Alien Triangle Flies Over Two Military Bases In England

MARCH 30-31, 1993 …….DEVON/CORNWALL ENGLAND

There was a wave of sightings that occurred on the 30th and 31st of March, 1993. We had several hundred reports that came our way. Many of the witnesses were police. A lot of police in the southwest of the country, in Devon and Cornwall, saw something.

Now, as with all of these big waves of sightings, quite a lot of the reports were fairly mundane, lights in the sky.

But even so, it was quite late at night — most of these reports were between, say, 1:00 and 1:30 in the morning — and because there were police officers on night patrol, you’re dealing with more than average recognition training, and people used to being out and about, and used to seeing lights and other things in the sky.

Repeatedly, I heard the phrase, “This was like nothing I’d ever seen before in my life.” People were genuinely quite spooked by this.

What was generally reported was two lights, flying in a perfect formation, with a third, much fainter light — our old friend the flying triangle, really. The lights were described as being in a triangle formation. It’s difficult to say, of course.

It’s quite possible they could have been three separate things flying in formation, but the impression from talking to witnesses was that this was a triangular craft with lights mounted on the underside, at the edges. The most interesting reports, of course, were the ones which occurred at close distance.

There was a family in Staffordshire who apparently saw this thing so low — and they described it as either triangular or diamond shaped — that they leapt into their car and tried to chase it.

They didn’t succeed, although at one point they thought it was so low that it had actually come down in a field. It wasn’t there when they got to it. They described a low, humming sound, a very low-frequency sound. They said you didn’t just hear this sound, you felt it, like standing in front of a bass speaker.

The really intriguing thing was that this object, whatever it was, then proceeded to fly over two military bases. It was seen by the guard patrol at RAF Cosford, about three or four people, [who] made an instant report of this, obviously because it had flown over their base. They checked radar.

There was nothing on the screens, nothing at all, and there was nothing scheduled to fly. No military or civil aircraft should have been airborne in that area at all.

They phoned the nearby base at RAF Shawbury, about 12 miles away from Cosford. The meteorological officer there took the call. He was a man with about eight years experience of looking into the night sky and then doing the weather report for the next day.

So he knew his way around objects and phenomena. Now, to his absolute amazement, he saw a light in the distance, coming closer and closer. That light eventually resolved itself into a solid structured craft that he saw again flying directly over the base, but at much closer proximity than the guard patrol at Cosford had seen it.

He estimated that the height of the object was no more than 200 feet. Its size, he said, was midway between a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 747. He heard the low hum, too. He had not spoken to any other witnesses, except the Cosford people, who I don’t think had reported the sound. He reported this low-frequency hum.

Perhaps most disturbingly of all, he reported this thing throwing a beam of light down at the nearby countryside and fields just beyond the perimeter fence at the base. And this light was tracking backwards and forwards, he said to me, “as if it was looking for something.”

The beam of light then retracted, and the craft moved off. It was traveling very slowly, I should say, probably no more than 20 or 30 mph. Then it gained a little bit of height, and then it just shot off to the horizon in little more than a second. Needless to say, that was a description I had come across many times in other UFO reports, the virtual hover to the high-Mach accelerations in an instant.

• NOTE: The above image is CGI.

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09-04-2020 om 21:07 geschreven door peter  

Triangle UFO Found In Antarctic Island, Proof Of Ancient Aliens, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: April 8, 2020
Location of discovery: Lavoisier Island, Antarctic region
Method used: Google Earth map

I was looking over an island in the Antarctic region when I came across a TR3B craft. The triangle craft has a hump in the middle and a thicker edge with three sides. It looks metallic and its sitting in an area which appears to be the location of an ancient alien base. This craft was revealed after warm years had melted the ice and snow revealing the secret craft below. This is 100% evidence that aliens have lived on Earth long before humanity ever made cites. 
Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

09-04-2020 om 20:01 geschreven door peter  

UFO Fleet Recorded Over Cincinnati, Ohio On 2019, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Taken 2019, but posted 2020 this week.

Location of sighting: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

 

A woman recorded a fleet of glowing UFOs over the city of Cincinnati, Ohio last year. The glowing lights baffled the spectators and even the people in the comment section could not explain away these amazing lights. As you see at the center of the video the four lights become three, as the fourth jumps into a new higher position for a few seconds. Remarkable footage of a UFO fleet over Ohio. 

Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

09-04-2020 om 19:46 geschreven door peter  

While sitting on the terrace of his house, the witness was filming a plane with a very powerful zoom camera. When he saw the video on the computer he noticed a strange object that rises on the left of the visual field.

It seems to rotate and is quite dark in color. The investigations of C.UFO.M. (centro ufologico mediterraneo in Italy) on this sighting recorded in Rome on April 2015 have made it possible to establish that it is probably not a balloon, nor a satellite and not even an atmospheric probe.

C.UFO.M states: For example, the UFO gives off lights sometimes on the right and other times on the left. The sun comes from the left. It also has a focus similar to that of the plane so they are at an approximately equal distance from the witness.

Rather then a real UFO, it is quite possible that the witness has filmed a secret military craft equipped with the newest technologies similar to the infamous tic tac UFOs.

  

Other videos, peter2011

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

09-04-2020 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

Triangle UFO over Akron, Ohio

This UFO video was filmed back in March 2017 but it was just published on MUFON’s website. It happened over Akron, Ohio.

Witness report: 

Triangle shaped craft spotted from porch. I stepped out to smoke March 16th 2017. It was a mildly cold night but completely clear. I noticed a large stationary craft due south west of my residence. The craft appeared completely black like a void. It had 4 constant lights and 2-4 seemingly random flashing orange/red/yellow lights. I watched it for nearly 3 minutes with no changes and it just vanished. The craft made a very low hum almost like current.

see video with this link

https://youtu.be/_-pz2t6oiio

Other triangles above Ohio, Peter2011

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

09-04-2020 om 17:45 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Observe Relativistic Jet from Two Merging Spiral Galaxies

Astronomers using the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope report the first unambiguous detection of a relativistic jet — a beam of charged particles that travels at nearly the speed of light — emerging from two colliding spiral-shaped galaxies.

This artist’s impression illustrates how high-speed jets from supermassive black holes would look.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada, ESO.

Jets are the most powerful astrophysical phenomena in the Universe. They can emit more energy into the Universe in one second than our Sun will produce in its entire lifetime. That energy is in the form of radiation, such as intense radio waves, X-rays, and gamma-rays.

Jets were thought to be born from older, elliptical-shaped galaxies with an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is a super-massive black hole that resides at its center.

Astronomers theorize that the AGNs grow larger by gravitationally drawing in gas and dust through a process called accretion. But not all of this matter gets accreted into the black hole. Some of the particles become accelerated and are spewed outward in narrow beams in the form of jets.

“For the first time, we have found two spiral- or disk-shaped galaxies on path for a collision that have produced a nascent, baby jet that has just started its life at the center of one of the galaxies,” said lead author Dr. Vaidehi Paliya, a researcher with the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY).

Other teams of astronomers have already imaged galactic collisions many times. But Dr. Paliya and colleagues are the first to capture two galaxies merging where there is a fully formed jet pointing at us — albeit, a very young one, and thus not yet bright enough to blind us.

“Typically, a jet emits light that is so powerful we can’t see the galaxy behind it,” said senior author Professor Stefano Marchesi, an astronomer in the INAF — Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna.

“It’s like trying to look at an object and someone points a bright flashlight into your eyes. All you can see is the flashlight. This jet is less powerful, so we can actually see the galaxy where it is born.”

“Active galaxies which have jets are usually big, old elliptical galaxies which, according to the models, are formed by the merger of two or more smaller galaxies, so that we think that these mergers are the cause of the activation of the jets,” said co-author Dr. Rubén García-Benito, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC).

“A collision is a very efficient way to make large masses of gas fall to the centre of a galaxy, which feeds the supermassive black hole and can produce the emergence of the jet.”

TXS 2116-077 (seen on the right) collides with another spiral-shaped galaxy of similar mass, creating a relativistic jet in the center of TXS 2116-077.

Image credit: Paliya et al, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab754f.

The team used the Subaru Telescope to capture two galaxies: a Seyfert 1 galaxy called TXS 2116-077 and a Seyfert 2 galaxy of similar mass.

They performed subsequent observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias and William Herschel Telescope, as well as with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

They believe that the galaxies were colliding for the second time because of the amount of gas seen in the image.

“Eventually, all the gas will be expelled into space, and without gas, a galaxy cannot form stars anymore,” Dr. Ajello said.

“Without gas, the black hole will switch off and the galaxy will lay dormant.”

• The findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal.

_____

Vaidehi S. Paliya et al. 2020. TXS 2116-077: A Gamma-Ray Emitting Relativistic Jet Hosted in a Galaxy Merger. ApJ 892, 133; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab754f

{ http://www.sci-news.com/ }

09-04-2020 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

This animation shows the daily ozone levels over the Arctic from March 9, 2020, until April 1, 2020.

When you hear about an ozone hole, it’s typically the one that forms over Antarctica each year in southern spring (northern autumn). But since about mid-March 2020, scientists using satellite data have been tracking a “mini” Arctic ozone hole. It’s small compared to Antarctica’s annual hole, but unusually large for the Arctic. Conditions in the air above the Arctic – including powerful westerly winds that trapped cold air in a polar vortex – caused this rare strong reduction of Arctic ozone.

