Archaeologica.org

Minimalist wrote:I noted a lot of character assassination in that piece, FT, without a lot of science to back it up.

Where is it written that a neo-Nazi cannot make an archaeological discovery, for instance.

Still, I'll read it more carefully later on this evening.

Yeah, like I said originally there is a LOT of hate and disontent among the nay sayers but as you said, nothing scientific, just character assasination. Seems like a tie between the Pros and Con people and nothing definitive either way which makes it impossible to say it IS or is NOT a hoax.

However I saw for the first time a reference to something called THE DETROIT PLATES http://s8int.com/truesuppressions3.html and plan to read up on those since they were studied scientifically. (Or it appears so from that link. Further investigation is warranted.)

Don't get me wrong, clubs...at some point it is up to the proponents of a theory to produce evidence to back it up. Failing to do so is a big red herring.

However, it seems to me that a lot of the Club attack is a 'kill the messenger' approach and they don't seem to ever have a lot to say about the message itself. I find that disquieting but I've noted it many times. One of the key words to trigger that sort of thing is "Atlantis." Let someone have ever considered the Atlantean myths and the first thing the Club tells you is that he is a kook who believes in Atlantis.

Minimalist wrote:Don't get me wrong, clubs...at some point it is up to the proponents of a theory to produce evidence to back it up. Failing to do so is a big red herring.

However, it seems to me that a lot of the Club attack is a 'kill the messenger' approach and they don't seem to ever have a lot to say about the message itself. I find that disquieting but I've noted it many times. One of the key words to trigger that sort of thing is "Atlantis." Let someone have ever considered the Atlantean myths and the first thing the Club tells you is that he is a kook who believes in Atlantis.

I have started reading that last website I posted ^ and it is most interesting. Some of the messengers did die...one guy's son associated with the discovery of the DETROIT PLATES (SOPHER PLATES) commited suicde because of all the attacks on them. The issue isn't failing to back them up, isn't the real issue lacking the scientific means to do so? Fells was sent some photos of the Borrows cave rocks and he declared them sakes....BECAUSE HE COULDN'T READ THEM! Not being able to read and interpret something does not inherently make it fake...(re the rosetta stone). That is the hamartia in this issue. Not having the means to interpret something you do not understand...not being able to "explain" how a discovery got where it was found...those issues do not make them fakes. If you cannot interpret something is it correct to toss it out? Clearly the items should have been preserved until a time when technology and advanced learning could do so.

The example of the small horse bones found in the Indian mounds (found on that website) is perfect to illustrate this case. The archeologists "knew" the Indians didn't have horses at the time the mound was built thus they concluded (without further study of the bones) that a farmer had buried a pony within the mound...totally ignoring the fact that NORSE horses are small...yada yada yada.

Fells was sent some photos of the Borrows cave rocks and he declared them sakes.

Why not bite the bullet and send the actual stone? As happened in Israel with the Joash Inscription and the James Ossuary, a chemical study of the patina can detect forgeries.

Pictures are nice but they only open one line of inquiry and that is subjective at best. Chemistry is a hard science and should be employed whenever possible to settle these things empirically.

Minimalist wrote:

Fells was sent some photos of the Borrows cave rocks and he declared them sakes.

Why not bite the bullet and send the actual stone? As happened in Israel with the Joash Inscription and the James Ossuary, a chemical study of the patina can detect forgeries.

Pictures are nice but they only open one line of inquiry and that is subjective at best. Chemistry is a hard science and should be employed whenever possible to settle these things empirically.

The issue with Fells did not involve and chemistry tests, he could not have performed those..photos were more than adequate for what he was asked to do...I'd have to look around to see if any other tests were performed. What's the excuse for the Detroit plates which scientists had physical contact with?

hey Cogs, this is the book I was talking about..

http://www.amazon.com/Solomon-Falcon-Sh ... 24-8789430

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Ralph Ellis has discovered indisputable links and comparisons between the Egyptian and Judaic royal lines, that demonstrate that King David and King Solomon were actually pharaohs of Egypt. This is why there is no evidence for these monarchs in the archaeology of modern Israel; for the evidence, including the tombs, sarcophagi and death-masks of these famous monarchs, are actually located in the north eastern Nile Delta. The Queen of Sheba was also related to this royal line and, as befitting the great 'Queen of the South', her sarcophagus was discovered at Deir el Bahri in Luxor. The book also shows the location of King Solomon's Mines and the true historical identity of Hiram Abif, the hero of the Masonic 3rd degree.

From the Publisher
The claims in this books are controversial and far-reaching, sufficiently so that many readers may be tempted to dismiss them out of hand. However, the book is very well researched and documented, and considering the dramatic claims that are being made, it is very surprising to see such a wealth of information that supports this hypothesis. Indeed, the history of the United Monarchy makes a great deal more sense under this new Egyptian interpretation than it ever did under the classical biblical explanation.

Ralph Ellis is a an airline captain with a distinctly lateral, open-minded view on history and religion. He has written five books so far, which purport to explain every last facet of man's history. Under this new concept, the pyramids of Egypt become the central cathedral complex of the early Israelites, who were, in fact, the Hyksos Shepherd Kings of Lower Egypt.

Wow.


This is so fucked up on so many levels that it is almost scary.


Anyway, Professor William Dever, states the current position of archaeology as noted in this review of his book: Who Were The Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _107759382

Dever reviews the biblical story of the early Israelites and shows some of the difficulties in harmonizing them with historical chronology and with archaeological data (pp. 7-21). He follows this same approach in dealing with the conquest of Transjordan (pp. 23-35), and of the land west of the Jordan (pp. 37-74). Next, the author surveys archaeological work related to early Israel carried out since 1970 (pp. 75-90) and recent archaeological surveys (pp. 91-100), and summarizes the material culture of the Iron I assemblage (pp. 101-28 ). The remainder of the work reviews previous attempts to synthesize textual and archaeological data on early Israel and works toward a new harmonization. Dever interprets the data as evidence that ancient Israel was made up of disaffected Canaanites who withdrew to the hill country during and following the LB/lron I transition (191-221). For him, the question of Israelite origins is completely solved, and the only remaining contribution for archaeology will be to illuminate the context in which Israel emerged (p. 167).

It is the continuity between the LB/lron I material remains that is, for Dever, the "decisive" factor in reaching the conclusion that Israel originated from among the indigenous Canaanites. However, in chapter 7, Dever argues for the distinctiveness of early Israel by noting five "new" technologies that appeared with the emergence of Israel: terraces, silos, cisterns, iron, and pottery (pp. 113-18 ). There seems to be a tension within his argument. He seeks to resolve this by suggesting that while certain aspects of the pottery do reflect change (potting techniques, simplified repertoire), the pottery assemblage primarily reflects continuity. Dever explains: "The fact is that it is the pottery of the Iron I hill country colonists that is our best clue to their origins. The continuity shows that they emerged from within Late Bronze Age Canaanite society" (p. 125).

The Late Bronze Age ended c 1200 BC. By that time the Pyramids of Giza were already 13 centuries old.

Dever's evidence is included in his book. Where is Ellis' evidence? I like a good yarn as much as anyone but in 200 years of digging in ancient Egypt they have never turned up a single shred of evidence that there were ever Hebrew "slaves" in Egypt.

There is too much in the Burrows cave saga that sounds like deceit and cover-up. Unfortunately it is on the part of the keepers of the 'secret' in my opinion. Not the archaeological community or orthodox investigators.

While I do not hold to the same opinion as Minimalist, Devers, and Finkelstein about the origins of the Hebrew people, at least, as Min says, they show their evidence and I in turn can look at their evidence and draw my own conclusions.

Its not all that difficult to dream a hypothesis and then selectively pick and choose supporting evidences and manipulate the interpretation to support the idea. I am very suspicious anytime a theorist claims to have any idea or evidence that is repressed, covered-up, or hidden by mainstream science.

Forum Monk wrote:There is too much in the Burrows cave saga that sounds like deceit and cover-up. Unfortunately it is on the part of the keepers of the 'secret' in my opinion. Not the archaeological community or orthodox investigators.

While I do not hold to the same opinion as Minimalist, Devers, and Finkelstein about the origins of the Hebrew people, at least, as Min says, they show their evidence and I in turn can look at their evidence and draw my own conclusions.

Its not all that difficult to dream a hypothesis and then selectively pick and choose supporting evidences and manipulate the interpretation to support the idea. I am very suspicious anytime a theorist claims to have any idea or evidence that is repressed, covered-up, or hidden by mainstream science.

Yes, you are right, people bend the evidence and pick and choose what they will and will not believe or include in theory, and they do not do it based on science and or logic they do it based on EMOTIONS and EGO. Period.

