Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Ancient Irish Were the First Known to Mark an Eclipse in Stone


More than 5,000 years ago people in Ireland carved a representation of an eclipse into three stones at a megalithic monument—the first known recording of a solar eclipse, scholars say. Researchers have further noted that the sun shines into a chamber of this monument in County Meath on the later ancient Celtic festivals of Samhain and Imbolc.
IrishCentral reports:
Our ancient Irish ancestors carved images of an ancient eclipse into giant stones over 5,000 years ago, on November 30, 3340 BC to be exact. This is the oldest known recorded solar eclipse in history. The illustrations are found on the Stone Age “Cairn L,” on Carbane West, at Loughcrew, outside Kells, in County Meath. The landscape of rolling hills is littered with Neolithic monuments. Some say that originally there were at least 40 to 50 monuments, but others say the figure was more like 100.
“Cairn L” received a mention in Astronomy Ireland’s article: “Irish Recorded Oldest Known Eclipse 5355 Years Ago.” They write that the Irish Neolithic astronomer priests recorded the events on three stones relating to the eclipse, as seen from that location.
Researchers Jack Roberts and Martin Brennan found the sun illuminates a chamber in the monuments on November 1 and February 2, the cross-quarter days, which marked dates halfway between solstices and equinoxes.


A solar eclipse, May 20, 2012 (Photo by Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia Commons)
November 1 is the end of summer, which is what Samhain means. The ancient Celts, who came later than the people who made the eclipse carving, considered Samhain the beginning of winter. Christians call it All Saints Day.
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February 2, or Imbolc, is midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It was later celebrated by Christians as Candlemas and in Ireland as St. Brigit's Day. The Celts called it the Festival of Lights and lit every candle and lamp in the house to commemorate the rebirth of the sun. Christians too celebrated February 2 with lights. On that day candles were lit in churches to celebrate the presentation of Jesus Christ in the Jerusalem temple.
The Irish called it Imbolc (“lamb's milk”) because it was when lambing season started.
“It was also called Brigantia for the Celtic female deity of light, calling attention to the Sun's being halfway on its advance from the winter solstice to the spring equinox,” Alamanac.com explains.


Angels take St. Bride or Brigit, a Catholicized ancient Celtic goddess of light, to Bethlehem to foster the Christ child, John Duncan (Sofi/Flickr)
Imbolc is also called Brigit's Day. Brigit means The Bright One. This sun goddess, later subsumed into the Catholic roster of saints, presided over the forge and hearth, crops, livestock and nature and also inspired skills of sacred arts and crafts, according to Celticatlanta.com.
Irish Central reports that many people believe the Celts invented the Festival of Lights to welcome the eclipse. They are also believed to have predicted when the eclipse would happen.
Brennan and Roberts noted the sun may not have shown into the chamber on Samhain and Imbolc when the Celts built it in 3340 BC.
In addition, Brennan and Roberts observed full moonlight illuminating the end of the cairn, where light shone on a cup mark on the endstone on August 26, 1980. Then, as the light moved across the chamber, it illuminated the bottom of the Whispering Stone.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

The true story and mystery of Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp

The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as the Lizard Man of Lee County) is a reptilian humanoid cryptid which is said to inhabit areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina along with the sewers in towns near the swamp.

First sighting

The first reported sighting of the horrifying lizard creature was made by Christopher Davis, a 17-year-old local, who said he encountered the creature while driving home from work at 2 AM on June 29, 1988.
According to his account, Davis stopped on a road bordering Scape Ore Swamp in order to change a tire which had blown out. When he was finishing up he reported having heard a thumping noise from behind him and having turned around to see a large 7 foot tall creature running towards him.
Davis said the creature tried to grab at the car and then jumped on its roof as he tried to escape, clinging on to it as Davis swerved from side to side in an effort to throw it off.
After he returned home, Davis’ side-view-mirror was found to be badly damaged, and scratch marks were found on the car’s roof, though there was no other physical evidence of his encounter.

Another Car attacked

Prior to Chris Davis coming forward to report his encounter, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office was called to the scene of a strange instance of vehicle damage. On the morning of July 14, 1988, deputies made their way to the residence, which was located in a small rural community known as Browntown on the outskirts of Bishopville, South Carolina.
When they arrived, homeowners Tom and Mary Waye showed them the vehicle in question. Police found that the chrome molding had been torn away from the fenders, the sidewalls were scratched and dented, the hood ornament was broken, the antenna was bent, and even some wires from the motor had been ripped out. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that parts of the molding had actually been chewed, as if an animal had used its teeth to inflict the damage.

The Sheriff reports on the monster

To further support the animal theory, the Wayes pointed out clumps of reddish colored hair and muddy footprints that had been left all over the car. While Sheriff Truesdale was investigating the car, locals informed him there might yet be another, more bizarre possibility.
“While we were there looking over this situation, we learned that people in the Browntown community had been seeing a strange creature about seven feet tall with red eyes,” Truesdale told us. “Some of them described it as green, but some of them as brown. They thought it might be responsible for what happened.

More sightings

In the month that followed the Davis sighting there were several further reports of a large lizard like creature, and of unusual scratches and bite marks found on cars parked close to the swamp.
Most of these are said to have occurred within a 3-mile (5 km) radius of the swamps of Bishopville.
Two weeks after the Davis sighting, the sheriff’s department made several plaster casts of what appeared to be three-toed footprints – measuring some 14 inches (36 cm) in length – but decided against sending them on to the FBI for further analysis after biologists advised them that they were unclassifiable.
On July 30, 1990, Bertha Blythers and her five children witnessed a strange creature near Scape Ore Swamp as they drove home from a restaurant in Bishopville. At approximately 10:30 p.m., they crossed over the interstate and were nearing the intersection of Hickory Hill Road when suddenly a large figure appeared out of nowhere and lunged toward the passenger side of the car. In a statement given to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Bertha described the creature as being tall, wide, and having “two arms like a human.” She could only see it from the waist up, but there was no question that it was “big.” She was not able to make out any clear facial details in the short time it was in front of her, but she was quite sure the body was covered in brown hair. “I never seen anything like it before,” she told the police. “It wasn’t a deer or a bear. It was definitely not a person either

Return of the Lizard Man

In February 2008, a couple in Bishopville, South Carolina, Bob and Dixie Rawson, reported strange damage to their vehicle, traces of blood, and the disappearance of some of their cats. Based on how the damage looks, some have claimed that this is the “return” of the Lizard Man
In 2011, Bishopville, South Carolina residents, Leon and Ada Marshall, reported that their car had been mauled by some kind of animal. Former Lee County Sheriff stated that the damage on the car looks much like the damage from earlier incidents. Deputy Fletcher Williams inspected the car and surmised that teeth were responsible for the damage, as if the car had been “chewed up.”
To further suggest that an animal had been the vandal, a clear trail of saliva was visible from “the front passenger door across the front of the vehicle to the driver door” and on the discarded strips of bumper material. He also found long white and brown hairs.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Is there a Loch Ness Monster in Siberia?



Known as ‘Russia’s Loch Ness Monster’, the accounts of the creature in Yakutia predate the Scottish claims yet in many ways are similar.
Intriguingly, too, there are theories that Labynkyr – which has unusual cracks on its 60 to 80 metre deep floor – is connected by underwater channels to another lake, Vorota, where monster sightings have also been recorded, including by respected Soviet geologist Viktor Tverdokhlebov, an academician not given to hyperbole.
Associate Professor of Biogeography Lyudmila Emeliyanova revealed to The Siberian Times that on her own scientific mission to Labynkyr she recorded ‘several seriously big underwater objects’ with sonar readings.
She is not the only researcher to have done so.
‘It was our fourth or fifth day at the lake when our echo sounding device registered a huge object in the water under our boat,’ she said.
‘The object was very dense, of homogeneous structure, surely not a fish nor a shoal of fish, and it was above the bottom. I was very surprised but not scared and not shocked, after all we did not see this animal, we only registered a strange object in the water. But I can clearly say – at the moment, as a scientist, I cannot offer you any explanation of what this object might be.’

Russian lake monster

The readings were repeated and she became convinced there was more than one large living object in the pure waters.
‘I can’t say we literally found and touched something unusual there but we did register with our echo sounding device several seriously big underwater objects, bigger than a fish, bigger than even a group of fish.
‘This is why I fully support the idea of a new trip there and extra research.
‘I would love to take part in another visit to this lake. I know how to organise it and know enough good local people who can help on the spot. It is a hard trip I must say but it is definitely worth doing it again. This mysterious and very deep lake still has some secret to tell us.’
Freshwater Labynkyr, some 5,000 km east of Moscow, is mysterious for another reason, too. It is only around 60 kilometres from the settlement of Oymyakon – the coldest inhabited place on Earth – yet, astonishingly, the lake does not freeze over completely in winter, in contrast to virtually all lakes in the region. The ice that does form, unusually, can be too thin to walk on. It is not uncommon to driver cars on lakes in Yakutia in winter: but not Labynkyr.

Sightings

On the basis of ‘sightings’ there has been speculation that Labynkyr and Vorota might be inhabited by a school of ichthyosaurs, prehistoric marine reptiles resembling dolphins or sharks, or plesiosaurs, a popular theory concerning ‘Nessie’ in Scotland which is often depicted with a long neck.
Another version has speculated that relic killer whales could have become marooned in Labynkyr. Some accounts even suggest the ‘creature’ makes a hideous primeval cry as it attacks its prey.

The mystery of the worlds oldest statue and it’s unexplained markings.

The statue is twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids, and contains arguably the most ancient coded message on the planet

The Shigir Idol, is estimated to be 9,500 years old and is regarded as the worlds most mysterious object.
It was made during the Mesolithic period, around 7,500 BCE but was only discovered in 1890 in Kirovgrad, Sverdlovsk region, in the Ural Mountains.
The statue is currently displayed in the “Historic Exhibition” Museum in Yekaterinburg, Russia and is guarded 24 hours a day by Russian special forces.

Discovery

The idol was discovered on January 24, 1894 at a depth of 4m in the peat bog of Shigir, on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, approximately 100 km from Yekaterinburg. Investigations in this area had begun 40 years earlier after the discovery of a variety of prehistoric objects in an open-air gold mine.
It was extracted in several parts; professor D. I. Lobanov combined the main fragments to reconstitute a sculpture 2.80m high.
In 1914 the archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev proposed a variant of this reconstruction by integrating the unused fragments.
Some of these fragments were reported lost, so only Tolmachev’s drawings of them remain.

The body is flat and rectangular and strange Geometrical motifs decorate its surface. Horizontal lines at the level of the thorax seem to represent ribs, and lines broken in chevrons cover the rest of the body. The rest of the markings remain unexplained
No consensus exists about the meaning of the motifs, or what the sculpture represented. Claims have been made that the motifs refer to aliens or gods.

Expert view

Now Russian experts say the remarkable relic contains encoded information on the ‘creation of the world’ – a message to modern man from the Mesolithic era of the Stone Age.

THE SHIGIR IDOL: Strange facts

The Shigir Idol is thought to be the most ancient wooden sculpture in the world.
It stands 9.2ft (2.8 metres) in height but originally was 17.4ft (5.3 metres) tall, as high as a two storey house.
Almost 6.5ft (2 metres) of the artefact went missing during Russian’s 20th century political turmoil, though Siberian archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev drew images of all the pieces.
The messages carved into the ornament ‘remain ‘an utter mystery to modern man’, according to experts.
Some say the straight lines could denote land, or horizon – the boundary between earth and sky, water and sky, or the borderline between the worlds.
A wavy line or zigzag symbolised the watery element, snake, lizard, or determined a certain border.
But the marks could have multiple meanings for the ancient statue-makers who gave the idol seven faces, only one of which is three-dimensional.
The faces may be images of spirits that inhabited the human world in ancient times.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Oldest pages of the Koran found in England may date to Mohammed's lifetime


