Levitating temple statues of antiquity

It seems amazing but nevertheless true that in antiquity there were temples erected and constructed in such a way that by the use of magnetism the deity of those places was made to levitate in free air. It would seam that loadstone, a naturally magnetic mineral was carved and placed within these temples in an arrangement which allowed an Iron statue of the temples deity to float.

Pliny relates:

“..the temple of Arsinoe was to have been vaulted with magnetic stone, in order to receive a hovering statue of Arsinoe made of iron, according to the arrangement of Ptolemaus Philadelphus, but who, as well as the architect, died before the completion of the temple..”

Cedrenus says:

that an ancient image in the Serapium at Alexandria was 'suspended by magnetic force'.

Cassiodorus stated:

that 'in the temple of Diana hung an iron Cupid without being held by any band'



In India a temple constructed in the pyramidal (Vimana) style of Maya asura once had a huge capstone made from loadstone whilst another was said to be located underground which allowed the temples deity to float in the air. Although damaged and missing its capstone the black pagoda(Sun temple at Konark) temple still stands today. Iron bands are incorporated with the courses of stone blocks which compose the temple wall as if to shape the magnetic lines of force created by the temples capstone.

"The Uniqueness of the Sun Temple at Konark lies in the fact that it was built using the concept of magnets. The peak of the temple was said to be a giant 52 ton magnet. The statue of the Sun inside the temple was said to be floating free in air based on the unique arrangements of the main magnet and the reinforced magnets around the temple walls. Between every two stone pieces in the temple there lies an iron plate. The temple was constructed from oxidized and weathered ferruginous sandstone by King Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty."
www.hitxp.com...

reply to post by LUXUS


Sorry but Ptolemy Philadelphus was the Son of Cleopatra and Mark Antony wasnt he?

Pretty sure Augustus took all there children as slaves back to Rome with him after he smashed Eqypt. Not sure he would have had the time to be building floating temples, as a slave, in Rome.

Can you please cite what the Pliny reference is?, cheers.

interesting stuff. Makes you appreciate how truly advanced the people of antiquity were. We often fall prey to the notion that somehow the more we advance, the seemingly less so we were in the previous steps towards our current state of progress.

Even in archaeologies mindset to establish its predetermined timeline for development. Anything out of the norm is discarded since it would upset a very personal ideal of us being the epitome of progress, and not just an off shoot of any particular branch of humanities "advancement".

great stuff.

reply to post by LUXUS


Thanks. ...Seems to me it should be relatively simple to pull this off - don't know why some might question it.

reply to post by Murad

He is referring to Ptolemy II Philadelphus otherwise known as Pharaoh Ptolemy Philadelphus


www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk...

thanx luxus

i had heard a while ago that the symbolic tomb of osiris....houses a floating coffin........but i couldnt find any evidence....thanx for setting me on my way

i always thought it had something to do with monatomic gold....

thanx again


peace

reply to post by LUXUS


Well until I know what the Pliny source is I will dispute that fact cheers.

I have a copy of The Natural History kickin about somewhere in the house, maybe it comes from that? Id just like to check, as there doesnt seem to be a source referenced.

And you know, when it comes to ancient flying temples made from magic, best to take what you read with a pinch of salt and all that.

please forgive the lame evidence

but 3 years ago we were discussing this ....and the closest i got to finding any sort of reference to osiris symbolic tomb and a supposed levitiating coffin

is jim carrey.....someone mentioned to me that he always plays "green" characters....symbolic of osiris

when i looked at this...i saw` this image

notice in the background...looks like floating coffins
also the V hes making with his arms...the hair that resembles seths....and the overwhelming green!



peace

reply to post by Murad


"Magnete lapide architectus Timochares Alexandriae Arsinoes templum concamarare incohaverat, ut in eo simulacrum e ferro pendere in aëre videretur. intercessit ipsius mors et Ptolemaei regis, qui id sorori suae iusserat fieri." Lib. XXXIV.148

Translation

The architect Timochares had begun to use lodestone for constructing the vaulting in the Temple of Arsinoe at Alexandria, so that the iron statue contained in it might have the appearance of being suspended in mid air; but the project was interrupted by his own death and that of King Ptolemy who had ordered the work to be done in honour of his sister.

So Pliny says it was tried but wasn't completed

Link

reply to post by Murad

The quotes comes from :The History of Magic By Joseph Ennemoser, Mary Howitt. Should not take long to locate the original however with a little digging!

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by Murad

 

The quotes comes from :The History of Magic By Joseph Ennemoser, Mary Howitt. Should not take long to locate the original however with a little digging!

I'd always suggest going to the original document. I looked at a copy of the original then got a english translation -in the post bove. I'd also recommend checking the actual wording of the claim associated with Cedrenus

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by Murad

 

The quotes comes from :The History of Magic By Joseph Ennemoser, Mary Howitt. Should not take long to locate the original however with a little digging!

Hans gave the correct original source for this (and I know enough Latin to know that the translation is correct.)

So... apparently it wasn't done. I'm not sure it'd be possible with an iron magnet. There's a limit (weight) of how much mass can be "floated" just below the magnet -- it's quite tricky and the least gust of wind can throw it off.

Even though the idea was never fully implemented according to the listed sources in this thread. Its still a brilliant idea.

Although I think they would have not succeeded due to the iron magnet the were using, and lift issues, it still a great idea.

Here's my question. They basically wanted to make the inside of this temple a giant magnet field. What effects would that have on the person standing inside the temple. COuld this if it were actually built have been used to augment spiritual experiences. Ie...the effect large electromagnetic fields have on human psychology and experiences.

Any thoughts if they used magnetism for spiritual experiences. I've never given the idea an thought. But do you think its possible some priest were getting weird experiences due to the effects magnets can have on brains and thy passed it off ignorantly as some spiritual experience when in likely hood their brain was just getting screwed with by electromagnetic fields.

Whilst I was at the gym today I figured out how it was done. Firstly the building or temple room must be either conical or pyramidal. secondly the walls of that conical/ pyramidal structure must be composed of a stone which contains Iron, Iron plates may also be incorporated into the wall structure. Thirdly a capstone which is magnetic must be installed at the apex of the cone/pyramid. Fourthly the object being levitated must be symmetrical with its centre of mass at its geometric centre. Fifthly the object being levitated must be composed of either a ferromagnetic material which may be magnetised or not.

What happens is that the wall both extents the influence of the magnet and shapes the flux lines because it contains Iron. What you have is essentially a magnetic cone. The flux limes are wider at the base whilst they converge towards the apex. The result of this is that a magnetic object is drawn upwards into the magnetic cone. Now lets imagine you have a hollow iron ball which you wish to make float in mid-air. What you do is balance the upward magnetic pull with the downwards pull of gravity until both are equal. The way that is done is by adding sand into the hollow iron sphere until its weight is just enough to stop it being pulled up into the vault of the ceiling but not enough to overcome the pull of the magnet capstone. Based on the analysis of the temple at India it conforms to all these conditions including the sun object which was said to be levitated. Would be very impressive to view...actually I would love to design and build such a temple!

reply to post by LUXUS


Building a small model should be enough to either prove or disprove your theory......To be honest though, I wouldn't hold out much hope that it can be accomplished in the way you suggest. Unless you are using a superconductor, it's exceedingly difficult to levitate something magnetically, where it's perfectly balanced. A diamagnetic material can be made to levitate above a properly arranged series of magnets.....


Or if you place a diamagnetic material such as bismuth in between two magnets it's possible to create a stable levitation

Both of these techniques require very strong magnets, and the levitated object is somewhat small.....

Of course it's possible to rapidly spin a conductive material like copper, and levitate a magnet by the eddy currents created in the copper such as here

None of these ways would easily translate into a workable system to levitate a statue in an ancient temple, I'm afraid......Don't get me wrong. I encourage you to try out your own idea. Just don't be shocked if you don't have any luck.

Imagine being a lay person back then and traveling across
thousands of miles to walk upon a scene such as a floating building...

talk about a mind blower.

What if you were using repulsion by placing a large magnet below? Or is it possible to use a combination of both repulsion and attraction? I did a science fair project when I was a youth where I had a magnet tethered by string to one post and it hung in space short of another magnet on a post. then I could insert object and show what affect they had in allowing or blocking the magnetic force. I could also shorten the string to show where the point where the distance exceeded the power to maintain the magnet floating in the air. It was cool.

Originally posted by thePharaoh
please forgive the lame evidence

but 3 years ago we were discussing this ....and the closest i got to finding any sort of reference to osiris symbolic tomb and a supposed levitiating coffin

is jim carrey.....someone mentioned to me that he always plays "green" characters....symbolic of osiris

when i looked at this...i saw` this image

notice in the background...looks like floating coffins
also the V hes making with his arms...the hair that resembles seths....and the overwhelming green!

peace

Also if you look at the 3 biggest question marks from bottom left to top right it looks like 666

Originally posted by Murad
reply to post by LUXUS

 

Sorry but Ptolemy Philadelphus was the Son of Cleopatra and Mark Antony wasnt he?

Pretty sure Augustus took all there children as slaves back to Rome with him after he smashed Eqypt. Not sure he would have had the time to be building floating temples, as a slave, in Rome.

Can you please cite what the Pliny reference is?, cheers.

no
that was cesaerian

reply to post by grayeagle


You could do the reverse yes, cone/pyramidal magnet into the ground point down and place a sphere with magnets allover its surface with poles facing outwards into the cone. The magnetic cone will want to push the sphere out of the mouth of the cone due to magnetic repulsion however gravity will act in the opposite direction. The result will be a sphere levitating in the center of the cone. It would be a safer option because if there were an earthquake there would be no danger of the sphere falling to the ground and crushing anybody! What you would see walking into that building would be a huge sphere floating above the ground. You could actually walk up to that sphere and rotate it with the push of one finger causing it to spin. You could actually engineer that building to use wind to keep that sphere rotating within that building, the harder the wind would blow the faster the sphere would rotate...how cool would that be!!

On a similar note at a small secluded Temple in Bhutan (Chumphu nye monastery) there is a statue which is levitating just a few millimeters off the ground.