Graham Hancock is an English author and journalist, well known for books such as “Fingerprints Of The Gods” & his latest book “Magicians of the Gods” is available now.
Randall Carlson is a master builder and architectural designer, teacher, geometrician, geomythologist, geological explorer and renegade scholar.
(Natural News) A team of Chinese archaeologists uncovered ten handcrafted wooden braziers at an ancient burial site in the Pamir Mountains. These religious-style incense burners can be dated as far back as 1,000 BC. The incense burners were collected from eight tombs in Western China’s 2,500 year old Jirzankal cemetery. They contained traces of burnt seed.
Ancient Chinese mourned the dead using high-THC cannabis strains
The contents of the burners were analyzed via mass spectrometry by researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The wooden braziers were found to contain a special strain of cannabis with a high THC concentration. This is the first piece of historical evidence showing that the ancient Chinese discovered, bred and/or traded cannabis for recreational and ceremonial use. At this time in history, societal elites got high to supposedly connect with ancestors or the gods. After testing the burnt strains, the scientists found a high concentration of cannabinol, a substance produced when THC is oxidized.
“There has been a longstanding debate over the origins of cannabis smoking, there are many speculative claims of ancient use,” said Robert Spengler at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. “This study provides the earliest unambiguous evidence for both elevated chemical production in the plant and also for the burning of the plant as a drug.”
Most cannabis residues uncovered by scientists up until this point was discovered to have a low THC content. The discovery of this high THC strain could indicate that Chinese farmers were aware of the euphoric properties of this phyto-chemical and knew how to breed cannabis for recreational purposes.
Scientists conclude that the cannabis was burnt in an enclosed space, in a mountain tomb, which allowed mourners to get high back in their day. Because the cannabis was found in wooden braziers closely associated with the Zoroastrian religion, archaeologists concur that the cannabis was used as part of religious activities. The ancient Chinese believed that the euphoric feeling could connect you with ancestors and the divine.
“Nearly all the braziers contain the bio-markers of cannabis and one brazier is severely burned, implying that the braziers were being used during funeral rituals, possibly to communicate with nature, or spirits or deceased people,” noted Yimin Yang at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Megan Cifarelli, an art historian at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, noted that the cannabis burning in tombs served another purpose as well: masking the smell of decaying corpses.
Of course, these societies also took advantage of hemp’s other valuable uses. The hemp plant has been used by various societies over the past 4,000 years to make ropes, cloth, paper and oil. The cannabis found in this study could have been traded along the Silk Road, a trading route that once extended from East Asia to South Asia, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa and Southern Europe. This passage enabled the Chinese to trade silk, spices, grains, apples, pistachios, walnuts and other crops from the East to the West.
“I think with this new study we can now actually place Cannabis in that list as well as being one of these crops that originates on these ancient trade routes,” commented Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute. The archaeologists also uncovered glass beads, wooden plates and bowls, pieces of silk, and a Chinese harp in the mountain tombs.
This is for the benefit of those that haven’t yet seen the subsurface radar scan of Gobekli Tepe. The above image is from Deitrich et al., Antiquity vol. 86 (2012), freely available on the internet.
The little portion of Gobekli Tepe so far excavated corresponds to the detailed portion of the map, bottom right, which includes the main circular enclosures A to D. As you can see, even Enclosure D, the oldest and largest enclosure yet uncovered, corresponding to the uppermost green circle is small relative to some of the remaining structures.
The structure right in the middle of the plot looks especially interesting – being nearly twice the diameter of enclosure D. Considering the progression of these structures – they seem to get larger as they get older – perhaps this central enclosure is the ‘heart’ of Gobekli Tepe, and will reveal a great deal more about its function and purpose.
But some of the other structures remaining in the ground also look to be massive. Quite possibly, we have only scratched the surface of Gobekli Tepe so far, and the main event remains to be excavated.
Across the entire MENA region and other parts of the world, there are rumored to be a number of archeological anomalies that hints to the existence of an advanced prehuman civilization that flourished long before modern civilization as we know it began. These anomalies come in the form of gateways and are said to not only have the ability to open a bridge to other worlds, but also parallel realities. The question is, how much of this is true?
The Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by an intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam. Buddhism all across Asia grieved. The West hardly paid attention.
The remaining ruins of Babylon, and the attached museum, were occupied, plundered and vandalized by a US Marine base during Shock and Awe in 2003. The West paid no attention.
Vast tracts of Palmyra – a legendary Silk Road oasis – were destroyed by another intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs covered by layers of Western “intelligence”. The West paid no attention.
Scores of Catholic and Orthodox churches in Syria were burnt to the ground by the same intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs sponsored and weaponized, among others, by the US, Britain, and France. The West paid no attention whatsoever.
Notre-Dame, which in many ways can be construed as the Matrix of the West, is partially consumed by a theoretically blind fire.
Especially the roof; hundreds of oak beams, some dating back to the 13th century. Metaphorically, this could be interpreted as the burning of the roof over the West’s collective heads.
Bad karma? Finally?
* * *
Now back to the nitty-gritty.
Notre-Dame belongs to the French state, which had been paying little to no attention to a gothic jewel that traversed eight centuries.
Fragments of arcades, chimeras, reliefs, gargoyles were always falling to the ground and kept in an improvised deposit in the back of the cathedral.
Only last year Notre-Dame got a check for 2 million euros to restore the spire – which burned to the ground yesterday.
To restore the whole cathedral would have cost 150 million euros, according to the top world expert on Notre-Dame, who happens to be an American, Andrew Tallon.
Recently, the custodians of the cathedral and the French state were actually at war.
The French state was making at least 4 million euros a year, charging tourists to enter the Twin (Bell) Towers but putting back only 2 million euros for the maintenance of Notre-Dame.
The rector of Notre-Dame refused to charge for a ticket to enter the cathedral – as it happens, for example, at the Duomo in Milan.
Notre-Dame basically survives on donations – which pay the salaries of only 70 employees who need not only to supervise the masses of tourists but also to organize eight masses a day.
The French state’s proposal to minimize the ordeal; organize a beneficent lottery. That is; privatize what is a state commitment and obligation.
So yes: Sarkozy and Macron, their whole administrations, are directly and indirectly responsible for the fire.
Now comes the Notre-Dame of Billionaires.
Pinault (Gucci, St. Laurent) pledged 100 million euros from his personal fortune for the restoration. Arnault (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) doubled down, pledging 200 million euros.
