THE ORONTIUS FINAEUS MAP OF 1531

The Orontius Finaeus map was found in 1960 by Charles Hapgood and it too, apparently shows the continent of Antarctica along with the accurate outlines of Antarctic rivers that are now covered by thick glaciers. The map was found in the Library of Congress in Washington DC where it had been sitting unstudied for a great many years. In the map the continent and coastline is shown to be ice free and, like the Piri Reis map, it too shows an accurate depiction of the Ross Sea which today is totally hidden beneath a floating ice shelf several hundred meters thick.

Studies of actual core samples taken from the Antarctic ice shelf have also clearly revealed numerous layers of strata in the ice showing that the area has indeed gone through several periods of dramatic environmental change. Some sedimentary deposits that were found in the samples were from sea water that had flowed into the area and were even actually datable. The tests show that the sediments were deposited sometime around 4000 years ago which indicates that the Ross Sea would have had to have been flowing and free from ice at the time for the deposits to have occurred.

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Anglo-Saxon Burhs

Alfred the Great effectively saved Anglo-Saxon England from being overwhelmed by the Danes.. Yet Alfred was wise enough to realise that his military successes were only temporary. A more permanent measure of protection was needed against the growing threat of the Danes.

Alfred began a policy encouraging the formation of fortified towns, or burhs, throughout his lands, such that no place in Wessex was more than 20 miles from a town. In exchange for free plots of land within the towns, settlers provided a defense force. The burhs were also encouraged to become centres of commerce and local government. These burhs were located primarily along the coast and the borders of Alfred's lands.

Alfred's son Edward the Elder continued his father's policy of establishing fortified towns, and he and his sister Aethelflaed of Mercia built a new double row of burhs along the old Roman road of Watling Street, which marked the border of the Danelaw as it ran from the Mersey to Essex.

The burhs were remarkable for their time in that they used a regular grid pattern of streets - not unlike the old Roman towns. Indeed, in many cases pre-existing Roman town sites were re-used to create Saxon towns. Why re-use Roman sites? Three main reasons can be found.

First, the Roman towns were sited at key points along the old Roman network of roads. In other words, communication was a key factor in siting Saxon towns. Chester and Gloucester are two examples of towns sited at major road intersections, though they were established by Alfred's successors.

Second, the Roman towns had basic fortifications in place. Walled towns such as Portchester were already defensible. Other Roman towns had earthwork defenses that could easily be repaired and strengthened.

Third, the growth of Christianity influenced the choice of town sites. In areas where the Roman church was strongest (i.e. the south and east), a conscious choice was made to establish sees in metropolitan centres. Contrast this with the Celtic church, which concentrated its efforts on evangelizing in the countryside.

Other Saxon burhs were established on entirely new sites. In this class of burh we find Wallingford, Wareham, and Wilton, among others. Some, such as Lewes, Lyng, and Lydford, were built on promontories of land, with a simple ditch and bank combination adding to the natural defenses.

In cases where Roman towns were reused to create burhs the Saxons did not necessarily follow the Roman street pattern. Although frequently the main street was reused, as at Chichester and Winchester, the Saxons often built their houses upon the firm foundations of the Roman street, with the new streets running alongside.

Of the burhs that have survived as modern towns, little remains to be seen of the Saxon settlements. In some cases the modern streets follow the Saxon street plan, as at Winchester, Cricklade, Chichester, and Wallingford. Remnants of the defensive ditch and bank can be seen at Wallingford, Wareham, Maaldon, Witham, and Cricklade.

THE PERSIAN INVASION FLEETS

Battle of Marathon by Brian Palmer.

The Battle of Marathon 490 BC during the Persian Greek Wars. King Darious I of Persia sent his son in law Mardonius to invade Greece in 492 BC. The Persian Forces conquered Thrace and Macedonia before their fleet was devastated by a storm. Mardonia was forced to return to Asia. A second Persian invasion force crossed the Aegean sea. After conquering Eretria, the Persian Army under Datis (15,000 strong) landed near Marathon. (Marathon is 24 miles northeast of Athens.) General Miltiades, general in the Greek army gathered a force of 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataean citizen Soldiers.

The ancient world was characterised by a number of epic struggles between mighty civilisations; Egypt vs Nubia, Rome vs Carthage, Greece vs Persia. The last of these had a major impact on the subsequent course of Western history, as the eventual victory of the Greeks allowed them to maintain their independence for another 300 years, during which time Greek culture and science flowered into the period now known as the Golden Age, helping to determine the shape of subsequent Western culture and thought.

Among the key incidents in the history of the conflict between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states it sought to subdue were the disastrous fates that befell enormous Persian fleets no less than three times. According to ancient sources literally hundreds of ships and thousands of men sank to the bottom of the Aegean, where high rates of deposition of protective silt may well have preserved them for two-and-half millennia, offering a treasure trove of unparalleled archaeological significance to anyone who can locate them.

Darius and Xerxes

In the 5th century BCE the Persian Empire had conquered most of the known world and incorporated lands from the Himalayas to the Balkans, from the Upper Nile to the shores of the Caspian. Under the Persian aegis fell several of the Greek city-states of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), while the actions and attitude of the independent states of the Greek mainland irked the Persian emperors. Greek states such as Athens and Eretria had meddled in the affairs of Asia Minor, fomenting rebellions against the Persian overlords, and Darius the Great, emperor of Persia, determined to punish them. In 492 BCE he dispatched an army under his general and son-in-law Mardonius.

The sea monsters of Athos

Mardonius crossed the Hellespont that separated Asia Minor from Europe and marched down the Aegean coast of Greece, accompanied by a mighty fleet to offer naval and logistical support. The fleet sailed across the Aegean to the mainland and followed the coast down to Acanthus. To progress further it needed to detour around the peninsula of Mount Athos, which jutted out into the sea. According to Herodotus, whose Histories are the primary source for the Greco–Persian war, as the fleet ‘made to double Mount Athos’:

A violent North wind sprang up, against which nothing could contend, and handled a large number of the ships with much rudeness, shattering them and driving them aground upon Athos. It is said that the number of the ships destroyed was little short of 300; and the men who perished were more than 20,000. For the sea about Athos abounds in monsters beyond all others; and so a portion were seized and devoured by these animals, while others were dashed violently against the rocks; some, who did not know how to swim, were engulfed; and some died of the cold.

