We are all living in a narrow interglacial period of an ice age which has been going on for more than 2,000,000 years. In all likelihood, another glacial period is just around the corner and the frenetic fixation on “global warming” will be followed fairly soon by a concern about “global cooling” as glaciers again start to march down Canada into New England and the ancient isle of Britton surrenders itself to the ice.
15,000 years ago, when the last glacial period started its slow thaw, there were likely few humans. There might have been a highly civilized nation, small and advanced, living in one of the more temperate areas by the equator. Plato thought so; so did Moses; and it’s in the Epic of Gilgamesh too – to say nothing of so many other myths and legends. But nothing really lasted from that period, and that shouldn’t surprise us. Unless something is built in andesite or granite, it is unlikely to endure. “Oh, it should last 70 years,” my realtor said of my $400,000 house in Arizona – now sold. Seventy years?
We don’t even remember the great accomplishments which have happened during our sliver-thin interglacial period. The Hittites? Archeologists said they were a myth, until their capital was discovered in Turkey and it was found to be dominating, powerful – the most imposing empire of its period. King David? The most important Hebrew King? Only recently have people found an old stone with his name on it, the only non-Biblical source for his story (I’m not sure what’s wrong with the Biblical stories – but atheists will be atheists). Who built Tiwanaku? Who were the Olmecs? Who constructed the Antikythera device?
It doesn’t help that we’re always burning our libraries and burying our history. The Library of Alexandria? The House of Wisdom? The Mayan codices? Bonfires for the stupid. Even today, we’re in a new era; knocking down statues and cancelling our classical prose. “Never again” the book burners say, as they light a match. They mean “I will selectively protect only what I think others should know.” Did you know that, right now, as you read this, there is an ancient library of 500,000 books and scrolls from the 30 private libraries of Timbuktu, rescued by an unsung hero (WHO I HAVE MET!), that are molding in a warehouse beside the Niger River? Turns out that, far away from the Timbuktu Sahara, the delicate pages can’t handle the moisture. What is in the books – from that 700 year old city where a book was more valuable than a bar of gold? Who knows, they are written in ancient Bambara, Songhai, Tamasheq and Arabic using classical Arabic script. Do you know how many people can read old Songhai and Classical Arabic? — 4 —
What is my point? Gavin Menzies wrote a book called “1421 – The Year China Discovered America”. His assertion was that during the waning years of the Zhu Di reign of the Ming Dynasty in China, a fleet of massive Junks were sent out by the ambitious emperor to explore, make contact with foreign nations, establish relations, establish trade networks, and bring them under Chinese supervision. But, due to overextending himself financially and the incompetent management of palace intrigue (and a pre-mature death as he was chasing down the remnants of the Mongols), the adventure was aborted even while the boats were on the water, and the conservative “deep state” in his court burned all the books and scrolls and maps about the voyage.
Is this possible? Sure. Menzies makes a good case, not scientific necessarily, a lot of it is anecdotal and weaves together multiple anomalies into one tapestry (if one more conspiracy theorist claims that THEY KNOW WHO BUILT THE BIMINI ROAD, I’m gonna scream). Nevertheless, it certainly is plausible. Heck, it is only in my lifetime the archaeologists (a conservative lot indeed) admitted the Vikings had reached the new world. I imagine there was probably a lot more happening in our thin interglacial period than we care to admit – we are an amnesiac lot after all. And there is still a lot to learn about what we’ve forgotten even about our recent history. Which is why this was a fun read.
I think the valuable part of this book was the approach to discovery using cartography. There’s lots of ways to think of the past. Archeologists study what they stumble across buried in the ground; philologists look to ancient words hidden in our language and where they come from; mythologists study our old stories. Pulling these together, and trying to untangle what really happened is fun.
Last point. There are certain unknowable things; that everybody takes credit for. The Rhode Island Tower; the Piri Reis Map – and everybody sees their truth in these mysteries (confirmation bias, or ‘if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail’). That is where these types of analyses fall down; make one massive leap of conjecture and build a castle atop it. For Menzies – the Chinese sailed around the world in 1421. Every anomaly and mystery met along the way, was left there by them. But that’s OK.
P.S. My favorite part of this book is the ‘discovery’ of a conspiracy orchestrated by Christopher Columbus and his brother to defraud Ferdinand and Isabel of lots of money by leading them to believe the new world had not been discovered when in fact the Portuguese already had colonies as far as Puerto Rico. It might be true – but if so, wow, that was the greatest fraud of all time!!!
Joel D. Hirst's Blog 
Not for publican.
Joel, My rabbit hole is deeper than your rabbit hole:
1) Is the Antikythera Mechanism, for the Earth / Moon system, encoding Kepler’s Laws of Planitary Motion, 2,000 years before Kepler formulated them?
I made this deduction while watching a video of an authentic reconstruction of the Mechanism, a few years ago. I have been looking for anyone with the same insight and reciently found one:
“The most impressive part of the Mechanism is related to the moon phases and the moon’s movement anomaly. In the 17th century, in relation to the Sun and Moon , Johannes Kepler claimed that the “holy circular motion was not circular” and suggested that it was an ellipse orbit (first and second law of Kepler). Inside the Mechanism, a gear system is identified, which simulates this motion with astonishing accuracy.”
2) In the year 536AD, because on multiple volcanic eruptions, the Sun didn’t shine at full strength for approximately 12 years, which severely impacted the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and gave Islam its big opportunity. Too bad we can’t find Mohamud in any independent historical records (yet) and the real holy city of Islam is most likely Petra, not Mecca, which didn’t exist at the time.
Now, if only Mr. Musk can fabricate Lithium-6 batteries, which when bombarded with slow neutrons, could initiate thermonuclear fusion, our species just might survive.
3) In the early 1700’s an African slave, living on a plantation in what is now North Arlington New Jersey and 6 miles from the intersection of Wall Street & Broadway in NYC, discovered a bolder which contained an incredible high level of copper ore. The slave notified his owner of his discovery, which he had made on his own initiative, and was eventually awarded his freedom and a pension. The plantation owner sent the ore samples to Holland for processing because the English wanted a bigger cut of the action. If you placed a similar size bolder on the corner of Wall Street & Broadway today, almost no one would have any idea what it was. I should also point out that, the bolder was found near the main road between NYC and Philadelphia, the location was not exactly a secret. I have collected ore samples from the mine location and have some if you are interested.
200 million years ago, North Arlington and Timbuktu were part of the same landmass and were within a few days walking distance of each other. The geology was very similar, which may help explain how an West African slave from the earl 1700’s could identify the mineral. Exactly what was the background of this slave??? What was he doing in West Africa before he was enslaved? In West Africa, copper was know as red gold and traded at about half the value of real gold. Weapon systems made of Bronze were incredibly expensive in West Africa.
The YouTube channel “Fall of Civilizations” has a chapter on West Africa which provided some insights but I would be very interested in any information from the Timbuktu libraries, if any information is recovered. I am working on recovering documents, which are reported to be Pennsylvania, but health issues are slowing me down.
Best Regards
Michael Ronayne,
Wanaque NJ
p.s. My dad told me the Irish really discovered America! Actually if some of the DNA reconstructions are accurate, the list of America’s discovers grows longer each day.
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Published automatically but I unplublished. Unless you want me to leave it in comments section. Our history is a lot less defined than people think, and lots more has been going on.
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Joel, Your call, these were a few talking points for your private consideration. When I was a child, I had some serious learning difficulties which were corrected by surgery at age 14, however I still don’t see my typos; but, the computer AI’s are now a big help. I am very self-conscious about my typos. If you think these may be of interest to others and don’t contain too many errors, keep them online. For a reference read: “Flowers for Algernon”, original short format, which for me is NOT a work of fiction. I have the URL’s for the 3 talking points if you are interested. Mikep.s. For your orginal post, the reply via email didn’t work.
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You said “private” so I deleted them because they were published on the site. I thought they were very interesting comments. If you want me to put them back I did, but was trying to respect your wishes!
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