Tecnologie misteriose del passato | Mauro Biglino

[Music] Good morning. Giovanni Semerano, one of the most appreciated philologists I would say in an absolute sense, also a member of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, author of a truly monumental work on the origins of European culture, in his book "The Infinite: a millennial misunderstanding" he puts highlights a concept that from my point of view is fundamental: the concept is what it is necessary to review, reread the so-called ancient culture in the light of new parameters because we have always read it, and so we are taught, let's say, on the basis of that thought which then became the dominant thought after Neoplatonism, therefore on the basis of metaphysical thought, on the basis of philosophical thought essentially understood as the maximum expression of theoretical thought. In reality, as we move forward and approach that culture with a different mentality, we realize how those ancient philosophers, that is, those ancient thinkers, the very first, were first and foremost scientists, that is, individuals who studied nature in its materiality.

Let's think of the first ones who developed atomistic ideas, that is, in short, matter composed of atoms etc. He gives this title to his book "A thousand-year misunderstanding" referring to the concept of infinity and he takes it precisely from what philosophy teaches about the very first thinkers therefore Thales, Anaximander etc. and referring precisely to a Greek term which is "the apeiron" which has always been indicated as a representation of the infinite which would be at the origin of everything, here Semerano instead says: no, the "apeiron" is something completely different.

He says that "Thales placed water at the origin of everything" he says "then he predicts the silt and then the dust, the earth. . .

and also the Elohim" and here is the connection with the Bible "he makes it matter of creation in shaping Adam, Hebrew Adam. Thales and Anaximenes will say the earthy stars, aware of that cosmogonic earth. No one suspected that the outcome of that evaporated water, leaving dust creating earth, was as we will see the mysterious apeiron of Anaximander".

And he says "The apeiron of Anaximander corresponds to the Semitic 'apar', dust, earth, Akkadian 'eperu', to the biblical 'afar' because the Greek 'epeiros', which in Doric is written 'apeiros', are identified with the earthy dust and which was preceded by the neuter, the article 'to', a sign of confusion". That is, the addition of this article has effectively changed the meaning, the value of that term and has, in a certain sense, made it absolute. We remember that the same thing also happened with the term "theos" which already when I spoke about it I had said that originally it was actually an adjective that served to identify the characteristic or characteristics of certain Individuals - and we have seen it in another video - and then what happened?

That the term "theos" was added to the article and was given a noun. Here the philologist Semerano says that the neuter, the neuter article "to" has been added to the "apeiron " and here too a different meaning has been attributed to it. But in reality the "afar" in the Bible has a very precise meaning and now let's see it directly in the biblical verse.

As you can see here there is the term "afar" which is what the philologist Semerano talks about and here the entire sentence, we are in the book of Genesis, says "And Yahweh Elohim formed adam afar". Adam is the literal translation because there is the article which indicates precisely that Adam is not the name of an individual but is probably the identification of a group and then there is "adam afar" and in normal translations say "and God created Adam with dust": in reality the "with" is not there, so "adam afar" is as if it were a definition of a particular type of living being and "l 'afar" represents precisely that matter referred to by the philologist Semerano that we have seen. Have you seen that?

Therefore the concreteness that Semerano has also detected in the concept expressed by the thinker Anaximander who at this point I would tend to call him a scientist rather than a philosopher, although obviously as a philosopher, a friend of knowledge, in itself it is not that he is in conflict with the definition of scientist, but we tend to think of the two figures differently, so I I would call it a scientist. Well, the concreteness is there, it would be there for the philologist Semerano both in the Greek texts and in the Bible and I absolutely agree with this. In the end, among other things, at the end of this chat we will make an argument which, look, also involves the American Indians: this as a general concept , to understand that ancient texts, if reviewed in a new light, reveal different things to us and I would say in some respects certainly much more concrete but also more fascinating.

To always remain within the realm of concreteness, I told you that sooner or later I would like to talk to you about the "necromanteion". The "necromanteion" was that place where, let's say, the ancients went to speak with the souls of the dead. Archaeologists have found its location: it is located on the coasts of Greece, on the western coasts, a few kilometers south of the island of Corfu and it has been found, it has been excavated, it has been studied, it has been studied by archaeologists, it has been studied also from engineer Paipetis of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University of Patras and then from Paipetis we will also read other things during this chat.

But even there, in the necromanteion, things took place, actions that were much more concrete than what was later told. There it was said that the priests allowed those pilgrims who went to speak with the souls of the dead. Well, let's read directly what the archaeologist Dacaris Sotirios who studied the site says about it.

People went there who were suitably prepared and then spoke with the dead. Let's read verbatim what it says in quotation marks "The pilgrims' stay began with purification practices, then the pilgrims, through a dark, narrow and tortuous stone labyrinth, were led to the entrance of the temple of the oracle guarded by a guiding priest disguised as Charon, the ferryman of souls, and a molossian dog representing the monstrous Cerberus. Here the pilgrims were questioned about the problems they wanted to expose to the deceased.

The information received was transmitted to a priest in communication with (in quotation marks) the 'spectre ' who lowered himself into the sacred cave". However , these pilgrims were prepared: it wasn't that people just arrived and went inside, no, they were put in a psychophysical situation such that they could accept everything they saw without criticism. So: isolation for a month, magical practices, hallucinogenic mushrooms, a diet based on wine, barley and raw broad beans, faith in the apparition of souls "created in the pilgrims the predisposition to see what they expected".

They also had fasting days, meaning there was a sort of psychophysical debilitation also aided by hallucinogenic substances. "The souls appeared, of course, but today we know that they were the result of clever fictions" During the archaeological excavations in the central hall of the ghosts we found chariot and catapult wheels, wheel stops and iron weights that make one think of balance wheels and above all a machine to make ghosts descend from a hole in the ceiling of the sacred cave. In short, it was a sort of crane from which a dark-clad and hooded priest was hung to give the idea of ​​a ghostly shadow.

The sacred cave was faintly illuminated by torches and the well-polished rock of the walls reflected other shadows. Between the wall of the sacred cave and the external one there was a corridor hidden from the sight of the pilgrims where the priests circulated without being seen, exchanging information and making the crane work with the dead man's shadow". That is, they took information about the pilgrim then, through all these systems, they created a situation in which the pilgrim was convinced he was talking to the dead person and when he left he had the obligation not to say anything, even punishable by death.

Engineer Paipetis, who studied this same site, also studied another very interesting aspect: he studied the aspect, for example, relating to the technology that was used to spread the sounds and also made a drawing of how it was the walls, for example, even of the corridors that created an anechoic system, that is, a system without echoes which therefore allowed a high diffusion of sound, therefore high quality sound but which was amplified and therefore, so to speak, together with the hallucinogens, together with the fasts , together with a certain type of diet, with wine, put the pilgrim in the condition of feeling enveloped in a completely different environment, therefore of having entered Hades and then speaking with the souls of the dead, therefore these priests who, dressed in dark , they let themselves down and, so to speak, deceived people. This also happened in Egypt where the Egyptian priests deceived the pilgrims, the faithful, for example by using hydraulic machines through which they made people think that the gods took possession of certain statues and therefore made them move. Let us think of the works of Philo of Byzantium, of Ctesibius then, later, of Hero of Alexandria, therefore it was truly a system through which the priestly caste who possessed certain knowledge managed to deceive the faithful, to deceive the pilgrims and to make them believe what they they wanted to believe.

So, in some respects, it was also a bit like helping them psychologically because if you like to believe something and I make you believe it, in the end you're fine so I'm fine, in quotation marks, I, a priest who does my job, you're fine. good for you who heard the things you liked to hear. So in reality we are faced with a technology that engineer Paipetis highlights very very well and he does so by talking, for example, about Hephaestus.

