Megalithic Marvels - Ancient Hand-Bags & Serpent Symbology / JJ Ainsworth & Hugh Newman

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Derek Olson here to reconstruct the prehistoric past and journey deep into history’s marvels and mysteries with you. In this episode, I sit down with authors and explorers JJ Ainsworth and Hugh Newman to talk about a variety of insightful topics such as: the ancient hand-bag phenomenon, the serpent symbology that is found all the way around the world in almost every ancient culture, bizarre elongated skulls hidden away in a little known Bolivian museum, mysterious megaliths of Israel and the legend of the Bull of Minos' subterranean labyrinth found on the island of Crete. You are not going to want to miss this episode SHOW NOTES ⁠⁠2023 Peru Tour⁠

Well, I am excited to be joined by some great researchers, explorers, authors, conference lecturers, Hugh Newman and JJ Ainsworth. Thanks for joining me today. Nice to see you. Hi, Dee. How you doing? Hey, it's great to have you back, Hugh, and I'm really excited to have JJ on, never gotten to interview her. And I know you guys run together. You're always traveling the world. You're at all these ancient sites.

and really putting out so much great content on your YouTube channel in various places. So really excited to just talk about a plethora of topics with you guys today. And I thought we could start with talking about, you know, this worldwide phenomena of the ancient handbags or purses, as some might call it. And, J.G., maybe we can start with you, but kind of give us your initial thoughts on what might be happening. and then what you've seen with this with all the different places around the world that appear to show the ancients carrying these bag-like type objects. Well, you're right.

It is a mystery that's found around the world from Mexico to China to Egypt, to Syria, all of that in many more places. But I think the general thought is something to do with passing on knowledge, information. probably from a specific group of teachers, you know, different people might call them Nephilim or, you know, the Anuna or some type of ancient god that's, you know, just mythologized now, but perhaps it was something that was real at one time. But the symbolism is, it's amazing. And especially in like Assyria, they had a combination of that handbag with like a rosette and then a, a pine cone and interestingly you know we found that sort of similar thing in Mexico as well even at Chechenica there is a carving of a bird-headed deity with like an egg sort of pine cone shape thing and then you have Ku Klukkon there which is you know the the serpent deity keseuquado and so it's almost like this ancient knowledge was passed on then spread but you know

for sure we find it around the world and it is an amazing thing and a lot of people have a different ideas about it but i would say it definitely has to do with spreading knowledge um also we have in egypt on that which you mentioned before um the temple of isis uh phila island um i think it's a hadrian sector of that temple you find the god happy encircled by a serpent and it's almost the same depiction that we find in Mexico from the Omec people, Monument 19, where Ketsoquodal, that's just what we're going to call him because we're not for sure, is sat inside a serpent, just like the deity happy, sat inside a serpent with holding a handbag, one of these mysterious handbags. Now, how do we get this symbolism so far from each other across the world? It's just,

almost unexplainable. Mainstream archaeology doesn't really, you know, recognize it. But it's a complex set of ideas that, you know, just doesn't pop up out of nowhere. I'm in a handbag, serpent, bird, just the magic of it or, you know, where it came from is just really, really odd and definitely a mystery that one everybody is really interested in. I think that's one of my favorite handbag, if we want to call it, that depictions is what you called Monument 19 there. That is so fascinating and so clear, so precision. Yeah, he's surrounded by a serpent, right? But it almost looks like he has a space suit on, doesn't he too? Yeah, it looks like he's wearing a bit of gear for sure. If you notice on his back, there's a fin. I think I pointed this out in one of my videos.

And it looks like his mask or his gear is a bird, bird mask. So what I'm showing, you know, what I'm thinking that is showing that that deity has control of the air because of the flying serpent, the serpent for the ground, the fin for the water. So it's showing that this was a super powerful deity. Hugh, give us your take on this worldwide ancient handbag phenomenon. Yeah, I think the big question is what is in it. I mean, no one's really kind of got their head around what could be in it. I mean, JJ, have discussed this. Maybe there's some kind of offerings in there, possibly psychotropic's sacred kind of instruments and things like this.

Others have suggested it's some kind of technology. People have seen astronauts carrying, early astronauts carrying these kind of bags, you know, which are attached to them. so they claim the ancient astronauts. But in my opinion is that it seems like it's something very sacred. You know, I think it's either seeds and grains where you're going to make offerings in a certain place to get them charged up by the energies at these sites, or it's a psychotropic. It's like a psychedelic kind of medicine.

It's mushrooms. It's soma. It's some kind of vine, whatever it might be, where these people come from. Because they're very psychedelic imagery associated with them as one. You look at the kind of imagery of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and of the Olmecs. And we know the Olmecs were well into different types of silicide in mushroom. They were well into 5MEO DMT, which is produced from different variations of the Bufo Marinas Toad. So things like this.

And so you have to kind of question, what were they? What were they up to? I mean, they were clearly doing something very interesting. There's also like people have claimed that the, on Pillar 43, at Quebecli-Tepi, the top section of that looks a bit like three bags, three man bags, some people call them. But they, no one's really sure if they are them or not. But they look like them. And so, you know, people have questioned, is this where this kind of idea came from?

