Two Steps Forward……

     One would think that change would be rare, and indeed for most of humankind’s existence it has. The more recent human context has provided for a wealth of change however, as humans reached a technological and social critical mass in the past quarter millennia. The battle has been constant between the fearless revisionists and their skittish orthodox counterparts who have been steadily losing ground since the scientific method was developed. For the most part, the regular defeat of the modern forces of orthodoxy can be attributed to the secondary significance of the ideals which are being challenged. Not since Darwin has the army of the status quo mustered its champions for a concerted effort and indeed the jury is still out for most of the plebes who may be educated but are still fearful.

     In modern times the most serious attack on the base of human existence is one that not only seeks the destruction of that base but the addition of another far larger and ancient foundation that would force the rethinking of virtually all aspects of life and history.  The existence of an ancient advanced civilization that predated the earliest known Egyptian settlements by more than 5000 years is challenged by the Egyptologists and the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, religion of all variety, historians, and the public by and large but is supported by hard evidence which is shunned by some and suppressed by others.  Fear and interest have hampered the truth in its struggle for freedom from captivity but as has always been the case, there are a few who cannot be silenced. This is an examination of some of their evidence.

Ancient Cartographers

     In 1929, completely by chance, a group of historians investigating the harem section of the Palace of Topkapi in Constantinople discovered a map of apparently great antiquity.  The map, it turned out, was compiled by a 16th century Turkish cartographer named Piri Reis from ancient unknown sources he had uncovered over years of travel. It was unclear to those who discovered the map what it was that they had found and it was not until Arlington T Mallory, an authority on ancient maps, came into possession of the map, that its true value was discerned.  Mallory, together with the U.S. Navy Hydrographic bureau, verified that the map displayed the southern polar continent, as it appeared ice-free.  

These are some basic historical and geological facts regarding the Piri Reis map:

1. The map is not a hoax and it was made in Constantinople in 1573.
2. The map shows West Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and the northern coast of Antarctica.
3. Antarctica was not discovered until A.D. 1818.
4. The most recent date Queen Maude Land was ice-free was 4000 B.C.
5. Queen Maude Land remained ice-free for 9000 years before being swallowed by ice 4000 years ago.
6. No civilization known to human kind had the capacity or need to survey the land in this time period.

     In addition to the Reis map there are others that offer similar impossible insights into the nature of the global landscape long before the scientific capability existed to do so.  Near the time of Reis, Oronteus Finneaus was engaged in similar activities which produced a map also compiled from ancient unknown sources which displayed Antarctica in an ice free state with physical features that “matched closely the seismic survey maps of the sub-glacial land surfaces of Antarctica.” These physical features included rivers whose existence was later confirmed by researchers studying cores samples from the continent at the Carnegie institute.  These researchers concluded that the rivers flowed until about 6000 years ago.

     Further adding to the pile, is the evidence offered in maps by the famous cartographer Gerald Kramer, a.k.a. Mercator, and the 17th century mapmaker Phillip Bauche who both offer accurate representations of Antarctica. Indeed, the Bauche map goes even further by accurately depicting what the continent looked like before there was any ice on the continent at all. It incorporates the two distinct landmasses, which were only discovered after 1958 by an American seismic survey team, the first to map the sub glacial topography of Antarctica.

     After examining the evidence, Professor Charles Hapgood of Keene College in New Hampshire suggested that the sources of these maps ran further into antiquity than anyone had previously suggested. He believed that the maps constituted hard evidence of a civilization that had mapped the earth accurately and comprehensively before 4000 B.C. He furthermore offered that this civilization must have achieved a great level of technical sophistication.    Under the auspices of conventional wisdom, humans did not develop the technical sophistication to accurately measure the longitude of trans oceanic trips until 1761 when the chronometer constructed for a contest by English clock maker John Harrison was first proven. The maps predate the Harrison chronometer by more than two centuries and reflect perfectly the longitude of relevant landmarks. Hapgood could scarcely ignore the blatant contradictions offered by the mere existence of these maps and so accepted the only answer possible, which was that there must have been much earlier inhabitants of the earth which were capable of accomplishing such tasks.  Furthermore, he concluded that these inhabitants must have been annihilated in some cataclysmic event that caused the virtual extinction of their way of life. He therefore set about defining the parameters of an event that could explain the destruction of an advanced civilization more than 6000 years ago, the most recent time the areas of Antarctica could have been mapped with the features shown.

    The theory he developed to explain this cataclysmic, civilization ending event was named Earth-crust displacement and was outlined by Albert Einstein in the forward to his book, Earth’s Shifting Crust.

“In a polar region there is continental deposition of ice which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole.  The earth’s rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth.  The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when it has reached a certain point, produce a movement of the earth’s crust over the rest of the earth’s body.”

     Hapgood believed that Antarctica used to be much warmer because it used to be located 2000 miles north of the Antarctic Circle.  It moved into the circle and became covered with ice gradually as a result of earth-crust displacement and it was this process which eliminated the evidence of an advanced civilization which existed more than 6000 years ago that provided the ancient sources to the Reis, Mercator, and Bauche maps.  

    Hapgood however, was shunned by his peers in his own time who were unable to come to terms with the metaphysical implications of what it was that he was trying to say.  Despite significant pressure, John Wright, the President of the American Geographical Society during Hapgood’s time, finally gave up the reticence employed by his peers to declare boldly that Hapgood had indeed ‘posed hypothesis that cry aloud for further testing’.  The declaration fell on deaf ears however as no further research was ever pursued regarding his theories or the anomalous maps.  He died having never been recognized for his achievements save by the one man who rarely offered his endorsement.  Einstein speaks of Charles Hapgood: 

     “I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity.  The very first communication however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me.  His idea is original, of great simplicity, and if it continues to prove itself, of great importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth’s surface.”

    John Hancock, the author of  Fingerprints of the Gods,  goes even further by suggesting that humankind’s future could depend on  the possible cyclical nature of Hapgood’s theory. If this build-up did occur, as Hapgood suggested, and led to a movement of the earths crust followed by a melting of the ice caps in their new position and formation of new ice caps in the newly polarized regions of the globe,  then this new build up might conceivably cause another shift in the future.  The ice age postulated by historians to have occurred in     B.C.  then, did not really spread out from the poles to cover large parts of the earth, but simply shifted due to earth-crust displacement.  In that sense the ice age never ended, it is simply continuing in Antarctica and the north polar regions currently, waiting patiently for another build-up to occur, which will give the impetus to find a new home once again. 

     An irony of the current global environmental situation is that due to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere and the resultant rise in average global temperature, the effect which caused the destruction of the ancient unknown civilization postulated by Hapgood and his followers, may never occur again because the ice caps are melting not accumulating as should naturally be.  Assuming however, that humans have not already sealed their fate with regards to the environment, and that someday they will heal the damage they have inflicted on this planet, this threat will remain credible for the foreseeable future.

Egyptian Oddities

    In the late 1970’s,  John Anthony West, an independent American researcher,  was poring over the obscure and brilliant writings of French mathematician and symbolist, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, when he discovered a curious commentary on the erosion patterns of the Sphinx in Egypt. Schwaller suggested that the erosion patterns on the Sphinx must have been caused by water and not sand as had previously thought to have been the case.  The climactic conditions necessary for this type of erosion have not occurred for 12,000 years and so he concluded that a “great civilization must have preceeded the vast movements of water that passed over Egypt.” 

    In pursuit of support for Schwallers belief, West employed Professor Robert Schoch of Boston University, a respected geologist, to investigate the Sphinx with him and his team and assess the question of  erosion.  Schoch quickly concluded that the erosion patterns on the Sphinx must have been caused by precipitation and that conservative estimates regarding the time when this may have occurred  hover at between 5000 and 7000 B.C. Indeed, the bulk of the geological community agrees with Schoch’s assessment and in fact there have been no credible challenges to the theory so far.

     This simple observation directly contradicts the orthodox view held by Egyptologists around the world. This view stipulates that the Sphinx itself was fashioned to represent the 4th Dynasty pharoh, Khafre, who reigned in Egypt between 2520 and 2494 B.C.  and was ‘proven’ by legitimate scientists using computer imaging.  No record exists of its construction, but as far as the Egyptologists are concerned, there was no previous civilization in existence in the region before the time of Khafre that was even remotely capable of accomplishing the gargantuan task of building the Sphinx. In light of the lack of evidence to support the existence of a far more ancient civilization in the region, the Egyptologists erroneously assumed that Khafre had been the architect. The Egyptologists did not explore the fact that the builders of this monument may not be local and therefore leave no significant evidence of their civilization.

     Commenting on the expedition led by West to the Sphinx, Zahi Hawass of the Egypt Antiquities Organization said,

“American hallucinations! West is an amateur. There is absolutely no scientific base for any of this. We have older monuments in the same area. They definitely weren’t built by men from space or Atlantis. It is nonsense and we won’t allow our monuments to be exploited for personal  enrichment. The Sphinx is the soul of Egypt.” 

      It’s a sad truth that modern day Egypt does not hold the grandeur it once did.  It is today, a nation fallen behind the rest, dubbed ‘developing’ by the industrialized world, climactically unable to support significant agriculture and void of the precious resources necessary to progress at a rate relative to the rest of the world.  It is a nation dependant on tourist dollars for its main source of revenue, dollars which flock to Egypt for it is the cradle of civilization, or so everyone believes. It is easy to imagine why Egypt has a vested interest in maintaining the orthodox view that it’s the cradle of civilization. It’s survival may depend on it financially speaking as the tourist appeal would surely be affected to some degree, but the blow it would deal to the national identity of Egypt would be devastating. An entire nations history is at stake if the revisionists get their way.

As a result of these opposing forces,  the contested entrance of West’s team was recinded when the E.A.O. realized what it was that they were attempting to prove. The damage was done however as West succeeded in getting his ideas to the public via NBC and a very successful documentary which more than 3 million viewers watched. 

     One would have expected a paradigm shift to have occurred in the public after the releasing of such ‘gravitational’ information,  but the unwillingness of the Egyptian authorities and the Egyptologists to accept even the possibilities of a much older Sphinx, took away the momentum from the issue and an already fickle, desensitized and cynical public quickly forgot.  In this case, the forces of orthodoxy won a significant battle, but since the airing of West’s documentary and the publishing of Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval’s book, The Message of the Sphinx, the world has changed. With the advent and success of the internet, information dissemination is now beyond regulation.  It is said that once something makes it onto the internet, it is impossible to destroy.  Conceivably speaking,  another incident like the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria could not happen since information is now decentralized to the extreme.  It also means that the information regarding this issue will never go out of print or become unavailable. In other words, ‘the truth is out there’.

A Short Trip to Left Field

     

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