Two pages from a Koran, which are believed to have been written down by a contemporary of Mohammed himself, have been found in a library in England. The folios had been in a collection in the University of Birmingham's library for a century, but an expert who looked at them recently decided they should be dated using scientific methods. It has now been determined that they are the oldest known pages of the Koran in existence.
Radiocarbon dating conducted by Oxford University puts the age of the sheep- or goatskin pages between 568 and 645 AD with 95 percent accuracy. They had been in a collection with other Middle Eastern manuscripts. When researcher Alba Fedeli looked at them more closely, the decision was made to test them to estimate their age.
"They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam," said David Thomas, a University of Birmingham professor of Christianity and Islam. "According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death."
Mohammed himself could not read or write, but it is possible he knew the person who wrote down this part of the Koran, the most sacred book to Muslims, who consider its every syllable the word of God.
The person who wrote the scriptures down “would have seen [Mohammed] probably. He would have maybe heard him preach,” Thomas said.
The pages are written in archaic Hijazi script and is very close in content to the Koran Muslims know today. The Koran is considered so holy to Muslims that they adhere exactly to the original language of 1,400 years ago when reproducing it.
“The parts of the Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad's death,” Thomas told the BBC. “These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed."
Thomas told the BBC that around the time of Mohammed the Koran was written on various objects, including camels' shoulder bones, rocks and palm leaves in addition to parchment, enough of which was difficult for Muslims to obtain to write down the entire book.
There are other manuscripts that may be as old as this one, the BBC says. Radiocarbon dating provides a range of years for an object being dated, and the years of this and other manuscripts overlap. But these two pages are among the oldest known surviving Koran manuscripts in existence.
Muhammad Isa Waley, a British Library expert on old manuscripts called the discovery exciting and Muslims would rejoice over it.

A closeup of one of the Koran folios, written in the early Hijazi Arabic script, found in the University of Birmingham's library.
Susan Worrall, the library's special collections director, said “in our wildest dreams" the folios were not expected to be so old. "Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting,” she said 

Body of 4,000-year-old teenager near Stonehenge may give clues about Bronze Age lives


Archaeologists have unearthed a 4,000-year-old adolescent who lived near Stonehenge and was buried in the fetal position with an amber necklace. Now archaeologists working at the site of Marden Henge in Wiltshire, England, will study the body to determine the child's gender, diet, cause and time frame of death. By examining minerals in the child's teeth, they may also be able to tell what part of England he or she was from. Scientists hope the studies will provide information about the people who lived near and built Stonehenge in the Vale of Pewsey.
It is possible the adolescent traveled to Stonehenge itself, though the site where the body was found, at Marden Henge, is 15 miles (24 km) away from the world's most famous stone circles.
Marden Henge, about which little is known, is the largest and considered one of the most important ancient ceremonial sites in Britain, researchers say. Archaeologists this summer are excavating the remnants of a house up to 4,400 years old on the site, which lies halfway between the World Heritage sites of Stonehenge and Avebury.
Lead archaeologist Jim Leary told The Daily Mail: “The skeleton is a wonderful discovery which will help tell us what life was like for those who lived under the shadow of Stonehenge at a time of frenzied activity. Scientific analysis will provide information on the gender of the child, diet, pathologies and date of burial. It may also shed light on where this young individual had lived.”
The skeleton's arms were crossed, its head turned to the right and its legs drawn up. The teenager was 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall. In addition to the skeleton, archaeologists have found blades, flint arrowheads, shale and copper bracelets and decorated pottery. They also unearthed a Roman brooch.
"Marden Henge is located on a line which connects Stonehenge and Avebury,” Leary said earlier this month. “This poses some fascinating questions. Were the three monuments competing against each other? Or were they used by the same communities but for different occasions and ceremonies? We hope to find out.
There is no great stone circle at Marden Henge. Two amateur archaeologists, Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington, dug a shaft into a huge burial mound in the early 1800s. They didn't close the shaft, perhaps meaning to return to it. But the entire mound collapsed, and all that remains there now is a 3 cm rise in the ground. A farmer later filled in a moat that had surrounded the barrow. They left written records about animal bones, burned wood and two fragments of burned human bones—citations that tantalize and frustrate archaeologists.
This latest excavation and research project at Marden Henge, which will explore and record the huge site, will take place over three years. Scientists hope to shed light on the lives of the people who operated the ceremonial center at Marden but also the vicinity around Stonehenge.
The house that is being excavated was on a terrace in a small circle of earthen banks. The site had ramparts that researchers think were 3 meters (10 feet) tall that enclosed 15 hectares (37 acres). This is far larger than Avebury, and larger than Stonehenge itself. Leary says it was too big for a practical purpose, telling The Guardian it may have been to show off power and wealth in the ability to enlist a large workforce.
Also at the site is a previously undiscovered Roman complex that includes the foundations of a barn and a deserted medieval village.
Featured image: The child's skull after excavation; scientists hope to determine a lot about the person buried, such as diet, place of habitation, any diseases and cause and year of death.

