What is the mysterious handbag seen in Ancient Carvings Across Cultures carried by the Gods
Many pieces of art found on cave walls dating back to the end of the Ice Age have resembled what is known today as a handbag or purse.
The design persisted in ruins of ancient Turkish temples, Maori decorations of New Zealand, and crafts made by the Olmecs of Central America.
Earliest Discovery
The ruins of Göbekli Tepe, dating back to about 11,000 BC are one of the earliest discoveries of the handbag.
But what the temple used for remains a mystery. Göbekli Tepe, a most ancient and Oldest temple complex. Many archaeologists suggest that the sanctuary held religious sacrifices, due to the butchered animal bones collected.
The walls and pillars throughout the temple are embellished with intricate carvings of animals, gods, mythical creatures, and three handbags.
Could the mysterious handbag really represent the cosmos? Assyrian relief carving from Nimrud, 883–859 B.C.
An Answer Written in the Stars
The handbag is described to “typically feature a rounded handle-like top and a rectangular bottom and may include varying degrees of additional details of texture or pattern”.
Whether the images stand-alone or in the hand of a god or goddess-like creature, there are several theories out there to the meaning of this reoccurring object.
Pillar 43 from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey shows three ‘handbag’ carvings along the top.
The most straightforward explanation is that of the cosmos. The semi-circle of the handbag, the straps, represents the hemisphere of the sky, while the square shape represents the earth.
According to Scranton, “In ancient cultures from Africa to India to China, the figure of a circle was associated symbolically with concepts of spirituality or non-materiality, while that of a square was often associated with concepts of the Earth and of materiality”. Therefore the image is seen to represent the unification of both earth and sky, the tangible and intangible elements.
Other Findings
The handbag continues to appear across the globe. It shows up in two stone reliefs, one made by the Assyrians of ancient Iraq sometime between 880-859 BC and the other made by the Olmecs of ancient Mesoamerica sometime between 1200 – 400 BC.
Olmec Monument 19, from La Venta, Tabasco, shows a man holding the handbag in his hand
Then in New Zealand in an image of a hero who rose to the home of the gods and came back to earth “carrying three baskets of wisdom.” Finally, in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the handbag-like image is seen frequently serving as a home for the gods and goddesses, similar to the Native American tepee.
The theme of the handbag appears to be a cosmological symbol that is often overlooked by the general public that means much more than what meets the eye.
Oldest Preserved Spider Web dates back to Dinosaurs
The oldest known spider web in the world has been discovered on a beach in the English city of Sussex, caught inside an ancient amber chunk
Baltic amber.
In December scientists found the rare amber fossil and have now confirmed that it contains remains of spider silk woven by an ancestor of modern spider weaving spiders some 140 million years ago.
The researchers discovered that ancient silk threads share many common features in modern spider webs, including droplets of sticky glue that are used for holding the web together and catching the prey after cutting the amber into thin sections and examining every piece under the powered microscope.
According to paleobiologist Martin Brasier of Oxford University, the gooey droplets suggest that spiders were starting to spin webs that were better adapted for catching flying insects.
“Interestingly, huge radiation took place in flying insects and bark beetles about 140-130 million years ago,” Brasier wrote in an email to Wired.com. “So we may be seeing a co-evolution of spiders and insects here.”
The new discovery is the first example of an amber fossil from the early Cretaceous period when dinosaurs like spinosaurus and psittocosaurs roamed the Earth.
“Silk is a relatively delicate material and it is rarely preserved in the fossil record, except when entombed in amber,” Brasier and colleagues wrote about the discovery in the upcoming December issue of the Journal of the Geological Society.
The researchers think pieces of organic material, including the spider silk, became embalmed during a severe wildfire when amber resins seeped out from the charred bark of coniferous trees and were eventually swept away by flooding.
In addition to ancient spider silk, the amber chunk contains well-preserved soil microbes, including the oldest known examples of actinobacteria, a common type of bacteria that plays a major role in soil formation.