Atmospheric scientist Martin Dameris at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, who is tracking 2020’s Arctic ozone hole, was quoted in Nature as saying:

From my point of view, this is the first time you can speak about a real ozone hole in the Arctic.

Those freezing temps in the stratosphere over the Arctic, by the way, follow abnormally warm temperatures in the stratosphere over Antarctica last September and October. NOAA scientists said then that the abnormal warmth in the stratosphere dramatically limited ozone loss, resulting in the smallest Antarctic ozone hole observed since 1982.

Abnormally warm over Antarctica half a year ago. Abnormally cold over the Arctic in recent weeks. Is that a coincidence? Climate is complex, and Earth’s climate is changing, so it’s hard to know.

A comparison of ozone levels over the Arctic in March 2019, and in March 2020.

Image via Nature.

Here’s what scientists do know. They know that small ozone holes have been spotted over the Arctic in previous years, but that 2020’s Arctic ozone depletion is much greater. Diego Loyola of the German Aerospace Center said in a statement from ESA:

The ozone hole we observe over the Arctic this year has a maximum extension of less than 1 million square kilometers (400,000 square miles). This is small compared to the Antarctic hole, which can reach a size of around 20 to 25 million square kilometers (8 to 10 million square miles) with a normal duration of around 3 to 4 months.

Overall, the Arctic’s ozone depletion tends to be significantly less than that over Antarctica. Holes in Earth’s ozone layer above either pole are driven by extreme cold – stratospheric temperatures below -80°C (-112°F) – sunlight, powerful winds and substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). As reported in Nature, in 2020, powerful westerly winds flowed around the North Pole. They trapped cold air within a polar vortex. The report in Nature said:

There was more cold air above the Arctic than in any winter recorded since 1979.

ESA said:

By the end of the polar winter, the first sunlight over the North Pole initiated this unusually strong ozone depletion – causing the hole to form. However, its size is still small compared to what can usually be observed in the southern hemisphere.

Diego Loyola said:

Since March 14, the ozone columns over the Arctic have decreased to what is normally considered ‘ozone hole levels,’ which are less than 220 Dobson units. We expect the hole to close again during mid-April 2020.

ESA also explained:

The ozone layer is a natural, protective layer of gas in the stratosphere that shields life from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation – which is associated with skin cancer and cataracts, as well as other environmental issues.

In the 2018 Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, data shows that the ozone layer in parts of the stratosphere has recovered at a rate of 1-3% per decade since 2000. At these projected rates, the Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is predicted to recover by around 2030, followed by the Southern Hemisphere around 2050, and polar regions by 2060.

This timelapse image shows the launch of a weather balloon at Earth’s South Pole in the southern spring (northern autumn) of 2019. Balloons like this one can carry ozone-measuring sondes that directly sample ozone levels vertically through the atmosphere. In the Arctic, weather balloons like this one are launched from observing stations in various places, including the Polarstern icebreaker, which is frozen in sea ice for a year-long expedition. Other scientists monitor Earth’s ozone hole from space via satellites.

Image via NOAA.

• Bottom line: The “ozone hole” commonly referenced is the hole over Antarctica that forms each southern spring (northern autumn). But beginning around mid-March 2020, satellite data revealed that ozone concentrations over the northern polar regions have plummeted, causing a “mini-hole” in the ozone layer over the Arctic.
• Via ESA
• Via Nature

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

09-04-2020 om 00:47 geschreven door peter  

Event Horizon Telescope spots weird black-hole jet mystery inside quasar

09-04-2020 om 00:23 geschreven door peter  

Could Mars samples brought to Earth pose a threat to our planet? What the coronavirus (and 'Andromeda Strain') can teach us.

Overview of the NASA/European Space Agency Mars Sample Return mission as now foreseen.

(Image: © ESA/K. Oldenburg)

Hauling back the goods from the Red Planet resonates in some ways as a replay of Michael Crichton's 1969 novel "The Andromeda Strain," which dramatized the idea of alien organisms infecting Earth.

In the book, which was made into a film in 1971, alien germs are brought to Earth by a "Project Scoop" satellite. An elite team of secretive first responders, clad in protective hazmat suits, studies and battles the bug within a hush-hush, high-tech underground facility named Wildfire.

Will this scenario forever remain science fiction, or could it actually happen in real life? And does the ongoing coronavirus pandemic hold any clues about how to handle samples brought to Earth from Mars, a place that could potentially host extraterrestrial microbes?

Stringent containment

The public certainly should pay more attention to plans for Mars Sample Return, said Cassie Conley, a former NASA Planetary Protection Officer.

"Since the beginning of space exploration, planetary protection has mandated that samples from Mars should be considered 'Restricted Earth Return,' Conley told Space.com. "This requires the most stringent containment to protect both the samples and the Earth."

However, NASA's Mars program has recently discussed lowering the planetary protection category for much of Mars' surface to Category II, which would eliminate any requirement for oversight or containment of samples returned from parts of Mars, Conley said.

"We really don't understand Earth biology very well and certainly don't know that much about Mars," Conley said. "So, it's premature to conclude there are no Martian biohazards."

Conley said that "the current pandemic demonstrates, tragically well, how overconfidence and short-term perspectives can cause catastrophic harm to people all over the Earth."

• Related: The boldest Mars missions in history

Molecular locks and keys

"It seems to me that public interest in Mars Sample Return safety issues would likely be sharpened by experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic," said J. Andy Spry, a senior scientist at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California and a NASA planetary protection consultant.

This would hopefully occur "in the same way that the SARS epidemic sharpened the responses of many Asian countries to the COVID-19 hazard," Spry said. "That is, by allowing decision-makers to develop appropriate and timely responses to a microbial pathogen threat."

That said, Spry added, such pathogens usually develop by coexisting with life on Earth, with highly specialized outbreak adaptations as part of an ongoing host-pathogen interaction. 

"We can think of pathogenicity as molecular locks and keys which are virtually impossible to develop without repeated contact," Spry said. "Thus, it is extremely unlikely for a biological entity evolving and adapting in an extraterrestrial environment to be able to take advantage of lifeforms on Earth.

Containment facility

While major spacefaring nations share a common perspective on containment of Martian material returned to Earth by a spacecraft, Spry also underscored the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) policy language that "no uncontained hardware that contacted Mars, directly or indirectly, shall be returned to Earth." However, implementation details — including those for a containment facility — have yet to be fully worked out, he said.

"This is only because the details of the current Mars sample return mission architecture are still being studied and refined by NASA and the European Space Agency right now," Spry told Space.com. "In the latest scheduling, we are still some 15 years from samples actually being returned to the Earth-moon system, which is still timely in terms of getting containment facility work done."

First things first

Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch at Washington State University has been a longtime advocate for having an on-the-spot life-detection mission on Mars first, before attempting sample return.

"We do have the technology to do so. That way we would also have a better idea what we might bring back," he told Space.com. (Perseverance, which will launch this summer, will hunt for signs of Mars life on the Red Planet's surface. But the rover will look for evidence of ancient, not extant, organisms.)

Schulze-Makuch said that a retrieval facility would have to have a high biosafety level, just in case. The chance that any life from Mars would be in any way harmful to us or Earth's biosphere at large is extremely low, he said. He thinks that chance is lower than 1%, but it cannot be totally excluded.

"So, I think the public and planetary protection guidelines would warrant a high biosafety level retrieval facility (3 or, better, 4), which, of course, has a very high price tag as well," Schulze-Makuch said. "And since samples can only be brought back once such a facility is in operation, it will also delay the schedule until we can bring samples back. And if so, we should bring rather 'fresh' samples back, not samples that have been in a box on Mars for years — as is the plan right now."

Heated discussion

One thing to keep in mind, Schulze-Makuch said, is that Earth has already gotten Mars samples — lots of them, in fact, over the eons. Many Mars meteorites have landed on Earth, after all, potentially bringing Martian microbes — if they exist — to our planet.

"Studies have shown that the interior, for example, of Mars rock ALH84001 was never heated above 40 degrees Celsius [104 degrees Fahrenheit], and if there would have been (dormant) microbes in it, they would likely have survived the journey from Mars to Earth," Schulze-Makuch said.

And, of course, there is a heated discussion about whether some Martian meteorites — most notably, ALH84001 — contain evidence of Martian microbial life. 

"Either way, the point is that there is also a natural 'mechanism' to bring potentially Martian life to Earth … and if that didn't have detrimental consequences for life in the past, it is unlikely that it will have those in the future," Schulze-Makuch said. "But again, we have to admit that the risk is not zero." 

• Mars sample return: scientists debate how to bring Red Planet rocks to Earth
• The 7 biggest mysteries of Mars
• Why we can't depend on robots to find life on Mars

Leonard David is the author of the book "Moon Rush: The New Space Race," published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

08-04-2020 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Here's how Europe's JUICE spacecraft will look for alien oceans

An artist's depiction of the JUICE spacecraft traveling through the Jupiter system.

(Image: © ESA)

The JUICE team aims to address that question using a few different methods.

One of the spacecraft's techniques is straightforward but only applies to one of Jupiter's moons. Scientists suspect, but haven't confirmed, that Europa may be shooting plumes out through its icy crust. If that is the case, JUICE may be able to fly through those plumes and study the liquid they contain during its two passes over the world. "We need to be lucky," Witasse said. "The plumes need to be there, it's still a matter of debate."

JUICE's other tactics are less subject to luck and are not limited to Europa, he said. Witasse walked through how the spacecraft's tactics will play out at Ganymede, the only moon that JUICE will directly orbit, as an example of the mission's methods.

First, there's a long-standing approach, which relies on measuring the magnetic field around a moon. If a bunch of liquid that conducts electricity is sloshing around inside a world, it interferes with the magnetic field of both the moon itself and Jupiter's in a way that should allow JUICE to measure it. However, with this method, JUICE will need to take measurements throughout its entire stay in the Jupiter system to produce enough data. A previous NASA mission, Galileo, which explored the Jupiter system between 1995 and 2003, carried a similar instrument.

JUICE will also measure how each of Jupiter's moons is stretched by tidal interactions with other worlds in the system. Jupiter is so massive that it tugs on all four of its large moons, and three of those moons orbit in such synchronized choreography that they exert serious pulls on each other.

And just as Earth's dance with the moon creates tides, all of this tugging around should distort Jupiter's moons. That should remain true whether or not these moons have oceans, but the magnitude of these tides would be different if they are ocean worlds or not — to the tune of tides just 3 feet (1 meter) high for an ocean-free moon compared to perhaps between 26 feet (8 m) and 33 feet (10 m) for an ocean world, Witasse said.

"That's a powerful technique to measure what is inside the icy moons," he said — although it will require the spacecraft to approach the moon quite closely and to map the full surface multiple times. These requirements mean that the Ganymede measurements will likely not be taken until the last phase of the mission, three months during which JUICE is in its lowest orbit around the moon.

JUICE's last technique for searching for alien oceans is perhaps also its strangest. This method relies on measurements of the auroras that ring, for example, Ganymede's poles. These dazzling lights don't circle the moon's poles totally symmetrically, instead, they are tilted like the brim of a hat perched askew, spinning around the moon.

According to scientists' models, the degree to which that ring wobbles will vary based on the moon's internal structure, influenced by the same magnetic field changes that the first technique will target. The band will wobble about three times more if no ocean is hidden below the moon's icy shell. And that technique should require fewer measurements than some of JUICE's other options.

None of these methods will quickly resolve scientists' questions about these distant worlds, of course, since deep-space exploration takes time. JUICE is currently scheduled to launch in 2022, then will take more than seven years to reach the Jupiter system. If the spacecraft launches on time, it will conduct the bulk of its observations between 2029 and 2033.

• Photos of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon
• First map of Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede unveiled (photos, video)
• Decades-old data shows auroras on Jupiter's moon Ganymede in a new light

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

08-04-2020 om 23:35 geschreven door peter  

A Black Hole’s Energy Beam is Seemingly Breaking the Laws of Physics

The radiant jets are erupting from a galaxy called 3C 279, located five billion light years from Earth. Even across this immense distance, 3C 279 shines like a cosmic beacon because it is a “blazar,” which means its galactic core is among the brightest and most energetic objects in the universe.

At the center of 3C 279 lies a supermassive black hole that is about one billion times as massive as the Sun. When clumps of matter fall into the hole, they become super-hot and energetic, sparking the enormous jet explosion that scientists see blasting out of the blazar’s pole.

3C 279 is so bright that astronomers have been able to observe it, and its illusory superluminal jet, since the 1970s. But Kim’s team, which consists of hundreds of co-authors, has the advantage of a new type of ultrasensitive observatory: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

The EHT collaboration is best known for capturing the very first image of a black hole almost exactly one year ago. The telescope consists of a global network of radio arrays that combine to form one ultra-sensitive observatory that is the size of Earth itself. These colossal dimensions enable the EHT to image distant objects in unprecedented detail.

Kim’s team observed 3C 279 with the EHT for four nights in April 2017 at an extremely high resolution of 20 microarcseconds, which is equivalent to spotting an orange on the Moon from Earth. The observations produced “new and more detailed maps of the core region of 3C 279” including the “finest details” of the base of one of its jets.

These observations reveal something so strange as to be impossible: the black hole’s jet appeared by all indications to be traveling faster than the speed of light. As it turns out, this curiosity is due to a mega-scale optical illusion in space.

This blazar jet shoots from the galactic center with so much force that it reaches 99.5 percent the speed of light, about as close to the cosmic speed limit as possible. However, because the jet is oriented toward Earth, it looks like it is traveling 15 to 20 times faster than light speed.

“This extraordinary optical illusion arises because the material is racing toward us, chasing down the very light it is emitting and making it appear to be moving faster than it is,” said co-author Dom Pesce, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in a statement.

In other words, the blazar jet is not actually defying the laws of physics, though it does put on a pretty good show of it.

The observations also revealed that the jet appears to be twisted at the point where it emerges from the galactic center, which offers the first clear glimpse of a blazar jet’s base. The discovery suggests that the black hole somehow deforms the jet as it is emitted, perhaps into a helical structure that is distinct from the straight jet that forms further from the galactic center.

“Follow-up work combining the results from this paper with other multiwavelength data obtained close in time, will provide a more detailed understanding of the physical processes in the jet, allowing detailed tests of the potential curvature in the innermost jet, and possible jet acceleration and alternative physical scenarios,” the team said in the paper.

For decades, scientists have marveled over the ultra-luminous center of 3C 279 and puzzled over how such blinding amounts of light could be generated. The EHT collaboration has now brought the answer to that question one step closer to resolution.

Related Articles

• An Ancient Black Hole as Heavy as a Billion Suns Is Pointed Right At Us

• Scientists Have Detected the Biggest Explosion Ever in the Universe's History

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08-04-2020 om 23:11 geschreven door peter  

There have been a surprising number of UFO crashes reported over the decades, and these can be pretty spectacular, indeed. Among these some of them take the weirdness up a notch, with Roswell-style scenarios of finding aliens among the wreckage, both alive and dead. There are also numerous reports of alien abductions out there, wherein helpless victims are beamed aboard these otherworldly craft and have a variety of experiences including the infamous examinations as well as sometimes more benevolent ones. This is all strange enough as it is, but what about when it gets even odder? Have you ever wondered if the two have ever come together? Have you ever thought about what if one of these UFOs crashed with an abductee aboard? Well, wonder no more, because there is at least one case where an alleged UFO crashed in the desert complete with aliens and a dazed human woman they had abducted.

It was a calm summer evening in 1971, when California resident Debbie Clayton was relaxing in her home just north of Edwards Air Force Base when she was startled by a deafening roar, followed by a thunderous noise like an explosion that reverberated through the air. Exiting her home, she found neighbors out on the street warily looking about and scanning the sky as a symphony of barking dogs played in the background. Then they saw it, a plume of smoke snaking up into the air from the direction of the base, accompanied by the flickering of what they assumed to be the flames of a fire. Something had happened, an airplane crash perhaps, and Clayton’s curiosity drew her and a few others towards the eerie glow and smoke in the distance. What they would find would be no normal aircraft, and would be an experience they would never forget.

Edwards Air Force Base

Just outside of the base, an area of scrubland was burned, and in the center of this charred earth was what Clayton described as a mushroom shaped craft of some sort, fashioned of what appeared to be a dull gray metal of some type, which had green flashing lights spaced out upon it. She noticed how smooth the texture of it all was, with no markings, noticeable seams, or doors or windows, seemingly made of one uniform piece of metal, although it did seem to be damaged from its plummet to earth. More bizarre than any of this was that she then noticed some smallish, thin gray humanoids strewn about on the ground, and more puzzling then even this was the sight of a woman who stumbled about in the fog of smoke, dressed in what looked like a tight-fitting pink jumpsuit. The mysterious woman looked dazed and confused as she meandered about the crash zone, but before Clayton could call to her or do anything at all the military from the nearby base were already descending upon the site. Helicopters buzzed over, searchlights pierced the gloom, and soldiers told the gathered, gawking witnesses to disperse or face the consequences.

After forcefully chasing off the civilian witnesses the military reportedly quickly covered the craft with a large canvas tarp and some of the personnel could be seen gathering the three still bodies of those strange entities, but after that the area was closed to further scrutiny. Curious as to what had happened, the baffled Clayton checked the newspaper first thing the following morning, but found no mention at all of the huge boom and the subsequent crash near the base. There was in fact no mention of any incident in the area at all. Turning on the TV also showed no news at all on the incident, and so concerned citizens began calling the base directly to demand what had happened. They all got the same, curt response, that it had been a crashed military vehicle that had gone down due to a technical malfunction and that it was a minor accident. Nothing to see here. Move along. There were no answers about what kind of vehicle it had been, and more importantly no clue given as to what those humanoid bodies were or who that woman in the pink suit had been. Amazingly, it all gets even stranger from here.

The whole thing might have remained hidden, covered-up, and forgotten to fade away into the mists of time forever if it weren’t for the intrepid UFO researcher Albert Rosales. He was able to track down the mysterious woman in pink, who was identified as Lorraine Dvorak Cordini. She admitted that she was the one in the wreckage, but that she had little memory of how she had gotten there or what had happened next, other than that she had been told she had been in an accident and dropped off at her home by military personnel, so Rosales convinced her to undergo hypnotic regression to try and salvage any memories that might be lurking in her subconscious. She agreed, and would have a very bizarre story to tell, indeed.

