HEAVEN’S MIRROR
Ancient monuments around the world exactly mirror the night sky.
Is it possible they reveal a common wisdom from a lost civilisation?
Revised March 1997
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HEAVEN’S MIRROR
INDEX
Executive Summary...…...... …...... …...... 3
Programme Summaries...... …...... ……5
Programme 1 - SACRED SCIENCE……………….…………..8
Programme 2 - ZEP TEPI: THE FIRST TIME….…....….……17
Programme 3 - ANCIENT MARINERS……...……...... …30
Schedule and Budget...... …...... …...... …….37
Production Team...... …..……….….38
Independent Image...... …...... ……..39
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HEAVEN’S MIRROR
Executive Summary
History tells us that civilisation began around 3,500 BC. But there is a growing body of evidence which suggests that an ancient civilisation, or civilisations, about which we know very little, pre-dated the Egyptians and Sumerians by many thousands of years. These were people who studied the heavens with precise instruments; they could apparently track the stars over millennia and replicate stellar constellations on the ground with machine-age accuracy. They could build colossal monuments using construction methods we cannot yet comprehend.
In very different parts of the world, evidence exists of a common legacy - shared by cultures separated by hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. From Mexico to Iceland, from Britain to China, we are finding a common astronomical wisdom handed down from a time before history, a time perhaps before the ‘Great Flood’. A common wisdom from a lost civilisation which might hold the key to our own identity on earth!
HEAVEN’S MIRROR is a personal quest for the answer - the culmination of eight years of painstaking research by writer Graham Hancock and photographer Santha Faiia. Hancock, the author of best selling Fingerprints of the Gods and The Keeper of Genesis (The Message of the Sphinx in the US) will present the series and write the accompanying book. Accompanied by Faiia, whose photographs have helped unravel the sky-ground symbolism found in so many of the world’s ancient monuments, and driven by a conviction that he is now on the verge of a major new discovery, Hancock presents a passionate and controversial argument about the origins of mankind’s knowledge.
Hancock is convinced there are irrefutable and uncanny links between the ancient myths and monuments scattered around the globe. They came from a time when science and religion were one. Now - thousands of years later - perhaps they can
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 3 offer us clues, even a solution, to who we are and why we’re here. Hancock’s ideas radically challenge orthodoxy, but they are not without support from eminent academics. With his journalistic eye for truth and enthusiastic approach, Hancock is joined by a colourful collection of scholars and experts in the disciplines of Astronomy, Egyptology, Engineering and related sciences. Eminent consultants and contributors include the distinguished Egyptologists, Dr Bob Bianchi and Jane Sellers; Dr Edwin Krupp, of the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, and Britain’s Dr Clive Ruggles, the world’s leading Archaeo-astronomers; Dr Phyllis Pitluga, of the Adler Planetarium, Chicago, and Undine Concannon, Director of the London Planetarium; Dr Jaromir Malek, Keeper of Archives at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University; Dr Robert Schoch, Geologist, MIT; Professor Hertha von Dechend, University of Frankfurt; Professor Keith Critchlow, Director of Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture.
Virtual reality computer graphics assist our understanding of the more complicated theories as we traverse five continents, visiting some of the world’s most beautiful and mysterious sites. Specially composed music will transport us through the ages as we follow his quest - both historical and spiritual - for the origins of civilisation and the very meaning of life.
The series will be directed by Tim Copestake, a first class graduate of the London International Film School, who has spent twenty five years making award winning documentaries for all the terrestrial channels in Britain, shown throughout the world. His critically acclaimed Pharaohs and Kings (3 x 60’ for Channel Four / Discovery) has set the benchmark for prestige archaeology series around the globe. The producer will be David Wickham, another award winning filmmaker with the top prize at the Royal Television Society and the Prix de Bale, and Silver Medals from New York and Monte Carlo among his credits.
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Programme 1: ANCIENT ASTRONOMERS
Ancient cultures around the world had an understanding of the heavens which we are only now beginning to recognise, and, perhaps more importantly, a knowledge which we have yet to learn! As we discover more, we are finding that those cultures, separated by aeons and oceans, and with no apparent contact, are linked by too many similarities to be coincidence. Could they have shared a common inheritance of an earlier civilisation?
We start this programme by comparing the fantastic animal drawings and geometric designs etched into a vast area of the Peruvian desert at Nazca with the mysterious Pyramids at Giza. Although separated by thousands of miles and created in different epochs, they both appear to be terrestrial maps of part of the night sky - specifically the constellation of Orion. They were, quite literally, trying to create heaven on earth. Why?
As we tour the world’s most celebrated monuments the similarities abound. First we find the consistent use of giant stones, some too heavy for our largest cranes to move! And the alignment of these stones hides an advanced knowledge of astronomy which we can only decode with the modern computer. The new science of archaeo-astronomy can shed light on what these cultures were doing and the evidence suggests that an earlier culture, of whom we know nothing, has left its fingerprints in every corner of the ancient world, from Egypt to Europe to China and the Americas.
Interviewees: Robert Bauval, (Archaeo-astronomer, author of ‘Orion Mystery’) Dr Phillis Pitluga, (Astronomer, Adler Planetarium, Chicago) Dr Edwin Krupp (Archaeo-astronomer, Griffiths Observatory, LA) Dr Clive Ruggles (Britain’s foremost archaeo-astronomer) Dr Thor Heyerdahl (Explorer, anthropologist, Kontiki expedition)
Principle Sites: Nazca, Ollantaytambo - Peru Giza , Abu Simbel - Egypt Callanish, Outer Hebrides Baalbeck - Lebanon Teotihuacan - Mexico Okinawa - Japan Shensi - China
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If there was a lost civilisation, when could it have existed and what were their beliefs? In this programme we find a mountain of scientific evidence pointing to a highly complex, technologically advanced civilisation in the 11th millennium BC - a civilisation not mentioned in our history books and pre-dating the ancient Egyptians by an astonishing 7000 years!
Geologists re-date the Great Sphinx to at least 10,000 years ago. And computerised star maps reveal that the whole of the Giza Plateau is a map of the heavens as it looked in 10,500 BC - the ancient Egyptians called it Zep Tepi: The First Time - a mysterious golden age when the gods came to earth and humanity was offered the gifts of civilisation. And this is not the only map of the skies in 10,500 BC. The ancient Hindu temple site of Angkor in Cambodia mirrors another important section of the sky - those stars which revolve endlessly around the pole. The mysterious Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, also shows astronomic alignments that place it firmly in the 11th millennium BC, making it the oldest city on earth.
In order to build a coherent picture of these people we need to examine the myths and beliefs that they passed on. What we find as we journey from Europe to Mexico, to Peru and to Egypt is an obsessive drive to predict accurately the intricate cycle of the heavens. ‘As above, so below’ was the universal dictum - everything on earth was believed to be a reflection of the heavenly realm. ‘Heaven’s Mirror’ is more than the sky-ground symbolism that we see at so many of these ancient sites. It became the basis for a complete belief system that started religion.
And we may be on the verge of finding out a lot more about these people. Three years ago, a hi-tech miniature robot used to explore the shafts of the Great Pyramid, found a portcullis door with copper handles. Permission has just been granted by the Egyptian government for another robotic exploration to feed a fibre optic cable beneath the door. There is a great deal of tension and excitement on the Giza Plateau at the moment, both with what may lie behind the door and the increasing likelihood that there are secret passages under the Sphinx, and possibly extending underneath the whole plateau.
