Iraqi crater
Posted on 12/08/2001 2:51:43 PM PST by blam
Those pyramids should stand as an eternal monument to the inherent folly of government spending. It may keep people busy, and it may look like things are getting done, but it merely squanders human and physical resources, and is inherently uneconomic. A collossal waste of productive human energy -- and for what? To assuage the ego of some delusional tyrant.
Just think how that society would have thrived if all those poor souls assigned to monument building and similar tasks had been allowed to pursue their own individual talents and goals.
I don't know much about Egyptian history, but obviously it was doomed to failure from the getgo.
Clearly, you DON'T know ANYTHING about Egyptian history.
I do know that a hell of a lot of lives and resources were wasted in the building of some of the most wasteful structures in human history.
I take it that you are describing the buildings holding our current government bureaucracies, right? The Egyptian people freely gave their services to honor their conception of God, and to express their loyalty to him and their nation. Of course I have noticed a few folks around here lately to whom the concepts of honor, loyalty, and patriotism are at least as foreign as ancient Egypt.
I'm pretty sure the article said the problem was an environmental event. Albeit, I do agree with your politics.
11/04/01 Story About Impact Site in Iraq
Scholarly Site for geological and historical neo-catastrophism & debunking Global Warming Hysteria.
Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 04/11/2001)
SCIENTISTS have found the first evidence that a devastating meteor impact in the Middle East might have triggered the mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years ago.
Studies of satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears all the hallmarks of an impact crater. If confirmed, it would point to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with the violence equivalent to hundreds of nuclear bombs.
Today's crater lies on what would have been shallow sea 4,000 years ago, and any impact would have caused devastating fires and flooding.
The catastrophic effect of these could explain the mystery of why so many early cultures went into sudden decline around 2300 BC.
They include the demise of the Akkad culture of central Iraq, with its mysterious semi-mythological emperor Sargon; the end of the fifth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom, following the building of the Great Pyramids and the sudden disappearance of hundreds of early settlements in the Holy Land.
Until now, archaeologists have put forward a host of separate explanations for these events, from local wars to environmental changes. Recently, some astronomers have suggested that meteor impacts could explain such historical mysteries.
The crater's faint outline was found by Dr Sharad Master, a geologist at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on satellite images of the Al 'Amarah region, about 10 miles north-west of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates and home of the Marsh Arabs.
"It was a purely accidental discovery," Dr Master told The Telegraph last week. "I was reading a magazine article about the canal-building projects of Saddam Hussein, and there was a photograph showing lots of formations - one of which was very, very circular."
Detailed analysis of other satellite images taken since the mid-1980s showed that for many years the crater contained a small lake.
The draining of the region, as part of Saddam's campaign against the Marsh Arabs, has since caused the lake to recede, revealing a ring-like ridge inside the larger bowl-like depression - a classic feature of meteor impact craters. The crater also appears to be, in geological terms, very recent. Dr Master said: "The sediments in this region are very young, so whatever caused the crater-like structure, it must have happened within the past 6,000 years."
Reporting his finding in the latest issue of the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Dr Master suggests that a recent meteor impact is the most plausible explanation for the structure.
A survey of the crater itself could reveal tell-tale melted rock. "If we could find fragments of impact glass, we could date them using radioactive dating techniques," he said.
A date of around 2300 BC for the impact may also cast new light on the legend of Gilgamesh, dating from the same period. The legend talks of "the Seven Judges of Hell", who raised their torches, lighting the land with flame, and a storm that turned day into night, "smashed the land like a cup", and flooded the area.
The discovery of the crater has sparked great interest among scientists. Dr Benny Peiser, who lectures on the effects of meteor impacts at John Moores University, Liverpool, said it was one of the most significant discoveries in recent years and would corroborate research he and others have done.
He said that craters recently found in Argentina date from around the same period - suggesting that the Earth may have been hit by a shower of large meteors at about the same time.
(The tree ring data indicates that there was a worldwide 'near extinction' event at 2354BC)
Iraqi crater
I see someone posted the pic from that thread, but the link to the thread is here. Sorry if someone beat me to it and this is a duplicate. Hope it's the one you're looking for blam. I'm interested in this too, and am starting to build some reference links. If you have any interesting links, I'd appreciate a copy of them.
Then perhaps you should have allowed yourself
the luxury of an unexpressed thought and maybe
learned something.
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