In Before Atlantis, we set out to explore the idea that shifts in the location of the North and South Poles were responsible for the misalignment of hundreds of ancient sites across the world. In the process, we have discovered (or rather rediscovered) how displacements of Earth’s crust – the reason the poles move – could also explain glacial cycles. In a recent paper, we described how changes at the North Pole predicted by pole shifts are correlated with the rise and fall of global sea levels over the past 130,000 years. In this article, we show that what was happening at the South Pole over this period also supports the crustal displacement theory.

Changes in the Northern Polar Zone

Charles Hapgood first hypothesized that glacial cycles were the result of climate changes caused by slippages of the Earth’s crust – that ice ages were not caused by global temperature fluctuations but were the direct result of different geographic regions moving in and out of the polar zone. 

We showed in a previous article that the extent of the northern ice sheet at the time of the last glacial maximum (LGM) was consistent with the accumulation of ice over a gradually increasing landmass that had been shifted into the northern polar region by a series of crustal displacements as illustrated below.

As shown below, the union of these regions is a pretty good approximation of the extent of the ice sheet at the LGM.

What is interesting is that if we take the intersection of these circles – the current and past northern polar zones (from about 66° N) over the past 130,000 years, the area highlighted in the following figure has remained in the polar zone continuing to accumulate snow and ice over this period.

It turns out that the thickest ice in the current northern polar zone, in Greenland, is in this region.

Antarctica

Performing a similar analysis at the South Pole, the largest area in Antarctica having the thickest ice has also been in the polar zone for the past 130,000 years.

Aside from central Greenland, most of the landmass in and around the North Pole is relatively flat. According to our theory, when landmasses move into the polar zone, they begin to accumulate snow and ice. When they move out of the polar zone, the ice melts. The situation in the Antarctic is different because of its elevation. Glaciers exist in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, and other mountainous areas in the world that are more than two to three thousand meters in elevation. About 40% of Antarctica is 2500 meters or more above sea level.

The ice over most of the Southern Continent (at least 62%), which is more than 1500 meters in elevation probably would not have melted even if it had been shifted well out of the polar zone. Thus, in contrast to the accumulation and melting of ice in the northern polar zone and its effect on global sea levels, changes in the location of Antarctica would have been less of a factor.

The mountainous interior of Greenland has the most ice, which coincidentally has remained in the polar zone for the past 130,000 years. As shown below, areas with the thickest ice in Antarctica are not always the highest in elevation as they are in Greenland.

The Bottom Line

We have shown that changes in the geographic location of the polar zone, which Hapgood believed was responsible for ice ages in different parts of the world at different times, can explain the extent of the northern ice sheet at the time of the LGM, why the thickest ice at both the North and South Poles is where it is, and how, as discussed in the previous article, portions of Antarctica could have been ice-free during the North American ice age. Future articles will examine other implications of Hapgood’s revolutionary theory.

Hapgood’s analysis of maps in use during the Middle Ages known as portolans revealed their accuracy was better than what was possible given the nautical knowledge of the time. An analysis of one of those maps – the Orontius Fineaus map of 1531 supports the hypothesis that the original sources on which it was based could predate the current historical period to a time when the geographic poles were in a different location and Western Antarctica was ice-free.

Click here to read full paper.

Charles Hapgood

In Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, Charles Hapgood, with the help of his students at Keene State College discovered that certain ancient maps could be thousands of years old or more based on both the detail and accuracy of the information they contain. Perhaps the most famous, the Piri Reis (PR) map of 1513 appears to depict a part of the Antarctic coastline, a fact at odds with the general belief that the southern continent was not discovered until the 19^th century. Remarkably, another map, the Orontius Fineaus (OF) map, which was drawn in 1531 shows the whole of Antarctica with details suggesting much of it was once ice-free.

An Ice-Free Antarctica?

Although there is no scientific evidence supporting a continent entirely free of ice, Scherer et al. show that some glacial sediment samples recovered from beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet indicate the Ross Embayment could have once been an open marine environment during the Pleistocene as early as Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 or 5e, or 100–400 Kya. The configuration of West Antarctic seaways after a hypothetical collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is not inconsistent with Hapgood’s hypothesis of a previous pole in Hudson Bay having the corresponding South Pole off the eastern coast of Antarctica in the South Indian Ocean. With the pole at this location, West Antarctica would have been outside of the south polar region providing an alternative mechanism to explain the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Analysis of Hapgood’s Analysis

In a detailed analysis of the OF map, Hapgood found approximately fifty geographical features that he could identify on a modern map. Plotting the difference (error) between the OF and true map coordinates reveals a random distribution of errors with no apparent trend (correlation) with respect to either latitude or longitude.

Most maps at the time the OF and PR are thought to have been drawn were portolans (port-to-port navigational maps) rendered in planar projections. It has been suggested that certain maps such as the OF were redrawn from earlier maps that had been based on a spherical model of the Earth. In exploring this idea we can estimate what the OF map coordinates would have been had they based on a knowledge of spherical geometry with any remaining differences due to errors in the original source(s). Plotting differences between true and estimated OF map coordinates reveals a subtle, but statistically significant trend.

Evidence of an Earlier Pole?

Other than there being fewer identified features in the interior of Antarctica, i.e., near the South Pole, there is no statistical evidence that there was any less ice in the interior than along the coastline. The positive correlation in the scatter plot indicates an increase in map errors in positive (eastern) longitudes. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the OF map was compiled when Western Antarctica had less ice (more land area was exposed) than Eastern Antarctica. But why would land west of the South Pole be ice-free while land east of the Pole was not?

One possibility is that Western Antarctica was ice-free because the South Pole was located about 2,000 miles east of its present location. If this were so one would expect errors to be correlated with distance to the old pole. In fact, the largest errors vs. longitude relative to the current pole point in the direction of a hypothesized pole in the South Indian Sea.

What Could This Mean?

Hapgood’s analysis of portolan maps in use during the Middle Ages revealed their accuracy was better than what was possible given the nautical knowledge of the time. He even goes as far as stating “we have evidence here that all the portolans stemmed from a common origin in ancient times.” In our analysis of Hapgood’s analysis of the Orontius Finaeus map, we find OF and true map longitudes are more correlated than OF and true map latitudes, which is hard to explain in light of the fact that accurate longitudes requires accurate clocks, which did not exist at that time.

Our findings support the idea that if the original OF map were based on a spherical model of the Earth, errors would likely increase in Eastern Antarctica if the landscape was covered in ice by virtue of it being closer to the former pole than in Western Antarctica, which would have been well outside of the polar zone and so have been ice-free. It is possible that lands to the east covered with ice were likely less accessible and so not as well mapped as those to the west.

Putting it all together, we propose that the sources of the OF and other similar maps of the time were not only pre-Greek as Hapgood believed but predate the current historical period, specifically to a previous world age in which the North Pole was in Hudson Bay and the corresponding South Pole was in the South Indian Ocean, approximately 2,000 miles east of its current location.

Breathing new life into Charles Hapgood’s theory of earth crustal displacement/pole shifts, a new paper proposes that short-term reversals of the geomagnetic field may “unlock” the crust sufficiently to allow tidal forces to pull it over the mantle in the same way they move earth’s oceans. With existing climate theories unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of glacial cycles and ice ages, a revised version of Hapgood’s theory has been developed that explains sea-level changes resulting from the buildup and melting of polar ice over ice age/glacial cycles by a combination of Milanković cycles and Hapgood pole shifts.

Click here to read the paper.

Watch a video presentation sponsored by the Society for Scientific Exploration.

Introduction

In this article, we begin by revisiting Hapgood’s theory of earth crustal displacement in the context of recent developments in climate and geoscience and show that it may be the missing link in understanding not only the rise and fall of past civilizations, as we first set out to do in Before Atlantis, but ice age/glacial cycles as well. A modified version of Hapgood’s theory is then described based on a new mechanism that is triggered by short-term reversals of the geomagnetic field that “unlock” the crust from the mantle and driven by earth-moon-sun tidal forces, the same forces that move earth’s oceans. 

Milanković Cycles

In the 1920s, Milutin Milanković proposed that changes in earth’s eccentricity, axial tilt (obliquity), and precession result in cyclical variations in the amount of incident solar radiation (insolation) reaching the earth. Insolation is generally assumed to be a major driver of climate change over long periods. From 1–3 million years ago, climate patterns were correlated with the earth’s 41 Ky-long obliquity cycle. Then, about a million years ago, patterns began to follow a 100 Ky cycle that is between the 95 Ky and 125 Ky cycles in earth’s orbital eccentricity. Why the period of climate patterns changed, the origin of the 100 Ky cycle, and why insolation lags rather than leads climate changes are among some of the problems that cannot be explained by Milanković cycles. Perhaps the greatest shortfall of Milanković’s theory is the inability of insolation in itself to accurately account for the periodic buildup and melting of polar ice over glacial cycles.

The two time series, insolation and global sea level, shown above are weakly correlated (R=0.14). There is a somewhat higher (R=0.33) correlation between insolation and temperature, and an even greater correlation (R=0.63) between insolation and changes in sea level as a function of time. The reason for the increased correlation is that as insolation increases, temperatures increase, polar ice melts, and sea levels rise. Conversely, as insolation decreases, temperatures decrease, precipitation freezes and accumulates at the poles, and sea levels fall. Exploiting this correlation, we can estimate mean sea level change ∆s(t) as a function of insolation Q(t) that when summed provide an estimate of sea level s(t) as a function of insolation over time.

What Insolation Does Not Predict

Over the last two glacial cycles, insolation tends to underpredict sea level (over predict polar ice) at the beginning of a cycle and over predict sea level (under predict polar ice) at the end. In other words, a greater amount of ice melts at the beginning and accumulates at the end of a glacial cycle than what is predicted by insolation. 

Pole Shifts and Sea Level Changes

Insolation increases as we move toward the equator. Allowing the geographic location of the earth’s poles to shift relative to the rotational axis as Hapgood proposed provides a means that can potentially account for the difference between the above sea-level curves. Before the start of a glacial cycle, a large amount of water is stored in an ice sheet around the pole. If the crust displaces enough to move the ice sheet out of the polar zone, the increased amount of solar radiation at lower latitudes will cause the ice to melt raising sea levels. After a period, an ice sheet begins to form at the new pole causing sea levels once again to fall.

Sea levels decrease in stages during a glacial cycle suggesting a continued buildup of ice near the poles. Notice the land area around the pole is different at different pole locations. Since ice forms and accumulates more readily on land than over the ocean, if the land area at the new pole is greater than the land area at the old pole, sea levels after a pole shift should eventually fall to a lower level as there is a greater area for ice to accumulate. Based on measurements of land area in the Arctic circle and former polar regions there is a strong correlation between the size of the ice sheet (assumed to be determined by land area) and sea level for the current and four prior pole locations. Successive increases in available land area following the Bering Sea to Greenland pole shift have led to successive decreases in sea level. This suggests that the magnitude of crustal displacements during a glacial cycle, i.e., before the last glacial maximum (LGM) and penultimate glacial maximum (PGM) were small enough to keep the accumulating mass of ice in the polar zone. The precipitous rise in sea level after the LGM and PGM suggests that larger magnitude crustal displacements shifted the ice sheet farther south to melt a significant fraction of the accumulated ice. 

A Possible Mechanism for Crustal Displacements

In his original theory, Hapgood proposed polar ice creates mass imbalances that can cause the crust to slip over the mantle shifting the geographic location of the North Pole. Einstein later argued that the force of the ice was not sufficient to cause a crustal displacement. Using models of the crust and ice sheets at the LGM to estimate the degree to which the ice could have affected the earth’s moments of inertia, it has been determined that if the crust were free to move, the ice would have shifted the pole by less than 0.25° relative to its present position. 

An analysis of alternative mass distribution models reveals the theoretical axis of rotation (TRA) of the crust deviates significantly from the earth’s rotational axis and so may not be in equilibrium with the earth. We have determined the crust’s TRA is at 1.21°N, 18.52° W. This location lies in the zone of the tropics almost on the equator. At the equinox, the equator is parallel with the ecliptic plane. At other times of the year, the ecliptic passes through the earth’s equatorial region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The path of the sun, moon and most other bodies in the solar system lies along the ecliptic. That the crust’s TRA points in this direction suggest the possibility the crustal disequilibrium may have an external (i.e., extraterrestrial) cause.

The influence of the moon, and to a lesser extent, the sun, are responsible for the earth’s tides. The balance between gravitational and centrifugal forces causes the earth (primarily its oceans) to elongate in the direction of the moon by 1.34 meters and the direction of the sun by 0.61 meters. As the earth rotates, tidal forces cause the oceans to rise and fall twice a day. These forces also pull on the crust. It has been proposed that tidal forces acting on the crust could be a possible trigger for certain kinds of earthquakes. 

Tidal torques acting on the earth and moon dissipate energy. With the crust “locked” to the mantle, the energy loss manifests as the frictional heating of the crust and oceans. If, however, the crust became “unlocked” the effective work could result in a displacement of the crust over the mantle. The key to crustal displacement thus becomes the question of whether there is a way for the crust to become unlocked from the mantle. 

A growing body of evidence suggests changes in the earth’s magnetic field may influence climate. Over the last 83 million years, 183 geomagnetic reversals have taken place in which the poles changed polarity. Geomagnetic reversals occur, on average, 450 Ky years apart. Long periods (millions of years) in which the magnetic poles do not flip preceded the four largest extinctions on earth: the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT), Triassic-Jurassic (TJ), and the Permo-Triassic (PT) and Guadalupian-Tatarian (GT) doublet. Between geomagnetic reversals, events known as geomagnetic excursions take place where the field temporarily reverses for a shorter period (thousands of years or less).

One possibility is that changes in the magnetic field during a geomagnetic excursion may affect the ease with which the crust can move over the mantle. Magnetic dipoles of ferromagnetic minerals in the crust normally line up in the same direction as those in the core resulting in continental ferromagnetic fields. It is conjectured that when the core magnetic field flips during a geomagnetic excursion, the dipoles in the crust temporarily point in the opposite direction to produce a repulsive force between the crust and core fields. If this force, perpendicular to the crust, is sufficient to reduce the frictional force between the crust and mantle, it may be possible for forces acting on the crust parallel to the surface to move the crust over the mantle while the geomagnetic field is reversed. When the geomagnetic field flips back the crust is once again locked to the mantle maintaining disequilibrium.

Correlated Events

Although there is no way to test our conjecture directly, correlations between geomagnetic excursions, super-volcanic eruptions, and glacial events could imply causation. The Blake geomagnetic excursion occurred 15–20 Ky after the PGM. The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions.  The next two geomagnetic excursions were each followed by massive VEI 8 magnitude volcanic eruptions. The most recent Toba eruption 73–75 Kya followed the Norwegian-Greenland Sea excursion. The Oruanui eruption of New Zealand’s Taupo volcano followed the Lake Mungo excursion 28–30 Kya. The somewhat smaller VEI 7 Phlegraean Fields eruption followed the Laschamp event 40–42 Kya.

Although the trigger mechanism for geomagnetic reversals is not clear, crustal shifts could provide an explanation for earthquake activity, volcanic eruptions, and other events that follow geomagnetic excursions. The Blake, Norwegian-Greenland Sea and Lachamps geomagnetic excursions precede three episodes of sea level decline/increase of polar ice. The Lake Mungo geomagnetic excursion occurs just before the LGM after which global sea levels began to rise to current levels. According to the model, crustal displacement(s) triggered by the Mungo Lake and possibly the Gothenburg geomagnetic excursions shifted most of the ice sheet that had formed up to the LGM almost 2,000 miles south well into the temperate zone leading to rapid melting and sea-level rise. The Younger Dryas event was also likely a significant contributor to glacial melt. All four events appear to be somewhat correlated with Milanković cycles evident in the insolation curve. Three precede major volcanic eruptions. 

Conclusion

We show how Hapgood pole shifts working in conjunction with Milanković cycles provide a possible explanation for climate changes over past glacial cycles. That the crust does not appear to be in equilibrium with the whole earth in terms of their moments of inertia suggests the possibility that an unknown force could be at work. We propose earth-moon-sun tidal forces may be responsible, and that these forces, which move the earth’s oceans might provide sufficient energy to displace the crust a significant distance during a geomagnetic excursion. It is our hope that these new findings will lead to further work in these and other related areas of research.

The featured image at the top of the article was captured by the astronauts about the International Space Station.

Although most historical accounts are rooted in the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus in 753 BCE we present new evidence based on astronomical alignments that the place we now call Rome may have been first established tens of thousands of years earlier.

Click here to download paper from SSRN.

Introduction

Analysis of the alignment of Roman towns reveals the distribution of geographic orientations is decidedly non-random (Magli 2008). Most are laid out in solar directions from due east-west to directions north and south that are within the range of sunrise/sunset directions over the course of the year. These alignments span the range of lunar directions except for extreme northerly and southerly moonrises and moonsets at the time of major lunar standstills which occur every 18.6 years. Spiravigna (2016) has found evidence of lunar alignments at Roman sites including the Decumani of Naples, Augusta Emerita, known today as Merida, in Spain, and Curia Julia in the Forum of Rome. 

Lunar Alignments

Most are familiar with the seasonal path of the sun – that it rises in the east and sets in the west, more or less. The motion of the moon, however, is more complex and perhaps, as a result, is seen as being more mysterious. The moon’s movements are more complex than the sun’s for several reasons. The moon completes one orbit around us in a much shorter time than we do around the sun and so does in a month what the sun does in a year, in terms of the changing rising and setting direction along the horizon. The plane of the moon’s orbit is tilted by 5.1° relative to the ecliptic and so can rise and set more northerly and more southerly than the sun. Due to the effects of the sun’s gravity, the moon’s orbital plane does not stay fixed in space but precesses, causing the monthly angles of moonrise and moonset to change over an 18.6-year cycle. Every 18.6 years the moon rises and sets at its maximum northerly and southerly directions, which is known as a major lunar standstill. 9.3 years later a minor lunar standstill occurs when the moon rises and sets at its minimum northerly and southerly directions. Both of these times appear to have been important to ancient builders throughout the world.

The City of Rome

According to legend, the city of Rome was founded by the sons of Mars, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus on April 21, 753 BCE. Seven hills comprise the city of Rome. Temples dedicated to the Roman goddess Luna once existed on Aventine and Palatine hills.

The alignment of grid patterns on both Aventine and Palatine hills lie in the direction of most southerly moonrises and northerly moonsets. The alignment of the Roman Senate building, Curia Julia, in the Roman Forum is in the direction of most northerly moonrises and southerly moonsets. Alignments in all three areas are in major lunar standstill directions.

The Field of Mars

West of the old city lies Campus Martius – The Field of Mars. One of the oldest Roman temples, the Pantheon, is here just east of Piazza Navona. Unlike the Roman Forum, and Palatine and Aventine hills, this part of Rome is laid out in a direction that currently has no known astronomical or geographic significance. 

In a study of more than two hundred archaeological sites (Carlotto 2020a), it was discovered that the alignment of almost half of the sites examined could not be explained in terms of known directions. Approximately 80% of the sites were found to reference four locations within 30° of the North Pole (Carlotto 2019a) that, if Hapgood’s theory of earth crustal displacement is correct, could have been former locations of the North Pole over the past 100,000 years (Carlotto 2020b). 

The Pantheon is one of these sites. Shifting the geographic reference point from the current North Pole to a previous pole in Hudson Bay, the Pantheon and surrounding area become aligned in the direction of major lunar standstills relative to the Hudson Bay pole. Based on the chronology established by Gaffney (2020), if the Romans had built the Pantheon over a previous structure that was aligned to a former pole in Hudson Hay, based on its alignment, the original site could have been established at least 12,000 to 18,000 years ago.

Ancient Foundations

Examples of newer structures built over older pre-existing structures can be found throughout the world. Seven stages of construction are evident at Baalbek. Under the Parthenon in Athens lies an older Parthenon (Beard 2010). There are many examples of this practice, now known as adaptive reuse, in Rome. Walking through the old city modern buildings built over and alongside ancient ruins are everywhere.

But what lies underneath Rome? According to Tom Mueller in his article “Underground Rome,” something is buried beneath everything in Rome. Roman architects tore the roofs from old buildings filled their interiors and used them as foundations for newer structures. Four levels have been excavated within San Clemente, a twelfth-century basilica just east of the Coliseum. 

Descend the staircase in the sacristy and you find yourself in a rectangular hall decorated with fading frescoes and greenish marbles, lit by sparse bulbs strung up by the excavators. This is the original, fourth-century San Clemente, one of Rome’s first churches. It was condemned around A.D. 1100 and packed full of earth, Roman-style, as a platform for the present basilica. A narrow stair near the apse of this lower church leads down to the first-century structures upon which it, in turn, was built: a Roman apartment house and a small temple. The light is thinner here; cresses and fungi patch the dark brick and grow delicate halos on the walls behind the bare bulbs. Deeper still, on the fourth level, are several rooms from an enormous public building that was apparently destroyed in the Great Fire and then buried by Nero’s architects. At about a dozen yards below ground the massive tufa blocks and herringbone brickwork are slick with humidity, and everywhere is the sound of water, flowing in original Roman pipes. No one has excavated below this level, but something is there, for the tufa walls run another twenty feet or so down into the earth.^[5]

The fourth-century church was filled with rubble and used as the foundation of the current basilica, whose aisle and nave were lined up with that of the one below it. In this way, the alignment of the original structure defines that of later structures built over and around it.

The Oculus

Spiravigna (2018) considers the question of what could have been seen through the opening (oculus) of the Pantheon. Rome is located approximately 42° north of the Equator. Relative to the Hudson Bay pole, its latitude would have been about 35°.

Earth’s axial tilt or obliquity is currently 23.5°. Numerical models suggest the obliquity, which varies cyclically could be as large as 24.5°. The declination of the moon at a major standstill at maximum obliquity would be approximately 24.5 + 5.1 = 29.6°. The diameter of this opening or oculus at the top of the structure subtends a 10° region centered at the zenith. The angular diameter of the moon is about 0.5° and so would have been almost visible through the oculus at this time from below. If one looked up and stepped back toward the doorway, the moon would become visible at its zenith.

Discussion

The Parthenon is thought to have been aligned toward sunrise on August 15, the date of Athena’s birthday (Carlotto 2019b). Using a similar rationale, we have been unable to find any structure in Rome aligned in the direction of sunrise (74°) or sunset (286°) on the city’s founding date of April 21. The orientation of the Roman Forum (294°), which is well north of this direction, like structures on Palatine and Aventine hills, is aligned to lunar standstills, in this case, minor standstills.

Worship of the moon is thought to have originated in the early years of the Roman Kingdom. That so much of ancient Rome is aligned to the moon and one of its oldest buildings, the Pantheon, is aligned to the moon relative to the Hudson Bay pole may be no coincidence, particularly in light of the Roman practice of building over older structures, a practice that they could have inherited from an earlier civilization that also held a special reverence for the moon.

References

Giulio Magli (2008), “On the orientation of Roman towns in Italy,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 27 (1), 63–71.

Mary Beard, The Parthenon, rev. ed. (Harvard University Press, 2010).

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna (May 29, 2016) “The Decumani of Naples and the Minor Lunar Standstill,” PHILICA, Article number 608. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2786259.

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna (July 10, 2016) “Augusta Emerita and the Major Lunar Standstill of 24 BC,” PHILICA Article Number 635, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2807544.

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna (July 19, 2016) “ A Possible Astronomical Orientation of the Curia Julia in the Forum of Rome,” PHILICA Article number 639, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2811625.

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna and Lidia Dastrù (May 27, 2018) “The Pantheon, eye of Rome, and its glimpse of the sky,” Available at HAL: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01800694.

Mark Carlotto (2019a) “Archaeological Dating Using a Data Fusion Approach,” SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing Conference on Signal Processing, Sensor/Information Fusion, and Target Recognition XXVIII (11018), Baltimore MD, April 14-18, 2019.     

Mark Carlotto (2019b) “New Models to Explain the Alignments of Greek Temples.” Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3501950 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3501950

Mark Gaffney (2020) Deep History and the Ages of Man. Independently Published.

Mark Carlotto (2020a) “An Analysis of the Alignment of Archaeological Sites,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 34(1):13. DOI: 10.31275/2020/1617

Mark Carlotto (2020b) “A New Model to Explain the Alignment of Certain Ancient Sites,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 34(2):209-232. DOI: 10.31275/20201619

Mark Carlotto (2022) “Toward a New Theory of Earth Crustal Displacement,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 36(1):8-23. DOI: 10.31275/20221621

Featured image at the top of the article courtesy Jörg Bittner (Unna). Creative Commons. 

An analysis of the geomagnetic alignment of more than three dozen earthen pyramids in China reveals a number of interesting correlations between the date of construction and size. A strong correlation (R = 0.79) between the orientation of a pyramidal mound and the direction of the geomagnetic pole at the time of construction supports the idea that the Chinese used some form of a magnetic compass to align many if not all these structures. A moderate negative correlation (R = –0.59) between the size of a mound and its date of construction reveals that older mounds tend to be larger and decrease in size over time. Comparing these findings with those from a previous study of 3^rd to 5^th Dynasty Egyptian pyramids suggests that it is possible the ancient Chinese, as well as the Egyptians, could have repurposed/reused older and larger structures as tombs for later day rulers and their families.

Click here to read full paper

The Chinese Pyramids

In China, numerous pyramidal mounds are thought to have been constructed as mausoleums and burial mounds containing the remains of early emperors and their families. Some are oriented in known geographical or astronomical detections, but most are not. These structures were unknown in the West before the 20th century. One of the first to gain widespread attention following World War II was the tomb of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (156 – 87 BCE), which became known as the White Pyramid.

Most (but not all) of the Chinese pyramids are in the Guanzhong region between the Qinling Mountains to the south and several mountain ranges to the north.

Geomagnetic Dating

Unlike the geographic pole, which is relatively fixed over time, the geomagnetic pole moves as the earth’s magnetic field changes. According to the geomagnetic alignment hypothesis, which was first proposed by Robert Fuson, dates when a site is aligned to the geomagnetic pole (i.e., when a magnetic compass aligns to the principal axis of the site) are possible dates for its construction (or modification). For sites within the range of magnetic declinations in China over the past 4000 years, we selected the geomagnetic pole that most closely lined up to the site and used it as the basis for dating the site. When an alignment could be associated with more than one date, the one closest to the dynastic date was chosen. Dynastic and geomagnetic dates of Chinese pyramid sites are plotted below:

Given the limited accuracy of the geomagnetic pole data, particularly as you go back farther in time, we find significant differences between dynastic and estimated geomagnetic dates. Differences of a century or less in later Sui and Tang dynasty tombs increase to up to five centuries in the early Han dynasty.

Anomalous Alignment

The greatest difference in alignment is for the tomb of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang (Tomb of First Emperor in Lintong) located within a massive earthen pyramid approximately 360 x 360 meters (33 acres) in area. Its size is considerably larger in area than the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico (273 x 295 meters) and the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt (230 x 230 meters. Qin Shi Huang ruled China until 210 BCE. If his burial site was constructed and geomagnetically aligned at this time, it should be oriented approximately 7° west of north. As shown in the animation below, the pyramid is oriented about 1.5° east of north. This direction lies between the 1900 BCE and 1800 BCE geomagnetic poles. There is no other geomagnetic alignment at a declination of 1.5° from 1800 BCE until 200 CE, which is more than 400 years after the death of Qin Shi Huang. It is difficult to account for this discrepancy in terms of geomagnetic pole accuracy.

A Possible Explanation

If the pyramid was aligned geomagnetically one possible explanation for the discrepancy between its dynastic and geomagnetic date is that the pyramid is much older than the tomb contained within it. In other words, Qin Shi Huang could have been buried within the preexisting structure. Before Consort Ban, geomagnetic dates tend to be earlier than dynastic dates. The negative bias of the geomagnetic dates backward in time suggests the possibility that earlier pyramids could have been reused for later-day burials.

The Chinese historian Sima Qian, writing a century after Qin Shi Huang‘s death, states that it took 700,000 men to construct his mausoleum, a labor force whose size has been disputed. It is interesting that in his account Sima Qian never mentions the thousands of terracotta statues buried east of the pyramid to protect the emperor in the afterlife from evil spirits. The Terracotta Warriors, which were excavated in 1974 are lined up in a direction slightly south of due east. Based on the orientation of its surrounding enclosure, their alignment would appear to be the same as the pyramid suggesting the array of Terracotta Warriors was aligned at the same time as the pyramid. It is possible that Sima Qian did not mention the statues because they were buried at the time and had been buried for more than a thousand years.

Plotting pyramid area versus date shows a low to moderate negative correlation. A negative correlation implies the size of pyramids tended to decrease over time. In other words, the oldest pyramids should be the largest. If we accept the geomagnetic dating of the pyramid containing Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum, then the oldest pyramid is the largest.  

A Similar Trend?

Based on an analysis of 3^rd – 5th dynasty Egyptian pyramids it was hypothesized that certain 4^th Dynasty pyramids could be much older than their accepted age leading to the possibility that they were not built but co-opted and modified by 4^th Dynasty pharaohs. The same possibility is suggested for the first Chinese emperor based on the alignment and size of the pyramid within which he is entombed. Did Qin Shi Huang, like Khufu and Khafre, co-opt preexisting structures that were much larger than what was being built at the time for their own purposes? Over this period, the size of Egyptian pyramids strongly correlates with the age of construction, with later pyramids becoming smaller (and less well built). Could a similar trend have occurred in China?

The featured image at the top of the article is an artist’s conception of the northern sky in central China during a geomagnetic storm. (Source images courtesy of Google Earth and Wikimedia Commons.)

Ruins of ancient shrines, temples, forts, and settlements in and around the Taklamakan Desert are generally thought to have been established no later than the third century BCE. Some of the structures at these sites excavated by M. Aurel Stein in the early 20^th century were built over more ancient foundations and so could be considerably older based on their alignment to previous locations of the North Pole. 

Click here to read the paper

The Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan

The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Iranian Saka Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The ancient capital is thought to have been founded around the third century BCE during the reign of the Indian emperor Ashoka. Stein’s interest in this region can be summarized in the following section taken from his 1904 book The Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan:

For systematic excavations, which alone could supply this evidence, the region of Khotan appeared from the first a field of particular promise. In scattered notices of Chinese records there was much to suggest that this little kingdom, situated on the important route that led from China to the Oxus Valley and hence to India as well as to the West, had played a prominent part in developing the impulses received from India and transmitting them eastwards. The close connection with ancient Indian art seemed particularly marked in whatever of small antiques, such as pottery fragments, coins and seals, native agency had supplied from Khotan. And fortunately for our research, archaeology could here rely on the help of a very effective ally—the moving sand of the desert which preserves what it buries. Ever since human activity first created the oases of Khotan territory, their outskirts must have witnessed a continuous struggle with that most formidable of deserts, the Taklamakan; while local traditions, attested from an early date, told of settlements that had been abandoned before its advance.

More than mere stopping points along the Silk Road, Stein goes on to say:

The ruined sites explored by me have more than justified the hopes which led me to Khotan and into its desert. Scattered over an area which in a straight line extends for more than three hundred miles from west and east, and dating back to very different periods, these ruins throughout reveal to us a uniform and well-defined civilization. It is easy to recognise now that this bygone culture rested mainly on Indian foundations. But there has also come to light unmistakable evidence of other powerful influences, both from the West and from China, which helped to shape its growth and to invest it with an individual character and fascination of its own.

Using Stein’s original photos and narratives together with current high resolution satellite imagery we examine several of the sites he first uncovered. The locations of these and other sites discussed in this article are shown below.

Tashkurghan

Tashkurgan is a town on the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The area of interest contains the ruins of a Chinese fort that Stein describes as:

A line of massive but crumbling stone walls crowns the edges of a quadrangular plateau of conglomerate cliffs, roughly one-third of a mile in length on each of its faces. A small portion of the area thus enclosed, on the east side facing the river, is occupied by the Chinese fort. Its high and carefully plastered walls of sun-dried bricks stand undoubtedly on far more ancient foundations.

Shown below, an analysis of the area reveals a circular feature (a), perhaps the remains of a Buddhist stupa, in the ruins north of the fort area. A rectilinear structure at the center rotated west of north is in the same direction of a line that passes through (a) and another circular feature (b) to the south. A line in the same direction passes through two small features along the outer wall of the fort (c). This line is in the direction of a former pole in Hudson Bay suggesting the original foundations Stein alludes to in his narrative could have been first established tens of thousands of years ago and later co-opted by the Chinese. Rectilinear patterns of ruined structures north and west of the fort (d) lie in the direction of the summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset relative to the Hudson Bay pole.

2.   Rawak

East of Tashkurgan in the western portion of the Taklamakan Desert is Rawak, perhaps Stein’s most remarkable find:

Here an unexpected and most gratifying discovery awaited me. Our honest old guide had spoken only of  “an old house” to be seen there half-buried in the sand, but in reality the first glimpse showed a large Stupa with its enclosing quadrangle, by far the most imposing structure I had seen among the extant ruins of the Khotan region. Large dunes of coarse sand, rising over 25 feet in height, covered the quadrangle and part of the massive square base of the Stupa on the north-west and north-east faces. But towards the south the drift-sand was lower, and there great portions of the Stupa base, as well as the lines of masonry marking the quadrangular enclosure of the Stupa court, could be readily made out. 

What Stein found most interesting was not the stupa itself but the sculptures decorating the walls of the courtyard that had been buried in the sand for centuries if not millennia. The geometry of the site is perhaps even more remarkable. The axes of the stupa and its quadrangular enclosure are rotated too far away from the cardinal directions to be aligned to the sun (solstices) or moon (lunar standstills). However, like Tashkurgan, if we assume a different reference frame, the southwest-northeast axis turns out to be very closely aligned in the direction of major lunar standstills relative to the Hudson Bay pole placing its origin in the same epoch as Tashkurgan – at least 12,000 to 18,000 years ago.

