If you have anything more than a passing interest in understanding the "fringe" world, you're familiar with the Nephilim. These offspring of angels and humans, despite being mentioned by name only three times in the bible (Genesis 6, Ezekiel 32, and Numbers 13), are a growth industry. Their resume is no longer limited to serving as the whip hand of the conspiracy-rich bowels of occult Christianity but now also includes significant penetration into popular culture.  They've been adopted by vampire enthusiasts and they've got their own band and a role-playing game. The concept of human-supernatural sex was given some good PR by this Katy Perry song.  

While the Nephilim haven't reached Ancient Aliens and Atlantis status yet, they're clearly going in the right direction. At this rate, they'll probably be openly fielding political candidates by the time the 2020 election cycle begins.

Expanding the Nephilim franchise won't be without it's tensions. In traditional circles, Nephilim (at least in Genesis 6:4) are thought to be the offspring of male angels and female humans. Those "mighty men" apparently continued to pass on the supernatural genes, corrupting the human bloodline with their Nephilim DNA (albeit in a more diluted form as time went on). While I'm not sure what Nephilim fundamentalists think of the possibility of female Nephilim in this scenario, market realists will immediately recognize that limiting the illicit/supernatural Nephilim sex fantasies to males on females (and males on animals, as the case may be) will constrain growth. For those of you worried about the stagnation of Nephilim market capitalization, I'm happy to report a data point that suggests the forces of democratization continue to gain ground:

Discuss.

-The excavation at the purported site of the "Zarahemla Temple," which I first wrote about here, has apparently already taken place.

As I indicated in my last post on the topic, all indications were that the "temple" property was purchased in January of 2015 (for $300,000) with intent to excavate in the spring of 2015. The (now-defunct) webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. Dr. John Melancon, ridiculously billed as "one of the few American archaeologists fully certified to conduct digs in Israel because of his training in Hebrew archaeology" was supposed to head up the investigation.

I found a series of photos of the excavation on the Hidden in the Heartland group on Facebook. The photos were posted over a period of several days in May of 2015. They show Wayne May, Melancon (I think), a camera crew, and a gaggle of volunteers excavating in a field. Unsurprisingly, the photos do not show the discovery or excavation of a 20' wooden wall associated with a burned temple. The only "artifacts" pictured are a table full unidentifiable rocks, including a small round one which seems to have been the star of the show (many pictures of that).  Over the course of several days, the strategy apparently moved from hand excavation blocks (n = 2?), to dowsing, to bulldozing, all apparently in effort to locate a wall that's not there. 

If you enjoy looking at photos of a sloppy, sandy excavation that careens from optimism to desperation over the course of just a few days, I encourage you to go and look at the photos yourself (I suspect they won't be there for long). Here are few samples:

Anyone with any serious archaeological background will immediately recognize this effort for what it is: an undisciplined treasure hunt. Here's my summary on what I think happened (I wasn't there, of course, so this is conjecture). The goal of this effort was to find a buried wall that someone told them was there (based on GPR data that they didn't understand). The effort begins with using actual tape measures, nails, and string to lay out excavation blocks. These blocks were placed in areas where they should have come down on the walls of Zarahemla. After starting relatively carefully, however, impatience quickly sets in when all that materializes is more and more sand. Various additional "technologies" (i.e., metal detectors and dowsing rods) are employed to solve the mystery of where the walls are, and the units are aggressively dug downward because surely those walls are down there somewhere. This effort begins by tunneling down by hand in the excavation blocks, but even eventually impatience wins here also and mechanical excavation equipment is desperately used to blow a big crater into the earth. And still there are no walls. And so the dirt is pushed back in the holes and everyone goes home.

Or perhaps I'm totally wrong and this was a very careful, precise effort that located and responsibly documented all kinds of cultural wonders. There was film crew there, so maybe the "temple excavations" appear in one of the episodes of "Hidden in the Heartland." I hope they do -- then I can see if I'm right.

Last weekend I wrote this post about a planned excavation by Heartland Mormons to search for the temple of Zarahemla in Iowa. That excavation was justified by a map produced via a ground-penetrating radar survey. Today, thanks to a comment on a recent blog post by Jason Colavito's blog post, I learned of another example of ground-penetrating radar data being used to propel the excavation of what is almost certainly a fantasy, this time in association with Oak Island.

