Stonehenge altar stone from Scotland

Nick Pearce analyzes Neolithic standing stones in Orkney

Remarkable new scientific research at Stonehenge has revealed an extraordinary new mystery. Mineralogical tests on the massive six-tonne stone at the heart of the monument show that this central rock, known as the altar stone, was brought to Stonehenge from the far north of Scotland.

• [The greatest disappointment when visiting Stonehenge is that there is a sign along the walkway from the car park to the stones that explains that the stones were adjusted for millennia. So it is not as if some group, human or extraterrestrial, knew what it was meant to be and do (as a calendar) and did it. It has been adjusted all along, perhaps never more than about 50 years ago when cranes and modern equipment were brought in to lift fallen stones and place them just so. What we have today is what was recently created from stones that had laid around in a fallen state for who knows how long. The use of cranes was not a secret when it was happening, but it sure seems to be one now. Most people have no idea of the modern interference.]

The altar stone is arguably the most ritually important stone in Stonehenge, because it is the rock that marks the intersection of the prehistoric temple’s two most important celestial alignments – the winter solstice sunrise to summer solstice sunset alignment, and the summer solstice sunrise to winter solstice sunset alignment.

It’s already known that some of the monument’s smaller stones were brought to the site from southwest Wales, around 120 miles away. But moving a rock from northern mainland Scotland or Orkney would have involved a journey of well over 500 miles.

The discovery has huge implications and is likely to transform archaeologists’ perceptions around key aspects of life in prehistoric Britain.

Up to now, most scholars have assumed that British Neolithic society was exclusively local or regional (based on tribal, clan or similar identities), but the newly discovered Stonehenge-Scotland link, when combined with the Welsh origin of some of the Stonehenge stones, suggests that there might also have been a pan-British aspect to how Neolithic Britons lived.

• PHOTO: Aberystwyth University geologist Nick Pearce analyzes Neolithic standing stones in Orkney (Prof. Richard Bevins, Aberystwyth University)

Protest the environment with cornstarch.

The newly revealed Scottish link implies that 4,500 years ago, there was already at least some political and religious cooperation across Britain. That’s because the Neolithic people who transported the six-tonne rock from northern Scotland or Orkney to southern England must have known that Stonehenge existed, that it was being expanded, and precisely what shape and size of giant rock was required.

That suggests geopolitical cooperation, or even some religious commonality. More: Mystery of Stonehenge deepens after ‘jaw-dropping’ discovery

• Human remains of over 177 individuals dating back 8,000 years unearthed from Florida bog
• David Keys, The Independent, Aug. 15, 2024; Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pre-Hispanic Mexico's Buddhist past

Rick Fields; Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly WIKI; FAMSI

Mexico's Pyramid of the Sun is small compared to world's largest: Mexico's Cholula Pyramid

Mexican meditation figurine: shaft tomb figurine from Jalisco, Mexico, in the Ameca-style, dated by the Art Institute from AD 100-800, height: 22 in or 56 cm (Madman2001).

.

Narrative History of Buddhism in America

Wisdom Quarterly (eds.) with Edward K. Dias  (How the Swans Came to the Lake)

How the Swans Came to the Lake (Rick Fields)

[American historian Rick Field's amazing scholarship explains how Buddhism first landed in North America.

Buddhist missionaries were blown off course and across the sea to a new land (California and other parts of Mexico), where they taught advancements in philosophy, pottery, art, building, and spirituality via the Dharma.

Place names in Mesoamerica (the stretch of land between North- and South America) bear this out, such as Guatemala from Gautama (the Buddha's surname). It would be easy to dismiss, but this is a book -- a historical account -- that reports research.

See also the amazing work of the American Edward Payson Vining (1847-1920), who researched and in 1885 wrote An Inglorius Columbus; or, Evidence that [Chinese] Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the fifth century, A.D.

 

How Buddhism was brought to America

The earliest Dharma seekers were looking for mystics, miracles, magic and trustworthy teachers who had experienced the heights of bliss, compassion, and wisdom from diligently practicing Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path.

The original language of Buddhism's "Threefold Collection" (Tri-pitaka) of sacred texts  was either Pali or Sanskrit.

Pali was the common language spoken in the region of north and northwestern "India" (Bharat) -- or at least Magadhi from the Kingdom of Magadha -- at the time of the Buddha, whereas Sanskrit was the liturgical language of arrogant upper-caste, temple-bound Brahmin priests loyal to the ancient Vedic texts, which the Buddha rejected in favor of shamanic direct experience (as part of the shramana or "wandering ascetic" movement, which is the source of our English word "shaman"). More

Western Mexico's Shaft Tomb Culture

Reconstruction of excavated shaft tomb Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (Maunus)

A fraction of staircase on one side of Mexico's Great Pyramid of Cholula has been restored

.

Mexico has wealth beyond measure (Pena Nieto)

(Wiki) The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or "shaft tomb culture" refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states.

These are Jalisco, Nayarit and, to a lesser extent, Colima to its south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there is not wide agreement on this end-date.

Mexico is full of amazing treasures!

Nearly all of the artifacts associated with this shaft tomb tradition have been discovered by looters and are without provenance, making dating problematic.

The International Council of Museum (ICOM) estimates that 90% of the clay figurines come from illegal excavations.

The first major undisturbed shaft tomb associated with the tradition was not discovered until 1993, at Huitzilapa, Jalisco (Eduardo Williams, Classic Period page* below, as well as Danien, p. 23).

.

Underwater cave archeology of Mexico

There is evidence (Meighan & Nicholson, p. 42) that many tombs were looted in ancient times.

 

Originally regarded as being of Purépecha origin (Judy Sund, p. 13), contemporary with the Aztecs, it became apparent in the middle of the 20th century, as a result of further research, that the artifacts and tombs were instead over 1,000 years older.

Until recently, the looted artifacts were all that was known of the people and culture or cultures that created the shaft tombs. So little was known, in fact, that a major 1998 exhibition highlighting these artifacts was subtitled: "Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past."

• See Townsend, Richard (1998) Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past (Thames & Hudson). Also, in the fourth edition of his Mexico: from the Olmecs to the Aztecs, Michael Coe talks about "our abysmal ignorance of the prehistory of the area," p. 56.

World's biggest pyramid hidden by Catholics

It is now thought that, although shaft tombs are widely diffused across the area, the region was not a unified cultural area.

• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures says, for example, that "At no time in the pre-Hispanic era did any political or cultural entity impose itself on the whole region, even though certain cultural patterns (such as the building of shaft-and-chamber tombs) have in fact been widely diffused" (Michelet, p. 328). Beekman (2000, p. 393) makes the same argument.

Archaeologists, however, still struggle with identifying and naming the ancient western Mexico cultures of this period. More
 

The world's largest pyramid, hidden by Catholics, is in Cholula, Mexico (Getty Images)

Pre-Hispanic West México: Mesoamerica
*Eduardo Williams (FAMSI.org), The Classic Period (circa A.D. 300-900)

The location of Cholula (red) south of USA

Until recently, there was very little knowledge about this period in the Occident, compared with central and southern Mesoamerica.

Recent research, however, is slowly shedding more light on this area's cultural developments during the Classic Period.

Among recent projects is the excavation of the sites known as Las Lomas ["The Hills"] in the marshland and lake area around Zacapu, Michoacán (Figures 15, 16, and 17).

US news: border-crossing cave system

These sites were occupied approximately during the first eight centuries of this era (Protoclassic-Classic periods) and were permanently abandoned afterwards.

The abundance of funerary evidence in the area has led some scholars to believe that the populations that lived here reserved the Las Lomas sites for funerary purposes and other ritual activities, although it is possible that the people who went there to honor the dead would have also taken advantage of the plentiful lake and marsh resources (Arnauld et al. 1993:208; Carot 1994). More

Chocolate (Theobroma cacao), the "Food of the devas/gods" grows on trees in Mexico.

• Aztalan State Park is a Wisconsin state park in the Town of Aztalan, Jefferson County, Wisconsin at latitude N 43° 4' and longitude W 88° 52'... 
• Aztalan: Wisconsin Mounds 
• Friends of Aztalan State Park 
• Aztalan State Park (Wikipedia) 
• Aztalan State Park - Wisconsin DNR 
• Lake Mills Aztalan Museum - OrgSites.com
• Who were they and why did they leave? (Wisconsin gov)
• Mississippian Culture and Aztalan: Turning Points in Wisconsin...
• May Day 2017: How did May Day become a day for immigrant rights?

Buddhist-Afghanistan: "Games Without Rules"

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA), Tamim Ansary (Games Without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan); Brian Calvert (VOA) via Buddhist Art News

Gandhara-style Buddha, Taxila Museum (Amir Taj/fotopedia/blogs.fco.gov.uk)

Priceless gilded Western images of the Buddha from the crossroads of Afghanistan (WQ)

LISTEN NOW: Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org, Pacifica Radio, Berkeley) with Tamim Ansary, author of Games Without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan (download)

Long before Afghanistan was an Islamic country, Buddhist settlements dotted its mountains and deserts. While the Taliban infamously destroyed the giant Buddhist statues of Bamyan Province in 2001, many archeological riches remain. Alongside those buried treasures of the past are mineral riches the U.S. military says could be worth as much as $1 trillion.

