For us...a thread in which we can ask Bob archeology questions

[Flagg the Wanderer]

In exchange for having my football questions answered, I would be more than happy to answer any archaeological questions!

I'd be happy to answer football questions if I can, Bob, but it looks like yours already were answered in the other thread.

So, I went down to Mexico and went out to the Aztec pyramids outside of Mexico City. Wow - tall. Plus I had a baby in a front pack (as usual) and it threw my balance off and nearly made both of us fall to an ignominious (and embarrassing, considering all the cameras at the ready) demise.

Anyway, the whole thing got me interested in ancient cultures, and I saw a show on...I don't know, probably the Discovery Channel or something, and it was about Santorini and some other surrounding cultures. They were making really interesting claims like Santorini was such a dominant force in the area that Egypt was paying tribute, and this was memorialized in hieroglyphics in Egypt. They claimed that Santorini was incredibly technologically advanced - they actually had indoor plumbing insofar as they had toilets that dumped into sewers and had valves that kept the sewer gasses from coming into the house.

They also claimed that one of the surrounding seafaring cultures (Crete?) had what amounted to the aircraft carriers of the age - two ships that had a huge walled platform between them to hold massive amounts of troops carried into battle. Like an enormous catamaran I guess.

Is that legit, or is that garbage? I always go under the assumption that anything I see in pop science media is wildly exaggerated or at least heavily glamorized. Those in particular were pretty hard for me to swallow.

Just tossing it out there. I'm sure there is any number of members here that have other questions about different things (I'm looking at you, TGIASM).

Sorry to stick this in the football forum, but I suspect that Bob would not have seen it in the 3RC. He just doesn't strike me as a 3RC kind of guy.

Thanks in advance, Bob!

And welcome to the Planet.

 

[chef]

How often is it that you get into fistfights with the Nazis and out of those times, how often do you kill them with a plane propeller?

 

[Claremonster]

Have you ever survived a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge?

 

[OffTopic]

Bob- are you afraid of snakes?

 

[PatsFan09]

Bob, where have you excavated, and with which universities/programs?

 

[Hawg73]

I have a question. Below is an photo collage of a site between Taiwan and Japan which is known as Yonaguni. It is located in approximately 25M of water and seems to be a pretty good example of how different people/scientists or what-have-you look at something remarkable like this.

On one hand you have Maasaki Kimura, a professor at Kobe U who has dived at the site for years and insists it is the ruins of a city over 5000 years old that may have sunk in an earthquake 2000 years ago. He insists that there are obvious indications that it was man-made including a pyramid and:

For example, Kimura said, he has identified quarry marks in the stone, rudimentary characters etched onto carved faces, and rocks sculpted into the likenesses of animals. He states:

"The characters and animal monuments in the water, which I have been able to partially recover in my laboratory, suggest the culture comes from the Asian continent," he said.

"One example I have described as an underwater sphinx resembles a Chinese or ancient Okinawan king."


On the other you have a professor from BU named Robert Schoch who has dived at the site and opines: "I'm not convinced that any of the major features or structures are manmade steps or terraces, but that they're all natural.It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges, particularly in an area with lots of faults and tectonic activity."

My question is uhhhh, what the hell? How can two learned individuals who have seen the same exact thing differ so wildly in what it is?

 

[Flagg the Wanderer]

That's interesting stuff, Hawg, and that stuff absolutely looks man-made. I mean, that "face" actually looks a helluva lot like one of the Easter Island statues, doesn't it? It's even about the right size. And the lion is basically typical of the East Asian art of that type. It isn't even the cut so much as the symmetry. As to the stairs, etc., it isn't the straight cuts, it's the spacing. It's not only even from stair to stair, it's also (presumably) the same *size* of stairs. Both those things together? Too much of a coincidence. And frankly to see anything else would require a nasty case of willful blindness, IMO.

Looking at a map, it always struck me that the sea of japan looked like nothing if not a big crater hole with fallout trailing north and south from it. Something like that (a big-ass meteorite) would have absolutely sunk a city even that far away in the East China Sea - though realistically it would have had to be much more than 2,000 years ago. More likely it would be the sort of thing that would, you know, cause a super-volcano chain reaction and a non-nuclear version of nuclear winter and wipe out the dinosaurs.

But whatever. Land isn't permanent, and can absolutely sink into the ocean. We should have learned this lesson from Gene Hackman in Superman, no? That stuff in those pictures? Man-made.

 

[PumpDee]

Why did George Lucas feel the need to uterly destroy one of the greatest movie franchises in American history?



I mean.........aliens???????




SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Hawg73]

That's interesting stuff, Hawg, and that stuff absolutely looks man-made. I mean, that "face" actually looks a helluva lot like one of the Easter Island statues, doesn't it? It's even about the right size. And the lion is basically typical of the East Asian art of that type. It isn't even the cut so much as the symmetry. As to the stairs, etc., it isn't the straight cuts, it's the spacing. It's not only even from stair to stair, it's also (presumably) the same *size* of stairs. Both those things together? Too much of a coincidence. And frankly to see anything else would require a nasty case of willful blindness, IMO.

