The genetic disk is one of the most mysterious artifacts in the world. He was found in Colombia. The material of its manufacture is lead. In this article we will talk about all the facts associated with this riddle, about the history of the find and about the meaning of the signs that are applied to it.
Artifact description
The photo of the genetic disk shows that this is a circle carved from stone. Its diameter is only 27 cm, and it weighs almost 2 kilograms. Both sides of this item contain carefully executed fairly small images. It is assumed that these are all the stages that a person goes through during his intrauterine development, starting from the moment of conception. Otherwise, these pictures are called "life cycles."
History of the find. Jaime Gutierrez Lega
The reliable place where the genetic disk was discovered is still unknown. He was either found or bought from a Colombian Aboriginal man by the name of Jaime Gutierrez Lega, an industrial designer. Sometimes, however, he is called a professor. Subsequently, Lega said that the very first owner found it in the vicinity of the Colombian town of Sutatausa.
In general, the information about this find was so often doubted that even amateurs seem unreliable today. For example, there is evidence that shortly after the acquisition, the artifact was delivered to the Museum of Natural Sciences, located in Vienna (Austria), where scientists subjected it to careful study. After which its undoubted uniqueness was confirmed. The production time was also supposedly indicated very specifically: the disk was attributed to the ancient American culture of the muiska (other names - mosk or chibcha). It was one of the highly developed civilizations of the South American continent of the 12th-16th centuries. Its name is among the "celebrities" such as Mayans, Aztecs, Incas.
At the same time, there are no documents confirming the time of finding the stone and the protocol of its research. The opposite opinion proves that the culture of the muisk is completely uncharacteristic of artifacts such as a genetic disk - both in execution and in material they are completely different.
But geologists from the University of the Colombian capital (Bogotá) believe that the object under study belongs to the prehistoric era and in fact it is 6 thousand years old.
As for Jaima Gutierrez Lega, he was really famous for his design projects and collections of antiquities. But in general, information about this person is extremely small.
Carlo Crespi
It is very possible that the disk actually belonged to the missionary priest Carlo Crespi. This man was also known as an ethnographer, musician, nerd and teacher. He served in Ecuador, a state in northwestern South America. It was in the middle of the 20th century.
Local parishioners often brought to the priest, who was called the "friend of the Indians", various old objects found by them in the jungle, and Padres Crespi bought them up - they say, not so much from collectible passion, but out of a desire to support the local poor. Some of the items, however, were received by an elderly priest as a gift.
Many artifacts were gold plates or signs made of other metals with signs and symbols applied to them. They occupied more than one room in the padre house, and in 1960 Crespi even received permission from the Vatican to establish a museum in Cuenca, but after a while there was a fire in the room and many objects disappeared. Many years have passed since the death of the Padre, but their fate has not been clarified.
In addition, the priest himself never systematized or described his acquisitions, but it is known that most of them belonged to various archaeological cultures of South America. Artifacts were found, in particular, in tunnels and underground chambers near the city of Cuenca, located in the Ecuadorian Andes.
Klaus Dona
This person is considered a researcher and popularizer of many artifacts of antiquity that are not understandable to modern science, in particular the genetic disk from Colombia. He called himself a "spiritual archaeologist." The fame of Don began with the famous Vienna exhibition "Unresolved secrets" (2001), among the exhibits of which was the object under discussion.
Below is a video in which Professor Klaus Dona talks about other genetic disks that were found in Colombia.
By the way, Dona calls the lead black silicon and gives slightly different data that are known to us from most sources.
That is why, with so many conflicting facts, the Archaeological Committee of Colombia still vacillates in recognizing the value of the artifact.
Material
The number of conflicting opinions about the stone from which the genetic disk was made is great. The first opinion of him belongs to the mineralogist, Dr. Vera Hammer, who subjected the artifact to XRD analysis (X-ray diffraction). Her conclusion was that the material used to make the disk was feldspar, quartz, and mica. The examination was carried out in 2001, before the already mentioned exhibition.
However, contrary to the statement of Dr. Hammer, a genetic disk is made of lidit - that is, the material of manufacture is designated as lidit. This opinion is now fixed in most sources.
Oddities of Leadite
So what is lead? Sometimes this mineral is considered similar to shungite and paragon. It is a mineral of black, dark gray or brown. It occurs mainly in the form of veins in schungite schists and dolomites. Now it is used in metallurgy and construction - Russians will remember, for example, the plates that decorated the Kazan and St. Isaac's Cathedrals in St. Petersburg, as well as some Moscow metro stations.
This is a very strange mineral, since it is compared with granite in strength, and it turns out that it is quite fragile and layered. Modern technologists say that cutting any badges on a leader is a hopeless thing, because it will crumble and crumble under the cutter. Nevertheless, the genetic disk is a fairly solid rounded plate with small patterns and symbols over the entire surface. Given that they worked on it without microscopes, many centuries ago, this fact, of course, cannot but surprise.
In addition, the Lega collection also included other items from Lidit, including multi-figured figurines and even knives. To make something like this today is not possible.
