Ancient Sites & Monuments Aligned To "Ancient Equator"

You might want to spend some time looking at the quarries used by the good folks who built PP. Then ask your self three questions - why would they cut out stones from the quarries, drag them to the site then crush them and use molds? Why are there abandoned full sized stones to be found, often on the routes to the quarries? Why were incomplete stones found ?

You seem to be just be ignoring contrary evidence - please explain why stones like this were found in situ - if molds were used?

a reply to: Hanslune

I'm being open to alternative views, that's why I joined ATS in the first place. I'm not a friend of ignorance, really, so let's face the facts. And just as a side note, the advantage of molds and a cement-like slurry are quite obvious, I think, when considering aspects like transportation.

The image you posted is interesting, do you happen to have a source? Is there a close-up available? I actually think I have seen it before in some other context...

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Harte

So, you think geologists can't identify andesite? And andesite can't be made with a slurry. It's igneous.

Why should I doubt that? They're certainly capable one would think... but I think that Ewald Schuster's observation is still intriguing, whether he's right or not. Here's a quote from one of his articles that kind of addresses the geology part:

The question is did they know how to make a stone like slurry that has fooled us to this day that these are real rocks?

Source

It appears he's talking about the red sandstone that makes up the large majority of stone at the site.

It might be possible to form a slurry that looks like sandstone. Why would be the question. After all, the sandstone quarries are known. The largest stone there is a sandstone block that's about 131 tonnes (British tonnes are slightly heavier than U.S. tons,) but that amount of weight is definitely moveable, albeit with difficulty. Also, the stone has been matched chemically with the quarry. IMO, it would take more work to pulverize and move the resulting particles than to simply move the stone itself.

Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
It's pretty hard to establish an "earliest date" for a place.

As you know, Many ancient sites are aligned to the north pole. But there are some, such as Baalbek and Ollantaytambo, that are aligned to a place that is thought to be the location of the magnetic pole in 50,000 BCE.

originally posted by: spiritualarchitect

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
It's pretty hard to establish an "earliest date" for a place.

As you know, Many ancient sites are aligned to the north pole. But there are some, such as Baalbek and Ollantaytambo, that are aligned to a place that is thought to be the location of the magnetic pole in 50,000 BCE.

Ah since the MP moves around all the time you could probably find different dates also. Its impossible to build anything that DOESN'T point somewhere. So finding an 'alignment' tends to be of little value unless you have a cultural context.

a reply to: Hanslune

Different dates, yes, there are several places aligned to where science thinks the 11,000 BCE magnetic pole was. I cannot recall the names of those places, so I wrote out the two I remember, which are both oriented TO THE SAME SPOT.

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: Hanslune

I'm being open to alternative views, that's why I joined ATS in the first place. I'm not a friend of ignorance, really, so let's face the facts. And just as a side note, the advantage of molds and a cement-like slurry are quite obvious, I think, when considering aspects like transportation.

The image you posted is interesting, do you happen to have a source? Is there a close-up available? I actually think I have seen it before in some other context...

However impractical fringe views are of what value? Using molds is useful if you are going to make one size and shape of stone - not individual ones - which is 99% of the PP output. Okay lets say they did do all the extra labor-what changes? Nothing much except they were a bit denser and liked to do extra work but most things that the ancients built were impractical and had no real value to the culture - no value like a dam, roads, fortifications. While temples and tombs are nice and bring in some cultural cohesion and makes the builder look good but beyond that nada.

That image is escaping me a the moments as one of my links is broken however here is another link. No close up that I'm aware of I will be going to that location this year so I have it on a list of things to find and photograph.


www.researchgate.net...

www.academia.edu...

You would have seen that image before as it is a 'killer' of a number of fringe ideas.

originally posted by: spiritualarchitect
a reply to: Hanslune

Different dates, yes, there are several places aligned to where science thinks the 11,000 BCE magnetic pole was. I cannot recall the names of those places, so I wrote out the two I remember, which are both oriented TO THE SAME SPOT.

Yeah but how were those alignments determined? If you work at it you can get a lines going to many places. Could you link to the where and how the line/direction was determined.

Did they have a compass?





Cannot find one the goes back that far but as you can see it circles around.

I wouldn't put it past them to have had a magnetic compass of sorts.

Or to have used birds.

www.geek.com...

One thing ancient people really DID have us beat at, is animal interactions and basic natural intuition.



That doesn't mean I necessarily buy into the magnetic alignments.

The alignments are the strongest evidence against a pole shift, unless it happened earlier than the sites themselves were built, but after the sites having been chosen to be culturally significant.

For example, the Great Pyramid grand gallery is definitely perpendicular to its outer wall, and the walls are definitely aligned to present day cardinal directions. So there's no likelihood it was built prior to the pole shift, if there was one.


But for all we know, the site itself might have been significant for a long time prior to the pyramid being built. Perhaps the lower chamber, for example, had been there for thousands of years, with no structure above it? (That might explain why it was never finished into a decent looking chamber - not wanting to disturb it.)

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
I wouldn't put it past them to have had a magnetic compass of sorts.

Or to have used birds.

www.geek.com...

I doubt both very much. Also, how in hell could you "use birds" anyway? Just because they have a magnetic sense, that doesn't mean they only fly due (magnetic) north, does it.

Harte

It's outside my understanding. Just like when you meet someone who can track people, through the woods. It looks like magic to me, but it's probably just common sense and lots of practice.

One that note there are some people who have an uncanny sense of direction. Whether they are able to access some kind of "inner compass" or not I do not know. But that's the kind of mystic super power a person might show off to the other members of their tribe in order to gain status.

