Antikythera Mechanism Decoded

The Antikythera mechanism that I mentioned in this blog has been decoded. "Ancient astronomical device thrills scholars" mentions this accomplishment that took over 100 years since it was first discovered in 1901.

Ancient Writings of the Olmec Civilization

I just read in the newspaper today that archaeologists have found a stone slab that contains evidence of written language in ancient Mexico dating back to around 900 B.C. This is a pre-Azetc advanced civilization that built pyramids and now appears to have a written language. The more we find about the ancients the more it appears that they were much more advanced than we have been led to believe.

Here's the article I found on CNN, "Mysterious stone slab bears ancient writing". The Olmec civilization of Meso-America are the predecessors of the Aztecs.

Tropical Stonehenge in the Amazon

It appears that the ancients in South America built a stone structure similar to the Stonehenge in England. This one is recently discovered in the jungles of the Amazon. I saw this in my local newspaper and online in "Did ancient Amazonians build a 'Stonehenge'?". The more archaeological discoveries that are made, it appears that ancient and lost civilizations had a lot in common on different continents.

This recent discovery is of yet another unknown civilization that existed in the Amazon. Carbon dating of the material will be done later this year. This will be interesting to see how old these structures are. There is speculation that they might be more than 2000 years old.

Dropa Stones

In the mountainous areas of Tibet, archaeologists have found these round stones with holes in the middle called Dropa Stones. They look like large modern day phonograph or floppy disks. There are neatly arranged lines on them that have been translated by Chinese scientists but have been banned from publishing their findings.

"The Dropa Stones" origins are unknown and believed to be from extraterrestrials or some unknown ancient civilization. Many of these stones have been found and are believed to be about 12,000 years old.

Until reading about it on the web, I have never even heard of this. The mysteries of the ancients ceases to amaze me. I find more and more information all the time in newspapers and online about lost ancient civilizations or discoveries of mythical cities that turn out to be real.

Ancient European Pyramids

I just saw this article posted on Slashdot about the recent discovery of an ancient pyramid in Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is the first pyramid found in Europe. You can read about it yourself "Experts find evidence of Bosnia pyramid".

This probably means that this pyramid was built more than 10,000 years ago. It was probably buried glaciers of the last Ice Age which is roughly around 11,000 years ago. This opens the question, "who built this pyramid?". The archaeologists, geologists, and scientists will be studying this discovery for years to come.

Some day, there will be a general acknowledgement by academia that human civilization is really 50-100,000 years old. The current academic notion that civilization is roughly 5000-6000 years old is starting to look a bit ridiculous. With all the archaeological discoveries in the past 10-20 years, the evidence is mounting and I suspect will soon become unrefutable that civilization is much older than what we are led to believe by academia.

Ancient Japanese Wooden Robots

The Japanese fascination with robots and miniaturization dates back thousands of years. The ancient Karakuri Ningyo tradition dates back over a 1000 years to ancient Japan. Wooden sculptures were created by craftsmen that had gears and moving parts to enact movement and pre-defined behaviors (like loading a bow and shooting an arrow) in a impressively precise manner.

I saw this on a Discovery Science Channel show about Japanese Robotic technology. This explains why the Japanese from a cultural perspective have advanced so far with robotics. The continuing societal fascination and social adoption of this technology dates back to pre-Industrial Revolution times.

Interest in this ancient Japanese technology has recently been increasing as advances being made today are becoming more commercial. I find it ironic that I had not heard of this technology until very recently myself. I suspect students of robotics probably have this in their history books. If not, then this is yet another ancient technology that has gotten lost in the shuffle and is resurfacing as new again. The phrase "That which is old is new" seems to be a recurring theme when dealing with the archaeology of ancient technology.

2400 year old Mayan hieroglyphics discovered

Our history books and everything we were taught about human history appear to be rewritten with each new archaeological discovery. I just read about the "Earliest Mayan writing found beneath pyramid" posted at CNN this evening (1/5/2006). This new discovery is roughly 300-400 years older than the oldest known Mayan hieroglyphics. I've always believed that human civilization is significantly older than what we were taught in our history classes.

I keep following these archaeological discoveries year after year and the age of human civilization and the capabilities of the ancients keeps growing. One day, the history books will be rewritten and put the ancients on their appropriate pedestals of accomplishment. For now, these discoveries and findings just continue.