Ruins of Peru in a book of 1850, by George Squier.
Ruinas de Perú en un libro de 1850, de George Squier. Bienvenidos a Mente Abierta. Hoy exploraremos un libro fascinante publicado en Nueva York en 1877, titulado "Perú: incidentes de viaje y exploración en las tierras de los incas", escrito por Efraim George Squier. Este texto, que data de 1850, ofrece una visión única sobre las estructuras que el autor observó en Perú, Lima y Panamá, y contiene imágenes intrigantes de diversas edificaciones. En su libro, Squier documenta sus observaciones sobre las antiguas estructuras incas, lo que nos invita a reflexionar sobre la historia y la cultura de esta civilización. ¿Qué opinan ustedes sobre las edificaciones que él describió hace más de 170 años? ¿Quiénes creen que pudieron haber contribuido a la construcción de estos impresionantes edificios?
GreekReporter Collage of Uxmal Royal Entrance, Mexico and Ara Paxis, Rome Credit: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr and Andy Hay/Wikimedia commons CC BY-SA 2.0
The suggestion that ancient Greeks reached America before Columbus may seem far-fetched but certain researchers think otherwise.
The idea is based entirely on a new examination of a dialogue written by the Greek historian Plutarch, who lived from 46 to 119 AD.
Dr. Ioannis Liritzis, a professor of archaeonomy (the physics of archaeology) at the University of the Aegean studied Plutarch’s text and came up with a theory that ancient Greeks did indeed reach America.
Plutarch’s text, “On the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon,” is commonly known as “De Facie.” In the dialogue, Lambrias asks Sylla the Carthaginian to retell a story he had heard from the servants of the temple of Cronus in Carthage.
Sylla tells Lambrias about a traveler who visited the temple after returning from a long journey to a distant, vast continent.
Greek scientist claims Greeks voyaged to America
Dr. Liritzis bases his theory on scientific data in a paper co-written with astronomer Panagiota Preka-Papadema, philosopher Konstantinos Kalachanis, meteorologist Chris Tzanis, and information technology consultant Panagiotis Antonopoulos.
According to the traveler in De Facie, new travelers would make the journey to the great continent roughly every thirty years, when the planet Saturn, which Greeks called Kronos, appeared in the Taurus constellation.
Dr. Liritzis and his colleagues claim that ancient Greeks traveled to that continent, which indeed was North America.
The researchers argue that the Greeks could have used their detailed knowledge of astronomy to pinpoint the locations of Atlantic currents that could move them westward.
A total eclipse of the sun appears in the story described by the traveler in De Facie; the Greek research team searched five millennia of eclipse records to find one that met the parameters of the dialogue.
The researchers settled on one eclipse, which took place in 75 AD. Using astronomy software, Dr. Liritzis’ team saw that in the decades around this eclipse, Saturn would have indeed appeared in Taurus during three periods: from 26 to 29 AD, 56 to 58 AD, and 85 to 88 AD.
The team used the 75 AD eclipse to calculate the timing of the conversation between Plutarch’s informant and Sylla, who had traveled to the great continent.
Based on this, Liritzis and his colleagues timed the trip itself to the period when Saturn was most recently in Taurus, i.e. 56 AD.
The researchers postulated that preparations for the journey described by Sylla would have started that year. The travelers would have arrived in North America in 57 AD.
The ancient Greeks stayed in America for a year, and sailed home in the fall of 58 AD, when Saturn moved out of Taurus. This was the most recent voyage to the time of Plutarch’s writing.
According to the text, such journeys must have taken place every thirty years over a span of several centuries, the Greek team assumes.
Replica of Ancient Greek Trireme. Credit: Hellenic Navy
Geographic descriptions support the theory
Analysis of De Facie takes clues from the geographic descriptions made at the time as well. Plutarch’s text mentions a “great continent” beyond the isle of Ogygia, which, according to the text, is itself a five-day trip by trireme west from Britain.
Plutarch also wrote that the Greek settlers accessed the “great continent” through a bay that lines up with the Volga River delta, the northern entrance to the Caspian Sea.
Liritzis referred to Google Earth and drew a line from this location across the Atlantic and found it led to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.
The scientist says the ancient Greek settlers may have journeyed to today’s America for the sake of exploration, riches, or religious purposes.
