Ancient Mysteries 3HR DOCUMENTARY BOXSET Historical Sites, Bizarre CIVILIZATIONS Advanced Technology

ancient advanced stonework and extreme machining in ancient egypt the purpose in presenting the notion of ancient advanced extreme machining in ancient egyptian culture is simple they had such a sophisticated stone technology beyond our own the evidence presented here will leave you absolutely baffled beyond belief there are so many numerous examples we can only hope this scientific process in uncovering the work of the engineering geniuses becomes enhanced however egyptology is no fan of attributing any advanced skills to the ancient master masons they still sell us this method to achieve advanced results like this the tides of injustice are slowly turning as global tourism and sophisticated cameras are commonplace now we have hard evidence of pre-dynastic stone-turning possible lathe work tubular drilling at advanced speeds marks left behind by what can only be perceived as use of circular stone saws mechanical methods of engraving lines and hard stones as far back as the fourth dynasty ancient machining techniques comparable to today's cnc routing except done in hard pink granites the ancient egypt masons shaped all kinds of stone with intricate mastery they were adept with the use of a wide variety of manufacturing tools various building stones tube drills capable of hard material straight cutting saws circular cutting saws lathes and smoothing techniques for polishing it's the marks left in the stone by these multitude of tools which are the reliable source of evidence of advanced extreme machining in the ancient world there are no surviving examples of the tools utilized there are no written or pictorial records discovered which mention or describe their use after all we barely do this today why should they in ancient times there's serious debate about the nature of the tools and their advanced techniques in the historical framework the marks left in stone are a beacon of curiosity and intrigue to engineers who work these materials today egyptology couldn't care less how they did anything unless they feel the need to show some guy pounding a rock and solve the enigmas of all egyptian building work in an instant modern experts are baffled with their machining techniques and it's these individuals we must listen to if we want to answer conclusively the key questions what were the cutting tool tips made of what was their abrasive how were the tools manufactured what machinery was used to control the cutting surface on the stone how did they apply the tool pressure why were their tolerance standards of precision so high engineers and architects are completely puzzled and rigorously debate pointing to monuments and artifacts though no scientific proof exists for any of their theories unless the tools are present look at an ocean cruiser it doesn't take a sophisticated debate to know tools industry and manufacturing of a high level was used to create it why does egyptology portray such ignorance on the issue then because the revelations bear directly on the developmental history and subsequent chronology of the pre-dynastic egyptian cultures followed by the early dynastic period ancient housewares discovered by flinders petry show undeniable proof of being turned on a lathe there are various examples in the cairo museum the petrie museum in ucl london and various other museums around the world some of the best examples of stoneware were discovered around the step pyramid at saqqara petri also discovered pieces of interesting stoneware on the giza plateau there are incredible aspects about these vases plates and bowls that speak of highly advanced engineering techniques they portray the distinctive tool marks belonging to lathe manufactured items this is easily visible in the center of the bowls or plates where the angle of the cut changes rapidly the stoneware in question is left with a very clean narrow and almost perfectly circular line made a clear indication of the tip of the cutting tool these stoneware masterpieces comprising of dishes platters are some of the finest ever found and they're right there from the earliest period of ancient egyptian civilization they're made from a variety of materials seemingly the choice of material to be cut was irrelevant as they went from soft alabaster all the way up the hardness scale to extremely hard granite working with alabaster is relatively easy at least compared to granite alabaster can be worked with primitive abrasives and tools these sophisticated workings in granite are an entirely different matter and indicate a level of skill we're not aware of today and can only be considered advanced technology flinders petrie was quoted on this issue saying the lathe appears to have been as familiar an instrument in the fourth dynasty as it is in the modern workshops stonework as sophisticated as these examples are not found in any later era leaving many to think the skill was lost or that they were heirlooms from a different epoch or culture there's also the case of delicate vases being made a very brittle schist somewhat like a flint and yet they're polished finished and turned to flawless thin edges an incredible feat of engineering and craftsmanship many bowls are turned and hollowed out with thin necks and have a symmetrical wall thickness without any noticeable errors let us not understate that these items were made by an ancient machinist to produce this in clay would be outstanding to see it in granite is simply incredible there are many pieces turned out of granite porphyry or basalt all fully hollowed with decorative narrow undercut openings the most remarkable of these have long necks the fact remains we cannot replicate these artifacts today with techniques crafts or machinery but before we feel any ineptitude of craftsmanship egyptology comes to the rescue with copper chisels and stone pounders the tri-lobed schist disc of cebu is a complete mystery and masterpiece some 24 inches in diameter bizarre structure with extremely thin pieces turned out of chest the large plate has a central hub some three inches in diameter the outside rim which in three areas spaced evenly around the perimeter is flared towards the central hub if there was ever a case for advanced ancient stone working this is it it's made from a very fragile material called meta siltstone bending this material without fracturing it would be hard even for modern technology according to some scientists the cebu disk raises important questions about our view of history what was the purpose of this mysterious disc why on earth would ancient egyptians create such an intricate object five thousand years ago people were not supposed to possess the necessary tools to work material like this why would ancient egyptians go to all this effort to create the disk if it didn't have a specific purpose the sabu disk is the subject of wild speculations as a result from everything involving rotating energy to acoustic knowledge there were not just a few of these stoneware items apparently there were thousands discovered around the steppe pyramid the step pyramid is considered the oldest stone pyramid in egypt although petrie found some fragments of similar bowls at giza the majority have been found at the step pyramid at least in quantity many of them have inscribed actually scratched onto them the symbols of the very earliest kings of egypt from the time before the pharaohs the primitive skill of the inscriptions provokes many to think those were not made by the same craftsmen who created the bulls in the first place perhaps they were added later by those who acquired them as heirlooms is highly plausible who made these objects why how where and when what happened to the master craftsman the advanced tubular drilling techniques w m flinders petri is by far an essential reading source on anything to do with tubular drilling in ancient egypt after all he picked up the pieces the drill cores and the fragments that nobody else seen the value in in 1883 he wrote the following words these tubular drills vary in thickness from a quarter inch to five inches in diameter and from one thirtieth to one-fifth inch thick the smallest hole yet found in granite is 2 inch diameter there is a still larger example where a platform of limestone rock has been dressed down by cutting it away with tube drills about 18 inches in diameter the circular grooves occasionally intersecting proved that it was done merely to remove the rock tube drilling was commonplace in egypt a wonderful pristine example of which is displayed in the cairo museum with zero information or provenance clearly the spiral grooves are visible not only are the spiral grooves of regular depth but equally spaced all over the specimen where the cores overlap the consistency is perfect this can only be attained by jeweled points set into drills which was petrie's conclusion over 100 years ago the enigma has raged since then the most famous example of tube drilling by the ancient builders is the sarcophagus in the king's chamber of the great pyramid a tube drill mark was left on the top inside of the box with some extra polishing to cover it up if you go to the king's chamber you can still see it if you examine the box looking at the radius of the cut in the king's chamber box less than two inches it's rather obvious that in this one piece alone the masons made thousands of holes several inches deep the experts who did this had mastered completely the principles of drilling in any material soft or hard wood stone or metal and could have drilled virtually any naturally occurring material on this planet things get interesting when we find holes drilled in granite and we even have some of the drill core remnants this can be seen in the overhead door lintels of the granite lined valley temple near the sphinx and at abu garam most of the doorways in the temple still show evidence of tube drilling one way or another perhaps the holes were used to place long vertical rotating shafts on which the doors were hung somewhat like hinges there's a primitive version of tube drilling that can be achieved with a bamboo drill bit a bow saw and sand however achieving this method in granite is certainly not easy by any standards tube drilling is a highly specialized method that just wouldn't develop without the need for a large hole these holes are the evidence of a highly advanced technology and certainly not developed for just this one purpose but for many easier purposes generations of development over many projects over hundreds of years when you get this far in the psychology of our ancient builders you further realized none of this happened without mining and metallurgy bit manufacturing generations of experience with grinding materials rotational manufacturing techniques the wheel and all that goes with it what was the dedication or motivation for this developmental procedure and is there an archaeological record in pre-dynastic and old kingdom egypt pertaining to advanced ancient stone cutting techniques black basalt saw marks on the giza plateau and the king's chamber there are black basalt paving stones on the east side of the great pyramidic giza most people walk over them never realizing them probably busy looking up at the great pyramid these basalt pavers are irregular in thickness and often rounded on the bottom side they were placed on top of blocks of limestone which had previously been fitted to the underbelly bedrock amazingly the basalt blocks were cut to level in situ after they'd been put in place on the ground the edges are so crisp and parallel the quality of this work indicates that the blade was held completely steady apparently cutting basalt was not so slow and arduous that extra cuts like these would have been avoided as being an unnecessary waste of time there are several places where overcuts like these can be seen they show no trace of the wobbling cuts that might be expected of a long hand pulled blade as it starts into hard material that may be because these cuts were made as the blade was coming out of a cut above it and it was held firmly in place by the rock above it we know that the stone box in the king's chamber of the great pyramid was cut with a very large saw one which was longer than the box perhaps 10 feet the marks on the bottom of the box were discovered and described by flinders petri he also described an error in cutting that went off the mark before the workers noticed to back out the saw from the cut and start over these questions could perhaps be answered if microscopic examinations of the cut marks by contemporary specialists in manufacturing technology could analyze it the works of william flinders petrie pioneered this research in the 1880s petrie in egypt particularly he showed there was an order or protocol for creating artifacts that involved the use of simple geometries and such as simple radius overall radii are combined to create a shape where one radius would lead to another radius that would then be tangent with a flat surface and you find that at giza near the pyramids and also other places around egypt there are so many remarkable artifacts that really have not received that much attention in conventional literature and the simple methods that are described by egyptologists don't really answer the question of how these artifacts were created because it's not just a matter of describing a tool and how you actually remove material from a block of granite but also a range of instruments that would have been necessary to ensure that the measurements are consistent throughout the creation of those artifacts the tools to measure are equally important as those used to cut drill and polish those tools don't exist in the archaeological record nor have they been even suggested in the conventional literature that they did exist so it's an open question right now and it's certainly opened for study by egyptologists or universities who would care or dare to take up the challenge and that challenge is to be able to come up with methods that would explain these artifacts in a way that modern engineers would understand and believe unfortunately in the past this has not taken place we've not been directed or shown by people in egyptology or in academia we haven't been shown any methods that will adequately explain the creation of these artifacts for example perfectly flat surfaces that you find on the igneous rock or the granite and basalt diorite artifacts that occur all over egypt you'll find a very large block in the valley temple near the sphinx at giza there's one wall where there is a diorite block that shows a high order of precision being extremely flat comparative measurements using a very precise straight edge show precision to one-tenth the thickness of a human hair while this is extremely precise you also find those kind of surfaces in the great pyramid and the granite box in the great pyramid also the second pyramid there are numerous very large what they call sarcophagi in the serapium and these sarcophagi are supposedly built to bury bulls but the precision and the size of these boxes that seem to indicate a much higher purpose one that would serve a technological purpose rather than just for a funeral because on the inside of the boxes you not only find very precise flat surfaces but also the corners where one service meets another are extremely square also the wall of the inside of the box where it meets the lid is extremely square the fact that these artifacts and work materials exist has not been adequately explained in the literature we're trying to understand to really come to grips with egyptology isn't trying to come to grips with anything even how we will create these artifacts today because it would really stretch our capabilities to make these artifacts particularly the ones in the sarapam but these are fairly simple geometries we go from the simple to the complex and then it becomes a little more difficult to explain because not only a flat surface is fairly simple to understand in terms of how you would grind a surface flat now when we move to more complex surfaces we find that there are objects that have curved surfaces or radii and gathering the information about those i've tried to determine how they were created and gathering the information about those i've tried to determine how they were created but before you can actually do that you have to determine exactly what it is that you're looking at and that you can't do that without taking measurements so taking measurements of those artifacts when you have complex compound surfaces and compound radii that flow from one to the other and also they seem to follow a general direction or the contours are maybe cut and then that contour flows along a straight line and that straight line on an axis is very precise to almost as though it would be made on a machine and that of course is a very controversial suggestion in today's world you have to consider that because the chew created any other way it would be enormously difficult and certainly for an artifact that's supposed to be part of a construction it wouldn't require that much of that high precision if it was just for our construction purposes if it was made by hand it would take an enormous amount of time for you to create that precision and it wouldn't be necessary anyway those are the kind of questions that need to be asked when we look at these artifacts it's a question of what tools would have been used to create it and when we asked those questions we tend to lean more towards the fact that the machines or the tools that they were using to create them were capable of no lesser precision and what appears in the piece flinders petrie was very outspoken on these issues over a century ago stating the methods employed by the egyptians in cutting the hard stones which they so frequently worked have long remained undetermined various suggestions have been made some very impractical but no actual proofs of the tools employed or the manner of using them have been obtained amazingly he recognized the immense importance by today's standards all the way back then he gave detailed analysis of engineering enigma the typical method of working hard stones such as granite diorite basalt etc was by means of bronze tools these were set with cutting points far harder than the quartz which was operated on the material of these cutting points is yet undetermined but only five substances are possible barrel topes chrysler barrel corundum or sapphire and diamond the character of the work would certainly seem to point to diamond as being the cutting jewel and only the considerations of its rarity in general interfere with this conclusion in memphis there's an open air museum there with a statue of ramses which is lying on its back one of the things that's looking down the length of the ramsay statue the face seems to be extraordinarily regular and precise and particularly the nostrils being identical on both sides which is unusual to find somebody or some person with their identical nostrils the ancient egyptians were being very precise and symmetrical in the creation of their statues in the luxor temple the head of ramses on his statue is so perfect looking how could anyone not find this puzzling the famous author and manufacturing engineer christopher dunn who's done so much to bring these enigmas to light has shown the complexities of this engineering prowess the symmetry in the ramsay's face is very remarkable precision overlaying 2d transparent photos shows this amazing feat of engineering when you realize it's three-dimensionally symmetric it becomes mind-boggling at that point christopher dunn is by far one of the most prominent experts on this entire issue the level of sophistication that the ancient egyptians had used in creating these statues is simply incredible the ramsay statue in situ at the temple of luxor is not a rogue example reportedly over a hundred ramsay statues were created another famous one is in the british museum and it's in the exact same condition of precision and symmetry the interesting thing about the british museum statue of ramses we see that there was a mistake in the manufacture of that statue where there was a dig in the corner of the mouth where the tool had cut too deep and then in order to compensate for that they had to cut the lips deeper