In our story we were inspired by this controversial artifact presented by Archeologist Klaus Dona. Of course the original one doesn’t have the Kanaga symbol on it. Here some information about the Genetic Disc. So you decide if it is a genuine piece or a hoax.
An extraordinary and awesome Disc in black stone that on its two facades encloses the “Secrets of the Life”. An astonishing knowledge that brings havoc in the researchers and scholars comunity. This “Genetic Disc” that measure 22 centimeters in diameter and of 2 Kg in weight, was found in Colombia by Jaime Gutierrez-Lega. It is now exposed to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Vienna, Austria and analyzed by Dr. Vera M.F. Hammer (www.nhm-wien.ac.at…) and there are still many enigmas to resolve.
The material of the disc seems to be lydite a very hard black stone. Regarding the stone dating, even if being it has not been possible to assign it a precise historical period, it seems manifactured approximately 6000 years ago…. However it was dated in prehistoric epoch and assigned to the MUISCA Culture.
The particularitity of the disc consists in the carvings that are anticipate on its two facades that seem to contain genetic or biological informations. These carvings would represent the evolutionary process that carries from the frog to the man. Other details that can be noticed is the visible presence of genital organs, spermatozoa, ova, (female egg) and even the fertilization of the ovum that is transformed in embryo until to arrive to the formation of the fetus. The other side shows scenes that can be interpreted as the Cell Division (!) in different stages of a frog/snake or an unknown being!
Male
Female
Male, female and embryo
By Hermann Rohr
How Advanced was Ancient Knowledge of Genetics?
The Genetic Disc is dated Pre Columbian and is amazing in several ways. Archeologically it challenges our excepted historical knowledge. Scientifically it challenges our understanding of the formability of materials. And in terms of Biology it’s content pre dates any of our known imagery of the same subject.
Introduction:
Archeology seams to have a well known category. The one we can follow closely in school books and modern history books.
However there is another category of archeology, one not very known to the mainstream public. It is not my intention to weave any conspiracy. However it is a fact, once you research the matter for your self, that many great archeological discoveries made over the past decades have never been exposed to the greater public in peer reviewed magazines and hardly threw the media either.
This field of disputed archaeology is also coined Forbidden Archaeology and the artifacts it deals with are known as “out of place artifacts“.
The point is, that we are constantly re discovering our selves, our origin and history. With origin I do not mean the Ancient Alien theory. In this regard I ask of you to please read without any prejudice. I believe we underestimate our ancients and the pre historic civilizations that mite have existed before ours.
The Genetic Disc
One of such out of place artifacts is the Genetic Disc. Much credit goes to Mr. Klaus Dona who sponsored the Image of the Disc. He has spent more time in the field than many academically acclaimed Archaeologist. He dedicates his days, aside from his main work as a art curator, to uncovering and researching many other such artifacts. Many of which, by carbon-dating, pre-date the formally excepted beginning of human civilization with writing, art and handcraft.
The Genetic Disc was found in Columbia and the original belongs to a well known designer and architect there, Jaime Gutierrez. He has been collecting strange artifacts from his country for decades.
The Genetic Disc is made of a very peculiar material called lydite. It measures a diameter of about 27cm (10.63 inches ) Hardly anyone will know this material if he is not an expert on materials. It’s so unknown, the spelling checker of most text editors including My Blog’s doesn’t have the word lydite in it. This material is very hard, almost as hard as Granite. Which roughly compared to Diamond on a MOHS scale would be between 6-7.[1] However lydite is very fragile due to the fact that it’s internally layered like paper. So making anything usable from it would be sheer impossible, according to our modern day technological standards. It would break away with the first impact or- try to carve something in to it. However the picture of the Genetic Disc you see above clearly shows, not only a well bound solid, but also a ornamented- with little symbols or pictures- rounded flat disc. How were the ancients capable producing such a art peace?
Another interesting aspect about the Genetic Disk are the pictures on it. In terms of Biology, many of the little pictures on it are only known to us today do to the use of microscopes. Yes, that’s right. We are talking about a object which is probably centuries or even thousands of years old.
