Inspired by Unknown Achievements

A while back I bought the writings of Josephus. I read a little of it, but put it down to finish the other ten books I was still trying to read at the time. Today I picked it back up.

I've done a lot of thinking over my years about a civilization far advanced for its time that has since been largely forgotten. Much of it started when I spoke with a friend who introduced me to the author Graham Hancock and his book Fingerprints of the Gods. I've since read the book through twice and am always provoked to thought and study because of it. Hancock proposes his own theory about a long lost civilization that could have been Atlantis.

I took his book to indicate the evidence for the flood and the establishment of an advanced people under the leadership of a man named Nimrod. I have a hypothesis that things like the map of Admiral Piri Reis are likely little traces of that first civilization that built the tower to rise above another flood.

The map seems to depict part of the coast of Antarctica, an impossible knowledge during the 16th century when the Turkish Admiral made his map. The Admiral, when he presented his work, made it clear that he'd used some other maps from the library at Constantinople, but didn't mention which maps or their probable antiquity. The map is a little misguided since it runs the coast of South America into the coast of Antarctica, but the general coast line is discernible and lines up well with modern, 20th century knowledge of the real coast line. According to Graham Hancock, the coast line was covered by ice and had been for fifteen thousand years preceding the Admiral's map. This date is calculated according to scientific estimates from contemporary scholars cited in Hancock's work. It can be assumed, for our purposes, that Antarctica probably was not covered in ice at the time of Nimrod and his tower. The implication, if you're still following and haven't fallen asleep, is that the map might well have been based on older maps that were perhaps based on even older maps dating back to a time of great antiquity.

I'm so impressed by this line of thought because it makes for some good fiction, but also because it may indicate that the start of history, where we draw the line between it and prehistory, may have been an emergence from a dark age rather than the beginning of our advancement. The age preceding may have fallen only because of the confusion of languages that occurred with Babel. Before this, the whole world might have been explored and documented. We may never know what heights the tower builders may have reached in the realm of knowledge, but the search is pretty fun.

I love this kind of stuff, but I don't get a lot of opportunity to go down these roads of thought. It's nice to throw off the yoke and delve into it every chance I have. I look forward to the next time, whenever that might be.