Enigmatic Designs Found in India May Be The Largest Images Ever Made by Human Hands (sciencealert.com) 69
Hidden in the vast, arid expanses of India's Thar Desert lie mysterious old drawings that may be the largest-ever graphical depictions designed by humans. ScienceAlert reports: "So far, these geoglyphs, the largest discovered worldwide and for the first time in the Indian subcontinent, are also unique as regards their enigmatic signs," researchers explain in a new paper detailing the find. Discovered by a pair of independent researchers from France -- Carlo and Yohann Oetheimer -- the new geoglyphs were spotted using Google Earth, during a virtual survey of the Thar Desert region (also known as the Great Indian Desert); this region encompasses some 200,000 square kilometers (roughly 77,000 square miles) of territory overlapping India and Pakistan.
Amidst this huge, dry landscape, the Oetheimers identified several sites located around the 'Golden City' of Jaisalmer, marked by geometrical lines resembling geoglyphs. Closer inspection during a field study in 2016 using an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) revealed some of the identified sites were furrows dug for tree plantations, but also helped reveal a cluster of enigmatic line formations seemingly absent of trees. In particular, two "remarkable geometrical figures" of exceptional character close to the village of Boha stood out: a giant spiral and a serpent-shaped drawing, each connected by a cluster of sinuous lines.
The lines that make up these figures are stripes etched into the ground, ranging up to 10 centimeters deep (4 in) and spreading 20 to 50 cm wide (8-20 in). While these dimensions up close may be unremarkable, what they end up making up is not. The largest geoglyph identified, the giant asymmetrical spiral (called Boha 1), is made from a single looping line running for 12 kilometers (7.5 miles), over an area 724 meters long by 201 meters wide (790 by 220 yards). To the southwest of this huge vortex shape rests a serpentine geoglyph (Boha 2), composed of an 11-kilometer long line, which encompasses a serpent-like figure, a smaller spiral, and a long boustrophedon-style sequence of lines running back and forth. Other small geoglyphs can also be found in the Boha region (including a feature of meandering lines, called Boha 3), which in total includes around 48 kilometers of still visible lines today, which the researchers estimate may once have extended for about 80 kilometers. The researchers say it's unlikely these designs were intended as a form of artistic expression contemplated from the ground, but rather might have served as an unkown type of cultural practice in their making.
"Because of their uniqueness, we can speculate that they could represent a commemoration of an exceptional celestial event observed locally."
Amidst this huge, dry landscape, the Oetheimers identified several sites located around the 'Golden City' of Jaisalmer, marked by geometrical lines resembling geoglyphs. Closer inspection during a field study in 2016 using an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) revealed some of the identified sites were furrows dug for tree plantations, but also helped reveal a cluster of enigmatic line formations seemingly absent of trees. In particular, two "remarkable geometrical figures" of exceptional character close to the village of Boha stood out: a giant spiral and a serpent-shaped drawing, each connected by a cluster of sinuous lines.
The lines that make up these figures are stripes etched into the ground, ranging up to 10 centimeters deep (4 in) and spreading 20 to 50 cm wide (8-20 in). While these dimensions up close may be unremarkable, what they end up making up is not. The largest geoglyph identified, the giant asymmetrical spiral (called Boha 1), is made from a single looping line running for 12 kilometers (7.5 miles), over an area 724 meters long by 201 meters wide (790 by 220 yards). To the southwest of this huge vortex shape rests a serpentine geoglyph (Boha 2), composed of an 11-kilometer long line, which encompasses a serpent-like figure, a smaller spiral, and a long boustrophedon-style sequence of lines running back and forth. Other small geoglyphs can also be found in the Boha region (including a feature of meandering lines, called Boha 3), which in total includes around 48 kilometers of still visible lines today, which the researchers estimate may once have extended for about 80 kilometers. The researchers say it's unlikely these designs were intended as a form of artistic expression contemplated from the ground, but rather might have served as an unkown type of cultural practice in their making.
"Because of their uniqueness, we can speculate that they could represent a commemoration of an exceptional celestial event observed locally."
served as an unkown type of cultural practice (Score:1)
Navigation for UFOs
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm not saying it's aliens, but... (Score:2)
it's aliens.
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The Hindu population in India (80÷) has worshipped the Divine Consciousness as a feminine principle for over 5000 years.
The Divine Mother, who has been obscured in the shadow of Western religions, is one of the distinctive features of Hinduism: including goddesses and religious traditions oriented to female deities practiced for thousands of years in continuity — unlike short lived goddess cults in many parts of the world
https://www.infinityfoundation... [infinityfoundation.com] (Worship of the Goddess in Hinduism)
https: [americamagazine.org]
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The vestiges of patriarchy in society are largely a bad hangover from the numerous (unsuccessful) Islamic occupation attempts of the past.