So why not privatize this damn fine piece of real estate – disaster capitalism-style? Welcome to Notre-Dame luxury condo, hotel, and attached mall.
The enigmatic 3,000-year-old vignette from the Djedkhonsuiefankh funerary papyrus found on display in the Cairo Museum illustrates an uncanny scene: a disc-shaped object, depicted as being extremely bright, with a landing gear deployed on top of a Sphinx.
Could this really be an alien UFO?
Alien hunters believe this is the ultimate evidence there is a deep connection between Ancient Egypt and otherworldly beings.
The object seen on top of the Sphinx is unlike any other “boat“ seen in ancient Egyptian mythology.
In fact, it’s unlike anything previously seen in their iconography or symbolism.
There are similar depictions of alleged flying machines at the temple of Seti I, but these have been debunked as being the result of palimpsest.
The curious object seen in the vignette from the Djedkhonsuiefankh funerary papyrus was painted by the ancients as a Disc that radiates extremely bright light, and when you take a look at modern-day depictions of UFOs, it kinda looks exactly how people would describe a UFO today.
This ancient papyrus—you can see it here—is featured in a study titled: Cosmic Space and Archetypal Time, Depictions of the sky-goddess Nut in three royal tombs of the New Kingdom and the relation to the Milky Way, by Amanda-Alice Maravelia.
And if we take a close look at the ancient manuscript, it’s clear that it is a disc-shaped object which has a radiating dome on top. It is depicted as having ‘landed’ on the Sphinx, with three leg-like tripods seen protruding from the object.
But what makes the Sphinx so special? And what if this really is a UFO—and not a plant or some sort of bug?
Yup, could be a plant-flower, or even some sort of but? Right? What if there is another explanation as to what the object is? I meant just because it looks like a disc-shaped object that’s landed on the Sphinx, doesn’t mean it is one…
The truth is that the origin of the Sphinx is unknown and that doesn’t really help much when you see a papyrus like this one.
The degree of erosion that we see on it suggests it dates back to 10,000 BC. It’s an ancient monument whose secrets have remained hidden for thousands of years.
It is reported that researchers have found passages into hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx and some even venture out and say that the Sphinx may hold the truth behind our very existence.
It is rightfully referred to as one of the most mysterious monuments on the surface of the planet.
When the massive monument was found for the first time, it was covered—up to its head—by sand. For centuries, most visitors and researchers who visited the area believed this was all that existed.
However, French engineer Emile Baraize was convinced that much more lies beneath the surface than even archaeologists were aware of, the reason why he commissioned an excavation to uncover the rest of the Sphinx. Finally, after 11 years of extensive digging, Baraize and his team unearthed a massive body resembling a lion, reintroducing the massive monument to the world in its full splendor. It is the largest monolithic sculpture on Earth.
Curiously, in addition to the above-mentioned papyrus which “illustrates” the disc-shaped object, there is another ancient manuscript considered as the ultimate evidence of alien contact in ancient Egypt.
Called the Tulli Papyrus, the ancient manuscript details an incredible scene.
The translation of the text according to R. Cedric Leonard states:
“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day […] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor. Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice. It came toward His Majesty’s house. Their heart became confused through it, and they fell upon their bellies. They [went] to the king, to report it. His Majesty [ordered that] the scrolls [located] in the House of Life be consulted. His Majesty meditated on all these events which were now going on.
After several days had passed, they became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shined in the sky more than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of heaven […] Powerful was the position of the Fiery Disks.
The army of the King looked on, with His Majesty in their midst. It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and other volatiles rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country. And His Majesty caused incense to be brought to appease the heart of Amun-Re, the god of the Two Lands. And it was [ordered] that the event [be recorded for] His Majesty in the Annals of the House of Life [to be remembered] forever.”
Could it be that the enigmatic disk-shaped object on top of the Sphinx is one of those strange Fiery Disk’s mentioned in the Tulli Papyrus?
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a massive 2,000-year-old sealed tomb and now they want to open it to see what (or who) is inside – much to the horror of easily-spooked tweeters.
The black granite sarcophagus was uncovered in a tomb deep beneath the Egyptian city of Alexandria in early July. It’s believed to be the largest sarcophagus ever discovered in Alexandria, at 9ft long, 5ft wide and 6ft deep, says Mostafa Waziri, general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The sarcophagus discovery, while intriguing, has raised many questions about why a person would require such a large tomb, what artifacts it could be hiding, and what opening the vault could unleash.
Interestingly, the sarcophagus is also covered in a thick layer of mortar, suggesting it has not been opened since the Ptolemaic period to which it dates back – between 305BC and 30BC. That means whatever is inside; a person, jewelry, clothing and anything else, would still be intact. And that was a fact not well received by some very alarmed netizens.
Also discovered in the tomb was the alabaster head of a man which some believe may represent the person buried in the coffin. Most ancient tombs discovered in Egypt were looted in one era or another, often leaving archaeologists with a limited understanding of the person inside. This untouched artifact gives the eager team a rare opportunity to uncover the mummy for themselves.
Some people suggested the sarcophagus coupled with the recent discovery of a Neolithic henge in Ireland is either a sign of an impending apocalypse… or a very extravagant marketing scheme for a new Indiana Jones movie.
Spooky guesses aside, the greatest hurdle might be figuring out how to open the tomb at all. Estimated to weigh some 30 tons, moving the vault will be no easy feat. Experts will have to either surround it with some protective dirt and lift the entire thing with a bulldozer, or open the coffin in situ and remove the lid and base separately, according to Waad Abul-Ela, head of the projects sector at the Ministry of Antiquities.
So as not to cause damage to the contents, archaeologists are considering using X-rays, computed tomography scans or other scientific means to get a glimpse of the inside before opening the lid.
Not long ago, Egyptian Archaeologists discovered a huge 2,000-year-old sealed coffin, and as you’d imagine, they want to open it to see who or what is inside.
The sarcophagus was discovered in a tomb deep under the Egyptian city of Alexandria earlier this month (July 2018). It’s believed to be the largest sarcophagus ever discovered in Alexandria. It’s 9ft long, 5ft wide and 6ft deep, according to Mostafa Waziri, the general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
This has sparked quite the storm on the internet, as people point to the well known “curse of the pharaohs”, a term used to refer to a supposed curse believed to be thrown upon anyone who disturbs an ancient Egyptian mummy.
In the 10 years that followed the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, 11 people who had at least visited the site died under sometimes myserious curcumstances, including lead researcher Howard Carter and several members of his team. Cureses involving ancient Egyptian tombs and artificats have also been the source of several Hollywood movies. Despite being on the verge of a supposed curse, other social media users are too intruiged to worry about the apparent risks.
