It’s not always true that the most fascinating discoveries in the world of archaeology are also the most recent, but the most recent are often the most special. After all, you only get to tell or hear a story for the first time once!
We know that this will be your first time hearing many of the stories mentioned in the video below, so make sure you watch it till the end!
Archaeologists in Switzerland have come across a truly baffling, yet potentially very important, discovery buried within an ancient grave: a 3,500-year-old bronze hand with a gold cuff around the wrist.
The set of objects found in the tomb of Prêles: a dagger blade, a brooch, and a spiral serving as a hair ornament, all in bronze. The pieces of gold plate probably come from the hand. ©Archaeological Service of the Canton of Berne/Philippe Joner
By TOM HALE
Nothing like this has ever been unearthed in this part of Europe, so the researchers are not exactly sure what they are dealing with. It certainly seems to be a symbol of power, but it’s unclear whether it was once part of a larger sculpture or if it's the top ornament of a staff.
The Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern is currently carrying out a detailed scientific analysis of the curious object and says all questions will be answered within just a few months.
Preliminary carbon dating determined that the hand dates back to between 1,500 and 1,400 BCE, around the Middle Bronze Age of Europe. This dating suggests that it’s perhaps the world’s oldest bronze piece representing a part of the human body. If it is indeed a sculpture, it might even be the oldest bronze sculpture in Europe.
"To the knowledge of Swiss, German and French specialists, there has never been a comparable sculpture dating from the Bronze Age in Central Europe,” the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern said in a press release.
“It is, therefore, a unique and remarkable object.”
The so-called “hand of Prêles” was first discovered near Lake Biel in the western province of Bern in the fall of 2017 alongside a bronze dagger blade and a human rib. Then, in the summer of 2018, archaeologists working on the site discovered the skeletal remains of an adult man that appeared to be buried over a much older stone construction. His tomb also contained a bronze brooch, a bronze hair ornament, and remnants of gold plate, perhaps also once part of the bronze hand.
By uncovering the identity of this mysterious man, the researchers hope that they might be able to decipher the meaning behind the unusual bronze hand.
“He must have been a high-ranking character,” added the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern.
“It is still too early to determine whether the hand was made in the Three-Lakes region or in a more distant country. We know neither the meaning nor the function attributed to it. Its gold ornament suggests that it is an emblem of power, a distinctive sign of the social elite, even of a deity.”
(Christoph Gerigk/Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation)
A sunken ship found in the Nile river may have lain undisturbed for over 2,500 years, but now it is finally ponying up its secrets. Scientists think that this ship has revealed a structure whose existence has been debated for centuries.
In fragment 2.96 of Herodotus' Histories, published around 450 BCE, the Ancient Greek historian - who was writing about his trip to Egypt - describes a type of Nile cargo boat called a baris.
According to his portrayal, it was constructed like brickwork, lined with papyrus, and with a rudder that passed through a hole in the keel.
This steering system had been seen in representations and models through the Pharaonic period - but we had no firm archaeological evidence of its existence until now.
Enter Ship 17, of the now-sunken port city Thonis-Heracleion near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile, dated to the Late Period, 664-332 BCE. Here, researchers have been exploring over 70 shipwrecks, discovering countless artefacts that reveal stunning details about the ancient trade hub and its culture.
Although it's been in the water for at least 2,000 years, the preservation of Ship 17 has been exceptional. Archaeologists were able to uncover 70 percent of the hull.
"It wasn't until we discovered this wreck that we realised Herodotus was right," archaeologist Damian Robinson of The Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology told The Guardian.
The ship displays several elements noted by Herodotus.
"The joints of the planking of Ship 17 are staggered in a way that gives it the appearance of 'courses of bricks', as described by Herodotus," wrote archaeologist Alexander Belov of the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in a 2013 paper.
"The planking of Ship 17 is assembled transversally by remarkably long tenons that can reach 1.99 m in length and that pass through up to 11 strakes. These tenons correspond to the 'long and close-set stakes' in Herodotus' narrative… Herodotus also mentions the baris' keel, and Ship 17 has a keel that is twice as thick as the planking and projects inside the hull."
There are some inconsistencies - the vessel Herodotus describes had shorter tenons, which acted like ribs holding together the acacia planks of the hull; and Herodotus' baris didn't have reinforcing frames, where Ship 17 had several.
Both of these can be explained if Ship 17, around 27 metres long, is bigger than Herodotus' baris.
"Herodotus describes the boats as having long internal ribs. Nobody really knew what that meant… That structure's never been seen archaeologically before," Robinson said.
"Then we discovered this form of construction on this particular boat and it absolutely is what Herodotus has been saying."
(Belov, IJNA, 2013)
And, of course, there's that splendid rudder, which is threaded through two holes in the stern. Placed one in front of the other, these holes seem to have allowed for better steering depending whether the ship is loaded with cargo.
According to these detailed findings, researchers believe that Ship 17 is so close to Herodotus' description that it could have been built in the same shipyard.
Belov's exploration of the ship's construction has been published in a monograph by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Ship 17: a baris from Thonis-Heracleion.
A 19-year-old American knifesmith has been forging knives since he was 12. Although young, his art and vision are not small. In the process of forging swords, he learned how to incorporate precious metals from meteorites into the sword.
