[Theoria]

nice little lecture series leading up to the destruction of the world...

[Bertha Fanation]

“Great Riddles in Archaeology”

Shroud of Turin?

[Islander7]

“Great Riddles in Archaeology”

The mosaics of Pompeii.

[ml/nj]

scientists instead look for evidence of the localized flood that inspired the stories.

The such scientists are pretty stupid. Floods occur with almost every rainstorm in the Judean desert and other areas in the Middle-east. They even occur here in the United States with enough regularity that few remember the flood before the last one; and certainly no one writes about one a week later (except maybe the folks still blaming Bush for the Katrina floods).

ML/NJ

[Reily]

How about “Alexander the Great’s Tomb”?
It was a Classical Age tourist site, famous classical persons such as Augustus visited, writers talked about it. The it disappears from view. I believe it starts to during the late now Christian Roman Empire and it disappears complete during or because of the Muslim conquest.

[Dogbert41]

I like this stuff:

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/sodom_&_gomorrah.htm

with links to Noah’s Ark, Mt. Sinai, and others.

[zeugma]

I like what Sir Winston Churchill had to say about  Arthur, King of the Britons in his "History of English Speaking Peoples".

... Nonetheless, to have established a basis of fact for the story of Arthur is a service which should be respected. In this account we prefer to believe that the story with which Geoffery delighted the fiction-loving Europe of the twelfth century is not all fancy. If we could see exactly what happened we should find ourselves in the presense of a theme as well founded, as inspired, and as inalienable from the inheritance of mankind as the Odyessy or the Old Testament. It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides. And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre for freedom, law and honor, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armor, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time.

[COBOL2Java]

[LadyDoc]

thanks for the “headsup”...I love this type of lecture. and I love the Monty python start of the lecture on Arthur.

[Ramius]

Stonehenge I think was a tavern.

The Ark of the Covenent doubtlessly existed at some point, but thousands of years later would the wood (acacia?) still have any substance left in it? Likely not.

It’s entirly possible that Arthur is based on an actual King, though probably more down-to-earth than the embellished legends.

Likewise, I think it is entirely likely that Atlantis was a real place. It may have been a relatively advanced (for the time) civilization that was indeed lost to some kind of cataclysm or natural disaster. That’s completely possible.

No one knows how many clues to historical mysteries, or even whole other things that still go unknown and unguessed, that were documented in the records of the library at Alexandria. The dark ages would probably not appear so dark if only we had some of those documents.