The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts

[Al Neri]

Link

The Dropa (also known as Dropas, Drok-pa or Dzopa) are, according to certain controversial writers, a race of dwarf-like extraterrestrials who landed near the Chinese-Tibetan border some twelve thousand years ago.

Skeptics note, however, a number of problems with the case (and a lack of corroborative evidence), which offers significant doubt as to the reality of the more sensationalistic Dropa claims. Mainstream critics argue that the entire affair is a hoax.

lolz

 

[Rock Hydra]

The Soulcube!

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: DAGTA

Originally posted by: fire400
The Baghdad Battery
Today batteries can be found in any grocery, drug, convenience and department store you come across. Well, here's a battery that's 2,000 years old! Known as the Baghdad Battery, this curiosity was found in the ruins of a Parthian village believed to date back to between 248 B.C. and 226 A.D. The device consists of a 5-1/2-inch high clay vessel inside of which was a copper cylinder held in place by asphalt, and inside of that was an oxidized iron rod. Experts who examined it concluded that the device needed only to be filled with an acid or alkaline liquid to produce an electric charge. It is believed that this ancient battery might have been used for electroplating objects with gold. If so, how was this technology lost... and the battery not rediscovered for another 1,800 years?

Okay, let me get this straight. If a nation was utilizing this, they'd become aliens and be invading other planets as of today, otherwise it must have fallen from a space shuttle?

MythBusters tested this one and it does work. Lemon juice can be used for the acid. It's strong enough to do electroplating and shock people but it's not dependable enough to be used like the batteries of today. Very interesting, though.

yeah, i saw that one too.

 

[NeoV]

There is a GREAT book by Arthur C Clarke on things like this - and with his name behind it there is a bit more credence to the credibility. Some of the really cool ones are these glass sculpted skulls....I'll see if I can find a link to it.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Howard
By "open-heart surgery" don't they mean human sacrifice?

LOL, yeah. It doesn't say anything about any of the "patients" surviving, does it? Like little kids, they could take things apart but . . .

 

[sourceninja]

kewl. I love stuff like this. mysterys are awesome to keep the mind thinking.

 

[Phoenix15]

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: Howard
By "open-heart surgery" don't they mean human sacrifice?

LOL, yeah. It doesn't say anything about any of the "patients" surviving, does it? Like little kids, they could take things apart but . . .

I seem to remember some discovery channell show that showed that someone had brain surgery and lived for years afterward. They could tell by the condition of the skull and how it ha healed.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Nazca lines

Not to be confused with Peruvian Marching Powder.

They aren't nearly as impressive in person as they appear to be on the various documentaries. I mean they are still really cool and all, but I didn't walk away with any sense that LGM were involved

The desert they are located in is interesting - absolutely barren. They estimate that it hasn't seen significant rain since the last ice age. Tehnyou have these narrow strips of green coming down through it where the rivers flow out of the andes. Some impressive irrigation tunnels also.

 

[Encryptic]

Originally posted by: Mucho

Originally posted by: FoBoT
those Inca dudes were pretty amazing, it sucks the spanish wiped them out so early in the exploration of the americas

If they were so amazing how come such a small number of Spaniards wipe them out?

- Smallpox. The natives had no immunity to it.

- The Spaniards had cannons/guns/horses. The Inca might have been pretty advanced in certain things like architecture, but they didn't have much in the way of weaponry beyond swords and bows.

 

[Glavinsolo]

The crystal skulls still freak me out.

 

[Jgtdragon]

nice interesting read. I like this kind of stuff.

 

[PingSpike]

Its probably just aliens.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
The triceratops thing can't be real.

I watched a show on these... well my 4yr old was watching a dinosaur show and they talked about these in it. It was very interesting. They went on in detail of how many and how accurate the depictions of some of the dinosaurs were. They theorized that maybe after the great extinction of the dinosaurs, small pockets of survivors remained and co-existed with humans in those pockets. Seems feasilbe to me.

