Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco)

Published June 12, 2010

Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) is an ancient city whose remains are located over two miles above sea level near the southern end of Lake Titicaca on the Altiplano of Bolivia. It was first encountered by Spanish conquistadors in 1549. Tiwanaku has all the features of a harbour, which has led some to describe it as the seaport of nearby Puma Punku another remarkable ancient site^(o).

The ruins are scattered over a number of square miles through which the Guayqui-La Paz railway was constructed, which was responsible for the breaking up of many monuments to provide ballast. Before that, stone from the site was used in the construction of nearby homes and a church.

Belisario Díaz Romero believed that Tiwanaku had been built by a race of people he calls Homo atlanticus, who had come to America from Atlantis over a landbridge from the east, outlined in his 1906 book Tiahuanacu^[¹²³⁵^]. Heather Pringle notes^(t) that before Romero, “Francis de Castelnau (1810-1880), for example, proposed in the mid-19th century that Tiwanaku was the work of wandering Egyptian pharaohs, as opposed to the ‘imbecilic race that inhabits the country today’.”

The controversial Arthur Posnansky, who linked Tiahuanaco with Aztlan, the mythical “white” island homeland of the Aztecs investigated them in the early 20^th century. The similarity of Aztlan with the name of Plato’s city has excited some straw-clutching Atlantis seekers into claiming a definite connection between the two.

Posnansky also noted that the expected alignments of structures at Tiwanaku were offset by an amount that suggested their construction at a time when they would have been correctly aligned to the cardinal points. He, after many years of study, was convinced that Tiahuanaco was the oldest civilisation on Earth ^[516] dating it to around 15,000 BC, which he later reduced to 10,000 BC.

In the 1920s, Edmund Kiss studied the ruins of Tiwanaku and concluded that it had been constructed by Nordic refugees from Atlantis which had been destroyed by a falling moon! His ideas were enthusiastically received back in Nazi Germany. A further expedition was planned but never materialised because of the start of World War II.^(u)

Dr Graham Holton, an Australian commentator has written about the pseudo-science practised in the early 20th century at Tiwanaku by the likes of Posnansky and Kiss and endorsed by Hörbiger and Hans Bellamy^(al)(am).

Although, as you can see below, Posnansky’s work and particularly his dating of Tiwanaku has been rejected by many, he still has supporters. In Graham Hancock‘s 1995 book Fingerprints of the Gods ^[275], he supported Posnansky’s date, referring to his work throughout the book. Ian Alex Blease, a devout sceptic took issue with this endorsement (aa). For my part, I note that Hancock was happy to support Posnansky in ‘Fingerprints’, but in America Before ^[1680], despite its title, he gives Posnansky’s date no mention, perhaps because it clashed with his new date for the destruction of his ‘Lost Civilisation’!

>>Hancock has been highly critical of Carbon-14 as a dating method, particularly for megalithic sites and specifically Tiwanaku. The late Garrett Fagan took issue with Hancock regarding the dating of Tiwanaku in a 2000 post on Hancock’s site^(ar). Hancock responded with a challenge to Fagan that led to a further article from him^(aq). The temperature rose with a further article from Hancock^(as).<<

Charles Orser Jnr. debunked Posnansky’s dating in a 2001 article^(k)as did Paul Heinrich⁽ⁿ⁾.

Marin, Minella & Schievenin ^[972.97] “Between 1927 and 1930 several scientists, including Hans Ludendorf, at the time director of the Astronomical Observatory of Potsdam; astronomer Arnold Kohlshutter, University of Bonn; Dr Rolf Muller, University of Potsdam and Dr Friedrich Becker, Specula Vatican, meticulously checked the archaeological-astronomical research of Posnansky for accuracy. After three years of work these scientists corroborated his thesis.”

Before retirement, R. Cedric Leonard supported Posnansky’s early date for Tiwanaku citing a number of atronomers who endorsed his chronology. “Between 1927 and 1930 Prof. Posnansky’s conclusions were studied intensively by a number of authorities. Dr. Hans Ludendorff (Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Potsdam), Friedrich Becker of the Specula Vaticana, Prof. Arnold Kohlschutter (astronomer at Bonn University), and Rolf Müller (astronomer of the Institute of Astrophysics at Potsdam) verified the accuracy of Posnansky’s calculations and vouched for the reliability of his conclusions.

The conventional practice of dating Tiahuanacu as beginning c. 200 A.D. and collapsing c. 1000 A.D. started with Wendell Bennett’s excavations, which turned up numerous examples of pottery, small statues and other artifacts. Since it is common for later arrivals to be awed by massive ruins (sometimes attributing their origin to supernatural beings, thus replicating the “sacred” images on their own pottery and textiles), I think it is a mistake to fuse the two cultures into one, implying that the later arrivals were the same people who built the original ruins. I believe Bennett and his successors are all guilty of such an error.” ^(ap)

R. Cedric Leonard believed that Posnansky’s date addressed all of the mysteries associated with the site and “Thus I think it likely that Tiahuanaco was built at sea level c.15,000 B.C. as an Atlantean port.”^(z)

The American archaeologist, Neil Steede, while reviewing Posnansky’s date, thought that a date of 7000-5000 BC was more appropriate^(aj).

At the other end of the spectrum, Emmet Sweeney, an ardent chronology revisionist claimed that “most probably, Tiahuanaco was built around the same time as pharaoh Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Sakkara in Egypt. It can thus claim to be among the oldest of human monuments ^[700.208].” Tiwanaku is conventionally dated between 200 BC and 100 AD, while the Step Pyramid is thought to have been constructed around 2650 BC.

Some researchers, including Jim Allen, have studied Tiwanaku’s remarkable Gate of the Sun and identified the figures carved on it as a sophisticated calendar^(v).

A paper from Marco Antonio Cabero regarding the ‘Gate’ throws a modicum of doubt on its possible use as a calendar. Instead, he focused on the other side of the monument where he claims there is evidence that the ancient people of Tiwanaku knew the ‘golden number’, phi.

“The composition of the front face of the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku presents, anthropometric, and bilateral symmetry. On the back side, there are also harmonic proportions but with less significance. These proportions were not found before because the study of the content of its engraving frieze was believed to be a calendar, an idea that has been so widely extended, that any other interpretations were ignored (however, the presence of these proportions does not exclude the possible existence of some type of calendar). The Gate of the Sun may not be part of a temple, but its content could also be considered as the expression of a monument in itself; a work that testifies to the importance of knowledge, art, and science “^(ac).

Ashley Cowie has recently proposed that Tiwanaku was located on an ancient Prime Meridian^(w).

Also eye-catching is the claim^(l) by Roger Elefant that later construction at Tiwanaku was carried out by the Vikings!

However, a more recent, but catastrophic, explanation is offered by Stephen Smith^(d) on the Thunderbolts.info website. Perhaps Smith’s ideas might be combined with the studies of George Dodwell to produce a more comprehensive hypothesis. Posnansky’s date is greatly at variance with conventional dating that puts the flourishing of Tiwanaku from 1200 BC until 1200 AD. The latter part of that period roughly coincides with the existence of the Wari Empire, a possible rival of Tiwanaku^(e).

In 2013, Jason Yaeger and Alexei Vranich published a detailed study of the chronological development of Tiwanaku and Puma Punku. This is now available on the Academia.edu website^(ao). Anyone seeking support for ancient astronauts, giants or Atlantis will be greatly disappointed. The authors confirmed a starting date for monumental construction at the site of no earlier than 200 BC, which continued intermittently until the arrival of the Spanish invaders. Their report is the result of the ‘hard slog’ required by real archaeology.

Several claims attempting to link Tiahuanaco with Atlantis have been made, with one anonymous blog^(y) insisting that it was the capital of Atlantis. James Bailey was an early advocate ^[149] of a Peruvian Atlantis with its capital at Tiwanaku or Chan Chan, which was probably the largest pre-Colombian city in South America.

The claim of a direct connection between Tiahuanaco and Atlantis is hard to accept on a number of grounds; for example, the idea of an army travelling from the west coast of South America to attack Greece in the east of the Mediterranean is not tenable. That there was an advanced culture in the Andes is undeniable but to link it to Plato’s story is stretching credibility to extremes. Lake Titicaca and Tiahuanaco have plenty of mysteries still to be explained. In 1980 the Bolivian scholar, Hugo Boero Rojo, aided by one of the local natives, Elias Mamani, located underwater ruins off the coast of Puerta Acosta^[⁵⁷⁶^]. His discoveries included megalithic temples, flights of stairs and stone roads.

More recently, Dave Truman has written about an alignment known as ‘The Way of Viracocha’ that runs from Cajamarca in the north, through Cuzco and Tiwanaku and finishing at Pukara Grande^(p), oriented exactly 45° west of true north. Truman has built on the work of Maria Sholten d’Ebneth (1926-2007), who wrote of the La Ruta de Wiracocha^[^1236]in the 1970s^(q). Others have expanded on her work, but usually in Spanish. Truman has speculated on whether “Viracocha, the great teacher and restorer of civilisation in the Andes, in some way embodied the scientific knowledge of a sophisticated, but long-forgotten high culture?” Truman

also discusses the ‘chakana’ or Andean stepped cross (see right) and its possible meaning.

It was reported in October 2013^(g) ⁽that a team of Belgian and Bolivian archaeologists had found an assortment of ceramics, gems and gold objects at an apparent ceremonial site beneath the waters of Lake Titicaca, which was sacred to the Incas and Tiwanakus. It was not until 2019 that images of some of the artefacts recovered from the lake were widely published^(x).

We cannot leave the matter of mysterious Tiahuanaco without referring to the fact that some miles further south is Lake Poopó beside which Jim Allen is convinced that the city of Atlantis was located. Allen claims that the large plain to the west of the lake is the plain mentioned by Plato as being adjacent to the city of Atlantis. In a recent documentary “Atlantis in the Andes” broadcast by ‘Discovery Civilization’, Allen identified Tiahuanaco as one of the ten kingdoms of Atlantis. However, I cannot help noticing that while Tiwanaku, claimed to be 17,000 years old, provides us with an astonishing wealth of structures and finely dressed stone, Allen’s chosen Atlantis site, Pampa Aullagas, offers little more than rubble!

Another supporter of an Andean Atlantis is Sean Bambrough, who has been developing a theory since 1999 that identifies Tiwanaku as the city of Atlantis^(h). He has now published his magnum opus on the academia.edu website^(ae).

In February 2015, Marcelo Ozorio also suggested a link with Plato’s Atlantis and most interesting is the huge number of images included on his site⁽ⁱ⁾. There is also a large collection of related images on a YouTube clip^(m⁾.

In 2022, Marco Vigato‘s book, Empires of Atlantis ^[1830] was published, which included Tiwanaku as part of the evidence for his hyperdiffusionist Atlantis^(ab).

In 2008, David E. Flynn brought to public attention an astonishing series of satellite photos⁽^a⁾that show a vast network of the remains apparently of man-made structures that extend for many miles around Lake Titicaca. These ‘geoglyphs’ encompass Tiahuanaco.

The most remarkable collection of early photos of the Tiwanaku site can be found on the Above Top Secret website^(b). The accompanying text makes a strong case for treating the location as archaeologically contaminated and as a consequence that many of the dates proposed for the site should be considered suspect. Other mysteries are the fact that saltwater Lake Titicaca contains known sea life and that old waterlines are slanted^(c).

In late March 2015, the Bolivian government announced^(j) that ground-penetrating radar had identified what appeared to be a buried pyramid in the Tiwanaku complex as well as other ‘anomalies’ and that excavations may start in May or June.

A mixed Spanish and English website^(f) offers a number of interesting papers including a chapter from Posnansky’s book Tiahuanaco: The Cradle of American Man.

Archaeology magazine has an interesting Q & A paper relating to the history and current state of preservation at the Tiwanaku site^(s).

A May 2017 report^(r) confirmed that the entire Tiwanaku complex is much more extensive than previously thought, covering an area of at least 650 hectares (1,675 acres).

Joseph Davidovits who controversially proposed that Giza’s Great Pyramid stones had been cast rather than carved has also claimed that other well-known structures had been created in a similar manner, such as at Tiwanaku and Puma Punku in Bolivia^(ah) and Easter Island^(ai). He offers scientific evidence to support this claim in a very interesting video^(ak). My objection to his ‘cast rather than carved’ hypothesis, particularly in relation to Easter Island, is that partially finished statues are visible today in a quarry still attached at the back to the rock from which they were carved as well as some of the tools used for the job. Images of these can be seen in Thor Heyerdahl’s Aku-Aku ^[1938].

Brien Foerster is an American writer who now lives in Cuzco, the former Inca capital in Peru. He has studied the ancient cultures of the Andes and believes that many predated the Incas and had advanced technologies that permitted the precise drilling of stone^(af), the quality of which he has compared with examples found in Egypt and like Chris Dunn concluded that their level of accuracy could not have been achieved without possession of a high technology, now lost^(ag). He has expanded on this in his 2014 book, Lost Ancient Technology of Egypt ^[1487].

A fully illustrated guide to the intriguing monuments of Tiwanaku/Puma Punku is now available which is an excellent introduction to the site including a map by Javier Escalante Moscoso^(an).

^(a)https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1977971/posts

^(b)https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread732575/pg1

^(c) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2012/04/30/tiwanaku/

^(d) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/04/03/tiwanaku-3/

^(e) http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-wari-tiwanaku-rival-empire-01473.html

^(f) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_tiahuanaco5.htm

^(g) 10-bolivia-lake-titicaca-yields-trove.html”https://phys.org/news/2013-10-bolivia-lake-titicaca-yields-trove.html#jCp

^(h) https://2rbetterthan1.wordpress.com/atlantis-south-americatiahuanaco/

⁽ⁱ⁾ Tiwanaku, pre-columbian archaeological and world heritage site at Bolivia (viagem.space)

^(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20170319193806/https://latino.foxnews.com/latino/entertainment/2015/03/27/bolivia-detects-buried-pyramid-at-tiahuanaco-site/print

^(k) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg62910.html

^(l) https://atlantide-mu.over-blog.com/2013/12/terre-creuse.html

^(m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuoXm9uafI

⁽ⁿ⁾ http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/Tiwanaku.html

^(o)See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170601230717/https://www.atlantisquest.com/prehistcity.html

^(p) https://grahamhancock.com/trumand1/

^(q) https://puri-aprendiendovida.blogspot.ie/2013/02/la-ruta-de-viracocha-camino-de.html

^(r) Latin American Herald Tribune – Unexpected Finds Increase Mystery Surrounding Tiahuanaco Citadel (archive.org)

^(s) https://interactive.archaeology.org/tiwanaku/qanda.html

^(t) https://archive.archaeology.org/blog/the-fantasy-world-of-tiwanaku/

^(u) https://theappendix.net/issues/2013/4/andean-atlantis-race-science-and-the-nazi-occult-in-bolivia

^(v) https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/the-gate-of-the-sun-calendar-from-ancient-tiwanacu/

^(w) https://www.ancient-origins.net/events/unearthing-lost-meridian-tiwanaku-s-temple-builders-0010322

^(x) https://www.sciencealert.com/stunning-discovery-reveals-mysterious-religion-pre-dating-the-incas-by-500-years

^(y) https://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1063585,1063585#msg-1063585

^(z) https://web.archive.org/web/20161107001948/https://www.atlantisquest.com/prehistcity.html

^(aa) https://www.oocities.org/debunkinglc/tiwanaku.html (link broken)

^(ab) https://www.amazon.com/Empires-Atlantis-Civilizations-Traditions-throughout/dp/1591434335

^(ac) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318354740_Mathematics_in_Tiwanaku-The_gold_number_in_the_gate_of_the_sun

^(ad) (PDF) Mathematics in Tiwanaku-The gold number in the gate of the sun (researchgate.net)

^(ae) https://www.academia.edu/61088843/Atlantis_Found_in_the_Andes_by_V_Sean_Bambrough

^(af) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7of1Lkef0

^(ag) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/

^(ah) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/tiahuanaco-monuments-tiwanaku-pumapunku-bolivia/

^(ai) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/

^(aj) QC2K – Neil Steede (archive.org)

^(ak) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/

^(al)https://www.academia.edu/33604321/Pseudo_Archaeology_as_State_Supported_Science_Hörbiger_Posnansky_Kiss_and_the_Ahnenerbe_Expedition_to_Tiwanaku_Bolivia

^(am) (99+) 2007 Chapter 3 Tiwanaku.doc | Graham Holton – Academia.edu

^(an) Tiwanaku, the mysterious pre-Inca capital – mapaymochila.es

^(ao) (99+) A Radiocarbon Chronology of the Pumapunku Complex and A Reassessment of the Development of Tiwanaku, Bolivia | Alexei Vranich – Academia.edu

^(ap) Tiahuanacu, The Mysterious City (archive.org)

^(aq) https://www.hallofmaat.com/methodological/an-answer-to-graham-hancock/ *

^(ar) https://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,1772 *

^(as) https://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?1,2590 *

Tagged Alexei Vranich, Altiplano, Arnold Kohlshutter, Arthur Posnansky, Ashley Cowie, Aztecs, Aztlan, Belisario Díaz Romero, Bolivia, Brian Foerster, Chakana, Charles Orser jnr, Chris Dunn, Cusco, Dave Truman, David E. Flynn, Easter Island, Edmund Kiss, Emmet Sweeney, Francis de Castelnau, Friedrich Becker, Garrett Fagan, Gate of the Sun, George Dodwell, Graham Hancock, Graham Holton, Hanns Hoerbiger, Hans Bellamy, Hans Ludendorf, Heather Pringle, Hugo Boero Rojo, Ian Alex Blease, Incas, James Bailey, Jason Yaeger, Jim Allen, Joseph Davidovits, Lake Poopo, Lake Titicaca, Marcelo Ozorio, Marco Antonio Cabero, Marco M. Vigato, Maria Sholten d’Ebneth, Marin Minella & Schievenin, Neil Steede, Paul Heinrich, Pumapunku, pyramids, R. Cedric Leonard, Roger Elefant, Rolf Muller, Sean Bambrough, Stephen Smith, Tiahuanaco, Tiwanaku, Vikings, Wari, World War II

Schoch, Robert M.

Published June 11, 2010

Robert M. Schoch is a Yale scholar, geologist and paleontologist. At the invitation of John Anthony West, he agreed to inspect the Sphinx and offer an opinion on the nature of the erosion to be seen on it. He found that the cause of this erosion was precipitation rather than windblown sand. As Egypt has had an arid climate for many thousands of years, Dr Schoch reached the conclusion that at least the front of the Sphinx had been carved between 7000 and 5000 BC, when the climate had been considerably wetter.

In the same book, Voices of the Rocks ^[454], he endorsed (p.123) the conclusions of Mary Settegast ^[545] who claimed that Plato’s Atlantis story was a reference to the Magdalenian culture that inhabited the coastal regions of the Western Mediterranean during the 9^th millennium BC. Schoch devotes a chapter to the subject of Atlantis and interestingly lists a number of sites to which the Greeks applied the appellation ‘Pillars of Heracles‘ apart from the Strait of Gibraltar.

“The Greeks, however, used the name Pillars of Herakles to mark other sites besides Gibraltar, some outside the Mediterranean – namely, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic and the Strait of Kerch dividing the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov – and even more inside – specifically, the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, the Strait of Messina between mainland Italy and Sicily, the Greek Peloponnese, the mountainous coast of Tunisia, and the Nile Delta.” ^[p.87] A highly critical review of Schoch’s ‘Voices’ can be read online⁽ⁿ⁾.

In his Voyages of the Pyramid Builders ^[455], he reiterates his conviction “that Plato’s story is, at least in part, a fictionalized account of a great Mediterranean war at a time of intense climatic change between the tenth and eighth millennia BC.” A critique by William P Eigles tackles ‘Voyages’ in Atlantis Rising magazine # 37, where Schoch endeavours to link the global presence of pyramids as a possible expression of hyperdiffusion. Eigles comments that Schoch “may simply be trying to prove too much here. Many of the motivations, reasons and interpretations he offers for the various activities and actions on the part of the ancients are clearly speculative in nature.^(ad)”

This 1990 declaration regarding the Sphinx generated an international reputation for Schoch. Such a controversial conclusion was obviously greeted warmly by the supporters of the 9,000-year-old date for Atlantis allegedly given by the Egyptian priests to Solon. This accidental intervention by Schoch in the debate regarding the dating of Atlantis has unfortunately done nothing to resolve the issue. Fierce debate continues regarding the date of the Sphinx. However, there appears to be a gradual acceptance of Schoch’s views by other professional geologists such as David Coxhill. Another geologist, Colin Reader, while not accepting all of Schoch’s conclusions, believes that the Sphinx predates King Khufu, the father of Khafre, who has been traditionally accepted as the builder of the Sphinx, with the monument bearing his image^(v)(w)(x).

Schoch subsequently pushed the date of the Sphinx as far back as circa 10,000 BCE and he now suggests that the monument was carved in the shape of a lioness.^(ae)

>>It appears that Schoch’s experiences regarding the Sphinx have whetted his appetite for prehistorical controversies and then wrote two further books, again with R.A. McNally, about the origins of the pyramid builders in Voyages of the Pyramid Builders^[^455] and Pyramid Quest ^[^456], both of which were met with mixed reviews¹. The authors “trace the many pyramid-building cultures back to what may be their ultimate source: Sundaland, a continent-sized stretch of land in Southeast Asia (located under the current southern reach of the South China Sea) that was inundated by rising sea levels after the end of the last ice age, a catastrophic event that may have been connected to cometary activity in the skies observed by the inhabitants of Sundaland.

As we argue in our book, pyramids are symbolically connected with comets, and the Sundalanders may well have originated the ancient pyramid tradition, then carried it with them as they fled the rising waters. Those who went northwest contributed to the cultural mélange that gave rise first to the pyramid cultures of Sumeria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia and later to those in India, Southeast Asia, and China. Sundalanders heading east may have gotten as far as Peru, where pyramids rose at Aspero at the end of the fourth millennium B.C. The American pyramid tradition died out until it was reinvigorated, from the twelfth century B.C. on, by Pacific Rim mariners, primarily Chinese. This contact contributed to the pyramid building of the Olmecs, which spread across Mesoamerica and later into the Andes.”^(aj)<<

Unfortunately, he includes a reference to Ireland’s Newgrange as a form of ‘pyramid building’, an idea I reject, since it shares neither form nor function with the Egyptian pyramids. The goodreads.com website offers a very critical review of this book^(a)as has the late Professor Garrett Fagan^(ag).

Schoch and McNally have recently dared to enter into the highly charged debate regarding the dating of the Great Pyramid at Giza^[⁴⁵⁶^][⁴⁵⁷^].

Schoch seems to be venturing further and further from his natural comfort zone of geology. In 2007, he wrote an article on Telepathy^(d)and was later due to address the Electric Universe Conference in Las Vegas in 2012^(c) and deliver a paper entitled The Catastrophic Termination of the Last Ice Age. In it, he will claim that around 10,000 BC the Earth underwent ‘dramatic catastrophic changes’ as a result of ‘our unstable Sun erupting at the end of the last Ice Age, melting the extensive glaciers and triggering climate warming. The full paper should be an interesting read. He continues to argue against the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis^(r).

His retreat from conventional science may be now complete as he delves into the strange world of lycanthropy (the study of werewolves)^(o).

Schoch’s work is now promoted through his own website^(b), which includes a wide range of articles. On it, both he and his associate, Colette Dowell, have been very critical of the Bosnian pyramid claims of Semir Osmanagic following a visit there in 2006. However, in what appears to be an article^(l) written in 2011 or 2012, Osmanagic responds with scathing criticism of Schoch’s work. His attack on Schoch was later added to by an assault from Jock Doubleday in a very lengthy article^(y) in which, among other matters, he accuses Schoch of a series of thirteen lies! I should perhaps mention that Doubleday has been featured for some years now in the burgeoning Encyclopedia of American Loons^(z). As well as that, elsewhere, a very personal attack has also been made on Collette Dowell^(aa). Support for Schoch’s claim of a Bosnian pyramid hoax is also available^(ab).

Schoch has now turned his attention to the emergence and demise of very early civilisations, before that of dynastic Egypt or Sumeria. When he combined his early date for the Sphinx with other discoveries such as that of Nabta Playa and Göbekli Tepe and Gunung Padang^(m), he concluded that the origins of civilisation go back much further than generally accepted. He then looked at the bigger and perhaps more important question of the cause of their collapse. In a 2009 special edition (N0.8) of New Dawn magazine, he speculated on the possibility that the ending of such early civilisations was caused by the earth’s encounter with one or more asteroids or comets.

In his book^(f), Forgotten Civilization^[867], Schoch claims that coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun around 9700 BC devastated our planet with electrical discharges, triggering seismic and volcanic activity as well as ending the Ice Age with its consequent floods. All this ‘eradicated the civilisation of the time and set humanity back thousands of years, only to re-emerge around 3500 BC with scattered memories and nascent abilities.’ In an article written^(g) in March 2012, Schoch wrote about the ‘Carrington Event’ of 1859 which resulted from a massive solar event that year.

Schoch’s paper had the somewhat disturbing title of ‘Death Star’ and perhaps even more unsettling was the revelation in March 2019 that evidence of at least three major solar ‘proton attacks’ over the past 3,000 years. The suggestion is that these episodes are to be expected with some degree of regularity, which may create ever-increasing disruption as our dependency on electricity expands. The recent report^(q) indicates that the most powerful event identified so far took place around 610 BC. Without a power grid to damage at the time, we are unaware of what effect it had on the people of that time and I would hope that a review of the literature of that era might reveal some corroboration.

A video clip from his recent Las Vegas lecture is now available on YouTube^(h). His talk is based on an article⁽ⁱ⁾ in the July-August 2010 edition of New Dawn magazine, which is now available online and will play a large part in his Forgotten Civilization. He highlights some fascinating similarities between the Rongorongo script of Easter Island, the Nasca petroglyphs and the plasma figures of Dr Anthony L. Peratt together with their possible association with the ending of the last Ice Age.

For me, the most disturbing aspect of Schoch’s book is his apocalyptic vision of global catastrophes that he anticipates may again turn the few survivors back into troglodytes!

“The revised and expanded edition of Forgotten Civilization, which bears a new subtitle, was released in March of 2021. It includes everything in the first edition plus a new final chapter and various updates to other chapters throughout the book. Thus, the new edition is approximately 150 pages longer, including over 40 new/additional photographs. As I detail in this revision, a number of new discoveries made since the first edition was published reinforce my contention that true civilization existed prior to the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago, and that civilization was decimated by the solar outburst(s) that occurred then, throwing humanity into a Solar-Induced Dark Age for some 6,000 years before the reemergence of civilization around 4000–3000 BCE.”^(ai)

However, Jason Colavito has reviewed Schoch’s claims relating to both the Rongorongo script^(j) and Göbekli Tepe^(k) and has found his ideas wanting. Colavito found further ammunition in the forthcoming book, Origins of the Sphinx^[1374], which Schoch co-authored with Robert Bauval, describing it as ‘a virtual rewriting of’ Keeper of Genesis^(p). In 2019, Schoch expanded further on his opinions regarding the importance of Göbekli Tepe with a claim that its builders possessed some level of literacy^(s), provoking further criticism from Colavito^(r). Schoch expanded on this claim in a subsequent post^(ac), but for me, I find this proposed literacy at Göbekli Tepe a push too far.

One of the great mysteries of Göbekli Tepe is that it was deliberately reburied but fortunately for us, this left it in perfect condition for us to study. Schoch has suggested that this was done to protect it from damage by CME’s such as occurred around 9700 BC (see above). This sounds like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. He then takes this idea further and proposes in a lengthy article that the Egyptians did something similar^(ah), but uncovered them later for the pharaohs to develop. I’m not convinced.

ORACUL – The Organization for the Research of Ancient Cultures is a not-for-profit body, co-founded by Schoch “dedicated to the scientific study of civilization’s origins. It is our hope that through research advocacy, publishing, and educational outreach, further evidence for mankind’s remote and forgotten past will be uncovered.”^(af)

^(a) Greg’s review of Voyages of the Pyramid Builders (goodreads.com)

^(b) https://robertschoch.com/

^(c)https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/

^(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20160805112624/https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/telepathy-a-sympathy-of-souls/

^(e)https://web.archive.org/web/20160121150912/https://www.robertschoch.com/articles/schochnewdawnjune2009.pdf

^(f)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forgotten-Civilization-Solar-Outbursts-Future/dp/1594774978

^(g) https://dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2012/3/Death-Star

^(h) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUqdYBxbbck

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://web.archive.org/web/20160305085118/https://robertschoch.com/articles/schochancientwarningnewdawnjuly2010.pdf

^(j)https://robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html

^(k) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/08/robert-schochs-wacky-easter-island-gobekli-tepe-theory-the-hypocrisy-of-alternative-dating.html

^(l) HOW MANY TIMES HAS DR. ROBERT SCHOCH BEEN WRONG? – Welcome to the official web page of the ‘Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun’ Foundation / Dobrodošli na službenu web stranicu Fondacije ‘Arheološki park: Bosanska piramida Sunca’al Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation (archive.org) *