world history, the bible, ancient world travel and navigation, Egyptians in early america, ancient maps, ancient Phoenician travel

WORLD HISTORYBIBLE CHRONOLOGYPART XLWORLD TRAVEL NAVIGATIONANCIENT ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Good day to all! And how are you on this fine morning? Myself and my family are all fine.  The kids are off to a fine start in New Zealand with job interviews and exploring. From their explanations it seems like a wonderful country!

And of course talking about exploring….just how did our ancient ancestors know how to travel the world? We know they did. As we discussed last week, ancient depictions of the same type of reed vessels are found throughout the globe⎯some still in use today.  

copy of inscriptions found on
the rock outcrop shown on the right.

And ancient Phoenician inscriptions are found in North America and Brazil and have linguistic similarities with the Samoans, Tahitians, and many other Pacific islanders. Then there are many accounts, legends and traditions of a very ancient people with European features said to have been here in the Americas before others arrived. “For example, the Quetzalcoatl cult is based around a god who is described as a tall white man with yellow hair and a beard. Viracocha, the ‘Bearded White God’ of some South American cultures, is another proof that people claim as evidence of contact. The ‘Kennewick Man’ is the name of a skeleton found in Washington State that supposedly dates back 9,000 years. Found on the banks of the Kennewick River; the skeleton has European features unlike any of the Native Americans of the area.”¹ There have even been Egyptian

artifacts founds in a cave in Illinois!

It is no secret or puzzle that after the confusion of languages early man traveled world wide….but how did they navigate?

Egyptian artifact found in
US. The gold was traced
back to Africa.

Kennewick Man

Maps have been discovered that are dated back to medieval times, in the early 1500,s. These maps, in particular the Piri Reis map, contain an amazing amount of information for a time when the world was thought to be flat. The Piri Reis is actually a world map. “The medieval maps encompass great regions including the Americas, Antarctica, and Africa, with surprising accuracy in longitude and latitude. The depictions of Antarctica are perhaps most stunning because the continent wasn’t officially discovered until 1820, much later than the creation of the maps.”² Even more amazing is that Piri Reis sources nearly 20 much older, yet very accurate maps. Also another fascinating recording on this ancient map in the depiction of more islands around the world. What does this tell us? That these maps were charted when The Ice Age held much frozen water in its arms and more land was exposed. As The Ice Age came to an end, deglaciation would have caused the ocean levels to rise and cover all the lower elevation islands.

Another medieval map, the Oronteus Finaeus map, has Antarctica drawn with mountains and rivers. That means it could only have been created by exploration of this land before it was covered in ice! Shortly after the dispersal of mankind after the language split. Even earlier than the Piri Reis map.

Obvious Egyptian, discovered in the US

Let’s not miss a very important detail of these early maps. The making of the maps would need some very precise and accurate information. For example, in order to find longitude, a consistent clock is needed. Either ancient man had some sort of a clock or perhaps an earlier version of the Celtic cross was used. The Celtic cross uses angle measurements that when used properly and in conjunction with astrological observatory sites, was thought to be able to tell the time as well as find latitude an longitude, measure the angle of the stars and much more. 

Piri Reis world map

“It then becomes evident that those who used such a tool would need a system of writing and record-keeping in order to experiment correctly and accurately understand these concepts so that they could use them. If this advanced technique was used in creating these ancient maps and their source maps, the men who charted them had to be highly intelligent as well.”³

Ah yes….it appears more and more that ancient man understood, made, and utilized advanced knowledge. With such physical evidence abounding it becomes more and more illogical to believe mankind evolved from apes. The facts just don’t match up!

Bon voyage until next week!

Oronteus Finaeus map

God bless,

Willow 

This week in the night skies; “Comet ISON is upstaged! Four comets are currently on display for binoculars or small telescopes in the east before the beginning of dawn (for Northern Hemisphere observers). One is Comet ISON, still underperforming at only about 8th magnitude. It starts this week about midway between Mars and Spica and speeds toward Spica daily, to pass it on November 17th and 18th.

But ISON is being outdone! Comet 2013 R1 (Lovejoy) ‘is a humdinger — almost as bright now as Comet ISON was forecast to be,’ writes S&T's Tony Flanders. ‘And it's very high in the sky... big, bright, and beautiful in 10×30 binoculars.’

The other two comets, Encke and C/2012 X1 (LINEAR), are fainter. See Tony's article The Other Great Morning Comet, with finder charts for Lovejoy and ISON. Further details and charts for all four are at comets.skyhound.com.

And don't delay. Encke is getting very low, and moonlight returns to the just-before-dawn sky after about November 15th.”⁴

For the southern hemisphere; “Comet C/2012 S1 ISON continues to be reported to be (just) visible in 10x50 binoculars, and has been picked up by Australian observers. Currently still somewhere around magnitude 8,  it is visible in small scopes and strong binoculars. In binoculars it should look like a faint, fuzzy dot. However,  its fuzzy, diffuse nature, its closeness to the horizon (between 7 -12 degrees depending on where you are, except Darwin and Far North Queensland, where it is more like 20 degrees above the horizon see here for charts illustrating the difference at different sites)  means that it can be difficult to spot visually in smaller scopes. Sweeping diagonally down yet again from Zaniah is the bright star Porrima, gamma (γ) Virginis. Between the 11th and the 14th the comet is running several finger widths above an imaginary line joining these stars. On the 14th comet ISON is 4 finger widths above Porrima, and should be (just) visible to the unaided eye and easily visible in binoculars.”⁵

References:

^1-3Landis, Don, The Genius Of Ancient Man, Evolution’s Nightmare, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2^nd edition 2013, p 57-59.

⁴http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance

⁵http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/search/label/weekly%20sky