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Fringe Writer Claims Spectacular Bronze Age Gem Is Secret Astrological Image

2/13/2018

37 Comments

 
​David Warner Mathisen is a one trick pony, a self-described “star myth investigator” who reads basically every story in world mythology and religion as a description of astronomical movements. He was inspired by Hamlet’s Mill, the complex and dense but ultimately self-referential fantasy concocted by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend to argue for the existence of a lost civilization based on the flawed assumption that only an advanced civilization could have gazed up at the sky and told stories about the stars they saw there. Mathisen’s schtick, which he has been promoting since he started selling books on the subject back in 2015, is predictable, but his attempt to tie his hobbyhorse to the spectacular Bronze age gemstone that made headlines last year is bizarre even by his standards.
​Mathisen’s new claims, published this weekend on Graham Hancock’s website, revolve around the Pylos Combat Agate, a Bronze Age artifact uncovered in a Mycenaean tomb in 2015. Careful analysis uncovered a spectacular miniature carving of exceptionally rich detail, similar in style to but unparalleled in execution among the known artifacts of Mycenaean and Minoan cultures. Its features are so well-carved and so small that some believe they imply the use of magnifying lenses at a time when their use was unknown or rare. The gemstone depicts three figures, a warrior with a raised sword, a helmeted soldier holding a shield and about to receive the blow, and a prostrate figure, presumably dead. The agate is believed to have originated in Crete and was either manufactured for or acquired by the warrior in whose tomb it was found.
Picture
Photo: Jeff Vanderpool, University of Cincinnati via Wikimedia Commons
​There are two main scholarly interpretations of the scene. One, the more literal, argues that it is a scene drawn from life and depicts the warrior in the tomb. The second, more symbolic, agues that it is a mythological scene of importance to the Minoans and Mycenaeans but unknown to us today, perhaps carved as a miniature of a more elaborate, now lost, wall painting.
 
Mathisen rejects both views: 
Unnoticed until now, however, is that the scene details a pattern in the heavens. For the figures contain details specific to the constellations Hercules, Ophiucus, Corona Borealis, Scorpio and Sagittarius—using constellational references and artistic conventions that can be found in other ancient works of art from other cultures around the globe, and which also continue to appear in sacred art spanning thousands of years.
​
​It’s almost not worth discussing the silliness of the claim, but I get annoyed by the people who try to read Classical constellations back in time before such things existed.
 
The first and most important issue to note is that the figures on the gems bear no resemblance to the constellations as classically depicted. They are not in the same orientation or position, and their limbs do not approximate the imaginary lines connecting the stars, even allowing for the fact that the stars of Hercules and Ophiucus have been connected to create the characters in several different ways over the centuries. I will repeat that: You cannot map the stars onto the gemstone. The characters are not literal depictions of the constellations.
 
The second problem is that the constellations did not exist when Mathisen claims they did. The agate dates back to around 1450 BCE, but there is no evidence for the existence of the constellation Ophiucus before the fourth century BCE, when Eudoxus of Cnidus wrote of it. His work is lost, which means that we know of it only from Aratus’ slightly later Astronomicon, of the later fourth century, the first record of Ophiucus. Because the constellation does not exist in Babylonian astronomy (at least, it has never been conclusively identified with a Babylonian constellation), which the Greeks took over around 500 BCE, the likelihood is that it dates from the 400s BCE, a thousand years too late. At any rate, we can’t trace the constellations back before Babylon with any security, so there is little reason to suspect that the Greeks of Mycenaean times identified the constellations of their day the same way that the Greeks didn’t get around to developing until after 500 BCE.
 
The agate scene is missing, after all, the usual form of the most important constellation from that part of the sky: Scorpius, which Ophiuchus stands upon. Mathisen says that Scorpius was originally a “wounded warrior” in mythology, even though it is one of the few constellations we can trace back in time, near always as a scorpion. It was a scorpion for the Babylonians, and it remained one when the Greeks took it over. It seems the decided on his claim by working backward rather than finding evidence independent of his own hypothesis. 
 
Mathisen disagrees with most authorities, who see the serpent Ophiuchus holds (Serpens) as the oldest element of the constellation; he proposes that it was a spear for the Mycenaeans so that it would better agree with the gemstone. He ludicrously suggests that the shield-bearing warrior’s fringed tunic is akin to Athena’s serpent-fringed aegis, to symbolize Ophiuchus’ serpent-bearing, and it is clear that Mathisen knows nothing of Greek mythology or else he would recognize that the aegis was first described in Homer as bearing golden tassels, like the Golden Fleece, not serpents (Iliad 2.445-449). A Mycenaean prototype seems to exist in a sculpture of two goddesses wrapped in just such a tasseled shawl. If Homer did not see it as a serpent-cloth, the Mycenaeans almost certainly did not.
 
The majority of his argument is based on identifying modern diagrams of the constellations with elements of the gem, but he doesn’t realize that those modern diagrams are just that: modern. They are not necessarily (or even likely) how the Greeks envisioned the shapes of the constellations. The argument descends into little more than “looks like therefore is” and reveals that the author, like so many of his peers, has developed a monomaniacal obsession with an odd idea and sees evidence of it everywhere. He writes at length, for example, about what he sees as constellation shapes in medieval and Renaissance art, which he says encodes the same information as the agate. “This presents grave problems for the conventional historical paradigm. It thus takes its place among a now-overwhelming pile of other evidence from both archaeology and mythology, all of which points towards some now-forgotten culture or civilisation of great sophistication in humanity’s ancient past, predating all of those known to academia or admitted by conventional scholars.” He seems not to recognize that even if medieval and Renaissance artists were depicting constellation shapes in their human figures—and they weren’t—it implies nothing about a lost civilization since those star shapes were well-known to everyone alive at that time. There is no secret knowledge needed to copy constellation shapes that were in every reference book on the subject.
37 Comments
Only Me
2/13/2018 10:11:35 am

I'll just say that I'm awestruck by the carving. It's an amazingly beautiful piece.

Reply
BigNick
2/13/2018 10:36:51 am

That is truly amazing, especially with the stone being less than 1 1/2 wide.

Reply
Joe Scales
2/13/2018 10:44:31 am

Looks like a guy trying to slay a Terminator...

Reply
Just some guy, you know?
2/14/2018 10:07:56 pm

Clearly this lost civilization was far more advanced than we thought!

Reply
Clete
2/13/2018 11:20:23 am

The stone really is beautiful. Whoever carved it was truly a master. I wonder, based on its size, if it was a ring.

Reply
David Bradbury
2/14/2018 03:43:25 am

If anything, it's more pendant-sized. There certainly was a tradition of finely detailed rings in that era though:
http://benedante.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/gold-signet-rings-of-minoan-and.html

Reply
BigNick
2/13/2018 11:37:24 am

Has anyone claimed that the image shows a human killing an alien, and it could have only been carved by a laser. If not, I need to find a publisher.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
2/13/2018 12:29:23 pm

Just by looking at the picture, I can tell you with 100 % confidence that this is genuine Lake Superior agate.

Reply
Kal
2/13/2018 03:17:41 pm

That thing is just over one inch across. It first appeared in 2015 in some stone and was cut from it, in 2015 to 2017. It is not ancient. They might claim it is, but it is not. Whoever 'preserved' the bead carved the images. It looks too modern to be something from Myciae in the Bronze age. The tomb might be that old, but the bead is not. That is my guess anyway. It would explain a lot.

Reply
Machala
2/13/2018 06:17:07 pm

The carving is exquisite and I could understand how someone might think it was too modern to be a Mycenaean piece, but the Mycenaeans and the Minoans were known for intricate miniature gemstone carvings.
The armor and weaponry is absolutely right for the time period of the tomb. Going with the Sanders typology, the mycenaean Type G horned swords in the carving are the type used around 1450 BCE when the agate was carved.
Once again, it is the inability of people like Mathisen and Hancock to admit that our Bronze and Iron Age ancestors were a lot smarter and creative than we give them credit for.

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
2/13/2018 06:39:39 pm

No Google result suggests fraud.

Anything's possible I guess but, according to the fringe types, isn't the Smithsonian in the business of covering up ancient world awesomeness?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/masterpiece-greek-art-found-griffin-warrior-tomb-180967141/

They seem to have fallen for this one. Why not cover it up along with the giants? (Yes I'm kidding.)

Also look at this NY Times piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/science/greece-griffin-warrior-archaeology-homer.html

suggests legitimate archaeologists dug it up, didn't even recognize the significance of it at first.

Also the Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylos_Combat_Agate

Oh, the opponent isn't a Terminator: It's a guy in a helmet with the head turned around (trying not to see the sword that's stabbing down into his neck, killing him, perhaps?).

Here's an article from the college where the discoverers work.

http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearthingamasterpiece.html

I also Googled Ancient Agean sword designs, lo and behold a few things come up that resemble that turned down crossguard thingie that's on the sword on the ground.

All told: if this thing turns out to be a fraud I'll be very, very surprised.

Reply
Campblor
2/13/2018 05:13:20 pm

obviously the knights templar commissioned the piece

Reply
Americanegro
2/13/2018 05:39:01 pm

Sounds like that Arizona Hebrew sword. Some word beginning with "c" that can easily be faked? Was there more than one person there when it was found? Is there a chain of custody? I agree that it's beautiful but if it's too good to be true...

Reply
Pacal
2/13/2018 08:52:41 pm

I'll just add my vote to the Wow!!! list. The gemstone is stunning!!!

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
2/13/2018 10:51:05 pm

I took a look at the original article: Jason is being too kind to it.

Even forgetting about the dating of the constellations to which the author refers (which is Jason's focus above), his criteria essentially is that every time there's an artistic rendition of a Biblical or mythological character with a sword, it's representing the same Astrological concept.

But cultures don't need to see the same visions in the stars to have that kind of similarity, they just need to have invented swords and methods to use them, as almost all ancient cultures seem to have done.

Also the constellations even as he shows them don't show what he says they show. When there's infinite dots to connect you can make infinite shapes.

So....Yeah.

On the bright side I'm now utterly fascinated by this awesome piece of ancient art.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
Earnest Bunbury link
2/14/2018 02:07:31 am

It's not often something good can be said to have come from the nonsense mongers but if it weren't for this chap's nonsense, you wouldn't have written this and I wouldn't have seen this carving. A beautiful work of art, from composition to execution.

Reply
Riley V
2/14/2018 05:59:37 am

Exactly. This is why I come here. I learn so much.
What an amazing peace of art.
On, and today is St. Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, and the beginning of Lent. You have no excuse for not celebrating with a heart shaped bowl of Shrimp Fried Rice with your sweetie.

Reply
Americanegro
2/14/2018 01:51:06 pm

You make a good point. I don't care if it was carved yesterday as part of a hoax, it's beautiful to look at and I admire the craft. UNLESS.... there's some way to mold agate or it was done in a C&C machine..

V
2/15/2018 01:34:12 pm

I'm allergic to shrimp and I don't have or want a sweetie. Can I just have the heart-shaped bowl of fried rice? Maybe make it pork fried instead?

Americanegro, I'd still be impressed even if it were molded or carved in a C&C machine--somebody still had to make the original, either in the computer or in wax or clay. Personally, I actually admire the craft that went into a number of fakes. I'm really hoping this one is not one, though.

RiverM
2/17/2018 03:56:25 am

CNC - Computer Numerical Control

Not C&C, as in C&C Music Factory.

2372
2/14/2018 06:40:21 am

Jason knows nothing about how people of that epoch either read or translated the heavens into their arts and crafts. So why he should get annoyed when others try is a mystery.

Archaeoastronomy, however, is a science that can elucidate the credibility of celestial metaphor - if methodology is properly applied. Therefore, those who apply scientific philosophy to investigations, know that Jason himself is on the "fringe" of science through some of the conclusions he comes to in the absence of evidence. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"!

Mathisen is wrong, but at least give him credit for trying. Andrew Collins is wrong about the "Vulture" being Cygnus. Sweatman and Tsikritsis are right, but the YD dating issue was a mistake, which severely damaged the integrity of their astronomical interpretation. Hamlet's Mill is more right than wrong, as was Alexander Thom. Apologies will come but there are probably decades still to wait before this happens.

As for this agate, it is one of the clearest examples of celestial metaphor that has materialised. Applying archaeoastronomical principles, the scene is straightforward to translate from "Heaven to Earth" by way of where and how. Why it was made, is of course an entirely different question. It is precise in the extreme. So precise that recorded history and current archaeological/historical paradigm regarding (almost any) astronomical content, points to it being a fake.