Or being able to get birds to do it for you. That's also pretty impressive. The tribe's "bird handler" would no doubt know some kind of trick or another (and keep it them self, so the other will think it's magic!!!)

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
It's outside my understanding. Just like when you meet someone who can track people, through the woods. It looks like magic to me, but it's probably just common sense and lots of practice.

Or maybe the idea of alignment with magnetic north in antiquity is just fantasy. Hmm... which seems more plausible?

Harte

I'll admit it's a weak theory. But not implausible. Especially when you consider how many ancient cultures had feathered gods.

One way some people passed themselves off as sorcerers in the middle ages was by forming relationships with a flock of crows. (I don't know to what degree it is possible to do the same thing with other species of bird, or not.)

In the ancient world, any exceptional thing someone figured out how to do could make them become accepted as an oracle. Some of the earliest astronomers/astrologers probably made "predictions" in the form of telling the local community the stars were going to move in a certain way (knowing full well they were simply following a cycle). But I bet a number of ignorant peasants in the group really believed it was a prophecy.




If birds that had magnetic sense were acting weird, or some pattern of their behavior lent itself toward/away from/to the avoidance of... etc. ... some particular direction, that direction or location could become to be believed to be magical, and therefore worth building a tower, wall, or statue over.

They probably didn't know it was anything to do with magnetism, though.

Point is: I think most building sites were chosen for their political importance. Their "power" over the hearts and minds of the people.


If the local chicken gizards reader has consistently, generation after generation, said a particular spot is meaningful, then someone will want to build the monument to their personal greatness on that spot.

If people have been gathering somewhere for a long time, someone might decided to build a stone henge there. Or start chiseling a lion head.

Giant stones are the ultimate form of graffiti. (Really hard to wash off. Often just as hard to remove as they were to put there.)

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
I'll admit it's a weak theory. But not implausible. Especially when you consider how many ancient cultures had feathered gods.

Okay... I'll bite. How many ancient cultures (or civilizations, but for pete's sake, do differentiate because they're not the same) had feathered deities (as opposed to other types of spirits such as angels or guides, etc)?

Egypt has Horace, right?

Sumeria has sculptures of winged beings. The Aztecs have quetzalcoatl.

But are we going for something like a preference for feathered beings? I don't really want to go that far.

I think you're taking this question in the wrong direction. This article might interest you:

www.sunnyskyz.com...


People have been befriending flocks of birds all through history. It's more do-able than you might think. And of course a shaman or oracle could use the behavior of birds as an omen.

It doesn't really take much more than an omen to make people think a site is magic.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
Egypt has Horace, right?

No... Horace was Latin, born in Venusia and died in Rome. en.wikipedia.org...

As far as I can tell, he never left Italy and never wrote about Egypt. He did mention birds, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
Egypt has Horace, right?

Sumeria has sculptures of winged beings. The Aztecs have quetzalcoatl.

But are we going for something like a preference for feathered beings? I don't really want to go that far.

I think you're taking this question in the wrong direction. This article might interest you:

www.sunnyskyz.com...


People have been befriending flocks of birds all through history. It's more do-able than you might think. And of course a shaman or oracle could use the behavior of birds as an omen.

It doesn't really take much more than an omen to make people think a site is magic.

That... didn't answer the question at all. You said that many cultures had feathered gods. I asked how many (and which were cultures and which were civilizations (because I think the statement is incorrect)

There have been tens of thousands of cultures from the Harappans to the Beaker Culture to the Yarmukian Culture, to the San of South Africa... and thousands of civilizations from ancient Egypt through modern European and American.

I love the idea that people befriend crows and vice-versa but that doesn't answer the question I asked about what you meant by "many" and whether they were cultures or civilizations.

If we discuss cultures, then at the hunter-gatherer stage where religions are primarily animist, and the gods frequently are animals like coyotes, bears, or ... well... birds....

I don't really feel like there is any controversy here.

All modern cultures came, at some point, from hunter-gatherer origins. A site may become significant in great antiquity, but remain so into more modern times. All without the more modern generation even knowing why.


Befriending of birds is a much more interesting topic, because it tells you what the local shaman might have been using as their claim to magic, or attunement with the gods. A number of birds, like other intelligent animals that gather in groups, use body language to communicate, and if a human knows how to read that communication, they can interact.

If that interaction allows the local shaman to tell where the best forage is (other things the birds may know by virtue of being able to fly, and see from a "bird's eye view" the landscape.) People might start thinking other things perceived by this shaman are significant.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
If we discuss cultures, then at the hunter-gatherer stage where religions are primarily animist, and the gods frequently are animals like coyotes, bears, or ... well... birds....

Actually, they're more likely to be winds, the sun, the moon, etc.

Befriending of birds is a much more interesting topic, because it tells you what the local shaman might have been using as their claim to magic, or attunement with the gods. A number of birds, like other intelligent animals that gather in groups, use body language to communicate, and if a human knows how to read that communication, they can interact.

If that interaction allows the local shaman to tell where the best forage is (other things the birds may know by virtue of being able to fly, and see from a "bird's eye view" the landscape.) People might start thinking other things perceived by this shaman are significant.

That kind of observation is more likely to be made by hunters than by the shaman. In many cultures they do have spirit helpers but birds are only a small part of it (the shamans of the Diquis used birds frequently but the "people who know things" among the Native Americans worked with a large number of animals, including (in the California area) bighorn sheep.

(to sort of return to the topic) Romans considered the direction of flight and type of bird to be oracular but in general our feathered friends move too swiftly to be regular signposts in the sky. Even during migration they follow the air currents north and south... so you may find them flying east or west or any other point of the compass as you watch the sky.