September equinox, 2021

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The earth-sun relationship is about to reach the point we call the September equinox, which is the fall equinox for the northern hemisphere (and the spring equinox for the southern). This year, the September equinox occurs at 12:21 pm Pacific or 3:21 pm Eastern time in North America, which is 7:21 pm UTC or 1921, on 22 September.

As we go through the cycle of the year, the relationship of hours of daylight to hours of darkness changes, as a function of the tilt of our planet's axis of rotation relative to the earth-sun plane: when the North Pole is pointed more towards the sun, then the northern hemisphere will have more of its daily rotation in view of the sun, and thus the percentage of the day's rotation during which the sun is above the horizon will be greater than the percentage of the rotation during which the sun is below the horizon, and thus days will be longer than nights. 

When the North Pole is pointed away from the sun, then the situation will be reversed, and hours of darkness will be greater than hours of daylight during each of our daily rotations on our axis.

The two equinoxes represent the two "crossing points" at which we cross from the half of the year in which days are longer to the half of the year in which nights are longer, or vice versa (from the half with nights longer back to the half with days longer). 

Sticklers for detail will point out that days are still just a bit longer than nights on the actual equinox days, because of some technicalities related to the size of the sun-disc itself and other factors related to atmospheric bending of light around the curvature of the earth, which we need not go into in this particular post -- the actual moment of equinox in either direction (from "days-longer" to "nights-longer," or from "nights-longer" back to "days-longer") is actually determined by the moment that the sun crosses over the celestial equator twice each year, once on its way north (towards the days-longer half for the northern hemisphere) and once more on its way south (towards the nights-longer half for the northern hemisphere).

These two crossing-point days, as well as the two turning-point days at which the sun reaches its highest arc (the summer solstice, at which point we have the longest day of the year) and its lowest arc (the winter solstice, at which point we have the shortest day of the year), form the primary "framework" of the annual cycle: four important milestones which are encoded in ancient myth worldwide, indicated by ancient stone monuments worldwide, and imbued with esoteric significance by which they take on meaning which relates to our struggle in this life, symbolizing aspects of our own plunge into incarnation and the subsequent loss of connection with our own Self -- and the process of recovering that connection.

Alvin Boyd Kuhn describes his interpretation of the esoteric significance of these four great stations of the annual cycle (the two solstices and the two equinoxes), in a passage I have cited in numerous previous blog posts, such as this one.

In addition to the significance that Kuhn argues in that passage, relating to the plunge of the divine spark of spirit into the confusing tangle of material incarnation, I would argue that the ancient myths can be shown to also use this same cycle for illustrating the related "burial" of and alienation from Self -- and for showing us the path towards recovery of Self and repair of that state of alienation.

Below is a diagram I've made (and shown on several podcasts) which uses a diagram of the annual cycle in the form of a zodiac wheel (this zodiac diagram was published in 1618 in a book by Johann Daniel Mylius), to which I have added the names of the zodiac signs, a horizontal line connecting the two points of equinox (one on the "way down" to winter solstice, and one on the "way back up" to summer solstice), and a vertical line connecting the two solstices (winter at the bottom and summer at the top), along with labels for the half of the year in which days are longer than nights for the northern hemisphere (the top half of the cycle) and for the half in which days are shorter (the bottom half):

The point of September equinox, which is the fall equinox for the northern hemisphere, was imbued with significance in the ancient system that relates to our plunge into the relative "darkness" of incarnation (as explained by Alvin Boyd Kuhn in the quotation linked above) but also -- according to my analysis and my contention -- with significance that relates to our plunge into alienation from Self, and our need to recover Self.

The ancient myths given to all the different cultures of the world thus serve as a map for our journey of recovery and healing -- but this knowledge has for the most part been deliberately obscured and even deliberately suppressed, by those who prefer to increase our alienation from who we are rather than to help us to recover that relationship with Self.

The world's ancient wisdom, preserved in the myths, has been deliberately and systematically attacked and destroyed (witness for example the burning of the priceless and irreplaceable Maya codexes by the invading Europeans upon coming to the Americas during the fifteenth and sixteenth and subsequent centuries).

Ancient sites around the world were often aligned to the great stations of the year, including the solstices and equinoxes and also the "cross-quarter days" which fall in between those four major stations of the solstices and equinoxes. 

Above is an image of the famous Intihuatana at Macchu Picchu in the continent of South America -- a stone whose name means "the hitching-post of the sun" or the "tying-up place of the sun" or "sun-tying-up-place."

It is carved out of the bedrock itself, and situated such that the sun passes directly over it on the dates of equinox, such that it casts no shadow at mid-day on those two days (as the sun reaches its highest point on its daily journey).

There were other such Intihuatana stones in the Americas, but the invading Spanish priests of literalist Christianity systematically destroyed every Intihuatana they could find. The only reason that the sun's hitching-post at Macchu Picchu survived is that Macchu Picchu is so high up and so remote that the sacred site itself was not found by the invaders.

In addition to all these undeniable historical examples of the suppression and destruction of received cultural tradition related to the myths and to the ancient wisdom which used the heavenly cycles as a framework for conveying esoteric knowledge, we can also point to paradigms which are deliberately taught as though absolutely settled and beyond question, but which themselves appear in some cases to be dubious and thus to be very much worth questioning and examining.

For example, there are extremely ancient sites around the world which contain undeniable alignments to the sun's position on solstices or equinoxes -- sites which retain these alignments even today, many thousands of years later -- and yet we are told that the tectonic plates which carry our continents are "drifting" by about 2.5 cm (or one inch) per year in different directions relative to one another. If this is so, then how is it that sites such as Stonehenge (built between 3,500 and 5,000 years ago), and Mnajdra (thought to have been built over 5,100 years ago), and Newgrange (thought to have been constructed around 5,200 years ago) -- all of which contain precise alignments to sunrises and sunsets on the equinoxes and solstices -- have been able to retain those alignments over a period in which they should have drifted by more than 5,100 inches (over 425 feet) on the moving continental plates?

Below is a model of the distinctive ancient structures at Mnajdra on Malta, with red lines drawn upon the model itself to indicate the alignments of the site to the beams of the sun on the days of the solstices and the two equinoxes: these alignments remain to this day, and yet the structures themselves are extremely ancient, probably more than 5,100 years old!

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Is it possible that the continents drifted, but that they did so in the distant past -- perhaps due to an enormous cataclysm of some sort -- and that they are not drifting by anything near one inch per year (or even one-half an inch per year, which would still mean Mnajdra would have drifted by well over 200 feet (without losing its precise alignments!)? 

What would be the point of obscuring the evidence for some enormous catastrophe in our ancient past? 

Another curious fact worthy of considering on the equinoxes (and solstices as well, for that matter) is the conventional explanation for the solstices and equinoxes themselves. In the modified version of the Copernican model which we are all taught (and which is also conventionally held to be "beyond question"), it is posited that our earth is orbiting around the sun in such a manner that the North Pole remains oriented in the same direction during the entire cycle of the year (as does the South Pole), during which time the earth is hurtling in a near-circle around our solar star.

This assertion is in itself somewhat curious: what principles of physics can be invoked to explain why a planet orbiting at a high rate of speed would hurtle around its orbit in such a way that its northern pole stays pointed in the same direction the entire time?

Below is a typical diagram depicting the conventional model, in which earth's axial pole remains fixed even as the planet itself makes its complete orbit:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Look at the diagram and imagine our earth -- a planet of not inconsiderable mass -- hurtling around the sun once per year while the alignment of the axis (and the direction to which the north and south poles is pointing) never changes in any appreciable manner. 

Is it possible that this model is incorrect, and that someone is nevertheless forcing it upon everyone (and ridiculing anyone who dares to question it)?

Researcher Simon Shack has published an entire book filled with evidence which points to grave problems with the traditional solar system model, in which he argues that the earth does not in fact orbit the sun but rather that our sun is part of a binary pair, and that the sun is performing an orbital dance with that binary partner and in doing so that the sun goes around earth as part of its binary dance.

Admittedly, his proposed model may be at odds with some aspects of traditional Newtonian physics, but it would seem that an orbit such as that proposed for earth in the conventional model, in which the North Pole remains "locked" and pointing in one direction even as the entire planet speeds around the sun in a full circle, also has some points of contradiction with Newtonian physics.

If our sun is actually in a binary relationship, either in the manner proposed by Simon Shack or perhaps in a manner proposed by other researchers, why would anyone want to obscure that information and insist upon the conventional model we are taught?

These are important questions to ponder -- and particularly appropriate subjects to occupy some portion of our reflection on the day of equinox.

If the ancient wisdom uses the heavenly cycles as part of an esoteric system relating to the topic of alienation from our Self, and recovery of Self, then we should at least consider the possibility that certain people might want to keep the majority of men and women from that knowledge, in order to keep them alienated and divided against themselves.

But the myths still offer us their ancient message, one in which the equinoxes and solstices play a critical role. On this September equinox for the year 2021, I hope that you will have the opportunity to reflect on their positive and profound teachings and incorporate their message into your life.

Welcome to new visitors from Kesenya Moore's Guiding Star Astrology channel (and to returning friends!)

Huge thank-you to Kesenya Moore for inviting me over to her popular Guiding Star Astrology channel for a wonderful conversation regarding stars, myths, and their impact on our lives today! 

Welcome to anyone visiting for the first time as a result of seeing that chat -- and of course welcome back to returning friends!

Above is the video of our interview, which you can also find by following this link. 

This conversation was recorded on 09 September 2021.  

If you don't believe that the positions of the earth relative to the sun and moon as well as the positions of the planets could possibly impact any aspect of our day-to-day life here on this planet, think about the fact that the shape of a building can have a very significant affect on how we feel (a soaring classical or neo-classical academic building imparting a very different vibration than a cramped classroom in a low-ceilinged modern shoebox school such as the type that have been inflicted on public-school students in California for the past fifty or so years). I wrote a little about this subject long ago in this blog post.

If the relative height of the ceiling and the proportions of a building can have such an impact, imagine the impact that the positioning of enormous planets such as Jupiter and Saturn might have! And, while thinking about these things, you might also consider the fact that the taste and experience you get when drinking a glass of wine or beer or fine whiskey is significantly impacted by the shape and material of the vessel out of which you choose to drink it (as discussed in this early blog post).

And then there is this post entitled "The gods are real," which explores an important study from the early 1950s based upon evidence collected by the RCA company, indicating that the arrangement of other planets in our solar system appears to have a direct impact on the propagation of long-distance radio waves traveling from North America to Europe or from Europe to North America.

I very much appreciated Kesenya's insights and perceptive questions during this interview and I think you will find that our interaction brings out some discussion that you may not have heard in any previous interviews or videos.

I very much hope you will enjoy our conversation, and if so please send Kesenya some positive feedback and consider following her work!

You already know the official 9/11 narrative is a lie, whether you admit it yet or not

In a recent speech regarding the events unfolding in Afghanistan, the president of the United States repeated the assertion that the events of September 11, 2001 provide the justification for the twenty-year military occupation of that country and all the death and destruction and human misery which has resulted from that twenty-year war. 

Beginning at about the one-minute-and-nine-second mark in this video of his speech from 16 August, 2021, Joe Biden says:

I want to remind everyone how we got here, and what America's interests are in Afghanistan. We went to Afghanistan almost twenty years ago, with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again.

That the American people, and the people of the world, did not stage massive protests in response to such a demonstrably false statement by the president, and that the elected representatives of the people currently serving in Congress did not voice vehement objection to that statement and demand its retraction, is an absolute disgrace -- but of course the bigger disgrace is the past twenty years in which the people and their elected representatives have failed to stop the illegal military actions that have issued from September 11, long after the time when it became blatantly obvious to everyone that the "official" narrative of that day's crimes cannot possibly be true and is based on lies.

Recently, I have heard friends express disbelief at the level of extreme and harsh lockdowns which are being imposed on the people of Australia right now, and the way that the people of Australia have not "fought back" against the extraordinary curfews and restrictions on movement that are now in effect. 

"That would never happen here in the US," they say.

But the fact is that the people of the United States have permitted even more devastating violations with barely a peep or even murmur of protest for the past twenty years: they have permitted a criminal cabal which has hijacked their country to use the armed forces of the United States to wage illegal wars of aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and numerous other parts of the globe, all supposedly based upon the patently false official narrative surrounding September 11, 2001. 

How have they permitted this to happen? Has everyone (or at least, the vast majority of the people) been snookered into accepting the official lies about the events of that day?

No. I would argue that there is virtually no one -- virtually no one -- who can look at the evidence available to us in 2021 and still swallow the official story. No one.

I would argue that everyone knows, deep down at some level, that the official narrative cannot possibly be true and must be an enormous lie.

However, the implications of that fact (that the official narrative, which has been repeated so many times from the very highest levels of the government, and which has been consistently reinforced by the propaganda machine of the national media, and which was again invoked by the current president in his lying speech of August 16 cited above, and which will be solemnly repeated over and over on this twentieth September 11 since the watershed day of 2001, is a big fat lie which is part of the coverup of the crimes that took place that day and the illegality of the wars which have been waged non-stop in the years following) are so devastating and so threatening to most people that they will actually suppress their own awareness that the official story cannot be true -- and in doing so, they will suffer an alienating disconnect from the part of themselves which actually realizes the truth.

This type of profound internal alienation, stemming from the suppression of something that is too threatening to contemplate, has a name: it is called psychological trauma (a term which began to be used during the 1970s to describe the alienation that was being observed in many of the veterans returning from the war in Vietnam). As I have written many times before, based on the work and teachings of psychologist and healer Dr. Gabor Mate, trauma is a disconnection from your own Self.

Below is an extended quotation from my 2020 book, Myth and Trauma, regarding the deliberate use of trauma-inducing events including the crimes of September 11, 2001 to stun the men and women of the world and to induce alienation (and its attendant symptoms and lack of cohesion, both at the individual and at the group level):

All of these assassinations [listed in the preceding sentences: John F. Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968] have been conclusively shown by subsequent researchers to have been treacherously initiated, organized, executed, and then covered up by the very establishment forces that felt threatened by these charismatic leaders.

These were trauma-inducing events, carried out in public in a trauma-inducing manner. The evidence that murders such as the assassination of President Kennedy were not committed b a "lone nut" the way the official story insists that they were committed is so overwhelming that this evidence simply cannot be ignored -- which means that our higher self, aware of so much more than what the conscious mind allows itself to perceive, cannot fail to realize that the official story is a lie. 

The reason that the egoic mind of so many men and women simply refuses to accept the truth -- the truth that we already know deep down, "in our gut" as we say, is that the truth in this instance is so jarring to the artificial reality that the "defense mechanism" of the egoic mind constructs for us that the egoic mind simply refuses to allow itself to see what is staring us right in the face.

The same can be said for the unsolved crimes committed on September 11, 2001, in which not two but three massive steel-framed skyscrapers collapsed into their own footprints, demolition-style, supposedly (according to the official narrative) due to fires. The evidence, which should be plain to everyone who lived through that trauma-inducing day in history, overwhelmingly demonstrates that the official story is a bald-faced lie. The implications, however, are so threatening to the rules by which we order our world that most of us suppress and refuse to see the evidence which is staring us in the face -- resulting in internal division, alienation, and a pervasive sense of background angst.

That the official story is a lie can be explained in four simple words: "Building 7, freefall speed."

Building 7, of course, refers to World Trade Center 7, which was a 47-story steel-frame building which was not struck by any airplanes and which suddenly collapsed into its own footprint, at a speed indistinguishable from freefall speed, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, well after the collapse of World Trade Center Buildings 1 and 2 (the North and South Towers, also known as the Twin Towers).

Supposedly this collapse of Building 7 at freefall speed into its own footprint was due to fires started from debris which fell from the other towers. That explanation is so ludicrous that it simply cannot be believed, and I would argue that our deeper self (buried by our egoic mind in most cases) already knows that it is false. The reason our egoic mind refuses to allow itself to see that the official narrative cannot possibly be true is that the implications of that fact -- that the official story is a bald-faced lie -- obliterate the facade of what we believe to be true about the world around us.

There are many other aspects of the events of that day which demonstrate, almost as blatantly as the collapse of Building 7 at freefall speed, that the official story about the crimes perpetrated on September 11 is a criminal lie.

These include, but are not limited to, the complete failure of the military to scramble fighter-jets to intercept the other airplanes which continued to fly around for over an hour even after the Twin Towers had been hit, and the failure of any air defense weapons to stop (or even attempt to stop) a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), as well as the fact that numerous military drills involving aircraft were taking place on that same day by "astonishing coincidence," and also the fact that the crime scene of the collapsed towers of the World Trade Center was not investigated but instead was deliberately and rapidly destroyed and the steel carted away in short order, never to be subjected to rigorous forensic analysis.

All of these trauma-inducing events fall into the same broad pattern -- the same pattern we have been examining. The central feature of this pattern is the seizure of more and more of the gifts of heaven and of nature for the benefit of a privileged few at the expense of the many, coupled with the willingness to impose trauma as one of the tools available to enable that seizure and to prevent it from being corrected by men and women who would normally see what is going on and take action to apprehend and bring to justice those responsible, and to protect what belongs to the people from being monopolized by a privileged minority. 331 -333

Above is a short (and notorious) clip of some news footage from that day twenty years ago when these crimes were perpetrated against the people of the United States and the world -- a clip which lays out in stunning clarity abundant evidence supporting everything that I argue above. Here is the link to that clip, which I strongly recommend watching in its entirety, from start to finish, even if you have watched it before.

In that clip, a BBC News anchor matter-of-factly states:

Now, more on the latest building collapse in New York -- you might have heard a few moments ago, I was talking about the Salomon Brothers building collapsing, and indeed it has. Apparently that's only a few hundred yards away from where the World Trade Center towers were, and it seems that this was not the result of a new attack, it was because the building had been weakened, by this morning's attacks. 

He then goes on to say, "We'll probably find out more about that from our correspondent, Jane Standley -- Jane, what more can you tell us about the Salomon Brothers building, and its collapse?"

He then turns to a screen on the wall where we see "our correspondent, Jane Standley," holding a microphone and with the Salomon Brothers building, very much intact, in the background! 

In other words, she is talking to the BBC anchor who has just declared that WTC Building 7 (the Salomon Brothers building) has "indeed" collapsed, and in the background we can see Building 7, prior to its remarkable collapse -- a collapse so remarkable that we have to be absolutely astonished that anyone could have predicted that it would collapse in advance, since no steel-frame building had (prior to September 11, 2001) ever collapsed, even from raging fires which were far more catastrophic than anything seen in Building 7 at the time this clip was filmed.

And yet, somehow this BBC team already had the narrative that Building 7 collapsed "because the building had been weakened" somehow, by the earlier attacks on Buildings 1 and 2.

They had that narrative so well-prepared that the screen even features a subtitle below reporter Jane Standley at one point, which reads: "The 47 storey Salomon Brothers building close to the World Trade Centre has also collapsed."

Note that Building 7 (ie, the 47-story Salomon Brothers building) had eminently not collapsed when this caption was displayed beneath Jane Standley as she was standing with Building 7 in the background: many other observers have already pointed this out in the twenty years since this clip was filmed, and I have added a large red arrow in the screenshot below to point out the outline of the intact Salomon Brothers building, looming behind Jane Standley in the picture (she later moves to one side, allowing us to see the entire intact building).

When the building does collapse, it does so at shocking speed, indistinguishable from freefall speed, and into its own footprint: demolition style. But there was simply no way to predict that such a shocking collapse would take place. And yet the BBC already knew it would happen and were prepared with the explanation that would later be repeated in the "official" explanation of the events of that day: Building 7 "was weakened" by the collapse of the other WTC towers, and thus collapsed as well (perhaps out of sympathy).

The BBC even had the correct number of floors to list when it described the "47 storey Salomon Brothers building," as if their news team had time to do a bit of research prior to making the caption we see displayed on the screen above (again, all filmed prior to the demolition of Building 7).

They even knew, astonishingly, that no one would be injured in the remarkable freefall collapse of that 47-story tower, as you can hear the BBC anchor explain if you watch the entire clip above.

And, perhaps most remarkable to me, watching this well-worn clip again: Jane Standley repeats several times the word "trauma," and says that the people of New York and America are now "traumatized."

If this infamous news clip, from the BBC itself, does not prove beyond any doubt that the events of September 11 were pre-planned, and that they were deliberately designed to inflict trauma upon the good men and women of the world, then I don't know what does.

On this twentieth anniversary of that deliberately trauma-inducing day, I suggest we shake off our stupor and take the drastic step of listening to what we already know (all of us) -- and gain the clarity to see what we need to do: to demand that elected officials who continue to mouth lies about that day be scorned and upbraided for doing so, to demand that illegal wars of aggression which use September 11 as a false justification be stopped immediately, and to initiate aggressive investigations into the identities of those actually responsible for the crimes committed that day, and those who have collaborated to cover up the truth in the intervening twenty years.

Welcome to new visitors from the Ascension of the Chessmen podcast (and to returning friends)!

Special thank-you to Andre Mytty for inviting me over to his new podcast, Ascension of the Chessmen, for a conversation about some of the implications of the evidence which shows that the ancient myths of cultures all around the world share a common foundation of celestial metaphor.

