Ancient Legends are Usually Based on Core Facts – One Original Religion and Language for All People?

LEGENDS ARE USUALLY BASED ON A CORE OF FACT Pertinently, William Prescott, the great Americanologist, reminds us: “A nation may pass away and leave only the memory of its existence, but the stories of science it has gathered up will endure forever.”3   You see, folklore is a fossil of history; it preserves history in the guise of colorful tales. Far from being a collection of fables, it is a recital of actual past events, even though from generation to generation some facts have become distorted or forgotten. Professor I.A. Efremov, of the Soviet Union, cautions that “historians must pay more respect to ancient traditions and folklore.” He accuses Western scientists of snobbishness in rejecting the tales of the “common people.”4   We must face it: legends are usually based on a core of fact. Take the legend of Troy. No scholar took The Iliad or The Odyssey of homer as history. But Schliemann, putting faith in it, discovered the “mythical” city of Troy. The Iliad spoke of a cup decorated with doves which Odysseus used. In a shaft Schliemann found that 3,600-year-old cup. Herodotus told a fabulous story of a distant country where griffins guarded a golden treasure. This land (Altai, or Kin Shan) has now been found, together with ancient gold mines, and decorations from a high culture prominently display the griffin. The vague myth is seen to be a fact. Mexican Indian legends spoke of a sacred well of sacrifice, into which maidens and jewelry were hurled. Historians dismissed this as a mere tale, until the well, at Chichen Itza, was discovered in the nineteenth century. More than any document, the Bible was assailed as a collection of fanciful myths. Yet, to the embarrassment of the critics, archaeological discoveries proved time and again that the fabled cities, mythical persons and impossible events were true and reliable reporting in every detail. Indeed, the Bible can now be regarded as the most accurate and trustworthy source of history we possess.   OUR ANCESTRAL MEMORY OF THE GOLDEN ERA If we are to credit the collective testimony of all ancient races, man’s early history was truly an incredible one. It was a Golden Age of advanced civilization, of original giants who had superior intelligence and technology. 7   This appears to have been a universal truth, known to everyone in ancient times. Sacred records affirm that at the very beginning (soon after the fall from Paradise) men possessed extraordinary mental abilities. Beginning with the raw earth, they mastered a high level of civilization in just the first six generations of their existence. In that short time they were able to build cities, play complex musical instruments and smelt metals. Indeed, with their scientific complexes, these earliest men, it seems, were no fools. We might well wonder to what degree they further developed and refined this technology in the final few centuries before the Flood struck. Were the miracles of science as common as they are now? A perfectly valid question, I think.   Imagine it, if you can. Paved rainbow cities whose “houses of crystal” reflected every spectral hue; and we’re talking about air travel, computers and plastics.   Did you know that when Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone, he hinted that it had been done before? “The old devices have been reinvented,” he observed.5   Yes, you read it right. That is exactly what Bell said. In fact the question was pressed further by the eminent British scientist Frederick Soddy, winner of a Nobel Prize in physics. He wondered whether the ancients might “not only have attained our present knowledge, but a power hitherto unmastered by us?” 6   PHYSICAL REMAINS ALSO Where did Bell and Soddy get their information? Quite possibly from some musty old records. Nevertheless, our quest is not based on ancient texts and reports, but on accepted scientific discoveries. There are recently discovered artifacts that cannot be dismissed, namely, objects of metal sitting in museums, unquestionably made in the ancient world, that would have required very advanced technology to produce. A technology not to be repeated until our day.   The weight of evidence grows daily-evidence that all the major secrets of modern technology were known, and forgotten, long ago. Evidence that early man did create a society that surpassed ours in all aspects of development.   The entire world is really a ‘dead man’s tomb’, a treasure hunter’s paradise. As we prize open the coffin, suspense builds. Slowly we’re lifting 8 the lid on a lost technology which almost smacks of science fiction. We come face to face with such absurdities as brain transplants, colonies on Mars and invisible men. And we wonder, What next?   Admittedly, such concepts almost strain credibility. We are tempted to ask, Could the ancients have really advanced so far?   It may help to consider our own age.   As recently as a hundred years ago, were not most of today’s inventions totally unknown, even unbelievable? Since then the spawning has been sudden-and rapid. What is more, the present age of basic discoveries is hardly at its end. It is forecast that just fifteen years hence our present accumulated knowledge will have doubled. Do you grasp what that means? How, then, can one possibly conceive of the state of knowledge attained by the antedeluvians before the Deluge struck?   THE DELUGE A world war was raging at the time. In the thirty-fourth century B.C., a catastrophe of incredible magnitude intervened, causing the world to wobble and ripping the crust of the earth to shreds. A great Flood swept the whole planet. November 17, 3398 B.C. 7 That day was probably like most others: temperate, balmy. In one longitude, millions were dining…entertaining…relaxing. Precisely at 8 P.M. the earth gave an enormous shudder.   Prodded by an outside force, the planet tilted on its axis, and amidst lightning and the worst thunder ever heard by man, the pristine vapour canopy began to disintegrate. A floodgate of rain was released upon the earth.   There could be no gentle rising of water. Cosmic forces of horrific violence came unleashed.   With a dreadful shock, large land masses with their populations slipped into the sea. The surface of the entire globe became as a giant maelstrom, in which continents and seas were churned up together.   Attended by a screaming hurricane, tidal waves of 6,000 feet swept toward the poles. A blanket of lava and asphyxiating gases extinguished all life.   This cataclysm wiped the Mother Civilization from the face of the earth and consigned its products to a watery grave forever. 9   Not only were the antedeluvian people buried, but their technological achievements were destroyed, including all form of machinery and construction.   It is quite possible that areas which were most densely populated were submerged by the sea or buried under thousands of feet of debris. It has been scientifically estimated that over 75 percent of the earth’s surface is sedimentary in nature, extending, as in India, to 60,000 feet deep. Indeed, the earth, torn and twisted and shaking, was not to quiet down for centuries. With no less than three thousand volcanoes in eruption, a dense cloud of dust enshrouded the earth, blocking out the sun and distorting the climate for hundreds of years. Thus began the Ice Age. 8 Of the human race a mere handful remained; Indeed, their survival was in every sense a miracle.   Forewarned, they had salvaged what records they might: a compilation of knowledge which, in due course, would be imparted to their descendants. Now for the sake of the reader who is unfamiliar with this event, it should be stressed that the global Flood catastrophe is one of the key facts of all history. Not only is there a mass of geological evidence-it has left an indelible impression on the memory of the entire human race. 9 An analysis of some 600 individual Flood traditions reveals a widespread concurrence on essential points: • the prior corruption of mankind, • a Flood warning unheeded by the masses, • a survival vessel, • the preservation of up to eight people with representative animal life, • the sending forth of a bird to determine the suitability of reemerging land, • significance in the rainbow, • descent from a mountain, • and the repopulation of the whole earth from a single group of survivors.   Especially remarkable is the persistence of that biblical name Noah. And this is particularly so when you consider the ultimate language differences between peoples, and the extreme local distortions which developed in Flood legends.   Yet the name survived virtually unchanged in such isolated places as Hawaii (where he was called Nu-u), the Sudan (Nuh), China (Nu-Wah), the 10 Amazon region (Noa), Phrygia (Noe) and among the Hottentots (Noh and Hiagnoh).   Think about this. Did each of these nations independently concoct the same name for its flood-surviving ancestor? Or did these widely separated peoples refer back to the same family of survivors?   The table of nations in Genesis 10 records the gradual dispersion of Noah’s descendants and lists names, thus offering clues to their history and dwelling place. It contends that all nations of the earth have sprung from the family of Noah. 10   Professor W.F. Albright, internationally recognized archaeological authority, describes this as an astonishingly accurate document…[which] shows such remarkable ‘modern’ understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern world, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author’s knowledge of the subject. 11 So, in a nutshell, there is good reason to believe that, after the Deluge, mankind sprang from a single group of people. Chapters 2 to 6 will confirm that these were not idiots, imbeciles or illiterates; they were in a civilized state, with an enormous cultural heritage, before they separated. Chapter 5 traces their ultimate slide into oblivion; while Chapters 7 to 9 raise three challenging questions that need to be answered.   Thus prepared, we shall more intelligently evaluate clues salvaged from the ancient world.       COMMON ORIGIN? Was there any connection between them? I began to sift every available isolated piece of information. Over the next few months the search would lead through scores of countries. Meanwhile, back of my mind the thought kept surfacing: what of the prophecies? Something told me there was a connection, though I knew not where. As for a possible link between the “instant” civilizations, eight clues emerged.

