The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
19-09-2020
Mysterious Petroglyphs Found on Alien Mountain in Sri Lanka
Mysterious Petroglyphs Found on Alien Mountain in Sri Lanka
If you’re going to call yourself “Alien Mountain,” you’d better have some extraterrestrials, UFOs and other strange stuff. Welcome to Danigala Mountain in Sri Lanka, which has earned its nickname “Alien Mountain” because of its cylindrical shape, numerous UFO sightings, spiritual connotations and now … mysterious petroglyphs.
“In 28th July 2020, we have documented a new discovery of Petroglyphs that have been found in caves on the northwest slope direction of Danigala inselberg. Those bind runes are dominantly compared with other archeological sites in Sri Lanka and South Asia region. The type of symbols (bind runes) and petroglyphs found are quite new and for the first time discovered in Sri Lanka during archaeoastronomical and geological preliminary survey conducted by The Central Cultural Fund (CCF- Polonnaruwa-Alahana Parivena Project) with the corporation of South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Sciences Research unit of Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka.”
Heading for a hike on Alien Mountain?
In a new paper shared on the ResearchGate scientific networking site, Aravinda Ravibhanu Sumanarathna, an astrobiologist and exo-geologist at the South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Science Research Unit : Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka who is “researching fundamental of extraterrestrial life which corresponding to paleontological and pretological factors as a astrobiologist,” describes a new discovery of large petroglyphs on Danigala Mountain in the Uva Province of Sri Lanka. Sumanarathna calls it an “inselberg” because the cylindrical hill is isolated in a plain. (Photos here.) The name “Alien Mountain” may have come from UFO sightings by local villagers, although specific accounts don’t appear in searches. However, it may also be because Sri Lankan mythology says Danigala was the location of the Royal Airfield of the mythical King Ravana – the demon king often depicted with 10 heads.
So, are these petroglyphs human, mythical or alien?
Oh, yeah … back to the petroglyphs. Sumanarathna describes Danigala as a place with “distinction of environmental elements relevant to archaeology, astronomy, biodiversity, and cultural factors makes this land unique.” That now includes the newly-discovered petroglyphs found in the Edakkal Caves, which were discovered in 1894 by British Officer F. Fawcett. (Photos of the petroglyphs here.)
Burial pits, pottery fragments and other artifacts put the age of the occupation of these caves at around 4,500-5,500 years ago, although the region itself was occupied as long as 125,000 years ago. The petroglyphs were discovered during a preliminary archaeoastronomical and geological survey conducted by The Central Cultural Fund (CCF- Polonnaruwa-Alahana Parivena Project) with the corporation of South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Sciences Research unit of Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka.
According to Ancient Origins, the petroglyphs are of humans, peacocks, plants, dogs, ladders, arrows, bow, and geometric signs and some measure up to 7.5 meters (25 ft) in length by 5 meters (16 ft) in height, and the paper states that they “are systematically not similar to any of the rock arts found in Sri Lanka.”
Were the caves once like this?
But are they aliens? Are there any UFOs? Ten-headed beings? Nine-headed beings? Eight …
OK, we see where this is ‘headed’. The study concludes these petroglyphs are “a lost astronomical counting system” created by the Neolithic hunters, not aliens. While that’s not as exciting or game changing, it’s a big deal for the Sri Lankan government, which plans to open the area for “Geo tourism, Astro tourism, Archeo tourism and Adventure tourism via a multidisciplinary approach that enhances the well being of the local communities.”
With its matted hair and bald patches it resembles a much-loved toy somewhat past her prime.
In fact this creature is the best-preserved specimen of a woolly mammoth ever found – whose prehistoric prime was 39,000 years ago.
Even clumps of the animal’s distinguishing hair are remarkably intact after being trapped in glacial ice until she was discovered in Siberia earlier this year.
Scroll down for video
A 39,000-year-old female woolly mammoth, which was found frozen in Siberia in May, is seen here upon its arrival at an exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo. The mammoth will be on display for tourists and visitors from 13 July until 16 September
The mammoth, pictured, was discovered in an ice tomb in the New Siberian Islands, or Novosibirsk Islands earlier this year. Parts of the carcass are especially well preserved because they remained entirely frozen for thousands of years
REAL LIFE JURASSIC PARK 'NOT AN OPTION', SCIENTISTS SAY
Last year a controversial Australian billionaire was believed to be drawing up secret plans for a real-life Jurassic Park.
Mining magnate Clive Palmer, who has already embarked on a project to rebuild the Titanic, was rumoured to be working with the team who created Dolly the sheep.
But the research has shown the dinosaurs may have to stay on the big screen - as their DNA is just too old to be able to use for de-extinction.
However, Korean scientists are hoping that the samples found on the Siberian woolly mammoth aren't too old.
They plan to take the DNA samples and reassemble them into a full genome.
This could then be injected into embryonic cells which have had their own DNA taken out, and a suitable living surrogate would be found.
She is now to go on public display in Yokohama, Japan.
But while the public can get a remarkable glimpse of our planet’s past, scientists will be continuing tests that could give the extinct species a future.
Experts who found the female mammoth in May also discovered a sample of its blood inside ice beneath the carcass – which scientists claim may be used to regrow one of the animals, which last walked the earth around 4,000 years ago.
Preserved muscle tissue was also found from the creature, which was aged between 50 and 60 when she died, according to the Russian team who made the discovery on islands off the northern coast of Siberia.
Semyon Grigoriev, from the North Eastern Federal University in Siberia, said: ‘We were really surprised to find mammoth blood and muscle tissue.’
He hailed it as ‘the best-preserved mammoth in the history of paleontology’.
A worker at the exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, inspects the snout of the 39,000-year-old woolly mammoth. Scientists discovered a well-preserved sample of blood from the creature in May and are looking into ways in which the extinct species could be brought back from extinction
The snout of the 39,000-year-old mammoth, pictured, on display in Tokyo. When the mammoth was discovered preserved muscle tissue was also found from the creature, aged between 50 and 60 when she died, according to the Russian team who made the discovery on islands off the northern coast of Siberia
The foot of the female woolly mammoth, pictured, shows that many of the animal's original features - including the hair that gave the mammoth its woolly name - is still intact. The upper torso and two legs, which were found in the soil and not buried in ice, were gnawed by predators and almost didn't survive
Parts of the carcass are especially well preserved because they remained entirely frozen for thousands of years – including the hair.
However, the upper torso and two legs, which were entombed in the soil, have been gnawed by prehistoric and modern predators and almost did not survive.
It is the first ever well-preserved sample of blood from a woolly mammoth and has reopened the debate over the morality of Jurassic Park-style projects to restore extinct creatures to the planet
The blood and other samples have been made available to South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk’s private bioengineering laboratory.
The laboratory has confirmed it is working with other mammoth DNA samples in a bid to return the extinct Siberian mammoth.
The eventual plan is to plant an implanted egg into a live elephant for a 22-month pregnancy.
The hope is that at least one living cell of the mammoth was preserved ‘although even with such well-preserved remains, this may not be the case’.
Earlier this year a group of scientists from around the world met for the TEDx conference in Washington, sponsored by National Geographic.
The group were discussing the possibility of bringing 24 animals back from extinction, also known as ‘de-extinction’.
The animals included the dodo bird, the Carolina Parakeet, last seen in 1904 in Florida.
The Quagga, a plains zebra which once lived in South Africa but died out in 1883.
However, some scientists insist it will be impossible to create the same mammoths as once roamed the earth.
A researcher from the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology at the North-Eastern Federal University, pictured, working near a carcass of the female mammoth found on a remote island off the coast of Siberia in May
A researcher from the North-Eastern Federal University in Siberia holds a test tube with a sample of well-preserved blood found in a carcass of a female woolly mammoth. The sample was discovered on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean and is thought to be the first discovery of its kind
Dr Grigoriev initially put the age of the animal at around 10,000 years but more recent dating tests suggest the creature is much older, dating back around 39,000 years.
‘It is great luck that the blood preserved and we plan to study it carefully,’ he said. ‘For now our suspicion is that mammoth blood contains a kind of natural anti-freeze.’
He suggested that the animal was so well preserved because it did not ‘defrost and then freeze again’.
‘We suppose the mammoth fell into water or got bogged down in a swamp, could not free herself and died,’ he added.
‘Due to this fact the lower part of the body was preserved very well.’
As well as a sample of blood, Russian scientists also discovered a well-preserved sample of muscle tissue from the woolly mammoth carcass. The blood and tissue were preserved because they were buried in an ice tomb on the Novosibirsk islands for what's thought to have been 10,000 years
The woolly mammoth was probably wiped out by rapid climate change caused by a meteor striking the Earth, not by overhunting as previously believed
39,000-year-old cave bear's remains found intact in Siberia
39,000-year-old cave bear's remains found intact in Siberia
In what can be described as a miraculous discovery, Russian scientists have discovered a 39,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave bear and cub on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky island in Siberia.
Image credit: North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU).
Up until now, only bones had been found of the bears but this cave bear is completely preserved, with all internal organs in place including even its nose.
Cave bears were prehistoric species or subspecies that lived in Eurasia from around 300,000 to 15,000 years ago.
Drones find signs of a Native American ‘Great Settlement’ beneath a Kansas pasture
Drones find signs of a Native American ‘Great Settlement’ beneath a Kansas pasture
The sprawling town may have been home to thousands before Spanish explorers arrived
Remote-sensing devices mounted on drones identified a large earthwork beneath the surface of this cattle pasture in Kansas. Researchers suspect the site was once part of one of the largest Native American settlements north of Mexico.
Specially equipped drones flying over a Kansas cattle ranch have detected the buried remnants of a horseshoe-shaped ditch made more than 400 years ago by ancestors of today’s Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, scientists say.
The find adds to suspicions that the Kansas site was part of a sprawling population center that Spanish explorers dubbed the Great Settlement in 1601, archaeologist Jesse Casana of Dartmouth College and his colleagues report August 24 in American Antiquity.
Called Etzanoa by a captive the Spanish took from the Great Settlement, it could turn out to be one of the largest Native American settlements ever established north of Mexico, if confirmed by further research. The largest currently known is Cahokia, a site in what’s now Illinois where as many as 20,000 people lived between 1050 and 1150.
Ancestral Wichita communities in Kansas and northern Oklahoma that date to between around 1425 and 1650 existed in a time frame during which South America’s Inca civilization rose and fell (SN: 8/3/20). In the 1800s, European settlers drove ancestral Wichita people from their native lands, leading to the destruction of their villages and communal traditions.
The newly discovered earthwork, a 2-meter-wide ditch that forms a semicircle about 50 meters across, is similar to other circular earthworks known as council circles. Five council circles have been found among 22 ancestral Wichita sites excavated along an eight-kilometer stretch of the Little Arkansas and Smoky Hill rivers, around 230 kilometers north of the newly surveyed site.
“We apparently have located the sixth council circle and the only one that has not been disturbed,” says anthropological archaeologist Donald Blakeslee of Wichita State University. Farming and construction projects have damaged or covered many ancestral Wichita sites.
Drone surveys “can truly transform our ability to locate sites and map important features where huge areas have been plowed and surface traces of houses and ditches are often close to invisible,” says archaeologist Douglas Bamforth of the University of Colorado Boulder, who did not participate in the new study.
Images from a drone survey that probed underneath a Kansas pasture (right) helped scientists identify a large, circular ditch bordered by two pits (shown in gray, left) and areas where houses may have been built. A previously excavated area lies near the location of the underground earthwork.J. CASANA ET AL/AMER. ANTIQUITY 2020
It’s unclear how ancestral Wichita people used council circles. Researchers have suggested that these structures were places for ritual ceremonies, houses of social elites or protection from attackers.
Based on previous discoveries of items made of obsidian, seashells and other exotic materials at council circles, these structures must have hosted rituals of some kind, says archaeologist Susan Vehik of the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Drone imagery alone can’t establish whether rituals occurred at the buried earthwork or if, perhaps, non-combatants hid behind walls along its borders when the site was attacked. For now, she says, the drone discovery is an intriguing mystery.
Blakeslee was inspired by publications of an archaeologist who excavated at the same bluff site more than 60 years ago and suspected it had been a central part of Etzanoa. Since then, Blakeslee’s excavations along the Walnut River have filled in gaps between ancestral Wichita sites. Etzanoa likely existed as a single, spread-out community, Blakeslee contends. Upstream from Etzanoa sites, excavations have uncovered remnants of a separate Wichita town that ran for about three kilometers, he says.
From 2015 to 2019, Blakeslee directed an excavation at the House family cattle ranch in southeastern Kansas that uncovered ancestral Wichita objects such as stone tools and cooking utensils as well as 17th century Spanish items, including a horseshoe nail and bullets. These finds supported Spanish documents and maps of Etzanoa that resulted from the 1601 expedition to Wichita territory, and led the Kansas state legislature in 2017 to designate the site and its surrounding area as Etzanoa.
Blakeslee’s artifact discoveries also led to the new drone survey. Casana directed aerial sweeps over grazing land at the cattle ranch, where ancient structures had likely suffered minimal damage. Drone-mounted equipment measured heat and radiation differences in the ground to detect buried structures.
The underground earthwork at the House ranch lay near the highest point of the property, overlooking the river valley. Other circular earthworks of the ancestral Wichita and neighboring groups in the southern Great Plains were also built at elevated spots, Casana’s team says.
Drone imagery also picked up signs of two pits, one dug at or near each end of the semicircular structure. Makers of the earthwork may have removed soil from the pits to construct mounds inside its borders, as has been observed at excavated council circles in the region. Erosion may have partly worn away what was originally a circular earthwork, the researchers speculate.
Blakeslee plans to explore more underground features of the Kansas site with additional remote sensing techniques before starting excavations so that digging can precisely target the earthwork and any surrounding remains. That will also up the likelihood of uncovering material suitable for radiocarbon dating and revealing the age of the earthworks.
Several drawings, including the only known portrait of the now-extinct giant sloth lemur, have been discovered by an international team of scientists on the walls of a rock shelter located in the western part of Madagascar.
Dr. David Burney from Hawaii’s National Tropical Botanical Garden as well as other experts from the United States, United Kingdom, and Madagascar, found the drawings in Andriamamelo Cave which is close to the small village of Anahidrano. The drawings were created with black pigments that were made from charcoal or iron minerals.
The pictures included natural scenes with human-like figures as well as zoomorphic figures (animal forms or gods in the form of animals), and animal-human hybrids. Numerous living animals were depicted in the pictures, but there were also three drawings found of the elephant bird, tortoise, and giant sloth lemur.
An example of rock art depicting an animal (not the one found in Andriamamelo Cave).
The giant sloth lemur was drawn in a hunting scene where a hunter was pointing his weapon (maybe a bow) towards the upside down animal and two dogs. As for the hunter in the drawing, “There are two distinct legs, and a third appendage pointing backward in the manner of a tail or a sheathed sword. The posture and detail evoke classical images of the conspicuous constellation Orion,” the researchers noted. It is believed that the upside down animal with its legs in the air was in fact the giant sloth lemur. “These large primates are known as abundant subfossils from Anjohingidrobe Cave also in Beanka, such as Babakotia radofilai. They are generally reconstructed with long forelimbs, a short snout, and small rounded ears.”
Additionally, there were several symbols of an M-shaped motif (ሐ) found on the walls which is quite significant. “We have not found this figure in other rock art around the Indian Ocean, except a rare occurrence in Borneo, believed to have been created about 2,000 years ago,” the researchers explained, adding, “It also matches one distinctive character found in the Amharic alphabet of Ethiopia.”
Another example of rock art depicting an animal (not the one found in Andriamamelo Cave).
They went on to say, “Eight instances were noted where images and themes suggest Ptolemaic Egyptian mythological characters and symbols, some possibly of stellar constellations.” “There are no characters from the Latin alphabet. No cattle images, nor any Judaeo-Christian, Muslim, or Hindu symbology.” (A picture of the rock art can be seen here.)
Photograph (top) and artist’s sketch (bottom) of the inferred hunting scene: hunter (background, left) extends weapon toward inverted large animal in foreground; two dog-like zoomorphs are on the right.
Image credit: Burney et al, doi: 10.1080/15564894.2020.1749735.
It is believed that the rock art was made around the start of the Christian Era or perhaps even a few centuries prior to that time. “The local people associate the images with a different ethnic group from themselves (Vazimba or Bosy), from an unknown time, who made them in connection with divination,” claimed the researchers. Their paper was published in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology which can be read in full here.
Ancient Artists Left Signs For us to Decode. Did they Witness UFOs?
Ancient Artists Left Signs For us to Decode. Did they Witness UFOs?
Did ancient artists leave us clear signs of otherworldly interference in our lives and in our culture?
Art can be considered a record of history, culture, and science as it reveals man in his many aspects, offering a more complete insight and a unique viewpoint. Since the beginning of man, humans have always felt a need to reproduce celestialevents, first on the walls of cavesand then on canvas. It is not the case that history, art, archaeology, and anthropology were rewritten in art, but these interpretations should be viewed in light of new elementswhose existence had not previously been suspected.
Much has been written about the representation of strange objects placed in the sky in works of art from the Renaissance period, but little has been written about some ancient tapestries of the medieval period—and what has been discussed is controversial because it challenges the orthodox perspective.
Mysterious Medieval Tapestries
In eastern France, Cote d’Or department, in the little town of Beaune, (the wine capital of Burgundy), there is the Notre Dame Basilica . The original building was constructed about 1120-1149. Inside, besides frescos of the 15th century, there is a library that houses a set of tapestries from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
Among them, the eyes of an attentive observer are struck by “The Life of the Virgin Mary” and “Magnificat”, two medieval tapestries which are part of a group of five of important moments in the Virgin Mary’s life.
Life of the Virgin Mary, medieval tapestry from Tournai, Belgium.
In both of these tapestries there is one unidentified flying object ‘flitting’ across the sky in the background. Even in “Magnificat”, made in 1330, this black object is depicted in the typical way of many UFO sightings.
But there are many who state they are priest hats. But logic asks why include floating and lonely ecclesiastic hats in the sky?
Therefore, it is reasonable to wonder, considering the historical period, whether personal experiences or popular stories could have influenced an artist to include an odd event in the depths of a sacred image, hoping in this way to increase a halo of mysticality.
There are discs or UFOs which cannot be mistaken for ‘priest hats’ – given they do not fly in ‘religious skies’. A good example is the tapestry “ Summer Triumph ”, depicting allegoric and symbolic images of the season.
This tapestry certainly was part of a series that originally depicted the four seasons. It is not known if any of the other tapestries have survived. This tapestry, (perhaps created in Bruges), is located at the Bayerisches National Museum in Munich, Germany, which unfortunately has little information about it. They do know it was brought to the museum in 1971 by an art dealer. There was no information about the workshop, the designer, the patron, or the circumstances of its production.
The date 1538 is woven into the border on both the right and the left sides of the tapestry. In the upper border, there is an inscription in old Latin saying: “REX GOSCI SIVE GUTSCMIN”. This translates as “King Gosci of Gutscmin”. If this is a hint to the patron who ordered the tapestry to be made, nobody knows for sure.
As usual, almost hidden in the background, there are some black discs or UFOs in the blue sky.
Summers Triumph on display at the Bayerisches National Museum in Munich, Germany.
Dr. Birgitt Borkopp from the Bayerisches Museum, in a letter sent to the author, states that “As the style of the tapestry is rather unusual, even for its period, I would doubt if this is the right object to illustrate the history of art, but of course this is your decision entirely.”
Of course, she wasn’t aware that the link between UFOs and history in art is discussed in many books and articles. It is interesting to note strange or unusual art generally is not considered with curiosity by the ‘experts’ and they seem to prefer to ignore them.
The Tapestry of the Two Crusaders
An interesting example that displays ‘knowledge ahead of its time’ is what was written about the images of the two crusaders in the " Annales Laurissenses " (books about historical and religious events), composed in the beginning of the 8th century.
In 776, during one of the innumerable raids of the Saxons in Frank territory, an odd event happened. While Charlemagne, in a rare moment, was resting from battle and devoting himself to the cause of the Holy Church, the Saxons left their lands with a great army and invaded the Franks.
They reached the chapel at Frisdilar, founded by Saint Bonifacio, preacher and martyr who had predicted the chapel would never be burned. The Saxons surrounded the chapel, entered it and started to set it alight. But at the very last moment, two men dressed in white appeared in the sky. They were seen by the Christians who had taken refuge in the castle and by the pagans who were outside.
The two men were said to have protected the chapel from the fire. The pagans were not able to set fire to it, neither inside nor outside, and this terrified them so much they ran away – even though no one was pursuing them.
But one crusader remained during the hasty escape and was found dead, in flames, in front of the chapel. His dead body was positioned prone on his knees and elbows, with his mouth covered by his hands, showing what seemed to be clear signs of death from asphyxia.
The fire was there and was witnessed. It did not cause any damage to the chapel, but it killed the crusader who remained while the others escaped. This event could be interpreted in a variety of ways and it could be irrelevant if it had not been followed, after a short time, by another strange event.
It was the year 776, and it happened during the siege of the Sigiburg castle. The Saxons besieged and surrounded the Franks but in this circumstance the French garrison snuck out and suddenly attacked the Saxons from the rear. The Saxons were unprotected in that direction, since they were intent on the attack of the castle. In the midst of battle, something appeared in the sky.
Ruin of Hohensyburg castle, on the site of the Sigiburg.
Witnesses saw in the air two flaming shields, one after another. These appeared to hover over the top of the church as though spectral knights were bringing them into battle. Because of this miracle, it seemed the Franks were protected by the sky, and because of the assault the French had launched at their rear, the Saxons became so frightened that they all turned and ran.
For this last event, apart the chronicle of the text, there is pictorial documentation depicting two crusaders. In the miniature it shows the crusader with his arms up and clearly depicts an object in the sky, shaped like a sphere, with little circles like portholes around it. It is interesting to note the representation of light or energy emitting from the object seems to convey movement.
But it is only when observing the image [above, on the left] that it is possible to understand the attempt of the artist to portray the image in artistic perspective – but in those historical times, the concept of artistic perspective did not exist yet. Images were represented only in one dimension, flatly.
Observing the other image [above, right], the one of the crusader with the crown on his head (maybe a noble leader or even Charlemagne, though the chronicles tell us he was not present at this event) riding the horse and pointing to the object in the sky , it is possible to determine that the object inside the burst of light cannot be anything but an unidentified flying object – as we can confirm from the witness tales and from graphic documentation in circulation.
The Mysterious Objects Depicted in the Urbinate Bible
Another unusual flying object is found in a beautiful miniature from the Renaissance period, in the Urbinate Bible. This manuscript is kept in the Vatican museum; it is the most famous document relating to the Holy Scriptures.
The Urbinate Bible (or Urbino Bible) is divided into two books, the Old and New Testament . Hugo de Cominellis (or Hugues de Cominellis de Mazieres) has been identified as the scribe of these volumes which were commissioned by Frederico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. It was written at the studio of Vespasiano da Bisticci, the renowned Florentine bookseller, who was the primary provider of manuscripts for the Urbino library. The manuscript is a transcription of the canonical text of the Vulgate – a famous text translated by Saint Girolamo from Ebraic and Aramaic in 390 AD.
A number of different artists, panel painters, fresco painters, and miniature painters worked together in decorating these volumes. The Urbinate Bible is a rare example of artistic collaboration in Florence at the end of the 15th century.
Among the beautiful images in this Bible is the subject of this text – Saint Geremia’s Contemplation. The image is a perfect example of how mystic representation, the anomalous factor, and daily reality are brought together.
Medieval tapestry - Saint Geremia’s Contemplation.
We have the mountains, the surrounding countryside, the town, and the men and horses as examples of objective reality. We also have the divine mystic element falling into classic patterns of religious iconography. What interests us in this painting is the unusual object in the top right.
It is a round body emitting blazing rays. From the flames surrounding the object we witness a straight yellow beam of light (laser?). There are no perfectly straight lines in nature. In this example, the object is clearly out of the religious context. Straight beams originating from flying objects are no strangers to Ufology.
Medieval tapestry - Saint Geremia’s Contemplation - close up of the right hand top corner.
For this miniature, any analysis cannot state for certain whether the artist had seen or heard something in reality, but one thing is apparent, he wanted to tell us something…
It’s not likely that today someone seeing a flying object at a distance to witness advanced characteristics such as shape, movement, controllability, or luminosity, would think, as the Saxons did, that it’s a sign we are protected by God or by gods. Thanks to our technical knowledge, we might immediately think it is some secret military aircraft or even extraterrestrial. Also, the Franks, although ignorant of aerial technology, didn’t think of it as a simple celestial phenomenon but as something more particular: “as though knights were bringing them into battle”. This presupposes the idea that the two discs were driven by ‘knights’ who seemed to want to take part in the battle.
Was there the deliberate intention to alter the result of that battle? Or was it just by chance the two flaming discs appeared in that moment? After all, these two events as quoted in the chronicles influenced the result of two different assaults/aggressions by the Saxons, (called pagans in that period). Thus, it seems right to wonder if the battles during which these sightings occurred were so critical for the still forming empire of Charlemagne, promoter of Christianity.
How important was it that the Saxons were driven away? How important was it that Charlemagne won? And if the Saxons had won, what kind of civilization would we have today?
Could our civilization, and by consequence, the present/actual social-political structure have been ‘driven’ in its development since remote times ? And why?
Top image: Medieval tapestry in Ecouen Castle, Ecouen, France. Source: photogolfer / Adobe Stock.
Piri Reis Map - How Could a 16th Century Map Show Antarctica Without Ice?
Piri Reis Map - How Could a 16th Century Map Show Antarctica Without Ice?
On October 9, 1929, a German theologian named Gustav Adolf Deissmann was cataloguing items in the Topkapi Palace library in Istanbul when he happened across a curious parchment located among some disregarded material. On the gazelle skin parchment was a map, now referred to as the Piri Reis map .
The map was drawn and signed by Turkish cartographer Hagji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri , aka Piri Reis, and is dated to 1513 AD. Reis was an admiral in the Turkish navy, an experienced sailor, and a cartographer, who claimed to have used 20 source maps and charts to construct the map, including 8 Ptolemaic maps, 4 Portuguese maps, an Arabic map, and a map by Christopher Columbus.
Since its discovery, the Piri Reis map has stirred both intrigue and controversy, mostly due to the presence of what appears to be a representation of Antarctica 300 years before it was discovered. Another—if not even more intriguing facet of the appearance of Antarctica—is that it appears to show the land mass before it was covered in ice, over 6000 years ago.
Evidence of Ancient Technology?
The great debate was sparked by Professor Charles Hapgood when he published his theory on the Piri Reis map in his book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings in 1965. He and a team of students at the University of New Hampshire studied the map and found many anomalies, such as the use of mercatorial projection and the inclusion of a pre-ice Antarctica.
The Greeks were able to create cylindrical maps based on their knowledge of a spherical earth, though mercatorial projection was not used by Europeans until later in the 16 th century, and were also able to use astronomy and geometry to calculate latitude and longitude, though absolute accuracy was not possible until the invention of the chronometer in 1760. While these two feats—amazing as they are—could be explained by use of Greek source maps and charts from the age of Alexander, nothing could explain the inclusion of Antarctica. As a result, Hapgood proposed that the map was based on materials that pre-date 4000 BC, before any known developed languages or progressive civilizations.
This theory implies that a prehistoric civilization had the technology to navigate major seaways and fairly accurately chart the globe. Hapgood also suggested that the topographic depiction of the interior of the continents required aerial capabilities, implying the prehistoric ‘super’ civilization to be both nautical and aerial masters and leading to the further speculation of either an Atlantean or alien civilization. No evidence has been found to support such theories.
South America vs Antarctica
Skeptics of Hapgood’s theory point out that the map is a representation of the South American coastline, pointing to modern physical features of the coast and interior included on the 16 th century map. Otherwise, argue critics, the image would indicate that Antarctica and South America had once been connected at Uruguay, and that Argentina did not yet exist.
While this argument possibly dismisses the presence of Antarctica on the Piri Reis map, other anomalous maps have been found that are identical to the the ice free continent as only 20 th century satellite technology has been able to identify.
Other theories of Hapgood’s have already been dismissed, such as his polar shift theory in which he claimed a sudden shift in the inclination of the Earth's axis of rotation in 9,500 BC could have resulted in the displacement of Antarctica, sending it hundreds of miles south and resulting in the alteration of its climate from semi-temperate to freezing. All evidence suggests that this shift could not, and did not, occur.
Undiscovered Civilization?
The true question is whether or not Antarctica is the identifiable continent on the Piri Reis map, or any of the other anomalous maps. If it is, could the Piri Reis map have been based on the documents of a yet undiscovered, prehistoric civilization, one that could possess technology enabling them to travel and accurately chart the globe? Regardless of the true origin of the sources, one thing is for certain: this map opens up the debate over how we view our own history and what, if any, of those views are accurate. Perhaps someday the truth will be discovered.
Top image:The Piri Reis Map. Credit: Mehmetilker / Adobe Stock
ANCIENT FISH FORCES RETHINK OF HOW SHARKS EVOLVED TO BE EXPERT SWIMMERS
ANCIENT FISH FORCES RETHINK OF HOW SHARKS EVOLVED TO BE EXPERT SWIMMERS
What makes a shark a shark? A new finding challenges one of scientists' key theories about these marine predators.
CUTTING THROUGH THE WATER WITH A GRACE AND AGILITY THAT MAKES THEM THE APEX PREDATORS OF THEIR ECOSYSTEMS, the seemingly effortless way sharks move is made possible by one curious trait: They don't have bones.
Instead, their skeletons are made of cartilage. Researchers have long believed that this boneless body schemata predated bony skeletons of other fish; indeed, sharks, they thought, were a blueprint for bones.
But a new fossil finding from western Mongolia challenges that understanding. Bony skeletons, it turns out, date back in fish evolution much further than expected. The finding may fundamentally alter what makes a shark a shark.
In a new study, researchers describe skull and braincase parts from an ancient fish fossil, Minjinia turgenensis, named for the region of Mongolia where it was found.
The fish was a placoderm, a class of prehistoric armored fish, and the fossilized bone parts are 410 million years old. The finding places the evolution of bones further back in time than previous estimates, and muddies the story of how sharks evolved as opposed to other fish. It challenges what we understand about one of the shark's most remarkable traits — its cartilaginous frame.
Placoderms have been studied in the past for their bone and jaw development — traits that later continued not only in fish, but in other animals, too, including humans.
Sharks sure have jaws, but they don't have bones. Rather, sharks' skeletons are made of cartilage, a material which is half as dense as bone, helping these stealthy swimmers conserve energy.
Given sharks' distinct boneless makeup, researchers thought sharks split off from other fish before they went on to develop bony skeletons.
But the new fossil, an ancient relative of both sharks and bony fish, suggests that, at some point in time, sharks may have been bonier than they are today.
The findings were published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Three-dimensional CT scan of the braincase of Minjinia turgenensis. Imperial College London/Natural History Museum
EVOLUTION OF BONES
Sharks are known for their limber, boneless bodies. But at some point in the course of history, these expert killers of the marine world may have had bones, too.
Then, they lost them.
"Conventional wisdom says that a bony inner skeleton was a unique innovation of the lineage that split from the ancestor of sharks more than 400 million years ago, but here is clear evidence of bony inner skeleton in a cousin of both sharks and, ultimately, us,” said lead study author Martin Brazeau in a statement.
If sharks indeed had bony skeletons, then lost them, it may have been in order to adapt to their environment, Brazeau explains. Since sharks don't have a swim bladder — a feature that came later for bony fish — lightweight cartilage would have helped them stay nimble in the water, the researchers theorize.
Learning more about shark skeleton evolution can also help us understand how they came to be the formidable predators we know and fear today.
“This may be what helped sharks to be one of the first global fish species, spreading out into oceans around the world 400 million years ago," Brazeau said.
Abstract:
The vertebrate skeleton comprises two main systems: the exoskeleton (external achondral dermal bones) and the endoskeleton (internal chondral bones and cartilages, as well as some intramembranous bones). An ossified exoskeleton evolved at least 450 million years ago in jawless stem gnathostomes, but the endoskeleton in these taxa is not endochondrally ossified. Endochondral bone, in which the cartilaginous endoskeletal precursor is invaded by and eventually replaced by bone, is widely considered an osteichthyan apomorphy, and such a reliable identifying character that it gives the group its name. Extant chondrichthyans lack dermal bone and possess a mainly cartilaginous endoskeleton enveloped by a structurally diverse range of tessellate calcified cartilage. Outgroups of the gnathostome crown also lack endochondral ossification. Galeaspids surround their cartilaginous skeleton in globular calcified cartilage, while osteostracan and ‘placoderm’ endoskeletons were sheathed in perichondral bone. Consequently, the last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates was long thought to have been perichondrally ossified, but lacking endochondral ossification.
