Have You Heard About the Doomsday Vault?

Located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (more commonly known as the Doomsday Vault) is a global seed vault that serves as a massive backup storage facility. The vault safeguards seeds from any country of the world (even North Korea) and duplicates seed samples to protect them from environmental disasters, catastrophic wars, and any other danger that would clear the plant’s species from existence.

This massive storage facility has a capacity to store 4.5 million varieties of crops. Each seed variety contains an average of 500 seeds, and so a maximum of 2.5 billion seeds can be stored inside the vault. The vault holds the most diverse collection of food crop seeds in the world, that ranges from food staples from Africa and Asia like maize and rice, to European and South American varieties like potatoes and lettuce.

Source: Croptrust.org

The typical temperature of the vault is -18ºC, and each seed variety are stored and sealed with custom made three-ply foil packages. Each package is stored on a shelve, and each shelf is carefully labeled and coded according to variety. With the low temperature and low moisture levels inside the vault, it ensures that no metabolic activity will happen in order to keep the seeds viable for decades. Even if the vault goes without power, the arctic permafrost and thick rock encoded outside the fault makes sure the seed samples will remain frozen.

However, last month the Seed Vault was faced with a warning that this permafrost leaked into the vault’s entrance tunnel.

With the risk of having further leakage that could put the seeds at risk, the seed bank is now receiving a multimillion dollar revamp.

The new renovation will improve the vault’s alternative access tunnels, drainage ditches, and will increase the security surveillance around the vault. The Norwegian government will fund its $9 million dollar construction bill.

Source: croptrust.org

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is actually one of the most heavily guarded places in the world. By just looking at its entrance, one can be fooled for how large this facility actually is. What you see from the outside is built just for looks, and doesn’t look like much, but in actuality the vault is built 150 meters deep into a mountain. Once you enter, there is a long 430 ft tunnel for trolleys to carry seeds to the main chamber. The main chamber contains three vault rooms, and currently only the middle room is filled with seeds.

Source: croptrust.org

The vault has already had some success even though it has only been functioning since 2008. In 2015 the war in Syria destroyed plant varieties that caused them to request seeds from the vault for revival of plant varieties. This was the first time any seed has been taken out of the vault. After the breeding program and its revival success, the seeds were able to be returned to the bank.

100 Million Year Old baby Bird Found Trapped in Amber

You know, ancient insects were not the only things trapped in amber back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. In fact just this year we found bird wings, dinosaur feathers and now this...a nearly intact baby bird from around 100 million years ago, in fact, the most complete prehistoric bird we have ever found.

 Scientists found the amber in Myanmar and inside you can see bird’s head, tail, neck and especially the wings and feet. It's really incredible because the tree resin perfectly preserved even the feathers, flesh and claws.

"It's the most complete and detailed view we've ever had," one of the team behind the discovery, Ryan McKellar from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, told New Scientist. “Seeing something this complete is amazing. It’s just stunning.” He said.

This bird belonged to a group known as enantiornithes or opposite birds, which went extinct about 65 million years ago at the end of the cretaceous period along with the dinosaurs.

These birds appear to look like birds of today but according to new scientist  they had a socket-and-ball joint in their shoulders where modern birds have a ball-and-socket joint – hence the name. They also had claws on their wings, and jaws and teeth rather than beaks.

It is still a mystery why these birds died off while other ancestors of modern birds did not. Researchers think this might have something to do with the fact that these birds’ were lousy parents and often just left the babies to fend for themselves. Also researchers believed that these birds were actually hatched on the ground and then climbed up into the trees, which might explain why these birds were so easily stuck in tree sap.

The amber was Mined in the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. Amber found in this region contain some of the largest variety of life from the cretaceous period which was from 145 to 65 million years ago.

And if you are already thinking a Jurassic Park scenario in your head, you’re probably not alone. Unfortunately there really is not much DNA left, as the flesh has already turned into unusable carbon.

New Fossil Discovery in Morocco Will rewrite Human History

Well, time to change the text books…

Until now, researchers believed that the first ever modern humans or Homo sapiens, came out of East Africa about 200,000 years ago. But in Jebel Irhoud a remote region of Morocco in what was once a cave. A team of European and Moroccan scientists has found five fossil remains that dates back to about 315,000 years ago, which would make them the oldest modern humans ever found.

This is a huge breakthrough because it would mean our species evolved across africa more than 100,000 years earlier.

Shannon McPherron/Nature

According to a report in the Journal Nature, The international team of researchers led by Jean-Jacques Hublin who directs the department of human evolution at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology uncovered a skull, bones along with some stone tools.

In a statement Hublin said: "This material represents the very root of our species, the oldest Homo sapiens ever found in Africa or elsewhere,"

“We used to think that there was a cradle of mankind 200, 000 years ago in east Africa, but our new data reveal that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African continent around 300,000 years ago,” he explains

He added “Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a ‘Garden of Eden’ that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa,”

“Long before the out-of-Africa dispersal of Homo sapiens, there was dispersal within Africa,” says Hublin.

The fossils found were surrounded by gazelle and other animal bones and scientists believe that these homo sapiens mainly hunted for their food. The fossil also shows that although our ancestors brains functioned differently they did have similar faces as our own.

The discovery of the site was not new, a few pieces of skull and flint blades were found by moroccan miners at the Jebel Irhoud site in 1961, but the horrendous dating techniques used back then estimated the remains to be only 40,000 years old. It wasn't until the 1980s when Jean-Jacques Hublin took a closer look at one jawbone that he realized something didn’t add up.

Hublin said although the teeth was similar to modern humans, the shape seemed very primitive. Thus starting in 2004 Dr. Hublin and his team started to excavate Jebel Irhoud once again and found more fossils, including five skull bones and burnt flint blades. Scientists used  a method called thermoluminescence to estimate how long it has been since the blades were burned and estimated the blades to be around 300,000 years old.

Of course a claim so big could not be without its detractors.

John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin said that it was a plausible idea, but that recent discoveries of fossils from the same era raise the possibility that they were used by other hominins. The only way to resolve the question will be to find more hominin fossils from the time when our species emerged.

Goujian - The Ancient Chinese Sword that Defied Time

Over fifty years ago, a rare and unusual sword was found in an ancient tomb in China. This ancient weapon is known as “The Sword of Goujian,” and though it’s supposed to be over 2,000 years old, its blade is said to not have a single trace of rust. The sword’s blade has managed to retain its sharpness, drawing blood when a person’s finger is tested on its edge, as if it was completely immune by the passage of millennia. But aside from this strange quality, its craftsmanship has been praised for being intricately detailed for a sword that was forged in a supposedly technologically-limited era.

Discovery of the Sword of Goujian

The discovery of the Sword of Goujian dates back in 1965, during which an archeological survey was being performance along the second main aqueduct of the Zhang River Reservoir in Jingzhou of Hubei province. More than fifty ancient tombs of the Chu State – a successful hegemonic and expansionist state during the Spring and Autumn Period in the early 8th century BCE -  were found in Juangling County.

And so, an archeological dig was initiated, beginning in the middle of October 1965 and ended in January 1966. In December 1965, 4.3 miles or 7 kilometers from the ruins of Jinan, an ancient capital of Chu, the archeological team responsible for the excavation discovered an ancient tomb. In its casket was a skeleton, and next to it was a near air-tight wooden box. From inside this box, they removed a perfectly preserved bronze sword in its scabbard.

This sword is now identified as the Sword of Goujian, and it was unearthed by these archeological researchers along with 2,000 other artifacts.

To their amazement, upon unsheathing the bronze sword, its blade was revealed to be untarnished. And the fact that the sword appeared to be in perfect condition despite being buried in damp conditions for more than 2,000 years was astonishing. A test conducted by the archaeologists showed that the sword’s blade could easily cut a stack of twenty pieces of paper.

Construction of the Sword of Goujian

The Sword of Goujian is among the earliest known Jian swords. A Jian sword is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. Jian swords are among the earliest known sword types in China, and these bladed weapons are closely associated with Chinese mythology. In Chinese folklore, this type of sword is referred to as "The Gentleman of Weapons," and is considered to be one of the four major weapons, along with the staff, spear, and the sabre.

“The Sword of Goujian” is relatively short compared to other historical pieces of its kind. It is a bronze sword with a very high concentration of copper, which made it more malleable and less likely to break apart. The blade’s edges are made of tin, which not only made the sword harder, but also made it more capable of retaining a sharper edge. The sword also contains small amounts of iron, lead and sulfur. The sword’s high proportion of sulfur and sulfide cuprum is revealed to be what gives the weapon its rustproof quality, as sulfur decreases the chance of tarnish in the blade’s patterns.

Weighing 30.9 ounces or 875 grams, the Sword of Goujian measures 21.9 inches or 55.7 centimeters long, including its 3.3.-inch or 8.4-centimeter handle hilt. The blade, on the other hand, is 1.8 inches or 4.6 centimeters wide at its base.

Repeating black rhombic etchings cover both sides of the blade, while blue crystals and turquoise are imbedded on the sword handle.  The grip of the sword is bound by silk while its pommel is composed of 11 concentric circles. 