Smuggling artifacts out of Gandhara, India, now Pakistan/Afghanistan (CBSNews.com)

  

  A race against time

Amazing Afghan-Buddhist archeology (BAN)

(VOA) The men are in a race against time. On Mes Aynak Mountain, in Afghanistan’s Logar Province, they are digging out some of the country’s oldest treasures. As fast as they can.

They have only two years to recover artifacts from four main sites around the mountain before a Chinese copper mine moves in.

“Well we are trying but the problem is the site is very huge and our archeologists, we only have 24 archeologists, and an institute, and we need more,” said Khair Muhammad Khairzada, who is with the Afghan Institute of Archaeology.

Border dispute with Pakistan (voanews.com)

The Buddhists were thriving here around 1,500 years ago. The site was a pilgrimage destination and a monastery.  Even back then, it was known for its copper.  Mes Aynak means Copper of Aynak.

Within next two years, Chinese to mine

Theravada-Thailand: Protect Afghanistan! (dmc.tv)

Looters have taken most of the treasures above ground.  They even drilled tunnels and made off with the tops of giant statues.  Erosion took its toll as well.  And now the Chinese have come to recover billions of dollars worth of copper.

The China Metallurgical Group established a camp here in 2009.  By 2014, miners will begin tearing down the mountain.
 
Archaeologist Abdul Qadir Temori say two years is not enough time.
 
“Yes, it is a limited amount of time. Only an archeologist would understand what a limited time it is,” he said.

US soldiers and future peace activists

An extension of the dig is not expected. The $4 billion deal is Afghanistan’s largest ever and would provide needed jobs and revenue for this war-weary country.

But the archeologists say it is not worth it.
 
Hundreds of ancient treasures, forever lost

(popular-archaeology.com)

“History will judge them. There’s no difference between the terrorists and the Chinese, because terrorists are destroying our artifacts with their guns and weapons and the Chinese are destroying them by money,” said archaeologist Temori.

• Ancient Greece: Greco-Bactrian King Menander (Milinda) converted to Buddhism ca 150 BCE. During his reign Buddhism spread from India through Afghanistan up through Central Asia and into Europe (Kalmykia):

Buddhist monks with Greek king (WHP)

Hundreds of ancient treasures have been unearthed here since digging began in earnest.  They are filling the National Museum.  An untold number of artifacts remain below the earth.  But so does the copper.

So the race continues to save the riches of Afghanistan’s past from the riches of its future. Before long, the mountain these men are working on will be gone.

 

(Brent Huffman, NY Times, April 23, 2013) In formerly Buddhist Afghanistan, a Chinese mining company (MCC) threatens to destroy the remains of an ancient Buddhist city and massive temple complex, which archaeologists are now racing to excavate.

 

Games Without Rules

Amazon.com

Tamim Ansary (Games Without Rules)

Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism.
 
That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan: a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam.

Now, [Afghan-born US citizen and historian] Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history [in English] from the inside out, and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.

It is the story of a nation struggling to take form, a nation undermined by its own demons while, every 40 to 60 years, a great power crashes in and disrupts whatever progress has been made.

(Destiny Disrupted)

Told in conversational, storytelling style [in Ansary's excellent English], and focusing on key events and personalities, Games without Rules provides revelatory insight into a country at the center of political debate.
 
(Kirkus) “A breezy, accessible overview of centuries of messy Afghan history, including the present military quagmire…. As a native of Kabul, Ansary lends precious insight into the makeup of the typical Afghan village, with its tidy, self-sufficient, patriarchal hierarchy and need to keep the nomads at bay… Lively instruction on how Afghanistan has coped, and continues to cope, with being a strategic flash point.” More
 

Amazing ancient Buddhist sites from Siddhartha the Buddha's homeland (BAN)

Base of a life-sized Buddha, one of more than 200 found at Afghanistan's Mes Aynak site, sits alongside hundreds of other statues depicting figures (Jay Price/MCT/BAN).

• Buddha Shakyamuni grew up in Afghanistan (Ranajit Pal)
• The Invisible History of Afghanistan (invisiblehistory.com)

It has been incorrectly reported that Chinese archeological site destruction and mineral mining at Mes Aynak, the ancient Buddhist temple complex "Copper Well," was due to begin in 2013. It is not set to begin until 2014.

THERE IS STILL TIME TO SAVE IT!

(SaveMesAynak.org) (Brent Huffman, BAAG.org.uk) (BuddhasOfAynak) (change.org)