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Authors: Erich von Daniken
Evidence of the Gods
ERICH VON
DÄNIKEN
OF THE
GODS
A Visual Tour of Alien Influence
in the Ancient World
Copyright © 2013 by Erich von Däniken
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.
E
VIDENCE OF THE
G
ODS
T
RANSLATED BY
C
HRISTIAN VON
A
RNIM
E
DITED BY
D
IANA
G
HAZZAWI
T
YPESET BY
J
EFF
P
IASKY
Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design
Printed in the U.S.A.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP Available Upon Request.
Chapter 1: Islands in the Pacific
Ancient Truths From the South Pacific
Taboo Points and Navigation Stones
Ceremonial Stuff and Ritual Masks
Connections Between Continents?
Painters’ Convention in Brazil?
Questions No One Wants to Read
Dear Reader,
“I have read all of your books!” I hear that sentence after every lecture or book signing. And when I delve a little deeper, it turns out that “all of your books” really means six to eight titles. In the meantime, I have written 30 books, and only a few enthusiasts have actually managed to study all those works. Furthermore, some of the titles from the 1960s to the 1990s are no longer available. New readers would find it difficult to find “all of [my] books.”
Evidence of the Gods
is a collection in which those who have indeed read all of my books will find little that is new. Yet, this book is nevertheless different from the others. My archive contains more than 60,000 photos. I have assembled almost 200 of them in three chapters, in a way that will give rise to renewed wonder among both old and new readers. After all, who knows that in the huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean there are ruins and legends which belong together? Who has taken the trouble to examine the rock drawings and geoglyphs throughout the world for motifs relating to the gods? Who still remembers that there are stone structures in ancient Europe that do not fit anywhere into the Stone Age?
These riddles should be talked about to a greater extent. They exist. My pictures show it, and I have provided a thorough commentary. My aim is to present a new volume with exciting, previously unpublished pictures each year for the next several years.
Yours,
Erich von Däniken
July 2012
ISLANDS
IN THE
PACIFIC
Aside from where the tourists go, there are buildings whose origins are riddles and whose purpose is still not understood, such as those in the expanses of the blue Pacific. That is where Pohnpei is located, which is, at 540 km
2
, the largest of the Caroline Islands. Various small islands surround Pohnpei, and one of them, a mere 0.44 km
2
in size, is called Temwen. This diminutive, tropical islet is a little bit smaller than Vatican City, yet it bears a monumental riddle: the ruins of Nan Madol.
These buildings consist of tens of thousands of hexagonal basalt columns stacked on top of one another, block house style, like heavyweight matches. Is there historical information about Pohnpei and its island satellites? (
Image 1
)
• In 1595, the first European man, the Portuguese Pedro Fernandes de Quiros, circumnavigated the island group in the
San Jeronimo
and dropped anchor off Nan Madol. The walls of Pohnpei appeared in the faint light like an other-worldly palace. Not a human soul anywhere.
• In 1826, the Irish seaman James O’Connell was shipwrecked off Pohnpei. He succeeded in reaching the safety of land with six other survivors. He married the 14-year-old daughter of the king of the island and remained there for 11 years, until a ship picked him up and took him back to Ireland.
• In 1851, the indigenous people massacred the crew of an English ship. In response, the British navy created a bloodbath on the island.
• From 1880 onward, Christian missionaries from various groups traveled to Temwen. Stone tablets with unfamiliar writing were destroyed in the ruins of Nan Madol; the ancient customs were forbidden.
• In 1886, the whole island group was annexed by Spain. The new owners called it the Caroline Islands, because Charles II was on the throne.
• In 1899, Spain sold the Carolines to the German Empire.
• In 1910, the native inhabitants rebelled. Missionaries and officials were murdered. Only a few Europeans escaped the massacre.
• In 1911, the German cruiser
Emden
shelled the islands. The rebels were slaughtered without mercy, their leaders hanged from palm trees.
• In 1919, Germany had lost the First World War, and Japan received a mandate to administer all the Caroline Islands.
• In 1944, during the Second World War, the American navy occupied the islands. Wealthy Japanese were expelled.
• In 1947, the islands were declared a trust territory of the United States.
Anyone who visited the ruins of Nan Madol in their checkered history was faced with a riddle. How did the tens of thousands of basalt blocks arrive on the tiny island? What methods were used to lift the blocks, weighing up to 20 tonnes each? The highest wall still stands at 14.3 meters high, higher than a three-story building. (Images 2–5) What did the ground consist of? A substrate of coral will not bear heavy buildings of the dimensions of Nan Madol. Indeed, what was the purpose of the complex? What was there to defend on a tiny island very distant from any civilization in the South Pacific?
Basalt is cooled lava, and there is, indeed, a basalt quarry on the north coast of Pohnpei. It is about 25 kilometers distant from Nan Madol. Basalt can come out of the earth in various forms—in Pohnpei, it is in the form of polygonal columns. It is thought that the builders of Nan Madol suspended the basalt columns under their canoes or rafts to reduce their weight. Then they waited for high tide and rowed the heavy cargo to Nan Madol. Why were the buildings not erected directly on the “basalt island” of Pohnpei itself? What was so important about Nan Madol? Furthermore, Nan Madol consists of numerous canals, some of them as small as 2 meters in width. How were the basalt transporters supposed to have been maneuvered around the bends into the canals? This transport method relied on the alternation of high and low tide to work. The workers had to wait for low tide to attach the basalt columns under the rafts, then for high tide to transport them. How many rafts might have been in use at the same time in this endless exercise with low and high tides? How many ropes made of coconut fiber were required; how many trees were felled for the rafts?
