Writing, Megaliths, and the Silence of the Past

by Robert Arvay

This commentary raises questions about the origins of writing, and relates them to the mysteries surrounding ancient megalithic and Egyptian civilizations. It makes forays into speculative but important theories disparaged by many (but not all) accredited scholars.

According to conventional historians, writing was invented about six thousand years ago by an ancient civilization known as the Sumerian.  It seems to have been developed abruptly, perhaps within a single generation.  It is as if, one day there was no written language; the next day, there was.  Thereafter, the ability to write, and to read, spread far and wide, enabling civilizations around the world to flourish.

There are a few problems with that theory.  Two distinct kinds of writing existed about five to six thousand years ago.  One of them is the phonogram, which is the kind I am using to write this.  The other is the pictogram, or picture-writing, used by the Chinese, but is also evident in hieroglyphic forms, used by the ancient Egyptians and by pre-Columbian Americans.  One would logically think that the pictogram came first, followed in stages by a transition to the phonetic.  That does not seem to have happened.  In neither type of written cultures do we see such a transition.  It’s one or the other, not both. It is as if both methods of writing developed independently of each other, and at the same time.

There is a bigger issue as well.  It is difficult to imagine a complex technologic culture that has no system of writing.  Specifically, prehistoric megalithic cultures produced sophisticated structures that required the carving, movement and placement of massive stones (megalithic means big rock, an understatement), but with no evidence of written plans, methods or instructions. Most of these constructions do seem to be rather primitive, such as at Stonehenge and Göbeklitepe, but nevertheless, they required sophisticated coordination among many laborers for extended periods of time.  Logistical preparations and support were surely needed throughout the process.  In addition, the builders displayed an impressive knowledge of astronomy.  Yet, not so much as a crude diagram of all that, exists today.

The mystery deepens in Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians did have a complex written language (in the form of hieroglyphics), as well as various other methods of communicating ideas, such as sculptures and wall paintings.  It seems no mystery, then, that they could have planned and executed the vastly complex project of building the pyramids.  Of special note is the Great Pyramid, which is exponentially more complex than any of the others.  Very well, we might say, all of this is explained by the written word. 

Except that no such record exists, but for a few that may not be relevant at all to the planning and construction methods of the Great Pyramid.  Those records could be of some related, or entirely different project.

If that were the end of it, we might easily look to those written accounting records, and an illustration of how boulders might have been moved across wetted sand, and call it case closed, putting paid to the entire matter.  But that is not the end of it, not by far.

The ancient Egyptians were meticulous about recording their great military battle of Kadesh, or at least their political version of it.  The point is, that battle was a key moment of their history, and it was important enough for them to write and preserve a chronicle of it.  After all, they had the tool of writing, and they put it to use.

The building of the Great Pyramid was surely a matter of unprecedented importance for them.  Politically, spiritually, engineering-wise, mathematically, astronomically and economically, the ten or more years that it took to accomplish the wondrous feat must surely have been celebrated as no other before or since. 

Books must have been written, songs composed and sung, plays acted out on stage, and tales passed on for generations.  The engineers, the mathematicians and astronomers must assuredly have recorded it all.

So where are those written records?  Where are the diagrams, the schedules, the field reports, the land surveys, and any of the myriad written charts, tablets and scrolls which would have been necessary to such an undertaking? 

To be sure, one can concoct a theory or two to explain the absence of evidence.  A royal edict could have required that they all be hidden away in a vault, or even destroyed.  The ravages of time might have corroded all traces of recordings.

Or, according to a controversial theory, the ancient Egyptians did not build the pyramids--they found them, remnants of a long-ago vanished technological culture which left behind the many and various artefacts that could not possibly have been manufactured with the tools available to the pharaohs.

Which is the more plausible theory?  Which better fits the known facts?

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