Uriel: a Review/Essay of URIEL'S MACHINE The Ancient Origins of Science by Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas (2000) © H. J. Spencer [14Sep.2021] 12,600 words (18 pages) (original) (raw)
This is a fascinating story of a serious attempt at Prehistory: the non-academic study of ancient times by two gifted researchers, who have attempted to explain the earliest efforts of the Pre-Neolithic cultures that built the oldest remaining megaliths in Europe over 5,000 years ago. By revisiting the oldest writings, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch and reexamining the oldest recovered ruins in the Orkneys, Stonehenge and Newgrange they have produced a remarkable vision of the oldest attempts to survive a second catastrophe that may reappear any time, with an astronomical comet collision with the Earth. They have put their theories to the test by rebuilding a smaller Stonehenge ("Uriel's Machine") in Yorkshire using a recovered unit of measure (the Megalithic Yard) that is based on the orbit of the planet Venus that is accurate to a few seconds over a forty-year period. This is a best-selling book that generated great interest when it first appeared and deserves a 'Second-Coming' with today's audience, as it provides a plausible explanation of how prehistoric societies could have developed astronomical observatories, like Stonehenge, for practical reasons. The Director of the Orkney Science Festival has described this book as "superb ... the insights that it opens up in a series of varied fields, tying them in logically to each other, is very lucid". This is a fine contribution to the Alternative Science of PreHistory , as is being uncovered by such radical authors as Graham Hancock and others. What a pleasure to reread after so many years of stilted, academic history that has been reworked by thousands of professional historians. I hope many others will be encouraged to read this challenging book. To make it easier for some, I have highlighted the key sections here with an asterisk (*).
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