Secret HistoryS


Colosseum

Why have so many English medieval works been lost whilst many Irish and Icelandic survived?

suit armour
© Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
New research released today finds that while the Knights of the Round Table have won global fame, most medieval English heroic or chivalric stories have been lost. Meanwhile, more than three quarters of medieval stories in Icelandic and Irish survive to the present, in an unusual pattern suggesting island "ecosystems" helped preserve culture.

The findings come from an international research team, including Oxford experts, which has applied statistical models used in ecology to estimate the loss and survival of precious artifacts and narratives from different parts of Europe. This ecological approach offers a new perspective on the loss of cultural heritage, complementing past research. Their findings are published in the journal Science, with Mike Kestemont (University of Antwerp) and Folgert Karsdorp (KNAW Meertens Institute) as the main authors.

Comment: Is it possible that some of these missing manuscripts - English or otherwise - were intentionally destroyed, and still more weren't lost, they simply never existed in the first place?

Laura Knight-Jadczyk in Dark Ages and Inquisitions, Ancient and Modern - Or Why Things are Such a Mess On Our Planet and Humanity is on the Verge of Extinction writes:
Regarding the idea that ancient manuscripts were created out of whole cloth to support the questions of the thinkers of the Renaissance, as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, I agree that this is certainly possible - even probable. The question is: was there some sort of memory of that ancient time that infused these ideas with life? Lee McIntyre writes:
The Dark Ages are one of the most intriguing periods of human history. They mark a nearly 600-year blank spot in the progress of human civilization in which the knowledge of antiquity almost completely disappeared from the West. It was a time when few people received any sort of education whatsoever, and life was governed by the superstitions and fears fueled by ignorance. (McIntyre, 2006)
Do any of us really 'remember' anything from 500 years ago other than what we are taught in history classes? Is there some kind of 'folk memory' of the Renaissance itself, for example? No, probably not. Can we rely on the story we are told about this, that some ancient manuscripts survived here and there? Possibly. But scientific analyses of these documents makes their provenance very questionable. Form criticism and other techniques also raise troubling questions about them. It's probably safer to just think that the thinkers of the Renaissance came to these ideas themselves - brute force cogitation - and the alleged ancient sources that 'thought the same things, asked the same questions' were just cooked up to give traditional validity to ideas that were in contradiction to the views of reality promoted by the Roman Church.
See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar!


Arrow Up

UK commanders in Ukraine met neo-Nazi-linked national guard to 'deepen military cooperation'

Brits in Kyiv
© NGUBritish commanders meet with senior officials from Ukraine’s National Guard in Kyiv
September 2021
Ukraine's National Guard says that in meeting last year the UK military agreed to start training its forces, which include a thousand-strong neo-Nazi unit. The UK Ministry of Defence disputes the claim.

Details and photos of the meeting in the capital, Kyiv, were posted in Ukrainian on the website of Ukraine's National Guard (NGU) last year.

Declassified understands the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) believed the September 2021 meeting to be private and should not have been publicised. There is no mention of the meeting in any UK records that are publicly available.

Three British commanders of Operation Orbital - the UK military's training mission in Ukraine - are pictured, alongside three NGU officers. They sit around a table taking notes. The MoD refused to give Declassified the names of the UK personnel who attended the meeting, citing operational and personnel security issues. However, the NGU report names Lt Col Andy Cox, deputy commander of Orbital, while two other British officers are pictured, one with his name tag prominently displayed.

Orbital, which was launched in 2015, has so far only trained Ukraine's regular armed forces. Expanding it to include the National Guard would be controversial due to sensitivities around the far-right sympathies of some of its units.

Eye 1

The modern weaponization of our national security system is the lasting legacy of Barack Obama and Eric Holder

ObamaHolder
© CNN.comFormer US President Barack Obama • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
In anticipation of the Tucker Carlson documentary The Patriot Purge: The True Story Behind 1/6, I have been requested to repost some lengthy research we presented about the Fourth Branch of Government. There is a distinct connection and similarity between how 9/11/01 was used and how the January 6th DC event is being used. That similarity is not accidental. In many ways what we are seeing is a replay by the same DC elements only they are two decades apart.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum. This point is where many people understandably get confused.

