Stonehenge

Besides being beautiful and awe-inspiring in its own right, and a testament to the technological and aesthetic achievements of ancient mankind, Stonehenge is also an incredibly important source of clues for unraveling the mystery of the timeline of ancient history.

Deer bones and other items from beneath the outermost earthen embankment which encircles the site have been dated to around 3100 BC. The entire site consists of concentric circles of embankments, post holes, and trilithons -- massive post-and-lintel arrangements of three stones arranged as two pillars with a lintel stone across the top. Inside the inner Sarsen circle is a horseshoe arrangement (not circular) of five massive trilithons composed of mighty blocks weighing up to fifty tons each.

The question of who built Stonehenge, how they did it, and why remains open for exploration. In his 1999 book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, Martin Doutré argues that the angles and measurements of prominent details of Stonehenge indicate that the site actually contains a scale model of the Great Pyramid of Giza.



















The diagram above (click for greater detail) presents a rough illustration of Mr. Doutré's theory. The concentric blue circles and the horizontal line indicate the positions of: 1. the inner trilithon horseshoe, 2. the Sarsen circle, 3. the Y-holes, and 4. the Aubrey circle. The red lines indicate the outline of the Great Pyramid based upon Doutré's discovery that the diameter of the outermost perimeter of the site measures 378 feet: exactly half of the 756 feet that each side of the Great Pyramid measures.

Based upon this, he discovered indications that the apex of a half-scale two-dimensional representation of the Great Pyramid rested in the avenue leading to the Heel Stone as indicated. His entire argument, which goes into much greater detail about this and many other important aspects of Stonehenge should really be read in its entirety in his book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, which belongs in the library of everyone interested in the subject of our earth and mankind's ancient past upon our earth (which is everyone, right?).

This discovery is just one piece of evidence that the Great Pyramid might actually predate Stonehenge, and that Stonehenge might well have been built by the people who once occupied Egypt and left, or by their descendents.

It is also an indication of the advanced technological, mathematical, and astronomical advancement of very ancient mankind, as both the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge incorporate elements which indicate a sophisticated understanding of pi and phi and even (as many have noted before) knowledge of the size of the spherical earth itself.

The Great Pyramid is a model of the earth, on a scale of 1:43,200. The base perimeter of the Great Pyramid is 3,023.154 feet, which multiplied by 43,200 yields 130,600,523 feet -- a number that approximates within an error of 1% the circumfrence of the earth (as Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock demonstrate in Keeper of Genesis). Anyone wishing to argue that this is mere coincidence must contend with the fact that 43,200 is a clear precessional number, as explained in this previous post.

If Stonehenge is a one-half representation of the Great Pyramid, then it too is an accurate scale model of the earth.

For these and other reasons, Stonehenge is a critical source of clues to the truth about mankind's ancient past. In the Mathisen Corollary, I argue that the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown, which deals primarily with geological evidence of a catastrophic flood within human memory, provides an excellent explanation that fits the archaeological and mythological evidence of man's past as well.

He explains why precession (which is encoded by the number 43,200 at the Great Pyramid and at Stonehenge, as we have just seen) was caused by this ancient catastrophe, and even suggests: "Perhaps changes in earth's spin axis in the centuries after the flood motivated construction of ancient observatories such as Stonehenge" (7th edition of In the Beginning, page 117).

These connections are important to examine very closely.

Still believing isolationist theories?

In a previous post, we detailed some of the evidence of mythological parallels found in the legends of cultures as far removed as Scandinavia and the South Pacific. The example of the "world-tree" motif provides clear evidence of some ancient connection, and there are numerous other examples from mythology that are equally compelling or even more compelling.

However, some will argue that these apparent connections are not connected at all, but that numerous cultures simply landed on the same imagery for the same celestial phenomena in their own mythologies -- that they acted "in isolation" from one another. Perhaps, some have argued, there is even some common psychological theme or "collective unconscious" that causes isolated peoples to share similar myths even though separated by vast oceans or centuries of time.

Unfortunately for proponents of the isolationist theory, the mythological evidence is by no means the only evidence that supports the assertion that ancient peoples crossed the oceans quite regularly. There are the startling parallels between the measurements of the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Pyramid of the Sun found at Teotihuacan in modern-day Mexico, for example (the base perimeters of each are remarkably close, and the height of each is related to the base perimeter by a factor of pi: two pi times the height of the Great Pyramid equals the perimeter of its base, while four pi times the height of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan equals the perimeter of its base).

Even more stunning are the hundreds of mummies that have been unearthed in New World locations such as Peru. Many of these mummies have red, golden, or auburn hair. Some of it is wavy. All of these hair traits are very unlike the hair of the South American Indians of the area, which is black and very straight. Martin Doutré has documented this fact on his website in great detail.

As Mr. Doutré points out, red hair is a very rare trait among the peoples of the world, occurring in 1% or perhaps as many as 2% of all humans. Its incidence is highest in Europe, especially western and northern Europe. The fact that hundreds of mummies with light hair, many of them with red hair, exist in Peru is astonishing.

It might be possible to argue that these mummies were Europeans who came after AD 1492, except for the fact that they have numerous characteristics that make this explanation extremely unlikely. They are usually buried in a sitting posture (not characteristic of European burials in the modern or early modern periods), they are often arrayed in very colorful blankets and clothing that is completely unlike European clothing of the time, and they often wear their hair very long and sometimes in two long plaits or braids on either side of the head, which is not typical of Europeans after Columbus either.

It turns out that to continue to hold onto isolationist theories, one must look past an awful lot of evidence that argues differently, including evidence from mythology but also from archaeological sites such as the pyramids and even the extensive evidence from human remains.

Four planets

Try to get up early tomorrow morning.

An hour before sunrise, the waning crescent moon will be above the eastern horizon, as described in this article from Sky & Telescope. Below it and closer to the horizon will be Venus as well as Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. Binoculars will be necessary to spot Jupiter and Mercury, and Mars will be a real challenge as it is lined up very close to Jupiter (see the illustration in the article linked above).

During the night, Saturn is also visible, arcing along the path of the ecliptic through the sky. Because the paths of Venus and Mercury are closer to the sun than earth, we always see them relatively near the sun, either the rising or the setting sun.

