Who actually built St. Petersburg. Exposing pop misconceptions

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Where did the detail from the tractor come from in the parking lot of the Stone Age, what unique artifact can be exchanged for a glass of beer, was there a global flood in the 19th century, is it true that monkeys descended from humans, - Alexander Sokolov, the author of the book, told the Gazeta. Ru science department "Myths about human evolution", finalist of the "Enlightener" award, editor-in-chief of the portal "Anthropogenesis. Ru".

“And I think that the pyramids are ancient sarcophagi of aliens”, “Does Mr. Sokolov have evidence that he descended precisely from a woman from Kenya, Africa?” just like that, and not otherwise? "," Take at least Peter: we still do not know who built it "," Why grovel in front of people who are already deceived by official science? "… I took at random a few phrases from the comments to my previous article "Russia is the birthplace of the pyramids" … I am glad that the topic of myths and misconceptions in the field of ancient history has caused such a stormy response, and I want to answer the last question of the reader. If you soften the arrogant tone, then the meaning of the question boils down to the following: why write about pseudoscientific myths at all? Supporters of parascientific theories can hardly be persuaded, but what does the rest, "normal" people care about this topic? I will answer. Of course, changing the point of view of a die-hard fanatic is extremely difficult. But as for "normal people", there is a whole range of possible tasks for the popularizer of science:

draw attention to the problem, interest, make you think, dispel doubts, give a convincing answer to the question of concern to the reader.

Dear reader thinks that the problem of pseudoscience does not concern him? But will he find what to answer to his child when he at one fine moment says: it turns out that the teachers were hiding from us, and the pyramids were built by aliens.

Lovely eccentrics - flying saucers, yeti hunters and paranormal lovers - they are so different. However, their system of argumentation has a common feature - contempt for "official science" and for real scientists, discrediting their work. In this, the adherents of "alternative sciences" are surprisingly similar to each other - maybe they are cloned directly on Nibiru? The undermining of confidence in science among schoolchildren, adolescents, and youth paints the most gloomy prospects for the country. But - less pathos. Our hilarious survey of historical pseudoscience continues.

1. Scientists hide the finds of very ancient people, they are millions of years old

Turn on a specific TV channel at any time of the day or night - and you will hear: mysterious skeletons of incredible antiquity! People are witnesses of dinosaurs! The ruins of antediluvian civilization have been found on the seabed! The standard pseudo-archeological set is the so-called anomalous artifacts, each of which should be devoted to a separate article. Here is a collection of "Ica stones" with images of Indians riding triceratops, and gears 400 million years old (for some reason, very similar to petrified sea lilies), and a gold chain in a piece of coal, and a trilobite crushed by a shoe of 42 size … One of the most popular collections of this kind was compiled in the early 90s of the last century by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, who published the sensational book Forbidden Archeology. With a high probability, stories about millions of years old are based on the stories collected in this wonderful work.

Let's take a look under the cover?

At the very beginning of the book, authors who are neither archaeologists nor anthropologists report that their goal is religious in nature: the justification of Krishna "old earth creationism." Don't you think this approach is a bad choice for a researcher trying to be objective? However, they will tell me, what difference does it make which ideas the authors came from, the main thing is the result! Collected facts! Indeed, the book provides an overview of an impressive number of "anomalous" finds - artifacts that are too ancient; too old bones; too ancient traces. We must pay tribute: the authors spent a lot of time on the excavations … in the dusty archives of the libraries. However, they decided to take not quality, but quantity, so there is no analysis of the finds themselves, in addition to their super-brief description, in the book.

Not to be unfounded, I will focus on a section from the work of Cremo-Thompson, entitled "Unusual Human Skeletal Remains." There are 21 such unusual finds in Chapter: skulls, jaws, skeletons of modern people, found in sediments aged 300 thousand … 2 million … or even 300 million years! However, upon closer inspection, interesting things emerged.

The overwhelming majority of finds date back to the 19th century. The authors explain this picture by the fact that the scientists of that era were still "free from dogmas and stereotypes."

They say, when Darwinism reigned in science, they simply stopped looking for the wrong findings (or even began to hide!).