This young knife maker is Bladesmith Tristan Dare, from Idaho, USA. For the past 5 years, he has been crafting artistic swords. Interestingly, he often incorporates ancient materials into his blades. His latest work, called Nebula (Nebula), was created from one of the oldest meteorites ever recorded, decorated with opal, gold and an ancient mammoth tusk.
At the beginning of 2022, Dare bought the meteorite Muonionalusta from Germany and started forging this beautiful sword with a water pattern. The Muonionalusta meteorite is more than 4.5 billion years old and is one of the oldest meteorites. It hit the Earth 1 million years ago, contained a liquid iron core and cooled down after 4 ice ages until it was discovered in 1906. Currently, there are only about 40 fragments left in the world, the cost is quite high.
Dare did not disclose how much he spent on forging the Nebula sword, but he said it cost several thousand dollars to buy the materials.
The iron crystals on this meteorite have perfectly symmetrical octahedral molecular patterns. These natural patterns often disappear during the fire-forging process, but Dare says he has found a way to keep them.
“These patterns are preserved in all the octahedral swords I have forged,” he said. As far as I know, there are less than 10 people in the world who can do this right now.”
He forges his knives at a temperature close to the melting point of steel, around 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), combining black steel with shiny nickel to form a beautiful flowing water figure of graceful beauty.
Dare decorated the hilt with a 20,000-year-old mammoth ivory, placed several opals along the Nebula blade to represent the stars inside the “Nebula”, and added 24 karat gold to the blade. to increase the splendor.
Nebula will be auctioned in October or November. Dare hopes collectors who own this treasure will value the story behind Nebula and its beautiful materials, “making it an heirloom that will be passed down from generation to generation.”
The Earth has been around for a long time, and we're constantly making new discoveries that have been lost or forgotten over the years.
Here are some of the Bizarre & Mysterious Discoveries :
Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd (23 January 1734 – 26 March 1804) was a Hungarian author and inventor, known for his "automaton" hoax, The Turk and for his speaking machine.
In this video we are talking about Von Kempelen’s chess-playing machine, The Turk, a chess-playing automaton presented to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1769. The machine consisted of a life-sized model of a human head and torso, dressed in Turkish robes and a turban, seated behind a large cabinet on top of which a chessboard was placed. The machine appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, but was in fact merely an elaborate simulation of mechanical automation: a human chess master concealed inside the cabinet puppeteered the Turk from below by means of a series of levers.
by Hestie Barnard Gerber - fact checked by Darci Heikkinen
The caves of the world contain some of the best ancient works of art ever created. Not all of them may be as spectacular as those of Altamira in Spain, which notably triggered Picasso to say that anything “after Altamira is only decadence.” They all do, however, offer understanding into the way our ancient ancestors thought, even though the works of art were created tens of thousands of years ago.
Worldwide, these ancient artworks also continue to be of particular significance to indigenous communities, who see them as an integral part of their spiritual and cultural heritage. It has also emerged as an essential source of cultural tourism and constitutes a crucial economic revenue in several countries around the globe. As we’ve looked at the oldest sculptures in the World recently, we now turn our attention to a list of the oldest cave paintings in the world.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Apollo 11 Cave lies about 160 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of the town of Keetmanshoop in southwestern Namibia. The surrounding region and, quite possibly, the cave was originally named “Goachanas” by the Nama people. However, the German archaeologist Wolfgang Erich Wendt was actively excavating inside the cave on July 24, 1969, when he learned of Apollo 11’s team’s safe return to Earth. He renamed the cave to celebrate the occasion.
The cave housed several of the oldest portable artworks in southern Africa, carbon-dated between 27,500 and 25,500 years old. The slabs of art discovered within the cave are commonly referred to as the Apollo 11 stones. In total, seven grey and brown quartzite slabs have been unearthed in the cave. Apart from the Apollo stones, the cave also contained numerous red and white paintings, which ranged from basic geometric shapes and patterns to images of bees, which can be a nuisance to unwary travelers to this day. Ancient artworks were also discovered in the form of engravings on the banks of a nearby river and on a massive limestone boulder a few feet from the cave’s entrance.
In 2006, Ray Whear, the Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation’s Cultural and Environmental Manager, observed the shadow of an unusually high rock shelter while doing a periodic aerial survey of the Arnhem Land Plateau in Australia. Whear asked the pilot to land the helicopter to take a closer look. After walking the short distance up to the rock shelter, the two men were amazed to find themselves inside a spectacular ancient gallery featuring more than 1,000 paintings.
The massive rock shelter lies on the territory belonging to the Buyhmi clan. A highly respected Aboriginal elder named Bardayal “Lofty” Nadjamerrek from Arnhem Land titled the site Nawarla Gabarnmang, which means “place of hole in the rock” in the Jawoyn language. The artworks have been mapped and carbon-dated since 2006 and have been confirmed to be the oldest ever to be discovered in Australia. Hundreds of vividly intertwined human, animal, fish, and dreamlike figures are on the shelter’s roof and pillars, all painted in radiant red, orange, white, and black pigments, portraying generation after generation of artworks comprising millennia.
Photo credit: Rodica Ceausu
In 2009, a team of French researchers and Romanian spelunkers discovered 32,000-year-old art in the Coliboaia cave. The subsequent studies and research have advanced the idea that prehistoric cultures across Europe shared a common artistic culture that may or may not have been linked. Prior to the discovery, Romania had only one site with prehistoric cave art, Cuciulat Cave, which showcased only two animal drawings. The remaining instances of cave paintings in the Far East are in Russia’s Ural Mountains, but neither is older than 14,000 years.
The Coliboaia Cave was actually discovered around the early 1980s, but its initial explorers did not find any prehistoric paintings. In fact, the cave is quite challenging to explore since many of its galleries are permanently flooded by an underground river. However, in 2009, spelunkers from several Romanian spelunking clubs decided to explore Coliboaia utilizing diving equipment and finally located the incredible cave art. Many of the paintings can only be seen by drifting in the water and sticking one’s head above the surface. Upward of half a dozen images were discovered, including a horse, two bear heads, a bison, and two rhinoceros heads, almost 100% similar to the imagery discovered to date in Western European caves.
The first documented figurative cave art in Europe dates back more than 30,000 years and can be found in Chauvet Cave in France. While many scientists believe that the artworks are too sophisticated for this period, over 80 radiocarbon dates were collected by 2011, with tests conducted on everything from torch tracks to paintings, bone fragments, and charcoal recovered from the cave floor. The radiocarbon records from the collected samples indicate two creation phases in Chauvet. The first was around 35,000 years ago, and the second was 30,000 years ago. Another surprising finding was that some of the artworks were continuously revised over thousands of years, which explained the superior quality of some earlier paintings.
The highly diverse and significant number of animals that crisscross the internal spaces of the cave —both engraved and painted—are of such an elevated aesthetic beauty and high quality that archaeologists initially believed them to be considerably younger and in line with the prior art in caves such as that of the Lascaux Cave. Its incredible artistry and age have made us rethink the history of art and the abilities and skills of these prehistoric people. The cave was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2014.
Alexander Ryumin, a senior researcher at the Bashkir State Nature Reserve, made a titillating discovery in January 1959. He identified drawings of ancient humans on the walls of the Kapova (Shulgantash) cave. Ryumin, who had actually gone into the cave looking for bats, discovered brightly colored works of art depicting various animals, including rhinos, horses, and mammoths. The discovery became a real-world sensation. In the scientific community, the prevailing belief during the 1950s was that drawings of animals from the Paleolithic era were a hallmark of prehistoric art uncovered in Western Europe and could only be found in France and Spain. Since its discovery, the Kapova cave has become a crucial cultural and historical complex that remains unrivaled throughout Eastern Europe.
The most intricate composition was discovered on the eastern wall. At the center of the panel, one can find the image of an animal now fondly called “Ryumin’s horse” because this was the first image to be identified in the cave. Following the horse is a long trail of animals, including several mammoths and a rhinoceros. Every animal seems to be strolling from right to left, with a tiny mammoth trying to stand or heading in another direction. The opposite wall sports a bison or bull and several mammoths with a calf. One can also see an image of a trapezium with peculiar lines and other geometric patterns repeated throughout the various panels in the cave.
World’s oldest cave paintings from 40,000 years ago discovered in Indonesia
The caves in Sulawesi’s Maros district in Indonesia are renowned for the thousands of handprints on their walls. In 2014, a study based on uranium-thorium dating placed the handprints at a minimum age of 39,900 years. Another recent discovery of a babirusa painting within the caves was also dated to at least 35,000 BC, firmly placing it among some of the oldest figurative representations discovered worldwide.
The discovery of prehistoric art on the island of Sulawesi significantly extends the geographical placement of the world’s first cave artists, who were long believed to have emerged in prehistoric Europe. Big and dangerous mammals are predominantly depicted in Europe and Sulawesi’s prehistoric cave art, leading archeologists to believe that they played a significant role in these people’s belief systems. The findings from the Maros cave sites further raise the likelihood that these types of artworks predate the migration of modern humans from Africa 60,000 years ago, leading many archeologists to believe that even older examples of cave art will eventually be found in mainland Asia and Africa.
Hermilio Alcalde del Río, a Spanish archaeologist, was one of the pioneers in researching and studying the earliest cave art in Cantabria. It was no surprise that he discovered El Castillo’s Cave in 1903. The entrance to the cave was initially relatively narrow but was later widened as a consequence of the numerous archaeological excavations within the cave system. Alcalde del Río discovered a lengthy series of paintings, extensive markings, and ancient graffiti created in charcoal and red ochre on the ceilings and walls of several caverns from the Lower Paleolithic Era to the Bronze Age. More than 150 artworks have already been cataloged, including those highlighting deer engravings—complete with partial shading.
According to recent studies, Neanderthals created the oldest works of art in the cave, although most of the later works were made by Homo sapiens. The studies concluded that Stone Age artists painted red disks, club-like symbols, geometric patterns, and handprints on European cave walls long before popular thought, in some instances upward of 40,000 years ago. The research results seem to point to a string of recent discoveries: significant fossil evidence that Homo sapiens lived in England 41,500 to 44,200 years ago, in Italy from 43,000 to 45,000 years ago, and that musical instruments were being made in German caves around 42,000 years ago. Scientists are also uncovering new genetic evidence of Neanderthal-Homo sapien interbreeding, revealing much closer relationships than generally believed.
