Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
Page 98
12 / The Hidden Years
1. Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age: The Beginnings, 431, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, is particularly critical of the climate stress theory
2. Ibid., 410–11, citing Sauer
3. The Times, London, 20 July 2001, citing a presentation by Dr Kevin Pope at the Society for American Archaeology in New Orleans
13 / Pyramid Islands
1. James Lyon, Maldives, 17, Lonely Planet, July 1997
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, 174; Lyon, op. cit., 17–18; Hello Maldives, 10, QR Publications, Maldives, 1999
3. Thor Heyerdahl, The Maldives Mystery, 197, Unwin Paperbacks, London, 1988
4. Discussed in Oppenheimer, Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, 46–7, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1998
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, 174
6. Lyon, op. cit., 11
7. Heyerdahl, op. cit.
8. Kon Tiki Museum, ‘Archaeological Test-Excavations on the Maldive Islands’, Occasional Papers, vol. 2, 66, Oslo, 1991
9. Heyerdahl, op. cit., 197–8
10. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, Peter Marshall, Journey Through the Maldives, 16, Camerapix Publishers International, Nairobi, 1992
11. Ibid., 16–17
12. Kon Tiki Museum, op. cit.
13. Ibid., 66–73
14. Divehi Writing Systems, 5, National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research, Maldives, 1999
15. Kon Tiki Museum, op. cit., 70
16. Ibid. 71–2
17. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 10, 837
18. Clarence Maloney, People of the Maldive Islands, Madras, 1980, cited in Kon Tiki Museum, op. cit., 70
19. Amin et al., op. cit., 12
20. T. R. Sesha Iyenagar, Dravidian India, 101, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1995
21. Sesha Iyenagar, cited earlier
22. Interview with Naseema Mohamed by GH, Male, February 2001
23. Heyerdahl, op. cit., 169
24. Ibid., 220
25. Amin et al., op. cit., 20; Marshall does not mention the detail about the food being still warm by the time it was eaten; the source of this was Naseema Mohamed in her interview with me
26. Ralph T. Griffith (trans.), Hymns of the Rgveda, 1.116. 3–5, Munisharam Manoharlal Publishers, Delhi, 1987 (first published 1889)
27. Ibid., 1.182.5–6
28. Heyerdahl, op. cit., 159
29. Ibid., 312
30. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edn (online), 2001
14 / Ghosts in the Water
1. See chapter 9
2. See chapter 9
3. Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of Ancient Sea Kings, 134–5, Adventures Unlimited Press (reprint), 1996
4. Ibid., 135
PART FOUR: Malta
15 / Smoke and Fire in Malta
1. See the ‘Horizon Scandal’ section on my website, www.grahamhan-cock.com
2. www.maltadiscovery.com
3. Archaeological Institute of America, 1999, http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/aliens.html
4. See discussion in David Trump, Malta: An Archaeological Guide, 67ff, Valletta, 1990
5. Chris Agius Sultana, personal communication
6. All three quotations are available to cite here thanks to original research into ancient texts concerning Malta carried out by Anton Mifsud, Simon Mifsud, Chris Agius Sultana and Charles Savona Ventura, and first cited in their book Malta: Echoes of Plato’s Island, 42, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 2000
7. J. D. Evans, The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands: A Survey, 58, University of London, 1971; Trump, op. cit., 73; Colin Renfrew, Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe, 163, Pimlico, London, 1999
8. Personal communications with Museum officials
9. See discussion in Alastair Service and Jean Bradbury, The Standing Stones of Europe, 89, J. M. Dent, London, 1993
10. Ellul’s annotation to map
11. From Ellul’s annotated print of the photograph
12. See Mifsud et al., op. cit., 63, note 222
13. See chapter 16
14. Evans, op. cit., 44–5
15. Trump, op. cit., 19
16. Service and Bradbury, op. cit., 91–2
17. Renfrew, op. cit., 162
18. Ibid., 161
19. Anton Mifsud et al., op. cit., 58
20. Archaeological Institute of America, op. cit.
21. The implications of radiocarbon-dating for the Maltese temples are discussed in Renfrew, op. cit., 161ff
22. www.grahamhancock.com; see in particular ‘Horizon Scandal’
23. This is the thesis of Karl Mayrhofer, The Mystery of Hagar Qim, Malta, 1996
24. See discussion in Mifsud et al., op. cit.
25. Ibid., 16
26. Most of the rest having been smoothed over by quarrying down the ages or simply covered up by modern developments – e.g. ironically beneath the National Archaeological Museum annexe and ticket office at Ghar Dhalam Cave. The remains of two very deep ruts can be seen protruding from beneath the rear of the building near the concrete steps that now lead down to the cave
27. Theories proposed include the use of carts or sleds to create the ruts for the transportation of agricultural produce, or of megaliths
28. See discussion in Parker, Rubenstein and Trump, Malta’s Ancient Temples and Ruts, 45ff, Institute for Cultural Research, Tunbridge Wells, 1988. See also John Samut Tagliaferro, Malta: Its Archaeology and History, 36ff, Plurigraph, Italy, 2000. See Antony Bonanno, Malta: An Archaeological Paradise, 72, Valletta, 1997. And see Trump, op. cit., 107–8
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Cited in Mifsud et al., op. cit., 24
33. Ibid., 24
34. Ibid., 24
35. Ibid., 24
36. Ibid., 24
37. Ibid., 24
38. Ibid., 24
39. Ibid.
40. Trump, op. cit., 28
41. Ibid., 29
42. Service and Bradbury, op. cit., 99
43. Trump, op. cit., 149
44. Ibid., 109
45. Ibid., 28
16 / Cave of Bones
1. J. D. Evans, The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands: A Survey, 45, University of London, 1971
2. Ibid., 59
3. Ibid., plans 14A and 14B
4. Ibid., 44–5
5. Ibid., 44
6. Ibid., 44–5, citing Sir Themistocles Zammit, 1910
7. Anton Mifsud, Simon Mifsud, Chris Agius Sultana and Charles Savona Ventura, Malta: Echoes of Plato’s Island, 38, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 2000
8. Cited in ibid., 38
9. Evans, op. cit., citing Zammit, 45
10. Ibid., 45
11. Ibid., 45; David Trump, Malta: An Archaeological Guide, 67, Valletta, 1990
12. Trump, op. cit., 67
13. Zammit, 1910, cited in Mifsud et al., op. cit., 38
14. Ibid., 38
15. Bradley, Zammit, Pete, 1912, cited in ibid., 40
16. Trump, op. cit., 73
17. Cited by Mifsud in Anton Mifsud and Charles Savona Ventura (eds.), Facets of Maltese Prehistory, 155, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 1999
18. Evans, op. cit., 58
19. Ibid., 58
20. Ibid., 57
21. Zammit, 1910, cited in ibid., 57
22. Ibid., 57
23. Ibid., 57–8
24. Ibid., 58
25. Trump, op. cit., 73
26. Colin Renfrew, Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe, 163, Pimlico, London, 1999
27. Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, 286, Harper, San Francisco, 1991
28. See Paul G. Bahn and Jean Vertut, Journey Through the Ice Age, 13, 112–13, 161, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1997
29. Gimbutas, op. cit.
30. I
bid., 286–9
31. Evans, op. cit., 59. Evans thinks it is Room 22 and comments: ‘Zammit and Singer (1924, p. 90) refer to these as having been found together in 1905 during Magri’s directorship of the excavations in a “deep pit of one of the painted rooms’”
32. Renfrew, op. cit., 164
33. Trump, op. cit., 77
34. Ibid., 77–8
35. Ibid., 52
36. Illustration and comments in ibid., 50–51
37. Illustration and comments, see Anthony Bonanno, Malta: An Archaeological Paradise, 25, Valletta, 1997
38. Trump, op. cit., 53
39. Ibid., 51
40. Although, in fact, nothing from the Hypogeum has been officially carbon-dated, according to Anthony Bonanno in a filmed interview with me, June 2001
41. Frendo, in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 28
42. Ibid., 28
43. E.g. see Evans, op. cit., 208. Nobody is denying that such a Neolithic settlement of Malta did occur from Sicily. The point is that there may have been humans there before they arrived, and it may have been these earlier humans whose heritage led to the temples
44. Trump in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 93
17 / The Thorn in the Flesh
1. E-mail from Anton Mifsud to GH, 15 July 2001
2. Anton Mifsud, Simon Mifsud, Chris Agius Sultana and Charles Savona Ventura, Malta: Echoes of Plato’s Island, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 2000
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. See discussions in Fingerprints of the Gods and in Keeper of Genesis / Message of the Sphinx
8. Fred Wendorf, Romuald Schild, ‘Late Neolithic megalithic structures at Nabta Playa (Sahara) southwestern Egypt’, http://www.comp-archaeol-ogy.org/WendorfSAA98.html
9. E.g. Minoan Crete, Troy, etc.
10. Also in the Andes and in Cuba in recent books
11. Anton Mifsud and Simon Mifsud, Dossier Malta: Evidence for the Magdelenian, 128, Malta, 1997
12. Ibid., 144
13. Bradley, Zammit, Pete, 1912, cited in Mifsud et al., op. cit., 40
14. Annual Report 1909/10, cited in Anton Mifsud and Charles Savona Ventura (eds.), Facets of Maltese Prehistory, 152, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 1999
15. J. D. Evans, The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands: A Survey, 40, University of London, 1971
16. John Samut Tagliaferro, Malta: Its Archaeology and History, 30–31, Plurigraph, Italy, 2000
17. Zammit, 1910, cited in Mifsud et al., op. cit., 38
18. Zammit cited in ibid., 38
19. Mifsud in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 163
20. See Malone, Stoddart et al., Mortuary Ritual of the 4th Millennium BC, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 61, 1995, 303–45
21. Mifsud in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 163
22. The Addolorata Cemetery, Mifsud et al., op. cit., 38
23. Ibid., 40, citing Museum of Archaeology Reports, 1973–4
24. Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 163
25. Mifsud in ibid., 153, citing Zammit, 1910
26. Zammit, 1910, 37, cited in ibid., 153
27. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 12
28. Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, 286, Harper, San Francisco, 1991
29. Mifsud et al., op. cit., 47 and 58
30. Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 58
31. See for example David Trump, Malta: An Archaeological Guide, 75, Valletta, 1990
32. Ibid., 75
33. ‘When the standard deviation of radiocarbon dates is taken into account, and after the exclusion of the very early dates with a wide range, the end of the Tarxien phase must have occurred between 2470 and 2140 BC,’ Mifsud et al., op. cit., 47
34. Various model temples have survived from the megalithic period and illustrate roofs; a roof is also evident on a temple elevation carved into one of the megaliths at Mnajdra
35. Alastair Service and Jean Bradbury, The Standing Stones of Europe, 93, J. M. Dent, London, 1993
36. Ibid., 95
37. Ibid., 95
38. Ibid., 97
39. Ibid., 97
40. Trump, op. cit., 29
41. For example, in some of the more remote islands of Indonesia and in the Brazilian rainforest
42. I am assured the quote is reliably attributed to Picasso, but have been unable to find a published source
43. Discussed in Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age: The Beginnings, 450ff, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999
44. E.g. Trump, op. cit., 15
45. See chapter 16
46. Personal communication by e-mail, 15 July 2001
47. Trump, op. cit., 72
48. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit, 168
49. Ibid., 143
50. E-mail, 15 July 2001, personal communication with GH
51. E-mail, 15 July 2001, personal communication with GH (emphasis added)
52. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 150
53. Ibid., 139
54. Ibid., 142
55. Ibid., 144
56. Mifsud et al., op. cit., 61
57. Personal observation
58. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 144
59. Ibid., 143–4
60. Glyn Daniel, 1959, cited in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 157
61. Mifsud in ibid., 157
62. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 127
63. Ibid., 128
64. Charles Savona Ventura and Anton Mifsud, Hasan’s Cave: Geology, Folklore and Antiquities, Heritage Books, Valletta, 2000