Hephaestus, you know, was the one of the gods who dealt with metalworking, we have already talked about it when I talked about the king of the Phaeacians and therefore about the house that Hephaestus had built for him and which was made in a particular way, among other things guarded by dogs who, says the Homeric text, never aged and never died, that is, they were dogs, technological guardians. In fact, engineer Paipetis says that "Hephaestus was a design engineer in the modern value of the word", a design engineer, and says "and in fact the mechanical structures that he built must be subject to an analysis conducted with modern instruments of analysis, with modern numerical tools, with computers, with codes such as for example certain things that he created such as the shield of Achilles, the shield of Ajax or, for example, like the aegis" which was that particular instrument of very difficult interpretation which was used variously because it was used, for example, by Athena, it was used by Apollo but, here too, it is said for example in the second book of the Iliad it is said of the aegis "that does not age and does not die" and this aegis, however, produced very particular effects: for example Apollo uses it in front of the Achaean wall and says "Apollo in front with the venerated aegis broke down the Achaean wall without effort, like a child the sand on the sea shore ". Now this brings to mind, for example, the use of the Ark of the Covenant which, according to the Bible, was used to demolish the walls of Jericho after having it circled the city for 7 days.

So we are faced with instruments which, as engineer Paipetis says - I repeat, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University of Patras - says: they must be analyzed with modern instruments because he says further on . . .

among other things it makes a 'a statement which is very important. . .

it says "there are a whole series of indications which in the eyes of specialists demonstrate that technologically advanced civilizations potentially existed in prehistory" so an engineer says it: technologically advanced civilizations existed in prehistory. The Bible gives us an account of it, the Homeric poems give us it account - now let's see some other things done by Hephaestus - but this is important why? Because it makes us understand that if we read these books in a different light we discover things that have always been hidden and we remain in that situation in which they already found themselves 2000 years ago when Philo of Byblos wrote "Our ears accustomed since childhood to their inventions" that is, to the allegorical, metaphorical, symbolic, mysterious inventions of the priests therefore "to their inventions and hammered for so many centuries by these fantasies, they guard almost like a deposit the fabulous material transmitted by these fables which they have learned as I have already said from the beginning.

Strengthened by time, these fantastic inventions have become a heritage that is very difficult to get rid of, so much so that the truth seems like a fantasy while the counterfeit stories seem to have all the characteristics of the truth". That is, when we talk about the technology of ancient texts it is made into fantasy, it is made into science fiction and instead all the allegorical, symbolic, metaphorical, mysterious superstructure that was built on top of it has become truth. Now, Philo of Byblos wrote this 2000 years ago; another 2000 years have passed but we are in exactly the same situation and that is why we need to get rid of it.

Let's think for example of Hephaestus, and here Paipetis always tells us about him, he tells us about his bellows and therefore we go and read it directly in the Iliad. When Thetis asks him to build weapons, what does Hephaestus do? "Hephaestus," he says, "left her, thus saying, and returned to the bellows, turned them over to the fire, invited them to work and all the winds of the bellows blew on the furnaces, sending out vigorous and varied puffs.

" Here is the verb "keleuo" which actually means to exhort with the word, to exhort with the word, and when engineer Paipetis talks about these bellows he says that they are high-tech instruments and defines them as "instruments automatic" that is, they worked automatically just as the tripods that Hephaestus always built worked automatically - here we are in the eighteenth book of the Iliad - "he went around the bellows busily. He placed twenty tripods at once around the well-constructed walls of the room" they were the tripods that were used for the gods, for banquets. "He placed golden wheels under each pedestal so that they could enter the divine assembly on their own and then return home.

Wonderful to behold. " So Hephaestus built automatic equipment and here engineer Paipetis says that these equipment must be studied by specialists: it is exactly what needs to be done with ancient texts, so it is interesting, but then let's see another example; it is interesting to read ancient texts in a new light. Hephaestus also did something else.

You know, Hephaestus was lame, probably lame in both legs , the stories vary on the origin of this lameness but it doesn't matter: "When he walked" he says "he took his big stick", we are in the Iliad book eighteen "and he came out limping Two handmaids were struggling to support the lord" and that's fine, so far it's fine because all the rulers of the time had handmaids but these "were golden" that is, they had skin, let's say the external surface, metallic, it looked like gold, " similar to living girls" that is, they were not living girls, they were similar to living girls and so far we know that in history even with those authors, Philo of Byzantium etc. that I mentioned before, we know that they were capable of building automata. For example, if I'm not mistaken, Hero of Alexandria had created a sort of theatrical performance that lasted about ten minutes which was entirely acted by automatons but here, here, we are not talking about normal automatons because it says "Similar to living girls.

They had a mind in their chest and they had voice and strength. They knew the works by gift of the immortal gods" that is, these automatons spoke and thought: what were they? I can't tell you, I can't tell you but what is certain is that it is very fascinating to read the Homeric poems like this because it goes in line with everything else, it goes in line, for example, even with the flying machines which we will have the opportunity to talk about because the Bible speaks of flying machines then if there is it's someone who says: but they were dreams, they were visions, we'll see that it wasn't like that, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it concretely, in other words the Vatican also takes them into consideration.

And therefore these gentlemen had a particular technology at their disposal. We talked before about the aegis used by Athena, by Apollo, but Apollo also did other things and here we return to a direct relationship between Homer and the Bible. At a certain point Apollo was angry, here we are at the very beginning of the Iliad "the son of Zeus and Latona, he was angry with the king of the Achaeans and caused a plague to be born in the field: people died" and then a few verses later he says that Apollo he intervened with his arrows and hit both animals and men and these arrows produced a fearful buzz.

Now, this is obviously the description made with the linguistic tools available to those who wrote these verses, however this thing here recalls an action carried out by Yahweh. Yahweh produces an effect in those who are his enemies - as here it is written "bad plague" - a very similar effect. We are in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 7, in verse 20 it says, we read in the literal translation as usual by Edizioni San Paolo "And also the bumblebee will send Yahweh, your Elohim, against them until the remaining ones perish and those who are hidden in faces of you ".

That is, the people of Israel are afraid, they are afraid because they know that they have to fight with armies that are potentially stronger than them, they express this fear of theirs and Yahweh says: don't worry, you fight, if any of them remains alive or hides, there I think and here they say he sends hornets. In Hebrew bumblebee is "dabur" and bee is called "debora", in reality in Hebrew there is the term "tzira" which is singular. We see the term "tzira" in some dictionaries.

For example, this is a dictionary of the Pontifical Institute which is from Hebrew into Latin where the term "tzira" and the root "tzara" refers to leprosy, to being affected by leprosy, therefore to a skin affection that produces a serious prostration. Then clearly it is also called hornet because hornet is something that affects the skin and causes damage to the skin. But we all understand that thinking that God sends hornets to selectively sting enemies becomes particularly ridiculous, so much so that this other dictionary, speaking of the original root of "tzira" says: to throw to the ground, to induce prostration.

That is, it is something that makes you feel so bad that you no longer get up, that is, until you die and then back to the root "tzara" says: being affected by leprosy. This other dictionary says something slightly different but the substance is always the same: the root "tzira" says that it refers to a sort of general panic, that is, therefore to something that spreads among people, among the crowd, but the root also refers to skin disease, skin affection, and says it is a generic name, probably does not mean leprosy. Here they tend more towards leprosy, here not but, as you can see, this is always the usual difficulty in translating ancient terms but what matters is that we are talking about a skin disease.

So, on the one hand we have Apollo, Apollo who strikes by producing a skin condition, on the other we have Yahweh who strikes by producing a skin condition and therefore we ask ourselves: what kind of technology did they have at their disposal? Unfortunately, unfortunately those who wrote these stories, perhaps because they heard them told, necessarily had to tell them with the terms available to them. But the thing is not new: if we think for example of the American Indians, what did they call the train?

They called it the iron horse, why? Because they had the horse as a means of transport and therefore when, in the second half of the 1800s, the Union Pacific began to cross the United States with its trains, that for them was the iron horse. But even before that there is another piece of information which is even more interesting because we are used to seeing Indians on horseback.

Until the mid-1500s they used dogs, they didn't know how to use horses; who taught him that? The Spanish. So until the mid-1500s they didn't know the horse or the use of the horse.

When the Spaniards arrived they began to call the horse the white man's big dog; with other terms they called him the mysterious dog or even, for example if I'm not mistaken, in the Sioux tribes, they called him the deer dog. Now let's try to take a step back, precisely to make a precise reasoning on the texts we have in front of us. Suppose we do not know this story of the Spaniards who introduced the use of the horse to the American Indians etc.

and suppose we come into contact with one of their traditions which tells us, which speaks to us of a deer dog, if we apply to that tradition - perhaps we find a text that talks about a deer dog or an oral story - if we apply to that deer dog voice the interpretative categories that we apply to these texts, that is, with our mentality, then what do we end up saying? We go so far as to say that since the Indians had the dog as a means of transport, but we know that the dog is not very effective, then what did they do? They mythologized him, that is, they created a mythological figure of the deer dog, therefore a mythological figure that does not exist, it is the fruit of pure imagination, it is a fairy tale, they created this totemic image of the deer dog and therefore then we begin to say that they adored the deer dog etc.

Ninth. The deer dog existed: it was the horse but they called it that, they called it that because they didn't have the term to identify the horse and therefore it was the deer dog, that is, a large dog. So from here we understand how interesting it is to try to read in a concrete way and free ourselves from the idea that every time there is a certain term that is, so to speak, difficult for us, we immediately make it become a religious term, a cultic term , a term that refers to who knows what mythological, mythical, allegorical, metaphorical concepts.

No. Let's try to think that, since they didn't have much time to waste and writing was very tiring and expensive, let's try to think that when they wrote something they wanted to represent a concrete reality to us but they were forced to do so with the linguistic tools at their disposal. We will have the opportunity to talk about it later but when Zechariah talks about a flying cylinder, he calls it "megillah" and "megillah" do you know what it was?

The scroll of their books. Then he also describes its dimensions but we'll talk about that. It was just to say that therefore, when we talk about "tzira" unfortunately we have no idea what exactly they meant.

What is certain is that hornets is a way of saying something that stings the skin, produces effects just as the "megillah" that flies is not the scroll of a book that flies but is an object. . .

the Vatican itself calls them that, he calls them "Res inexplicatae volos". But first I gave the example of the Indians and therefore of the deer dog but, to remain in this ability and desire to understand the ancient texts, let's come to times closer to us. We now know, without going into the merits because I am not interested in establishing what they are, we know as UFOs flying objects that we cannot identify therefore the term UFO is right, correct, perfect: an unidentified flying object.

But in the beginning, from 1947, when there were some. . .

let's call them sightings - I repeat they could have been anything, it doesn't matter, I don't care - but what were they called? Flying saucers. Saucer in the sense of saucer, saucer, exactly like the Indians called the horse a deer dog and then from 1500 to 1800 they got used to the horse and when the train arrived, they called the train a horse.

the first people who saw these flying things called them saucers because they didn't have the term to define them - then, as if to say, we still don't even have the term today - but this is to say that it is the way in which we define situations for which we do not yet have the exact terms to qualify them in a specific way. So this is important: when we turn to texts like Homer, the Bible or other ancient texts, we try to pretend that. .

. That is, I really claim the right but rather, as the years go by, I claim the duty to also do this type of reading and real science, real science must like this type of reading to be done because it is another path that can be opened and which in fact, as it is travelled, reveals ever more interesting things to us, always more fascinating and increasingly concrete, but we will come back to it. So thank you, bye.

Remember the deer dog and read the Iliad and the Odyssey in light of this indication. Bye, thanks and see you next time.