Convened by Dr.G., a Renegade Illuminati, convening Thee Temple, for knowledge, whimsy, and inspiration! Everything is true, nothing is forbidden!
Broadcast Thursdays at 89.5 FM KZCT in Vallejo, California, to a worldwide audience.
Introductory track: Covenant - Ritual Noise [youtube.com/watch?v=dnlGEQ1NUsk]
Meandering track: Spacemind - Memory Hole [youtube.com/watch?v=uL0mvPZuklM]
Science & Futurism
[futurism.com] [kurzweilai.net] [eurekalert.org]
* "Wealthy will create ‘superhuman race’: Stephen Hawking essays reveal dark prediction" (2018-10-14, rt.com/news/441230-stephen-hawking-superhuman-race/) [archive.is/FORl3]
* "Down with dads? Researchers spawn healthy mice from 2 mothers" (2018-10-12, rt.com/news/441065-healthy-mice-no-mothers/) [archive.is/8ar0n]
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* "Soft material hardens with carbon dioxide in air: study" (2018-10-14, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137532727.htm) [archive.is/YOxLs]
* "Scientists make self-growing material that absorbs carbon dioxide" (2018-10-15, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d7967444f7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/ByLwT]
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* "Future of flight Electric airplanes, vertical takeoff and cheap tickets mean we may soon do more flying than driving" (sfchronicle.com/travel/article/A-tech-fueled-revolution-in-air-travel-is-nearly-13336388.php) [archive.is/aeNlq] [begin excerpt]: Electric and hybrid power
Just as electric motors redefined what a car can be, a decade later they are having a similar effect on airplanes. Worldwide, more than 120 companies are racing to design aircraft powered by electric batteries rather than conventional aviation turbine fuel. Some of the best-known players in this race include Boeing, Airbus, Google and Uber.
Each company’s design is different, of course, but a feature common to all electric motors is that they are incredibly efficient — about 94 percent efficient on average, according to Touw, meaning that almost all the energy carried in the battery is spent actually propelling the aircraft. Compare that to the mere 24 percent efficiency of a typical gas-burning airplane motor; the rest is wasted as heat and friction between moving parts.
Electric propulsion advocates argue that this efficiency will bring the cost of flight down to a range comparable with ground-level options. Based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy and Uber, Touw calculates that electric aircraft can complete a 50-mile trip at a 10 percent lower price per passenger than a bus, in a third of the time. Cars and trains would still be slightly cheaper, but still twice as slow as an electric plane.
“So you’ve got this disruptive technology, and it’s ready to go!” Touw enthused, before he qualified that statement. “Well, it’s not quite fully ready. But the enabling technology is fully proven.”
Estimates vary as to when electric aircraft will hit the skies; some companies claim they will be airborne as soon as next year. But one thing is almost certain: The first vehicles in the air will be small, carrying two to four passengers. Don’t be surprised if you spot an electric hoverbike on your block before you see a 737 plugged into the wall between flights. Electric motors may be more efficient than combustion motors, but they’re not quite ready for commercial use: Even a small airplane needs a lot more power than a Tesla.
That’s why some industry players are focusing on a hybrid motor instead. One such outfit is XTI Aircraft Co. in Denver. XTI is working on a six-seat aircraft called the TriFan 600, which will use electric power to take off and land — vertically, about which more below — while switching to conventional jet fuel for horizontal portion of the flight. [end excerpt]
- image caption: A digital rendering of the TriFan 600 from XTI Aircraft Company.
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* "Strikeforce: Inside Silicon Valley's Most Unusual Apprenticeship; Futurist Peter Diamandis offers a deal to young entrepreneurs: Help him for two years, and maybe build the next billion-dollar company at the same time" (2018-10, entrepreneur.com/article/317721) [archive.is/mE4KT] [begin excerpt]: In the rarefied, geeky world where tech moguls plot the commercialization of space and debate the pros and cons of artificially intelligent robot overlords, Peter Diamandis has been a well-known name for decades. In 1995, hoping to kick-start the private space industry, he founded the XPrize, offering $10 million to the first nongovernmental group to get a three-passenger ship into space twice within two weeks. In 2008, together with the futurist Ray Kurzweil, he galvanized Silicon Valley’s adventurous dreamers by founding Singularity University “to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” [...]
Diamandis believes we are not hearing about all the good news there is in the world because journalism is incentivized to give us an endless deluge of “it bleeds, it leads” clickbait. He’s on a mission to turn back that tide. In the past century we’ve doubled the human life span, he tells the audience. In the next century, we’ll double it again. Just a few months ago, he reports, Japanese researchers exploring the ocean floor discovered deposits of the rare earth minerals crucial to our smartphone age that are so plentiful, the whole world won’t exhaust them for 500 years. Scarcity is a myth!
The Strikeforce members absorb that enthusiasm and reflect it back with blinding intensity. Lempesis and Scaramucci, in particular, both radiate with the conviction that we are teetering on the edge of an age of marvels.
The child of a computer programmer and a professor who specialized in early childhood psychological development, Lempesis was practically a laboratory experiment designed to explore how much a motivated autodidact could learn about the world via the internet. She recalls having a cellphone in third grade: “It was so fascinating. I had no one to talk to other than my parents, but I just thought transmitting information was so cool. Look at this little tool in my hand that can contact anybody on Earth.
“I was a very strange kid,” she says, and then pauses for a moment. “I’m still very strange as an adult.” [end excerpt]
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* "Scientists can alter how your food tastes using virtual reality – study" (2018-10-16, rt.com/news/441419-virtual-reality-changes-taste/) [archive.is/4wf85]
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* "Scientists make first high-temperature single-molecule magnet" (2018-10-20, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/21/c_137547341.htm) [archive.is/lbv0g]
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* "Chinese scientists develop nanogenerator to power wearable electronics" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536371.htm) [archive.is/lF6Jt]
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* "China is launching a fake, extra-bright moon to cut the cost of city lights" (2018-10-19, rt.com/news/441766-china-man-made-moon/) [archive.is/BXMyj]
* "China to Launch Artificial Moon in 2022; The “man-made moon’s” purpose is to help illuminate urban areas in order to assist in cases like blackouts and natural disasters" (2018-10-20, telesurtv.net/english/news/China-to-Launch-Artificial-Moon-in-2022-20181020-0007.html) [archive.is/r11cQ]
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* "3D printing technology makes ceramics making easier" photoset (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536625.htm) [archive.is/PjPUS] [archive.is/NjP2B] [archive.is/cXarX] [archive.is/1bafY] [archive.is/CAuRj]
- image caption: A tourist views ceramics made with a 3D printer at a ceramics 3D printing experience center in the Taoxichuan cultural creation area in Jingdezhen City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Oct. 16, 2018. The 3D printing technology has made it easier for ceramics making, by cutting the making steps from 72 to three and the time from half a month to three hours. Jingdezhen is known as China's porcelain capital, boasting a 1,000-year history of quality pottery making.
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* "Aussie researchers help "squeeze" light toward advanced photonics applications" (2018-10-25, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/25/c_137557157.htm) [archive.is/WidOy]
* "Latest light beam technology eyes 100-times-faster internet speeds: Aussie researchers" (2018-10-24, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/24/c_137555174.htm) [archive.is/SE7GC]
* "Latest light beam technology eyes 100-times-faster internet speeds: Aussie researchers" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d336b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/COE7C]
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* "Recreating 450-mln-year-old enzymes biological "hack" for scientists: researchers" (2018-10-23, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/23/c_137552189.htm) [archive.is/VI3NI]
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Space News
[astrobio.net]
* "Moon radio signals could uncover secrets of universe ‘dark ages' " (2018-10-26, rt.com/news/442384-moon-radio-signal-secrets/) [archive.is/zPCoj]
- image caption: Radio waves from our galaxy reflecting off the surface of the Moon.
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* "Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f3451444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/fnya6]
* "Oxygen discovery ‘completely changes’ potential for life on Mars - study" (2018-10-24, rt.com/news/442107-mars-oxygen-water-life/) [archive.is/kPCBp]
* " ‘NASA is hiding life on Mars’: Here’s what’s really going on in red planet ‘explosion’ IMAGES" (2018-10-23, rt.com/news/442005-nasa-life-on-mars/) [archive.is/rXTsf]
- image: ESA - European Space Agency
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* "Asteroid named after university of China's science academy" (2018-10-15, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137534000.htm) [archive.is/imZac]
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* "Utter lunacy? ‘Moonmoon’ naming proposal for moons of moons proves divisive" (2018-10-13, rt.com/news/441178-moonmoons-name-astronomy-planet/) [archive.is/h6s0f]
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* "Meteorite discovered in Africa up for grabs in online auction" (2018-10-13, newsaf.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e794d7a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/elSeB]
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* "Jupiter's moon may be covered with ice blades, making alien life search difficult" (2018-10-10, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e30637a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/iMUqc], (2018-10-10, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/10/c_137523369.htm) [archive.is/ZQxqg]
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Ancient News
Music for your perusal (via beatport.com) [is.gd/2MzlEd]
* "Ice Age mammoths discovered on Cambridge road building site" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f7945544d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/Zyvxl]
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* "Egyptian archeologists unearth pharaoh's celebration compartment in Cairo" (2018-10-25, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/26/c_137558508.htm) [archive.is/A8pdr]
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* "Israel displays earliest stone inscription with Hebrew name of Jerusalem" (2018-10-09, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/10/c_137521653.htm) [archive.is/D2Rdq] [archive.is/X99uX] [archive.is/Mn9iY]
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* "Exploding heads & boiling blood: Vesuvius eruption deaths far grislier than previously believed" (2018-10-09, rt.com/news/440734-vesuvius-exploding-heads-boiling-blood/) [archive.is/1AlCB]
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* "Traces of Viking ship detected in southeastern Norway" (2018-10-15, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137534711.htm) [archive.is/4uD25]
* "Norwegian wood: Rare Viking ship found buried in field" (2018-10-15, rt.com/news/441329-viking-ship-norway-field/) [archive.is/jTm5k]
* "Archaeologists Discover Viking Ship Beneath Norweigan Field; "This find is incredibly exciting as we only know three well-preserved Viking ship finds," said Archaeologist Dr. Knut Paasche; Scientists detected the outline of a 20-meter-long ship near a 30-feet tall burial ground which dates back more than 1,000 years" (2018-10-15, telesurtv.net/english/news/Archaeologists-Discover-Viking-Ship-Beneath-Norweigan-Field-20181015-0010.html) [archive.is/EvMsI]
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* "Syria displays artifacts retrieved from rebel-held areas" (2018-10-09, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774d35517a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/2dUMg]
- image caption: A restored statue for Yalhi bin Yalhabouda, a high priest in Palmyra, at the Opera House in Damascus, October 3, 2018.
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* " ‘Not everything was looted’: British Museum faces Twitter takedown over defense of collection origin" (2018-10-13, rt.com/news/441183-british-museum-stolen-artefacts/) [archive.is/KDEGU]
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* "Turkey capitalizes on rich history to attract tourists" (2018-10-09, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f334d7a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/EFUoi]
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* "World’s ‘oldest intact shipwreck’ discovered in murky depths of Black Sea after 2,400 years" (2018-10-23, rt.com/news/442019-worlds-oldest-intact-shipwreck/) [archive.is/fMvk1]
* " 'Oldest Intact' Shipwreck Found in Black Sea; The vessels’ condition is attributed to the environment’s anoxicity (lack of oxygen) at the depth in which it was found" (2018-10-24, telesurtv.net/english/news/Oldest-Intact-Shipwreck-Found-in-Black-Sea-20181024-0005.html) [archive.is/hwnoR]
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* "Cultural Exchange: Two Bronze Age civilizations meet in China" video page (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3245544f78494464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856/share_p.html) [archive.is/Z9Aon]
* "Archaeologists find ancient fishing ruins in northeast China" (2018-10-28, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/28/c_137564374.htm) [archive.is/f00Lk]
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* "China restores 2,000-year-old Great Wall fortress" (2018-10-26, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/26/c_137560833.htm) [archive.is/QNbUu]
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* "Peru: International Meeting Gathers Storytellers From The World; 'Blessed be the word' will go from the 13th to the 20th of October and will gather oral storytellers from Uruguay, Panama, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Peru" (2018-10-09, telesurtv.net/english/news/Peru-International-Meeting-Gathers-Storytellers-From-The-World-20181009-0022.html) [archive.is/6ss2U]
* "1,600 Year Old Indigenous Woman of Uruguay To Be Recreated; Brazilian expert in body reconstruction will produce the bust of the 1,600-year-old remains of the Woman of K'anamarka excavated in Uruguay" (2018-10-25, telesurtv.net/english/news/1600-Year-Old-Indigenous-Woman-of-Uruguay-To-Be-Recreated-20181025-0016.html) [archive.is/Bqpsg]
- image caption: Forensice three dimensional image of the Woman of K'anamarka
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* "Archeologists find statues of ancient Peruvian culture" (2018-10-23, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/24/c_137555060.htm) [archive.is/0gtPP]
* "Peruvian archeologists discover pre-Columbian statues" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414f7759444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/gqdbN]
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* "Dig at Italy’s Pompeii volcanic site yields 5 skeletons" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e316b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/srpvW]
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* "The ancient origins of Taijiquan" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e316b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/q1e0o]
- image caption: Zhu Xianghua practices Taijiquan in the square of Chen Village.
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* "Hungary: Drought Reveals 18th-Century Coins, Weapons; The discovery happened near the town of Erd, south of Budapest. Archeologists are working assiduously to recover as much of the treasure as possible before the water level rises again" (2018-10-26, telesurtv.net/english/news/Hungary-Drought-Reveals-18th-Century-Coins-Weapons-20181025-0028.html) [archive.is/RiA4y]
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* "Bible Museum admits some of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e7755444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/TUROw]
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* " 'Bronze Age Atlantis', The International Nautical Empire of the Sea Peoples by Walter Baucum" book review (britam.org/baucumcover.html) [archive.is/JLxuJ], more about the author [archive.is/bVtiX], more from the author [archive.is/aSOig]
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* "America’s archaeology data keeps disappearing – even though the law says the government is supposed to preserve it" (2018-10-17, theconversation.com/americas-archaeology-data-keeps-disappearing-even-though-the-law-says-the-government-is-supposed-to-preserve-it-104674) [archive.is/fDKO9]
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* "Rainforest exists in ancient central Tibet: amber fossil reveals" (2018-10-18, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/18/c_137541680.htm) [archive.is/9ndiy]
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* "Ancient graffiti shows we’ve been wrong about Pompeii doomsday date all along" (2018-10-18, rt.com/news/441587-pompeii-graffiti-discovery-doomsday-date/) [archive.is/QClJD]
- image caption: The graffiti may just have rewritten the history books about the Vesuvius eruption almost 2,000 years ago
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* "Tajikistan: Officials Say Swastika Part Of Their Aryan Heritage; A Tajik emblem that is based on the swastika (RFE/RL) Like other post-Soviet countries, Tajikistan has taken a fresh look its history following independence in 1991. The result is a state campaign to promote the notion that the Tajiks as a Aryan nation – and the widespread use of the swastika" (2005-12-23, rferl.org/a/1064129.html) [archive.is/7Lp0Q] [begin excerpt]: When the swastika first appeared, in India, it was as a sign of eternity and eternal motion. The newer, positive connotations that the Tajik authorities want the swastika to gain were outlined two years ago by President Imomali Rakhmonov when he declared 2006 the year of Aryan culture: the aim of the year is, he said, to “study and popularize Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilization; to raise a new generation [of Tajiks] with the spirit of national self-determination; and to develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures.”
Linguistically, the Tajiks are closely tied to the Persians, who since ancient times have used the term Aryan to describe themselves and their language.
The Tajik historian and ethnographer Usto Jahonov supports both the state’s desire to raise awareness of Tajikistan’s Aryan heritage and the use of the swastika. Using an argument employed by Tajik officials in numerous speeches, Jahonov contends that it is an inherent part of Aryan culture and a key to building national identity. A stronger national identity is itself “needed now because we live among [non-Aryan,] Turkic nations” that are, he says, rewriting “their history by claiming that they emerged in this area [Central Asia]. We should therefore go back to Aryan history, demonstrate and prove to others where our place is. Each nation should know its place.” [end excerpt]
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* "Found: Viking Clothes With ‘Allah’ Embroidered in Silk; The designs were overlooked by researchers in the 1940s" (2017-10-13, atlasobscura.com/articles/viking-clothes-with-allahs-name-embroidered-in-silk) [archive.is/rs3mL]
* "Viking burial clothes woven with 'Allah' discovered in Sweden; University researchers’ ‘staggering’ find contradicts theories that Islamic objects in Viking graves are result of plunder" (2017-10-13, theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/13/viking-burial-clothes-woven-with-allah-unveiled-by-swedish-university) [archive.is/bz5hJ] [begin excerpt]: The Vale of York hoard, discovered near Harrogate in 2007, contained objects relating to three belief systems – Islam, Christianity and the worship of Thor – and at least seven different languages. [end excerpt]
* "Why did Vikings have 'Allah' embroidered into funeral clothes?" (2017-10-12, bbc.com/news/world-europe-41567391) [archive.is/mk4YP]
* "BEYOND JORVIK: THE VALE OF YORK HOARD AND THE VIKING WORLD" (yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/exhibition/beyond-jorvik-the-vale-of-york-hoard-and-the-viking-world/) [archive.is/k3yRp]:
The Vale of York Viking Hoard is one of the most important Viking discoveries ever made in Britain. This spotlight display showed the fantastic objects within the Capital of the North exhibition, telling fascinating stories about life across the Viking world.
Discovery
The Vale of York Hoard was discovered in North Yorkshire in January 2007 by two metal-detectorists, David and Andrew Whelan, who kept the find intact and promptly reported it to their local Finds Liaison Officer. It was declared Treasure in 2009 and was valued at £1,082,000 by the independent Treasure Valuation Committee. The size and quality of the material in the hoard is remarkable, making it the most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years.
Beautiful Objects -
The hoard contains a mixture of different precious metal objects, including coins, complete ornaments, ingots (bars) and chopped-up fragments known as hack-silver (67 objects in total and 617 coins). It shows the diversity of cultural contacts in the medieval world, with objects coming from as far apart as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
The most spectacular single object is a gilt silver vessel, made in what is now France or western Germany around the middle of the ninth century. It was apparently intended for use in church services, and was probably either looted from a monastery by Vikings, or given to them in tribute. Most of the smaller objects were hidden inside this vessel, which was itself protected by some form of lead container.
As a result, the hoard was extremely well-preserved. Other star objects include a rare gold arm-ring, and 617 coins, including several new or rare types. These provide valuable new information about the history of England in the early tenth century, as well as Yorkshire’s wider cultural contacts in the period. Interestingly, the hoard contains coins relating to Islam and to the pre-Christian religion of the Vikings, as well as to Christianity.
* "BEYOND JORVIK: THE VALE OF YORK VIKING HOARD" (by Andrew Woods, yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/blog/beyond-jorvik-the-vale-of-york-viking-hoard-andrew-woods/) [archive.is/FjkWz] [begin excerpt]: The hoard and a united England
The coins in the hoard highlight the unrest of the Viking Age. Athelstan, king of southern England, gradually reconquered the parts of England that remained under Viking control in the 920s. He captured the town of York in 927 AD. To celebrate his capture of this important town he struck a coin with his name on one side and a depiction of York on the other. This coin has a small building or church in the centre (possibly an early depiction of the Minster) and the lettering EB OR AC around it, which stands for Eboracum, the Latin name for York.
Shortly after capturing York, in July 927, Athelstan met kings from Scotland and Wales at Eamont Bridge in Cumbria. They acknowledged his authority over them. To celebrate this fact Athelstan had coins struck with the legend EDELSTAN REX TO BRIE, which translates as Athelstan, king of all Britons. Athelstan was the first king to rule over a united England and has a very important role in English history. There is only one of these coins in the hoard and it is almost new. It is thus likely that the hoard was buried in late 927 or early 928.
[end excerpt]
- silver penny
- Arabic dirham
A Viking penny with an image of Thor's hammer cast out of silver. Made in 920 at the mint of Regnald, the Viking king at York.
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* "Database established to study ancient Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi's doctrine" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536387.htm) [archive.is/Ml59w]
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* "Complete collection of Tibetan epic to be published in 2019" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536781.htm) [archive.is/7lOa1]
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* "The Aztecs at Teotihuacan" (by Dr. Susan Toby Evans of Pennsylvania State University, Teotihuacan Research Laboratory, shesc.asu.edu/content/aztecs-teotihuacan) [archive.is/B7Ghb] [begin excerpt]: We know that Teotihuacan was the most important site in all of ancient Mexico in the Early Classic period (about AD 300 to 600), but was it also important after that, such as in the Aztec Period of the 1400s and the early 1500s?
While the town known to the Aztecs as Teotihuacan was a much smaller place than the Early Classic city—and much smaller than the great Aztec capital Tenochtitlan/Mexico City—it was strategically important as a regional political capital. The ruined pyramids were revered as the place where time began, where the gods sacrificed themselves to create the life-giving sun. Montezuma was supposed to have made a pilgrimage to the pyramids of Teotihuacan every 20 days (though it is probable that he usually sent emissaries to fulfill his ritual obligations).
Nonetheless, the Teotihuacan Valley was an essential part of the Aztec empire, a vital route to the Gulf of Mexico lowlands and to obsidian sources critical to the production of tools and weapons. The Teotihuacan Valley’s importance to the Aztec empire was proven when it became the first of the core provinces to secede from the empire, siding against Montezuma in a nasty civil war about five years before Cortés reached Tenochtitlan/Mexico City. [end excerpt]
- image caption: Teotihuacan pyramids from an early Spanish map
* (publications.newberry.org/aztecs/s2i1.html) [archive.is/fTiva]: In his letters to the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V, King of Spain, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés trumpeted his exploits, and described the people and wonders of the new land he had conquered. This map, published with Cortés’s letters, provided Europeans with the first image of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan.
Although in ruins at the time of the map’s publication, the island city, with the Aztec sacred ceremonial district at its heart, appears serene and orderly under the double eagle and crown of the Hapsburg imperial flag. The smaller map to the left represents the Gulf of Mexico.
map, closeup [archive.is/jsupe], showing Tenochititlan and the Gulf Coast, from Hernando Cortes's Second Letter "Praeclara Ferdinadi Cortesii de nova Maris Oceani Hyspania Narratio" (published 1524 by Friedrich Peypus at Nuremberg), preserved at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ayer 655.51.C8 1524d.
* "Praeclara Ferdinadi Cortesii de nova Maris Oceani Hyspania Narratio... CORTES Hernando &; MARTYR Peter (1524].) £30000.00" item page (maggs.com/praeclara-ferdinadi-cortesii-de-nova-maris-oceani-hyspania-narratio_212217.htm) [archive.is/CPQKq]:
The first Latin edition of Cortés' second letter, after its original publication in Seville in 1522. The work was translated by Petrus Savorgnanus. This copy does not bear the portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf which is not found with all copies.
Cortés' second letter, dated Oct. 30, 1520, provides a vivid account of the people he encountered and fought en route to Tenochtitlan, painting a picture of an impressive empire centered around a great city. He relates his scrape with rival Velazquez and gives a wonderful description of the buildings, institutions, and court at Tenochtitlan. It is here that Cortés provides a definitive name for the country, calling it "New Spain of the Ocean Sea". This letter is also important for making reference to Cortés' "lost" first letter, supposedly composed at Vera Cruz on July 10, 1521. Whether that letter was actually lost or suppressed by the Council of the Indies is unknown, but there is little doubt it once existed.
As usual, the second letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et Insulis Noviter Repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost first Cortés letter.
One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico, and a key factor in maintaining Spain's interest in the New World.
Provenance Iohan Alberecht Von und Zu Haimhausen c 1660, engraved armorial bookplate; Carl Friedrich Philipp Von Martius, signature, John Murray 1833 pencil note declares " Letters of Cortez given me by Dr Martius May 1833", pictorial bookplate, partly printed in gold.
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* "The water clock of the Bronze Age (Northern Black Sea Coast)" (https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.03905.pdf) [web.archive.org]
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* "Does Chinese Civilization Come From Ancient Egypt? A new study has energized a century-long debate at the heart of China's national identity" (2016-09-02, foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-civilization-come-from-ancient-egypt-archeological-debate-at-heart-of-china-national-identity/) [archive.is/L34J8]
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Prof. Ze’ev Herzog of the Archaeology Faculty at the University of Tel Aviv [archive.is/kRpqt]:
The only time Israel was mentioned in the ancient Egyptian texts, the most meticulous and coherent of the world’s ancient civilizations and which covered the chronicles of nearly 3000 years, was in Merneptah Stele, a black granite slab engraved with a description of the victories of king Merneptah– son of the great Ramses II- in a military campaign against the Meshwesh Libyans and their Sea People allies, but its final two lines, line 26 & 27, refer to a prior military campaign in Canaan in the Near East.
The stele which dates to about 1208 BC was discovered by renowned British archaeologist Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896.
The Inscription contains a hymn and a list of the Pharaoh’s military victories. A tribe, whom Merenptah had victoriously smitten, "I.si.ri.ar", or, as Petrie quickly suggested that it read: "Israel", is on the list of conquests. The mention of Israel is very short; it simply says, “Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more.”
However, a number of alternative readings for the text "I.si.ri.ar" have been suggested and debated. The most common alternative suggested is that of Jezreel (city) or the Jezreel Valley.
This was the first extra-biblical Egyptian source to mention the tribe of Israel and the last one for that matter.
Yes, maybe the tribe, not the kingdom, of Israel had been mentioned in King Merneptah Stele, but it was ascertained to be completely devastated and existed no more. Interestingly enough, the Israelites were depicted (with distinctive hieroglyphs) in the Egyptian stele as Bedouins/nomads who were always on the move and who never settled in one place/city- contrary to the Israelite story of invasion and settlement they have been raving about during long centuries of silent Egyptian records- the ancient Egyptian writing, Hieroglyphs, has been deciphered in 1822 by Jean Francois Champollion
While the other defeated Egyptian enemies listed besides Israel in Merneptah stele such as Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam (cities to be inhabited later by pelset/philistines) were given the determinative for a city-state—”a throw stick plus three mountains designating a foreign country”—the hieroglyphs that refer to Israel instead employ the determinative sign used for foreign peoples: a throw stick plus a man and a woman over three vertical plural lines. This sign is typically used by the Egyptians to signify nomadic tribes without a fixed city-state, thus implying that ysrỉꜣr "Israel" was the demonym for a seminomadic population who were always on the move at the time the stele was created.
Unlike the old school of biblical archeology, which grabbed the spade in one hand and the bible in the other, modern archaeologists describe their approach as one which views the Bible as one of the important artifacts into which centuries of Near Eastern cultural accumulations [Egyptian, Phoenician and Sumerian] had been integrated and sometimes copycatted [but] not the unquestioned narrative framework every archaeological find has to fit into.
Despite the scarcity of archaeological finds that corroborate the veracity of the Hebrew bible’s narrative, modern archeology doesn't deny the Israelites existed; rather it states they only existed quite differently.
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* "The Top 5 Megalithic Mysteries of Mexico" (2018-07-08, photos and text by Marco M. Vigato, megalithicmarvels.com/2018/07/08/the-top-5-megalithic-mysteries-of-mexico/) [archive.is/bbTUz]
1. The Terraced Hill of Tezcotzingo -
4. The Forgotten Megaliths of Teotihuacan -
Between the 2nd Century and the 5th Century AD, the great pyramid city of Teotihuacan was the largest in the Western hemisphere, the “Rome of America,” with a population of nearly 250,000. Yet its monumental avenues and massive pyramids dedicated to the Sun, the Moon and the Feathered Serpent conceal the vestiges of a much older and even more mysterious past. The foundations of great megalithic buildings are visible under some of the structures of the ancient city, the older structures employing large, finely dressed megalithic blocks, in contrast to the later structures being largely built of mud-bricks and small cemented stones. There is evidence that an immense megalithic structure may have once stood in the area now occupied by the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpents. Hundreds of andesite stone blocks, many weighing in excess of 10 tons, lie scattered over a very large area and were apparently reused as part of the filling of the pyramid. These blocks exhibit sharp edges, perfectly planar surfaces and complex concave surfaces that would have been nearly impossible to obtain with the primitive flint and obsidian tools supposedly available to the ancient builders of Teotihuacan. Some of stones recovered from the filling of the pyramid even show evidence of drilling and saw marks as to suggest some mechanical method for cutting stone. An immense effort must have gone into the quarrying, cutting and fitting of these enormous stone blocks, as no local source of andesite stone exists in a range of 25 miles from Teotihuacan across very rugged mountainous terrain. Yet there seems to be no trace of the structures to which the stones originally belonged.
5. The Cruciform Tombs of Mitla and Guards -
Some of the largest stone blocks employed in any ancient structure across the Americas are found at Mitla and in the nearby sites of Xaagá and Guiaroo. At Mitla, enormous andesite and porphyry stone lintels and monolithic columns, some weighing as much as 30 tons, were regularly employed in the construction of palaces and pyramids above ground. Yet it is in the maze of underground tombs, chambers and tunnels that run under the ancient city that may be found the finest examples of megalithic stonework in all of Mexico. The stones that form the walls and ceilings of these underground chambers are cut with astonishing precision, as to leave nearly imperceptible joints between the blocks. A mysterious cruciform structure was discovered and photographed in 1902 at a site called Guiaroo, in the vicinity of Mitla. It was built of immense megalithic stone blocks measuring as many as 6 meters long and weighing in excess of 50 tons. Unfortunately the location of this remarkable structure is presently unknown, but other enormous stone blocks can be seen at a nearby quarry, the largest measuring 6.24 x 3.89 x 0.80 meters and weighing an estimated 55 tons.
