6-5-06 The Fig
I ran across this little discovery on Friday...
http://www.livescience.com/history/060602_ap_ancient_fig.html
Then I looked around for other info and found this...
http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/a/fig_trees.htm
Today, I also ran across this...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060602074522.htm
It's all about the ancient figs. My first impression at reading the first referenced article was that it was mildly interesting, but nothing to get too excited about. It's a press piece regarding the discovery of a carbonized seedless fig, found at the site of an archeological dig named "Gilgal I" in the middle east. The fig they found is over 11,000 years old, so this indicates that humans in the middle east may have been cultivating fig trees eleven thousand years ago.
Well, I guess that's pretty interesting, after all. There's a picture at the top of the article which I didn't really look at too closely, just a picture of three different sized figs. But then at the bottom of the article, there was the same picture, along with some text, and this one could be enlarged. So I clicked on it, and that's when I noticed that the smallest fig on the left is the one they found, and it's being compared to two present day figs. The really odd thing about the fig they found, however, is that it's covered in gold. You can see the thing they found was actually a crafted gold ball that's hollow, and inside is what's left of the ancient seedless fig.
Hmmmm.... that's curious, the article doesn't mention anything at all about the crafted gold hollow ball...
That's when I started looking for more information, and came up with link 2 (above), which goes on at length about fig cultivation. Interesting, but it doesn't say anything about ancient seedless figs found inside crafted gold hollow balls. So I left it at that, for the time being.
Today, however, I found yet another article on this fig business (link 3, above), and again, they don't say anything about the gold ball.
So I looked around to find anything I could about ancient gold artefacts and found this...
http://en.journey.bg/bulgaria/bulgaria.php?guide=327&resort_name=Varna
According to this website, the "Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis" is the place where they found the oldest ancient gold artefacts that had, so far, ever been dug up. The crafted gold they found there is around 6,000 years old.
So, I have to ask, why is the 11,000 year old crafted gold hollow ball with the carbonized seedless fig remains inside being reported with the entire focus on the fig, rather than the gold? It is, after all, five thousand years older than the "oldest known" crafted gold artefacts ever found anywhere on this planet...
There's a chronology to this. The first link shows the gold ball, but doesn't say anything about it. The third link, a subsequent and expanded press piece about the find, not only doesn't show the picture of the gold ball, but doesn't mention it, either.
What's happened here is that they may have found something that's VERY out of place, time-wise, which makes it apparently unexplainable within the currently accepted theories regarding ancient human timelines. If you surf around the net, you'll find that this is the case, ie- no gold artefacts prior to the "birthplace of civilization" in Sumeria. We don't have any acknowledged archeological timelines putting gold mining or the crafting of gold objects any further back.
It just means that nobody is going to stick their neck out and make any comments upon it at all until the world of archeology has had a chance to "digest" this highly anomalous find. I would forecast the future non-existance of this gold ball in the world of archeology, since it violates the current dogma.
Things like this are embarrassing to people who have spent their entire lives pontificating upon the rigid guidelines of their sacred "scientific theories" and gaining bulky credentials and enough authority to wield the funding bludgeon upon any who dare speak blasphemous thoughts that go against the sacred dogmas.
What they're doing with this find is keeping it firmly within accepted boundaries, which in this case is the "fig cultivation" discussion. This has been going on for a little while, so it's "safe" to talk about more and more evidence surfacing to back up the contention that this "fig cultivation" was occuring back there over 11,000 years ago.
What we run squarely up against with this crafted gold hollow ball from over 11,000 years ago, however, is the "by chance" dogma. You can argue the "cultivation" of a mutated hybrid (seedless figs) by these ancient peoples, simply because all the "by chance" things that have to lead up to such a development are "possible". This is the magic word with the "by chance" crowd, this endless explaining that these successions of "chance" occurences are "possible". But you can't give quarter to the idea that more sophisticated technologies pre-existed the "birthplace of civilization" in Sumeria, because if you start down that road.... well, there's a lot of people who've been insisting that the official timelines are just plain wrong, and the established authorities have been beating them over the head as "crackpots" for a long time. Moreover, the ancient stories that came out of Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and even the old testament, are all about the existence of "gods" in pre-history. Never mind that it's all amazingly consistent, all these myths and legends and ancient tales of gods, as they travel from ancient Sumeria and forward in time. Never mind that there's a whole culture out there with their brains wrapped around some of the most fantastic theories and ideas imaginable. WE have to stay grounded in "solid science" on this planet, or else it's all just gonna collapse into religion and superstition!
Okay, I can understand that viewpoint. We want sanity to prevail.
There is, however, the undeniable existance of that damn gold ball. The real problem here isn't that this one little item popped up. This kind of anomalous stuff has been dug out of the ground on a regular basis during the past century and a half of archeological work. The problem is that there is just so much of this kind of thing lying around in museums, along with much larger things sitting out in plain sight for all to see all over the globe, that it's really getting to be a threat to the very foundations of prevailing archeological dogma. And it's not just archeology that's threatened, it's that whole interdisciplinary spiderweb of concurrence upon the most basic dogma of all... this "by chance" baloney.
Every so-called "scientific" explanation of things occuring "by chance" is pure, unadulterated speculation. It's always couched in "scientific" terms, and most of all, "agreed to" by all the prevailing authorities who wield the funding power. It's not a conspiracy, it's just a religion.
Well, anyway, you may be prompted to ask, "Sheesh! All this ranting over a fig???"
What got me going was the preponderance of bullshit underlying the gathering momentum regarding this "fig cultivation" thing that's rolling along out there.
Let's just suppose we take a look at what that really is, okay?
The seedless fig is a hybrid. Like many hybrids, it can't reproduce (no seeds, after all). Yes, such things can (and apparently do) occur "by chance" in nature. There's no denying that. Such an occurence is called a "mutation".
So, the underlying bullshit theory is that somewhere along the line in the middle east, over 11,000 years ago, a mutation occured in ONE fig tree that produced this seedless hybrid fig. That's the first "by chance" occurence. We can't accept any speculation that this mutation occured all over the place, producing such a great improvement in the fig as food. That kind of speculation borders upon the absurd. The "by chance" dogma has to be kept within its own ridiculous limits, after all. But we can allow for the possibility of ONE mutated tree appearing somewhere back there that, improbable as this is (in fact), nonetheless bore an improved variety of fruit for human consumption.
(Of course, if we want to also include the possibility that someone of Gregor Mendel's genius just happened to stumble upon the wherewithall to produce hybrids way back there in pre-historic times, and....
Nah. That's just a bit too speculative for even this dogmatic "by chance" baloney.)
Next, this ONE fig tree has to survive long enough for some pre-historic human to "by chance" discover it AND eat from it. That's the second in the series of necessary "by chance" occurences.
Next, the pre-historic humans, in order to "cultivate" this particular variety of fig, have to discover "by chance" that if a live branch is cut off the tree and stuck in the ground, that this will produce a viable tree from which even more of these unique figs can be harvested.
This makes three things that have to occur "by chance" in order to end up with these seedless figs showing up in archeological digs of strata that's over 11,000 years old. Granted, the possibility exists for the easy discovery by ancient humans that live branches cut off fig trees, when planted in the ground, will grow into trees. This is a fairly unique aspect of fig trees, the cuttings grow into new trees quite easily. So this makes the whole sequence of "by chance" events even more possible.
It's only when you operate exclusively upon this fundamental "by chance" dogma that the whole thing seems to be feasible and believable, however. For a skeptic like me, all this "by chance" of things falling neatly into place like that is just too convenient.
It's especially so when the carbonized remains of a hybrid fig show up inside a crafted gold hollow ball from over 11,000 years ago. This obviously MEANS that the fig inside is somehow MORE VALUABLE to the pre-historic human that fashioned it, ...MORE VALUABLE than any other common fig.
The fact that the more highly prized fig is a hybrid makes this, ultimately, a very significant artefact. So, my rant comes from the glaring omission of comment upon the gold artefact, and the horseshit about "cultivation" which fits so neatly into dogmatic narrow-mindedness that, in my view, abounds today in modern science.
I want to TRUST that modern day scientists are completely objective, and aren't bent and skewed by some kind of religious dogma. But the "by chance" dogma seems to be evident everywhere I look, so this is why I rant.
Personally, I would really like it if "by chance" was the "truth" about this universe... because the alternative is very scary. But I would rather face that prospect scientifically.
Wouldn't you?
http://www.livescience.com/history/060602_ap_ancient_fig.html
Then I looked around for other info and found this...
http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/a/fig_trees.htm
Today, I also ran across this...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060602074522.htm
It's all about the ancient figs. My first impression at reading the first referenced article was that it was mildly interesting, but nothing to get too excited about. It's a press piece regarding the discovery of a carbonized seedless fig, found at the site of an archeological dig named "Gilgal I" in the middle east. The fig they found is over 11,000 years old, so this indicates that humans in the middle east may have been cultivating fig trees eleven thousand years ago.
