Better than Hipparchus.......................................................................................252

  Times of decay...................................................................................................253

  Dogs, uncles and revenge ..................................................................................258

  Scientists with something to say.........................................................................260

  Chapter 32 ............................................................................................................262

  A message in the bottle of time..........................................................................263

  Mill of pain.........................................................................................................264

  Part VI .......................................................................................................................267

  Chapter 33 ............................................................................................................268

  Inexplicable precision ........................................................................................269

  Black hole in history...........................................................................................271

  Ships in the desert .............................................................................................272

  Chapter 34 ............................................................................................................274

  Time and motion................................................................................................274

  Rampant stupidity..............................................................................................276

  The guardian and the vision ...............................................................................278

  Under Egyptian skies..........................................................................................279

  Thinking like giants ...........................................................................................281

  Chapter 35 ............................................................................................................283

  Trivializing the mystery......................................................................................284

  The cupboard was bare ......................................................................................286

  Bottlenecks in the well-shaft...............................................................................290

  Not like other tombs ..........................................................................................291

  A certain smell ... ...............................................................................................292

  Overview............................................................................................................295

  Chapter 36 ............................................................................................................297

  A singular oppression ... ....................................................................................297

  The moving finger writes and having writ it moves on ........................................300

  Pandora’s Box ....................................................................................................303

  Chapter 37 ............................................................................................................305

  The Beacon ........................................................................................................305

  7

  Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

  Mind games of the pyramid builders ..................................................................307

  Unknown dark distance......................................................................................309

  The Queen’s Chamber........................................................................................312

  Instrument .........................................................................................................313

  Chapter 38 ............................................................................................................316

  Antechamber .....................................................................................................317

  Stone enigmas ...................................................................................................319

  Ceremony of the sarcophagus ............................................................................322

  The game-master ...............................................................................................324

  Chapter 39 ............................................................................................................328

  Temple of the giants ..........................................................................................329

  Lord of Rostau ...................................................................................................332

  Vastly, remotely, fabulously ancient ...................................................................333

  Whose Sphinx is it anyway? ................................................................................335

  Part VII ......................................................................................................................339

  Chapter 40 ............................................................................................................340

  Bauval’s Stars and West’s Stones ........................................................................341

  The way of the jackal .........................................................................................345

  Chapter 41 ............................................................................................................347

  Connections and similarities ..............................................................................349

  Gift of the Gods? ................................................................................................350

  Chapter 42 ............................................................................................................354

  Broken images of a lost technology?...................................................................355

  Repositories of a lost science?............................................................................356

  The train of the Sun and the dweller in Sirius......................................................359

  Millions of years and the movements of the stars ...............................................361

  Copies, or translations?......................................................................................363

  Last records of the First Time?............................................................................364

  Chapter 43 ............................................................................................................367

  Records of prehistory .........................................................................................367

  Gods, Demigods and Spirits of the Dead ............................................................369

  Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus.........................................................................370

  The Turin Papyrus and the Palermo Stone...........................................................372

  Chapter 44 ............................................................................................................375

  Breath of the divine serpent ...............................................................................376

  Osiris and the Lords of Eternity .......
...................................................................378

  Serene stability ..................................................................................................381

  Chapter 45 ............................................................................................................383

  Atef Crown.........................................................................................................383

  Seventeen centuries of kings ..............................................................................385

  Hypogeum .........................................................................................................385

  The most ancient stone building in Egypt ...........................................................387

  Frankfort’s facts.................................................................................................391

  Setting sail across seas of sand and time............................................................393

  Chapter 46 ............................................................................................................397

  Kick-start ...........................................................................................................398

  Climate Change..................................................................................................399

  Unseen connections?..........................................................................................400

  ‘Where is the rest of this civilization?’.................................................................400

  Chapter 47 ............................................................................................................402

  John West...........................................................................................................402

  Robert Schoch’s geology: Unriddling the Sphinx.................................................404

  Legendary civilizations .......................................................................................407

  Magellan and the first dinosaur bone .................................................................408

  The problem of transmission..............................................................................410

  8

  Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

  Second opinion ..................................................................................................411

  Chapter 48 ............................................................................................................413

  Geodetic marker ................................................................................................414

  Doing things by degrees ....................................................................................416

  The Pyramid/Earth ratio .....................................................................................417

  Matching fingerprints? .......................................................................................419

  Navigators in the Boat of Millions of Years..........................................................420

  The signature of a distant date...........................................................................423

  Chapter 49 ............................................................................................................425

  The Orion Mystery..............................................................................................426

  The First Time....................................................................................................428

  The platform......................................................................................................430

  The cult .............................................................................................................431

  The machine ......................................................................................................434

  The second signature.........................................................................................436

  Forcing the question ..........................................................................................440

  Part VIII......................................................................................................................441

  Chapter 50 ............................................................................................................442

  Geophysical impossibilities ................................................................................442

  Library angels ....................................................................................................444

  The missing piece of the puzzle .........................................................................444

  Gravitational influences......................................................................................447

  The lost continent ..............................................................................................448

  Chapter 51 ............................................................................................................450

  A lifeless polar desert.........................................................................................452

  Exhibit 1 ............................................................................................................453

  Exhibit 2 ............................................................................................................454

  Exhibit 3 ............................................................................................................455

  Exhibit 4 ............................................................................................................455

  Exhibit 5 ............................................................................................................455

  Exhibit 6 ............................................................................................................455

  Exhibit 7 ............................................................................................................455

  Exhibit 8 ............................................................................................................456

  Exhibit 9 ............................................................................................................456

  Exhibit 10 ..........................................................................................................457

  The icy executioner............................................................................................458

  Mars and earth...................................................................................................460

  Memories of the polar dawn?..............................................................................461

  An epoch of turmoil and darkness......................................................................462

  Exhibit 11 ..........................................................................................................463

  Exhibit 12 ..........................................................................................................463

  Exhibit 13 ..........................................................................................................464

  Exhibit 14 ..........................................................................................................464

  Chapter 52 ............................................................................................................466

  For the benefit of future generations of mankind ...............................................468

  More than just Kilroy was here ...........................................................................470

  The civiliz
ers......................................................................................................472

  Transmitting the essence ...................................................................................473

  An urgent mission..............................................................................................475

  Walking in the last days......................................................................................479

  The end of the world..........................................................................................480

  At the millstone grinding ...................................................................................482

  Selected Bibliography.................................................................................................483

  9

  Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

  Acknowledgements

  Fingerprints of the Gods could not have been written without the

  generous, warm-hearted and sustaining love of my partner Santha Faiia—

  who always gives more than she takes and who enriches the lives of

  everyone around her with creativity, kindness and imagination. All the

  photographs in the book are her work.

  I am also grateful for the support and encouragement of our six

  children—Gabrielle, Leila, Luke, Ravi, Sean and Shanti—each one of whom

  I feel privileged to know.

  My parents, Donald and Muriel Hancock, have been incredibly helpful,

  active and involved through this and many other difficult times and

  projects. Together with my uncle James Macaulay they have also patiently

  read the drafts of the evolving manuscript, offering a wealth of positive

  suggestions. Thanks, too, to my oldest and closest friend, Peter Marshall,

  with whom I have weathered many storms, and to Rob Gardner, Joseph

  and Sherry Jahoda, Roel Oostra, Joseph and Laura Schor, Niven Sinclair,

  Colin Skinner and Clem Vallance, all of whom gave me good advice.

  In 1992 I suddenly found that I had a friend in Lansing, Michigan. His

  name is Ed Ponist and he got in touch with me soon after the publication