Swept Under the Rug Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carnac Stones

The Carnac Stones, all 3,000 of them, were set up in rows and groups near Carnac, France, between 3,300 BC and 4,500 BC. One of the largest groupings, twelve rows, is over a kilometer in length. They may have astronomical significance but no one is really sure. One popular myth is that the wizard Merlin turned a Roman legion to stone. Another is that Pope Cornelius turned some pagan soldiers to stone. The guesses go on and on.

Johnny Carson, a long-time host of the U.S. TV program "The Tonight Show" had as a character Carnac The Magnificent, a seer who could divine answers to questions in sealed envelopes.

Answer: Voynich Manuscript

The codex is named for Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who bought it in 1912. The book has about 240 pages, some of them fold-out. Some pages have gone missing over time. Most pages have illustrations, many botanical, some possibly astronomical.

Many are painted but experts think that was done long after the book was written. The original binding has been replaced and there are no title pages. It is written in an unknown language which appears to have 20 to 25 characters. Even codebreakers from both World Wars have been unable to decipher it, but they think the words have not been encoded.

There are occasional notes in the margins in Latin and High German, written later. The book now resides in the Yale University library.

Answer: Helike

Helike was an important Greek city located near the Gulf of Corinth. In 373 BC an earthquake caused a tsunami that completely destroyed the city and all of its inhabitants and caused it to sink below sea level. It was an important city, a member of the Achaean League, had two colonies in the Mediterranean Sea and had its own coinage.

The lagoon it was in eventually filled with river silt; for a while it was considered just a legend. Over time, though, dozens of people searched for it until it was finally uncovered in 2001.

There is conjecture that Helike's submergence might have been the basis for Plato's story about Atlantis.

Answer: astronomical computer

The device, which was about the size of a mantel clock, was an analog astronomical computer, which had at least thirty bronze gears. It could not only show astral positions but attempted to describe the elliptical orbits of some astral bodies. As well, it could predict solar eclipses and keep track of the timing of the Olympic games. It appears, from some of the settings, that it was built to be used in Corinth, Greece. Built between 100 and 200 B.C., it shows the knowledge (and engineering capability) of the Greeks and for a long time was considered a representation of what the Greeks knew about the universe. But in the 21st century, some scientists and scholars have noticed that some of the mathematics involved appear to be more Babylonian arithmetic than Greek trigonometry. They now wonder if perhaps much of what we credit the Greeks for, in knowledge of the universe, might first have been determined by the Babylonians.

As for the engineering skills involved in the device, which had at least 82 separate pieces, nothing that complex has been found until the development of astronomical clocks in Europe in the 14th century.

Answer: Nimrud

The Nimrud lens was made almost 3,000 years ago. It was found in what was Nimrud, Assyria. It might have been made on a lapidary wheel and has about a 3-power magnification. Scientists don't know if it was a magnifying glass, a burning-glass to start fires, part of a telescope or a furniture decoration. One interesting note is that although the Assyrians were not known to use telescopes, they believed the planet Saturn was a god, surrounded by a ring of serpents; Saturn's rings cannot be seen without a telescope.

Answer: Longyou

The Longyou caves were excavated by hand around 2,000 years ago. The first was found when a local villager pumped water out of one of several caves in the area. They turned out to be man-made rather than natural. Two dozen have been found and pumped out so far. Most are large grottoes, 10,700 sq ft (1,000 sq m) and 100 feet (30 m) high.

It's estimated it would have taken 1,000 people working non-stop six years to make them. Most every surface in each cave is covered with parallel lines of the same size and depth so the work probably took much longer.

They were carved out of siltstone but no one knows how, since no tools or construction materials were found in any of the caves and no one knows where the 30,000 square meters of stone went to. There is no mention of them in any old text.

Many of the cave walls have a consistent 18 inch (50 cm) thickness between any two caves, indicating advanced construction knowledge. No one has any idea what they might have been used for.

Answer: Baalbek

Baalbek is located about midway between Beirut and Damascus. There are some Roman ruins there but the area may have been inhabited for 9,000 years. It got its name from the god Baal, worshipped by the Phoenicians; the Greeks renamed it Heliopolis. As part of the complex there are huge foundation stones; archeologists do not know for certain how they were quarried and transported a kilometer to their final destination. More curious is that the foundation stones, some weighing 1,100 tons, were two to three times larger than they needed to be. Why drag all that extra weight around the countryside? This led to the wild theory that the extra weight was needed because the ruins were a spaceship landing pad.

The Romans built three temples there, starting in 15 BC, to honor Jupiter, Venus and Bacchus. They are the largest Roman temples outside of Rome, and larger than some there. The complex took about 300 years to complete. Another temple, dedicated to Mercury, was built nearby. No one knows why such large temples were built so far from Rome, or why Roman emperors traveled so far to receive guidance from oracles. No Roman or Greek records (or any other) have been found explaining why such large-scale construction took place there.

Answer: Indus Valley

The Indus Valley was located in parts of Pakistan, northwest India and some of Afghanistan. It was an early culture, along with Egypt and Mesopotamia. Its roots go back as much as 3,300 years ago. It was centered along the Indus and Sarasvati Rivers and had several major urban centers which showed sophisticated planning and infrastructure. Over 1,000 cities and settlements have been found which may have been home to as many as 5 million people.

They apparently had a hieroglyphic language, which has yet to be deciphered. Around 1,800 BC the civilization began to decline. Scholars are not completely sure why.

The Sarasvati River began to dry up but the people of the area didn't do much farming; they bought most of what they needed from others.

Another explanation is an invasion by an Indo-European tribe known as Aryans. Climate change has also been put forth as a possible explanation and it may be that all of these played a part. But a once-flourishing civilization has left us with many guesses and few answers.

Answer: a language

Easter Island is thousands of miles from land in any direction but it had a robust culture, as evidenced by its artifacts. Some of those artifacts are wooden boards on which are carved glyphs which may have been a language. Like some others, it has so far remained undeciphered.

The characters are human, animal, vegetable and geometric in nature. Some scholars believe it is proto-writing, transmitting ideas rather than words. First found by explorers in 1864, some of the glyphs seem to predate that period by at least 200 years. Islanders did not claim to understand it, either.

The carvings are done in an orderly process, so they seem to be designed to convey some meaning. Researchers hope that if it is ever translated it will shed more light on the civilization that inhabited the island.

Answer: Turkey

Gobekli Tepe, in southeastern Turkey, near Urfa, may be as much as 12,000 years old. It was first thought to be an ancient cemetery but closer examination revealed that what were thought to be grave markers were actually t-shaped limestone pillars, some being 20 ft (6 m) tall and weighing up to twenty tons.

They were fitted into sockets chiseled out of bedrock. Twenty circles of stones, comprising 200 pillars have been found. The construction is reminiscent of Stonehenge but is about 6,000 years older, the pillars are heavier and do not have stones laid crossways on top of them.

Some are plain, others have animal carvings on them. The people living there at the time did not use metal tools, only stone, and did not know of the wheel. How they cut and moved the pillars several hundred feet to the construction sites is not known.

The lack of evidence of habitation in the area leads archeologists to reason that they had ceremonial purposes.