Xaviant Haze: Ancient Giants

Adalbert Dickbauchens Roter Drache in... Stephen Hicks: Explaining Postmodernism

Xaviant Haze: Ancient Giants

History, Myths and Scientific Evidence from Around the World

Dear Mr. Haze,

You organized your book about Ancient Giants by regions: the British Isles; France and Spain; Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran; etc. Within each region you describe old myths and recent archeological findings. I think you could have organized the book in a different manner: by eras. Mixing together monolithic dolmens, findings from the early stone age and comparatively modern sources (about things that happened, if you take the stories at face value, some 4 000 years ago) is, at a closer look, hurting your hypothesis of an ancient race of giants. If there was a race, or several, there must be a time when they emerged and a time when they disappeared, and a continuous line of fossils and remains for the timespan in between. Or did the giants appear in several places, at several points over the course of ancient history, only to disappear again each time?

In another way are you hurting your own hypothesis, Mr. Haze. On some pages, you talk about huge skeletons that farmers or archeologists found. Most of those skeletons disappeared without a trace. This, together with the monoliths in Russia, is evidence. It makes me wonder. But this kind of evidence makes up only a small part of the book. The rest is easy to explain.

Let me tell you a joke we have in Germany. A little boy asks his mother: "Mum, how fast does a pike grow?" - "I don't know, dear. Why do you ask?" - "Because dad caught a pike the other day. And each time he tells about it, it's three inches longer."
Something similar might have happened with the story of David and Goliath. The Hebrews were mighty proud of their victory over the Philistines. When they came home and told their wives and children about it, they maybe exaggerated a little. And many years later, when they told their grandchildren about that memorable day, maybe they exaggerated a little more. Doesn't that sound probable, Mr. Haze? It sounds even more probable if we take into consideration that David became king later. People would exaggerate his prowess to flatter him. And later generations would exaggerate even more, exalting him into a mythological hero, and thus exalting themselves as his descendants. And so Goliath, the tallest of the Philistines, turned into a giant.

But the story of David and Goliath is only one of many that you cite as proof that giants existed. You talk about the Gauls and Germanians, those Celtic people that Julius Caesar fought against. Roman authors call them tall, fierce and unkempt. But nowhere do they call them giants. The average French or German man today is taller than the average Italian. The difference might have been (or looked) bigger in ancient times. And probably the Romans exaggerated a bit when they came home, to make themselves look better when they lost - which they did sometimes - but also to make themselves look better when they won. The Gauls and Germanians were tall, fierce warriors, but they were men.

Then there's Maximinus Thrax, emperor in the later days of Rome. You speculate he might have been a descendant of the Gaulish "giants". His name Thrax means that he was born close to the Black Sea, far from Gaulish territory. Roman historians describe Maximinus Thrax as tall and strong, but they don't say how tall he was. Coins show his face with a bulging brow. His nose and chin are knubby, his ears rather large. It looks like acromegaly to me, a symptom of a growth hormone disorder. The tallest people living today all suffer from this disorder. Their faces look similar to the face on the coins of Maximinus Thrax. In the last two centuries, several men and one woman have surpassed eight feet (2,44 m). The tallest man to ever be measured, Robert Wadlow, stayed just a thumb's breadth short of nine feet. He stood 2,72 m tall. Wadlow was the son of normal-sized people. A giant, but not from an ancient race. A huge man, but a man.

Darius, King of Persia was depicted taller than his captives. This alone doesn't make him a giant. Painting the important figures larger or more colorful than the rest is common practice in art. The Egyptians did it in all their wall paintings: The pharao appears triple the size of his enemies. But we have the mummies and sarcophagi of several pharaos. They were normal-sized people. Gilgamesh might or might not have existed, and he might or might not have been a giant. But you suggest that the USA went to war in Iraq because they wanted to stop archaeologists from excavating the ancient city of Uruk, where Gilgamesh's tomb might be. Do you really believe that?

I think all stories come from somewhere. But we must be cautious in our interpretations. In the Irish Battles at Mag Tuired, the legendary Tuatha De Danann come over the sea in ships. You conclude that they had spaceships. Why? Ships of wood were common and fit the context of the legend.

This kind of conjectures, so easy to refute, will make the public overlook the more credible parts of your work. In most chapters of Ancient Giants, you sound like a child who wants Santa Claus to be real. Rather than accept it's just a story and that reindeer don't fly, this child prefers to believe in a global conspiracy of adults who are pretending that parents bring the gifts. It's a pity your book should sound like this because I think you didn't mean it to. The constant conspiranoid jabs against academia and mainstream science aren't likely to get you taken seriously. They make you sound even more like a petulant child.

I think you should write a shorter version of Ancient Giants, Mr. Haze. Not a book, just an article for a major scientific journal. Concentrate on those archeological findings that can't be explained with pituitary gland tumors. Mention the mythology in a single paragraph. Two pages of irrefutable truth would accomplish what two hundred pages of guesses and conjectures won't: make people wonder if there's more to ancient history than we know.

Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann de Fran