Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization

by Graham Hancock

  And some final thoughts. Did their civilization survive, albeit in truncated, damaged, reduced form through the rigors of the Younger Dryas, until the second fateful encounter with the comet’s debris stream in 9600 BC that ended the “long fatal winter,” but also led to the final sinking and destruction of “the Homeland of the Primeval Ones?”

  That “island” realm, far-off in the ocean, that bears such striking resemblances to Plato’s description of Atlantis.

  Was it then that the last survivors of the once advanced and prosperous civilization set out to wander the world in ships to initiate their great design intended ultimately, perhaps after thousands of years, to bring about the resurrection of the former world of the gods?

  And were Egypt, Baalbek, and Göbekli Tepe among the places these “Magicians of the Gods” chose to settle in order to set their plan in motion—perhaps precisely because there had been outreach in these areas before the cataclysms and therefore their potential and the character of their inhabitants were known?

  Was Harran part of the second stage of this plan, when the work of the last initiates at Göbekli Tepe was done and the time-capsule they had created there was buried to be rediscovered in a future age?

  Buried in the bowels of the earth like that “white porphyry stone” spoken of in the Masonic tradition cited earlier?

  Or like the “writing carved on rock” containing the teachings of the Watchers which Cainan found and transcribed at the time he established Harran, bringing into his city knowledge of the omens of the sun, moon and stars and “all the signs in heaven?”

  Knowledge of exactly the type that would be central to the mysterious star religion of the Sabians in the millennia to come …

  Astronomy and earth measuring

  Archaeoastronomer James Q. Jacobs has noticed something rather odd about Harran. The city’s latitude, 36.87 degrees north of the equator, appears to be non-random, since the figure is the same as that for the acute angle of a 3:4:5 right triangle81—i.e. a triangle which contains one 90 degree right angle and whose side lengths are in the ratio 3:4:5. In all such triangles—which form the basis for trigonometry and are thus fundamental to astronomy and geodesy—the other two angles are, with rounding, 53.13 degrees and 36.87 degrees.

  Is it a coincidence that a 3:4:5 right triangle with the same internal angles exists inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Egypt? The floor of this austere and uninscribed red granite room, in which no pharaoh was ever found entombed, forms a 2:1 rectangle, exactly 20 Egyptian royal cubits in length and 10 royal cubits in width (10.46 x 5.23 meters). The right triangle is formed with its shortest dimension (15 cubits) represented by the diagonal across the west wall from the lower southwest corner to the upper northwest corner; its median dimension (20 cubits) is drawn along the entire length of the floor on the south side of the chamber; its long dimension (25 cubits) is drawn from the upper northwest corner of the chamber to the lower southeast corner.82

  These side lengths of 15 cubits, 20 cubits and 25 cubits can be expressed as the ratio 3:4:5 because if we allocate the value “3” to the length of 15 cubits then 20 cubits must naturally have a value of “4” and 25 cubits must have a value of “5.” All right-angled triangles with side lengths in this special 3:4:5 ratio are called “Pythagorean”—after Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and mathematician of the sixth century BC, who was supposedly the first to discover that they share a unique characteristic. This is that the square of the short side (3 units x 3 units = 9 units), added to the square of the median side (4 units x 4 units = 16 units), together result in a figure equal to the square of the long side (5 units x 5 units = 25 units, i.e. the sum of 9 plus 16).83 The real “secret magic” of the triangle, however, as the Icelandic mathematician Einar Palsson has pointed out, is only revealed when the numbers are cubed.84 Then we get:

  Figure 58: The 3:4:5 right triangle hidden within the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

  3 x 3 x 3 = 27

  4 x 4 x 4 = 64

  5 x 5 x 5 = 125

  The total of 27 plus 64 plus 125 is 216, and as the reader will recall from earlier chapters, 216 is one of the sequence of numbers identified by historians of science Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend as being derived from precise observations of the precession of the equinoxes, those long-term changes in the sky that unfold at the rate of one degree every 72 years. Numbers derived from this precessional sequence turn out to be encoded in ancient myths and monuments all around the world, tracing their origins back to what Santillana and von Dechend can only conclude was some “almost unbelievable” ancestor civilization of prehistoric antiquity that “first dared to understand the world as created according to number, measure and weight.”85

