THE PLAN OF SAINT-GALL AND THE CLOISTER.

Architectural model showing towers and transept of the 9th-century Benedictine Monastery at Saint-Gallen, Switzerland.

The Carolingians translated the framework for monastic life envisioned by St. Benedict into architectural form in the ninth century. With the same view toward uniformity that guided the reform of imperial administration, the development of a more legible script for copying the Bible, and the planning of architectural monuments, Charlemagne commanded all monasteries in his realm to adopt the Benedictine Rule and convened assemblies in Aachen in 816-817 to consider policies that directly affected the layout of the proposed structures. At about the same time, a large plan, drawn on five sheets of parchment and measuring about 44 by 30 inches, was sent to the abbot of Saint-Gall, apparently portraying an ideal scheme of what buildings a monastery should contain and how to arrange them. A model built from the plan shows the monastery's appearance. The multiplex, dominated by the large "double-ended" church, is organized in a series of concentric zones like an onion. Animal pens, industrial buildings employing secular artisans, guest quarters, and the school formed an outer ring. At the heart of the plan lay the cloister, the focus of monastic life. With a fountain at its center, the square courtyard was surrounded by covered and arcaded walkways that provided sheltered circulation between the primary spaces of monastic activity: church, dormitory, refectory (dining hall), cellar, and scriptorium (book production center). Chapter rooms, for general meetings, became standard features in Cistercian abbeys and were always located in the east gallery of the cloister under the dormitory. They were the most important structure of a monastery, after the church, and served as places where the monks assembled after morning Mass to receive spiritual advice or discipline from the abbot, read chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict, and discuss the internal affairs of the community. Because the new orders of the Franciscan and Dominican friars established themselves in cities during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and were not cloistered, they did not need the large cellars, barns, animal pens, and industrial buildings required by monks living in remote rural areas. Further, each Franciscan or Dominican friar lived in his own small cell in the convent-as the houses of friars were called- rather than together in a dormitory. Nevertheless, despite these additions and modifications, the scheme created in the ninth century and represented by the Saint-Gall plan remained the essential template for the cloister for the rest of the Middle Ages.

From mythological approaches to independent geological expertise

In former times, things used to be very different, and for most of human history the observation of geological phenomena and the acquisition of geological expertise was intimately connected with religious ideas. Earthquakes and volcanoes, towering mountains and conspicuous rock formations, fossils and ore veins were regarded either as due to direct divine action and intervention or as manifestations of the divine itself (Mazadiego et al.; Barbaro). It was God (or Gods), who had created the Earth as ‘home’ for humans, providing the necessary resources (animals and plants, but also water, rocks and metals), or who might be suspected to exert punishment on sinners by means of natural disasters (Kölbl-Ebert 2005; Udias on earthquakes). Although accepting flint and pyrite in prehistoric time, or later copper and other ores, to be gifts of divine providence (Norris) is some sort of explanation for their existence, that assumption was clearly not sufficient to enable adequate strategies for the search for new deposits to be devised. Observational skills and arrangement of observations according to rules and guidelines (involving the formulation of theories) were required, and eventually such knowledge was accumulated and became part of the craft knowledge of miners. 

Also, from an intellectual point of view, invoking divine action as a general and all-fitting explanation of phenomena was unsatisfying for an intellectual, and even for the devout theist who would like to know how God ‘did it’. After all, curiosity is a decidedly human trait. For this more theoretical part of ‘geological expertise’, the late Medieval and Renaissance intellectual world turned to the remnants of much older knowledge, that of the antiquity, which apparently had been a golden, better and much more knowledgeable age, judging from the ruins that were still around. Why not trust the explanatory power and authority of ancient texts (including the Bible) that had been produced by these obviously advanced civilizations? 

This intimate link between early geo-theory and Christian philosophy proved to be very fruitful for some time, because the Christian tradition of visualizing the history of humans on Earth from the creation, via global revolutions such as the biblical Flood up to historical times (Rudwick 1992; Magruder) and the Judaeo-Christian sense of a finite Earth history (Rudwick; see also Rudwick 2005) prepared the ground for accepting the Earth’s different strata as testimony to the development of our globe through time. It was this religious, theological framework from which the early geology started to evolve, and that provided the tools used in popularization of the new science of the seventeenth century. It is understandable why, for example, geological phenomena such as erratic blocks and other debris covering much of Europe were initially seen as a consequence of events mentioned in the Bible and other ancient texts. However, with increasing observations there was a growing mismatch between what was expected according to ancient authorities (Godard; Luzzini) and the actual data. This was not necessarily a problem, since influential theologians, such as Augustine of Hippo (AD 354– 430) or the medieval theological scholar Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), knew that biblical texts needed to be interpreted and that adopting a naive literal reading might do more harm than good to the Christian faith:

In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false,2 lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing (Aquinas 1273, 1st part, question 68).

Subsequently, attempts to reconcile the growing timescale of geology with biblical chronology became widespread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most popular, apart from more metaphorical interpretations of the biblical creation stories, were possibly the ‘gap theory’ (or ‘chaos/ restitution theory’3), claiming an indefinitely long time span between Genesis 1: 1–2 or 2–3 and the ‘day–age theory’ (or concordance theory), which interpreted the days of biblical creation as seven long eras, which might be equated with different geological formations (see Roberts, on Sedgwick).

Galilee

The vast majority of Bible narratives occur in the hills, from the Galilee in the north, down through Samaria to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. “There is some rainfall (above 24 in.). The nights are cool in summer, cold in winter, when frost and snow are unusual but not unknown” (George Cansdale 1970, 27). The forests that once covered these hills are mentioned in stories of David. His son Absalom was killed in a forest, when his long hair caught on the branches of the trees. At one time, the region was alive with wild animals, which found plenty of grazing land, as well as fruits and nuts from the variety of trees.

The rock formations in the sandstone provide many holes and clefts that have served as homes to humans and beasts throughout the centuries. This was an excellent hiding place for David when he was fleeing Saul, and it was later used to shelter the Zealots and outlaws in Jesus’s day.

Galilee, the home of Jesus and his disciples, is north of the Plain of Esdraelon. The upland ranges of the hills here “stretch away northward, gradually rising as they come nearer to the high mountains of Lebanon. They rise in a series of steps, with scarp edges, facing generally south or south-east. The lower steps in the ‘staircase’ were and are fertile basin lands, separated from each other by barren limestone edges. In the time of Jesus, these basins were known for their grain, fruit and olives. They formed a prosperous, well-populated area. But the higher steps rise to a bleak and windswept upland. This is isolated and infertile, and lacks the forests of the higher mountain slopes farther north” (Pat Alexander, Eerdman ’ s Family Encyclopedia of the Bible, 6–7). This was sometimes divided into the Lower and Upper Galilee, with the northern section often under foreign control.

Galilee was a busy region, crossed by the great trade routes, bringing many strangers with news of the outside world; a mixed community with fishermen casting their nets on the Sea of Galilee and farmers tilling the soil of their fertile farmlands. It was full of people who were more racially mixed than in the Jerusalem region, and considered hayseeds by these city-dwellers.

Mysterious Book: Codex Gigas

A huge mysterious medieval book, penned by a Benedictine monk on animal skin with bizarre devilish illustration and incantation. But who has the missing pages, and why?

Codex Gigas – literally translated means “Giant Book”, photograph below, with a box of matches resting on it, gives an idea of the scale of the almost metre long text, it takes two people to lift it, which makes it the largest medieval manuscript in the world.

The book can be found in the National library in Stockholm – it has 600 pages – all made from animal (donkey) skin, the front and back page have been constructed from leather bound wood, adorned with carved metal.

In terms of intrinsic value, when the book was last moved, it was insured for over £ 15 million.

Author of the Codex Gigas

The book was thought to have been in the early 13th century in the Bohemian Benedictine monastery near Chrudim – in the Czech Republic.  The identity of the author remains a mystery.  Handwriting tests however, reveal that the entire book has a consistency of lettering and illustration which confirm that one single author – showing no signs of fatigue or even mood change (which is unusual) wrote/drew the entire main body of text.

Contents of the Codex Gigas


The book is written in Latin and contains a full version of both the Old and New Testaments (Excluding the Book of Acts and Revelation).

Along-side the bible, is a transcript of Isodore of Seville’e encyclopaedia “Etymologiae”– a summary of universal knowledge which contained some ground-breaking (but not widely accepted) information – including his idea that the world was a round, rather than a flat disc.



The book also contains a copy of the “Antiquities of the Jews” and “The Jewish Wars” – originally written by Flavius Josephus in around 93AD – and is a slightly amended version of the Hebrew Bible Books.
There is a copy of the “Chronicle of Bohemia” written by the Cosmas of Prague, who was a Bohemian Priest who lived between 1045BC and 1125BC




Along with these texts were lists of people and dates, a calendar and inserts by various owners of the book.
Mystery and Legend

The legend surrounding the Codex is that one of the monks from the Bohemian Benedictine Monastery had committed a terrible sin and was facing the ultimate punishment from the monastery...... to be walled up alive in is cell. To redeem himself from a terrible slow death, the monk offered a deal to the monastery leaders.....if he were to write the biggest book that the world had ever seen, in one single night, then he should be allowed to live.

The deal was agreed and the monk set to work, at about midnight, the monk realised that he could not achieve his goal, and in desperation, he summoned the devil to assist him, the devil agreed and the monk included an illustration of the devil within the codex in appreciation.

The largest book the world had ever seen was completed in one night and the monk was allowed to live, however, the legend reveals that the monks life thereafter was plagued with misfortune and unhappiness.
It is also worthy of note that seven (or eight according to some sources) of the pages of the book are missing, removed to retain an ancient secret.

Many texts reveal that the Codex Gigas is reputed to be cursed and bring death or great misfortune to those who own it (let us hope that the National library in Stockholm carries a good insurance policy).

Depictions of Heaven and Hell: "The Devil's Bible"

 

It is mainly because of the illustration, pictured above, that Codex Gigas was given the name – “The Devils Bible”.  Preceding the image of the beast is a “conjuration” – a spell which when uttered can enable the speaker to command spirits, demonic entities.

The horned beast is shown crouching in a void between two towers, two serpents (forked tongue) emerging from his mouth, wearing a loincloth of ermine – a fabric traditionally worn by royalty.....he is therefore referred to as...“the Prince of Darkness”

Like most people, when I hear/see “two towers”, the tragic, evil event of the demolition of the world trade centre twin towers springs to mind – the famous photograph above is of one of the many evil, devilish faces which appeared and were photographed in smoke billowing from the burning buildings prior to the collapse......perhaps a supernatural apparition summoned by an evil act...hell on earth.




On the opposite page to the devil is a depiction of heaven, the heavenly city – not an image of clouds and angels, but is shown as two towers, with ten tiers in-between, indicative of levels of spiritual ascent leading up to heaven.

This image is reminiscent of that found on the unusual carvings on a set of seven ancient megaliths found in Axum, Ethiopia – erected approximately 2000 years ago.  I wrote about these in an article - Five Mysterious Ancient Megalithswhere their appearance was described as that of a modern tiered tower-block, (which seemed odd and unlikely) however, a tiered heavenly city, akin to the illustration in the Codex Gigas (both depicting ten tiers) would be a far more logical explanation of the rational for these ancient monuments – but one that I could not find in any text regarding the Axum site.

The “Jacobs ladder ” imagery is derived from the Old Testament – Genesis 28:11-19

“Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!”



The concept of a tower reaching towards heaven could also have relevance in respect of the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel - the tower being a metaphor for an unknown method of raising the individual to a heavenly plane.
Genesis 11:4

“And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach into heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole Earth”

The Codex Gigas is certainly an interesting and intriguing book but the title – “The Devils Bible” conjures up ideas of an occult, unholy book - this seems very unfair based purely upon the odd illustration and incantations (after all, many modern priests are involved in exorcisms) – when in fact the illustrations could have deep spiritual significance.

There are many ways to view the illustrations....If you view the void between the two towers as the human mind or soul, when it is empty and devoid of any attempt of spiritual attainment, evil may reside, however, with spiritual achievement, and positive human experience, the soul can be raised up to a heavenly plane.
Equally, the tiers may represent human society, rather than the individual, and the ascent could represent the advancement of human knowledge, technology, collective spirituality or even physiological and cognitive evolution – eventually achieving a heavenly plane on earth. Unfortunately, if this is the case, perhaps the photograph of the demon in the smoke of the twin towers more accurately reflects where our society is headed (being led).

The Exodus

Was Ramses the Great pharaoh of the Exodus? The biblical Exodus of the Jews from Egypt is generally thought to date from the reign of Ramses II, though no such episode appears in Egyptian records or is linked to the expulsion of the Hyksos by Ahmose.

The Exodus was the great deliverance extended to the Israelites “ . . . on the very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts,” Exodus 12:51.

“There is no surviving Egyptian source that described the Exodus. This is not surprising,” commented Nicolas Grimal, “given that the Egyptians had no reason to attach any importance to the Hebrews.”

Documents place the people known as Apiru in Egyptian records at the time of Tuthmose III. During Ramses’ reign, the Apiru were employed in the transportation of stone listed in Leiden Papyrus 348; they were further mentioned in Papyrus Harris I. As brick makers they were mentioned in the neighborhood of the royal harem at Medinet el-  Ghurob in the Fayum. In the reign of Ramses IV, about 800 worked in the quarries of Wadi Hammamat.

“One document that could provide evidence of a newly formed kingdom of Israel is a stele, dated to the fifth year of Merneptah’s reign,” as told in New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. “Here the name Israel appears (KRI IV, 12–19). There are two further historical records: the journey of the Chosen People in the desert, which lasted forty years, and the capture of Jericho, which occurred after the death of Moses. The fall of Jericho sets the day of 1250 b.c. So the Exodus may have taken place in the early part of the thirteenth century b.c.”

Various scholars have placed Moses in close relationship with Pharaoh Ramses II and as the son of Queen Hatshepsut, who later assumed the Egyptian throne. Moses received his Egyptian education (Acts 7:22) to represent his community in the government. His education at the court (Exodus 2:10– 11) may be interpreted as he benefited from the education provided to future Egyptian state employees. Thus, he would have been with his own people during the reign of Sethos I, the time fortifications were built in the eastern delta and foundations were built for the future city of Piramses (Exodus 1:11). “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens; and they built for Pharaoh store-  cities, Pithom and Raam’ses.”

“It is often speculated that Jewish captives worked on the construction of Piramses,” wrote Bernadette Menu. Was this biblical spelling meant to be Piramses? Moses’s murder of the guard, his flight to the land of Midian, his marriage, his acceptance of God’s revelation, the encounter with the Burning Bush, and his return to Egypt take the dates to the first years of Ramses II’s reign. The book of Exodus has lengthy descriptive dialogue between Moses and a pharaoh. If one is to set aside the Old Testament’s chronological dates, the Exodus could be placed around 1290 b.c. rather than 1441 b.c. This would suggest the pharaoh of the Exodus was Ramses II.

Biblical Unicorns

One Bible-related legend contends that the unicorn was too high-spirited to ride on Noah’s ark with the other animals and that is how it became extinct. “The Unicorn,” a popular 1967 song by the Irish Rovers with lyrics by Shel Silverstein, insisted the unicorns were too busy playing to make it onto the ark. Some scholars think that the word unicorn in verses such as Psalm 92:10: (“But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn; I shall be anointed with fresh oil”), was a mistranslation. The original Hebrew word re’em actually meant some type of unknown animal, but was mistakenly read as “one-horned.” Inspired by no fewer than seven verses about unicorns in the Old Testament, medieval Christians began to portray it in their tapestries and paintings. The unicorn came to signify Jesus Christ. Artists usually showed it as a pure white horse or goat with a long, straight spiraling horn projecting straight out from the forehead, similar to today’s standard version. But there is a reason that the unicorn’s horn, once always shown as thick and curved like a rhino’s, became long, straight, and spiraled.

Fragment of world's oldest bible 'discovered in Egyptian monastery'

The Codex Sinaiticus, which appears to date from about AD350, is handwritten in Greek on animal skin and is the earliest known version of the Bible.

By Andrew Hough

A fragment of the world's oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, has been uncovered hidden underneath the binding of an 18th-century book in an Egyptian monastery. 

The discovery was made by a British-based Greek academic, Nikolas Sarris, who is studying for his PhD in Britain, after he noticed a previously unseen section of the bible.
The 30 year-old student conservator, who has been involved in the British library’s project to digitise the Codex, said he almost instantly noticed the distinct Greek lettering as he was recently researching in the library of St Catherine's Monastery in Egypt.

The Codex Sinaiticus, which appears to date from about AD350, is handwritten in Greek on animal skin and is the earliest known version of the Bible.

Leaves from the tome are divided between four institutions, including St Catherine's Monastery and the British Library, which has the largest section of the ancient Bible since the Soviet Union sold its collection to Britain in 1933.
Last year The British Library put The Book of Psalms and St Mark's Gospel online, and now the remaining pages have been made free for public use for the first time.

Along with the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus is considered the oldest known Bible in the world.

Originally more than 1,460 pages long and measuring 16in by 14in, it was written by a number of hands around the time of Constantine the Great.

Mr Sarris said it was an exciting moment when he realised what he had discovered.

“Although it is not my area of expertise, I had helped with the online project so the Codex had been heavily imprinted in my memory,” he told said from the Greek island of Patmos.

“I began checking the height of the letters and the columns and quickly realised we were looking at an unseen part of the Codex.”

Mr Sarris said he then emailed Father Justin, the monastery's librarian, to suggest a closer look at the book binding.

"Even if there is a one-in-a-million possibility that it could be a Sinaiticus fragment that has escaped our attention, I thought it would be best to say it rather than dismiss it,” he told The Independent.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Father Justin said the monastery would use scanners to look more closely at how much of the fragment existed under the newer book binding.

"Modern technology should allow us to examine the binding in a non-invasive manner," he said.

 

 

THE LOST MINES OF THE GODS

The claim by Sitchin that the area of Lake Titicaca was set up as a major metallurgy center is quite an extraordinary piece of detective work and the supporting evidence is astounding. Again the conclusion that the entire complex was set up as part of a major control center to deal with matters of travel and supply is further hinted at by the depiction on the Mayan stele of the figure bearing the ‘Star of David’ symbol on his ear-ring.

The Star of David symbol is extraordinarily similar to an earlier Sumerian emblem which is quite likely the original precursor to the Jewish symbol. The Sumerian symbol, which signifies a ‘Supreme Place of the Four Regions’, has also been found at many ancient trade centers in the Persian Gulf area such as the ancient Sumerian city of Ur.Shulim, (the modern Jerusalem,) at Uruk (the Biblical Erech) and at other places that are all thought to have been vital control centers of the Sumerians that dealt with matters of travel and supplies. Plus there further evidence to support the conclusion that the site was indeed used for the refining of metals.

The mountain on which Tiahuanaco is situated is itself also extremely rich in tin bearing ores. Tin of course is not a naturally accessible metal like gold and must be smelted and extracted by various chemical processes and then mixed with a required percentage of copper to produce bronze, it’s not just a straightforward and simple procedure. The ancient bronze clamps that are still evident on many stone slabs are intriguing because only minimal supplies of copper with which they could have been made are available anywhere near the location of Cuzco. In startling contrast to this lack of a local copper source, many of the river rocks on the shore of Lake Titicaca, especially near the remains of ancient docks and port facilities at Puma Punka, are stained a deep bluish green.

What causes rocks to turn a bluish green?

The only thing that can cause such a reaction is prolonged exposure to copper – end of list. It’s similar to the way rocks rich in iron turn red as the iron oxidizes with the water, rocks rich in copper turn a bluish green. Yet the rocks at Lake Titicaca contain no copper! It therefore stands to reason that there was once a good deal of copper brought into Cuzco via the Puma Punka port facility. Then of course we need to ask why would all this copper have been brought in if not to mix with the abundant source of tin that already existed there in order to make bronze? It would certainly seem more reasonable than taking the ore bearing tin to the source of the copper. The manufacture of bronze at the site is further confirmed from the presence of the bronze clamps.

When considering this shoreline of greenish rocks on Lake Titicaca high in the Andes and the possibilities of an ancient metallurgy facility founded by the Gods and the descendents of Cain, there are also some comments made in an enigmatic passage in the Bible to consider in which such distant and remote mines and even the forgotten descendents of Cain seem to be suggested. The passage occurs when Job is talking to Yahweh complaining about all of the trials and tribulations heaped upon him and Yahweh says to Job:

Surely, there is a source for silver

A place where gold is refined

Where copper is obtained from ores

And iron is smelted out of stones

To darkness He puts an end

The usefulness he researches

Of stones in depths and obscurity

He breaches the brook away from Habitation

Where the forgotten and strange men move about

There is a land from which the ingots come

Whose underground is upheavaled as with fire

A place where the blue-green stones are

That has the ores of gold

Even a vulture knows not the way thereto

And a falcons eye has not discerned it

There He set His hand to the granite

He overturned the mountains at their roots

He cut galleries through the rocks

And all that his precious eyes had seen

He damned up the sources of the streams

And that which is hidden He brought to light

These Biblical verses coupled with ancient Sumerian texts, significant geological evidence, local legends and the substantial genetic differences to be found in the races native to the Americas provides a strong case that the South American civilization was indeed established by the lost tribes of Israel and possibly even the son of Cain himself.

THE GREAT FLOOD - SONS OF NOAH

Maker unknown; from a Dutch Bible [seventeenth century]
Smith Collection, University of Southern Maine
This Bible map encompasses a large region of the Near East, from Cilicia and Egypt in the east to Assyria and Nod in the West. It is designed to illustrate the account of the Great Flood in the third chapter of Genesis and the subsequent repopulation of the world by the three sons of Noah. The anti-Papal iconography at the top marks this as being from a Protestant Bible.

THE CENTRAL AMERICAN MYSTERY

Artist’s conception of James O’Kon’s Mayan bridge

BY WILL HART

What Could Explain the Failure of Mainstream Science to Unravel the Origins of Meso America’s Advanced Ancient Cultures?

It has been 23 years yet I remember the morning like it was yesterday. A mist shrouded the jungle above the Temple of the Inscriptions. A series of roaring sounds suddenly split the silence as a band of Howler monkeys made their way through the trees. It startled me, I thought it might be a jaguar, but the cacophony added to the sense of mystery.

My head was exploding. By the time I had reached Palenque we had already visited dozens of archaeological sites from the northernmost down to the Yucatan Peninsula and Quintana Roo. I was steeped in questions and mysteries. Several things had become clear to me: the cultures that built the pyramids and other buildings had been advanced in the arts and sciences. I had seen many beautiful things as well as mind-tugging enigmas.

The Olmec civilization surprised me the most. I had read about the Maya and knew of the Aztecs but I was unprepared for what I found in Villahermosa: Large stone heads with Negroid features and stone Stele carved with depictions of curious ambassadors. The figures clearly were not from any Mexican culture.

These artifacts were more than just a fascinating puzzle; they represented a headache for science. They were an anomaly. Who carved the heads? Who created the Stele? Where did they get the models for these heads and figures? These were questions that arose because of the way scientists have reconstructed the human history of Mesoamerica. Africans don’t fit and neither do the cloaked Caucasian figures carved on the Stele. They shouldn’t be there; however, they are surely there.

Scientists do not claim to have solved this enigma. Anthropologists and archaeologists admit they do not know much of anything about Olmec culture. So we don’t know the ethnic group or the language and nothing of their social organization, beliefs or traditions. No one has any idea of why they carved the helmeted heads and then buried them. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. We don’t usually bury monuments if that is what they were.

The only records we have are the monuments they left behind, which are impressive. But how do we understand them? Where do they fit into the mosaic of human history? There are no direct clues in Mexico. The Olmecs didn’t leave us any written records. However, we do have a clue.

The Bible is an extremely important document. It doesn’t matter whether you are a believer or not. It contains a very ancient accounting of human history compiled from a variety of early sources. At least this is true of Genesis. But it is not always easy to decode. Do we find any reference in the Bible that might help us solve the Olmec enigma?

Turning to Genesis chapter 11 we read “Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.” This indicates that there was a period in man’s history when there was a global human civilization. We learn that during that epoch men wanted to build a tower: “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven; and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

The fact that the Olmec civilization presents science with an anomaly indicates something quite profound: the data does not fit the current model. Scientists can’t change the observable data, it is as hard as data can get. But they could change the model to conform to the data. There is the rub. Anthropologists and archaeologists have a huge investment in that model, an intellectual edifice that has been built up over generations.

Scientists would rather ignore the tough questions and leave the Olmecs alone in the dim mists of forgotten antiquity. That is not a very scientific approach. Where is the pursuit of truth? What happened to the scientific method? It is just not acceptable. Why? Some ancient society built the huge mound; dragged the basalt heads about 60 miles from the quarry to the burial site; those heads weighed from 5 to 25 tons; and they also carved the figures into the stele. They wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble unless the people the monuments represented were important to them. It is a logical assumption to make and we can only hope that scientists in the distant future will reach the same conclusion when they study Mount Rushmore.

Since we have the artifacts we know that there has to be an explanation for who the builders were. As with any mystery you search for clues. You begin in the most likely places and work your way down the list: Mexico. The problem is that the Olmecs disappeared from the scene long before Cortez arrived. None of the cultures contemporary with the Aztecs made any references to the Olmecs; they seemed to know nothing. No other Negroid heads have been found in Mesoamerica. Another curious fact is that the developmental period that must have preceded the mound building and head carving is nowhere to be found.

The Olmecs just suddenly appeared then disappeared!

It took me years of investigation to finally realize that the most probable answer was in the Bible and that was about the last place I thought to look. Did the Olmecs come from outer space as some researchers have proposed? Not necessarily. For one thing there is no evidence to support that theory. Secondly, the Negroid heads and the people depicted on the stele are obviously human.

The idea that there was a global civilization in ancient times does not conform to the current model of science. However, it is corroborated by the reference in the Bible. The problem with the scientific model is that it can’t explain the available data and that is a serious issue that has many consequences. If the problem was limited to the Olmec civilization we might just let it go. But there are artifacts in Egypt, South America and other parts of Mexico that also don’t fit the orthodox scheme.

Scientists have often shown a willful blindness regarding artifacts and developments that they can’t explain using their belief system. Worse, they have either ignored key questions or discredited the facts. Many other hard facts, the remains of lost civilizations, and the cultural records of numerous peoples corroborate the Olmec enigma and the Bible.

References to the cataclysmic flood occur in 230 different cultures. Mayan history includes the story of how they came from a land to the east that had been destroyed. The historian Herodutus’ recounted of the tale of lost Atlantis. These accounts may sound like romantic myths spun out of early imaginations, however, when you stand at an ancient site surrounded by strange ruins…you begin to wonder if they just might have more than a grain of truth.

I climbed the steps of the Temple of Inscriptions and visited the tomb of Pacal. Then I decided to take a long trip down to the Rio Usamacinta to Bonampak and Yaxchilan. It was 100 miles of bad dirt road, heavily rutted in places. It finally became so muddy that we mired the van up to the axles. We had nearly reached the destination. Bonampak was a short walk.

I visited Bonampak. My next destination was Yaxchilan, a ruin secreted in the jungle about 8 miles from Bonampak. I decided to try and hack my way there with a machete against the advice of the natives who had warned me: “La selva is cerrado!” They were right. I gave up after a grueling four-hour stint that netted less than a quarter mile mostly on my belly trying to avoid razor-sharp thorn shrubs. The insects were ravaging my body.

Yaxchilan is situated on the river and it was alleged to be the center of the flourishing Mayan civilization in this region. In Feb. 1989, James O’Kon did manage to make it to the site. Archaeologists had been studying it for a century. A particular mound of rocks caught O’Kon’s trained eye. Scientists had dismissed it as a minor mystery but the amateur archaeologist was also a forensic engineer and he immediately knew what it really was: part of a bridge.

He turned to modern technology to help prove a bridge once existed at the site. O’Kon, a former chairman of the forensic council of the American Society of Civil Engineers, had used similar techniques during investigations. He compiled field information at the Mayan site and used computers to integrate archaeological studies, aerial photos and maps to develop a three-dimensional model of the site and determine the exact positioning and dimensions of the bridge.

O’Kon ended up making a startling discovery: The Mayans had constructed the longest bridge span in the ancient world. When he finished calculations and computer models, the bridge turned out to be a 600-foot span, a hemp rope suspension structure with two piers and three spans. It connected Yaxchilan in Mexico with its agricultural domain in the Peten, now Guatemala and where Tikal is situated.

What archaeologists had assumed was an insignificant rock pile turned out to be part of a crucial finding, a pier 12 feet high and 35 feet in diameter. Aerial photos located a second support pier on the opposite side of the river. Both piers were constructed of cast-in-place concrete and an exterior of stone masonry. That is exactly how the Mayan pyramids were made.

In interviews O’Kon, who has been studying the ancient Maya for 30 years, said, “the Mayas were very sophisticated mathematically and scientifically.” He claimed the design requirements of the Mayan bridge parallel 20th century bridge-design criteria.

Today we marvel at the ruins and speculate on how and why they built the ceremonial sites. We shouldn’t forget that the Maya were an advanced race. They understood astronomy. They had an accurate calendar. They invented the concept of zero at least 700 years before Europe. They built paved roads, and as we have recently learned, the longest suspension bridge in the ancient world.

What occurred to me while standing atop another pyramid at Coba in Quintana Roo surveying a trackless jungle was the fact that the Maya had achieved all this in a jungle. No other advanced civilization I could think of had emerged from a jungle environment. It deepens the mystery of this lost race.

The sacbe are a system of roads that interconnect the sites. This is another feature that has long puzzled scientists and independent investigators alike. The roads were built up with rocks, leveled and paved over with limestone cement. They vary in width from 8 feet up to 30 feet. The mystery is simple: Why would a ‘stone age’ people without wheeled vehicles or dray animals need such an elaborate and sophisticated road network?

O’Kon turned his attention to the sacbe after finishing his work on the bridge. In a long rambling interview he told the author that he had found the 60-mile road that extended from Coba to Yaxuna was as straight as an arrow with a negligible deviation. His studies have revealed the Maya were not ‘stone age;’ he refers to them as “technolithic.” They didn’t use iron because the nearest mines were 1,500 miles away. O’Kon claims, “They used jade tools and they were harder than steel.”

You almost have to stand at a site and image the scene as it was during the peak of Mayan civilization to really grasp the magnitude and appreciate what this culture achieved. Today we see ruins and jungle. Pyramids that are little more than bare stone. Crumbling buildings surrounded by wilderness. However, in that day the pyramids were coated with stucco. They were smooth and they gleamed in the sun. The walls of the structures were painted with various designs using bright colors. The courtyards were paved. The flat white roads radiated out in all directions connecting the centers together.

Despite their advanced knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and their achievements in art and architecture, scientists still consider them a ‘stone age’ culture.

Time is the essence of life. Human beings have always been immersed in it, keeping track of it in one way or another, measuring it as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and millennia. We know of many of its dimensions and we have used them to our advantage. We know, supposedly, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth; how long it takes for various radioactive isotopes to decay; when our early hominid ancestors branched off from apes; the layout of the human genome; the exact dates of lunar and solar eclipses long into the future.

Time causes all living things to grow old and die. It seems so obvious and ubiquitous, we are like fish and time is water. We never ask the basic question: What is it? Do we understand it? Is it more than a system of measurement, whether of the present moment or of the age of the universe?

All cultures certainly have a focus on time; however, the Maya had an obsession with it.

They tracked and measured the synodic period of Venus, which is 584 earth days. The 365-day Mayan calendar year was more precisely than the Gregorian calendar. They devised three different calendrical systems: the tzolkin (sacred calendar), the haab (civil calendar), and the long count.

The tzolkin is a cycle of 260 days (13 months of 20 days each) and the haab is the solar cycle. These two calendars were combined in an interlocking fashion to produce a cycle of 18,980 days, which was known as a calendar round. That is about 52 years.

Each day had a particular glyph and meaning ascribed to it and at the end of the 52-year cycle they had a renewal ceremony. The long count period lasted for about 5000 years. This was equivalent to an age. According to the Maya, humanity is in the 5th Sun or age. That will end about 5000 years from the beginning of their calendar, which started in 3011 BC and expires on 2012.

The longest cycle in Mayan cosmology is 26,000 years, which corresponds to the precession of the equinox. Why did the Maya have such a fascination with astronomy? Why did they create such an intricate calendrical system? Would a ‘stone age’ agrarian society need all this advanced astronomical and mathematical knowledge? How did they acquire it in such a short time? How would they have any awareness of such a complex phenomena as the synodic length of Venus or the precession of the equinoxes?

They are either more ancient than science allows or they had more sophisticated technology than we know of or someone passed the knowledge down to them. Is it coincidental that the beginning of the 5th age was 3000 BC, which corresponds to the birth of the Jewish and Chinese calendars? The assertion that the “world” is only 5000 years old may have more truth to it than we know. Is it also a coincidence that so many Christians believe we are in the end times?

The Mayan obsession with time may have been based on a deep awareness of how it functions on a cosmic scale and then unfolds on earth in short and long-term cycles. That may be the message that the lost civilizations have been trying to deliver to us and we may just be starting to get it.