https://elenaandromeda.tumblr.com/
Did you know it's actually possible to live your life, push past your problems and things holding you back, and create your ideal life all through your heart?
The Philippine is made up of many small islands, and so they have
carbonate sand beaches. Calcium carbonate sands are made up of shell
fragments from marine organisms like corals and shellfish, and they can
become quite hot in the afternoon.
From the inside, your heart emanates an extremely powerful toroidal energetic field (like the pic above), and it has actually been scientifically measured to go out as far as 5 miles from your heart.
...
The heart’s electromagnetic frequency arcs out from the heart and back in the form of a torus field, which is the oldest structure in existence. Its shape is similar to a donut, with the whole center of it folding upon itself. The torus is said to define the workings of consciousness, such as consciousness having geometry. The energy of this torus is constantly refreshing and influencing itself.
Toroidal energy fields exist around everything: people, trees, the earth, sun, and Universe. It is the key to everything because your entire life is created by and from this place.
Most torus dynamics contain two toruses or “tori” - like the male and female aspects of the whole - one is spiraling upwards and the other downwards.
There's a spiritual element to quartz as well. That's why they place granite boulders in Zen gardens.
The heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field produced by the body. An exchange of electromagnetic energy produced by the heart occurs when people touch or are in close proximity of one another.
Have you ever met someone and just thought, “Wow they have such a nice aura about them.” Well, the human aura’s shape is that of a torus.
The human aura is not a fixed shape; it is a continuous movement. Universal energy from all around a person streams into this dynamic form. The universal life energy field is infinite and unlimited; this is the reason we are all connected.
Within our bodies, each chakra, each acupuncture point, every energy center is a toroidal flow. It flows within itself. The human torus connects to larger tori, which is part of our individual souls. All tori are connected to Source.
The torus is the first scientific model that shows that we are distinct individuals, yet we are all interconnected. This is where human connection, love, and knowledge can take place.
Philosopher Ashok Gangadean takes you on a deep dive into this in his powerful video.
By learning the power of the toroidal energy and the Universe, we can achieve stress relief, mental clarity and deeper connections with others. We can use this intuitive connection to understand our soul’s wisdom as well as guiding us to who we truly are.
When people hold genuine core heart feeling such as appreciation or compassion, it naturally increases their heart coherence. We’ve also come to know the intuitive energetic heart as our “inner voice” - sending intuitive information to our brain.
https://www.mindmovies.com/blogroll/toroidal-energetic-field-what-tha
In a love Tarot reading, if you are in a relationship, the Two of Pentacles reversed can indicate that you are trying to juggle too much and not finding time for the relationship.
Work, financial stress, family issues etc. may be taking your attention away from your partner.
This stress may be causing arguments and resentment and could be pushing your relationship to breaking point. It can also signify an affair as in having to choose between two relationships.
If you are single, the Two of Pentacles reversed can indicate that you are so overwhelmed by the demands on you that you are not in a position to commit the time needed for a new relationship to flourish.
If you want to find a partner you need to make love a priority in your life.
https://www.thetarotguide.com/two-of-pentacles
Some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful music was born out of religion.
From church chant to contemporary hymns, music is one of the best ways to worship, as it is one of the purest forms of communication.
The Cherubic Hymn is the primary cherubikon (Gr: χερουβικόν), or song of the angels, sung during every Divine Liturgy of the year with the exception of the liturgies of the Presanctified Gifts and those of Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday.
It occurs after the Gospel reading and is interrupted by the Great Entrance.
The Cherubic Hymn was added to the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by order of the Emperor Justinian near the end of the sixth century.
We who in a mystery represent the Cherubim
and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity,
let us now lay aside the cares of this life. Amen.
That we may receive the King of All,
invisibly escorted by the hosts of angels. Alleluia.
The inserted "Amen" is there for liturgical reasons.
The priest is silently reciting several things (including the Cherubicon, three times), and then as the Choir finish the first part, the priest makes an invocation, to which the response is "Amen" ... and then the Choir finishes the Cherubicon.
The musical settings are stretched out in the first part to cover the liturgical action.
Variously, the text, especially when the congregation sings it, is often proclaimed in short (semi)phrases that dovetail and basically amount to at least two-fold (if not three-fold) repetition of most of the text.
In the Ukrainian Catholic setting that I'm familiar with, the basic (hymn) tune is sung three times before the "Amen."
This treatment of repeating the main theme or whole tune three times seems (to me) to be related to the "thrice-holy hymn" phrase of the text.
