Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Coral Pyramids in Micronesia Date Back to Middle Ages
LiveScience ^ | March 13, 2015 | Megan Gannon

Posted on 03/25/2015 11:41:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

On a remote Pacific island not much bigger than Manhattan, there are ancient pyramids built out of living coral. New evidence reveals that these tombs could be up to 700 years old — much older than experts had previously thought.

The royal tombs are tucked away in an artificially built ancient city called Leluh just off the mainland of Kosrae, a Micronesian island. Leluh was home to Kosraean high chiefs (as well as some lower chiefs and commoners, too) from about 1250 until the mid-1800s, when foreign whalers, traders and missionaries started to arrive on the island.

With impressive canals and walled compounds built from basalt, Leluh is often considered a companion city to the more famous Micronesian settlement of Nan Madol, on the nearby island of Pohnpei. While the tiny islets of Nan Madol were built on top of a coral reef, at Leluh, coral was actually incorporated into the construction material of many buildings, including the royal tombs.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: archaeoastronomy; godsgravesglyphs; kosrae; leluh; megaliths; micronesia; nanmadol; pohnpei
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last
Nan Madol image search

1 posted on 03/25/2015 11:41:43 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Interesting


2 posted on 03/25/2015 11:58:46 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Thanks, have never been here but have been to Nan Madol which is like a Polynesian, jungle version of Venice, only accessible and tourable by small boat.


3 posted on 03/25/2015 12:00:33 PM PDT by Truth29
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Fascinating. Never heard of this one before. According to the natives, during WWII the Japanese supposedly found multiple sarcophagi lined with platinum, containing longer-than-usual bodies there, but Japan claims no knowledge of this today.


4 posted on 03/25/2015 12:29:27 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Talisker

Probably because the story is a total fabrication. Platinum is not found in very many places in quantity (common in some meteorites), and none of those places are in the Pacific, or anywhere near Micronesia.


5 posted on 03/25/2015 12:35:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Aw, now you’ve PROVEN it was aliens.


6 posted on 03/25/2015 12:56:34 PM PDT by gundog (Help us, Nairobi-Wan Kenobi...you're our only hope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Well the implication is that it came from a past, global, higher culture. That would also explain the megalithic basalt construction.


7 posted on 03/25/2015 1:25:19 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Talisker
Thanks Talisker. Since it is less than 1000 years old, the higher global culture must have done a great job of hiding from everyone else.

8 posted on 03/25/2015 1:55:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

9 posted on 03/25/2015 1:55:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Sorry about that - I confused your article about Leluh with the related Nan Madol site. Yes, the Leluh burial mounds date back a thousand years. Nan Madol is different.


10 posted on 03/25/2015 2:03:09 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Talisker
The local folklore about Nan Madol states that the builders came from Leluh, but Leluh RC dating shows it's younger. Local folklore also claims two brothers built Nan Madol with the help of a magic dragon, and while I think Puff may have been involved with the local thinking, Nan Madol was constructed circa 1200 AD, sez the wikipedia:
Carbon dating indicates that the construction of Nan Madol began around 1200 CE, while excavations show that the area may have been occupied as early as 200 BCE. Some probable quarry sites around the island have been identified, but the exact origin of the stones of Nan Madol is yet undetermined. None of the proposed quarry sites exist in Madolenihmw, meaning that the stones must have been transported to their current location. It has been suggested that they might have been floated via raft from the quarry, and a short dive between the island and the quarries shows a trail of dropped stoneS...
There's a paper on dating the stones on the Academia website, but I didn't sign in to download it, due to my own laziness. Not much of a mystery here.
11 posted on 03/25/2015 2:36:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: gundog

I got the information during a mind meld.


12 posted on 03/25/2015 2:37:44 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Not much of a mystery here.

LOL, 250 million tons of magnetized basalt logs weighing up to 50 tons each used as the sole architectural material in a complex bigger than Giza on an island without fresh water containing manufactured tunnels to other islands - and none of the engineering requirements of its creation has been explained, especially supposedly by natives living in grass huts and transporting themselves in canoes.

No mystery here?

Whatever.

13 posted on 03/25/2015 2:54:38 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Talisker

There’s no water supply at Nan Madol; the island itself has water, which means the water had to be fetched. With a complex that took that much work to build, that the authority there could have water and food brought from the mainland isn’t that farfetched. The rumors about tunnels running from the complex are likely of the same source as the flying dragon, giant platinum coffins, and black magic. Not surprisingly, efforts to find said tunnels have all failed.


14 posted on 03/25/2015 3:05:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: gundog; SunkenCiv

15 posted on 03/25/2015 3:11:16 PM PDT by SteveH
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Talisker; SunkenCiv

In the WWII era there were cargo cults in the region that believed some pretty strange things.


16 posted on 03/25/2015 3:26:08 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Local folklore also claims two brothers built Nan Madol with the help of a magic dragon....

It has been suggested that they might have been floated via raft from the quarry, and a short dive between the island and the quarries shows a trail of dropped stoneS...

Dang it, you tease the "magic dragon" idea and than shoot it down with the raft and dropped stones, dang it :)

17 posted on 03/25/2015 3:26:15 PM PDT by The Cajun (Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert....Nuff said.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker; The Cajun

:’) I remember an article about the cargo cult on one particular island; the article was probably in “Argosy” or “True”, and in the 1960s, when WWII was still relatively recent. The cultists revered the cargo deity they called “John Frum”, and even preserved a snapshot of him from the 1940s. The photo was of an actual US serviceman of course, and at that time he was still alive. I don’t think they were able to interview him, but that gave a brief rundown of his actual identity and the wartime work on the island. And imagine — that was a cult based on a distorted folkloric version of known historic events from just a generation earlier. :’)


18 posted on 03/25/2015 3:35:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: SteveH

Von Danniken did I think. :’)


19 posted on 03/25/2015 3:36:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

This is probably more impressive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle


20 posted on 03/25/2015 3:39:46 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson