China
The secret garden inside China’s Forbidden City, closed for nearly a hundred years, is expected to open to the public in 2020.
When the “last emperor was removed in 1924” the garden was closed to the public.
Amazingly, “the Garden itself was built by the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty as part of his retirement complex. As one of the world’s richest people of the era, he established an edict that nothing would be changed after his death, and so, a majority of the garden remains untouched even now.”
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/secret-garden-forbidden-city
Egypt
The sunken cities of Egypt clearly show how rapidly coastal locations can be swallowed by changes in the earth’s climate, namely that of sea rise. For me, it also gives a lot of credence to the story of Plato’s Atlantis. If Atlantis existed as long ago as Plato said, and it was swallowed by the sea around 9600 BC (ironically the same time as the end of the Younger Dryas period which caused rapid sea rise and has now only recently been proven scientifically), then it is not surprising that by now no traces of it exist.
There’s something beautiful but also disturbing about these huge statues lying under the sea. They create images in the mind of cultures long lost to history, and instil a strange kind of sadness within, as if the ghosts of its inhabitants still wander around the murky depths. I find the same with sunken ships – there’s something eerily sad when images are shown of a ship on the sea bed, its crew forever enclosed within the hull; a sunken grave. Oh, I must be feeling rather morose today!
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/15/drowned-worlds-egypts-sunken-cities
Malaysia
Sungai Batu is considered to be the oldest site in south-east Asia. Dating to around 535 BC, Sungai Batu was a centre for iron smelting and was likely the only place in Malaysia that had such a capability at that time. That means it was a major trade hub and likely the most important place for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.
But it’s not only iron that has given Sungai Batu importance – it is also the oldest site built with bricks in the whole of south-east Asia.
For these two reasons Sungai Batu is gaining importance among the archaeological community, and it is likely in the near future it will gain UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/world-archaeological-experts-fascinated-by-sungai-batu-ancient-site
I would like to reiterate a point I’ve been making on this page periodically and for many years.
I am of the opinion, after more than twenty years of research, that the Americas were populated AT LEAST 20,000 years ago, and that South America is most likely to have been inhabited before North America. This is not an opinion I make lightly – it is more than obvious to me that human activity in the Americas has evolved for many thousands of years, and the native Americans who still inhabit the continent appear to have unique characteristics that suggest they have evolved independently for much longer than twenty thousand years. Although DNA evidence shows clearly that many native American populations have their origins in Mongol and Manchurian populations, many others appear to have lineages that cannot be traced to anyone. The distinctive features of the Americans are so much different from their supposed ancestry that one must question not only the DNA evidence, but the supposed theory that the Clovis People were the first Americans. In fact, the ‘Clovis First’ theory has already been dismissed as far as I am concerned, as many findings have concluded categorically that another population was there long before they arrived, wherever they supposedly came from. I am surprised there are still those that believe the Clovis were the first.
Another important factor is the new findings surrounding the Younger Dryas Impact, which clearly show fragments of a comet smashed into the north American ice sheet approximately 12,800 years ago (10800 BC) and caused such devastation that the north American continent raged with intense fires, many large mammalian species were made extinct, and impact spherules have been found as far as the Middle East. Clearly this was not a small impact, but a series of massive impacts that not only hit simultaneously, but together practically wiped out all of the large animals that existed at that time… including human beings.
Interestingly the comet that caused the Younger Dryas – the period of climate change that occurred for more than a thousand years from the time of the impact – is also known as the Clovis comet because it has been attributed to wiping out the Clovis population.
The points I am trying to make are simple – there is no doubt that human beings existed in the Americas prior to the impacts, but nearly all traces of them were wiped out at the time of the devastation. There were likely then populations that survived in the southern half of the continent. Already evidence has been found in Brazil that suggest people existed there more than 20,000 years ago, and these findings have been put forward with good evidence – an axe was found in stratum dating to the correct time period mentioned. So how do the so-called scholars deal with that data? They dismiss it as false, and suggest the axe somehow “fell into” the stratigraphic layers. This is what is known as “knowledge filtration” whereby those with a hold over current theory disregard hard evidence and hide it away. This is a very common feature of archaeology and something I mentioned briefly in my book.
The second point is that prior to the Younger Dryas impact north America was a huge ice sheet, several miles thick, but the southern half of the Americas was very warm in comparison. For that reason it is most likely the south was inhabited before the north. I think the first Americans were likely from the Polynesian islands, and a later migration occurred from Manchuria. I base this evidence on the fact that Australia was inhabited at least 80,000 years ago but the East Asian lands were inhabited many tens of thousands of years later. Quite simply the people inhabiting the southern half of the planet had a major head start… and neither did they have a several-mile thick ice sheet to deal with.
In this article yet another piece of evidence comes to light – a butchered mastodon bone and stone tools have been found in south-eastern United States – at least a thousand years earlier than human beings were supposedly first there, and dating to 14,550 years ago (12550 BC).
This finding clearly shows that even at that time the people were adept hunters and tool makers, and must have been there for quite some time. What I mean is if North America was populated from the Bering Land Bridge then these people, or populations, managed to get all the way to the south-eastern United States… I can assure you they didn’t go by bus.
So if these artefacts date to 14,550 years ago, you can bet your bottom dollar that people were in the Americas way before that time… The dates keep being pushed back, and sooner or later my “theory” will be proven correct.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36286548
Mexico / Canada
A little 15-year-old boy genius has found an entire Maya city by studying the stars!
It’s a hypothesis I believe very strongly – that many sites around the world are in fact mirrors of the stars above, and many places can be easily correlated to the heavens – the pyramids at Giza, the Nazca geoglyphs (some argue against that), Angkor Wat, the north American earthworks (Newark especially), and many other places.
William Gadoury, the 15-year-old Canadian who has found the Maya city, may in fact be the first person to practically prove beyond doubt that our ancestors were mimicking the heavens in ancient times with their building projects.
Our ancestors were obsessed with the stars, and that’s not surprising since without light pollution they would have been an impressive sight. It’s hard to imagine what questions they were asking and what they wanted to know, but it’s equally clear that as the onset of belief systems took hold, various structures were built to “reach the stars” or connect with the gods. Pyramids are a classic example (excluding the Giza complex) as their very architecture and design clearly shows attempts to reach as high as possible. Pyramids were often used by those in power (a high building is a display of power) and they were clearly intended for priests to be in “direct contact” with the gods of the heavens above. They were also used as observatories so the priests and / or astronomers could follow the movements of the stars and planets.
In many sites around the world it is clear that certain structures were built to mimic the positions of the stars, and that engineering complexity can be observed when those structures were built to follow particular star movements, or positions. For example, Stonehenge, like many other monuments, is clearly aligned with the solstices, but it wasn’t solely used as an observatory, and therein lies the engineering ingenuity. To combine star tracking with other elements of engineering shows our ancestors were not only adept at building complex structures, but they were actually far better at it than we are today, given the techniques and tools at their disposal.
What do I mean exactly? Ask any engineer, architect or any professional person in the building trade if we could build the Great Pyramid at Giza and they will all laugh in your face – we cannot do it, not today, not tomorrow, and probably not ever. Graham Hancock has always been correct – we have lost an episode of human history and ingenuity.
Well done William Gadoury for making his discovery of a Maya city by studying the stars – Indian Jones has nothing on this kid!
The World… or is it just mostly Europe?
Another “Eurocentric” write-up by someone who clearly has no real clue about ancient sites.
The Temple of the Sun (Huaca del Sol) from the Moche culture in Peru is the largest adobe brick structure in the world and never gets a mention anywhere, not to mention its equally impressive sister the Temple of the Moon (Huaca de la Luna). Then there’s Machu Picchu, The Nazca Lines…. and all of those are in one country! What about the massive earthworks in north America? Angkor Wat in Cambodia isn’t there either… I could go on but I’ve made my point…
Nice article nonetheless.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/g2606/most-impressive-ancient-builds/
Pharaoh Akhenaton (14th Century BC; 18th Dynasty) was the first human being in history to preach the idea of monotheism, and once his kingdom was destroyed and his name erased from history it would be more than a thousand years before the idea of a single god would become prevalent.
Akhenaton was married to one of the most beautiful women in history – Queen Nefertiti – and together they moved the capital of Egypt to Amarna and built there an entire city.
Only a chance discovery in 1887 brought the story to light – in the dusty environment a local woman found 300 clay tablets, now known as the Amarna Letters, and despite the city being known about since the 18th Century its importance was suddenly realised by scholars. What happened from then and continues to this day are excavations to uncover the entire city.
The story of Akhenaton is fascinating and I have always had an interest due to the nature of the changes he brought about, but his attempts to create a shift in religious thinking may have been his downfall. The powerful priesthood of Egypt was practically dismantled and, like Julius Caesar, the changes may have been a little too much for the priests. Akhenaton is the father of Tutankhamen but Nefertiti is not the mother since Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters. Tutankhamen was probably the offspring of a lesser wife. Huge debate still surrounds what happened to the family. Some believe they were all murdered by the priesthood and others believe they lived their lives and died naturally but after their deaths attempts were made to erase all traces of them. The problem with the idea of assassination is the relatively lavish tomb of Tutankhamen, arguably the greatest archaeological find in history. Amarna itself, however, was abandoned and the capital returned to Thebes, and this is where Tutankhamen continued his reign. It is unlikely that Tutankhamen’s decision to return the capital to Thebes was his own – it was most likely that of the priesthood. Perhaps, even though he himself died very young, his life was spared for that reason.
Akhenaton’s body has been confirmed as found in tomb KV55, but the body of Nefertiti is still missing. I do believe, however, that Dr. Joanne Fletcher may have already found her, despite opposition from the Egyptian authorities…
It’s another subject I could write all day about! This article brings the city of Amarna back to life…
India
In Karnataka sits a small island in the middle of the river Cauvery that was once the armoury of the Tiger of Mysuru (Mysore), Tipu Sultan.
Srigangapatna was an island where weapons were made and a fort built by the Tipu Sultan – the ruler of the kingdom of Mysore in the 18th Century – but today it has fallen into ruin and is being left to its fate through “apathy”. 80,000 extremely important manuscripts were found there, detailing just about everything that happened in the history of the Mysore kingdom that once existed more than 200 years ago. The island was also a trading post for diamonds and other precious stones.
Many of the buildings have already collapsed and soon others will join them if nothing is done to save them. Although the costs to save the treasures would be huge, visits to an island fort in the middle of a river would be a very popular tourist attraction and the costs could easily be recuperated long term.
Another fascinating aspect of the island are the pigeon houses built by Tipu Sultan – some have been destroyed already but some still stand – and they were used to send and receive messages from various parts of the kingdom. Isn’t it funny that 18th Century post was far quicker than its modern counterpart?
I would find it a joy if a pigeon landed on my windowsill with my morning post – a letter could be returned in a matter of hours!
http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/ancient-monuments-in-indias-karnataka.html#.VyXR_fmlzIW