The outer planets, whose paths are further from the sun than earth's, may travel all the way across the sky and are not "tethered" to the sun the way Venus and Mercury appear to be from earth. If you think about it, you will realize why you will never see Mercury or Venus high in the night sky when the sun is on the other side of the earth; if you were looking out into the night from earth and saw Venus out there, it would mean that Venus was traveling along an orbit outside of the earth's orbit around the sun (because when you are on earth looking out into the night along the path of the ecliptic, the sun is "behind your back").

Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend have this to say in Hamlet's Mill about the importance of the planets:

But obviously there is more, and what emerges here lifts the veil of a fundamental archaic design. The real actors on the stage of the universe are very few, if their adventures are many. The most "ancient treasure" -- in Aristotle's word -- that was left to us by our predecessors of the High and Far-Off Times was the idea that the gods are really stars, and that there are no others. The forces reside in the starry heavens, and all the stories, characters and adventures narrated by mythology concentrate on the active powers among the stars, who are the planets. 177.

This is a fundamental concept to their thesis. The interpretation of the last sentence quoted above is important. Stated more directly, it declares: "the planets are the active powers among the stars." They are the ones who shift their places, who move among the fixed stars of the constellations. In de Santillana and von Dechend's words, "the constellations were seen as the setting, or the dominating influences, or even only the garments at the appointed time by the Powers in various disguises on their way through their heavenly adventures" (177). The Powers, in other words, are the planets; the constellations are the disguises or garments that the planets put on and take off.

You can see four of them over the next few mornings, if you only get up early enough.

Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil, the world-tree of Norse mythology, stretched from the deepest underworld of Niflheim, where the horrible dragon Nidhogg gnawed at its roots, up through the center of Midgard (the middle world of men), on through the rest of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, to the very vault of heaven, where a watchful eagle perched upon its topmost branches. Upon the beak of the eagle sat a small sharp-eyed hawk, helping the eagle keep watch. The eagle, hawk, and the dragon at the roots can be seen in the illustration above, from a seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscript.

At the foot of the world-tree sat the three Norns, spinning out the destinies of men and gods. They also tended to the tree's many wounds with the water from a sacred pool at the base of the tree. Up and down the tree the busy squirrel Ratatosk carried the mutual insults between the eagle and the dragon.

Yggdrasil was sacred to Odin, who had hanged himself on it for nine days and nine nights, and it was there that while staring at the twigs and branches on the ground beneath he had first deciphered the runes that enabled writing and spells by gods and men.

At the battle of Ragnarok, in which the world would be destroyed and the Aesir gods devoured by their ancient enemies Fenris the Wolf and the Midgard Serpent, the dragon would finally gnaw through the roots of Yggdrasil and the entire mighty tree would crack and fall. The significance of the number of the warriors of Valhalla who sallied forth to do battle with the Wolf at Ragnarok has been discussed in a previous post.

Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend explain in Hamlet's Mill that "world-trees" in ancient myth, whose branches are usually described as touching the sky or even piercing the sky, represent the celestial axis around which great machinery of the heavens turns.

They write: "One of the great motifs of myth is the wondrous tree so often described as reaching up to heaven. There are many of them -- the Ash Yggdrasil in the Edda, the world-darkening oak of the Kalevala, Pherecydes' world-oak draped with the starry mantle, and the Tree of Life in Eden. That tree is often cut down, too" (223).

Just as the branches of a mighty tree would all be displaced if the central trunk were moved, all the stars and colures (a term defined and explained in greater detail in the Mathisen Corollary) must move if the celestial axis is altered.

The world-tree of Norse mythology has many parallels in cultures that should have no connection with it, according to the current "isolationist" view of history. There is the sacred erica tree that houses the casket and body of Osiris in ancient Egyptian mythology, and the cedar whose top pierces the sky in the epic of Gilgamesh, but also suspiciously similar tales from the tribes of North America, the far-away Pacific island of Papua New Guinea and even the tiny atoll of Ifaluk in the Caroline Island chain. All of these "world-trees" are examined in greater detail in the Mathisen Corollary.

Perhaps the best illustrations of Yggdrasil the world-tree that I have ever seen come from Norse Gods and Giants by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire (1967), which my parents gave to me when I was no older than six or seven. It is a wonderful volume and one I read many times growing up and whose drawings I spent many hours imitating on my own. All parents of young children should consider it for their libraries.

This Friday's interview will be at 1:00 pm Pacific Time

Join us this Friday, April 29th, from 1:00 pm until 2:00 pm (Pacific) for a discussion with author David Warner Mathisen about some of the topics and issues discussed in the Mathisen Corollary.

The interview will be live on KPRL 1230. If you live outside the coverage area (see map here), you can listen over the internet to the live stream here.

Note that this broadcast time is a slight change to the previous schedule. Hope you can be there!

The Cult of Mithras

When my parents gave me a copy of David Ulansey's Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, I devoured the entire book in a single weekend. While I may be a somewhat extreme case, the subject matter is certainly riveting and the presentation clear, direct, and well illustrated.

Below is a book review I wrote of his text on Amazon:

David Ulansey's Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries is a clear articulation of a new and radically different analysis of Mithraism from the theory that had pertained for about seventy years when Ulansey and others began to question its assumptions.

Professor Ulansey's work has important implications that go beyond the Cult of Mithras, because the celestial phenomena that he convincingly demonstrates are present in the Mithraic symbology turn out to be centrally important to an examination of other ancient myths and symbols.

I have written a book which examines these issues using additional evidence from geology and mythology, and devote a chapter to a discussion of Mithraic archaeological evidence, and Professor Ulansey's theory was absolutely foundational to my own analysis and "corollary"(The Mathisen Corollary).

Professor Ulansey's examination of the evidence and explication of the celestial mechanics of precession are extremely valuable and belong in the library of every student of this phenomenon and its impact on the mythologies of ancient civilizations. The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book.

Further, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries is extremely readable and Professor Ulansey has a clear and lucid writing style. His discussion of the Stoics and the connection between their observation of the astronomical mechanics and their fortitude in the face of the vicissitudes of this life is similarly worth the price of the book all by itself.

I wholeheartedly recommend Mr. Ulansey's book for its detailed and rigorous yet very readable examination of the ancient Cult of Mithras.

The Cult of Mithras (also commonly referred to as the "Persian Mysteries" at the time) was an important mystery religion in the Roman Empire between the first century BC and the fourth century AD. Because it was a mystery religion and none of its secrets were entrusted to writing, modern scholars have had to deduce what they could about its beliefs and practices from the surviving mithraea, underground temples (or above-ground temples designed to look like underground temples to those inside), and particularly from the prominent scene found in every mithraeum, the so-called "tauroctony" scene of Mithras slaying a bull.

Professor Ulansey's argument is that the symbology of the tauroctony is celestial, and that it represents the world-altering discovery of the phenomenon of precession by Hipparchus in the second century BC.

While I believe there is extensive evidence that the phenomenon of precession was understood over a thousand years before Hipparchus (and that it was understood to a degree of precision that Hipparchus never achieved), I am in agreement with Professor Ulansey that the symbology of the tauroctony is celestial and precessional in nature.

I am somewhat skeptical of his idea that the discovery of precession by Hipparchus could have spread so rapidly and resulted in the popular Cult of Mithras with all its attendant symbology by the first century BC. I think it is more likely that the knowledge of precession demonstrated in the symbology that Ulansey describes came from previous initiates who preserved this ancient understanding.

Nevertheless, Professor Ulansey has done a valuable service in elucidating his arguments for the celestial and precessional content of the Persian Mysteries, and students of the precessional codes that ancient civilizations embedded in their mythologies and monuments should not be without this text and its excellent collection of photographs and illustrations.

The presence of precessional imagery and numerology in the cultural heritage of many widespread ancient civilizations (as well as remote people groups whose cultural heritage was preserved into the nineteenth or even twentieth centuries) is an absolutely critical source of evidence arguing for the existence of ancient contact across even the mightiest oceans.

If precession was initiated by the events surrounding a cataclysmic global flood, as Dr. Walt Brown argues in his hydroplate theory, then this evidence also supports the conclusion that this catastrophic event took place within human memory, and that those who observed its effect on the heavens took great care to record their knowledge of precession in the myths and legends that they passed on, often through secret societies and mystery cults.

The Precessional Numbers

In Hamlet's Mill, Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, following the work of Franz Rolf Schröder (1893 - 1979) point out the presence of significant numbers that appear over and over in mythology around the world.

For example, they point to a passage in the Old Norse Poetic Edda known as the Grimnismal, a passage spoken by the god Odin in his disguise as Grimnir, in which the end of the world is described. Describing the scene in which the slain warriors of Valhalla issue forth to battle against the forces of destruction in the battle of Ragnarok, the Grimnismal tells us that

five hundred gates and forty more
are in the mighty building of Walhalla
eight hundred Einherier come out of each one gate
on the time they go out on defence against the Wolf. Hamlet's Mill 162.

As Graham Hancock points out in Fingerprints of the Gods, this verse invites us to count the warriors of Valhalla: eight hundred warriors times five hundred forty gates, totaling 432,000. This number also happens to be the number of syllables traditionally attributed to the ancient sacred Sanskrit text of the Rigveda, and it is a number associated with the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes -- a "precessional number." At this point, de Santillana and von Dechend quote Schröder, who in his own 1929 work in German, Altgermanische Kulturprobleme declares, "To quibble away such as coincidence or to ascribe it to chance, is in my opinion to drive skepticism beyond its limits" (de Santillana and von Dechend 162).

Hancock also points out in Fingerprints of the Gods that the battle of Ragnarok to which the heroes of Valhalla are marching is related to the unhinging of the world's axis that causes the phenomenon of precession in the first place (247).

In another work, Keeper of Genesis: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind, co-authored with Robert Bauval, Hancock has also made note of the fact that the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza have been noted to model the dimensions of the earth itself, and on a scale of 1:43,200. Taking the perimeter of the Great Pyramid at its base, Bauval and Hancock explain, which is 3,023.16 feet, and multiplying that number by 43,200 yields a result of 24,734.94 miles, which is within 1% of the true equatorial circumference of the earth.

The concept of "precessional numbers" comes from the rate of the precession of the equinoxes, which itself is a phenomenon caused by the fact that the axis of the earth, while remaining tilted at almost 23.5^o, traces out a circle in much the same way that the axis of a toy top or a gyroscope might trace out a circle as it spins. This phenomenon is explained in various places on the web and in much greater detail with numerous illustrations in the Mathisen Corollary.

This precessional movement of earth's axis shifts the background of stars which appear at any given point of the earth's annual orbit around the sun. If there were no precession, then the view from the earth at a precise point in time on the exact same point in its orbit would always be the same: the same constellations would appear at the same height in the sky if viewed from the same vantage point on earth. However, because of this gyroscope-like motion of earth's axis tracing out its own circle in the sky (while remaining at the same angle of obliquity to the ecliptic or plane of the earth's orbit around the sun), the background will slowly shift even if seen from the exact same point each year.

This phenomenon causes the "precession of the equinoxes" -- the shift in the background stars seen before the sun rises on the morning of the equinox each year. The motion is very slight -- a shift of only one degree (out of a complete circle of three hundred sixty degrees) in 71.6 years. Because a human lifespan is only about that long, it would be very difficult to detect without precise records taken over the course of many human lifetimes. Conventional historians do not even believe that mankind began to perceive and discuss the phenomenon of precession until the time of Hipparchus of Nicea (190 BC - 120 BC), and even then only imprecisely.

However, as de Santillana and von Dechend and others have demonstrated, the precessional number of 72 (the number of years for a single degree of precession, rounded to the nearest whole number for convenience in transmission through myth) appears in numerous legends of ancient cultures around the world. Multiplying 72 by the three hundred sixty degrees required to make a full circle (or a full circuit of the earth's axis, if the rate remains constant) yields 25,920 years. Using these two numbers (72 and 25,920) other factors can be derived, including the numbers 108, 216, 432 and 540 (this process is described in greater detail in the Mathisen Corollary). These are the principle precessional numbers.

