#pseudoarchaeology

[creature-wizard]

You really need to watch that show ancient apocalypse

You mean that show that platformed Graham Hancock's bullshit? No thanks, I already know that Graham Hancock is... well, full of shit.

How about you watch Miniminuteman's takedown instead?

#answered #graham hancock #ancient apocalypse #pseudohistory #pseudoscience #science #history #archaeology #pseudoarchaeology

[cannibalcaprine]

for the love of fuck, one of the most agonizing parts of the "ancient astronauts" or "ancient civilizations" theories is the idea that, since you see pyramids all around the world, there must've been ONE CIVILIZATION building EVERY PYRAMID

LIKE

NO

PYRAMIDS AREN'T HARD TO COME UP WITH

THEY'RE GIANT BRICK TRIANGLES, THEY'RE REALLY STRUCTURALLY SOUND AND STAY AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OF COURSE TONS OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE WOULD COME UP WITH THEM

#I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD #fucking #mom turned on that ''ancient apocalypse'' show and we've been making fun of the pseudoarchaeology #but good fucking stars it's agitating sometimes #ancient astronauts #pseudoarchaeology

[flintdibble]

One day the truth will come out...

and people wonder why archaeologists point out how pseudoarchaeology robs heritage from other people

obviously to this person, the older 'civilization' who built the sphinx and the pyramids weren't even Egyptians...

#archaeology #pseudoarchaeology #sphinx #pyramids #lost civilization #ancient egypt #Youtube

[chaotic-archaeologist]

stuff like ancient aliens/Atlantis is hogwash at best dangerous at worst but what your opinion on it in fiction?

First, for those who are wondering, here's a previous post I made about why stuff like this is harmful. Additionally, here's a good article about how the Nazis incorporated Atlantis into their racist ideology.

I was actually just having this conversation with somebody else. There are some things that I think will always be harmful, even if you remove them from their source material. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull just didn't need to be made.

But let's talk about a different example that falls more into a grey area:

That's right, Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). It has some of the problematic elements that we see in a lot of the conspiracy theories: Atlantis is a lost civilization which possesses advanced technology that has since been lost. And of course, an anthropologist working for the Smithsonian is going to go and find it! (The Smithsonian is an institution which was founded in the deeply colonial and ethnocentric tradition of anthropology in the 19th century United States)

However, the redeeming quality of this movie is that it's not a narrative that lends itself easily to a message of white supremacy. A lot of thought went into making this movie, and I think that it's a good example of a concept that could have been harmful if poorly done. The myth of Atlantis wasn't originally a racist story, and so it can be adapted in a way that isn't harmful.

The moral of the story here is that fiction needs to tread carefully. If the underlying concept is based in racism, then you probably shouldn't do it. And if it has anything to do with aliens interacting with past civilizations, you definitely shouldn't do it.

-Reid

#he speaks #atlantis #ancient aliens #pseudoarchaeology

[victusinveritas]

#ancient egypt #pseudoarchaeology

[krindor]

So re your tags on the pope post...

Where's the menorah krindor?

So, starting at the very beginning.

70 CE: Titus sacks Jerusalem and loots the Second Temple. In his triumph (fancy war parade) he has the Menorah, as is recorded by Josephus Flavius in 71 CE and by the Arch of Titus' reliefs in 81 CE

The Menorah is displayed in the Tempulum Pacis in Rome, and 2nd century CE Rabbis claim to have seen it in Rome, as well as various other artifacts from the desroyed temple including the parochet and the choshen.

Now here's the thing. This is the last time historical texts mention the Menorah by name so everything below here needs to be taken with an increasing pile of salt

410 CE: The Visigoths sack Rome. Procipius of Ceasarea (500-560), a Byzantine Historian, writes that the Visigoths take "treasures of Solomon the King of the Hebrews." If this includes the Menorah, the trail goes cold. So that's it right? The Menorah got taken to a secondary location and was lost forever, right?

Wrong, because that's not the only time Procipius mentions Jewish Temple loot.

425 CE: The Vandals sack Rome again, to the point where the word vandalize comes from it. Procipius notes that their leader, Geiseric, takes "a huge amount of imperial treasure" with him to Carthage, which was at that time the Vandal capital.

