You know, The Lord of the Rings – a contemporary mythical fiction novel that Tolkien was inspired by “flaming fountain” Stromboli, a volcano in Sicily, was known as the “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean”.
It is proof that not all fictional stories are purely a product of the imagination. And here are six famous legends, exaggerated, poetic and mystified from real historical events.
Crater Lake was created after a terrible volcanic eruption, which the natives thought was a battle between the gods.
The Klamath – an indigenous tribe in America – believe that Crater Lake in Oregon was once a high mountain called Mazama. In the past, this was the living place of Llao, the supreme god of the underworld.
Their epic tells of the terrible battle between Llao and Skell – the lord of the sky. At that time, heaven and earth shook, and curses and curses covered the sky of Mazama and the area near Mount Shasta.
Llao lost the battle and fled underground. Skell knocked down Mount Mazama and imprisoned Llao forever, before “decorating” a beautiful blue lake atop this majestic prison.
In fact, this legend is a product of folklore inspired by a volcanic eruption 7,700 years ago. According to geologists, this eruption was 40 times more destructive than the famous 1980 event at Mount St. Helens. A huge magma reservoir in the ground blew away part of the Earth’s crust, creating a huge crater that later became Crater Lake due to stagnant rainwater for a long time.
Satellite image of Rama Bridge
The Ramayana is a famous Indian epic with classic motifs.
Sita, Rama’s wife, is kidnapped and taken to the Demon Kingdom on the island of Lanka. Rama and his brother Lakshman gathered an army of servants (monkeys) and built a floating bridge (Rama Bridge) spanning from India to the Demon Kingdom, defeating the demon king Ravana and rescuing Sita.
Although the story sounds figurative and fanciful, the bridge actually exists. Aerial surveys clearly show a 48km stretch of limestone and sand just below the surface of the water connecting the two lands. Parts of the bridge are just a few meters above the water.
It is clearly what inspired the ancient Hindus to build a piece of the epic. The bridge is said to have remained afloat until it was engulfed by a hurricane accompanied by a massive storm in the 15th century.
The image simulates the supernova crossbow, what the ancients called the mysterious Hakka.
Around the year 1006, astronomers around the world discovered a star they called Hakka in Earth’s sky. The Persian scholar Ibn Sina gave the most detailed description of this star.
In the Kitab al-Shifa (Book of Salvation), he described a star that appeared for only a few months in the sky, constantly changing color and sending out sparks before disappearing.
For a long time, this object was suspected to be a comet. Today, however, that mysterious color-changing star is what we call the supernova SN 1006.
A supernova explosion occurred 7,200 years ago, and it was not until the first millennium that its light passed across Earth’s sky. Although its visible wavelengths have since disappeared from view, the energetic remnants emitted by SN 1006 are still observable by NASA’s Chand Chandra observatory.
The collision of two stars creates a supernova energy explosion, accompanied by a variety of colors. This is also the explanation for the continuous change of color of the guest.
Sina’s records not only help prove this legend is true, but also provide data to help modern astronomers gather as much information about this astronomical phenomenon as possible.
The Minoan Empire may have been the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis.
One of the most famous myths in human history is Atlantis – an undersea civilization.
The myth of Atlantis was first described by the famous Greek philosopher – Plato. The legend tells of a brilliant civilization that suddenly sank deep and disappeared forever under the waves. Atlantis has caused a lot of controversy, however, some archaeologists believe that it was built on the collapse of the Minoan empire.
About 3,650 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption rocked Thera, the island in the southern Aegean Sea 200km southeast of mainland Greece, which we now call Santorini. The giant “wave” of magma quickly and brutally wiped out most of the island, followed by a tsunami from the Aegean Sea that swept over Crete and engulfed most of Thera.
The Minoan civilization sank beneath the waves and there were no more ruins left.
Thunderbird – a divine bird capable of calling thunder and calling for lightning.
Another Native American myth tells of the Thunderbird, a supernatural creature capable of calling thunder, a divine beast that helped the people of Quileute destroy the evil whale who was depriving them of resources day by day. tribal origin.
Ke eight ounces, the pound. The fierce battle between the Thunderbird and the whale took place very hard. The violent waves created by the battle between the sky and the sea hit the land, claiming the lives of many people.
In the end, the Thunderbird finished off the whale by snatching it out of the water – where it could use its greatest strength – and then dropping it from above to land, creating a huge shockwave. an entire region.
Back in the 1980s, geologists discovered evidence that an earthquake large enough to generate a tsunami occurred in 1,700 in the Pacific Northwest. The tsunami not only affected a part of the coast of the Americas, where the Quileute tribe lived, but it was so powerful that it shook Japan.
In addition, Aiornis, a giant prehistoric bird may have inspired the creation of the Thunderbird of these early North American inhabitants. The bird has a wingspan of up to 5m. Although it is not possible to lift a whale and release it to land, they often swoop down to the surface to eat meat from whale carcasses.
Noah’s ark full of animals avoids the Great Flood.
Surely Noah’s ark full of animals to avoid the Great Flood is not strange to us. Whether the boat was real or not has not been discussed, but many texts suggest that the flood recorded in the Bible may have been built on an earlier legend: the Epic of Gilgamesh.
This Mesopotamian work dates from the 7th century BC. Many gods tried to create a great flood and destroy the world. One of the gods, Ea, revealed it to a man named Utu-napishtim and told him to build a boat to save himself and his family and the animals.
The story is part of the first great literary work in human history, quite similar to the one recorded in the Bible. So is there really a cataclysm?
Geological records show that meltwater from glaciers stopped flowing into the Black Sea (northern Turkey) 11,500 years ago, but headed towards the North Sea, causing the Black Sea water to begin to dry up. During the same period, the Mediterranean basin was continuously fed from the Atlantic Ocean.
Eventually, the excess water from the Mediterranean flooded into the Black Sea. This creates a large sedimentary band between the two seas. Anyone at that time could have witnessed a volume of water 200 times the volume of the water at Niagara Falls (USA) rushing into the Black Sea basin and filling it in just one day. An area the size of Manhattan (New York – 87km2) may have been submerged.
Myth is often something so beautiful, extraordinary, and breathtaking that it is hard to believe. In contrast, science only gives information about what actually exists. Yet, miraculously, science and myth are sometimes inseparable.
Although they are contradictory, they complement and support each other, so that sometimes science is myth and vice versa, myth is science.
Reference: Iflscience