A lot of mainstream media outlets present the idea of some sort of ‘curse’ as predominately mythological. The human mind definitely does, today that is, have trouble even comprehending how something like that could actually be real. Perhaps it invokes so much fear in one that we simply choose to ignore it, laugh it off and convince ourselves that such things may not exist. It’s also interesting to note that the sarcophagus is covered in a thick layer of mortar, suggesting it has not been opened since the Ptolemaic period, which dates back between 305BC and 30BC. So, whatever is inside, it will still be intact…
Should It Be Opened?
Personally, I can understand the caution. If these coffins are to be left undisturbed by humanity, as instructed by the ancients, I believe these rules should be followed, and that’s probably because I am convinced in the validity of the concepts discussed in the Encyclopedia of Esoteric Studies, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, written by Manly P. Hall. In it, he describes how ancient rituals, practices, and magic were used by the ancients of different time periods, and this type of magic actually dominated in Egypt, which came to them from Atlantis.
“The masses, deprived of their birthright of understanding and grovelling in ignorance, eventually became the abject slaves of the spiritual impostors. Superstition universally prevailed and the black magicians completely dominated national affairs, with the result that humanity still suffers from the sophistries of the priestcrafts of Atlantis and Egypt.”
The model used for dating the origin of human civilization is bound to the presupposition that human history has progressed in a linear fashion from the time of tribal hunter-gatherers. As established institutions hold firm to this view, evidence contradicting the accepted model continues to grow. This data is difficult to collect and is immediately discredited by the “credible” scientific community.
In this inaugural episode, Graham Hancock discloses his evidence that suggests cataclysmic events brought a dramatic end to an advanced human civilization which predates recorded history by thousands of years in this presentation originally webcast February 9, 2015.
Graham Hancock is the author of the international bestsellers The Sign and The Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods and Heaven’s Mirror. His public lectures, radio and TV appearances have put his ideas before audiences of millions. He is recognized as an unconventional thinker who raises controversial questions about humanity’s past. Although best known for his non-fiction writings his most recent books are novels: Entangled: The Eater of Souls, War God: Nights of the Witch and War God: Return of the Plumed Serpent.
Most of the one million visitors who visit Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain every year believe they are looking at untouched 4,000-year-old remains. But virtually every stone was re-erected, straightened or embedded in concrete between 1901 and 1964, says a British doctoral student.
“What we have been looking at is a 20th-century landscape, reminiscent of what Stonehenge might have looked like thousands of years ago,” says Brian Edwards, a student at the University of the West of England in Bristol.
Stonehenge isn’t the only ancient site to have been transformed in recent years, he says. “Even many of the local people in Avebury weren’t aware that a lot of the stones were put up in the 1930s,” he told New Scientist.
The major reconstructions that took place at Stonehenge and Avebury early last century couldn’t be repeated at a major site today, thinks Edwards. “But it probably is happening in small museums and heritage centres up and down the country,” he says.
English Heritage says it is now considering covering the Stonehenge alteration programme in detail in the next edition of its official guidebook to the site. A decision not to include the work in official guides was taken in the 1960s, says Dave Batchelor, English Heritage’s senior archaeologist.
The first restoration project took place in 1901. A leaning stone was straightened and set in concrete, to prevent it falling.
More drastic renovations were carried out in the 1920s. Under the direction of Colonel William Hawley, a member of the Stonehenge Society, six stones were moved and re-erected.
The Earth is so vast, archaeologists are still finding remnants of lost civilizations. Most recently, researchers discovered a Mayan city, hidden in the Guatemalan jungle, which is estimated to have been home to approximately 10 million citizens.
The Guardian reports that the researchers used a high-tech aerial mapping technique to find tens of thousands of hidden structures. They include Mayan houses, buildings, defense works, pyramids, an industrial-sized agricultural field and irrigation canals. At least four major Mayan ceremonial centers with plazas were also detected by the mapping technique.
News of the lost city, which was hidden in the jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, was announced on Thursday by an alliance of US, European and Guatemalan archeologists who have been working in conjunction with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.
To supply the 10 million Mayan residents, massive food production would have been essential. Marcello A Canuto, a professor of anthropology at Tulane University, commented on this when he said, “That is two to three times more [inhabitants] than people were saying there were.”
The mapping technique is called Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging. Contours hidden by dense foliage are found as the technology bounces pulsed laser light off the ground. The resulting images revealed that the Mayans altered the landscape in a drastic way. In some areas, 95 percent of the land was cultivated.
Said Francisco Estrada-Belli, a research assistant professor at Tulane University, “Their agriculture is much more intensive and therefore sustainable than we thought, and they were cultivating every inch of the land.” Estrada-Belli added that the ancient Mayas partly drained swampy road that hasn’t been farmed since.
Researchers suggest the civilization had a highly organized workforce. They predicted this based on the extensive defensive fences, ditch-and-rampart systems, and the constructed irrigation canals.
As The Guardian reports, the mapping — which revealed 810 square miles (or 2,100 square kilometers) of hidden civilization — expands the area that was intensively occupied by the Maya. The culture flourished between roughly 1,000 BC and 900 AD. Many descendants still inhabit the region.
Thomas Garrison, assistant professor of anthropology at Ithaca College in New York, used the Lidar data to look for one of the roads.
“I found it, but if I had not had the Lidar and known that that’s what it was, I would have walked right over it, because of how dense the jungle is.”
Garrison noted that the jungle grew over the abandoned Maya field and structures, rather than destroyed them. This is unlike some other ancient cities, whose fields, roads and outbuildings have been all but destroyed by the elements.
“The jungle, which has hindered us in our discovery efforts for so long, has actually worked as this great preservative tool of the impact the culture had across the landscape,” noted Garrison. The assistant professor says the finding “can’t be called anything other than a Maya fortress.”
To the researchers’ surprise, the structures were hiding in plain sight. “As soon as we saw this we all felt a little sheepish,” said Canuto, “because these were things that we had been walking over all the time.”
What else might be discovered with the Lidar technology? Only time will tell!
One of the last unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls has finally been deciphered bringing researchers one step closer to unravelling the mystery of the texts written more than 2,000 years ago.
Most of the scrolls were deciphered in the years after they were found in the 1940s and 1950s. The ancient religious texts, which are written in a range of different languages including Hebrew and Aramaic, the ancient language believed to be spoken by Jesus Christ, have long been restored and published.