Trust me this is relevant

534 CE: The Byzantine Emperor Justinian sacks Carthage, and they hold a triumph in Constantinople. Among the paraded items are "treasures of the Jews, which Titus, the son of Vespasian, together with certain others, had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem”

That these "treasures of the Jews" include the Menorah is not a new theory, as is indicated in the 19th century painting Geiseric sacking Rome by Karl Bryullov

(Note the Menorah)

So it's in Istanbul right?

Wrong, because our boy Procipius isn't done yet: according to him, Justinian sent the "treasures of the Jews" to Christian sanctuaries in Jerusalem, since he heard that they were cursed that any city save Jerusalem that held them was doomed to be sacked.

This is the last time the "treasures of the Jews" are mentioned in historical texts.

So for our next step, lets look at major churches in Jerusalem in the 6th century, and officially enter the cork-board and string section of this rant post.

As well as the extant Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Hagia Sion Basilica, and the Church of the Holy Apostles, Justinian built a church himself in the city, called the Nea, in 534 CE, just nine years after sacking Carthage. It would not be unreasonable that he'd send the Menorah to his own church, so we can theorize that it's in the Nea for the remainder of the 6th century (there are, of course, problems with relying on one historian's account of these things, but this is for fun, not a published article)

So that's it? It's in one of the churches of Jerusalem?

...

So in 614 CE Jerusalem gets sacked by the Sasanian/Persian Empire, who according to historical records destroy all the churches.

Now here's the thing. Recent archaeological evidence gives rise to the possibility that our Byzantine historical sources are trying to stir up outrage against the Sasanians: While mass graves dating to around 614 CE were found, the churches and Christian residential neighborhoods were barely, if at all, damaged, and the Nea itself was very possibly completely undamaged. This is, however, a recent theory, and the academics are still hashing it out.

So it may be in one of the churches of Jerusalem?

Tragically, even if the 614 siege didn't get the churches, in 1009 the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed all churches, synagogues, and many religious artifacts of both Christians and Jews in Jerusalem. So if by some miracle the Menorah had survived until this point, if it was in Jerusalem it was most likely destroyed.

But that's disappointing, and what's a good conspiracy theory without going a step or two beyond what is reasonable?

Apparently, while the churches, synagogues and most of the artifacts were destroyed, at least in the case of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, objects that could be carried away were looted, rather than destroyed. And if we know anything about the Menorah at this point, that thing is certainly able to be carried away by people.

If the Menorah was looted rather than destroyed, it's not unreasonable that it would have made it's way to the Fatimid capital of Cairo. However, as the historical record dried up some 500 years beforehand, beyond this point it's unreasonable to attempt to track the Menorah.

So that's it. If the Menorah wasn't destroyed it most likely made its way to Egypt and was lost or destroyed there.

Is what I'd say if I wasn't so far down this rabbit hole I was beyond reason. Because as we all know there's one place that has all the significant treasures of Cairo and a penchant for looting:

The British Museum

#i cant in good conscience call this either archaeology or history #anyway this is very unhinged but was fun to research #pseudoarchaeology #pseudohistory #jewish stuff

[sumerianlanguage]

Hello, could you help me with a answer to a belief that is raising in various chat groups online. Recently I watched a lecture where an individual claimed that the Egyptian language is the father of the Sumerian language. That assertion is based on his "comparative historical linguistics" where the word "km.T" the original name of Egypt, is "cognate" with the Sumerian word "ki.duru", the claim is that both means "riparian land", wet, irrigation. Quote: duru[5] is the proposed cognate with km The morpheme denoting place is ki- in Sumerian but -t in Egyptian, that is to say toponymic morphemes giving the proposal of ki.duru & km.t. This comes only after a systematic analysis of the sound meaning correspondences between the two language via a large set of core vocabulary of each.

I find this to be an interesting belief, but would love to know if it's true from those more familiar with Sumerian language and history.

Thanks in advance

I hesitated to answer this question publicly because this claim is so incredibly wrong and unsupported by any linguistic evidence that I'm loath to even have my regular readers seeing it. Unfortunately archaeolinguistics is filled with misinformation and charlatanry, and the idea that Sumerian is “related” to Ancient Egyptian is just another example of this.

Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language, related (in a demonstrable way supported by credible linguistics) to modern Arabic, Hebrew, Hausa and Amharic, as well as to Akkadian, which coexisted with Sumerian. But Sumerian itself is distinctly not an Afroasiatic language, and has completely unrelated grammar, native vocabulary, etc. Claiming that there is “systematic analysis of the sound meaning correspondences” is completely untrue - as evidenced by the fact this person can give one (false) “example”, and no others at all!

For an example of how this kind of thinking is totally false, I recommend this article by Mark Rosenfelder, which “demonstrates” that Quechua and Semitic languages are “related”, which they obviously are not, using the same “random matching” quoted above (and debunks such an attempt). Maybe when you see this falsehood spread online, you can share a link to the article as well.

And to everyone reading this, please be very careful when anyone “claims” that Sumerian is related to another language. Very often, they are (at best) not sharing truthful materials, or often have ulterior motives - you can find “information” out there that Sumerian is related to any of a vast number of other languages, often from nationalists of those linguistic communities who want to lend credence to some racist or prejudiced historical argument by tying their language to Sumerian. I receive such asks (on this platform and others) often, and have learned to delete them right away rather than lend a moment to such nonsense.

Be careful out there; misinformation lurks around every corner!

#pseudoarchaeology #pseudo-Sumerian #pseudolinguistics #misinformation

[archaeologysucks]

Help. I am spending a week with my parents, and my mother is reading a book by Graham fucking Hancock.

#just archaeologist things #pseudoarchaeology #whyyyyyyyy

[eloranerd]

#pseudoarchaeology #out of character. #youtube #shorts #funny #tumblr fyp #sillyposting

[evilios]

I'm not in the mood for full-on "debunking" but you guys should stop using ancientorigins as your archeological source. Most of their content is rehosted from other sources or you can find much better articles on other sources about the same issue. Also, they post a concerning amount of pseudoarchaeology and pseudoscience, such as "Peruvian three-fingered humanoids" and Atlantis. They are big on Ancient Aliens and not worth your time.

#SOLAR FLARE : TEXT #pseudoscience #pseudoarchaeology #I don't recall if I interacted with them before but the moment I saw them post a bullshit-ridden 'article' on 'Sicilian Pyramids' #full of empty 'it looks like X' claims I went to check and they are not a legitimate source for like anything.

[creature-wizard]

https://youtu.be/U8NNHmV3QPw?si=6aInyR5QVTAT3z0R Watch if you're bored but you might be surprised 🤷🏻‍♀️.

It's about spirit science

GHJKSD when you said this video was about Spirit Science, I thought you were gonna like, link to a video talking about how the Spirit Science guy Jordan Duchnycz is a rapist or his weird obsession with Emma Watson or his antisemitic claim that Jews come from another planet. I didn't expect you were going to link to like, an actual Spirit Science video.

In brief, what Jordan's putting out here is straight-up baloney. A lot of it's pretty bog-standard New Age pseudohistory based on unsubstantiated conjecture, misinterpretation of various mythological traditions, and shit somebody just pulled straight from their ass. Not only is there no actual evidence to support any of the stuff he's putting out there, the actual evidence we do have inevitably precludes it.

Here are some links that explain why and how we know that people like Jordan are just wrong:

The Sirius Mystery: did the Dogon know about Sirius B?

The Truth About Atlantis

Atlantis @ Bad Archaeology

The Weird Case of Atlantis-Mu in the Madrid Codex

Lemuria, the weirdest continent that never existed

Naacal @ Wikipedia

Close encounters of the racist kind

The Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis Is Racist And Harmful

Zechariah Sitchin @ Bad Archaeology

"The Emerald Tablets of Thoth": A Lovecraftian Plagiarism

Left- vs. Right-Brained: Why the Brain Laterality Myth Persists

Are the Egyptian pyramids aligned with the stars?

