Showing posts with label manuscripts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manuscripts. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The ambitious project of the American Natural History Museum through which all the Darwin's manuscripts will be published online

Three quarter length studio photo showing Darwin's characteristic large forehead and bushy eyebrows with deep set eyes, pug nose and mouth set in a determined look. He is bald on top, with dark hair and long side whiskers but no beard or moustache. His jacket is dark, with very wide lapels, and his trousers are a light check pattern. His shirt has an upright wing collar, and his cravat is tucked into his waistcoat which is a light fine checked pattern. Credit: wikipedia
While we can never pick Charles Darwin’s brilliant brain, a collaborative project is bringing us closer to his thoughts than ever before. As of his week, to mark the 155th anniversary of the publication of his iconic book On the Origin of Species, the Darwin Manuscripts Project has made a treasure chest of Darwin’s hand-written notes available online, allowing people across the globe to trace the development of the man that changed the way we look at the world.

The project, which is a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Cambridge University Library, was founded in 2003, and set out to digitize and transcribe a collection of Darwin’s writings. So far, more than 16,000 high resolution images of the naturalist’s notes, scientific writings and sketches have been made publicly available, but the project is only halfway through.

In mid-July 1837 Darwin started his "B" notebook on Transmutation of Species, and on page 36 wrote "I think" above his first evolutionary tree. Credit: wikipedia
The documents hitherto released cover 25 years of Darwin’s life, “in which Darwin became convinced of evolution; discovered natural selection; developed explanations of adaptation, speciation, and a branching tree of life; and wrote the Origin,” according to the AMNH site.

You can even see a drawing by one of Darwin’s children, a scene of carrot and aubergine cavalry, which was sketched on the back of a page of the On the Origin of Species manuscript. You can also see his first use of “natural selection” as a scientific term, among many other things.

By June 2015, the archive will host more than 30,000 documents authored by Darwin between 1835 and 1882. The next release will cover the notes of his eight post-Origin books. The ultimate goal of the project, the AMNH explains, is to provide “access to the primary evidence for the birth and maturation of Darwin’s attempts to explore and explain the natural world.”

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

Monday, November 28, 2016

The Mysterious Manuscript: Book of Soyga Translated by Archangel Uriel on March 10, 1582

(Image: via Wikipedia; John Dee owned a copy of the Book of Soyga)
In  1994, two strange manuscripts, with only minor variations, turned up in the British Library and the Bodleian Library. The Book of Soyga, also known as Aldaraia, is a text once thought lost. The most famous copy belonged to John Dee, a scholar, magician, astrologer and astronomer, who was one of Queen Elizabeth I’s foremost advisers. One of Dee’s projects was the establishment of a national library, and while he never saw this happen, he did amass a major collection of books himself. When he died in 1608 (or 1609), the collection was scattered.

Dee was an intriguing personality. During his life he promoted ideas that seem perfectly rational today – such as a national library, the preservation of old texts and manuscripts, and advancing the technology used in long-distance navigation. 

But he also busied himself with the summoning of angels, the casting of horoscopes, and the holding of spiritual conferences. Politically, he was a strong advocate of imperial expansion.

During one of his angelic conferences, John Dee claimed to have solved the mystery of the Book of Soyga. Dee and his equally occultist colleague Edward Kelley were, they believed, channelling the Archangel Uriel on March 10, 1582, when Dee asked the angel (who was speaking through Kelley) if he would mind revealing the text’s meaning.


Book of Soyga photo: marianotomatis..it
Specifically, Dee wanted to decipher the numerous pages of seemingly random letters contained within the esoteric manuscript. The last 36 pages of the Book of Soyga contained tables of 36 rows and 36 columns of random letters, with no patterns nor recognisable words. Uriel, however, claimed that they were speaking with the wrong angel, and that only the Archangel Michael had the key to translate the work.


(Image: BethNaught; the Bodleian Library in Oxford)


After the Book of Soyga was rediscovered in 1994, by Dee scholar Deborah Harkness, Princeton mathematician James A. Reeds (who’s also been working to decode the Voynich Manuscript) took a shot at cracking the code hidden within the 40,000 or more characters of the esoteric text.


Reeds’ efforts paid off. He decoded the mysterious Book of Soyga with the aid of a six-letter word called the “seed”, which was then used to create a double wheel system. When he decoded the tables, he found that the first 24 were named after the constellations of the zodiac. These in turn were associated with a series of magic words.


In spite of the warning of Dee’s angel that whoever decoded the Book of Soyga would die two and a half years after cracking its code, Reeds is not only still alive, but he’s still decoding. That said, the precise meaning of the manuscript remains up for debate, but at least we’re making progress.



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

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

The King of Africa Mansa Musa: the richest ( $ 400 billion ) man who ever lived



Who would believe that the richest man in history (much richer than Bill Gates or Carlos Slim ) lived over 600 years ago ? Moreover , it was a black man and he reigned in Black Africa without ever knew that in his lifetime became the man in the planet. It's about the First Mansa Musa , ruler of Mali and ruler who had more gold than any contemporary European kings with him.

 Forgotten Africa

Remained under the dust of history for centuries, sub-Saharan Africa was formed into a special world, highly diversified and advanced in many ways unexpected . Unlike in Europe , North Africa and Asia , sub- Saharan Africa has never been united under one or more monotheistic religions state or a huge empire .




Some human societies African features not present a unitary state , but rather coalesced around a prince or ruling families , who still exercised central authority over their subjects. The very act of rule over such companies do not behave the goals and obligations of a European monarch .

African tribes and tribal confederations had large armies or ambitious construction projects and large-scale political organization . In this world there were not even proper conditions of organized long-distance trade with people in other parts of the world . As we know, the Silk Road has avoided tropical Africa and the vastness of the Sahara for centuries off the African contact with Europe and Asia.

Traditional Map of Africa
However, not all African human populations at that time were at a level of strict tribal organization . Some of them have established empires with nothing less than their contemporary .

 From an economic perspective, North Continenutului Black was already integrated Mediterranean trade and the Arab world . Instead, the Africa below the Sahara was could not be more different. The savings here were some of subsistence, and sometimes just local , regional .

Musa I of Mali | Biography, Wealth, Slaves, Pilgrimage, & Facts photo: Britannica

 Most African populations had the same animistic belief system . It was their religious universe . People believed in a world controlled by spirits and gods. Ancestor worship was also very important .

With the spread of Islam in North Africa remained still some pockets of Christianity in the area. After all , Christianity penetrated here long before Islam. Egypt , Nubia and Ethiopia ( then known as the Aksum ) had strong Christian communities had important links with Byzantium .

The Spread of Islam in Ancient Africa - World History Encyclopedia

 Surrounded by Muslim and animist , Christian communities were isolated itself in the Ethiopian highlands where they successfully survived over time and created a culture of its own , mainly characterized by fabulous churches carved into the rock .
Golden age of African kingdoms

South of the Sahara occurred so called African kingdoms gold. The largest and most powerful kingdoms of Mali and Ghana were, who had the same boundaries as modern states bearing the same names, but some with much larger.

Trans-Saharan trade was revolutionized between 3-5 centuries AD, Pein the Berber tribes who introduced dromedary camel in the region. Later, traders in Ghana and Mali have created a path between salt resources of northern continent and huge deposits of gold in the sub-Saharan Africa. Link to the integrated sphere of influence of the Mediterranean world.




Supervision by Ghanaian and Malin quickly catapulted into the role of regional great powers who quickly managed to have powerful armies and build settlements impressive.


Mosque of Djenne
After the 7th century, northern partners of Africans were Muslims. At the beginning Islam was a religion tolerated in the region, to the beginning of the 11th century, almost all the kings of Ghana and Mali had converted to the religion of Prophet Muhammad. However, Islam rejects the general population, although the kings understood the economic benefits of tolerating Islam, given that this put them ideal relations with trading partners in the North.

