It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Ancient explosions in ancient architecture ... preliminary thoughts

page: 2
17
<< 1   >>

log in

join
share:

posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 05:28 AM
link   
reply to post by Druscilla
 
It's a bloody good idea and possibly one that can be tested. For instance, my first thoughts would be along the lines of scale. How large would a silo need to be to generate x amount of combustible power?

The Egyptians who built the Giza pyramids were provided with pretty big silos. We can imagine any dust.chaff in something that size would have enough surface area to explode if ignited, unfortunately I can't find any references to it happening. Likewise, barring an oblique comment, there isn't much in the available academic literature recording exploding granaries in Greek or Roman times.

Perhaps there are examples buried in myth? Maybe Zeus or similar destroyed a granary with mighty wrath?

Whatever, great idea Dru



posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 06:35 AM
link   
reply to post by Kandinsky
 


It's the same problem I'm running into as far as cases on record of neolithic and bronze age grain repository explosions. Sources for this line of inquiry are challenging to find, though I'm gleaning some hints from other literature, particularly regarding Knossos right now.

One of the problems with this in societies with decent documentation like Proto-Grecco/Mycanean/Minoan, cultures, Egypt, and others ranging in the BCE time frame may amount to a linguistic barrier.
Words like "explosion" didn't exist, where words for "fire" and "thunder" did.

This linguistic problem coupled with the pervasive faith in culture appropriate mythology for any given region/culture may, however, have clues where stories depict, as you've hinted, someone, or some place being struck down in thunder by the gods.

Thus, any event that may have been the result of a grain storage explosion may require some additional interpretation as corroborated by physical evidence on the ground combined with any contemporary literature or documentation. That is, where there are written accounts and the site wasn't just abandoned without contemporaries of the time scratching out any details, as was the case with Knossos and so many others.
In cases without any anecdotal relation on clay tablets or any other documentation like stories sung by Homer, or other historians, we're left to speculation regarding what physical evidence is available for interpretation, always a tricky ordeal, often fraught with debate against already established credentials.

Still, it's a niche that doesn't have much in the way of exploration done, and with enough evidence and data, could make a small mark or two of amendment on some already established but misinterpreted histories.




edit on 2-8-2012 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 06:54 AM
link   
reply to post by Druscilla
 
Your analysis is great, but you are assuming to much. I am just proposing, firstly we cant compare what comes from space now with what might of come before.We lack so much information as we have only been recording well in the last few hundred years. Sure we can inspect backwards in time, but we don't have much cross referencing information. Even in the Tunguska event that had so much damage, yet so little evidence. Imagine you were in America never heard of the event and a 1000 years later went searching around Siberia, what would you find and how long would it take you to find? Also as you go back in time the world population was a lot smaller as for the cities they were far and few in between. Take Spain for instance or Iberia as it was know, we have some towns that have survived 700 years, but the rest where just villages. So to compare to nowadays is just not viable. Sure you can have explosions, but to compare... Even in central America and south America, the cities 1500 years ago that we know of are not that many and we seem to know so little about them. In fact in my time on earth I haven't seen one object from outer space do any damage whatsoever, does that mean they have never come. 500 years is nothing in earth space time, the human mind rarely takes this in to account.We say there is something wrong with the weather, how do we really know this? We don't,we assume there is something wrong because we are told that everything should stay the same.These are all valid points that need to be considered as we try to look in to any subject regarding the past. Lead poisoning is fairly easy to validate as it has formed part of our experience. On the other hand, they might of collected mushrooms and beans left them in containers and forgotten about them and created small bombs. Its quiet possible and perhaps more likely than something coming from outer space, but having said that. something tells me that the destruction has come from above on many occasion and that why I have to include it in to your theory. Not to negate your ideas, but merely to consider other ideas. ATS is a place of sharing and I feel what I have to add is of value to others.



posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 07:23 AM
link   
reply to post by ancientthunder
 


Thank you for the opinion. I still, however, disagree.
Meteor strikes have a pretty distinguishable characteristic that can be seen over thousands of years in the soil strata.
We see such in the large KT boundary caused by the Chicxulub extinction event.

With Tunguska, we had an atmospheric blast caused by the super-heated volatiles comprising a large portion of the object reaching a critical point. The result, as you can see from pictures, was similar to an atmospheric detonation of a hydrogen bomb; leaving no crater.
Tunguska, was, in essence, a naturally occurring icy body meteor atmospheric blast.
Has it exploded/impacted at house/city level, we'd have very predictable results and debris to show.
anything detonating/impacting at house/city level would leave a rather distinguishable finger-print that could easily be traced to an impact event.