Welcome to any new visitors finding this site for the first time as a result of hearing this show -- and of course welcome back to returning friends!

This conversation was recorded on 07 September, 2021.

You can find Andre's podcast and this episode at the iTunes website using the link above, or at any number of other well-known podcast catcher sites. 

Below is an embedded player which you can use to either listen from your browser or to download for listening anywhere.

Please give Andre some positive feedback if you enjoyed the show, and thank you for your interest in my research and work!

Listen to "#33 - Star Myths & Connecting to Higher Self w/ David Mathisen" on Spreaker.

How to carve an Egyptian statue?

image: Life-sized statue of Lady Sennuwy; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

I recently had the opportunity to visit the wonderful Museum of Fine Art in Boston, Massachusetts. 

As it turns out, the entire floor containing the collections of ceramics and statuary from ancient Greece was closed for renovation, so I was unhappily prevented from re-visiting some of the artwork that I have written about in previous posts such as this one and this one during this particular visit. 

However, that simply meant that I was able to devote more time to an exploration of the museum's collections of art and artifacts from ancient Egypt and from the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Asia Minor.

Much as I love the MFA for the museum's splendid collections of breathtaking artwork from the ancient world, the placards and descriptions which accompany the artwork do of course reflect the conventional paradigm propagated by orthodox scholars, which is to be expected in just about any museum one might visit today in virtually any part of the world -- although the preponderance of evidence overwhelmingly shows this conventional paradigm to be gravely flawed and in need of radical revision.

A case in point is the display shown below, photographed during my recent visit, of a granite "pounder" and a "copper chisel," accompanied by a placard which is playfully titled, "How to Carve an Egyptian Statue."

image: Ancient pounder and chisel; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

Below is a close-up of the accompanying text, which confidently informs us that the incredible artwork from the land of ancient Egypt was all created using "copper chisels (later, they used bronze), wooden mallets, stone pounders, and powdered stone as an abrasive," with which "they were able to refine and polish even the hardest rock."

image: Detail of conventional description of technology used to produce Egyptian statues; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

Below is one more close-up of the pounder and chisel, with their accompanying description and provenance:

image: Close-up of pounder and chisel supposedly used to produce Egyptian statues; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

That the ancient dynastic Egyptians had such tools and used such tools is beyond doubt: what is very much in doubt is whether artwork such as the statues shown here from my recent visit to the MFA and the statues and other stonework which still remain on-site in Egypt to this day could possibly be produced with hand-tools such as granite pounders and copper chisels.

For example, consider this magnificent head of a king, made from a solid piece of alabaster and conventionally understood to be a representation of Menkaura (to whom the third pyramid at Giza is also conventionally attributed):

image: Head conventionally understood to represent likeness of King Menkaura; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

This amazing piece of artwork is executed in alabaster, which is a relatively soft stone and one that could indeed be worked with a copper chisel -- although there are reasons to suspect that some of the ancient statues found in the land of Egypt exhibit levels of precision which would be completely impossible to achieve using hand tools alone, as author, researcher, and professional engineer Christopher Dunn has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt with arguments and evidence he presents in books such as Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs.

Here is the placard which accompanies the above head at the MFA:

image: Placard accompanying head conventionally understood to represent Menkaura; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

Below is another likeness of the same king, this time executed in a solid block of greywacke, an extremely hard stone, typically ranking 6 or 7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (which ranks minerals on a scale of 1 to 10, with diamonds being at the highest hardness rating of 10), and sometimes reaches hardness measurements above 7. In this sculpture, the king is depicted standing beside two deities, with the goddess Hathor seated in the center of the trio and a goddess representing the nome or territorial region of Upper Egypt known as the Hares Land standing on the other side of Hathor from the king:

image: Statue of goddess Hathor flanked by deity representing the Hare nome of Upper Egypt and the king; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

Ask yourself if you think it is likely that such artwork could be carved out of greywacke using wooden mallets, round granite stones, and copper (or even bronze) chisels? Note that in contrast to greywacke, which can rank above 7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, copper generally ranks between 2.5 and 3, and bronze ranks about 3 on the same scale. 

Below is the placard accompanying the above piece of ancient artwork in the MFA:

image: Placard accompanying triple statue of Hathor, deified Hare nome, and king; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

As the placard notes, the king is depicted wearing the distinctive crown of Upper Egypt, which is known as the Hedjet (the crown of Lower Egypt is known as the Deshret, and the combination crown which incorporates both the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt is know as the Pschent). Christophe Dunn in the above-mentioned book Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt spends considerable time exploring the incredible levels of precision exhibited in the granite Hedjet and Pschent crowns found on statues in the region of ancient Thebes in Egypt, at the Karnak and Luxor temples and surrounding artwork -- indeed, his discussion of the precision found in the geometry of these beautiful crowns occupies the entire first chapter of the book.

While he does not comment on the Hedjet found in the statue of the king beside the goddess Hathor in the MFA shown above, and while I am not equipped to say whether this particular crown and the other details in the above trio of figures (such as the solar disc and the horns above the head of the goddess Hathor) exhibit the same precision that he finds in other statues believed to be from the same period of time in ancient Egypt, Chris Dunn has this to say about the Hedjet crowns that he examined in the temples from the region of ancient Thebes:

With the introduction of the ellipsoid, we can now look at the crowns in a different way. By drawing perfect ellipses and superimposing them on the photographs of the crowns, it becomes clear that the ancient Egyptians used this geometry, rather than a simple radius, in their design of the crowns. 

The implications of finding such overwhelming evidence of sophisticated geometry can be argued by scholars into the future. Suffice it to say that elliptical geometry is not generally discussed in associated with Egyptian geometry. For the purposes of the discussion here, though, I am more interested in how the geometry was crafted with such exactness in hard granite. This, then, is why I believe the crowns are so important. They do not have the "feel" of products made by hand. They do not have the "feel" or the geometry of products made with simple and primitive machines or tools. If you travel to Luxor you can run your hands over their surfaces of the crowns, you can compare the "feel" of their smooth contours to those of your own car. These objects have the same kind of definitiveness and meticulousness as the dies that formed the body of your car. While you are online purchasing your ticket to Luxor, pick up your computer mouse and notice that it is crafted with compound radial surfaces. Contours that transition from large to small radii are products of precisely machined molds. We take them for granted, but there is an unseen world behind their creation. 

And yet supposedly the crowns were crafted more than three thousand years ago. How could this be? How did the ancient Egyptians accomplish this? Why even conceive of such products if there were no tools to accomplish their making? What system of measure did they use? 32 - 35.

Note that similar to the greywacke of which the above-depicted statue trio is composed, granite also typically falls in the 6 to 7 range on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, although sometimes granite can be as high as 8 (particularly when it has high levels of quartz). 

At the top of this post is another statue on display at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, this one a life-sized statue of the beautiful Lady Sennuwy, which is carved from granodiorite, also a very hard mineral which typically ranks 6 on the Mohs hardness scale. Below is another image taken head-on of the same statue: 

image: Wikimedia commons, link.

The above image is from Wikimedia commons and was taken in 2012. Below is the placard accompanying the above statue, photographed during my recent trip: 

image: Placard accompanying statue of Lady Sennuwy; photograph by DWM, 27 August 2021.

The head-on image of the statue reveals the remarkable level of symmetry apparent in the two sides of the statue, including the two sides of the face of the Lady Sennuwy. Once again, I do not know if Christopher Dunn has ever done a close analysis of this particular statue and its symmetry, but his book Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt contains extensive and detailed analysis of the symmetry in the faces of other statues from Egypt and finds levels of symmetry that would be difficult or impossible to achieve using the techniques argued by conventional Egyptology. 

Discussing the remarkable levels of symmetry exhibited in a statue conventionally understood to represent a likeness of King Ramses II, sitting just outside the Temple of Luxor, Chris Dunn writes:

When I imported my original image of the head into the computer, I struck a horizontal line across the face and rotated the image until the line was barely touching the underside of the bottom eyelid. I then duplicated this image and flipped it horizontally so that the left cheek became the right cheek. I then made a 50 percent transparency of the image and lined it up with the jawline. As shown in figure 2.3, there is no variation between the left jaw and the right jaw. 

Thinking about only this correspondence in the geometry of the face made me sit up and take notice. This symmetry means that the face was crafted so that a mirror image of the outline of the face was transposed to the opposite side. It is an incredible accomplishment that this exact line moved in three-dimensional space to create a perfect mirror image when viewed in two dimensions. My mind was racing at this point. What did the ancient Egyptians use to create such perfection? How did they inspect the geometry of the face? The same question I asked when I studied the crowns flashed into my brain -- though with more force and consternation. A human face is by far more complex and sophisticated than an ellipsoid that is blended with another form to form a crown (which we examined in chapter 1).

[. . .] To reproduce the geometry in three dimensions on opposite surfaces with three feet of granite in between these points -- and to control their positions as precisely as these photos indicate -- dispels forever the notion of ancient sculptors chipping away with stone hammers and stone or copper chisels. 43

To see more about the statue that Chris Dunn is describing in the above passage, and to see the amazing symmetry displayed in his reverse-transparency overlay photographs which compare the left side of the "Ramses" head to the right side, readers are encouraged to obtain his outstanding book -- which is filled with detail and evidence which can only be described as conclusive.

If the above discussion is not sufficient to dispel the conventional teaching that the artwork (and massive stonework and architecture) of ancient Egypt was produced using primitive hand-tools such as copper chisels and smooth pounding-stones, check out the amazing videos produced by my friend Ben Van Kerkwyk at UnchartedX -- whose research and work should be considered essential watching by everyone interested in the mystery of humanity's ancient past. 

Below are just two of his recent videos, both of which explore the undeniable evidence present in the artifacts and archeological sites which argue for the use of advanced tools including circular saws with blades up to thirty feet in diameter, and indeed for technologies whose purpose we today, even at our present level of technological development, are unable to deduce or determine.

Ben's work is extremely important and I have referenced some of his other videos in a previous post, which I recommend re-visiting as well (or visiting for the first time, if you have not yet seen it). The astonishing conclusion which Ben reaches in his research -- based on the overwhelming amounts of evidence available in the stones of ancient Egypt, but also in other sites around the globe including in the Americas -- is that the dynastic Egyptians may not have been responsible for many of the archaeological artifacts and monuments which we attribute to that civilization, but rather that they may have inherited many of them without being able to reproduce these buildings or statues themselves. 

The evidence Ben presents in the videos below (as well as in many other videos) indicates the existence of power tools of some sort which may have belonged to some even earlier and now-forgotten culture -- one which was dimly remembered during the time of dynastic Egypt, but one whose very existence or even the possibility of whose existence is now completely (and emphatically and aggressively and derisively) dismissed by the upholders of the conventional academic paradigm.

Watch the two recent videos below from UnchartedX and see if you don't agree that the available evidence totally demolishes the conventional paradigm and the derisive orthodox dismissal of any possibility of an ancient culture predating the civilizations known to or admitted by conventional academia (here is the link to the first video and here is a link to the second video). 

Note that some of the discussion towards the end of the second video supports the conclusion that this forgotten ancient culture (or cultures) which possessed these advanced technological capabilities was (or were) world-wide in scope and scale. The archaeological evidence in the stones themselves is undeniable, abundant, and overwhelming.

Note too that the evidence which I have been exploring for the past decade and more -- evidence from the world's ancient myths -- also points to the very same conclusion: namely, the existence of a very sophisticated culture (or cultures), world-wide in scope and scale, predating even the most ancient cultures known to conventional academia, including the cultures of ancient Egypt, ancient Sumer, ancient India, and ancient China. 

The ancient myths show from cultures around the globe display undeniable evidence of being built upon a common system of celestial metaphor -- a system which was already fully developed in the most ancient texts which have been preserved and are known to us today, including the earliest texts of ancient Egypt (such as the Pyramid Texts), and of ancient Mesopotamia (such as the Gilgamesh cycle, as well as other myth-cycles such as the Enuma Elish and the Descent of Inanna), and of ancient India (including the Vedas, as well as other ancient Sanskrit texts such as the Mahabharata and others).

I am convinced that the archaeological evidence is more than sufficient to prove that the conventional paradigm of humanity's ancient history is gravely flawed and in need of radical revision. I am equally convinced that the mythological evidence is more than sufficient to prove the same thing. Together, the two categories of evidence should already have caused a complete reconsideration by conventional scholars -- and yet they continue to doggedly resist even considering any of it as they stubbornly cling to their orthodox narratives.

But, as Ben also says towards the end of the second video linked above and embedded below -- there is hope for the future, and the tide does seem to be ready to turn. Thank you for your interest in these important subjects, and please share them with those who would benefit from this information.