A spotty, worn-down artwork of a beast painted on the wall of a cave system in Borneo may well be one of the oldest discovered instances of figurative rock art in the world. Fractured and faded, the reddish image depicts a healthy-looking but thin-legged mammal, possibly a species of cattle that can still be found living on the island, with a streak of ochre resembling a spear dangling from its side. The animal is just one of a trio of large animals adorning a wall in the Lubang Jeriji Saleh cave in the Kalimantan province of Borneo in Indonesia. Thousands of paintings have been discovered in limestone caves in the region and have been analyzed and studied since their discovery in 1994 by the French explorer Luc-Henri Fage.
Around and between the three large mammals are hundreds of hand stencils, the tell-tale cave art calling cards of our prehistoric ancestors. The faded markings, which show up spectacularly on their own or in groups, were created by spraying ochre paint via the mouth over a hand pressed against the rock. Scientists have determined the paintings’ ages by dating the calcite crusts that sometimes border the walls of the caves. These crusts are formed when rainwater manages to creep into the caves. Those below the artwork give scientists a maximum age for the painting, and those at the highest point provide the minimum age.
As if one appearance on the list wasn’t enough, the caves in the Maros-Pangkep karst of South Sulawesi, Indonesia—specifically the cave known as Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4—was recently found to have a painting that is over 43,900 years old. This prehistoric artwork on the island of Sulawesi, confirmed to be the world’s oldest figurative work of art, depicts part-animal, part-human figures hunting wild boars and comparatively tiny bison-like mammals with ropes and spears. The representation of part-animal, part-human hunters is believed to be the earliest evidence of our ability to perceive things that do not usually exist in the natural world. This capacity is the foundation of religious thought—the origins of which have been shrouded in mystery for thousands of years.
Apart from the exceptional age of this artwork, it’s the first example of cave art with a detailed and thorough narrative or “story” of such great age. The conventional opinion has always been that humanity’s first rock art was mere geometric symbols, which progressed into the exquisite figurative artworks found in France and Spain around 35,000 years ago. From this perspective, the first storylines and human-animal hybrids (known as therianthropes) only came into being much later. But the artworks inside Leang Bulu’s Sipong 4 now show that the main elements of sophisticated artistic culture were already prevalent in Sulawesi 44,000 years ago—therianthropes, figurative art, and scenes.
The world’s oldest confirmed cave painting is a beautiful red hand stencil that was discovered in the cave of Maltravieso in Cáceres, Spain, along with two nearby caves: La Pasiega and Ardales. Its age alone might have been impressive, but a new study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Southampton decisively concluded that the artworks discovered in three separate caves in Spain were painted over 64,000 years ago. This is a solid 20,000 years before our modern human ancestors arrived in Europe. Their research confirms that the Palaeolithic (Ice Age) cave paintings—which include paintings of mammals, as well as geometric designs and dots, were made by Europe’s only inhabitants at the time—the Neanderthals.
The research demonstrated how the international team of researchers used a highly developed method called uranium-thorium dating to confirm the age of artworks to over 64,000 years. All three caves contain black and red ochre paintings of groups of mammals, dots, patterns, and engravings, hand stencils, and handprints. From their findings, the researchers have also confirmed that the creation of the paintings and other artwork must have involved such highly developed behavior as location selection, pigment mixing, and even light source planning.
An ancient gold coin proves that a third-century Roman emperor, written off by history as a fictional character, really existed, according to scientists.
The coin bearing Sponsiano's name and portrait was found more than 300 years ago in Transylvania (modern Romania), once a distant outpost of the Roman empire.
It was thought to be a fake and was locked away in a museum cabinet.
Now scientists say scratch marks visible under a microscope prove it was in circulation 2,000 years ago.
Professor Paul Pearson of University College London, who led the research, told BBC News he was surprised by the discovery.
“What we found is an emperor. It was a figure that was considered a fake and had been deleted by the experts," he said.
"But we believe he was real and that he had a role in history."
The coin at the center of the story was among a small hoard discovered in 1713. It was considered a genuine Roman coin until the mid-19th century, when experts suspected it might have been produced by forgers of the time due to its crude design.
The final blow came in 1863, when Henry Cohen, the leading coin expert of the time at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, addressed the problem for his large catalog of Roman coins. He said they were not only "modern" imitations, but poorly made and "ridiculously fantastic". Other experts agreed, and to this day Sponsiano has been dropped from scientific lists.
But Professor Pearson suspected otherwise when he saw photographs of the coin while researching a book on the history of the Roman Empire. He could make out scratches on its surface that he thought might have been created by the circulation of the coin.
He contacted the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow, where the coin was kept locked in a cabinet along with three others from the original hoard, and asked to work with researchers there.
They examined all four coins under a powerful microscope and confirmed in the journal PLOS 1 that there were indeed scratches and that the patterns were consistent with them being carried in wallets.
A chemical analysis also showed the coins had been buried in the soil for hundreds of years, according to Jesper Ericsson, who is the museum's curator of coins and collaborated with Professor Pearson on the project.
Investigations on the coin revealed that it was once in circulation
Researchers believe he was a military commander who was forced to commit suicide as emperor of the most remote and hard-to-defend province of the Roman empire, called Dacia.
Archaeological studies have established that Dacia was cut off from the rest of the Roman Empire around 260 AD. There was a pandemic, civil war, and the empire was fragmenting.
