Good evening fellow steemians.
Tonight we take a look at some unknown objects from a long time ago, in part inspired by our very own @everittdmickey after he sent me this superb link last night. It is the Antikythera mechanism.
In case you do not want to click the link, here is the wiki entry below.
The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθiːrə/ ANT-i-ki-THEER-ə or /ˌæntɪˈkɪθərə/ ANT-i-KITH-ə-rə) is an ancient Greek analogue computer and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes decades in advance. It could also track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.
The artefact was discovered on 17 May 1902 by archaeologist Valerios Stais, among wreckage retrieved from a wreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera. The instrument is believed to have been designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has been variously dated to about 87 BC, or between 150 and 100 BC, or to 205 BC, or to within a generation before the shipwreck, which has been dated to approximately 70-60 BC.
The device, housed in the remains of a 340-millimetre (13 in) × 180-millimetre (7.1 in) × 90-millimetre (3.5 in) wooden box, was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation works. Four of these fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others. The largest gear is approximately 140 millimetres (5.5 in) in diameter and originally had 223 teeth.
It is a complex clockwork mechanism composed of at least 30 meshing bronze gears. A team led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth at Cardiff University used modern computer x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism and read the faintest inscriptions that once covered the outer casing of the machine.
Detailed imaging of the mechanism suggests that it had 37 gear wheels enabling it to follow the movements of the moon and the sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses and even to model the irregular orbit of the moon, where the moon’s velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the 2nd century BC by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes, and it is speculated that he may have been consulted in the machine's construction.
Thank you very much for that link, now we move onto other items found over the centuries, with the idea being a reference point for future posts, to best highlight technologies of times gone by or mystery objects.
The 320 million year old screw?
I have a theory that we have been here for 100's of if not billions of years, and somehow we manage to almost completely wipe ourselves off the planet, time and time again - with greed and wars, you may feel free to disagree, it makes sense to me though.
According to reports from Chinese News agencies, a mysterious object discovered in 2002 could be evidence of prehistorical civilizations.
The Lanzhou screw is believed to be similar to the one found in Russia in the 90’s.
These objects challenge mainstream archaeology and history.
Researchers from numerous Chinese laboratories have studied the item.
The Lanzhou screw is another mysterious object discovered in recent years that seems to challenge mainstream archaeology and history. It was discovered in 2002 and has since generated a great amount of attention among collectors and researchers. The most mysterious part of this object is that within the piece of rock, a metal screw was discovered. The mysterious pear-shaped stone is about 6×8 cm and weighs around 466 grams. But it is not a common rock and the metal shaped screw just adds to the mystery of the rock that according to researchers is around 300 million years old.
As a matter of fact, the mysterious rock has geologists scratching their head. Tests have failed to show the exact composition of the mysterious rock, researchers that include geologists and physicists from the National Land Resources Bureau of Gansu Province, Coloured Metal Survey Bureau of Gansu Province, the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy, Lanzhou Branch, and the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou College are unsure of the origin of the artefact and point out that at this time, all theories are possible.
According to Lanzhou Morning News; After a discussion about the possibility of being man-made and the possible reasons for its formation, scientists unanimously labelled the stone as one of the most valuable in China and in the world of collection, research and Archaeological studies.
Numerous theories were proposed trying to explain the origin of the mysterious rock and the embedded 6 cm cone-shaped metal bar which bears clear screw threads. While most researchers firmly believe this artifact to be the remains of a prehistoric civilization, other researchers suggest that given the mysterious composition of certain elements of the rock, there is a possibility that both the rock and mysterious metal screw could have originated on another planet.
Tornillo de Lanzhou China1.
After many studies, Chinese scientists concluded that the artefact had not been made by contemporary hands or by current technology levels, the most accepted hypothesis is that it is a product of a prehistoric civilization. Despite various opinions, researchers have not been able to confirm if the screw was forged from a metallic material or from some other material. Researchers from the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy suggest that the mysterious body of the Lanzhou screw was made before the rock that contains it solidified, a process that is believed to have taken place 300 million years before the present era.
It is most likely that there is something missing in the distant history of mankind. History and archaeology are clearly not reflecting the entire picture of our past and objects like the Lanzhou screw are proof of it.
300 million year old gear cog?
The Earth was so young 300 million years ago, the first land animals had yet to evolve into dinosaurs, most scientists believe.
If that’s the case, how do you explain the discovery in Russia of a piece of a gear shift — a common machine part — embedded into a hunk of 300-million-year-old coal. Has this artefact been correctly identified? And if so, who could have made this thing? And for what purpose?
According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, a resident of Vladivostok — near the borders of China and North Korea — named Dmitry, recently noticed something odd about a hunk of coal he had obtained to heat his home during the winter.
A metallic-looking rail or rod was pressed into the coal, prompting Dmitry to contact biologist Valery Brier, in the seaside Primorye region.
Initial examination of the strange object led researchers to assert it looked “very much like a toothed metal rail, created artificially. It was like parts [that] are often used in microscopes, various technical and electronic devices,” wrote Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The piece of coal in question originated from the Chernogorodskiy mines of the Khakasis region. The Voice of Russia, an international Russian broadcasting service, reported that since the coal deposits in this region of the country can be dated to 300 million years ago, experts are suggesting that the odd piece of metal found in the coal must be that old as well.
The Voice of Russia also said, “When geologists broke the piece of coal in which the metal object was pressed into and spot-treated it with special chemical agents, it turned out the the metal detail was unusually light and soft. ... [It] was found to be composed of 98 percent aluminium and 2 percent magnesium,” which led to the implication that the metallic object was created artificially.
Another important property of the object that intrigued the researchers was “its distinctive shape, which was reminiscent of a modern tooth-wheel,” according to The Voice of Russia. “It is hard to imagine that an object could take the regular shape of a tooth-wheel with six identical ‘teeth’ naturally.”
But who created this seemingly metallic piece 300 million years ago, presumably when there were no humans walking the Earth? Even Komsomolskaya Pravda implied that this piece of metal has an alien origin.
How about a 400 million year old hammer?
Now I know you think I am having a giraffe or laugh here, I kid you not though.
Odd Things in Wrong Places
Every once in a while archaeologists (and sometimes regular Joe's) make some remarkable discoveries. Stunned, they are often unable to explain what it is they’ve found, how it came into existence, or ascertain its value. This is a comprehensive list of such artefacts; artefacts that many believe should have never existed given the discerned age/period of their creation.
In June 1936 (or 1934 according to some accounts), Max Hahn and his wife Emma were on a walk when they noticed a rock with wood protruding from its core. They decided to take the oddity home and later cracked it open with a hammer and a chisel. Ironically, what they found within seemed to be an archaic hammer of sorts. A team of archaeologists checked it, and as it turns out, the rock encasing the hammer was dated back more than 400 million year; the hammer itself turned out to be more than 500 million years old. Additionally, a section of the handle has begun the transformation to coal. The hammer’s head, made of more than 96% iron, is far more pure than anything nature could have achieved without an assist from modern technology.
As man digs and scrapes and drills into the mysterious earth, many surprising finds are made. It follows that mining and farming have been fruitful sources of curious finds in the past. We can feel strong regrets that as both occupations have become more and more mechanized, fewer and fewer finds of value for scientific study will occur. The following interesting items make two important points. If conventional dating is followed, ancient man seems to be far more ancient than he should be. In fact, he must have been thriving before he is supposed to have evolved. Second, ancient man was a very sophisticated person. There is no indication that his brain gradually evolved. Both of these conclusions, obviously, are completely opposite to evolutionary theory.
One of the most prodigious lava flow in the history of the world occurred in the Pacific Northwest. The lava spread over an estimated 200,000 square miles in depths up to 5,000 feet. In 1972, a competent geologist stated that the eruptions took place a mere fifteen million years ago. Much of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and portions of neighbouring states was covered. The immense age of the deposit "can easily be imagined by the fact that the Snake River has cut canyons through the deposit to depths of up to 3000 feet".
Still, there are several curious things about this lava flow. Many competent observers have commented on the remarkable freshness of the deposit, as though the eruptions took place in very recent times. A startling find was made in 1889 near Nampa, Idaho. While workers were boring an artesian well, a small figurine of baked clay was extracted from a depth of 320 feet. Above the figurine, the drill, inside a 6-inch tubing, had cut through fifteen feet of basalt lava and many other strata. The find has never been challenged except to say that it was impossible. The conclusion is unmistakable. Before the basalt flowed, sophisticated humans lived in the area (Velikovsky, 1955, p.87; Pensee , May 1972, 2:2, p.18). Ancient men lived in California. They worked the hardest stones, fabricated perfect granite mortars and dishes, used a circular, skillet-like vessel made of lava, hard as iron, which had three legs and a spout, made polished stone axes with perfect holes drilled in them for a handle, and fashioned ladles, disks or quoits. They were able to bore into the bowels of mountains for gold and silver
One ancient shaft was drilled 210 feet down into solid rock. An altar for worship was found there. Other finds include the following: a mortar for grinding gold ore at a depth of 300 feet in a mining tunnel, a mortar and pestle weighing 30 pounds, beads, perforated stones, a 40-pound oval granite dish. One human skull was found at a depth of 130 feet under five beds of lava and tufa separated by layers of gravel. Man came before the lava flowed, and deep canyons have been cut by rivers since the lava spread. An amazing number of stone relics have been found. The finding are almost always in gold-bearing rock or gravels (Victoria Institute , 1879, 15:193-198).
A California newspaper reported the find of an elaborately carved rock and other worked stones weighing up to 800 pounds which had been found in hydraulic operations hundreds of feet underground. The original site was an ancient river bed dated long before the last Ice Age (Edward, 1964, p.109). Nothing describes what has been discovered in California quite as well as Job 28 (TEV). Similar locations have been studied in many parts of the world. Read this detailed and sophisticated memory of what mining in ancient times was like.
Far from where anyone lives or human feet ever travel, men dig the shafts of mines. There they work in loneliness, clinging to ropes in the pits. There are mines where silver is dug. There are places where gold is refined. Men dig iron out of the ground and melt copper out of the stones. Men explore the deepest darkness. They search the depths of the earth and dig for rocks in the darkness. Food grows out of the earth, but underneath the same earth all is torn up and crushed. The stones of the earth contain sapphires, and the dust contains gold. No hawk sees the roads to the mines, and no vulture ever flies over them. No lion or other fierce beast ever travels those lonely roads. Men dig the hardest rocks, dig mountains away at their base. As they tunnel through the rock, they discover precious stones. They dig to the sources of rivers and bring to light what is hidden. The value of wisdom is more than coral, or crystal, or rubies, or the finest topaz and the purest gold.
-- From the book of Job, chapter 28
In the museum at Moses Lake, Washington, are some very crude scrapers on exhibit which were found under a glacial morain. This would appear to date man in Washington to a time before the Pleistocene epoch, which scientists are reluctant to do. A similar discovery was made near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Crude choppers and scrapers of quartzite were found deep in the earth and had been tumbled and mixed in glacial till. Again this is evidence that man lived there before the glacial advance. Scientists do not want to put man in America that long ago (Folsom, 1971, p.70; p.184). Such finds are no problem for creationists who see no conflict for such finds within a biblical time framework.
A strange account comes from the little village of Plateau City, Colorado, a short distance east of Grand Junction. A resident was digging a cellar in 1936. At a depth of ten feet he found paved tile laid in some kind of mortar, different from any other construction in the valley. While the tiles are dated anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 years old, they lie in a Miocene formation, which could make it up to 25,000,000 years old by conventional dating (Edward, 1962, p.100-101).
In 1871 near Chillicothe, Illinois, well drillers brought up a bronze coin from a depth of 114 feet. This remarkable discovery was described in the Proceedings of the American Philosophic Society . This is additional evidence that man had been present there. Rapid change of the terrain is also indicated (Edwards, 1962, p.101).
Heizer notes a number of impossibilities according to commonly accepted geological dating: a hyena tooth sawed by a flint before it became fossilized, cutting operations on the fossilized bone of an extinct rhinoceros and on other animals at a site near Paris, and evidence of the use of a sharp tool on the horn of fossilized rhino remains in Ireland. Under the surface of the North Sea the trunk of an oak was removed from a long submerged forest. The trunk showed the marks of a hatchet on it. (Heizer, 1962, p.107-114).
Conventional theory has early hunters migrating from Asia to America. One of the best known early projectile points is the Folsom point, and the identical pattern is found both in China and over much of America. It is of particular interest that this point is dated as early as 10,000 B.C. in America, but no earlier than 2000 B.C. in China (Mertz, 1972, p.99). Theory, however, requires the points in China to be older.
Deliberators verdict = History is definitely not what the text books say it is.
I took up a lot of your time with this article, thank you for reading till the end, have a superb week.
Deliberator = Definition of deliberator
plural -s
: one that deliberates
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