The Ten Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts

[Dover]

http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa011402a.htm

[Yupster]

1. Good reading Dover

Thanks for the post.

[eleonora]

2. nice stuff, makes me want to do more research n/t

[NamVetsWeeLass]

3. Good Article, thanks for posting it. eom

[Papa]

4. The Dropa stones have pretty much well been debunked.

If you like reading about mysterious stuff like this, also check out http://www.world-mysteries.com/ . Great website if you haven't been there.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Info on the Dropa stones

I haven't seen any "debunkings" (assuming they're fakes) but would like to check this out.

The Dropa Stones are interesting artifacts, but other than one ideosyncratic translation, there's nothing to go on about what they are. As for the stories that Chinese (and/or Russian) engineers were able to "play" the discs like enormous CDs, that's also doubtful. Of course, we are assured that there has been a mighty conspiracy to keep the truth about the stone discs from becoming better known.

Still, they're big, weird, and well-crafted things, and there are supposed to be about 700 of them locked away in storage somewhere.

--bkl

[Papa]

6. Im at work and havent had too much time to find the articles I was looking

for but here is a nice post

.......

The Dropa Stones are hoaxes. You can't translate something without a base for the code (a plate or table of ancient Chinese characters that copy a text from one language to the other; the Rosetta Stone.) With just little scrawls of hieroglyphs, you don't know if they represent syllables (ala Egyptian) or whole words (Chinese/Japanese) or some combination or individual letters (English). You can't even guess how many letters total are in the language (we hardly use Z or Q or X in our manuscripts, but they're letters in our language).

There's lots of other problems with the story that indicate it's a real hoax. Including the problem that "Tsum Um Nui " (the name of the Chinese Professor) isn't a Chinese name. Or a name in any other language.

And there's no tribe named the Dropa in Tibet or any other Himalayan area.

And Beijing University doesn't have an "Academy of Prehistory" (nor does any other university in China)
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/6981/china.html



And you can't test stones with an oscilloscope. That's just silly.


Also found this in Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&threadm=40b542ab%241_2%40127.0.0.1&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Ddropa%2Bstones%26hl%3Den%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch


Well, it appears that the suspicions that these things are fakes were
justified. I am passing along the reply of Dr. Murowchick at Boston
U. to my query about these stones. His response is unequivocal.


> Hi Charles,
> Thanks for your interesting e-mail. Unfortunately, the so-called
Dropa Stones are some sort of hoax that simply refuses to die. There
are no Chinese archaeologists named Chi Pu Tei or Tsum Um Nui, and
none of the other "details" in these various Dropa stories add up. As
far as I can tell, the story first came to light through the energies
of Erich von Daniken, the Swiss fellow who made a fortune concocting
all sorts of fantasies about ancient astronauts visiting Earth. It is
all BS: there are many carved jade and other stone rings (most
commonly called "bi disks") from prehistoric cultures in China,
particularly from the time period of ca. 5000-2500 BC, and these are
well documented in the archaeological literature. None have writing,
and while their exact meaning is still being debated, there is no
need -- and certainly NO evidence-- to resort to anything
extraterrestrial or supernatural. Instead of fostering further
publicity for the so-called Dropa Stones and other such nonsense, I
would urge you to guide your students instead to the many genuine
archaeological problems that face us today in our research.
>
> You might also want to discuss with your students the prevalence of
what we call "Fantastic Archaeology" - that is, resorting to
extraterrestrial or supernatural explanations to explain selected
artifacts or sites. The various Von Daniken books are fun to read as
long as one realizes how thoroughly they can be picked apart. His
volumes are part of a long tradition of pseudo-science dating back
hundreds of years in the US. You can find interesting details in
volumes such as Stephen Williams, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild
Side of North American Prehistory (Philadelphia: U Penn Press, 1991),
and Kenneth L. Feder's Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and
Pseudoscience in Archaeology (Boston: McGraw-Hill Mayfield, 2002).
>
> Yrs,
> Bob Murowchick
>
>
> Research Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology
> Director
> International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History (ICEAACH)
> Boston University
> 650 Beacon Street, 5th Floor
> Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA
>
> Email: <[e-mail]>
> Web site: http://www.bu.edu/asianarc


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[Dogmudgeon]

7. Good stuff! Thanks!

The letter from Prof. Murowchick is especially appreciated.

There actually may be a group of people called something like the "Dropa" ... I think the actual transliteration in Pinyin is "Dzopa". It's southern Chinese, not Tibetan. But even with this, it's far from the same story, and would have nothing to do with ETs.

The story of the Dropa/Dzopa discs does pre-date von Däniken; I believe it emerged in Fate magazine in the early or mid 1960s, a few years before Chariots of the Gods? was published. Robert Charroux, who wrote books along the same lines as von Däniken (but much better documented, although I'm sure most of his own sources were erroneous) and had a minor best-seller with One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Unknown History.

I've been in one of those unique binds regarding my reading in archeology. I'm inclined to think there is something to many ancient legends, but it doesn't take aliens or other paranormal phenomena to make the case. There's no reason why there couldn't have been isolated cultures with advanced skills of one sort or another. Local advances in metallurgy, mathematics, construction, weaving, astronomy, herbal lore, etc., could persist for a very long time, but any artifact that didn't use stone or metal would not last nearly as long, especially if the craftspeople lived in areas that were affected by the Ice Age.

Last night, I posted an enthusiastic note about the discovery of human artifacts in South Carolina dating back 50 kYA. I strongly feel that we're coming to a point in archeology/anthropology where we will be making so many astounding finds soon, that belief in ETs, Atlantis, and other stock legends will be surpassed by the far-"cooler" reality.

Thanks again for the supporting info!

--bkl

[Papa]

9. your welcome.... Sometimes I'm not sure what to think however.

Im a newbie when it comes to archeology but from what I've read I tend to think that there was an ancient civilization which existed before our recorded history .... but then on other days after reading more academic type works I think maybe not.

There are a number of things that strike me that do not fit into our accepted history. Somewhere off the coast of Japan underwater there's the Yonaguni structures which could be over 10,000 years old if they are man made. To me, they definitely look man made.

The Pyramids, and how they were built. We still don't know how they lifted some of those massive blocks and how it was put together. I think the Egyptians built the pyramids but maybe they had some kind of help or used knowledge that was handed down to them. Just how could a "primitive" culture do this kind of stuff?

The "golden highway" which refers to many ancient monuments that just happen to all line up, you could draw a line right through them. That really blew my mind that so many ancient monuments are right on this line or lie almost right on it. That's more than just coincidence.

There's lots more, but those are a few things that I thought of right off the top of my head in which I have yet to read anything that convinced me otherwise, and leaves me open to thinking that there was previous civilization. There is so much that we still don't know...

[Dogmudgeon]

10. The Old Stuff

Acceptance of finds in archeology is a little like boxing. In order for a contender to win against the champ, the contender has to knock the champ out. Anything less than a decisive win isn't good enough.

At least, that's according to a friend of mine who followed boxing.

There's a lot of very old, very strange artifacts that pre-date "the oldest" settlements (Jericho and Çatal Huyük, 6000 BCE) but no organizing context has been found. So all we have is evidence of the well-developed intelligence of humans but nothing conclusive on the early cultures -- cultures that could conceivably date to the first humans 100-150 kYA, and (my own pet theory) extend back through the Erect (Homo erectus) lineage perhaps two million years.

The Yonaguni structures are one such example. The controversy is over their origin. They might, after all, be regular-shaped basalt or granite boulders of natural origin. Same thing for the Bimini findings that were once touted as "proof" of Atlantis. Recent findings off Cuba and off the west coast of India are similar, and suggest belonging to an era at the end of the Ice Age, when the sea level rose some 300 feet in a matter of 5000 years.

The Hancock/Bauvel/Schoch school of thought -- that the Sphinx was built when the Sahara was a prairie -- straddles the line between conservative archeology and the fringes. I think their approach will be fruitful (if not all of their speculations).

Given the choice, I'm willing to bet on a far more intelligent early history for humans than we're used to -- even non-Sapiens humans (I consider "human" to be the entire genus Homo). I can more easily imagine pre-historic Basques circumnavigating the Atlantic basin 25000 years ago than thinking they just hung out moping around the cave for 20000 of those years.

This will be an exciting age for archeology and anthropology. We can already see where it's going, even if the pros have to play their hands close to their chests. Human intelligence didn't just develop a week after the Younger-Dryas era thawed out. 8000 years is a long time for human history, but 100,000 years seems more likely. And if we should happen to find evidence of a well-developed culture of Erects dating back two million years, I won't at all be surprised.

--bkl

[Soloflecks]

15. Here's a clear view to how they think.

For years, paleontologists have believed that ice blocked overland migration from Asia to the Americas until 13,000 years ago. As a result, the profession has routinely ignored evidence of a human presence in the Americas prior to this date, no matter how compelling.
(snip)
This would explain some of the ‘anomalous’ early human sites that have been found in the Americas, but largely ignored as being impossible.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4003325.stm

[semillama]

18. loved 'Fantastic Archaeology'

as an archaeologist, I can tell you that a lot of stuff gets blown way out of proportion, especially when it comes to things like 'sunken cities.' One thing to keep in mind is that civilizations produce GARBAGE. That's what archaeologists study after all, the stuff that gets left behind after the humans move on. Compare actual sunken cities like Alexandria to the supposed ones in India and Japan - all you have there are supposed structures, but where's the garbage? where are the broken vessels? If you have cities, then you have to have the precursors - towns, villages, camps. Where are those?

One thing that most people aren't aware of is just how much archaeology goes on around them. Pretty much every federal project that involves ground disturbance, or any project that involves federal monies or permits, has some archaeology involved in it because of historic preservation laws (thanks, laws, for keeping me employed!). For a good example of this, check out the recently published "Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City."

In fact, I am about to leave for the field in a couple minutes. They're building a new highway interchange and I have a crew in the field surveying the right of way to identify any possibly significant sites.

Anyway, I would strongly recommend Fantastic Archaeology for anyone. It's a great read!

[I7G0D]

17. Papa.

Love that site....its a keeper.

[Unstuck In Time]

8. Cool. They even include a spellcheck artifact.

"Over the last few hundred years, many perplexing artifacts have been unearthed that do not fit the currently excepted theories of geology and the history of man."

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Well, it IS spelled correctly

Whaddaya want ... a psychic spell checker? :)

--bkl

[Unstuck In Time]

13. But that's what a spellcheck artifact is...

... a word that sounds right to the ear, shows up in a dictionary just fine, gets the software's seal of approval -- but is just glaringly wrong when encountered by the reader.

Believe me, I've learned it the hard way, too: spellchecking does not equal proofreading.

:)

[GATOR MONROE]

12. bAALBEK and the trilothon

today , stones of that size are impossible to move, 1000 to 1400 tons each. it would cost hundreds of millions to quarry and move them.

[Pepperbelly]

14. 2.5 BILLION years!!!

All I could manage after reading that was a Bill-and-Ted-style, "Whoa."

[I7G0D]

16. Thanks

Interesting site.

[juajen]

19. Thank you very much. This was fascinating stuff

Funny thing about the little people(the Dopa). Didn't the latest National Geographic discovery touted as "Hobbit discovery on Flores(?)Island state that they traveled there from China perhaps? Maybe they're all descendants from out-of-space visitors.

This was a refreshing change from politics. Many thanks, I needed this.