View topic - [RING][Trailhead] Find the Lost Ring

unforum
a.r.g.b.b

Welcome!

New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.

Website Restoration Project

This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.

Announcements

This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.

This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.

Our Esteemed Contributors

The time now is Sat Nov 16, 2024 4:46 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)

View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum

Calendar

Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Find the Lost Ring

[RING][Trailhead] Find the Lost Ring

Page 49 of 73 [1083 Posts]

Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, ..., 71, 72, 73 Next

Author

Message

AgnosticTheocrat2
Guest

I sent an email

I registered for unforum a long time ago and forgot my username, so now my email is tied up on an unused username that i don't even remember Sad

. Then i made a new username but tied it to an email address that was nonfunctional. So now I have a username I don't know for my real e-mail address, and a username I do know for a fake e-mail address. A bad situation... So, first off, I'm wondering if any admins can delete the accounts for AgnosticTheocrat and kothmayer.1SPLATosu.edu so I can make my account again...

Anywho, in other news, i sent an email to Eli Hunt asking him for any information he had on the gamekeepers and the Pyron shard or anything else. Here's what i sent:

Quote:

Dr. Hunt,

I hope you are well. My name is Jake, although I've been known to go by 'AgnosticTheocrat' online. I'm a history student at The Ohio State University. I've stumbled upon your site through my own investigations concerning the Olympic Games, and their possible connection to certain modern events. A young woman by the name of Ariadne, at the site www.findthelostring.com, linked me to your own site. I've listened to your podcasts, and they're very intriguing. The reason I'm contacting you is in regards to the bottom of your disclaimer. While I can't claim to be an expert, I do have some background in the Ancient Mediterranean and would be delighted if you would allow me to try to assist you in analyzing any new evidence.

Specifically, I have some questions about the nature of the Gamekeepers, and the odd games they ostensibly listed on the old man's relic. These all seem to be related to the acts of persuasion and rhetoric; certainly considered great virtues in any Ancient Grecian man. However, I was wondering whether you had found any connection between these virtues and the pottery shard of Pyron. I assume you must have, as your only two podcasts relate to them. However, I'd like to hear your take.

As for my take, admittedly unprofessional and based largely on conjecture, both seem intimately related. I would guess that blindfolding must be a means of simulating blindness. Naturally, any physical sport would be prohibitively difficult for the blind. Boxing without hits, runners who go the wrong direction, gymnasts with no concept of space, all would be essentially pointless and likely would not be fun for the participant nor the spectator, let alone the gods. So why would they want to simulate blindness? Yet despite the ridiculous notion of blind sporting, they seemed to have not only wanted to simulate it, but even to elevate said sport above the rest. Now relate this back to those virtues set forth by the underground Gamekeepers. Rather than their physical strengths, it seems to emphasize their mental strength: courage, intelligence, wit, and charisma.

Why? The most famously blind man in Ancient Greece was Homer, the blind poet responsible for much of Greek mythology. It seems that perhaps they were attempting to create a means for emulating Homer. Perhaps their greatest sport had to do with Homeric storytelling, or poetry recitation, as well as the physical tests; a sort of blind, academic decathlon. Of course, this is idle speculation, and I would love to have any more evidence you have, so that I might have a better picture of the true nature of these artifacts.

Thank you for your time and I hope I can be of some help,

Jake

Hopefully i'll get a response.[/quote]

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:34 pm

danteIL
Unfictologist

Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1990

Are these guesses??

konamouse wrote:

I think our athletes will eventually become moderators on some IG forum with each representing the 6 tributes and we are the ones being trained.

dikaiosune696 = Ariadne
chanilon696 = Lucie

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:38 pm

konamouse
Official uF Dietitian

Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 8010
Location: My own alternate reality

danteIL wrote:

Are these guesses??

Yes, this harks back to my original spec about the 6 being our "trainers".

_________________
'squeek'
r u a Sammeeeee? I am Forever!

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:44 pm

ncfriend
Unfettered

Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 694
Location: Your imagination

Avatrix wrote:

The first Olympics were in 776 BC. 696 * 4 = 2784. Put it together? the year, 2008.

very good. 4 years = 1 Olympiad.

upon further reading at the official olympics site.. i found this pdf of the history of the games:
http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_658.pdf

i noted especially the last section called the destruction and rediscovery of"OLYMPIA"

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:52 pm

thebruce
Dances With Wikis

Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 6899
Location: Kitchener, Ontario

sooo... don't know if this has already been Spec'd, but March 11 - Find the secret is the same date that Jane McGonigal is giving a keynote address at SXSW.

