The Great Egyptian Pyramids are some of the most mysterious structures on earth and have been the topic of countless debates throughout history. The question of how they were built, when they were built, and who they were built by, and for what purpose they have to this day have garnered endless theories and speculations.
Archaeologists believe that the Great Pyramids in Egypt were constructed by the old kingdom society around 2500 BC. They believe that the main purpose of these pyramids was to act as tombs for the pharaohs and their queens. That would make sense considering the sheer size of the pyramids. They are huge with the largest, the great pyramid of Giza incorporating around 2.3 million stone blocks, with an average weight of 2.5 to 15 tons each.
But besides what we can measure, the rest of what we think we know about the pyramids are mostly just theories. The fact is, we really don’t know for sure why the pyramids were created, we don’t know who created them, we really don’t know exactly how old they are and we for sure have NO clue how a Bronze Age society that we perceive to be primitive was able to create them.
Not only that, there are a few unbelievable facts about the dimensions of the Great Pyramid in relationship to the earth: Did you know that if you take the height of the pyramid and multiply it by 43,200 you get the polar radius of earth? Not only that, If you take the base perimeter of the pyramid and multiply it by 43,200 you get the equatorial circumference of the earth. Why 43,200? The number isn't random. It comes from a key motion of the earth called the precession of the earth’s axis. Pyramids were built and encoded with the exact dimensions of the earth at a scale of 1 :43,200.
It seems that archaeologists generally agree that the granite from the pyramid’s internal chambers was somehow quarried 533 miles south of Giza in Aswan, and the limestones used as casings were from Tura a few miles away, but because these stones were so massive, everyone had varied opinions about how they were transported. Every once in a while, a new theory will come out and claim to solve the mind-boggling mystery of how the pyramids were constructed.
The last big theory was proposed in 2014 by a Dutch engineer who claimed that the stones were transported using sand, water, and a wooden sled.
Now, according to a new British documentary called Egypt’s Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, there is apparently new evidence that two tonne blocks of limestone and granite were transported by thousands of laborers along the Nile river in wooden boats held together by ropes. Special canals were also used to bring them to an inland port which was in close proximity to the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The scroll that provided evidence of such a procedure was written by an Egyptian overseer named Merer and is apparently the only first-hand account of how the great pyramid was constructed. In the papyrus scroll found in the seaport Wadi Al-Jar, it is written that Merer and his team of 40 workmen were in charge of using wooden boats along the Nile River to carry 150,000 tonnes of limestone in order to build Pharaoah Khufu's tomb in 2600BC. He explained that the boats were tied together by ropes, which helped to keep them secure.
Besides the scroll, researchers also uncovered a system of canals and a ceremonial boat, which lends truth to what Merer wrote, detailing that his team of 40 skilled workers dug canals to channel the water from the river to the pyramid.
What do you think? Did we just solve one of the greatest mysteries in the world?
Source:
http://www.newsweek.com/who-built-ancient-egypts-great-pyramid-hidden-text-holds-clues-thousand-year-670265
It is often said that knowledge is wealth and in the ancient world it is something that is well guarded more than gold or jewels. The colossal libraries ancient civilizations like the Greeks and the Egyptians built are testaments to the fact that all the riches of the world will always pale in comparison with knowledge and learning.
These days, when information comes to us lightning-quick at the touch of a button, we tend to underestimate and undervalue the privilege we have of unfettered access to almost anything that we want to know and learn. It is a little bit tragic that the sense of appreciation that we have for information and learning is eclipsed by our continuously shortening attention spans because of all the media we consume on a daily basis.
In today’s list, we take a step back thousands of years to days when information and knowledge are stored and jealously guarded in giant libraries that are often the first monuments to be destroyed and sacked in times of war or invasion. Libraries that have shaped the world we now know of and the civilizations that have walked the earth, each contributing to humanity’s progress.
So here are 10 legendary and mysterious libraries of the ancient world!
Called by historians as the Cradle of Civilization, ancient Mesopotamia – now modern day Iraq – was once one of the world’s centers for learning. Alongside Greece, Egypt, and Rome, Mesopotamia had one of the largest institutions of learning built in the 9 AD at the heart of the city of Baghdad.
Known as The House of Wisdom, it was built during the reign of the Abbasids. The House of Wisdom’s “collections” revolved around literature from Persia, Greece, and India. Also, among the library’s collection are manuscripts on mathematics, philosophy, science, medicine, and astronomy.
The books alone were enough to serve as lures to scholars from neighboring regions in the Middle East and among them are the mathematician and one of the fathers of Algebra, al-Khawarizmi; and the philosopher al-Kindi.
The House of Wisdom was the epicentre of Islamic intellectualism and academia for hundreds of years until it was sacked by the Mongols in 1258, tossing many of its extremely valuable manuscripts and books into the Tigris. Legend even has it that the famed river turned black due to ink dissolving into its waters.
The ancient Romans are no strangers to accumulating codices and scrolls filled with anything from mathematics to philosophy. Knowledge and information are cornerstones of their empire that lasted centuries.
A Roman emperor’s love of monuments has helped erect one – or two – of the ancient world’s largest libraries.
Around 112 AD Emperor Trajan completed the construction of a wide, multi-use complex at the heart of Rome. Within the bounds of this Forum are plazas, markets, and temples. However, its crown jewel is one of the Roman Empire’s famous libraries.
Split in two, the twin structures housed numerous works and texts in Latin and Greek – separately housed – and were built on opposite sides of Trajan’s column, a massive monument to celebrate the emperor’s military victories. Containing a collection of about 20,000 scrolls in rooms made of elegantly crafted marble and granite, historians are still debating when the twin libraries ceased to exist. With only texts referencing them until the fifth century AD, experts can only assume that it stood for at least three centuries.
One of the last ancient libraries to have survived well into the modern day, the Villa of the Papyri has withstood catastrophes including the devastating eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Located in Herculaneum, Italy, the ruins of the Villa was buried deep in the ashes of Vesuvius that miraculously kept at least 1,785 of its scrolls preserved when the library was unearthed by archaeologists in 1752.
Technically the Villa was a house and not a library by any definition. Supposedly owned by Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesonius, Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, the massive home – aside from its impressive private library of texts on philosophy – boasted a collection of bronze sculptures and the most stylish and impressive architecture of that century.
Constructed by the Attalid Dynasty in the third century BC in what is now the country of Turkey, the Library of Pergamum was home to an impressive collection of 200,000 scrolls on varying subjects.
Located within a temple complex devoted to the Greek goddess Athena, the Library was considered to have become the “competition” of the Library of Alexandria according to the ancient chronicler, Pliny the Elder.
Apparently, both libraries sought to amass large collections of texts as well as establish rival schools of thought.
The rivalry between the two libraries allegedly reached fever pitch that Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt halted the exportation of papyrus to Pergamum hoping that it would cripple the library. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan and only turned the city of Pergamum as one of the leading producers of parchment paper.
Moving further south of Asia, the Nalanda University in Bahir, India, is considered to be oldest university in the entire world as the first European university only popped up in 1088, a whole six centuries later.
What is even more exceptional about Nalanda is that the university provided education to thousands of students all across Asia.
Its nine-storey library was nicknamed “Dharmaganja” or Treasury of Truth and “Dharma Gunj” or Mountain of Truth because it was highly praised for the largest collection of Buddhist texts among other writings and literature. Helping spread philosophy and the Buddhist faith, Nalanda has nurtured thousands of followers until it was destroyed by Turk invaders in 1193. Due to the university’s immense size, legend tells that it took the Turks months before they could completely reduce its foundations to rubble.
Before it was destroyed around 638 AD by invading Arabs, the Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima or simply the Library of Caesarea, had the largest collection of ecclesiastical and theological texts of the Ancient Christian and Jewish world.
As the center of Christian education and scholarship, the library was also home to a large collection of literature from Greece and other neighboring regions. Mostly the texts are primarily historical and philosophical but nonetheless valuable as the place was frequently visited by important historical personalities such as Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazareth.
The church father Origen was mainly responsible for the library’s inventory of 30,000 manuscripts but during the purge initiated by Emperor Diocletian, the library and many of its contents were destroyed. Afterwards, it was rebuilt by the bishops of Caesarea only to be completely torn down, brick by brick, by Arab invaders.
Unfortunately, not a single manuscript from the library’s collection survived.
Built in the first century BC, the library of Aristotle was part of a larger structure called the Lyceum where he was sought by many of his students and spent time learning from one of history’s most influential philosophers.
300 years after Aristotle’s death, a geographer named Strabo chronicled one of the most detailed accounts of the philosopher’s magnificent collection in his Geographia XIII, 1, 54-55, saying that Aristotle was “the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings in Egypt hwo to arrage a library.”
Upon Aristotle’s death, the Lyceum was bequeathed to Theoprastus. Even before his death, Aristotle heard of the jealousy of the Attalid empire of his library and desired to covet it for the Library of Pergamum. When Aristotle died and the Lyceum passed on to a new owner, it was then decided that the library’s entire collection be hidden and kept safe underground.
Unfortunately, despite this noble effort, many of the books were damaged by moisture and the remainder of the collection were sold to a man named Apellicon of Teos.
Most of the history of the Imperial Library of Constantinople is shrouded in mystery. Many would point out that it was built out of necessity to preserve texts that were already in danger because of deterioration.
It was in 357 AD when Byzantine Emperor Constantius II decided to build the imperial library where many of the deteriorating Judeo-Christian scriptures could be copied onto vellum, a material that lasts longer than papyrus. Although Constantius II was only mostly interested in religious texts, the Imperial Library still managed to salvage many other books and scrolls that housed the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans.
In fact, many of the surviving texts from the ancient Grecian world that survives today were copies from the original manuscripts of the Imperial Library of Constantinople.
Built by Ptolemy I in 295 BC, the Great Library of Alexandria holds a prestigious title in history as a “Universal” library where scholars from all over the world would visit, share ideas, and study from over thousands of texts that it offers.
It was, in fact, the intellectual crown jewel of the ancient world. Texts and scriptures on subjects like history, law, science, and mathematics can be browsed among its collection of 500,000 scrolls.
Many visiting scholars that decided to remain and live in the library complex received stipends from the Egyptian government just for conducting their studies and copying texts. Among its visitors were Euclid and Archimedes.
Its demise is still a question that seeks answers. Supposedly, the library burned down in 48 BC when Julius Caesar set fire to Alexandria’s harbor when he was at war with Ptolemy XIII. However, many historians believe that a blaze could not have easily destroyed the library and it may have still survived for a few more centuries. Some scholars, on the other hand, argue that the library met its end during the reign of Roman emperor Aurelian in 270 AD while other experts place its obliteration somewhere around the Fourth Century AD.
Whatever the case and however it fell, the Library of Alexandria remains to be one of history’s greatest achievements both architecturally and academically.
Known as the world’s oldest library, it was built and founded for the “royal contemplation” of the Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal in the 7th Century. Basically, it was one massive private study.
Constructed in Nineveh in modern-day Iraq, the library had a collection of around 30,000 stone tablets written in cuneiform. What’s even more impressive is that the tablets were organized according to subject matter. Most of them being archival documents of the royal court, the collection also included a number of literary works including the 4000-year old Epic of Gilgamesh.
Ashurbanipal was a known book-lover and obtained many of them through looting from conquered territories including Babylonia.
Today, most of the surviving tablets are housed and cared for in the British Museum in London.
While the Library of Ashurbanipal may not be as glamorous as the Library of Alexandria, it is most interesting to note that his collection helped pave the way to the history of the written word through cuneiform.
Sources:
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-impressive-ancient-libraries
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2011/05/30/11-most-impressive-libraries-from-the-ancient-world/
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/10-magnificent-ancient-libraries-filled-with-knowledge/
http://listverse.com/2016/12/09/10-mysterious-libraries/
NASA equips its astronauts with the most sophisticated gear that is intended to keep them safe in space as well as help them perform their jobs comfortably while floating around in zero gravity. Coupled with that, they are also provided with food items that are suitable for space travel and would not damage any on-board equipment that could potentially cause a disaster. It goes without saying that taking ordinary “earth food” with you in a space shuttle while you are hurtling through the atmosphere is greatly discouraged and prohibited by NASA because small things like crumbs can get into tiny crevices in equipment and spark a fire.
However, in one mission, an extremely curious astronaut named John Young was able to smuggle a sandwich in his suit and bring it with him to space, even offering a bite to his co-pilot. The amusement turned to terror when they both realized the destructive potential of the sandwich crumbs floating around in a weightless environment. Fortunately for them, they were able to complete their mission and came home in one piece. Because of this stunt, NASA had to assure the public – and Congress – that they will be tightening their security measures and screening so that no stunt like this can ever be pulled again, placing billions of taxpayer dollars and the lives of the crew at risk.
In another story, the same astronaut, John Young, went on a mission to the moon in 1972 and have made one of history’s lesser known utterances in outer space.
While having a casual conversation with a team member, Young casually mentions some gassy digestive problems he had been experiencing and, right at that moment, let one rip while he was completely unaware that his suit’s microphone was recording everything. Luckily, the mic was not sensitive enough to record the actual “release” of his flatulence but Young was kind enough to give a colorful description of it along with a few “F” words to accompany his adjectives.
You would think that this next one is all Science Fiction and could have come from the mind of an absolutely imaginative writer. However, the existence of this so-called Diamond Planet has been proven by real scientists who have been observing it with much interest.
Called PSR J1719-1438 b, the planet was said to have once been a star and that the debris it produced after it dies has managed to turn into a dwarf planet. Part of a twin-star, this diamond planet managed to survive after its brother exploded into a supernova. Managing to stabilize far enough from being obliterated, it was able to keep its carbon core that now is a colossal chunk of bling.
A pretty impressive discovery after we have all been told that Pluto has been declassified as a planet, shattering our schoolyard belief that it was.
The debate on whether or not there are other universes outside our own is a controversial debate that has kept scientists, physicists, and astronomers on their toes and at each other’s throats for years. On one side, experts believe that there is no scientific and mathematical law that allows the existence of another universe, let alone several more.
However, on the other hand, believers of the theory have countered that neither is there evidence that disproves the theory of a multiverse that’s just waiting to be discovered.
Many have held this belief as mere fantasy and something that only happens in speculative fiction and comic books, the fact of the matter is that until scientific advancements can be made that will allow humans to explore outside the known universe, this debate will not soon be put to bed.
We are all familiar with the iconic broadcast of the first moon landing. The moment Neil Armstrong took his first step and uttered those words that are now deeply etched in human history, it was a completely new ballgame for science and the entire human civilization.
However, in 2006, a shocking twist to the story came to the public eye when NASA half-heartedly admitted that they have lost track of the recordings of the historic Apollo 11 mission but assured everyone that it was simply buried somewhere in their archives. Later, NASA announced that they have found the tapes pertaining to Apollo 11 but revealed that the recordings were “accidentally” erased.
Luckily for NASA, news agencies such as CBS who managed to record the event were able to supply a decent amount of recordings and footage from the Apollo 11 moon landing. A courtesy that was able to save NASA from disgrace.
A particularly lesser known story from the Space Race was that the USSR armed their cosmonauts with shotguns while American astronauts were busy smuggling Big Macs into space.
Modifying a TP-82 shotgun, Soviet engineers packed these firearms as they flew into space. The reason for packing some heat in the void of space, however, was not to fend off hostile aliens wanting to board their ship or in case they have to fight off space pirates. The modified shotguns were more for the trip home.
The difference between NASA and Soviet re-entry protocol was that NASA chose a much more practical approach to have their astronauts land in the Pacific region where they will then be picked up. The Soviets, on the other hand, chose the vast landscape of Siberia as their landing point. Unfortunately, when Soviet capsules re-entered the planet’s atmosphere, their capsule would sometimes fly off course and land in a different region that were mostly grizzly bear territory.
The most difficult part of understanding space is grasping the idea of how large it really is. So far, the only information we know about scale is from mock-ups of the solar system with the sun being the largest body in the universe.
Speaking of scale, let us put the sun as an example. We all know that it is a massive star that the planets revolve around on and it has different effects on each planetary body. However, a recent discovery has been made that the sun, which is 109 times larger than the Earth, is dwarfed by an even bigger star called VY Canis Majoris: a hyper-gigantic star that is, roughly, 1.7 billion – yes, BILLION – miles in diameter.
Also, bigger means brighter and hotter. Simply put, if we were to place this hyper-giant star to replace out own sun, chances are, every single planet and moon within its reach will instantly be obliterated. Fortunately for our solar system, VY Canis Majoris is 4900 lightyears away – a distance that makes it difficult for scientists to study. However, experts predict that in about 100,000 years, this star will explode and die and – probably, take a few systems with it along the way. A literal Death Star.
NASA engineers make sure that before they send someone off to space they have covered all the bases from suits to ships – and one of these bases involve getting rid of human waste while in outer space.
To the layman, the answer may be as simple as cracking open a chute and just let things all and float freely out of the ship. However, the solution is much, much more complicated than that. Engineers have to consider, on top of comfort and hygiene, scenarios that can possibly damage a craft or any part of it during the process of waste elimination.
One example posed an almost catastrophic scenario. In 1984, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery was stunned to discover a large icicle made of urine sticking out of the urinal discharge unit. The way it is done, in layman’s terms, is that astronauts would urinate in receptacles that are then ejected into space rather than spray it freely. Due to the technology at that time, a technical problem occurred and resulted in a bright yellow icicle. While it was hilarious to look at, the astronauts had to find a way to remove the shard of iced pee as it could cause serious problems upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The solution, after trying different ways to get rid of it, was using the shuttle’s mechanical arm grabbing the icicle and breaking it off.
We have somehow heard of this mysterious Dark Matter from science shows and movies. With a name that sounds like it was lifted directly from a Space Opera, it is one of the most mysterious anomalies in space and physics.
Dark Matter occurs when Einstein’s famous equation of E=MC^2 is applied to space. Using the equation, scientists are able to determine just how much matter exists in the universe. Surprisingly, however, scientists have only found 4% of matter and are boggled about where the 96% are.
Some theorists believe that the 96% of missing matter is present but comes in the form of the so-called Dark Matter; a form of matter that exists wherever no visible matter is found.
To this very day, scientists and experts are debating if in fact Dark Matter is a real thing since no conclusive evidence is pointing them in the right direction. What is even more frustrating is that Dark Matter, upholding its namesake, cannot be seen or touched; light and radio waves also pass through it seamlessly.
Since it is a fundamental scientific fact that matter – in this case, Dark or otherwise – cannot be created or destroyed, who knows? Maybe it’s right in front of us, staring at us straight in the face.
Speaking of Einstein, we know that he became famous for proving the existence of Black Holes and how they behave through mathematics.
However, while we have celebrated his discovery of the existence Black Holes and have discovered – through the advancement of our technology – several of them in space, what is less known is Einstein’s discovery of the existence of “White Holes” through his equations.
As you may come to conclude, White Holes are the complete opposite of their darker counterparts. Where Black Holes devour light and matter, White Holes seem to spit them out as if creating them from nothing. With this uncanny quality of creating matter “out of nothing”, they should be easy to spot but, to this day, at least a trace of it is yet to be found.
What is interesting to note is that if ever one is found in space, it can present answers to questions that science has yet to provide such as the origin of the material that is basically the make-up of galaxies.
Sources:
http://listverse.com/2009/12/31/top-10-mysteries-of-outer-space/
http://www.cracked.com/article_19479_the-6-most-mind-blowing-things-ever-discovered-in-space.html
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/07/12/5-insane-space-stories-we-were-never-taught-in-history-class-sawn-off-shotguns-for-russian-cosmonauts
Over the years, many mysterious ancient manuscripts have been uncovered, and researchers who have examined these documents have found hidden secrets from the past. Most of these secret texts are concealed in other archaeological records, and the traces of these manuscripts are usually invisible to the naked eye. The utilization of modern technology like X-rays, CT scans and multispectral imaging are often necessary for bringing the secrets of these mysterious and long-lost works to light.
Number 1 – The Hidden Text of Euripides. A group of researchers from the Universities of Bologna and Gottingen discovered a hidden text of a fifth-century-BC Greek drama beneath a 13th-centuary-AD prophetic book of the Old Testament. This early work is attributed to one of Athens’s foremost dramatists, Euripides, whose work became the cornerstone of education in the Hellenistic age and has significantly influenced modern drama. This hidden text was uncovered through multispectral imaging in 2013, and not only does the document contain Euripides’s work, but it is also full of ancient annotations.
Number 2 – Treatise of the Vessels. Archaeologists and fortune hunters have been hard at work to find the alleged hidden treasures stashed away by Israel’s third king, Solomon, and among them is the legendary Ark of the Covenant. At present, a newly-translated ancient Hebrew text known as the Treatise of the Vessels seems to have new information about the location of the elusive Ark, along with the rest of King Solomon’s treasures. According to a translation by James Davila, a professor at the University of St. Andrews, the treasures were hidden by some Levites and prophets, and that they are stocked away in various locations in the Land of Israel and Babylonia, while others were delivered into the hands of the angels.