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

Chess

The dubious paternity of Ukraine's modern borders

Russland badge
We do think, however, that the entire Ukrainian crisis is a Washington-confected con job. And we came to that conclusion without relying on a single scrap of information peddled by Russki propagandists appearing on Strategic Culture Foundation or Zero Hedge.


Comment: Neither of the sites he refers to are 'Russki propagandists'. But it's telling that even analysts who buy parts of the mainstream narrative see clearly through US lies.


Actually, we thought it up all by our lonesome! Well, we'll grant we did have a fair amount of help from Google, which insofar as we know works for the CIA, not the Russian SVR (foreign intelligence service).

In any event, at the very center of the crisis is the Washington claim that the rule of law and the sanctity of sovereign borders are on the line in Ukraine and that, therefore, Russia must not be allowed to encroach a single inch into sacrosanct Ukrainian territory.

Comment: For further insight into Ukraine and its recent history, see: The Saker interviews Dmitry Orlov

See also: What Poland Has to Hide About The Origins of World War II

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Ukraine Gambit - US Attempting to Destroy Russia




Better Earth

Incredible 5,000-year-old stone 'drum' found in prehistoric grave of 'cuddling' children

prehistoric drum
The 5,000-year-old grave for three children, buried in an embrace with the eldest child holding the two youngest - whose hands were also touching - was unearthed in 2015 along with a carved stone drum, a chalk ball and a polished bone pin (pictured)
The discovery of an ancient burial ground where children were placed with sentimental objects by their parents has been hailed by the British Museum as the 'most important' discovery of pre-historic art in Britain in over a century.

The 5,000-year-old grave holding three children, buried in an embrace with the eldest child holding the two youngest — whose hands were also touching — was unearthed in 2015 in Burton Agnes, in East Yorkshire.

Archaeologists also discovered a carved stone drum, a chalk ball and a polished bone pin, with the 'talismanic' drum in particular being celebrated for its significance.

Seemingly created as a sculpture or talisman rather than a functional musical instrument, the object is one of only four known examples from a time when Stonehenge was only just starting to be built.


Comment: There's good reason to believe that Stonehenge is actually thousands of years older.


Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:



Mr. Potato

This ancient Roman ceramic pot was probably a portable toilet, study finds

chamber pot roman
Rim fragments of a chamber pot being excavated at a Roman villa site in Sicily.
Ancient Roman archaeological sites are littered with ceramic pots, and it can be challenging to definitively determine the purpose of any given pot — for instance, if it was used for storage or as a portable toilet (chamber pot). Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia have now analyzed the residue on one such ceramic pot and identified the eggs of intestinal parasitic worms commonly found in feces, according to a new paper published in the journal Archaeological Science Reports. That's strong evidence that the 1,500-year-old pot in question was most likely used as a chamber pot.

"Conical pots of this type have been recognized quite widely in the Roman Empire, and in the absence of other evidence, they have often been called storage jars," said co-author Roger Wilson of the University of British Columbia. "The discovery of many in or near public latrines had led to a suggestion that they might have been used as chamber pots, but until now, proof has been lacking."


Comment: This discovery just demonstrates how patchy our understanding of life in the past really is.


Comment: See also:


Stop

Preventing third WW: Corporate driving forces behind the crisis in Ukraine are the same ones for World Wars I, II

Group and map
© UnknownUS President Biden • Ukrainian President Zelensky • French President Macron
Poland Andrzej Duda • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz • Polish leader Andrzej Duda
It is no coincidence that the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine comes at a time when, just as the world begins to transition away from polluting fossil fuels, soaring energy prices are forcing millions of people to choose between putting food on the table and heating their homes. Neither is it coincidental that the escalation towards war coincides with experimental mRNA- and DNA-based COVID-19 vaccines directing skyrocketing profits into the bulging pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.

It is already clear that a global transition away from fossil fuels will decimate the current business models of oil and gas producers. But what is less well understood is that the profits of the pharmaceutical industry are now equally at threat. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, drug company business models were on the brink of terminal decline. By 2018, researchers examining the industry were predicting that decreasing success rates in new drug development, rising clinical trial costs, and increasing competition from cheaper generic manufacturers could soon combine to result in pharmaceutical production no longer being a profitable business.