* "The Megalithic Ruins of Ancient Mexico"
- Part 1 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/N3wgF]
- Part 2 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-mysterious-rock-and-tunnels-of.html) [archive.is/d9ITo]
- Part 3 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/DM3iK]
- Part 4 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/r026L]
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* "Walled Mayan community with megalithic stones found in northern Yucatan" (2015-12-17, theyucatantimes.com/2015/12/walled-mayan-community-with-megalithic-stones-found-in-northern-yucatan/) [archive.is/xMCUB] [begin excerpt]: As previously reported, these two archaeologists under the Second Symposium of Ichkaantijoo Mayan Culture in Yucatan INAH reported that 5,088 preHispanic structures were discovered during the exploration of 1,350 hectares. The rescue and conservation work to be carried out depends on the response from the Archaeology Council.Cristian Hernandez said the research work carried out here is important and there are some areas that deserve special attention, such as the “walled” enclosure as well as the different types of architecture prevalent in the zone.“There is an area where ther are several housing groups in which have been found grinding stones to ceramics for household use, and a protected area of just over 1.5 hectares,” he said.He said that the area is protected by a megalithic stone wall, inside which housing remains are found. However, from the enclosure, it appears it could have served for housing of an elite group.Hernandez said the next phase of archaeological exploration will determine dating for the community. [end excerpt]
- source (sipse.com/milenio/antropologia-inah-descubrimiento-muralla-maya-yucatan-183307.html) [archive.is/hm0kL]
* "How Material Culture Acted on the Ancient Maya of Yucatan, Mexico" (2015-10, by Scott R. Huston, via researchgate.net/figure/Photo-of-the-central-megalithic-stairway-of-Structure-1-Ake-Yucatan_fig3_282366685) [archive.is/v3dlU] [begin excerpt]:
both Kancab and 21 de Abril, people built houses on top of platforms constructed in what we refer to as the megalithic style ( Figure 2.2; Mathews and Maldonado 2006). Megalithic buildings at two other local centers (Dzilam and Aké) and the regional center (Izamal), each of which is located within 40 kilometers of Ucı, dumbfounded 19th cen- tury explorers (Figure 2.3; Brasseur de Bourbourg 1865; Charnay 1863; Stephens 1963). For example, in 1843 John L. Stephens published the following passage about Structure 1 at Aké: The buildings upon which Stephens commented are not the only ones in the Maya area that use large stones. For example, the occupants of the Mirador Basin, located approximately 400 kilometers south of Ucı, built earlier megalithic structures in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C.E. (Hansen 1998). However, the megalithic structures in the northern Lowlands share a set of characteristics that distinguish them from other buildings with large stones (Hutson 2012; Mathews and Maldonado 2006). These characteristics include platform retaining walls with large, dressed facing stones (usually longer than 60 centimeters) stacked with their long axis aligned with the face of the wall. The platforms often have rounded corners and the stones themselves also have rounded corners, giving them what has been called a “pillow” shape (Taube 1995). The ancient Maya often built apron moldings with these megaliths. Megalithic buildings with these particular details cluster around Ucı, Izamal, Aké, and Dzilam but also appear further to the east at large sites such as Naranjal, Victoria, and Tres Lagunas in northern Quintana Roo, Mexico (Glover and Stanton 2010). In con- trast to the Ucı area, megalithic buildings in northern Quintana Roo are not found at smaller sites. In and around Ucı, most domestic megalithic platforms cover between 200 and 400 square meters, and rarely stand taller than one meter. A household wishing to build a 200 m 2 megalithic platform with one course of megaliths along the full perimeter of the retaining wall would need about 60 megaliths, assuming each megalith was one meter long. Most northern Lowland households beyond the Ucı area did not build with megaliths and, around Ucı and Naranjal, the style did not continue very long after its apogee in the first half of the 1st millennium C.E. Most people who lived on the peninsula in ancient times built perfectly viable platforms using smaller stones. We call attention to the ways in which the process of building with megaliths, as opposed to other kinds of stones, shaped social relations (see Joyce 2004 for an account of how building with clay impacted society). Our contribution complements other approaches to the sociality of stone in the Maya area, such as the point that stone, in the form of a stela, can embody and extend royal people (Houston and Stuart 1998). Our approach differs from Tilley’s treatment of the materiality of stones in Europe since Tilley (2004) fo- cuses mostly on how stone buildings and monuments were experienced after they were created and/or put into place. Quarrying megaliths requires much more than hard labor. The high quality flint required to make the bifacial tools to quarry limestone is difficult to find in the vicinity of Ucı. Furthermore, fashioning bifaces for quarrying would have required very experienced tool makers. Finally, exper- imental quarrying exercises in the Petén district of northern Guatemala (Woods and Titmus 1996) indicate a scarcity of the kinds of quarries (those with minimal fractures and minimal hard, spherical inclusions) that work well for extracting large blocks. Around Ucı, limestone is soft compared to limestone further to the south, given that it was formed more recently (over the last 2 million years, as opposed to the last 24 million years; Ward 1985) and the purity of limestone around Ucı is quite variable (see also Carmean et al. 2011). Given the uneven availability of suitable stone for the megaliths themselves and for tools for extracting and shap- ing them, quarrying megaliths required a body of geographi- cal and technical knowledge that entailed a network of social relations. In other words, if we presume that each household built its own platform, a household that wanted to incorpo- rate megaliths into the retaining wall of its platform would have needed to maintain the connections necessary to access the right kinds of quarries. That household might also need good relations with an expert biface maker, who in turn would need to maintain the relations necessary to get access to high quality chert. If the household did not do the actual quarrying itself, it had to expend the economic and/or social capital to get specialized masons to do the work. Stoneworking was a specialized skill in the conquest period in Yucatan (Farriss 1984:166), and data from various Maya sites suggest it was also a specialization before contact (Abrams 1994; Andrews and Rovner 1973; Carmean et al. 2011; Hansen 1998; Haviland 1974). In sum, making megaliths required multiple social relations. The size of megaliths has an additional impact on social relations. Megalithic stones in domestic contexts at Kancab and 21 de Abril average approximately 80 × 50 × 25 cm (Stair 2013). A stone of these dimensions has a volume of 0.1 m 3 . Experimental archaeology in the Petén (Sidrys 1978; Woods and Titmus 1996) shows that a 1 m 3 block of limestone weighs anywhere from 1236 to 2700 kg. The limestone around Ucı would fall closer to the light end of this spectrum. Thus, a 0.1 m 3 block like those used in domestic platforms at Ucı would weigh between 123.6 and perhaps 200 kilograms (between 272 and 441 pounds). It would take at least two people to move stones of that weight from the quarry to the platform and to hoist such a stone into position on top of other megalithic stones on a retaining wall. Two (or more) people working together to move these stones is a paradigm case of dialogical action, no different from the example of two people sawing a log with a two-handed saw (Taylor 1999:35; Hutson 2010c:27). The absence of one person renders the other person’s actions absolutely inept. We presume that most non-megalithic platforms in Yucatan were also built by more than one person working at the same time, and that these multiple workers also had to coordinate their actions. Yet jobs like moving and hoisting megaliths can only be done by multiple actors working intimately in tandem. Workers do not just share understandings of how to get the job done, they must coordinate physical movement on shared tasks. Anyone who has helped another person lift a couch up a staircase knows that one person’s movement physically registers on the other. One person pushing out of sync with the other can easily cause injury. We believe that the closely coordinated physical maneuvers required to haul and place a 150 kg stone intensified the bonds between co-actors. The way that the material characteristics of megalithic stone bring about exceptionally dialogical relations between people becomes more important when we consider that the construction of megalithic platforms may not have happened all at once. Whereas it is sometimes presumed that buildings are first built and later occupied, some building projects are works in progress (see, for example Gerritsen 1997; Rodning 2007). In the case of megalithic platforms, this might mean that in the initial construction effort, builders used megalithic stones for a portion of the perimeter of the platform and smaller stones for the rest, with the intention of gradually replacing the smaller ones with megaliths when time and resources permitted. Though perfectly habitable, some platforms may never have received megaliths on the entire perimeter. This is precisely what we find: In a sam- ple of 54 megalithic platforms in the vicinity of Ucı, Joe Stair (2010) has observed that only a few platforms have megalithic stones on their full perimeters. On average, megalithic stones cover less than half the perimeter. Thus, the retaining walls of most platforms feature a mix of non- megalithic and megalithic stones. Stair (2010) notes that there is no correlation between platform volume and the proportion of megaliths on a platform’s perimeter. In other words, to the extent that platform volume can be seen as a measure of control of resources, households with abundant resources do not necessarily have the most megaliths in their platforms. If, over the course of a megalithic platform’s bi- ography, its occupants occasionally replaced smaller stones with megalithic stones, we need to envision the exemplary dialogical actions of pushing, pulling, and lifting megaliths as a recurring event, not limited to the initial construction stage. Future research might able to test this by determining whether or not platforms with more megalithic stones had longer
- Photo of the central megalithic stairway of Structure 1, Aké, Yucatan
* "Aké (Yucatan)" photoset (via megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=16280) [archive.is/pSxG2]: Late Maya city (1000 CE) with an urban area of over 2 square miles. The major building, perhaps a palace, has stucco ornamentation.
- [archive.is/UmU9j]: View from the colonnaded palace at Aké.
- [archive.is/vMfKE]: The colonnaded palace.
- [archive.is/IAUXk]: The pyramid at Aké.
- [archive.is/8efmG]: Pillar on the sacbe leading to Aké.
- [archive.is/ajzn4]: View from El Palacio to the main Plaza with a pyramid.
- [archive.is/Yxzb5]: Columns on the main platform called "El Palacio", dated for the Post-Classic period.
- [archive.is/MLyZ6]: Remains of many structures are still covered with vegetation.
- [archive.is/AZyN7]: El Palacio in Ake - the most important structure of the Post-Classic city.
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* "The Interesting Times of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa" (2017-09-09, lostscienceoftheandes.com/2017/09/09/the-interesting-times-of-pedro-sarmiento-de-gamboa/) [archive.is/ycbWL]
* "Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa" (retrieved 2018-10-22, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Sarmiento_de_Gamboa) [archive.is/QeacU] [begin excerpt]: At the age of 18, Sarmiento de Gamboa entered the royal military in the European wars. Between 1550 and 1555 the future navigator fought in the armies of Emperor Charles V. In 1555 he began his exploring career, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. His first destination was New Spain (in what is today Mexico), where he lived for two years. Little is known of this period in his life, other than that he encountered difficulties with the Inquisition. He then sailed to Peru, where he lived for more than twenty years, gaining a reputation as a navigator.
In Lima he was accused by the Inquisition of possessing two magic rings and some magic ink and of following the precepts of Moses. He then joined Álvaro de Mendaña's expedition through the southern Pacific Ocean to find the Terra Australis Incognita, which, should Mendaña followed Sarmiento's indications, had reached New Zealand or/and Australia; but they discovered the Solomon Islands instead, in 1568. The expedition failed to find gold and attempts at establishing a settlement in the Solomon Islands ended in failure.
In order to take credit of the discoveries for himself Mendaña threw the journals and maps made by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa overboard and abandoned him in Mexico. However, a trial was then held in Lima, with the result giving Sarmiento credit for the discoveries.
In 1572 he was commissioned by Francisco de Toledo, the fifth Viceroy of Peru, to write a history of the Incas. Toledo hoped such a history would justify Spanish colonisation by revealing the violent history of the Incas. Sarmiento collected oral accounts first hand from Inca informants and produced a history (commonly titled The History of the Incas) that chronicles their violent conquest of the region. [end excerpt]
* "Sarmiento de Gamboa and the Atlantic Island" (retrieved 2017-02-13, atlantisbolivia.org/sarmientodegamboa.htm) [archive.is/p3rbX] [begin excerpt]: Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532-1592) author of the "History of the Incas" is equally as colourful a character as the myths he reproduces. Considered one of the most outstanding personalities of the Spanish 16th century, he was a navigator, cosmographer, mathematician, soldier, historian and scholar of classical languages well versed in Plato's Atlantis which he mentions in detail in his account of the History of the Incas.
In 1555 he arrived in America where he was subjected to the Inquisition on account of his scientific and astrological activities. In 1567 he discovered the Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the Western Pacific. In 1569 he was ordered by Don Francisco de Toledo, Viceroy of Peru to write a compendium of the customs, daily life and political organization of the Incas which became his "History of the Incas" and which was sent to Philip II of Spain from Cuzco in 1572.
He fortified the Strait of Magellan as a defence against Francis Drake, founded two cities, was captured by the English on his way home to Spain, ransomed then recaptured by Hugonauts and finally disappeared with the squadron carrying him to New Spain.
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa considered the world to be divided into five parts. The first three parts were the three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. The fourth part was Catigara, an "extensive land in the Indian Ocean now distinct from Asia being separated by the Strait of Malacca." The fifth part was called "The Atlantic Island" which exceeded all the others and "is the land of these western Indies of Castile."
He goes on to mention the name of the continent as "the floating islands which they afterwards called the Atlanticas, (editor’s note: spelled as Atlanticus by Gamboa) and now the Western Indies of Castile or America", bearing in mind that he is writing shortly after the "discovery" or rediscovery of the great continent and the name "America" was not then as firmly established as it is today.
It is clear that he thought of Atlantis as a continent beginning immediately to the west of Spain and which continued west and included what is now South America, with the sunken part being between Brasil and Cadiz. He deduced this based upon the statement that Atlantis was "larger than Africa and Asia combined" so he figured Atlantis measured 2,300 leagues in width. Subtracting 1,000 leagues for the distance from Cadiz to Brasil, he concluded that Atlantis "includes from Brasil to the South Sea which is today called America."
So his account of the "History of the Incas", begins with a history and substantial overview of Atlantis, or "the Atlanticas", which he considers to be the original name of the continent lately called America and on which the Incas are located.
As a mathematician, astrologer and navigator who was also a scholar of classical languages he also had a clear idea of when the missing part of Atlantis disappeared.
"debió suceder en el tiempo que Aod gobernaba el pueblo de Israel 1320 años antes de Cristo. Según todas las crónicas Solón fué en el tiempo de el rey Tarquinio Prisco de Roma, siendo Josias rey de Israel o Jerusalén, antes de Cristo 610 años. Y desde esta plática hasta que los Atlánticos habían puesto cerco sobre los Atenienses, habían pasado 9000 años lunares, que referidos a los solares suman 869 años. Y todo junto es la suma dicha arriba."
This according to Sarmiento de Gamboa took place "when Aod governed Israel in 1320BC." "According to all the chronicles Solon lived in the time of King Tarquinius Priscus, King of Rome, Josiah being King of Israel at Jerusalem in 610BC. And from this period to the time when the Atlanteans put the blockade upon the Athenians was 9,000 lunar years, which referring to solar years comes to 869 years. And both added together is the aforementioned date."
i.e. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa specifically spells out 1320BC as being the date for the end of Atlantis using a calendar of lunar months and I am completely surprised that of all the many investigators and Academics who have studied the subject, none to my knowledge has picked up on this before. In fact, Gamboa does not even discuss the possibility that Plato might really mean 9,000 solar years since it is so obvious to him that lunar years are intended and I think it is important to give him credit as an astronomer and classical historian who, living in the Renaissance age, knew the difference between solar and lunar years and what was intended in Plato's text.
Sarmiento de Gamboa was also of the opinion that "Ulysses after Troy sailed West to Portugal then to the West Indies, Yucatan and Campeche, the territory of New Spain leaving vestiges of Greek culture in clothing and vocabulary. Therefore the territories of New Spain were first colonised by Greeks, those of Catigara by Jews, while those of the rich and powerful kingdoms of Peru were colonized by Atlanteans who themselves first of all came from Mesopotamian or Chaldea, populators of the World." This later interpretation of the origins of the people of Peru being from Atlantis is also based upon his deduction that "South America" and "Atlantis" were one continuous island.
Sarmiento de Gamboa took great pains to record as faithfully as possible the original stories given to him by the indigenous people and noted how the Incas themselves had a tradition of oral historians whose job it was to faithfully remember their Histories as well as some painted records which were kept in a sacred temple in Cuzco, the Poquen-cancha.
We must remember though his motivation. In the time of Emperor Charles V, some doubt was cast on the Spanish titles to these lands since it was considered the Inca "were and are the true and natural lords of this kingdom of Peru."
It seems Sarmiento de Gamboa sought to justify for Philip II the acquisition of these conquered lands and he views the Inca rulers as upstart tyrants who seized the valley of Cuzco and all the rest of the territory from Quito to Chile by force of arms, making themselves Inca overlords without the consent or election of the natives. Moreover, the fact that the Inca indulged in human sacrifices, in Sarmiento de Gamboa's eyes gave the Spanish an indisputable right to the territories, bearing in mind also the theological issues of the time and whether in Spanish eyes, natives had any rights at all.
But considering that Sarmiento de Gamboa also defined America as Atlantis it may seem strange that his book ever got published at all. In fact the original manuscript was lost and its existence only known about through examination of correspondence between Sarmiento de Gamboa and Phillip II.
An inventory of all manuscripts existing in public libraries was ordered by the German government at the end of the 19th century and the original manuscript finally found in the University of Gottingen (Germany) in 1893 and first published in 1906. [end excerpt]
* "Atlantis Maps: A resource page of maps of Atlantis, the continent opposite the Pillar of Hercules, beginning with....." (atlantisbolivia.org/atlantismaps.htm) [archive.is/IJFLk] [begin excerpt]:
So the newly discovered continent came to be called America, but at the same time many people thought that what Christopher Columbus had in fact discovered was Atlantis. The first book to mention this was "The History of the Indies" by Franciso Lopez de Gomara. Published in 1552, the book was banned the following year and not reprinted until 1727.
The next book to definitively state that South America was Atlantis was "The History of the Incas" written by the great historian and classical scholar Sarmiento de Gamboa following an official inquest into the true history of the Incas with the backing of the Viceroy of Peru. Sarmiento de Gamboa's book clearly states that South America was Atlantis and at the time he was writing was known by the names of "the western Indies of Castile or America also called Atlanticus or the Atlantic Island". So the continent was also known sometimes as "New Castile", "New Spain" or "Atlanticus", then latterly, "America". Sarmiento de Gamboa's book was sent to Philip II, king of Spain in 1572 and never heard of again being LOST for 300 years until it was discovered in a library in Germany in 1893 and republished in 1906 [https://web.archive.org/web/20161020183735/http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/sarmiento_markham.pdf]. [...]
The Atlantis Island remained a popular name and was shown as such on maps made by the French cartographer Guillermo Sanson in Paris in 1661.
But then following the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776 the name "America" became universally adopted and the name of Atlantis forgotten until resurrected in modern times. [end excerpt]
- image caption: The "Atlantis Insula" or map of "Atlantis Island" by French cartographer Guillermo Sanson, 1661.
- world map shown with Atlantis
- image caption: The continent opposite the Pillars of Hercules which Columbus found was considered a "New World" by Amerigo Vespucci.
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* "The Baghdad Battery" (world-mysteries.com/sar_11.htm) [archive.is/Cg8f] [begin excerpt]: In 1940, Willard F.M. Gray, an engineer at the General Electric High Volatage Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, read of Konig's theory. Using drawings and details supplied by German rocket scientist Willy Ley, Gray made a replica of the battery. Using copper sulfate solution, it generated about half a volt of electricity.
In 1970s, German Egyptologist, Arne Eggebrecht built a replica of the Baghdad battery and filled it with freshly pressed grape juice, as he speculated the ancients might have done. The replica generated 0.87V. He used current from the battery to electroplate a silver statuette with gold. [end excerpt]
- The ancient battery in the Baghdad Museum
- Re-creation of the Baghdad battery
* "Lights of the Pharaohs: the Electric Lights in Egypt? In the Egyptian temple of Hathor at Dendera, several dozens of kilometers north of Luxor, there are reliefs interpreted by some “experts” as electric lamps" (2012-01-30, blog.world-mysteries.com/uncategorized/lights-of-the-pharaohs-the-electric-lights-in-egypt/) [archive.is/EI7Cb] [begin excerpt]: But the theory that electricity was known and used in antiquity seems to rest on a much more stable foundation. The key to the whole theory lies a few hundred kilometers east of Egypt, in today’s Iraq. There some strange pots were found. Some contained watertight copper cylinders, glued into the opening with asphalt. In the middle of the cylinder was an iron rod, held in place also with asphalt. The excavator who found the first of these pots in 1936 was sure: this is a galvanic element, a primitive battery [ see Baghdad Battery article] . Reconstructions did indeed show that it was possible to create electricity with it. [...]
Energy Sources
There are more critical points about the lamp theory aside from the false argument of the missing soot. Another one: Where could have the Egyptians taken electricity from? For more than 200 years now systematic diggings took place in Egypt, and no electrical generators could be found. The only objects at all found from antique times which could produce some electricity are the famous “Baghdad- Batteries”.
Baghdad-Batteries -
These small pots which were found in the proximity of today’s Baghdad are the best candidates for electro-chemical devices found so far [ Baghdad Battery ].
The oldest were found in a Parthi settlement, which was inhabited around the time of Christ’s birth. The discovery site – a presumed hill which coincidentally was found to be an ancient village in 1936 – suggests even a later settling. The other pots even might have to be settled into the period to 1200 CE. From this, any usage of such devices in ancient Egypt seems to be very improbable.
Right from the beginning the chief excavator Wilhelm Koenig had the opinion that these pots had been batteries used for galvanizing items. Some finds and writings led to the belief that the Parthians knew a method of coating copper or silver with gold by using gold cyanide – without the use of electricity. With a reconstruction of the supposed battery the galvanizing rate could be quadrupled.
Such devices were only useable once. If they were used in large numbers in daily life, remnants of them must have been found somewhere. This is known to the proponents of this idea, too, so they strip down the usage of electric light to “sacral purposes only”. The situation gets schizophrenic here: On one hand the author shows a problem (soot) which only could be solved (in their opinion) by massive use of electric lighting, on the other hand they reduce their theory to a small scale sacral use themselves. Their own theory therefore can not solve the problem created to initiate the idea!
Battery = Energy?
There are surely differences between an accelerated galvanizing technique and lighting a light bulb. In the first case small amperages and voltages are enough to do the job, but not in the second case. Even a small torch bulb needs about one Watt to shed a dim light.
The performance of a battery is the product of voltage and amperage (volt times ampere). The voltage is a material constant between different metals. If we place two different metals in acid we can measure an electric difference measured i Volts. This difference is independent from the size of the plates, it only depends on the materials used. The difference between two plates of the same material is null. Therefore you can sort the various metals into an electro-chemical row with the most negative elements (giving up electrons) to the left and the most positive ones (collecting electrons) to the right. This principle is known to us for approximately 200 years, and the best combinations for metals are known almost as long.
The “batteries” found in Baghdad however are quite poor in comparison. Some contained only same metals (copper rods in copper cylinders) and can produce therefore no voltage at all. And those few who could contains the metal pairing copper/iron which are only 0.5 volts apart on the electro-chemical scale. This excludes any systematic research of the phenomenon which would be the basis for the development of a lamp.
The second factor for a battery was solved nearly as inefficient than the first.
The amperage depends on the surface of the used electrodes. An ideal battery possesses two electrodes with surfaces as large as possible, with materials lying apart as far as possible on the electro-chemical scale. For example disk batteries like the famous Volta pile, which consisted of copper and zinc plates. Or our zinc coal batteries, whose central electrode is an activated charcoal staff with an active surface as large as several football fields. The relics of Baghdad are there poor, too, they came with single rods of iron with a minimal surface as counter electrode. This is another argument against coming from a systematic research of electricity.
Battery = Light?
In 1995 I made a reconstruction of a Baghdad-type battery myself. My first try was a disaster: The reaction stopped after a few minutes. After some research I found the reason: Such natural acids which could have been used (I used vinegar) need air to react. Therefore the closed original constructions never could have worked as batteries!
After I drilled several holes into the cylinder it produced about 0.4-0.5 volts with open contacts, and had a short circuit amperage of 50 mA. The electrical “performance” adds up to 25 milli Watts without connected devices (which breaks down to 1/10th with a single bulb attached).
That means however, that for the operation of only one 1 watt-bulb the ridiculous quantity of forty batteries is needed! Since each battery weighs approximately 2 kilograms, the Egyptian flashlight without rack and wiring would weigh around 80 kilograms!
Oh, after approximately 8 hours power output the inside of the battery decomposes into a green, poisonous mud which must be disposed of.
And the soldering on the bottom gave way, too, so that the whole mess fell into the cylinder I had placed below the metal cylinder.
For the lighting of the building sites with batteries this means:
One 1 Watt bulb needs 40 batteries per working day.
A worker needs a lamp
10 workers were digging out each site
Each excavation took two years (veeeery carefully estimated)
=> each system needed 292000 (!) batteries!
Total weight: 584 tons!
there are 400 large underground sites in Egypt
=> 116 million batteries were necessary
==> With a total weight of 233,600 tons!
All these batteries would have to lie around somewhere as scrap iron or waste. The find situation for batteries in Egypt is however ZERO!
There is just another minor item always “forgotten” by the proponents of ancient batteries: The iron. Iron was a rare and precious metal in Egypt, because no ore is found there. The next iron ore deposits are in today’s Turkey, and were in firm possession of the Hethites, which had a monopoly in manufacturing iron goods from around 1600 B.C. But each “battery” needed a central iron rod as main electrode. So it’s simply impossible that a metal first used in 1600 b.C. played a major role in lighting pyramids built more than 1000 years before! Each battery contained about 150 grams of iron, so for the whole 400 big graves about
17,400 tons of this metal more precious than gold was needed.
From these numbers it can easily be derived that the operation of electrical lamps with the so-called Baghdad batteries was simply impossible. But no other antique energy sources are known, so that any lamp faces the problem of a missing power source.
In the television broadcast “Aliens – do they return?” by Erich von Daeniken, already addressed by me in the pyramid section, he tried to make a connection between Baghdad batteries and light in his typical way. He tried to suggest that a gas-discharge lamp could be powered with such a battery. So he connects a digital multi meter to the battery – a loud buzzing noise suggests a high voltage. Then we can read a not defined voltage of “0293” on the meter; afterwards he presents a “reconstruction” of a Dendera-type gas discharge lamp also connected with a meter, and gives the impression that both voltages are of the same amount! [end excerpt]
- In the temple of Hathor at Dendera, several dozens of kilometers north of Luxor, there are reliefs interpreted by some “experts” as lamps.
- Another picture from the crypts of Dendera: Eastern relief on south wall
- Dendera Lamp exhibit at the Mystery Park in Switzerland. It shows “fringe” (electric lamp) interpretation of the famous Egyptian relief from Dendera
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Megaliths of Baalbek
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* "DROWNED CITIES" (beforeus.com/drowned.html) [archive.is/H9CRS]:
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Meandering track: Spacemind - Memory Hole [youtube.com/watch?v=uL0mvPZuklM]
Science & Futurism
[futurism.com] [kurzweilai.net] [eurekalert.org]
* "Wealthy will create ‘superhuman race’: Stephen Hawking essays reveal dark prediction" (2018-10-14, rt.com/news/441230-stephen-hawking-superhuman-race/) [archive.is/FORl3]
* "Down with dads? Researchers spawn healthy mice from 2 mothers" (2018-10-12, rt.com/news/441065-healthy-mice-no-mothers/) [archive.is/8ar0n]
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* "Soft material hardens with carbon dioxide in air: study" (2018-10-14, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137532727.htm) [archive.is/YOxLs]
* "Scientists make self-growing material that absorbs carbon dioxide" (2018-10-15, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d7967444f7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/ByLwT]
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Just as electric motors redefined what a car can be, a decade later they are having a similar effect on airplanes. Worldwide, more than 120 companies are racing to design aircraft powered by electric batteries rather than conventional aviation turbine fuel. Some of the best-known players in this race include Boeing, Airbus, Google and Uber.
Each company’s design is different, of course, but a feature common to all electric motors is that they are incredibly efficient — about 94 percent efficient on average, according to Touw, meaning that almost all the energy carried in the battery is spent actually propelling the aircraft. Compare that to the mere 24 percent efficiency of a typical gas-burning airplane motor; the rest is wasted as heat and friction between moving parts.
Electric propulsion advocates argue that this efficiency will bring the cost of flight down to a range comparable with ground-level options. Based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy and Uber, Touw calculates that electric aircraft can complete a 50-mile trip at a 10 percent lower price per passenger than a bus, in a third of the time. Cars and trains would still be slightly cheaper, but still twice as slow as an electric plane.
“So you’ve got this disruptive technology, and it’s ready to go!” Touw enthused, before he qualified that statement. “Well, it’s not quite fully ready. But the enabling technology is fully proven.”
Estimates vary as to when electric aircraft will hit the skies; some companies claim they will be airborne as soon as next year. But one thing is almost certain: The first vehicles in the air will be small, carrying two to four passengers. Don’t be surprised if you spot an electric hoverbike on your block before you see a 737 plugged into the wall between flights. Electric motors may be more efficient than combustion motors, but they’re not quite ready for commercial use: Even a small airplane needs a lot more power than a Tesla.
That’s why some industry players are focusing on a hybrid motor instead. One such outfit is XTI Aircraft Co. in Denver. XTI is working on a six-seat aircraft called the TriFan 600, which will use electric power to take off and land — vertically, about which more below — while switching to conventional jet fuel for horizontal portion of the flight. [end excerpt]
- image caption: A digital rendering of the TriFan 600 from XTI Aircraft Company.
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* "Strikeforce: Inside Silicon Valley's Most Unusual Apprenticeship; Futurist Peter Diamandis offers a deal to young entrepreneurs: Help him for two years, and maybe build the next billion-dollar company at the same time" (2018-10, entrepreneur.com/article/317721) [archive.is/mE4KT] [begin excerpt]: In the rarefied, geeky world where tech moguls plot the commercialization of space and debate the pros and cons of artificially intelligent robot overlords, Peter Diamandis has been a well-known name for decades. In 1995, hoping to kick-start the private space industry, he founded the XPrize, offering $10 million to the first nongovernmental group to get a three-passenger ship into space twice within two weeks. In 2008, together with the futurist Ray Kurzweil, he galvanized Silicon Valley’s adventurous dreamers by founding Singularity University “to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” [...]
Diamandis believes we are not hearing about all the good news there is in the world because journalism is incentivized to give us an endless deluge of “it bleeds, it leads” clickbait. He’s on a mission to turn back that tide. In the past century we’ve doubled the human life span, he tells the audience. In the next century, we’ll double it again. Just a few months ago, he reports, Japanese researchers exploring the ocean floor discovered deposits of the rare earth minerals crucial to our smartphone age that are so plentiful, the whole world won’t exhaust them for 500 years. Scarcity is a myth!
The Strikeforce members absorb that enthusiasm and reflect it back with blinding intensity. Lempesis and Scaramucci, in particular, both radiate with the conviction that we are teetering on the edge of an age of marvels.
The child of a computer programmer and a professor who specialized in early childhood psychological development, Lempesis was practically a laboratory experiment designed to explore how much a motivated autodidact could learn about the world via the internet. She recalls having a cellphone in third grade: “It was so fascinating. I had no one to talk to other than my parents, but I just thought transmitting information was so cool. Look at this little tool in my hand that can contact anybody on Earth.
