Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Recreating Stonehenge



(Thanks to Paranormal Musings.)

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Stonehenge Beneath the Waters of Lake Michigan

So is there a North American version of Stonehenge just sitting up there beneath the glacial waters of a small northern bay in Lake Michigan? If so, are there other submerged prehistoric megaliths waiting to be discovered by some rogue archaeologist armed with a sonar scanner?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Cities in the Flood Zone





One of very many interesting points made by Jan Zalasiewicz in his new book The Earth After Us is that rising sea levels in an era of global climate change might actually -- ironically -- increase humanity's long-term chances of urban fossilization.

"If we and our children are very unlucky over the next few decades," he writes, "and the waters rise swiftly, then many of our cities may be as well preserved as Pompeii, as though in aspic."

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Who needs ancient astronauts when the ancient Greeks were capable of crafting marvels like this?

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Great Sphinx of Giza reborn as a lion in the desert

The Sphinx in Egypt might have originally had the face of a lion, it is claimed.

And it could be much older than previously thought, investigations led by a British geologist suggest.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Gobekli Tepe: The World's First Temple?

To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.

(Via Futurismic.)

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Ancient Mayan underworld discovered in Mexico

Archeologists in Mexico think they might have discovered Xibalba, a mythical Mayan underworld also known as the "place of fear." After some serious scuba diving and inching across deeply submerged underwater tunnels near the Yucatan peninsula, investigators reached an entrance to a bunch of dry chambers with the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and a 330-foot long road. There were also lots and lots of human bones.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Mayan Muons and Unmapped Rooms

In the new issue of Archaeology, Samir S. Patel describes how "an almost featureless aluminum cylinder 5 feet in diameter" that spends its time "silently counting cosmic flotsam called muons" -- "ghost particles" that ceaselessly rain down from space -- will be installed in the jungles of Belize.

There, these machines will map the otherwise unexplored internal spaces of what the scientists call a "jungle-covered mound."

In other words, an ancient building that now appears simply to be part of the natural landscape -- a constructed terrain -- will be opened up to viewing for the first time since it was reclaimed by rain forest.

It's non-invasive archaeology by way of deep space.


This immediately reminded me of possible future exploration of anomalous formations on Mars.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Could Nazca Lines Have Been Made By Astral Projection? (Greg Bishop)

But the problem remains: How did the ancient Nazcan people know how accurate they were after the fact for hundreds of the geoglyphs, some apparently not readily visible from the nearby hills?

I was not really surprised to find out that someone had already proposed that the Nazca lines were made by people who had mastered the techniques of out-of-body travel. In his 1988 book Lines To The Mountain Gods, archaeologist Evan Hadingham proposed that the Nazcans may have used psychedelic substances for shamanistic journeys over the area to check out their work (at least this is what non-scientific and new-age websites claim - I don't have a copy of the book.) This seems like a far-fetched theory coming from someone who works as a senior science editor for the PBS NOVA series, but the basic idea has merit.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Carl Sagan on the death of knowledge:

Friday, February 29, 2008

Researcher claims vast network of prehistoric civilization discovered near Lake Titicaca

Using earth orbiting satellites, acclaimed researcher David Flynn has studied the high plateau of Bolivia and found previously undiscovered unnatural patterns stretching outward from Lake Titicaca for hundreds of square miles. The geoglyphic works range from arrow straight parallel lines, enormous over lapping perfect circles and rectangles to 'labyrinth like' systems of walls and mounds extending over every feature of the terrain.

(Via The Anomalist.)


The "unnatural patterns" look like they could indeed be ruins. But are they?

Thursday, February 21, 2008

An inspiring proof-of-concept for any aspiring exo-archaeologists:

Spy Satellite Spots Lost Mayan Cities

Ancient Mayan astronomers aligned their soaring temples with the stars and now modern archeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.


[. . .]

Since its discovery, scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device, which is now known to be an astronomical calendar capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon. Experts believe it to be the earliest-known device to use gear wheels and by far the most sophisticated object to be found from the ancient and medieval periods.