Fingerprints of the Gods

This week's book is one I owned before. Then I figured I was never going to read it, so I donated it. Then Netflix released Ancient Apocalypse and I realized that THIS is why I don’t get rid of anything, making this week's book of the week Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock.  

Now, I watched Ancient Apocalypse and was interested enough to want to read the book. And the book starts with maps. Specifically maps from the 16th century, the Piri Reis map, and the Oronteus Finneas maps, both of which seem to include topography from Antarctica. Which they should not, as Antarctica was not “discovered” until the 19th century. What’s particularly compelling about these maps is that the topography, which is, incidentally, 100% accurate, is of what’s UNDERNEATH the existing ice sheets currently covering Antarctica, and which have covered Antarctica since the end of the last ice age, approximately 25,000 years ago.   

So, if Antarctica wasn’t discovered until the 19th century, how did these topographically correct maps of Antarctica come to exist three hundred years prior?  Even more intriguing, Piri Reis and Oronteus Finneas both acknowledge that they were drawing their copies off even older source maps. So old, they include properly placed longitude lines. And what’s unusual about that? Now, latitude was and is easily calculated by any half ass competent sea navigator using the North Star. LONGITUDE, however, was not. North/South is easy using the stars.... East/West was sort of a wing and prayer that you’d hit land before you ran out of food. Remember kids, Columbus was NOT looking to prove the world was round. They already knew the world was round. He was looking for a quicker way to Asia than following the coast of Europe, down Africa, then back up the other side of Africa, until finally hitting Asia. Hell, they even knew approximately how big around earth was, with a fair degree of accuracy, thanks to the Greeks study of mathematics. But actually figuring out where on that east/west axis you were located was a guess until the 18th century when clockmaker John Harrison figured out a way to keep a clock timed to Greenwich Mean Time...this, incidentally, is why England is held as the prime meridian. Whichever country figured out that time keeping secret first would have eternal bragging rights. It just happened to be England who figured it out first.  

Anyway...these ancient maps are accurate to include latitude and longitude. Additionally, as the maps are flat, vs round like a globe, they used complex mathematical formulas that would not, presumably, have existed the last time Antarctica was not under ice, which is certainly before the Pyramids at Giza were built. But more on that in a bit. The maps in question create a conundrum. And I think it was on Ancient Apocalypse where the idea was floated that basically, they ran out of room at the bottom of the parchment and so curved the coastline of S America around the bottom of the page. But that does not explain the perfectly placed longitude and the fact that modern 20th (at the time the book was written) sonar survey places the coastline that is buried under ice as exactly matching the maps. 

 Hancock covers the myths of South and Central America and draws some very interesting parallels between architecture, the age of said architecture, and some of the legends that abound there. And even if you DON’T buy his theory that an advanced ancient civilization spread across the globe in the wake of the last ice age, spreading knowledge, he certainly makes a very compelling case that pre-” civilizing” by the Spanish, the cultures in Central and South America were highly advanced on their own. And while yes, he does go into the Mayan calendar and the doomsday prediction of 2012, he also points out how incredibly accurate that calendar was in regard to dates and astronomical phenomena...even though I think it’s pretty obvious 2012 did not result in global catastrophe...or I don't know, looking at the last three years, maybe the Mayans were off in their prediction by 7 years or so.  

There is a real tendency, especially among those of European descent, to assume the indigenous cultures were not as advanced as Europe, based on a fairly innocuous invention, or rather, lack of it. Prior to Spanish incursions to South and Central America, there were no wheels on that continent. And so, Europeans tended to look down on the tribes, not just for the profligate human sacrifice they engaged in, but because they lacked the humble wheel. But here’s the thing.... One of the oldest cultures on the continent, the Olmecs, existed from approximately 1600 to 400 BCE. And found amongst Olmec locations are these little wheeled toys.

Mesoamerican Wheeled Toy

And since there is clearly an axle between the wheels, it’s not like the rounded design was a stand in for animal feet. So, they knew what the wheel WAS...they just did not develop it as part of their technology. Why? That has not been answered.  

