Mystery Of 'Chirping' Pyramid Decoded

Nature ^ | 12-14-2004 | Philip Ball

[Gorzaloon]

But I imagine many ancient cultures knew things of one sort or another that we don't today.

But much of their knowledge resembled "The Earth rests on the backs of four elephants, who stand on the back of a giant turtle", the Prayers needed to placate Osiris, and those kinds of things.

I have here an 1885 Encyclopaedia Britannica set. An amusing thing to do when bored is to read some of the articles on Physics and Chemistry. The smug, condescending tone of the authors becomes hilarious, when they declaim their knowledge...and it is WRONG, laughably wrong. And that was barely over a century ago.

This is not to say the ancients and primitives knew nothing-Far from it. An active ingredient in Contac cold capsules was used for centuries-It comes from Henbane, and is named after it-Hyoscyamine. Willow bark gave salicylic acid. Snakeroot gave us reserpine, and a lot of 2,000 year old drugs, like Shikonin, are being reinvestigated. They knew a LOT, but may not have understood it. Someone knew enough to name arbor vitea (Tree of life) but they did not know that in a pinch, it can provide ascorbic acid... The Iriquois just knew it prevented scurvy for whatever reason.

[itsahoot]

The message is that there are no "knowns". There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say, 'well that's basically what we see as the situation,' that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns. (Donald Rumsfeld)

[wizr]

"They knew many things that we don't today."

Name one.


1. A more accurate 52 year calender with no leap year.

[Callirhoe]

Yep, they had zero. The glyph looked something like a football, if I recall correctly.

[beaver fever]

The Mayan people were able to grow enough food to support large cities with populations numbering as high as 100,000 people. The priestly classes and merchants were not engaged in agriculture which means a minority of the population practiced food for everyone else. The Mayan diet was abundant and varied. In fact they had a richer and more varied diet than the Spaniards who conquered them.

Pre-Classic Maya gathered wild plants for food, but by the Classic period they had farms to grow manioc, squash, maize, beans, chilies, avocado, papaya, guava, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and plum. The traded crops like cotton, tobacco, palm oil, salt, and cacao. With the exception of cotton, salt and perhaps palm oil all these crops are peculiar to Meso America and were previously unknown to Europeans.

The were so successful in agriculture that they could devote much of their farming efforts to raising flowers which were traded like currency in the large flower market in Chichén Itzá,

Mayan Food and Farming see
http://www.fuegonuevo.com/maya/farming.html

The also had a mathematical system using base ten which was capable of making large calculation using subtraction and division. They also had a numeral for zero and the concept of infinity. They also calculated the length of the years to three decimal places long before the Europeans were capable of that degree of accuracy


Mayan Mathematics see
http://www.fuegonuevo.com/maya/farming.html

Oh and when Cortez conquered Teotihuachan he remarked that the city was larger more advanced architurally and cleaner than London.

[RJL]

One has to wonder how a civilization that created calendars that could predict celestial events with an accuracy that far exceeded anything from Europe but never figured out how to weigh a bag of corn built these things.

LOL... Maybe too many late nights studying the stars, celestial events and "heavenly bodies" to worry about weighing corn.

[beaver fever]

PS

practice = produced

architurally = architecturally

I've noticed the spell check overlooks a lot of errors.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

1. A more accurate 52 year calender with no leap year.

...accurate to 33 seconds over the last 1500 years. Pretty good.

[Weimdog]

They may have developed and used a more accurate calendar than we use today, but you can not say we could not develop one now that is more accurate than the stone age Maya.

More on historical calendars here -

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_3.htm

[wizr]

Thanks for the reference. I love ancient mysteries and have wondered about the Olmec heads for years. I think that the "Planet of the Apes" concept may be closer to the truth than we realize.

[SunkenCiv]

[singing] You tell me that you've heard every sound there is...

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Joe 6-pack]

Big deal....my residence is designed in such a manner that a single knock on the front door will generate the sound of a large dog barking from within....

[Charles Henrickson]

Now if you do just one hand clapping, and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

[BigCinBigD]

Background music for the human sacrifices?

[Professional Engineer]

PING

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[blam]

"I love ancient mysteries and have wondered about the Olmec heads for years. I think that the "Planet of the Apes" concept may be closer to the truth than we realize"

The statue below was found in Olmec ruins also. What does that mean to you?

[wizr]

Looks like the beginnings of sumo wrestling - lightweight division.

[stockpirate]

They probley didn't need to weigh a bag of corn.

[Cold Heart]

Mayan claps hand at entrance to new temple and hears echo & thinks its cool. Mayan friends think it sounds cool too and clap their hands every time they walk by the pyramid.
Bird flys by and thinks it sounds cool and mimics the echo.
Bird's friends think it sounds cool and use echo as their own sounds.