Chariots of the Gods (11 page)

It is an embarrassing story: in advanced cultures of the past we find buildings that we cannot copy today with the most modern technical means. These stone masses are there, they cannot be argued away. Because that which ought not to exist cannot exist, there is a frantic search for 'rational' explanations. Let us take off our blinkers and join the search ....

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To the north of Damascus lies the terrace of Baalbek—a platform built of stone blocks, some of which have sides over 65 ft long and weigh nearly 2,000 tons. Until now archaeologists have not been able to give a convincing explanation why, how and by whom the terrace of Baalbek was built. However, the Russian Professor Agrest considers it possible that the terrace is the remains of a gigantic airfield.

If we meekly accept the neat package of knowledge that the Egyptologists serve to us, ancient Egypt appears suddenly and without transition with a fantastic ready-made civilisation. Great cities and enormous temples, colossal statues with tremendous expressive power, splendid streets flanked by magnificent sculptures, perfect drainage systems, luxurious tombs carved out of the rock, pyramids of overwhelming size—these and many other wonderful things shot out of the ground, so to speak. Genuine miracles in a country that is suddenly capable of such achievements without recognisable prehistory!

Fertile agricultural land only exists in the Nile delta and on small strips to the left and right of the river. Yet experts now estimate the number of inhabitants at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid at 50 million. (A figure, incidentally, that flagrantly contradicts the 20 million considered to be the total population of the world in 3000 B.C.!)

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One of the maps found in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, in the library of Admiral Piri Reis early in the eighteenth century It shows the Americas and West Africa Antartica, mapped at the bottom, conforms very closely to the land mass under the ice, as revealed by echo-sounding gear In recorded history it has never been free of ice.

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Cartographers projected the Pin Reis map on to a grid using the reference points shown on the map It then appeared virtually identical with this United States Air Force map of the world on an equidistant projection based on Cairo.

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The earth taken from Apollo 8 shows close similarity to the Piri Reis map The curious elongated shape of the Americas is particularly striking.

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On the Plain of Nazca in Peru appear these strange markings

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A view of the plain showing that the markings (Inca roads, say the archaeologists) lead nowhere.

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The markings in greater detail.

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Another of the strange markings on the Plain of Nazca. This is very reminiscent of the aircraft parking bays on a modern airport.

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This huge 820-ft. figure above the Bay of Pisco points to the Plain of Nazca. Could this be an aerial direction indicator rather than a symbol of religious significance?

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This is the ancient Mayan Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque in Mexico.

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Inside on the wall of one of the small chambers is this relief engraving. There is not enough space to take a full front view photograph, but there is enough detail to check the artist's drawing reproduced on the next page.

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This drawing was made in the Temple. Could primitive imagination have produced anything so remarkably similar to a modern astronaut in his rocket? Those strange markings at the foot of the drawing can only be an indication of the flames and gases coming from the propulsion unit.

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American astronauts today take up the same position, their hands on controls, their eyes checking instruments.

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On July 21 st, 1969 a London bookmaker paid out £10,000 Only five years earlier he gave odds of a thousand to one that man would not land on the moon before 1970 A fortnight later the Americans released photographs taken 2,000 miles away from Mars Space travel had moved out of the realms of science fiction.

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After centuries under the sea this object does not look very important It was found by Greek divers off Antikythera in 1900 Above, right Long and patient cleaning revealed that it was a mass of interlocking cogs and was a planetarium The machine gives the year of construction as 82 BC This drawing reconstructs part of the machine.

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Easter Island is known as the 'navel of the world' by the islanders The huge statues on this tiny fragment of rock are extraordinary Even more extraordinary is the fact that this totally isolated island had its own script, which is still undeciphered.

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This ancient iron pillar does not rust It cannot be accurately dated, but it is hundreds of years old.

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This Babylonian tablet records past and future eclipses.

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Here are three curious things from Assyria and one from Iraq.

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The "god Shamasi" It is from the third millennium BC and shows stars and figures with peculiar headgear Why should ancient gods be associated with the stars'?

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The second tablet is from the early first millennium BC. The object in the centre is described as a sacred tree It could just as reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the construction of an atom, with an astronaut in a fiery chariot above We have a figure within a winged circle and below the circle a representation.

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Next we have an Assyrian crystal lens from the seventh century BC To grind such a lens requires a highly sophisticated mathematical formula Where did the Assyrians get such knowledge'? Finally, these very ancient fragments, now in the Baghdad Museum, have been identified as the remains of an electric battery.

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The next five photographs are from South America, a continent teeming with ruins and unexplained puzzles.

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This is part of a huge monolithic block weighing an estimated 20,000 tons It can be found at Sacsayhuaman in Peru What was its purpose? What titanic forces turned it upside down?

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And what did these great steps lead to? A throne for giants perhaps?

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Rock vitrification requires very high temperatures. What caused it in Peru?

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Part of the huge terrace walls at Sacsayhuaman. Just look at the incredible accuracy of the jointing. How could primitive people handle these huge blocks?

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A mummy from the Second Dynasty.

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Part of a very finely woven piece of cloth. Where did the Egyptians get such complex techniques so early?

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With wood rollers and manpower it would have taken at least 600 years to handle the 2 1/2 million stone blocks in the great pyramid of Cheops.

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As in Peru, we are faced with fantastically accurate jointing of huge blocks of stone.

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This temple at Copan in Honduras is constructed according to the Mayan calendar with a fixed number of steps completed every 52 years.

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There is no recorded history of Tiahuanaco On the Gate of the Sun, above, carved out of a single 10-ton block, is the representation of a flying god flanked by forty-eight mysterious figures Legend tells of a golden space ship which came from the stars.

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On the great idol, is found information about astronomical phenomena covering an immense span of time.

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Once again what primitive people had techniques for handling and accurately jointing such huge blocks of stone, in this case water conduits 6ft long and 1 1/2ft

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"El Castillo at Chichen Itza, Mexico This also has been constructed according to the Mayan calendar The 91 steps on each side add up to 364 and the final platform gives 365.

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In Bolivia near Santa Cruz are long concrete constructions Could these really be roads for people who did not use the wheel"?

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Rock drawings from all round the world

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(Left) - From Rhodesia This reclining figure is clad in chainmail and wears curious headgear It might be the burial of a king It might just as likely be an astronaut receiving supplies.

(Right) - This drawing from South Africa shows a white figure dressed in a short sleeved suit with breeches, garters, gloves and slippers A rather surprising example of imagination on the part of primitive natives who went about naked

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This drawing was found by a Russian expedition.

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This drawing from Val Camonica in Northern Italy shows yet again the extraordinary obsession primitive man had with figures in suits and unusual headgear.

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More ancient drawings

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From Navoy.

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From Fergana in Uzbekistan

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From Tassili in the Sahara.

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An American astronaut Perhaps the earliest space travellers also wore suits like this.

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With such enormous estimates a couple of million men more or less does not matter. But one thing is clear—they all had to be fed. There were not only a host of construction workers, stone-masons, engineers and sailors, there were not only hundreds of thousands of slaves, but also a well-equipped army, a large and pampered priesthood, countless merchants, farmers and officials, and last but not least the Pharaonic household living on the fat of the land. Could they all, all have lived on the scanty yields of agriculture in the Nile delta?

I shall be told that the stone blocks used for building the temple were moved on rollers. In other words, wooden rollers! But the Egyptians would scarcely have felled and turned into rollers the few trees, mainly palms, that then (as now) grew in Egypt, because the dates from the palms were urgently needed for food and the trunks and fronds were the only tilings giving shade to the dried up ground. But they must have been wooden rollers, otherwise there would not be even the feeblest technical explanation of the building of the pyramids. Did the Egyptians import wood? In order to import wood there must have been a sizeable fleet, and even after it had been landed in Alexandria the wood would have had to be transported up the Nile to Cairo. Since the Egyptians did not have horses and carts at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid, there was no other possibility. The horse and cart was not introduced until the seventeenth dynasty, about 1600 B.C. My kingdom for a convincing explanation of the transport of the stone blocks! Of course the scholars say that wooden rollers were needed ....

There are many problems connected with the technology of the pyramid builders and no genuine solutions.

How did the Egyptians carve tombs out of the rock? What resources did they have in order to lay out a maze of galleries and rooms? The walls are smooth and mostly decorated with paintings in relief. The shafts slope down into the rocky soil; they have steps built in the best tradition of craftsmanship that lead to the burial chambers far below Hordes of tourists stand gaping in amazement at them, but none of them gets an explanation of the mysterious technique used in their excavation. Yet it is firmly established that the Egyptians were masters of the art of tunnelling from the earliest times, for the old rock-cut tombs are worked in exactly the same way as the more recent ones There is no difference between the tomb of Tety from the sixth dynasty and the tomb of Rameses I from the New Kingdom, although there is a minimum of 1,000 years between the building of the two tombs. Obviously the Egyptians had not learnt anything new to add to their old technique. In fact the more recent edifices tend increasingly to be poor copies of their ancient models.

The tourist who bumps his way to the Pyramid of Cheops to the west of Cairo on a camel called Wellington or Napoleon, depending on his nationality, gets the strange sensation in the pit of his stomach that relics of the mysterious past always produce. The guide tells him that ,1 Pharaoh had a burial place built here. And with that bit of rehashed erudition he rides homewards, after taking some impressive photographs. The Pyramid of Cheops, in particular, has inspired hundreds of crazy and untenable theories. In the 600-page-long book Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid by Charles Piazzi Smith, published in 1864, we can read about many hair-raising links between the pyramid and our globe

Yet even after a highly critical examination, it still contains some facts that should stimulate us to reflection.