Page 478 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

refuse to recognize those experiences unless they have come down to us
in the form of bona fide ‘historical records’? And is it arrogance or
ignorance which leads us to draw an arbitrary line separating ‘history’
from ‘prehistory’ at about 5000 years before the present—defining the
records of ‘history’ as valid testimony and the records of ‘prehistory’ as
primitive delusions?
At this stage in a continuing investigation, my instinct is that we may
have put ourselves in danger by closing our ears for so long to the
disturbing ancestral voices which reach us in the form of myths. This is
more an intuitive than a rational feeling, but it is by no means
unreasonable. My research has filled me with respect for the logical
thinking, high science, deep psychological insights, and vast
cosmographical knowledge of the ancient geniuses who composed those
myths, and who, I am now fully persuaded, descended from the same lost
civilization that produced the map-makers, pyramid builders, navigators,
astronomers and earth-measurers whose fingerprints we have been
following across the continents and oceans of the earth.
Since I have learned to respect those long-forgotten and still only hazily
identified Newtons and Shakespeares and Einsteins of the last Ice Age, I
think it would be foolish to disregard what they seem to be saying. And
what they seem to be saying to us is this: that cyclical, recurrent and
near-total destructions of mankind are part and parcel of life on this
planet, that such destructions have occurred many times before and that
they will certainly occur again.
What, after all, is the remarkable calendrical system of the Mayas if it is
not a medium for transmitting exactly this message? What, if not vehicles
for the same sort of bad news are the traditions of the four previous
‘Suns’ (or sometimes of the three previous ‘Worlds’) passed down in the
Americas since time immemorial? By the same token, what might be the
function of the great myths of precession which speak not just of
previous cataclysms but of cataclysms to come and which (through the
metaphor of the cosmic mill) link these earthly disasters to ‘disturbances
in the heavens’? Last but by no means least, what burning motive
impelled the pyramid builders to erect, with such care, the powerful and
mysterious edifices on the Giza plateau?
Yes, they were saying, ‘Kilroy was here’.
And, yes, they found an ingenious way to tell us when they were here.
Of these things I have no doubt.
I am also impressed by the enormous lengths they went to to provide
us with convincing proof that theirs was a serious and scientifically
advanced civilization. And I am even more impressed by the sense of
urgency—of a vitally important mission—that seems to have enlightened
all their works and deeds.
I go on intuition again, not on evidence.
It’s my guess that their underlying objective could have been to

476