Couple this with a growing awareness of the potential risks and proven dangers of today's experimental COVID-19 vaccines, and the fact that effective, safe, non-patentable approaches to controlling infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer with vitamins and other natural substances now exist, and it becomes crystal clear that a viable transition away from pharmaceutical-based medicine lies ahead. Just like their counterparts in the oil and gas industries, however, the business models of drug companies would be decimated by such a development.

This possibility makes the crisis in Ukraine all the more dangerous, as history shows us that oil and drug companies have in the past had close links to the perpetration of global wars.

Sun

Solar tsunami hit Earth 9,200 years ago

Scientists examining ancient ice cores have found radioactive evidence of an extreme solar storm that took place in 7,176 BCE.
Solar Flare

An international team of researchers announced the discovery of fallout from an extreme solar storm entombed in ancient ice. The fact that the outburst occurred during a time when the Sun ought to have been quiet may be even more alarming than the storm's magnitude.

Ice cores are long cylinders drilled from ice sheets and glaciers, frozen time capsules that allow scientists to reconstruct events in the distant past. The accumulating weight of each year's snowfall compresses previous layers of snow, forming dense glacial ice that contains trapped gases, aerosols, and particles. The thick ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland provide exceptionally well-preserved and detailed records of a variety of events that occurred up to 800,000 years ago — including variations in the level of solar activity.

When energetic charged particles strike atoms in the upper atmosphere, they produce three radioactive isotopes: carbon-14 (half-life 5,700 years), beryllium-10 (half-life 1.4 million years), and chlorine-36 (half-life 300,000 years). The production rate of these cosmogenic isotopes depends on the intensity of cosmic radiation, though the strength of Earth's magnetic field, which can deflect many charged particles, also plays a role.

Arrow Up

Black Death mortality not as widespread as long thought

Pollen data from 19 modern European countries reveals that parts of Europe experienced negligible or no impact at all.
Europe during Black Death

A new study uses pollen data to evaluate the mortality caused by the medieval plague at a regional scale across Europe. Results show that the impacts of the Black Death varied substantially from region to region and demonstrate the importance of cross-disciplinary approaches for understanding past - and present - pandemics.

The Black Death, which plagued Europe, West Asia and North Africa from 1347-1352, is the most infamous pandemic in history. Historians have estimated that up to 50 percent of Europe's population died during the pandemic and credit the Black Death with transforming religious and political structures, even precipitating major cultural and economic transformations such as the Renaissance. Although ancient DNA research has identified Yersinia pestis as the Black Death's causative agent and even traced its evolution across millennia, data on the plague's demographic impacts is still underexplored and little understood.

Now, a new study demonstrates that the Black Death's mortality in Europe was not as universal or as widespread as long thought. An international team of researchers, led by the Palaeo-Science and History group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed pollen samples from 261 sites in 19 modern-day European countries to determine how landscapes and agricultural activity changed between 1250 and 1450 CE - roughly 100 years before to 100 years after the pandemic. Their analysis supports the devastation experienced by some European regions, but also shows that the Black Death did not impact all regions equally.

Bizarro Earth

'They used axes to spare the ammo': How modern Ukraine's Nazi heroes massacred civilians during WWII

ukraine nazi
© archiwa.gov.plTens of thousands innocent Poles were massacred in Volyn. To this day, the torturers are still not condemned
The Second World War is usually seen as a confrontation between giant military alliances. However, in reality, many smaller separate conflicts unfolded within this epic war, and the struggle between peoples and countries was often conducted without compromise or mercy. One of the darkest and least-known pages of the Second World War is the Volyn massacre - an ethnic cleansing carried out by pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist groups in the Volyn region, which is now almost entirely part of Ukraine.

Volhynia has historically been a border zone. These swampy forests were part of Russia in the Middle Ages and later became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the Polish state in its heyday. The partitioning of Poland brought Volhynia into the Russian Empire. After the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War, Volhynia was once again part of an independent Poland. In short, this region, although a bit of a backwater, has changed hands often.

Comment: Notably similarly insidious elements are still present and hold great sway in modern day Ukraine: West turns a blind eye to march honoring Nazis in Kiev: Ukraine may not be a fascist state, but it has a fascism problem

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: MindMatters: Mr. Jones and the 'Holodomor' Red Pill - What Happened During Stalin's Famine?