“I was a very strange kid,” she says, and then pauses for a moment. “I’m still very strange as an adult.” [end excerpt]
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* "Scientists can alter how your food tastes using virtual reality – study" (2018-10-16, rt.com/news/441419-virtual-reality-changes-taste/) [archive.is/4wf85]
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* "Scientists make first high-temperature single-molecule magnet" (2018-10-20, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/21/c_137547341.htm) [archive.is/lbv0g]
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* "Chinese scientists develop nanogenerator to power wearable electronics" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536371.htm) [archive.is/lF6Jt]
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* "China is launching a fake, extra-bright moon to cut the cost of city lights" (2018-10-19, rt.com/news/441766-china-man-made-moon/) [archive.is/BXMyj]
* "China to Launch Artificial Moon in 2022; The “man-made moon’s” purpose is to help illuminate urban areas in order to assist in cases like blackouts and natural disasters" (2018-10-20, telesurtv.net/english/news/China-to-Launch-Artificial-Moon-in-2022-20181020-0007.html) [archive.is/r11cQ]
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* "3D printing technology makes ceramics making easier" photoset (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536625.htm) [archive.is/PjPUS] [archive.is/NjP2B] [archive.is/cXarX] [archive.is/1bafY] [archive.is/CAuRj]
- image caption: A tourist views ceramics made with a 3D printer at a ceramics 3D printing experience center in the Taoxichuan cultural creation area in Jingdezhen City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Oct. 16, 2018. The 3D printing technology has made it easier for ceramics making, by cutting the making steps from 72 to three and the time from half a month to three hours. Jingdezhen is known as China's porcelain capital, boasting a 1,000-year history of quality pottery making.
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* "Latest light beam technology eyes 100-times-faster internet speeds: Aussie researchers" (2018-10-24, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/24/c_137555174.htm) [archive.is/SE7GC]
* "Latest light beam technology eyes 100-times-faster internet speeds: Aussie researchers" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d336b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/COE7C]
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* "Recreating 450-mln-year-old enzymes biological "hack" for scientists: researchers" (2018-10-23, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/23/c_137552189.htm) [archive.is/VI3NI]
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Space News
[astrobio.net]
* "Moon radio signals could uncover secrets of universe ‘dark ages' " (2018-10-26, rt.com/news/442384-moon-radio-signal-secrets/) [archive.is/zPCoj]
- image caption: Radio waves from our galaxy reflecting off the surface of the Moon.
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* "Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f3451444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/fnya6]
* "Oxygen discovery ‘completely changes’ potential for life on Mars - study" (2018-10-24, rt.com/news/442107-mars-oxygen-water-life/) [archive.is/kPCBp]
* " ‘NASA is hiding life on Mars’: Here’s what’s really going on in red planet ‘explosion’ IMAGES" (2018-10-23, rt.com/news/442005-nasa-life-on-mars/) [archive.is/rXTsf]
- image: ESA - European Space Agency
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* "Asteroid named after university of China's science academy" (2018-10-15, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137534000.htm) [archive.is/imZac]
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* "Utter lunacy? ‘Moonmoon’ naming proposal for moons of moons proves divisive" (2018-10-13, rt.com/news/441178-moonmoons-name-astronomy-planet/) [archive.is/h6s0f]
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* "Meteorite discovered in Africa up for grabs in online auction" (2018-10-13, newsaf.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e794d7a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/elSeB]
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* "Jupiter's moon may be covered with ice blades, making alien life search difficult" (2018-10-10, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e30637a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/iMUqc], (2018-10-10, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/10/c_137523369.htm) [archive.is/ZQxqg]
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Ancient News
Music for your perusal (via beatport.com) [is.gd/2MzlEd]
* "Ice Age mammoths discovered on Cambridge road building site" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f7945544d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/Zyvxl]
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* "Egyptian archeologists unearth pharaoh's celebration compartment in Cairo" (2018-10-25, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/26/c_137558508.htm) [archive.is/A8pdr]
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* "Israel displays earliest stone inscription with Hebrew name of Jerusalem" (2018-10-09, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/10/c_137521653.htm) [archive.is/D2Rdq] [archive.is/X99uX] [archive.is/Mn9iY]
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* "Exploding heads & boiling blood: Vesuvius eruption deaths far grislier than previously believed" (2018-10-09, rt.com/news/440734-vesuvius-exploding-heads-boiling-blood/) [archive.is/1AlCB]
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* "Traces of Viking ship detected in southeastern Norway" (2018-10-15, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/15/c_137534711.htm) [archive.is/4uD25]
* "Norwegian wood: Rare Viking ship found buried in field" (2018-10-15, rt.com/news/441329-viking-ship-norway-field/) [archive.is/jTm5k]
* "Archaeologists Discover Viking Ship Beneath Norweigan Field; "This find is incredibly exciting as we only know three well-preserved Viking ship finds," said Archaeologist Dr. Knut Paasche; Scientists detected the outline of a 20-meter-long ship near a 30-feet tall burial ground which dates back more than 1,000 years" (2018-10-15, telesurtv.net/english/news/Archaeologists-Discover-Viking-Ship-Beneath-Norweigan-Field-20181015-0010.html) [archive.is/EvMsI]
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* "Syria displays artifacts retrieved from rebel-held areas" (2018-10-09, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774d35517a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/2dUMg]
- image caption: A restored statue for Yalhi bin Yalhabouda, a high priest in Palmyra, at the Opera House in Damascus, October 3, 2018.
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* " ‘Not everything was looted’: British Museum faces Twitter takedown over defense of collection origin" (2018-10-13, rt.com/news/441183-british-museum-stolen-artefacts/) [archive.is/KDEGU]
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* "Turkey capitalizes on rich history to attract tourists" (2018-10-09, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f334d7a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/EFUoi]
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* "World’s ‘oldest intact shipwreck’ discovered in murky depths of Black Sea after 2,400 years" (2018-10-23, rt.com/news/442019-worlds-oldest-intact-shipwreck/) [archive.is/fMvk1]
* " 'Oldest Intact' Shipwreck Found in Black Sea; The vessels’ condition is attributed to the environment’s anoxicity (lack of oxygen) at the depth in which it was found" (2018-10-24, telesurtv.net/english/news/Oldest-Intact-Shipwreck-Found-in-Black-Sea-20181024-0005.html) [archive.is/hwnoR]
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* "Cultural Exchange: Two Bronze Age civilizations meet in China" video page (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3245544f78494464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856/share_p.html) [archive.is/Z9Aon]
* "Archaeologists find ancient fishing ruins in northeast China" (2018-10-28, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/28/c_137564374.htm) [archive.is/f00Lk]
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* "China restores 2,000-year-old Great Wall fortress" (2018-10-26, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/26/c_137560833.htm) [archive.is/QNbUu]
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* "Peru: International Meeting Gathers Storytellers From The World; 'Blessed be the word' will go from the 13th to the 20th of October and will gather oral storytellers from Uruguay, Panama, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Peru" (2018-10-09, telesurtv.net/english/news/Peru-International-Meeting-Gathers-Storytellers-From-The-World-20181009-0022.html) [archive.is/6ss2U]
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- image caption: Forensice three dimensional image of the Woman of K'anamarka
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* "Archeologists find statues of ancient Peruvian culture" (2018-10-23, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/24/c_137555060.htm) [archive.is/0gtPP]
* "Peruvian archeologists discover pre-Columbian statues" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414f7759444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/gqdbN]
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* "Dig at Italy’s Pompeii volcanic site yields 5 skeletons" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e316b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/srpvW]
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* "The ancient origins of Taijiquan" (2018-10-25, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e316b444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/q1e0o]
- image caption: Zhu Xianghua practices Taijiquan in the square of Chen Village.
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* "Hungary: Drought Reveals 18th-Century Coins, Weapons; The discovery happened near the town of Erd, south of Budapest. Archeologists are working assiduously to recover as much of the treasure as possible before the water level rises again" (2018-10-26, telesurtv.net/english/news/Hungary-Drought-Reveals-18th-Century-Coins-Weapons-20181025-0028.html) [archive.is/RiA4y]
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* "Bible Museum admits some of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake" (2018-10-23, news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e7755444d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html) [archive.is/TUROw]
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* " 'Bronze Age Atlantis', The International Nautical Empire of the Sea Peoples by Walter Baucum" book review (britam.org/baucumcover.html) [archive.is/JLxuJ], more about the author [archive.is/bVtiX], more from the author [archive.is/aSOig]
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* "America’s archaeology data keeps disappearing – even though the law says the government is supposed to preserve it" (2018-10-17, theconversation.com/americas-archaeology-data-keeps-disappearing-even-though-the-law-says-the-government-is-supposed-to-preserve-it-104674) [archive.is/fDKO9]
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* "Rainforest exists in ancient central Tibet: amber fossil reveals" (2018-10-18, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/18/c_137541680.htm) [archive.is/9ndiy]
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* "Ancient graffiti shows we’ve been wrong about Pompeii doomsday date all along" (2018-10-18, rt.com/news/441587-pompeii-graffiti-discovery-doomsday-date/) [archive.is/QClJD]
- image caption: The graffiti may just have rewritten the history books about the Vesuvius eruption almost 2,000 years ago
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* "Tajikistan: Officials Say Swastika Part Of Their Aryan Heritage; A Tajik emblem that is based on the swastika (RFE/RL) Like other post-Soviet countries, Tajikistan has taken a fresh look its history following independence in 1991. The result is a state campaign to promote the notion that the Tajiks as a Aryan nation – and the widespread use of the swastika" (2005-12-23, rferl.org/a/1064129.html) [archive.is/7Lp0Q] [begin excerpt]: When the swastika first appeared, in India, it was as a sign of eternity and eternal motion. The newer, positive connotations that the Tajik authorities want the swastika to gain were outlined two years ago by President Imomali Rakhmonov when he declared 2006 the year of Aryan culture: the aim of the year is, he said, to “study and popularize Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilization; to raise a new generation [of Tajiks] with the spirit of national self-determination; and to develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures.”
Linguistically, the Tajiks are closely tied to the Persians, who since ancient times have used the term Aryan to describe themselves and their language.
The Tajik historian and ethnographer Usto Jahonov supports both the state’s desire to raise awareness of Tajikistan’s Aryan heritage and the use of the swastika. Using an argument employed by Tajik officials in numerous speeches, Jahonov contends that it is an inherent part of Aryan culture and a key to building national identity. A stronger national identity is itself “needed now because we live among [non-Aryan,] Turkic nations” that are, he says, rewriting “their history by claiming that they emerged in this area [Central Asia]. We should therefore go back to Aryan history, demonstrate and prove to others where our place is. Each nation should know its place.” [end excerpt]
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* "Found: Viking Clothes With ‘Allah’ Embroidered in Silk; The designs were overlooked by researchers in the 1940s" (2017-10-13, atlasobscura.com/articles/viking-clothes-with-allahs-name-embroidered-in-silk) [archive.is/rs3mL]
* "Viking burial clothes woven with 'Allah' discovered in Sweden; University researchers’ ‘staggering’ find contradicts theories that Islamic objects in Viking graves are result of plunder" (2017-10-13, theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/13/viking-burial-clothes-woven-with-allah-unveiled-by-swedish-university) [archive.is/bz5hJ] [begin excerpt]: The Vale of York hoard, discovered near Harrogate in 2007, contained objects relating to three belief systems – Islam, Christianity and the worship of Thor – and at least seven different languages. [end excerpt]
* "Why did Vikings have 'Allah' embroidered into funeral clothes?" (2017-10-12, bbc.com/news/world-europe-41567391) [archive.is/mk4YP]
* "BEYOND JORVIK: THE VALE OF YORK HOARD AND THE VIKING WORLD" (yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/exhibition/beyond-jorvik-the-vale-of-york-hoard-and-the-viking-world/) [archive.is/k3yRp]:
The Vale of York Viking Hoard is one of the most important Viking discoveries ever made in Britain. This spotlight display showed the fantastic objects within the Capital of the North exhibition, telling fascinating stories about life across the Viking world.
Discovery
The Vale of York Hoard was discovered in North Yorkshire in January 2007 by two metal-detectorists, David and Andrew Whelan, who kept the find intact and promptly reported it to their local Finds Liaison Officer. It was declared Treasure in 2009 and was valued at £1,082,000 by the independent Treasure Valuation Committee. The size and quality of the material in the hoard is remarkable, making it the most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years.
Beautiful Objects -
The hoard contains a mixture of different precious metal objects, including coins, complete ornaments, ingots (bars) and chopped-up fragments known as hack-silver (67 objects in total and 617 coins). It shows the diversity of cultural contacts in the medieval world, with objects coming from as far apart as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
The most spectacular single object is a gilt silver vessel, made in what is now France or western Germany around the middle of the ninth century. It was apparently intended for use in church services, and was probably either looted from a monastery by Vikings, or given to them in tribute. Most of the smaller objects were hidden inside this vessel, which was itself protected by some form of lead container.
As a result, the hoard was extremely well-preserved. Other star objects include a rare gold arm-ring, and 617 coins, including several new or rare types. These provide valuable new information about the history of England in the early tenth century, as well as Yorkshire’s wider cultural contacts in the period. Interestingly, the hoard contains coins relating to Islam and to the pre-Christian religion of the Vikings, as well as to Christianity.
* "BEYOND JORVIK: THE VALE OF YORK VIKING HOARD" (by Andrew Woods, yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/blog/beyond-jorvik-the-vale-of-york-viking-hoard-andrew-woods/) [archive.is/FjkWz] [begin excerpt]: The hoard and a united England
The coins in the hoard highlight the unrest of the Viking Age. Athelstan, king of southern England, gradually reconquered the parts of England that remained under Viking control in the 920s. He captured the town of York in 927 AD. To celebrate his capture of this important town he struck a coin with his name on one side and a depiction of York on the other. This coin has a small building or church in the centre (possibly an early depiction of the Minster) and the lettering EB OR AC around it, which stands for Eboracum, the Latin name for York.
Shortly after capturing York, in July 927, Athelstan met kings from Scotland and Wales at Eamont Bridge in Cumbria. They acknowledged his authority over them. To celebrate this fact Athelstan had coins struck with the legend EDELSTAN REX TO BRIE, which translates as Athelstan, king of all Britons. Athelstan was the first king to rule over a united England and has a very important role in English history. There is only one of these coins in the hoard and it is almost new. It is thus likely that the hoard was buried in late 927 or early 928.
[end excerpt]
- silver penny
- Arabic dirham
A Viking penny with an image of Thor's hammer cast out of silver. Made in 920 at the mint of Regnald, the Viking king at York.
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* "Database established to study ancient Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi's doctrine" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536387.htm) [archive.is/Ml59w]
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* "Complete collection of Tibetan epic to be published in 2019" (2018-10-16, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137536781.htm) [archive.is/7lOa1]
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* "The Aztecs at Teotihuacan" (by Dr. Susan Toby Evans of Pennsylvania State University, Teotihuacan Research Laboratory, shesc.asu.edu/content/aztecs-teotihuacan) [archive.is/B7Ghb] [begin excerpt]: We know that Teotihuacan was the most important site in all of ancient Mexico in the Early Classic period (about AD 300 to 600), but was it also important after that, such as in the Aztec Period of the 1400s and the early 1500s?