We know that at Quebecli-Tepi and Carrahan-Tepi, especially, you have lots of like bowls and plates, stone plates and containers made of stone that were small and large to collect things in. So it could be an extension of that. But fundamentally, I don't think anyone is really 100% sure, but I think it's very odd that it's found in so many different places. Jay-J, you mentioned the feathered serpent there at Chichenitsa, Kwezzacatl, or Kuku Kahn. Let's take a minute and talk about this deity because we see that kind of the Maya had their interpretation of this deity. It looks like the Inka had theirs.

Anything you want to share about what you know about the origins of this deity, the oral traditions related to it, and why is it a feathered serpent of all things? Well, the origins of it come from, as we know, as the pristine, supposed pristine culture, the Olmec people. And they started about 1500 BC, but probably earlier. And that is what we call the depiction on Monument 19. So this deity is one of the most long-lasting from Mesoamerica, from the Olmec, Maya, Toltec, Aztec. It's just a power air deity like it changed over time. First it was like for the air, the earth and then became a vegetation deity later on.

But it was the one that had the most respect from the people. We know this like a TOTI-Qan. There's a pyramid dedicated just to him. And he is in that form at TOTI-Wakan. you see the imagery of Ketsoquodal next to Tlaiok. So they were sort of intertwined together. And so that's the sort of vegetation aspect of Ketsuquodal being associated with water. But definitely one of my favorite deities, a very biased deity and probably the longest lasting from Mesoamerica.

What do you think? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And also North America, we get in. get it as well represented in a serpent mound in Ohio for instance and some of the legends up there but you actually look at the early um kind of antiquarian illustrations a serpent male and it's got like little kind of kind of wings like little plumes coming off its neck so this was clearly a plum serpent so you get it up there as well but yeah you also get you know there's the Egyptian connection as well

there's lots of imagery and when it's often talking about death and the duet duet duet duet and it's like there's you have this symbol of this serpent all around it with these wings on it as well and so i think ivan van certimer he was one of the first people to kind of propose um the plume serpent imagery was in egypt originally and it actually ended up through the olmecs because they came from egypt and so uh this is how it kind of spread around mesoamerica but there's still a debate about that I mean, people have questioned, you know, the connections there. But for sure, I think, I think that deity is super ancient. But I think, you know, it might, you know, it could be referencing something much older.

You know, it could be much, much older. I mean, you look at the old Chinese, Neolithic Chinese traditions. You get similar imagery. JJ's looked into that. I mean, you get the bird and the serpents at places like Quebecli-Tepi and Karahepe as well. and I've got a theory that actually the figure the head

inside the pillar shrine or enclosure AB at Carahan Tepe if you look at it from directly overhead it looks like he's got wings coming off the side which connect with the kind of top part of the wall

it looked like wings from a certain angle and then down his neck he's got scales like a kind of serpent and the serpent imagery actually inside the pillars where one of the pillars may actually be a rising serpent. So there's a possibility that that kind of imagery, that idea of a deity goes way, way back. Well, I mean, also there's the myth of Shamarin. Shamaron is hard to pronounce of the snake deity with a human head. And we know the snake in at Karahantepi and the AB pit has an elongated neck. But

So the story of that is it's a healing, sort of healing tradition where this snake deity lived inside of a cave and a human found its way inside and she, they fell in love and she began teaching them healing properties and just the mysteries of life. And this, you know, that makes really, really good sense. So it is like a Kurdish story. If you go to like Shanley-Lehirfer, you're going to see that imagery all over the place. the hotel we stayed at, they were actually selling images and all over Martin as well. You can just buy any of the pieces like that.

I think Andrew Collins has bought us several. It's one of his favorite characters. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. You mentioned JJ how that snake was connected to healing. Interesting that, you know, our modern day symbol for like hospitals is the snake on the cross, right? Which essentially comes from the Bible. in, is it Exodus where God told Moses to lift up the serpent and have people stare at it? Any thoughts on the origins of this signature of the serpent and how it relates to what the Bible describes as this Lucifer creature in the garden?

Do you think there's a connection with this worldwide phenomenon of the serpent everywhere? I mean, even I'm fascinated by these depictions in Peru. You know, downtown Kusko, you see these serpits embedded into these megalithic walls. Any thoughts on all that? I know that's a rabbit trail, but... I can jump in first. There's, yeah, if you want to go way, yeah, you can go very far back and find the serpent. I mean, again, we'll just keep referring back to it, and JJ's T-shirt, Carahan-Tepi,

and Quebec Mutepe, you have a lot of... a lot of serpent imagery very profoundly in fact but then one of the things we've been looking into we're actually written this article we're published it yet this on um if you start looking into the sumerian myths and it seems like they were influenced by i we believe you know i think andrew believes that as well from you know quebecchi tepe caranteva era because they're talking about the same time i think and you look at the stories of enki for instance or ia or enki is the older name for him and Enlil as well and

Ninjasag in some cases their Enki specifically is often related to as a serpent as is Ninha Sag in some stories they're all slightly different so it's a bit confusing and we don't we don't really read or follow the