That's quite the claim. Do you have historical proof of this? A before, during, and after showing this to be the case?
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There are quite a lot of signs of goddess worship and matriarchal societies found in archeological sites and ancient stories and legends worldwide. They were successfully stamped out by the beginning of the 20th century by the Abrahamic religions' insistence on male domination of all aspects of society. Having said that, goddess worship and matriarchy was neither as universal or peaceful as advocates like to claim. For a rather dramatic example, in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula societies were polyand
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Lol. You spelled "Christian" and "successful" incorrectly.
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The Nestorians and several other Christian groups were present since shortly after the invention of Jesus, Gnosticism may be related to Indian beliefs as well.
agriculture? (Score:3)
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That's what I thought. Looks like someone said "let us plant trees" and had someone plough for quite a while. Someone powerful who didn't let people stop and resume.
Re:agriculture? (Score:5, Interesting)
My thought is that this size of depression sounds like a foot path, worn into the ground by people using it. If it's agricultural, the spaces in between the paths would have been used to grow something. But making the path one continuous line is not very practical for this - you wouldn't want to walk in circles for 12km after harvesting the crop from the middle. There would be a big obvious shortcut for harvest time. It's more likely to have something to do with religion, especially considering the presence of monuments. Walking along the path would certainly be a meditative exercise, and not an uncommon one in either Hinduism or Buddhism.
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Except when you are plouging. Then you literally make this same pattern.
You can literally see this: https://www.researchgate.net/f... [researchgate.net]
There's a reason they're "independent" researchers (Score:2)
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I had two thoughts when looking at the pictures.
First, that's pathways. Perhaps a pathway used to navigate between "rows" of something with the back and forth pattern. Something like fruit trees, tightly packed grains (think wheat or oats) or larger food plants.
Second, if it's not pathways, it's irrigation channels. The way they're laid out would leave plenty of space for growing things while still getting a nice, even spread of water into the ground surrounding the channels. They wouldn't need to be ve
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A quick look at the photos in TFA will throw those ideas out the window. It's desert, first off, the lines are only 10 cm deep but 9 meters wide, and they're a deliberate pattern that does not respect elevation lines.
The speculation that they may be as few as 150 years old is absurd though. A massive work of this size would be remembered after only a century and a half. A grandparent would certainly mention it to a grandson, who would point it out to his grandson, and in rural India households are almost
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More importantly, at the time someone would have noticed a substantial number of "natives" doing something which was not paid work, and asked "Why?, What?" Considering that this (1870-odd for the suggested 150 years ago) would be bang in the middle of the British rule in India, and just over a decade after the 1857 "Sepoy Rebellion" (known to many Indians as the "First War of Independence"), gatherings of any significant number
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Boustrophedon (Score:2)
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'Boustrophedon' spotted in the wild: hmph. That has to be the first time I've seen that word used outside the Jargon File [catb.org].
Never programmed the firmware in a 1980s dot matrix printer eh?
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I'm not sure how old the word is - several centuries, if not several millennia.
Do be good. (Score:2)
Discovered by a pair of independent researchers from France -- Carlo and Yohann Oetheimer -- the new geoglyphs were spotted using Google Earth, during a virtual survey of the Thar Desert region (also known as the Great Indian Desert); this region encompasses some 200,000 square kilometers (roughly 77,000 square miles) of territory overlapping India and Pakistan.
Don't be evil did some good.
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Global Explorer has been doing this as a 'citizen science' project for several years. https://www.globalxplorer.org/ [globalxplorer.org]
You sign up and they send you a set of satellite images with examples of what to look for. Pick out any that may need further review, send the set back, and they send you more. I did a couple hundred images and dropped out, some members have done tens of thousands. Hundreds of small unknown sites have been found, dozens of larger sites have been more extensively mapped than ever before.
Farming (Score:3)
Maybe there is more to it, but it just looks like patterns or little ridges created for farming and lining up plants in an orderly manner. The largest pattern is in an area encompassing 790 by 220 yards that's way smaller than Machu Pichu .. or many ancient roads.
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It's desert, and the lines are only 10 centimeters deep but 9 meters wide. Yeah, I'm a heretic, I RTFA.
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I think you were confused by the picture with the 9m label showing the distance between lines. The article reads:
The lines that make up these figures are stripes etched into the ground, ranging up to 10 centimeters deep (4 in) and spreading 20 to 50 cm wide (8-20 in).
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Oh, carp, you're right, it's a crappy photo without much contrast. It's not clear what is line and what is intervening space.
Finally proof (Score:1)
From looking at the picture in the article, obviously a partial fingerprint of a God.
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Durga has 40 of them, though.
Lat/Lon (Score:2)
Do we have to join the research team to get a damned lat/lon?
