “those who came from heaven to earth”, as many modern sources have claimed. The Anunnaki are “the Sumerian deities of the old primordial time;” a pantheon of gods who were the children of the sky god Anu and his sister, Ki. Significantly, some scholars have come to realize that the Anunnaki should more appropriately be considered demi-gods or semi-divine beings. Apparently, Anu’s sister Ki was not originally considered a deity and was only ascribed the status of a goddess much later in the history of the myth cycle.

Akkadian cylinder seal dating to circa 2300 BC depicting the deities Inanna, Utu, and Enki, three members of the Anunnaki.

( Public Domain )

As explained by William Klauser:

“Some authorities question whether Ki was regarded as a deity since there is no evidence of a cult and the name appears only in a limited number of Sumerian creation texts. Samuel Noah Kramer identifies Ki with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag and claims that they were originally the same figure. She later developed into the Babylonian and Akkadian goddess Antu, consort of the god Anu (from Sumerian An).”

Essentially, this would mean that the Anunnaki were born of a union between a sky god and a mortal female, who was later deified in mythic traditions.

Four copper-alloy statuettes dating to c. 2130 BC, depicting four ancient Mesopotamian gods, wearing characteristic horned crowns.

(Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/ CC BY-SA 3.0 )

From Dust to Dust

Furthermore, “Ki” is the Sumerian sign for “earth”, and Anu’s consort is sometimes considered the personification of the earth itself. This is similar to Biblical tradition, where mortals were created out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). The concept of a group of half-divine beings born of mortal women is very similar to the Biblical and extra-Biblical tradition of the Nephilim.

One of the most heavily referenced ancient texts which describes the Nephilim is the Extra-Biblical Book of 1 Enoch attributed to the patriarch Enoch, son of Jared and father of Methuselah. 1 Enoch is considered an apocryphal text today, and is rejected by most mainstream theological establishments, but this was not always the case. Many of the early Church Fathers, such as Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Tertullian accepted the book as scripture, and fragments of 10 copies of 1 Enoch in Aramaic have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. 1 Enoch is also quoted in the Biblical Book of Jude , and it has been estimated that there are as many as several hundred more references throughout the New Testament itself.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

11-08-2021 om 00:34 geschreven door peter  

Anunnaki Revealed: Finding the Nephilim in Myth, Giants Among Men– Part II

• READ PART I

Central to Ancient Astronaut Theory and author Zecharia Sitchin’s narrative, is a group of mythic beings known as the Anunnaki, whom he claimed crossed their own DNA with that of Homo erectus in order to create mankind—for the purpose of using humans as slaves to mine gold and other minerals. Today these Anunnaki are often portrayed as the equivalent of the Old Testament creator God.

But what does the cuneiform corpus actually say about the Anunnaki and other mythic beings? How does the version of these beings and their activities presented in Ancient Astronaut media compare with how they were truly represented in the ancient world?

Babylonian representation of the national god Marduk, who was envisioned as a prominent member of the Anunnaki

( Public Domain )

[Don’t Miss Part 1 Here]

Mount Hermon is located at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, straddling the borders of Syria and Lebanon. Hermon’s highest peak reaches 9,232 feet (2814 meters). Gilgamesh was renowned in the ancient world for obtaining knowledge from the pre-flood (or “antediluvian”) world, as stated by the Ugarit Epic of Gilgamesh (lines 5-9):

“He explored everywhere the seats of power, he knew the totality of wisdom about all things. He who traveled the distant road to Utter-napisti, who crossed the ocean, the wide sea, as far as the sunrise: he brought back tidings from the antediluvian age.”

These passages bring us full circle with Lipinski’s interpretation of the Old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh epic, where the ancient king journeyed to Mount Hermon—abode of the Anunnaki.

• The Mythical Dilmun and The Island of the Dead
• Ancient Angels: Heavenly Messengers or Myths? The Origins of Cherubim – Part I
• The Ascension of Gilgamesh: Did the Epic Hero Actually Exist?