Inscription on the Sword of Goujian And Subsequent Identification

The owner of this ancient sword was determined through the inscription etched on the its blade. On one side of the blade, eight characters arranged in two columns of text are visible. These characters found near the sword’s hilt are written in an ancient Chinese script known as Bird-worm seal script or “Niǎo Chóng Zhuà”, which literally means “birds and worms characters” because of the writing system’s intricate decoration to the defining strokes. It is a variant of “Zhuan” or seal script, which is very difficult to read. 

Initial analyses deciphered six of the eight characters.  The characters translate to: “King of Yue” ("越王") "made this sword for (his) personal use" ("自作用剑"). According to experts, the remaining two characters are likely to be the name of the king. 

From the sword’s origin in 510 BC to the Yue State’s demise at the hands of Chu in 334 BC, nine kings ruled Yue, including Goujian, Lu Cheng, Bu Shou, and Zhu Gou, among several others. Identifying the correct king that owned the sword sparked debate among archaeologists as well as Chinese language scholars.  Eventually, the experts reached a consensus and decided that the original owner of the sword was Goujian, who reigned between 496 and 465 BC, making the sword around 2,500 years old. 

Goujian was a well-known emperor in Chinese history who reigned over the Yue State during the Spring and Autumn Period. King Goujian’s reign coincided with what is arguably the last major conflict of this period, which is the struggle between the Wu State and the Yue.

The story of King Goujian and Fuchai, King of the Wu state, contending for hegemony is famous throughout China. At some point, Yue was defeated by Wu and Goujian had to serve as Fuchai’s servant for three years before he was allowed to return to his native state. However, after ten years of economic and political reforms, Goujian eventually led his army to victory in the last phase of the war, annexing the rival state.

As a ruler, Goujian never relished in kingly riches, and instead, he ate food suited for peasants and even forced himself to taste bile as a reminder of his humiliations serving under the Wu State. Hence, as a monarch, he was made famous by his perseverance in times of hardship and his ruthlessness during battle.

Unique Properties of the Sword of Goujian

Apart from its historic value, many scholars have wondered how the Sword of Goujian managed to remain rust-free in a humid environment for more than 2,000 years, and how it became possible for it to be as sharp today as when it was originally forged. They were also impressed with the delicate decorations carved into the sword, and by the fact that not a single spot of rust can be found on its body today.

In the hopes of replicating the technology used to create the sword, researchers analyzed ancient bronze shards, and they found that the sword is resistant to oxidation due to sulphation on the sword’s surface. Combined with an air-tight scabbard, this allowed the legendary sword to remain in such pristine condition even after more than two millennia.

The swordsmiths of the Wu and Yue regions in Southern China during the Spring and Autumn Period was also determined to have reached a high level of metallurgy to the point that they were able to incorporate rust-proof alloys into their blades. Their skill in sword-making aided ancient weapons of the time like the Sword of Goujian to survive through the ages relatively unblemished. 

Since its discovery, the Sword of Goujian is regarded as a state treasure in China, and is deemed as a truly legendary sword that defied the rigors of time. This archeological artifact continues to be revered by the Chinese people, much like the fascination over King Arthur’s mythical Excalibur in the West.

The Sword of Goujian was lent to the National Palace Museum in Taipei where it was on display until 2011, along with various other bronze pieces from the 1965 excavation. Presently this archeological artifact is in the possession and care of the Hubei Provincial Museum.

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Sources:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/goujian-ancient-chinese-sword-defied-time-003279?nopaging=1
http://printarchive.epochtimes.com/a1/en/sg/nnn/2015/09%20Sep%202015/516/September_4-17_23_lowres.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Goujian_of_Yue
https://youtu.be/M6wcFzBTa7Q
http://en.hubei.gov.cn/culture/heritage/201305/t20130521_450099.shtml
http://www.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/html/en/35History618.html
http://mymodernmet.com/sword-of-goujian/
http://en.yibada.com/articles/101006/20160123/goujian-sword-legends.htm
http://historiarex.com/e/en/89-sword-of-goujian

The Mystery of the Piri Reis Map

Several existing theories about unknown ancient civilizations are often largely based on  speculation and not on physical evidence, which is why many of them are greatly discredited by conventional academics and In order to shake the basis of our knowledge of history, most would require hard evidence such as artifacts.

An example of such an artifact is the Piri Reis map. This special, historical map is only one of several anomalous maps drawn during and prior to the 16th century, and is argued by some people to represent better information about the shape of the planet’s continents than what should have been known at the time.

This claim led to even more extraordinary allegations that the geographical information provided by the Piri Reis map may have been obtained at a very distant time in the past and was based on information drawn by an advanced yet still-unknown ancient civilization.