Without naval support Mardonius was forced to turn back and the invasion was postponed for two years. The Persian’s second invasion, in 490 BCE, was no more successful, and before he could plan a third attempt Darius died. It was left to his successor Xerxes to punish the upstart Greek states.

The greatest force the world had ever seen

By 480 BCE Xerxes had gathered what was probably the largest army in human history up to that point. It was said that he wept upon witnessing the serried ranks, overcome by the thought that within a few decades so many men would no longer be alive. The ancient estimates are probably wildly exaggerated – one speaks of the total land and sea forces numbering 2,641,610 men, accompanied by the same number of camp followers and hangers-on, giving more than 5 million people. Modern scholars scoff at these estimates, and it is widely assumed that they are out by a factor of ten. Nonetheless, Xerxes’ army was unprecedented in scale and diversity, comprising warriors from 46 different nations, including many Greek states and colonies that were inimical to the mainland alliance of Athens and Sparta, which led the Greek resistance.

Accompanying the army was a vast fleet, said to number 1,207 triremes (battle galleys propelled by three rows of oars) and countless smaller support, troop transport and cargo vessels. The ships were drawn from Phoenicia, Egypt, Cyprus and Asia Minor, including many of the Greek states under Persian control, and therefore represented a unique cross-section of naval technology and design of the period.

The Magnesian disaster and the Hollows of Euboea

Determined to take no chances with the treacherous waters off Mount Athos, Xerxes had had a canal dug across the isthmus that separated the mountain from the mainland. He had decreed that it should be wide enough to admit two galleys abreast, and the work took two years. Ultimately this extravagant gesture was to little avail – although the fleet successfully negotiated the Athos peninsula, large numbers of ships were lost in two massive storms.

One struck the fleet as it was anchored off the coast of Magnesia in an unfavourable location where there was room for only a few ships in the relative safety of the bay, forcing the others to moor in rows eight deep, which left the outermost ships stuck far out to sea. When a fierce east wind blew up in the morning, only a few of the ships could be dragged up to safety on the beach. According to Herodotus, the ships caught in the open sea were exposed to the gale and dashed against the rocks and coast at Pelion, Cape Sepias,Meliboea and Casthanaea.

The Greeks put this stroke of good fortune (from their point of view) down to the intercession of Boreas, god of the north wind. Divine providence or not, the disaster cost the Persians both ships and loot. Herodotus tells us:

The most conservative estimate of how many ships were lost in this disaster is 400, along with innumerable personnel, and so much valuable property that a Magnesian called Ameinocles the son of Cretines, who owned land near Sepias, profited immensely from this naval catastrophe. In the following days and months gold and silver cups were washed ashore in large numbers for him to pick up; he also found Persian treasure-chests, and in general became immensely wealthy.

While the main body of the fleet was suffering off the Magnesian coast, a detached squadron of 200 ships was attempting to round Euboea to outflank the Greek fleet. They too suffered from the storm. According to Herodotus the high winds smashed the ships against the shoreline known as the ‘Hollows of Euboea’, and all 200 of the galleys were lost.

In practice neither of these disasters made too much of a dent in the Persian fleet, vast as it was, but they helped to prevent it from gaining a tactical advantage over the outnumbered Greek navy, which got the better of subsequent naval engagements, including a battle in the Artemision Channel in which many Persian galleys were destroyed. These naval victories halted the Persian advance and effectively ended Xerxes’ hopes of a swift and crushing victory in the war as a whole. Without naval support, Xerxes felt compelled to pull the bulk of his forces out of the Balkans, leaving Mardonius to pursue the war, which proved beyond him. Eventually the Persians were forced out of Greece forever.

Aegean treasure

Even if Herodotus was exaggerating the numbers of galleys and men involved and the numbers lost during the Persian invasions, the potential value of the wrecked fleets could be huge. There could be the remains of hundreds of ships, thousands of men and huge quantities of weapons, armour, stores and supplies and loot of all types resting at the bottom of the Aegean. All of it dates back 2,500 years to a period about which there is scant archaeological evidence, at least for ships and naval technology. The size and diversity of the Persian invasion forces mean that the remains would offer a unique picture of peoples and military and naval technology, not just from Persia and Greece but from across the ancient world. For the acquisitive there is also the promise of large quantities of precious objects and precious metals, like the ‘gold and silver cups … and Persian treasure chests’ mentioned by Herodotus.

The ultimate prize for archaeologists, however, would be the discovery of the wreck of a trireme, the large galleys that constituted ships of the line for ancient navies. No trireme has ever been found, and historians are still in the dark about many aspects of this potent ancient naval technology. When a replica trireme was constructed, for instance, it was found that it could not match the performance capabilities ascribed to ancient galleys, which were much faster than modern experts are able to explain. Finding one of 1,000+ plus sunken galleys of the Persian invasion fleets could help to resolve decades of academic disputes. According to Dr Robert Hohlfelder, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder: ‘Underwater archaeologists have wish lists. A trireme is certainly one of the top ones on most people’s lists. And I think this [the waters off Mount Athos] is one of the best places to look for them.’

However, there are reasons why trireme remains have proved so elusive. Since ancient galleys did not use ballast, they did not sink when wrecked but floated on the surface. Ancient sources record how they were salvaged simply by being towed back to land, where they were either repaired or recycled for other purposes. Cargo would sometimes act as ballast, dragging a ship to the bottom, which is why ancient cargo ships have been recovered, but triremes were war galleys and hence did not carry heavy cargoes in their hold. The heaviest part of the trireme was probably the bronze ram on the prow that was used to smash enemy ships, and these may be lying on the bottom of the Aegean awaiting recovery, along with metal arms and armour carried by those on board.

Preserved in the deep

The Mediterranean is one of the most intensively exploited seas in the world, and has been so for millennia. This applies to treasure hunting and looting of wrecks, and there is considerable concern that many of the best/most accessible ancient wrecks have already been stripped of anything valuable, damaging and rendering them useless for archaeology in the process. Similarly, the prevalence of dragnet trawling, where fishermen drag heavily weighted booms with attached nets along the bottom of the sea, destroying everything in their path, has probably damaged or obliterated many ancient wrecks.

But the experts hope that the context of the Persian fleet wrecks may have preserved them from the looters. The fleets came to grief in deep water, especially the biggest potential wreck focus, off Mount Athos, where the sea bottom drops sharply to depths of 600 metres (2,000 feet) or more. This area is also quite remote, which should have helped to protect it from looters. An additional benefit is that silt is deposited quite fast in the Aegean, so that any remains may have been rapidly covered in a layer of preserving and protective silt.

Looking for the Persian fleets

In recent years the story of the Persian fleets has gained a new profile thanks to a concerted international effort to locate and study the wrecks, an effort made possible by new technology. The Persian Wars Shipwreck Survey (PWSS) – a joint programme by the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research and the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, together with various other academics and institutions – uses side-scan sonar, mini-submarines and submarine remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) to map and explore the locations described by Herodotus.

In its three seasons of exploration so far the PWSS has explored the waters off the Mount Athos peninsula, the Hollows of Euboea (off the coast of southern Euboea) and the Artemision Channel, site of a major naval battle. The results have not been breathtaking. So far one of the main discoveries has been the location of the wreck of a cargo ship off Mount Athos, which was carrying amphorae identified as being from Mende, a Greek city to the west of Mount Athos. This could mean that the ship had nothing to do with Darius’ fleet (it could date from up to a century earlier), or it could have been a supply ship carrying material requisitioned by the Persian invaders.

The headline discovery, however, has been attributed to the help of an octopus, likened to one of Herodotus’ ‘monsters beyond all others’. Alerted to the fact that local fishermen hauling in their catch had chanced upon two bronze helmets from the classical period (500–323 BCE), the PWSS crew searched in the same area and spotted a large jar on the seabed. The jar was home to an octopus, a creature renowned for occasionally retrieving sunken objects and squirreling them away in its lair. Sure enough, the octopoid loot proved to include a bronze sauroter – a pointed spear butt or butt-spike that fitted onto the end of a Greek hoplite’s (infantryman) spear, allowing it to be stuck into the ground and also making it a double-ended weapon. Finding the weapon accessory where two pieces of armour have also been recovered has strengthened belief that the wrecks of the Persian fleet (which included many Greek soldiers from the vassal states in Asia Minor, as well as from Greek states inimical to Athens and Sparta) do lie in the area.

The PWSS team has had less luck in the waters around Euboea, but it plans to return in 2006 to continue mapping the sea floor and looking for promising targets to investigate using its submersibles. It also warns, however, that academics are not the only ones equipped with such technology. Katerina Dellaporta, director of underwater antiquities for Greece and one of the survey’s leaders, has warned, ‘Before, looters would only do scuba diving. But now, the technology [such as ROVs] allows everybody to have access to deeper waters.’ While the assertion that ‘everybody’ might get access to deep water is perhaps an overstatement (buying and operating an ROV costs tens–hundreds of thousands), it is to be hoped that archaeologists and not looters are the first to locate the lost wrecks of the great fleets of Darius and Xerxes.

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THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Abraham Ortelius, in Parergon, Antwerp, 1595
Osher Collection, University of Southern Maine
This map depicts the vast area conquered by the young Macedonian king Alexander the Great, extending eastwards from Byzantium and Egypt to the Indus River. An inset in the lower left corner presents a finely engraved bird's-eye view of the oracle of Zeus at Ammon, Egypt. Surmounting the dedication cartouche at the lower right is an engraving of a gold coin bearing the helmuted likeness of Alexander.

AFTER AKHENATON

Akhenaton’s rule had not been the idyll that was conjured up in art. Reality lay in the hunger, suffering, and death beyond the borders of Aton’s Horizon. In the eyes of all but the elite around him, pharaoh had wrecked society. As troops made up of foreign soldiers policed the land prohibiting the worship of every god but Aton, the Egyptian empire was being shaken to its foundations. The uneasy feeling that his revolution had failed probably plagued the last years of pharaoh’s life. He died in year seventeen. By then Kiya had disappeared, as had Nefertiti.

Following pharaoh’s death, Aton’s Horizon was abandoned and avoided as a place of unspeakable heresy. The last of the inhabitants fled hastily and never looked behind them. Eating and drinking vessels were left on tables, children’s playthings lay abandoned in the empty halls. Desert winds tore open the shutters, sand drifted over the floors, fish pools dried up, and fruit trees withered. The whole city decayed into ruins. It perished as rapidly as pharaoh had brought it to life.

Smenkara had passed away after a brief reign. The boy Tutankhaton was taken to Thebes and his name changed to Tutankhamun. Deep scars and a sense of shaken confidence pervaded Egypt. Superficially, the country returned to the traditional religion that had prevailed before Akhenaton, but in reality nothing could ever be the same again. On the good side, the new freedom in art lived on. In writing, the use of the vernacular had spread. It led to the development of new literary styles in the Ramesside Period. However, a dark, brooding mood hung in the air.

Unlike the other boy-kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty for whom their mothers acted as regents, Tutankhamun (1336–1327 bc) had no elder queen to look after him. The courtier Ay was appointed to act in his name as God’s Father. Ay’s policy was one of thorough and non-violent restoration. The young king was married to his half-sister Ankesenpa-aton, renamed Ankhesenamun. The residence was moved to Memphis, but Thebes remained a religious center, “the southern Heliopolis,” to satisfy the High Priest of Amun. It remained the burial ground for kings until the end of the New Kingdom.

General Horemhab continued to command the army. Maya, the “overseer of the king’s treasury,” was sent on a mission to demolish the temples and palaces of the former regime. Maya probably organized the transfer of the mortal remains of the royal family from Aton’s Horizon to Thebes. From Memphis, Tutankhamun issued the Restoration Decree that reinstated all the traditional cults.

The people could now return to their faith. A major campaign to rebuild the temples and reorganize the clerical administration was set in motion. The army resumed its forays to Syria, encountering the Hittites, the new military power from Anatolia. These skirmishes had failed to establish a new balance of power. On the other hand, reasserting Egyptian authority in Nubia was more successful. With Horemhab, Egypt was back in the military arena.

The events surrounding the death of young Tutankhamun are far from clear. The king died unexpectedly in his tenth regnal year. The same year Horemhab led a military expedition against the Hittites at Amqa in Syria that ended in Egyptian defeat. By the time news of this disaster reached Egypt, Tutankhamun was dead. The funeral was conducted by the aged Ay, who also assumed the throne (1327–1323 bc). He had appropriated the royal tomb for himself, hastily burying Tutankhamun in a small, makeshift grave that could barely contain the quantities of goods customary to a king. Sheer chance preserved this improvised burial for posterity.

Since Ay had no male heir, he designated general Horemhab as his successor. It may have been at this point that the widowed Ankhesenamun, Akhenaton’s daughter, took the bold step of writing to the Hittite king, prompted by fear, as she said in her letter. She asked him to make one of his sons her husband in order that “Egypt and Hatti become one country.” This extraordinary step met with suspicion in the Hittite capital and the king hesitated. In the end, he decided to dispatch his son Zananza to Egypt, but the unfortunate prince was murdered on the way. The result was prolonged warfare with the Hittites.

Who was Ankhesenamun afraid of? A fragmentary cuneiform letter from Ay suggests that he tried to make amends with the Hittites, denying all responsibility for the death of the prince. Backtracking on his earlier decision, he also made an effort to prevent Horemhab from becoming king after his own death, appointing the army commander Nakhtmin (possibly a grandson) as heir. Shortly thereafter, he died. Despite Ay’s efforts, Horemhab succeeded in mounting the Egyptian throne and despoiling the tombs of both Ay and Nakhmin. Ankhesenamun and her sisters were heard of no more. Though riddled with difficulties, the general’s path to the throne could not be stopped. In his salient Coronation Stele, Horemhab claimed kingship through the divine oracle of Horus of Hutnesu (probably his birthplace) in the tradition of the Thutmoside kings.

By comparison to his dramatic rise to the throne, Horemhab’s reign (1323– 1295 bc) appears uneventful. Even its exact length is not clear; in inscriptions, he counted his predecessor’s rule as his own. His highest attested regnal year in Egypt is thirteen; Babylonian chronology, as well as two posthumous texts, indicated that he ruled longer.

Horemhab had been married to Mutnedjmet, whose only known title was the ordinary “songstress of Amun,” but the couple had no children. As heir he chose Paramessu, the commander of the fortress at Sile on the land bridge to Syria, possibly preoccupied with reorganizing the army in the north.

Paramessu’s family came from Avaris, the former capital of the Hyksos. When Horemhab died, Paramessu became king Ramses I (1295–1294 bc). The throne of Egypt was firmly in the hands of the army. With the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty history had come full circle. Avaris rose up from the ashes while Thebes was never to be the capital of Egypt again. The divine ancestor of the Ramesside kings was Seth. Avaris became the new residence of the Ramesside rulers.

Ramses I was probably old when he was made king, with a son and grandson already born to him. His reign lasted for barely a year, during which his son Sety was appointed commander of Sile, vizier and High Priest of Seth. In a few months, he was king (1294–1279 bc).

If Ay can be called the architect of the restoration, Sety was undoubtedly its master builder. His entire reign epitomized a commitment to the recovery of the faith lost in the censorship and iconoclasm of Akhenaton. Everywhere, inscriptions and images hacked out by Akhenaton’s agents were re-carved. At Thebes, the festival of Amun, the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, was reinstated. At Abydos, a magnificent new temple complex recreated the mythical burial of Osiris. Sety’s dedicatory inscription listed all the former kings of Egypt; the list had Horemhab directly succeeding Amenhotep III. Akhenaton, Ay, and Tutankhamun were left out.

Most impressive of all were Sety’s attempts to resolve the crisis in religious thinking that was a direct result of Akhenaton’s monotheism. Steeped as we are in centuries of monotheistic thinking we might easily underrate the theological achievement of Akhenaton. He was a true reformer. He has been called “the first individual in history.” His single creed introduced a semblance of order into an otherwise chaotic religious legacy. His historical importance is incontestable; centuries later, his thought and poetry would continue to inspire religions that were to follow.

The polytheistic religion of Egypt had come from many different sources. There were several creator-gods and creation myths. Temple establishments had maintained their independence, taken care of their own traditions, and looked after their own interests. Depending on the political climate, their influence rose and fell. Religious life relied on ritual and cult rather than on ordered religious thought. Faith was often manipulated to suit the purpose of the rulers, superstition and magic reigned unfettered, and priests had the sole authority to define truths. Tombs were granted only to those who were obedient to the king and papyri sold to the credulous like papal indulgences to exonerate them in the next world. In the midst of this, Akhenaton had raised the question of the One True and Living God. He had obliterated the social and religious hierarchy, at least in theory, and placed all people in humility before the sole creator. In fact, it had become impossible to relapse into the old familiar beliefs without attempting a religious reformation.

Sety tried to reconcile the contradictions that now glared at everyone. He encouraged theologians to probe more deeply into ancient dogmas and unite them into a single, respectable system of beliefs. The results of this rethinking were evident both in the temple complex at Abydos and in Sety’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The former made the attempt to transform the religion of Osiris into a universal creed. The latter contained the most complete rendition of all the existing Books of the Afterlife. Their layout within the tomb reflected the attempt to treat them as a distinct body of religious texts. These two monuments presented new religious ideas that united the old with the new, the One with the Many. Sety’s monuments became blueprints. The theological reconciliation offered by the religious thinkers of his time was scrupulously followed until the end of the New Kingdom.

It was possibly from Akhenaton’s verse – “you are one, yet a million lives are in you” – that the Ramesside designation of a new all-god, “the one who made himself into millions,” was coined. This formula was probably the precursor of the Hermetic hen kai pan, the concept of god as one and all, developed in Greco-Roman Egypt. Akhenaton’s ideas lived on. Through Hermetic philosophy they eventually influenced much of early Christian thought.

THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD

Abraham Ortelius, in Parergon, Antwerp, 1595
Osher Collection, University of Southern Maine
This map portrays ancient Greece, with its independent city-satates and kingdoms and their provinces extending from the Balkan Peninsula through Ionian, Mediterranean and Aegean seas to Asia Minor. The name of the country, Ellas, is displayed in Greek letters on the lintel of the architectural cartouche in the lower left corner.

JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS

Abraham Ortelius, in Parergon, Antwerp, 1595
Smith Collection, University of Southern Maine
Seen here are the regions traversed by Jason and the Argonauts on their successful quest to capture the Golden Fleece from the king of Colchis on the far eastern shore of the Black Sea (CAVCASEVM MARE). In the vignette below the title, the Golden Fleece is seen hanging from a tree, guarded by a dragon and two fire-breathing bulls.

AZTEC EARPLUGS?

The Aztec Culture, as with many other past cultures of the Mesoamerican region had a love for Obsidian. It was used mainly for objects of a sacrificial or ritualistic nature and is a reasonably common find at many South American sites. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Obsidian is a very brittle, black volcanic glass and is quite difficult to carve or work with.

However, sometime during the past an ‘unknown Aztec craftsman’ is believed to have made these wonderful and rather unusual little items which are thought to be earplugs. Yes that right, earplugs, and we are asked to believe that they were made by using the typical Aztec tools of the time, such as bamboo drills, stone chisels and fine sand as an abrasive agent.

This can only be seen as an incredibly unfathomable conclusion, because these items are polished to a constant thickness of less than one millimeter throughout, they are perfectly circular, completely symmetrical and are both exactly the same size.

Now just think about that for a moment and remember that we’re talking about earplugs here. These things really are, very small, as I’m sure you will realize if you consider the size of an actual ear canal, plus they have been made to an incredible degree of precision from obsidian. Just notice the accuracy of the small flanges protruding from the ends of the items. It is very difficult to imagine someone making these from brittle Obsidian by using primitive hand tools.

However the most fascinating and interesting thing about these artifacts is that under close scrutiny the unmistakable signs of machining are actually quite clearly visible on the surfaces making the idea that they were hand made even more difficult to deal with.

AN ANCIENT CALCULATOR?

Reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (made by Robert J. Deroski, based onDerek J. de Solla Price model).

Further evidence of ancient machining can be observed in the mysterious ‘Antikythira Device,’ an artifact that was found at the site of an ancient shipwreck just off the Greek island of Antikythira. The artifact is manufactured from bronze and consists of a series of interlocking cogs and wheels and although heavily corroded, is quite unique and very extraordinary. When it was first discovered experts thought it was possibly some type of navigational instrument, but a more detailed investigation revealed it to be something vastly more complex.

Radiograph and X-ray examination revealed the existence of a differential turntable comprising of over 30 interlocking geared cogs set at various different planes fixed within the device testifying to an extremely high degree of craftsmanship and a clockmakers attention to detail. It is quite obviously a precision instrument of enormous complexity. But what exactly is it?

The instrument bears inscriptions, unfortunately heavily corroded by sea water, that seem to refer to zodiac positions with a great deal of accuracy which, apart from its perfection in manufacture, is something that then also involves a considerable amount of astronomical expertise. It also has certain similarities with some known astronomical instruments and is thought to possibly be an advanced type of ‘astrolabe’, a celestial calendar and navigational device used for determining and exhibiting the year round positions of stars and planets.

Adding even further to the puzzle, the wreck, from which the device was salvaged, dates back to nearly one hundred BC and it has been previously thought that such refined craftsmanship was completely unknown until the mid 16th century. No other artifact that comes anywhere near this degree of sophistication has ever been recovered from another wreck either before or since. Even Astrolabes that have been recovered from vessels that sank millennia later look simplistic by comparison as the above diagram shows.

The Antikythira Device is very much a puzzle in itself but another very intriguing part of the puzzle is this: For this kind of precision machined instrument to even exist, it means that there must also have been an equally sophisticated machine on which it was made, yet we have no record of such a machine ever existing and no hint of any such capability has ever been found, so who made it – and how?

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HOLY LAND

Gerard de Jode, in Speculum Orbis Terrarum, Antwerp, 1578
Smith Collection, University of Southern Maine
West is at the top. A detailed bird's-eye view of the walled city of Jerusalem to a contemporary pilgrim, with the Dome of the Rock on the former site of Solomon's Temple. The view is flanked by vignettes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (above and to the right) and the Chapel of the Nativity in Bethlehem (to the left).

The Nasca Lines

In continuing our display of ‘ooparts’ mention must of course be given to the enormous motifs, spirals and geometric shapes that appear on the Nasca Plains in Peru. There really are few places on earth more baffling or shrouded in mystery. The actual Nazca civilization was one that had flourished in the area from between 200 B.C. and 600 A.D. but no one really knows the true origins or meaning of the enormous and very mysterious Nazca Lines.

The lines appear etched into a vast plateau, 37 miles long and 15 miles wide called Pampa Colorado that sits high in the mountains of the Nasca region of Peru. The lines were probably first brought to the wider attention of the world by Eric Von Daniken in his book “The Chariots of the Gods.” The etchings are of truly monumental proportions with the plain containing literally thousands of criss-crossing, zigzagging, spiraling and parallel lines covering virtually the entire plateau. The lines have been made by simply removing the hard rocky surface of the plain and exposing the lighter soil beneath. They range in average width from 6 inches to over 6 feet and run in absolutely every direction across the plain. Some of the lines are over 6 miles long and yet they still run unbroken over plains, hills and valleys and always remain perfectly straight and true. The motifs they depict include bird, animal and human forms, astronomical symbols and interestingly, even one section that seems to look exactly like an enormous long runway.

The truly gigantic size of these glyphs that are depicted at Nazca also means that none of them at all are visible to a person standing on the ground and only a person viewing them from the air can see that they actually form shapes and pictures.

The Nazca lines were only discovered accidentally when a plane flew over the site in the mid 20th century and the surprised pilot suddenly noticed them from the air. From the vantage point of the sky however, there can be clearly seen the huge shapes of a monkey, a Hummingbird and one that really does look like an astronaut. And that’s just a few. There are many, many more, covering virtually the entire plateau.

The enormous size of these pictograms really and truly cannot be understated and it is widely believed that the design blueprint for the Nasca site could only properly have been realized from the air. How else would the artist ever know if the design was correct? It also seems strange that anyone would go to all the trouble of covering a mountain plateau in huge pictograms that no-one (who couldn’t fly) would ever possibly be able to view in the first place, there is simply no apparent point to such an exercise.

LINK

AGIOS GEORGIOS KOLOKYTHIAS

Byzantine fortification, Agios Georgios Kolokythias, Kythera, rendered as a plan and as a three dimensional visualization through extrusion of mapped features. The plan and visualization were created during fieldwork using GPS and GIS software.

From 2002 Survey

One of these special investigations involved the medieval settlement at Agios Georgios Kolokythias in the far northeast corner of the survey area, on the coast north of Agia Pelagia. We had carried out intensive survey at this site in 2001 and recorded the remains of a second church—beside the one currently standing—as well as two large cisterns, an apparently secular building, and the substantial remains of a fortification circuit. Ceramic remains allow us to propose a date of the 11^th or 12^th century for the complex—earlier in fact than Paliochora—and the site thus seemed to be an especially important one. We received permission this year to carry out a detailed program of investigation at Agios Georgios, including the construction of a full plan. The latter could be done only after considerable work of cutting the dense growth around the walls, but this was accomplished by members of our team with speed and good humor!

Measurement for the plan was carried out by Andrew Wilson, using high-precision GPS equipment from the ACL of the University of Sydney. Although the plan still requires some fine-tuning and attention to detail, it shows considerable details about the fortification, the churches, and the settlement that apparently existed both inside and outside the fortification walls. In addition, this means of recording allows the construction of 3-dimensional views of the site that can be turned and manipulated in order to study the fortress in its natural setting and to see it from different perspectives.

The work at Agios Georgios is a good example of the kind of study we will focus on in the coming seasons. After four years of intensive survey, we feel we have the basic information needed to discuss the basic settlement history of northern Kythera, and in the next few years we will devote ourselves especially to detailed study of the artifacts and features, as well as to publication.

LINK

THE MERCATOR MAP OF 1538

And even yet another intriguing map is one drawn in 1538 by Mercator, another highly respected cartographer who lived in the 16th century. His works are quite famous and you can still buy a Mercator atlas in shops today. Mercator was known to periodically update is works and produce a new, more definitive world atlas as more shores became charted and more accurate charts become available to him. In doing such an update, his 1538 world map was replaced by a new one in 1569. However we now know that not only was his 1538 map far more accurate than the latter one but what proved to be even more amazing was that it also contained correct measurements of longitude.

To put all this mention of longitude into some sort of perspective for you: Longitude is the distance in degrees east or west of the Prime Meridian. Due to the Earth’s rotation, it is far harder to calculate longitude than it is latitude, which can be measured by using the stars or the sun for observation. To calculate Longitude, requires an equation of ‘distance = speed x time’ and, most importantly, an accurate clock. Discovering longitude was once described as "greatest of all naval problems" and in the 1700’s an actual Board of Longitude was set up in England to solve the issue. In 1714, Sir Isaac Newton appeared before the board and explained that the real problem was that "a watch required for such accuracy has not yet been invented". The Queen then offered a prize of 20,000 pounds to any man who might build such a device and finally, in 1761, a man by the name of Harrison claimed the prize and put forth his prototype chronometer which then "ushered in a new era of sea travel" for the world.

During the 19th century maps then began being updated with the correct degrees of longitude. However Mercator’s map of 1538 was marked with correct longitude a full 223 years before it was discovered. Where was he able to gain that information from? It is obvious that Mercator himself had no real knowledge of longitude at the time and must have borrowed or been given the information from another source because he then updated his subsequent maps incorrectly with what was considered to be more recent and therefore, supposedly more reliable information. These maps constitute some extremely significant evidence indeed, for if ancient man had never circumnavigated the globe or possessed any knowledge of longitude then how can any of these maps exist?

LINK

Pirates of the Spanish Main Maps

The Winds

Settlements

All hands on deck! In the waters of the Caribbean there are fortunes to be made and lost…or stolen. In these times it takes courage and daring to carve out a niche and forge a new legend. Will you sail the high seas in search of fame and fortune, lead a band of buccaneers in search of booty, or captain a ship of the line in the service of King and country?

Pirates of the Spanish Main is a complete game based on Wizkids’ best-selling Constructible Strategy Game and the award winning Savage Worlds roleplaying game system. All the rules you need to play this game of fast and furious swashbuckling fun are in this book. So set a course for adventure; fame and fortune await over the horizon. Full color and lavishly illustrated throughout, this is a complete RPG containing everything needed to play - no separate rulebook is required.

NEW ORION CORRELATION?

Researcher Scott Creighton may have discovered a new dimension to the alignment between the pyramids at Giza and the constellation Orion. According to Creighton the so-called queens’ pyramids, two sets of three small pyramids each, next to the largest and smallest of the main Giza pyramids, are aligned with the three belt stars of Orion at two precise points in time exactly 12,960 years apart. The group to the south of Menkaure’s pyramid were aligned, he says, with the belt stars in 10,948 B.C. and the other queens’ pyramids to the east of the Great pyramid will be aligned with those same stars in 2012 A.D. Interestingly enough the alignment of the two sets of small pyramids, in relation to each other, is exactly perpendicular. Researchers Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert caused quite a stir in the mid-nineties with their book, The Orion Mystery, which argued that Giza was an attempt to reflect on earth the image of the constellation Orion. If Creighton is right, the arrangement would also seem to point to times important to the builders of the Giza complex. By suggesting that the pyramids of Giza also act as a kind of clock, tracking the progress of Orion through the heavens toward the 2012 date, a year to which the Mayan calendar and other ancient indicators also point, Creighton is calling attention to another indication of the astonishing ancient advancement on display at Giza.

To see an animation of Creighton's Greater Orion Correlation Theory go to: http://www.thegizaoracle.co.uk/Flash/GOCT.swf.

Creighton is also author of the book The Giza Oracle.

Newsarama.com : Getting Into Viking with Ivan Brandon

Last week, we posted the teaser for the April-launching Viking, a “9th century crime comic” by writer Ivan Brandon and artist Nic Klein. And that was it – just the teaser.

Today, we speak with Brandon about the book, its characters, his motivation, and more.

Newsarama: You've worked with the criminal underground in Cross Bronx and NYC Mech. Why did you choose to go back to the ninth century for Viking?

via Newsarama.com : Getting Into Viking with Ivan Brandon.

The Giant Stone Balls of Costa Rica

Yet such proof may have already been long ago provided by an amazing discovery was made in the 1930’s by workmen would were clearing land for a banana plantation.

