1. Was The Egyptian Pyramid Complex Built Up Over Time? From About 10,500 BC To About 2,500 BC?
2. Debunking Egyptologists Dr. Mark Lehner From the University Of Chicago & James F. Romano, Curator At The Brooklyn Museum
3. Ancient Underwater Ruins: A Review Of Graham Hancock's "Underworld, Flooded Kingdoms Of The Ice Age" (With Discoveries Dating To 7500 BC And Earlier!) & "Advanced Ice Age Civilizations & Atlantis"
Some excellent talks and presentations on remains of a lost ancient civilization by Graham Hancock.
Video: Graham Hancock | Ancient Civilizations
Summary: In the above talk Graham Hancock shows through multiples examples that link together, how the "first time" of the Egyptians probably dates to 10,500 BC...
Pyramid complex links up to the stars to the date 10,500 BC;
Sun over the head of the Sphinx, facing east, on the equinox;
How another site dating to 10,500 BC has been found in Indonesia...
Sun over the main temple spire on the equinox;
Ankor Wat temple complex (floor plan) links up to the stars to 10,500 BC (the temple above is from 1100AD)
And how both structures, whose floor plan was laid down in 10,500 BC and built over many times during the millennia, have similar ideas encoded in their building structure, such as the rise of the sun over the main structure in the equinox...
The synopsis:
Background: Ancient Underwater Ruins: A Review Of Graham Hancock's "Underworld, Flooded Kingdoms Of The Ice Age" (With Discoveries Dating To 7500 BC And Earlier!) & "Advanced Ice Age Civilizations & Atlantis"
Video: Graham Hancock - Fingerprints of the Gods - Full length presentation (1 hour 45 minutes)
Note: A theory of Graham Hancock's that the pyramids were used in initiation ceremonies for generations of Pharaohs seems likely to me as well as initiation ceremonies are common to shamanic cultures and is what Gobekli Tepe was probably used for as well. So although the initiation changed over thousands of years, the association of stone with an initiation "temple" has remained constant for many of thousands of years showing how different cultures deal with similar ideas, i.e. I think Gobekli Tepe was used for Initiations as well.
Related posts:
Göbekli Tepe: Tracing Probable Links In The Mythology Of Göbekli Tepe To The Native Americans
Breaking News - The Shaman Of Gobekli Tepe: The Link Between The Shaman Of Lascaux Cave, Shiva & The Headless Man Of Gobekli Tepe
Note 2: The theory that all of civilization was destroyed and had to start again and the remnants of the earlier civilization left us a "beacon" seems far fetched to me. My guess is that people did the best they did to restart their civilization for their own kids and probably failed over time as civilizations do (as outlined below). In other words, I seriously doubt that people of thousands of years ago were leaving a beacon for some future advanced human civilization that came after them. I can't imagine people caring about leaving signs for a civilization so many thousands of years away. That said, Graham Hancock may mean their remains are like a beacon to us. That is an acceptable conclusion. Related post: A Look At The Fall Of Civilizations (With An Emphasis On The Fall Of 1200 BC & Lost Knowledge Through Library Burnings)
Here is an abstract about the book Fingerprints Of The Gods from Graham Hancock's website:
Fingerprints of the Gods - Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization (1995) by Graham Hancock
On 6th July 1960 Lt Colonel Harold Ohlmeyer, a United States Airforce Commander, sent a reply to a letter from one Professor Charles Hapgood who had requested his opinion on a feature found on a map of 1513 AD called the Piri Reis Map. Lt Colonel Ohlmeyer’s reply was a bombshell. The map, showing the coastline of the east coast of the Americas and the west coast of Africa, the Colonel remarked, also seemed to show the coastline of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica free of ice – a condition it had not been in for some 9000 years!
In fact, it is only in recent times that modern man has been able to map this coastline using sub-surface surveying techniques that can penetrate the ice sheet that lies on top of it.
Ohlmeyer had no idea how a map existing in the 16th century could have got hold of such knowledge.
