Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients Read online

  His second contention was that the fifty-six Aubrey holes were used as a “computer” (that is, as tally marks) for predicting movements of the moon and eclipses, for which he claims to have established a “hitherto unrecognized 56-year cycle with 15 percent irregularity; and that the rising of the full moon nearest the winter solstice over the Heel Stone always successfully predicted an eclipse. It is interesting to note that no more than half these eclipses were visible from Stonehenge.”

  Says Hawkins in Stonehenge Decoded, “The number 56 is of great significance for Stonehenge because it is the number of Aubrey holes set around the outer circle. Viewed from the centre these holes are placed at equal spacings of azimuth around the horizon and therefore, they cannot mark the Sun, Moon or any celestial object. This is confirmed by the archaeologist’s evidence; the holes have held fires and cremations of bodies, but have never held stones. Now, if the Stonehenge people desired to divide up the circle why did they not make 64 holes simply by bisecting segments of the circle—32, 16, 8, 4 and 2? I believe that the Aubrey holes provided a system for counting the years, one hole for each year, to aid in predicting the movement of the Moon. Perhaps cremations were performed in a particular Aubrey hole during the course of the year, or perhaps the hole was marked by a movable stone.

  “Stonehenge can be used as a digital computing machine....The stones at hole 56 predict the year when an eclipse of the Sun or Moon will occur within 15 days of midwinter—the month of the winter Moon. It will also predict eclipses for the summer Moon.”95

  The critics of Hawkins, the ruling academic minds of their time, immediately jumped on his discoveries and denounced them. In 1966 an article by the British astronomer R. J. Atkinson appeared in Nature (volume 210,1966), entitled “Decoder Mis led?” in which Atkinson criticized Hawkins for many of his statements about Stonehenge being an astronomical computer.

  Said Atkinson of Hawkins’ book Stonehenge Decoded, “It is tendentious, arrogant, slipshod and unconvincing, and does little to advance our understanding of Stonehenge.

  “The first five chapters, on the legendary and archaeological background, have been uncritically compiled, and contain a number of bizarre interpretations and errors. The rest of the book is an unsuccessful attempt to substantiate the author’s claim that ‘Stonehenge was an observatory; the impartial mathematics of probability and the celestial sphere are on my side.’ Of his two main contentions, the first concerns alignments between pairs of stones and other features, calculated with a computer from small-scale plans ill-adapted for this purpose.”

  Atkinson’s scathing criticism of Hawkins is revealing because it shows how resistant to new ideas established academics can be. Atkinson’s reluctance to believe that Stonehenge was some sort of astronomical computer is probably largely due to the popular belief that ancient man simply didn’t have a state of civilization that allowed him to pursue such topics of higher knowledge.

  But these critics are heard from no more, and there seems little doubt to even the most conservative archaeologist that Stonehenge is some sort of astronomical temple. There are a number of simple astronomical truths that can be discerned from Stonehenge. For instance, there are 29.53 days between full moons and there are 29 and a half monoliths in the outer Sarsen Circle.

  There are 19 of the huge ‘Blue Stones’ in the inner horseshoe which has several possible explanations and uses. There are nearly 19 years between the extreme rising and setting points of the moon. Also, if a full moon occurs on a particular day of the year, say on the summer solstice, it is 19 years before another full moon occurs on the same day of the year. Finally, there are 19 eclipse years (or 223 full moons) between similar eclipses, such as an eclipse that occurs when the sun, moon and earth return to their same relative positions. Other planets’ positions may vary in even larger cycles.

  It is also suggested that the five large trilithon archways represent the five planets visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

  The British writer on antiquities, John Ivimy, makes a stirring suggestion at the end of his popular book on Stonehenge, The Sphinx and the Megaliths. 96He spends the bulk of the book trying to prove his thesis that Stonehenge was built by a group of adventurous Egyptians who were sent to the British Isles to establish a series of astronomical sites at higher latitudes in order to accurately predict solar eclipses, which the observatories in Egypt could not do, because they were too close to the equator.

