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The Riddles of Three Oceans
In this book Alexander Kondratov takes a look at some of the blank spaces in man's knowledge that can be filled in by further evidence obtained from underwater archeology. In the Pacific Ocean these include such riddles as the culture of Easter Island, the origin of the American Indians, the original homeland of the Polynesians and the peopling of Australia.
The author sets forth the main hypotheses that have been advanced to solve these riddles and analyses them from the standpoints of ethnography, linguistics, geology and other sciences.
This book is intended for the general reader. Indeed, no educated person can fail to take an interest in problems that have a direct bearing on the human race.
-Academician S. Kalesnik
The author sets forth the main hypotheses that have been advanced to solve these riddles and analyses them from the standpoints of ethnography, linguistics, geology and other sciences.
This book is intended for the general reader. Indeed, no educated person can fail to take an interest in problems that have a direct bearing on the human race.
-Academician S. Kalesnik
267 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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33 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Kondratov
7 booksAlexandr Mikhailovych Kondratov was a Russian linguist, biologist, journalist and poet. He wrote many books on subjects as various as ancient and modern languages, history, ancient and lost civilizations, mathematics, paleontology, geology, cryptozoology etc.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 29, 2012
"...since actual happenings, personages, peoples and cities are refracted through a "prism of myths" enveloped in fantasy or poetry."
"In this book I shall dwell on only one aspect of modern archeology, the connection between the discovery of "submarine outer space" and the Great Historical Discovery of our globe, in which archeologists, linguists, ethnographers and anthropologists are taking part."
"Their efforts were generously rewarded with a clay bowl and the figure of an idol made of pure rubber."
"All attempts to find convincing traces of similarity between any other writing and the writing of Easter Island, known as Kohau rongo-rongo ("the talking wood") have failed. Yet scholars have compared the tiny kohau rongo-rongo characters, engraved on wooden tablets with a shark's tooth, with scripts ranging from Egyptian hieroglyphs and the writing found in caves of Ceylon to scripts discovered in Mesopotamia, Central American, Southern China, South American, India and Mexico."
"Since then the island has been called Te Pito o te Henua, the Navel of the Universe."
"From the rocks brought up from the bottom the American geologist L. J. Chubb, who was in charge of the expedition, concluded that land connecting South America with Australia and perhaps even Asia had once existed there."
"After all, the paved roads stop abruptly at the edge of the ocean."
"No one will assume that the gigantic Pacific basin could have been formed because land became separated from the surface of the earth and was ejected into outer space. But hypothesis 4 is intriguing and has won many supporters."
"Further, both used red ochre in their burial rites."
"Despite their height and grandeur, the Andes are young mountains."
"The discovery of ancient ruins at the bottom of a lake is extremely interesting but not particularly sensational."
"In all the huts are found tables of wood or sticks covered with hieroglyphs; these are figures of animals unknown in the the island."
"Coal had been found on the islet of Rapa Iti (Little Rapa, as the Polynesians call it to distinguish it from Rapa Nui, or Big Rapa..."
"All the inhabitants were drowned except three groups of people, the dwarflike Menehune, the Kenamu and the Kenawa."
"The legends disagree on one point: some say the Menehune were about one metre high, while others insist they were tiny creatures, the size of a human finger."
"These were, say the legends, tiny men called Chokals."
"If we go by their stone tools, the Tasmanians were the most backward people in the world."
"There were only 11 Tasmanians alive in 1860, and the last pure blooded Tasmanian, a woman, died in 1876."
"Why does every large subdivision of the Equatorial race include a dwarf branch?"
"(this was not writing in the full sense of the word but sooner a language of drawings, the pictography that preceded archaic forms of writing.)"
"This could hardly be just a coincidence since a star is usually depicted as having five or six points."
"Not a single connected text in "South Turkmenian hieroglyphics" has as yet been found; all we have are separate characters or groups of symbols."
"A thin terra-cotta slab with three different characters, one of which is repeated four times, was discovered recently in one of the earliest cities in Southern Turkmenia. The whole thing, says historian V. Masson, reminds one of an exercise written by a child who is trying hard to learn letters of the alphabet. A local archaic system of writing may have been developing there."
"Researchers in diving suits will test the truth of the Indian legends about drowned cities and temples."
"Another hypothesis which has appeared in this century maintains that the nimbuses around the heads are stylised depictions of the helmets of astronauts."
"Now let us try to sketch the "historical layers" reflected in the medieval maps."
"North of this place, said Pytheas, there was a "sea that had folded up.""
"It will be the job of future underwater archeologists to verify the truth of the legends, as well as to find the tin mines."
"The statue stood an a slab of the same kind of stone, on which were carved letters that could not be deciphered."
"An islet rose out of the sea near Sicily in the 19th century, and countries argued about who should possess it. While they argued, the islet sank back to the sea floor."
"Among the things they have brought up to the surface are Spanish coins, articles of pewter and glass, instruments, cooking utensils, tobacco pipes and even a silver watch which stopped at 11 hours 43 minutes, the time of the disaster."
"They could have been the "seashell" peoples."
"These researchers are making themselves familiar with coastal shallows and are creating a "homo aquaticus" for whom life and work underwater will be natural. We are as proud of oceanauts as we are of astronauts."
"What about "acquaarcheology", or "hypoaquaarcheology", meaning hypothetical underwater archeology? Both are too clumsy."
"In this book I shall dwell on only one aspect of modern archeology, the connection between the discovery of "submarine outer space" and the Great Historical Discovery of our globe, in which archeologists, linguists, ethnographers and anthropologists are taking part."
"Their efforts were generously rewarded with a clay bowl and the figure of an idol made of pure rubber."
"All attempts to find convincing traces of similarity between any other writing and the writing of Easter Island, known as Kohau rongo-rongo ("the talking wood") have failed. Yet scholars have compared the tiny kohau rongo-rongo characters, engraved on wooden tablets with a shark's tooth, with scripts ranging from Egyptian hieroglyphs and the writing found in caves of Ceylon to scripts discovered in Mesopotamia, Central American, Southern China, South American, India and Mexico."
"Since then the island has been called Te Pito o te Henua, the Navel of the Universe."
"From the rocks brought up from the bottom the American geologist L. J. Chubb, who was in charge of the expedition, concluded that land connecting South America with Australia and perhaps even Asia had once existed there."
"After all, the paved roads stop abruptly at the edge of the ocean."
"No one will assume that the gigantic Pacific basin could have been formed because land became separated from the surface of the earth and was ejected into outer space. But hypothesis 4 is intriguing and has won many supporters."
"Further, both used red ochre in their burial rites."
"Despite their height and grandeur, the Andes are young mountains."
"The discovery of ancient ruins at the bottom of a lake is extremely interesting but not particularly sensational."
"In all the huts are found tables of wood or sticks covered with hieroglyphs; these are figures of animals unknown in the the island."
"Coal had been found on the islet of Rapa Iti (Little Rapa, as the Polynesians call it to distinguish it from Rapa Nui, or Big Rapa..."
"All the inhabitants were drowned except three groups of people, the dwarflike Menehune, the Kenamu and the Kenawa."
"The legends disagree on one point: some say the Menehune were about one metre high, while others insist they were tiny creatures, the size of a human finger."
"These were, say the legends, tiny men called Chokals."
"If we go by their stone tools, the Tasmanians were the most backward people in the world."
"There were only 11 Tasmanians alive in 1860, and the last pure blooded Tasmanian, a woman, died in 1876."
"Why does every large subdivision of the Equatorial race include a dwarf branch?"
"(this was not writing in the full sense of the word but sooner a language of drawings, the pictography that preceded archaic forms of writing.)"
"This could hardly be just a coincidence since a star is usually depicted as having five or six points."
"Not a single connected text in "South Turkmenian hieroglyphics" has as yet been found; all we have are separate characters or groups of symbols."
"A thin terra-cotta slab with three different characters, one of which is repeated four times, was discovered recently in one of the earliest cities in Southern Turkmenia. The whole thing, says historian V. Masson, reminds one of an exercise written by a child who is trying hard to learn letters of the alphabet. A local archaic system of writing may have been developing there."
"Researchers in diving suits will test the truth of the Indian legends about drowned cities and temples."
"Another hypothesis which has appeared in this century maintains that the nimbuses around the heads are stylised depictions of the helmets of astronauts."
"Now let us try to sketch the "historical layers" reflected in the medieval maps."
"North of this place, said Pytheas, there was a "sea that had folded up.""
"It will be the job of future underwater archeologists to verify the truth of the legends, as well as to find the tin mines."
"The statue stood an a slab of the same kind of stone, on which were carved letters that could not be deciphered."
"An islet rose out of the sea near Sicily in the 19th century, and countries argued about who should possess it. While they argued, the islet sank back to the sea floor."
"Among the things they have brought up to the surface are Spanish coins, articles of pewter and glass, instruments, cooking utensils, tobacco pipes and even a silver watch which stopped at 11 hours 43 minutes, the time of the disaster."
"They could have been the "seashell" peoples."
"These researchers are making themselves familiar with coastal shallows and are creating a "homo aquaticus" for whom life and work underwater will be natural. We are as proud of oceanauts as we are of astronauts."
"What about "acquaarcheology", or "hypoaquaarcheology", meaning hypothetical underwater archeology? Both are too clumsy."
January 29, 2015
This is one of those titles, which helped me in finding information about some of the mysterious and lesser-known geographical and historical topics during my high school days. In those times with no Internet and fast access to Wikipedia, books like these told me about the mysteries surrounding the Easter Island, Pre-Colombian archaeological wonders of Tiwanaku, about the world’s oldest sea port in Lothal, the ships of Melukha and the fall of Mohenjo-Daro. This was one of those titles, which instilled an insatiable appetite for knowledge of similar nature in a 15-year-old boy’s mind.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews