LEGENDS ARE USUALLY BASED ON A CORE OF FACT
Pertinently, William Prescott, the great Americanologist, reminds us: “A
nation may pass away and leave only the memory of its existence, but the
stories of science it has gathered up will endure forever.”3
You see, folklore is a fossil of history; it preserves history in the guise of
colorful tales. Far from being a collection of fables, it is a recital of actual
past events, even though from generation to generation some facts have
become distorted or forgotten. Professor I.A. Efremov, of the Soviet Union, cautions that “historians
must pay more respect to ancient traditions and folklore.” He accuses
Western scientists of snobbishness in rejecting the tales of the “common
people.”4
We must face it: legends are usually based on a core of fact.
Take the legend of Troy. No scholar took The Iliad or The Odyssey of
homer as history. But Schliemann, putting faith in it, discovered the
“mythical” city of Troy. The Iliad spoke of a cup decorated with doves
which Odysseus used. In a shaft Schliemann found that 3,600-year-old cup.
Herodotus told a fabulous story of a distant country where griffins
guarded a golden treasure. This land (Altai, or Kin Shan) has now been
found, together with ancient gold mines, and decorations from a high culture
prominently display the griffin. The vague myth is seen to be a fact.
Mexican Indian legends spoke of a sacred well of sacrifice, into which
maidens and jewelry were hurled. Historians dismissed this as a mere tale,
until the well, at Chichen Itza, was discovered in the nineteenth century.
More than any document, the Bible was assailed as a collection of
fanciful myths. Yet, to the embarrassment of the critics, archaeological
discoveries proved time and again that the fabled cities, mythical persons
and impossible events were true and reliable reporting in every detail.
Indeed, the Bible can now be regarded as the most accurate and trustworthy
source of history we possess.
OUR ANCESTRAL MEMORY
OF THE GOLDEN ERA
If we are to credit the collective testimony of all ancient races, man’s
early history was truly an incredible one. It was a Golden Age of advanced
civilization, of original giants who had superior intelligence and technology.
7
This appears to have been a universal truth, known to everyone in
ancient times. Sacred records affirm that at the very beginning (soon after the fall from
Paradise) men possessed extraordinary mental abilities. Beginning with the
raw earth, they mastered a high level of civilization in just the first six
generations of their existence. In that short time they were able to build
cities, play complex musical instruments and smelt metals. Indeed, with
their scientific complexes, these earliest men, it seems, were no fools.
We might well wonder to what degree they further developed and
refined this technology in the final few centuries before the Flood struck.
Were the miracles of science as common as they are now? A perfectly valid
question, I think.
Imagine it, if you can. Paved rainbow cities whose “houses of crystal”
reflected every spectral hue; and we’re talking about air travel, computers
and plastics.
Did you know that when Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone,
he hinted that it had been done before? “The old devices have been
reinvented,” he observed.5
Yes, you read it right. That is exactly what Bell said. In fact the question was pressed further by the eminent British scientist Frederick Soddy, winner of a Nobel Prize in physics. He wondered whether
the ancients might “not only have attained our present knowledge, but a power hitherto unmastered by us?” 6
PHYSICAL REMAINS ALSO
Where did Bell and Soddy get their information? Quite possibly from
some musty old records. Nevertheless, our quest is not based on ancient texts and reports, but on
accepted scientific discoveries. There are recently discovered artifacts that
cannot be dismissed, namely, objects of metal sitting in museums,
unquestionably made in the ancient world, that would have required very
advanced technology to produce. A technology not to be repeated until our
day.
The weight of evidence grows daily-evidence that all the major secrets
of modern technology were known, and forgotten, long ago. Evidence that
early man did create a society that surpassed ours in all aspects of
development.
The entire world is really a ‘dead man’s tomb’, a treasure hunter’s
paradise. As we prize open the coffin, suspense builds. Slowly we’re lifting
8 the lid on a lost technology which almost smacks of science fiction. We
come face to face with such absurdities as brain transplants, colonies on
Mars and invisible men. And we wonder, What next?
Admittedly, such concepts almost strain credibility. We are tempted to
ask, Could the ancients have really advanced so far?
It may help to consider our own age.
As recently as a hundred years ago, were not most of today’s inventions
totally unknown, even unbelievable? Since then the spawning has been
sudden-and rapid. What is more, the present age of basic discoveries is
hardly at its end. It is forecast that just fifteen years hence our present
accumulated knowledge will have doubled. Do you grasp what that means?
How, then, can one possibly conceive of the state of knowledge attained
by the antedeluvians before the Deluge struck?
THE DELUGE
A world war was raging at the time.
In the thirty-fourth century B.C., a catastrophe of incredible magnitude
intervened, causing the world to wobble and ripping the crust of the earth to
shreds. A great Flood swept the whole planet. November 17, 3398 B.C. 7 That day was probably like most others:
temperate, balmy.
In one longitude, millions were dining…entertaining…relaxing.
Precisely at 8 P.M. the earth gave an enormous shudder.
Prodded by an outside force, the planet tilted on its axis, and amidst
lightning and the worst thunder ever heard by man, the pristine vapour
canopy began to disintegrate. A floodgate of rain was released upon the
earth.
There could be no gentle rising of water. Cosmic forces of horrific
violence came unleashed.
With a dreadful shock, large land masses with their populations slipped
into the sea. The surface of the entire globe became as a giant maelstrom, in
which continents and seas were churned up together.
Attended by a screaming hurricane, tidal waves of 6,000 feet swept
toward the poles. A blanket of lava and asphyxiating gases extinguished all
life.
This cataclysm wiped the Mother Civilization from the face of the earth
and consigned its products to a watery grave forever.
9
Not only were the antedeluvian people buried, but their technological
achievements were destroyed, including all form of machinery and
construction.
It is quite possible that areas which were most densely populated were
submerged by the sea or buried under thousands of feet of debris. It has
been scientifically estimated that over 75 percent of the earth’s surface is
sedimentary in nature, extending, as in India, to 60,000 feet deep.
Indeed, the earth, torn and twisted and shaking, was not to quiet down
for centuries. With no less than three thousand volcanoes in eruption, a
dense cloud of dust enshrouded the earth, blocking out the sun and distorting
the climate for hundreds of years. Thus began the Ice Age. 8
Of the human race a mere handful remained; Indeed, their survival was
in every sense a miracle.
Forewarned, they had salvaged what records they might: a compilation
of knowledge which, in due course, would be imparted to their descendants.
Now for the sake of the reader who is unfamiliar with this event, it
should be stressed that the global Flood catastrophe is one of the key facts of
all history. Not only is there a mass of geological evidence-it has left an
indelible impression on the memory of the entire human race. 9
An analysis of some 600 individual Flood traditions reveals a
widespread concurrence on essential points:
the prior corruption of mankind,
a Flood warning unheeded by the masses,
a survival vessel,
the preservation of up to eight people with representative animal
life,
the sending forth of a bird to determine the suitability of reemerging
land,
significance in the rainbow,
descent from a mountain,
and the repopulation of the whole earth from a single group of
survivors.
Especially remarkable is the persistence of that biblical name Noah.
And this is particularly so when you consider the ultimate language
differences between peoples, and the extreme local distortions which
developed in Flood legends.
Yet the name survived virtually unchanged in such isolated places as
Hawaii (where he was called Nu-u), the Sudan (Nuh), China (Nu-Wah), the
10 Amazon region (Noa), Phrygia (Noe) and among the Hottentots (Noh and
Hiagnoh).
Think about this. Did each of these nations independently concoct the
same name for its flood-surviving ancestor? Or did these widely separated
peoples refer back to the same family of survivors?
The table of nations in Genesis 10 records the gradual dispersion of
Noah’s descendants and lists names, thus offering clues to their history and
dwelling place. It contends that all nations of the earth have sprung from the
family of Noah. 10
Professor W.F. Albright, internationally recognized archaeological
authority, describes this as an astonishingly accurate document…[which]
shows such remarkable ‘modern’ understanding of the ethnic and linguistic
situation in the modern world, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars
never fail to be impressed with the author’s knowledge of the subject. 11
So, in a nutshell, there is good reason to believe that, after the Deluge,
mankind sprang from a single group of people. Chapters 2 to 6 will confirm
that these were not idiots, imbeciles or illiterates; they were in a civilized
state, with an enormous cultural heritage, before they separated. Chapter 5
traces their ultimate slide into oblivion; while Chapters 7 to 9 raise three
challenging questions that need to be answered.
Thus prepared, we shall more intelligently evaluate clues salvaged from
the ancient world.
COMMON ORIGIN?
Was there any connection between them?
I began to sift every available isolated piece of information. Over the
next few months the search would lead through scores of countries.
Meanwhile, back of my mind the thought kept surfacing: what of the
prophecies?
Something told me there was a connection, though I knew not where.
As for a possible link between the “instant” civilizations, eight clues
emerged.
- Symbols and hieroglyphics, identical worldwide, bore the marks of a
common heritage. Everywhere the swastika, snake and sun
combinations, as well as numerous specialized and intricate glyphs were
repeated with no chance of coincidence.14
- Likewise, similar systems of writing were in use—again all over the
globe, even on isolated islands. This was striking.
- And languages had similarities. The older these were, the more they
resembled each other. Practically all languages have connections
through both vocabulary and construction. In almost every language are
many words containing similar root words or combinations beyond what
mere chance would allow. (Take, for instance, the names of the
constellations. I found these were substantially the same whether in
Mexico, Africa or Polynesia.)
- The calendars of Egypt and faraway Peru both had eighteen months of
twenty days, with a five-day holiday at year’s end.
- I also took into account the great similarities in buildings, not only in
construction but in astronomical alignment. Sphinxes in Egypt and
15
Yucatan; pyramids on every continent and on remote islands; monoliths
and stone circles also worldwide and often quarried elsewhere in the
world. I was struck by similarity even as to original purpose. The
Tower of Babel was built (according to Josephus, first-century Jewish
historian) to provide shelter should another Deluge destroy the earth.
And regarding the Toltec pyramids, the Mexican chronicler,
Ixtlilxochitl, states: “After men had multiplied, they erected a very high
‘zacuali,’ which is today a tower of great height, in order to take refuge
in it should the second world be destroyed.” Now I ask you, without a
common source, why should the purpose be identical in Babylon and
Mexico? 15
- Customs again were similar, as in burial, mummification, circumcision,
or in binding babies’ heads to produce an elongated skull. (The Maya,
Incas, Celts, Egyptians and Basques did this.)
- Forms of religious observance bore more striking similarities.
- Finally I added to the list worldwide traditions of early history.
Traditions of a Garden of Delight, a Golden Age, a global Flood, one
original language, a tower where sudden language confusion resulted in
a dispersal—clearly these bore the marks of a common source.
Of one thing I was certain. The origins of cultures that were so different
and so widely dispersed could not wholly be explained by borrowing and
imitation.
The Russian poet Valeri Brussov seemed to express it well: “At the
bases of the oldest cultures of mankind we must look for a single
influence…We must look back beyond antiquity for an X, for a still
unknown cultural world that set the engine we know in motion.
“The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans were all our
teachers, but who were our teachers’ teachers?”16
My attention was riveted. Here were several fully developed cultures,
apparently related, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
Well, how does one deal with such a discovery? I must confess, my
curiosity was exploding. One more search was imperative. This time I had
to track down the common source of any footprints leading to these cultures.
Want Some Specifics?
SHIPPING SOPHISTICATION
ITALY
1 (S): Two Roman ships were found in the 1920s at the bottom of Lake
Nemi, and between 1927 and 1932 were restored, only to be destroyed by
German bombers toward the end of World War II.
These luxury cruisers contained accommodation for 120 passengers in
30 cabins of 4 berths each, plus crew’s quarters; were richly decorated with
mosaic-tiled floors; walls of cypress panelling; metal columns, marble
statues; and paintings in the lounge. There was a library; a ceiling sundial; a
salon where a small orchestra entertained the passengers; a large restaurant
and kitchen; copper heaters which provided hot water for the baths; and
modern plumbing, with bronze pipes and taps.
The underwater part of the hull was sheathed with lead, fastened with
copper nails.
EGYPT
2 (W): Egyptian open-sea ships were up to 350 feet long and 60 feet
wide, with as many as four decks.
GREECE
CHINA
3 (W): Ancient vessels from 250 to 600 feet long and capable of
carrying a crew of up to 600 were far larger than anything built by later
European explorers.1
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GREECE
ROME
4 (W): Large luxury ocean liners over 500 feet long contained temples
and swimming pools; also dining halls of marble and alabaster.
SUMERIA
5 (W): An Akkadian dictionary of the Sumerian language contained a
whole section on shipping. It catalogued as many as 105 Sumerian terms for
various ships, by size, destination or purpose. A further 69 Sumerian terms
connected with the manning and construction of ships were translated into
the Akkadian.
UGARIT, SYRIA, 1400 B. C
6 (W): A catalogue of ships details the types and uses of cargo vessels,
passenger ships, fishing smacks, racing boats, troop transports and warships.
SUMERIA
7 (W): Ancient texts refer constantly to a type of ship used by the
“gods” called “elippu tebiti” (“sunken ship”—what we would today call a
submarine).
INDIA
8 (W): A 3,000-year-old document contains eight chapters of plans for
craft that could travel in the air, on water or under the sea.2
BRITAIN
CHINA
9 (W): Legends of sophisticated flying water craft come to us from
Britain and China.
NAVIGATIONAL ABILITY
GREECE
10 (S): Maritime computer: On Easter Day, 1901, divers working in a
very old shipwreck on the seabed off Antikithera Island, Greece, brought up,
among other relics (mostly statues), a metal artifact fused by the sea into a
lump.
The object collected dust for 50 years, until restored by acid baths.
90
It proved to be a bronze machine with complex dials, moveable pointers,
inscribed plates and a sophisticated system of interlocking gears (more than
twenty gear wheels, a differential gear and a crown wheel).
On one side was a spindle that set all the dials in motion at varying
speeds as soon as it was turned.
The pointers were protected by bronze covers on which long
inscriptions could be read.
It could work out and exhibit the motions of the sun, moon and planets,
calculate their positions, the movement of tides and the time of day. Signs
of the zodiac were included.
To use the computer, one could set a particular planet on the scale, turn
the gears for so many months or years and a number would show through a
hole in the case, telling you where the planet would be.
Here is first-class precision mechanics, as accurate as any that can be
made today.
This computer was used for navigation purposes; a mechanism for
checking one’s position at night. First century B.C., but doubtless of a much
older technology.3
As Dr. Derek Price, a Cambridge scientist, observed, “finding
something like this is like finding a jet plane in the tomb of Tutankhamen!”4
NORWAY
11 (W): Early sea travellers used a “magic stone” for all-weather
navigation, which was able to “find the sun, even when behind clouds and
fog.”
Pilots today have compasses with crystal polarization, capable of
finding the exact position of the sun when it is not directly visible. This
legendary “stone” was based on the same principles.
It was probably cordierite (from the magnetic rocks of Italy, Finland and
Norway), whose fine, clear crystals are better known as water sapphires.
Its most important quality is change of color, varying from yellow to
blue when the natural alignment of its molecules forms an angle of 90
degrees with the plane of polarization of sunlight.
These items of equipment were simply the result of a much earlier
technology—one anteceding both the Vikings and the Greeks.
CHINA
OLMECS, MEXICO
PHOENICIA
12 (W,S): Compasses.
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EXTENT OF ANCIENT TRAVEL
That’s right!
There was a time when the whole world was known. Travel around it
was regular, safe and profitable.
Then most nations lapsed into a subsistence economy, the trade routes
dead and forgotten.
TRAVEL TO NORTH AMERICA
RECORDS OF OTHER NATIONS
13 (W): A Tibetan record of at least 300 B.C. contains a map of “a green
land lying far across the eastern sea” (i.e., the Pacific).
14 (W): Greek navigators spoke of islands in the “western sea” (i.e., the
Atlantic) with a great mainland beyond (America); also regions where “for
30 days on end, the sun sets for little more than an hour, and for several
months the night is faintly illuminated by the western twilight” (the Polar
regions); and “countries where there was a day for 6 months and night for 6
months.”
15 (W): Egyptian priests told the Greek Solon that the Atlantic “is a real
sea and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent” (i.e.,
America).
16 (W): According to interpretations of texts by Plato and Diodorus,
Phoenicians traded with America around 1000 B.C.
17 (W): Seneca (first century) speaks of lands between the east coast of
Asia and the west coast of Europe (e.g., the Americas); he says that “one
day, vast new lands will offer themselves to human view.”
18 (W): Strabo (born c. 60 B.C.) writes of “other inhabited lands” and
says that “a huge continent will be discovered one day.”
MASSACHUSETTS
19 (S): An underwater rock carving in Lake Assawompset,
Massachusetts, was temporarily exposed when the waterline receded during
a drought in 1957. It clearly portrayed a ship of ancient Phoenician or
92
Minoan style (suggesting it was incised when the sea level was lower, and
the level of in-shore waters corresponded).
TENNESSEE
20 (S): A stone found in 1885 near Morganton, Tennessee, bore an
inscription speculated to be recent Indian. However, when the stone is
turned upside down the letters spell a message in ancient Canaanite: “For
Jehu”—an example of an inscription having been looked at upside down for
almost a century!5
CANADA
21 (W): The Micmac clan of the Algonquian nation wrote in 2,000
characters of pure Egyptian hieroglyphics.
GENERAL
22 (S): Arab remains in America are fairly numerous.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
23 (S): A stone labyrinth with Minoan-like inscriptions and of a similar
construction to that of 3,500 years ago, stands at Mystery Hill, New
Hampshire.
IOWA
24 (S): An American “Rosetta Stone” called the Davenport Stele (found
1874, in the lower levels of an Indian burial mound) contains inscriptions in
three languages: hieratic Egyptian, Iberian Punic and Libyan.
Harvard professor Barry Fell, in America B.C., remarks that this stele is
genuine because neither the Iberian nor the Libyan scripts had been
deciphered at the time it was discovered.6
GREAT LAKES REGION
25 (S): Two-way trans-Atlantic trade around 2500 B.C. is indicated by
woodworking tools and fishing gear found in the Great Lakes area, and in
ground slate knives found in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries.
GENERAL
26 (S): Distinctive pottery of North America (1000 B.C.) closely
matches Baltic pottery of the same age.
93
GEORGIA
27 (S): Manfred Metcalf found a stone which bears a Phoenician script
used around 2000 B.C. (Columbus, Georgia).7
TENNESSEE
28 (S): In 1970, the Batcreek Stone from Tennessee was positively
identified as being of Hebrew origin; so was an amulet recovered from a
very old tomb.
Caches of coins dating from the Hebrew Bar Kokhbar rebellion against
Rome in AD. 132—135 have been unearthed in Kentucky and Tennessee.
GEORGIA
29 (S): In 1973, Mrs. Joe Hearn was digging in her backyard when she
unearthed a metal tablet containing a cuneiform script called Classic Ur II,
which was in use in the Middle East 4,000 years ago.8
Similar authenticated finds are common all through the United States;
inscriptions on buried temples, on tablets, on gravestones and on cliff faces.
CENTRAL AMERICA
GUATEMALA
30 (W): The ancient Popul Vuh of the Maya speaks of a land “where
whites and blacks dwelt together in peace” (an unusual statement for a land
whose people are neither white nor black!)
MEXICO
31 (S): Sculpted heads dated from as early as 1500 B.C. show
unequivocally bearded Jews, African Negroes and other distinctive racial
types.
GUATEMALA
32 (W): In both the Mayan calendar and the Near Eastern calendar, the
same sequence of animal types is used in the same order to represent each
month. Even the origination date for these calendars is the same—
approximately 3000 B.C.
94
MEXICO
PERU
33 (S): Many finds in Mexico and Peru display Chinese and/or Buddhist
features.
MEXICO
34 (W): There are “oriental” aspects to Aztec religion and astronomy.
PANAMA35 (W): Asian-sounding names are inscribed on an ancient
tomb.
MEXICO
36 (S): Similarly complicated rules were worked out for a board game
known as “pachisi” in Asia and “patolli” in Mexico.
SOUTH AMERICA
GENERAL
37 (S): Thousands of inscriptions on South American standing stones
and dolmens contain letters from early European and Mediterranean
alphabets.
(The same is true of weapons, implements and crockery found in South
America.)
ECUADOR
38 (S) Pottery 5,000 years old is almost certainly Japanese in origin.9
ECUADOR
39 (S): During my 1967 expedition to remote jungle villages in the
Amazon headwaters, I came upon Egyptian hieroglyphics on metal plates.
ECUADOR
40 (S): Every race in the world is represented in statuettes found in a
very ancient city on the seabed, just off shore, near Guayaquil. There are
Aryans, Semites, Caucasians and a race looking remarkably like modern
Japanese.
95
ECUADOR
41 (S): Artifacts found in caves deep in the jungle near Tayos include:10
• Several superb wood statues carved in the Pacific Oceanic
island style and depicting Negroid men and women
• A mahogany Adam and Eve with definite Semitic features
• Bronze images of Egyptian princesses and Assyrian gods
• A plaque of a Caucasian man writing with a quill pen
• Phoenician bronze calendars
• A large aluminum sheet depicting the Greek goddess Athena.
AMAZON JUNGLE (ECUADOR)
42 (S): A plaque found in the Amazon jungle was carved in pure
Libyan—which was also spoken by the Zuni Indians of southwestern U.S.A.!
PERU
43 (S): An inscription discovered 150 miles from Cuzco relates that its
authors (from the era of Egypt’s first king Menes) had arrived from the
Indus Valley (Pakistan).
PERU
44 (S): Images of symbolic white, yellow and black men, as well as a
fourth race (unidentified); also animals from other parts of the world and
several figures resembling Egyptian sculptures, stand on the Plateau of
Marcahuasi.
PERU
45 (S): A piece of pottery found at Nazca bears the faces of five girls—
one white, one red, one black, one brown and one yellow. This indicates
that the Nazcans had knowledge of every racial group around the world, and
possibly even models to work from.
PERU
EGYPT
46 (S): Cotton-weaving looms in Peru and Egypt were almost identical,
even to the point of each having eleven working parts.
