25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters - PART II

The fossil record is filled with strange marine animals that would look like sea monsters if they were alive today.

From the creepiest Cambrian critters to massive marine reptiles, wonderfully weird sea creatures have inhabited our oceans for over half a billion years. We've put together a list of 25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters ever to have lived, all of which went extinct long before humans came along.

The only reason we know that these evolutionary marvels existed is because some left behind fossilized remains in rocks. Modern researchers are still interpreting these fossils and making fresh discoveries all the time, so be sure to keep up with the latest Live Science fossil news.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

14-04-2023 om 00:22 geschreven door peter  

25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters - PART I

13-04-2023 om 23:55 geschreven door peter  

NATHAN FALDE

Submerged Secrets: Sunken Nabatean Temple Discovered Off Italian Coast

Underwater archaeologists searching just off the western Mediterranean coast of the city of Pozzuoli in central Italy discovered the remains of a submerged 2,000-year-old Nabatean temple dedicated to their god Dushara. What they found specifically were two Roman marble altars, which linked the temple to the period when Nabataeans were living freely on the Phlegrean Peninsula 125 miles (200 km) south of Italy’s capital city, in territory fully controlled by the Roman Empire. 

The Nabataeans were an Arab tribal group who lived as wandering nomads in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula in the first few centuries of the first millennium. But once they’d formed enough alliances among themselves to establish their own kingdom, they began to settle down and devote themselves to trade and commerce.

The Nabataean Kingdom formed a voluntary alliance with Rome in the late first century BC, officially launching an association that would last for the next several centuries (although the Nabataeans lost their independence to the Roman Empire in the early second century).

READ ALSO

It is known that a thriving community of Nabataeans could be found in the now submerged ancient city of Puteoli, which was located adjacent to modern-day Pozzuoli. During Rome’s Imperial era the Nabataean Kingdom chose to establish a base of operations on the Italian coast, and Puteoli was most attractive to these trade-minded people because it was the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean.

The discovery of the religious complex in the sunken ruins of old Puteoli helps verify that the Nabataeans continued to honor their god Dushara once they’d settled on Roman territory, at least for a time.

The ancient Macellum or market building of the Roman city of Puteoli, where a Nabatean temple has been discovered under the sea.

( Maurizio De Mattei / Adobe Stock)

The Origins and History of the Nabataeans

The Nabataeans first emerged as an identifiable people with an advanced culture between the fourth and second centuries BC. They’d lived in the desert areas of Arabia and the southern Levant for several centuries before this, surviving as an untamed nomadic group that somehow thrived in an impossibly arid environment.

They were known to, and had interactions with, both the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the first millennium BC. But they were not conquered by either of these kingdoms, protected as they were by an inhospitable desert where others feared to tread.

As they began to increase in population in the third century BC, they formed a loose confederation of various groups that ultimately became the Nabataean Kingdom . This kingdom, which grew prosperous through the vigorous trade networks it created and nurtured in the region, eventually extended its range of control and influence throughout the Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas and deeply into the Levant. Its capital Petra was located in what is now southern Jordan, and that city’s population grew to over 20,000 as a consequence of its development into a major regional trading center.

The Nabataeans were known for their fierceness and determination to remain independent, and they proved to be a tough opponent to defeat in battle. While they initially clashed with the Romans, by the first century AD they’d formed a strong alliance with the Roman Empire, which boosted their commercial prospects and made them more prosperous than ever.

Unfortunately, the Romans proved to be a treacherous ally in the long run. In 106 AD the Roman emperor Trajan sent his armies in to annex all Nabataean Kingdom lands, which he was able to do because the Nabataeans had become less warlike and nomadic, and more settled and focused on agricultural and commercial development, over the past three centuries.

Statue of Dushara, who the Nabateans worshiped.

Credit: Wikipedia - Public Domain

For the first time in 1,000 years, the Nabataean people were no longer independent. Their cultural practices were profoundly impacted by Roman influence from that point on, so much so that they first abandoned their language in favor of Greek, and later rejected Dushara completely when they converted to Christianity.

The Nabateans gained a reputation as a gifted and talented people, with a rich culture and the skills necessary to produce a bounty of attractive goods for trading. Their painted ceramic pottery was especially prized, and was distributed all throughout the region along the trade routes they’d set up. Even after their lands had been seized by Trajan and their kingdom had been turned into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea , the Nabateans continued to dominate trade in the region.

Remains of the Nabatean temple which was discovered underwater in ancient Puteoli.

( The Ministry of Culture of Italy )

Puteoli’s Nabatean Temple: A Legacy Discovered Beneath the Sea

The discovery of the Roman marble altars represents the culmination of a joint archaeological research project that began in late 2021. Underwater archaeologists from two universities in Naples (the University of Campania Vanvitelli and Scuola Superiore Meridionale), supported by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of Naples, have now been searching for artifacts from Roman times in the sunken city of Puteoli ever since.

The latest discovery represents their most exciting find yet. “Ancient Puteoli reveals another of its treasures, which testifies to the richness and vastness of commercial, cultural and religious exchanges in the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world,” declared Italy’s Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, in an announcement of the discovery of the Nabataean temple put out by his agency. 

This is not the first evidence of the Nabataean presence in Puteoli that has been found. In the 18th century, searchers found an altar and two cult bases while exploring the underwater ruins of the submerged city.

On the bases they found an inscription that identified the site as “Holy to Dushara.” This deity was exclusively worshipped by the Nabataeans, which revealed the truth about their presence in the ancient Roman port city. Further confirmation of Nabataean residency was discovered at around the same time, when archaeologists unearthed a large bust of Dushara near Pozzuoli.

READ ALSO

Underwater ruins believed to have belonged to a Nabataean temple were initially spotted in aerial photographs taken in the 1970s. But only with this new discovery has it been possible to place the temple at a precise location in the sunken city, showing where exactly people congregated to worship a god that no other people recognized.

In addition to pinning down the true location of the underwater Nabataean temple, the latest explorations have also enabled the identification of other structures dating to Roman times. This includes warehouses, administrative buildings, smaller structures that served unknown purposes and the axes of roads built inside Puteoli. Conceivably, more Nabataean ruins could be located in the same general area. If they are, future explorations will undoubtedly find them.

• Top image: Underwater archaeologists during excavations of the sunken Nabatean temple.
• Source: The Ministry of Culture of Italy

By Nathan Falde

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

13-04-2023 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

Apocalypse 536 AD: The Catastrophic Event That Plunged the World into Darkness (Video)

In the year 536 AD, a mysterious event plunged the world into darkness for a year and a half. Constantinople writers of the time described the sun as dimmed and blotted out, causing crop failures, famine, and social upheaval across the globe.

Recent research suggests that a massive volcanic eruption , or series of simultaneous eruptions may have caused the catastrophic event, which created a volcanic winter and drastically changed the Earth's climate. The event is suggested to have been everything from the collapse of empires to the Plague of Justinian. However, the source of the eruption remains unknown, leaving scientists to unravel the mystery of one of the most significant environmental events in human history.

• Top image: Apocalypse landscape.
• Source: ErenMotion / Adobe Stock.

By Robbie Mitchell

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

12-04-2023 om 01:55 geschreven door peter  

The mysterious pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan: “Technology from another world”

Zack White

Most people don’t know that near the famous trio of pyramids in Giza, Egypt, there are two other pyramids of which only their foundations remain.

One of them is called the unfinished North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan, almost 5 km southeast of Giza; the other, smaller, is called Layer Pyramid.

Archaeologists think that they are unfinished pyramids, but at UfoSpain we believe that they were actually destroyed a long time ago.

We looked on the internet for information about the unfinished North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan, and found that the information was often wrong and misleading.

The pyramid is not unfinished, the underground structure is not a burial chamber or tomb, and the granite bathtub they found is not a sarcophagus.

We always like to go to the original source, which, in this case, is the Italian archaeologist Alessandro Barsanti, who found the remains of the pyramid in the early 1900s and began excavating in 1904.

His original report, in the French language, contains descriptions of the underground corridors, the chamber, and the curious oval bathtub. His description of this stone vat and how it was sealed and protected is truly remarkable.

Although Barsanti was impressed by the high quality of the stone work of the descending shaft and the open room at the bottom, no one else investigated this monument.

Since 1964, the pyramid has been placed in a restricted military area, and further excavation is prohibited.

The entire base of the North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan is cut from the local limestone rock. Its base is 200 meters, which would make it almost as tall as the Great Pyramid of Giza. A large descending tree was cut from this rock leading to an underground chamber.

Archaeologists still attribute this interior space to a funerary function, where the pharaoh was supposed to be buried, despite the fact that all the stone chests (other than sarcophagi) found in the pyramids were empty, and all the pharaohs and aristocrats They were buried in the Valley of the Kings.

As some researchers have pointed out, the construction of the pyramids and their interior design show that they were technological devices intended to harvest energy, from the earth and the cosmos, and to use this energy probably for multiple purposes.

Some people say that the pyramid builders (in Atlantean times) used liquids and gases inside the pyramids, which is interesting because of the granite vat found at the base of Zawyet El Aryan’s North Pyramid. .

Others say that the underground veins of water produced electricity and sound vibrations that were amplified by the construction of the pyramid.

At this time we don’t know for sure how the pyramids worked because the Atlanteans used a very different technology, and the remains were ruined.

Yes, most of the pyramids were built over twelve thousand years ago during the Atlantean period. After their disappearance and the destruction of the coastal lands by huge tsunamis, much of what was in Egypt was left in ruins.

After several thousand years, the dynastic Egyptians settled there, adopting the pyramids and all that they found, into their own culture.

For example, we see that some of the dynastic temples, built with small stones, were built on large blocks of stone weighing several tons, which were the remaining base of the Atlantean buildings.

What has also been pointed out is that at one point, probably when the Atlantean civilization came to a catastrophic end, there was a malfunction in the pyramid technology and explosions occurred.

There are other nearby pyramids that show signs of explosive destruction with stone blocks scattered around them. One of them is the Bent Pyramid of Dashur, which has one corner dismantled as if by an explosion.

The northern pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan may also have been blown up, as many stones were found scattered around it.

The reason why only the base remains today is easy. In the last thousands of years, people nearby have used the stones to build their own houses.

Why go stone mining, when you can use already cut stones from old monuments? Apparently, when the Roman Empire occupied Upper Egypt, they used this monument as a stone quarry.

Even in recent times, the stones were used by the local population as building materials.

What remains today of the North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan, however, is still very interesting, complete with a mystery that also hints at unusual and ancient technology.

Italian archaeologist Alessandro Barsanti began excavating the underground structure of the North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan in 1904. He was the only one to ever examine this structure.

He left us some very interesting descriptions. The original report of him was published in the Annales del Service des Antiquités de Egypte, tome VII , of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire , in 1906.

Although not much remains of the North Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan, we can point out some characteristics that make it not a tomb but a technological construction, the purpose of which is still unknown.

The bathtub is the most interesting of all. Why cut it out of one of the granite blocks of the pavement? It had a perfectly fitted granite top on top, and was polished like a mirror on the inside.

These features create a very strong link to the Serapeum’s underground granite coffers. These oversized chests, also mislabeled tomb ( for the bulls! )..

They had perfectly fitting tops, and their inside walls were not only level to a fraction of an inch and at perfect ninety degree angles, they were also polished like a mirror.

By the way, the Serapeum arks cannot be manufactured or duplicated by our modern technology.

So why was it necessary for the bathtub to have a smooth interior mirror? And why was it oval, which is more difficult to make than a simple rectangular box?

We imagine that it was after the destruction of the pyramid (by an explosion), that the caretakers sealed the tub with a layer of lime and limestone blocks.

They could also have filled the chamber and corridor with stones and rubble. It is quite possible that these people did not ultimately survive the catastrophe, and the vat thus sealed remained so until Barsanti discovered it again.

There could be more underground passages yet to be discovered, as Barsanti noted that after heavy rain, “the shaft was flooded to a height of three meters. Around midnight, the water dropped abruptly by about a meter.”

We can only explain this phenomenon by assuming that it is submerged in an underground tunnel, large enough to hold 380 cubic meters of water.

One wonders why the Egyptian authorities are not interested in further excavations. They are always eager to discover a hidden tomb full of treasures..

Oh! And why was he placed in a military zone? There are still many mysteries to be solved. What do you think? Leave your comment below.

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{ https://mysteriousociety.com/category/mystery }

10-04-2023 om 23:14 geschreven door peter  

Did You Know That Baboons Were Trained in Ancient Egypt to Catch Criminals?

The ancient Egyptians were renowned for their worship of animals, and one of these was the baboon. In ancient Egyptian mythology, baboons are best known for their association with Thoth, the god of wisdom. In addition to their role in mythology, baboons also had a place in the society of ancient Egypt. They are commonly known to have been kept as pets, and mummified remains of these creatures have been discovered by archaeologists. In addition, baboons (or monkeys) have also been shown in Egyptian art to be participating in various human activities, including dancing and playing musical instruments, picking fruit, making wine and beer, and even catching criminals.

Baboons… bearing baboons.

(Karen Green/ CC BY SA 2.0 )

Connection to the Gods

During the Old Kingdom, Hamadryas baboons ( P. hamadryas ) and olive baboons ( P. anubis ) could still be found in the southern parts of Upper Egypt. By the time of the Middle Kingdom, however, it is likely that these animals were no longer indigenous to Egypt. During the New Kingdom, there is evidence that baboons were being imported from the south, either from Nubia, or from the land of Punt.

During the Pre-Dynastic period , a certain god by the name of Baba / Babi was worshipped. The name of this god may be translated as ‘Bull of the Baboons’, and it was depicted as a baboon. It has been postulated that this may be the origin of the word ‘baboon’ itself. By the time of the Old Kingdom, however, the baboon became connected with Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom. The association between the baboon and the god of wisdom was made perhaps because the former was perceived to be an intelligent animal.

• Baboon Sounds May Hold the Key to Understanding the Formation of Human Language
• Why Were Baboons Inscribed on the Walls of This Newly-Discovered Egyptian Tomb?
• The Veneration and Worship of Felines in Ancient Egypt

As Thoth was the patron god of scribes, baboons, being his sacred animal, have often been depicted alongside people of this profession. Thoth was also believed to be a lunar god, and because of that, baboons are sometimes depicted with a crescent moon on their heads. This, in turn, may have led to the association of the baboon with another moon god, Khonsu. This is evident at the Temple of Khonsu in Thebes, where statues of the god in his baboon form can be found in front of the temple complex.

Thoth as a baboon. Offered by a man named Horhetep. Ptolemaic Egypt, circa 332-30 BC Faience, gold and silver.

( CC BY SA 3.0 )

Yet another god linked with baboons is Re, the sun god. The ancient Egyptians observed that baboons would bark at the rising sun, and this was turned into images of baboons with raised arms in the act of worshipping the sun. Lastly, one of the Four Sons of Horus, Hapy, is believed to have had a baboon head. This god was in charge of protecting the lungs of deceased individuals.

Wall relief of Ramses III and baboons, mortuary temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu, Theban Necropolis, Egypt.

(Rémih/ CC BY SA 3.0 )

Special Roles of Baboons in Egyptian Society

As sacred animals, baboons were kept in temples, and cared for by their priests. Nevertheless, they were also kept as pets by those who could afford them, though for largely ritualistic purposes. Still, such pets were not always treated well by their owners. In Hierakonpolis, for instance, archaeologists have discovered a cemetery with the remains of various animals, including baboons, that were once kept as pets. The bones of the baboons suggest that they had been beaten repeatedly whilst they were alive. This cemetery is about 5000 years old, and dates to the end of the Pre-Dynastic period / the beginning of the Early Dynastic period. Therefore, it has been suggested that at this point of time, the ancient Egyptians were only beginning to learn how to keep animals as pets, and the beatings were meant to keep the baboons in line. As the Egyptians became better handlers, fewer beatings were administered to their pets, as seen in the remains of baboons from later periods.  

• Decapitating Demons May Be the Oldest Fearsome Entities of Ancient Egypt
• Ancient pet cemetery and ship hull uncovered at Red Sea port
• Does Oldest Written Text Reveal a 30,000 year old Cult that Worshipped the Prediction of Eclipses?

Top: Monkey climbing in a fruited-palm tree, and master(?)

( CC BY SA 2.0 )

Bottom: Pottery shard showing a monkey scratching a girl's nose. 20th Dynasty.

( CC BY SA 4.0 )

In some works of ancient Egyptian art, baboons (or monkeys) are shown engaging in human activities. Some of these, like harvesting fruits from tall trees, could be plausible. In some parts of the world, monkeys are known to be trained to harvest fruits. In a tomb from the 12th Dynasty, baboons are even shown to be competing with humans for the collection of fruit.

Kohl box featuring a monkey holding a palm tree.

( CC BY SA 2.0 )

Other baboon jobs, such as helping with alcohol production or rigging boats, seem a little more fantastical. Nevertheless, given that baboons were considered to be intelligent animals, it would not then be too surprising if the ancient Egyptians imagined baboons could do such activities.

• Top image: A trained baboon catches a thief.
• Source: nilo.one

By Wu Mingren

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

08-04-2023 om 22:32 geschreven door peter  

Six Ancient Maps that should not exist according to mainstream Scholars

Numerous maps have been discovered throughout history that even today remain as an enigma to scholars and skeptics. While most of us are familiar with the work of Piri Reis and his maps, he isn’t the only one to have created charts that remain a mystery to history.

Maps like the one by Piri Reis have been validated by scholars who remain baffled and cannot explain their precision and level of detail. Some of them were created as if somehow, someone was able to see the land from the air before drawing the charts… But remember, some of these maps are thousands of years old, and one, in particular, is even older.

As you go through all of these maps you have to ask yourself just how were these maps made? How is it possible that they display features that were unknown to man according to mainstream history…?

We start off with one of the most enigmatic maps ever discovered…

1. The map of the Creator

The Dashka stone or Map of the Creator is, in fact, a giant stone tablet of unknown origin, discovered in the village of Chandra in Bashkortostan, Russian Federation. What is particularly interesting about this map is its age. According to researchers, the Dashka Stone is believed to be 120 million years old and is a highly detailed map of a specific area of the Ural Mountains, Bashkiria, which has not changed significantly in millions of years. This ancient map is depicted on a scale 1: 1.1 km.

2. The Piri Reis Map

Another incredible map that according to many should not exist. The Piri Reis map is supposedly a collection of even older maps, displaying the correct coastline of Antarctica as it was under the ice. The map was composed around 1520 and in addition to displaying Antarctica without ice, it accurately depicts the geography of the American Continent with such a precision that it looks as if it was put together with the aid of aerial photography. The perfection and details displayed on the map have been the subject of debate for years among scholars who cannot understand nor explain how this map even exists.

Interestingly, this map was examined by the US Hydrographic Office of the Navy, where its authenticity was confirmed. The map was proven genuine and is so accurate that it was purportedly used to correct errors in some modern maps. The geographical information contained in the map indicates that some of its source material date back more than 5,000 years.

The US Airforce was contacted in 1960 by Professor Charles Hapgood, of Keene College who asked them to review the map and its details. This was their response:

8 RECONNAISSANCE TEC

HNICAL SQUADRON (SAC)
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
WESTOVER AIR FORCE BASE
MASSACHUSETTS

REPLY TO ATTN OF: RTC

6, JULY, 1960

SUBJECT: ADMIRAL PIRI REIS WORLD MAP

TO: PROF. CHARLES H. HAPGOOD
KEENE TEACHERS COLLEGE
KEENE, NEW HAMPSHIRE

DEAR PROFESSOR HAPGOOD,

YOUR REQUEST FOR EVALUATION OF CERTAIN UNUSUAL FEATURES OF THE PIRI REIS WORLD MAP OF 1513 BY THIS ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN REVIEWED.

THE CLAIM THAT THE LOWER PART OF THE MAP PORTRAYS THE PRINCESS MARTHA COAST OF QUEEN MAUD LAND ANTARCTIC, AND THE PALMER PENINSULA IS REASONABLE. WE FIND THAT THIS IS THE MOST LOGICAL AND IN ALL PROBABILITY THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF THE MAP.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DETAIL SHOWN IN THE LOWER PART OF THE MAP AGREES VERY REMARKABLY WITH THE RESULTS OF THE SEISMIC PROFILE MADE ACROSS THE TOP OF THE ICE CAP BY THE SWEDISH-BRITISH-NORWEGIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION OF 1949.

THIS INDICATES THE COASTLINE HAD BEEN MAPPED BEFORE IT WAS COVERED BY THE ICE-CAP.

THE ICE-CAP IN THIS REGION IS NOW ABOUT A MILE THICK. WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DATA ON THIS MAP CAN BE RECONCILED WITH THE SUPPOSED STATE OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE IN 1513.

HAROLD Z. OHLMEYER
LT. COLONEL, USAF
COMMANDER

(SOURCE)

Shortly after, another interesting letter was sent by the USAF:

8 RECONNAISSANCE TECHNICAL SQUADRON (SAC)
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
WESTOVER AIR FORCE BASE, MASS.

14 AUG 61

MR. CHARLES H. HAPGOOD
KEENE TEACHERS COLLEGE
KEENE, N.H.

DEAR PROFESSOR HAPGOOD:

IT IS NOT VERY OFTEN THAT WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO EVALUATE MAPS OF ANCIENT ORIGIN. THE PIRI REIS (1513) AND ORONTEUS FINEAUS [SIC] (1531) MAPS SENT TO US BY YOU, PRESENTED A DELIGHTFUL CHALLENGE, FOR IT WAS NOT READILY CONCEIVABLE THAT THEY COULD BE SO ACCURATE WITHOUT BEING FORGED. WITH ADDED ENTHUSIASM WE ACCEPTED THIS CHALLENGE AND HAVE EXPENDED MANY OFF DUTY HOURS EVALUATING YOUR MANUSCRIPT AND THE ABOVE MAPS. I AM SURE YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO KNOW WE HAVE CONCLUDED THAT BOTH OF THESE MAPS WERE COMPILED FROM ACCURATE ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS, IRRESPECTIVE OF DATES. THE FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF SUMMARY OF OUR FINDINGS:

1. The solution of the portolano projection used by Admiral Piri Reis, developed by your class in Anthropology, must be very nearly correct; for when known geographical locations are checked in relationship to the grid computed by Mr. Richard W. Strachan (MIT), there is remarkably close agreement. Piri Reis’ use of the portolano projection (centered on Syene, Egypt) was an excellent choice, for it is a developable surface that would permit the relative size and shape of the earth (at that latitude) to be retained. It is our opinion that those who compiled the original map had an excellent knowledge of the continents covered by this map.
2. As stated by Colonel Harold Z. Ohlmeyer in his letter (July 6, 1960) to you, the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Laud, Antarctica, appears to be truly represented on the southern sector of the Piri Reis map. The agreement of the Piri Reis Map with the seismic profile of this area made by the Norwegian-British-Swedish Expedition of 1949, supported by your solution of the grid, places beyond a reasonable doubt the conclusion that the original source maps must have been made before the present Antarctic ice cap covered the Queen Maud Land coasts.
3. It is our opinion that the accuracy of the cartographic features shown in the Oronteus Fineaus [sic] Map (1531) suggests, beyond a doubt, that it also was compiled from accurate source maps of Antarctica, but in this case of the entire continent. Close examination has proved the original source maps must have been compiled at a time when the land mass and inland waterways of the continent were relatively free of ice. This conclusion is further supported by a comparison of the Oronteus Fineaus [sic] Map with the results obtained by International Geophysical Year teams in their measurements of the subglacial topgraphy. The comparison also suggests that the original source maps (compiled in remote antiquity) were prepared when Antarctica was presumably free of ice. The Cordiform Projection used by Oronteus Fineaus [sic] suggests the use of advanced mathematics. Further, the shape given to the Antarctic continent suggests the possibility, if not the probability, that the original source maps were compiled on a stereographic or gnomic type of projection (involving the use of spherical trigonometry).
4. We are convinced that the findings made by you and your associates are valid, and that they raise extremely important questions affecting geology and ancient history, questions which certainly require further investigation.

WE THANK YOU FOR EXTENDING US THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN THE STUDY OF THESE MAPS. THE FOLLOWING OFFICERS AND AIRMEN VOLUNTEERED THEIR TIME TO ASSIST CAPTAIN LORENZO W. BURROUGHS IN THIS EVALUATION: CAPTAIN RICHARD E. COVAULT, CWO HOWARD D. MINOR, MSGT CLIFTON M. DOVER, MSGT DAVID C. CARTER, TSGT JAMES H. HOOD, SSGT JAMES L. CARROLL, AND A1C DON R. VANCE.

LORENZO W. BURROUGHS
CAPTAIN, USAF
CHIEF, CARTOGRAPHIC SECTION
8TH RECONNAISSANCE TECHNICAL SQDN (SAC)
WESTOVER AIR FORCE BASE, MASSACHUSETTS

(SOURCE)

3. The Zeno Map was drawn circa 1380

This incredible map that predates the Piri Reis map outlines the coast of modern-day Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and Germany. In addition to that, the Zeno maps just happen to include the exact longitude and latitude of a number of islands. Why is this important? Well, it is because in order to determine longitude you would need to use a chronometer, a device that was invented in 1765. Even more incredibly, the Zeno Map appear to depict the topography of modern-day Greenland free of glaciers which means that someone had to have seen Greenland prior to the ice age. This map is one of the most enigmatic discoveries which make you question nearly everything you have been told about history as we know it.

But there are more maps that are equally shocking as the ones mentioned above

4. Iehudi Ibn ben Zara map

Drawn somewhere around 1487, the Iehudi Ibn ben Zara map shows certain regions of Britain covered in Glaciers. The map also displays islands in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. These islands exist still today, only underwater.

5. Hamy King Char

Another incredible map drawn in 1502 shows northern Siberian Rivers emptying into the Arctic Ocean. This enigmatic chart happens to depict the ancient Suez Canal and numerous Asian Islands that are now joined to land.

6. The King Jaime World Chart

Another map that is completely baffling is the King Jaime World Chart which depicts the Sahara desert as a fertile land with huge lakes, rivers, and cities. We know that in the distant past, the Sahara was one of the most fertile regions on Earth.

As you can see, there are several maps that point towards a very different story about the past of mankind than what mainstream books are telling us.

The above-mentioned maps are evidence that suggest many things. First of all, it would mean that in the distant past, somehow, someone organized a giant effort to perform a global survey of our planet. The above-mentioned maps are most likely result of that survey. Ancient mankind most likely used advanced instruments that allowed them to measure latitude and longitude thousands of years ago. This points to the existence of know lost advanced ancient technology. In addition to the instruments and efforts, it is very likely that ‘prehistoric people’ were much more advanced than what mainstream scholars believe. These ancient peoples used sophisticated formulas of trigonometry and mathematical measurements which allowed them to accurately depict, on maps, certain areas of our planet. But perhaps what is most important of all of the above, is the fact that ancient mankind knew, thousands of years ago the correct shape and size of planet Earth.

• Updated to properly source the content 11/18/2015
• Source Source and A BIG THANKS to our Facebook fan Justin Neddo for his contribution

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{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

08-04-2023 om 20:43 geschreven door peter  

Voices of Ancestors: Listen to the Sound of 14 Ancient Languages (Video)

Language is a powerful tool that allows us to communicate with one another across time and space. Through language, we are able to share our stories, our ideas, and our cultures with others. In this fascinating video, we are transported back in time to hear the sounds of 14 ancient languages spoken once again. From the Ancient Egyptians to the Sumerians, Aztecs, Celts, and Vikings, these languages are a window into the past and offer us a glimpse of the cultures and societies that once existed. While many of these languages have long since disappeared, hearing them spoken again brings to life the imagined voices of our ancestors.

• Top image: Mesoamerican warrior.
• Source: Art Gallery / Adobe Stock.

By Joanna Gillan

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

08-04-2023 om 01:44 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Map Emerges at the Dawn of the Egyptian Civilization and Depicts Antarctica Without Ice – Who Made it?

On a chilly winter day in 1929, Halil Edhem, the Director of Turkey's National Museum, was hunched over his solitary task of classifying documents.  He pulled towards him a map drawn on Roe deer skin. As Halil opened the chart to its full dimensions (two feet by three feet wide or 60 X 90 cm) he was surprised by how much of the New World was depicted on a map which dated from 1513.

The document was the legacy of a pirate turned Turkish Admiral, Piri Reis ( circa 1470-1554). He was born in Gallipoli, a naval base on the Marmara Sea and was the nephew of Kemal Reis, a pirate who had reinvented himself as a Turkish Admiral adventurer who had made his name in naval warfare. At the time, the distinction between pirate and Admiral was more flexible than might be expected from looking back through a Hollywood lens. 

