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Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 12:41:

Yet another underwater ancient city discovered



Take that, bitches! Yet another ancient underwater city discovered ... this time off the coast of Japan! They keep finding these pyramids in the oceans all around the world ... and its no longer a conspiracy. There was Atlantis, its only a matter of WHERE and WHEN it existed. They found huge structures even off the coast of Cuba, in Bosnia, in Russia (thats right!), near Japan, etc. - all points to a previous civilization that has vanished in a massive cataclysm, or as some say - destroyed itself thousands of years ago, and that the great pyramid of Cheops is its leftover, assumed by the Egyptians.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...unken-city.html

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

Julian Ryall in Tokyo
for National Geographic News

September 19, 2007

quote:

Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis�an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago.

That's the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years.

Each time he returns to the dive boat, Kimura said, he is more convinced than ever that below him rest the remains of a 5,000-year-old city.

"The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet]," said Kimura, who presented his latest theories about the site at a scientific conference in June.

But like other stories of sunken cities, Kimura's claims have attracted controversy.

"I'm not convinced that any of the major features or structures are manmade steps or terraces, but that they're all natural," said Robert Schoch, a professor of science and mathematics at Boston University who has dived at the site.

"It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges, particularly in an area with lots of faults and tectonic activity."

And neither the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs nor the government of Okinawa Prefecture recognize the remains off Yonaguni as an important cultural property, said agency spokesperson Emiko Ishida.

Neither of the government groups has carried out research or preservation work on the sites, she added, instead leaving any such efforts to professors and other interested individuals.

Ruins Point

Yonaguni Jima is an island that lies near the southern tip of Japan's Ryukyu archipelago, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) off the eastern coast of Taiwan (see map).

A local diver first noticed the Yonaguni formations in 1986, after which a promontory on the island was unofficially renamed Iseki Hanto, or Ruins Point.

The district of Yonaguni officially owns the formations, and tourists and researchers can freely dive at the site.

Some experts believe that the structures could be all that's left of Mu, a fabled Pacific civilization rumored to have vanished beneath the waves.


"I think it's very difficult to explain away their origin as being purely natural, because of the vast amount of evidence of man's influence on the structures," he said.

(Related: "Pyramid in Bosnia�Huge Hoax or Colossal Find?" [May 12, 2006].)

For example, Kimura said, he has identified quarry marks in the stone, rudimentary characters etched onto carved faces, and rocks sculpted into the likenesses of animals.

"The characters and animal monuments in the water, which I have been able to partially recover in my laboratory, suggest the culture comes from the Asian continent," he said.

"One example I have described as an underwater sphinx resembles a Chinese or ancient Okinawan king."

(See pictures of the "Japanese Atlantis" formations.)

Whoever created the city, most of it apparently sank in one of the huge seismic events that this part of the Pacific Rim is famous for, Kimura said.

The world's largest recorded tsunami struck Yonaguni Jima in April 1771 with an estimated height of more than 131 feet (40 meters), he noted, so such a fate might also have befallen the ancient civilization.

Kimura said he has identified ten structures off Yonaguni and a further five related structures off the main island of Okinawa. In total the ruins cover an area spanning 984 feet by 492 feet (300 meters by 150 meters).

The structures include the ruins of a castle, a triumphal arch, five temples, and at least one large stadium, all of which are connected by roads and water channels and are partly shielded by what could be huge retaining walls.

Kimura believes the ruins date back to at least 5,000 years, based on the dates of stalactites found inside underwater caves that he says sank with the city.

And structures similar to the ruins sitting on the nearby coast have yielded charcoal dated to 1,600 years ago�a possible indication of ancient human inhabitants, Kimura added.

But more direct evidence of human involvement with the site has been harder to come by.

"Pottery and wood do not last on the bottom of the ocean, but we are interested in further research on a relief at the site that is apparently painted and resembles a cow," Kimura said.

"We want to determine the makeup of the paint. I would also like to carry out subsurface research."

Natural Forces

Toru Ouchi, an associate professor of seismology at Kobe University, supports Kimura's hypothesis.

Ouchi said that he has never seen tectonic activity having such an effect on a landscape either above or below the water.

"I've dived there as well and touched the pyramid," he said. "What Professor Kimura says is not exaggerated at all. It's easy to tell that those relics were not caused by earthquakes."

Boston University's Schoch, meanwhile, is just as certain that the Yonaguni formations are natural.

He suggests that holes in the rock, which Kimura believes were used to support posts, were merely created by underwater eddies scouring at depressions.

Lines of smaller holes were formed by marine creatures exploiting a seam in the rock, he said.

"The first time I dived there, I knew it was not artificial," Schoch said. "It's not as regular as many people claim, and the right angles and symmetry don't add up in many places."

He emphasizes that he is not accusing anyone of deliberately falsifying evidence.

But many of the photos tend to give a perfect view of the site, making the lines look as regular as possible, he said.

Schoch also says he has seen what Kimura believes to be renderings of animals and human faces at the site.

"Professor Kimura says he has seen some kind of writing or images, but they are just scratches on a rock that are natural," he said.

"He interprets them as being manmade, but I don't know where he's coming from."

But Kimura is undeterred by critics, adding that the new governor of Okinawa Prefecture and officials from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization have recently expressed interest in verifying the site.

"The best way to get a definitive answer about their origins is to keep going back and collecting more evidence," he continued.

"If I'd not had a chance to see these structures for myself, I might be skeptical as well."




Another relevant find in my Favourites list:

'Lost city' found off Cuba
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/w...000/1697565.stm



In addition to this, in caves on the Island of Youth, Cuba ancient drawings were found that depict creatures NOT found in the area, on the island, suggesting that the island was part of something bigger ...

quote:


A team of explorers say they have discovered the ruins of an ancient underwater city off the western coast of Cuba.
Using sonar equipment the researchers found and filmed huge, smooth stone blocks more than 2,000 feet (650 metres) below the sea's surface.

They say they still do not know exactly what these blocks were for, but they will start investigating the site thoroughly in January.

Robot scanners

The explorers first spotted the symmetrically organised stones last year with digital scanning equipment.

In July they returned to the spot off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula with a high-tech robot that films underwater.

Older then pyramids

Experts think these formations could have been built 6,000 years ago - that's 1,500 years older than the pyramids of Egypt.

One of the explorers described the underwater scene: "It's a really wonderful structure which looks like it could have been a large urban centre."



Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 12:48:



Time to shatter the conspiracies again?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm

Lost city 'could rewrite history'



quote:

The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history.

Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old.

The vast city - which is five miles long and two miles wide - is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's National Institute of Ocean Technology conducting a survey of pollution.

Using sidescan sonar - which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120ft.

Debris recovered from the site - including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.

Lost civilisation

The city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan civilisation, which dates back around 4,000 years.

Marine archaeologists have used a technique known as sub-bottom profiling to show that the buildings remains stand on enormous foundations.



Author and film-maker Graham Hancock - who has written extensively on the uncovering of ancient civilisations - told BBC News Online that the evidence was compelling:

"The [oceanographers] found that they were dealing with two large blocks of apparently man made structures.

