Ever Burning Lamps:
Today we have electricity for light at the flick of a switch but in the Middle Ages people found light by creating fire, for which one needs oil or some source of fuel which must be replaced when it burns out. Therefore when a series of lamps that burned continually without any apparent fuel source were discovered in the Middle Ages it caused widespread alarm and mystery. All of them were found inside tombs, thought to be a guiding light for the deceased to the afterlife. The tombs were hundreds even thousands of years old even then and to see the light still burning terrified many people. The middle ages were a far more superstitious and hard time to live in than modern day so it is of no surprise that people were panicked by these lamps which defied logic. Some destroyed them, considering them cursed whilst many believed their eyes simply deceived them. The majority of society blamed the devil; certainly no one viewed the lamps positively. Legend told of ancient Hebrew communities that had mastered electricity years before we believed it known to the world. This Jewish community migrated and as nearby as France a rabbi named Jechiele is said to have owned a lamp that could ignite without a fuel source. Jechiele apparently created a switch that would discharge electricity through his metal door handle which he used to shock intruders. Whether or not this legend is true, even today with advanced techniques and a full comprehension of electricity no one has been able to recreate a lamp that burns indefinitely without a source of power. Thus the mystery remains, who placed these lamps and how did they do it? It’s yet another unsolved mystery of history!
Panxian Caves:
The Panxian Dadong Caves were home to early mankind some 300,000 years ago as well as various large animals, but the discovery of a series of prehistoric massive Stegodons (an extinct member of the elephant family) and Rhinoceros buried there defied all logic. The caves are 1,600 metres above sea level and animals such as elephants and rhinos do not live that high up away from the plains in which they would graze for food. Leading paleoanthropologists stated that the animals would not have lived in the caves or at least not by choice, and it is more likely that they were taken there after death. This has given way to such theories that carnivorous animals which lived in the caves such as mountain lions or great bears could have killed them and dragged them back to their lair. However the bones show signs of burning and pounding that were most likely made by stone tools. This would therefore suggest that humans living there killed them but how could they drag numerous large animals up a mountain, bearing in mind that these prehistoric Stegodons and Rhinoceros were even larger than the elephants and rhinoceros we know today. Furthermore, the dating of these prehistoric animals’ bones differ so that some seemingly lived and died before the earliest agreed date of homo sapiens in possession of stone tools. If they pre date mankind some have argued that dragons of legend might have lived in the caves which accounts for the burn marks on the bones and unrecognisable pounding marks, assumed to have been made by tools. Whatever your opinion, there has been no definitive answer found as to just how and why these great animal remains ended up in a mountain cave, it’s yet another ancient mystery of history.
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