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To: Yaacov who wrote (2055)	6/22/2001 6:19:00 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 23908

Khazar Technology? "Figure 4, Ready to go hunting for diamonds, 1375 A.D. Pen and ink drawing by the author" Two men in ancient costumes and conic fur caps were holding an obvious knife and something which appeared less recognizable. The tiny inscription in the Medieval Catalan language said (freely translated): "...these two men are ready to go to the mountains where they would lay a piece of meat to catch diamonds"... "It should also be noted that Cresques' atlas originated in an important Catalan center and that this piece of cartographic art is particularly rich in depicting the earth's treasures. More amazing is that this presentation of diamond hunters in Siberia might indicate a rejuvenation of an even more ancient "Iberian connection" with remote Siberia. Such a contention appears to be further supported by an independent observation of Soviet ethnographers who have discovered (according to A.D. Shcheglov, personal communication, 1990) a small residual population of an apparently enigmatic Basque origin among the contemporaneous Siberian settlers. Were these people descendants of the Western heretics who, after a temporary refuge in heterodox Catalonia, found tolerance in far away Mongol lands, in the mid-thirteenth century as Heer (1963:153) believes? Much earlier a mysterious Jewish kingdom extended midway from Siberia to Europe and could have been in contact with Spain. A letter (known as the Khazar Correspondence) written in Hebrew by Hisdain Ibn Shaprut (a well-known writer in Muslim Spain in the tenth century) reached Joseph, King of the Khazars and was answered by him (Encyclopedia Judaica, 1971:190). Or were these people the first ones who purposely entered and prospected the Siberian taiga, found diamonds and traded them with their ancestral country or though the Indian market? The whole operation could have been kept quite secret for ages as common gold placers. Moreover, every June floods would wash out last year's diggings. Only a very knowledgeable prospector could have retraced the right spot on the river where new diamonds would likely settle in once again. Secondly, the picture and particularly the text relate to a technology in the recovery of diamonds that even to a geologist may appear far-fetched. Yes, it is in essence a legend. However, the suggested technology is sound and it shows, once again, that ancient prospectors were clever indeed. Is it silly or smart to catch gold on a sheep skin as the Argonauts did? About 1894 De Beers introduced grease tables to recover diamonds from kimberlite ore. Was this a completely new invention based on a scientific discovery of the hydrophobic properties of diamonds? Or was it the resurrection of an ancient technique? In fact no elaborate research was involved. Fred Kirsten, an operator of a shaking table, accidentally discovered that diamonds adhered to grease (Loftus et al., 1970:319). Recall then the Sindbad the Sailor's story from his second voyage. According to Sindbad, smart merchants (I would rather say prospectors) were using pieces of meat on which diamonds became stuck. Their adventures resemble those of the Legend of the Valley of Diamonds as related by Pliny the Elder. In turn this story can be traced back to the experiences of Alexander the great in India in about 350 B.C." page 232 - Earth Sciences Technology - Vol. 10, No. 2, 1991