Criticisms of Drunvalo Melchizedek @ Wikipedia

Detailed deconstruction of the "face" and pyramids on Mars claims

"Christ" @ Wiktionary

"Allah" @ Wiktionary

Charles Hapgood @ Wikipedia

It’s better light, not worse behaviour, that explains crimes on a full Moon

Sphinx water erosion hypothesis @ Wikipedia

Egyptian Hieroglyphs @ World History Encyclopedia

Predynastic Period in Egypt @ World History Encyclopedia

Sumer @ World History Encyclopedia

Debunking the Myth: The Council of Nicaea and the Formation of the Biblical Canon

First Council of Nicaea @ Encyclopedia Britannica

Did Jesus Go to India? A Modern Gospel Forgery

Also, the fact that Jordan appeals to channeled information is a massive red flag. Channeling is fun and sometimes produces some interesting things, but a source of reliable information it is not.

He also claims that a pole reversal makes the planet start spinning the other way, which is literally not how pole reversals work at all.

And of course, Jason's claim that thirteen powerful families are controlling the world is that general conspiracy theory shit derived from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, early modern witch panic, and blood libel. The whole thirteen families thing in particular comes from Fritz Springmeier, a far right conspiracy theorist who proudly cites other hateful kooks like Edith Starr Miller and Alexander Hislop and basically claims anything that isn't good wholesome Christian entertainment is actually Satanic programming.

Basically, Jordan Duchnycz is just another New Age conspiracy theorist pushing the same old garbage as loads of others like him.

#answered #spirit science #jordan duchnycz #jordan spiritpatch #conspiracy theories #conspiracy theory #conspiracism #conspirituality #ancient aliens #ancient astronauts #ancient astronaut hypothesis #aliens #extraterrestrials #pseudohistory #history #pseudoscience #science #pseudoarchaeology #archaeology #new age #new agers #atlantis #lemuria #resources

[lone-gunwoman-of-the-week]

A debunking thread about Graham Hancock's new show, "Ancient Apocalypse" on Netflix, by an actual archaeologist.

#archaeology #graham hancock #ancient apocalypse #pseudoarchaeology

[flintdibble]

Terry Pratchett taking on pseudoarchaeology pyramid facts way back in 1986 (from The Light Fantastic)

#The sun is an orange #terry pratchett #archaeology #pseudoarchaeology #pyramids #the light fantastic

[chaotic-archaeologist]

please say more about Thor Heyerdahl? I was fascinated by his books as a kid, but have no clue about the veracity of his theories

Thor Heyerdahl was a big proponent of hyperdiffusionism, the idea that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures.

The problem with this pseudoarchaeological hypothesis is that it entirely fails to account for people's ability to independently come up with similar concepts.

It also tends to play into a very Eurocentric belief that 'culture' and 'technology' originated in Classical civilizations and/or Europe rather than acknowledging that many other groups all over the world are perfectly capable of coming up with amazing feats of culture.

Here's an article that does a good job summarizing what's wrong with Heyerdahl's work, but the TL;DR is that he wasn't doing good science. All of his experiments were specifically designed to confirm the possibility of his hypotheses rather than actually employing the scientific method. Also, he would have been well served to like... do some ethnographic research and talk to the people he was studying. That would have been a lot more productive.

-Reid

#he speaks #he answers #archaeology #pseudoarchaeology #thor heyerdahl #kon tiki

[victusinveritas]

"Nobody knows what this structure is."

*You tell them what it was, a fireplace, and presumably prove it with some sort of evidence like showing them literally any other fireplace.*

"Truly it will remain a mystery and is clearly evidence of a lost culture covered up by nefarious forces. It's obviously the top of a lost Tartarian temple. A beacon that could be seen for miles around when the glowing Tartarian prayer-force of the devout worshippers flowed through it before the great Mud Flood--"

*You remember that Pennsylvania did actually have a great mud flood of sorts, but by that point you've already disposed of the evidence and established an ironclad alibi so oops. No jury in the land would convict you once anyone mentioned the word "Tartarian." Had to be done, heck, they'll probably give you a medal.*

#pseudoarchaeology #tartaria #mud flood #idiocy #tartaria: not even once #unless you are referring to the area that is now Kazakhstan in historical fiction

[midshipmank]

so now not only are y’all reblogging blatantly fake oscar wilde quotes onto my dash, but also news articles published by fucking ancient origins? give me a fucking break

#some of y’all can be so stupid sometimes #pseudoarchaeology