Halls of Bulls Sixth Edition Volume One Art Hisory
Skeptic , Vol. ix, No. i, 2001, pp 78-87
Reproduced with permission
Where did civilization come from? Since the original publication of Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods in 1995 at that place has been a remarkable revival in speculative or "alternative" answers to this basic question. [1] That book alone has sold over four million copies worldwide, and a new volume of mysteries (entitled Underworld ) is promised past Hancock for publication in Oct 2001. The history sections of bookstores are at present chaotic with scores of alternative works capitalizing on Hancock's success. [2] In addition, expensively produced television programs documenting "quests for lost civilizations" or "the secrets of the Sphinx" are shown all over the world.
There is no denying the success of what we are calling the "New Atlantis" – a phenomenon that inspires an almost religious devotion amongst its supporters. Information technology combines a mystical New Age approach to human potential (we are all "lost" and need to await dorsum to ameliorate times) with a unique alloy of anti- and pseudoscience. New Atlantis writers deride academics but try to invoke sciences like astronomy and geology to argue their case. Thus they have on the mantle of authoritative science while inviting their readers "to make upwardly their own minds" and not be dictated to past big-headed and faceless specialists.
The New Atlantis is fast colonizing modern views of the ancient past. Still, the dangers of this movement are not e'er recognized by the academic customs, whose skeptical guardians are more interested in citing Creationism or paranormal beliefs as exemplars of modern irrationalism. This article demonstrates that history besides is vulnerable to the forces of unreason and needs to be defended.
Atlantis Ascension
The New Atlantis belief organization can be divers by five key features:
1. In that location was a highly sophisticated civilization that appeared at least 15,000 years ago and is now lost to history.
2. This civilisation was destroyed, almost without trace, in a catastrophe at the cease of the last Ice Age.
three. Its elite survivors were able navigators who spread across the globe bringing the spark of civilization to benighted primitive populations.
4. The show for the existence of this Lost Civilization is indirect and coexisting, such as inexplicable cultural similarities betwixt supposedly dissever ancient civilizations (such as pyramids on both sides of the Atlantic or a fascination with the stars) or the mysterious achievements of some aboriginal cultures (for example, the Nazca lines in Republic of peru or the statues on Easter Island).
5. More familiar ancient cultures are alleged to insinuate to the arrival of these elite "Atlantean" visitors in legends and art (such as the Olmec Heads in Mexico, widespread myths about the flood, or tales of civilizing gods arriving from across the sea).
With ideas similar these, the New Atlantis is mounting a serious and fresh challenge in the listen of the public to orthodox views of ancient history and how civilization arose. [three] Since the Second World War, professional archaeologists have painstakingly pieced together from thousands of sites around the earth an account of the emergence of culture that stresses a process of slow and independent development. The difficult testify strongly implies that on a global scale civilization arose separately and at different times in the Americas, China, India, the Middle Eastward, and Africa. [4] In this calorie-free, any "Atlantean" explanations tin be viewed as a kind of historical creationism: gradual, indigenous evolution is replaced with the instantaneous conferral of high culture from an external source.
Proponents of this so-called culling view invariably interpret non-acceptance of their theories by professional scholars as a outcome of a blinkered and big-headed bookish prejudice against "new thinking" that threatens to upset the condition quo and show the experts up as wrong. Their writings are laden with rhetoric that characterizes university scholarship equally religious dogma and criticism from professionals as a sort of inquisition bent on suppressing the truth. But investigation into the background of their "new" thoughts reveals that non a unmarried element is original. In reality, they are a mosaic of retooled flotsam and jetsam from various speculative movements that have been with us since the 16th century. [5]
The myth of Atlantis, to be sure, is much older. The idea of a lost continent first appeared in Plato's philosophical dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias , composed in the quaternary century BCE. Plato tells the story of a disharmonize betwixt the empire of Atlantis and the Athenians, which took place near ix,000 years earlier (and thus around 9,600 BCE). The struggle culminated in the destruction of both Athens and Atlantis by a god-sent ending. Although several serious archaeological efforts take been made to find it, [half-dozen] information technology is almost likely that Plato's Atlantis was a philosophical device invented to make a political bespeak. The people of Plato's Atlantis are the villains of the tale, and his purpose in introducing them is to illustrate how free virtue (represented by Athens) can overcome despotic power (represented by Atlantis), even when virtue is outmatched.
Extravaganza by Joe Lee.
