Archaeologica.org

I thought the group might enjoy my new publication that examines the evidence for the Minoan Peak Sanctuaries actually being communication centers that used bronze and silver mirrors flashing redirected sunlight as their signaling mechanism. As with all of my scientific publications it's freely available to everyone on my website.

The Minoan Web of Mirrors and Scripts

If anyone has any doubt at all in the possibility of this please take a look at the following YouTube video by Richard A. Fowell. It shows a tiny 3x5 inch (7.6 x 12.7 cm) hand-held mirror flashing redirected sunlight through the haze across the Los Angeles Basin in California from 43 miles (69.2 km) away.

Survival Signal Mirror Flashes at 0.7, 11.1, 43 miles

Best,
W. Sheppard Baird

P.S. As always quality fresco imagery is freely available.

Very interesting premise, Samra, and well laid out. Thanks for posting.

How about other early civilizations in highly accidental terrains. Like the Inca, Moche, etc. etc. in the Andes? Did they know/use mirrors?

Thanks, I'm really glad you liked it. I haven't looked at anything in the Americas for this so have no idea, but I'm looking at the possibility the Bronze Age El Argar in Spain may have been using mirrors on their tholos Motilla fortress towers. Also the tholos Nuraghes on Sardinia may have served the same purpose.

I've read that when the British were doing their geodesic survey of India in the 19th century they built many 50 ft. high stone towers for optical sighting from point to point.

If nothing else, this may explain the surveying method for those arrow straight “roads” in the US southwest.

kbs2244 wrote:If nothing else, this may explain the surveying method for those arrow straight “roads” in the US southwest.

In that case it may also explain Schiaparelli's canals...

Hi Baird -

A really brilliant insight. I am really enjoying reading through your site, and will make some more comments on it here tonight as I continue reading through it.

Some additional info you are not aware of. It seems that you have not read Robert Temple's book "The Crystal Sun", with its catalogue of "Minoan" lenses and his observations there on ancient long range optical communication. Your own insights fit nicely with his.

It also appears that you are unfamiliar with Dr. Brown's work on Linear A, and his rather complete "breaking" of that writing system. Also, the "Minoan" Hieroglyphic of the Phaistos Disk can be read on an ideographic level using Laroche's "Hittite Hieroglyphic" values.

The city on the east side of the House of the Admiral's miniature fresco is Troy, Wilusa, Ilios, in my opinion. Note the sun emblem on the bow of the ship, and the canal system around the Dardenelles. The other side shows the island of Thera, as Marinatos pointed out.

"Minoan" civilization does not collapse in 1628 BCE, but rather after LM1B ca 1585 BCE, with the destruction of their military forces while they are fighting as appenage forces to/with T'e Hantilishi. See:
1998-2002
On the Joshua impact event
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc032098.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc032598.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc033098.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc012102.html
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc021202.html

I believe the LM1B style represents a kind of welfare system for the eruption survivors (the deaf and lame are put to work making very intricately painted pots), and the LM1B fire destruction simply represents the arrival of the Achaeans, and of course this all simply infuriates modern Israeli archaeologists, and those who suck up to them, like Younger, but I call it like I see it. I did really enjoy watching Bietek cut Cline a new one several years back, though.

On the other hand I have been wrong before, and reserve the right to be wrong both now and in the future. Ultimately the data decides.

More later....

Hi Baird -

I am really enjoying your site, and here's more info you may find useful.

Man is in boats by 60,000 BCE in Asia, and likely well before that from the recent data from Taiwan. We now have possible dates from Crete ca. 100,000 BCE

The first expansion you are looking for most likely occurred when the Black Sea flooded ca. 10,900 BCE, in response to the YD impacts. You must allow for the post YD sea rise in trying to date the spread of tech by sites - the earliest sites are underwater. They were X mt DNA, the folks who later resisted the Atlantic spread ca. 5,600 BCE you mention, my guess.

Great celestial navigation summary - thanks.

Any technology developed within the area of sea borne trade would rapidly spread.
Polished stone tool and serated edge stone tool tech are the first techs to track. The early use of cold finish copper is interesting - thanks for the sites.

The pottery, cattle, and planking is all good info - thanks.

Stonehenge 1 is ca 3114 BCE, if I remember right - you may want to check.

The island of Malta is entirely depopulated by impact at 2,360 BCE. You should check the Malta sequence, IMO. The "Minoans" weren't the only mariners around.

By the way, you may want to consider meteoritic iron as a very early material for making mirrors and tools. Of course, it would not survive as artifact.

Early first growth forests provided trees large enough to the construction of ocean going dug-outs. You ring them, then use coals to drop them and hollow them out. As large trees ran out, smaller trees were joined together for the dug-out. This appears to have preceded the plank techniques.

You should check Tunny fisheries as spread routes - these were maritime peoples.

Any idea where the arsenic came from? Great insight you have there on hardness and tool making, and true planking.

It appears sails were known very VERY early on in SE Asia. more...

Hi Baird -

Great site you have there.

The best chronology available for the Bronze Age is here:
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... =10&t=2247

The real problem in sorting this all out is the lack of written records from the Levantine coast, and even if they come in, they are likely to be hotly contested, even if explicitly clear.

My guess is that the Peleset were the same as the Paluili, neighbors to the Lukka, the speakers of Luwili.

Broadly, I really admire your hypothesis as to migrations, and your blunt look at genocidal wars.
In an age of diffusionism, that takes some guts.

Reality is seldom simple, and usually more complex than we ever imagined.

Thanks again for all the Spanish materials. Any signs there of a massive cultural setback around 1000 BCE?

Gave you given any thought to the Scottish Brochs (spell)?

Ah, but E.P. you seem to have forgotten that the YD impacts were recently discredited.


http://www.physorg.com/news202382634.html



or so this guy claims.

Good morning, Min -

This is as good a place as any to respond to this, and other stories like it.

Finding the YD layer at a site, sampling the YD layer at a site, and processing the samples is not a trivial task. None of the steps are. The work is duplicable, but the methods must be taught.

The Mesolithic migrations out of the Black Sea region are another element pointing to a rather rapid change. Baird's tracing of the effects of those migrations is very insightful, as is his analysis of line of sight communication systems.

Both sides cannot be right. Either there are nanodiamonds or there aren't.

Personally, I can't believe that Firestone et al could make such a mistake.

I'm really pleased you liked the website, E. P. I'm very busy right now organizing mirror range testing in the Aegean so I can't possibly address all of your comments right now. I'll try my best as time allows.

I have hear of Temple's work "The Crystal Sun" but have not read the book. My knowledge of ancient lens is mainly based on Jay Enoch's publications. His "First known lenses originating in Egypt about 4600 years ago" (1999) is a good one. In it he shows the difference between the Egyptian and Minoan crystal lens (Figure 3B). Both of these lens have a flat (planar) side with the other convex shaped but the Egyptian lens also has a concavity in the center of its planar side. This was to create the "illusion of the moving eye" on some of the faces of its sculptures (ex. "Le Scribe Accroupi" from Saqqara in the Louvre) but could not have been used as an effective telescopic lens.

The Minoan lens on the other hand had a true convex-planar shape and a combination of two of these lens could have been used to construct a refracting telescope similar to the one Johannes Kepler made in 1611. But the simple fact is that I didn't need any optical aids for the mirror network in the Aegean to work and had no desire to needlessly complicate my paper. My only requirement was for a solar link of 80 miles to work with an appropriately sized mirror and the naked eye from the high elevations of the Aegean peaks. Sometimes you can more quickly achieve progress if you take it one step at a time.

Very best to you E. P. and to all. I hope this helps.

Sheppard Baird
The Minoan Web of Mirrors & Scripts

Thanks, Shephard.

My guess is that everyone is going to be surprised at the antiquity of the use of these optical communication networks.

E.P. Grondine - Man and Impact in the Americas
&
E.P. Grondine & Fletcher Wilson - A Guide to Serpent Mound

Sheppard - By the way, not only is that the sun (Helios, Ilios) on the large ship, the lions on the prow carry a value of "urmah", for the O-U medial vowel preceding the tribe (nation) in the king's title. In other word, in my opinion, you're looking at the King of Wilusa's boat, and he's heading to Thera for the regularly scheduled meeting of the kings of the Lycian trade federation.

Thanks,
Ed

Sheppard -

While my memory is not what is used to be since my stroke, the canal system in the Troad is shown in a French survey map from the late 1800's in Peter James' book "The Sunken KIngdom"
This is NOT to say that I agree with his argument that Atlantis was Troy; my argument that Atlantis was Plato's creation is given in my own book "Man and Impact in the Americas".

The recent finds of copper working ca 5500 BCE in Serbia are quite interesting:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/World-s-o ... 26425.aspx