Many people tend to look to the past of humanity in search of secret knowledge. Therefore, with each culture of antiquity, along with scientific theories, a number of beautiful, but unconvincing hypotheses are associated. This also applies to the Harappan civilization.
One of the most intriguing mysteries in India is astravidya. So the Aryans called the mysterious weapon (in another version of the interpretation of the science of using this weapon), the possession of which is attributed to the Harappans. In the ancient Indian epic, this irresistible heavenly weapon is described as follows: "It will kill embryos in … women" and "… can strike countries and peoples for several generations."
The use of astravidia is accompanied by the brightest flash of light and fire, devouring all living things and destroying all buildings over a large area. The gods gave Arjuna, the hero of the epic, a wonderful weapon and supplied this weapon with the following instruction: "This extraordinary and completely irresistible weapon [… it] should never be used by you against people, for, thrown into the weak, it can burn the whole world …"
This weapon is very similar to an atomic bomb. The similarities between Astravidia and the atomic bomb are so striking that American nuclear physicist Robert Young even used the description of the operation of Astravidia as the title of a book on the history of nuclear weapons invention. "Light brighter than thousands of Suns will be born in the darkness …" - this is how the authors of "Mahabharata" wrote about astravidya. "Brighter than a Thousand Suns" is the title of a book by Robert Jung.
Another nuclear physicist, one of the fathers of the nuclear bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, believed that his research was a repetition of the experiments of the ancient Indians, who once possessed the secret of the nuclear bomb.
One of the chapters of the Mahabharata describes such a heavenly battle, which can be taken as a description of a nuclear war:
Promotional video:
“… In all their splendor, glowing columns of smoke and flames rose brighter than a thousand suns. Iron lightning, giant messengers of death, erased the entire race of Vrishni and Andhaka to ashes. The corpses were burned beyond recognition.
Nails and hair fell out. For no apparent reason, pottery crumbled. The birds turned gray. After a few hours, all food was unusable. The soldiers who escaped the fire threw themselves into the water to wash away the ashes.
Researchers of the mythology of ancient peoples often note the paradoxical and completely unexpected abilities and inventions of ancient people for historians. But can the myths be trusted in this regard? Historians have not yet found an answer to this question.
There are many known cases when trust in myths and legends led to amazing discoveries. So, Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy on the hill of Hisarlik precisely because he believed in the truthfulness of every word of the Iliad (some scholars, however, are sure that Schliemann dug not Greek Troy at all, but another city).
Schliemann was helped even by such "smallness" as an indication that the hill occupied by Troy had to be small - the heroes of the Trojan War could run around the fortress wall of the ancient city three times and not get very tired. If it were not for an unconditional belief in the myth, Troy might not have been discovered until now.
There is another case as well. Herodotus, describing Egypt, said that the Egyptians mummified sacred animals, in particular the sacred bulls of the god Serapis, and for the burial of such mummies they built a special temple - the Serapeum. Egyptologists of the century before last argued in chorus that this story was an idle fairy tale, invented either by Herodotus himself, or by the Egyptians, who decided to play a trick on a gullible foreigner. Only one historian took and believed Herodotus. It was the French archaeologist Auguste Mariette. He opened the Serapeum and found in this temple the mummified bodies of sacred bulls.
But can we trust the Mahabharata as much as we trusted their sources Schliemann and Mariette? Some researchers answer this question positively. In their opinion, the reason for such an answer is provided by the mystery of the disappearance of the inhabitants of the cities of the Indus Valley.
Skeletons of people and animals were found in the ruins of cities, however, the small number of skeletons found sharply contrasts with the size of cities and suggests that the inhabitants of the city either disappeared somewhere, or were killed by some unknown method, which assumed the complete destruction of people.
This version began to seem even more plausible when traces of a giant fire were discovered in Mohenjo-Daro. The skeletons of some people testify that these people died without fighting the invaders. Death befell them at the moment when they were doing their usual business.
Another discovery amazed historians even more: in different parts of the city, huge pieces of debris clay and whole layers of green glass were discovered, which turned into sand. Both sand and clay under the influence of high temperature first melted, and then instantly solidified.
Glass layer in Mohenjo-Daro
Italian scientists proved that the transformation of sand into glass was possible only at temperatures above 1500 degrees. The technologies of that time made it possible to reach such temperatures only in metallurgical forges, but combustion at such a high temperature in the vast territory of the city seems incredible. Even in our time, it is impossible to reach this temperature without the use of combustible materials.