into the face which created a very sharp cusp human hands really didn't have much control over because they did not have to do those mistakes by hand again we return to flinders petrie's analysis for insight many nations are in the habit of cutting hard materials by means of a soft substance as copper wood horn etc with a hard powder applied to it the powder sticks in the basis employed and this being scraped over the stone to be cut so it wears away many persons have therefore very readily assumed as i myself did it first that this method must necessarily have been used by the egyptians and that it would suffice to produce all the examples now collected such however is far from being the case though no doubt in alabaster in other soft stones this method was employed let us take a moment to recap what we do know what we can ascertain or accept from what we know they had tube drills with drill bits and the necessary machinery to hold them in place and apply rotational torque they had saws that could cut granite with ease and precision producing amazing symmetry they have the ability to work the hardest of rocks and more often preferred to do so in addition they applied their techniques finishing granite in situ after a block had been placed in a wall or on the surface of a pyramid which literally boggles the mind they have the ability to cut level and polish granite to a sophisticated degree of perfection they had lathe machinery that would turn and polish granite schist basalt etc in ways we've not duplicated in our modern society they cut extremely accurate parallel limestone joints with such a remarkable flatness over huge surface areas some 35 square feet or more a technique they'd mastered before creating the casing of the great pyramid at giza they had the knowledge and technology to repeatedly lift maneuver and delicately place enormous weights of stone at various heights they had the motivation and means to quarry and move millions of stone blocks they had the administrative skill to foresee multi-generational works all that they require for a very long planning and project continuity whilst maintaining the commitment of many generations of craftsmen from apprenticeship through retirement of the workforce putting it this way the pyramid builders of ancient egypt have achieved the implementation of the largest most ambitious and vast long-term engineering construction program in the history of mankind by a long shot flinders petri never could satisfy his curiosity over the working of quartz saying that the egyptians were acquainted with a cutting jewel far harder than quartz and that they used this jewel as a sharp pointed graver is put beyond doubt by the diorite bowls with inscriptions of the fourth dynasty of which i found fragments at giza as well as the scratches on polished granite of ptolemaic age at san the hieroglyphs are incised with a very free cutting point they're not scraped or ground out but are plowed through the diorite with rough edges to the line as the lines are only 1 1 50th of an inch wide the figures being about 0.2 long it's evidence that the cutting point must have been much harder than quartz and tough enough not to splinter when so fine an edge was being employed probably only one two hundredths of an inch wide parallel lines are graved only one thirtieth of an inch apart from the center to center dendera temple provides the same baffling discoveries with respect to ancient stone cutting techniques and advanced machining in the ancient world just like the luxor temple the consistency and repetition and geometries in the dendera temple are revealed when we study the apostle hall this impressive structure as you can enter the temple contains 24 columns each about 90 meters high and they have a capital on the top which is four-sided capital with four phases of the goddess hathor the capital columns in this apostle hall are all in alignment with each other in a very surprising and precise way when we look at the geometric features of the capitals even the ears of hathor seem to be in alignment there are many complex geometric elements that play with various overlapping ellipses and this repeats on each face of the four-sided columns to imagine constructing this hallway with all these columns and capitals when we consider that the height to which these capitals were placed and the potential for error and communication of error how were they able to precisely align each of those features also what we find is that the capitals are not in one piece they were made in several pieces and the builders were able to detect the split lines were able to determine where those split lines were then very precisely put it all together the whole temple was manufactured very precisely before being erected and put into place for assembly egyptologists profess at least on-site at dandera anyhow to how this remarkable complex feat was achieved as laughable as the following theory is it's perpetrated repeatedly with zero knowledge of manufacturing procedures and blatant disregard for the evidence in front of them allegedly the builders brought up rough blocks and mud ramps placing the blocks on top of one another and then starting at the top and chipping the material away removing the sand or mud as they got lower and lower and lower basically finishing their work on the way down what that evidence really shows you is that is not the case everything was made perfectly well by hand and then assembled considering the extraordinary amount of work that went into creating the daenerys temple it's hard to imagine the preposterous scenario where primitive tools created such a marvelous wonder of craftsmanship one of the biggest mysteries in egyptology is if the textbooks on what tools were employed by the ancient egyptians in the thousands of years that the ancient egyptian civilization existed some 3000 years you can follow the development of tools from the beginning of that civilization to the end and we start out using copper chisels stone balls stone chisels wooden mallets and then 3000 years later we're using the same thing yet if you look at the extraordinary sophistication and genius of the ancient egyptian artifacts and temples to think that those engineers were still not advanced in their stone tools in thousands of years or did not improve their techniques it's counterintuitive to even consider it all we must ask the question where the tools are we know that they existed and that we just haven't found them yet we know that they add engineers we know that they had craftsmen we can't deny that and engineers don't just function that way they'll make improvements to their processes in any generation in any part of you that have people with engineering lines they'll continually improve their tools sometimes very rapidly but certainly over a 3000 year period producing the level of work they did something is obviously missing new baffling discoveries made in the colossal ruins of balbach lebanon provide evidence of a past super civilization so technically advanced in ancient times that many researchers are left speechless bowbeck is the name of the archaeological site in lebanon in roman times it was known as heliopolis or the city of the sun the biggest enigma that have historians in an uproar is just how old are the ruins the original canaanite temples could be 2 000 years older than the roman remains left today the question is had the canaanites done what the romans did in other words did they build upon the site as well the oldest part of the ruins at balbeck fit absolutely no known culture and were originally employed for some mysterious purpose to further increase their mysterious origin and original use these megaliths are not foundation stones as they're always declared they represent the top course of stones of the original edifice whatever that may have been the heaviest stone block at balbach is 1650 tons so that's gigantic beyond belief but there it stands a block of stone that's weighing two three four or five tons is a huge heavy stone and when you start talking about 50 or 100 tons things start getting epic 500 tons then everyone including engineers are completely stunned above that the mind boggles many of these megaliths are much older than the archaeologists are saying including balbach baumack is a partial roman temple and mainstream archaeology is saying that baalbeck is a purely roman temple and that the romans built all of it what you really have there is a pre-roman structure with massive blocks of what they're calling ashlars they're the foundation stones of balbach and you have almost the same thing at jerusalem at solomon's temple the gigantic blocks of stone that are the base of solomon's temple one called the western stone is a giant block of stone that wasn't visible until the israelis dug a tunnel along the base of king solomon's temple and that allowed us to see the stone these are the super megaliths that historians and engineers should be trying to figure out first yet we always are told how they shifted five ton blocks around with sheer force many believe the remnants of this culture have been wiped out in a flood of epic proportions and as sea levels have risen that's where we should be looking research is slowly coming telling us the flood thesis might be true during a high resolution mapping of the mediterranean seafloor researchers discovered an enormous stone monolith resting in the sicilian channel ancient people have crafted the monolith however it's unclear how ancient people living at least 9500 years ago were able to cut extract transport and install the stone there are hundreds of known sunken cities in the mediterranean alone malta boosts many of these and mysterious cart ruts that go into the sea malta at one point was hit by a giant flood-like cataclysm we know this from gardalam cave above the coastline which had ice age animals compacted inside in an ancient flood ancient civilizations always seem to head back to atlantis lemuria the megaliths in south america as well as underwater ruins in the bahamas are no exception atlantis was tied to the underwater bemini wall with edgar cayce's prediction however atlantis as a story is traced back through egypt from the egyptian story of solon atlantis was a global civilization before 10000 bc and that's the legend of atlantis but archaeologists and historians like the civilization starting in sumeria gobekli tepe seems to uproot this long-held concept and what we're obviously looking at is a restart of civilization perhaps many times that's what you would expect from a global cataclysm of epic proportions any traces of civilization before the 10 000 bc era would essentially be labeled atlantis india speaks of tale like this and the lost continent of kumari kandam the tamils claim that they're part of a lost continent that's now underwater south of india between australia sri lanka was part of this tamil atlanian kingdom when we come to peru in south america we come across so many similarities with egypt and cyclopean super megaliths we really must consider the atlantis thesis as highly plausible maybe these myth tellers are recounting their forgotten history the huge blocks of stone located at olin tatambo in peru are a fine example of high craftsmanship heavy lifting and bizarre techniques being replicated across the atlantic with a practice known as keystone cuts these uniquely shaped cuts done in megalithic blocks is a very unusual way to put blocks together but you find these keystone cuts in all kinds of different parts of the world pumapunku in bolivia is a prime example of these keystone cuts and their cuts and blocks of stone upon which molten metals are poured into the motif the keystone is always across the joint leading many to think the metal connection is hermetically bonding the blocks together [Music] [Music] when we come to the megaliths of easter island and particularly to the quarry on easter island we get into the mind-boggling territory once again easter island is a triangular island with up to three volcanoes and there's a fourth volcano sort of in the center of the island a little bit off to the side and it's this one where all the statues on easter island were quarried there are hundreds of statues recorded at easter island some were moved out of the quarry and placed around the islands facing inland supposedly to protect the island what happened at easter island is they made all these statues left them at the quarry but they didn't do anything with them they didn't move them anywhere they're just sitting still at the quarry in a sense on the side of the hill in fact most of them are buried up to their chests according to the early natives on easter island what they would have to do is move the statues to the edge of the island according to the islanders their easter island rapa nui was part of a continent a lost continent like a lemuria this continent their homeland sank beneath the ocean the only part of their land that didn't sink beneath the ocean was easter island to protect their island from sinking like the rest of the land they put statues all around the edge of the island supposedly the statues walked themselves easter island being a volcanic island has a puzzling and magnetic anomaly so strange people often feel an unusual sense of energy there it's often being compared to the magnetic vortex of the bermuda triangle these statues are 40 to 50 feet high but most of them are buried up to their chests some are lying down on the green slopes of the volcanic quarry was there a cataclysm that washed across the island and buried them how would 30 feet of soil have built up around these statues in even 500 years they're supposed to have been built it's so baffling like these statues have been there for thousands and thousands of years and perhaps some volcano had to go off to half bury them all the statues that were put up around the island facing inland they're standing on platforms they're not buried it's almost like the easter islanders later went and got some of these statues from the quarry and put them up around the island at the museum on easter island you can see the inlay in their eyes and they would use whale ivory to put in his pupils and there would be a piece of black obsidian as the eye itself before we leave easter island we must address the rongarango script it drives historians crazy because they're left puzzled no matter what way they come at it it seriously messes up their tidy timelines rongorongo is oceana's only indigenous script it's found in easter island only in the center of the pacific ocean over a thousand miles from any continent the script was first identified in 1864 however the baffling mystery is that it's exactly like the indus valley script rongorongo writing is identical to the indus valley writing which would be mohenjo-daro and the indus valley the civilization in pakistan and then half in western india a civilization which goes back to at least 3000 bc in 1932 wilhelm de jewessi was the first academic to suggest a link between rongo rongo and the indus script of the indus valley civilization in india claiming that as many as 40 rongo rongo symbols had a correlating symbol in the script from india for a while the idea was entertained and debated until radiocarbon dating of the indus valley culture was placed between circa 3300 to 1900 bc a finding which officially separated the two cultures by over two thousand years recent research however has opened the debate again as the finding of indus valley dna in australian aborigines suggests a contact between the two cultures circa 2000 bc the pacific is riddled with enigmas in micronesia a mysterious city called naan madal on the island of ponpai have sparked debates whether it's linked to gunung padang in indonesia on the southeast corner of ponpai the huge city is built into the ocean of the giant walls built out of basalt there's over 250 million tons of basalt stacked up in 100 artificial island walls that are 30 to 40 feet high in some places using prismatic crystals of basalt weighing 10 to 30 tons a piece there's so much stone and materials in non-medal the mind boggles how much effort went into building it and why considering the great pyramid is 6 million tons approximately and 250 million tons for non-medal means entire mountains would have been dismantled to get the material for the city bizarrely the eight-sided prismatic bath salts are magnetic giving off strange lights everything about this place is off the charts when you get your mind around 100 artificial islands it's mind-blowing how anyone could have done this 250 million tons of basalt stacked up into these walls 30 feet high yet archaeologists have it all figured out in some ridiculous timeline just like easter island the native inhabitants are detached from the original builders with little more than legend to explain it why do we always see around the planet huge cut blocks of stone when smaller ones would do a great example of this is in oswan egypt the unfinished obelisk in the oswan quarries where the oswan dam is 100 miles from luxor the top the obelisk has been squared off and cut and there are big trenches going down the sides that have been dug out of solid granite bedrock it's unfinished because of a natural fault they couldn't see from above the sheer size they were attempting to quarry out is beyond belief yet there it is the obelisk of aksum is truly amazing that it was transported between continents twice during the last 100 years however the reason for delay and repatriation was the sheer difficulty in doing it as a society today if we struggle shifting obelisks how did the ancients manage and again why did they build them so big if they did struggle what was the gain in doing so amazing megalithic work in ethiopia didn't stop at obelisks it continued until 900 years ago with the rock-cut churches of la la bella an amazing feat of stonework although a marvel look at we can easily see how something like this is quarried slowly working stones over 500 tons is another matter entirely whilst most megalithic regions in europe boast some huge capstones like the antakera dolmen in spain and le tabla de michonne in brittany most of the megalithic sites that encompass the nomadic culture who built them are built of more manageable size megalithic european sites run into the thousands upon thousands they're everywhere look at a map of europe you'll find dense hot spots of megalithic activity in various regions brittany is perhaps the most famous the broken obelisk there le grand meniere brise this stone obelisk has the honor of having once been the largest known standing stone in europe and the largest of a huge 19 stone alignment today the meniere is broken into four pieces which still lie where they fell the stone is estimated to have weighed about 355 tons when complete and to have stood over 20 meters high it was hand mauled into its present shape and an axe plow figure was once visible on the middle fragment john mitchell reports the nearest source of similar stone at over 50 miles distance and even though newer reports suggest only 10 kilometers north of orei it still highlights the fact that the location outweighed the difficulties involved in transporting such large stones over long distances dol de bruyton obelisk at nine meters high is still hugely impressive we're talking neolithic times 4000 bc to 3000 bc and the idea we've been given of this time is little more than cavemen the opposite is true we're talking sophisticated transport of heavy materials in inhospitable terrains over large distances the biggest megaliths of europe seem to occur in the further epochs 4000 bc and the lighter megalithic work seems to be when this culture dwindles out of existence around 1000 bc the commune of carnac has more than 3 000 standing stones from the neolithic period these standing stones or menieres are dotted around the landscape but appear in their highest concentration at the alignments as known as the carnac stones rows and rows of stones erected in lines stretching almost as far as the eye can see it's the largest megalithic site in the world clearly size is not just the only component of the mystery complex layouts patterns and geometry are at play astronomical alignments and observations layered into the monuments provide a layer of enigma that enthralls everyone who visits