Ancient Texts
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Places · Quran and Arabian lore'Ad and Iram of the PillarsThe Quran speaks of a people of great stature and a city of pillars, "the like of which was not created in the lands," erased by a furious wind. Medieval writers turned it into a golden city. In the 1990s, NASA radar images were used to trace caravan tracks in the hunt for it under Oman's sands.Texts · Jewish apocalyptic (Slavonic)Apocalypse of AbrahamIn this ancient book Abraham rises to heaven on the wings of a sacrificed pigeon and turtledove. He sees a throne of fire and wheels full of eyes. Along the way, Azazel, the Watcher chief of Enoch, swoops down as an unclean bird to scare him off. Who is the guide, and what does Abraham see?Objects · Hebrew Bible and EthiopiaArk of the CovenantBuilt to the exact measurements in Exodus and covered in gold, this chest could kill. When oxen stumbled and a man reached out to steady it, he was struck dead on the spot; one claim places it at Aksum, in Ethiopia. The only outside scholar known to have seen the object there called it an empty wooden box.People · Quran and commentaryAsif ibn Barkhiya (the throne carried in a blink)A powerful jinni offers to fetch the Queen of Sheba's throne before Solomon can rise from his seat, but a man with knowledge of the Scripture says he can do it before your gaze returns, and it is simply there. The Quran never names him; later commentators did. Who did they say he was?Texts · Medieval Jewish midrashBook of JasherThe Bible twice cites a lost book of Jasher, and in 1625 a book by that name was printed in Venice. It claims to be rescued from Jerusalem's ruins, yet scholars date it to the medieval period. Here Nimrod's hunting power comes from Adam's own garments, which made animals kneel to whoever wore them. What else is in it?Texts · Second Temple Judaism; Ethiopian Orthodox canonBook of JubileesAccording to this book, an angel dictated the history of Genesis to Moses, and every event fits a sacred 364-day calendar. It claims that until Adam and Eve left Eden, all the animals spoke one language. Complete only in Ethiopia, it tells a gentler Watcher story than Enoch does. Why did the Watchers first come as teachers?Texts · Syriac ChristianityCave of TreasuresIn this Syriac history of the world, Noah carries Adam's embalmed body aboard the ark. It is later buried at Golgotha, the very spot where Christ would be crucified. Here the sons of God are not angels but the descendants of Seth, living on a holy mountain beside Paradise. What lured them down?Texts · Second Temple JudaismDead Sea Scrolls (Qumran)One scroll was written on sheets of copper and lists more than sixty places where huge amounts of gold and silver were supposedly hidden. Bedouin shepherds found jars of ancient manuscripts near Qumran, and about a thousand more followed. They include the oldest copies of Enoch, Jubilees and the Book of Giants. What else is in them?People · 20th-century American occultismDoreal and the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth"A teacher who founded the Brotherhood of the White Temple in Denver said he found emerald tablets at the Great Pyramid in 1925, written by Thoth, a priest-king fleeing Atlantis. Scholars call the book a 20th-century composition; he later moved followers to the Colorado mountains to wait out a nuclear war predicted for 1953. Who was he, really?Texts · Hermetic and Arabic alchemyEmerald TabletIn the oldest telling, the tablet is found in an underground chamber, held in the hands of an old man seated on a throne; its dozen or so lines, credited to Hermes, became the founding charter of European alchemy: "That which is below is like that which is above." The earliest known version is Arabic. Where did it come from?Beings · Bible and QuranGog and MagogAccording to the Bible and the Quran, a people is penned behind a wall at the edge of the world and will break loose at the end of time. In the 9th century a caliph sent a real expedition to inspect that wall, and its report survives. What did the travelers report?People · 2 MaccabeesHeliodorusA stone inscription found in Israel preserves a real letter addressed to Heliodorus, a king's minister. In the Apocrypha, the same man marches into the Jerusalem Temple to seize its treasury and is beaten by a horse with a terrible rider and two strong young men. The history is real. What does the story say happened?People · Hellenistic Egypt and Hermetic traditionHermes TrismegistusCosimo de' Medici once had his translator set Plato aside because Hermes had to come first. The "thrice-great" sage, part Egyptian Thoth and part Greek Hermes, was credited with books of wisdom, astrology, magic and alchemy; scholars date those books to the Roman era. So who really wrote them?Ideas · NeuroscienceIntegrated Information TheoryUnder this theory, a system does not need to be a brain to have some degree of consciousness, which critics say leads to strange conclusions. It was put to a head-to-head test against a rival in 2023, and neither came out clearly ahead. More than a hundred researchers called it pseudoscience. So is it real science?Beings · Quran and Arabian loreJinnA second species, made of smokeless fire and hidden from sight, shares the world with us, the Quran says. They eat, marry, die and choose whether to believe; one chapter claims they once sat in listening posts in heaven, until meteors drove them off. What were they trying to overhear?People · Book of Jubilees; SeptuagintKainam (Cainan)One man appears in the Gospel of Luke's family tree of Jesus and in the Greek Bible, yet is missing from the standard Hebrew text. The Book of Jubilees gives him a story: he found star lore carved on a rock, copied it in secret, and told no one. What did the rock say, and why hide it?Texts · EthiopiaKebra NagastEthiopia's emperors claimed descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba for seven centuries, until 1974, and this one book is where that claim comes from. It says the sons of Solomon's nobles stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple and left a copy behind. What happened on the road home?Objects · Egypt and geologyLibyan desert glass (Tutankhamun's scarab)The scarab at the center of Tutankhamun's jewelry is carved from glass far older than any pharaoh. Geologists say it formed about 29 million years ago, when sand melted at temperatures higher than any volcano reaches; pieces still lie scattered across the Great Sand Sea. What kind of blast from the sky could do that?Texts · Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphaLife of Adam and EveEve, the story says, ordered two sets of records, one on clay and one on stone, so that one would survive a flood and the other a fire. The same book has Satan explain why he fell: he refused to bow to Adam. It is an ancient sequel to Eden. What happened to the first couple next?Beings · Book of Giants (Qumran and Manichaean)Mahway, Ohyah and Hahyah (giants of the Book of Giants)A Dead Sea Scroll lets the giants speak for themselves. They have nightmares, argue, and cannot read their own dreams, so one named Mahway flies like a whirlwind across the desert to ask Enoch. Two of them are named Gilgamesh and Hobabish, apparently borrowed from Babylon. The text survives only in scraps. What do the dreams say?Ideas · PhysicsMany-Worlds InterpretationIn this reading of quantum physics, a measurement never picks one result. Every possible outcome happens, and you split along with it. A Princeton student proposed it in 1957, and it is one of several mainstream readings of quantum theory. The catch is that no experiment can tell it apart from its rivals. So is it science?Beings · Book of Jubilees; Dead Sea ScrollsMastemaAfter the Flood, the leader of evil spirits supposedly bargained with God. In the Book of Jubilees he asks to keep some of his demons, and God agrees to exactly one tenth, with nine tenths locked away. In return, an angel teaches Noah healing plants. The story says this is where demons and medicine began.People · Quran and Christian legendPeople of the Cave (Seven Sleepers)Young believers hide in a cave, and the Quran says they slept "three hundred years and add nine," their dog stretched at the entrance. That odd extra nine matches the gap between 300 solar years and 309 lunar years almost exactly; then one of them walks into town with an old silver coin. What happens next?Beings · Tobit; Enoch literatureRaphaelFor weeks a young man traveled with a family, and then he told them something strange: "I did neither eat nor drink, but ye did see a vision." Raphael was an angel in disguise the whole time. In the Book of Tobit he drives off a demon with fish parts. What else did he do on that road?Objects · Jewish, Christian and Islamic legendSeal of Solomon (Solomon's ring)In the Testament of Solomon, an archangel gives Solomon a ring engraved with a five-pointed star and tells him to lock up the demons of the earth and use them to build Jerusalem. Each captured demon must confess which angel can defeat it; the Bible never mentions the ring. So where did the story come from?Texts · Jewish and Christian magic (Greek)Testament of SolomonThe book explains shooting stars as exhausted demons who flew up to eavesdrop on heaven and fell. In it, an archangel hands King Solomon a sealed ring, and he uses it to summon demons, interrogate them, and put them to work building the Temple. Each demon must reveal its name and what defeats it. Real magic handbook, or legend?Ideas · AstronomyThe Fermi ParadoxA galaxy billions of years old should have been crossed by any technological species many times over, yet we have found no confirmed sign of anyone. A 2018 study found a substantial chance we are alone. Others say we have barely looked. Fermi is reported to have asked at lunch, "Where is everybody?" Does anyone have an answer?Ideas · PhilosophyThe Simulation ArgumentA philosopher argued in 2003 that one of three statements must be true, and one is that we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. His reasoning is that simulated minds would far outnumber real ones. Critics say no observation could ever count against it. Is it science, or only logic?Events · JapanUtsuro-bune (the hollow ship)The story says that in 1803 fishermen on Japan's coast found a round, lacquered vessel with glass windows and strange writing, holding a pale woman with red hair who clutched a box no one could touch. Villagers reportedly pushed her back out to sea. Several old manuscripts draw it almost the same way. Why?People · Modern ancient-astronaut writingZecharia SitchinA single 4,300-year-old cylinder seal in a Berlin museum, VA 243, became the most famous piece of evidence for one man's claim that Sumerian gods were astronauts from a hidden planet. Cuneiform specialists say his translations are not supported by the languages or the texts. What did he say the seal showed?
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