Designing From Bones ~ Map of the Creator

Welcome to Designing From Bones, where we use archaeology, myth, mysteries and history to unearth the stories of tomorrow.

To make up for my unscheduled break last week, I thought I’d share a fun riddle with you – an item found in the Russian outback, surrounded by conflicting facts, a host of mysteries and not, as of yet, considered a hoax. Which means, perfect fodder for writing. Join me friends as we take a look at the “map of the creator”.

The Dashka Stone

Alexandr Chuvyrov

In 1998, Alexandr Chuvyrov, a math and physics professor at Bashkir State University, began searching for a stone slab he believed would provide evidence of ancient Chinese immigrants living in the Ural Mountains. His quest followed leads from 17th & 18th century archeologists that had discovered more than 200 large stone slabs scattered throughout the area, covered in odd signs and patterns that Chuvyrov felt certain supported his belief. Now all he had to do was find one for himself.

The Dashka Stone. See the mountains?

A year later, local resident and one-time chairman of the Chandar (a local village) agricultural council, Vladimir Krainov, heard about the search and related to Chuvyrov that he had such a slab under his back porch/yard/in front (stories vary here). It took Chuvyrov and his team a week to uncover and remove the massive stone, requiring a combination of elbow grease and creative engineering, including the ancient technique of wooden rollers (when prehistory reduces modern age to stone age – ironic). Weighing just over a ton, the slab stands 5 feet tall, 3.5 feet wide and is 6 inches thick. Big, yes, but still just a rock.

However, this is no ordinary rock (or I wouldn’t be writing about it). Some fun facts:

• 

  How about now?

  The stone was named “Dashka” after the granddaughter of the discoverer and later popularized as the Map of the Creator.

• The rock has been carbon dated to between 100 and 500 million years old, based on a pair of ancient shells found locked into it. Yep, that is how precise it gets folks.
• The slab is composed of three layers that may, or may not (dependent on the source) occur naturally. The main layer is a dolomite-base ceramic (very hard), topped with a layer of diopside glass (silicone-base and this particular variety cannot be duplicated by modern means) and coated with a thin layer of porcelain (betting this component didn’t appear without human assistance – oh, and this type was never used by the Chinese).
• 

  Dashka Stone and the Section of the Urals that is a close match

  The surface is covered with a 3-D bas-relief of a section of the Ural Mountains (see map), similar to computer generated maps used by modern military forces. Only, this is no modern creation – the slab shows no signs of modern tool usage which means it was hand carved, but no one can determine the age of the carvings (or at least no one is saying).

• Details include: the mountains, rivers, fault lines and other natural topography. And, that is where the natural ends because it also shows – 12 dams of massive proportion (each would displace a quadrillion tons of earth to create), 15,000 (or so) miles of irrigation channels and other environmental restructuring projects.
• 

  Modern Belaya River - Does this look like it could have been a canal at one time?

  Most interesting thing shown (#1): That the Belaya River originally had an artificial river bed.

• Most interesting thing shown (#2): All of the projects on the map are marked with symbols originally thought to be Chinese. However, you guessed it – not Chinese. Rather, the symbols turn out to be an esoteric form of hieroglyphs that defy decoding.

So, now we arrive at the magic question. How did a hand carved, precision 3-D map, detailing a impressive array of civic works and marked in an unknown language come to be under Mr. Krainov’s back porch? No one knows for sure, but there are plenty of theories.

Odd Theories Abound

Now this is where it gets fun. Ready?

According to the Center of Historical Maps in Wisconsin, the map could only have been created through the use of an aerial view, i.e. ancient powered flight. And who flew the most in prehistory you ask? Well, aliens did, of course. The irony to this theory – ancients with advanced flight and glass-making/stone-binding technology didn’t have anything better to make a map on than a one-ton slab of “hand carved” rock.

Some fringe creationist groups have attributed the stone as antediluvian – made before Noah’s flood – as proof of gods punishment for mankind’s tampering with the divine environment. Ancient sinners tried to control the waters and yep, the waters got ’em (that should be a song lyric, by the way). The flood conveniently cleared the slate, so to speak, which is why we aren’t finding massive prehistoric dams and water works in the Urals. The irony here – ancients with advanced water knowledge only had ONE boat.

Ark in progress. Artist unknown.

One final theory states that the Dashka Stone is only one in a set of 348 similar slabs that form a 3 dimensional cubed map of the planet. Which would make it 340 by 340 meters when fully assembled. Not sure of the practicality of this map and I’d challenge any road traveler to fold and fit that in their glove box (car, plane or spaceship). The irony of this one – if true, someone created the worlds largest map of the world and the world pulled it apart, the apex of “camera shy”.

Map of the Creator

And, on to the fiction, although by now I bet you have ideas cascading through the grey matter of creation.

First, this could be a hoax, but as I mentioned at the beginning – not yet.

Let’s start with the idea that the map is indeed an ancient creation and that there is a missing layer of time that – lost to human history – ends in a massive cataclysm of some type. This is the crack we slip through into the fiction.

Given the above elements, the creators of the map were more advanced in some ways (flight, stonework, glass-work, carving and civic works) then we are now and yet stone age in other aspects (they set their work in rock)- an interesting blend. What would such a people by like and why were they working so hard to manipulate the rivers and water flow of the planet?

Mapping from space - crazy talk! This is POES it just studies climate change. A wandering star to the pre-modern eye. Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Add to this the 348 slab mega-map. How did they map the entire planet? Planes? From orbiting spacecraft like we currently use to map Mars?

Which brings us to – the aliens. Did they try to terraform Earth, hiding their actions by using stone maps so that the primitives living here (humans) would be unable to pin down the truth? Why would they want to hide their presence? From us or from another species?

Next question – How did their time here end and what was their ultimate purpose? Did they cause the “great flood” that runs through the myth of nearly every human culture on Earth? On purpose or by accident? Why, after doing all they marked on the maps, would they then leave without a trace? Are they coming back? When?

Finally, let’s add the odd theory. Noah was the human that received “the call” to make a boat along with instructions on how to do it. He then is the witness of the aliens (i.e. gods) actions, able to carry them forward to the best of his understanding. What purpose would the aliens have for using Noah this way? Is he the protagonist of the story or an agent of the villains?

Only you can decide.

One parting shot – because I like all of you – this story can be set as Alternate History/Earth (lost secrets of human history), Science Fiction (aliens visit humans), Paranormal Fantasy (other-dimensional faeries play in a medieval realm), Romance (Noah’s alien lover gives him a way to survive but they are lost to each other forever – or are they?), Horror (the aliens are coming back to clean the slate of us and claim their terraformed world) and a host of other genres; if you take a few minutes to let the ideas brew.

Have any thoughts on this? I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time, be well and…

Peaceful Journeys!