Civilization One: The World is not as You Thought it Was by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, 2004 London: Watkins Publishing; 258 pages.
I’ve recently finished reading this book and I have to say, it makes a very convincing argument!
The research which serves as the foundation for this book began when the authors decided to investigate the authenticity of engineer Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Yard– a unit of measure which Thom asserts is common to neolithic monuments throughout Britain and France. This investigation quickly expanded into what I agree is a breathtaking “rediscovery” of ancient knowledge which underlies even our modern units of measure- both metric and imperial.
How is it possible that ancient humans were able to derive such consistent and accurate measurements which spanned not only civilisations, but centuries as well? It was achieved by each group of people using the same technique for determining a baseline measurement- a pendulum. And although recently redefined by more accurate atomic-level measurements, the authors have discovered that our own metric and imperial systems are based on this one simple technique as well.
This is the groundbreaking result of their investigation- through a comparative study of units and measures, the authors have stumbled upon a foundational constant which ultimately points to vestiges of an advanced civilisation which predates even the Sumerians.
That’s quite a logical jump, you might say. The authors arrive at this conclusion only after tracing their comparative analysis constantly further back in time to the point where it disappears into the mists of unrecorded, or pre-history.
I will leave the discussion and details of correlations to the authors in their book, but there are a few overarching elements I want to emphasise.
They show that almost every system of measure on the planet is derived in the same way; by using a pendulum timed by the transit of a planet, usually Venus, to determine a basic unit of measure upon which all other units can be extrapolated. they have connected this method to units and measurement systems stretching at least as far back as the Sumerians.
The enigma of the Sumerians suggests that the source of these methods extend much further back into the mists of forgotten time. Why? Well there are two reasons:
1. Unlike the entrenched idea that things start simple and gradually become more complex over time, we see the exact opposite here. The further back in time we go, the more complex or complete the system seems to be, and it is over time that error and confusion seems to splinter the system and wear it down. Interestingly, this is exactly the same picture that many historical linguists are coming up with. They have come to the conclusion that the 6,000 odd languages spoken around the world have descended from a handful of proto languages. The most well-known proto language, Proto IndoEuropean is thought to be the ancestor language of most of our modern European and Middle Eastern language families.
A map showing the approximate present-day distribution of the Indo-European branches within their homelands of Europe and Asia. The following legend is given in the chronological order of the earliest surviving written attestations of each branch:
Yellow- -Hellenic (Greek) [1]
Brown – Indo-Iranian [2]
Navy Blue – Italic (includes Romance) [3]
Orange – Celtic [4]
Red- -Germanic [5]
Purple – Armenian [6]
Light Green – Balto-Slavic (Baltic) [7]
Dark Green – Balto-Slavic (Slavic) [8]
Light Blue – Albanian [9]
Grey – Non-Indo-European languages
Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common (more visible upon full enlargement of the map).
Again we see a pattern of a few languages fracturing and falling into confusion over centuries of time. The breakdown of these proto languages into the myriad of languages spoken all over the globe does not reflect simple becoming complex, it represents a breakdown and splintering. Am I arguing over semantics here? Absolutely.
2. The Sumerians are a mysterious people who seem to burst onto the stage of history with a fully formed civilisation embracing but not limited to:
- metalwork (they knew how to make bronze alloy)
- agriculture
- domesticated animals
- pottery
- weaving
- commercial law
- civil codes
- temples
- religious ceremony
- a system of writing
- base 10 and base 60 mathematics
All of that knowledge and advanced civilisation had to come from somewhere. That’s part of the enigma though. It’s not a secret. Their extensive records, etched in clay tell us exactly where their civilisation came from- it’s just that nobody wants to believe it.
Ok, lets get Urantian.
As students of The Urantia Book, we all know that there was a “civilisation one”. We are told that it was the second garden civilisation of the Adamites, and later on the Andites, which we can date circa. 37,000 – 25,000BC. UBTheNews has already documented some great evidence which points scientifically to the existence of an advanced civilisation predating those on the current historical record. The most obvious evidence, (and also the most difficult to argue with) is the great genetic change which modified humanity and increased our brain size circa 40,000BC. There is work being done in tracing genetic markers and genetic groups back into pre-recorded history, and many of these “advanced markers” seem to originate in either Mesopotamia, or the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea- the two major centres of Adamic civilisation. The maps of the dispersion of these genetic groups mirror almost exactly what we are told of the dispersion of the Andites from Mesopotamia, and the second centre near the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea. In fact, it looks somewhat similar to the map of the Proto-IndoEurpopean language families above.
We know that Andites migrated westward and settled in Crete circa 12,000BC, and the Minoan Empire eventually blossomed from those beginnings only to be destroyed by the eruption of Thera. The authors of Civilization One show very clearly that the “Minoan foot” was a measurement which was derived in the same manner as the Sumerian measurements.
There was also a migration to what is now Greece from the Caspian Sea centre circa 10,000BC, but the authors view the transmission of units and measures to the Mycaenians (the earliest civilised group of Greeks according to the authors) as not coming from Mesopotamia directly but from Minoan survivors of the Thera disaster. I think that it is safe to assume that the settlers in Greece would have brought that knowledge with them, since it is described as a quick and direct migration straight from the Adamson centre, unlike the earliest migrations from Mesopotamia which took centuries.
Beyond the Sumerian histories and other apocryphal sources, we now have at least three viable avenues of investigation independent of The Urantia Book which we can use to draw back the curtain of history on “civilisation one” (and one day, possibly even the Dalamatian “civilisation zero”):
- Historical Genetics, (see the Adam and Eve Report at UB The News)
- Historical Linguistics, (proto language reconstruction and mapping)
- and the continuity of units and measurements which seem to stretch further back than recorded history itself as detailed in this excellent book.
This is an intriguing read for any serious student of The Urantia Book.
Anyone who is interested in pursuing this further would no doubt be interested in the following websites. They are doing some incredible work:
