did some ancient civilizations have technology in advance to what we have today?

Question

and is our civilization rediscovering some of this lost technology
examples i have read about include;
models of delta wing aircraft found in the tombs of the pharoahs
the mahabarata speaking of great battles in the sky with flying machines
the lines at nazca in peru only visible from high heights but nazca is flat with no hills

Answer 1

There are people who consider it possible that there have been advanced civilizations which somehow were obliterated from the earth, and mankind had to begin all over again. Not an unreasonable theory in my opinion.

Many years ago when my father was a young man he spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Among the archaeological finds of ancient Babylonia was a peculiar item that nobody could figure out. My father, who was an aeronautical engineer, believed that it was an electroplating machine.
Naturally his idea was poo-pooed. The machine was stored in a basement somewhere. It was recently rediscovered and the experts now say that it IS an electroplating machine. They are at a loss to understand how it fit into the scheme of things, but if, in fact, the Babylonians were more advanced than is generally believed, it is likely that they had other machinery which unfortunately has not survived.

Plato wrote of the Hyperboreans who flew in silver bird-like contraptions. The "birds" were "fed" on a special nectar. Eventually the nectar ran out and the birds flew no more.
Plato was not considered to be a writer of fiction.

Many ancient texts such as parts of the Old Testament and the Epic of Gilgamesh suggest that the writers of those works came into contact with things they did not understand and could not explain and some scholars believe these confusing writings may be the result of someone coming into contact with advanced technological creations.

You may draw your own conclusions from these things. I've always believed that one should keep an open mind. Everything should be carefully considered. Evidence may be interpreted in different ways. Lack of evidence does not mean something did not exist or happen, but where there is a lack of evidence we must not jump to conclusions.

I have studied history for more than 50 years and during that time much history has had to be rewritten as new evidence comes to light.

I think your question is one of the most thought-provoking to have appeared on this site. Keep studying.

Answer 2

As far as science is concerned, basic instincts are survival and procreation. Every creature has these. You can't say that civilisatin is more 'advanced' than any other in anything other than technology, because otherwise you're assuming social evolution which is an ethnocetric, Euorentric, misguided and bigotted POV. By suggesting that people from different cultues are more 'in tune' with their environment one creates an 'exotic other' that anthropology has striven to dismiss, as we are all human, and anthropology is the study of humanity. We are the ame and different in many many ways, but how could a Mayan possibly be in tune with the London Underground, assuming they had never lived in London? The environment is that which surrounds us. If that is Machu Picchu, then we learn our relatioship with it. The same goes for Swindon. If psychic ability is, as you suggest, innate, then it could not suddeny become non-innate just ecause you ived in a city. People still use plants, around the word. In Romania one of the only possible sources of icome for those in agricultural areas is picking Arnica. What about Stonehenge? Camden Town is built on a Leyline that runs from Yorkshire to Brighton. If you look at that ley ine you'll see some amazingly coincidental buildings and settlements. Your question assumes nature. What is nature? Is it natural that women are the child rearers and that biological mothers have bonds with their children? No. In many cultures this isn't the set up at all. When it comes to the landscape we can ask the same question - the terraces in south America are part of culture, as are rice paddy's in Asia, the landscape is created in our heads as much as it is by the universe, because how we see it depends to a huge extent by how we are brought up.We cannot simply lump civilisations or nature together in sweeping generalisations. We have learnt this through the history of an academic discipline, and the sooner we learn to appy it the sooner we will be able to communicate properly with one another. And indeed, as Drampur said, the south American Civilisations equally had war, when the Conquistadors came the only thing that changed was the method. The peoples of what are now the south Americas crushed and beat things to death, whereas the Europeans were more fond of burning and slicing things.

Answer 3

Simple answer is no; none that we know of. New discoveries of ancient civilisations as yet unknown, may prove this to be incorrect.

The death ray of Atlantis, etc. Anyone found the plans for that yet?

We do not know what happened before the last ice-age, which ended about 12,000 years ago. What if?

Also, just how much knowledge was lost when the barbarian Julius Caesar set fire to the Library at Alexander?

The reason he set fire to the Library at Alexander was probably because his uncle owned a library at/near Pompeii which got destroyed when Vesuvius erupted and obliterated the city killing thousands.

Thus two loads of books got lost? Damn! Anyway, as luck would have it, they're still slowly picking through the chared remains of some of the thousands of books recovered from the burned library at Pompeii.

Mostly cookbooks I believe.

Answer 4

As far as advanced tech in flight or electronics, you'll find all sorts of conflicting ideas. When it comes to medicine and herbal remedies as well as advanced astronomy concepts defiantly.Graham Hancock has some thought provoking books.Most of which is most likely bs but some things do require further investigation. The concept of the relationship of the Egypt ions with astronomy is not far fetched at all and is widely backed. Also the Atlantis question is still in question. Many areas were destroyed by massive volcanic eruptions some believed to be 100 time larger than Hiroshima. Anything in that area would be nothing but dust.

Answer 5

yes, there some technologies possessed by the ancients we do not have today, but l doubt it was in the form of flying machines. l know that some of the jewellery made by the Ancient Egyptians used fluxes to weld pieces together that modern metallurgists are a loss to even analyse. Like us, they found solutions to problems, but once the problem became obsolete, so did the solution, so lots of inventions and discoveries have been lost. Never underestimate the Ancients -- they may not have had the same knowledge or materials we have today, but they had exactly the same brain power as we do.......

Answer 6

It is a good point, have a star. You only have to look at the pyramids, or ancient buildings to realise you may have a point. Egypt had the largest recorded collection of writings in the known world prior to Caesars invasion. But unfortunately all of the ancient intellects writings were lost in a great fire, said to be caused by The Romans to deminish Cleopatra's power. Think of the Sphynx, The ancient wonders of the world?

Answer 7

They found a battery in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. If you watch the History Channel you'll see in the Roman Empire they had working toilets. How the Mayans where able to perform Brain Surgery and perform surgeries that were not possible untill the 20th cent. America. Some people believe that before the Flood of Noah that Earth was in the similuar conditions as they are today.

Answer 8

no I don't think that they did. But that's not saying they didn't have better craftsmen ship or architectural knowledge that far super-cede us today you just need to look in Egypt Mexico Peru and all round the earth to wonder how they did it. The fact is the they accomplished their goals one way or the other which leads us to think 'if they could build that , they could fly etc but i believe it was there dedication and determination that lead them to do wondrous things.

Answer 9

Be very careful with all of these. No one before DaVinci had a realistic model for a flying machine. No one. There are those who want to project technological innovation backwards in time for their own benefits or theories, but they have very little historical background. Beware of them.

Answer 10

Though I dont think that actual technologies were more advanced, I think the more we civilize ourselves the more natural abilities and senses we will lose and less in contact with out world we will be. If you took a kid from the suburbs and dropped them in the woods, they would be dead in a couple days. Its not just the fact that they dont know how to take care of themselves, its also that their natural senses and instincts have been "dumbed down".