Megalithic Marvels - Ancient Handbags, Out-of-Place Artifacts & Serpent Worship | Hugh Newman & JJ Ainsworth (reloaded)

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

In this best-of-episode, I sit down with authors & explorers Hugh Newman & JJ Ainsworth to explore some of the strangest patterns in ancient history: the mysterious “handbag” symbol found in artwork across cultures, the worldwide legends of serpent worship, and the out-of-place artifacts that continue to raise questions. From ancient gods and sacred symbols to forgotten knowledge and lost civilizations, this episode takes a closer look at the clues that may connect civilizations across the ancient world. We’ll examine why similar symbols appear in places separated by oceans and thousands of years, and what these mysteries might reveal about humanity’s forgotten past.FOLLOW HUGH & JJ HEREJOIN ME ON A TOUR HERE

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 or 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 you. 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 JJ, 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 these 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 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-shaped thing. And then you have Ku Klukkhan there, which is, you know, the serpent deity, Kesekoato. 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 different ideas about it, but I would say it definitely has to do with spreading knowledge. Also, we have in Egypt on that, which you mentioned before, the Temple of ISIS, Phile Island. 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 spacesuit 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've pointed this out in one of my videos. And it looks like he's 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, me and JJ have discussed this. Maybe there's some kind of offerings in there, possibly psychotropic, 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, which are attached to them. So they're claiming that 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 well. I mean, 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 the, 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 a Quebecli-Tepi and Carrahan-Tepae, 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 it's i don't think anyone is really 100% sure but i think uh it's it's very odd that it's found in so many different places jj you mentioned the feathered serpent there at chichinica quetzie kwekwado 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. 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. At T.O.T.Wa Khan, there's a pyramid dedicated just to him. And he is in that form at TOTIWakan. You see the imagery of Ketsoquodal next to T. So they were sort of intertwined together. And so that's the sort of vegetation aspect of Ketsoquodal 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 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 kind of antiquarian illustrations, a serpent male, and it's got like little kind of wings, like little plumes coming off his neck. So this was clearly a plume 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 when it's often talking about death and the 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 Sertimer, he was one of the first people to kind of propose the plume serpent imagery was in Egypt originally and it actually ended up through the Olmex because they came from Egypt. And so this is how it kind of spread around Mesoamerica. But there's still a debate about that. I mean, people question, you know, the connections there. but for sure 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 I've got 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 Quebec Leitepe and Karahantepe as well and I've got a theory you know that actually the figure the head inside the pillar shrine or enclosure AB at Carahan-Tepa. 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 possibilities 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 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 or if you're going to see that imagery all over the place like 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 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. Is it Exodus where God told Moses to lift up the serpent and have people stare at it? Any thoughts on the origin? 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,

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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-Tepae, and Quebec Mutepe 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've 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 that from you know kebekli tepe caranateva 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

ninhar sag in some cases their enki specifically is um often related to as a serpent as is ninjasag in some stories they're all slightly difference that's a bit confusing and we don't we don't really read or follow the Zacharias it version of it by the way we don't 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 rise rising kind of curved serpent, sometimes with a staff even, you know, wrapping around us kind of

of staff or even a stone, things like this. 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 Gebeckli 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 stone monuments things like this and also they talk about um different cataclysms as well which you kind of almost pinpoint nowadays um and it seems to be they were talking about a much earlier epoch because you remember like the samarians from us where we are now to the samarians is the same as the sumerians were to karan tepe and quebecuii sepe there's like six or seven thousand years in between

and so there's uh 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 related 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 um we find on the back of the head at navali churi we have a kind of Vedic priest pony tail carved in stone on the back of his head you also got the Shiva lingam type pillars karohan tepe one of them being a serpent as well one of them looks like a serpent plus the serpent on the neck, as you can 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 Carahan Tepe and snakes are all over the place that go Beckley-Tepi. Actually, at many of the Taz-Tepler sites, if 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 test Tebler 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 they 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 Kerrhan 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 Carrihan 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 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 um 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 um 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 Tiddy 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 electricity.