Number 3 – Codex Selden. For decades, researchers were certain that hidden messages can be found beneath the surface of Codex Selden, which was previously lost for almost 500 years. It was only in 2016, that hyperspectral imaging finally allowed researchers to take a closer look at the surface of the precolonial Mexican manuscript, revealing hidden texts and images beneath. So far, the researchers have yet to complete scanning all the pages, and the text has not been translated, but researchers are convinced that more discoveries are to be made once the hidden messages of the Codex Selden are interpreted.
Number 4 – Novgorod Codex. In 2000, archaeologists excavating Novgorod in Russia discovered the Novgorod Codex, the earliest known book made by the Rus’ people. This hyper-palimpsest, dated to the 11th century, preserved two Psalms. However, when the wax was removed for conservation, the restorers found retained traces of an earlier text, including several previously unknown Slavonic compositions of native origin. It is believed that the Novgorod Codex may contain several dozens of hidden text layers.
Number 5 – Codex Zacynthius. In the 13th century, the Codex Zacynthius were an Evangeliarium, an old manuscript that contained a collection of Gospel passages. However, in 1861, researchers detected that there is actually a hidden text in the Codex Zacynthius. The text is a sixth or seventh-century script which turned out to contain an account of the Gospel of Luke. This Codex has 176 vellum leaves, and experts believe that there are a lot more secrets to be discovered in the ancient document, and they plan to analyze the hidden text through multispectral analysis.
Number 6 – The “Lost Gospel.” Many theologians have long speculated about Jesus’ alleged romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene. However, if the translation of the so-called “Lost Gospel” – a 1500-year-old ancient manuscript found at the British Library – is any indication, then what we believe to know about the life of Jesus Christ at present is not completely true. Translated from Aramaic, the text reveals that Jesus had indeed married Mary Magdalene and even had children with her. This makes the Christian messiah a husband and a father to a family of his own if the “Lost Gospel” is proven true.
Number 7 – The Voynich Manuscript. This ancient medieval manuscript was named after Wilfrid M. Voynich, a Polish-American book dealer who discovered the text in a chest in the Jesuit College at the Villa Mondragone in Frascati in 1912. The cryptic document is written on medieval parchment using an unknown script system showing basic statistical patterns which resemble a real language. However, there are also those that believe that the manuscript was a forgery intended as a hoax. Until now, the nature and origin of the manuscript have remained a mystery and have led to a lot of controversy and debate.
Number 8 – The Sibiu Manuscript. In 1961, Doru Todericiu, a professor of Science and Technology at the University of Bucharest, found an ancient document, now known as the Sibiu Manuscript. The 450-page manuscript dates back to 1570, with its history even going further back by several centuries. The old text contains technical data about multi-stage rockets, artillery, and ballistics. It also reported about a “javelin” which flew with considerable effective range, and the launching of a multi-tiered rocket in the city of Sibiu, where thousands of people supposedly witnessed the event in 1555 and turned out to be a complete success.
Number 9 – Black Book of Carmarthen. The Black Book of Carmarthen was written by a single monk around 1250, and it is the oldest surviving manuscript which is written solely in Welsh. In 2015, Raul Russell and Myriah Williams of the University of Cambridge reported that hidden contents had been found in the book which had been invisible under normal viewing conditions. Using a variety of imaging techniques like ultraviolet lamps and photo-editing software, some of the unknown material was detected, including extensive marginal annotations such as inscriptions, poems, and even drawings.
Number 10 – Codex Washingtonianus. Housed at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, the Codex Washingtonianus is the world’s third oldest Bible. The priceless ancient book is made up of almost 200 parchment pages and is believed to be more than 1,500 years old. The Codex Washingtonianus has been the subject of controversy because of the unique insertion in the ending of the biblical gospel of Mark. Referred to as the “Freer Logion,” a part of the passage makes mention of the end of Satan’s power, seemingly addressing the question of whether God or Satan was the one in charge of mankind’s fate. The text is not found in any other manuscript, and when it was published in 1912, the passage caused much consternation as it raised another challenge to the Bible people knew.
The ancient documents we have mentioned, even without their unlocked secrets, are important archaeological artifacts that serve as an enduring testament to mankind’s complex and impressive history. And as more mysterious ancient manuscripts continue to get discovered, the potential secrets they hide could now be much easier to uncover - thanks to modern technology – allowing us to learn more about our past and possibly gain a better understanding of who we are through the works of our ancestors.
Sources:
Along with the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most sacred religious relics on the planet. The piece of linen, measuring 53 square feet and containing the faint image of a man, is believed by millions of Christians from around the world to be the cloth Jesus himself was buried in after death.
Ever since a photo negative of the linen captured by Italian amateur photographer Secondo Pia revealed an image of a body over 100 years ago, scores of researchers have analyzed the image as well as the blood stains and fabric to try and confirm or dismiss the linen’s authenticity. But after years and years of studies, tests, and debates, they came to the conclusion that it is still hard to tell. No one knows for sure. Some say the blood on the cloth belongs to Jesus while some claim that the face of Jesus was painted on by counterfeiters in medieval times.
The biggest focal point for skeptics is a carbon-14 dating conducted in 1988 where a small piece of fabric from the corner of the shroud was sent to labs at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. All three places confirmed that the material dated back to 1260 and 1390, which is more than a thousand years after Jesus was alive. That seemed like a huge piece of evidence to dismiss the authenticity of the shroud, but soon researchers found that the carbon dating that came from the top edge of the shroud produced a much different date than a piece taken from the bottom edge of the cloth.
But here’s the thing: even if the image was from medieval times and not from the time of Jesus, there is still the mystery of how the image of the man was created in the first place. Every scientific attempt at replicating the image has failed so far. This has caused the shroud of Turin to become not only one of the most sacred relics but also one of the most mysterious.
Recently, researchers in Italy analyzing the shroud of Turin have discovered the blood of a torture victim on the cloth, thus supporting claims it may have been used to bury Jesus. The new findings, titled New Biological Evidence from Atomic Resolution Studies on the Turin Shroud, was published in a US scientific journal that was carried out by The Instituto Officina dei Materiali in Trieste and the Institute of Crystallography in Bari.
The study says that the cloth contains 'nanoparticles' usually not found in the blood of someone healthy. According to Elvio Carlino, a researcher at the Institute of Crystallography in Bari, Italy the cloth reveals the 'great suffering' of a victim 'wrapped up in the funeral cloth.'
According to professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua, the blood contained high levels of creatinine and ferritin, substances found in patients who have suffered from devastating traumas like torture. According to him, 'the presence of these biological nanoparticles found during our experiments point to a violent death for the man wrapped in the Turin Shroud.'
The Shroud of Turin has been an intensely debated topic in the world of science ever since. If these findings are true, then they will completely shatter the skeptic theory that image on the cloth was forged by counterfeits.
