June 21, 2006

Ship’s Log
June 21, 2006
Departure Location: Hangö, Finland
Departure Time: On Shore
Distance Traveled. On shore
Arrival Location: Hangö, Finland
Arrival Time: On Shore
Weather: High in the mid 80’s and blue skies.

Personal Comments:

Today was one of our busiest days so far. Because of both time and financial constraints we determined we would only be able to spend one day in Helsinki and were determined to get as much accomplished over the course of the day as possible.

Our first commitment after driving in this morning was lunch with two journalists from the newspaper Iltalehti; a publication widely distributed throughout Finland. One of the most important aspects of our project is bringing attention to Vinci’s theory and opening the field for more public debate. This interview proved to be an excellent opportunity to do just that and Bill talked at length about many of the details of both the theory and our specific interest in it. After the interview we were photographed by a staff photographer and provided the newspaper with some of our own photos to use as they saw fit.

The next stop after our interview was the National Museum in Helsinki. The National Museum is currently home to many of the Bronze Age artefacts found in the burial mounds scattered throughout Finland (such as those we visited outside Toija). Although the Bronze Age items were only given limited room in a larger exhibition, they were very well preserved and will be a good addition to the material that we have available for the creation of our CD-ROM.

After leaving the museum Bill went to meet with a fellow professor, Dimitri Panchenko, who is currently working on a theory regarding the god Apollo.

Research Comments:

Most of today was spent promoting Vinci’s theory rather than studying it. The one exception to this however was the National Museum. There we were able to see first hand, and document extensively, the artifacts found in some of the sites we had visited two days earlier.

What was most interesting about these items is not that they raised new thoughts regarding Vinci’s theory, but rather that they demonstrate the principle of falsification that was discussed in yesterday’s post. These Bronze Age items serve as tangible evidence that Vinci’s theory can be proved through archeological exploration. When an answer will finally be available is unclear, but there are currently teams at work. Vinci maintains he is as eager for the results as any potential critic might be.