MMXXVI VOL21 No.891

Cleopatra was pharaoh 2077 years ago

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Ooparts, out-of-place artifacts

The most radical theories explain ooparts with outlandish proposals such as that they are ancient alien tech or objects taken to the past by time travelers. The interesting thing about unexplained ooparts is that they push back in time the dates accepted by archaeology about the technological development of mankind
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Ooparts, out-of-place artifacts

An oopart – out-of-place artifact is the name given to archaeological objects whose dating does not correspond to the academically accepted technological development in the context of the site where they have been found.

The quintessential example would be the “Antikythera Mechanism”. A complex clockwork artifact found in a shipwrecked ship from the 1st century BC. Accepted science placed the first mechanisms of this type, clocks with gears and weights, towards the end of the 10th century AD.

Pseudosciences tend to offer radical explanations for ooparts, such as that they are ancient aliens technology or objects that have been carried to the past by time travelers… Many cases have turned out to be just fakes.

The interesting thing about some unexplained ooparts is that they push back in time the dates accepted by archaeology about the technological development of mankind.

The London Hammer (Texas)

The London Hammer was found in 1936 by a couple walking along the banks of the Red River in Texas. A stone from which a piece of wood seemed to protrude caught their attention and they took it home as a souvenir.

A decade later, their son had the idea of splitting the stone in half to see what was inside. He found an ancient hammer with an iron head and a wooden handle.

The hammer had the same aesthetics as those used by miners in the 19th century. The question was that it would take 140 million years to form a rock that wrapped around the entire head of the tool, and the wooden handle was turning to charcoal.

ooparts the hammer of London
The London (Texas) hammer was encased in a rock, which was split in half 10 years after its discovery.

140 million years ago, the Earth was at the beginning of the Cretaceous period. It was the time of the dinosaurs, long before the Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared. There were already mammals but no humans.

The first explanation, given by a radical American creationist, was that the hammer was a “monumental pre-global flood discovery” (the flood of Noah and the ark).

From a scientific point of view, the hammer forced to study the fact that petrification processes can happen much faster than previously thought. This is a factor to take into account when dating fossils, which directly affects sciences such as paleontology or archaeology.

The Aiud wedge

The Aiud wedge is a piece of aluminum found in 1974, in the Mureș River, central Romania, near the town of Aiud. While carrying out work on the river bank, workers digging a trench came across the bones of a woolly mammoth at a depth of 10 meters.

ooparts the Aiud wedge
The remains of the mammoth in which the Aiud wedge appeared. The object was buried between two of the bones.

In the middle of the bones, encapsulated in sand hardened by the passage of time, appeared a wedge-shaped piece of metal, with several circular perforations. It looked man-made.

At first it was thought that the formation of the object was natural. Upon studying its composition, it turned out to be aluminum, a metal that was not developed until the 19th century, during the industrial revolutions.

ooparts the Aiud wedge
The Aiud wedge. It looks like any other manufactured object but it turned out to be made of aluminum, an invention of the 19th century. At the beginning the explanation was that it was one of the tips of the bulldozer shovels. However, these parts are not made of aluminum because they would break when hitting the stones. Also, if the tip was made in the 20th century, they would not be so deteriorated. As the museum could not come up with any other logical explanation, it withdrew the object from its exhibition.

Mammoths became extinct in continental Europe during the last ice age about 10,500 years ago. Humans were intensively hunting these pachyderms from at least 15,000BC. Nevertheless, the first evidence of metallurgical development is much later, from 8,700BC, when copper began to be worked.

Aluminum is manufactured by an industrial process called electrolysis that requires electricity. A technology that was not available in prehistoric times.

ooparts the Aiud wedge
Front view of the Aiud wedge.

Aiud’s wedge was sent to the Transylvanian Museum of History. Curators, finding no plausible interpretation for the piece, chose to keep it in a box and not to exhibit it.

According to the museum, the part must have come from one of the bulldozers that worked in the trenches in 1974. The problem is that it was encapsulated in sand so petrified, that the dates do not match. Nor was it possible to identify which particular part of the excavator it was.

The Baghdad batteries

The Baghdad batteries directly question when the way to accumulate electricity was discovered. Electricity, which exists naturally, was first documented in Egyptian texts from 2,750BC, describing electric eels.

The ancient Greeks studied static electricity produced by rubbing amber rods with animal skins, circa 600BC. Probably more than one warrior was struck by lightning, attracted by the metal tip of a spear, since the colloquial phrase “may you be struck by lightning” predates the ancient Romans.

Nowadays, to harness electricity in industrial processes, it is necessary to be able to store it in batteries. The first “voltaic batteries” did not appear until Alessandro Volta in 1800. Therefore, it was thought that until then, electricity was nothing more than a mere curiosity or concept

In 1936, during railway excavations in Kujut Rabua, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, workers discovered an ancient tomb covered with a stone slab. It was from the “parto” period, some 250 years BC.

ooparts the Baghdad batteries
On the left, a reproduction of one of the Baghdad batteries. It was proved that it could generate between 1 and 2 volts. On the right, the interior of the device.

About 600 archaeological pieces were recovered from the site, among which were a clay jar. It was about 14cm (5.5 inch) high and 4cm (1.5 inch) in diameter.

Inside, right in the middle, it had a copper cylinder with a central iron rod, protruding 1cm (half inch) through the opening of the container. The tip was covered with a layer of lead. The artifact was powerfully reminiscent of a “battery” from the first moment.

After WWII, an experiment was carried out in which one of these jars was reproduced. They were filled with an electrolyte, copper sulfate, demonstrating that the battery was capable of generating up to 2 volts of electricity.

The copper sulfate could be replaced by another liquid such as grape juice. Also, the batteries could be connected in series to increase their power. Following the experiment, it was speculated that the device could be used to leave metal in electrolysis, pushng back this technique a whopping 2,200 years on the calendar.

It is even possible that the batteries were used to emit electric light. In this regard, no evidence of the existence of light bulbs in antiquity has ever been found.

Accepted science still does not admit that the Baghdad jars are electrical batteries, insisting that they are containers for storing rolled-up scrolls.

The Baghdad batteries were stolen during the looting of the Iraq National Museum, on April 11, 2003, during the Iraq war. They have not yet been recovered.

The Dendera lamps

We stated that no evidence of the existence of light bulbs in antiquity has ever been found… except in some low-reliefs sculpted on the walls of the temple of Hathor in Dendera, Egypt, which began to be built in the 4th century BC.

ooparts the Dendera lamps
One of the bas-reliefs sculpted on the walls of the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt, 4th century BC. It has been interpreted as a man illuminating the room with a huge light bulb. On the lower floor of the temple there is another similar engraving.

According to Egyptologists, the engravings represent a snake emerging mythologically from a lotus flower. The most radical interpretation is that they are light bulbs that the Egyptians used to illuminate the interior of temples and pyramids. Perhaps these devices were powered by batteries similar to those found in Baghdad.

ooparts the Dendera lamps
Curious recreation of a Dendera lamp, connected to several Baghdad batteries. With today’s science, the experiment is reproducible. At an archaeological level, no evidence has ever been found that such a lamp existed. No broken pieces of the glass. No burnt charcoal that would leave the incandescent filament after being consumed.

In between, some people think that they could be large reflective mirrors for indoor lighting by reflecting sunlight.

The Antikythera mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is the world’s best known oopart and a favorite because it is indisputable.

It is a complex clockwork artifact found in 1901, in a shipwreck from the 1st century BC, off the Greek island of Antikythera, in the Aegean Sea.

This was a cargo ship with holds full of interesting archaeological objects such as statues, amphorae, jewelry and coins. The mechanism was broken into 82 fragments, solidified lumps of oxidized bronze and wood. After an preliminary inspection, the parts were set aside because the other finds were more interesting.

ooparts the Antikythera mechanism
The most famous and largest part of the Antikythera mechanism is a solidified mass from which a gear protrudes.

When they began to join the pieces of the mechanism, in 1902, it was first noticed that in those pieces there were inscriptions in Greek and clockwork gears… They were immediately put aside again because the accepted science at that time did not admit that such a thing existed 200 years before Christ.

In 1951 the studies were resumed for the 2nd time. In 1971 the pieces were analyzed with X-rays. At first it was speculated that the mechanism was a navigational instrument of the ship. With further investigation, it was discovered that it was a device for astronomical and astrological observations.

ooparts the Antikythera mechanism
One of the X-rays taken of the largest piece of the Antikythera mechanism. As can be seen, the interior contains the gears of a complex mechanism. Adding the x-rays to the 82 pieces, several models of the original artifact have been proposed.

It was originally a wooden box. It housed a complex mechanism of gears and bronze bars, which were set with a small crank.

The crank allowed to enter a date from the Egyptian calendar. Then, the device determined positions in the firmament of stars, the sun, the moon and the planets on that date. It also predicted solar/lunar eclipses, lunar phases and the passage of the sun through the constellations of the zodiac.

ooparts the Antikythera mechanism
One of the proposed models of what the original Antikythera mechanism. The models are partly speculative because not all the remains of the case are preserved.

Until then it was believed that the first mechanisms of this type, gear and weight clocks, had appeared in the 10th century AD.

The Antikythera mechanism pushed back the dates 1,200 years, not only in terms of mechanical movements, but also demonstrated that astronomical knowledge was far superior to what was believed.

The mathematical complexity of the device, which is considered a kind of mechanical computer, makes it impossible for it to be a unique piece. The invention had to be based on other previous devices and prototypes. Hence, more similar mechanisms should appear in the future.

ooparts the Antikythera mechanism
A theoretical dial of the Antikythera mechanism. It has 7 hands with the sun, the moon and the 5 planets known by ancient Greeks in the 2nd century BC.

Another peculiarity is that the other objects recovered from the shipwreck and the mechanism do not match each other, in terms of dates and possible points of origin. Thus, it is not known exactly when the artifact was manufactured, nor where.

Apparently, the ship was heading to Rome with a cargo to celebrate the victory of Julius Caesar in the 2nd civil war of the Roman Republic (year 46 BC). The diver Jacques Cousteau found coins from between 76-67BC in the wreck. The vessels were similar in style to those made in Rhodes, Greece.

The inscriptions on the mechanism are in Corinthian Greek. The moon predictions seem to follow the theories of Hipparchus of Nicaea, who inhabited Rhodes between 140-120BC. Notwithstanding, the arithmetical prediction style is more similar to Babylonian, so the artifact could be from 200BC.

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