The Lost Civilization Enigma: A New Inquiry Into the Existence of Ancient Cities, Cultures, and Peoples Who Pre-Date Recorded History
320
The Lost Civilization Enigma: A New Inquiry Into the Existence of Ancient Cities, Cultures, and Peoples Who Pre-Date Recorded History
320Paperback(First Edition)
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Overview
Our school textbooks barely mention the 6,000-year-old Sumerian civilization, yet the latest archaeological findings at sites such as Jericho and, most recently, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey have been dated to 10,000 BC.
Civilization goes back at least another 10,000 years, if we are willing to believe what our ancestors themselves claimed.
The Lost Civilization Enigma reveals the truth about:
Analyzing the historical and archaeological record, best-selling author Philip Coppens demonstrates that there is substantial evidence that civilization is far older, far more advanced, and far more special than is currently accepted. Clearly, our history books have left out a great deal!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781601632326 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2012 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 203,545 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
THE NEW INQUISITION
Many of us live with the idea that Science is about expanding the horizons of our knowledge — boldly thinking where no one has thought before. However, in truth, that is rarely the case. There are very few Indiana Joneses out there. Science has expressed no interest at all in the Ark of the Covenant or crystal skulls, even though the first object was the center of the Jewish religion and the latter at the heart of the Mayan religion. Instead, scientists have labeled crystal skulls modern fabrications, while they show no interest at all in recovering lost objects like the Ark.
When it comes to lost civilizations, all the evidence shows that Science is dogmatic and is unwilling to even listen to the arguments presented in favor of their existence. Those who claim to have found evidence are accused of being "unscientific" — whether they are amateur or professional scientists — and are told the discovery simply cannot be, as Science "knows" it is impossible. These days, Science has no problem proclaiming they are all-knowing when it comes to these subjects.
In the 1999 BBC documentary Atlantis Uncovered, Dr. Kenneth L. Feder, a professor of archaeology at Central Connecticut State University, stated:
When we come to something like the lost continent of Atlantis we are better off knowing that civilizations developed more or less independently just so nobody can say some people are better than others, some are smarter than others because we know what happens down the line when we believe that, so I'm not going to tell you that belief in Atlantis is necessarily the first step towards genocide, or Holocaust, but what I'm telling you is we are on a very slippery slope if we believe in fantasies and that those fantasies lead us down to places we really don't want to go.
Feder, in essence, argues that discussions about Atlantis, as well as discussions that civilizations traded and helped each other in their development is a "very slippery slope" and a "fantasy," and though he tells us not to immediately draw a comparison with genocide, he does draw that comparison. Seriously, Dr. Feder?
Science, it seems, is always more about preserving the status quo of what we already know than truly about expanding our boundaries of knowledge. Indeed, the evidence shows that the halls of academia are very much like the New Inquisition. They have not yet burned people at the stake, but they have thrown people in jail and destroyed the careers of those who tried to challenge the scientific dogma. The "heretics" are especially those who have tried to argue the case for the existence of lost civilizations or accidentally stumbled upon evidence that would upset the reigning paradigm. Such accidents often have had disastrous results for the innocent parties involved.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRENCH WARFARE
The excavations near the French village of Glozel, a hamlet located 10 miles from the French spa town of Vichy, are among the most controversial of archaeological endeavors ever recorded. These excavations lasted between 1924 and 1938, but the vast majority of finds — more than 3,000 artifacts — were unearthed in the first two years. The artifacts were variously dated to Neolithic, Iron Age, and medieval times. That in itself was not controversial. It is how one eventually arrived at these dates that reveals a saga of archaeological feuding and fraud versus truth.
Glozel has been described as the "Dreyfus affair" of French archaeology, and the Dreyfus equivalent was Emile Fradin, a 17-year-old who, together with his grandfather Claude Fradin, stepped into history on March 1, 1924. Working in a farming field known as Duranthon, Emile was holding the handles of a plow when one of the cows pulling it stuck its foot in a cavity. Freeing the cow, the Fradins uncovered a cavity containing human bones and ceramic fragments. So far, this could have been just any usual archaeological discovery, of which some are made every week. That soon changed.
It is said that the first to arrive the following day to see what the farmers had unearthed were the neighbors. They not only found but also took some of the objects. From there, the news spread around the village. That same month, Adrienne Picandet, a local teacher, visited the Fradins' farm and decided to inform the Minister of Education. On July 9, Benoit Clément, another teacher, this time from the neighboring village and representing La Société d'Emulation du Bourbonnais, visited the site and later returned with a man called Viple. Clément and Viple used pickaxes to break down the remaining walls, which they took away with them. Some weeks later, Emile Fradin received a letter from Viple, in which the latter identified the site as dating from Gallo-Roman times — first to fourth centuries AD. He added that he felt that the site was of little interest. His advice was to recommence cultivation of the field — which is precisely what the Fradin family did. This might, therefore, have been the end of the saga, but not so.
The January 1925 Bulletin de la Société d'Emulation du Bourbonnais reported on the findings. It brought the story to the attention of Antonin Morlet, a Vichy physician and amateur archaeologist. Morlet visited Clément and was intrigued by the findings. Morlet was an "amateur specialist" in the Gallo-Roman period and believed that the objects from Glozel were older. He thought that some might even date from the Magdalenian period (12,000–9500 BC), which would make them extraordinarily old and one of the most important archaeological finds ever in France. Both Morlet and Clément visited the farm and the field on April 26, 1925, and Morlet offered the Fradins 200 francs per year to be allowed to complete the excavation. The family accepted.
Morlet began his excavations on May 24, 1925, discovering tablets, idols, bone and flint tools, and engraved stones. This material allowed him to identify the site as Neolithic. He published his "Nouvelle Station Néolithique" in September 1925, listing Emile Fradin as coauthor. He argued that the site was, as the title of the article states, Neolithic in nature. Though Morlet dated it as Neolithic, he was not blind to see that the site contained objects from various epochs. He still upheld his belief that some artifacts appeared to be older, belonging to the Magdalenian period, but added that the techniques that had been used appeared to be Neolithic. As such, he identified Glozel as a transition site between both eras, even though it was known that the two eras were separated by several millennia.
Certain objects were indeed anachronistic: One stone showed a reindeer, accompanied by letters that appeared to be an alphabet. The reindeer vanished from that region around 10,000 BC, yet the earliest known form of writing at that time was believed to have been established around 3300 BC, and that was in the Middle East. The general consensus was that, for the Glozel region, one would have to wait a further three millennia before writing was introduced. Worse, the script appeared to be comparable with the Phoenician alphabet, dated to c. 1000 BC, or to the Iberian script, which was derived from it. But, of course, it was "known" that no Phoenician colony could have been located in Glozel, so rather than explain the site, it made the site even harder to understand. But what Morlet had shown was that rather than a site that seemed to have little or no importance, Glozel was a site that could upset the world of archaeology. Whereas he might have thought he was going to rewrite history and the story of how civilization evolved, it was, in truth, a time bomb, which would soon explode.
When news of the discovery reached them, it should not come as a wonder that French archaeological academics were dismissive of Dr. Morlet's report. After all, it was published by an amateur (a medical doctor) and a peasant boy (who perhaps could not even write properly). In their opinion, the amateurism dripped off their conclusion, for it challenged their carefully established and vociferously defended dogma on several levels. Prehistoric writing? A crossover between a Palaeolithic and a Neolithic civilization? Nonsense! And hence, the halls of academia began to attack the conclusions Morlet had reached, as they were simply impossible.
One person claimed that the artifacts had to be fakes, as some of the tablets were discovered at a depth of 5 inches. Indeed, if that were the case they would indeed be fakes, but the problem is that all the tablets were found at substantial depths. It is evidence of how the academics manipulated the facts, as the facts didn't fit the dogma. They were trying to explain Glozel away, rather than explain Glozel. It should be noted that the "5 inches" argument continues to be used by several skeptics to this day, who falsely continue to assume it is true.
Unfortunately for French academic circles, Morlet was not one to lie down easily, and today his ghost continues to hang — if not watch — over Glozel. Morlet invited a number of archaeologists to visit the site during 1926; they included Salomon Reinach, curator of the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, who spent three days excavating. Reinach confirmed the authenticity of the site in a communication to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Even higher academic circles descended on the site: The famous archaeologist Abbé Breuil excavated with Morlet and was impressed with the site. In late 1926, he wrote two articles, in which Breuil stated that the authenticity of the Glozel site was incontestable. Breuil had also worked together with pre-historian André Vayson de Pradenne, who had visited the site under an assumed name and attempted to buy the artifacts from Fradin. When Fradin refused, Vayson de Pradenne became angry and threatened to destroy the site. Under his own name, he obtained permission to excavate from Dr. Morlet, but then claimed to have detected Fradin spreading salt in the excavation trench. Was Vayson de Pradenne keeping his promise that he would destroy the site? Morlet chose to attack, and he challenged Vayson de Pradenne to duplicate what Fradin had allegedly done. When he was unable to do so, or find where Fradin had supposedly salted the trench, Morlet felt he had successfully dealt with that imposter. He was wrong: Vayson de Pradenne's allegation made it into print and the heat of the Glozel affair intensified, despite several leading scientists found in favor of its authenticity.
At first, Breuil tried to remain neutral, but it would be a reindeer that soured the relationship between Breuil and Morlet, as Breuil had identified an engraved animal on a tablet as a cervid, neither reindeer nor elk. Morlet, however, had received confirmation from Professor August Brinkmann, director of the Zoology Department at Bergen Museum, Norway, and informed Breuil of his mistake. It was the moment when Breuil changed his attitude in the Glozel debate.
But rather than talk, which is what his attackers were doing, Morlet dug, unearthing throughout a period of two years, 3,000 objects, all of varied forms and shape, including 100 tablets carrying signs and approximately 15 tablets carrying the imprints of human hands. Other discoveries included two tombs, sexual idols, polished stones, dressed stones, ceramics, glass, bones, and so on. Surely these could not be fakes, as archaeologists were saying? Who would make thousands of artifacts? His attackers were straightforward in naming their suspect: Fradin.
Breuil was more open-minded than his colleagues, but it is apparent that he did not like to be proven wrong in the case of his cervid. So rather than admit his mistake, instead he drifted further and further in the ranks of those intent on discrediting Glozel, for no other reason than if Morlet's findings were true, the site would be thousands of years older than they thought it could be and — more importantly — than they had said in print. On August 2, 1927, Breuil reiterated that he wanted to stay away from the site. On October 2, he wrote that "everything is false except the stoneware pottery." Just before that, at the meeting of the International Institute of Anthropology in Amsterdam, held in September 1927, the Glozel site was the subject of heated controversy, so much so that a commission was appointed to conduct further investigation. Its membership was largely comprised of people who had already decided the Glozel finds were fraudulent. Among the group was British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod, who had studied with Breuil.
The commissioners arrived at Glozel on November 5, 1927. During their excavations, several members found artifacts. But on the third day, Morlet saw commission members Dorothy Garrod, Abbé Favret, and Mr. Hamil-Nandrin slip under the barbed wire and set off toward the open trench before he had opened the gate of the excavation site. Morlet followed Garrod and saw that she stuck one of her fingers into the plaster pattern on the side of the trench, making a hole. He shouted out, reprimanding her for what she had just done. Caught in the act, she at first denied it, but in the presence of her two colleagues as well as the attorney, Mallat, and a scientific journalist, Tricot-Royer, she had to admit that she had made the hole.
This was clearly a smoking gun: A leading archaeologist had been caught trying to falsify an archaeological excavation. But what happened? It was agreed they would not speak about the incident, showing the gracious nature of all men involved toward Miss Garrod!
However, Morlet did speak about it after the commission had published its unfavorable report. This might be seen as mudslinging, trying to get back at the commission, but, unfortunately for those willing to adhere to this theory, a photograph exists that attests to the incident having occurred. In it, Garrod is hiding behind the four men, who are in heated discussion about what she had just done. Most importantly, Tricot-Royer and Mallat also gave written testimony confirming Morlet's account.
What was Garrod trying to do? Some have claimed it was merely an accident, but it is remarkable that she was part of a posse that entered the site — in essence, they broke in — before the "official start" of the day and had "an accident" that could have been interpreted as evidence of someone interfering with the excavation. If others had found that the excavation had been tampered with, fingers would not have been pointed at Garrod but instead at Fradin — whom the archaeologists suspected of being the forger, burying artifacts in the ground only to have amateur archaeologists like Morlet, who did not know better, discover them. If this suggestion that Fradin had entered the site at night had been made, it would have resulted in a "case closed," and the Glozel artifacts would have been qualified as fraudulent. Fortunately, Garrod and company were caught in the act.
However, the incident did not cause any harm to Dorothy Garrod's career; she went on to teach a generation of British archaeologists at Cambridge. Perhaps unremarkably, she made sure to tell all of them that the Glozel artifacts were fakes. And several of her students echoed her "informed" opinion; the list included Glyn Daniel and Colin Renfrew, both fervent critics of the Glozel finds. We can only wonder whether the "finger incident" is known to these modern pillars of archaeology.
Decades later, when the skeptical archaeologists were challenged with evidence that thermoluminescence and carbon dating had shown that the Glozel artifacts could not be forgeries created by Fradin, Renfrew wrote in 1975: "The three papers, taken together, suggest strongly that the pottery and terracotta objects from Glozel, including the inscribed tablets, should be regarded as genuine, and with them, presumably, the remainder of the material. ... I still find it beyond my powers of imagination to take Glozel entirely seriously." So, let us get this right: Though all the archaeological evidence suggested the site was genuine, Renfrew's emotions and especially his "powers of imagination" prevented him from taking it seriously! That is, of course, not science, but simply evidence of the fact that Renfrew is a bad scientist; he cannot accept hard, scientific facts! It is precisely this attitude that has prevented archaeologists from addressing the issue of lost civilizations.
But back to the past. Morlet sent a letter to Mercure de France (published on November 15, 1927), still upset with Breuil's qualification of the site as a fake and having spotted one of his students sticking an unwanted finger into an archaeological trench:
From the time your article appeared I declared to anyone who wanted to listen, especially to your friends so that you would hear about it, that I would not allow you to present a site already studied at length as a discovery which had not been described before you wrote about it. I know that in a note you quoted the titles of our articles; that you thank me for having led you to Glozel; and that finally you give thanks to our "kindness" in having allowed you to examine our collections. You acknowledge that I am a good chauffeur. I have perceived, a little, that I have also been a dupe. Your report on Glozel is conceived as if you were the first to study the site, so much so that several foreign scholars are misinformed about it. Your first master, Dr Capitan, suggested to me forthrightly that we republish our leaflet with the engravings at the end and his name before mine. With you, the system has evolved: you take no more than the ideas.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Lost Civilization Enigma"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Philip Coppens.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 9
Chapter 1 The New Inquisition 15
Chapter 2 Lost Civilizations of the Old World 61
Chapter 3 Lost Civilizations of the New World 109
Chapter 4 The Big A: Atlantis 161
Chapter 5 Prehistoric Genius 201
Chapter 6 Earth, Several Tens of Thousands Years BC 225
Chapter 7 Creating Heaven on Earth 255
Conclusion 275
Appendix: A World of Lost Civilizations 281
Chapter Notes 289
Bibliography 297
Index 311
About the Author 317