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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 »
Vance T. Holliday
Sweatman. Martin B.
Martin B. Sweatman is a geochemist at the University of Edinburgh who gained wider recognition with the publication of 
PreHistory Decoded [1621] in 2019. In it, he discusses many subjects dealt with in this compilation, such as Göbekli Tepe, Younger Dryas, and the Sphinx offering what the book’s subtitle describes as “a science odyssey unifying astronomy, geochemistry and archaeology.”
Building on the work of Clube & Napier he believes that around 10,900 BC an encounter with a fragment of Comet Encke led to catastrophic climate change of the Younger Dryas and kick-started the Neolithic Revolution. After an in-depth study of the carvings at Göbekli Tepe, he believes that they record astronomical events and in a 2017 joint paper with Dimitrios Tsikritsis, published in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, (Vol.. 17, No 1) they offer an illustrated outline of this theory(a).
In 2021, Sweatman published two papers on the Researchgate website about the Younger Dryas Impact theory(e)(f).
He has also published a paper also on the Researchgate website in which he argues that knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes was known as far back as paleolithic times(d).
Sweatman had previously used his scientific training to decode an early zodiacal system found across western Eurasia, from European Palaeolithic caves to sites in Turkey, Egypt and Mesopotamia. He has now gone one step further by linking Pictish symbols to this system.(b)
In May 2023, Sweatman returned to the subject of Göbekli Tepe in a paper on the Ancient Origins website(g). In it, he endeavoured to link the images found at Göbekli with the later symbols used in dynastic Egypt. He poses the question “But while the connections between Göbekli Tepe and Ancient Egypt are tantalizing, it is difficult to be certain of them. Could all these correlations between the animal symbols, constellations, Ancient Egyptian deities, mythical stories and writing methods just be a coincidence?” In a concluding paragraph, he answers it.
“So, the available genetic evidence strongly supports the idea that the builders of Göbekli Tepe were ancestral to the ancient Egyptians, and therefore all these symbolic connections we have noted are real and direct.”
In June 2023 article, Sweatman traced the evidence for the use of our zodiac symbology from the time of Paleolithic cave art (32,000 BC) and forward to Göbekli Tepe (11,000 BC) and Catal Hoyuk (7500 BC) in Turkey, the Dead Sea (4000 BC), then in predynastic Egypt and much later, on the monuments of the Picts in Northern Britain(h).
For balance, I offer links to some critical reviews of Sweatman’s theories(c)(j).
Sweatman had written a lengthy paper in which he claimed that there is clear evidence at both Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe that a lunisolar calendar had been used there. He was unable to have the paper published until June 2024(i).
>>Sweatman’s support for the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis has been challenged twice by Vance T. Holliday and his associates, the latest in December 2024, which was reviewed by Jason Colavito(k).<<
(a) The_Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis_MBS.pdf (ed.ac.uk)
(b) https://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/news/20190715/dr-martin-sweatman-decodes-ancient-pictish-symbols
(g) https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/cosmic-symbolism
(h) Prehistoric Zodiacal Dating Code Revealed At Göbekli Tepe (ancientoriginsunleashed.com)
(i) https://martinsweatman.blogspot.com/2024/06/lunisolar-calendar-paper-accepted-for.html