Quote:The Vatican Apostolic Libraryis now digitizing its valuable ancient religious manuscripts and putting them online via its website. All of the content is available for free.

The Library was originally founded in 1451 AD and holds over 80,000 manuscripts, prints, drawings, plates and books printed prior to 1500 AD. The titles are all written throughout history by people who had different faiths or religions, from all over the world.

Not only are paintings, religious iconography and books being published online, but also letters by from important historical figures, drawings and notes by artists and scientists such as Michelangelo and Galileo, as well as treaties from all eras in history.

Quote:Wrabbit2000 wrote:

Something bugs me in all this we're finding for the ancient world or the deep deep history of our planet. We're finding what is still human remains of intelligent creation. Whatever else things like a plumbing works in China from 150,000 years ago may suggest, it still reads as 100% human we're looking at here. Hence...we have people in history, and people are defined as much by vanity, ego and legacy concerns as anything. It is nature, as we DO see it apparent going back to cavemen...(or those periods of history our species has reverted back to cave-like living).

This is what bugs me.... In OUR modern world, we have a supreme confidence, almost beyond reason and good sense, that our world will always be as it is and we'll never see our civilization tossed to the ash heap of Earth's history...as others have been. Yet, despite that confidence bordering on outright arrogance...we have time capsules built and time vaults constructed around the world, in some of the most obscure and otherwise inaccessible places our planet has to be found. Why? Vanity .... Ego...and the need for legacy and continuance of the species. A biologically hardwired desire and need...common to many species, but absolutely a core aspect of our own.

SO...... Where are THEIR time capsules and where are THEIR timeless archives? If past civ's were advanced, as we suspect, and they would have had the same biologic priority that we experience....where are their efforts?

We dig in trash pits and ancient campfires ...when I think we ought to consider more closely...just what would ancient efforts to create such things look like today? They must exist. Somewhere....at least a couple from periods of the past, must be out there somewhere.

Quote:Angkor Thom is quadrangle of defensive walls totaling 12 kilometers that once protected the Khmer capital of the same name (Angkor Thom means 'Great City'). Built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries by King Jayavarman VII, the walls are divided by two axes running north-south and east-west. A gateway lies at the end of each axis, four in total, facing the four cardinal directions. An additional gate, called the 'Gate of Victory', pierces the east wall just north of the 'Gate of the Dead', the east gate along the central axis. The significance of the additional gate is that it provided access to a terrace of the royal palace. As for the other gates, the two axes intersect at the center of the enclosed area where the Bayon temple sits.

The south gate of Angkor Thom is the best preserved. It is approached from outside via a causeway that extends about fifty meters across a moat. On each side of the causeway are railings fashioned with 54 stone figures engaged in the performance of a famous Hindu story: the myth of the Churning of the Ocean. On the left side of the moat, 54 'devas' (guardian gods) pull the head of the snake 'Shesha' while on the right side 54 'asuras' (demon gods) pull the snake's tail in the opposite direction. In this myth, the body of the snake is wrapped around the central mountain—Mt. Meru—perhaps corresponding here to the Bayon temple at the center of the site. In any case, the myth relates that as the Devas pulled the snake in one direction and the gods pushed in the other, the ocean began to churn and precipitate the elements. By alternating back and forth, the ocean was 'milked', forming the earth and the cosmos anew.

The central tower of the stone gate is capped by three face-towers that face the four directions (the central tower faces both out and in). Below them at the base of the gate are two sets of elephant statues that flank the entrance on both sides. Sitting on each elephant is a figure of the god Indra carrying his usual weapon—the 'vadra' (a lightning bolt). The gate itself is shaped like an upside-down 'U' and is corbelled at the top (instead of arches, the builders of Angkor preferred to use corbelling to span distances). It is still possible to see where wooden doors once fitted to the gate through openings in the stone.

There is some debate as to the functionality of Angkor Thom as a whole. If it was a wall intended for defense, it was rather poorly designed, since there is nowhere along the wall for defenders to take refuge from incoming fire or shoot back from a shielded location. This is surprising since Angkor had been sacked in 1177 by Champa invaders, and one can readily imagine that its new King, Jayavarman VII would have been concerned with defense should the invaders return.

If not intended for defense, the walls may simply have been an additional enclosure around the Bayon temple, more for ceremony than for practical use. As in Southern India, the Angkor rulers built temples surrounded by walls, but usually not with walls as thick and grand as those of Angkor Thom.
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Quote:The bestselling author of The Sign and the Seal reveals the true origins of civilization. Connecting puzzling clues scattered throughout the world, Hancock discovers compelling evidence of a technologically and culturally advanced civilization that was destroyed and obliterated from human memory.

Quote:The unknown monarch - a Siberian Tutankhamun - was entombed in this ancient necropolis with 14 horses, a defining symbol of wealth in these Scythian times; each animal was from a different herd.

Quote:Alongside him lay the woman in his life, his queen or, as is suspected, his favourite concubine, but in any event a woman held in great esteem who was ethnically distinct from this monarch's retinue also buried alongside him which included 33 others, including five children. She was in all likelihood not alone in being sacrificed to accompany him to the afterlife...

The most breathtaking aspect of this Tuvan find are the contents of the burial chamber of this royal couple - pictured here - located by archeologists some two or three metres beneath the surface.

In all, some 9,300 decorative gold pieces were found here, not including the 'uncountable golden beads'. Put in another way, there was more than 20 kilograms of gold, including earrings, pendants and beads, adorning the bodies of the royal couple all made in what is known as Animal Art style.

Quote:The Leshan Giant Buddha is a 71-metre (233 ft) tall stone statue, built during the Tang Dynasty. It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in the southern part of Sichuan province in China, near the city of Leshan. The stone sculpture faces Mount Emei, with the rivers flowing below his feet. It is the largest stone Buddha in the world and it is by far the tallest pre-modern statue in the world.

(05-24-2016, 03:13 PM)Isis Wrote: What I find most fascinating about a lot of these ancient sites is that many have been dated prior to the ancient civilization occupying them. For instance, the Sphinx is now said to date 2000 years prior to the Egyptian empire. Sites is central America were built prior to Aztecs entering the cities. Artifacts that are 250,000 years old have been found among artifacts that are only 20,000 years old. This means that our history is not exactly correct. Many of these artifacts were previously built especially in some of the more advanced ancient societies. what does that mean? To me it says that much is being hidden from us regarding our own history. This can also explain why the Smithsonian confiscates the bones of giants and even took out the Egyptian pyramids found in the Grand Canyon area. Since the Smithsonian is owned by the US Government with funding by the Rothchilds it's a wonder we know anything at all.