While the town known to the Aztecs as Teotihuacan was a much smaller place than the Early Classic city—and much smaller than the great Aztec capital Tenochtitlan/Mexico City—it was strategically important as a regional political capital. The ruined pyramids were revered as the place where time began, where the gods sacrificed themselves to create the life-giving sun. Montezuma was supposed to have made a pilgrimage to the pyramids of Teotihuacan every 20 days (though it is probable that he usually sent emissaries to fulfill his ritual obligations).
Nonetheless, the Teotihuacan Valley was an essential part of the Aztec empire, a vital route to the Gulf of Mexico lowlands and to obsidian sources critical to the production of tools and weapons. The Teotihuacan Valley’s importance to the Aztec empire was proven when it became the first of the core provinces to secede from the empire, siding against Montezuma in a nasty civil war about five years before Cortés reached Tenochtitlan/Mexico City. [end excerpt]
- image caption: Teotihuacan pyramids from an early Spanish map
* (publications.newberry.org/aztecs/s2i1.html) [archive.is/fTiva]: In his letters to the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V, King of Spain, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés trumpeted his exploits, and described the people and wonders of the new land he had conquered. This map, published with Cortés’s letters, provided Europeans with the first image of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan.
Although in ruins at the time of the map’s publication, the island city, with the Aztec sacred ceremonial district at its heart, appears serene and orderly under the double eagle and crown of the Hapsburg imperial flag. The smaller map to the left represents the Gulf of Mexico.
map, closeup [archive.is/jsupe], showing Tenochititlan and the Gulf Coast, from Hernando Cortes's Second Letter "Praeclara Ferdinadi Cortesii de nova Maris Oceani Hyspania Narratio" (published 1524 by Friedrich Peypus at Nuremberg), preserved at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ayer 655.51.C8 1524d.
* "Praeclara Ferdinadi Cortesii de nova Maris Oceani Hyspania Narratio... CORTES Hernando &; MARTYR Peter (1524].) £30000.00" item page (maggs.com/praeclara-ferdinadi-cortesii-de-nova-maris-oceani-hyspania-narratio_212217.htm) [archive.is/CPQKq]:
The first Latin edition of Cortés' second letter, after its original publication in Seville in 1522. The work was translated by Petrus Savorgnanus. This copy does not bear the portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf which is not found with all copies.
Cortés' second letter, dated Oct. 30, 1520, provides a vivid account of the people he encountered and fought en route to Tenochtitlan, painting a picture of an impressive empire centered around a great city. He relates his scrape with rival Velazquez and gives a wonderful description of the buildings, institutions, and court at Tenochtitlan. It is here that Cortés provides a definitive name for the country, calling it "New Spain of the Ocean Sea". This letter is also important for making reference to Cortés' "lost" first letter, supposedly composed at Vera Cruz on July 10, 1521. Whether that letter was actually lost or suppressed by the Council of the Indies is unknown, but there is little doubt it once existed.
As usual, the second letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et Insulis Noviter Repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost first Cortés letter.
One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico, and a key factor in maintaining Spain's interest in the New World.
Provenance Iohan Alberecht Von und Zu Haimhausen c 1660, engraved armorial bookplate; Carl Friedrich Philipp Von Martius, signature, John Murray 1833 pencil note declares " Letters of Cortez given me by Dr Martius May 1833", pictorial bookplate, partly printed in gold.
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* "The water clock of the Bronze Age (Northern Black Sea Coast)" (https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.03905.pdf) [web.archive.org]
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* "Does Chinese Civilization Come From Ancient Egypt? A new study has energized a century-long debate at the heart of China's national identity" (2016-09-02, foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-civilization-come-from-ancient-egypt-archeological-debate-at-heart-of-china-national-identity/) [archive.is/L34J8]
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Prof. Ze’ev Herzog of the Archaeology Faculty at the University of Tel Aviv [archive.is/kRpqt]:
The stele which dates to about 1208 BC was discovered by renowned British archaeologist Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896.
The Inscription contains a hymn and a list of the Pharaoh’s military victories. A tribe, whom Merenptah had victoriously smitten, "I.si.ri.ar", or, as Petrie quickly suggested that it read: "Israel", is on the list of conquests. The mention of Israel is very short; it simply says, “Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more.”
However, a number of alternative readings for the text "I.si.ri.ar" have been suggested and debated. The most common alternative suggested is that of Jezreel (city) or the Jezreel Valley.
This was the first extra-biblical Egyptian source to mention the tribe of Israel and the last one for that matter.
Yes, maybe the tribe, not the kingdom, of Israel had been mentioned in King Merneptah Stele, but it was ascertained to be completely devastated and existed no more. Interestingly enough, the Israelites were depicted (with distinctive hieroglyphs) in the Egyptian stele as Bedouins/nomads who were always on the move and who never settled in one place/city- contrary to the Israelite story of invasion and settlement they have been raving about during long centuries of silent Egyptian records- the ancient Egyptian writing, Hieroglyphs, has been deciphered in 1822 by Jean Francois Champollion
While the other defeated Egyptian enemies listed besides Israel in Merneptah stele such as Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam (cities to be inhabited later by pelset/philistines) were given the determinative for a city-state—”a throw stick plus three mountains designating a foreign country”—the hieroglyphs that refer to Israel instead employ the determinative sign used for foreign peoples: a throw stick plus a man and a woman over three vertical plural lines. This sign is typically used by the Egyptians to signify nomadic tribes without a fixed city-state, thus implying that ysrỉꜣr "Israel" was the demonym for a seminomadic population who were always on the move at the time the stele was created.
Unlike the old school of biblical archeology, which grabbed the spade in one hand and the bible in the other, modern archaeologists describe their approach as one which views the Bible as one of the important artifacts into which centuries of Near Eastern cultural accumulations [Egyptian, Phoenician and Sumerian] had been integrated and sometimes copycatted [but] not the unquestioned narrative framework every archaeological find has to fit into.
Despite the scarcity of archaeological finds that corroborate the veracity of the Hebrew bible’s narrative, modern archeology doesn't deny the Israelites existed; rather it states they only existed quite differently.
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* "The Top 5 Megalithic Mysteries of Mexico" (2018-07-08, photos and text by Marco M. Vigato, megalithicmarvels.com/2018/07/08/the-top-5-megalithic-mysteries-of-mexico/) [archive.is/bbTUz]
1. The Terraced Hill of Tezcotzingo -
In Aztec times, Texcoco was already an ancient city, the “Athens of America”. Virtually nothing remains of the ancient city itself, which at one time rivaled the great Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in beauty and magnificence. In 1824, the English antiquarian William Bullock could still admire the great Pyramid of Texcoco and the palace of the Acolhua kings, a structure “far surpassing any ideas I had formed of the architectural abilities of the aboriginal Americans.” The palace measured over 300 feet on each side and was built on sloping terraces raised one upon the other. It was composed “of huge blocks of basaltic stone, about four or five feet long, and two and a half or three feet thick, cut and polished with the utmost exactness.” Although nothing now remains of this megalithic wonder, the nearby hill of Tezcotzingo provides abundant evidence of the skill of its unknown megalithic builders. The entire hill was artificially terraced to become a symbolic representation of the cosmic mountain. On each level, temples, altars and aqueducts were carved with some unknown method in the hard porphyry stone of the hill, all connected by means of rock-cut stairways and tunnels. The most impressive structure is a monolithic basin known as the “Bath of the King”. It is perfectly circular, with a smooth and apparently machined surface. Whatever tool was used for carving the basin, it left clearly spaced circular grooves on the rock surface. The same level of workmanship and polish can be found in the many rock-cut stairways that connect the different levels of the complex. The entire hill appears moreover pierced by a number of artificial tunnels and excavations, which are presently all blocked.
2. The Colossus of Coatlinchán -
The monolith of Coatlinchán is a colossal ancient statue that for centuries lay abandoned in an andesite quarry near the ancient city of Texcoco, before it was finally moved to Mexico City in 1964. The same andesite quarry is also believed to have provided much of the construction materials for the stone sculptures and megalithic architecture of Teotihuacan, some 25 miles to the North-East of Mexico City. It is believed that the monolith of Coatlinchán is a representation of the Rain-god “Tlaloc.” It is nearly 7 meters high and weighs an estimated 152 tons, making it the largest ancient statue and one of the largest carved monoliths in all the American continent. The monolith now decorates a fountain in front of the National Museum of Anthropology in downtown Mexico City.
- photo (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Tlaloc_2.jpg), fullsize [archive.is/XIkQs]
3. The Monolithic Pyramid of Malinalco -
he little town of Malinalco, located less than 100 kilometers from Mexico City, contains a unique complex of rock-cut temples and structures of which the most famous is the Cuauhtinchan, the so-called “Temple of the Eagle Warriors.” Thousands of tons of rock were removed from a steep cliff face overlooking the town of Malinalco to carve a three-tiered pyramid, monolithic stairways and a set of immense rock-cut chambers of unknown function. Just as at Tezcotzingo, the precision of the cut is remarkable, with perfectly flat and polished stone surfaces that suggest the use of a mechanical process of removing stone. The most impressive of the rock-cut chambers is circular in shape, and contains an altar and benches all cut out of the living rock with astonishing precision. The entire complex of rock-cut chambers and structures is usually dated to 1470 AD, but the workmanship and style of construction, so different from the usual Aztec construction techniques employing mortar and small stones, suggests a much earlier dating of the megalithic structures.
Between the 2nd Century and the 5th Century AD, the great pyramid city of Teotihuacan was the largest in the Western hemisphere, the “Rome of America,” with a population of nearly 250,000. Yet its monumental avenues and massive pyramids dedicated to the Sun, the Moon and the Feathered Serpent conceal the vestiges of a much older and even more mysterious past. The foundations of great megalithic buildings are visible under some of the structures of the ancient city, the older structures employing large, finely dressed megalithic blocks, in contrast to the later structures being largely built of mud-bricks and small cemented stones. There is evidence that an immense megalithic structure may have once stood in the area now occupied by the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpents. Hundreds of andesite stone blocks, many weighing in excess of 10 tons, lie scattered over a very large area and were apparently reused as part of the filling of the pyramid. These blocks exhibit sharp edges, perfectly planar surfaces and complex concave surfaces that would have been nearly impossible to obtain with the primitive flint and obsidian tools supposedly available to the ancient builders of Teotihuacan. Some of stones recovered from the filling of the pyramid even show evidence of drilling and saw marks as to suggest some mechanical method for cutting stone. An immense effort must have gone into the quarrying, cutting and fitting of these enormous stone blocks, as no local source of andesite stone exists in a range of 25 miles from Teotihuacan across very rugged mountainous terrain. Yet there seems to be no trace of the structures to which the stones originally belonged.
5. The Cruciform Tombs of Mitla and Guards -
Some of the largest stone blocks employed in any ancient structure across the Americas are found at Mitla and in the nearby sites of Xaagá and Guiaroo. At Mitla, enormous andesite and porphyry stone lintels and monolithic columns, some weighing as much as 30 tons, were regularly employed in the construction of palaces and pyramids above ground. Yet it is in the maze of underground tombs, chambers and tunnels that run under the ancient city that may be found the finest examples of megalithic stonework in all of Mexico. The stones that form the walls and ceilings of these underground chambers are cut with astonishing precision, as to leave nearly imperceptible joints between the blocks. A mysterious cruciform structure was discovered and photographed in 1902 at a site called Guiaroo, in the vicinity of Mitla. It was built of immense megalithic stone blocks measuring as many as 6 meters long and weighing in excess of 50 tons. Unfortunately the location of this remarkable structure is presently unknown, but other enormous stone blocks can be seen at a nearby quarry, the largest measuring 6.24 x 3.89 x 0.80 meters and weighing an estimated 55 tons.