When archaeologists excavated the entire territory of Mohenjo-Daro, one amazing feature of the destruction was revealed. In the center of the residential part of the city, an area is clearly distinguished - the epicenter, in which all buildings seem to have been swept away by some kind of squall. From the epicenter to the fortress walls, destruction gradually decreases. This is one of the main secrets of the city: it is the outskirts of buildings that have been best preserved, while during the storming of the city by the forces of conventional troops, the greatest destruction concerns the fortress walls and outskirts.
The destruction in Mohenjo-Daro is very similar to the consequences of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in any case, this is what, for example, the Englishman Davenport and the Italian Vincenti say. In addition, they drew attention to the fact that every time after a nuclear explosion at a test site in the state of Nevada, caked layers of green glass appeared, in many cases open in Mohenjo-Daro.
Some researchers think that a highly developed civilization existed on the territory of India, even surpassing the modern one. She died either as a result of a war with another, equally developed, terrestrial or extraterrestrial civilization, for example, with the civilization of the Atlanteans, or as a result of the uncontrolled use of technology, say, nuclear weapons.
Irish fortress Dundalk
Another, more fantastic theory suggests that the Harappan people came into contact with an alien civilization and, thanks to this, mastered high-tech weapons that they were not ready for. As a result of the misuse of such weapons, civilization in the Indus Valley perished.
The ruined iconic capital of the Indus Valley is not the only example of mysterious ruins burnt by "heavenly fire". Among such cities, archaeologists name several ancient cities located in different parts of the world: for example, the capital of the Hittite kingdom of Hattusa (Hattushas), the granite walls of the Irish fortresses of Dundalk and Ekoss and the American city of Sacsayhuaman, the remains of the temple tower in Borsippa near Babylon.
The traces of such fires have surprised even professional historians. So, commenting on the fact that the tower in Borsippa, 46 meters high, was melted not only outside, but also inside, a well-known specialist in the field of biblical archeology Erich Zeren writes: but he also melted hundreds of burnt bricks, scorching the entire skeleton of the tower, which melted from the terrible heat into a dense mass, like molten glass."
How do you solve this problem? A nuclear explosion would release a significant number of radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. In the bones of people who died in a nuclear explosion, the content of 14C is significantly higher than that of their contemporaries who did not experience the effects of radiation.
Borsippa
Consequently, the 14C content that scientists found in the remains of the inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro would indicate that the Harappan civilization is much older than modern scientists assume. Mohenjo-Daro in this case was built 5, 10 or even 30 thousand years earlier than the expected date.
The same applies to other cities of the Indus Valley - after all, their inhabitants were also exposed to radiation. Is this possible, because the Harappan import is well known in Mesopotamia and Central Asia and dates back to 3-2 thousand BC. e., but not earlier.
Let's imagine that the Harappan civilization died, say, around 10,000 BC. e. In this case, it is strange why the Harappan things became known in Mesopotamia only at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. What were the mysterious lands of Melukhha and Magan in this case, because the cities of the Indus Valley in this case should have been dead for almost 8000 years.
But it was from them that the characteristic Harappan goods were brought to Mesopotamia. It cannot be that merchants buy goods that disappeared in India itself several millennia ago. Moreover, the Mesopotamian goods found in the cities of the Indus Valley also date back to 3-2 thousand BC. BC, that is, in other words, it turns out that the Harappan people used Mesopotamian products for many years before the birth of their creators.
Not only Mohenjo-Daro, but other monuments with traces of "heavenly fire" are also excellently dated. Historians know the terms of the reign of many Hittite kings up to the year of accession to the throne. Their letters to the Egyptian pharaohs and to the rulers of the cities of the Middle East are known.
A nuclear explosion in Khatussa would mean the aging of the rule of the Hittite kings known to us, which means that they had to live and die earlier than the addressees of their letters. Also, there is no reason to make the dates dated and imported things discovered in Irish fortresses, allegedly scorched by nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, no matter how attractive the hypothesis of the use of nuclear weapons in antiquity, in particular in Mohenjo-Daro, is, history is forced to abandon this version as groundless. Most likely, the city was burned by invaders or the Indians themselves burned it, because it was desecrated.
But how do you explain the incredibly high combustion temperature? The Borsinns Temple Tower answers this question. The region is one of the leading exporters of oil, so it is not surprising that the tower was doused or overlaid with combustible materials both from the outside and from the inside.
The mysterious astravidya is a kind of phenomenal weapon of quite natural, earthly origin for that time. Such a weapon could be some analogue of gunpowder or the mysterious "Greek fire". It can be assumed that the Harappans knew the secrets of combustible minerals - sulfur, saltpeter, and maybe phosphorus.
And in that place, which is called "the epicenter of a nuclear explosion", in reality there were warehouses of combustible substances. Later, ancient technologies were forgotten, and the results of their application in the eyes of descendants were greatly exaggerated.