However, it seems to me that there is a simpler explanation. In the 19th century, excavation techniques were, to put it mildly, far from perfect; serious study of stratigraphy has just begun - the relative age of geological rocks. There was no trace of absolute dating methods. This is now the position of the find, before it is removed from the excavation, is fixed in three dimensions and is sometimes plotted on the plan with an accuracy of a centimeter. Any student archaeologist knows how important the context of a find is and how even a small inaccuracy can irrevocably distort the results!

I will share a secret. With my personal participation - during excavations in Transnistria in 2012 - a rusty part from a tractor was discovered in the immediate vicinity of a stone ax of the Neolithic era.

If we keep silent about the context - the excavations were carried out on a collective farm field - it turns out to be an excellent sensation for the next book from the series "Evil archaeologists are hiding."

Fortunately, modern specialists have at their disposal all the power of modern natural scientific methods, and most importantly - colossal experience. Therefore, equating the conclusions of scientists 150 years ago and the data of modern researchers is like treating teeth on equipment of the 19th century in the presence of modern dentistry.

It is not surprising that for the "curiosities" described by Cremo, there can be no question of any scientific accuracy. The finds were made by chance - workers, miners, amateurs, and it is impossible to establish their context. The age of the remains is judged on the basis of a brief description of the circumstances of the find and its "very ancient" appearance. Don't believe me? Four revealing quotes:

“He knew these workers personally, but, unfortunately, he is now unable to recall their names. He has not seen bones in situ. He saw them already outside."

“David B. Okey doesn't know what happened to the find. But it can testify that it did take place, that the bones were human and that they were in excellent condition."

"The jaw was bought from one of them [the quarry workers] for a mug of beer by a city pharmacist named John Taylor."

"This is what [schoolteacher] Hayes says:" Even an ordinary, more or less educated person will not have a shadow of doubt about the age of the find, corresponding to the age of the surrounding gravel …"

The find itself is often lost, leaving us not only photographs, but even drawings. Now you can speculate about its antiquity endlessly.

In the very few cases when it was possible to subsequently date the find by natural-scientific methods, these methods for some reason gave a young age (for example, not 300 thousand, but 3 thousand years).

But the authors of the book do not trust dating methods - they prefer the testimony of a priest, school teacher or miner, "written under oath."

What is the bottom line? I'm afraid to sound harsh, but curiosities used as evidence of the extraordinarily ancient history of mankind, the very place in the archaeological dump. Where they, in fact, have been for a long time and where only characters like Michael Cremo are digging …

Having written this text, I am in a vulnerable position. Now the adept of parascience can only read a long list of "anomalous artifacts" that I did not mention in the article, each time asking: how does official science explain?

Recently, at one of our events, such a debater (who introduced himself as a jeweler) did just that: he began with the Veles book, then switched to the Shigir idol, then jumped to the Higgs boson, and ended with a pathetic:

"Has anyone seen the AIDS virus?"

The discussion, in fact, devoted to teaching biology at school, was killed, the confused experts wiped their sweat, and the "jeweler", who ate twenty minutes of the total time, sat terribly contented and undefeated.

Friends, science is full of secrets. The real ones. And that's great. Lists of "mysterious artifacts" are secrets of a different kind, for the yellow press. With the approach practiced by Cremo and K - when it is not the reliability of the information that is important, but the quantity, the "shaft" - you can write a book of 900 pages or shoot the series "Astronauts of Antiquity" in 110 episodes, stuffing them with archaeological anecdotes with a beard. And any conscientious author will not have enough life to disassemble it. But why take it all apart? If several "facts" taken at random by the author turn out to be fake, it is worth doing as the electoral commission does when checking the electoral lists. “The candidate was denied registration,” and the would-be archaeologist takes off with a disappointment.

A normal archaeologist, before shouting about the "secret of the century", first asks questions:

- Where and when, under what circumstances was the find made?

- Who and how recorded its position in situ, in the split?

- What is the context? What tools: jewelry, ceramics, biological remains, etc. - were in the cultural layer (if any)?

- What specialists identified the find (if these are human bones - which anthropologists studied them and where is the conclusion?)

- What methods were used to determine her absolute age? Where, in what scientific articles, can you get acquainted with the detailed procedure?