However the newly decoded scroll was so damaged that some researchers didn’t even realize it was a full document, instead believing it was fragments of other works.
A team from the University of Haifa in Israel spent an entire year painstakingly reassembling more than 60 tiny pieces of the ancient document which is written in a long forgotten secret code.
“The scroll is written in code, but its actual content is simple and well-known, and there was no reason to conceal it,” the researchers, Dr Eshbal Ratson and Prof Jonathan Ben-Dov, said in a statement.
“This practice is also found in many places outside the Land of Israel, where leaders write in secret code even when discussing universally-known matters, as a reflection of their status.”
The pay off for unravelling the archaic cipher was fresh insight into the highly unusual 364 day calendar used by the ancient Judean sect who wrote numerous scrolls.
The Yahad community were religious fanatics who lived in the desert and faced persecution by the establishment. The sect roamed the region between the second century BC and second century AD.
Their calendar was the subject of intense debate at the time. “The lunar calendar, which Judaism follows to this day, requires a large number of human decisions. People must look at the stars and moon and report on their observations, and someone must be empowered to decide on the new month and the application of leap years,” the researchers explain.
“By contrast, the 364-day calendar was perfect. Because this number can be divided into four and seven, special occasions always fall on the same day. This avoids the need to decide, for example, what happens when a particular occasion falls on the Sabbath, as often happens in the lunar calendar.”
“Cassaro asserts that like modern thinkers such as Eckhart Tolle, ancients believed that time and space are mental projections affected by the sensory limitations of sentient creatures.”
Researchers like Graham Hancock have influenced by sense of these connections and point to the possibility of a source “super” civilization that may have had some of its knowledge recorded metaphorically or artistically in places like Central America, Mexico, Peru, India, China, as well as in Egypt.
Graham asserts that “stuff keeps getting older” and makes a strong case for a cataclysmic event that wiped out such a civilization with a comet impact about 12,000 years ago, approximately the time Plato attributed to the decline of Atlantis, which may be much more than a mere myth.
These theories are beautifully and graphically explored in the web series Magical Egypt.
The latest segment proposes that the two “polarities” of Consciousness seem to arise from (or reference) the two hemispheres of the brain.
These are the “dualities” of energetic complementarians — Yin/ Yang, Plus/ Minus, Male/ Female, Hot/ Cold, Night/ Day, Sun/ Moon and so on.
In Episode 4 I was introduced to the amazing work of Richard Cassaro, who is the author of two books that explore deep connections between secret societies and ancient civilizations.
What struck me deeply — besides the wonderful comparisons of ancient structures from all of these locales and their overlapping, identical motifs, was his focus on the “Godself image.”
This ubiquitous image displays the complementary forces in either hand of a deity, mythical creature, or actual spirit animal with emphasis on the head or disc at the top of the torso.
According to Cassaro this disc is a Third Force — a reconciling or “vertical” dimension that rules over the conflicting forces and presumably “intelligently” creates the result for the potentiality of energies within the expression of THE PRESENT MOMENT.
Cassaro asserts that like modern thinkers such as Eckhart Tolle, ancients believed that time and space are mental projections affected by the sensory limitations of sentient creatures.
The sole connection to a higher dimension that affects us sporadically according to our consciousness and level of being is literally “time-less” — and is experienced only in our lifetimes within moments of complete clarity.
These beliefs can be traced back to Gnosticism and the actual parables of Jesus and again, a “lost Christian” tradition that sought transcendence of the mental realms to connect with a reality beyond thought.
Gurdjieff and his student Ouspensky, author of the classic In Search of the Miraculous, brought a teaching that he hinted came from “Pre-Sand” Egypt — a time which geologists like Robert Schoch have recently identified as more temperate and accounting for the striations at the bases of the Sphinx that were caused by water erosion (hard to imagine in today’s Sahara but possible before the great flood or other cataclysm that might have wiped out a “super civilization” or source culture).
Gurdjieff also asserted a sacred Law of the Threes — three basic forces of Nature that shape our reality — the forces were also:
“Holy Affirming Holy Denying Holy Reconciling Transsubstantiate within me for my being.”
In the summary of Gurdjieff’s work linked above, philosopher Jacob Needleman also describes, “the idea of the three centers in man is one of the most central ideas in the whole of the Gurdjieffian system.
Man’s confusion, his lack of unity, his unnecessary suffering, his immorality — in fact everything that characterizes the sorrow of the human condition — come about because these centers of perception are wrongly related, wrongly functioning, and because man does not see or care to know this about himself.”
These three centers relate to the three forces obviously, but again what is striking is that the reconciling force does not “act” in the present moment, but actually, somehow, beyond our normal comprehension literally IS the present moment.
This interpretation seems to be shared by the Gurdjieff teaching, Cassaro’s interpretation of the GodSelf imagery, and the artistic deconstruction done by the producers and other contributors to the Magical Egypt series — which is a study of an ancient science of Consciousness.
It is also known that before bringing his teaching back to Russia, Gurdjieff spent many years in Egypt working as a tour guide at Giza and apparently studying the ancient monuments and texts.
I believe that this also relates to some of my own work because I am so interested in the confluence of DNA code and computer software.
As I have noted here and in my recent book, the notion that there can be code, that can be edited, without Mind as its progenitor is contrary to all actual experience and empirical evidence.
Every other program that we know of is mind-based, as are we.
The key point here is that Mind is not “resident” only in the human brain. It may well be a natural force of nature and indeed the Reconciling or Third force known to the ancients.
Just as some cultures have numerous words for “love” or even “snow” depending upon their beliefs and connection to physical reality, so too may we need to broaden our concept of Mind to accommodate different “frequencies” — some of which may occur in nature beyond our current level of understanding.
For example, the Egyptian “deities” which we consider primitive were actual representatives of the various “intelligences” of Nature worshiped by Egyptians as part of Maat — the Natural Order — such as the floods that irrigated crops, wind, sandstorms, Sun and Moon and their radiant energy, and so on.
Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire – the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs.
Rome’s ultra-wealthy took weekend trips here to party. Powerful statesmen built luxurious villas on its beach, with heated spas and mosaic-tiled pools where they could indulge their wildest desires. One resident even commissioned a nymphaeum – a private grotto surrounded by marble statues, dedicated solely to ‘earthly pleasure’.
More than 2,000 years ago, Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire – a resort town approximately 30km from Naples on Italy’s caldera-peppered west coast that catered to the whims of poets, generals and everyone in between. The great orator Cicero composed speeches from his retreat by the bay, while the poet Virgil and the naturalist Pliny maintained residences within easy reach of the rejuvenating public baths.
It was also the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs.
More than 2,000 years ago, Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire
“There are many tales of intrigue associated with Baia,” said John Smout, a researcher who has partnered with local archaeologists to study the site. Rumour has it that Cleopatra escaped in her boat from Baia after Julius Caesar was murdered in 44BC, while Julia Agrippina plotted her husband Claudius’ death at Baia so her son Nero could become emperor of Rome.
“She poisoned Claudius with deadly mushrooms,” Smout explained. “But he somehow survived, so that same night, Agrippina got her physician to administer an enema of poisonous wild gourd, which finally did the trick.”
Mineral waters and a mild climate first attracted Rome’s nobility to Baia in the latter half of the 2nd Century BC, and the town was known to them as the Phlegraean (or ‘flaming’) Fields, so named because of the calderas that pockmark the region.
“I visited the site as a boy and the guide poked an umbrella into the ground and steam and lava came out,” Smout recalled.
The calderas were revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans as entrances to the underworld, but they also fuelled a number of technological advancements: the local invention of waterproof cement, a mixture of lime and volcanic rock, spurred construction of airy domes and marbled facades, as well as private fish ponds and lavish bath houses.
But given Baia’s sinful reputation, it is perhaps fitting that the abundance of volcanic activity in the area was also its downfall. Over several centuries, bradyseism, the gradual rise and fall of the Earth’s surface caused by hydrothermal and seismic activity, caused much of the city to sink into a watery grave, where it still sits today.
Mineral waters and a mild climate first attracted Rome’s nobility to Baia
Tourist interest in the once-popular coastline was only renewed in the 1940s when a pilot shared an aerial photo of an edifice just below the ocean’s surface. Soon, geologists puzzled over boreholes left by molluscs on ruins found near the shore, tell-tale signs that parts of the hillside had once dipped below sea level. Two decades later, Italian officials commissioned a submarine to survey the underwater parts of the city.
What they found was fascinating: since Roman times, underground pressure has caused the land surrounding Baia to continuously rise and fall, pushing the ancient ruins upwards towards the sea’s surface before slowly swallowing them again – a kind of geological purgatory.
The ruins beneath the sea’s surface were the province of just a few intrepid archaeologists until recently. The underwater archaeological site was not formally designated a marine protected area and until 2002, which is when it opened to the public. Since then, 3D-scanning technology and other advances in marine archaeology have offered first-time glimpses into this chapter of antiquity: divers, historians and photographers have captured submerged rotundas and porticos, including the famed Temple of Venus (not a temple, but a thermal sauna) – discoveries that have in turn provided clues to Rome’s most outrageous debauchery.
On a calm day, visitors can spot remnants of the Roman town below the Tyrrhenian Sea
Because of the undulation of the Earth’s crust, these ruins actually lie in relatively shallow water, at an average depth of 6m, allowing visitors to see some of its eerie underwater structures from a glass-bottomed boat, or videobarca. Local diving centres such as the Centro Sub Campi Flegreo (who partnered with the BBC on a recent documentary about Baia) also offer snorkelling and scuba tours of the submerged city a few kilometres out in the Tyrrhenian Sea. On a calm day, visitors can spot Roman columns, ancient roads and elaborately paved plazas. Statues of Octavia Claudia (Emperor Claudius’ sister) and Ulysses mark the entrance to underwater grottos, their outstretched arms flecked with barnacles.
There’s plenty to see above the water line, as well. In fact, many of the submerged sculptures are actually replicas; the originals can be found up the hill at the Baia Castle, where the Archaeological Superintendency for Campania manages a museum of relics pulled from the sea. Many above-ground Roman ruins are also visible nearby at the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, the portion of the ancient city still above sea level. Excavated in the 1950s by Amedeo Maiuri, the archaeologist who also unearthed Pompeii and Herculaneum, the on-land historical site features the remains of mosaic terraces and domed bathhouse.
Surrounding the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, modern Baia is a shadow of its former magnificence, though it still captures the spirit of idleness and pleasure. These days the coastline that was once peppered with mansions and bathhouses features a small marina, a hotel and a handful of seafood restaurants lining a narrow road running north-east toward Naples.
Time may be running out to see this lost relic of ancient Italy’s opulence: seismologists predict further volcanic activity along Baia’s coast in the near future, rendering the city’s fate uncertain once again. Twenty small earthquakes were recorded in the area this past year alone, and talk in recent years has touched on permanently closing the sunken ruins to visitors.
For now, however, visitors can search this underwater city for a hidden entrance – if not to the underworld, then at least to some spectacular subterranean treasures.
Was North America once inhabited by a race of giants? According to an old legend supported by several challenging archaeological finds, it is possible.
Many Native American tribes tell stories about the long-forgotten existence of a race of humans that were much taller and stronger than ordinary men.
These giants are described as both brave and barbaric and legends often mention their cruelty towards whomever they pleased.
The Paiute, a tribe that settled in the Nevada region thousands of years ago, have an outstanding legend about a race of red-haired giants called the Si-Te-Cah.
The ancestors of the Paiute described them as savage and inhospitable cannibals.
In the Northern Paiute language, ‘Si-Te-Cah’ literally means ‘tule-eaters.’
Legend has it that the giants came from a distant island by crossing the ocean on rafts built using the fibrous tule plant.
As odd as it may sound, this legend repeats itself all over the Americas, suggesting it might be an incomplete chronicle of a real event that happened long ago.
In Crónicas del Perú, sixteenth century Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León recorded an ancient Peruvian tale about the origin of the South American giants.
According to legend, they “came by sea in rafts of reeds after the manner of large boats; some of the men were so tall that from the knee down they were as big as the length of an ordinary fair-sized man.”
Could the giants of Peru and the Si-Te-Cah have been survivors of a massive cataclysm who took refuge on the American continent?
Legend tells that the Si-Te-Cah waged war on the Paiute and all other neighboring tribes, spreading terror and devastation. Finally, after years of conflict, the tribes united against the common enemy and began to decimate them.
The last remaining red-haired giants were chased off and sought shelter inside a cave. The tribes started a fire at the cave entrance, suffocating and burning alive the Si-Te-Cah. Those driven out by the smoke were also killed.
The tribes then sealed off the mouth of the cave so that no one might set eyes on those who had once plagued their land. They were all but forgotten until a random event brought them back to light.