It was 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 freakyer than the really odd ones from the parochas people that are hard to beat. What city was this? This is Chirapar is a Tijuana-era-a-a-tunaku-era site, not far from Tijuana really, on the Bolivia side of Lake Tittikaka. And it's actually older officially than Tijuana and Puma Punca. It was like 3,000 BC to 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 like 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 the nearby kind of. village found the key holder and got in basically had it to ourselves literally for the whole time we were there but it's a really important site chirruper you know it's got huge megaliths in this square large kind of enclosure kind of almost like but like tuanaku in some 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, schools.

So it must have been pretty bizarre, JJ, for you to walk in and you're almost frightened by these schools that you saw. Like, describe them a little bit more. So they're similar to Paracas, but a little different? Yeah, similar to Paracas, but. So the front of the skull 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 Pirocous 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, it's not very far from where they found the Fuente Magna Bowl, 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. displaying now in the Bolivia Gold Museum or the museum there in La Paz and you can't photograph it or Anthony but it's got what it is there's got a lot of

Amera script on it which is a classic ancient Bolivian script Amara people still kind of live in the area the ancestors of them anyway and then it's got proto Sumerian and a type of Sumerian script like it's like a rosetta stone of South America

and this was found in the 1950s you know a few miles from Tewanarkufi 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 worked out. People are claiming that it must be a fake, can't be real but the fact 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. So eating its own tail like an auriborous. and all this other imagery and carvings and sort of heads and arms and hands sticking out at 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 Tijuanauku and Kumapunku and the Middle East. 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. This father's day start with a question, like where did Dad's story begin? Ancestry DNA now has up to $75 off on our Father's Day sale, so Dad can explore his roots across more than 3,600 regions and discover the places and cultures that shaped his story. Save now, give Ancestry DNA from only $69. Offer ends June 21st. at Ancestry.CA for details. Terms apply.

I'm glad we got on this topic of Tijuanau 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, you get like these kind of, you get this in Guatemala at some Olmec 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 a little museum there. I snuck into the secret part of the museum. and 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 town, which is not nice. And the Tijuanauu Hotel, they might have done it up by now. But we also 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 that 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 a 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 Chirupa as well, for 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 Kestl Ketal 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 like Tijuana, the sunken temple, all of those faces that are on the wall. balls. Some of them look really, really odd, almost alien. Like a big eyes and stuff. Yeah. 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 this supposed 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 it's got a car sort of next to it, hasn't 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.

So 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 Alto. I think it's Monte Alto. This is the southern Guatemala. There's an area called La Democracia. You can actually go there to this town square of a village called a town called La Democrasia.

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 like 2009 or something. And we are planning on going there because we've got a friend who lives down Lake Attidland. 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 Vigato 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, it might be nice in there. Marco survived. Yeah. Those statues have magnetic properties, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah, which is interesting.

They do. So do some of the omic statues. There's a couple in a, yeah, there's one at the 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 uh j jay i saw your photo you posted recently because you guys were in israel i think not too long ago and you are standing or uh even laying on a stone by the foundational walls there of the Western wall.

I'm blinking on what those, that part, 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 Hughes favorite stones, isn't it? Oh, it's more than that. It's more than that one. are more. There's a load of them. There's like five of them or something. That one, I think, is what, 565 tons.

They've worked it out as. There's one. There's several, you know, if you actually go there, I do recommend it. But 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.

It's so big, you can't get it all in one camera shot. You know, it's almost impossible. And there's, you know, Balbeck kind of style. But there's several of them all the way down. 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 that must have been carried. Traditionally, it was like part of Solomon's temple, a temple mount. Solomon was a brilliant architect and his 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 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've got another one

which is about nearly 500 tons again and like but only people only talk about that one stone there the 565 tonne and there's more 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 um 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 worthy 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 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 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. Staples Preferred Business Membership, built for busy business owners, because you've got bigger things to think about. With Staples Preferred, get free delivery, no minimums. Staples Preferred unlocks up to 3% back, plus 10% savings on print,

and exclusive wireless offers. One less thing on your plate. Actually, a lot less. Visit staples.ca slash preferred. That was easy. Yeah, I just, that photo was one of the best I've seen, JJ, with you right next to that stone. Because like you said, it's so massive, you can't get the whole thing in. And so that was just the perfect shot of JJ with the stone showing the scale.

So, I mean, yeah, it looks like it's very similar to 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 supposedly this temple. 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.

But we often have strange experience. It seems to go hand in hand with it. But inside the Temple Mount, inside this holy of holies, the kind of the stone, you know, 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 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 caroan tepe and places in tastepler region of turkey 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

it looked like it should be there. So what on earth is going on with that? And they claim that there's a square or rectangular chunk of it, which is where the Ark 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 beautiful carved stone, you know, at the very peak. That's the most sacred part of, of all the religions in the world there. So that says something that they're kind of worshiping megaliths. Abraham was supposed to almost sacrificed Isaac there. And also Muhammad's night journey was supposed to have taken place there when he ascended. Yeah, he rose up to heaven.

So he had a kind of mystical experience at that peak of the hill, the mountain. 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 it's 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. It's beautiful.

It's next to the bigger sea of Galilee. It's 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, if you're looking into the sort of biblical stuff, apparently. And so because that's, so people have often thought all the dolmens related.

You know, you're talking about the bed of Og, you know, certain dimensions. It actually relates to some of the sort 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's 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 a size of the one in ohio made a stone with a stone head and iron things like this very odd but yeah so um that that area is supposed to be what we're discussing this earlier about what four thousand five hundred

some people say it's four thousand bc other people say it's about two thousand five hundred bc no one really knows the day it's one of the most interesting sites in israel but it's completely ignored no one go i mean we were there no one went there the whole day you get people driving by a a four by fours, 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. I mean, it's a beautiful site. 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 is a really weird atmosphere. It's just strange. And it's freezing cold inside there. 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 Raphaim, we know Raphaim is what, what, a transliteration or something of Nephilim, you know. So again, what the Bible describes as these giants. And then 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, Gilgo is traditionally, I think it's in a, I think there's a Hebrew word.

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 constructing these stone circles. So it really just means stone circles. So, but in some, you know, some places like, like you've got off the coast, Athlete Yim, for instance, Adlet Yam, goes back 10,000 years. That is also like a subterranean semi-stone circle.

That's a Gilgall technically. I think there's different names. Of 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 cat or some kind of a 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 or 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 want to upset the wrong people. But, you know, when Israel occupied the area, officially that was actually Syria before Israel kind of occupied it. And 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 that 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-shaped 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 the shape it's I get so excited I don't even want to but doorway are found carved in this T-shaped 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 City. Yeah, that photo, I actually posted a photo.

photo on Megalithic 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 Shanleyer 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. it's amazing because when you're inside of it and you're looking up you just can it's just unreal

that our ancient ancestors built these and it's just unreal now when you go to quebecli tepee and you 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 Tepe 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 side itself. Game as fast as they could.

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I mean, you get a super, superb sense of scale, which you don't, hard to appreciate, even if you go to the site, it's still hard to appreciate the scale of it because you're kind of far 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, we've heard 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 a very strange, very strange spot.

And I don't think people realize the size of that head. Like the head is huge. It's, like, this 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 walking over the top of it without these little tops of pillars sticking out of 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, this labyrinth. Nossus is a crazy cool place. I mean, it's only one of many. Faisdoss as well was really interesting when they found the Faisdoss disk. 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, is uh 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 got the minoans building like what class as palaces in nearly 2 000 bc is absolutely amazing and yeah the symbolism there the serpents a lot of serpents a lot of the bull frescoes and other such things but that was a really sort of really classy if you feel like area compared to other place 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. But one of the things they found there, these are in the museum. you might have seen the photos with, they've got these giant, what I call them,

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 tool or it's giants. So you're saying

they found actual double axe, 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 double axes.

And funnily enough, the labyrinth 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.

But 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 a 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 was 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 um I don't know if it was a queen or some woman of importance um 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 and 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 a 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 on the Megalithomania UK YouTube channel. There's all our stuff on there are kind of tours, 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 um you know sign up for it and uh check it out but JJ's uh yeah she's not going to mention it so but JJ you can check it's called megalithic maiden on YouTube and on various social media she posts some cool videos um about her research 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. we discussed and we'll hopefully do this again in the near future.