Under hypnosis, Cordini said that her ordeal had started when she was abducted by strange creatures from her home one evening, apparently being somehow phased right through the wall to be brought into a craft of some sort, which then brought her to an enormous “mother ship,” where she was dressed in the pink jumpsuit. The beings she was with were described as “short, thin, rather translucent” humanoids, and she also was able to remember that these creatures had visited her before when she was a child, and that she felt a sort of non-threatening familiarity with them. Although they seemed mostly androgynous, she would explain that they seemed to have either male or female “essences,” and that the one she took to be their leader was decidedly more human in appearance than the others, looking almost like a normal woman. Cordini also said that although they had mouths they spoke to her telepathically. She could not remember much of her time aboard the mother ship, but when says that she was aboard another, smaller transport craft on her way home when her memory would jump to the crash. She would explain:

I was physically on board a mother spacecraft working. When it was time to return to earth three “ETs” (short, thin, rather translucent in appearance like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), one female essence and two of male essence were the crew. We were either shot down or crashed near Edwards Air Force Base in California. I remember standing in the wreckage, suddenly in conscious memory, confused, disoriented and filled with sorrow as military personnel kicked the bodies of the two dead ETs. I remember hearing in my mind the captain of the mother ship saying how sorry she was that they could not help us for fear of being detected. The female crewman was standing to my left. I had on a pink body suit. I cried as the military cursed my dead comrades. I don’t yet remember what the parts of the ship looked like.

The next thing she would remember was being approached by the military, handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a black, unmarked limousine. After this they brought her to some sort of sterile military facility where there was another alien with them, apparently not one of the ones she had been with and apparently of a different species, with a seemingly different agenda. This one was described as being about 4 feet tall, with wet brown skin and a bulbous, oversized head. She has said of this surreal and terrifying experience:

At first I think they (military) might have thought I was a local witness who would not leave and so they arrested me. They handcuffed me and threw me in the backseat of a black limousine. I was taken to an empty hanger. I remember it was cold and had a hollow sound to the noise. I was placed on a cold metal table. Two military to my left, one military to my head along with an ET whom I call Mr. Pumpkin Head Man. The military were dressed in fatigue uniforms and the ET had on a blue kind of two-piece jogging suit with a thin red and white stripe going around the chest area and then another set of two thin lines going up and down on the jacket. At the intersection right above where the human heart would be was either a brooch or insignia. My first thoughts were “brooch”.

They drugged me. I was so confused and disoriented. I struggled to lift my arms and to get up, but I couldn’t, my speech was slurred. I tried to scream but could not. I felt drunk. I heard in my mind Pumpkin Head thinking how great he was and how important he was to these military men. The military man next to him was thinking “What an asshole.” They treated me with great disrespect. Eventually two of them grabbed me under the arms and yanked, pulled and tugged me off the table. They dragged me to the opening of the hanger. The light hurt my eyes.

She claims that after this her memories become murky again, and the next thing she remembers is being dumped in San Francisco, California, wandering around in a confused state and not sure how she had gotten there. It is unclear why she should be dropped off here, as she says she didn’t know anyone in the city and it is far from her own home in the Los Angeles area. She finally did manage to find her way home, and for years this was just an odd experience that constantly haunted her, but which she could not explain. Large portions of her memory were missing, and it was only when bits and pieces became coming back to poke through the surface and she found herself facing frequent nightmares that she knew something was wrong with her. After seeing a program on alien abductions by chance she reached out to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in 1995 and that was when she was approached by Rosales.

The story has leaked out over the years and Cordini has written her own accounts of the events that unfolded, but it has still managed to remain a relatively obscure case and even for those who know about it have often looked at it with raised eyebrows. It is at once a spectacular and unique, yet ultimately frustrating account for a variety of reasons. It is intriguing because it is probably one of the only accounts of a UFO crash involving an abductee that was onboard at the time, and what’s more was recovered alive. If the story is true than it is truly unique and rare. There is also the interesting suggestion that there are several different species of aliens visiting Earth that are perhaps at odds with each other and with different motivations. However, it is at the same time just a little bit too good of a story, and there is very little to corroborate it. There are no news reports of anything unusual near Edward’s AFB at the time, no physical evidence at all, and scarce few corroborating witnesses, which more or less in the end leaves us with Cordini’s own account of what happened.

So, what are we looking at here? Was this lady really snatched away from her home by aliens, only to be shot down along with her captors and then whisked away by the military? Was this perhaps some sort of military experiment that planted these memories in her head? Did she really indeed have some sort of accident and her mind conjured this up out of trauma? Or is this all just the delusional ramblings of a woman who has a tenuous grip on reality? It is all a pretty wild and outlandish report no matter what the case may be, and one wonder just what in the world was going on here.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-04-2020 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

Komende woensdag grootste supermaan van het jaar te zien - HLN.be

De vorige supermaan was, zo blijkt uit de voor België geldende maankalender, op 9 maart te zien maar toen was de afstand iets langer: 363.972 kilometer. 

Wil je dé supermaan van de eeuw zien dan moet je volgens de meteorologen van Weerplaza alvast 6 december 2052 in je agenda omcirkelen. Dan staat de volle maan op 356.426 km van de aarde. Het verschil zal je dan zeer waarschijnlijk niet met het blote oog waarnemen, maar je kunt wel zeggen dat je er bij was.

Wat is een supermaan?

Een supermaan is een volle maan die veel groter lijkt dan normaal. Ook is het maanlicht feller dan bij een gebruikelijke volle maan. Dat komt omdat de afstand tussen de maan en de aarde een beetje kleiner is dan normaal.

De afstand tussen de maan en de aarde verandert gedurende het jaar. Dat komt doordat de maan geen cirkelvormige, maar een elliptische baan om de aarde heeft. Om de 29 dagen bereikt de maan een minimale afstand tot de aarde. Als dat moment samenvalt met een volle maan, spreken we van een ‘supermaan’.

In ons land is zo’n maan maar drie à vier keer per jaar te zien. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

08-04-2020 om 21:56 geschreven door peter  

Close Encounter Of The Fourth Kind In Italy

AUGUST 14, 1947 ……….VILLA SANTINA ITALY

It was around 9 am on the 14^th August 1947 when R L Johannis was stood by the Chiarso creek in Villa Santina, painting as was his profession. It was as he was scanning his surroundings that morning that he would gaze upon something that would completely change his world view. There, in front of him, was a disc-shaped object at least 30 feet across.

What’s more, next to the object on the ground were two small humanoid figures, approximately three feet in height. Still a little in shock, he kept his focus on the scene unfolding in front of him. Each of the small figures had on a dark blue coverall-type suit which had a red belt around the waist, as well as a red collar. What’s more, although they were covered with a round helmet, their heads appeared to be significantly larger than one would expect when compared to their bodies.

He couldn’t see clearly, but the skin under the helmet and on their hands appeared to be a “greenish” color. This is an interesting detail in that while most would imagine these types of aliens to be grey in color (hence they are usually referred to as The Greys) many accounts exist that specifically state the color of the respective creature’s skin was a distinct green.

What’s more, and this sighting was before such descriptions of the Grey alien were in the public psyche as it is today, Johannis would describe their eyes as large, dark, and with no eyelashes or eyebrows. Very similar to descriptions given by many who would experience alleged close encounters over the decades that would follow.

Still very much in the moment, the painter then called out to the strange creatures, raising his arm as he did so.

A Welcoming Gesture Mistaken For Aggression And Hostility?

As soon as he gestured to the apparently alien visitors they appeared to react. And what’s more, it appeared as though they mistook the gesture by the artist as one of aggressiveness. In response, one of the creatures reached to his belt. A moment later, a “thin vapor” emanated from it and “hit” Johannis within seconds.

He immediately began to feel disorientated and confused. The next thing he knew, he was falling to the ground. As he hit the surface with a thump, he noticed the two creatures approaching him. They would stop at the painter’s easel, looking at it quite quizzically.

It is perhaps worth noting the files of the previously mentioned Bowen here, who would highlight how the descriptions of the belt in the incident were very similar to the occupant encounter of Antonio Villas Boas in Brazil a decade later in 1957.

As the artist struggled to his hands and knees, he noticed that the figures were now holding the painting before placing it back on the easel where it had been. They then, panting heavily Johannis recalled, turned around and walked calmly to the waiting, hovering disc-shaped object. It would rise slightly upon them first entering it. Then, after a moment or two, it shot directly into the sky and disappeared within seconds.

By the time the painter had fully come back to his senses, he realized that the easel was now missing. To the best of our knowledge, it wasn’t found.

The witness would ultimately gather himself. He would then return home where he would make notes of the encounter before ultimately forgetting the incident. At least publicly. When he arrived in America, as we will examine later, Johannis would begin to realize the gravity of what he had witnessed.

Further Reasons To Consider The Merging Of Space, Dimensions, And Time?

The witness would later recall that a “tremendous blast of wind” hit him within seconds of the craft vanishing. He would also recall that he believed the craft got smaller as opposed to disappearing into the distance.

This is an intriguing detail to consider. Did the craft actually disappear and it just appeared to get smaller to the witness? He was, after all, in a confused and disorientated state of mind at the time. Or might it really have grown smaller? Perhaps not physically but as it traveled through some kind of portal or wormhole? One artificially created by advanced technology.

While it is pure speculation on ours and other researcher’s parts, there are many theories that suggest UFOs are actually traveling here through these cosmic shortcuts from their world to ours. This, for example, would remove the need to travel at beyond astronomical speeds to traverse the vast reaches of space. NOTE: The above image is CGI.

• http://worldufophotosandnews.org/?p=25778

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

08-04-2020 om 20:58 geschreven door peter  

The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch

‘The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch’ revealed: How a 420-acre patch of land in Utah became a ‘paranormal hotspot’

The series will have some never-before-seen footage of the ranch and what’s in it along with experts who will go through the massive 512-acre property in Utah

The series will have some never-before-seen footage of the ranch and what’s in it along with experts who will go through the massive 512-acre property in Utah. But what is it that makes this ranch such a mystery to tackle?

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

08-04-2020 om 20:29 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Cigar-Shaped UFO is Back, and It’s Glowing in Nebraska Sky

A strange cigar-shaped UFO has been seen again in the US, and this time it was over the city of Omaha, Nebraska. The long, slender mysterious object has frequently been observed in recent months in North America, including Washington, Wyoming, and New York. It has also spotted in other parts of the world, including Latin America and Europe.

However, the cigar UFO in Omaha City raced through the sky instead of floating in the air. Also, its colour was different. The past videos show black cigar UFO, but now it’s blue and glowing.

The latest incident was captured on video by an amateur astronomer, who passed the video to YouTube channel MrMBB333, which is famous for featuring mysterious events. The video then became viral with thousands of views.

Many viewers agree that the unusual thing in the sky is a sign of space alien life. One user believes that it’s not a meteorite. Another one suggests the cigar-shaped UFOs are different kind of extra-terrestrial vehicle or drone; instead of the typical round UFO’s.

One netizen says that aliens decided to check out the situation on Earth in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Others claim they had seen similar objects in the sky in the South Mountain area.

Cigar-shaped or snake UFOs have been spotted quite often in recent months in the US, but they have also been observed in Scotland and Brazil recently, where it had a strange colour.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

08-04-2020 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

Beyond the Pyramid Ramp: Unravelling Egypt’s Most Elusive Enigma

The mystery of how the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built continues to elude scholars, even in the 21 ^st century. As famed Egyptologist Flinders Petrie records in his The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (1883): “The means employed for raising such masses of stone is not shown to us in any representations.” The brightest minds in the world still wrestle with competing ideas, offering educated guesses based on incomplete evidence.

Every theory begins with the inclined plane, or the pyramid ramp. This idea was first mentioned two millennia ago by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who recounted what the Egyptians told him about the pyramids: "It is said that … the construction was undertaken with the help of ramps of earth, since at that time cranes had not yet been invented." (Library of History 1. 63).

Many Theories for the Pyramid Ramp

By the end of the 19 ^th century, Petrie had carefully measured the Pyramids of Giza , particularly the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and determined that the likeliest manner of their construction was using a single, long ramp, with a smaller zig-zag ramp near the summit. Since then, this idea has largely been discredited due to lack of evidence, and other theories have taken its place.

Three types of single, straight pyramid ramps to build that could have been used in the construction of the ancient site.

(Smuckola / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Late German Egyptologist Uvo Hölscher believed the Egyptians employed a short ramp that zig-zagged all the way up the face of the pyramid, while Dieter Arnold, the German archaeologist who wrote the famous Building in Egypt (1991) believes a long ramp was used, but that it cut through the center of and was partially composed of the pyramid itself.

Meanwhile, Giza archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner believe the material evidence most clearly points to a spiral ramp that would have twisted up the exterior of the pyramid, either resting against the structure or on a large earthen mound. They suggest that water or milk would have been used to lubricate wooden sleds strapped with stone blocks, similar to a scene from the Middle Kingdom tomb of Djehuti-hotep (~1900 BC).

Three different pyramid ramp proposals, by Uvo Hölsher (left), Dieter Arnold (center) and Mark Lehner (right).

(Althiphika / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Numerous recent experiments have confirmed this possibility, including a study in 2014 by Daniel Bonn and other scientists from the FOM Foundation and the University of Amsterdam that demonstrated the right proportion of water on sand could reduce the required people hauling a block by half. There is also a depiction on a New Kingdom stela showing six oxen pulling a block on a sled (~1575 BC), and many actual sleds have been recovered.

What About the Evidence?

Evidence of earth ramps do exist in Egypt. The best example comes from the Temple of Karnak at Thebes, where it can be found still leaning against the back of the towering First Pylon. Made of mud brick, it was never completely disassembled, and it stands today as testament to the manner in which these large stone structures were built and decorated. Further examples come from the abandoned step pyramid of Sinki at Abydos. Likely built by Huni, Sneferu’s father and Khufu’s grandfather, this pyramid has four construction ramps still in place, composed of two outer mud-brick walls with an interior fill of debris and stone chips.

Remains of an ancient mud-brick ramp at the Temple of Karnak at Thebes (First Pylon, New Kingdom).

( Vermeulen-Perdaen / Adobe stock)

Amazingly, the potential construction ramp of the Great Pyramid has already been discovered, and it was similar to these other ramps. In 1995, the Giza Inspectorate “excavated trenches through thick layers of limestone debris south of the southwest corner of Khufu’s pyramid. Remains of fieldstone walls were found running north-northwest that could have been the accretions or retaining walls of the foundation of (such) a supply ramp.” (Lehner, 2017; 440).

According to Hawass, this lower section of the ramp: “consisted of two walls built of stone rubble and mixed with “tafla” (a calcareous clay). The area in between was filled with sand and gypsum forming the bulk of the ramp.” (Hawass, 1998; 58). He calculated the ramp would have reached ~30m (98ft) above the pyramid’s base, or roughly 20% of the pyramid’s original total height of 146.7m (481.3ft). Beyond that he believes the ramp would have spiraled up the exterior of the structure.

Map of the Giza Plateau, showing newly-discovered ancient ramp in red line at southwest corner of Khufu’s pyramid, and quarry and authors’ proposed wooden scaffolding running up to the top (red and brown lines added by author).

(MesserWolland / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

In late 2018, the remains of a ramp were found in the ancient alabaster quarry at Hatnub, from the very time of Khufu. It reveals how the Egyptians could have moved tremendously heavy blocks of stone by using physics to aid them. Archaeologists from the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology and the University of Liverpool excavated a ramp with flights of stairs on either side, and with post-holes near the stairs running all the way up the ramp.

It has been suggested by the excavating team that by using ropes tied around wooden posts, ancient workers could have hauled large blocks much easier by using gravity to pull down rather than pulling up. They could also control the blocks better, which are imagined as having rested on wooden sleds attached to the ropes.

Ancient ramp discovered at Hatnub, Eastern Egypt, in 2018, similar in shape but smaller in dimensions than the pyramid ramps that could have been used to build the contemporaneous site at Giza.

(Yannis Gourdon / IFAO)

The addition of ropes and wooden poles to change the direction of force could have effectively doubled the ramp grade, meaning any ramps on the pyramids would have only needed to have been half their projected size. This could have potentially doubled the grade of Khufu’s ramp, discovered in 1995, up to ~60m (197ft), or 40% of the pyramid’s original height (and most of the volume).

However, problems persist. A ramp that spiraled around the pyramid would be impractical because of the inability to back-sight each corner to remain true, its massive size (rivalling the pyramid itself), and the lack of any archaeological evidence. So if the builders did use a ramp, where was it? An ingenious architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin thought he had the answer.

A Hidden Ramp Inside

Perhaps no other theory in recent years has garnered as much attention as that of the Great Pyramid’s supposed ‘internal ramp’, an idea first proposed by the French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin in 2005. Aided in his exploration by Egyptologist Bob Brier, they flew to Egypt to hunt for evidence of this proposed inside-ramp.

In essence, Houdin proposed that the Egyptians had built an internal ramp just inside the perimeter of the structure that wound its way up as the pyramid rose, composed of corbelled ceilings and corner notches in which the blocks would be rotated on rope cranes. This would seemingly eliminate the need for external ramps, levers, cranes or scaffolding.

Several lines of evidence jumped out at the researchers as proof of their idea. First, Houdin detected faint ‘phantom’ lines within the masonry of the pyramid that ran at ~7°, the exact angle he determined the internal ramp must run at.

Second, there is a mysterious ‘notch’ on the northeastern edge of the pyramid, where Houdin had predicted was an original ‘corner block-turning station’. This ‘notch’ was explored by Brier, who found a small irregular chamber (‘Bob’s Room’) but nothing more.

Third, in 1986 a French team completed a microgravimetric study of the pyramid, and the resultant CG-image of low- and high-density areas revealed an image consistent with an internal ramp.

Attractive Theory But Where is the Evidence?

Despite how attractive this theory seemed at first, many noted it was an unlikely scenario. Egyptologist David Jeffreys called it “far-fetched and horribly complicated,” for it proposed the pyramid is vastly more complicated than presently believed. Instead of having four internal chambers and corridors, it would actually have the equivalent of dozens of internal chambers. Instead of having one impressive and corbelled Grand Gallery, it would have the equivalent of over thirty grand galleries winding up through the monument, all corbelled corridors of impressive masonry.

It seems absurd, considering how amazing a feat the Grand Gallery itself was, that there would still be thirty more of them to discover somewhere inside the pyramid, all connected together. And despite much indirect evidence, Brier and Houdin have not found any specific hard data for their ramp. Even their much-lauded microgravimetric scan could be interpreted differently, such as via the model of internal ‘steps’.

The Grand Gallery in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Houdin’s theory would require another 30 of these inside the pyramid.

(Keith Adler / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Now, despite the difficulties with the idea, it remained a promising theory in need of independent verification. Fortunately, the ‘Scan Pyramids Mission’ ( scanpyramids.org) would be its ultimate test. Beginning in 2015, this study was based on the idea of using cosmic particles called muons to remotely scan the pyramid for void spaces, an idea first employed by famed physicist Luis Alvarez in the late 1960s on Khafre’s pyramid.

Large collectors were set up in the Great Pyramid and the muons that streamed through the structure were measured in the hopes of identifying any hidden chambers. The idea that a beautiful internal passageway snaking up through the structure would be revealed had millions of excited archaeology buffs on the edge of their seats. Then the results came in.

While a large void was detected above the Grand Gallery, no internal ramp was detected. Nada. This deflationary news was relayed by the theory’s first expert supporter, Bob Brier himself: “these data suggest that the ramp is not there. I think we’ve lost.” So if there was no internal ramp inside the Great Pyramid, then how was it actually built? How were the stones lifted skyward hundreds of feet, beyond the ramp?

New research looking at the density of particles called muons has found an empty space (shown in this illustration) more than 98 feet (30 meters) long right above the Great Pyramid's Grand Gallery, but no internal pyramid ramp was found. 

( Scan Pyramids Mission )

A Ramps and Levers Combination

Any theory based on ramps, whether internal or external, runs into problems near the apex of the pyramid. Lehner and Hawass admit that: “the fact that the four sides of the pyramid narrow towards closure at the top means that the builders ran out of room for ramps.” (Lehner 2017; 418), and that: “it is very possible that levering was the only means to raise the blocks of the highest courses, near the apex, once the builders had brought them as high as they could on ramps.” (Lehner, 2017; 417).

Other archaeologists have suggested a combination of ramps and levers, including Martin Isler in On Pyramid Building I & II (1985 & 1987).

The idea the ancient Egyptians used other technologies besides ramps was first put forth by Herodotus in 425 BC. He describes the construction of the Great Pyramid thusly: “This pyramid was made after the manner of steps, which some call ‘rows’ and others ‘bases’: and when they had first made it thus, they raised the remaining stones with machines made of short pieces of timber, raising them first from the ground to the first stage of the steps, and when the stone got up to this it was placed upon another machine standing on the first stage, and so from this it was drawn to the second upon another machine.” (Histories 2. 125).

“Construction of the Great Pyramid According to Herodotus”, lithograph depicting multiple so-called ‘Herodotus Machines’ operating on the Great Pyramid

(Antoine- Yves Goguet (1820) / Public domain ).

This description calls to mind a ‘liftjack’ tool, which uses levers and small shims, or wedges, to gradually lift a large block in many small increments. This was first suggested by Petrie in 1883: “for the ordinary blocks, of a few tons each, it would be very feasible to employ the method of resting them on two piles of wooden slabs, and rocking them up alternately to one side and the other by a spar under the block, thus heightening the piles alternately and so raising the stone.”

Several other scholars have noted this theory as well, including Isler, who actually tested this theory during a 1991 Pyramid building project filmed for NOVA. He discovered it was harder and took much longer than he anticipated, but mainly due to his lack of experience and the instability of his wooden support cribbing.

Assisting with this method may have been mysterious rounded wooden objects colloquially called “Petrie rockers”. Found by the famed Egyptologist at Thebes, he proposed these semi-circular wooden devices could have been used to help jack up heavy blocks by allowing them to tilt back and forth easier ( “rocking them up alternately to one side and the other”) , allowing successive planks to be inserted on either side and lifting the block.

Others like Paul Hai imagine the Egyptians actually “rolled” the large blocks by lashing a Petrie rocker to each side of the block, creating a cylinder. Again, there is no evidence for this, and there have never been found any of these wooden rockers near the pyramids.

A model wooden “rocker” device found by Flinders Petrie at Thebes, from the New Kingdom, ~1450 BC.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0)

• Were Egypt’s Pyramids Megalithic Machines or Magical Mausoleums?
• The Pyramids Route: Was Knowledge of the Pyramids Spread by Ancient Castaways?
• Could this Finding Dwarf the Pyramids of Giza? Long-Lost Pyramids Confirmed in Egypt

Alternatively, the Egyptians could have employed a counter-weight levering mechanism, similar to the shaduf, which has been used for millennia to lift water from the Nile. The machines described by Herodotus could have been composed of wooden beams with counterweights, used to see-saw the blocks up course-by-course.

Tomb painting showing an ancient Egyptian gardener using a shaduf (Tomb of the Royal Sculptor Ipuy, Deir el-Medina, 19th Dynasty, 1279-1213 BCE). The shaduf relies on the same principles of counter-weight leverage as the so called “Herodotus Machines” imagined by Goguet and other artists.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0)

Did the Egyptians Use Scaffolding?

Other researchers such as Peter Hodges, Julian Keable, Louis Croon, and Robert Scott Hussey-Pailos have all made improvements on these designs, decreasing Isler’s original lifting time of over an hour down to only minutes. Whether the Egyptians used a rocker-shim-lever or counter-weight-lever method, they would have also needed some degree of wooden scaffolding.

We have no painting or material remains of any of these proposed lifting devices, but we do have evidence the Egyptians were familiar with wooden scaffolding.  In a painted scene from the tomb of the Vizier Rekhmire in Thebes (~1450 BC), we can see several workers standing (and even sitting) on a scaffold while they polish and paint a large statue.

Depiction of wooden scaffolding from the Tomb of the Vizier Rekhmire, ~1450 BC.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art / Nina De Garis Davies / Public domain )

An earlier scene from the Fifth Dynasty Saqqara tomb of Khaemhesit shows a vertical wooden ladder with workers perched along it, and surprisingly wheels and an axle at its base! This is the only known Old Kingdom depiction of wheels, and the Egyptians did not use them to move the heavy pyramid blocks: wheels would have sunk into the ground, and there was no material strong enough for the axles.

Many researchers have suggested scaffolding was used to help build the pyramids, as far back as Somers Clarke and R. Engelbach in their classic Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture (1930). Hawass, Lehner, and Isler have likewise voiced limited support for the idea, along with James Frederick Edwards in his article Building the Great Pyramid: Probable Construction Methods Employed at Giza (2003). He notes in particular the likely use of scaffolding by the masons to dress the fine-white Tura casing stones, generally believed to have been the final stage of construction. Perhaps the most vocal supporter of the idea of wooden scaffolding is the Welsh structural engineer Peter James, who was called upon to save the Step Pyramid after being damaged in a 1992 earthquake.

As detailed in his 2018 book Saving the Pyramids, James and his team worked deep under the Step Pyramid in Djoser’s burial, using large air bags in conjunction with wooden scaffolding to prop up the sagging ceiling. They carefully drilled narrow holes into the superstructure, inserting steel rods and then cementing them in place, finally securing the 4,700-year-old building - the world’s oldest stone building - from collapse.

Modern wooden scaffolding set up around Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara

(David Broad / CC BY 3.0 )

However, it was the abundant wooden scaffolding that was set up around the Step Pyramid to restore its crumbling façade that gave James an idea about its construction. He thought that similar scaffolding could have been used in the past, composed of pieces of timber lashed together: “In recent restoration work on the pyramids, traditional timber lashed together has been used as scaffolding, which demonstrates that it clearly would have been possible to use scaffolding to construct them in the first place.”

“We Have People, We Need Wood”

Most scholars dispute the notion that scaffolding served any primary construction role, relegating it to a minor function, such as dressing the casing stones or laying the very top courses of masonry. It remains an unpopular idea for one simple reason: most Egyptologists believe that the ancient Egyptians, with their dry and relatively treeless environment, had limited access to timber.

However, several scholars have demonstrated that the Egypt of the Old Kingdom, ~2550 BC, would have had more vegetation than today. Researchers have demonstrated that a major climate change accompanied or perhaps caused the end of the Old Kingdom of Egypt around 4200 years ago. For example, Jean-Daniel Stanley and his colleagues, using strontium isotopes and petrologic data, showed in their 2003 study that Nile levels, and consequently tree populations, dropped drastically between 2200-2000 BC.

As D.M. Dixon states in his article Timber in Ancient Egypt (1974), “in antiquity, Egypt possessed, and still does, a number of trees capable of providing timber.” These include the date palm, acacia, tamarisk, persea, willow, sidder, moringa, and sycamore-fig. These trees were used for boat construction, to make furniture, huge temple doors, coffins, bows, arrows, and ramps, as described on the Papyrus Anastasi I: “There is to be constructed a ramp … consisting of 120 compartments filled with reeds and beams.”

Left: acacia tree, similar to what would have been found in Egypt and across the Levant during Khufu’s time, Israel’s Negev Desert. (Mark A. Wilson / Public domain ). Right: avenue of acacia trees leading towards the pyramids in 19th century Cairo  

(William Henry Jackson (1894) / Public domain )

Archaeological evidence of wood inside ancient ramps has been found at Lahoun, Lisht, and Deir el-Bahri. We also know that Egypt imported huge beams of cedar and cilician fir from Lebanon, confirmed by the discovery in 1954 of two deconstructed funeral boats of Khufu buried beside his pyramid.

Al Arzz above Bsharri (Forest of the Cedars of God), Lebanon.

(BlingBling10 / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Made of gigantic beams of cedar, they were lashed together with rope and would seal by swelling in the water. We know from the Palermo Stone inscription that Pharaoh Sneferu , father of Khufu, sent an expedition of forty ships to Lebanon to collect prized cedar beams: “Bringing forty ships filled [with] cedar logs … Shipbuilding [of] cedar wood, one ship, 100 cubits [long].” 100 cubits was roughly equivalent to 50 meters (164ft), even longer than Khufu’s boat at 43.6m (143ft).