Surrounded by enemies and cut off from Rome, Sponsiano probably assumed supreme command during a period of chaos and civil war, protecting the military and civilian population of Dacia until order was restored and the province evacuated between AD 271 . and 275 AD, according to Jesper Ericsson.
"Our interpretation is that he was in charge to maintain control of the military and the civilian population because they were surrounded and completely cut off," he said. "In order to create a functioning economy in the province they decided to mint their own coins."
This theory would explain why the coins do not look like those of Rome
"They may not have known who the real emperor was because there was a civil war," says Professor Pearson.
“But what they needed was a supreme military commander in the absence of real authority from Rome. He took over management at a time when management was needed."
Once the researchers determined that the coins were authentic and that they had discovered what they believed to be a lost Roman emperor, they notified researchers at the Brukenthal Museum in Sibin, Transylvania, which also has a Sponsiano coin. It was part of the inheritance of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, the Habsburg Governor of Transylvania. The baron was studying the coin at the time of his death, and the story goes that the last thing he did was write a note that said "genuine."
Experts at the Brukenthal museum had labeled their coin a historical imitation, as had everyone else. But they changed their minds when they saw the UK research.
The discovery is of particular interest for the history of Transylvania and Romania, according to the interim director of the Bruckenthal National Museum, Alexandru Constantin Chituță.
"For the history of Transylvania and Romania in particular, but also for the history of Europe in general, if these results are accepted by the scientific community, they will mean the addition of one more important historical figure to our history," he said.
Considered the first Arab philosopher, al-Kindî composed treatises based on translated Greek works. His work First Philosophy, in which he relies entirely on Neoplatonic and Aristotelian categories to essentially support Islamic monotheism.
Yaqub ibn Isaq al-Kindi (Latin: Alkindus) (c. 801–873 CE), known as “the Philosopher of the Arabs”, was a Muslim Arab scientist, philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers, and is unanimously hailed as the “father of Islamic or Arabic philosophy” for his synthesis, adaptation and promotion of Greek and Hellenistic philosophy in the Muslim world.
Al-Kindi was born in Kufa to an aristocratic family of the Kinda tribe, which had migrated there from Yemen. His father was the governor of Kufa, and al-Kindi received his preliminary education there. He later went to complete his studies in Baghdad, where he was patronized by the Abbasid Caliphs al-Ma’mun and al-Mu’tasim. On account of his learning and aptitude for study, al-Ma’mun appointed him to House of Wisdom, a recently established centre for the translation of Greek philosophical and scientific texts, in Baghdad. He was also well known for his beautiful calligraphy, and at one point was employed as a calligrapher by al-Mutawakkil.
The Italian Renaissance scholar Geralomo Cardano (1501-1575) considered him one of the twelve greatest minds of the Middle Ages. According to Ibn al-Nadim, al-Kindi wrote at least two hundred and sixty books, contributing heavily to geometry (thirty-two books), medicine and philosophy (twenty-two books each), logic (nine books), and physics (twelve books). His influence in the fields of physics, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and music were far-reaching and lasted for several centuries. Although most of his books have been lost over the centuries, a few have survived in the form of Latin translations by Gerard of Cremona, and others have been rediscovered in Arabic manuscripts; most importantly, twenty-four of his lost works were located in the mid-twentieth century in a Turkish library.
His greatest contribution to the development of Islamic philosophy was his efforts to make Greek thought both accessible and acceptable to a Muslim audience. Al-Kindi carried out this mission from the House of Wisdom, an institute of translation and learning patronized by the Abbasid Caliphs, in Baghdad. As well as translating many important texts, much of what was to become standard Arabic philosophical vocabulary originated with al-Kindi; indeed, if it had not been for him, the work of philosophers like Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and al-Ghazali might not have been possible.
In his writings, one of al-Kindi’s central concerns was to demonstrate the compatibility between philosophy and natural theology on the one hand, and revealed or speculative theology on the other (though in fact he rejected speculative theology). Despite this, he did make clear that he believed revelation was a superior source of knowledge to reason because it guaranteed matters of faith that reason could not uncover. And while his philosophical approach was not always original, and was even considered clumsy by later thinkers (mainly because he was the first philosopher writing in the Arabic language), he successfully incorporated Aristotelian and (especially) neo-Platonist thought into an Islamic philosophical framework. This was an important factor in the introduction and popularization Greek philosophy in the Muslim intellectual world.
Al-Kindi took his view of the solar system from Ptolemy, who placed the Earth at the centre of a series of concentric spheres, in which the known heavenly bodies (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and the stars) are embedded. In one of his treatises on the subject, he says that these bodies are rational entities, whose circular motion is in obedience to and worship of God. Their role, al-Kindi believes, is to act as instruments for divine providence. He furnishes empirical evidence as proof for this assertion; different seasons are marked by particular arrangements of the planets and stars (most notably the sun); the appearance and manner of people varies according to the arrangement of heavenly bodies situated above their homeland.
However, he is ambiguous when it comes to the actual process by which the heavenly bodies affect the material world. One theory he posits in his works is from Aristotle, who conceived that the movement of these bodies causes friction in the sub-lunar region, which stirs up the primary elements of earth, fire, air and water, and these combine to produce everything in the material world. An alternative view found his treatise On Rays is that the planets exercize their influence in straight lines. In each of these, he presents two fundamentally different views of physical interaction; action by contact and action at a distance. This dichotomy is duplicated in his writings on optics.