It shows pictures of a sperm, fetus and even female egg. With as little as school biology, you would have to put in some mental effort to ignore the associations that spontaneously pop up in your mind, when observing the pictures. It is mysterious how such ancient man could know something, which is technologically very profound to us.
This brings us to one of the most pushing aspects of the Genetic Disc- It’s age and the question, who and how did they create it. Again I would like to emphasize that we still know much to little about the capabilities of our ancients or even their technological standards.
The following short video taken from a History Channel Episode illustrates the conceptual question: ” Would they even know we were here 500 -1000 years from today, if we all were wiped out today?”
You are free to draw your personal conclusions about the Genetic Disc, from the facts I have presented here. Many still draw their conclusions based on the main stream of science’s opinion or the peer reviewed magazines they publish. The information presented here mite be disputed in such sources. But it does not make it less credible.
As mentioned in the beginning the existence of the Genetic Disc – which is literally a un copyable master peace, even with todays technology-is still a mystery.
The historian will have to review his understanding of his notion of historic cronology..The Biologist will need be open to an existence of knowledge about the micro cosmos well before our history books note the invention of the first compound microscope. “Two Dutch Spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his father Hans started experimenting with it around 1590.”[2]
Regardless of any of the above we as a rational and universally open being are once more challenged to disregard what we think to know about our selves and history and be more open to what we can still learn, remember and readapt.
HOAX?
In an earlier version of this post I mentioned that I had been unsuccessful at contacting Dr. Vera M. F. Hammer to get her comments on the Genetic Disk. After this post was published, and through the wonders of twitter, I was able to get in contact with her and she gave me some great insights into her involvement with the disk. Also, I’ve learned a bit about mineralogy and the differences between chert and schits and so have changed parts of the post due to this new information. I will note the areas that have been changed with an UPDATED tag. Thanks again to Dr. Hammer and to Edward Habsburg (@EdwardHabsburg) who connected us.
The red flags on this one just fly through the air. Just about nothing about this “artifact” makes sense. Honestly, it’s a little hard to know where to start here with this one. I guess a description is in order.
The disk is said to be made out of lydite and measures 22 cm in diameter and weighs 2 Kg. It’s apparently solid black in color and shaped like a Bi Disk. It’s carved on both faces, and has random images carved on it depicting what some are calling “the cycle of life.”
I can’t find any official origin story for the disk. What I can cobble together from the websites that focus on the disk is only that it was found somewhere in Columbia by a gentleman named Jaime Gutierrez-Lega, who is a well known industrial designer in Columbia. At some point after it was found it was taken to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Vienna, Austria, and reportedly studied by Dr. Vera M. F. Hammer. She somehow managed to date the stone and apparently assigned it to the Pre-Columbian Muisca-culture.
Now, lets really begin to break this one down, because I’m rather surprised this one fools anyone once you really start to look at it.
First, There is no account or record of the Genetic Disk ever being discovered. This is kind of unusual because even fake artifacts have origin stories usually listing time(s) and place(s), often giving details of how the artifacts were found and by who. This time all we have is “The Disk was found in Columbia by Jaime Gutierrez-Lega.” This doesn’t tell us anything, and it’s sure doesn’t help create confidence in authenticity. Columbia is a big place, where in Columbia was it found? How did Gutierrez-Lega discover it? Was he digging with a group or did he just stub his toe on it? Why is there no record of it being discovered? Are there any other witnesses to the discovery? What did he do to preserve it? Where did he take it? Who else saw this artifact? Does Mr. Gutierrez-Lega even know he’s associated with the Disk or is he a convenient target for the conspiratorial minded?
What I have been able to cobble together about the Genetic Disk I’ve found on a variety of personal blogs, that I will list in the resources below. However, other than repeating the same shoddy details, they mainly just marvel over how cool the carvings are on the Disk and how they clearly show “the process of life” including two naked individuals, images of sperm, fertilized eggs, embryos, and some other random squiggles. I mean, these are cool images, very sleek and modern looking, but they are not evidence of anything by themselves.
