An outstanding traveler of antiquity was the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus from the port city of Halicarnassus on the western coast of Asia Minor. He lived in an era when Ancient Greece waged a difficult struggle with the mighty Persian power. Herodotus decided to write the history of the Greco-Persian wars and tell in detail about the nature and life of the population of the countries that were under Persian rule at that time.

Herodotus' travels date back to 460-450. BC e. He visited Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Herodotus made a long journey to Scythia - the southern regions of the Russian Plain.

Before Herodotus, Scythia was little known to the Greeks, although they traded with it. Herodotus's information is of great importance for historians. Herodotus, who was born and raised in mountainous and wooded areas, was struck by Scythia with its huge treeless plains and rich pastures. The Scythian winter, lasting several months, seemed harsh to Herodotus. He wrote that in Scythia in winter, spilled water “does not make dirt” (that is, it freezes). Summer also seemed cold and rainy to him. Herodotus was also amazed by the huge rivers of Scythia - Hypanis (Southern Bug), Borysthenes (Dnieper), Tanais (Don) and others. He knew from childhood that in Greece rivers originate in the mountains, but in Scythia the mountains. No. In his opinion, these rivers had to begin in some large lakes. Despite this erroneous view, Herodotus generally correctly characterized the Scythian plain. Herodotus was especially interested in the tribes that inhabited Scythia and its neighboring regions. The Scythians, who lived in the steppe and partly forest-steppe zones, were divided into farmers and cattle breeders. The nomadic lifestyle of the Scythian herders seemed unusual to the Greeks.

Herodotus collected interesting, sometimes semi-fantastic information about the peoples who lived to the north and northeast of the Scythians. He learned about hunters - Tissagets and Irkas, who inhabited the “stony and uneven land” (probably the Urals and Kama region), and about the dense forests growing there, where beavers, otters and other fur-bearing animals live. Further, at the foot of high and inaccessible mountains (this is probably the Ural range), the Argypean tribes, who had shaved heads and flat faces with large chins, occupied the territory.

Herodotus was told that even further away lay the habitat of one-eyed people - the Arimaspians. There's a lot of gold there. But he is guarded by vultures - terrible monsters that look like lions, with eagle beaks and wings. In the Far North, beyond Scythia, there are uninhabited lands where it is very cold, there is snow all the time and it is night for six months.

From Scythia, Herodotus went to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. From the inhabitants of Colchis he learned that behind the mountains stretches a huge sea (the Caspian), and beyond it is a vast plain. Warlike tribes live there - the Massagetae. Before Herodotus, the Greeks imagined the Caspian Sea as a bay of the ocean and did not know what lay to the east of it.

Returning to his homeland, Herodotus after some time set off on a new journey - to the interior regions of the Asia Minor peninsula and the Mesopotamian lowland. He described in detail Babylon with its high stone walls, huge library and luxurious terraced gardens. In Mesopotamia, he was especially interested in date palms, from the fruits of which the population prepared bread, wine and honey. Herodotus liked the ships sailing on the Tigris and Euphrates. Their round body was made of willow twigs and covered with a leather cover.

In Babylon, Herodotus learned a lot about “the most remote of the countries of the East.” This is what India was like for the Greeks. He was told that gold is mined in huge quantities in India, that there are many strange plants there: reeds, bamboo, from one of which one can supposedly make a boat; a cereal whose grain is “cooked and eaten together with the husk” (rice); trees bear fruits in the form of a ball of wool - from which the inhabitants of India make their own clothing (cotton).

Herodotus spent a lot of time in Egypt. He visited the cities there, the famous pyramids and the Sphinx, and climbed up the Nile to Siena (modern Aswan). Herodotus noted the features of the nature of Egypt: the absence of clouds and rain, the rise and flood of water in the Nile during the hottest time of the year, animals unknown in Greece and Asia Minor (crocodiles, hippopotamuses, fish and birds).

After Egypt, Herodotus visited the cities of Northern Libya (Africa), where he collected interesting information about the inhabitants of the northern part of the African continent and oases in the desert sandy zone. Herodotus's information about the ancient population of the Sahara is confirmed by the latest archaeological data (drawings on rocks in Tibesti, Fezzan and Oran).

The great traveler of Ancient Greece was also an astronomer Pytheus from Massilia (Marseille). Pytheas's expedition was organized by the traders of Massilia to find routes to the distant northern countries where there was tin and amber. Pytheas not only fulfilled the orders of the merchants, but also made several geographical discoveries that glorified his name.

On such ships the Greeks sailed into the Atlantic Ocean.

Pytheas' journey began in March 325 BC. e. Two fifty-oared ships left the harbor of Massilia. Their path lay to the Strait of Gibraltar, which was in the hands of the Carthaginians and was closed to the passage of foreign ships. During a thunderstorm under the cover of a dark night, Pytheas managed to bypass the guards and go out into the Atlantic Ocean. Day and night the ships sailed west, then north, trying to move as far as possible from dangerous places.

While spending the night at the mouth of a river, Pytheas, observing the ebb and flow of the tides, the first expressed the correct idea that this phenomenon is associated with the attraction of the Earth’s water shell by the Moon.

Sailing north, Pytheas reached the large Celtic city of Carbilon at the mouth of the Loire. He learned from local residents that tin comes to them from more northern countries. On the coast of the Brittany peninsula and on the island of Uxysama (modern Ouessant in Western France), Pytheas met with the Veneti and Osismi tribes, who told him that tin was brought from the islands lying to the north. One of the islands is called Albion or Britain. Next to it lie the small islands of the Cassiterides (“Tin”). Taking an interpreter, Pytheas sailed further and, having reached a narrow strait (Pas de Calais), crossed to the island of Britain.

At the southwestern tip of the island, he became familiar with the mining and smelting of tin. Having purchased tin, Pytheas sent one ship to Carbilon, and on the other continued sailing north along the western coast of Britain.

Pytheas was the first to observe and establish the relationship between geographic latitude and the length of day and night. The further he moved north (and at that time it was summer in the Northern Hemisphere), the longer the day became. Off the northern coast of Britain, he noted the length of the day was 18 hours, and the night - 6 hours.

From the shores of Northern Scotland, Pytheas headed to the Orkney and Shetland Islands. From here he carried out the famous voyage to the distant country of Thule, with which the inhabitants of Britain traded. Where could this legendary country of Thule be located? Most modern scientists believe that Thule is the Trondheimsfjord area on the western coast of Norway at 64° N. w.

In ancient times, no traveler before Pytheas climbed to such high latitudes. Sailing along the southern shores of the North Sea, Pytheas reached the area where Germanic tribes lived, mining amber. They collected pieces of amber left by the sea on the shore at low tide. They exchanged this amber with the Celts for iron products. From the Celts, amber came to Massilia and other cities of the Mediterranean.

Pytheas failed to penetrate further to the east. Off the western coast of the Jutland Peninsula, he found himself in dense fog. Pytheas concluded that the human habitation area ends here. Having exchanged iron products for amber, Pytheas set off on his way back. He left descriptions of his travels, but they have not reached us completely. We know about them from those passages that have been preserved by other ancient authors.

1. FAMOUS TRAVELERS OF ANCIENT BPEMEH

Hanno (505) - Herodotus (484) - Pytheas (340) - Eudoxus (146) - Strabo (63)

Hanno of Carthage - Fortunate (Canary) Islands, Evening Horn, Southern Horn, Rio de Oro Bay - Herodotus visits Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Phenicia, Arabia, Babylonia, Persia, Media, Colchis, Caspian Sea, Scythia and Thrace - Pytheas explores the shores of Iberia and Celtis, the English Channel, the island of Albion, the Orcadian (Orkney) Islands, the land of Thule - Nearchus travels around the Asian coast from the Indus to the Persian Gulf - Eudoxus gets acquainted with the western coast of Africa - Strabo travels through Inner Asia, Egypt, Greece and Italy

The first traveler mentioned in historical sources was Hanno, sent by the Carthaginian 1 (numbers - see note at the end) Senate to colonize new territories on the west coast of Africa. The account of this expedition was written in Punic 2 and translated into Greek; it is known as “Hanno’s Sea Voyage Around the World.” What era did this explorer live in? Historians have different opinions. But the most reliable version is considered to be the one according to which his visit to the African shores dates back to 505 BC 3 .

Map of the Argonauts' voyage

The Southern Horn was, without a doubt, the final point reached by the Punic expedition. Some historians claim that the Carthaginian fleet did not go further than Cape Bojador, located two degrees north of the tropics, but the first point of view seems to us more likely.

Having reached the Southern Horn, Hanno began to lack food supplies. Then he turned north and returned to Carthage, where, by his order, a marble slab with a description of the journey “around the world” was placed in the temple of Baal Moloch.

After the Carthaginian navigator, the most famous of the ancient travelers in historical times was the Greek scientist Herodotus, nicknamed "the father of history." For our purpose we will separate the traveler from the historian and follow him to the countries he visited.

Greek galley. 500 BC

Herodotus born around 484 BC 9 in the Asia Minor city of Halicarnassus. He came from a wealthy and noble family with extensive trade connections, which may have contributed to the development of the instincts of a traveler and explorer awakened in the boy.

At that time, there was no consensus regarding the shape of the Earth. The Pythagorean school had already begun to spread the doctrine that the Earth was spherical. But Herodotus did not take any part in these disputes that worried the scientists of his time. In his early youth, he left his homeland with the intention of carefully studying distant countries, about which very scanty and contradictory information was received.

In 464, at the age of twenty, he left Halicarnassus. Apparently, Herodotus first went to Egypt, where he visited the cities of Memphis, Heliopolis and Thebes. During the trip, he managed to obtain a lot of valuable information about the Nile floods. In his notes, he gives various opinions regarding the sources of this great river, which the Egyptians revered as a deity.

“When the Nile floods,” says Herodotus, “nothing is visible except cities; they appear to be built on top of water and resemble the islands of the Aegean Sea.”

Herodotus talks about the religious rites of the Egyptians, how they make sacrifices to their gods and how they solemnly celebrate holidays in honor of the goddess Isis in the city of Busiris, the ruins of which are still visible today. Herodotus also reports how the Egyptians revered wild and domestic animals, considering them sacred, and gave them funeral honors. With the precision of a true naturalist, he describes the Nile crocodile and its habits; describes the methods by which crocodiles are caught. We find out what other animals there are and what the Egyptian hippopotamus, ibis bird, and various snakes are like.

Herodotus depicts the home life of the Egyptians, their customs, games, and talks about the art of embalming the dead, which the Egyptians mastered to perfection. Next, he reports what structures were erected under Pharaoh Cheops: a labyrinth built near Lake Merisa, the remains of which were discovered in 1799; Lake Meris, created by human hands, and two pyramids that rose above the surface of its waters; Herodotus speaks with surprise about the temples erected in Memphis, about the famous colossus made of solid stone, on the transportation of which two thousand people worked for three years from Elephantine 10 to Sais.

Having carefully studied Egypt, Herodotus headed to other countries of Libya, that is, Africa, but the young traveler did not even imagine that Africa extended far to the south, beyond the Tropic of Cancer; he believed that the Phoenicians could go around this continent and return to Egypt through the Strait of Gibraltar 11.

Egyptian ship. 1600 BC

Listing the peoples living in Libya, Herodotus mentions the shepherd tribes wandering along the coast of Africa, and also names the Ammonians, who live in the interior of the country, in places abounding in wild beasts. The Ammonians built the famous temple of Zeus of Ammon, the ruins of which were discovered in the northeast of the Libyan Desert, 500 kilometers from the city of Cairo 12. He also describes in detail the customs and morals of the Libyans and reports what animals are found in this country: snakes of terrible size, lions, elephants, horned donkeys (probably rhinoceroses), baboon monkeys - “headless animals with eyes on their chests”, foxes , hyenas, porcupines, wild sheep, panthers, etc.

According to Herodotus, Libya is inhabited by two peoples: Libyans and Ethiopians. But did he really travel through this country? Historians doubt this. Most likely, he wrote down many of the details from the words of the Egyptians. But there is no doubt that he really sailed to the city of Tyre, in Phenicia, since here he gives quite accurate descriptions. In addition, Herodotus collected information from which he compiled a brief description of Syria and Palestine.

Following this, Herodotus descends to the south - to Arabia, a country he calls Asian Ethiopia, that is, to that part of Southern Arabia, which he considers the last inhabited land. The Arabs living on the Arabian Peninsula, according to him, are strictly religious people. In their country valuable plants grow in abundance, from which frankincense and myrrh are obtained. The traveler provides interesting details about how fragrant substances are extracted from these plants.

Then we meet Herodotus in the countries he vaguely calls either Assyria or Babylonia. He begins his story about these countries with a careful description of Babylon, in which the kings lived since the destruction of the ancient capital of Nineveh. The ruins of Nineveh have survived to this day, in the form of mounds scattered along both banks of the Euphrates, at a distance of 78 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. The large, fast and deep Euphrates River then divided the city of Nineveh into two parts. In one there was a fortified royal palace, in the other - the temple of Zeus. Next, Herodotus speaks of the two queens of Babylon - Semiramis and Nitocris; then he goes on to describe crafts and agriculture, telling how wheat, barley, millet, sesame, grapes, fig trees and palm trees are cultivated in this country.

Having studied Babylon, Herodotus went to Persia and, since the purpose of his trip was to collect accurate information about the long Greco-Persian wars, he visited the places where these wars took place in order to obtain on the spot all the details he needed. Herodotus begins this part of his history with a description of the customs of the Persians. They, unlike other peoples, did not give their gods a human form, did not erect either temples or altars in their honor, content with performing religious rites on the tops of the mountains.

Next, Herodotus speaks about the life and morals of the Persians. They have an aversion to meat, a love of fruit, and a passion for wine; they show interest in foreign customs, love pleasure, value military valor, take raising children seriously, respect the right to life of everyone, even a slave; they hate lies and debts, and they despise lepers. The disease of leprosy serves as proof for them that “the unfortunate person has sinned against the Sun.”

The marriage was accompanied by nationwide publicity

Herodotus's India, according to Vivien de Saint-Martin 13 , is limited to the countries irrigated by the five tributaries of the present Panjnad, and to the territory of Afghanistan. The young traveler headed there, leaving the Persian kingdom 14. The Indians, in his opinion, are the most numerous of the known peoples. Some of them lead a sedentary lifestyle, others are constantly nomadic. The tribes living in the east of this country, as Herodotus claims, not only kill the sick and old people, but allegedly even eat them. The tribes living in the north are distinguished by their courage and skill in crafts. Their land is rich in golden sand.

Herodotus believes that India is the last inhabited country in the East. It maintains the same fertile climate at all times of the year as in Greece, located on the opposite end of the earth.

Then the indefatigable Herodotus went to Media, 15 where he compiled the history of the Medes, the first people to overthrow the yoke of the Assyrians. The Medes founded the huge city of Ecbatana (Hamadan), which was surrounded by seven rows of walls. Having crossed the mountains that separated Media from Colchis, the Greek traveler entered the country famous for the exploits of Jason 16 and studied its customs and customs with his characteristic conscientiousness.

Athenian merchant ship. 500 BC

Herodotus, apparently, was well acquainted with the contours of the Caspian Sea. He says that "this sea is in itself, and has no communication with another." The Caspian Sea, according to him, is limited in the west by the Caucasus Mountains, and in the east by a vast plain inhabited by the Massagetae, who probably belonged to the Scythian tribe. The Massagetae worshiped the sun and sacrificed horses to it. Herodotus also speaks of the great river Arak, which flows into the Caspian Sea.

Then the traveler ends up in Scythia. Scythians - according to Herodotus' definition - are various tribes inhabiting the vast space between the Danube and Don, that is, a significant part of European Russia. Herodotus calls the tribe of “princely Scythians” who occupied the banks of the Tanais (Don) river the most numerous and powerful. In addition, Herodotus mentions the tribes of Scythian nomads and Scythian farmers.

Although Herodotus lists various Scythian tribes, it is not known whether he personally visited the countries located north of Pontus Euxine 17. He describes in detail the customs of these tribes and comes into sincere delight from the Pontus Euxine - this “hospitable sea”. Herodotus determines the dimensions of the Black Sea, the Bosporus, the Propontis 18 and the Sea of ​​Azov, and his definitions are almost correct. He lists the large rivers flowing into the Black Sea: Istr, or Danube; Borysthenes, or Dnieper; Tanais, or Don.

The traveler conveys many myths about the origin of the Scythian people; in these myths, a large role is given to Hercules. He ends his description of Scythia with a story about the marriages of Scythians with warlike women from the Amazon tribe, which, in his opinion, can explain the Scythian custom that a girl cannot get married until she kills an enemy.

From Scythia, Herodotus arrived in Thrace. There he learned about the Hets - the most courageous people who inhabited this country 19. He then traveled to Greece, where he wanted to collect the missing information for his history. He visited areas where the main events of the Greco-Persian wars took place, including the Passage of Thermopylae, the Field of Marathon and Plataea. He then returned to Asia Minor and traveled around its coast, exploring the numerous colonies founded there by the Greeks.

Returning at the age of 28 to his homeland, Halicarnassus, the famous traveler took part in the popular movement against the tyrant Lygdamis and contributed to his overthrow. In 444 BC, Herodotus attended the Panathenaic festivals and read excerpts from the description of his travels there, arousing general enthusiasm. At the end of his life, he retired to Italy, to Turium, where he died in 426 BC, leaving behind him the fame of a famous traveler and an even more famous historian.

After Herodotus, we will step a century and a half later, mentioning a doctor by name Ctesias, a contemporary of Xenophon 20. Ctesias wrote an account of his journey through India, although there is no reliable information that he actually completed it.

In chronological order, let us now move on to Pytheas from Massilia - to a traveler, geographer and astronomer, one of the most learned men of his time. In 340 BC, Pytheas ventured to sail the Atlantic Ocean on a single ship. Instead of following the coast of Africa to the south, as his Carthaginian predecessors usually did, Pytheas went north, where he began exploring the coast of the Iberian Peninsula 21 and the coast of the Celtic country, right up to the granite Cape Finisterre. Then Pytheas entered the English Channel and landed on the island of Albion 22. He met the inhabitants of this island, who, according to him, were distinguished by good nature, honesty, moderation and ingenuity. They traded in tin, for which traders from distant countries came here.

Continuing north, Pytheas passed the Orkney Islands, located at the northern tip of Scotland, and rose to a latitude where “in summer the night did not exceed two hours.” After a six-day voyage across the North Sea, Pytheas reached the land known since then as Ultima Thule. Apparently, this was the Scandinavian peninsula. But Pytheas was no longer able to move further north. “Further,” he says, “there was no sea, no land, no air.”

Pytheas was forced to turn back, but his journey did not end there: he sailed east and arrived at the mouth of the Rhine, where the Ostions lived, and even further the Germans. From there he sailed to the mouth of a large river, which he calls Thais (probably the Elbe), and then sailed back to Massilia and returned to his hometown a year after he left it.

The remarkable traveler Pytheas was no less a remarkable scientist; He was the first to prove the influence of the Moon on the ebb and flow of the sea and noticed that the North Star does not occupy a point in celestial space that is located above the earth's pole, which was subsequently confirmed by science.

A few years after Pytheas, around 326 BC, another Greek traveler became famous for his research - Nearchs islands of Crete. As commander of the fleet of Alexander the Great, he was ordered to travel around the entire coast of Asia from the Indus to the Euphrates.

Nearchus sailors scare the whales

The idea of ​​such an expedition was prompted by the need to establish communications between India and Egypt, in which Alexander was extremely interested, being at that time with his army 800 miles from the coast, in the upper reaches of the Indus. The commander equipped a fleet for Nearchus, consisting of thirty-three double-decker galleys and a large number of transport ships, which accommodated two thousand people. While Nearchus sailed with his fleet down the Indus, Alexander's army followed him on both banks. Having reached the Indian Ocean four months later, Nearchus sailed along the coast that now forms the border of Balochistan.

Nearchus set out to sea on the second of October, without waiting for the winter monsoon, which could have been favorable for his voyage. Therefore, in forty days of travel, Nearchus barely managed to swim 80 miles to the west. His first sites were made in Stura and Koreistis; these names do not correspond to any of the current villages located in those places. Then he sailed to the island of Krokala, which lies near the modern Karantian Bay. The fleet, destroyed by storms, took refuge in a natural harbor, which Nearchus was forced to strengthen “to protect against the attack of savages.”

Twenty-four days later, the naval commander of Alexander the Great again raised the sails and set off to sea. Violent storms forced him to make frequent stops at various places on the coast and defend himself from attacks by the Arabites, whom Eastern historians characterized as “a barbarian people who wear long hair, grow beards and look like fauns or bears.”

After many adventures and skirmishes with coastal tribes, Nearchus landed on the land of the Orites, which in modern geography bears the name: Cape Moran. “In this area,” notes Nearchus, describing his journey, “the sun at noon illuminated all objects vertically, and they did not cast shadows.” But Nearchus is apparently mistaken, since at this time of year the daylight was in the southern hemisphere, on the Tropic of Capricorn, and not in the northern hemisphere; in addition, the ships of Nearchus always sailed at a distance of several degrees from the Tropic of Cancer; therefore, even in summer in these areas, the sun at noon could not illuminate objects vertically.

When the northeast monsoon set in, sailing continued under favorable conditions. Nearchus followed the coast of the country of ichthyophages, that is, “people who eat fish” - a rather pitiful tribe who, due to a lack of pasture, were forced to feed their sheep with seafood. Here Nearchus's fleet began to lack food supplies. Having rounded Cape Posmi, Nearchus took a native helmsman into his galley. Driven by coastal winds, Nearchus' ships successfully moved forward. The coast became less barren. There were trees here and there. Nearchus landed at a city of ichthyophages, the name of which he does not indicate, and, suddenly attacking the inhabitants, forcibly seized from them the supplies that his fleet so needed.

Then the ships arrived in Kanazida, in other words, the city of Churbar. The ruins of this city can still be seen near the bay of the same name. By that time, the Macedonians were already running out of bread. It was in vain that Nearchus stopped in Kanata, in Troy and in Dagazir - he was unable to obtain anything from these poor peoples. The sailors had no more meat or bread, and yet they did not dare to eat turtles, which abound in these countries.

Almost at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, the fleet encountered a large herd of whales. The frightened sailors wanted to turn the galleys back, but Nearchus boldly went forward on his ship, towards the sea monsters, which they managed to disperse.

Having reached Carmania 23, the ships diverted to the northwest. The banks here were fertile; Everywhere there were grain fields, vast pastures, and fruit trees. Nearchus dropped anchor at Badis, present-day Iask. Then, having rounded Cape Maseta or Mussendon, the navigators found themselves at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, to which Nearchus, like the Arab geographers, gives the unusual name of the Red Sea.

In the harbor of Harmosia (Ormuz), Nearchus learned that Alexander's army was five days' journey away. Having landed on the shore, he hastened to join the conqueror. Alexander, having not received any news about his fleet for twenty-one weeks, no longer hoped to see it. One can imagine the commander’s joy when Nearchus, emaciated beyond recognition, appeared before him safe and sound! To celebrate his return, Alexander ordered gymnastic games to be held and abundant sacrifices to be made to the gods. Nearchus then went again to Harmosia, where he left his fleet to sail from there to the mouth of the Euphrates.

Sailing along the Persian Gulf, the Macedonian fleet landed on many islands, and then, rounding Cape Bestion, sailed to the island of Keisho, on the border of Carmania. Then Persia began. Nearchus' ships, following along the Persian coast, stopped in different places to stock up on bread, which Alexander sent here.

After several days of sailing, Nearchus arrived at the mouth of the Endiana River, then reached the river flowing from the large, fish-infested lake Kataderbis, and finally dropped anchor near the Babylonian village of Degela, not far from the mouth of the Euphrates, thus sailing along the entire Persian coast. Here Nearchus again united with the army of Alexander the Great, who generously rewarded him and appointed him commander of his entire fleet. Alexander also wanted to explore the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf, right up to the Red Sea, and establish a sea route from Persia and Babylon to Egypt, but death prevented him from carrying out this plan.

Nearchus compiled a description of his journey, which, unfortunately, has not survived. A detailed account of his voyages is contained in the book of the Greek historian Flavius ​​Arrian 24 “History of India”, which has come down to us in fragments.

Nearchus is believed to have been killed at the Battle of Ipsus. He left behind the glory of a skilled navigator, and his journey constitutes an important event in the history of navigation.

Now we should also mention the bold enterprise of the Greek geographer Eudoxa, who lived in the 2nd century BC. Having visited Egypt and the shores of India, this brave traveler had the intention of circumnavigating Africa, which was actually accomplished only sixteen centuries later by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama.

Eudoxus hired a large ship and two longboats and set sail through the unfamiliar waters of the Atlantic Ocean. How far did he take his ships? It's difficult to determine. Be that as it may, having met the natives, whom he mistook for Ethiopians, he returned to Mauritania, and from there crossed over to Iberia and began preparations for a new extensive journey around Africa. Was this journey made? Doubtful. It must be said that this Eudoxus, an undoubtedly brave man, does not deserve much trust. In any case, scientists do not take him seriously.

Roman galley. 110 BC

Among the ancient travelers it remains for us to mention the names of Caesar and Strabo. Julius Caesar 26, born in 100 BC, was primarily a conqueror and did not set out to explore new countries. Let us only recall that in 58 BC he began to conquer Gaul and ten years later he brought his legions to the shores of Great Britain, which was inhabited by peoples of Germanic origin.

As for , born in Cappadocia 27 around 63 AD, he is known more as a geographer than a traveler. However, he traveled through Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Italy and lived for a long time in Rome, where he died in the last years of the reign of Tiberius. Strabo left a Geography divided into seventeen books, most of which have survived to this day. This work, together with the works of Ptolemy, constitutes the most important monument of ancient Greek geography.

Ancient travelers

Official science claims that man descended from apes and the first anthropoid creatures were about 130 centimeters tall. A kind of Sharikov: with a fallen off tail, but on its hind legs. However, recent discoveries by archaeologists refute this seemingly unshakable fact. There is every reason to believe that ancient man, on the contrary, had gigantic dimensions and extremely developed intelligence.

Famous Russian medical scientist Ernst Muldashev I took this problem seriously when I received from my colleagues in Syria a photograph of a giant human foot print. Having gone on an expedition to the village of Ain Dara, he examined the amazing find, and it turned out that the length of the discovered foot of an ancient man was 90 centimeters. This is three times more than you and I have. And the imprint did not raise any doubts about its authenticity.

Ernst Muldashev, Doctor of Medical Sciences, states: “It wasn’t carved on stone, it wasn’t handmade, because I, as a doctor, understand what skin patterns and everything else are, and on this finely dispersed, figuratively speaking, cement, all the nuances of the structure of the foot emerged. Yes, this giant was more flat-footed, that is, the instep of the foot was smaller, but nevertheless it was a human leg.”

Scientists have calculated that the height of the giant from Syria, the owner of the found foot, must have reached at least ten meters, weight - three and a half tons. And this print was not the only one. At the same place - on the territory of the ancient temple - several more similar traces were discovered. Moreover, the ancient temple itself raised no less questions among scientists. It was built at the very top of the mountain from huge slabs carved from black basalt. But the nearest deposits of this rock were more than 600 kilometers away. The first question that scientists asked was: how were these giant slabs delivered here to Ain Dara?

And this is the so-called dead city. In the 4th century, the population left the city overnight for some unknown reason. However, the colonnade in Apamia has survived to this day. Creating such complex patterns on stone is not easy even with the help of ultra-modern laser equipment. What can we say about ancient man? It is generally accepted that these cities were built under Alexander the Great. Is it possible? After all, the commander lived only 35 years. And in those days there were neither giant cutters nor devices with a lifting capacity of tens of tons that would allow huge blocks to be dragged so quickly over many kilometers.

It is also difficult to answer the question of how another truly cyclopean structure was erected - the Baalbek sanctuary in Lebanon. At its base are monolithic stone blocks - each weighing more than eight hundred tons! When archaeologists come here, they will have to really rack their brains to figure out how ancient man, using ropes woven from branches and wooden rollers, moved these multi-ton blocks of skillfully processed stone.

Ernst Muldashev reflects: “Here is the Baalbek temple built from blocks, about two thousand tons each. Well, let's imagine that KamAZ lifts 15 tons, no more. How could ancient people build all this?”

The city has been in ruins for many centuries. Only six giant columns of the temple have survived. Their height is 22 meters. These are the tallest columns on Earth. Scientists say that they can be lifted only with modern lifting equipment. But who could provide it? According to Swiss archaeologist Eric von Däniken, these structures could have been built by representatives of an alien civilization. What if aliens have nothing to do with it after all? Could ancient man himself, without alien help, move these heavy cubes? It could, some scientists say. But on one condition - if the ancient man himself was a mountain man.

Alexander Voronin, historian, president of ROIPA: “The people, the ancient population who lived there, mostly Indians, Incas, said: “Before us, giants lived here, and through some magical manipulations, to the sound of trumpets, they seemed to lift these stones into the air and build gigantic architectural buildings "

Surprisingly, evidence that a race of giants inhabited the Earth before us is not only in the legends of illiterate Indians, but also in biblical texts. According to chroniclers, when Moses led the Jews from Egypt to ancient Palestine, they were met by giant creatures. Here is an almost diary entry about this meeting from the Book of Genesis:

“There we saw giants, the sons of the Innakovs from a giant family. And we were like locusts in our sight before them.”

The attitude of official science to this quote is curious. Considering Moses to be a real historical character, science does not question all the events described in the sacred texts. And for some reason historians consider only Moses’ meeting with the giants to be a fantasy of ancient authors. Meanwhile, the analysis of sacred texts gives amazing results.

This is how the creation of man is explained in Muslim holy book Koran: “Allah created Adam 60 cubits tall... Everyone who enters heaven will be like Adam, but people on Earth will shrink in size.”

Here is also a direct quote from an Islamic hadith, that is, a statement by the Prophet Muhammad, recorded by his disciples.

What amazing coincidences! Koran. Legends of the Aztec and Mayan Indians. And the Bible. Everyone unanimously affirms that ancient man was a gigantic, highly developed creature. Moreover, modern man is their direct descendant.

Colonnade in Apamia

Alexey Maslov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, orientalist: “We come across one of the most important episodes that there were contacts. This is the Book of Genesis, which says that between giants (but it does not say that these are giant men, just “giants”) and the daughters of men. And some offspring were born. And if we look carefully in the Bible, immediately after this there is a famous episode about the World Flood.”

If we assume that the sacred texts do not lie, then they amazingly confirm the latest finds of archaeologists and paint a completely different picture of the ancient world.

Alexander Koltypin says: “The legends of many peoples say that there lived certain mythical dragons, snake people, who were giants, their height reached 10–15 meters.”

And then it really turns out that the Egyptian pyramids were built 12-14 thousand years ago, even before the Flood, that is, before the global catastrophe. And they were built not by slaves with the help of ropes and logs, but by our distant ancestors - giants who could not survive the Flood because they were too big and clumsy. And there is also direct evidence of this in ancient texts.

Alexander Belov, paleontologist: “The Koran says that the giants died in a flood. They told Noah when he was building the ark: “We will not perish, we are great.” In fact, everyone died."

For a long time, official science considered the existence of antediluvian giant people to be just a fantasy. However, the situation was changed by a sensational discovery made in Hong Kong in 1935. Dutch anthropologist Ralph von Koennigswald discovered an ancient tooth during excavations. Yes, not simple, but six times more than usual. It was a real sensation. Later, other fragments of the remains of giant humanoid creatures were discovered. The scientist named the open species Gigantopithecus.

Alexander Belov: "Giganto" is a giant form, and "pithecus" is a monkey. In fact, he sent his findings to the famous paleoanthropologist Franz Weidenreich, who began to argue that we are not dealing with great apes, but with big people.”

Perhaps these finds became the first material evidence that giants really once lived on Earth. But paleontologist Franz Weidenreich went even further. It was he who first put forward the scientific hypothesis that prehistoric giants are the direct ancestors of homo sapiens. Official science did not support this theory and persistently continues to look for evidence that man descended from a monkey, although the transitional link from monkey to man has not yet been found. But there is more and more evidence of the existence of a giant man on earth. Especially many remains of giant-like people have been discovered today in China.

Alexey Maslov: “I saw in Henan - in the central province of China - tibia and fibula, vertebrae, which suggest that the creature was very tall. I also had to observe molars that clearly have the pattern of Dryopithecus, that is, this is what is called a human tooth.”.

Anthropologists consider the meganthropes to be the descendants of the Chinese giants, living in a later period - according to paleontologist Alexander Belov, about one and a half million years ago. Their remains were found on the island of Java, Burma, Vietnam, and Polynesia.

Alexander Belov: “The famous anthropologist Yakimov, former director of the Institute of Anthropology, generally believed that these gigantic forms reached five meters and weighed half a ton. That is, you understand that the existence of such huge people on the planet, in general, was news for anthropologists and for all of modern science.”

But why did ancient people, if they really existed, suffer from gigantomania? Why were they so huge? Maybe this is an exaggeration of ancient authors? The answer to this question, oddly enough, is easily given by paleontologists. It turns out that ancient man not only could, but even had to be a giant! For the same reason that all prehistoric animals were gigantic in size. The fact is that our planet was completely different many millennia ago. The climate was much milder, and the water of the ancient planet was incredibly rich in calcium. It was the excess calcium, which we use today to strengthen bones, that determined the similar size of the skeleton of an ancient dinosaur and a human.

Alexander Koltypin continues: “The earth, apparently, was spinning very quickly then. The length of the day at the end of the Cretaceous period could be about 8–9 hours. That is, day and night alternated literally every 4–4.5 hours. I think we observed approximately the same thing in the Paleogene period. And look at the interesting effect this led to: due to the rapid rotation of the Earth, there was a very strong centrifugal force, which acted maximally perpendicular to the Earth - at the equator, and it neutralized the force of gravity. Due to this, due to the “summation” of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the force of gravity was small. This led to the fact that giants could exist on Earth at that time. The pressure on Earth at that time, according to various estimates, for example by Dillo, was equal to approximately two atmospheres near the surface of the Earth. This is a very important question, by the way, for the existence of giants.”

But that is not all. Plant food on ancient Earth, it turns out, was also completely different. Interesting confirmation of this theory emerged from the study of ordinary amber. A huge amount of oxygen was discovered in ancient deposits of this mineral. This means that in the era of giants and prehistoric dinosaurs, the earth’s atmosphere contained many times more oxygen. This means that the plants that served as food were oversaturated with it. They were incredibly nutritious, which is what allowed our giant ancestors to gain enormous weight.

Alexander Koltypin: “The Aztec codes directly say that they were all giants. They were so large that they could uproot trees and ate only plant foods, which is also explained by the existence of other conditions on Earth: a different gravity, a different atmosphere - the body then could not consume meat.”

It’s hard to believe that peace-loving giant people could live at the same time as dinosaurs. After all, all history textbooks claim that these prehistoric animals became extinct long before the ancient monkey appeared on Earth. How then can science explain these incredible findings? In 1984, the German archaeologist Waldemar Julier Oud excavated an ancient burial site in the vicinity of the Mexican city of Acambo. Here he unexpectedly came across ceramic figurines depicting prehistoric animals, known to us only from reconstructions and science fiction films. Among them were dinosaurs, brachiosaurs, iguanodons, and even tyrannosaurs. At first, the archaeologist decided that these figurines ended up in the burial by accident. However, when an examination was carried out, the incredible was revealed - they were at least several thousand years old.

Alexander Koltypin: “It is believed that people at that time, even 6,000 years ago, who knew nothing about paleontology, could not make casts of dinosaurs. And there are also clay figurines of tyrannosaurs, stegosaurs, iguanodons and brontosaurs. That is, how modern paleontologists present them. Either they survived to our time, or the ancients who lived at that time used some kind of knowledge that cannot in any way be a modern fake, as paleontologists are trying to write off.”

But how could the ancient man who made these figures know what dinosaurs looked like if he had never seen them? After all, scientists learned to reconstruct the appearance of an animal from a skeleton relatively recently?

Image of a stegosaurus at the Angkor temple complex

Alexander Koltypin: “For example, in Cambodia, in the Angkor temple complex, I saw an image of a stegosaurus on the wall, which seemed to be taken from a paleontology textbook. And it was built around the 12th or 13th century AD. But then we believe that the people did not know paleontology. There is an image of a Tyrannosaurus rex in Colorado, and there are images of other animals in different places. That is, they were already painted relatively in our time.”

But the scientist was forced to draw an even more shocking conclusion when he extracted from the burial ancient figurines that depicted a dinosaur and a human together. It turns out that dinosaur hunters are not science fiction. But is ancient man really that ancient?

Matthew Corrano, Doctor of Paleontology, shares his thoughts: “When Waldemar Oud made his sensational discoveries in some places on the planet - figurines depicting dinosaurs and people, he put forward a bold version that man could really live in the same era as dinosaurs. You understand that such a revolutionary hypothesis could not find a response among scientists. After all, this would undermine all fundamental principles. Historical science preferred to go its own way.”

The fate of the German archaeologist, who announced his sensational discovery, turned out to be unenviable. He was accused of tampering with historical artifacts and scientific fraud. However, the scandal quickly faded away. The repeated examination, which, in theory, should have destroyed the scientist, turned out to be his triumph, because it unexpectedly confirmed the ancient age of the figurines found. It would seem that after this world science should have pounced on these figures and, in search of the truth, erased them into clay powder. However, this did not happen. The conspiracy of silence of world science has surrounded this sensational discovery for almost thirty years.

Alexander Koltypin: “The conclusion is that these stones are so ancient that they prove the existence of man in those days. That is, he himself appeared much earlier: not 200 thousand years ago, but 13 thousand or 16 thousand years ago. And the animals known to paleontologists survived until this time. Scientists do not admit that the figurines are genuine, because this would revolutionize the entire paleontology, the entire theory of the evolution of life. Because we must admit that dinosaurs lived, well, if not until almost our time - 5,000 years ago - then they obviously survived until some time, which was closer than 60 million years ago.”

Clay dinosaurs, and, by the way, not two or three of them, but about one and a half thousand were extracted from an ancient burial, are gathering dust in the boxes of a museum in a provincial Mexican town. Science cannot prove that clay dinosaurs are modern fakes. But we are also unable to admit the fact that man could have existed in the era of dinosaurs.

Sergei Dudin, historian: “Official science assumes a lot of things, but, in principle, it has much more. Because a lot of all sorts of facts, and even artifacts, available, let’s say, at the disposal of science, are simply ignored. That is, they don’t pay attention.”

There is more and more evidence that ancient man lived in that distant era and could compete in strength with the dinosaurs themselves! One of the museums houses an unusual exhibit. It’s called “The Giant’s Finger”. Or rather, it’s not even a finger, but a phalanx of a finger.

Alexander Voronin: “Can you imagine, almost 40 centimeters - the phalanx of the finger. Does this mean what a giant giant should be? That is, you can imagine what people were like. Here are some concrete facts for you."

However, the facts do not end there. In Egypt, archaeologists discovered a sarcophagus containing a four-meter mummy of a red-haired woman and a baby. Surprisingly, in another part of the world a little later the remains of red-haired giants were also found. In North America, several huge mummies were discovered in a cave near the town of Lovelock in Nevada. Official science is trying to explain these findings by the fact that some ancient people had a disrupted growth gene, which is why they turned out so big. The explanation is too helpless, but there is no other one today.

Alexander Koltypin: “Concerning the fossil remains of giants, some probably survived almost to modern times. But this was no longer a population of giants, not some people, but individual isolated individuals who found it quite difficult to live. Who were destroyed first by heroes, and then by people.”

Meanwhile, legends about giant people are found in various parts of our planet. Few people know, but numerous legends about giants - mammoth hunters - were brought by Ermak’s Cossacks after the conquest of Siberia. The historian and geographer Vasily Tatishchev, an associate of Peter I, wrote about mysterious semi-wild creatures of gigantic stature. Russian scientists also recorded legends about giants during the Great Kamchatka Expedition.

Vadim Burlak says: “The inhabitants of Kamchatka - the Itelmens, the Koryaks - said that they existed, including in Kamchatka and Alaska, these giants.”

But what could giant people do? Is it really just to hunt mammoths and devour tons of green spaces of the ancient planet?

The amazing discoveries that archaeologists are making are increasingly shaking our ideas about what ancient man really was like.

The strange object, found by archaeologists in 1936, is kept in the Baghdad Historical Museum. According to scientists, this is nothing more than the oldest electric battery in the world. But is this possible from the point of view of classical science?

After all, the find dates back to approximately 250 BC. The battery is a 13-centimeter vessel, inside of which there is a copper cylinder with an iron rod.

Sergey Dudin: “Completely primitive, like our salt battery, an ordinary galvanic battery. It has exactly the same structure. Only it is larger; its body looks like a clay pot. Mainly used for electroplating purposes."

In terms of its design, this vessel almost completely copies a chemical device for producing electric current, created at the beginning of the 19th century by the discoverer of electricity, Alessandro Volta. In 1947, this was confirmed by the American physicist Willard Gray, who made an exact copy of the artifact found in Baghdad. He used copper sulfate as an electrolyte, and he managed to produce an electric current! It turns out that even in the 3rd century BC, ancient man knew electricity? Is it possible?

Michael Shermer, historian of science, believes: “Technologies such as the Baghdad battery are not the only world-famous archaeological find whose origin science is unable to explain. There are many artifacts that convince us that homo sapiens appeared on Earth, perhaps much earlier than we can imagine.”

Balls several centimeters in size, with identical longitudinal notches, were found for the first time in South Africa. According to researchers who studied the structure and alloy of the Klerksdorp balls, they are cast from complex metal alloys... That is, they could not be formed in nature on their own, they had to be made by intelligent beings. But, if this is true, the entire theory of evolution can simply be forgotten. After all, the age of the sediments in which the balls were found is about three million years.

Sergey Dudin: “We sawed one ball. There was a foam structure inside. That is, metal foamed inside. What is foaming metal? It is impossible to foam metal under earthly conditions - well, it doesn’t foam. During the Soviet Union, ours conducted an experiment on foaming aluminum at the Mir station. Yes, it foams beautifully in zero gravity. You can also foam any metal. Whether they fell or didn’t fall is another question, but they were made, let’s say, in space conditions. Or somehow they created conditions on Earth similar to those in space.”.

But that's not all! As we have already said, many experts studying ancient culture are sure: our distant ancestors were so developed that they knew how to move through the air. They, according to some researchers, had vehicles similar to our airplanes and helicopters... In the 19th century, in the Egyptian city of Abydos, archaeologists discovered an engraving. For a long time, scientists could not understand what was depicted on it. And only in the 20th century did researchers put forward an assumption: helicopters and submarines!

Sergey Dudin explains: “The ideal helicopter, and with such a cutout on its belly. Apparently this helicopter was used to hang some object, such as a chest, or a stone, or some other object, under it, and the helicopter would drag it. Obviously for the transport of goods."

But how could an artist who lived several thousand years before us depict devices that were invented only in the 20th century?

Perhaps, what we consider to be the latest inventions, which we consider to be the breakthroughs of engineering thought of the 20th and 21st centuries, is simply a well-forgotten old thing? And in fact, this technique was invented long before us?

Here is another famous example. French scientist Henri Lot discovered a strange rock painting during an expedition to the Sahara. The examination established that the image appeared on the wall of the cave approximately 6000 BC. Archaeologists called the drawing of this six-meter creature “The Great God Mars.” The most surprising thing was that the image was very similar to modern astronauts. It’s easy to guess in this picture something similar to a helmet and a spacesuit. And in the background is an object reminiscent of familiar UFO images.

Sergey Dudin: “The creature is anthropomorphic, that is, human-like. It could have been some of our ancestors depicted, for example, in a space suit or in a protective suit.”

It is difficult to imagine that this ancient drawing is solely the fruit of the wild imagination of a person who lived 8,000 years ago. Otherwise, it turns out that he drew what he saw. That is, a real astronaut. By the way, this case is far from isolated.

Almost every nation has legends with descriptions of aircraft, heroes soaring in the clouds, making instantaneous journeys over incredible distances. Historical science claims that such legends are nothing more than a fantastic reflection of the real life of ancient people. So they embellished their reality: with heroes controlling flying dragons, magic swords and other miracles.

However, anthropological science asserts: a person in the early stages of the development of his consciousness is simply not capable of such fantasies. He could invent something and compose fairy tales only using real facts from the life around him. But what are these facts?

Eric von Däniken, archaeologist, researcher of ancient artifacts: “If aliens visited us, then this should have been reflected in sculptures and building structures. People must have seen flying creatures descending from the skies. That is, my first step to information was literature, and then - travel, travel, travel... Everywhere. I have never written about something that I myself have not personally smelled, touched, or photographed. Of course, I looked at everything differently than archaeologists. I was looking for traces of creatures that came down to us from the sky and possessed technical devices. And I found more and more..."

That is why many researchers claim: ancient legends and tales are nothing more than memories of some stages of human life unknown to us. As evidence, scientists cite a unique structure, the so-called “Adam’s Bridge,” laid between India and Sri Lanka, dilapidated, covered with water, but no less majestic. Locals call this stone chain connecting the two countries the Rama Bridge. By the way, until the 15th century you could walk across the Rama Bridge.

When and who built this bridge, science cannot answer. However, its construction is described in the ancient Indian epic “Ramayana”. The action, according to this ancient source, took place about 1200 thousand years ago. The epic was recorded around the 4th century BC. So in the Ramayana it is written that the bridge was built by the gods. The construction was supervised by Nal, the son of the divine architect, and the builders were people and an army of monkeys...

Tells Peter Palutikof, architect: “The construction of such a bridge could take centuries. It, like a high stone ridge, protruded from the water and was laid on the ocean floor. Such construction could have required almost the entire population of India at that time. Maybe that's why legends indicate that monkeys helped people? According to fairy tales, they could build, fight, obey all the orders of gods and people.”

The length of this bridge is 30 kilometers. And today, building such a structure is a real labor feat. And then, in those immemorial times, and at all... Traveling across this bridge is a long process.

It is curious that in the ancient legends of various nationalities there is not a single mention of any magical self-propelled carts, although it would seem that this is the easiest thing to come up with. Look at the cart being pulled by a horse and fantasize as much as your ancient soul desires. But there are more than enough descriptions of flying chariots! And they were controlled exclusively by the gods.

Eric von Däniken speaks: “Religion claims that we humans are the crown of creation. And science - that we are the pinnacle of evolutionary development. We imagine ourselves to be the most beautiful, the greatest in the entire Universe. We seem to be pushing out the aliens. But by doing so we create a psychological problem for ourselves. And we are not ready to meet them. But someday this meeting will happen. I titled one of my books “Shock because of the Gods.” Someday humanity will be shocked because it refuses to believe what was proven a long time ago."

By the way, flying gods are mentioned not only in the ancient Indian epic. Ancient African myths describe fire-breathing dragons. Other African legends describe a winged lightning bird that would land on the ground, releasing fire from its upraised wings. In Slavic and ancient European myths, gods fly across the sky in chariots of fire. And the description of these chariots is strangely reminiscent of modern eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings.

Auguste Meessen, physicist, professor at the University of Antwerp: “The first evidence of the appearance of UFOs on our planet, and this has been proven historically, appeared in Egypt approximately one and a half thousand years before the birth of Christ. This is written about in the papyrus of Pharaoh Thutmose. He stood surrounded by his warriors when an amazing bird flew over them several times. Precisely a bird, because then they knew that only birds could fly.”

Irrefutable proof that the ancient people had real ancient aviation is another archaeological find. This is the famous “Sabu disc”. Egyptologist Walter Emeray found it during excavations of the tombs of an ancient Egyptian village in 1936. The Sabu disk is a round stone plate with a diameter of 70 centimeters, with three curved blades. This plate has a bushing in the middle. It was this fastener that allowed researchers to make the assumption that this disk is an integral part of some large and complex mechanism. But which one? Why did the Egyptians need this strange round object? Many researchers are sure: the stone disk is nothing more than a propeller with hydraulic ribs.

If we assume that this is indeed the case, it turns out that the Egyptians, three thousand years BC, knew how to build real airplanes and fly them. This find could become a world sensation. But she didn’t. This plane, even if it ever existed, was made of stone. But stone planes don't fly. And this means that all hypotheses about the great technologies of antiquity are nothing more than fantasy. Meanwhile, the world-famous archaeologist and specialist in ancient texts, Swiss researcher Eric von Däniken, believes that the stone plane should not fly.

However, in his opinion, this does not deny the fact that in ancient times airplanes and spaceships could actually fly over the Egyptian pyramids, over Easter Island, and over the ancient cities of the Incas. And ancient man knew what electric batteries and computers were.

Eric von Däniken reflects: “I’ll give you a very famous example. During World War II, US troops established a military base in Papua New Guinea. American planes flew there, and all sorts of cargo was taken from their bellies: weapons, ammunition. The natives saw this, but did not understand what was happening. And when the Americans left at the end of the war, the natives continued to take care of the airstrips. Moreover, they began to make airplanes themselves - from wood and straw. Of course, not real planes, but imitation ones. They started making wristwatches - from wood and leather. They made microphones out of wood and spoke some phrases into them, and made wooden antennas. I myself saw these straw planes and wooden clocks. That is, a technologically progressive society has come into contact with a technologically backward society, which is unable to understand more advanced technology, and therefore imitates only its appearance. Today we see many objects that have come down to us from ancient times, and we do not understand how they could have appeared. And the answer is very simple - it’s a simple imitation. I am convinced that this is how, for example, objects made of gold, shaped like airplanes, arose, this is how sculptures appeared on temples in Central America, where on the chest of a sculpture depicting a priest, there is a rectangular box with a keyboard - buttons for ten fingers... And that’s all things are not at all like in one of the recent TV shows. They showed an ancient figurine - a copy of an airplane made of gold and said: “It is not capable of flying.” And they added: “Contrary to von Däniken’s statements.” But von Däniken never said such nonsense! Stupid statements were attributed to me. Nonsense! Model airplanes made of gold should not fly! A solid wooden clock should not tell the time. Because it’s nothing more than an imitation.”

According to his hypothesis, all these stone propellers, golden airplane figurines, drawings of strange creatures in spacesuits are the result of contacts between ancient people and aliens, who, according to his calculations, visited Earth 14 thousand years ago. Ancient man saw all this, and then, like modern aborigines, reproduced it at the level at which he could.

The version is, of course, fantastic, but you must agree that science is still unable to offer a more logical explanation for all these strange artifacts. By the way, about the figurines of golden birds, similar to modern airplanes found in an ancient Incan burial... German engineers recently made an exact copy of this golden bird from modern materials and equipped it with an engine. And just imagine, she flew! Moreover, its aerodynamic qualities turned out to be no worse than modern aircraft models.

Peter Belting, aircraft modeller, German Air Force major: “They, like real airplanes, have all the classic elements: a delta-shaped body, wings, side wings - that is, all the elements necessary for aerodynamic flight. I conducted tests in the most incredible places, between trees and other obstacles. There have never been any problems, it is easy to control and reaches speeds from 40 to 120 km per hour. It flies at any altitude within sight, but not like a regular aircraft model, but like a full-fledged airplane that needs to be constantly controlled, the flight adjusted depending on the wind direction, and so on. But it flies absolutely without problems.”

Today, researchers of ancient civilizations talk absolutely seriously about the fact that in ancient times the people inhabiting the Earth knew what aviation was. And that's why.

In America, archaeologists recently discovered the oldest road. At first they assumed that it was built by the ancient Indians. Archaeologists had something to be surprised about, because if we evaluate the road according to modern parameters, the width of this highway is about 18 lanes! But then a simple question arose: why did the wild tribes need to build this road? After all, according to science, they didn’t even know the wheel. Where and what were the Indians supposed to drive along this highway? It was then that the version was put forward that, firstly, no Indians built it, but someone built it long before the advent of Indian civilization. And secondly, this is not a road at all, but perhaps a runway.

Jonathan Young, chief curator of the Archive of Mythological Literature. Joseph Campbell reflects: “It’s impossible to say for sure. I am of the opinion that this is an ancient airfield for aircraft."

Yundum airfield

Experts say the same about the Yundum airfield. It is one of the largest operating airports in Africa. In 1987, NASA even designated this airport as a backup landing site for space shuttles. This port is the real pride of the Gambians. But no one knows who built this runway. Local residents say: she has always been here. In 1977, it was simply paved and marked. The result was a runway 3600 meters long. And before it was paved, it was laid out in perfectly even blocks. Moreover, the joints of the ancient slabs are such that grass almost did not grow through them. At first, researchers assumed that this site was built by the Germans during World War II. However, it is known that they paved military airfields not with massive stone slabs, but with small metal sheets. To find out exactly where this runway came from, several years ago British scientists took several samples of stone for research. After conducting examinations, it turned out that the basalt rock from which the slabs were made is more than 15 thousand years old! Chips appeared on it approximately 10 thousand years ago. So, long before the new era, this site was used as an airfield. But by whom? Who could have created airplanes and runways on Earth many thousands of years ago?

Matthew Corrano, Doctor of Paleontology: “According to one version, these runways were built by ancient peoples under the control of aliens who visited Earth and helped people by transferring construction technologies and engineering calculations. But there is another version. All this work was carried out by the earthlings themselves without any aliens. Because, according to some researchers, many thousands of years ago our planet was inhabited by a highly developed civilization of people who already had everything: aviation, electricity, and even the energy of the atomic nucleus. As a result of a global catastrophe, civilization perished. Everyone agrees that this happened about 14 thousand years ago. Only a few artifacts have reached us, the origin of which cannot be explained from the point of view of traditional science, legends that we mistakenly take for fantasy and inventions of ancient authors.”

Having deciphered this document, scientists simply could not believe their eyes, because the ancient Indian authors, it turns out, knew more about aviation than our modern engineers.

The mysterious treatise contains eight chapters. Each of them reveals one of the secrets of creating an aircraft and its use. Just look at the titles of these chapters alone.

The first is “The secret of the structure of an aircraft.” The second is “The secret of making aircraft that can be stationary.” In it, ancient authors write about machines that can hover without moving at the same height. Judging by the description, this is a prototype of a modern helicopter. But further - more. The next chapter is called "The Secret of Making an Invisible Flying Machine." Compared to the description of the ancient flying invisible, our planes made using Stealth technology are the first timid attempt. Here the treatise describes how to listen to enemy conversations and how to obtain images of enemy positions. It is amazing that everything written in this ancient document is relevant for our modern science.

It is impossible to believe that in ancient times a person could think about the most complex problems of aerodynamics. And not only to think about it, but also to propose methods for solving them that even for our engineers seem unattainable for now.

Alexander Koltypin: “Indian legends say that there were two great architects. The demons - the daiti - had Maya Danava, who himself possessed enormous knowledge, mastered the powers of Maya - illusion, so such vimanas could change shape, turn into some kind of illusory forms. Among the gods it was Vishmakarma, as he was called, the architect. So they built vimanas.”

This mysterious document describes four types of aircraft. The first is tripura-vimana. It had three tiers and could move on land, water and sky. Most likely, this is the prototype of a modern amphibian. Moreover, the fuel should be solar energy. It is separately described that this type of device can only be made of metal, which in the document is called “trinetra”. But what kind of metal is this? Science does not yet know such a chemical element.

Stephen Greer, Doctor of Biological Sciences, reflects: “Today we are trying to figure out what it is. Surely some kind of alloy is meant. Perhaps it was then widespread in India, so the ancient engineers did not even talk about its composition. Or it was a secret alloy for defense production.”

The second type of ancient Indian aircraft is the “rukma-vimana”. Judging by the description, it should be a golden-colored cone that moves using electrical energy. And again, the ancient authors point out, such an aircraft can only be made from a special material, called in the work “the king of metals.” What did the drafters have in mind? Another rare alloy that is still unknown to us?

Another type of flying machine is described as a bird with many joints equipped with pistons. There is an indication of a special fuel that makes the car maneuverable. Because of all these riddles in the text, no one has yet been able to verify how possible it is to create such devices.

Stephen Greer: “If you follow the science: we know that aviation fuel cannot make a car more maneuverable, the same with nuclear energy. And even more so with solar. Or our level of engineering does not allow us to invent such a fuel so that maneuverability does not depend on it.”

Tripura Vimana aircraft

But perhaps the most important mystery of this treatise is the description of the aircraft, which the ancient authors called “sundara-vimanu”. This device could protect the ancient pilot from intense heat - fire from inside and outside. This apparatus, or “vimana,” as the authors call it, was prescribed to be made from a special alloy of the sixth type. What kind of alloy is this? The treatise does not mention this. Moreover, this "vimana" has a mechanism, as stated in the document, of "diffusion of air." That is, apparently, it was possible to travel on it outside the atmosphere! Was it possible that in ancient times man was able to fly into space?

Michael Cremo, archaeologist: “It seems we must look for new explanations for how man came to be. How it developed on our planet. Maybe we are not from Earth at all? After all, many discoveries say: man not only flew across the sky, but also traveled throughout the Universe.”

It is difficult, almost impossible to believe that man in ancient times could create aircraft and even fly into space. However, in the ancient Indian epic we find confirmation of this fantastic version. The world-famous poem “Ramayana,” for example, describes in detail a journey to the moon. On the same aircraft that is described in the ancient treatise. The poem also contains a description of the air battles that the warring royal clans waged among themselves. It also talks about the air war that the ancient inhabitants of Indian soil waged with the Atlanteans, whose planes are called “as-vins” in the epic.

All this seems fantastic. But even if there were no space flights in ancient times, there were no air battles with the Atlanteans, and there were no these ancient mysterious air “vimanas”. Even if these treatises are nothing more than a simple fantasy of ancient authors, it is worth a lot. In order to fantasize THIS way, a person of the ancient world must have had colossal knowledge. After all, only Tsiolkovsky was able to come up with many of the things described in this ancient Indian manuscript, and then after many, many centuries.

Rukma-vimana aircraft

Now imagine that all this was invented, written down, and maybe even designed by that same ancient man from our history textbooks, for whom hollowing out coconut pulp with a sharp stick was the limit of intellectual tension. Agree, something in our ideas about history is still arranged incorrectly.

Many archaeological finds such as the Baghdad battery, ancient airfields, golden bird airplanes, and even more so ancient treatises cannot serve as irrefutable evidence that before modern man, the Earth was inhabited by some highly developed civilization.

After all, establishing the exact age of a find is always quite difficult. This means that those who believe that all these objects are often assigned functions that are unusual for them may be quite right. That is, the Baghdad battery may turn out to be an ordinary vessel for storing poisonous liquids, an ancient mechanical computer may be a later invention of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea, and “Adam’s Bridge” itself was accidentally formed from stone blocks over the centuries... This is precisely the position of official science. There were no pre-civilizations on the planet!

Modern man, that is, we, is the crown of evolution. And it is our society, having gone all the way from the Neanderthal to the city dweller of the 21st century, that is the only and most developed on planet Earth for the entire time of its existence. Maybe that's all true. But why do archaeologists keep coming across facts that do not fit into the official theory?

For example, the mummy of an ancient Greek priestess named Khentavi. In 1992, employees of the Munich Museum decided to analyze one of the Egyptian mummies. Her age was about 3000 years. The experiment was aimed at identifying those chemicals that do not decompose in tissues for a long time. A toxicologist specializing in forensic medicine was involved in the study. Conducting a standard examination of the tissues of an ancient priestess from Egypt, the toxicologist received shocking results - the analysis indicated the presence of traces of nicotine in Khentavi's hair.

Maxim Lebedev, researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The discovery of nicotine in Egyptian mummies was not news in the 90s, because for the first time nicotine was discovered in small quantities in the mummy of Ramses II, when he was in France, undergoing such a unique restoration. They didn't pay much attention to it then. They thought it was an accident. But then nicotine began to be discovered in mummies that were found directly on the territory of Egypt, these are the newest excavations.”

But is this possible? In order for nicotine to remain in the hair, a person had to regularly smoke tobacco during his lifetime, that is, be a heavy smoker. And this fact would not mean anything if official science did not insist that smoking tobacco outside America began only after Columbus’s voyage. Before the discovery of America by Europeans, no one in the world, except, perhaps, the Indians, knew this bad habit. In Asia, however, they smoked opium, but that, as they say, is a different story.

Maxim Lebedev reasons: “Whether tobacco was known to the Egyptians, on this score we can say quite positively – no. Because the flora available to the Egyptians is very well studied, well, relatively well. If nicotine-containing plants were used, they were used exclusively in the mummification process. The Egyptians were aware of the antiseptic effect that nicotine has. The fact is that if they were used at some festivals, as entertainment, then this would probably be depicted. The Egyptians loved life very much and depicted such things as, for example, a mandrake or a lily. But there is none of this.”

So the “Munich mummies” became a real triumph for toxicologists - and a big headache for historians. After all, if the Egyptian priests smoked tobacco, it means that someone discovered America long before Christopher Columbus...

author Balandin Rudolf Konstantinovich

Ancient traditions On January 28, 1900, representatives of 75 German football clubs gathered at the Mariengarten Hotel in Leipzig to found the German Football Association. After purely sporting aspects were discussed, the coaches moved on to an equally important part

From the book of Roerich author Anthology of humane pedagogy

Chapter 1. Travelers from different countries and peoples The most remarkable expedition in the history of mankind ended with the first discovery of man in the New World. This great achievement will forever remain nameless and without an exact date. All that is known is that it happened

From the book The Secret of the Blue Mountains Tribe author Shaposhnikova Lyudmila Vasilievna

15. ANCIENT SOURCES “What is the truth of the ages. “In laws and orders or in proverbs and fairy tales.” In the first, the will is tense, and in the second, wisdom is minted. The shortest proverb is full of sounds of the locality and the century. And in a fairy tale, as in a buried treasure, faith and aspirations are hidden

From the book The Great Misconceptions of Humanity. 100 immutable truths that everyone believed in author Mazurkevich Sergei Alexandrovich

Who owns the ancient graves? Really, who? Anyone reading these lines may have already realized that the ancient burials belong to the Toda ancestors. But in life sometimes things get more complicated. Often issues of ancient history are intertwined with the problems of today

From the book Alma-Ata informal (behind the façade of Asian communism) author Bayanov Arsen

Ancient Olympics The Greeks calculated their chronology according to the most important events of their social life, that is, according to the Olympic Games. These games consisted of ancient Greek youths competing in strength and dexterity. Everything was going like clockwork, but then Herodotus started

From the book Modern Passions on Ancient Treasures author Averkov Stanislav Ivanovich

Travelers in the Universe In general, the location of the mounds of Bes Shatyr is somewhat reminiscent of the location of the Egyptian pyramids. Below the course flows the Ili River. The Egyptians also transported their dead across the Nile, where Hades, the kingdom of the dead, was located. That is, water

From the book Secrets of Ancient Civilizations author Prokopenko Igor Stanislavovich

Chapter I Golden ancient burial grounds

From the book Far Eastern Neighbors author Ovchinnikov Vsevolod Vladimirovich

Chapter 5 Ancient travelers Official science claims that man descended from apes and the first anthropoid creatures were about 130 centimeters tall. A kind of Sharikov - with a fallen off tail, but on its hind legs. However, recent finds by archaeologists

From the book Artifacts of Russian History author Varakin Alexander Sergeevich

Gray-haired travelers An elderly person living separately from relatives especially needs favorite hobbies. Ikebana and the tea ceremony are still popular among older women in Japan. For men - kendo, calligraphy, other traditional “graceful”

From the author's book

Chapter 5. Ancient Russians: migrations and “stops” Anatoly Aleksandrovich Abrashkin, relying on his own and others’ research, states that the lifespan of any empire is approximately 1200 years. True, he does not deny that here we can only speak with some approximation -

History of humanity and travel. Herodotus is the first great traveler and the father of modern history. Arab and European travelers of the Middle Ages...

From Masterweb

26.06.2018 14:00

The exploration of our planet took place over several centuries, and many people distinguished themselves, whose names and merits are captured in many historical books. All great travelers sought to escape from routine existence and look at the world with different eyes. A thirst for new knowledge, curiosity, a desire to expand known horizons - all these qualities were inherent in each of them.

About history and travelers

The history of mankind should be perceived as the history of travel. It is impossible to understand what the modern world would be like if previous civilizations had not sent travelers to the borders of a then unknown world. The thirst for travel is embedded in human DNA, because he has always strived to explore something and expand his own world.

The first people began colonizing the world 100,000 years ago, moving from Africa to Asia and Europe. In the Middle Ages and modern times, travelers went to unknown countries in search of gold, glory, new lands, or they simply ran away from their miserable existence and poverty. However, all great travelers possessed an impulse of power of the same nature, the endless fuel of explorers - curiosity. It only takes something that a person does not know or does not understand to create an alluring and irresistible force that cannot be resisted. The following article describes the exploits of the great travelers and their discoveries, which had a huge impact on the development of humanity. The following individuals are noted:

• Herodotus;
• Ibn Battuta;
• Marco Polo;
• Christopher Columbus;
• Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano;
• James Cook;
• Charles Darwin;
• explorers of Africa and Antarctica;
• famous Russian travelers.

Father of modern history - Herodotus

The famous Greek philosopher, Herodotus, lived in the 5th century BC. His first journey was exile, as Herodotus was accused of plotting against the tyrant of Halicarnassus, Lygdamis. During this exile, the great traveler travels throughout the Middle East. He describes all his discoveries and acquired knowledge in 9 books, thanks to which Herodotus received the nickname of the father of history. It is interesting to note that another famous historian of ancient Greece, Plutarch, gave Herodotus the nickname “father of lies.” In his books, Herodotus talks about distant countries and the cultures of many peoples, information about which the philosopher collected during his travels.

The stories of the great traveler are filled with political, philosophical and geographical reflections. They also contain sexual stories, myths and crime stories. Herodotus's style of presentation is semi-artistic. Modern historians consider the work of Herodotus to be a paradigm of curiosity. The historical and geographical knowledge brought by Herodotus had a great influence on the development of Greek culture. The geographical map that Herodotus drew up, which included the limits from the Danube to the Nile, and from Iberia to India, for the next 1000 years determined the horizons of the then known world. Let us note that the scientist was very concerned that the knowledge he had acquired would not be lost by humanity over time, and therefore he outlined it in detail in his 9 books.

Ibn Battuta (1302 - 1368)

Like every Muslim, twenty-year-old Battuta began his pilgrimage from the city of Tangier to Mecca on the back of a donkey. He could not even imagine that he would return to his hometown only 25 years later, with enormous wealth and a whole harem of wives after having traveled most of the world. If you ask yourself which great travelers first explored the Muslim world, then you can safely name Ibn Battuta. He visited all countries, from the kingdom of Granada in Spain to China, and from the Caucasus Mountains to the city of Timbuktu, which is located in the Republic of Mali. This great traveler traveled 120,000 kilometers, met more than 40 sultans and emperors, served as ambassador to various sultans, and survived a number of disasters. Ibn Battuta always traveled with a large retinue, and in every new place he was treated as an important person.

Modern historians note that in the first half of the 14th century, when Ibn Battuta made his travels, the Islamic world was at the apogee of its existence, which allowed the traveler to quickly and easily move across many territories.

Just like Marco Polo, Battuta did not write his book ("Travels"), but dictated his stories to the Granadan polymath Ibn Khuzai. This work reflects Battuta's thirst for pleasure in life, which includes stories of sex and blood.

Marco Polo (1254 - 1324)

Marco Polo is one of the important names of great travelers. The book of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, which tells in detail about his travels, became extremely popular 2 centuries before the invention of printing. Marco Polo traveled the world for 24 years. Upon his return to his homeland, he was imprisoned during the war between the Mediterranean trading powers of Genoa and Venice. In prison, he dictated stories of his travels to one of his unfortunate neighbors. As a result, in 1298 a book appeared called “Description of the World, Dictated by Marco.”

Marco Polo, together with his father and uncle, who were famous merchants of jewelry and silks, set off at the age of 17 on a journey to the Far East. During his trip, the great geographical traveler visited such forgotten places as the island of Hormuz, the Gobi Desert, the coasts of Vietnam and India. Marco knew 5 foreign languages ​​and was the representative of the great Mongol Khan Kublai Khan for 17 years.

Note that Marco Polo was not the first European to visit Asia, however, he was the first to compile a detailed geographical description of it. His book is a mixture of truth and fiction, which is why many historians question most of its facts. On his deathbed, one priest asked Marco Polo, who was 70 years old, to admit his lies, to which the great traveler replied that he had not told half of what he saw.

Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506)

Speaking about the travelers of the great age of discovery, first of all we should mention Christopher Columbus, who shifted the human economy to the west and marked the beginning of a new era in history. Historians note that when Columbus sailed to discover the New World, the word “gold” rather than the word “land” was most often found in his logbook entries.

Christopher Columbus, with information provided by Marco Polo, believed that he could reach the Far East, full of gold and riches, by sailing west. As a result, on August 2, 1492, he sailed from Spain on three ships and headed west. The journey across the Atlantic Ocean lasted longer than 2 months, and on October 11, Rodrigo Triana from the ship La Pinta saw land. This day radically changed the lives of Europeans and Americans.

Like many great travelers of the Age of Discovery, Columbus died in 1506 in poverty in the city of Valladolid. Columbus did not know that he had discovered a new continent, but thought that he managed to sail to India through the west.

Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano (16th century)

One of the amazing routes of the great travelers of the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries is the route of Ferdinand Magellan, when he was able to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through a narrow strait, which Magellan named after its calm waters.

In the 16th century, there was a serious race for dominance of the seas and oceans between Portugal and Spain; historians compare this race with the race for space exploration between the USA and the USSR. Since Portugal dominated the African coast, Spain sought ways to reach the Spice Islands (modern Indonesia) and India via the west. Ferdinand Magellan became just the navigator who had to find a new route to the East through the West.

In September 1519, 5 ships with a total of 237 sailors set sail for the West, led by Ferdinand Magellan. Three years later, only one ship returned with 18 sailors on board, led by Juan Sebastian Elcano. This was the first time a man sailed around the entire globe. The great traveler Ferdinand Magellan himself died in the Philippine Islands.

James Cook (1728-1779)

This British great explorer is considered the most famous explorer of the Pacific Ocean. He left his parents' farm and became a great captain in the Royal Navy. He made three great voyages from 1768 to 1779, which filled in many of the blank spots on maps of the Pacific. All of Cook's voyages were conducted by Britain to achieve a range of geographical and botanical objectives in Oceania, Australia and New Zealand.

Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

Few people know that the story of great travelers and their discoveries must include the name of Charles Darwin, who at the age of 22 set off on a voyage on the brigantine Beagle in 1831 to explore the east coast of South America. On this journey, Charles Darwin sailed around the world in 5 years, collecting a wealth of information about the flora and fauna of our planet, which turned out to be key to Darwin's theory of the evolution of living organisms.

After this long journey, the scientist locked himself in his house in Kent in order to carefully study the collected material and draw the right conclusions. In 1859, that is, 23 years after his trip around the world, Charles Darwin published his work “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” the main thesis of which was that it is not the strongest living organisms that survive, but the most adapted to environmental conditions. .

Exploring Africa

The great travelers who distinguished themselves in the exploration of Africa are mainly British. One of the famous explorers of the black continent is Dr. Livingstone, who distinguished himself in his studies of the central regions of Africa. Livingstone is credited with the discovery of Victoria Falls. This man is a national hero of Great Britain.

Other famous Britons who distinguished themselves in the exploration of Africa are John Speke and Richard Francis Burton, who made numerous trips to the African continent in the second half of the 19th century. Their most famous journey is the search for the sources of the Nile.

Antarctica exploration

The exploration of the icy southern continent, Antarctica, marked a new stage in human history. The British Robert Scott and the Norwegian Roald Amundsen distinguished themselves in conquering the South Pole. Scott was an explorer and officer in the British Royal Navy, he led 2 expeditions to Antarctica, and on January 17, 1912, he and five members of his crew reached the south pole, however, the Norwegian Amundsen was several weeks ahead of him. Robert Scott's entire expedition died by freezing to death in the icy desert of Antarctica. Amundsen, in turn, having visited the South Pole on December 14, 1911, was able to return to his homeland alive.

First woman traveler

The thirst for travel and new discoveries was characteristic not only of men, but also of women. Thus, the first female traveler about whom there is reliable evidence was the Galician (northwestern part of Spain) Ejeria in the 4th century AD. Her travels were associated with holy lands and pilgrimages. Thus, it is known that within 3 years she visited Constantinople, Jerusalem, Sinai, Mesopotamia and Egypt. It is unknown whether Ejeria returned to her homeland.

Great Russian travelers who expanded the borders of Russia

Russia is the largest country in the world by area. Much of this fame owes to Russian travelers and explorers. The great travelers in the table below are given.

Russian travelers - explorers of the planet

Among them, Ivan Kruzenshtern should be noted, who was the first Russian to travel around the globe. We also mention Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, who was a famous navigator and explorer of Oceania and Southeast Asia. Let us also note Nikolai Przhevalsky, who was one of the most famous explorers of Central Asia in the world.

Kievyan Street, 16 0016 Armenia, Yerevan +374 11 233 255

The answers to tasks 1–26 are a word, phrase, number or sequence of words, numbers. Write the answer to the right of the assignment number without spaces, commas or other additional characters.

Read the text and complete tasks 1–3.

1

Which of the following sentences correctly conveys the MAIN information contained in the text?

1. Ancient merchants sought to trade in distant countries, and military leaders and soldiers sought to conquer new lands.

2. Travelers of Antiquity set out on a journey to make a pilgrimage to holy places.

3. Ancient Greek and Roman travelers were attracted to distant countries not by idle wanderings, but by the opportunity to take part in sports competitions, trade, and conquer new lands.

4. In ancient times, there were no tourists as usual to our time.

5. The opportunity to take part in sports competitions, conquer new lands, and trade, rather than idle wanderings, attracted ancient Greek and Roman travelers to distant countries.

Show text

(1) Scientists and travelers of Antiquity were attracted to distant countries no less than our contemporaries. (2)_____ did not travel idly then; there were no tourists familiar to our time. (3) The Greeks and Romans set off on a journey to make pilgrimages to holy places, take part in sports competitions, and enroll in education; merchants sought to trade in distant countries, and military leaders and soldiers sought to conquer new lands.

2

What coordinating conjunction should stand in place of the gap in the second (2) sentence of the text? Write this word down.

Show text

(1) Scientists and travelers of Antiquity were attracted to distant countries no less than our contemporaries. (2)_____ did not travel idly then; there were no tourists familiar to our time. (3) The Greeks and Romans set off on a journey to make pilgrimages to holy places, take part in sports competitions, and enroll in education; merchants sought to trade in distant countries, and military leaders and soldiers sought to conquer new lands.

3

Read a fragment of a dictionary entry that gives the meaning of the word EARTH. Determine the meaning in which this word is used in the third (3) sentence of the text. Write down the number corresponding to this value in the given fragment of the dictionary entry.

EARTH I, -i, wine. h e mlu, plural h e mli, earth e l, h e blah,

1. (in the terminological meaning, 3 is capitalized). The third planet from the Sun in the Solar System, rotating around the Sun and around its own axis. 3. - planet of people.

2. Land as opposed to water or air. On the ship they saw land. Big z. (the mainland or the shore of the mainland in the speech of sailors, island residents).

3. Soil, the upper layer of the crust of our planet, surface. Land cultivation. Sit on the ground. To get (get) something out of the ground.

4. A loose dark brown substance that is part of the crust of our planet. 3. with sand and clay.

5. Country, state, and also some kind in general. large area of ​​the Earth (high). Native z. Russian z. Foreign lands.

6. A territory with land located in someone’s territory. possession, use. Ownership of land. Land lease.

Show text

(1) Scientists and travelers of Antiquity were attracted to distant countries no less than our contemporaries. (2)_____ did not travel idly then; there were no tourists familiar to our time. (3) The Greeks and Romans set off on a journey to make pilgrimages to holy places, take part in sports competitions, and enroll in education; merchants sought to trade in distant countries, and military leaders and soldiers sought to conquer new lands.

4

In one of the words below, an error was made in the placement of stress: the letter denoting the stressed vowel sound was highlighted incorrectly. Write this word down.

deepen

dowry

5

One of the sentences below uses the highlighted word incorrectly. Correct the lexical error by choosing a paronym for the highlighted word. Write down the chosen word.

1. All the way we talked about the little things of life.

2. The coniferous mossy forest COVERS all the mountains and reaches close to the seashore.

3. Our natures are so pure, so soft, so AESTHETIC that they shrink painfully at any somewhat rough touch.

4. Lily Kedrova's ARTISTIC career reached its peak at the end of her life.

5. Kazakevich in patent leather boots, instantly wet, walked slowly behind Bokov, waving his hands away from the wet branches that were trying to hit him in the face.

6

Edit the sentence: correct the lexical error by replacing the incorrectly used word. Write down the selected word, observing the norms of the modern Russian literary language.

Before the start of the school year, I read back A.P.’s stories. Chekhov.

7

In one of the words highlighted below, an error was made in the formation of the word form. Correct the mistake and write the word correctly.

returns from the championship

DELICIOUS fruit

FIVE lambs

TEA plantations

kilogram WAFFLES

8

Establish a correspondence between the sentences and the grammatical errors made in them: for each position in the first column, select the corresponding position from the second column.

GRAMMATICAL ERRORS	OFFERS
A) incorrect construction of a sentence with an adverbial phrase	1) The newspaper “Arguments and Facts” published an interview with the famous Russian artist I. Glazunov.
B) violation in the construction of a sentence with an inconsistent application	2) When collecting mushrooms in the forest, the mycelium should not be damaged.
C) disruption of the connection between subject and predicate	3) Once in the city archive, we looked for everything that would bring us closer to the solution.
D) incorrect use of the case form of a noun with a preposition	4) In his diaries, the author describes in detail his trip to the Caucasus.
D) violation of aspect-temporal correlation of verb forms	5) The kindergarten was opened as planned thanks to the support of sponsors.
	6) If every one of the 10 million tourists shopped, Andorra's economy would continue to thrive.
	7) A. Akhmatova never lived to see the repeal of the resolutions on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”.
	8) Mammoths that existed in ancient times ate plants more often.
	9) Without haste and without interrupting, the teacher listened to me, looked in surprise and suddenly burst into laughter.

Write your answer in numbers without spaces or other symbols

9

Indicate the answer options in which the unstressed vowel of the root being tested is missing in all words of one row

1) div..dandy, spread..lay, combination

2) ventilation, baked..decay, discharge (planting)

3) intellectual..ktual, refreshing (smell), discharge (planting)

4) management..ment, compo..spirit (spirit), s..ch

5) look..detail, t..honya, compact

10

Indicate the answer options in which the same letter is missing in all words of the same row.

1) careless, age, ruthless

2) pr..deliver, stumbling block, pr..neglect

3) super..natural, without..nuclear, without..reproachful

4) all-encompassing, without..appeal, furious

5) no..helpful, no..taste, no..noisy

11

1) checked, beans..vy

2) fancy, redecorate

3) start..t, role..howl

4) overcome..vay, cheap..nky

5) responsiveness, tulle

12

Indicate the answer options in which the same letter is missing in both words of the same row. Write down the answer numbers.

1) lined..sew, inherited..my

2) creeping (fog), hedgehogs (spreading)

3) dragging (logs), (paths) icy...t

4) chasing..shy (step), (snow) that..t

5) dozed..sh, puzzled..

13

Determine the sentence in which NOT is spelled together with the word. Open the brackets and write down this word.

1. Someone was fussing, shouting that it was necessary right now, right there, (NOT) LEAVING the place, to compose some kind of collective telegram.

2. In the front room, (NOT) LIT with a light bulb, a bicycle without tires was hanging on the wall under the ceiling.

3. One moonbeam, leaking through a dusty window that had not been wiped for years, sparingly illuminated the corner where the forgotten icon hung in the dust and cobwebs.

4. On the door of room No. 2 there was something (NOT) VERY clear written: “One-day creative trip.”

5. The next door bore a short, but completely (UN)UNDERSTANDABLE inscription: “Perelygino.”

14

Determine the sentence in which both highlighted words are written CONTINUOUSLY. Open the brackets and write down these two words.

1. (C) FOR many days, a strong volcanic eruption continued, clouds of fire above which swirled (LIKE a whirlwind), increasing in size.

2. (BY) the way this person behaves, it is clear that he is (IN) EVERYTHING used to being the first.

3. Lake Beloye (FROM) is charming because (IN) AROUND it there is dense, varied vegetation.

4. It’s hard to even imagine WHAT WOULD happen to me IF the ship was late.

5. (BY) BECAUSE L.N. was silent in concentration. Tolstoy, his relatives could guess (HOW) HOW hard his brain is working now.

6. Petya shuddered, (FROM) THE FACT that the doorbell rang, his mother did not expect the call.

15

Indicate all the numbers in whose place NN is written.

On the glass (1) shelves of cabinets, inlaid with (2) mother-of-pearl, silver (4) decorations are illuminated with (3) light bulbs.

16

Place punctuation marks. Indicate the numbers of sentences in which you need to put ONE comma.

1. The works of I.K. Aivazovsky enjoyed great success among both artists and ordinary viewers.

2. Autumn walks through the forest and hangs crystal webs of cobwebs on the bushes and grasses.

3. One day Swan Cancer and Pike began to carry a cart with luggage.

4. I'm trying to compare dozens of colors and shades and can't find good comparisons.

5. In the spring, P.I. Tchaikovsky rejoiced in the sun and the warmth of the first green grass.

17

After thinking a little (1) Ostap placed on the parapet (2) which protected the highway from the seething abyss of the Terek (3) the stocks of sausage purchased in Vladikavkaz (4) and began to climb the rock.

18

Place punctuation marks: indicate all the numbers that should be replaced by commas in the sentences.

Spring (1), according to experts (2), will be long and cool, and summer (3), on the contrary (4), will be dry and hot.

19

Place punctuation marks: indicate all the numbers that should be replaced by commas in the sentence.

It was all about the atmosphere of the fairy tale (1) in which I immersed myself (2) and (3) which immediately awakened good (4) and bright feelings in my soul.

20

Place punctuation marks: indicate all the numbers that should be replaced by commas in the sentence.

These places have wonderful fishing (1) and (2) if you have free time (3) then you can spend it near the river (4) which is simply teeming with fish.

21

Find sentences in which a dash is placed in accordance with the same punctuation rule. Write down the numbers of these sentences.

(1) “Trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself,” says the old proverb. (2) The Greeks were very good at not making mistakes, but to be sure, they also wanted to rely on God. (3) Sacrifice - a treat for God - was an obligatory part of the life of the Greeks. (4) If God helps a person in all matters, then any luck must be shared with him. (5) When the harvest was harvested, the first ears of corn and the first fruits were brought to God. (6) And when they ate meat - in the poor Greek life this was an infrequent holiday - then it was obligatory to share with God. (7) Then they organized - and this was often mentioned in books - sacrifices of bulls, sheep, goats and pigs.

Read the text and complete tasks 22-27.

(According to B.P. Ekimov*)

*Boris Petrovich Ekimov (born in 1938) is a Russian prose writer and publicist.

22

Which of the statements correspond to the content of the text? Please provide answer numbers.

1. The changes taking place in the Russian language are capable, without exaggeration, of destroying it.

2. The language accepts borrowed words into popular speech, polishing them.

3. When creating their works, classic writers set themselves the goal of protecting the Russian language.

4. The actions of people to clean up springs and springs are akin to the actions of writers to preserve their native language.

5. By clearing springs on the Malogolubinsky farm, schoolchildren thereby contributed to cleaning the waters of the Don

Show snippet

(1) Discussions about the state of the Russian language have been going on since the times of the mighty revolutions of the past centuries: A.S. Pushkina, F.I. Tyutcheva, A.I. Herzen, V.G. Belinsky, F.M. Dostoevsky. (2) Nowadays for us their disputes and reflections on the fate of their native language are high lessons of Russian literature and human thought. (3) As for the “degradation,” “weakening,” and even the inevitable “death” of the Russian language and literature, this is nothing more than hyperbole, based quite often on sincere, natural and understandable anxiety for the fate of one’s people, especially in times changes, shocks.

(4) The current upheavals and profound changes in Russia are occurring, in my opinion, rather in the minds and souls of people. (5) For the Russian language, they do not seem very significant to me, if we recall such trials as the “Mongol invasion” or Peter the Great’s “window to Europe”.

(6) “Eastern wind” and “Western wind” come and go, unable to shake the mighty tree of the Russian language, rooted over centuries and across vast expanses, only refreshing it, and therefore strengthening it.

(7) In such cases and trials, the mighty ocean of the great language (and not only Russian), with its incomparable mass, power, energy, measured and tireless work, will limit, polish other people’s words, adapting them to its own needs, sprinkle them with the living keys of their native land, taking into folk speech, writing, and fiction. (8) It was so. (9) Apparently this will happen. (10) Two hundred thousand words of V.I.’s dictionary alone. Dalia - isn't it an ocean? (11) He will grind and grind someone else’s things, and throw away the dirty ones with foam. (12) An ordinary, current, spelling dictionary, and that one - a hundred thousand words, each of which is not old mold, but living speech, which, of course, is richer than any dictionaries, it is not for nothing that people draw generously from it, but the bottom, thank God, is not it is seen. (13) The Russian language not only lives, but gives life!

(14) One of the chemical industries has been pumping its waste, of course poisonous, into the deep layers of the earth for a long time and to this day, destroying living waters. (15) They do not listen to reproaches and reproaches. (16) The main thing for them is profit. (17) On this same land, preserving the living waters, schoolchildren from the farms of Malogolubinsky, Pyatnitsky and others, of course with their teachers, protect the earth’s springs and springs, clean them. (18) To each his own.

(19) The same is true in our literature and journalism, which, of course, influence the state of the Russian language. (20) It’s a matter of conscience and, most importantly, talent. (21) Tolstoy, Turgenev, Sholokhov, Shukshin did not set themselves the task of protecting the Russian language. (22) They did this naturally, because they were born on the Russian soil, from which they received a great gift and used it worthily. (23) That's the whole explanation. (24) For me personally it is profound. (25) To the best of my ability and ability, I follow him, realizing my small strength. (26) But on the Malogolubinsky farm, the springs are cleared by very small children from elementary school. (27) These springs and springs flow little by little, reviving the rivers Malaya Golubaya, Rostosh, Eruslan, and then the Don, its mighty waters.

2. (4) The current upheavals and profound changes in Russia are occurring, in my opinion, rather in the minds and souls of people. (5) For the Russian language, they do not seem very significant to me, if we recall such trials as the “Mongol invasion” or Peter the Great’s “window to Europe”.

3. (12) An ordinary, current, spelling dictionary, and that one - a hundred thousand words, each of which is not old mold, but living speech, which, of course, is richer than any dictionaries, it’s not for nothing that people draw generously from it, but the bottom, thank God , can not see. (13) The Russian language not only lives, but gives life!

4. (14) One of the chemical industries has been pumping its waste, of course poisonous, into the deep layers of the earth for a long time and to this day, destroying living waters. (15) They do not listen to reproaches and reproaches. (16) The main thing for them is profit.

5. (21) Tolstoy, Turgenev, Sholokhov, Shukshin did not set themselves the task of preserving the Russian language. (22) They did this naturally, because they were born on the Russian soil, from which they received a great gift and used it worthily.

(19) The same is true in our literature and journalism, which, of course, influence the state of the Russian language. (20) It’s a matter of conscience and, most importantly, talent. (21) Tolstoy, Turgenev, Sholokhov, Shukshin did not set themselves the task of protecting the Russian language. (22) They did this naturally, because they were born on the Russian soil, from which they received a great gift and used it worthily. (23) That's the whole explanation. (24) For me personally it is profound. (25) To the best of my ability and ability, I follow him, realizing my small strength.

Read a fragment of a review based on the text that you analyzed while completing tasks 22-25. This fragment examines the linguistic features of the text. Some terms used in the review are missing. Insert into the gaps (A, B, C, D) the numbers corresponding to the term number from the list without spaces, commas or other additional characters.

26

“About the Russian language B.P. Ekimov talks very figuratively and colorfully. The emotional tone of his reasoning is set by the trope - (A)__________ (for example, in sentence 6), as well as the device - (B)__________ (“not old mold, but living speech” in sentence 12). Speaking about changes in the native language, the author tries to convey their essence as accurately as possible, in which he is helped by the lexical device - (B)__________ (“changes, shocks” in sentence 3, “cut, polished” in sentence 7). However, the fate of the Russian language does not cause concern to the author, which is why he uses a technique such as (G)__________ (“of course” in sentences 14, 17, 19).”

List of terms:

1. quotation

2. exclamatory sentences

3. lexical repetition

4. opposition

5. anaphora

6. extended metaphor

7. parcellation

8. spoken words

9. contextual synonyms

Show snippet

A. (6) “East wind” and “west wind” come and go, unable to shake the mighty tree of the Russian language, rooted over centuries and across vast expanses, only refreshing it, and therefore strengthening it.

B. (12) An ordinary, current, spelling dictionary, and that one - a hundred thousand words, each of which is not old mold, but living speech, which, of course, is richer than any dictionaries, it is not for nothing that they draw generously from it, but the bottom, thank God , can not see.

V. (7) In such cases, trials, the mighty ocean of the great language (and not only Russian), with its incomparable mass, power, energy, measured and tireless work, will limit, polish other people’s words, adapting them to its own needs, sprinkle the native with living keys lands, taking into folk speech, writing, and fiction.

G. (14) One of the chemical industries has been pumping its waste, of course poisonous, into the deep layers of the earth for a long time and to this day, destroying living waters. (17) On this same land, preserving the living waters, schoolchildren from the farms of Malogolubinsky, Pyatnitsky and others, of course with their teachers, protect the earth’s springs and springs, clean them. (19) The same is true in our literature and journalism, which, of course, influence the state of the Russian language.

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