The Minoan Civilization and the Richat Structure

In recent years, a very strange looking structure has received attention as being a possible location for the mythical City of the Atlantean Empire; a civilization discussed by Plato in his great works Timaeus and Critias, and also recorded within the Egyptian mythology of Horus recorded at the Temple of Edfu in Egypt. We are referring to the Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of Africa. This idea has been particularly promoted by the Content creator Jimmy Corsetti.

We won’t go through the various lines of evidence in this article and readers should seek out the podcast Bright Insight for good coverage of this subject. Although we will summarise that the structure bares striking similarities to the claimed City of Atlantis as described by Plato. This includes the vicinity to the Pillars of Hercules at the Straights of Gibraltar, having a watery entrance for ships to sail straight up to the City, a ring structure with intermediate regions of land and water and the proximity to the Atlas mountains in the North. It was said to be surrounded by great fertile plains.

It is unknown how the Richat structure was formed, but it is believed to be a result of some volcanic process. Yet we should also acknowledge that it is unique in that there are no other structures like it present on the Earth. It is approximately 40 kilometres in diameter which is around 25 miles. For the ring structure, it was said that there were three rings of water and two rings of land that surrounded the city centre. This then connected to a canal which connected to the Sea.

In the account by Plato, approximately 9,000 years ago there was a great war that took place after the Atlanteans had conquered parts of Libya and Egypt but were eventually defeated by the defending Athenians - residents of ancient Athens in Greece. If the Atlanteans ever existed, they were certainly a Naval power, and this gave them the flexibility to move up and down the Mediterranean at ease for the purpose of trade or war.

The problem is, there is very little surviving evidence to support the existence of Atlantis, and this presents an issue for historians. Since their existence may have been so long ago, it is very difficult to find that evidence, and if it does exist it is likely underneath the Sea consistent with the ocean levels for what they were during their existence. However, might we search for evidence of their existence by an examination of other cultures that emerged in this region and in particular any unusual artefacts they may hold?

Are there other ancient Naval cultures we might turn to in our search for a connection? There is, and one of those is the Minoan civilization centred around the island of Crete which is around 3,260 square miles in area, and historians credit them with the first civilization in Europe. It is believed their society existed in the periods 3100 BC to 1100 BC. Since their base of operations was around a large island, to conduct trade with other cultures they would had to be a sea fairing society.

Not a lot is known about their cultural beliefs and societal organisation. They were known to have two writing systems called Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A, neither of which has been fully deciphered. They did not call themselves Minoan, and that was a later term phrased by an archaeologist in reference to King Minos, a ruler of Knossos, which is one of the sites that still exists in Crete with its famous Palace of Minos. In addition to the Island of Crete, the Minoan civilization had settlements around a group of islands in the Aegean Sea. These are all locations of critical trade routes for sailing vessels to Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

It is also interesting because the oldest evidence for anatomically modern human habitation in Crete dates to 10,000 - 12,000 years before present, which lines up with the Younger-Dryas catastrophe (12,900 - 11,700 years before present) and so is at least suggestive of a connection. In other words, is it possible that the people who founded the Minoan civilization, were the survivors of an ancestry that went back to an earlier time when the climate went through an abrupt change. There is also a DNA haplogroup connection of people today in Crete to a group from Anatolia (modern day Turkey) - which is also the location of the Gobekli Tepi site.

An aspect of the Minoan culture that is interesting is their ceramics, with beautiful patterns of triangles and spirals. The artefact below is one such example that this author stumbled across known as Philistine Bichrome Pottery and there are suggestions this type of design may have had connection to the Minoan culture, and also the Mycenaean. This particular piece was believed to have been manufactured in ancient Canaan, a region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East which encompasses Egypt, Iran, Anatolia, Armenia, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. This piece, possibly dates to around the 12 Century BCE.

Philistine Bichrome Pottery

The reason this piece attracted my attention, was because of the unique circular design on the surface. In particular, the design is not a set of concentric circles, but instead they are offset with an asymmetry about the centre. One is forced to speculate, that in this design, are we seeing a pattern that preserves the geography of a once special place. In particular it has an interesting similarity to the Richat structure, as shown below when compared with a geographic image.