* "The Megalithic Ruins of Ancient Mexico"
- Part 1 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/N3wgF]
- Part 2 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-mysterious-rock-and-tunnels-of.html) [archive.is/d9ITo]
- Part 3 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/DM3iK]
- Part 4 (unchartedruins.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-megalithic-ruins-of-ancient-mexico.html) [archive.is/r026L]
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* "Walled Mayan community with megalithic stones found in northern Yucatan" (2015-12-17, theyucatantimes.com/2015/12/walled-mayan-community-with-megalithic-stones-found-in-northern-yucatan/) [archive.is/xMCUB] [begin excerpt]: As previously reported, these two archaeologists under the Second Symposium of Ichkaantijoo Mayan Culture in Yucatan INAH reported that 5,088 preHispanic structures were discovered during the exploration of 1,350 hectares. The rescue and conservation work to be carried out depends on the response from the Archaeology Council.Cristian Hernandez said the research work carried out here is important and there are some areas that deserve special attention, such as the “walled” enclosure as well as the different types of architecture prevalent in the zone.“There is an area where ther are several housing groups in which have been found grinding stones to ceramics for household use, and a protected area of just over 1.5 hectares,” he said.He said that the area is protected by a megalithic stone wall, inside which housing remains are found. However, from the enclosure, it appears it could have served for housing of an elite group.Hernandez said the next phase of archaeological exploration will determine dating for the community. [end excerpt]
- source (sipse.com/milenio/antropologia-inah-descubrimiento-muralla-maya-yucatan-183307.html) [archive.is/hm0kL]
* "How Material Culture Acted on the Ancient Maya of Yucatan, Mexico" (2015-10, by Scott R. Huston, via researchgate.net/figure/Photo-of-the-central-megalithic-stairway-of-Structure-1-Ake-Yucatan_fig3_282366685) [archive.is/v3dlU] [begin excerpt]:
both Kancab and 21 de Abril, people built houses on top of platforms constructed in what we refer to as the megalithic style ( Figure 2.2; Mathews and Maldonado 2006). Megalithic buildings at two other local centers (Dzilam and Aké) and the regional center (Izamal), each of which is located within 40 kilometers of Ucı, dumbfounded 19th cen- tury explorers (Figure 2.3; Brasseur de Bourbourg 1865; Charnay 1863; Stephens 1963). For example, in 1843 John L. Stephens published the following passage about Structure 1 at Aké: The buildings upon which Stephens commented are not the only ones in the Maya area that use large stones. For example, the occupants of the Mirador Basin, located approximately 400 kilometers south of Ucı, built earlier megalithic structures in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C.E. (Hansen 1998). However, the megalithic structures in the northern Lowlands share a set of characteristics that distinguish them from other buildings with large stones (Hutson 2012; Mathews and Maldonado 2006). These characteristics include platform retaining walls with large, dressed facing stones (usually longer than 60 centimeters) stacked with their long axis aligned with the face of the wall. The platforms often have rounded corners and the stones themselves also have rounded corners, giving them what has been called a “pillow” shape (Taube 1995). The ancient Maya often built apron moldings with these megaliths. Megalithic buildings with these particular details cluster around Ucı, Izamal, Aké, and Dzilam but also appear further to the east at large sites such as Naranjal, Victoria, and Tres Lagunas in northern Quintana Roo, Mexico (Glover and Stanton 2010). In con- trast to the Ucı area, megalithic buildings in northern Quintana Roo are not found at smaller sites. In and around Ucı, most domestic megalithic platforms cover between 200 and 400 square meters, and rarely stand taller than one meter. A household wishing to build a 200 m 2 megalithic platform with one course of megaliths along the full perimeter of the retaining wall would need about 60 megaliths, assuming each megalith was one meter long. Most northern Lowland households beyond the Ucı area did not build with megaliths and, around Ucı and Naranjal, the style did not continue very long after its apogee in the first half of the 1st millennium C.E. Most people who lived on the peninsula in ancient times built perfectly viable platforms using smaller stones. We call attention to the ways in which the process of building with megaliths, as opposed to other kinds of stones, shaped social relations (see Joyce 2004 for an account of how building with clay impacted society). Our contribution complements other approaches to the sociality of stone in the Maya area, such as the point that stone, in the form of a stela, can embody and extend royal people (Houston and Stuart 1998). Our approach differs from Tilley’s treatment of the materiality of stones in Europe since Tilley (2004) fo- cuses mostly on how stone buildings and monuments were experienced after they were created and/or put into place. Quarrying megaliths requires much more than hard labor. The high quality flint required to make the bifacial tools to quarry limestone is difficult to find in the vicinity of Ucı. Furthermore, fashioning bifaces for quarrying would have required very experienced tool makers. Finally, exper- imental quarrying exercises in the Petén district of northern Guatemala (Woods and Titmus 1996) indicate a scarcity of the kinds of quarries (those with minimal fractures and minimal hard, spherical inclusions) that work well for extracting large blocks. Around Ucı, limestone is soft compared to limestone further to the south, given that it was formed more recently (over the last 2 million years, as opposed to the last 24 million years; Ward 1985) and the purity of limestone around Ucı is quite variable (see also Carmean et al. 2011). Given the uneven availability of suitable stone for the megaliths themselves and for tools for extracting and shap- ing them, quarrying megaliths required a body of geographi- cal and technical knowledge that entailed a network of social relations. In other words, if we presume that each household built its own platform, a household that wanted to incorpo- rate megaliths into the retaining wall of its platform would have needed to maintain the connections necessary to access the right kinds of quarries. That household might also need good relations with an expert biface maker, who in turn would need to maintain the relations necessary to get access to high quality chert. If the household did not do the actual quarrying itself, it had to expend the economic and/or social capital to get specialized masons to do the work. Stoneworking was a specialized skill in the conquest period in Yucatan (Farriss 1984:166), and data from various Maya sites suggest it was also a specialization before contact (Abrams 1994; Andrews and Rovner 1973; Carmean et al. 2011; Hansen 1998; Haviland 1974). In sum, making megaliths required multiple social relations. The size of megaliths has an additional impact on social relations. Megalithic stones in domestic contexts at Kancab and 21 de Abril average approximately 80 × 50 × 25 cm (Stair 2013). A stone of these dimensions has a volume of 0.1 m 3 . Experimental archaeology in the Petén (Sidrys 1978; Woods and Titmus 1996) shows that a 1 m 3 block of limestone weighs anywhere from 1236 to 2700 kg. The limestone around Ucı would fall closer to the light end of this spectrum. Thus, a 0.1 m 3 block like those used in domestic platforms at Ucı would weigh between 123.6 and perhaps 200 kilograms (between 272 and 441 pounds). It would take at least two people to move stones of that weight from the quarry to the platform and to hoist such a stone into position on top of other megalithic stones on a retaining wall. Two (or more) people working together to move these stones is a paradigm case of dialogical action, no different from the example of two people sawing a log with a two-handed saw (Taylor 1999:35; Hutson 2010c:27). The absence of one person renders the other person’s actions absolutely inept. We presume that most non-megalithic platforms in Yucatan were also built by more than one person working at the same time, and that these multiple workers also had to coordinate their actions. Yet jobs like moving and hoisting megaliths can only be done by multiple actors working intimately in tandem. Workers do not just share understandings of how to get the job done, they must coordinate physical movement on shared tasks. Anyone who has helped another person lift a couch up a staircase knows that one person’s movement physically registers on the other. One person pushing out of sync with the other can easily cause injury. We believe that the closely coordinated physical maneuvers required to haul and place a 150 kg stone intensified the bonds between co-actors. The way that the material characteristics of megalithic stone bring about exceptionally dialogical relations between people becomes more important when we consider that the construction of megalithic platforms may not have happened all at once. Whereas it is sometimes presumed that buildings are first built and later occupied, some building projects are works in progress (see, for example Gerritsen 1997; Rodning 2007). In the case of megalithic platforms, this might mean that in the initial construction effort, builders used megalithic stones for a portion of the perimeter of the platform and smaller stones for the rest, with the intention of gradually replacing the smaller ones with megaliths when time and resources permitted. Though perfectly habitable, some platforms may never have received megaliths on the entire perimeter. This is precisely what we find: In a sam- ple of 54 megalithic platforms in the vicinity of Ucı, Joe Stair (2010) has observed that only a few platforms have megalithic stones on their full perimeters. On average, megalithic stones cover less than half the perimeter. Thus, the retaining walls of most platforms feature a mix of non- megalithic and megalithic stones. Stair (2010) notes that there is no correlation between platform volume and the proportion of megaliths on a platform’s perimeter. In other words, to the extent that platform volume can be seen as a measure of control of resources, households with abundant resources do not necessarily have the most megaliths in their platforms. If, over the course of a megalithic platform’s bi- ography, its occupants occasionally replaced smaller stones with megalithic stones, we need to envision the exemplary dialogical actions of pushing, pulling, and lifting megaliths as a recurring event, not limited to the initial construction stage. Future research might able to test this by determining whether or not platforms with more megalithic stones had longer
- Photo of the central megalithic stairway of Structure 1, Aké, Yucatan
* "Aké (Yucatan)" photoset (via megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=16280) [archive.is/pSxG2]: Late Maya city (1000 CE) with an urban area of over 2 square miles. The major building, perhaps a palace, has stucco ornamentation.
- [archive.is/UmU9j]: View from the colonnaded palace at Aké.
- [archive.is/vMfKE]: The colonnaded palace.
- [archive.is/IAUXk]: The pyramid at Aké.
- [archive.is/8efmG]: Pillar on the sacbe leading to Aké.
- [archive.is/ajzn4]: View from El Palacio to the main Plaza with a pyramid.
- [archive.is/Yxzb5]: Columns on the main platform called "El Palacio", dated for the Post-Classic period.
- [archive.is/MLyZ6]: Remains of many structures are still covered with vegetation.
- [archive.is/AZyN7]: El Palacio in Ake - the most important structure of the Post-Classic city.
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* "The Interesting Times of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa" (2017-09-09, lostscienceoftheandes.com/2017/09/09/the-interesting-times-of-pedro-sarmiento-de-gamboa/) [archive.is/ycbWL]
* "Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa" (retrieved 2018-10-22, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Sarmiento_de_Gamboa) [archive.is/QeacU] [begin excerpt]: At the age of 18, Sarmiento de Gamboa entered the royal military in the European wars. Between 1550 and 1555 the future navigator fought in the armies of Emperor Charles V. In 1555 he began his exploring career, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. His first destination was New Spain (in what is today Mexico), where he lived for two years. Little is known of this period in his life, other than that he encountered difficulties with the Inquisition. He then sailed to Peru, where he lived for more than twenty years, gaining a reputation as a navigator.
In Lima he was accused by the Inquisition of possessing two magic rings and some magic ink and of following the precepts of Moses. He then joined Álvaro de Mendaña's expedition through the southern Pacific Ocean to find the Terra Australis Incognita, which, should Mendaña followed Sarmiento's indications, had reached New Zealand or/and Australia; but they discovered the Solomon Islands instead, in 1568. The expedition failed to find gold and attempts at establishing a settlement in the Solomon Islands ended in failure.
In order to take credit of the discoveries for himself Mendaña threw the journals and maps made by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa overboard and abandoned him in Mexico. However, a trial was then held in Lima, with the result giving Sarmiento credit for the discoveries.
In 1572 he was commissioned by Francisco de Toledo, the fifth Viceroy of Peru, to write a history of the Incas. Toledo hoped such a history would justify Spanish colonisation by revealing the violent history of the Incas. Sarmiento collected oral accounts first hand from Inca informants and produced a history (commonly titled The History of the Incas) that chronicles their violent conquest of the region. [end excerpt]
* "Sarmiento de Gamboa and the Atlantic Island" (retrieved 2017-02-13, atlantisbolivia.org/sarmientodegamboa.htm) [archive.is/p3rbX] [begin excerpt]: Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532-1592) author of the "History of the Incas" is equally as colourful a character as the myths he reproduces. Considered one of the most outstanding personalities of the Spanish 16th century, he was a navigator, cosmographer, mathematician, soldier, historian and scholar of classical languages well versed in Plato's Atlantis which he mentions in detail in his account of the History of the Incas.
In 1555 he arrived in America where he was subjected to the Inquisition on account of his scientific and astrological activities. In 1567 he discovered the Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the Western Pacific. In 1569 he was ordered by Don Francisco de Toledo, Viceroy of Peru to write a compendium of the customs, daily life and political organization of the Incas which became his "History of the Incas" and which was sent to Philip II of Spain from Cuzco in 1572.
He fortified the Strait of Magellan as a defence against Francis Drake, founded two cities, was captured by the English on his way home to Spain, ransomed then recaptured by Hugonauts and finally disappeared with the squadron carrying him to New Spain.
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa considered the world to be divided into five parts. The first three parts were the three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. The fourth part was Catigara, an "extensive land in the Indian Ocean now distinct from Asia being separated by the Strait of Malacca." The fifth part was called "The Atlantic Island" which exceeded all the others and "is the land of these western Indies of Castile."
He goes on to mention the name of the continent as "the floating islands which they afterwards called the Atlanticas, (editor’s note: spelled as Atlanticus by Gamboa) and now the Western Indies of Castile or America", bearing in mind that he is writing shortly after the "discovery" or rediscovery of the great continent and the name "America" was not then as firmly established as it is today.
It is clear that he thought of Atlantis as a continent beginning immediately to the west of Spain and which continued west and included what is now South America, with the sunken part being between Brasil and Cadiz. He deduced this based upon the statement that Atlantis was "larger than Africa and Asia combined" so he figured Atlantis measured 2,300 leagues in width. Subtracting 1,000 leagues for the distance from Cadiz to Brasil, he concluded that Atlantis "includes from Brasil to the South Sea which is today called America."
So his account of the "History of the Incas", begins with a history and substantial overview of Atlantis, or "the Atlanticas", which he considers to be the original name of the continent lately called America and on which the Incas are located.
As a mathematician, astrologer and navigator who was also a scholar of classical languages he also had a clear idea of when the missing part of Atlantis disappeared.
"debió suceder en el tiempo que Aod gobernaba el pueblo de Israel 1320 años antes de Cristo. Según todas las crónicas Solón fué en el tiempo de el rey Tarquinio Prisco de Roma, siendo Josias rey de Israel o Jerusalén, antes de Cristo 610 años. Y desde esta plática hasta que los Atlánticos habían puesto cerco sobre los Atenienses, habían pasado 9000 años lunares, que referidos a los solares suman 869 años. Y todo junto es la suma dicha arriba."
This according to Sarmiento de Gamboa took place "when Aod governed Israel in 1320BC." "According to all the chronicles Solon lived in the time of King Tarquinius Priscus, King of Rome, Josiah being King of Israel at Jerusalem in 610BC. And from this period to the time when the Atlanteans put the blockade upon the Athenians was 9,000 lunar years, which referring to solar years comes to 869 years. And both added together is the aforementioned date."
i.e. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa specifically spells out 1320BC as being the date for the end of Atlantis using a calendar of lunar months and I am completely surprised that of all the many investigators and Academics who have studied the subject, none to my knowledge has picked up on this before. In fact, Gamboa does not even discuss the possibility that Plato might really mean 9,000 solar years since it is so obvious to him that lunar years are intended and I think it is important to give him credit as an astronomer and classical historian who, living in the Renaissance age, knew the difference between solar and lunar years and what was intended in Plato's text.
Sarmiento de Gamboa was also of the opinion that "Ulysses after Troy sailed West to Portugal then to the West Indies, Yucatan and Campeche, the territory of New Spain leaving vestiges of Greek culture in clothing and vocabulary. Therefore the territories of New Spain were first colonised by Greeks, those of Catigara by Jews, while those of the rich and powerful kingdoms of Peru were colonized by Atlanteans who themselves first of all came from Mesopotamian or Chaldea, populators of the World." This later interpretation of the origins of the people of Peru being from Atlantis is also based upon his deduction that "South America" and "Atlantis" were one continuous island.
Sarmiento de Gamboa took great pains to record as faithfully as possible the original stories given to him by the indigenous people and noted how the Incas themselves had a tradition of oral historians whose job it was to faithfully remember their Histories as well as some painted records which were kept in a sacred temple in Cuzco, the Poquen-cancha.
We must remember though his motivation. In the time of Emperor Charles V, some doubt was cast on the Spanish titles to these lands since it was considered the Inca "were and are the true and natural lords of this kingdom of Peru."
It seems Sarmiento de Gamboa sought to justify for Philip II the acquisition of these conquered lands and he views the Inca rulers as upstart tyrants who seized the valley of Cuzco and all the rest of the territory from Quito to Chile by force of arms, making themselves Inca overlords without the consent or election of the natives. Moreover, the fact that the Inca indulged in human sacrifices, in Sarmiento de Gamboa's eyes gave the Spanish an indisputable right to the territories, bearing in mind also the theological issues of the time and whether in Spanish eyes, natives had any rights at all.
But considering that Sarmiento de Gamboa also defined America as Atlantis it may seem strange that his book ever got published at all. In fact the original manuscript was lost and its existence only known about through examination of correspondence between Sarmiento de Gamboa and Phillip II.
An inventory of all manuscripts existing in public libraries was ordered by the German government at the end of the 19th century and the original manuscript finally found in the University of Gottingen (Germany) in 1893 and first published in 1906. [end excerpt]
* "Atlantis Maps: A resource page of maps of Atlantis, the continent opposite the Pillar of Hercules, beginning with....." (atlantisbolivia.org/atlantismaps.htm) [archive.is/IJFLk] [begin excerpt]:
So the newly discovered continent came to be called America, but at the same time many people thought that what Christopher Columbus had in fact discovered was Atlantis. The first book to mention this was "The History of the Indies" by Franciso Lopez de Gomara. Published in 1552, the book was banned the following year and not reprinted until 1727.
The next book to definitively state that South America was Atlantis was "The History of the Incas" written by the great historian and classical scholar Sarmiento de Gamboa following an official inquest into the true history of the Incas with the backing of the Viceroy of Peru. Sarmiento de Gamboa's book clearly states that South America was Atlantis and at the time he was writing was known by the names of "the western Indies of Castile or America also called Atlanticus or the Atlantic Island". So the continent was also known sometimes as "New Castile", "New Spain" or "Atlanticus", then latterly, "America". Sarmiento de Gamboa's book was sent to Philip II, king of Spain in 1572 and never heard of again being LOST for 300 years until it was discovered in a library in Germany in 1893 and republished in 1906 [https://web.archive.org/web/20161020183735/http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/sarmiento_markham.pdf]. [...]
The Atlantis Island remained a popular name and was shown as such on maps made by the French cartographer Guillermo Sanson in Paris in 1661.
But then following the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776 the name "America" became universally adopted and the name of Atlantis forgotten until resurrected in modern times. [end excerpt]
- image caption: The "Atlantis Insula" or map of "Atlantis Island" by French cartographer Guillermo Sanson, 1661.
- world map shown with Atlantis
- image caption: The continent opposite the Pillars of Hercules which Columbus found was considered a "New World" by Amerigo Vespucci.
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* "The Baghdad Battery" (world-mysteries.com/sar_11.htm) [archive.is/Cg8f] [begin excerpt]: In 1940, Willard F.M. Gray, an engineer at the General Electric High Volatage Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, read of Konig's theory. Using drawings and details supplied by German rocket scientist Willy Ley, Gray made a replica of the battery. Using copper sulfate solution, it generated about half a volt of electricity.
In 1970s, German Egyptologist, Arne Eggebrecht built a replica of the Baghdad battery and filled it with freshly pressed grape juice, as he speculated the ancients might have done. The replica generated 0.87V. He used current from the battery to electroplate a silver statuette with gold. [end excerpt]
- The ancient battery in the Baghdad Museum
- Re-creation of the Baghdad battery
* "Lights of the Pharaohs: the Electric Lights in Egypt? In the Egyptian temple of Hathor at Dendera, several dozens of kilometers north of Luxor, there are reliefs interpreted by some “experts” as electric lamps" (2012-01-30, blog.world-mysteries.com/uncategorized/lights-of-the-pharaohs-the-electric-lights-in-egypt/) [archive.is/EI7Cb] [begin excerpt]: But the theory that electricity was known and used in antiquity seems to rest on a much more stable foundation. The key to the whole theory lies a few hundred kilometers east of Egypt, in today’s Iraq. There some strange pots were found. Some contained watertight copper cylinders, glued into the opening with asphalt. In the middle of the cylinder was an iron rod, held in place also with asphalt. The excavator who found the first of these pots in 1936 was sure: this is a galvanic element, a primitive battery [ see Baghdad Battery article] . Reconstructions did indeed show that it was possible to create electricity with it. [...]
Energy Sources
There are more critical points about the lamp theory aside from the false argument of the missing soot. Another one: Where could have the Egyptians taken electricity from? For more than 200 years now systematic diggings took place in Egypt, and no electrical generators could be found. The only objects at all found from antique times which could produce some electricity are the famous “Baghdad- Batteries”.
Baghdad-Batteries -
These small pots which were found in the proximity of today’s Baghdad are the best candidates for electro-chemical devices found so far [ Baghdad Battery ].
The oldest were found in a Parthi settlement, which was inhabited around the time of Christ’s birth. The discovery site – a presumed hill which coincidentally was found to be an ancient village in 1936 – suggests even a later settling. The other pots even might have to be settled into the period to 1200 CE. From this, any usage of such devices in ancient Egypt seems to be very improbable.
Right from the beginning the chief excavator Wilhelm Koenig had the opinion that these pots had been batteries used for galvanizing items. Some finds and writings led to the belief that the Parthians knew a method of coating copper or silver with gold by using gold cyanide – without the use of electricity. With a reconstruction of the supposed battery the galvanizing rate could be quadrupled.
Such devices were only useable once. If they were used in large numbers in daily life, remnants of them must have been found somewhere. This is known to the proponents of this idea, too, so they strip down the usage of electric light to “sacral purposes only”. The situation gets schizophrenic here: On one hand the author shows a problem (soot) which only could be solved (in their opinion) by massive use of electric lighting, on the other hand they reduce their theory to a small scale sacral use themselves. Their own theory therefore can not solve the problem created to initiate the idea!
Battery = Energy?
There are surely differences between an accelerated galvanizing technique and lighting a light bulb. In the first case small amperages and voltages are enough to do the job, but not in the second case. Even a small torch bulb needs about one Watt to shed a dim light.
The performance of a battery is the product of voltage and amperage (volt times ampere). The voltage is a material constant between different metals. If we place two different metals in acid we can measure an electric difference measured i Volts. This difference is independent from the size of the plates, it only depends on the materials used. The difference between two plates of the same material is null. Therefore you can sort the various metals into an electro-chemical row with the most negative elements (giving up electrons) to the left and the most positive ones (collecting electrons) to the right. This principle is known to us for approximately 200 years, and the best combinations for metals are known almost as long.
The “batteries” found in Baghdad however are quite poor in comparison. Some contained only same metals (copper rods in copper cylinders) and can produce therefore no voltage at all. And those few who could contains the metal pairing copper/iron which are only 0.5 volts apart on the electro-chemical scale. This excludes any systematic research of the phenomenon which would be the basis for the development of a lamp.
The second factor for a battery was solved nearly as inefficient than the first.
The amperage depends on the surface of the used electrodes. An ideal battery possesses two electrodes with surfaces as large as possible, with materials lying apart as far as possible on the electro-chemical scale. For example disk batteries like the famous Volta pile, which consisted of copper and zinc plates. Or our zinc coal batteries, whose central electrode is an activated charcoal staff with an active surface as large as several football fields. The relics of Baghdad are there poor, too, they came with single rods of iron with a minimal surface as counter electrode. This is another argument against coming from a systematic research of electricity.
Battery = Light?
In 1995 I made a reconstruction of a Baghdad-type battery myself. My first try was a disaster: The reaction stopped after a few minutes. After some research I found the reason: Such natural acids which could have been used (I used vinegar) need air to react. Therefore the closed original constructions never could have worked as batteries!
After I drilled several holes into the cylinder it produced about 0.4-0.5 volts with open contacts, and had a short circuit amperage of 50 mA. The electrical “performance” adds up to 25 milli Watts without connected devices (which breaks down to 1/10th with a single bulb attached).
That means however, that for the operation of only one 1 watt-bulb the ridiculous quantity of forty batteries is needed! Since each battery weighs approximately 2 kilograms, the Egyptian flashlight without rack and wiring would weigh around 80 kilograms!
Oh, after approximately 8 hours power output the inside of the battery decomposes into a green, poisonous mud which must be disposed of.
And the soldering on the bottom gave way, too, so that the whole mess fell into the cylinder I had placed below the metal cylinder.
For the lighting of the building sites with batteries this means:
One 1 Watt bulb needs 40 batteries per working day.
A worker needs a lamp
10 workers were digging out each site
Each excavation took two years (veeeery carefully estimated)
=> each system needed 292000 (!) batteries!
Total weight: 584 tons!
there are 400 large underground sites in Egypt
=> 116 million batteries were necessary
==> With a total weight of 233,600 tons!
All these batteries would have to lie around somewhere as scrap iron or waste. The find situation for batteries in Egypt is however ZERO!
There is just another minor item always “forgotten” by the proponents of ancient batteries: The iron. Iron was a rare and precious metal in Egypt, because no ore is found there. The next iron ore deposits are in today’s Turkey, and were in firm possession of the Hethites, which had a monopoly in manufacturing iron goods from around 1600 B.C. But each “battery” needed a central iron rod as main electrode. So it’s simply impossible that a metal first used in 1600 b.C. played a major role in lighting pyramids built more than 1000 years before! Each battery contained about 150 grams of iron, so for the whole 400 big graves about
17,400 tons of this metal more precious than gold was needed.
From these numbers it can easily be derived that the operation of electrical lamps with the so-called Baghdad batteries was simply impossible. But no other antique energy sources are known, so that any lamp faces the problem of a missing power source.
In the television broadcast “Aliens – do they return?” by Erich von Daeniken, already addressed by me in the pyramid section, he tried to make a connection between Baghdad batteries and light in his typical way. He tried to suggest that a gas-discharge lamp could be powered with such a battery. So he connects a digital multi meter to the battery – a loud buzzing noise suggests a high voltage. Then we can read a not defined voltage of “0293” on the meter; afterwards he presents a “reconstruction” of a Dendera-type gas discharge lamp also connected with a meter, and gives the impression that both voltages are of the same amount! [end excerpt]
- In the temple of Hathor at Dendera, several dozens of kilometers north of Luxor, there are reliefs interpreted by some “experts” as lamps.
- Another picture from the crypts of Dendera: Eastern relief on south wall
- Dendera Lamp exhibit at the Mystery Park in Switzerland. It shows “fringe” (electric lamp) interpretation of the famous Egyptian relief from Dendera
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Megaliths of Baalbek
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* "DROWNED CITIES" (beforeus.com/drowned.html) [archive.is/H9CRS]:
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* "Magician’s 350-year-old ‘get women naked’ spell sells for $28k" (2018-10-26, rt.com/news/442373-magician-nude-spell-auction/) [archive.is/SajIO] [begin excerpt]: “This manuscript was penned by an Essex folk musician in the mid-17th century who was one of the 'cunning men of Essex',” auctioneer Charlie Howe, told the Mirror.
“There are recipes, spells and incantations to solve practical problems of people in rural areas and also more interesting conundrums such as how to make someone fall in love with you or get a girl to dance naked,” he added. [end excerpt]
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* " ‘Very strange’: Mysterious bright purple sky sparks numerous conspiracy theories" (2018-10-16, rt.com/usa/441437-ohio-bizarre-purple-sky/) [archive.is/Ea8ya]
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* "Aliens, cavorting witches, disco? Blue lights dancing in the sky puzzle Muscovites" (2018-10-09, rt.com/news/440739-dancing-lights-moscow-sky/) [archive.is/xtD57]
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* "Chemtrails, contrails or just aliens? UFO stuns onlookers across China, Inner Mongolia" (2018-10-12, rt.com/news/441074-ufos-beijing-inner-mongolia/) [archive.is/Xq6O5]
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* "Bishop establishes ‘exorcism ministry’ to tackle ‘evil spirits unlocked by reiki healers’ " (2018-10-11, rt.com/news/440954-bishop-exorcism-ministry-reiki/) [archive.is/jXevx]
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* " ‘There is no God’: Stephen Hawking thought alien life or time travel more likely than divine creator" (2018-10-18, rt.com/news/441593-stephen-hawking-no-god/) [archive.is/GVFy2]
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* " ‘Oscars of Science’ award goes to Stanford physicist Aron Wall" (sfchronicle.com/science/article/Oscars-of-Science-award-goes-to-Stanford-13312054.php) [archive.is/4xYwo] [begin excerpt]: Aron Wall, a Stanford University physicist who studies black-hole thermodynamics, believes there was a beginning of time, a singular moment of creation like the Big Bang.
It is a much-debated theory that essentially hinges on a question that many a gum-chewing 12-year-old has asked of parents: “If the universe had a beginning, what existed before that?”
Wall’s answer to this fundamental question — which also forces one to puzzle over the definition of nothingness — is what has made him popular in the religious community and a bit unusual for a scientist.
“As a Christian, I think God is eternal,” he said. “God is timeless. He’s always there.”
Wall, 34, of Mountain View, was announced Wednesday as a winner of the $100,000 New Horizons in Physics Prize for his studies in black holes, wormholes, faster-than-light travel, the structure of gravity and the secrets of space-time.
He will be given his award along with 20 other winners of the Breakthrough Prize, during a televised ceremony Nov. 4 at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in Mountain View. The prizes, touted as the “Oscars of Science,” honor world-changing discoveries in life sciences, physics and mathematics.
Wall is the only Bay Area resident to win a prize for the coming year. [...]
Wall, who will take a position at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom next spring, insists that his theories about the beginning of time are not influenced by his religion. Instead, he said, 13 years of doctoral and postdoctoral research into quantum gravity and black-hole thermodynamics have bolstered his belief that God must have created the universe.
“I do believe it,” he said, but “as a scientist I want to believe wherever the evidence points.”
Wall has spent a lot of his time trying to show that the rules governing black holes also apply to the rest of the universe, including Earth. He said he and others have shown that black holes obey the laws of thermodynamics, the branch of physical science that deals with the relationship between heat and energy.
His research into black holes has led him into realms of astrophysics that very few people understand. It includes the areas of quantum gravity, string theory and the holographic principle, which, Wall said, postulates in its bare essence that everything, including matter and volume, is reflected or encoded in its surroundings.
He and Jafferis “discovered the first traversable wormhole,” he said, referring to a passageway through space-time that could theoretically be used as a shortcut during a long journey across the universe. He acknowledged there is a lot that is unknown about such phenomena, but he said he is determined to find out how space-time works.
As for his feeling about God: “I look at the world, and I see that it is wonderfully described by mathematics,” said Wall, who regularly posts blogs about physics and theology. “If math describes the world so well, then there are two conclusions: Either the ultimate reality is like an equation or the ultimate reality is like a mathematician.”
One could hardly find a scientist more qualified than Wall to determine whether a divine mathematician did, in fact, create the universe in the image of an equation. [end excerpt]
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* "Patrick McCollum in Jordan" (2011-08-03, patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2011/08/patrick-mccollum-in-jordan-and-other-pagan-community-notes.html) [archive.is/khl9a]: Pagan chaplain and activist Patrick McCollum (patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/tag/patrick-mccollum) [archive.is/nOOjX] has recently returned from the first International Conference on Transforming Conflict (cbiworld.org/Pages/Conferences_TC.htm) [archive.is/psVtm] in Amman, Jordan. The event centered on dialogues with youth and adults from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and other countries, for which McCollum served as a speaker and facilitator. “It is clear to me that the younger generation in particular, has a clearer vision of what it means to be a global citizen, and it is this shift, in my opinion, that gives us hope for a better future” said McCollum, praising the Arab and Israeli youth who attended the conference. During the conference McCollum also met and spoke with Sharif Zeid Bin Hussein, the cousin of King Hussein the II, and former Jordanian Prime Minster Taher Nashat al-Masri.
In addition to his work at the conference, McCollum also met with local Bedouins, and visited the famous sacred sites Petra, Mt. Nebo, and one of the possible sites of Jesus’s baptism by John. In summing up his trip and experiences, McCollum said that “it is clear to me that I will return once again to the Middle East, not only to Jordan, but also to visit Palestine and Israel. And I look forward to once again to be present in the company of the many new friends I’ve made in each of these countries. I firmly believe that drawing on the touchstone of our common humanity, rather than focusing on the age-old narrative of our geographical and cultural differences, is the key to world peace.” The Patrick McCollum Foundation blog is now posting his daily thoughts from the trip if you’d like to know more about his experiences in Jordan, and the work of the conference.
- image caption: Patrick McCollum with Taher al-Masri. “His Excellency was very gracious in his invitation to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed our discussions. Over the course of the evening, we touched on US-Arab relations, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, the part youth has played in the Arab Spring revolutions and beyond, and new ways to move forward toward peace.”
* "Why I Believe in the Supernatural" (2014-10-09, patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2014/10/why-i-believe-in-the-supernatural/) [archive.is/ulIfy]
Curiata
* "Cerebellum controls not just movement, but higher-order cognition: study" (2018-10-25, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/25/c_137558454.htm) [archive.is/BJRl9]
* "Da Vinci code cracked: Master painter easel-y created masterpieces due to eye problem - study" (2018-10-18, rt.com/news/441644-leonardo-da-vinci-eyes/) [archive.is/nR6FA]
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* "Scientists find neurons that help rats 'make wise decisions' " (2018-10-26, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/26/c_137558781.htm) [archive.is/vMgOu]
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* "Six tiger subspecies confirmed by genetic study" (2018-10-25, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/25/c_137558461.htm) [archive.is/q0waR]
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* "Giant 1 km spider web covers Greek lake amid warm weather" (2018-10-23, xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/23/c_137552273.htm) [archive.is/Vro6K]
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* "Sea Shepherd Investigates Secret Underwater Pilot Whale Graveyard" (2011-07-21, seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2011/07/21/sea-shepherd-investigates-secret-underwater-pilot-whale-graveyard-1265) [archive.is/qP3hG]
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* "Science allows us to hear Antarctica’s haunting ice song for the 1st time" (2018-10-17, rt.com/news/441502-antarctic-ice-shelf-song/) [archive.is/CBkD8]
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