The myth of ancient aliens vs. real literary context | Justin Sledge

I don't think they ever written on emeralds just cuz you can't get emeralds that big. It looks really outstanding. >> I want to ask about the the emerald tablets. It feels like it feels like those things were like made like made from in like adamantium from Wolverine. Like I don't like those things feel like so embellished by everything I see around them. And maybe it's just cuz they're called the Emerald Tablets and so that's just very alluring. But can what do you what's what can you shed some light on that a little bit or just like help dissipate some of that cuz I feel like I see those things are like from aliens or I don't know you know what I mean >> and stuff. Yeah. >> Atlantis like what are what are the emerald tablets in that you know in that as far as you're concerned. >> Yeah. I don't think they ever written on emeralds just because you can't get emeralds that big. I mean it would be written real little and no one could read it. I mean I guess we could write them on emeralds now. We have lasers and stuff. Maybe the aliens did too. Um this is a this is a pretty common trope in ancient literature where people would inscribe things on precious stones of like spectacular size. So this is not so another example of this is another piece of hermetic literature where Hermes Trismagistas tells Tot inscribe them on a turquoise stila. So the idea of of inscribing sacred texts on special tablet I mean the but the Moses story right it comes down off the mountain with like the laws all written on these like stone tablets. This was in the the tablets of destiny were a big part of ancient neareastern um mythology. So the idea of writing things down on stones and precious stones was just a common literary trope. It was just it just meant like write this on something that you know adamantium is a great example, right? Write this on something that basically can't get destroyed. And so when we read about the uh the emerald tablets of Heresmegistus, it's just the idea that this this document which we the earliest version of it we have is actually in Arabic and it was probably a translation from either from Syriak or from Syriak from Greek originally. Um there's just the idea that it should be inscribed on something that's imperishable. And so um the use of emeralds as just a precious stone is just we have that kind of language with tablets of gold. I mean often um they're these orphic hymns which are basically passports to the underworld and they were written on gold. >> You would write things on silver. You would write things on lead and throw them into into curse tablets written on lead and rolled up. I have one over there actually. So the idea of writing things on on imperishable services was just a common literary trope. And so it's just a function of the literature. And if you've never heard of somebody writing something on a precious stone, it sounds really exotic until you just read more of the actual historical literature and you realize everyone talks like that. >> Whether it's turquoise stones or the tablets of the of Moses in the Bible or the tablets of destiny in ancient Sumeriia, >> it's a it's a really common literary motif. >> And so it's a literary thing more than it is a physical uh description of an artifact. I mean, I don't know how big emeralds get. I don't I'm sure there's some pretty big emeralds, but I mean you're not going to be able to write the entire you know >> history of something. Yeah. >> On an emerald or piece of that matter. It's just it's a literary thing and it was a pretty common it was a relatively common motif and like I said even other hermetic literature talks about things being written on steel or tablets of turquoise. >> Does it does it seem like you've read because of all that you've read from so many different cultures. Do you have an opinion on where all this comes from? Like is it just pure mythology that pure, you know, Graham Hancock on Netflix is saying it's ancient aliens >> or at least ancient civilizations? >> Sorry. >> Or pre-dolivian civilizations, I think is what Graham Hancock would say. There are there are other people who would say ancient aliens. I think both are equally both are wrong for different reasons. But yeah, >> but like you you've really seen the source text from so many different things. Like what is your imprint on that? Like what's your It's just a guess, you know, because no one knows. >> Yeah, we don't know. I mean, I I I I think that they I don't think they come from aliens. I don't think they come from some anti anti-delivian civiliz the the quickest way abuse oneself of believing those sort of things is to read the literature and its literary context. None of this stuff was written in a vacuum. It was all written within culture of writing other things. Um and think about something like the Declaration of Independence of the Constitution. If if you never have read any other piece of political theory and the only thing you've read is the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, it looks really outstanding.