The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race

The glaciologists say that most of N America was crushed by immense sheets of ice thousands of feet thick, and if so, there would be precious little left of NY city. The Giza Pyramid is ingeniously engineered to withstand millenia of abuse, each tier of stone is a unique height, each block a different width, which results in a very quakeproof pyramid. Our monobrick designs are far poorer at resisting destruction. The icecap on Antarctica could be hiding remnants of ancient ones, since they did pass down a map that shows it ice free, and shows N and S America a thousand years before Christobal Colon 'discovered' those already inhabited lands. The book 'Forbidden Archeology' lists countless 'erratics', as they are labelled. The stuff they find where it wasn't supposed to be, so they don't know where to catalogue it, so they just bury it. There is a silly amount of this stuff that includes things like homo sapien footprints in the same rock layer as dinosaur prints.... which just can't be... so it is kept quiet, just an example of anecdotal evidence, a one off, not proof of anything....but wait, what about when the one offs start to number in the hundreds?
I personally think it is mere vanity that powers peoples distaste for the chance that we might not be first. 'I was here first, me, me, me', It seems first is a real big deal.....to men anyway.

It's really going to hurt their feelings to know that this age of humanity isn't the last either--and is nearly at it's end.

Soon they'll likely start to panic, when they realize how fast the ice is melting.

As a retired MD I have a jaundiced view of a lay person's book which is drawing a lot of attention (Sundance cable channel) by claiming AIDS began in the Congo due to polio virus work in the 1950s by a team from the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia (book is "The River" by Edward Hooper, 1999). There were an unexpected number of AIDS cases soon after the epidemic started in the Congo, and Hooper claims this is strong evidence that the polio workers caused AIDS when they injected and extracted tissue samples from chimps in the 50s (it is generally agreed the AIDS virus, HIV, is descended from the simian virus endemic in, but harmless to, chimpanzees.) My take on the Congo outbreak early-on is that there more likely was a long standing connection between the Haitian voodoo subculture and similar African voodoo person(s) which facilitated the early spread of HIV in Africa, from Haiti where AIDS actually began due to vacationing ("bath house type") Americans from San Francisco and New York around 1978, who had contacts with Haitian(s) who then gave it to culturally-related Africans. No need to implicate the polio researchers from the 50s, and Hooper's correlation has been denied by the medical establishment on other grounds. However, the establishment has no clue to any occult background like Haiti/Africa. My theory is that the African voodoo practices provided a pre-existing fertile ground for rapid early spread via similar practices from Haiti voodooists who had just gotten AIDS from the American vacationers. A long-standing immunity to simian virus in the Africans was lost when the new mutated virus came from Haiti, but the virus-transmission practices were still present, so the Congolese were set up for early rapid spread of AIDS.

Originally posted by russiankid
i think that none ov the aincent ppl made any ov the cool things that are all over the world

Why not? Ancient people were capable of a lot of great things. People were not any more or less intelligent than they are today.

Oh boy, this is going to be LOADS of fun for me... but first let me put on my flame retardant suit because by now I should now better.

Just to correct a few common misconceptions as well as ask a few questions just for the sake of fairness about certain assumptions that have been made.

1. Blackguard: Nobody passed down a map of Antarctica in an ice free state as far as I can tell. The southern landmass on the Piri Re'is Map is a dead ringer for South America south of Uraguay- the exact portion of South America which is "missing" from the upright portion of the continent on the map.

2. Queenannie: The larger and more advanced the civilization, the more evidence they leave behind. I suspect that you'd have to all but plow the half of the world under to a depth of 10 or 20 meters to hide the fact we were here. Granted that time can destroy A LOT of stuff, but where are the most basic, hard to destroy elements? Modern man has created strip mines and rock quarries that can be seen from space. Even the most basic components of the things we build imply design. If you ran New York over with a glacier, then it thawed, achaeologists would probably be looking really close, scratching their heads and asking themselves "why did this glacier leave a huge trail of rust and oil-coated 3/4" rock behind it?" Because the materials that made up New York would not cease to exist- only be ground down to their most basic components and spread over a very large area.

Also, I'm curious where exaclty you heard about Atlantis having electricity. My understanding is that the oldest and most reliable source on Atlantis is Plato. Plato says they were a lot like the greeks, had an army composed of chariots, spearmen, etc, and got their butts handed to them on a plate by Athens, although it is also at least implied in Plato's writing that there was no Atlantis at all, and that he was just making up a civilization to serve as an example of a point he was making.