  The heartbeat of the cycle, as we’ve seen, is 72—the number of years required for the unfolding of one degree of precessional change. In observational terms a one degree shift over 72 years—effectively an entire human lifetime—is barely perceptible, being roughly equivalent to the width of a forefinger held up toward the horizon. A 30 degree shift—through one entire zodiacal constellation, requiring 30 x 72 = 2,160 years to complete—is impossible to miss, but its progression could only be precisely recorded and noted by many generations of conscientious and accurate observers. A 60 degree shift, i.e. through two zodiacal constellations, takes 4,320 years (2,160 x 2 = 4,320), which is why a 360 degree shift (all 12 zodiacal constellations—“the Great Year”) requires a grand total of 25,920 years.

  Within the “precessional code” as Santillana and von Dechend showed conclusively, it is permissible to divide and multiply the “heartbeat number” of 72 (the number of years required for one degree of precessional change). This is done in myths and monuments all around the world (for example at Angkor, in Cambodia, as we saw in Chapter Twelve, and at Borobudur, in Indonesia, as we will see in Chapter Eighteen). Thus 216 is 3 x 72 (or 2,160 divided by 10). Its derivation from the 3:4:5 triangle inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid is therefore most unlikely to be an accident and the relationship of all this to astronomy and geodesy—earth-measuring—is clear. This is further confirmed by the external dimensions of the Great Pyramid which, as I showed in Fingerprints of the Gods, encode the dimensions of our planet on the precessional scale of 1:43,200.86

  Essentially, if you measure the height of the Great Pyramid and multiply it by 43,200 you get the polar radius of the earth and if you measure the base perimeter of the Great Pyramid and multiply by 43,200 you get the equatorial circumference of the earth. The fact that 43,200 is one of the sequence of precessional numbers identified by Santillana and von Dechend further reduces the likelihood of coincidence, and requires us to take seriously the proposition that we are indeed looking at part of the intellectual legacy of some “almost unbelievable” ancestor civilization that had measured the earth and observed the changes in the stars with scientific accuracy, long before what we understand as “history” began.

  Figure 59: The Great Pyramid encodes the dimensions of our planet on the precessional scale of 1:43,200. The height of Great Pyramid multiplied by 43,200 gives us the polar radius of the earth and the base perimeter of the Great Pyramid multiplied by 43,200 give us the equatorial circumference of the earth with only minor errors in both cases.

  So, to return to Harran, James Q. Jacobs’ discovery certainly suggests that the founders of this city made a deliberate geodetic choice when they set it at latitude 36.87 degrees north. What adds to this impression is that Jacobs has also found a geodetic relationship between Harran and the fabled Mesopotamian city of Ur with which it was known to have enjoyed a close relationship in antiquity:87

  The history/myth of Mesopotamia holds that Ur and Harran are two important, related Sumerian centers, both associated with the moon. I checked the [latitude of] the Ur ziggurat, at 30.963 degrees. At first I did not notice colatitude equals 5/3 arctangent (atan). Colatitude is the distance to the nearest pole, a geodetic reference point. Latitude references
the equator, the mid-poles plane perpendicular to the rotation axis. The local level plane at Harran intersects the rotation axis at a 4/3 atan angle, forming a 3:4:5 right triangle, as does latitude in relation to the equator and geodetic center. Summarizing, colatitude at Harran equals 4/3 atan and at Ur 5/3 atan. Thus latitude at Harran equals 3/4 atan and at Ur 3/5 atan. Perhaps these “idolators” were doing astronomy?88

  I would go further and say undoubtedly the Sabian “star-worshippers” of Harran were doing astronomy. And given the evidence we’ve reviewed in Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen for precise calculations of precession by the makers of Göbekli Tepe—so precise that they were able to create a symbolic picture of the winter solstice sky in our own epoch, 11,600 years in their future—I am not surprised by further evidence in this region of extremely ancient and extremely precise scientific astronomy and geodesy. This evidence goes far beyond the capabilities normally attributed to the historical civilization of Mesopotamia and because it draws back the veil, requiring us to look very deeply into prehistory, it again raises the specter of a lost civilization.

  Jacobs has noticed this and admits to being puzzled by it. His final discovery of relevance here concerns the geodetic relationship between Göbekli Tepe and Harran:

  The sites are apparently intervisible, just over 40 km apart. The difference in latitude from Harran to Göbekli Tepe equals precisely 1/1,000 of earth’s circumference. This is where we enter a twilight zone in ancient astronomy. Of course the opposite metaphor—“the dawn” of ancient astronomy—is the proper one regarding the implication. Göbekli Tepe features the oldest known room aligned north-south, evidence of astronomy in practice.

  Even non-archaeos understand stratification and deposition basics—deeper is older. Göbekli Tepe is 12,000 years old. Harran is equated … with Ur of Sumeria, the “Civilized Land” and a “cradle of civilization.” That cradle and astronomy is presumed to be 4,000 to 5,000 years old, not 12,000. Harran is located at 3/4 atan latitude, a fixed parameter, and Göbekli Tepe is at a specific latitude difference north. Because the fixed parameter must come first, the conundrum, of course, is that this precise 1/1,000 of circumference latitude difference is either a coincidence, or ancient astronomy just took a leap back to 12,000 years ago.89

  My understanding is that Jacobs is no fan of alternative history and he has commented forthrightly on the amount of “utterly unbelievable pseudo-science” that is presently in circulation on the internet and in the media concerning Göbekli Tepe.90 Kudos to him, therefore, for going where the genuine science takes him and keeping an open mind to the possibility that ancient astronomy and precise earth-measuring may indeed go back much further into the “twilight zone” than mainstream archaeology has hitherto supposed.

  The Magi of Harran

  As Harran was in its beginning—a center of the “exact sciences” as Jacobs proposes91—so it continued to be throughout the millennia when the Sabians practiced their “star worship” here. As late as the ninth century AD, al-Battani, better known in the west as Albategnius, arguably the most distinguished astronomer and mathematician of the Middle Ages, was born in Harran and went on during a long and distinguished life92 to record many remarkable scientific achievements.

  Of particular note, combining both exact astronomy and exact geodesy, was his calculation of the greatest distance of the moon from the earth (since the moon’s orbit is elliptical it has both a perigee, the point at which it is closest to the earth and an apogee, the point at which it is furthest away). Al-Battani’s estimate of the moon’s distance at apogee was within 0.6 percent of the modern value.93 He is also noted for his calculation of the length of the solar year at 365 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds94—an error of only 2 minutes 22 seconds when compared with the figure produced by modern astronomers with the benefit of advanced technology.95 Al-Battani catalogued 489 stars,96 produced more accurate measurements of the sun’s path than Copernicus would achieve 600 years later,97 and gave important trigonometric formulae for right triangles,98 a fact of the history of science that is perhaps noteworthy in view of the relationship of Harran’s latitude to right 3:4:5 triangles discussed above.

  Al-Battani’s full name, which includes a number of revealing epithets, was Abu Abdallah al-Battani Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Raqqi al-Harrani al-Sabi. The origin of the epithet “al-Battani” itself is unknown, but is conjectured to refer to a street or district of Harran, his birth city—from whence “al-Harrani” is of course also derived. “Al-Raqqi” refers to the city of al-Raqqa, on the Euphrates river in Syria, where al-Battani spent much of his working life. Most interesting, however, is the epithet “al-Sabi” which, according to the authoritative Dictionary of Scientific Biography, indicates that al-Battani’s ancestors, if not he himself:

  had professed the religion of the Harranian Sabians in which a considerable amount of the ancient Mesopotamian astral theology and star lore appears to have been preserved and which, tolerated by the Muslim rulers, survived until the middle of the eleventh century. The fact that al-Battani’s elder contemporary, the great mathematician and astronomer Thabit ibn Qurra, hailed from the same region and still adhered to the Sabian religion, seems indicative of the keen interest in astronomy that characterized even this last phase of Mesopotamian star idolatry.99