The magnificent Boat of Khufu, Solar Boat Museum, Giza.

(David Berkowitz / CC BY 2.0 )

We can still see the massive fifty-foot (15m) cedar beams that Sneferu’s engineers wedged between the walls of the Bent Pyramid’s burial chamber to keep it from collapsing. He could have easily used similar beams to construct wooden scaffolding for the construction of his two pyramids at Dashur (and earlier structure at Meidum).

Ancient wooden beams still inside the Bent Pyramid of Sneferu at Dashur.

(Ivrienen / CC BY 3.0 )

The Secret to Building the Pyramids

An interesting feature of the solar boats is that their beams were held together entirely with hemp rope, which was also preserved beside the boat. Having cedar beams and sturdy rope, the Egyptians could certainly have built a robust scaffolding capable of supporting large stone blocks and multiple workers.

I believe the secret to building the pyramids, beyond the ramps anyways, was actually very simple: a relatively narrow section of wooden scaffolding, lashed together with ropes and anchored securely at the base. This would have rendered unnecessary large external mud brick ramps, internal stone ramps, and the need to dress the stone from the top down. The entire structure could have been completed level-by-level, with the exterior stone dressed before the next layer was begun (or even in the quarry when first removed, when it is softer and easier to carve, as noted by Bob Brier).

I believe work gangs would have used a combination of levers, rockers, and wedges to lift the blocks up through the scaffolding to the active building surface, where other gangs would have taken over. The scaffolding itself would have had dedicated wood-working teams building it as the pyramid rose. Each level of scaffolding would have had separate teams, while the teams operating on the pyramid would have likely been divided again.

Most work gangs would have focused on the inner fill and less precise masonry of the interior, some would have focused on the core blocks and grout, while the most skilled would have been stationed around the exterior to set and finish the precisely-angled and highly polished Tura limestone casing blocks. I therefore imagine an assembly-line type of process, from quarry to pyramid, with teams remaining at their spots and the rocks moving between them.

There is no good reason the Egyptians couldn’t have built a narrow stretch of scaffolding up the south side of the Great Pyramid through which to lever-up all the necessary blocks for its construction. It could then have been removed very quickly and re-used at further pyramid projects or alternatively used for solar boats, coffins, etc. The re-use of wood was common in Egypt, as demonstrated by Pearce Paul Creasman in his article: Ship Timber and the Reuse of Wood in Ancient Egypt (2013).

The Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt.

( sculpies / Adobe stock)

The pyramids were built with the available technology during the Old Kingdom: ramps, bronze chisels, stone pounders, levers, ropes, poles, plumb bobs, cubit rods, mallets, adzes, wedges, and squares. To these primitive yet capable tools, I believe, we can add wooden scaffolding, the final missing piece to the puzzle of their construction.

It was more than this technology, however, that helped realize these massive building projects. It was the organization and hierarchy of workers, overseers, priests and scribes that helped to bring to fruition these huge state dreams. It was the skilled coordination of this hard-working society, all based on the careful measurements by priests of the seasons, sky and Nile, that ultimately built the pyramids. It was a nation-wide effort, one of the largest in our history, to serve the kings, the gods, and to preserve balance in the land, so that their names and works would last forever.

End Note

Interestingly, Welsh architect and pyramid rescuer Peter James does dispute the idea the Egyptians used poles and ropes to increase their ramp grades at pyramid sites, as suggested by the new ramp discovery at Hatnub. In a personal email communication he discusses several flaws he has identified with this model:

“The question of the size and diameter of the ropes needed to haul the heavy blocks is an issue and also their durability on the edges of square blocks. The method of attaching the ropes to the blocks that would avoid twisting the blocks as they are lifted would also be a problem.

How would you make sure that the two sets of operatives pulling up the blocks would be able to provide the same tension in the ropes to control the lift and not induce twisting and movement of the blocks, particularly as they are on temporary constructed steps? This would be a very dangerous operation.

The same goes for the temporary wooden post that may have been good in a permanent position in a quarry but would be prone to movement under load on unconsolidated substrate and again would cause difficulties controlling the blocks; also the leading edge of the block would dig into the soil and any force used to move it would rotate the block into the soil and prevent further movement.”

• Jonathon Perrin is the author of Moses Restored: The Oldest Religious Secret Never Told , available in print or as an e-book from Amazon.com.
• Top image: We must go beyond the ‘pyramid ramp’ to unravel Egypt’s most elusive engineering enigma. Source: Givaga / Adobe stock

By Jonathon Perrin

{"Ancient Origins"}

08-04-2020 om 01:43 geschreven door peter  

By Lisa Grossman

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

08-04-2020 om 01:00 geschreven door peter  

GLORIOUS NASA PHOTO SHOWS “THIN BANDS” RUNNING ACROSS JUPITER

NASA/JPL-CALTECH

North Of Jupiter

NASA just released a dramatic image that its Juno spacecraft took of Jupiter’s “tumultous northern regions” during a close flyby in February. The image was taken from 15,610 miles (25,120 kilometers) away from the gas giant — a distance about twice the diameter of Earth, making this the planetary equivalent of a close-up shot of the gas giant.

The spectacular image shows “thin bands” that run from top to bottom, representing layers of “haze particles” that drift underneath a cloud cover. We still don’t actually know what exactly they are or how they are formed.

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For the first time, a jet stream on Jupiter is seen catching an atmospheric wave.

Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet in our solar system. You might not think of it as a place to learn about Earth's atmosphere and weather, but Jupiter, like our home planet, has cyclones (the Jovian equivalent of hurricanes) and anticyclones, along with fast-moving jet streams that circle its globe. Revealed in a sequence of black-and-white images taken by the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter are chevrons, dark V-shaped features that travel within a band of powerful winds near the equator. By tracking chevrons, NASA scientists were not only able to gauge the jet stream's speed, but also witness its subtle, wavelike movement as it zoomed around the planet—something never before seen. Studying this motion can help scientists better understand similar weather patterns on Earth. Learn more about this discovery and see footage of Jupiter's jet streams by watching the videos below.

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The wavelike movement spotted in one of Jupiter's jet streams can be seen in this footage taken by Cassini.

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Studying Jupiter's atmosphere helps us understand what's unique, and what's not, about Earth's weather.

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Jupiter's jet streams tend to zoom around the globe in lines so neat and straight that the planet appears striped.

Download 

This jet stream on Jupiter is 100 to 1,000 times wider than any jet stream on Earth and would cover one-quarter of our planet.

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Tracking chevrons in the jet stream revealed winds traveling at speeds of 325 mph.

Jupiter Jet Streams

Jet streams on either side of the hazy bands may have something to do with the phenomenon, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In 2017, NASA scientists figured out that east-west jet streams on Jupiter tend to reverse course on a predictable schedule.

On Earth, jet streams are shifted by changing temperatures. Warmer temperatures force jet streams to flow eastwards, while cooler temperatures force it westwards. On Jupiter, a similar cycle takes about four Earth years and is mostly caused by gravity waves.

• READ MORE: High-Altitude Hazes on Jupiter [JPL]
• More on Jupiter: Something Enormous Just Smashed Into Jupiter

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

08-04-2020 om 00:46 geschreven door peter  

Top 15 Interesting Facts About Ancient Egypt That You May Not Know

One of the greatest civilizations in our history belonged to the ancient Egyptians. It flourished in the fertile valleys of the world’s longest river - the Nile, where a magnificent civilization rose from the surrounding sands and lasted for roughly 3,000 years. Rising above beast and nature, these ingenious people became a unique culture of the world.

The ancient Egyptians brought to life a variety of gods and goddesses, and fashioned a colorful and natural mythology by which they governed their lives. As time went on and their advancements grew, the Egyptians pioneered some of the world’s first technologies - mathematics, papyrus making, writing systems, medicine and pyramid building. They gave us some of the finest achievements of humanity - which remain stunning and marvelous to this very day. And to celebrate this grand ancient civilization, we are going over the top 15 interesting facts about ancient Egypt!  

Our List of the Top 15 Interesting Facts About Ancient Egypt

A civilization that flourished for approximately 3000 years had to be rich, well developed, vast and inspiring.  And the ancient Egyptians were all this and more. To get better acquainted with this, we have assembled a list of the most amazing aspects of ancient Egypt.

From arts and entertainment, to religion and law, all the way to war and science - we will delve deeper into the most astonishing achievements of one of the world’s most amazing ancient civilization. Of course, it is difficult to put 3 millennia into a single article, but it should be enough to give you an idea that there are a lot of truly interesting facts about ancient Egypt, and that it definitely bears a passionate study.

The Pantheon

One of the most astonishing features of the ancient Egyptian civilization is their pantheon and in particular, the sheer amount of diverse deities and beings - today we know more than 1,500 of them by name.

Ancient Egyptian gods (Amun-Ra and goddess Mut can be seen to the right) and pharaohs found in the Khonsu Temple.

(kairoinfo4u / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

The Egyptian deities were closely entwined with the daily lives of the people, and were often the personification of everyday items, occurrences and natural phenomena. Moreover, they were for the most part the personification of animals that dominated the valleys of the Nile. And the minor deities were usually connected to seemingly trivial, everyday things.

The Mummification

Another unique and interesting fact about the ancient Egyptians is this astonishing part of their burial rites, mummification. Almost all of their burial practices and rites were connected to the belief in immortality. In the earliest days, the mummification was natural - bodies were desiccated by the harsh desert environment.

But as time went on, the mummification process became elaborate and to an extent artificial. Preservation of the bodies was often reserved for the wealthiest individuals, and involved organ removal, covering in natron salts and linen wrapping. The process took 70 days in its most advanced state.

Ancient Egyptian mummy.

( Jaroslav Moravcik / Adobe stock)

The Age

The very age of the ancient Egyptian civilization and the timeline in which it spanned is a fact worthy of mention and awe. With its Early Dynastic Period having generally emerged around ~3000 BC, and the dynastic periods on the whole ending with Cleopatra in 30 BC, the age of this civilization came close to 3 millennia. And that in itself is incredible. It shows us the power and the importance of Egypt, and how it managed to persevere, for such a long time, through superiority and advanced technologies.

The Pyramids
Everyone knows about the pyramids - the immortal heritage of ancient Egypt. These immense structures of stacked stone served as royal burial chambers, and exuded a great sense of power and royalty. Even today, the pyramids continue to baffle all visitors. They perfectly display the wealth and the sheer power of the ancient Egyptians and their industry, as well as a clear emphasis of their belief in afterlife. Here is another pyramid-related fact: Did you know that it took around 10,000 workers close to 30 years to build a single pyramid?

The Pyramids of Giza and the Sphynx in Egypt.

( merydolla / Adobe stock)

The Medicine

Some of the earliest medicinal advancements came from ancient Egypt. Surviving hieroglyphic writings detail some of the techniques and methods used in treating wounds and illnesses. Furthermore, some of the earliest medicinal specializations appeared in Egypt, with certain doctors focusing only on certain types of afflictions.

Amputation was common, as was wound stitching and infection prevention. Also, some of the oldest artificial limbs appeared in Egypt, where wooden carvings replaced amputated limbs. Although primitive by modern standards, medicine in Egypt was highly developed for its time and covered a broad area of expertise.

The Mathematics 

Even in the Pre-Dynastic period in Egypt, early mathematical calculations appeared - with a fully functional numerical system. Four basic mathematical operations were well known to the Egyptians - addition, multiplication, division and subtraction. Alongside basic knowledge of algebra and geometry, fractions, volume and area calculation.

They also had knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem - in their own way - and their buildings usually displayed the golden ratio. Today, there are several surviving mathematical papyrus scripts, including the famous ‘ Rhind Mathematical Papyrus ’, and the astronomical chart of Senemut’s tomb.

The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus.

(The British Museum /  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )

The Writing

The Egyptians were well known for their writing system - the hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic writing goes back as far as 3000 BC, and it consisted of several hundred symbols. But did you know that the hieroglyphs were not the only form of writing in ancient Egypt? They were usually only used in a formal way - as inscriptions on tombs and monuments.

But in fact, there was a simpler script, called hieratic, a cursive version, which was used in everyday situations, by scribes, priests and officials. It was much simpler and faster to write than the hieroglyphs. It was dominant until roughly 1000 BC, when the demotic script took over, perhaps an even simpler script.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic carvings.

( mikolajn / Adobe stock)

The Earliest Peace

The fact that the earliest peace treaty in history was made by the Egyptians is also very important and needs to be on our list. This treaty dates to around 1259 BC, and was made between the Egyptians and the Hittites, after almost two centuries of conflict and enmity. At that time, both sides had ample reasons to cease conflicts and sue for peace, since the Egyptians were under threat from the infamous ‘Sea Peoples’, and the Hittites from the encroaching Assyrian Empire. Both versions of the treaty text survive to this day, fully translated. This peace treaty is known as the Eternal Peace.

The Faience

Did you know that the Egyptians developed a unique style of ceramic that was known as faience? This was a sintered quartz ceramic that displayed vitrification, meaning it had a bright luster of several colors, mostly blue and green. This is somewhat similar to glazing, and was used in all forms of ceramic ware, from ornaments to jewelry and to monuments. It was also widely exported throughout the ancient world, and built locally throughout Egypt. It is often described as the first high technology ceramic, and today survives in numerous archaeological finds.

The Shipbuilding

Even by 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians had mastered fully their shipbuilding techniques. They used these both for sailing up and down the Nile - which was an immense part of their economy, and also for seafaring trade with neighboring nations. In their earliest form these were plank ships, but they developed steadily into unique barges and transport vessels.

Egyptians mastered the use of trennels (wooden pegs for connection) and also the use of pitch for caulking. Mortise and tenon joints were also used, showing their understanding and mastery of woodworking. The most famous fully intact surviving ancient Egyptian ship is the ‘ Khufu Ship ’, found sealed in the Pyramid of Giza. It measures almost 44 meters in length (143 feet).

The magnificent Boat of Khufu, Solar Boat Museum, Giza, Egypt.

(David Berkowitz / CC BY 2.0 )

The Military

There is a reason why the Egyptians managed to dominate the ancient Near East and create a vast realm for such a long time. And this reason was their skilled military. For the most part the soldiers were trained civilians from the general populace, but over time, many mercenaries also filled the ranks. These came from Nubia, Libya, Kush and other places.

The Egyptian military relied on the use of bows and arrows, but also on use of shields, spears, and unique khopesh swords. They were also well known for their use of war chariots, which they adopted from their Hyksos enemies.

The Diet

You might be surprised to know one unique fact about the Egyptian diet - it was simple. Most commonly it consisted of bread and beer, and also great amounts of vegetables - mainly onion and garlic, which the Egyptians believed was highly beneficial to health. Dates, figs, carobs and other fruits were also common.

For the common folk, meat was reserved mostly for festivities, while the upper classes had it more often. Fish and fowl were common foods, especially with the proximity of the Nile. Interestingly, Egyptian beer was the most common, staple part of their diet - consumed daily and often. But don’t be mistaken, it was far from today’s beer. It was rich and nutritious, quite similar to a mash or gruel.

Representation of Ancient Egyptians brewing beer.

( Mary Harrsch / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

The Entertainment

Contrary to popular belief, the ancient Egyptians really knew how to have fun. They enjoyed music greatly, and mastered the use of cymbals, tambourines, drums and bells, while importing other instruments from afar, such as lutes and lyres. They also had their iconic sistrum instrument, which was like no other, and closely resembled a rattle.

Other than music, the Egyptians enjoyed boardgames. Many different types are known today, such as senet and mehen, which are boardgames where pawns were moved about. Another highly unique boardgame was “Hounds and Jackals,” which spread from Egypt to many far places. Did you know that senet is one of the oldest known board games?

Faience senet board and playing pieces inscribed with the name of Amunhotep III. Reportedly from Thebes, and possibly from his tomb.

(Keith Schengili-Roberts / GNU Free Documentation License )

The Literature

Even though the early Egyptian writings were the inscriptions from tombs and monuments, dealing with religious aspects and afterlife, later on they became more complex, and slowly Egyptian literature began to develop. A sort of autobiographical writing became popular, and was incised on tomb walls. Another unique genre of ancient literature was developed, and was known as Sebayt (teachings, instructions), which documented ethical teachings for a true way of living.

One of the finest examples of ancient Egyptian literature is known as the Story of Sinuhe , written around 1800 BC. Its author is unknown, but is widely heralded as the “Egyptian Shakespeare.” The work is written in a form of verse, and can be performed as well. It survived in numerous fragments, which tells us that it was extremely popular in its time.

“Does a lowly man become loved when fate makes him a master? Does a marsh-reed flourish on the mountain-side?”

Ostracon CG 25216, one of the biggest ostracon ever found. Found in 1886 in the tomb of Sennedjem (Deir el-Medina, Tomb Nr. 1), today in the Egyptian Museum Cairo, it is broken into two pieces, one side contains the Story of Sinuhe and the other a private letter.

(Georges Daressy / Public domain )

The Law

One important fact about the ancient Egyptians is that they had a well-developed legal system. At its head was usually the ruler - a pharaoh - who brought new laws, ensured order, and delivered justice. In all court cases that dealt with minor disputes and offenses, a special council of elders presided - it was known as kenbet. And when the cases were serious, a great kenbet presided, at whose head was the pharaoh.

A key part of this system was the scribes. They kept all records, assessed taxes and dealt with administration. Around the coming of the New Kingdom, oracles began to play a major role in the legal system. At this time, the gods were asked for justice, where an effigy of a god had to give an answer - yes or no - through various orchestrated means.

• Cleopatra’s Perfume Recreated – A Scent That Once Masked The Odor Of Sour Donkey Milk!
• Walk Like An Egyptian… Scientists Preserve Modern Human Leg using Ancient Egyptian Methods
• Ancient Egyptian Egg Ovens That Are Better Than Modern Tech

Dreaming of Ancient Times

And thus ends our short list of 15 interesting facts about ancient Egypt. There is no doubt that this magnificent civilization truly left enormous marks on our world, and that they have remained even to this day. The tales of this era in history can keep us occupied for days on end, and the sheer amount of archaeological wonders will continue to intrigue us for generations to come. Because we are often unaware at just how advanced and marvelous these ancient people truly were - all those millenniums before us.

• Top image: Top 15 interesting facts about ancient Egypt.            Source: Maurizio / Adobe stock

By Aleksa Vučković

{  "Ancient Origins" }

07-04-2020 om 23:56 geschreven door peter