In 1886, a mining engineer named John T. Reid happened to hear the legend from a group of Paiutes while prospecting near Lovelock, Nevada.
The Indians told him that the legend was real and the cave was located nearby. When he saw the cave for himself, Reid knew he was onto something.
Reid was unable to begin digging himself but news spread and soon, Lovelock cave was attracting attention.
Unfortunately, the attention was profit-driven as guano deposits were discovered inside.
A company started by miners David Pugh and James Hart began excavating the precious resource in 1911 and had soon shipped more than 250 tons to a fertilizer company in San Francisco.
Any artifacts that might have been discovered were probably neglected or lost.
After the surface layer of guano had been mined, strange objects started to surface.
This led to an official excavation being performed in 1912 by the University of California and another one took place in 1924. Reports told about thousands of artifacts being recovered, some of them being truly unusual.
Although their claims have not been verified (it comes as no surprise), sources said the mummified remains of several red-haired ancient giants were found buried in the cave.
Measuring between 8 to 10 feet in height, these mummies have since been referred to as the Lovelock Giants.
Another intriguing find was a pair of 15 inch-long sandals that showed signs of having been worn. Allegedly, other unusually large items were recovered but have since been locked away in museum warehouses and private collection.
A piece of evidence that remains on-site until this day is a giant hand print, embedded on a boulder inside Lovelock Cave. We won’t go into further debate pertaining to this aspect and its implications.
Needless to say, this discovery has led many into believing the Paiute legend of the Si-Te-Cah might be more than just folklore.
Around the same time as the second Lovelock Cave excavation, another dig revealed a set of equally-disturbing finds.
According to a 1931 article published in the Nevada Review-Miner, two giant skeletons had been found buried in a dry lake bed close to Lovelock, Nevada.
The over-sized remains measured 8.5, respectively 10 feet in height and were mummified in a manner similar to the one employed by ancient Egyptians.
Another common trait between these mummified giant remains and the ones discovered as far south as Lake Titicaca is the presence of red hair.
While some scientists believe the reddish color is a result of the interaction with the environment in which they were buried, the mummies verify the legends, which described the Si-Te-Cah and their kin as red-haired giants.
Proponents of alternative history believe these violent giants were none other than the biblical Nephilim, the forsworn offspring of the ‘Sons of God’ with the ‘daughters of men.’
If this is true, there’s little chance we might get to see any of the giant mummies. Those interested in keeping history secret will never disclose their location.
Graham Hancock investigates the mysterious religious texts of the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia and the ‘underground cities’ of neighbouring Turkey. Both, he argues, are far older than is presently taught and date back to cataclysmic events near the end of the last Ice Age that destroyed, and all but wiped from human memory, an advanced civilization of prehistory. Below is an excerpt form his work, which you can find HERE. ( A link to his new book, “Magicians of the Gods”)
Exactly how old Zoroastrianism is has not yet been satisfactorily established by scholars, since even the lifetime of its prophet Zarathustra (better known as Zoroaster) is uncertain. Indeed, as Columbia University’s authoritative Encyclopedia Iranica admits: ‘Controversy over Zarathustra’s date has been an embarrassment of long standing to Zoroastrian studies.’[i]
The Greek historians were amongst the first to address themselves to the matter. Plutarch, for example, tells us that Zoroaster ‘lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War’[ii] (itself a matter of uncertain historicity but generally put at around 1300 BC, thus 5,000 plus 1,300 = 6300 BC). A similar chronology is given by Diogenes Laertius, who relates that Zoroaster lived ‘6,000 years before Xerxes’ Greek campaign’[iii] (i.e. around 6480 BC). More recent scholars have proposed dates as far apart as 1750 BC and ‘258 years before Alexander’[iv] (i.e. around 588 BC). Whatever the truth of the matter, it is agreed that Zoroaster himself borrowed from much earlier traditions and that Zoroastrianism, therefore, like many other religions, has roots that extend very far back into prehistory.
In the Zoroastrian scriptures known as the Zend Avesta certain verses in particular are recognized as drawing on these very ancient oral traditions.[v] The verses speak of a primordial father figure called Yima, the first man, the first king, and the founder of civilization, and appear in the opening section of the Zend Avesta, known as the Vendidad. There we read how the god Ahura Mazda created the first land, ‘Airyana Vaejo, by the good river Daitya,’[vi] as a paradise on earth and how ‘the fair Yima, the great shepherd… was the first mortal’ with whom Ahura Mazda chose to converse, instructing him to become a preacher.[vii] Yima refused, at which the god said:
Since thou wantest not to be the preacher and the bearer of my law, then make my world thrive, make my world increase; undertake thou to nourish, to rule and to watch over my world.[viii]
To this Yima agreed, at which the god presented him with a golden ring and a poniard – a long, tapered thrusting knife – inlaid with gold. Significantly, for we will see in Chapter Seventeen there are close parallels to this story as far away as the Andes mountains of South America, Yima then:
‘pressed the earth with the golden ring and bored it with the poniard.’[ix]
By this act, we learn he ‘made the earth grow larger by one third than it was before,’ a feat that over the course of thousands of years he repeated twice more – in the process eventually doubling the land area available for ‘the flocks and herds with men and dogs and birds,’ who gathered unto him ‘at his will and wish, as many as he wished.’[x]
Anatomically modern humans like ourselves have existed, so far as we know, for a little less than two hundred thousand years (the earliest anatomically modern human skeleton acknowledged by science is from Ethiopia and dates to 196,000 years ago).[xi] Within this timespan there has only been one period when those parts of the earth that are useful to humans increased dramatically in size, and that was during the last Ice Age, between 100,000 and 11,600 years ago. Indeed, previously submerged lands totalling 27 million square kilometres – equivalent to the area of Europe and China added together – were exposed by lowered sea-levels at the last glacial maximum 21,000 years ago. While it is probably far-fetched to suppose that it is this very real increase of useful land that is referred to in the Yima story, or that it has anything to do with the golden age that Yima’s benign rule supposedly achieved in Airyana Vaejo,[xii] it is interesting to note what happened next.
