At The Mountains of Madness?
February 1, 2010 - 1:09 am
In a comment on the “Missing Years of Jesus” post, Thelma wrote about one particular site in Britain and added that in this place “…perhaps there is another sacred landscape to be found?” I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if this turned out to be the case and it may be that instead of being gradually teased out, the whole thing will appear in a flash, as leylines did to Alfred Watkins.
Thelma’s observation about a sacred landscape waiting to be found reminded me of a news item I saw a little while back, and it was something that positively took my breath away. You can read it for yourselves, if you wish, but it concerns the discovery via Google Earth of what appears to be a ‘Lost City’ in the Amazon jungle, close to Brazil’s border with Bolivia.
Of course, I was extremely interested by the whole article, but I was particularly pleased for the ghost of Colonel Percy Fawcett, a man who has been vilified for decades and dismissed as a madman on account of his belief in the existence of a ‘lost city’. Now, to my amazement, it seems as if he’s been vindicated, while in my view, someone whose family motto was “Difficulties Be Damned” and who went on to die in the Amazon jungle in pursuit of his dream deserves every accolade going. My approval may count for little, but as Fawcett is acknowledged as being the inspiration for Indiana Jones and as he’s due to be played in a forthcoming film by Brad Pitt, then I’m sure that this will make him very happy, wherever he may be right now.
As I’ve written a number of times, I can trace my inspiration and enthusiasm for looking into ‘ancient mysteries’ back to a book given to me by my mother when I was a child, a book by C.W Ceram entitled Gods, Graves and Scholars, in which I read the story of Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the ‘lost’ or fabled city of Troy.
In brief, at a time when the entire academic establishment was convinced that Homer’s Iliad was a “pretty legend”, Schliemann chose to believe every word of what Homer had written, thereby discovering the lost City of Troy. As anyone who has ever browsed through the various entries on this site will be aware, I’m particularly interested in trying my best to explore whatever the old myths and legends have to tell us about Stonehenge in prehistory and it’s gratifying that I’m not alone in this. Aynslie is similarly interested, while I’m indebted to Professor Melrose for the many things he’s been able to tell me about the meaning and derivation of numerous words related to this study.
Some time back, I corresponded with Dr Angelika Franz of Der Spiegel, after which she wrote and published an account of what I had to say about the “Stonehenge Sentinel“, exactly two years ago today. I was surprised to learn from Dr Franz that Schliemann isn’t held in universally high regard in Germany and there’s no denying that there are good grounds for this. Similarly, Colonel Percy Fawcett doesn’t seem to have endeared himself to sundry establishment figures, and yet I still find myself occasionally baffled by the hostile reactions these people engender in others.
For anyone who isn’t aware of it, in March last year I had a book published, entitled “The Missing Years of Jesus”. It’s an investigation into the legends of Jesus visiting Britain, as suggested in the opening lines of William Blake’s famous poem Jerusalem, and it should be clear to anyone who’s read the book or browsed through this site that there’s no doubt in my mind that Jesus did indeed spend a considerable amount of time in the West of England and in South Wales before returning to his homeland to embark on his famous ministry.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me, but the vast majority of correspondence I’ve received on the subject has been perfectly civil, with the exception of the occasional sarcastic remark, which is to be expected and which I can live with.
By way of sharp contrast, I wrote in great detail a few years ago about my belief that Stonehenge was the circular temple referred to by Pytheas of Massilia and that the nearby Vespasian’s Camp was the ‘City of Apollo‘ that he also described. All the posts are still on this site, if anyone cares to peruse them, while they attracted some attention from the media at the time. What surprised me, though, was the sheer outrage from certain quarters that greeted the posts and the media reports, so there seems to be something about the mere phrase ‘lost city’ that arouses extreme passions in some people today, just as was the case back in the times of Fawcett and Schliemann.
I’ve recently had cause to look into Julian Richards’ “Meet the Ancestors” series and I note that episode 34, in series 6 was entitled “The Lost City of Roman Britain”, so I can’t help but wonder what kind of reception the programme received on account of its obviously highly presumptuous title.
There are other ‘lost cities’ in Britain, most notably Camelot, but there are also lost sunken lands such as Lyonesse and Ys on the coast of Britanny. The enigmatic mediaeval poem The Ruin speaks of a large settlement or city, whose identity is not known to us, while I’m sure there are others still, but they are all surely worth investigating.
As I wrote in a previous post, the existence of Bluestonehenge was predicted back in the 1980s and this astonishing structure came to light last year, as a result of the efforts of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. I could list many other discoveries in the Stonehenge landscape and elsewhere, but it seems to me that the British Isles are an absolute cornucopia or treasure-trove of ancient landscapes, alignments, features and artefacts just awaiting discovery. I understand that Lee Smeaton is making progress as far as his “Kentish Walls” are concerned, while one of the many subjects I’ve been trying to find time to do justice to is the ‘Ghost Avenue’ at Stonehenge, as discovered by Juris Ozols and Alex Down.
With all the means and material available to us, it strikes me it would be madness not to look into these mysteries, so I’ll keep doing so as long as time allows. And it’s extremely gratifying that there are so many others of you ‘out there’ who are just as keen on looking into these matters as I am.
PS: I’ll be away in London on business and pleasure until late Tuesday night, just in case anyone wonders about a lack of response from me.
Care to comment?