In either 573 or 574, Justinian I had the Cherubic Hymn added to the standard liturgy.
The previous cherubikon used was that of the Liturgy of St.
James, which had then been borrowed into the Liturgy of St. Basil.
This hymn, beginning with the phrase:
"Let all mortal flesh keep silent" is currently only used on Holy Saturday. (The cherubikon used on Holy Thursday begins, "Of thy mystical supper...").
We now come to the time in the Divine Liturgy when the Cherubic Hymn is sung admonishing us to lay aside all earthly care and receive the King of all!
The laity begins to sing the Cherubic Hymn:
"Let us, who mystically represent the cherubim and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving trinity, lay aside all worldly cares, that we may receive the King of all, invisibly escorted by the angelic hosts. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."
This hymn invites us to walk with Jesus Christ on the path of martyrdom that leads to the sacrifice on the Cross, setting aside every worldly care we may have.
Saint John Chrysostom says, "The soul of a Christian who has not learned how to become alienated from worldly cares during the Divine Liturgy, will never be able to admire the all-heavenly...
Mind and heart will not be glorified in splendor by the inconceivable grandeur of the heavenly Altar and the angelic hymns" (P.G. 47, 414).
Now is the time to set aside all worldly cares and focus exclusively on Christ our Savior.
This includes all the thoughts of family, our jobs, all our worries, and our trials and tribulations.
Fill the mind instead with Christ: "Lord have mercy on me."
To be so attentive as to shed our worldly cares demands that we adopt a contrite state––one of extreme humility.
We must recognize our unworthiness to receive the Precious Gifts that are about to be presented to us.
We should realize how blessed we are to receive these gifts for our spiritual benefit.
Our egoism must be crushed. This requires our attention and effort.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Cherubic_Hymn#History
http://www.musicarussica.com/sheet_music_pieces/v1-51
https://www.allsaintskingston.co.uk/anthems/cherubic-hymn
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/spiritandtruth/the_cherubic_hymn
https://pianistmusings.com/2018/09/21/cherubic-hymn-angels-through-the-ages/
https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/13496/cherubic-hymn-in-english/p1
http://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Divine_Liturgy/Divine%20Liturgy-Cherubic%20Hymn.html
Orichalcum or aurichalcum /ˌɔːrɪˈkælkəm/ is a metal mentioned in several ancient writings, including the story of Atlantis in the Critias of Plato.
Within the dialogue, Critias (460 – 403 BC) claims that orichalcum had been considered second only to gold in value and had been found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times, but that by Critias' own time orichalcum was known only by name.
Orichalcum may have been a noble metal such as platinum,[1] as it was supposed to be mined, or one type of bronze or brass or possibly some other metal alloy. In 2015, metal ingots were found in an ancient shipwreck in Gela (Sicily), which were made of an alloy primarily consisting of copper, zinc and small percentages of nickel, lead, and iron.
In numismatics, orichalcum is the golden-colored bronze alloy used by the Roman Empire for their sestertius and dupondius coins.
The name is derived from the Greek ὀρείχαλκος, oreikhalkos (from ὄρος, oros, mountain and χαλκός, chalkos, copper), meaning literally "mountain copper".
The Romans transliterated "orichalcum" as "aurichalcum", which was thought to literally mean "gold copper". It is known from the writings of Cicero that the metal which they called orichalcum resembled gold in color but had a much lower value. In Virgil's Aeneid, the breastplate of Turnus is described as "stiff with gold and white orichalc".
Orichalcum has been held to be either a gold-copper alloy, a copper-tin or copper-zinc brass, or a metal or metallic alloy no longer known.
In later years, "orichalcum" was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite and also to describe brass. However, these usages are difficult to reconcile with the claims of Plato's Critias,[6] who states that the metal was "only a name" by his time, while brass and chalcopyrite were very important in the time of Plato, as they still are today.
Joseph Needham notes that Bishop Richard Watson, an eighteenth-century professor of chemistry, wrote of an ancient idea that there were "two sorts of brass or orichalcum". Needham also suggests that the Greeks may not have known how orichalcum was made, and that they might even have had an imitation of the original.
In 2015, 39 ingots believed to be orichalcum were discovered in a sunken vessel on the coasts of Gela in Sicily which have tentatively been dated at 2,600 years old. They were analyzed with X-ray fluorescence by Dario Panetta of Technologies for Quality and turned out to be an alloy consisting of 75-80 percent copper, 15-20 percent zinc, and smaller percentages of nickel, lead, and iron.
