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[From April 25, 2016] 4 Ancient Civilizations That Mysteriously Crumbled — and Have Scientists Puzzl
mic.com ^ | April 25, 2016 | Claire Lampen

Posted on 10/02/2016 1:44:14 PM PDT by LouieFisk

History is full of mysterious disappearances — of people, of places and even of entire civilizations. In many cases, time has not told us what happened to the populations that have vanished en masse, all over the world. Archeologists unearth ruins and uncover clues as to the demise of ancient cultures, but the fates of many inexplicably evaporated peoples remain question marks. Here are four mysteriously vanished civilizations that keep scientists scratching their heads.

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


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: ancient; civilizations; collapse; godsgravesglyphs; mystery
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To: soycd

Yeah, natural disaster was in the Med. Sea. Earth Quake. tidal wave. Villages near the shore were wiped out. St. Louis. Huge flood wiped out the 40,000 people. Drought or flood. Or poor sanitation with lots of bad germs will depopulate a city. A side note: 700 BC the Nubians of Africa had tetracycline naturally occurring in the soil. They made beer with the antibiotic and had good health.


41 posted on 10/02/2016 3:40:06 PM PDT by Trumpet 1 (US Constitution is my guide.)
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To: LouieFisk

Ours is about to end and we know who done it.


42 posted on 10/02/2016 3:42:53 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Trumpet 1

Easter Island: they were busy chopping down the big trees to build huge outrigger canoes for deep sea fishing. Yes good for the economy. They forgot to plant new trees. They chopped down trees to use as rollers to move the big huge stone slabs. Then they eventually chopped down all of the big trees. After their fleet of deep sea canoes was obsolete from old age, they had no more trees to convert into new canoes. The economy fell apart and degenerated into gang warfare and chaos. And all of that happened before Captain Cook arrived.


43 posted on 10/02/2016 3:49:23 PM PDT by Trumpet 1 (US Constitution is my guide.)
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To: yarddog

I’m not sure the wheel would have been that useful to them They lacked dry flat terrain and the availability of beasts of burden. It’s also possible the Mayans did have the wheel since the Aztecs had it. Used it for toys.


44 posted on 10/02/2016 3:55:27 PM PDT by Varda
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To: Varda
"The standard for civilizations is looser these days."

Hence the Western Civ vs. muzzies thing

45 posted on 10/02/2016 3:56:04 PM PDT by Paladin2 (auto spelchk? BWAhaha2haaa.....I aint't likely fixin' nuttin'. Blame it on the Bossa Nova...)
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To: PIF

A great civilization buried beneath East St. Louis? Talk about cultural regression!


46 posted on 10/02/2016 3:56:36 PM PDT by Loyalist (Is the Pope Catholic? Less than Westboro Baptist!)
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To: Loyalist

My late father, who was from the Kirksville, MO, area, had a great story about a bar in East St. Louis called “Down the Hatch.”


47 posted on 10/02/2016 3:58:05 PM PDT by Tax-chick (The coming of a Cthulhu presidency will be heralded by a worldwide wave of madness.)
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To: yarddog
Yes, the last phase of the palace of Knossos had Greek-speaking rulers with records in Linear B (a syllabic system used for recording an early form of Greek), so Mycenaeans from mainland Greece must have conquered at least that part of Crete.

There are some records from a much later period in the Greek alphabet but in a non-Greek language found at Praisos in eastern Crete--clearly a remnant of the pre-Greek population of Greek was still holding out there (but I think the records are pretty few and don't provide a lot of information--the language is called Eteo-Cretan).

48 posted on 10/02/2016 4:05:23 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: LouieFisk

49 posted on 10/02/2016 4:07:17 PM PDT by Dr.Deth
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To: Verginius Rufus

Thanks, very interesting.

I have always thought Crete was the most fascinating place on earth. Despite my interest I will admit I never really studied it seriously.

I read a great novel a few years back titled “Waking The Moon”, by Elizabeth Hand. It was about this secret society of men called the Benandetti or something similar. Their job was to prevent the Moon Goddess from awakening and taking over the world.

She originated on Crete and a beautiful young girl named Angelica, turned out to be the chosen one.


50 posted on 10/02/2016 4:32:57 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: LouieFisk

LOL,funny...


51 posted on 10/02/2016 4:33:02 PM PDT by ConservaTeen (Islam is Not the Religion of Peace, but The RELIGION of PEDOPHILIA...)
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To: Tax-chick

I’ve visited (with a archeology class) the mound at Moundsville which is the largest conical mound in the US. It and some of the famous mounds in Ohio were built by the same people. I never got around to seeing the others but it’s on my bucket list!


52 posted on 10/02/2016 4:40:38 PM PDT by Varda
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To: Paladin2

“Hence the Western Civ vs. muzzies thing”

It’s very telling that Muzzies having been born next to the cradle of civilizations and conquering some of the great ones have been almost immune to being civilized.


53 posted on 10/02/2016 4:47:15 PM PDT by Varda
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To: Varda

Neat! I started studying Spanish in Kindergarten, and I’d love to see the Maya (or Aztec, or Toltec, or Zapotec) sites, but if it’s an either/or, I’ll go to Rome first!

And if I don’t go anywhere, I had video.


54 posted on 10/02/2016 4:49:27 PM PDT by Tax-chick (The coming of a Cthulhu presidency will be heralded by a worldwide wave of madness.)
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To: Varda

That’s pretty much my (simple) analysis too.


55 posted on 10/02/2016 4:50:04 PM PDT by Paladin2 (auto spelchk? BWAhaha2haaa.....I aint't likely fixin' nuttin'. Blame it on the Bossa Nova...)
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To: Varda; Paladin2

Moslems have had civilization: post-conquest Persia, Egypt, Turkey, Spain. Moslems practically invented civilization in Spain. It doesn’t make their religion anything but execrable, but you can say that about Maya or Aztec religion, too.

We have to get away from associating “civilization” with something we consider morally positive. It just means, “a fair number of people living pretty close together with some organization.”


56 posted on 10/02/2016 4:56:00 PM PDT by Tax-chick (The coming of a Cthulhu presidency will be heralded by a worldwide wave of madness.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

I wonder what would happen if archeologists examined Ferguson, Missouri TODAY!?


57 posted on 10/02/2016 4:59:01 PM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicians are not born. They're excreted." Marcus Tullius Cicero.)
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To: LouieFisk
Well, they are all descendants of Oriental Asian cultures. Their DNA proved that.

I don't blame them for "getting out of Dodge." It beat starving.

58 posted on 10/02/2016 5:02:52 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: yarddog
Yes, Crete is fascinating. I have been there twice.

A church in Heraklion has a skull which is supposedly that of St. Titus, who was sent to Crete by St. Paul.

St. Paul warns Titus that the Cretans are always liars, and quotes a line from the Cretan poet Epimenides to that effect--"as one of their own poets has said. This testimony is true." But if Epimenides was a Cretan, was he lying when he said that?

There are also some interesting remains from the period of Venetian rule. I was in Heraklion in December 1979, during the Iran hostage crisis. A Kurd from Iran (who had a Greek wife) came up to me and asked me why there were Persian lions on the wall. I tried to explain to him that they were Venetian lions but he had no idea what Venice was so it was hopeless. That was near Kazantzakis' grave.

59 posted on 10/02/2016 5:08:18 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: yarddog
I think the first 3 were not really civilizations but groups of people who did some very interesting things.
I don’t think Crete really disappeared as much as came under the thumb of Mycenaean Greeks.

The first three are the Oriental Asian descendants...I mis-wrote because I wrote too fast. I think they left their native lands because they saw no hope in staying put. The Easter Island folks came too far west, though, and landed on an ISLAND, which doomed them. They ran out of everything.

The Minoans were incredible. Hard to believe that they knew so much so long ago. But, even they bowed to the "bigger stick" of the Mycenaean Greeks.

60 posted on 10/02/2016 5:08:19 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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