Ancient Knowledge

[Enrique]

Hello!

Researching about Ptolemies and egypt, I re-watched one of my favourite documentaries and I wanted to share it with you. I'm a documentary addict about practically everything: math, science, energies, history, religion (even some conspiracies! ^^) and specially ancient civilizations and forbidden archeology/origins of man.

I discovered this video some time ago, and the content really shocked me (and it's kind of related to 0AD so I thought it was a good idea to share it here )

This is the 3rd part of a 6 part series called "Ancient Knowledge". This part is about pyramids and ancient monuments. If you like this part, I strongly recommend you to start the series from part 1. They're really, really awesome and mind-blowing. I hope you like it as much as I do. (And don't forget to share here some cool documentaries )

[idanwin]

I don't trust this at all...

They certainly knew more than given credit for, but it is difficult to say how much more.

Also, some of the ideas stated as a fact in this documentary are not scientifically proven and should therefore not be stated as a fact, but proposed as a hypothesis.

Anything could be chance, you can't just remove that possibility.

The documentary does propose some interesting ideas, but having read many books on the tinkering with statistical and scientific data, I have to do more profound research on the subject before I say anything else about it.

They lost me entirely at "more advanced civilisation".

Interesting series to watch, with a few spoons full of suspicion and criticism.

I'm a huge BBC and National Geographic documentary watcher, I read at least 6 scientific journals each month (not including computer science journals) and I can't help analysing things for a deeper meaning when I watch/read/listen (something I got from my prof Latin Mr Mingeot). My favourite writers are Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman because you need to have imagination, knowledge and an analysing mind to fully understand what they are talking about.

Some entertaining documentaries I would propose you watch are "Tomorrow's World" (BBC), "Andrew Marr's History of the World" (BBC), "Kingdom's of South America" (BBC), "Drugs Inc" (NG), "Supersized Earth" (BBC), "The Story of Science" (BBC), "How Hard Can It Be" (NG) and The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, which are meant for children, but what the hell ^^, they are soooo good!

[Pedro Falcão]

I don't know why, but i feel more attracted to History Channel's documentaries than to Nat Geo's (although they repeat the same thing a lot to extend the duration of the episode, but i guess everyone does that).

like this one: http://youtu.be/I7GPYHazcKU

[FeXoR]

Just some comments to the video (I more or less painlessly managed to watch it ^^):

Whoever tells you he's telling you the "truth", don't trust him.

Exactly: The word "exactly" does not fit for any kind of knowledge we have beyond maths. Carelessly in science if a theory withstood many tries to proof it wrong it is assumed to be right or even a fact - though it indeed should be seen as "the closest thing describing reality of all the things we thought of and have thoroughly tested". Still it's the best we got IMO. So all measurements are not at all "exact" but only "extremely precise".

Ley-Lines: If you take anything appearing regularly like e.g. phone boxes, you can connect most of them with only a few lines. Still no one would assume that they where placed there on purpose. This effect even gets stronger on the surface of an orb.

Meters: It's extremely unlikely that the length unit "meter" was used by Egyptians. This length is just a totally artificial and arbitrary social convention and could be any other length. Same with the convention that speed of light is most of the times given in km/s. That km are 1000 m is a convention as well. So 3 conventions need to be the same back than and now which is extremely unlikely. (I feel ashamed for the Physicist who didn't at least state that if nothing else).

If the "main ley-line" would have marked the equator back than the structures would not have been oriented according to the magnetic poles at that time. So at least one of the conclusions have to be wrong (But who knows? They might come up with a theory that they managed to predict when mankind would be able to get their massage and oriented their monuments according to this ^^).

What seems indeed quite unlikely to me is that ancient Egyptians cut there stones with other stones. Maybe we have not yet found the tools they used ore maybe they vanished over time so we might never "know". But assuming how they did it does not really help without evidence.

I agree with idanwin that historic sciences systematically underestimate the abilities of ancient cultures. But that's mainly because they are cautious (some psychological effects might strengthen this though).

Edited April 15, 2013 by FeXoR

[kosmo]

You know Cornelis de Jagers Radosophie?

He measured 4 parameters of a dutch womens bicycle and with few mathematical operations he obtained the gravitational constant, the speed of light, the fine-structure constant, the ratio of the mass of proton to the mass of the electron - and all with a deviation of less then 10^-4

So the builders of the dutch womens bicycle must have had a deep knowledge about our universe and its structure!

Fact is, if you can choose your system arbritarily and use arbritarily mathematical operations you can get any number you want with any accuracy you want, so I would use ockhams razor here.

[idanwin]

Meters: It's extremely unlikely that the length unit "meter" was used by Egyptians. This length is just a totally artificial and arbitrary social convention and could be any other length. Same with the convention that speed of light is most of the times given in km/s. That km are 1000 m is a convention as well. So 3 conventions need to be the same back than and now which is extremely unlikely. (I feel ashamed for the Physicist who didn't at least state that if nothing else).

They lost me there as well xD

I assume they cut out the parts of the interviews that didn't fit with the message the producers of this documentary wanted to convey.

[FeXoR]

Further investigations concerning the ancient Egyptians methods of forming hard stone leads to copper saws with a mixture of water, plaster and silica sand. How they managed to form holes with that is still a "mystery" to me ^^.

Edited April 15, 2013 by FeXoR

[Pureon]

I've been watching videos similar to this one for a few years now, mainly because they show up on Youtube when I do research for our ancient civs. It's fascinating stuff, and does make me wonder what's been lost through the ages, and what ground-breaking discoveries there could be in the future.

Enrique there's also a popular video claiming Atlantis may be located in southern Spain, worth a look (I can't search for it atm).

Edit: Found it - It's a National Geographic documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJQeA0w91NY

(I'm not saying I believe it )

[idanwin]

I watch a lot of DemocracyNow, WikiLeaks and JuiceMedia, and now youtube has started proposing conspiracy theory videos to me... That's one of the (many) horrible data mining consequences (and also of the bulk of naïve people a flawed educational system has produced)

Sometimes, at least, they are really funny ... but the problem is that they're meant to be serious, which is a rather serious issue IMHO.

Atlantis, according to the most probable hypothesis was just a story about Crete, which was a really advanced and well-faring civilisation at the time. Crete was hit by the tsunami which followed the eruption of a vulcano on Thira. There is evidence for the eruption as well as for the tsunami, although we can only speculate that when Plato spoke of Atlantis, this story had its roots on Crete.

But it is rather likely that following this catastrophe sailors and travellers spread the story of the destructive inundation and so - as is seen with many other stories - it became a myth that is still popular today.

EDIT:

Part of the Island even sunk into the sea.

EDIT2:

Central part of Thira that is.

Edited April 15, 2013 by idanwin

[Enrique]

They lost me entirely at "more advanced civilisation".

Interesting series to watch, with a few spoons full of suspicion and criticism.

Well, that hypothesis is not so out of the road if after milennia of developement you cannot match the buildings done by not-so-developed civilisations. I'm not saying all that is said on the video is true. They're hypothesis and arguments that can or cannot be valid to you. You always have to use your common sense and discern what could be true and what is not to you.

I've been watching videos similar to this one for a few years now, mainly because they show up on Youtube when I do research for our ancient civs. It's fascinating stuff, and does make me wonder what's been lost through the ages, and what ground-breaking discoveries there could be in the future.

Enrique there's also a popular video claiming Atlantis may be located in southern Spain, worth a look (I can't search for it atm).

Edit: Found it - It's a National Geographic documentary:

(I'm not saying I believe it )

LOL never heard of it, although I know where Doñana is!

That remembers me one of the talkings that got me researching about this kind of stuff from Klaus Dona. He don't make hypothesis, or theories... he just take OOPARTs (out of place artifacts) and collects them. He found a very cool world map engraved in a "somewhat" spheric rock with some unknown continents one of them in the atlantic that is rumored could be atlantis: http://www.bibliotec...a/life48_05.jpg

Here's the full presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl_YdTjey10