them there are also the jaw-dropping numbers of sites involved some 35 000 catalog symbolic arrangements with the same architectural features mostly across coastal europe but also mountainous regions inland there's an estimated forty thousand uncatalogued lying in weight whilst each country tries its best to catalog vast lists of sites in various states of ruin there are some 31 wiki pages listed it's taken nearly two centuries for historians to admit that all of europe's mysterious massive stone structures may have had one origin source the problem lies in that they've been painted as hunter-gatherers one notch up above caveman since we're talking about megalithic structures from the top of scandinavia near the arctic circle across the entire british isles from northern coastal europe to the mediterranean basin every island in the mediterranean basin and right up to the middle east of jordan and israel if you showed photos of the structures stone circles and dolmens without telling the observer the region they were from there would be resounding confirmation of same designer same architect same concept the observation is obvious rudimentary and compelling anyone who's tried to link sites over distances has either been ridiculed or shunned why because historians would have to admit sea going vessels and a mariner culture it's almost as if what happened in coastal europe was the remnants of a culture or survivors of a lost culture scattered and they might try to keep the knowledge architecture and astronomy alive well to some this might seem like a reach it has serious credence and is highly plausible when you study megalithic europe as a whole and admit the obvious a common origin of all sites in fairness there are issues with a common origin a recent study has laid claims that britney's megalithic region was the original epicenter of this marvelous ancient architecture evidence suggests several pockets all ignited at the same time northwest ireland evora in portugal and brittany all show massive projects in the 4 800 bc era almendre's cromlac in avora even shows remarkable similarities to brittany alignments the data we see on the ground doesn't match the study which lays claims that the oldest is brittany and everything else follows scotland and malta show remarkable similarities also which are at the two ends of europe sardinia corsica and malta in the mediterranean sea being relatively close to each other all show such diversity in age style art and architecture it doesn't make sense at the same time in portraying all this we have signature monuments like dolmens in all these regions like a beacon saying we all have the same concept mariner seeking refuge in europe from an unknown common source fits this scenario perfectly but mariners from where from when sometime before 5000 bc people versed in massive megalithic construction hit europe at different locations and set up camp what looked like independent cultures doing the same bizarre unique style independently is really one group with specific ideas scattered doing things individually the question is were the megalithic builders of europe spawned from the same megalithic global culture the style says no peru looks so unique precise and like a showroom masterpiece of masonry craftsmanship whilst megalithic europe looks so rough cut hewn and strewn together there is the enigma of dolmens reaching korea in the far east that says anything is possible and that our planet earth really is smaller than we think we often underestimate our ancestors sure they'd be in awe of our modern technology but when we look at the resilient monuments they created the great pyramids stonehenge the moai of easter island were left speechless as well and wonder how'd they do that often this question remains unanswered and these wonderful structures are still shrouded in mystery the dolmens of korea are equally such an enigma dolmens in korea are generally single chambers with two or more vertical stones supporting a horizontal capstone forming a tabletop there are examples of dolmens in china and japan but korea has the highest concentration of these prehistoric megaliths around 35 000 structures more than the rest of the world yet compared to dolmens in other countries in korea these structures have only recently been analyzed the ping mai dolmen in huasan weighs 280 tons and is by far the largest dolmen in the world it has fairy legends associated with it just like its european counterparts the gangwa dolmen is perhaps the most recognizable of these korean structures anthropologists estimate that it took 200 to 300 people to erect the megalith it also has folklore associated with it associating this time with a wizard in other korean legends dolmens are referred to as houses for witches or the work of ancient saints though these outlandish folktales are entertaining they do nothing to debate the origin of these structures however like merlin the magician in the uk and his association with megalithic monuments it's instrumental to note the folklore and megalithic craze is almost identical though thousands of miles apart when we see ancient structures around the world ancient lost advanced technology and cross-cultural connections we must question everything who really created the great civilizations of the world and who were our real ancestors what made it possible for ancient cultures such as the inca the maya and the egyptians to suddenly appear on the timeline of history already endowed with very advanced skills and cosmic knowledge these questions are not adequately answered by conventional archaeology we need to look through the eyes of the ancestors revealing evidence that challenges the mainstream historical view we've often been given a narrative and then told what to think about it we never get the facts to speak for themselves megalithic europe has been confined to its own borders and each little megalithic district has been in the control of modern countries there are some who think that the middle east and the farthest corners of the northwestern europe were in contact the stone circle at gilgal rapine in israel would fit right into the categories of stone circles and cairns of the british isles the gilgal repain also called the rusim alhiri megalithic monument in northern israel near the sea of galilee contains almost 40 000 basalt rocks resembling a giant target from above and boasting intricate stone arrangements within the circles range from 8 feet in height to 15 feet tall in the center archaeologists estimate the site was constructed as early as 3000 bce though its purpose remains unknown israeli archaeologists have found it aligns with the summer solstice sunrise and that the location may have been used as a place to gaze at and track the stars working like a kind of ancient calendar on the island of menorca in the mediterranean sea megalithic monuments called taulis catalan for tables attract visitors far and wide archaeologists aren't sure what purpose the tallest served though independent researchers have shown deep astronomical significance making an arc in the sky the talos were constructed between 1000 and 3000 bce official studies reveal however many are already drawing attention to similar t-shaped pillars of gobekli tepe while we're talking about a possible six to eight thousand years difference in the epoch of construction the t-shaped pillars may have an astronomical practice associated with them that gets passed on equally the dolmens of korea and those of europe are also separated by two to four millennia yet the concept in mythology is passed on somehow if we first get over the hurdle and accept trans-oceanic contact between ancient cultures then we can solve some of the problems of megalithic similarities the colossal olmec heads are a perfect example to exhibit this point no one would argue their indigenous features yet we can't just say case solved either it doesn't mean west african megalithic builders came one way set up camp and started a new culture it's much more complex than that we're talking a global worldwide civilization made up of many cultures traversing and trading symbols ideology concepts construction methods styles artifacts materials resource all get traded across vast distances today and as far back as man has existed on the planet this only happens in a world that's connected by sea or by land or both the corsica megaliths are eerily like gobekli tepe also this mediterranean island exhibits bizarre features just like the ice age monument of gobekli tepe the strange faces carved in the standing stones look remarkably close to the urfa man we even have the same h symbol carved into the stones the more people look the more connections they find perhaps the gobekli tepe builders didn't decline they just moved on and migrated with their astronomical observations and stone technology the connections keep coming the irfa man has as long fingers around the navel as do the gobekli tepe t-shaped pillars the easter island statues have long fingers holding the belly or focused on the navel we find the same practice in the coastal lowlands of guatemala the pre-classic period some 2500 years ago the statues are all drawing attention to the naval area with long fingers this is the very early colonization phase in central america not mayan supposedly some unknown independent chieftain in guatemala whilst these specific practices and artistic styles across different cultures are huge indicators of a connection there's no band of archaeologists traversing the museums of the world looking for them put it like this every megalithic region and megalithic culture have their own individual styles yet there are commonalities between sites that shouldn't be there archaeology concentrates on the individualistic and megalithic researchers concentrate on the connections keystone cuts is another fantastic instrumental concept that cannot be explained by archaeology on various continents the practice of keystone cuts appears pumapunku is one place where you can visit and see them openly was there a megalithic technology or advanced group traversing the world teaching knowledge trading knowledge or migrating from place to place if there was a cataclysm or worldwide flood that some have suggested it would explain the migrations it would also explain the common origin and limited trans-oceanic contact each megalithic culture as it moved on and isolated itself was left to progress flourish or dwindle out of existence one of the most remarkable megalithic cultures to last so long on this earth was the san agustin culture of colombia so very little is known about the ancient peoples of san augustine or their culture they have no written language and had already disappeared several centuries before europeans arrived in this part of the world but their legacy is sealed regardless of how much or little we can learn about them after all they were responsible for building the largest group of monuments and megalithic sculptures in south america this mystery is unlikely to be solved anytime soon but san agustin isn't about solving mysteries it's about experiencing the wonders of a lost civilization the real mystery of san agustin lies in the identity of the skilled peoples who built these remarkable statues and burial sites archaeologists and anthropologists have been baffled trying to piece together some part of their story the earliest remnants of their culture date back to 3300 bc and these archaeological sites were abandoned around 1350 a.d they were rediscovered in the 18th and 19th centuries and most of the burial sites were looted in search of gold the fact remains they survived the longest of all megalithic cultures right up until medieval times then like every other megalithic culture vanished almec mysteries of mesoamerica thousands of years ago bizarre people who spore on one of the biggest mysteries on the planet settled in the part of the world we call mesoamerica the entire region comprising of southern mexico and most of central america as it stretches between what's now called the gulf of mexico and the pacific ocean the entire region is riddled with ancient sites of pyramid builders and incredible feats of engineering in inhospitable places although many different countries now exist within this space it was the original home to just one civilization the mysterious olmec as time advanced other well-known groups became dominant in the area these were primarily the aztecs and the mayan many consider the olmec a proto-mayan civilization with the latest discoveries in lidar and recent unraveling of the mayan snake kings their lineage going right back to olmec times it seems the olmec of ancient times morphed into the maya all these early civilizations that existed from approximately 1200 bce to 900 ce were steeped with culture tradition commerce and conflict they also offer many mysteries and enigmas to modern understanding their knowledge of astronomy and their engineering feats these are the things that baffle people with awe about how the civilizations arose gained such power and why they inevitably disappeared let's travel back in time to the first days to discover the questions that still exist in the minds of archaeologists historians and others who strive to understand the puzzling mysteries of mesoamerica the earliest civilization known to exist in the mesoamerican region is called the olmec the earliest records of their existence come from approximately 1200 bce it makes sense to understand that there were people in that area before then but they were not truly part of an organized civilization that engaged in trade and other important things people have existed in most places of the world far beyond when discovered civilizations grew still the olmec are often considered one of the worldwide cradles of civilization they were responsible for launching other groups of people in the area such as the aztec and maya evidence for this exists in the records kept by the later civilizations about trade art culture and religion over the centuries of their existence the almac people spread throughout mesoamerica traded with new civilizations that arose and left behind quite an interesting record of mysterious pyramids religious artifacts and so much more we knew little of the olmec over 100 years ago now having focused on their incredible art bizarre figurines and unusual heads the amazing pyramidal structures like cantona and laventa incredible obsidian artifacts that are so difficult to make many have speculated west african origins and some have pointed to egyptian looking headdress clothing as indicators before exploring some of the true mysteries of this group of native people first it's important to consider how they arose in the first place it's nearly impossible to figure out the precise information about how the civilization started however with some logical thought the intelligence of historians and archaeologists and information left behind by later civilizations you begin to have a clearer picture of the olmec people where did the olmec civilization come from the aztecs traded and otherwise interacted culturally with the people there before them they left behind more information than the olmec stood themselves in fact it was the aztecs who called the people olmec to begin with the term comes from a common resource in the area rubber historians can only guess that it was one of the common trade goods that so impressed the aztecs that they referred to the people in association with it no information exists to tell anyone what the olmecs called themselves this civilization existed on the northern edge of mesoamerica near the gulf of mexico this area is now near the southern end of mexico to the left of the yucatan peninsula from a sociological perspective it's an area that makes sense to settle in the gulf of mexico offers a food source and the opportunity to travel more easily up and down the coast to trade with other civilizations because the existence of the olmec people occurred so long ago it's proved quite difficult to establish some type of historical continuity to explain where they came from and why they disappeared over a thousand years later by the time the years 400 to 300 bce came around no more evidence of this once thriving group existed despite the mystery surrounding their appearance and existence the olmec had considerable power in the region and quite a rich and cultured life after all in the near 2000 years they existed in the mesoamerican region they had time to establish trade routes agriculture and ancient industry plenty of artwork and unique religious and cultural practices settlements and cities evidence of prosperous cities have been found spread throughout the region these existed at san lorenzo laguna de los cerros tres zapatos laventa and las limas the relative success or failure of the cities depended largely on whether they flooded regularly and how successful the surrounding area crops were level itself was generally considered to be the capital or main city of this region estimations put the highest population numbers around 18 000 which was quite high for any civilization of that time in the world's history some evidence and estimations based on later groups give rise to the idea that olmec society existed based on classes for example the famous stoneheads and other carvings apparently showed specific kings or rulers the elite classes may have focused primarily on priests and shamans who would have had quite a bit of influence over daily life and control of the underclasses of course and agricultural society that built things from stone would need a strong labor force to get all the work done success through trade besides foodstuffs common trade material were rubber obsidian and jade stone utilitarian and decorative pottery feathers of tropical birds and mirrors fashioned from unique crystalline stones polished to a high gloss prior to the olmec civilization arising the tribes in the area would undoubtedly trade with each other the land mass is not so vast that each group would stay separate for very long in those early days organized trade routes or dedicated merchants would not exist instead groups would simply come together organize a trade of goods and then move on again there were a lot of middlemen involved and highly desired objects which get traded frequently the city that would one day become san lorenzo stood at the center of olmec society and trade as this first civilization had an economy based primarily on agriculture they would not trade for food with other groups instead archaeologists have discovered things that the olmec would not have made in the digs in the land that they controlled some of these included jade figurines and obsidian blades it also made sense that the olmec would trade for salts and cocoa which they undoubtedly enjoyed drinking hot like the later maya the luxury goods created by the olmec themselves such as pottery small humanoid figurines and natural items like parrot feathers and jaguar skins undoubtedly fetched a high price whenever trade exists so too does the spread of cultural ideas and art styles this is one predominant way that archaeologists and historians unravel the mysteries of mesoamerican trade when they find something obviously made by an olmec potter for example far south in what will become the cradle of mayan growth they can see the extent of the trade routes research conducted around 2008 showed evidence of the olmec people creating an ancient form of asphalt by mixing together these naturally occurring materials with various plant fibers and exposing it to heat they developed a very useful waterproof coating for boats and other sorts of high-value material to trade with other people in the region an interesting debate about olmec pottery arose when scientists use more precise mineral examination to examine where the clay came from four pieces found throughout mesoamerica pottery is frequently one of the most studied artifacts because it's obviously made by human hands although a carved stone has human beginnings of course the actual stone itself cannot be specifically identified internally clay on the other hand is intrinsically chosen and shaped by the person who makes it one type of analysis indicates that most of the clay pottery in the entire region came from the olmec lands another type that focused on the geology of the sand and rock particles added to temper the pieces indicate that it came from various places and ended up in the main city while these in-depth studies may indicate different types of trade and cultural spread the truth remains shrouded in mystery archaeological evidence of how the olmec lived the natural resources available in the area give an indication of how their cities would look archaeological digs in the cities listed above have found unique structures buildings and statues that allow people today to peer back through time and attempt to unravel the mysteries that surround this early group since all of this occurred so long ago undoubtedly many secrets have been lost to the ages what remains gives a very enigmatic look into a group of people who achieved high degrees of success and then vanished quite quickly for no apparent reason near the large city in san lorenzo evidence of structures shaped like large mounds were found these man-made structures did not appear to have any formal construction or even entryways in some cases however they did discover drains running through them formed by hand-carved basalt the general idea that currently exists in most traditional historians minds associates these mounds with nearby mayan pyramids however since the olmec people existed many years before the latter were built they succumbed to more erosion from the volatile weather in the area other interesting finds within these ancient cities include the outline of an entire complex of both rectangular and round structures these included what appeared to be religious buildings a red palace perhaps storage buildings and fields for ceremonial ball games these were played with rubber balls that share the name with the people according to the aztec record unique city design choices align with the stars besides the impressive appearance and size of these ancient city layouts one of the great mysteries that surrounds them has to do with their configuration and alignment the olmec created what is generally considered to be the first pyramid in what is now central america the buildings at cantona and at leventas city are laid out in a very neat grid also this grid follows a rather precise north to south alignment why this was done specifically is a mystery lost to the sands of time however it's quite common among ancient civilizations for example the ancient egyptians aligned their pyramids with astronomical bodies and directional poles what is now called san lorenzo represents one of the most essential archaeological sites in mesoamerica this sprawling city represents much of what people today know about how the olmec lived and what they valued the city itself laid approximately 38 miles inland from the gulf of mexico well this may seem like it's too far removed from the source of undoubtedly much of their food and potential coastline trade routes the city had something much more important fresh water although the geography of the area has changed in the millennia since the olmec lived there and the course of the cotsa coalcoast river has changed its course san lorenzo would have originally stood on an island in its center with its high ridges the island would have protected the city quite effectively from both floods and invasion generally however although some conflicts usually arise between multiple civilizations in the same area there was no real evidence of battles or sieges the city itself underwent various incarnations over hundreds of years and with different groups of olmec people it even stood vacant for quite a while around 500 bce some new buildings in a ball court were added in later years but nothing was done to maintain its former glory archaeologists found evidence of a main city structure several nearby villages or clusters of farmer homes and many statues and other artifacts they even discovered evidence of aqueducts to transport fresh river water into the city's most high class areas to fill artificial pools and the unique monument 9 which is well shaped like a duck since the mesoamerican area is so hot and humid no soft furnishings leather or other degradable items have ever been found in san lorenzo and the surrounding area however the stonework still stands as evidence of the grandeur of their civilization some was built with very large stones transported down the river from mines in the mountains while others were constructed of carefully fitted smaller stones culture and religion give clues about olmec much of what's remained of the olmec civilization over the years gives most information about their religion the pantheon of gods and goddesses and spiritual practices that affected their everyday lives these take the form of artwork which is mostly stone statuary and some later records for example the aztec mayan and even spanish explorers and conquistadors shared information about the religious practices they found when they arrived in mesoamerica archaeologists have found coded records of their gods and goddesses and how they practiced religion in general while there is an indication that they had priests who were quite influential and important to everyday life the records did not give enough specific information to create a complete picture of what they did from a political standpoint it seemed obvious that a ruling family appointed members to go out and control various agricultural villages that surrounded the main city this was especially noticeable in the san lorenzo area due to the configuration of this and other city areas and through understanding the later aztec and mayan groups the olmec priest class was undoubtedly quite powerful as well besides the massive stone heads that obviously depicted kings due to their jaguar headdresses much of the other art and artifacts discovered in the region focused on religious beliefs and those who could speak to the gods elements of olmec religious beliefs and practices how did the olmec people worship they believed in a sky-based home to the gods an underworld and the ability of special priests or shamans to act as intermediates between the gods and the people as with many early religions the multiple gods and goddesses that the people who lived in this part of mesoamerica believed in were shown using interesting combinations of humanoid and animal figures their focus on the cosmos helped them create a precursor to the famous mayan calendar too religious rituals focus on agriculture and in the early civilizations stress the importance of various land features as well the almac people's religion could partially be described as a fertility cult other things that seemed to be important to the practice of their spiritual beliefs included nearby caves in the mountainsides games played with rubber balls pyramidal structures and highly polished stones that acted as mirrors for light and reflection some evidence that poison toad induced hallucinations due to the bones of those species found at ceremonial sites also played a role in the shaman's communication with the gods looking back through thousands of years however leave modern people unsure of when or where this concept began the unique deities some of the information about these deities came directly from artwork and images found in association with the ancient olmec culture others were recorded in aztec or mayan cultural records in reference to their neighbor's beliefs instead of specific names they are generally referred to with descriptions as the water god banded eye god maze god where jaguar olmec dragon bird monster fish monster and feathered serpent vague ideas about the dragon's mouth symbolized by cave entrances and footprints of what could have been temples give only limited information to go on when historians focus specifically on the olmec the overall mesoamerican group shared most belief systems with only a few deviations however animals played an important role most relatively primitive civilizations from millennia ago had a nearly spiritual relationship with the animals that lived around them for the olmec some of these included eagles jaguars caiman sharks and snakes these are things that they would have come across on a regular basis and undoubtedly believed to have considerable power just as the ancient egyptians had falcons and jackals represented in their gods and goddesses the olmec had unique holy combinations a human jaguar may have been representative of their primary god that had power over all the others various statues of these have been discovered in situations that depict their unique power other information about their belief systems include a dragon-like creature that lived in the sky and a collection of numbered gods that did not particularly have names the dragon there is a very similar appearance to quetzalcoatl who was revered by the aztec in later years of course since there are not any written documents telling stories or listing prayers that people use to worship these deities they may have had names that are now lost to history the stone had statues also historians believe the stone heads that the olmec civilization was so famous for depicting kings instead of deities something about them is still resonated with the religious undoubtedly practiced at the time the general mesoamerican belief systems stated that the spirit emotions and mind of an individual existed solely in their head this is mimicked in the aztec belief later of the tonali's location in the body this term is used for a life force or spirit that the gods gave an individual before they were born ceremonial ball playing if anyone has ever seen the disney movie el dorado they have a good indication of how the ancient mesoamerican ball game was played the players were into a walled field or pit with stone rings attached up high on each wall using a rubber ball they would kick hit and bump the ball into the rings to score in the children's movie the main characters had some fun and provided a few laughs in the genuine olmec and later aztec and mayan cultures the ceremonial ball game was deadly serious in fact it may have been one of the ways that the next priests were chosen the basis of this belief comes from ancient religious stories themselves the tale tells of some noisy brothers who were brought to the underworld and forced to play the game against deities as punishment when one eventually lost he was summoned back from the underworld later aztec tales support this hypothesis the ball game using a unique rubber ball was used to determine the accuracy of prophecies and predictions a game lost apparently showed that the ruler would succumb to the european invaders this all came much later than the first olmec representations of the game however they shared the same ideas as they had one or more courts or playing fields in the main cities when it came to rules of the game the basic idea followed modern football or for north american soccer you could not use your hands pads were sometimes used to protect from the very heavy rubber ball and only six male players entered the court at one time both professional and amateur teams existed apparently which would surely create quite a spectacle for traders and villagers who came to the cities archaeologists have found possible trophies that consisted of sticks or belts or necklace amulets most of the in-depth information about these games comes from the later aztec and mayan civilizations however there's no reason to believe that the earlier olmec simply played a nice friendly game with no focus on their religious practices at all the oldest of the olmec courts were eye-shaped the size of a football field and are approximately 3 600 years old spiritual mirrors it makes logical sense that any reflective and highly polished stone surface would be associated with the power of the sun after all these ancient olmec mirrors reflected light quite well to a modern eye they looked very little like the mirrors we know earlier archaeologists did not even recognize them as such until they found an excellent example at leventas city some were fashioned from rough iron ore others from black acidian glass and from other stones like hematite and magnetite the religious significance of these mirrors was obvious they hung around the necks of priests and shamans seated rulers also were depicted with concave mirrors on their chests people of importance were buried with them as honorifics to help them carry on into the underworld besides looking quite impressive these curved mirrors could reflect light parabolically and can be used to light fires evidence especially in the later mayan civilization gives clues to how the priests use them throughout time everything from reflective bowls or water to crystal balls have been tools of divination the mirrors were also used for this purpose other associations besides water included deity gods fire which could reflect its light and come from mirrors and images of the sun all these things logically go together and are the source of great power fire of course was one of the most important and potentially dangerous things the early people could harness evidence survives into the aztec and mayan cultures the influence of the olmec on the later groups cannot be ignored of course it makes a lot of sense that three geographically and historically close civilizations that traded with each other would have a considerable effect between them as with most religious practices around the world throughout time a new civilization borrows ideas from an older or established one in order to ease the transition for believers who wish to fit into the new way of life more fully luckily the aztec and mayan civilizations had much more in-depth information about the people they traded with and what they saw them in general besides rock carvings that formed the more primitive form of record keeping these two later groups of people had books if the olmec ever had such a thing they've been lost forever the olmec giant heads one of the most obvious and well understood types of artifacts from the ancient olmec civilization are the giant stone heads that appear in their cities around the pyramid mounds and excavated out of the ground in various other places throughout the region a total of 17 have been unearthed since archaeologists have started studying the olmec people for example four massive heads were positioned at the corners of the leventa city layout also their use is not precisely known it makes sense that they were placed there in some sort of protection or spiritual honor that would hopefully bless their city another common theory exists that states these colossal heads directly depicted popular rulers of the olmec civilization in fact they could have done double duty in honoring the kings and representing a desire for protection for their cities still many mysteries surround them and archaeologists argue about various aspects of how they're designed and created appearances of the stoneheads these 17 heads range in size from approximately nine and a half feet to fourteen and a half feet in circumference most are approximately six to seven feet tall the unique property of the stone used to create them makes them exceptionally heavy they weigh in at approximately eight tons each in the far off tuxelo mountains olmec miners separated these massive basalt boulders from the ground and transported them down the river on rafts or land using logs to roll them across open ground there were no organized road systems in the civilization although there were regularly used trade routes that could potentially make this process much easier the faces have broad features white noses thick lips and invariably wear the type of helmet over the top of their heads although time is rough in the features some they're generally smooth and quite precise for a time when people used only stone tools archaeologists suggest they could have been painted in bright colors much like the aztec and mayan statuary was in years after the heads were carved other types of olmec art besides the massive heads made of basalt the olmec appeared to enjoy carving smaller heads out of various other types of stone archaeologists have found stone masks and statues as well much of the information that the world now has about this early mesoamerican civilization comes from carvings and paintings that stood the test of time caves in the area which may have been used for religious ceremonies had decorations near the entrances images of kings and queens seated on beautiful thrones have been seen in various places some are also surrounded by images of crops or simply decorative patterns archaeologists were very lucky to realize that some of the olmec treasures had been preserved in the almanati boggs they found stone ceramic and even wooden artifacts with some dedicated digging some include the rain baby god a lovely jade axe head and even depictions of rubber and paper offerings that were apparently burned for religious ceremonies the mystery surrounding the disappearance where did the olmec come from exactly and where did they go well it seems to make sense to just say they gradually coalesced into an actual civilization from the native tribal people of the area some arguments against this idea do exist however all native people come from somewhere else it's generally accepted idea that early humans arose in africa far before anything close to a civilization would form the early people historians called native americans came from the northwest originally during the migration across the bering strait similarities between ancient chinese xi face carvings that carried into canadian native communities and the olmec carved faces may support this theory due to the unique facial features and clothing and ornamentation depicted in the giant stone heads and other carvings some believe the olmec may have more direct african roots did people long ago come across the ocean to settle in a new world well before europeans did from a transportation standpoint it's theoretically possible that people in africa could have rode the winds and currents across to mesoamerica although it seems unlikely the early evidence of olmec language however seemed to have quite a few similarities to the manding language from western african regions the helmets on the massive stone heads look like those worn across the ocean did the olmec get their idea of star-aligned pyramids from the egyptians as mysterious as the source of the olmec civilization remains its disappearance presents just as many questions and ideas the usual way of people's decline includes being assimilated into another culture or conquered by them completely from all accounts however the aztec and maya traded with the late olmec and did not have serious problems with them approximately 1500 years since its beginning around 400 bc the main city of levanta started falling apart ultimately then the tens of thousands of people who once lived there simply abandoned it there was some evidence that they purposefully took some of the buildings apart before they left perhaps to save materials with the intention to rebuild elsewhere trade networks stopped flowing all olmec style artwork and carvings ended the assyrian empire the assyrian empire was one of the greatest to have ever existed yet there's so little known about this pre-dynastic culture originally located both on the fertile floor of the mediterranean valley and upon the edge of the north african continent where because they themselves were of atlantian origin they lived in some sort of truce-oriented peace with the surrounding atlantean-dominated peoples of the surrounding lands with estimates of over 200 sunken cities and towns on the mediterranean sea floor some of which have recently begun to be located and examined by deep sea divers there's clearly little doubt if any at all that there have been quite advanced civilizations living within this once dry and fertile valley but far far back in what our academic scholars would probably describe as pre-history when the bulk of mankind elsewhere were still allegedly humble nomads living in caves and chipping at flints but why were these assyrians living as a separate people if they were themselves of atlantean origin had there been some sort of rift or falling out between this group and their brethren were they a breakaway a splinter group why had they chosen to go their own way when their land of origin was doing so well for itself from what pieces of the puzzle we've been able to put together thus far and believe us they're hard to find it seems to come down to a matter of kingship the origins of the assyrian empire it appears that one of the original princes of the customary 10-crowned rulership of the atlantean empire disagreed with some nefarious self-aggrandizing plot connected with the new cult of the sons of belial which several of his brother princelings under the leadership of the depraved prince belial a puppet controlled by his elder brother prince seth or set were all deeply involved it was entirely against the health morality welfare and indeed the very safety of the atlantean state and prince osiris a very good man and a champion of the benevolent law of one threatened to publicly expose them because of his unswerving loyalty to the sun god and to the populace of the empire his kinsmen expelled this eminently wise and honest prince from the oligarchy together with his wife isis and his sister nephtus and his son horus upon pain of death the law of one was a monotheistic religion which revered only the sun god ra who was thought to have his throne inside the sun as being the sole ruler benevolent entity and the original creative force of the earth stars and the universe but when news of this treachery reached the region over which osiris ruled his loyal subjects vowed to follow their prince and leave the island of atlantis they were also adherents of the godly law of one religion so rather than live among belialists they resolved to secede from its empire and to set up their own nation in some unoccupied area of the adjacent mainland many of the populace of atlantis who had heard rumors of the plot sympathized deeply with osiris his family and their followers and joined them to escape the growing depravity of their own rulers in due course osiris and his people found a most suitable location in the mediterranean valley and before long they'd established great goodwill with their new neighboring nations and the new assyrian nation began to prosper and grow because of their great wealth of italian wisdom and knowledge of technology several other nations and tribes elected to join them and thus the assyrian empire was born osiris himself became a greatly sought-after fountain of knowledge and wisdom upon all manner of technological and structural matters by many of the surrounding nations he's even said to have designed and directed the construction of the massive stone platform of balbach in lebanon which is famous for its gargantuan stone blocks that are believed to weigh up to 1500 tons each from all appearances it was originally intended for much grander purposes than being merely a foundation for the two or three very ordinary temple structures which it later carried and those ruins can still be seen today could it perhaps have been the base platform for some enormous towering structure that would have dwarfed even the pyramids some historians have even speculated that osiris may possibly have been the original biblical nimrud who built the tower of babel however we have no idea of the massive constructional engineering marvels that still await eventual discovery should the mediterranean sea ever become a desiccated sandy depression again it's also reported that a huge 100 foot stone or marble statue of him was produced by one of the grateful nations he had assisted in a like manner and probably still stands buried in the mud and silt of the mediterranean sea amid the ruins of his capital city as a one-time ruling prince of atlantis osiris's mental fund of esoteric and technological knowledge must have been enormous however to discover just how much this was it seems that we'll have to wait the eventual solving of the puzzles and secrets which will lead to the final unlocking of the hidden repository chambers that lie inside the mysterious great pyramid of giza 21st century man has already proved what woeful gaps exist in his constructional knowledge of such enormously solid works by his complete inability despite all his modern high-rise building technology plus steel scaffolding cranes and reinforced concrete to reproduce the wondrous massive stone structures of those ancient times very soon the assyrian empire even extended up into the north african highlands from algeria eastward across libya and toward kem and at the time there was no actual land of egypt what was later to become the river nile was then known as the styx by the mountain people of crete and cyprus it had carved out a 900-mile long ravine from the aswan plateau where it thundered over a high precipice to where it flowed outward into the enormous mediterranean valley there it had gouged out a great freshwater lake to the south of crete and cyprus before turning westward to flow between malta and sicily finally terminating in another deep lake between the highlands of modern day italy and corsica even though two other large rivers also flowed into the mediterranean valley their waters were all evaporated from similar lakes as rapidly as they were filled thus the great depressed basin remained largely dry land egypt as we shall soon see is quite literally a comparatively new land swiftly most of the vast valley came under the benevolent rule of the assyrians and they built many large cities and towns upon its luxuriantly fertile floor a comparatively recent bathymetric survey of the mediterranean seafloor has shown up the remains of at least 250 cities some have even been studied quite recently by deep sea diving expeditions and many ancient egyptian or assyrian artifacts were recovered and brought to the surface the end of atlantis in the meantime however the rulers of atlantis led by seth had not forgotten osiris nor did they admire his success in establishing a new empire of his own and they sought ways and means to rid themselves of him once and for all if they could reduce his power his empire would be helpless and they could graft it back into that of atlantis but they had not reckoned upon the unpredictable hand of nature for many millennia atlantis and its several islands had been subjected to sporadic volcanic outbursts and frequent earth tremors in fact there were records of at least two quite large catastrophes having already engulfed some of its larger islands over the past 40 millennia the first such event occurred around 50 000 bc and the second around 28 000 bc in which the major continent was split into five portions however all had been reasonably quiet for some 19 millennia until this new bout of tectonic disturbances but it all finally came to a head with appalling suddenness in 9500 bc when entirely without warning the entire major land masses of atlantis simply burst asunder in a final series of cataclysmic explosions and within a single day and night most of atlantis vanished almost without a trace beneath the atlantic ocean millions of native atlanteans died in the catastrophe but quite a large number of survivors escaped in ships rafts or whatever they could cling to these eventually struggled ashore on the coast of spain and portugal and the shores of morocco there were few if any of the original leaders among these survivors except for seth who now bent every effort toward taking sole control over what he could of the atlantean colonial power on the mainland of europe and northwest africa in this it would seem he was successful since many lands surrounding the mediterranean valley were already vassal states of mighty atlantis and by inner marriage with its soldiers their people bore the essence of atlantis in their veins many modern europeans probably still do possess atlantean genes the end of osiris however this prince seth blamed osiris for the disaster assuming that he had called upon his god ra to bring down this final cataclysm on atlantis and one day he decided to gain his revenge he sent forth scouts to locate the assyrian royal capital then after learning its whereabouts with a troop of his soldiers under cover of darkness seth descended the steep incline from the libyan highland and approached osiris city there choosing only a handful of his most brutal henchmen seth silently infiltrated osiris's unguarded royal palace and surprised the king alone at his midnight devotions it was a foul deed of terrible actions that took place in the king's private chapel dedicated to ra osiris had no time even to cry out after a final gloating inspection of their hideous work seth led his team of revengers silently away completely undetected out of the still sleeping palace still sleeping that is except for one osiris wife had woken suddenly in response to some unbidden sense of urgency and discovered that her lord had not yet come up to bed fearfully she went to her sister and together they descended to his dimly lit chapel to find the door standing slightly ajar as she opened the door wider and saw the carnage they had wreaked when horus now a grown man woken by his mother's screams entered a few seconds later and witnessed the horrific sight he was seized with a terrible admix of horror grief and a towering peroxism of uncontrollable rage like his mother horace guested once who had done the deed and after doing his best to comfort her he left his mother to the tender care of her sister nephthys and her handmaidens swiftly marshaling a large troop of royal cavalry he set off at a wild maddening gallop into the darkness to catch them but alas by then they had vanished like mystery men into the night he and his cavalry troopers scoured the surrounding region all the rest of that night and much of the following day before finally abandoning their fruitless search however horus pledged himself to a solemn vow that he would strive to have seth caught before he passed a black pawl of sadness and despair descended upon the entire assyrian empire for many days thereafter but eventually as time began its healing work horus realized that osiris's empire must go on and return to their now onerous duties of leadership guidance and justice for his people horus now reluctantly ascended his father's throne and ruled over them jointly with his mother one of his first acts as king was to declare revenge upon that last atlantean king and uncle who had taken his own brother they engaged in many battles with imperial forces led by seth in this they were aided by a large colony of ancient athenians the forerunners of those athenians mentioned in the more recent and familiar greek classics who occupied the northeastern end of the vast valley and who had no reason to love atlantis since they had long been their deadliest enemies and had once even triumphed gloriously over them however the assyrians and atlanteans proved to be too evenly matched in these battles since both shared the same advanced weaponry and military stratagems and the only material results of such often bloody and bitter encounters were thousands of dead warriors as well as many casualties among the assyrian and athenian civilian populations who were greatly exposed on the low valley floor to the pinless fire of seth's heartless soldiers far more safely positioned high upon the libyan plateau above them eventually though his hatred of seth had in no wise diminished horus had to call a reluctant halt to the fighting since both their unarmed women and children and their valley cities were suffering far more than the atlanteans above on the highlands an uneasy ceasefire was mutually agreed to at least for the time being but horus still nursed a burning hateful desire for personal revenge upon his father's murderer in the fullness of time osiris became a god to his people and their descendants and his memory was greatly revered and venerated so much so that at the behest of his aging widow they undertook a great task in his honor by building a great stone pyramidal cenotaph to perpetuate his memory high upon a great plateau of solid rock that formed the towering western corner at the mouth of the deep gorge of the styx near the mediterranean valley's eastern end strangely there was already a giant monument on that plateau in the shape of a great elongated stone lion resting upon its belly with long four paws outstretched before it within a shallow depression and facing towards the rising sun the assyrians had no idea who had built it or how long it had lain counted there gazing toward the eastern horizon but judging by the deep weathering upon its worn stone surface it was obviously the totem or god of some archaic race that had vanished into the mists of ancient time even before poseidon founded atlantis as mentioned before this deep dark and narrow gorge which the river sticks had gouged out over many millennia ran back for 900 miles to the huge thousand foot high waterfall at aswan the pyramid of osiris was completed within a single year using the ancient almost miraculous technological skills and mental powers of the atlanteans by a team of men only 300 strong vast blocks of stone were quarried and precision trimmed from carefully selected sections of rock strata using crystal powered drills and cutters as well as melting wands which cut through the stone like a hot knife through butter then they were teleported along the long canyon and levitated up to the great flat plateau entirely by the concentrated mental power of groups each consisting of 10 chosen sages chanting in unison and focusing their minds as one the huge atlantean style pyramid whose shape was designed to withstand the ravages of tsunamis and earth-shaking catastrophes over an eternity was constructed primarily as a cenotaph to the memory of their god osiris but it also became a repository for all his collection of scrolls and tomes of ancient atlantean wisdom and technological secrets especially inscribed for the purpose of preserving his knowledge these were carefully sealed inside secret air and watertight chambers deep within and below the pyramid which could only be discovered by some future race who might develop the required degree of intellect to unlock its hidden secrets some of these keys related to the stellar constellations of their time some to mathematical and geometrical puzzles and some to playing mental prowess and abilities of logic and reason but all the answers were there hidden in plain view in the pyramid structure for those in the future who might have the intellect and mental perception to work them out once the great pyramid was completed it was sealed up by various cunningly devised mechanisms operated by natural physical forces the damp air was expelled by a chemical explosion through specially constructed ducts and then its exterior was coated with pure colloidal silver cladding which was blended again by technological wizardry and allowed to run down the beautifully smooth and polished sides the gleaming silvery white structure was finally surmounted and crowned by a gold sheathed pyramidal capstone the memory of great osiris and his achievements would live forever the finnish pyramid was a brilliant sight to behold especially during the first moments of the sunrise whilst the valley still lay in darkness and the sun's first rays struck its silver eastern side and its glistening golden pinnacle the nation gathered far below to watch this wondrous spectacle and pray for the spirit of their great god osiris a few years later osiris widow queen isis died peacefully and full of years this time the people required no urging by their grief stricken king horus again the same men came forward and began work upon a second pyramid to honor the beloved widow of the great god again the work was done swiftly and with total perfection but this pyramid's hidden chambers contain new secrets pertaining to the future of the earth and the universe it also housed a wonderful library of all the arcane knowledge that isis had required during her lifetime since she had been a great seer and prophetess in her later years and had been granted many great visions of the future the universe and the unseen kingdom of its great creator the glorious emperor of all the gods this time the finished pyramid of isis was covered with brilliantly white alabaster lovingly hand polished to a mirror finish by the women of the kingdom and it was capstoned with silver-coated pyramidal block so as not to outshine the great gods memorial nevertheless the two pyramids both made a truly glorious sight in the rays of the morning sun and the whole empire sent representatives to observe the awesome spectacle and to pay obeisance to their venerated god and his widely beloved wife pilgrims and travelers came from all quarters of the then known world to witness and bow before these magnificent memorials and many of them stayed to join the growing nation of the assyrians which now lay under the single benevolent kingship of king horus himself now a man of mature years and full of his illustrious father's vast wisdom great knowledge and amazing gentleness the mediterranean flood sadly however there was a disastrous aftermath to the atlantis catastrophe it was during the latter part of the lifetime of prince horus that the last great judgmental cataclysm occurred the grand finale of the series of cataclysmic explosions and the subsidences in which the last vestiges of mighty atlantis had vanished forever in a welter of scalding steam and plumes of red-hot lava and smoke beneath the boiling ocean these same explosions of the vast subterranean gas chambers which had finally blown atlantis apart and then caused the sinking of its remains as their depressurized caverns collapsed under the weight of rock and the ocean also caused a great weakening of other nearby strata the atlas mountain barrier that ran from morocco into spain barricading the mediterranean valley from the cold gray green waters of the atlantic suddenly began to breach a couple of decades later permitting the ocean to start leaking into the valley it was just a mere dribble at first but like a breached dam wall the rock soon began to crack and collapse under the pressure of the inrushing ocean and began flooding the great valley with a vengeance the newly forming pillars of heracles at last stood open wide along the dark salty atlantic sea water to pour into the lovely valley polluting its great crystal clear freshwater lakes drowning its luxuriant park-like vegetation and poisoning the rich soil that had made the valley so wonderfully fertile as the cold atlantic began slowly to fill up the once lush mediterranean valley the assyrians along with their neighboring occupants of the valley floor had to seek higher ground taking what they could of their great treasures with them the southern wall of the valley was the more accessible especially by way of the malta ridge which was part of their territory and up to the libyan plane of north africa and it was there that the assyrians the last direct repository of atlantean wisdom and technology led by horus established a new domain among the green plains and palm grove vistas of the open highlands many of their former neighbors from the valley especially a large number of athenians who had also occupied a large area of the northeastern end of the valley joined forces with them and soon assyrians became a strong and mighty empire the foundation of egypt it was this wonderful change that attracted the libyan assyrians into the new land that was to become egypt where they set about establishing yet another great empire one that was to become almost as powerful and rich as the one from whence they had originally hailed beyond the now famed pillars of hercules needless to say they brought with them all the ancient wisdom of atlantis and part of this was their vast and jealously preserved fund of technological knowledge and skill in the art of handling enormous feats of high-tech stone construction of which we still know nothing sadly by this time king horus himself was a fading but beloved memory he had died soon after his libyan empire had begun to develop lying propped up on his deathbed facing east towards the pyramids of his beloved parents to witness his final sunrise as he laid dying he had a great vision and rallied his wasted frame into a sitting position his frail arms held out to greet the rising sun behold he cried in an awesomely strong voice for a dying man the sunboat of ra brings my father osiris upon his daily rebirth to gaze again upon his children i go