To expand on TriPolar’s post, there were no gold plated items in Tut’s tomb. There were solid gold items and maybe gold coated items, but no plated items. Gold plating is a specific process that uses electrical current to deposit gold on the surface of an object. The object must be conductive, like some metals, that’s why you can’t gold-plate bone or wood.
This isn’t about gold conspiracies, it’s about whether the Baghdad items were batteries. If they were batteries, they were most probably not for plating as we have not found gold plated items from that region at that time.
Ok, I’ll give you that. I meant any smooth rock. But as for the rest of it, my many years of straightening wooden arrow shafts disagrees. A slight pressure with friction on the bowed side is all that is required. Just enough to provide a little heat. The shape of the stone is pretty much irrelevant so long as it’s reasonably smooth.
A smooth bone is excellent for this, but the surface is all that’s needed. I don’t see how a hole improves this.
I’m not arguing that they can’t be arrow straighteners, it’s just that it seems overkill to my way of thinking.
As for spear throwers, I’m not convinced. The majority of the examples I’ve looked at (online, of course - not in person) don’t have a positive anchor point.
The problem with that is that where the stones are now, is not necessarily where they were while being used. Some have fallen down and been put back up. So, the alignment today may be close but hardly that exact.
Archaeology, and many other scientific fields can be more about your ability to write grant applications than it is about real science. Grant applications (funding) is the real job.
Maybe. They will weigh the same but there is no guarantee that the final volume of an alloy will be the exact sum of the volumes of its parts, due to the way the atoms/molecules of the components pack together in the mixture or in some cases, crystallise.
Not an alloy, obviously, but a common example of the same phenomenon is the dissolution of salt in water - the final volume is less than the sum of the volume of the components
The current theory is that the stones were originally installed in Wales before being moved to Stonehenge. So the original alignment has probably been lost.
They were 25 tons each stone, my friend
But amazingly they got them all down in the sand
And they moved it
And they dragged it
And they rolled it 46 miles from Wales!
This doesn’t quite fit because it’s an image rather than an actual artifact, but there’s this weird thing depicted on Trajan’s Column. The column depicts scenes from the Dacian wars. Most of the images on the column are quite realistic and detailed, but apparently no one has a convincing explanation of what this thing is supposed to be. The best guess is it’s some kind of siege engine, although to my eye it’s hard to see how it would function.
The artist may have never seen the actual device, whatever it is. It does sorta look like a 2-1/2D representation of something on wheels, but a lot of details don’t make sense. What are those tines that hang below the axle? Why a wheel up at the top of the A frame like structure? And what are those things that look like barrels strung on a pole? And why is the one on the right detached? Did the artist just run out of space because the soldier to the right of that had already been carved?
A more contemporary mysterious object that hasn’t been definitively explained: the Mojave Megaphone.
This large, megaphone-shaped mystery object is bolted to two rocks on top of a 100-foot hill along a remote strip of desert between the towns of Baker and Ludlow. Some say it’s shaped like a venturi — though they normally are hour-glass shaped — and its shape is more like a rocket nozzle. It’s about 8 feet long, made from thick strips of iron welded together. Many travelers and historians alike have searched for an explanation of how it got there, and for what reason. But while theories abound, the answer remains elusive.
The detached barrel may suggest that the object is a cart whose purpose is to transport the barrels, but individually stringing them horizontally between the A-frames is a very bizarre way of carrying them. Why aren’t they just loaded into a normal cart? And what’s in the barrels anyway?
Thinking along those lines, it reminds me of a larger version of the gadgets they used for holding rupture discs on Mythbusters when testing blast wave pressures.
I saw claims to that exact effect online, that it held a rupturing film to measure shock waves.
But I also saw a claim that there is an article in the Desert Dispatch newspaper from Dec 8, 1990. And that this article identifies the object as a drum placed there by a local land owner.
That does appear to be a newspaper by that name but I wasn’t able to get access to the Dec 8 1990 edition of the paper.
Are you perhaps thinking of the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan? That’s an 18" silk square, probably from a shirt woven in Syria or Rhodes, that was either given to the chief of the Macleods by the queen of the fairies, or brought home from one of the Crusades. It’s said to protect the Macleod clan if unfurled in times of great danger, but only three times; on the last occasion, the bearer will be carried away by sídh, never to be seen again.
According to family legend, a fire broke out at Dunvegan Castle in 1938, and as the chest containing the Fairy Flag was carried past for safety, the flames immediately checked.
I suppose the flag fits this thread, as it’s origin is still unknown. But it’s been examined by historians and is most likely a saint’s relic (and has been unfurled more than three times; Sir Walter Scott inspected it on a trip to Skye, once.) No one knows for certain, though.
