Sunday, August 23, 2009

ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS

The words “city” and “civilized,” both come from the Latin “civitas.” Hence, the word “civilized” would literally mean “living in a city.”

In common language we tend to oppose the word “civilized” to “savage.” This makes us develop a whole set of values where the ones not living in cities are finally compared to wandering animals (even with no spoken language), following only instinctive aims, such as providing food for themselves by tracing their hunt, as lions would.

Another common definition of a civilization is based upon the development of a written language. In this case, a considerable part of the ancient cultures cannot be included among the so called civilized ones, just because they lack a written language. Among them, we find the Peruvian Incas, for instance.

These pages try to show that civilized man (in a wider sense of having spiritual concerns) is much older than this.

The Tata carved shell (see article from August 16) shows that a concept of a cross was already developed by 100,000 BP (when even current Europeans had not arrived in Hungary).

Another surprising image comes from Texas. Before Christianity was born, about 4000 BP, someone inhabiting the current Canyon State Historical Park portrayed a sort of crucified man.



-->
It also reminds of the Egyptian shen symbol, representing the sun on the horizon, probably even older given the abundant motives showing the character among the hieroglyphs, or even reminding of the ankh, used by the Egyptians to represent the breath of life. This symbol is frequently found in hands of the different gods showing their power to give life.

-->The ankh (on the right, below), of course, seems to be the origin of the cross, as a Celtic cross from the 7th century reminds us.
-->
-->


--> -->
Regarding the cross, it can also be said that the Egyptians might also be related to the Christian use of this symbol. We can see how Shu holds Geb, the starry sky, by raising his arms, supported by the four hands of his helping gods.



-->
Curiously enough, the Bible also values this help in holding the hands up: “And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.” (Exodus 17:11-12)

Thus, the scene in the cross could also be seen as a Christian depiction of the Egyptian image of Shu, as seen in Giotto’s Crucifixion, from about 1400. As Gurdjieff said, Egypt was Christian in its teachings, principles and ideas, many thousands of years before the actual birth of Christ.”
-->
© 2009 Hugo Ferraguti

--> -->

Sunday, August 16, 2009

HOW OLD IS CIVILIZED MAN UPON EARTH?

It is generally believed that the Western civilization had been born with the Greeks, though historical times are now recognized much before them, with the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians.

Before this, the general tendency is to speak about “pre-historical times,” which are not recognized as deserving the name of “civilized times.”

The general idea of these prehistoric times is that of a man living in small communities with their houses in a cave, with hardly any spoken language.

With the discovery of the human genome, some theories arise, based upon what are called “the markers,” a set of new elements appearing in our DNA every time there is a mutation. These “markers” are transmitted through the ‘y’ chromosome from father to son and cannot be altered (which ensures that the son’s sperm will contain the same markers as his father’s), The theory states that modern man originates in a single tribe in current Uganda, in Africa[1].

All racial changes so far, it says, are only due to mutations produced as a response to climatic changes as these men were migrating and populating the rest of the world. So, as the theory states that any mutation leaves a trace in the ‘y’ chromosome, tracing these markers back is how they reached this single tribe whose blood has no markers.

Since about 160,000 BP to 135,000 BP this original tribe only moved within Southern Africa, reaching the Atlantic Ocean in Cote d’Ivoire, Congo and Namibia, and the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa. They also moved North East up to Ethiopia.

From Ethiopia, a group seemed to be moving Northwards following the Nile and crossing the Red Sea to reach Holy Land in about 115,000 BP. But the weather changed, and a huge extension of Northern Africa and Middle East became the present deserts about 90,000 BP, so this branch of mankind died, forcing us to reach 85,000 BP to find that a new group of Ethiopians has now moved to populate the South West of Arabian Peninsula. According to Stephen Oppenheimer, all current races come from this group.

If, as it is said, by 80,000 BP this branch has covered all the Indian coasts, and by 75,000 BP they have even reached Borneo and Southern China, it is hard to believe that they had no spoken language at all, or that they were just a group of social animals following the hunting season.

These very same men were the ones populating Europe, about 40,000 years ago, and the traces they left cannot support the idea of an uncivilized man wandering aimlessly trough the world.

It is quite noticeable that, after the Mt. Toba eruption in 74,000 BP, destroying all life in India and Indonesia, men would remember, after a 1000 year “nuclear” ice age, to return to devastated India, not only from their homes in Indochina, but also from their ancient location in the “Gates of Grief,” in Southern Arabia and in Turkey, as if communication would be possible among them after this severe “nuclear winter.”

According to Graham Hancock, there are several cities under the sea, in places such as India or Japan, showing that even beyond the accepted date of 11,000 BP for the end of the last glacial age, man was able to build stone cities.

Some archaeological findings can show that what we call “prehistoric” man was not as migrating animal, wandering while they were following the traces of new resources.





In Tata, Hungary, we find a carved mollusk shell from 100,000 BP, curiously showing the same motif as a rose window in Narbonne's Cathedral, Fance, from the 12th century.

This coincidence does not seem to be at random if we consider that the famous cave in Chauvet shows four horses taming a rhinoceros, dating from about 30,000 BP, and that the image is also repeated in a French cathedral from the 12th century, this time in Chartres.