MYSTERIES IN THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

                                                 
                                 PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

Pyramids at Giza The Giza Pyramids, built to endure an eternity, have done just that. The monumental tombs are relics of Egypt’s old kingdom era and were constructed some 4,500 years ago. Egypt's pharaohs expected to become gods in the afterlife. To prepare for the next world they erected temples to the gods and massive pyramid tombs for themselves—filled with all the things each ruler would need to guide and sustain himself in the next world. Pharaoh Khufu began the first Giza pyramid project, circa 2550 B.C. His Great Pyramid is the largest in Giza and towers some 481 feet (147 meters) above the plateau. Its estimated 2.3 million stone blocks each weigh an average of 2.5 to 15 tons.

 CONSTRUTION OF PYRAMID:

 The builders were skilled, well-fed Egyptian workers who lived in a nearby temporary city. Archaeological digs on the fascinating site have revealed a highly organized community, rich with resources, that must have been backed by strong central authority. It's likely that communities across Egypt contributed workers, as well as food and other essentials, for what became in some ways a national project to display the wealth and control of the ancient pharaohs. Such revelations have led Zahi hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, to note that in one sense it was the Pyramids that built Egypt rather than the other way around.


 PRESERVING THE PAST:

If the Pyramids helped to build ancient Egypt, they also preserved it. Giza allows us to explore a long-vanished world. Tomb art includes depictions of ancient farmers working their fields and tending livestock, fishing and fowling, carpentry, costumes, religious rituals, and burial practices. Inscriptions and texts also allow research into Egyptian grammar and language. "Almost any subject you want to study about Pharaonic civilization is available on the tomb walls at Giza," Der Manuelian says. To help make these precious resources accessible to all, Der Manuelian heads the Giza Archives Project, an enormous collection of Giza photographs, plans, drawings, manuscripts, object records, and expedition diaries that enables virtual visits to the plateau. Armed with the output of the longest-running excavations ever at Giza, the Harvard-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Expedition (1902-47), Der Manuelian hopes to add international content and grow the archive into the world's central online repository for Giza-related material.But he stresses that nothing could ever replicate, or replace, the experience of a personal visit to Giza

THE FUTURE OF PYRAMIDS:

Tourism to the structures has declined rapidly since the advent of the Arab Spring in 2011, when Egypt experienced a political upheaval that lasted years. The country has since been through several administration changes, and the instability means the future of tourism to the Pyramids is uncertain.

GOUTHAMI.S
TRAVEL TINKERS

MYSTERIES IN MOERAKI BOULDERS

                                                   MOERAKI BOULDERS 

The Moeraki boulders are group of large spherical stones on koekohe beach near Moeraki on New zealand. These boulders are concretions that have been exposed through shoreline erosion from coastal cliffs.The boulders are still fasinating and popular attarctions on south island.

     They originally started forming in ancient sea floor sediments around 60 million years ago and the largest boulders are estimated to have taken about 4 million years to get to their original size.

Some of the boulders weigh several tones and the largest one can be over from 2 metre wide. Maori legend tells that the boulders are remain of calabashes,kumaras and eel basket that washed ashore after the legendary canoe.

Their reticulating patterning on the boulders,according to the legend,are the remains of the canoe's fishing nets.


S.GOUTHAMI
TRAVEL TINKERS.

Mysteries in the blood falls

                                                             BLOOD FALLS

 This five-story, blood-red waterfall pours very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but its true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

Roughly two million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a place with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of “primordial ooze.” The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.

 The existence of the Blood Falls ecosystem shows that life can exist in the most extreme conditions on Earth. Though tempting to make the connection, it does not prove, however, that life could exist on other planets with similar environments and similar bodies of frozen water—notably Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa—as such life would have to arise from a completely different chain of events.

Even if it doesn’t confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life, Antarctica’s Blood Falls is a wonder to behold both visually and scientifically.

S.GOUTHAMI
TRAVEL TINKERS

Mysteries in the eternal flame falls

                                                 
                                                 ETERNAL FLAME FALLS

Eternal Flame Falls is a small waterfall located in the Shale Creek Preserve, a section of  chestnut ridge park in Western New York. A small grotto at the waterfall's base emits natural gas, which can be lit to produce a small flame. This flame is visible nearly year round, although it can be extinguished and must occasionally be re-lit.The Eternal Flame Falls were featured in the book Secret Places by bruce Kershner.

