May 29, 2025 • 16 mins
This recap episode unpacks Luke Caverns discussing his fascination with ancient history and archaeology, particularly focusing on the mysteries of lost civilizations in the Americas and Egypt. He highlights the limitations and biases within mainstream academia, contrasting them with the independent research and alternative theories promoted by figures like Graham Hancock and Jimmy Corsetti, who are reaching a wider audience through new platforms. The discussion touches on intriguing finds, such as megalithic structures, unexplained artefacts, and the potential significance of ancient plant medicines and celestial alignments in understanding these past cultures. Ultimately, the text explores the ongoing debate between traditional archaeological narratives and the implications of new evidence, suggesting a need for greater openness and collaboration in uncovering humanity's past.
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Great to be back.
So today we're taking a deep dive into a recent conversation.
Specifically, it's episode hashtag 2328 of The Joe Rogan
Experience, featuring guest LukeCaverns.
Right, Luke Caverns. That was a fascinating 1.
Yeah, we're going to unpack thisreally wide-ranging discussion.
It touched on ancient mysteries,lost civilizations,
(00:23):
archaeological controversies. And some pretty unconventional
theories, definitely. Absolutely.
Our mission here, as always, is to kind of pull out the most
interesting insights, the surprising facts, the key
arguments from that material will be your guide to the
conversation. And we'll explore a bit of the
guests own journey too, right his path into uncovering what he
sees as like hidden history. Exactly.
(00:46):
Yeah, something really stood outfor me from this whole thing was
how it weaves together his personal story, historical
stuff, and then boom, modern tech challenging old ideas.
Yeah, it makes you think. Not just about what they found,
but like the different takes on why it matters.
And who gets to say what it means?
You know who interprets it? OK so let's start with the
guests path. Luke talks about how he got into
(01:07):
all this right? He mentions pretty openly not
being a top student. Said he had like a 1.7 GPA in
college at one point. Wow.
OK. But that passion for ancient
history that was sparked by his grandpa?
Apparently it was always there. So he eventually switched his
major to cultural anthropology, focused on the Amazon Lost
(01:28):
civilizations. That was his mock thesis topic.
And that kind of less than stellar academic start actually
pushed him towards something different, didn't it?
Going independent? Yeah, exactly.
Pursuing research outside the usual university system, he
found academia well, restrictive.
You talked about having trouble getting interesting ideas
approved right, especially for younger folks wanting to get out
(01:51):
in the field. Right.
He felt kind of shut down maybe by older academics who'd felt
the same way earlier on, you know, there'd be.
But he describes independent research as the sort of Wild
West. Yeah, I like that.
Description. It lets people just pull
together their own trips, document sites they find, get
local permission. Without needing the university
stamp of approval or like the funding asset or the.
(02:12):
PhD even, which he thought was going to be almost impossible
for him in that field anyway. It's just a different kind of
freedom to just go do it. Which really brings up that big
question running through the whole conversation, doesn't it?
Yeah. Like who's the real authority
here? Is it just the degree or does
that boots on the ground, passionate independent work
count just as much, maybe even more sometimes?
(02:34):
Yeah, the material definitely flags that tension big time, and
you can feel it. There's this tension discussed
between, let's say, mainstream archaeologists, the gatekeepers
as the source kind of frames them, and then the independent
researchers, popular figures like Graham Hancock, Jimmy
Corsetti, the guest himself. The guest, Luke, said he often
(02:55):
found the official explanations for big mysteries kind of
disappointing. Lacking death, maybe.
Yeah, or sometimes just aggressively dismissive of
anything alternative. That came through strong and he
gave examples, right, Like with Zahi Hawas in Egypt.
Right, the former big boss there, he mentioned Hawas
dismissing Robert Chose's work on the Sphinx.
The water erosion theory suggesting it's much older.
(03:17):
Exactly, and he also brought up Hawas seemingly not knowing
about Gobekli Tepe. Which is huge, That 12,000 year
old site in Turkey, it changes everything, right?
Or even ancient king lists like the Turin Papyrus that mentioned
rulers way way back. The guess was kind of like, how
can the guy in charge not know this basic stuff?
That's a fair question, I guess.Another one was the Italian
scientist scans near a pyramid suggesting something deep
(03:40):
underground. Oh yeah, the comography scans.
The guest argued the technique worked fine elsewhere at depth,
but maybe their initial artisticguesses about what was down
there kind of tanked the data's credibility with officials.
So the interpretation overshadowed the data itself.
That was his take, but the overall feeling he expressed was
this like general resistance from the mainstream to anything
(04:03):
pointing towards older, more advanced civilizations than the
books say. And it can get nasty apparently,
like mentioning Graham Hancock being called awful things.
Yeah, even a Nazi just for proposing different timelines.
That's extreme. But what's really shifting
things, according to the source,is the Internet platforms like
YouTube. The power shift, yeah.
(04:23):
Independent folks like Caverns, Corsetti, Hancock, they can
reach millions directly now. They don't need the traditional
gatekeepers, the journals, the media.
And that Direct Line, the guestsargued, is chipping away at the
public credibility of some traditional figures who maybe
look dismissive or out of touch on shows like Rogans.
Right. The idea presented is that the
(04:44):
gatekeepers resist, partly because these independents are
outside the academic funding game and are just really good at
talking to regular people. So it's framed as this clash of
approaches, humility versus maybe arrogance in defending the
old ways. Something like that.
A contrast between just following the evidence and
rigidly sticking to the established story.
OK, so let's shift from the academic fights to the actual
(05:07):
dirt, the discoveries, hidden worlds.
Yeah, the Amazon was a big focus.
Percy Fawcett, right, early 20thcentury, looking for lost
cities. The City of Gold.
El Dorado, Yeah. And Fawcett had this view,
really unusual for his time, that the Indigenous people
weren't primitive savages. He saw them as descendants of
something sophisticated, maybe fallen based on their language.
(05:29):
Village layouts, Yeah. And you found stuff too.
Sophisticated Pottery, stone vessels, sculptures.
In that weird Blackstone object he couldn't identify now lost
apparently. Yeah, intriguing.
And his last message right from Dead Horse Camp, May 1925 before
heading into the Xingu region. And then vanished.
(05:49):
But the crazy thing is how modern tech is kind of proving
him right posthumously. Totally leadar.
It's been revolutionary just in the last decade.
Being through the jungle canopy with lasers, it's incredible.
And it's revealed these massive Amazonian cities nobody knew
were there, like Kirikuyu estimated million people.
Size of ancient Rome, they said.With huge raised platforms,
(06:11):
miles long highways, all totallyhidden by the jungle.
Invisible from the ground, you'dwalk right over.
It and the Lidar data actually confirms spots where Fawcett had
privately guessed cities Might be he was onto something.
Makes you wonder what else is under there, or, you know, under
other dense environments. Like the Sahara that came up
too. Right, another potential spot
for a lost pre Ice Age civilization.
(06:32):
Because 10,000 plus years ago itwasn't desert, it was green
lakes. Rivers, an Oasis, perfect place
for societies to develop, just like the Nile Valley later on.
Speaking of big stuff, the mystery of moving huge stones
that came up a lot. It's.
A classic right Egypt. Baalbek in Lebanon.
Those stones at Baalbek are justinsane.
(06:54):
Some of the biggest cut blocks anywhere.
And the Olmec heads in Mexico? Yeah, the Olmec heads, that's a
real head scratcher. The salt heads sum up to 52
tons. Moves like 90 kilometers over
tough terrain. And the conversation pointed
out, yeah, experiments show basic rafts sync with maybe 5
tons. The smallest Olmec head is 6
tons. Yeah.
So how, just how do they do it? No good conventional.
(07:16):
Answer. Then you jump to Peru, the
Andes, that incredible stone fitting Inca stuff.
Stone. It looks almost melted molded
together. Yeah, fitting super tight at
these impossible angles like that famous 12 sided stone in
Cusco. And Doctor Ed Barnhart's theory
was mentioned. Right, that they might have used
acids from the Atacama Desert tosoften the stone surfaces.
(07:37):
Allowing them to kind of squish them together before they
hardened again. Wild theory, but there's some
interesting backup, right? The earthquakes in Cusco.
Exactly big ones. In 16501950, the Spanish
buildings on top collapsed. But the Inca foundations
underneath still standing, perfectly fitted, stable.