Once one becomes aware of the precessional numbers, they turn up in the most surprising places. For example, in the Chinese martial arts (and in Chinese numerology in general), the number 108 is extremely significant. The long form of Tai Chi Chuan is traditionally understood to contain 108 movements, as are the forms of many other traditional martial arts. The legends of the Shaolin Temple also make frequent reference to the number 108.

Tthe Mathisen Corollary discusses other places that the precessional numbers surface. As discussed in the previous post, if precession was initiated by the events surrounding a cataclysmic global flood within human memory (as Walt Brown's hydroplate theory suggests, using extensive evidence from the geological record), then it would be understandable that ancient humans who lived immediately after that event both observed and recorded the effect of this new motion of the heavens.

As it turns out, the evidence from both archaeology and mythology suggest that this is exactly what they did.

Geoids, relative gravity differences, and the deep Pacific trenches

Here is a fascinating video from a recent article by Shireen Gonzaga on the excellent EarthSky website.

The article explains (and the video illustrates) the important concept of the relative gravity differences across earth's surface.

Generally speaking, all objects with mass have gravity. A bowling ball has more mass than a marble, but because the earth itself has so much more mass than either of them, we don't notice the force of gravity which pulls objects towards the center of either of them, because the small force vectors pulling towards their centers of mass are totally overwhelmed by the much larger force vectors pulling towards the earth's center of mass.

However, if we moved the bowling ball and the marble into space, far enough away from the earth or other planets, the force of gravity towards the center of the bowling ball and the marble could each be noticed and measured. In fact, if you placed the marble some distance away from the bowling ball, the force of gravity would pull the marble to the bowling ball due to the bowling ball's greater mass.

A person's mass doesn't change if you move him from the earth to the moon, but his weight on a scale would change. On the moon, which has less mass than the earth, the person would be pulled towards the center of the moon with less force than on earth he is pulled towards the center of the earth. Thus a scale beneath his feet on earth would register the greater pull and on the moon the same scale would register the lower pull -- he would weigh less on the moon, although his mass is the same (his mass "with clothing" might even be greater on the moon, if he is wearing a bulky pressurized space suit).

As the article and video above illustrate, this same phenomenon takes place on earth as well, in areas of slightly greater or lesser mass, although you would need an extremely sensitive scale to detect the differences (your bathroom scale at home won't cut it).

Near a very massive mountain, gravity will pull towards the mountain as well as towards the center of the earth, although the force vector towards the center of the earth will be much stronger than towards the mountain. Above the mountain, the force vector pulling on an object (such as a person) will be larger than above a less-dense area of the earth's crust (you can think of it as the force vector towards the mountain being added to or "stacked upon" the force vector towards earth's center). Thus, a very sensitive scale will register a slightly higher weight for a person above a massive mountain or a dense part of earth's crust, and will register a slightly lower weight for a person above a less-dense portion of earth.

This phenomenon is what the geoid in the video illustrates -- an exaggerated view of the areas of relatively greater and lower density and gravity on the earth, as recently measured by the very precise gradiometer onboard the Gravity Field and Steady-state Oceanic Circulation Explorer (or GOCE) satellite.

In his explanation of the hydroplate theory, Dr. Walt Brown explains that it has been known for decades that there is a mysterious deficiency in gravity beneath the deep ocean trenches of the Pacific. He points to an often-cited work by geologists Robert L. Fisher and Roger Revelle, "The Trenches of the Pacific," in which the authors state:

The most striking phenomenon associated with the trenches is a deficiency in gravity. [. . .] Measurements of gravity near trenches show pronounced departures from the expected values. These gravity anomalies are among the largest found on earth. It is clear that isostatic equilibrium does not exist near the trenches. The trench-producing forces must be acting [. . .] to pull the crust under the trenches downward! cited in Brown 122.

While this might seem to make sense, as a trench is something of the opposite of the mountain we considered above, it does not make sense at all under the theory of plate tectonics. According to tectonics, a trench is created when one massive plate subducts underneath another plate, creating a trench. These plates are literally miles thick (which calls into question whether one could really subduct under another in the first place), so there should actually be more mass where one plate dives beneath another plate, rather than less mass.

However, as Dr. Brown explains in pages 122 to 123 of the 7th edition of his book In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (available on his website), the finding of a deficiency in gravity associated with the trenches of the Pacific accords perfectly with hydroplate theory's explanation for their origin.

According to his theory, the floor of the Pacific was sucked towards earth's center as a result of the movement of earth's crust away from earth's center under what is today the Atlantic, on the opposite side of the earth, when water and tons of rock were removed by the initial rupture of that created the flood event. This explanation also accounts for the arc-and-cusp shape of many ocean trenches that are very difficult to explain under the tectonic theory (see brief discussion here).

What does all this have to do with the timeline of mankind's ancient past and the evidence of ancient civilizations?

If the features on the earth were not created by tectonics (and there is extensive evidence that calls the tectonic explanation into question), and if they were instead created by catastrophic forces (as Dr. Brown's theory posits and as extensive evidence seems to support), then these geologic features would not necessarily have required hundreds of millions of years to form but could in fact have been shaped within the course of weeks, months, or a few years.

This means that they could have been shaped at almost any time, even as recently as a few thousand or tens of thousands of years ago. (Note as an aside that this possibility radically undermines the Darwinian theory, in that Darwinian evolution requires vast amounts of time as a key ingredient in its formula of random mutation plus natural selection). If so, then the catastrophe could have occurred during human memory.

In fact, I argue that the evidence available to us from ancient myth and archaeology supports the assertion that this catastrophic event did take place during human memory.

Dr. Brown's theory explains that the event he posits would have initiated a major roll in the earth that changed the sky. This would help to explain why those who noticed this major change began to closely monitor the sky and came to understand the phenomenon of precession.

While not generally admitted by conventional theories of man's past, I argue (based on the work of others who have gone before, including the seminal work of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend) that ancient man understood the phenomenon of precession in impressive detail and precision and recorded that knowledge in his mythology and his most enduring physical monuments. The theory of Dr. Brown, which deals primarily with geology and which is therefore not often considered or understood by those studying anthropology or theories of ancient civilizations, could provide (in my analysis) an exciting new explanation for ancient man's grasp of this subtle and sophisticated astronomical concept.

I explain this new possibility in detail in the Mathisen Corollary.

Tune in this coming Friday, April 29

Tune in this Friday, April 29th, at 12:30 in the afternoon (Pacific Time) to KPRL AM 1230 for a conversation with David Warner Mathisen, the author of the Mathisen Corollary.

KPRL broadcasts from Paso Robles, California in San Luis Obispo County, and covers an area stretching from King City and Soledad in the north to Arroyo Grande and Santa Maria in the south, and to all the Central Coast towns of Cambria, Morro Bay, Los Osos, and Pismo Beach (see coverage area map below).

If you live outside of the local coverage area, you can listen live over the internet here.

The date of Easter

Easter day is approaching, and this year will fall on the same day for the Eastern and Western churches (due to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in the West in AD 1582, which was not adopted by Eastern churches who still calculate feast days using the older Julian calendar, the dates for Easter are often determined to be on different Sundays by the Eastern and Western churches).

The calculation of the date of Easter is geared to the March equinox. This is because Easter is related to Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which Christ was celebrating with his disciples at the Last Supper. The timing of Passover was ordained in Exodus 12:1-2 and is based on a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar.

The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac for 2005, edited by P. Kenneth Seidelmann of the United States Naval Observatory, explains the calculation of the date of Easter:

In the Gregorian calendar, the date of Easter is defined to occur on the Sunday following the ecclesiastical Full Moon that falls on or next after March 21. This should not be confused with the popular notion that Easter is the first Sunday after the first Full Moon following the vernal equinox. In the first place, the vernal equinox does not necessarily occur on March 21. In addition, the ecclesiastical Full Moon is not the same as the astronomical Full Moon -- it is based on tables that do not take into account the full complexity of lunar motion. As a result, the date of an ecclesiastical Full Moon may differ from that of the true Full Moon. However, the Gregorian system of leap years and lunar tables does prevent progressive departure of the tabulated data from the astronomical phenomena.

This year, the first ecclesiastical full moon after March 21 was that of April 17, which means that Easter will be this Sunday, April 24. The latest that Easter can possibly fall is April 25, which will occur in 2038, as explained in this article from Space.com by meteorologist and columnist Joe Rao. It also explains that, due to the fact that the obliquity of the ecliptic is steepest with respect to the horizon in the northern hemisphere at the spring equinox, the moon rises considerably later each night at this time (the sun, moon and planets travel on or near the ecliptic, which is the plane of the solar system -- the moon's path is not exactly on the ecliptic, or else we would have an eclipse every month).

If the concept of equinoxes or the ecliptic are confusing to you, they are detailed at great length and with numerous diagrams in the Mathisen Corollary.

The distinction between ecclesiastical full moons and astronomical full moons is not dealt with, because the celestial phenomena of greatest concern in the Mathisen Corollary are those which were encoded by very ancient civilizations in their mythologies and monuments (primarily dealing with solstices, equinoxes, and the phenomenon of precession). However, as the calculations regarding the date of Easter demonstrate, the importance of these heavenly phenomena continues to this day.

Review of Hamlet's Mill

I recently published this review of Hamlet's Mill: an essay on myth and the frame of time, by Girogio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (1969):

As many have noted, Hamlet's Mill is not an "easy" read, but it is an absolutely worthwhile experience not only to read but to re-read this seminal thesis on the transmission of ancient astronomical knowledge through mythology and legend. Perhaps the fact that a reader must wrestle with this text is part of the reason that it has generated so many fruitful inquiries and theories by later authors. The entire book is rich with ideas, many of which the authors drop and then pick up again and again later in the text, some of which are simply left for later analysts to pursue further on their own. Slice into it at any point and you will find a rich vein of material that can suggest new avenues for you to explore in the ancient history and literatures of the world. Sometimes an easy read or a text that hands you all of its answers and does the work for you is not "what the doctor ordered." Hamlet's Mill definitely makes more sense the second and even third time through. That in and of itself makes this book worth your while -- it's a gift that keeps on giving, a book you can keep on reading, even after you reach the end!

That being said, I have tried to make part of their thesis and some of the threads of their argument more clear in my own recent book, the Mathisen Corollary!

Hamlet's Mill was a seminal influence on my own work. Here are a few ways in which my text amplifies or takes different paths and reaches different conclusions:

• While the authors of Hamlet's Mill believe that all flood legends deal primarily with astronomical matters alone (ie are metaphors and not literal events), I believe there is strong evidence that these legends reveal a cataclysmic global flood during human memory, and that this flood event was associated with the start of the phenomenon known as precession, which is encoded in many of the same flood myths and almost always related to the flood in those myths.

• The explanation of the celestial phenomena is much more expansive than what is found in Hamlet's Mill. Instead of simply using the term "colures," for example, the Mathisen Corollary explains exactly what the colures are and why they turn with precession. All the important aspects of the precession of the equinoxes and the turning of the celestial "millstone" of heaven are explained in detail.
  

• New evidence of precessional numbers is discovered in certain archaeological finds at Teotihuacan (including a pecked cross opposite to the Way of the Dead, and in certain measurements pioneered by the indefatigable Hugh Harleston).

• New evidence of precessional numbers and themes in the ancient mithraea of the Persian Mysteries is discusssed, including some original observations I have never seen published anywhere else (in addition to discussion of the groundbreaking work by Professor David Ulansey).

• Geological evidence is presented in juxtaposition with archaeological and mythological evidence.

I would urge anyone interested in this subject to read de Santillana and von Dechend's Hamlet's Mill. It is not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one. If you want to make it a little easier on yourself, read the Mathisen Corollary first and then read Hamlet's Mill, but either way, Hamlet's Mill is essential and may start you on your own journeys of exploration!

What about earthquakes? Effect of Japan earthquake on earth's spin rotation supports hydroplate theory

One of the questions that is often asked when arguing that the theory of plate tectonics is incorrect is: "What about earthquakes?" It seems that tectonics provides a satisfying explanation for earthquakes, with its theory that earthquakes are caused by the collision of tectonic plates along fault lines.

However, as we have already discussed, there are significant problems with the tectonic theory, many of which are resolved under the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown. On the other hand, the hydroplate explains the geological phenomena as well or better than the tectonic theory -- including its explanation for earthquakes. As explained in a previous post, the hydroplate theory proposes that earthquakes are primarily caused by shifting rather than drifting, and that shifting involves a reduction of imbalances created during the cataclysmic global flood event.

In his 7th edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, Dr. Brown wrote:

The distinction between drifting and shifting is subtle but important. A box drifts on the sea, but a box shifts in the back of a truck. [. . .] The plate tectonic theory says continents steadily drift. The hydroplate theory says crustal plates drifted rapidly but briefly on a layer of high-pressure water near the end of the flood. This drifting produced imbalances. Since then, these and other imbalances caused by the flood sporadically shift continents and everything below.

[. . .]

Almost 90% of all earthquake energy is released under trenches. Earthquakes often occur near sloping planes, called Benioff zones, that intersect a trench. These earthquake zones enter the mantle at 35^o – 65^o angles below the horizontal and extend to depths of about 420 miles. 121-122.

Thus, the hydroplate theory posits that earthquakes are caused by the rearrangement of sections of the earth into positions of lower potential energy, creating a more compact and efficient arrangement. Dr. Brown explains that this action will tend to create a more compact earth. He uses the illustration of a figure skater to explain the principles whereby earthquakes can increase the spin rate of the earth:

A spinning body, such as a figure skater or the earth, spins faster if it suddenly becomes more compact about its spin axis. This skater starts a spin with outstretched arms. Then, as she pulls her arms in near her spin axis, she spins so fast she becomes a blur.

Gravity tries to make the earth as compact and round as possible. Earthquakes cause the earth to become more compact and spin slightly faster. 122.

The video above of figure skater Natalia Kanounnikova illustrates this principle.

Dr. Brown's explanation was published in 2001. The recent tragic earthquake in Japan appears to confirm this theory, in that scientists have told us that the earthquake has redistributed the earth's mass in such a way that the rate of rotation has increased, shortening each day by 1.8 microseconds (each microsecond is equal to one millionth of a second).

The fact that the earth's rotation speed increased is consistent with Walt Brown's predictions in the hydroplate theory -- as the "boxes" in the truck shift to positions of lower potential energy, or "settle," they have the effect of "tightening" the ball of the earth so that it spins faster. The result was in perfect accord with the figure skater imagery that he used in the 2001 edition of his text.

Note also that the massive earthquake was centered very close to a point where a deep undersea trench -- the Japan Trench, seen in the illustration below -- comes very close to the islands of Japan.

This is also in line with the explanation published by Dr. Brown in the comments quoted above, in which he explains that almost 90% of all earthquake energy is released under trenches.

Finally, note the characteristic "arc-and-cusp" pattern of the trenches in the Pacific (a distinct cusp is marked at the very top of the map, west of the Aleutian Trench). As Dr. Brown explains elsewhere in his theory, the arc-and-cusp pattern found in many parts of the Pacific basin is very difficult to explain using the tectonic theory, but accords perfectly with the hydroplate explanation.

This topic is discussed further in the Mathisen Corollary, which argues that the hydroplate theory helps explain many of the clues that point to the existence of an ancient advanced civilization. These clues from mankind's ancient past provide additional supporting evidence for the hydroplate theory. The recent catastrophic earthquake in Japan appears to provide additional supporting evidence as well.

Geothermal company's findings confirm prediction of Walt Brown's hydroplate theory

In the seventh edition of Dr. Walt Brown's explanation of the hydroplate theory entitled In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (2001), the author makes a straightforward prediction based on his theory.

"Beneath major mountains are large volumes of pooled saltwater," he predicts. The reason for such trapped water is that according to his theory, there was initially a large volume of water trapped beneath the earth's surface, which eventually escaped in a catastrophic rupture, leading to a global cataclysmic flood. Due to the water's forceful escape, the edges of today's continents were formed as sediments were blasted away, and eventually the removal of material led to an upward movement of the basement rock below. The continents slid away from this upward movement, towards a deep basin that formed opposite -- the Pacific basin. Eventually, they ground to a halt in a major "compression event" which Dr. Brown describes and which explains many features found on the earth's surface today.

Dr. Brown explains the fact that some of the water which did not escape should still be trapped in certain parts of the earth, deep underneath the surface: "As mountains buckled up, the remaining water under the plate tended to fill in large voids. Some pooled watershould still remain in cracked and contorted layers of rock. This would partly explain the reduced mass beneath mountains that gravity measurements have shown for over a century. Friction at the base of skidding hydroplates generated immense heat, enough to melt rock and produce huge volumes of magma. Crushing produced similar effects, as broken and extremely compressed blocks and particles slid past each other" (104-105).

Dr. Brown published those words in 2001. In this Forbes story from 2008, the findings of a geothermal company seem to powerfully confirm Dr. Brown's theory and prediction. Entitled "Journey to the Center of the Earth," the article describes an Australian company involved in geothermal energy production. As the diagram above shows, geothermal companies look for heat in the earth, usually at areas where there is magma under the surface (note that Dr. Brown discusses the creation of magma in the paragraph above). The company, Geodynamics in this case, will inject water into the earth where it will be heated, and force heated water up a different outlet well. This hot water will then be used to create steam that generates electricity.

The Forbes article from 2008 explains that this process does not always go exactly as planned, due in part to incorrect assumptions on the part of conventional geologists: "Geologists and engineers have a lot to learn about the rock formations they will encounter. Geodynamics was surprised to find hot, high-pressure water in the granite it first thought was relatively dry. While that is ultimately a pleasant discovery for the company, the surprise cost it dearly: The pressurized water led to the failure of Geodynamics' second well in 2005 and nearly bankrupted the infant company."

The discovery of hot, high-pressure water is exactly what Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory would expect to find in deep wells drilled into the types of areas he describes in the above paragraph. The fact that he predicted this sort of discovery in 2001 and that Forbes published a report of that taking place in 2008 is powerful confirmation of Dr. Brown's predictions and the validity of his theory.

Ruamahanga Woman

In July, 1999, in the final chapter of his book Ancient Celtic New Zealand, Martin Doutré (after presenting extensive archaeological evidence to support his assertions), wrote:

The most likely era when the first / bulk of the Egyptian / Mediterranean or related british Megalithic people came to New Zealand would be around 3000 BC - 2500 BC. It is my belief that continuous migrations followed beyond that era.
[. . .]
Apart from the core population of pre-Celtic people, several other groups found their way to New Zealand as well. One such group was the "red haired" people who, according to Alaskan Indian (Haida) tradition, came by way of the Bering Strait, down the coast of North America and out into the Pacific. Ancient African, Egyptian, Libyan and Meso-American peoples seem to have set up residence in New Zealand also, from a very early epoch. There is evidence to support the tradition of a Tibetan group finding their way to the Northern Hokianga region and setting up a sizable population there.
[. . .]
With developed maritime activity and two-way trading between Hemispheres for thousands of years, European and Mediterranean peoples have direct lineages extending to ancient New Zealanders. Skeletal remains, reposing in caves or buried in New Zealand, must be the direct forebears of some present-day Europeans and, in a general sense, the extended family and offshoot branches of the greater European family tree.
[. . .]
By British colonial times [. . .] There were still non-amalgamated pockets of the more ancient pre-Celtic / Celtic people living in isolation, but their continued existence was always tenuous and predicament dangerous. It had been a harrowing, tiresome and anxious few centuries of daily grasping at life, leading up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. 280-284

Over five years after the above passages were published, in October 2004, a young local of New Zealand's rural Wairarapa Valley was walking along the banks of the Ruamahanga River with his two dogs. As an article by Vaughan Yarwood in New Zealand Geographic number 96 (March - April 2009) describes it:

Stepping out onto a broad shoulder of river sand, studded with stone chip, he noticed what he took to be the upper surface of a whitish rock lit by the noonday sun. Getting closer he saw that it was bone. Such a thing was not uncommon hereabouts—he had often come across fragments, and even complete skulls, of cows and sheep. But as he scraped aside the stones and prised the object free, he realised with a shock that he held in his hands a human skull, discoloured with age, and bleached above and behind the right eye socket where it had lain exposed. There were several holes, one of them in the right temple, perhaps suggesting a violent death.

When the skull was turned over to the authorities, it was determined to be that of a European woman, aged 40 to 45 years. The shock came later, when the skull was submitted to radiocarbon dating, and determined to have belonged to someone who died around the year 1654, plus or minus 35 years (bracketing the year of death between 1619 - 1689, inclusive).

The difficulty this date poses for conventional history is the fact that no European woman was known to have been anywhere in or on New Zealand during that time period. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman (1603 - 1659) had sailed to New Zealand in 1642, but had not been able to land due to the violent reception his men received from the Maori warriors, who sailed out in war canoes (wakas) and killed four of his men when he first attempted to land. He also had no women on board.

No further European vessel is known to have made any contact whatsoever with New Zealand after Tasman's abortive 1642 visit for over 100 years, until the first voyage of James Cook, who sailed to New Zealand from Tahiti in 1769.

While conventional history has a major problem in explaining the skull of the Ruamahanga Woman (as she is sometimes called), the above alternative history proposed by Martin Doutré and backed up by completely different archaeological evidence (since he proposed it before the skull of Ruamahanga Woman was even discovered) has no difficulty explaining the presence of a European woman in the remote mountains upstream of the Ruamahanga in the 1600s.

In fact, the skull is exactly the kind of evidence one would expect to discover if Mr. Doutré's theory is correct. He believes that the remnants of the previous inhabitants of New Zealand were forced into hiding in remote mountain locations some time after the arrival of the Maoris in around AD 1300 (perhaps after some centuries of peaceful coexistence).

He even describes "unsubstantiated testimony" of a massacre of "captured groups" containing women and children who "were herded together and then summarily executed by a blow to the right side of the head" (283). Again, Mr. Doutré wrote those words in 1999, years before the discovery of a European female skull described as having a hole "in the right temple, perhaps suggesting a violent death."

As discussed in the Mathisen Corollary, the case of the Ruamahanga skull has been dismissed by conventional academics using a completely speculative story with no basis in evidence whatsoever.

In all fairness, even though it is a very powerful piece of evidence that something is amiss with the conventional narrative of mankind's ancient past, if it were the only piece of anomalous evidence, it might be appropriate to dismiss it. However, it is only one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of clues which together strongly support an alternative theory.

All mankind deserves to know about these things and to be allowed to draw conclusions for themselves. Unfortunately, few outside of New Zealand have probably even heard of the Ruamahanga Woman.

Have you heard of this artifact? The Grave Creek Stone

How many Americans are aware of the existence of the Grave Creek Stone (shown above, left), discovered in 1838 in Moundsville, West Virginia?

It is one of literally hundreds of artifacts found in North and South America containing very clear examples of Old World writing, including forms of Iberian, Phoenician, Ogham, Libyan, and even Hieratic Egyptian. Above, the writing on the Grave Creek Stone is compared to an example of ancient Phoenician Iberian writing on the Nora Stele found in Sardinia and dated to the ninth century BC.

While those who refuse to countenance the possibility of contact between known ancient civilizations and the Americas can declare each of these isolated artifacts as hoaxes or frauds, the weight of the evidence of all of them taken together is more difficult to ignore.

Further arguments for believing that at least some of these New World artifacts are not fraudulent are presented in the Mathisen Corollary, including the presence of writing in alphabets that had not even been deciphered when the artifacts were discovered but which can now be translated, as well as connections with patterns from ancient mythology which were not explored in detail until decades after some of the artifacts were discovered.

Review of Graham Hancock's Underworld

The following is a review I wrote of Graham Hancock's 2002 book, Underworld: the Mysterious Origins of Civilization.

Although Graham Hancock's Underworld has been criticized as being "lengthy" or "disorganized," the sites he examines are unified by their contributions to his theory of a more ancient date for civilization than conventionally accepted. Further, the areas of inquiry in this book are essential for any student of mankind's ancient history. Perhaps each could have been a book of its own, but none of them can be ignored: the evidence of man-made ruins at depths of over 75 feet, the mysterious megalithic temples of Malta, the subject of the portolan maps and charts, and the ancient Jomon culture of Japan.

