Interesting book…and I think it’s completely jack full of shit. The author begins by demonstrating, to his own satisfaction, that the Olmec civilization in Central America was founded, or heavily influenced, by Phoenician/Canaanite/Hyksos immigrants who crossed the Atlantic.
To me, this book (which is well-written and nicely annotated) is just an updating of trite mid-19th-century garbage.
But…am I missing something? Is Compton on the ball here? Have his contentions become acceptable in the last 100 to 150 years? Do significant numbers of archaeologists now agree that the “Egypt-like” motifs in Olmec civilization are, in fact, Egypt-derived?
As far as I can tell, Compton isn’t pushing “Mormon” archaeology. But he does seem to be trying too hard, taking minor resemblances as trying to parlay them up into proof of “cause and effect.” For example, he makes much of both Olmecs and Phoenicians using Murex shells to derive purple dye. To me, this is just another argument based on “They both built pyramids.”
Am I giving him too short a shrift? Or is he just another crackpot, although much better researched and reasoned than, say, Von Daniken?
Knowing nothing about the book, and little about the Olmecs, it still seems to me that it’s just as simple as “no wheel (other than toys) = no transatlantic colonization.”
Compton addresses this…and, in my opinion, not very satisfactorily… He tries to argue that they did all their shipping by boat…
Yeah, well, so did the Egyptians…but they also built chariots!
My problem here is that archaeology and very ancient history are two subjects I’m pretty damn weak on. So far, Compton’s book doesn’t pass my own personal “sniff test,” but…what the hell do I know?
It’s also worth noting that there’s no archaeological evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt. So he’s fictionalizing something that was fiction to start with.
His approach is much closer to realistic than Von Daniken or Velikovsky. For instance, instead of a world-wide Great Flood that submerged the whole planet, he suggests a mega-volcano of the Thera or Krakatau variety, which led to a long period of perfectly mundane heavy rains and widespread flooding.
It still comes across as a stretcher, and not sufficiently justified, but at least it isn’t batshit.
Still, my impression of the book is that he relies too heavily on superficial resemblances – “They both built pyramids” – and isn’t really providing a balanced assessment of all the facts.
And, yeah, he believes in the Jewish captivity under Joseph and his descendants, and, as you properly note, this doesn’t have any supporting evidence or current acceptance among archaeologists.
He tries for a mundane, non-miraculous explanation for Moses’ escape (tidal flats) but fails to offer any useful support for Moses’ and the Children of Israel’s existence at all.
He’s, like, fifty-two per cent baked.