Audiobooks by Norah Romney

A History of Maya Architecture and Advanced Astronomy: Decoding the Temples and Observatories of Mes

Astronomy was an avid hobby for the ancient Maya, who recorded and interpreted every aspect of the sky. As a result, many of their most important buildings were built with astronomy in mind, because they believed it was possible to read the will and actions of the gods in the stars, moon, and planets. The Maya studied the sun, moon, and planets, especially Venus. At Xultun, Guatemala, Maya daykeepers published astronomical tables tracking the movements of celestial bodies in the early 9th century during the heyday of Maya astronomy. The tables are also found in the Dresden Codex, a bark-paper book written in the 15th century. Specialist astronomical observers corrected and maintained Maya calendars, which were largely based on ancient Mesoamerican calendars created at least as early as 1500 BCE. The Maya even structured their government in part based on astronomy tracking requirements.

Norah Romney (Author), Alastair Cameron (Narrator)

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Egyptian Sacred Sciences and Cosmology

Egypt's civilization can be traced back to the Time three hundred years before and after the advent of modernity, though there is no agreement on its origins. Egypt's sequential conquest of Persia, Greece, and Rome ushered in the Graeco-Roman Period. During this period of Roman expansion, polytheistic religions predominated, monotheistic faiths emerged, Greek philosophy saw into science and technology, and diverse cultures coexisted in a tolerant atmosphere. Egypt was the oldest civilization in the Graeco-Roman world. Throughout the ancient world, there were significant civil disturbances. Scholars, historians, and explorers flocked to the place to document its disappearance. They also saw the last breath of the unwavering devotion, unparalleled dignity, and extraordinary approach to existence that had lived in the memory of Time. Despite its geographical and political isolation, Egypt also experienced a unique artistic synthesis that allowed the dissemination of Egyptian ideas previously inaccessible.

Norah Romney (Author), Art Brown (Narrator)

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Sumerian Origins: Lifting the Veil on Ancient Mesopotamia Mysteries

A Mysterious Group of People came to settle in southern Mesopotamia, sometime around 5400BC. What is now the modern state of Iraq, the first city of Mesopotamia was founded named Eridu. Although historians have generally regarded this as the world’s first city, we have seen this challenged on numerous occasions by recent discoveries too numerous to mention here. Eridu had all the things we ordinarily associate with an ancient city: temples, administrative buildings, housing, agriculture, markets, art, and, of course, walls to keep out unsavoury characters.The elusive aspect is we have absolutely no idea where they acquired their language, and bizarre language it is, we have no idea what they originally looked like. Their language, which we call Sumerian, and the subsequent Akkadian derivative were linguistic isolates. Sumerian is the oldest known written language on Earth, and any languages it might have derived from or developed alongside have been lost to time. Figuring out what their baffling ethnic identity based on their art is a doomed effort, because their art was so stylized that a good case could be made that it portrays people of any ethnicity, or the people they encountered. The Sumerian language was not Semitic, and the Akkadian conquests of 2334 BCE disrupted the ethnic and cultural isolation of the Sumerian people.

Norah Romney (Author), Rupert Bush (Narrator)

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Lost Civilizations of Mesoamerica: Quest for the Ancient Origins of the Olmecs and other Mysterious

The phenomenon of the Olmec Heads and their Mysterious origins is observed in the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in the early pre-classic period, with the development of the Olmec culture. The first representations of political power are witnessed there, expressed through monumental sculpture and large-scale architecture. The dominant figure of the rulers appears and alludes to forms of government exercised by individuals who can convene to populations through ideological management and other coercion mechanisms. The socio-political complexity thus emerged encouraged the development of similar forms in other areas of Mesoamerica, which would later lead to the appearance of the first stratified societies made up of actual states, such as the cases of Teotihuacan in the Mexican highlands, Monte Albán in Oaxaca and the city-states of the Maya area during the classical period. The corollary of this process was made up by some societies of the post-classic period that reached supra-state levels, as happened with the Mexica who settled in the Mexican highlands and came to establish a true pan-Mesoamerica empire.

