The modern cuckoo, pushing diversity out of the nest
As many of you will know from my previous posts, I am a fan of our more enlightened past, which in many ways we are still catching up with - and I don’t just mean the spiritual aspects of the ancient lifestyle. At some point it will become apparent that our ancient relatives were as technologically capable, if not more so, than we are currently - many of you will want to stop reading round about now, because the concept is so ridiculous when everything we have been taught has been to the contrary. So, let’s get a few examples out of the way to have something of a more level playing field.
Many of you will have come across the Antikythera mechanism, which was discovered in 1901 and is a device that has been dated back to 200-100BC. It consisted of a set of bronze and other metals used to make a system of gears whose purpose was imagined but impossible to determine with any sense of certainty at the time it was discovered. Using modern techniques, we now know this device was used to track and predict the movements of the sun, moon, planets and even eclipses using a complicated set of gears, now described as the worlds first computer.
The Baghdad battery was discovered in 1930 and consists of a clay jar, a copper cylinder and an iron rod. If the copper cylinder is filled with a weak acid like vinegar or grape juice it generates a weak voltage. Whilst it is impressive that ancient cultures might be able to design and build modest batteries, more worrying is that we have no idea why they would have needed batteries around 250BC. Possible examples include metal plating for jewellery, however, this would imply a level of understanding in physics and chemistry that we don’t associate with ancient peoples.
The carvings at Abydos and the Saqqara bird are both remnants from ancient Egyptian culture that do more than simply hint at the concept of aircraft and powered travel, going back as far as 2,000BC. Whilst I cannot deny the possibility that they could illustrate something similar but unrelated, a helicopter, a speed boat and a submarine are a little too coincidental and most likely would not have been understood as representations of such until the 1900s. A great example of ancient information not understood at the time of discovery.
The amazing engineering capabilities of the Romans is highlighted by the durability and resilience of their concrete, which may sound like an unusual source for praise but hear me out. Roman concrete is so good, modern organizations/municipalities are looking to replicate it due to it being environmentally more sound and having a much longer lifespan - Roman concrete exposed to marine conditions has been found with practically no wear after 2,000 years..
The concept of the atom, something I have as always thought of as a relatively modern concept, has actually been around since 500BC and was recorded by Leucippus and Democritus in ancient Greece, who believed the world was made of invisibly small building blocks which they called atomos, from which we get the modern word of atom.
Similar to modern times, the ancients were familiar with the arts of contraception, although by different means to the ones taken today. This was achieved through the use of the Silphium plant, we are not sure of the modern identity of the plant although many images of the Silphium plant exist in ancient Greek and Roman coins and texts. So favoured was the plants use in this context that it is believed that the modern heart symbol for love derives from the shape of its seeds.
The astronomical knowledge of the ancient Sumerians was far ahead of the cultures and civilizations that followed them, over 6,000 years ago they were aware of the existence of the planets and that they orbit around the sun. The Sumerians called the planets “wanderers”, a term that has survived down to the Greeks whose also used the verb “to wander” to describe them, planasthai, from which our modern word of planet derives.
I did have a much longer list, however, I don’t want this blog to simply be a catalogue of things that do not fit within the bounds of our historical norms. Our beliefs of how our reality works and what is included in it, is set in place at a very early age by our schooling, built on concepts we were not equipped to question at the time and which gave us our view on the world as we grew up. The recent historical evidence we are unearthing are building a picture we are not familiar with, suggesting that our history and origins might not be what we have been taught. The problem is that our systems and beliefs are so entrenched in the dogma built around them that we are actively smothering these findings, preventing any semblance of truth from impinging on the integrity of our systems. If as a a species we choose to live in ignorance that is one thing, when a subset of the species are choosing for everyone else to remain ignorant, that is a different matter altogether.
What I find particularly galling are our current behaviours to hide, drown out or discredit any form of belief structure that doesn’t conform to the current one, that is why I use the analogy of the cuckoo in the title: our current systems are determined to push these other systems out of the nest. In our haste to solidify our modern belief systems, we are not making the checks and balances we should to ensure it is the right thing or the sustainable way forwards. We have seen these intolerances for religions; cultural behaviours; alternative forms of medicines; evolutionary beliefs; racial beliefs etc. in the past with little success in the long term.
Life is experiential, what is right for one person is not right for another, this is the back bone of a diverse culture. Conformity among populations is the death of diversity and incompatible with a rich culture. We have so much to learn from history that we couldn’t understand previously because we simply were not advanced enough at the time. In a most Indiana Jones type of twist, governments are trying to study the old structures associated with “ancient magics” as the realization dawns that many of these weren’t magic at all, simply more advanced technologies that couldn’t be easily explained or understood. So our archaeology has turned into the search for more advanced technologies than we have today, I wonder how many of our belief systems that people have given their lives defending, will become unsustainable. Will any will be allowed to fall, after all, some truths may be deemed too dangerous for the public to learn about because of the disruption it would cause.
I write these blogs not just to express what I have learnt or what I believe but also to try and inspire people to find out the truths for yourselves. Not every book or web page or political statement is true, it is often biased by some else’s beliefs or biased by what someone will gain financially or politically by spreading such information. Being able to decipher what is genuinely true and what is misinformation gets harder and harder these days, even modern news channels are more propaganda than genuine news. If it is important to you, then I would suggest digging deeper to find your answers.
I’ll end with the famous quote from Robert Oppenheimer, who was the war time head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is one of the physicists from the Manhattan Project credited with being the father of the atomic bomb. Following the Trinity atomic bomb test Oppenheimer was asked if Trinity was the first ever of such a bomb to be detonated, his response was “Yes, in modern times.” Oppenheimer was well versed in Sanskrit and familiar with ancient scriptures and clearly believed that our ancestors had also managed to harness the destructive power of the atom. How much further did they get?