Map of the world by Ottoman admiral Piri Reis, drawn in 1513.

( Public Domain )

Piri Reis sailed with his famous uncle from 1487 to 1493. During these voyages, he was introduced to the lucrative spoils of piracy. The fleet fought pirates and captured and plundered enemy ships. In 1495, Kemal Reis’ great skill in the art of battle earned him an invitation to join the Imperial Turkish Fleet. His nephew accompanied him to his new assignment. The pirates were transformed into respectable Admirals.

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After Kemal was killed during a naval battle in 1502 Piri Reis turned his back on the seafaring life and began a second career as a map maker. A perfectionist - Piri Reis would not tolerate the slightest error in his drawings - he created his famous map in 1513 using older source maps; including charts captured from Christopher Columbus. The Turks had boarded one of Columbus’s ships before the crew had a chance to throw the charts into the sea; standard practice in a time when the contours of the planet remained veiled in mystery and maps held secrets that were invaluable to pirates, admirals, kings and queens.

‘Christopher Columbus on Santa Maria in 1492’ (1855) by Emanuel Leutze.

( Public Domain )

A Columbus Controversy

The general public first learned of the existence of the Piri Reis map in the 27 February 1932 issue of the Illustrated London News . Entitled, “A Columbus Controversy: America – And Two Atlantic Charts”, the article noted that: “... Columbus got little further than the mouth of the Orinoco, in Venezuela, in his voyage along the coast of South America in 1498, so that the stretches of the South American coast given in the Piri Reis's chart must have been copied from other sources.”

In the July 23rd edition of the magazine Akcura Yusuf, President of the Turkish Historical Research Society, wrote a more detailed account. The author pointed out a significant fact: “...the map in our possession is a fragment. If the Other fragments had not been lost, we should have had in our possession a Turkish chart drawn in 1513 representing the Old and New Worlds together.”

U.S. Navy's Hydrographic Office.

An amateur scientist by the name of Captain Arlington Mallery made it his mission to determine the age of the source maps used by Piri Reis. So radical were Mallery's conclusions that he hesitated to reveal them. In August 1956, he finally decided to reveal his findings on a radio show sponsored by Georgetown University. He explained that in June 1954 he was working in the map room of the Library of Congress when his friend "... the Chief Engineer of the Hydrographic Office handed me a copy of a map which had been sent to him by a Turkish naval officer. He suggested that I examine it in the light of the information we already had on the ancient maps. After making an analysis of it, I took it back to him and requested that the Officer check both the latitude and longitude and the projection. When they asked why, I said, 'There is something in this map that no one is going to believe coming from me, and I don't know whether they will believe it coming from you.' That was the fact that Columbus had with him a map that showed accurately the Palmer Peninsula in the Antarctic continent.”

1753 world map by the French cartographer Philippe Buache.

( Public Domain )

Mr. Warren, the host of the radio show, interviewed Mallery and M.I. Walters of the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office:

“HOST: You say that these maps have been checked by the Hydrographic Office of the U.S. Navy?
WALTERS: Yes.
HOST: As far as you are concerned, are they accurate?
WALTERS: Yes, they are.
HOST: How old are the maps?
WALTERS:  These maps go back 5,000 years and even earlier. But they contain data that go back many thousands of years previous to that.”

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Walters remarked on the comparisons between the Piri Reis Map and the newly (1954) discovered sub-glacial features of the Queen Maud region of Antarctica:

“We have taken the old charts and the new charts that the Hydrographic Office produces today and made comparisons of the soundings of salient peaks and mountains. We have found them to be in astounding agreement. In this way, we have checked the old work very closely. We put very much confidence in what Captain Mallery has disclosed.

Charnockitic rock needle, northern Holtedahlfjella (Kurze Mountains), Queen Maud Land, aerial photograph in SSE direction. (Wilfried Bauer/ CC BY SA 3.0 )

HOST: Mr. Mallery, this must then lead to the conclusion that there were competent explorers and map makers along the coast of the Atlantic long before Columbus.

MALLERY: Several thousand years before. Not only explorers, but they must also have had a very competent and far-flung hydrographic organization, because you cannot map as large a continent as Antarctica as we know they did - probably 5,000 years ago. It can't be done by any single individual or small group of explorers. It means an aggregation of skilled scientists who are familiar with astronomy as well as the methods required for topographic surveying.”

Hapgood and the US Air Force Cartographic Office

One of Charles Hapgood’s students told him about the radio broadcast. The Professor was immediately fascinated and decided to: “…investigate the map as thoroughly as I could… ⁴

Since Mallery had used the US Navy for his investigations Hapgood decided to get a second opinion from the Cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). The U.S. Air Force investigation came to the same conclusions as the US Navy. They determined that the southern part of the map did in fact depict portions of sub-glacial Antarctica.

Subglacial lakes identified beneath the Antarctic continent.

(AntarcticGlaciers.org/ CC BY NC SA 3.0 )

Conventional wisdom dictated that the island continent hadn’t been discovered until 1818. 

USAF Lt. Colonel Harold Z. Ohlmeyer wrote to Hapgood on the 6th of July 1960.       

“Dear Professor Hapgood,
Your request for evaluating certain unusual features of the Piri Reis World Map of 1513 by this organization has been reviewed.
The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, and the Palmer Peninsula is reasonable. We find this the most logical and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map.
The geographic detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice cap by the Swedish-British-Norwegian Expedition of 1949.
This indicates the coast line had been mapped before it was covered by the ice cap.
The ice cap in this region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographic knowledge in 1513.
(signed)
HAROLD Z. OHLMEYER
Lt. Colonel, USAF
Commander”

Painting of James Weddell's second expedition to Antarctica in 1823, depicting the brig Jane and the cutter Beaufroy.

( Public Domain )

Corresponding with Hapgood

Our adventure with the study of ancient maps began in the summer of 1977 when Charles Hapgood replied to an article we wrote outlining our belief that Antarctica was once the site of Atlantis. We’d concluded that Hapgood's theory of earth crust displacement was the missing link that could unravel the mystery of the lost island continent. Charles replied:

“August 3 ^rd, 1977

Dear Rose and Rand,

I am astonished and delighted by your article which arrived here today. Believe it or not, it is the first truly scientific exploration of my work that has ever been done. You have found evidence for crust displacement that I did not find.

However, it would seem that you are not aware of a book I published in 1966 entitled Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. Since you are considering presenting your article to the Royal Geographical Society (of which I was a member until I stopped paying my dues), you should examine this book, and I am mailing a copy of it to you.

Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age.

( Amazon)

What I found, after long research, was that many maps considered of medieval or Renaissance origin are in fact copies of copies of maps drawn in very remote antiquity, and among them is one showing a deglacial Antarctica. I was able to solve the projections of these maps with the help of a mathematician, and have them confirmed by the Cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. …

A week later a copy of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings arrived. Far from dampening our enthusiasm for the idea that Atlantis may have once been Antarctica, the book had the opposite effect. We concluded that the ancient maps of sub-glacial Antarctica provided stunning evidence in support of our theory.                

After the publication of the first edition of When the Sky Fell in January 1995, we returned to the Piri Reis map to determine if there were grounds to support Mallery and Hapgood’s claim that the source maps used in the construction of the Piri Reis map were hundreds of years older than the 1513 date of its construction.

Sources for the Piri Reis Map: How old?

One of the oddities about the Piri Reis map was that it had been drawn using an extremely sophisticated projection. An “equidistant projection” depicts the features of the earth from a single point on its surface. This projection can be calculated from any spot on the globe. Perhaps the most familiar equidistant projection is the blue and white flag of the United Nations, centered on the North Pole. 

The United Nations Flag is an equidistant projection as seen from the North Pole.

( Public Domain )

The equidistant projection was one that was very familiar to the cartographic staff of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. It was used to target Soviet military and economic assets. For example, a map drawn using Moscow as its center allowed the military to calculate the quickest delivery time for a missile to travel from any NATO base to the Soviet capital. The closest NATO missile base to Moscow was in Turkey. In November 1962 when Soviet missiles were introduced to Cuba, an equidistant projection map centered on Castro’s island revealed in stark detail how much United States territory could be targeted. The “Cuban Missile Crisis” was only resolved when JFK (secretly) proposed a delayed withdraw of NATO missiles from Turkey in exchange for Khrushchev’s removal of the USSR missiles in Cuba.

Charles Hapgood explained to Arch C. Gerlach (Chief of the Map Division at the Library of Congress) that the Piri Reis map: “…required more astronomy than was known in the Renaissance. The mathematics require that whoever constructed it had to know the linear distance from Syene to the North Pole to within a degree of accuracy. Piri Reis did not know that, neither did Columbus…”

Syene or the Tropic of Cancer?

Hapgood and his students (notably Frank Ryan) spent months trying to determine the exact center of the Piri Reis Map. At first, Hapgood was convinced that it was the city of Syene where Eratosthenes, the librarian and father of geography, had made his famous calculations about the size of the earth. Hapgood submitted this suggestion to the cartographic crew at Westover Air Force Base. Captain Burroughs concurred. He wrote: “...Piri Reis' use of the portolano projection (centered on Syene, Egypt) was an excellent choice...”

Eratosthenes, as imagined by a later artist.

( Public Domain )

The Piri Reis Map’s Projection

We see below how the complete map must have looked based on the same projection used by Piri Reis in 1513. The chart Christopher Columbus carried on his voyage would have resembled this projection.

The 1513 Piri Reis projection is just a fragment of the secret map that Columbus may have possessed. If the lost map of is ever found it should depict the entire globe using an equidistance projection centered on the ancient Egyptian city of Syene.

(Author provided)

Despite the fact that professionals had verified Syene as the center of the map, Hapgood remained skeptical. He thought that the ancients would have been more likely to use the Tropic of Cancer which divides the tropical from the temperate climatic zones. Hapgood was certain that such an important global marker would have been highly significant to the ancient navigators.

Today, the Tropic of Cancer lies near Syene but not precisely over it. The difference in distance is small but Hapgood and his students wanted to be exact in their calculations. There was considerable debate whether or not to use the measurement from the ancient city or from the climatic marker. Hapgood mistakenly assumed that it had to be an either/or choice between Syene and the ‘Tropic of Cancer. It was a false choice because there was a time when the Tropic of Cancer lay directly over Syene. The clue to that synchronicity of time and place lies within the very projection of the Piri Reis Map. But first a critical question must be answered. When did the Tropic of Cancer and Syene last share the same latitude?  

• The Buache Map: A Controversial Map That Shows Antarctica Without Ice
• Hereford Mappa Mundi: Legendary Cities, Monstrous Races, and Curious Beasts in a Single World Map

The Tropic of Cancer.

( CC BY SA 3.0 )

Astronomers have concluded that it takes a century for the Tropic of Cancer to drift 40 seconds of latitude.  This gives us a formula for our calculations and enables us to bulls-eye the date when the original mapmakers were at work. Syene is 38 minutes and 30 seconds from today's Tropic of Cancer. This is 2280 (38 x 60 to convert minutes to seconds) plus the 30 seconds give us a total of 2310 seconds difference.  We then divide these seconds by 40 to find that the Syene was last on the Tropic of Cancer some 57.75 centuries ago. By calculating the difference in distance from the latitude of today's Tropic of Cancer (23:27N) to that of Syene (24:05:30N) we discover the answer – about 5775 years ago –that is, circa 3760 BC. It’s noteworthy that the Jewish calendar begins on this date.

The projection of the Piri Reis points like an arrow at a pivotal turning point in human history.  Archaeology teaches that Egyptian civilization dawned circa 3800 BC. Can it really be mere coincidence that the Piri Reis Map looks to date from the dawn of Egyptian civilization? Far more likely that the sophisticated source maps used by Piri Reis are remnants passed on by the survivors of a lost Ice Age civilization – a seafaring civilization that had mapped the world (including parts of Antarctica’s coastline when it was ice-free) long before the first Egyptian pyramids were built.

HMNZS WELLINGTON off the Antarctic Coastline.

(New Zealand Defence Force/ CC BY 2.0 )

• Top Image: Antarctica.
• Source: Christopher Michel/ CC BY 2.0

By Rand and Rose Flem-Ath

Rand Flem-Ath is a Canadian writer, librarian and independent scholar. He has co-authored several books with his wife, writer, Rose Flem-Ath. She is a novelist and two-time winner of the Canada Council grant for Fiction. They live in British Columbia, Canada. In 1995, Rand and Rose published the book ‘ When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis ’, and in 2012 they co-authored ‘ Atlantis Beneath the Ice ’, which updated and expanded the seventeen years of research found in When the Sky Fell.  http://www.flem-ath.com/

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06-04-2023 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

From Babylon to Christianity: Feeding into the Eucharist

There can be no doubt that the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist was derived from Jewish, Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian traditions of sun veneration and sun baking methods.

The custom seems to have been widespread in the middle east, an example being the  Babylonian practice of offering to their gods a number of different kinds of cakes/bread ( akalu). The Hebrew term for showbread,  Lehem ha Panim , is exactly translated by the  Assyrian phrase  akal pânu , which refers to the Babylonian cake/bread offerings. The Israelites were of course prisoners in Babylon for many decades.

The immediate and obvious parent of the Christian Eucharist was the Israelite ritual of baking “showbread” in their temple.

Table of Showbread, in a full-size replica of the Israelite Tabernacle (Mishkan) in Timna valley, Israel.

(Ori229/ CC BY-SA 3.0 )

On each sabbath day, twelve newly kneaded loaves made from ground sprouted grains were placed on a special table, decorated with gold in honor of the sun god, against the northern wall of the unroofed sanctuary where they would receive maximum heat from the sun’s rays. Gold cups and utensils were also used. The loaves were known as “Presence Bread” ( Leḥem ha Pānīm ) because they were required to be constantly in the presence of the solar deity. (Exodus 25:30).

Unsurprisingly the bread was described as always warm and sweet – warm because of the sun’s heat and sweet because dough made from sprouted grains develops nutritious enzymes and sugars in the malting process.

The loaves were stacked in two piles but separated from each other by a nest of 48 hollow golden tubes, which allowed warm air to circulate between them.

After a week of being thus slowly cooked the loaves were eaten by the priests on the next sabbath and replaced by new loaves.

The Jewish and Christian Incarnations of Showbread

The Torah gave detailed instructions:

“Take the finest grade of wheat flour and bake it into 12 loaves. Each loaf will be made from two-tenths of an eifah (2.7 liters; 1 gallon). Arrange these loaves in two stacks, six loaves to a stack, on the pure table, before God. Put pure frankincense beside these stacks. This will be the memorial portion, a fire-offering to God. Every Sabbath these loaves should be placed before God—it is an eternal covenant that this must come from the children of Israel. The bread will be given to Aaron and his descendants to eat in a holy place, since it is a most holy fire-offering to God. This is an eternal law.”

The Essene Gospel of John also describes a similar process:

“Let the angels of God prepare your bread. Moisten your wheat, that the angels of water may enter it. Then set it in the air, that the angel of air may embrace it. And leave it from morning to evening beneath the sun, that the angel of sunshine may descend upon it. And the blessings of the three angels will soon make the germ of life to sprout in your wheat. Then crush your grain, and make thin wafers, as did your forefathers when they departed out of Egypt, the house of bondage. Put them back again beneath the sun from its appearing, and when it is risen to its highest in the heavens, turn them over on the other side that they may be embraced there also by the angel of sunshine, and leave them there until the sun sets. For the angels of water, and air and of sunshine fed and ripened the wheat in the field, and they likewise must prepare also your bread. And the same sun which, with the fire of life, made the wheat to grow and ripen, must cook your bread with the same fire. For the fire of the sun gives life to the wheat, to the bread, and to the body. But the fire of death kills the wheat, the bread, and the body. And the living angels of the living God serve only living men. For God is the God of the living, and not the God of the dead.”

Like most ancient nations in the Middle East, the Jews worshipped the Sun as a god. The Bible is full of references to the Sun, such as “ Let his Light shine upon you ”.

In the Hebrew text of Exodus 33:20, Moses was warned of the risk to eyesight of staring at the Sun when he was told: " You will not be able to see my face, for no human can see Me and live ”.

Instructions in the old testament state that the Israelites’ mobile sanctuary was to be aligned east-west such that the sun’s light could enter, and Christian churches have continued to respect this orientation in the design of their churches. Traditionally there was a large circular window at the east end through which light from the rising sun could pour down upon the priest as he elevated the unleavened wafer which was miraculously re-animated to become “ the body of Christ .”

Jesus was perhaps acknowledging the solar deity when he prayed to “ Our Father which art in heaven ”.

St Matthew’s gospel suggests that he inaugurated the Christian eucharist at the springtime Jewish Passover festival. It is reported that:

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’

Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. ”

A Tradition of the Egyptians?

The miracle whereby grain sprouts and comes back to life again has been celebrated almost universally and for thousands of years. Grain (still viable) has been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and the threshing flail combined with a shepherd’s crook comprised their royal insignia which were originally associated with Osiris who was a god of fertility and resurrection. Egyptian religion undoubtedly influenced Jewish traditions. It has even been plausibly suggested that Moses was actually the pharaoh Akhenaten who demoted all the Egyptian gods other than Ra – the Sun God.

The crook and flail on the coffinette of Tutankhamun.

( CC BY-SA 2.5 )

The Green Man , who frequently adorned medieval churches, is also a widespread image in ancient folklore. Like Osiris, he was said to have been cut into pieces and resurrected in the springtime.

One ancient mystery cult involved a priest plastered with grains who would emerge from a cave when the seeds began to sprout, to the joy of his congregation.

In Greece the springtime resurrection of the goddess Persephone, daughter of Ceres, also celebrated the annual rebirth of nature in general and the sprouting of cereals in particular.

A Symbolic Eating of Flesh

In the Eucharist, Jesus equated his flesh with bread, and his blood with wine. Roman Catholics are required to believe that their communion wafers are actually converted into the flesh of Jesus which they are invited to consume.

Other denominations take a more symbolic interpretation of the words of Jesus. There would have been twelve loaves for the twelve disciples at the “last supper”. The number twelve also reflects the twelve signs of the zodiac which calibrated time for ancient peoples.

The reported words of Jesus make it clear that he was preparing for death as an act of atonement for the sins of his people. The Jewish god was a capricious god who could be jealous and angry if his commandments as communicated via Moses were disobeyed. He spoke in thunder and could inflict storms, lightning, floods, pestilence and death if he was displeased. But it was believed that his anger could be appeased by means of sacrifice, usually of animals, but occasionally of humans. In a biological sense all living creatures survive and thrive by consuming other living creatures. So this was reflected in God being thought of as a hungry god who needed to eat too.

Symbolism With Very Real Roots

Jesus was apparently anticipating his own imminent crucifixion and death at his last supper. Seasonal human sacrifice of community leaders – sometimes voluntary - was not unknown in ancient societies. The patriarch Abraham is said to have been preparing to sacrifice his own son until God told him to kill a ram instead.

The Indian Khonds continued to sacrifice their human meriahs (victims) until the nineteenth century in order to appease the earth goddess and induce a successful growing season.

In prehistoric Malta stone altars decorated with cereals were used to sprout grains that were moistened and exposed to the sun. Carved stone models of the cereal goddess were used by the priests to encourage the sprouting of grains . 

(Author provided)

Some early Gnostic Christian groups may have practiced ritual cannibalism in blind obedience to an interpretation of the words of Jesus. The Carpocratians were a sect which were alleged to consume unwanted babies in underground catacombs. Circular stone altars known as agape tables carved perhaps for this very purpose may be seen underground in Maltese catacombs. They feature a rim to contain the blood of the sacrifice with a lip out of which the blood could have poured into a drinking vessel.

Images of cereal goddess and stone altar from Malta.

(Author provided)

In prehistoric Malta stone altars decorated with cereals were used to sprout grains that were moistened and exposed to the Sun. Carved stone models of the cereal goddess were used by the priests to encourage the sprouting of grains.

• Top image: Hands of priest raise sacramental bread or the Eucharist under light.
• Source: Creativa Images /Adobe Stock

By Stephen Childs

Stephen Childs is also the author of Stone Circles Explained .

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06-04-2023 om 23:14 geschreven door peter  

The Chilling Messages Encoded in Egyptian Tombs (Video)

It’s common knowledge that man didn’t learn to fly until the 20 ^th century. However shocking discoveries in both South America and Egypt are beginning to bring this long-stated fact into question. Ancient golden figurines and carvings found in South American tombs are eerily similar in shape and dimension to modern aircraft. Stranger still, ancient carvings, paintings and hieroglyphs found in the Egyptian pyramids seem to depict everything from airplanes and helicopters to submarines and spaceships. What’s the truth? Were our ancient ancestors hiding advanced technology from us all along? Were they visited by advanced extra-terrestrials? Or are these strange carvings and markings just a coincidence? Perhaps the truth really is out there.

• Top image: The so-called helicopter hieroglyph.
• Source: Public Domain .

By Robbie Mitchell

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31-03-2023 om 01:20 geschreven door peter  

The sex toys dating back 28,000 years: Ancient phalluses made from stone and dried camel dung started trend for sex aids

• A siltstone phallus found in Germany is said to date back 28,000 years
• It is quoted as being the oldest known 'sex toy' ever discovered
• Phalluses made from stone, wood, leather and even camel dung have all been found during excavations, or referenced in historical text and images
• The Wellcome Collection has a number of sexual artefacts on display as part of its Institute of Sexology exhibition

By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON FOR MAILONLINE

For thousands of years, phallic objects have been used symbolically as a means to boost fertility and ward off evil spirits - but their use as sexual aids has a long history, too.

A 28,000-year-old phallus found in Germany recently, for example, is quoted as being the oldest known 'sex toy' ever found. 

While phalluses made from stone, wood, leather and even camel dung have all be found during excavations, or referenced throughout historical text and images.

To celebrate this expansive history of sexual experience, the Wellcome Collection currently has a number of ceremonial sculptures shaped - among other sexual artefacts - as part of its Institute of Sexology exhibition.

A 7.8-inch (20cm) long, 1.1-inch (3cm) wide stone object (pictured) was found in the Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura. The prehistoric ‘tool’ is made from 14 fragments of siltstone and dates back 28,000 years. Due to its size, experts believe it may be the earliest example of a sex aid ever found

The term dildo was first coined in around 1400 AD and originated from the Latin for ‘dilatare’, which means ‘open wide’, and the Italian for delight, which translates as ‘diletto.’

In the Middle East, historical reports reference Egyptians and the Greek using unripe bananas, or camel dung coated in resin as sexual aids.

But the aids were used much earlier, as far back as 500BC, when phalluses were carved out of stone, leather or wood. Some were even made from tar.

In ancient Greece, in particular, reports claim traders in the city of Miletus made and sold objects called ‘olisbos’, intended to help wives achieve sexual penetration while their husbands were away.

The aids were also used in Renaissance Italy, and were typically made of leather and used with olive oil for lubrication.

High class members of society would even display their sex toys, often made from silver, gold and ivory.

However, they were said to be painful to use and their popularity waned. The first dildos didn’t arrive in the UK until the 1500s.

Honor Beddard, co-curator at the Wellcome Collection said: ‘The Institute of Sexology presents the study of sex in all its complexity and contradiction.

‘It brings together the diverse collections of data, art, testimony and objects of those who challenged preconceived ideas about sex and tells the human stories behind the charting of sexual experience.

‘Highlighting the profound effect that gathering and analysing information can have in changing attitudes about the human condition, the exhibition reveals our understanding of sexual identity as an ever-evolving story.’

The exhibition features rare archival material, erotica, film, photography, medical artefacts and ethnography, all related to sex.

In 2005, a 7.8-inch (20cm) long, 1.1-inch (3cm) wide stone object was found in the Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.

The prehistoric ‘tool’ is made from 14 fragments of siltstone and dates back 28,000 years.

Due to its size, experts believe it may be the earliest example of a sex aid ever found, but could have also been used for knapping flints to help light fires, said Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University.

During excavations at Neolithic site Membury Rings in Dorset in the early 20th century, archaeologists found various deposits of artefacts and other material, including antler, animal and human bone, flints and carved chalk.

Symbol: In Turkey, during the 6th century BC, ancient Anatolians used sculptures of sex organs (pictured) to ward off evil and ill luck as they believed they contained special powers

During excavations at Neolithic site Membury Rings in Dorset, archaeologists found various deposits of artefacts and other material, including antler, animal and human bone, and flints. Among these artefacts was a phallic-shaped object made of chalk (pictured) that measures 4-inches long. However, its use is unknown

Among these artefacts was a phallic-shaped object made from chalk and measures approximately 4-inches long. However, its use is unknown.

But the sculptures weren’t just used for sexual pleasure.

In some pagan cultures, a female orgasm was seen as an offering to the gods of fertility, while the phallic symbol was popular during ancient Roman times.

In particular, statues of fertility god Priapus with a large phallus would be used to protect gardens and help crops grow.

In Greek mythology, Priapus was depicted with oversized, permanent erection, which is where the name for the medical term priapism originated.

Priapism is a persistent and often painful erection that lasts for several hours - in rare case, for weeks. 

Statues of fertility god Priapus with a large phallus would be used to protect gardens and help crops grow. Priapus was often depicted with oversized, permanent erection, which is where the name for the medical term priapism originated. Priapism is a persistent and often painful erection that lasts for hours

Phallic charms of the time were known as fascinum (examples pictured), and were even found in the ruins of Pompeii, and it was believed that the symbols could ward off evil spirits. Used in ancient Roman religion and magic, the fascinum referred to the god Fascinus. The phallus was used to summon divine protection

A solid bronze amulet, in the form of Priapus, is among the artefacts displayed at the Wellcome Collection.

Phallic charms of the time were known as fascinum, and were even found in the ruins of Pompeii, and it was believed that the symbols could ward off evil spirits.

Used in ancient Roman religion and magic, the fascinum referred to the god Fascinus. The phallus was used to summon divine protection.

Meanwhile, the phallic deity Mutunus Tutunus was a symbol of marital sex.

The 'Veedee' massager (pictured) is said to have been used by doctors to cure Victorian women of hysteria. But this has been disputed as myth

In Turkey, during the 6th century BC, ancient Anatolians used sculptures of sex organs to ward off evil and ill luck as they believed they contained special powers.

Much later, in 18th century France, the first vibrator called Tremoussoir was built. It was a handheld, wind-up contraption designed by physicians.

In 1869, an American physician George Taylor is credited as creating a steam-powered version called the Manipulator, before an electromechanical vibrator was developed in 1880 by Dr Joseph Granville.

Far from being sexual aids, these devices were said to have been used to treat female hysteria.

Reports claim that doctors as far back as the 13th century doubted that women had libidos and advised using sex toys to alleviate sexual frustration.

Physicians during the 20th century would then use vibrators for clitoral stimulation to treat this so-called hysteria, which comes from the Greek word for uterus.

Symptoms for hysteria included anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability and erotic fantasies.

One such vibrator, called Veedee, is on display at the Wellcome Collection, but a spokesman told MailOnline that its use as a Victorian tool by doctors to induce orgasms has been disputed as myth.

The first rubber dildos have been traced back to around 1850 and they started appearing in movies during the 1930s and 1940s.

At this point, many were called marital aids, rather than sexual aids.

‘At the turn of the century, the vibrator kind of split into two product lines,’ explained technology historian Rachel Maines.

‘One was for doctors and one was for consumers and doctors really hated the idea that there were consumer vibrators out there.

‘There were these relatively inexpensive, some that looked like an egg beater for people who didn't have electricity. And there were battery powered ones.

‘There were even water-powered ones that you could attach to your sink!’

 A solid bronze amulet, in the form of Priapus, is among the artefacts displayed at the Wellcome Collection

The Institute of Sexology exhibition features rare archival material, erotica, film, photography, medical artefacts and ethnography, all related to sex. A collection of sexual aids on display is pictured. The exhibition runs at the London-based museum until 20 September 2015

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29-03-2023 om 23:33 geschreven door peter  

Humans Have Been Keeping Dildos Handy for at Least 28,000 Years

When archaeologists assembled the pieces of an ancient stone artifact discovered in a cave in Germany, it was pretty clear what they’d found. Known as the Hohle Fels phallus, this prehistoric tool dates back 28,000 years and has come to be known popularly as the world’s oldest dildo.

The reconstruction of the so-called dildo by archaeologists from the University of Tübingen was finally announced at a press conference in 2005 after 14 stone fragments were excavated at the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany. The resulting artifact measured an adequate 20 centimeters (8 in) long and 3 cm (1.2 in) wide.

Described as being smooth and “hard as, well, a rock” in the Huffington Post , this life-sized representation of a phallus was probably used as a sex toy during the Ice Age . “It's highly polished; it's clearly recognizable," said Professor Conard to the BBC. The archaeologists also found evidence that it was used during Paleolithic times to sharpen flints, thanks to marks found on its surface.

Whatever it was, Nicholas Conard from the Tübingen team described it as “very rare.” An article in ACB News explained that this was due to the fact that while artistic representations of female genitalia are “common” during this era, the discovery of representations of male genitalia in the prehistoric record are sparse.

One issue with stone is its resistance to dating. Nevertheless, by looking at other remains discovered in the same ash layer the archaeologists involved in the find claimed that it was created by prehistoric modern humans, i.e. Homo sapiens , as far back as 28,000 years ago.

Although avowals that these objects are dildos abound, the World Journal of Research and Review explained that “these interpretations say a lot more about the mind of the proposers (their own Rorschach-like test) than about reality.” When it comes to the supposed dildo from Hohle Fels, it may well have been a multi-purpose tool, used for anything from “knapping flints” to personal pleasure.

While the thought is rather satisfying, Snopes concluded that “the interpretation of the use of this object is speculative.” Meanwhile, the resulting paper published in Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt merely stated: “Whether the stone artifact had functions related to its masculine symbolism is difficult to answer.”

Writing about the history of the dildo in All That’s Interesting , John Kuroski speculated that the plethora of ambiguously named “ Ice Age batons ” within excavation inventories could actually be referring to a universe of female pleasure dating back – literally – to the Ice Age. Shaped to serve their purpose, and made out of anything from antler bone to bread sticks, the rediscovery of these bedroom buddies could rewrite the history of female sexuality. A gratifying thought indeed.

• Top image: The 28,000-year-old Hohler Fels phallus is thought to be the oldest dildo in the world.
• Source: Thilo Parg / CC BY-SA 3.0

By Cecilia Bogaard

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

29-03-2023 om 23:10 geschreven door peter  

The Ordovician Extinction: Our Planet’s First Brush With Death

The first mass die-off on Earth was also one of the deadliest. Scientists continue to piece together the story of what happened.

Then came their demise. In conventional wisdom, it consisted of two distinct “pulses” separated by roughly a million years. First, glaciers engulfed Gondwana and the planet cooled dramatically, chilling the tropics and mid-latitudes. Sea levels plummeted hundreds of feet. This destroyed vast stretches of the warm, shallow-water habitat that sustained much marine life. Then, in the second pulse, the glaciers melted, the planet warmed, and the ocean rose. The species that had just adapted to the cold struggled once again to evolve fast enough.

It’s unclear what triggered that icy advance. Some studies suggest weathering of silicate rocks — especially in the rising Appalachian Mountains — could have drawn down atmospheric carbon dioxide, lowering global temperatures. Others implicate the expansion of plants, which could have absorbed greenhouse gases while also speeding up silicate weathering. One theory posits that a gamma-ray burst, by converting nitrogen and oxygen into sun-blocking smog, may have brought on the glaciers.

But many researchers are beginning to think that “cooling itself may not be solely responsible for these extinctions,” as Thijs Vandenbroucke and colleagues wrote in a 2015 paper that links some deaths to changing ocean chemistry. They found fossilized plankton with fatal deformities dating to the event, suggesting the release of toxic metals like iron and lead from the ocean depths may have been an important kill mechanism.

Some evidence in recent years even points the finger at glaciation’s elemental opposite: volcanism. The Ordovician extinction, if caused by the cooling climate, would be an outlier. Extreme volcanic activity is widely accepted as a main catalyst in most other mass die-offs, since it leads to inhospitable global warming. Now, with the discovery of mercury deposits from the era, the telltale signature of eruptions has surfaced in this extinction too. Rewriting the story with a fiery culprit would “make the late Ordovician stand out less,” Finnegan says, though he’s not convinced yet.

(Credit: Microstocker1/Shutterstock)

The Equitable Extinction

While scientists are unsure why the majority of species died at this moment, they do understand how those deaths influenced the progression of life. Many extinctions jolt evolution off its course, allowing a host of new organisms to rise from the ashes and fill new niches in a new environment. But not so with the Ordovician extinction.

“The resulting fauna had ecologic patterns similar to the fauna that had become extinct,” writes Peter Sheehan, a paleontologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Other extinction events that eliminated similar or even smaller percentages of species had greater long-term ecologic effects.” That’s because those long-term effects depend on which level of the taxonomic ladder an extinction acts upon. 

The Ordovician, for example, eliminated 85 percent of all species, but only 60 percent of genera and 25 percent of families, the next two levels of classification. Since some members survived in most families, life went on more or less as it would have anyway. The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, in contrast, dethroned both orders (an even higher tier of taxonomy) of the dominant dinosaurs. The natural hierarchy inverted, and mammals rose to power.

So, even though it was deadlier than all mass extinctions but the Permian (also known, grimly, as the “Great Dying”), the Ordovician didn’t leave much of an impression. It killed many individual organisms, but decimated no so-called mascot groups — nothing of dinosaur, or even ammonite, stature. 

There were casualties, of course. The asaphida family of trilobites — which, with their snail-like eye stalks, are “about as charismatic as late Ordovician fossils get,” says Finnegan — disappeared almost completely. Graptolites, tiny colonial animals that lived together in a single skeleton, also flirted with annihilation. Corals, bryozoans (another colonial creature), clam-like brachiopods, and eel-esque conodonts suffered too.

Fossilized asaphida at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.

(Credit: Sarunyu L/Shutterstock)

28-03-2023 om 22:51 geschreven door peter  

St. Lucia's Flood: The Disaster That Changed the Shape of Europe

Water has a destructive nature that is hard to contain - calm and peaceful in one moment, it can turn violent in another. These days, however, many coastal cities and regions have effective, modern protection from flooding. But what of the past? In medieval times, flood protection was crude at best, and did little to stave off the utter destruction of the rising floodwaters. One of the most devastating floods in human history occurred in 1287, in the Netherlands. Known as St. Lucia’s food, it claimed thousands of lives, and is a great insight into the vulnerability of coastal regions in ancient times.

St. Lucia’s Flood - The Great Dutch Tragedy

For centuries, the Netherlands had the nasty reputation of being rather low-lying in comparison to the neighboring sea. That is why today, we know it as the land of many canals, and equally as many islets and islands. However, not all is perfectly fine. This seaside nation is losing ground, and if the water levels continue to rise globally, many parts of this country will be forever lost under the sea. The current map of the country was not always so. In the early Middle Ages, there were many more exposed parts of the coast, and many more extant villages near the sea. But one catastrophic event changed that forever. It was a major flood, instigated by a storm tide which happened exactly on the day of St. Lucia.

A storm tide is a big threat in the North Sea. These are coastal floods connected with cyclone winds. And if all the parameters meet together - such as the timing of the tides, the path of the storm, or the depth of the sea - such a storm tide can truly wreak havoc. And in 1287 - it did.

St. Lucia’s flood occurred on 13th December 1287 AD, exactly on the day when the Dutch people celebrated the Feast of St. Lucia. A terrible storm erupted, coinciding with the tides, and creating a catastrophic coastal flood. Immense areas of the coast were quickly swallowed by the water - entire villages and cities were submerged, with great destruction and loss of life. Accurate estimates of the period state that between 50,000 and 80,000 people perished in this flood. Low sandbanks and coastal dunes could not withstand the great wave of water, and were eroded with ease. Entire plains were submerged, and those villages that were not swept away - had to be evacuated.

The Total Reformation of Dutch Landscape

The flood brought chaos to the Netherlands. Those cities that were not destroyed were now in an entirely new position - as the geography of the coast was totally changed. The water that did not recede now created a number of islands and lakes that remain to this day. Most notable was the emergence of the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea), a shallow bay that extended up to 100 kilometers inland. Before, it was only a small freshwater lake, connected to the sea by the River Vlie. St. Lucia’s flood completely destroyed this river. And this meant that the once-powerful trading ports on the river’s banks were now left to dwindle. This was the fate of the powerful trading port of Stavoren, which now no longer had a river to trade upon.

Following the St. Lucia’s flood, a new focus was shifted on the IJssel River, upon which emerged new trading cities, such as Zwolle, Deventer, Kampen, and Doesburg. It also signaled the rise of a new trading port called Amsterdam, which began from zero almost instantly after the flood’s changes. Today, that city is the Dutch capital!

Today’s Dutch capital port, Amsterdam

(Alf van Beem/ CCO)

In neighboring Frisia, destruction was even greater. Many small islands that were inhabited were now gone forever, and loss of life was enormous. The coastline shifted many kilometers inland. For example, Harlingen, before the flood a landlocked city, suddenly found itself on the coast of the sea! From the flood onwards, the city became a port! And the nearby island of Griend, which had many inhabitants, a walled settlement, and a monastery, was entirely devastated, with only 10 houses left standing.

A map of the Zuiderzee works in the Netherlands.

( Public Domain )

Devastation Across the North Sea

Holland and Frisia were not the only ones affected. Coastal parts of Germany suffered as well, with entire villages in the region of East Frisia disappearing forever. Deaths were numbered in the thousands. Those that survived found the landscape changed, and their traditional way of life was no longer possible. Many survivors fled inland, where they had to begin entirely new lives.