Comparison of Richat structure with Minoan Pottery design

For any comparison between the pottery and the geographic site of the Richat structure (as a claimed City of Atlantis) to be feasible there are several features that must be present in both. The first is a central offset region to represent a city centre, and this is present in both, although more prominent in the pottery. The second is the requirement from Plato that there would be three rings of water and two rings of land. This certainly appears present in the Richat structure, and although there are four rings in the pottery, it is perhaps not so clear what they might represent. But if such a city did exist, and the memory of it was passed down over time, could perhaps it have been preserved in the legacy of the Minoan pottery and other cultures?

This is all speculation, especially since the evidence for the City of Atlantis is not strong in the first place. Yet, other than conducting extensive underwater expeditions to retrieve artifacts and study monuments, perhaps the only way we might build a case for its existence is to find links with the other civilizations that sprang up after it. As a Sea fairing culture, with a history of having the people first appear in the Mediterranean at a time that coincides with a major catastrophe such as the Younger-Dryas, the above is at least food for thought. The Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations are certainly candidates for where such a link may be found.

The Curious Case of King Gilgamesh Tomb

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most thrilling stories one will read from the ancient past. I recall being stuck in a Los Angeles immigration line for hours trying to contain my frustration with the process and the unprofessionalism of the staff by the way they were treating those of us in line, only to be kept sane by reading this wonderful book. I read the version by Stephen Mitchell called Gilgamesh, which was just such a delight and I recommend it to anyone. It is believed the story was written around 2900 - 2350 B.C.

In the story, Gilgamesh goes on adventures with his friend Enkidu but is eventually crushed with grief over his friends death. He goes on a long quest to discover the secret to eternal life. I won’t say the ending to avoid spoiling the story for anyone that wants to read it. But at one point Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight the giant Humbaba who guards a forest.

The image below depicts an original sculpture of Gilgamesh that is located at the Louvre in Parsis which I took when I was last visiting. Note how Gilgamesh is always depicted holing a Lion in his left hand and a snake in his right hand. Gilgamesh was not a small man but a giant man, perhaps 8 - 9 ft tall. The legend has him as part human and part god.

The thing about Gilgamesh, is that he apparently did not exist as a person and is considered by archaeologists to be mere mythology. Although it is claimed that he might have been inspired by a historical figure who ruled the city state of Uruk in the year 2800 - 2500 BCE. Let us examine this briefly, in terms of the two main pieces of archaeological evidence.

At the Ashmolian Museum in Oxford, England, there is an artefact, called the Sumerian Kings List. It contains a list of all the ancient Sumerian kings, which includes the name Gilgamesh. This is the artefact in a photo I took a few years ago.

What is more curious about this object is how archaeologists have chosen to interpret it. This is the actual words on their description piece:

“The Sumerian King List is not history as we would understand it. Parts relating to the earliest kings are largely mythological, although the last 500 years is more accurate. It is also a work of propaganda designed to show that the current kings of Larsa were descended from heroes and demigods of ancient times. Written when local city-states struggled against each other for supremacy, the scribe perhaps intended to show that southern Mesopotamia was always united under a single ruler. There were also times of instability or anarchy, such as decline of the Akkad dynasty in around 2150 BC, aptly put by the words ‘who was king? who was not king? written on this, the prisms fourth side.”

It further states:

“This second side of the Sumerian King List mentions Gilgamesh, hero-king of epic literature and legendary ruler of Uruk. The list combines older versions into what appears to be a continuous genealogical sequence of rulers, although some kings ruled at the same time. Fact and fantasy are blended, particularly in earlier sections mentioning mythical rulers reigning for thousands of years.”

What are we to make of this interpretation? So here we have a list of Kings, some of which are fiction and some of which are real. This seems an odd way to generate a list for a Royal Dynasty. One wonders if in fact the long reigns represent many generations of sons taking the same name as their fathers, like Richard I, Richard II, Richard III…..but without the addition of a number, so that the Kings are in fact one coronation embodied into multiple generations. But this is speculation on my part.

Yet, here is the curious thing about Gilgamesh, archaeologists have been busy excavating his city for years. This is the City of Uruk, located east of the current Euphrates River in modern Iraq, although its located on a now dried out channel bed since the river has moved.

According to the ancient Mesopotamian text, Gilgamesh was buried in a unique and elaborate manner. In one account he was buried beneath the riverbed of the Euphrates River. Then after his death the flow of the river was temporarily diverted to construct his tomb, which was then sealed with the water redirected back to its original coarse direction. This is told in the poem called The Death of Gilgamesh or sometimes associated with The Death of Ur-Nammu, dating from the reign of Shulgi of Ur in 2029 - 1982 BCE during the Ur III Period. Here is an account from the World History Encyclopedia:

“The work begins with the failing health of King Gilgamesh, though no cause is given, only that he can no longer eat or drink, stand up or sit down (Segments A-E), suggesting illness or advanced age (according to legend, he reigned for 126 years). Lines 13-19 of Segment A reference the underworld deity Namtar, son of Ereshkigal Queen of the Underworld, who was known as the herald of death.

In Segment F, Gilgamesh dies and arrives in the underworld where he is honored for his many achievements in life. There seems to have been some discussion among the gods concerning his fate (the lines are missing) as Enki, the god of wisdom, asks whether Gilgamesh could not be spared owing to his mother, the goddess Ninsun (also known as Ninsumun), but this cannot be as Gilgamesh, though a demigod, was still mortal and so must share all mortals' fate.

Segment H gives the famous scene in which the Euphrates River parts after his death and his tomb is built in the riverbed, and in 2003, a German expedition claimed to have found this tomb in the location given in the poem. Segment K ends the work with Gilgamesh again depressed with the knowledge that all living things must die, and his individual grief is addressed as universal by the narrator who then speaks to "all the people" and reminds them that no one truly dies as long as they are remembered by the living.”

On the 29th April 2003 The BBC News ran a curious article titled ‘Gilgamesh Tomb Believed Found’. It said that archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh. This was a German led expedition and the article quoted the Jorg Fassbinder, a Geophysicist of the Bavarian Department of Historical Monuments in Munich as saying “I don’t want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic”. This was especially since in the epic story it described Gilgamesh as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient rivers parted after his death.

Fassbinder said “We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river, the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial”. The discovery of the ancient city had apparently been made possible “by differences in magnetisation in the soil….the differences between mudbricks and sediments in the Euphrates river gives a very detailed structure”. This results in a magnetogram, which is then digitally mapped to produce a plan of the entire city.

Further he said “The most surprising thing was that we found structures already described by Gilgamesh…we covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses”. They also found a sophisticated network of canals. In the article by the BBC, in a quote of the archaeologists, they described it as being like “Venice in the Desert”.

A few snippets have appeared in blog posts over the years given more information but otherwise very little has appeared in the press ever since that 2003 article which I find perplexing since work resumed on the site from 2016. I mean, the discovery of a King’s tomb of this importance is as significance as the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in 1922. Was the report wrong? Was the researchers misquoted? Why has a state of ambiguity and non-information left remaining ever since? What is the official position of the Department in Munich?

The reports were that the location, orientation and positioning of the discovered tomb appeared to be consistent with that described in the epic. In a report published by the team the authors stated in reference to magnetic prospection that “In Uruk in 2000 and 2002 the cesium-magnetometer Smartmag SM4G-G was employed in a so-called duo-sensor configuration for the measurement of the total geomagnetic field. This not only doubled the measuring speeds but also provided maximal sensitivity and thur also information from deeper parts of the soil. This was demonstrated also in the magnetic prospection of tomb chambers.” (Uruk, First City of the Ancient World, H. Becker, M. van Ess, J. Fassbinder, date unknown).

The image below shows the magnetometer survey of the city made by the team, elements of which were published in Magnetometry at Uruk (Iraq): The City of King Gilgamesh (J. W. E. Fassbinder, M. Van Ess, 2005).

Now the statement by the German archaeologists reported to the BBC is very strange. We know that the German archaeologists are some of the best in the world and their work is to be admired. The work of Klaus Schmidt at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey for example is outstanding. So in 2023 I reached out to Jorg Fassbinder and after several attempts he kindly replied to me and engaged me in constructive conversation, although would like to highlight that he is not an archaeologist himself but a geophysicist. To be fair to him I will quote his exact statement:

“I never claimed nor excavated that we found the grave of Gilgamesh - but unfortunately we mentioned to find in our magnetogram image a feature which resembles descriptions of the location of the grave of Gilgamesh. In German language we have the ‘Konjunktiv’ such ‘somehow could be’ does not exist in English language and thats why such a claim ‘Gilgamesh grave was found’ came into the world through an article in the BBC”.

Okay, so fair enough, he is saying the BBC took him out of context. But the misquotes then are pretty criminal if that is the case and where is the retraction and apology from the BBC? I would further note that at some point I completed a course at Oxford University on Mesopotamian studies and I tried to engage the main lecturer on the subject of the Gilgamesh tomb and there was just a reluctance to discuss it, again pointing towards the media getting ahead of themselves. This is possible of course but I have also attempted to reach out to a couple of other archaeologists on the subject and not received a reply.

But here is the thing I find absolutely curious and for which nobody else seems to have noticed. I have looked on the web so see if anyone else has made the same observation as I have but I can’t see it. So I may have been the first to find this interesting ‘anomaly’ in the City of Uruk which I think deserves some attention and an examination by those on the ground. If you go to the City of Uruk on google maps and zoom in on it you are met with an image like this:

If you look at around 6 O’Clock on the image there is a curious looking marking on the ground that looks almost like a geoglyph. A geoglyph is a ground feature that often appears in South America or even in parts of Britain associated with ancient cultures produced by durable elements on the landscape such as stone, gravel and earth. Let us zoom in a little closer:

If we zoom in a little closer, re-orient it and then superimpose lines over the image, a curious figure emerges that appears to have a strong correlation to the classical depiction of King Gilgamesh holding the Lion and the snake. Even what appears to be a crown is visible. Is this indeed a geoglyph marking the grave of King Gilgamesh?

Now, its possible this is just a case of pareidolia, since the human eye does seem to see shapes and patterns when they are not always there. This is why I have sat on this observation for several years, lacking the ability to go to the site and check it out for myself. It remains pure conjecture. I did show these images to Jorg and this is what he said, again quoting him in full:

“Geoglyphs can simply not occur or if they have been made by man on fluvial sediments of the Euphrates river will survive max one year. Every rain or flood event of the next years season will have washed away and erased such a feature in the soft clay and salty mud”.

The point made by Jorg is reasonable, especially with seasonal changes, one might expect any such surface structure to be washed away over time. However, that would be on the assumption that the geoglyph is constructed of shallow stones and gravel which can be easily moved through changing surface conditions. But another possibility we might consider is that the markings are a manifestation of a stone structure buried deeper under the surface. So that as the surface is washed away by fluvial sediments each year, the structure is renewed by an underground stone so that it always re-appears when the surface dries out. To test this I examined the structure on Google Earth and the image certainly appears present going back the last decade and has not washed away, which is suggestive that the marking is caused by a non-surface structure. Only an in-situ investigation would prove or falsify this hypothesis. 

Jorg also makes the point that the depiction of Gilgamesh with a Lion is from the Assyrian period, 2000 years later and so would not have been contemporary with the City of Uruk existence. I have not looked into it enough to check if this is the case. But who is to say that the Assyrian depiction was not based on earlier depictions which have not survived or just havn’t been discovered yet?

I find it curious that much of the work on the dig site for King Gilgamesh was stopped in 2003 due to Operation Iraqi Freedom which began on the 20th March and involved sending many troops into the country. During this turmoil, the main museum in Baghdad was also looted of many artefacts and was not protected. I wonder what was taken from Iraq? I wonder what was removed from the ancient city of Uruk? I would certainly be interested in the opinion of others whether there was once a Gilgamesh tomb in the City of Uruk or much like the epic has this just been a good read?

The Great Journey of Growth

The French surgeon and Nobel Prize winning biologist Alexis Carrel once said “Man cannot remake himself without suffering for he is both the marble and the sculptor”. Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, is alleged to have once said “Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one – himself. Better to conquer yourself than others”. When we consider the endeavours and journeys of human beings throughout history, this theme of conquering yourself and growing as a result of the journey is a common one.

One of the greatest pieces of literature ever written is the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia believed to have been written around four thousand years ago during the Third Dynasty of Ur. In this story, King Gilgamesh, a great a mighty warrior leader, is tamed by his intimate friendship with the primitive man Enkidu. They go on many journeys together, and in one they both face great fear and slay the monstrous demi-god Humbaba.  However, later Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh is stricken with grief and so he goes on a long journey to find the secret to eternal life, eventually meeting Utnapishtim who is the man who survived the great flood. Gilgamesh does not learn how to make his own life eternal, but he does in the end come home to his City of Uruk from where he views all that he built and realises that although he will not live forever, his legacy will continue in that city. In order for Gilgamesh to learn and appreciate the legacy of his own creation, despite the inability to prevent his own physical death, he had to embark on a long journey of self-discovery.

Ziggarat of Ur

Others have noticed the importance of the journey and its effects on the spiritual growth of a human being. In the introduction of the 2005 Vintage Books edition to Bruce Chatwin’s ‘In Patagonia’, Nicholas Shakespeare said: “….the idea of the journey as a metaphor, in particular Lord Raglan’s paradigm of the young hero who sets off on a voyage and does battle with a monster. Such journeys are the meat and drink of our earliest stories”.

Many ancient tribes also practice coming of age type rituals, where adulthood is marked by the completion of a journey. For example, historically the Aboriginal Australians children when they came of age would go on a great walk about which may last up to six months duration and would cover 1,000 miles. The child would be expected to survive in the wilderness on his own and without human interaction, building his own shelters, hunting and living off the land. He would communicate with the spirit guides and discover himself, whilst singing the ancient songlines that so described the geographic landscape of their country.

Aboriginal Australian

Throughout human history it has been a core part of our make-up to explore and discover what is over that next horizon. This has led to us climbing the highest mountains, sailing the largest oceans and trekking the vast lands. We then proceeded to explore the air and sky until we had dominance over it, and then we looked towards the heavens and realised this was the next great journey that awaits us.

As human beings seeks to explore interplanetary and interstellar space, this will have an impact on our maturity as a species. These journeys are sure to be difficult, containing many successes and many failures – and those successes will be even richer because of those failures. As a society we will evolve to a new level of understanding, wisdom and maturity, and by implication give us the character we need to go even further.

As individuals involved in the endeavour to explore and colonise space, this seems like a grand adventure, much bigger than any of our single lives. Whether we are a writer of books or someone who is actually building companies and space hardware, our concentration is focussed on the same direction. Due to the nature of this endeavour, it is likely that there will be many more failures than there are successes. Indeed, although human beings among the planets may seem to be something that is in our near-term possible future, it is clear that human beings around other star systems is much further away, and this may even be centuries. Given this, why do many still work towards the goal of human beings in interstellar space? Especially given the metaphorical monsters of space radiation and other risks.

It is because we grow from the attempt, and that even a life that is closed-off with a failure in reaching for something seemingly impossible as a vision, has much more value than a life closed-off with achieving something that is merely possible and may even be mediocre as an ambition. It is in our nature to set ourselves impossible challenges, because that is how we grow as individuals and as a community. It is as the poet Alex Elle once said: “I am thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength”. The path of exploration, is the only sure way by which we can discover ourselves.

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This article was originally posted on a previous web site for the asterism project on 15th Jul 2020 and it has been copied here since that site was closed down.

The Mystery of Gobekli Tepe

At around 12,500 years ago, human beings started to domesticate plants and animals around the world. This was the start of the geological epoch known as the Holocene. During this time, human beings also started to transition from a hunter-gatherer species to an agricultural-farming one, and thereafter began the great creation of towns and cities and the basis of civilisation. Prior to this ‘Neolithic Revolution’, we were nomadic creatures, with no written language, and with tools and technologies driven largely by our need to hunt on the land and sea and survive the elements day to day.

We need to remember also that 12,500 years ago corresponded to the end of the last ice age, where vast ice sheets had covered much of North America, Northern Europe and Asia, with their maximum extent around 26,500 years ago. The glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere began to retreat around 19,000 years ago. After the end of the last ice age came the period known as the Younger Dryas, which was between 12,900 to 11,700 years ago, which saw a temporary reversal of the gradual climatic warming. This was clearly a dramatic time to be on planet Earth and in particular in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is interesting that the Neolithic Revolution really came at the end of this ice age, permitting the conditions for human beings to thrive, apparently for the first time. Or was it?

The archaeological site at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey

Between the years 1996 to 2014 a site in Turkey was excavated by a renowned German archeologists called Klaus Schmidt, from the University of Erlangen. The site was in the South Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and it had the appearance of a hill, and so it was called ‘Potbelly Hill’ which in Turkish is written Gobekli Tepe. The site is around 1,000 ft in diameter and 50 ft high and is located 2,500 ft above sea level. Schmidt and his team were not the original discovers of the site, but it had originally be discovered in 1963 by the American archaeologist Peter Benedict from the University of Chicago in co-operation with Istanbul University.