Norah Romney (Author), Alastair Cameron (Narrator)

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Mysterious Advanced Astronomy in Mesoamerica

Of all the geographical classifications of the indigenous cultures of America that inhabited the continent, only the region called Mesoamerica had, from very early in its history, the use of letters to transmit messages. It is known that the Inca cultures and perhaps some of those that preceded them used a system to memorize stories, but such systems never used signs with values, whether they were logographic or phonetic. This uniqueness places the Mesoamerican area on a par with the cultures of the old continent and Asia, concerning the transmission of the historical memory of its peoples. All writing is an information storage system. Indeed, long before writing was invented, human memory existed, and often specific groups of people were trained to ensure the community safeguarding their past. However, there is a significant difference between the transmission of information in written form, that is, utilizing sculpted or painted drawings or signs, and that is, therefore, more efficient and easier to save than that which depends only on the memory and oral transmission.

Norah Romney (Author), Alastair Cameron (Narrator)

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Scarab Symbolism of the Ancient World: The Scarabaues in Ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Sardinia, Etruria

If you want to understand Ancient Egypt, you must demystify the concept of the Scarab and its subsequent symbolism. When we first meet the Scarab symbol in Egypt; itwe immediately see it was the symbol and tangible expression of an elevated religious idea, embracing that of future life, of the human soul, a resurrection of it, and most likely, a reward or scorning of it in the future life, based on its conduct in the terrestrial life. This concept cannot be underestimated. The ancient Egyptians were heavily involved in symbolism, which they fused into their Art; the Scarab symbolism was the most powerful of it all. Scarab, in Latin, scarabaeus, forms the backbone of early ancient Egyptian religion. This symbol is specifically of the dung beetle (Scarabaeus sacer), which lays its eggs in dung balls fashioned through the rolling. This beetle was associated with the divine manifestation of the early morning sun, Khepri, whose Name was written with the scarab hieroglyph and who was believed to roll the disk of the morning sun over the eastern horizon at daybreak. Since the scarab hieroglyph, Kheper, refers variously to the ideas of existence, manifestation, development, growth, and effectiveness, the beetle itself was a favorite form used for amulets in all periods of Egyptian history.

Norah Romney (Author), Tom Fairfoot (Narrator)

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Yuga Cycles for the Modern World: Profound Philosophy from Sanskrit Teachings

“God” is a loaded word today. It conjures different meanings for different people, depending on their backgrounds and cultures; often, it conjures up a wide variety of positive and negative feelings. As previously discussed, many people today have turned to atheism and science to limit conceptions of God that originated in Kali Yuga. The people of Dwapara Yuga often find it difficult to accept or understand the idea that humanity could live in day-to-day awareness of God the Spirit. Sri Yukteswar wryly observes that God is not “a venerable personage, adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos!” God is pure consciousness, beyond form and limitation, and our consciousness, our very being, is an inextricable expression of this consciousness. Thus, the more deeply we understand ourselves, the more deeply we understand our consciousness as part of the pure consciousness of God.

Norah Romney (Author), John William (Narrator)

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The Divine Knowledge of Egypt: Unveiling Advanced Temples, Pyramids, and Art Written by Norah Romney

To the peoples of antiquity, Egypt appeared as the very essence of Knowledge. In the mysterious Nile country, they found a knowledge system much more highly developed than any within their native Knowledge, with which Egyptian religion was so strongly identified; thus, it appeared to the foreigner to savour Knowledge practices. Suppose the materials of the Pyramid Knowledge papyri be omitted. In that case, the accounts we possess of Egyptian Knowledge are almost wholly foreign, so that it is wiser to derive our data concerning it from the original native sources if we desire to arrive at a proper understanding of the Egyptian Pyramid and Temple Building.

Norah Romney (Author), Alastair Cameron (Narrator)

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Ancient Origins of Mesoamerica: Fresh Insights into the Civilizations of the Americas

Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and, to a smaller extent, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Peru, and Bolivia in the Central Andes have deep-rooted roots in the subsoil of their pre-Columbian civilizations. The first chapters of the history of Latin America correspond to those who inhabited it before their first contact with Europeans. This is especially true in Mesoamerica. The objectives here are to show the development of the peoples and high civilizations of Mesoamerica before the establishment of the Mexica (Aztecs) in the Valley of Mexico (1325); second, to examine the key features of the political and socio-economic organization, and the artistic and intellectual achievements achieved during the period of rule of the Mexica (Aztecs) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and, finally, present a vision of the prevailing situation in Mesoamerica, on the eve of the European invasion (1519), between the solid continental masses of North and South America, Mesoamerica (that is, the area where it developed with High culture difficulties, which, at the time of contact with the Spaniards, reached an area of about 900,000 km2), has a varied isthmic character, with various geographical features, such as the gulfs of Tehuantepec and Fonseca, on the Pacific Ocean coast, the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Honduras.

Norah Romney (Author), Kevin Mcalister (Narrator)

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When The Gods of Egypt Came to Earth: Understanding The Fundamentals of Egyptian Religion

The group of beliefs which constituted what for convenience' sake is called the Egyptian religion in an existence of some thousands of years passed through nearly every phase known to the student of comparative mythology. If the theologians of ancient Egypt found it impossible to form a pantheon of deities with any hope of consistency, assigning to each god or goddess his or her proper position in the divine galaxy as ruling over a definite sphere, cosmic or psychical, it may be asked in what manner the modern mythologist is better equipped to reduce to order elements so recondite and difficult of elucidation as the mythic shapes of the divinities worshipped in the Nile Valley. But the answer is ready. The modern science of comparative religion is extending year by year, and its light is slowly but certainly becoming diffused among the dark places of the ancient faiths. By the gleam of this magic lamp, then—more wonderful than any dreamt of by the makers of Eastern fable—let us walk in the gloom of the pyramids, in the cool shadows of ruined temples, aye, through the tortuous labyrinth of the Egyptian mind itself, trusting that by virtue of the light we carry we shall succeed in unravelling to some extent the age-long enigma of this mystic land.

Norah Romney (Author), Ryan Moorhen, Tom Kingsley (Narrator)

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Thoth the Atlantean: His Legendary Legacy and Affiliation with the other Gods of Egypt

The purpose of this book is to indicate the prevailing tendencies of ancient Egyptian speculation concerning Thoth the Atlantean. Taking as the basis of his work a complete examination of the chief references to the god in Egyptian literature and ritual, it is difficult to distinguish the more critical phases of Thoth the Atlantean's character as the Egyptians conceived them and to show how these aspects, or phases, of his being a help to explain the various activities which are assigned to him in the Egyptian legends of the gods, and in the ritual of tombs and temples. An attempt has been made, in many instances, to discover the simple meaning which often underlies characteristic epithets of the god. The need to seek groupings among epithets that can in any way be associated with well-defined activities or aspects of the god has been emphasized. There is no aim to analyze the individuality of the god comprehensively. That would demand a much closer and more detailed study of Egyptian religious literature and a more extensive recording of results than Egyptological scholarship has attempted concerning any problem of ancient Egyptian religion.

Norah Romney (Author), Kevin Mccallister (Narrator)

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Mysterious Mesoamerican Cultures: From Olmec to Aztec, Decoding the Enigma of the Americas

The influence of the Mayan civilization when at its height (400 to 600 A. D.) may be traced far beyond the limits of the Mayan area. Ideas in art, religion and government that were then spread broadcast quickened diverse speech and a series of divergent cultures. Most of these lesser civilizations were at their best long after the great Mayan civilization had declined, but one or two were possibly contemporary. The present chapter aims to emphasize the indebtedness of these lesser civilizations to the Mayas and to comment upon their characters. We will first proceed northwest into Mexico and then southeast into the Isthmus of Panama. The environment under which the Mayas developed their arts of life continues in narrowing bands westward along the Gulf of Mexico and southward across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The most westerly Mayan city of importance seems to have been Comalcalco. There is also a large ruin near San Andres Tuxtla, and it may be significant that the earliest dated object of the Mayas (the Tuxtla Statuette) came from this region. The cradle of Mayan culture may have been in this coastal belt where arid and humid conditions exist side by side and where the figurines of the archaic type are found together with those of the Mayas. Unfortunately, the archaeology of this part of Mexico has been little studied.

Norah Romney (Author), Kevin Mccallister (Narrator)

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