Ancient Discoveries We really don’t know as much about our past as we think we do. First of all, our history is an interpretation by someone or others and could even be a fabrication of what really happened. Secondly, how can one know about past civilizations which have passed which we know nothing about. Sometimes a civilization has no written records, but other times even if they did, we still have not found them. Recently a new civilization was just discovered. We had no idea it ever existed. Even more interesting is the fact the archaeologists are calling it a major kingdom. Archaeologists were doing what archaeologists do, they were digging into a mound. There are mounds all over the planet and surprisingly some of them were really places which contained bodies and artifacts of past peoples. This time the dig was going on in Turkey, a place which is rife with ruins from many different cultures. If I was a guessing man, I would guess Turkey has more ruins from more different races than any other country on earth. Anatolia was one of the oldest regions in the world and it is in Western Turkey. Alexander the Great conquered it in 334 B.C. The early Turks were a nomadic people. They were conquered by the Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Ottoman Empire. Above are some of the countries which conquered the area we know today as Turkey. There might be more we know nothing about. Back to the archaeologists digging in the mound. The mound was located in central Turkey. The archaeologists had been met by a farmer. The farmer had some information he wanted to tell them about. He had made a strange discovery and wanted them to know. The farmer had found a large stone with strange writing on it and told them about it. It got their interest. The stone’s strange language was known to the archaeologists. The language was an ancient one known as Luwian. This is a language which had been used in the area in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The stone told about a military victory over Anatolia about 3,000 years ago. Another incredible thing was the king of Anatolia was said to be the legendary King Midas. Just about nothing was known about the conquerors except they now knew the king’s name, it was Hartapu. The mound is believed to be hiding the capital city of Hartapu. The archaeologists said they had no idea about this and were very surprised by the discovery. Ancient jungle cities are being discovered from time to time. Two of them have been discovered in the last 7 years or so which were lost ancient Maya ones. When ancient Maya cities are found they usually contain incredible constructions like pyramids and temples along with other large monuments. One of the cities had been discovered previously but had been lost again. How does this happen? I guess jungle growth changes over time and people die and if a precise measurement of the location is not made initially, this can happen. The other city was a brand new discovery. The entrance to the refound city is a giant mouth. This city contained a giant pyramid, palace ruins and four large plazas. The city was named Lagunita and is the newer of the two cities, being dated from around 711 A.D. The other city contained among other things a pyramid temple, with a large acropolis which had three temples around it. This city was called Tamchen and is believed to date back to around 300 B.C. Who knows what else could be in the jungles of South and Central America, there might even be a city from an unknown race? One cannot eliminate the chance of finding unknown cities in the almost impenetrable jungles. We are finding some of the ancient discoveries of temples and such had secrets which we didn’t realize at first. One ancient Egyptian temple was being restored. It was covered with soot from the hundreds and maybe thousands of years of torch light. After it was cleaned up a surprise discovery was made. Not only did the original colors become visible but paintings and carvings were like new again and one of the carvings depicted the Big Dipper and other constellations, including of course Orion. When we talk about ancient things, one of the big mysteries is stone tools. It seems scientists are finding out they date back further than even the Neanderthals to Homo Erectus and maybe before. The knowledge had to be passed down for thousands of generations. I personally have wondered why in all this time we didn’t advance further. What event if any changed us into people who became inventors and curious enough to try and improve things? We may never know the answer to this question. There is an area in the ocean known as the Dead Zone. In it are about 60 ships which are preserved from the time of Alexander the Great through the 19th century. It is said the ships are frozen in time. So far, the oldest ship seen there is from 400 B.C. It is a Greek trading ship. The area was found by scientists mapping the seabed with sonar and remote vehicles. Interestingly, 3D models were made of the vessels. The ships are spread out over 700 square miles. The largest dead zone in the sea is found in the lower portion of the Black Sea. It is formed when the water of the Black Sea mixes with the Mediterranean Sea flowing through the Bosporus strait. Something has taken place which I find very interesting. Ancient mechanical inventions by ancient Greeks have been reconstructed and put into a museum in Athens. The ancient Greeks were incredibly smart and invented some things which seem to be light years ahead of the technology of the time. They invented the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical computer which floored the world when it was discovered what it was. They invented robots, a self-controlled rolling theater, automated steam controlled doors, the aeolosphere which was the first steam engine, the oldest keyboard instrument and the hydraulic ticking clock among other inventions. Where did we go wrong? We failed to build on these inventions and if we would have, we probably would have gotten to the stars already. We just let all these inventions age and for the most part disappear. When the Romans sacked Alexandra in Egypt, they burnt all the records in the library, literally wiping out the information about these inventions for a thousand years.
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