OOPArts

[oldarchystudent]

Harte just PM'd me saying he was watching the Georgia game, so if I might jump into the breach here on his behalf....

[Minimalist]

The Baghdad Battery and the Antikythera mechanism are real objects discovered (or verified) by archaeologists.

Harte, Mythbusters linked several Baghdad batteries together. Certainly there was no reason, such as cost or unusual materials, that would have prevented them from being used in that manner.[/quote]

[marduk]

I'm just wondering Min if you know what period the "batteries" are from, where exactly they were excavated and just where they are now ?

[Harte]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OOPArt
http://www.ooparts.nl/
http://paranormal.about.com/library/wee ... 11402a.htm
http://www.rae.org/contents_tud.html

{I hope i did the URL's right, I'm brand new at this }

A bit more for you, Granny.

From your Paranormal About.com link:

In 1885, a block of coal was broken open to find a metal cube obviously worked by intelligent hands.

From a link at your Wiki link:

The Wolfsegg Iron, sometimes referred to as The Salzburg Cube, is a small lump of iron allegedly found within a block of coal at a mine in the village of Wolfsegg in Austria.

The above Wiki article includes this photo:

NOTE TO MODS: From the image info page:
"This image is copyrighted. However, the copyright holder has irrevocably released all rights to it, allowing it to be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited in any way by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, with or without attribution of the author, as if in the public domain."

Not exactly the "cube" the other site mentions. I've seen this thing called a "perfectly shaped cube" or "perfectly formed cube" on a couple of creationist sites before.

Doesn't seem to be "obvious" that it was "worked by human hands" either.

Looks a whole lot like a small meteorite to me, which is one of the explanations given in the Wiki article. The "scalloped" look on the surfaces is fairly typical of nickel-iron meteorites.

Anyway, this is an example of how these stories change and grow with succesive telling. We go from an odd shaped lump to a perfectly formed cube.

Harte

[CuriousGranny]

Thank you, Harte for your info. As stated in my opening paragraph:

I, personally, have not had the opportunity to prove or disprove any of the scientific data on any of these claims. I find these OOPArts fascinating, and am merely posting them as a curiousity.

Most of them are unbelievable, yes, but as the Baghdad batterie(s) prove,
some are what they appear to be.

Most of these ooparts I've investigated to some degree or the other.
For most of the rest of them there is nothing but the written word to investigate

May I ask what form your investigations took? Have you seen the objects? Have you handled any of them? Have you visited any of the locations where they were found?
And the Acambaro figures...what makes the dating of them any more or less precise than dating any other artifact?
And the Dropa stones? Who admitted to hoaxing them?

[Beagle]

That copper from the Lake Superior region was taken by the Phoenicians after 1500 B.C., when the Ice Age icepack had dissipated to expose that land with its rich veins of ore.

No they didn't. There was waaay more than enough copper right there around the Med. No need for such a ridiculously expensive method of getting it.

There's really no mystery at all about what happened to this copper - it's mostly still there. Some idiot several long years ago made some stupid claim about how tons of it had been mined there but the claim was just that - a claim. There's no reason at all to believe anything more than just a small quantity was ever taken from the Michigan site by anyone. Here's a reference from an actual archaeologist that actually works in Michigan and actually is (or was) involved at the actual site:

http://www.ramtops.co.uk/copper.html

Thank you Doug Weller

The "Native Americans" there say a previous unknown people did the mining...

No they don't.

Harte

Hello Harte, I'm not really a proponent of the "missing copper" story, but the article you posted by the Michigan archaeologist was much more of a rant than a scientific refutation.

I've read it before and found it lacking. Maybe someone else can offer real proof that the story doesn't hold up.

OOPArts are fun, though. Eventually most of them are soundly refuted or become scientific fact.

[oldarchystudent]

If they say that only 1% of the copper is accounted for, they must have an initial yield figure in mind, and are also confident that all copper artifacts have been found. I wouldn't be so sure of either statement.

[oldarchystudent]

Slightly off topic - this is a reproduction of a Michigan sourced copper tablet found at the Belle Glade site I dug at last year. Some of the copper obviously made it down south, a long way from home.



If anyone recognizes what it is I'd be interested. At the time I was down there it hadn't been properly identified. They later found something similar in lead.

[Beagle]

This is interesting. Have you been able to make out the inscriptions? And I wonder if it was dated when it was sourced.

[oldarchystudent]

I don't have answers for any of that I'm afraid, and the gentlman that I used to be in contact with down there sadly died about a year ago.

As for the inscruitpins the top (left) is a cross with a circle around it, below the two holes looks like a couple of teardrop shapes, and at the bottom it resembles a door. On the reverse are a couple of crescent moon shapes and some lines.

[john]

if i remember correctly, copper was also "mined" in nw n. america, in the form of almost pure metal alluvial nuggets, some of which were quite large.

the nw indians shaped shield shaped copper objects - the name of which completely escapes me at this point - and the book i need is 185 miles north! - which were used in potlatch ceremonies. kwakiutl? others?

(general gripe here - my work requires me to maintain two places separated by 185 miles. Half the library is north, half is south. so why the hell is it that the book i need is always at the OTHER end????? never mind.)

on a side note, it must have been a helluva trip for those phonecian miners, around the horn of africa, across the indian ocean and then the pacific to the pacific nw, then back again.

anything for a buck!



john

[oldarchystudent]

on a side note, it must have been a helluva trip for those phonecian miners, around the horn of africa, across the indian ocean and then the pacific to the pacific nw, then back again.
john

But they could have waived at the Egytians on the "Ra" coming the other way!

[Beagle]

Slightly off topic - this is a reproduction of a Michigan sourced copper tablet found at the Belle Glade site I dug at last year. Some of the copper obviously made it down south, a long way from home.



If anyone recognizes what it is I'd be interested. At the time I was down there it hadn't been properly identified. They later found something similar in lead.

I wish I knew a little about the tribal customs of the owners but some tribes had a "toy" that they put on a long string, and when twirled around in a circle in a wider and wider circumference, would make a musical sound.

I'll throw out one more thought - it looks like it could be worn on the inside of the wrist as protection from a bowstring. Obviously leather was the way to go but this could be an ornamental one.

Let's see what kind of wild guesses we get - who knows....

[Minimalist]

Disregard the arrow and spear points in this photo. The other 3 items are pieces from Egyptian bronze armor.




I saw a demonstration of this armor and it was remarkably effective against the weapons of the day...even to the point of blunting a bronze arrow head.

Hundreds of small pieces of bronze would be strung together to form a cuirass of sorts, covering the chest and belly. Obviously, only the generals and pharoah himself could afford such armor but if you look at the photo given by Beags....and maybe rotate it 90 degrees, you could see how this piece of metal could be strung together with many others.

[Sam Salmon]

if i remember correctly, copper was also "mined" in nw n. america....the Indians shaped shield shaped copper objects - the name of which completely escapes me at this point.... which were used in potlatch ceremonies. Kwakiutl? others?

Here in British Columbia they are known as 'Coppers'-shield shaped objects pounded into thin sheets/incised with various designs.
http://www.lanecc.edu/library/don/copper.htm#museum