Deep Memory · claim explorer
Claims
25 featured claims with full treatment and a 31-claim unreviewed catalog below. Every claim shows its provenance — most of this case is AI-extracted and unreviewed, and the interface says so.
headline claims
The historical meaning of a visual resemblance between objects depends on their dates, contexts, differences and possible connections, not on the resemblance alone. True if no resemblance can be assigned a historical explanation without those data.
In the Deep Memory catalogue experiment, the bundle of the three broad motif classes does not stand out against the study's documentation-preserving comparisons.
In the Deep Memory V1 civiliser lineup experiment, the claimed partner figure ranked first in 62.5% of completed lineups, against 9% for random pairs. True if the experiment's run data reproduce those rates.
Stories can become more alike than their originals through translation, borrowing and comparative writing. True if documented retellings show convergence of detail relative to earlier attested versions.
A catalogue's geographical distribution of a broad motif class cannot by itself distinguish independent invention from very old transmission. True if the same distribution is compatible with both histories under stated models.
The Göbekli Tepe excavation team regards the extent of any survival of the site's imagery into later Near Eastern objects as unestablished because of missing intermediate links. True if a team member's published statement says so.
The Greek omphalos, Garcilaso's gloss of Cusco, the Rapanui Te Pito o te Henua and the modern Turkish name Göbekli Tepe are different kinds of evidence, differing in language, date of first record and whether the ancient builders used the name. True if their source histories differ on those three points.
featured, by theme
The pattern people see2 ▸
In the Deep Memory catalogue experiment, the bundle of the three broad motif classes does not stand out against the study's documentation-preserving comparisons.
In the Deep Memory catalogue experiment, the three broad motif classes (birds, serpents, sacred centres) are each widespread in the sampled catalogue.
Bird-men3 ▸
In the Deep Memory catalogue experiment, a broad bird-person motif class occurs in 55% of 926 sampled traditions. True if the experiment's coded data reproduce that proportion.
The description 'bird-man' groups at least three distinct ideas — a deity with a bird's head, a person wearing feathers, and a person transforming into a bird. True if the compared images fall into different ones of these categories.
The birdman carvings on the back of Hoa Hakananai'a were added later than the statue's manufacture.
The handled objects4 ▸
Shape and function of the handled objects are separate questions.
Assyrian ritual context supports a bucket-and-purifier interpretation of the banduddû.
The function of the three handled forms on Pillar 43 is uncertain. True if the excavation team has published no secure functional identification.
The Jiroft chlorite 'handbag' in the National Museum of Iran shows wear on its handle consistent with having hung on a cord. True if the published wear-trace study reports handle wear of that kind.
The navel of the world2 ▸
The Greek omphalos, Garcilaso's gloss of Cusco, the Rapanui Te Pito o te Henua and the modern Turkish name Göbekli Tepe are different kinds of evidence, differing in language, date of first record and whether the ancient builders used the name. True if their source histories differ on those three points.
The modern Turkish name Göbekli Tepe ('navel hill') describes the shape of the mound. True if the toponym is documented as descriptive of the mound's form rather than as a sacred designation.
Hands on the belly1 ▸
Serpents and the feathered serpent1 ▸
The people who brought the arts3 ▸
In the Deep Memory V1 civiliser lineup experiment, the claimed partner figure ranked first in 62.5% of completed lineups, against 9% for random pairs. True if the experiment's run data reproduce those rates.
Berossus's Oannes corresponds to the fish-cloaked apkallu sage type.
The identification of the central staff-bearing figure on the Gate of the Sun at Tiwanaku as Viracocha is a modern one. True if no pre-modern source names that figure Viracocha.
What survives the water2 ▸
In the Deep Memory flood text-coding pilot, the coded details of 263 flood-story summaries cluster by region. True if the pilot's coded data show regional clustering under its stated measure.
In the text-coding pilot, the coded flood summaries show an uneven distribution of details associated with Genesis.
When resemblance becomes evidence4 ▸
The historical meaning of a visual resemblance between objects depends on their dates, contexts, differences and possible connections, not on the resemblance alone. True if no resemblance can be assigned a historical explanation without those data.
A catalogue's geographical distribution of a broad motif class cannot by itself distinguish independent invention from very old transmission. True if the same distribution is compatible with both histories under stated models.
In the Deep Memory image pilots, matching the kinds of objects in a lineup changed the lineup result. True if the pilot data show a different ranking under kind-matched controls.
In the Deep Memory image pilots, AI judges disagreed strongly with one another about the resemblance between the same objects. True if the pilots' inter-judge agreement statistics are low.
Transmission, convergence and retelling3 ▸
Stories can become more alike than their originals through translation, borrowing and comparative writing. True if documented retellings show convergence of detail relative to earlier attested versions.
Similarity between motifs alone cannot establish a lost-civilisation account's claims about the source's identity, date and capabilities. True if those claims require evidence beyond resemblance.
The Göbekli Tepe excavation team regards the extent of any survival of the site's imagery into later Near Eastern objects as unestablished because of missing intermediate links. True if a team member's published statement says so.
The unreviewed catalog
31 claims in the ledger that the current edition does not feature — most extracted from the source literature and imported without individual human review. Each is one atomic statement with its anchor; none carries a judgment until an edition features it and its adopted assessment supplies the full treatment.
Bird-men7 ▸
The Hoa Hakananai'a statue dates to c. 1000–1200 CE.
The back of Hoa Hakananai'a carries two facing birdmen.
The back of Hoa Hakananai'a carries a sooty tern between the two birdmen's beaks.
The back of Hoa Hakananai'a carries komari.
The back of Hoa Hakananai'a carries paddles.
The back of Hoa Hakananai'a carries a ring and a girdle.
Pitts and colleagues interpret the bas-reliefs on the back of Hoa Hakananai'a as a single composition narrating the Rapa Nui birdman myth as it was recorded in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. True if their study states that reading.
The handled objects5 ▸
The Assyrian banduddû is a bucket named in ritual texts.
The small handled object held by the seated figure on La Venta Monument 19 is usually read by specialists as an incense bag. True if the standard Olmec literature gives that reading.
The function of the three arched forms on Göbekli Tepe Pillar 43 remains uncertain.
The excavators' first published description of Pillar 43 at Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt 2006) describes three box-like objects with handle-like attachments in the pillar's upper register. True if the note uses those descriptions of the three forms.
Each of the three box-like objects on Pillar 43's upper register is accompanied by an animal, in the excavator's description. True if Schmidt's note states that each object has an animal beside it.
Pigs, lizards and other stone animals1 ▸
The navel of the world2 ▸
The Kurdish names for the Göbekli Tepe site mean 'wish hill'. True if a Kurdish toponymic or ethnographic source records that meaning.
The Rapanui name Te Pito Kura means 'navel of light'. True if Rapanui lexical sources give that gloss.
Hands on the belly7 ▸
Carving limbs against a stone body can protect them from breakage.
Material constraint as a contributor to the pose does not settle its symbolic meaning.
The Urfa Man statue (Şanlıurfa, c. 9000 BCE) holds its hands over the genitals. True if the statue as published shows that gesture.
Arms and hands are carved on the central T-pillars of Enclosure D at Göbekli Tepe. True if the excavation record shows arms and hands on those pillars.
The Ponce monolith at Tiwanaku, Bolivia, dates to c. 500–900 CE.
The Ponce monolith holds its hands to the chest.
The Ponce monolith holds a snuff tablet.
Serpents and the feathered serpent1 ▸
The people who brought the arts6 ▸
The fish-cloaked sage depicted with Ea in first-millennium BCE Assyria is the apkallu type that the texts actually name.
Berossus's fragment F1, as preserved by Syncellus from Alexander Polyhistor, describes Oannes as having the whole body of a fish with a human head beneath the fish's head and human feet joined to the tail. True if the fragment's text gives that description.
Berossus's fragment F1 states that the form of Oannes had been preserved in sculpture to the writer's day. True if the fragment's text says so.
In Berossus's fragment F1, Oannes returns to the sea at the end of each day and spends the night there. True if the fragment's text describes a nightly return rather than a single departure.
In short, Oannes taught men all those things conducive to a settled and civilized life.
Verbrugghe and Wickersham's comparative table sets Berossus's Oannes beside U-An, the first of the apkallu, in the Uruk tablet W 20030,7. True if the table makes that alignment.