Prehistoric Disaster: Nearly 100 Bodies Found Stacked in Ancient House in China

The skeletal remains of nearly 100 bodies have been found crammed into the ruins of a tiny wooden house in northeast China, and archaeologists are trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened.
Anthropologists believe a “prehistoric disaster” killed potentially hundreds of people 5,000 years ago, and forced the village to stuff the house full of the dead instead of burying them. At some point the house was set on fire, or caught on fire, as evidenced by the state of the remains. Some of the skulls and limb bones were charred and deformed, and it’s thought the fire caused the wooden roof to collapse, damaging the bodies within.
At least 97 bodies from the pile have been unearthed. They were ranging in ages between 19 and 35 years, reports LiveScience. The many skeletons were found in a disorderly tangle, within the ruins of a crypt-type house dubbed F40—a small structure that was only 210 square feet (20 square meters) in size.
The “Hamin Mangha” site in northeast China dates back 5,000 years and is the largest and best-preserved prehistoric settlement site found to date in northeast China, according to archaeologists in a published study in the journal Chinese Archaeology.





After the fire, the remains were never reburied, and this allows modern archaeologists the opportunity of studying the gruesome find.
The American Association of Physical Anthropologists website hosts the Jilin University study on the remains of the Hamin Mangha victims.
Study authors Ya Wei Zhou and Hong Zhu write that the treatment of the 97 bodies is consistent with other locations which had suffered prehistoric mass deaths in China. The researchers compared the Hamin Mangha site with “Lajia” and “Miaozigou” groups—sites in northeast China related by the possible outbreak of “an acute infection disease (pestilence).”
As the victims died they were placed in the house successively and stacked in a pile. It is assumed the living did not have the ability or resources to bury the dead, as there were simply more deaths in the village than they could handle.
In 2011, researchers at the Hamin Mangha site unearthed foundations of 29, one-room houses with hearths and doorways. The houses were orderly and laid out in rows.


In addition, researchers recovered more than 100 pieces of pottery, jade works, stone implements, and artifacts of bone, shell and horn. Three tombs were located, as well as 10 ash pits, and a ditch or moat which surrounded the area.
Other significant archaeological burial finds in northeast China include the Niuheliang Goddess Temple, the most mysterious site of the ancient Hongshan from 5,000 years ago, in which beautiful relics of unknown deities, and larger-than-life statues were found. As well, the ancient tombs from the Qijia Culture in northwest China date to 4,000 years ago and reveal evidence of human sacrifice.
These shocking and sad discoveries at Hamin Mangha give researchers insight into the prehistoric peoples of northern China and how they coped with catastrophic events and mass disasters.
Featured Image: The nearly 100 skeletal remains, some charred, were found in the ruins of a tiny, 5,000-year-old house. They are believed to have been victims of a pestilence. Credit: Chinese Archaeology