Motya

Published August 7, 2014

Motya is a small island off the west coast of Sicily between Trapani and Marsala. It has been a Phoenician, and later Carthaginian, island city from around 700 BC.>Recent archaeological work there has shown that the island had settlements from 2000 BC.^(b)<

It has been nominated by Federico Bardanzellu as the location of the Pillars of Hercules.^(a)

^(a) http://www.museodeidolmen.it/popomare.html

^(b) The sacred pool of Ba’al: a reinterpretation of the ‘Kothon’ at Motya | Antiquity | Cambridge Core *

Tagged Carthaginian, Federico Bardanzellu, Marsala, Motya, Phoenician, Pillars of Hercules, Sicily, Trapani

Baalbek *

Published December 2, 2013

Baalbek, situated in the Bekka Valley in Lebanon, undoubtedly presents us with what I consider to be one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. It was the site of a most impressive Roman temple complex dedicated to Jupiter. However, the very name Baalbek suggests an earlier connection with the Caananite/Phoenician god Baal.

Peter Mungo Jupp has suggested that the original temple at Baalbek had involved Holy Prostitution in the service of Baal^(z), while another commentator has even suggested a link with Indian yogis!^(t)

Although the Roman remains are still impressive, it is some blocks in the lower and presumably earlier courses^(d), that have continued to stump archaeologists, three of which are of cut limestone and are estimated to weigh up to 800 tons^(c). (compare with the content of the link^(k))

An article^(q) by Gian J. Quasar regarding this strange masonry is worth a read.

Even more disturbing is a block still lying in a nearby quarry, where it was cut, and which has been calculated to exceed 1000 tons and named The Stone of the Pregnant Woman. Another block, in the same quarry, was only discovered in the 1990’s and is thought to be even heavier at 1200 tons^(g).

In 1997, Andrew Collins ventured to suggest that Baalbek because of its high elevation “hints at the fact that it once served as some kind of platform for the observation of celestial and stellar events”^(v). Collins expanded on his views in two later papers on his website^(w)^(x).

While the Baalbek monoliths are astoundingly impressive, they would appear to be outshone by the unfinished stele in the quarry at Yangshan in eastern China. Its estimated weight has been put as high as over 6,000 tons. Its creation is attributed to the reign of the Yongle Emperor in the early 15th century. However, others claim much greater antiquity, insisting that “although it is a limestone quarry, the stones were not cut and shaped with hammer and chisel, as you will see. They were machined.^(y)!

Hugh Newman, a self-described ‘megalithomaniac’^(r), has produced a paper^(s) on the enormous Baalbek monoliths, in which he cites Graham Hancock speculatively dating the age of Baalbek megaliths at 12,000 years or more.

In March 2014, it was widely reported^(e) that even heavier megaliths had been identified on Siberia’s Mount Shoria. However, the images I have seen suggest to me a natural origin^(f). A short video clip is available^(j).

We do not know how such huge objects were made or moved in ancient times. I often think that the bigger question is why did they bother to cut such large blocks! An online article^(b) tells how the ingenuity of our ancestors produced the most powerful hand crane in history which multiplied the force of its operator 632 times. However, just because we do not yet know precisely how the Baalbek blocks were manipulated, does not justify wild claims that they were moved by high-tech Atlanteans or extraterrestrials. I may not know how stage magicians saw ladies in half, but that does not compel me to label them Atlantean or alien.

The most persistent question relating to all megalithic structures is “how did they manage to build them using such large heavy rocks and blocks”? Many ingenious solutions are on offer, but perhaps the most remarkable is that proposed by W. T. Wallington who demonstrated that using basic materials, which were available to the Egyptians, one individual can manipulate a 4500kg stone block. His website includes a remarkable video clip of his method. A review⁽ⁿ⁾ of this video is worth a read. Another or comparable technology may have been used by Edward Leedskainin when he single-handedly built Coral Castle in Florida City^(o). What is certain is that Leedskainin had no help from intergalactic visitors.

The late Alan Alford wrote an extensive paper on Baalbek^(a). Immanuel Velikovsky and others have supported the idea that Baakbek was in fact the location of the biblical city of Dan, recorded as the most northern city of ancient Israel. Furthermore, the earlier notes on the subject by Velikovsky are also available online⁽ⁱ⁾in which he suggested that Baalbek was the temple built by Jeroboam in the north of the former Kingdom of Israel to compete with Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem in the south.

December 2014 found the latest estimate for the weight of the largest dressed stone found at Baalbek was calculated to be 1650 tons^(h). It is clear that some explanation is required, hopefully, something better than the implication of extraterrestrial intervention. I would like to think that if we had alien visitors that their technology would be in advance of the ‘stone’ age. Surely they would have something better to produce than enormous foundation stones, which to my puny mind does not smack of the best that a civilisation capable of travelling across the cosmos would have to offer! I find the claims of Graham Hancock or Erich von Dániken equally unconvincing in this instance.

A sober well-referenced article outlining the arguments in favour of identifying the megaliths as Roman is available online^(k)as well as supportive blogs from Frank Dörnenburg^(m).

A UNESCO-sponsored hitech survey of the Baalbek site as part of a Risk Preparedness Strategy is now proposed so that the most appropriate remedial action can be taken in the event of natural deterioration or even war damage^(l).

Brian Foerster’s website^(p) has some remarkable images of the Baalbek masonry.

There are a number of YouTube videos featuring the Baalbek ruins^(u).

^(a) See: Archive 3414

^(b) https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/history-of-human-powered-cranes.html

^(c) https://vejprty.com/baalbek.htm

^(d) https://grahamhancock.com/third-megalith-baalbek-hancock/

^(e) https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/megaliths-russia-advanced-civilisation/

^(f) https://www.academia.edu/6200990/Super_Megaliths_in_Gornaya_Shoria_Southern_Siberia

^(g) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/forgotten-stones-baalbek-lebanon-001865#!biIakW

^(h) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/largest-known-megalithic-block-antiquity-revealed-baalbek-002385

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_baalbek_5.htm

^(j) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXeuTK2fhwI