  Ivimy gives such evidence as the megalithic construction, keystone cuts in the gigantic blocks of stone, the obvious astronomical purpose, and most of all, the use of a numbering system that is based on the number six, rather than the number ten, as we use today. Ivimy shows that the Egyptians used a numbering system based on the number six, and that Stonehenge was built using the same system. He then suggests that the Mormons used a number system based on six when building their temples, especially the great temple in Salt Lake City.

  In the end, Ivimy’s thesis is quite controversial: he believes that Brigham Young and the original Mormon settlers in Utah are the reincarnation of the same Egyptian group of settlers who were sent to Britain to build Stonehenge. Says Ivimy, “Reference has already been made to the vast wooden dome, built entirely without metal, that roofs the Mormon Tabernacle. Could its construction have been inspired by a dim recollection of how the same people, in another incarnation some centuries earlier, had built a dome over what had then become the Temple of Hyperborean Apollo?”96

  It is a fascinating idea that the Egyptians came to Britain to build a megalithic observatory to accurately predict lunar eclipses. It is recorded that about 2000 BC a Chinese emperor put to death his two chief astronomers for failing to predict an eclipse of the sun. Asks ancient astronaut theorist Raymond Drake, “Today, would any king care?”

  The Egyptians, Chinese, Mayans and many other ancient cultures were obsessed with eclipses as well as other planetary-solar phenomena. It is believed that they associated catastrophes, including the sinking of Atlantis, with planetary movements and eclipses. Perhaps the ancient Egyptians, Mayans and other civilizations thought they could predict the next cataclysm by monitoring lunar eclipses and the positions of the planets in relation to the earth.

  Herodotus writes about ancient Egyptian astronomy and cataclysms in Book Two, chapter 142: “...Thus far the Egyptians and their priests told the story. And they showed that there had been three hundred and forty-one generations of men from the first king unto this last, the priest of Hephaestus....Now in all this time, 11,340 years, they said that the sun had removed from his proper course four times; and had risen where he now setteth, and set where he now riseth; but nothing in Egypt was altered thereby, neither as touching the river nor as touching the fruits of the earth, nor concerning sicknesses or deaths.”

  If Herodotus is to be believed, then the earth has shifted around its axis in what is called a pole shift. The sun then appears to rise in a different direction from normal. Pole shifts are accompanied by a wide variety of devastating earth changes and severe weather phenomena. Therefore, if the Egyptians were familiar with this sort of occurrence, and having been thus far unaffected by the cataclysm, they may well have gone to great length to improve their astronomical knowledge, including the colonization of England and the building of Stonehenge.

  Indeed, the megalithic masterminds virtually colonized the world, from Egypt to England to the Americas, Easter Island and Tonga. Megaliths exist in such remote places as Manchuria, the Phillipines, Mongolia and the Assam Hills of northeast India. The megalithic masterminds were once everywhere. Yet, what was the technology that these master builders used?

  The megalithic computer called Stonehenge.

  Top: The Sphinx, still buried, with a tour group, ca. 1912.

  Bottom: The Sphinx with the Great Pyramid in the background.

  Top: A map of the theoretical Osirian Empire. Bottom: The Osirion at Abydos.

  The Valley Temple of the Sphinx. Notice th
e massive core blocks.

  Ba‘albek compared with the Great Pyramid and St. Peter’s in Rome.

  The three largest stones at Ba‘albek.

  Top and Right: A Roman crane used for building. Such methods could not have been used in building Ba‘albek. Center: Methods for lifting blocks of stone. Bottom: Egyptian depiction of a large group of workers dragging a sled with a large stone statue.

  The largest block at Ba‘albek, still in the quarry.

  Aside from levitation, the only method that has been contrived to move these huge blocks, even a few inches, involves the use of this frame of pulleys and “Lewis Stones.”

  The giant door and keystone at Ba‘albek.

  The “Sun God” at the Gate of the Sun in Tiahuanaco. Legend says that he is crying for the “Red Land,” a vanished super-civilization.

  Carnac, France

  A Mayan frieze showing the destruction of Atlantis.

  Ruins near Chavin in Peru. They look as if they had some kind of machinery. From Squire’s Conquest of Peru(1886).

  The massive walls of Sacsayhuaman, above Cuzco.

  The massive walls of Sacsayhuaman, above Cuzco.

  The giant blocks of Puma Punku, near Tiahuanaco.

  The giant blocks of Puma Punku, near Tiahuanaco, restored.

  3.

  Ancient Metallurgy & Machines

  Up on the Madison Fork, the Wasiches had found much of the yellow metal that they worship and makes them crazy.

  —Black Elk Speaks

  Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic.

  —Arthur C. Clarke

  Ancient Mining and Smelting

  In order to have high technology, a civilization must have strong metals with which to create machines; metals such as iron and steel. Generally, mainstream science says that man’s use of smelted iron is a story of slow and sporadic technological development starting about 5,000 years ago. There is evidence, as we shall see, that metallurgy and the manufacture of metal objects, goes back to 50000 BC and before.

  The origin of iron, and metallurgy in general, is shrouded in mystery, legend and the mists of time. The Biblical legend of Tubal Cain is about one of the keepers of the secrets of metallurgy. As we have seen, the legend of Osiris tells of how, after his resurrection, he travelled around the world spreading the knowledge of metallurgy and science.

  The original discovery of the technique for smelting iron and ultimately making steel, is said to have occurred among the Hittites of central Turkey circa 2700 BC. Knowledge of iron and steel is said not to have come into wide use in the west until about 1200 BC.

  Except for anomalous artifacts, the current archaeological record begins finding iron objects from the third millennium BC down to the present period. These accepted specimens, all inferred to be bloomery iron, were found in various places. At Tell Chagar Bazar, in Northern Syria, a fragment of iron was dated to about 2700 BC; excavations at Tell Asmar, Iraq, yielded an iron knife blade in a bronze hilt dating to the end of the Early Dynastic period of Sumer (ca. 2450-2340 BC); a dagger with an iron blade and a gold-sheathed handle, comes from the Royal Tombs at Alaca Huyuk, Anatolia, and dates from circa 2600- 2300 BC.

  However, iron objects have been found that are older than 2700 BC, even according to established archaeologists. Their explanation for these older objects is that they may be “meteoric iron” rather than actually smelted objects. According to South African archaeologist Nikolass van der Merwe in his book The Carbon-14 Dating of Iron:97 Before the knowledge of iron smelting was acquired, man was able to use meteoric iron. Skills developed in cutting and grinding stone, common since Neolithic times, were sufficient to fashion meteoric iron objects. The knowledge of reducing iron from its ores, however, was not acquired until the third millennium BC. The resultant metal was lacking in quality, and only isolated occurrences in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and adjoining areas, have been recorded. Bronze, then only in its early stage of cultural significance, proved to be both cheaper and more durable than the early forms of iron for the fashioning of cutting edges. The influence of iron as an important material of manufacture was not felt until the development, by Hittite subjects, of the basic techniques of steel production. After an initial period of development, during the course of some five centuries prior to 1200 BC, iron spread rapidly. By 500 BC, iron was in use in most of Europe, in the Far East, and in Africa as far south as Nubia and Nigeria.

