Comment from Graham Hancock
Date: 14 August 1998 

Having just returned from holiday, I'd like to add my voice to those of my friends John 
Anthony West (12 August) and Robert Bauval (13 August).

In a sense the three of us do work together as a team - although we have no real 'plan' 
and very little coordinated strategy. We share the view that the civilization of ancient 
Egypt may have far older origins - and far greater significance - than orthodox Egyptologists
allow. And we are critical of the arguments that orthodox Egyptologists habitually use to 
bolster their own theory of history. We have a number of hypotheses which we are attempting 
to test. And we all agree that a thorough search should be made for possible concealed 
chambers at Giza - in particular beneath the Great Sphinx and inside the Great Pyramid. 

I am pleased and honoured that our work has sparked-off widening debate and controversy and 
that the formal level of this debate can now be conducted in an atmosphere of mutual 
respect, civility and warmth. This speaks well of the human qualities of our opponents.

At the Alaska conference (May 1998 - the first of its kind) John West and I took the floor 
against Dr Zahi Hawass and the astronomer Ed Krupp. Frankly, I was impressed by both men. 
Both have extremely sharp minds. Both are charismatic and persuasive speakers. Both have 
well-thought-out criticisms to make of arguments that we have put forward.

At the Giza conference (January/February 1999) the orthodox view will be presented by Zahi, 
Ed, Mark Lehner and other scholars. The opposing team will include John West, myself, Robert 
Bauval and Robert Schoch. We hope that a large audience will also participate directly in the 
discussions.

The stakes are high.

If we are wrong then this is the opportunity for the scholars to prove us wrong in full 
public view. If we are right then all of us - orthodox and unorthodox -- will be 
participants in the process whereby a great forgotten civilization of prehistory gradually 
reveals itself through a combination of evidence and reason.

But the new spirit of détente and cooperation that has blossomed during the past year also 
allows another possibility room for growth. This is the possibility that neither side may 
be completely right or completely wrong and that both, working together, may strive towards 
the truth through an intelligent synthesis of ideas.

For the record, I am convinced that the orthodox theory, although well buttressed at many 
points, dismally fails to explain at least three very large categories of anomalous 
evidence. I hope very much to see our opponents give serious consideration to this evidence 
rather than merely dismiss it without proper reflection - as has tended to be the case in 
the past. The three categories are as follows: (1) The geological evidence (erosion 
resulting from exposure to long periods of heavyrainfall) suggesting that the Great Sphinx 
may be thousands of years older than Egyptologists currently believe. John West and Robert 
Schoch have been the principal investigators who have brought this evidence to light. (2) 
The astronomical evidence (linked to a careful analysis of ancient Egyptian texts) which 
legitimately raises the suspicion that the Giza monuments may have been designed to serve 
as a symbolic representation of the constellations of Orion and Leo as they appeared at 
dawn on the spring equinox approximately 12,500 years ago. Robert Bauval has been the 
principal investigator bringing this evidence to light.(3) The cultural, scriptural, 
mythological and archaeo-astronomical evidence which suggests that the religion practised at 
Giza was part of an ancient worldwide spiritual teaching that was promulgated not only in 
Egypt but also as far afield as India, Mexico, Indochina, the Pacific and South America. 
Hinting at the former existence of an important civilization not spoken of in any history 
books - a lost "common source" that influenced all these regions - this mysterious system 
of ideas used an esoteric form of astronomy as its principal methodology and built great 
works of architecture on the ground to reflect the patterns and movements of the heavens. 
The system was a kind of "science of immortality" - a great, pan-cultural theory of the 
meaning and mystery of death and the possibility of eternal life that illuminated the 
ancient world.

It is this third category of evidence that I will be concentrating on most fully at the 
Giza debate and elsewhere. In addition I have explored it at length in my forthcoming book 
"Heaven's Mirror" (with the photographer Santha Faiia) and in the accompanying television 
series "Quest For The Lost Civilization" scheduled to be shown on the Learning Channel (US), 
16 and 17 August 1998 and on Channel 4 (UK) on 21 September, 28 September and 5 October 
1998. 

In the book and TV series I also present the first detailed investigation of a fourth body 
of evidence that now calls out urgently for further consideration. This evidence, which I 
will review further at the Giza debate, concerns the phenomenon of large underwater 
structures dotted around the world in a non-random pattern. Located at depths of up to 100 
feet below sea-level such structures are intriguing because they can only have been built 
before the great sea-level rise at the end of the last Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago. 
Since March 1997 Santha Faiia  and I have made more than 20 dives to the underwater monument 
at Yonaguni in Japan. Our dives were filmed and photographed and feature prominently in the 
TV series and in the book. I have also dived and filmed off the coast of the Micronesian 
island of Pohnpei where the mysterious megalithic structures of Nan Madol have long puzzled 
scholars. These structures continue underwater to a considerable depth, indicating 
multi-stage construction at the site with the possibility that the oldest layers may date 
back to before the end of the Ice Age.

I am aware of other underwater sites off Japan and scattered across the Pacific, off the 
coast of India, in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean - all of which I intend to dive 
to and report on in the years to come. I will also be actively following myths and legends 
in an attempt to identify and explore further submerged sites. And I intend to
expand the investigation to include sites that may have been concealed by other forms of 
climate change that occurred alongside the sea-level rise at the end of the last Ice Age - 
for example under the sands of the Sahara and Arabian deserts and in remote mountainous 
regions such as the Andes in South America and the highlands of Ethiopia.

There is a Hermetic text of Egyptian origin that speaks with awe of god-like men, devoted to 
the growth of wisdom, who lived before the Flood and whose civilization was destroyed. 
"And there shall be memorials mighty of their handiwork’s upon the earth," the text states, 
"leaving dim trace behind  when cycles are renewed."

I am convinced that the mighty memorials of a lost civilization are at last about be 
recognised for what they are. I am convinced too that the mightiest memorial of all 
will prove to be the legacy of wisdom and spiritual insight handed down to us by the 
sages of ancient Egypt - the light of the world.

Poised on the edge of a millennium, at the end of a century of unparalleled wickedness and 
bloodshed in which greed has flourished, humanity faces a stark choice between matter and 
spirit - the darkness and the light. Modern religions, like modern science, have let us 
down, offering us no nourishment or guidance. Perhaps our only hope, as wise scholars long 
ago recognised, is that "there might come once more some kind of 'Renaissance' out of the 
hopelessly condemned and trampled past, when certain ideas come to life again, and we should 
not deprive our grandchildren of a last chance at the heritage of the highest and 
farthest-off times...'

Graham Hancock
London, England, 14 August 1998