Elvio also said that 'these findings could only be revealed by the methods recently developed in the field of electron microscopy' and 'the nanoscale properties of a pristine fiber taken from the Turin Shroud.'
Even though this study sheds a bit of light on this ancient mystery, there are still numerous questions that we have yet to answer. Was this shroud the same exact cloth Jesus Christ was buried inside when he died? How was the image of the man created on the cloth created?
Italian physicist Paolo Di Lazzaro told National Geographic: “It is unlikely science will provide a full solution to the many riddles posed by the shroud...A leap of faith over questions without clear answers is necessary—either the ‘faith’ of skeptics, or the faith of believers.”
If you want to see the shroud for yourself, it is currently on display at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin. At the moment, we can only wait for more evidence regarding the Turin's Shroud before we fully reveal it's mysterious origins.
Sources:
The Voynich Manuscript has been dubbed as the “the most mysterious manuscript in the world.” It is considered a manuscript codex, the nature, language, date and origin of which have long remained a mystery. Over the years, the Voynich manuscript has caused a lot of controversy and debate, with some arguing that the ancient medieval text contains an encoded message written by an unknown author. Many skilled cryptographers have studied the document and attempted to break the supposed code it contains. However, up to now, none of them were able to crack it.
Because of the enigma surrounding the Voynich manuscript, many questions are left in the air. Does the Voynich manuscript really contain a secret message? If so, is this encoded message an unknown language that we are unable to break? Or, is the book a complete hoax?
The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex that is hand-written in an unknown writing system. The text is believed to have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance, and it is named after Wilfrid Voynich, the Polish book dealer who purchased the manuscript in the early 20th century. The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, which include the American and British codebreakers from the two World Wars. And since no one has succeeded in the deciphering its contents, it remains a famous and exciting case in the history of cryptography. At present, the manuscript is safeguarded in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and is referred to as a “Cipher Manuscript.”
Much of the early history of the book is unknown, and like its contents, the history of ownership of the Voynich manuscript is contested and filled with some gaps. However, it has generally been agreed on that the text and illustrations of the manuscript are all characteristically European. According to a radiocarbon dating performed by researchers of the University of Arizona on the manuscript’s vellum in 2009, the Voynich manuscript could be dated between 1404 and 1438.
The first confirmed owner of the text was George Baresch, an obscure alchemist from Prague who lived between the 16th and 17th century. Upon his death, the manuscript was passed on to his friend Jan Marek Marci – a rector of Charles University in Prague – who in turn, sent the text to Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher from the Collegio Romano. There are no records of the book for the next 200 years after it remained in the library of the Collegio Romano. It is assumed by some that the book probably remained there until the troops of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy captured the city in 1870 and annexed the Papal States. The new Italian government seized many properties of the church, including the library of the Collegio. Before this could be initiated, many of the university library’s books were transferred to the personal libraries of its faculty, and one of them was the Voynich manuscript which was in the private library of Petrus Beckx, the university’s rector at the time.
Around 1912, the Collegio Romano sold some of its holdings discreetly, with Wilfrid Voynich acquiring 30 manuscripts in the process. Among them was the mysterious manuscript which now bears his name. In 1930, the manuscript was inherited after Wilfrid’s death by his widow Ethel Voynich. When she died in 1960, she left the manuscript to her close friend Anne Nill, who sold the book in 1961 to antique book dealer Hans P. Kraus. When Kraus was unable to find a buyer for the manuscript, he then donated it to Yale University in 1969.
The physical characteristics or the codicology of the Voynich manuscript have been studied by various researchers. Some of its pages are missing, but there are currently around 240 vellum pages in existence, with a size of 23.5 by16.2 by 5 centimeters. The manuscript contains mainly texts, consisting of over 170,000 characters that is mostly written in an unknown language which runs left to right. The book also contains various illustrations which can be identified according to different styles and subject matter.
Based on the subject matter of the drawings found in the text, the contents of the manuscripts fall into six sections: botanical, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical and recipes. The botanical folios contain drawings of 113 unidentified plant species. The astronomical illustrations include astral charts with radiating circles, suns and moons, as well as Zodiac symbols. A biological section contains a myriad of drawings of miniature female nudes, while the cosmological section consists of an elaborate array of cosmological medallions which possibly depict geographical forms. The pharmaceutical folios are filled with drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots, while the last section contains continuous pages of text – which are believed to be recipes – with star-like flowers marking each entry in the left margin.
The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript led some to believe that the Voynich manuscript is meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. However, the unusual and intriguing details of the drawings have fueled many theories about the book’s origin, its contents, as well as the purpose for which it was intended.
The Voynich manuscript is the subject of many hypotheses, particularly about its language, the Voynichese. According to the “letter-based cipher” theory, the manuscript contains meaningful text that was written in some European language that was intentionally rendered obscure. This was done by mapping the message to the alphabet of the manuscript by means of a cipher whose algorithm operated on individual letters. The main argument of this theory maintains that it is difficult to explain a European author using a strange and mysterious alphabet if not to conceal information. For most 20th-century experts who attempted to decipher the text, like the informal team of NSA cartographers led by William F. Friedman in the early 1950s, this particular theory is heavily supported as a working hypothesis that could unlock the alleged secrets of the manuscript.
There is also another theory – the “codebook cipher” theory – claiming that the “words” found in the Voynich manuscript could actually be codes that can be looked up in a “dictionary” or codebook. Another theory holds that the text of the manuscript is mostly meaningless, but contains meaningful information hidden in inconspicuous details – for example, the second letter of each word, or the number of letters in each line. Needless to say, none of these working hypotheses have successfully decoded the message concealed in the words and illustrations of the manuscript, if there were such hidden information in the first place.
Because of the bizarre features of the texts of the Voynich manuscript, as well as the suspicious contents of its illustrations, there are also theories that support the idea that the manuscript is nothing more than a hoax. According to the supporters of this theory, if no one is able to extract the meaning of the book’s contents, then perhaps it is because the document contains no meaningful content at all.
Those who argue for authenticity, however, maintain that the manuscript appears to be too sophisticated to be just a hoax. While hoaxes during that period were usually crude, the Voynich manuscript exhibits several subtle characteristics that only become evident after careful statistical analysis. If the book is simply a hoax, why would the author employ a complex and difficult algorithm if no one in the expected audience could be able to tell the difference?
Marcelo Montemurro, a theoretical physicist from the University of Manchester, for example, studied the linguistic patterns in the Voynich manuscript extensively. He found the presence of semantic networks like content-bearing words occurring in a clustered pattern, as well as new words being utilized when there was a shift in topic. With this evidence, Montemurro believed that it is highly unlikely that these features were just “incorporated” into the text to make a hoax seem more realistic.
At the way things are going at present, the Voynich manuscript is still a long way from being understood, and it will most likely remain a riddle for a very long time, if not permanently. What we can be sure of is that the manuscript will continue to become a subject matter that sparks intense debates among scientists, pseudoscientists and mystics. And even without wild speculations, the Voynich manuscript is, without a doubt, a fascinating artifact of mankind’s history and culture.
Sources:
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/the-ancient-book-nobody-is-able-to-read-voynich-manuscript/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_voynich_manuscript_the_book_nobody_can_read
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unsolvable-mysteries-of-the-voynich-manuscript
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscript
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/01/the-pleasures-of-incomprehensibility/
http://www.crystalinks.com/voynich.html
The surface of the islands of Malta and Gozo in the Maltese archipelago is known for the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of parallel lines that appear to have been carved deep into the country’s stony ground. These ancient Maltese tracks – or what some refer to as “cart ruts” – have been found in obvious locations as well as the most unusual places – be it under the sea, off the coast, or at cliff edges. This has led many to believe that the grooves in Malta’s bedrock are of prehistoric origin. These cart tracks are also deemed to be unique, and they continue to be an enigma to this very day, as they have not been satisfactorily explained by those who have extensively studied them.
Cart ruts are man-made dual channels or parallel tracks and grooves sunken in rock. The ruts themselves can vary greatly in their size – some can be very deep and narrow, others can be shallow and wide, and the rest could be anything in between. They are carved in both smooth and rough rocky surface. And like in the case of the cart ruts found on the surface of the islands of Malta, these parallel grooves can be etched into a limestone bedrock.
In Malta, the cart ruts appear to be in single pairs or in groups, and they are typically perfectly parallel. These ancient channels have an approximate depth of 8 to 15 centimeters, but in some places, they could be as deep as about 60 centimeters. The ruts have a standard gauge of around 1.4 meters, but this can also vary by several centimeters. Some of the tracks cross each other while others branch out to form junctions, which creates an illusion that resembles a large railway switching yard. These grooves run through the island’s valleys but they have also been found on the hills, while some have disappeared into the Mediterranean Sea.
While the cart ruts on Malta are impressive structures, they do not exclusively exist in this country. In fact, similar formations can also be found in Sicily, Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Southern France and Cyrenaica. However, not all of these dual channels in different parts of Europe are of the same origin, neither do they all fulfill the same purpose.
In Malta itself, there are potentially as many as 150 sites that have cart ruts, including the ones found in St. Paul’s Bay, Naxxar, San Gwann and Bidnija. However, the most well-known site in the archipelago is the Misrah Ghar il-Kbir, which is more popularly referred to as the “Clapham Junction.”
The Clapham Junction is located on the southern side of the Maltese island and features an enormous number of tracks, making it the largest concentration of cart ruts in the country. The site was given the nickname “Clapham Junction” because the network of overlapping cart tracks on the surface resembled the busy rail station of the same name in London. The sunken grooves at the site have varying gauges, depths and widths. They are also shaped differently, with some narrowing at the bottom, while others remain flat.
Some researchers have connected the mysterious tracks to the temple sites found in the islands of Malta and Gozo. More than 30 stone temple complexes as well as other ancient structures on the Maltese island were dated to have been built from 5500 to 2500 BC, making them some of the oldest free-standing monuments on the planet that we currently know about. It is even believed that the cart ruts might turn out to be the proof some experts have been looking for in answering the puzzle of how these ancient temples were built during what was supposed to be a primitive time.
It is also hypothesized that these manmade dual channels were created by settlers who arrived in Malta from Sicily sometime in the beginning of the country’s Bronze Age, or around 2000 B.C. However, Maltese archaeologist Anthony Bonanno has also presented an alternative theory about the date of the cart ruts on the island, suggesting that the tracks could be Phoenician constructions that were made more recently, possibly in the 7th century B.C.
As to how the ruts in Malta were made or created, some archaeologists assumed that they were inadvertently carved by using some form of vehicles that were possibly wheeled. These carts, sleds or skids could have carried heavy loads, and with people repeatedly using the same path or route for decades or even centuries, the island’s limestone ground was inevitably scarred over time as a consequence.
However, some have objected to the hypothesis that all of the ruts on Malta were caused by wheeled carts or sleds carrying heavy goods. They argued that some of the tracks appeared to be too perfectly formed as if they might have been carved by hand using special tools. One such individual is author and journalist Graham Hancock, and in his book, “Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization,” he said:
“It is certain, too, that they were not simply worn away in the tough limestone by the passage of cart-wheels over periods of centuries, as many have wrongly theorized; on the contrary, there is no proof whatsoever that cart-wheels ever ran in these ruts - which were initially carved out of the bedrock with the use of tools.”
If the people residing on the island of Malta created and deliberately shaped these enigmatic ruts, then these channels obviously played a valuable purpose in the lives of these ancient people. However, what exactly that role is have been lost with the passage of time, and experts who have allotted much of their time and a significant portion of their lives to study these cart ruts have yet to universally agree on what their original purpose could be. And because these experts have failed to come into an agreement on this matter, alternative theories have gained popularity in providing more out-of-this-world yet equally-fascinating answers to this mystery.
Many different theories have been presented in attempt to provide the most plausible answers to the mysterious questions of when these car ruts on Malta were created, how they were created, and why they were created in the first place.
One of the wildest speculations of what the cart ruts’ intended purpose could be is that the they are the tracks of outer space landing craft. There also those who believe that the scars on Malta’s milestone bedrock might be coded messages to the gods. But a more popular yet also far-fetched theory is that archipelago of Malta is actually an existing part of the legendary lost city of Atlantis.
Of course, there are also other theories that have been presented over the years, which many people find to be a lot easier to consider and believe. One theory is that the cart ruts in Malta were constructed for the purpose of transporting agricultural produce, and that the tracks were designed in such a way that would have allowed cows pulling these carts to get back home on their own.
Australian archaeologist Claudia Sagona from Birmingham University has a different idea on what the ancient channels found in this country are for. Sagona argued that the cart ruts were actually irrigation ditches from the Stone Age. According to her, in ancient times, torrential rains had washed away the island’s topsoil, and so, the farmers of that time had no other choice but to invent new ways of tending to their crops. She suggested that the Maltese farmers carved this network of trenches into the island’s limestone bedrock to channel away and conserve rain water, and to protect the soil.
Another likely purpose of the cart ruts is that they transported stones from ancient quarries across the island. This theory was suggested by archaeologist Anthony Bonanno, and a few of those who conducted a detailed survey of the Clapham Junction agreed that many of the channels found on the Maltese island are associated with the nearby quarries of the time. Transportation of stones from these quarries via the cart ruts found in different parts of the island supposedly made the construction of the ancient temples in Malta possible. This network of tracks is also believed to have been utilized by people for the exportation of quarried stones to Africa.
Though some of these theories are undeniably appealing and quite popular, none of them are completely devoid of flaw in their line of reasoning. And so, until now, there is still no consensus on what the original purpose of the cart ruts on Malta could be, especially since experts supporting one theory have cleverly presented arguments casting doubt on the plausibility of another theory, and vice versa.
For now, there is no doubt that the enigmatic cart ruts found in Malta will continue to remain unsolved in the foreseeable future in terms of its true purpose, the exact means through which they were formed, or the accurate dates of when these tracks were created and how long they were regularly used by the ancient civilization that once lived there.
And while not many are willing to entertain the idea that the cart ruts on Malta are proof that a highly advanced ancient civilization once dominated the area, these ancient networks of parallel trenches and channels are, at the very least, a testament and reminder that perhaps our ancient ancestors are more advanced and enlightened than we give them credit for. Besides, even without insisting its archaeological merits, it remains undeniable that these ancient tracks are truly a fascinating as well as a puzzling sight to behold.
Sources:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/malta-cart-tracks
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/04/arts.artsnews
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060511?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/maltacartruts.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misra%C4%A7_G%C4%A7ar_il-Kbir
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/02/the-mysterious-cart-tracks-of-malta.html
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/unknown-highly-advanced-civilization-created-maltas-cart-ruts-with-sophisticated-machinery/
http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/prehistoric-lines-across-malta-cart-ruts-misrah-ghar-il-kbir-020312?nopaging=1
http://www.cartrutsmalta.com/what-are-cart-ruts/
http://philipcoppens.com/cartruts.html
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/02/the-mysterious-cart-tracks-of-malta.html
There are those among us that seek to find proof that our ancient ancestors possessed advanced knowledge and technology that equal – if not surpass – the things we know and are able to do in modern times. And among the strangest objects in the world that seem to serve as evidence of advanced ancient knowledge are the so-called “magic mirrors” of the Far East.
The Chinese and Japanese of ancient times were owners and makers of precious and rare mirrors that are made of solid bronze but at the same time can seemingly and magically let light shine through them. To the Chinese, they referred to these previous artifacts as “mirrors which are permeable to light.” In the Western world, however, they came to simply be known as “magic mirrors.” And since their introduction in the West, these rare “magical” mirrors have baffled scientists for many years.
The front of a magic mirror was made of cast bronze and is generally circular in shape, with size of about 15 to 20 centimeters in diameter. The polished surface of the bronze, or the mirror’s front side, functioned normally as a mirror since it can produce a faithful reflection of the objects in front of them.
The back of the mirror, on the other hand, was decorated with various characters and patterns. On the reverse surface, there is usually a modeled drawing or carvings that can be landscape featuring trees, water, birds or animals, or they can contain inscriptions and perhaps even a figure of Buddha.
In many conditions of lighting, when a magic mirror is held in the hand, it appears to be perfectly normal mirrors. However, the “magic” happens when the mirror is held in bright sunshine. When an especially bright beam of light is reflected off a magic mirror and onto a clear surface, its reflecting surface can be seen through. Hence, it becomes possible to inspect the written character or patterns on the back of the mirror from the reflection cast on to a dark wall. It is as if the solid bronze had become transparent, making this luminous effect one of the most unexpected and the most captivating mankind has ever seen.
There are many historical variations with regard to the origin of these Far Eastern magic mirrors. However, it is generally agreed on that these ancient artifacts appeared for the first time in China around the 2nd century BC and that they were produced in large quantities during the entire period of the Han dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD).
The first magical mirror appeared in Europe when the Director of the Paris Observatory brought with him one in the 19th century upon his return from China. It presented an irresistible mystery to the French Academy of Sciences, and despite their efforts to register its behavior, they could never fully understand why it could do what it can do. In total, there are four magical mirrors that were reported to have been brought from China to Europe at the time.
Then in 1878, two engineering professors presented the Royal Society of London with a variety of magic mirrors they had brought from Japan. The English referred to them as “diaphanous mirrors” and for the first time, they managed to make technical observations about their construction. However, nobody at the time could determine what produced the ghostly and beautiful projection of light from the mirror, giving the impression that the solid mirror is transparent in some way when it should not be the case.
For many centuries, the supposed mystery behind these ancient mirrors left scientists and collectors perplexed, and labeled the abilities of these mirrors as “impossible optical illusions” and therefore, “magical.”
Western scientists began their examination of the magic mirrors from the Far East in 1832, but their efforts did not produce their desired results right away. Even in the East, it seemed the knowledge of how to intentionally recreate these magic mirrors were elusive, even though its possibility was not completely out of reach.
About 1,200 years ago, the secret to constructing magic mirrors was recorded in an ancient Chinese text titled the “Record of Ancient Mirrors.” The book supposedly contains the secrets of these enigmatic objects and their constructions. It described the method of crafting solid bronze mirrors with decorations, written characters or patterns on the reverse side in such a way that they could cast a reflection of these images or inscriptions on a nearby surface when light hits the front and polished side of the mirror in a seeming transparent effect. Unfortunately, the book has been lost for over a thousand years.
Magic mirrors were also described in the “Dream Pool Essays” by Shen Kuo in the 11th century, who owned three of these mirrors as a family heirloom. Astonished as how solid metal could be transparent, Shen guessed that some sort of quenching technique was used to produce tiny wrinkles on the surface of the mirror that are too small to be observed by the naked eye.
It was in 1932 when it was finally discovered why the reflections of the magic mirror showed the designs on the back. According to British physicist, chemist and mathematician Sir William Henry Bragg, although the surface of the mirror is polished and seems to look like they’re completely flat, the front is actually curved into a convex form by scraping and scratching before the surface is polished. It is then coated with a mercury amalgam. This complex process creates stresses and buckling, resulting in bulges on the surface of the mirror which is too minute for the naked eye to perceive. These bulges are the ones that match the design carved on the back of the mirror.
And so, when the mirror reflected bright light or sunbeam against a dark wall, the effect reproduces the patterns in a magnified manner as if they were passing through solid bronze by way of these light beams.
It is important to note, however, that while this method explains the creation of a Chinese or Han magic mirror, it is not the same method that is applied in making a Japanese magic mirror, as the optical properties of the images produced by the two types of mirror were not made by the same process. Moreover, unlike the rare Chinese models, there are many Japanese magic mirrors around the world, probably because in ancient Japan, mirrors were considered precious items that were carefully taken care of.
Today, it is rumored that Yamamoto Akihisa is the last manufacturer of magic mirrors in Japan. When the Kyoto Journal interviewed him, the artisan explained part of his technique in making these mirrors, which he revealed that he had learned from his father, who also learned it from his father, and so on, over several generations.
Even now, our generation is just starting to learn about these magic mirrors, and there are a lot of things that we do not know about these ancient artifacts. Perhaps we may never really know the true meaning behind these “magical” mirrors because ancient records describing these mysterious objects are gone forever. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that these ancient magic mirrors in China and Japan are already a part of the magical history of mankind for being undoubtedly one of the strangest objects in the world.
Sources:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1352868-ancient-wonders-real-life-magic-mirrors-of-the-far-east/
http://www.ancientpages.com/2011/04/21/mystery-of-ancient-magical-mirrors-some-of-the-strangest-objects-in-the-world/
http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/the-history-of-the-magic-mirrors-of-china-and-japan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_magic_mirror
http://www.eastm.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/497/428
http://www.kyotojournal.org/renewal/the-magic-mirror-maker/
This black knight is not at all related to the bat-costumed dark knight that we know all too well. In fact, many people think it’s an alien satellite that has been kept secret by NASA and the government for more than a decade since it was first discovered. Over the decades, there have been many sightings of the strange object, but no one knows why it’s up there floating in space. All reports from US, Russia, And Europe in general say that the satellite is of “unknown origin”. So what is this curious object anyway? When was it discovered? What does it do? What is its purpose? Let’s start from the very beginning.
