(Published in GralsWelt 25/2002)
By John Anthony West, Two thousand and one, Frankfurt 2000:
If you ask about the origin of Western culture, historians will give you an unequivocal answer: Greece. This is where the first speculative thinkers were born, where philosophy, geometry, drama, architecture, sculpture reached the first climaxes that are still admired today.
We judge them completely differently egyptian culture. Long before the highly respected classical Greek culture, artistic and architectural masterpieces were created in Egypt, which are often not sufficiently appreciated because they perhaps do not correspond to our aesthetics, which were trained on Greek models.
The ancient Egyptians themselves are considered to be an intellectually underdeveloped class of people who were oppressed by a haughty priestly caste and tyrannical pharaohs. The Old Testament of the Bible and the Philhellenes of the 19th century cultivated this paradox in the same way: highly developed art and magnificent, unique architecture in Egypt. But a primitive people who slavishly worships a grotesque pantheon of animal-headed gods and have almost only one concern: to save the corpses of deceased by embalming and building elaborate graves for as long as possible from decay so that the "soul" can continue to live. In the sciences, mathematics, astronomy or medicine, the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians is considered to be marginal.
In the book mentioned above, which is not very easy to read, the popular image of ancient Egypt is contrasted with a completely different idea that is sufficiently documented to be taken seriously. According to this, the ancient Egyptians already had extensive knowledge in the Old Kingdom (approx. 2660 - 2160 BC according to the usual dating), which did not only develop with them, but a legacy of a lost older high culture, commonly known as "Atlantis " is called.
In order to come to such statements, however, one must leave the well-worn tracks of the Egyptologists, who themselves know that z. B the ancient Egyptian chronology is imprecise. However, it is not esoteric ideas or unfounded assertions that lead to the revolutionary conclusions about ancient Egypt advocated by West, which at first glance seem unbelievable, but facts worked out with scientific methods.
Perhaps most convincing are the studies of the Sphinx. Clear geological tests prove that both the Sphinx itself and the granite temples ascribed to Chephren (2520-2494 BC) next to the Sphinx are decidedly older than previously assumed: They were no later than 5,000 - 7,000 BC. Built in BC!
The book by John Anthony West, which is well worth reading, but also demanding, represents two alarming theses: Ancient Egypt had a more highly developed, especially scientifically far higher culture than had previously been assumed. The considerable knowledge of this ancient people, however, is the legacy of an even older, lost high culture: Atlantis, whose existence, if not name, location and type of decline, would thus be as good as proven!
