[ by Charles Cameron — astronaut in a cathedral, nuclear reactor in Gabon ]
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I enjoy scoping and snoping out strange claims, and had to check out possible anachronicities not once but twice today — first, to verify the presence of an astronaut in Salamanca’s seventeenth-century (1513-1733 to be more precise) “New Cathedral”:
and then, of a nuclear reactor from two billion years ago in Gabon, West Africa.
**
Neither one turned out to be von Däniken fool’s gold, but both certainly glisten enough to be worth a mention.
The Salamanca cathedral astronaut is there, carved in stone, all right — but as part of a 1992 renovation. And what’s most interesting to me is that it’s entirely in conformity with tradition for an artist working today on such a restoration to “sign” his work with a contemporary flourish of this sort. It is thus faithful to what Benedict XVI would call the hermeneutic of continuity.
And 2 billion year old nuclear reactor?
It’s not as old as the sun, of course, by about 3.6 billion years, nor as close to us, nor as vast — but it’s there, it’s there.
Hat tips:
for the astronaut, Jeff DeMarco
for the reactor, Cheryl Rofer