After another immense span of time, we read, Yima was summoned to ‘a meeting place by the good river Daitya’ where the god Ahura Mazda appeared to him bearing an ominous warning of sudden and catastrophic climate change:
O fair Yima, upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall bring the fierce, foul frost; upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall that shall make snowflakes fall thick, even on the highest tops of mountains…
Therefore make thee a Vara [a hypogeum, or underground enclosure] long as a riding ground on every side of the square, and thither bring the seeds of sheep and oxen, of men, of dogs, of birds, and of red blazing fires… Thither thou shalt bring the seeds of men and women of the greatest, best and finest kinds on this earth; thither shalt thou bring the seeds of every kind of cattle, of the greatest, best and finest kinds on this earth. Thither shalt thou bring the seeds of every kind of tree, of the greatest, best and finest kinds on this earth; thither shalt thou bring the seeds of every kind of fruit, the fullest of food and sweetest of odour. All those seeds shalt thou bring, two of every kind, to be kept inexhaustible there, so long as those men shall stay in the Vara. There shall be no humpbacked, none bulged forward there; no impotent, no lunatic… no leprous.[xiii]
So… you get the idea? This underground hideaway was to serve as a refuge from a terrible winter that was about to seize Airyana Vaejo – a winter not of a single season but of a millennium, at the onset of which, as the Bundahish, another Zoroastrian text, informs us:
the evil spirit… sprang like a snake out of the sky down to the earth… He rushed in at noon, and thereby the sky was as shattered and frightened by him as a sheep by a wolf. He came onto the water which was arranged below the earth, and then the middle of this earth was pierced and entered by him… He rushed out upon the whole creation and he made the world quite as injured and dark at midday as though it were dark night.[xiv]
Studying these accounts I couldn’t help but be reminded of the two millennia of gentle global warming that began about 15,000 years ago in the closing millennia of the last Ice Age – a sustained, balmy period of warm, fine weather – before the sudden lethal onset 12,800 years ago of a period of dramatic climate instability that geologists call ‘the Younger Dryas.’ This epoch has long been recognized as mysterious and tumultuous and it is only in the last decade that scientists have been able to pinpoint its cause. To cut a long story short, what the science indicates is that 12,800 years ago a comet travelling on an orbit that took it through the inner solar system broke up into multiple fragments, and that many of these fragments, some more than a mile (2.4 kilometers) in diameter, hit the earth with globally cataclysmic effects. An area of more than 50 million square kilometers, stretching from North America in the west to Syria in the east, was affected and a vast cloud of dust was thrown into the upper atmosphere that enshrouded the earth, preventing the sun’s rays from reaching the surface and thus initiating Younger Dryas.
At that point, 12,800 years ago, the earth had been emerging from the Ice Age for roughly 10,000 years, global temperatures were rising steadily, and the ice caps were melting. Then came the comet impacts, bringing a sudden catastrophic return to colder conditions – even colder than at the peak of the Ice Age 21,000 years ago. This short, sharp deep freeze lasted for 1,200 years until 11,600 years ago when the warming trend resumed, global temperatures shot up again, and the remaining ice caps melted very suddenly, dumping all the water they contained into the oceans.
When the Zoroastrian texts speak of a ‘fierce, foul frost’ and of ‘a fatal winter,’ is it possible that they are describing conditions during the Younger Dryas? The texts attribute the shocking change of climate to a supernatural agency – Angra Mainyu, the demon of darkness, destruction, wickedness, and chaos who stands in opposition to and seeks to undermine and undo all the works of Ahura Mazda, the God of Light. Zoroastrianism is a profoundly dualistic religion in which human beings and the choices we make for good or evil are seen as the objects of an eternal competition, or contest, between the opposed forces of darkness and light. And in this contest the darkness sometimes wins. Thus the Vendidad reminds us that although Airyana Vaejo was ‘the first of the good lands and countries’ created by Ahura Mazda, it could not resist the evil one:
Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death, and he counter-created by his witchcraft the serpent in the river, and winter, a work of the demons… [Now] there are ten winter months there, two summer months, and these are cold for the waters, cold for the earth, cold for the trees. Winter falls there, with the worst of its plagues.[xv]
In other translations the phrase ‘the serpent in the river, and winter’ is given as ‘a great serpent and Winter’ and, alternatively, as ‘a mighty serpent and snow.’[xvi]
Again… you get the idea. The metaphor that is being repeatedly driven home here is that of the mighty serpent who springs from the sky down to the earth, who penetrates the earth, and who brings a prolonged winter upon the world so severe that it is ‘dark’ (‘most turbid, opaque’ according to some translations[xvii]) at midday, and even the fleeting summer months are too cold for human life. Once again, the whole scenario seems very accurately to describe the terrible conditions that would have afflicted the world after the Younger Dryas comet spread its trail of destruction across 50 million square kilometers, brought on ‘a vehement destroying frost’ and threw such quantities of dust into the upper atmosphere, together with smoke from the continent-wide wildfires sparked off by airbursts and superheated ejecta, that a turbid, opaque darkness would indeed have filled the skies, reflecting back the sun’s rays and perpetuating something very like a nuclear winter for centuries.
The Zoroastrian texts leave us in no doubt that these conditions posed a deadly threat to the future survival of civilization. It was for this reason that Ahura Mazda came to Yima with his warning and his instruction to build an underground shelter where some remnant of humanity could take refuge, keeping safe the seeds of all animals and plants, until the thousand-year winter had passed and spring returned to the world. Moreover the account reveals very little that seems ‘mythical,’ or that obviously derives from flights religious fancy. Rather the whole thing has about it an atmosphere of hard-headed practical planning that adds a chilling note of veracity.
For example the admonition that deformed, impotent, lunatic, and leprous people should be kept out of the Vara sounds a lot like eugenics, a distasteful policy to be sure, but one that might be implemented if the survival of the human race was at stake and there was limited space available in the refuge. For the same reasons it is not surprising that only the seeds of ‘the greatest, best and finest’ kinds of trees, fruits, and vegetables, those that are ‘fullest of food and sweetest of odour,’ are to be brought to the Vara. Why waste space on anything but the best?
Also, although it is certain that a number of carefully selected people were to be admitted to the Vara, perhaps as caretakers and managers of the project, and as future breeding stock, the emphasis throughout is on seeds – which in the case of human beings would be sperm from the males and eggs from the females. So when we read that the Vara is to be constructed in three subterranean levels, each smaller than the one above, each with its own system of criss-crossing ‘streets,’ it is legitimate to wonder whether some kind of storage system, perhaps with ranks of shelves arranged in cross-crossing aisles, might not really be what is meant here:
In the largest part of the place thou shalt make nine streets, six in the middle part, three in the smallest. To the streets of the largest part thou shalt bring a thousand seeds of men and women; to the streets of the middle part, six hundred; to the streets of the smallest part, three hundred.[xviii]
If it seems fanciful to imagine that we might, in an almost high-tech sense, be looking at the specifications of a seed bank here, then how are we to assess other ‘technological’ aspects of the Vara – for example its lighting system? As well as making a door to the place, and sealing it up with the golden ring already given to him by Ahura Mazda, Yima is also to fashion ‘a window, self-shining within.’[xix] When Yima asks for clarification as to the nature of this ‘self-shining’ window Ahura Mazda tells him cryptically ‘there are uncreated lights and created lights.’ The former are the stars, the moon and the sun, which will not be seen from within the confines of the Vara during the long winter, but the latter are ‘artificial lights’ which ‘shine from below.’[xx]
Yima did as he was instructed and completed the Vara which, thereafter, ‘glowed with its own light.’[xxi] That accomplished, he then:
made waters flow in a bed a mile long; there here he settled birds, by the evergreen banks that bear never-failing food. There he established dwelling places, consisting of a house with a balcony, a courtyard and a gallery…[xxii]
There, too, we are reminded, in accord with the commands of the god,
he brought the seeds of men and women… There he brought the seeds of every kind of tree [and]… every kind of fruit… All those seeds he brought, two of every kind, to be kept inexhaustible there, so long as those men shall stay in the Vara…[xxiii]
Finally, we learn that:
every fortieth year, to every couple two are born, a male and a female. And thus it is for every sort of cattle. And the men in the Vara, which Yima made, live the happiest life.[xxiv]
Interestingly the translator explains, in a footnote drawn from various ancient learned commentaries on the text, that the human inhabitants of the Vara ‘live there for 150 years; some say they never die.’[xxv] Moreover, and particularly intriguing, the births of offspring to every couple do not result from sexual union but ‘from the seeds deposited in the Vara.’[xxvi]
Other hints of a mysterious lost technology connected to Yima include a miraculous cup in which he could see everything that was happening anywhere in the world and a jewelled glass throne (sometimes described as ‘a glass chariot’) that was capable of flight.[xxvii]
Flood & Rain
As well as a climate catastrophe in the form of an overnight reversion to peak Ice Age cold, we also know that the Younger Dryas involved extensive global flooding, as a large fraction of the North American ice cap – directly impacted by at least four of the comet fragments – melted and poured into the world ocean. It is therefore noteworthy that the Zoroastrian texts speak not only of the ‘vehement, destroying frost’ of a global winter but also of a subsequent flood accompanied by heavy precipitation, in which ‘every single drop of rain became as big as a bowl and the water stood the height of a man over the whole of this earth.’[xxviii]
On the other side of the world and much closer to the North American epicentre of the cataclysm, the Popol Vuh, an original document of the ancient Quiche Maya of Guatemala, based on pre-conquest sources, also speaks of a flood and associates it with ‘much hail, black rain and mist, and indescribable cold.’[xxix] It says, in a remarkable echo of the Zoroastrian tradition, that this was a period when ‘it was cloudy and twilight all over the world… The faces of the sun and the moon were covered.’[xxx] Other Maya sources confirm that these strange and terrible phenomena were experienced by mankind ‘in the time of the ancients. The earth darkened… It happened that the sun was still bright and clear. Then, at midday, it got dark…’[xxxi] Sunlight was not seen again ‘until the twenty-sixth year after the flood.’[xxxii]
Returning to the Middle East, the world-famous account of the Hebrew patriarch Noah and the great Ark in which he rides out the flood, commands attention. It is obvious that there are many parallels with the story of Yima and his Vara. The Vara, after all, is a means of surviving a terrible and devastating winter which will destroy every living creature by enchaining the earth in a freezing trap of ice and snow. The Ark, likewise, is a means of surviving a terrible and devastating flood which will destroy every living creature by drowning the world in water. In both cases a deity – Ahura Mazda in the case of the Zoroastrian tradition, the God Yahweh in the case of the Hebrew tradition – intervenes to give advance warning to a good and pure man to prepare for the coming cataclysm. In each case the essence of the project is to preserve the seeds, or the breeding pairs, of all life:
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the Ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.[xxxiii]
Easily missed, but noteworthy, is the fact that Noah’s Ark, like Yima’s Vara, is to have a ‘window,’ is to be closed with a ‘door,’ and is to consist of three levels:
A window shalt thou make to the Ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.[xxxiv]
Last but not least, there are hints of a lost lighting technology in Noah’s Ark that parallel the references to the ‘artificial lights’ in the Vara. In the legends of the Jews we read that the whole journey of the Ark, ‘during the year of the flood,’ was conducted in darkness both by day and by night:
‘All the time it lasted, the sun and the moon shed no light…’[xxxv]
However just like ‘self-shining window’ of the Vara:
‘The Ark was illuminated by a precious stone, the light of which was more brilliant by night than by day, so enabling Noah to distinguish between day and night.’[xxxvi]
Underground Cities
Noah’s Ark, as is well-known, is said to have ended its journey on the slopes of Mount Ararat, the symbolic heartland of ancient Armenia but now, as a result of wars in the early twentieth century, located within the modern state of Turkey. Turkey, in turn, shares a border with Iran – ancient Persia – from which the accounts of Yima’s Vara come down to us.
It is therefore intriguing that Turkey’s Cappadocia region has a very large number of ancient underground structures hewn out of solid rock and usually, like the Vara, consisting of multiple levels stacked one above the other. These underground ‘cities,’ as they are known, include the eerie and spectacular site of Derinkuyu, which I was able to visit in 2013. Lying beneath a modern town of the same name, eight of its levels are presently open to the public, although further levels remain closed off below and, astonishingly, a subterranean tunnel several kilometres in length connects it to another similar hypogeum at Kaymakli.
Entering Derinkuyu was like crossing some invisible barrier into an unexpected netherworld. One minute I was standing in bright sunshine; the next, after I had ducked into the cool, dank, dimly-lit system of tunnels and galleries (no self-shining windows now; only low-wattage electric light), I felt I had been transported to a realm carved out by mythical dwarves at the dawn of time. In places the tunnels are low and narrow so that one must stoop and walk in single file between walls stained and blackened with ancient smoke and overgrown here and there with green mold. At regular intervals, slid back into deep recesses, I passed hulking megalithic doors, shaped like millstones, 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 meters) in diameter and weighing close to half a ton. These were clearly designed to be rolled out to block access. Stairways and steep ramps led down from level to level and, although all the levels were interconnected, the rolling stone doors could be used to isolate them from one another when needed.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 