  As the technique of iron smelting became more widely known, new metallurgical procedures were added. In the Mediterranean area, techniques for the manufacture and improvement of steel developed rapidly. By the beginning of the Christian era, the techniques of carburization, annealing, quenching, and tempering were widely known and the use of the direct process had become firmly established. In China, a different metallurgical tradition arose; as soon as the utility of iron became known, cast iron was manufactured. The process of steel production through decarburization was quickly developed and became the hallmark of iron metallurgy in the East. In Europe, the direct process held full sway until the fourteenth century, when the introduction of cast iron and the indirect process laid the foundation of the modern iron industry.97

  Mining had no doubt been going on for many tens of thousands of years. The metals copper, gold, and silver have been mined since at least 50000 BC. The reason for this is that these metals can be extracted and used straight out of the ground. In other words, pure copper can be taken from the ground and hammered directly into a spearhead, knife or sword. Gold and silver are softer, but usable for a variety of items.

  Alloys of metal are a different story, but certain alloys are relatively simple to achieve, such as electrum, a mixture of gold and silver. Other alloys, such as tin and bronze, require a certain refining process, and it is here that high technology becomes involved. Platinum has a high melting point, and is also a difficult process.

  The discovery of meteoric iron may have spurred the curiosity of the ancients, but is all early iron really from a meteorite, or is it from a genuine smelter?

  Says Nikolass van der Merwe:The list of early meteoric iron artifacts in the archaeological record is fragmentary and brief. This is due, in part, to the fact that available sources of meteoric iron are extremely limited and that a correspondingly small number of artifacts have been manufactured from this material. Equally important is the fact that a chemical determination of the nickel content of a piece of iron or a metallographic analysis of its structure is required to identify its meteoric origin; it is significant to note that meteoric iron objects have generally been identified only when large-scale archaeological projects, in which experts from many disciplines participated, were involved, or in cases where iron artifacts occur unexpectedly early in the archaeological record.

  From a list of early meteoric iron objects, compiled by Coghlan, a number of examples deserve mention here. The earliest known occurrence comes from Gerzah in Egypt, where Wainwright discovered a number of iron beads. These beads were dated, according to the Petrie system, to S.D. 60-63 (ca. 3500 BC), and have a nickel content of 7.5 percent, clearly in the meteoric iron range. In Mesopotamia, Woolley recovered iron fragments with a 10.9 percent nickel content from the Royal Tombs of Ur (ca. 2500 BC). At the Anatolian site of Alaca Huyuk, two iron specimens with 5.08 percent and 4.3 percent nickel, respectively, have been identified in the Early Bronze Age II levels (ca. 2600—2300 BC).

  Some of these early specimens, notably in the case of Alaca Huyuk, were contemporary with smelted iron objects in the same deposits. It is reasonable to assume, therefore that many objects of meteoric iron have gone unnoticed for lack of chemical or metallographic analysis. Knowledge of the use of this material is likely to remain confined largely to times and places where iron objects occur in an unexpected context.97

  The Origin of Smelting

  It is theorized that the origin of smelting came from the simple heating of gold-bearing sand in order to extract the easily melted metal. The ex
traction of mercury from cinnabar is similar, though this would seem to have occurred much later. The main reason for this is that mercury is not particularly useful as a metal, or a liquid, except in electrified switches and gyros, as we will see later.

  This author believes that mining began at least 40,000 years ago on this planet, and smelting began shortly after that, if not at the same time. While mainstream science believes that iron smelting began with the Hittites, there is still a great deal of mystery in the process.

  Says van der Merwe:Some attempts have been made, by inductive reasoning, to reconstruct the procedures by which iron was first smelted. The simplest of these reconstructions involve the production of gold from gold-bearing sand. The ancient Egyptians melted gold from Nubian desert sands, which also contain quantities of magnetite. Under the proper set of conditions, reduced iron would form on top of the melted gold in the crucible, and under a layer of iron slag. This would take place if a reducing atmosphere were used accidentally and if the ratio of magnetite to sand were in the order of 2:1—a situation which could result if a flotation or washing process were used to purify the sand. The iron so produced would, of course, be solid and may well have been discarded. The terms for meteoric iron and smelted iron in Ancient Egyptian clearly indicate, however, that the relationship between the two was known; knowledge of meteoric iron may have enabled the gold smelters to recognize smelted iron.