Doodling The Past: Did The Ancients Pull A Fast One?
Posted: Tuesday, May 26, 2009
by Michael Ramzy
delusionthread.com
I can imagine the first cavemen sitting around waiting to make fire, and one guy gets it
into his head to start carving on a cave wall. He's sitting there, doodling, and his female asks what he's doing . . .
Male: "Doodling."
Female: Doodling?"
Male: "Yeah. While you're making that stew, I thought I would just, you know, write on the walls."
Female: "I told you not to, remember? I can't get that stuff off."
Male: "I know, but I can't seem to help it. I'm bored, and we don't have cable or satellite."
Female: "What are you carving?"
Male: "Three squiggly lines and a circle, with some other people."
Female: "What does it mean?"
Male: "Mean? I'm doodling, how can it mean anything?"
Female: "I don't understand you at all."
Male: "Of course not. But millions of years from now, they'll get it."
Female: "How do you know that?"
Male: "Because, they'll be smarter then."
I can actually imagine that scenario. Why? Because I don't believe all writings and fossils from ancient history are earth-shattering. Some are, and some are reported to be. For example:
Last night I bought into the hype tremendously about a show I really wanted to watch. When the time came, I was transfixed. And when it was over, I was . . . well, shaking my head and wondering what all the big deal was. Last night on the History Channel I watched 'The Link', a documentary (well, they're all documentaries, right?) about the missing link. That's right, that missing link. The ads proclaimed, "this changes everything!", "you'll never look at history the same way again!", "girls will throw themselves at you!", etc.
Okay, not the last one.
This "link" is actually a perfectly preserved skeleton of what looks like a lizard from 47 million years ago. No one actually said lizard, but it sure looked like it to me. It had opposable thumbs and opposable big toes, something we humans have, and so ninety minutes into this thing the proclamation 'this . . . is the missing link'.
Um . . . right. I don't know about that. If it truly was that link, where is all the press? Where are the headlines screaming 'Religion is Dead, Darwin was Right'? Where are all of the cardinals, bishops and priests turning in their robes and hats and throwing themselves into the sea?
I love history, and archaeology and paleantology are a big part of studying ancient history. And yet, it seems every day we have some kind of 'breakthrough' which 'explains everything', or at least 'starts to explain the beginning of the explanation which explains everything'. And those who study the ancients are very serious and professional and every fossil ever found, every stone carving ever uncovered, means something serious.
But what if it didn't? What if those ancient writings in the pyramids in Egypt and Mayan writings and scrolls . . . what if those are actually doodles? You know, such as when you're on the phone waiting for someone to give you a number to write, you sit there with the phone in your ear, pen in hand, and start doodling. That's right, doodling.
We come up with some interesting doodles, and millions of years from now I doubt some future archaeologist will say, 'look at this: this picture of a smiley-face. This means something. Stop the presses!'
So. I don't know about this link (or THE LINK), but I do know not everything written in stone or every fossil uncovered is serious or important. Sure, some are, many are. But don't you think those ancients every now and then goofed off a little? Don't you think they had a sense of humor? I sure do.
It's in our nature, isn't it?
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)What a great take on it—doodling, makes sense and you have to be right, some of those
writings are probably just some folks messin around. Never thought of it before but it makes sense. Now YOU just came up with a breakthrough…I’m waiting to see you on The History Channel!If the History Channel ever reads this (highly unlikely) I will probably be banned from watching. The funny thing is I am a huge fan, but come on - some of the shows on there are a little too strange. Another show, 'Life After People', is awesome, and yet on that show I learned some cave paintings in France (I think in a place called Lacaux) aren't even the original ones from thousands of years ago: they're modern copies! Seems not only the ancients pulled a fast one.Thanks for reading and commenting.
For all we know those drawings could be the first Power Point presentation, "How to Slay Mammoth When Grog No Show Up," or something like that.Remember the pig tooth that launched a faux civilization? Remember "Lucy," whose "parts" were found hundreds of yards away from each other? It's all so subjective it boggles the mind.Anyway, that's quite an imagination you have there, sir. Great job!Thanks, Ken. I appreciate it very much. I only wonder what those future archeaologists will say about our time when they find all of that graffiti. I can hear them now: "What does it mean? Oooh, look at this! What does this mean! Has to be important!"
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