Zacharii Sitchin version of it by the way we don't get into that we kind of go to the traditional classical sources and because it's been interpreted a bit oddly we believe but there is some very strange anomalous stuff there but you look at the stories of Enki one of his earliest symbols was him like a rising kind of curved serpent sometimes with a staff even around you know wrapping around us kind of staff or even a stone um things like this and so

were they actually these Sumerian stories when they talk about Enki and these early gods we believe they're referring to the time of Karanatepe and Gebekli Tepe so nearly 12,000 years ago because They talk about the beginning in agriculture. They talk about the beginning of building, building, basically, building anything, construction, stone monuments, things like this. And also they talk about different cataclysms as well, which you kind of almost pinpoint nowadays. And it seems to be they were talking about a much earlier epoch.

Because you remember, like the Sumerians, from us where we are now to the Samarians, it's the same as the Sumerians were to Karahan-Tepa. in Gebekli-sepe. There's like six or seven thousand years in between. And so there's a lot to consider about that. But you also look at some of the old Vedic stories. There's a lot of serpent imagery relating to that. There's a big debate as to that, you know, did that even originate in Southeast Turkey now?

You have these Vedic symbols like we find on the back of the head at Navali Tury, we have a kind of Vedic priest pony tail carved in stone on the back of its head. You also got the Shiva Lingam type pillars, Karahant-Tepa. One of them being a serpent as well, one of them looks like a serpent, plus the serpent on the neck, as you kind of see on the t-shirt here, actually. And so, yeah, so you've got like a lot to consider. I think it goes way, way back. Oh, yeah, for sure it does.

I mean, the serpentine neck itself just shows that along with the imagery at Karahan-Tepi and snakes are all over the place that go Beckley-Tepi. Actually, at many of the Taz-Tepler sites, you're going to find snake imagery. But the healing aspect of it is really important because, for example, if we take into consideration all of the snake symbolism that we find at the Tass-Tepler sites, and then combine that with what else we know

that's related to healing. So cup marks, we find cup marks, little scoops out of the stone, sometimes huge ones. And those are thought to be related to healing. Maria Gimbutis, a wonderful archaeologist and writer that I have a lot of her books. I study her. She followed the stories back and it relates to traditions that still go on today

where there would be a scoop out of stone, special stones, and people would use that water from the rain that filled up for healing properties that would wipe it on their injuries, their eyes, things like that. And usually these stones are associated with females, hardly ever males. So that's one of the reasons, besides many others, I think that that serpent head in the AB Pett at Carahan Tepe is female. I'm pretty sure of it. And I think because we're co-authoring a book on it that will at least be able to show for sure

that it's a fertility site, a fertility thing to do with healing, regeneration, and, you know, the start of agriculture, some, you know, things like that going on. But definitely the snake is going to be one of the earliest symbols that you will find. And still today very powerful. In religions, like in the USA, they still do the snake charmers, snake handlers. It doesn't always work out for them, but they still do it. That's so cool. You're writing a book on Carriand-Tepe. When is that supposed to come out? Quite a while, yeah. Yeah, we're just finished up some other stuff, but we're going to be cracking into that.

I mean, I think we've written quite a lot, quite a chunk of it already, to be honest with you. But yeah, probably in another year, I think we think probably take a year to get it fully complete and published. So you guys have been all over the world. You visit all these ancient sites. When it comes to, you know, all these strange artifacts you've seen, and we've referenced many of them, Do you have a favorite or aside from the ones we already mentioned, that Olmec Monument 19, do you have a favorite artifact somewhere in Turkey or somewhere around the world that you just think is so bizarre? Maybe it's one of these humanoid-type-looking artifacts.

And so tell us what it might be and some oral traditions regarding it. I'd love to hear from both of you guys. I can I don't it's not one of my favorite artifacts but I just wanted to talk about something that just popped in my head. We were in Bolivia and I think we were going to the site Chiripa along the coast of Lake Titicaca. And we had to go through like this rigamarole to get a key to go into this museum like the key holder had to walk like a mile from a village to bring us a key to get into this museum with no electrical. It was just ridiculous. But once we got inside, oh my gosh, there were skulls in there that were, they looked so strange. I think a couple of them looked even odder than like the parochus ones. One of them was just so I think I have on my Facebook somewhere. If you look up Tiripa, you can see. But we've seen a lot of really strange artifacts. And that's probably one of the scariest ones. I was. confronted because it was just a little bit different, a little bit freakier than the really odd ones from, you know, the Paracus people that are hard to beat.

What city was this? This is Chiripa is a Tijuana-era-era site, not far from the Tuanaku, really, on the Bolivia side of Lake Titicaca. And it's actually older officially than Tijuana and Puma Punka. It was like 3,000 BC. You go by the official dating. And so, yeah, that was an odd one because there was like no one there. We had to get a ride there with this driver, you know, you can't rent a car anywhere near there.

