Alfred Watkins and Ley Lines, 20 June 1921

In New View Over Atlantis, writer John Michell gives this description of an influential inspiration that took place this day, some ninety-two years ago:

One hot summer afternoon, 20 June 1921, Alfred Watkins was at Blackwardine in Herefordshire.  On a high hilltop he stopped and looked at his map before meditating on the view below him.  Suddenly, in a flash, he saw something which no one in England had seen for perhaps thousands of years.

Watkins saw straight through the surface of the landscape to a layer deposited in some remote prehistoric age.  The barrier of time melted and, spread across the country, he saw a web of lines linking the holy places and sites of antiquity.  Mounds, old stones, crosses and old crossroads, churches placed on pre-Christian sites, legendary trees, moats and holy wells stood in exact alignments that ran over beacon hills to cairns and mountain peaks.  In one moment of transcendental perception Watkins entered a magic world of prehistoric Britain, a world whose very existence had been forgotten.  22-23.

Alfred Watkins (1855-1935) was an Englishman who delighted in traveling the countryside of his native Herefordshire, and in the country people he met and the stories they told -- stories that were often handed down for generations.  His keen eye and open mind (he was also an accomplished photographer and inventor) and his love of the countryside of his native England enabled him to perceive the network of alignments running for miles and miles and connecting ancient megalithic sites, landmarks, monuments, and natural features such as mountain peaks and high hills.  He called these lines "ley lines," or "leys," because (as Michell explains):

A peculiar feature of the old alignments is that certain names appear with remarkable frequency along their routes.  names with Red, White and Black are common; so are Cold and Cole, Dod, Merry, and Ley.  The last gave Watkins the name of the lines, which he called leys.  24.

As Michell goes on to explain, "The idea of leys found little sympathy among Watkins's archaeological contemporaries.  It contradicted all their assumptions about the nature of prehistoric life" (25).  If that was true in 1921 and in 1969 (when John Michell published his first edition of View Over Atlantis), it is still true today.  The idea of leys turns on its head the conventional timeline of human history.  How could such precision and vision and engineering capability be possible to the "primitive" denizens of the British Isles in the days before Stonehenge and Avebury were even contemplated?  Note that this system must have been created before Stonehenge and all the other ancient sites in Britain were erected, since it ties such sites together with perfectly straight lines that would be impossible to design after the fact.

While these straight leys are often attributed to the engineering skills of the later Roman invaders, Michell notes that many Roman roads have been found to have much older paving stones underneath the layers of Roman construction, indicating that the Romans found the lines when they arrived and then sometimes built on top of them. Also, leys are present in Ireland, where the Romans never conquered.

Modern skeptics continue to try to write these alignments off to mere coincidence, or the human mind's tendency to find patterns in random sets of data.  For example, the Wikipedia entry on ley lines makes sure to cast frequent aspersions on the original concept and on John Michell's later examination of the phenomenon, saying: "Both versions of the theory have been criticised on the grounds that a random distribution of a sufficient number of points will inevitably create 'alignments'."  The Wikipedia entry then goes on to cite critics who say that "given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that 'connect' sites is trivial, and ascribable to coincidence. A statistical analysis of lines concluded that 'the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites." ^[18]"  

While these criticisms sound valid if Wikipedia is your only source of information about this concept, the interested reader is invited to read through John Michell's books (as well as the earlier books by Watkins and his contemporaries, and the many others that have been published since) and analyze the evidence for himself or herself.  The aerial photographs in Michell's books alone should be sufficient to dispel the notion that these alignments are the product of coincidence or trivial "dot-connecting" -- lines can be seen going for miles and miles and disappearing into the distance, and incorporating hilltops, gates, church steeples, and other landmarks.  

Further, as John Michell demonstrates, this phenomena is by no means isolated to the British Isles, but can be found around the world.  He provides extensive evidence from China and from North and South America to support the idea that the ancients appear to have created ley line grids around the globe.  Previous blog posts which have touched on the undeniable world-wide geodetic networks apparent in ancient monuments and sites include "Did mankind known the precise size and shape of our earth many thousands of years ago?" and "Rock Lake, Wisconsin and the Code of Carl P. Munck."

Again, this is a subject where individuals are encouraged to examine the evidence and analyze the situation for themselves.  The conclusions drawn by Alfred Watkins (and expanded upon by John Michell) have profound paradigm-shifting implications.  It is a subject too important to simply ignore, or to "outsource" to someone else to decide.  

Surely June 20th is an appropriate day on which to spend some time in consideration of the important subject of ley lines!

The Nabta Playa circle demolishes conventional theories

The ancient monument at Nabta Playa, in the desolate Sahara desert of southwestern Egypt, has been called one of the earliest aligned structures of mankind's ancient past.  Consensus opinion currently indicates that usage of the site may have begun around 4500 BC (based on carbon dating analysis described in this 2007 article), although some analysts have provided arguments which suggest that the site may have been designed even earlier than that.

Nabta Playa is an extremely arid basin just south of the Tropic of Cancer (see map below).  In 1973, a team of archaeologists led by Fred Wendorf discovered pottery fragments in the remote region and began excavation of what they learned was a site of incredible antiquity.  In 1990, they discovered a stone circle monument, publishing an article about this site for the first time in 1998.  Thus, the site is still somewhat recently revealed to the wider public, and discussion and analysis of its implications are ongoing.

Some of the most intriguing analysis of the site has come from physicist and archaeoastronomer Dr. Thomas G. Brophy, who in 2002 published The Origin Map: Discovery of a Prehistoric, Megalithic, Astrophysical Map and Sculpture of the Universe.  In the video segment above, he discusses his analysis of the site, analysis which if correct has stunning implications which completely upend the conventional timeline of mankind's ancient past.

Dr. Brophy begins by noting that the structure consists of an outer ring which contains clear "gate" features forming two pathways or alignments through the circle, one along a line running northeast to southwest and indicating the summer solstice sunrise, and one running north-south through the circle (the "meridian sightline").  Inside the circle are six stones, which Dr. Brophy believes should be seen as two sets of three.  On pages 9 and 10 of his 2002 book, Dr. Brophy explains his insight into the northern set of three of these inner stones in the Nabta Playa Calendar Circle:

A user of the calendar circle diagram, standing at the north end of the meridian sightline window, would look down on the stone diagram and see a representation of the stars of Orion's Belt just as they appear on the meridian in the sky when the user looked up.

More than just matching the appearance of the stars of Orion's Belt at that time, the ground stones indicate the sky stars at the special time of summer solstice as identified by the solstice sightline window in the calendar circle.

As Dr. Brophy explains in the book, and in the video above, the motion of precession not only "delays the sky" through the ages such that a different zodiac sign is in the position above the rising sun before sunrise on the March equinox (creating the different precessional ages such as the Age of Pisces or the Age of Aquarius), but it also changes the angle that the constellations such as Orion will appear to a viewer at the same location on our planet throughout the different ages.

The angle of the stones representing the belt stars appears to be correct for the period between 6400 BC and 4900 BC -- an archaeoastronomical dating of incredible antiquity.  This was the period of least tilt of the constellation Orion with respect to the meridian (when the constellation is most vertical and the belt stars are the most horizontal).

Dr. Brophy then goes on to an even more significant hypothesis, which is that the southern three stones represent the head and shoulders of Orion, but that they are at an angle when Orion is at his greatest tilt from the motion of precession.  The implications of this proposal, however, are revolutionary.  Due to the very slow motion of precession, the time period indicated by the stones representing the head and shoulders of the constellation would center around 16,500 BC!

Even if these stones were not erected at such an unbelievably early date, it is not inconceivable that they were erected around the first set of dates (those indicated by the tilt of the belt-star stones), and indeed conventional archaeologists currently date the site to a time quite close to Dr. Brophy's astronomically-derived date.

If so, and if Dr. Brophy is also correct about the southern set of stones indicating the head and shoulders of Orion at the period of greatest tilt of the constellation (caused by precession), then this would mean that the ancient designers of the Nabta Playa circle were aware of precession (something conventional historians believe was unknown until about 125 BC), and further that they understood precession to an astonishing level of sophistication, such that they could calculate and diagram the maximum tilt that precession would cause to the familiar stars of Orion!

Either that, or the designers of Nabta Playa were in touch with someone who could (or that the information was handed down from someone who knew these things, pushing the antiquity of this sophisticated understanding even further back in time).  

This proposition clearly has enormous implications.  The evidence that the ancients understood precession to a degree far more precise than that achieved by Hipparchus or Ptolemy (the first astronomers that conventional scholars say were able to detect and understand the phenomenon) is quite extensive, and fills a good portion of the discussion in Hamlet's Mill, by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (as John Anthony West points out in the video above).

The entire Maya Long Count / 2012 phenomenon is based upon clear evidence that the Maya had sophisticated understanding of the effects of precession and could predict with a high degree of accuracy its effect upon the angle and rising times of celestial bodies -- in their case, a special part of the Milky Way galaxy, as discussed in several previous posts, such as this one.  The extreme antiquity of the dating of the  Nabta Playa site, however, pulls back the curtain on a whole new corridor of time stretching into a distant past during which mankind apparently knew far more than modern academics will acknowledge.

However, this revelation is only the beginning of the incredible aspects of the Nabta Playa site which physicist Dr. Brophy finds evidence for.  The circle discussed above is actually part of a three-dimensional structure that continues below the level of the surface of the earth, and includes bedrock many feet below which has apparently been worked by tools into some sort of art form -- but where conventional archaeologists see a "cow" that might have been a stand-in to represent the sacrifice of an actual cow, Dr. Brophy sees a representation of the Galactic Center encoding more precise knowledge that ancient people simply should not have possessed, according to the conventional timeline of history.  Dr. Joseph Farrell explores these aspects of Dr. Brophy's analysis of Nabta Playa in his book Grid of the Gods, a text discussed in this previous post.

Further, the Calendar Circle site is also located within a larger context of other stone monuments in the Nabta Playa basin, and Dr. Brophy believes that the distance and direction relationships among these sites also encodes extremely precise astronomical information (see the continuation of the above-linked video here).

As Dr. Robert Schoch explains on pages xxii - xxiii of his foreword to Dr. Brophy's book:

The megaliths are arranged at various distances from a central point, known as "Complex Structure A."  As you can read in detail below, Brophy interprets these distances from the central point as recording a) the actual distances of the stars in question from our solar system, and b) the speeds that the stars are moving away from us.  The information and interpretations that Brophy extracts from the Nabta megaliths correspond to a high degree with modern knowledge of these parameters for these specific stars.  Further, analyzing smaller companion stones associated with the primary "star" megaliths, Brophy suggests that the builders of the Nabta site may have had information about planetary systems or companion stars associated with the six stars in question -- information that we do not have today!  And then there is the "Cosmological cow stone."  Does this stone encode information about the origin of the universe, the age of the solar system or universe, the structure of the galaxy and universe, and / or the fundamental constants of nature?  Read Brophy's analysis and see what you think.

These possibilities are even more staggering, clearly, than the possibility that the designers of Nabta Playa knew about precession to a degree far beyond that attained by Hipparchus or Ptolemy thousands of years later.  We are accustomed to thinking of Planck's constant, for example, as a discovery of quantum physicists working in AD 1900 and after -- not 1900 BC and certainly not 4900 BC!  And yet this constant is one of those "fundamental constants of nature" that Dr. Schoch refers to above that Dr. Brophy sees in evidence among the dimensions of the monuments in Nabta Playa in Egypt.

Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, it would be prudent to examine Dr. Brophy's discussion and analysis of the evidence and to keep an open mind while doing so.

Moving back a bit from possibilities such as awareness of quantum physics, it is fairly clear that the designers of the Nabta Playa circle created a summer solstice alignment, as well as a meridian alignment which may well line up with the belt stars of Orion (which Dr. Brophy's analysis shows were along that meridian around the summer solstice during that epoch).  Setting aside even the evidence that these ancients might have understood precession, one huge question still remains for proponents of the conventional theories, and that is: how are archaeologists and archaeoastronomers even able to make calculations about the location of Orion in reference to this site, if the site is over 6000 years old and if continental drift has been going on for all these years the way proponents of plate tectonics believe?

At the very least, Nabta Playa should blow the theory of plate tectonics wide open.  Unless, of course, we want to argue that Nabta Playa is a big hoax, and that the stones were actually set out there in the 1970s by clever archaeologists and physicists who threw in references to the Planck constant and precession just to fool people (but who forgot about the motion of plate tectonics, or didn't take it into account, since plate tectonics was still something of a novel theory even in the 1970s).

There are many other sites whose ongoing alignments also argue strongly against plate tectonics, among them the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Sphinx, and the ancient megalithic temples on the islands of Malta.  No one can argue that those sites were secretly constructed in the 1970s. However, the extreme antiquity of Nabta Playa (if it is an authentic ancient site, that is) should set a new record in sites unaffected by tectonic motion.  (Of course, it is quite possible that the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid are much older than conventional academics think that they are -- perhaps even older than Nabta Playa).

Add to that the possibility that Nabta Playa encodes the knowledge that Dr. Brophy demonstrates that it does, and the site completely demolishes most of the foundations of the history departments and the geology departments of most modern universities.  None of this should be surprising to readers of this blog or those who are familiar with the hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown.

Rock Lake, Wisconsin and The Code of Carl P. Munck

Above is a link to some of the incredible work of Carl P. Munck, whose analysis of the locations of ancient monuments around the world led him to the astonishing discovery of a system whereby aspects of each monument act as a language to tell those who can understand it where that monument is, as well as where to look for other monuments in an inter-connected grid of monuments spanning the entire globe.

One of the reasons that Mr. Munck was able to "hear" what the monuments were telling him was his paradigm-shifting realization, demonstrated in the above video, that the monuments often tell us their precise longitude, but in longitude measured from the apex of the Great Pyramid at Giza, rather than from the current  convention which uses the prime meridian running through Greenwich as a starting reference.

In The Grid of the Gods, by Joseph P. Farrell and Scott D. de Hart, the authors examine some of the reasons that someone might have gone to the trouble of building so many massive projects with such intricate and precise encoded detail in the specific locations on the planet that they chose to build them, and the conclusions they reach are extremely important.  Their book should be the next one you read, if you haven't read it yet.

The authors of that book cite Mr. Munck, who wrote:

Nobody sets out to build 50,000-plus pyramids and mounds around a planet just for the hell of it, or want of something to do.  History teaches that these primitive people were hunter-gatherers who spent their waking hours running down their next meals.  If that's true, then who built these monuments?  These people didn't have the time [. . .].  There was enormous global planning behind it all.  Munck, Whispers from Time: the Pyramid Bible, vol. 1, page 26; cited in Farrell and de Hart, 106.

Previous posts on this site have examined the overwhelming evidence that the designers of this world-wide system of locations did so according to a deliberate overarching plan and with an extremely sophisticated understanding of the size and shape of our planet earth.  See for example this post from June of 2012.

As you will see in the video above, Mr. Munck demonstrates the way various aspects of monuments in one part of the globe use "the Code" or language of numbers to refer to the longitude of other monuments in totally different parts of the globe.  In Dr. Farrell's book, he notes that Munck demonstrates that each monument tells longitude, latitude, longitude and latitude, or some significant mathematical or geometrical formula (often incorporating or embodying pi).  He has found connections between the largest North American mound at Grave Creek, WV and Silbury Hill in England, and between Teotihuacan in Mexico and Giza in Egypt.

Another site that Mr. Munck's analysis indicated is in the middle of a lake in Wisconsin: Rock Lake, where locals and visitors through the years (going back, in fact, to the first accounts from early settlers and to the sacred traditions of the Native Americans in the area) have described seeing structures submerged beneath the waters.

Here is a link to a video from the 1997 television series Beyond Bizarre, hosted by Jay Robinson, which describes the structures.  In the clip, a researcher describes how the analysis of Hugh Harleston (another researcher who has spent years decoding the ancient sites in Central America and whose work is briefly mentioned in this previous post and explored in greater depth in the Mathisen Corollary book itself) pointed to the precise location of the structures.  The video also shows footage of standing stone sites in the area which are extremely similar in appearance to those in the New England region further east, especially those found at Mystery Hill, New Hampshire (see here, here and here for discussion and links to other sites about Mystery Hill).

In their book, Dr. Farrell and Dr. de Hart explain that Rock Lake, like many other megalithic sites around the world, has accumulated a body of lore recounting unusual phenomena centered around the site:

For example, local residents report seeing huge rocks floating on the surface of the lake, or outboard motors on boats that will not work at certain times, or how divers attempting to approach and film the submerged pyramid with their underwater cameras suddenly find they have malfunctioned.  Munck even notes that some divers report a strange sense of dread as they prepared to dive to photograph the pyramid.  100.

The analysis in The Grid of the Gods explores many reasons to be very cautious about dismissing such reports out of hand.

Regardless of one's opinion on that subject, the implications of the research of Carl Munck and the discovery that the ancient monuments around our planet are part of a deliberate, sophisticated, and self-referential grid system has profound implications for our understanding of human history.  As Jay Robinson says at the beginning of the Rock Lake video, the evidence should "compel archaeologists to completely rework their understanding of the entire ancient world."  

Professor Gordon Freeman and Canada's Stonehenge

Above is an eye-opening presentation by Professor Gordon Freeman of Saskatchewan, an Oxford- and University of Saskatchewan- and McGill-trained scholar and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta.

Professor Freeman's deep background in chemistry enables him to perceive patterns that others don't notice, which is very interesting in light of the fact that Dr. Reinoud de Jonge (one of the authors of the previously mentioned examination of stone sites in the "New World" and the Old entitled How the SunGod reached America c. 2500 BC) is a Dutch physical chemist and teaches chemistry and physics. 

In the video below beginning at about the 1:30 mark Professor Freeman explains how his childhood and the enthusiasm of his father influenced his interest in the stone relics he found in Canada, and how his professional training in chemistry helped him to see "patterns of stones all over the place" (4:08).



He says:

My life career -- what they paid me to do for thirty-seven years -- was complex systems in chemistry and physics, and pattern recognition is the strongest analytical tool, and so I'm automatically hooked into recognizing patterns when I see them, and patterns in biology, and patterns in geology, and patterns in lightning strokes: if you see similar patterns you can take them back nearly always to similar mechanisms.  They don't involve the same entities, but the general mechanisms are the same.

In the slide show at the top, he explains some of his remarkable pattern-recognition, and what it led him to discover about a remote sacred circle near an old abandoned city known as Majorville in Alberta (and hence sometimes called the Majorville Sacred Circle, and other times the Sun Temple in Alberta).

His slideshow illustrates the evidence he has found pointing to the conclusion that this Sun Temple is at least 5000 years old.

The beautiful photographs clearly show that this Sacred Circle incorporates "V-shaped notches" on the horizon.  Readers of this blog may remember a post from earlier this year entitled "Aligned stones, V-shaped notches, and massive but subtle sculptures found in India, New Zealand, and Peru" which presented clear evidence of remarkably similar stone monumental technique in locations as widely dispersed as India, New Zealand, and Peru.  According to the evidence presented by Professor Freeman, we should add Canada to this list.

Further, Professor Freeman in his book Canada's Stonehenge: Astounding Archaeological Discoveries in Canada, England and Wales explores undeniable similarities of patterns between the Sun Temple in Alberta and ancient stone circles in the British Isles*.  Such connections are extremely damaging to the conventional isolationist paradigm which currently grips academia but should not come as too great a shock to those familiar with the incredible mass of evidence which refutes that outmoded view.

The entire world should be grateful to Professor Freeman and his wife Phyl for their diligent work in perceiving and communicating this extremely important find, which has such powerful implications for human history.  Their work is truly advancing the cause of the truth.

His book deserves wide examination and careful consideration.

*  An extended second edition of Professor Freeman's book has recently been published under the title Hidden Stonehenge.  

Ancient knowledge of accurate latitudes and ocean landmarks prior to 3500 BC

I recently received a book as a birthday gift, and what a wonderful book it is!  Entitled How the SunGod reached America c. 2500 BC, it presents detailed evidence compiled by authors Dr. Reinoud M. de Jonge and Jay Stuart Wakefield that numerous ancient megalithic sites around the world encode detailed sailing charts for crossing the world's oceans and finding specific landmarks and navigation aids at specific and accurate latitudes.

The book is illustrated with numerous diagrams, drawings and maps, as well as selections of ancient Egyptian papyri and panels showing that the ancient Egyptians were active participants in voyages to the "Western Lands."  

The authors argue that the most ancient sites including Newgrange and other megalithic mounds contain clear coded references to discoveries of islands to the west, the Azores being among the most important of these, and that the lands to the west held great religious significance in the worship of the SunGod to these ancient peoples.  

Significantly, they find that the nine major islands of the Azores, in three major groups, are depicted in ancient sites dating to 3500 or 3600 BC, such as Gavrinis, including coded references to the latitudes of the Azores (they describe references to 38 North, the latitude of the Central Azores and the number most associated with the Azores, as well as references to numerous other important nautical reference points, including Dunmore Head in Ireland at 52 North and the Cape Verde Islands at 16 North).

Below is an image of two of the engraved stones from Gavrinis, showing the labels that de Jonge and Wakefield give to the inscriptions.

 

One of the most interesting sections of the book concerns the site at Mystery Hill, New Hampshire (also known as "America's Stonehenge"), which I have visited and written about in previous posts such as this one and this one.  

The authors present convincing arguments that Mystery Hill functioned as a "religio/travel center for crossing the ocean to Europe in the bronze Age," saying: "We think this was a teaching center about oceanic geography and sailing routes, a place to get accurate predictions for the safe timing of oceanic voyages, and a place to make the sacrifices that would ensure safe passages" (10-1).

Above (top of this post) is a diagram from Mystery Hill showing the many extended stone walls, which seem to wind about with no purpose (certainly their layout defies the theory that these stone walls were produced by early colonial settlers clearing the land).  Authors de Jonge and Wakefield provide convincing arguments that these walls depict the coastlines of the world's oceans, most detailed in the region of the North Atlantic [most of the stone structures in the "Main Site" area, not shown in this larger view], but also depicting the Equator as well as a route for a "southern passage" across the Atlantic in the region of the Equator, as well as coastal features in the Caribbean, Central America, and even the eastern edge of Asia and a route marker aimed towards Australia.

Among the evidence that the authors present are indications that the site encodes the latitude of Cape Sao Roque, the northeast point of Brazil, at latitude 5 South, the latitude of the north coast of Honduras at 16 North, and even the latitude of Cape Race in Newfoundland, at 47 North!

The authors present similar evidence that Stonehenge encodes latitudes and landmarks for oceanic crossings as well.  This is astonishing, but it is in line with the arguments that Martin Doutré has outlined in support of the conclusion that nearby Avebury Henge also functioned as a large "open-air university" for the training of mathemetician-seafarers to cross the bluewater oceans.

The extensive mathematical patterns that de Jonge and Wakefield find at sites around the world which indicate knowledge of accurate latitudes as early as 3000 BC and even earlier, however, is perhaps the most astonishing aspect of their argument.  It is difficult to deny that people who could determine accurate latitudes understood that the earth is a sphere, and what is more, that they understood its size to a high degree of precision.  

If ancient mankind knew the size and shape of our spherical earth to such a degree of sophistication prior to the construction of Stonehenge, then this knowledge completely stands our conventional view of human history on its head.

There is extensive other evidence from around the world, however, that ancient civilizations did have this knowledge (see this previous post, for example).  

How did they know so much, so many thousands of years ago?

Conventional textbooks will of course continue to depict the builders of Stonehenge as primitive and superstitious innocents wearing rough skins, and to argue that at the early dates of the many megalithic sites described above, mankind was just beginning to emerge from a hunter-gatherer mode (which had prevailed for hundreds of thousands of years, during which discovery of the size and shape of the spherical earth would have been difficult to imagine).  Dr. de Jonge and Mr. Wakefield have shown that this conventional view cannot be correct.

How the SunGod reached America c. 2500 BC thus becomes an incredibly important piece of analysis, contributing critical evidence that should be examined carefully by everyone interested in uncovering a truer picture of the most ancient past of mankind.

 

Altered States: acoustics in the ancient megalithic temples of the Old and New Worlds

Here is a link to an amazing article published this past Monday in the March 2012 edition of Popular Archaeology and entitled "Ancient Builders Created Monumental Structures that Altered Sound and Mind, Say Researchers."

The article focuses on the work of Linda Eneix at the Hypogeum Hal-Saflieni in Malta (on the island of Gozo -- see diagram in this previous post), one of the most incredible and unique ancient monumental structures on earth, where about 2,000 tons of rock were removed to create a labyrinth of curving chambers, stairways, trilithons, and columns. The site may date to as early as 4000 BC according to some estimates, while others place the Malta structures as belonging to a period from 3800 BC to 2400 BC; in any event the megalithic structures on Malta are often alleged to be among the oldest in the world.

According to Linda Eneix and her fellow-researchers, the Hypogeum contains sophisticated acoustics that consistently produce vibrations in the frequency range of about 110 Hz, which apparently causes abrupt and measurable changes in brain activity that scientists at the site have documented in volunteer subjects.

The same article discusses previous work suggesting similar findings at other ancient megalithic sites around the globe, including the ceremonial center at Chavín de Huántar in Peru, as well as at Newgrange in Ireland.

More discussion by Linda Eneix of these acoustics can be found here, part of the Old Temples Study Foundation website.

The level of sophistication in acoustic incorporation into quite challenging architectural design indicates that these extremely ancient structures were not the product of very primitive humans who were just beginning to emerge from the hunter-gatherer phase. Yet this obvious fact is quite damaging to the conventional narrative of mankind's ancient past.

In fact, it is quite apparent from the archaeoacoustic analysis described in the above essays and articles that ancient humans probably understood more about the importance and impact of sound vibrations than we do today! Such a startling assertion resonates with the themes discussed by John Anthony West in his classic 1979 text, Serpent in the Sky, as well as the elaboration on this subject found in previous blog posts such as:

• "Why do we listen to beautiful music about heartbreak and misery?"

• "Would you drink whiskey from a pilsner glass?"

• "Mild but persistent torture"

and

• "What kind of music gives you chills?"

It also brings to mind a quotation in this previous post, in which I wrote: "In a sense, we might say that the measurements of a building or a garden can act on us in much the same way that music can act on us: architecture is 'physical music.'"

Another important implication of this nascent study of the archaeoacoustics of ancient megalithic spaces (besides the fact that these acoustic effects clearly reveal an advanced and sophisticated level of scientific and human-biological awareness) is the evidence that very similar acoustic effects appear to have been incorporated in megalithic sites on continents separated by mighty oceans, implying that the ancient civilizations that built them either had direct contact with one another or that they were descended from a common ancestor civilization (or perhaps from ancestor civilizations that had contact with one another).

This second conclusion should not be very hard to believe: it should not be too farfetched to imagine that a culture demonstrating the levels of scientific sophistication required to create the acoustics of the Hypogeum of Malta might also be able to navigate by the stars and build ships that could cross the bluewater oceans. Extensive evidence of other sorts points to the fact that ancient trans-oceanic contact took place long before conventional historians say that it did.

Further, the temples on Malta contain precise astronomical and solar alignments. The Hypogeum appears to contain some solstice alignments, and we have already seen in previous posts that the Mnajdra temple contains a precise equinoctial orientation. The incorporation of such alignments reinforces the suggestion that the same civilization that constructed these megalithic structures might also have had the ability to cross the oceans.

Below is an excellent video discussing and demonstrating the equinoctial alignments at Mnajdra:

Previously, this blog post discussing these alignments pointed out that the fact that the precise east-west orientation of the central corridor of this very ancient temple has been preserved for more than 5,000 years is a devastating piece of evidence that calls into question the foundations of the tectonic theory of earth's geology.

Thus, the temples on Malta prove to be extremely important in preserving evidence that refutes the most basic assumptions undergirding conventional geology as well as those undergirding the conventional views about the ancient history of the human race.

Finally, the suggestions about the importance of sound and vibration and the possibilities that these vibrations -- even if generated by the human voice -- have powerful and beneficial impacts on us human beings is a line of study which ties right in to the subjects discussed in this previous post, and in this previous post.

The possibility that certain voice-activated vibrational frequencies can alter brain activity is fascinating; it is also fascinating to learn that some archaeologists have found traces of ergot in one of the chambers of the Hypogeum (called "The Cistern" -- see this map). The fact that ergot is a fungus with powerful mind-altering effects (LSD is in fact derived from it) points back to topics discussed in this previous post on mushrooms (also used to produce altered states by cultures on continents separated by the largest oceans).

Clearly, the work being done by Linda Eneix, Miriam Kolar, and others who are researching the acoustic qualities of Hal-Saflieni, Chavín de Huántar, and other sites around the world, is beginning to shed light on a subject of incredible importance to humanity. We should all be grateful to them, and look forward to hearing more about these ancient soundwaves (and the impact they have on the mind) in the near future.

Magnetic polarity at Avebury Henge

In the previous post, I reported on the work of Walter Cruttenden and the theory that the phenomenon of precession is caused not by a wobble in the earth's axis but rather by the elliptical motion of the earth around another faraway stellar object.

The point of that post was not to suggest that I necessarily subscribe to that particular theory but to point it out as noteworthy -- something that people who are interested in the mystery of mankind's ancient past should be aware of and keep an eye on.

Obviously, Mr. Cruttenden's work involves some common points of interest with the subject matter covered in the Mathisen Corollary, including the phenomenon of precession as well as the thesis that and ancient civilization (or civilizations) achieved levels of advancement far beyond anything currently described in conventional timelines of history.

One other extremely interesting point which Mr. Cruttenden mentioned briefly during his interview on Red Ice Radio (which can also be accessed via podcast by searching iTunes for the phrase "Red Ice Cruttenden") is the work of the late John Burke, author of Seed of Knowledge, Stone of Plenty.

Mr. Burke and his colleagues were involved in measuring the electromagnetic fields found at henges and megalithic sites around the world, and they reportedly found that certain structures appeared to be designed to channel the earth's naturally-occurring telluric energy in some way. The earth's magnetosphere results from its interaction with the ionized solar wind, as explained in this description with diagrams from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the changes in this magnetic field create very low-frequency underground electric currents which travel over long distances on the earth.

In the interview, Mr. Cruttenden brings up a startling finding reported by John Burke and co-autor Kaj Halberg in their book. They report that measurements of the stones at Avebury Henge in England detected low levels of magnetic polarity in each stone, and the surprising fact that the circle stones appear to have been arranged such that the south pole of one stone faces the north pole of the next, to create a circle of magnetic polarity as well as a physical circle of stone.

On page 130 of their work, Burke and Halberg report:

These big slabs of sandstone, dragged from nearby Marlborough Downs, contain black magnetite, which makes the stones magnetic. Retaining their original polarity from their formation deep underground, each stone acts like a weak but very large magnet. While the magnetism of the standing stones is not strong enough to noticeably deflect a compass needle, the more sensitive magnetometers show that the stones are indeed magnetic, as geological studies have confirmed. We recorded a particularly powerful jump in the magnetometers by holding the probe up to a fist-sized cluster of magnetite crystals, visible in one of the avenue sarsens.

If these stones were strictly for cermonial purposes, the magnetic orientation of the stones would not be of consequence. However, the south pole of each stone faces the next stone in line as you move toward the circle. This arrangement means that the north poles of the stones generally point south, which are opposing the geomagnetic field. Inside the main and the minor stone circles, the south poles of all stones point at the next stone in the circle, in a clockwise direction, with two exceptions. The stones at the two intact causeway entrances have their poles aligned with those of the avenue, rather than with the clockwise pattern of the circle, up to a ninety-degree difference from their companions in the ring. We measured all sixty-seven remaining stones, with an average of sixteen readings per stone. None had a detectable magnetic pole pointing in a direction that would contradict this pattern. 130-131.

Mr. Burke and Mr. Halberg note that the henges (circular ditches with accompanying circular mounds) found throughout western Europe and the British Isles would tend to disrupt the telluric current, but that these ditches almost always feature an intact causeway or bridge (or place where the ditch stops on either side before completing the circle) where the current would tend to be focused more strongly (just as water, flowing through a chokepoint or narrow place, will flow with more velocity, a principle which is incorporated in shower heads or kitchen faucets that produce many tiny jets using very small openings). You can see the very prominent ditch and embankment at Avebury, along with part of the circle of stones, in the image above.

The authors theorize that these constructions might have created beneficial stress upon seeds, inducing them to grow better and produce more food yield. In a 2008 interview between Mr. Cruttenden and Mr. Burke available at the official CPAK online website here, Mr. Burke notes that ancient construction with measurable electromagnetic effects are not confined to the Old World but exist all over North America as well, and points to an early record from a Jesuit missionary who said the Native American tribes in the area of Louisiana would still bring seeds to a certain mystical location in order to receive a sort of blessing upon the seeds prior to planting them.

Whether this is the correct explanation or not for these ancient monuments, it is certainly an interesting area for further research. It may be that there were other original purposes for the constructions, and that they also had beneficial agricultural side effects which were noted by either the original architects or by later peoples.

Whatever one concludes, the bigger point seems to be that if in fact the huge multi-ton stones of Avebury are situated such that their poles align with the circles themselves, this would constitute powerful evidence that the designers possessed far greater levels of technological advancement than conventional historians attribute to them. Images of other magnetometer and caesium gradiometer surveys at other megalithic stone circles and henges done by other researchers appear to confirm the findings of Mr. Burke and Mr. Halberg -- some of them can be found here.

Magnetic anomalies have been recorded at many ancient sites in North America as well. The numerous chambers found in New England often share similar construction techniques and solar orientations to passage mounds found in Ireland and other parts of Europe, a fact I discuss towards the end of the Mathisen Corollary book. This website by Dr. Bruce Cornet notes the location of several dozen such stone constructions in New York state, as well as diagrams of the magnetic anomalies near many of these sites.

The fact that sites in the New World appear to contain evidence of deliberate electromagnetic manipulation or orientation provides yet another clue suggesting ancient contact across the oceans, contrary to what is taught in schools from kindergarten to the university. For other posts discussing other clues that contradict "isolationist" doctrines, see here and here.

This evidence would certainly appear to be a fertile field for future research. While much of it is quite startling and open to many possible interpretations, and while some of the evidence and interpretations offered so far may require more examination, simply rejecting it out of hand is probably not the wisest course of action if we really want to learn more about the real ancient timeline of mankind. Perhaps it is best to close this brief examination by referring back to the quotation by Edgar Smith Craighill Handy, cited approvingly by Thor Heyerdahl in 1953: "There is such a variety of possibilities open in the matter of relationships and derivations that my own feeling is that there is only one sure way of being in the wrong, and that is by asserting dogmatically what is not true" (cited in American Indians in the Pacific 8).