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FONTANA JOHN PHILIP COHANE A STARTLING ENQUIRY INTO THE RIDDLE OF MAN S PAST John philip cohane was bom in New Haven, Connecticut. After a successful career in advertising in New York, he moved to County Limerick, where he now devotes most of his time to writing. In addition to The Key, he is the author of The Indestructible Irish and has written for magazines, the theatre and television. Mr Cohane is involved in archaeological research with the Irish Government and the University of Pennsylvania at several sites in Ireland. When not ‘digging’ or writing, he spends as much time as he can sailing and fox-hunting. The Key John Philip Cohane Preface by Cyrus H. Gordon Professor of Mediterranean Studies, Brandeis University FONTANA/COLLINS First published in Great Britain by Turnstone Press Ltd 1971 First issued in Fontana 1975 Copyright © John Philip Cohane 1969, 1973 Set in Monotype Times Roman Made and printed in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd Glasgow CONDITIONS OF SALE: This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ‘For as God was the help of our reason to illuminate us, so should we likewise turn it every way, that we may be more capable of understanding His mysteries; provided only that the mind be enlarged, according to its capacity, to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind.’ Francis Bacon To four splendid Baconians: Herman W. Liebert - Librarian, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Dr Frederick L. Santee - Former Professor of Classics, Kenyon College Dr Professor Johannes Rahder (Retired) - Hall of Graduate Studies, Yale University David McDowell - Crown Publishers Inc. and above all, to Rosalind Cole Contents List of Illustrations 8 Acknowledgements 9 Preface 11 The Key 15 Epilogue 190 Bibliography 201 Index 208 Illustrations 1 Naval Battle against the Libyans and the ‘Sea People’, Temple of Medinet Habu, Egypt 2 Burial Chamber, New Grange, Ireland 3 Temple of Hal Tarxien, Malta 4 Monolithic stones at Avebury, England 5 Inca fortifications, Peru 6 ‘Stone of the Twelve Angels’, Haton Rumyoc, near Cuzco, Peru 7 Mayan stele near Quirigu&, Guatemala 8 Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuc&n, Mexico Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to: J. Donald Rawlings, my lawyer and old friend, who with his wife Eleanor patiently read hundreds of pages of research and preliminary drafts of the material; Admiral H B. Miller, USN (Ret.), who was an en thusiast from the beginning; Charles J. Haughey, Minister for Finance, Republic of Ireland, who on a score of occasions lent his support and encouragement to the project; Doris Bryen, of London, who brought together most of the photographs; Warren Potter, of Crown Publishers, whose meticulous copy editing contributed immeasurably to the accuracy of the text; and to the staffs of the Bibliothdque Nationale, Paris; the British Council Library, Rome; the British Museum Library, London; the Jewish Museum Library, New York; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Limerick Public Library, Ireland; the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Library, New York; the National Library, Dublin; the New York Public Library - with special thanks to Norwood Vail, First Assistant, Map Division; the Royal Astronomical Society Library, London; the Royal Hibernian Society Library, Dublin; the Royal Statisti cal Society Library, London; the Trinity College Library, Dublin; the Wiedener Library, Harvard University; and the Yale University Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven. And the whole world was of one language^ and of one speech. Genesis 11:1 Preface There is abundant evidence pointing to nautical contacts between the Old and New worlds going back to the Bronze Age. Exact dates elude us, but by 1500 b.c. the process already had a long history. By that time, one of the most important factors of civilization on the world scene was the international and inter continental network of merchant mariners. They were not com posed of one ethnic group; but a dominant, if not the dominant, element was Northwest Semitic, closely akin to the Phoenicians in language, religion, and way of life. To those mariners we owe much of our civilization, including the alphabet. How they developed and spread civilization is illustrated by the Bronze Age shipwreck excavated by George Bass at Geli- donya off the coast of Turkey. The vessel, operating in the Aegean with Minoan-Mycenaean cargo, was made of Syrian wood, and its captain bore a Syrian seal. Thus the ship and its leadership were from the Northwest Semitic sphere. On the ship were the bronze tools of craftsmen, reflecting the fact that such vessels moved not only merchandise but also carried the people who actually practised the arts and crafts. The metallurgy of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica belonged, not to the Iron Age, but to the Bronze Age, showing that the techno logical pattern had been set before the later Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and others appeared on the stage of history, let alone reached America. Mankind cherishes history but often lapses into collective amnesia. The Egyptians forgot how to read their ancestors’ hieroglyphs; and the Persians lost their knowledge not only of the script but also of the history and of the very names of Cyrus, Cambyses and Xerxes who made their ancestors the rulers of the world. The forgotten systems of writing had to be rediscovered, and their messages revealed, through decipherment in the nine teenth century. What seems strange is that Persian history had been preserved in the ancient Greek and Hebrew classics un beknown to the Persians themselves. 11
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