Ancient Mysteries We think space is mysterious, and it is, but there are a lot of mysteries right here on earth. I thought it would be interesting to talk about a few of the ancient ones. One would think by now we would have solved all the ancient mysteries, but there are plenty of them left for us to ponder. We all know ancient Egypt was famous for its incredible structures, that certainly is not a mystery, but even though we have found and even moved some of them, one of the largest ever to have existed still hasn’t been found. The structure was said to have at least 3,000 rooms. Can you imagine the size it must have been? No, it was not a pyramid. An ancient Greek historian named Herodotus wrote about the structure in the 5th century B.C. The Greeks named it the Labyrinth because it had a maze of hallways. Many other ancient historians spoke about the wonders of this structure which was said to be a temple complex. Some of them even said they had visited it. Herodotus put a description of the Labyrinth in one of his historical works. He talked about the many passages and rooms and how they were all adorned with paintings and carvings. Here is his description, “it has twelve courts covered in, with gates facing one another, six upon the North side and six upon the South, joining on one to another, and the same wall surrounds them all outside; and there are in it two kinds of chambers, the one kind below the ground and the other above upon these, three thousand in number, of each kind fifteen hundred. The upper set of chambers we ourselves saw;… but the chambers underground we heard about only… For the passages through the chambers, and the goings this way and that way through the courts, which were admirably adorned, afforded endless matter for marvel, as we went through from a court to the chambers beyond it, and from the chambers to colonnades, and from the colonnades to other rooms, and then from the chambers again to other courts. Over the whole of these is a roof made of stone like the walls; and the walls are covered with figures carved upon them, each court being surrounded with pillars of white stone fitted together most perfectly; and at the end of the labyrinth, by the corner of it, there is a pyramid of forty fathoms, upon which large figures are carved, and to this there is a way made under ground. Such is this labyrinth.” So far, the labyrinth has not been found. One of the most mysterious books ever written was created in the 13th century by a monk. One has to wonder if he was in his right mind at the time or suffering from mental illness. Perhaps he was a devil worshipper? Anyway, his creation became known as the Devil’s Bible. It was a huge book. There is a story attached to this, but like all stories from a very long time ago, we have to understand it might not be true, or has been embellished so much it no longer has any relationship to the true facts. It is said the monk was sentenced to be walled up alive for breaking his vows. The monk was said to have made a deal with the devil to gain time to finish his book. The deal was he would give his soul to the devil and in turn the devil would allow him to finish this tome in one day. When the book was examined in modern times experts came to the conclusion the book was written by only one person and it looks by the writing he was in a hurry. We realize today mental illness was not understood in ancient times and people who had it were thought of as being possessed; thus, this may be the reason for the legend. Sometimes an object which seems to have been quite common for an ancient is found and we just have no idea what it was or why it was used or even if it had a use. Such is the purpose of the Roman Dodecahedrons. These were metal objects which had a vague round shape and contained holes. The holes were large for the object and look as though a spear handle could fit through them. The object also had small leg like protrusions all around which the object would stand on no matter how it was set down. The object has twelve sides. Over the years experts in archaeology have made hundreds of guesses about what the objects were for, but no one really knows. No discussion of ancient mysterious objects would be complete without mentioning one which seems impossible considering when and how it was constructed. I am talking about the Antikythera Mechanism. It was found covered with ocean debris on a Greek shipwreck which was dated back to about 60 B.C. The corroded object sat in the basement of a museum for almost a hundred years then someone thought it might be a good idea to X-Ray the object to see what it was. After the X-Rays were taken and the result studied, scientists couldn’t believe their eyes. They had found a mechanical computer. It operated on precision gears which shouldn’t have existed until about 1,400 years later. We don’t know who created it but the guesses have been made. We don’t even know if there were more of these devices or if it was used to guide Greek ships across the ocean. There are places which exist, but according to science shouldn’t because humans were supposed to be hunter gathers at the time and were said never to stay in one place too long as they moved on to follow the herds of animals. If this is true why did they stay around so long to construct a magnificent group of carvings and a temple at Gobekli Tepi in Turkey? The temple is so old we can’t even be sure of its age. Some estimates of its age put it at about 11,000 B.C. but others say it is far older. This isn’t the only mystery about the temple. We really don’t know how the carvings in hard stone were accomplished by a people who only had stone tools. Could it be we are wrong about the time line for metal tool making and even for humans deciding to cultivate the land and stop moving around? Perhaps it wasn’t the same everywhere?
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