3.   Endere

Continuing west to east, an extensive array of ruins can be found in Endere including an ancient fort and Buddhist temple. Stein’s exploration of the fort raised more questions than answers:

During the days following I had almost all the buildings within the enclosing ramparts cleared of sand. These excavations furnished interesting data as to the methods of construction employed, but failed to throw much light on the original destination of the whole of this ruined settlement. The large brick building to the east of the temple, of which a portion left exposed by the sand occupies with its massive walls of sun-dried bricks three sides of a quadrangle over 100 feet square. The dimensions of its rooms suggest public use; but as, with the exception of a walled fireplace or two, they were found completely empty, there was nothing to prove the true character of the structure. Were these the quarters of a well-to-do monastic establishment which found it advisable to protect itself by walls and ramparts? Or do the latter mark a fortified frontier-post which sheltered also a Buddhist temple?

Where Stein felt that he “had reached the border-line beyond which Indian influences yielded to Chinese,” other structures at Endere seem to straddle an even more ancient border-line between history and prehistory.

Surviving features of the fort (top right) are aligned in the direction of the geomagnetic pole circa 200 BCE, which corresponds to the period when the area was under the control of the Han Dynasty. A stupa northwest of the fort (bottom right) appears to be aligned in a different direction that corresponds to the direction of major lunar standstills relative to the Hudson Bay pole. Nearby ruins (left) are cardinally aligned (N-S-E-W) relative to the same pole suggesting these structures could be considerably older than the fort.

4.   Miran

The pattern of structures aligned to the Hudson Bay pole extends to Miran, at the eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert. At Miran, Stein first encountered four ancient structures including two stupas – one “well-preserved” and the other “much decayed.” Two remaining ruins were “square structures solidly built in sun-dried bricks of unusual hardness.” Visible structures appear to be rotated slightly west of north in the direction of the Hudson Bay pole.

About a kilometer east of these ruins, lies an ancient Tibetan fort that Stein found to be less than remarkable, stating “the crumbling walls and bastions were massive enough in dimensions, but their inferior construction seemed to suggest a relatively late date.“ Less than 2 km northeast of the fort he found a ruined temple in which he uncovered an enormous Buddha head. Based on his findings Stein concluded that “the temple dated from a period far more ancient than that ascertained for the Tibetan fort. A number of observations made it appear a priori probable that a site of considerable antiquity had been reoccupied here, as in the case of Endere.”

5.   Discussion

The above table summarizes the alignments of these and other ancient sites in the Taklamakan Desert and surrounding regions. Most of the sites appear to reference previous poles, especially the Hudson Bay pole. This is particularly interesting as it extends a pattern discussed in previous articles that appears to stretch from the Arabian Peninsula, through India, into and now across Central Asia. That the alignments of so many structures appear to reference the Hudson Bay pole supports the hypothesis that these sites were first established by an earlier pre-cursor civilization that existed in this part of the world no less than 12,000 to 18,000 years ago (Carlotto 2022). Although this hypothesis explains the alignment of these sites in a simple way it does not account for the alignment of all of the sites in the region or the possibility that some of the sites might have been aligned in other ways such as to the geomagnetic pole, a possibility that will be considered in a forthcoming article.

Feature image at the top of the article of the Rawak stupa is courtesy of The International Dunhuang Project.

This article explores the possibility that the Great Sphinx in Egypt was conceived as a temple to a lunar deity in the form of a lion facing the rising of a full moon circa 21,000 BCE. We hypothesize an alignment at the fall equinox with the sun setting behind the Sphinx instead of in front of it at the spring equinox as Bauval and Hancock have proposed. Based on predictions derived from Charles Hapgood’s theory of earth crustal displacement, this hypothesis places the origin and early history of the Sphinx in the tropics where heavy rainfall over time could have eroded the original structure so as to appear as it does today.

Introduction

The Sphinx is thought to have been built by the 4th-dynasty pharaoh Khafre, around 2500 BCE. Inspired by the research of Schwaller de Lubicz, John Anthony West believed it to be much older. West along with geologist Robert Schoch proposed a dating of 5000 BCE based on indications of water erosion, water erosion that could only have occurred when the climate was wetter. Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval suggested the Sphinx was built circa 10,500 BCE in the astrological age of Leo. They believed the symbolism of the Sphinx facing the sun as it rose on the first day of spring “mirrored” the alignment of the sun in the sky with the constellation Leo at that time. West later went on to propose an even earlier date of 36,000 BCE during the time of the legendary predynastic rules of Egypt.

A Warmer Wetter Egypt

Evidence of water erosion on the Sphinx suggests that it once existed within a much wetter environment. Today, the climate in Lower Egypt is dry due to it being north of the tropic of Cancer within the range of latitudes in the northern hemisphere that has the least amount of rainfall. 

Charles Hapgood proposed that ice ages and other climate events were due to displacements of the earth’s crust that shifted the geographic location of the North Pole. As the pole shifts, so too do climate zones. If the North Pole were in Hudson Bay before the latest crustal displacement, which Hapgood estimated occurred 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, Egypt would have had a warm and wet climate.

Anomalous Alignments in Giza

Before Atlantis considers the archaeological implications of Hapgood’s theory, in particular, that certain ancient sites were aligned to previous locations of the geographic pole. In Giza, if the geographic pole were in Hudson Bay, North would have been about 30° west from its current direction. 

The three great pyramids and associated temples in Giza are accurately aligned within fractions of a degree to north. Much of the surrounding area contains later-day tombs, settlements, and other structures that are similarly aligned although not as accurately. Like the pyramids, the Sphinx also appears to be aligned to the cardinal directions. 

An area surrounding the Sphinx on the east side of the Giza Necropolis contains structures that are aligned differently. The Temple of Amenhotep II northeast of the Sphinx is rotated about 45° clockwise from the cardinal directions. The temple was built over the then yet to be revealed temple in front of the Sphinx that was discovered after his son Thutmose IV excavated the Sphinx around 1400 BCE. The Pyramid of Khentkaus I is a two-stepped tomb south of the Sphinx that was constructed during the 4th-dynasty. The tomb, built in two phases coinciding with its two steps, was originally known as the fourth pyramid of Giza. It is unusual in that unlike the other three Giza pyramids this structure is misaligned by a considerable amount, about 6° west of north.

What is interesting about the Hudson Bay pole hypothesis is that it explains the alignment of these two structures in a simple way. If the North Pole were in Hudson Bay, the Temple of Amenhotep II would be aligned in the direction of minor lunar standstills. The Pyramid of Khentkaus I and neighboring structures east and west would have been aligned in the direction of the winter solstice sunrise/summer solstice sunset relative to the Hudson Bay pole. Even more interesting, we find that the direction of major lunar standstills circa 21,000 BCE corresponds to due east today. In other words if the Sphinx were originally built in alignment with the moon at this time, after the pole shift from Hudson Bay it would now appear to be cardinally aligned.

Alignments to the Moon 

According to Wendell  Phillips, the “Indiana Jones” of his time, “the moon was the chief deity of all the early South Arabian kingdoms – particularly fitting in that region where the soft light of the moon brought the rest and cool winds of night as relief from the blinding sun and scorching heat of day.” 

Sites dedicated to moon gods exist throughout Arabia to the east. The ancient cities of Timna and Mar’ib along the southern border of the Rub’al Khali are aligned in the direction of minor lunar standstills. The Temple of Awwam in Mar’ib, dedicated to the moon god  Ilumquh is aligned to sun and moon relative to the Hudson Bay pole. Structures in the ancient town of Shabwa to the east are also aligned to the moon relative to the direction of the Hudson Bay pole. (See a previous article for a discussion of these sites.)

A Lunar Temple?

In considering the widespread worship of the moon in this part of the world, was the Sphinx, once thought to have been the representation of a lion, actually a shrine to a lunar deity? 

Lions do not live in arid desert regions but in warm tropical savannas. Like most predators, they sleep during the day and hunt at night. 

West’s 36,000 year-old dating of the Sphinx is Bauval and Hancock’s plus one precessional cycle of 24,000 years. At that time the sun would have risen in the constellation Leo, and set in Aquarius on the spring equinox. One half precessional cycle earlier, circa 21,000 BCE, the situation would have been reversed with the sun rising in Aquarius and setting in Leo.

One can argue that the symbolism of a lion sitting upright at twilight with the sun setting behind it in the constellation Leo, facing the moon as it rises in the opposite direction, is just as compelling (perhaps even more so) as that of a lion facing the sunrise. 

A Complex Argument

Similar to Marco Vigato’s argument that the Giza pyramids could have once been earlier predynastic mastabas or similar structures that were later expanded into pyramids, could the base of the Pyramid of Khentkaus have been built even earlier before the last pole shift aligned to the solstices relative to the pole at the time, the Hudson Bay pole?

Clearly, the Temple of Amenhotep II built over the Sphinx Temple has nothing to do with the origin of the Sphinx itself. However, its presence in Giza together with similarly aligned sites in Upper Egypt suggests the Egyptians aligned structures to the sun and moon relative to the current and previous geographic poles and so could have aligned the Sphinx in this manner as well.

The Temple of Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Temple of Thutmose II, and Temple of Ramesses II are all lined up in the direction of the winter solstice sunrise/summer solstice sunset relative to the current pole in the Arctic. The Mortuary Temple of Thutmose III and the Colossi of Memnon in Thebes are also aligned in this direction, about 26° south of east, along with the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. The Mut Temple in Luxor is aligned in a direction a few degrees away that is toward minor lunar standstills.

There are other sites in Upper Egypt oriented in directions around 45° south of east that are not currently aligned to the sun or moon. One possibility is they were aligned to the stars as proposed by Norman Lockyer. Another is that they were aligned to the sun and moon relative to previous poles.  An analysis of Luxor Temple reveals two sections are aligned with solstices and minor lunar standstills relative to the Hudson Bay pole. Across the Nile River, the Ramasseum is aligned to major lunar standstills relative to the Hudson Bay pole. 

The Temple of Amenhotep II in Giza is aligned in the same direction as the Ramasseum in the Theban Necropolis more than 300 miles away. The Mortuary Temple of Thutmose III in Thebes is aligned to solstices relative to the Hudson Bay pole as is the Pyramid of Khentkaus. Why did father and son rulers Thutmose III and Amenhotep II align temples in Giza and Thebes to directions that have no obvious reference other than to the Hudson Bay pole?

Over 60 temples, mostly in Upper Egypt, are aligned to previous hypothesized locations of the North Pole. A study of how these alignments correlate with different rulers could provide further insight into the question of whether the structures were built over earlier sites or oriented in “sacred directions” in acknowledgment of mythical rulers or “gods” of past ages.

Featured image at the top of the article is a painting by K. F. Schinkel entitled “Garden scene with the Sphinx in moonlight.”

The Holy Land and surrounding regions in the Levant contain some of the most sacred and enigmatic places in the world. It has been determined that some of these places contain structures that are aligned to what could have been previous locations of the North Pole over the past 100,000 years or more. This article reveals that these places are not exceptional in this regard but are among numerous other sites in this part of the world that appear to be aligned to former poles and thus could be much older than mainstream archaeological theories maintain.

Click here to read the full paper.

Baalbek

This site on which a succession of temples and other structures have been built contains, at its base, the largest megalithic blocks in the world. In all, seven stages of construction are evident. The plan of the original structure is a square enclosure (Urquhardt 1860):

A small portion only of this has been completed in the old work, namely, the angle of the north-west, and the adjoining walls. It is there that may be seen the 70 feet stones built into the walls in tiers, and hoisted up 20 feet, and placed on several layers of smaller stones. 

Two unknown periods of construction are above this:

The remainder of the space is filled up with piles of stones, entirely of another order. Through these, two vaults are open, leading to the inference, that it is all vaulted below: these again may be divided into two orders; one [second period] may be called Cyclopic, the stones being irregular, the sides varying from 5 to 6 and 7 feet. The other [third period] is more systematic, and combines some thing of the Etruscan and the Egyptian, an arch being traceable in the one style, and a portal in the other.

Above these ancient foundations are four historical periods of construction. According to Urquhardt

In one of the vaults, about eight feet from the ground, a stone has, by some accident, been removed, and my attention having been called to it by traces of fodder, I had myself lifted up, and got into a crypt beyond… I could not doubt that I stood in a Phoenician Temple, perhaps the only one that still exists.

Next are the restored Greek and Roman ruins, an enormous peristyle known as the Temple of Jupiter.

Robinson (1852) describes Baalbek’s megalithic foundation in greater detail:

Not less wonderful than the other parts of the great temple are the immense external substructions, by which the walls supporting the peristyle are enclosed and covered; if indeed that term can be properly applied to huge masses of masonry, on which nothing rests. This external substruction wall is found on the north side and west end of the peristyle; and exists also probably on the south side beneath the mounds of rubbish…

The most imposing of these substructions is the western wall, as viewed from the outside. It rises to the level of the bottom of the columns, some fifty feet above the surface of the ground; and in it is seen the layer of three immense stones celebrated by all travelers. Of these stones, the length of one is sixty-four feet; of another, sixty-three feet eight inches; and of the third, sixty-three feet; in all one hundred ninety feet eight inches. Their height is about thirteen feet; and the thickness apparently the same, or perhaps greater. They are laid about twenty feet above the ground; and below them are seven others of like thickness, and extending somewhat beyond the upper ones at each end.

In a quarry less than a kilometer from the temple lies an enormous stone block approximately 20 x 4 x 4 meters in size and weighing an estimated one thousand tons. It is likely the quarry dates back to the time of the original construction:

On the north, the substruction wall is only about twenty feet in height, and was never completed. It also is built up of cyclopean work; immense stones laid as brought from the quarry, but never dressed smooth. Here are nine stones, measuring on an average thirty-one feet in length, nine feet seven inches in breadth, and thirteen feet in depth. In speaking of the huge block still lying in the quarry, I have said that there would seem to be no place for it in the plan of the present structures. Still, it may not be impossible, that the said block was intended to be placed upon this very wall, in a line with the similar course at the west end; but for some reason the work was abandoned, and the wall left in its present unfinished state.

Interesting, like the uncompleted temple at Ollantaytambo containing the Wall of the Six Monoliths, the megalithic foundations at Baalbek were never completed. To Urquhardt, its great antiquity is clear:

The builders of Baalbeck must have been a people who had attained to the highest pinnacle of power and science; and this region must have been the centre of their dominion. We are perfectly acquainted with the nations who have flourished here or around, and their works; they are the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Canaanites, and Jews. These complete the catalogue of ancient empires, and this work is none of theirs.

The orientation of the original square enclosure is rotated approximately 12° west of north. This direction, which has no known astronomical or cultural significance, points directly toward the Greenland pole. By virtue to its alignment to this former pole the earliest foundations at Baalbek could be 85,000 to 130,000 years old.

Jerusalem

No less remarkable than Baalbek are the megalithic foundations in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is a flat trapezoidal plaza surrounded by retaining walls built during the reign of Herod. The northern wall, together with the northern section of the western wall, is hidden behind residential buildings. The eastern wall is 1530 feet long and oriented approximately 7.5° west of north. The western wall, which includes the Wailing Wall, is about 1560 feet long and oriented 11.5° west of north. The southern wall, a little over 900 feet long, is laid out at a right angle to the western wall. Robinson (1852) observes:

A comparison of the antique portions of the southern wall with the masonry of the Jews’ wailing place, and that at the southwest and southeast corners, left upon our minds the strong impression, that instead of this portion of the substructions being of later date than those further north, these remains of the southern wall and southeast corner present decided evidence of higher antiquity, than almost any other portions.

The largest stone block is in a section of the western wall foundation that is now below ground. Its estimated weight is 200-300 tons. According to Robinson “it might certainly be conceded that Herod may at least have rebuilt these vaults and substructions upon more ancient foundations. In this way, if necessary, most of the present appearances might doubtless be satisfactorily accounted for.”

The cardinal orientation of the site, defined by its western and southern walls to the Greenland pole, suggests the original foundations that defined the plan of Temple Mount, such as those at Baalbek, could be 85,000 to 130,000 years old. Like the Romans, nearly a thousand years later, perhaps Solomon built his temple over an even more ancient foundations that had already been in existence for many tens of thousands of years.

Other Sites Aligned to the Greenland Pole

Of all the former poles, almost as many sites are aligned to the Greenland pole alone than to the current North Pole. A site known as Ain Dara in northern Syria noted for its similarities to King Solomon’s Temple is aligned to the summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset relative to the Greenland pole. Several Roman temples in Niha, Lebanon are aligned in the direction of the Greenland pole, which again raises the question as to the extent to which Roman and other previous civilizations built over earlier sites preserving their relation to former poles.

The Dead Cities

There are more than 700 ruins in northwest Syria that are believed to have been ancient settlements along long-abandoned trade routes dating back to the Byzantine Empire and earlier times. Ten of these locations have been found to contain structures aligned to former poles.

Petra

The rock-hewn city ancient city of Petra in southern Jordan is thought to have been built by the Nabateans, a nomadic people, in the fourth century BCE. Independent researcher Brien Forrester argues that the Nabateans did not build Petra but co-opted and embellished what were already ancient structures.

Recent discoveries made during an excavation at the site of the Temple of the Winged Lions (Corbett and Ronza 2014) support Forrester’s hypothesis. A goal of the excavation was to attempt to reach the level of the natural sandstone bedrock over which the temple was built:

Most perplexing was the discovery that the temple appears to have been built without proper foundations, with the bottom courses of its west wall laid down directly on a thick layer of compacted soil and rubble. What is more, there are indications that the temple was built atop earlier structures, evidenced most clearly by a fragmentary stone pavement that was laid down before the west wall of the temple was built.

Following up with geophysical survey methods they found “clearly defined, higher resistivity anomalies to a depth of 2 m below the surface, suggesting the presence of a lower layer of previously unknown structures, walls, and pavements associated with the temple. Particularly intriguing and worthy of further investigation are several chamber-like voids identified beneath the temple’s inner sanctuary.

The Temple of the Winged Lions, along with a temple to the south known as Qasr el-Bint, and the surrounding landscape are all oriented in the same direction. Due to the presence of a hill to the east, if the sites were designed to face sunrise on the equinox, they would have to be rotated clockwise by a specific amount, about 4.5° as calculated graphically (see above figure). Plotting the paths of the sun on the equinox and winter solstice and the path of moon during a minor lunar standstill shows that these structures do not line up to the sun or the moon. The orientation of these sites, approximately 17° south of east, is in line with the Bering Sea pole suggesting the original foundations could have been established more than 130,000 years ago.

In the hills to the south, using satellite imagery to cue higher resolution UAV surveys, Parcak and Tuttle (2016) discovered a flat plaza approximately 56×49 meters in size with remains of the foundation stones of an old building, paving stones, and a column drum. The site does not appear to be aligned astronomically but is oriented in the same direction as The Great Temple east of the Qasr el-Bint. This direction is toward Baalbek about 250 miles to the north. In a similar manner, the eastern wall of Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and several Nabatean sites in the Levant appear to be oriented toward Petra.

Conclusion

Why do certain structures in Jerusalem appear to face Petra, and certain structures in Petra face Baalbek? Why are the ancient foundations of these sites constructed from stones weighing hundreds to thousands of tons? Why do these and dozens of other sites in this part of the Levant reference four former locations of the North Pole?

Proving what ancient people in this part of the world could or could not have done using the technology of the times is problematic. That the layout of so many sites here and in other parts of the world cannot be explained in conventional terms is a problem that has yet to be solved by the mainstream academic community. Like the legend of the Gordian Knot perhaps the solution involves “cutting the knot” by looking at the problem in a different way. We propose the simple explanation that the ancient builders aligned these sites to the sun and moon much as we have for thousands of years. But due to shifts in the location in the North Pole over the past 100,000 years the sites no longer line up in our current frame of reference, that is in relation to the current pole in the Arctic. By analyzing sites relative to former poles, the alignments of a significant number of sites are easily explained.

Our findings reveal that a series of previous (unknown) civilizations could have existed in the Levant far longer than scholars currently believe suggesting that a new interpretation of the archeological evidence may be in order.

References

Edward Robinson (1852) Later Biblical Researches in Palestine, and in the Adjacent Regions: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1852.

David Urquhardt (1860) The Lebanon (Mount Souria): A History and a Diary (Vol 2).

G. Corbett and M. Elena Ronza (2014) “What Lies Beneath—New Insights into Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions.” ACOR 26, 4: 1-6.

Sarah Parcak and Christopher A. Tuttle (2016) “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Discovery of a New Monumental Structure at Petra, Jordan, Using WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 Satellite Imagery,” American Schools of Oriental Research. BASOR 375 (2016): 35–51.

Mark Carlotto (2019) “Computing Solar, Lunar, and Geographical Alignments of Archaeological Sites,” Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3484144

Mark Carlotto (2020) “A New Model to Explain the Alignment of Certain Ancient Sites,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 34(2):209-232. DOI: 10.31275/20201619.

Feature image at the top of the article, “Aerial views of the Temple Mount and parts of the Old City of Jerusalem (2007),” courtesy Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0