First, an update on the Zarahemla excavation.

The webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. I pointed out that that level of specificity was impossible using GPR and questioned (among other things) how those outlines were determined and how they could possible serve as the basis for an actual archaeological excavation. Coincidentally or not, that webpage (dated January 2015) is not currently available, and the entire Book of Mormon Evidence site is currently "under maintenance."

I couldn't find any details about the excavation, but I suspect it has already taken place. Blog reader and friend of archaeological reality Mike Morgan located a report of the record of purchase, showing that the 13.8 acre "temple of Zarahemla" parcel was sold to Zarahemla Holdings, LLC, on January 20, 2015. Another of my online friends told me that he recalls seeing images posted on Facebook showing an excavation in progress some time ago, but those images were later removed. That an excavation was planned for the spring of 2015 is also supported by comments on message boards like this one, posted the day before the sale of the parcel closed.

A comparison of aerial photographs of the parcel from June 2014 (before the sale; image from Google Earth) and summer of 2015 (image from the Iowa Geographic Map Server) suggests that excavations were, indeed, undertaken in the area identified as the "temple" in the first half of 2015. The light-colored areas marked with arrows appear to show the areas of backdirt piles and newly-filled excavation areas. Those areas correspond to the location of the eastern wall of the "temple" (unfortunately, since the webpage is gone, I can't reproduce their aerial with the "temple" superimposed [Update: you can see the figure on this website]).

[Update: I found this image from June 2015 that reportedly shows Wayne May, apparently dowsing, in an excavation at the "temple" site.]

A machine excavation into the "temple" area would have quickly revealed that there was no buried, 15-foot-tall wooden wall. Without seeing the raw GPR data and details of how it was processed, there's really no telling what kinds of anomalies, if any, the survey actually detected. But I presume that if the Temple of Zarahemla had been found we would have heard something about it by now. So my money is on nothing. I just hope that no real cultural deposits have been damaged so far in this pursuit.

And now for the new example.

This webpage, dated the 28th of October, 2016, makes a bold proclamation:

"OAK ISLAND RELATED UNDERGROUND FACILITY FOUND ON MAINLAND LUNENBURG COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA!"

Here we go again.

You can read all the Shakespeare stuff and then get down to the brass tacks of the "proof" that (1) there's an underground facility and (2) it's related the mystery of Oak Island.  That "proof," apparently comes down to GPR data. Here's what the site says:

"In March 2015, I conducted GPR scanning around the X marked boulder and have had the files analyzed by very skilled GPR analysis experts. Disturbances in subsurface features can be seen in the data. The experts say such disturbed structures should not be present in normal ground conditions.

In the summer of 2016, a professional GPR firm conducted a second, more extensive scan of the site. The result and report from this scan is still pending. The analysis is complicated due to a number of factors that has to do with GPR settings for best possible data collection. I also have instructions from the Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage to keep results confidential until a decision has been taken on how the province will react on a report showing interesting results. The 2016 scan was financed by Paul Lappin and Knut Skofteland. I’m very grateful for their contribution to this project."

So, somehow, from these incomplete GPR results, the authors have "proved" that there's an "intact underground facility" or "vault' that contains important things.  Let's get the backhoe!

Anyone who understands GPR is shaking his or her head. As I said in the previous post, GPR data are complicated. The equipment works by pulsing radar waves into the ground and detecting the reflections that occur when the waves encounter a material with different electromagnetic properties. Depth can be estimated based on analyzing the two-way travel times of the reflected waves. That's it. Anomalies in GPR data can be caused by any contrast in the electromagnetic properties of the materials that the waves are passing through: open spaces (such as rooms or caves) can cause anomalies, as can buried rocks, changes in sediment, the water table, and numerous other things. Often in a natural setting (i.e., when you're not looking for something really obvious like buried storage tanks) you can't really tell what's "anomalous" until you get data from a large enough area to understand something about what you're looking at.  

So . . . yeah, like the Zarahemla example, I'll go on record with the position that what you think the GPR is telling you is not what it's actually telling you. 