Notice that the imperialist Atlantis of Plato'southward political homily has petty similarity with the civilization-granting Atlantis of modern culling historians. Despite the encarmine testimony of recorded history as to what really happens when technologically avant-garde human cultures encounter less complex ones, the notion of Atlantis every bit a benign agent of civilization was widely promoted by Ignatius Donnelly's 1882 Atlantis: The Antediluvian World , a piece of work expressly inspired by Jules Verne's 1870 scientific discipline-fiction classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Bounding main . [7] In mounting his case for an Atlantean source for all ancient civilizations, Donnelly sought to overwhelm his readers with a mass of often highly dubious "evidence," rather than with cogency of argument. As his biographer, Martin Riddle, states:
In the utilise of his information, Donnelly combined common cognition with new scientific discoveries, and the works of pseudo-scientists… Since Atlantis was basically a lawyer'south brief on behalf of a speculative theory, Donnelly conformed to legal rather than scientific rules of bear witness. He discarded all contradictory evidence and even distorted illustrations to make his point. Donnelly exercised no critical judgement of his sources whatsoever. He simply accepted at face value and quoted those authorities who presented show that would corroborate his hypothesis, fifty-fifty though they might long since have been discredited. [viii]
These dubious qualities of Donnelly's work find articulate reflection in the methods of New Atlantis writers, such every bit Graham Hancock. On his webpage, for instance, Hancock envisions his part in the post-obit terms:
A parallel for what I exercise is to be found in the work of an attorney defending a customer in a court of constabulary. My 'client' is a lost civilisation and it is my responsibleness to persuade the jury – the public – that this civilization did exist. [9]
Hancock's instance for his Lost Civilization is therefore subject area to the same weaknesses every bit those Riddle identifies in Donnelly's case for Atlantis, and in adopting a legal mode of argument Hancock all but admits that he is not interested in finding out what actually happened in the past but only in selling to the public his own peculiar view of it.
A former Financial Times journalist, Hancock had hinted at the idea of a Lost Civilisation (which he studiously avoids calling "Atlantis") in his outset bestseller, The Sign and the Seal , which purported to trace the Ark of the Covenant to a church in Federal democratic republic of ethiopia. [10] (In the tradition of Ignatius Donnelly, Hancock'south speculations were as well inspired by a work of fiction: the motion-picture show Raiders of the Lost Ark .) En route Hancock had visited the Giza plateau and, like then many others before him, had been absorbed by the "mystery" of the Great Pyramid, which seemed to him to embody the legacy of some lost and aboriginal noesis – it could not be "merely" the mundane funerary monument described by Egyptologists. This is a crucial aspect of the New Atlantis. Writers like Hancock skillfully exploit our instinctual awestruck responses to ancient monuments – which are perfectly valid – but apply them to undermine and denounce the "orthodox" work of scholars who treat "aboriginal mysteries" with matter-of-fact reason and thus appear to undervalue or downgrade the monuments' majesty. But this is an appeal to emotion, not a basis for historical inquiry.
In his next book, Fingerprints of the Gods – equal parts incoherent travelogue and speculative theorizing – Hancock elaborated his "new" idea that a 12,000 year-erstwhile sophisticated and vanished culture had given rise to the familiar civilizations of the aboriginal world. Anyone familiar with the long history of Atlantean speculations, however, would hardly observe much of this "new." But for a new generation of readers, it all seems and then fresh and disarming. Television set and the Cyberspace have also allowed alternative ideas to accomplish a far wider audience than was imaginable simply a few years ago. Hancock's success has energized the earth of "alternative history." His gift every bit a synthesizer has allowed him to weave together a diverseness of "theories" from diverse sources and thus lift the old thought of a vanished "original" civilisation to new and persuasive heights. His approach appeals to widespread popular disaffection with both the cloth answers offered by scientific discipline and the responses of traditional religions to the "big" questions of where nosotros came from and where we are going. Now paperbacks with embossed pyramids on their covers and with pages of obviously scholarly notes and appendixes are piled loftier in bookshops all over the world.
Thus information technology is that a nameless Lost Civilisation has get the focus of a passionate quasi-religious quest. When Hancock joined forces with tour guide John Anthony West and one-time engineer Robert Bauval (who had linked the Giza Pyramids with an ancient lost culture in the Nile Valley), other blockbusters in books and Tv specials followed. [11] Now Hancock and Bauval are leaders of a cult-similar post-obit, and brand no undercover of the spiritual and mystical purpose of their inquiries.
Mysterious Methods
The methods of the alternative historians can announced convincing to a public oft unacquainted either with the dubious heritage of their ideas or with the investigative procedures used by conventional archaeologists and historians. The proponents of the New Atlantis bolster their case past deploying the authority of hard sciences such as astronomy or geology. In each instance their methods amount to picayune more than than sleight-of-paw and add only a veneer of reason to what are, at heart, irrational and unsubstantiated beliefs.
