What book are you reading now?

I have just finished something the second part of a trilogy exploring anthropology and philosophy, purporting to demonstrste the immortality of consciousness. I was particularly interested when he started talking about the Minoans, but in fact these don't really get looked at that much. He's on Amazon under the moniker of Melampus. I thought he views on patriarchy and the Great Mother religions were a little old school though. 

I have Sapiens coming up, but now I have got a present from last year to read, a fantasy novel called The Vorrh. Supposedly very good ...

The minoans sound interesting, I’d have been disappointed at only a short bit on them too! Sapiens sounds really good, I might have to have a look at that myself sometime. Are you interested in the history of humans? It’s probably good you’re reading a fantasy novel in between though, to give your brains break from the harder stuff.

The minoans sound interesting, I’d have been disappointed at only a short bit on them too! Sapiens sounds really good, I might have to have a look at that myself sometime. Are you interested in the history of humans? It’s probably good you’re reading a fantasy novel in between though, to give your brains break from the harder stuff.

nexus9 said:

The mythical Melampus or the writer on Amazon?

The mythical one, not the writer.

nexus9 said:

I have certainly read about the plague if Justinian.

It's just odd to me how it's never mentioned. It was devastating.

Plague will never go away. It just needs the right conditions.

Windscale said:

Plague*s* - everybody when talking about plague generally means bubonic plague I think, but there are other types as well.

The Justinian Plague was bubonic, but there are different plagues. BTW good to see you around!

The plague as you say is spread by yersinia pestis which is usually carried by the fleas on rats or other animals. It’s 3 forms are bubonic; septicaemic and pheumonic. The bubonic plague affects the lymph nodes and causes the classic black bubu. The septicaemic plague affects the blood, blood poisoning and the pheumonic plague affects the lungs and gives symptoms very much like a severe lung infection or phenomena. Incidentally both the rat and the flea are victims of Y Pestis too as the rat dies from the plague, which is why the flea then jumps intonations a human while looking for a new host and Y Pestis also blocks the mid guy of the flea causing it to starve to death. 

The disease spread by yersinia pestiscomesin three forms, of which bubonic is only one. Flu can do just as well, Spanish flu could even bring about plague-like petechie. Now we have Ebola too

Plague*s* - everybody when talking about plague generally means bubonic plague I think, but there are other types as well.

The mythical Melampus or the writer on Amazon?

I have certainly read about the plague if Justinian.

Plague has never truly gone away. Every year someone in the States contracts it. 

Madagascar is not only has a lot of plague cases, but not so long ago there was a new strain that proved to be resistent to almost all known antibiotics. 

In myth Melampus claimed that Dionysus drove the women of Argos insane. He also offered to cure then for half of the island! 

You know much about the Justinian Plague? It killed a quarter of the world population at the time, yet we never hear of it. I always wonder why it's pretty much never mentioned.

This Melampus guy I told you about put the Bronze Age collapse down to religious wars, namely the takeover of patriarchy over matriarchy. No room for Kurgan warriors on his world view! 

The Sea People problems could have been part of that anyway.  

But just remember, there did seem to be a lot of climatic disasters at the time and they didn't just have Thera to deal with and itd aftermath, now it's asteroids too. 

We have been very lucky do far. But who needs Zeus or Yahwah when now we can manage to destroy the planet nicely without any gods. 

In fact the Minoans did not seem to have a lot of luck. Did you see what I posted later on about the Sodom and Gomorrah myth? 

Well, there really was a developed Bronze Age settlement, with some Momosn pottery unearthed, that was incinerated by an exploding meteorite...

Brilliant! I will check out that too

nexus9 said:

I think it is more o a question of deciding which flood might go with which pieces of evidence and which myths.

One things for sure at the time around Santorini, there was a ton of cataclysmic seismic, volcanic, and environmental activity. In about a 300 year window you had the massive rise of ocean levels, the "Bronze Age Collapse" (which weakened or completely ended whole civilizations, such as the Harrapan in India, the Canaanite states, the Hittites, Mycaeneans, Gonur and Margush, e.t.c.), Yu's flood, and Santorini.