I think these two examples are part of a trend of the fringe embracing new technologies that they think will provide "out-of-the-box" credibility to their ideas and conclusions. In some cases, the abilities of these technologies are probably being intentionally misrepresented to wishful thinkers. In others, it's apparent that the people using these gee whiz technologies don't really understand them. The screen on a GPR doesn't beep at you and say "alert! buried vault!" The XRF meter doesn't have a "detect Roman brass" setting. And tiny flashlights don't have "old" and "not old" icons to discriminate ancient from modern stone inscriptions.  You might as well be using dowsing rods and flipping coins. 

Try learning something about the tools you're using and then collecting and presenting data in a way that they can be evaluated. Then maybe someone would take you seriously.

As readers of my blog know, I find the topic of "giants" fascinating.  It was a no-brainer to include it as one of the three topical areas to be covered in the inaugural run of Forbidden Archaeology. As I've said before, the main premise of the class is that credible ideas about the human past can withstand scrutiny and challenges, while incorrect ideas can be shown to be incorrect. Forbidden Archaeology is a course in critical thinking, argument, and communication.  How do you know whether a claim about the past is credible or not? My goal is to give the students the confidence, tools, and information they need to understand the history of ideas and critically evaluate claims based on evidence.

Part of the work the students are doing in the course is writing blog posts. The point of the posts is to help students learn to communicate persuasive, insightful, evidence-based arguments through writing. The student blog posts related to "giants" are listed here. I wanted to integrate those posts into a synthesis of what we discussed in the class. 

Our discussion of "giants" began with some background, tracing the origins of western giant mythology through the Bible, Greek and Roman writings, and early European sources. We discussed the somewhat isomorphic narratives found in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean writings (e.g., Hesiod's Five Ages of Man, the Old Testament, the Book of Enoch, and The Epic of Gilgamesh), noting the parallels in some ancient notions about a past world populated by giant, quasi-supernatural, human-like beings.  One student wrote about the association between giant mythology and cannibalism (the giants often tend to be cannibals).  

I introduced the idea (following Adrienne Mayor and others) that at least some ideas about giants may have been related to ancient peoples finding a way to accommodate into their worldview the remains of large, extinct animals that they would have no doubt encountered from time to time. It's an easy enough mistake to make, especially for people with no formal training in comparative anatomy confronting the remains of Ice Age megafauna in an era before the concept of extinction took hold. 

That human societies use mythology to make sense of the world around them and to shape their views of themselves is not surprising, of course, and I think we can see this sort of thing play out repeatedly through time with respect to "giants." We discussed how giants played into the mythologies of post-Roman Europe in a number of interesting ways. The Historia Britonnum (a "history" of the indigenous people of Britain written around AD 828), for example, borrowed heavily from Roman and Greek mythology. Europeans continued the tradition of interpreting the bones of extinct megafauna as those of human giants, whether wicked or noble. The stone constructions left by the Romans themselves were later regarded as the work of giants from a past age. Interpreting megalithic constructions as the work of giants is common today, despite plenty of positive evidence that normal-sized people can and do move big rocks.

Science began to chip away at the evidence for giants in the 1700's, marked first perhaps by Hans Sloane's argument that some of the bones identified as those of giants actually belonged to elephants. Pushback came in the form of the famous 1735 "list of giants" by Claude-Nicholas Le Cat. Le Cat's address was reprinted in the Encyclopedia Britannica and hopped across the Atlantic at some point in the late 1700's (the earliest American printing I have found so far in a 1765 Maryland newspaper).  Abridged versions of Le Cat's address were printed time and again in American newspapers from the 1840's until the 1890's as the reporting of giant bones ramped up and reached its peak. 

The decades-long American fad of giant skeleton reports differs from what happened in Europe earlier, and it remains a fascinating subject to try to understand. The "giant phenomenon" occurred in the context of the appearance of new information technologies (i.e., telegraph and rotary printing press), the forced removal of Native Americans from the eastern U.S., and the debate over the "Mound Builders," among other things.  A couple of students wrote about the historic contexts of ideas about a "giant race" that preceded Native Americans: the "white giant" myth of the Comanche didn't hold up to scrutiny, and early excavations of earthen mounds in Wisconsin found no evidence of giants.