Bones of 13th-century saint found hidden inside the small silver coffin
The bones of a Polish saint that have been lost for centuries have been re-discovered by chance during restoration work in a Christian basilica in Silesia.
Conservators were working on the tomb of St. Jadwiga in Trzebnica, Lower Silesia, in southern Poland when they made the chance discovery. While the tomb of the saint is well-known, her remains had been lost long ago. They were working on her stone tomb, which dates to the 17th century after a small fissure appeared on the sarcophagus.
The art conservators were working to prevent the crack from getting worse when they noticed something unusual about one of the stone slabs. Dorota Wandrychowska, an art conservator, told The First News, “When we lifted the slab we saw that charcoal mixed with plaster had been poured into a cavity, which was very strange. So, we thought we had to check it out”.
The bones of St. Jadwiga were found by chance during conservation work at the church in Silesia.
What they found was amazing. They found a tiny silver casket.
According to The First News website, the casket has “a lead tablet with an inscription confirming that the relics are those of the 13 th century saint”. The find was a complete shock to the team of conservators and the local clergy. It was assumed that the saint’s bones were somewhere in the church.
Documentary sources indicate that the saint was buried in the basilica in the 13 th century. The First News, quotes Father Piotr Filas, from the nearby abbey of Trzebnica stating “We knew that the saint’s bones were somewhere in the vicinity as they were laid there in 1679 when her tomb was built”.
It is believed that the inscription panel, which is written in Latin, was laid on the casket in 1764. Report Web reports Father Filas as saying that “we believe that nobody has taken a look at the bones since that date”.
The inscription panel that was laid on top of the casket bore the date 1764, suggesting St. Jadwiga’s bones hadn’t been seen since that time.
It appears that for reasons unknown possibly because of the political instability in Poland at the time, that St. Jadwiga’s casket was forgotten. The discovery is very important in Poland which is overwhelmingly Catholic and where there are high levels of religious observance.
St. Jadwiga, sometimes referred to as St. Hedwig is a very significant figure in the history of Christianity in Poland. She was born in Bavaria, in southern Germany and entered into an arranged marriage with Henry I the Bearded, one of the first Piast rulers of Silesia.
St. Jadwiga while she was queen.
Jadwiga was the mother of Duke Henry the Pious. She was a great patron of the clergy and encouraged many German monks and nuns to settle in the dukedom.
Jadwiga was very pious and she was much loved for her charitable work, especially her care for the sick. Like many other Christian saints, she practiced mortifications of the flesh and she frequently wore no shoes.
When her husband told her confessor to tell her to wear shoes, she obeyed. However, she wore her shoes around her neck and continued to walk around barefoot.
When her husband died in 1238, she retired to a convent in Trzebnica but briefly left it to end conflict among her feuding children. One of her sons was killed fighting the Mongols.
Many miracles are attributed to the saint and according to Report Web “Jadwiga became a saint on March 26, 1267, when Pope Clement VI performed her canonization”. Today she is regarded as the patron saint of Silesia and one of the most popular saints in all of Poland.
The rediscovery of the saint’s remains is seen as highly significant to the faithful. Report Web quotes Father Filas as saying that “I think it is a sign for us that she can be a patron for our modern times”.
Many Catholics may view the discovery as a sign that the saint is protecting them in a very troubling time. There are some suggestions already being put forward regarding the eventual fate of the remains.
5000-Year-Old Papua New Guinea Artifacts Rewrite Neolithic History
Previously found at ancient Asian and European sites, Now for the first time in New Guinea, the signs of a cultural shift in toolmaking and the lifestyle of farmers found.
Excavations at New Guinea’s Waim site began in 2016 after local residents discovered these stone artifacts. The finds included mortars, pestles, carved faces, and club heads.