After having spent several years excavating the site, Schmidt uncovered several layers which he had radiocarbon dated to 7,370 - 7,560 years ago (Enclosure C), 7,970 - 8,280 years ago (Enclosure B), 8,620 - 9,110 years ago (Layer III) and 8,800 - 9,2130 years ago (Layer III). The team found an astonishing set of T-shaped pillars forming what appeared to be a Temple or stone circle configuration. Many of the pillars contained pictograms and animal relief carvings, presumably to represent sacred symbols. The animal reliefs included lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, donkeys, snakes and other reptiles. They even included insects, arachnids and birds. Overall, the site displays the signature of a high culture and with a sophisticated knowledge of architecture and also possibly astronomy, and the use of stone tools - not expected of a hunter gatherer society.

Examples of some of the stone T-shaped pillars at Gobekli Tepe

The discovery of Gobekli Tepi is evidence suggestive of a non-linear history, which departs from so called gradualism. To construct a site like this, and noting that only around 5% of it has been excavated by archeologists to date, does not seem possible with a simple hunter gatherer society. This project would have required perhaps several hundred people working on it for years or decades, and they had to be fed with sufficient resources to not interrupt the construction. Just like the Clovis First model of the America’s, much of our understanding of history appears to be in need of revision. In fact, the site is suggestive that we are living in a post-apocalyptic era, and that there may be some truths to the mythologies of a great flood that swept across the Earth and also that prior to this existed advanced human societies.

The most incredible thing about this site in Turkey, is the view from Schmidt, that the site had been deliberately buried after its use. What could motivate a people to bury such a site? There would appear to be two possible reasons, which is to protect it (or preserve it) or to hide it from discovery by others. But protect it from what? And to hide it from whom? One thing is for sure, the only way we are going to unlock the answers to these questions is by fully committing to a major archaeological excavation program in Turkey. Let us hope that happens soon.

This article was originally posted on a previous web site for the asterism project on 15th Jul 2020 and it has been copied here since that site was closed down.

Being Human & the Nature of Homo Sapiens

A homo sapien (‘thinking man’) is an extinct species of the genus Homo, which also includes Homo erectus. The genus is believed to have emerged out of Africa from a predecessor species approximately 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. The term Middle Palaeolithic defines the period when Homo sapiens first emerged and the emergence of the full behaviour modernity occurred around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, in what is known as the Upper Paleolithic. During this period the modern human arose though cognitive and genetic changes.

The behaviour modernity, is a trait that distinguishes current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins and primates. This is characterised by abstract thinking, planning, exploitation of games, music, dance, art and others. But what does it mean to be a human being?

Anatomically, we have two upper limbs (arms), two lower limbs (legs), hands and fingers, feet and toes, a head and neck, a chest, an intestine and stomach, a spinal cord, certain organs for physical function such as heart, lung, kidneys, liver and more. But clearly this does not define a human being, although it does appear to define our shared genus of hominins.

Our interaction with the physical world around us is provided by our senses. This includes our touch, taste, smell, hearing and vision. All of our connections to the physical world are enabled by these senses, transmitting information down specialised neurons in the skin. Any changes in pressure, temperature, vibration or pain and other sensations are all attributed to the different receptors in the skin, and ultimately this change is communicated to the brain which then measures that change against a model of the world that it has built based on experience.

But what if we were to remove the human body, and just place the human brain in a jar. If sensors were connected to the key parts of the brain so that you could still experience those key senses of touch, taste, sound, hearing and vision, but through computational input that is say on a random number generator to ensure variety of experience, would you know the difference? Would you still feel like you were a human being if those sensory inputs matched exactly your model of the real world? Would you know when you were not?

It would seem that your physical anatomy does not really define who you are. Then if we consider the future possibilities for the evolution of homo sapiens in different environments. Like if we adapt to living more permanently in water or as we explore space and settle other planets with different atmospheres, radiation levels, gravity. Indeed, in a micro-gravity environment where people just float around, what use is there for legs? Would it be more sensible if those legs evolved to become a second set of arms?

Then what defines being human? Is it our cognitive abilities? Is it our artistic and scientific output? Is it our ethics and morals about what is good and bad, right and wrong? Is it in how we treat others and other life-forms? With the advances in medical sciences, it seems that in the future our very anatomical definitions for what is a human being will be difficult to define. With the continued convergence of biology with technology (artificial intelligence) our cognitive and abstract abilities are surely to receive an exponential enhancement from the existing capacity.