Although there are varied opinions, it is generally believed that Nikola Tesla was the one who “discovered” the black knight when he set up a magnifying transmitter at his Colorado Springs facility in 1899 to investigate wireless distribution of electricity. What he didn’t expect were strange signals that were repeated periodically with number and order. They were timed pulses coming as ...1, ...2, ...3, that led him to believe that the signal was coming from an extraterrestrial source. Tesla originally thought that the signals were being sent from Mars, but he later restated that the signal was actually coming from another part of space. It’s not surprising that Tesla associated the signal with alien intervention, because a lot of people believe that Tesla has had contact with aliens. It is believed that he received information from aliens in a number of different cases. For example, once he was trying to find an equation/principle for the AC machine and suddenly, out of nowhere, he got the answer via telepathy or from an unknown source. Apparently he also invented many things for the government that were kept from the public, but that’s another story on it’s own.
Not long afterward Tesla’s discovery, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor and electrical engineer, was also intercepted by a strange unknown artificial signal. He found that some of his morse code messages were being returned to him, which fascinated and frightened him at the same time.
Following his discovery in 1927, another man named Jorgen Hals, a civil engineer in Oslo, was using a radio receiver to listen to shortwave transmissions and noticed something very peculiar was happening. His signals were being reflected back to him. He didn’t know what it was, but the echoes were being reflected back to him at strange intervals ranging from 3-15 seconds. These irregularly reflected intervals were later known to be LDES, or Long Delayed Echoes.
After the occurrence of all of these events that might have been related to alien interaction (especially the LDES), the press was majorly stirred up. From 1928 to 1930, a experiments were performed that tested the legitimacy of the reflected signals, and it turned out that they were very real indeed. The only problem was that no one had an explanation for the signals’ reflections. As a result, even more experiments were run in France and the UK in the 1930's, but at the end of the day scientists could do nothing but be confused and speechless. Even today, we don’t have an agreed upon explanation for the occurrence and location of these LDES.
Of course, after the experiments were run, the black knight became an even hotter topic for many news outlets, and the first story of the alien shuttle appeared on May 14th, 1954 when St. Louis Dispatch and The SF Examiner wrote about it, explaining that the U.S had found a strange satellite in space and that it could possibly be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians.
Then, on August 23, 1954, another story was released about the Black Knight, this time by the tech mag Aviation Week and Space Technology. They basically told the world that the Pentagon found two satellites orbiting the earth, both of which were natural. The pentagon was furious when they heard about the release of the story because want the satellites to be known by the public. As a result, they lied to the public and told them that the satellites were asteroids (as if anyone would actually believe them). By then the public already knew that something was up, and that either the Russians had managed to put something into orbit or there was something more...supernatural at work.
A few years later, in March of 1960, another satellite was found orbiting earth. This satellite was a spectacular discovery because it wasn’t like the previously discovered satellites at all. It was a large black object weighing about 15 tons that was in POLAR orbit around earth, which means that it passes over polar regions and has a plane that contains the polar axis. This is amazing because first of all, the US and soviets didn’t even KNOW how to put an object in polar orbit. Second of all, neither country was capable of putting an object that weighs so much into space either. Third of all, the satellite was twice as fast as any known satellite at the time. As a result, the strange polar-orbiting satellites acquired a name: the Black Knight. No one knows for sure the origins of the name, but it’s believed that the name is based on a rocket the British had developed, which was also called Black Knight. After the amazing discovery, astronomers across the country conducted research on the satellite and realized that it had one of the strangest patterns of appearance and disappearance, because it would disappear for long periods of time before reappearing again YEARS later.
Robert L. Johnson, director of the Adler Planetarium, said that "‘THE OBJECT ‘DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO MAINTAIN A REGULAR SCHEDULE,LIKE ANY OTHER HEAVENLY OR MAN MADE OBJECT...‘WE DON’T KNOW WHEN TO WATCH FOR IT.’" What was it trying to do?
Stanford space scientist Ronald Bracewell had an explanation for the phenomenon and believed that the satellite was a way for a distant alien civilization to communicate with earth. He said that the aliens might have sent out a probe, or ‘Bracewell probe’ as it’s we now call it, into the universe to look for other planets that seemed promising and contained intelligent lifeforms. He said that the satellite would remain dormant until humans found a way to send signals to it, in which it would send signals back.
Duncan Lunan, a Scottish science writer was so intrigued by Bracewell’s theory that he decided to test it out for himself. He reexamined the data from the LDE experiments of 1928 and was absolutely and completely baffled. He mapped out the delays from the echos he recorded in 1928, and found that they formed the pattern of the Boötes constellation, a constellation the in the northern sky. Not only that, Lunan was also able to decode the message that was being conveyed from the LDE Data at a stable point between the orbits of Earth and Moon called L5. the message read:
“ START HERE.OUR HOME IS EPSILON BOOTIS. WHICH IS A DOUBLE STAR. WE LIVE ON THE 6th PLANET OF 7 — CHECK THAT, 6th OF 7 — COUNTING OUTWARDS FROM THE SUN WHICH IS THE LARGER OF THE TWO.OUR 6th PLANET HAS ONE MOON,OUR 4th PLANET HAS THREE,OUR FIRST AND THIRD PLANETS EACH HAVE ONE.OUR PROBE IS IN THE ORBIT OF YOUR MOON THIS UPDATES THE POSITION OF ARCTURUS SHOWN ON OUR MAPS.”
If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, I don’t know what does.
What’s even more amazing is that, along with the decoded message, Lunan also realized something else. Although he made his discovery in 1972, he realized that the star system he saw from the LDE data was not like the star system he saw in the skies at all. He concluded that if the black knight really was an alien probe, it must have taken ages to reach earth. He was right. By looking back in time, Lunan realized that the map he created matched how Epsilon Bootis looked like the Epsilon Bootis that was in the skies 13,000 years ago. This means that the satellite, possibly sent from a distant alien civilization, could have been orbiting the planet since pre-history.
By then, Lunan was pretty much convinced that an alien civilization living near the Bootes constellation was trying to contact earth. It’s possible that the the same signal was also intercepted by Tesla and Macroni as well, but we will never know for sure. Sadly, since there wasn’t solid proof regarding the existence of such a supernatural satellite, people started believing the Pentagon’s excuse that the Black Knight was just some “space debris”.
Thankfully, visual evidence of the satellite was found in 1998 when the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor was able to take high-resolution pictures of the strange black object while they were in space. The old stories of Tesla, LDES, and Lunan’s constellation map once again resurfaced in the minds of people across the country. Until today, we are still not sure what the Black Knight is, what it does, or where it comes from, but we DO know for a fact that it’s no regular satellite.
Exploring the unknown by going beyond science.
