EARTHQUEST NEWS ____________________________________________________________________________ _____________ A Newsletter from Andrew Collins. Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 2000 Spring is well and truly upon us and it is time for me to let you know what�s happening in my curious world. This year�s Questing Conference, scheduled to take place at the Institute of Education, Bedford Way, off Russell Square, London WC1 on Saturday, 14 October is set to be the best ever. The most recent addition to the list of speakers is Michael Cremo, the author of the breath-taking book FORBIDDEN ARCHAEOLOGY. He will argue the case for the presence on earth of humanity many millions of years before the date accepted by palaeontologists. He will present astounding evidence of how the discovery of human remains and fashioned artefacts in different geological strata on every continent has been systematically ignored and suppressed by Darwinian scientists. All I can say is that I saw him present this important lecture recently at the San Marino conference, which took place on 25/26 March, and, let me tell you, it is not to be missed by anyone. For example, there is the case of the many flint tools found by nineteenth-century gold miners tunnelling through solid rock inside Tuolumne Table Mountain, California. These priceless artefacts were recorded in 1880 in a book entitled THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA, penned by California�s state geologist Dr J. D. Whitney. The problem here is that the rock strata in question belonged to the Eocene epoch, which corresponds to a time-frame between 65 and 38 millions years ago. Then there is the case of the fossilised footprints of modern man uncovered in 1979 at a site near Laetoli in Tanzania by respected paleontologist Mary Leakey, the mother of Richard Leakey. The rock layer in question was 3.7 million, the date given for the oldest known hominid, or ancestor of modern man. Yet this so-called Australopithecus had toes one and half times larger than our own and big toes that turned outwards at an angle. In no way could this hominid account for the footprints found by Mary Leakey. Michael recounts the plight of American geologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre who was called in to date stone artefacts and human remains found at two site excavations in Mexico - Hueyatlaco and El Horno. After careful consideration of the rock strata in question she concluded that the finds came from a layer corresponding to 250,000 years ago. Archaeologists only believe that ancient man entered the American continent from northeast Asia around 30,000 years ago. Not only was she ostracised for her statements, but the archaeologist in charge of excavations ignored her findings completely and instead claimed that the finds were just 20,000 years old based on a Carbon-14 date achieved several kilometres away! I could go on. There is so much you don�t know about, and we are not talking here about a few odd reports of weird artefacts being found by chance and reported in books by the likes of Erich von Daniken. There are literally hundreds of well-attested cases where out-of-place artefacts have been found in geological strata they simply should not have been in. Archaeologists and paleontologists dismiss all such claims, and say that any genuine cases where artefacts or human remains have been found at a level deeper than they should be is as a result of intrusive burial. This is where holes are dug to bury the dead and then, when they are discovered in modern times, it is assumed that the remains date to the age of the strata in which they are found. Yet Michael Cremo can show that there are well-attested cases of human remains being found in strata beneath hundreds of metres of solid rock! Anyway, hear these and many other fascinating stories when Michael Cremo delivers his lecture at the Questing Conference in October. The other speakers are as per the red flyer (which shows, by way of a backdrop, interments inside the Citadel, which houses the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan in Central Mexico as caught on camera by transoceanic specialist David Eccott). The rest of the line up is COLIN WILSON on the age of civilisation; MICHAEL BAIGENT on lost civilisations, shamanism and the roots of Hermetica; VICTOR CLUBE on the origins of catastrophe myths; GRAHAM PHILLIPS on Egypt, the Early Church and the Marian Conspiracy; ANDREW COLLINS on the Feathered Serpents; MICHAEL CARMICHAEL on Egypt, Sacred Drugs and the Blue Water Lily; plus Special Guest from the United States noted archaeologist NEIL STEEDE on Giza, Mexico and the enigma of Tiahuanaco. You will recall from a previous EARTHQUEST NEWS that Neil Steede has been able to confirm archaeologist Arthur Posnansky�s early dating for the Kalasasaya palace court at Tiahuanaco, near Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia. Using hi-tech measuring equipment, Steede has been able to determine that the solstitial alignments over its eastern gate correspond to a date of between 9000 and 7000 BC, slightly later than Posnansky�s proposed 15,000 to 10,000 BC. Perhaps Neil is just trying to be necessarily conservative in his estimates. His findings do not necessarily mean that the structure dates to this early period only that the orientation of the court reflects this distant age (conventional dating places the construction of the city at around 2000 years ago, with the earliest occupation some 3,500 years ago). I look forward immensely to Neil�s lecture. Tickets for the Questing Conference are priced at �28 each. They are available from the PO Box using the reply coupon on the web site accompanying the flyer or via the Credit Card Hotline on 020.7405.2120. By the way, this hotline service is in fact Atlantis Bookshop in Museum St., London, so don�t be surprised when you hear them say this name. It is also my pleasure to announce that the conference is being sponsored by NEXUS magazine, who along with Atlantis Bookshop will have bookstalls on the day. ANTARCTICAN ANTIQUITY Look at any world map showing the migrational routes of early man and Antarctica is always avoided. Scholars will tell you that the ice-bound continent was never occupied due to its extreme weather conditions and inaccessibility. However, after many years of speculation about alleged structures and artefacts being found and hushed up on Antarctica (none of which are likely to be true, I might add) comes better news that ancient man did once inhabit the region. This information was given to me by Italian engineer and writer Flavio Barbiero following his lecture on Antarctica, Atlantis and a proposed pole shift following an impact event in around 9500 BC (although I would context this date, suggesting that the event occurred 8500 +/- 500 years) at San Marino. He tells me that the earliest possible evidence dates back to 1903. In that year the Swedish explorer Carl Larsen landed on Seymour Island, which lies in the Weddell Sea beyond the continent�s north-west coast. In an area of exposed land he is said to have come across various fossils, showing a prior warmer climate, as well as numerous small cylinders and balls of clay, which appeared to be of artificial construction. Flavio and his colleagues have been trying to follow up this story, with one of them even travelling to Sweden to interview Larsen�s descendents. Although the artefacts were destroyed when the family home was lost in a fire, copies of Larsen�s report, which includes an account of the discovery of the strange objects, has been found. I have requested a copy of this report and will follow up this story in due course. In addition to the strange cylinders and clay balls found on Seymour Island, it seems that sediment cores extracted by a Chilean research vessel from the sea-bottom beneath the ice off South Shetland Island, north of Antarctica, produced more evidence of a human presence in prehistoric times. In two separate cores flint tools of unquestionable human manufacture were found. How they might have come to be there is open to speculation. Yet the fact that they were found in cores taken from different locations suggests that there must be further evidence of human life so close to Antarctica. Once again, I will bring you further news of this story as and when it becomes available. When I began writing GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS it was my impression that Antarctica was Atlantis. However, after studying Plato�s story of Atlantis, preserved in the Timaeus and Critias I became convinced that this fabled island empire lay on the western Atlantic seaboard. I further pinned down the location to the Caribbean, Cuba in particular, with the sunken lands being the now drowned parts of the former Bahaman landmass and Cuba�s Bay of Bataban�. This was the theory I went with in the book. However, even at this time I realised that the picture was slightly more complex. Although I could not prove it, my colleague David Southwell and I had worked out that prior to 15,000 BC Antarctica might well have been inhabited. Sometime around this date an event occurred to displace its indigenous peoples northwards towards South America, where they created new cultures. Others went by sea to the Caribbean, where they went on to found the Atlantean culture. As mad as these thoughts might seem, this is almost exactly what Flavio Barbiero proposed in his lecture at San Marino. He believes that the Antarcticans arrived via the prevailing ocean currents from Island Southeast Asia around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. They settled in its north-west region, which at the time was still free of ice. Here they remained, he says, until 9500 BC when an impact event caused a sudden shift of the poles to their current position. Ice and rising waters from the melting of the old ice caps covered any evidence of their occupation. The Antarcticans, he proposes, migrated to different parts of the world including South America, the Caribbean, Africa, India, and even Egypt. We beg to differ on dates but I can handle virtually everything of what Flavio is proposing in this respect (read more on this subject in my review of the conference on Eden � the Andrew Collins web site at www.andrewcollins.net). Flavio Barbiero is seen in Italy as a respectable scholar. He is taken seriously! We have vowed to work together to sort out this mystery once and for all. As you might well know, the works of Charles Hapgood, the Flem-aths and Graham Hancock have all played with the idea that Antarctica might once have been the seat of a major lost civilisation. Yet it is as well to remember that the first scholar to propose that the earliest cultures of South America came from Antarctica was Arthur Posnansky, the archaeologist who worked so hard on Tiahuanaco. He concluded that its high culture came originally from the ice-bound continent as early as 15,000 BC and showed maps to this effect in his four-volume masterpiece on the ancient city. So is there any real evidence of an Antarctican influence in South America? UNSOLVED MYSTERIES One event that could well provide the answer is the DIE WELT DES UNERKL�RLICHEN: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES exhibition, scheduled to take place at the Design Center in Linz, Austria, between 22 June and 25 August next year. It will bring together for the first time out-of-place artefacts from all over the world. Key speakers are also being invited to deliver lectures at an opening seminar. Altogether over 150 items have been secured so far for the two month exhibition. They include various crystal skulls, gold models of aeroplanes from Peru, copies of reliefs of ancient `bulbs� from the Temple of Denderah in Egypt; carved stones from Ica, Peru, as well as some quite remarkable pieces from private collections in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. I have been invited to present a lecture at the opening seminar and have also seen photographs of some of the artefacts to go on display, and believe me you have just got see this lot. For instance, from Colombia there are black stone surgical instruments fashioned into strange amphibian like beasts with wavy blades, as well as strange carved disks with curious stars and beasts and unfathomable cups. These last mentioned items are fashioned from black stone. Yet incised, flush, into their surface are circular specks of a red stone. They seem to spiral towards a centre which is the only spot on the cup that it magnetic. Other similar vessels with strange designs also have inexplicable magnetic qualities. There is an eerie quality about some of these artefacts - something that just does not compute with the mindset of the ancient world. For example, the cult centre at Nevali �ori in southwest Turkey was constructed around 8000 BC. Yet its design resembles any place of worship built since that time, for it has four walls, is rectilinear in shape, has a flat floor, an entrance portal, niches, statues, and probably even an altar (as per neighbouring �ayonu). The same format is still being used in the design of churches, synagogues, shrines, temples and mosques today. Yet these items from South America fit no known design ideology found among pre-Columbian cultures, or any ancient world civilisation. There is a true mystery here and it is one that might lead us to better identify traces of a lost civilisation that may not have derived from the mindset of the ancient world. I will bring you more news on this fascinating event as and when I receive details. In the meantime visit their web site at www.unsolved-mysteries.net or go to Eden, my own web site, at www.andrewcollins.net which has a full report with pictures of some of the artefacts to be featured in the exhibition. ASHES CONFIRMATION Another key lecture given at the San Marino conference in March was that by Vittorio di Cesare, one of Italy�s top archaeologists. He started with an account of the Dead Sea Community at Qumr�n and the discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden by members of the community in caves in an attempt to preserve their history and teachings for future generations. Di Cesare then turned his attention to one scroll in particular. Known to Hebrew scholars as the Testament of Amram, it was written around 200 BC. He said it concerned two strange beings that appeared to Amram, the father of Moses. One was unnamed (although in my translation of the fragmentary text he is identified as Michael or Melchizedek), while the other was Belial, the teacher of the Children of Darkness. Amram is asked to choose between the two, who represent, respectively, the truth and the lie. This was a concept that came originally from the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. It entered the Jewish religion at the time of the Babylonian captivity following the conquest of Babylon in the mid sixth-century BC by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. Yet it was the appearance of Belial that di Cesare focused on. The being is said to have been dark with a viper-like face and blazing eyes. Serpents, he said, are universally associated with the principles of knowledge and wisdom. Di Cesare showed next a slide of one of the snake-headed clay figurines found with frequency by Sir Leonard Woolley alongside burials excavated during the 1920s at sites in Lower Iraq. Many, for instance, were found in cemeteries at Ur, the former great city identified by scholars as the biblical `Ur of the Chaldees�. Since the level at which these figurines was found corresponded to the time period in which Iraq was inhabited by the so-called Ubaid peoples, who came originally from the Zagros mountains of Kurdistan, it meant that they dated to c. 3500 BC (although di Cesare spoke of them as dating to 6500 BC). Di Cesare said that mystery surrounded the purpose of the statues, which showed males, females and females holding babies. He suggested that they were buried in order to protect the souls of the dead and to prevent the deceased from becoming victims of vampires, a common belief among the peoples of ancient Iraq. Di Cesare saw the Ubaid statues as representations of the same serpent-like figure featured in the Testament of Amram. He went on to propose that these beings were an actual race that lived in the Near East in prehistoric times and were responsible for providing the knowledge of civilisation. All these matters are dealt with in great detail within my own books FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS (1996) and GODS OF EDEN (1998). As you can imagine, I sensed what only can be described as a slight case of d�j� vu � the same feeling I experienced when reading Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas� book URIEL�S MACHINE. I listened carefully as di Cesare turned his attentions to the significance played by the abstract eye goddess statues found at a temple site called Tel Brak in northern Syria. These, he said, were yet another link to the serpent cult. Yet he failed to note that the veneration of the eye in the Near East derived from its associations with the vulture, the ultimate symbol of the Neolithic cult of the dead, which went hand-in-hand with serpentine symbolism. Di Cesare then showed slides of other `guardian� statues from Palestine, Syria and even Italy that bore a resemblance to the Ubaid figurines, suggesting that these were likewise connected with the same tradition. This is a matter I also deal with in FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS, published in Italy in 1997 under the title GLI ULTIMI DEI (�The Last Gods�) by Sperling and Kupfer. In here I point out that the beak-like faces of these statues, some of which have cobra hoods (and are thus representations of Astarte, the Canaanite form of Eve, the serpent mother of the Nephilim), derive from the earlier association between serpents and abstract vulture symbolism. Di Cesare went on to show a slide which featured a group of Mesopotamian figurines that he said were Anunnaki, the Sumerian pantheon of lesser gods. Like me, he too identified these beings with the strange figures featured in the Testament of Amram and the Ubaid serpent-faced figurines. The only topic he subsequently covered which is not in FROM THE ASHES OF ANGELS was the possible link between the serpent-like `guardians of knowledge�, as he referred to them, and the phallic standing stones found at many Canaanite and Phoenician sites in Syria and Lebanon (and generally considered to be symbols of the goddess Asherah). He concluded his lecture by saying that we have here evidence of a widespread cult which revered an ancient race, connected with the symbol of the serpent and the eye and thought to be the givers of ancient knowledge and wisdom. As soon as Vittorio di Cesare came off stage I asked him if he was aware of my own work on the same subject. From his reaction, this seemed not to be the case. So I offered to send him Italian translations of both works as quickly as possible (he has acknowledged receipt of them). Vittorio tells me that he is preparing a book on the subject to be entitled GODS OF FIRE. I have offered an introduction and wait intriguingly for new developments in this area. I am left with the prospect that one of Italy�s most eminent archaeologists has independently confirmed the existence of a previously unrecognised race connected with serpentine symbolism and the spread of ancient knowledge. As you will know, this shamanic ruling elite are to be associated with the Watchers of Enochian/Dead Sea literature (and through them the angels of Judeo-Christian tradition), the Ubaid statues of Lower Iraq, the eye goddesses of ancient Syria and the Anunnaki of Mesopotamian myth and legend. We must not forget, however, that some of these ideas, especially the human origin of the Watchers of Eden and the Anunnaki, were explored originally by Christian O�Brien in his landmark book GENIUS OF THE FEW, first published in 1985. Yet I believe I was the first writer to identify the Watchers as a shamanic ruling elite that controlled the spread of the Neolithic revolution and paved the way for the foundations of ancient world civilisation. Check out my web site which now includes an in depth article on the history and development of the Watchers of Eden. So until next time, Ciao for now. Andrew Collins PS. The UK hardback edition of GATEWAY TO ATLANTIS is now out of print with no reprint due (although some first editions are still available in shops � so snap them up!). The book will be available in the US, Italy, Holland and Portugal either later this year or in early 2001. GATEWAY is, however, still available in a large soft-cover format that was for UK export only. Copies of these are available using the reply coupon found on Eden � the Andrew Collins web site.
