Lost Wisdom of the Ancients or failure on our part?

I began writing this thread with a completely different premise than what it has turned out to be....

I was recently in a heated debate with my son who is presently studying Chemistry, Material science and who has a strong understanding of Quantum and Particle physics. While discussing [Arguing] the finer points of contention a thought occurred to me which began another avenue of interest which I'll try to convey and share with you here today.

No this wont be a long read but hopefully one which will spur interest and an interesting topic to discuss/debate. So once more out of the box we go.

Man is NOT presently the most sophisticated he has ever been, not by a long shot. Oh, sure, we have plenty of high-tech modern electronics and a better understanding of the Micro, Macro and even of the Multi but in the end what have we really obtained?

Better ways of polluting ourselves and our environment?

How about storing and retrieving knowledge/data?

I'd be willing to challenge those who believe we are the end all be all to take their most modern sophisticated hand held device and I'll take an already 5,000 year old Sumerian tablet and we both bury them in the desert sand for another 5,000 years. Which do you believe would fair better?

How about simply trying to convey an understanding or a concept to another future group who may not know our language or points of reference? How do we project our knowledge?

I'll be presenting several examples of the Ancients doing just that. These are not directly related to one another but they do give fine example of what I'm talking about. Here we see ancient people conveying what they knew and preserving them in a manner that we here in the 21st century marvel at. We marvel not just at what they knew but how simply and efficiently they were able to pass forward to us their knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

Sumerian Star Chart 3300BC




Sumerian "planisphere" or star map was recovered in Iraq in the late 19th Century from an underground library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (650BC) It was thought to be an Assyrian tablet, computer analysis has supposedly matched it with the sky above Mesopotamia at or about 3300BC which may prove it to be of a much more ancient Sumerian origin. The tablet is an "Astrolabe" [Possibly the earliest example of what is known as a astronomical instrument]

Unfortunately considerable parts of the planisphere are missing I've read as high as 40%. Apparently believed to be the result of the damage which may have been the result of the sacking of Nineveh. It's still being studied by modern scholars, the planisphere provides tangible evidence of just how sophisticated Sumerian astronomy was..



I think the Sumerians really had their act together at one time and we -Modern man- should be humbled by their accomplishments.




Moving along.

Here is an an example of a simple computing device which does not need to be powered nor programmed. Once made it will function presently as it once did back when there were no hand held powered devices doing the work for us. I'm reminded of the old NASA nerd in his thick rimmed glasses and short sleeved shirt using his slide rule for some odd reason.


Ancient Minoan-era 'computer'

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/30c7583e2fe5.jpg[/atsimg]
Researcher cites ancient Minoan-era 'computer'

(ANA-MPA) -- The Minoan civilisation on pre-Classical Crete discovered the first rudimentary analog computer in mankind's history, according to researcher Minas Tsikritsis, an academic who specialises in ancient Aegean writing systems.

Tsikritsis, who also hails from Crete -- where the Bronze Age Minoan civilization flourished from approximately 2700 BC to 1500 century BC -- maintains that the Minoan Age object discovered in 1898 in Paleokastro site, in the Sitia district of western Crete, preceded the heralded "Antikythera Mechanism" by 1,400 years, and was the first analog and "portable computer" in history.

"While searching in the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion for Minoan Age findings with astronomical images on them we came across a stone-made matrix unearthed in the region of Paleokastro, Sitia. In the past, archaeologists had expressed the view that the carved symbols on its surface are related with the Sun and the Moon,"

Finally, I'll include this geoglyph as well. It has been posted several times here at ATS before and it's true meaning is still a bit of a mystery. Now is this a failure on their part to convey what they wanted us to know or is it (as I suspect) a failure on our part understating it's true meaning and context?

You decide.

Enigma of the Sun-Star and Cross (Mandala)

Link: Larger image

Enigma of the Sun-Star and Cross (Mandala)

Stretching across the Nazca plains like a giant map or blueprint left by ancient astronauts, lie the famous Nazca Lines of Peru. Peru is associated with the Inca Civilization.