Patterns Of Stars
A linchpin method in the example for the Lost Civilization is the identification of architectural star maps. Equally presented by Hancock and Bauval, [12] the statement runs every bit follows. Monuments around the globe can be aligned with certain constellations, just simply equally they were in the heaven in the deep by. The astronomical phenomenon of precession – a "wobble" in the Globe's axis as it rotates – changes our view of the relative position of the stars in the heaven in a grand cycle that lasts 26,000 years. It is then observed that the correlation between stars and monuments is closest (or, as they put it, "locked") in the era of 10,500 BCE. Since, according to conventional history, precession was not discovered until Hipparchus in the late 2d century BCE, this correlation constitutes evidence for avant-garde celestial knowledge passed downwardly from the Lost Culture and here commemorated in architecture on the basis. By compiling examples of such star-to-monument maps, the proponents of the New Atlantis can present a persuasive-looking body of show, apparently rooted in difficult science and spanning the globe. Readers often detect such evidence cogent, since it seems anchored in hard fact (precession) and is presented with scientific looking diagrams and numbers that suggest precision and authorization.
The heritage of this thought, however, is far from scientific. Since precession is a cyclical process with a 26,000-year elapsing, it is worth asking why the alternative historians prepare on the commemorated date of 10,500 BCE every bit opposed to, say, 36,500 BCE or 62,500 BCE. Any of these other dates would as well produce a "lock" betwixt monuments and stars and, to the minds of professional person ancient historians, none is any less ludicrous than 10,500 BCE. The answer is telling. In the 1920s, the American psychic Edgar Cayce – known equally the "Sleeping Prophet" – proposed, on the basis of a dream, that a bedchamber containing the records of Atlantis lay below the Giza Plateau. Cayce dated the structure of the chamber to ca. 10,500 BCE – the very date supposedly deduced "scientifically" past Bauval and Hancock from their star-alignments. [13] The fact that both consider x,500 BCE as a key appointment in their argument without albeit that it ultimately derives from the psychic visions of the "Sleeping Prophet" amply demonstrates their standards of scholarship.
Caricature by Joe Lee.
In whatever instance, the argument from star maps is no argument at all. While it is certainly truthful that Egyptian buildings could be aligned with celestial bodies (sun temples, for example, always faced e), in that location is not a shred of evidence that intentional star maps e'er determined the lay-out of Egyptian architecture. Indeed, without corroborative ancient testimony the culling historians evidence nothing about the intent of the pyramid builders and far more about their own power to construct patterns. Furthermore, the arroyo assumes that constellations constitute an objective reality observable past all societies in all ages and are not localized cultural inventions.
Hancock and Bauval exploit the fact that the Greek constellations (Orion, Leo, etc.) can appear to be globally universal and natural features of the sky. In fact, they are composite cultural constructs. The Greek constellations were named centuries after Former Kingdom Egypt (when the pyramids were built), and many use private star names derived from Arab astronomers, themselves working centuries after the Greeks. In the case of Orion, it is truthful that information technology was comparable to the Egyptian constellation Sahu and that this constellation represented the god Osiris. [14] But the bald recognition of something similar the Greek Orion amidst Egyptian constellations does not provide evidence in and of itself that the Giza pyramids were master planned and engineered to mirror three stars in that constellation, permit alone that this was done viii,000 years prior to their construction.
In fact, the broader written report of ancient astronomy undermines any "diffusionist" position like that adopted past the New Atlantis. For case, Mayan astronomers recognized the iii bright stars in what we telephone call "Orion'south Chugalug" but identified them as the back of a tortoise, not a alpine hunter-god in the sky. There are many other examples that show clearly that there is no common source for the recognition of constellations beyond ancient cultures. The reverse is truthful: unlike ancient cultures saw different shapes in the sky. [15] If they had all been instructed past the aforementioned Lost Civilization that was fixated on the stars, why is this and so?
The accuracy of the alleged star maps themselves is hotly contested, with nigh astronomers unconvinced that the alignment of stars to monuments is purposeful. This is because the alignments are selectively attributed by Hancock and Bauval. In the case of the Giza pyramids, why do but the three stars of Orion's Belt characteristic in the pyramid "map"? At least twelve other hands visible stars brand upwards Orion. None of these marshal with pyramids. Why not? In fact, of the fourscore identifiable pyramids in Egypt, [sixteen] only these 3 at Giza can be tied to specific stars. That is, less than four per centum of Egyptian pyramids "map" stars. This is hardly convincing evidence that the Egyptians thought in terms of constellation maps when situating pyramids. Indeed the local topography of the plateau at Giza with its sharply sloping rear face and steep gradients toward the Nile left the pharaohs with little choice just to place their pyramids in a diagonal line atop the ridge, each with a clear view of north. [17]
Diagrams courtesy of Ed Krupp, Griffith Observatory.
Every bit with the Giza pyramids, the map of the constellation Draco which Hancock sees among the monuments at Angkor in Cambodia dissolves when it is realized that he has called just ten monuments from a field of over sixty temples, and that the monuments and stars exercise not line upwards precisely. The direct written testimony from the Khmers who built even the supposedly "aligned' monuments at Angkor is preserved in inscriptions telling the states who built them, when, and why. There is no mention in these texts of star maps. So Hancock simply ignores the inscriptions and does not nowadays them to his readers.
When confronted with objections such as these, Hancock is on record arguing that they are "nit-picking" and "pedantic," that the builders of the ancient monuments were aiming at a "pleasing symbolism," non precise accuracy in their maps, and that the monuments need to exist understood on an "intuitive and spiritual level." [18] Aside from their less than scientific nature, all of these arguments fundamentally undermine the initial reason for proposing the heaven-basis connection in the starting time place, namely, the discernment of uncannily accurate and precise star maps among aboriginal monuments. Simply put, if there are no authentic star maps, and so at that place is no example to be made. The advocates of the New Atlantis thus demolish their example out of their own mouths, patently unaware that they are doing so.
Riddles of the Sphinx
Similar problems ascend with their effort to appeal to geology and astronomy by redating the Sphinx (traditionally dated to most 2500 BCE) based primarily on ane geologist'south stance that it was weathered past water. Since, the argument goes, such conditions did non exist in Egypt after about 5000 BCE, the Sphinx predates Pharaonic Egypt past millennia. Furthermore, the lion-shaped Sphinx would accept faced directly the rising constellation of Leo in the era of 10,500 BCE. [xix] Hither is an credible corroboration of deductions from 1 hard science (geology) by another (astronomy). Merely Leo was certainly non a constellation recognized by the ancient Egyptians, who had a panthera leo constellation in an entirely different part of the sky. The star-alignment argument is therefore bogus. And although the cogency of the statement from weathering patterns has aroused much feverish contend, [twenty] in that location is a fundamental problem with it that is rarely pointed out. No other monument in the globe has been dated using erosional processes because the rate at which it occurs is not consistent enough to provide a reliable clock. In the absence of any corroborative bear witness, the Sphinx cannot be backdated past millennia on the footing of erosional patterns alone.
Myths, Numbers, and Dates
Other methods of the New Atlanteans are as questionable. In using mythology, for instance, the argument proceeds entirely from personal impression. Hancock interprets the supposedly universal Alluvion Myth at face up value: it is a remarkably consistent eyewitness account of the global disaster that brought downward his dearest Lost Civilisation. He shows no knowledge of the detailed enquiry into the Flood Myth which has revealed that the myth is non universal and that its various manifestations are quite distinct and dissimilar in detail. Many supposedly native Flood Myths in the Americas appear to take come into being, or were greatly modified, after encounters with Spanish missionaries preaching the Judaeo-Christian version. [21] Hancock ignores the implications of this for his theory and displays only dismissive contempt for academic interpretations.
So there are number games. Alternative historians seek to "prove" that aboriginal monuments are crammed with meaningful numbers by playing with the arithmetic of their proportions. For instance, Pi is plant to be "encoded" in the dimensions of the Slap-up Pyramid even though Pi was supposedly not discovered until Pythagoras (2000 years after the pyramid was built); the encoding thus constitutes further prove of advanced cognition passed down from the Lost Civilization. A similar process was employed in "deducing" the Bible Code, which has been shown to be nonsense. [22] Ordinarily, people looking for meaningful numbers find the numbers they desire to find and, in then doing, they reveal more about their own patience and cleverness than near objective reality. [23] Concrete proof of this fact is provided past Hancock's use of similar numerical speculations practical to the proportions of and spatial relationships between certain photographed features on Mars to fence for an ancient civilization at that place. [24] The features have since been shown to be entirely natural.
Extravaganza past Joe Lee.
The disdain New Atlantis writers display for the sort of evidence on which conventional ancient history relies is almost boundless. To present an argument that relies on a pattern created by a modernistic writer (star-alignments or "meaningful" numbers, for example) over the straight written testimony of the ancient people who actually built the monument(s) is, to put it mildly, perverse. To dismiss out-of-hand the show of radiocarbon dating for megalithic sites on the argument that it can date only associated organic materials and not the rock itself is not only perverse, information technology is irrelevant. For even if the radiocarbon method could engagement stone, it would yield figures in geologic, not archaeological time. Archaeologists, interested in when the stones were subjected to human manipulation, would all the same exist looking to associated indications of human action to date that activity. When alternative historians proceed the radiocarbon dates at certain sites that brand nonsense of their proposed dates from their readers information technology speaks volumes about the reliability of their arguments.
At Tiwanaku in Bolivia, for case, radiocarbon textile suggested that the earliest possible human being occupation of the site came no earlier than 1500 BCE (or mayhap later, since that very early on appointment stems from a single sample). Yet New Atlantis speculation dates the site to between 15,000 and 10,000 BCE on the basis of star-alignments. [25] Simply no trace of an occupation of that date was found at the site. It is worth asking how the huge monuments got built past a presumably large population that left no vestige of its presence, just later on and less populous occupations are and then readily discernible in the archaeological record? Egregiously, when it suits them, New Atlantis writers take conventional dates for sure sites. But you cannot have information technology both ways and say that conventional dating methods at site A yield accurate dates, but at site B the same methods mislead us by ten millennia. Moreover, the dating arsenal of conventional archaeology is multi-faceted and includes dendrochronology, stratigraphy, pottery assay, comparison with other dated sites, cess of written testimony where available, and so on. It is logically untenable to isolate and dismiss select radiocarbon dates at some sites (as Hancock does at Tiwanaku) without addressing the domino effect for these other dating methods and their impact elsewhere. Needless to say, the alternative historians make no try to address such complexities.
Subconscious Prove
In the absence of hard prove for their example, New Atlantis writers like to claim that evidence however to be found may show them right. In his new book, Underworld , Hancock makes the case that the crucial evidence for his dearest Lost Civilization lies under the oceans of the world. The arguments of the volume are outlined on his website, where he cites the extent of oceanic seafloors, compares them to the extent of known underwater sites (numbering about 500), and then asks how orthodox archaeologists tin deny the possibility of vital cloth still subconscious under the earth'south seas. [26]
The answer is that scholars do not deny the possibility of vital evidence under the ocean; marine archaeology is an active (if horribly expensive) wing of the profession. Rather, they take the view that possible or hidden evidence is, in effect, no evidence. Historical hypotheses need to be based on bachelor and checkable prove, not on what might be. Taking Hancock's stance, i could argue that unicorns, goblins, and dragons frolic and interact in a fascinating alternative ecosystem, equally yet undiscovered. The possibility of the being of that ecosystem, withal, in no way proves its being or even makes it a likelihood. What is more significant is that, to date, no unicorns, goblins, or dragons have always been found, nor has any hard show surfaced that suggests they exist. Too with Hancock's hidden marine evidence for the Lost Civilization. Subconscious or potential evidence is no show upon which to surmise the existence of anything.
An Analogy
In virtually every instance, the methods of the New Atlanteans are disingenuous, uninformed, and tendentious. When confronted with hard bear witness they resort to advertizing hominem attacks and loaded anti-establishment rhetoric. To make an analogy:
I have plant that some of the monuments on the Mall in Washington, DC marshal with some of the stars in the constellation Ursa Major as it was in the sky in 11,000 BCE. Clearly, these monuments were built in recognition of this fact and thus constitute evidence for a Lost Civilization from that era. American historians who argue otherwise are arrogantly trying to claim American history for themselves, when it really belongs to all of us. Yous don't have to be a professional historian or have a Ph.D. to do history. University historians are conducting an inquisition when they challenge my views about the monuments on the Mall, and their closed-mindedness is revealed when they won't even mention it in classes on American history. Their stance that written evidence proves that these monuments were built for specific reasons rooted in identifiable circumstances and that the sites were chosen for reasons other than the Ursa Major alignment is but that – stance, non fact. They take their stance and I have mine. I'm but presenting my opinion and I accept every correct to exercise so. That v meg people have read my book and accept my views proves I have something valid to say. Prove yet to be establish may prove me correct; nobody can say for certain information technology will not. That orthodox scholars are so keen to ignominy me shows I have them scared….
And then on. The absurdity of such a position needs no further comment. [27]
What'southward At Stake
In the debate well-nigh the New Atlantis, far more than is at pale than dusty arcana in aboriginal history. History represents our collective retention of where we came from and how we arrived at where we are. As such, it can be used to direct and justify public policy (equally it has with civil rights legislation, for instance). When history is decoupled from rational analysis, and conscientious scrutiny of evidence is superseded by speculation and bald assertion, history is transformed into myth. People whose sense of history has become mythologized can be very dangerous. A striking example of this is the role Atlantis played in Nazi credo. Information technology was considered the original dwelling of the Aryans, the first bully civilization from which all others had arisen. [28]
Although the link between the Nazis and the Occult has been the subject of a keen deal of absurd speculation, there are striking parallels between the New Atlantis and the ideas expressed by the numerous volkisch ("people's") groups in Germany after the First World War. There is the same fascination with "original" cultures and fifty-fifty an obsession with arcane astronomy. [29] Heinrich Himmler was an enthusiast for many of these ideas and founded the Ahnenerbe as a branch of the SS to promote this alternative archæology and anthropology in the service of the Third Reich's racial ideology. The dire consequences of that credo are obvious. Expeditions were organized to Tibet to search for Aryan origins, and 1 was planned to that favorite of modern alternative historians, Tiwanaku in Bolivia.
To exist certain, the Nazis represent an extreme example, but they are even so illustrative of what can happen when myth replaces history. In modern flashpoints, such as Northern Republic of ireland and the former Yugoslavia, mythologized history has been used to justify atrocities of all sorts. [30] While Hancock and other New Atlantis writers are neither Nazis nor nationalistic mythologizers, many of their propositions accept cached inside them some disturbing ingredients that repeat less attractive voices from the past. For example, past maintaining that the survivors of the Lost Culture seeded ancient cultures, the proponents of the New Atlantis are perpetuating the insidious idea that only one people accept been capable of generating civilization in homo history. Whether intentionally or not, such a merits systematically disinherits the diverse peoples of the world of their rightful aboriginal heritage. It implicitly tells the Cambodians, the Maya, or the Egyptians that their ancestors were incapable of such wondrous achievements without external guidance. Such arguments look a lot like neocolonialism.
Thus the crucial matters at issue are:
How practise you do history? Is one version of history whatever improve than any another? Isn't history all a matter of interpretation?
These are hotly contested points even within the ranks of professional historians. In that location are those who agree relativistic positions that, in their extreme form, deny the very being of any historical facts – information technology's all a matter of perspective. [31] Such attitudes leave the door broad open to the claims of the out-and-out pseudohistorians, who tin can then nowadays themselves as harmlessly offering their own version of the past, just as the various professionals offer theirs. But historical facts can and do stand independently of personal perspective: was Lincoln assassinated or non? Did the Second Earth War happen or not?
A logical corollary of the farthermost relativistic position is that all views about the past are equally valid. But few fifty-fifty of the relativists would agree, for example, that creationism is historically accurate or that the Holocaust never happened. In reality, some historical claims are demonstrably more valid than others. And information technology is the way the validity of whatsoever historical claim is established (or non) that marks professional history as distinct from pseudohistory. A truthful investigator into the past volition desire to scrutinize all of the pertinent show, or as much of it as is viable, and subject that evidence to a rational analysis. Whatever claim or interpretation based on partial or selective source-gathering might exist shown to be incorrect by evidence not taken into account, and then it is ameliorate to accost that other evidence first in order to ensure accuracy. And an irrational assay of any amount of bear witness –
I know I'grand correct because I district with the Egyptian god Horus through my calculator
– is uncheckable and so worthless from the start. That is why most professional historians (archaeologists included) provide large bodies of evidence in back up of their logically deduced conclusions. They may disagree vehemently among themselves about those conclusions and fifty-fifty most how they were reached, but at to the lowest degree they are all playing off the same dominion volume. In contrast, the New Atlanteans ignore, bury, or dismiss countervailing testify (such every bit the nonalignment of most Egyptian pyramids with stars, inconvenient inscriptions, or radiocarbon dates).
Following the legal model, every try is fabricated to prove the contention at manus, not to test its validity against all the available evidence. Equally a outcome, implausibility, illogicality, inconsistency, and fallacy grow in their arguments. Thus Hancock can debate, on the i hand, that the evidence for his Lost Civilization is all nether the sea while maintaining, on the other, that Tiwanaku was ane of its settlements; at 12,000 ft. above sea level, Tiwanaku is 1 of the highest archaeological sites on the planet. They assume fallaciously that because at that place are gaps in the conventional picture of the past and because debates occur among specialists, all conclusions formed by conventional scholars are questionable and every outcome in ancient history is up for debate. This position is akin to the technique of creationists in exploiting gaps in the fossil record and disputes amongst evolutionary biologists to "prove" their instance.