 

[UlricT]

Originally posted by: Don Rodriguez

Over the last few decades, miners in South Africa have been digging up mysterious metal spheres. Origin unknown, these spheres measure approximately an inch or so in diameter, and some are etched with three parallel grooves running around the equator. Two types of spheres have been found: one is composed of a solid bluish metal with flecks of white; the other is hollowed out and filled with a spongy white substance. The kicker is that the rock in which they where found is Precambrian - and dated to 2.8 billion years old! Who made them and for what purpose is unknown.

sounds VERY scientific

Guys, this specific mystery is from the Weekly World News!

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/spheres.html

 

[Kwaipie]

Good article on the "Coso Artifact" more commonly known as a 1920 Champion Spark Plug

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/coso.html

 

[marketsons1985]

Originally posted by: AMDZen
At the end they say "


What are we to make of these finds? There are several possibilities:

Intelligent humans date back much, much further than we realize.
Other intelligent beings and civilizations existed on earth far beyond our recorded history.
Our dating methods are completely inaccurate, and that stone, coal and fossils form much more rapidly than we now estimate.

In any case, these examples - and there are many more - should prompt any curious and open-minded scientist to reexamine and rethink the true history of life on earth.
"

They leave out another possibility - time travel

Time travel's impossible. Einstein proved it.

But time viewing...that's another thing....

 

[RaiderJ]

I've always felt there is a third option for human existance, the first two options being creationism & evolution. Truth is stranger than fiction/religion/Darwin!

 

[MaxDepth]

The grooved spheres were explained away on a PBS show (Nove, I think) that described volcanic forces spinning molten rock into globes that coold igneous rock on the inside of iron oxide coating. The differential clock and the metal pot from rock should be discoutned as myths. As for the Inca stones, don't you think someone saw dinosaur fossils and thought up a story and drawing to match the bones?

 

[Saint Nick]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
"Giant Stone Balls of Costa Rica"

They talked about that one on Discovery HD awhile back and they told how they made them and why...not sure why about.com didn't get the message

care to explain how and why they were made or do you have a link?

i love reading about stuff like this. i guess maybe it because i want to believe in other intelligent life in the universe or that there was some kind of magical forces ages ago or soemthing.

Yeah, I am the same way. I always wonder how those statues at Easter/Christmas Island got there... and those big stone balls *giggles like a school girl*

 

[Minjin]

You guys need to check out the book called "Mysteries of Time and Space". Read it in middle school. Talked about stuff like the fossilized trilobite with a sandal imprint on it. I found it interesting but I was always into that kind of stuff. In 2nd grade, I formed a club called the GUM club. Stood for Ghosts Ufo's and Monsters..

Mark

 

[chuckywang]

Why do I get the feeling that Christian fundamentalists will use some of that to promot intelligent design?

 

[Rufio]

hahah this is odpe stufff.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Mucho

Originally posted by: FoBoT
those Inca dudes were pretty amazing, it sucks the spanish wiped them out so early in the exploration of the americas

If they were so amazing how come such a small number of Spaniards wipe them out?

Something like a third of all Incas died without ever seeing a Spaniard, because of disease. Not to mention they had just come out of a bloody civil war, and were pretty weak, and they had this technology that seemed like magic, and they had horses that everyone thought were gods at first, and...

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
The triceratops thing can't be real.

I watched a show on these... well my 4yr old was watching a dinosaur show and they talked about these in it. It was very interesting. They went on in detail of how many and how accurate the depictions of some of the dinosaurs were. They theorized that maybe after the great extinction of the dinosaurs, small pockets of survivors remained and co-existed with humans in those pockets. Seems feasilbe to me.

Dinosaur species persisting for 65 million years is unfeasible.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Phoenix15

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: Howard
By "open-heart surgery" don't they mean human sacrifice?

LOL, yeah. It doesn't say anything about any of the "patients" surviving, does it? Like little kids, they could take things apart but . . .

I seem to remember some discovery channell show that showed that someone had brain surgery and lived for years afterward. They could tell by the condition of the skull and how it ha healed.

Drilling a hole in the skull to relieve pressure?