(UPDATE) Second. The claim here is that lydite is as hard as granite and is also delicate and flaky, making it too hard for prehistoric people to carve and too delicate for them to carve in such detail anyway. The first problem is that the way people are trying to support these claims is comparing the MOHS scale reading of lydite to that of granite. Never-minding that lydite and granite are two completely different types of rock (Hammer 2013), the MOHS scale does not apply to rock, so the hardness of the rock used to carve the disk is not relevant (Hammer 2013).
As to not being able to carve something like this mysterious delicate and flaky rock, I’d like to point out that prehistoric peoples were incredibly gifted at carving shell and thin sheets of Mica into gorgets and other forms of jewelry. They were just as capable at carving delicate materials as they were crafting stone tools.
Now, that’s not saying I believe that the Genetic Disk is made out of any of these materials. There is nothing supporting the descriptions of the Disk. It is my opinion that the stone the Disk is made of is not lydite at all. Dr. Hammer gave a good deal of information on the actual composition of the material of the disk, and I am leaving that for the section below.
(UPDATED) Third. Lets begin to look at the people involved with the disk.
The supposed finder of the Genetic Disk is Jaime Gutierrez-Lega, who is an Industrial Designer known for his modern and sleek designs in his artwork. We know Gutierrez-Lega is a real person, but I have no idea what, if anything, he has to do with archaeology. I can’t really say more than that with any certainty. I have not been able to find a way to contact him. However, if this story is remotely true, I find it very suspicious that an modern artist found an artifact out of the blue, that looks very sleek and very modern in design. I’m not saying Mr. Gutierrez-Lega has done anything, it’s my guess he’s probably not involved, or if he is, he’s been horribly taken out of context and his goodwill taken advantage of.
Which brings us to the next participant. As I stated at the beginning of this post, Dr. Vera M.F. Hammer recently contacted me to answer my questions about her involvement with the disk. She was very kind to do so, and it was very exciting to talk to someone living who is involved in something like this. I have reproduced Dr. Hammer’s account here.
Dr. Hammer is a Mineralogist, not a Geologist as some sites (myself included, sorry.) have said. Since 1992 she has worked as a curator for the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Department of Mineralogy and Petrography. According to Dr. Hammer she first encountered the disk in 2001 through Mr. Klaus Dona, an individual I didn’t touch on last time, but will get to this time. But first, Dr. Hammer’s account:
“I was asked in the year 2001 by Mr. Klaus Dona, who curated the exhibition “Unsolved Mysteries” in the same year in Vienna, to make XRD analyses of some of the exhibited objects. Most of the objects include new materials and I told him that this were fakes, but this is not what he wants to hear… Even other scientists from our Museum told the owners of the objects, and Mr. Klaus Dona, that all that stuff is not what they believed. Some of the exhibited objects were curiosities by the nature, others man made new stuff which you can buy in any touristic shop in that areas. But anyway, our comment about the so called „genetic disc“ was only that it consists of feldspar, quartz and mica, which was proved by XRD measurement.
My former director who was petrologist said, that this rock could be lydite (a grey to black fine grained schist) or an artificial product made of this minerals. I never classified the disk or any other of these objects to a special cultural period or give any statement of age, which in fact are not part of my competence. So, this was the only information we gave, not more! All interpretation of symbols and signs, age or anything else arise in the head of the owner and/or the curator of the exhibition! There was no author given in the catalogue about “Unsolved Mysteries”, so in fact, I don’t know who writes all that nonsense!”
Dr. Hammer’s statement pretty much concludes this whole thing. The one and only official researcher who is mentioned as having studied the Disk tells us it is a fake.
So let’s take that closer look at Mr. Klaus Dona.
Mr. Dona appears to be based out of Austria and calls himself a Spiritual Archaeologist. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m pretty skeptical it’s a real sub-field of archaeology. Mr. Dona’s website is Unsolved Mysteries, where he sells some books, has some more extensive explanations of the Genetic Disk and other artifacts. In his explanation for the Disk he says “Geologists at the University of Bogotá date it to a prehistoric epoch. The most recent examinations were unable to find evidence of faking.” Except for the researchers at Natural History Museum in Vienna telling him they were fakes and also the fact that Geologists aren’t going to be able to date an artifact, also I notice he’s stopped giving the names of his researchers.
Mr. Dona also has a hard time keeping his own facts straight. In a video on YouTube titled “Klaus Dona – The Hidden History of the Human Race – Must Watch” at about 25:50 he begins to talk about the Disk. He says there is no way to identify the culture that produced the artifacts and that the way the artifacts were dated was by guessing the artifacts were older than any known civilization in the area, therefore they must be 6,000 years old. Very scientific. He doesn’t mention how any of these things were found, where exactly they were found, why they are considered older than all other civilizations in the area, or who the researchers were that helped date and identify and interpret the Disk et al. He gives no evidence whatsoever to back up any of his claims.
Fourth. It is really hard to date rock, and assuming you could get a date, you would literally be dating the rock itself, not the artifact that was made out of the rock. There is often no organic material on rock to date to get an age for the artifact, and so, often the age of rock artifacts is reliant on the context of the area it was found in, or, as in the case of stone tools, the style in which the artifact was made. So how they got a date for the Disk is beyond me. Unless people are trying to say that the age of the rock is concurrent with the age of the Muisca-culture, in that case, there is no evidence to support this. Though according the Mr. Dona, they are basically just making it up.
Fifth and lastly. I don’t see any similarities between the artwork on the Disk and the artwork left behind by the Muisca-culture. The few Muisca items I’ve seen don’t look anything like the Disk. Which I guess is the point, but if this was a culture that lived along side of the Muisca, why is there no other evidence of their presence? If this was a more advanced people, visiting their vast knowledge on an ancient peoples, why is there no further evidence for their presence? If this was the work of aliens, then why is there no further evidence….well you get the point.
(Updated) My Observations.
The Genetic Disk is just so bizarre to me because, if you ask any questions at all about it, the whole story begins to fall apart. The one named researcher who supposedly helped date and decode the disk clearly did not. Not only that, she clearly told Mr. Dona that the Disk and it’s related artifacts were fakes. The museum where the Disk was supposedly studied is a fake place. There is no documentation, fake or otherwise, to support where and how the disk was found. The material of the disk could probably be man-made, meaning that the Disk could have been (probably is) a cast. Mr. Dona, being informed of this, continues to change his story about the Disk, evolving it to meet his needs. I mean, the only thing I am convinced of is that somewhere there is an object that looks like the picture above. There is absolutely nothing supporting the validity or reality of the disk.
Resources:
Hammer, Vera M. F.
2013 Personal Correspondence via Email. December 17, 2013.
N.d Personal reference page – http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/en/research/mineralogy__petrography/staff/vera_m_f_hammer. Accessed 12/11/2013
Hurst, K. Kris.
N.d. Musica Culture. About.com http://archaeology.about.com/cs/glossary/g/muisca.htm”>http://archaeology.about.com/cs/glossary/g/muisca.htm. Accessed 12/11/2013
Questionable Resources:
Above Top Secret. The Awesome Mystery of the Pre Columbian “Genetic Disc”. Astonishing Knowledge! http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread770144/pg1. Accessed 12/11/2013
Klaus Dona, Spiritual Archaeologist. http://projectcamelot.org/klaus_dona.html. Accessed 12/11/2013
Onovus: Ancient Mysteries and Present Discoveries. Genetic Disc | Advanced Biological Knowledge in Ancient Times. https://onovus.wordpress.com/tag/genetic-disk/. Accessed 12/11/2013
Unsolved Mysteries: The Genetic Disc. http://unsolved-mysteries.info/english/objects/e01_01c.htm. Accessed 12/11/2013