Wonders of Ancient Knowledge

POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Thursday, May 25, 2006 16:20
VIEWED: 4678
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ANTHONYT

Saturday, May 20, 2006 2:54 AM

Ancient Wonders of Knowledge

Hello all, and please come aboard, PirateJenny. Piratenews, you are welcome if you can avoid the terms 'gangsta govt' and 'jew.'

PirateJenny's post about alternative beliefs was interesting to me. It got me thinking about ancient wonders of knowledge.

The Baghdad (sp?) Battery is one such example. An apparent low-voltage battery.

I remember when I was in Philosophy class, I learned that an Ancient Greek philosopher had calculated the approximate circumference of the Earth by measuring shadows. That's some far out stuff.

What other surprising ancient knowledge are you guys aware of? Let's forget for a moment WHERE this knowledge came from (or we'll be arguing about aliens in no time) but concentrate instead on the knowledge itself.

I'm very interested to see what you guys reveal. I may learn a lot.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

CITIZEN

Saturday, May 20, 2006 1:15 PM

It's been suggested that the Ancient Egyptians might have had electric lighting. There are wall paintings of the egyptians using devices that look a lot like light bulbs.

http://www.altarcheologie.nl/strange_technologies/Dendera%20-%20Electr
ic%20lighting%20in%20ancient%20Egypt_files/dendera3.htm
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_lights_fd1.htm

This website has lots of these sorts of stories:
http://www.world-mysteries.com

This one's good:
Celtic Cross
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_5.htm

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
And as you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say.

ANTHONYT

Saturday, May 20, 2006 4:55 PM

From the links, it looks like there are sound arguments disproving the electric light theory... Though the Baghdad battery itself is acknowledged to be an approximately half-volt battery device, possibly connected to electroplating. (Or accelerating an existing chemical plating process.)

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

CITIZEN

Saturday, May 20, 2006 5:04 PM

Yes, it's only a theory and it's not at all well supported, really just a few images that look like electric lighting.

I find the Celtic cross thing the most interesting:

Quote:
With my experience of navigation as a qualified Yachtmaster, I turned my experimentation to discover if the ancient mariners could find latitude and longitude with the cross. The experiments conducted, confirmed that the ancients could find their position anywhere on the Earth within 3 nautical miles with a hand held device. This discovery may help to prove that it was possible for sailors such as the Phoenicians to have made regular trading contact with the Americas in pre Columbian times. It also may explain the mysterious navigation skills of the Polynesians. This discovery also helps support pioneers of the theory of ancient intercontinental travel such as Thor Heyderhal with his Kon Tiki and Ra expeditions.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_5.htm

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
"I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall'." -- Eleanor Roosevelt.

TAYEATRA

Saturday, May 20, 2006 5:14 PM

One of the things that fascinated me as a child was ancient medicine or medicinal knowledge.

I realise that some of these things were accidental (egyptian eyeshadow for one) but I did hear that the ancient mesapotamians(sp?) knew a lot about the human body from their autopsy procedures.

They would submerge the body in treated water until the skin would peel off in layers. The muscles and major organs would stay relatively intact and allow them to study the human body.

It just used to amuse me to consider who worked that out? Why would they want to experiment with treated water to peel back skin? That isn't a particulary healthy hobby!

Anyway, that's one of my favorite historical random facts.

*****
Taya
*****
I'm going to S3!!!
(*Insert hysterical celebration dance here*)

SOUPCATCHER

Saturday, May 20, 2006 5:19 PM

Cool topic!

I'm putting this in more as a placeholder and then I'll come back later with links. (eta: Okay, that was easier than I thought: http://www.cmog.org/index.asp?pageId=765 )

One of the American civilizations (I think it was the Aztecs) made blades by fracturing a particular igneous rock. Because of the physical properties of the rock the blades had a knife edge that was very very thin, thinner than anything we can manufacture today. It was anecdotally related, by one of the scientists who had discovered how the blades were manufactured, that a colleague had requested his open heart surgery be performed using a blade made in this manner (yeah, yeah, hard to back up this claim ) because of the minimal trauma involved. The sharper the blade the less damage to the tissue on either side of a cut and the easier to heal back together, if I remember correctly.

SOUPCATCHER

Saturday, May 20, 2006 5:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I remember when I was in Philosophy class, I learned that an Ancient Greek philosopher had calculated the approximate circumference of the Earth by measuring shadows. That's some far out stuff.

Yeah, when I first heard that story about Eratosthenes I remember thinking what a cool dude he was

. http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/observatory/eratosthenes/

ANTHONYT

Saturday, May 20, 2006 6:24 PM

One invention of the ancient world that we often overlook is Science Fiction. I have read this material before, and seen television shows on it, but I was thankfully able to extract quotes from Citizen's website.

In India, ancient writings describe armies and gods using flying vehicles to wage war. Unlike other religious documents that satisfy themselves with nondescript 'fiery chariots,' the Indians concocted detailed descriptions of the flying machines and the mechanisms which drove them.

In the Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara, it is written:

"Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mecrcury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth."

Another narrative in the ancient Mahabharate says:

"Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendour. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messaenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas."

Many credit Jules Verne as the father of science fiction, but I can't agree. These texts clearly deal with fantastical effects, but couch them in mechanical devices and weapons. Rather than simply suggest magic or divine might, they go into imagined details of construction and operation.

Kudos to the Ancient Indians for creating the first known science fiction writings. And just like many of Jules Verne's sci-fi machines, the devices imagined by these Ancient Indians came to exist in similar form.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

ANTHONYT

Saturday, May 20, 2006 6:59 PM

"For the Aztecs, obsidian was not only almost ideally suited to all its practical uses, it also had roles in society that transcribed the purely practical. It is almost impossible to imagine such a civilization forsaking this magical, useful, and abundant glass in favor of its methodical development of common metals."

Cool link, Soupcatcher. I guess when nature provides technology for free, there's no need to develop it.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

SOUPCATCHER

Saturday, May 20, 2006 7:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Cool link, Soupcatcher. I guess when nature provides technology for free, there's no need to develop it.

Yeah, the trick is all in the manufacturing. You have to apply a significant amount of force very accurately. You shear the rock along a flat plane and then have to shear the rock along a plane at a slight angle to the first. I found out about this at one of my manufacturing seminars where we had an archeologist demostrate. He took about ten minutes to line up the second strike and then slammed as hard as he could. You could easily shave the hair off your arm with the resulting sliver. It actually gave me a smoother shave than my multiple blade razor (and that's with hot pores and shaving gel).

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