Problems that are difficult for scientists to understand

Chapter 4: Secrets of Life (3)
In Semitic literature, the pomegranate tree is often used as a sacred symbol in religion.Some people believe that the pronunciation of the word "pomegranate" in Hebrew is the name of the god of the same name.This is further evidence of the sacred symbolism of the pomegranate tree. Some chapters in the "Old Testament Song of Solomon" mention that Solomon compared the temple of his bride to a field of pomegranates, and compared the bride herself to an orchard planted with pomegranate trees.Perhaps for this reason, the barren pomegranate tree became a symbol of desolation and loneliness.Because each pomegranate fruit contains hundreds of seeds, the ancients regarded pomegranate as a symbol of fertility and life.The pomegranates on the pillars of Solomon's Temple may suggest a similar meaning.

In addition, grapes also have a certain symbolic meaning. Some chapters in the "New Testament Gospel of John" mentioned that Jesus once said to the believers: "I am the true vine, and the Father is the cultivator. He cuts off my fruitless branches and cleanses the fruitful branches. so that it may bear more fruit... Unless the branch grows on the vine, it will not bear fruit by itself; and you will not gain the way unless you are in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches." Proof that the vine is one of the earliest symbols of Jesus himself.

According to the "Bible", staying under the vine and fig tree has the meaning of peace and tranquility; and the abundant grape fruit symbolizes the joy of the family. "The Book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament" recorded that the prophet said in the name of God: "I planted you as the best vine, which is completely true seed. How did you become a bad branch of the foreign vine to me? Therefore, people later compared the unfaithful Israelites to "wild grapes".

In addition, in addition to the symbolic meanings of the above-mentioned several trees, there are also fig trees, cedars, etc., which all have various symbolic meanings: "Cedars are to plants, just like lions are to the animal kingdom." It shows that cedar symbolizes bravery and strength.

There are many symbolic trees in the Semitic "holy tree", many of which must be unknown to our descendants, and many of which must have been endowed with new symbolic meanings in the course of historical development and evolution.In any case, the mystery of the Semitic sacred tree is still worthy of our study.

Are there really "men's islands" and "female islands" in the world?
Are there really male islands and female islands in the world?This sounds very interesting and has attracted a lot of attention.Therefore, many people are attracted to find the whereabouts of Nanjima and Maijima... As early as the 13th century, the famous Italian traveler Marco Polo recorded about Nanjima and Maijima in his "Marco Polo's Travel Notes". What I saw and heard on Maijima.The record is as follows: In the southern ocean about 800 kilometers away from Kesmakolan (the big country in western India), there is a male island with only men and a female island with only women lying prone, and the distance between the two is 48 kilometers. Although the population of the two islands is of different genders, they both belong to the same ethnic group. However, due to the particularity of the local climate, people from the male island and the female island are not allowed to live together, otherwise their lives will be in danger.In addition, the people of the two islands belong to Christians and abide by the provisions of the "Old Testament".Every year, people on Male Island and Female Island meet at a specific time like Cowherd and Weaver Girl. That is, men can only come to Female Island in March, April, and May, and then leave and return to Male Island for a year. Other days without a woman.If the wife is pregnant with a child, if it is a boy, it will be sent to the male island when it is 12 years old, and the father will continue to raise it; if it is a girl, it will stay with the wife and grow up slowly. When they become adults, they ration their daughters to men on Male Island.So the people on the two islands multiplied and passed on their families from generation to generation.

In addition, Wu Chengen's "Journey to the West" also recorded stories about the daughter country:

"There is a country called Xinu on the southwestern island of Fumo Kingdom (which seems to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire). They are all women, but there are no men. There are many treasures attached to Fumo Kingdom, so the king of Fumo sent his husband to match him at the age of [-]." Du Huan, a Tang Dynasty native "Jing Xing Ji" also said:
"It is also heard that there is a country of women in the west of (Fufu country), which was born by feeling water." The old and new "Tang Shu" also mentioned that there is a country of women in the southwest of Fufu (Fufu).

In addition, there are also records about women in the Indian Ocean in the works of medieval Persian and Arab writers.

Based on so many records about Manjima and Megumi Island, people are very curious about it, so many people start to follow the relevant records to find the whereabouts of Manjima and Megumi Island.

In 1696, the published map of Colonel located the islands of Men and Women near Guadafu × Cape (northeast of Somalia), and collectively called the two islands Aberdulkiri Island.Later, in 1697, a French missionary sent a letter from Manila to Europe, saying that according to people from a certain island in the south of the Manila Archipelago, there was an island where only women lived, and it became its own country, and men were not allowed to enter it. .Most of the women do not marry, but only allow men to come in a certain season of the year. After a few days together, the men take away the boys who no longer need to breastfeed, and the girls stay with their mothers.Pojie, who studies the islands of men and women, believes that this letter is evidence that Marco Polo did not lie, and that islands of men and women do exist.

Therefore, some people followed the route and location recorded by Marco Polo to find the islands of Men and Women, but to their disappointment, they did not find them in the sea about 800 kilometers south of Kesmarkan.After that, people speculated on other records of Marco Polo and searched again, but they found nothing.

Later, Gozdemedoka believed that the male island and the female island were in the East Asian Sea.He said that the Isle of Women was found not far from Japan. There were only women on the island, who were good at archery, and their right breasts were burned off for practice shooting.In a certain month of each year, several Japanese ships carry goods to the island for trading.When the ship arrived at the island, he ordered the two men to land and inform the Queen of the number of people in the ship.The Queen appointed a date for disembarking everyone on board.On that day, the women on the island (the same number as the men in the boat) went to the port first, and each put a pair of rope shoes on the sand with secret marks on them, and then returned.The men in the boat then went ashore, and each took a pair of rope shoes to find the owner of the shoes.When the time limit for the meeting expires, the man will tell the woman who lives with him his address. If the woman gives birth to a boy next year, he should be sent to his biological father.But this statement is just hearsay, and no one has come out to personally confirm it.

In addition, Shahae Ang once said: "The story of the country of women has no distinction between ancient and modern times, no distinction between east and west, and everything is there. The only real country of women was built in Dahomey in Africa, but it disappeared after the French invasion. .”

Some people also speculate that rumors such as Nanjima and Maijima reflect certain scenes of matrilineal clan society in the primitive age of human beings.But there is no pure women's country and man's country.

Therefore, the authenticity of the existence of Nanjima and Meijima is quite controversial. It is expected that relevant scholars will solve the mystery of the existence of Nanjima and Meijima as soon as possible.

Who is the ancestor of the Japanese
The Japanese are the basic residents of Japan in East Asia and call themselves the Yamato nation.Japan is a mysterious land located on the edge of culture, and the closest part to the Asian continent is also more than 160 kilometers away.Because of its geographical and cultural isolation, Japan developed a unique culture that was little influenced by the outside world.

However, there have been disputes about the origin of the Japanese.

For a long time, due to the deification of the Japanese royal family, the records of Japan's early history were once blank.

The historical records of the royal family are full of faults, and the Japanese imperial tombs are strictly forbidden to outsiders. The "life experience" of the emperor has always been a mystery with different opinions.Therefore, there are different opinions about the origin of the Japanese.

Japanese ancestors came from China

Some people think that the earliest Japanese came from China.As we all know, Emperor Jimmu is the first emperor since Japan's own historical records.Therefore, many scholars start with Emperor Jimmu to study the origin of the Japanese.Most Chinese believe that Emperor Shenmu is Xu Fu in the pre-Qin period.Some experts put forward the following basis.

(1) It is true that Xu Fu’s journey to the east is true. According to "Historical Records: The Chronicle of Qin Shihuang", in 219 BC, "Xu Fu, a native of Qi, wrote a letter saying that there are three sacred mountains in the sea, named Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou, where immortals live. Please fast, and ask the virgins and men and women, so Xu Fufa sent thousands of virgins and men and women to the sea to beg the immortals."In addition, it is also recorded in "Han Shu": "Xu Fu got the plain and Daze, but the king did not come." "Historical Records" and "Han Shu" are the two most authoritative history books in Chinese history, and "Historical Records" and Xu Fudong The time interval between crossings is only about a hundred years, and the reliability is very high.

(2) The society at that time believed in immortals and the art of immortality. It is very possible that Qin Shihuang asked Xu Fu to find immortals in order to seek immortal medicines. Some people also said that the real purpose of Qin Shihuang's sending Xu Fu to the east was "to show Powerful, subdued at home."

(3) Most scholars believe that the Sanshen Mountain where Xu Fu arrived refers to the Japanese archipelago.Others think that they may go to Luzon Island.Some also think that it is Guam, which is now under the jurisdiction of the United States.

(4) Some Japanese now say that they are descendants of Xu Fu.Their reasoning is that, in Japanese, Qin is pronounced the same as Haneda.Former Japanese Prime Minister Haneda claimed that he was a descendant of Xu Fu.Mikasa Palace, the younger brother of Emperor Showa of Japan, once said: "Xu Fu is the father of our country." In Japan, Xu Fu appeared as the guide of Japanese ancestors and the pioneer of Japanese culture. Respect Xu Fu as the "God of Agriculture" and "God of Medicine", so the reverence for Xu Fu in Japan far exceeds that in China.

So far, Japan still retains many ruins including Xu Fu's Tomb, Xu Fu Palace, and Xu Fu's Landing Monument.

Every autumn, the people of Saga County offer "Hatsusui" to Xu Fu who is enshrined in the "Kinzhu Shrine".Every 50 years, a grand memorial ceremony is held.

However, some people objected to this. They believed that there was no other document to support Xu Fu's Dongdu, and the "Historical Records" did not explain where Xu Fu's footsteps were when he traveled to Dongdu.Therefore, there is insufficient evidence to say that the Chinese are the ancestors of the Japanese.In addition, they also believe that even though many Chinese languages, cultures, and customs are prevalent in Japan, due to the frequent wars between China and Japan in history, it is very likely that the Chinese who fled to Japan preserved things with Chinese characteristics in Japan and develop.

Japanese ancestors came from Korea
Katsushi Tokunaga, a professor of human genetics at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine in Japan, based on genome research, compared the HLA genetic genes in human chromosome 6 of various ethnic groups in East Asia, and concluded that: the closest to the Japanese The group is residents of the Korean Peninsula and Koreans living in China.According to the results of this study, the ancestors of the Japanese living in Japan today are immigrants who immigrated here via the Korean peninsula.The findings are strong support for the popular belief that the population of Japan during the Yayoi period was formed by ancestors who migrated from the Korean peninsula.

Another widely circulated example can also show that the ancestors of the Japanese are Koreans: Emperor Akihito admitted on his 68th birthday that Emperor Kanmu's mother was a member of the family of a king of the ancient Korean Baekje Kingdom.

His basis is the clear record in Japanese chronicles: "The mother of Emperor Huanmu, who came to the throne in 781 AD, was a member of the royal family of the ancient Korean Baekje Kingdom."

The ancestors of the Japanese came from nomadic peoples in Asia
Archeology has provided good evidence for people to unravel the mystery of Japanese ancestors.Judging from the archaeological results of the funerary objects, mirrors and knives were the main sacrificial objects in the early Emperor Tumulus.Compared with the early ancient tombs in the mid-period, the emperor's tombs contained many more continental aristocratic living objects, such as gold ornaments, jade ornaments, etc., and harnesses.Based on this and other historical materials, some scholars believe that the emperor after the 5th century and the previous emperor did not actually belong to the same family, and the current emperor family came from the Kitakyushu area.These scholars believe that during the period of tribal wars at that time, due to relatively developed productivity, the tribal kings from China and North Korea may occupy a favorable position in the war, eventually unify other tribes, and then become the first emperor.Therefore, ancient Japan evolved from the integration and evolution of numerous tribal countries and nomadic peoples who migrated from East and North Asia.

Where did the Japanese come from?The above viewpoints seem to have their own reasons. Scholars have given different research results, and they look forward to finding answers from the history of the Japanese themselves and the Yamato nation itself.

Is there really a Homer in history?

There are many famous figures in history, many of whom we don't know very well because we are far away from the time they lived in. Homer is a mystery in the history of the world.

