- THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH IN THOSE DAYS DEPARTMENT -
Giants - Myth or Reality?
In the human experience, giants
are literally the "elephants in the room". When our research first
began on this paradigm, we had little knowledge of how extensive the
evidence of their existence was. We now have a comprehensive database
consisting of over 200 historical descriptions; over half from the
United States and the U.K. history, alone. And, our unpublished files
contain enough information to more than triple the current data we now
have online. Were one to undertake a thorough study of giants and
record all in detail, it would certainly be a life's work.
The lack of the presence of giants in orthodox history, academia, and anthropological studies is appalling in light of the true historical records from every part of the globe. Even more mysterious is the seemingly unanimous decisions by the keepers of the world's museums and archeological treasures to keep the physical evidence of giants hidden from public view. Only a smattering of the evidence is available in obscure locations. Thousands of skeletons and hundreds of historical reports are ignored.
The accepted knowledge among the world's peoples is that giants are the creatures of myth and folklore, relegated to children's fairy tales and B grade horror movies, an it is almost a crime not to include a giant in any fantasy film or video game. The reality is that giants were present throughout our history from ancient biblical accounts and historical Roman military campaigns to the relatively modern genocide of the natives of North America.
A Wealth of Evidence
Giants appear in the legends of Australia, Bavaria, Belgium, Chad, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India , Italy, Kazakhstan, Laos, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nova Scotia, Pakistan, Patagonia, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda, Russia, Scotland, Sicily, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Terra del Fuego, Turkey, the United Sates, Wales, Zanzibar, and the ancient Incan, Toltec, and Nordic cultures, just to name a few.
Giants are everywhere; in our religions, our history, our literature, and our folklore. Legends of extraordinarily tall humans are found in almost every culture and, on almost every continent. But, they are always viewed as mythical beings. Jack, the Beanstalk kid, Paul Bunyan and his giant ox, and the travels of Gulliver are familiar children’s stories in English literature. There are festivals dedicated to giants, they are represented in paintings, statues, and rock art, and even the Catholic Church has its own giant saint; St. Christopher, who was so tall, he made a living as a human ferry, transporting people on his shoulders across deep rivers.
St. Christopher was described by Jacques de Voragine in "The Golden Legend": "He was of gigantic stature, had a terrifying mien, was twelve coudees tall.”, (a coudee is equal to or larger than the English foot). According to this ancient account, St. Christopher stood from 12 to 18 feet tall, a fact that was erased from church history. While Western icons don't picture St. Christopher as a giant, those of the Eastern churches do. His story, in brief, is that his name was originally Offro, or Offerus, and he was a giant of great strength, but of a sensitive nature, traveling in search of the greatest God. He was possibly of royal birth. His search eventually led him to a strange occupation as a human ferry, hiring out to literally carry people across rivers too deep for a normal human to cross. The legend has it that Jesus was one of his customers. Jesus supposedly blessed him, and told him that he had carried all the sins of the world on his shoulders. After the giant had carried Jesus across a river he asked St. Christopher to plant his great walking-staff in the ground. At once, a wonderful tree miraculously sprang up."
Giants in the Bible
The Bible, alone, of all the ancient writings describing giants, has scores of descriptions of giant beings. Even the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls contains a book called "The Book of Giants". The giant, Goliath, was only one of many giants the Bible speaks of and, owing to the "best seller in history” status of the Bible, he is the most famous. The 4th verse of Genesis 6 begins with: "There were giants in the earth in those days". The word "giants" in Genesis 6:4 is translated from the Hebrew word nphiyl, pronounced nef-eel'; properly, a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant. Many have been mistakenly led to believe that the word "nphiyl", commonly thought to be the word Nephilim, meant the "fallen ones", or "those who fell from heaven or the sky". This mistake has been promoted by the proponents of theories created by Zachariah Sitchin for decades, but has no basis in fact, as a simple study of the word in any Hebrew lexicon, (dictionary), will verify.
If there is any doubt about the true meaning of this word, one only needs to go to very next instance in the Bible where the word 'nphiyl' is used to get a clear meaning. Moses describes a race of giants called the Amalekites in the land of Canaan: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13 33) Or, the next instance in order: "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." (Deuteronomy 3:11) Converted into modern terms, this verse is stating that the bed of King Og is 14 feet long and 6 feet wide, making his estimated height to be 12 feet, (3.8 meters), or taller.
Some Notable Examples Worldwide
* One of the most fascinating cases of giants in U. S. history are the Smithsonian Giants. During the genocidal conquest of the indigenous peoples of North America, the United States Calvary and hired mercenaries encountered giants living among the tribes, and engaged in direct combat with them. The mindset used to justify the wholesale slaughter of many, and forced relocation of the rest of these tribes, was that they were sub-human; their darker skin being a key to this gross misconception. The giants they encountered and killed were red-headed with white skin. Fearing a backlash from the American people for killing whites, giants or not, the government ordered that all bodies of these giants be retrieved and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute, to hide the damaging evidence. We have no idea if those bodies were ever disposed of, but there is sufficient evidence available from the Smithsonian officials and documentation of the time to believe this actually occurred.
* Bones of giants have been uncovered in the United States in New York, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Mexico, and Kentucky from as early as 1792 to as late as 1965.
* The legends of early North American tribes are rich with stories of giants, including the Sioux, who told about giants that ran down the buffalo, and the Algonquin stories of giant, bearded men that first occupied their native lands. Individuals, from Columbus to Wild Bill Cody, gave testimony to their existence in North America. Reports of giant skeletons up to 25 and more feet being discovered were reported in early history of the occupation of the United States.
* Early English history describes, and even names, giants. Miss Marion, the 8-foot, six-inch Queen of the Amazons, the 8-foot, four-inch George Auger, of the 1903 Barnum and Bailey Circus, Charles Byrne the towering eight-foot-two-inch giant, who gained fame in the late 1700s in London, are just three such giants. Bones of giants up to 13 feet and taller have been uncovered all over the English landscape.
* In China, archaeologists have found some of the earliest skeletal remains of giants, as much as fifteen feet tall. Melchior Nunnez, in his letters from India, vouches for the fact that some five hundred giants were used as archers to guard the gates of Peking. George Hakewill, in his Apologie, written in 1627, issued a similar report.
* A skeleton found in 1692 in a tomb near Angers, France, measured seventeen-feet, four-inches. And, in his "De Gigantibus", Joh Cassanio speaks of a giant in Bordeaux, France that stood so tall, a man of ordinary size could walk between his legs. He states that Francis I of France (1494-1547) enlisted him as one of his guards.
* The Greeks had more than their share of giants in their legends, including Agrius, Alcyoneus, Aloeus, Alpus, Antaeüs, Arges, Atlas, Brontes, Chthonius, Clytius, Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Damasen, Enceladus, Ephialtes, Epimetheus, Eurytus, Gegenees, Gration, Hippolytus, Hopladamus, Hyperion, Lapetus, Metis, Mimas, Mnemosyne, Oceanus, Orion, Orius, Otus, Pallas, Peloreus, Phoebe, Polybotes, Porphyrion, Prometheus, Rhea, Steropes, Talus, Tethys, Thea, Themis, Thoas, Thurius, and Typhoeus.
* At Agadir, in Morocco, the French Captain Lafanechere discovered a complete arsenal of hunting weapons, including five hundred double-edged axes weighing over seventeen pounds, 20 times as heavy as would be convenient for modern man. To use these tools would require the hands of a size appropriate to a giant with a stature of at least 13 feet.
* Giants play an integral role in the lore of the Norse gods, including Angr-boda, Asvid, Aurboda, Aurvandil, Baugi, Beli, Bergelmir, Bestla, Bolthorn, Bolverk, Börr, Brimer, Buri, Byleist, Eggther, Farbauti, Fjolvar, Gang, Geirrod, Gerdh, Gilling, Gjalp, Grid, Gunnlauth, Gymir, Hela, Helblindi, Hlebard, Hrauthung, Hreidmar, Hrimthurs, Hrod, Hrungnir, Hrym, Hymir, Hyndla, Hyrrokin, Ide, Jarnsaxa, Jötunn, Laufey, Leirbrimir, Logi, Mistblindi, Norfe, Odin, Orvandil, Skadi, Surt, Suttung, Thiassi, Thrym, Thurs, Tjatsi, Trivaldi, Trym, Utgarda-Loki, and Vafthruthnir.
* Many mariners, such as Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Thomas Cavendish, Oliver Noort, Sebald de Weert, William Cowley, George Spilbergen, and George Shelvock, reported encountering giants in the logs of their voyages.
* In 1812, an Italian journal reported that in the valley of Mazara, in Sicily, the skeleton of a man ten-feet and three-inches in length was dug up in the same area that several other human skeletons of gigantic size had previously been found.
* In 1950, in the Euphrates Valley of Southeast Turkey, many tombs containing giants 14 to 16 feet tall were unearthed.
The Giants of the Breitenwinner Cave - A Potential Breakthrough
In our initial research to compile our database of giants in human history, we dug deeply to find as many references to giants as possible. In 2003, we discovered an obscure document allegedly written by one Berthold Buchner in 1563, which spoke of giant bones found in Breitenwinner Cave in the Bavarian region of Germany. In the opening of that document, Buchner, speaking of the exploration of the cave, stated: "The marvels they saw there have been written down by Berthold Buchner. The ignorant will not believe this story, the experienced ones will not think it possible. But we have seen it with our own eyes, and it is the truth." Further, in the 1563 recounting of his experience, Buchner goes on by documenting the following: "When we crept in we found so many bones that the first of us had to pile them up in one place to make room for us to enter. The bones were very large as if from giants." And, "We came to a narrow vault where we found a skull bigger than we had ever seen before."
Unfortunately, we were dealing with a long-forgotten incident that occurred almost 500 years ago. We could only find one reference to this cave and the giant bones, at the time, and wrote the following in our conclusion to that document: "The 16th Century narrative is self explanatory. The cave now lies in ruin, having been looted over the centuries, of all the ancient treasures it once held." It was our belief that this treasure of giant evidence, including the bones was forever lost to history and the human experience.
Then, as fate would have it, we received an email on November 8, 2007, which began: "You wrote of Breitenwinner Cave in Bavaria. I just got out of the Army and was stationed at the Joint Multinational Training Center, now known as the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, a NATO training facility which now surrounds this cave." The individual went on to say: "Two friends also stationed here and myself accidentally stumbled across this cave which was located near what we call Checkpoint 35, those ever stationed here will know where that is. We had a video camera with us and found thousands of bones that were of huge proportion." We viewed the video, immediately made contact with the person making this claim, established his credibility, and contacted our media sources. Within 24 hours, the man who had explored Breitenwinner Cave, was interviewed on a major radio show.
Danny, (last name held by request), is a former combat photographer, with over 7 years in service. He was forthcoming and seemed only interested in getting the story out. His concern was focused on what he believes to be the travesty of a mass burial site going unnoticed and treated with absolutely no respect. The cave is now located in a "live fire zone", being used for bombing practice for NATO training exercises. Danny, in fact, knew nothing about the history of the Breitenwinner Cave until long after he had explored the cave and done research on it. Due to this, he was not looking for any evidence of giants when he explored it and took a video of that exploration.
At the time of this writing, anthropologists, universities, non-governmental organizations, and researchers in the field are coming together to attempt an official examination of the Breitenwinner Cave. If successful, such an exploration could blow the lid off the cover-up of this amazing paradigm and add a new dimension to the human reality. The readers following this paradigm are asked to contact any individuals that may be of help in exposing this phenomenon. The evidence of giants in world history is overwhelming and the time has come to reveal this fact to the world.
SourceL Alien Seeker News
http://www.alienseekernews.com/writers/patrick-cooke/articles/giants-myth-reality.html
The lack of the presence of giants in orthodox history, academia, and anthropological studies is appalling in light of the true historical records from every part of the globe. Even more mysterious is the seemingly unanimous decisions by the keepers of the world's museums and archeological treasures to keep the physical evidence of giants hidden from public view. Only a smattering of the evidence is available in obscure locations. Thousands of skeletons and hundreds of historical reports are ignored.
The accepted knowledge among the world's peoples is that giants are the creatures of myth and folklore, relegated to children's fairy tales and B grade horror movies, an it is almost a crime not to include a giant in any fantasy film or video game. The reality is that giants were present throughout our history from ancient biblical accounts and historical Roman military campaigns to the relatively modern genocide of the natives of North America.
A Wealth of Evidence
Giants appear in the legends of Australia, Bavaria, Belgium, Chad, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India , Italy, Kazakhstan, Laos, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nova Scotia, Pakistan, Patagonia, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda, Russia, Scotland, Sicily, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Terra del Fuego, Turkey, the United Sates, Wales, Zanzibar, and the ancient Incan, Toltec, and Nordic cultures, just to name a few.
Giants are everywhere; in our religions, our history, our literature, and our folklore. Legends of extraordinarily tall humans are found in almost every culture and, on almost every continent. But, they are always viewed as mythical beings. Jack, the Beanstalk kid, Paul Bunyan and his giant ox, and the travels of Gulliver are familiar children’s stories in English literature. There are festivals dedicated to giants, they are represented in paintings, statues, and rock art, and even the Catholic Church has its own giant saint; St. Christopher, who was so tall, he made a living as a human ferry, transporting people on his shoulders across deep rivers.
St. Christopher was described by Jacques de Voragine in "The Golden Legend": "He was of gigantic stature, had a terrifying mien, was twelve coudees tall.”, (a coudee is equal to or larger than the English foot). According to this ancient account, St. Christopher stood from 12 to 18 feet tall, a fact that was erased from church history. While Western icons don't picture St. Christopher as a giant, those of the Eastern churches do. His story, in brief, is that his name was originally Offro, or Offerus, and he was a giant of great strength, but of a sensitive nature, traveling in search of the greatest God. He was possibly of royal birth. His search eventually led him to a strange occupation as a human ferry, hiring out to literally carry people across rivers too deep for a normal human to cross. The legend has it that Jesus was one of his customers. Jesus supposedly blessed him, and told him that he had carried all the sins of the world on his shoulders. After the giant had carried Jesus across a river he asked St. Christopher to plant his great walking-staff in the ground. At once, a wonderful tree miraculously sprang up."
Giants in the Bible
The Bible, alone, of all the ancient writings describing giants, has scores of descriptions of giant beings. Even the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls contains a book called "The Book of Giants". The giant, Goliath, was only one of many giants the Bible speaks of and, owing to the "best seller in history” status of the Bible, he is the most famous. The 4th verse of Genesis 6 begins with: "There were giants in the earth in those days". The word "giants" in Genesis 6:4 is translated from the Hebrew word nphiyl, pronounced nef-eel'; properly, a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant. Many have been mistakenly led to believe that the word "nphiyl", commonly thought to be the word Nephilim, meant the "fallen ones", or "those who fell from heaven or the sky". This mistake has been promoted by the proponents of theories created by Zachariah Sitchin for decades, but has no basis in fact, as a simple study of the word in any Hebrew lexicon, (dictionary), will verify.
If there is any doubt about the true meaning of this word, one only needs to go to very next instance in the Bible where the word 'nphiyl' is used to get a clear meaning. Moses describes a race of giants called the Amalekites in the land of Canaan: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13 33) Or, the next instance in order: "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." (Deuteronomy 3:11) Converted into modern terms, this verse is stating that the bed of King Og is 14 feet long and 6 feet wide, making his estimated height to be 12 feet, (3.8 meters), or taller.
Some Notable Examples Worldwide
* One of the most fascinating cases of giants in U. S. history are the Smithsonian Giants. During the genocidal conquest of the indigenous peoples of North America, the United States Calvary and hired mercenaries encountered giants living among the tribes, and engaged in direct combat with them. The mindset used to justify the wholesale slaughter of many, and forced relocation of the rest of these tribes, was that they were sub-human; their darker skin being a key to this gross misconception. The giants they encountered and killed were red-headed with white skin. Fearing a backlash from the American people for killing whites, giants or not, the government ordered that all bodies of these giants be retrieved and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute, to hide the damaging evidence. We have no idea if those bodies were ever disposed of, but there is sufficient evidence available from the Smithsonian officials and documentation of the time to believe this actually occurred.
* Bones of giants have been uncovered in the United States in New York, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Mexico, and Kentucky from as early as 1792 to as late as 1965.
* The legends of early North American tribes are rich with stories of giants, including the Sioux, who told about giants that ran down the buffalo, and the Algonquin stories of giant, bearded men that first occupied their native lands. Individuals, from Columbus to Wild Bill Cody, gave testimony to their existence in North America. Reports of giant skeletons up to 25 and more feet being discovered were reported in early history of the occupation of the United States.
* Early English history describes, and even names, giants. Miss Marion, the 8-foot, six-inch Queen of the Amazons, the 8-foot, four-inch George Auger, of the 1903 Barnum and Bailey Circus, Charles Byrne the towering eight-foot-two-inch giant, who gained fame in the late 1700s in London, are just three such giants. Bones of giants up to 13 feet and taller have been uncovered all over the English landscape.
* In China, archaeologists have found some of the earliest skeletal remains of giants, as much as fifteen feet tall. Melchior Nunnez, in his letters from India, vouches for the fact that some five hundred giants were used as archers to guard the gates of Peking. George Hakewill, in his Apologie, written in 1627, issued a similar report.
* A skeleton found in 1692 in a tomb near Angers, France, measured seventeen-feet, four-inches. And, in his "De Gigantibus", Joh Cassanio speaks of a giant in Bordeaux, France that stood so tall, a man of ordinary size could walk between his legs. He states that Francis I of France (1494-1547) enlisted him as one of his guards.
* The Greeks had more than their share of giants in their legends, including Agrius, Alcyoneus, Aloeus, Alpus, Antaeüs, Arges, Atlas, Brontes, Chthonius, Clytius, Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Damasen, Enceladus, Ephialtes, Epimetheus, Eurytus, Gegenees, Gration, Hippolytus, Hopladamus, Hyperion, Lapetus, Metis, Mimas, Mnemosyne, Oceanus, Orion, Orius, Otus, Pallas, Peloreus, Phoebe, Polybotes, Porphyrion, Prometheus, Rhea, Steropes, Talus, Tethys, Thea, Themis, Thoas, Thurius, and Typhoeus.
* At Agadir, in Morocco, the French Captain Lafanechere discovered a complete arsenal of hunting weapons, including five hundred double-edged axes weighing over seventeen pounds, 20 times as heavy as would be convenient for modern man. To use these tools would require the hands of a size appropriate to a giant with a stature of at least 13 feet.
* Giants play an integral role in the lore of the Norse gods, including Angr-boda, Asvid, Aurboda, Aurvandil, Baugi, Beli, Bergelmir, Bestla, Bolthorn, Bolverk, Börr, Brimer, Buri, Byleist, Eggther, Farbauti, Fjolvar, Gang, Geirrod, Gerdh, Gilling, Gjalp, Grid, Gunnlauth, Gymir, Hela, Helblindi, Hlebard, Hrauthung, Hreidmar, Hrimthurs, Hrod, Hrungnir, Hrym, Hymir, Hyndla, Hyrrokin, Ide, Jarnsaxa, Jötunn, Laufey, Leirbrimir, Logi, Mistblindi, Norfe, Odin, Orvandil, Skadi, Surt, Suttung, Thiassi, Thrym, Thurs, Tjatsi, Trivaldi, Trym, Utgarda-Loki, and Vafthruthnir.
* Many mariners, such as Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Thomas Cavendish, Oliver Noort, Sebald de Weert, William Cowley, George Spilbergen, and George Shelvock, reported encountering giants in the logs of their voyages.
* In 1812, an Italian journal reported that in the valley of Mazara, in Sicily, the skeleton of a man ten-feet and three-inches in length was dug up in the same area that several other human skeletons of gigantic size had previously been found.
* In 1950, in the Euphrates Valley of Southeast Turkey, many tombs containing giants 14 to 16 feet tall were unearthed.
The Giants of the Breitenwinner Cave - A Potential Breakthrough
In our initial research to compile our database of giants in human history, we dug deeply to find as many references to giants as possible. In 2003, we discovered an obscure document allegedly written by one Berthold Buchner in 1563, which spoke of giant bones found in Breitenwinner Cave in the Bavarian region of Germany. In the opening of that document, Buchner, speaking of the exploration of the cave, stated: "The marvels they saw there have been written down by Berthold Buchner. The ignorant will not believe this story, the experienced ones will not think it possible. But we have seen it with our own eyes, and it is the truth." Further, in the 1563 recounting of his experience, Buchner goes on by documenting the following: "When we crept in we found so many bones that the first of us had to pile them up in one place to make room for us to enter. The bones were very large as if from giants." And, "We came to a narrow vault where we found a skull bigger than we had ever seen before."
Unfortunately, we were dealing with a long-forgotten incident that occurred almost 500 years ago. We could only find one reference to this cave and the giant bones, at the time, and wrote the following in our conclusion to that document: "The 16th Century narrative is self explanatory. The cave now lies in ruin, having been looted over the centuries, of all the ancient treasures it once held." It was our belief that this treasure of giant evidence, including the bones was forever lost to history and the human experience.
Then, as fate would have it, we received an email on November 8, 2007, which began: "You wrote of Breitenwinner Cave in Bavaria. I just got out of the Army and was stationed at the Joint Multinational Training Center, now known as the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, a NATO training facility which now surrounds this cave." The individual went on to say: "Two friends also stationed here and myself accidentally stumbled across this cave which was located near what we call Checkpoint 35, those ever stationed here will know where that is. We had a video camera with us and found thousands of bones that were of huge proportion." We viewed the video, immediately made contact with the person making this claim, established his credibility, and contacted our media sources. Within 24 hours, the man who had explored Breitenwinner Cave, was interviewed on a major radio show.