  Thabit ibn Qurra (AD 836–901, and also born in Harran), would have had little patience with loaded terms like “star idolatry” which seek to place the “paganism” of the Sabians on a lower level than the deadly, and often bigoted, narrow-minded and unscientific clerical monotheism of religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Thabit was well aware that, underlying the ancient Sabian practices misunderstood by these young religions as “star idolatry,” were indeed exact sciences of great benefit to mankind, and thus he wrote:

  Who else have civilized the world, and built the cities, if not the nobles and kings of Paganism? Who else have set in order the harbors and rivers? And who else have taught the hidden wisdom? To whom else has the Deity revealed itself, given oracles, and told about the future, if not the famous men among the Pagans? The Pagans have made known all this. They have discovered the art of healing the soul; they have also made known the art of healing the body. They have filled the earth with settled forms of government, and with wisdom, which is the highest good. Without Paganism the world would be empty and miserable.100

  To the above should be added that even this translation fails to do justice to what Thabit was attempting to convey here. The Syriac word hanputho that he used in his original text, and that is translated above as “paganism” in fact means “the pure religion.”101 Its cognate in Arabic is the word hanif, which appears in the Koran referencing ancient pre-Islamic faiths that were regarded as pure and thus not to be persecuted.102 Indeed the Sabians were accorded recognition by many leading thinkers in the early centuries of Islam as the archetypal hanifs103 and this, together with their famous claim to be a “people of the book,” was among the reasons why they were left free for so long to practice the old ways.

  We’ve already seen how the Sabians were allowed to build a new Temple of the Moon God, and to continue their religious rites, after the Arab General Ibn Ghanam conquered Harran in the seventh century AD. This in itself is a sign of most unusual favor, since Islamic armies normally offered “pagans” the choice of either conversion or death. Even more interesting, however, is the Sabians’ encounter with the Abbasid Caliph Abu Jafar Abdullah al-Ma’mun, who passed through their city in AD 830 and reportedly quizzed them intensively on their religion.104

  Remembering the Sabian pilgrimages to Giza, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is any connection with the fact that in AD 820, a decade before he visited Harran, it was Ma’mun who tunnelled into the Great Pyramid and opened its previously hidden passageways and chambers. Indeed, it is through “Ma’mun’s Hole” that visitors still enter the monument today.105 Described by Gibbon as “a prince of rare learning,”106 it seems Ma’mun’s investigation was p
rompted by information he’d received about the Great Pyramid, specifically that it contained:

  a secret chamber with maps and tables of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. Although they were said to have been made in the remote past, they were supposed to be of great accuracy.107

  Like his father Harun al-Rashid of Arabian nights fame, Ma’mun belonged to a line of learned and open-minded Caliphs. By the eleventh century, however, when the last Temple of the Moon God in Harran was finally destroyed, a new, more fundamentalist and far less tolerant faction had seized the reins of Islam and the suppression of “the pure religion” of the Sabians began in earnest. We know they continued to make their pilgrimages to Giza until the thirteenth century, but after that they disappear from history and, while some scholars feel that elements of their faith survive among such sects as the Mandeans and the Yazidis of Iraq108 (who themselves have been subjected to intense Islamic persecution in modern times), there seems to be no trace left of the Sabians today.

  Except for one tantalizing and intriguing thought.

  The sacred Book of the Sabians was the compilation of texts now known as the Hermetica,109 a copy of which most mysteriously found its way into the hands of Leonardo de Pistoia, an agent of Cosimo de Medici, founder of the Medici political dynasty of Florence. It was 1460 and Pistoia was traveling in Macedonia at the time, but immediately returned to Florence with the treasure of ancient wisdom that he had acquired. With equal speed, Cosimo ordered his adopted son Marsilio Ficino to delay translation of the complete works of Plato, on which he had just begun, and to translate the Hermetica instead.110 It was, as the late Dame Frances Yates, one of the world’s leading experts on the Renaissance, has observed, “an extraordinary situation.”111