 SOURCE OF GAS:

Geologists from Indiana University Bloomington and Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology studied Eternal Flame Falls in 2013 in an effort to better understand how natural gas emitted from naturally occurring petroleum seep  contribute to greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. They found that the 'macro seep' at Eternal Flame Falls had higher concentrations of ethane and propane (about 35%) than other known natural gas seeps, which typically contain a greater proportion of methane. They estimated that the seep at the falls emits approximately one kilogram (2.2 lb) of methane per day.

View to one geologist involved in the 2013 study, the seep's apparent source could provide evidence for a previously unknown geologic mechanism by which natural gas is produced within shale. Typically, shale must be hot (around 100 °C [212 °F]) for its carbon structures to break down and form smaller natural gas molecules. However, the shale from which Eternal Flame Falls draws its gas is much cooler, in addition to being younger and shallower than typical gas-bearing shale. This may indicate that additional, as yet undemonstrated, processes can contribute to the creation of natural gas in shale; one possibility is that a catalyst capable of breaking down shale in cooler conditions is present.

S.GOUTHAMI
TRAVEL TINKERS

THE TAOS HUM

THE MYSTERIOUS TAOS HUM

         

There are times when we encounter weird things – things that we fail to explain and the Taos Hum is one such phenomenon that grabbed worldwide attention. Located in New Mexico is a small town known as Taos. In this town, many people reported of hearing a mysterious low-frequency acoustic humming. We said ‘many people’ and not ‘all people’, which means that the humming was not audible to everyone.

No one could figure out the source or the origin of the hum and people who could hear the sound reported of side effects which included:

• Loss of libido or sex drive.
• Increased pressure in ears.
• Abrupt nosebleeds.
• Disorientation.
• Sleep disturbances to complete insomnia.
• Dizziness and headaches.

Apart from the physical side effects, people even reported of psychological disequilibrium. Some reported that they felt completely singled out.

These mysterious sound became popular as the Taos Hum. Interestingly, Taos is not the only place where people reported of low-frequency sounds. People all over the world have reported of hearing unexplained sounds which included squeals of high pitch all the way down to faint rumble. Interestingly, sources of some of these reported sounds were identified, some turned out to be hoax while others still remain unexplained till this day. Taos Hum is one that has no explanation and neither can anyone prove it as hoax.

 As far as Taos Hum is concerned, some of the popular theories that have been put forward to explain the phenomenon include:

• It is the communication among living rocks. Living rocks? Really?
• It is the sound made by lost spirits attempting to cross over to the other side.
• It is the sunspots’ inter-solar echo.
• It is the sound generated by planetary alignment.
• It is the sound of alien communication attempts.                                                                               Here is the link to listen to the hum sounds :TAOS HUM

Back in 1993, the citizens of Taos who suffered and even those who did not suffer because of the hum decided to put forward an investigation petition in front of American Congress. The allegation put forward was that the hum was produced by some covert or open military activity. The plea was heard and more than a dozen of scientists were sent to Taos to investigate the phenomenon. Personnel from Los Alamos National Laboratory (the place where the first atom bomb was built) and Phillips Air Force Laboratory participated in the investigation and the final reports were penned down by Mr. Joe Mullins and Mr. Horace Poteet from University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories respectively.

The report could not draw any conclusion. The report stated that the hum almost always began abruptly, was barely audible and had pulse fluctuations as reported by the hum hearers. Several tests were conducted in open and controlled conditions to isolate the source of the hum the investigators could not find any known acoustic signals or seismic activities that could possibly cause the hum. The report further stated that the hum was not just pent up in Taos and that it was a known phenomena all over the world North America, Europe and United Kingdom reporting most of the events. According to the report, some of the hum hearers can hear the hum in different places while others fail to hear it in different locations.

Some of the possible sources for the hum as per the report were:

• Audible magnetism of earth releasing the low-frequency signals.
• Molten core of earth emitting ultra low frequency RF signal.

We really don’t know whether the Taos Hum is real or not. Probably it is real and we are yet to understand the mystery. Many things that we know of today were once mysteries such as the lightning but science eventually managed to unravel those mysteries. We may have to wait a little longer.

-G.B.RITHIKKA

mysterious in the darvaza gas crater

             DARVAZA GAS CRATER

Darvaza gas crater known locally as the "Door to Hell" or ''Gates of Hell", is natural gas field collapsed into an underground cavern located in Derwze,Terkminstan Geologists set it on fire to prevent the spread of methane gas, and it is thought to have been burning continuously since 1971. The diameter of the crater is 69 metres (226 ft), and its depth is 30 metres (98 ft).

        

The crater is a popular tourist attraction. Since 2009, 50,000 tourists have visited the site. The gas crater has a total area of 5,350 m². The surrounding area is also popular for wild desert camping.

    According to Turkmen geologist Anatoly Bushmakin, the site was identified by Sovietengineers in 1971. It was originally thought to be a substantial oil fieldfield. The engineers set up a drilling rig and operations to assess the quantity of oil available at the site. Soon after the preliminary survey found a natural gas pocket, the ground beneath the drilling rig and camp collapsed into a wide crater and was buried.

Expecting dangerous releases of poisonous gases from the cavern into nearby towns, the engineers thought it best to burn the gas off. It was estimated that the gas would burn out within a few weeks, but it has instead continued to burn for more than four decades.

Effects on future development of gas.

On President Berdimuhamedow's April 2010 visit, he recommended that measures be taken to limit the crater's influence on the development of other natural gas fields in the area. At that time, Turkmenistan announced plans to increase its production of natural gas, intending to increase its export of gas to many countries. 

 Pakistan, China, India, Iran, Russia, and Western europe, from its then yearly production level to a new production level of 225 billion cubic metres (7.9 trillion cubic feet) by 2030.

By
Gouthami .S
Travel tinkers

                                                       

MYSTERY ABOUT CHINA'S DWARF VILLAGE

THE CHINA'S DWARF VILLAGE


China’s dwarf village Yangsi has been puzzling scientists for decades. It is situated in s With outhwest China’s Sichuan Province. With about 40% of its inhabitants being several heads shorter than an average human being,  36 of the 80 residents are dwarfs – the tallest one is about 3 ft. 10 inches tall and the shortest, 2 ft. 1 inch.

There is no proper explanation for this till date but it is definitely not something to be ignored. From testing the inhabitants to testing the grains, soil, and water of the area, scientists have literally tried every possible method to arrive at an answer. According to village elders, their peaceful, happy life was ruined on a summer night many years ago, when a vile disease struck the region.

Several locals suffered from a mysterious condition that mainly affected young children between the ages of 5 and 7. These children just stopped growing, remaining at the same height for the rest of their lives. Apart from their inability to grow taller, some of the victims also suffered from various other disabilities.

Other theories conjured up by villagers include the Japanese invasion of China which led to the release of various toxic gases. However, the Japanese never reached Yangsi. Some say that it is their ancestors who have brought down this wrath on them because they were not given their much-deserved burial. Others say that the area’s bad feng shui is responsible for the stunted growth.

While these reasons are pretty weird, the most bizarre of all explanations is that of the curse of a black turtle. According to the story, a black turtle with strange feet was spotted by a man named Wang. The villagers suffered a dilemma between letting the turtle go and feasting on it. And because of the rebellious taste buds and the cynic mentality, they ended up killing the turtle, roasting it and feasting on it. Villagers now believe that it was the turtle’s curse that laid down the wrath on the children and the future generations.

Today, their numbers have shrunk to just 80 but it used to be 119. In 1997, high levels of mercury concentrations in the soil were suspected to be a possible explanation but there was hardly any evidence to support this theory. The Chinese government never denies the existence of the village but no foreigners are allowed to visit it.

Throughout the years, several residents have left the region in fear of being affected by the strange condition, but things seem to be improving. While many of the older locals are up to 80 centimeters in height, the new generation seems to be unaffected by the weird dwarfism phenomenon. Till date, it remains an unsolved mystery.

-G.B.RITHIKKA.