New Stonehenge Bluestone Mystery

Secrets of Stonehenge

Missing Stonehenge circle did not come from Preseli

British Archaeology has issued an important revision on its website (see below) to the news article on the Missing Stonehenge Circle that appeared in the latest edition of its magazine, BA 109 November/December 2009, the publication of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA).

The original full page news article, entitled “Missing Stonehenge circle did not come from Preselis” written by editor Mike Pitts, claimed that a new theory reveals that the dogma accepted by most archaeologists since first proposed in 1920, that almost all the Stonehenge bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire - is WRONG. According to the two geologists Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins, who have studied thousands of rock specimens from recent excavations at Stonehenge, concluded that many bluestones came not from Pembrokeshire, but from a far wider area, perhaps north Wales (Snowdonia, the Llyn Peninsula and Anglesey), or even beyond. The well-known spotted dolerite is a Preseli rock, they say – but the likely source was not Carnmenyn (where archaeologists have recently claimed to have found quarries) but nearby Carngoedog.

Outcropping rocks on Carn Menyn, Preseli.

Stonehenge's megaliths are classed into two groups, 'sarsen', and everything else classified as 'bluestone'. The sarsens, the large lintelled circle and trilithons, are from a local sandstone, and estimated to have a total weight of about 1,800 tonnes. The total bluestones amass to about 250 tonnes and have been the cause of much debate as they are not a local stone; most bluestones derive from Preseli in Pembrokeshire in South East Wales and geologists and archaeologist fail to agree on how they arrived on Salisbury Plain. Most prehistorians favour human agency as the method of transportation following the geologist Herbert Thomas who first identified the Preselis as the geological provenance in 1923. This view has been endorsed by geologists such as Christopher Green and James Scourse and recently archaeologists Tomothy Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright claimed to have identified quarry outcrops and “sacred springs” as the source of the bluestones around Carnmenyn in the Preseli Mountains.

Geologist Geoffrey Kellaway [incorrectly cited as George in the BA article] proposed in 1971 that the bluestones had been transported by glacier. The well known authority on stone circles Aubrey Burl also supports this view and refers to transportation of the bluestones by human agency as a “fairy tale”. In 1991 a team of geologists from the Open University, including Olwen Williams-Thorpe, produced a differing glacial interpretation but still favoured ice as the mode of transport.

The BA 109 article states that Rob Ixer (University of Leicester) and Richard Bevins (National Museum of Wales) are proposing a third option, quoted as saying many bluestones do not come from Pembrokeshire but from “a far wider and, as yet, unrecognised area or more likely areas” - perhaps North Wales (Snowdonia, the Llyn Peninsula and Anglesey) or even beyond. The well known spotted dolerite, is a Preseli rock, they say, - but Carngoedog was the likely source not Carnmenyn. These conclusions derive from a new study of thousands of Stonehenge rock specimens collected in 1947 from near the west end of the Cursus ( proposed as the site of a lost bluestone circle) and recently excavated by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2006/08 and from bluestone fragments retrieved from excavations at Stonehenge by Mike Pitts, 1979/80, and Darvill & Wainwright in 2008.

The geologists also found the Cursus bluestones, which are all rhyolitic and mainly tuffaceous (with no Stonehenge dolerites) has significant mineralogical differences from visually similar rocks at Stonehenge. The Darvill & Wainwright excavation produced significant quantities of a type of rhyolite or rhyolitic tuff “not recorded in north Pembrokeshire and noticeably absent in the Mynydd Preseli area”.

How the stones were moved, Ixer told BA, “is an archaeological problem” though he wondered if “different groups [of people] brought different stones?”

In 2006 Ixer, with Peter Turner, suggested that the Stonehenge Altar Stone [classified as the largest stone in the bluestone group although it is in fact micaceous sandstone] came from an unidentified source far from Milfrod Haven – the traditional attribution said to indicate where the Preseli stones were taken downriver for the sea-bound journey to Stonehenge.

Ixer and Bevins's detailed study will be published in 2009 Wiltshire Studies.

Carn Menyn promontory identified as a specific Stonehenge bluestone source

An interim note by Ixer & Bevins on the latest developments since the BA 109 news item was published, has been posted on the British Archaeology website:

Important revision to Stonehenge bluestone theory

In the News pages of the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of British Archaeology, it is reported that new petrographical work by Rob Ixer (University of Leicester, Department of Geology) and Richard Bevins (National Museum of Wales) had suggested that some of the Stonehenge bluestones had not come from Pembrokeshire, but (in Ixer's words) from "a far wider and, as yet, unrecognised area or more likely areas". As the magazine was being printed, however, Bevins was out in the field, and found an apparent source for the rocks in question north of the Preselis. Ixer and Bevins have kindly written this interim note on this latest development.

Stilpnomelane-bearing rhyolites/rhyolitic tuffs at Stonehenge are most probably from the Preseli Hills region
Field and petrographical work continues on new Stonehenge lithics and on in situ material from areas around the Preseli Hills. This includes excavated material from the Avenue at Stonehenge, and rocks from undistinguished outcrops in the low ground north of Mynydd Preseli, close to Pont Saeson.

The former, as expected, conformed to the range of lithologies seen throughout Stonehenge. But the latter had surprising results, and has led to our radically modifying our proposal that many of the bluestones do not have a Preseli Hill origin, but have an unknown and possibly non-southern Welsh origin.

In thin section the Pont Saeson fine-grained acidic rocks show most of the features of our class of Stonehenge rocks, informally called "rhyolite with fabric", including a lensoidal fabric and the presence of stilpnomelane. Despite nearly a century of collecting and analysis, this is the first record of this mineral in rhyolitic rocks in south Wales. The only previous recorded occurrences of stilpnomelane in acidic rocks in Wales are from the Cregenen granophyre in the Cadair Idris area of southern Snowdonia, and in granophyric rocks of the St David’s Head Intrusion, in north-west Pembrokeshire.

Although not an exact match for the Stonehenge rocks, the Pont Saeson lithics strongly suggest that the "flinty rhyolite/rhyolite with fabric" found in the excavations at Stonehenge has an origin in the Preseli region, and that there is no longer a need to look further north in Wales for this important class of Stonehenge debitage.

The other and more abundant unusual rock-type (carrying distinctive titanite-albite inter-growths) from the Great Cursus area (but not so far identified at Stonehenge) is still unprovenanced, and its petrography has still yet to be matched with rocks from south Wales, or indeed from the rest of Wales.

An interim summary of where we now believe the Stonehenge bluestones come from, and incorporating these new data, is:

* Spotted and unspotted dolerites, the flinty rhyolite/rhyolite tuffs and possibly the basaltic tuffs have a Preseli origin, but a search for their associated source rocks must no longer be restricted to the prominent outcrops on the Preseli Hills
* The Altar stone Devonian sandstone – the largest bluestone – cannot be from the Preseli region
* The rare other sandstone orthostats comprising a Palaeozoic sandstone are also not from the Preseli Hills, but may be southern Welsh in origin
* The titanite-albite-bearing rhyolitic rocks have yet to be sourced, but it is now anticipated that they too will have come from the Preseli region; only detailed and dedicated collecting and petrography will be able to prove that.

Rob Ixer & Richard Bevins

[Source: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba109/interim.shtml]


So where does this leave the bluestone transportation debate?

The Stonehenge sarsens, the largest used in the Great Trilithon estimated at 50 tons, were brought 25 miles from the Marlborough Downs, which was a significant achievement in its own right. Transporting 4 ton bluestones 160 miles by human effort from South Wales to Sailisbury Plain certainly seems plausible. There were also a small number of limestone blocks and slabs used in the construction of Stonehenge brought to the site for the specific purpose of packing material to support the much larger sarsen uprights. The limestone quarries have been identified as Chilmark, 12 miles west, and 3 miles southeast at Hurdcot.

The number of different rock types found amongst the bluestone group at Stonehenge is cited as significant evidence of glacial deposits, with debate continuing for the location of the exact quarry sites seen as the basic flaw in the argument for human movement of the bluestones, in other words identifying the quarry site(s) will prove the human agency method. According to Ixer & Bevins's revision statement were are still looking at Preseli as the geological provenance for the majority of bluestone. Anyone familiar with the Preseli mountains will be aware that there is ample loose bluestone over a number of peaks in the mountain range and would therefore not need to be quarried but pieces the appropriate size simply collected with minimal effort for use in the monument requiring later minimal dressing prior to erection. The bluestone constructions at Stonehenge were built and rebuilt maybe as many as five times over a 400 year period. We do not know if all the bluestones were brought at the same time, but it is quite conceivable that different working parties, possibly generations apart, collected from different sites in the Preseli mountains. As Rob Ixer told BA, had “different groups [of people] brought different stones?”

Preseli bluestone - abandoned because it cracked?

As Anthony Johnson states in his recent work on Stonehenge:

“...as there appear to be so relatively few bluestone finds outside Stonehenge and its immediate environs, with no extensive distribution across the Plain or its river valleys, a glacial derivation is considered unlikely. The glaciation theory has to address why the people building the earliest stone monument appear to have selected only exotic stones; if Salisbury Plain had been littered with a variety of rocks, including local sarsen, was the intention to gather material suitable to build the first stone circle, or primarily an exercise in prehistoric field geology?

It is far easier to envisage the bluestones collected at the source (i.e. where they outcrop), than to see them as having been selectively chosen from the surrounding landscape. There is a another important point to consider here: whilst a variety of large exotic rocks and even hammer-stones and mauls was used in the packing of the sarsen uprights, implying that stone for this purpose was in short supply, none was bluestone; had it been generally present within a local glacial assemblage it would undoubtedly have been collected and utilised.” [1]

It would appear the building materials for Stonehenge were carefully selected from various sources for specific purposes, far from being a “rag bag mix of glacial erratics”.

*

Reference:
1. Anthony Johnson, Solving Stonehenge, Thames & Hudson, 2008, p.127.

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Bluestonehenge

Secrets of Stonehenge

Bluestonehenge
A lost stone circle discovered a mile from Stonehenge, on the west bank of the River Avon.

In a lecture by project director Mike Parker Pearson entitled The Stonehenge Riverside Project - Recent Results delivered to Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural History Society at Devizes on Saturday, 10th October, 2009, he described how during this summer a team of archaeologists discovered the site of a small stone circle just over a mile from Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain which could rewrite the history of the famous megalithic monument in the wider context as we know it.

Excavations carried out during the summer are proving to be one of the most significant prehistoric finds in decades. The discovery of this new stone circle is being cited as possible confirmation of the Stonehenge Riverside Project’s theory that the River Avon linked the ‘domain of the living’, the upstream Neolithic village of Durrington Walls marked by its wooden henge and timber houses with the stones of Stonehenge and surrounding area as the ‘domain of the dead’ , expanding on the theory that the sites of Stonehenge and Durrington Walls were linked by the River Avon.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project excavation last year included a short exploration to locate the end of the Avenue, the linear ditch and bank that leads from Stonehenge, to the River Avon at West Amesbury, a 2.8km (1¾-mile) long processional route constructed at the end of the Neolithic period. The theory included the romantic proposal of a mid-winter ceremony started on the solstice sunrise at Durrington, the land of the living, the remains of the ancestors would then be taken downstream to be deposited at Stonehenge, the realm of the dead, with the setting of the solstice sun.

The route of the Avenue linking Stonehenge to the Avon, essential to Parker Pearson's theory, had never been properly explored at its junction with the river where it crosses a small field. Parker Pearson suspected there could be something near the Avon to mark the terminus of the Avenue processional pathway to Stonehenge but extensive geophysics surveys carried put in 2008 failed to indicate anything significant. So a long narrow trench was dug across the field nearby the Avon which showed two segments of a circular ditch, believed to be a henge ditch, although the original outer bank had long disappeared. Four anomalies were found within the ditch, arranged in such a way that they could be on a circle, it was speculated that they could be the remains of sarsens set within a henge, the Avenue terminus marker. In the Time Team Stonehenge Special screened on 1st June 2009 speculation as to the whereabouts of these sarsens suggested their possible use in the construction of a local river crossing, however, further excavation was not possible at that time, but in September this year the Riverside Project returned and carried out further investigations at this location.
This summer a major trench was cut at the site and the excavations showed that the four anomalies found last year, the suspected sarsen holes, turned out to be dense distributions of flint nodules in the natural spur of chalk, a result of natural weathering proving a big disappointment to the team. However, the excavations proved far from a waste of time; a further trench was cut across the suspected line of the Avenue, which although not apparent at this time revealed two ditches, suggesting a continuation of the Avenue, although somewhat narrower than the Stonehenge end. Further along the Avenue, by the river, the eastern ditch revealed a later line of stake holes suspected of being the remains of a length of a possible Bronze Age palisade, however, this does not seem to have extended all the way to the terminus of the ditch. At the Stonehenge end of the Avenue post-holes are absent, although it seems likely there was something there as Stukeley was reminded by his companion Roger Gale in 1740 that he had failed to include these in his work on the monument. No trace of these postholes in the Stonehenge end of the Avenue seem detectable today, however, as many stone circles possess such a feature of a processional way lined with paired stones, considered male and female, it would not seem unreasonable to suggest that it could have looked something like Avebury's West Kennet Avenue.

Although the Project team had discovered the end of the Avenue the ditches stopped short of the henge bank. A radar survey carried out showed the circular outline of a ‘new’ henge on the land adjacent to the River Avon, within which the Project team went on to unearth the site of a small 10m diameter stone circle complete with 25m diameter henge ditch and 30m diameter bank, occupying a position close to the river Avon marking the Avenue terminus. On excavating roughly less than half the circle, only the northeast quadrant of the circle and a small part of its west side were excavated, they uncovered nine stone holes, all possessing the same dimensions and characteristics as their bluestone counterparts at Stonehenge, displaying the imprints of heavy stones, which weighed an estimated average of up to four tons each. These stones have been identified as bluestones based on the identical characteristics with the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge.

Having excavated about 40% of the circle and given the arrangement and curvature of the circle, the maximum number of stones in the circle was estimated at 25 and mirrored the early phase of Stonehenge bluestone construction of around 5,000 years ago. It is not considered that the sockets would have held wooden posts, the dimensions of the holes are too wide and too shallow for them and too small to have supported sarsens. The imprints of the stones’ bases and the shapes of the sockets from which they were withdrawn compare favorably with the dimensions of the bluestones in at Stonehenge. Parker Pearson calls this stone circle Bluestonehenge.

Owing to the absence of broken bluestone fragments (only two bluestone fragments were found, both of spotted dolerite) at the Bluestonehenge site the stones appear to have been extracted whole and not broken up as was the Medieval practice. This concept is supported by the packing being found still intact in of the excavated stone two holes. One stonehole still exhibited flint packing and an adjacent hole that showed a completely different packing style based on a pad of clay. The packing is usually lost when the stone is pulled out its socket: how could the packing still be in place for stones weighing around 4 tons? The stones from Bluestonehenge can only have been removed in a controlled straight vertical lift. The Project team have suggested the use of an A-frame as the solution: the stones being physically raised up from their sockets by attaching ropes to an A-frame, and then pulling the frame further upright would allow the stone to clear the packing, and then be withdrawn by hand along the extraction ramp.

Last year the Riverside Project team excavated Aubrey Hole 7 to allow further analysis of the cremation remains interred in 1935. During this excavation they discovered the distinctive crushing of the chalk in the bottom of the stone hole indicating it once held a standing stone and damage to the hole as the stone was dragged out. It is claimed the 56 Aubrey holes all held bluestones and may have been in place during the earlier stages of Stonehenge construction but had since been removed and relocated. The proportions and dimensions of the Aubrey Holes apparently all portray the same characteristics of known bluestone holes which is also typical to the stone holes of Bluestonehenge. Following removal from the Aubrey holes the bluestones were reused in later stages of Stonehenge and may have once occupied the Q and R holes in a double concentric circle, possibly braced by lintels, although it is speculated that the circles were not completed and consequently sometimes referred to as the Bluestone Crescent.

The date at which the bluestones first arrived at Stonehenge is not known, or whether all the bluestones arrived at the same time, however, it is estimated that after about 150 years or so, the bluestones were removed from the Q and R holes and the site was cleared for the major construction of Stonehenge with the erection of the Great Sarsen Circle and the Trilithon Horsehoe sourced from the nearby Marlborough Downs. The accepted radiocarbon dates for this phase are 2440-2100 BC. The bluestones were all removed from the henge. About 200 hundred years later the bluestones returned to Stonehenge and were constructed into the Bluestone Circle and Bluestone Horshoe. The whereabouts of the bluestones during their absence from Stonehenge has opened the door of speculation for many, including Parker Pearson.

Doing some basic maths, Parker Pearson didn't take long in coming up with a theory for the whereabouts of the missing bluestones from the Avenue terminus circle. He suggests that Bluestonehenge was dismantled with all the stones removed and dragged up the course of the Avenue and redeployed at Stonehenge following the construction of the Great Sarsen Circle and the Trilithon Horsehoe. Rudimentary dating for the dismantling of Bluestonehenge so far indicates this was approximately 2200 BC – the correct period for the major Stonehenge rebuild.

We can only guess to what happened to the bluestones during this period of rebuilding of Stonehenge, approximately 350 years or so. These bluestones may have been reused in the vicinity or simply stashed to be re-used in the construction of the final phase of Stonehenge. All that remains of Bluestonehenge now are the stones holes set on a ramped mount. This window of opportunity has allowed Parker Pearson to speculate that during major reconstruction work when Stonehenge was transformed, the 56 bluestones that occupied the Aubrey hole together with the 25 from Bluestonehenge, achieve the usual estimate of around 80 - 82 bluestones, re-erected within the bluestone circle and horsehoe. The Bluestone Circle has been radiocarbon dated 2,280-2,030.

Parker Pearson may well be on to something here as in the bluestone horseshoe in the centre of Stonehenge, the deeply grooved bluestone 68 is kidney shaped at the base (like a bum), which it is claimed, perfectly matches the imprint of one of the stone holes at Bluestonehenge. It is estimated that the bluestones at Stonehenge may have been re-arranged possibly as many as four times over about a 400 year period between 2,400 and 2,000 BC. There may have been plans for a fifth arrangement in the Y and Z holes that was never completed.

We know from grooving on the bluestones that they were reworked from an earlier, possibly lintelled blusestone circle – perhaps the circle at the Avenue terminus near the Avon was one such circle, perhaps the West end of the Stonehenge Cursus another. But for whatever reason it would seem all the bluestones were de-consecrated, removed and relocated and then later joined by the massive sarsens to create the monument whose ruins we are familiar with in modern times.

If it can be determined that the Bluestonehenge circle was dismantled the same time work started on the Stonehenge reconstruction, it would suggest a correlation between the sites as one major bluestone complex possibly linked by a processional way. The two bluestone circles may have stood in close proximity for hundreds of years, although we do not have evidence for a complete Avenue joining the two; the earliest evidence for the Avenue was about 500 metres at the Stonehenge end, when the axis was re-aligned with the mid summer sunrise around the time the bluestones stood at the centre of the henge in the Q and R holes.

The Project team are trying to date when Bluestonehenge was constructed by examination of the fill in the pits. It was established through the 2008 excavations that the outer henge was probably built around 2400 BC but arrowheads from Bluestonehenge indicate that it is likely to be much earlier, dating to around 3000 BC, possibly contemporary with the first stages of Stonehenge.

2008's excavations also found an antler at the bottom of a ditch that was subsequently dated to around 2400BC, however the age of flint finds from the henge and Avenue are yet to be confirmed by radiocarbon dating of the organic material which will clarify the sequence of events and within the next few months should provide more precise dates, which will then determine whether the circle was built at the same time that the other 56 bluestones were erected at Stonehenge.

The discovery of charcoal at Bluestonehenge has led to suggestions that it could have been the burning site for the cremation burials of Stonehenge, underlining the affinity between the two sites with the remains being placed in the Aubrey holes, as excavated previously by the Riverside Project, further underlining the special, perhaps spiritual, qualities of the bluestones.

The majority of the 4 ton bluestones are made of Preseli Spotted Dolerite, an igneous rock harder than granite, found in the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. The bluestones must have possessed some special quality to the builders of Stonehenge, enough for them to have selected them from various sites in Wales and transported them to the site – so strong was this belief in the spiritual qualities of the bluestone that it can be no freak of glaciation that they arrived on Salisbury Plain. It has been argued that the stones were transported from Wales by glaciers but comprehensive geological studies have shown that there is absolutely no evidence for a glaciation in Wiltshire that could have transported these rocks and delivered them very conveniently onto the doorstep of Stonehenge.

Most of Bluestonehenge remains unexcavated, the 2009 excavation now back-filled, preserved for future research. Full details are expected to be officially published in February 2010.

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Stafford Knot found amongst the Staffordshire Hoard

The find in a field near Brownhills in South Staffordshire of more than 1,500 gold and silver objects by Terry Herbert, a local metal detectorist from Burntwood, in July 2009, termed the Staffordshire Hoard, has been well publicised and is unprecedented as the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, comparable to the other great Anglo-Saxon collection of Sutton Hoo, is now at the British Museum where it is expected to be valued in excess of £1 million.

Amongst the the Hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure thought to date from the 7th or 8th century archaeologists have discovered the Stafford Knot symbol. Images of the distinctive three-looped knot were found on a gold artefact that had not previously been displayed. The discovery of the Stafford Knot adds more weight to calls to keep the Staffordshire Hoard in the region. Thousands of people queued to see the Hoard when it was displayed during September and early October at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, underlining the local interest in the treasure.

Staffordshire County Council, which uses the Stafford Knot as its logo, is putting together the bid to keep the Hoard in Staffordshire with Lottery Funds, with plans to create an exhibition at Shugborough or the County Buildings in Stafford, anticipating that it would become a world-class tourist attraction. The origin of the three-looped Stafford Knot, which has come to represent the county and sometimes incorrectly called the “Staffordshire Knot”, has long been shrouded in mystery and the cause of much debate. The Stafford knot may have originated as a heraldic device for the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and has developed through the ages as the insignia of many coats of arms, police helmets and army regiments of the Staffordshire region. Many 19th Century Stoke-on-Trent potters used it as part of their marks on their ware.

Council leader Philip Atkins said: “The Staffordshire knot found on one of the items was 500 years older than the oldest known use of the county symbol” although some believe its first appearance to be on the heraldic shield of the Stafford family in 1583.

Although not strictly a heraldic device, the Stafford Knot is an ancient symbol that is steeped in history. The earliest recording of the Stafford Knot is the shaft of a stone cross, dated to between 750 and 850 AD, located in Stoke-on-Trent churchyard. It is possible of course that the knot device could have been added to the cross at a later date.

One of the most popular stories of the how the Stafford knot originated followed the sentencing of three criminals to death by hanging in Stafford. When the hangman arrived he only had one piece of rope but could not hang just one of the criminals as it would be would be unfair to the other two to give precedence to only one of the condemned. The hangman therefore tied his single rope into three loops and executed of all three criminals at the same time.

The motto “The Knot Unites” tells the tale of how the knot was said to symbolically bind three different local areas which joined to form what is now known as Staffordshire.

A romantic story claims it was Ethelfleda, the Lady of the Mercians, and eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, who in 913 AD created the knot. She symbolically took off her girdle and said to the local lords: “With this girdle, I bind us all as one”, and the three areas became Staffordshire.

Another theory on the origin of the knot is that it simply forms the shape of a double ‘S’ which represents "Staffordshire".

In the British Museum London there is a seal which was the property of Lady Joan Stafford, who later became Lady Wake. It would seem that Lady Wake used on her seal a border made up from her husband's badge, which was called the Wake Knot, made up from the intertwined initials W and O, for Wake and Ormond, a seal of four knots in the shape of the Stafford Knot. The knot was passed down through the Earl's family, and it was gradually used by the citizens and freemen of Stafford, until it was eventually included in the Stafford Borough Coat of Arms.

Whatever the origins of the Stafford Knot it would appear to unequivocally identify the Staffordshire Hoard in its rightful place. Bring the treasure home!


STAFFORDHSIRE GOLD!

The current issue of British Archaeology (BA 109 November/December 2009), features the Staffordshire Hoard on the cover and an exclusive story of how the astonishing Anglo-Saxon treasure was found by Terry Herbert in July in a field in Staffordshire with an 8 page spread with many detailed colour photographs.



For further information visit the Staffordshire Hoard website

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The Stafford Witch Bottle

"Take a quart of your Wive's Urine, the paring of her Nails, some of her Hair, and such like, and boyl them well in a Pipkin".

This is how a man, believing his wife afflicted by witchcraft, addressed the court at the Old Bailey in 1682, telling how a Spitalfields apothecary had advised him to treat his wife who he believed was being tormented by a witch's spell. It was considered that urine, fingernails and hair of the "victim" would draw out the spell and possibly even kill the witch. He would have completed the 'remedy' by putting these items in a bottle and then burying it upside-down in a select place such as under a fireplace or doorway.

A rare insight into the folk beliefs of 17th-century life in Britain has been gleaned from the analysis of a sealed "witch bottle" unearthed in Greenwich, London, in 2004 and now an archaeological dig in Stafford has found a very similar jar.

Archaeologists excavating the Tipping Street car park in Stafford have unearthed a 17th century bottle used to protect from spells and curses. The Stafford witch bottle was discovered in a pit beneath a back room on the site of the former Turk’s Head Inn in Stafford. The vessel is a mid to late 17th-century Bellarmine jar which is suspected to have been filled with similar contents to the Greenwich Witch Bottle, the likes of nail clippings, hair, bellybutton fluff, pins and iron nails. The 17th Century period was full of superstition and Bellarmine jars have been found buried near or under buildings, believed to ward off witches or evil spirits.

Staffordshire County archaeologist Steve Dean said, “This is a beautiful example of an exceptionally unusual jar. It is in perfect condition and we are very hopeful that some its contents will survive. It has been sent away to be X-rayed so we can examine what is inside. Bellarmine jars take their name from from the grotesque face that appears on the neck. It was meant to represent Cardinal Bellarmine [1542–1621], one of the Roman Catholic leaders of the counter-reformation who may have been seen as a bogey man in protestant England and Germany. It really sheds light on the way Staffordians thought during that period. They were extremely superstitious times when people really believed in witches and would have gone to great lengths to protect themselves. Although we think the stopper has disappeared, the jar was found upright so some of the contents may survive.”

Oxford Archaeology Department, which is undertaking the excavations at the Stafford site, will analyse the contents of the bottle to see what it contains. Project Manager Andrew Norton said: “This is a very interesting find. People were very superstitious during this period and would put items which came from themselves such as nail clippings and hair into a bottle to protect them from witches and evil spirits. This would then be buried at the front or back door of a building or placed in a chimney to ward off witches or evil spirits. We are going to analyse what is inside the bottle to see what it contains.”

The excavation is taking place in preparation for new offices and retail units for Staffordshire County Council on the Tipping Street site and has also unearthed some Anglo Saxon pottery kilns suggesting Stafford had been a producer of pottery during the period when the Saxon settlement of Stafford was fortified by Queen Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians and daughter of King Alfred the Great, at the time of the Viking raiding parties.

Leather waste from shoe making has also been recovered from a large pit and shows a shoe maker was likely to have worked in residence at 14 or 15 Tipping street during the medieval period underlining the town's long association with shoe making.

Although the analysis of contents of the Stafford Witch Bottle are yet to be published it is suspected that it contains similar articles as the Greenwich Witch Bottle, it is certainly very similar in appearance. In 2004 workmen in Greenwich, London, digging about 1.5m below ground found a sealed Bellarmine jug, the first complete Witch Bottle found in Britain, a salt-glazed jar made in the Netherlands or Germany, stamped with the face of Bellarmino. When the jug was shaken it splashed and rattled, the Greenwich Maritime Trust asked retired chemist Alan Massey, a retired chemist formerly at the University of Loughborough, UK, to study it who said they had discovered a unique insight into 17th century witchcraft beliefs.

While several old Witch Bottles have been found in the past, and recipes for how to make a Witch Bottle exist from folklore and old records, this was the first time an intact specimen has been available for study. Massey's account is told in British Archaeology magazine who included the find of the bottle on its front cover of Issue 107, July/August 2009, with the headline: “This Bottle held what is probably the most bizarre story ever told to British Archaeology”.

Massey said "So many have been dug up and their contents washed away down the sink …..this is the first one that has been opened scientifically."

During the 17th century, British people often blamed witches for any ill health or misfortune they suffered, says Massey. "The idea of the witch bottle was to throw the spell back on the witch," he says. "The urine and the bulb of the bottle represented the waterworks of the witch, and the theory was that the nails and the bent pins would aggravate the witch when she passed water and torment her so badly that she would take the spell back off you."

X-ray scans revealed pins and nails stuck in the neck, consistent with the jug having been buried upside-down. Computed tomography scans carried out at Liverpool University showed the bottle to be half-filled with liquid. It was immediately apparent that this was a witch bottle. Burial of vessels holding personal items, typically from someone suffering an illness and believing themselves persecuted by a witch, was a common practice. Until the discovery of the Greenwich Witch Bottle the best example, was a glass bottle buried after 1720 in Reigate, Surrey, which had been opened years before it could be examined.

The X-ray revealed pins and nails stuck in the neck, consistent with the jug having been buried upsidedown

When the cork was removed it inevitably disintegrated, however, following chemical analysis of organic acids conducted by Richard Cole, Leicester Royal Infirmary, and inorganic analysis by Helen Taylor, British Geological Survey, the contents of the Greenwich bottle were revealed to include human urine, brimstone, 12 iron nails, eight brass pins (one very severely corroded), hair, possible navel fluff, a piece of heart-shaped leather pierced by a bent nail (paralleling cloth hearts found in other witch bottles), and 10 fingernail clippings, (not from a manual worker, but a person "of some social standing"). Cole also identified cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine: indicating that the urine had been passed by a smoker (probably of a clay pipe). Massey said that the liquid "is unequivocally human urine".

Acting on a hunch, Massey tested a black solid in the urine, and showed it to be iron sulphide. "It is virtually certain", he says, "that sulphur in the jar had reacted with the iron nails". Sulphur is not mentioned in any recipe Massey has seen, although a previously discovered bottle seemed to contain the remains of some matches, he says. "If you think about where sulphur came from in those days, it spewed out of volcanic fumaroles from the underworld. It would have been the ideal thing to [kill] your witch, if you wished to."

In other words, the bottle contained brimstone, recalling the passage in Revelations when "the beast" and "the false prophet" were "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone". Who knows what spells may have been cast before the bottle was sealed.

"It's confirming what 17th-century documents tell us about these bottles, how they were used and how you make them," says Owen Davies, a witchcraft expert at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK. "The whole rationale for these bottles was sympathetic magic – so you put something intimate to the bewitched person in the bottle and then you put in bent pins and other unpleasant objects which are going to poison and cause great pain to the witch."

The Stafford Witch Bottle will be displayed during an archaeological open day at the Tipping Street site on Sunday October 25, between 10am and 4pm, and also at Shugborough during the Halloween evening on Saturday 31st October.

Sources:

Express and Star 7th October 2009
Bottle to scare off witches unearthed

British Archaeology, Issue 107, July / August 2009
Urine to navel fluff: the first complete witch bottle

New Scientist 4th June 2009
London's Magical History uncorked from 'witch bottle'

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The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape (5)

An Introduction to Earth Mysteries

PART FIVE

Alien Sunset
Robert Temple's book, The Sirius Mystery (1976), in which he proposed that the Dogon people of north-western Mali in Africa preserved an account of extraterrestrial visitation from around 5,000 years ago, proved to be a best-seller and was followed by Zecharia Sitchin with The 12th Planet (1976) the first book in the Earth Chronicles series, suggesting that a superior race of beings once inhabited our world, arguing that these travellers from the stars arrived on earth and planted the genetic seed that would develop into mankind. Using Sumerian texts, which according to Sitchin tell of the leader, Enki, of the first group of astronauts from the 12th planet in our solar system (Nibiru), splashed down in the Persian Gulf and waded ashore dressed as Fishmen.

Ten years earlier in 1966, Ivan Shklovski and Carl Sagan cited in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe the tales of Oannes - the name given by the Babylonian writer Berossus in the 3rd century BC to a mythical fishlike being who brought wisdom to the early Sumerians - as deserving closer scrutiny as a possible instance of paleo-contact due to its consistency and detail.

Although it persisted throughout the 1970’s, following critical analysis of von Däniken's theories and a onslaught of debunking by scholars, highlighting basis errors on the author’s part, (some referred to them as outright fraudulent claims), the Ancient Astronaut theory waned in popularity. The refutation was led by Clifford Wilson in Crash Go The Chariots (1972) and Ronald Story in books such as The Space Gods Revealed, (1976) subtitled “The Chariots of the Gods Turned into a Pumpkin” with a foreword by Carl Sagan, highlighted inaccuracies in von Daniken’s speculations and assumptions and even borrowings from other writers. Story followed this up with Guardians of the Universe? (1980) further demolishing von Daniken’s Ancient Astronaut theory and challenging the notions of Charroux, Jessop, Temple, et al, complete with an appendix by J Richard Greenwell taking a swipe at Flindt and Binder; “Tiptoeing beyond Darwin: An Examination of some Unconventional Theories on the origin of Man”. Edwin C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles since 1974, waded into the debate debunking von Daniken and the Sirius myth in Observatories of the Gods and Other Astronomical Fantasies, in the book In Search of Ancient Astronomers (1977).

The case for Ancient Astronauts was not helped when in 1978 the Sun Gods in Exile: Secrets of the Dzopa of Tibet by Karyl Robin- Evans, told the story of how the author travelled to the "mysterious land of the Dzopa" in 1947. Robin-Evans claimed to have encountered a tribe of dwarvish people called the Dropas (or Dzopas) in the Baian-Kara-Ula region. They claimed they were descended from aliens who arrived on earth twelve thousand years ago when their spacecraft crashed in the area. An alleged expedition to the region in 1938 claimed to have unearthed evidence of the remains of people of a small stature and some stone curious discs, known as the Dropa Stones. Robin-Evans had written an account, it was claimed, so unbelievable yet true that he would not publish it. Following his death in 1974, the story was published in 1978, edited by a man under the name of David Agamon, (or Gamon, who some claimed to actually be Robin-Evans) who later confessed in 1995 that it had all been a hoax, originally written as fiction, reworking rumour and legend, as a satire on the alien intervention of the evolution of the human race that was in vogue at the time. Second hand copies of this book now sell for fantastic amounts of money, (£200 +) as it has acquired cult status, still being regarded by some as an authentic account of an actual Ancient Astronaut event.

Unfortunately for von Daniken, who wrote of the of the Dropas Stones in his book Gods From Outer Space (1970), sequel to Chariots of the Gods, the claimed source of his story, apparently a conversation with Soviet writer Aleksandr Kazantsev in Moscow in 1968 - who according to von Daniken, told him that the discs themselves and accounts of their discovery is preserved in Chinese academic institutes - could not be verified. Gordon Creighton of the Flying Saucer Review, contacted a number of Chinese academics about the Dropa stones story, and none of them had even heard of the story. He then contacted Kazantsev to verify von Daniken’s account but surprisingly the response was that von Daniken had actually presented it to Kazantsev and he was indeed not the source.

Writing in 1979 in Broca's Brain, Sagan suggested that he and co-author Shklovski may possibly have been the inspiration behind the wave of Ancient Astronaut books during the 1970’s. Sagan had felt extraterrestrial visits in Earth’s distant past were certainly a possibility but totally unproven and the accounts of von Daniken and his ilk, were no more than unfounded speculation lacking any hard evidence, doing the theory more harm than good. There is little doubt that the fraudulent claims of some authors as sensationalistic attempts to cash in on the ground swell of interest in UFOs in the 1960 - 70’s did immense damage to the genuine possibility of prehistoric extra-terrestrial contact.

Today the theory is only supported by what is generally considered as the ‘fringe’ minority but still it persists with books like The Chinese Roswell: Ufo Encounters in the Far East from Ancient Times to the Present (1995) by Hartwig Hausdorf in which the author in searching for the fabled, forbidden 1,000-foot White Pyramid of Xian, unearthed new facts about the mysterious Dropa stone discs of Bayan Kara Ula, which some believe tell the story of a forced alien landing 12,000 years ago, as we have seen above. Voices from Legendary Times (2005), by Ellen Lloyd, discusses the connection between lost civilizations, ancient cosmic catastrophes and extraterrestrial visitations in prehistory, however, Sitchin remains the present day champion of the theory, having recently released The Earth Chronicles Handbook (May 2009), a compendium of the seven books in the series, “a unique encyclopaedia of ancient civilizations and their space connections…..”

Whereas, most Unidentified Flying Objects can be explained, although not always convincingly, there persists a small percentage of UFO’s that remain unidentified, leaving open the possibility that these could be genuine visitations from a distant world. The public imagination would appear to be very receptive to the notion of visitations to our planet in the distant past and the possibility of mankind’s development being influenced by extra-terrestrials, despite the arguments against it presented by the debunkers and eminent scholars. Man’s origins are murky to say the least and it is not difficult to see that the orthodox account of mankind's origins is holed below the water line.

However, the fundamental problem of the Ancient Astronaut theory is that modern man in his technological age cannot accept that our so called 'primitive' ancestors could possibly have built these ancient astronomically aligned structures - like the pyramids of Giza for example, moving massive blocks of stone weighing hundreds of tons with such precision that in some cases you cannot fit a thin blade between these huge megalithic blocks - without the assistance of a higher civilisation.

Why does Mankind need to be a child of the stars?

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The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape (4)

An Introduction to Earth Mysteries

PART FOUR

Ancient Astronauts

Following the UFO flaps and reports of visitations of the late 1940’s through the 1950’s, a new theory began to lift its not so juvenile head. Many ancient cultures recall accounts of civilising ‘Gods from the sky’ in their foundation myths which seemed to fit in perfectly with the theory that intelligent extraterrestrials had visited the Earth in ancient times and profoundly affected the development of human civilization, teaching mankind agriculture, metalworking, astronomy and the sciences and responsible for megalithic technology, building such great monuments as the pyramids, that still bear testimony to their skills around the globe. Although emerging in the late 1950’s, the Ancient Astronaut theory was hardly a new notion, as that great collector of anomalous occurrences, Charles Fort, had hinted at such a possibility in 1919 when he wrote:

“I think we’re property. I should say we belong to something: That once upon a time, this earth was No-man’s Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it’s owned by something: That something owns this earth – all others warned off”.

Fort was suggesting that mankind as inhabitants of this world today belong to some alien extraterrestrial race that colonized this planet long ago, thereby providing the explanation for why we still find anomalistic evidence of their existence throughout the archaeological record. Perhaps UFO visitations and abductions are the return of mankind’s fathers to gauge development of their hybrid children?

Fort suggests the existence of hidden knowledge of mankind’s past is possessed only by “esoteric ones” and “secret societies”. The pioneering science-fiction writer H P Lovecraft, who although writing fiction, picked up on this, which was later to become a strong motif of his works which did much to project the Ancient Astronaut theory. Lovecraft took the idea of a pantheon of ancient gods and presented them as a group of aliens who had descended to earth in the distant past and used this in his 1926 short story "The Call of Cthulhu." Sound familiar?

Henri Lhote, a French author, explorer, ethnographer, and an expert on prehistoric cave art, had heard the story of a French soldier remembered as "Lieutenant Brenans", who in 1933, had ventured into a deep valley in the Tassili-n-ajjer plateau in southeast Algeria, where on the sandstone cliffs, he saw rock paintings and engravings of various animals and images of strange human figures. Lhote hypothesised that the humanoid drawings represented space aliens and published ‘The Search for the Tassili Frescoes: The story of the prehistoric rock-paintings of the Sahara’ (1958). Lhote described one particularly large and "curious figure" as the "great Martian god”. A similar character can be found at Sfar in the Tassili, in the Cabro caves in France and in several other places, claimed to date from c.6000 BC.

Inevitably, Tassili art has been used as evidence of visitations by various authors claiming God was an Astronaut, stating it depicts a being in a space suit complete with helmet. In the Kimberley region of North-western Australia, there are unique images known as Wandjina and Bradshaw figures, which dominate the rock art galleries of the area. The Wandjina art in particular has also been used as evidence in the argument for visitations by extra-terrestrials.

The Wandjina rock paintings, discovered accidentally in 1838 by George Grey, represent mythological ancestral creator beings thought to have come from the sea and sky, involved in the creation of the world, believed to have made the earth and all its inhabitants. The Wandjinas painted their own images on the cave walls before they returned to the spirit world. The Wandjina are almost human in form with large round eyes, slim noses but without mouths. The heads are surmounted by a halo, and the figures are often depicted with an oval shaped form on their chests, these are claimed to be space suits. These odd paintings are still believed to have special powers, and if offended or shown disrespect they may punish the people by bringing on flood or lightning.

The Wandjinas depicted in this art are very different from the Bradshaw (or Gwion Gwion) Art found within Jar Island. The Bradshaw figures represent human-like beings often depicted carrying ceremonial objects. However, their true significance remains unknown. According to Aboriginal legend, the art was created by birds that it is said pecked the rocks until their beaks bled and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather dipped in their own blood. The bird said to be responsible was known as the Gwion. Joseph Bradshaw was the first European to record the style of painting in 1891. The Gwion Gwion art is extremely old; some experts claim it is over 50,000 years old, potentially making them some of the oldest depictions of the human form known to man.

Peter Kolosimo is considered amongst the founders of pseudoarchaeology when he wrote such books as Disowned Planet (1959) and Timeless Earth (1964) in which he argued for the possibility that human civilisation developed under the influence of beings from outer space. Also in 1959 Matest Agrest, a Russian ethnologist and mathematician, proposed number of unorthodox claims, such as that the megalithic stone terracing at Baalbek had been used as a launch site for spaceships, and that the destruction of the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrrah was the result of a nuclear explosion detonated by extra-terrestrial beings. The Ancient Astronaut theorists had now claimed megalithic structures in their dossier of evidence for extra-terrestrial intervention with human development.

Following “five years of questing, through all regions of consciousness, to the frontiers of science and tradition” Le Matin des Magiciens, (The Morning of the Magicians) appeared in Paris, in 1960 by French authors Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Published in Britain, in 1963, under the title The Dawn of Magic, the author's claim to be prospecting beyond the borders of knowledge and propose that information found in forgotten, or intentionally ignored sources, force us to reconsider if the orthodox account of man's past is correct. The book begins with accounts recognisable to anyone familiar with the works of Charles Fort: objects falling from the sky, objects found in rock, people with strange powers and so on. Including such topics as the occult, the mystic Gurdjieff and even include a short story by science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, the author’s ramblings simply aim to demonstrate that ‘science has got it wrong’. The main thesis of the book in questioning the accepted dogma no doubt had an immense influence on later writers like Colin Wilson and Graham Hancock to name but two.

British author W. Raymond Drake published several books on the ancient astronaut theory, the first being Spacemen in Antiquity (1961) followed up by Gods or Spacemen? (1964). Drake’s major influence had been Charles Fort, and like him Drake spent many years searching through huge archives of material, looking for anomalies that could support his theories of space aliens impacting human history. As Drake himself said, "I aspired to collect as many facts as possible from ancient literature to chronicle for the past what Charles Fort has so brilliantly done for the present century."

Another British author, Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty and a UFO enthusiast who launched the Journal Flying Saucer Review in 1955, first editor and running the periodical for the next 20 issues, published a number of works in the 1960’s; The Sky People (1960), Men Among Mankind (1962) and The Flying Saucer Story (1966). Le Poer Trench wrote much on extra-terrestrial phenomena and in Men Among Mankind brought together ancient history and the more recent past, examining the relationship of global sites to ancient astronomy and astrology. He argued that in the megalithic ruins around the world there runs a thin thread of forgotten history that weaves them into identifiable patterns, linking the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, Atlantis and the Somerset Zodiac with ancient Central, Mexican and South American temples.

There is little doubt that the seminal work by Pauwels and Bergier became the spring board for Robert Charroux and Erich von Daniken in the 1960’s. Charroux wrote about lost civilizations, secret societies, ancient astronauts and lost technologies in One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Lost History in 1963. This work has been referred to as the forerunner of von Daniken's 1968 book Chariot of the Gods, a book of monumental importance to the Ancient Astronaut theory; the first book in modern times to introduce to mass readership the startling theory that ancient Earth had been visited and colonised by aliens, raising questions about mankind’s origins. Although not original in concept, and claimed to be based on inaccuracies and half truths, von Daniken’s book nevertheless captured the imagination of a generation that had been conditioned in readiness by a lifetime of reported UFO sightings, alien visitation and abduction. It was simply the right book at the right time and sold millions.

Sales of Chariots of the Gods, and no doubt the public mind’s eye, had been further fuelled by release in the same year of Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film covers such elements as human evolution, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism and pioneering special effects. Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognised by many critics and audiences as one of the most original sci-fi films ever made.

This was followed in 1970 by release of the film documentary Chariots of the Gods based on von Daniken’s book concerning the ancient mysteries of the world, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave paintings, the monuments of Easter Island, followed in 1973 by the TV program “In Search of Ancient Astronauts," narrated by Rod Serling, which was screened throughout the United States, presenting evidence supporting von Däniken’s theories, bearing testimony to his assertions that extra-terrestrial creatures visited earth and were responsible for the many structures which he claimed could not have been built by ancient man alone without the assistance of an intelligent third party.

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The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape (3)

An Introduction to Earth Mysteries

PART THREE

Was God an Astronaut?
Sightings of odd aerial phenomena was nothing new, there being many early accounts of mysterious objects in the skies appearing throughout history; most early chronicle records being dismissed as comets.

During Christopher Columbus’s long journey to the Americas in 1492 the ship's log records sightings of strange lights in the sky. A later account held in Switzerland's Zurich Central Library, from 1561, describes what is alleged to be ancient battle between unidentified flying craft over the skies of Nuremberg, Germany. At sunrise, many people witnessed large numbers of dark red, blue and black 'globes' or 'plates' near the sun. Similar craft were seen on August 5th, 1608, three glowing objects appeared in the sky over Nice, France. The objects moved erratically in the sky for some time and then the long, oval shaped craft suddenly stopped and seemed to hover a few feet above the water.

There was a UFO flap reported over Russia in 1892 and sightings of mysterious air ships in 1897 seen over America. In 1917, three young Portuguese shepherds at Fatima claimed to have witnessed a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the sky, which many have since argued was not a ‘Marian apparition", as generally accepted, but a series of close encounters with alien beings.
Sightings of strange flying objects have even been recorded in many religious scenes in art throughout the ages, pariculalry from the Renaissance period; one of the most popularly cited to support claims of UFO’s is "The Crucifixion" Fresco painted 1350, Visoki Decani Monastery in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.

Detail top Left-hand

Detail top Right-hand

The detail top left-hand and right-hand corners are dismissed by sceptics as a comet, but on closer inspection they seem to contain pilots or astronauts using a joystick or similar device – whereas comets do not.
On display in the National Gallery in London is The Annunciation by Carlo Crivelli, 1486, which shows a disk shaped flying object shining a beam of light through the house wall and down onto the top of Mary's head. Religous symbolism?

The 15th Century painting of the Madonna and Saint Giovannino, in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, attributed to the school of Filippo Lippi is another often used by ufologists as evidence in their argument for visitations throughout the ages. A close-up of the upper right-hand section of the painting shows a peculiar object in the sky, and below, a man and dog gaze up at the object.

There are many cases of odd aerial phenomena depicted in Renaissance Paintings. Why? Were these artists trying to tell us something? Many of these strange, disk-like objects shown hovering, even emitting rays, in the background of these paintings, are dismissed as UFO’s and claimed to be simply Christian iconography of the times and explained as representations of saints, the holy spirit, or angels, arguing that church would never have allowed any non-canonical images to have been approved let alone displayed in public - that is, of course, assuming the church fathers understood what they saw.

Without doubt many paintings were used to convey esoteric messages for those who had “eyes to see”. These certainly do not look like religious symbols to me – but are these depictions meant to be conveying the message that UFO’s have been around for hundreds of years?

These are just but a few of the early accounts of anomalous aerial phenomena; some claim that UFO’s have been around since biblical times, such as Harry K Downing’s and Jessup’s accounts of UFO and the Bible and J.F. Blumrich, a NASA official, wrote about alien contact in the Bible in The Spaceships Of Ezekiel.

Modern claims of alien visitations go back even further to the dawn of time with theories that earth was colonised by an extraterrestrial race who bioengineered modern man, one of the first serious studies being Mankind: Child of the Stars (1974) by Max H. Flindt and Otto O. Binder. The book’s main thesis is a greatly expanded account of Flindt’s privately published pamphlet entitled "On Tiptoe Beyond Darwin"(1962). Flindt was the first to scientifically document from biological evidence the possibility of mankind being a hybrid, the “missing-link”, from a prehistoric union of terrestrial humanoids and extraterrestrial starmen, directly challenging Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and emphasising man’s mysterious beginnings.

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