The Book of the Judgement of the Stars, including The Forty Chapters, on questions and elections. On the Stellar Rays.
Several epistles on weather and meteorology, including De mutatione temporum, ‘On the Changing of the Weather’.
Treatise on the Judgement of Eclipses.
Treatise on the Dominion of the Arabs and its Duration (used to predict the end of Arab rule).
The Choices of Days (on elections).
On the Revolutions of the Years (on mundane astrology and natal revolutions).
De Signis Astronomiae Applicitis as Mediciam ‘On the Signs of Astronomy as applied to Medicine’
Treatise on the Spirituality of the Planets.
Two major theories of optics appear in the writings of al-Kindi; Aristotelian and Euclidian. Aristotle had believed that in order for the eye to perceive an object, both the eye and the object must be in contact with a transparent medium (such as air) that is filled with light. When these criteria are met, the “sensible form” of the object is transmitted through the medium to the eye. On the other hand, Euclid proposed that vision occurred in straight lines when “rays” from the eye reached an illuminated object and were reflected back. As with his theories on Astrology, the dichotomy of contact and distance is present in al-Kindi’s writings on this subject as well.
The factor which al-Kindi relied upon to determine which of these theories was most correct was how adequately each one explained the experience of seeing. For example, Aristotle’s theory was unable to account for why the angle at which an individual sees an object affects his perception of it. For example, why a circle viewed from the side will appear as a line. According to Aristotle, the complete sensible form of a circle should be transmitted to the eye and it should appear as a circle. On the other hand, Eulcidian optics provided a geometric model that was able to account for this, as well as the length of shadows and reflections in mirrors, because Eulcid believed that the visual “rays” could only travel in straight lines (something which is commonly accepted in modern science). For this reason, al-Kindi considered the latter preponderant.
There are more than thirty treatises attributed to al-Kindi in the field of medicine, in which he was chiefly influenced by the ideas of Galen. His most important work in this field is probably De Gradibus, in which he demonstrates the application of mathematics to medicine, particularly in the field of pharmacology. For example, he developed a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of drug and a system, based the phases of the moon, that would allow a doctor to determine in advance the most critical days of a patient’s illness.
As an advanced chemist, he was also an opponent of alchemy; he debunked the myth that simple, base metals could be transformed into precious metals such as gold or silver.
Al-Kindi authored works on a number of important mathematical subjects, including arithmetic, geometry, the Indian numbers, the harmony of numbers, lines and multiplication with numbers, relative quantities, measuring proportion and time, and numerical procedures and cancellation. He also wrote four volumes, On the Use of the Indian Numerals (Ketab fi Isti’mal al-‘Adad al-Hindi) which contributed greatly to diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and the West. In geometry, among other works, he wrote on the theory of parallels. Also related to geometry were two works on optics. One of the ways in which he made use of mathematics as a philosopher was to attempt to disprove the eternity of the world by demonstrating that actual infinity is a mathematical and logical absurdity.
The first page of al-Kindi’s manuscript “On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages”, containing the oldest known description of cryptanalysis by frequency analysis.
Al-Kindi is credited with developing a method whereby variations in the frequency of the occurrence of letters could be analyzed and exploited to break ciphers (i.e. crypanalysis by frequency analysis).
While Muslim intellectuals were already acquainted with Greek philosophy (especially logic), al-Kindi is credited with being the first real Muslim philosopher. His own thought was largely influenced by the Neo-Platonic philosophy of Proclus, Plotinus and John Philoponus, amongst others, although he does appear to have borrowed ideas from other Hellenistic schools as well. He makes many references to Aristotle in his writings, but these are often unwittingly re-interpreted in a Neo-Platonic framework. This trend is most obvious in areas such as metaphysics and the nature of God as a causal entity. Earlier experts had suggested that he was influenced by the Mutazilite school of theology, because of the mutual concern both he and they demonstrated for maintaining the pure unity (tawhid) of God. However, such agreements are now considered incidental, as further study has shown that they disagreed on a number of equally important topics.
According to al-Kindi, the goal of metaphysics is the knowledge of God. For this reason, he does make a clear distinction between philosophy and theology, because he believes they are both concerned with the same subject.
Central to al-Kindi’s understanding of metaphysics is God’s absolute oneness, which he considers an attribute uniquely associated with God (and therefore not shared with anything else). By this he means that while we may think of any existent thing as being “one”, it is in fact both “one” and many”. For example, he says that while a body is one, it is also composed of many different parts. A person might say “I see an elephant”, by which he means “I see one elephant”, but the term ‘elephant’ refers to a species of animal that contains many. Therefore, only God is absolutely one, both in being and in concept, lacking any multiplicity whatsoever. This understanding entails a very rigorous negative theology because it implies that any description which can be predicated to anything else, cannot be said about God.
In addition to absolute oneness, al-Kindi also described God as the Creator. This means that He acts as both a final and efficient cause. Unlike later Muslim Neo-Platonic philosophers (who asserted that the universe existed as a result of God’s existence “overflowing”, which is a passive act), al-Kindi conceived of God as an active agent. In fact, of God as the agent, because all other intermediary agencies are contingent upon Him. The key idea here is that God “acts” through created intermediaries, which in turn “act” on one another – through a chain of cause and effect – to produce the desired result. In reality, these intermediary agents do not “act” at all, they are merely a conduit for God’s own action. This is especially significant in the development of Islamic philosophy, as it portrayed the “first cause” and “unmoved mover” of Aristotelian philosophy as compatible with the concept of God according to Islamic revelation.
Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle would become highly revered in the medieval Islamic world. Al-Kindi theorized that there was a separate, incorporeal and universal intellect (known as the “First Intellect”). It was the first of God’s creation and the intermediary through which all other things came into creation. Aside from its obvious metaphysical importance, it was also crucial to al-Kindi’s epistemology, which was influenced by Platonic realism.
According to Plato, everything that exists in the material world corresponds to certain universal forms in the heavenly realm. These forms are really abstract concepts such as a species, quality or relation, which apply to all physical objects and beings. For example, a red apple has the quality of “redness” derived from the appropriate universal. However, al-Kindi says that human intellects are only potentially able to comprehend these. This potential is actualized by the First Intellect, which is perpetually thinking about all of the universals. He argues that the external agency of this intellect is necessary by saying that human beings cannot arrive at a universal concept merely through perception. In other words, an intellect cannot understand the species of a thing simply by examining one or more of its instances. According to him, this will only yield an inferior “sensible form”, and not the universal form which we desire. The universal form can only be attained through contemplation and actualization by the First Intellect.
The analogy he provides to explain his theory is that of wood and fire. Wood, he argues, is potentially hot (just as a human is potentially thinking about a universal), and therefore requires something else which is already hot (such as fire) to actualize this. This means that for the human intellect to think about something, the First Intellect must already be thinking about it. Therefore he says that the First Intellect must always be thinking about everything. Once the human intellect comprehends a universal by this process, it becomes part of the individual’s “acquired intellect” and can be thought about whenever he or she wishes.
Al-Kindi says that the soul is a simple, immaterial substance, which is related to the material world only because of its faculties which operate through the physical body. To explain the nature of our worldly existence, he (borrowing from Epictetus) compares it to a ship which has, during the course of its ocean voyage, temporarily anchored itself at an island and allowed its passengers to disembark. The implicit warning is that those passengers who linger too long on the island may be left behind when the ship sets sail again. Here, al-Kindi displays a stoic concept, that we must not become attached to material things (represented by the island), as they will invariably be taken away from us (when the ship sets sail again). He then connects this with a Neo-Platonist idea, by saying that our soul can be directed towards the pursuit of desire or the pursuit of intellect; the former will tie it to the body, so that when the body dies, it will also die, but the latter will free it from the body and allow it to survive “in the light of the Creator” in a realm of pure intelligence.
Maritime lore abounds with stories of ghost ships, those ships that sail the world’s oceans manned by a ghostly crew and destined never to make port. The most well known of these tales is that of the Mary Celeste. But one of the eeriest stories has to be the mystery of the Octavius.
By Ian Harvey
The story opens in 1761 with the Octavius docked in the port of London to take on a cargo destined for China. This majestic sailing ship left port with a full crew, the skipper, and his wife and son. They arrived safely in China and unloaded their cargo. They headed back to sea once she was loaded with goods destined for British shores, but as the weather was unusually warm, the captain decided to sail home via the Northwest Passage, a voyage that at the time had not been accomplished. This was the last that anyone heard of the vessel, her crew, or her cargo. Octavius was declared lost.
On October 11, 1775, the whaling ship Herald was working the frigid waters off Greenland when it spotted a sailing ship. On nearing the ship, the crew saw that the ship was weather beaten–the sails were tattered and torn and hanging limply on the masts.
The captain of the Herald ordered a boarding party to search the vessel, which they had determined was the Octavius. The boarding party arrived on deck to find it deserted. They broke open the ship’s hatch and scrambled down the ladder into the semi-darkness below, where a terrifying sight met their eyes. They found the entire 28-man crew frozen to death in their quarters. In the captain’s cabin, they found the captain seated at his desk, pen in hand, with the ship’s logbook open on the desk in front of him. The inkwell and other everyday items were still in their place on the desk. Turning around, they saw a woman wrapped in a blanket on the bunk, frozen to death, along with the body of a young boy.
The boarding party was terrified; grabbing the ship’s log, they fled from the Octavius. In their mad flight, they lost the middle pages of the logbook that were frozen solid and came loose from the bookbinding. They arrived back on the Herald with just the first and last pages of the logbook, which were enough for the master of the Herald to determine at least a part of the story of the voyage. The captain of the Octavius had tried to navigate the Northwest Passage, but his ship had become imprisoned in the ice of the Arctic, and the entire crew had perished. The ship’s last recorded position was 75N 160W, which placed the Octavius 250 miles north of Barrow, Alaska.
As the Octavius had been found off the coast of Greenland, it must have broken loose from the ice at some stage and completed its voyage through the passage to come out on the other side, where it met the Herald. The crew of the Herald were frightened of the Octavius and feared that it was cursed, so they simply left it adrift. To this day, it has never been sighted again.
Author David Meyer has tried to track down the story of the Octavius. In his blog, he considers the idea that the Octavius could be the same ship as the Gloriana, which was boarded in 1775 by the captain of the Try Again, John Warrens. He recorded that he found a frozen crew that had been dead for 13 years and the date of the discovery was spookily similar–November 11, 1762. Are these tales of the same vessel? In the Gloriana story, there is no mention of the Northwest Passage, which remains even today a place of mystery and magic but that adds just that little bit of spice to the tale of Octavius.
Much of our oceans remain undiscovered. Who knows what secrets lay in the vast depths of our world? From ancient myths to modern-day discoveries, the ocean is full of potential.
Today, we’re watching the video below and having a look at what this diver discovered at the bottom of the dead sea!
It appears that the more we uncover, the less we know about the nature of our world. It seems like more and more mysterious events surface from all around that are more than just impossible to explain, they completely defy what we know to be possible within the realms of physics and science.
So today, we take a look at these 100 unsolved mysteries that cannot be explained by watching the video below!
One subject that is sure to fire a cold conversation up is if the garden of Eden ever existed. To religious people, it may be a no-brainer, but even those that do not believe in the Christian God may still believe in its existence, after all, there had to be some geographical location that gave credence to the bible stories. And thus, the arguments.
It certainly hasn't missed the attention of scientists who have been searching ancient texts for hints and any references that could help with identifying the location of the Garden. And as it turns out, recent work in the fields of remote sensing, archaeology, and DNA studies has offered some strong indications as to where it is, and what they've found is truly terrifying, so stay tuned to find out!
The Garden of Eden is a paradise on the earth described in the Old Testament book of Genesis as being inhabited by Adam and Eve, the first humans created by God before they were banished for breaking God's laws. It is also referred to as the Garden of God and the Garden of Yahweh, the God of Israel, in Genesis and Ezekiel, respectively. The word Eden is most likely derived from the Sumerian word Eden, which means "plain" and the Akkadian word 'edinu' which is a loaned word from Sumerian.
Following the Genesis account of the creation and fall of man, rivers gushed from Eden to the east of Israel and all the way to the four corners of the globe. Similar tales found in Sumerian archives suggest that the mythology of the ancient Middle East contained the idea of an earthly paradise.
Today we’re finding out about a terrifying discovery of the Garden Of Eden through the following video!
Ancient Egypt has been studied more than perhaps any other culture and country in human history. Because of that, you’d like to believe that we know everything there is to know about them. That’s not the case. There are many ancient Egyptian mysteries that we’ve never gotten to the bottom of and might never get to the bottom of - and some of them scare scientists stiff!
Let’s watch the following video about the 12 Most Mysterious Ancient Egypt Finds That Scare Scientists!
Since we first cleared the sand from the Great Sphinx, ancient Egypt has captured people's attention. Archaeologists and historians have been obsessed with it for the past 200 years. It's a place whose mysteries we've been slowly solving for years. But even after all this time, there is still a ton that we don't understand.
Some of the greatest finds from antiquity are still hidden in Egypt's sands, waiting to be discovered. Such revelations frequently only lead to new mysteries and unanswered questions.
That’s why we have for you the following video about 10 Unsolved Mysteries Of Ancient Egypt!
Egypt has never missed a chance to amaze us with its bewildering artifacts. The artifacts of Egypt aren't only astounding but hold tons of mysteries in them and one of them is the Great Sphinx in Giza. Recent findings have given new insights, which we cannot wait to show you.
The Sphinx of Giza is one of the biggest and oldest monolithic monuments in the world, roughly 66 feet tall and 240 feet long. Archeologists and Egyptologists have explored this sphinx but some of the questions are still not answered.
Are you ready to find out about all the mysteries of the sphinx of Giza? Start by watching the video we have for you!
Magnificent temples, colossal statues and mighty pyramids: Although the era of the ancient Egyptians has been over for many centuries, the legacy of the inhabitants of the pharaonic kingdom still fascinates us today.
If you've thought that we've already unlocked all the secrets of this fascinating civilization, you're wrong. Again and again, archaeologists recover new artifacts from the hot desert sand, which bring the past back to life.
From secret pyramid chambers to mystical tombs to long-lost metropolises - here’s the video about discoveries from Egypt that will amaze us no matter how much time has passed!
A lot of the things we know today have been discovered by scientists; from Isaac Newton to Marie Curie, these people dedicated almost their entire lives to discovering important things. Although many of them aren't household names, it is worth commending them for trying to improve the world one study at a time. Without them, we probably wouldn’t know most of the concepts that we understand today.
With that being said, scientists are usually the people who can explain the many archeological discoveries left behind by our ancestors. But occasionally, they too, also get stumped.
With this video, we’ll learn about some of the strangest discoveries that scientists still don't fully understand!
The land of Egypt is full of ancient antiquities that have always grabbed the attention of archeologists, geologists, and scientists. There have been many unexplainable discoveries made in Egypt and now scientists are puzzled by these Massive Egyptian Megalithic boxes weighing an enormous amount. What are they made of? And more importantly, how did they get there?
Egypt itself as a whole is a place full of interesting ancient items but Saqqara takes things to another level with its fascinating discoveries like tombs, statues, and sarcophaguses.
Today we will talk about another great and unexplainable discovery made in Saqqara in the video below!
Have you ever wondered what it’s like living on the forgotten islands of Vanuatu? Let’s watch the video below to find out!