1. Symbols and hieroglyphics, identical worldwide, bore the marks of a

common heritage. Everywhere the swastika, snake and sun combinations, as well as numerous specialized and intricate glyphs were repeated with no chance of coincidence.14

2. Likewise, similar systems of writing were in use—again all over the

globe, even on isolated islands. This was striking.

3. And languages had similarities. The older these were, the more they

resembled each other. Practically all languages have connections through both vocabulary and construction. In almost every language are many words containing similar root words or combinations beyond what mere chance would allow. (Take, for instance, the names of the constellations. I found these were substantially the same whether in Mexico, Africa or Polynesia.)

4. The calendars of Egypt and faraway Peru both had eighteen months of

twenty days, with a five-day holiday at year’s end.

5. I also took into account the great similarities in buildings, not only in

construction but in astronomical alignment. Sphinxes in Egypt and 15 Yucatan; pyramids on every continent and on remote islands; monoliths and stone circles also worldwide and often quarried elsewhere in the world. I was struck by similarity even as to original purpose. The Tower of Babel was built (according to Josephus, first-century Jewish historian) to provide shelter should another Deluge destroy the earth. And regarding the Toltec pyramids, the Mexican chronicler, Ixtlilxochitl, states: “After men had multiplied, they erected a very high ‘zacuali,’ which is today a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it should the second world be destroyed.” Now I ask you, without a common source, why should the purpose be identical in Babylon and Mexico? 15

6. Customs again were similar, as in burial, mummification, circumcision,

or in binding babies’ heads to produce an elongated skull. (The Maya, Incas, Celts, Egyptians and Basques did this.)

7. Forms of religious observance bore more striking similarities.
8. Finally I added to the list worldwide traditions of early history.

Traditions of a Garden of Delight, a Golden Age, a global Flood, one original language, a tower where sudden language confusion resulted in a dispersal—clearly these bore the marks of a common source. Of one thing I was certain. The origins of cultures that were so different and so widely dispersed could not wholly be explained by borrowing and imitation.   The Russian poet Valeri Brussov seemed to express it well: “At the bases of the oldest cultures of mankind we must look for a single influence…We must look back beyond antiquity for an X, for a still unknown cultural world that set the engine we know in motion.   “The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans were all our teachers, but who were our teachers’ teachers?”16   My attention was riveted. Here were several fully developed cultures, apparently related, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.   Well, how does one deal with such a discovery? I must confess, my curiosity was exploding. One more search was imperative. This time I had to track down the common source of any footprints leading to these cultures.     Want Some Specifics? SHIPPING SOPHISTICATION ITALY 1 (S): Two Roman ships were found in the 1920s at the bottom of Lake Nemi, and between 1927 and 1932 were restored, only to be destroyed by German bombers toward the end of World War II. These luxury cruisers contained accommodation for 120 passengers in 30 cabins of 4 berths each, plus crew’s quarters; were richly decorated with mosaic-tiled floors; walls of cypress panelling; metal columns, marble statues; and paintings in the lounge. There was a library; a ceiling sundial; a salon where a small orchestra entertained the passengers; a large restaurant and kitchen; copper heaters which provided hot water for the baths; and modern plumbing, with bronze pipes and taps. The underwater part of the hull was sheathed with lead, fastened with copper nails. EGYPT 2 (W): Egyptian open-sea ships were up to 350 feet long and 60 feet wide, with as many as four decks. GREECE CHINA 3 (W): Ancient vessels from 250 to 600 feet long and capable of carrying a crew of up to 600 were far larger than anything built by later European explorers.1 89 GREECE ROME 4 (W): Large luxury ocean liners over 500 feet long contained temples and swimming pools; also dining halls of marble and alabaster. SUMERIA 5 (W): An Akkadian dictionary of the Sumerian language contained a whole section on shipping. It catalogued as many as 105 Sumerian terms for various ships, by size, destination or purpose. A further 69 Sumerian terms connected with the manning and construction of ships were translated into the Akkadian. UGARIT, SYRIA, 1400 B. C 6 (W): A catalogue of ships details the types and uses of cargo vessels, passenger ships, fishing smacks, racing boats, troop transports and warships. SUMERIA 7 (W): Ancient texts refer constantly to a type of ship used by the “gods” called “elippu tebiti” (“sunken ship”—what we would today call a submarine). INDIA 8 (W): A 3,000-year-old document contains eight chapters of plans for craft that could travel in the air, on water or under the sea.2 BRITAIN CHINA 9 (W): Legends of sophisticated flying water craft come to us from Britain and China. NAVIGATIONAL ABILITY GREECE 10 (S): Maritime computer: On Easter Day, 1901, divers working in a very old shipwreck on the seabed off Antikithera Island, Greece, brought up, among other relics (mostly statues), a metal artifact fused by the sea into a lump. The object collected dust for 50 years, until restored by acid baths. 90 It proved to be a bronze machine with complex dials, moveable pointers, inscribed plates and a sophisticated system of interlocking gears (more than twenty gear wheels, a differential gear and a crown wheel). On one side was a spindle that set all the dials in motion at varying speeds as soon as it was turned. The pointers were protected by bronze covers on which long inscriptions could be read. It could work out and exhibit the motions of the sun, moon and planets, calculate their positions, the movement of tides and the time of day. Signs of the zodiac were included. To use the computer, one could set a particular planet on the scale, turn the gears for so many months or years and a number would show through a hole in the case, telling you where the planet would be. Here is first-class precision mechanics, as accurate as any that can be made today. This computer was used for navigation purposes; a mechanism for checking one’s position at night. First century B.C., but doubtless of a much older technology.3 As Dr. Derek Price, a Cambridge scientist, observed, “finding something like this is like finding a jet plane in the tomb of Tutankhamen!”4 NORWAY 11 (W): Early sea travellers used a “magic stone” for all-weather navigation, which was able to “find the sun, even when behind clouds and fog.” Pilots today have compasses with crystal polarization, capable of finding the exact position of the sun when it is not directly visible. This legendary “stone” was based on the same principles. It was probably cordierite (from the magnetic rocks of Italy, Finland and Norway), whose fine, clear crystals are better known as water sapphires. Its most important quality is change of color, varying from yellow to blue when the natural alignment of its molecules forms an angle of 90 degrees with the plane of polarization of sunlight. These items of equipment were simply the result of a much earlier technology—one anteceding both the Vikings and the Greeks. CHINA OLMECS, MEXICO PHOENICIA 12 (W,S): Compasses. 91 EXTENT OF ANCIENT TRAVEL That’s right! There was a time when the whole world was known. Travel around it was regular, safe and profitable. Then most nations lapsed into a subsistence economy, the trade routes dead and forgotten. TRAVEL TO NORTH AMERICA RECORDS OF OTHER NATIONS 13 (W): A Tibetan record of at least 300 B.C. contains a map of “a green land lying far across the eastern sea” (i.e., the Pacific). 14 (W): Greek navigators spoke of islands in the “western sea” (i.e., the Atlantic) with a great mainland beyond (America); also regions where “for 30 days on end, the sun sets for little more than an hour, and for several months the night is faintly illuminated by the western twilight” (the Polar regions); and “countries where there was a day for 6 months and night for 6 months.” 