According to the Critias of Plato, the three outer walls of the Temple to Poseidon and Cleito on Atlantis were clad respectively with brass, tin, and the third outer wall, which encompassed the whole citadel, "flashed with the red light of orichalcum".
The interior walls, pillars and floors of the temple were completely covered in orichalcum, and the roof was variegated with gold, silver, and orichalcum. In the center of the temple stood a pillar of orichalcum, on which the laws of Poseidon and records of the first son princes of Poseidon were inscribed.
Pliny the Elder points out that orichalcum had lost currency due to the mines being exhausted. Pseudo-Aristotle in De mirabilibus auscultationibus (62) describes a type of copper that is "very shiny and white, not because there is tin mixed with it, but because some earth is combined and molten with it."
This might be a reference to orichalcum obtained during the smelting of copper with the addition of "cadmia", a kind of earth formerly found on the shores of the Black Sea, which is attributed to be zinc oxide.
https://www.facebook.com/zinzin.sky.1
In numismatics, the term "orichalcum" is used to refer to the golden-colored bronze alloy used for the sestertius and dupondius coins. It is considered more valuable than copper, of which the as coin was made.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orichalcum
For centuries, one of China’s most coveted ceramics hailed from Shiwan, a district in Foshan, Guangdong province. The ware – developed in the region during the 16th century, when skilled Ming dynasty craftsmen from central China brought their expertise to Shiwan, weaving it with local artisan culture – came to be recognised as its own style, fashioned in heavily glazed colours and initially designed mainly for practical purposes.
The mass emigration – known as Chinese diaspora – of the 19th century saw a number of Guangdong people leave the country, spreading Shiwan ware outside of China to Japan and East Asia. But the style remained a mainstay of Chinese ceramics design, its vivid hues of reds, whites, and blues an unmistakable sign of its region of provenance.
An extensive collection of Shiwan ceramics was exhibited at the Macao Museum of Art (MAM). With more than 500 pieces, it represented the highest quality collection in China.
The “Exhibition of Shiwan Ceramics from the MAM Collection” presented 46 of these pieces – 34 by masters of the ware and 12 examples of traditional Shiwan ridge decorations, which characterised much of the architectural style of southern China from the 17th century. The exhibition ran from May to early August.
The MAM collection came into being through the efforts of Manuel da Silva Mendes (1867–1931), a Portuguese lawyer and intellectual who moved to Macao in 1901.
A well-respected sinologist, Silva Mendes took a strong interest in the ware, and began visiting Shiwan to write, research, and study its styles and expressions. In the span of a few years, he systematically gathered Shiwan ceramics from the Ming, Qing and contemporary periods, building what would become the world’s first major collection of Shiwan works.
Silva Mendes’ contribution to the preservation of Shiwan’s legacy wasn’t limited to merely acquiring the china, however. He was also keen to explore the intersection of Chinese folk traditions and Western art forms, something which he pursued through close collaboration with one of the ceramics’ most renowned masters: Pan Yushu.
He invited Pan to Macao, introducing him to classical Western sculptures and asking him to create a series of miniatures of traditional Chinese motifs inspired by the art forms of the Occident. Pan then took the miniatures to a ceramics company in Guangzhou where Pan Yushu and his ceramic master partner Chen weiyan used them as models for large-scale works.
“After Mendes died, many people worried about what would happen to his collection. Some believed the government should buy it, but it did not have enough money,” said Lou Tai Seng, curator of Chinese Ceramics at MAM. “The collection eventually ended up with the Luis de Camões Museum of the former Municipal Council and was opened to the public in 1961.”
In 1999, over 300 pieces comprising Mendes’ original collection were transferred to MAM; Lou joined the museum the same year. “Since then, we have received donations from people in Hong Kong and Macao. We also bought a few items ourselves,” Lou explained. “Now we have 545 pieces – no museum in China has a collection as good as ours.”
According to Lou, historically, a place needed to meet three conditions to become a porcelain centre: access to hills for clay, to be used as raw material; a supply of timber for the manufacturing of kilns; and proximity to a river, necessary to transport the finished product. Shiwan satisfied all three.
“The goods could be taken to Guangzhou [by river] and from there to markets in China and Southeast Asia,” Lou noted. “Porcelain is very heavy, so transportation by water was the most efficient method.”
Archaeologists have unearthed pottery in Shiwan dating back over 5,000 years, as well as pieces produced under the Tang (618–626AD) and Song (960–1279AD) dynasties, most for daily household use.
“The ceramic was exported over the Maritime Silk Road to Southeast Asia and Arabian countries,” Lou said. “It was Arab traders who came to purchase it.”
These pieces were mainly sold to ordinary people. Shiwan ware as we know it developed later: “During the Ming dynasties [1368–1644], potters from the north, especially Henan, fled to the south to escape foreign invaders.
They settled in Shiwan and brought a higher level of skill and craftsmanship to the area. A system of masters and apprentices developed, alongside small manufacturing factories.”
Artisan associations began forming in the late Ming era, each specialising in a particular product in order to avoid unhealthy competition and encourage development. “Once you joined an association, you could not switch to another,” Lou noted. “Production was closely linked to demand by local people and what type of pieces they needed.”
By the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the number of associations had grown dramatically, from 8 to 24. One of the most popular varieties of the ceramic was ridges – sculptures placed on the roofs of buildings that were the primary decoration in Lingnan (Cantonese) architecture.
Their production in Shiwan prospered during this era, propelled by Guangdong province’s booming economy and growing population, as well as the turning of Guangzhou into a foreign commercial port after the First Opium War (1839–42).
Those years also witnessed an unprecedented expansion in scale of production, improvement of techniques and variety of designs, which became increasingly influenced by Lingnan culture.
Many temples in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, and Southeast Asia today have Shiwan ridges made during this period. The Grand Hall of the Kun Iam Temple in Macao features the earliest such example, made by the shop of Wu Qiyu in 1817.
As the industry grew and developed, so did the decorative motifs employed by craftsmen. Where earlier pieces primarily featured flowers, fruit, and auspicious designs from the Lingnan region, most of the motifs and figures used in the ridges originated from Cantonese opera, history, legends and fables.
Pearls glazed in red, double dragons, and dragon fish often appeared in the centre of decorative patterns, accompanied by lions, unicorns and other auspicious animals, as well as sun and moon deities and other spirits.
In the 19th century, as Western-style homes grew in popularity in Guangdong, Shiwan ridges began disappearing from the roofs and moved indoors instead, often adorning the rooms of wealthy private residences.
By the time Silva Mendes commissioned Pan Yushu and Chen Wei Yan to create East-meets-West Shiwan wares in the early 20th century, the style of the pottery had greatly shifted.
Craftsmen were no longer depicting dragons; instead ordinary people, national heroes, and historical figures were now the centre of their work. Exposure to Western sculpture also offered new motifs and technical skills to incorporate into their work.
Pan and Chen were two such craftsmen, as was sculptor Liu Chuan, a pivotal figure of modern Shiwan ware. These artists combined folk tales with history, daily lives with legends.
Chen excelled in portraying human and religious figures, a skill passed on to his apprentice, Pan, a talented figure sculptor known for his depictions of women.
Imperial Concubine in a Bath appears in in the exhibition, a perfect embodiment of the elegance, detail, and expressiveness characteristic of Pan’s work.
These great artists rose to prominence just as the prosperity of the Ming era came to end. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–38), in particular, dealt a crippling blow to the ceramics industry.
Some craftsmen were forced to take up new trades, others were not so lucky; Pan died of hunger during the war, roughly a decade after losing Chen.
Yet together, these artisans brought the style into the modern era (Liu died in 2000, after a long career as a professor and academic), revitalising its traditions while enriching them with new ideas.
The MAM collection and exhibition offers a glimpse of all this – and a unique insight into the legacy of the ancient Chinese craftsmanship. (Macao Magazine, by Mark O’Neill, photo by António Sanmarful)
https://macauhub.com.mo/feature/rediscovering-chinese-ceramics-at-the-macao-museum-of-art/
The ShiWan Kiln in present day GuangDong province, has been in business since at least before the Song Dynasty (960-1279) .
https://www.facebook.com/xu.xauxau
Although ceramic produced from ShiWan may not be as highly regarded as the other Kilns such as the Jun, Ding, Guan, Ge, and Ru kilns, which were official kilns for the royal family, it has made it’s mark as a major branch of practical and decorative ceramic art.
During the Ming and Ching dynasty (1368-1911), ShiWan ceramic has reached it’s prime due to the robust international trade in GuangDong. I believe GuangDong was one of a few commercial ports opened to foreign trade in China under the Ching Government.
You may notice that many of the Chinese export ceramics sitting at various European museums nowadays were either made in GuangDong and or were once in the trade junks leaving the port of Canton.
In terms of its artis tic style, ShiWan has always had its deep roots in creating and producing ceramics for and by the ordinary commoners.
The famed ShiWan ceramic figurines, a major representative kind of the kiln’s style, often depict daily routines and activities of the locals. You may see scenes of old men playing chess, people smoking pipe or drinking tea, fishermen fishing in a boat and so on.
To add to the artistic value of the figurines, many mythical and historical figures were produced. They are often meticulously crafted, with great attention to the smallest detail, use of thick and colorful glazes, striking contrasts and looking realistic.
The fact that it’s not an official kiln for the royal family may have contributed to ShiWan ceramic’s great flexibility as an art form and the wide range of topics it could mold itself to．
ShiWan ceramic making is a treasure that the Chinese should continue to develope for future generations. Oh, by the way, this is also a joint issue between Macau and China.
http://miniart-oncover.blogspot.com/2007/02/shiwan-figurines.html
The story of the lost continent of Atlantis starts in 355 B.C. with the Greek philosopher Plato. Plato had planned to write a trilogy of books discussing the nature of man, the creation of the world, and the story of Atlantis, as well as other subjects. Only the first book was ever completed. The second book was abandoned part way through, and the final book was never even started.
Plato used dialogues to express his ideas. In this type of writing, the author's thoughts are explored in a series of arguments and debates between various characters in the story. Plato often used real people in his dialogues, such as his teacher, Socrates, but the words he gave them were his own.
In Plato's book, Timaeus, a character named Kritias tells an account of Atlantis that has been in his family for generations. According to the character, the story was originally told to his ancestor, Solon, by a priest during Solon's visit to Egypt.
There had been a powerful empire located to the west of the "Pillars of Hercules" (what we now call the Straight of Gibraltar) on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. The nation there had been established by Poseidon, the God of the Sea.
Poseidon fathered five sets of twins on the island. The firstborn, Atlas, had the continent and the surrounding ocean named for him. Poseidon divided the land into ten sections, each to be ruled by a son, or his heirs.
The capital city of Atlantis was a marvel of architecture and engineering. The city was composed of a series of concentric walls and canals. At the very center was a hill, and on top of the hill a temple to Poseidon. Inside was a gold statue of the God of the Sea showing him driving six winged horses.
About 9000 years before the time of Plato, after the people of Atlantis became corrupt and greedy, the gods decided to destroy them. A violent earthquake shook the land, giant waves rolled over the shores, and the island sank into the sea, never to be seen again.
So, is the story of Atlantis just a fable used by Plato to make a point? Or is there some reason to think he was referring to a real place? Well, at numerous points in the dialogues, Plato's characters refer to the story of Atlantis as "genuine history" and it being within "the realm of fact."
Plato also seems to put into the story a lot of detail about Atlantis that would be unnecessary if he had intended to use it only as a literary device.
On the other hand according to the writings of the historian Strabo, Plato's student Aristotle remarked that Atlantis was simply created by Plato to illustrate a point. Unfortunately, Aristotle's writings on this subject, which might have cleared the mystery up, have been lost eons ago.
If we make the assumption that Atlantis was a real place, it seems logical that it could be found west of the Straight of Gibraltar near the Azores Islands.
In 1882 a man named Ignatius Donnelly published a book titled Atlantis, the Antediluvian World. Donnelly, an American politician, had come to the belief that Plato's story represented actual historical fact.
He located Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the Azores Islands represented what remained of the highest mountain peaks.
Donnelly said he had studied zoology and geology and had come to the conclusion that civilization itself had begun with the Atlantians and had spread out throughout the world as the Atlantians established colonies in places like ancient Egypt and Peru.
Donnelly's book became a world-wide best seller, but researchers could not take Donnelly's theories seriously as he offered no proof for his ideas.
As time went on it became obvious that Donnelly's theories were faulty. Modern scientific surveys of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean shows it is covered with a blanket of sediment that must have taken millions of years to accumulate. There is no sign of a sunken island continent.
Lewis Spence, a Scottish writer, published several books on Atlantis in the early 20th century. He was fascinated by the pyramids constructed by ancient races in different parts of the globe.
Spence wondered if the creation of pyramids in diverse areas such as South America and Egypt indicated that these places had all been colonies of the Atlantis and if the Atlantians were the original pyramid makers.
While the idea is interesting, most historians today believe the trend toward building pyramids occurred independently in different locations.
Are there any other candidates for the location of Atlantis? People have made cases for places as diverse as Switzerland, in the middle of Europe, and New Zealand, in the Pacific Ocean. The explorer, Percy Fawcett, thought that it might be located in Brazil.
Recently a research team led by Professor Richard Freund at the University of Hartford, has claimed that they have found evidence that the city may be buried not under the ocean, but along the coast of Spain in marshlands of the Doñana National Park.
Geological studies have shown that at one time this marsh was a huge bay connected to the Atlantic Ocean.
The team, using radar technology, digital mapping and satellite imagery believes that they can see signs of a ringed city that once occupied the bay with canals similar to those described by Plato.
There is evidence that a number of tsunamis have swept this area over the centuries and Freund thinks that it is one of these destroyed the city. After the disaster survivors may have moved inland and created a number of what Freund thinks are memorial sites to Atlantis.
Other scientists that have explored the area do not agree with Freund's conclusion, though they admit that a city by the name of Tartessos occupied the area around the 4th century B.C..
Freund believes that Tartessos and Atlantis may just be different names for the same city. As far back as the 1920's historian Adolf Schulten had suggested that Plato had used the real city of Tartessos as the source for his Atlantis legend.
The strongest evidence for a real Atlantis, however, is not in Spain, but closer to Plato's home in Greece. This idea started with K.T. Frost, a professor of history at the Queen's University in Belfast. Later, Spyridon Marinatos, an archaeologist, and A.G. Galanopoulos, a seismologist, added evidence to Frost's ideas.
Frost suggested that instead of being west of the Pillars of Hercules, Atlantis was east. He also thought that the catastrophic end of the island had come not 9000 years before Plato's time, but only 900. If this was true, the land of Atlantis might already be a well-known place even in Plato's time: the island of Crete.
Crete is now a part of modern Greece and lies just south of Athens across part of the Mediterranean Sea. Before 1500 B.C. it was the seat of the Minoan Empire. The Minoans dominated the eastern Mediterranean with a powerful navy and probably extracted tribute from other surrounding nations.
Archaeological excavations have shown that Minoan Crete was probably one of the most sophisticated cultures of its time. It had splendid architecture and art. A code of laws gave women equal legal status to men. Agriculture was highly developed and an extensive irrigation system existed.
The island of Santorini in a satellite photo that clearly shows the ring left by the volcanos explosion.
Then, seemingly in a blink of an eye, the Minoan Civilization disappeared. Geological studies have shown that on an island we now know as Santorinas, located just eighty miles to the north of Crete, a disaster occurred that was very capable of toppling the Minoan state.
Santorinas today is a lush Mediterranean paradise consisting of several islands in a ring shape. Twenty-five hundred years ago, though, it was a single large island with a volcano in the center. The volcano blew itself apart in a massive explosion around 1500 B.C.
To understand the effect of such an explosion, scientists have compared it with the most powerful volcanic explosion in historic times. This occurred on the Island of Krakatoa in 1883.
There a giant wave, or tsunami, 120 feet high raced across the sea and hit neighboring islands, killing 36,000 people. Ash thrown up into the air blackened the skies for three days. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as 3,000 miles.
The explosion at Santorinas was four times as powerful as Krakatoa.
The tsunami that hit Crete must have traveled inland for over half a mile, destroying any coastal towns or cities. The great Minoan fleet of ships were all sunk in a few seconds.
Overnight the powerful Minoan Empire was crushed and Crete changed to a political backwater. One can hardly imagine a catastrophe more like Plato's description of Atlantis' fate than the destruction of Crete.
A fresco from the Minoan palace at Knossos showing the sport of "bull leaping." The Minoan civilization is also the source of the legend of the haf man/half bull Minotaur.
Many of the details of the Atlantis story fit with what is now known about Crete. Women had a relatively high political status, both cultures were peaceful, and both enjoyed the unusual sport of ritualistic "bull leaping" (where an unarmed man wrestled and jumped over a bull).
If the fall of the Minoans is the story of Atlantis, how did Plato get the location and time wrong? Galanopoulos suggested there was a mistake during translation of some of the figures from Egyptian to Greek and an extra zero added.
This would mean 900 years ago became 9000, and the distance from Egypt to "Atlantis" went from 250 miles to 2,500. If this is true, Plato (knowing the layout of the Mediterranean Sea) would have been forced to assume the location of the island continent to be squarely in the Atlantic Ocean.
Not everyone accepts the Minoan Crete theory of the story of Atlantis, but until a convincing case can be made for some other place, it, perhaps, remains science's best guess.
http://www.unmuseum.org/atlantis.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.