Jonathan Nelson Professor Duffett 4/22/2011 English 1A Ancient Civilizations and Strange Artifacts

Ancient manuscripts and legends tell of lost civilizations dating back to past ages, some cultures with extremely advanced technology for their time. We have evidence, although sometimes not verified by archeological means, of these past cultures from the ruins of very old cities, ancient structures, strange hieroglyphics, odd artifacts, and more. Examples include reports of Egyptian treasure in the Grand Canyon, Atlantis, the Piri Reis map, the long disputed builders and purpose of the Great Pyramid, and many more. What is interesting about some of these lost cities is that they were destroyed by catastrophic events. Usually what the manuscripts say is that a tremendously large flood destroyed the civilization. For example, the story of the fabled city of Akakor states that "...Continents were flooded. The waters of the Great Lake flowed back into the oceans. The Great (Amazon) River was interrupted by a new mountain range and now flowed swiftly toward the east (and into the Atlantic Ocean.) Enormous forest grew on its banks. A humid heat spread over the easterly regions...In the west, where giant mountains had surged up, people froze in the bitter cold of the higher altitudes..." (from rickrichards.com) This passage is referring to the ancient city of Akakor rumored to be hidden somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon. Many other cities have similar flood stories. The world is full of mysterious places, and things, lets explore a few. A certain legend involves an explorer by the name of G.E. Kincaid, who allegedly discovered a rock citadel hidden in the Gran Canyon. According to the report the Smithsonian has a team of archeologist which have discovered the race of the people who inhabited this mysterious cavern

were from the orient, most possibly Egypt. If they theories are given credence by the translation of the hieroglyphics discovered than the mysterious origin of the native North Americans could be verified. The article states thats the long passage under the ground is 1480 ft deep, and leads to a gigantic chamber, which has chambers running off it like the spokes of a wheel. Several chambers have been discovered, which contained weapons, copper instruments, and sharp edged weapons as hard as steel. The entrance to the cavern is supposedly 200 ft above the river bed, in a shelf on the cliff. There is a shrine along one of the walls in the main chamber, and hieroglyphics all over the walls and pottery, among the writing, the pictures of only two animals can be found, one of which is prehistoric. One of the largest chambers consists of tiers of crypts, complete with mummies. The document in which this report was released has never been verified, and some consider it an April fools joke for the year of 1909. If you search you may find the document, but whether it is true or not we may never know. An interesting fact is that, the Hopi Indians have a legend that recites the story of there ancestors, and how they lived in an underworld in the Grand Canyon until a schism occurred between the good and the bad. Oddly enough, this coincides with the report of the incredible find, although again, this count is unverified. The Piri Reis map was made in Constantinople in 1583, and focuses on the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of America, and the northern coast of Antarctica. Whats interesting about this is that the information contained on this map should not be there. Antarctica was not discovered until 1818 more than 300 years after the map was Piri Reis drew the map. Even MORE interesting is the fact that the map portrays Antarctica WITHOUT ice. This should not be possible as the earliest date that it has been speculated Antarctica was without ice, is 4000 BC. Also the map depicts the Eastern coast of America, and depicts rivers far in land, and the contours of the coast. America was not officially discovered until sometime after the map was made. An explanation is that Piri Reis did not map the coasts himself; rather, he designed the map from old oral traditions of

them. This map is another mystery, more for the depiction of Antarctica under the glacier, which we have recently just mapped. The Great Pyramid of Egypt is arguably one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Who built it and why? The history books say that it was built to be Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) tomb. But that does not line up with a few things. Generally Egyptologists regard the pyramid complex on the Giza Plateau as the tombs of three pharaohs from the fourth dynasty. Khufu (Cheops), Khafre, and Menkaura. But in all the pyramids, no one has ever found the full body of a pharaoh. Supposedly a few scattered parts, a foot, fragments of wraps, an arm etc, have been found, but never a full body. The Egyptologists explain that this was that they have been taken away by grave robbers. This could have happened, but the prevailing theory is that the pyramids were used for something instead of, or as well as, tombs. The only evidence that Khufu built the pyramid is that Herodotus, a Roman Historian, claimed that the pharaoh was buried underneath the pyramid, and not inside it. The other evidence is an inscription that reads in the time of Khufu. But evidence has emerged that this was forged by an archeologist named Richard Howard-Vyse who is believed to have forged it from the pressure of a competition between him and another archeologist, Caviglia. This is hardly concrete evidence that it was indeed Khufu who built the Great Pyramid. It is possible that Khufu was indeed buried here, but it still induces the question, what was the main purpose of the pyramid? We may never know, but an interesting fact emerges. It has been argued, but it has been found that the pyramid stand EXACTLY at the centre of the earths landmass. (30n, 31e). Theories abound about the purpose of the pyramid, but until concrete proof emerges, we may never know. The legend of Atlantis started with the Greek philosopher Platos account. According to him, Atlantis was a major naval power lying in front of the pillar of Hercules. It conquered many parts of Europe and Africa in 9600 BC, and after a failed attempt at conquering Athens, it sank into the ocean in a single day and night. Platos account has been disputed about, and it is speculated how

much the account was based on older traditions. Proposed sources for his story are: the Thera Eruption, Trojan War, the destruction of Helike, or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily. Alan Cameron states that it is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously, no one did so in antiquity. The concept of Atlantis attracted many people though, including Nazis. Himmler organized a German expedition in 1939 to search for Aryan Atlanteans, and the origin of the Europid race. Francis Bacon also described a utopian society that he called Bensalem, which was supposedly located off the western coast of America. During the 19th century ideas of Atlantis were combined with stories of the legendary continents of Lemuria and Mu. Proposed theories for the location of Atlantis are: in or near the Mediterranean Sea, the Bermuda Triangle, or in the Atlantic Ocean or Europe. Slightly off the main topic, but still nearly pertaining, is the story of Colonel Percival Harrison Fawcett. His story is as follows. Colonel Percy Fawcett had a lifelong passion for the esoteric and exploration. In 1893, while exploring Ceylons jungles, he discovered a large boulder with strange inscriptions. He was eventually told that they were a form of script that only a handful of Buddhist monks could understand. The idea of a lost civilization hiding just beyond what had been explored in the jungles captivated him to the point that it led to his 1925 disappearance in the Amazon. It reads like a H.P. Lovecraft story: the occult, cannibal tribes, whispering spirits, and a lost Atlantean city. In 1906, the 39-year-old Fawcett was sent to delimit the borders between Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. The area was unforgiving. European rubber plantations would illegally enslave entire jungle villages and the cannibal natives would attack anything that entered their land. Fawcett broke tradition by treating the natives with respect, providing them with gifts whenever he entered their land, and listened to their stories intently. One of their stories about a lost golden city located within a 10-mile-valley within the Mato Grosso jungle where strange cold lights terrified men captivated him. He started calling the city Z and through letters with other occultists like H. Rider Haggard and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle it was decided that natives were

describing an Atlantean outpost. Haggard provided Fawcett with a small basalt statue with mysterious inscriptions that was claimed to have been found in a Brazilian lost city in 1913. Eventually Fawcett began to believe that the statue enabled him to connect with a female spirit called a Sith that was beckoning him to find Z. In 1925, through funding from a group of supporters called The Glove, Fawcett set off to find Z with his son and a friend of his sons. Fawcett hoped to set up a Theosophist commune where his son would be worshipped as a god when he discovered Z. Even though the small expedition was sick and badly equipped before they entered uncharted territories he was optimistic about what he would find. It was the last time he was seen or heard from. So what happened to Percy Fawcett? Explanations about his fate range from simple to absolutely bizarre. On the simple side he was eaten by wildlife, killed by hostile tribes, or had assimilated into one of the tribes. Sightings of blue eyed children became commonplace and many natives claimed to have seen him as late as the mid-30s. Some remains were found in the jungle along with stories from the tribes that claimed to have killed Fawcett, but none ever turned out to be him. On the bizarre side are the UFOlogists, hollow earth theorists, and occultists. According to them he was abducted by UFOs for discovering Atlantis or lived in an underground empire with 28 children, his eldest armed with a golden spear. His family tried to reach him through psychics and claimed to be communicating with him as late as the 40s. But he was never found dead or alive. Maybe we will never know what happened to Colonel Percy or if Z ever existed. Maybe the best explanation is a mix: he went into the jungle motivated by native myths that surrounded a dead civilization, was brainwashed by his own occult beliefs about it having an Atlantean origin, and ended up dead somewhere along the line. The harsh Amazon jungle, which still hides many people that havent been contacted yet, made sure that his body was never found. Or, maybe, somewhere within the Amazon jungles, he formed his own tribe in a lost city. (taken from ty.rannasaur.us) As this guy sounds pretty crazy he could have been right about the city. A school teacher (unverified report) supposedly tried to follow his footsteps. This teacher sent

6 carrier pigeons back, two of which made it. On the sixth, he said he had found the city, and hope everyone would find it by the map he had sent with the fourth pigeon. We may never know the truth.

Now the Antikythera mechanism is an ancient computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was recovered in 1901 from the Antikythera wreck off the coast of a Greek island known by the same name. According to Wikipedia, this is its purpose. The device is remarkable for the level of miniaturization and for the complexity of its parts, which is comparable to that of 19th century clocks. It has over 30 gears, although Michael Wright (see below) has suggested as many as 72 gears, with teeth formed through equilateral triangles. When a date was entered via a crank (now lost), the mechanism calculated the position of the Sun, Moon, or other astronomical information such as the location of other planets. Since the purpose was to position astronomical bodies with respect to the celestial sphere, with reference to the observer's position on the surface of the Earth, the device was based on the geocentric model. The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the back. The front dial has two concentric scales. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-dayEgyptian calendar, or the Sothic year, based on the Sothic cycle. Inside this, there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac and divided into degrees. The calendar dial can be moved to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter day in the solar year (there are 365.2422 days per year) by turning the scale backwards one day every four years. Note that the Julian calendar, the first calendar of the region to contain leap years, was not introduced until about 46 BCE, up to a century after the device was said to have been built. The front dial probably carried at least three hands, one showing the date, and two others showing the positions of the Sun and the Moon. The Moon indicator is adjusted to show the first anomaly of the Moon's orbit. It is reasonable to suppose the Sun indicator had a similar adjustment, but any gearing for this mechanism (if it existed) has been lost. The front dial also includes a second

mechanism with a spherical model of the Moon that displays the lunar phase. There is reference in the inscriptions for the planets Mars and Venus, and it would have certainly been within the capabilities of the maker of this mechanism to include gearing to show their positions. There is some speculation that the mechanism may have had indicators for all the five planets known to the Greeks. None of the gearing for such planetary mechanisms survives, except for one gear otherwise unaccounted for. Finally, the front dial includes a parapegma, a precursor to the modern day almanac, which was used to mark the rising and setting of specific stars. Each star is thought to be identified by Greek characters which cross reference details inscribed on the mechanism. The upper back dial is in the form of a spiral, with 47 divisions per turn, displaying the 235 months of the 19 year Metonic cycle. This cycle is important in fixing calendars. The lower back dial is also in the form of a spiral, with 223 divisions showing the Saros cycle; it also has a smaller subsidiary dial which displays the 54 year "Triple Saros" or "Exeligmos" cycle. (The Saros cycle, discovered by the Chaldeans, is a period of approximately 18 years 11 days 8 hours the length of time between occurrences of a particular eclipse.) The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, with experts from Britain, Greece and the United States, detected in July 2008 the word "Olympia" on a bronze dial thought to display the 76 year Callippic cycle, as well as the names of other games in ancient Greece, and probably used to track dates of the ancient Olympic Games. According to BBC news: "The four sectors of the dial are inscribed with a year number and two Panhellenic Games: the 'crown' games of Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea, and Pithyia; and two lesser games: Naa (held at Dodona) and a second game which has not yet been deciphered." (-taken from Wikipedia) It is strange that a mechanical artifact would be unearthed. Our past had wonderfully smart people that were far ahead of their time. As you can see, our world is full of mysteries. I have only delved deeply into a scant few. So many more wait. People are not interested in this though. No one wants to know our past, our history. Could it be different than what we have all supposed? The scientists say that we have

evolved from nothing. Millions of years, and we started with nothing, gradually advancing to where we are now; but if this is the case, how was the Great Pyramid made? How did they haul tons and tons of stone with their bare hands? A feat which we can only do with our cranes and machines. How were the crystal skulls carved without a crack or other sign of tool use? Did Fawcett really find the City of Z? We may never know, granted, some legends and myths may be just that stories. But behind some of them, may be more than a grain of truth and that is what I find interesting.