As we continue to explore the new domains of exploration and discovery, it is important to move forward with an understanding for what is important to us. What is it that we would like to preserve, and what other things do we not mind if they undergo change? Are we okay if we continue to evolve (naturally or artificially) into something else that is definitely not what we would recognise as human today? Since we are still exploring our ancestral genus and those of other hominins, and we do not yet have a complete picture for how each is related, it is also important that we keep an eye on where we are going and what we will become. Preserving our human nature, may be the biggest challenge that still awaits us, in the climate of a dynamic and evolving universe.

This article was originally posted on a previous web site for the asterism project on 15th Jul 2020 and it has been copied here since that site was closed down.

Inventory Stele and the Sphinx in Egypt

The Great Sphinx of Giza in Cairo, Egypt, is one of the most remarkable sculptors ever devised by human hands. It is claimed by Egyptologists to be dated to the Old Kingdom during the reign of the pharaoh Khafre/Khufu in around 2558 - 2532 BC. But much controversy has arisen over the Sphinx in recent years, with claims that it may be much older than this. In particular, the erosion of the Sphinx enclosure shows evidence of precipitation induced weathering which is caused by significant and prolonged periods of rain fall or flooding. The Boston University geologist Robert Schoch claims that this suggests its age is more like around 10,500 BC, which pre-dates Dynastic Egypt by many thousands of years.

The Great Sphinx in Egypt

Its dating is further complicated by claims that the Sphinx faces exactly due east as a perfect equinoctial marker, where it looks upon the sunrise at dawn. At the same time, it also faces the rising constellation of Leo, but this also occurs around 10,500 BC. None of this is helped by the controversial ‘restoration work’ that is carried out by the local Egyptian authorities amid claims they are trying to cover up evidence that would allow accurate dating of the Sphinx.

However, there is a little bit of history that is not so widely known to the public, and it has been hidden from public display for some years, after initially being exhibited at the Cairo museum, but now appears to have been withdrawn from public display. That is the Inventory Stele. This is a commemorative tablet that apparently dates to the 26th Dynasty which is around 670 BC. It was found in in Giza in 1858 by the French archaeologist Auguste Mariette when he was excavating the Isis Temple which is located on the Giza complex. Although some Egyptologists view the Stele with great caution and is claimed by scholars to be a fake contemporary to its dated age, this is also convenient because the writing on the Stele appears to convey information which contradicts the historical view of Dynastic Egypt.

Inventory Stele of ancient Egypt, which was once displayed in the Cairo Museum.

In fact, although it has largely been dismissed as a fraud, Robert Schoch and its colleague Manu Seyfzadeh have published a paper titled “The Inventory Stele: More Fact than Fiction” (Archaeological Discovery, Vol.6, No.2. pp.103-161, April 2018), in which they conclude “From our analysis we conclude that while we cannot rule out a couple of minor modifications of names from the original written version we date to the 5th Dynasty, there is no plausible reason to dismiss the entire account recorded in this Late Period version on those ground alone and that the events it describes appear more factual than fictitious”. The authors attribute the current dating to misconceptions in part due to errors and oversights contained in two referenced translations. So what does the Inventory Stele actually say? He is a brief extract:

“Long live the King of Upper and Lower Egyupt, khufu, given life....He found the house of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the hollow of Hwran {The Sphinx} and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this goddess and he built a pyramid for the King’s daughter Henutsen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran Hormakhet is on the South side of the House of Isis, Mistress of the pyramid....He restored the statue, all covered in painting, of the guardian of the atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze. He replaced the back part of the Nemes head-dress, which was missing with gilded stone. The figure of this god, cut in stone, is solid and will last to eternity, keeping its face looking always to the East.

These words, imply that the Great Pyramid and the Temple of Isis existed before the time of Khufu (c.2580 BC), and it describes how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, where it was already buried in the sand. Whether one believes this viewpoint or instead the view of main stream Egyptologists, is a matter of personal opinion, and to come to an informed opinion certainly requires substantial study of the artefact, its history and translations. But if the words are to be believed, then this would be proof that Khufu did not build the Great Pyramid or the Sphinx and that they were already on site long before his time. This would then bring the dates of 10,500 BC or 12,500 years ago, into the realm of plausibility. Although there is debate about the dating of the artefact, there is little disagreement about its content, which appears to be genuine. This debate is sure to run on and the accurate dating of the text on the Inventory Stele may be the key to unlocking the true history of what happened on the Giza plateau all those millennia ago.

This article was originally posted on a previous web site for the asterism project on 15th Jul 2020 and it has been copied here since that site was closed down.