now to join him upon his flight across the heavens and so saying he fell back upon his couch at that very moment his favorite falcon which had been perched upon the foot of his bed took to the air with a loud clapping of wings and soared upwards into the dawning sky until it was lost to the view of the gathered elders surely this was a sign from ra the king's final words registered deeply with all present and they marveled greatly at them from thenceforward the ship of the sun god ra who had been a god of atlantis but somewhat less than poseidon in their pantheon became revered as the great shining bark of the god of life who resurrected osiris every dawn and carried him back into the underworld each evening a sign of hope for a new and glorious future life to everyone after their life on earth was done king horus became his one with the falcon who was able to accompany ra's celestial boat across the sky so it was that the falcon became a god an embodiment of horus who would carry prayers and supplications to ra who kept close watch over subjects below woe be tied any whom horus reported to ra as they would later have to face trial before osiris in the underworld for their misdeeds and he had the power to destroy their souls if they were found wanting thus osiris became both the god of resurrection and life for the good and of soul death for the wicked so the eye of horus glyph became a symbol of fear for all who worked evil for horus was the eye of ra although horus had not seen seth's evil head raised upon a spear at least he had eventually confronted his wicked uncle when he challenged his right to the assyrian throne and had fought a mighty battle against him in this he had succeeded in emasculating seth and mortally wounding him at the cost of one of his own eyes but at least horus had retained his throne honorably whilst the now impotent but still malevolent spirit of seth was relegated by the god ra to serve a minor role as the god of storms wherein he could only vent his vicious spleen with thunder hail and lightning bolts horus himself now became recognized as the protector of the righteous and was later frequently included in sculptures of pharaohs being shown shielding the king's head from behind with protective wings even though all future pharaohs to come would not necessarily be good or righteous men horus perhaps feeling unworthy for not avenging his father in quite the way he had vowed had requested that no pyramid be built for him lest he might intrude upon the memory and dignity of his beloved parents however his court advisors were determined that he deserved a lasting memorial if only for the solace of his subjects and built him a smaller period besides those of osiris and isis in this way they felt that the cenotaph of horus would not in any way detract from those of his parents who had now been elevated to full godly status but he would still have a fitting memorial close beside them it was a compromise but one that was acceptable to the populace better a smaller memorial than none at all horus had been greatly loved by all the subjects thus did the great culture and architectural splendor of the glorious egypt spring from the assyrian empire which had in turn sprung from the wondrous lost continent of atlantis and the rest of this story is all recorded in ancient egypt's marvelous and colorful history with the passage of time a whole new pantheon of gods appeared many of them being deified animals and birds following the elevation of the falcon to full godly status to symbolize the new god horus and even though the glory that was egypt is now long since faded and gone the pyramids upon the plateau still wait ever patiently to render up their atlantean secrets and the ancient and enigmatic sphinx maintains his own silent and expectant vigil towards the east awaiting the return of something we cannot even begin to guess at there ends the amazing saga of the assyrian empire [Music] there's an ancient mystery that resides on this planet so unique that it stands out amongst all the other mysteries bizarre vitrified ancient ruins and stones melted and molded rocks perfectly fitting with no known technology of how this was done it's no secret that many rocks have an unusual look in cusco and the surrounding temples everyone else visits as their own theory of how it was done because there's no known method of how it was done it's like anything goes every possible theory has been concocted because of the impossible stonework the beyond difficult engineering and yet to do be replicated in modern time if it is they were softened at some point and have been molded into their present form and shape in many cases they have a mirrored finish with a strong reflection mimicking metal or glass there are many ancient ruins and artifacts around the world that have worked stones with advanced machining techniques but what we see in peru is stones that were affected with a high heat or vitrification process it's as baffling as it gets these ancient sacred temples of peru and bolivia exhibit stonework with an appearance of being cut like butter engineers admit this archaeology ignores it and nothing's ever solved the appearance is what we're left with there are often two styles at so-called inca temples many refer to them as inca stonework and pre-inca stonework as clearly there are two different designers two different styles and two different appearances often we see the two different styles side by side the cave of naupa iglesia or chokwe kia is a perfect example of this we see crude work alongside incredible feats of stonework whereby typically the impeccable stonework is featured as an altar of some sort there's another style of the perfect fitting stones walls where not even a needle point can be inserted between the stone blocks they can be found in multi-angled polygonal sided blocks of incredible sizes but the general characteristic is always the impossible perfect fit this is what leaves the majority to conclude that they must have been soft at one point these stones often exhibit a section that's vitrified which is at the borders sometimes we recognize vitrification on the surface layer orthodox science provides nothing there are zero convincing explanations on any method of construction to the trained eye engineers and stone masons stipulate the molding and vitrification are obvious once you know what you're looking for still orthodox science has mundane ridiculously impractical explanations pioneering researcher alfredo gemara who proposed the theory of the softening of the stone molding and subsequent vitrification was ahead of his time everyone agrees at least the rational people that the builders had some unusual special technique to reach these outlandish astonishing results what's the evidence of a special technique being utilized well firstly we see rocks melted physical evidence with no known technique for achieving the high heat we often see a mirrored finish on the stones sometimes like a reflection or smooth to touch like polish whenever we see vitrification is visible we sometimes see it as a layer over the stone whereby it's flaked or something is interrupted the process when we discover surfaces that are completely smooth to touch in all cases it would have been extremely difficult to polish this undulating original surface the enormous scale and the repetitive techniques put this type of construction technique almost on an industrial scale time to achieve this level of precision by carving and polishing doesn't enter common sense often the stones exhibit magnetic properties showing more physical evidence there's also examples of discoloration another sign the rocks were treated metal clamps and t-shaped grooves is another anomaly that comes up inserting metal clamps through a process of a mobile smelter thus pouring into the adjoining tee grooves on a joint is incredibly technical and begs to be explained why author maurice cotterell believes they were electrically sealing the joints and shows that many of these joints occur on crystalline content stonework joints the use of metal clamps and t-grooves happening in tawanako olan tatambo kori kancha and the site of yurok rumi vilcabamba examples are also known in egypt the grooves appear to be sealed for to the colossal blocks in the structure pumapunku and tiawanako exhibit several grooves which can still be observed there is wild debate over the metal composition of these clamps whether it's from a very special alloy others say it's of a composition that's perfectly normal for tia monaco inhabitants why on earth would the builders use or need a small metal clamp to hold large stone blocks in place physically there'd be no need symbolically maybe electrically the t groove in olente tombow when observed not only shows a bigger part of the stone is vitrified but part of the groove as well author maurice cottrell may be the one to crack this mystery wide open writing many scholars believe the straps were melted locally and then poured into the grooves and the stones causing microscopic marks embedded in the straps can be seen to imitate corollary marks found in the stone if the straps have been poured in situ then the surface of each strap would be expected to be slightly convex due to influence of surface tension experienced in the casting process secondly these straps themselves would have adopted a cast line caused by the crack between the stone blocks but the stones do not feature such a mark a closer look at one of the blocks shows a discolored outer layer of stone it's thought the surface of the stone has been somehow softened and later hardened permitting the introduction of the ready-formed copper strip this would explain away the flat top nature of the straps and the absence of the inter-block cast line so what does this all mean the clamps would have been inserted whilst the stones were in a soft state and the clamps would have already been hard the vitrified examples under study come from famous peruvian and bolivian sites in south america without testing the debate is open to claims of unusual polishing techniques natural degradation lava flows and many other odd explanations the analysis at tiawaniko and pumapunku really sets the precedent on some of these ideas tiawanako a region of peru that holds many remnants of ancient civilizations demonstrate some of the most unique and amazingly precise examples of stonework in the world the ancient people who created these walls and buildings used such a high degree of mathematical expertise that the workmanship is astounding even to modern day people they marvel at how these stone cutters from long ago created it with simple hand tools but was it done by hand that's the question the high plains of peru and bolivia and the andes mountains holds a wealth of historical sites each one more amazing than the next scholars and archaeologists had only seen the same type of masonry in ancient egypt before this although some historians call this inca architecture this later time period civilization had little to do with creating these fantastic structures the incas dominated this area from approximately the 13th to 14th century ce up until the time of the spanish explorers conquest of the region indeed they built some magnificent structures but the ones most interesting for their precision and longevity came from even older groups some of these empires were called the warri and tiwanaku they existed hundreds or even thousands of years before the inca came to power multiple historians who specialize in architectural studies have dedicated a lot of time and knowledge to figuring out how ancient groups of people who did not use advanced tools or even the wheel could create such structures the most advanced chisels and hammers of the time would have been created from copper stone and wood with these simple hand tools people dug granite andesite and poor fiery out of quarries after transporting them to their final locations they then carved them with smooth precision so they would fit together almost seamlessly what techniques could these ancient experts use to make such flat and smooth surfaces exact angles and joints that would not allow a single blade of grass to squeeze between historians can only guess about some of the methods that allowed for such unique stone cutting and building styles besides the building details that still give modern people pause another incredibly distinctive trade of megalithic structures found in the andean plateaus is the vitrification of some of the stones although vitrified means to essentially transform something into glass the stones themselves are not chemically altered instead they're somehow changed to have an exceptionally smooth shiny and reflective surface it allows for a high degree of light reflection that's not usual in granite or andesite now it's possible to use modern tools and polish the stone so that it reflects light and even figures most successfully ancient people did use abrasives and sand or powdered rock from quartz and other materials to polish decorative stones as well however none of these methods would be able to produce vitrified rock as successfully as these ancient people did not only was the surface highly reflective it was altered in an outer layer that could not be explained by any conventional means the other evidence for the vitrification of andy and stonework in some architectural sites includes textual changes and even color changes from the original rock type seen in other parts of the construction project also people who studied these vitrified stones more closely discovered evidence of softening or melting in order to facilitate the transformation to a reflected surface they found odd changes in magnetic properties identified with compasses and other tools there's no true explanation why this would occur or what it would do for the vitrification process if the large stone with a vitrified surface was attached to others with metal clamps for joining purposes these sockets also showed signs that they were vitrified in some way the completeness of the process has surely led to unique speculation and the need for more investigation to figure out how it occurred in those relatively primitive days archaeologists have discovered multiple instances of the vitrification differences throughout various ancient megalithic sites in peru the following examples are just some that are more intriguing and raise considerable questions for those who study these types of stonework anomalies within cusco the incan capital a certain temple called the enclosure of gold or coricancha was constructed out of large neat blocks of hardstone used most frequently in the area these imperial style structures demonstrate the fine stonework abilities of the ancient architects and builders today santa domingo church and convent lies on top of the ruins which makes studying them a bit more difficult not to mention the distasteful imposing structure on the cultural heritage what historians have gleaned from their studies shows some evidence that the incan temple predates their empire by quite a bit as we outline the tiawanako architecture for example frequently used t grooves with metal clamps to attach one stone to another however the inca did not use this method in their later buildings other details point to the wari as being responsible for some or all of the construction scholars often notice astronomical alignments more often used by those earlier groups the enclosure of gold temple contains the central courtyard surrounding walls multiple terraces and many interior rooms used for a variety of reasons it would have originally sat on the banks of the huaytani river which has changed over the years to a much smaller stream the temple is edged by a curved wall that seems to have been used for astronomy and the study of the stars it may also have had significant use during sun worship or ceremonies this wall shows an excellent example of vitrification of the granite and other stones used here some of the evidence of heating or compositional changes are not present but the stones do reflect light almost as effectively as a mirror besides its reflective nature the cory concha outer wall clearly demonstrates the precision of stone joinery practiced by these ancient civilizations nearly no space or indentation exists between the stones even the joints themselves that run parallel to the ground show signs of vitrification they're also amazingly straight level and even spaced the vertical joints do not follow the same precise paths or rules as the horizontal ones still the pink and gray granite stone is obviously fitted together with a high degree of skill and care upon closer inspection the straight horizontal joints running throughout the entire wall has an even more exact and purposeful shape to them every stone base is not straight instead the bottom of one is curved out slightly to fit exactly into the inward curve of the block below it while these shapes are relatively minute they're obviously not a mistake due to their precise nature the intention of the stone masons seems to focus on making a very strong wall where the stones would lock in place rather than simply rest on top of one another still despite the regular curves each juncture has no gaps or errors no doubts exist in the architectural historian's mind that these stones that make up this temple wall were not fitted haphazardly or without exceptional degrees of skill and care the stone cutters or builders who constructed the temple must have spent a lot of time achieving these perfect locking fits the understanding of construction strength that let these ancient people to create the curved edges that lock together is considerable their wall was able to withstand earthquakes for example much more effectively than a wall with perfectly straight stone edges wood and to the considerable skill the fact that the joints show signs of vitrification and even more questions arise about how the people before the inca could have such a high degree of knowledge and skill when it came to building with stones any archaeologist studying the site must only pass a flashlight across the seams in the evenings or nights to see the reflective surfaces and joints whatever process they used the end result was a much stronger bond at the joints than if the vitrification did not occur the vitrified surfaces do not only show up in the joints however people have studied the ruins of the temples also found interior stones with an outside layer of reflective material in some instances the vitrified surfaces have been removed in a rather crude way with a chisel and hammer historians who studied the entire time span of the building and walls surmised this may have happened in order to paint or stucco them once the spanish colonized the area other interior services made of stone were carved with precise niches grooves and holes that extended straight into the granite blocks while these do not have obvious purposes at this late date it's quite common to assume that they were used to hang decorative items such as plaques banners or even figurines or statues the holes range in depth from just 4 centimeters to 50 centimeters deep the enclosure of gold in cusco is not the only building that showed signs of vitrification and incredibly accurate stonework up on the hill above the city rests saiwaman a massive fortress built from excessively large stone blocks some of the granite and anthracite weighed upward of 300 tons despite how difficult it must have been to move them into position they show evidence of extremely exact joint work the vitrification that occurs here seems to indicate that high heat was used to shape or connect the megaliths with very narrow seams between them some of the large stones have apparently molten scars from whatever process vitrified their surfaces long ago near this hillside fort lies a unique round amphitheater called rotadero one construction feature called the throne of the inca shows heavy signs of vitrification on many surfaces these vitrified stones form some of the broad steps that lead up to the top platform altars and niches undoubtedly used for ceremonies many centuries ago an added feature is the discovery that these stone steps that show evidence of vitrification are also highly magnetized of course over the millennia since these areas were