Ancient World Review

Turbowolf Interviews Graham Hancock Episode 1

Graham Hancock, I think, is the best of the "alternate archaeology" writers. He's generally dismissed by mainstream authorities as a "pseudoarcheologist," rightly so, perhaps, but he's done a lot of interesting research into lost civilizations and ancient mysteries, and his books are well written and entertaining.

Hancock's definitely unconventional, arguing, for instance, that humans have been around for much longer than currently believed and that there was a very ancient, technologically advanced "mother civilization" that existed as far back as the Paleolithic. I can believe that human society is older than anyone currently suspects, but when Hancock starts speculating, for example, that the Ark of the Covenant could have been a form of ancient technology, he loses me completely.

I do agree with him when he argues against "...an entrenched belief system about the human condition and about our collective past in which modern advanced civilization is seen as the product of thousands of years of linear social and technological evolution--'onwards and upwards'...from stupid old cave men to smart old us." (Source: The Official Graham Hancock Website) For what it's worth, I don't buy that, either.

Note: Turbowolf is a UK rock band.

"Pagans" Celebrate Winter Solstice At Stonehenge

Comment: Every year, these "pagans, Druids and pantheists" celebrate the Winter Solstice at the most famous prehistoric monolith in the world, but since no one knows what kind of rituals were held at Stonehenge, their "ceremonies," by necessity, have to be improvised. As a result, they end up whooping like Hollywood Apaches in a hippie drum circle, surrounded by spectators with cell-phone cameras, and when it's all over, they get in their cars and drive back to their jobs in the city, leaving Stonehenge behind, just as enigmatic as it was a thousand years ago.

The problem with these modern "pagans" is that they really aren't pagans at all. They're too civilized for that. Too liberal. I can sympathize with their rejection of Christianity and the modern world, but it's going to take more than some robes, drums and solstice wreaths to bridge the gap between 2011 A.D. and 3000 B.C. Real paganism, for lack of a better term, has long since vanished from the West and ceremonies like this won't bring it back to life. The ancients understood that blood was necessary to propitiate the gods and the forces of nature. If these pagans want to celebrate the Solstice properly, they should leave their cameras at home, forget the drum circles and start conducting human sacrifices. No one knows if there were ritual killings at Stonehenge, but I wouldn't be surprised.

"PC Gone Mad:" French Textbooks Purge Past

The Social Marxist rewriting of history, already well advanced in the West, is creating an uproar in France. French children now spend more time studying the medieval African kingdom of Monomotapa, aka the Kingdom of Mutapa, than they do Napoleon. The French "Ministry of Education"--an Orwellian term if there ever was one--claims that the curriculum is being changed because globalization makes it important to understand other cultures such as Egypt, India and China, but these changes don't simply introduce children to other cultures. They constitute a deliberate attack on French history and identity.

The Christian War Against Paganism - Part One

The West has been Christian for so long that we've forgotten that Christianity is a fundamentally alien religion, a Near Eastern mystery cult that was imposed on the pagans of Europe through a long, violent process of political repression, mass conversion and what can only be described as a war of cultural genocide.

This war--a fanatical attack on classical polytheism--went on for centuries and transformed the Western mind through a long process of attrition as generation after generation of former pagans grew up under the sign of the cross. The barbarians became Christians, the past was forgotten and Christian morals and mythology spread through the culture to such an extent that a majority of Americans still identify themselves as Catholic or Protestant. The church as it exists today is just a pale reflection of the vigorous, militant religion that existed centuries ago, but where did that religion come from and how was it imposed on the West?

The Christian War Against Paganism - Part Two

As the classical world collapsed, Christianity followed the armies everywhere and the church became a secular power in its own right. Emperors and barbarians alike converted to Christianity for political reasons since the majority of the subject populations in their new territorities were Christians of one type or another (there were dozens of different sects within Christianity, later to be called heresies and violently suppressed). These secular rulers got baptized, then went on with their raping, pillaging and plundering with the full blessings of the church. There was no contradiction in this, however. The primitive Christianity of small, scattered congregations living a communal existence of peaceful brotherhood had turned into a wealthy, bloodthirsty monster.

The Secret Of The Black Death

The Black Death peaked in Europe in 1348-1350 and by the time it was over, the "Great Mortality" had killed something like 25 million people--one-third of Europe's population at the time. In some places, it wiped out so many people that the authorities had to outlaw the ringing of church bells at funerals because the ringing never stopped. Entire villages disappeared into plague pits and bishops were sometimes forced to consecrate rivers so they could be used to dump the bodies. The exact number of fatalities is still a matter of conjecture, but there's no doubt that the Black Death was one of the worst natural disasters in human history.

Collapsing the Maya by Roger Sandall

A great essay by the Australian writer and anthropologist Roger Sandall, author of "The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays", Westview Press, 2001.

Michael Crichton, reviewing Culture Cult for the Wall Street Journal, wrote:

"In 'The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays,' anthropologist Roger Sandall explores romantic primitivism--the myth of Eden and the Noble Savage. Mr. Sandall's histories of utopian communities (Robert Owen's New Harmony, John Humphrey Noyes's disastrous Oneida) are vivid, and his portraits of leading primitivists, from Rousseau to Mead to Levi-Strauss, are sharply drawn. This ignorant nostalgia for our tribal past ignores the truly horrific reality of tribal initiation, warfare, mutilation and human sacrifice." (Source: WSJ Opinion Archives)

Pope Says Shroud Of Turin Authentic

"Dismissing skeptics on Sunday when he visited the Shroud of Turin, Pope Benedict XVI said the burial cloth was none other than the same robe that once 'wrapped the remains' of Jesus Christ. ("Pope Benedict Says Shroud of Turn Authentic Burial Robe of Jesus," Christian Science Monitor)

Now, the Shroud of Turin is a priceless Catholic relic, so it's not very surprising that the Pope says it's for real, but I'd really like to know how he came to this conclusion. Maybe he explains his reasoning in the story--I was too lazy to read the whole thing--but I seriously doubt it. After all, what could he possibly say?

No one knows what Jesus looked like--assuming he actually existed--so how can anyone say that the image on the Shroud is actually Jesus? Does the Pope have a photograph of Jesus stashed in the Vatican archives? Does he have a description written by a contemporary? This isn't a matter of faith, but of evidence. If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, does that mean you automatically know what Jesus looked like?

Now, I don't want to belabor this point (OK, yes I do), but let's say that someone shows you a photograph of a historical figure like William Quantrill. He's long dead, so you never saw him in the flesh, so how do you know the photograph is actually Quantrill and not some Missouri farmer or even a Hollywood actor dressed up like Quantrill? If you can't authenticate the photograph in some way, you don't.

Authenticating photographs is an issue that concerns everyone from historians to baseball card collectors. There are scientific tests to determine the age of materials. Some photographs are documented. Some can be compared to other existing photographs known to be authentic. And so on.

Radiocarbon tests on the Shroud have been called into question for various technical reasons, but they seem to date the fabric to sometime during the 14th Century, suggesting that the Shroud is just another Medieval forgery. As for supporting documentation and the like, it doesn't exist unless the Vatican's hiding something, which I doubt. If they had legitimate supporting evidence, they would have released it long ago, so the whole issue boils down to this:

Even if the Shroud of Turin isn't some kind of forgery and even if it can be dated to the right historical period, there is NO way to know if it shows the face of Jesus. For all we know, the face on the Shroud could have belonged to a common criminal, some lowlife thief and murderer who was executed for his crimes or died from natural causes. What a laugh it would be if that's what actually happened.

The Kali Yuga

The Hindus believe that we're living in the Kali Yuga, an apocalyptic Dark Age ruled by the demon Kali, the source of all evil and destruction. The Kali Yuga, also known as the "Age of Vice," is a period of warfare, chaos, social decline and spiritual decadence brought about by Man's separation from the gods. Kali himself is frequently pictured as a deranged figure dancing on corpses and wearing human heads as jewelry. I don't believe in demons, but this bloodthirsty lunatic with ten arms is the perfect symbol of human history.

Decisive Battles Of The Ancient World

Might makes right, but might and brains don't always go together and "fortune rules all things; she raises to eminence or buries in oblivion from caprice rather than principle." (Sallust)

If you don't believe that, you should check out Decisive Battles of the Ancient World from the History Channel. This fantastic documentary covers thirteen major battles ranging from Ramses II fighting the Hittites for control of Syria to the Spartans standing off the Persians at Thermopylae to the Gothic invasion of Rome and Boudicca's revolt in Britain. "Chance rules all," according to Virgil, but after watching Decisive Battles, I'd change that to "chance, hubris, ambition, greed and stupidity."