Ancient Discoveries

Some of the ancients never cease to amaze us with their craftsmanship. When it comes to craftsmanship in creating objects which seem far too advanced for them to be able to make, the Romans fooled us. There is an object known as the Lycurgus Cup. It is not an ordinary cup, but a cup which will change color depending on the light. This cup has puzzled archaeologists ever since it was found, because no one could figure out how the Romans did this. It is no longer a mystery today, but what is a mystery is the fact the cup used nano technology to achieve this. The cup was a technological marvel. It has famous figures carved into it from mythology. To achieve the color change the glass was mixed with nano particles of gold and silver. Somehow the Romans made a colloid which is a solution of microscopically dispersed gold and silver particles which was suspended in a liquid and disbursed throughout the glass. The figures on the glass have been hollowed out so the glass is the same thickness all the way around. The glass is from 400 A.D. and the colors vary depending on how the light hits the glass. It is considered a marvel of engineering and we can’t figure out how the Romans were able to grind the gold and silver so finely into nano particles.

Sometimes an ancient object is found, but its use is shrouded in mystery. Such objects are the bronze Roman artifacts known as Dodecahedra. Experts have been arguing over their purpose for years and still we don’t seem to have a clear-cut use for them. To make matters even harder, they have been found in many different countries and are not all exactly the same. Some are covered in symbols and some are not. They have been found in France, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany and even Switzerland. Some of the symbols and writing is undecipherable. Other symbols have been matched to the signs of the Zodiac. There is a similar Roman object known as the Icosahedron. Both are hollow and have bulbus stubby legs all around. Experts have guessed the uses of the Dodecahedra, but they really don’t know. Some have said it could be a surveying tool or a leveling tool. Others have said it might be a candle holder, flower holder or some sort of toy, among other uses. We may never have an answer to this question.

I guess if I am talking about amazing ancient objects I must mention once again the ancients had discovered electricity. This electricity was found in the form of a battery. The battery is known as the Baghdad Battery. It is a small clay jar which has an iron rod inside a copper cylinder which is soldered closed and which the ancients sealed with asphalt. Why would anyone who lived around 250 B.C. need a small electrical current? We can’t be sure; however, some believe this was used in plating jewelry. It makes one wonder how this procedure to produce electricity was ever discovered. Scientists tell us we are evolving faster than ever, but some of the ancients were extremely smart and maybe even smarter than many of us today.

While digging in a prehistoric hilltop in Germany an incredible object was found known as the Nebra Sky Disc. It was found to be about 3,600 years old. When first found it was thought to be a hoax, but since then scientists realized it was genuine and the first portable object ever found which can measure certain movements in the sky. It was included on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register. The object was found along with two swords, two axes, some rings and a bronze chisel. The object is inlaid with gold symbols, is round and has stars, a crescent moon and perhaps a full moon or sun on it. There is an arc along one part of the bottom, but its meaning is unknown. It is believed the object can mark solstices, much the same way they can be marked by Stonehenge.

There is no doubt some of our ancestors were extremely smart and some were even geniuses. Do we have more geniuses today as a percent of our population? Perhaps not.