"Cities on this scale are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia.

"Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known. The first cities of the historical period are as far away from these cities as we are today from the pyramids of Egypt," he said.

Chronological problem

This, Mr Hancock told BBC News Online, could have massive repercussions for our view of the ancient world.



"There's a huge chronological problem in this discovery. It means that the whole model of the origins of civilisation with which archaeologists have been working will have to be remade from scratch," he said.

However, archaeologist Justin Morris from the British Museum said more work would need to be undertaken before the site could be categorically said to belong to a 9,000 year old civilisation.

"Culturally speaking, in that part of the world there were no civilisations prior to about 2,500 BC. What's happening before then mainly consisted of small, village settlements," he told BBC News Online.

Dr Morris added that artefacts from the site would need to be very carefully analysed, and pointed out that the C14 carbon dating process is not without its error margins.

It is believed that the area was submerged as ice caps melted at the end of the last ice age 9-10,000 years ago

Although the first signs of a significant find came eight months ago, exploring the area has been extremely difficult because the remains lie in highly treacherous waters, with strong currents and rip tides.

The Indian Minister for Human Resources and ocean development said a group had been formed to oversee further studies in the area.

"We have to find out what happened then ... where and how this civilisation vanished," he said.


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-21-2007 13:29:

Re: Yet another underwater ancient city discovered

quote:
Originally posted by Magnetonium
[COLOR=FF7F50]

Take that, bitches! Yet another ancient underwater city discovered ... this time off the coast of Japan! They keep finding these pyramids in the oceans all around the world ... and its no longer a conspiracy. There was Atlantis, its only a matter of WHERE and WHEN it existed. They found huge structures even off the coast of Cuba, in Bosnia, in Russia (thats right!), near Japan, etc. - all points to a previous civilization that has vanished in a massive cataclysm, or as some say - destroyed itself thousands of years ago, and that the great pyramid of Cheops is its leftover, assumed by the Egyptians.

My girlfriend found a huge structure down my trousers, doesn't mean it's proof of an ancient civilisation, perhaps Atlantis, that existed in 10,500 BC (or is that BCE now so we don't piss the Jews and Muslims off!?) just because there is proof of a shift in the location of the north pole that destroyed that civilisation and all the temples built around the world from Egypt to South America somehow point to that date - it was just my big fat cock


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-21-2007 13:33:

I definately recommend that you read this book if you are interested in this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0751531006


Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-21-2007 13:39:

hey george- take me to your weiner.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 13:41:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
I definately recommend that you read this book if you are interested in this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0751531006


Are you serious? That book was TERRIBLE!!! It just makes a radical theory that Atlantis the lost civilization was based in Antarctica (WTF???) while obviously it was frozen for a long time. One of the worst reads ever ... no shread of evidence or even common sense. You should recommend to me something like this (my recommendation below was an AWESOME book to read):

Gateway to Atlantis: The Search for the Source of a Lost Civilisation
by Andrew Collins (Author)

He actually uses evidence, historical information and adds it together for a very good overview. Very detailed. The hardcover version I have even features dozens of photos, diagrams, maps ... wow.




Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 13:52:



Basically, there's overwhelming evidence that during the last few generations of the last ice age there was a strong and advanced human civilization that was connected (judging by the structures). Once the ice age ended, many regions which were based near large bodies of water were flooded, as a result the whole Noah of Arc shit and legends of floods came around. CLimates around the world have changed. People were forced to move. Large monolithic structures were later found by others who have assumed them to be part of their culture (i.e. the Egyptians).

For a fact, for example Africa used to have a much wetter climate, and Sahara desert had many more oasis spots and more precipitation. As the ice age ended, everything changed. Thats why in so many places around the world, even fertile ones, huge structures and cities have been found to be abandoned for questionable reasons (read the book called COLLAPSE).


Seriously, "Researchers from a Canadian company used sophisticated sonar equipment to find and film stone structures more than 2,000 feet (650 metres) below the sea's surface." [off the coast of Cuba] thats DEEP! That even questions the theory of plate tectonics, and no longer becomes a legend ... heck, the city of Troy was a legend until it was actually discovered early in the 20th century!!! And Plato had ANOTHER legend of the continent of Atlantis ... in the Atlantic ocean, which I have personally already discovered (more accurately, convinced of) through a lot of research and reading but won't bother indulging the large group of closed-minded people on here.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 13:58:



The most jaw-dropping statistic is that we have studied less that 3% of the world's ocean floors. We have studied the sky better than our own oceans for Christ's sake. The sad part is erosion, time, water have probably hidden forever the ancient structures, history and human remains forever. Thats why it becomes harder to proof that it was Atlantis and it was humans, because the letters and label have been washed away over the last few thousands of years.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 14:18:



Some more info on the Japanese structure:




Some of the images of the structures, taken from
http://members.toast.net/rjspina/Ja...ter%20Ruins.htm

Don't forget, that the area (as well as entire Japan) is a very seismologically active area, so obviously rocks would have been moved, fallen, displaced or cracked over time.
















------------------------------
VIDEO on Google link, History Channel documentary on the ruins:

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


Posted by Fir3start3r on Sep-21-2007 14:26:

quote:
Originally posted by Magnetonium


Time to shatter the conspiracies again?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm

Lost city 'could rewrite history'





This one definitely has the most impact on our known history, of the ones you posted.

Interesting indeed


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-21-2007 14:29:

quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
This one definitely has the most impact on our known history, of the ones you posted.

Interesting indeed


I had some articles as well like the ones I posted, but they weren't from the sources that the people on here like to see ... but I just wanted to give a general idea. Glad you liked it. Do some research!!!


Posted by Marc Summers on Sep-21-2007 14:51:

wow wow wow interesting shit!


Posted by Subey on Sep-22-2007 00:35:

quote:
Originally posted by Magnetonium

Seriously, "Researchers from a Canadian company used sophisticated sonar equipment to find and film stone structures more than 2,000 feet (650 metres) below the sea's surface." [off the coast of Cuba] thats DEEP! That even questions the theory of plate tectonics, and no longer becomes a legend ... heck, the city of Troy was a legend until it was actually discovered early in the 20th century!!! And Plato had ANOTHER legend of the continent of Atlantis ... in the Atlantic ocean, which I have personally already discovered (more accurately, convinced of) through a lot of research and reading but won't bother indulging the large group of closed-minded people on here.


My knowledge is limited about such things, but how could it have been dry that far down without going waaaay back in time?


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 00:41:

quote:
Originally posted by Subey
My knowledge is limited about such things, but how could it have been dry that far down without going waaaay back in time?


All that I can say is that that human perceptions of many mechanisms that drive our planet are incorrect ;-) we will be proven later on (this century) that some of the "discoveries" made by our scientists and historians are false. That's all I can say without sounding too philosophical. A lot of things dont make sense when studying the phenomenon of lost and forgotten civilizations when applied to our civilization. When you put everything about these discoveries into a spectrum, you realize the truth, the bigger picture. I saw it. For example, you can put together tales of massive apocalyptic floods [and Noah's Arcs] that are present in many cultures from studying the lost civilizations just by finding their massive ruins in the sea. Think of the rest.

EDIT: The discoveries of these massive ruins at first hand a huge resonance effect on me a few years back - it became clear to me that our history is flawed, a lie, a false perception imposed by religion. There were societies before us for many generations, some possibly more advanced judging by some scholars, and a few of them were quite connected over great distances. And then the myths make more sense. Then once you read more about these findings, their scriptures, their relation to the present populations in nearby areas and "myths" about their existence - you can't help but go deeper. The knowledge about these lost civilizations should help us gather information and learn from their mistakes to avoid our own demise. Because according to some regression hypnosis books I've read, there's more to those lost cultures than just floods. Much more. There are people out there who have the records. You just have to look hard enough.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 00:59:



I do not believe that the Egyptian civilization (which came out of nowhere) had such amazing knowledge of the geography, math, science and other technological qualities to haul 2 million huge slabs of limestone from miles away on the opposite side of Nile within a lifetime (at that time which was about 25 years). And dont forget that the limestones were perfectly cut and placed into position. Engineers. The only reason some shafts have been displaced slightly is from light earthquakes and erosion.


Posted by Subey on Sep-22-2007 02:19:

quote:
Originally posted by Magnetonium

Some maps are more curved or show the Antarctica on the bottom, but believe me, Pyramid of Cheops is at the center of the planet, this is a fact.


It makes perfect sense that it would be, and I'm not so much as agreeing except to say that when you make connections that are a certain distance outside of the norm that other people often can't follow until a more concrete landing area in between is found.

As an example with the Japanese Atlantis, is it a pyramid, or something geological? I can't make the move to pyramid without more being presented.


Posted by hardcore trancer on Sep-22-2007 02:26:

The question that comes to mind right away is that what happend to those civilizations?where did they get the technology to build those civilizations?

My persoanl question is that how come after they were gone everything went backwards again?like it seems that mankind had to restart everything all over again since the knowledge and the technology both seemd to disappeared with them.


Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-22-2007 02:32:

quote:
Originally posted by hardcore trancer
The question that comes to mind right away is that what happend to those civilizations?where did they get the technology to build those civilizations?

My persoanl question is that how come after they were gone everything went backwards again?like it seems that mankind had to restart everything all over again since the knowledge and the technology both seemd to disappeared with them.


magnetonium thinks it was aliens.


Posted by hardcore trancer on Sep-22-2007 02:48:

quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
magnetonium thinks it was aliens.



and whats your answer?there are no proof that says aliens were or were not involved in any of this.It can always be a possibillity however.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 08:54:

quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
magnetonium thinks it was aliens.


LMAO, not quite. I think there was an assistance from people who descended from the ruins of Atlantis, the fabled continent technologically superior even to us today.

There's a reason why Aztecs legend expected the return of their "founders" from the East, and thats why Spanish were greeted quite well and given processions and such right to the Aztec King who bowed to them. Part of the historical record. The Aztec leader himself thought that these Atlantean people have come back as legend prophecized, the return of the legend God Quetzalcoatl! I have pictures in my book "Gateway To Atlantis", authentic historical records, that show the Aztecs bowing, greeting the Spanish procession.

Oh, here's another random piece of history to shatter another conspiracy, to prove the connection to Americas with Egypt.

http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/Misc/mummies.htm

The Mystery of the Cocaine Mummies
Transcript of the video

quote:

In the 21st dynasty of the Pharaos, 3,000 years ago, there took place one night at a temple, the funeral of Henut Taui - the Lady of the Two lands.

Compared to the great rulers of Egypt, her burial was a modest affair. But just like the Pharaos, she too was mummified, and her body placed in the depths of a desert tomb, in the belief it would give her immortality.

In an unexpected way, it has. Her mummified body waited throughout recorded history - the Greeks and Romans, the Dark and Middle ages, the Renaissance and Napoleon, until in the early 19th century, her tomb was plundered.

The king of Bavaria bought the ornate sarcophagus with the mummy inside. He gave it to a museum in Munich, where for another century, Henut Taui lay undisturbed.

Then four years ago a German scientist, Dr Svetla Balabanova, made a discovery which was to baffle Egyptologists, and call into question whole areas of science and archeology to chemistry and botany.

She discovered that the body of Henut Taui contained large quantities of cocaine and nicotine. The surprise was not just that the ancient Egyptians had taken drugs, but that these drugs come from tobacco and coca, plants completly unknown outside the Americas, unheard of until Sir Walter Raleigh introduced smoking from the New World, or until cocaine was imported in the Victorian era.

It was seemingly impossible for the ancient Egyptians to get hold of these substances. And so began the mystery -

The mystery of the cocaine mummies.

It was in Munich, in 1992, that researchers began a huge project to investigate the contents of mummies. When as part of their studies, they wanted to test for drugs, it was no surprise that they turned to toxicologist Dr Svelta Balabanova for help.

As the inventor of groundbreaking new methods for the detection of drugs in hair and sweat, she was highly respected in her field. Dr Balabanova took samples from the mummies, which she pulverised and dissolved to make a solution. As she'd done countless times before, she ran the samples through a system which uses antibodies to detect the presence of drugs an other substances. Then as a backup the samples were put through the GCMS machine which can accurately identify substances by determining their molecular weight. As the graph emerged with peaks showing that drugs were present, and as the printer spewed out the analysis of just which drugs, something seemed to have gone very wrong.

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"The first positive results, of course, were a shock for me. I had not expected to find nicotine and cocaine but that's what happened. I was absolutely sure it must be a mistake."

NARRATOR:
Balabanova ran the tests again. She sent fresh samples to three other labs. But the results kept being confirmed. The drugs were there. So she went ahead and published a paper. The reaction was a sharp reminder that science is a conservative world.

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"I got a pile of letters that were almost threatening, insulting letters saying it was nonsense, that I was fantasising, that it was impossible, because it was proven that before Columbus these plants were not found anywhere in the world outside of the Americas."

NARRATOR:
From toxicologists to anthropologists - everyone thought the same.

DR JOHN HENRY - Consultant Toxicologist, Guys Hospital, London:
"The first thing you think of is that this is just mad. It's wrong. There's contamination present. Maybe there's a fraud present of some kind. You don't think that cocaine can be present in an Egyptian mummy."

NARRATOR:
Yet Balabanova herself had been worried about contamination. First she checked all the lab equipment. But being a forensic toxicologist, that wasn't all she did. Balabanova had learned her trade from working for the police, and had been trained in the methods they use for investigating a suspicious death. She'd been taught how vital it is when an autopsy is carried out to know wether the victim has consumed or been given any drugs or poisons. And she had also been taught that a special forensic technique exists which can show that the deceased has consumed a drug and rule out contamination at the same time.

So, anxious to ensure that her tests on the mummies were beyond reproach, she used this very technique - it's called the hair shaft test. Drugs and other substances consumed by humans get into the hair protein, where they stay for months, or after death - forever. Hair samples can be washed in alcohol and the washing solution itself then tested. If the testing solution is clear, but the hair tests positive, then the drug must be inside the hair shaft, which means the person consumed it during their lifetime. It's considered proof against contamination before or after death.

DR JOHN HENRY - Consultant Toxicologist, Guys Hospital, London:
"The hair shaft test is accepted. If you know that you've taken your hair sample from this individual and the hair shaft is known to contain a drug, then it is proof positive that the person has taken that drug. So it is accepted in law. It's put people into prison."

NARRATOR:
The hair shaft test on a couple in Jersey [Channel Is.], showed their two sons had drugged them before killing them. And aside from the Newall case , the technique has been used in countless others over the last 25 years. Since it's also used for drugs tests on addicts, company employees and in sport, to suggest it could produce false results was for Balabanova unthinkable.

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"There's no way there can be a mistake in this test. This method is widely accepted and has been used thousands of times. If the results are not genuine, then the explanation must lie elswhere, and not in my tests, because I'm 100 percent certain about the results."

NARRATOR:
If the fault was not in the tests, what else could lie behind the impossibility of mummies containing drugs from coca and tobacco, from a continent not discovered until over 1,000 years after the end of the Egyptian civilisation? In search of an explanation, we went to one of the UK's foremost authorities on mummies, a person who had spent years rummaging around in the bodies of ancient Egyptians, Rosalie David.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"When I was informed that cocaine had been found in Egyptian mummies, I was absolutely astounded. It seemed quite impossible that this should be the case."

NARRATOR:
Sceptical of Balabanova's results, Rosalie David decided to get some sampless from her own mummies and have them tested especially for 'Equinox'.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"What we shall do is to provide tissue samples and a hair sample from a number of mummies in the Manchester Museum collection. I shall be very surprised to find they had cocaine in them."

NARRATOR:
It would be a while before the results came back from the lab. Rosalie David's motive was not only to independently check Balabanova's methods. She also wanted to run the same tests but on different mummies. For she had more than one idea about how Balabanova could have got a misleading result.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"There were two ideas that sprang immediately to mind. One was that possibly something in the tests could give a false result. The second was that possibly the mummies that had been tested were not truly ancient Egyptian, that they could be some of these false, relativly modern mummies, and traces of cocaine could be in those individuals."

NARRATOR:
What Rosalie David was referring to happened in Egypt in Victorian Times. It was a gruesome operation to supply the antique dealers of Luxor.

When 19th century travellers went to Egypt in search of mummies and other valuables, the dealers might not have the genuine article available. And so the crudely mummified body of a recently dead Egyptian might be procured instead. For a shrivelled corpes would greatly increase the value of a genuine but empty sarcophagus.

Sometimes collectors would buy only limbs or other mummified spare parts. These are doubly suspect for the trade in fake mummies, especially separate heads and limbs, has an even older origin.

Eating the flesh of mummies was a common 16th century practice in Europe. People believed that mummies contained a black tar called bitumen, and so thought powder made from the ground up bodies would cure various illnesses.

This is the very origin of the word mummy, from the Persian for bitumen, mummia, and although it made people sick a roaring trade in powdered mummia grew, supplied from body parts and tissue shipped in bulk from Egypt.

The temptation to resort to fakes was high.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"Very soon, the demand outstripped the supply and certainly in the 16th century a French physician undertook a study of this trade. And he found that in fact they were burying bodies of convicted criminals in the sand. They were producing mummies, and these then became a source for the medicinal ingredient."

NARRATOR:
Could it be that the mummies Balabanova tested were fakes? Carbon dating on mummies often produces incorrect results, so archaeologists often rely on the provenance - knowing what tomb and excavation the mummy comes from and on examination of the mummification techniques.

So the only way for Rosalie David to check out here theory about fakes was to travel to Munich to see for herself the seven mummies that were the cause of all the fuss.

The Munich mummies as they are known, belong to the city's Egyptian Museum, which is housed in the old palace of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who started the collection.

Inside the museum, Rosalie David found the sarcophagus of Henut Taui - the Lady of the Two Lands. She discovered from the museum catalogue that the coffin was bought by King Ludwig from an English traveller called Dodwell in 1845. There was no record of an exact excavation, but Henut Taui was said to have come from a tomb reserved for the priests and priestesses of the god Amun in Thebes.

But while being shown the other coffins Rosalie David discovered that apart from Henut Taui, most of the Munich mummies are of unknown origin, and some of the tested mummies turned out to be only detatched heads. According to the museum, research had revealed inscriptions, amulets and complex embalming methods, which the museum claimed proved the mummies were ancient.

DR ALFRED GRIMM - Curator, The Egyptian Museum, Munich:
"The investigation shows clearly that the Munich mummies are real Egyptian mummies, no fakes, no modern mummies. They come from ancient Egypt."

NARRATOR:
The obvious way to prove this was to show the mummies to Rosalie David, but all the museum would let her see were empty sarcophogi.

DR ALFRED GRIMM - Curator, The Egyptian Museum, Munich:
"On grounds of religious respect we don't show these mummies here in our galleries. That's one point. The other is we don't allow to film the mummies and to show them on TV."

NARRATOR:
It wasn't always so, for the mummies had already been shown on television. But this German film [film showing mummified bodies without wrappings] announcing Balabanova's results has caused quite a fuss. And so now, even though giving access might defeat the accusation of harbouring bogus mummies, it seemed that the museum wanted nothing more to do with the research they politely pointed out was far from respectable.

DR ALFRED GRIMM - Curator, The Egyptian Museum, Munich:
"It's not absolutely proven and I think it's not absolutely scientifically correct."

NARRATOR:
Rosalie had to make do with research papers and books from the museum. Were the Munich mummies fakes? Despite her initial suspicions she decided that on balance, they probably were the real thing.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"From the documentation and the research which has been carried out on the Munich mummies it seems evident that they are probably genuine because they have packages of viscera inside, some with wax images of the gods on them and also the state of mummification itself is very good. I would say that the detatched heads we can't comment on, but the complete bodies probably are genuine."

NARRATOR:
And if that wasn't enough, it turned out that the results from the Munich mummies were not the only evidence from the dead. The anthropologists who originally ordered the tests didn't continue the project. But Balabanova, alongside her normal research into the metabolism of drugs started requesting samples of other ancient human remains from universities. And it was then that she got more results from Egypt.

She tested tissue from 134 naturally preserved bodies from an excavated cemetery in the Sudan, once part of the Egyptian empire. Although from a later period, the bodies were still many centuries before Columbus discovered the Americas. About a third of them tested positive for nicotine and cocaine.

Balabanova was mystified by the presence of cocaine in Africa but thought she might have a way of explaining the nicotine. As well as Egypt and the Sudan, she tested bodies from China, Germany and Austria, spanning a period from 3700BC to 1100AD. A percentage of bodies from all these other regions also contained nicotine.

[Graph showing presence of nicotine: Percentage of bodies with positive result - Egypt:89% Sudan:90% China:62.5% Germany:34% Austria 100%]

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"I continued to work on it because I wanted to be sure of my results, and after 3000 samples I, was absolutely certain that the tobacco plant was known in Europe and Africa long before Columbus."

NARRATOR:
Far from being solved, the mytery that began in Egypt was spreading. Balabanova was suggesting that an unknown type of tobacco had grown in Europe, Africa and Asia thousands of years ago. But every schoolchild knows that tobacco was discovered in the New World. She was asking for a substantial slice of botany and history to be completely rewritten. Would anyone back her up?

Dr Balabonova had told us that we might find the secret of the mysterious presence of nicotine and cocaine in Egyptan mummies in the ancient plants of Africa. Perhaps there had been drug plants which the Egyptians had used but had vanished along with their civilisation. This led to a much more basic question. Were the Egyptians, the great Pharaos and pyramid builders really users and abusers of drugs?

The clues can be found hidden in the walls of the grand temple of Karnak. The entire building is covered depictions of the lotus flower from the tops of the vast columns to the pictograms on the walls. Until recently, Egyptologists took this most commonplace Egyptian symbol to have only a religious meaning. But according to some the true significance of the lotus has been overlooked.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"The lotus was a very powerful narcotic which was used in ancient Egypt and presumably, was widespread in this use, because we see many scenes of idividuals holding a cup and dropping a lotus flower into the cup which contained wine, and this would be a way of releasing the narcotic.

"The ancient Egyptians certainly used drugs. As well as lotus they had mandrake and cannabis, and there is a strong suggestion the also used opium.

"So although it very surprising to find cocaine in mummies, the other elements were certainly in use."

NARRATOR:
So the Pharaos clearly indulged in drugs. Hashish - which Balabanova also found in the mummies - is an Egyptian tradition which has survived for thousands of years, although nowadays, in public, pipes tend to be filled with nothing more than tobacco.

By contrast, the narcotic blue lotus flower, once so essential at parties, is now on the verge of extinction. And if it could disappear, why not other drug plants? We decided to persue Balabanova's unusual theory that an ancient species of tobacco might once have grown in the Old World.

Small amounts of nicotine are present in a wide variety of plants and foods, but the high concentrations sought by smokers can only be found in tobacco.

[Graph showing quantities of nicotine: Concentrations in bone samples - Modern Smoker in nanograms/gram :c40ng China:c55ng Germany:c65ng Sudan:c45ng Egyptian Mummies:Off screen!]

The idea of a lost species of tobacco came to Balabanova because the concentrations in the bodies from Asia and Europe were similar to modern day smokers.

But one thing had puzzled her. At 35 times the dose for smokers, the amounts of nicotine she had found in Egyptian mummies were potentially lethal.

But first, Balabanova was baffled, but then she had a thought. The high doses of nicotine in Egyptian bodies could be explained if the tobacco - as well as being consumed - had also been used in mummification.

Over their 3000 year history the Egyptian preists kept the recipe of spices and herbs used to preerve the thousands of people and millions of animals they mummified a closely guarded secret.

The high levels of nicotine in tobacco can kill bacteria. Could it have been one of their secrets?

Balabanova looked through old literature about the bodies of the great Pharaos and queens themselves. No longer under the care of the preists the fragile royal mummies are now kept in strict atmospheric conditions in the Cairo museum.

But Balabanova discovered a story from the days when scientists could still tamper with them - a story that had almost been forgotten.

Ramses II died in 1213BC, a few hundered years before Henut Taui. When he was mummified, every possible skill and every rare ingredient was used by the embalmers to try to preserve his body for eternity. For where Henut Tuai was only a preistess, Ramses was arguably the mightiest of all the Pharaos.

His imposing image adorns most of Egypts famous sites for he presided over the Golden Age of it's civilisation, and as a skilled military commander, won the conquests that made it into a powerful empire.

What interested Balabanova was what happened to Ramses 3000 years later, when he went on his final royal visit.

"Les chercheurs francais ont realise de nouvelles descouvertes en etudient la momie du pharon Ramses II." [Excerpt from TV France]

On september 26th, 1976, amid all the pomp and circumstance - due a visiting head of state - French TV cameras recorded the arrival of the mummy of Ramses II at an airport in Paris. An exhibition about him at the museum of mankind was planned.

But the body was found to be badly deteriorated, so a battery of scientist set about trying to repair this damage.

The bandages wrapped around the mummy needed replacing, so botanists were given pieces of the fabric to analyse what it was made of. One found some plant fragments in her piece, and took a closer look. Emerging on the slide, according to her experience, were the unmistakable features - the tiny crystals and filaments - of a plant that couldn't possibly be there.

DR MICHELLE LESCOT - Natural History Museum, Paris:
"I prepared the slides, put them under the microscope and what did I see? Tobacco. I said to myself, that's just not possible - I must be dreaming. The Egyptians didn't have tobacco. It was brought from South America at the time of Christopher Columbus. I looked again, and I tried to get a better view and I thought, well, it's only a first analysis. I worked feverishly and I forgot to have lunch that day. But I kept getting the same result."

NARRATOR:
Amid a storm of publicity. people alleged - just as they did with Balabanova's results - that this must be a case of contamination. It's a view shared today by Ramses' keeper at the Cairo museum, who suspects there is a straightforward explanation.

PROF NASRI ISKANDER - Chief Curator, Cairo Museum:
"According to my knowledge and experience, most of the archeologists and scientists, who worked on these fields, smoked pipes. And I myself have been smoking pipes for more than 25 years. Then maybe a piece of the tobacco dropped by haphazard or just anyway and to tell this is right or wrong we have to be more careful"

NARRATOR:
To combat the allegations of careless smoking Michelle Lescot extracted new samples from deep inside the body of Ramses' mummy and took care to document it with photographs. And as far as she was concerned, these samples again gave the same result - tobacco.

So was Lecot's discovery the proof Balabanova needed for an ancient species of tobacco? For a second opinion, we went to the herbarium at the Natural History Museum to find an expert on tobacco who had seen Lescot's published work. She argued that Lescot's evidence would only identify the family from which tobacco comes, and not the specific plant.

DR SANDY KNAPP - Natural History Museum, London:
"I think that they had a certain amount of evidence, and they took the evidence one step farther than the evidence really allowed them. Sometimes you can only go so far down the road towards telling what something is, and then you come against a wall an you can't go any farther, otherwise you start to make something up."

NARRATOR:
Sandy Knapp thought the plant from Ramses was more likely to be another member of the tobacco family, which is known to have existed in ancient Egypt, such as henbane, mandrake or belladonna.

DR SANDY KNAPP - Natural History Museum, London:
"I think it is very unlikely that tobacco has an alternative history, because, I think we would've heard about it. There'd be some use of it present in either literature, temple carvings, somewhere there would've been evidence to point and say 'Ah, that's tobacco', but there's nothing."

DR MICHELLE LESCOT - Natural History Museum, Paris:
"I'ts true that the official theory is tobacco originates in South America. It's also true that there are species in Australasia and the Pacific Islands. There could have been other varieties, ancient varities that once existed in Asia. Why not Africa? Varieties that have now disappeared so it's not sacrilege to challenge the official theory."

NARRATOR:
The jury was still out on the vanished species of tobacco though Michelle Lescot was convinced that her identification had been correct. But she couldn't help with the cocaine, for it seemed not even one botanist believed in a disappearing coca plant.

DR SANDY KNAPP - Natural History Museum, London:
"Finding cocaine in these Egyptian mummies - botanically speaking - is almost impossible. I mean, there is always a chance that there might be some sort of plant there, but I think there is some sort of mistake. There is something wrong there. I can't explain it from a plant point of view at all."

NARRATOR:
For thousands of years people in the Andes have been chewing coca leaves, to get out the cocaine with it's stimulant, anaesthetic and euphoric properties. There are actually species of the coca family which grow in Africa, but only the South American species has ever been shown to contain the drug. Since cocaine is not in any other plants, Balabanova was completely mystified, but she thought she might have just one possible idea.

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"The cocaine of course remains an open question. It's a mystery - it's completely unclear how cocaine could get into Africa. On the other hand, we know there were trade relationships long before Columbus, and it's conceivable that the coca plant had been imported into Egypt even then."

NARRATOR:
An ancient Egyptian drug trade stretching all the way across the Atlantic Ocean? This was an idea so far-fetched it could only be considered once all the others had been eliminated, the idea that the Egyptians had been able to obtain imports from a place thousands of miles away from a continent supposedly not discovered until thousands of years later.

Was it possible that coca - a plant from South America had been finding it's way to Egypt 3,000 years ago?

If the cocaine found in mummies could not be explained by contamination, or fake mummies or by Egyptian plants containing it, there appeared to be only one remaining possibility... An international drug trade who's links extended all the way to the Americas.

To obtain incense, myrrh and other valuable plants used in religious ceremonies and herbal medicines, it's true, the Egyptians were prepared to go to great lengths.

Even if traders, like today, made all sorts of exotic claims for the source of their products, there is, nevertheless, clear evidence of ancient contats as far east as Syria and Iraq. The extended north into Cyprus, south into Sudan and Somalia and west into Lybia, but America? To the majority of archeologists, the idea is hardly worth talking about.

PROF JOHN BAINES - Egyptologist, Oxford University:
"The idea that the Egyptians were travelling to America is, overall, absurd. I don't know of anyone who is professionally employed as an Egyptologist, anthropologist or archeaologist who seriously believes in any of these possibilities, and I also don't know anyone who spends time doing research into these areas because they're perceived to be areas with any real meaning for the subjects."

NARRATOR:
But on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where the moving current of the Gulf Stream arrives in Mexico directly from the west coast of Africa, there is a professionally-employed anthropologist who does seriously beleive in such possibilities.

PROF ALICE KEHOE - Anthropologist, Marquette University:
"I think there is good evidence that there was both trans-atlantic and trans-pacific travel before Columbus. When we try to talk about trans-oceanic contact, people that are standard archeologists get very, um, skittish, and they want to change the subject or move away. They suddenly see a friend across the room - they don't want to pursue the subject at all. They seem to feel that it's some kind of contagious disease they don't want to touch, or it will bring disaster to them."

NARRATOR:
Why was the mere contemplation of voyages before Columbus or the Viking crossings to America, thought to be some sort of curse?

It was in 1910 that some early antropologists began to theorise that the stepped pyramids in Mexico might not have been the invention of the American Indians. Could the technology have come from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, from Egypt, where there were also stepped pyramids?

After spotting other trans-atlantic similarities, anthropologists began to argue that all civilisation was ivented in Egypt and later handed down to what they regarded as primitive societies. The implication that Old World culture was superior was thought acceptable at that time.

But the arrival of modern dating techniques showed that the similarities were far more likely to be independant developements. For example, the Egyptians abandoned pyramids with steps in favour of smooth ones 2,000 years before the first stepped pyramids occur in the Americas. What's more, the suggestion that American Indians couldn't build their own civilisations became highly unpopular.

Despite a breif revival in the 1970's when anthtropologist Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic in a primitive reed boat, research into ancient contact with America was frowned on, even if connected with theories of cultural superiority.

But the idea that the ability of the ancients to cross the oceans might have been underestimated continues to be quietly whispered about. Over the years evidence has grown which suggests it might be time to look again at such voyages. To imagine that the Egyptians, who apparently only sailed up and down the Nile or into the Red Sea, might get as far as the Americas perhaps sounds fantastical. But in science, what is one day thought absurd, can next day become accepted as fact.

[Picture of a Norse settlement in Newfoundland]

One senior academic thinks it's important to remember that before the discovery of this Norse settlement in Newfoundland in 1965 theories about Viking voyages to America were dismissed as nonsense.

PROF MARTIN BERNAL - Historian, Cornell University:
"What we've seen is a shift from the idea of Viking landings in America being seen as completely fantastic or partisan, to being accepted by every scholar in the field."

NARRATOR: The fact that evidence of the Viking crossings was hidden has encouraged Martin Bernal to contemplate even earlier voyages that are likewise dismissed as impossible.

PROF MARTIN BERNAL - Historian, Cornell University:
"I have no reason to doubt that there were others - but what they were, and how much influence they had on American society is open to question. But that trans-oceanic voyages are possible - or were possible - seems to me to be overwhelmingly likely."

NARRATOR:
A likelihood Bernal believes is reinforced by some Roman jars found in 1975 in a place called the Bay of Jars in Brazil. It's been suggessted that a Roman galley could be buried under the sea. But he interpretation of such finds is heavily disputed.

PROF JOHN BAINES - Egyptologist, Oxford University:
"They would fit the possibility that there was the odd ship that by mistake ended up on the other side of the Atlantic. What they're not going to fit is the idea of sustained two way contact, because there is a huge amount of historical evidence from the Roman world, but there is nothing to suggesst such contact existed."

PROF MARTIN BERNAL - Historian, Cornell University:
"They can't have been planted because the bay was known as the Bay of Jars since the 18th century, so that Roman jars had been turning up, and this links up with indirect Roman documentary evidence of contact."

NARRATOR:
The Bay of Jars is only one of several oddities claimed as evidence of trans-atlantic contacts. Also in Brazil, there is an inscription said to be in an ancient Mediterranean language. Meanwhile, in Mexico, there are 3,000 year old figurines with beards, a feature unknown in native Americans plus colossal statues that are said to look African, and an apparent picture of a pineapple - an American fruit - has been found in Pompeii.

But if tobacco from Mexico or coca from the Andes was carried across an ocean, it apparently need not have been the Atlantic. According to Alice Kehoe, a number of other American plants mysteriously turn up outside the "sealed" continent. But they are found on the other side of the Pacific.

PROF ALICE KEHOE - Anthropologist, Marquette University:
"The one that absolutely proves trans-pacific vaoyaging is the sweet potato. There are also discoveries of peanuts more than 2,000 years ago in western China. There is a temple is southern India that has sculptures of goddesses holding what looks like ears of maize or corn."

NARRATOR:
And if American maize might have got as far as India, why couldn't tobacco or coca have reached Egypt? They could have come across the Pacific to China or Asia and then overland to Africa. The Egyptians need not have travelled to America at all, or known where the plants had originated, but could have got them indirectly, through a network of world trade. But any ancient trade route that includes America is unacceptable in archeology.

PROF JOHN BAINES - Egyptologist, Oxford University:
"I don't think it is at all likely that there was an ancient trade network that included America. The essential problem with any such idea is that there are no artefacts to back it up that have been found either in Europe or in America. And I know that people produce examples of possible things, but they're really very implausible."

NARRATOR:
Yet discovery of minute strands of silk found in the hair of a mummy from Luxor could suggest the trade stretching from Egypt to the Pacific. For silk at this time was only known to come from China. Martin Bernal argues that it would be a pity to replace earlier cultural arrogance with an arrogant belief in progrss.

PROF MARTIN BERNAL - Historian, Cornell University:
"We're getting more and more evidence of world trade at an earlier stage. You have the Chinese silk definitely arriving in Egypt by 1000BC. I think modern scholars have a tendency to believe rigidly in progress and the idea that you could only have a worldwide trading network from the 18th century onwards, is our temporal arrogance - that it's only modern people that can do these things."

NARRATOR:
The evidence for ancient trade with America is limited, and most of it is disputed, but it can't be completely ruled out as explaining the apparent impossibility of Balabanova's results, results that at first seemed so absurd many thought they would be explained away by a simple story of a botch-up in a lab, results that still without firm explanation continue to crop up in unexpected places.

For in Manchester, the mummies under the care of Rosalie David, the Egyptologist once so sure that Balabanova had made a mistake, produced some odd results of their own.

ROSALIE DAVID - Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum:
"We've received results back from the tests on our mummy tissue samples and two of the samples and the one hair sample both have evidence of nicotine in them. I'm really very surprised at this."

DR SVETLA BALABANOVA - Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ulm:
"The results of the tests on the Manchester mummies have made me very happy after all these years of being accuesed of false results and contaminated results, so I was delighted to hear nicotine had been found in these mummies, and very, very happy to have this enormous confirmation of my work."

NARRATOR:
The tale of Henut Taui shows that in science facts can be rejected if they don't fit with our beleifs while what is believed proven, may actually be uncertain.

Little wonder then, that a story that began with one scientist, a few mummies and some routine tests, in no time at all could upset whole areas of knowledge we thought we could take for granted.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 08:58:



Let's try another link, shall we?

http://www.esolibris.com/articles/a...ine_mummies.php

quote:


The amazing discovery of traces of cocaine and tobacco in Egyptian mummies caused a sensation in the halls of academia. Rand & Rose Flem-Ath examine the case of the �Cocaine Mummies', revealing that there was contact between ancient civilisations long before previously thought.
In the movie Contact, Jodie Foster plays an astronomer who establishes communication with a civilisation beyond our solar system. In a recent television program, The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies, a different, but equally fascinating, contact is established between ancient Egypt and ancient Peru. A German forensic scientist busted the Egyptian mummy Ramses II for possession of cocaine. Cocaine, as most people know, grows only in the Andes. How did Ramses II get his dope?

The idea of ancient transoceanic contact between the Old and New Worlds before Columbus (other than the Vikings) is simply not acceptable within the tightly controlled halls of academia. Professor John Baines, an Egyptologist at Oxford is a typical case. He calls the idea of ancient transoceanic trade "absurd" and bolsters his "argument" by noting that he doesn�t know any professional Egyptologists, anthropologists or archaeologists who are "seriously" researching the idea. This is because, he says, the idea is not "perceived" to have "any real meaning for the subjects."

Professor Baines� view reminds us of the priests who refused to look through Galileo�s telescope to see the blemishes on the Moon because this revelation did not conform to their preconceived ideas of reality. Academia is geared to not looking at the problem. This ostrich approach has predictable results: results that do not necessarily have any bearing upon the quest for truth and in fact, impede the search.

The simple fact that we find sun-worshiping civilisations building pyramids, obelisks and preserving their dead by wrapping them in cloth (mummies) on both sides of the Atlantic is rarely even discussed within the archaeological and anthropological journals despite the fact that every child when first confronted with the facts raises the obvious question "why?" For four hundred of the past five hundred years scholars have puzzled over the facts. Three theories emerged yet only one survives today.

Cortes�s secretary was one of the first to put forward the idea that both Old and New Worlds were remnants of an even older "lost" civilisation. The "Aztlan" of ancient Mexico and the "Atlantis" of ancient Egypt, he argued, were one and the same. With this simple idea the commonalities between buildings, culture and mythologies of the ancient people of Mexico, Peru and Egypt could all be explained as "echoes" of a lost world.

The second theory presented was the idea that Mexico and Peru were settled by people from the Old World who already possessed the skills needed to build pyramids and preserve bodies. Most argued that they came from ancient Egypt but others suggest the Sumerians, people of ancient India, the Phoenicians and even the Templars from France. Again, a simple idea was used to explain an obvious problem.

The third theory, was the idea of "separate development." Here the focus is upon "how" people arrived in the Americas rather than upon the impressions of the Europeans following Columbus� "discovery" of the New World. Although this is the more complicated of the theories � thus violating the scientific principle of Occum�s Razor (so beautifully articulated in Contact) that when confronted by conflicting theories for an unexplained phenomena one should prefer the simpler explanation, it is, nevertheless, the only theory that is considered scholarly in today�s universities.

It is within this context that we must watch The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies. Cocaine and tobacco are plants that originated in America and were unknown to the Old World if we are to believe the traditional paradigm. The first tear in the fabric of the dogma came on the 16th of September 1976 when the mummified remains of Ramses II arrived at the Museum of Mankind in Paris. To repair the damage to the mummy, a scientific team was assembled which included Dr. Michelle Lescot of the Natural History Museum (Paris). She received fragments from the bandages and found a plant fragment ensnared within the fibres. When she looked at it under a microscope she was amazed to discover that the plant was tobacco. Fearing that she had made some mistake she repeated her tests again and again with the same result every time: a New World plant had been found on an Old World mummy. The results, little known in North America, caused a sensation in Europe.

Professor Nasri Isk-ander, the Chief Curator at the Cairo Museum thought he had an explanation. As an avid pipe smoker he argued that "maybe a piece of tobacco dropped by haphazard" from the pipe of some forgotten archaeologist. Dr. Lescot responded to this charge of "contamination" by carefully extracting new samples from Ramses II�s abdomen, all the while having others photograph the process. These samples which could not possibly be "droppings" were then tested and once again were established to be tobacco.

The discovery of tobacco fragments in the mummified body of Ramses II should have had a profound influence upon our whole understanding of the relationship between ancient Egypt and America but this piece of evidence was simply ignored. Then, sixteen years later, again quite by accident, more evidence emerged. In 1992, toxicologist, Dr. Svetla Balabanova of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Ulm (Germany) tested the ancient Egyptian mummified remains of Henut-Tawy, Lady of the Two Lands. The results came as a "shock" to this scientist who regularly used the identical testing methods to convict people of drug consumption. She had not expected to find nicotine and cocaine in an ancient Egyptian mummy. She repeated the tests and sent out fresh samples to three other labs. When the results came back positive she published a paper with two other scientists. (Balabanova, S., F. Parsche and W. Pirsig, "First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies", Naturwissenschaften 79, 358 (1992) Springer-Verlag 1992.)

If Balabanova was surprised by the results of her tests she was even more surprised at the vitriolic response to her publication. She received a flood of letters threatening, insulting and accusing her of fraud. When she reminded her critics that she was simply applying the very same techniques that she had used for years in police work where her results were considered "proof positive" her critics didn�t seem to care. She was condemned as a "fraud."

Dr. Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum took up the challenge of investigating the "cocaine mummies" which she thought "seemed quite impossible." She began by sending tissue and hair samples from her museum out to labs. She was working on the dual assumption that one of two things are true: 1. Balabanova�s tests were compromised; or 2. The mummy was not truly ancient" (i.e. it was fake). Dr. David flew to Munich to review the techniques and excavation records to see if the body, which had originally been purchased by King Ludwig I of Bavaria was genuine or not.

Dr. Alfred Grimm, the Curator of The Egyptian Museum in Munich said that "the Munich mummies are real Egyptian mummies. No fakes. No modern mummies. They came from ancient Egypt." After spending days pouring over the docum-entation associated with the "cocaine mummy" Dr. David relented saying: "it seems evident that they are probably genuine�"

When she returned to Manchester she discovered that her own Museum�s mummies had traces of tobacco. Dr. David said: "I�m really very surprised at this."

Dr. Balabanova�s work had been validated by the test results from Manchester but she was now hooked on the problem and began collecting samples of naturally preserved bodies housed in museums all around Europe. She obtained 134 separate bodies taken from ancient Sudan dating to a time long before Columbus or the Vikings. One third of these bodies contained both nicotine and cocaine.

The exciting realisation that there was certainly contact between ancient Peru and ancient Egypt has now been established. The cocaine mummies from Egypt and Sudan have changed the rules of this controversial game. There is no longer a warrant to exclude the hypothesis of transoceanic trade in ancient times.

Is the principle of Occum�s Razor only to be applied when the outcome is safely assured to confirm to traditional dogma about theories of the past? It appears so. The cocaine mummies jumped the tracks of long established views. Despite overwhelming evidence we still find ourselves in the last decade of the twentieth century dealing with a �scientific� establishment that ridicules its own members and refuses to look at the results of its own principles if the results don�t confirm the favourite views of the reigning orthodoxy.

One step forward. Two back.


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 09:28:

quote:
Originally posted by Subey
It makes perfect sense that it would be, and I'm not so much as agreeing except to say that when you make connections that are a certain distance outside of the norm that other people often can't follow until a more concrete landing area in between is found.

As an example with the Japanese Atlantis, is it a pyramid, or something geological? I can't make the move to pyramid without more being presented.




I am going to sleep right now, but please watch this if you're interested, if info I provided you so far on Japan's underwater structures is not enought for you - below link shows both sides of story, very neutral and educational:

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


Posted by Subey on Sep-22-2007 14:59:

quote:
Originally posted by Magnetonium


I am going to sleep right now, but please watch this if you're interested, if info I provided you so far on Japan's underwater structures is not enought for you - below link shows both sides of story, very neutral and educational:

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


I think it is rational to put the pieces together in this way. But for me, I can't agree to it. I can't see people carving out that huge structure and not honeycombing it with rooms and what not, yet alone not a single room.

As for Atlantis, to me its death knell occurs 14mins in when Graham Hancock says, 'periods when the water would have risen 100 feet overnight... in geological terms', the point being to me, if you had an advanced technology, and the water was rising wherever you lived at what a foot a year? a foot a decade?, it would be easy to deal with.

And noting similarities in the design of certain structures and attributing that to an Antlantean analogue would be a lot easier if The Inca had the wheel. The key fact being, that an advanced technology spread to multiple locations in essence ensures that technologies survival, because if one location succumbs to a disaster, the other ones are still around to propagate that technology. Yet that never happened.



Please ignore what follows

quote:
German scientist, Dr Svetla Balabanova

Isn't 'Light' in Russian Sveta , I can't wait for Liane Balaban's new movie 'One Week'


Posted by Magnetonium on Sep-22-2007 16:45:

quote:
Originally posted by Subey

Isn't 'Light' in Russian Sveta , I can't wait for Liane Balaban's new movie 'One Week'




LOL, Light in Russian is svet! That lady is German, BTW, in Russian her name would be Svetlana. Anyhow, I think you're being too critical of the Japanese ruins. Look at the other articles I posted. The other ones are more obvious evidence of the previously maginificent civilization. However, I believe that the one near Japan is more key. After all my research, I believe that the land of Mu was located somewhere around Taiwan-Japan, while Atlantis was either around Bimini and Bahamas or Antarctica as George Smiley put it.

I actually read couple brilliant articles yesterday that sort of swayed me over more to support his Antarctica location for Atlantis civilization. Why? It would explain the best the huge rises of water around the world - because previously there was a pole shift and before the South Pole was over an ocean, trapping large volumes of water. Pole shift released all that water, causing the fabled flood myths in many cultures, because most of cultures concentrate their important civilization centers near large bodies of water.

For a fact, North Pole has been centered in lower elevations, the reason for the 'Ice Age' - previously North Pole was over Hudson Bay.

Also, I am somehow convinced that Atlantis civilization existed longer than commonly suggested, around 50,000 years ago.


Posted by Magnetonium on Oct-12-2007 04:38:



Mysterious spheres and stone balls found around the world ... another piece of puzzle that links us to the past ... why would all these different and seemily unconnected civilizations would be involved in similar constructions? First, the pyramid structures - can be discounted. Then the lost cities discovered under water. Then the coke mummies. Now, giant stone balls. Well, hard to discount. China, Costa Rica, and even near the first pyramids in Europe (Bosnia) - I'll post about that later.

The story of the spheric stone balls:
Costa Rica - Short clip requires Quicktime with images of these numerous and amazing huge and medium-sized spheric balls carved to precision.
http://www.travelvideo.tv/videos/co...heresvideo.html


-----------------------------

Mysterious Huge Stone Eggs Discovered in Hunan Province in China
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2...29stoneeggs.htm

Bosnian Stone Balls:
Story:
http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/Archi...StoneBalls.html


Some images:
http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/image...osnic_Kugle.jpg
http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/image...AhmedBosnic.jpg
http://www.bosnian-pyramid.com/foru...0_kugla_1_1.jpg


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