methinks the real game phase kicks off on tuesday

_________________
@4DFiction/@Wikibruce/Contact
ARGFest 2013 - Seattle! ARGFest.com

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:57 pm

AgnosticTheocrat2
Guest

Just FYI

Also, and feel free to trout me relentlessly if this has already been pointed out, Ariadne's athletic attire seems to leave one breast and shoulder exposed, just like this site from Eli Hunt's page says they were in Ancient Greece. http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/olympics/olympicsexism.shtml

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:58 pm

HitsHerMark
Unfictologist

Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 1521
Location: Austin, TX

Re: Just FYI

AgnosticTheocrat2 wrote:

I'm going to say with some confidence that Ariadne's top does cover both her breasts. Though it does go over only one shoulder.

I say this not only because I have my degree in costume and set design, but also she also didn't mention the fact that she had one breast out.

I think she would have mentioned that. Smile

But yes, it is in a neo-classical Greek style. And yes, the girls who participated in the foot race that was sacred to Hara did run with one breast exposed.

EDIT: And while we're on the subject I'm going to get nit-picky. It's not "toga like". A toga is a rectangular piece of cloth, often with a slight curve that is wrapped around the body in a specific way. The garment people are probably thinking of when they say "toga" is the "dress like thing" that you usually see in cheesy Hercules movies from the 60's and the 70's. Am I right? And if that's the case, then the garment you're thinking of is called a "Chiton".

I do grant that "Chiton-like" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!

YO JOE!

_________________
"COVERED IN BEES!"
GirlInFocus
flickr

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:04 pm

Wang Yangming
Greenhorn

Joined: 04 Mar 2008
Posts: 4

Meihui

Meihui's name does not mean beautiful wisdom. She signed her name in an earlier email as 美惠。 In this case hui means something like "bestow a favor" or "kindness." So her name together would be better translated as a "great kindness" or a "beautiful favor" I would change the wiki but unfortunately cannot do it from China.

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:18 pm

ncfriend
Unfettered

Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 694
Location: Your imagination

according to this definition of agonothetai

they sound more like town councilmen.(or women).
lol

[Edit - fixed the link - kona]

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:26 pm
Last edited by ncfriend on Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:32 pm; edited 3 times in total

thebruce
Dances With Wikis

Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 6899
Location: Kitchener, Ontario

Re: Meihui

Wang Yangming wrote:

I would change the wiki but unfortunately cannot do it from China.

Yeah, I was notified... I'm not sure what to do though to get it available not via proxy. If anyone has any tips, that would be helpful. The site is hosted with godaddy.

_________________
@4DFiction/@Wikibruce/Contact
ARGFest 2013 - Seattle! ARGFest.com

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:29 pm

esperanto-tim
Boot

Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 25

teucer wrote:

Somebody should send one or both of them an e-mail, asking innocuous-but-relevant questions, in Esperanto. I think whoever is behind it all speaks the language, and the ability to respond (or lack thereof) is informative.

Any of our Esperantists want to give it a go?

If you'd like an Esperanto translation of a message, send it over to me and I'll translate it for you. Or ask nicely in the Esperanto translation group: TrovuLaRingonPerditan.com.

DavFlamerock wrote:

Quick question: How long does it take people to learn Esperanto (at least a falting grasp)? I was about to start learning, but didn't want to find myself in a pit deeper than I thought.

Depends what kind of level you're aiming for, but if you compare with most people's experience of learning Spanish, German or whatever, you can probably safely say a couple of months of Esperanto gets you to where you'd be after 18 months or 2 years of another language.

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:35 pm

RedHatty
Unfictologist

Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1428
Location: x��Jy��VJvk

I am going to wear Eli down

eventually Smile

I wrote him yet again

Quote:

And I really do not want to upset or offend you, but things have taken
another turn that only you might be able to explain. Four of the 6
amnesiacs have now "remembered" names. All the name also have a
number - 696 in this "memory." This year will mark the 696th Olympiad
since they began.

Noriko remembers Sophrosone
Markus remembers Thumos
Diego remembers Mythopoeia
Meihui remembers Sophia

Since we still have 2 more amnesiacs, I would imagine that Ariande &
Lucie will each remember either Dikaiosune or Chanilon

Can you really still believe this is all just an urban legend?

I know there has to be danger involved, and very powerful (and rich)
people MUST be behind this (that or something supernatural - and I
think that is even scarier), but there are 6 innocent people who are
completely lost, alone & very confused. I only ask that you share
some of what you know about this "urban legend" so that we can help
these 6 people to make some sense of what has happened (and is
happening) to them.

I am guessing that somehow, along the way, something happened during
your research of this "urban legend" to scare you so bad that you
refuse to talk about it, but if the story that another girl, Larissa,
shared about a previous amnesiac, Renata, is true, I am more afraid
for th 6 than I am formyself. You see, Renata basically disappeared
off the face of the earth 4 yrs ago after waking in a labyrinth, with
the tattoo! I don't want that to happen to these 6.

You know something, you must! Can't you please just share what you
know or at least direct me to somewhere I can find out more?
PLEASE!!!

And he actually replied

Quote:

Surely you are not so easily fooled by the fraudulent pretendings of strangers you have met on the Internet.

This is the not the first time that individuals have used my research to concoct a fantastic story, in an attempt to glean information about what they no doubt believe is a real lost treasure.

I am here to assure you that I have researched the legend thoroughly and there is no such treasure; there are only unsavory characters attempting to find it at any cost.

I urge you to drop the matter.

So I replied to him yet again

Quote:

But Sir, they didn't lead me to you, I led them to you. These 6
people did not know of each other, myself and friends have been
responsible for them getting in touch with each other. We have a
Gernam speaker with poor English Skills, A Mandarin Chinese speaker
with less than rudimentary english skills, A Spanish speaker, A French
Speaker, a Japanese and only 1 English speaker - communication is a
HUGE challenge.

I truly do not believe that this is a contrived theatric created for
the sole purpose of gleaning information or assistance from you.
These 6 people would not have even known of you if it were not for
myself and my friends.

Have you not even bothered to visit the websites of these people
yourself? Or is it that you have visited them & you see signs that I
am missing, signs that point to a fraud being committed? If so,
Please tell me what I have missed.

Not one of these 6 has mentioned anything about a treasure, they want
to know who they are & what happened to them that they can't remember.
With information gathered about a similar situation experienced by
Renata 4 yrs ago, and her subsequent disappearance, my friends and I
think that these 6 peopl are in danger & we only want to help them.

If the "lost ring" is nothing but a fantastic legend, what harm can
come from you sharing the story of the legend with me? Even the Greek
myths and legends survive with us to this day, and they cause no harm
by being shared.

I and the 6 amnesiacs know absolutely nothing of the legend, and that
is wht I am requesting from you, nothing more than to share with me
the story of the legend.

Since it is no more than a "fairy tale" in your eyes, why are you so
reluctant to tell me the story?

Cross your fingers Smile

_________________
Friend of Peeps
Currently playing Callum Felderi

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:41 am

teucer
Boot

Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 13

So I contacted Hunt. I'm telling him I don't believe in the Lost Ring, but something is happening and whoever is behind it clearly does, so the knowledge could be useful even though it's a myth.

He still won't spill, though I'm working on it. Specifically, he wrote:

Quote:

Dear Craig, [that is in fact my name]

The less you know about the myth of the so-called "lost ring", the better off you are.

I will not discuss the matter any further, and I urge you to do the same.

Sincerely yours,

Eli Hunt

I take this as confirmation that he knows something. I'm trying to get him to give stuff not about the "myth" itself but about those who seem to be pursuing it. We'll see if this approach works.

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:47 am

Weezel
Unfettered

Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Posts: 420
Location: National Park, NJ

Here's the (English) transcript of the second Eli podcsat:

Code:

In August of 1953, a series of tremors shook the Greek island of Kefalonia--
[onscreen] The Legend of The Ancient Game Keepers With Historian Eli Hunt
--revealing an ancient stone chamber that had been buried beneath the slopes of the Paliki Mountains.
[camera zooms in on a map of Greece] For less than a single day, the chamber was open to the world until another quake leveled the entire island, burying the chamber again under thousands of tons of earth.

In the hours between its discovery and its disappearance, locals from the island were able to explore the hidden room. Today, all that remains are their reports and the few things they took from it.

Who built the room and what was its purpose?

I'm Eli Hunt, and this is the legend of the ancient game keepers.

Last year, I traveled to Kefalonia to try to find some of the survivors of the 1953 quakes. I hoped to speak with those who had seen the chamber firsthand.

In the village of Lixouri, I met a grandmother named Abbelina who claimed that she and her sister were the first to stumble upon the chamber. She remembered it as a small circular room about 7 feet in diameter with a low ceiling made from a single slab of granite. Within the room, she reported seeing a number of shattered urns, tablets, and decorative plates. "On the ceiling", she told me, "a single sentence was etched." "Theon paignia anthropoi." - "Men are the playthings of the Gods." "But the most striking detail", Abbelina told me, "was a single word carved over and over again on the walls and floor." The word was Enos�chth�n. Which translates as "the great earth-shaker." "The words scared us," Abbelina told me "and we left without taking anything with us."