Discovery of the Piri Reis Map

source: abebooks

The Piri Reis map was discovered on October 9, 1929 by a German theologian named Gustav Adolf Deissmann while he was cataloguing items in the Topkapi Palace Library in Istanbul. He happened upon a curious parchment and on its gazelle skin, he found a map that was drawn and signed by Turkish cartographer Hagji Ahmen Muhiddin Piri, who was also known as Piri Reis.

Aside from being a cartographer, Reis was also an experienced sailor and served as an admiral in the Turkish navy. The map bears the date of 919 in the Moslem calendar, which correspond to 1513 CE in the Western calendar. In constructing the map, Reis claimed to have used as many as 20 source maps and charts, including 8 Ptolemaic (TOLO MAY IC)maps, 4 Portuguese maps, an Arabic map, and a map supposedly constructed by Christopher Columbus.

Aside from its significant historical value, the Piri Reis map has been alleged to contain details no European could have known in the 16th century, and therefore is believed by some to be a tangible evidence which proves the existence of ancient technological civilizations, extraterrestrial visits, or even both.

Controversy Surrounding the Piri Reis Map

source: wikipedia

The Piri Reis map has been the subject of much controversy in academic as well as non-academic circles, sparking a long and intense debate regarding the attribution of its source materials, and the significance of the map’s extraordinary detail of the coastal outlines.

The great debate was sparked by Dr. Charles Hapgood when he published his theory on the Piri Reis map in his 1966 book “Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.”  Dr. Hapgood was a Harvard-educated historian whose theories about geological shifts earned the admiration of the likes of Albert Einstein.

Dr. Hapgood along with a team of students at the University of New Hampshire studied the Piri Reis map and claims to have found many anomalies, one of which is the alleged representation of the continent Antarctica on the map. The inclusion of the continent’s Queen Maud Land area on this map is particularly interesting because Antarctica was supposedly first discovered in the 19th century, hundreds of years after the construction of the Piri Reis map.

The controversy surrounding the Piri Reis map is not just about how the 16th century Turkish cartographer managed to draw an accurate map of the Antarctic region 300 years prior to its supposed discovery, but also on how the map shows the land mass and coastline of the Antarctic region before it was covered in ice, over 6000 years ago.

In 1961, Captain Lorenzo W. Burroughs, a U.S. Air Force captain working in the cartographic section, wrote a letter to Dr. Hapgood and stated that the “Antarctica” depicted on the Piri Reis map seems to accurately depict the coastline of Antarctica as it is under the ice. The captain based his evaluation on the seismic profile of the Queen Maud Land area made by the Norweigan-British-Swedish Expedition of 1949.

Because of this alleged anomaly, Hapgood proposed that the Piri Reis map was actually based on source materials that pre-date 4000 BCE, thousands of years before the earliest known progressive civilizations with developed languages are known to have existed.

With Hapgood’s extraordinary theory, one glaring and compelling question is raised: “Which unknown civilization had the technology and the need to map the Antarctic region 6000 years ago?”

Hapgood’s theory implies that a prehistoric civilization possessed the technology to navigate major seaways and chart the globe with some level of accuracy. He also suggested that the topographic depiction of the interior of the continents required aerial capabilities. This implies that a prehistoric “super” civilization with aerial and nautical capabilities was the origin of the Piri Reis map’s geographic information on the pre-ice Antarctica.

In his book titled “Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings,” Dr. Hapgood said this about the possibility of ancient voyagers exploring the Antarctic:

“It becomes clear that the ancient voyagers travelled from pole to pole. Unbelievable as it may appear, the evidence nevertheless indicates that some ancient people explored Antarctic when its coasts were free of ice. It is clear too, that they had an instrument of navigation for accurately determining the longitudes that was far superior to anything possessed by the peoples of ancient, medieval or modern times until the second half of the 18th century.”

In short, for Hapgood and his supporters, the Piri Reis map could indicate advanced knowledge passed down from a prehistoric sea-faring civilization which could either Atlantean or alien.

Standpoint of Mainstream Science

source: wikimedia commons

While mainstream scientists are equally intrigued by the mysteries of the Piri Reis map, many of them have vehemently refuted Hapgood’s implication that the map’s accuracy is the handiwork of mythical Atlanteans or out-of-this-world aliens.

To the skeptics, for a map that was constructed in 1513, the Piri Reis map shows an astonishing amount of detail. While it is clearly an impressive map for its time, it is not without flaws. More than anything, the map is a top-notch example of naval intelligence gathering and cartography, containing very specific details which were possibly derived from tightly-guarded secrets of enemy maps.

Some of the critics’ of Hapgood’s theory claim that the Piri Reis map is a representation of the South American coastline based on the modern physical features of the coast and the interior featured on the 16th century map.

On the other hand, Gregory C. McIntosh - another leading expert on the Piri Reis map - claimed that the southern continent depicted in the map is one produced by imagination. According to him, the idea of a southern continent had already been discussed as early as the time of the ancient Greeks, and many old maps have since shown a southern continent in various forms. Hence, it should not be so surprising that a southern continent also appears on the Piri Reis map.

Is the southern landmass depicted in the Piri Reis Map by a 16th century cartographer only a misguided depiction of South America? Or is it just an imagined representation of a mythical southern continent? Or, is it possible that this map is an astoundingly ancient depiction of Antarctica’s coast, hinting at the existence of an advanced sea-faring civilization several millennia ago?

In the end, we may never really know the truth for certain. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But if we’re lucky, only time and perhaps several extensive research efforts on the subject matter would be able to tell. And should that time come, all evidences that have been brought forward in the past and shall be discovered in the future should all be re-examined with an open mind.

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Sources:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/antarctica-ancient-technology/piri-reis-map-evidence-ancient-technology-00276
http://old.world-mysteries.com/steven_dutch1.htm
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/piri-reis-map-at-topkapi-palace
https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=O1TJmqti-TsC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fil
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1165572-piri-reis-map-evidence-of-a-very-advanced-prehistoric-civilization/
http://sacred-texts.com/piri/index.htm
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/PiriRies.HTM

Related Articles

The Legendary Sword in the Stone of Galgano

The story of King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone is one of the most famous British legends. For centuries, this Arthurian story has been passed down from one generation to another through various literary works of authors and poets.

The Sword in the Stone - which some believe to be the same as the world-famous Excalibur - essentially tells the tale of an embedded sword that could only be pulled out from the stone by the one true king of England. The retrieval of the sword was deemed unlikely to be accomplished by any other man until the future King Arthur managed to do the impossible, proving his divine appointment as king and true heir of Uther Pendragon.

However, the story of a mystical sword stuck in a stone is not entirely unique to the well-known Arthurian legend. In fact, a similar yet lesser known story can be found in the Italian region of Tuscany, which some experts have suggested to be the real inspiration behind the British legend. This is the Sword in the Stone of Saint Galgano. And unlike King Arthur’s Excalibur, an actual 12th-century sword believed to be the very same sword that Saint Galgano thrust into the bedrock still exists today.

The Life of Saint Galgano Guidotti

Saint Galgano is considered to be the first saint whose canonization was conducted to a formal process by the Roman Church. Much of his life is known through the documents from the processing of his canonization in 1185, which is just a few years after his demise. There are also a number of written works by later authors that covered the saint’s life.

Galgano Guidotti was born in 1148 in Chiusdino, in the modern province of Siena, Italy. Being the son of a minor noble, he had spent his youth as a wealthy knight, solely concerned with the worldly pleasures that life had to offer. Trained in the art of war, Galgano was both arrogant and violent. However, all of that changed and he later renounced the ideologies of warfare and subsequently chose the path of a hermit.

The Story Behind Galgano’s Legendary Sword in the Stone

source: holiday in tuscany

Saint Galgano’s path to holiness began with a vision of the Archangel Michael - who, incidentally, is often depicted as a warrior saint. According to one version of the legend, the Archangel Michael appeared before Saint Galgano and showed him the path to salvation, with the angel providing him directions to the place where he should go to achieve this.

On the following day, Saint Galgano declared his intention of becoming a hermit and took up residence in a nearby cave, which was met with ridicule from his family and his friends. Dionisia, Galgano’s mother, managed to convince her son to a pay a visit to his fiancee one last time before he completely renounces all worldly pleasures. And so, wearing his expensive nobleman’s clothing, he rode a horse and set out to visit his fiancee. However, on his way there, his horse suddenly reared, throwing him off its back.

Suddenly, Galgano felt an invisible force lift him to his feet, and an irresistible seraphic voice led him to Montesiepi, a hill nearby his home town of Chiusdino. When he reached the foot of the hill, the voice bade Galgano to be still and to look at the top of Montesiepi. There, he saw a vision of a round temple, with the Twelve Apostles surrounding Jesus and Mary. The voice instructed him to climb the hill, and while he was doing so, the vision he saw faded.

Once he reached the top of the hill, he heard the voice speak again, and this time, it commanded him to renounce all of his worldly desires. Saint Galgano, however, objected since the task was easier said than done. He went on to say that to accomplish such a feat was as easy as splitting a rock with a sword - it simply cannot be done.

In order to prove his point, Saint Galgano drew his sword and attempted to thrust it into the rocky ground. To his surprise and amazement, his blade went through the stone with as much ease as a hot knife slicing through butter. Having understood the divine message loud and clear, Galgano permanently resided on Montesiepi as a humble hermit, leading a life in poverty.

While he led a simple and humble life far different from the extravagant lifestyle he once had as a nobleman, Saint Galgano was visited occasionally by peasants, looking for his blessing. He also made friends with the wild animals he lived with.

According to one legend, the Devil once sent an assassin in the guise of a monk to kill Galgano. However, the saint managed to survive the ordeal because the wild wolves he was living with attacked the killer and “gnawed on his bones.”

At the age of 33, Galgano Guidotti met his demise in 1181, and was canonized four years later. His funeral was considered a major event at the time, and was attended by bishops as well as three Cistercian abbots, including one who had lost his way while headed for Rome.

The following year, the Bishop of Volterra placed Montesiepi under the care of Cistercian monks, knowing that they would erect a shrine in Galgano’s memory. They began the construction of a round chapel in 1185, and this became known as the Cappella di Montesiepi. The chapel is located just above the main abbey and houses the legendary sword of Saint Galgano up to this day.

Authenticity of the Sword in the Cappella di Montesiepi

source: delightfully italy

For centuries, the sword in the stone in Montesiepi was widely believed to be a fake except by the most devout. However, research in the 21st century revealed that based on the composition of its metal as well as its style, the sword is indeed from the 12th century.

The sword has a basic design - its pommel is flat and slightly egg-shaped with a truncated form, while its guard is a straight bar of steel - and its style is typically associated to the known weapons of the 12th century.

In 2001, a metal analysis conducted by Luigi Garlaschelli of the University of Pavia revealed that the sword is indeed very old, with no clear proof to support the claims that the sword is a recent fake.

Ground-penetrating radar analysis also revealed a two-meter by 1-meter cavity beneath the sword believed to be a burial recess, which possibly contains Saint Galgano’s body. Meanwhile, carbon-dating confirmed that the two mummified arms housed in the same chapel at Montesiepi were also indeed from the 12th century. This incidentally supports that legend that anyone who attempted to remove the sword from the stone had their arms ripped out from their bodies.

The recent scientific research and evidence proving that the sword as well as the mummified arms in Cappella di Montesiepi have existed around the 12th century may not be full-proof evidence that the sword in the stone is indeed Saint Galgano’s blade, but it does paint a shade of truth to the story.

Saint Galgano’s Sword vs. King Arthur’s Excalibur

source: wikia

There are those who argue that the “Sword in the Stone” legend of King Arthur did not originate from the Celtic fringes of Britain or France but in Italy. The story of Saint Galgano and the sword embedded in a rock in Tuscany bears similar details to the Arthurian legend of Sir Percival, the finder of the Holy Grail.

It is also interesting to note that the the first story mentioning King Arthur pulling a sword from an anvil on top of a stone appeared in one of the poems written by 13th century French poet Robert de Boron, and that these poems were written several decades after Galgano’s canonization by the Roman Church. By that time, word of Saint Galgano’s life may have already travelled across Europe, with the legend of King Arthur and his sword likely to have been inspired by the story of the reformed Italian knight.

Though the two stories share very similar elements, each convey a different message and fulfills a different purpose. The Arthurian legend of the Sword and the Stone is a story that displays the might, glory and mythical qualities of King Arthur to do the impossible, demonstrated by the unlikely retrieval of a sword.  The story of Saint Galgano’s sword, on the other hand, speaks of faith, humility and the path to holiness by doing the opposite - which is thrusting a blade into a rock-solid ground.

Though Saint Galgano Guidotti’s story may just be a curious legend much like the story of King Arthur and the Excalibur, its legacy is far from forgotten. The round temple in Montesiepi is still standing, and is still safekeeping the sword believed to have belonged to Galgano as well as the mummified forearms that supposedly belonged to a man who dared to pull out that very same sword. The walls of the Abbey of San Galgano on Montesiepi are also still standing tall, and has since become a tourist spot for its haunting beauty, history and architecture.  

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Sources:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/legendary-sword-stone-san-galgano-002968?nopaging=1
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/16/rorycarroll.theobserver
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-sword-in-the-stone-at-montesiepi-chapel
http://myarmoury.com/feature_stone.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2999894.stm

Was There an Ancient Nuclear War?

Is mankind currently at the peak of a modern age of advancement in technology and weaponry, or are we merely trapped in a never-ending cyclical process of innovation, prosperity and eventual self-destruction? There are those among us who believe that humanity’s complicated fascination with nuclear warfare is only a recent repeat in a series of achievements and blunders that have come, gone and returned with the passing of time and the rise and fall of different civilizations. This means that there are currently a variety of theories and hypotheses entertaining the idea and the strong likelihood of an atomic war taking place thousands of years ago, during a time when the most ancient human civilizations on the planet had flourished and had subsequently been erased from existence.

While talk of an ancient nuclear war may sound like something that can only be read on science fiction novels, there are theorists and believers who claim to have found indirect references in ancient literature about a large-scale war in the past that used complex tools of destruction. There are also allegedly best available evidences which can be found in ancient ruins supporting the possibility that our ancient ancestors possessed highly advanced technology which may have included powerful weapons intended for atomic warfare.

Ancient Nuclear War as Detailed in the Mahabharata

source: loving2you

Modern mankind had never heard or experienced horrific descriptions about the aftermath of a nuclear explosion until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during the Second World War. However, an accurate description of such a catastrophic event had allegedly already been written in ancient texts thousands of years ago – more particularly, in the great Sanskrit epic of ancient India titled the “Mahabharata.”

The Mahabharata, which spoke of doom and destruction and allegedly contained verses that seemingly spoke of a nuclear warfare, is believed by some to be an indirect proof that an ancient nuclear war took place on Earth way before the nuclear bomb attacks in World War II. The ancient Hindu epic are claimed by some to have originated thousands of years earlier, and they say it described massive “fireball” weapons falling from the sky during a war between the Rama Empire and an enemy race considered as the archetype of the mythical empire of Atlantis.

One reference in the Mahabharata purportedly speaks of explosions which were described to be brighter than “a thousand suns.” And when these blasts occurred, the suns were supposedly twirling in the air; the trees went up in flames; and the overall destruction was so massive that corpses were burned to the point that they were completely unrecognizable. Those who managed to survive the blasts, however, started to lose their hair and nails, while their food supplies got contaminated. All these are allegedly a concise reference to radiation poisoning and nuclear fallout, which were written on texts that are thousands of years old.  

The Ancient City in Mohenjo Daro

source: scoopwhoop

These gritty details referencing an atomic war is said to have occurred in a bygone era, when knowledge and technology required to make such weapons should not have existed yet. And so, in light of this, some believe that the Hindu epic of Mahabharata may not be as mythological as most scholars and experts think. And among the best evidences usually raised to support the theory of an ancient nuclear war is the ancient city discovered at Mohenjo Daro. Now an archeological site located in Sindh, Pakistan, Mohenjo Daro was built around 2500 BCE, and was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley civilization until its abandonment in the 19th century BCE.

This archeological site was not rediscovered until the 1920s, and since then, significant excavation has been conducted at the site of the city. When excavations of Mohenjo Daro reached the street level, they discovered 44 skeletons which were scattered all over the city. Many of them were holding hands and were lying face down in the street, while their faces and body positioning suggested that they suffered a sudden, violent death. In certain areas of the site, they have found increased levels of radiation, and it was also a wonder how the bodies, which are thousands of years old by archeological standards, did not decay or get eaten by wild animals along the way.   

British Indian researcher David Davenport, in particular, claimed to have found a 50-yard-wide epicenter at Mohenjo Daro where everything appeared to have been fused and glassified by a heat as high as 1500°C through a transformative process known as vitrification. Vitrification is a process in which regular-type stone gets molten into magma state before hardening once again. However, once the stone is hardened, it feels like glass. At the site, there is evidence of vitrification, a phenomenon which could have only been achieved if the site was exposed to extreme heat by some type of blast.

Moreover, A. Gorbovsky in his book titled “Riddles of Ancient History” reported the discovery of at least one human skeleton in the area with a level of radioactivity approximately 50 times greater than it should have been because of natural radiation. Davenport, on the other hand, claimed that what was found at Mohenjo Daro corresponded exactly to what was seen after the nuclear bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Debunking of the Ancient City in Mohenjo Daro as Evidence of an Ancient Atomic War

Source: National Geographic

But did an ancient nuclear war actually take place in the ancient city discovered at Mohenjo Daro? Skeptics and many experts in the field of archeology and the sciences would respond in the negative. One of the first problems with this theory is that the excavations in Mohenjo Daro - through which the bodies were discovered - have been criticized by scholars for the poor approach used during the dig period. The poor methodology applied by the excavators has consequently made interpretation of the ancient site difficult.

Even though some of the original excavators of the site have initially interpreted the evidence in a way that suggested that the skeletons found there were linked by a single catastrophic event, they took the view that the catastrophe was brought about by war and not a nuclear explosion. Moreover, it was also determined by some scholars that although some of the bodies were found in the same parts of the city, their distribution suggested that many of them actually came for different time periods. Some of the bodies were clearly from the Early period of Indus Valley civilization while some are believed to be from the Late period. It is worth nothing that the two periods are more than a thousand years apart.

