The ancient navigators

originally posted by: LABTECH767

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When the great library of Alexandria was burned Scholars were said to be running in and out trying to save there precious scroll's and being burned alive, many would run out carrying arm full's of scrolls with there robes and beards on fire

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Library of Alexandria:

Despite the widespread modern belief that the Library of Alexandria was burned once and cataclysmically destroyed, the Library actually declined gradually over the course of several centuries ...

The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter ...

a reply to: Hooke

This sort of blows it all away, diffusionism means that the whole written history of mankind is nothing but a cozy fabrication, more for political convenience or some other reason. Perhaps the meme is only government-approved history is correct, which is the same meal of propaganda served up on the same boring dish of banality when the real dish is far more interesting.

a reply to: anonentity

History, especially of the ancient sorts, is never going to paint an accurate or complete picture given the people who wrote and recorded such.

"History is Written by Victors." a quote attributed to Churchill but far more ancient that the man in question, and with some rather serious connotations where actual recorded facts are concerned.

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

Haha.

You know he's actually not a bad sort just has his own very strong belief's and opinions and quite often he is actually totally correct though I do relish those times when he is definitely not.

It just would not be same without him and a few others and on occasion they prove there point so strongly we have to agree with them BUT they can also get conceited and so can we so fair is fair.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Hooke

This sort of blows it all away, diffusionism means that the whole written history of mankind is nothing but a cozy fabrication, more for political convenience or some other reason. Perhaps the meme is only government-approved history is correct, which is the same meal of propaganda served up on the same boring dish of banality

when the real dish is far more interesting.

Not following, sorry.

I just posted a link explaining that the legend about how the Library of Alexandria was destroyed by fire was probably a misunderstanding of what had actually taken place.

Not sure what point you were making.

a reply to: anonentity

In the video around the 6-7 minute mark he is talking about calculating the size of the Earth from the shadows cast in a nearby town well. I think around 300 BC that particular feat was being embellished into a legend.

Ancient mariners thousands of years earlier noted the reflection of the morning and evening sun off the tops of distant sails ceasing several minutes earlier or later than the sun reflection in the tops of their own sails going into the shadow of the night.

They could have anchored two ships off the coast at landmarks with known distance between them and timed the delay with the angle of the moon rising or a sand clock and done the math from that thousands of years earlier.

The noon shadow in the town well checked with a plumb bob makes a more alluring legend though.

a reply to: Hooke

Those are claimed to be a NATIVE New Zealand family, they may be from an earlier group of people.

There are many areas in New Zealand that are OFF LIMITS to archaeological research and very few Archaeologists that would even want to touch them.

Ever hear of the Kaimanawa wall/



Part of the reticence to accept that these and other mysterious artefacts in New Zealand may just possibly be remnants of a previous civilization or previous peoples is down to treatise with the Maori but there are story's such as one in which while they were building a road workmen unearthed a massive cave lain out like a mausoleum of sorts with mummified red haired body's taller than the Maori in it, when the Maori were asked what they wanted done with there ancestors the said they were NOT there ancestors and to do with the body's whatever the government wanted, there were a great many and there end is rather grisly, they were crushed and turned into fertilizer.

I believe anonentity's point is to expand upon the basic nature of the thread (though that is for him to clarify) and the theme of lost knowledge, at least it work's that way for me, this family may be vestigial remnants of a lost former ethnic group that predate the Maori and so then become potentially highly indicative of lost epoch's of human history and this provides anecdotal supporting evidence for the likelihood of vast troves of lost knowledge as well and the tantalizing possibility that some may still exist.

Of course Alexandria was not the last great library to be destroyed, Bishop Zuma out of the very best intentions as he tried to Christianize Mexico ordered the library's and every written work of the Aztecs (and other works in there possession of course) to be burned so that was a second great library lost, a third also in south America may have been CLAIMED but not proven library made of gold or gold alloy metal book's that was claimed to be in a cave.


The tragedy of this one is that likely if it did exist it was looted after word of it got out and treasure hunting locals probably melted it down but perhaps one or two of the book's ended up in some private collectors possession and may some day surface without knowledge or proof that they were from this lost hoard.

Further if there are archaic population (The cloud people of the Andes said to be white or very pale skinned were another possible group though they were conquered and possibly wiped out by the Inca) that are different to the so called NATIVE population's and possibly got there before them then this is also proof of ancient navigators as well.
www.chimuadventures.com...
Note the similarity to the Easter Island statues although it is not actually that similar, still what if?.


I find it all rather interesting and believe that there has been a perhaps unintentional cover up with some deliberate cover up thrown in that has muddied the waters even for the serious archaeological community both the mainstream and the alternative.

It's a tantalizing bit of information he has brought up, imagine we are looking at a broken stone without any knowledge that it was once part of a great structure, only by putting the many pieces together as best we can do we begin to see a form appear before our minds eye.

a reply to: fromunclexcommunicate

Getting the timing right might have been a problem, doing it right with a sextant needs a good stopwatch. You have to be quick noting the time and the angle.

a reply to: anonentity

The diameter of a full moon is about 31 arcmin and the distance from Alexandria to Syene is about 500 miles.
They didn't have stopwatches back then but at noon a rising full moon would appear in a different angular location near the Earths horizon.