Looking at a map, it always struck me that the sea of japan looked like nothing if not a big crater hole with fallout trailing north and south from it. Something like that (a big-ass meteorite) would have absolutely sunk a city even that far away in the East China Sea - though realistically it would have had to be much more than 2,000 years ago. More likely it would be the sort of thing that would, you know, cause a super-volcano chain reaction and a non-nuclear version of nuclear winter and wipe out the dinosaurs.

But whatever. Land isn't permanent, and can absolutely sink into the ocean. We should have learned this lesson from Gene Hackman in Superman, no? That stuff in those pictures? Man-made.

It certainly looks man-made to me. If the BU guy is right and it is natural then it is still an astonishing place. The weird part to me is that such a huge structure doesn't seem to have any doors or windows, no interior, which nobody has mentioned that I've heard. Who would build a ceremonial platform that big and why? If that is what it is.

If you think Yonaguni is interesting then you should check out the "Ancient Aliens" series which has been running lately on the History Channel. While there are parts of this show that get a little out there with wild speculation, for instance one guy believes that Atlantis didn't sink, but rather "blasted off" like a spaceship, it is chock full of amazing pieces of film. The Yonaguni stuff came from an episode dealing with underwater sites and there are dozens of these things all over the world being discovered and explored, much with the aid of new technology (such as google earth) and some are even more amazing than that one.

There is one off the coast of India which is being explored and has supposedly been carbon-dated at around 32 THOUSAND years old. If you can look past some of the commentary which borders on whackiness, the actual scientific portions of the show are very compelling and the sheer inexplicability of much of it means that even the stuff which seems whacky isn't necessarily wrong.

They keep raising the point that there is basically a lost history to human civilization that is far, far older and far, far more advanced than current science is willing to deal with and whether you want to believe it or not, when you see some of this stuff it is completely mind-blowing.

 

[Jaric]

Why did George Lucas feel the need to uterly destroy one of the greatest movie franchises in American history?



I mean.........aliens???????




SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well he had to have aliens, it's Star Wars. Yeah some of those aliens were incredibly irritating (we will not speak his name) and for some unexplainable reason the incredibly irritating aliens got significantly more face time than the really cool aliens, but just having aliens by themselves didn't ruin it. You could just as easily blame them turning Natalie Portman into a dress up doll for a costume designer that didn't know when to stop (Seriously, go back and watch, she's in a different outfit every god damn scene)

And don't get me started on the dialogue. Retarted monkeys could have written better interaction between Portman and Christianson. Although to be fair, they both did the horrible writing justice by giving an equally terrible performance. I've come to grips that that was a part of the story that needed to be told, but dear God at least make me want to believe it.

Oh wait, you meant the other greatest movie franchises in American history that he ruined. Sorry, you have to be more specific when it comes to that whore lucas.

So yeah, having aliens was stupid.

 

[Jaric]

Sorry for the hijack, Mentioning Lucas ruining movies tends to get me worked up.

I'm curious if Bob the Archeologist ever did any work with Sutton Hu.

 

[Flagg the Wanderer]

some of those aliens were incredibly irritating (we will not speak his name)

He was so much cooler after he came into his own and turned to the dark side (and this is another opportunity to make your eyes bleed, of course).

 

[PatsFan09]

I'd be happy to answer football questions if I can, Bob, but it looks like yours already were answered in the other thread.

So, I went down to Mexico and went out to the Aztec pyramids outside of Mexico City. Wow - tall. Plus I had a baby in a front pack (as usual) and it threw my balance off and nearly made both of us fall to an ignominious (and embarrassing, considering all the cameras at the ready) demise.

Anyway, the whole thing got me interested in ancient cultures, and I saw a show on...I don't know, probably the Discovery Channel or something, and it was about Santorini and some other surrounding cultures. They were making really interesting claims like Santorini was such a dominant force in the area that Egypt was paying tribute, and this was memorialized in hieroglyphics in Egypt. They claimed that Santorini was incredibly technologically advanced - they actually had indoor plumbing insofar as they had toilets that dumped into sewers and had valves that kept the sewer gasses from coming into the house.

They also claimed that one of the surrounding seafaring cultures (Crete?) had what amounted to the aircraft carriers of the age - two ships that had a huge walled platform between them to hold massive amounts of troops carried into battle. Like an enormous catamaran I guess.

Is that legit, or is that garbage? I always go under the assumption that anything I see in pop science media is wildly exaggerated or at least heavily glamorized. Those in particular were pretty hard for me to swallow.

Just tossing it out there. I'm sure there is any number of members here that have other questions about different things (I'm looking at you, TGIASM).

Sorry to stick this in the football forum, but I suspect that Bob would not have seen it in the 3RC. He just doesn't strike me as a 3RC kind of guy.

Thanks in advance, Bob!

And welcome to the Planet.

I know that this was directed at Bob, but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in about Santorini.

From what I understand, Santorini was an outpost of the Minoans. The Minoans were advanced, yes, but plumbing? Not too sure about that. I'd have to take a look.

