Grey Headed Alien Art Evil Grey Alien Skull Art
At the ancient site of Hatnub, a quarry in the eastern Egyptian desert non far from Faiyum, archaeologists have recently discovered a sled ramp organization used to transport alabaster blocks. Post holes and a ramp with stairs on either side point that the contraption allowed Egyptian builders to move heavy blocks up and down steep slopes. Inscriptions have now helped archaeologists from the Institut français d'archéologie orientale and the University of Liverpool to appointment this groundbreaking technology to at least the reign of Khufu, who ruled from 2589–2566 BCE. Khufu is known as the pharaoh who likely commissioned the building of the Corking Pyramid at Giza. Discovery and reconstruction of the ramp allows us to better empathize aboriginal structure techniques. It too chips away at the long-held but fringe theory that the blocks were and so heavy and the distances they would have to travel and so lengthy that aliens must accept built the pyramids.
Where did the theory of aliens building the pyramids actually come from? Since the late 19th century, scientific discipline fiction writers have imagined Martians and other alien lifeforms engaged in great feats of terrestrial engineering. Earlier conflicting theories surrounding Atlantis may have spawned fantasies about alien building. The about substantial evidence for non-earthly creatures arrived in the wake of H.One thousand. Wells's success.
Capitalizing on the fervor surrounding Wells's The War of the Worlds, astronomer and science fiction writer Garrett P. Serviss penned a quasi-sequel titled Edison'due south Conquest of Mars in 1898. Serviss posited that "giants of Mars" had moved large blocks and built the Smashing Pyramid. He fifty-fifty noted that the Sphinx had Martian features. Edison's Conquest was part of a number of science fiction works published as books or serialized in newspapers in the belatedly 19th century which imagined alien invasions fought off past great inventors of the time. Thomas Edison was a favored hero in these science fiction fantasies much later collectively called Edisonades.
Cover of Serviss' Edison'due south Conquest of Mars (1898) Illustration past 1000. Y. Kauffman (paradigm via Wikimedia)
The popularization of the theory of alien architects equally having a basis in scientific discipline rather than consisting of only fictional musing can exist attributed to Swiss writer Erich von Däniken's 1968 publication of the book Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. Originally published in German and later on translated into English language, it was one of the first popularly sold books to suggest that extraterrestrial life forms, not humans, built structures associated with our ancient civilizations. In 1966, Carl Sagan and Iosif S. Shklovskii had already speculated that contact with extraterrestrials might accept occurred in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, just von Däniken took this theory to new levels.
This year marks the 50th ceremony of that volume's publication with over 65 one thousand thousand books sold to appointment. While its ideas might be laughable to most, the creation of doubt is a pernicious and rhetorical agent. The questioning of homo building projects in Chariots of the Gods? remains a bedrock for many within the field of pseudo-archaeology. Far from innocuous, these alien theories undermine the agency, archæology, and intellect of not-European cultures in Africa and South America, as well equally the Native peoples in North America by erasing their achievements.
Cover of the translated edition of Chariots of the Gods (image by Christo Drummkopf via Flickr), first released in the United States in 1970
A potent combination of tabloids and tv helped to make von Däniken'due south volume a bestseller in the United States. Historian of pseudoscience John Colavito has remarked that while the book became a bestseller in Europe, it was the National Enquirer's underscoring of von Däniken's work through a series series published in the tabloid that introduced it to readers in the US in 1970. 3 years later, NBC aired an adaption of the book retitled In Search of Ancient Astronauts (featuring a cast of all white men) which translated and visualized pseudo-theories of archaeology and science for wide popular consumption.
It is notable that many (though not all) extraterrestrial theories focus on archaeological structures at sites within Egypt, Africa, S America, and North America — a fact that has led some academics to see beliefs in ancient alien engineers as a stalking horse for racism. In a slice for the online journal The Conversation rather frankly titled "Racism is Backside Outlandish Theories about Africa's Ancient Architecture," Julien Benoit, a postdoctoral researcher in vertebrate paleontology at the Academy of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), addressed the continued impairment of these theories:
Firstly, these people try to testify their theories by travelling the world and desecrating ancient artefacts. Secondly, they perpetuate and give air to the racist notion that only Europeans – white people – ever were and ever will be capable of such architectural feats.
Belief can indeed pb to action. In 2014, German language pseudoscientists and "hobbyists" defaced a cartouche of Khufu within the Great Pyramid in their misguided search to show their alien theories. The Pyramids of Giza and the Great Republic of zimbabwe site are ordinarily cited by pseudo-archaeologists equally structures built by extraterrestrial beings, along with the Moai heads on the tiny Easter Island off the coast of Chile.
Martians build the Sphinx every bit a portrait of their own leader in an analogy from Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars (Image via Hathitrust)
Stonehenge, in the English countryside of Wiltshire, is 1 of the few structures built past European ancestors placed in this category structures allegedly congenital past aliens, though in the original printing of Chariots of the Gods? von Däniken does not discuss the site any more than to say its massive rock blocks were from Wales and Marlborough. The disproportion of speculation surrounding non-European versus European structures is noticeable. As medieval historian Chris Reidel noted,
That's what the ancient aliens theory does: it discredits the origins of civilizations, and almost entirely of non-white civilizations. People may advise Stonehenge was congenital by aliens — but practice the[y] suggest the Roman Forum or Parthenon were? No.
We must question what is at stake in these cases. While the British are not in any danger of having their overall intellect or capability as a culture questioned, many non-European cultures are historically more vulnerable to such questioning.
If we await to von Däniken'due south piece of work, there can be little uncertainty that his racial beliefs influenced his extraterrestrial theories. After a short stint in jail for fraud and either writing or appropriating the material for a number of other books that developed his ancient astronauts theory, von Däniken published Signs of the Gods? in 1979. It is here that many of his racial views are near boldly stated. British archaeology officer Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews points out on his Bad Archæology blog just a few of the many racist questions and statements posed past the writer: "Was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic code by gene surgery and then programme a white or a yellow race?" He also printed beliefs most the innate talents of certain races: "Nearly all negroes are musical; they take rhythm in their blood." Von Däniken also consistently uses the term "negroid race" in comparison with "Caucasians."
What does information technology mean to deny a not-Western civilization their accomplishments? As Everisto Benyera, a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of South Africa, has noted, these "Western denialists" prefer to revoke agency and skill from aboriginal Egyptians or the Shona people of the Bantu civilization, rather than recognize their intellectual buying of these structures. In a affiliate addressing "Colonialism, the Theft of History and the Quest for Justice for Africa," Dr. Benyera remarked:
Western denialists would rather attribute the Swell Zimbabwe to aliens, who do not exist, than attribute them to the Shona people and the Africans who exist and who congenital them. The denial of the Shona people of their intellectual ownership, among others of the Nifty Zimbabwe, Khami ruins, is theft of history.
And while many may consider theories of ancient aliens to exist an outlandish and ultimately harmless conventionalities or meme, Benyera points out that there is an extant spectrum of western denialism whose occupants seek to rescind and reallocate neat accomplishments from African civilizations in particular.
The Great Zimbabwe National Monument is a UNESCO Earth Heritage Site and dates to almost 1100-1450 CE. Legends say that information technology was the capital of the Queen of Sheba. It is a stunning testament to the Bantu civilization of the Shona (image by Simonchihanga via Wikimedia).
To Benyera, one instance of western denialism lies in the writings of the historian Niall Ferguson. Benyera notes that Ferguson underscores the colonial gifts of parliamentary democracy and the English language to the countries that they colonized in his book Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. Like von Däniken, Ferguson'southward views take been disseminated by television shows. A six-function series likewise called Empire: How Britain Made the Modern Globe aired on Channel four, ostensibly to hype the volume'southward release. Arguing that aliens brought magnificent structures to many African civilizations erases accomplishments, simply so does arguing that colonizers brought gifts (rather than imposed obligations) upon the nations they colonized.
Colonization coded as the gift of civilization remains an entrenched defense of colonialism.
In recent years, academics have increasingly called foul on conflicting theories every bit cultural erasures outside of Africa also. A year ago, Christopher Heaney, a professor of Latin American history at Pennsylvania State University, wrote an article addressing the racism backside notions that Pre-Columbian bodies were evidence for extraterrestrial life. Others accept sought to dispel the racist theories surrounding Native mound-edifice cultures.
In comments to Hyperallergic, Morag Kersel, an archaeologist at DePaul University, noted the connection between ancient aliens and the idea that an ancient and superior race had originally congenital mounds like those at Cahokia in southern Illinois. The myth supported racist policies and has washed lasting damage.
It's an extension of the 19th-century myth of the mound builder. No manner could the North American mounds and artifacts have been made by people of the First Nations, information technology had to exist an "alien" (non-local) race. Rather than fix a white supremacy model, which may have not been every bit popular, von Däniken takes the "alien" farther to "aliens" from outer space.
Kersel noted that the use of pseudoscience revoking the accomplishments of Native American cultures is a deplorable part of American history. Journalist Alexander Zaitchik pointed out in an article for the Southern Poverty Law Center that there was widespread popularity and belief in the "Lost Race of the Mound Builders" in 19th century America. It was used past Andrew Jackson and others to undermine the intellect and abilities of Native peoples as we removed them from their native lands.
The "astronaut" geoglyph in the Nazca Desert of Republic of peru has been attributed to extraterrestrials past Erich von Däniken's and others (image via Wikimedia).
Today, many of von Däniken's theories tin nonetheless be found in goggle box shows similar Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Since 2009, the prove has featured a mix of by and large white male conspiracy theorists posing harmful questions about the legitimacy of homo interest in archaeological structures. As of recently, they have at to the lowest degree begun to incorporate actual Egyptians such every bit Ramy Romany. Despite his history of racist views, Von Däniken appears to still exist a paid producer on the show Ancient Aliens.
Nearly Egyptologists see shows like Ancient Aliens as a programme that capitalizes on the baroque rather than endeavoring to be out-and-out racist. In comments to Hyperallergic, Salima Ikram, distinguished academy professor and Egyptology unit of measurement caput at the American Academy in Cairo, noted that even Egyptians viewing the History Channel find the program more than fantastical than factual: "I call up that oft it is more that people want the boggling and the baroque, and do not want anything besides existent, as they crave the fantastic — look at the types of films being fabricated and their popularity." For most watching these programs, they are indeed about escapism through conspiracy theories — and internet memes.
For others, the attraction to books and goggle box touting ancient alien conspiracies may be a fleck more racially motivated. In comments to Hyperallergic, Robert Cargill, an assistant professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Iowa who also served as an academic weigh on a number of episodes of Ancient Aliens, discussed the role of the program in supporting racist ideas of aboriginal capability:
There is an underlying ethnic bias against people of color that many white people don't even recognize when the magnificent achievements of the ancient world are attributed to aliens instead of to their rightful creators — the ancestors of modern Egyptians, Iraqis, Guatemalans, Peruvians, etc. This is not to say that conventionalities in ancient alien theory makes one racist. Even so, attributing the achievements of the forerunners of darker-skinned peoples to aliens because you believe they couldn't have perchance washed it themselves might be perceived as racists to the people of colour who descend from these ancient innovators.
Equally Cargill and many other right-minded academics now make clear, the necessity for scientists, archaeologists, and academics in full general to talk to the public about the ethnic biases of pseudoscience is condign e'er more than apparent. In 2015, bioarchaeologist Kristina Killgrove already discussed the need for archaeologists to dispel pseudoscientific myths through public outreach. Public-facing scholarship in the humanities and STEM fields can serve as strong rebuttals to pseudoscientific narratives broadcast on television and online.
In July, the 50th ceremony edition of Chariots of the Gods? was published along with a new foreword and afterward by the writer. Yet it is notable that the punctuation that originally posed the volume'south title as a question has now been removed. The championship stands more as a statement than a question, merely it is upwardly to archaeologists, historians, and the public to go on to interrogate the insidious arguments that it contains.
Source: https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-racism-behind-ancient-aliens/
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