“Suppose that we had calculated that … our civilisation was soon to be obliterated by a titanic geological cataclysm … … Of course there would at first be much panic and despair. Nevertheless – if there were sufficient advance warning – steps would be taken to ensure that there would be some survivors, and that some of what was most valuable in our high scientific knowledge would be preserved for the benefit of future generations.
Strangely enough, the Jewish historian Josephus … attributes precisely this behaviour to the clever and prosperous inhabitants of the antediluvian world who lived before the Flood …
‘They also were the inventors of the peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost – upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water – they made two pillars (and) inscribed their discoveries upon them both … ‘
Likewise, when the Oxford astronomer John Greaves visited Egypt in the seventeenth century he collected ancient local traditions which attributed the construction of the three Giza pyramids to a mythical antediluvian king.
‘The occasion of this was because he saw in his sleep that the whole earth was turned over, with the inhabitants of it lying upon their faces and the stars falling down and striking one another with a terrible noise … and he commanded … to build the Pyramids … he engraved in these Pyramids all things that were told by wise men, as also all profound sciences … All this may be interpreted by him that knowes their characters and language … ‘
Taken at face value, the message of both these myths seems crystal clear: certain mysterious structures scattered around the world were built to preserve and transmit the knowledge of an advanced civilisation of remote antiquity which was destroyed by a terrifying upheaval..”
These are extracts from ‘Fingerprints of the gods: the quest continues’ by Graham Hancock.
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 