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Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

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Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#31

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

You definitely have to be a conspiracy theorist to buy any of the myriad contemporary Atlantis myths and the veracity of Plato's claims. The history podcast Our Fake History has an excellent three episode arc about Atlantis, including Plato's account. https://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/season-2/ The upshot is that his account does not match up with any real world location, unless you are willing to engage in cherry…

I assume you are aware of and have real refutations for the proposition that the Eye of the Sahara could be a location for Atlantis?

And you are absolutely incorrect about Plato's description being considered allegory at the time. Anyone during his time could have gone to Egypt and asked the same questions Solon did and gotten the same answer from the same temple.

You are repeating wrote cultural knowledge as if you had real research to back it up.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless we think gods, talking animals, totems, spirits are real we've learned that many stories are embellished. Another way to look at it that boring factual recipes and rules were not fun to tell and remember but the ones with drama and extra flourish were. So those are the ones that survived better.

So what is your explanation for the spacefaring journeys through the solar system found within ancient Hindu texts? Animals do speak, actually. This is something you might not have come to understand or accept yet, but science is no longer able to assert that animals are not communicating in distinct languages. Everywhere we have studied, we have found one. So the ability to understand an animal and learn its languag…

> Unless we think gods, talking animals, totems, spirits are real we've learned that many stories are embellished.

Notice, I prefixed it with "unless we think...". Surprisingly some of us do think, so then the statement doesn't apply there. And I suspect this forum is not appropriate to convince otherwise.

> So what is your explanation for the spacefaring journeys through the solar system found within ancient Hindu texts?

Right. Well ancient aliens apparently. It was on History Channel after all.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#33

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

Another item is dating based on the stars. If you want to record a date you can record the position of the stars and planets. Such dating is attempted for the mahabharata and other Indian epics, but the language is very flowery so it is difficult to ascertain exactly.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#34

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

On the Egyptians...only Manetho claims this; he lines up all the dynasties in sequential order to make it appear Egypt went that far back. When everybody knew at the time, and even more so today, that many dynasties ruled concurrently. So...there is that.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#35
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most tales humans produce right now are fanciful. People in the past told stories for many reasons, survival being one, fun another, their political conflict being yet another. But also, I am quite confident contemporary researches don't take old tales as total lies, but neither as total truth.

Except that in an orally transmitted culture, stories are _also_ told to communicate actual, factual history. So the issue is that we no longer communicate our history through stories told out loud and therefore decided not to be able to conceive of any culture actually doing the same.

And those stories transform with needs of each generation. We don't trust what past people wrote about their own history either and not just because of fantastic elements.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#36

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

You definitely have to be a conspiracy theorist to buy any of the myriad contemporary Atlantis myths and the veracity of Plato's claims. The history podcast Our Fake History has an excellent three episode arc about Atlantis, including Plato's account. https://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/season-2/ The upshot is that his account does not match up with any real world location, unless you are willing to engage in cherry…

Would you have said the same of Troy right up until they found it a few years ago?

Can you point me to where in those podcast they discredit that the Richat structure in Africa does not fit the description of Atlantis?

This documentary is pretty sober and not at all fanciful, lays out how the Richat matches Plato's description exactly:

https://visitingatlantis.com/

You absolutely don't need to buy into the fanciful myths of Atlantis to speculate that is probably was an ancient bronze age city located at the Richat.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#37
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless we think gods, talking animals, totems, spirits are real we've learned that many stories are embellished. Another way to look at it that boring factual recipes and rules were not fun to tell and remember but the ones with drama and extra flourish were. So those are the ones that survived better.

So what is your explanation for the spacefaring journeys through the solar system found within ancient Hindu texts? Animals do speak, actually. This is something you might not have come to understand or accept yet, but science is no longer able to assert that animals are not communicating in distinct languages. Everywhere we have studied, we have found one. So the ability to understand an animal and learn its languag…

What is your explanation of for the ancient spacefaring journeys through a distant galaxy found in the works of the modern sage Lucas?

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#38

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

The whole field is full of dogmatists. The timeline of human history probably looks a lot different than the one we have written in textbooks. _But_, take any of Graham Hancock's claims with a spoon-full of salt. He's not from a scientific background nor has he published any scientific work. It's easy to be lulled by the grandeur of the tales he tells on JRE.

Although I never mentioned Hancock, I don't buy much of what Hancock is selling. They originally just had Randall on, then later they had Randall and Hancock. I think Randalls research has WAY more foundation to it, and Hancock is riding his coat tails. I do find his commentary intriguing sometimes.

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#39
Some of these seem like, leaps, e.g. is knowledge passed down for 15 millennia really the most likely explanation compared to say, meanings of words changing (like the name of the island used to refer to a promontory on the island before changing in meaning to refer to the island itself)

Re: Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

#40

Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…

That's true. Until it was discovered, Troy was considered to be mythical. Now most people think we have Homeric Troy.¹

But how far do we go? We practically have the specifications for Noah's ark ² - so do you expect us to find it, large enough to house every animal except dinosaurs, cruelly left out? ³

So at first I thought you made a pretty good case, but I don't know, man. There's a lot of weird stories that are super specific, like the one I just quoted.

--

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy

² https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6&versi... - "The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it..." etc.

³ https://alvinalexander.com/sites/default/files/styles/previe...

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