From Atlantis to the Sphinx Read Online Free PDF Page B

every available primary source on the Ark, all of which referred to the same powers, Hancock found himself speculating that it sounded like some kind of ‘device’ or machine. The idea seemed altogether too much like the wilder assertions of that high priest of the improbable, Erich von Daniken. And it was von Daniken who, in explaining how the pyramids were built by visitors from outer space, managed to multiply the weight of the Great Pyramid by five. Hancock had no desire to get himself classified as a member of the lunatic fringe. Yet everything about the Giza complex deepened his certainty that it had not been built by ‘technically accomplished primitives’.
    The search for a lost civilisation was to take him on a journey to see the Nazca lines of Peru, the ‘lost’ Inca city of Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Tiahuanaco, and the great Aztec temples of Central America. Here again, the evidence—which we shall review later—seemed to point to far greater antiquity than the guide books assert. He was also intrigued by legends of a white god—or gods—who brought civilisation to South America: he was sometimes called Viracocha, sometimes Quetzalcoatl, sometimes Kukulkan, and he was represented as having fair skin and blue eyes—as Osiris was represented in ancient Egyptian statues. By the time he returned to Egypt, to make that early morning climb of the Great Pyramid, the sophistication required to construct these monuments had convinced Graham Hancock beyond all doubt either that the civilisation of the Incas and the Aztecs extended back thousands of years earlier than the history books claim, or that there had once been an unknown civilisation that has been lost to history.

    It was in Canada, while publicising his book The Sign and the Seal —which had become a bestseller—that Graham Hancock met a friend of John Anthony West, and mentioned his admiration for the Traveller’s Guide to Ancient Egypt. The friend—writer Paul Roberts—asked: ‘Ah, but have you read his Serpent in the Sky ?’ Hancock admitted his ignorance. ‘Then take it and read it,’ said Roberts, offering a copy.
    Serpent in the Sky proved to be as fascinating and as startling as West’s Traveller’s Guide . It was basically a study of the ideas of Schwaller de Lubicz, and the argument was simple. Schwaller had spent fifteen years studying ancient Egyptian monuments, particularly the temple at Luxor, and had concluded that—in West’s words:
    Egyptian science, medicine, mathematics and astronomy were all of an exponentially higher order of refinement and sophistication than modern scholars will acknowledge. The whole of Egyptian civilisation was based upon a complete and precise understanding of universal laws... Moreover, every aspect of Egyptian knowledge seems to have been complete at the very beginning. The sciences, artistic and architectural techniques and the hieroglyphic system show virtually no sign of a period of ‘development’; indeed, many of the achievements of the earliest dynasties were never surpassed or even equalled later on. This astonishing fact is readily admitted by orthodox Egyptologists, but the magnitude of the mystery it poses is skilfully understated, while its many implications go unmentioned.
    West goes on to ask: ‘How does a complex civilisation spring fullblown into being? Look at a 1905 automobile and compare it to a modern one. There is no mistaking the process of “development”. But in Egypt there are no parallels. Everything is there right at the start.’ It is rather as if the first motor car was a modern Rolls-Royce.
    Then West goes on to drop his bombshell. According to Schwaller, Egyptian civilisation did not begin—as the history books say—around 3000 BC with the legendary King Menes. Thousands of years earlier, Egypt was populated by survivors of Atlantis, who had crossed a (then fertile) Sahara and settled in the valley of the Nile. The great temples and pyramids of Egypt are