The genetic disk is one of the most mysterious artifacts in the world. It was found in Colombia. The material of its manufacture is lidit. In this article, we will tell about all the facts related to this riddle, about the history of the find and the meaning of the signs that are applied to it.
Artifact description
The photo of the genetic disk shows that it is a circle carved from stone. Its diameter is only 27 cm, and it weighs almost 2 kilograms. Both sides of this item contain carefully executed rather small images. It is assumed that these are all the stages that a person goes through during his intrauterine development, starting from the moment of conception. Otherwise, these pictures are called "cycles of life".
History of the find. Jaime Gutierrez Lega
The exact location where the genetic disc was discovered is still unknown. It was either found or purchased from Colombian natives by a man named Jaime Gutierrez Lega, an industrial designer. Sometimes, however, he is called a professor. Subsequently, Lega said that the very first owner found him in the vicinityColombian town of Sutataousa.
In general, information about this discovery was so often questioned that today it seems unreliable even to amateurs. For example, there is evidence that shortly after the acquisition, the artifact was taken to the Museum of Natural Sciences, located in Vienna (Austria), where scientists subjected it to a thorough study. After that, its undoubted uniqueness was confirmed. The time of manufacture was also allegedly indicated very specifically: the disc was attributed to the ancient American culture of the Muisca (other names are Mosca or Chibcha). It was one of the highly developed civilizations of the South American continent of the 12th-16th centuries. Its name is in line with such "celebrities" as the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas.
At the same time, there are no documents confirming the time of the discovery of the stone and the protocol of its study. The opposite opinion proves that artifacts such as the genetic disk are completely uncharacteristic of the Muisca culture - both in execution and in material they are completely different.
But geologists from the University of the Colombian capital (Bogota) believe that the object under study belongs to the prehistoric era and is actually 6 thousand years old.
As for Jaima Gutierrez Lega, he was indeed known for his design projects and collections of antiquities. But in general, there is very little information about this person.
Carlo Crespi
It is very possible that the disk actually belonged to missionary priest Carlo Crespi. This man was famousas well as an ethnographer, musician, botanist and educator. He served in Ecuador - a state in the north-west of South America. It was in the middle of the 20th century.
Local parishioners often brought various antique items they found in the jungle to the priest, who was called "the friend of the Indians", and Padre Crespi bought them - they say, not so much from a collecting passion, but from a desire to support the local poor. Some of the items, however, were received by an elderly priest as a gift.
Many artifacts were gold or other metal tablets with signs and symbols printed on them. They occupied more than one room in the padre's house, and in 1960 Crespi even received permission from the Vatican to establish a museum in Cuenca, but after a while there was a fire in the room, and many items disappeared. Many years have passed since the death of the padres, but their fate has not been clarified.
In addition, the priest himself never systematized or described his acquisitions, but it is known that most of them belonged to various archaeological cultures of South America. Artifacts were found, in particular, in tunnels and underground chambers near the city of Cuenca, located in the Ecuadorian Andes.
Klaus Dona
This man is considered to be a researcher and popularizer of many ancient artifacts that are beyond the understanding of modern science, in particular the genetic disk from Colombia. He called himself a "spiritual archaeologist". The beginning of Don's fame was laid by the famous Vienneseexhibition "Unresolved Mysteries" (2001), among the exhibits of which was the object under discussion.
Below is a video of Professor Klaus Dona talking about other genetic disks found in Colombia.
By the way, Dona calls the leadite black silicon and gives slightly different data that we know from most sources.
That's why, with so many conflicting facts, the Archaeological Committee of Colombia is still hesitant in recognizing the value of the artifact.
Material
There are many conflicting opinions about the stone from which the genetic disk was made. The first opinion about it belongs to the mineralogist, Dr. Vera Hammer, who subjected the artifact to XRD analysis (X-ray diffraction). Her conclusion was that the material used to make the disc was feldspar, quartz and mica. The examination was carried out in 2001, before the already mentioned exhibition.
However, contrary to Dr. Hammer's statement, the genetic disk is made of lydite - that is, the material of manufacture is designated as lydite. This opinion is now enshrined in most sources.
Lidita's Oddities
So, what is a lead? Sometimes this mineral is considered similar to shungite and paragon. It is a black, dark gray or brown mineral. It occurs mainly as veins in shungite shales and dolomites. Now it is used in metallurgy and construction - the Russians will remember, for example, the plates that wereKazansky and St. Isaac's Cathedrals in St. Petersburg, as well as some Moscow metro stations were decorated.
This is a very strange mineral, as its strength is compared with granite, while it turns out that it is quite fragile and layered. Modern technologists say that cutting any badges on the lead is a hopeless business, as it will crumble and crumble under the cutter. Nevertheless, the genetic disk is a fairly solid rounded plate with small drawings and symbols all over the surface. Given that they worked on it without microscopes many centuries ago, this fact, of course, cannot but surprise.
In addition, Lega's collection included other items made of lidite, including multi-figure figurines and even knives. It is not possible to make something like this today.
Symbolics
Another aspect of the genetic disk that continues to amaze is the pictures carved into it. The artifact contains images of human reproductive organs, a spermatozoon, the moment of conception, as well as a female egg, various phases of the development of a human fetus - from an amphibian to the birth of a formed human baby. The artifact also contains drawings depicting a woman, a man and a child.
The deciphering of the genetic disk is stunning - how could the ancients get such accurate knowledge that they could then depict the symbols in a strictly defined sequence? After all, for example, the sperm as a cell wasdiscovered much later - in 1677 by the biologist Anthony van Leeuwenhoek using a microscope. And in general, most of what is depicted on the disk can only be seen with the help of decent power magnifiers.
When explaining the drawings, one usually compares the disc with the clock face - hence expressions such as "around 11 o'clock we can see the image of a male testicle".
Science, by the way, has confirmed the correctness of all images, except for those that are still incomprehensible to scientists. It is possible that the genetic disk carries the encoded information that is not yet known to modern scientists in the field of embryology and genetics. Well, one can only hope that in the future it will be possible to unravel these mysteries.
We talked about the famous "genetic disk" artifact.
