“Schoch is a true scientist, following the data wherever it leads, heedless of political pressures or worn-out paradigms. Twenty-two years ago, his redating of the Sphinx launched the New Archaeology. Forgotten Civilization distills all that has happened since into a simple conclusion: that solar activity ended the last cycle of high culture and may destroy ours in turn. Schoch is no scaremonger, no hawker of a pet theory. What we do with this knowledge is up to us, but once digested, it changes everything.”

JOSCELYN GODWIN, AUTHOR OF ATLANTIS AND THE CYCLES OF TIME

I dedicate this book to my beloved wife, Catherine (Katie) Ulissey. She has truly been the inspiration and driving force behind it. As is evident in the pages that follow, this book could not have been written without her.

Dedication
Preface
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
About the Author
Copyright

Chapter 1: A Whirlwind Trip … 1

Chapter 2: The Great Sphinx … 2
The Sphinx and I
History of an Enigma
Redating the Great Sphinx
The Changing Face of the Sphinx
A Secret Chamber?
Some Personal Anecdotes Concerning the Sphinx

Chapter 3: Göbekli Tepe and the Origins of Civilization … 9
Better than Pottery Shards
Death Cult Center or the True Garden of Eden?
What Else did the Builders of Göbekli tepe Have?
Ancient Knowledge Purposefully Buried?
A Record of Precession at Göbekli Tepe

Chapter 4: Defining Civilization … 15
The Revolutions of Prehistory
The Elements of Civilization
Challenging the Paradigm
The First Economic Revolution
Modern Biases

Chapter 5: Te Pito Te Henua (The Navel of the World), Easter Island … 21
The Chronology and Dating of the Moai
How were the Moai Moved?
Legends of Giants
Birdmen Petroglyphs and Other Anomalies

Chapter 6: The End of the Last Ice Age … 26
The younger Dryas
The Fourth state of Matter
Records Engraved on rocks
The easter Island Connection
A Plasma Cataclysm

Chapter 7: Our Not-So-Eternal Sun … 32
Sunspots
Earth’s Magnetosphere
A Solar Proton event at the end of the last ice age

Chapter 8: Cosmoclimatology … 36
Protecting the Paradigm
A new Paradigm: Cosmoclimatology

Chapter 9: Galactic Superwaves and Interstellar Dust Clouds … 39
Galactic Superwaves
Gravitational waves and Earthquakes
Are we Entering a cosmic Interstellar Cloud?

Chapter 10: Ezekiel’s Vision … 43
Rongorongo
More Biblical, ancient, and even stone age Depictions of Auroral Displays?

Chapter 11: Glass Castles, Fire from the Sky, and the Spoils of the Gods … 46
Vitrified forts
How far back does Vitrification go?
The How and why behind Vitrification
Fire from the sky
Plasma Impacts

Chapter 12: The Carrington Event … 52
Ramifications of a Carrington-level event (or greater)

Chapter 13: The 2012 Date of the Maya … 54
Halls of records: The Hawara Labyrinth
Halls of records: The Chamber under the Sphinx
How Accurate is the mayan Calendar?
2012 In new zealand and elsewhere

Chapter 14: Ancient Wisdom, New Discoveries, and New Science … 59
Breaking up the party: The Nonconstancy of Radioactive Decay
Teeth on the bell curve: Discrepancies in basic natural Processes
Fluctuating Fields: Consciousness and the Cosmos
Elfs: Tuning into the earth
The Power of Sound
The Power of Water
Entangled Diamonds
The fine Structure of the Universe
A Matter of Time
The Influence of the Future on the Past
The Science of the Future
Zep Tepi
Our Past and our future: A Few final Remarks

Appendix 1: Was the Great Sphinx Surrounded by a Moat? … 73
Robert Temple’s Moat Theory
Scrutinizing the Sphinx
Ancient Rains or a Moat?
Geological Details
Subsurface Weathering
Sphinx or Jackal? lion or dog?
The Grandeur of the Great Sphinx

Appendix 2: Politics, Money, and Science … 81
Politics and Science
Threatening the Paradigm

Appendix 3: A Note on the Naming and Dating of the End of the Last Ice Age … 84

Appendix 4: Moving the Moai: Easter Island and Psychokinesis … 85
Gravity as an Entropic force and a theory of Psychokinesis
Easter Island and Psychokinesis

Appendix 5: Did a Comet Hit Earth at the Beginning of the Younger Dryas, circa 10,900 BCE? … 88
A Note on the Reconstruction of Solar Activity through Geological Time

Forgotten Civilization. A few notes on the title, which was the brainchild of my wife, Katie, are in order.

To place things in context, when I was a youngster the British art historian Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) wrote and produced an influential thirteen-part television documentary series (first aired in 1969 by the British Broadcasting Corporation) and accompanying book, both of which were titled Civilisation: A Personal View. We were enthralled by the TV series and digested every word of the book, falling under the spell of this uncommon arbiter of taste and excellence, accepting his pronouncements without question. Clark codified for a generation the common concept of what civilization (being British, Clark spelled it as “civilisation”) was all about, and his views endure among much of the public (or at least the Western European and American public) to this day. For his contributions, Clark received the title Lord Clark of Saltwood (Saltwood is a castle in Kent that Clark purchased in 1955).

