History's Mysteries SOLVED #2

by Lynn & Da-da

Hi all, and welcome to another batch of SOLVED mysteries (ostensibly by way of Occam’s Razor this time). It’s always nice to get some resolution. As usual, Lynn's words are "in quotes,” and Da-da’s follow-up questions are [in brackets]. NOTE: Oddly, both of us had email drafts disappear more than once, and a bunch of other emails vanish and relocate themselves. Needless to say, it seems that someone / something doesn't want this information getting out, for whatever reason. With that in mind… here we go!

1. The Mona Lisa

Ok, who is the subject of Leonardo di Vinci’s, "Mona Lisa"? Some have suggested...

… that Leonardo actually painted himself as a woman! Also, why did Leonardo paint all that complex background behind her? Does it have any meaning?

What Lynn Saw

"I get this was his mom, which is why they resemble each other. I’m getting a story about his mom dying when he was fairly young, and he’d had this sketch of her he'd made while just a kid. He painted this as a tribute to her. The background is the landscape of his childhood; the whole thing is both a tribute and a recollection of Leonardo’s lost childhood."

2. The Salem Witch Trials 

This is a complicated mess from 1692, where 20 people were executed (five others died in prison). The part we’re most interested in is in red. 

From Wikipedia:

In Salem Village, in February 1692, Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the daughter and niece, respectively, of Reverend Samuel Parris, began to have fits described as "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect" by John Hale, the minister of the nearby town of Beverly. The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions, according to the eyewitness account of Rev. Deodat Lawson, a former minister in Salem Village.

The girls complained of being pinched and pricked with pins. A doctor, historically assumed to be William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Other young women in the village began to exhibit similar behaviors. When Lawson preached as a guest in the  Salem Village meetinghouse, he was interrupted several times by outbursts of the afflicted.

The first three people accused and arrested for allegedly afflicting Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, 12-year-old Ann Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard, were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Some historians believe that the accusation by Ann Putnam Jr. suggests that a family feud may have been a major cause of the witch trials. At the time, a vicious rivalry was underway between the Putnam and Porter families, one which deeply polarized the people of Salem. Citizens would often have heated debates, which escalated into full-fledged fighting, based solely on their opinion of the feud.

Good was a homeless beggar, known to seek food and shelter from neighbors. She was accused of witchcraft because of her appalling reputation. At her trial, she was accused of rejecting Puritan ideals of self-control and discipline when she chose to torment and "scorn [children] instead of leading them towards the path of salvation".

Sarah Osborne rarely attended church meetings. She was accused of witchcraft because the Puritans believed that Osborne had her own self-interests in mind following her remarriage to an indentured servant. The citizens of the town disapproved of her trying to control her son's inheritance from her previous marriage.

Tituba, an Indian slave, likely became a target because of her ethnic differences from most of the other villagers. She was accused of attracting girls like Abigail Williams and Betty Parris with stories of enchantment from Malleus Maleficarum. These tales about sexual encounters with demons, swaying the minds of men, and fortune-telling were said to stimulate the imaginations of girls and made Tituba an obvious target of accusations.

Each of these women was a kind of outcast and exhibited many of the character traits typical of the "usual suspects" for witchcraft accusations; they were left to defend themselves. Brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft, they were interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, then sent to jail.

In March, others were accused of witchcraft: Martha Corey, child Dorothy Good, and Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village, and Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich. Martha Corey had expressed skepticism about the credibility of the girls' accusations and thus drawn attention. The charges against her and Rebecca Nurse deeply troubled the community because Martha Corey was a full covenanted member of the Church in Salem Village, as was Rebecca Nurse in the Church in Salem Town. If such upstanding people could be witches, the townspeople thought, then anybody could be a witch, and church membership was no protection from accusation. Dorothy Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, was only four years old, but not exempted from questioning by the magistrates; her answers were construed as a confession that implicated her mother. In Ipswich, Rachel Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March on independent charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village.^[33]

The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. Five others (including two infant children) died in prison.

Twelve other women had previously been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century. Despite being generally known as the Salem Witch Trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.

The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in subsequent United States history. According to historian George Lincoln Burr, "the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered."

So... a total mess, and a great indicator of what a nightmare this community must’ve been like to live in. But were the girls faking their original symptoms? Or was it actually caused by a spirit? Were they perhaps influenced by bad grain?? (Some researchers tried to blame what happened on ergot, a kind of rye fungus.) So, what started it all?

What Lynn Saw

"It looks like the girls were faking it under the instruction of their mom, to basically scare the crap out of the opposing family… and it backfired horribly against everybody involved. The girls even practiced their performances, to evoke extra fear… but the whole thing turned into a complete mess. Those people locally who really did have powers didn’t go around flaunting it simply because of the nightmare way this society was structured. It was all a set up."


3. Glastonbury

Who originally built Glastonbury? I’m guessing the hill used to be a fort of some sort. What did it look like before the “tor" (tower) was built? I’m guessing the tor is fairly recent. What’s the early history of the site and the people who built it?

What Lynn Saw

"Strange, when I look at this, I can see through it. There’s a structure in the earth under this, and the earth grew up around it. There was a little city in the center of that hill. It might be a sacred site, but if you dig there, you’ll find stone remnants of this building that lies inside that hill. I’m getting tat the purpose of the structure was to house soldiers, mostly, and this place served as a pit stop between towns for travelers. It was built under some king’s orders."

[Which king? Was it King Arthur?]

"I want to say yes. That does feel right."

4. Chaco Canyon

So, who originally built Chaco Canyon? What happened to the civilization there?

What Lynn Saw

"The people who built this had very dark skin and straight dark hair, the native american tribe that built this community here. It feels like there were a lot of battles and fights over land and resources here, a lot of competition for survival. It was built with a big wall as protection, to protect against invasion, as terrible brutality existed at this time. The people within had a good mentality; they were just trying to protect themselves. They built the wall first, the rest later. It was its own little town. This tribe stayed there all year round. I also get that, as competition increased to survive outside, it became harder and harder to feed the thriving community inside. The resources dried up and the community was forced to abandon the area. They tried to reestablish this same community elsewhere." 

5. Grand Canyon Buddha
In 1909, a Phoenix newspaper article…

...was published about two Smithsonian archaeologists finding rock-cut vaults and caverns in the Grand Canyon, complete with what appeared to be a kind of Buddha-like statue, along with rock tunnels and even mummies. The researchers attributed the site to the Ancient Egyptians, which may have colored a lot of their thinking. The entrance was high up one of the cliff walls. Here’s an excerpt:

"The latest news of the progress of the explorations of what is now regarded by scientists as not only the oldest archeological discovery in the United States, but one of the most valuable in the world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette, was brought to the city yesterday by G.E. Kinkaid, the explorer who found the great underground citadel of the Grand Canyon during a trip from Green River, Wyoming, down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to Yuma, several months ago.”

You might want to read the whole newspaper article. It’s very interesting.

So, what’s the history of this site? Is it still intact? And did the Smithsonian toss all the evidence they found? (They won’t even acknowledge the archaeologists in the article.)

What Lynn Saw

"I’ve done readings on the Grand Canyon before that are dark; there’s this ominous feel or vibe to the Grand Canyon in general, like maybe it’s had lots of battles and death and such. There’s bad energy in spots. There are also ET bases in parts of the Grand Canyon where they come in and out through the rock walls. Basically, a lot of oddity in general. As for this, I get that there was trade and bartering system waay before the time of Columbus (though the European PTW don’t want you to know that, and have tried to write it out of history). People from Asia and vicinity knew of the West Coast and interior of North America for a long time, and would trade with the people there. One group brought over a Buddha statue when they traveled with some fur traders. It’s not that tough of a trip to go from Asia to Canada in the summer, when the water is free of ice. Feels like a group of Asians came over with the traders and stayed. They toted that Buddha statue for good luck and good fortune, and eventually wound up in the grand canyon, and lived in the caves they found. The site isn’t that old, really; only about 300 years before this 1909 newspaper article. And yes, The Smithsonian really did toss much of the evidence, but the site itself is still intact. Some people want to hold onto this false history that the US was isolated and unknown before the Europeans came; they can’t give credit to anyone else for what they did. Think about going all the way from Asia to the GC a thousand years ago with a Buddha statue in tow… it’s impressive!”

[Were the caves natural, or did the… Chinese?… carve them out? Did they find a preexisting site of a previous civilization? And what eventually happened to the Chinese who stayed there?]

“The caves were natural, and were found through the opening (which was much smaller, later made larger). I don't think anyone lived there for a length of time (it was more of a take cover kind of place). Eventually, like many societies, they ran out of resources, and could not thrive there. I see they headed south, maybe even all the way to Mexico."

[It’s kinda like "Kung Fu" (the TV series) meets "Aguirre, Wrath of God.”] 

And that is all folks.  Thanks everyone for tuning in to read.  Love and light- Lynn and Da-da