Interviewees: Robert Bauval, (Archaeo-astronomer, author of ‘Orion Mystery’) Hertha von Dechend, (Professor of History of Science) Robert Schoch, (Professor of Geology) William Sullivan, (PhD in Andean Studies) Franklin L Edge (Lecturer in Mathematics and Cosmology) Miguel Vergara (Head of Experimental Mayan Investigation Centre) Bob Bianchi (PhD in Egyptology) Rudolph Ganterbrink (Robotics Engineer)
Principle Sites: Hall of Bulls, Lascaux - France Giza , Karnak, Dendera - Egypt Palenque, Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza - Mexico Maccu Picchu, Cuzco - Peru Angkor Wat, Cambodia
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Where could such a lost civilisation have come from? Could it be Plato’s Atlantis? The astronomical, geographical and geological evidence increasingly points towards a civilisation destroyed during the cataclysm that brought the last ice age to an end. Did survivors sail the oceans to spread their knowledge around the world? Are we on the verge of finding them?
Starting with the oldest known culture in Mexico (3000 BC), we visit the mysterious 60 ton Olmec heads with their unambiguously African features. A nearby stela depicts bearded Caucasians. History assures us that neither of these races came to the Americas until the last few hundred years. So why were their images to be found here thousands of years before Columbus?
Boats found at lake Tiahuanaco are almost identical in design to 5000 year old ocean going boats buried in the Egyptian desert. Could our lost civilisation have been ancient sea farers? Certainly to travel between the old and new worlds would have needed a detailed understanding of astronomy. And many world myths talk of civilisers coming across the seas.
We find ancient maps with accurately drawn coastlines of several continents. Most incredible of all, seismic surveys of Antarctica confirm that this coastline too had been mapped - before it was covered in ice! But history tells us that the ice cap has been present for a millions of years. How can this be? Hancock turns to Einstein for the answer. The great scientist confirmed that in recent times the earth’s crust may have shifted like the skin of an orange, moving entire continents. Could this be the lost continent of Atlantis?
They may have disappeared, but this lost civilisation has left its hallmark on all of our of our scientific and religious development. We trace that development to modern day and ask if we are at the threshold of a ‘New Age’ where science and religion will unite again.
Interviewees: Dr Bob Bianchi (Egyptologist) Dr Thor Heyerdahl (Explorer, Anthropologist) Dr Edouard Bard (University of Marseilles) Professor Keith Critchlow (Prince of Wales Inst for Architecture) John Lash (Historian of Religion and Myth)
Principle Sites: La Venta - Mexico Abydos - Egypt Tiahuanaco - Bolivia Easter Island Chartres - France Antarctica
SACRED SCIENCE
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Programme 1
Pre-Title
Nazca Plateau, Peru
A light aircraft swoops low over a dusty, barren landscape, one of the driest places on earth. From the air the site is both surreal and breathtaking - 165 ft long humming bird poised to drink nectar from an imaginary flower; a giant condor, wings outstretched; a whale, a heron, a monkey; a lizard 617 feet in length. Then further on, a series of triangles, trapezoids and perfect straight lines, never deviating from true, extending for miles - all scraped into the desert floor. HANCOCK Until the nineteen thirties, and the arrival of aeroplanes, no human in modern times had ever seen the scale of these drawings. But we’re now beginning to think that the ancients who drew them had! The camera singles out a giant spider - 150 feet in length.
Pitluga at her office computer Adler Planetarium, Chicago Mix graphic of Orion over Spider Dr PHILLIS PITLUGA, (Astronomer) ..when I fed the coordinates of the Spider into the computer my heart almost stopped. It was an exact match to the constellation of Orion to within a smallest fraction of a degree.. The Giza Plateau, Egypt HANCOCK 8000 miles away at Giza, the Pyramids mirror exactly the same constellation of Orion. Robert Bauval at computer Robert Bauval, a Belgian construction engineer has made a similar computerised study here as Dr Pitluga has at Nazca.
BAUVAL ..what we are dealing with here is almost too unbelievable to be true. The pyramids were built as a mirror of the sky. They reflect the
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 8 constellation of Orion with incredible accuracy. A sort of heaven on earth, if you like..
HANCOCK Is it possible that two civilisations, separated by aeons and oceans, should, quite independently of one another, conceive a plan to copy onto the ground the same special portion of the sky - both with precise astronomical alignments, both on a truly monumental scale? Or is it more likely that both were inheritors of a common legacy, a legacy shared by cultures across earth, from Mexico to Iceland, from Britain to China? A common wisdom from a lost civilisation which might hold the key to our own identity on earth! TITLE: HEAVEN’S MIRROR - SACRED SCIENCE
The sun rises in turn over Stonehenge, Teotihuacan in Mexico, the pyramids of Giza , Machu Picchu in Peru, Cambodia’s temple of Angkor Wat. Then the same images again with strange superimpositions of star maps.. With the technology of the late twentieth century, we can at last begin to unravel some of the secrets of pre-history. In this series we turn many of the orthodox views of our beginnings on their head. The Stone circle at Callanish, (Hebrides)
Here on the shores of the Atlantic, on the very edge of the Western hemisphere my quest begins. From this spot the culture which erected these stones spread 700 miles south across two seas to Carnac in Brittany. Yet of that culture nothing is known: not an artefact, not a sign remains. What does remain is an astonishing degree of astronomical knowledge which is recorded forever in the alignment of these stones. Completed at least 4000 years ago, key markers possibly thousands of years earlier, the people here could calculate numerous astronomical phenomena like, for example, the moon’s minor standstill - a miniscule deviation in the Graphic depicting moon’s minor moon’s orbit which occurs only once every standstill from monument 19 years.
And in the architecture of astronomical monuments like this one, we find the
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At Ollantaytambo in Peru, we find 400 ton andesite blocks on a mountain top 10,000 ft above sea level, quarried from another mountain top four miles away! The rock walls rise sheer from the river below for over a thousand feet making it an arduous journey on foot. For loaded mules it’s perilous, yet somehow (and for some reason), a people long forgotten performed these miracles.
How could a society, apparently without cranes or motorised lifting devices, cut and shape these giant blocks, transport them to a carefully chosen site and then align them Aerial views of Okinawa, Japan and to their meticulously precise specifications? surrounding islands Fifty years ago the inhabitants of Okinawa and its accompanying islands were caught in the largest air and sea attack in history. Almost every ancient artefact was destroyed Hancock scuba diving at nearby Kume in the American offensive..
..But a hundred feet below the surface we find the remains of a culture that history has forgotten. The vast pentagonal stone formations at Kume boast some of the most advanced stone masonry in the ancient world. They are aligned to the rising sun and are thought to be thousands of years old. Over hundreds of square miles, clues to Baalbeck, Lebanon this culture are emerging from the deep.
ACTOR’S VOICE A row of Corinthian pillars ... stand alone on an elevated site, and their rich capitals and architrave are still entire. Six only now remain, and their appearance is peculiarly elegant. On them the setting sun lingers the last of all the ruin; and their slender and dark red shafts, beheld at some distance in the purple light, as they stand high and aloof, have a solemn and shadowy
appearance - as if they stood on the tomb of
former greatness." John Carne Letters
from the East 1826 Mix through famous water colours of
The Temple of Venus, Temple of Jupiter and Temple of Bacchus (drawn at the same time as quote)
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Hancock - at sunset - dwarfed by the size of the trilithons HANCOCK Amongst the ruins at Baalbeck in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon, we find stones that are the height of five storey buildings that weigh over 600 tons each. The ‘trilithons’ were quarried several miles away, transported to the site, perfectly cut and shaped, and then incorporated high into the walls of the surrounding temple. A fourth stone is over 80 ft long and weighs 1100 tons! - the largest block of cut stone in the world. Construction site, Beirut
Fifty kilometres away from Baalbeck, building contracts worth millions have attracted construction firms from Europe, America and Japan to rebuild Beirut, battered and broken after 16 years of civil war. New office blocks, apartments and civic buildings are being constructed with lightning speed. I asked the Chief Engineer of Trafalgar House Construction whether modern technology could lift these blocks. Dusk at Baalbeck - moon rising through the columns.
CHIEF ENGINEER ...The MK1500 is one of the largest mobile cranes in the world. It needs 60 trucks to move it! It’s a monster by crane standards but it couldn't lift this 1100 ton stone. Even the 600 ton stones would take two weeks of preparation - it wouldn't be easy by any means. I haven't the remotest idea how the builders who constructed Baalbeck could possibly have hewn such great blocks in one piece, let alone transported and erected them...
Abu Simbel, Aswan Hancock dwarfed by giant statues HANCOCK The monolithic temple of Abu Simbel was built in 1250BC for the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II on the banks of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Four colossal figures of the King were hewn out of solid rock to form the entrance to the temple. Twice a year on the solstices (the longest and shortest days) the rising sun streamed nearly 200 metres into
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In 1968, the entire temple complex was moved so that it wouldn’t be drowned by the new Aswan Dam. With the help of UNESCO, millions of dollars of foreign aid and the finest engineers the world could muster, the magnificent temple was cut out of the original rock and reassembled several miles Archive footage of Abu Simbel being away. The work took over two years to moved in the early 60s complete
Although the monument, one of the most important in Nubia, has been saved for future generations, modern science and technology couldn’t match the skills of the original builders. Now the sun arrives a day later than the solstices and doesn’t quite light up the last statue. Sun lights up three of the inner statues inside the mountain complex Why did these ancient builders believe size was so important? I believe it’s because they were intent on creating a permanent interface between heaven and earth. They drew no distinction between heaven and earth.
Hancock dwarfed by statues Nowhere is this more obvious than in the curious drawings in the Nazca desert.
Until the nineteen thirties, and the arrival of the aeroplane, we don’t believe any human in modern times could possibly have viewed these drawings as a whole. So how could ancient peoples have drawn them on such monumental canvases? Nazca, Peru
DR PHYLLIS PITLUGA, (Astronomer) ...I became intrigued after reading the theories of mathematician Maria Reiche, who lived here for fifty years, and claimed that the lines were a highly complex calendar, using the stars as a clock. She persuasively argued that the "Nazcans" who were around long before the better-known Incas must have had an extraordinary knowledge of astronomy.
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When I fed the coordinates of the Spider into the computer my heart almost stopped. It was an exact match of the constellation of Orion to within a smallest fraction of a degree, with straight lines able to track its The camera singles out a giant spider - three prominent stars through the ages.. 150 feet in length. Mix graphic of Orion over Spider HANCOCK Because of a slight wobble in the earth’s axis, the star field is constantly changing down the epochs. The Nazca lines are so accurate in their targets - one is arrow straight for five miles - we can determine the year they were drawn. When we go Hancock and graphic backwards through time, Pitluga’s computer gives a match more than two thousand years ago.
We are now 8000 miles away from the Nazca Plateau of South America in another Visual mix from desert to desert - change desert, the great Western Desert in Egypt in music or sounds to suggest we are in which extends westwards into Libya and another part of the world southwards towards the Sudan. Construction Engineer and astronomer Robert Bauval has discovered that the Hancock - Piece to Camera in desert pyramids here, also reflect a terrestrial counterpart to Orion.
BAUVAL ... I was following up work done on the shaft Camera pans across desert to find from the King’s chamber in the 60s which pyramids ... showed an accurate alignment with the then pole star, Thuban. I found two more shaft alignments, one aligning to a star in Orion’s Bauval at shafts inside Great Pyramid belt....
And then one day in the desert it just struck me that the three main pyramids might represent a huge terrestrial version of the stars in the belt of Orion.. Not only did this prove to be right but six out of seven of the Mix star map or Orion’s belt with stars in Orion and nearby Hyades matched overview of pyramids up with other pyramids..
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 13 HANCOCK Giza turns out to be a colossal mirror of that portion of the sky which represented rebirth and eternity to the Egyptians. The shafts Graphic showing other stars in the were a means for the soul of the pharaoh to constellation matching up with other travel between earth and heaven. The pyramid sites in the Giza area whole complex unites heaven and earth.
A brand new science is helping to unravel the secrets here. It’s a combination of archaeology and astronomy.
Dr EDWIN KRUPP (the world's leading archaeo-astronomer) ..Archaeo-astronomy has established itself as a crucial tool in our understanding of ancient cultures, all of whom seem to have possessed an incredibly advanced knowledge of astronomy. And in megalithic The Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles architecture where you often find no organic (Krupp teaching an archaeo-astronomy material, so you can’t carbon date, we can class) use archaeo-astronomy to date them.
If I look at the sky tonight and in a year from tonight I see the stars in apparently the same position, because the earth takes a year to go around the sun. But because of a slight wobble in the earth’s axis, called ‘precession’, next year the stars will actually be 1/72th of a degree different. So in 72 years they’ll be 1 degree different. It takes 26,000 years for the wobble to come back to its starting point, so the ability to be able to track such minute movements is really very sophisticated indeed...
HANCOCK So since we know this shaft pointed to one of Orion’s belt stars we can ‘precess’ backwards on the computer to find a match in time. We can establish that this shaft was targeted in 2500 BC.
Hancock with Bauval inside Great Nowhere has more in common with the Giza Pyramid, Giza Plateau than the Mexican site of Teotihuacan, inhabited since at least 1000 BC.
Both sites contain massive pyramids Teotihuacan, Mexico abounding in a mathematical symmetry - especially the value of pi, which we’re taught was a later Greek discovery. Both sites contain one peculiarly ‘offset’ pyramid. Both appear to contain evidence of an Split screen with Teotihuacan and Giza understanding of the earth’s dimensions and
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We join Dr Clive Ruggles, Britain’s foremost archaeo-astronomer, to check some of the astronomical alignments.
RUGGLES ..This avenue, a mile and a half long called the "Street of the Dead" was aligned to the setting of the Pleiades constellation in 150AD. It also represents the Milky Way.
An American engineer showed that the position of the structures along the route, accurately mimic the relative positions of the orbits of the planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto ...even to the inclusion of the outer planets, not discovered by Europeans until the eighteenth century... Mix with setting Pleaides HANCOCK That engineer also asserted that the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun, provide a mathematical basis for a Mercator-like projection of the earth which can also find from Giza’s Great Pyramid.
This complex is another map of heaven. It Hancock takes measurements on steps reproduced on earth a supposed celestial plan of the sky-world where dwelt the deities and spirits of the dead.
If these correlations are more than coincidental, then at the very least, they indicate the presence of an advanced observational astronomy, one not surpassed by modern science until a relatively recently.
There seems to be growing evidence that the cultures we’ve looked at did indeed have common source for their knowledge. An earlier, lost civilisation that has left its fingerprints on the whole of the ancient world.
DR THOR HEYERDAHL, explorer, anthropologist (Kontiki expedition) ... I used to scoff at The "lost civilisation" thesis - Atlantis having been the stuff of science fiction every bit as much as men from Mars. But after noticing key similarities in ancient cultures time after time in my
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 15 explorations I realised that there are some The explorer Thor Heyerdahl in his study very good arguments for it. The reason that - surrounded by maps and globes anthropologists have largely ignored it stemmed from the great Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes - he said that many of these similarities could be explained by a sort of ‘psychic unity ‘ of mankind. Great as he was, I think he was mistaken. In his time we were unaware of the degree of technical knowledge that was similar - the sort of knowledge that can only be taught..
HANCOCK So where on earth did all this knowledge come from?
There is one corner of the world that has hitherto been closed to the archaeologist. To conclude part one of this quest, Robert Bauval and myself will mount an expedition never before undertaken.. (At the time of writing negotiations are under way with the Chinese authorities to visit Shensi province where the existence of pyramids, reportedly Shensi Province, China thousands of years old, is only now coming to light. We will be the first to measure and map these pyramids.) Suppose they too share the same astronomical alignments...?
END TITLES , MUSIC AND CREDITS
Split screen of Shensi pyramids and Teotihuacan (amateur video footage shows remarkable likeness)
TITLES
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ZEP TEPI: THE FIRST TIME
Programme 2
Pre-title
A dramatic montage of images recapping Programme 1 HANCOCK In HEAVEN’S MIRROR last week we compared different cultures from different epochs around the world and discovered astonishing similarities in the design of their complex monuments. Was this a coincidence or received wisdom from another era - a sophisticated, lost civilisation? Outside Harvard University Archaeological Institute
In this programme, we ask when this civilisation might have existed? We’re taught that the earliest civilisations appeared between 5000 and 6000 years ago, when developing agriculture allowed for the feeding of larger populations. And scholars agree that it was an understanding of astronomy that was crucial to this development, allowing mankind to predict the seasons, knowing when to plant and harvest. Graphic depicting annual rising of the star Sirius at dawn The Ancient Egyptians waited patiently for the star Sirius to rise just before the sun, after a lengthy period of absence. The first appearance of Sirius happened to coincide with the annual flooding of the Nile, giving plenty of time to organise crop planting. Back to Harvard Arch Inst I think that a lost civilisation existed thousands of years before the Egyptians. So I am looking for evidence of a far earlier understanding of astronomy. We start by asking when our earliest ancestors began to observe the night sky and as we follow man’s progress we realise that the first
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Laboratory at Harvard University’s Archaeological Institute:
Alexander Marshak studying an ancient Siberian bone with indentations that are 40,000 years old.
Alexander Marshak, Research Fellow in Archaeology and Ethnology was employed by NASA in the sixties to write a book on how mankind had reached the space age. For him, the root of this achievement could be traced to man’s earliest concept of time.
MASRSHAK ...This is where it all seems to have begun., 40,000 years ago. These Ice Age mammoth hunters may be our earliest relatives, the first modern Homo sapiens. The notation was used to track the phases of the moon. Early art around this time reveals animals that were only in abundance at certain times of year - keeping track of time was essential…
The Hall of Bulls, Lascaux, France HANCOCK Mathematician Franklin Edge, has been studying the cave paintings at Lascaux in France. They are the most famous examples of prehistoric art in the world and have been dated by scholars to 15,000 BC. He has discovered that the outstanding paintings of beautifully-drawn bulls, accompanied by strange dots and geometric motifs that have puzzled archaeologists since their discovery in 1940, appear to be astronomically designed.
EDGE ... The dots on the paintings, match up to numerous stars as they appeared in 15,000 BC, when we know the cave was inhabited. It would have been possible for the people living here at that time to predict the arrival of the summer solstice, first of all by looking at the paintings and then by looking at the moon’s position in the sky. At the summer solstice, the full moon would lie exactly
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The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt HANCOCK It was almost five thousand years later in Egypt, as the Ice Age retreated that we find the first piece of evidence of a lost civilisation.
This civilisation had married the solar and the lunar calendars, allowing for the dawn of agriculture and navigation.. An accurate measure of time also allowed them to describe events in the past and predict events in the future, creating the first stories and myths.
These colossal structures exert a powerful, even a spiritual influence on most observers. They were quite probably designed for a spiritual purpose - not the tombs of pharaohs that we are led to believe.
The Pyramids illustrate a very particular alignment to the stars in the heavens - so accurately portrayed as to rule out coincidence (the average discrepancy of the corners of the Great Pyramid are just a 1/20th degree).
Recap from prog 1 BAUVAL (reminds us how, in Programme 1, he matched up the plan of the pyramids with the constellation of Orion and how the internal shafts of the Great Pyramid were aligned to significant stars) Graphics with computer star-map and Giza site ... But there is a paradox. From the precessional movement of the stars we can date the shafts of the Great Pyramid to 2500 BC. But to have everything match with the Nile accurately representing the Milky Way (called ‘the river in the sky’) the match only fits in 10,500 BC, thousands of years, we are told, before Egyptian history began! . Graphics showing the 10,500 BC match HANCOCK 12,500 years ago seems like an extraordinary date to suggest but the evidence is not just astronomical. Increasingly we are finding physical
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 19 evidence to date some ancient monuments much earlier than previously thought.
Dr. Robert Schoch, a geologist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has some shattering scientific evidence concerning the limestone body of the Great Sphinx.. The Great Sphinx SCHOCH ..I was asked to examine the body of the Sphinx which I confirmed had suffered textbook water erosion - tell-tale fissures that could only have resulted from heavy rain. Rainfall, once plentiful before the desertification of the Sahara, all but ceased in Egypt 8000 years ago. That means that the Sphinx must be at least 8000 years old and in all probability it’s older...
HANCOCK Robert Schoch has now found widespread support for his findings among the majority of the world’s geologists.
And on the other side of world in Bolivia, South America, at one of the highest lakes in the world we find more proof of civilised activity much earlier than we’d previously Tiahuanaco, Bolivia thought existed.
Very little is known about this mysterious place and the people who built it. It appears to have been built as a port but the nearest water, Lake Titicaca is 12 miles away. Aerial pan to lake Orthodox archaeology suggests it was built in AD 500 but I became intrigued when geologists argued that for the lake to have receded so far from the port would have taken around 12,000 years. Hancock with Steede walking around ruins NEIL STEEDE (MesoAmerican Archaeologist) ..In the heart of Tiahuanaco is the Kalasasaya Temple, thought by the Spanish to have been a stockade but now recognised as an astronomical observatory. From the alignments of the Kalasasaya, we can use Graphics reconstructing complete archaeo-astronomy to date it’s construction. monument and sunrise positions.
The centre of the complex lines up exactly
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 20 with the equinoctial sunrise and the outside columns appear to mark the sunrise on the solstices. But the outside markers are slightly out, which seems strange given the incredible accuracy throughout the rest of the complex. The reason is to do with the rotation of the earth and its angle in the sky. Astronomers call it obliquity and whilst it doesn’t affect the equinox sunrise, it slowly changes the solstice sunrise after long periods of time. With the help of a computer we can work out when the outside columns would have correctly marked the solstice sunrise.. Unbelievably it turns out to be between 10,000 and 11,000 BC. The Giza Plateau HANCOCK We see that the Egyptians of later dynasties wore head-dresses of rams’ horns. Theirs was the age of Aries, the ram. The Minoans before them celebrated the bull cult and the A montage of the elaborate art and myth of the minotaur. Theirs was the age of hieroglyphs of early history. Taurus the bull.
So how do we find the ‘world age’ of our lost civilisation in 10,500 BC? Fortunately it is written in the stars and all we need is an understanding of the zodiac
Nowadays it’s only astrologers who are interested in the zodiac and that has become a joke science, completely Graphic of zodiac and precession discredited, best left to the newspaper columns. But in ancient times astrology and astronomy were one and the same pursuit, taken very seriously indeed.
As the earth goes around the sun every year it appears to pass through a circular belt of stars called the zodiac (literally dial of animals). Our current world age is Pisces because on the spring equinox (when day equals night) the constellation of Pisces
rises just ahead of the sun, as it has been doing for the last 2000 years. But because of precession, this belt is moving very slowly backwards ( 1 degree in 72 years) and the sun spends around 2160 years in each constellation - a complete revolution taking Graphic precessing zodiac to 10,500 BC 26,000 years!
In 10,500 BC we were in the age of Leo the Mix from contellation of Leo to Sphinx lion.
The Sphinx, the lion faces due East. At
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 21 dawn on the spring equinox in 10,500 BC the sun rose due East in the constellation of Leo - the lion. In other words the Sphinx was gazing directly at it’s own constellation in the sky, in the so-called age of Leo. The Pyramids and Sphinx And we now know that the Pharaohs recognised the Age of Leo as the beginning of time and sought its wisdom and knowledge. But had they inherited from it a knowledge which is encoded in their architecture and in their myths? And where else might we find evidence of such early knowledge
The builders of the pyramids, using their knowledge of precession, deliberately planned Giza as a replica of the heavens as they had looked eight thousand years earlier and we know that the Great Sphinx had already been carved. The Ancient Egyptians called it Zep Tepi - the ‘First Time’ - a mysterious golden age when the gods ruled. It is also the lowest point reached by the constellation of Orion, the beginning of its 26,000 year precessional cycle. Graphics of precession of Orion
But more importantly, the ancient builders, the ‘builder gods’, had a profound spiritual purpose in making Egypt an image of heaven. The layout of Giza mirrors that portion of the sky known as the Duat, the ‘underworld’ of the ancient Egyptians. The Duat was the dwelling place of Osiris and Isis (Orion & Sirius) on the banks of the Egyptian Wall column paintings depicting Milky Way, the celestial Nile. life/death As with most underworld myths the traveller could expect trials and tests along the way. The dark and difficult corridors and chambers of the pyramid may recreate the realms of the Duat for the initiate pharaoh to learn to face the obstacles on the way to Angkor Wat, Cambodia heaven.
We have come across staggering new evidence to suggest that the great religions of the near East incorporated an identical cosmology.
The great Hindu temple-complex of the Khymers, lost in primeval jungle about
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 22 150 miles north of modern-day Phnom Penh, was built in the 12th Century AD, but it was imbued by its builders with ideas that were infinitely more ancient than the epoch of its construction. One of the most awe inspiring in the world, the whole temple complex turns out to be a sky-ground plan, and appears to have been designed as a kind of architectural and mathematical symbol for the great cosmic cycle of precession.
A bird’s eye view of the temples spread over 200 square miles confirms that they correspond to the stars in the constellation of Draco, as they appeared Graphic depicting stars of Draco in 10,500 BC! superimposed onto aerial view of Angkor Scholars have long been aware that ‘circumpolar’ stars (like Draco’s) which don’t rise and set but appear to rotate endlessly in the sky were of huge
significance to all ancient cultures, and
Graphic of circumpolar stars in motion probably responsible for the whole idea of eternal life and immortality.
They are also aware that Angkor, with its walls and moat, its central sanctuary, its pyramidal temples and bridges is a representation in stone of the great myths of Hindu cosmology. Of particular interest to the archaeologists was the Angkor and environs find in 1976 that the causeway lengths
correspond to passages of time,
specifically to the Hindu ‘world ages’ which seem to reflect precessional changes.
There are many secrets still to be teased out of Angkor. Today, on the spring equinox, we can see the sun rising out of the central tower of Angkor Wat. Spring Equinox, Western Entrance Gate. Sunrise. Three days later the effect is seen from
the centre of the causeway. And no-one knows why.
These are the signals of our earlier
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 23 Sunrise three days later. Centre culture and I believe that whether it was causeway. a tower, a temple or a stick, these points were skillfully calculated and marked over 10,000 years ago.
The idea of creating heaven on earth and
building a fantastic religion around it is a key
hallmark of our lost civilisation that has left Palenque, Mexico. its fingerprints on places as far apart as Hancock on the steps of the Temple of Egypt, Asia and the Americas Inscriptions
And there are many more ancient myths around the world which also suggest a common inheritance.
Perhaps we are dealing with the lost civilisation of Atlantis that Plato describes - a sophisticated society that was supposed to exist in the 10th millennium BC.
I’m quoting from the Mayan’s most sacred ancient manuscript, the Popul Vuh.
Speaking of their forefathers, the ‘first men’ it
reads: “They were able to know all and they The Temple of Dendera, Egypt examined the four corners, the four points of (Astronomical ceiling shows zodiac) the arch of the sky.” What did they mean by
the ‘four points of the arch of the sky’?
At four points on the circle are placed female
‘sky-bearers’ who support the celestial vault.
These are the houses of the zodiac in which
the sun rises on the winter and summer
solstices and on the spring and autumn
equinoxes. These are the four points of the
arch of the sky.
Here is a striking example of shared
mythology. The idea of the sky-bearers is by
no means a simple or obvious one which
primitive societies might be expected to
arrive at independently. It is not remotely
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 24 University of Frankfurt, Germany literal.
To find out more about ancient shared mythology I’ve come to talk to the only acknowledged expert in this esoteric area, Professor of the History of Science, Hertha von Dechend. She co-wrote a ground breaking book called Hamlet’s Mill in the 60s which scholars are only now beginning to recognise.
VON DECHEND ..Our research on ancient myths points to the existence of some almost unbelievable ancestor civilisation. Ancient cultures from Iceland to Mesopotamia to the Far East and Graphic illustrating frame of sky the Americas saw the cosmos in an and mill identical, though very complex way. The world, that is to say earth and sky, was seen as being held in a frame, whose wires ran from the pole star to four points on the ring of the zodiac, the same four 'houses’ which rose on the morning of the equinoxes and solstices.... the sky bearers.
The whole frame was thought to support the mill of the gods, turning eternally, grinding out time. But as each world age came to an end with the precession of the equinoxes, the mill was thought to break, the sky would fall.. the world would end..
Catastrophe montage of world-age HANCOCK ending No-where is this better illustrated than in the in the religion of the Ancient Maya in Mexico.
Chichen Itza, Mexico, the temple of The accuracy of the Mayan calendar has Kukulkan. baffled scholars for generations. One Mayan myth says our world will end on a given date in 2012 - scholars were flummoxed when they realised that on this date the sun rises directly at the centre of our galaxy between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius!
It seems that the Maya had also inherited the same sacred science to make their predictions.
At the temple of Kukulkan, Chichen Itza, on
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 25 the spring equinox we see breathtaking light and shadow effects as strange plays of light create the illusion of a serpent writhing down the monumental staircase. And inside this great monument, like at Giza, we find ‘tombs’ and passageways, far older than the finished monument. The Mayans rebuilt this structure every 52 years, in accordance with their sacred lore. Although the final temple was completed around 900AD, no-one knows when it was first erected.
MIGEL VERGARA ..I have spent ten years with scale models of Kukulcan, verifying light and shadow
phenomenon that take place at 5 key points Light and shadow effect on equinox in the year with different effects. They would
have needed extensive and extraordinarily
complex procedures to position and build
this monument..
HANCOCK
And the Maya could calculate the solar year
to 365.2420 days, incorporating an error of th only 1/5000 of a day? They could predict
solar and lunar eclipses, had calculated the
orbit of Venus and, most curiously of all,
could count their own history in tens of The Experimental Mayan Investigations thousands of years. Centre, Nolo, Mexico
The idol of Chacmool, a giant stone figure,
holds against its belly an empty plate. The
plate is for the collection of human hearts.
Like the earlier Olmec and the later Aztecs,
the Maya practised human sacrifice.
The general term for sacrifice, throughout Graphic showing astronomic positioning the ancient Americas, was p’achi meaning of Kukulcan ‘to open the mouth’. It’s another curious link
with ancient Egyptian ceremony known as
‘the opening of the mouth’ which was always
conducted on the dead Pharaoh to ensure
his resurrection in the heavens. The Maya
believed they could calculate to the day
when world-ages began and ended. They
knew the point in the future where the mill Back at Chichen Itza would become unhinged and the ‘sun’ would
end. Against hope they somehow believed
that human sacrifice was what the gods
required to stop the end of the world.
MIGUEL VERGARA
..The Maya used two separate intermeshing
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 26 Footage from Mayan feature film calendars which coincided in 52 year cycles. depicting sacrifice At the end of each cycle they needed an extra 13 day period for the same reason as we have an extra day in leap years. For these ancient peoples, however, it was a period of frenetic destruction and renewal. They burned their houses and their possessions, and they ransacked their monuments . All was at stake as they waited patiently in hope for the new cycle to begin. They destroyed and despaired in this most dangerous of periods. The sky was out of kilter with the earth - it was the most frightening fortnight of any person’s life...
HANCOCK In fact all over the Americas, not just in Mexico, we can trace the ideas of an ancestor civilisation.
The Incas who lived here said their gods came from Tiahuanaco, which we’ve redated to the 11th millennium BC. Their beliefs could be crucial in shedding light on our lost civilisation. Dr William Sullivan has just finished a PhD on some of the Incas’ most staggering secrets.
Dramatic montage of burning houses and destroying monuments SULLIVAN ..What I found out during the course of my thesis is that the Incas were trying to stop Machu Picchu, Peru. The Lost Inca City time!
As the sun precessed through the centuries it was approaching a critical point where they believed it would become ‘unhinged’ and die. Since they had allied themselves with the sun, they expected to die too. This was the reason the Spanish conquistadors overthrew such a powerful army with such a small force. The last Inca had already predicted their downfall and even though their armies could probably have driven away the Spanish force, they decided that fighting would be useless. But in the years before the Spanish arrived they had embarked on an incredible attempt to stop the sun moving.
What they tried to do with their rituals on Graphic of precession of zodiac earth was to change what was happening in the stars. They performed ceremonies and
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 27 sacrifices with the same meticulous detail as they studied the stars - throughout their entire empire..
HANCOCK Whether this was a later development from a powerful astronomical cult is hard to say. Evidence of sacrifice is more common in the Art depicting Spanish conquest Americas than elsewhere. What is certain is that as we find out more about the beliefs of the ancient cultures who left records, the more certain we become that they are from a common source.
We now take a look at the oldest body of Art / reconstruction of rituals religious and scientific writing ever found. Beautifully adorning the 5th Dynasty Pyramid of Unas in Egypt, these writings have perplexed scholars for generations. We talk to one of the few Egyptologists who has understood their significance. Saqqara, Egypt
SELLERS The Pyramid of Unas (3rd millennium BC) contains the oldest body of religious writing in the world - the so called Pyramid Texts. But thousand of years of development would have been necessary for a culture to reach this stage. The numbers in the story of Osiris almost certainly relate to precession and total eclipses, which must have frightened the earliest settlers here, have also played a significant role in the shaping of Egyptian religion.
I also think they were trying to impart a message which goes beyond a religious meaning. There are countless examples of riddles and numerical puzzles. I wouldn’t be Inside the Pyramid of Unas, Saqqara at all surprised if there are new major finds (near Giza) Egypt at Giza which totally overturn orthodox Egyptian history..
HANCOCK: In March 1993 a robot camera crawled up the tiny southern shaft leading from the Queen's chamber in the Great Pyramid. At the closed upper end of the shaft the robot stopped in front of a stone portcullis door. The door had two copper handles in it.
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 28
The Egyptian government might at last give permission for further exploration. I believe there are other chambers both within the pyramid and beneath the Sphinx and that these chambers may be about to reveal a remarkable secret. We may yet find even more concrete evidence concerning our lost ancestors. Were they from the lost civilisation of Atlantis that Plato reports Archive of Ganterbrink’s robot inching its disappearing in the 10th millennium BC? way up the Queen’s chamber Next week we’ll concentrate on where this lost civilisation came from and why they disappeared.
END TITLES , MUSIC AND CREDITS
Hancock by Sphinx for closing P to C
Mix to Sphinx gazing at constellation Leo in 10,500 BC
TITLES
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ANCIENT MARINERS
Programme 3
Pre-Title
A dramatic montage of images recapping Programmes 1 and 2. HANCOCK In the first two programmes of HEAVEN’S MIRROR we compared different cultures from different epochs all around the world and discovered astonishing similarities in their myths and their monuments. We found remnants of sophisticated skills that we cannot yet equal and a received wisdom that appears to have been passed down from a lost civilisation - quite possibly the lost civilisation of Atlantis.
But if there was a ‘lost civilisation’ where could such people have come from? And what happened to their knowledge. TITLE: HEAVEN’S MIRROR - ANCIENT MARINERS
La Venta. Gulf of Mexico The remains of these astronomically aligned pyramids were built by the oldest known culture in the Americas, the Olmecs, in the 2nd millennium before Christ. We know that the Mayans inherited the Olmec calendar but who did the Olmecs inherit it from? This culture is shrouded in mystery, not least because of their Olmec Heads extraordinary legacy. These monumental stone heads are each carved out of a single piece of basalt weighing up to twenty tons.
The heads all share one extraordinary feature: although they are at least 3000 years old, they are nonetheless unambiguously African. No-one knows who the Olmec were, but the presence of men of negroid features on the coast of the Americas at least two millennia before the known advent of the slave trade can be answered in only one of two ways: either Africans travelled to the Americas in earlier ages, or others came from the old world with
descriptions of them.
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 30 There’s another extraordinary coincidence; in side view and profile, some of the Olmec heads are almost identical to the head of the Sphinx. They even wear the same head- dress. Could it be that the enigmatic ‘Olmec’ sculptures are the work of an earlier and forgotten people? The same people that built the Sphinx? Split screen profile of Sphinx and Olmec head Dr BOB BIANCHI (Egyptologist) ..I couldn’t say they were built by the same people, no one could. But there is undoubtedly an extraordinary similarity between the heads. And we simply don’t know how that could be. I mean there’s absolutely no evidence that the ancient Egyptians journeyed this far, but of course we have found sea going ships in Egypt that could have done that..
Abydos, Egypt. HANCOCK In December 1991, near the megalithic Osireion, which is perhaps the very centre of the celebration of the mysteries of Osiris, a fleet of 5000 year old ships was discovered buried in the desert, eight miles from the river Nile. Twelve in all, they were made of wood and of lengths up to 75 ft - of seagoing proportions. Was this the legacy of a culture of seafarers who predated the Egyptians, of a people who needed astronomy for navigation, who had sailed by the stars for so many millennia that they could observe the precession of the equinoxes? Tiahuanaco, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. Last week we showed you new evidence that the ancient port of Tiahuanaco, now stranded 20 miles from the water, belongs to the 11th millennium BC.
Graphic recap of dating in prog 2 Here, in a subterranean temple, we find a statue of Viracocha, the bearded man-god, whose likeness is more European than Indian. Statue of Viracocha According to the myth, Viracocha arrived across the water bringing knowledge to the survivors of the flood, teaching them agriculture and peaceful ways before returning to the sea whence he had come. And there are numerous parallels with the Egyptian myth of Osiris and the Mexican god Quetzacoatl. All brought the gifts of
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 31 civilisation after the flood and all came from across the water in similar boats.
Island on Lake Titicaca. Locals building typical reed boats. HEYERDAHL ..these boats are virtually identical to the papyrus boats and the vast wooden boats that are ‘moored’ near the Great Pyramids in Egypt. And there’s no question that they incorporate an ocean going design - see the high prows and sterns. I think we’re dealing with a civilisation of very early sea-farers, who used the stars to navigate but of whom nothing is known... Split screen showing Abydos and Titicaca boats HANCOCK The Indians tell us the design of the boats came to them from the ‘Viracocha people’, after a great flood. Images of melting icebergs, rain, mountainous seas. There are over 90 recorded mythologies around the world which tell the history of the flood. Noah’s Ark is the one with which we are most familiar. Most tell the same story of one family which survives floating inside a box or a boat or hidden inside a tree, eventually to repopulate the earth. Perhaps scholars have been too hasty in dismissing them as fantasy.
There is ample scientific evidence confirming a monumental flood, resulting in global catastrophe early in the 11th millennium BC.
University of Marseilles DR EDOARD BARD ..Our recent studies show a massive ‘meltdown’ of the ice cap around 13,000 years ago. Sea levels were rising 10 times faster than today. Not only that, volcanic activity was rampant with clouds of sulphuric acid blocking sunlight over long periods..
HANCOCK It is clear now that we are dealing with a sophisticated and technologically advanced group of early sea-farers, thousands of years before history teaches us that civilisation began. Some must have survived the Great Flood in their boats, bringing the fruits of their knowledge to all they encountered?
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 32 Most likely they were also responsible for what are arguably the world’s most enigmatic and mysterious monuments. Easter Island On a dot in the pacific ocean are the inscrutable megalithic statues of Easter Island. 2000 miles from the nearest coastline of Peru, Easter Island is surely proof that ‘some ancient civilisation’ could and did navigate the world's oceans. The next nearest coastline lies due South, Antarctica. Was it from there, from a civilisation now buried beneath a mile of ice, that Viracocha, Quetzacoatl and Osiris once set forth to preserve their knowledge for posterity? Certainly not without maps.
An exhibition of ancient maps. HANCOCK The ‘Piri-Reis’ map, named after a Turkish admiral, was drawn in 1513 but derived, according to the cartographer, from a series of source maps, which in turn may have drawn on others. It includes part of, the Queen Maud land coastline of Antarctica. We are told that this coastline has been glaciated for millions of years and so not visible. Yet the map matches exactly the real subglacial coastline as detected by modern seismic survey. The ice-cap is now one mile thick. Split screen of Antarctic coast on modern map and Piri Reis map. The existence of the Piri-Reis map was known long before the technology of seismic surveys. It cannot be a hoax.
WESTOVER AIRFORCE BASE, US AIRFORCE, RECONNAISSANCE TECHNICAL SQUADRON Letter from Lt Colonel, USAF Commander Harold Ohlmeyer to Professor Charles ACTOR’S VOICE Hapgood (1960) “Your request for evaluation of certain unusual features of the Piri Reis World map of 1513 by this organisation has been reviewed.
The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land Antartica .. is.. the most logical and in all probability correct interpretation of the map.”
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 33 HANCOCK The unavoidable conclusion must be that men were travelling the earth by boat before the advent of recorded history. More than that, they were able to calculate longitude, a technical feat not achieved by modern mariners until the eighteenth century. Is it possible, then that they may have travelled from Antartica in an age when that continent, like Siberia, was warmer?
Albert Einstein, arguably the most important Archive of Einstein intellect of the 20th century thought that this was indeed a possibility. The great scientist confirmed that in before recorded history the earth’s crust may have shifted like the skin of an orange, moving entire continents. Anything moving towards the poles (even if previously in a warm climate) would have experienced a rapid freeze.
And in the North pole we can find evidence of this rapid freeze towards the end of the ice age.
Hundreds of mammoths died here in the 11th Archive footage of fully preserved millennium BC in a sudden inexplicable mammoth being taken from ice in Siberia. freeze here which was so quick that many
still had undigested food in their stomachs.
Antarctica
I think that’s exactly what happened to Antartica at the other pole. Is it too fanciful to suggest that it could be the lost continent of Atlantis? Under a mile of ice, completely preserved, archaeologists may eventually find the fabulous cities that Plato described.
So we now have overwhelming evidence that a lost civilisation, far more sophisticated than we could ever have imagined existed around 12,000 years ago towards the end of the last ice age. A monumental cataclysm probably wiped out most of this civilisation but some dispersed in boats, navigating by the stars, bringing knowledge and wisdom to the Old and New Worlds. Their beliefs, driven by a stupefying astronomical awareness, led to the first science and the first religion. To them science and religion
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 34 were the same. And their ideas have shaped science and religion through to modern times.
Although we have forgotten our ancient beginnings, religion continues to serve as a Chartres Cathedral reminder through its traditions. It has never been far removed from the ancient studies of the universe.
Professor Keith Critchlow, Head of the Prince of Wales Institute for Architecture has been studying the magnificent Gothic cathedral at Chartres.
CRITCHLOW ..Completed just before medieval times this is one of the last Christian churches to incorporate complex astronomy into its architecture. There are towers for solar and lunar observations and numerous other alignments..
A simpler astronomy is still observed in later churches though. If you stand in the majority of cathedrals on the equinoxes you’ll see the sun project a 3D image into the church. Remember the tradition about churches being built on an East-West axis? It is for the equinox sunrise..
JOHN LASH (Historian of Religion/Myth) ..All the religions that are practised today have ultimately stemmed from the symbolic importance of the stars. The whole concept of ‘eternal life’, for example, derives from the stars that endlessly revolve around the pole - and we can see dozens of rituals from dozens of religions that are copying it...
HANCOCK Montage of ancient and modern religious It was when the Greeks split science and rituals religion that much of this ancient wisdom was forgotten, though it was kept alive by secret societies until just a couple of centuries ago.
It’s ironic that in our present times there’s a demand to go back to that unity of science and religion - neither apparently able to satisfy the modern demand for a complete view of the world. Our children particularly are ensuring that a new age of spirituality
HEAVEN’S MIRROR/INDEPENDENT IMAGE Macintosh HD:Users:stefold2:Library:Containers:com.apple.mail:Data:Library:Mail Downloads:HEAVEN12-3.doc 35 and science combine.
Archive of ‘rave’ at Teotihuacan, on the autumn equinox 1996 - The programme closes with one of the most modern of all traditions - a ‘rave’ - a huge gathering of all-night dancers to ‘New Age’ music accompanied by weird and wonderful light shows. The massive light shows on the monuments accompanied by the haunting music will indeed leave the impression that we are at the dawning of a END TITLES , MUSIC AND CREDITS ‘New Age.’
TITLES
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HEAVEN’S MIRROR
Schedule
HEAVEN’S MIRROR is scheduled for transmission around the world in Spring of 1998. Hancock is writing an accompanying book, illustrated with Faiia’s photographs. There are also possibilities for accompanying CD roms and a Website on the WWW.
The series has been in development since January 1996. Pre-production is expected to start in March 1997 and production completed in March / April 1998. We expect considerable publicity to surround the Spring / Summer 1998 transmission worldwide.
Budget
We are working towards a total budget for the series of around £750,000 for the series. Channel Four are expected to put in 50% of the total budget and we expect to raise the balance from one or two co-producers.
Draft Budgets are being prepared, and will reflect the lengthy development period, plus a full year’s work by the Director, once pre-production starts. Most if not all sites will have to be reccied in advance to prepare a very detailed shooting script. Over four weeks filming (including travel) all around the world has been allowed for each film in the series, and a further eight weeks per film in post production. We have allowed a substantial amount for three dimensional graphics and are planning specially commissioned music. We are shooting on 16 mm film (15 x 9).
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The Production Team Tim Copestake - Director Tim Copestake joined the BBC with first class honours from the London International Film School and quickly established himself as a uniquely talented producer and director on programmes like Nationwide and Panorama. He cut two Emmy award winners - the dramatic Who killed Georgie Markov and Arms to South Africa - while authoring a book on ‘Super Eight’. The international films that he directed for The Money Programme won the Shell Award for outstanding contributions to journalism.
As a freelance in recent years, he has been responsible for some of Channel Four’s most memorable output, including the best of the Will Hutton trilogy False Economy and the hugely successful Pharaohs and Kings. This three part series (co-produced by The Learning Channel (US)) on the re-dating of Egyptian history has become a template for prestigious archaeology series shot on film. He is currently finishing a harrowing film for the BBC, War Crimes On Trial, about war criminals in the former Yugoslavia.
David Wickham - Producer
David Wickham was one of the BBC’s foremost current affairs and documentary producers before leaving to set-up Independent Image in 1989. He worked on The Nine O’clock News, The Money Programme and Newsnight; was a senior producer of Panorama, and executive producer of Kilroy! Throughout the Falklands War, he was in charge of the BBC’s current affairs output from Buenos Aires. His film Stalker: Coincidence or Conspiracy? won the Royal Television Society’s Best Home Documentary Award in 1987. The previous year Israel’s Wasted War won the Jury’s Special Commendation at the Monte Carlo International TV Festival. 12 Days in November, on the revolution in Czechoslovakia, was nominated for the 1990 RTS Award. Recently, his short film In Time For Michael won a Finalist Award at the 1996 New York Festival. He’s the co-author of the best selling book More than A Game, about the history of sport.
Colin Clarke - Cameraman Colin Clarke has worked with Tim Copestake on a number of projects, including, most recently the three part Pharaohs and Kings. He shot Operation Carter which won the BAFTA Best Documentary Series and A Taste of OSL which won a gold medal at the New York Film Festival. His drama feature Dark River was screened at Cannes and gained the Montreal Jury Selection. He frequently works for all the terrestrial channels in Britain and Discovery and The Learning Channel in the US.
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was set up as an independent production company in 1989 by two former BBC producers - Tom Kinninmont and David Wickham. The company has since made a broad range of factual and drama programmes for all the UK television channels and television networks around the world.
RECENT BROADCAST CREDITS INCLUDE: Factual Programmes
Woza Africa! A special service to celebrate Easter and a year of democracy in South Africa. Broadcast on Channel Four in the UK, SABC in South Africa, ABC in Australia and other stations around the world on Easter Sunday 1995. A co-production with the SABC.
Travels with my Camera A 50 minute film for the Channel Four series which took Denis Hills - adventurer, philosopher and writer - back to Uganda at the age of 82. Twenty years ago he was sentenced to death by the dictator Idi Amin for describing Amin as a “village tyrant” and was only saved from the firing squad by the personal and humiliating intervention of the British Foreign Secretary.
DNA - Do Not Accept? A Public Eye special for the BBC on the fallibility of evidence based on DNA profiling. The programme led directly to the freeing on Appeal of a man serving an 11 year sentence for rape who had been convicted as a result of DNA evidence
Battle of the Bikes A fifty minute documentary for Channel Four on the battle between a virtually unknown Scotsman, Graeme Obree and Olympic medalist, Chris Boardman, to become the fastest speed cyclist in the World.
Paraguay - The Dictator’s Skeletons Exclusive revelations for BBC 2’s Assignment revealing the full, unpurged records of years of horror and repression supported and encouraged by the United States and other Western Governments.
Nigeria - The Giant Awakes For BBC 2’s Assignment, an investigation of the political upheaval in Nigeria due to the postponement of the presidential elections. Presented by Nobel Prize winner and Nigerian activist Wole Soyinka.
Ken Hom’s Hot Wok (6 x 30) A series for BBC, in which top Chinese American chef Ken Hom cooks special dishes for a variety of celebrities including John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Timothy West, June Whitfield, Terry Waite, Tom Conti, and Carl Davis. The series, broadcast
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More than a Game (8 x 50) A major documentary series on the development of world sport, transmitted on BBC 1 and throughout the world before the 1992 Olympics. The series was the biggest documentary project ever commissioned by the BBC from an Independent , and made as a co-production for the BBC, Art & Entertainment Network in the USA and a consortium of independent Spanish TV stations, for world-wide sale. Winner of a Silver Apple award in America.
The Nobel Century (4 x 50) A series on the prizes and the men and women who won them and shaped the century, for the Arts & Entertainment Network. A co-production with Trans World International. Broadcast on BBC 1.
Our Own Backyard (6 x 30) A documentary series about the environment and what individuals are doing about it, produced with the Observer Film Company for Channel Four. Awarded the Prix de Bale and nominated for a British Environment and Media Award.
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