The Bronze Age Collapse is a particularly interesting one, because of the sheer influence of the areas affected. Harrapa was a huge power, and the more it's looked at, very advanced. The Hittites forced Egypt to sign a peace treaty (which still exists in a UN building) which was the first recorded treaty of it's kind. Some big important civilizations more or less got relegated to footnotes in history. The climate change that was the main cause of collapse formed the Sahara, it was relatively small before the change in climate. The Hittites and Gonur and Margush are particularly interesting, because of the sheer power they had. The Hittites shook a particularly powerful Egypt at the time to it's core, they are barely mentioned. They had some very different cultural practices at the time too, divorce and alimony were practiced in a similar way to today. The Gonur and Margush were basically economic juggernauts, they traded with Rome and China. The Romans and Chinese recorded their power and wealth, but you hear nothing of them. Turkmenistan was basically one of the most prosperous places on Earth, once upon a time.

nexus9 said:

The plague of darkness mentioned in Exodus certainly does sound like a volcano.

The plague of "sores" is pretty interesting too, because after Santorini, there was massive ozone depletion over the Eastern Med. So........ not sores, but sunburn, and melanomas! Look at Peru, and Australia. Low ozone, and "sores". It's not even a jump in logic, we can see it in real time, now.

nexus9 said:

One of the earliest epic around, Gilgamesh, mentions a Flood, if I remember well.

There's versions of Gilgamesh that have been found with it, and without it. There's an older Akkadian epic called the Atra-Hasis, which has the flood part basically verbatim, that is in Gilgamesh. Atra-Hasis is about 1700BC, so it predates the earliest Torah by about 500 years. I'd say both Gilgamesh, and the Torah probably borrow from the Atra-Hasis.

nexus9 said:

I am curious to know where the bodies in connection to the Santorini times were found though.

They were probably vapourised or buried. It was more of an explosion than an eruption. There was also about 10 meters of pumice layed over the area, then additional ash. There's never been anything found in the area, to my knowledge anyway.

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a watch.

I think it's pretty weird that when we were all learning history at school, it was all Rome, Egypt, and Greece. There was so much other stuff going on around those times.

You sort of hit a vein of autistic interest, lol, sorry for the long post. In return, here's a link that has enough Santorini that you'll probably like it. Link after link!

https://www.science.gov/topicpages/e/eruption+santorini+greece

I’ve read something similar

I think it is more o a question of deciding which flood might go with which pieces of evidence and which myths. I have heard about the theories of the Black Sea as well as the Doggerland theories too. It might be more surprising if there weren't sometimes massive floodings, considering what tectonic plates, meteorites and volcanic eruptions can do. To say nothing of Ice Ages and their thawing. 

The plague of darkness mentioned in Exodus certainly does sound like a volcano. Actually, veering off again, when I was given a Bible adapted for children at the age of seven or eight, I remember thinking that Moses's descriptions of Sinai sounded a lot like a volcano. The other pestilences sound like a  disrupted eco system too. That Jehovah may originally have been a volcano worshipped as a god. Well just recently I came across a paper that agreed with me! Great minds and all that. 

One of the earliest epic around, Gilgamesh, mentions a Flood, if I remember well.

I am curious to know where the bodies in connection to the Santorini times were found though. The TV series I watched on You Tube does create a pretty convincing case for the idea that there were tsunamis, big ones, all round Crete and Santorini once Thera blew. 

Here is s link to one of these documentaries on You Tube: https://youtu.be/zm_ErRrOsMU

There's a theory that it was about 6000-8000 years ago, due to silt deposits. There are also deposits in Mexico or Guatemala I think I heard.

There was a giant Atlantic Tsunami, which has been proven. 8000 years ago, which would have affected a lot of land mass. The flood covered Doggerland (now the Dogger Bank).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://folk.uib.no/ngljm/PDF_files/Bondevik-al-03-EOS.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwihvq3ShLDgAhUHUxUIHTANAS0QFjAQegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2FwdRuZLKjPFCDqOpP52-s

China also had a semi-mythological great flood, the "Yu the Great" flood. He was supposed to have battled it with a giant turtle and a yellow dragon. I won't believe that until I see the fossils of both! But the flood did happen because they've found skeletons, and silt deposits that date to more or less the same time the "Bamboo Annals" allude to. That was about 4000 years ago. Around the time of Santorini, funnily enough!

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-great-flood/3450336.html

I think it's really interesting that there are a large amount of cultures that have a "Great Flood" in their religions or historical accounts. Some of the dots are being joined up in places now with mainstream science.

nexus9 said:

Thanks Cloudy! That certainly looks worth reading too. 

No problem Nexus!

I read somewhere that it has been suggested that the great flood and Noah's ark might be based on the flooding of the Black Sea from the Mediterranean/Aegean Sea.

I think there was a lot of truth to Melampus's supposition that the pyramids were all about a primitive materialism as was suggested in his series, but then again what are we to make of the supposition that drinking wine and bread literally is the blood and body of Christ, or that the world really was created in seven days? 

You can be sure their mystics had understanding of things that went way beyond that, as their understanding of astrology/astronomy and hints at.

Thanks Cloudy! That certainly looks worth reading too. 

nexus9 said:

There is evidence of massive tsunamis taken place around Santorini.

I remember finding a book in the lunch room at work about Santorini, and the events in Exodus. It was pretty fun, it tried to link the biblical plagues, and a wave of Exoduses, to the eruption. The "plagues", and "miracles" were simply coincidences, that synchronicity made into a something considered as "divine intervention".

I've read a few things since that have detailed the effects of Santorini, and other historical, and religious writings, with the scientific evidence. It's pretty much concensus now that Santorini was massive, and the effects were documented far and wide, but muddied by time and religious superstition.

http://www.academia.edu/4387783/The_Thera_theories_Science_and_the_modern_reception_history_of_the_Exodus

That's worth a read. It asks for all kinds of permissions on your gmail, but I just use a throwaway gmail for academia.edu.

That you for the tip. I might watch the series about the Minoans at some point, certainly sounds interesting. Personally, I used to be very interested in the ancient Egyptians at one point, in particular the pyramids at Giza and the alignment of their air shafts with where certain stars in the constellation of Orion and others would have been in the sky at the time they were built. Quite a feat of engineering considering how primitive their equipment was.  

There is an excellent series on the Minoans you can pick up on You Tube. Its premise is that basically the eruption of Thera was much bigger than previously supposed - possibly 7, not 6, on the vei index. There is evidence of massive tsunamis taken place around Santorini. The Minoans had built their citadel on a ticking bomb. They probably did have a city built on concentric rings, because the rings in great part had been the remains of calderas. They just had to be the basis for Plato's Atlantis, there is no way folk memory could hold so much detail about a past culture of 11 thousand years, for one thousand years, yes. But just how advanced they got is still a little unclear and it is certainly true from the looks of things that they did practise human sacrifice - at lest sometimes. They were certainly Neolithic to begin with, their are resemblances in their style to Catalogue Huyuk, but maybe developed great sophistication beyond that. 

Riane Eisler reckons that the aggressive nastiness in human culture came from the invasion of patriarchal cultures, but probably all culture is chicken and egg. The violence was probably, already there, then cultural norms reflected it. All the same I do wonder what conditions can help keep the worm in the apple, that is, human destructivness, in check. Massive inequality, as now, is probably disastrous. 

Her premise is certainly different from this Melampus's anyway. 

I like dystopic novels too. It seems to be easier to envision dystopias than it is to envision utopias. Not sure where this new fantasy novel will fit into that.