Showing posts with label civilization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civilization. Show all posts

Sunday, April 2, 2017

A stunning theory claims that the Americas were discovered in Antiquity

Credit: thevintagenews
Among the many theories about which civilization first sailed to the Americas and discovered them, there is also the theory that the ancient Phoenicians were the first.

This theory became popular in the 18th century and is closely connected with the petroglyphs on Dighton Rock which are still of unknown origin. This theory is not quite as popular as the one that says that the Norse made the discovery first, but still, it is worth mentioning.

Back in the 18th century, a lot of scholars started to offer ideas about the true origin of the inscriptions on the rock. Ezra Stiles, a theologian, author, and also the seventh President of Yale College, claimed that the inscriptions are in Hebrew. Antoine Court de Gébelin, who is mainly known for the popularization of the Tarot, had his own idea about the rock. He believed that the inscription was made by Carthaginian sailors who commemorated their journey to the shores of Massachusetts.

A copy of the symbols on Dighton Rock.
In the 19th century, the theory that a group of Israelite people visited the New World was widely adopted in the Mormon community.

Later, Ross T. Christensen, an American archeologist, speculated that the Mulekites, who are mentioned in the Book of Mormon, were probably of Phoenician ethnic origin.


The Phoenician theory is also supported in a book written in 1871, by John Denison Baldwin, an American anthropologist. In Ancient America, Baldwin wrote,

“The known enterprise of the Phoenician race, and this ancient knowledge of America, so variously expressed, strongly encourage the hypothesis that the people called Phoenicians came to this continent, established colonies in the region where ruined cities are found, and filled it with civilized life. It is argued that they made voyages on the ‘great exterior ocean,’ and that such navigators must have crossed the Atlantic; and it is added that symbolic devices similar to those of the Phoenicians are found in the American ruins, and that an old tradition of the native Mexicans and Central Americans described the first civilizers as ‘bearded white men,’ who ‘came from the East in ships’.“

Photograph of the Dighton Rock taken in 1893.
A stone tablet with an inscription that was supposed to be of Phoenician origin appeared in Brazil in the 1870s. The tablet was given to Ladislau de Souza Mello Netto, who was the director of the National Museum of Brazil at that time, and he immediately acknowledged the artifact as genuine. The inscription allegedly told the story of some Sidonian Canaanites who visited the shore of Brazil. It was later discovered that the symbols that appear on the tablet were variations of letters that appeared in different periods over a span of 800 years. It was impossible for all the letters to appear on the same tablet at the same time, so the artifact and the inscription were dismissed as fake.

In the 20th century, a few new artifacts appeared that again spiked the theory of Phoenician or Semitic discovery. One of these artifacts was the Bat Creek inscription. Cyrus Herzl Gordon, Near Eastern cultures and ancient languages expert, believed that the inscription of this tablet was in Paleo-Hebrew. Gordon thought that this was proof that Semitic people visited the continent prior to Columbus. Later, the Bat Creek inscription, together with another artifact called the Las Lunas Decalogue Stone, were proven to be forgeries and Gordon’s claim was dismissed.

The Bat Creek inscription.
In 1996, Mark McMenamin, an American paleontologist, speculated that Phoenician sailors visited the Americas around 350 BC. He based his theory on some gold stater coins that were allegedly made by the state of Carthage. On the back of the coins was a map of the Mediterranean and another land on the west, across the Atlantic. McMenamin interpreted that land as the Americas but later discovered that those coins were actually a modern forgery.

Another form of written evidence that slightly goes in favor of the arrival of Phoenicians in the Americas can be found in Ptolemy’s Geography. Lucio Russo, an Italian physicist, mathematician, and historian of science, analyzed Ptolemy’s book and noticed that he gives the coordinates of the Fortunate Isles.

The fortunate Islands were a group of legendary islands mentioned by various ancient Greek writers. Russo also noticed that the size of the world in Ptolemy’s Geography is smaller than what Eratosthenes measured. After he gave the same coordinates of the Fortunate Islands to the Antilles, the map irregularities in Ptolemy’s descriptions disappeared. According to Russo, Ptolemy could have known about the Antilles from his source, Hipparcos, who lived in Rhodes. It is possible that Hipparcos heard about the Antilles from Phoenicians sailors who controlled the western Mediterranean in those days. This is a far-fetched idea, but still, an interesting one.

A carving of a Phoenician ship / Photo source
Most of the modern-day scholars deny the idea that Phoenicians, Canaanites, or Carthaginians discovered the Americas first.

Read another story from us: A Phoenician merchant ship: Answers at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea

Ronald H. Fritze, an American historian, says that although it was technically possible for those people to reach the Americas, it probably never happened:

“No archaeological evidence has yet been discovered to prove the contentions of Irwin, Gordon, Bailey, Fell and others. Since even the fleeting Norse presence in Vinland left definite archaeological remains at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, it seems logical that the allegedly more extensive Phoenician and Carthaginian presence would have left similar evidence. The absence of such remains is strong circumstantial evidence that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians never reached the Americas.”

Until some concrete evidence appears, this theory will remain only a fantasy

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Thevintagenews . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Mayan Civilization History could be Rewritten. Researchers have learned important details on discovery of a Giant Jade Pendant.

G. Braswell/UC San Diego
Researchers have just published a paper on one of the most fascinating and mysterious Maya discoveries in recent years - a huge jade pendant that has a detailed story about the king it was made for etched into its back.

First uncovered back in 2015, researchers have now tentatively translated the inscriptions, and it turns out it's even more unusual than originally thought, and could rewrite our current understanding of Maya history.

This type of T-shaped jade plate was worn on a king's chest during Maya religious ceremonies. At 19 cm (7.4 inches) wide, 10 cm (4.1 inches) high, and 0.8 cm (0.3 inches) thick, this is the second largest Maya jade ever found in Belize.

But it's also the first known to be inscribed with historical text - on the pendant's back, around 30 carved hieroglyphs reveal details about its first owner.

That's odd in itself, but the fact that such a huge and important pendant was discovered where it was is also unusual - the artefact was found in Nim Li Punit in southern Belize, a relatively isolated region at the time.

"It was like finding the Hope Diamond in Peoria instead of New York," said lead researcher Geoffrey Braswell from the University of California, San Diego.

"We would expect something like it in one of the big cities of the Maya world. Instead, here it was, far from the centre."

Nim Li Punit is a small site that sits near the modern-day town of Indian Creek, on a ridge in the Maya Mountains at the southeastern edge of the ancient Maya zone - it's more than 402 km (250 miles) south of Chichen Itza in Mexico, where similar but smaller breast pieces have been found.

It's believed that the village was inhabited by the Maya civilisation between 150 and 850 CE, and researchers have found several important remains in the site since it was rediscovered in the 1970s.

This pendant was discovered in the remains of a palace built around 400 CE, buried inside a collapsed tomb.

The tomb dates back to around 800 CE - towards the end of Maya civilisation in the village - and was surrounded by other artefacts, such as pottery vessels and a large stone that had been carved into the shape of a deity.

UC San Diego


 You can see the full inscription of 30 glyphs below:

UC San Diego
So what does the pendant tell us? The text is still in the process of being translated - something that's complicated by the fact that Mayan script hasn't been fully deciphered or agreed upon.

But according to the team's tentative translation so far, the artefact was made for the king Janaab' Ohl K'inich, and was first used in 672 CE as part of an incense-scattering ceremony.


The text then goes on to describe the king's parentage and accession rites - and ends with a passage that links the king to the powerful and immense Maya city of Caracol, which is located to the northeast of Nim Li Punit in modern-day Belize.

Google Maps
Even today, it's more than a 5-hour drive between the two sites, which are separated by a mountain range and dense forest, so past research hadn't considered a link between the sites.

"We didn't think we'd find royal, political connections to the north and the west of Nim Li Punit," said Braswell. "We thought if there were any at all that they'd be to the south and east."

Braswell thinks the pendant indicates that royalty arrived at Nim Li Punit around the time the pendant was used, founding a new dynasty.

This hypothesis is backed up by the fact that it's only after the pendant's arrival in the region that other hieroglyphs and images of royalty begin to show up around the site.

Still, this one pendant is far from conclusive evidence, and it's something Braswell and his team will now be investigating further.


There's a lot of research to be done to understand how this jade pendant fits in with Maya history, and what it can tell us about the final years before the fall of Nim Li Punit, but it's a fascinating mystery to explore further.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Sciencealert . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.