Secrets of a Lost Civilization
When I eventually reach Graham Hancock’s house, I am late and out of breath. The amateur archaeologist lives in a grand slab of a place halfway up one of Bath’s lung-busting hills and I have been struggling with a bag full of his bestselling books.
The 65-year-old opens his imposing front door, waves away my apologies, and ushers me straight down to his study, which is spilling over with books and expensive-looking curiosities. He offers me a cup of coffee and enquires about my journey. He is avuncular and chatty – not at all the wild-haired eccentric my research had led me to expect.
Twenty years ago, Hancock set the cat among the academic pigeons when he published a book called Fingerprints of the Gods, a re-evaluation of mankind’s past that claimed an advanced civilisation was wiped out by a giant comet towards the end of the last Ice Age.
Based on Hancock’s own investigations and interviews with archaeologists and astronomers, the book claimed survivors of this cataclysm, the giant flood remembered in myths all around the world, went on to settle in locations from Mexico to Egypt and impart their ancient knowledge to the other remaining humans.
Among the most attention-grabbing claims in the book were: a suggestion that the Pyramids of Giza were designed to store books of knowledge written by an ancient civilisation; that the Great Sphinx preceded the Ancient Egyptians by many thousands of years; and that Plato, who wrote about Atlantis in his books Timaeus and Critias, knew exactly where the fabled lost city was hidden.
The book was an instant hit and has, to date, sold more than nine million copies around the world. Hancock, a former East Africa correspondent for The Economist, went on to present two documentary series on Channel 4, became a popular lecturer in “alternative history”, and built up a strong fan base online.
Now, he has written a sequel to Fingerprints, Magicians of the Gods, which reveals “explosive new evidence” to support his claims. It also warns of another comet strike that is destined to hit Earth in 2030.
The book, which is already a bestseller, has proved irresistible to fans and Hancock’s talks, which he has been holding to accompany the launch, have been hugely popular, attracting far larger audiences than equivalent talks by Booker-prize winning authors.
What Hancock has not achieved, however, is credibility. Leading archaeologists have been denouncing his theories for decades. He has been compared to The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and dismissed as a pseudo archaeologist or “Pyramidiot”. The organisation for whom he is delivering a talk on October 15 – the “mind, body and spirit company” Alternatives – also hosts events about ghosts, clairvoyance and the paranormal.
Hancock has no formal qualifications in archaeology, history or astronomy. His long-standing interest in hallucinogenic drugs – “they are something that society really needs” – has not enhanced his reputation either.
But the author says he has never claimed to be an academic. He presents himself as a journalist who is simply reporting theories by scientists who think they can fill in some of the gaps in the history of mankind – holes acknowledged by all mainstream academics.
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