Archaeological Dig at a highland site called Waim produced relics of a cultural transition to village life, which played out on the remote island north of Australia around 5,050 to 4,200 years ago.
Archaeologist Ben Shaw of the University of New South Wales in Sydney and colleagues report the findings March 25 in Science Advances.
Dr. Ben Shaw and some locals examine a few of the Papua New Guinea artifacts unearthed at the Waim dig site in the northern highlands.
Agriculture on New Guinea originated in the island’s highlands an estimated 8,000 to 4,000 years ago. But corresponding cultural changes, such as living in villages and making elaborate ritual and symbolic objects, have often been assumed to have emerged only when Lapita farmers from Southeast Asia reached New Guinea around 3,000 years ago.
In Asia and Europe, those cultural changes mark the beginning of the Neolithic period. The new finds suggest that a Neolithic period also independently developed in New Guinea.
Key finds at Waim consist of a piece of a carved human or animal face that probably had a symbolic meaning and two stone pestles bearing traces of yam, fruit and nut starches.
Other discoveries include a stone cutting or chopping tool, a pigment-stained stone with deep incisions that may have been used to apply coloring to plant fibers and an iron-rich rock fragment that was likely struck with other stones to create sparks for igniting fires.
Farming’s rise on New Guinea apparently inspired long-distance, seagoing trade, the scientists say.
Chemical analysis of an unearthed chunk of obsidian — displaying marks created when someone hammered off sharp flakes — indicates it was imported from an island located at least 800 kilometers away.
Some of the Papua New Guinea artifacts – formally manufactured stone carvings and pestles from Waim.
A Culture Rich Enough to Rival the Greatest in Europe or Asia
These new discoveries are evidence of an ancient island culture, which had developed sophisticated craftsmanship with a range of tools and crafts, that according to the paper had developed “of its own accord in New Guinea.”
Dr. Shaw says that while it has for a long time been argued that social complexity “didn’t come with agriculture in New Guinea,” his new research has identified similar cultural archaeology, evidencing great developments, as is found in Europe and Asia.
The team of researchers is planning to conduct additional excavations around New Guinea to try and find more evidence about the cultural practices that emerged during the transition to agriculture, and maybe even more artifacts pertaining to their complex culture.
300 Million Year Old Enigmatic Ancient Wheel Found Deep In Mine?
The rare find was made in the Ukrainian town of Donetsk, down a coal mine. As it could not be safely or successfully cut out due to the nature of the sandstone in which it was embedded, the mysterious artifact looking much like an ancient wheel remains in situ down the mine.
While drilling the coal coking stratum J3 ‘ Sukhodolsky ‘ from the surface at a depth of 900 meters (2952,76 feet), workers were surprised to find what appears to be the imprint of a wheel above them in the sandstone roof of the tunnel that they had just excavated.
Fortunately, Deputy Chief V.V. Kruzhilin took photographs of the rare imprint and exchanged them with Mine Chief foreman S. Kasatkin, who brought news of the find to light.
Coal mine after D.F. Melnykov. Lysychansk, Luhansk oblast, Ukraine.
After further investigating this site and carefully examining the imprint at close hand, we are left with only the photographs as evidence of their existence (there was more than one imprint) and the word of a group of Ukrainian miners.
Discovering the Wheel
Without being able to definitively date the strata in which the fossilized wheel print was found, it has been noted that the Rostov region surrounding Donetsk is situated upon Carboniferous rock aged between 360-300 million years ago, and the widely distributed coking coals have derived from the middle to late Carboniferous; suggesting a possible age of the imprint at around 300 million years old.
This would mean that an actual wheel became stuck millions of years ago and dissolved over time due to a process called diagenesis, where sediments are lithified into sedimentary rocks, as is common with fossil remains.
A miner below a wheel imprint in the mine.
The following is an extract from a letter written by S. Kasatkin (translated from Ukrainian) in reference to his testimony of having been witness to the anomalous wheel imprint discovered by his team of miners.
‘This finding is not a PR action, we as a team of engineers and workers asked the mine director to invite scientists for a detailed examination of the object, but the director, following the instructions of the then owner of the mine, prohibited such talks and instead only ordered to accelerate work on passing through this section of lava and on fast ‘charging’ of the section with mining equipment.
Owing to that, this artifact and the smaller one found during further work came to be in a tunnel blockage and could not be taken out and studied. It is good that there were people, who in spite of the director’s prohibition, photographed this artifact.
I have connections with the people who first discovered these imprints and also with those who photographed them. We have more than a dozen witnesses. As you understand, the admission in the mine is strictly limited (it is dangerous on sudden emissions) and to obtain such permission is rather difficult.
The ‘wheel’ was printed on the sandstone of the roof. Guys (drifters) tried to ‘cut-away’ the find with pick hammers and to take it out to the surface, but sandstone was so strong (firm) that, having been afraid to damage a print, they have left it in place.
At present, the mine is closed and access to the ‘object’ is impossible – the equipment is dismantled and the given layers are already flooded.’
The wheel.
With only this written testimony and that of the other witnesses, the photographs remain the only proof of this anomalous imprint, but it must be deemed worthy of a mention despite any difficulties verifying the details beyond that which you have read. For, if the photographic evidence is indeed legitimate, then one must question how a man-made wheel became embedded in such ancient strata when according to scientific orthodoxy man had not even evolved yet.
Mount Kailash in Tibet is actually an ancient manmade pyramid that is surrounded by smaller pyramids and is linked to pyramids in Giza and Teotihuacan.
Words do no justice to the untouched beauty of this far corner of the earth. A vastly mysterious and sacred place. Embraced and protected by miles of immovable mountains.
Monasteries built many hundreds sometimes thousands of years ago, stand in defiance of the elements, precariously placed among the clouds.
Many of these very ancient structures are said to have been built on the remnants of once even grander and very ancient buildings, structures many religions attribute to the gods. Among the seemingly endless mountain ranges, lay one mountain which is different, one which is special.
It is believed by most of Tibet, and even further afield, that the god Shiva lay buried within this sacred mountain. According to ancient beliefs, this enigmatic Tibetan mountain represents the axis of the world.
The stairway to heaven.
In many eastern countries, Mount Kailash is considered the holiest place on Earth. Some ancient sources even suggesting it is where one could find the mysterious city of the gods.
It is said, all who attempt to scale its sacred faces of Kailash, will either be met with failure and death.
It is indeed regarded within the climbing world as unascendable, a route has never been located and probably never will, few have been brave enough to even go near this place in the past century.
There may be some profound reasoning behind these ancient clusters of human beings, regarding this particular mountain over all others as sacred, and as the resting place of a god. There may however be ulterior motives at play when it comes to the discouragement of climbers in attempting the peak.
A team of Russian scientists, intrigued by the history, and a possible suppression of its true nature, have suggested after covert explorations, that the top of Mount Kailash is not a natural formation, it is actually the remnants of a giant man-made pyramid of great antiquity,
Just how old this pyramid could be, currently remains unclear. What also remains unclear, as if the entire mountain is a man-made pyramid?
Disguised by the erosion of many millennia?
The Research teamed Claimed, quote, The stratum is horizontal with the layers of stone slightly varying in colour. The dividing lines show up clear and distinct, which gives the entire mountain the facade of having been built by giant hands, of huge blocks of reddish stone,”
A mysterious claim put forward in regards to the mountain concerns rapid aging when in the area. After spending 12 hours in the region, the length of nails and hair was equal to two weeks of normal growth in some cases.
Several mystics have said that the mountain has a secret entrance within it leading to the legendary kingdom of Shambala. Legend also states that when the ice on its peak finally melts, it will reveal, “THE EYE”.
Prof. Ernst Muldashev Ph.D., a doctor, and explorer, who travelled Tibet extensively, said later in his life: quote, “There are two underground countries, the Shambhala and Agartha, which are each part of the gene pool of humanity and civilization.
Information provided by the Thule Society shows there is a higher civilization, coming from the Himalayas and divided into two branches, the Shambhala and Agartha. The former being the center of power, protected by unknown forces and energy.
An understanding of what sort of pyramid Kailash could be, or indeed just how special it is, may take several years to establish. I will, of course, keep you posted.
King Pacal’s stone Sarcophagus lid created considerable controversial hypotheses, one of which is Traditional scholars claiming the inscriptions tell of King Pacal on a journey to the underworld, but ancient astronaut theorists claim that the king is represented at the seat of a spacecraft’s controls and have dubbed him the Palenque astronaut.
King K’inich Janaab’ Pakal also known as Pacal was the Maya king of Palenque (today- Mexico). He was most famous for raising the city of Palenque from relative obscurity to great power, his building projects in the city (especially the Temple of the Inscriptions), and his elaborately carved sarcophagus lid which has been interpreted as an ancient astronaut riding on a rocket ship. Pacal assumed the throne of Palenque at the age of 12, in 615 CE, and ruled successfully until his death at the age of 80.
Pacal was the son of Lady Sak K’uk who reigned as Queen of Palenque from 612-615 CE. She ruled for three years until her son reached maturity which, at that time, was the age of 12.
Pacal almost instantly began building enormous and elaborately worked monuments in order to celebrate both the city’s past and his family’s legitimate claim to rule.
Temple of the Inscriptions:
Temple of the Inscriptions pyramid was constructed in 675 CE and it was built as the tomb of Pacal. The Temple of the Inscriptions is a pyramid with a small building at the top inscribed with the second-longest continuous Mayan text yet uncovered in Mesoamerica.
Discovery:
For a century after Palenque was discovered, the pyramid was thought to be a religious center in the city (as the inscriptions were undecipherable) until the Mexican Archaeologist Alberto Ruiz recognized that the walls of the small temple continued down below the floor.
He discovered that the platform of the floor had drill holes, which had been sealed by stone plugs, and surmised that the Maya had lowered the floor into place with ropes, perhaps, to seal a royal tomb.
Between 1948 and 1952 CE, Ruiz worked with his team, excavating the temple and, finally, discovered the tomb of Pacal the Great. He shone his flashlight down into the tomb.
Whatever he has seen, he writes like this-
“Out of the dim shadows emerged a vision from a fairy tale, a fantastic, ethereal sight from another world. It seemed a huge magic grotto carved out of ice, the walls sparkling and glistening like snow crystals. Delicate festoons of stalactites hung like tassels of a curtain, and the stalagmites on the floor looked like drippings from a great candle.
The impression, in fact, was that of an abandoned chapel. Across the walls marched stucco figures in low relief. Then my eyes sought the floor. This was almost entirely filled with a great carved stone slab, in perfect condition.”
Pacal’s Sarcophagus:
The Sarcophagus’ lid measures 3.6×2 meters (12×7 feet) and shows king Pacal sitting in some kind of spacecraft. He is at an angle like modern-day astronauts upon lift-off. He is manipulating some controls.
He has some type of breathing apparatus or some type of a telescope in front of his face. His feet are on some type of pedal. And you have something that looks like an exhaust with flames.
His upper hand is manipulating some controls. From the lower hand, he is turning something on. The heel of his left foot is on a kind of pedal and, outside the capsule, you see a linking flame. This is incredible. This is absolute proof of extraterrestrials.
The most famous symbol in this picture is that of the “World Tree”- Shows a man tilting backward at the base of a tree, with a bird high at the top, either falling into or springing out of what appears to be a large urn. Glyphs and symbols run around the edges of the lid, all representing important components of Mayan cosmology.
The World Tree, which the Maya believed had its roots in the underworld, trunk on the earthly plane, and branches high in paradise, and Pacal’s relationship to it in death.
The king is depicted either at the moment of his death falling from the earthly plane down into Xibalba or at the moment of his resurrection from the underworld, climbing up the World Tree toward paradise.
The adornments along the edges represent the sky and other glyphs the sun and moon and, still others, past rulers of Palenque and Pacal’s place among them. The bird at the top of the tree is the Bird of Heaven (also known as The Celestial Bird or Principal Bird Deity) who represents the realm of the gods in this piece, and the `urn’ beneath Pacal is the entrance to Xibalba.
The celestial bird represented the heavens and thus was pictured on the top of the World Tree. Roots of the World Tree extending into the underworld which is not just typical for depictions of the World Tree, it’s pretty much a requirement. In the underworld, we see a picture of the Mayan sun monster which Pacal is riding into the underworld. So Pacal is hitching a ride on the sun into the underworld.
In Mayan art whenever you see a so-called “traveler”- which is a person in transition from one world to the next – there must be something that is making that travel possible.
Sometimes it is a twisted umbilical cord, but almost always it is a serpent, often a double-headed serpent. In other words, being in the mouths of a double-headed serpent was a symbol of transition from one world to the next.
You can see that the so-called smoke is actually the traditional serpent’s beard which appears in almost every depiction of a serpent in Mayan art.
19th-Century Shipwreck Studied in Southern Australia
Maritime archaeology at the University of Flinders helped show a little more of the past of an early Australian-made timber shipwreck in Victoria.
Marine archaeology student Aurora Philpin taking an off-set measurement while mapping the ship’s keel.
Heritage Victoria collaborated with the University’s annual maritime field archeology school and Victoria’s community-based Maritime Archeology Society last month to investigate a wreck near Rye Pier on the Mornington Peninsula.
The wreck is a small Australian-built ship believed to be Barbara which wrecked at Rye in 1853. Barbara was built along the Tamar River in Tasmania by Joseph Hind in 1841 and operated as a lime trader in Port Phillip Bay.
The research showed that the wreck was a very rare example of an early Australian ship that would tell the story of Australia’s early shipbuilding industry. It is fascinating to see how early Australians began their early manufacturing, whereas now they would use different machinery, and have various safety rules and regulations, implementing companies such as BIG Safety for assistance, it is inspiring to view how they started out and the impact they had.
15 graduate and undergraduate students worked with maritime archeology professionals at the annual University’s Maritime Archeology Field School.
Diving archaeology students on-site with Heritage Victoria research vessel Trim and Flinders University’s Tom Thumb stand by
The team comprised members from around Australia and the rest of the world, including the USA, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and the Netherlands.
Flinders University Associate Professor in Marine Archaeology Wendy Van Duivenvoorde says measured drawings, photographs, and underwater photogrammetry was used to record the wreck while a survey team mapped the surrounding land and seascapes.
“We also excavated small sections of the wreck that allowed us to document the construction methods and wood species used,” she says.
Heritage Victoria’s boat Trim was used to transport personnel and equipment to the wreck site, acted as a dive and safety platform for divers working on the site.
The wood, metal and fibre samples collected from the wreck have, so far, shown that the ship was constructed from different wood species of trees originating from the southeast (Victoria, New South Wales), northern Australia, and Western Australia as well as local Tasmanian blue gum.
“This is possibly the first time such a wide variety of timbers have been found in one Australian built vessel and indicates that early shipbuilders had developed a detailed knowledge of the properties of Australian timbers appropriate for shipbuilding,” Associate Professor van Duivenvoorde says.
“The builders of Barbara also appear to have been willing and to access non-local materials for this ship.
“We are still waiting for the results from the metal and fibre analysis.”
All the data that was collected during this investigation will be included in Heritage Victoria’s records and added to the story of Australia’s history, Heritage Victoria says. A detailed report on the project will be compiled later this year.
