I recently received a book as a birthday gift, and what a wonderful book it is! Entitled How the SunGod reached America c. 2500 BC, it presents detailed evidence compiled by authors Dr. Reinoud M. de Jonge and Jay Stuart Wakefield that numerous ancient megalithic sites around the world encode detailed sailing charts for crossing the world's oceans and finding specific landmarks and navigation aids at specific and accurate latitudes.
The book is illustrated with numerous diagrams, drawings and maps, as well as selections of ancient Egyptian papyri and panels showing that the ancient Egyptians were active participants in voyages to the "Western Lands."
The authors argue that the most ancient sites including Newgrange and other megalithic mounds contain clear coded references to discoveries of islands to the west, the Azores being among the most important of these, and that the lands to the west held great religious significance in the worship of the SunGod to these ancient peoples.
Significantly, they find that the nine major islands of the Azores, in three major groups, are depicted in ancient sites dating to 3500 or 3600 BC, such as Gavrinis, including coded references to the latitudes of the Azores (they describe references to 38 North, the latitude of the Central Azores and the number most associated with the Azores, as well as references to numerous other important nautical reference points, including Dunmore Head in Ireland at 52 North and the Cape Verde Islands at 16 North).
Below is an image of two of the engraved stones from Gavrinis, showing the labels that de Jonge and Wakefield give to the inscriptions.
One of the most interesting sections of the book concerns the site at Mystery Hill, New Hampshire (also known as "America's Stonehenge"), which I have visited and written about in previous posts such as this one and this one.
The authors present convincing arguments that Mystery Hill functioned as a "religio/travel center for crossing the ocean to Europe in the bronze Age," saying: "We think this was a teaching center about oceanic geography and sailing routes, a place to get accurate predictions for the safe timing of oceanic voyages, and a place to make the sacrifices that would ensure safe passages" (10-1).
Above (top of this post) is a diagram from Mystery Hill showing the many extended stone walls, which seem to wind about with no purpose (certainly their layout defies the theory that these stone walls were produced by early colonial settlers clearing the land). Authors de Jonge and Wakefield provide convincing arguments that these walls depict the coastlines of the world's oceans, most detailed in the region of the North Atlantic [most of the stone structures in the "Main Site" area, not shown in this larger view], but also depicting the Equator as well as a route for a "southern passage" across the Atlantic in the region of the Equator, as well as coastal features in the Caribbean, Central America, and even the eastern edge of Asia and a route marker aimed towards Australia.
Among the evidence that the authors present are indications that the site encodes the latitude of Cape Sao Roque, the northeast point of Brazil, at latitude 5 South, the latitude of the north coast of Honduras at 16 North, and even the latitude of Cape Race in Newfoundland, at 47 North!
The authors present similar evidence that Stonehenge encodes latitudes and landmarks for oceanic crossings as well. This is astonishing, but it is in line with the arguments that Martin Doutré has outlined in support of the conclusion that nearby Avebury Henge also functioned as a large "open-air university" for the training of mathemetician-seafarers to cross the bluewater oceans.
The extensive mathematical patterns that de Jonge and Wakefield find at sites around the world which indicate knowledge of accurate latitudes as early as 3000 BC and even earlier, however, is perhaps the most astonishing aspect of their argument. It is difficult to deny that people who could determine accurate latitudes understood that the earth is a sphere, and what is more, that they understood its size to a high degree of precision.
If ancient mankind knew the size and shape of our spherical earth to such a degree of sophistication prior to the construction of Stonehenge, then this knowledge completely stands our conventional view of human history on its head.
There is extensive other evidence from around the world, however, that ancient civilizations did have this knowledge (see this previous post, for example).
How did they know so much, so many thousands of years ago?
Conventional textbooks will of course continue to depict the builders of Stonehenge as primitive and superstitious innocents wearing rough skins, and to argue that at the early dates of the many megalithic sites described above, mankind was just beginning to emerge from a hunter-gatherer mode (which had prevailed for hundreds of thousands of years, during which discovery of the size and shape of the spherical earth would have been difficult to imagine). Dr. de Jonge and Mr. Wakefield have shown that this conventional view cannot be correct.
How the SunGod reached America c. 2500 BC thus becomes an incredibly important piece of analysis, contributing critical evidence that should be examined carefully by everyone interested in uncovering a truer picture of the most ancient past of mankind.