America Before

by Graham Hancock

  84. Lankford, “The Raptor on the Path,” in Visualizing the Sacred, 243.

  85. Alanson Skinner, Observations on the Ethnology of the Sauk Indians (Greenwood Press, first published 1923–25, reprinted by Greenwood Press 1970), 36.

  86. See, for example, Hultkrantz, The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition, 54, 75; Lankford, ‘The “Path of Souls,’” 178, 182–183, and Lankford, “The Raptor on the Path,” 244–245.

  87. Hultkrantz, The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition, 80; see also Lankford, “The ‘Path of Souls,’” 178, 182–183, and Lankford, “The Raptor on the Path,” 244–245.

  88. Hultkrantz, The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition, 54. See also Lankford, “The ‘Path of Souls,’” 178.

  89. See discussion in Lankford, “The ‘Path of Souls,’” 206–207, and likewise in Lankford, “The Great Serpent,” 108–114.

  90. Lankford, “The ‘Path of Souls,’” 178.

  91. Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. 3, 37.

  92. Ibid, vol. 1, opposite 102, Vignette “The Kingdom of Seker.”

  93. For example, see ibid., Vignette “The Kingdom of Seker,” opposite 70, and 74. See also Faulkner, The Book of the Dead, 86—the Sa’Ta snake.

  94. Lankford in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, 107ff and 174–175ff.

  95. Cited in ibid, 112.

  96. See discussion in Hultkrantz, The Native American Orpheus Tradition, 78–81.

  97. Frances Eyman, “An Unusual Winnebago War Club and an American Water Monster,” Penn Museum Expedition 5, (1963), no. 4: 33, https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/an-unusual-winnebago-war-club-and-an-american-water-monster/.

  98. Lankford in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, 107–119.

  99. Cited in ibid., 111.

  100. Cited in ibid.

  101. G. Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon (Manchester University Press, 1919), 94.

  102. Lankford in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, 109–110.

  103. Ibid., 111.

  104. See, for example, the discussion in Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods (Crown, 1995), 423–424.

  105. Reported in F. Kent Reilly III, “Visualising the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period,” in Hero, Hawk and Open Hand, 128.

  106. R. O. Faulkner (trans. and ed.), The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Aris & Philips, 1973), vol. 1, 261.

  107. Cited in James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1900, reprinted by Dover Publications 1995), 259.

  108. Ibid.

  109. Ibid.

  110. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, vol. 1, 190, Line 326.

  111. See, for example, F. F. Leek, “Further Studies Concerning Ancient Egyptian Bread,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 59, no. 1 (1973), 199–204, esp. 199: “The two most common cereals to be found in all sites in Upper and in Lower Egypt were wheat and barley … Triticum dicoccum—emmer—was the most important variety of wheat grown.” See also 201: “Two samples taken from the abdominal remains of mummified Thebes showed that emmer was the sole ingredient of bread eaten, and in another sample that it was mixed with another cereal. Since the remains came from Thebes, it suggests that emmer was commonly used in Upper Egypt.”

  112. Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Christ (Arrow Books, 1997), 152: Knight and Lomas suggest that the ancient Egyptians considered Horus to be the “Morning Star” when Osiris says in 1000–1 of the Pyramid Texts:

  The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for me, that I

  may cross by means of them to Re at the horizon … I

  will stand among them, for the moon is my brother, the

  Morning Star is my offspring.

  The authors go on to suggest that Pyramid Texts 357, 929, 935, and 1707 refer to the dead king’s offspring—Horus—as being the morning star. On 153 they state, “In Egypt the new king, the Horus, is the morning star, arising (like the raised Freemason) from a temporary and figurative death.” Also see Rolf Kraus, “Stellar and Solar Components in Ancient Egyptian Mythology and Royal Ideology,” in Michael A. Rappenglecuk et al. eds., Astronomy and Power: How Worlds Are Structured, Proceedings of the SEAC 2010 Conference, BAR International Series 2794 (2016), 137–141.

  113. James Brown, “On the Identity of the Birdman within Mississippian Period Art and Iconography,” in Reilly and Garber, Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, 71.

  114. See E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (originally published 1904, reprinted by Dover Publications, 1969), 284–287. Also see The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 88, 220.

  115. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 538. See also Faulkner, Book of the Dead, 163.

  116. Pyramid Texts, 191, Lines 1188–1189.

  117. Hultkrantz, The Religions of the American Indians, 64.

  118. See William F. Romain, Shamans of the Lost World: A Cognitive Approach to the Prehistoric Religion of the Ohio Hopewell (AltaMira Press, 2009), 48–51.

  119. Pyramid Texts, Utterance 667A, 281, Line 1943.

  120. Hultkrantz, Conceptions of the Soul, 97.

  121. Ibid., 267.

  122. Ibid., 432.

  123. Veronica Ions, Egyptian Mythology (Newnes Books, 1986), 136.

  124. For a fuller and more detailed account, see Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia, Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization (Penguin, 1998), 68–75.

  125. Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Smithsonian Institution, 1911), 590.

  126. Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe (University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1989), 29n13.

  127. Hultkrantz, The Religions of the American Indians, 133–134.

  128. Lankford in Reilly and Garber, Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, 208.

  129. Ibid., 210.

  130. Ibid., 211.

  131. Pyramid Texts, 93, Line 469.

  132. Pyramid Texts, Utterance 697, 305, Line 2175.

  133. Coffin Texts, vol. 1, 36, Line 185.

  134. E. K. Holt et al. (eds.), Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles Against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel (vol. 612) (Bloomsbury, 2015), 35. On the basis of Dead Sea Scrolls translations of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Judges, and Job, respectively, the authors understand the Hebrew phrases “City of the Sun” and “house of the sun” to be references to Heliopolis, or the Egyptian name Iwnw, “pillar town,” which in Genesis 41:45 and Ezekiel 30:17 is referred to as ’ôn/’āwen. Examples from the New American Standard of the bible here:

  He will also shatter the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt; and the temples of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire. (Jeremiah 43:13)

  And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath-paneah. And he gave him in marriage Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. So Joseph went out over the land of Egypt. (Genesis 41:45)

  The young men of On and Pi-beseth

  Will fall by the sword,

  And the women will go into captivity (Ezekiel 30:17)

  135. Ibid.

  136. Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. 3, 12.

  137. Ibid., 3–4.

  138. I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt (Penguin, 1993), 286.

  139. Reproduced in Von Del Chamberlain, When Stars Come Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America (Ballena Press/Centre for Archaeoastronomy, University of Maryland, 1982), 20.

  140. Ibid., 24, 130.

  141. P. Lacovara, The World of Ancient Egypt: A Daily Life Encyclopedia (2 volumes) (ABC-CLIO, 2016), 183. Anke Napp, “Priests of Ancient Egypt,” http://www.ancient-egypt-priests.com/AE-Life-english.htm: “The high-ranking priests wore sashes, probably with gold ornaments similar to the ones the Pharaoh used, and a leopard skin. The leopard was considered a sacred animal, personification of the ancient sky-Goddess Mafdet. Perhaps the spots o
n the skin reminded the Ancient Egyptians of stars. Artificial leopard cloth had star-shaped items on it for the spots. A leopard skin was also seen as connected to the beliefs of regeneration and rebirth in the afterlife, and with Sun God Ra. This can be traced back to the pyramid texts of the Fifth Dynasty. So in particular the Sem-priests, who had to perform the rituals of inspiriting the mummy before the funeral, wore this special garment, but also the deceased person! It can be seen as some sort of christening robe. Apart of the sash, they do not wear any jewellery.” Also see Anand Balaji, “Sem Priests of Ancient Egypt: Their Role and Impact in Funerary Contexts—Part 1” (Ancient Origins, May 6, 2018), https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/sem-priests-ancient-egypt-their-role-and-impact-funerary-contexts-part-0010007 and part 2 here: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/sem-priests-ancient-egypt-service-king-and-country-part-ii-0010009.

  See also http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/sem-priests-ancient-egypt-their-role-and-impact-funerary-contexts-part-0010007 and http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/sem-priests-ancient-egypt-service-king-and-country-part-ii-0010009.

  142. M. Verner, Temple of the World: Sanctuaries, Cults, and Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 2013), 29; Anand Balaji, “Sem Priests of Ancient Egypt: Their Role and Impact in Funerary Contexts,” parts 1 and 2.

  143. Cultural Resources Evaluation of the Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Shelf, Vol I: Prehistoric Cultural Resources Potential, Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, National Park Service, Washington, DC, 1977, 243.

  144. See, for example, the discussion in Don W. Dragoo, “Mounds for the Dead: An Analysis of Adena Culture,” Annals of the Carnegie Museum 37 (1963).

  145. William F. Romain, Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands, 204.

  146. Ibid., 204–205.

  24: ASTRONOMY AND GEOMETRY IN THE AFTERLIFE

  1. E. A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 1934), 155.

  2. W. B. Emery, Archaic Egypt: Culture and Civilization in Egypt Five Thousand Years Ago (Penguin Books, 1987), 31, 177.

  3. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead (Arkana, 1985), 315.

  4. Ibid., 266.

  5. Ibid., 328.

  6. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell (Martin Hopkinson, 1925) (3 volumes in one edition, page numbers reset to 1 with each volume), vol. 3, 43.

  7. Ibid., vol. 1, 142–143.

  8. Ibid., vol. 3, 152.

  9. Ibid., 135.

  10. Ibid., vol. 2, 142.

  11. Ibid., vol. 3, 135.

  12. R. O. Faulkner (ed. and trans.), The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Aris & Philips, 1973), vol. 2, 290.

  13. Ibid., vol. 3, 104.

  14. Budge, The Book of the Dead, clxxv.

  15. Ibid., vol. 1, 89.

  16. Ibid., 141.

  17. Ibid., 161.

  18. Ibid., 170ff.

  19. Ibid., for example, see 123, 215, 240, 258 of vol. 1; and 13, 36 of vol. 2. The Duat was sometimes also known as Amentet, and references occur both to the “hidden circle of the Duat” and to the “hidden circle of Amentet,” and also, coterminously, to the “secret circle of Amentet” and the “secret circle of the Duat.”

  20. Ibid., vol. 3, 89; and see Vignette in vol. 2, p. 303.

  21. For further details of the specifically astronomical and stellar aspects of the ancient Egyptian religion, see Graham Hancock’s Keeper of Genesis/The Message of the Sphinx and Heaven’s Mirror.

  22. Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. 1, 22.

  23. J. Gribbin and M. Gribbin, From Here to Infinity: A Beginner’s Guide to Astronomy (Sterling, 2009), 40–41: “Both the Earth and the Moon are … orbiting around the balance point in the Earth-Moon system, its centre of mass … is like the balance point of a see-saw.”

  24. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 315.

  25. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, vol. 3, 140–141, Spells 1060 to 1063.

  26. Ibid., vol. 2, 212, Line 250.

  27. R. O. Faulkner (ed. and trans.), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford University Press, 1969), 290, Line 2016.

  28. Ibid., 309, Line 2232.

  29. Ibid., Line 2233.

  30. Ibid., 159, Line 916.

  31. Faulkner, Book of the Dead, 113, Spell 118.

  32. Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 289–290, Line 2011.

  33. Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. 1, 89.

  34. Ibid., 93.

  35. Faulkner, Coffin Texts, vol. 3, 133, Line 291.

  36. Ibid., 168, Line 468.

  37. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 318.

  38. Faulkner, Book of the Dead, 184, Spell 183.

  39. Budge, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. 2, 277–278.

  40. Ibid., vol. 1, 258.

  41. Ibid., 240.

  42. Ibid., 258.

  43. Ibid., 9.

  44. Ibid., vol. 2, 38–39.

  45. Ibid., 39.

  46. As, for example, in “this secret Circle of the god Sokar, who is upon his sand”–ibid., 16.

  47. George Lankford, “The Great Serpent in Eastern North America,” in Kent F. Reilly III and James F. Garber (eds.), Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography (University of Texas Press, 2007), 107–135.

  48. William Romain, “Adena-Hopewell Earthworks and the Milky Way Path of Souls,” in Meghan E. Buchanan and B. Jacob Skousen (eds.), Tracing the Relational: The Archaeology of Worlds, Spirits and Temporalities (University of Utah Press, 2015), 54.

  49. Ibid.

  50. Ibid.

  51. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 315.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Lankford, “The Great Serpent in Eastern North America,” 107–135.

  54. James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1900, reprinted by Dover Publications 1995), 297.

  55. Ibid. And see discussion in Lankford, “The Great Serpent in Eastern North America,” 114.

  56. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 315.

  57. Ibid., xxviii–xxix; Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, v.

  58. In the case of Conly, for example. See chapter 22.

  59. E. A. E. Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple (Manchester University Press, 1969), 8.

  60. Ibid., 151: “The mythological situation which we have been analysing discloses a tradition which originated in another place.”

  61. Ibid., 55, 90, 105, 274.

  62. Ibid., 55.

  63. Ibid., 109, 113–114, 127.

  64. For example, see 19: “The crew of the Falcon.” See also 27, 177, 180, 181, 187, 202. There are repeated references throughout the Edfu texts to the crews of ships and to sailing. Thus, 180: “The Shebtiw sailed …,” and 187: “They were believed to have sailed to another part of the primeval world.”

  65. Ibid., 190.

  66. Ibid., 274: “They journeyed through the unoccupied lands of the primeval age and founded other sacred domains.”

  67. Ibid., 122.

  68. Ibid., 134.

  69. Plato, Timaeus and Critias (Penguin Classics, 1977), 36.

  70. Ibid.

  71. G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, Beyond the Milky Way: Hallucinatory Imagery of the Tukano Indians (UCLA Latin America Center Publications, 1978), 2.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 274.

  74. Ibid., 190.

  75. Ibid., 8–10.

  76. Ibid., 24: “the Shebtiw whose function is described as din iht, to name (= create) things.” See also 180.

  77. Ibid., 41.

  78. Ibid., for example, 28, 66, 236.

  79. See, for example, Robert L. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual (University of Illinois Press, 1997), 163: “The use of the imagery of the belt of Orion as a protective device may have a history in North America extending back at least to 1000 BC,
because in contexts that old in parts of the Northeastern United States, stone tablets and shell plaques have been found into which were drilled three holes, with one, apparently purposely, a little out of line with the rest, just as is one of the three stars of Orion’s belt.”

  PART VII

  25: ELOISE

  1. Vance Haynes, in conversation with Richard Firestone, cited in Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick Smith, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes (Bear, 2006), 37.

  2. Bruce B. Huckell and C. Vance Haynes, “Palaeoecology as Viewed from Murray Springs, Arizona,” in C. Vance Haynes and Bruce B. Huckell (eds.), Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona (University of Arizona Press, 2007), 225.

  3. Ibid.

  4. See full discussion of the Younger Dryas in Graham Hancock, Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth’s Lost Civilization (2015), part 2.

  5. C. Vance Haynes, “Palaeoecology as Viewed from Murray Springs, Arizona,” 225. The quotation continues as follows: “Many of them overlie terminal Pleistocene fauna remains, a few with Clovis artefacts. The … termination everywhere appears to have occurred … rapidly and at the same time … Could drought, deep freeze, and Clovis predation have occurred at all of these places at the same time? Probably not. With regard to the cause of the Pleistocene termination, something happened 13,000 years ago that we have not yet fully understood.”

  6. Vance Haynes, “Younger Dryas ‘Black Mats’ and the Rancholabrean Termination in North America,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 18 (May 6, 2008), 6520.

  7. R. B. Firestone et al., “Evidence for an Extraterrestrial Impact 12,900 Years Ago That Contributed to Megafaunal Extinctions and the Younger Dryas Cooling,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 41 (October 9, 2007), 16016–16021.

  8. Ibid. In subsequent papers the date of 12,900 years ago was revised downward by 100 years to around 12,800 years ago. See C. R. Kinzie et al., “Nanodiamond-Rich Layer Across Three Continents Consistent with Major Cosmic Impact at 12,800 cal BP,” Journal of Geology 122, no. 5 (2014), 475–506.

  9. See for example Julie Cohen, “Study Examines 13,000 Year-old Nanodiamonds From Multiple Locations Across Three Continents,” (Phys Org, August 27, 2014), https://phys.org/news/2014-08-year-old-nanodiamonds-multiple-continents.html, and J. H. Wittke et al, “Nanodiamonds and Carbon Spherules from Tunguska, the K/T Boundary, and the Younger Dryas Boundary Layer,” (the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2009), http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMPP31D1392W.