Ancient Romans Hunted ‘Sea Monsters.’ Were They Whales? - New York Times

We all like mysteries, but it also feels good to crack them once in a while. Here are three recent examples. First: An ancient Greco-Roman poem tells of brave fishermen who harpooned a "sea monster." But the latest evidence is that it wasn't really a sea monster, but a whale. Second: A Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Papyrus Puzzle Has Been Solved. Infrared images revealed that the Basel Papyrus was not a single sheet of two-sided, mirror-writing papyrus but many pages glued together--no wonder it has proved impossible to decipher! And third: It seems Archaeologists and astronomers have solved the mystery of Chile's Stonehenge. Rows of cairn-like pillars--known in the indigenous Quechua language as the saywas, or markers--dot the Atacama desert in northern Chile, but their purpose has eluded investigator for 500 years--until now. A recent investigation reveals that, like Stonehenge, the saywas had a simultaneous calendrical, ritual, and political purpose. Not everything mysterious remains a mystery, but some appear to be truly insoluble: Will Science Ever Solve the Mysteries of Consciousness, Free Will and God? And in a follow-up article, Michael Shermer's mysterianism is confronted by skeptics in Mysterianism Redux. (PH)

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from THE ANOMALIST https://nyti.ms/2msZn3N