But evidence of artwork of the finest and minutest detail is available from artefacts thousands of years before the dating of this piece. Which, if that was possible, begs the question as to why the same people could not have achieved detailed observational knowledge of their sky, and can't have transformed it into artistic celestial metaphor, either written or crafted.

Scientific evidence of this will, of course, inflict a huge wound on the raison d'être behind the existence of websites such as this. Will the author then be courageous enough to apologise to alternative researchers and scholars alike, or will he pull out once the evidence begins to become uncomfortable...

Reply
Only Me
2/14/2018 07:37:04 am

"a monomaniacal obsession with an odd idea and sees evidence of it everywhere."

Reply
Jason Colavito link
2/14/2018 08:00:24 am

I'm at a loss as to what you are saying here. If the gemstone does not actually depict constellations as they appear in the sky, then it is not an astronomical image. If you are saying that it supposedly shows a mythological scene told of stars, then you are talking about astrology and run into an insoluble problem: You have no way of showing that the myth in question was derived from the stars rather than applied to them at a later date. In the absence of written records, you are merely speculating and expecting me to accept your speculation as fact. It might be true or it might not, but without evidence there is no way to judge.

Reply
Americanegro
2/14/2018 01:55:57 pm

@2372: Your post makes no sense. Where are you institutionalized?

2372
2/14/2018 02:07:11 pm

Your article identifies two scholarly interpretations, neither of which consider, nor allude, to astronomical connections. Mathisen adds a third consideration, which is in two parts a) "Unnoticed until now, however, is that the scene details a pattern in the heavens"., and b) a statement of which star patterns he believes are the sources of the detail.

You dismiss both, unless I am mistaken, because you, "...get annoyed by the people who try to read Classical constellations back in time before such things existed." With respect, you have no idea what patterns the people of that time saw in the skies, and therefore you have no idea whether any of them could have, either closely or even remotely, reflected the "Classical" constellations that we are aware of, or even the 88 internationally agreed that we use currently to navigate the skies, observationally.

What I'm saying is that the scene on the gemstone can be shown to be composed from star patterns which are clearly identifiable, but not those put forward by Mathisen. However, those patterns I identified do match very closely the constellations that we know both in the historical record and modern usage.

So I contend that his quote at part a) cannot be dismissed. Whether you agree with this, yes, depends on publication of both the archaeoastronomical process I used, and its scrutiny by scholars of the relevant disciplines.

The issue here is, as I've said above, that I read you dismiss both a) and b) of Mathisen's quote. But you have presented no justification for this, so it is for you to clarify to your readers. Neither is what I'm saying, astrology. If it is subsequently agreed that the scene reflects identifiable patterns in the sky, then it's a high probability that they used some kind of agreed interpretation of what they saw, to create the artwork. What the specific "story" behind the creation of it as materialised, is of no relevance to my using archaeoastronomical tools and skills to identify the astronomy. That's a job for the appropriate scholars, if they agree connection with the stars.



Only Me
2/14/2018 02:59:25 pm

"With respect, you have no idea what patterns the people of that time saw in the skies, and therefore you have no idea whether any of them could have, either closely or even remotely, reflected the "Classical" constellations that we are aware of, or even the 88 internationally agreed that we use currently to navigate the skies, observationally."

"However, those patterns I identified do match very closely the constellations that we know both in the historical record and modern usage."

You really don't make any sense.

An Anonymous Nerd
2/14/2018 07:06:50 pm

Neither the original article nor the defense of it presented here really make any sense. Jason's argument is that the author starts by pre-supposing classical Greek constellations and assuming this culture saw them too, then super-imposes the image onto them.

Jason's right, of course.

I go a little further though. (Jason was too kind.) I argue that there's an even deeper problem with the original article: The argument is so broad that any sword in any "attack" pose can be seen as part of the same motif. Given the many different contexts he presents (different swords, different sorts of targets, different methods of attack shown, different time periods, different belief systems), and given that most of what he presents can be explained more-efficiently and more-accurately with reference to other things, the argument falls apart.

One example: The target can be a baby (Solomon ordering the baby to be split) or another warrior (as in the image we're concerned with), and it's the same swordsman in the sky.

Another example: The sword can be held back, ready to hack, or thrust forward "giving point" to the target, and it's the same swordsman in the sky.

Another example: The image can be the words of the Bible or a painted depiction of those words done thousands of years after the words were written, and it's the same swordsman in the sky.

There's no case for this, none at all. It's like Pakal's coffin lid: If you see it and don't know what you're looking at you can make up a story and make it stick to yourself, and to anyone else who knows nothing about it and isn't willing or able to think further.

But once knowledge and rational thought are applied together, the story fades fast.

At best we're left with "the ancient people thought swords and swordsmen were super cool and liked to write stories about them, paint them, and see them in the sky." But that's not enough to make a rational connection.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Americanegro
2/14/2018 09:52:42 pm

You sound like an ass. Perhaps you could try again to make your point clearly.

Reply
Americanegro
2/14/2018 09:55:39 pm

Based on where my post ended up I want to clarify that it was directed at 2372.

2372
2/15/2018 07:57:52 am

All is very clear, and Jason knows it. He says in answer to me, quote: "I'm at a loss as to what you are saying here. If the gemstone does not actually depict constellations as they appear in the sky, then it is not an astronomical image..."

I'm clearly saying that the gemstone does, to an estimated accuracy of at least 95%, depict constellations as we are aware of them from historical evidence, significantly postdating the estimated date of the gemstone by the archaeologists. It does not matter how the constellations are presented, by way of artistic licence, on the gemstone, i.e. a "warrior" scene, or any other "story" interpretation (ref: An Anonymous Nerd). The disposition of the characters within the scene, whatever the story behind it, reflect the scale and relative positions of constellations and their respective constituent stars, as we know them, to the degree stated.

Jason is saying that this is not possible at the estimated archaeological date, and that's why he gets annoyed when people try!

I agree with Jason that Mathisen's selection of constellations claimed to make up the gemstone scene is not supportable. But if a credible alternative is presented, and accepted by academia, then Jason has no choice, based on his historical arguments, but to argue that the gemstone is an elaborate hoax.

However, this would be entirely outside the remit of this website, since archaeologists would never do such a thing, and would likely stop visiting this site in droves. Therefore, any hint of such a possibility requires a measured response, i.e. no holds barred, including ad hominem attacks (ref: AMERICANEGRO) - the typical style of many of the articles and responses here.

Which is why I asked Jason to clarify his position on this, publicly - I don't really expect an answer - and I'm not interested in any further dialogue except with Jason.

Only Me
2/15/2018 10:10:38 am

"With respect, you have no idea what patterns the people of that time saw in the skies, and therefore you have no idea whether any of them could have, either closely or even remotely, reflected the 'Classical' constellations that we are aware of, or even the 88 internationally agreed that we use currently to navigate the skies, observationally."

"I'm clearly saying that the gemstone does, to an estimated accuracy of at least 95%, depict constellations as we are aware of them from historical evidence"

"The disposition of the characters within the scene, whatever the story behind it, reflect the scale and relative positions of constellations and their respective constituent stars, as we know them, to the degree stated."

Still not making sense.

Bob Jase
2/14/2018 11:27:37 am

I don't see why there are any arguements - the lines in the sky around the stars sre clear to any one who looks at them, its not as if people made the constellations up.

Reply
2372
2/15/2018 01:31:26 pm

One last time:

Obviously some people here need to do their own research. Here's a few very basic information links: (you'll have to copy and paste into address line)

Classical constellations:
http://www.wallhapp.com/48-classical-constellations

Modern constellations:
https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/88constellations.html

Constellations - general:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation

Star lore:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lore

http://www.threeworldsweb.com/starlore/index.html (including more general info)

Examples of constellation art:
Search Google with various search terms including words such as constellation, art, and images.

Now, in a nutshell:
a) Jason states "Classical" constellations so this means Ptolemy and hence AD150+
b) Modern constellations = their evolution to present day internationally agreed form.
c) The gemstone is dated c1500 BC
d) Jason is annoyed that anyone should be trying to "...read Classical constellations...before such things existed" i.e. AD 150+ onto 1500 BC artefacts.
e) I found this amusing because I can annoy him even more by showing that the scene on the gemstone reflects modern constellations almost precisely - the "almost" resulting from the shield which although representing the stars exactly, is drawn as belonging to the spearman on the gemstone, rather than as a feature linked to the swordsman as in the respective modern constellation.

Astronomy or not:
It's fine that Jason challenges the conclusion that Mathisen comes to. But it's not fine that in so doing he also dismisses, or at least appears to, the concept of real astronomy being represented in artwork on such artefacts prior to the Classical constellations. Hence the need for clarification from him.

The correct approach, bearing in mind he is not a scholar in the field, would have been for Jason to ask whether any astronomer or archaeoastronomer can do a better job of identifying any astronomical content in the scene on the gemstone. Archaeoastronomy is a scientific discipline with powerful tools and methodologies which can do that job.

Given that a positive answer came forward, then it would have been for Jason to challenge the archaeologists on the authenticity of the gemstone, because it does not fit into the evidence of the historical record of constellations and associated art, as Jason sees it.

Instead, he characteristically slams Mathisen, and blindly accepts the archaeological conclusion, which has no astronomical content. Thus dismissing, through his lack of foresight, the possibility that the gemstone could represent watershed evidence that star patterns had already been formulated into "constellations" prior to Ptolemy, and from which Ptolemy might even have called upon to formulate his own list of Classical constellations.

I can't see what's not clear about that, except of course that asking the correct scientific questions doesn't fit into the remit of this website.

Best wishes to all.


Reply
Joe Scales
2/15/2018 01:42:29 pm

"I can't see what's not clear about that, except of course that asking the correct scientific questions doesn't fit into the remit of this website. "

Translation: You write a lot that means very little.

Reply
Only Me
2/15/2018 02:46:46 pm

"With respect, you have no idea what patterns the people of that time saw in the skies, and therefore you have no idea whether any of them could have, either closely or even remotely, reflected the 'Classical' constellations that we are aware of, or even the 88 internationally agreed that we use currently to navigate the skies, observationally."

"I can annoy him even more by showing that the scene on the gemstone reflects modern constellations almost precisely"

"the gemstone could represent watershed evidence that star patterns had already been formulated into 'constellations' prior to Ptolemy, and from which Ptolemy might even have called upon to formulate his own list of Classical constellations."

You still aren't making sense.

Reply
Americanegro
2/15/2018 03:29:59 pm

So which constellation(s) does the carving represent and where are you institutionalized?

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
2/15/2018 08:18:54 pm

There simply is no reason to believe anything 2372 is saying or anything in the article 2372 is defending. Jason has pointed out how the constellations that supposedly influenced the carving seemingly weren't recognized by the culture that produced the carving. I haven't seen anything that says anyone that actually studies this culture ever said the image has anything to do with the stars.

I've pointed out that if you accept the article Jason's debunking you pretty much have to accept any image of someone with a sword refers to the same swordsman in the sky. Because that is a fair representation of what he says, any exaggeration is so slight that I'm not really sure I'm exaggerating at all.

I've also pointed out that all these various images really show is that ancient peoples thought that swords and swordsman were wicked cool and liked to paint them, carve them, and see them in the sky, the same way we do now. (Except we also can write books, make movies, make video games, make television series, etc.) I'll also add to this that the image in the sky to which the carving supposedly refers, and the carving itself, simply don't really resemble each other all that much.

Let's say this culture later on is shown to recognize certain constellations, and let's say that some enterprising legitimate archaeologist or historian of this culture could show the carving was referring to it. That would show....What, exactly? It wouldn't show the kind of implied hyper-diffusion that the original article seems to imply, it'd show that this culture liked that image.

So, yeah.

It's a comparatively small point compared to other things the fringe likes to say, but if we don't challenge the fringe where we can....Well, we'll wind up like we are today! With a fringe that's mainstream and a real mainstream that doesn't know any better.

-An Anonymous Nerd

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        • The Many Wives of Jesus
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      • Giants in the Earth >
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          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
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          • Fossils and Myth
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        • Fragments on Giants
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        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
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      • Extreme History >
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        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
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        • Phoenicians in America
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        • Prince Henry Sinclair
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        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
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        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
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        • Noah's Ark Cables
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        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
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    • The Supernatural >
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    • Classic Fiction >
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      • The Novel of the Black Seal
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      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
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      • H. P. Lovecraft >
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        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
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    • Miscellaneous Documents >
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      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
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      • Position of Viking Women
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      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
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