image: article by Bibhu Dev Misra, "12,000-year-old Petroglyphs in India Depict Sacred Symbols of Global Importance", published March 28, 2019 on GrahamHancock.com.
Researcher and analyst of ancient history Bibhu Dev Misra has just published an updated and expanded article exploring the extensive ancient petroglyphs located in the western part of India which he previously discussed in this post on his website Myths, Symbols, and Mysteries.
The latest article, entitled "12,000-year-old Petroglyphs in India Depict Sacred Symbols of Global Importance" is a must-read discussion of a discovery with tremendous implications for our understanding of human history: I recommend going to it and reading through it carefully before continuing here, and clicking on all the images in the article in order to examine them in detail.
In the article, Bibhu analyzes some of the over 1,000 petroglyphs which have been discovered at 52 sites thus far in the state of Maharashtra near the cities of Ratnagiri and Rajapur beginning in about 2012. This article, which is linked in Bibhu's discussion, provides some background on the way this extensive body of petroglyphs was uncovered by a group of dedicated individuals called Adgalnavarche Konkan, or "Unexplored Konkan," started by electrical engineer and amateur archaeologist Sudhir Risbood, who remembered seeing a petroglyph near his village of Nigali outside of Ratnagiri while still a boy in school, described as being "full of curlicues and interlocking circles," and later came across other such rock art while assisting with projects at the site of the historic Aryadurga temple outside of Rajapur.
Scholars now suggest that these petroglyphs may date to approximately 10,000 BC, based on tools which have also been discovered. Such a date would place them in the same time period as the amazing archaeological site known today as Gobekli Tepe, which was deliberately buried in material that has been dated to about 8,000 BC, indicating that the site itself is older than that (see for example the discussion in Robert Schoch's Forgotten Civilization, page 42). The creation of such petroglyphs appears to have been practiced worldwide and the practice is very ancient.
Bibhu Dev Misra's analysis of these recently-uncovered ancient petroglyphs in Maharashtra is extraordinarily important because he perceived that artwork displays distinctive patterns which are found in other cultures literally around the globe!
For example, the article linked above describes petroglyphs from India which exhibit patterns which have been called the "Master of Animals" or the "Mistress of Animals," as well as the pattern of the "Staff God" (and provides photographs with examples) which are found in artwork from ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and even at the mysterious site of Tiahuanaco in South America!
Bibhu also perceived that another recently-uncovered petroglyph in Maharashtra displays an outline with clear similarities to the "Winged Scarab" motif which was extremely prevalent in ancient Egypt.
As he correctly points out, the discovery of such symbology in petroglyphs which are thought to date back to 10,000 BC has tremendous ramifications for our understanding of humanity's ancient history, and provides supporting evidence to the analysis of other researchers who have been documenting and discussing other types of evidence from around the world which shows that the conventional paradigm of ancient history is gravely flawed and in need of radical revision.
In Bibhu's article, he writes:
It boggles the mind to think that the Winged Scarab symbol, which was so popular in ancient Egypt, has been in existence since the very beginning of the post-glacial epoch. How did such esoteric concepts and symbology appear at such an early age?
Surely, this could not have been the work of primitive hunter-gatherers. Who carved these remarkable petroglyphs, and for what purpose?
Is it possible that the Winged Scarab symbol encodes the cosmic wisdom of an erstwhile "Golden Age" civilisation that perished during the cataclysms of the Younger Dryas period (10,900 BCE - 9700 BCE) when our planet was struck by multiple fragments of a giant comet?
Equally astonishing is another discovery made by Bibhu Dev Misra regarding these remarkable petroglyphs: the depiction of zodiac symbology. As seen in the image at the top of this post, and discussed further in Bibhu's article, one of the newly-uncovered Maharashtra petroglyphs clearly indicates the Fishes of Pisces!
This discovery is of tremendous importance, because as I have documented in several books totaling over 3,000 pages collectively (thus far), as well as in this blog which to date has well over 1,100 posts, and in dozens of videos, an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that the world's ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories from cultures on every inhabited continent and island of our planet preserve an extremely ancient system of celestial metaphor in which the various figures and events described in those myths are based on very specific constellations in the night sky, including of course the important zodiac constellations.
This evidence strongly suggests the existence of some now-forgotten predecessor culture of tremendous antiquity, predating even the most ancient civilizations known to conventional history (since the system of celestial metaphor is already in evidence in the most-ancient writings of cultures such as those of ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and ancient India). The presence of petroglyphs which may date back millennia before Egypt and which clearly invoke constellations such as the Fishes of Pisces, provides powerful supporting evidence for the existence of such a "predecessor culture" which ascribed tremendous importance to the constellations of the heavens -- and which used the same system of envisioning the constellations with which we are still familiar today, the same system of envisioning the constellations which also appears to form the foundation of the ancient myths and sacred stories worldwide (in spite of the fact that various cultures around the world have their own different ways of seeing and describing the constellations -- their myths can be shown to be built upon a single worldwide system which uses this common way of envisioning the constellations).
Note that some critics who wish to deny or refute the evidence that the world's myths could be built upon a common system of celestial metaphor have argued that the zodiac constellations with which we are familiar today is a relatively recent invention, possibly dating back to about 500 BC but not earlier. I have previously discussed this incorrect assertion, and provided some examples of why it is false, in a blog post from early in 2015 entitled "The 'Recent Zodiac' Canard: or, One of the most common arguments used by opponents of astrotheology, and why it is almost certainly wrong."
At the time I wrote that post, the numerous Maharashtra petroglyphs had not yet come to light. However, Bibhu Dev Misra's insightful observation that these ancient petroglyphs contain a clear depiction of the zodiac sign of Pisces is obviously of enormous importance, because it demonstrates that the zodiac constellations were known and employed at an extremely early date -- possibly as early as 10,000 BC (over 12,000 years ago)!
And, as Bibhu correctly argues in his article, there is a very real possibility that these petroglyphs preserve the remnants of a system of even greater antiquity, which was destroyed by some cataclysm of world-shaking proportions (recall the fact that the extensive and precisely-cut stone circles of Gobekli Tepe, covering an area of some 22 acres at least, was deliberately buried for some unknown reason, a project which would have required a massive amount of effort and time).
And, as Bibhu Dev Misra also notes with his insightful analysis of the Maharashtra petroglyphs, the depiction of the Pisces Fishes is by no means the only outline in the artwork suggesting a constellation in the night sky, and what's more a constellation as envisioned by the familiar constellation-envisioning system we still use to this day. His most-recent article published this week at Graham Hancock's website argues that one of the petroglyphs displays distinctive characteristics of the constellation Aquarius -- an identification with which I also agree:
image: article by Bibhu Dev Misra, "12,000-year-old Petroglyphs in India Depict Sacred Symbols of Global Importance", published March 28, 2019 on GrahamHancock.com.
As Bibhu points out in the graphics above, the figure he identifies as Aquarius is found in the proximity of fish-outlines which may indicate the constellations Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish, located immediately below -- that is to say, south of -- Aquarius in the heavens) and the Fishes of Pisces which is a constellation eastward of Aquarius in the sky and which is the zodiac constellation in which the sun rises after it rises in Aquarius for about a month.
Additionally, although not specifically pointed out in Bibhu's labeled image above, one of the most distinctive features of the constellation Aquarius is the constellation's extended and very straight "forward leg" which is a feature of the constellation that plays an important role in many different Star Myths around the world. This distinctive straight "forward leg" shows up in myth in various ways, sometimes as a spear which is entering into the side of a figure (or which has already gone through a figure from the back and is now coming out of the gut), or as a spear with which a figure is trying to spear a great fish (because of the location of the Southern Fish, just below Aquarius), or even as the male sexual organ (such as in the story of the nakedness of Noah following the planting of the first vineyard, in the story of Shem, Ham and Japheth found in the book of Genesis).
Note that in the petroglyph shown in Bibhu's analysis above, the figure that Bibhu identifies as Aquarius has been depicted by the ancient artist with a distinctly straight "forward leg," matching this important aspect of the constellation itself. Below is an outline of Aquarius showing the actual stars themselves, with the connecting lines as suggested by H. A. Rey in his important 1952 book The Stars: A New Way to See Them (which we might suggest could also have been titled "The Stars: An Extremely Ancient Way to See Them"!).
Based on this outline of Aquarius with the distinctive forward leg, I would also suggest that there may be an Aquarius-shape indicated on the large petroglyph shown at the top of Bibhu's recent article, among the markings within the body of an enormous elephant. Note that once again the ancient artist has depicted a number of fish-like outlines in the vicinity of this Aquarius-like figure, one of which is in a location to suggest the Southern Fish (Piscis Austrinus):
Based on this outline of Aquarius with the distinctive forward leg, I would also suggest that there may be an Aquarius-shape indicated on the large petroglyph shown at the top of Bibhu's recent article, among the markings within the body of an enormous elephant. Note that once again the ancient artist has depicted a number of fish-like outlines in the vicinity of this Aquarius-like figure, one of which is in a location to suggest the Southern Fish (Piscis Austrinus):
Original image source (top image): article by Bibhu Dev Misra, "12,000-year-old Petroglyphs in India Depict Sacred Symbols of Global Importance", published March 28, 2019 on GrahamHancock.com.
Note that in the above image, not only is there a figure depicting in a posture which may be evocative of the outline of Aquarius (with the "forward leg" and a fish-ouline directly below), but there is also a quadruped depicted just above and adjacent to the possible Aquarius outline. This quadruped is in fact in the correct location to indicate the constellation Pegasus, if the human outline above the fish outline does indeed represent another Aquarius figure among the petroglyphs (in addition to the one that Bibhu Dev Misra has already identified). I have indicated the "quadruped-outline" which is in the correct location for Pegasus in the image above, and again in the close-up image shown below. Note that the only problem with this identification is that the head of the quadruped outline in the petroglyph is pointing in the "downward" direction while the Pegasus outline in the sky is envisioned with the head upwards (in the outlining-system suggested by H. A. Rey, which I have used in the star-chart shown above).
Despite this reversal of orientation for the outline that may suggest Pegasus, the possibility that we are looking at a representation of the region of the sky containing Aquarius, Pegasus and the Southern Fish in the ancient petroglyph shown above appears to be likely. Here is a closer look at that region of the petroglyph, along with a star-chart of the section of the night sky containing Aquarius and friends:
Clearly, Bibhu Dev Misra's analysis of these Maharashtra petroglyphs has uncovered some celestial correspondences of incredible importance, which provide strong and compelling evidence that the constellation outlines which we still know today were known many millennia ago -- in fact, many millennia before the rise of the most ancient civilizations known to conventional history!
The presence of these outlines adds supporting evidence to the arguments that the world's ancient myths are based on the very same constellations, which form the characters and events described in the sacred stories from cultures around the world. The figures of Aquarius and the Southern Fish, for example, appear in the miracle of the coin in the mouth of the fish which is recorded in the gospel accounts, as I discuss in a 2016 post entitled "The Tribute Money in the Mouth of the Fish."
The figure of Aquarius pouring water over the Southern Fish also appears to form the basis for the baptism scene of Jesus by John the Baptist (John the Baptist can with great certainty be identified with the outline of Aquarius, as I have documented in many previous posts and videos, including this one, this one, and this one).
Lest any object that ancient petroglyphs cannot possibly use a system of outlining suggested in a book by author H. A. Rey in 1952, I would point out that there are countless other pieces of ancient artwork which can clearly be shown to be based upon the same outlining system, which is obviously very ancient. A tiny sample of such ancient artwork would include the images of Heracles on countless pieces of ancient pottery, such as those shown here, or the artwork in the amazing Pylos Combat Agate which was uncovered in 2017 from a 3,500-year old tomb of a warrior in Pylos on the western coast of the Peloponnese in Greece and which I discuss in a video entitled "The Pylos Combat Agate among the Infinite Realms."
Indeed, as I pointed out in an earlier blog post regarding Bibhu Dev Misra's October 2018 discussion of these Maharashtra petroglyphs, the outlines of the "Master of Animals" or "Mistress of Animals" or "Staff God" or "Winged Scarab" can all be shown to be based upon specific constellations in the heavens as well!
And, Bibhu's insights regarding these petroglyphs of ancient India don't stop there either, as he has also pointed out that some of the petroglyphs appear to depict animals which are not found in India and have not been known there in recorded history, including a possible depiction of a kangaroo! You can see the outline of the possible kangaroo at the bottom of the original image above (the image in which I have focused on a small subsection which may depict the outlines of Aquarius, Piscis Austrinus, and even Pegasus), and you can read more about the outline of the kangaroo and other animals not indigenous to India in Bibhu's recent article.
As Bibhu insightfully notes in his article, there are legends in India of a lost Golden Age at the end of which certain islands sank beneath the waves. Is it possible that there were dry-land connections between south Asia (including India) and other continents (including Africa and even Australia) in a bygone epoch, and that rising sea levels covered these land-bridges at the end of that "Golden Age"? Graham Hancock has documented plenty of archaeological and geological evidence which suggests that such an event may have taken place, including in his 2002 book Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization. Mr. Hancock, of course, has been tracking down and analyzing the evidence pointing to the existence of a Lost Civilization for decades.
The depiction of animals not indigenous to India in these ancient petroglyphs may very well be an additional clue pointing to their extreme antiquity. Note that the cultures of the Indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia are thought to have been isolated from other people-groups for many thousands of years prior to the 1700s when the continent was "rediscovered." Nevertheless, their ancient myths and sacred traditions can also be shown to have their foundation upon the same worldwide celestial system (including a myth in which a powerful fisherman with a spear hunts a tremendous fish with glowing eyes, which is almost certainly based upon Aquarius and Piscis Austrinus in the heavens).
The world owes a debt of gratitude to Sudhir Risbood and the other members of Adgalnavarche Konkan for uncovering these extensive ancient petroglyphs of Maharashtra. The world also owes a debt of gratitude to Bibhu Dev Misra for his penetrating analysis of the figures depicted in the ancient images, and their significance to our understanding of humanity's ancient past. And the world similarly owes a debt of gratitude to Graham Hancock for his tireless and ongoing efforts to discover the truth about our history and for his support of other researchers who are following his lead in this critically important subject.
These petroglyphs join an already-compelling (and I would argue, conclusive) body of evidence which points to the existence of a now-forgotten ancient culture of tremendous sophistication and knowledge, remnants of which can still be detected in ruins around the world, as well as in the myths and sacred stories preserved in far-flung cultures on continents and islands far removed from one another.
The fact that all these myths diverge so widely from one another in surface detail but still preserve evidence of a common origin may indicate that after whatever cataclysm brought an end to that now-forgotten culture, the memory of the system was preserved by people who were then isolated from one another -- which is just what these petroglyphs from India seem to suggest as well, based on the outlines that Bibhu Dev Misra has noticed and analyzed.
This is a discovery of tremendous importance which should be more widely publicized and discussed.