constructed the weather has eroded much of the stone surfaces this partially destroyed some of the vitrification that may have been evident on most platforms and steps some of the larger stones which weigh over 100 tons have been altered significantly by what appears to be the application of high heat some of the megaliths are split have changed texture or their color colors been altered from the original natural state vitrification is visible on stones in a more protected spot it's possible that some of the damaged stone work occurred when the parts of the building fell down due to earthquakes time and the effects of extreme weather events however the evidence that extremely high degrees of heat contributed to the problem leave some historians mystified also on the road at darrow hill archaeologists discovered a tunnel with the vitrified stone ceiling and walls additional tunnels and natural cave parts show mirrored surfaces that reflect light easily erosion has opened some of these tunnels to the weather since they were built in ancient times this helped researchers discover more about the extensive network and experience the vitrification in more obvious ways however interesting the tunnels are there's no evidence that clearly shows what they were used for also near sac say woman another ancient architecture site called kenko shows off the ancient civilization interest in massive stone blocks careful carving and sitting and vitrified surfaces again the years have not been kind to the underground areas or interiors of the buildings erosion and collapse have opened chambers and tunnels to the air and weather as with most ancient locations the exact purpose and use of kenko is mostly a matter of guesswork and supposition on the part of the baffled historians who research it the construction carvings and chambers included in these structures seem to indicate that the location once contained a canal system also a central chamber with altars and tables which is assumed to be religious or funerary locations show considerable vitrification although interesting from a historical standpoint the nearby temple of the monkeys and temple of the moon are often overlooked because the other sites are larger and have more megalithic stones however they still provide an interesting look into the construction abilities and lifestyles of those ancient civilized people a collection of underground caves contains altars and other platforms undoubtedly used for funerals and religious rights the people apparently use their unique construction techniques to augment the natural geology of the area in the largest cave with ceremonial trappings every other wall floor staircase and platform has a vitrified surface this protected location has allowed the unique surfaces to remain largely unchanged for a very long time here the vitrification is extensive and exceptionally well preserved the stone surfaces reflect light almost as well as mirrored glasswood unfortunately other places in the two temples are now exposed to the outside weather and the vitrification has started to disappear it seems there's no shortage of amazing architectural sites in this area of peru near the inca capital city of cusco another called olan tetombo was a massive fort built into the side of a hill the land was terraced extensively massive stone block walls were constructed around the perimeter and the location culminated in a glorious temple of the sun at the top the wall itself represents an incredibly impressive architectural feat for people using simple tools and manpower each stone block was transported from a quarry at least five kilometers away across ravines plains and hills and finally up the mountain to the final position some weighed in excess of fourteen thousand pounds it is these megaliths fashioned from porphyri that impress archaeologists most of all although debate still rages about the possible carvings or facade on the surface of these six giant stones what is left to enjoy today clearly demonstrates the high degree of skill and dedication that these early people had to their architectural endeavors the base of the hill is littered with massive and now weathered stones that were either rejected for the temple or left for some other reason it seems that some were connected in the tijuana coast style with metal clamps and tea grooves after they had laid exposed to the weather for some time apparently the inca were fond of reusing existing materials for their own purposes are the inca just custodians this part of peru contains some of the finest archaeological sites in the most advanced and precise stonework and architecture ever developed in the ancient world the vitrification of the granite andesite and other stone creates a unique metallic look not found in many other places although the craftsmanship is exquisite you can still see evidence of the protuberances originally used to transport the blocks over long distances while they were very useful for this it remains questionable why they were not smooth now during the actual construction process it's possible that the part of the property where their most prominent was not finished like all the others atop the terrace of the temple of the sun a multi-sighted wall called olente tombo rests its reflective surface must have gleamed in the sunlight as the ancient people went about their worship activities this location has a wide selection of different types of rock andesite basalt pinkish porphyry and diorite like in many other walls and temples these stone joints have been vitrified so they reflect light the effect is especially prominent wherever rocks have fallen out or been removed from the structures it becomes obvious that the adjoining faces of the stones were vitrified before they were fitted together perfectly this must have had some practical purpose as it was not usually done to visible surfaces those were polished in more mundane ways but not vitrified to create the extremely reflective surface although archaeologists see it as an aesthetic trait now perhaps it was purely functional all those centuries ago also because it occurs only on interior touching surfaces it's obvious that vitrification was done artificially in some way and not a result of for example a wildfire or lightning strike as interesting as the vitrification of the stone is researchers disagree on one very important factor some argue that the vitrified layer is not part of the original stone at all instead they believe it's a different type of material that was layered on top of the stone as a form of mortar or cement it's difficult to figure out what the truth is on these ancient structures from the research that's already been done the layers seem like the stone but has undergone some sort of chemical transformation another sign that points to a more natural explanation is that some parts of caves and tunnels that have not been changed by human hands also show signs of vitrification the steps leading to the temple of the sun were vitrified on many surfaces other parts were polished in ways that archaeologists recognize from the civilizations that made it scientific study of the materials themselves has not been done in any great measure above cusco lies a place of archaeological interest with considerable number of caves called teddy kaka scientists from a university in holland were able to take microscopic photographs of the stone itself in order to solve the mystery once and for all they found that the regular stone and the layer that had been vitrified were distinctly different in makeup however they also found a thin layer between them that showed a granular transition from one state to the next just like you'd see charcoal changed to charred wood changed to unburned wood on a log that had been in a fire so too did this vitrified stone show three distinct layers this demonstrates that the vitrification was not a part of something applied to the top of the stone when studied chemically some differences in the makeup of the stone are also noted the vitrified layer contains elements not normally found in the type of stone used for the block mostly there was evidence of higher amounts of silica which seemed to point to an application process or a chemical or heat process that cannot truly be explained knowing the technology of the time melting or chemically changing the stones with high heat would require some type of furnace that operated above a thousand degrees celsius or extremely high pressure how these ancient people could do such things is beyond the understanding of modern archaeologists vitrification of stone used in early civilization building sites has been found throughout cusco chinchero tembamichae and surrounding areas archaeologists have also found evidence of this unique and mysterious process at machu picchu in some locations it seemed to be quite a popular way to create stunning reflections of light and shadow on walls and temples in other locations such as the temple of the three windows and the main temple plaza it served as a more functional purpose on the stone surface that was touched to the joints it's not all walls either they're bizarrely cut rocks that exhibit clear technical function the sacred site called kiarumiyak with semicircular incision as if a laser removed a template cut technical device is literally off the charts the unusual symbol features a seven-tiered motif arranged around a central cavity angled slightly upwards towards the heavens it's always been associated with the moon known as the place of the moon rock kia rumiak was used long before 1200 ad when the incas are thought to have arrived in the cusco region it's unclear whether the stepped semicircle curved in the limestone rock depicts a moon rainbow or something else but since it faces east it may align with the solstice or equinox sunrises the designs have been a sundial of sorts serving as a time keeping tool some people suggest a large limestone outcrop into which the crescent is carved has the shape of a puma and that the crescent is its eye interestingly the crescent contains seven intricately carved steps or platforms along its circumference why the number seven since ancient times this number has played a significant role in religion astrology numerology alchemy and mysticism especially concerning the measurement of time for example there are seven days in a week a system typically attributed to the babylonians who accorded one day for each of the heavenly bodies the romans later named seven days of the week after their gods whatever kaya rumarak is it's clearly technical and likely astronomical the use of such enormous blocks is the only reason these ancient structures have survived until today even though they're in a seismically active region why was it so important they last for thousands of years the master masons had complete understanding of stone of masonry to such a level that they could extraordinary wonderful feats the unusual angles tightly fitted is what captures the imagination of all who see them not even earthquakes can break them loose this unusual method of interlocking enormous stones together is synonymous with ancient egypt who developed these engineering techniques why were these techniques so important granite blocks there have been so technically articulated many believe precision power tools is the only way archaeologists are completely puzzled by this ancient site and believe even commenting on it will make them look crazy not only do these granite blocks have smooth precision corners but they also have precise drill holes in grooves at the same depth consistently it's completely astonishing work no matter what way you look at it even by today's standards yet insults of primitive cultures doing this is still the narrative the h blocks at pumapunku seem to get the most attention the whole site looks like a prefabricated system of construction pioneering technologist christopher dunn has sophisticatedly showed the dovetail design in the h-block to incredible accuracy and clearly intentional everything points to lost technology mechanical engineering and logistically analysis with every aspect of their methods of construction it was clearly easy for them to do this whatever their method even alternative researchers seem to polarize themselves when there are clearly two different technologies at play the ability to heat and soften stone and advanced machining techniques teotihuacan the ruins of teotihuacan pyramid complex were a thriving cultural center many describe it as the first great city of the western hemisphere wrapped in mystery as its inhabitants disappeared from the record leaving no documents to explain this vast architectural marvel the scale of tayote walken is mind-boggling the bizarre aspects of many of the features are equally puzzling their monuments and art capture the imagination of everyone who visits this place in the ruins of the city the three pyramids dominate the skyline although three major ones still stand there have been as many as 200 smaller pyramids just a few feet from each other estimates of about 150 000 inhabitants are thrown around but no one really knows since they all vanished without a trace leaving their apartment complexes in the city which stretched out for some 20 square miles the scale of this place is jaw dropping making it one of the ancient world's largest cities of that epoch located some 30 miles away from modern day mexico city it would be very easy to confuse the taiyo t watkins with the maya toltecs or the aztecs the maya who lived hundreds of miles away were ethnically distinct from the tayote watkins and culturally too the aztecs however may well have descended directly from the tayote watkins yet they proclaimed to have discovered it several hundred years after its collapse if they did descend from this group they would have to have left forgotten it and rediscovered it the aztecs called this mysterious place the city of the gods tentiwaken the city of the gods today it's the most visited archaeological site in mexico yet it's still one of the least understood monuments in mexico with so many baffling discoveries and mysteries associated with it located 30 miles from mexico city in the mexican basin this site is home to many of the most massive pyramidal structures created during the pre-columbian american age the temple of quetzalcoatl which is directly in the center of the city is monumental complete with lavish offerings and ultra fine decorations with huge hand carved snake heads in the stone walls the feathered serpent pyramid sits on top of the temple and many have focused on the enigma of who or what the feathered serpent was there are also the famous pyramids called the pyramid of the moon and the pyramid of the sun which are two of the world's largest pyramids and often linked with astronomical alignments architects and engineers have speculated that teotihuacan pyramids took approximately 350 years to construct the project began around 100 bc and was not complete until 250 a.d at that time the estimated population of 150 000 and was larger than any other pre-columbian american city officially archaeologists have proclaimed the origins of these pyramids as often told to visitors during their mexico city tours to teotihuacan began with the toltec civilization of tula we know the aztec revered the toltec in many ways the best way to look at the mesoamerican pyramid builders is to zoom out and see their mother culture most likely the almac at some point they split up and fractured into many independent states and culturally different groups at that point they'd conquered one another and assimilated some groups into one another the teotihuacan pyramid complex reached its height during 450 a.d 200 years after completion because of the sheer scale it became the center and most powerful culture that influenced the entire mesoamerican region the city where the teotihuacan pyramids were built flourished with jewelers potters and craftsmen who helped to create many of the baffling artifacts that archaeologists continue to uncover still today the pyramid of the sun which rates as the third largest in the world is credited as one of the aztec pyramids they arrived a few centuries after the fall and constructed the pyramid once the city was deserted it was built over a cave considered extremely sacred this pyramid is located east of the long avenue the collapse of the pyramid city teotihuacan is believed to have been caused internally from an uprising within the residences of the elite classes although the original citizens had already long deserted the city it was still able to support life but drought and climate issues began to occur during 535 a.d this led to the area becoming a wasteland until the arrival of the aztecs teotihuacan had a great number of gods they worshiped the main deities being the great goddess the storm god the old god the feathered serpent the war serpent the netted jaguar the fat god and the polk god everything about their architecture revered these gods archaeologists are completely baffled about the large quantities of mika at teotihuacan this mineral is found 3 000 miles away in brazil mika is present almost in every single building in teotihuacan puzzling as the relocation of the mika is its purpose as a commodity is equally tantalizing mika has unique electrical properties with material science research showing this as an efficient choice in the production of capacitors that offer high precision reliability and stability why embed mika in the construction of the teotihuacan complex archaeologists have also discovered hundreds of mysterious yellow metallic spheres buried deep beneath the feathered serpent ancient pyramid in the city tayote watkin is often translated as city of the gods but can also be interpreted as the place where men become gods giving a totally different meaning the long the avenue has been categorically researched measured and analyzed showing the pyramids align in perfect distance from each other to reflect the exact orbit of the planets now more than a decade later after the discovery researchers have reached the end of the 340 feet tunnel that runs about 60 feet below the temple finds from the tunnel include mysterious clay spheres coated with a yellow mineral worked stone beads ear spools seeds green stone statues mirrors amber fragments engraved conch cells over 50 000 items in all the outside of the structure as a section added around 400 a.d thus it obscures the original facade featuring the feathered serpents that gave the structure its name archaeologists still debate the puzzling significance of the figures one set seems to be a realistic serpent while the other is a more stylized creature often identified as tlalak the storm god some experts quote specifics calling them a war serpent or fire serpent at one time the circles were embedded with obsidian glass that would have caught the sunlight whilst many are excited with the new finds calling them extravagant exotic and mysterious others are casting them as gruesome and indicative of people who ruled by fear they're consistent with earlier finds from teotihuacan however their purpose is the real mystery and why their secret burial tayoti walken having borrowed from contemporary earlier cultures in mexico predominantly the earlier olmec cities like leventa and tresapodes with typical clusters of mounds and central plazas undoubtedly found its greatest expression in teotihuacan olmec greenstone masks and figures were a few of many cultural features absorbed into the taiyo tiwakin culture like this artifact from the newly excavated tunnel under the temple of the feathered serpent mesoamerican cosmology from contemporary cities also found its way into teotihuacan culture and literally became a way of life practicing astronomy the teotihuacan culture exaggerated what they borrowed the pyramids became gigantic the pyramid of the sun the most impressive building on the site stands 240 feet tall and 740 feet long and wide an enormous imposing construction even today one can only imagine what its original lime plaster surface looked like the aztecs who inherited this place 600 years after tayoti watkin was abandoned revered it as holy from day one referring to it as a place where gods walked even the spanish conquistadors didn't dare destroy it we have important clues from the murals painted of a figure often called the great goddess who is associated with the sacred mountain visible from the site the panel below the picture of the great goddess shows bands of water emerging from a mountain around which red blue and yellow human figures swim interact some experts suggest that the great goddess figure was borrowed from the earlier olmec figure recorded in a petroglyph at chilquet zingo that shows a woman seated in a cave from which water flows watkin is a great mystery in many ways we don't know what language they spoke we don't know what they call themselves we don't have a written language that we know of even though we do know a lot about the city and the population of teotihuacan some of the basic foundational knowledge is lost to us from the art from the archaeology from the buildings we can say that they were masters of city planning they built these fabulous temples what we find here at teotihuacan are these clear centralized government whether a single ruler or a body of rulers it's unclear to us but whoever was in control had enough power to organize labor to plan on this massive scale and everything is so standardized the city itself is very centralized and it's planned on this grid plan there was no precedent for this type of highly organized centralized city we're talking about a highly organized hierarchical culture that could pull off monumental architecture over a period of hundreds of years yet the fact that we don't have the cult of personality we don't have clear portraits of rulers is kind of amazing we want to read into these beautiful complex murals that you find all over the city we want to see rulers we want to see narratives that talk about the ideologies that are being conveyed to the population through a ruler or rulers but what we see in these murals instead are the main deities the storm god some type of great goddess animal figures like coyotes and jaguars and warriors we do see a relationship between the monumental architecture and the landscape around it because as we look toward the pyramid of the moon the shape of it is echoed by the mountain behind it teotihuacanos as we call them since we didn't know what they called themselves were clearly planning some of their structures in accordance with the natural environment to almost create sacred landscape within the city itself as we stand here and look out we see three main pyramids we have the temple of the moon at the far end of the street of the dead the pyramid of the sun little bit further down the side then the pyramid of the feathered serpent much further down the street of the dead the street of the dead ran four miles long so it's quite long and really must have felt like a real procession way towards the sacred building if we were on the street of the dead and it's about 130 feet wide you get this sense that you're processing down this grand boulevard it's very impressive to be walking through the city it makes the approach to it formal and processional and ritualized when we look at the pyramid of the moon it would have originally been even taller with probably wood structures on top we also must imagine that all these buildings would have been stuccoed and then brightly painted the city would have been extremely vibrant off the street of the dead there are approximately two thousand apartment complexes on this grid plan a lot of the ones close to the street of the dead are more complex we think that they're for elites they too are heavily decorated with things like mural painting we must imagine something that looks entirely different than the ruins that we see today we also must imagine all the activities here whether they're ritual or merchants only a small portion of the site has been excavated there are continuing excavations here archaeologists are finding amazing things on a regular basis including a recent discovery of a tunnel under the pyramid of the aforementioned feathered serpent and a river of mercury archaeologists may be a step closer to discovering the secrets of the ancient city now that they've unearthed liquid mercury deep beneath the mexican pyramid of the feathered serpent the large quantities of the toxic liquid metal leads researchers to believe that an undiscovered ancient ritual chamber or even a tomb of the king could rest below the ruins of the ancient city researcher sergio gomez stumbled upon the liquid mercury after six years of gradually uncovering a tunnel underneath the teotihuacan pyramids no real progress was made until the 20th century upon unsealing the tunnel in 2003 gomez and his team dug up treasures including jaguar remains enormous seashells jade statues and rubber balls the team in november of 2014 discovered three chambers at the end of the tunnel which had remained intact for about 1800 years for now it's unclear how the mesoamericans living in tayote watkin use the metal but it's also been found in other excavations throughout central america specifically in mayan ruins farther south mercury which is highly poisonous was regarded as a rarity among mesoamerican people and may have borne ritualistic significance given its reflective properties was teotihuacan an independent city-state by itself or was it the center of an empire this is something that historians vigorously debate today now some of the evidence for why it was maybe a center of an empire is it's believed it was a multi-ethnic city we see its influence over the mayan cities especially over tikal as we get into the end of the 4th century we also see this incredible confluence of people and culture and trade at tayote wakan which once again hints that it probably wasn't a standalone city but it was probably the center of some type of regional influence or maybe an empire we don't traditionally see cities of that size form unless they're the center of a larger empire and they're able to get tribute or taxation from other states now teotihuacan ends up declining or falling before the mayan civilization now the mayan civilization it's believed also started to collapse a few hundred years after that so as we get into the 800s the mayan civilization we believe might have experienced some similar things maybe some drought some famine that similarly caused uprisings division and allowed that to collapse now there's evidence of some of these cities lasting beyond the classical period all the way up until you have the european colonization of the region even the aztecs consider themselves a mere successor state to the civilization of teotihuacan teochewaken is unknown along with the ethnicity of its rulers no one knows exactly who built the city or for what purpose archaeologists and historians are unclear whether or not teotihuacan was an empire a city-state or just a religious and commercial center with little or no territorial ambitions it was one of the largest population centers in all of mesoamerica at the time and some historians say that at its height of population in the first centuries a d it was easily the fifth or sixth most populous city in the world with over 250 000 people living there in spite of its grandeur and scope and impact on mexico many centuries after its collapse teotihuacan today largely remains a huge mystery what do we know of this place when the spanish arrived in the early 16th century squatters lived among the ruins the aztecs who ruled the surrounding area at the time of the spanish conquest did not build teotihuacan in fact the aztec empire only came to prominence about a thousand years after the height of the city the aztecs thought the place holy and it was said that the gods and the sun itself came from their emperor montezuma it was said would take regular pilgrimages from his capital city of tenochtitlan to teotihuacan well revered by the aztecs no aztec knew anything about the city's origins who lived there or why the place even existed the city was built on a north south axis allied to precisely 15.5 degrees east of the north the city's grid extended uniformly across a vast land area at the city's height around 400 a.d the area included in teochewak and proper covered some 32 square miles dominating the core of the city is the avenue of the dead or casa de los muertos in spanish which is over 130 feet wide at its thickest point and runs over three miles long the name avenue of the dead is a direct translation of the nehaudel word for the road miko utley the aztecs named it that because they believe the platforms lining the road contained tombs besides the platforms on the side of this great road we see some of the most impressive pieces of monumental architecture in the ancient world two massive pyramids the pyramid of the sun and pyramid of the moon dominate the ceremonial heart of the city along with large palaces and temples besides the pyramids the more notable buildings include the temple of the feathered serpent the court of the columns and the quetzal butterfly palace on the western side of the avenue of the dead across from the temple of the feathered serpent is what's called the great compound which served as the city's massive marketplace most of these structures are surprisingly well preserved the pyramid of the sun is the largest pyramid at the site and the third largest pyramid in the world behind the great pyramid of giza in egypt and the great pyramid of cholula found just south of teotihuacan tamti watkins largest pyramid measures 720 feet by 760 feet at its base and 260 feet tall it has a volume of 401.8 million cubic feet of stone rubble and a conglomeration of other materials this massive structure just like the great pyramidic giza in egypt was once covered in a bright white limestone facing the structure was most likely slightly larger in the past than it is now as the quarrying and reconstruction efforts have reduced the size of the pyramid slightly outward from the ceremonial center were living quarters and workshops for the various commercial trades found throughout the city teotihuacan may represent the first place in the americas where multi-level apartment house dwellings were built many intricate and colorful murals survive throughout the city and depict everything from mythological allegories to scenes from everyday life many of these paintings were done in the fresco style there were also many canals for irrigation to support farming and many of the living areas had their own small gardens for food there's a surprising lack of any evidence for fortifications at teotihuacan occupation at the site of teotihuacan began around 200 bc during this time many small urban centers began to emerge in central mexico at the time of tayot walk in ascendancy another competing urban center in the southern part of the valley of mexico called zacchacalo was threatened by the eruption of the volcano scholars believed that the threat of the volcano caused people to emigrate from the southern shores of lake texcoco to the teotihuacan valley thus encouraging the growth of the city by 100 a.d the pyramid of the sun and most of the other massive buildings were completed buildings continued at a steady pace until 450 a.d although the political structure of tayot watkin is unknown a highly structured civil society was necessary to complete such organized and huge building projects as found in graves and in the architecture of the dwellings there was definitely a hierarchy in a marked social order to the place it's long been debated whether or not teotihuacan was the center of an empire but we know of its influence both politically and culturally without a doubt the city was the center of industry as hundreds of workshops employed craftsmen working in stone clay wood and feathers mass production fashioned obsidian and pottery from teotihuacan can be found as far away as the maya sites in guatemala kopan and honduras almost a thousand miles away to the north the teotihuacan trade network reached as far as the area of modern day santa fe new mexico with turquoise mined from the mountains surrounding cerritos found 1400 miles away at teotihuacan there was definite contact between teochewaken and the ancient civilization of the hohokam in arizona as the mesoamerican ball game began to appear in the ancient cities around modern-day phoenix around 500 a.d some scholars believe that one of the major functions of teotihuacan was religious practice archaeologists have discovered caves and tunnels underneath the pyramid of the city these caverns may be related to the mesoamerican creation myth and the center of the city may have been a place of pilgrimage much as what has been witnessed in the latter days with the aztecs visiting the ruins at taot watkin for religious reasons those scholars who proposed teotihuacan as a political empire that conquered or exacted tribute from surrounding areas much like the aztecs cite historical writings from the maya who had a written language at the time the maya called teotihuacan the place where the reeds grow and references to the great city have been found at various maya sites an inscription found in the lowland guatemalan maya city of tikal mesoamerican scholars proposing an internal list regarding the relationship between teotihuacan and the maya would theorize that the ancient maya only emulated the elites of teochewaken and were linked to the city through trade and copied elements of their culture and religion but were politically separate from it the externalist view believes that the pyramid complex will come militarily invaded the faraway cities of the maya civilization and directly ruled over some of them so it's unclear whether or not teotihuacan was the center of a political empire or merely the center of a commercial cultural and or ideological one perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of the lost city of the gods is why it collapsed there are many theories that range from external warfare to environmental degradation to the return of the star people what we do know is that their art provides us with an insight to their culture political system customs and religion taiyo tiwakan art forms that we have today consist of murals and frescoes for political usage statues and figurines pyramids dedicated to the waking gods and masks carved out of marble they all contain key aspects of their culture that we can use to further study the teotihuacan civilization for example political campaigns often took the form of murals that beautifully depicted the leadership of political leaders of the teotihuacan community they were often found within housing and on buildings to promote the campaign these murals do not only assist us in discovering more about their political system but they also help us form an understanding of their trade connections with other areas at the time and their forms of entertainment like the ball game one major way that teotihuacan people recorded their history is through art without art teotihuacan cultural structure as we know it would have a much more undeveloped understanding than the information that we have today also their art was incorporated in everyday life with the use of masks to cover the faces of people being buried and pouring vessels they were able to include a multitude of art into their own lives another factor that plays a key role in teotihuacan art and culture is their immense supply of green obsidian this unique formation of obsidian in the mines within the city provided them with a valuable art supply that was perfect to use one characteristic of obsidian is that it holds its edges on blades and keeps its detail on carvings very nicely because of its density and its ability to withstand very harsh conditions because of that we have many pieces of well-preserved art that we can study mesoamerican mythology on the rainbow feathered serpent quetzal is by far the most amazing aspect of teotihuacan culture was quetzalcoatl a whitebearded god who vowed to return or a flying dragon who terrorized the skies was he a king of the toltecs or two kings was he a god or multiple gods was he a real person was he just a conglomeration of myths or legends that's changed over time quetzalcoatl is an enigmatic figure in the history of mexico at the time of the spanish conquest quetzalcoatl plumed serpent god who came from a long tradition of similar representations the earliest reference to the feathered serpent deity in ancient mexico appears in the olmec times around 900 bc at the city of leventa in the modern day mexico state of tabasco well not as obvious out as the later representations of quetzalcoatl plumed serpent the iconography of feathered snakes dates back thousands of years the first major civilization in ancient mexico to adopt on a widespread basis what's been commonly recognized as quetzalcoatl was teotihuacan the ancient city with its avenue of the dead its gigantic pyramids of the sun and moon also had a temple dedicated to the feathered serpent god the iconic heads sticking out of stone abutments are easily recognizable as the city-state had no writing system and teotihuacan collapsed about a thousand years before the arrival of the spanish archaeologists and ethnic historians know very little about the feathered serpent god and how it fit into this civilization it's unclear whether the plumed snake deity at taot watkin had many of the same attributes of the latter god known as quetzalcoatl of mexico with the collapse of the ancient city of teotihuacan there existed a power vacuum in central mexico which would soon be filled by what archaeologists called the toltec civilization like teotihuacan the toltecs had no written language to pass down their stories in written form and their culture was not intact and alive at the time of the spanish conquest in fact some scholars debate whether the toll tax were an actual civilization and claimed that they were more of a legendary people made up to explain the origins of the aztecs through aztec stories and legends we have some interesting information about quetzalcoatl in the toltec era dating roughly from 900 to 1200 a.d it was during this time when we see quetzalcoatl as one of the more historic figures and whether the person or persons called quetzalcoatl are real is still up for debate researchers have to go with aztec stories about the toltecs to get any sort of sense of who or what the plume serpent actually was during this time in mexican history according to the legends the toltecs were a wandering group before they came down from the north to settle central mexico quetzalcoatl's chief among them was the lord from the north called tescottlipoca in one version of the story tescott lapoca humiliated quetzalcoatl in front of his people by getting him so intoxicated that he neglected his religious duties and brought shame to the priestly kingship that his father created in disgrace quetzalcoatl left the toltec capital and what happened after that he left tulsa is somewhat confusing he headed east until he got to the shores of the gulf of mexico when he arrived at the sea he set fire to himself and descended to the heavens to become the morning star where the planet venus in another version quetzalcoatl so made it to the gulf of mexico and bordered a raft made of snakes sailing off to the east and vowing to return in yet another version quetzalcoatls south and east to modern day central america quetzalcoatl is one of the lords of the carnical directions and was assigned to the west throughout most of mesoamerica he's seen as a bringer of light justice learning and creativity he gave the people writing and the calendar some researchers believe that this symbolizes resurrection as the morning star or venus quetzalcoatl as he's known as a hikate in some texts and reference materials these are separate gods but in many accounts these are just aspects of quetzalcoatl forms quetzalcoatl mythology is the binding force that puts teotihuacan in the epicenter of all these mesoamerican cultures both physically and in some cases in time treating teotihuacan as an independent culture has beneficial aspects in archaeology only but in historical debates it has little value the pyramid builders of mexico and sister cultures is a baffling melting pot of interconnections that really comes to light when searching tayotiwaken

Channel: V Documentaries

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Id: HyB1n5VDXpc

Length: 185min 16sec (11116 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022