He says that they would have made the journey when Saturn was in Taurus because they closely followed astronomical phenomena associated with Kronos, the father of Zeus.
Some archaeologists say a voyage of ancient Greeks to America is implausible, though not necessarily impossible.
Others dismiss it completely, saying that there is no evidence of ancient Greeks reaching America, much less staying there, even for a brief period of time.
Archaeology professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) who studies underwater archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean said that an accidental crossing by ancient Greeks was not impossible, but there is no solid evidence to corroborate such a theory. Brendan Foley, an underwater archaeologist at Lund University in Sweden who studies shipwrecks from antiquity, said ancient Greeks did not possess the navigational technologies and knowledge to navigate in the open Atlantic.
Greek-Canadian archaeologist has a similar theory
A Greek-Canadian researcher of Aegean scripts, Dr. Minas Tsikritsis, has a theory that resembles that of Dr. Liritzis, however.
The scientist stated that ancient Greeks may have reached America years before the Italian seafarer Christopher Columbus did so in 1492.
Tsikritsis, who also studied Plutarch’s De Facie, has shown and demonstrated through computer programs that ancient Greeks knew that “west of the three islands and northwest of Britain” there was a “great” continent.
The Greek-Canadian researcher believes that communication between Greece and America began during the Minoan era and continued until Hellenistic times.
The purpose of these travels during the Bronze Age was related to trade and the transportation of high-grade copper from Lake Superior on the border of the US and Canada.
After the Minoans, the Mycenaeans continued the journey. Later, during the Iron Age, interest in the region declined.
Only once every thirty years did Greek ships sail to the areas where people worshipped Kronos, ostensibly what is now Canada and the northern US states, in order to renew the priests there, according to that theory.
Patagonian Indians especially the Tehuelche culture were considered the tallest people in the Americas during the Age of Exploration and they were located in Argentina and Chile in South America. However there was one other culture that rivaled their giant size and they were located in North America. The Osage people were tall and strong averaging 6 to 7 feet in height as mentioned below.
Some Europeans compared Osage warriors to conquering Roman legions or medieval knights. Jefferson called their warriors "gigantic" – averaging well over 6 feet in height. (One Osage chief was 7 feet tall and weighed 300 pounds!) Warriors were very hardy and could travel 60 miles a day – on foot!
Who was the 7 foot tall Native American?
Osage men were typically described as very tall and physically well-built. Black Dog was apparently even more imposing than most, since he was described as nearly 7 feet (2.1 m) tall and weighing at least 300 pounds (140 kg). He was reportedly blind in his left eye. He is believed to have led one of the larger bands.
What was the average height for the Osage tribe?
Early settlers have said that the Osages were the largest Native people in North America, with the Osage men averaging over 6 feet tall. In war, they were feared by neighboring tribes.
Black Dog was a contemporary of, and shared power in the tribe with, two other noted chiefs: Clermont (Claremore)[a]andPawhuska.[1]Osage men were typically described as very tall and physically well-built. Black Dog was apparently even more imposing than most, since he was described as nearly 7 feet (2.1 m) tall and weighing at least 300 pounds (140 kg). He was reportedly blind in his left eye.[1]He is believed to have led one of the larger bands.
I recently found another Amerindian group that was also as tall as the Patagonian Giants and the Osage people.
The Choctaw Indian chief name Tuscaloosa was around 7 feet tall, and his son was nearly that height also. They inhabited the Alabama state.
The Apache chief Mangas Colorado was 6 feet, 6 inches tall (6'6")
Many Lakota Indians were above 6 feet tall in height.
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Here's some information below:
How tall was the Indian chief Tuscaloosa?
7 feet tall
Tuskaloosa was known for being a great leader, impressive for his size and nobility, he was nearly 7 feet tall! When Tuskaloosa heard of the approach of De Soto, he went out to meet the Spaniard and invited him to visit his village, Mabila.
Tuskaloosa: A giant of a man, both physically and otherwise. [Tuskaloosa]'s appearance was full of dignity he was tall of person, muscular, lean, and symmetrical. He was the suzerain of many territories, and of numerous people, being equally feared by his vassals and the neighbouring nations.
What Indian tribes were in Tuscaloosa or T-town?