65. E. Anati, ‘Archaeological Exploration in Malta’, World Journal of Prehistoric and Primitive Art, 28, 1995, 103–6
66. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 147
67. Ibid., 165–6, footnote 261
68. Ibid., 165–6, footnote 261
69. Ibid., 168
70. See next chapter
71. Tagliaferro, op. cit., 11
72. Ibid.
18 / The Masque of the Green Book
1. Evans, 1959, cited in Anton Mifsud and Simon Mifsud, Dossier Malta: Evidence for the Magdelenian, 100, Malta, 1997
2. Ibid., 68
3. Telephone interview with Sharif Sakr, 26 October 2001
4. Colin Renfrew, Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe, 161, Pimlico, London, 1999
5. Alastair Service and Jean Bradbury, The Standing Stones of Europe, 78–9, J. M. Dent, London, 1993
6. Veen and van der Blom, The First Maltese, 1992, 15–16; J. D. Evans, The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands: A Survey, 37, University of London, 1971; David Trump, Malta: An Archaeological Guide, 151–3, Valletta, 1990
7. Trump, op. cit., 153
8. Ibid., 153
9. Ibid., 153
10. Ibid., 47
11. Evans, op. cit., 37
12. Ibid., 166
13. Ibid., 166
14. John Samut Tagliaferro, Malta: Its Archaeology and History, 13, Plurigraph, Italy, 2000
15. Anthony Bonanno, Malta: An Archaeological Paradise, 44, Valletta, 1997
16. Trump, op. cit., 28
17. Tagliaferro, op. cit., 14
18. Ibid., 14
19. Trump, in Anton Mifsud and Charles Savona Ventura (eds.), Facets of Maltese Prehistory, 93, The Prehistoric Society of Malta, 1999
20. Trump, Archaeological Guide, 28
21. Evans, 1959, cited in Renfrew, op. cit., 165
22. Tagliaferro, op. cit., 11
23. Trump, op. cit., 91
24. Evans, op. cit., 20
25. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 37
26. Ibid., 36–7
27. Ibid., 37
28. Ibid., 38–9
29. Ibid., 39
30. Keith, 1924, cited by Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 39
31. Ibid., 39–40
32. Ibid., 42
33. Ibid., 42
34. Ibid., 45
35. Ibid., 56
36. Ibid., 57
37. Trump, Archaeological Guide
38. Ibid., 91
39. Ibid., 91
40. Ibid., 92
41. Ibid., 19–20
42. Ibid., 92–3
43. Evans, op. cit., 18
44. Ibid., 19
45. Ibid., 19
46. Mifsud and Mifsud, 57
47. Ibid., 57
48. Ibid., 45–6
49. Caton-Thompson, 1925, 10, cited in Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 44
50. See discussion in ibid., 44
51. Ibid., 58
52. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 9, 445
53. Trump, op. cit., 91
54. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit.
55. Evans, op. cit., 19
56. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 43
57. Ibid., 50
58. Ibid., 81
59. Ibid., 112, footnote 2
60. Ibid., 81–2
61. Ibid., 83
62. Ibid., 84–5
63. Ibid., 85
64. Ibid., 86
65. Ibid., 88
66. Personal communication to GH, e-mail, 15 July 2001
67. Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 95 (emphasis added)
68. Ibid., 40–41
69. Discussed in Renfrew, op. cit.
70. Ibid., 165–6
71. Museum 1964 Report, cited in Mifsud and Mifsud, op. cit., 102
72. Evans, 1959, cited in ibid., 100
73. Ibid., 100–101
74. Ibid., 107
75. Ibid., 107–8
76. Frendo, in Mifsud and Ventura, op. cit., 28
77. Frendo, in ibid., 28
78. Frendo, in ibid., 28
79. Frendo, in ibid., 30
80. Frendo, in ibid., 30
81. For example, the nitrogen reading of 1.85 per cent for Ma.2 was published and taken as proof of a Neolithic date, while the nitrogen reading of 0.39 for Ma. I was ignored. The deer reading of 0.17 per cent was taken as representative of the Cervus Layer such that even 0.39 per cent would have seemed later; whereas in fact deer and even hippo samples had yielded levels as high as 0.4 – showing that 0.17 is not a representative Cervus threshold. Moreover, the highly anomalous uranium oxide reading of 13 ppm for Ma.2 was ignored. Humphrey is ready to argue that even this result is ambiguous. But it is very difficult to see how so much uranium oxide could have filtered over just a few thousand years into a tooth that would have contained 0.1 ppm when its owner lived – especially since we now know that Ghar Dalam is an environment with low levels of uranium oxide in the percolating water
82. 24 October 2001