I have a fascination with ancient history. How and where it started mystifies me but it's a fairly strong fascination. I do know my father entertained some interest in all things historical and may have passed it onto me, though it's doubtful he envisioned exactly where I'd be ending up in some of my reading, internet and print.
Over the past 10 years or so, there have been majestic discoveries of the archaeological kind, everywhere from undersea locales to mountainous regions to right in someone's back 40. Many of these sites have been known to scientists and archaeologists for some time, though they've never been given proper time or focus to relinquish their secrets or theories as to their use or reason for being. Some theories fall into the extreme, such as the well-documented thought by a few "outsiders" to archaeology that the Sphinx at the Giza Plateau in Egypt is much, much older than the Egyptologists have led people to believe for so many years. Taught in schools that it was built by the Pharoah Khafra, there have been dissenting theories throughout, causing strife amongs the very unbending minds of Egyptology, much less those of archaeology and history as a whole. This sort of "maverick" thinking, those that fly in the face of establishment, is quite appealing to me, moreso in that those that refute any new or "outsider" theories scream and cry out all the louder for the attention the new ideas get! Regardless of whether or not the Sphinx at Giza was built by Khafra (it probably wasn't) or whether it's 10,000 years old (also unlikely) it is something that causes one to think that maybe, just maybe we weren't taught all that well to begin with.
When I was in grade school, we were taught, like everyone else, that Christopher Columbus discovered America by literally sailing into the Caribbean. It had been known for many years prior that Leif Eriksson and the Vikings had invariably been to the northern portion of the continent long before Columbus ever even thought to hornswaggle Spanish monarchs out of three ships for his travels. While I was taught about Leif as well, at least at some later point, it was almost always as nothing more than a footnote, pushing the established view of Columbus as "discoverer of America". Of course, once learning a Viking was on this side of the world long before that crazy Italian, it only spurred my interest in the fact that others might have even been here prior to Leif and his berserkers. Fine, fine, let's not forget the so-called indigenous folk that were here when all these supposed explorers came a-traveling. When did they get here? How long were they here? Is it possible they've always been here? O, the questions that abound... not to mention the fact that there's another coastline of the Americas...
You see the fascination, don't you? I've already gone past ancient history and moved into more modern, recorded history. Okay, Norse Edda is difficult to understand, I'll admit. So is cuneiform. Egyptian cartouches are still being deciphered to get proper translations. Someday we'll probably learn that the Rosetta Stone was nothing more than one vast joke from one insanely intelligent and sadistic mind. That would turn the historians on their ear. Imagine all the ret-con talk they'd have to work on, history books that would have to be reworked... it's mindboggling. There's more of that fascination, right there.
Leaving out the conspiratorial thoughts, the outright unproven theories and the fantastic for this note, at least for the moment, I can say I've found plenty of interesting articles of late that have gone on to reveal things not known before. The recent digs at Stonehenge uncovered more information about the site than has been previously known. Theorized, possibly. The underwater excavations going on in northern Egypt have given us a better picture of the ancient city site of Alexandria. Who knows, maybe we'll learn whatever did become of the legendary library that was present there. A very recent find in South America of an unknown Mayan tomb may give up some information as to what, where and why of the Mayan peoples. Incredible stuff, weekly with more being revealed even more frequently. I can't get enough. If you're interested, here's a great site to hit for daily articles from around the world:
http://www.archaeologica.org/NewsPage.htm
Tomorrow, the crazy, the bizarre, the "Forgotten" History of the world.
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