"...archaeologists have discovered 15 new sites in Laos containing more than one hundred 1000-year-old massive stone jars possibly used for the dead." Source: Archaeology News Network (2017).
"The jars of Laos are one of archaeology's enduring mysteries. Experts believe they were related to disposal of the dead, but nothing is known about the jars' original purpose and the people who brought them there."
Note: "The landscape of the Xieng Khouang plateau is dotted throughout with thousands of stone jars, in clusters from one to over a hundred jars. Initial study of the Plain of Jars by French archaeologist Madeleine Colani in the 1930's suggested that the stone jars are associated with the burial practices of the protohistoric communities living in the area." (UNESCO World Heritage List)
Note: "Dick Gill [featured in the documentary] was a most unusual person to put forward a bold new theory explaining the collapse of Mayan civilisation. When he started his hunt for clues, he was actually a banker." Source: BBC (2011). Gill spend a considerable amount of time investigating his theory that a major drought led to the collapse and believed that he had found conclusive evidence that this is what had happened:
"The drought theory holds that rapid climate change in the form of severe drought brought about the Classic Maya collapse. According to the particular version put forward by Gill in The Great Maya Droughts ... '[Studies of] Yucatecan lake sediment cores ... provide unambiguous evidence for a severe 200-year drought from AD 800 to 1000 ... the most severe in the last 7,000 years ... precisely at the time of the Maya Collapse." (Wikipedia)
The drought theory seems to be widely accepted now. LIDAR scans support the theory, according to Wikipedia, and Gill's evidence is apparently pretty solid -- I haven't found any sources questioning the evidence itself. Still, it's possible that drought may not be enough to explain what actually happened.
"David Webster, a critic of [Gill's] megadrought theory, says that much of the evidence provided by Gill comes from the northern Yucatán and not the southern part of the peninsula, where Classic Maya civilization flourished. He also states that if water sources were to have dried up, then several city-states would have moved to other water sources. That Gill suggests that all water in the region would have dried up and destroyed Maya civilization is a stretch, according to Webster, although Webster does not have a precise competing theory explaining the Classic Maya Collapse." (Wikipedia)
Earthquakes may have played a big part in the collapse as well:
"A study published in Scientific Reports in 2016 showed that between 750 and 900 a cluster of four earthquakes affected the wet tropical mountains south of the Yucatán lowlands, which are not vulnerable to drought, and include such important cities as Quirigua and Copán. These earthquakes left detectable destruction in several Maya cities and led to the abandonment of Quirigua. The study hypothesizes that repeated destruction combined with declining trade with the Maya kingdoms of the Yucatán lowlands to propagate the collapse to the southern part of the Maya realm." (Wikipedia)
"Beowulf, the epic poem of derring-do and monsters, was composed by a single author, research suggests, pouring cold water on the idea it was stitched together from two poems." Source: The Guardian.
Based on a computer analysis of "small features of the text," this research "suggests – although cannot conclusively prove – that it was the work of a single poet, the researchers say.
"...But mysteries remain – not least the identity of the Beowulf author. 'The most that can be inferred from the language of the poem is that the author probably spoke the Mercian dialect and probably lived during the first half of the eighth century,' said Madison Krieger, co-author of the study from Harvard University."
Note:According to Wikipedia, "The Beowulf manuscript was transcribed from an original by two scribes, one of whom wrote the prose at the beginning of the manuscript and the first 1939 lines before breaking off in mid sentence. The first scribe made a point of carefully regularizing the spelling of the original document by using the common West Saxon language and by avoiding any archaic or dialectical features. The second scribe, who wrote the remainder, with a difference in handwriting noticeable after line 1939, seems to have written more vigorously and with less interest. As a result, the second scribe's script retains more archaic dialectic features which allow modern scholars to ascribe the poem a cultural context."
"The Greek word for fish is 'ichthys.' As early as the first century [see below], Christians made an acrostic from this word: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, i.e. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." Source: Christianity Today. "...Greeks, Romans, and many other pagans used the fish symbol before Christians. Hence the fish, unlike, say, the cross, attracted little suspicion, making it a perfect secret symbol for persecuted believers."
Note: There's some uncertainty about when Christians first started using the ichthys or fish symbol. For example, the video above and the Christianity Today article state that the Christian use of the symbol goes back to the first century AD, but Wikipedia makes it sound like it didn't become popular until much later:
"The first appearances of the ichthys symbol in Christian art and literature date to the 2nd century AD. The symbol's use among Christians had become popular by the late 2nd century, and its use spread widely in the 3rd and 4th centuries."
Fish symbols and other Christian art have been found in Roman catacombs used as burial places by early Christians. Most sources date these finds to the third or fourth century. Fish symbols from the first century have supposedly been discovered, but I haven't been able to verify this.
"According to art historian Clara Erskine Clement, 'The paintings of the catacombs date from the third and fourth centuries after Christ. The catacombs, or burial-places of the early Christians, consist of long, narrow, subterranean passages, cut with regularity, and crossing each other like streets in a city ... The reason for their being in these underground places was that Christians were so persecuted under the Romans, that they were obliged to do secretly all that they did as Christians, so that no attention should be attracted to them." Source: History of Painters.Note: This same article also states that "The Fish is a very early Christian symbol found inscribed upon the walls of the Catacombs from the first century."
According to church tradition, early Christians used the fish symbol as a clandestine recognition-sign during the first-century persecutions under Nero, but it's possible that this persecution never actually happened. The story that Nero blamed the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD) is based almost entirely on two sources - Tacitus and Suetonius -- and the authenticity of the relevant passages is still a matter of contention. Even if the martyr stories set in the first-century aren't true, however, there's no doubt that the fish symbol was later used by Christians in the centuries leading up to their official recognition.
As mentioned above, the fish symbol predates Christianity. It was being used by the pagans for hundreds of years before the new religion appeared, but it has surprisingly Christian overtones:
"The symbolism of the fish itself may have its origins in pre-Christian religious imagery. For example, Orpheus was described as a 'fisher of men' as early as the 3rd or 4th century BC. The fish was used as a symbol in a number of other near-eastern religions as well, often as a sacred (or taboo) food. The fish was sacred to the goddess Atargatis, for example, who was said to cause tumors in those who ate them. Fish were only allowed to be eaten by priests during rituals devoted to Atargatis, in the belief that they represented her body." (Wikipedia)
The pre-Christian ichthys is a very old symbol with roots in ancient fertility religions:
"Well before Christianity, the fish symbol was known as 'the Great Mother,' a pointed oval sign, the 'vesica piscis' or Vessel of the Fish. 'Fish' and 'womb' were synonymous terms in ancient Greek,'delphos.' Its link to fertility, birth, feminine sexuality and the natural force of women was acknowledged also by the Celts, as well as pagan cultures throughout northern Europe. Eleanor Gaddon traces a 'Cult of the Fish Mother' as far back as the hunting and fishing people of the Danube River Basin in the sixth millennium B.C.E." Source (admittedly biased): GodlessGeeks.com.
"The book relates the development of language to the development of myths, religions, and cultic practices in world cultures. Allegro argues, through etymology, that the roots of Christianity, and many other religions, lay in fertility cults, and that cult practices, such as ingesting visionary plants to perceive the mind of God, persisted into the early Christian era, and to some unspecified extent into the 13th century with reoccurrences in the 18th century and mid-20th century, as he interprets the fresco of the Plaincourault Chapel to be an accurate depiction of the ritual ingestion of Amanita muscaria as the Eucharist. Allegro argued that Jesus never existed as a historical figure and was a mythological creation of early Christians under the influence of psychoactive mushroom extracts such as psilocybin." (Wikipedia)
Fresco showing mushrooms in Plaincourault Chapel, France.
I've made several attempts to read The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross, but it's a difficult book for a layman to understand because it focuses almost exclusively on the genealogy of words in ancient languages:
"As a philologist, Allegro analysed the derivations of language. He traced biblical words and phrases back to their roots in Sumerian, and showed how Sumerian phonemes recur in varying but related contexts in many Semitic, classical and other Indo-European languages. Although meanings changed to some extent, Allegro found some basic religious ideas passing on through the genealogy of words. His book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross relates the development of language on our continent to the development of myths, religions and cultic practices in many cultures. Allegro believed he could prove through etymology that the roots of Christianity, as of many other religions, lay in fertility cults; and that cultic practices, such as ingesting hallucinogenic drugs to perceive the mind of god, persisted into Christian times." Source: JohnAllegro.org.
Often referred to as a "maverick," Allegro was actually a diligent scholar whose book The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth is a brilliant piece of work on the beliefs of the Essenes and the possible origins of the early Christian communities which seemed to appear so suddenly in the ancient Mediterranean world. Highly recommended. I don't claim to be able to follow his linguistic arguments in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, but the idea that the origins of Christianity and Judaism can be traced back to prehistoric fertility cults doesn't seem all that outlandish to me. In fact, it seems pretty likely.
