In another thread Graham Handcock’s name came up in reference to the Sphinx. This author alledges that among other things that the Ark of the Convenant’s final resting place is Axiom in Ethiopia, that the Sphinx is much older than 5000 yrs old (he puts it in the 15-20000 yr old range),that Antarctica is really the lost continent of Atlantis and that humans as a species have some kind of collective amnesia. He suggests that we have amazing technologies that mankind has simply forgotten…like pyramid building and some of the finer points of monolithic architecture. I DO NOT want to turn this into a FLAME but does a guy like this help man by raising questions or is he just another crazy author??
There are only two things that are infinite…the Universe and Man’s stupidity…I’m not sure about the Universe though.
Sorry. I happen to share my IRL name with that wacko, and I can assure you there is no ‘D’ in his name. As an aside, I used to get email from crazed fans of his (changed my email address so I don’t get them anymore). The most memorable was the one that told me in no uncertain terms that the bible says that the Ark of the Covenant is on a spaceship, so I shouldn’t bother looking for it. I gave my dad an autographed copy of one of his books once (my autograph), but haven’t read them. If his fans are any indication, though, he is more than your average crazy author.
That’s right, he’s a popular crazy author, with many crazy fans.
And you’re right, although there is no ‘d’ in ‘Hancock’ I must say there is a ‘d’ in ‘Handcock.’ Now, whether ‘Handcock’ is a real name or not, I choose not to discuss.
In another thread I had said that I read about 1/3 of Fingerprints of the Gods, well I just picked up the book and saw that I only read about 1/5 of it. There is a reason that I put it down. I happened to make notes and underline various parts of the book that stood out to me, for example this part on the Nazca lines
Has Hancock even read any books on Andean archaeology? The short answer is no. If he had bothered to do even the slightest bit of research, he would have found that there was contact and trade through all parts of the Andean world, including the coast, the altiplano and the Amazon. In fact many cultures used forest motifs on their pottery and textiles. Not to mention the fact that sea shells had been found in the jungle.
Hancock want you to believe that the Andes were an insurmountable barrier. What a crock. If prostitution and hearding are the two oldest professions, than trading has to be the third oldest. Tell me what is a greater obsticle to trade, a mountain range or several thousand miles of open ocean? About 8000 BCE(IIRC) obsidian was probably the most widely traded good on the planet, and samples from a quarry in Melanesia have been found in polynesia.
Hancock wants to believe the fantastic, and that is ok, he just needs to do it in a way that is not quite so ethnocentric. Also some evidence in his support would be nice, but my guess is that there will never be any.
Graham Hancock is basically a younger version of Erich von Daniken. What bugs me most is not that he writes this stuff, but that B&N and other large booksellers insist on putting his books in the HISTORY section, instead of FICTION - which is where his books belong!
Yup, he’s just another writer who’s made a mint off the “new age” movement. Not really any different from Whitley Striber or Ramtha or Art Bell or that “Celestine Prophesy” knobjob. Neither helpful nor harmful.
Not at all helpful, because he draws sweeping conclusions from limited data or assumptions, and warps it all through his own 20th century perspective based on everything that we know TODAY. Not exactly scientific.
On the other hand he has, indeed, called attention to a FEW legitimate questions about a FEW things (I can expound on this upon request). Which doesn’t mean that everything he has to say is valid because it certainly is not.
Not at all harmful, because he is rightfully ignored by serious academia and scientists and museums etc. and he is not considered a legitimate source of data by anyone who really “matters”.
As far as his popularity goes, clearly some yahoos choose to believe anything put in front of them (the same thing occurred to me while waiting in line at the supermarket and surveying the covers of the weekly tabloids). Fortunately, such people always tend to be towards the bottom strata of the, shall we say, substantial thinkers of record.
In the grand scheme of things, it really makes no difference if some in the informational underclass believes that Elvis and Atlantis and the Pyramids are all part of the same ancient Martian-Jesus-Sirius-Freemasonry conspiracy. Even they have a right to read what they want to … That’s where Hancock comes in.