Also, the idea that the bodies were laying around in the streets has been disproven. The bulk of the bones found at the ancient city were actually found in contexts suggesting burials of the sloppiest and most irreverent nature. The most infamous group of bodies that were found laying in the middle of the street was actually caused by the fact that these bodies were buried during the later period of the Indus Valley civilization, at a time when the existing buildings had been built over the establishments erected in earlier periods. Hence, the bodies found, as it turns out, were buried above a road which was built from a period hundreds of years earlier.

As for the remarkably well-preserved bones, this can be chalked up to Mohenjo Daro being literally one of the hottest places on Earth, with temperatures reaching up to 128 degrees. And because the location is also really dry, it is a perfect climate for preservation. This is also probably the reason why the mud-brick buildings are still standing until now.

As for the claims about there being radiation at Mohenjo Daro, the problem with these allegations is that no one is completely certain where this claim originated from. Since the source of the claim was not any of the scientists directly involved with the Mohenjo Daro digs, and since theorists that believe in the occurrence of a nuclear explosion in the area do not cite a specific and accurate reference with which to verify this claim, there is no reason to address it sp urgently as it is a non-factor in assessing the validity of the theory regarding ancient nuclear warfare.

What about the claim that the ancient settlement in Mohenjo Daro is the epicenter of vitrification? Well, according to archeologists, the site is actually not the epicenter of anything. What was found during the excavation was just a small amount of broken pottery. And because pottery is put in a fire to harden it, the broken pottery found in the area contains a specific type of vitrification called Frit. Aside from that there is no epicenter of anything at the site. If there was, traces of Trinitite - which is vitrified sand caused by a nuclear explosion – should have been found.

Another major problem with the theory that the Mohenjo Daro settlement was destroyed because of a nuclear explosion is the city itself. For an ancient city that was supposed to have been obliterated by an atomic bomb, it is unusual and inconsistent that the buildings in the area are still intact, and some of them are still standing erect at 15 feet high. Since they are made out of mud, some of them should have been toppled if a nuclear weapon did hit the ancient city as the force of its blast wave had more than sufficient destructive power to do so.

And so, to summarize, from the standpoint of skeptics and scientific experts, the bodies at Mohenjo Daro were not killed in a sudden disaster. In fact, they died a thousand years apart in some cases, and were also clearly buried. The cases of radiation are also a non-factor, while the overexaggerated vitrification at the site was actually caused by pottery.  Lastly, if a nuclear explosion obliterated the citizens of that settlement, it should have knocked down the mud-brick houses which are still standing at the site. But, it didn’t.

With speculations and evidences which allegedly prove that an ancient nuclear war took place on Earth, and with skeptics, scholars and other experts working diligently to disprove them, the theory of a highly-advanced ancient civilization capable of atomic warfare remains essentially a controversial case rather than a clean-cut one.

Was there really an ancient nuclear war thousands of years ago? And if so, did an advanced human civilization exist on planet Earth around that time, or were their supposed high technology alien in nature? For now, the truth remains uncertain. While all the evidences presented referring to an ancient atomic warfare have somehow been debunked one way or another, it is also difficult to definitively dismiss that a highly-advanced ancient civilization didn’t exist on this planet at all without presenting tangible proof as well.

Nevertheless, mankind in general must keep in mind that the important thing is for us to not pass judgment on this subject matter so rashly, and to keep an open and objective mind as new evidence gets discovered in the years to come. Maybe by then, the validity of the facts and evidence presented will be compelling and sufficient enough to either affirm the theory that an ancient nuclear war did happen, or definitively conclude that such an event had never happened at all.

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Sources:

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ancientatomicwar/esp_ancient_atomic_07.htm
http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ancient-nuclear-warefare/
http://ultadin.com/2015/10/16/ancient-nuclear-war-in-india/
http://www.trinfinity8.com/evidence-of-ancient-civilization-nuclear-wars/
http://philipcoppens.com/bestevidence.html
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4541
https://www.google.com.ph/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Mohenjo+Daro
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-mythical-massacre-at-mohenjo-daro/
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro#cite_note-book2-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro#Architecture_and_urban_infrastructure
http://www.ajithkumar.cc/history/nuclear-warfare-in-ancient-india-the-proofs-beyond-doubt/
http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/mohenjo-daro-massacre-00819?nopaging=1
http://www.ancient-code.com/mohenjo-daro-an-ancient-city-destroyed-by-a-nuclear-attack-thousands-of-years-ago/