The Nazca Lines are an engima. No one has proof who built them or why. Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations from ancient gods, a landing strip for returning aliens, a celestial calendar created by the ancient Nazca civilization — putting the creation of the lines between 200 BC and 600 AD, used for rituals probably related to astronomy, to confirm the ayllus or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution, or a map of underground water supplies.

In the end we really haven't advanced all that much when it comes to conveying knowledge. Oh, sure, we use different materials and attempt to be a bit more sophisticated in our approach but in the end it's all about keeping it simple.

reply to post by SLAYER69


When people are saying ancient Egyptians carved hieroglyphs into pink granite stone obelisks with copper chisels I think its a failure on our part

reply to post by SLAYER69

Man is NOT presently the most sophisticated he has ever been, not by a long shot. Oh, sure, we have plenty of high-tech modern electronics and a better understanding of the Micro, Macro and even of the Multi but in the end what have we really obtained?

IMO not much sure we have some 'nice gadgets', but nothing that would stand the test of time like that star chart.

For every technological progression older technology is lost like how many people would be able to carve a star chart in stone?

Not too many.

Common analogy to that would be in this digital age writing has been pushed off to the side maybe it's just me but when i look at my parents handwriting, and my own?

Mine is severely lacking today there is not much need for it thousands of years today what will the future people think of us?

Probably not too much as nothing really would be left sure some broken chips, and ic circuits, and a shatter lcd, without power.

Analog stands the test of time, digital is just a fleeting moment in time, lost.

Interesting thread!
If a global catastrophe happens, our culture will be lost entirely and far future generations will believe civilization began when humans crawl out of the catastrophe which created a new stone age. We have done nothing concrete (pun intended) except for the Georgia guidestone to pass on any of our civilization or accomplishments. Even the seed vault will just be a mystery anomaly just as the pyramids are today.

The underground shelters for the elite will leave a group of people with practically zero skills to care for themselves and who are selfish and have the notion that others will always serve them and do the dirty work needed to survive. They will quickly implode.

Consider the vast majority of humans today have zero skills to survive a catastrophe. No farming skills, no animal husbandry skills, no spinning or weaving skills, no skills to build a solid shelter, no means to obtain the information lost to survive. All our survival skills are relegated to the few, and the few who have these skills will become fewer.

Our "advanced" civilization will become a legend like Atlantis.

reply to post by SLAYER69


cool read, man,, those sumerian charts are amazing,,,

they really did their best, to ensure that the data they gathered, would last as long, as possible..

its good that we have hollowed some mountains, as seed banks and such,,,

hopefully places like that, could stand against time the same way...

reply to post by SLAYER69


Hi SLAYER69,

Do you have a link showing that the Nineveh 'planisphere' is an 'astrolabe' that is missing parts?

I have a link from 2008 produced by Bristol University that describes the little thing as being an astronomer's 'night time notebook'...

Cuneiform clay tablet translated for the first time

"It is a copy of the night notebook of a Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the sky before dawn on the 29 June 3123 BC (Julian calendar). Half the tablet records planet positions and cloud cover, the same as any other night, but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough for its shape to be noted even though it is still in space."

It's stunning but I don't think that it is any sort of 'astrolabe', is it?

I would also like to add that, for me, the real shocker is that everything seems to change but us. As far as the technology is concerned, it's just still 'Us' making stuff out of rocks and earth (minerals).

Also, even (maybe especially) the ancient Peruvians had a complex system of tying knots to record business transactions and deal with inventory. I think that's mostly what people were doing with things like your 'ancient analog calculator'.





P.S. In fact, I am pretty sure this whole passage needs to be cited...

Sumerian "planisphere" or star map was recovered in Iraq in the late 19th Century from an underground library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (650BC) It was thought to be an Assyrian tablet, computer analysis has supposedly matched it with the sky above Mesopotamia at or about 3300BC which may prove it to be of a much more ancient Sumerian origin. The tablet is an "Astrolabe" [Possibly the earliest example of what is known as a astronomical instrument]

Unfortunately considerable parts of the planisphere are missing I've read as high as 40%. Apparently believed to be the result of the damage which may have been the result of the sacking of Nineveh. It's still being studied by modern scholars, the planisphere provides tangible evidence of just how sophisticated Sumerian astronomy was..

historicconnections.webs.com...

If you scroll down you'll find that you can test your tech-burial theory for only $54.95AUD.

?

reply to post by SLAYER69


One more nit-picky thing. I was just reading about the clay tablets that the Sumerians used to record things on in cuneiform. I've read that only some were intentionally fired, while others were left to bake in the sun and dry, and that later they would add water to them to use the clay over again.

Others that were fired and hardened were done so at the hands of destructive fires, caused by war or accidental fire.

So, obviously the one that you are referring to as 'stone' has been fired somehow. This is an additional, and possibly unintentional, feature of that would withstand burial much better than clay.

My question is: does that mean I also get to treat the device I am going to bury with some process that will harden it against deterioration?

Thanks in advance.

reply to post by Bybyots



Sure, Bake whatever modern device you'd like in a oven and then proceed.

There is actually a lot of stuff that would last quite awhile if civilization was wiped out today. Though maybe not our IPads, but other stuff. Interstate I-40 here near where I live has an expanse of hundreds of miles of reinforced concrete slabs. That would last quite awhile. As would the excavated embankments running parallel. Underground bunkers, etc...

Originally posted by grandmakdw
Interesting thread!
If a global catastrophe happens, our culture will be lost entirely and far future generations will believe civilization began when humans crawl out of the catastrophe which created a new stone age. We have done nothing concrete (pun intended) except for the Georgia guidestone to pass on any of our civilization or accomplishments. Even the seed vault will just be a mystery anomaly just as the pyramids are today.

The underground shelters for the elite will leave a group of people with practically zero skills to care for themselves and who are selfish and have the notion that others will always serve them and do the dirty work needed to survive. They will quickly implode.

Consider the vast majority of humans today have zero skills to survive a catastrophe. No farming skills, no animal husbandry skills, no spinning or weaving skills, no skills to build a solid shelter, no means to obtain the information lost to survive. All our survival skills are relegated to the few, and the few who have these skills will become fewer.

Our "advanced" civilization will become a legend like Atlantis.

And its getting worse by the day, im in my forties, the matriachs in my family taught me to cook, i can make bread, i bake for a living, i could skin and gut a rabbit if i had to,(not sure if i could actually catch it though. I can do maths without a calculator. The twenty something generation seem lacking in these skills, and cannot live without their phones, if SHTF, its gonna be madness.

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

When people are saying ancient Egyptians carved hieroglyphs into pink granite stone obelisks with copper chisels I think its a failure on our part

Why do you think the fringe says that? No modern archaeologist believes it.

Some obelisks were made of sandstone on which copper and bronze works just fine, a few obelisks were made of granite and these were made by using harder stone, usually diorite.

guys and dudes, let me share my 2 cents worth while i till have an iota of common sense left....


you all know that genius peaks the minute you lose it so....


I was wondering the same thing about water. how is it that it is one of the most common substances in this planet and yet display the opposite of most other substances? it expands when frozen. they say it's because the crystalline structure organizes itself as such, but i do believe it is just behaving as this experiment has shown us. that's why it is contradicting the law of expansion and contraction so much. we haven't mastered the laws of thermodynamics as much as we wish for. it's doing the darn opposite as we predicted it would do! why is it defying the obvious laws of thermodynamics?

somewhere along the line, we made a wrong assumption. iti s not just water folks. common. let's open up! we missed something. it isn't that simple. there are always exceptions and we should look into these.the discrepancy between contraction and expansion of crystalline objects is just too much to ignore.

sorry but ive been making ice for a living so it's been in mind for so long - i couldn't remember when i started wondeiring

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Bybyots

 

Sure, Bake whatever modern device you'd like in a oven and then proceed.

Or perhaps pop it in an airtight container complete with charger, adaptor and suitable electrical generator (and fuel)

The devices that you refer to in the OP, may at a push record a moment in time, a tablet, with a large enough hard drive could hold sufficient information to give an overview of our entire known history.

I don't disagree with your basic premise, as individual humans, and as custodians of this planet, I think we are in some ways going backwards, and we certainly do not utilise our brain's memory power to the same extent as our pre-civilisation ancestors did, but as mass communicators...

...not that that is the be all and end all...or rather, we still haven't achieved the ability to communicate in a peaceful and cohesive way that might turn all that environmental and social destruction around, so, not much good it'll do us until we do...

Howdy Slayer interesting thread and topic

I'd be willing to challenge those who believe we are the end all be all to take their most modern sophisticated hand held device and I'll take an already 5,000 year old Sumerian tablet and we both bury them in the desert sand for another 5,000 years.

If the Sumerian tablet hadn't been fired it would crumble but if fired it would be in okay shape as long as it remained buried - if exposed to heat, water, sunslight and wind it would erode away. But lets assume it is safely buried

What would be left of say an Ipad, well the out cover is made of aluminum and the main screen is made of glass and would still exist plus that type of plastic would still be there, the silicon and gold connectors would still be there.

I'm not sure how stable a lithium-polymer battery is and whether it would react with the soil, perhaps someone with a better knowledge of chemistry could comment. So under idea conditions you'd have something that looked kinda like an Ipad but of course wouldn't work but it would be recognizable as a piece of electronic gear.

Astrolabe

How could the Sumerian item be used as an astrolabe?

The link for the Minoan item is broken, we have seen that before on ATS 9as you noted)

Man is NOT presently the most sophisticated he has ever been, not by a long shot. Oh, sure, we have plenty of high-tech modern electronics and a better understanding of the Micro, Macro and even of the Multi but in the end what have we really obtained?

Not really sure what you mean by the statement above. Our present technology is magnitudes of levels above the Sumerians, they were at the beginning of what would become science so its a little unfair to compare them to science today, they did the best they could with the limitations they had.

We have obtained a great deal, especially in santiation, health, basic knowledge of the universe, etc. Perhaps it might be easier if you were to list where you think they were ahead of us. We can explain with science what the Sumerian could only blame on gods

good stuff

it is just ultra weird how substances and elements behave differently when forces out of the norm are applied to them, like cymatics. and they don't behave as expected like there's nothing uniform with even the most common suibstances. we need to look more onto these things.

i guess the gist of all this is that there are phenomena that do not make sense even if we try to measure them with our thick headed biased so-called scientific minds.

Originally posted by Hanslune
We have obtained a great deal, especially in santiation, health, basic knowledge of the universe, etc.

....sorry, couldn't resist...

Of course, it is also worth mentioning that sanitation is a necessity of urbanisation...and poor health largely a knock on effect of large groups living in close quarters...so not the best examples of 'how far we have come'...just to split hairs

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Yes one of the problems with domestication of animals is that we became to close and diseases jumped from them to us and vice versa.

It goes back to the old question is a nomadic HG happier than a village born agricultural worker/farmer?

reply to post by Hanslune


That, and #ting in the same water we drink from...can't entirely blame the animals for our own sins of forgetting the basics

Extending upon that thought, for me, it is more about specialism of lifestyle. The hunter-gatherer perhaps had a harder life than the agrarian village dweller, but not necessarily as interesting and varied, a one...and so on and so forth. I think those that sought ease, sold the rest of us out.

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout
reply to post by Hanslune

 

That, and #ting in the same water we drink from...can't entirely blame the animals for our own sins of forgetting the basics

Extending upon that thought, for me, it is more about specialism of lifestyle. The hunter-gatherer perhaps had a harder life than the agrarian village dweller, but not necessarily as interesting and varied, a one...and so on and so forth. I think those that sought ease, sold the rest of us out.

Of course! There were and still are HG and pastoralist, etc. had we all remained as such that would have meant the eventual destruction of us and our culture sometime in the future. Only by developing technology and science do we have a chance to move off this planet and keep our DNA and culture intact even when the earth and or sun fail us. (way in future for the sun) not so far in the future for the earth if we keep increasing the 'pop and polute'

Oh lord, please don't tell me that we are the pinnacle of intelligence.

Between the Kardashians and Honey-boo-boo, the ancient cultures are probably doing a massive face-palm at our expense!

SnF, boss!