The Black Warrior River which flows through the county is named after Choctaw Creek Indian Chief Tuskaloosa – which means “Black Warrior.” The earliest inhabitants of Tuscaloosa were the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chikasaws, Muscogees and Tensaws Indians. The nearby town of Moundville was a center of Native American culture.
What tribe was Tuscaloosa from?
Tuskaloosa (Tuskalusa, Tastaluca, Tuskaluza) (died 1540) was a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. His people were possibly ancestors to the several southern Native American confederacies (the Choctaw and Creek peoples) who later emerged in the region.
Who was the giant Native American chief?
Chief Tascaluza, the grand cacique of the paramount chiefdom of Tascaluza in present-day central Alabama, was said to have been a giant of a man, both physically and politically. Hernando de Soto encountered Chief Tascaluza in 1541, and the chronicles of the expedition describe much about him and his polity.
Apr 15, 2016
What does Tuscaloosa mean in Choctaw?
Black Warrior
In honor of the legendary "Black Warrior," a great chief who had had a fateful encounter with explorer Hernando DeSoto centuries before somewhere in Southwest Alabama, the settlers named the place Tuscaloosa (from the Choctaw words "tushka" meaning warrior and "lusa" meaning black).
Who was the tallest Native American chief?
Mangas Colorado was a legendary leader of the Warm Spring Chiricahua Apaches in the early 1800s of the American southwest. His tribe, called the Bendonkohe, was the same Apache tribe of Geronimo. He was extremely tall, believed to be 6'6”, with a powerful body and an enormous head.
Feb 17, 2020
Are Lakotas tall?
In time, the Chippewa began pushing the Sioux people out of Minnesota and into North Dakota. Most nomadic of the three Sioux groups who were made up of seven major tribes. The Lakota people were taller than most other people at that time.
Many of their warriors were over six feet in height.
However, Boas found that the height of the average
Cheyenne was a whopping 5'10”;
the Arapaho about 5'9”;
the Crow 5'8-1/2”;
Sioux 5'8”
and the Blackfeet a fraction under the Sioux;
the Kiowa were 5'7”
and the Assiniboine a fraction under the Kiowa.
Susquehannock's average 5 feet, 7-inch height
According to Franz Boas's 1892 sample of the Cherokee Nation, the average height of Cherokee men aged 21 and older was 172.3 centimeters (cm), or about 5'7".
Sources: Kyrenia Wreck : J.R Steffy's 1985 Interim Report on the Kyrenia Ship's Hull - https://www.jstor.org/stable/504772 Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks -
Dr. John L. Sorenson's Correspondence with Steffy - Sorenson was a prolific diffusionist archaeologist and a strong advocate for theories of a PreColumbian exchange. His correspondence with Steffy first appears in a much broader study of potential evidence for a PreColumbian exchange. While this study is greatly outdated, his dialogue with Steffy remains to be quite remarkable. https://www.sino-platonic.org/complet...
Curious Case of the Custard Apple- Alexander Cunningham's 'The Stupa of Bharut' https://www.amazon.com/Stupa-Bharhut-... Sacred Plants of India- This text is one of many locally produced sources which refers to what may be an extensive presence of the Custard Apple in Indian iconography predating its conventionally excepted arrival during the Columbian exchange. https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Plants-... Plant economy during Kushana period (100-300 AD) at ancient Sanghol, Punjab https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... Possible Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages Based on Conventional LSC and AMS 14C ... (Custard Apple remains at Tokwa study) https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Polynesian Peculiarities - Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia- https://www.cell.com/current-biology/... Molecular genetic studies of natives on Easter Island: (B.A Lie. et al's 2007 HLA paper)- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17212... Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement (Ioannidis 2020 study)- https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158... Ozette Iron Working - Gleeson's 1985 Analysis - https://npshistory.com/publications/o... While not directly cited in the video Ruth Kirk' and Richard Daughtrey's 1974 book 'Hunters of the Whale' extensively document's the Ozette site during its excavation. The information is outdated as the text was published prior to completion of excavations. Kirk and Daughtrey openly speculate about a hypothetical Chinese voyage in the 1100's, but I abstained from including that part 😉 https://www.amazon.com/Hunters-Whale-...
