Rogem Hiri / Gilgal Refaim

I had not heard of this site before today, so I'm guessing a good few of yourselves haven't either. It deserves more recognition, for it has a lot of interesting features:

• as old as Stonehenge
  
• concentric circles, just like Atlantis
• immense size
• astronomical alignments
• a bunker in the middle, perhaps
  

Rogem Hiri ("Mound of the Wild Cat") is the Arabic name for this site, and Gilgal Refaim* ("Wheel of Refaim") is the Hebrew name. It is situated in the Golan Heights (Israeli occupied Syria) , 16 kms east of the Sea of Galilee, in the middle of a large plateau (32.908388°N 35.800581°E). Nearby there are also hundreds of dolmens.

It is made from an estimated 42,000 basalt rocks. There is no mystery as to how they built it, but it would've been quite an effort. The four concentric rings range from 50m in diameter and 1.5m wide for the innermost, to 150m in diameter and 3.2m wide for the outermost ring.

At the very centre is a tomb, although the burial occurred much more recently (roughly 1400BC) than the construction of the site itself (2500-3000BC). And of course, the tomb has been looted, so it is merely presumed someone was buried there...

At the center of the circles is a cairn, an irregular heap of stones. It is 20-25 m. in diameter and preserved to a height of 6 m. The cairn consists of a central mound of stones surrounded by a lower belt, which gives it the appearance of a stepped, truncated cone. A geophysical survey using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) revealed the pile of stones to be hollow. A built burial chamber, with a narrow corridor leading to it, was discovered there. The chamber is round, roughly 2 m. in diameter, built of large stone plates arranged on top of each other, but slightly slanting inwards. It was covered by two massive slabs of basalt, each weighing over 5.5 tons, which created a semi-corbelled dome over the burial chamber.

Not too different to the "burial chamber" at the centre of the Great Pyramid!


References:

Wikipedia
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Haaretz.com
Rogum Hiri (best aerial pics)

*BTW, the Rephaim of the Hebrew name for this site were giants. Perhaps some deeper investigation could discover if this name comes from presuming only giants could have constructed it, or something more factual. I'm constantly looking for evidence of giants/angels/nephilim/mysterious elders constructing survival bunkers in ancient times. This site seems to fit the bill.

Emmerich on 2012 Idea

Found at Yahoo Movies:

So how does Roland Emmerich end the world in his upcoming epic "2012"? "Pole reversal," he said in an interview this week. "All kinds of stuff going on. But it's basically major earthquakes and volcano eruptions which kind of cause this global flood."

"We found this obscure theory of 'Earth crust displacement,' written in the '50s by someone called Professor Hapgood. Albert Einstein wrote the foreword to his book. It pretty much [says] every X number of years the whole Earth's crust shifts, all together. We thought that that was a great underlining theory that can explain why there can be a flood."

And what is the director going to do in preparation for that fated date? When asked he said, "I'm a pretty down to earth guy. Even [though] I made movies about aliens, I don't believe in aliens. And I don't believe that the world will come to an end in 2012, but it's a great scenario."

I figure I'll never know, but I've been curious as to whether a visit to Survive2012.com may have played some part in development of the story. And perhaps the idea of surviving on ships from Patrick Geryl?

Mount St Helens - Supervolcano?

Many 2012ers and EOTWers are aware of the potential of Yellowstone, the supervolcano that could in theory erupt again at any time, repeating the destruction it caused 640,000 years ago.

Although it is not yet proven, there is the possibility that Mt St Helens, which we all know is presently active, could be as dangerous as Yellowstone.

New Scientist reports:

The measurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 kilometres below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material.

This larger zone was first identified in the 1980s by another magnetotelluric survey, and was found to extend all the way to beneath Mount Rainier 70 kilometres to the north-east, and Mount Adams 50 kilometres to the east. It was thought to be a zone of wet sediment, water being a good electrical conductor.

However, since the new measurements show an apparent conduit connecting this conductive zone to Mount St Helens - which was undergoing a minor eruption of semi-molten material at the time the measurements were made - Hill and his colleagues now think the conductive material is more likely to be a semi-molten mixture. Its conductivity is not high enough for it to be pure magma, Hill says, so it is more likely to be a mixture of solid and molten rock.

If the structure beneath the three volcanoes is indeed a vast bubble of partially molten rock, it would be comparable in size to the biggest magma chambers ever discovered, such as the one below Yellowstone National Park.

German Schoolboy Hit By Meteorite & Lives!

The size of a pea, by the time it reached him, it still managed to leave a 5cm scar on the hand of Gerrit Blank, and a 30cm-wide crater in the pavement.

While this is the sort of "happy story" that you sometimes get at the end of news bulletins, it is only so due to the fact he lived, and the rarity of the situation. If a town/city is ever struck my a large meteorite, it will be a tragedy.

In recorded history he seems to be the person who has come off best from such a cosmic collision. According to Wikipedia:

The only other human confirmed to be struck and injured by a meteor was 31 year old Ann Hodges, of Sylacauga, Alabama. She was struck while asleep in bed on November 30, 1954, after the meteorite punched through the roof of her home, smashed a wooden cabinet, and then bounced off the floor to struck her in the hand and hip. The meteorite, which weighed about eight and a half pounds, caused extensive bruising.

Urkesh Palace Pit = Bunker?

Those who have followed my thoughts probably know that my first instinct when I learn of an ancient subterranean structure is "bunker!". It's not a bad hypothesis, but very hard to prove. The problem is that the use as a bunker perhaps only lasted a few generations, and neglected to leave evidence - whereas subsequent uses may have been for longer, and left more evidence. A bunker that succeeded would most likely be emptied afterwards, and anything not removed, if at all, was likely to be organic or pottery. To put it bluntly, no bones.

Reading Archaeology magazine, July/Aug 2008, page 50, I found this, about a pit found next to Urkesh Palace, a pit that pre-dates the palace:

"unusual stone-lined pit... The pit's large underground room has a square antechamber facing west and a deep circular pit... it was originally covered with a roof and had a single, easily closed entrance facing west... Within the pit they found silver rings, an obsidian blade, clay animal figurines... But it was the mass of animal bones...

Mostly they found the bones of piglets and puppies - dogs were considered unclean by the Hurrians. Sheep, goat and donkey bones were found as well, including the bones of entire animals. Consequently the archaeologists have proposed that the structure was for ritual animal sacrifices.

Fair enough, it was quite likely used for that, long after the pit has served its original purpose. I find it hard to believe that the Hurrians would have built such a quality pit just for animal sacrifices (even considering the related texts mentioning the underworld):




That photo is from the only online article I could find on the pit, entitled “Introduction to the Archaeo-zoology of the abi”

I propose that, ignoring what was found within, and just looking at the structure, and with the understanding that we will never know what the roof consisted of (but may have been a substantial organic mat), that it was a bunker. The thickness of the walls are similar to the plans I have for a bunker... Actually, if all you are doing is tossing animal bones into a pit, why have a tiny entrance and steps? Or to put it another way, if it was important for people to enter the sacrificial pit, why not make the steps a comfortable width? A bunker typically has the smallest entrance possible.

BTW, the ceramics found date to 2300-2100 BC.

Watch "Last Extinction" Online

After screening on PBS in America in March, the 1 hour documentary "Last Extinction" is now available for viewing online:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/clovis/program.html

The doco investigates the possibility of a comet causing widespread large mammal extinctions 12,900 years ago. Currently the most academically accepted theory is that migrating humans hunted the megafauna to extinction. However recently discovered evidence suggests that a comet may have struck at that time:

• Earth's temperature, according to geologic records, dropped 18 degrees in two years
• Scientists found iridium, rarely found on earth, in elevated levels across Northern America. Iridium is often an indicator of meteors and comets, and was also found in the layer correlating with the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
• Found alongside the iridium were hexagonally shaped microscopic diamonds, which don’t occur naturally on earth

All that stops this theory from becoming scientific fact is the lack of a crater, (although this hasn't been the case with Tunguska...). The show suggests that either the comet broke up into thousands of small pieces - Carolina Bays anyone?, or struck a glacier, which acted as a bullet-proof vest.

I'm Stumped by this Chinese Geoglyph

Originally posted by myself at 2012Forum.com, and nobody could tell me what it really is, so I'm asking the audience of this blog for ideas...

AstralWalker's talk in Melbourne last month had some slides about GeoGlyphs. It was interesting hearing all the gasps in the audience when he showed the Chinese pyramids...

But this, I have not seen before:

http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/map.php?file=20423

It is in China, near the Mongolian border
It is big - looks like hills etc don't get in the way

The difficulty in determining what it is comes from the huge range of existing geoglyphs, that range from modern art like Colonel Sanders and the Firefox logo, to the ancient Nazca Lines. Without inspecting them at ground level, it is very hard to determine age and technique.

The best suggestion at the forum was that this is something like a quarry, and a large grader was used by someone who was on more then just a random mission:

There is clearly watershed over it in spots. The dimensions are roughly 1 mile square and the lines themselves average 50 foot wide. I can understand a mock runway and village but a mosaic pattern makes no sense to me even for a bored machine operator.

Scroll left when at Google Maps and there is a large square area that might be a clue...

Solar Cycle Will Be Weakest...Or Not?

It wasn't very long ago that we were being told to brace for, in 2012, the biggest solar maximum for some time. Now some scientists are predicting that it will be "the weakest since 1928".

The panel now expects the sun's activity will peak about a year late, in May 2013, when it will boast an average of 90 sunspots per day. That is below average for solar cycles, making the coming peak the weakest since 1928, when an average of 78 sunspots was seen daily.

So there's nothing to worry about, except:

"The panel consensus is not my individual opinion," says panel member Mausumi Dikpati of the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.

Dikpati and her colleagues have developed a solar model that predicts a bumper crop of sunspots and a cycle that is 30% to 50% stronger than the previous cycle, Cycle 23.

Such disparate predictions are similar to the global warming debate. Perhaps they are connected after all?

2012 Countdown Now Mainstream

The above widget was found at the South Florida Sun Sentinel - a great example of how commonplace this meme now is!

Flu Pandemics can be Sparked by Researchers

New Scientist said:

It's emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

They only realised this because the ferrets died... This suggests that similar accidents may have occurred undetected.

Regarding the current Swine Flu outbreak, the fact that only Mexicans have died is bizarre, and the media has not provided any possible reasons. I figure it is one of the following:

• there is something different about Mexicans - perhaps a lack of a childhood inoculation, or even something that is administered to pigs outside of Mexico than flows on to humans that eat pork... giving them immunity
• two different strains -one that is mild and quite common in Mexico, and consequently those returning from Mexico - and one that has remained in Mexico (doesn't spread from human to human?) that is deadly
• a combination of the above scenarios, plus political spin, for some conspiracy-type reason

Either way, it doesn't smell like a real pandemic, and I predict it won't be mentioned 2 weeks from now.