There can be no other possible explanation for the construction of a 27 million dollar creation museum that depicts Noah loading Dinosaur eggs on the ark. There is no truth in that museum. IN an environment in which 27 million dollars has been spent to perpetrate a lie don't talk to me about what mainstream science, which has little to do with actual science and EVERYTHING to do with preserving egos, myths, and MONEY...because mainstream science has been remarkably silent on this ridiculous monstroscity just like they are silent on all the other mysteries.

As for the book I posted a link to, I am not fit to judge the entire contents but since "books" are in my line of work I will say this. There is no one author, inventor, scientist, or genius who has ALL the answers.

Very often in a book of this sort only a thread, or thought that will be on track. There is a thread (answer) in this guy's theories. Not ONE single positor has it all right, none of them. The reason there continue to be so many errors and flaws in theory is because people get on the band wagon and won't get off instead of understanding that no one person is ALWAYS right about EVERYTHING and the first rule about science SHOULD be "what I know will fit in a thimble, what I don't know would fill the ocean."

In a world where people believe (and I do mean BELIEVE) in virgin births and resurection from the dead (xians), in frozen Alien souls sent here from outerspace and mental health in an "auditor" (scientologists) in golden plates used by a notorious con man to create a religion, and eternally pregnant wives (mormons) that for a man to touch menstral blood is akin to death and turning on a light after sundown on Friday=sin (jews), that women are on earth to be used by man who, if he is righteous and he dies engaged in a holy war will be greeted on the other side by 72 virgins (muslims)..and I could go on and on and on about the absolutely incredibly STUPID things that people believe in...like Columbus first..lol or Clovis first.

I think that guy who wrote that book is on to something...as usual I think he got off on the wrong road and is in general lost in space but I think he IS on to something because it makes sense for people that lived in such close proximity with each other to have some shared history. If we EVER started applying the RULE of LAW to archeology we might just start making progress.

I cannot WAIT until i come back from my trip to the site of my friend. Really. I know what I have seen with my eyes in the photos he sent so I can hardly wait to be there in person and see and touch and document..and as I go home knowing what I've just come from and what I have just seen and done KNOWING that opening my mouth and presenting evidence will bring the demons of the CLUB down on me...I might just have to think to myself.."self...sooner or later these idiots will figure it out... eventually... when they stop resisting the idea and the evidence all around them...and until they do just know what you know and let it go."

Burrows cave..they have not PROVEN it's a fraud and they have not PROVEN is isn't and that is what it is.

Good speech Clubs. And full of the typical "anti-club" rhetoric one expects from you (frankly it is brash enough to be refreshing at times) but as you condemn peoples beliefs I have to wonder, what kind of stupid things do you believe in, or have you attained a high level of mental acuity?

Typically the burden of proof is not on the status quo. It is on the johnie-come-lately who says I have made a new discovery. Science is based on evidence, observable, repeatable and predictive, not claims which come with the caveat, "prove that it isn't so". No one has proven it a fraud because no one needs prove a negative.

I am not sure what you do with books and publishing but I wonder why you are going to evaluate the proof and not people who's speciality it is to evaluate antiquities? Perhaps they have already a) looked at the evidence and declared it unworthy of evaluation or b) have been denied proper opportunity to evaluate the evidence.

Don't misunderstand me. I like a mystery as much as anyone, and I love earth-shaking discoveries which rock the status-quo. But there is too much here that does not add up to consistency. Strange writing, headgear, costumes, which look like a mix of cultures, designed to look genuine to the untrained but are so out of place with all that is known about ancient cultures it can't even be slotted into the known gaps of knowledge. Its like, over here is all we know, and this is where the missing pieces fit in. Now over here is Burrows Cave, Los Lunas, and other things such as these. They don't even fit in the gaps. So now, it is encumbent on the discover to show how they do fit.

No one believes Firestone and his 13kya comet theory either. But does he throw up his hands and say, "the club is denying my evidence"? No he continues to research, refine, present and offer his evidence to peer review, and some are starting to take notice as the evidence continues to mount. That's how it works. Put up or shut up is the rule.

Well said Monk.

I do however think we got a little off track with the origin of the Jews argument though.

The time frame of most of the NA artifacts is in the early AD back to the late BC. Three or four centuries at the most. But a time of a lot of upheaval going on in the Mid East.

I can see a religious group or groups , a la the Mayflower, running away from persecution to a “new world.”

I can see a prince , or “prospective Pharaoh,” that was interested in exploration, but losing a family fight of succession, bailing out for a “new world” that his explorers have told him about.

I can see Samaritan merchants, in the metals trade, bailing out and going to the site of their mines in New Mexico, when it was all to obvious that the Romans were mad and on their way.

This all goes back to the possibility of Egyptian/Libyan based trans Atlantic trade going on prior to the Euro-centric Roman take over.

And of its being ignored in the resulting written history, because history is written by the winners. It is, after all “his story.”

This said, is there room for hoax and con men? Absolutely. But even the best of them need something to base their work on. Not many can start
out with just nothing and take people in. And money of fame is most often the motive. In some of these cases, neither seems involved.

In my previous list of out of place artifacts there are too many that cannot be proven a hoax. So they are just ignored.

In my mind, Los Lunas is the prime example. It just sits out there crying for someone with the credentials and guts to examine it.

Forum Monk wrote:Good speech Clubs. And full of the typical "anti-club" rhetoric one expects from you (frankly it is brash enough to be refreshing at times) but as you condemn peoples beliefs I have to wonder, what kind of stupid things do you believe in, or have you attained a high level of mental acuity?

Typically the burden of proof is not on the status quo. It is on the johnie-come-lately who says I have made a new discovery. Science is based on evidence, observable, repeatable and predictive, not claims which come with the caveat, "prove that it isn't so". No one has proven it a fraud because no one needs prove a negative.

I am not sure what you do with books and publishing but I wonder why you are going to evaluate the proof and not people who's speciality it is to evaluate antiquities? Perhaps they have already a) looked at the evidence and declared it unworthy of evaluation or b) have been denied proper opportunity to evaluate the evidence.

Don't misunderstand me. I like a mystery as much as anyone, and I love earth-shaking discoveries which rock the status-quo. But there is too much here that does not add up to consistency. Strange writing, headgear, costumes, which look like a mix of cultures, designed to look genuine to the untrained but are so out of place with all that is known about ancient cultures it can't even be slotted into the known gaps of knowledge. Its like, over here is all we know, and this is where the missing pieces fit in. Now over here is Burrows Cave, Los Lunas, and other things such as these. They don't even fit in the gaps. So now, it is encumbent on the discover to show how they do fit.

No one believes Firestone and his 13kya comet theory either. But does he throw up his hands and say, "the club is denying my evidence"? No he continues to research, refine, present and offer his evidence to peer review, and some are starting to take notice as the evidence continues to mount. That's how it works. Put up or shut up is the rule.

Believe..that word indicates faith versus knowledge. I know what I see with my own eyes and experience with my own body. I may not be able to interpret it or understand it but it will be stored until such time as I CAN understand and interpret (gained knowledge, grew as a person ect.) and frame it within a working context.

There was a recent Boston Legal episode in which the firm defended a fellow who was fired from his job because he was a ferverent Scientologist. He WAS trying to missionize on the job and that was the firm's reasoning behind the firing...how badly it made the company look because only a nut job could believe in XYZ. The Boston Legal attorney gave a rousing closing argument framed somewhat like my own, in plain language he pretty much summed up ALL religions in a way that put them on equal NUTSO footing with Scientology and that IS what it is..nothing more or less. One does not have to BELIEVE in anything.

As far as my job? In publishing, ESPECIALLY educational publishing we go to great lengths to make certain information is as accurate and up-to-date as possible. I recently had an author fired. I caught him plagerizing and to add insult to injury he used wikipedia as a source. A few weeks later we were "auditioning" another author for a law book. Caught him plagerizing...straight from Wikipedia. He did not get the job. We are vigourous in the defense of what IS known and try to keep up to date (new editions all the time) with new things. What I don't like is our uni-history books, but that is another story.

I am not going to my friend's site to evaluate "proof" I am going to go see with my own eyes what comes out of the ground. I won't need an expert to tell me that such and such cannot be real and is a fake because they cannot read it or there is no possible way it can be where it was found because WE know it isn't possible. I know my friend can barely write in English thus if he pulls anything out of the ground (for instance plates such as the Detroit finds) I am going to know it cannot be a fraud because he does not have the skills needed to perpetrate it. I may not be able to understand the why's or how's, I will most certainly not be able to interpret or put it in context but I will KNOW applying the rule of law...that it is not a fraud.

No one has stepped away from the plate and said..Ok I see the photos of the Borrow's cave "finds"...did Burrows possess the skills needed to perpetrate such a fraud..and if it was fraud, what was the motive? What did he gain from such? For instance, the forger in the ossuary case had been making quite a living selling fakes and original antiquities, he was not new to the game and was known as a forger to those who police such issues, in his case, it is clear what the motive was $$$. Such is the motive in forgery in the art and antiques world. Applying the rule of law and using applied logic we can investigate intellectually means and motive without every personally seeing or handling the evidence. Asking WHY and analyzing what we know about Borrows should be enough to get the mental juices going.

Who, (if we were to call Club members to investigate) is going to be called "an expert" in something completly unkown? Isn't the unknown routinely panned until someone figures it out? Remember all of the intelligent comments about fight, computers, television, even space travel? LOL I bet those naysayers could have crawled under a rock. WHAT IF thinking is how we have managed to stumble as far as we have.

There can be no other possible explanation for the construction of a 27 million dollar creation museum that depicts Noah loading Dinosaur eggs on the ark. There is no truth in that museum. IN an environment in which 27 million dollars has been spent to perpetrate a lie don't talk to me about what mainstream science, which has little to do with actual science and EVERYTHING to do with preserving egos, myths, and MONEY...because mainstream science has been remarkably silent on this ridiculous monstroscity just like they are silent on all the other mysteries.

In fairness, clubs, we do live in a semi-free society and if some Fundie nutjob wants to piss away $27 million ( or $127 million) of private funds to demonstrate religious stupidity they have that right. No one is forcing you to attend or do other then denounce them for being fools if you so wish. The same people who subject their children to this nonsense are probably pouring this Fundie shit into their ears on a daily basis anyway.
I grant you that if someone opened the "Adolf Hitler - What A Great Guy" Museum there would be protests and riots and massive press coverage but that is the society we live in.

Yeah I know Min...freedom of...whatever the hell it is.

Back on Burrow's Cave I ran into this synposium...anyone know about these folks?

http://www.midwesternepigraphic.org/symp07.html

On another note...ran across an obscure Indian legend that I am in the process of tracking down. Harrodsbugh Ky. Long story short the Pawnee Indians and other Indian groups hunted in but did not LIVE in that area because of the white ghosts. Story has it that white men (pre columbus) lived in that area and they all died..and Indians had been afraid to live there since. (Paraphrased.) When the first white settlers came they did not encounter Indian resistance, Indians thought they were crazy to want to live there. There was a deal in which the settlers were to remain unmolested as long as they stayed on the KY side of the Ohio river...

I need to track down the source of this legend. Anyone else heard of this or something similar?

Also, does anyone have access to Jstor?

http://www.tony5m17h.net/EtowahMounds.html

Here's some legend material from Georgia...interestingly enough, different Indians, same description.

"Testimony includes a letter dated 1810 from Governor John Seiver of Tennessee in response to an inquiry by Major Amos Stoddard. The letter, a copy of which is on file at the Georgia Historical Commission, recounts a 1782 conversation Sevier had with then 90-year-old Oconosoto, a Cherokee, who had been the ruling chief of the Cherokee Nation for nearly sixty years. Seiver had asked the Chief about the people who had left the "fortifications" in his country. The chief told him ... that he "... had heard his grandfather and father say they were a people called Welsh, and that they had crossed the Great Water and landed first near the mouth of the Alabama River near Mobile. ..."... He called their leader "Modok."

"Could the Iron found in some Mounds have been due to Iron Technology brought in by the Welsh? ]"

"Chief Oconostota, in relating his tribal history, tells of the war that had existed for years between the White people who had built the forts and the Cherokee. Eventually a treaty was reached in which the Whites agreed to leave the area and never return. According to Oconostota, the Whites followed the Tennessee River down to the Ohio, up the Ohio to the Missouri, then up the Missouri ". . .for a great distance. . .but they are no more White people; they are now all become Indians...." ... by the early eighteenth century very few traces of their Welsh ancestry remained.

Although several tribes have been considered as possible descendants of the Welsh settlers, the most likely is the Mandan tribe, who once inhabited villages along tributaries of the Missouri River. These Mandan villages were visited in 1738 by a French explorer, The Sieur de la Verendrye, and he kept a detailed journal describing the people and their villages. At the time of Verendrye's visit, the tribe numbered about 15,000 and occupied eight permanent villages. The Mandan chief told him that the tribe's ancestors had formerly lived much farther south but had been driven north and west by their enemies. Verendrye described the Mandans as "white men with forts, towns and permanent villages laid out in streets and squares." ... Like so many other Indian tribes, they did not survive the smallpox epidemic introduced to them by traders in 1837. Now considered extinct, the Mandans do however, lay claim to the distinction of being the only Indian tribe never to have been at war with the United States. ...".