While Some of These Rock Carvings Visually Resemble Modern Technologies, Others Are Just Recent Creations - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 10, 2023
A video is being shared on social media that claims to show a series of rock carvings that depict modern-day inventions such as bicycles, computers, astronaut suits, etc. The carvings show detailed depictions of these technologies, including images of people riding bicycles, sitting at computers, and even wearing astronaut helmets. The video suggests that these carvings are evidence that our ancestors were more technologically advanced than we previously thought and may have even had access to advanced knowledge or extra-terrestrial help. Let’s fact-check the claims made in the post.
Claim: The ancient rock carvings show modern-day technologies like computers, Astronaut suits and bicycles, etc. which suggests that our ancestors are more technologically advanced than us.
Fact: The carvings of the bicycle and astronaut are done recently after their inventions are made. The man sitting at a computer is not a carving, but an artwork made in 2006. Similarly, symbols in some other carvings have not yet been deciphered, and some of the associations with modern symbols like Wi-Fi, rockets and transformers, etc, could be due to visual similarities rather than actual representation as there is not enough evidence to support them. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Ancient carving of a Person sitting at the computer:
In a previous viral circulation, the same image was claimed to be a 1,400-year-old stonework at an Indian temple. However, we previously debunked this claim and provided evidence that it was an artwork created by an artist named Raul Cruz in 2006. To read our complete fact-check article, click here.
Stone carving of a bicycle with a rider:
We previously debunked these images when they went viral claiming to be from an Indian temple. However, it was discovered that they were actually classical Balinese stone temple architecture, featuring a peculiar wall relief depicting a highly stylized man riding a bicycle with floral wheels. This figure is widely believed to be the work of Dutch artist, lithographer, and ethnologist, Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp, who was considered the first European artist to visit the island in 1906. It should be noted that the invention of bicycles predates the time period when the carving was made, which refutes the claim that the carvings depict ancient knowledge of modern technologies.
Petroglyph of an Astronaut:
The claim that the Cathedral of Salamanca in Spain has an astronaut carving dating back to the 12th century has also been debunked earlier. The Cathedral is actually two churches joined together, with one dating back to the 12th-13th century and the other dating back to the 16th century. The astronaut carving and other modern-day figures were added only recently during renovations in 1992. One of the artists working on the cathedral decided to sign his work with the figure of a 20th-century astronaut, along with other figures such as a dragon eating ice cream, a lynx, a bull, a stork, a rabbit, and a crayfish. Therefore, the claim that the Cathedral of Salamanca has an astronaut carving from the 12th century is false, and it is simply a modern-day hoax.
The video makes other claims of ancient carvings depicting modern-day inventions such as rockets, Wi-Fi, transformers etc. However, these claims do not hold up to scrutiny as there is not enough evidence to support them. The symbols in the carvings have not yet been deciphered, and some of the associations with modern symbols could be due to visual similarities rather than actual representations.
To sum it up, there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that our ancestors have already carved depictions of modern-day technological inventions. The images and symbols in the viral post have either been debunked or lack sufficient evidence to support their interpretations.