Gympie and ancient history

[Old Bob]

Gympie has a history of mining long before our settlement. A statue was plowed up in the forties. It is in the museum and seems that gold was mined by Phoenician using Indians as slaves who were abanded to become our natives Australians. 40,000 years may be wrong as our dingo is really the Indian jackal. Google "Gympie Pyramid". A more realistic time may be 10,000 years. DNA goes back to India.

 

[arthwollipot]

Um, okay.

The first site I get when I google is this one, which on its front page has the words

This is the official Gympie Pyramid site of the Dhamurian Society, the current caretakers of the property.

Please NOTE:
The Gympie Pyramid is situated on PRIVATE PROPERTY and is NOT open to the general public. Bonafide researchers may contact us to discuss our progress.

Hmmm, I thinks to myself. That's a good start. Not.

I see that the Dhamurian Society is:

A Resource Society for Shared Knowledge and Understandings of Ancient Cultural Concepts and Mysticisms, Lifestyles, Modern Teachings and Crafts; Research into Unexplained Phenomenon; and the Documentation of Australia's Unrecognised Ancient Histories, Seafaring and Land Mythologies, Historical Sites and Relics.

Pardon me if I feel that their motives and their methods are... shall we say... less than rigorously scientific. Here's a representative sample.

Anyway, As far as the Gympie Pyramid itself is concerned, I can see nothing on the site apart from a vague statement on the first page saying that it is "shrouded in mystery and controversy", and that "There have been many theories [about who built it], from Phoenicians to the Spanish, and from Aliens to modern Italian Winemakers." These theories are not explored on the website, but may be alluded to in the CD Book that is being sold on the site.

All in all, I can see nothing other than stonework and a very small amount of wild speculation.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Here's an interesting critical take on the subject:
http://www.skeptica.dk/arkiv_dk2/wheeler.htm

As also mentioned on Wikipedia, the pyramid shape is said to be due to terracing created for a vineyard by early settlers. The “statue” doesn’t seem like much to get excited about either. Wheeler says, “This statue is indeed crude, in fact my wife maintains that it's just a lump of rock and small daughter, when told it was the ‘Gympie Ape’, asked if it was upside-down.”

 

[Akhenaten]

Gympie has a history of mining long before our settlement. A statue was plowed up in the forties. It is in the museum and seems that gold was mined by Phoenician using Indians as slaves who were abanded to become our natives Australians. 40,000 years may be wrong as our dingo is really the Indian jackal. Google "Gympie Pyramid". A more realistic time may be 10,000 years. DNA goes back to India.

Realistic? Your "realistic" time for the arrival of Phoenecians with Indian slaves predates Phoenecia itself by 6½ thousand years, Did they come to Australia on their way to the Mediterranean? How? Why do you believe this stuff?

 

[Old Bob]

Realistic? Your "realistic" time for the arrival of Phoenecians with Indian slaves predates Phoenecia itself by 6½ thousand years, Did they come to Australia on their way to the Mediterranean? How? Why do you believe this stuff?

Well for starters our natives' DNA goes back to India. They are a mix of Papuan and Indian, they bred with the shorter thick set Papuan and also hunted and ate them and were still doing it in the eighteen hundreds. The "Jardiens" on the cape wrote about it and it's in the book "The Savage North". The Gympie pyramid was a mound with cut stone and statues which have since been sold overseas. The cut stone was used around Gympie as door thresholds and a church wall. In the thirties a rectangular structure in the near bye national park was dismantled I have seen a glass plate photo and it was cut stone and about 15m x 10m x about 4m high, impressive and was dozed by two locals. Paid for and dumped at sea by gov. A author (Greene) tried to interview one of the men many years later who was then in care, but he died after saying he would tell all as they were under the secret act. Also in the sixties a fishing competition was held on Frazer Island after a cyclone a old sand dune was partial washed away reviling ancient remains of a wooden ship. Well it was cold that night so the boys burnt it to keep warm. It was broken but described as Phoenician shape? Anybody that see's things different is suddenly wrong, history wouldn't lie to us or would they.

 

[MG1962]

Also in the sixties a fishing competition was held on Frazer Island after a cyclone a old sand dune was partial washed away reviling ancient remains of a wooden ship. Well it was cold that night so the boys burnt it to keep warm. It was broken but described as Phoenician shape? Anybody that see's things different is suddenly wrong, history wouldn't lie to us or would they.

Ohhh please.........Dont go there. Currently there are suspected to be at least three such wrecks on the Australian East Coast. And possibly another two on the southern coast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship#Portuguese_origin

Although this has been a bit of a fringe theory. There are apparently Aboriginal rock drawings in Sydney Harbour that pre-date the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.

Regardless of future research, the chances of any of these vessels being Phoenician is astronomical

 

[Damien Evans]

gympie has a history of mining long before our settlement. A statue was plowed up in the forties. It is in the museum and seems that gold was mined by phoenician using indians as slaves who were abanded to become our natives australians. 40,000 years may be wrong as our dingo is really the indian jackal. Google "gympie pyramid". A more realistic time may be 10,000 years. Dna goes back to india.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

 

[athon]

Gympie has a history of mining long before our settlement. A statue was plowed up in the forties. It is in the museum and seems that gold was mined by Phoenician using Indians as slaves who were abanded to become our natives Australians. 40,000 years may be wrong as our dingo is really the Indian jackal. Google "Gympie Pyramid". A more realistic time may be 10,000 years. DNA goes back to India.

Interesting story. Pity it runs against the evidence, and presents no solid reason why that evidence might be incorrect or misleading.

40 000 of occupation is based more on just a guess. There is ample evidence dating indigenous people being in Australia back as far, if not further. To dismiss that evidence you'd need to provide something that took into account the observations that gives rise to it and provide something additional. Dare I say, something more than stories of wooden shipwrecks and alleged statues.

Come back when that happens.

Athon

 

[politas]

40,000 years may be wrong as our dingo is really the Indian jackal.

No, it really isn't. Dingos are descended from domesticated dogs, which is why they can interbreed with domestic dogs, but not with wolves.

DNA goes back to India.

Actually, that wouldn't surprise me all that much. Since homo sapiens arose in Africa, the ones living "natively" in Australia pretty much had to have migrated through India to get here.

 

[Old Bob]

Perhaps some of the enlightened ha ha people could tell us who built the sea wall that is now in the mangrove swamp at Sarina (up the coast north of Gympie) and it wasn't the Aborigine although they did use it as a fish trap in the past and it has slag material from a ancient smelter? Could it have been the Gympie mob?

 

[Sideroxylon]

Perhaps some of the enlightened ha ha people could tell us who built the sea wall that is now in the mangrove swamp at Sarina (up the coast north of Gympie) and it wasn't the Aborigine although they did use it as a fish trap in the past and it has slag material from a ancient smelter? Could it have been the Gympie mob?

How about you help us out here with a few links.
Anyway, how do you know this sea wall was not built by Aborigines?
What evidence is there that the wall contains slag material from an ancient smelter?
Why do you think anthropologists are not all over this place examining and reporting on things?

 

[athon]

Perhaps some of the enlightened ha ha people could tell us who built the sea wall that is now in the mangrove swamp at Sarina (up the coast north of Gympie) and it wasn't the Aborigine although they did use it as a fish trap in the past and it has slag material from a ancient smelter? Could it have been the Gympie mob?

How about telling us how you know it wasn't an indigenous construction? And before you go on about the Aborigines not building permanent constructions, there's plenty of evidence saying otherwise.

As for 'slag material', you'll need to provide something more than just allegations there. I know of indigenous fish traps up around north Queensland, but I've never heard of any ancient slag samples or the like.

Athon

 

[athon]

OK, after some quick searching, the only references I can find are care of one 'Val Osborn', who seems to be a local who has made some claims. No solid evidence that I can find. I'm not even sure who this Osborn is - so far I can't find anything about him other than he's somebody who has claimed to have found evidence of ancient smelting and Phoenician occupation.

I've found a couple of sites like this one that presents a lot of the same old claims. My doubts are increased by including a few hoaxes on there (I'm aware of the one in Ipswich, which is where I was born. I recall the story of the find of Egyptian treasure, which briefly made the news before being found to be a load of bollocks by a researcher from the University of Queensland).

In other words, lots of the same-old rumour and make believe, but nothing supportive. Amateur gold prospectors wanting their five minutes of fame, basically.

Maybe somebody else can shed some more light on this?

Athon

 

[Magenta]

There's more here (haven't looked at it all):

Phoenicians in Australia


A lot of crazy claims have been made about the Phoenicians. Not content with them having created possibly the world's first alphabet, established an unprecedented trading empire and given the world the color purple, some amateur historians claim that the ancient seafarers also beat Columbus to the New World by a good 3,000 years.

Now, (name withheld), an amateur archeologist from Australia, says the Phoenicians discovered Down Under and established a trading center near Brisbane on the Queensland coast. A conspiracy theorist, he claims the Australian government has known about this for 40 years but has kept the discoveries quiet for fears of further upsetting Aboriginal sentiments. Osborne claims that the site contains a cemetery, a temple, the remains of port walls and stone sculptures -- several of which, he says, have already ended up in private collections. Gripping stuff. But so far, no one has seen any proof.

Here in Lebanon, the Phoenician motherland, Osborne's claims are met with a skepticism that borders on derision. "So far there is no evidence of the Phoenicians crossing the Atlantic, let alone going all the way to Australia," said Helen Sader, an expert in Phoenician history at the American University of Beirut. "The claims are unsubstantiated. Until we have some scientific evidence, from what we know, it's impossible."

But lack of hard evidence hasn't discouraged the faithful. The announcement, published by The Associated Press in July, led to a rash of postings on alternative history Web sites, where believers have been making similar claims for years.[...]

 

[Foolmewunz]

OK, after some quick searching, the only references I can find are care of one 'Val Osborn', who seems to be a local who has made some claims. No solid evidence that I can find. I'm not even sure who this Osborn is - so far I can't find anything about him other than he's somebody who has claimed to have found evidence of ancient smelting and Phoenician occupation.

I've found a couple of sites like this one that presents a lot of the same old claims. My doubts are increased by including a few hoaxes on there (I'm aware of the one in Ipswich, which is where I was born. I recall the story of the find of Egyptian treasure, which briefly made the news before being found to be a load of bollocks by a researcher from the University of Queensland).

In other words, lots of the same-old rumour and make believe, but nothing supportive. Amateur gold prospectors wanting their five minutes of fame, basically.

Maybe somebody else can shed some more light on this?

Athon

Obviously Old Bob's right. They've got you block under the terms of The Secrets Act. Follow the link Sideroxylon posted in his/her first post, above. Then goodle Marilyn Pye for the motherlode of woo.
(Great link, Sideroxylon - funny writing and nice touch to his debunking.)

 

[athon]

Obviously Old Bob's right. They've got you block under the terms of The Secrets Act. Follow the link Sideroxylon posted in his/her first post, above. Then goodle Marilyn Pye for the motherlode of woo.
(Great link, Sideroxylon - funny writing and nice touch to his debunking.)

Yeah, I found some of the stuff on Pye. I was mostly looking for this other Phoenician nonsense.

Interesting bit in that link, though, about the Queensland Museum having some grand artifact. It's one of those common urban legends that routinely came up a while back, about local strange artifacts that had in their collection. The museum moved a couple of decades back to its current location, from Fortitude Valley. There were all sorts of claims about things the museum has hidden. Sadly, according to a mate of mine who worked there through the period, the truth is a little more boring. No secret stash, at least as far as he was aware of.

Athon

 

[Foolmewunz]

Is this pseudo archaelogy a growing trend in Oz? Or do we just have a nutbar magnet attached to the JREF?

We had that guy who insisted that his alter-ego was a renowned biblical scholar and archaeologist and discovered Encarta disks (or Discovery Channel, or something similar) in the hieroglyphics. He was pulling it all out of his derriere, too - just like Marilyn Pye.

 

[athon]

Is this pseudo archaelogy a growing trend in Oz? Or do we just have a nutbar magnet attached to the JREF?

I wouldn't say growing - there's always been an element, though. I've met a couple in my day.

We had that guy who insisted that his alter-ego was a renowned biblical scholar and archaeologist and discovered Encarta disks (or Discovery Channel, or something similar) in the hieroglyphics. He was pulling it all out of his derriere, too - just like Marilyn Pye.

There are a lot of claims in this country of Australia being found or colonised long before Cook's expedition. Of course, a good proportion do check out. The Dutch, for instance, definitely bumped into the western coast. There is some interesting (but far from conclusive) genetic suggestion of Dutch ancestry having interbred with an indigenous tribe in the north west. There's evidence of Portugese ships wrecked around the coast. On the other hand, from what I understand the evidence for Chinese discovery is flimsy at best. One of the local skeptics (used to be on the forums under Byzantine Magpie) did a bit of research on it and has a lot to say on the matter.

There's just something about Australia that makes people want to see it as some sort of reverse Atlantis.

Athon

 

[lionking]

Is this pseudo archaelogy a growing trend in Oz? Or do we just have a nutbar magnet attached to the JREF?

The latter.

 

[Old Bob]

Another intriguing bit is a cemetery of about 200+ only traces left all facing north on a ley in private property. All our Sun God worship lot face the east. What culture bury there dead facing north? Acid soil doesn't leave much, anyway they should be left alone. Grave digging is disgraceful after any period of time even if some have treasure I won't touch it nor disclose it's site. Neat rows about 8ft apart.