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Mundus
Volt Decipi
by John
Sweat
published: May 25,
2006
"the quack is here as
elsewhere rewarded for his exertions. Mundus volt decipi, is the watchword
of quacks, jugglers and mountebanks"
- Life, Letters and Travels of
Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., 1801 - 1873
Old Europe had it's beginnings in 4800 BC. An
unknown people erected a network of over 150 temples out of earth and wood
some of which had diameters of up to a half mile throughout Germany,
Austria and Slovakia, and then within a span of 300 years disappeared.
To the south, the
Starcevo culture whose people had migrated out of Anatolia and had
established themselves in the Carpatho-Danubian region were busy at work
as stockbreeders of oxen and goats and farming the fertile land. It is
probably from these people that the ancient Serbian legend of Kranyatz
arises:
THE earth was waste: nowhere
was there aught but stone. God was sorry for this, and sent his cock to
make the earth fruitful, as he knew how to do. The cock came down into a
cave in the rock, and fetched out an egg of wondrous power and purpose.
The egg chipped, and seven rivers trickled out of it. The rivers
irrigated the neighbourhood, and soon all was green: there were all
manner of flowers and fruits; the land, without man's labour, produced
wheat, the trees not only apples and figs, but also the whitest and
sweetest bread. In this paradise men lived without care, working, not
from need, but for amusement and merriment. Round the paradise were
lofty mountains, so that there was no violence to fear, nor devilish
storm to dread. But further: that men, otherwise their own masters, and
free, might not, from ignorance, suffer damage, God's cock hovered high
in the sky, and crowed to them every day, when to get up, when to take
their meals, and what to do, and when to do it.
The nation was happy, only
God's cock annoyed them by his continual crowing. Men began to murmur,
and pray God to deliver them from the restless creature: 'Let us now
settle for ourselves,' said they, 'when to eat, to work, and to rise.'
God hearkened to them; the cock descended from the sky, but crowed to
them just once more: 'Woe is me! Beware of the lake!' Men rejoiced, and
said that it was never better; no one any more interfered with their
freedom. After ancient custom, they ate, worked, and rose, all in the
best order, as the cock had taught them. But, little by little,
individuals began to think that it was unsuitable for a free people to
obey the cock's crowing so slavishly, and began to live after their own
fashion, observing no manner of order. Through this arose illnesses, and
all kinds of distress; men looked again longingly to the sky, but God's
cock was gone for ever. They wished, at any rate, to pay regard to his
last words. But they did not know how to fathom their meaning. The cock
had warned them to dread the lake, but why? for they hadn't it in their
valley; there flowed quietly, in their own channel, the seven rivers
which had burst out of the egg. Men therefore conjectured that there was
a dangerous lake somewhere on the other side of the mountains, and sent
a man every day to the top of a hill to see whether he espied aught. But
there was danger from no quarter; the man went in vain, and people
calmed themselves again. Their pride became greater and greater; the
women made brooms from the wheat-ears, and the men straw mattrasses.
They would not go any more to the tree to gather bread, but set it on
fire from below, that it might fall, and that they might collect it
without trouble. When they had eaten their fill, they lay down by the
rivers, conversed, and spoke all manner of blasphemies. One cast his
eyes on the water, wagged his head, and jabbered: 'Eh! brothers! A
wondrous wonder! I should like to know, at any rate, why the water is
exactly so much, neither more nor less.' 'This, too,' another answered,
'was a craze of the cock's; it is disgraceful enough for us to be
listening to orders to beware of a lake, which never was, and never will
be. If my opinion is followed, the watcher will go to-day for the last
time. As regards the rivers, I think it would be better if there were
more water.' His neighbour at first agreed, but thought, again, that
there was water in abundance; if more, there would be too much. A
corpulent fellow put in energetically that undoubtedly both were right;
it would, therefore, be the most sensible thing to break the egg up, and
drive just as much water as was wanted into each man's land, and there
was certainly no need of a watchman to look out for the lake. Scarcely
had these sentiments been delivered, when an outcry arose in the valley;
all rushed to the egg to break it to pieces; all men deplored nothing
but this, that the disgraceful look-out could not be put a stop to
before the morrow. The people stood round the egg, the corpulent man
took up a stone, and banged it against the egg. It split up with a clap
of thunder, and so much water burst out of it that almost the whole
human race perished. The paradise was filled with water, and became one
great lake. God's cock warned truly, but in vain, for the lawless people
did not understand him. The flood now reached the highest mountains,
just to the place where the watchman was standing, who was the only
survivor from the destruction of mankind. Seeing the increasing waters,
he began to flee.
MANKIND perished by the
flood, and there was only one who survived, and this was Kranyatz.
Kranyatz fled higher and higher, till the water flooded the last
mountain. The poor wretch saw how the pines and shrubs were covered; one
vine, and one only, was still dry. To it he fled, and quickly seized
hold of it, not from necessity, but from excessive terror; but how could
it help him, being so slender and weak? Kurent observed this, for the
vine was his stick, when he walked through the wide world. It was
agreeable to him that man should be thought to seek help from him. It is
true that Kurent was a great joker; but he was also of a kindly nature,
and was always glad to deliver anyone from distress. Hearing Kranyatz
lamenting, he straightened the vine, his stick, and lengthened it more
and more, till it became higher than the clouds. After nine years the
flood ceased, and the earth became dry again. But Kranyatz preserved
himself by hanging on the vine, and nourishing himself by its grapes and
wine. When all became dry, he got down, and thanked Kurent as his
preserver. But this didn't please Kurent. 'It was the vine that rescued
you,' said he to Kranyatz; 'thank the vine, and make a covenant with it,
and bind yourself and your posterity, under a curse, that you will
always speak its praises and love its wine more than any other food and
drink.' Very willingly did the grateful Kranyatz make the engagement for
both himself and his posterity, and to this day his descendants still
keep faith, according to his promise, loving wine above all things, and
joyfully commemorating Kurent, their ancient benefactor." from Sixty
Folk Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources by A.H. Wratislaw,
1890
Are these the echoes of
the Black Sea Flood? One can only speculate as I have.
And speculation is a worthwhile endeavor as long as one is willing to stay
critical of one's own efforts.
But speaking
of speculation...
In April 2005, the self
described archaeologist Semir Osmanagic noticed something unusual.
Three hills located at the Bosnian town of Visoko 18 miles north of
Sarajevo (and well within the defined area of Old Europe) appeared to
him to be of man made origin.
Organizing an excavation
he appears to have discovered stone slabs beneath the soil, that are not
native to the area. As the dig continued, Osmanagic made the bold
statement that the hills were nothing less than
pyramids.
Named Bosanka
Piramida Sunca, the mound which was known previously as Visocica
Hill has four perfectly shaped slopes that point toward the cardinal
points, a flat top and supposedly an entrance complex with underground
tunnels. If it is a man made structure, it would stand at 722 feet high -
a third taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is also surrounded by
three smaller hills that are also believed to be
pyramids.
Osmanagic claims to have
had satellite images, thermal analysis and radar studies performed at the
site and claims there is independent confirmation of his
discovery.
There is considerable
criticism of his efforts and Osmanagic has
responded.
"They
are jealous," Osmanagic said in an interview with LiveScience "These people are
going crazy because they've been teaching students that these [Bosnians]
were cavemen, and all of a sudden they are finding complex structures
here."
"We laugh at the people
who said that the world was flat, and they laughed at Galileo," he said.
"The history books will just have to be rewritten from scratch, that's
all."
No one disputes that
culture of Old Europe exists, but there has never been any evidence
indicating that they had the population base, and technological
ability to create a temple structure of such magnitude that it dwarfs
the best efforts of the Old Kingdom of Ta-meri (Egypt). Without the
benefit of a river delta and the annual floods there were
geographical limitations for agricultural resources. The people of
Old Europe practiced swidden agriculture, hacking fields out
of the dense forests and moving on when the soil was exhausted. They would
have constantly at the mercy of stormy weather and drought that are
common features of Central Europe.
Osmanagic also claims the
pyramids could be as old as 12,000 years - immediately disqualifying the
known proto cultures of Old Europe described at the beginning of
the article. As Anthony Harding of the European Association of
Archaeologists points out "Europe was in the
late Upper Paleolithic at this point and no one was building anything
except flimsy huts."
Osmanagic also has no formal training in archaeology. This, in and of
itself is not a liability and should not be held against him.
Heinrich Schliemann had no formal training for example (and neither do I
for that matter.) However, based on his written work he tends to indulge
in psuedoarchaeological explanations - believing for example that the
Mayan are descended from the Atlanteans who came from the Pleiades or
something to that effect.
Even within Bosnia, not
everyone is with Osmanagic. A rather incoherent online petition blasts his
discovery claiming "The 'pyramids' have a symbolic role... ending the
'Age of the Diplomatic Mask' and ushering in Reagan's New World
Order." All this proves is that self-deception can go either
way.
The whole "discovery"
infuriates Curtis Runnels of Boston University who teaches an
undergraduate course on Archaeological Mysteries: Psuedoscience and
Fallacy in the Human Past. "These reports are irresponsible on the part of
journalists," said Runnel in an interview for Archaeology
magazine. "These claims are completely unsupported with any kind of
factual evidence, such as artifacts or photographs of the alleged
architectures... People who believe these stories, especially when
they are presented without evidence, are
fools."
To make your own
judgement on Osmanagic's excavations, he has a website (of course) at http://bosnianpyramid.com
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