Ancient Civilizations: Lost Discoveries and Theoriums

Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the Universe together, though the Hindu hypothesis was far less rigorous than Newton's. The Sanskrit-speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical Earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one.


Creation stories fall fairly into categories: the primal earth or water mother who spontaneously creates the Universe from her body; the sole male progenitor, like the Judeo-Christian God, who creates the Universe from thought or word; the "world parents," whose procreative union gives birth to the cosmos; the world egg and world tree; the cosmic serpent. All these refer to cosmological theories of creation out of chaos (plasma cosmology), a universe without beginning or end (steady state), or cycles of cosmic birth and destruction (altering universes).

Let's examine cosmologies of four pre-Western cultures: Mesopotamia, Mayan mesoamerica, Oceania, and India. Mesopotamia has long since become dust; Mayan civilization has severely diminished, but remnants of it exist (more than 2 million Yucatecans call themselves Mayan, speaking twenty-nine dialects); there are also remnants of the original Oceanic cultures; and Indian Hindu culture still thrives in modern form.

Mesoamerican, Mesopotamian and Indian societies represent complex, literate civilizations, while the oral traditions of Oceania are dismissed by some with the negative buzzword primitive. Yet all four cosmologies have similarities: an initial separation of primal elements, cosmos made of successive levels, and a divine lineage that inevitably leads back to human geneology. Most cosmologies, including our own, contain inconsistencies and contradictions.

Next the sun, moon, and stars are sown. The ancient Mayans conceived of this as "sowing" and also "dawning," because they connected the planting of seeds, which push up from underground to grow, with the dawning of the celestial bodies, which they believed traveled through the underworld before rising in the east.

In translating the Popol Vuh, Andres Xiloj Peruch, a modern Mayan spiritual leader, interpreted the ancient text according to still-existent Mayan beliefs. Present-day Mayan fireplaces include three heartstones set in a triangle, a prepresentation of a modern Quiche' Mayan heartstone constellation formed by three stars in Orion - Alnitak, Saiph, and Rigel. During the destruction of the third creation, the Popol Vuh states, "The.. heartstones were shooting out, coming right out of the fire, going for (the men's) heads." this, according to Xiloj Peruch, is an image of a volcano and an oblique reference to the cosmic hearth.

Further evidence comes from ancient Mayan scribes at Palenque and Quirigu, who wrote that at the end of the previous age, three heartstones ushered in a new age. There was a disagreement with two spiritual advisors over whether the August 3114 date and the ascension of the stars in Orion represent the end of the old age or the beginning of the new age, but it's clear that the heartstones represent a major turning point.

Celtic Languages

In regards to the Celtic languages of Kernow, Mannin, Alba, Breizh, Eire, Asturies, Cymru and Galicia:

Over 2000 years ago Celtic languages were spoken very widely across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and across into Asia Minor. The rise of the Roman Empire led to the extinction or near extinction of most of these languages, but two types of Celtic language did survive in the British Isles and Ireland. These types are called p-Celtic and q-Celtic. From p-Celtic came Welsh, Breton and Cornish, and from q-Celtic came Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, making up the six present day Celtic languages. This ‘p and q’ business came about because if you change the letter ‘p’ in a lot of p-Celtic words to ‘c’ (sounds like ‘q’) you get the corresponding q-Celtic word. An example of this is that the word for ‘son’ in Welsh is ‘map’ or ‘mab’, while in Gaelic it’s ‘mac’. p-Celtic languages are sometimes called ‘Brythonic’ or ‘British’ languages, while the q-Celtic ones can be lumped together as ‘Gaelic’, which is simply an Irish word for ‘Irish’ – modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx developed as separate but closely related languages from Old Irish. Modern Breton descended from the Celtic language spoken by the Britons who crossed the English Channel to escape from the Anglo-Saxon expansion in southern Britain after the Romans left.

Over the last few hundred years it’s become common to use the collective name ‘Celts’ for the Welsh, Bretons, Cornish, Irish, Scottish Gaels and Manx. Recently, some scholars have objected to this usage, saying there’s no clear evidence of an ethnic connection between the modern ‘Celts’ and the ancient ‘Celts’ of continental Europe. But little objection can be raised to using the label ‘Celts’ if we stick to languages and do not worry about ethnicity. In any case, in recent decades there’s been a huge increase in enthusiasm for everything ‘Celtic’ ~  just about everyone seems to want to be a Celt!

All the six surviving Celtic languages have suffered from prejudice and discrimination, which in some cases has been in the form of determined attempts to wipe them out completely. But all six survived in varying degrees of health and are now benefiting from campaigns to repair and restore them.

 Resource &
 Further Reading: http://www.gov.im/lib/news/post/interceltiquecel.xml

Vitruvian Man

A well formed man, embodying the harmonies of cosmic design.. Inscribed in both a circle and a square.. navel as the center of man. Visions of the microcosm in which a figure, at once human and divine, embraces and embodies the heavens and the earth..

From Giorgio Martini in Treatise, wrote, "Man, called little world, contains in himself all the general perfections of the entire cosmos."

From Marsilio Ficino in Platonic Theology, (calling from human nature) wrote, "..the center of nature, the middle point of all that is, the chain of the world, the face of all, and the knot and bond of the universe."

From Luca Pacioli in On Divine Proportion, wrote, "From human body derive all measures and their denominations, and in it is to be found all and every ratio and proportion by which God reveals the innermost secrets of nature."

Leonardo da Vinci stated in a note he made to himself about the time he drew Vitruvian Man - "By the ancients man was termed a lesser world, and certainly the use of this name is well bestowed, because his body is an analogue for the world."


In the early 1480s, before Leonardo da Vinci left Florence for Milan - "Man," he wrote, (alluding to not only the human body but also the human spirit), "is a model of the world."

There's a possibility that da Vinci drew Vitruvian Man as a self-portrait; Though the origin and first idea, study and thoughts came from Marcus Vitruvius Pollio himself. It is all written in a book he wrote, Ten Books.

Maybe Leonardo da Vinci imagined, thinking of Vitruvian Man as a study of human proportions.. as an overview of the human anatomy.. as an exploration of an architectural idea.. as an illustration of an ancient text, updated for modern times.. as a vision of empire.. as cosmography of the lesser world.. as a celebration of the power of art.. as a metaphysical proposition. His genius, in the end, was to bring all of these things together in a kind of universal self-portrait.. animated by the ancient philosophical injunction "Know thyself," containing worlds both great and small. The individual mind might actually be able to comprehend and depict the nature of.. everything.


Other sources were found on ancient Greece and Rome, on early reception of Vitruvius in Europe, on Christian symbolism and mystical thought, on medieval master builders, on the early history of medicine, and on the artists and architects of the Renaissance.

Writing in the 17th century, Isidore of Seville, the greatest encyclopedist of the so-called Dark Ages, reprised the theme,.. "All things are contained in man," he wrote. "And in him exists the nature of all things."

European theologians and artists wouldn't give abstract schemes a specifically human form for a few centries, but when they did, in the 12th century, what they drew soon insinuated itself directly into the visions of Hildegard von Bingen. - A wheel containing a human figure, whose arms enfolded the whole of the cosmos in an open embrace. Fortunately, an illustration of what Hildegard saw, perhaps based on a drawing of her own survives in a copy of the book she wrote, Book of Divine Works. It dates decades before da Vinci studied the art of Vitruvian Man.

For Hildegard to have admited any influence would have marred her status as a visionary, and consequently, she made not a single reference to the ideas or writings of any other author. But there was much more to her visions than she let on. Although she described them as being of heavenly origin, they had some obvious earthy sources.

To describe Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, brought into being more than half a millenium ago and born of concepts far older still.. 

The picture contains whole lost worlds of information, ideas, stories, and patterns of thought. A true pioneer in the history of both medicine and art. And possibly sending a message out into the world about the nature of.. everything.

The Hum phenomenon

Many, if not all, people have heard of the Hum, a worldwide phenomenon involving a persistent low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise. Reports have come from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Japan, and Germany. It's very difficult to detect with microphones and its source and nature are hard, if not impossible, to locate.

The essential element that defines the Hum is often described as being comparable to that of a distant diesel engine idling, or to some similar low-pitched sound for which obvious sources (e.g., household appliances, traffic noise, etc.) have been ruled out. Many people hear the Hum only inside buildings as compared with outdoors. Many also perceive vibrations felt through the body. Earplugs are reported as ineffective.

In Britain, the most famous example was the Bristol hum that made headlines in the late 1970s. During the 1990s the Hum began to be reported in North America and to be known to the American public, when a study by the University of New Mexico and the complaints from many citizens living near the town of Taos, New Mexico, caught the attention of the media.

June 9, 2011, it was reported that residents of the village of Woodland, England were experiencing a hum that had already lasted for over two months.
It's also been reported since 2010 throughout Windsor and Essex County in Ontario, Canada, where some residents claim it to be correlated with the time of day, or week, while others seem unaffected or unable to hear it.

April 20, 2012 the Canadian Government decided to officially investigate, and the launch of a study was announced on January 21, 2013. Current suspicions are that the noise originates on Zug Island near the southern city limits of Detroit in Michigan.

The Hum has also been heard since at least 2004 by residents on Canada's southwest Coast in the region around the city of Vancouver.

The Hum has also frustrated residents in County Kerry, Ireland. The phenomenon was also recorded in 2012 in Seattle, and Wellington, New Zealand.

The World Hum Database and Mapping Project was launched in December, 2012, in order to build detailed mappings of hum locations and to provide a database of Hum-related data for professional and independent researchers.

Some explanations of hums for which no definitive source has been found have been put forth.
Tinnitus has been suggested by some physicians. It's generated internally by the auditory and nervous systems. However, this theory fails to explain why the Hum can be heard only at certain geographical locations. People who both suffer from tinnitus and hear the Hum describe them as different, and many can find locations where they don't hear the hum at all.

Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions, where human ears generate their own noises. People that hear these sounds typically hear a faint buzzing or ringing, especially if they're otherwise in complete silence, but most people don't notice them at all. However, these emissions occur with equal frequency across age groups within the population, and the Hum typically occurs in regional clusters, and rarely within large metropolitan areas.

Researchers have also tracked down a series of humming noises produced by waves crashing together and into the ocean floor, off the North-West coast of the US. Potentially, sound from these collisions could travel to many parts of the globe. No mechanism has been suggested to explain how the Hum is heard in the middle of remote land masses, hundreds of miles away from any ocean!

In the case of Kokomo, Indiana, a city with heavy industries, the origin of the hum was thought to have been traced to two sources. The first was a pair of fans in a cooling tower at the local DaimlerChrysler casting plant emitting a 36 Hz tone. The second was an air compressor intake at the Haynes International plant emitting a 10 Hz tone. After those devices were corrected, however, the Hum persisted.

Spontaneous Generation

Spontaneous Generation, is in regards to the origin of life moving ahead., this was known as the vitalist doctrine. Adherents of this ideal maintained that life processes where not determined solely by the laws of the physical universe, but also partly by some vital force, or vital principle.

Definitions of vitalist doctrine from the World English Dictionary: the doctrine that phenomena are only partly controlled by mechanical forces, and are in some measure self-determined., and/or.. in Biology:  a doctrine that ascribes the functions of a living organism to a vital principle distinct from chemical and physical forces.

Here's another: the philosophical doctrine that the phenomena of life cannot be explained in purely mechanical terms because there is something immaterial which distinguishes living from inanimate matter. Vital force: the force that animates and perpetuates living beings and organisms. And (esp in early biological theory) a hypothetical force, independent of physical and chemical forces, regarded as being the causative factor of the evolution and development of living organisms.

Although (by the late 1870s), most scientists agreed that all organisms arose from the reproduction of "preexisting organisms", and the concept of Spontaneous Generation had become history.

Hydrogen

As you may not know already, Hydrogen is the simplest of all the atoms. It consists of nothing more than a single proton, which serves as its nucleus, circled by a single electron. Its simplicity helps to explain why it is by far the most abundant element in the universe. Huge quantities exist in interstellar space, and it is the predominant element in stars. It has such a dominant position among the other elements, that it makes up an astonishing 93 percent of all the atoms in the universe. All the other elements were made either by nuclear reactions taking place in the core of burning stars, or by the catastrophic explosions called supernovas that are sometimes produced when stars die.

Given the major role played by hydrogen in the universe, its surprising to learn that there is very little Hydrogen gas in the Earth's atmosphere. If you were to take 100 million liters of air, only about 5 liters of it would be Hydrogen: Hydrogen is a very light gas. Much of the Hydrogen still found on Earth is bound up in the water molecules that form our great oceans and seas. About three percent of the Earth's crust is made up of Hydrogen atoms. The combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen also produces water, of course but it is this reaction that gave birth to the name of Hydrogen, which is derived from the Greek workds hydro, or "water," and genes, or "creator."

Hydrogen is well known for being a gas that is lighter than air. A balloon filled with Hydrogen will immediately start rising when released and float away. Its low density, the smallest of any gas, gives it this great lifting power in air. It has since been replaced by Helium, which is slightly denser but far safer because it is nonflammable.

Hydrogen is contained in an almost uncountable number of organic, or carbon containing, compounds, and biological compounds present in living organisms. It is often combined directly with carbon in organic molecules. Among the immense variety of organic molecules in which Hydrogen is linked chemically to carbon are hydrocarbons, the long, chainlike molecule found in natural gas and oil that, when broken apart, release the energy we use to run automobiles.

Another group of organic compounds is the carbohydrates, which consist of molecules of Hydrogen, carbon, and Oxygen found in sugars and starchy foods that supply to humans and plant eating animals with energy. Hydrogen compounds are also found in perfumes, dyes, pesticides, DNA, and proteins. The list goes on and on.

Commercially produced Hydrogen gas has many uses in the chemical and food industries. Probaby its most important use in the chemical industry is for the manufacture of Ammonia, an ingredient of fertilizers. For the preparation of food, large quantites of Hydrogen are used in the process called hydrogenation. In this process, Hydrogen is added to a liquid vegetable oil, converting it to a solid such as margarine! Because it contains much less cholesterol, a fatty substance that tends to clog blood vessels, margarine is used as a substitute for butter, which is an animal fat.

New Mineral Discovered: Wassonite

Using 21st century nanotechnology, researchers have discovered a new mineral in samples from a meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1969. The meteorite is 4.5 billion years old and originates from an asteroid that was orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.

The new mineral had alluded scientists for some time since its discovery by a Japanese expedition team to Antarctica more than half a century ago, maybe due to its extremely tiny size - less than one-hundredth as wide as a human hair! Luckily, nanotech has advanced dramatically since the meteorite known as Yamato 691 was discovered - a very well known historical piece within the meteorite research and one of the first nine of such cosmic bodies discovered in the ice fields of Antarctica in 1969.

NASA scientists and their co-researchers from Japan and South Korea discovered the mineral after they found some unknown inclusions on the surface of the meteorite. Upon analysis, they found the new mineral is made up of Sulfur and Titanium molecules that form an intricate crystal lattice, and although this mineral is extremely tiny in size, it represents an integral component of the meteorite's chemical composition.

The mineral was named Wassonite, in honor of Professor John Wasson (UCLA) known for his unrivaled achievements in meteorite research, and was recently approved by the International Mineralogical Association for addition in the official list of minerals.

This latest discovery goes to show just how many minerals are still unknown to scientists. So far, more than 40,000 specimens of celestial materials including Martian and Lunar meteorites have been collected from Antarctica alone. Expect many of these to yield untold secrets.

Natural Symmetry

The rocks which form the Earth, the Moon, and the planets are made up of minerals. Minerals are solid substances composed of atoms having an orderly and regular arrangement. This orderly atomic arrangement is the criterion of the crystalline state and it means also that it is possible to express the composition of a mineral as a chemical formula.

When minerals are free to grow without constraint, they are bounded by crystal faces which are invariably disposed in a regular way such that there is a particular relationship between them n any one mineral species. A crystal is bounded by naturally formed plane faces, and its regular outward shape is an expression of its regular atomic arrangement.

We are familiar with symmetrical objects such as boxes, furniture, and even ourselves. Close inspection of such objects will reveal that they can be symmetrical about a plane such that if the object were to be cut in half along the plane, one half would be the mirror image of the other. The human body is symmetrical externally about a vertical plane arranged from front to back.

On the basis of symmetry, crystals can be grouped into six crystal systems, and can be referred to imaginary reference axes. A seventh crystal system, the trigonal, is recognized by many mineralogists. It has the same set of reference axes as the hexagonal system, but has a vertical three-fold axis of symmetry. These reference axes are chosen so as to be parallel to the edges of the unit cell (the repeat unit of pattern in a crystal structure), and hence they can be regarded as having length. Most minerals occur as aggregates of crystals that rarely show perfect crystal shapes. The form of the aggregate, however, can be useful in identification. There is a close link between the structures of a mineral and its physical properties which are, accordingly, of considerable value in identification. And the optical properties depend on the interaction of light.

Nearly all rocks are composed of minerals, but fine specimens are rare and tend to occur in what is called fissures and other cavities where the crystals have been unobstructed during their growth. Many are obtained from the mineral veins. High temperature fluids deposit minerals in cracks and fissures in rocks and many of these veins, are worked as sources of ore. They frequently contain colorful specimens and good crystals, not only of the commercially valuable ore minerals, but also of the accompanying and economically valueless gangue minerals as well.

It is not always necessary to examine or collect from the veins themselves ~ in many instances, it is dangerous or impossible to do so - for mining activity usually results in dumps of discarded material which, if carefully searched, will often yield good specimens.

Good crystals can often be found lining cavities in rocks of virtually every kind, though particular minerals tend to occur in certain environments. Sometimes weathered-out cavity linings, called geodes, are lined with well shaped crystals, and many fine crystals of Amethyst occur in such associations. Pegmatites, which crystallize from relatively low-temperature, volatile-rich magma (fluids), are another source of crystals and rare minerals that frequently grow to large sizes.

Collectors will find some crystals and minerals that are difficult to identify. They are urged to become acquainted with those that are displayed in many national and other museums. Time spent in this way will be amply repaid, not only in terms of identification, but also in becoming more deeply involved in the study of the natural symmetry and natural history.

The Nautilus Ammonite Fossil

Paleoecology, the study of ancient plantlife fossils, has interpretations of the Ammonite mode of life that are based on the behavior of Nautilus. However, Ammonite shell morphology is extremely diverse. The effect of shell shape on lifestyle has been investigated using numerical modeling to assess the stability of the shell within the water column and by observing the hydro-dynamic properties of different shells in the laboratory.


Any body immersed of floating in a liquid is acted on by a buoyant force equal to the weight of liquid displaced. The point through which this force acts is the center of buoyancy. The point through which the resultant force of gravity passes is the center of gravity.

In a stable orientation, the center of gravity lies directly below the center of buoyancy. The greater the distance between the centers, is the greater the stability. By estimating the volume and weight of Ammonites during life, the center of gravity of buoyancy of the animal can be calculated. This work has established the probable orientation of Ammonites with differing shell morphologies within the water column, helping to identify their likely mode of life.

The Oldest Fossil

It is probable that all living multicellular animals shared a single common ancestor. Molecular data provide widely divergent results, but suggest that this common ancestor arose between 1 and 1.6 billion years ago. The fossil record of metazoans is more recent, and older fossils are sometimes regarded with suspicion by experts. The oldest common and widely accepted metazoans are members of the Ediacaran fauna, found in rocks dated at between 565 and 543 million years old.

The Ediacaran fauna represents the oldest, well known, diverse set of multicellular organisms, They are found almost worldwide, distributed in rocks from just above the tillites of the last Precambrian glaciation to the Precambrian - Cambrian boundary, and possibly beyond!

The fauna is entirely soft bodied and contains up to 30 species of organisms. The lack of hard parts means that the animals were probably fossilized close to where they lived, as the dead bodies would have been too frail to have been transported for any significant time or distance. If this is, indeed, the case.. then the fossil assemblages represent the beginning of ecosystems.