Re:Lat/Lon (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they just don't want you to see how not visible it is. Here are the coordinates of the center of the fingerprint looking swirls:
27.276545374539126, 70.9895223001891
I found that by looking at the pictures and matching up geographic features. Compare to their marked up satellite image here:
https://ars.els-cdn.com/conten... [els-cdn.com]
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That used to be an option on Google Maps but I don't see it anymore.
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a path of enlightenment ? (Score:3, Funny)
When you consider that another crop in the area was opium, you gain a new perspective. A man thus inspired in possession of a primitive plow may well travel in circles for quite some time. Others, less blessed with spiritual enhancements, would see that this path was useful for planting and irrigation management, and therefore duplicate the process.
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It would have to be a big-assed plow, the lines are nine meters wide.
Too good to be true (Score:1)
Celestial events, haha. It screams "this land is mine", this is just plain human greed at work.
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"[..]and possibly contain a universal message linked to the Sacred and the cosmos." --- Bwahahah, they are killing me.
Just the after effect of a surface search (Score:2)
It looks like people were looking for something and methodically swept the ground on a large scale.
These lines would then have no meaning in themselves.
Were they looking for treasure, were they trying to collect all the rocks of a meteorite?
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The memorial stones left behind has words that translates to "We ain't found shit!".
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It looks more like doodling to me, only on a very large scale. Celestial what? It's just a bunch of lines with no more purpose than trying to maintain a rough distance from the previous line.
They were combing the desert.
Refer to Spaceballs the Movie for an example.
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80 kilometers of doodles. TFA says they're 10 cm deep and 9 meters wide.
0.10 x 9 x 80000 = 72,000 cubic meters of dirt moved.
Since these aren't the Nazca lines and they're not very regular we can pretty much ignore design and layout labor. If you assume 2.5 hours per cubic meter (desert sand/gravel, and farmers are good at moving dirt)
72,000 / 2.5 = 28,800 man hours
That's a hell of a doodle.
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Crap, that's wrong.
72,000 x 2.5 = 180,000 man hours
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Double crap, misread the caption of the photo in TFA. The lines are 0.5 meters, the spaces between them are nine meters. New math:
0.10 x 0.50 x 80000 = 4,000 cubic meters of dirt moved
4,000 x 2.5 = 10,000 man hours to build. If they predate steel shovels (likely, if locals have no oral history of such a project) that would need to be doubled at least.
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Swept the ground? The lines are 10 cm deep and 9 meters wide. It's not like Nazca where the lines were made by sweeping oxidized pebbles and sand aside, they're actual shallow (and quite wide) trenches. (Yeah, I RTFA, geoglyphs are cool.)
Space-filling curves (Score:1)
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One practical reason: plowing. The so-called boustrophedon looks exactly like plowing, and the area this pattern fills is only a few hundred meters long; so a typical field. The so-called "serpent shaped line" is just a boustrophedon inside a small triangular area, perhaps a small farm's field. The "giant spiral" next to these appears to be someone plowing the contour around a hilltop (although admittedly the picture does not show contour lines). Plowing the contour is both easier than plowing up and do
150 years old (Score:2)
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As I mentioned higher in the thread, 150 years is absurd. An earthwork project of that size would be remembered for generations, especially since rural households in India are multi-generational. It would be centuries before a project to dig 80 kilometers of 9 meter wide trenches would be forgotten.
Simple questions for on the ground answers (Score:2)
1. What does the terrain look like? How much is up and down?
Could they have been the easiest paths for people working
there to take?
2. What does the *soil* look like, and what was it like back then?
Could it have been an early version of crop rotation?
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In regard of question 2 : RTFA.
It may be terribly unfashionable, but there is a reason the the submission form encourages submitters to submit a link to the (this is complicated) original Article. Where there is likelty to be more information.
Go on - join the heretics (cusco, myself) and RTFA!
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Higher in the thread https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org] some back-of-the-envelope calculation shows 72,000 cubic meters of dirt moved, so probably at least 180,000 man hours of work.
Hope someone does some excavation to get a good date on it.
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Well, I suppose so, if each shovel man had a wheelbarrow man working for free to move the soil away and spread it elsewhere, and also supply both with water under the desert sun.
But on the scale of pyramids, Silbury Hill [wikipedia.org] and the Mausoleum of the first Emperor [wikipedia.org], it's not a major bit of earth-moving. Novel techniques were not necessary.
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Googled a couple of random links with guesstimates as to how long to shovel a cubic meter of dirt, and then picked the ones that came closest to my memories of digging footings for foundations (one of many reasons for getting out of construction) in light sand. I don't think the dirt was hauled away, just tossed to the side. It's a really crappy photo in TFA though, so hard to tell.