Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics?

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, for example there were the Centaurs, Cupid (or Eros), the Harpies, Mermaids or Mermen, the Minotaur, Satyrs, Sirens, the Sphinx, the Chimera, Dragons, the Gryphon (or Griffin – alt spelling), the Hydra, Pegasus and the Questing Beast, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies.

The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

Where’s the body-on-the-slab-in-the-lab evidence? With no fossil evidence of any such hybrids, perhaps this is where mythology overrides reality. Perhaps it is just a natural pondering to wonder ‘what if’ human abilities could be combined with some other animal’s abilities; or what a composite of one animal’s body parts attached to another animal’s body parts might achieve.

But then again, maybe that’s not the case.

Now clearly, a lot of people, our ancestors, went to a lot of valuable time and effort to create or depict in often quite considerable detail all over the world, the who’s who, and what’s what, in tens of thousands of paintings, literature, statues, figurines, murals, monuments, carvings, pictograms, hieroglyphs, etc. to what we (their descendents) would call nonsense – purely imaginary entities. But I maintain our ancestors would not go to extraordinary lengths to devote precious resources into making images of beings they knew to be imaginary. Translated, they believed with all their hearts and souls that these beasties, globally numbering in the multi-hundreds, whether ‘gods’ in various combinations or lesser mortals (human-animal) or purely animal-animal forms, really existed. Multiply that by more multi-hundreds of ‘normal’ mythological characters that have been honored with thousands of monuments, and well there’s apparently a whole ancient expensive and often backbreaking industry devoted to what again, we superior modern descendents of theirs, believe to be nothing at all.

As an exact parallel, ‘modern’ human have built and erected all manner of monuments, memorials and statutes to really real historical people. Many are on display in all manner of public parks for the pigeons to rest their weary wings on.

Then again, in our modern era, nobody designs and builds cathedrals just to provide work for the construction industry, but rather because the relevant powers-that-be, the instigators and designers and fundraisers of cathedrals firmly believe there is a being who deserves such monuments to be built in his honor. Now the fact that being probably doesn’t exist, at least as a supernatural creator deity, but rather just one of many of an advanced race of extraterrestrials is irrelevant. You build the cathedral because you believe that being exists – full stop. Atheists don’t build cathedrals. Okay, our smart-as-we-are ancestors believed the half-and-halves really existed.     

Now that we’ve seen some of the puzzling anatomical features associated with the half-and-halves, beasties that are composites of two or more terrestrial life forms, here’s a hard as solid rock case study that not only illustrates time and effort but might highlight why human imagination is not at work. There’s a very large life-size statue from ancient Assyria housed in the British Museum of a winged, human-headed bull (probably representing Shedu or Lamassu). That would be odd enough, but in this statue of a bull with wings and a human head, you find that the bull is depicted with five legs (please note I can count up to five!).  Now, if you were to design from scratch a mythological beastie, one thing I’m pretty convinced of is that you would NOT give it five legs! So, I ask instead, is this statue a representation of one of the ‘gods’ genetic experiments?

Now before pursuing that tack, we’re all aware of the various plants and animals we’ve artificially selected for via breeding pairs of organisms that have the sorts of characteristics we desire such as leading to faster horses; disease resistant wheat, cuter puppy dogs, etc. Sometimes we interfere at the cellular level to increase the pace of the changes we want. We’ve all heard of genetically modified food or genetically modified organisms; of DNA from one species being spliced onto the DNA of another species. We’ve heard of harvesting animal tissues and organs for transplantation into humans. We’ve come into the era of the designer baby, or at least prospective parents undergo genetic counselling and testing before having children. Having children is no longer hit or miss and take your chances. And it won’t be long before babies will be made-to-order if the parents so wish.

Now imagine the genetic tricks a highly advanced, if somewhat amoral race of ET’s were to use terrestrial stock to further their genetic research and agenda. Even several hundred, far less thousands of years in advance technologically of us could produce the half-and-halves of our mythologies.

So, were the half-and-halves of our mythologies evidence of genetic and bioengineering experiments by the ‘gods’, the ‘gods’ own version of “The Island of Dr Moreau”?  If these hybrids are not the wild imaginations of our ancestors, and standard Darwinian natural selection cannot adequately account for them, then it’s clear an alternative artificial selection mechanism must be contemplated instead. What on Earth (or off Earth) could be the driving force behind such artificial selection – behind the required bioengineering or genetic engineering required? Well, unless your best guess is better than my best guess, ET, that’s who.

But then it all ceased to be; then they all went away, either literally (as I suspect) or within the human imagination (and if so, why?). I can imagine first and foremost that these non-deity hybrids (assuming their reality) were probably sterile. Thus, they were rather limited in population. One didn’t have a sphinx litter from which to choose a family sphinx pet. 

One thing I’m convinced cannot adequately for the massive range of our mythological hybrids are fossils. Fossils cannot explain the half-and-halves. There aren’t going to be too many buried skeletons of a lion minus its head that just happens to have a human skull in the immediate vicinity to explain the Sphinx. And what about the odds of finding the skull of a falcon minus body that just happens to rest next to a headless human skeleton and thus explain several of the Egyptian ‘gods’?

Now clearly some of these half-and-halves beasties are going to ultimately prove to be mythical – figments of the human imagination invented for reasons now lost and buried by the sands of time. Some cases are probably of real beasties we all know today but embellished for reason or reasons unknown and probably unknowable. There’s going to be cases of linguistic misinterpretations or misunderstandings or errors in translations. Then too there’s going to be cases of someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone over many miles and probably generations before the tale was written down. The 20^th generation retelling of an ‘eyewitness’ account explains some of the half-and-halves.

But are the mythological half-and-halves all really products of pure human imagination and embellishments and 20^th generation retellings? If that be the case, why are there no more recent equivalents, in the multi-hundreds, in our ‘modern’ (say within the last 300 years of fictional literature, later films and TV) apart from those taken directly from our mythological ancient history like Mermaids? Nearly all ‘modern’ literature’s creations are human (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Harry Potter, and Captain Kirk as examples – even if they do come from another planet like Superman or Mr. Spock). The Creature from the Black Lagoon was humanoid; ditto the Wolfman who at no time was represented as being a wolf’s head on a human body or vice versa. Frankenstein’s Monster was still human, even if patched together. Dracula may have been able to shape-shift into a bat, but he never was actually half-human and half-bat – ditto Batman. Even Donald Duck was still a duck; Mickey Mouse was just a clothed talking mouse. Some of the Egyptian gods were represented as half-and-halves, but The Mummy wasn’t! So, if all is assumed to be human imagination, then there’s this discrepancy between way back then and recent history. The one obvious ‘modern’ exception is the well known novel “Island of Dr. Moreau”.

The “Island of Dr. Moreau” was originally a novel published in 1896 by H.G. Wells with film adaptations in 1933 (as the “Island of Lost Souls”), 1977, and 1996. It basically deals with vivisection and an obsessed scientist who conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. This all takes place on a remote island, the inhabitants being those experimental animals being turned into strange looking humans by one Dr. Moreau – the obsessed mad scientist in question. I’m just substituting the ancient ‘gods’ for the more modern Dr. Moreau; the so-called mythological half-and-halves for those modern fictional experimental animals turned into abominations.

That ‘modern’ novel aside, you may think the ancient mythological menagerie – if entirely imaginary - exhibits quite an intense range of the human imagination in the creation of half-and-halves. I’d beg to differ. There’s an immense array of potential half-and-halves possibilities that apparently have never been realized, or at least popularized. The whole plant and invertebrate communities have largely been ignored, which may make sense from the biological reality of a genetic engineering standpoint. I do realize that Hollywood has rectified this with several versions and sequels to “The Fly” and B-Grade films like “The Wasp Woman”, and probably several other B-Graders in that vein. But 1) those cinema features were relative rarities in terms of modern half-and-halves images and 2) there was never any possibility of mistaking those films for anything else other than social commentary and/or entertainment, just like the novel by H.G. Wells.

Anyway, as to what might have been imagined by our ancient ancestors, but never really was, though I do seem to recall a mythological human head on an octopus body, but that was about it when it came to the invertebrate and plant kingdoms – no lobster heads on a human body; no human heads on a slug; and as for humanoid rose bushes – forget it! 

However, when talking real modern half-and-halves, one would be remiss not to mention Mothman, a winged hominoid with glowing red eyes, associated with the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia around the period of November 1966 through December 1967. Mothman’s been the subject of several books, dozens of articles, and at least one motion picture (“The Mothman Prophecies” – 2002). However, there have been no sightings since. Perhaps Mothman’s a purely imaginary half-and-halves case, one never before or after seen. Maybe.

Finally, there might be a really real modern version of the ‘gods’ and their half-and-halves. If UFO / alien abductions are to be believed, taken at face value, (somewhat backed up and supported by animal mutilation cases), then the alien ‘gods’ – collective now called the ‘Greys’ – are still manipulating human genetics and further progressing with the evolution via artificial selection (breeding) of the human species, as well as their own, for the apparent objective is nothing less than a human-alien (or human-grey) hybrid. That this is implausible, well, recall from mythologies around the world those human-animal hybrids like the Satyr, Sphinx, Minotaur, Mermaid, and a host of others.

The Giant Cyclopes: Real or Mythological?

The concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ has been with us for a few decades now, even longer. Those visiting extraterrestrials have been associated with the polytheistic ‘gods’, even at times the monotheistic ‘God’ and His cast and crew (the angels, etc.). However, visions of the ‘gods’ don’t usually include the offbeat, like the mythological giants, and, for the purposes of this exercise, the Cyclopes. Are these one-eyed wonders, among other giants, imaginary, or alien?

One of the major themes of mythologies around the world relate to the concept of giants. It’s easy to extrapolate and super-size up the human body to giant proportions (Hollywood’s done that a few times in Grade-B sci-fi flicks), and there are many tall tales and fairy tales/folklore about giants like the American Paul Bunyan or the kiddie favourite “Jack and the Beanstalk”. However, while it’s easy to imagine human giants, however, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that these giants can’t be the case in reality without major anatomical alternations to the human physique.

Now let’s say the average human is six foot tall. The maximum height for a human male is a fraction under nine feet; for a human female a fraction over 8 feet according to the “Guinness Book of Records”, but humans much above 7 ½ feet are very rare indeed.  7 ½ feet and below isn’t really giant-sized, just very tall. A real giant say is at least double the human average – say 12 foot high – and that and more is not all that uncommon in the mythological literature and all cultures have tales of people of exceptional size. However, most of the mythological giants tend to be under twelve feet – like Goliath cited as being somewhere from a bit under seven feet to just under ten feet.

The main problem regarding human giants is, if you double the height, and associated width and breadth as well, you increase the body’s mass by a factor of eight. The person weighs eight times as much. However, the supporting structure, the cross-section (width and breadth) of the legs (muscle and bone) has only increased by a factor of four. So your legs are four times as thick, but they must support a weight eight times as great. If you triple the dimensions you have 27 times the mass, but only nine times the supporting area for that weight. A fourfold increase sees a massive increase in weight to 64 times normal; the supporting structure is however only 16 times greater. The ecological catchcry of ‘limits to growth’ takes on a new meaning here.

Thus, while human giants are grand Hollywood entertainment, films like “The Amazing Colossal Man” or “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” can’t be taken for anything more than that – pure (put your brain on the shelf for the duration) entertainment.

So there are limits to growth. If some of the giants of mythology can’t be human, and if they aren’t purely figments of the imagination, then they are probably extraterrestrials.

It doesn’t take too awfully long for giants to make their appearance on Earth according to the Bible.

Apparently way back towards the near beginning of all things, the Biblical ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’ did their ‘be fruitful and multiply bit’.

Now what’s this ‘sons of God’ and ‘daughters of men’ bit? In Genesis 6:2 [New King James Version] we have: “that the sons of God saw the daughters of men; that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.”

According to the Old Testament [New King James Version], “There were giants [Nephilim] on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.” (Genesis 6:4). However, since these giants are the products of the sons of God* (who must therefore also be gods) and human women, these giants must only be demigods.

Now the ‘sons of God’ couldn’t have been too giant-sized in their own right if they were to have their wicked way with the ‘daughters of men’, yet their giant-sized offspring were – well, giant-sized that is. Numbers 13:33 [New King James Version] states “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” If humans were like grasshoppers in size relative to the giants (the offspring of the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’) then something’s screwy somewhere, unless either the ‘sons of God’ or their giant [Nephilim] offspring were shape-shifters. That something is screwy somewhere actually comes as no real surprise considering it’s the Bible – the most contradictory text ever written.

Those other ‘gods’, the polytheistic deities, also spent a lot of time screwing each other and us humans. The sexual exploits of the ‘gods’ (especially the Greek ‘gods’) would put modern swinging and swingers to shame. The ‘gods’ were really quite a randy lot and not just the male ‘gods’ but a fair few of the fairer sex ‘goddesses’ as well. We’re well acquainted with Eros (Cupid) and Aphrodite (Venus) as to their job descriptions.

For example, according to ancient Greek mythology, in the beginning there was the Earth Goddess Gaia and her son the Sky God Uranus who had a bit of a role in the hay together and produced not only the 12 Titans but also the Cyclopes trio of Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunderer) and Steropes (Lightning-Maker). The Titans eventually went head-to-head with the Olympians (Zeus and company) for world (or at least Mediterranean) domination, but the Cyclopes, treated somewhat badly by daddy, all turned turncoats and helped Zeus defeat the Titans.

Now the Cyclopes were expert metal-smiths, and they fashioned the thunderbolts for Zeus, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’ helmet of invisibility which played key roles in that epic war-in-heaven. The Cyclopes are said by the Roman epic poet Virgil to have been as tall as forest trees, so a height way more than 12 feet would not be out of order.

Now as gods in their own right (being the offspring of Gaia and Uranus), the Cyclopes are immortal (or quasi-immortal as nothing lives forever); but they, like most other quasi-immortal gods, well the various Cyclopes weren’t invincible or invulnerable. In fact the Greek god Apollo bumped off our trio in revenge for Zeus killing Apollo’s son with a thunderbolt that the Cyclopes had made for Zeus in the first place; Zeus then had to punish Apollo, but that’s another story.

Odysseus did some major damage to the Cyclops Polyphemus (a second generation Cyclops fathered by the God of the Sea, Poseidon) in Homer’s “The Odyssey”, thus incurring the wrath of the Sea God who made Odysseus’ life quite a miserable one for many years. 

So why not consider Polyphemus purely fictitious? Well, “The Odyssey” is the sequel and companion volume to “The Illiad”, and it was Heinrich Schliemann who had such faith in the historical accuracy of “The Illiad” that he used it has the historical text in which to find and uncover the apparent mythological or fictitious city of Troy. He did! So, if the “Illiad” isn’t pure storytelling; perhaps the “The Odyssey” isn’t either.

Now the Cyclopes are clearly too large to be based on the purely human anatomical plan. A real human the size of a forest tree would have to have leg bones made of metal or stone.

The one eye of the Cyclopes suggests something non-terrestrial. No terrestrial species has one eye, very rare mutations (called obviously enough ‘cyclopia’) aside.

The Cyclopes clearly possessed very advanced technology that enabled the Olympians to defeat the Titans.

Now more likely as not, the Cyclopes collectively were either an alien race in their own right and not literally the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, or the results of the ‘gods’ experiments in genetic engineering. The later makes the idea of a creation, of offspring, more understandable.

Now mother and son (Gaia and Uranus) weren’t quite through producing giants. They actually parented another trio of giants, the Hecatoncheires, who had 50 heads and 100 arms/hands each! Perhaps these giants were again really the end result of some more genetic tinkering on the part of the ‘gods’. Anyway, the Hecatoncheires were also treated badly by daddy, so they too ultimately joined forces with Zeus against the Titans. Daddy meantime came to a bad end having his private parts cut off, but again, that’s another story.

As to the liaison between the Earth Goddess Gaia (mother) and the Sky God Uranus (son), well if they were both really extraterrestrials, then you couldn’t expect their moral or ethical codes to mirror ours of necessity.

But the one-eyed creatures of mythology don’t start and stop with the first and second generation of the Cyclopes of Greek (or Roman) mythology. While there’s not room to make a detailed account of them all, there’s the legendary Norse/German half-human character of Hagen who in a few accounts is one-eyed. Hagen is today probably best known for his role in the downfall and slaying of Siegfried in Richard Wagner’s concluding opera of his epic Ring Cycle, “Gotterdammerung”.

Then there’s Balor of the Evil Eye, a god of death who was a king of the Fomorians, a race of giants in Irish mythology. Balor (or Balar or Bolar) had one eye in the middle of his forehead and you most certainly didn’t want him looking at you! Fortunately, he too came to a sticky end at the hand of his grandson.

There’s one other possible explanation for the Cyclops by the way that also involves the Cyclops being an alien. What if aliens who land here need some sort of environmental protection; a protective suit? If an ancient, primitive, unsophisticated in the ways of high-tech humans saw a ‘creature’ in what modern humans would call an astronaut suit, the kind humans hopped along on the Moon in; or the pressure suits jet fighter pilots wear; or say  a deep-sea diver’s suit, even a typical scuba outfit with mask, the outward appearance tends to be that of a one-eyed being – a Cyclops. 

In conclusion, when it comes to giants in general or the Cyclopes in particular, we have yet again a universal theme in mythology. When it comes to mythology, my basic premise is that anytime you have near universal themes between wildly dispersed in space and/or time cultures, ethnic groups, nationalities, whatever, then you sit up and take notice that something more than just human imagination is at work.

*So Jesus Christ had brothers, presumably older and far larger brothers! The Big Question however is who was God’s wife (or mistress) by which God fathered the ‘sons of God’, or does God reproduce asexually? Maybe there isn’t a Mrs. God or she’s kept well out of sight. God doesn’t seem to be an equal opportunity player. His offspring are all male (J.C. and the ‘sons of God’); so are his cast and crew (the angels) entirely male and he deals with males like Noah, Moses, Enoch, Abraham, etc. Even Adam came before Eve and those two only produced male offspring (which is another whole can of worms glossed over by the faithful). It would appear that the polytheistic gods are heads and shoulders above the monotheistic God when it comes to the status of women.

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Three

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Appendix: A few notable megalithic monuments.

1) Some unfinished in-situ megaliths.

*Baalbek (Lebanon) has two unfinished stones weighing in at 1000 to 1250 tons apiece.

*There’s an unfinished Egyptian obelisk at Assuan that’s all up comes to roughly 1100 tons.

2) Some finished and transported megaliths.

Europe

*Stonehenge: some stones are up to 40 tons.

*The Avebury stone circle, England, has as its largest stone one over 40 tons.

*The famous fortress of Mycenae, Greece has stones close to 100 tons in weight.

*The Parthenon in Athens, Greece has some of its largest stones weighing in at 10 tons.

Pacific Region

*Those Easter Island (Rapa Nui to the locals) Moai can weigh up to 70, even one up to 86 tons.

Ancient Egypt

*The Colossi of Memnon are two Egyptian statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III coming in at 700 tons each.

*Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) was not shy about erecting statues to honour himself. One of his numerous dozens of monumental statues commissioned to image self (at Luxor) – 100 tons worth of stone. But that’s featherweight class.

*Ramesses II was only just getting warmed up. There’s a statue at Thebes, Egypt, part of the Ramessum, the mortuary temple of the pharaoh in question, of 1000 tons. Now that’s heavyweight status.

*Egyptian obelisks weren’t miniscule. There’s one at 227 tons (Luxor); one at 328 tons (Karnak).

*Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt is well known as overkill when it comes to constructing a tomb. Though the average weight of each stone block is ‘only’ 2.5 tons, the largest slabs comprising the burial chamber, come in at 80 tons.

*Apart from the Great Pyramid, other Egyptian pyramids, in fact most, if not all other, Egyptian pyramids have some monolithic blocks of over 20 tons, including monolithic roof slabs, plugs and burial vaults, some of which weigh in at over 100 tons.

South and Central America

*Those well known but mysterious Olmec heads in Mesoamerica aren’t trivial works when carved down to some 50 tons all up.

*The Inca city of Machu Picchu, Peru has large stones part and parcel of its construction weighing in from 20 to 50 tons apeice.

*There’s a very famous Aztec calendar stone at Tenochtitlan, Mexico that weighs considerably more than the wall calendar you hang up at home. Weight, 24 tons.

*Palenque, Mexico is a famous Mayan site, especially thanks to Erich Von Daniken. The largest stones on site weigh 12 to 15 tons.

Further suggested readings

Childress, David Hatcher; Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients; Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois; 2000:

De Camp, L. Sprague; The Ancient Engineers; Ballantine Books, New York; 1974:

De Camp, L. Sprague & De Camp; Catherine C; Citadels of Mystery; Fontana/Collins, London; 1972:

Hancock, Graham; Fingerprints of the Gods: A Quest for the Beginning and the End; Mandarin, London; 1996:

Hancock, Graham & Faiia, Santha; Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization; Penguin Books, London; 1999:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of Mankind: Earth’s Unexplained Landmarks; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1992:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of the Ancient World; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1979:

Parry, Dick; Engineering the Ancient World; Sutton Publishing, U.K.; 2005:

Von Daniken, Erich; Chariots of the Gods?; Souvenir Press, London; 1969:

Von Daniken, Erich; Gods from Outer Space; Souvenir Press, London; 1970:

Further viewings:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2006:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires II; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2008:

There’s also been dozens of books/videos written/produced specifically about the archaeological mysteries of Stonehenge, ancient Egyptian monuments including the pyramids, Easter Island, the ruins of Mesoamerica and South America, etc. Consult your local library.

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Two

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Here are some alt-archaeological theories.

One theory sometimes seen in alt-archaeological tomes is that these massive blocks didn’t start out as massive blocks, just like a brick doesn’t start out as a brick, but rather they were poured into place, in a mould, like concrete or cement. Sorry, but modern petrologists’ could easily detect such. Often in fact the quarry from where the stone originated can be precisely identified, though that often raises the question then of transport, since the distances twixt quarry site and construction site can be hundreds of miles. That’s an issue that applies to Stonehenge as well as some of the stonework for the Giza pyramids. 

If you really want to go far-out, star-scout, let’s try antigravity! Anti-gravity is only available in one form, dark energy. Dark energy is that mysterious antigravity force that’s causing the expanding Universe to keep on expanding at ever faster and faster rates, in defiance of gravity which should slow the expansion rate down. Alas, dark energy, which while dominant over the scale of the entire Universe, is trivial locally relative to Earth’s intense gravity field.

Alt-archaeology texts are full of references to sound energy that levitates (negates gravity) and thus massive blocks of stone can be floated around and put into place even with just the oomph of an infant, just by making the appropriate sound at the appropriate level.. Sound of course can be focused. We all know and appreciate the science of acoustics in theatres. Sound can shatter objects, well at least relatively fragile objects like wine glasses when subjected to the professional projections of the trained human voice (or equivalent). However, if you crunch the numbers, the energy required to negate gravity is way outside the realm of which sound energy can muster. Considering the cacophony of sounds the human race produces daily, you’d think that all the relevant elements would come together somewhere, sometime and ‘just so’ as to produce levitation in something, levitation observed and photographed for the record. Alas, not so. 

Jigsaw Puzzles

In some constructions, it’s not just a matter of manipulating massive but irregular stone blocks but fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, results that are immediately apparent at sites around the world, like those from the Incan Empire. Precision carving in stone using only other stone or copper tools is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not simple; it’s extremely exhausting and time consuming work. Double that when all your blocks aren’t a standard square block size and shape.

What Do Our Ancestors Say?

Pity that although the ancients left all manner of images behind of their daily lives and culture, I find it amazing that despite all of those multi-thousands of images from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Americas, etc. not one shows an actual half-finished or partly constructed monument, like a pyramid, or a temple like the Parthenon that’s under construction, or whatever. That’s highly anomalous IMHO, though there are images of ancient Egyptians transporting massive stone blocks.

However, even some of those ancient cultures were puzzled as to how their even more ancient ancestors achieved these megalithic ‘missions impossible’.

There’s something very odd when the natural descendents of ‘primitive’ natives resort to tales akin to sci-fi or science-fantasy to account for how their ancestors constructed, transported and erected massive stone monoliths.

Easter Islanders say that their Moai statues walked by themselves from quarry to their final resting (actually standing) place. Who am I to argue with first hand or on-the-spot observations, except Thor Heyerdahl’s “Aku-Aku” team accomplished the same with less elegant but with pure grunt power. Walking stone statues are just a bit too far into the “Twilight Zone” for comfort. Actually for some reason Easter Islanders at some point downed their stone tools and abandoned their statue constructions for reasons not entirely clear other than priorities altered. The abandoned unfinished statues can still be seen today, lying in place, now long neglected.

Also in the Pacific region, Nan Modal is an ancient city of about 0.75 square kilometres off the coast of the island of Pohnpei in what’s today termed Micronesia. The city is comprised of artificial islands criss-crossed by canals, and thus often referred to as the Venice of the Pacific. Those ‘islands’ however are built up of massive megalithic stone walls up to 25 feet high. How so? Well the stones were carried on site on the backs of dragons apparently. To be honest, that makes as much sense as anything else.

I noted above that allegedly sound could levitate massive stone blocks. That theory or observation is found in both South America and ancient Egypt – massive stones are somehow lifted and transported by sound. I still think that’s highly suspect and I think scientists would need an actual modern-day demonstration. I know I would.

Tentative Conclusions

As I noted above, it’s not the caving or the transport that’s the real issue, nor going from the horizontal to the vertical that’s a real problem, rather the issue is lifting massive stones straight up that I especially puzzle over.

The puzzlement relates to our own use of stones in building projects. We could I guess, if we wanted to, build our buildings out of mega-ton blocks of stone. But we don’t. Your house, if it contains building stones at all, are stones that are probably akin to weights of just several pounds, maybe dozens of pounds; hardly tons.

So do we have a major mystery here? Well yes, especially when compared to modern society as noted immediately above. In our modern high-tech age, when we do use stone as a construction material, it’s in manageable bits and pieces. We don’t build our homes or office buildings or ballparks or monuments out of multi-ton to multi-hundred ton stone blocks as the ancients did. But when duty called, like when Abu Simbel had to be relocated to a higher elevation when the Aswan High Dam was constructed giving rise to Lake Nasser and the flooding of the historical site, even using modern technology it was still a major and massive effort. 

A Possible Solution

Perhaps we can kill two anomalous birds with one hypothetical stone.

Universal One: As we note, from the Americas (Mesoamerica and South America at least); throughout Europe and the Near and Middle East, Egypt and other parts of Africa, even unto Asia and the Pacific region, there are ancient megalithic constructions using stone blocks in the multi mega-ton range. How did the ancients carve, transport, raise and position such massive stone blocks?

Universal Two: Also around the world, there’s a universal theme of giants, from the Cyclopes in Greco-Roman cultures, to Biblical giants to – well you name the culture and I’ll guarantee they will have giants as a core element in their mythologies. For samplers, here’s just a partial list of giants. Well there’s Angrboda (Norse), Argos (Greek), Balor (Irish), Biloko (Zaire), Bungisngis (Philippines), the Cyclopes (Greek), Geryon (Greek), the Gigantes (Greek), Goliath (Biblical), Grendel (Anglo-Saxon), the Hecatonchires (Greek), Hrungnir (Norse), Humbaba (Mesopotamia), the Nephilim (Biblical), Skrymir (Norse), Suttung (Norse), Talos (Greek), the Titans (Greek), and Ymir (Norse). Further, you have all manner of giant trolls and ogres (Scandinavian), various giant apemen like the Yeti and Bigfoot/Sasquatch and numerous others, as well as the Giants of Cornwall (led by Gogmagog).

Well, what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for a young child, is possible for an adult; what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for adult humans might be possible for a giant(s). A giant twice as large as a typical human will have eight times the muscle power, since muscles are 3-D, doubling in length, width and height; and thusly 2 x 2 x 2 = 8.

What Do Our Ancestors Say Revisited?

Ancient Greeks often attributed various massive stone constructions to the Cyclopes, as an example. Such massive structures are termed the Cyclopean walls since the Cyclopes and only the Cyclopes could have built these structures. Perseus had them responsible for building the walls of Mycenae, including the Lion Gate; Proitos attributed them building the walls of Tiryns. The medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus cited the Roman ruins as evidence that giants must once have walked the Earth. And who built the Giant’s Causeway on the Northern Irish Coast?

Is this too far out? I’m open to other suggestions, but at least it doesn’t require high-tech alien assistance, unless of course those worldwide mythological giants, like the Cyclopes, were aliens!

To be continued…

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part One

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Perhaps I’d better say what I mean by massive multi-ton stone blocks. I mean stones that are at least several tons in weight, up to the largest known carved (but still in-situ and unused) stone block weighing in at roughly 1250 tons. That’s not the record however for there is, apparently, a stele base in China that weighs in at 16,250 tons. I mean these are stones that aren’t trivial to toss around, even today. And while not all major continents and countries have megalithic stone monuments, like North America (USA & Canada) or Australia (including New Zealand) that still leaves a lot of places, and well known places, that do.

How and why these megaliths were constructed is no trivial matter. For our ancestors to go to such lengths and expend such efforts, well these stone monuments were obviously very important to them, and it’s important to us to figure out how and why they did it. Using large stone blocks instead of wood or even small stone blocks or bricks must have served a purpose despite the greater hardships involved. So, why did our ancient ancestors need large stones; and how did they handle them?

As to the why, presumably, for starters, if you decide to use stone, then it’s important enough a material serving a purpose(s) that necessitates lasting for all practical purposes an ‘eternity’. If you build something to last, at least back then, you use stone, the larger the better. But for what purpose did the ancients need such megalithic giants?

Issues Arising: Purpose

These ancient societies or cultures spent an awful lot of resources to build things that were relatively peripheral to their basic needs. The Easter Islanders could survive without those Moai statues; ancient Egypt would still have been a ‘superpower’ even without those pyramids, the Giza Sphinx, massive statues of some New Kingdom pharaohs (like Ramesses II - often called Ramesses the Great), stele and obelisks. The Parthenon in Athens was just a shrine to one of the Greek deities (Athena), and similar observations could be extended to the thousands of other monumental megalithic temples and monuments around the world which were mainly ceremonial in function.

It’s difficult to figure out how Stonehenge contributed to the basic survival needs of the local population – you don’t need to construct something of that magnitude just to tell you what season it is! If you need to mark, say the Summer Solstice, all you need have is a traditionally and permanently well marked and easily identified Point A, where you can observe some fixed structure like a rock on the Horizon, that’s Point B, and when the Sun arises directly over Point B, that’s the longest day of the year. There’s no need to engage in any sort of backbreaking toil or construction whatever. 

If a society can afford to spend time and effort and money on secondary projects, say like in modern society various public art works compared to primary projects like roads (transport), schools (education) and hospitals (health care), then you have to conclude that that society was well off given that they could divert basic resources from primary projects to undertake projects of a secondary nature. Either that, or that which looks to us as relatively trivial or unimportant like Stonehenge or Carnac (Brittany, France) or those Easter Island statues or the Sphinx actually held a primary function incomprehensible to us but which rivalled in importance housing and insuring adequate food supplies and similar things vital to their day-to-day survival.

Issues Arising: Logistics

There’s also the logistics problem. You need a large workforce that had to be fed and clothed and housed and cared for, especially fed. There wasn’t exactly a nearby supermarket where endless supplies could be purchased. Further, while employed on these quarrying, transporting and construction projects the workers couldn’t be gainfully employed elsewhere to provide basics like hunting and gathering for food or even tending to domesticated livestock and agricultural crops. The workers couldn’t have been used for serving in the army, or any other useful and necessary task. All of this carving, transporting and construction were not just busy work designed to keep the rabble off the streets and out of trouble, and slave labour wasn’t usually in vogue either, contrary to many popular Hollywood images. Of course in the case of the Giza Sphinx, it was carved, but wasn’t transported, nor constructed per say. Still, the logistics in caving that massive stone statue from a rock outcrop would have been enormous, and the reason(s) for doing so of vast importance to the powers-that-be.

Issues Arising: Ways and Means: The How!

Though our focus and interest is often on the construction phase, as in how was that done, that’s usually just one-third of the hard yards. Take those 2.3 million blocks that make up the Great Pyramid at Giza. Phase One: each block had to be carved to size. You just didn’t hack out rocks at random and put them in place. That carving alone is hard yakka and helped keep up a state of full employment.  Hard yakka Phase Two was transporting those carved blocks from the various quarries – some local, some not – to action city, the Giza Plateau. More full employment. The how in Phase One and Two isn’t usually all that mysterious – just bloody hard backbreaking work. Anyway, back to the construction – Phase Three.

To me the major mystery is not so much how you get something from the horizontal to the vertical, like an obelisk, (that was demonstrated on the NOVA TV series “Secrets of Lost Empires”), but how you get a massive multi-ton stone block raised straight up, say 20 to 30 to 40 or more feet to act as a lintel, like those at Stonehenge or on all those Greco-Roman and Egyptian temples, like say the Parthenon. One can always conceive of building sand or dirt ramps to haul massive lintels upwards into place, hence removing the sand or dirt after-the-fact, but if you think about it, such infrastructure is a far more labour intensive and an all-round major project in its own right. For example, constructing a sand ramp to haul those multi-ton stone blocks for the Giza pyramids would require a greater volume of material to be put into place (and of course later removed) than that of the volume of material required to build the pyramid in question in the first place. Of course if the project is that important, and if there is just no other way – well there’s always those hard options.

To illustrate as an example of just how bad our knowledge of our remote ancient ancestors really is, here’s a trilogy of extracts from classical scholar Nigel Rodgers in his text “The Ancient Greek World: People and Places” (2010):

“[T]he Greeks relied on their intellectual powers and their remarkably skilled craftsmanship to erect their buildings. Few details survive of their actual building techniques, however.”

“Cranes were almost certainly used to help raise the masonry up to the temples during construction, although no traces of such machinery have been found.”

“How the Athenians assembled these temples, and indeed housed and fed the large, highly skilled workforce required to build them, so efficiently is unknown.” 

So, now let’s look at alternatives as offered in some alt-archaeological texts.  

To be continued…