While I believe that the series of events posited in Walt Brown's hydroplate theory better explains both the mechanism of the rise of sea levels and the reason why sites such as Mnajdra on Malta continue to maintain precise alignments with the solstice sunrise after at least 5,000 years, Mr. Hancock has done every student of alternative historical explanation a service by covering these less well-known archaeological treasures as well as the breaking story of the underwater ruins. If critics would like a book that delves into them in a different manner, they should write their own -- Mr. Hancock has certainly provided an excellent jumping-off point and one that belongs in the library of any student of the mystery of mankind's ancient past.

As noted, I believe that the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown provides a more rigorous explanation for the phenomenon of a rising ocean level, some centuries after the cataclysmic global flood.

As Dr. Brown explains in greater detail in his book, immediately after the flood, the sea levels were significantly lower than they are today, but eventually rose due to the sinking of the continents. I also discuss this mechanism in conjunction with the discovery of underwater ruins in the Mathisen Corollary.

Nevertheless, while disagreeing on the precise details, I am in agreement with Mr. Hancock that the evidence he provides in Underworld clearly indicates a rise in ocean levels within human memory. His analysis of early maps and navigational charts, as well as of the contours of the undersea terrain off the coast of India, the Maldives, Malta, and elsewhere provides powerful confirmation of this important but little-known fact of human history.

Furthermore, his discussion of the megalithic temples of Malta, of aspects of ancient Hindu culture, and his examination of the mysterious Jomon of ancient Japan are all important and lesser-known clues in the search for the truth of mankind's ancient past.

Mr. Hancock is an engaging writer, an expansive intellect, and a courageous promoter of theories that he knows will invite critics and personal attacks. He is not afraid to go in a variety of directions and to correct his previous hypotheses when he uncovers new evidence that cause him to reconsider or revise his conclusions. Because of his many gifts and his ceaseless inquiring, he has become one of the most well-known voices for the idea that mankind's past is dramatically different than previously believed.

While different people examining this broad subject will arrive at different conclusions and will surely have intellectual disagreements over various points, Mr. Hancock should be viewed as a strong ally and in many ways a true pioneer in the cause of bringing mankind closer to the truth of our distant past.

The hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown

The connection between geology and the ancient history of mankind cannot be overlooked.

The currently-dominant theory of plate tectonics was ridiculed for decades when first proposed by scientists such as Alfred Wegener (1880 - 1930) in the early 1900s. Now it is so widely accepted that academic professionals who question it jeopardize their careers.

But plate tectonics is wrong. It may have been an improvement over previous theories, and it clearly seems to explain many phenomena on earth, but other phenomena -- some not even natural phenomena -- clearly illuminate its fatal flaws.

Ancient monuments such as Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, the Caracol at Chichen Itza, the megalithic passages at Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, the megalithic temples of Malta such as Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, and many others around the world contain precise alignments with true north, with the rays of sunrise on the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days, and with the transit points of certain important stars.

Many of these monuments are many thousands of years old (Stonehenge and the megalithic temples of Malta are dated by conventional historians to 3000 BC and earlier, and the Great Pyramid is dated by conventional historians to a period around 2580 BC). If the theory of plate tectonics is correct, in which we are told that the continental plates are in constant gradual motion, drifting by several millimeters to as much as an inch a year, then why are all these monuments still so precisely aligned after thousands of years of drift?

It is AD 2011 as this is published, which makes the temples of Malta and Stonehenge well over 5,000 years old, and the Great Pyramid around 4,590 years old according to conventional dating (it may well be much older). Even at half an inch a year, 5,000 years of movement would equate to over four hundred feet.

If one or two of these sites happened to be on a particularly stable part of the globe (if such a place can be imagined in the theory of plate tectonics), that excuse can hardly be used for every single ancient and astronomically-aligned site on several different continents.

The continuing precise alignment of ancient man-made sites is not the only piece of evidence that demonstrates the grave errors with the tectonic theory, but it seems to be a particularly damning one. Because the connection between ancient history and geology is rarely made and often overlooked, this obvious problem with tectonics goes unnoticed.

There is, however, a geologic theory that has no difficulty with the ancient sites described above, and yet can also decipher many of the geological puzzles that plate tectonics was created to resolve.

That theory is the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown. The hydroplate theory is fully explained on Dr. Brown's website, the Center for Scientific Creationism, and in his book, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood.

According to the hydroplate theory, the Mid-Altlantic Ridge and the continental shelves (clearly seen in the above image from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) were formed by the violent escape of massive flows of water. The jetting water eroded tons of material (which later spread across the earth and was sorted into the sediments we see today in many geologic sites such as the Grand Canyon). As weight was removed due to this jetting action of water escaping, the underlying crust sprang upwards, causing the plates carrying the continents to begin sliding away from this ridge towards the Pacific basin.

The Pacific basin itself was formed as an opposite reaction to the upward springing action of the Atlantic floor. These sliding plates eventually ground to a stop, creating buckling that formed the mountain ranges we see today. The intense friction particularly along the leading edge of these formerly sliding plates created magma and volcanic activity, which was more pronounced in the past but continues to this day.

According to Dr. Brown's theory, earthquakes are not the result of drifting plates but of continuing settling and shifting of these plates, just as heavy boxes in the back of a truck will occasionally shift and find a position of lower potential energy (Dr. Brown explains all of these phenomena in much greater detail, particularly earthquakes, which fall into different categories based on different causes, all of them understandable using the hydroplate model).

Not only does this theory explain literally hundreds of geological phenomena around the world more satisfactorily than competing theories such as tectonics (many of which Dr. Brown details in his book), but it also creates a paradigm shift in our understanding of the clues from mankind's ancient past. The hydroplate theory can unlock some of the mysteries of ancient archaeology and mythology.

The Mathisen Corollary applies Dr. Brown's theory to the human evidence of an ancient civilization that possessed a deep understanding of precession and encoded that understanding in their myths and archaeological monuments.

Anyone who is interested in unraveling the mystery of mankind's ancient past should carefully consider the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown.