Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America

by Robert M. Schoch, Robert Aquinas McNally

Is it a coincidence that pyramids are found across the globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces & times, such as the ancient Egyptians, early Buddhists, the Maya, Inca, Toltecs, Aztecs, British Celts & even the Mississippians of pre-Columbian Illinois, simply dream the same dreams & envision the same structures? Scientist & tenured university professor Robert M. Schoch, a preeminent geologists, believes otherwise. In this meticulously reasoned book, Schoch, like anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl in his classic Kon-Tiki, argues that ancient cultures traveled great distances by sea. Indeed, he believes that primeval sailors traveled from the East, primarily SE Asia, & spread the idea of pyramids across the Earth, involving the human species in a far greater degree of contact & exchange than experts have previously thought possible. Voyages of the Pyramid Builders features 16 pages of color photos & an appendix, "Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza," in which Schoch provides his most up-to-date evidence of the Sphinx's origins.
Introduction
Giza & the question of time
This world's many pyramids
Coincidence or connection? The mythic foundation
The peopling of the Americas
Across the Atlantic to the New World
Across the Pacific to the New World
How the pyramid builders sailed
Fleeing the angry skies
Seeking the source
Civilizations beginning, isolation's end
Appendix: Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza
Acknowledgments
Sources & Readings
Index

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Geology, Egypt, Alternate History, Ancient History

351 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I entered the Great Pyramid of Giza about ten years ago, and my view of the world changed in a heartbeat. And since that time, I've become fascinated in a "true history" of humans. Here, the main idea that Schoch proposes in his final chapters is civilization is far older than most of us think, and perhaps the first languages were in the "Sundaland" area, most of which is now underwater but today consist of Sumatra, Java, Borneo and other islands/countries in that area. Schoch states that Sundaland existed at the end of the last ice age, around 18000 BC. and languages moved west to east originally. The author points out that there are at least 500 flood stories (like Noah's) in human's history, and that Noah's flood happened in or around 7553 B.C. (There is a ton of data from the study of tree rings and ice cores from all over the world.) And as far as actual humans that we know today, Schoch writes that we arose from 18 women in Africa "approximately 144,000" years ago. Overall, Schoch's point is that there have been civilizations (rising and falling) all over the world far, far older than we have previously understood/supposed and that a great amount of knowledge has been lost. He begins his story with pyramids appearing all over the world at different time points, and there is no way to put them all in chronological order. It's all very interesting, just as interesting as "Guns, Germs and Steel" which won a Pulitzer Prize about 17 years ago. Is Schoch's ideas any more substantial than Jared Diamond's in "Guns"? I'll leave that up to you to investigate. You're a reader: read away! The world is hiding many mysteries. Besides, why do we think that a civilization with nuclear weapons is the be all/end of of civilization? I'd like to think that a peaceful society in which no one is hungry or hurting or without shelter is the best definition of "civilization." Maybe I should write my own book with my own theories.

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book argues two primary theses. The first is that evidence suggests that human civilizations antedate the rise of Sumer and Egypt. The second is that there was far more contact between the earliest civilizations in the Old and New Worlds than is commonly believed. In support of these theses the author, an academic geophysicist, adduces a host of cataclysmic events (volcanism, cometary and meteoric collisions, tectonic and climate shifts) to hypothetically account for the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, both known and hypothetical.

While drawing on such revisionists as Graham Hancock and Colin Wilson, Schoch is a bit more concerned about addressing counterclaims than the non-academics, a little more hesitant about drawing bold conclusions, except perhaps in his strong advocacy for a very early (ca. 5000 BCE) dating of the Sphinx, the subject of one of his previous books.

Despite the title and an introductory section about the global distribution of pyramidal structures, this book is not really much about pyraminds, nor does its argument much depend upon their distribution. That, I suspect, was a gimmick.

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

12/11/'17
Schoch's book contains an impressive array of research which he uses to speculate on geology based ancient history ... using the index, I'll be quoting him about Sundaland, where I want to take my time canoe.

p246 - Chapter 9 - Seeking the Source

" ... Eden in the East by Stephen Oppenheimer ... spend much of his professional life working in Southeast Asia ... investigating the origins of its indigenous cultures.

"The conventional belief holds that civilization moved from its Western origin in Egypt and Mesopotamia twoard the East ... But Oppenheimer argues that, if one pulls the veil of time further back, another picture emerges. Civilization arose in the West as a result of the westward migration of Sundalanders fleeing the third and worst of the post-ice age floods ... "

"The difficulty of evaluating Oppenheimer's argument directly is the absence of obvious archaeological evidence ... the settlements of the Sundalanders, particularly those in what once were fertile valleys, deltas, and lowlands, are buried under fathoms of saltwater. But if we can't see where the Sundalanders began, we can follow the route they traveled. Even people who have lost their homes take with them their languages, their genetic makeup, and their stories. Following each of these threads takes us back to the drowned continent of Sundaland."

... "The end points of the migration routes from Sundaland include most of the areas of the Old World where pyramids are found: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Cambodia, Indonesian Java, and China. ...

"The connection between the legacy of the Sundalanders and the pyramid-building cultures becomes even more emphatic if we expand our view to the New World, particularly Mesoamerica."

***

Watercraft of the ancient world is a favorite index search when I'm browsing this type non-fiction ... here's Schoch on rafts :

"The invading Spaniards of the early sixteenth century first met the people of Peru at sea, not on land. While scouting the Peruvian coast in A.D. 1527, Bartolomeo Ruiz, Pizarro's pilot, encountered a native raft tacking northward against the southbound current. This vessel was no insignificant affair. Carrying a crew of 20, the raft was ferrying a cargo of gold and silver ornaments, fancy clothing, jars, mirrors, and seashells that Ruiz estimated at some 40 tons. The vessel was built of balsa logs as thick as telephone poles that were lashed together and decked over with thinner canes. The superstructure, with hutlike cabins for the crew and cargo, remained dry even in a strong sea. Cotton sails every bit as good as the Spaniards' own propelled the raft.

"The coastal mariners of Peru and Ecuador were not Incas but local peoples subjugated and ruled by the Andean highlanders. And they were highly skilled seamen, sailing their rafts up and down the coast and trading as they went. The rafts were so superior to European keeled vessels at approaching and landing on shallow beaches that until modern wharves were built, rafts remained the principal mode of transport along the Pacific coast of South America long after the conquest. Some of them were still sailing in the early twentieth century.

" ... Remarkably strong and light, the largest could carry 50 armed men and their horses, according to reports from the Spaniards. Because of their buoyancy and flow-through design, balsa rafts withstood storm seas readily and rarely broke up, even in the heaviest weather. The large square sail was hoisted up the bipod mast on a boom, and some of the rafts also ran up an extra foresail when the wind was favorable.

... "The balsas of Ecuador and Peru lacked a keel, but they could move against the wind. The did it by compensating for leeway with long, thin, flat boards, called guaras, thrust down between the logs. By pushing down and pulling up different boards in different location, South American raft sailors steered their vessels with or against the wind as their course demanded. It was this combination of leeway boards and sails that gave the South American balsa raft its exceptional and
and characteristic maneuverability."

"Rafts ... are found in many locations around the Pacific and along the Indian Ocean coast of India and East Africa. Ocean-going rafts shaped like the South American balsa rafts, in which the longest logs are placed in the center, were used in the Red Sea, the southeast of India, various islands in and around New Guinea and Australia, and in Vietnam, China, and Japan. Most distinctive is the combination of sails with leeway boards on shaped rafts ..."

***
original review
In both non-fiction and fantasy context, I'm most interested in the Pacific Rim world 8,000 years before now ... particularly the Kelp Highway. Some sections of Schoch's book are useful research, but he provides more speculative info than holds my interest ... Not a book to widely recommend, but one to browse again ... When first read, it sprouted a thick crest of stickies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_M._...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_mil...

As Schock speculates, perhaps, then, the world's first Civilization / Empire developed, in now submerged sections of Indonesia.

Quote from page 4 :
"... civilization's deepest and oldest root ... Sundaland, the now-drowned continent of Southeast Asia, which once connected the mainland with what are the many islands of Indonesia ... raised sea level ... by eight to six thousand years ago ... forced the migration of this protocivilization ... "

Schoch refers to Dillehay and Monte Verde.
Also credits Knut Fladmark, " ... following the coastline in small boats."

Knut Fladmark
Settlement Of The Americas A New Prehistory

***

Jomon Pottery is one of my related intertests ... so I was curious if they were among the author's areas of focus ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8D...

"The Pottery Bringers : ... coast of Ecuador ... very oldest New World pottery in existence ... dated to around 3000 B.C. ... The Valdivia pottery bore a striking similarity to earlier pottery from ... Japan. Called the Jomon ... The Jomon and Valdivian cultures were ecologically similar ... coast-dwelling peoples who took their food from the sea, particularly mollusks.

"Possible corroboration of the Jomon-Valdivia connection comes from a weapon found in similar versions in Japan ... Called the star-holed mace, this weapon war features a star-shaped head

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because, unlike the Sitchins and von Danikens of this genre, he does try to present a scientifically solid case for his hypothesis -- I don't think it stands up but he doesn't need space aliens to make it.

[J. Else · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a reminder to me: read before you buy. I couldn't even get past the chapter about ancient Egypt as it was not well-researched. One, he called the Egyptian people obsessed with death; they were not, they were obsessed with the continuation of life. He called Menes/Narmer Scorpion. Scorpion was prior to Menes. With the sparse research I kept coming across, I put this down rather quickly.

[J Cornell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic look at the links between ancient pyramid building civilizations around the globe. I particularly found the links to Southeast Asia and the Asian subcontinent to Mesoamerica to be particularly interesting. As always Dr. Robert Schoch delivers an illuminating look at the archeological evidence that often goes unexamined.

[John R. Goyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stuff in here, and I respect the main argument and conclusion. There's a lot of repitition though and branching off into other areas to "fill out" the book I feel. Writing is ok but could be better.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the research done for this but it did stray from the pyramid theme.

[Peter]

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" By Robert Schoch has to be read with an open mind. Schoch is one of the Egyptologists who believes that the Sphinx and great pyramids are actually much older than the 4,000 years old that most scientists agree on. Using erosion as his clue, he surmises that such weathering could not happen in an arid climate that has dominated the Giza plateau for the past 5,000 years or so. Instead, it was built when the plateau regularly experienced rain and flooding - perhaps as long ago as 11,000 B.C.

It's a jaw-dropping theory - one that is probably not true - but theories like this fascinate me. They are theories that fly in the face of what is fact and present a tantalizing explanation for mysteries that have haunted us for centuries. Schock, however, is a real academic doctor, and this book proposes that the idea of pyramids is not limited just to Egypt, but to landmarks around the world. How the idea was spread is the mystery - a part of the theory that I have yet to get to.

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Schoch acquired notoriety when he first raised the point that the Sphinx at Giza suffered major water erosion and was thus much older than its assumed date of creation during the 4th-dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Khafre.

Schoch notes the presence of pyramids all over the world and speculates about a common cultural source for the pyramid building. Schoch cites linguistic, cultural, artistic and genetic artifacts that link populations widely scattered across the world. He makes a compelling case for populations to have crossed the oceans in extreme antiquity leading to the above exchanges.

Schoch carries on very much in the tradition of Graham Hancock and his 'forbidden archeology" that challenges the conventional wisdom of early human history. One doesn't have to agree with Schoch's theories but one can't deny that the facts he cites in building his case are intriguing as well as compelling.

[Yasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. Though I do think the author should have reached more on the ancient history of South America and North America. Specifically it has been learnt that the Aboriginal peoples never scalped during war. Colonialists begun the occurence from the Aboriginals when they fought for them as proof they had killed "enemy". Further more I think Mr. Schoch was in his element when discussing the Great Sphinx in Egypt. Indeed his arguments that it was sculpted before it has been credited for in history is are valid and more rearch now can be embarked upon to further validate this. Which does bring one to ask whose face was on the sphinx and how did it come to be without its nose?

[Valiant Thor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wide-ranging book that makes a case for diffusion of pyramid culture by sea, and argues the pre-Sumerian root of pyramid culture was the sunken landmass of Sundaland in Southeast Asia. Schoch is surely not right about everything in the book, but it's equally unlikely he's wrong about everything. This book is an excellent companion to Richard Jewell's very important book The Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi and lays out important information and evidence regarding trans-oceanic travel in antiquity and its cultural effects. A worthy addition to the "diffusionist" library.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author can sure draw a lot of conclusions from very little data. He argues for an ancient culture existing in a place called Sundaland which is completely underwater, inaccessible, for which no hard evidence exists. He thinks this civilization spread pyramid building through diffusion, or at least started it. No doubt there are links among the various pyramids around the world. Interesting reading.

[Kasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

so far so good :) just started chapter 3 :)

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, it opened my eyes to all the places in the world that there are pyramids....very suprising!!

[Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schoch makes some interesting connections between the pyramids located around the world. He also has some different ideas about the true age of the Spinx.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

No geology in it and a rehash of basic beginner archaeological theories about cultural diffusion or independent invention. Why is a geologist writing basic archaeology? I want geoarchaeology!