Ancient VS Modern Intelligence
When we talk about ancient peoples that lived on this planet, we cannot help but tend to feel superior to them. A lot of this has to do with their place in time. Some people feel that because someone has already been born and died, that they have to be smarter than that person was. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many people have come and gone and some of them were for smaller than any of us. The difference between us and people that have already lived and died and cultures that have come and gone, is technology not intelligence. I have said this before, but more and more evidence is appearing to substantiate this point. Even with our technology, how many of us could replace a genius like Sir Francis Bacon if we were suddenly thrust into his time? The answer would have to be very few of us indeed. Moving into more modern times how many of us could replace Albert Einstein? The answer to this has to be even less of us. I only use these two people to show that their place in time had absolutely nothing to do with their intelligence. If bacon or Einstein were alive today and had access to our technology, they probably would be viewed as even greater scientists, when in fact they would be the same people as they were in their own time. When we look back at some of the ancients, we realize that many of them had tremendous expertise in certain areas. An example of this might be Alexander the Great, or Sun Tzu the military genius from ancient China. These individuals were military geniuses and their battles and philosophy are studied vigorously today and almost everyone would agree that if they lived today, they would be just as capable as they were in their own time.
Mayan Building, Probably Temple A couple of months ago an astounding discovery was made. A Mayan site in Guatemala called Mirador was being excavated. The archaeologists believed that the site was from around 600 A.D., but as they dug they realized they were wrong. The site was actually from somewhere around 400 BC. The site was comprised of what was left of a large reservoir that was many hundreds of feet around. This in itself showed that the Mayans were a lot more advanced at this time than anyone thought, but this was only the beginning. It has long been believed that the Mayans had illustrated the story of creation, which is known as the Popol Vuh. To be a little more precise the Popol Vuh. is the creation story contained in something known as the Book of Community, the Book of Counsel, or literally the Book of Mat. The problem is in the translation, but right now that is not important, or Germane to what I am about to tell you. As the archaeologists were digging in Mirador, in Guatemala, they began to uncover something that blew their minds. Huge stone reliefs surrounded the entire reservoir and carved into them was the story of creation by the Mayans. While only 20 or 30 meters of the stone carvings had been unearthed, the archaeologists knew that the rest of it was there. No one had suspected that the Maya were this advanced. They had shown abilities akin to ancient Rome. The archaeologists just stood there with their mouths open glaring at what they had found. What else would they uncover? Might they find something that might prove that the Mayans were the most advanced people on earth at the time? I guess that we'll just have to wait to be seen as the dig continues.
Roman Coliseum Everyone knows that the Romans were genius builders. They discovered concrete and used it to erect structures all over the world, many of which are still standing today. The emphasis of their culture was more on engineering than on science. They had originally absorbed many of the building techniques from other races around the world including the ancient Greeks. They were the first to discover cement that dried under the water and used it to build harbors and bridges. What is even more amazing is that the cement that they used is said to be better than the cement we use today. While we reinforce our cement structures with steel and iron, those metals eventually lead to the destruction of the building that used them. The reason for this is that eventually water gets into the metal and it corrodes, and then it expands cracking the cement. The Romans didn't have this problem since they used straight cement. As a matter of fact, the biggest cement dome in the world is on a 2000 year-old Roman building that is still standing. Today we think nothing of building sports coliseums and then tearing them down in under 50 years. If we didn't tear them down, they would eventually decay to the point where we would have to take them down later. When one looks at the Roman Coliseum, which we have to realize was not maintained for over 1500 years and is still partially standing, it has to make us feel that our advanced technology, may not be so advanced after all. The Romans working with cement and stone were building structures far stronger than anything we build today. The Roman Coliseum has resisted earthquakes and tremors, harsh weather over the centuries and lack of maintenance, and yet it stares us in the face as defiant as any building on this earth, telling us that it may be around after our civilization is gone.