Well, I guess that's pretty interesting, after all. There's a picture at the top of the article which I didn't really look at too closely, just a picture of three different sized figs. But then at the bottom of the article, there was the same picture, along with some text, and this one could be enlarged. So I clicked on it, and that's when I noticed that the smallest fig on the left is the one they found, and it's being compared to two present day figs. The really odd thing about the fig they found, however, is that it's covered in gold. You can see the thing they found was actually a crafted gold ball that's hollow, and inside is what's left of the ancient seedless fig.
Hmmmm.... that's curious, the article doesn't mention anything at all about the crafted gold hollow ball...
That's when I started looking for more information, and came up with link 2 (above), which goes on at length about fig cultivation. Interesting, but it doesn't say anything about ancient seedless figs found inside crafted gold hollow balls. So I left it at that, for the time being.
Today, however, I found yet another article on this fig business (link 3, above), and again, they don't say anything about the gold ball.
So I looked around to find anything I could about ancient gold artefacts and found this...
http://en.journey.bg/bulgaria/bulgaria.php?guide=327&resort_name=Varna
According to this website, the "Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis" is the place where they found the oldest ancient gold artefacts that had, so far, ever been dug up. The crafted gold they found there is around 6,000 years old.
So, I have to ask, why is the 11,000 year old crafted gold hollow ball with the carbonized seedless fig remains inside being reported with the entire focus on the fig, rather than the gold? It is, after all, five thousand years older than the "oldest known" crafted gold artefacts ever found anywhere on this planet...
There's a chronology to this. The first link shows the gold ball, but doesn't say anything about it. The third link, a subsequent and expanded press piece about the find, not only doesn't show the picture of the gold ball, but doesn't mention it, either.
What's happened here is that they may have found something that's VERY out of place, time-wise, which makes it apparently unexplainable within the currently accepted theories regarding ancient human timelines. If you surf around the net, you'll find that this is the case, ie- no gold artefacts prior to the "birthplace of civilization" in Sumeria. We don't have any acknowledged archeological timelines putting gold mining or the crafting of gold objects any further back.
It just means that nobody is going to stick their neck out and make any comments upon it at all until the world of archeology has had a chance to "digest" this highly anomalous find. I would forecast the future non-existance of this gold ball in the world of archeology, since it violates the current dogma.
Things like this are embarrassing to people who have spent their entire lives pontificating upon the rigid guidelines of their sacred "scientific theories" and gaining bulky credentials and enough authority to wield the funding bludgeon upon any who dare speak blasphemous thoughts that go against the sacred dogmas.
What they're doing with this find is keeping it firmly within accepted boundaries, which in this case is the "fig cultivation" discussion. This has been going on for a little while, so it's "safe" to talk about more and more evidence surfacing to back up the contention that this "fig cultivation" was occuring back there over 11,000 years ago.
What we run squarely up against with this crafted gold hollow ball from over 11,000 years ago, however, is the "by chance" dogma. You can argue the "cultivation" of a mutated hybrid (seedless figs) by these ancient peoples, simply because all the "by chance" things that have to lead up to such a development are "possible". This is the magic word with the "by chance" crowd, this endless explaining that these successions of "chance" occurences are "possible". But you can't give quarter to the idea that more sophisticated technologies pre-existed the "birthplace of civilization" in Sumeria, because if you start down that road.... well, there's a lot of people who've been insisting that the official timelines are just plain wrong, and the established authorities have been beating them over the head as "crackpots" for a long time. Moreover, the ancient stories that came out of Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and even the old testament, are all about the existence of "gods" in pre-history. Never mind that it's all amazingly consistent, all these myths and legends and ancient tales of gods, as they travel from ancient Sumeria and forward in time. Never mind that there's a whole culture out there with their brains wrapped around some of the most fantastic theories and ideas imaginable. WE have to stay grounded in "solid science" on this planet, or else it's all just gonna collapse into religion and superstition!
Okay, I can understand that viewpoint. We want sanity to prevail.
There is, however, the undeniable existance of that damn gold ball. The real problem here isn't that this one little item popped up. This kind of anomalous stuff has been dug out of the ground on a regular basis during the past century and a half of archeological work. The problem is that there is just so much of this kind of thing lying around in museums, along with much larger things sitting out in plain sight for all to see all over the globe, that it's really getting to be a threat to the very foundations of prevailing archeological dogma. And it's not just archeology that's threatened, it's that whole interdisciplinary spiderweb of concurrence upon the most basic dogma of all... this "by chance" baloney.
Every so-called "scientific" explanation of things occuring "by chance" is pure, unadulterated speculation. It's always couched in "scientific" terms, and most of all, "agreed to" by all the prevailing authorities who wield the funding power. It's not a conspiracy, it's just a religion.
Well, anyway, you may be prompted to ask, "Sheesh! All this ranting over a fig???"
What got me going was the preponderance of bullshit underlying the gathering momentum regarding this "fig cultivation" thing that's rolling along out there.
Let's just suppose we take a look at what that really is, okay?
The seedless fig is a hybrid. Like many hybrids, it can't reproduce (no seeds, after all). Yes, such things can (and apparently do) occur "by chance" in nature. There's no denying that. Such an occurence is called a "mutation".
So, the underlying bullshit theory is that somewhere along the line in the middle east, over 11,000 years ago, a mutation occured in ONE fig tree that produced this seedless hybrid fig. That's the first "by chance" occurence. We can't accept any speculation that this mutation occured all over the place, producing such a great improvement in the fig as food. That kind of speculation borders upon the absurd. The "by chance" dogma has to be kept within its own ridiculous limits, after all. But we can allow for the possibility of ONE mutated tree appearing somewhere back there that, improbable as this is (in fact), nonetheless bore an improved variety of fruit for human consumption.
(Of course, if we want to also include the possibility that someone of Gregor Mendel's genius just happened to stumble upon the wherewithall to produce hybrids way back there in pre-historic times, and....
Nah. That's just a bit too speculative for even this dogmatic "by chance" baloney.)
Next, this ONE fig tree has to survive long enough for some pre-historic human to "by chance" discover it AND eat from it. That's the second in the series of necessary "by chance" occurences.
Next, the pre-historic humans, in order to "cultivate" this particular variety of fig, have to discover "by chance" that if a live branch is cut off the tree and stuck in the ground, that this will produce a viable tree from which even more of these unique figs can be harvested.
This makes three things that have to occur "by chance" in order to end up with these seedless figs showing up in archeological digs of strata that's over 11,000 years old. Granted, the possibility exists for the easy discovery by ancient humans that live branches cut off fig trees, when planted in the ground, will grow into trees. This is a fairly unique aspect of fig trees, the cuttings grow into new trees quite easily. So this makes the whole sequence of "by chance" events even more possible.
It's only when you operate exclusively upon this fundamental "by chance" dogma that the whole thing seems to be feasible and believable, however. For a skeptic like me, all this "by chance" of things falling neatly into place like that is just too convenient.
It's especially so when the carbonized remains of a hybrid fig show up inside a crafted gold hollow ball from over 11,000 years ago. This obviously MEANS that the fig inside is somehow MORE VALUABLE to the pre-historic human that fashioned it, ...MORE VALUABLE than any other common fig.
The fact that the more highly prized fig is a hybrid makes this, ultimately, a very significant artefact. So, my rant comes from the glaring omission of comment upon the gold artefact, and the horseshit about "cultivation" which fits so neatly into dogmatic narrow-mindedness that, in my view, abounds today in modern science.
I want to TRUST that modern day scientists are completely objective, and aren't bent and skewed by some kind of religious dogma. But the "by chance" dogma seems to be evident everywhere I look, so this is why I rant.
Personally, I would really like it if "by chance" was the "truth" about this universe... because the alternative is very scary. But I would rather face that prospect scientifically.
Wouldn't you?
posted by Jeff Barnard at 6:19 PM
1 Comments:
Oh dear. You have very sharp eyes, and the gold is definitely there. But, according to the caption in the Science article, the gold was placed there by a technician to enable the use of Scanning Electronic Microscopy. The complete figure caption should be: "Edible figs. The ancient fig (left) is covered with gold – ready for SEM photography – is similar in size to an Iranian commercial variety (middle). These are much smaller figs than a common variety of Turkish fig (right)."
This blog of mine has a picture of the image in question:
http://archaeology.about.com/b/a/257594.htm
Speaking for all of us science writer types, sorry about that!
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