The next day, I went to the home of a retired fisherman by the name of Alexander. He told me, over a glass of ouzo, that he had ridden his motorcycle to the site of the chamber as soon as he'd heard about it, hoping to find valuable artifacts that he could then sell. But as soon as he'd set foot inside, he recalled, the earth began to rattle with an aftershock. "I grasped for something, anything I could take with me," he said. "And then, I got out of there as fast as I could." Alexander took his treasure but later, when the chamber was buried again, he decided it would be bad luck to sell.

After a few more glasses of ouzo, I convinced him to show me what he had found. It was a painted plate, depicting a group of six men dressed in long purple robes. I immediately recognized the significance of the purple robes. They were the special garments, worn by ancient Olympic caretakers known as agonothetai - the "game keepers." The agonothetai trained the Olympic athletes, organized the events, and refereed the competitions. The ancient Olympics were originally designed as a religious ritual. And so the most sacred duty of the agonothetai, according to histories written at the time, was to make sure the Gods were entertained by the Olympians' spectacular feats of athletic skill.

Suddenly, the phrase on the ceiling made sense to me. "Men are the playthings of Gods." Could the Paliki chamber have been a meeting room for the ancient game keepers?

Before I left the island, I was able to find one more clue to the purpose of the secret chamber. I befriended one more survivor of the 1953 earthquakes, an artist named Costas who claimed to have taken charcoal rubbings of tablets in the Paliki chamber. Costas told me that he had sold many to tourists over the years but that he still had one of the rubbings, and he was happy to show it to me. The rubbing was of a tablet addressed "to the agonothetai of the first year of the 160th Olympiad" or, 136 BC.

Immediately, I suspected the document was a forgery. No one is quite sure why the change occurred, but no historian has ever found a reference to agonothetai at the Olympics after 480 BC. Clearly then, the rubbing was a fake. Was the entire story of the chamber a lie? One fact kept me from dismissing the rubbing as a fraud. The truth is, no one knows why the Greeks abandoned the agonothetai in favor of the hellanodikai. It remains an unsolved puzzle to this day.

Sitting with Costas on the island of Kefalonia, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps this tablet was a major clue as to why the change had been made, and evidence that not everyone had been willing to go along with it.

My artist friend had never had the rest of the tablet's text translated, so I did my best to read it on the spot. I was able to make out that it was a list of six attributes that defined an Olympic athlete. I had seen such ancient tablets created for game keepers before. Usually they listed characteristics like strength, speed, and endurance but strangely, none of the attributes on this tablet related directly to athletic performance.

Instead, it listed sofia, or wisdom; thumos, or courage; chariton, or charm; dikaiosune, or leadership; sophrosune, or temperance; and mythopoeia, or storytelling. What kind of Olympic games were these mysterious agonothetai running to replace speed with charm, endurance with storytelling? Is it possible that the agonothetai continued their work hundreds of years after we thought, perhaps unbeknownst even to their fellow ancient Greeks?

If so, that would explain the unusual clues found in the Paliki chamber: the references to earth-shaking, the strange sacred duty written on the plate, and the list of "athletic" attributes on the tablet - none of which match anything else we know about the ancient game keepers.

Did the agonothetai go underground?

If so, why?

Today, the Paliki chamber exists only in the memories of the few people who saw it. But their stories and souvenirs suggest that the agonothetai remained deeply involved in the ancient Olympics in ways that history has never recorded, and which we today may only begin to be able to understand.

.W.

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:04 am

teucer
Boot

Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 13

Do we have an e-mail address for Kai?

Also, can one of our Esperantists verify that this is correctly translated? I've decided Hunt isn't responsible for the fate of the amnesiacs, so I'm going ahead and testing Kai.

Subject: Kiu okazis en 1920?

Quote:

Kai,

Mi havas interison pri laj Olimpikojn da 1920. Kiu vi konas da ĉi tio?

Supposed to say:

Subject: What happened in 1920?

Quote:

Kai,

I have an interest in the 1920 Olympics. What do you know about them?

I know this sounds weird, but it's actually intended to find out if he's behind anything (on the "Kai's a trainer" theory) on two fronts at once. One, if he replies in Esperanto, he'll prove he knows it. Second, "Olimpikojn da 1920" is transparent to anyone who speaks English or pretty much anything else; if he replies in English we'll see if he knows anything about those. And that year seems important too, from the clews.

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:08 am

Display posts from previous: Sort by:

Page 49 of 73 [1083 Posts]

Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, ..., 71, 72, 73 Next

Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Find the Lost Ring

Jump to:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum