Israel
More “devil worship” – at least as far as those Jehovah’s Witnesses from my last report would be concerned – but Pan was the Greek pagan God of shepherds and flocks of animals. Sure, rituals around Pan involved drunken orgies but those were the days when sexual diseases were not fully understood! Damn, I missed the good times! 🙂
Naturally the Christian movement, and all sects that have split from it, consider these kinds of ritual as related to devil worship. In fact it is very likely that the devil, often appearing with goat-like features, was copied from Pan in an attempt to promote the idea of fidelity and marriage.
It’s sad and ironic that the monotheistic religions have actually created a messier world – pagan religions ensure that respect of nature ensues as each element of nature has a god attached to it – there was a mountain god, a river god, etc., and thus our ancestors respected the natural world. With the monotheistic god residing in the heavens and not on earth, a lack of respect for the earth means the abuse of the planet is now all too clear.
At Hippos in Israel, archaeologists have uncovered a sanctuary that was dedicated to the god Pan. Located just outside the city walls they found a large Roman gate, six metres high, that was previously the entrance to the sanctuary, dating the to time of the emperor Hadrian. With the large bronze mask of Pan that was also discovered there, it’s looking like the sanctuary was some kind of entrance to the world of the gods. The sanctuary most likely dates to the 3rd Century BC and, like most places, the Romans later added to these structures, and incorporated most of the Greek gods into their own Polytheistic religion.
http://www.livescience.com/55201-gateway-to-greek-god-sanctuary-discovered.html
Mexico
A Christian sect, namely that of a Jehovah’s Witness group, has destroyed “at least a dozen 7,000-year-old” altars at the Makonikha site in eastern Mexico.
The site is attributed to the Otomi People who inhabited the area before Nahuatl-speaking natives took over the territory.
The Otomi People were the predecessors of the Olmec – the first real “civilisation” in Mexico – and thus the damaged site is one of the oldest in Mexico.
The Jehovah’s Witness sect who damaged the altars appear to be on a “mission” to rid certain areas of “devil worship”, although ironically devil worship only appears to exist within Christianity. Equally ironic is the fact that whatever was happening at these sites was occurring a very long time ago, and thus all “devil worshipping” had already been eradicated by the Spanish around 500 years ago.
The mind boggles at the stupidity of these people. I don’t know about “destroying devil worship” but I would love to see religious fanaticism destroyed. Another irony…
Although the practices going on today are nothing more than innocent pagan worship of water and natural resources, the Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to view that as devil worship. And there’s yet a final irony which nearly all Christians don’t like to face up to – Christianity itself is a pagan religion, was born of a pagan religion, and always will be a pagan religion – it’s ALL sun worship. It was also the pagan religions that gave us civilisation and culture.
I actually find these religious ideas full of idiocy and ignorance, and they are painfully hilarious. But when people think they are “doing God’s work” by destroying our ancient heritage then they themselves are the “devil worshippers”. Blimey, another irony!
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Jehovahs-Witnesses-Destroy-Ancient-Indigenous-Temple-in-Mexico-20160628-0009.html
Greece
The Antikythera shipwreck is famous for its amazing clockwork computer that predicts the movements of the planets with such astonishing accuracy it has been considered to be way ahead of its time. Nothing like it has ever been found.
Until now.
And, ironically, on the same shipwreck.
This time it’s not an advanced piece of science but something of simple science, something one of a kind, something that has never been found before despite it being mentioned in various ancient texts.
What the divers found was a large metal drum. Made of lead it was called a “dolphin” and was likely used as a defensive mechanism when the ship was attacked – the large drum was hoisted up and then dropped onto the enemy ship as it came alongside, thus creating a large hole that would cause the other ship to sink rapidly.
The Antikythera ship was vastly ahead of its time in so many respects – the Antikythera mechanism is one example. It also had a hull that was five inches thick, unheard of in those days, and was a whopping 180 feet long. The Antikythera ship was clearly a kind of travelling bank vault, designed to carry the most precious and most expensive artefacts across the Roman Empire.
I am sure many more amazing finds from the wreck will surface in the coming decades.
“…you cannot study archaeology without studying the stars because you won’t be able to get into the mind of the ancients. The stars controlled the lives of our ancestors. No knowledge of astronomy makes you a blind archaeologist.”
Astronomical observations are the key to understanding our ancestors and why they built the structures they did. Suggesting Stonehenge, for example, was a “place of the dead” (on top of the solstice and equinox alignments) is ignorant in the extreme, and that deduction has come from the man who currently appears to have the monopoly on Stonehenge right now – Dr. Mike Parker Pearson. While I have no personal issues with Dr. Parker Pearson I find his conclusions are a joke, and solely based on archaeological findings. Anyway….
Finally some archaeologists are realising the true purpose of ancient structures and in Portugal the team there are using their brains for once.
Lanyon Quoit, in Cornwall, England, is another strange site that is listed as a “burial tomb”. I have visited that place numerous times and I have never been convinced that it was a burial tomb. Clearly it had another purpose. In this article is a picture of so-called ‘tomb’ that has similarities to Lanyon Quoit, and this new research makes a whole lot more sense in comparison to what has gone before…
Well done to the team involved!
Peru
The 4,600-year-old remains of a woman who clearly had high status have been found at Aspero, part of the Caral civilisation.
The woman was buried with many fine items, including fine woven cloth, a shell necklace and bone brooches. The woman reached the ripe old age of between 40 and 50 years old when she died.
Caral is the oldest known civilisation in the entire American continent to date. It won’t be too long before an older one is found, I am sure, and most likely it will be in a similar region.
I stick by my own theory that South America was populated long before the north.
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/221-1607/trenches/4543-trenches-peru-caral-woman
India
Another report on the age of the Indus Valley Civilisation. I’m going to post on this frequently, as the need arises, simply because it supports my own theory of the age of the ancient civilisation that surrounds the Indus River – the place that gives India its name.
I stated long ago that India is the birthplace of civilisation, not Iraq, Egypt or Greece. One only has to visit India to feel its ancient origins. It has a magical effect on the visitor and it’s hard to put into words, but when travelling the incredible land of India one feels as if everything started there. Of course, there is a spanner in the works of this theory, namely Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, arguably the most bizarre site in the world, and certainly the oldest thus far. Göbekli Tepe has been dated to around 12,000 years ago at the very least, but it is not a “civilisation”, it is a one-off, highly technical and highly advanced site that is as confusing as it is bizarre. It’s worth looking it up rather than me rambling on about it at this present moment, because I would like to focus on the Indus.
Again we have a report stating the date of the Indus Valley Civilisation as being at least 8,000 years old. I have stated categorically that it is at least 10,000 years old. In this report it says the Harappan site (now in modern-day Pakistan) is most likely a thousand years older, so we are now talking 9,000 years. There is no doubt this date will be pushed back further and I am extremely confident the date will eventually go well beyond 10,000 years.
At this juncture I would like to point out that I still refer to the Indus Valley Civilisation as being in India. Actually it is partly in India and partly in Pakistan, due to the hastily drawn up map the British created before leaving the country, and which caused the deaths of millions of Indians in what was basically a civil war between rival Hindu and Muslim factions, both of which were forced to head east and west respectively as tensions increased and the rapid creation of new borders meant Hindus were suddenly in Muslim “territory”, and vice versa. Unfortunately still today those events are what are behind the tensions between both the countries who, only 70 years ago, were one united nation under British rule.
Another reason why I refer to India, and not Pakistan, as the birthplace of civilisation is because the location of the origins of the Indus Valley Civilisation were based around the Saraswati River, parts of which no longer exist – the Indus Valley Civilisation constantly changed locations as the rivers running down from the Himalayas into the Arabian Sea changed course or dried up altogether. For that reason the Indus Valley Civilisation covers a massive expanse of land and spread far and wide over thousands of years.
It’s also worth pointing out many of the Hindu religious texts and events are focused on the Saraswati River. thus providing more evidence that Hinduism is by far the oldest religion in the world.
Work will continue on the Indus for hundreds of years, such is the huge area that needs to be looked at. I sincerely hope that my own theory will be proven correct, long before I’m gone, and I am certain it won’t actually be too long from now until it is. I am also certain there are other sites in the region still yet to be discovered. Would I stick my neck out and say the Indus Valley goes back to at least 15,000 years? Well, I’m starting to think it might…
China
Following on from the news of the future opening of the secret garden, archaeologists have now discovered foundations walls at the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The foundation walls are 2.8 metres thick, or twenty bricks, and are thought to be the walls of a palace from the original Forbidden City, dating to between 1406 and 1420.
Belonging to the Ming Dynasty, the area excavated was part of the west palace and was home to the emperor’s mother.
Thankfully the ancient Chinese were avid record keepers, otherwise we wouldn’t have any idea what the walls were for or who was living within them.
But none of that is interesting compared with this quote from the report:
“Analysis indicated the sand and soil beneath the brick foundation dated to between 5,000 to 30,000 years ago, the report said.”
You know what I want to say next so I won’t bother…