15 (W): Egyptian priests told the Greek Solon that the Atlantic “is a real sea and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent” (i.e., America). 16 (W): According to interpretations of texts by Plato and Diodorus, Phoenicians traded with America around 1000 B.C. 17 (W): Seneca (first century) speaks of lands between the east coast of Asia and the west coast of Europe (e.g., the Americas); he says that “one day, vast new lands will offer themselves to human view.” 18 (W): Strabo (born c. 60 B.C.) writes of “other inhabited lands” and says that “a huge continent will be discovered one day.” MASSACHUSETTS 19 (S): An underwater rock carving in Lake Assawompset, Massachusetts, was temporarily exposed when the waterline receded during a drought in 1957. It clearly portrayed a ship of ancient Phoenician or 92 Minoan style (suggesting it was incised when the sea level was lower, and the level of in-shore waters corresponded). TENNESSEE 20 (S): A stone found in 1885 near Morganton, Tennessee, bore an inscription speculated to be recent Indian. However, when the stone is turned upside down the letters spell a message in ancient Canaanite: “For Jehu”—an example of an inscription having been looked at upside down for almost a century!5 CANADA 21 (W): The Micmac clan of the Algonquian nation wrote in 2,000 characters of pure Egyptian hieroglyphics. GENERAL 22 (S): Arab remains in America are fairly numerous. NEW HAMPSHIRE 23 (S): A stone labyrinth with Minoan-like inscriptions and of a similar construction to that of 3,500 years ago, stands at Mystery Hill, New Hampshire. IOWA 24 (S): An American “Rosetta Stone” called the Davenport Stele (found 1874, in the lower levels of an Indian burial mound) contains inscriptions in three languages: hieratic Egyptian, Iberian Punic and Libyan. Harvard professor Barry Fell, in America B.C., remarks that this stele is genuine because neither the Iberian nor the Libyan scripts had been deciphered at the time it was discovered.6 GREAT LAKES REGION 25 (S): Two-way trans-Atlantic trade around 2500 B.C. is indicated by woodworking tools and fishing gear found in the Great Lakes area, and in ground slate knives found in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. GENERAL 26 (S): Distinctive pottery of North America (1000 B.C.) closely matches Baltic pottery of the same age. 93 GEORGIA 27 (S): Manfred Metcalf found a stone which bears a Phoenician script used around 2000 B.C. (Columbus, Georgia).7 TENNESSEE 28 (S): In 1970, the Batcreek Stone from Tennessee was positively identified as being of Hebrew origin; so was an amulet recovered from a very old tomb. Caches of coins dating from the Hebrew Bar Kokhbar rebellion against Rome in AD. 132—135 have been unearthed in Kentucky and Tennessee. GEORGIA 29 (S): In 1973, Mrs. Joe Hearn was digging in her backyard when she unearthed a metal tablet containing a cuneiform script called Classic Ur II, which was in use in the Middle East 4,000 years ago.8 Similar authenticated finds are common all through the United States; inscriptions on buried temples, on tablets, on gravestones and on cliff faces. CENTRAL AMERICA GUATEMALA 30 (W): The ancient Popul Vuh of the Maya speaks of a land “where whites and blacks dwelt together in peace” (an unusual statement for a land whose people are neither white nor black!) MEXICO 31 (S): Sculpted heads dated from as early as 1500 B.C. show unequivocally bearded Jews, African Negroes and other distinctive racial types. GUATEMALA 32 (W): In both the Mayan calendar and the Near Eastern calendar, the same sequence of animal types is used in the same order to represent each month. Even the origination date for these calendars is the same— approximately 3000 B.C. 94 MEXICO PERU 33 (S): Many finds in Mexico and Peru display Chinese and/or Buddhist features. MEXICO 34 (W): There are “oriental” aspects to Aztec religion and astronomy. PANAMA35 (W): Asian-sounding names are inscribed on an ancient tomb. MEXICO 36 (S): Similarly complicated rules were worked out for a board game known as “pachisi” in Asia and “patolli” in Mexico. SOUTH AMERICA GENERAL 37 (S): Thousands of inscriptions on South American standing stones and dolmens contain letters from early European and Mediterranean alphabets. (The same is true of weapons, implements and crockery found in South America.) ECUADOR 38 (S) Pottery 5,000 years old is almost certainly Japanese in origin.9 ECUADOR 39 (S): During my 1967 expedition to remote jungle villages in the Amazon headwaters, I came upon Egyptian hieroglyphics on metal plates. ECUADOR 40 (S): Every race in the world is represented in statuettes found in a very ancient city on the seabed, just off shore, near Guayaquil. There are Aryans, Semites, Caucasians and a race looking remarkably like modern Japanese. 95 ECUADOR 41 (S): Artifacts found in caves deep in the jungle near Tayos include:10 • Several superb wood statues carved in the Pacific Oceanic island style and depicting Negroid men and women • A mahogany Adam and Eve with definite Semitic features • Bronze images of Egyptian princesses and Assyrian gods • A plaque of a Caucasian man writing with a quill pen • Phoenician bronze calendars • A large aluminum sheet depicting the Greek goddess Athena. AMAZON JUNGLE (ECUADOR) 42 (S): A plaque found in the Amazon jungle was carved in pure Libyan—which was also spoken by the Zuni Indians of southwestern U.S.A.! PERU 43 (S): An inscription discovered 150 miles from Cuzco relates that its authors (from the era of Egypt’s first king Menes) had arrived from the Indus Valley (Pakistan). PERU 44 (S): Images of symbolic white, yellow and black men, as well as a fourth race (unidentified); also animals from other parts of the world and several figures resembling Egyptian sculptures, stand on the Plateau of Marcahuasi. PERU 45 (S): A piece of pottery found at Nazca bears the faces of five girls— one white, one red, one black, one brown and one yellow. This indicates that the Nazcans had knowledge of every racial group around the world, and possibly even models to work from. PERU EGYPT 46 (S): Cotton-weaving looms in Peru and Egypt were almost identical, even to the point of each having eleven working parts.