Petroglyph identified as a picture of the Ark of the
Covenant by Scott Wolter on America Unearthed.
Near Puerco Ruin, Petrified Forest Nat. Park,
AZ. Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.
Announcing the initiation of an annual award for the greatest nonsense
in rock art for the year. The CERTIFIABLE ROCK ART PREVARICATION (CRAP) award will
be given to the most outstanding example of twisting and distorting rock art to
match the recipient's agenda that I can find. Nominations are always welcome.
This year the selection was easy, thanks to the History2 television channel series America Unearthed. They have
broadcast enough silliness to appeal to fringies of every stripe, and some of
it was based upon rock inscriptions and rock art. Given the broad ranging
nonsense that the host, Scott Wolter, has broadcast on this series you would
think I might have trouble deciding which episode was the dumbest, and I might
have if I hadn’t seen the first episode of season 2, the “Ark of the Covenant.”
I knew I was in for a good show when Wolter compared himself
with “Indiana Jones.” I don’t want you to think that I totally reject
everything Wolter says on America
Unearthed. I can be fair and I couldn’t agree with him more about this comparison. Both he
and Indiana Jones are pretense, running around through fictional situations in
made-up sequences that pretend to be based upon archaeology. I think that they
are very comparable.
The Stone of Destiny, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. Wikipedia.
In the Ark of the Covenant, November 30, 2013, episode we learned that when Jerusalem fell to the
Babylonians in 597 BC, and the temple of Solomon was destroyed, the Ark of the
Covenant was spirited out of Jerusalem by the prophet Jeremiah and an Egyptian
princess. They brought it to Tara Hill in Ireland for safe-keeping. Apparently
they also brought the “Stone of Destiny,” the block of rock upon which Jacob
rested his head when he saw the vision of the stairway to heaven. These were
both later sent to North America by Jonathan Swift, the Anglo-Irish satirist, pamphleteer, and dean of St. Patricks Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland. (Wikipedia) (Yes, that
Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s
Travels, the book about people’s amazing gullibility, ironic isn't it).
The
Stone of Destiny ended up on a farm in Virginia where Wolter visited it. This
has to be a big surprise to the people of Scotland who believe that they have
the Stone of Destiny in Edinburgh Castle (Wikipedia) but they will just have to
get over their disappointment. Wolter, then believing that it was one of the
world’s greatest and most sacred ancient religious artifacts, committed
vandalism by cutting a piece of it off to take home and analyze in his
laboratory.
Later
Wolter visited the Petrified Forest in Arizona to view the petroglyph of the
Ark of the Covenant illustrated at the top of this column. If some of these connections seem tenuous blame me, I just
wasn’t up to following the sophisticated trail of evidence presented. A
stirring adventure to say the least, and one which certainly qualifies for the
2013 C.R.A.P. Award (http://www.history.com/shows/america-unearthed/episodes).
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Excellent. I have tried a time or three to watch that program and found it totally absurd. Note, I was only a machinist during my working life, but I did see through the crap this guy pushes.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is due to the fact that I graduated high school in the early/mid 1960's when we were still taught critical thinking. I'd also credit Dad for telling me to read more and find the truth, ask people who really know things and not accept whatever BS comes down the road.