A riddle is something mysterious and inexplicable, enticing and enchanting - if it is a natural or social phenomenon; the experience of wisdom accumulated over centuries - if it is oral folklore.
Biggest secret
According to the explanatory dictionaries, a riddle is an allegorical, metaphorical statement containing a description of one object through another similar to it. On the basis of similar traits or properties, a person must guess what is actually being discussed. It is such verbal formulas that children love so much! With this, everything is clear. But quite often the word riddle has nothing to do with folk art. They resort to this concept in order to emphasize the mystery, incomprehensibility of one or another phenomenon. What examples of riddles in figurative meaning can be given? Well, at least the following: “There must be some mystery in a woman …”. It seems that there is no need to explain the meaning of this well-known phrase. The highlight in the fair sex are those qualities that make her unpredictable and at the same time attractive to men. The “elasticity” of ladies' consciousness, the ability to find a compromise in situations on the verge of survival, as well as the desire to keep a loved one close by, is what creates the notorious female riddle.
Secrets and puzzles of nature
What is a riddle? It may be some kind of miracle of nature, for example, the northern lights. Once bright flashes in the sky, painted in different colors, caused mystical horror and at the same time admiration for the forces of nature, their power and diversity. However, there are less and less inexplicable phenomena in nature, because science seeks to explain the world. Sometimes she succeeds, and sometimes not. And then the pundits sigh, shrug and say: “This is a mystery to science!” Well, for example.
There are several versions of the emergence of life on Earth, the disappearance of mammoths, giant dinosaurs that once inhabited our planet and were masters on it. The appearance of man - a creature weak physically and therefore unnecessary, but with time transforming the world and actually subjugating it to himself - has become one of the serious mysteries for scientists. Theories of Darwin and Marx appeared.
But theories are subject to regular revisions due to the fact that they are not confirmed by practice. For example, not a single monkey has become a human being for the second time in millions of years. But on the contrary - please (figuratively, of course). Moreover, it turned out that the closest animal to the “homo sapiens” genotype is a pig. As for K. Marx, then … the theory of communist society collapsed with the collapse of the USSR.
That is why most of the quirks of nature cannot be fully understood. Therefore, the meaning of the word riddle can be explained in this way: it is a mystery that a person can comprehend over time.
Mysteries of history and religion
The paradoxes of history will also help explain what a riddle is.
The most popular secret from the end of the 19th century remains the location of Atlantis - a fabulous country of plenty, the inhabitants of which were incredibly rich, so much that even their houses were built of gold and silver. The first mention of it dates back to the 4th century BC. e. ("Dialogues" of Plato). Since then, people have been looking for a sunken island on which an ancient civilization could once exist.
Atlantis was supposedly located in the Aegean Sea, near Crete. In the northern part of the island, ancient structures of the Minoan culture that worshiped bulls were preserved, as described in the description of Plato. Perhaps the descendants of the great inhabitants of Atlantis, who survived during the disaster, settled on this territory.
Or Troy was also part of Atlantis, also considered a myth until the German scientist Schliemann excavated in Turkey. Already in the XX century, scientists in the Bermuda area discovered a mysterious structure made of stones, densely matched to each other, of equal height and smoothly polished, laid out in the form of a fragment of the letter G. A version appeared that it was a road that went to the bottom along with the island.
The truth is just around the corner
So what is a riddle? These are phenomena that the most talented researchers are not yet able to explain. The secrets that modern science works on are related to the knowledge of the human soul. Belief in gods has always helped people survive in the most difficult conditions. Faith made a person almost invulnerable. Yogis walk on hot coals. Shamans, introducing themselves into a trance, predict events up to minutes. The saints are resurrected to instruct the disciples on the true path.
No matter how science opposes the miracles shown by the church, it cannot explain the origin of the Holy Fire. He descends from heaven on Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the place where Christ was allegedly buried. Each year, church fathers are suspected of fraud, and the patriarch and the representative of the Armenian-Gregorian church are thoroughly inspected. The area around the Holy Sepulcher is carefully guarded - both before and during the ceremony of the descent of the Holy Fire. But no deception has so far been found. In the midst of prayer, blue lights appear on the stone bed of Christ, from which the patriarch lights a torch and brings it to the world. The Holy Fire is a divine miracle and one of the mysteries of science.
Riddle of the sphinx
In ancient Greek myths, a winged monster called the Sphinx blocked the way for wanderers heading for Thebes. It asked them a question, and if no answer was received, a terrible death awaited the travelers. Many must have heard such an expression - the mystery of the Sphinx. Its meaning is very simple - a tricky task, which only the smart one can cope with. By the way, according to legend, only Oedipus correctly answered the cunning question, and the monster, unable to withstand disappointment, committed suicide. Now even the children are well aware of this guess ("Who walks in the morning on 4 legs, in the afternoon - on 2, in the evening - on 3?"). Of course, man!
A giant stone sculpture of a lion with a human face has been located for many centuries in Giza, next to the pyramids. This sphinx was supposedly built in the era of the Ancient Kingdom of the fourth dynasty of the pharaohs. The sculpture is 73 meters long and about 20 meters high. The legs and body are made of calcareous rocks, and the head is made of solid stone.
There is an assumption that it is carved from a rock that previously served as a quarry. Obviously, nature tried to place it so that once a year the shadow from the sphinx at its upper point coincides with the top of the main pyramid at the time of sunrise.
The statue is also interesting in that it resembles the face of the pharaoh Chephren, opposite the pyramid-tomb of which is located. The whole complex, together with the sphinx, is a kind of hieroglyph that stores the message, which has not yet been solved by science. Why does the giant keep a stone temple in its paws? Why did Thutmose IV dig this giant from the sands in the era of the New Kingdom and improve the area around it? Is it true that the sphinx helped him become the sovereign of Egypt? The riddle!