It wasn't open. We got stranded there. So it sounds like the museum wasn't open to the public at the time. So did you get special permission to go in there? Did you know what was kind of in there? Is that why you wanted to go? Yeah, I kind of knew about the site and we knew what we kind of knew. But, you know, it's not a case of like it wasn't open to the public.

It was a case that no one ever visits there. And they were surprised to see anyone there. You know, so we had to go and hunt them down. We found we knocked on a few doors in this, the nearby kind of village, found the key holder and got in, basically, and had it to ourselves literally for the whole time we were there. But it's a really important site, Tirupus. You know, it's got huge megaliths in this square, large kind of enclosure,

kind of almost like, but like Tewanaku in some respects. It's got beautiful statues in the museum and all these skulls, very odd skulls in there, very elongated, extreme cradle boarding. Some of them didn't have the right sutras. It was all a bit, what the hell. But yeah, that was an odd place. So you can't go, you can't get to it, but it's not easy. It's not easy. I love it because you guys have seen a lot of, you know, ancient artifacts, skulls.

So it must have been pretty bizarre, JJ, for you to walk in and you're almost, frightened by these skulls that you saw, like describe them a little bit more. So they're similar to Paracas, but a little different? Yeah, similar to Paracus, but so the front of the skulls sort of like came in near the eye sockets, and the eye sockets sort of expanded out. It just looked weird, almost like an insect type of thing. But, you know, you recognize it as looking like a human, but not at the same time. So the paracus ones kind of mostly look the same. But if you put this skull next to them, there'll be some major difference

because you're going to be, what is this? This isn't what we see. You know, elongated skulls are weird enough as is, but what is this? So, yeah, it's just a very odd place. In the area as well, that's not very far from where they found the Fuente Magnibald, which is kind of three foot wide. you probably know about this I'm sure some of your viewers do

but three or so foot wide they thought it was made of ceramic but it's actually made of sandstone carved out of sandstone and inside it's on now I think it's on display now in the Bolivia gold museum or museum in La Paz and you can't photograph it or anything but

it's got what it is that it's got a lot of Ameras script on it which is the classic ancient Bolivian script Amara people still kind of live in the area the ancestors of them anyway. And then it's got proto-Sumarian and a type of Sumerian script. It's like a rosetta stone of South America. And this was found in the 1950s,

you know, a few miles from Tijuana, a few miles from Chiripa. And if you're talking about interesting artifacts, that is one of the most interesting. We did some filming with ancient aliens for it when David Childress was over there with us. And yes, it's never properly been kind of, have worked out. People are claiming it must be a fake, can't be real. But the fact that it was found

in the 50s and it was used by these pig farmers to feed their pigs from for about 20 years before that after they found it. So it probably goes back to the 30s or the 20s. So who would have come up with the idea to hoax something like what nearly a hundred years ago and put it there as a kind of little trick thing and put really elaborate, very accurate script on it from three different kind of cultures. It's very bizarre. So that is one of the most, and around the rim of it, actually, around the top of it, is actually got a serpent kind of coiling around, carved out of stone, sort of eating its own tail, like an auriborous, and all this other imagery and carvings and sort of heads, arms and hands sticking out of the side of it as well. So that was that general

area as well. So these very weird people with these weird skulls were creating artifacts like that probably thousands of years ago. But that proves, I think, without doubt, there was a connection between places like Tijuana and Pumapunku and the Middle East, you know, so how far back that goes really far. It could go back tens of thousands years. It could go back a few thousand years. But certainly it goes back to the Sumerian era, which is around three or so thousand BC. I'm glad we got on this topic of Tijuana and Puma Punku. Such a fascinating place and are these skulls that you guys were describing possibly related to the humanoid-looking statues that are seen there? Tell us about these statues, the ones that

kind of got the big eyes. I'm blinking on what they're called, but give us a little bit background about the oral traditions of that and how old those might be. Yeah, I'll jump in. Yeah, there's, you get like these kind of, you get this in Guatemala and some Omec sites as well. You get these kind of almost like goggle eyes on some of them. There's the Ponce statue, the Ponce statue, which is the big one. It's like 30, 45 feet tall inside the little museum there. I snuck into the secret part of the museum when we were back there in 2018. Photographed, I made a video about it actually.

We actually spent about, what, 10 days there, staying in the best hotel in 10. which is not nice and the Tijuanauunaku Hotel. They might have done it up by now. But we also found, we found one of these statues. When I was walking about around the kind of far side of it, I think of the northern side, I spotted it when we did a tour there a couple of years before, but then we had time there.

I went to investigate it, dug all around it, turned it over and it was one of these viriculture statues. It had never been recorded because the grass had covered it up for hundreds of years. So that was quite fun. It's actually a bit up. I've sent you the link to the video. People can check that out because I wrote an article about it. Because we found all these artifacts in the museum that no one has seen before.

I've never seen them because we snuck in there when it was kind of not many people were around, had a good look around. There's like a store room there. They've got dust all over them. They haven't been out in the open ever. So we were kind of blown away. So yeah. So you get a lot of those.

type of statues with the strange eyes with the kind of square faces and these are the classic kind of they're very similar to the teaky statues you get throughout the pacific even on easter island you have similar you know there's one crouching kneeling statue which has a similar look to it as well so yeah so there's a lot of odd connections around there but whether that's a reference to them particular skulls we're not sure but you get similar statues like that at chirrupa as well for I'm sure because it's the same kind of just before Tewanaku officially, even though there's a big debate about the age of all these sites now. The goggle eyes, well, that reminds me of the water deity Tlelock. He's often shown with those big round eyes, almost like pools of water representing that.

You get it with Kestal Quatel as well, Kukukklan. There's a lot of imagery in early Maya sites, some of the Olmec sites, especially the ones in southern Guatemala, like La Democracia. and a few other sites down there that not many people know about. You get the same kind of thing there. So it's odd that you're finding that in central or North America and South America. Also at Tijuana, the sunken temple,

all of those faces that are on the walls. Some of them look really, really odd, almost alien. Yeah, they've got big eyes and stuff. Yeah, it's very unusual. It gives you a strange feeling when you're just looking at them, wondering what do these represent? but they definitely look like what we would say is alien. Just interesting.

The whole place is interesting. Hugh, you mentioned Guatemala. What do you guys know about these photographs that have surfaced of that supposed a giant stone head that once existed that's kind of looking up into the sky? Do you believe that was actually in existence and just, I guess, demolished by vandals years ago? I think another one, you mean, he's got a car sort next to it. a couple of people standing around. Unfortunately, I think that got proven to be a kind of someone got it made

and it kind of got photographed. I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't think it's genuinely super ancient, but it might be. No one knows because there's so few records from that era. But there are big stone heads in that part of Southern Guatemala. There's, I think a site was called Monte Elton. I think it's Monte Alto.

This is the southern Guatemala. This area called La Democracia. You can actually go there to this town square of a village called or town called La Democracia. And it's actually got several large stone heads and Buddha-type seated figures of these Olmec-type statues. And they've got the big square eyes on them as well,

which is very odd. I had a good exploration of that way back when I was there in 2009 or something. And we are planning on going there because we've got a friend who lives down Lake Etting Land. But yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff. It's one of the most dangerous places in Central America.

So you have to get prepared a little bit if you're going to. I think Marco Vergato made it down there, but I think he kind of went with some locals. I mean, when I was there, we actually had to have a guy with a gun just to kind of drive us about just in case. But that was a long time ago. It might be nice. Marco survived. Yeah.

Those statues have magnetic properties, right? Yeah, they do. They do. So do some of the old omic statues. There's a couple in a, yeah, there's one at La Democrasia that has, I think it's in the right temple. It's got like a highly magnetic area. So they chose it for that purpose. And some of the other ones, the Buddha type statues, the magnetic main point is in the kind of belly area, the naval.

So they were definitely an understanding of magnetism. I saw your photo. You posted recently because you guys were in Israel, I think, not too long ago. And you are standing or even laying on a stone by the foundational walls there of the Western wall. I'm blinking on what those, that part of, is it the co-tail tunnels? Is that what it's called? Yeah. Well, yeah.

And it's interesting. If you want to go and visit those, you have to join a tour. But we did that. But we broke off from the tour and just stayed. I don't think you're really supposed to do that, but we took advantage of our time there. But, yeah, that's one of Hugh's favorite stones, isn't it? And it's more than that. It's more than that one.

There are more. There's a load of them. There's like five of them or something. That one, I think, is what, 565 tons that worked it out as. There's one. There's several, you know, if you actually go there, I do recommend it. People do go there. Go on the tour, then you have to do it, and then just stay there.

they can go off and do their thing and then you get it all to yourself but it's so big you can't get it all in one camera shot you know it's almost impossible and this you know belbeck kind of style but there's several of them all the way down and they know it's a different type of stone to what is found in the bedrock there so it's come from somewhere else so it must have been carried traditionally it was like part of solomon's temple a temple mount um Solomon was a you know brilliant architect and these teams could move things like that apparently but it seems like kind of super ancient is very bizarre there's traditions of giants obviously going way back in that area specifically that area Jerusalem and so forth so yeah so that they are they are very interesting

stones because you've got one there then you've got one which is about 400 tons next to it you got one which is about 300 tons next to it you got another one which is about nearly 500 tons a And like, but only people only talk about that one stone there, the 565 tonner. And there's more, you know, and if you actually walk about, you have a look around. And if we carefully scouted the whole area of Temple Mount, all the lower levels of it, you can kind of go on to these archaeological areas. There's gigantic blocks, mega-sized stuff. There's almost, you know, it's definitely cyclopean, but there's almost polygonal,

polygonal kind of shaping on some of them as well. So this was clearly going on there because there's a whole bunch of other megalithic kind of sites that kind of proved that this was a popular pastime in the ancient land of Canaan. The wailing walls they call it's fascinating enough. Just the scene there and the stones there are big, but then you go behind there and I think it's down below a bit. And you see what you just described, these massive 500 plus ton stones. again back when I was there I didn't even realize what I was looking at I didn't know what I know now but I do remember thinking that's crazy big like why is this one so big you know just my critical thinking back then but it sounds like you guys kind of walked you were able to go around more