The New Atlanteans roundly criticize conventional ancient historians for basing their conclusions on patchy evidence, while presenting not a shred of their own. They harp on the gaps in "orthodox" cognition and notwithstanding can say goose egg solid about their Lost Civilization. Perhaps most tendentious of all is Hancock'due south claim that, since he is not an historian and does non claim to be, he is somehow immune from the standards of historical methodology, which apply only to "academic historians". [32] This is nonsense. There is no immunity from requisite procedure in history whatever more than than at that place is in, say, physics. A fundamental principle in science and scholarship is that rules of procedure demark all practitioners, regardless of their prior training or particular backgrounds.
Any try to by-laissez passer or deny the validity of those rules to prove your example is a cardinal feature of pseudopractice in whatever field. If we are to retain any genuine sense of where we all came from and the forces that take shaped who nosotros are today, we must combat both relativistic professional views of the past and their bastard amateur offspring. We must insist that the past actually happened and that it is possible to determine what happened, even if imperfectly, through rational analysis of all available evidence and logically consistent discussion.
We must shut the door on claims that all views are every bit valid, that history is entirely "constructed" by personal perspective, or that what constitutes historical evidence is a affair of stance. We must let the New Atlantis languish like its Platonic progenitor at the bottom of the abyss, unmissed and unmourned.
References
i. Hancock, 1000. 1995. Fingerprints of the Gods . New York: Doubleday (second edition released April 2001 in the Uk). See also 1998. Sky's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Culture . New York: Crown.
2. Merely a sampling: Brennan, H. 1999. The Atlantis Enigma . London: Piatkus; Bauval, R. 2000. Secret Chamber: The Quest for the Hall of Records . London: Pointer; Collins, A. 2000. Gateway to Atlantis . London: Headline; Gilbert, A., and M. Cotterell. 1996. The Mayan Prophecies . London: Element; Hancock, Thou. 2001. Underworld . Forthcoming; Hancock, G. and R.Bauval. 1997. The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind . New York: Crown; Hodge, S. 2000. Atlantis . London: Piatkus; Picknett, L., and C.Prince. 1999. The Stargate Conspiracy . Boston: Fiddling, Brown & Co. Rux, B. 1996. Architects of the Underworld: Unriddling Atlantis, Anomalies of Mars, and the Mysteries of the Sphinx . Berkeley: Frog; Wilson, C. 1996. From Atlantis to the Sphinx . London: Virgin.
3. They are often presented to the public in this role in television specials and in the written media. A recent example: Pethokoukis, J.M. 2001. "So How Old Do I Look: The Great Sphinx Stumps the Experts Once more," Mysteries of History , a special edition of US News & World Report, 9.
4. Allchin, B. 1982. The Rise of Civilisation in Eastern asia . London: Thames & Hudson; Haas, J. 1982. The Evolution of the Prehistoric State . New York: New York Academy Printing; Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C., and J.A.Sabloff. 1995. Aboriginal Civilisations: The Near East and Mesoamerica . Prospect Heights: Waveland Press; Renfrew, C., and P.Bahn. 2000. Archæology: Theory, Methods and Practice . London: Thames & Hudson, third edition.
5. Feder, K. 1999. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology . Mount View: Mayfield, third edition; James, P. and Due north.Thorpe. 1999. Aboriginal Mysteries . New York: Ballantine; Steibing, Due west.H. 1984, Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions, and Other Popular Theories about Man's Past . Amherst: Prometheus; Jordan, P. The Atlantis Syndrome . Phoenix Factory: Sutton Publishing.
half dozen. Luce, J.V. 1969. End of Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend . New York: McGraw-Hill; Zangger, E. 1992. The Flood from Heaven: Deciphering the Atlantis Fable . New York: W.Morrow.
7. Donnelly, I. 1882.: Atlantis: The Antediluvian World . New York: Harper, revised edition (rep. 1949).
8. Riddle, One thousand. 1962. Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait of a Political leader . St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Guild Press (repr. 1991), 198.
9. See Hancock, M. "Writing virtually Outrageous Hypotheses and Extraordinary Possibilities: A View From The Trenches" at https://grahamhancock.com/outrageous-hypotheses-hancock/. He goes on (loc. cit.) "So information technology is certainly true, as many of my critics have pointed out, that I am selective with the evidence I present. Of class I'm selective! It isn't my job to bear witness my client in a bad light!"
10. Hancock, G. 1992. The Sign and Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant . New York: Crown.
11. Bauval, R., and A.Gilbert. 1994. The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids . New York: Crown; West, J.A. 1993. Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt . Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, revised edition. The idiot box appearances of Hancock, Bauval, and West on network specials and on cable channels (due east.g., Arts and Entertainment, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel, The History Aqueduct) are as well numerous to document.
12. See to a higher place, nn. 1 and xi.
thirteen. Cayce, E. 2000. Edgar Cayce on Atlantis . New York: Time Warner. On Cayce's Atlantean visions see also Feder, James and Nickell, and Steibing (see higher up, north. 5).
14. Neugebauer, O. 1975. A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy . 3 volumes. Berlin. Springer Verlag.
fifteen. Aveni, A. 1997. Stairways to the Stars . New York: John Wiley & Sons; Krupp, E. 1997. Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Ability . New York: John Wiley & Sons.
16. Lehner, 1000. 1997. The Complete Pyramids . London: Thames & Hudson.
17. Co-ordinate to Egyptologist Kate Spence, a view of the northward was vital to the pyramid builders; see her interview in BBC Horizon: Atlantis Reborn (aired 4 Nov. 1999) and in revised version on fourteen Dec. 2000); transcript bachelor at http://www.grahamhancock.com/horizon/horizon_script_2.htm. Spence'south arguments in her Nature article prove convincingly that the Egyptians did non know of precession; see Spence, G. 2000. "Ancient Egyptian Chronology and the Astronomical Orientation of Pyramids." Nature 408: 320-324. Her position has naturally come under sharp assault past Bauval on Hancock's website: http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BauvalR4-p1.htm.
xviii. Hancock in BBC Horizon: Atlantis Reborn interview (see to a higher place, due north. 17) Attitudes like this are found in abundance on Hancock's website, especially https://grahamhancock.com/outrageous-hypotheses-hancock/.
19. On weathering, encounter Schoch, R.Thousand. 1999. Voices of the Rocks . New York: Crown, and West (in n. 11); on Leo alignment: Hancock (in n. 1).
20. Hawass, Z., and G.Lehner. 1994. "Remnant of a Lost Civilisation?" Archaeology September/October: 44-47; Jordan, P. 1998. Riddles of the Sphinx . New York: New York University Press.
21. Dundes, A. 1988. The Flood Myth . Berkeley: Academy of California Press.
22. Thomas, D. 1998. "Tolstoy Predicts Bulls' 6th Championship (in Code of Class)." Skeptical Inquirer 22.half-dozen: 16-17; Shermer, M. 1997. "O Ye of Piffling Religion: Cracking the Bible Code and Other 'Proofs' of God." Skeptic 5.2: 50-55.
23. Dudley, U. 1998. "Numerology: Comes the Revolution." Skeptical Inquirer 22.5: 29-31, 59. It is also entirely possible for "significant" numbers (like Pi) to be generated unintentionally by rigid adherence to elementary sets of proportions, such as those employed by the pyramid builders.
24. Hancock, Yard. 1998. The Mars Mystery: The Clandestine Connexion Between Globe and the Red Planet . New York: Crown.
25. Hancock in (n. one); Posnansky, A. 1945-1957. Tiahuanacu: The Cradle of American Man . iv volumes. New York: J.J. Augustine. Note that culling writers cannot agree on a specific construction date within that 5000-year window, a bridge of time equivalent to the entire recorded history of humanity. Their star-alignment dating methods, therefore, might strike some as non peculiarly reliable.
26. See http://www.grahamhancock.com/intro.php (as of Feb 2001; the introduction to the site changes from time to time.) (Jan 2020: link non functioning. Run into instead http://grahamhancock.com/archive/underworld/ [Ed.])
27. Remarkably, it has been proposed that cloak-and-dagger Masonic and astrological symbols have been "encoded" into sections of Washington D.C.'s lay-out; meet Ovason, D. 2000. The Clandestine Architecture of Our Nation's Upper-case letter . New York: Harper Collins.
28. Goodrick-Clark, N. 1985. The Occult Roots of Nazism . New York: New York University Printing.
29. Godwin, J. 1996. Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival . Kempton: Adventures Unlimited Press.
30. Kaplan, R.D. 1993. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History . New York: St. Martin'due south Printing; Ignatieff, Thousand. 1993. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationlism . London: Penguin.
31. Evans, R.J. 1999. In Defense force of History . New York: W.W. Norton, revised edition; Windschuttle, Thousand. 2000. The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past . San Francisco: Run across Books.
32. This claim was put baldly to Garrett Fagan by Graham Hancock in a private correspondence, only it is aired in full in his website (run into above, n. ix).
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