Despite the lack of evidence, the "Mound Builder" myth survives in the public imagination. It is used as a hook in a recent travel piece written for a West Virginia newspaper, for example, and the "Adena giant" narrative is still regularly pressed into service.​  Two students looked at specific cases related to claims of "giant" skeletons in North America: one found that a "missing" giant skull from Texas was neither missing nor giant and another fleshed out the case of "giant skeletons" from Branch County, Michigan.
​
The main agendas underlying modern beliefs in giants in the United States are related to two main Christian communities: (1) Young Earth Creationists; and (2) Nephilim enthusiasts. (After teaching this class, I think there is more overlap between these two orientations than I previously recognized). The relationship between Christianity and giants was one of the subjects of an attempted survey about beliefs in giants.

The appeal of giants to the YEC crowd is that the existence of giants would prove evolution to be false and the Bible to be true (that's the rationale, anyway, based on the flawed argument that giants would show that things get smaller over time rather than bigger). The struggle against evolution has compelled Young Earth Creationists to somehow deal with the accumulation of fossil evidence that is consistent with a very long (i.e., six million years) human evolutionary timeline rather than a very short (i.e., six thousand years) Biblical timeline. One student wrote about how creationists have tried to characterize the fragmentary remains of Meganthropus as a giant, and another wrote about the idea that Neanderthals were the Biblical Nephilim. In both of these cases, just as in ancient Britain and the ancient Near East, we see the struggle to somehow reconcile and explain facts of the natural world.

Even after teaching this course, it is still not clear to me exactly what the Nephilim enthusiasts are all about (other than monetizing gullibility).  The Nephilim Whirlpool is an absurd mishmash of giants, religion, mythology, aliens, paranormal, and conspiracy theory that takes Genesis 6.4 as the "Rosetta stone" to understanding the world. One of my goals in talking about it was to illustrate that, in the absence of a mechanism for discriminating between credible and non-credible "evidence," you are compelled to concoct a story that can incorporate, literally, everything. Thus, for example, all of the stories from all mythology, extra-biblical or not, can be accepted literally and scooped up into the Nephilim dragnet.

Another was to show how the absence of evidence (i.e., where are the bones?) is used by Nephilim enthusiasts to support the claim of a "multi-thousand year cover up" rather than the much more parsimonious position that the lack of giant bones suggests a lack of giants.  It's impossible to have a conversation about evidence in that kind of framework.

Although Nephilim theorists exemplify the baloney cannon approach to the human past, they're not alone. Manufactured and misinterpreted "evidence" related to giants is everywhere. One student wrote about Klaus Dona, for example, one wrote about the "giant's armor" at Schloss Ambras, one wrote about the taxidermied giant Kap Dwa, and another wrote about claims connected to the "Balanced Rock" of upstate New York. On the biological side, one student explored claims about Rh negative blood (commonly related to Nephilim heritage) and another asked if there were any known genetic disorders that could have contributed to the often-cited (but never demonstrated) triumvirate of large stature, dental anomalies, and polydactyly. 

When you discard the desire to use evidence to discriminate credible ideas from non-credible ones, you're just throwing it all into a blender and drinking whatever comes out. Is there anything left after we do that to "giants"? In reality, probably not much. That doesn't mean it isn't worth exploring further and still trying to understand why people believe what they believe.  In eastern North America, are you left with anything after you throw out the obvious hoaxes, fabrications, and gross misrepresentations, disregard the "double rows of teeth" mirage, and adjust for some patterned over-estimates of height?  Maybe, and maybe not. Perhaps we're still left with the possibility that relatively tall individuals are over-represented in the earthen mounds of eastern North America. Perhaps the "Adena royalty" hypothesis will still be standing after the dust settles. Or maybe it too, like so many reported "giant" bones, will crumble away when exposed to the air.

I'm behind on everything and don't have time to write, as usual, but I wanted to pass on a few things while I'm eating my lunch.

In the interest of historic preservation, I'd like to pass on these two images (both by Killbuck Norman) to add to your Fake Hercules Sword dank meme stash:

Fair is fair, so it's legitimate to pass on this link to a fascinating video that cuts right to the heart of the matter and makes excellent use of clipart images. For added fun, I recommend turning on the auto-generated captioning. Enjoy!

Finally, some of you are no doubt aware of the ongoing discussion on last week's blog post about calcite weathering and the Kensington Rune Stone. As of this writing there are 155 comments, many of which are useful and some of which are not. I was recently made aware that there's been a somewhat parallel discussion about the issues raised in the post in the Kensington Rune Stone International Supporters Club group on Facebook (it's an open group, so you can go and read what's there if you like). This is, I think, a useful statement to have on the record:

If you've been paying attention, that statement speaks volumes. Moving on. 

One could write a book about this topic, but I'm going to limit myself to a few paragraphs. The kids were up early, I've already had three cups of coffee, and it's still not light enough to go outside and play.

One of Jason Colavito's readers made this comment on his blog post yesterday about L. A. Marzulli:

This issue came up in my Forbidden Archaeology class this week during our discussion of the Nephilim, when one student noted the apparent logical disconnect between (1) the idea that angel-human matings produced the wicked offspring at the root of a long Nephilim bloodline and (2) the idea that those wicked offspring were homosexuals. 

I've watched several Nephilim-centric videos during the last week that I've never seen before, including this 2015 presentation by Joe Taylor, a portion of the round table discussion from that same conference (I'm still working my way through that one), and this 2013 video by Discover Ministries titled "Nephilim Among Us: Human-Animal Hybrids, Eugenics, GMOs & Transhumanism."

I think the content of these videos provides an answer to Ken's question: for Nephilim enthusiasts, it's all about what constitutes a "normal" mating and what constitutes a "wicked" mating. Human males and human females? That's normal. Angels and human females? Wicked. Angels and animals? Wicked. Males and other males? Wicked. The Nephilim are constantly doing things that go against nature and, therefore, against God. I'm guessing that homosexuality is thrown into that "wicked" basket as part of the generalized bundle of "unnatural" matings from which the Nephilim arose and subsequently partake in. That's my theory right now. 

Without going through these videos again to carefully build and support an argument about what they mean, I'll make the following broad observations:

• The Nephilim-centric view of the world now accepts as literal all ancient mythology. No longer are non-biblical traditions unreliable (because they are not biblical). Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Native American legends, Sumerian myths . . . they can and must all be taken literally. Bigfoot probably fits in there somewhere, as well.

• Nephilim enthusiasts like these extra-biblical traditions because they are replete with tales of hybrid human-animal creatures, all of which are associated with the Nephilim. Mermaids? Cyclops? Skinwalkers? Medusa? Those are all Nephilim, the result of unnatural matings between Nephilim and animals. In one of the videos, one of the guys simply says "they mated with everything." 

• The wicked behaviors of the Nephilim, resulting in all those unnatural hybrids running (or swimming, or flying, as the case may be) around in the ancient world, is mirrored today by our own wicked tinkering with the genetics of plants, animals, and humans. The government knows it, big business knows it, the global elites know it, and they're all hiding the wicked realities from the rest of us. The logo on your Starbucks cup? Nephilim.

• Nephilim enthusiasts know that physical evidence of their claims ranges from nonexistent to incredibly weak. Since they still can't provide an example of the physical remains of a single giant human, humanoid, or animal-humanoid hybrid, suppression of that evidence must also be part of a global conspiracy.  The absence of physical evidence is actually presented as evidence of a conspiracy to hide evidence.

• But pay no attention to the lack of giant bones.  Let's broaden the dragnet and cull ancient and modern mythologies to gather up context-free examples that fit a general "hybrid theory" of the Nephilim. Let's take literally the parts of those mythologies that fit the Nephilim worldview, but leave on the cutting floor those that do not. Sure, let's play tennis, but let's take down the net first!​​

I'm guessing that this "hybrid theory" and its attendant capacity to suck all of human mythology into the Nephilim whirlpool is not new. Having only just been exposed to it, its hard to know where and when it started or how long it has been brewing. The ridiculousness of Nephilim fetishists bears watching not because of the absurd claims related to non-existent physical evidence but because of the way it connects with various political, social, and religious agendas.  One doesn't have to look too far back in history to find examples of how definitions of "natural" and "unnatural" matings articulated with policies used to define and oppress human populations in this country.

Here's my second attempt at privileging the quick over the perfect.

In this 2015 presentation (which we discussed this week in my Forbidden Archaeology class), Joe Taylor claims the following (starting about 55:20):

"Enoch says there were men . . . I think he says 1200 feet tall, or ells, or 450 feet, you know. I think there's evidence of a 450-foot-tall man that's been found. There's a tibia that used to be used as a bridge somewhere in the Middle East, somewhere.  Four hundred and fifty feet tall. There's a tiba,a human tibia, supposedly . . . there's no dinosaur on the whole earth with a tibia more than 10 feet long. Maybe there will be, but a 450-foot man has a 100-foot-long tibia. So let's say he's buried in the Flood, well there's a lot of bulk, a lot of fat and stuff around that. Maybe he's covered in a hundred feet of mud, well then in a few hundred years that erodes away. In a few thousand years he's down to his bones. They still have a lot of fat in them. And this one bone is long enough to make a bridge with. Okay, so . . . he had to have been buried in the Flood, so maybe that report is true. Maybe there were men 450 feet tall." 

I had never before heard the claim of a 100-foot-long tibia used as a bridge, so I tried to track down the source.

First, I found this 14th-century account by Bavarian traveler Johann Schiltberger (English translation published in 1879 in The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger; I copied this text from Jason Colavito's "Fragments of Giants" page):

​"It is to be noted, that in Egypt there was a giant, who was called in the Infidel tongue, Allenklaisser. In this country is the city called Missir, but the Christians call it Kayr [i.e. Cairo], and it is the capital of the king-sultan. In this same city are twelve thousand baking ovens. Now the said giant was so strong, that one day he brought into the city a bundle of wood to heat all the ovens, and one bundle was enough; each baker gave him a loaf, which makes twelve thousand loaves. All these he ate in one day. The shin-bone of this giant is in Arabia, in a valley between two mountains. There is a deep valley between the rocks, where flows a river at such a depth that no person can see it, one only hears its rush. It is in this same valley that the shin-bone of the giant serves as a bridge; and whoever comes there, whether they are riding or on foot, must pass over this shin-bone. It is also on a road where traders pass, coming and going, because the defile is so narrow, that people cannot pass by any other way; and the Infidels say that this bone is one frysen [i.e. parasang—about 3 miles] in length, which is equal to an arrow's flight, or more. There, a toll is taken from traders; with the same, they buy oil to anoint the bone that it may not rot. It is not a long time since a king-sultan had a bridge built near the bone; it is about two hundred years [ago], according to an inscription on the bridge. When a lord comes there with many people, he passes over the bridge, and does not pass over the bone; but whoever wishes to pass over this wonder, may do so, that he may say of it that in this country there is an incredible thing, and which is nevertheless surely true. And if it were not true, or had I not seen it, I would not have spoken or written about it." 

In The History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century (Henry Howarth, 1880) there is this passage describing a meeting between the Mongol ruler Berebe and some envoys from Sultan Bibar of Egypt (1223-1277):

​"They had several audiences with Bereke, who asked them many questions about Egypt, about elephants and giraffes, and one day asked if the report was true that there was a giant's bone thrown across the Nile which served as a bridge. The envoys replied that they had not heard of such a thing.*

*In regard to this report, M. Quartremere tells us it was founded on a very ancient Arabic tradition. In "The History of the Conquest of Egypt," written by Abd al Hakam, we are told that a giant named Auj, having been killed by Moses, his body fell across the Nile and made a bridge. Schlitberger, the Bavarian traveller, tells us that there was a bridge in Arabia made out of a giant's leg bone, which united two rocks separated by a deep chasm. Travellers to Arabia had to cross this bridge. A toll was charged, from the proceeds of which oil was bought with which to oil the bone, and thus prevent it decaying. (Op. cit., 218. Note.)."

This 1880 version of The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger contains notes (pp. 216-217) that attempt to reconcile the Schlitberger and Mongol versions of the bridge story:

     "We read in Abd-el-Hakam's history of the conquest of Egypt (Makrizi by Quatremere, I, i, 218), that the body of a giant killed by Moses fell across the Nile and served as a bridge. With this legend may be associated Schiltberger's tale, and his credulity need not be wondered at when we consider, that in the 13th century the story was thought worthy of being related; and some there were even bold enough to tell it to the powerful ruler of the Golden Horde, Bereke Khan, who enquired of the ambassadors sent to him in 1263 by the sultan Bibars, whether it was true that the bone of a giant, laid across the Nile, was being used as a bridge! The ambassadors, who had been probably selected from among the most enlightened of the sultan's minsters, replied that they had never seen it, and answer that may have been elicited by the nature of the question, because the strange bridge seen by Schiltberger must have been in Arabia and not in Egypt. It united two rocks separated by a profound ravine in the depths of which coursed a torrent, and as it afforded the only practicable means for crossing the ravine on the high road, travelers were obliged to pass over it.
     "I cannot believe that these topographic details were invented by Schiltberger, and am therefore inclined to think that he alludes to the neighborhood of the fortresses of Kerak and Shaubek, places that acquired considerable importance during the Crusades in consequence of their admirable situations. They are easily identified with "Crach" and "Sebach" mentioned by De Lannoy . . . 
    "Shaubek, the "Mons regalis" of the Crusaders, thirty-six miles from Kerak, was also a strong place. Burckhardt tells us that a ravine, three hundred feet in depth, encircles the citadel . . .
     "According to an Arabian author quoted by Quatremere (l. c. II, i, 245), the road near these two cities was so peculiar that it could have been held by one man against a hundred horsemen.  Another reason for the supposition that the bridge seen by Schlitberger was in one of these passages, lies in the fact that the same writer includes the tomb of Iskender among the holy places of pilgrimage in this ancient country; but he does not determine the individuality of that Iskender.
     On the hypothesis that "Allenklaisser's" limb was near the tomb of Iskender, I should be inclined to look in the same locality for the bridge that was constructed, according to the inscription it bore, two hundred years before Schiltberger saw it. . . . This circumstance, no doubt, induced the "king-sultan" to order the construction of a bridge for keeping up communication between two parts of his kingdom, the new bridge being near the old one that was kept smeared with oil, a condition that had the effect of persuading the guileless Bavarian that it was indeed a gigantic bone."

I haven't had time to look into the geography of area that the last writer identifies as a possible source of Schiltberger's tale of a giant bone used as a bridge. That will have to wait, as lightning time is over for the day.

I've got another idea.  Some of you will like this idea and, I'm sure, some of you will not. It came to me while walking home though South Carolina's piece of Hurricane Hermine, so it may be terrible. Here it is:

On Fridays, I'll feature a guest blog post on a non-mainstream archaeological topic. The guest author will present some aspect of his/her research in an evidence-based framework (i.e., using evidence to support or refute a claim) and will be responsible for answering questions and defending the claim in the comments. I'll have some standards and ground rules, but will try to remain open to any claim that (1) has to do with the human past and (2) is tied to material evidence.

What do you think?

While there is no shortage of things that I think are fun and interesting to discuss, I'm not able to write nearly as much as I'd like. During the academic year, I probably average 2-3 posts per week. That leaves plenty of dead air. Why not open up some space for some of my readers or others who might want to reach a different audience? 

In the spirit of the Forbidden Archaeology class I'm teaching this semester, the important thing is that you orient your claim within some kind of scientific, evidence-based framework.  The rest of us, then, will scrutinize your claim, your assumptions, and your evidence and work it over in the comments. It will be a virtual dojo, where evidence-based point-counterpoint plays out in the same space for all to see.  If building things up by trying to knock things down geeks you out, you'll like it. If it hurts your feelings to have someone ask you hard questions or refute you, you probably won't like it. 

While I've had guest posts on my blog before, they've all been related to #Swordgate (there are more swords coming, by the way). The idea for "Forbidden Friday" came to me as I was corresponding with Bob Voyles (aka Gunn), who often comments on this blog about stone holes and what calls the "Norse Code Stone." It's obvious that Voyles cares deeply about his work and has put a lot of time and effort into it -- why not just offer him an opportunity to explain it himself? As I and others have commented before, my first question when I read about the stone holes is "how do you know they were made by Norse explorers?"  It's a reasonable, logical first question, and a great place to start: (1) construct the null hypothesis such as "all the stone holes in Minnesota are modern and were created to break up rocks;" (2) try to falisfy it. Voila, you're well on your way to doing some science. Voyles has accepted my invitation, so we'll see a guest post by him some time in the future.

Is anyone else out there interested? Giant skeletons? Ancient navigation? Sunken cities? Alien technology? ​

I wanted to take a moment and inform the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society (AAPS) that it seems to have forgotten to include Frank Joseph (formerly Frank Collin, founder of the National Socialist Party of America) in the video promotion it produced for its upcoming "Conference on Ancient America."  While Joseph is on the poster for the event, his presentation (unlike the other thirteen on the program) wasn't included in the video.  Surely it's just an oversight, as Joseph is a well-known figure in the "fringe" history world.

Or maybe it wasn't an accident.

Both the AAPS and Ancient American Magazine (a co-host of the event) embrace hyperdiffusionism, arguing that similarities in cultural attributes (such as technology, architecture, religion, etc.) are attributable to "diffusion" from one culture to another: similarity indicates a common source. Embedded within hyperdiffusionism is the assumption that ideas and traits diffuse outward from "higher" cultures to "lower" ones.  

The idea that societies and "civilizations" can be progressively ranked on some scale of achievement (and the technological differences between those societies are the result of inherent biological constraints) was relegated to the garbage can of bad ideas by early twentieth century scientific anthropologists. It got tossed out not because it was politically incorrect, but because it was factually wrong. The notion of "progressive social evolution," used by European colonial powers to justify the subjugation of indigenous peoples around the world, unfortunately, didn't die off completely.  The German Nazis embraced it along with hyperdiffusionism as part of their program to use prehistory to support their racist and expansionist agenda and propaganda (see this 1990 paper by Bettina Arnold). Hyperdiffusionism remains alive today, not-so-subtly submerged in all kinds of nonsense claims about Atlantis, white gods, a "megalithic culture," etc. Not surprisingly, in most cases it is "white" cultures that are put forward as "higher."

The AAPS video pitch includes, among other things, an offer of free conference registration for "active students and teachers."  In typical Xplrr fashion, they also throw in typos for no additional charge:

"History Hunters From Around The Globe Meet In Michigan. THIS IS BIG and IF YOU want the TRUTH about HITORY then this is the place to be."

What kind of "truth" are they peddling? I'm not familiar with the work and ideas of many of the people speaking at the AAPS conference, but I would be very surprised if classic hyperdiffusionism isn't an important component of many of the presentations. That's what makes it interesting that the one presenter of the bunch who has actual, high level ties to organized Nazism is absent from the AAPS video. Where is Frank Joseph?

As I've written before, belief systems matter when you're operating outside of a scientific framework.  When ideas and evidence are not subject to attempts to falsify, when you think you already know what the answer is and you're content to pick pieces that seem to help you complete the puzzle, you're not doing science. And you're not going to be producing any "truth" that will withstand scrutiny. In that case, what you believe is very important to the story you're telling. 

If I was a high school teacher trying to get my students interested in ancient history . . . I wouldn't touch this thing with a ten foot pole. Imagine trying to explain to the principal why you encouraged your students to go listen to the founder of the American Nazi Party talk about his interpretations of prehistory. What a nightmare. Maybe that's why Joseph isn't in the video.

My Forbidden Archaeology class will have its first meeting this Friday morning. As usual, I've waited until almost the last minute to attempt to finalize the syllabus. But that attempt has now been made, and I still have a day to spare. Go me. 

As anyone who has ever created a syllabus from scratch knows, there comes a point when the rubber meets the road and you have to cease thinking vaguely and start nailing down the specifics. I've still got a few more nails to drive in (you'll notice some "TBA's" in the day-by-day readings, and I'm still working on a couple of additions to the guest list), but this is more or less what we'll be driving this semester. Yes, I know I'm mixing metaphors. It's been a long day. One of my kids woke me up at 2:30 and then again at 3:30 and I wasn't able to get back to sleep afterwards. 

I got several offers of guest participation that I won't be able to fully capitalize this time around. If you emailed me about the class and I haven't gotten back to you yet, I sincerely apologize. As I've mentioned before, the students will be writing several blog posts. I hope that several of you that I was not able to include as formal "guests" of the class will perhaps be willing to work with one or more students individually. I'll be in touch!

Finally, I'm sure some of you out there will, for whatever reasons, be unhappy with what the students will be reading. And I'm sure some of you will tell me about it. Keep in mind that I did not chose readings to provide "answers." I chose them to illustrate points, show contrasts, spark questions, and provoke arguments. While we will be discussing and dissecting some of the readings quite closely in class, others are there simply for background. I'll learn a lot about what works well and what doesn't as I get to know the students and we work our way through the course.  

Stay tuned!