In actuality, Clark had a rather narrow view of what exactly constituted civilization. His book and series concentrated on Western European Christian civilization from the period of about 1100 CE through the nineteenth century and had a decidedly English slant to it. About the concept of civilization more generally, leading up to the apparent height of civilization as he viewed it, Clark wrote:

There have been times in the history of man when the earth seems suddenly to have grown warmer or more radio-active. . . . I don’t put that forward as a scientific proposition, but the fact remains that three or four times in history man has made a leap forward that would have been unthinkable under ordinary evolutionary conditions. One such time was about the year 3000 BC, when quite suddenly civilisation appeared, not only in Egypt and Mesopotamia but in the Indus valley; another was in the late sixth century BC, when there was not only the miracle of Ionia and Greece—philosophy, science, art, poetry, all reaching a point that wasn’t reached again for 2000 years—but also in India a spiritual enlightenment that has perhaps never been equalled. Another was round about the year 1100. It seems to have affected the whole world; but its strongest and most dramatic effect was in Western Europe—where it was most needed. It was like a Russian spring. In every branch of life—action, philosophy, organization, technology—there was an extraordinary outpouring of energy, an intensification of existence. (Clark 1969, 33; ellipses in the original)

My contention, as I will develop in this book, is that the sudden appearance of civilization circa 3000 BCE of which Clark speaks is not the first appearance of civilization. Rather it is the reemergence of civilization after some five thousand or more years. True, unambiguous civilization is evident during the period of circa 10,000 BCE to 9000 BCE, thousands of years earlier than the dynastic Egyptians and their contemporaries in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. This earliest flowering of civilization has been generally forgotten by humanity, although allusions to it are still to be found in sacred scriptures, traditional legends, and ancient texts; the Garden of Eden, tales of a golden age, and Plato’s recounting of Atlantis may all be referencing this primordial civilization. Now it is time to recognize its legacy.

. . . the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night. It is when people are saying, “How quiet and peaceful it is” that the worst suddenly happens, as suddenly as labour pains come on a pregnant woman; and there will be no way for anybody to evade it.

THE JERUSALEM BIBLE,
1 THESSALONIANS, 5:2–3

A special thanks goes to Grzegorz Popławski, who invited me to participate in a conference in Warsaw, Poland, on May 29, 2011, which he organized. This book is an outgrowth of my presentation there.

C. Alicia Schoch, my mother, was touched by this manuscript, which she read in its entirety before she unexpectedly passed away on April 2, 2012. I would be remiss not to acknowledge her lifetime of love and support, as well as the love and support I continue to receive from my wonderful father, Milton R. Schoch.

Robert M. Schoch, a full-time faculty member at the College of General Studies at Boston University since 1984, earned his Ph.D. in geology and geophysics at Yale University. He also earned an M.S. and an M.Phil. in geology and geophysics from Yale as well as a B.S. in geology and a B.A. in anthropology from George Washington University. He has been quoted extensively in the media for his revolutionary research on ancient cultures and monuments from such diverse countries as Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia, Romania, Wales, Scotland, Mexico, Peru, Chile (Easter Island), and Japan.

In the early 1990s, Robert Schoch’s geological analyses of the Great Sphinx demonstrated that the statue is thousands of years older than the conventional dating of 2500 BCE, bringing him worldwide fame. He is featured in the Emmy-winning documentary The Mystery of the Sphinx, which first aired on NBC and has been subsequently broadcast on numerous channels both in the United States and abroad.

A featured speaker at international conferences and symposia, Schoch’s work has been instrumental in spurring renewed attention to the interrelationships between geological and astronomical phenomena, natural catastrophes, and the early history of civilization. Besides The Mystery of the Sphinx, he has appeared on many radio and television shows. He has contributed to magazines, journals, and reviews, and he is the author, coauthor, and/or editor of a number of books, both technical and popular, including Phylogeny Reconstruction in Paleontology, Stratigraphy: Principles and Methods, Voices of the Rocks, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, Pyramid Quest, The Parapsychology Revolution, and the university textbook Environmental Science: Systems and Solutions. Robert Schoch’s website is www.robertschoch.com

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Copyright © 2012 by Robert M. Schoch Unless otherwise stated, all photographs courtesy of Robert M. Schoch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Note to the reader: This book presents information, science, theories, and hypotheses as the author understands and interprets them, but they are subject to other interpretations and perceived information and facts may change as more is discovered. Before making any life decisions one should consult other sources, trusted advisors, and ultimately come to one’s own conclusions. The author, publisher, and others associated with this book will not be responsible for any decisions made by a reader based on the information, content, and ideas presented herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schoch, Robert M.

Forgotten civilization : the role of solar outbursts in our past and future / Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

Summary: “Scientific confirmation of advanced civilization at the end of the last ice age, the solar catastrophe that destroyed it, and what the evidence means for our future”—Provided by publisher.
print ISBN: 978-1-59477-497-3
ebook ISBN: 978-1-59477-512-3

1. Solar flares. 2. Civilization, Ancient. 3. Lost continents. I. Title.
QB526.F6S36 2012
523.7'5—dc23

2012008225
Photo insert layout by Catherine Ulissey

To send correspondence to the author of this book, mail a first-class letter to the author c/o Inner Traditions • Bear & Company, One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767, and we will forward the communication, or contact the author directly through his website www.robertschoch.com.