Friday 21 March 2014

top 10 ancient technology & mystery #2

1) Hero's Steam Engine


Aeolipile ,also known as Hero engine

An aeolipile, also known as a Hero engine, is a rocket style jet engine which spins when heated. In the 1st century AD, Hero of Alexandria described the device, and many sources give him the credit for its invention.
The aeolipile Hero described is considered to be the first recorded steam engine or reaction steam turbine. 


Pre-dating Hero's writings, a device called an aeolipile was described in the 1st century BC by Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura; however, it is unclear whether it is the same device or a predecessor, as there is no mention of any rotating parts.


2) Klerksdorp Speheres


Klerksdorp sphere 

Klerksdorp spheres are small objects, often spherical to disc-shaped, that have been collected by miners and rockhounds from 3-billion-year-old pyrophyllite deposits mined by Wonderstone Ltd., near Ottosdal, South Africa. They have been cited by some alternative researchers and reporters in books, popular articles, and many web pages, as inexplicable out-of-place artifacts that could only have been manufactured by intelligent beings. Geologists who have studied these objects argue that the objects are not manufactured, but are rather the result of natural processes.


Roelf Marx, curator of the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, where some of the spheres are housed, said: 'The spheres are a complete mystery. They look man-made, yet at the time in Earth's history when they came to rest in this rock no intelligent life existed. They're nothing like I have ever seen before'.


3) Written Language (Egyptian)


example of Egypt hieroglyphs

Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known, outside of Sumerian. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the form of Coptic.

Written records of the ancient Egyptian language have been dated from about 3200 BC. The language survived until the 5th century AD in the form of Demotic and until the Middle Ages in the form of Coptic. Thus it had a lifespan of over four millennia. Egyptian is one of the oldest recorded languages known.

Egyptian hieroglyphs writing
Scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions:
  • Archaic Egyptian (before 2600 BC)
  • Old Egyptian (2600 BC - 2000 BC)
  • Middle Egyptian (2000 BC - 1300 BC)
  • Late Egyptian (1300 BC - 700 BC)
  • Demotic (seventh century BC - fifth century AD)
  • Coptic (fourth - fourteenth century AD)



4) Ancient measuring devices


Aztec Calendar Stone
One of the common ancient measuring devices that was used by people many years ago is what the modern world now calls calendar stones. The function of these particular stones was to measure time. Other ancient measuring devices include a protractor, a straight-edged device which measured angles, and a ruler of sorts which measured length in a straight line. Ancient China had measuring spoons and scales were all over the world in different forms at one point.

Egyptian protractor
Ancient china measuring spoon


5) Piri Reis Map Of The World


Piri Reis Map


The Piri Reis Map is a famous pre-modern world map created by 16th century Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The map shows part of the western coasts of Europe and North Africa with reasonable accuracy, and the coast of Brazil is also easily recognizable. Various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia. The map is noteworthy for its depiction of a southern landmass that some controversially claim is evidence for early awareness of the existence of Antarctica. Some scholars claim this and other maps support a theory of global exploration by a pre-classical undiscovered civilization.

6) The Baghdad Battery

The Baghdad Battery
The first known battery in the world may have been created in a Parthian settlement called Khujut Rabu, near Baghdad. Known as the Baghdad Battery, the jar was first described in 1938, by a German archaeologist, Wilhelm Konig. It is not entirely clear that the jar was used as a battery, however. It has an asphalt stopper, an iron bar and a copper cylinder, and was filled with some unknown liquid. The Unmuseum suggests the battery may have been used for electroplating.

7) The Ica Stones



Beginning in the 1930s, the father of Dr. Javier Cabrera, Cultural Anthropologist for Ica, Peru, discovered many hundreds of ceremonial burial stones in the tombs of the ancient Incas. Dr. Cabrera, carrying on his father’s work, has collected more than 1,100 of these andesite stones, which are estimated to be between 500 and 1,500 years old and have become known collectively as the Ica Stones. The stones bear etchings, many of which are sexually graphic (which was common to the culture), some picture idols and others depict such practices as open-heart surgery and brain transplants. The most astonishing etchings, however, clearly represent dinosaurs – brontosaurs, triceratops (see photo), stegosaurus and pterosaurs. While skeptics consider the Ica Stones a hoax, their authenticity has neither been proved or disproved.

8) Voynich Manuscript



This handwritten book full of text that the world’s top cryptographers and codebreakers have never been able to decipher dates to the 15th century and was discovered in 1912 by book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich. If it is a hoax, it’s incredibly convincing, given how fluidly the text was written and the fact that statistical analysis has revealed patterns similar to those found in natural languages.

9) The Giant Stone Spheres of Costa Rica



They appear to be flawlessly round, ranging in size from just a few centimeters to over 6.6 feet in diameter, and are found all over the Diquis Delta and Isla de Cano in Costa Rica. Weighing up to 16 tons, it’s hard to imagine how humans could have moved these gigantic sculptures hewn from hard granodiorite – considering that the nearest quarry for that material is over 50 miles away from where the sculptures were found. Over three hundred of them are scattered across Costa Rica, but we’ll never know why – the people who made them back in 1,000 C.E. are long gone and had no written records.

10) The Baigong Pipes



“Alien toilet found in China”. This is just one of many absurd headlines seen on the internet concerning the undoubtedly bizarre Baigong Pipes, rusty red iron pipes that lead into a pyramid atop Mount Baigong from a nearby salt water lake. What’s so strange about the pipes? Well, for one thing, they’re in an area that is completely inhospitable to man – no civilization is ever known to have lived there. They’re uniform in size and seem to have been created in an intentional pattern. No clear explanation exists for the presence of these pipes, and scientists don’t seem to agree on whether they could be natural occurrences.

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