Erich von Daniken - Chariots Of The Gods-pages

Page 91 of 119

Page 91 of 119
Erich von Daniken - Chariots Of The Gods-pages

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The Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II is supposed to have brought back a most unusual tent from the east when he returned from the Fifth Crusade in 1229. In the interior of the tent stood a clockwork motor and people watched the constellations in motion through the dome-shaped roof of the tent. Once again a planetarium in olden times. We accept its existence at that date because we know that the necessary mechanical skills existed then. The idea of the earlier planetarium irritates us because in Christ's day the concept of a heaven with fixed stars taking into account the rotation of the earth did not exist. Even the knowledgeable Chinese and Arabic astronomers of antiquity can give us no help regarding this inexplicable fact, and it is undeniable that Galileo Galilei was not born until 1,500 years later. Anyone who goes to Athens should not miss the 'machine from Antikythera’; it is on show in the National Archaeological Museum. We possess only written accounts of Frederick II's tent planetarium. Outline drawings of animals which simply did not exist in South America 10,000 years ago, namely camels and lions, were found on the rocks of the desert plateau of Marcahuasi 12,500 ft above sea- level. The ruins of an ancient town which must have been destroyed by a great catastrophe exist in Death Valley, in the Nevada Desert. Even today traces of melted rocks and sand can be seen. The heat of a volcanic eruption would not have been enough to melt rocks—besides the heat would have scorched the buildings first. Today only Laser beams produce the required temperature. Strangely enough not a blade of grass grows in this district. There are artificially produced markings, as yet unexplained, on extremely inaccessible rock faces in Australia, Peru and Upper Italy. Texts on gold plaques, which were found at Ur in Chaldea, tell of 'gods' resembling men who came from the sky and presented the plaques to the priests. In Australia, France, India, the Lebanon, South Africa and Chile there are strange black 'stones' which are rich in aluminium and beryllium. The most recent investigations showed that these stones must have been exposed to a heavy radioactive bombardment and high temperatures in the very remote past. In Russia archaeologists discovered a relief of an airship, consisting of ten balls arranged in a row next to each other which stand in a right-angled frame supported on both sides by thick columns. Balls Here are some more strange things that antiquity has bequeathed to us: In Turkestan engineers found semicircular structures made of a kind of glass or pottery. Their origin and significance cannot be explained by the archaeologists. Hadjar el Guble, the Stone of the South, in the Lebanon weighs over 2 million pounds. It is a dressed stone, but human hands could certainly not have moved it. Sumerian cuneiform tablets show fixed stars with planets.