than just that one area and you saw other massive stones right yeah pretty big nothing like the site not quite the size of that one but certainly were the of checking out. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on. There's lots of little hypergium caves. There was channels cut into bedrock, shaping and seating and kind of thrones almost, carved out of the bedrock. We'll be making some, we'll probably put these all in our videos. We've filmed everything, which haven't got around to editing yet. But yeah, so it's quite profound. Again, it's just that whole kind of thing. If you want to check stuff out, probably, you know, you've got to get to these sites because you only hear, you know, if you didn't know,

you'd only think there was one of those mega-sized stones in those tunnels, you know, but yes, you go there and you realize, oh, there's loads of them. They're everywhere. And it's exactly the same wall as the wailing wall. It is that same wall. It's just a bit further down and a bit lower. So it's the same kind of construction, although it could be much earlier in date. Yeah, that photo was one of the best I've seen, JJ, with you right next to that stone. Because like you said, said it's so massive you can't get the whole thing in and so that was just the perfect shot of of jj with the stone showing the scale so i mean yeah it looks like it's very similar to the the the stones there in lebanon i think they call it stone of the pregnant woman which is just massive so i think solomon built this what around is it like the 10th century bc it's a supposedly this So my question is, might he have built this on far older megalithic ruins? Yeah, I think so.

It seems like that. You know, when you go there, for sure. I mean, there's stuff that's older there, yeah, I think. I think you can't deny that. It's the same with Balbeck as well. People claim it's Roman or earliest phase. It's Phoenician. That's been proven now.

But, yeah, it seems like there's something super ancient there, possibly. even, you know, going back before the time of, you know, before the Neolithic or the early Neolithic, it's hard to tell, to be honest with you. And even at the query where the stone of the pregnant woman, there's another larger stone just below it, like to the left, yeah. Yeah. And it's just crazy big. And all of these places like that have almost mystical properties where you experience weird things that I never like to experience. It always has a big effect on me when it happens

because I'm one of those people that likes hard reality, like stuff that I can touch. We often have strange experiences. It seems to go hand in hand with it. But inside the Temple Mount, inside this holy of holies, the kind of stone, the main stone, you know, the what's it called the Rock? The Dome of the Rock.

Yeah. Now, we couldn't get in there. They don't let anyone in unless you're kind of religiously oriented and things like that. I think it's controlled by Islam, things like this now. But that stone in there, if you've seen photos of it, it's mind-blown because it looks like, that's like the peak of the hill as such. Originally, it would have been the peak of the hill. But that is carved out like something you find in Peru.

You know, like something you find now at Karahan-Tepa and places in Tess-Teple, reason it is hypergium style carved out of rock and like you know if that was in like kusko or up on the hills above kuska it would just look in place that it look like it should be there so what earth is going on with that and they claim that there's a square or rectangular chunk of it which is where the arc of the covenant went on and things like this there's other areas that look like they're kind of seating there's other areas that look like other kind of carvings really beautifully done out of this solid rock so you've got that there as well where you've got this almost like Peruvian style kind of a beautiful carved stone you know at the very peak that's the most sacred part of all the religions in the world there

so so that says something that they're kind of worshipping megaliths i think and the religion maybe abraham was supposed to almost sacrificed isaac there and also um mohammed's night journey was supposed to have taken place there when he ascended. Yeah, he rose and rose up to heavens. He had a kind of mystical experience at that peak of the hill, the mountain. So fascinating. I want to ask you about two other spots there in Israel. You guys, I think, went to this site called Gilgal Raphaim, where has the wheel of the giants.

Fascinating. Tell us, tell me about this. Tell me about your experience there. And do you think this might have been built? by Nephilim giants, i.e. Goliath, that the Bible describes. Well, Gilgal Raphaim, when you get there, it's a very odd thing to look at. It's a bunch of stones piled on top of each other. It actually looks like it's concentric circles.

It looks like Atlantis or something like that really made of stone. But it's difficult to get to if you want to go see it. On either side of the road that we travel on, there's like weaponry, get all these signs saying, be careful, sniper, whatever, fire for practicing military. So it's in a really odd place to begin with, and you have to hike like a mile or so, I think, to get there. Yeah, it's a tough place. I mean, Israel's tough generally to get anywhere, to be honest with you. But that one is, that's well worth it. That's well worth a visit.

It's beautiful. It's next to the big Sea of Galilee. near there kind of thing the Dolan Heights there's loads of dolmens in that whole area and it's supposed to be Bashan it's supposed to be like King Og's domain you know that you know if you're looking into the sort of biblical stuff apparently you know and so because that's so people have often thought all the dolmens were like talking about the bed of Og you know certain dimensions it actually relates to some of the dolmens up there but also there's a huge kind of Dolman chamber in the middle of it, which you can go inside of.

It's got a strange energy in there. And then just next to it, north of it, you've got this huge, what looks like, a kind of curved wall, almost like a hill. And you send the drone up and it looks like a giant serpent, you know, like a serpent mound, like 10 times the size of the one in Ohio. It made a stone with a stone head and iron, things like this. Very odd. But yeah, so that area. is supposed to be what we're discussing this earlier about what 4,500. Some people say it's 4,000 BC.

Other people say it's about 2,500 BC. No one really knows the date. It's one of the most interesting sites in Israel, but it's completely ignored. No one got, I mean, we were there. No one went there. The whole day. You get people driving by a 4x4s, you know, just messing around.

But, man, you can't, it's unbelievable that sites like that are just left, you know, nothing's done to them. I mean, it's, it's a beautiful side. It's precarious, though, when you want to climb it, because the rocks are sort of just piled on top of each other, you know, some quite big, some not as big, so you're constantly trying to balance yourself. But once you go into the Dolman chamber, then you see the big, lintful stone. There's quite large stone inside of it. And like you said, it's a really weird atmosphere. It's just strange, and it's freezing cold, inside there is the temperature just changes immediately and you're just like oh so it's nice in there but you don't want to say at the center of the concentric circles is a dolman that sounds like that's featured

and then so i mean the name gilgal raffaim we know raphaeim is what a transliteration or something of nephalim you know so again what the bible describes as these giants and then this the wheel of the giants. Where did that phrase come from? Is that part of the oral traditions of like the Hebrew, the Hebrews? Well, Gilgall is traditionally, I think it's in a, I think there's a Hebrew word. I think I'm not sure, but that is a traditional name for stone circles in the whole part of the world, ancient Canaan, Israel, so for Palestine, all that area. They mentioned in the Bible, repeatedly, they talk about, you know, some of the patriarchs involved in construction. these stone circles so it really just means stone circle so but in some you know some

places like like you've got off the coast atlid yim for instance athlete yam goes back 10,000 years that is also like a subterranean semi-stone circle that's a gilgal that technically i think there's different names for at the top of my head i can't remember the different language names for it but they all generally point um one of them is to do with the to do with a cats or some kind of wild beast the name you know I think the Muslim name for it perhaps so there's different I think the stones or the rocks of the cat things like this so there's different different names different variations but I think the fact that we're in the Golan Heights technically it's in Syria you know

technically there's a sort of debate about that you don't upset the wrong people But, you know, when Israel occupied the area, officially that was actually Syria before Israel kind of occupied it. So they claim it still is Syria. So you're in this kind of gray area, almost in Syria, which is really, you started to get into the whole real biblical kind of super ancient civilization area. JJ, is there anything you've done so much research into symbolism, ancient symbolism, anything that you've been researching lately that you're just excited about? you think people should know about. Maybe it's something from the past. It's just one of your favorite things you've stumbled upon. Anything else you want to share to wrap this up? Oh, yes. So Gobeckley-Tepi and the Tee pillars. The T-shape is such an important shape across the

world. For example, there it is, and it's anthropomorphic, you know, humanoid. And I've done this research and followed clues showing that maybe we can say that these figures might be feminine or at least androgynous. And it's such a worldwide figure. A lot of people don't know this, but in Mexico, the T-shape, it relates to the wind deity. And the shape, I get so excited. I don't even want to, But doorways are found carved in this T-shape in North America, in China, Mongolia, just all around the world. This shape is one of my favorite things to study. And a lot more information when our book comes out is going to bring light to what I think it means and what it really shows. So that is my favorite thing right now with Quebec.

Debbie. Yeah, that photo, I actually posted a photo on Meglithic Marvels of you standing beside one of these T-pillars. I think it was in an enclosure. That was, I mean, the scale of that photo shows how massive these T-pillars are. I mean, what's it like to stand next to that thing? Well, that photo you're talking about is actually a replica inside the Stan Lear for Museum, but it's an accurate two-scale model. So even though it was a replica just standing inside of it, it is immense and it's amazing because when you're inside of it and you're looking up, you just, it's just unreal that our ancient ancestors built these and it's just unreal. Now, when you go to Quebec Le Tepe and you can't go in the stones there, but even looking down at them, they're impressive. But the difference is

getting to actually go stand in between them to realize how massive they are. So yeah, that if anybody's going to go to Turkey, I just really think you need to have that experience of going to go Beklee-Tepi and then also the museum. So you can really, probably the museum first actually, so you can get an idea of what you're looking at when you go to the site itself. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you get a super superb sense of scale, which don't hard to appreciate you know even if you go to the site

it's still hard to appreciate the scale of it because you're kind of fall away and you're looking down on it there's debris everywhere but yes it's same with Carahan Tepe

as well hopefully we think they're going to read rumors they're going to make reconstructions of parts of that as well which would be impressive especially the pillar shrine the AB pit which is JJ's T-shirt and so that would be interesting to actually feel like you're

inside it because that is very strange, very strange spot. And I don't think people realize the size of that head. Like the head is huge. It's big. Yeah, but from outside of it, you can't really tell, but it is. It's just unbelievable. And just a few years before, we were walking on top of it without even knowing. Yeah, this is it.

We're just, you know, walking over the top of it without these little tops of pillars sticking out the ground. You posted a video recently on Crete, the Minotaur's Labyrinth. I've always been fascinated by this subject. I've never got to visit this site, but tell us a little bit about what you uncovered visiting this site in the legends of the Minotaur in this labyrinth. Nossus is a crazy cool place.

