Archaeologists estimate that the period of existence of the Olmecs was between 200 and 500 thousand years before Christ. According to several studies, there were three areas where the ancient Olmecs focused their reign, these were mainly San Lorenzo, Veracruz; Tabasco Sale and Tres Zapotes, close to Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz.

The great Olmec civilization is mainly noted for their giant heads, which have become a giant mystery ever since their discovery. To date, researchers have not been able to understand how the ancient Olmecs managed to create these giant heads and what was their exact use.

Here we have ten things that you should know about the ancient Olmec:

Archaeologists haven clue what the original name of this ancient civilization was. The name “Olmec” comes from the Aztec language which means rubber people. This ancient civilization has a completely unknown origin. some researchers like to believe that this ancient civilization got to the Americas by chance. Some have even suggested that this great civilization originated in ancient Sumer.

Wit and mystery are two of the qualifiers for the “Olmec heads.” They are a true mystery to researchers who are unable to decipher their meaning and the way how the ancient Olmecs managed to quarry, transport and design such large pieces of rocks. The first discovery was made in 1862 and several years later, in 1925, the giant heads were considered a rarity. The Giant Olmec heads usually show two ears with pierced lobes and what looks like a helmet.

So far, researchers have found about 50 sites with traces of the Olmecs. Scholars believe that their three main areas were placed strategically. “La Venta” is placed under a North-South axis which has a deviation of eight degrees west relative to true north. It allows incredible astronomical observations from the top of a conical pyramid. This points to the fact that the ancient Olmecs were incredible astronomers.

One of the most mysterious findings is a 3.5 cm hematite bar that has caused mixed reactions among researchers. When placed on water its axis points towards the north. According to researchers from the university of Michigan, this device was a compass. This changes a lot in history since it would mean that the ancient Olmecs are the inventors of the compass and no the Chinese as previously thought. The device is believed to have been used to position their constructions facing north.

At the archaeological site of “La Venta,” researchers have found hundreds of artistically engraved jade objects. All were found buried in long, deep trenches that had been filled with several layers of clay from different regions. This points to the fact that the ancient Olmecs were incredibly skilled manufacturers. A dog with “wheels” is considered as the best example of the advanced knowledge of the Olmecs. Some researchers attribute the invention of the wheel to the ancient Olmecs.

The ancient Olmecs used to make toys. Some of the remains that have been found show that the Olmecs used to carve different types toys. A rare and mysterious example can be found at the Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa. The object seems to depict an elephant, an animal which did not exist at that time in America. This subject reinforces the theory that the inhabitants of this civilization came from Africa.

The “Cascajal block” is considered as one of the most mysterious and oldest Latin text. It consists of 62 symbols, some of which are repeated four times. Scientists have tried to explain and decipher it but without success. It is thought that this could be a new “Rosetta Stone” which hides many hidden messages and secrets.

Just like the Aztecs and the Maya, the ancient Olmecs disappeared into the mists of history. At the beginning of the Christian era and for no apparent reason, it is believed that the Olmecs gradually abandoned their sites. The people who settled into the Olmec sites acted in a vengeful spirit, tearing down the Olmec sculptures.

The Ancient Olmecs are believed to have received “divine support.” Some of the legends say that they made their incredible constructions with the help of “beings that came from the clouds”, these beings are called “Nosoobi.”

The Egyptians stopped building their most prominent structures with the beginning of the New Kingdom, but why? What was the cause that led to the abandonment of the most incredible ancient structures of ancient Egypt?

From the beginning of the New Kingdom around the year 1550 BC, ancient Egyptians stopped building their most prominent and detailed structures, the Pyramids. Researchers have never understood the reason in their extreme and abrupt change in architectural preferences. Their most incredible constructions were replaced by tombs that were carved into the mountainside. These new architectural preferences helped reduce the amount of looted tombs. During the New Kingdom, the pyramids that were still “built” were of much lower quality and never reached the dimensions of the past.

Researchers have long wondered why the ancient Egyptians stopped building their most famous structures, some suggest that there is a possibility that changes in materials and construction techniques caused the construction of more volatile structures that could not withstand the test of time like the constructions built before them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ7T2shexEM

We know that they stopped building the pyramids, but how and why did they start building them?

Well, the pyramid was born as the logical “evolution” of the mastabas, a monument used as a burial site by the rulers of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt. No one know exactly why the mastabas were “displaced” by the incredible pyramids, some researchers suggest that the Pyramids were constructed de to the aspiration to attain greater heights, but both the Pyramids and the Mastabas shared a similar goal, to maintain the essence of the King for eternity.

It was during the beginning of the Third Dynasty around 2700 BC when ancient Egyptians began transforming mastabas into pyramids, initially, these structures were staggered, very similar to those found in ancient civilizations of America. These first pyramids, like Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara, was built in the form of various steps, as if it were a ladder to heaven.

Some researchers are quite skeptical about the pyramids being used as tombs since there has been no evidence found, nor inscriptions, that would link these marvelous constructions to tombs.

The other great mystery about the pyramids is, how this ancient civilization was capable of lifting structures of such dimensions formed by massive stone blocks?

There are many hypotheses developed even since the days of ancient Greek scholar, Herodotus who proposed several theories on how the ancient Egyptians managed to build these structures but never gave a definitive answer. Strangely, there have not been discovered, any ancient texts or documents reporting on the period of the construction of the pyramids.

In total, researchers have found more than one hundred pyramids in Pharaonic Egypt. Pyramids of various sizes, dedicated to both kings and nobles and great craftsmen. The most notable construction is the Great Pyramid of Giza for its huge size. The pyramid is estimated to have around 2,300,000 stone blocks that weigh from 2 to 30 tons each and there are even some blocks that weigh over 50 tons. It is a true masterpiece and has rightly earned the title of a “Wonder”. It was built with such precision that our current technology cannot replicate it. Egyptologists believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb over a 10 to 20-year period concluding around 2560 BC.

It was originally covered with casing stones (made of highly polished limestone). These casing stones reflected the sun’s light and made the pyramid shine like a jewel. They are no longer present being used by Arabs to build mosques after an earthquake in the 14th century loosened many of them. It has been calculated that the original pyramid with its casing stones would act like gigantic mirrors and reflect light so powerful that it would be visible from the moon as a shining star on earth. Appropriately, the ancient Egyptians called the Great Pyramid “Ikhet”, meaning the “Glorious Light”.

After the prowess of the Fourth Dynasty, future generations would show a drastically lower skill when it came to the construction of monuments and pyramids. After the fourth Dynasty, the builders were not able to obtain such perfection in the building of pyramids, the example of the little pyramid of Abusir is consistent evidence of technical setback.

In fact, in the following centuries, the design and development of these structures would get worse. And although it has been traditionally accepted that from the sixteenth century BC ancient Egyptians began abandoning the Pyramids, the fact is that there are references to these structures in future periods.

The Nubian kings from the fifteenth Dynasty were buried small and low-quality pyramids. However, and this may be the crux of the matter, from the Middle Kingdom ancient Egyptians began to build more perishable constructions with materials such as wood, brick and adobe in the inside. This is the reason why very few of these constructions have survived to this day.

The amazing pyramid of Khufu is perhaps one of the buildings of antiquity that has aroused most curiosity among people. Its construction method is unsubstantiated … Just how is it possible that the Egyptians were able to erect something so precise and technically difficult?

According to ancient texts the great pyramid was built by pharaoh Khufu, and was completed in just 20 years, but that is something that most researchers find very hard to believe. 20 years is just too little time to complete something so precise, so important and so great.

3 million stone blocks weighing up to 60 tons, were transported from different quarries that were kilometers away. We cannot forget that they did not have traced roads, and that the wheel had not yet been invented. Better yet, the ancient Egyptians cut stone blocks with such precision that even the most advanced saws that we have today would not be able to match the accuracy of ancient Egyptians. Many Egyptologists stress that there are marks that have been left on the surface of some of the blocks that raise interesting questions. It has been demonstrated by researchers that the pyramid builders used a material, 50 times stronger than diamond to cut and shape the giant stone monuments and sarcophagi seen across Egypt, but what kind of material is 50 times stronger than diamond? Today, researchers are unaware of a material of similar characteristics. Yet, these giant blocks of stone were so precisely cut and placed into position that we today, without modern technology are not able to reproduce that ancient Egyptians did thousands of years ago. So what kind of technology did the ancient Egyptian possess?

The ancient Egyptians flattened the surface of the Giza plateau in such a way that between the ground level separating a pyramid of the other, there is only one centimeter in error.

But here are more interesting details. In addition to the huge stone blocks, the Egyptian pyramids were covered by 27,000 tiles of blocks polished to perfection. These tiles were placed one by one on the surface of the monumental construction. These huge pieces of rock had a weight of around 16 tons each. Now the question is, how did the ancient Egyptians of the fourth dynasty move so much weight? It would be interesting to mention that today, in a construction process where you need the transport huge blocks of stone, giant machines are used which are able to move only certain blocks of stone due to their weight. This only demonstrates that the original pyramid builders had access to advanced technology that helped them achieve such incredible feats of engineering, design and architecture.

The accuracy with which the pyramids are oriented north is simply stunning, taking into account that the ancient Egyptians did not leave any record of such geodetic knowledge in their ancient texts. But if the ancient Egyptians did not have such knowledge thousands of years ago in different scientific fields, how is it possible that the pyramids are oriented so well? Archaeologists and scholars have preferred to leave it to chance, the fact that the margin of error of the orientation of the monuments to north is about 5 minutes and 31 seconds.

There is another feature that makes the Great Pyramid something even more spectacular. The faces are not smooth, but they form two vertical planes which make up an angle of 27 minutes. Therefore, the great pyramid of Egypt does not have four sides but eight. With all of these characteristics, the ancient builders of the Pyramids of Egypt wanted to point out the equinoxes and solstices.

The interior of the pyramid is as incredible as the outside. Inside the Pyramid, the air is very dense, and if you enter the great pyramid with a flashlight or cameras to record the inside, you would be surprised to find out that the batteries run out very quickly. All of these incredible aspects make us reconsider whether the ancient Egyptians were actually capable to erect such monuments. Did they have the necessary knowledge and technology to calculate and construct these amazing monuments or are we missing something?

Is it unlikely to think that the pyramids were built by a civilization that predates the ancient Egyptian? A far more advanced civilization that passed on, to the Egyptian civilization, their knowledge and technology, merging and passing on their beliefs and culture.

Whoever built these incredible structures deserves all the credit and respect, since these incredible monuments have been able to withstand the test of time.

Is it possible that the Great Pyramids of Giza are over 7000 years old?

It looks like an Ostrich egg is questioning the age of the Pyramids of Giza postulated by mainstream archaeology.

Some evidence casts doubt on the actual chronology of Egyptian pharaohs. The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, raises many questions that science does not seem to accept. Despite attempts at reconstruction, approximately 50% of the papyrus remains missing. This papyrus as presently constituted is 1.7 m long and 0.41 m wide, broken into over 160 fragments.

The Egyptian hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II contradicts the established dates and chronologies on the Egyptian world. Researchers are coming across great amount of information which suggests that Egypt is much older than what archaeology and history are telling us.

The Turin King List is currently located over 3000 kilometers from the land of the Pharaohs, deposited in the Egyptian museum in Turin, Italy. It was discovered in 1822 by Bernardino Drovetti in the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes. The list was translated by Jean-François Champollion, known primarily as the decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of Egyptology. Even though the The Turin King List has numerous historical details, modern-day archaeology has chosen to ignore it.

The Shemsu Hor

According to the Turin King List, Egypt was ruled by beings -half man, half gods who received the name or title of Shems Hor (the “companions of Horus”). The 1.7 meter long list tells a different story than that accepted by mainstream Egyptologists. The Turin King list points to the fact that the first government in the Nile Valley was not that of Pharaoh Menes 5000 years ago as archaeology believes, but around 11,000 years ago.

This revolutionary king list appears ratified largely by another story equally despised by archaeologists: The texts of Manetho dating back to 240 BC. Manetho, who was a priest of the sun-god Ra at Heliopolis was commissioned by Pharaoh Ptolemy II to write the history of Egypt from the beginning. According to Manetho, before Menes, the first pharaohs of the First Dynasty, Egypt was ruled by a demigods for thousands of years. The Greco-Egyptian high priest does not mention the Hor Shems like The Turin King list, but the coincidence is incredible.

There are more artifacts that suggest the history of Egypt is wrong. A Orstrich egg deposited in the Museum of Nubia, south of Egypt suggests ancient Egypt is older than we are told by history and archaeology. The discovery was made by English archaeologist, Mallaby Cecil Firth in 1907. The egg, painted and deposited in the tomb, had several different drawings on its surface, on one side it had depictions of plants and ostriches while on the other side, an impossible scenery: The Great Pyramids of Giza.

This discovery is incredible just because of the depiction of the pyramids. Why? Because according to researchers, the human remains found at tomb 96 where the Ostrich egg was found date back to the Nagada I culture; 7000 years ago. This is something impossible since Archaeology and history tell us that the pyramids at the Giza plateau are around 4.500 years old.

So who is wrong? Ancient texts and depictions of the pyramids that date back thousands of years ago? Or archaeologists and historians who firmly hang onto their beliefs?

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Nubian Museum of history /

Reference:

Kenneth A. Kitchen “King Lists” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Ed. Donald B. Redford.

Beckerath, Jürgen von. “The Date of the End of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 21

álek, Jaromír. “The Original Version of the Royal Canon of Turin.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

The Sumerian language is considered to be a language isolated in linguistics that does not seem to belong to any known linguistic form. Researchers have studied the ancient Sumerian language and tried making connections to other groups of languages but without success. The Sumerians invented the pictorial hieroglyphics that later transformed into cuneiform writing. Together with the ancient Egyptian writing system, the ancient Sumerian can compete in a race for the oldest known written language.

Known Sumerian texts discovered in the past include personal texts, business letters, transactions, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns and prayers, magic spells and scientific texts including mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Much of this material survived in time through copies and transcripts. Although the Semitic race became ruler of the region, the language, religion and law in Mesopotamia remained Sumerian.

The city of Nimrod, 80 kilometers southeast of Babylon, was excavated between 1,880 and 1,900. During excavations, researchers discovered around 50,000 tablets believed to have been written during the third millennium, including a library of 20,000 volumes, dictionaries and complete works on religion, literature, law and science. Strangely, archaeologists discovered a lot of Kings that seemed to have lived for hundreds of years.
Researchers have also discovered something called the Royal Sumerian List or the Sumerian King List, a historical document of great value left behind by ancient Mesopotamian scribes, written in Sumerian. This list, reflects the succession of kings from the earliest times until the conquests of Hammurabi. But there is something very peculiar about tis list, since the proposed periods seem to be impossible according to history. From the verifiable historical point of view, the first king mentioned in the list is Mebagaresi (2631-2601) of the city of Kish. Before him, all other rulers are believed to be ancient mythological antediluvian rulers or kings that ruled in the period before the great flood. The antediluvian reigns were measured in Sumerian numerical units known as sars (units of 3600), ners (units of 600), and sosses (units of 60).

“After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridug fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira. In Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-ana ruled for 43200 years. En-men-gal-ana ruled for 28800 years. Dumuzid, the shepherd, ruled for 36000 years. 3 kings; they ruled for 108000 years. Then Bad-tibira fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Larag. In Larag, En-sipad-zid-ana ruled for 28800 years. 1 king; he ruled for 28800 years. Then Larag fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Zimbir. In Zimbir, En-men-dur-ana became king; he ruled for 21000 years. 1 king; he ruled for 21000 years. Then Zimbir fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Curuppag. In Curuppag, Ubara-Tutu became king; he ruled for 18600 years. 1 king; he ruled for 18600 years. In 5 cities 8 kings; they ruled for 241200 years.” Then the flood swept over.”(Source : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm)

“A total of 39 kings ruled for 14409 + X years, 3 months and 3 1/2 days, 4 times in Kic. A total of 22 kings ruled for 2610 + X years, 6 months and 15 days, 5 times in Unug. A total of 12 kings ruled for 396 years, 3 times in Urim. A total of 3 kings ruled for 356 years, once in Awan. A total of 1 king ruled for 420 years, once in Hamazi.
16 lines missing
A total of 12 (?) kings ruled for 197 (?) years, once in Agade. A total of 21 (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 23) kings ruled for 125 years and 40 days (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 99 years), once in the army of Gutium. A total of 11 (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 16) kings ruled for 159 (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 226) years, once in Isin. There are 11 cities, cities in which the kingship was exercised. A total of 134 (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 139) kings, who altogether ruled for 28876 + X (ms. P4+Ha has instead: 3443 + X) years. 21.” (Source : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm)

Early dates are approximate, and are based on available archaeological data; for most pre-Akkadian rulers listed, this king list is itself the lone source of information.

Some of the rulers on the list are not verifiable according to researchers who suggest that some of the kings mentioned could have been mythological inventions in the distant past, yet researchers have unearthed several hundreds of thousands of artifacts covering all activities, all aspects of life of the rulers: government, administration justice, economy, personal relationships, science, history, literature and religion. These findings seem to point ancient history in a complexity new direction.

Source and reference:

The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their Culture”, S. Langdon, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 7

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm

The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet”, J. J. Finkelstein, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 17