Latest News
NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Giza
Orion Correlation Theory (OCT)
The Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) is defined by Wikipedia as the idea “that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orion’s Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this correlation was intended as such by the original builders of the Giza pyramid complex.”
Robert Bauval is probably best known as the original promoter of the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT), which received widespread coverage when it was outlined in The Orion Mystery [1707] written by Bauval and Adrian Gilbert and in Keeper of Genesis [1050] written with Graham Hancock, published two years later. Bauval first published his theory in 1989 in Discussions in Egyptology(a).
Not unexpectedly, OCT generated considerable criticism as well as support, also noted on Wikipedia(g).
However, Andrew Collins has disputed the OCT and has instead offered evidence that the alignment of the three principal Giza pyramids matches more closely the ‘wing’ stars of the Cygnus constellation than the ‘belt’ of Orion!(b)
Gary A. David has expanded on the OCT of Bauval & Gilbert identifying important sites throughout Egypt that he believes constituted a more extensive reference with other heavenly bodies in what he calls the Egyptian Stellar Template(e).
David goes further and claims that he “stumbled across an Orion Correlation that the ancestral Hopi Indians constructed in Arizona from about 1050–1300 AD. In this case, every major star in the constellation corresponds to a specific masonry village site. The terrestrial replication of the celestial pattern is simply uncanny.”(f)
However, Freddy Silva has imaginatively proposed an additional OCT – in Scotland(c). He suggested that the Pyramids of Giza, and by extension, Orion’s Belt matched the layout of the three stone circles of Stenness, Brodgar and Bookan!
February 2015 saw an even more extreme idea published by Emilio Spedicato in a paper(h) with the radical proposal that the alignment of the three main Giza pyramids was not intended to be a reflection of the three stars in Orion’s belt according to the OCT, as proposed by Gilbert and Bauval, but instead were more closely matched to the arrangement of three volcanoes on Mars! He claims that these volcanoes were visible from Earth during Mars’ periodic close encounters with our planet between 7000 BC and 700 BC, during a 54-year cycle!
(a) Discussions in Egyptology, volume 13, 1989, pp. 7-18
(b) (99+) (PDF) Orion: The Eternal Rise of the Sky Hunter | Andrew Collins – Academia.edu
(c) Scotland’s Hidden Sacred Past – Graham Hancock Official Website
(d) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2015&id=453
(e) https://www.academia.edu/8635347/The_Blazing_Star_of_the_Nile_Egyptian_Stellar_Template
(f) (99+) (PDF) Orion’s Global Legacy—A Celestial Plan | Gary David – Academia.edu
(h) https://www.q-mag.org/the-pyramids-of-giza-the-belt-of-orion-and-three-volcanoes-on-mars.html
Ancient Seafaring
Ancient Seafaring is a controversial subject owing principally to a dearth of physical evidence. The earliest known boat is the Pesse
Pesse Canoe
Canoe (see right) which was discovered in The Netherlands and thought to be around 10,000 years old. The second oldest boat was also a canoe, found in Malawi and dated to about 8,000 years ago(g). Wikipedia lists all the surviving boats, which shows that until the third millennium BC all that have been found are canoes.
Seafaring and Atlantis are inextricably linked. In Critias 117d Plato anachronistically refers to the shipyards of Atlantis being full of triremes, which were not developed until the 7th century BC, long after the demise of Atlantis. However, the term ‘trireme’ was probably employed by Plato to make his narrative more relevant to his audience. He credits the Atlantean navy with 1200 ships, which for me seems like borrowing and rounding the numbers of either the Achaean fleet of 1186 vessels in Homer’s Iliad or that of the 1207 ships of the later Persian invaders. That ships were used in the war with Athens can be inferred from the fact that Atlantis, or at least its capital, was situated on an island.
Professor Seán McGrail (1928-2021) wrote in his monumental work, Boats of the World “There is no direct evidence for water transport until the Mesolithic even in the most favoured regions, and it is not until the Bronze Age that vessels other than logboats are known” [1949.10]. For those that adhere to a 10th millennium BC date for the Atlantean War with Athens, this lack of naval evidence to support such an early date undermines the idea. An invasion fleet of canoes travelling from beyond the Pillars of Herakles to attack Athens seems rather unlikely!
Khufu Boat
Apart from the Solar Boats of the Egyptians, such as the Khufu Boat (see left),
discovered at Giza in 1954 and dated to 2500 BC. Fifty years later Kathryn A. Bard, Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Boston University and Rodolfo Fattovich, an archaeologist at the Orientale University of Naples, discovered an ancient port at Mersa Gawasis on the Red Sea. Evidence at the site indicated that it had been used around 1800 BC as an embarcation point for expeditions to the legendary land of Punt. Andrew Curry has written a review(l) of the work carried on at the site. Curry’s article is headed with the claim that the discovery of the harbour “proves ancient Egyptians mastered oceangoing technology”. In my opinion, this is possibly overstating it as the remains of the vessels found there may have suited the relatively calm Red Sea, a voyage in the Atlantic would probably have been too much.
Nevertheless, Heather Pringle published an article in 2008 in which she reviewed the suggestion by Jon Erlandson(k), an archaeologist at the University of Oregon, that early humans may have travelled the oceans 70,000 years ago(j).
Seldom referred to, but perhaps even more interesting is to be found earlier in Critias 113e which describes the mythological beginnings of Atlantis and which reads “for at that time neither ships nor sailing were as yet in existence”. However, we are given little information to bridge the time up to its development as a major trading entity. It is reasonable to assume a gap of several thousand years.
Recent studies(a) have suggested that primitive seafaring took place in the Mediterranean thousands of years earlier than originally thought and may even have been engaged in by Homo Erectus and Neanderthals in the form of island hopping and coastal-hugging, the latter continuing into historical times.
Plato describes an advanced maritime trading nation with a powerful naval capacity. How much was part of the original story brought from Egypt by Solon or whether it was in any way embellished by Plato is unclear. The earliest known trading empire is that of the Minoans which began in the 3rd millennium BC and has led to many identifying them with the Atlanteans. However, there are very many other details in Plato’s narrative that seriously conflict with this hypothesis.
The limitations of ancient seafaring raise many questions regarding the navigation supports available to these early sailors(b). Initially, sailing, probably for fishing, would have been confined to daytime travel and keeping within the sight of land. With the development of maritime trade, the demand for improved navigation methods also grew.
It has been generally accepted that sailing in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages was not undertaken between October and March because of the dangerous weather usually encountered at that time of the year. Some cities, such as Pisa, Venice and Genoa had ordinances forbidding commercial voyages in winter! Understandably, many considered that this was also the case in Greek and Roman times when shipbuilding skills and navigational technology were probably more primitive. A 2015 paper by T.M.P. Duggan demonstrates that commercial maritime activity in winter was commonplace in medieval times(m).
In time sailors acquired a familiarity with the night sky that enabled them to use the stars as navigational aids, given clear skies. Gradually, as nighttime travel became more common, the use of beacons and later lighthouses also expanded. The lighthouse at Pharos near Alexandria came to be counted as one of the wonders of the Old World. Similarly, it is thought that the Colossus at Rhodes performed a similar function.
Different navigation skills have been identified in different parts of the world. In the Pacific, the navigational capabilities of the Polynesians are legendary(c). A November article on the BBC website expanded on this ‘ancient art of wayfindlng’ (i). The ancient Chinese employed magnetism(e) and in the cloudy North Atlantic, the Vikings used their ‘sunstones’(d).
In their book, Atlantis in America [244] Ivar Zapp & George Erikson claimed that the stone spheres of Costa Rica had a navigational function [p34] as Zapp discovered that the sightlines of all the stones remaining in their original positions, did point to important ancient sites such as Giza, Stonehenge and Easter Island!
A most imaginative proposal has come from Crichton E.M. Miller who proposed [1918] that the ubiquitous Celtic Cross is an image of an ancient navigational device. He further claims that “This instrument can tell the time, find latitude and longitude, measure the angles of the stars, predict the solstices and equinoxes and measure the precession of the equinoxes. It can also find the ecliptic pole as well as the north and south poles; it can make maps and charts, design pyramids and henges and—used in combination with these sites—can record and predict the cycles of nature and time(f) “. Then for good measure, he proceeded to patent the device.
(a) http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-mariners-did-neanderthals-sail-mediterranean-192112855.html
(b) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/navigation.htm
(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation
(d) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20052-vikings-crystal-clear-method-of-navigation/
(e) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/magnetism.htm
(f) Atlantis Rising magazine #35 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(g) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/pesse-canoe-0017298
(i) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231128-what-we-can-learn-from-the-ancient-art-of-wayfinding
(j) https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/did-humans-colonize-the-world-by-boat
Hall of Records
The Hall of Records (HoR) is a term used to describe an alleged repository of ancient wisdom, frequently claimed to be situated under the Sphinx at Giza. Today, the HoR is usually associated with the prognostications of Edgar Cayce who, in one of his trances, told us that there were three such repositories, near Bimini, the Yucatan and Giza.
Popular writers Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock were convinced that the HoR had been situated under the rear paws of the Sphinx in Keepers of Genesis [1050], published as Message of the Sphinx in the USA. Ian Lawton & Chris Ogilvie-Herald have noted in Giza the Truth [1690] how both Bauval and Hancock have modified their view of the HoR in a later video [p.400]. Cayce thought that the HoR would be found under the left paw of the Sphinx.
Lawton & Ogilvie-Herald also review the comments of other writers, both modern and ancient regarding the HoR. Their preliminary conclusion was “that it would appear that the weight of evidence supports the idea that secret records of mankind’s ancient past and knowledge do indeed exist in various locations in the world. However, the evidence linking them to Giza is far less substantial.” [p.242]
In 2000, Ralph Ellis announced his intention to lead an expedition to Mount Kailash in Nepal to find the Hall of Records!(a)
(a) Atlantis Rising magazine #23 p15 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At *
David, Gary, A.
Gary A. David is an independent American researcher and author dealing with archaeological ruins and rock art of the American Southwest. His focus is on the Hopi tribe of northern Arizona and its archaeo-astronomy. Although he has not written directly about Atlantis, he has contributed a number of interesting papers relating to subjects peripheral to our study here. Most of these are available on the Academia.edu website(a).
David has also written about the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) of Bauval & Gilbert, which claims that the alignment of the three stars in Orion’s ‘belt’ is reflected in the layout of the three principal pyramids at Giza.
David has expanded on the OCT of Bauval & Gilbert identifying important sites throughout Egypt that he believes constituted a more extensive reference with other heavenly bodies in what he calls the Egyptian Stellar Template(e).
He goes further and claims that he “stumbled across an Orion Correlation that the ancestral Hopi Indians constructed in Arizona from about 1050–1300 AD. In this case, every major star in the constellation corresponds to a specific masonry village site. The terrestrial replication of the celestial pattern is simply uncanny.” (b)
David has published an informative paper(c) on the Maltese Cross and its variants as found around the world. He pointed out its use in the Americas by the ancient Olmecs and has laid great emphasis on its place in the inherited culture of the Hopi people.
>David has also proposed that Votan was a diffusionist deity with counterparts known by other names such as Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl or Viracocha in different pre-Columbian American civilisations. However, he goes further placing Votan’s origins in the Old World suggesting that he may have been Phoenician or Hebrew, citing Adrian Gilbert and Andrew Collins in support of this(f).<
Additionally, he has also highlighted the use of the swastika in a more benign way by the Hopi of northern Arizona along with its innocent use in other cultures including the Minoans, as well as in 20th century USA(d).
(a) https://colorado.academia.edu/GaryADavid
(b) (99+) (PDF) Orion’s Global Legacy—A Celestial Plan | Gary David – Academia.edu
(c) https://www.academia.edu/8661701/The_Maltese_Cross_Hopi_Indian_Version_of_a_Knights_Templar_Symbol
(d) https://www.academia.edu/8661508/The_Four_Arms_of_Destiny_Swastikas_in_the_Hopi_World_and_Beyond
(e) https://www.academia.edu/8635347/The_Blazing_Star_of_the_Nile_Egyptian_Stellar_Template
Lawton, Ian *
Ian Lawton (1959- ) is an English researcher focused on ancient history and spiritual philosophy. He is probably best known as the co-author with Chris Ogilvie-Herald of Giza: The Truth [1690], which offers a sober forensic review of all the many and widely varied theories relating to the ancient structures on the Giza Plateau. In it, Lawton was highly critical of Robert Bauval‘s Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) both in the book (chapter 9)(d) and in open correspondence between them.
However, Lawton was at the receiving end of criticism from the late John Anthony West in 2000, when West published an article in Atlantis Rising magazine that ended with a scornful “The point is that the facile assurances given by Ogilvie-Herald/Lawton endorsing the orthodox view are illegitimate, their exclusion of contrary, genuinely informed opinion is typical of their selective bogus scholarship, and their long-winded acoustic levitation hypothesis is pure speculation and self-contradictory besides. We still don’t know how the pyramids were built/ Period. Full stop.”(e)
Two years later Ogilvie-Herald co-authored Tutankhamun [1898] with Andrew Collins.
Lawton has also been highly critical of the claims of the late Zechariah Sitchin(b) and his book Mesopotamia: The Truth [1751], he returns to the subject.
Lawton’s second book, Genesis Unveiled [1691], has been described as containing “remarkable new insights into the spirituality of the pre-flood human race”. Chapter 13 takes a somewhat generous view of Blavatsky and Theosophy(c).
He subsequently made changes(a) to the content and, in my opinion, opportunistically re-titled it as Atlantis: The Truth! In it Lawton has focused on prediluvian races, citing, with reservations, the work of Stephen Oppenheimer, Arysio dos Santos and Frank Joseph, which when added to Lawton’s research, he concludes that “it’s nevertheless interesting that all four of us have independently arrived at the same conclusion about the broad whereabouts of any forgotten race.” He argues that the location of such a race was in the general region of Sunda and Sahul Shelves.
(a) Atlantis: The Truth | Ian Lawton (archive.org) *
(b) Mesopotamia: The Truth | Ian Lawton (archive.org) *
(c) Atlantis: The Truth | Ian Lawton (archive.org) *
(d) Giza the Truth | Ian Lawton | Chris Ogilvie-Herald (archive.org) *
(e) Atlantis Rising magazine #23 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
Nazca
The Nazca Lines of Peru were systematically studied by Toribio Mejia Xesspe, a Peruvian archaeologist, beginning in 1926, but the geoglyphs only gained widespread attention when pilots flew over them in the 1930s.
Paul Kosok (1896-1959) was also claimed as the first to carry out a professional study of the Nazca drawing in 1939. He was assisted a year later by Maria Reiche (1903-1998) who devoted the rest of her life to the study of Nazca. Kosok continued his research there until 1949.
The purpose of the geoglyphs has generated reams of commentary, from the nonsensical of von Däniken to the more profound of Reiche.
“In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, other researchers, including American astronomer Gerald Hawkins, examined the Nazca Lines and disagreed with the astronomical explanation for the geoglyphs. They also poked holes in other far-out explanations, such as those relating to aliens or ancient astronauts(f).”
However, for sheer complexity, I must direct you to the work of Czech-Canadian Jiri Mruzek. He has managed to link the Monkey geoglyph at Nazca with the layout of the Giza pyramids and a 14,000-year-old cave drawing at La Marche in France; all under the banner of ‘Seal of Atlantis’!!!(a)
In 2018, it was announced that another fifty Nazca-style geoglyphs had been discovered in the adjacent province of Palpa(b). This number was subsequently increased to 142(c).>This number continues to grow, with a suggestion that many more will follow(g).<
In February 2020, Frank Maglione Nicholson, Ken Phungrasamee & David Grimason, collectively known as The Nazca Group(d), published The Nazca Great Circle Map Hypothesis. Their claim is that “The lines and geoglyphs carved into the Nazca plateau represent a map of the Earth. The map is a Great Circle Map: a gnomonic projection with the center of the Earth as its cartographic viewpoint. Each line on the Nazca Plateau represents a great circle of navigation centered at the center of the Earth and encircling the entire planet. The majority of the lines on the Nazca Plateau radiate from five loci of origin called radial centers.”
Another 2020 article(e) by Laszlo Arvay concluded that “the Nazca Plateau could be the largest astronomical atlas in the world. If that is so, Paul Kosok was right after all and on a much greater scale than he ever thought possible.”
>Robert Schoch has produced a novel explanation for the design of the Nazca geoglyphs by comparing them to elements of the Easter Island rongorongo script. Schoch’s theory is that they are a record of coronal mass ejections from the sun around 9700 BC that devastated our planet with electrical discharges, the triggering of seismic and volcanic activity as well as the ending of the Ice Age with its consequent floods. Not unexpectedly, Jason Colavito found such ideas totally unacceptable and said so in a 2012 blog(h).<
(b) https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/04/more-than-50-new-nazca-lines-discovered-in-peruvian-desert/
(c) https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/11/more-than-140-new-nazca-lines-discovered/
(d) https://nazcasolution.com/
(e) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pdf/skies-above-nazca.pdf
(h) Rongorongo A-Go-Go: Robert Schoch’s 12,000-Year Easter Island Delusion – JASON COLAVITO *
Pérez-Sánchez, Miquel
Miquel Pérez-Sánchez is a Spanish architect with a fascination with the Giza pyramids(a). He is now advocating an idea that was in vogue in the 19th century, namely that information, astronomic, historic and prophetic, were encoded in 
the measurements of the structure of the Great Pyramid. However, he has gone further by adding to it the ancient system of gematria, where every letter in an alphabet has a numerical value. Pérez-Sánchez has reversed this and translated numbers ‘identified’ in the Pyramid back into letters. One of these was equivalent to ‘Atlantis’! Whether this is in English, Greek or Hebrew is not clear.
Another of his startling claims is that the Great Pyramid was surmounted by a sphere, an idea that understandably drew highly critical comments (e)(f).
The byoweb.net website added that “After the discovery and publication of his first book, the author and his team are now looking for funding to the Atlantis project, including a campaign of underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean Sea where they are sure to have located the mythical island described by Plato.”
Further comments and interesting images are to be seen on ancient-code.com, including Pérez-Sánchez’s statement(b) that “the Great Sphinx is not contemporary with the pyramids that surround it, but it is the product of a much earlier civilization that shaped and carved it around the eight millennium BC.”
Pérez-Sánchez has recorded all his ‘discoveries’ in his book, La Gran Pirámide, clave secreta del pasado[1142] and provides some supporting videos(c) of his lectures(d).
>A critical commentator offered the following information (originally in Spanish). “The Catalan architect has brought together his collection of absurdities, comparable to those of (Ben) Carson, in his work La Gran Pirámide, clau secreta del passat, for which, presented as a thesis, he obtained a doctorate laude in 2012 from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). The website on which Pérez-Sánchez sells his thesis in ten volumes in Spanish is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture . In April, the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the Athenaeum of that city sponsored the presentation of the work in the capital of Spain and, in May, the pseudo-historian did the same in Seville at the Casa de la Ciencia del Consejo Superior de Scientific Research (CSIC). Is there room for greater insults to science, to culture?”(g) <
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20191023154358/https://www.antiguoegiptoxxi.com/about-2/ (Sp)
(b) Researchers discover what was located on top of the Great Pyramid (archive.org)
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20200202033427/http://www.antiguoegiptoxxi.com/antiguo-egipto-xxi/editorial/ (Spanish)
(d) See Archive 2779)
(e) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161126042152/https://www.travelarchaeology.org/web/112286/
(f) https://magonia.com/tag/miquel-perez-sanchez/ (Spanish)
(g) Miquel Pérez-Sanchez – Magonia (magonia-com.translate.goog)
Gunung Padang
Gunung Padang is a megalithic site on the Indonesian island of Java, which was first surveyed in 1914 by the Dutch colonial authorities and published as Rapporten van de Oudheidkundige Dienst (Report of the Department of Antiquities). A post-war Australian investigation concluded that the site was much older than previously believed. Now, with presidential support, local archaeologists are carrying out an extensive investigation of the site.
The site has recently been claimed as part of 
Atlantis. Evidence that the site contains hidden chambers prompted Graham Hancock to speculate whether it “Could it be the fabled “Hall of Records” of Atlantis?”(k).>>Apart from contradicting Edgar Cayce this piece of unbridled conjecture was debunked in a YouTube video(k). Furthermore, in their book Keepers of Genesis [1050], Robert Bauval and Hancock had already designated a location under the rear paws of the Giza Sphinx as the home of the Hall of Records!<<
A few years ago the late Arysio dos Santos was the leading proponent of Sundaland, which included Indonesia, being Atlantis. Then Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (DHN) an Indonesian geologist has made a similar claim in his Kindle ebook, Plato Never Lied: Atlantis Is in Indonesia[961]. In it, Gunung Padang plays an important role. Mount Padang has also been claimed as the world’s oldest pyramid! Although I do not support the idea of an Indonesian Atlantis, I am forced to admit that a far more interesting case for it has been made by Dhani Irwanto.
In his review of Hancock’s Magicians of the Gods, Jason Colavito refers to “Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (DHN), the Indonesian geologist who declared the site of Gunung Padang on Sumatra to be ten or twenty thousand years old, and thus making Indonesia the cradle of civilization. Natawidjaja is a true believer in fringe history and suspects that Plato was speaking of Gunung Padang when writing of Atlantis. His opinions are noteworthy only because the previous government of Indonesia gave him the money and resources to excavate the site in search of proof of Indonesian primacy in history before the current government shut down the investigation for becoming an international laughingstock. Like Semir Osmanogich in Bosnia, Natawidjaja sees artificial layers of construction in the deepest layers of what his colleagues in Indonesia and archaeologists around the world believe to be a natural hill crowned with later ruins.” (n).
Nevertheless, a recent (May 2017) assault on Natawidjaja’s theories in an open letter(i) from Rebecca Bradley has laid bare the weaknesses in his claims.
DHN in an address to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 2018, said that radiocarbon dating suggests the top layer of the site could be up to 3,500 old years old, the second layer somewhere around 8,000 years old, and the third layer anywhere in the vicinity of 9,500 to 28,000 years old(j).
Graham Hancock has written a review(b) of the excavations at Gunung Padang and in October 2014 added further comments(d)(m).
>>In the 2001 Netflix Apocalypse Now TV series Hancock returned to the subject of Gunung Padang as well as Nan Madol. Fortunately, there is a YouTube video(u) that forensically analyses Episode 1, revealing a litany of errors and misleading statements that seriously undermine Hancock’s credibility.<<
Robert Schoch has also offered a geologist’s view of the site(f).
One report that I thought rather interesting was that “aside from its age, is that during coring it was found that much of the buried structure was reinforced with a type of cement. This bonding agent, which has been used as a mortar and sort of glue in certain parts of the site, consists of 45% iron ore, 41% silica and 14% clay. It’s said that this mixture provides for a very strong and durable mortar base, and is surprising evidence of the level of sophistication of the building technique.”(l)
Andrew Collins has now added an article(h). to his website that examines the preliminary claim that the lower levels at the site could be 12,000 years older than Gobekli Tepe. If confirmed, it will undoubtedly require some rewriting of history books. Do not lose sight of the fact that radiocarbon dating has limitations, being accurate for up to around 6,000 years with increasing unreliability up to perhaps 50,000 BC after which it is generally useless.
We now (Nov. ’14) have a report(e) that some type of ‘electrical device’ has been discovered at the site ‘made out of gold and copper and seems to resemble a primitive electrical capacitor.’ Until further information is available this claim must be treated with caution.
There are, however, dissenting voices as reported by journalist, Michael Bachelard(g), such as vulcanologist Sutikno Bronto, who says “Gunung Padang is simply the neck of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid. Danny Hilman is not a vulcanologist. I am.” As for the carbon-dated cement between the stones, on which Hilman relies for his claims about the age of the site, Sutikno believes it is simply the byproduct of a natural weathering process, ”not man-made”. Other sceptics are even tougher. One archaeologist, who does not wish to be named since the President took such an interest, says the presidential taskforce is deluding itself. ”In the Pawon cave in Padalarang [about 45 kilometres from Gunung Padang], we found some human bones and tools made of bones about 9500 years ago, or about 7000 BCE. So, if at 7000 BCE our technology was only producing tools of bones, how can people from 20,000 BCE obtain the technology to build a pyramid?” the archaeologist asks.
In October 2023, Danny Hilman endeavoured to return to the limelight with a paper in the journal Archaeological Prospection(o), published by Wiley, in which he recycled some of his earlier claims identifying Gunung Padang as an Ice Age pyramid. Jason Colavito commented briefly(p) on this latest feeble offering from Hilman and cites a more forensic article by Carl Feagans(q) as an effective rebuttal. It was subsequently revealed(r) that the journal and its publisher have launched an ethics investigation into the flawed paper, according to a report in Nature!
March 2024 saw Archaeological Prospection retract this flawed paper(s).
Danny Hilman et al published their reaction to the retraction on Graham Hancock’s website, describing the rescindment as ‘unjust’(t).
(c) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/gp.htm
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG10-Gunung-Padang-Latest.php
(h) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/eq_0515.htm
(i) https://www.skepticink.com/lateraltruth/2017/05/14/gunung-padang-open-letter-danny/
(j) Long-Hidden ‘Pyramid’ Found in Indonesia Was Likely an Ancient Temple | Live Science
(k) Gunung Padang: The lost records of Atlantis? — Secret History — Sott.net
(l) Gunung Padang and The Lost City of Atlantis | Mysterious Universe
(n) Magicians of the Gods Review – JASON COLAVITO
(0) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/arp.1912
(p) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/on-the-fantasy-of-a-primeval-gunung-padang-pyramid
(r) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03546-w
(s) Archaeological Prospection | Archaeological Journal | Wiley Online Library
(u) Potholer54 Debunks Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse Theory – Search Videos (bing.com) *
Cygnus Constellation, The
The Cygnus Constellation was the location of a supernova that inspired the story of Phaeton, as related to Solon by the priests at Sais, according to Michael A. Cahill in his two-volume Paradise Rediscovered [818/9].
Andrew Collins has also written[075] on the place of the constellation Cygnus in prehistoric consciousness. Arising from this study, it appears that the position of the Cygnus stars correlates more accurately with the Giza pyramids than those of Orion, which was proposed some years ago by Robert Bauval. Collins continues with the Cygnus-Giza connection in a subsequent offering, Beneath the Pyramids[0631]. Derek Cunningham has echoed(a) some of Collins’ work suggesting that there existed in ancient times a World Map based on the Cygnus constellation!
Collins has also suggested that a suspected Black Hole in Cygnus Constellation is thought to be the source of cosmic rays that changed evolution and kick-started religion(d)!
Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore have also written(b) about the Cygnus Constellation and a possible link with Ireland’s Newgrange[1441].>This idea was echoed in a recent episode of Ancient Aliens (S18E17)(f).<Paul Dunbavin also touched on the possible connection between swans in Irish mythology and astronomical events(e).
Freddy Silva has endeavoured to link Cygnus with the Osirion in Abydos in a 2019 article(c) in which he dated the structure to 10,500 BC.
(a) https://www.midnightsciencejournal.com/?s=Cygnus
(b) Mythical Ireland | Astronomy | The Cygnus Enigma (archive.org) *
(c) https://invisibletemple.com/extra/osirion-link-to-cygnus-10,500BC.html
(e) https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/irishgodkings
(f) Review of Ancient Aliens S18E17: “The Shining Ones” – JASON COLAVITO *
Geodesy
Geodesy is usually defined as the me asurement and mapping of the Earth. James R. Smith, the author of Introduction to Geodesy [1947] has conflated several definitions to produce “Geodesy, from the Greek, literally means dividing the earth, and as a first objective, the practice of geodesy should provide an accurate framework for the control of national topographical surveys. Thus geodesy is the science that determines the figure of the earth and the interrelation of selected points on its surface by either direct or indirect techniques. These characteristics further make it a branch of applied mathematics, one that must include observations that can be used to determine the size and shape of the earth and the definition of coordinate systems for threedimensional positioning; the variation of phenomena near to or on the surface, such as gravity, tides, earth rotation, crustal movement, and deflection of the plumb line; together with units of measurement and methods of representing the curved earth surface on a flat sheet of paper.”
Geodesy as a science can be traced back to Pythagoras (6th cent. BC), who was thought to be the first to propose the sphericity of the Earth. Aristotle & Archimedes were apparently the first the offer a figure for the diameter of the Earth, suggesting 400,000 and 300,000 stades respectively. The difference might be partly explained by the use of a different length of stade.
Later, Eratosthenes (276 BC– 195 BC) offered another early attempt to determine the dimensions of our Earth and succeeded with remarkable accuracy.
A controversial aspect of modern geodesy is the claim that many ancient sites were deliberately established at locations that had a specific geodetic relationship to each other and/or the dimensions of the Earth. For example(a) in ancient Egypt, the distance from Giza to the Equator was calculated to be 1/12th the circumference of the Earth, Amarna to the Equator is 1/13th, Luxor 1/14th and Philae 1/15th!
Graham Hancock in his Heaven’s Mirror[855] pointed to similar relationships around the globe suggesting a possible world grid. This idea of a world grid has a number of supporters but is often classified as a ‘fringe’ interest due to the attempt by some to link gridlines with UFOs and their use of the grid as a power source(w). Hancock’s various claims regarding the dimensions of the pyramids and their association with a suggested world grid has been challenged in great detail by a Hall of Maat article by Thomas W. Schroeder(ah), concluded that “Graham Hancock’s assertion that the Great Pyramid’s dimensions reveal knowledge of earth’s dimensions certainly lacks proof but also fails to hold up to any scrutiny as a viable theory. Each step argued by Hancock; that the Great Pyramid was built to a specific scalar, that the value of the scalar can be definitively demonstrated, that the scalar indicates precession, that the only way ancient Egyptians could estimate precession is to leverage or borrow knowledge from earlier advanced and unrecognized civilizations, are each filled with flaws when taken individually, let alone when strung together to complete his narrative.”
>>The idea of a global grid has been pursued by a number of investigators, often with conflicting results. In the 1980s William Becker and Bethe Hagens published their widely referenced Planetary Earth Grid(aj). They “discussed the code of the Platonic Solids’ positions on Earth, ascribing this discovery to the work of Ivan P. Sanderson, who was the first to make a case for the structure of the icosahedron at work in the Earth. He did this by locating what he referred to as Vile Vortices refer to a claim that there are twelve geometrically distributed geographic areas that are alleged to have the same mysterious qualities popularly associated with the Bermuda Triangle, the Devil’s Sea near Japan, and the South Atlantic Anomaly.”(ak)<<
Possibly related features may be the ley lines identified by Alfred Watkins in Britain(c)(g), the Alesia alignments in France discovered by Xavier Guichard(b) and/or the Heilige Linien of Germany claimed by Wilhelm Teudt(aa).
Heinz Kaminski claimed to have discovered a megalithic grid system that stretched from Stonehenge across Europe with an east-west and north-south orientation and referred to as the Stonehenge/Wormbach System(h).
Even more exotic is the ancient Raetiastone navigation system rediscovered by Gerhard Pirchl (1942-2013) and outlined in a book by [1831] Thomas Walli(ae).
Ashley Cowie has published a paper(ac) related to Alesia and the work of Guichard and others, as well as his own investigations.
I should also point out that Marcel Mestdagh also identified a form of a road system, laid out in giant ovals with radials in France. At the centre of these ovals was the ancient city of Sens. Philip Coppens informs us [1275.184] that a further strange discovery by Mestdagh was that this ancient road network, centred on Sens, was mirrored by a similar network of roads in England centred on Nottingham!
‘The Way of Virachoca’ in the Andes which runs through Tiwanaku and is oriented exactly 45° west of true north and runs for over 1000 miles, has been studied by Maria Scholten d’Ebneth [1236] in the 1970s and expanded on by a number of Spanish speaking commentators and is now the subject of an article by Dave Truman(x).
In 1973, three Russians, engineers Valery Makarov and Vyacheslav Morozov along with Nikolay Goncharov, an artist, published in Russian an article with the eye-catching title of Is the Earth a Giant Crystal? (y) This was probably the earliest presentation of an earth grid based on ancient historical sites. A brief history of the earth grid theories that emerged around this time is available online(z). There is now a Russian geodesy website with an English translation(ab).
David Hatcher Childress published his Anti-Gravity and the World Grid [1303] in 1993, with the modest claim that he “proves that the earth is surrounded by an intricate electronic grid network offering free energy.” Obviously, Childress’ understanding of ‘proof’ is different to mine, as the only proof required is the production of some of this free energy, which he has not done.
Tom Brooks(ai) entered the fray with a study of 1500 prehistoric sites and his conclusion that the inhabitants of ancient Britain had designed a navigation system based on a grid of isosceles triangles(i). Brooks has gone a step further and speculatively claimed that the accuracy of this geometry-based system could only have been designed through “extraterrestrial intervention”(r). This concept is explored more fully in his latest book, Seeing Around Corners: Geometry in Stone Age Britain [863] and in a series of video clips(s). A more critical view of Brooks’ ideas is also available on the Internet(j).
Some years ago a former employee of a NASA sub-contractor, Maurice Chatelain claimed that within a 450-mile radius of the Aegean island of Delos that 13 mystical sites, when connected by straight lines formed a perfect Maltese Cross(u)!
Others such as Livio Stecchini(d) and Jim Alison(e) using geodetic calculations have identified São Tomé and Cape Verde respectively as the location of Atlantis. I must also include Hugo Kennes, a Belgian researcher with a passionate interest in global grids and sacred geometry(l). Kennes has also informed me of a new Facebook group(q) dealing with all aspects of the subject, as well as another(v) that includes submerged cities and other features.
Anyone interested in pursuing a study of this subject might like to look over James Q. Jacobs’ archaeogeodesy website(f) as well as the BioGeometry website (m).
If you have pursued all the links so far, you can pamper yourself further with a paper(k) by William Becker and Beth Hagens(n). Another researcher in this field is Dan Shaw whose website(o) gives a good overview of the subject.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix added his weight to the debate with his 1998 paper entitled The Mapmakers from the Ice Age(t).
A global network of sacred sites was also put forward by Rand Flem-Ath & Colin Wilson in The Atlantis Blueprint [063]. This book was intended as a sequel to When the Sky Fell [062], but generally wandered off into other areas after the first couple of chapters.
I am somewhat sceptical about certain aspects of geodesy, particularly some of the claims of a world grid. However, it does raise many questions that require further study and explanation. In this connection, I would recommend John Sase’s Curious Alignments [1589] as a good starting point. He confirms the work of Guichard and also offers a range of his own discoveries in the Great Lakes region.
In February 2020, Frank Maglione Nicholson, Ken Phungrasamee & David Grimason, collectively known as The Nazca Group(ad), published The Nazca Great Circle Map Hypothesis. Their claim is that “The lines and geoglyphs carved into the Nazca plateau represent a map of the Earth. The map is a Great Circle Map: a gnomonic projection with the center of the Earth as its cartographic viewpoint. Each line on the Nazca Plateau represents a great circle of navigation centred at the centre of the Earth and encircling the entire planet. The majority of the lines on the Nazca Plateau radiate from five loci of origin called radial centres.” I found this rather esoteric proposition difficult to absorb.
Arturo Villamarin has published many books [1864] and papers(af)(ag) in which the geometry and astronomy of archaeological monuments; Göbekli Tepe, Stonehenge, Teotihuacán and Mohenjo Daro, among others, are discussed.
(a) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/geodesy.htm
(b) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/xavierguichard.htm
(c) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/leylines.htm
(d) http://www.metrum.org/mapping/atlantis.htm (link broken Dec. 2020)
(e) http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/concl.html
(f) https://web.archive.org/web/20200917015056/http://www.jqjacobs.net/index.html
(g)https://liminalthresholds.blogspot.ie/2008/04/earth-energy-ley-lines.html
(i) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160628154229/https://www.prehistoric-geometry.co.uk/
(j) https://www.badscience.net/2010/01/voices-of-the-ancients/
(k) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/antigravityworldgrid/ciencia_antigravityworldgrid02.htm
(m) https://web.archive.org/web/20170328094319/https://www.biogeometry.org/page34.html
(n) Bethe Hagens – Geometry, Anthropology anf the Arts of Consciousness (archive.org)
(o) https://www.vortexmaps.com/grid-history.php
(q) https://www.facebook.com/groups/175027289350368/
(r) https://www.prehistoric-geometry.co.uk/ [See (i)]
(s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R35A80kV0AU&feature=relmfu
(t) https://ancientcartography.net/geoAN.html
(u) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg28306.html
(v) https://www.facebook.com/groups/493298404177687/
(w) https://predictionsmargiekay.blogspot.ie/2014/08/lines-of-latitude-and-ufoparanormal-hot.html
(x) https://grahamhancock.com/trumand1/
(y) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-3193/
(z) https://www.vortexmaps.com/grid-history.php
(aa) https://www.cantab.net/users/michael.behrend/repubs/teudt_hl/pages/index.html
(ac) Solstice Axis Of The Ancient Gauls — ASHLEY COWIE (archive.org)
(ad) The Nazca Solution – The final solution to what the Nazca Lines represent (archive.org)
(ae) https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413597
(ag) (99+) (PDF) THE GEOMETRY AND ASTRONOMY OF GOBEKLI TEPE | Arturo Villamarin – Academia.edu
(aj) Microsoft Word – antigravity.doc (montalk.net) *
(ak) https://www.crystalinks.com/grids.html *