Sometimes the answer to one of these questions is enough for the "sensation" to be closed. For illustration, I suggest that the reader solve a simple problem himself. A certain blogger approvesthat the sand interlayers found in the excavation site in Staraya Russa are traces of the "worldwide flood that took place in the 19th century." Could the blogger be right if below these sand layers there is a layer from the times of the Great Patriotic War - with shell casings, cartridges, shell fragments, craters from explosions, etc.?

2. Not humans descended from monkeys, but apes descended from humans as a result of degradation

It's easy to believe! After all, we do not see how a monkey turns into a person, and to see how a person turns into a monkey, it is enough to go outside in the evening in a residential area of any Russian city.

The promoter of the idea of degradation in our country is a certain Alexander Belov, who proudly calls himself a paleoanthropologist. Belov, for example, proves that the gorilla descended from humans - or rather, from the ancient massive australopithecines, or paranthropes (and those, in turn, from humans). Experts laugh at this interpretation. The fact is that gorillas and massive australopithecines are brought together only by the size of the jaws and masticatory muscles. Apparently, massive Australopithecines, like modern gorillas, ate a lot of tough plant foods - and such food needs to be chewed a lot. That is why both of them have powerful jaws, an impressive crest on the skull for attaching the chewing muscles, large teeth. This is where the similarities end. I will only note one detail: the paranthropes had small canines and incisors with huge molars. And if we look at the skull of a gorilla, what is the first thing that catches our eye? Hefty fangs!

In order to become a gorilla, the paranthropus had to acquire such an ornament - and after all, during the entire previous evolution, the fangs only decreased.

In addition, paranthropes possessed a progressive brush adapted to the manufacture of tools, as well as almost human legs, due to which they walked upright. So this creature is supposed to make a gorilla? By the way, the probable ancestors of gorillas are known to paleontologists - these are chororapithecus, only they lived long before the paranthropes and have nothing to do with them.

If we look in general at the hypothesis of "degradation of man into ape", then everything becomes clear, it is worth putting the finds known to paleontologists on the time axis. Whichever of the human traits we take, be it upright posture, a "working" hand or a large brain, we will see an unambiguous humanization of our ancestors, and not vice versa.

10 million years ago, only four-legged monkeys live in Africa. Several million years later, the early Australopithecines appear - creatures that clearly walked upright, but still spent a lot of time in the trees. Their descendants - gracile australopithecines - more than 3 million years ago, all the signs of upright walking are already there, or rather "on their feet." However, judging by the long and tenacious hands, the nostalgia for tree life has not yet disappeared from their monkey heads. Only in the ancient people who replaced them, after another million years, monkey signs in the structure of the hands completely disappear, the body becomes completely human.

However, their brains are still growing and growing.

What about the brain? Of course, the brain is not preserved in a fossil form, but we have a cranial cavity, by measuring which we can find out the cerebral volume. There are already hundreds of such measured skulls of our ancestors - and you can seepersonally on the diagram, how this same volume of the brain has changed over time. There are about 300 points on the chart. What does it look like? Degradation or rapid growth? Answer yourself.

This does not mean that human evolution is a simple and linear process. We know that the evolutionary trail had bizarre twists, offshoots, and dead ends. Some of the human populations scattered across the planet got stuck in development, and someone, perhaps, degraded (the canonical example is the dwarf men from the Flores Island, crumbling on scarce resources).

However, it is not deviations that are important for us, but the main road.

Undoubtedly, the volume of the brain is only one of the parameters that characterize a person. However, this sign is already enough to see: the idea of degradation has a very shaky foundation …

And if we move away from biology and take culture? What do archaeologists say? It turns out that we see exactly the same picture. In the earliest strata with the early Australopithecines, there are no signs of culture; alongside the late Australopithecines and early humans, primitive pebble tools appear; on younger sites, archaeologists find neat symmetrical axes ("stone axes"), etc. There is progress, not degradation.

Summary: The evidence for the degradation myth would be the chronological sequence of fossils, which would lead to a shrinkage of the brain, a simplification of culture, a return to an arboreal lifestyle, etc. This sequence should have spanned the last several million years. All the data accumulated by paleontology and archeology indicate the opposite.

However, if someone wants to declare himself a degraded descendant of the ancient gods, the Constitution of Russia does not prohibit this.

3. Petersburg was built by a mysterious civilization thousands of years ago

Among the fighters with the "official history", a particularly aggressive caste is made up of the so-called non-Mogliks. These characters are named so because they exclaim "COULD NOT" at the sight of a structure or product, the process of creating which they cannot comprehend within two minutes. Considering that historical knowledge is usually not at the level of secondary school or below, then such objects can be any works of ancient architects, exceeding a barn in elegance and size. The non-glamors describe people of distant eras as crooked-handed inept (apparently, judging by themselves), and the results attributed to them by the "official history" are considered the work of some mysterious civilizations - aliens, reptilians, Atlanteans, etc. Especially explosive mixture - "non-glitchiness" in combination with the construction profession. This instills in the adept the confidence that he possesses some kind of secret knowledge and can, by eye, expose falsifications in photographs and old engravings! At the same time, official historians are presented as ignorant humanitarians or evil conspirators.

The most controversial form of non-glamors - "pyramidiots" - we described in the previous article. Alas, nemogliks are an extensive family that includes both the Fomenkoids and the followers of the "lunar conspiracy", and a number of other subspecies.

But before proceeding, I would like to draw your attention to the characteristic error of "everyday thinking" - a trap into which the non-moglik willingly falls. We are used to the fact that there is a familiar solution for any everyday task. The teeth can be brushed with a toothbrush, the jar can be opened with an opener; drill a hole in the wall with a puncher. And granite must be cut with a grinder with a diamond disc - any stone cutter will tell you that. We, people of the XXI century, live in a comfortable cocoon of high technologies and technical devices. However, the same problem can have many different solutions. People of past eras, who did not know electricity, steel and even a wheel, nevertheless managed to solve difficult technical problems. They solved them in their own way, using what was available, and often to the detriment of their health.

So, before the development of metallurgy, stone was the main material for tools, and over the millennia the ancients achieved high skill in its processing and use.

Yes, those technologies had low efficiency and the work was carried out slowly. Therefore, when the opportunity arose, people began to solve the same problems in more effective ways, and the old solutions were forgotten. Of course, neither a modern builder nor a worker in a stone-cutting workshop knows anything about how the ancients worked with stone. If you don’t believe it, ask someone who, referring to professional experience, talks about the secret technologies of the ancients, to make a flint ax before your very eyes. One thing. The usual. With your hands. Weak? Of course, weak. Meanwhile, Pithecanthropus did such light. And their descendants in the Neolithic were perfectly able to polish stone and drill. Thousands of polished stone axes with holes are proof of this.

Let's return to the topic of non-glitches. In disputes with the pyramidiots, they often cite as an argument the outstanding architectural monuments of St. Petersburg, built in the 18th-19th centuries without complicated technology, by the manual labor of Russian artisans. Suddenly, this argument turns unmistakably against you. Without batting an eye, your opponent declares that Petersburg could not have been built by Peter I and the royal persons who replaced him - technology did not allow! In fact, Peter came to the ready-made - the "megaliths" of Peter stood here from time immemorial, as a legacy of the "civilization of the gods." Historians are deceiving us! As proof, 100,500 photos, taken unmistakably on your phone or downloaded from the Internet, fall out on you. "Look, what a perfect seam - it's impossible by hand." “You can't make such a vase with your hands - in the 21st century we only make such a vase on CNC machines”.

"The wear of the marble is very strong here - this is only possible in a thousand years."

"Look how the arch has gone underground - how many centuries must pass for the house to sink so much." “Perfect surface! This is not granite, but geopolymer concrete!"

What a twist! Humanitarians precipitate - and what can you argue with an expert opponent who continues with pressure: "Kill me like a stone cutter - you can't do it with your hands." It is not necessary to justify such an emotional exclamation - the effect is important!

The Bronze Horseman and the Thunder-stone on which it stands (1.5 thousand tons!), St. Isaac's Cathedral (columns of 114 tons! column! With your bare hands? Ha ha!).

But:

For some reason, the thousand-year-old megaliths of St. Petersburg did not find any reflection in the Swedish chronicles - but the Swedes stood here and even built the Nyenskans fortress in the 17th century. On the Swedish map of the Neva delta in 1643, several villages are marked … and there are no hints of colossal buildings.

Foreigners - witnesses of the beginning of the construction of St. Petersburg - in letters and reports report about terrible roads and wooden houses … And again they shyly keep silent about the stone giants.

What modern master sculptors, working by hand, are capable of, is easy to find out by googling something like "Master class in stone carving." The non-glamor's jaw drops from contemplating what can be done with a chisel and a chisel if the arms are growing out of the right place. And if the stone is well polished and polished, then it shines without any geopolymer concrete.

The construction of the grandiose monuments of St. Petersburg did not take place in a vacuum and left behind a lot of documentary evidence. Let's take just one example - the Alexander Column. In the enlightened 19th century, there was already a press that did not ignore such a significant event. The progress of making and installing the monument was covered in the St. Petersburg "Northern Bee". Don't believe Russian newspapers? Open The Annual Register - London's Annual Chronicle of 1834. Among the main world events of the past year, the opening of the Alexander Column is mentioned.

The installation of the monument became a grandiose show, which attracted 10 thousand people. Of course, some of these people shared their impressions in letters, memoirs, memoirs. The poet Vasily Zhukovsky wrote about the "triumph of August 30, 1834".

The French envoy to St. Petersburg, Baron P. de Burgoen, who was in the capital in those years, reported on the construction of the monument.

The archives have preserved a large number of "accounting", as they would say now, documents - on the allocation of money, people, materials, food for the project. Numerous drawings made by Montferrand and his assistants reproduce technical devices used at an unprecedented construction site: copra, ramps, scaffolding, rollers, capstans. All stages of the grandiose project are captured on the prints and canvases of the artists.

Not convinced? Are all these documents fabricated in the depths of the secret Masonic government? Well, the argument "scientists hide / everything is falsified" puts an end to any pseudo-scientific discussion - here you can safely close the browser window. Do not break through your opponent, do not waste time on him. And this sad thought smoothly brings us to the next point.

4. You cannot trust the "official historians". How it was - no one knows anyway

Here's another win-win trick for any discussion. There is nothing to argue in essence - look for the ulterior motive of your opponent. He argues with you not because he knows the topic well, but because he is jealous, afraid of losing his "warm place" in the research institute, bought by the world behind the scenes, zombified by reptilians, etc. You can ignore in general any arguments of such a biased, "duped by the official science" fool.

In this regard, historians are particularly unlucky. After all, "History is written by the winners!" (The statement is attributed to Anton Drexler, the founder of the National Socialist Party of Germany, but, apparently, this dictum appeared long before him).

But seriously, where do historians get their information from? From the annals. But how can you verify that the chronicler was objective? And do they exist, objective chroniclers? Nobody knows how it was in reality, therefore, construct historical myths at your discretion. This approach is very convenient for the propagandist. The pyramids were built by the Egyptians, or maybe by the Atlanteans, or maybe by the Slavo-Arians - choose to taste. Unfortunately, this idea is still being heard from the high political rostrum.

The average person often does not see the difference between historical science, official propaganda and the presentation of the history of the native state in a school textbook.

Not surprising! After all, the latter source is the only one (apart from the products of mass culture) from which millions of people draw their historical knowledge.

However, even in the ideal case, a history textbook solves not only educational, but also educational tasks. In addition to transferring some basic knowledge, the goal of the school course is to instill in the child a love for the homeland. Obviously, special attention will be paid to the history of the native country. Obviously, this story should be presented in a positive way. Real history doesn't live in a school textbook (although a decent school textbook is a good place to start). Where is the real story? Not on TV shows with intriguing titles. And in normal scientific literature, at real scientific conferences, in archaeological expeditions. Like any science! And like any scientific knowledge, historical knowledge is difficult and time-consuming. Do you want simple and quick answers? Behind them - in blogs and on TV.

The problem of history lies in the specifics of the object of research. Natural sciences deal with experimentally verifiable facts. But the phenomena that historians study have already taken place in the past and, in principle, cannot be reproduced. The picture of the past can be restored based on its echoes - historical sources.

The most famous among them are written: chronicles, chronicles, inscriptions, memoirs, memoirs, letters - from these fragments the historian collects his puzzle.

However, history is far from the only science dealing with the past. Paleontology, geology and astronomy describe processes that took place millions, if not billions of years ago. Yes, the object of historical research is specific, but historians do not dissect it the way they want, but according to all the rules of science. The specialist understands that, most likely, reliable information is mixed with fiction in the source. The art of the historian is separated from one another. These purposes are served by a separate scientific discipline - source studies. An examination of the authenticity of the document that fell into the hands of historians, and a linguistic analysis, and a thorough study of the author's personality are also mandatory. And, perhaps, the main thing is the correlation of new information with information from other sources attributed to this era. It's like cross-examination in forensic science: the testimony of different witnesses must match. Nobody is going to believe The Tale of Bygone Years. In addition to PVL, there are Byzantine, Western European, Arab sources from the same period - you need to compare them with them!

The simplest example: if there are two documents authored by people belonging to the opposing camps, then, probably, each of them will “pull the blanket over himself”, whitewash his comrades-in-arms, extol their victories, and throw mud at opponents. Imagine that some of the details in both documents are the same. If so, then the reliability of these particular details should be very high!

In the excellent book Ancient Egypt. Temples, tombs, hieroglyphs”Barbara Mertz describes a similar situation. When restoring the picture of the battle of Kadesh between the Egyptians, led by Ramses II, and the Hittites, historians have the opportunity to compare Egyptian and Hittite documents. The Egyptian version of events is described in the inscriptions on the walls of the temple at Karnak. Since the purpose of the Egyptian inscriptions is to glorify the Pharaoh, any "anti-Egyptian" details in these chronicles are likely to be correct. And from the Karnak texts we learn that “Ramses, counting on a quick victory, overtook his army;, turned into a disorderly flight. " Since even the flattering scribes of the Pharaoh are forced to tell about this, these details should be trusted. According to the Egyptians, thanks to the personal courage of Ramses, he eventually managed to turn the tide of the battle.

Fortunately, historians have another version of events - the Hittite.

Many of its details differ, but, comparing both versions with each other, historians came to the conclusion that neither side won a final victory: both troops retreated, suffering heavy losses. Confirmation of this is the text of the peace treaty, eventually concluded between Egypt and the Hittite kingdom. Surprisingly, historians have both Egyptian and Hittite versions of this document in their hands - and their texts are very similar! Verification of documents allowed historians to reconstruct the sequence of events that took place more than 3 thousand years ago.

Another ancient Egyptian example mentioned in the last article. Egyptologists believe that the Egyptians drilled and sawed the stone with copper tools and an abrasive. Of course, we do not have a video recording of the drilling of granite by an ancient Egyptian in the presence of attesting witnesses. But we at least have:

• the ancient holes themselves and the cores left from their drilling (identical in the experiment);

• ancient images showing the drilling process;

• presence of traces of copper in ancient holes and cuts;

• knowledge that the Egyptians had a technology for making copper pipes, and the discovery of such pipes.

These are all arguments in favor of our hypothesis. They object to me: “Aha! Say yourself that this is just a hypothesis! Nobody saw it! " Well, I like the analogy suggested by journalist and historian Mikhail Rodin. In the morning, a tipsy and rumpled husband returns home. The wife smells perfume and sees a trace of lipstick on the reveler's cheek. In addition, a friend has already reported to his wife that she noticed her husband in a restaurant "with someone." However, the chilling husband declares: “Darling, do not believe this hypothesis! Slander, slander of enemies! In fact, I was kidnapped by the Martians. Why is my version worse? After all, no one saw how it really was."

Alas, the evidence is not in favor of the Martians …

“History is fiction,” says a reader familiar with history from fiction. However, it seems to me that it is more correct to compare a historian not with a journalist or writer, but with a criminalist. The investigator was not personally present at the murder, but there is enough evidence and testimony of witnesses to restore the picture of the crime. And the court, having studied the materials of the case, issues a guilty or acquittal.

Attention, dear commentators! If I see phrases of the following kind in your texts:

- “Yes, this historian was a German (Englishman, American, Jew)! You understand … ;

- “He has the wrong education! And the site is wrong”;

- "The author just makes money";

- "The author defends the hardened official dogmas";

- "Afraid of losing the grant - that's his main secret!" …

then I understand that your main secret is the complete lack of scientific evidence.