New
light has been shed on the secrets of lost
civilizations and forgotten peoples, from a time that pre-dated recorded history.
Ancient books were no more than parchment scrolls, often copied by hand. The Library of Alexandria was the book repository of the ancient world. When Omar the fanatic invaded Alexandria, millions of book rolls were used for heating the city baths. As a result, only a small part of recorded antiquity has come down to us.
Is it possible that there were other civilizations in the
history of mankind that we know little or nothing of, about which we hear only vague echoes ? Finds are constantly appearing from widely seperated areas – the walled city of Jericho has been dated back some ten
thousand years, as have symbolic forms of writing. The farther we go back in history, the more we study them (in the light of current knowledge), the more our preconceived notions seem to change.
The Piri Reis map
contains topographical features of Antarctica submerged under the ice, the Antikythera relic contains an elaborate ystem of gears and dials, electroplating has been found in the pre-Inca culture of Peru, the mysterious system of ground markings in Nazca, Peru can only be seen from the air, and air travel itself is a frequently recurring theme in ancient myths and legends.
In assessing the scientific and technical progress of ancient civilizations, one finds surprisingly advanced techniques (many of which were re-discovered during the Renaissance) of building, mathematics, medicine, astronomy and even atomic structure. Were these the chance realizations by ancient philosophers and teachers ? Or was this knowledge a legacy from an older culture ? Throughout the world there are certain
legends and traditions (such as the legends of the Flood and the Tower of Babel) so similar in content that it is hard to believe that they did not have a common origin.
It has been argued that civilization could not begin without the cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals, but this figure too has been pushed back several thousand years. The general perception of prehistoric man (nurtured by movies such as Conan the Barbarian) is that of a brutish, ape-like creature living in caves and clubbing his enemies.
Anthropological investigation presents a somewhat different picture. Some of the European cave paintings are so modern and sophisticated in technique that they were originally thought to be fakes. Due to a lack of written records, thousands of years of prehistory exist only as legends in the memory of the race.
More summaries about the Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds