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Spellbinder Inner circle The Holy City of East Orange, NJ 6438 Posts |
If archaeological evidence can be accepted as a "record" without being written down in actual words, I would think the ancient oracle sites that show archeological evidence of secret listening "holes" where the mystics could sit and listen to the secret prayers of those seeking answers and then pass them on to the chief oracle who would reveal the secrets and provide the "prophecy" might qualify, just as this sentence might qualify as the longest most convoluted sentence on the forum that actually makes some kind of sense.
Professor Spellbinder
Professor Emeritus at the Turkey Buzzard Academy of Magik, Witchcraft and Wizardry http://www.magicnook.com Publisher of The Wizards' Journals |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
We know that the Greek priests practiced ventriloquism. We also know that there are records of inventions of Heron (AKA Hero) that would qualify as magic tricks or illusions.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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MagiClyde Special user Columbus, Ohio 871 Posts |
Ok, Bill, you got me! What is lota?
As for Heron, it is sad that none of his original works or writings survive. It takes an incredible genius to come up with the stuff he did. If anyone asks how we could possibly know anything about his work, some copies and descriptions from other writers from that era did survive. Why was the information lost? It was all located in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned to the ground by a slave or peasant revolt if memory serves me.
Magic! The quicker picker-upper!
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
Was Alexandria burnt to the ground under the rule of Constantine ( approx 480 bc) by four of his officials and thus engineered to look like some kind of slave revolt, as you may know it was burnt a few times, not all the books were burnt...some were stolen. Guess where they are ? Why are you asking for such books they are the work of THE devil ( you know, the 'devil' that our marketing campain has been working on).
The oldest recorded trick was an earlier form of the cups and balls , the record has been lost but it went something along the lines of ' look out , wild animal! where ? My mistake....' hay where did my dinner go ? ' |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-03-24 21:57, clynim wrote: It is the self-filling water jug that you can empty many times. Sometimes it is misspelled lotta. This is a rather basic magic trick. Quote:
As for Heron, it is sad that none of his original works or writings survive. It takes an incredible genius to come up with the stuff he did. If anyone asks how we could possibly know anything about his work, some copies and descriptions from other writers from that era did survive. Why was the information lost? It was all located in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned to the ground by a slave or peasant revolt if memory serves me. My, you must be older than I thought if you remember the burning of the Library of Alexandria! The works of Heron survive through a number of sources. Not all of the copies of his work were in the Library of Alexandria. There were professional copyists, called "scribes," who earned a living making copies of existing texts. Sometimes, people would spend time in libraries making their own copies of existing texts. Also, there are copies of his work that were translated into other languages. For example, the great Arab scholars visited libraries such as the one at Alexandria and translated these works into Arabic. Many of the great Ancient Greek works have come down to us, because they have been translated from Arabic back into classical Greek. His creations are not lost to us at all.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Spellbinder Inner circle The Holy City of East Orange, NJ 6438 Posts |
I have a list of some of Heron's Inventions on my Inventor's Project on The Magic Nook. To save you search time, here they are:
Heron of Alexandria (10 BC - 75 AD) pneumatica automaton theatre coin operated holy water dispenser aeolipile automatic temple doors omen machine water-powered mechanical birds compressed-air fountain inexhaustible goblet
Professor Spellbinder
Professor Emeritus at the Turkey Buzzard Academy of Magik, Witchcraft and Wizardry http://www.magicnook.com Publisher of The Wizards' Journals |
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
You'r not the only one, I am older than most think. As I'm sure you know many notes were made by students when Heron lectured in the museum of Alexandra.Roman and Byzantinian scientists and encyclopedists also made records. I wouldnt bank on all of his laber saving gadgets were recorded though, as at the time slave labour and man power were favored. Most of his inventions were put into use during the renasance...I think it fare to say that non of his mathermatical contributions were lost though.
Thanks for the list Spellbinder. |
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MagiClyde Special user Columbus, Ohio 871 Posts |
Bill, I didn't say that his creations were lost. What I said was that none of his original work or writings survive, and that is true, at least to the best of my knowledge.
One item that was not mentioned was the steam engine. Heron considered it a toy and never pursued it any further. Of course, Tony is right. Slave labor was used quite a bit. After all, why make a labor saving device when you can just work people to death to get some chores done? No wonder there were slave revolts. The real losses in terms of Alexandria were not the scientific discoveries, even though that did set us back at least a thousand years (anyone ever hear of the DARK ages?)! What was lost in terms of history, philosophy, poetry, literature, etc. will never be able to be replaced. It would be as if the only library in the world was the Library of Congress and it burned to the ground. Imagine the loss today if that were to really happen!
Magic! The quicker picker-upper!
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
Do you know how the writings/thoughts of Archimedes, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus and all of the other authors of that time survived? They survived by means of copyists. Most of the editions that we use of their works are third generation translations. They survived in Arabic, were re-translated into Greek then into English.
The burning of the library at Alexandria did not cause the Dark Ages. It was a symptom of the Dark Ages. The burning did not "set us back a thousand years." There were other things that caused people with knowledge to go underground. There is another, even larger depository of knowledge besides the Library of Congress, and only a handful of people ever get to see it. That's the archives of the Vatican.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
Exactly , 'Why are you asking for such books they are the work of THE devil ( you know, THE 'devil' that our marketing campain has been working on).'
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
It's even more complicated than that. There is a lot of misinformation about what was actually in the Library at Alexandria, when it burned and who caused it. We can't be sure how much original work was there, how many items were copies, and how many were forgeries.
Not only that, but there is a lack of real data as to how much of the library actually burned. There were at least three burnings that took place there. There is an interesting article here http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm Although I tend to avoid Wikipedia, because there is no real oversight on it, and anyone can post anything they want to there, the article seems to be fairly decent, as well, so that one is worth checking. And the Alexandrine library was not the only one of its kind at the time. There was also the library at Pergamon in what is now Turkey. It is estimated that it was half the size of the Alexandrine library.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
The Alexandrine library was most likely burnt down by th Romans because it contained infomation on how to build weapons, yes weapons, catapults by the likes of pythagoras and his followers, the "Death Ray" by Archimedes's as I'm sure you know is perported to have been able to ignite advancing Roman ships in Greece ( even if it was never built the Romans saw it as a threat. One other great weapon was a massive crane like device that plucked Roman ships out of the water and capsized them. The Roman aEmpire had all the reason in the world to stop this information from being distributed,, they wanted to stay on top were they could contrll the world and HISTORY records....and they also worked very Religiously at doing this
Julius ceasser approx 47 started the first partial fire the third totally destroyed it. come on Merlin don't you remember this? |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-03-26 13:44, Tony Webs wrote: I wasn't there. However, in 48 BC, the Romans attacked it. It may or may not have been because of the information the library contained. It may have been a ruse to distract troops. The damage the Romans did was actually fairly slight. The second attack may have been the worst. This occurred when Aurelian attacked the library. What was left of it was taken back to Contantinople. However, there was a third attack in 391 when Theodosius ordered the destruction of all the pagan temples. The library was considered to be a pagan temple because it glorified the Muse. The Muslims may have finished it off around 640 or so. But the library at Pergamon was still there, and it was about half the size of the library at Alexandria. In addition to this, there were large numbers of scrolls in the hands of private collectors, private tutors and universities. Also, royalty and lesser nobility had possession of some of these things. We do not know for sure what was in either of these libraries, because no index of either of them exists.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Spellbinder Inner circle The Holy City of East Orange, NJ 6438 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-03-25 12:27, clynim wrote: What you call the "steam engine," Heron called the "aeolipile".
Professor Spellbinder
Professor Emeritus at the Turkey Buzzard Academy of Magik, Witchcraft and Wizardry http://www.magicnook.com Publisher of The Wizards' Journals |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
This was not a piston style steam engine, such as the ones used today. It was basically a steam operated whirligig. But it was the first steam engine. His contemporaries probably regarded it as a toy.
The "Ancient Death Ray" is a myth, pure and simple. Mythbusters did a simulation of the "Ancient Death Ray" that used mirrors to focus light on a wooden boat. It wouldn't even light gasoline. The Greeks did have Greek fire. It was basically similar to what we now call Napalm. It wasn't as highly refined, but if you threw a few barrels of that stuff on the deck of a wooden ship, then sent a few fire arrows over, you would have your enemies popping off the decks of the ships like rats.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
So we don't really know what the first recorded trick was then. What if its realy one of 'the miracles' that was so very well done?
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Spellbinder Inner circle The Holy City of East Orange, NJ 6438 Posts |
No, we DO know what the first recorded magic trick was. It was the cutting off of the heads of animals and restoring them (in the 25th century BC) as recorded on the Westcar Papyrus (18th century BC). The thread has just been speculating if anything could be found older than that using archeological evidence as a "record." So far the archelological evidence only goes back to the 16th century BC with the oraclular bones of the Sheng Dynasty in China and the evidence of occupation found at the oracle's shrine at Delphi in Greece.
Professor Spellbinder
Professor Emeritus at the Turkey Buzzard Academy of Magik, Witchcraft and Wizardry http://www.magicnook.com Publisher of The Wizards' Journals |
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Tony Webs Regular user 134 Posts |
Thanks spellbinder, I had read about dedi befor just didn't know what scroll he was recorded on.
kind regards from Tony |
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DStachowiak Inner circle Baltimore, MD 2158 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-03-25 14:24, Bill Palmer wrote: I never cite Wikipedia as a source, because of the questionable provenance of so much of the information, but it is often a great starting point for searches, and many of the secondary links can also be used to locate related information.Like my Mother always told me- "Consider the Source!"
Woke up.
Fell out of bed. Dragged a comb across m' head. |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
Normally, I wouldn't, but this particular article appeared to be well-documented. It presents several different viewpoints.
Regarding which trick is the oldest, the Dedi reference is probably the first. The Wescar Papyrus was thought to be lost until recently. It is in the Egyptologisches Museum in Berlin. The museum was in East Berlin until the wall came down. I believe we can safely say that the cups and balls is the oldest sleight of hand trick, though.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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