Same experiment could have been done at sea where average ship speeds were well known and there was a ready horizon.
Star angles at night give finer resolution if they had a gravity stabilized device.

a reply to: anonentity

Alexandria has always fascinated me. just wondering if it ever survived....how much further we would be in our development?



Greek mathematician and engineer Heron of Alexandria (Hero of Alexandria, Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς) are not known with certainty, but he must have worked between the first and third century CE. Boas cites evidence in Heron's treatise Dioptra that Heron referred to an eclipse of the moon that occurred are designs for automata—machines operated by mechanical or pneumatic means. These included devices for temples to instill faith by deceiving believers with "magical acts of the gods," for theatrical spectacles, and machines like a statue that poured wine. Among his inventions weren March 13, 63, which would place him definitely in the first century. In Heron's numerous surviving writings

A windwheel operating a pipe organ—the first instance of wind powering a machine.

♦ The first automatic vending machine. When a coin was introduced through a slot on the top of the machine, a set amount of holy water was dispensed. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened up a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until the coin fell off, at which point a counter-weight would snap the lever back up and turn off the valve.

Mechanisms for the Greek theater, including an entirely mechanical puppet play almost ten minutes in length, powered by a binary-like system of ropes, knots, and simple machines operated by a rotating cylindrical cogwheel. The sound of thunder was produced by the mechanically-timed dropping of metal balls onto a hidden drum.mmm

More illustrated technical treatises by Heron survived than those of any other writer from the ancient world. His Pneumatica, which described a series of apparatus for natural magic or parlor magic, was definitely the most widely read of his works during the Middle Ages; more than 100 manuscripts of it survived. However, the earliest surviving copy of this text, Codex Gr. 516 in the Bibliotheca Marciana in Venice, dates from about the thirteenth century— a later date than one might expect. Conversely, the complete text of Heron's other widely known work, the Mechanica, survived through only a single Arabic translation made by Kosta ben Luka between 862 and 866 CE. This manuscript is preserved in Leiden University Library (cod. 51).

The first publication in print of any of Heron's works appeared as a paraphrase of the early pages of the Pneumatica in the encyclopedic De expetendis et fugiendis rebusOffsite Link of humanist Giorgio VallaOffsite Link published in Venice the year after Valla's death, in 1501. The first printed edition of the complete text of the Pneumatica was the Latin translation from the Greek by mathematician and humanist Federico CommandinoOffsite Link published as Heronis Alexandrini spiritualium liberOffsite Link (1575)

And in China:


For example, King Lan Ling, who lived during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577 A.D.) invented a robot that could dance and that looked like a man of a non-Chinese ethnic group. When the King wanted to offer a drink to a man, the robot would turn to that man, and bow to the man with the drink in his hand. Nobody knows what secret mechanism was inside the robot.

In the book Robotics in Genitourinary Surgery, authors Ashok Kumar Hemal (Editor), Mani Menon relate how Daifeng Ma, a skilled designer constructed not only mechanical birds that measured the wind’s direction, but also a famous automated device that served as a dresser or the queen.

"Through ingenious levers and switches, when the queen opened the mirror, the doors beneath automatically opened as well. He devised a robotic woman servant for the queen that would bring washing paraphernalia and towels.

Then the towel was removed from the servant’s arm, it automatically triggered the machine to back away into the closet."

Returning back to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577 A.D.) we encounter a monk named Ling Zhao who created a pool close to a mountain.

According to author Ming Xin, "after the pool was finished, Emperor Wu Cheng enjoyed a feast next to the pool. Ling built a miniature boat with exquisite details and put it in the water. When the miniature boat flowed before the Emperor, he took a wine cup from it, and the boat would stop automatically.

Then the small wooden man on the boat would clap its hands, and the boat would start to play music. When Emperor Wu Cheng finished drinking and put down the wine cup, the small wooden man would take the cup back to the boat.If Emperor Wu Cheng did not finish drinking the wine in the cup, the boat would stay there and would not leave.

"He created a wooden man and dressed him with an outfit made of colorful worsted silk. At every banquet, the small wooden man would propose a toast to each guest in order. Yin Wenliang also made a wooden woman. She could play the sheng (an ancient Chinese pipe with 13 reeds) and sing, and she did them in perfect rhythm. If a guest did not finish the wine in his cup, the wooden man wouldn't refill the cup.If a guest did not drink enough wine, the wooden singing girl would play the sheng and sing for him to urge him to drink more.

Nobody could figure out the marvellous secret of these two wooden robots."

The last example we mention, is the best documented of all the automata from Han Zhile, a Japanese ho moved to China between 806 and 820 AD.

According to Hemal and Menon, "he is known to have created mechanical birds, phoenixes, cranes, crows, and magpies. Though made of wood, some of the ornithologic prototypes could be made to pretend to eat, drink, chirp, and warble like real birds. He is reported to have installed mechanical devices inside some of the birds to drive their wings to make them fly. He is reported to have also created a mechanical cat.


One of the most marvelous creatures was an automated bed for the Emperor Xianzong named "a dragon on demand." It was activated by someone applying their weight to the bed thus triggering the release of an intricately carved dragon.

www.ancientpages.com...


www.ancientpages.com...

a reply to: anonentity

Many Mysteries Unsolved Today . Is Man that Arrogant that He Thinks He Knows ALL > ?






www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: Hooke

... a third also in south America may have been CLAIMED but not proven library made of gold or gold alloy metal book's that was claimed to be in a cave.

...

The tragedy of this one is that likely if it did exist it was looted after word of it got out and treasure hunting locals probably melted it down but perhaps one or two of the book's ended up in some private collectors possession and may some day surface without knowledge or proof that they were from this lost hoard.

...

It's unlikely that any books are going to turn up anywhere from a library whose existence is so improbable.

a reply to: ColoradoTemplar

Very interesting thanks for the time spent. I often wonder if the best computers are the human brain itself if you can get people who could calculate logs and anti logs in their heads. By that token, you could just as well have a few people who could look at the stars and do it all in their heads. Some people can learn a foreign language in a couple of weeks. If there is ferritin in the human brain it's obviously there for a reason. Dogs and cats can find their way home from thousands of miles away. If you don't use it you lose it. Some people can do multiple games of chess in their heads.
So by that token , an instrument like a sextant, what is the difference between imagining that you are holding a sextant and reading the result, and actually holding one and reading the result, because in both instances you just think you are anyway. or even the angle of the sun on the horizon would be easy for some people to get within half a degree. I am no genius but in the mornings when i get up i play a little game and say to myself. It feels like eighteen degrees this morning, or whatever it feels like., then i check it on the thermometer, and it's within half a degree. To say that we have been dumbed down is only true to a certain extent, simply because we have not explored our full potential because we haven't had to.

a reply to: anonentity

To say that we have been dumbed down is only true to a certain extent, simply because we have not explored our full potential because we haven't had to.

Most people just accept the legend of Eratosthenes and the well on the island of Elephantine.
Herodotus wrote about the the caravan of Berbers crossing the Sahara by foot in metered 10 day journeys.
The island of Elephantine is a about 30 nautical miles north of the tropic so the well could not have been absolutely plumb.
Its about 2500 nautical miles west to the Eye of the Sahara from there ~41.5 degrees of (west from the Nile longitude).

If you were going to set up an experiment to measure the circumference of the Earth using the larger third of the distance around the Earth would mean your astronomical timing mechanism could be coarser. We may never know the real error percentage of the earliest measurement.

I doubt anything but ego was measured in Alexandria.

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: andy06shake

Definity agree, but those ruins in the gulf of Cambay may be even more ancient

There are no ruins in the Gulf of Cambay (Khambat.)

originally posted by: LABTECH767(That is if we trust the dating of the indus ruins since there are also claims they are far more ancient than we are told and that there were indeed radioactive skeletons found there).

No radioactive skeletons were found "there" (Mohenjo Daro.)

Harte

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: fromunclexcommunicate

Getting the timing right might have been a problem, doing it right with a sextant needs a good stopwatch. You have to be quick noting the time and the angle.

Yes, the problem with finding longitude by stars is not a problem of observation.
You have to know the exact time you are observing.
This was impossible in the ancient world. They had clocks, but no clock that could tell time on a ship - because of the rocking.

Harte

originally posted by: fromunclexcommunicate
a reply to: anonentity

The diameter of a full moon is about 31 arcmin and the distance from Alexandria to Syene is about 500 miles.
They didn't have stopwatches back then but at noon a rising full moon would appear in a different angular location near the Earths horizon.

Same experiment could have been done at sea where average ship speeds were well known and there was a ready horizon.
Star angles at night give finer resolution if they had a gravity stabilized device.

Without knowing the exact time, none of the above can help you with longitude.

Harte

originally posted by: ColoradoTemplar

For example, King Lan Ling, who lived during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577 A.D.) invented a robot that could dance and that looked like a man of a non-Chinese ethnic group. When the King wanted to offer a drink to a man, the robot would turn to that man, and bow to the man with the drink in his hand. Nobody knows what secret mechanism was inside the robot.

Lanling was a place. not a person.
It was a fiefdom, so there was no "king of Lan Ling."

However, there are many fantastic tales of automata from ancient China (and elsewhere.)
Some of them might even be true - to some extent.

Harte

originally posted by: Hooke

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: Hooke

... a third also in south America may have been CLAIMED but not proven library made of gold or gold alloy metal book's that was claimed to be in a cave.

...

The tragedy of this one is that likely if it did exist it was looted after word of it got out and treasure hunting locals probably melted it down but perhaps one or two of the book's ended up in some private collectors possession and may some day surface without knowledge or proof that they were from this lost hoard.

...

It's unlikely that any books are going to turn up anywhere from a library whose existence is so improbable.

Story from Erik VonDaniken.
He later admitted he'd never even been in the cave.

Harte