Ghana royal dynasty of the golden period, came from Soninke clan, whose power depended on centuries of huge quantities of gold in their possession.

Ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu

























By royal decree , Soninke kings of the house had the right of possession of any gold nuggets discovered , while the population was allowed to keep her gold dust .  

This unique form of taxation of the population has consolidated his power for centuries.The situation was to change around 1200 , when the Malinke clan leader defied the authority of the Soninke families .

The famous king Sundiata Keita ( Prince Leo ) Malinke , Soninke defeated and conquered kingdom with Mali Empire .The story , is currently the largest West African fiction , some commentators considered it a real King Arthur of Africa .




 King Sundiata was to be the grandfather's brother who became , as all historians and statisticians richest man who has lived on this planet , King Mansa Musa !


 Mansa Musa , meaning King of Kings , the local dialects, came to power in 1312 over the Mali Empire , which stretched then Mali 's territory , Ghana , Senegal, Sudan and Nigeria today. When Musa took power , Mali Empire already control the trade routes linking northern and southern high in salt rich in gold deposits .
 Conqueror skillful , Mansa Musa managed to occupy the territories crossed by the River Niger , including in his empire and important orşe Timbuktu and Gao . He led armies north to the city rich in salt Taghaza and east beyond city limits Gao to its territory Hausa tribes .
Home of the famous Catalan Atlas of 1375 , representing King Mansa Musa with a gold nugget in  hand.




























Brilliant strategist , he has occupied a part of Sudan and managed to impose his whole empire within a highly effective legal system which provided very harsh punishment for any act of violence and theft. The system was so effective that the famous Muslim traveler Ibn Batuta , who crossed the Mali Empire to twelve years after the death of Musa , was stunned by that rule there everywhere.

 Making King had a strong commercial success that led to unprecedented prosperity for the empire . Like all the kings who preceded him Musa was a Muslim , although it proved to be an extremely tolerant in a historical period in which religious tolerance was rare. The vast majority of his subjects were faithful religious pantheon of Mandinka tribes , which did not prevent the richest man in the world to support their religion just as claimed and Islam .

  His pilgrimage to Mecca made ​​history with unprecedented pomp and opulence . Its halt Cairo was one fabulous. Soon , news of the king black gold throw people without caring about their rank , spanned the Muslim area .

 When his caravan arrived in Egypt , King Mansa Musa gave much gold lot of people that caused the fall in the price of gold in the region. In Mecca and Medina , his gifts have destabilized the local economy. The influx of gold brought by Musa in the heart of Islam led to the depreciation of gold in the coming decades . Fire particularly generous , Musa offered to buy some of the gold gifted to balance local currencies . For the first time in history, one man had unwittingly control the price of gold throughout the Mediterranean .

 The chroniclers described by all as the most powerful weather , luck, wealth and feared African leader , enjoys deserved this status based on its wise choices in establishing trade and diplomatic relaţiilro and because of huge gold deposits in the region at that time .

 Trade in gold , salt , ivory and kola nuts brought an unprecedented flowering ever in any African kingdom .Mali Empire was no longer a local authority but a regional one . Under King Mansa Musa of Mali ambassadors were sent to Morocco , Egypt , Syria, and Byzantium .

Traditional writing the name of Allah in Arabic






































He also ordered the construction of many mosques, and is due to start lifting his brick houses in sub-Saharan Africa.
After his death, which occurred in 1331, Mali Empire gradually collapsed under numerous civil wars and external attacks.

According to recent studies by historians and economists, Mansa Musa has a fortune of over $ 400 billion, which propels him on their first among the richest men in history. To realize how rich was this man, you should know that occupants second place, only less famous Rothschild family, managed to accumulate from 1740 to the present, the amount of 350 billion dollars.

It was Mansa Musa and his remarkable works. As African gold king, it disappeared long before his fame to reach the courts of Europe.

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Provided by Potent Scientia