But I have a theory, and I’m basing my theory off something in the book. Hancock, after describing his theory that the lost civilization was advanced and all men were equal...which is unquestionably an admirable and beautiful goal, he turns to wondering what happened to them. Because they clearly vanished as mysteriously as they arrived. He then describes the carvings at Monte Alban. Where figures that in other locations had clearly been exalted, in these carvings, they are corpses. Naked, castrated, beaten down. I think, assuming there was this advanced culture, that mankind's inherent jealousy of anyone perceived as better, took root, and reared its ugly head. Rather than taking the knowledge offered and rising up, and soaring with the information that was offered freely, some petty chieftain or overlord organized a rebellion and cast down the interlopers.   

Alternatively...it’s not inconceivable that this superior race who came offering knowledge, saw the indigenous tribes as inferior, and attempted to enslave them. In offering this theory, I would like to throw in a caveat...the carvings at La Venta which depict this advanced race, include both European and African features. For those deeply ensconced in DIE culture, the African slave trade is still going strong, with African enslaving African. America has been out of the slave trade since 1865. So, it is not inconceivable that the advanced races, constituted of both European and African persons, joined forces and attempted to enslave the indigenous population of South and Central America at the end of the last ice age...and reaped the reward of being cast down and humbled by those tribes. It’s as likely that the thousands of years of human sacrifice that followed were an effort to prevent the return of these people, as an attempt to bring about their return. This tangent, incidentally, is the reason this book was a challenge to read. Not because it wasn’t compellingly written—it was. But because I’d read something, and my mind would take off on these tangents of what else might have happened.  

The most fascinating part of the book, for me at least, was section IV. Here, Hancock does a deep dive into the similarities of world myths. There is not a single culture on the planet that doesn’t include myths regarding mass flooding, and the survival of two people who repopulated the earth. Not. One. Single. Culture. And I agree with Hancock’s assessment that the soft sciences of anthropology and archaeology are doing an extreme disservice to themselves and to knowledge in general, by discounting these tales as purely myth. And here’s why. Oral history is far older than written. Historians...and archaeologists.... break mankind into two sections. Pre-history, and written history. Pre-history is everything that happened before there was a written record. And written history has only existed for about 5,000 years with cuneiform and ancient Sumer. And so, historians discount any tales from before the written word as pre-history and thus myth. Which is really bizarre, since geology has confirmed that there was massive flooding at the end of the last ice age. And archeology has proven that homo sapiens sapiens...i.e., HUMANS, were absolutely around at the end of the last ice age.  

So, if humans were around....and we have absolute proof of massive flooding...why would they treat human mythos of a flood as pure fiction? Is it the two-person allegory? Why would that discredit the legend? And here’s more food for thought on the oral tradition vs written history...Native American tribes of North America didn’t have a written history until they encountered Europeans starting in the 16th century. The Cherokee language was purely oral until the 19th century when they began a written format. But go ahead.... tell the tribes their history didn’t happen because it wasn’t written down somewhere. I double dog dare you.  

And speaking of oral tradition and languages, there are some linguistic similarities between words in Ancient Greek and words that appear in southern and central American tribes. Hancock uses, for his example, Oannes. “Oannes Is the Greek rendering of the Sumerian Uan, the name of the amphibious being believed to have brought the arts and skills of civilization to Mesopotamia. Legends dating back at least 5,000 years relate that Uan lived under the sea, emerging from the waters of the Persian Gulf every morning to civilize and tutor mankind. Is it a coincidence that uanna in the Mayan language, means ‘he who has his residence in water?’”  

That is a pretty big coincidence. Here’s another one, which Hancock did not mention, but which leapt off the page at me the second I read it. I’m going to read the whole paragraph, so you have the full context: “Several aboriginal Australian peoples, especially those whose traditional homelands are along the tropical northern coast, ascribe their origins to a great flood which swept away the previous landscape and society. Meanwhile, in the origin myths of a number of other tribes, the cosmic serpent Yurlunggur (associated with the rainbow) is held responsible for the deluge.”  

Any good heathens see what I saw? Maybe Hancock missed it because he was focusing on the east to west movement of mankind, and this is a decidedly north/south connection. Yurlunggur sounds suspiciously like Jormungand, who in Nordic religion is the giant serpent who encircles the globe, and during the final cataclysm of Ragnarök, his thrashing will cause tidal waves. And the rainbow association, in Norse mythos, is Bifrost bridge. From Norway to Australia...north to south, vs east to west. But the linguistic connection IS interesting. Frankly, if I were Hancock...or had the time, resources, and ability myself...I’d start meeting with linguists in the relative languages. See what other connections might exist.   

I will say, while I was reading last week's book, this comic popped up about a life cycle that includes AI.

And now I gotta wonder if it’s more appropriate to this week's book. 

 He does spend a significant amount of time on Egypt, which makes sense. The Pyramids, the plateau at Giza, have been mysterious for literally thousands of years. Even while he was writing the book back in 1993, more discoveries about Giza were being made. Like the fact that the pyramids line up with the stars in Orion’s belt. And they lined up EXACTLY at about 10,450 BC. Which is known using modern computer programming and rolling back the sky. And his reasoning for the Sphinx having been built at the same time is spot on.   

Now, I’m not sure how Aliens guy got prime time on the History Channel back in the day, and Hancock had to wait for Joe Rogan and the 21st century, but I think it is very unlikely that the pyramids were built in 2,500 BC, which is what the current contention is. Let’s start with construction. And I’m actually not talking about the precision with which they were built. I’m talking about the lack of precision of OTHER pyramids built. Those built before are already crumbling. Ditto for those built after. And yet the great pyramids continue to stand, unbroken by time. Technology just doesn’t roll backwards like that. Unless something catastrophic happened to wipe out the original masters.  

And for all those who maintain these 200-ton blocks could have been moved and constructed using nothing by slave labor...well, here’s some food for thought on that. Hancock points out, when this book was written, there were only 2 cranes ON EARTH, that were capable of moving a 200-ton piece of anything. And the Egyptians didn’t even have block and tackle, let alone a modern crane. 200 tons...that's about 400,000 pounds. A HOUSE weighs 400,000 pounds.   

The final section loops back nicely to the mysterious maps. What if this lost civilization existed on the Antarctic continent, when it was still attached to South America...or at least geographically closer to South America. And was then buried under ice during the last ice age, where it remains buried to this day. Under sheets of ice that are TWO MILES THICK. Ground penetrating radar goes down about 8 feet. It’ll be a while before we can see what lays underneath two miles of ice.   

This book raised a lot of really interesting hypotheses and interesting questions, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I thoroughly enjoyed how it openly shames historians for failing to address them properly. The usual response of historians to Hancock’s theories is to roll their eyes at Hancock like he’s a quack or a conspiracy theorist. But really...if nothing else, Elon Musk has helped show that conspiracy theorists are sometimes right. And the last three years have taught us that the “experts” usually have an agenda and are not always to be trusted.  

One of the things that archaeologists and historians use to discredit Hancock’s theories is that there is no evidence of this advanced civilization during the time frames he’s focusing on. And that’s an interesting point. Here’s another interesting point. In 2009, History channel released a show called Life After People. And it hypothesized that if humanity just vanished, within 10,000 years there would be no trace of us left on earth. Now, while reading this book, I could only vaguely remember the show, and in trying to find the name of it, my google search returned this quora post.

And the poster made the interesting point that we’ll end this review on. He said “there will be one reminder, and it will never be wiped out...I’m thinking of the massive construction and grading project beneath every major highway. Even after the concrete has crumbled... we’ll still see cuts and fills through the hills where the highways used to go. These massive earth moving projects might be obscured by erosion, but there will still be enough evidence 10,000 years from now to demonstrate that a sentient race once was able to move mountains.” 

 What else are the pyramids at Giza, then proof that a sentient race was once able to move mountains? 

This review was originally posted on YouTube on January 8, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.