Pretty compelling evidence for something unusual going on with
(07:59):
that stonework. The conversation also gave a nod
to Christopher Dunn's idea aboutthe Great Pyramid.
The power plant theory. Hydrogen production, Yeah.
The guest wasn't claiming expertise there, but found it
fascinating just exploring potential function beyond just
tombs. You know, looking for ancient
tech? Which kind of leads into what's
under the surface and using modern scans.
(08:20):
Right, the scanning projects in Egypt, Muon tomography and
stuff. There was that drama with the
Italian scientist scans suggesting something maybe 2
kilometers deep. Yeah, the goodest felt.
Maybe their artistic renderings got a bit ahead of the raw data,
causing some backlash. But the Scan Pyramids project
did find something concrete, didn't they?
Oh yeah, that big void above theGrand Gallery in the Great
(08:43):
Pyramid. Undeniable.
Described as like what size of 2semi trucks or the grand gallery
itself again? Something like that.
Huge and totally unknown before.So naturally everyone's asking
what's in there. The guests mentioned hearing an
Egyptian Egyptologist suggest itmight be Kufer's actual burial
chamber. The real one with the others is
(09:04):
decoys. That was the speculation.
Who knows? But a point that kept coming up
was how long it takes for this info to get out the delays.
Yeah, the guest shared his own story about visiting tunnels
under Cusco near Sacsaywaman. Before they were officially
announced last year. Exactly.
And he mentioned Tutmos's tomb discovery being known internally
(09:24):
for months before the big reveal.
Interesting. He even told this anecdote about
an Egyptian archaeologist pulling out their phone and
showing him an unpublished photoof what an interior chamber in
the Great Pyramid he'd never seen published anywhere.
Wow, so there's stuff known, just not shared widely yet?
Seems like it. It really makes you wonder how
much is held back or just slow to come out.
(09:45):
OK, staying with hidden things and surprises, let's jump across
the Atlantic again. The Americas.
Yeah, the idea that these continents were way more
connected, maybe even to the oldworld, than we usually think.
The Olmecs came up again. Big mystery, right?
They just kind of appear fully formed around 1500 BCE, no
obvious lead up. We don't even know their real
(10:07):
name. Olmec is what the Aztecs called
them later. And the source material points
to hints of potential Old World contact.
DNA clues maybe? And the look of some figures
like on the El Negro monument, seeming African.
Yeah, that was mentioned, but the really striking 1 was the
Traveler Monument about 900 BC. Right, the guy with the flag
turban beard boots doesn't look typically American for that
(10:30):
time. And the glyphs interpreted as
saying he's a traveler. And the theory connects this to
Mediterranean sailors like Phoenicians, master sailors
around 900 BC. The idea being if their ship got
caught in the wrong Atlantic currents leaving Gibraltar.
It could theoretically carry them straight across the Gulf of
Mexico. Plausible mechanism at least.
But besides potential ocean crossings, there's strong
(10:51):
evidence for connections within the Americas, too.
Definitely the Nazca Lines in Peru came up.
Just the sheer scale, the planning, the details that.
Spider glyph being anatomically correct.
Yeah. And then similar stuff may be
younger, like the blue lines in California.
Geoglyphs again. And things like finding
Amazonian monkeys in zoos way upnear Mexico City at Tio 2 walk
(11:12):
in. Shows long distance travel trade
interaction between these ancient cultures much more
connected than isolated pockets.Something else that really
jumped out in this deep dive wasgetting into, well, the mind
mystery plant medicine. Oh yeah, the shamanic angle, the
where Jaguar motors. That human turning into a Jaguar
thing. Fangs, claws.
You see it big time in Olmec culture and also Shaveen
(11:35):
Dehontar in the Andes. And it's seen as solid evidence
for shamanism being central. There is even this interesting
theory floated about a potentialconflict.
Conflict between who? Between maybe a ruling class
symbolized by those giant Olmec heads and a shamanic class the
wear Jaguars. Like a power struggle.
Possibly maybe even shown physically by Jaguar claw marks
(11:59):
found on some non wear Jaguar statues.
The guest drew a parallel to other times ruler suppressed
mystical stuff. Right?
Like Rome shutting down the Elusinian mysteries.
Yeah. And there's direct evidence for
hallucinogens too, like those mushroom stones found in Almbek
areas. And the Shavindo Huntar case
study was powerful. Totally this coastal culture,
(12:20):
the Kalupe, not very artistic initially.
They move into the Andes. Interact with people from the
Amazon. And bam, suddenly they've got
complex art Wear Jaguar, religion, cool architecture,
pottery matching Amazon style. And the carved heads on their
temples face the Amazon. Yeah, pretty clear where the
influence came from. And the connection to
psychoactive plants like ayahuasca was made explicit.
(12:42):
Personal accounts of like seeingthrough Jaguar eyes.
Anthropological accounts of tribes saying the plants taught
us how to make the brew. Even Jaguars themselves eating
similar plants in the wild. And Terence Mckenna's idea came
up that psychedelics might tap into some kind of collective
consciousness or history tied tothe substance itself.
Explaining maybe why similar visions or symbols appear across
(13:05):
cultures or experiences. But the guests also talked about
resistance from some archaeologists to even
acknowledge this stuff. Right, the hallucinogen
influence. He kind of blamed modern biases.
Maybe the whole just say no thing from the 80s influencing
older academics. Making it hard for them to
square psychedelic use with the sophisticated cultures they
study. And the argument was, look, if
(13:26):
you've never experienced an altered state, even legally,
like with cannabis. How can you fully grasp how
ancient people might have seen the world, how they developed
their beliefs, their art? Exactly that experiential
understanding might be missing, leading to misinterpretations.
It's a compelling point. The conversation also hit on
something pretty sobering just how much knowledge has been
(13:47):
wiped out? Lost history.
Yeah, the Library of Alexandria burning.
The guest noted how that squaredspiral pattern kind of vanishes
from the Mediterranean record after that.
And the Maya codices being burned by Diego Dalonda.
Almost all of their written history gone.
He mentioned Aztec paper production later, just to give a
sense of the scale. How much written material
(14:10):
probably existed and was lost. Catastrophic.
So these events create huge blind spots for us.
But maybe something? Survived like symbols enduring
knowledge carriers even without the tests.
That was the idea. Like that squared spiral or
meander pattern. It's everywhere.
Greece. Egypt.
The Americas. And that 11,000 year old example
from Ukraine on Ivory Hamble? It's ancient.
(14:32):
And the guest's personal theory that the pattern is basically a
map of the Big Dipper flipping through the night sky.
Interesting interpretation. Visual Astronomy.
And the whole understanding of the procession of the equinoxes
came up too. That slow wobble of Earth's
axis? Yeah, Usually credited to
Aparkas, 2nd century BCE. But the possibility that earlier
cultures, maybe the Maya with their crazy long time
(14:54):
calculations, knew about it too.More lost knowledge.
Potentially very sophisticated astronomical understanding,
yeah. So wrapping this all up, what's
the take away from this deep dive into the source?
Well, a big one is just acknowledging how much we don't
know about the ancient world. Yeah, that our current picture
is definitely incomplete, probably wrong in places.
And the guest contrasted that, you know, humble reality with
(15:16):
what he saw as arrogance in someacademic gatekeeping, advocating
for more openness, more curiosity.
He argued that studying these mysteries isn't just, like, fun.
It matters, right? It challenges the standard
stories about human history, about our capabilities, gives
perspective. He even shared his own pet
theory that maybe the Amazon, with all this new evidence, was
(15:39):
the actual cradle of American civilization and religion
spreading outwards. Old idea.
But ultimately, the value of mystery itself, it keeps us
wondering, exploring. Fuels the fire.
Yeah. And if you want to check out the
guests work, it's under Luke Caverns.
So we've really covered a lot the whole gatekeeper versus
independent researcher thing. The amazing stuff Lidar is
(15:59):
uncovering. Those impossible megaliths.
The connections across the Americas, maybe even the oceans.
The huge role of plant medicine and shamanism often overlooked.
And just the sheer amount of history that's been lost or
destroyed. It really leaves you with the
sense of wonder, doesn't it, howmuch is still out there, how the
story keeps changing. Absolutely.
It's far from a closed book. So here's something to think
(16:20):
about, given how much history has been destroyed or is still
hidden, and you know, considering our own modern
biases might be clouding our view, what else about the
ancient world are we just fundamentally misunderstanding
or maybe missing completely? It's a powerful question to chew
on, especially as new finds keeppopping up.
(16:41):
Definitely something to think about.
Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Great to be back.
So today we're taking a deep dive into a recent conversation.
Specifically, it's episode hashtag 2328 of The Joe Rogan
Experience, featuring guest LukeCaverns.
Right, Luke Caverns. That was a fascinating 1.
Yeah, we're going to unpack thisreally wide-ranging discussion.
It touched on ancient mysteries,lost civilizations,
(00:23):
archaeological controversies. And some pretty unconventional
theories, definitely. Absolutely.
Our mission here, as always, is to kind of pull out the most
interesting insights, the surprising facts, the key
arguments from that material will be your guide to the
conversation. And we'll explore a bit of the
guests own journey too, right his path into uncovering what he
sees as like hidden history. Exactly.
(00:46):
Yeah, something really stood outfor me from this whole thing was
how it weaves together his personal story, historical
stuff, and then boom, modern tech challenging old ideas.
Yeah, it makes you think. Not just about what they found,
but like the different takes on why it matters.
And who gets to say what it means?
You know who interprets it? OK so let's start with the
guests path. Luke talks about how he got into
(01:07):
all this right? He mentions pretty openly not
being a top student. Said he had like a 1.7 GPA in
college at one point. Wow.
OK. But that passion for ancient
history that was sparked by his grandpa?
Apparently it was always there. So he eventually switched his
major to cultural anthropology, focused on the Amazon Lost
(01:28):
civilizations. That was his mock thesis topic.
And that kind of less than stellar academic start actually
pushed him towards something different, didn't it?
Going independent? Yeah, exactly.
Pursuing research outside the usual university system, he
found academia well, restrictive.
You talked about having trouble getting interesting ideas
approved right, especially for younger folks wanting to get out
(01:51):
in the field. Right.
He felt kind of shut down maybe by older academics who'd felt
the same way earlier on, you know, there'd be.
But he describes independent research as the sort of Wild
West. Yeah, I like that.
Description. It lets people just pull
together their own trips, document sites they find, get
local permission. Without needing the university
stamp of approval or like the funding asset or the.
(02:12):
PhD even, which he thought was going to be almost impossible
for him in that field anyway. It's just a different kind of
freedom to just go do it. Which really brings up that big
question running through the whole conversation, doesn't it?
Yeah. Like who's the real authority
here? Is it just the degree or does
that boots on the ground, passionate independent work
count just as much, maybe even more sometimes?
(02:34):
Yeah, the material definitely flags that tension big time, and
you can feel it. There's this tension discussed
between, let's say, mainstream archaeologists, the gatekeepers
as the source kind of frames them, and then the independent
researchers, popular figures like Graham Hancock, Jimmy
Corsetti, the guest himself. The guest, Luke, said he often
(02:55):
found the official explanations for big mysteries kind of
disappointing. Lacking death, maybe.
Yeah, or sometimes just aggressively dismissive of
anything alternative. That came through strong and he
gave examples, right, Like with Zahi Hawas in Egypt.
Right, the former big boss there, he mentioned Hawas
dismissing Robert Chose's work on the Sphinx.
The water erosion theory suggesting it's much older.
(03:17):
Exactly, and he also brought up Hawas seemingly not knowing
about Gobekli Tepe. Which is huge, That 12,000 year
old site in Turkey, it changes everything, right?
Or even ancient king lists like the Turin Papyrus that mentioned
rulers way way back. The guess was kind of like, how
can the guy in charge not know this basic stuff?
That's a fair question, I guess.Another one was the Italian
scientist scans near a pyramid suggesting something deep
(03:40):
underground. Oh yeah, the comography scans.
The guest argued the technique worked fine elsewhere at depth,
but maybe their initial artisticguesses about what was down
there kind of tanked the data's credibility with officials.
So the interpretation overshadowed the data itself.
That was his take, but the overall feeling he expressed was
this like general resistance from the mainstream to anything
(04:03):
pointing towards older, more advanced civilizations than the
books say. And it can get nasty apparently,
like mentioning Graham Hancock being called awful things.
Yeah, even a Nazi just for proposing different timelines.
That's extreme. But what's really shifting
things, according to the source,is the Internet platforms like
YouTube. The power shift, yeah.
(04:23):
Independent folks like Caverns, Corsetti, Hancock, they can
reach millions directly now. They don't need the traditional
gatekeepers, the journals, the media.
And that Direct Line, the guestsargued, is chipping away at the
public credibility of some traditional figures who maybe
look dismissive or out of touch on shows like Rogans.
Right. The idea presented is that the
(04:44):
gatekeepers resist, partly because these independents are
outside the academic funding game and are just really good at
talking to regular people. So it's framed as this clash of
approaches, humility versus maybe arrogance in defending the
old ways. Something like that.
A contrast between just following the evidence and
rigidly sticking to the established story.
OK, so let's shift from the academic fights to the actual
(05:07):
dirt, the discoveries, hidden worlds.
Yeah, the Amazon was a big focus.
Percy Fawcett, right, early 20thcentury, looking for lost
cities. The City of Gold.
El Dorado, Yeah. And Fawcett had this view,
really unusual for his time, that the Indigenous people
weren't primitive savages. He saw them as descendants of
something sophisticated, maybe fallen based on their language.
(05:29):
Village layouts, Yeah. And you found stuff too.
Sophisticated Pottery, stone vessels, sculptures.
In that weird Blackstone object he couldn't identify now lost
apparently. Yeah, intriguing.
And his last message right from Dead Horse Camp, May 1925 before
heading into the Xingu region. And then vanished.
(05:49):
But the crazy thing is how modern tech is kind of proving
him right posthumously. Totally leadar.
It's been revolutionary just in the last decade.
Being through the jungle canopy with lasers, it's incredible.
And it's revealed these massive Amazonian cities nobody knew
were there, like Kirikuyu estimated million people.
Size of ancient Rome, they said.With huge raised platforms,
(06:11):
miles long highways, all totallyhidden by the jungle.
Invisible from the ground, you'dwalk right over.
It and the Lidar data actually confirms spots where Fawcett had
privately guessed cities Might be he was onto something.
Makes you wonder what else is under there, or, you know, under
other dense environments. Like the Sahara that came up
too. Right, another potential spot
for a lost pre Ice Age civilization.
(06:32):
Because 10,000 plus years ago itwasn't desert, it was green
lakes. Rivers, an Oasis, perfect place
for societies to develop, just like the Nile Valley later on.
Speaking of big stuff, the mystery of moving huge stones
that came up a lot. It's.
A classic right Egypt. Baalbek in Lebanon.
Those stones at Baalbek are justinsane.
(06:54):
Some of the biggest cut blocks anywhere.
And the Olmec heads in Mexico? Yeah, the Olmec heads, that's a
real head scratcher. The salt heads sum up to 52
tons. Moves like 90 kilometers over
tough terrain. And the conversation pointed
out, yeah, experiments show basic rafts sync with maybe 5
tons. The smallest Olmec head is 6
tons. Yeah.
So how, just how do they do it? No good conventional.
(07:16):
Answer. Then you jump to Peru, the
Andes, that incredible stone fitting Inca stuff.
Stone. It looks almost melted molded
together. Yeah, fitting super tight at
these impossible angles like that famous 12 sided stone in
Cusco. And Doctor Ed Barnhart's theory
was mentioned. Right, that they might have used
acids from the Atacama Desert tosoften the stone surfaces.
(07:37):
Allowing them to kind of squish them together before they
hardened again. Wild theory, but there's some
interesting backup, right? The earthquakes in Cusco.
Exactly big ones. In 16501950, the Spanish
buildings on top collapsed. But the Inca foundations
underneath still standing, perfectly fitted, stable.
Pretty compelling evidence for something unusual going on with
(07:59):
that stonework. The conversation also gave a nod
to Christopher Dunn's idea aboutthe Great Pyramid.
The power plant theory. Hydrogen production, Yeah.
The guest wasn't claiming expertise there, but found it
fascinating just exploring potential function beyond just
tombs. You know, looking for ancient
tech? Which kind of leads into what's
under the surface and using modern scans.
(08:20):
Right, the scanning projects in Egypt, Muon tomography and
stuff. There was that drama with the
Italian scientist scans suggesting something maybe 2
kilometers deep. Yeah, the goodest felt.
Maybe their artistic renderings got a bit ahead of the raw data,
causing some backlash. But the Scan Pyramids project
did find something concrete, didn't they?
Oh yeah, that big void above theGrand Gallery in the Great
(08:43):
Pyramid. Undeniable.
Described as like what size of 2semi trucks or the grand gallery
itself again? Something like that.
Huge and totally unknown before.So naturally everyone's asking
what's in there. The guests mentioned hearing an
Egyptian Egyptologist suggest itmight be Kufer's actual burial
chamber. The real one with the others is
(09:04):
decoys. That was the speculation.
Who knows? But a point that kept coming up
was how long it takes for this info to get out the delays.
Yeah, the guest shared his own story about visiting tunnels
under Cusco near Sacsaywaman. Before they were officially
announced last year. Exactly.
And he mentioned Tutmos's tomb discovery being known internally
(09:24):
for months before the big reveal.
Interesting. He even told this anecdote about
an Egyptian archaeologist pulling out their phone and
showing him an unpublished photoof what an interior chamber in
the Great Pyramid he'd never seen published anywhere.
Wow, so there's stuff known, just not shared widely yet?
Seems like it. It really makes you wonder how
much is held back or just slow to come out.
(09:45):
OK, staying with hidden things and surprises, let's jump across
the Atlantic again. The Americas.
Yeah, the idea that these continents were way more
connected, maybe even to the oldworld, than we usually think.
The Olmecs came up again. Big mystery, right?
They just kind of appear fully formed around 1500 BCE, no
obvious lead up. We don't even know their real
(10:07):
name. Olmec is what the Aztecs called
them later. And the source material points
to hints of potential Old World contact.
DNA clues maybe? And the look of some figures
like on the El Negro monument, seeming African.
Yeah, that was mentioned, but the really striking 1 was the
Traveler Monument about 900 BC. Right, the guy with the flag
turban beard boots doesn't look typically American for that
(10:30):
time. And the glyphs interpreted as
saying he's a traveler. And the theory connects this to
Mediterranean sailors like Phoenicians, master sailors
around 900 BC. The idea being if their ship got
caught in the wrong Atlantic currents leaving Gibraltar.
It could theoretically carry them straight across the Gulf of
Mexico. Plausible mechanism at least.
But besides potential ocean crossings, there's strong
(10:51):
evidence for connections within the Americas, too.
Definitely the Nazca Lines in Peru came up.
Just the sheer scale, the planning, the details that.
Spider glyph being anatomically correct.
Yeah. And then similar stuff may be
younger, like the blue lines in California.
Geoglyphs again. And things like finding
Amazonian monkeys in zoos way upnear Mexico City at Tio 2 walk
(11:12):
in. Shows long distance travel trade
interaction between these ancient cultures much more
connected than isolated pockets.Something else that really
jumped out in this deep dive wasgetting into, well, the mind
mystery plant medicine. Oh yeah, the shamanic angle, the
where Jaguar motors. That human turning into a Jaguar
thing. Fangs, claws.
You see it big time in Olmec culture and also Shaveen
(11:35):
Dehontar in the Andes. And it's seen as solid evidence
for shamanism being central. There is even this interesting
theory floated about a potentialconflict.
Conflict between who? Between maybe a ruling class
symbolized by those giant Olmec heads and a shamanic class the
wear Jaguars. Like a power struggle.
Possibly maybe even shown physically by Jaguar claw marks
(11:59):
found on some non wear Jaguar statues.
The guest drew a parallel to other times ruler suppressed
mystical stuff. Right?
Like Rome shutting down the Elusinian mysteries.
Yeah. And there's direct evidence for
hallucinogens too, like those mushroom stones found in Almbek
areas. And the Shavindo Huntar case
study was powerful. Totally this coastal culture,
(12:20):
the Kalupe, not very artistic initially.
They move into the Andes. Interact with people from the
Amazon. And bam, suddenly they've got
complex art Wear Jaguar, religion, cool architecture,
pottery matching Amazon style. And the carved heads on their
temples face the Amazon. Yeah, pretty clear where the
influence came from. And the connection to
psychoactive plants like ayahuasca was made explicit.
(12:42):
Personal accounts of like seeingthrough Jaguar eyes.
Anthropological accounts of tribes saying the plants taught
us how to make the brew. Even Jaguars themselves eating
similar plants in the wild. And Terence Mckenna's idea came
up that psychedelics might tap into some kind of collective
consciousness or history tied tothe substance itself.
Explaining maybe why similar visions or symbols appear across
(13:05):
cultures or experiences. But the guests also talked about
resistance from some archaeologists to even
acknowledge this stuff. Right, the hallucinogen
influence. He kind of blamed modern biases.
Maybe the whole just say no thing from the 80s influencing
older academics. Making it hard for them to
square psychedelic use with the sophisticated cultures they
study. And the argument was, look, if
(13:26):
you've never experienced an altered state, even legally,
like with cannabis. How can you fully grasp how
ancient people might have seen the world, how they developed
their beliefs, their art? Exactly that experiential
understanding might be missing, leading to misinterpretations.
It's a compelling point. The conversation also hit on
something pretty sobering just how much knowledge has been
(13:47):
wiped out? Lost history.
Yeah, the Library of Alexandria burning.
The guest noted how that squaredspiral pattern kind of vanishes
from the Mediterranean record after that.
And the Maya codices being burned by Diego Dalonda.
Almost all of their written history gone.
He mentioned Aztec paper production later, just to give a
sense of the scale. How much written material
(14:10):
probably existed and was lost. Catastrophic.
So these events create huge blind spots for us.
But maybe something? Survived like symbols enduring
knowledge carriers even without the tests.
That was the idea. Like that squared spiral or
meander pattern. It's everywhere.
Greece. Egypt.
The Americas. And that 11,000 year old example
from Ukraine on Ivory Hamble? It's ancient.
(14:32):
And the guest's personal theory that the pattern is basically a
map of the Big Dipper flipping through the night sky.
Interesting interpretation. Visual Astronomy.
And the whole understanding of the procession of the equinoxes
came up too. That slow wobble of Earth's
axis? Yeah, Usually credited to
Aparkas, 2nd century BCE. But the possibility that earlier
cultures, maybe the Maya with their crazy long time
(14:54):
calculations, knew about it too.More lost knowledge.
Potentially very sophisticated astronomical understanding,
yeah. So wrapping this all up, what's
the take away from this deep dive into the source?
Well, a big one is just acknowledging how much we don't
know about the ancient world. Yeah, that our current picture
is definitely incomplete, probably wrong in places.
And the guest contrasted that, you know, humble reality with
(15:16):
what he saw as arrogance in someacademic gatekeeping, advocating
for more openness, more curiosity.
He argued that studying these mysteries isn't just, like, fun.
It matters, right? It challenges the standard
stories about human history, about our capabilities, gives
perspective. He even shared his own pet
theory that maybe the Amazon, with all this new evidence, was
(15:39):
the actual cradle of American civilization and religion
spreading outwards. Old idea.
But ultimately, the value of mystery itself, it keeps us
wondering, exploring. Fuels the fire.
Yeah. And if you want to check out the
guests work, it's under Luke Caverns.
So we've really covered a lot the whole gatekeeper versus
independent researcher thing. The amazing stuff Lidar is
(15:59):
uncovering. Those impossible megaliths.
The connections across the Americas, maybe even the oceans.
The huge role of plant medicine and shamanism often overlooked.
And just the sheer amount of history that's been lost or
destroyed. It really leaves you with the
sense of wonder, doesn't it, howmuch is still out there, how the
story keeps changing. Absolutely.
It's far from a closed book. So here's something to think
(16:20):
about, given how much history has been destroyed or is still
hidden, and you know, considering our own modern
biases might be clouding our view, what else about the
ancient world are we just fundamentally misunderstanding
or maybe missing completely? It's a powerful question to chew
on, especially as new finds keeppopping up.
(16:41):
Definitely something to think about.
Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
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