Archaeology Without the Bible

[Minimalist]

The trouble is, it doesn't resemble any kind of building...
it isn't symmetrical, and doesn't appear to have any
functional components such as stairs, walls, windows,
roofs, etc.

Very true, Stan. But neither does Menkaure's pyramid.









Hancock makes the point at length that the Jomon culture of Japan has other sites which show an effort to "adapt" natural features. The point is that such "adaptation" in the case of Yonaguni would have had to be done when the site was still above water....and that puts it far back into antiquity.

[Guest]

this sounds interesting and it would be nice to know how factual the source is. i have heard and seen the bimini road and it is alluded to in the documentary 1421. But i may suggest that the stones were there a lot longer than 600 years and even if phoenician artifacts are found near by, it does not guarentee that the phoenicians constructed the structure.

on another note i would like to propose a question, can you have archaeology without the Bible? i think not as biblical history is so intwined with world history, it would be inevitable that the Bible would be brought into the discussion.

for example these stones, were they built pre or post flood? If they were built pre-flood, then their existence gives credence to the Biblical record that a previous civilization did exist and was wiped out as the Bible said.

If they were post-flood, then they would give evidence to the technological prowess of ancient man but short date everything to after the time of Noah, dispelling any thought of the longevity of the earth or habitation.

i would be interested in getting more information on these stones.

[Minimalist]

Of course you can. Read The Bible Unearthed by Finklestein and Silbermann to find out how late the bible's assertions are actually supported by archaeological and historical evidence. Even William Dever only disagrees with Finklestein by a matter of a hundred or so years.

Mainstream archaeology dismisses as mythology anything prior to the United Kingdom and Finklestein does not even accept that period of around 1,000 BC as historical. Far too complex to go into in a message board format, but, in general, Finklestein finds biblical 'history' begins to get reliable in the period after true state formation in the 7th century BC.

[stan]

for example these stones, were they built pre or post flood? If they were built pre-flood, then their existence gives credence to the Biblical record that a previous civilization did exist and was wiped out as the Bible said.

If they were post-flood, then they would give evidence to the technological prowess of ancient man but short date everything to after the time of Noah, dispelling any thought of the longevity of the earth or habitation.

Bimini is nowhere near the "holy land." If the whole world flooded, where did the water come from? Where did it go?

[daybrown]

The Yonaguni could be simply the remains of leveled foundations for wood structures.

Gimbutas cites a Cucuteni pot with an image of a plank hulled sailboat. The word "canvas" comes from PIE "cannibis" which they used to spin and weave the first sails and ropes... 4800 BCE.

Rugged enuf for the Black sea, it looks to be at least 30 foot, and the Cycladic culture is clearly derivative showing that they sailed into the Agean. Some one could just as well, at some point over the last 6000 odd years, have sailed to Bimini. But- like the Vikings in Labrador, what did they find there that was worth repeating, much less setting up regular trade?

And had anyone brought such boats for any extended period of time, the Native Americans would have found out about the bronze tools to make them and the necessary woodworking techniques.

The Cucuteni lucked out because it was their neighbors the Petresti in the Transylvanians that started mining chalcocite. The big advantage of this copper ore compared to all the others that were being mined, was that it was laced with arsenic, and didnt produce copper tools, but *arsenic bronze*, the toughest, by far of all the bronzes which is still used on deck.

So- if anyone made it to Bimini, it hadda be the Cucuteni, or one of their descendant cultures, the Cycladic, Minoan, Phoenicians, or Etruscans. I'd bet on the latter, who invented a Foresail, dramatically speeding it up.

[Minimalist]

The Yonaguni could be simply the remains of leveled foundations for wood structures.

One of the more compelling arguments that Hancock made had to do with the lack of debris at the site. Had Yonaguni been subject to natural weathering, the chipped off pieces of stone should still be there where they fell.

Instead, the chipped off rock has been removed. Surely, no one would suggest that ocean currents could move heavy stones and even if the current could move the stone, some of them would have piled up against the monument on at least the one side facing into the current.

Hancock, for his book Underworld uses "inundation maps" prepared by a Dr. Glenn Milne of Durham University. These maps show a fairly large island where Bimini now stands, opposite Florida, as late as 6,000 years ago. So certainly that time frame would be consistent with contact from the area you are speculating about, D/B.

[stan]

Stan and Minimalist wrote:

Quote:
The trouble is, it doesn't resemble any kind of building...
it isn't symmetrical, and doesn't appear to have any
functional components such as stairs, walls, windows,
roofs, etc.



Very true, Stan. But neither does Menkaure's pyramid.

But M's pyramid is perfectly, spectacularly symmetrical . To me, the lack of symmetry of the Yonaguni is still a strong argument against it's being man-made. Symmetry is virtually universal in
architecture, especially big structures... primarily bilateral or radial, or combinations of the two.

Daybrown mentioned that the Yonaguni might be the base of some sort of wooden structure. BUt that structure, seen from above, would similarly lack basic symmetry.

[Guest]

[/quote]

Bimini is nowhere near the "holy land." If the whole world flooded, where did the water come from? Where did it go?[/quote]

you are assuming that the world as you know it today is the same as it was pre-flood. i think ryan and pittman have provided evidence for the argument that not all the water disappeared and that the world pre-flood was vastly different than what we experience in the modern age.

plus, it doesn't have tobe near the holy land to include religious arguments. just today i read an article about a hiker finding a 6,500 year old pendent and the archaeologist immediately mentioned that it had a religious purpose. (yahoo- hiker finds 6,500 year old necklace)

so again my question, though more philosophical, remains unanswered, can we have archaeology without the Bible?

[Frank Harrist]

Someone watched the History channel last night. Yonaguni, Bimini, Amazons, Stonehenge were all discussed on their and Bob's favorite guys were on there. Schocke, West, and Hancock and they didn't all agree. I have to agree with Schocke that it looks like a natural formation. The part about there being no stones at the base is puzzling, though. That's one of the first things I noticed. Smooth sand around the base and no debris. I suppose it could all be buried in the sand. Anyway, I think man may have utilized it, but he didn't make it.

Has anyone ever heard the Greek goddess Artemis mentioned in association with the Amazon legend?

[daybrown]

Aside from the Chalcolithic artifacts like arsenic bronze, writing, sailboats, realistic figures wearing tailored clothes... 7000 years old, we now see the Chinese looking into their own past, and increasingly in Tien Shen where the Taklamakhan desert freeze dried not only mummies but organic remains.

The scripture they look at is Buddhist. much of it from the *5th* century. But in the very same era when Christian Aryan monks were *burning* witches, Buddhist Aryan monks were *copying* their traditional sources like herbal recipes and magic spells written in Tocharian, which itself, unlike other indo-Europeans languages, descended directly from Proto-Indo-European.

All the early Christian texts that have ever been found, like the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls, would fit in a foot locker. All the early Buddist texts which have been found in the deserts of Central Asia would take an 18 wheeler to haul at way.

And now that the world wars and the cold war has ended, they are getting around to reading it. S0- central Asia, not the Holy Land & Egypt, is where young people today will find a great challenging future unobstructed by academic chairs with biblical archaeology on their minds.

Besides the texts, the arid climates preserved artifacts and structures. EW Barber, "The Mummies of Urumchi" shows us the layouts of two ashrams found at Togoluk and Gonor that were abandoned *4000* years ago, and nobody has been back since. NO GRAFFITTI!, no smashed pottery. No desecration of ancient art. eg, pots left on the floor of the apocathery with their contents, cannibis, opium, and ephedra, still intact.

Then too, satellite radar revealed ancient trade routes, and- revealed the convergence in Uzbekistan at a city they didnt know ever existed. The C-14 says it was in business 4500 years ago, during the era of the pyramids. Nobody knew it was there because these folks were entrepreneurs who didnt waste resources building stone monuments.

[Minimalist]

Someone watched the History channel last night. Yonaguni, Bimini, Amazons, Stonehenge were all discussed on their and Bob's favorite guys were on there. Schocke, West, and Hancock and they didn't all agree. I have to agree with Schocke that it looks like a natural formation. The part about there being no stones at the base is puzzling, though. That's one of the first things I noticed. Smooth sand around the base and no debris. I suppose it could all be buried in the sand. Anyway, I think man may have utilized it, but he didn't make it.

Has anyone ever heard the Greek goddess Artemis mentioned in association with the Amazon legend?

If man utilized it, he did so 13,000 years ago, which Hancock would say is good enough to prove his point.

[Minimalist]

And now that the world wars and the cold war has ended, they are getting around to reading it. S0- central Asia, not the Holy Land & Egypt, is where young people today will find a great challenging future unobstructed by academic chairs with biblical archaeology on their minds.

You are failing to factor in the deadening effect of western ethnocentrism, D/B.

Even though mainstream archaeology has moved on, the fundamentalists will still keep trying to prove that the bible is true.

[Guest]

But in the very same era when Christian Aryan monks were *burning* witches, Buddhist Aryan monks were *copying* their traditional sources like herbal recipes and magic spells written in Tocharian, which itself, unlike other indo-Europeans languages, descended directly from Proto-Indo-European.

No-one burned witches in the 5th century, outside feminist propaganda.

All the early Christian texts that have ever been found, like the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls, would fit in a foot locker. All the early Buddist texts which have been found in the deserts of Central Asia would take an 18 wheeler to haul at way.

Presumably because Central Asia is more remote than the Middle East. That doesn't mean they had the monopoly on sacred texts, just more favourable conditions for their survival.

Then too, satellite radar revealed ancient trade routes, and- revealed the convergence in Uzbekistan at a city they didnt know ever existed. The C-14 says it was in business 4500 years ago, during the era of the pyramids. Nobody knew it was there because these folks were entrepreneurs who didnt waste resources building stone monuments.

What kind of "entrepreneurs" don't advertise?! That's the real reason why no-one knew they were there!

[Guest]

"Even though mainstream archaeology has moved on, the fundamentalists will still keep trying to prove that the bible is true"

i know i can't agree with this sentiment. i think they are just getting tired of having to deal with the Bible at some point in their investigation. someone said earlier "what doe the Bible have to do with ..." well one prime example is the flood. almost every culture has a flood story thus once again theBible is linked to a culture far from the holy land and must be dealt with.

so again i ask, can you really have archaeology without the Bible? even if it is a small minute point or verse, i think not. somewhere in an investigation of a culture, the Bible will be brought in no matter where it is located.

[Minimalist]

For about the 200th time...YES. Archaeology is certainly possible without the bible. Perhaps even desirable.

There are numerous cultures on earth which have survived quite well without exposure to that particular tome. They still have histories. They still have artifacts.

It is typical of the West that anything of our culture is vital and anything of anyone else's is bullshit.