INTERGLACIAL PERIODS IN HISTORY

During the history of Earth there have been five major ice ages, and we are currently in the Quaternary Ice Age at this time, which spans from 2.59 million years ago. Within the ice ages are sub-periods known as glacial and interglacial periods.

Recent measurements of the relative Oxygen isotope ratio in Antarctica and Greenland show the periods of glacial and interglacial periods throughout history over the last few hundred thousand years. This is a measurement of the ratio of the abundance of Oxygen with atomic mass 18 to the abundance of Oxygen with atomic mass 16 present in ice core samples, 18^O/16^O, where 16^O is the most abundant of the naturally occurring isotopes. Ocean water is mostly comprised of H^2-16^O, in addition to smaller amounts of HD-16^O and H^2-18^O. The Oxygen isotope ratio is a measure of the degree to which precipitation due to water vapour condensation during warm to cold air transition, removes H^2-18^O to leave more H^2-16^O rich water vapour. This distillation process leads to any precipitation to have a lower 18^O/16^O ratio during temperature drops. This therefore provides a reliable record of ancient water temperature changes in glacial ice cores, where temperatures much cooler than present corresponds to a period of glaciation and where temperatures much warmer than today represents an interglacial period. The Oxygen isotope ratios are therefore used as a proxy for temperature changes by climate scientists.

The Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (SSMOW) has a ratio of 18^O/16^O = 2005.2×10-6, so any changes in ice core samples will be relative to this number. The quantity that is being measured, δ^18O, is a relative ratio and is calculated as follows in the units of % parts per thousand or per mil.

The change in the oxygen ratio is then attributed to changes in temperature alone, assuming that the effects of salinity and ice volume are negligible. An increase of around 0.22% is then defined to be equivalent to a cooing of 1˚C given by 

T = 16.5 - 4.3(delta) + 0.14(delta)^2

There are differences in the value of δ between the different ocean temperatures where any moisture had evaporated at the final place of precipitation. As a result the value has to be calibrated such that there are differences between say Greenland and Antarctica. This does result in some differences in the proxy temperature data based on ice core analysis, and Greenland seems to stand out, such as indicating a more dramatic Younger Dryas period (11,600 – 12,900) than other data.

An analysis of this data shows that the climate has varied cyclically throughout its history and is manifest of natural climate change. In particular what emerge out of the data are some interesting lessons about the recent history of planet Earth. Data shows the rapid oscillations of the climate temperature from the average temperature of today, indicative of glacial and interglacial periods. In particular, the data shows that during the Holocene period, beginning approximately 11,700 years before present, the temperature varied between 2-4 ˚C.

It is reasonable to assume that human civilisations under development will do better when the climate is kinder. This means that the warmer it is the better civilisations will do, and the colder it is, the harder the struggles. In particular we can expect that during the conditions of a colder climate that agricultural farming will suffer, and so there will be less food to go around, which will affect both life span and population expansion. To support this it is worth noting that the current epoch, the last 10,000 years has been the longest interglacial period for at least the last quarter of a million years and it is reasonable to therefore assume that this is one of the factors which has allowed human development from the emergence of the Neolithic period coming out of the last ice age.

Temperature proxy data from Greenland ice core samples of Oxygen isotope ratios.

The data also shows that there was a large global warming period known as the Eemian around 115,000 – 130,000 years ago. The average global temperatures were around 22 – 24 ˚C, compared to today where the average is around 14 ˚C. Forests grew as far north as the Arctic circle at 71˚ latitude and North Cape in Norway Oulu in Finland. For comparison North Cape today is now a tundra, where the physical growth of plants is limited to the low temperatures and small growing seasons. Given that Homo sapiens may have been here since around 300,000 years ago, this seems like a major opportunity for the development of human society from a people of hunter gatherers to one of agricultural developers and the development of a civil society.

There have been other interglacial periods that have resulted in global temperatures being either equivalent or above the average today, and the data shows temperature spikes of periods at around 200,000 years, 220,000 years, 240,000 years, 330,000 years and 410,000 years. Each of these interglacial periods will typically last at least 10,000 years.

Is it possible that these earlier periods in history allowed the opportunity for civilization to rise up and become sociologically and technologically advanced towards similar levels of today? The climate certainly seems to have allowed for it. The question is, did it happen?

This article was originally posted on a previous web site for the Apkallu Initiative on 2nd July 2018 and it has been copied here since that site was closed down.