Unique Painting of Extinct Giant Sloth Discovered in Madagascar Cave
Unique Painting of Extinct Giant Sloth Discovered in Madagascar Cave
A team of scientists exploring a cave in western Madagascar have discovered an ancient painting which they are calling the “only known drawing of an extinct giant lemur” that once lived in the island’s remote western forests until at least 1,000 years ago.
Researchers from the Natural History Museum explain on the museum website that Madagascar used to be home to giant lemurs, which they say could grow to the size of silverback gorillas. Except for the discovery of a few bones, no tangible evidence of what these giant animals actually looked like previously existed, which makes the discovery of this new cave painting particularly exciting.
Exploring the Island of Prehistoric Megafauna
The island of Madagascar is located off the south-eastern coast of continental Africa and is still today home to a diverse range of lemurs. Archaeological finds, such as cut marks on bones found in the northwest, and stone tools in the northeast, tell archaeologists that Madagascar was visited by foragers around 2000 BC. However a 2018 paper published in Science Advances explains that “Early Holocene humans might have existed on the island 10,500 years ago” when a huge range of megafauna, that no longer exists today, dominated the island. This group of megafauna included the largest birds ever to exist, elephant birds , as well as giant tortoises, the Malagasy crowned hawk-eagle and pygmy hippos.
Research has found that when early Holocene humans first lived on the island, it was also inhabited by a wide range of now extinct megafauna, including the giant sloth, elephant birds, giant tortoises and pygmy hippos.
In a new paper published in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology , Museum researcher Julian Hume , who studies extinct animals of the Indian Ocean, describes the painting as the “only known drawing of a giant sloth lemur” to have been found in the caves of western Madagascar. In a second paper, published in Quaternary Research , Hume also describes a new fossil site which determines giant lemurs existed on Madagascar until at least 1,000 years ago, a long time after humans first settled the island.
Multiple experts agree that the only creature the cave drawing could represent is the now extinct giant sloth, said to have existed only in Madagascar.
Bizarre Ancient Animal Thought to Represent the Now Extinct Giant Sloth
Hume has concluded that Madagascar was home to multiple species of giant lemurs, some which, according to an article on the Natural History Museum website, “were the size of silverback gorillas that likely spent much of their time on the forest floor.” While the image found in the cave painting doesn’t look like you would expect, multiple experts have all agreed that the only creature it could represent is the now extinct giant sloth which is said to have been found nowhere else in the world.
The paper in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology says sloth lemurs were highly specialized animals “reaching up to the size of sheep” that would have hung from tree branches and slowly made their way through the dry forest canopies, and that the sloth lemur Babakotia was “a really bizarre species,” compared to modern sloths that use their claws to hang upside down. Rather, the Babakotia's fingers were elongated and curved to one side forming “rigid hooks” disabling the lemurs to use their hands for anything else.
On the left, a life restoration of the giant sloth lemur. ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) On the right a male crowned lemur photographed at Ankarana Special Reserve in Madagascar.
The team of scientists discovered the fossils of four different species of giant lemur, along with bones from the extinct Madagascan aardvark, or bibymalagasy, and also the remains of extinct giant cuckoos and giant fossa, which was about two thirds larger than the species that survives today. Carbon dates for these bones show that giant lemurs survived into the last millennium. The researchers concluded that one of the main causes for the extinction of most of these large animals “was people,” and that the cave, which is located in a remote dry forest, was one of the last remaining refuges for some of the megafauna.
Astonishing Discovery of Complex Matrix of Ancient Symbols
What the researchers said was “astonishing” is that the cave art included abstract symbols which have only previously been found in a cave site on the island of Borneo, some 7,500 kilometers away, and that date to “2,000 years ago.” This is about the same time that the first Indonesians arrived in Madagascar and it is highly likely that that they carried these symbols with them, a theory which if correct makes the cave site, and painting, anything from 1,000 to 2,000 years old.
The cave art found, also included abstract symbols only previously seen at a cave site on the island of Borneo, 7,500 kilometers away.
The art discovered in the cave also contains lettering resembling ancient Arabic script from Ethiopia, and human figures with head shapes which, the paper explains, “bare a passing similarity to the ancient Egyptian gods.” And while this mixing of Indonesian, African and Malagasy cultural symbols from thousands of years ago is incredibly alluring and suggestive, the researchers said all this was still rather speculative for the time being.
Top image: The cave painting, believed to represent the now extinct giant sloth lemur, was discovered inthe a limestone cave located in a nature reserve in western Madagascar.
An international team of scientists has discovered stylistically unique ancient drawings, including the only known prehistoric depiction of a now-extinct giant sloth lemur, on the walls of a rock shelter in western Madagascar.
Photograph (top) and artist’s sketch (bottom) of the inferred hunting scene: hunter (background, left) extends weapon toward inverted large animal in foreground; two dog-like zoomorphs are on the right.
Image credit: Burney et al, doi: 10.1080/15564894.2020.1749735.
The drawings were discovered by Dr. David Burney from Hawaii’s National Tropical Botanical Garden and his colleagues from the United Kingdom, Madagascar and the United States in Andriamamelo Cave near the small village of Anahidrano.
All the depictions are painted with dry-applied black pigments made from charcoal or iron minerals.
They include several image groupings that comprise naturalistic scenes, with anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and human-animal hybrid figures.
Of possible significance is a repeated use of an M-shaped motif (ሐ), with anthropomorphic development in a few cases.
“We have not found this figure in other rock art around the Indian Ocean, except a rare occurrence in Borneo, believed to have been created about 2,000 years ago,” the researchers said.
“It also matches one distinctive character found in the Amharic alphabet of Ethiopia.”
“Eight instances were noted where images and themes suggest Ptolemaic Egyptian mythological characters and symbols, some possibly of stellar constellations,” they added.
“There are no characters from the Latin alphabet. No cattle images, nor any Judaeo-Christian, Muslim, or Hindu symbology.”
Dr. Burney and co-authors also identified several living animals and three representatives of the extinct megafauna: elephant bird, tortoise, and giant sloth lemur.
The latter appears in a hunting scene, with a hunter pointing a weapon, the giant lemur upside down, and two dogs.
The sloth lemurs (family Palaeopropithecidae) are a group of extinct giant lemurs that includes four genera. The common name can be misleading, as these creatures were not closely related to South American sloths. As the name implies, sloth lemurs were designed for treetop living, with long arms and legs, limber joints and hook-like hands and feet. These adaptations allowed them to be adept at both leaping and climbing. It is believed that over-hunting and the burning of their forest habitat by early human residents combined with a naturally slow reproductive rate gradually led to their extinction. This is a life restoration of Babakotia radofilai, an extinct species of medium-sized sloth lemur from Madagascar.
Image credit: Smokeybjb / CC BY-SA 3.0.
“Standing on the left behind the other figures is an anthropomorph that appears to be brandishing a weapon, perhaps drawing a bow,” the scientists said.
“There are two distinct legs, and a third appendage pointing backward in the manner of a tail or a sheathed sword. The posture and detail evoke classical images of the conspicuous constellation Orion.”
“The weapon seems to aim toward a larger and more distinct image in the foreground, a zoomorph lying on its back with legs in the air.”
“We have only a few clues to the identity of this large conspicuous zoomorph. This animal’s profile is consistent with that of the extinct sloth lemurs.”
“These large primates are known as abundant subfossils from Anjohingidrobe Cave also in Beanka, such as Babakotia radofilai. They are generally reconstructed with long forelimbs, a short snout, and small rounded ears.”
“Beyond are two zoomorphs we interpret as dogs, one looking toward the ‘sloth lemur’ and the other, with erect ears, in the opposite direction.”
The authors think the drawings were created approximately in the beginning of the Christian Era or a few centuries before.
“The local people associate the images with a different ethnic group from themselves (Vazimba or Bosy), from an unknown time, who made them in connection with divination,” they said.
The discovery is described in a paper in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.
_____
David A. Burney et al. Rock art from Andriamamelo Cave in the Beanka Protected Area of western Madagascar. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, published online May 26, 2020; doi: 10.1080/15564894.2020.1749735
The Battle of the Delta: Ramses III saves Egypt from the People of the Sea
The Battle of the Delta: Ramses III saves Egypt from the People of the Sea
The ancient Egyptian pharaohs often commemorated military victories over their enemies by having them depicted on the walls of great monuments. One of the most famous conflicts recorded on the walls of an Egyptian temple is that of the Battle of the Delta, fought by the pharaoh Ramesses III against the invading Sea Peoples.
The Battle of the Delta is thought to have been fought during the year 1175 BC. On one side were the Egyptians under Ramesses III, perceived by some to be the last great pharaoh of the New Kingdom. On the other side were the mysterious Sea Peoples, a term used to describe a group of sea-faring raiders mentioned in several Egyptian sources. These include the Peleset (Philistines), Tjekker of Crete, Shekelesh (Sicilians), Shardana / Sherden (Sardinians), and Lukka (possible ancestors of the Lycians).
Incidentally, several ancient Mediterranean civilizations, i.e. the Hittite, Mycenaeans and Mitanni kingdoms, came to an end around 1175 BC, and one theory claims that their downfall was caused by the Sea Peoples. The ferocity of these raiders is also echoed in an inscription on the walls of the mortuary temple of Ramesses II in Medinet Habu, where the pharaoh’s victory is commemorated. According to the text, “Not one stood before their hands,” and numerous cities were laid to waste.
Procession of Philistine Captives At Medinet-habu.
Egypt seems to have been the next target of these aggressive warriors. Prior to the Battle of the Delta, Ramesses III had obtained a great victory over the ‘Peoples of the Sea’ at the Battle of Djahy. Somewhere along Egypt’s easternmost frontier (modern day southern Lebanon), Ramesses III engaged and defeated an army of the Sea People that was attempting to invade his empire by land. Much of our knowledge of this battle comes from Medinet Habu. Given the lack of other sources, it has been suggested that Ramesses III might not have routed an army at Djahy. It is possible that the pharaoh actually had gained a victory over a group of refugees fleeing from their cities, settlements destroyed by the People of the Sea. Of course, if this were the case, it would not be depicted on the walls of Medinet Habu, unless it were modified.
Wall Relief of Ramses III fighting the People of the Sea, on Migdol at Medinet Habu, Theban Necropolis, Egypt, 2009 by Remih
The Sea Peoples were also attempting to invade Egypt in ships. Compared to these expert sailors of the Mediterranean, the Egyptians may have been inferior seamen, and their ships technologically less advanced. Yet, Ramesses III had a cunning plan. Instead of engaging his enemies in open waters, he allowed them to sail unopposed into the Nile Delta. Powered by both sail and oars, the Egyptian ships were more manoeuvrable in this terrain than the sailing ships of their opponents, thus giving them an advantage. On the banks of the Nile, bowmen were placed to prevent the Sea Peoples from landing on Egyptian soil. Bowmen were also placed in the Egyptian ships to fire their deadly arrows at the enemies. The Sea Peoples, who were armed with swords and spears, were not able to counter-attack. Moreover, grappling hooks were used by the Egyptians to capsize many of the enemy ships.
Due to Ramesses III’s victory at the Battle of the Delta, the Egyptians were able to avoid being conquered by the Sea Peoples and suffering destruction at their hands. Nevertheless, there was a heavy price to pay. As a result of this conflict, the Egyptian treasury was drained and the Egyptian army was exhausted, thus contributing to the end of the glory days of the empire. Matters only got worse after the death of Ramesses III, as their eastern possessions were later colonized by the Philistines. In the long term, the weakening of Egypt due to the conflict with the People of the Sea, along with other important factors, would lead to the Third Intermediate Period about a century after the Battle of the Delta.
Featured image:Egyptian relief of the invading Sea Peoples ( Wikimedia Commons )
An airport construction site located north of Mexico City has become “mammoth central” with hundreds of bones already recovered. So far, experts have unearthed around 200 mammoth bones with many more waiting to be excavated at the location of the new Santa Lucia airport. In fact, there are such a large number of bones at the site that experts have to dig through each load of soil picked up by bulldozers. Additionally, the site is now regarded as the largest discovery of mammoth bones in the entire world.
The site was once the location of an ancient lake bed that mammoths were attracted to but where they also met their end when they became trapped in the marshy soil. Interestingly, archaeologists also found dozens of tools created from the bones that would have been made by ancient humans after the mammoths died between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Experts are hoping that the bones will reveal more information regarding their extinction.
The airport construction site is located just 12 miles from artificial pits that ancient humans used to trap and kill mammoths. With the pits nearby, it’s possible that even if the mammoths died from getting stuck in the lake bed, early humans could have still used their bones to make tools – similar to the remains found at the trap site in Tultepec.
More studies need to be conducted as explained by archaeologist Rubén Manzanilla López from the National Institute of Anthropology and History, “Here we have found evidence that we have the same kind of tools, but until we can do the laboratory studies to see marks of these tools or possible tools, we can’t say we have evidence that is well-founded.”
Paleontologist Joaquin Arroyo Cabrales weighed in by stating, “What caused these animals extinction, everywhere there is a debate, whether it was climate change or the presence of humans,” adding, “I think in the end the decision will be that there was a synergy effect between climate change and human presence.”
The construction of the new Santa Lucia airport is scheduled to be completed by 2022, so archaeologists still have some time left to potentially unearth a lot more mammoth bones. A picture of some of the bones already discovered at the site can be seen here.
Paleontologists work to preserve the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered at the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport in the Santa Lucia military base, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. The paleontologists are busy digging up and preserving the skeletons of mammoths, camels, horses, and bison as machinery and workers are busy with the construction of the Felipe Angeles International Airport by order of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
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The Anunnaki and the hidden mysteries of Lake Titicaca: Ancient contact between Sumer and South America?
The Anunnaki and the hidden mysteries of Lake Titicaca: Ancient contact between Sumer and South America?
The Anunnaki linked to Lake Titicaca: Archaeological remains of the Tiahuanaco culture under the lake would evidence an ancient contact.
The Tiahuanaco culture is very enigmatic: it has been called the oldest civilization in history (older than Sumer). It has also been compared to Atlantis . One hypothesis says that in this culture there are indications of the Anunnaki presence in Peru and Bolivia , due to archaeological finds of gold pieces under Lake Titicaca .
Discoveries under the waters of Lake Titicaca
An important find that could show the presence of the Anunnaki in South America is the one made in October 2013 , when Belgian archaeologists from the Huiñaimarka Project studied the depths of Lake Titicaca in an underwater archeology excavation.
Two thousand artifacts were recovered there , including ceramics with images of felines and 31 pieces of rolled gold . According to archaeologist Christophe Delaere:
“We found important archaeological formative material, typical of the Tiahuanaco and Inca cultures, and also material from the 19th and 20th centuries. That is, we have 2,000 to 2,500 years of history here. These are the first pieces of gold we have found. Also a rudder and an anchor that would be from a pre-Hispanic boat ”.
According to the archaeologist Marcial Medina Huanca, these pieces belong to the Tiahuanaco people , based on their iconography. The hypothesis of the academics is that many of the artifacts were offerings of the inhabitants of Tiahuanaco that they had thrown into Lake Titicaca .
Anunnaki metallurgy established in Tiahuanaco?
According to the investigations of Zecharia Sitchin , in the years 4,000 a. C. , in this region of the Tiahuanaco people of Bolivia there was a metallurgy plant established by the Anunnaki and it was the largest in the world. In that millennium, Enki took his father, King Anu, to review it .
Sitchin based this hypothesis on the findings of the Austrian archaeologist, Arthur Posnanky , who found holes in several stone blocks at Tiahuanaco . For the arrival of the Anunnaki, almost all the buildings in the city of Tiahuanaco were covered with gold sheets . The sheets were fastened with gold nails that were driven into the holes in the blocks.
With this information, the hypothesis of Zecharia Sitchin is indirectly supported, that the Tiahuanaco have worked in the metallurgy of gold under the mandate of the Anunnaki , with gold brought from another place.
Tiahuanaco city built during the Ice Age
Arthur Posnansky explained that the Tiahuanacos built their cities during the Ice Age , the last one that continued to occur in the years 15,000 BC. C. This would make it the oldest civilization in humanity .
Posnansky stipulated that during the Ice Age, the waters of Lake Titicaca reached the limits of the city of Tiahuanaco . Posnansky concluded this due to the discovery of human bones on dry land away from the lake. Nearby there were also remains of fish and fossils of lake aquatic plants .
The archaeologist Delaere also mentioned the discovery of a rudder and an anchor under the lake … If the vessel from which the objects emerged was prior to colonial times, it could indicate that the Tiahuanaco lived in the Ice Age when Lake Titicaca was connected with the Pacific Ocean .
Anunnaki connection
The Anunnaki connection could be that, when these gods were exploring our Earth to establish their mining activities, they would have arrived in boats to Titicaca, when it was connected to the ocean .
Many structures have been identified under the surface of Titicaca . In 1966, Ramón Avellaneda and his team of divers found a paved road and seven buildings . Likewise, the academic Hugo Boero Rojo announced in 1980 that he had discovered these structures, as well as temples and stairways .
In 2004, the Akakor Scientific Research Group explored the lake bottom, finding a pre-Inca construction, a ceremonial center, paths, cultivation terraces, statues, and a two- foot gold idol .
How was that archaeological site submerged?
Posnanky thought that this Bolivian-Peruvian region suffered several cataclysms that first raised the waters and then caused them to descend. The submerged pre-Inca constructions would have been erected on dry land when the lake was smaller or before it was formed .
However, it is a mystery to explain how they were submerged , but if the dating of the city of Tiahuanaco in the years 15,000 a. C . is correct, it would indicate that the water began to cover these structures during the next period of thawing or melting of ice, after the Ice Age.
That thaw could have been known as the Great Universal Flood and would have left submerged and hidden all the vestiges of the Anunnaki in Peru and Bolivia.
We also noticed two things : the object of the Fuente Magna and monument Pokotia , both could be evidence of the arrival of the Sumerians gods Andes (the Sumerians would have called “Country of the tin to the West” to this Andean region Peru and Bolivia).
As a result of all the above, the hypothesis about the arrival of the Anunnaki in the lands near Lake Titicaca is still a mystery . There are several indicators, such as the gold plates under the waters that have an uncertain provenance, the mining activity of the Anunnaki and the Sumerian-like writing in the Magna Fountain . The topic is open to debate.
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8 Immortal Lords Ruled Earth For 240,000 Years – The Sumerian King List Unveiled
8 Immortal Lords Ruled Earth For 240,000 Years – The Sumerian King List Unveiled
The Sumerian King List describes how a group of enlightened beings descended from heaven to rule Earth. The total length of their domination: 242,100 years – how is that possible?
The Sumerian King List is an archaic stone tablet written in the Sumerian language. It gives us the names and reign lengths of the kings of Sumer, a region that encompassed the space now occupied by southern Iraq.
Compiled from several different clay tablets, the final part of the King List contains the names of historically attested rulers and cities but these are not the focus of this article. To the forbidden history community, the first, unattested kings on the list present greater interest.
Also known as antediluvian rulers, the first eight kings in the list totaled a reign of 242,100 years, in a mythical period before the great flood swept the area. Mainstream scholars dismiss the existence of these lords and their impossibly-long reigns, citing the fact that no archaeological discoveries support the unusual claims made by the stone tablets. Yet the cuneiform words are there:
“After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years.”
After the first heavenly king’s tenure ended, the scepter fell into the hands of Alalngar, who ruled for 36,000 years. After him, it was En-men-lu-ana‘s turn to sit on the throne for a whopping 43,200 years. The next 5 kings all held office for very long periods of time, the shortest of which lasted ‘only’ 18,600 years.
The coming of the Great Flood – considered by some a global catastrophe – put an end to the reign of the mythical kings.
After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish.”
Kish was an ancient city in Sumer, home of the first historically-documented Sumerian dynasty. The kings in this dynasty had shorter reigns than the ones before them, but they still extended way beyond the expected life span of a human being in those days. The shortest reign belonged to Zamug, ‘the son of Barsal-nuna,’ who remained in power for 140 years.
For a long time, historians agreed these impossible timelines were the result of fiction, their reigns and deeds being hyperbolized to increase the significance of the ancient Sumerians in the eyes of neighboring peoples. By documenting their extremely old history, they could stake a legitimate claim to rule the land. But most historians dismiss the existence of the Anunnaki, the Children of Anu.
They too ‘came down from heaven’ to fulfill their own agenda on Earth. These beings had mastered space travel and although it is said they came here from the twelfth planet, Nibiru, their place of origin might as well have been somewhere else in the galaxy.
We don’t know for sure how man came to be on this planet. Perhaps he is the product of evolution and natural selection. But if humans were indeed created by someone, there is room for the Anunnaki genesis theory which claims man drew his first breath in the laboratories of Anunnaki geneticists Enki and Ninmah. If these beings were able to manipulate and transform Homo erectus into rational, intelligent humans, it goes without saying they were able to prolong their own lives.
This could mean the longevity of the reigns on the Sumerian King List could be interpreted as a reality rather than a metaphor. For all we know, these celestial beings could have been immortal or at least impervious to factors such as aging and disease. If they wielded enough power to be considered gods, it stands to reason they were immune to the troubles that end our lives short.
There is always the possibility that we’re looking for answers in the wrong places and the Sumerian King List is half-fable, half-fact. But amid this controversial topic, one thing is certain: our planet’s history sure is strange.
All related videos, selected and posted by peter2011
Stonehenge enhanced sounds like voices or music for people inside the monument
Stonehenge enhanced sounds like voices or music for people inside the monument
Scientists created a scale model one-twelfth the size of the ancient site to study its acoustics
Acoustic research using a scale model one-twelfth the size of Stonehenge (above) finds that the completed monument would have magnified speech and improved musical sounds, but only for those inside the stone circle.
Welcome to Soundhenge. Better as Stonehenge, this ancient monument in southern England created an acoustic space that amplified voices and improved the sound of any music being played for people standing within the massive circle of stones, a new study suggests.
Because of how stones were placed, that speech or music would not have projected beyond Stonehenge into the surrounding countryside, or even to people standing near the stone circle, scientists report in the October Journal of Archaeological Science.
To explore Stonehenge’s sound dynamics, acoustical engineer Trevor Cox and colleagues used laser scans of the site and archaeological evidence to construct a physical model one-twelfth the size of the actual monument. That was the largest possible scale replica that could fit inside an acoustic chamber at the University of Salford in England, where Cox works. This room simulated the acoustic effects of the open landscape surrounding Stonehenge and compacted ground inside the monument.
Stonehenge Lego, as Cox dubbed the model, was assembled assuming that Stonehenge’s outer circle of standing sarsen stones — a type of silcrete rock found in southern England — had originally consisted of 30 stones. Stonehenge today includes 63 complete stones, including 17 standing sarsen stones in the outer circle. Based on an estimated total of 157 stones placed at the site around 4,200 years ago, the researchers 3-D printed 27 stones of all sizes and shapes. Then, the team used silicone molds of those items and plaster mixed with other materials to re-create the remaining 130 stones. Simulated stones were constructed to minimize sound absorption, much like actual stones at Stonehenge, Cox says.
Acoustical engineer Trevor Cox works with a scale model of Stonehenge in a sound chamber at England’s University of Salford.ACOUSTICS RESEARCH CENTRE/UNIV. OF SALFORD
Finally, the team placed speakers and microphones at various points inside and just outside Stonehenge Lego. Each speaker emitted chirping sounds that swept from low to high frequencies. Sound frequencies were modulated so that the speakers’ sounds interacted with the model stones much as natural sounds behave at actual Stonehenge.
Despite many gaps between stones, sounds briefly lingered inside Stonehenge Lego, the team found. Reverberation time, a measure of the time it takes sound to decay by 60 decibels, averaged about 0.6 seconds inside the model for mid-frequency sounds. That effect would have boosted the ability to hear voices and enhanced sounds of drums or other musical instruments, Cox says. For comparison, reverberation time reaches about 0.4 seconds in a living room, around two seconds in a large concert hall and roughly eight seconds in a large cathedral.
Stonehenge Lego did not project sounds into the surrounding area or boost the quality of sounds coming from external speakers. And sounds did not echo in the scale model. Inner groups of simulated stones obscured and scattered sounds reflected off the outer sarsen circle, blocking echo formation.
Previous research has been done on Stonehenge’s acoustics, but was incomplete, says archaeologist Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University in England who has excavated at Stonehenge but did not participate in the new research. That work includes sound measurements taken at what remains of Stonehenge today and at a Stonehenge replica in Washington state made of concrete blocks. Another acoustic study employed a computer model of the ancient site.
Although the new study was “carefully and rigorously done,” questions remain about sonic effects at Stonehenge, says musicologist Rupert Till of the University of Huddersfield in England, who conducted some of the previous research. A wider range of acoustic measures is needed, for instance, to detect echo effects in the scale model that are also present at Stonehenge, Till argues. Further research also needs to untangle why “Stonehenge hums when the wind blows hard,” he says.
It’s not known what, if any, ceremonies or activities occurred at Stonehenge, though the site did serve as a cemetery between around 5,000 and 4,400 years ago (SN: 8/2/18). And Cox cautions that designers of Stonehenge were likely less concerned about acoustics than about issues such as treatment of the dead and astronomical alignments.
Whatever people once did at Stonehenge, the new study “shows that sound was fairly well contained within the monument and, by implication, [Stonehenge] was fairly well insulated from sounds coming in,” Darvill says. Hearing sounds of some kind circulating inside the ancient monument “must have been one of the fundamental experiences of Stonehenge.”
In the year 221 BC, the man called Qin Shi Huang had accomplished what no one had ever done before. His powerful Qin dynasty had managed to conquer the various warring states that had for centuries fought each other and from the ashes and destruction was able to unify China for the first time in its history. Rather than name himself “king,” he would be the first to proclaim himself Emperor of this new unified China, becoming the first Emperor and setting the stage for what all future leaders would call themselves for the next 2,000 years. Under Qin Shi Huang’s rule, China saw rapid and immense expansion, major economic and political reforms, an ambitious national road system, as well as architectural marvels such as the Lingqu Canal and famously the Great Wall of China. Yet for as many as he had conquered and subjugated there was one enemy that he knew he could not escape, and that was death itself. However, Emperor Qin Shi Huang was not about to let death get in the way of his plans to rule eternally, and to him death was another enemy that could be beat.
Just as important to this formidable leader as building his country up was his obsession with immortality, and to live forever was a goal that absolutely consumed him over his lifetime. Qin Shi Huang was convinced that immortality was possible through a concoction of special herbs, plants, and other ingredients, and he surrounded himself with his own personal herbalists, doctors, scholars, magicians, wise men, and alchemists, all on hand to advise him on what he needed in order to achieve his goal of eternal life. It was not the first time a Chinese leader had sought a mythical elixir of immortality, but Qin Shi Huang really took it to new levels. He had already managed to install a surprisingly advanced medical system for its time, with all manner of innovative treatments and medicines developed under his rule, but this was not enough for the Emperor. He did not want to be healed or cured, he wanted to never have to be healed or cured ever again.
In order to find what he was looking for, the Emperor sent out men to every corner of the country, scouring the wilderness and remote villages of the land in search of the elusive key to immortality. Bamboo strips with historical records on them even indicate that he issued an executive decree that the secret to immortality be found, and so every village and city across the empire was tasked with the responsibility of fulfilling this order with haste. Indeed, the executive decree proclaimed that finding immortality was the top priority, and that everyone should drop whatever else they were doing in order to pursue it. The race was on to find the secret to immortality, and the people, both the upper class and commoners alike, toiled away looking for that one key ingredient that would allow a potion of eternal life to be created. There are records showing that some villages apologized to the Emperor for not being able to find what he was looking for and promising they would increase their efforts, while on occasion some remote outpost would report that they had found a promising herb, flower, or mushroom. However, the most promising response came from a magician who lived at a place called Zhifu Island.
The magician was called Xu Fu, and he had quite the story to tell. According to him, there was a secret cabal of eight immortals who lived away from civilization on a mysterious island called Penglai, and that they had long ago discovered the secrets to immortality. In fact, Xu Fu claimed that those immortals had been living there on that remote island for hundreds of years, led by a 1,000 year old sorcerer by the name of Anqi Sheng, and the best part was that he knew where they were and how to find them. Qin Shi Huang was convinced that Xu Fu knew what he was talking about, and he made immediate preparations to travel to Zhifu island, where he offered the magician a huge harem of 6,000 women and a fleet of ships to offer the immortals in exchange for their services. Xu Fu told the Emperor that the immortals would only speak with him, and so he promised to travel out to the mysterious island and return with the elixir of immortality. And so Emperor Qin Shi Huang stood at the sea watching the fleet of ships and the magician Xu Fu sail off over the horizon, after which he needed only wait. And wait some more, for years on end.
Xu Fu never did return, and the theory is that he either got lost at sea or took off with the free harem and ships, but others have speculated that Xu Fu did indeed find the island and its immortals, and decided to stay and join them, or that he even fled to Japan. Whatever the case may be, the years went on and Xu Fu never came back, and so Emperor Qin Shi Huang was left without his promised elixir of life, and was back to scouring the land looking for it. This mission became even more urgent when he was almost killed in an assassination attempt, and he doubled his efforts to find the elusive elixir he sought even as he became more reclusive, hiding behind his palace walls and in constant paranoia. He sent out a group of his best men to try and find the island of Penglai, but they were never able to find it. In fact, only one of the men returned, and he would say that although he had found the island, he had seen no sign of the purported colony of immortals.
Qin Shi Huang took to taking various remedies offered to him, including one called cinnabar, basically mercury sulfide, which was supposed to prolong his life as he searched for immortality, but in fact did just the opposite. Mercury is something many readers will recognize as a dangerous, poisonous substance that one should not ingest, and so the Emperor became weak and sick as time passed. As this was going on, a meteor crashed near the lower reaches of the Yellow River and someone had then inscribed into it the sinister warning “The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided.” Qin Shi Huang became so furious, frustrated, and suspicious of his advisors, who he had now come to believe were trying to poison him, that he had many of them executed. In the meantime, realizing that he was not long for this world and that it was very likely he was not ever going to get his elixir, he had built an immense, sprawling underground mausoleum built and populated by 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses in order to serve as his residence in the afterlife. He would need it when he eventually did of mercury poisoning at the age of 39. The complex is as mysterious as it is huge, and has still not been completely explorer or excavated.
In the void left behind by the death of “The Immortal Emperor,” there was immediately civil war as factions squabbled over the scraps, leading to the formation of the Han Dynasty that would be the second imperial dynasty of China. It is ironic that his own quest to live forever likely contributed to his early demise, and all of this remains a very curious historical oddity that stands out as something as if from some fantasy story. The quest for immortality is still alive within us, but perhaps no one in history has pursued it with such passion and resolve as Qin Shi Huang. One wonders if he in the afterlife regretted what had happened or if he embraced his new role, but these are things we will ever know. It remains a grand tale melding history, madness, and a touch of the paranormal.
Steve Quayle: The Discoveries That Shocked Archaeologists... Earth's Ancient Giants
Steve Quayle: The Discoveries That Shocked Archaeologists... Earth's Ancient Giants
Steve Quayle: The Discoveries That Shocked Archaeologists… Earth’s Ancient Giants
COAST TO COAST AM INSIDER Archived Show – Author Steve Quayle discussed the origins and historical accounts of giants.
A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena.
Many will be familiar with the opening scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where a giant stone sphere nearly crushes Indiana Jones to death. While everyone recognises the movie as a work of fiction, the giant stone spheres are not.
While clearing the jungle for banana plantations in 1940 in Costa Rica's Diquis Delta region, employees of the United Fruit Company uncovered numerous large stone spheres partly buried in the forest floor.
Almost immediately, the mysterious spheres became prized ornaments, ending up on the front yards of government buildings and fruit company executives throughout Costa Rica. Many spheres were also broken or damaged and others were dynamited in a time when few realized their archaeological value.
According to John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, around 300 spheres are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tonnes and measuring eight feet in diameter, and the smallest being no bigger than a basketball. Almost all of them are made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone.
What Were They For?
Since their discovery the true purpose of the spheres, which still eludes experts, has been the subject of speculation ranging from theories about the balls being navigational aids, to relics related to Stonehenge or the product of an unknown ancient civilization.
Part of the mystery surrounds the way in which they were created as the near-perfect spheres appear to have come from a quarry that was more than 50 miles away and they were created in a time in which metal tools had apparently not been invented yet as it is estimated that the stones were made around 600 AD. However, the dating method for stones is speculative in itself as it really only reveals the latest use of the spheres not when they were first created.
"These objects can be used for centuries and are still sitting where they are after a thousand years. So it's very difficult to say exactly when they were made," explained Hoopes.
However, the biggest mystery remains what they were used for. "We really don't know why they were made," Hoopes said. "The people who made them didn't leave any written records. We're left to archaeological data to try to reconstruct the context. The culture of the people who made them became extinct shortly after the Spanish conquest. So, there are no myths or legends or other stories that are told by the indigenous people of Costa Rica about why they made these spheres."
Much like the Easter Island moai, one theory assumes that the spheres were simply status symbols. The stones, which are now protected by UNESCO, also might have been arranged into massive patterns that had astronomical significance as many of the balls were found to be in alignments, consisting of straight and curved lines, as well as triangles and parallelograms.
“The exceptional stone spheres, which continue to leave researchers speculating about the method and tools of their production, represent an exceptional testimony to the artistic traditions and craft capabilities of Precolumbian societies,” reports UNESCO.
Since almost every sphere has been moved from its original location, researchers are sceptical that the true meaning of the spheres will ever be discovered.
Throughout history, many cultures have artificially deformed the skulls of babies in order to achieve a flattened or elongated shape which was often associated with the ruling, or elite classes. Examples of artificial cranial deformation have been uncovered in Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Russia and the Americas in ancient times, as well as Oceanic and African tribes in modern times. When examined, most of these skulls exhibit features common to modern skulls, such as 3 cranial plates and sutures as well as a brain size of around 1200-1400 ccm.
On the other hand, some of the large elongated skulls unearthed from a cemetery in Paracas, Peru , possess other anomalous anatomical features such only 2 cranial plates and sutures, as well as a brain capacity of over 1500 cm, which is larger than many skulls today. These skulls, which are between 1500 and 3000 years old, have been described by some alternative researchers as evidence of extra-terrestrial aliens. While recent DNA results indicate they are entirely human, their genetic origin has yielded surprising results.
A case of skulls from the Andean Paracas culture, as seen in the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima.
Cone headed/elongated (dolichocephalic) skulls were first mentioned in 1851 in the book ‘Peruvian Antiquities’ by Mariano Rivero and John James von Tschudi. Dr. Tschudi, with credentials in philosophy, medicine and surgery, described dolichocephalism in two distinct Peruvian races which existed before the Incas; the Aymares and Huancas. The Huancas had the most pronounced dolichocephalic traits, although Tschudi had little historical data on them. The Aymares had intermediate dolichocephaly.
Even at that time scientists, influenced by Samuel Morton who had a huge collection of Amerindian skulls, were proclaiming that the skulls had been artificially elongated by head binding , a belief which remains the dominant paradigm encompassing the Paracas skulls, the Australian Kow Swamp 5 and Cohuna skulls and dozens of crania from Europe. However, as far back as 1851 Dr. Tschudi observed, “Two crania (both of children scarcely a year old), had in all respects, the same form as those of adults. We ourselves have observed the same fact in many mummies of children of tender age…The same formation of the head presents itself in children yet unborn, and of this truth we have had convincing proof in sight of a foetus enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman…aged 7 months!”
Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello excavated a large and elaborate graveyard on the Paracas peninsula from 1922 to 1925, and discovered family tombs containing 429 mummies which were individually wrapped in coloured woven cloth. At least 90 of these bodies exhibited large, elongated skulls, some larger than modern skulls!
These extraordinary skulls remained relatively unknown to the world until filmmaker Robert Connolly produced a CD of them in 1995 titled ‘The Search for Ancient Wisdom.’ Researcher Lumir Janku studied these photos of the anomalous skulls and divided them into 3 types; pre-modern, Conehead 1,2 and 3 and a large skull he named the ‘J’ skull. The ‘pre-modern’ skull has some archaic features such as pronounced brow ridges, a robust lower jaw and an occipital ridge on the bottom back of the skull. Its massive cranial arch, to Janku, suggests “that the skull belongs to a representative of an unknown premodern or humanoid type.” However, this classification creates problems because pre-modern hominins are not recognised in the ancient Americas by mainstream archaeologists.
His illustration indicates that the brain of the ‘premodern’ was of a similar capacity to modern humans but lacking in developed frontal lobes, despite its extreme elongation.
The Coneheads, as evidenced from three different specimens, C1, 2 and 3 may have developed from the ‘pre-modern’ type but exhibit a much larger brain. Many also possess a pronounced bump above the frontal lobes. They may have belonged to hominins of a larger stature than modern populations.
Janku also identified a ‘J’ type of skull which has an enormous cranial vault ranging from 2600 ccm to 3200 ccm, and eye sockets which are about 15% larger than in modern populations. Whether he was able to measure these skulls or merely made an educated guess from observing the photos, is unknown.
Ignored by anthropologists who consider all elongated skulls to be the result of head binding, the phenomenon was highlighted in the 2012 book by researchers David Childress and Brien Foerster, ‘The Enigma of Cranial Deformation.’ Childress and Foerster were careful to avoid sensationalizing the skulls by calling them a separate or alien species, but their research has raised many questions about the origins and purpose of cranial deformation . Their suggestion that an elite race of elongated skull people once roamed the planet would also account for the large number of skulls around the world which were artificially deformed by people who wanted to emulate their ‘gods’.
In 2014, Juan Navarro, owner of the Museo Arequeologico Paracas, which houses 35 unique skulls, allowed a team of researchers led by Brien Foerster and L.A. Mazulli to facilitate preliminary DNA testing of five of them. Initial reports from an unnamed geneticist in Texas claimed that the skulls have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far….a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans…I’m not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree.” Unfortunately, numerous alternative websites proclaimed that the skulls were from aliens or Nephilim, the giants mentioned in the book of Genesis, which negatively impacted the research.
After complaints from archaeologists that the original samples were contaminated, a second round of DNA testing in 2016 involved samples taken from three of the skulls, including an infant. These skulls were dated from 2,000 to 800 years old. The samples, taken from hair and bone powder, were sent to three different labs with no mention of their origin. The results were surprising , showing a strong link between Mesopotamian and Eastern European populations. Three hair samples all showed Haplogroup H2A which is most frequently found in Eastern Europe, while the bone powder from the most elongated skull came back as T2B, which originates in Syria. Many of the Paracas skulls still contain traces of red hair which is not found in South American populations. Foerster exclaimed, “No academics as far as we can tell can explain why some of the skulls that still have hair are red or even blond. The idea that this is from time or bleaching has now been disproven by 2 hair experts. For the ancient Paracas people, at least, they had blonde to reddish hair that is 30% thinner than NATIVE American hair. It is GENETIC!”
He also commented , “We are likely looking at a sub-species of humanity as regards to the Paracas. It seems to be a lot of DNA evidence from extreme eastern Europe and extreme western Asia. More specifically, I’m talking about the area in between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea where ancient elongated skull people lived about 3,000 years ago…It appears that the largest elongated skulls on the planet have been found A in Paracas, Peru and B in the Caucasus area between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.”
Independent ancient researcher and filmmaker, L.A. Marzulli, describes other anomalies of the Paracas skulls.
The foramen magnum “is completely different than a normal human being, it is also smaller, which lends itself to our theory that this is not cradle head boarding, it is genetic.”
Some of the skulls have a pronounced zygomatic arch (cheek bone).
Many skulls have no sagittal suture, a connective tissue joint between the two parietal bones of the skull. However, this fusing of the sagittal suture may be a direct result of head binding or an indication of advanced age of the individuals
They have unusual eye sockets.
Left: Modern skull foramen. Right: L.A Mazulli points out foramen magnum on Paracas skull.
An ancient Mexican burial site near the village of Onavas in Sonora in 1999 has yielded 25 skulls, 13 of which are elongated. Seventeen of the skulls belonged to children and only one was female. The steep angle of the forehead indicates childhood head binding.
Malta
Dolichocephalic skulls have also been discovered in some of the earliest Old-World cultures of Malta and Iraq.
Discoveries in the Maltese temple tombs at Tarxien, Ggantja and Hal Saflieni have yielded three classes of skull anomalies. Much of the research on Maltese skulls comes from the Italian writer Adriano Forgione who classified three types:
Highly dolichocephalic, “above all, strange lengthened skull, bigger and more peculiar than the others, lacking of the median knitting or suture, linking bones in the roof of the skull.”
Skulls which were more ‘natural’ in appearance yet “still presented pronounced, natural dolichocephalous’ shapes ‘distinctive of an actual race.’
Many of the 7,000 skeletons dug out of the Hypogeum exhibit “artificially performed deformities.”
Maltese archaeologists Dr. Mark Mifsud and Anthony Buonanno told Forgione, “They are another race although C14 or DNA exams haven’t yet been performed.”
Forgione complained that the skulls had been removed from display at the Maltese Archaeological Museum of Valletta in 1985. About 15 years later he was given permission when Michael Refalo, the Minister for Tourism, accompanied him to the museum and obtained the director’s cooperation. A few days later the Museum’s archaeologist Mark Anthony Mifsud placed the skulls before Forgione, some with pronounced dolichocephalism. They also lacked a median sagitta which is highly anomalous.
In an article for Atlantis Rising Magazine called ‘Mystery of Malta’s Long-Headed Skulls’, Forgione postulated, “The long head and Drawn features must have given an almost serpent-like appearance , stretching the eyes and skin. Lacking the lower part we can only speculate, but the hypothesis seems plausible. Such deformities would certainly have created walking problems, forcing him almost to slither! The lack of the cranium’s medium knitting and therefore, the impossibility of the brain’s consistent, radial expansion in the skullcap must have caused terrible agony from infancy.”
Two of Malta’s mysterious skulls, the dolichocephalous (long-headed) one below.
The other skulls also showed anomalies, including mild dolichocephalism, suggesting that a separate race, distinct from the native populations of Malta and Gozo, existed about 5,000 years ago. They also showed signs of trepanning and artificially performed deformations, such as cranial bondage.
Iraq
In 1933, Max Mallowan excavated Neolithic graves at Tell Arpachiyah in Iraq dated from 4600 BC to 4300 BC (Halaf and Ubaid periods). He reported the discovery of skulls having a “marked degree of deliberate, artificial deformation”, leading to an “elongated skull.”
A 1996 monograph on Mallowan’s discoveries by Stuart Campbell remarked, “Skull deformation at Arpachiyah appears, on current (1995) knowledge, striking…Skull deformation seems to occur with regularity at other sites of this general period over a very wide area…Jericho, Chalcolithic Byblos, Ganj Dareh, and Ali Kesh.”
Dolichocephaloids also appeared in predynastic Egypt and in the art of the New Kingdom Armana period which covered the era of King Akhenaton. Professor Walter Emery excavated Saqqara in the 1930s and discovered amongst other skeletons a dolichocephalic skull larger than the others. He postulated it was from a different ethnic group which wasn’t indigenous to Egypt but had performed priestly and government roles. He associated them with Shemsu Hor, ‘the disciples of Horus’.
Forgione believes that the skulls originated with a race who settled in Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago. In urbanized centres such as Jarmo, the mother goddesses were represented as divinities with the faces of vipers and lengthened heads. They are also associated with the ‘Nephilim’ of Genesis and eventually settled Egypt in predynastic times. They reached Malta in about 2500 BC and survived a millennium later in the mysterious pharaoh of Akhenaton who was always depicted with an extremely elongated skull.
Numerous elongated skulls have been unearthed in the Caucasus area of Russia, which is significant considering the DNA results of the Paracas skeletons.
Pravda News reported on October 6, 2005, that extremely dolichocephalic heads had been discovered in the Caucasus. The Pyatigorsk skull was found near Kislovodsk and dates from between the 3 rd and 5 th century AD. “Researchers have repeatedly proved that the skulls had been deformed on purpose,” said Dr. Kuznestov. "Ropes or special blocks were tied tightly round the heads of infants, over the temples. The custom went out of fashion by 17th century. The reason behind the deformation phenomenon is still unknown. It is hard to say whether the methods worked effectively or not since nobody ever conducted scientific experiments regarding the binding of the infants' heads.”
In January 2009, it was reported on digitaljournal.com that extreme dolichocephalic skulls had been dug up in Omsk, Siberia by Russian archaeologists which were dated to 400 AD.
Igor Skandakov, director of the Omsk Museum of History and Culture said that the skulls have marks which could be evidence of artificial deformation of a normal skull. He claimed that the skull was kept away from the public because of its unusual shape which shocked and frightened people.
Archaeologist Alexi Matveyev felt that the deformation was carried out as a status symbol of belonging to the elite of society, or as a way to enhance brain function. “It’s unlikely that the ancients knew much about neuro-surgery. But it’s possible that somehow they were able to develop exceptional brain capabilities.”
Another elongated skull dated to 300 AD was discovered at a cemetery in Arkaim, in the southern Urals in 2015. It is believed the female belonged to the Sarmati tribe in what is now modern-day Ukraine.
The remains of a one-year old boy with a large elongated skull were found in a Crimean village called Yakovenkovo. According to the Archeology Fund, the grave of the boy dates back to the second century AD.
Various elongated skulls from the early Medieval period have been discovered in Germany and particularly in the Bavarian region. Some, which have been DNA, tested belonged to women from Bulgaria and Romania. Other skulls have been excavated from Dossenheim, Stuttgart, Altenerding and Franconia.
Elongated skulls in the Carpathian region of eastern Europe date from the late Iron Age until early medieval times and were found in both Goths and Huns, as the recreation on the right shows. More than 200 skulls have been found in this region which are probably related to the Hun invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries AD.
An article in JNS ‘Artificially deformed crania from the Hun-Germanic period (5th-6th AD) in north-eastern Hungary’ historical and morphological analysis’ (2014) concludes that the custom spread from east to west in 6 phases up to 4,000 years ago, beginning in Central Asia, before expanding through the Caucasus to the Danube basin in central Europe. From there it split into three distinct regions in France, Germany and Switzerland, and died out in early Medieval times.
However, the authors fail to explain why so many groups deliberately deformed their skulls. Nor did they look at the genetic link between the Paracas people and those from the Black Sea area. The implications of large-scale migration from Eurasia to South America via the Persian Gulf in ancient times are huge and threaten to rewrite the history books.
China
In 2019, scientists announced that a site called Houtaomuga has yielded 25 skeletons dating to between 12,000 to 5,000 years ago. Eleven of these skulls have ‘artificially elongated braincases and flattened bones at the front and back of the head’ according to team members Quanchao Zang and Qian Wang. One of the four males was found in a tomb dating to between 13,000 to 11,000 years ago while another sediment layer with skulls was dated to between 6,300 and 5,000 years ago. A 3-year-old child with an elongated head was also buried with large amounts of pottery and artifacts.
As more elongated skulls come to light around the world, serious research needs to differentiate the cranially deformed skulls from the genetically dolichocephalic skulls which can be seen in babies and foetuses in the Paracas population. If a new species such as the Denisovans can be assigned on the basis of a finger bone, why have the Paracas people with enormous skulls lacking vital cranial sutures and displaced foramina magna been ignored by anthropologists?
The designation of a new South American hominin species or subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens paracas would challenge several cherished theories:. 1. There were no pre-Homo sapiens populations in the Americas. 2. No unknown hominin species existed less than 2,000 years ago.
On the other hand, DNA evidence shatters the long-held belief that East Asia was the sole homeland of the earliest migrants to the Americas across the now sunken land bridge of Beringia. Scientists will not only have to trace migration routes from Eurasia to the Americas during the ice age, but consider the possibility that such migrations were occurring well into the common era.
Rivero and Tschudi's fetus with naturally elongated head from their 1851 "Antigüedades peruanas".
Oceania was the last region to be settled by humans and the last part of Oceania to be settled by humans was Polynesia. Polynesians are famous for their voyages to remote islands in distant parts of the Pacific. Using outrigger canoes, they founded a society across islands stretching in a triangle from the Hawaiian Islands to Easter Island to New Zealand. That society was reasonably well-connected by trade, language, culture, and religion, despite its distribution over such a large area.
One major question today is where did the Polynesians originally come from? Several theories have been proposed over the years, but one which is gaining ground is that the Polynesians originated from Taiwan, parts of Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia. Another intriguing area of study is the genetic connection between Polynesians and South Americans.
Could the Polynesians Have Origins in South America?
One early theory of the origin of Polynesians is that they came from South America and sailed west, eventually reaching the Polynesian triangle. This was proposed by the archaeologist, writer, and explorer Thor Heyerdahl , who even constructed a Polynesian outrigger canoe and, with a team, sailed it west of Easter Island from the South American coast. This demonstrated the feasibility of using a primitive craft such as an outrigger canoe to cross the Pacific.
Girls Carrying a Canoe in Samoa by John La Farge. ( Public Domain ) Polynesian outrigger canoes may have been used to cross the Pacific.
The thing to remember about experimental archaeology is that just because something could have theoretically been done doesn’t mean that it actually happened that way. Although it is plausible that Polynesia was settled by ancient South Americans; all the genetic, linguistic, and ethnographic evidence points toward a predominantly southeast Asian origin.
The Express Train or Slow Boat to Polynesian Origins
The two main theories today are called the Express Train Hypothesis and the Slow Boat Hypothesis. The Express Train Hypothesis says that Polynesians originally come from Taiwan by way of the Philippines and Melanesia. According to this view, Polynesians are mainly a part of a migration wave that came out of Taiwan.
The western part of Polynesia was settled between 3000 and 1000 BC by people from Taiwan via the Philippines as well as parts of New Guinea. Eastern Polynesia was settled beginning around 900 AD as Polynesian voyagers began to set out from Tonga and Samoa and other islands of western Polynesia to settle the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island, among other islands of the region.
According to the Slow Boat Hypothesis, the ancestors of the Polynesians are of Austronesian descent and still have a connection to Taiwan, but the ancestors of modern Polynesians spent several centuries intermarrying with people of Papuan and Indonesian lineage before setting out to Polynesia.
Depiction of possible Tahitian warrior dugouts. ( Public Domain ) Much of the origins of Polynesians remains uncertain.
The first view is supported by linguistic and ethnographic data, but there is genetic evidence for the second hypothesis. Genetic studies have shown, for example, that a significant percentage of the Polynesian population has y-chromosomal DNA haplogroups coming from Papua New Guinea while most of the mtDNA comes from haplogroups in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
This suggests some degree of intermarriage between Polynesians and other Austronesian groups as well as non-Austronesian groups. Another possible line of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that there is a gap in the language evolution of Polynesian Austronesian languages. Polynesian languages have features that no other Austronesian languages possess. This could be because of interaction with Papuan and Indonesian populations.
Reconstruction of the face of a Lapita woman. National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. (Yanajin33/ CC BY SA 3.0 ) Genetic studies have shown that most mtDNA in Polynesia comes from Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
Are there Amerindian Connections to Early Polynesians?
It is even possible that Thor Heyerdahl may have been partly right about an Amerindian connection . Genetic studies of the Rapa Nui of Easter Island reveal a small percentage of Native American ancestry (8%). To be fair, this study also revealed 16% European ancestry for the Rapa Nui.
However, the genes and haplogroups associated with European descent are much less degraded due to recombination than those associated with Native American descent, making it clear that European haplogroups are from 19th century Europeans intermarrying with the natives. The genes associated with Native American ancestry are much older, suggesting a date closer to the 13th-15th centuries AD for these elements entering the genes of the Rapa Nui .
However, a study in 2020 has suggested that the date for Polynesians meeting South Americans should be pushed back even further, to around 1150 AD. The nature of those genetic links and the location for that first contact also differs from previous beliefs. As Ed Whelan writes:
“Genetic evidence appears to prove that Polynesians are related to present-day Indigenous people, especially from the coast of Colombia and Ecuador. Interestingly, the DNA studyconcludes that the earliest contact was on Fatu Hiva, an island in the South Marquesas islands, sometime around 1150 AD, and not Rapa Nui which is much closer to the coast of South America.”
Is it possible that Amerindian cultures are partially responsible for the colonization of Polynesia, or at least part of it, after all?
Genetic analysis appears to prove that Polynesians have genetic roots tracing back to diverse regions across the Pacific and the Americas, denoting the mixed origin of the population.
Although it is possible that South American voyagers sailed to Polynesia to meet the Rapa Nui or another group of Polynesians, the Polynesians are known to have been more skilled at seafaring at the time, so it is more likely that it was the Polynesians who came to the Americas. The Polynesians may have come to South America to trade with the natives, and as a result may have ended up also bringing home South American brides.
Intriguingly, there is circumstantial evidence for pre-Columbian contact between Native Americans and Polynesians - chicken bones that have been found at an archaeological site on a beach in Chile that appear to predate the coming of the Spaniards.
Regardless of where the Polynesians originally came from, their ancestry appears to be more complex than initially thought. The more we learn about historical genetics , the more we realize just how convoluted the communication and intermarriage between different populations was in the past.
If we go far back enough, current thinking is that we are all a mixture of many lineages of mankind which originally diverged from a single lineage that goes back to Africa, perhaps 200,000 years ago.
Top Image:A Wa'a Kaulua (double canoe) of Hawaiian Nobility of the 18th Century. Polynesia was inhabited by skilled seafarers. Source: Herb Kawainui Kāne
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