Allegro sometimes said, in interviews, that Jesus was a mushroom and that Christianity was originally a cover for a secret mushroom cult. He apparently meant that literally, but I think the real message of his book is that Christianity evolved via Judaism from much more ancient shamanistic practices and that the mushroom symbolism of these old cults still survives in church artwork and theology to a certain extent. The basic idea is that the fundamental beliefs of Christianity and other religions originated in ancient fertility cults which used psychedelic mushrooms to make contact with God.
There's nothing inherently unreasonable about any of this. Religions don't just appear fully formed; they all have deep roots in the prehistoric world. The same thing can be said for a lot of our modern holidays. Halloween and Christmas, for example, were originally pagan festivals and their ancient roots can still be seen in things like the Christmas tree and trick-or-treating. Many Christian symbols, beliefs and rituals have also been traced back to the pagan world and it seems to me that all John Allegro was doing was tracing them back even farther, perhaps to the very beginning.
Fertility religions go all the way back to the rise of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. They could be even older than that and traces of these ancient beliefs can still be seen today:
"Many ancient fertility rites have persisted in modified forms into modern times," according to Infoplease. For instance, "The Maypole dance derives from spring rituals glorifying the phallus." The Easter bunny and eggs are another example of this kind of survival from a pre-Christian past still found in the Christian church. The Easter egg in particular is a fertility symbol. So is the Ichthys, the Christian fish symbol. And it's quite possible that modern religions still contain elements that can be traced back to really ancient shamanistic rites that involved the use of psychotropic plants.
The presence of mushrooms on very old church walls and stained-glass windows is undeniable. Perhaps they are a kind of vestigial symbolism, traces left behind by a primordial religion that had already faded into the unconscious minds of the artists who created them. That could be. If Christianity did evolve from an ancient mushroom cult, the question of whether the cult was still in existence when the church first came into being is a different matter altogether. Allegro's idea that the church was created as a cover for a secret and still active fertility cult is what I like to call a Jesus Cult Conspiracy Theory. If Allegro meant that literally, it's no wonder that his reputation went into decline after his book appeared. I'm not saying he was wrong; after all, how would I know? It's an entertaining idea, but I'll have to see a lot more evidence before I'll believe it's true.
Did the Neanderthals actually hunt mammoths by driving them off cliffs? It would be an effective technique and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened. Evidence has been uncovered, for instance, that Native Americans killed buffalo this way, so the Neanderthals may have done the same thing. The picture is still pretty murky, though, and in at least one case researchers have been able to show that it probably didn't happen.
"Popular lore has it that skilled Neanderthal hunters once herded mammoths off cliffs to a rocky doom. There is one site in Jersey, a British island off of France's northern coast, where mammoth bones marked with prehistoric stone knife marks were found in broken heaps. Because Neanderthals frequented the area, researchers thought this finding meant that the Neanderthals were systematically driving the animals over the edge of cliffs for an easy kill. And this idea has spread widely, through documentaries and media stories ... Now, new evidence emerges that this was probably not the case." Source: The Smithsonian (2014).
According to The Guardian, "[t]he piles of bones are a major feature at La Cotte de St Brelade on Jersey, one of the most spectacular Neanderthal sites in Europe. But the claim that they mark the remains of mass slaughter has been all but ruled out by a fresh investigation.
"Researchers have found that the plateau that ends at the cliff edge was so rocky and uneven that mammoths and other weighty beasts would never have ventured up there. Even if the creatures had clambered so high, the Neanderthals would have had to chase them down a steep dip and back up the other side long before the animals reached the cliff edge and plunged to their doom."
These findings only relate to the Jersey site, however. I'm not sure if there are other sites with evidence for this kind of Neanderthal hunting activity.
"Poppaea Sabina, daughter of [Titus] Ollius (d. AD 31) and named after her maternal grandfather, [Gaius] Poppaeus Sabinus (consul AD 9, governor of Moesia 12-35), was married first to Rufrius Crispinus, prefect of the praetorians under Claudius, by whom she had a son later killed by Nero. By 58, during her second marriage, to the future emperor Otho, she became mistress of Nero ... It was allegedly at her instigation that Nero murdered Iulia Agrippina [his mother] in 59 and in 62 divorced, banished, and executed Claudia Octavia [his wife]." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised)
Comment: According to the OCD, Poppaea "is supposed to have died [in 65 AD] from a kick which Nero gave her in a fit of temper, and was accorded a public funeral and divine honors." The story about her death has made her a kind of feminist icon and symbol of domestic violence, but who knows if it really happened? I think the main sources for her life are Tacitus and Suetonius, both of whom were writing many years after her death. Tacitus's sources (and probably Suetonius's as well) included the historian Fabius Rusticus, known to be hostile to Nero, and Cluvius Rufus, who knew many members of Nero's inner circle and sometimes appeared as Nero's herald at the games. If Nero did kick Poppaea to death, Rufus would probably have known about it.
The Villa Poppaea in Pompeii, thought to have been used by Poppaea Sabina when she wasn't living in Rome.
However she died, Poppaea was definitely born into the highest levels of the Roman aristocracy. If her biography is at all accurate, she was a Machiavellian character who married the man who killed her own son (perhaps not by choice) and engineered the deaths of her rivals, including Nero's wife Claudia Octavia, sleeping and murdering her way to the top. She supposedly had Jewish sympathies, but she didn't do the Jews any favors when she used her influence with Nero to have Gessius Florus, a friend's husband, appointed as procurator of Judea. Florus was a brutal incompetent who was mainly responsible for instigating the Great Jewish Revolt which led to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD.
Did Nero actually murder Poppaea Sabina? Considering the fact that so many of the other stories about his crimes and depravity are just ancient propaganda, I'm guessing that this one probably isn't true, either. There's no way to know for sure, of course, but some (sketchy) documentary evidence does exist suggesting that the story isn't accurate:
"In A.D. 65, while Poppaea was pregnant again, she died. Ancient writers say Nero killed her with a kick to the belly. However, [a] newly deciphered poem from Egypt casts doubt on this, showing Poppaea in the afterlife wanting to stay with Nero." Source: Live Science (2013)
Notes: "Seven megalithic temples are found on the islands of Malta and Gozo, each the result of an individual development. The two temples of Ggantija on the island of Gozo are notable for their gigantic Bronze Age structures. On the island of Malta, the temples of Hagar Qin, Mnajdra and Tarxien are unique architectural masterpieces, given the limited resources available to their builders. The Ta'Hagrat and Skorba complexes show how the tradition of temple-building was handed down in Malta." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.
According to Ancient Origins (2013), "The temples date from 5,500 to 2,500 BC, making them older than Stonehenge and older than the Pyramids of Egypt (according to current perspectives). The dating of the site was done using radio carbon testing of pottery and bones found around those temples in Malta [and] until further evidence is found that will put Stonehenge or the Pyramids far into the timeline, the temples of Malta remain the oldest known temples still standing."
Comment: The temples of Malta are the oldest temples in the world, not the oldest megalithic structures. I'm not sure where the dating question stands today, but most of the sources I've seen list Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, another spectacular Neolithic site, as the oldest stone structure in the world, and there are several other megalithic structures that appear to be far older than the temples of Malta. Gobekli Tepe has been described as a "sanctuary," however, and the other structures are things like passage graves and houses.
The temples of Malta appear to be the oldest megalithic structures clearly identifiable as temple complexes. They constitute direct evidence that the prehistoric cultures of Europe were a lot more advanced than commonly believed.
"The first major exhibition in the U.S. to be devoted to the art and artifacts of prehistoric Malta and featuring many objects never before seen outside the Maltese islands, Temple and Tomb provides insights into Malta’s famous temple sites, which were built from stones weighing up to 20 tons each and quarried using only stone and wooden tools. Older than the Egyptian pyramids or Stonehenge, they are believed to be the oldest freestanding stone buildings in the world." Source: Archaeology News Network (2013).
According to the Bradshaw Foundation, "[t]he oldest buildings in Europe are found in Malta - older than the Pyramids of Egypt. The occupation and settlement of Malta by modern humans began approximately 7,000 years ago, when the first Neolithic Farmers crossed the 50 mile-wide straits that separate the islands from Sicily. Prior to that, the islands were uninhabited."
"Little is known about the people who built these megalithic temples [4000-2500 BC?]. The original inhabitants of the Maltese Islands probably crossed over by sea from Sicily, which lies 58 miles to the north, sometime before 5000 BC. The temple builders were farmers who grew cereals and raised domestic livestock. They worshiped a mother goddess whose type is known from early statuettes found scattered around the Mediterranean. Similar statues are also found on Malta, several being of uniquely large size. We know from physical evidence that worship in the Malta temples included animal sacrifice; beyond this, little is known about the rites and rituals that took place there." Source: Art and Archaeology.
Note: This article states that these temples "are the oldest standing stone structures which remain to us from ancient times," but this is inaccurate. Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is older, probably by several thousand years.