While burning and hacking away the jungle the workmen literally stumbled across scores of stone balls that had somehow been shaped and placed in the forest. Many of these balls are perfectly spherical and vary greatly in size ranging from the size of a tennis ball to around 8 feet in diameter and weighing up to around 16 tons and are great distances from each other with not apparent design to their positioning. Though these spherical stones are quite obviously not a natural occurrence, who may have made them and placed them at their locations or why remains a complete mystery. Some have theorized that the area was once a huge scale map of the Solar system but unfortunately too many of the stones have now been moved from their original locations to know whether this may have been the case.

These spheres are also cut to perfection and are incredibly smooth. Cutting a large stone into an absolutely perfect sphere is a n extremely difficult undertaking and the methods that may have been used to achieve such flawless results is also totally baffling.

LINK

The Puma Punka Stones

There is a most interesting thing that can be found in the Puma Punka Complex near Tiahuanaco. At the ancient site, standing upright in a courtyard, there can be found a tall flat stone that has a striking feature on it. The entire complex is actually quite remarkable, featuring a huge doorway complete with lintels that has been cut from a single stone and many other odd shapes that appear to have been machined including this one.

The remarkable thing about this ancient slab is that it has a perfect cut or groove approximately 1cm wide running down its entire length while inside the groove there is a set of equidistant holes that appear to have been drilled into it.

The site is only a few hundred meters from the famous site of Tiahuanaco but the stone slab and many other enigmatic features of the site are so hard to explain and pose so many difficult questions that the entire site is virtually hushed up by the entire archeological community and almost never mentioned to tourists.

The consistent accuracy of the groove and the holes within it cannot possibly have been achieved with any known types of hand tools. It would appear that the only satisfactory explanation is that it was done by a machine or possibly – by molding?

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962)

Paperback cover blurb

BACK TO THE JUNGLE

Kerans could not remember how it had been before the violent solar storms shattered the ionosphere and turned the earth into a vast tropical heat zone, a seething world of jungle, swamp and fetid water…

In the drowned, lost cities, there was the eerie beauty of the lagoons, the towering sixty-foot-high plants, the once-proud buildings smothered in silt…

Above all, there was the colossal fireball in the sky, the giant solar disk that seemed to blind him with its rays, lulling him into a strange hypnotic state, seeming to lure him back to the dawn of preconscious, to another age when Man was yet unborn and reptiles ruled the earth…

My thoughts

A new Age of Reptiles has begun, and humanity is nearly extinct. A sudden flare-up of the sun has melted the polar ice caps and turned the world into a great primordial swamp. (The Drowned World was written before the modern concept of global warming.) Most mammals have died out, and reptiles and plants are devolving into their ancient, Triassic-period forms to adapt to the new environment.

Kerans is a biologist accompanying a military expedition to a submerged London to study the new plant and animal life. There’s one problem: he’s haunted by dreams that may be recollections of long-lost racial memories of ancient times, when reptiles first ruled the earth. Soon he suspects that it’s just not plants and reptiles that are changing to fit the new climate.

The Drowned World was one of J.G. Ballard’s first novels, and it’s considered one of his best, although it is extremely hard to find in the U.S. The work is not so much about ancient creatures as it is about ancient environments and how humans would change to fit those environments. Ballard’s descriptions of a near-future London overrun with Triassic-age swamps are among the most haunting I’ve read. The Drowned World is not a book with much plot or action. It’s mostly about atmosphere, and on that Ballard excels brilliantly.

The science – with references to devolution and racial memory – may strike modern readers as dated. The Drowned World also comes to a screeching halt in the middle when a gang of looters sacks London, although it finds its footing again near the end. Still, it’s not a book to miss, and it’s a crime it’s so hard to find these days.

Trivia

• The Drowned World was the second book in Ballard's Elemental Cycle, a series of novels dealing with the end of the world, each disaster based on the elements of earth, fire, air and water. The element of The Drowned World was, obviously, water. Other titles include The Wind from Nowhere (air), The Burning World (fire), and The Crystal World (earth).

• At least two of Ballard's novels have been made into movies: Empire of the Sun and Crash.

• The novel was reissued in 2000 as part of the SF Masterworks series, which was released in the U.K..

Reviews

• SF Site
• Strange Words
• L.J. Hurst
• Sci Fi Weekly

CELTIC EUROPE

Abraham Ortelius, in Parergon, Antwerp, 1595

Osher Collection, University of Southern Maine

This map depicts Europe during the period of Celtic dominance. Between the sixth and third centuries B.C., the Celts, a group of barbarian tribes from central Europe, conquered a vast region extending from Iberia to the Black Sea. They were driven back and defeated by the Romans in the third and second centuries B.C.

KING AHUITZOTL

Although Ahuitzotl undertook war campaigns, he was best remembered for concluding, after eight kings and endless struggles, the construction of the Great Temple dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, their supreme deity.

After the death of their seventh king, the Aztec looked for a candidate who would be the exact opposite of Tizoc. They desired a young warrior full of vitality and strong military interest. The council decided to choose the youngest son of their fifth king, Motecuhzoma. However, this time, many nobles were hesitant about the election, for the past monarchs Axayacatl and Tizoc, also direct descendants of the great Motecuhzoma I, had failed to bring glory to the Aztec or to surpass the golden age of their father. With great controversy, in the year 1486, King Ahuitzotl, Motecuhzoma I’s last son, ascended to the throne. The eighth monarch of the Aztec quickly came to enjoy the support of his military comrades, as he showed genuine interest in developing new martial strategies and greatly favored the military class. Although Ahuitzotl undertook war campaigns, he was best remembered for concluding, after eight kings and endless struggles, the construction of the Great Temple dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, their supreme deity.

King Ahuitzotl invited all the people that inhabited his vast lands to celebrate; every noble, warrior, commoner, and slave was commanded to attend the festivities that would represent the culmination of Aztec supremacy over the Valley of Mexico. There was no distinction of class, gender, or ethnicity. Tenochtitlan erupted with people, and it is said that from an aerial view, the city resembled a gigantic ant colony.

The ceremony began with the placement of the four most powerful lords of the Aztec Empire at the top of the pyramid, each one situated at a cardinal point. King Ahuitzotl stood next to the statue of Huitzilopochtli; beside him stood the ruler of Tetzcoco, Lord Nezahualpilli; the ruler of Tlacopan; and the king’s adviser (cihuacoatl), Tlacaelel. The drums began to play at early dawn, and the first sacrifice took place. Lines of slaves and prisoners awaited as each lord conducted the sacrificial offering. One prisoner after the next was sacrificed from dawn to dusk for four continuous days; the temple of Huitzilopochtli poured a river of blood that emanated from the four cardinal points. It is said that 80,400 people were sacrificed during the four days, but this was probably an exaggeration. People at the footsteps of the temple waited for the blood to come down, then they collected it in small containers and spread it over their houses, temples, and municipal courts, as well as their faces, as a blessing. Tenochtitlan was covered in blood, and on the fifth day after the sacrificial ceremony had ended, the king honored the bravest warriors and lords by covering them with riches of gold and new weaponry.

Unlike the previous monarch, King Ahuitzotl worked hard to expand the Aztec Empire. During his government, he fought against multiple citystates and annexed them to Tenochtitlan. He engaged in war with the cities of Izhuatlan, Miahuatlan, Tehuantepec, and Amaxtlan and obtained great wealth. He colonized lands extending as far south as Guatemala. Because the newly acquired lands required protection and military domination, Ahuitzotl declared that all freeborn males of the age of 18 and up should be trained as warriors in order to reinforce the army and secure Tenochtitlan’s economic interests. Additionally, Ahuitzotl devoted a great amount of effort to properly urbanizing the capital and populating cities such as Alahuiztlan and Oztoman, which he later used as military centers.

In the year 1502, upon return from a war fought in the area of Oaxaca, King Ahuitzotl was very ill. It is unknown what disease afflicted him, but in less than a year he lost his strength and became thin and brittle. He died accidentally that same year, during the inauguration of an aqueduct in Tenochtitlan. With his death, the empire suffered a great loss, for he was loved by his people, respected by the council, and admired by his military men. Under his government, the Aztec prospered, and their cities were modernized.

CAESAR'S GAUL

Abraham Ortelius, in Parergon, Antwerp, 1595

Osher Collection, University of Southern Maine

Ancient Gaul is depicted here in accordance with the description in Julius Caesar's Commentaria, one of the earliest works to have historical maps created for it. Major topographic features and locations of native tribes, cities and Roman provinces are indicated.

THE LANZHOU STONE

A truly amazing object has recently come to light in the form of an uncommon stone with a threaded metal bar inside it that was recently found by a Mr Zhilin Wang in China near to the Marzong Mountain region on the borders of the Gansu and Xijiang provinces.

 

The mysterious stone is pear shaped, about 6 x 8 cm, extremely hard and weighs 466 grams. Incredibly the rock is of a type that is totally unknown suggesting that in may in fact be a meteorite. However it is not only due to its unknown make up that the item has attracted enormous attention from many geologists and collectors around the world but also because of the starling artifact it contains within it.

 

As reported in the ‘Lanzhou Morning News’ on June 26, 2002: “More than 10 geologists and global physicists from the National Land Resources Bureau of Gansu Province, Colored Metal Survey Bureau of Gansu Province, the Institute of Geology and Minerals Research of China Academy, Lanzhou Branch, and the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou College gathered to study the origin of this mysterious stone.

 

“After a discussion about its possibility of being man-made and the possible reasons for its formation, the scientists unanimously labeled the stone as one of the most valuable in China and in the world for collection, research and Archeological studies.

 

“During the discussion, the scientists proposed many hypotheses about the formation of this stone, but found all incredible. The screw-threaded metal bar is tightly enclosed in the black lithical material. Neither the bar's entrance to the stone nor the exposed bar tip appear to be manmade. Moreover, the screw thread width remains consistent from the thick end to the thin end, instead of varying due to the growth of organisms. One of the hypotheses says that this stone could be a relic from a prehistoric civilization, since a civilization equivalent to ours is thought to have existed on earth before our current one. Another theory is that it could be a stony meteorite and it could have brought the information of an extraterrestrial civilization.

 

At the end of the conference, all scientists agreed that further research is needed to address questions such as how the stone was formed and whether the "metal bar" is truly metal, before the "visitor-from-outer-space" mystery can be solved.”

 

What this stone and the threaded object is still remains any bodies guess at the moment but if it is indeed a meteorite, then it has provided us with unquestionable prove that we are not alone.

CAUSES OF THE VIKING AGE

Historians and writers, from the Viking Age onward, have suggested many different reasons why, between the years 800–1100, there was this sudden surge of activity on the part of the Scandinavian people:

• Monastic writers thought it was God’s punishment.

• European clerics, such as Adam of Bremen and Dudo of St-Quentin, attributed it to over-population and land shortage in Scandinavia. However, there is no real evidence for this, and in some places, such as Rogaland in southwest Norway and the Baltic island of Oland, archaeological evidence suggests that the population seems to have been larger in the sixth century.

• The development of the classic Viking ship has been seen as a key to the Viking Age, and certainly without it the Viking Age would not have been possible.

• Icelanders, such as Ari Thorgilsson and Snorri Sturluson, thought the Vikings left Scandinavia to avoid the growing power of kings. Certainly during the Viking Age, the kings of Denmark and Norway had much more power and control over their countries than had previously been the case.

• There also appears to have been a trading boom in Europe - improved ships made it possible to travel and exchange goods farther afield than before.

The account that the Norwegian trader, Ohthere, gave to King Alfred of England also provides an insight into some of the reasons why Scandinavians traveled in the Viking Age. He mentions trading as one of the reasons for his journey, but also curiosity—he wanted to explore the regions of north Norway because he did not know what type of country and, perhaps more importantly, what resources he might find there. He discovered the existence of a number of Sami tribes and was able to impose tribute on them, and so to exercise a sort of economic power. Certainly the desire to acquire wealth—either moveable wealth in the form of loot or fixed wealth in the form of land or even wealth through employment—was an extremely important motive that helped to trigger the journeys of the Viking Age and that underlies many of the expeditions. The desire to gain political power was also important and was an extension of this economic motive: political power meant that you could impose taxes and tribute and control trade. However, there can be no one single explanation of the Viking Age: motives varied over the three hundred years for which it lasted and across the vast distances of Scandinavia. The only real agreement today is that many different factors played a part in triggering this wave of outward activity.