An arctic ice video I like

[Workingman]

I asked for a more accurate calendar, not a work of art.

The Mayan calendar is only accidentally accurate to a year due to the large numbers and mix of number bases used: '20 '18 '12 and '5.

In ancient times there were two 'years' running concurrently. The festival year of 260 days, and the lunar year of 360 days. There were two different types of week; one of 13 days, a nice fit with the 260 day year; and another of 18 days to fit with the lunar year. Neither was a fit with the solar cycle.

It wasn't till the 5th or 4th century BC that the calendar was amended with a five day month added to make a 365 day year. This was in line with what the Babylonians and Jews had done to their calendars. The Egyptians, who used the rising of Sirius for the start of their year, had been using a 365 day year for centuries. They even knew about solar pregression, (the need for leap years) but as it had little effect they did nothing about it.

There is not a jot of scientific evidence from the Mayan calendar that it was accurate to seconds and nor is there any evidence that superior metallurgical skills were required to produce copies of the calendars.

The last completed cycle of the Long Count began, according to modern counting back methods, on 11th Aug 3114 BC. (Greg.) It finished on 21st Dec 2012 at which time the Universe ended and then started again. I cannot find any evidence for any such happening so I call that a big "fail".

[Workingman]

Aggers, I have been a fan of these hypotheses for many years because they do open up previously unasked questions. However, when those questions are attempted to be answered the hypotheses fall down.

We have archaeological evidence dating back 3.2 million years of the existence of humanoids when there would only be a few thousand around. Go back 300,000 years and we have loads of evidence for Neanderthals. Travel back 40,000 years and we have Cro-Magnons. Look anywhere you like, and at whatever time, and there is nothing of some previously highly intelligent civilization - not so much as a hair.

Hancock says that they travelled the world in their great ships doing all in their power to keep the spark of civilization burning. They settled at key locations - Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, Baalbek in the Lebanon, Giza in Egypt, ancient Sumer, Mexico, Peru and across the Pacific where a huge pyramid has recently been discovered in Indonesia. This new pyramid is about 1,000ft above sea level - so flying ships, then?

Does anybody else find it strange that there is not one tool, one implement, one engraving, one ship belonging to this civilization?

[Aggers]

Frank - It is obvious that you have studied and thought about this subject for a considerably longer period than I have, and in much greater depth. However, it is a fact that this matter has been subject to much thought and discussion in quite recent years, and many new theories have evolved, some of which have now been accepted by the experts, albeit in some cases, reluctantly. As a relative newcomer to this particular matter, I am perhaps more able to accept the new lines of thought more easily than those have been inculcated in the previously accepted theories. That's my excuse, anyway.

[Workingman]

Aggers, I am quite happy with these new hypotheses, all I ask for is some sort of proof. Please, point me to it, give me something to work with. Don't just tell me that this was that, so this must follow.

I am an Atheist, and for me these stories take on Biblical proportions.

Five loaves and two fishes, the burning bush, Noah's arc..... they are allegorical. We do not know what actually happened, so here is a story, a faerietale, to try to explain.

Next thing you know we will be walking on water and then turning it into wine.

[Aggers]

Five loaves and two fishes, the burning bush, Noah's arc..... they are allegorical. We do not know what actually happened, so here is a story, a faerietale, to try to explain.
.

Actually, the Noah's ark story is not confined to the Bible. There are many other examples of similar folklore from other cultures all over the globe. We do not know exactly what happened, but we can assume that it was a worldwide event.

[Workingman]

Actually, the Noah's ark story is not confined to the Bible. There are many other examples of similar folklore from other cultures all over the globe. We do not know exactly what happened, but we can assume that it was a worldwide event.

Not quite. It could have been a local event passed on down the years to become folklore. Did it ever happen?

It is almost impossible to prove a negative.

I am, therefore, asking for proof of a positive - an advanced civilization in ancient times.

Lead me to them. Tell me who they were. Tell me when they existed. Show me proof, in whatever form, that they existed.

[Aggers]

[Lead me to them. Tell me who they were. Tell me when they existed. Show me proof, in whatever form, that they existed.

You ask a lot, Frank. I'll give it some thought.

(Maybe Suff can answer this ?)

[Workingman]

Aggers, I have just watched a programme about Cleopatra on C5. These things fascinate me.

An amateur, a criminal lawyer with an interest, opens up new grounds and research the professional and academic Egyptologists missed. She might not, yet, have found Cleopatra's tomb, but she really has stirred things up.

I am open to thinking out of the box, but proof is needed.

[Suff]

Sorry busy weekend, busy time at work (start of month project reports), plus I'm knackered and also had to go to my Bowen session last night. The Bowen session was a ++ My right foot is almost healed now and my left knee is on the way...

I'll try and get answers for you over the week but I'm now running a cold and will probably be in bed by 5pm tomorrow. I wouldn't go to work but I've got a first senior sponsor meeting tomorrow so I have to go...

[Suff]

So I said I'd come back with some examples.

So let's get to it.

Tiwanacu and Puma Punku
Sacsayhuaman
Trilithon at Baalbeck
The Antikythera Mechanism

In order...

Tiahuanaco is an example of engineering so monumental that it dwarfs even the work of the Aztecs. Stone blocks on the site weigh many tons. They bear no chisel marks, so the means by which they were shaped remains a mystery. The stone itself came from two different quarries. One supplied sandstone and was situated 10 miles away. It shows signs of having produced blocks weighing up to 400 tons. The other supplied andesite and was located 50 miles away, raising the question of how the enormous blocks were transported in an age before the horse was domesticated in South America.

This is supposed to have been built at a time when nobody had the skills to effectively machine dress stone. Had it been chiselled, modern imaging equipment would have been able to detect what the eye cannot.

They are three parallel walls built in different levels with lime-stones of enormous sizes. Zigzagging walls are made of boulders used for the first or lower levels are the biggest; there is one that is 8.5 m high (28 ft.) and weights about 140 metric tons. Those boulders classify the walls as being of cyclopean or megalithic architecture. There are no other walls like these.

Scientists are not certain how these huge stones were transported and processed to fit so perfectly that no blade of grass or steel can slide between them. There is no mortar. The stones often join in complex and irregular surfaces that would appear to be a nightmare for the stonemason.

3D stonemasonry. A snip for a culture which didn't have steel, let alone tool steel. Although Limestone is much easier to shape. But lifting and placing this kind of stonework at up to 140 tonnes?

One of the most amazing engineering achievements is the Podium which was built with some of the largest stone blocks ever hewn. On the west side of the podium is the “Trilithon”, a celebrated group of three enormous stones weighing about 800 tons each.

Some archaeologists might well wish that Baalbek had been buried forever. For it is here that we find the largest dressed stone block in the world – the infamous Stone of the South, lying in its quarry just ten minutes walk from the temple acropolis. This huge stone weighs approximately 1,000 tons

Here's the fun thing. Try getting a quote to quarry, shape, transport and place 800 tonne stones today. You won't get any takers. It would be possible but the machine required to do it would be in on the scale of the largest mining machines in the world.

Now one of my favourites....

“The design is beautiful. The astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop.”

On the contrary, from all that we know of science and technology in the Hellenistic Age we should have felt that such a device could not exist.

But if you dig a little deeper into the linked article, we find that.

Three-dimensional X-ray tomography enabled the scientists to count individual teeth in at least 30 precision, hand-cut gears. The group also conducted high-resolution surface imaging of many of its 80 fragments, which allowed the scientists to decipher new Greek inscriptions.

With this new information, the team could reconstruct the Antikythera Mechanism’s functions. The device enabled astronomers in the second century BC to predict the movements of the Moon and Sun, along with lunar and solar eclipses. It could recreate irregularities in the Moon’s motion due to its elliptical orbit. And it may have even enabled Greek astronomers to forecast the positions of the known planets.

Whilst it is possible to believe that the discover of the circumference of the earth, around that time, whichis clearly required to facilitate that level of Astronomical knowledge, the engineering skills for such an incredibly accurate piece of technology simply did not exist. Remember there were no lathes then.

It was the advent of modern machining techniques which eventually allowed clock makers to create a clock accurate enough to allow precision navigation, some 1,900 years later.

Yet we are expected to believe that this incredibly complicated mechanism which would have required precision way above and beyond that of the Marine Chronometer, just in order to simply work at all.

But, it is still within the bounds of (almost), credibility that some inventor, 2,000 years before his time, managed to produce this wondrous artefact which was lost at sea and discovered. If, in fact, there was only one of these ever produced, it would have been one of the most remarkable coincidences in the world. Not only like a needle in a haystack, but, over 2,200 years, it would be like a needle in a million haystacks the size of the Eiffel tower.

You only have to look into the history of modern weapons to realise that the parts of rifles used in the American Civil War were simply not interchangeable. Every one was unique and if something broke, then a new part had to be made and machined to match the poor construction quality of the weapon. The weapons of the ACW were made, mainly, using milling and boring machines, with foundries and almost entirely modern technology. Albeit at a lower level than the digital age.

Surmising that there could have been dozens if not hundreds of these devices, which would make a rifle comparable to a stone age spear and flint in technological progress, is beyond fanciful. That even one could have been produced in the times is a near miracle. Let alone with the astronomical knowledge modern 3D radiography tells us exists within the device.

What is not within the bounds of credibility, however, is the construction of the Great pyramid.

Here are 25 facts, well I'm sure some are documented but not verifiable, about that construction.

Let's have a look at point 7.

The mortar used is of an unknown origin (Yes, no explanation given). It has been analyzed and its chemical composition is known but it can’t be reproduced. It is stronger than the stone and still holding up today.

So this is beyond our technology to replicate today.

Now let's look at points 5 and 11 together.

So the pyramid is not even a straight sided one. It curves in. This kind of structure is even harder to create than a simple straight sided one. Now let us assume that these 144,000 cover stones were there and their construction was, in fact, accurate to one thousandths of an inch.

If so, today, it would take a fairly reasonable computer and a computer controlled milling machine to create blocks which angled into the centre, out at the edges and matched across three straight lines, to join exactly, to one thousandths of an inch tolerance at every join. All whilst rising at an angle to make the pyramidal shape.

This kind of work would tax our engineering skills to their utmost and our laser measuring equipment to the limit.

Yet we are expected to believe that a low tech society with copper tools created this?

Then there are points 9 and 10. Where knowledge of the entire size and shape of the earth would have been required to align exactly true north, but, more amazingly, to align exactly centre mass on two axes would have required a total knowledge of the continents of the earth which we absolutely know they did not have at that date.

Finally there are points 14 and 15.... Copper tools again. somehow I don't think so....

There is evidence all over the place that a forerunner civilisation reached a very high level, long before our recorded history. The worst part is that the Christian Church maniacal determination that our planet was "created by god" only a few thousand years ago, has created huge and ongoing damage to the scientific study of what went before.

It is unlikely that I will ever know for absolute certainty that this civilisation was there. But, to my mind, it is pretty much certain that evidence will be found eventually. Possibly when we find another, absolutely key, lost city in the jungles of south America... Or when Antarctica melts enough to find traces of a civilisation which once flourished there...