3. Uncle Joe: I should know better than to even start with somebody who simply dismisses science as if it were meaningless, but I've got two words for you: show me. Show me how you use the warm fuzzy feeling you get at church to power an advanced civilization without leaving any evidence whatsoever. It's very hard for an objective person to take something on such a thin claim as "they were more spiritual so they didn't leave evidence".

4. Blue Junior: Although it is definately possible to lose technology, I think the fact that the knowledge was lost says a great deal about what level it was on. We're talking about basic engineering and an uncanny ability to survey and keep the results true to the plan. It's not that we can't do it- it's just that we don't bother. If knowledge can be lost, we're certainly not talking about a civilization that had reached an Information Age.
When you reach a certain level of advancement, knowledge becomes common, and much harder to completely lose. You could reduce the world to a smoldering pile of bricks and scrap metal and by the end of the first year my brothers and I would have a new home with central heating and powered appliances, just through basic application of sciences that the average person in our society can acquire if they choose to educate themselves.
On the other hand if we were a more primitive society, where a handful of elites held a a bit of knowledge but the common made had a very low exposure to anything very advanced, there would be no such possibility.


Not to slam you all, I'm just saying that making assumptions can be risky business when it comes to putting together such a complex puzzle as human history. I think it's always best to say "I don't know, but logic and evidence suggest..." as opposed to holding on too tightly to preconcieved notions- a sin which some scholars have committed, but in which they are joined by many of those who embrace alternative theories.

1. Blackguard: Nobody passed down a map of Antarctica in an ice free state as far as I can tell. The southern landmass on the Piri Re'is Map is a dead ringer for South America south of Uraguay- the exact portion of South America which is "missing" from the upright portion of the continent on the map.
The Vagabond

You may be right, Vagabond, but the map I looked at definitely showed it as a separate landmass, and there are texts which claim that the map's depiction of Antarctica being quite different than the modern shape was one of the points used to discredit its validity. I read that the British use of sonar to map Antarctica beneath the ice resulted in a map that much more closely matched the ancient one.
If I am wrong, and it is as you say a dead ringer for south america, that itself is amazing. How did ancient mapmakers from the Old World know the shape of south america? More amazing yet is the longitude being known so long ago.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
If I am wrong, and it is as you say a dead ringer for south america, that itself is amazing. How did ancient mapmakers from the Old World know the shape of south america? More amazing yet is the longitude being known so long ago.

The map is impressive in some respects, at least to my untrained eye, even if the southern landmass is antarctica, I can give you that much. It was drawn in 1513, so the new world was not entirely unknown, however the degree of accuracy is quite respectable. Piri Re'is was able to draw upon the charts of Columbus and a host of other explorers (and lost sailors) to put together a very good (for its time) representation of South America.
Although we can see that they had not perfected longitude (by observing the somewhat random bumpiness which characterizes sections of the coast) and I am certainly no expert in cartography, it does seem pretty good for people who didn't understand longitude.
I wonder if perhaps they were able to apply their speed and direction to mapping longitude within view of the coast while not at sea, or if perhaps timing the change time of sunrise was used to roughly determine it.


Edit: BTW, I posted the map, labeled as I view it, here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 6-8-2005 by The Vagabond]

The Reis map was said to have been a copy of a very ancient map that came from the middle east, and was drawn by an Arab mapmaker over a millenia earlier. That is what my research says. Also, the longitudinal precision predates the chronograph by 2 centuries even in the 1500's, and is therefore unexplainable. Unless... it is a remnant from an advanced, and long since wiped out people, which is my best guess. Columbus had very poor maps compared to this one. Even the mediterranean sea is badly distorted in his maps, yet very well defined in the Reis map. Of course, the new world had been known to some Europeans centuries before Columbus, most notably Scotland's Henry Sinclair's well documented trips to Nova Scotia in the late 1300's.

Actually, one of the key errors noted on my posting of the Piri Re'is map is rather uncanny circumstantial evidence that one of Re'is sources was Columbus. Note how hispanola is turned on its side, 90 degrees. In Columbus' day, Japan was hardly known to Europe, but there was some vague awareness of a long island off the coast of Asia. Columbus would have misrespresented Hispanola to back up his declaration (rather he believed it himself or not) that he was in Asia. Furthermore, note the absence of Cuba on the map. Columbus made his crew swear that it was a promontory of the mainland (probably because he wanted credit for finding the mainland).

Also, as I have said already, the notes in the margins of the Piri Re'is map make it clear that the charts of South America come from lost Portugese sailors.

One of them, it turns out, may offer a clue to the accuracy of some parts of a map- perhaps explained by the skill of one man, although is not absolute, as there are several factual errors (such as the number of ships Columbus originally had) in the margins.

And also Colombo was a great astronomer. The coasts and island on this map are taken from Colombo's map.

All of the notes on the map, translated:
www.prep.mcneese.edu...

The notes also make it clear that the maps which are from the time of Alexander the great are of the East, not the West.

The only really interesting gem, aside from the accuracy of the map itself, as that it claims Columbus had a book telling of a land to the west which was full of ore. This of course is not at all unlikely, considering that Vinland was settled by the vikings circa 1000 and that Irish monks in Iceland may well have reported on the new land in the west to the church.

It is in fact probable in my mind that Columbus did have some idea that he was going to unsettled land rather than Asia, and that he misrepresented the new land as Asia for as long as he could to keep others from jumping at it, as he had demanded hereditary title as governor of all new lands he discovered. His official story was seriously against the grain- he was undercutting the actual circumference of the Earth by more than half and claimed that Asia and Europe spanned 225 degrees of the globe, making his claim of the distance between the Canary Island and Japan only 2,400 nautical miles. Of course since Eratosthenes had correctly calculated the earths circumference in the 2nd century BC this was a hard sell. The Portugese turned him down for exactly this reason. I would even entertain the idea that the church might have stepped in and pressed Spain to take Columbus up. Ferdinand and Isabella were both devout Catholics afterall, and with the overland route to the Indies blocked by the Muslims, whichever nation either found a sea route or found an alternative trading partner would have been very powerful. For some reason the Vatican seemed to favor Castile. Not long before Columbus' time the church had changed its mind about recognition of Portugese possession of the Canaries, and instead recognized Castile.

So there is my take on things basically. No highly advanced ancient civilizations, just a very lucky sailor who happened to hear a few things in his trip to Iceland and later recieved many Portugese charts as a dowry when he married the daughter of a Portugese nobleman, and subsequently talked Castile and Aragon into backing him, quite possibly because the Catholic church knew there was something out there courtesy of monks in Iceland.

There is no shortage of information about ancient mariners visiting the Americas, and La Merika is an ancient name for a paradise that lay to the west, across the ocean.

If you go to this link and then click on the Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact link, you will see numerous accounts of these journeys.

en.wikipedia.org...



[edit on 03 22 2005 by BlackGuardXIII]

[edit on 03 22 2005 by BlackGuardXIII]

Sorry Vagabond, but there have been hundred of these threads.

I was merely being sarcastic rather than list the ususal string of arguemnts.

UncleJoe: You had me going man. Funny that it was so close to what usually goes on in some of these threads that I didn't consider that it might be tongue in cheek. lol

BlackGuard: I have no problem with the idea that there was precolumbian trans-atlantic contact. I am quite certain that there was. The only aspect I have any problem with at all is the idea that Piri Re'is based his map on one left behind by some highly advanced ancient civilization, or that it shows an ice-free antarctica (or antarctica at all for that matter).
Other than that, I'm inclined to entertain your ideas. While I don't know much about the templars I am fascinated by them and the incredible monopoly on power and information which the church held in the middle ages. Who knows what might have been known but kept under wraps, and who might have exploited that information and to what ends?
Much of what is presented in Wikipedia seems to lend ample credence to the idea that the Irish and Welsh made trips to North America several times before the "official" discovery- even as early as the 6th Century. As you have probably read, it has even been demonstrated that such a craft as St. Brendan would have used actually is capable of the voyage.
Then on the opposite coast you have the Chinese and Japanese, with whom the Europeans had been trading extensively before Muslims began blocking the overland route. There are historical examples of disabled craft from Asia simply riding the currents to North America. Who is to say that they might not have mentioned this to their trading partners as the overland route to trade began to be choked off.

One thing though, last time I checked, America was named for Amerigo Vespucci, whose false claims and self promotion in his letters made the new world so well known to Europe. I'm in the middle as to whether or not La Merika is the true origin of the continent's name.

I find the anomaly of accurate longitude existing in these maps which predate the chronograph by at least 200 years very hard to explain. The maps were allegedly copies of far older ones than that, if the makers of the oldest copies we know of are being honest, which I see no reason to doubt. So, since the contemporary maps of 1500's Europe very clearly show the era's best mapmakers lacked the ability to deduce longitude, how were the makers of far older maps able to?
I know that Amerigo Vespucci is credited as being the source of the name for the American continents, and that this credit is virtually unanimously agreed upon. Still, I find it hard to accept that the name of something as profoundly historically important as the discovery of a new world was based on a little known, ordinary mapmaker who discovered nothing, and in no way distinguished himself as any better or different than numerous others of his day. If it is true, and the reason is due to his publicizing the discovery, then I am surprised that that is enough of a reason to bestow upon him such an honour. In my view, it would be like naming the tenth planet 'Planet National Enquirer' because their articles about the discovery of it were popular. Therefore, the existance of a millenia old legend which tells of a paradise across the western sea named L'Amerika is intriguing, and also a far more compelling candidate for the source of the name to me.

BlackGuard you have to take into account the times that America was discovered and explored. Small groups of people came back for a distant land with fantastic stories. There is no way to verify these stories, people must simply have faith.

In short it was simple for a fraudster to claim credit for something he didnt do, especailly when concerning money, look how muhc cash was thrown at crackpots by European monarchs looking for the Philosophers stone. If his name became associated with the idea of exploration of the new world it would gradually become known as Amerikaros (sp) world, gradually being shortened to America.

Not as much fun but far more likely.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIIIStill, I find it hard to accept that the name of something as profoundly historically important as the discovery of a new world was based on a little known, ordinary mapmaker who discovered nothing, and in no way distinguished himself as any better or different than numerous others of his day.

The brilliance of what Vespucci did lies in the fact that information was slow and scarce in his day. He jumped on the newest thing, distributed largely false tales about it more widely than anybody else, and shamelessly promoted the importance of his near-meaningless voyages to the Americas.
For the average joe, if you'd heard a lot about the new world, you'd probably heard it from Vespucci. You couldn't turn on the nightly news or pick up the sunday paper and get the real truth- the local guy with a printing press who wrote a letter now and then was it- and if all he had heard was from Vespucci too, then all you were going to hear was Vespucci.

In that day and age, if you were loud enough and lied enough, you could be a legend, and nobody would know any better.

I especially like the comments from the user above me.

Very stimulating.

6 more posts!

Odysseus

Since most of our civilization is centred around water ways and coasts, the rising ocean levels could wipe out a lot of our own cities and leave them under water. This could have happened to earlier civilizations if the water in the oceans rose suddenly or quite steadily for a long period of time. If the main evidence of earlier civilizations is under water it will take a while for us to find since we do not regularly do deep water dives for archeological expeditions. What evidence would there be to find? anything left in the ocean for about 10,000 years would degrade to the point of unrecognizability unless it were rock. Even rock would be covered by biodegradable matter, coral etc. It would be difficult to find. If it exists.

Originally posted by Sparkie the Wondersnail
Since most of our civilization is centred around water ways and coasts, the rising ocean levels could wipe out a lot of our own cities and leave them under water. This could have happened to earlier civilizations if the water in the oceans rose suddenly or quite steadily for a long period of time.

There are a number of archaeological sites around the world that were gradually inundated by the rising sea. One was discovered in India within the past 3 years, and they're working on some that are on the eastern seaboard of the US (paleoindian sites.)

But the seas rose slowly. There wasn't a sudden flood.

I have read that Vespucci never even went to the Americas, and the printing of suspect tales which are then widely distributed and read is a very poor reason to name the new world after him. Also, why is it not named Ameriga or Amerigo, but instead named America? America is much closer sounding to L'Amerika as well. If they wanted to name it for him, it would make more sense to use his surname, and call it Vespuccia, since first names are not as identifiable, imagine if he was John Vespucci. Then millions of guys could claim credit. I just don't buy it. Too many questionable aspects and unlikely reasons for choosing such a undeserving person to name such a historic discovery. Surnames are almost always used for naming other places like Vancouver, Mt. Everest, the Fraser River, etc.

All that is well and good, but why would the cartographer lie? I forget who it was, but I could look it up in Wikipedia later- the cartographer who first labeled this continent America explicitly stated in a book that he had named it for Amerigo Vespucci.
Also, if I recall correctly Vespucci made 3 trips to the new world- his account of a fourth is believed to be a fabrication.