Misplaced Artifacts: Finds that have baffled scientists and made a change in the way of history

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

On April 4, 1900, scientists discovered an ancient Roman ship that sank in the Aegean Sea. For almost a year, divers raised finds from the bottom, many of which have become pearls of museum collections: bronze and marble statues, remains of furniture, household items and even a small bronze lyre. However, archaeologists soon discovered something strange among the wreckage: details of a complex mechanical device made of bronze. The finds were dated to about 100 BC. According to scientists, there simply could not have been any such mechanical devices at that time. Riddles like the Antikythera Mechanism began to be called irrelevant artifacts in the middle of the 20th century.

The Antikythera Mechanism exemplifies how one find can influence scientific thinking. After many years of research and deciphering the half-erased inscriptions on the plates, scientists still had to admit that they had before them an ancient device for calculating the motion of celestial bodies, which made it possible to find out the date of 42 astronomical events. Mentions of such machines were found in the literature, but only written 400-500 years later. Since the middle of the 20th century, archaeologists and mechanics have studied individual discs, conducted X-ray studies, and later computed tomography.

Having reconstructed the most complex device (it consisted of 37 parts in total), in 2016 scientists finally came to the conclusion that in front of them is a calendar, as well as an astronomical, meteorological and cartographic device. It is called today the most ancient example of an analog computing mechanism. It was made in 100-150 BC. on the island of Rhodes. This find forced historians to significantly revise their ideas about the technologies and knowledge of ancient civilizations.

However, this is not always the case. Misplaced artifacts are too often rendered when checked by natural objects. Sometimes the fossilized remains of plants or rare geological formations really look like parts of mechanisms or objects hand-made by people. A striking example is the Trochites - fossilized segments of the stems of crinoids (sea lilies), they are often mistaken for ancient gears or cogwheels.

And the so-called Klerksdorp balls have long been considered objects made by representatives of mysterious ancient civilizations, because they are found in layers of sediments about three billion years old. Then scientists proved that in fact these strange even balls with notches are mineral nodules formed by nature, but in the pseudoscientific literature you can still find their description as proof of the existence of antediluvian technogenic civilizations.

Sometimes the "irrelevance" of an artifact is explained by the fact that from a modern point of view we underestimate the ingenuity of the ancient builders. Indeed, sometimes solutions that are very simple from a technical point of view can turn out to be so effective that they seem to be a real miracle from the outside. For example, in 1986, Czech engineer Pavel Pavel, together with Thor Heyerdahl, proved that the famous statues on Easter Island could be moved in a simple but ingenious way - tilted (rolled from one side to the other). 17 people, using only ropes, quickly enough forced the 10-ton stone giant to "walk". This is exactly how, by the way, they moved from the quarry to the place of installation, according to ancient legends - "they walked on their own."

Of course, the subject of bizarre historical finds is a fertile field for crooks of all sorts. The forgeries made by them sometimes amaze the imagination of the masses. The most famous example in this case is the history of the Crystal Skulls, which, from the middle of the 19th century, sometimes began to surface among traders of pre-Columbian antiquities. Only in the XX century it was possible to establish that these "rarities" have nothing to do with the civilizations of the Aztecs, Mayans and Olmecs. Even the quartz itself, from which they are made, turned out to be from Europe. However, these modern forgeries were so popular with everyone that at the time of exposure they were real celebrities. The image of an ancient crystal skull is still actively exploited in popular culture.

Science does not stand still, but there are still a number of historical artifacts that, despite all modern research methods, cannot be called otherwise "inappropriate". Scientists really cannot determine what it is or argue about the level of development of technology in a particular period. Moreover, the number of such strange finds is quite large. The disc of Sabu, megaliths like Puma Punku in South America or Baalbek's terraces with the South Stone in the Middle East - all these mysteries are still waiting for their researchers, who will explain how and why the ancient masters managed to build this.