This was one of the many mysteries that lead Graham to begin his epic journey into man’s past that is Fingerprints of the Gods – and it is a mystery whose solution is mindblowing.
Travelling first to South and Meso-America, Graham finds evidence of myths of a white-skinned ‘god’ named Quetzalcoatl or ‘Viracocha’ who came from a drowned land bringing knowledge of farming and culture after a great flood. Tied in with these myths Graham begins to crack an ancient code imprinted in these ancient tales that refer to the ‘great mill’ of the heavens.
It is an astronomical code that deals with the position of the stars over vast periods of time – a code that reveals the ancients knew far, far more than they are generally credited with. Traces of the same code appear in Egyptian myth, and it is to this desert land that Graham and Santha travel, finding there haunting parallels in architecture and ritual to the New World sites they have just left behind.
Moreover, the whole layout of the Giza plateau seems to point to a date many thousands of years earlier than the date of its supposed construction – a date revealed in the astronomical alignments of the Pyramids, the ‘mansions of a million years’, home of the god Osiris, the bringer of agriculture to the Egyptians, like Quetzalcoatl, after a flood.
Could the Piri Reis maps be evidence for a previously unknown complex maritime civilisation, capable of mapping the globe? A global culture, cataclysmically destroyed at the end of the ice age, remnants of which survived the devastation to pass on their knowledge to the shaken world?
Were the figures of Osiris and Quetzalcoatl survivors of this lost race – passing down not only advanced geographical knowledge, but a secret astronomical code veiled in myth that pointed to the devastation in the past, and warned of that which is to come?
From the mysterious sites of Tiahuanaco and Teotihuacan, to the enduring enigmatic Sphinx and pyramids of Egypt, the grandiose Nazca lines of Peru to the stark primal beauty of the Osireion at Abydos, this is a journey both around the globe and into the heart of the true prehistoric origins of man. Part adventure, part detective story, this book will force you to revaluate your beliefs of the past.
In Magician Of The Gods Graham Hancock reveals some amazing new discoveries that further solidify the date of a large global culture with temple/worship sites that stretched around the globe. Hancock connects his discoveries with other archaeological discoveries from around the world to put together a compelling theory on an ancient civilization or culture which spanned the globe and was decimated after a comet impact that has been documented by modern science. Given the age of Gobekli Tepe and the new discoveries at Gunung Padang, the existence of this ancient culture that spread across the globe when the oceans were much lower is a fact that can no longer be ignored.
Video: ‘Magicians of the Gods’, snapshots of a work in progress
The amazing discoveries begin around 30 minutes into the presentation.
13,000 years ago there was a whole continent that sunk beneath the oceans in Indonesia;
This site was found on land that would have been above the flooded areas and a GEOLOGIST (a science Egyptologists dont acknoledge) claims that this site is form 9,000 to 20,000 years old!
Screenshots of the site....
An independent investigation found amazing dates...
Before and after the flood;
Another discovery made by Graham Hancock...
Then Graham Hancock connects this with other discoveries and analogies from around the world covered in earlier posts (see links below)...
Graham Hancock points out some very interesting cultural correlations he notices in the art...
Digging out an Easter island monument and taking into account the amount of silt that has covered it can give us a date of over 10,000 years (if we use geology to understand this phenomenon)!...
An ice age animal found carved in stone...
Bearded men carved in stone (same people who brought civilization to the Americas?)...
Turns out we have scientific evidence of a comet striking the earth roughly when the ocean rise at the end of the ice age occurred... so once again we are left with the impression that our biggest finds (besides the excavation of Gunung Padang) are still underwater...
Scientific American: Did a Comet Hit Earth 12,000 Years Ago? Nanodiamonds found across North America suggest that major climate change could have been cosmically instigated
Roughly 12,900 years ago, massive global cooling kicked in abruptly, along with the end of the line for some 35 different mammal species, including the mammoth, as well as the so-called Clovis culture of prehistoric North Americans. Various theories have been proposed for the die-off, ranging from abrupt climate change to overhunting once humans were let loose on the wilds of North America. But now nanodiamonds found in the sediments from this time period point to an alternative: a massive explosion or explosions by a fragmentary comet, similar to but even larger than the Tunguska event of 1908 in Siberia.
Sediments from six sites across North America—Murray Springs, Ariz.; Bull Creek, Okla.; Gainey, Mich.; Topper, S.C.; Lake Hind, Manitoba; and Chobot, Alberta—yielded such teensy diamonds, which only occur in sediment exposed to extreme temperatures and pressures, such as those from an explosion or impact, according to new research published today in Science.
The discovery lends support to a theory first advanced last year in that some type of cosmic impact or impacts—a fragmented comet bursting in the atmosphere or raining down on the oceans—set off the more than 1,300-year cooling period in the Northern Hemisphere known as the Younger Dryas for the abundance of an alpine flower's pollen found during the interval.
The cooling period interrupted an extended warming out of an ice age predicted by slight changes in Earth's orbit (known as Milankovitch cycles) that continues today. And it remains an unexplained anomaly in the climate record.
But a series of cometary fragments exploding over North America might explain a layer of soil immediately prior to the cooling containing unusually high levels of iridium—an element more common in cosmic wanderers like meteoroids than in Earth's crust. Paired with the fact that this layer occurs directly before the extinction of at least 35 genera of large mammals, including mammoths, it is strong circumstantial evidence for a cosmic event.
This is global temperatures over the last 15,000+ years;
I agree with his analysis of how easy it would for civilization to fall apart and not reemerge after a natural catastrophe or nuclear war.
All in all, excellent documentaries to open the mind to new possibilities and I highly recommend watching them. Bookmark the videos on you tube on bookmark this post till you get a chance to watch them all.
A Critique Of Graham Hancocks Work
I may be completely wrong. My analysis may be based on a childish reaction to some ideas based on my own bias because of years of studying religion and mythology but I feel I have to make a critique of some ideas in the works I encountered. Afterall, Graham Hancock was my favorite author in childhood when I discovered Sign and the Seal. So when he wrote Fingerprints of the Gods I practically memorized it and became a Graham Hancock drone through college. My basic theory is that while Hancock's overall theory is solid, he makes leaps in mythology that CAN be explained in other ways. If you remove ALL references to mythology from Graham Hancocks work it takes NOTHING away from the scientific discoveries such as the archaeological finds or the archaeo astronomy dating. The flood myths may or may not go back to the younger dreyas period and I want to keep that skepticism there unless we can find datings for the myths. Of course, in some cases I may just be critiquing the sentiment of the moment in a particular lecture based on the words being used. In any case, here you have it. A critique of Graham Hancock's work.
Video: ‘Magicians of the Gods’
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Note 1: When man starts his creation myths its always as a single person or couple. Emerging from water into the world, where you eventually develop consciousness of "I" that creates all things, is a natural human experience as we all emerge from a waters of the womb (some people even claim to have memories of that time and how can we say there isn't a subconscious memory of the womb in every human?). Hancock (or whoever he got the theory from) may be right that myths of a man with a fish symbol on a boat may come from a long lost civilization or it could simply be a metaphor of how man rebuilt himself after a flood on a local level. A river flood WOULD wipe out "civilization" as the inhabitants know it and then they would have to come together and rebuild. One leader (or a small group of leaders) eventually emerges who takes the rebuilding ot the next level and thus the myth OR the whole community rebuilt it and later generations simply talked of it as ONE person (or couple) rebuilding it (a patriarchal culture will assume its a man the way they assume God is male). "One" person emerging at the end of a "flood" could simply mean the reiulding of a culture/civilization after a catastrophe was ascribed to a King, the way we ascribe all event sin a Presidency to that Presidents "watch" (many older cultures would literally ascribe all good things, even natural events, to their leaders/kings). Basically, I'm skeptical of seeing mythological stories as being literally true.
Note 2: A paper or parchment text would not take long to fall apart. An old myth in one culture cold just be 500 or a thousand years old but to a person seeking to trace all ancient information to an even more ancient source, like Graham Hancock is doing, may distort the research, i.e. if all you have is a hammer then everything you see is a nail. What I'm saying is that while the pyramid buildings texts (at 13 mins) portrays a lost island from ancient times... that island could be an advanced civilization from 5000 or 6000 BC and still make the cut with ease. Personally, I think humans are notoriously incompetent when it comes to putting down facts and the whole idea of have factual based information doesn't even emerge in our recorded civilization till the Age of Enlightenment. In other words, the myth on the Edfu building texts could be from one of the cities that got flooded in later times - that Hancock found in Underworld - than what Hancock looks for. That said, this could really be the original myth of Atlantis!
At 15 mins Hancock mentions Plato's reference to 9000 BC. I would like to point out that Plato also links Ancient Greek Kings and Kingdoms, that have been traced to about 1500 BC, to the age of Atlantis "9000 years" ago. Some scholars think that an extra zero accidentally got added to Plato's story in later transcriptions as his texts were passed down through the ages from one scribe to the next.
The above myth suggests that Yoga goes back well before the flood as a Rishi is an expert on yoga (which flood is imprecise but Manu certainly isn't the creator of Yoga and so shouldn't be associated with the following image which has another linkage I wrote about here);
I agree that Yoga is way older than 5000 years old. In fact, the original meditative techniques of yoga probably go back many many millennia before 3000 BC;
Hancock then recaps some of his research done in Underworld;
Yet another documentary;
In the following, 3 in 1 documentary (2 hrs 45 mins), Graham Hancock traces the earliest known civilization to 10.500 BC. The following documentaries provide an overview of the facts and anomalies that reveal to us the likelihood of a civilization, with sophisticated astronomical knowledge,that existed before Gobekli Tepe from around 9000 BC. A must see for anyone interested in learning about the origins of cultures, civilizations or history in general.
Video: Quest for the Lost civilization - Graham Hancock
What are the connection between Angkor Wat in the Jungle of Cambodia, the Pyramid in the desert of Egyptian desert, and monuments on Easter Island and in Micronesia? What is the under water mystery in Japan, the last time it above water was 10,000 years ago? Our ancestors are highly intelligent people, thousand years ago they precisely predicted the solar eclipse over Mexico in 1991. In this set of three videotapes, writer Graham Hancock traverses the world and explains his controversial theory that an ancient civilization, highly intelligent people who sailed the planet as early as 10,500 B.C., spread advanced astronomical knowledge and built ancient observatories. Skeptics may scoff, but Hancock earnestly points out similarities in giant stone structures in the Egyptian desert and Cambodian jungles, and on Easter Island and in Micronesia, he points out what he considers evidence of an ancient society of seafarers. His ideas may seem utterly bizarre at first, but Hancock presents them in an understated and good-natured manner, and he also makes clever use of computer graphics and aerial photography to illustrate the startling similarities in ancient structures found from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific.
Note 1 : Mainstream Egyptology bases its confidence on its dating of the Pyramid to Khufu on a small hieroglyphic set in a hidden area (no other writings are found anywhere on the Pyramids which defies normal Pharonic/Kingly ego... and I'm not even including the geology they ignore for no other reason than they must be a cult).
Note 3: Hancock points out that Stonehenge had pillars of wood dating back to 10,000 BC. Connecting this to the Jomoon culture and the fact that cultures originate in wood first, I would like to point out that wood poles probably go back much much further in time than megaliths which must be the later invention for anchoring the sky to earth... like cars were the later invention of horse drawn carts (& thus power its is measured in "horsepower).
Note 4: Elements of the Egyptian or other ancient cultures seeking a new life (maybe because of the sea peoples and not necessarily natural catastrophe) may have traveled to the American continents. Boats and ocean travel simply goes too far back for the pyramid culture of the Americas not to be a colony, or many different colony at different times (as people move for many reasons and often), from the old world. Related Post: Cultural Diffusion: Tracing Water Travel By Canoes To AT LEAST 8000 BC & Extensive Ocean Travel By Ships To 1600 BC!
Note 5: I understand Hancock theorizes a SINGLE lost civilization. I would like to point out that cultures are different and the same, in many ways, even today. For example; Pyramid like structures were being built by at least two separate cultures in the old world and a more egalitarian city structure seems to have developed in India (if Mohenjodaro and Harappa are any measure of the underwater cities there)
Note 6: Hancock assumes all flood myths suggest a global flood when a local flood would seem like a global catastrophe to a small community or even a city (say, if a tsunami showed up). To think that the flood myths have survived unchanged and unembellished (with no new flood myths) from 10,000 BC despite the multiple underwater ruins we have found from DIFFERENT times, seems like a stretch to me. I'm still inclined to think human civilizations keep rising in falling with various levels of technology in each one.
Note 7: All the correlations of building plans to 10,500 BC DOES suggest a global astronomically aware civilization going back that far in stone (back further in wood) and it continuing in many forms afterwards (the way a culture inland might evolve depending on whether it was the first world or third world culture of its time, i.e. both must have existed at the end of the last ice age as is common to human cultures). Related post: Tracing Lost Megalithic Cultures From 9500 BC To The Present.
Note 8: Alternative theory of the mythology to Hancock's preferred theory: There were many civilizations and floods, like today with rain floods, river floods and ocean floods/tsunamis, were also a common phenomenon. Noah was a myth from one ancient culture that spread through cultural diffusion while the myths of man going to a top of the mountain or in a box to survive were each from different cultures as well. Since floods have existed throughout history and cultures of man have existed as well (and people see their lives or community ending as "the end of the world") I can posit the possibility (as other have as well, as Hancock mentioned) that these are simply flood stories,and mythology using the imagery of floods for effect, from various cultures throughout time, i.e. there is no way of dating the flood myths and Noah's flood (a story which seems to have originated from Babylon) could easily be a later flooding of 4000 or 5000 BC than the flooding that may have occurred at the end of the ice age (we only know of it cause by coincidence the Jews were exiled to Babylon and picked up the myth, or something like that). While man DOES take a myth or mythological archetype and set it to his world, he doesn't seem to remember myths in an exactitude from a long time ago. In other words, a local river flood could easily become a global flood in the cultures mythology over time. While stuff like flood myths may survive from 3000 BC in a new form after going through reinterpretations (like Homer did) or through exaggeration (like where the "lightning/storm God" came from). By comparison, There is no way so much of the Bible would have survived in our culture if it wasn't written down (it was just too savage), so much of it would have disappeared a long time ago. Basically, I object to ALL flood myths being associated with cities or cultures that died off at the end of the last ice age. Don't really know why. But I think I should.
Conclusions: The main difference between my thoughts and Graham Hancocks is that he believes that there are lessons of humility to be learned from the myths of the past (where hunter gatherers may have passed on stories of a past advanced civilization). I, however, think human civilizations are like ant colonies. They emerge. They get destroyed. The disappear. The survivors build else where or a completely different nest of ants build a similar nest based on some psychological archetype embedded in the species. What we don't disagree on is that a major comet impact would destroy our civilization overnight. With our specialization of labor, no one could rebuild from scratch even a car, much less an airplane. Our food is distributed through a division/specialization of labor so there would be almost instant famine and most of our population would simply die off in starvation, looting, hordes, war... basically the worst sort of doomsday movie scenario. I also have issues with some of his mythological interpretations (such as a guy in a boat could easily be a canoe that gets aggrandized in myth, though the white bearded people story from South America is very interesting and COULD be dated to a later time, i.e. maybe the culture develop AFTER the younger dryas comet impact and then destroyed itself for other reasons internal decay or war.
All that said, I could be wrong and Graham Hancock may be right. I just thought I should write some detractions especially where the origins of cultures are concerned, since we find burials facing towards or away from the sun going back hundreds of thousands of years, suggesting a cultural symbology that goes back that far at least and thus could be carried forward without the aid of high civilization falling or rising in the first place.
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