Andy White Anthropology
  • Home
  • Research Interests
    • Complexity Science
    • Prehistoric Social Networks
    • Eastern Woodlands Prehistory
    • Ancient Giants
  • Blog
  • Work in Progress
    • The Kirk Project >
      • Kirk 3D Models list
      • Kirk 3D Models embedded
      • Kirk 2D images >
        • Indiana
        • Kentucky
        • Michigan
        • Ontario
      • Kirk Project Datasets
    • Computational Modeling >
      • FN3D_V3
    • Radiocarbon Compilation
    • Fake Hercules Swords
    • Wild Carolina >
      • Plants >
        • Mosses
        • Ferns
        • Conifers
        • Flowering Plants >
          • Grasses
          • Trees
          • Other Flowering Plants
      • Animals >
        • Birds
        • Mammals
        • Crustaceans
        • Insects
        • Arachnids
        • Millipedes and Centipedes
        • Reptiles and Amphibians
      • Fungi
  • Annotated Publications
    • Journal Articles
    • Technical Reports
    • Doctoral Dissertation
  • Bibliography
  • Data

Modern Objects as Ancient Evidence: The Example of the Relic of Mu

2/7/2016

12 Comments

 
Picture
I don't know much (yet) about the origin and history of ideas about Mu and other "lost continents" in the Pacific.  I went a little way down the rabbit hole last night, reading a bit online and watching YouTube videos between the time when I got the kids to bed and when I couldn't keep my eyes open. It's fascinating stuff. I owe a thanks to Jack Churchward, grandson of famous Mu proponent James Churchward (1851-1936), for prodding my interest. You can find Jack Churchward's website about Mu here.

To me, the most interesting aspect of the "Mu" stories is how they were/are used to explain human diversity. This is something I'll have to pick apart historically, but it appears that Mu/Lemuria/Pan advocates (including today's Faithist followers of Oahspe) connect population dispersals from a lost continent in the Pacific to the characteristics and geographic distribution of modern human "races." It surprised me to learn that the polygenist ideas of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), famous racist anthropologist and inspiration to Nazis everywhere, were tied to the hypothesized existence of Lemuria. If that's not an interesting historical tie between science and pseudoscience, I don't know what is.

For today, however, I just wanted to point you to a short video by Jack Churchward discussing the "relic of Mu" that appeared in his grandfather's (1931) book The Lost Continent of Mu.  The "relic" is a bronze vessel that was said to be 12,500 years old and, therefore, evidence of an advanced civilization pre-dating. The video explains that the vessel dates the 17th-18th century and was manufactured in India.  

There are some important parallels between the case of the "relic of Mu" and the debacle of the "Roman sword from Nova Scotia" through which we are still slogging (Woo Alert: J. Hutton Pulitzer's 200-page document on the sword is reportedly coming very soon). In both cases, we have: (1) an object that is familiar enough to be recognizable but unfamiliar enough to seem strange and foreign; (2) an object with no credible provenience; (3) a tautological tie between the object and its explanation (the vessel is evidence of Mu and Mu provides the reason why the vessel should exist); (4) a retreat to the cry of "conspiracy" when the object is shown to be something other than what it is claimed.
12 Comments
Jonathan Feinstein
2/7/2016 07:46:45 am

I am always amazed that in a day when the study of Plate Tectonics conclusively demonstrates why "Lost Continents" like Mu could not possibly have existed as recently as a dozen millennia ago. In fact they seem fairly conclusive they could never have existed although I suppose a land mass of some size might have existed say back in the Permian and then slid under a subduction zone (I suspect fossil-climatology might disprove that notion too, but I haven't even knowledge to say that with any data to back myself up with) as Pangaea broke up.

Certainly there is no sign of subsidence in any oceanic basin to account for the disappearance of whole continents like Mu and Lemuria and one would think something like that that was merely yesterday in geologic time would leave a mark.

No, this might have sounded reasonable in the 19th Century (even without the manufactured (or misidentified?) evidence, but frankly I find the concept of plate tectonics and the amazing way the shape of the world actually can be shown to have changed to be far more interesting than Mu or the like.

Reply
Peter Geuzen
2/7/2016 08:01:04 am

What are the chances that moments before the release time of the JHP report, there will be an announcement of a side by side comparative metallurgical analysis done by a reputable institution or lab of the Nova Scotia, the Florida, the Italian eBay, the California, and any other swords that care to play?

KaBoom

Reply
Eric
2/7/2016 08:01:19 am

The 1920's and '30s is a weird time for archaeology/anthropology in terms of the Pacific/Asia in popular culture. King Kong and Lost Horizon are huge hits at the box office and the whole Mu thing is an offshoot of that wider public interest. Part of it is traceable to the aftereffects of the First World War, where Western culture has a longing for pre-industrial society, a "lost" Elysium as it were after the traumatic war of 1914-1918.

A more serious aftereffect of the war lies in the increasing ideologically driven efforts of both the left and the right in all disciplines of academia and even science. People remember the SS Ahnenerbe thanks to Indiana Jones, but there were various Socialist, Marxist, and Communist academics eager to mine history, archaeology, anthropology, and ethnography for postwar political agendas. While academics cannot completely remove their studies into a vacuum without becoming irrelevant, the 1920 to 1939 period was particularly toxic.

Reply
Greg Little
2/7/2016 08:19:49 am

Holy moley! The Oahspe is a genuine rabbit hole. I have a chapter on the Oahspe that I wrote strictly covering its focus on fire-ships visiting Earth in ancient times. It also covers how the "angels" in the fire-ships (meaning physical beings traveling in space ships) came to Earth in remote times and performed some sort of genetic manipulation that resulted in modern man. I started studying it in the 1970s because it was produced by a sort of automatic writing, more accurately it's automatic typewriting. The sort of thing psychologists love to investigate. I knew one person who produced a book from automatic typewriting and actually watched as it was done. It was a clinical psychologist. He didn't want his book edited because it was channeled from God. I asked him why God made so many typographical errors? He didn't have an answer.

Reply
Andy White
2/7/2016 12:38:27 pm

I had never heard of it before last night. Fascinating stuff. I wonder why some of these indigenous American religions found a following and grew while others disappeared or just continue to trickle along. I can't answer that question.

Reply
Terri
11/11/2018 07:46:40 pm

Can you give me the name of the book you're talking about? Was it published?? Thanks.

Reply
Cort
2/7/2016 10:52:36 am

All of the myths of Mu and Lemuria have been applied to Mt. Shasta here in California. It only takes a few hours of research to trace the origins of the entire application of this mythology to the Rosicrucian Order or at least specific members of it. The first book in this genre was channeled information from "Philo the Tibetan." From here we see the Shasta Water Co. building tunnels to extract spring water leading to the City of Telos being located beneath the mountain in myth. To me it is interesting to see how folklore created all of these things. In the process we see myths and legends being applied to places of talismanic importance such as where land was claimed from. This is what Oak Island is and why all the speculation. The same phenomena is present at Rennes le Chateau, The Cyclic Cross of Hendaye, and Newport Tower. All of these places ultimately are Christian mysteries coupled with the concept of Maritime law in claiming "newly discovered" lands. Ultimately it is a Norman tradition tied to the "Man in the Mountain" myths of Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, and Frederick II. There is in fact a community of German immigrants adjacent to Oak Island from the time of Prince Edward. There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that initiatory activity was another reason for these quest like legends that resemble treasure hunts w/ associated "Pirates Maps."

Reply
Andy White
2/7/2016 12:36:21 pm

I find it fascinating that the concept of Lemuria started as a scientific one, serving as the basis for what could be considered at least some reasonable hypotheses about the geographic distribution of animals, the lack of a human fossil record, etc. While science discarded Lemuria when it was shown to be impossible, however, pseudoscience picked up the ball and ran with it. And apparently retained many of the racist ideas that were originally developed around the "lost continent" idea.

Reply
nali
2/7/2016 12:51:11 pm

I made a quite similar research about the "Dorchester Pot", supposed to be 100.000 or 600 millions years old.
You may be interested about what I discovered about it.
The origin of the Dorchester and those pots may even be the same ... :)

http://irna.lautre.net/OOPArt-The-Dorchester-Pot.html

Reply
Killbuck
2/7/2016 02:30:36 pm

Nali-

Quite a wonderful comparison to the saga of our Roman Sword. With some good old fashioned gumshoe investigation, near to and identical objects of more modern manufacture appear and blossom like poppies.

Hookahgate!!!

Reply
Pablo
2/8/2016 12:01:12 pm

In my days dealing with people who believe in Pseudoscience, I learned that "fallen angels" came to earth and mated with women (why is it never the other way around? who said that angels are "male"); and the result of this were the giants (which "proves" that the Bible mention of giants, it's true). These giants were white, and they are the origin of the white race. As opposed to the rest of us who came out of Africa.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
3/7/2016 04:01:52 pm

Hi Andy -

You may enjoy my three part piece on modern Theosophist pseudo-science:

http://www.danieljglenn.com/the_podcasts/Stelle/Documentation/He%20Walked%20Among%20Us%20Part%201.pdf

http://www.danieljglenn.com/the_podcasts/Stelle/Documentation/He%20Walked%20Among%20Us%20Part%202.pdf

http://www.danieljglenn.com/the_podcasts/Stelle/Documentation/He%20Walked%20Among%20Us%20Part%203.pdf

Reply



Leave a Reply.


    All views expressed in my blog posts are my own. The views of those that comment are their own. That's how it works.

    I reserve the right to take down comments that I deem to be defamatory or harassing. 

    Andy White

    Follow me on Twitter: @Andrew_A_White

    Email me: andy.white.zpm@gmail.com

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Picture

    Sick of the woo?  Want to help keep honest and open dialogue about pseudo-archaeology on the internet? Please consider contributing to Woo War Two.
    Picture

    Follow updates on posts related to giants on the Modern Mythology of Giants page on Facebook.

    Archives

    January 2023
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    3D Models
    AAA
    Adena
    Afrocentrism
    Agent Based Modeling
    Agent-based Modeling
    Aircraft
    Alabama
    Aliens
    Ancient Artifact Preservation Society
    Androgynous Fish Gods
    ANTH 227
    ANTH 291
    ANTH 322
    Anthropology History
    Anunnaki
    Appalachia
    Archaeology
    Ardipithecus
    Art
    Atlantis
    Australia
    Australopithecines
    Aviation History
    Bigfoot
    Birds
    Boas
    Book Of Mormon
    Broad River Archaeological Field School
    Bronze Age
    Caribou
    Carolina Bays
    Ceramics
    China
    Clovis
    Complexity
    Copper Culture
    Cotton Mather
    COVID-19
    Creationism
    Croatia
    Crow
    Demography
    Denisovans
    Diffusionism
    DINAA
    Dinosaurs
    Dirt Dance Floor
    Double Rows Of Teeth
    Dragonflies
    Early Archaic
    Early Woodland
    Earthworks
    Eastern Woodlands
    Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project
    Education
    Egypt
    Europe
    Evolution
    Ewhadp
    Fake Hercules Swords
    Fetal Head Molding
    Field School
    Film
    Florida
    Forbidden Archaeology
    Forbidden History
    Four Field Anthropology
    Four-field Anthropology
    France
    Genetics
    Genus Homo
    Geology
    Geometry
    Geophysics
    Georgia
    Giants
    Giants Of Olden Times
    Gigantism
    Gigantopithecus
    Graham Hancock
    Grand Valley State
    Great Lakes
    Hollow Earth
    Homo Erectus
    Hunter Gatherers
    Hunter-gatherers
    Illinois
    India
    Indiana
    Indonesia
    Iowa
    Iraq
    Israel
    Jim Vieira
    Jobs
    Kensington Rune Stone
    Kentucky
    Kirk Project
    Late Archaic
    Lemuria
    Lithic Raw Materials
    Lithics
    Lizard Man
    Lomekwi
    Lost Continents
    Mack
    Mammoths
    Mastodons
    Maya
    Megafauna
    Megaliths
    Mesolithic
    Michigan
    Middle Archaic
    Middle Pleistocene
    Middle Woodland
    Midwest
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    Mississippian
    Missouri
    Modeling
    Morphometric
    Mound Builder Myth
    Mu
    Music
    Nazis
    Neandertals
    Near East
    Nephilim
    Nevada
    New Mexico
    Newspapers
    New York
    North Carolina
    Oahspe
    Oak Island
    Obstetrics
    Ohio
    Ohio Valley
    Oldowan
    Olmec
    Open Data
    Paleoindian
    Paleolithic
    Pilumgate
    Pleistocene
    Pliocene
    Pre Clovis
    Pre-Clovis
    Prehistoric Families
    Pseudo Science
    Pseudo-science
    Radiocarbon
    Reality Check
    Rome
    Russia
    SAA
    Sardinia
    SCIAA
    Science
    Scientific Racism
    Sculpture
    SEAC
    Search For The Lost Giants
    Sexual Dimorphism
    Sitchin
    Social Complexity
    Social Networks
    Solutrean Hypothesis
    South Africa
    South America
    South Carolina
    Southeast
    Stone Holes
    Subsistence
    Swordgate
    Teaching
    Technology
    Teeth
    Television
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Topper
    Travel
    Travel Diaries
    Vaccines
    Washington
    Whatzit
    White Supremacists
    Wisconsin
    Woo War Two
    World War I
    World War II
    Writing
    Younger Dryas

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly