Ancient Objects and Structures One of the things we are finding is human beings seem to have gotten to just about every corner of this globe in ancient times. The dates for human habitation of the earth keep getting pushed back. Science has dated the earth as being 4.5 billion years old, but there is always a chance they are wrong even though the figure has been accepted by the scientific community. Look how many people in the past thought the earth was flat or the earth was at the center of the universe. As we find out we seem to be an older race than first thought and we got around a lot earlier to different places in the world than was expected, might we not find even these dates are wrong and there is even older evidence of our existence we might find? Petroglyphs have been found in many different places in Ecuador. One of the problems is the forests they are in are disappearing. Many of the petroglyphs, which are carvings or drawings on rocks by prehistoric people, have not been figured out yet. Could they contain a message which might tell us more about the people who made them or about knowledge they had about some of the things we don’t understand today? There are plenty of mysteries on the earth left and maybe some could be answered by these ancient people. The ice in many places is hiding evidence of human settlements and even graves and such. An example of this is a dig which was conducted in Norway. As the dig was going on the archaeologists hit pay dirt. They had never expected to find such a vast number of objects. They found lots of tools, artifacts and weapons all belonging to Vikings. The area had not been touched for over 1,000 years. It was an archaeologists’ dream. As ice melts things begin to appear. This is how Otzi was found. Otzi was a mummified human from 5,300 years ago. Some hikers were walking along and saw a body sticking out of the ice and notified the authorities. They had no idea it was an ancient body. It had been under the ice all this time and as the ice melted it was revealed. It is believed the man was murdered. When he was found he had some interesting things on his person, such as a copper axe, which must have been his prize possession. We also learned what his diet was by examining the contents of his stomach. The director of the museum contacted the police and asked a detective if he worked on cold cases to which he replied yes, but he couldn’t believe what he was being asked to investigate and that was how Otzi died. He decided it was a murder and Otzi was shot with an arrow from about 100 feet away. He also felt it was an ambush. This had to be the coldest case ever worked on by any police. Germany has their own Stonehenge type and it is only about 85 miles from the capital. It was restored in 2016 and is a wood ringed structure. Now something related to this structure has been found. Archaeologists believe they have found proof there were homes at the structure and they believe this means the structure was very important to the people. The location is said to be the largest known settlement in central Europe in the Bronze Age. Archaeologists have found the remains of a huge Thracian tower, along with a wall and a large ditch. Along with these finds were pieces of pottery, and coins which date back to the first century B.C. It is believed these were defensive positions and they were located in Bulgaria. Proof of trading with the city of Pergamum was also found. Pergamum was located in Anatolia. Let’s talk about the Greek Acropolis, which is one of the most important ancient places in the world. Some say it is even the most important because it represents the birth of democracy. Acropolis means the highest point. In 1687 the Parthenon was damaged by cannon fire in the Morean War. There were other temples on the acropolis which also suffered damage in battles over the years. The Parthenon had been converted into a Christian church, but when the Ottomans conquered the city in 1460 it was converted into a mosque. The acropolis is one of the earliest known settlements in Greece. One has to wonder sometimes why some ancient structures are found where they are. Take for example one of the islands of Scotland. A discovery was made on the Isle of Arran. Archaeologists have discovered an ancient temple which is over 5,000 years old. They believe people back then would travel from Scotland to make a pilgrimage to the temple. If we were to see the temple today, we might think it was just a strange rock, but apparently this was not what the archaeologists thought. I wonder how many of you have seen the movie Tremors? Several sequels were also made. I ask this question because they were about giant worm like creatures who would eat you. Burrows have been found of giant predatory worms which existed millions of years ago and went the way of the dinosaurs, thank goodness. They were in the ocean and not on land and as big as a human being. Fossils of the animals have been found. An amazing discovery was made in Spain. As archaeologists opened an ancient tomb there was this beautiful crystal dagger. I don’t believe anything like this was found before. It dates back to at least 5,000 years ago. It is said tools made from rock crystals were rare and thought to be precious by the people of the time, so they cherished them. There is no doubt they were the most beautiful of tools. It was found in Valencia de la Conception, which is near the city of Seville. A relic from the Great Pyramid in Egypt was found in the last place anyone would suspect. The relic is 5,000 years old and is from before the construction of the Great Pyramid. It is from the Queen’s chamber in the pyramid and has been found in a cigar box in Scotland. The box was hidden among the archives. The piece had been put in the wrong collection and that is one of the reasons it had remained undiscovered all these years. It makes one wonder how many other objects in museums around the world have been misplaced?
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