Thank you for your opinion, however, though I must disagree.
People and cities must eat.
Every city requires food.
Cities typically have an agricultural basis which requires in neolithic and bronze age cultures grain, or maize. Storing these food products requires a place to store them.
Grain storage explosions are well documented in modern history, and still happen in modern days even with safety regulations.
Primitive neolithic and bronze age cultures did not necessarily have these safety measures.
They did eat.
They did farm.
They did store grain.
Grain storage places can and will explode.
Risk of explosion from grain storage was a far more probable hazard than getting struck by lightning, or having meteors fall.



posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 07:39 AM
link   
reply to post by Druscilla
 

Yeah, I’ve taken a side-step from mythology and looked at any military applications. A non-starter really, but I hoped it might point to a reason for the lack of historical reports of explosive granaries/silos. Powder bombs and suchlike don’t appear to have had a use in the past. Given the search terms, my IP is likely to be on a temporary watch list! lol

Another idea I had was to look for references in the records of the Egyptians. Building things, bandaging critters and writing stuff down! They recorded receipts, court cases and a lot more than the temple texts of general knowledge. No joy there either, but obviously the textual record isn’t complete.

This leads back to mythology as, potentially, the best place to uncover any incidents that were attributed to gods. The downside of that is in the acceptance that similar myths are so apt to change according to when they’re recorded that we could never be sure of what they contain.

It’s still a good idea.



posted on Aug, 2 2012 @ 07:53 AM
link   
I like your firmness!! yes in the town where I lived they were building 4500 years ago. They recently found the houses where the workers lived. Small round houses, all they found was the lower part of the houses which were apparently were they stored the food! There were several hundreds of them, in those days that would be a city. Only very recently did they find out that when they were building the sea was present. Now it is not.
One question though, what evidence is there in the structures you mention of an explosion and if so why don't we know the exact type of explosive matter. Surely that would be easy to prove the origin of these explosions, especially if they came from a particular type of food.The way I see it, the more earth based the source of explosions the easier it would be to prove your theory.
For instance the great event of Knossos's, I read a year or so ago that they new something big was going to happen and moved all there expensive poetry from the island before the mass destruction. On the other hand when that even occurred parts of Iberia quiet some distance away received the ashes from there, something that has been easy to prove. Hopefully some proof of the tumbling temples will come soon and that way we can improve our knowledge of our ancient past.



posted on Aug, 3 2012 @ 10:46 AM
link   
reply to post by Druscilla
 


Druscilla

nice idea.

If you are looking for silos or storage chambers in Puma punku there are plenty. The area was designed to manage the water and process the abundant crops grown in the fertile fields. They apparently scored many crops a year by using water in channels to store the suns heat during the day and keeping the crops warm over night. This stopped them freezing in the soil beds.

As for the crop processing part, the towers and chambers on the summits of the multi tiered structures were used to dry the crops and preserve them. Without this processing they could not have traded to wealth. These devices essentially worked under the principles expressed in the ancient solar premise.

I can't vouch for there having been an explosion of the dry crops in the silos. The presence of feet thick layers of mud at the site suggest another cause. In my opinion it was linked to the water systems possibly a dam upstream burst and sent the water and mud flowing down uprooting stones and structures on its way. Leaving a pile of mud for the locals to deal with afterward.

Regards

Chris



posted on Aug, 3 2012 @ 01:57 PM
link   
Comment

Modern grain explosions I believe occur in storage areas where the milled four is being stored?

Ancients didn't mill the flour until immediately before use, it being to vulnerable to insect infestations.

Some cultures did ground flour and other grains and store the flour but as far as I know only in small amounts.



posted on Aug, 3 2012 @ 02:04 PM
link   
reply to post by Hanslune
 


That's not correct. Quite alot of dust is generated from harvest. The elevator next to me only deals in bulk corn, and is still considered a high explosion hazard. Milling might cause an increased potential, but the problem is there just the same.

You would be surprised to see how much dust comes out when the semi-trucks unload.

I'll try to get a picture of one soon.
edit on 3-8-2012 by isyeye because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 3 2012 @ 02:16 PM
link   
reply to post by isyeye
 


That's interesting, I wonder what the largest volume the ancients would store in one area? Will have to look at Roman granaries or horreum and see what volume they reached



posted on Aug, 14 2012 @ 03:12 AM
link   
reply to post by Druscilla
 


Brilliant thread
S & F



new topics

top topics



 
17
<< 1   >>

log in

join