Homer was a blind poet in ancient Greece whose life and dates of birth and death are unknown.According to legend, the ancient Greek long narrative epics "Xliad" and "Odyssey", which describe the Troy War from the 12th century BC to the 11th century BC and the stories about adventures at sea, were composed by him based on folk songs.From this, it is inferred that he lived between the 10th and 8th centuries BC.

So is there such a person as Homer in history? Are "× Liat" and "Odyssey" really his works?This question has been debated for a long time.The famous ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the philosophers Plato and Aristotle all affirmed that Homer was the author of the two epics.Until the beginning of the 18th century, Europeans still believed that Homer was a great ancient poet who actually existed in history.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the French monks Doubillon and Vico began to raise doubts. They believed that Homer did not exist, and that he was just a general representative of all Greek rap artists, not a single person.They believe that the two epics are separated by hundreds of years and cannot be written by one person.

In 1795, German scholar Wolff also put forward the view that each part of the epic was once sung by singers as an independent poem, and after many times of editing and processing, it became what it is today.

But the German scholar Nitsch believes that Homer is a real historical figure.He believes that Homer should have lived no later than the 9th century BC.He believes that Homer used the materials of ancient folk poetry, reprocessed and arranged them, and finally formed a complete artistic structure.

Some people say that Homer was the person who performed and recited poetry in public in ancient Greece, that is, what the ancient Greeks called "singer".The basis is that the Greeks did not use writing before the time of Homer.The Greeks could not write records at all until the Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean taught the Greeks the alphabet in the mid-8th century BC.Before Homer, stories and legends were only transmitted orally, and the reason why they took the form of ballads was to make it easy for "singers" to memorize.More talented singers can also improvise on the spot, and the details of each performance are different.Each singer modifies a poem in his own way, and a poem develops in various ways over time. When the two epics, The Liat and the Odyssey, were finally written, they must have been polished and finalized.

Reading some passages in Homer's epic poems has the taste of short poems; and some events in the poems seem to have occurred earlier than other parts, which fully shows that Homer's epic poems were created and completed by many authors over a long period of time .

Therefore, they speculate that just as the Greeks learned the alphabet from the Phoenicians and knew how to write, Homer, a highly gifted bard, arose, and assembled a large body of accumulated oral poetry into two volumes. An epic with rich connotations and written down in words.

Some even say that Homer is a woman.Because the content of "Odyssey" hardly touches the cruel side of war, the 19th century British novelist Butler pointed out: "The author of "Odyssey" should be a woman instead of a man!

There is also disagreement about Homer's birthplace.Some people say that he was from the area around Athens, some say that he was from northern Greece, and some say that he was from the east of Greece near Asia Minor; these claims are more common and more credible in the east.Most ancient accounts state that he was a native of Chios, or that he was born at Smyrna in Asia Minor, both on the east side of the Aegean Sea.

Regarding the name Homer, Western scholars have also done a lot of research: some people say that the word means "hostage", which means that Homer was probably born as a captive; That is to say, the name Homer is attached, because the epic poem was originally composed of many scattered legends.Actually these are guesses.Ancient legend also says that Homer was a blind musician, which is quite possible.Professional musicians in ancient times were often blind, and Homer may be such a professional artist.

There is also much disagreement about the date of Homer's birth.The earliest records about Homer can be found in the surviving satirical poems of Xenophanes in the 6th century BC, but according to the records of the Greek local chronicler Pausanias, the poems of the poet Carlinos in the early 7th century BC There are already records about Homer in the book, so the name Homer was already known as early as the 8th or 7th century BC.The Greek historian Theopampos says that Homer was born in 686 BC, which seems to be a little later.Another ancient legend is that Homer was born in 1159 BC, that is to say, in the middle of the 12th century BC, which seems a little too early.There may have been such a poet in ancient times, probably from the 10th century BC to the 9th century BC or the 8th century BC.Now Western scholars generally believe that he may have been born between the 9th and 8th centuries BC based on the language of the epic and its content description.

There are different opinions about Homer. Is there a real person of Homer in history?This question has become one of the great mysteries of history.

(End of this chapter)