What if a lost ancient civilization had telescopes and balloons?

I was thinking about it...

What if there was sometime in the past an ancient civilization that reached a level of development similar to that of Western Europe around the year 1750?

Not an industrial civilization, but a civilization that developed telescopes to observe the planets and stars, and that could even fly using hot air balloons?

What if this civilization was buried under the sand of some desert, or under the waters of the sea?

What if part of their knowledge was passed, in a distorted way, to other peoples, through the millenia?

reply to post by GLontra


"What if a lost ancient civilization had telescopes and balloons?"

Then they would be able to see things that are far away and float in the Earth's atmosphere.

What if there was a point to this thread?

Many people think of industrial civilizations when they think about lost advanced civilizations in the past.

But what if there was a pre-industrial civilization, that didn't develop the steam engine, and didn't knew electricity, but was almost as advanced as England was in 1750?

They could have been destroyed for some reason, and the "barbarian" peoples that had some contact with them kept some of their knowledge, but distorted it a lot through the millenia...

That could explain how many known ancient civilizations had a high degree of knowledge about astronomy...

Originally posted by mileslong54

What if there was a point to this thread?

There is a point to this thread, my friend:

That could explain how many known ancient civilizations had a high degree of knowledge about astronomy...

reply to post by GLontra


Ok interesting, all I saw was "what if" "what if" and didn't get where you were going with all the "what if's"

reply to post by GLontra


First I really hate "What-ifs". Their all encompassing and never-ending.

My brain power is limited to the factual and plausible with something substantive.

Otherwise, my reply is something like "Monkey's created the ballons to fly and the humans used the telescopes to watch them".

Plausible given the scenario...

Originally posted by EspyderMan
reply to post by GLontra

 

First I really hate "What-ifs". Their all encompassing and never-ending.

My brain power is limited to the factual and plausible with something substantive.

Otherwise, my reply is something like "Monkey's created the ballons to fly and the humans used the telescopes to watch them".

Plausible given the scenario...

without what if's, would we have so many facts now?

OP. I think there could of been a civilization more advanced than you say and be hidden from us. Its not like we know much at all about history beyond a certain point, it becomes blurred imo.

I do believe there was an advanced civilization in the remote past... Graham Hancock brought forth this theory in his book "Fingerprints of the Gods". He presents compelling evidence of such a civilization existing during the last Ice Age. I suggest you check it out...

reply to post by GLontra


Orrrrr... what if ancient civilizations had computers and sneakers and airplanes and were close to being, if not more advanced than we are now, and some solar flare hit the earth and wiped out their "knowledge", much like what would happen if we were struck by an EMP today. So much information is lost every day in the natural deterioration of books, fires, and floods, that most documentation nowadays goes straight onto a computer as a form of "hard copy."
Without electricity mankind would nearly destroy itself in a matter of years, leaving only the strong or those with a good sense of ingenuity. The rest would parish, cities would be deserted, etc.

Have you ever seen a truck sitting out in the woods? Likely been there for 20 years, but already its glass is broken, its outer metal shell is rusting away, the tires are cracking and falling apart. What about an old cabin, neglected for 30 years with a big hole in its roof, walls caving in, and termite damage? Neither of these two things will leave a trace within 200 years. Now imagine 10,000 years... 30,000 years.

People will argue, "what about fossils?" To which I'd reply; only about 0.001% of living creatures leave fossils. We almost never find signs of ancient villages. What we do find are things that were designed to survive the times, and things that scientists today seem to believe were built for the purpose of tracking the "heavens."

The question is why? Why track the stars? Did something catastrophic occur via the heavens that left people in an obsessive state of needing to know when and where the Earth was in relation to the galaxy at all times, as if they were afraid of a repeat event? Maybe. Why don't we remember this "event?" We don't even remember accurately what happened 1,000 years ago, how can be begin to imagine a world 30,000 years ago. We base our knowledge of the past on what we have accomplished in our time, trying to solve the labyrinth backwards, but cave drawing depicting flying vehicles, ancient stories of cities with electricity and myths about global floods and fires had to be inspired by something. Some would say aliens, but why not memories, from those who survived the first (for mankind) end of the world. Just some food for thought.

S&F for asking questions. I love questions. Without them we're just drones making honey.

reply to post by GLontra

That could explain how many known ancient civilizations had a high degree of knowledge about astronomy...

They studied the sky for many generations by observation and created mathematics to examine some aspects of what they saw.

They were rather intelligent

Please define; "high degree of knowledge", what exactly does that mean?

Originally posted by FugitiveSoul
reply to post by GLontra

 

Have you ever seen a truck sitting out in the woods? Likely been there for 20 years, but already its glass is broken, its outer metal shell is rusting away, the tires are cracking and falling apart. What about an old cabin, neglected for 30 years with a big hole in its roof, walls caving in, and termite damage? Neither of these two things will leave a trace within 200 years. Now imagine 10,000 years... 30,000 years.

Have you ever seen an archaeology book sitting out int he woods? It might help to read it. lol

Here is a question if you take a 8 cm wooden stake and drive it into soil for one meter and then leave it. If that land is not eroded and become sediment - how long will the impression of that stake survive?

One of my favorites: 400k old wooden javelins

The question is why? Why track the stars? Did something catastrophic occur via the heavens that left people in an obsessive state of needing to know when and where the Earth was in relation to the galaxy at all times, as if they were afraid of a repeat event?

No because they could see the stars ever night - its rather impressive. Mankind recognizes patterns - they saw patterns and got interested.

So on what do you base your speculation?

reply to post by 001ggg100

He presents compelling evidence of such a civilization existing during the last Ice Age.

Compelling if you know nothing about geology, archaeology and biology however he does write well unfortunately its made up stuff or shall we say, agressively speculative!

reply to post by Hanslune


I must admit that I don't know a lot about geology or biology. What is it that I would need to know about those fields to dispel his theory?

Originally posted by 001ggg100
reply to post by Hanslune

 

I must admit that I don't know a lot about geology or biology. What is it that I would need to know about those fields to dispel his theory?

Geology: GH uses the pole shift hypothesis to explain how there was a civilization in the Antarctic this hinges on Charles Hapgood's theory of Earth crustal displacement being true: it isn't. He also ignores the information from the ice cores showing the Antarctic to have been cover in ice for 100ks of years. He also makes the absolute howler of thinking that the Piri Reis map shows the Antarctic......

A look at that theory

DNA: Early human migration although not fully understood, doesn't support a group of people going out to the Anatarctic and returning.

His knowledge of archaeology or interpretation of said evidence is, er, well, 'unique'.

reply to post by Hanslune


I base my theories on a collection of areas based on science, mythology, religion, cultural arts/sciences, the list goes on. You cannot understand the world or history through science alone. Someone who only focuses on science is no different than someone who believes completely in the bible. Both can be blinding, and both are ever changing. The more we learn about history and science, the more we're learning about our past civilizations and how advanced they truly were.
I didn't say nothing survives, but very little makes it through the ages undestroyed. Flooding, erosion, earthquakes, volcanoes, all of these things leave traces in the soil, but they also destroy artifacts and clues in the process.
I'm not saying science is bull$h!t, but I'm saying it's not the only answer. There are clues to mankind's past buried in more places than the dirt.

Originally posted by GLontra

Originally posted by mileslong54

What if there was a point to this thread?

There is a point to this thread, my friend:

That could explain how many known ancient civilizations had a high degree of knowledge about astronomy...

Except no known ancient society knew anything at all about astronomy that couldn't be discovered by simply looking up, using the naked eye, over a long enough period and recording what was observed.

So your "solution" is looking for a "problem" to solve that (so far) doesn't even exist.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte


Except no known ancient society knew anything at all about astronomy that couldn't be discovered by simply looking up, using the naked eye, over a long enough period and recording what was observed.

Including the fact that the Dogon people from Mali knew that Sirius was a "trinary" system, a thing that only in 1995 the scientists started to consider?

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by GLontra

Originally posted by Harte


Except no known ancient society knew anything at all about astronomy that couldn't be discovered by simply looking up, using the naked eye, over a long enough period and recording what was observed.

Including the fact that the Dogon people from Mali knew that Sirius was a "trinary" system, a thing that only in 1995 the scientists started to consider?

en.wikipedia.org...

A follow up with the Dogon showed they had no such knowledge.

From your own link:

More recently, doubts have been raised about the validity of Griaule and Dieterlein's work.[23][24] In a 1991 article in Current Anthropology anthropologist Walter van Beek concluded after his research among the Dogon that,

"Though they do speak about sigu tolo [which is what Griaule claimed the Dogon called Sirius] they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as sigu tolo. All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule"[25]

In addition, it is still not known today whether there is indeed a third star there, yet you seem to have assumed there is because of what the Dogon are reported to have said?

Please note - the Dogon "knowledge" conforms exactly to the ideas that were prevalent about Sirius in the 1900's in Europe. Several hundred Dogon served in WWI in Europe, a fact the wiki article itself fails to mention. That was before Griaule's visit with them.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte

Please note - the Dogon "knowledge" conforms exactly to the ideas that were prevalent about Sirius in the 1900's in Europe. Several hundred Dogon served in WWI in Europe, a fact the wiki article itself fails to mention. That was before Griaule's visit with them.

I would think they would be more likely to be trying to stay alive during WW1 rather than find the time to stop and have a chat about Sirius while bullets and bombs are flying past their heads.

Even if they did have time for a chat mid-explosion I doubt that would be the first topic of choice in a war zone.

Just my 2c.

Originally posted by Kryties

Originally posted by Harte

Please note - the Dogon "knowledge" conforms exactly to the ideas that were prevalent about Sirius in the 1900's in Europe. Several hundred Dogon served in WWI in Europe, a fact the wiki article itself fails to mention. That was before Griaule's visit with them.

I would think they would be more likely to be trying to stay alive during WW1 rather than find the time to stop and have a chat about Sirius while bullets and bombs are flying past their heads.

Even if they did have time for a chat mid-explosion I doubt that would be the first topic of choice in a war zone.

Just my 2c.

More assumption - that these tribe members served in combat.

Obviously, nobody took naked savages out of the jungle and put them in foxholes. My point was that the Dogon have had plenty of contact with Europeans. The same Europeans whose astronomical theories about Sirius in the early to mid 1900's exactly matches what Griaule claimed the Dogon "knew."

Harte