And even those across the North Sea were not spared the effects of the storm. England’s coast suffered greatly, and its map was entirely redrawn. The town of Old Winchelsea, in its time a busy and prosperous port - was now gone for good. In the small village of Hickling, 180 villagers perished, and the water was recorded to have reached a foot above the high altar in their priory. The trading port of New Romney suddenly found itself being a landlocked town: the storm silted up the harbor, diverting the nearby river some 15 miles to the west! The level of the land in the town rose by 5 inches - such was the amount of silt thrown at it.

And in historic Hastings, the storm caused half of the cliff to tumble down, destroying great parts of the extant Norman Castle. The town’s days as a busy port were over ever since, as the protective inlet was wiped away by the storm. One of England’s major ports, Dunwich (once a capital of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of the East Angles ), began its rapid decline around this time. The storm of 1287 was the final nail in its coffin - coastal erosion and flooding ended its days as a leading coastal town. The river which was its lifeline shifted several kilometers to the north. Dunwich was gradually abandoned ever since, and is now a simple village of 180 inhabitants - where once it had over 3,000.

Untamed Wrath of the Nature

Nature is unpredictable. One day all might seem fine, and the next - tragedy erupts. Such is the unpredictable character of mother nature, and those living by the coasts of the North Sea could never know when something so fierce could hit. In 1287, their fears came true.

It can be safely said that St. Lucia’s Flood is one of the biggest catastrophes in the history of Europe. With more than 50,000 people dead and drowned, with dozens of villages erased from the face of the Earth, and geographical maps completely redrawn, we can safely say that this event was one of nature’s fiercest fit of rage. And from it, people learned valuable lessons to defend themselves from future floods.

• Top image: A storm tide in the Netherlands caused a devastating flood in 1287.
• Source: Zacarias da Mata /Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

{https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

27-03-2023 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

This 12,000 year old ancient discovery changes our history

Could our DNA have been altered thousands of years ago? Explore the secrets of one of the oldest religious site known to man, Gobekli Tepe. 

Researchers believe the ancient stone carvings tell the story of a progenitor race’s influence on human genetics through agriculture, astronomy and architecture.

  

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27-03-2023 om 17:27 geschreven door peter  

The Most Deadly Weapons of Ancient Egypt (Video)

The ancient Egyptians were masterful innovators when it came to warfare, with a diverse and deadly arsenal of weapons at their disposal. From the iconic khopesh sword, with its curved blade designed for close-quarters combat, to the powerful composite bow capable of piercing armor at great distances, their weapons were designed to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

But it wasn't just the weapons themselves that made the ancient Egyptian military so formidable. They also employed clever tactics and strategies to gain the upper hand in battle, such as the use of chariots and skirmishers to harass enemy troops.

Through a closer examination of the weapons and tactics of ancient Egypt, we can gain a better understanding of their military might and the role they played in shaping the history of the ancient world.

• Top image: Ancient Egyptian god Seth.
• Source: byerenyerli / Adobe Stock.

By Robbie Mitchell

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

23-03-2023 om 23:03 geschreven door peter  

7 Amazing Ancient Technologies Too Advanced for Their Time (Video)

Throughout history, there have been many civilizations that have left their mark on the world through their impressive architectural feats, artistic creations, and innovative technologies. While some of these ancient technologies have been lost to time, others continue to mystify and amaze us today.

From the amazing machinery used to build the pyramids, to the advanced weaponry of ancient China and the invention of the Egyptian war chariot , there are countless examples of ancient technologies that were far ahead of their time. But how did these ancient civilizations manage to achieve such remarkable feats without the benefit of modern technology? Join us as we explore some of the most incredible ancient technologies that continue to inspire wonder and admiration today.

• Top image: Ancient Egyptian war chariot.
• Source: ratpack223 / Adobe Stock.

By Robbie Mitchell

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22-03-2023 om 21:03 geschreven door peter  

How Metal Artists In India Are Keeping A 4,500-Year-Old Craft Alive (Video)

Despite the challenges, metal artists in India are working to keep the ancient craft of Dhokra art alive. This traditional craft involves the use of a non-ferrous metal, often brass or bronze, to create intricate and detailed sculptures. The process of creating Dhokra art, which has endured for over four millennia, involves a combination of wax casting and metal casting techniques, resulting in unique and one-of-a-kind pieces.

To ensure the survival of this craft, metal artists are working to adapt and evolve their techniques, while also educating younger generations about the art form. By incorporating modern technologies and experimenting with new materials, these artists are finding new ways to produce Dhokra art and keep the tradition alive for future generations to appreciate and enjoy.

• Top image: A bronze sculpture, representational.
• Source: DivineWorld / Adobe Stock

By Joanna Gillan

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22-03-2023 om 01:44 geschreven door peter  

Peruvian Archaeologists Uncover Two-faced Moche Men with Cosmic Connections

Painted on a pillar within a ceremonial hall, archaeologists have found a 1,400-year-old “two faced man”, with cosmic associations.

The Moche culture was a pre-Columbian civilization that thrived between 100 BC and 700 AD, farming and fishing, in the northern coastal region of Peru. Known for their exquisite pottery featuring animals, people, and scenes from everyday life, they were also skilled metalworkers and produced fine gold and silver jewelry.

Now, a team of archaeologists have discovered two 1,400-year-old murals depicting two-faced men within a ceremonial hall. According to a report in Live Science , the two-faced men might refer to sacrifice, and "cosmic realms".

Upper and lower men are visible here on the pillar. Archaeologist Gabriela Cervantes Quequezana examines the imagery of the painted pillar.

(Lisa Trever/ Panamarca)

Rediscovering Ancient Artisans

Two murals of two-faced men holding unusual treasures were unearthed by archaeologists in August 2022 at the 1,400-year-old archaeological site of Pañamarca. Located in Peru's lower Nepeña Valley province of Huari, in the Ancash region of coastal Peru, the site features a large complex of stone structures including a central plaza, several temples, and residential areas. The murals were drawn between 550 AD and 800 AD, at the height of the Moche people’s rule of northern coastal Peru.

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The archaeological work was conducted by the Archaeological Research Project (PIA) “ Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca ” which is collaboratively led by the international team of Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, Lisa Trever of Columbia University and Michele Koons of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS).

Interpreting The Painted Pillar

The two murals both adorn the same pillar within a large ceremonial hall. One of the murals, located at the top of the pillar, features a man with two faces holding a feather fan in one hand, and in the other hand he holds a goblet with four hummingbirds drinking from it. The second two-faced man is painted on the lower aspect of the pillar and has a moving feather fan in one hand and a stick-like object in the other.

Two images of two-faced men have been discovered at the Moche site of Pañamarca, Peru. Left; The upper figure painted on the pillar holding a goblet feeding hummingbirds, and a feather fan. Right; the lower figure holding a fan and an unidentified stick-like object.  

(Lisa Trever/ Panamarca)

Both of the two-faced men are depicted with headdresses or crowns and wearing colorful clothing held tight with sizable belts. Lisa Trever is an associate professor of pre-Columbian art history and archaeology at Columbia University , who led the discovery team, and she told Live Science that the reason the Moche artists depicted these two men “is a mystery.”

Probing the Two-faced Men Mystery

Dr. Trever suspects that the ancient artists may have been “experimenting with how to show movement, and two narrative moments at once." Furthermore, the archaeologist suspects the two men “may be deities,” but she added that this is uncertain because most depictions of deities in Moche art have non-human aspects “like fangs, or the faces or tails or wings of various creatures.” But these two murals, even though they have two faces, “seem entirely human," Trever noted.

Since uncovering the first mural in 1958, archaeologists have been studying the ceremonial hall at Pañamarca, now for over 60 years. Putting the depictions of two headed men in context, other murals within the ceremonial hall depict a priestess, a serpent and a bat. And according to a statement by the team, despite six decades of study, much of the hall is still unexcavated and it is thought that many more murals are awaiting discovery.

Panoramas of the Moche complex under excavation at Pañamarca. 

(Aerial drone photography by J. Antonio Ochatoma Cabrera/ Panamarca)

Exploring Cosmic Connections

Trever said one of the interesting things about the hall is the unusual density of paintings within it. This means the team can only excavate selected aspects of the building each archaeological field season. Trever said the team still has a lot of questions about the architecture and its functions and that it's still unknown how the Moche used this ritual space.

What is known about the ceremonial hall, however, is that it was reserved for use only by priests. The narrow passages and interior spaces suggest ritual use, and that “it was not a public space." Trever added it was probably open to “the leaders or elders of the community at Pañamarca." Edward Swenson , director of the Archaeology Centre at the University of Toronto, told Live Science that the two-faced men might have represented “a mortal wearing a mask and thus impersonating or becoming one with [the] supernatural." Furthermore, a connection with the gods might also be indicated in the detail of the hummingbirds drinking from the goblet.

Picking From the Peruvian Pantheon

Swenson said he interprets the hummingbirds drinking from the cup as “a powerful invocation of the centrality of sacrifice in Moche worldview." He added that sacrifice served as “a critical mechanism to ensure the circulation of life-giving fluids between beings and cosmic realms."

Like the Inca of Peru, the Moche people worshipped a wide variety of gods and deities associated with nature, agriculture, and fertility. Their primary gods included “Ai-Apaec,” a god of sacrifice and warfare; the “Decapitator,” who was a god of death and the underworld; and the Moon Goddess, who was associated with fertility, childbirth, and the menstrual cycle. It might be the case that the hummingbird was regarded as a messenger of the gods, transferring sacrificed human souls to the other world/s.

• Top image: The two-faced Moche man figure painted on the lower part of the pillar. Two images of two-faced men have been discovered at the Moche site of Pañamarca, Peru.  
• Source: Lisa Trever/ Panamarca

By Ashley Cowie

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21-03-2023 om 22:49 geschreven door peter