Graham Hancock’s research seems pretty interesting. For one thing, he’s pretty sure the Ark of the Covenant made it all the way to Ethiopia. He explains his reasons for this theory in The Sign and the Seal, which isn’t the focus of the essay in Forbidden History but does sound like something to consider exploring at a later date.
He’s also the author of a book called Fingerprints of the Gods. Apparently it’s a very huge book containing a lot of different kinds of proofs and theories that may or may not be believed by other less cultishly fringey scholars.
Quoting from kmatthews.org.uk:
One of Hancock’s great complaints is that orthodox Egyptologists and archaeologists have consistently underestimated the scientific knowledge of ancient societies. Paradoxically, though, this persuades him that this knowledge was developed not by those societies already recognised by the archaeologists on whom he pours his scorn, but by an earlier civilisation not accepted by them. He claims to find evidence for his so-called ‘lost civilisation’ all over the world. The very vastness of his approach makes it difficult to deal with simply; a comprehensive analysis of his works would require a massive book, since it would need not only to refute his claims but also to present the comprehensive contextual evidence to show why his ideas cannot stand up.
Hancock is ambitious in his desire to rewrite Egyptian history to fit his view, that the Sphinx is far older than we’ve been told, using “proof” of weathering patterns on the crumbling statue. He adds some astrology into its purpose and the positioning of the pyramids, as well. Geologists and climatologists who make it their work to study past trends find it easy to dismiss several of Hancock’s claims, though.
This essay in this book doesn’t get into specifics here but Hancock feels society is living with mass amnesia, that some great cataclysm happened in the somewhat distant past that we’ve buried rather then dealt with and the truth may be in our myths. “Once you accept that mythology may have originated with highly advanced people, then you have to start listening to what the myths are saying.” He’s quoted as saying on page 116 of Forbidden History.
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has an article criticizing Hancock’s theory of cataclysm and the Earth Crust Displacement idea that Charles H. Hapgood had to explain some early maps of the world. Skraus.org has more:
In his book, Hancock pulls together Hapgood’s theory and more recent evidence to set forth a manner by which Antarctica, now covered by snow and ice, could have in the relatively recent geologic past had a temperate climate and have been home to the lost civilization of Atlantis, now buried below thousands of feet of ice. The theory of ECD shows no inherent contradictions with plate tectonics, the now-accepted explanation of how the earth’s crust moves and changes. In fact, Hancock claims both can be true, and the ECD is a modification to an existing, yet incomplete theory.
Skraus admits that some of Hancock’s theories can’t be totally refuted. That’s not to say he’s entirely right but more research is needed that would help explain things like the Piri Reis map and put to rest any lingering rumours about the existence of Atlantis and what might have happened to it if it did.
Quoting from F.H. again (still page 116):
“We’ve received a legacy of extraordinary knowledge from the past, and the time has come for us to stop dismissing it. Rather, we must recapture that heritage and learn what we can from it, because there is vitally important information in it. … I’m convinced that we’re locked today in a battle of ideas,” he says. “I think it’s desperately important that the ideas that will lead to a recovery of our memory as a species triumph. And therefore we have to be strong, we have to be eloquent and argue clearly and coherently. We have to see what our opponents are going to do, how they are going to try to get at us, and the dirty tricks that they are going to try and play. We have to fight them on their own ground.”
Good luck with that, I guess. He’s probably got his work cut out for him.