Thera is a fascinating place, though, and the underwater archaeology that's still taking place there is helping us to learn more and more about the island before its eruption.

 

[sonsofkraftybob]

Has a Mummy ever came to life and started chasing you around the tomb only to get a strip of mummy tape caught and have the whole ensamble unroll all the way down till there is nothing left?

That would be cool.

 

[AnOldTroll]

Do you have an opinion on cataclysmic pole shifts?
I heard this program a while back where the speaker was very convincing, using this theory as an explanation for the rising and sinking of whole areas, within hours, days, weeks...

If you have no opinion, can you ask your extra-terrestrial buddies for me?

:Lwelcome:

 

[dchester]

I'm curious how accurate the movie Stargate was, in explaining the history of the pyramids. Also, how long will it be before the Gov't admits the existence of the stargate system?

 

[Flagg the Wanderer]

I'm curious how accurate the movie Stargate was, in explaining the history of the pyramids. Also, how long will it be before the Gov't admits the existence of the stargate system?

In terms of the history of the pyramids it was way off.

But it was dead-on-balls accurate in it's depiction of hyper-intelligent creepy asexual space tyrants.

 

[imapig]

Have you ever found a mummy that still had pierced,hairy mantits?

 

[bob]

I'd be happy to answer football questions if I can, Bob, but it looks like yours already were answered in the other thread.

So, I went down to Mexico and went out to the Aztec pyramids outside of Mexico City. Wow - tall. Plus I had a baby in a front pack (as usual) and it threw my balance off and nearly made both of us fall to an ignominious (and embarrassing, considering all the cameras at the ready) demise.

Anyway, the whole thing got me interested in ancient cultures, and I saw a show on...I don't know, probably the Discovery Channel or something, and it was about Santorini and some other surrounding cultures. They were making really interesting claims like Santorini was such a dominant force in the area that Egypt was paying tribute, and this was memorialized in hieroglyphics in Egypt. They claimed that Santorini was incredibly technologically advanced - they actually had indoor plumbing insofar as they had toilets that dumped into sewers and had valves that kept the sewer gasses from coming into the house.

They also claimed that one of the surrounding seafaring cultures (Crete?) had what amounted to the aircraft carriers of the age - two ships that had a huge walled platform between them to hold massive amounts of troops carried into battle. Like an enormous catamaran I guess.

Is that legit, or is that garbage? I always go under the assumption that anything I see in pop science media is wildly exaggerated or at least heavily glamorized. Those in particular were pretty hard for me to swallow.

Just tossing it out there. I'm sure there is any number of members here that have other questions about different things (I'm looking at you, TGIASM).

Sorry to stick this in the football forum, but I suspect that Bob would not have seen it in the 3RC. He just doesn't strike me as a 3RC kind of guy.

Thanks in advance, Bob!

And welcome to the Planet.

One thing that everyone needs to be aware of is that there rarely are absolute answers in the field of archaeology. Frankly- and this honesty does hurt, the best that can be done is we make educated guesses based on the data available to us.

This is why you get so many of those wild theories and speculation- and most are pretty baseless. I am not an expert on the Minoan Civilization that existed on Santorini- but it is not far-fetced to assume that they were readily advanced in all aspects of technology that did not survive. It is a fact that they did have running water (gravity-induced). So it is not unreasonable that they would have sewer pipes as well.

 

[bob]

I have a question. Below is an photo collage of a site between Taiwan and Japan which is known as Yonaguni. It is located in approximately 25M of water and seems to be a pretty good example of how different people/scientists or what-have-you look at something remarkable like this.

On one hand you have Maasaki Kimura, a professor at Kobe U who has dived at the site for years and insists it is the ruins of a city over 5000 years old that may have sunk in an earthquake 2000 years ago. He insists that there are obvious indications that it was man-made including a pyramid and:

For example, Kimura said, he has identified quarry marks in the stone, rudimentary characters etched onto carved faces, and rocks sculpted into the likenesses of animals. He states:

"The characters and animal monuments in the water, which I have been able to partially recover in my laboratory, suggest the culture comes from the Asian continent," he said.

"One example I have described as an underwater sphinx resembles a Chinese or ancient Okinawan king."


On the other you have a professor from BU named Robert Schoch who has dived at the site and opines: "I'm not convinced that any of the major features or structures are manmade steps or terraces, but that they're all natural.It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges, particularly in an area with lots of faults and tectonic activity."

My question is uhhhh, what the hell? How can two learned individuals who have seen the same exact thing differ so wildly in what it is?

Again, I am not an expert on Yonaguni- but I did hear Dr. Schoch talk about it briefly and although he believed that it was the result of natural seismic activity, he did not entirely dismiss the possibility of artificial construction (.e.g, he did not think it was "absolutely a closed case"). He only said that he was unable to determine beyond a doubt that those particular structures were the result of human labor. His argument was that he could find no tool marks, nor could he find seams in the rock that suggested that there was any artificial fitting done, and until he could find conclusive proof, he was going to be inclined to think of it as the product of continual seismic activity.