Before the Pyramids: Cracking Archaeology's Greatest Mystery (21 page)

Brophy explained how he has become involved in the investigation of a group of megalithic sites, deep in the Sahara in southern Egypt, known as Nabta: a structure we knew of but had little or no information about. This extremely remote location is a place that neither humans nor anything else much ever visit. It is on the Tropic of Cancer and is made up of a number of standing stones – some in the form of a circle. But even more interesting is what lies beneath this ancient surface feature.

Below the sands of the Sahara lies another, far older structure – in fact a structure which long predates the desertification of this huge swathe of North Africa. And its properties are, if Brophy is to be believed, utterly mind-bending. He calls it ‘The Origin Map’.

As Robert Schoch put it, Brophy’s work creates three distinct levels of problem to confront. The first one is not too academically controversial, the second is very challenging, and the third will have conventional archaeologists reaching for a gun. There are three basic levels of knowledge that the ancient builders at this site had, as, inferred by Brophy’s findings,
²
various artefacts at Nabta indicate:

1. Maps and markers denoting objects, alignments, and events that can be observed in the sky with the unaided (naked) eye.

2. Markers indicating celestial phenomena and events that cannot be observed (apparently) with the unaided eye.

3. Detailed astronomical and cosmological information, such as the distances to stars, the speeds at which stars are moving away from the Earth, the structure of our galaxy (the Milky Way), and information on the origin of the universe, which we have either only just discovered in modern times, or possibly information (for example, that concerning planetary systems around stars) which we do not even have available to us at the moment.

Heavy claims indeed! But, apart from the convention for believing that we are the smartest dudes ever to walk the Earth, there is absolutely no reason why even the third level cannot be true. Archaeologists cannot even express an informed opinion, as this is new territory for them.

A particularly interesting aspect of Brophy’s work is the interest these people had in the stars of Orion’s Belt and an understanding of the three-dimensional space between the three stars. It is also interesting to note that it has recently been discovered that a region within the constellation of Orion is the nearest ‘star factory’ to Earth – a place where stars are being manufactured at a considerable rate.

Brophy argues that the relative distances of Mintaka, Alnitak and Alnilam, as well as their velocity away from us, is recorded in this ancient astronomical observatory. And Brophy claims to know just how old the structure beneath the Sahara actually is – because its builders dated it!

It is an incredible 18,000 years old. That is long before the end of the last Ice Age.

This was identifiable because of the precession of the equinoxes (
see
Chapter 5) the 26,000-year wobble that changes the position of stars relative to the horizon and the Sun.

It is of note that Brophy points out that the stars of Orion’s Belt, as represented in the Nabta circle, are shown as it appeared on the meridian, which is an imaginary line in the sky that runs directly overhead from north to south and bisects the sky, at the summer solstice. This puts the circle (on top of the desert sands) at a date between 6400
BC
and 4900
BC
, and accords with the findings of the team led by Fred Wendorf that discovered Nabta. However, other parts of the circle are, according to Brophy, clearly aligned to 16,500 years
BC
. Robert Schock said of this:

This is a date of such antiquity that debunkers, and hardcore conventional academics will immediately stop reading, but Brophy makes a compelling case that this is in fact what the stones represent.

Of course, given the dismissal of the findings of Alexander Thom, how much worse can it be for Thomas Brophy – an astrophysicist who would overturn the cosy standard story of the past, who would open the door to our theories having to be seriously considered?

But Brophy knows a thing or two about statistics. He has calculated the chances of all this being accidental. He says of just one set of stones:

The probability that these stars aligned with the megaliths by random chance can be estimated according to the method developed by Schaefer (1986) … The more conservative of the range of estimates gives random chance probability of these seven stars aligning with the megaliths according to this system of less than 2 chances in a million. That is more that a thousand times as certain as the usual 3 standard deviations required for accepting a scientific hypothesis as valid. The more liberal of the range of estimates gives a random probability of about one in ten to the thirteenth power, or about as likely as picking at random the same human being out of all people on Earth twice in a row. By even the more conservative estimate, these are by far the most certain ancient megalithic astronomical alignments of any known in the world.

Game, set and match?

We doubt it. As some academics will quietly agree, many will not like the possible outcome. Science and religion are far closer bedfellows than most people imagine.

A man who is considered something of a maverick Egyptologist – John Anthony West – has written the Afterword of Brophy’s book. Here he takes a view on how Brophy can expect to be received by the chieftains of the tribe:

In one sense Brophy’s work will seem radical; revolutionary. Yet in another it can be seen as just the latest (admittedly most dramatic) contribution to a reappraisal of ancient history that has been lurching along by fits and starts for more than a century – over the raucous, concerted opposition of the entire community of archaeologists, historians, Egyptologists, anthropologists and all the other academic disciplines devoted to studying the past.

So what is in store for
The Origin Map
? Given the reception accorded far less radical ideas, the reaction to Brophy’s claims may be anticipated with some certainty.

There are few things in this world more predictable than the reaction of conventional minds to unconventional ideas. The reaction is always and invariably some combination of contempt, outrage, abuse and derision. As a common corollary, the level of outrage expressed is proportionate to both the quality of the supporting evidence and the magnitude of the challenge posed by the new idea – the better the evidence, the more radical the idea, the louder and shriller the response.
³

Beautifully put, Mr West. And subsequent events have proven you correct.

As we returned from Rome we once again discussed the apparent impossibility of the Neolithic people having actually devised the wonderful system of measurements and geometry which they had self-evidently used. Could it be that the knowledge we had come across, and that had been used to build the pyramids, had originally come from Egypt anyway?

We could not know the answer – not yet and maybe we never will. But we now felt more confident than ever that we had found some very important parts of the puzzle. And if people like Thomas Brophy are prepared to publish and be damned, there is a good chance that between us we will eventually have a clear picture of the real past.

•

Despite being extremely busy with our various trips around Europe and beyond, and all the astronomical deskwork we were undertaking, there was one strand of our investigations we were conscious had been left unattended. We would never have recognized the importance of any of the British henges in the first place, had it not been for the chance encounter with the ancient British city of Bath and an extraordinary architect called John Wood.

Wood’s most famous structure, the King’s Circus in Bath, with its 366-MY circumference, had led us to look first at Stonehenge and then at the giant henges elsewhere in Britain. Of course it was entirely possible that the whole thing came about as a tremendous coincidence. John Wood simply copied the dimensions of the original henge at Stonehenge when he planned the King’s Circus and, by so doing, without any knowledge of megalithic measures he provided the clue we needed to set us on a course of discovery. Indeed, had John Wood been just another genius of the 18th century, of which there were many in Regency Britain, we may have looked no further. However, bearing in mind his esoteric credentials and his fascination for ancient history, we could not absolutely dismiss from our minds the possibility that John Wood knew very well that the dimensions of the King’s Circus were extremely important. To discover the truth we would have to know much more about Wood himself, and about the city of Bath.

John Wood, the man who planned and built some of the most important parts of Regency Bath, was born in Yorkshire in 1704, though his family heritage was from Bath, where he would return as a full-blown architect and town planner in 1727. From an early age he had shown an interest in art and architecture, and he cut his teeth on several commissions in London. As he grew and matured he met some influential people and somewhere along the line he developed what can only be described as an obsession for British history and, in particular, Druidism.

Archaeology was in its infancy, and history was rather misunderstood in Wood’s 18th-century Britain. The general view of Britain’s ancient past was confused and often plain wrong. Roman writings from the days of Empire had described the fierce warrior-priests of people they called Celts, referred to by Julius Caesar in particular as ‘Druidi’. Gentlemen scholars of the 18th century came to suppose that any prehistoric religion or culture associated with Britain must have owed something to these strange and enigmatic characters described by the Roman invaders of long ago.

Even today most people associate the megalithic structures and henges of the British Isles and Brittany with the Celts and their Druidic priesthood. Modern Druids turn out in fanciful garb to celebrate Beltane (May Day) and other pagan celebrations, in the belief that they are touching the ancient wisdom of their ancestors. Unfortunately, the Celts (an 18th-century word adopted from the Roman
Celtae
) are a central and eastern European tribe that did not emerge until the late Iron Age – thousands of years after Thornborough or Stonehenge were built. These Austrian-Hungarian peoples moved west and north to arrive in the British Isles only relatively shortly before the Romans. Their ‘new’ language still lives on in parts of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, though it died out in their original homelands. The Celts were definitely not the architects of any prehistoric structures in the British Isles or western France.

It is possible that Celts arriving in Britain did become aware of ancient ideas and assimilate them into their own culture memory, indeed the Druid priests may have been adopted by the Celts, along with their knowledge from indigenous peoples such as the so-called Grooved Ware people or the Beaker Folk. This seems all the more likely because the Druids are not (as far as we can find out) known in the central European Celtic areas.

The term Druid is an Indo-European construction, with a literal meaning of two parts: ‘oak’ and ‘seeing’. It has been suggested that the ‘oak’ part was a reference to oak-like qualities – old, strong, established, solid; and the ‘seeing’ element meant understand, knowledge, and is related to the Irish word for ‘magic’ and the Welsh for a seer. The overall effect is that these people were the repository of a great knowledge that was associated with magic. Interestingly, the word ‘magic’ exists in ancient cultures from China to Persia where it is associated with the Magi – astronomer-priests that date back 5,000 years. Like the Druids, the Persian Magi wore white robes and were believed to possess great powers by virtue of their knowledge of the Sun, Moon and stars.

A recent find of many mummified bodies in the Tarim Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region in western China may provide a clue to how the concept of astronomical magic reached that remote country. Thanks to the salty desert sands in which these people were buried, the 4,000-year-old bodies are almost unbelievably well preserved with intact skin, flesh, hair and internal organs. They are believed to have ruled this part of China, yet they are western Europeans with red hair and even the women are over six feet tall. These ancient people are dressed in colourful robes, trousers, boots, stockings, coats and pointed ‘witch’ hats.

One expert, Elizabeth Barber, professor of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, has said:

Yet another female … wore a terrifically tall, conical hat, just like those we depict on witches riding their broomsticks at Halloween or on medieval wizards intent on magical spells. And that resemblance, strange to say, may be no accident. Our witches and wizards got their tall, pointy hats from just where we got the words magician and magic, namely, Persia. The Persian or Iranian word Magus (cognate with the English might, mighty) denoted a priest or sage, of the Zoroastrian religion in particular. Magi distinguished themselves with tall hats; they also professed knowledge of astronomy and medicine, of how to control the winds and the weather by potent magic and how to contact the spirit world.
¹

Dr Barber suggested the origin of these ancient people by saying:

The dominant weave (of these people) proved to be normal diagonal twill and the chief decoration was plaid, as in the woollen twill of a Scottish kilt … Many historians have assumed that the idea of plaids was relatively new to Scotland in the seventeenth century. Archaeology tells a different story.

We congratulate Professor Barber on some stunningly good work. But we cannot help but wonder how many archaeologists specializing in the British Neolithic period have stepped out of their box and caught a plane to China to view these stunning artefacts at first hand? Not too many, we suspect.

Another expert, Victor Mair, Professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, has stated that the old Chinese word for a court magician was
mag
which is phonetically from the same root as ‘magi’. Furthermore, the Chinese written character for
mag
is a cross with slightly splayed ends, identical to that used by the medieval Order of the Knights Templar (a subject to which we shall return).