Temple At Karnak The Romans were not the only ones to create structures that seem to defy the ravages of time. We all know about the great Pyramid of Egypt and the Sphinx. The great pyramid was the biggest and tallest building in the world until the 20th century. That means that it was unrivaled for about 2500 years. Not a bad record. There is more to the great pyramid than meets the eye however. The angles are so precise on the pyramid that it has been said that we might not even be able to duplicate them today. It makes you wonder how a society from so long ago, using primitive measuring instruments, could have achieved this feat of engineering? We have all heard the debates on how such huge stones could have been brought to the top of the pyramid as it was being built. That question has never been sufficiently answered and many still think that the ancient Egyptians found out how to move huge stones without employing machinery. Some point to the fact that a building in Florida, that was erected in the 20th century, may have employed the same techniques. The building was built by one man out of of blocks of coral that were so huge that heavy cranes may not have been able to lift them, and yet he claimed to move the stones using merely by using a block and tackle. The building is called the Coral Castle and not one person ever saw the man working on it. Even more amazingly, the entire building was moved at a later time and no one ever saw this happening. The man who did it claims to have used a truck, but some of the blocks of coral were estimated to have weighed as much as 60 tons. How could any one person have moved these things? It has been proven in the past that some ancient societies did have knowledge of certain techniques for creating stronger metals that were lost over time. Knowing this, could it have been true that some ancient civilizations were actually more advanced in certain areas than we are today?
Corinth It turns out thatthe ancient Greeks just might have been more advanced than anyone up to the 18th century. Yes I realize that this sounds like an insane statement and no one would have ever believed it until the Antikythera mechanism was discovered. In case you don't know what I am referring to, I will be glad to explain. Divers that dove an ancient Greek wreck from 1900 to 1901, had discovered and retrieved something from that wreck. It was encrusted and didn't bring much curiosity. After it was recovered it was sent to the basement of a museum where it laid undisturbed for many decades, until scientists rediscovered it. To their shock, as they X-Rayed it, it was found to be an ancient computer built with finely cut gears. The problem was that it was created somewhere around 150 BC, far before any known gears were ever used. Was it possible that the ancient Greeks, were at least 1500 years more advanced than we thought? It has been said that when the Greeks discovered steam power, if they would have applied it for locomotion, the world would have been thousands of years more advanced today than it is. The invention of steam was never taken advantage of in the time of the Greeks and became just another forgotten achievement, until much later in human history. The Antikythera mechanism may have just been a proto-type that was being tested, that is one-of-a-kind, and if the ship hadn't sunk, may have paved the way for far more complex computers. I am sure that this would also have been responsible for far more advanced technology. When we look at the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks in many different areas, we realize that they had the powerful technology, but never really applied it in any meaningful way.
Great Wall Ancient China was a different story. One would have thought that many of the Chinese inventions, which were far ahead of anything in Europe at the time, would have spread throughout the world, but they didn't. The Chinese had bookstores and were reading books, while Europe was still very primitive with a very low literacy rate. Those books were printed on presses. The Chinese had invented paper which also helps in the production of books. They invented the decimal system for counting, the waterwheel for irrigating, wheelbarrows for moving loads, gunpowder for blasting, the sundial for telling the time, the pottery wheel for creating ceramics, harnesses for controlling animals, the crossbow and so many other things that we could easily dedicate many articles to them. It is thought that the Chinese used the first crossbows about 500 BC. It is also known that the ancient Greeks used crossbows around 325 BC, but like so many things Greek, the invention was lost over time. Not so with the Chinese however, who continued their use and improvement.The Chinese are credited by some with the invention of eyeglasses over 2000 years ago. While this may be true, the reason they were invented and the way they were used were much less practical. They were used only to block evil spirits from entering the eyes and when not used as a visual aid. It is amazing to see how intelligent certain members of ancient cultures were. It certainly doesn't seem that there was any less intelligence among people in ancient times than there is today. If ancient people were exchanged for us and were brought up to our current state of technology, would there be any difference between them and the people that are here today? To my thinking the answer would have to be no. I believe that while education may have been lacking for many ancient people, their intelligence was on a par with our own. They also had their geniuses and their not so bright citizens, but I am sure that most of them fell into the same category as most of us do. The more we find out about ancient races, the more we begin to realize that there were a lot smarter and more talented than we ever suspected. |
Mayan Creation Myth