I mean, it's only one of many. Facedos as well was really interesting when they found the Fistos disc. Crete is beautiful place to visit. I mean, but Nossus is, I went there when I was a kid, I went there when I was about 10 years old, and I sort of got really into the whole Minotaur thing. But that hill it's on, which is near Heraclion, goes back to Neolithic, early Neolithic,

possibly Mesolithic times, because it was a well-known area kind of thing. But yeah, the fact that you've got the Minowans building like what class as palaces, in nearly 2,000 BC is absolutely. absolutely amazing. And yeah, the symbolism there, the serpents, a lot of serpents, a lot of the bullfrescos and other such things. But that was a really sort of really classy, if you feel like, area compared to other places in the world at the time. They've reconstructed, you know, bits of it. They have like red columns. Some of it's really beautiful. You can still see the famous throne and libation ball there. But unfortunately, you can't go into where the labyrinth, would be located supposedly.

But you can stick your camera over and you can kind of look at the layers going down underneath. One of the things they found there, these are in the museum. You might have seen the photos. They've got these giant, what we call it, we call it labrists. That's where the labyrinth name came from.

There's these giant double axes, you know, both sides, axe heads kind of, and they are like, what, 10, 12 feet tall, so like 15 feet tall, one of them, I think. And, you know, if they're, wielded by anybody. It's either the minor or it's giant. So you're saying they found actual double axe heads that were found in the labyrinth? Yeah, that's where the name, the labyrinth name comes from, apparently, Labyrinth,

which is the name of these kind of double axes. And funnily enough, the laborist is also associated with butterflies. It's a butterfly symbolism. So it's like a death wielder and a life giver sort of symbolism, like a female thing. And this is part of Maria Gimbutis' research to Lithuanian archaeologist. So Cree is full of amazing stuff like that. It's just unbelievable as well. Oh, and the original name of Cree is Megalonisos, which is one of my people. It's very cool name.

Megalonisos. Love it. Sounds like a dinosaur, doesn't it? Yeah, I've seen some, I don't know if it was photos or I think a video. Maybe before they closed it off, somebody got into this labyrinth. And I mean, it looked like, you know, it wasn't just tunnels. I mean, there were stones and it looked like it was shaped. And for people who might not know, can you quickly tell us just kind of the legend of the, of the labyrinth and why it's, you know, with the bull, the minotaur?

So apparently, I don't know if it was a queen or some woman of importance slept with a bull. This is basically, this myth I don't know that well, and had a child that was half man and half bull, and they kept it underneath the palace in the labyrinth. then there would be kids or, you know, different people brought in for sacrifice to go in and the minotaur would, you know, attack them. But that's basically what I know. You just had your Megalithomania conference. Where can people go to access all the videos and amazing presentations that took place? I think it was May 6 and 7th.

Yeah, for sure. It's just all on megalithomania.com. UK also the megalithomania UK YouTube channel there's all our stuff on there are kind of tours to Turkey places like that they can the whole conference is filmed every year so people can register even after the conference and watch the whole thing or they can wait six to 12 months and we put them up slowly on YouTube but if you want all the latest kind of information or the latest research we encourage people to kind of, you know, sign up for it and check it out.

Anything else you guys want to share as far as tours coming up where you're going next, how people can follow you, find you, follow your latest research? Sure, yeah. Again, it's all on the website and everything. But yeah, next place we're heading out to Turkey very soon. And we're doing a tour there with Andrew Collins and our team out there. like 25, 30 people coming. We're heading back there in September, but we're going more biblical.

We're going to Eastern Turkey, like the kind of Garden of Eden, traditional area, Lake Van and things like this. There's some seriously strange Pruma Punku-style megalithic stuff. We're going to be checking out. People can join us there

and get a space on that tour, I think, a few spots open. But we do lots of stuff. As you know, we get around. We kind of do, we're doing trips to Borkney, which is a place we're fascinated by there's some news on

ornay, they're going to be covering over and finishing after they finish the excavation of the Nesset Broadgarsen. So we're rushing to get a couple of tours in there so people can at least see it before it gets covered over in 2024. Yeah, we do Egypt like yourself. Egypt is just incredible.

I mean, if people ever been to Egypt, they've got to get there and see the serious, serious megaliths there. And Hugh, you've written some books. JJ, do you got any book in the works? Yeah, with Hugh right now. We're writing about Carahan Tepe.

So that's right. But JJ's, yeah, she's not going to mention it itself. But JJ, you can check out. It's called Megalithic Maiden on YouTube and on various social media. She posts some cool videos about her research and travels there. So I should definitely check that out. And everybody follow JJ's Facebook page, I think, is probably one of the premier places you post, right, JJ? Yes.

She's got a great Facebook page with all kinds of photos and articles and stuff she's written. So JJ, Hugh, thank you so much for your time. It was fascinating interview. Excited to spread the word about all these ancient artifacts that we discussed. And we'll hopefully do this again in the near future. Thank you. Thanks Dee.