Gilgamesh, the Giant

The concept of ancient knowledge from the pre-flood world is actually inherent in many Eastern traditions. For example, there is a similar story in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees about Kainam, a son of the Biblical Arphaxad:

“And the son grew, and his father taught him writing, and he went to seek for himself a place where he might seize for himself a city. And he found a writing which former generations had carved on the rock, and he read what was thereon, and he transcribed it and sinned owing to it; for it contained the teaching of the Watchers in accordance with which they used to observe the omens of the sun and moon and stars in all the signs of heaven. And he wrote it down and said nothing regarding it; for he was afraid to speak to Noah about it lest he should be angry with him on account of it.” (Jubilees 8:1-5)

Interestingly, there are several ancient sources, which suggest that Gilgamesh himself was a half-god or semi-divine being of gigantic stature. According to the Sumerian Kings List, Gilgamesh was the 5th king of Uruk, who reigned sometime between 2800 and 2600 BC. While there are traditions considering the father of Gilgamesh to be king Lugalbanda, the Sumerian Kings List states that his true father was a “lillu-spirit, a high priest of Kulaba”, and he is described in the epic as “two-thirds god”.

Gilgamesh Statue

(Gwil5083/ CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Gilgamesh is believed to have attained victory over the kings of Kish, centralizing Uruk’s power, and tradition has him expanding the city of Uruk, including its temple precinct and walls. In several fragments of a twelfth-century-BC copy of the Gilgamesh Epic discovered at ancient Ugarit, Gilgamesh is described as “Surpassing all (other) kings (!), renowned for bodily stature” (line 16) and again as “Gilgames, renowned for bodily stature, hero born in Uruk, butting wild bull!” (lines 18-19). Lines 34-36 of the Ugarit Gilgamesh offer specific details on Gilgamesh’s size: “Eleven cubits was his height, four cubits the width of his chest. A triple cubit was his foot and a reed-length his legs”. According to these measurements, Gilgamesh would have stood between 16 and 18 feet tall (4.8 to 5.4 meters tall). In connection to Gilgamesh being a giant, the fragmentary Book of Giants from the Dead Sea Scrolls names several Nephilim giants as Ohya, Mahway, Hahya, and Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh, the king-hero from the city of Uruk, battling the 'bull of heavens'

(0045269/ CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Giants Reigning on Mount Hermon

Returning to the subject of Mount Hermon, Gilgamesh is not the only ancient giant directly associated with this prominent locale. Several Old Testament books ( The Book of Numbers , Deuteronomy, and The Book of Joshua ) record the battle of Moses and the Israelites against Og, an Amorite king of Bashan. In Deuteronomy 3:11 (KJV), Og is described as “of the remnant of giants”, and his bed (or sarcophagus) is measured as nine cubits long and four cubits wide, meaning that Og himself may have been 12 or 13 feet in height (approx. four meters tall).

In Joshua 4:5 (KJV), it is revealed that Og “reigned in mount Hermon, and in Seclah, and in all Bashan”, a region which would include the slopes of Mount Hermon and the Golan Heights.

Entities of the Underworld

Still another factor connecting the Anunnaki with the story of the Watchers and their offspring is their status as underworld beings. In Mesopotamian cycles, the Anunnaki are frequently depicted as “fates” or judges of the dead who occupy the subterranean realm or function as “spirits of the earth”. In tablets discovered at Nippur from around 2000 BC, the Anunnaki are “the seven judges”, underworld entities that accompany Ereshkigal, queen of the subterranean realm. When Ishtar descends and is brought before the assembly, they fasten their “eyes of death” upon her, causing her to perish.

An early nineteenth-century drawing of a statuette of Hecate, with whom Ereshkigal was syncretized.

( Public Domain )

Cast Down into Hell

The mountain abode of the Canaanite god, El is also frequently associated with secret or hidden natural springs and underground rivers. Lipinski associates these connotations with the sources of the Jordan River, one of which is the spring of Banias, originating at the foot of Mount Hermon. He furthermore elaborates that the mountain was considered in ancient times to cover “one of the outlets of the Deep or Ocean from which came the waters of the Flood…an eruption of the subterranean ocean on which the earth was believed to rest.”

In 1 Enoch, God commands the archangel Michael to “Go, bind Semjaza and his associates who have united themselves with women…bind them fast for seventy generations in valleys of the earth…”(1 Enoch 10:11-12), while Raphael is commanded, “Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein.”(1 Enoch 10:4)

Ancient Hittite relief carving from Yazılıkaya, a sanctuary at Hattusa, depicting twelve gods of the underworld, whom the Hittites identified as the Mesopotamian Anunnaki.

(Klaus-Peter Simon/ CC BY 3.0 )

There are also references to the fate of the Watchers in New Testament books, including Second Peter , which states, “…God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness…” (2nd Peter, 2:4, KJV). The word translated as “hell” in this verse is actually the Greek Tartarus, referencing the deepest underworld of Greek mythology—the prison of the Titans.

Not only were the Titans giants, but like the Anunnaki, they were the offspring of an earth goddess (Gaia) and a sky deity (Uranus). Some scholars consider it likely that the Greek mythos was largely based on the older Eastern Mythologies. The same concept is repeated again in the Book of Jude, verse 6, which mentions, “the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness”.

One of the giant Titans, Atlas, who was punished to bear the heavens on his shoulders for all time.

( Public Domain )

The True Identity of the Anunnaki

It is widely known that the archetypal myth cycles of the Mesopotamian and Near Eastern traditions share a common origin, and that the subjects of these cycles also appear in the Biblical, extra-Biblical, and even Quranic texts. The purpose of this article is to identify the specific mythic concept behind the Anunnaki in the ancient world.

• Are The Nephilim Really The Offspring Of Sons of God And The Daughters Of Man?
• The Nurturing Goddess Ninsun: Worshipped by Ancient Mesopotamians and the Mother of Gilgamesh
• Legends of Mount Shasta: “The Abode of the Devil” Part I – The Legend of J.C. Brown

Contrary to much of the popular literature and other media of today, the evidence recorded by the academic research of scholars and a comparative study of the actual cuneiform and other ancient texts indicates that the true identity of the Anunnaki is to be found in the Eastern tradition of a group of half-gods, spawned by cross-breeding between divine beings and mortal females at Mount Hermon in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. These beings are often associated with knowledge from the world before a great deluge and were later assigned roles in the underworld. This would suggest that rather than making the Anunnaki the equivalent of the “Elohim” who created man in the Book of Genesis; they should more properly be compared to the Nephilim and the fallen angels described in Genesis Chapter 6, 1 Enoch, and other extra-biblical texts.

Jason Jarrell and Sarah Farmer  are investigative historians and avocational archaeologists. They study many subjects including depth psychology, Biblical mysteries, political science, and comparative mythology.  They’re also authors of Ages of the Giants: A Cultural History of the Tall Ones in Prehistoric America (2017). Learn more at their website:  ParadigmCollision.com

• Top Image: Ordered universe and cuneiform (Public Domain) and statue of Gilgamesh. ( CC BY 2.0 );Deriv.

By Jason Jarrell and Sarah Farmer

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

11-08-2021 om 00:30 geschreven door peter  

Experts find evidence of 12,000-year-old flood of epic proportions that drained an ancient lake at a rate of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools per second

• A 12,000 year-old flood that drained a lake at speeds of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools per second may have pushed Earth back into an ice age

• Glacial Lake Agassiz spilled into the Clearwater-Athabasca Spillway 

• The lake covered 580,000 square miles and was formed after the Laurentide Ice Shield melted around 16,000 years ago 

• It's likely the 'catastrophic meltwater to drain to the Arctic Ocean' occurred over a 6–9 month period  

• At the height of the spillage, 2 million cubic meters of water were discharged every second  

• Scientists are still not sure what caused the Earth to slip back into an ice age

By CHRIS CIACCIA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Researchers have found evidence that a flood which happened more than 12,000 years ago and drained an ancient lake at the speed of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools per second may have pushed the Earth back into an ice age.

A team of experts - led by the researchers at the University of Alberta - found evidence that Glacial Lake Agassiz started to spill out to the northwest in a channel known as the Clearwater-Athabasca Spillway. 

This spillage may have caused the Younger Dryas cooling event, some 13,000 years ago.

The ancient lake, which no longer exists, covered an area of 580,000 square miles in modern-day southern Manitoba, central Saskatchewan all the way up to the Alberta border.

Researchers, including Sophie Norris (pictured), have found evidence that a 12,000 year-old flood that drained a lake at speeds of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools per second may have pushed Earth back into an ice age 

The ancient lake, which no longer exists which covered an area of 580,000 square miles in modern-day southern Manitoba, central Saskatchewan all the way up to the Alberta border

The researchers - using sedimentary evidence, more than 100 valley cross sections and a model of the bedrock's erodibility and size of the lake- estimated that at the height of the spillage, 2 million cubic meters of water were discharged every second

'One suggestion is the drainage of meltwater from glacial Lake Agassiz, a large ice-dammed lake in central North America, into the surrounding oceans may have affected ocean circulation, contributing to this climatic event,' researchers wrote in the study.

It's likely that the 'catastrophic meltwater to drain to the Arctic Ocean' occurred over a 6–9 month period during the Younger Dryas, but they are not yet clear if this happened during the beginning of the event.  

'We know that a large discharge has gone through the area but the rate of the discharge or the magnitude was pretty much unknown,' the study's lead author, Sophie Norris, said in a statement. 

Over the span of roughly nine months, approximately 5,000 cubic miles (21,000 cubic kilometers) were drained from the lake, roughly the equivalent of all the Great Lakes combined 

Using sedimentary evidence, more than 100 valley cross sections, and a model comprised of gradual dam failure with the bedrock's erodibility and the size of the lake, the researchers estimated that 2 million cubic meters of water were discharged every second at the height of the spillage, making it one of the largest floods known to occur on Earth.

For comparison purposes, this is roughly 10 times what the Amazon River spills every second. 

Over the span of roughly nine months, approximately 5,000 cubic miles (21,000 cubic kilometers) were drained from the lake, roughly the equivalent of all the Great Lakes combined.  

The ancient lake was formed after the Laurentide Ice Shield started to melt around 16,000 years ago, creating a dam that prevented meltwaters from entering the Hudson Bay

The ancient lake was formed after the Laurentide Ice Shield started to melt around 16,000 years ago, creating a dam that prevented meltwaters from entering the Hudson Bay.

'What I find deeply satisfying is that modern hydraulic modeling, when applied to the evidence preserved in the landscape, shows how a phenomenal flood propagated 12,000 years ago,' said University of Southampton researcher and study co-author Paul Carling.  

'When all the uncertainties are considered, the outcome remains pretty solid.' 

Although scientists are not sure what caused the Earth to slip back into an ice age, the lake flooding theory is certainly plausible, study co-author Froese added.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

10-08-2021 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

A massive flood that occurred around 12,000 years ago may have pushed our planet back into an Ice Age. Glacial Lake Agassiz covered a large portion of Manitoba, northwestern Ontario, parts of eastern Saskatchewan and North Dakota, and northwestern Minnesota. It measured approximately 1,500 kilometers in length (932 miles), more than 1,100 kilometers in width (684 miles), and 210 meters in depth (689 feet) at its largest period. It formed when the giant Laurentide Ice Shield started melting around 16,000 years ago.

Since the flood from Lake Agassiz dumped water out at a jaw-dropping rate of more than 800 Olympic-size swimming pools each second, it’s not surprising that experts believe it was the largest ever known flood in history. The lake suddenly sent large amounts of water into a northwest channel known as the Clearwater-Athabasca Spillway and into the Mackenzie River Basin, then finally into the Arctic Ocean.

An international study, which was led by the University of Alberta, suggested that the flood may have brought a warming Earth back into the Ice Age. Specifically, they wanted to know exactly how much water spilled into the channel. Sophie Norris, who is a former U of A PhD student in the Faculty of Science and now a postdoctoral research fellow at Dalhousie University, explained, “We know that a large discharge has gone through the area but the rate of the discharge or the magnitude was pretty much unknown.”

Based on their research, they estimated that approximately 21,000 cubic kilometers of water was discharged from the lake in a time frame of less than 9 months.

What’s even more interesting was that the researchers found that when this massive flood occurred, the northern hemisphere was beginning to warm up but was suddenly put back into an Ice Age (this period is known as the Younger Dryas) as explained by Duane Froese who is Norris’ PhD supervisor as well as the Canada Research Chair in Northern Environmental Change in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, “During the Late Pleistocene, temperatures were returning to normal, when the Earth slipped back into an ice age,” adding, “We don’t know for sure that the flood caused the Earth to slip back into the ice age, but certainly if you put that much water into the Arctic Ocean, the models show you get cooling of the northern hemisphere climate.”

Their next job is to conclusively determine whether this flood was single-handedly the cause of the Ice Age’s return or if it was part of several contributing factors. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-08-2021 om 16:54 geschreven door peter  

Japan and China have their dragon tales. So do England and Ancient Greece. But Australia? Well, the island has plenty of other strange creatures – why not dragons? Looks like you can add them to the list – paleontologists have discovered fossils of a creature with a 23-foot (7 meters) wingspan and a huge, spear-like skull that inspired one to flatly declare:

“It’s the closest thing we have to a real life dragon.”

University of Queensland paleontologist and professor Tim Richards led the research, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, identifying the fossils of an extremely rare Australian pterosaur – in the 40 years since the first one was found, fewer than 20 have been identified. This one was taken from the Toolebuc Formation near Richmond, North West Queensland – a hotbed of Australian pterosaurs. The specimen (KKF494) is the rostral (front nose and mouth) portion of a crested mandible (jawbone) and it got paleontologist Richards excited immediately because it appeared to be from the largest pterosaur ever to have flown over Australia.

The competition is tough in this category

“The new pterosaur, which we named Thapunngaka shawi, would have been a fearsome beast, with a spear-like mouth and a wingspan around seven meters. It was essentially just a skull with a long neck, bolted on a pair of long wings. This thing would have been quite savage. It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn’t have heard it until it was too late.”

There’s your opening scene to “Attack of the Australian Dragons.” Richards estimated the skull at just over 1 meter (3.3 feet) long with a mouth filled with 40 razor teeth, swooping “like a magpie during mating season” – watching these monster dragons mating sounds like that scene in the movie where you start to take a liking to them … and then they finish mating and go back to killing and eating anything in their reach. Those estimates and descriptions are from just the lower portion of the jaw – co-author Dr. Steve Salisbury says in the press release that the upper jaw would help tell more about this new species of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, including how they were able fly with such massive heads and skinny necks. For now, the lower mouth will have to do – it was enough to use words from the now-extinct language of the indigenous Wanamara Nation to name it.

“The genus name, Thapunngaka, incorporates thapun [ta-boon] and ngaka [nga-ga], the Wanamara words for ‘spear’ and ‘mouth’, respectively. The species name, shawi, honors the fossil’s discoverer Len Shaw, so the name means ‘Shaw’s spear mouth’.”

Thapunngaka shawi lived during the Early Cretaceous period, which began 145 million years ago. But this is Australia – could one or more of these dragons still be found somewhere in the outback? The Aboriginal peoples told tales of the Rainbow Serpent, which was said to cause rainbows as it moved from one river or waterhole to another. The Kanmare was descried as a large snake with a mane around its head that attacked fishermen. It’s said that just about all native tribes had a variation of the Rainbow Serpent, but stories of flying serpents or dragons seem to e rare. Either the Thapunngaka shawi died off completely or survivors have managed to keep extremely well hidden.

Or did it fly to New Zealand?

Pterosaur fossils worldwide are rare due to their fragility, but this research team hopes the existence of one jawbone of these Australian “dragons” means more will be found.

Screenwriters tired of penning Godzilla and King Kong variations hope so too.

Artist’s impression of the fearsome Thapunngaka shawi.

(Credit: Tim Richards)

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-08-2021 om 23:58 geschreven door peter  

ANCIENT PROTO-MATH FOUND IN BABYLONIAN TABLET

TUCKED AWAY in a seemingly forgotten corner of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Daniel Mansfield found what may solve one of ancient math’s biggest questions.

First exhumed in 1894 from what is now Baghdad, the circular tablet — broken at the center with small perpendicular indentations across it — was feared lost to antiquity. But in 2018, a photo of the tablet showed up in Mansfield’s inbox.

Mansfield, a senior lecturer of mathematics at the University of New South Wales Sydney, had suspected the tablet was real. He came across records of its excavation and began the hunt. Word got around about what he was looking for, and then the email came. He knew what he had to do: travel to Turkey and examine it at the museum.

Hidden within this tablet is not only the oldest known display of applied geometry but a new ancient understanding of triangles. It could rewrite what we know about the history of mathematics, Mansfield argues.

These findings were published Wednesday in the journal Foundations of Science.

It’s generally thought that trigonometry — a subset of geometry and what’s displayed on the tablet in a crude sense — was developed by ancient Greeks like the philosopher Pythagoras. However, analysis of the tablet suggests it was created 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born.

Babylonian mathematics, which already holds a place of renown in the pantheon of ancient math, might’ve been more sophisticated than historians have given it credit for.

“The way we understand trigonometry harks back to ancient Greek astronomers,” Mansfield tells Inverse. “I like to think of the Babylonian understanding of right triangles as an unexpected prequel, which really is an independent story because the Babylonians weren’t using it to measure the stars, they were using it to measure the ground.”

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW FIRST

Mansfield is no stranger to a pair of white gloves and following his mathematical curiosity.

Years before discovering this latest tablet, dubbed Si.427, Mansfield was hot on the trail of another ancient Babylonian “document:” Plimpton 322. While the location of this artifact was known (it’s located at Columbia University) its true purpose was not.

Like Si.427, which dates back to roughly 1900 to 1600 BCE, Plimpton 322 is covered in geometric markings — riddles academics have tried to decipher for years. While the reigning theory was that these markings were a kind of teacher’s cheat code for Babylonian homework problems, Mansfield and colleagues were not convinced.

In a 2017 paper, Mansfield and colleagues propose Plimpton 322 might be a kind of proto-trigonometry table of values — suggesting it predates the development of trigonometry as we know it today.

“A modern analogy would be to say that it contains a mix of elementary school problems alongside the unsolved conjectures of mathematics,” writes Mansfield in the new paper.

WHAT’S NEW

Now, Mansfield argues the discovery of Si.427 could confirm his Plimpton 322 hunch.

In essence, Si.427 is argued to be a case study of how this proto-trig could be used in practice.

Si.427 is what’s known as a cadastral document. These are used to document the boundaries of land ownership. There are other examples on record, but Mansfield argues this tablet is the oldest known example from the Old Babylonian period — a range that stretches from 1900 BCE to 1600 BCE. On the tablet are legal and geometry details about a field that was split after some of it was sold.

This research suggests Plimpton 322 was used similarly: It might have been a surveyor’s cheat sheet, instead of a teacher’s. It’s possible Plimpton 322 was the theoretical solution to the practical problems a surveyor using Si.427 might have encountered.

“It’s a discovery that has come to us far outside our mathematical culture,” Mansfield says. “It seems new and fresh to us, even though it’s almost 4,000 years old.”

WHY IT MATTERS

While these tablets are the kind of thing you might easily walk past on display in a museum, Mansfield said this discovery could actually have a huge implication for how we understand these ancient mathematics.

Namely, it means mathematicians were working with so-called Pythagorean triples (trios of numbers that satisfy the infamous a^2+b^2 = c^2 equation) long before Pythagoras himself was even born.

It also helps answer a slightly less academic question: How do you evenly divide up disputed land?

“This is from a period where land is starting to become private — people started thinking about land in terms of ‘my land and your land,’ wanting to establish a proper boundary to have positive neighborly relationships,” Mansfield explains in a statement.

“And this is what this tablet immediately says. It's a field being split, and new boundaries are made.”

HOW DOES IT WORK?

As for how triangles sketched in clay translate to farmer’s fields, it all comes down to perpendicular lines.

Essentially, surveyors would choose two Pythagorean triples (which were inherently right triangles) and extend the boundary line of the resultant rectangle by eye to create true perpendicular lines that spread across the entire field.

“This proves that our Babylonian surveyor had a solid theoretical understanding of the geometry of rectangles and right triangles and used it to solve practical problems,” Mansfield says in the video.

There are also instances of resizing these triangles to better fit the physical shape of the field at hand, which surveyors would’ve liked done by referencing a table of trig values like Plimpton 322, the study suggests. This table would’ve been a comprehensive list of Pythagorean triples and the steps to resizing them.

WHAT’S NEXT

This discovery may have laid to rest one ancient math mystery, there’s still plenty more where that came from, Mansfield says.

“Ancient mathematics is not as sophisticated as modern mathematics,” he says. “But sometimes you want to simple answers instead of sophisticated ones.”

He’s not “just talking about how mathematics students want their exams to be.” The advantage of a simple approach is its quickness — and Mansfield wants to examine whether or not this approach has any real-world applications.

“This approach might be of benefit in computer graphics or any application where speed is more important than precision,” he says.

Abstract: 

Plimpton 322 is one of the most sophisticated and interesting mathematical objects from antiquity. It is often regarded as teacher’s list of school problems, however new analysis suggests that it relates to a particular geometric problem in contemporary surveying.

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09-08-2021 om 21:26 geschreven door peter