Danny, (last name held by request), is a former combat photographer, with over 7 years in service. He was forthcoming and seemed only interested in getting the story out. His concern was focused on what he believes to be the travesty of a mass burial site going unnoticed and treated with absolutely no respect. The cave is now located in a "live fire zone", being used for bombing practice for NATO training exercises. Danny, in fact, knew nothing about the history of the Breitenwinner Cave until long after he had explored the cave and done research on it. Due to this, he was not looking for any evidence of giants when he explored it and took a video of that exploration.
At the time of this writing, anthropologists, universities, non-governmental organizations, and researchers in the field are coming together to attempt an official examination of the Breitenwinner Cave. If successful, such an exploration could blow the lid off the cover-up of this amazing paradigm and add a new dimension to the human reality. The readers following this paradigm are asked to contact any individuals that may be of help in exposing this phenomenon. The evidence of giants in world history is overwhelming and the time has come to reveal this fact to the world.
SourceL Alien Seeker News
http://www.alienseekernews.com/writers/patrick-cooke/articles/giants-myth-reality.html
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DEATH RIDES ON BEAUTY CRYSTALIZED -
The Cursed Delhi Purple Sapphire
The Cursed Delhi Purple Sapphire
A gemstone ‘stained with blood and dishonour’ haunted anyone who owned it.
Some 34 years ago Peter Tandy, a young curator at the Natural History Museum, happened upon a jewel while working among the great lines of mineral cabinets. From a scientific perspective, the stone was nothing special, though its setting was rather bizarre, bound by a silver ring decorated with astrological symbols and mystical words with two scarab-carved gems attached. It was a typewritten note that accompanied the jewel, an amethyst known as the Delhi Purple Sapphire, that caught Tandy’s eye.
“This stone is trebly accursed and is stained with the blood, and the dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it,” said the note, which had been written by Edward Heron-Allen, a scientist, friend of Oscar Wilde and the amethyst’s last owner. It carried a curse and had left a trail of bad luck and tragedy.
Heron-Allen claimed to have been so disturbed that he had surrounded the amethyst with supposedly protective charms and sealed it inside seven boxes before leaving it to the museum in his will. His letter concluded: “Whoever shall then open it, shall first read out this warning, and then do as he pleases with the jewel. My advice to him or her is to cast it into the sea.” While they were sceptical, Tandy and his colleagues agreed to keep quiet about the curse.
The jewel might have remained hidden if its remarkable story had not caught the imagination of staff working to relaunch the museum’s public mineral gallery, the Vault. On Wednesday, the Delhi Purple Sapphire will go on permanent display at the museum, complete with a label declaring its reputation as “trebly accursed”.
A supernatural tale might seem to sit a little uneasily in one of the world’s great scientific institutions. But according to Alan Hart, head of collections in the mineralogy department, such narratives give the collection a cultural dimension that appeals to visitors.
“People ascribe precious stones with all sorts of legends. All it needs is for one owner to declare it to be cursed or lucky and the story will remain with the stone as it is passed from person to person through history,” he says.
But that the Delhi Purple Sapphire was cursed was never doubted by Heron-Allen’s family. Ivor Jones, his grandson, a 77-year-old former naval officer, refuses to handle the jewel.
“My mother certainly wouldn’t touch it and she recommended that we didn’t either because of the curse,” he says. Heron-Allen was one of the most remarkable individuals ever associated with the Natural History Museum. Independently wealthy, he trained as a solicitor while simultaneously learning the art of violin-making – his book on the history of the instrument, published in 1884, is still in print. He studied Persian and wrote a prose translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. But it was as a scientist that he forged the strong bond with the museum that would ultimately see the cursed amethyst wind up in South Kensington.
He had a lifelong fascination with foraminifera, single-celled aquatic organisms that create exquisite, shells and by the time he died in 1943 he had already given the museum the world’s finest library of works on the subject.
But later that year a box arrived that nobody had been expecting. The accompanying note, written by Heron-Allen told the story of the Delhi Purple Sapphire. It had, Heron-Allen said, been brought to the UK by a Bengal cavalryman Colonel W Ferris after being looted from the Temple of Indra in Cawnpore – now Kanpur – during the Indian Mutiny in 1857. The soldier thereafter lost money and health, his son doing likewise after inheriting it. A family friend who possessed it for a short time committed suicide.
Heron-Allen was given the stone in 1890 and was immediately beset by misfortunes. He twice gave the stone to friends who had asked for it – one “was thereupon overwhelmed by every possible disaster”, the other, a singer, found “her voice was dead and gone and she has never sung since”.
He even claimed to have thrown the amethyst into Regent’s Canal only for it to be returned to him three months later by a dealer who had bought it from a dredger.
In 1904 he had had enough. He declared: “I feel that it is exerting a baleful influence over my newborn daughter”, had it shipped to his bankers with instructions that it be locked away till after his death. It might sound farfetched but even scientists are not immune to the story’s power. Seven years ago John Whittaker, former head of micropalaeontology at the Natural History Museum, took the amethyst to the first annual symposium of the Heron-Allen Society, an organisation founded to discuss the man’s life.
On the way home, he says, “the sky turned black and we were overtaken by the most horrific thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced. It was so bad we considered abandoning the car and my wife was shouting, ‘Why did you bring that damned thing?’ ” Whittaker was taken violently ill with a stomach bug the night before the second symposium and he missed the third when he developed a kidney stone. The fourth symposium, in 2004, was held at the museum. “We were all a bit apprehensive on the eve of that meeting,” he says.
Source: The Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2935508.ece
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THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEPARTMENT -
The Ghosts Come Calling at the Tower of London
The Ghosts Come Calling at the Tower of London
TOWER OF LONDON, England — Ghosts don't come when they're called.
That's what I thought.
Then my new pen suddenly stopped working ...
I had come to the Tower of London to hear the stories of uneasy spirits that are said to share the landmark's 18 acres with 35 yeoman warders (sometimes called Beefeaters), a governor and two deputies, a pastor, a doctor and their families.
Secretly, I hoped to encounter one of the specters.
Phil Wilson, a sergeant among the men and one woman who are guardians of the 900-year-old fortress, met me as shadows oozed across the grounds and seeped over stones worn by history and its players.
Only a corporate group on a special tour and I invaded the nighttime privacy of the 100 or so year-round residents, soldiers on guard duty and those wraiths that piqued my curiosity. If I were ever to see a ghost, this could be the place.
Storied, historic and bloody, this mass of 21 towers beside the chilly River Thames has seen lives anointed, destroyed and redeemed. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard died here, victims of King Henry VIII's obsessive quest for a son. Among others who gave up their heads in the tower's sloping courtyard were Baron Hastings, an adviser to Edward IV who was executed by Edward's successor; Lady Jane Grey, queen for nine days; and the Earl of Essex, a traitorous favorite of the first Queen Elizabeth.
It was considered a benevolence to be dispatched within the fortress's confines, away from the baying crowds on Tower Hill, about 200 yards from the entrance at Middle Tower. And imprisonment in the tower's dungeons was reserved for nobles and educated people who ran afoul of the monarch's favor or agenda. Common criminals had their own jails and their own execution grounds elsewhere.
Although many dozens died on Tower Hill after being held in the fortress, only seven people were dispatched on Tower Green. It's some of these who are said to be among the wraiths that reside and occasionally roam in the tower.
"I won't believe until I see them," Wilson told me as we began a walk among the darkening passageways.
But he doesn't dismiss or belittle experiences reported by fellow yeomen, their kin, soldiers, workers or visitors.
Most occurred after dark. "There's too many people about" in the daytime, he says, suggesting perhaps that phantoms prefer privacy.
We pass through the black-painted gates of the Byward Tower and Wilson describes a watchman's experience. He was reading a newspaper when the lights dimmed and the hiss of his gas fire turned into crackling. He looked up to see two men dressed in red, with spindly legs, smoking long clay pipes on either side of a fireplace. One turned and looked at the watchman, Wilson says, then the pair vanished.
What intrigued the watchman, the warder says, was the question, "Was the past seeing the future or the future seeing the past?"
We walk beside the Bell Tower, where defender of Catholicism Thomas More was imprisoned before his beheading. The fragrance of incense has been reported near the doomed man's chamber, Wilson says.
By the scaffold site on Tower Green, he tells me that terrifying shrieks have been heard here on the anniversary of the death of the Countess of Salisbury, who was hacked to death May 27, 1541, by an executioner who chased her down. Also in May, a headless Queen Anne Boleyn is said to walk the area on the 19th, the date of her death in 1536.
Some of the most convincing reports of encounters with spectral beings are those from yeoman warders, all of them former military with long service and good conduct medals, and active military on duty at the landmark.
During World War II, a sentry reported seeing a procession in 14th-century clothes descending Tower Hill while bearing a headless body on a stretcher.
In recent years, a yeoman and his family moved into an apartment near the Bloody Tower, where the young princes Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, were held captive then, tradition holds, murdered. Shortly after the family settled in, the warder asked his young son whether he liked his new room. The child, who had been told nothing of possible ghosts at the tower, replied, "Yes, but the two boys that play outside at the back are really noisy and wear funny clothes."
Other yeomen have reported a feeling of being followed when no one was behind them, or the approach of people who vanish when challenged. Their wives talk of tendrils of smoke swirling purposefully, of items moved seemingly without human intervention, and of noises that have no apparent cause.
However frightening or inexplicable the tower's ghosts may be, they've harmed no one, although a guard in 1815 died two days after confronting a bear he said had materialized from a wisp of smoke. People also have reported feeling pushed on stairs (especially at the White Tower, where the original dungeon was) and sensing their chests being pressed toward suffocation.
The day before my walk with Wilson, yeoman warder Ken McGrath told me that a week earlier, a yeoman had heard prayers in Latin issuing from Beauchamp Tower. The warder entered, and the supplications stopped. He searched for a source, even asked others whether sounds were being piped in for effect. But no origin for the entreaties was found.
Just that week, a guard reported groaning coming from a small window at the Wakefield Tower, McGrath said.
But yeomen and military guards aren't the only ones to experience oddities. Visitors have reported cold spots and touches by unseen hands. A tour member once asked a warder as her group left the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, "Who was that woman in black standing behind you as you spoke?"
The chapel figures in numerous sightings, and the decapitated queens are among remains buried under its stone floor.
In one of the strangest reports by a visitor, an American tourist's photo of Traitors' Gate, taken when no one was near, contained a silk-cuffed hand. Kodak representatives assured her the image hadn't been doctored, Wilson says.
"Who knows?" he adds.
Two of his wife's friends, recently visiting the Wilsons' apartment in the Beauchamp Tower for the evening, went briefly to the unoccupied roof. "You know, we're not alone," one woman said. "There's a soldier on guard up here." She said she could see the man in boots and cape. He was waiting for someone, she said. The second woman said she saw nothing. As the pair descended stairs to the Wilsons' rooms, the first woman, suddenly trembling, said someone "ran through her." She told her friend, "It's you in another life."
Still, Wilson says there may be rational explanations for some occurrences.
Quite a few reports date to Victorian times, when the English were "besotted with death," he says. It was a time of spiritualists and people who wrote about the unseen of other worlds. Ghosts were rock stars of the macabre.
Also, electrification came slowly to the tower; for centuries the dark was held at bay only by flickering firelight or gaslights.
Sometimes, it isn't ghosts but commerce that creates a scare. Wilson and a colleague were on duty after dark years ago when screaming shattered the evening. The two, a distance apart, began to run toward each other, when a Thames tour boat outside the walls resumed a calmer narrative after its scary segment.
Also, warders have been known to play pranks, trying to scare one another, Wilson says, suggesting a very human source for unnatural phenomena.
Nonetheless, "When I get up (during the night), I always look at Tower Green. I always hope to see something, and I never do."
Thoughts of unearthly encounters aren't his alone. Moira Cameron, the first female yeoman warder in the tower's history, moved into quarters in July.
"I'm not a huge believer, but I'm not a disbeliever," she says. "Too many people see too many things." Because she lives in an apartment on the tower's interior street, and "the closest execution was spies from World Wars I and II," she doubts she'll encounter a wraith.
Says McGrath, "I don't know if I believe or not, but there must be some semblance of truth somewhere."
Perhaps, for me, a glimpse of that truth was in the Beauchamp Tower room where some time before a girl visiting with her mother had seemed to receive messages from the prisoners who had been held there.
Some inmates had carved tombstonelike tablets into the soft limestone walls. The girl was looking at one when she repeated, "So much suffering, so much suffering."
Reassured by the warder on duty that prisoners had left long ago, she responded, pointing to a space beside her, "He's still here."
Could the man invisible to others have been one of the prisoners lingering from long ago?
Wilson can't say, but he wants to show me a particularly handsome carving in a locked room next to this one.
He reaches into the pocket of his dark blue yeoman warder's uniform with its red applique of the queen's initials. No key. That's odd, he says, but reassures me that he knows where he left it. He asks me to wait here while he retrieves it.
In the quiet, I inspect other inscriptions left by men clearly educated and amazingly artistic, considering the fearsome straits they were in.
A puzzled Wilson re-enters the room. He can't find the key. "That really is strange," he says.
And just at that instant, as I'm copying words from the wall, the ink in my pen stops.
One beat, two beats, three. Nothing. Then the blue flows again.
Was it an exclamation point from beyond? A signal for attention? A message as only spirits can send?
I am left to wonder.
Source: The Journal News
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20071125/LIFESTYLE07/711250304/1031/LIFESTYLE01