Voyages of the Pyramid Builders
Live on 21st Century Radio, February 2, 2003 from 7-9 PM

Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians, early Buddhists, the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbus Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures?

Scientist and tenured university professor Robert M. Schoch -- one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the Great Sphinx -- believes otherwise. In this dramatic and meticulously reasoned book, Schoch argues that ancient cultures traveled great distances by sea. Indeed, he maintains that primeval sailors traveled from the eastern continent, primarily Southeast Asia, and spread the idea of pyramids across the Earth, involving the human species in a far greater degree of contact and exchange than experts have previously thought possible.

Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids from lost Egypt to Ancient America, with Robert Schoch, this Sunday night at 7 on 21st Century Radio, on Talk Radio 680 WCBM!

Click here to listen live (7pm EST Feb. 2, 2003).

Click here to listen to the archived show after February 7, 2003.

Order Voyages of the Pyramid Builders from amazon.com.

Visit Robert Schoch's Website: http://www.robertschoch.homestead.com

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Voyages of the Pyramid Builders:
The True Origins of the Pyramids From Lost Egypt to Ancient America

A startling and dramatic new view of our ancient past ...

By Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.

We associate pyramids with ancient Egypt. But pyramids are not uniquely Egyptian -- and therein lies a great mystery.

Pyramids and pyramid-like structures can be found all over the globe, built by cultures that span vast distances of geography and time. They appear in the ancient African kingdom of Kush, along the Nile ... in Mesopotamia and Sumeria ... in England and Ireland ... in India and throughout Southeast Asia ... in ancient China ... in Peru's coastal and Andean regions ... in the ancient Olmec and Mayan realms of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador ... in pre-Columbian Illinois... and elsewhere.

How can it be that a form as distinctive as the pyramid was built in such widely separated locales? Was it merely coincidence? Or was there another force at work?

In "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America" (a Tarcher/Putnam hardcover, 2003, $24.95 U.S./$37.50 Canada), Boston University professor Robert M. Schoch -- one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the Great Sphinx -- suggests that there was, indeed, another force at work.

In his eye-opening new book, Dr. Schoch argues that these far-flung pyramids share a common ancestor long lost to history: a primordial pyramid-building civilization that once navigated the seas and spread its way of life around the globe.

Meticulously researched and dramatically written, "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" lays out, step by step, a fascinating new theory of how the Old World and the New World met:

*Evidence that the Egyptian pyramids at Giza (or portions of them) and certain associated structures were built earlier than conventionally believed

*The significance of the striking similarities between pyramid cultures in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, despite the long distances of land and sea between

*The rituals, beliefs, and stories that underlie the pyramids

*How ancient peoples emigrated from the Old World into the New World

*How pyramid builders entered the New World from the west and influenced the rising civilizations of Central and South America

*How the pyramid builders sailed

*A theory that ancient peoples may have migrated across vast distances in response to catastrophic encounters with comets

*The possible existence of a lost pyramid-building civilization in the period before 3,500 B.C., the generally accepted date for humankind's earliest taste of civilization

*What it means to know that the high civilizations of our planet may have been interconnected for much longer than we imagined.

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" also includes a special appendix, "Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza," in which Dr. Schoch provides his most recent and persuasive evidence that the Sphinx is much older than we think.

For anyone who is interested in ancient Egypt, past cultures, prehistory, early migrations, paradigm shifts, and the origins of civilization, "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" is a groundbreaking reinterpretation of how we understand our ancient past.

Robert M. Schoch, a full-time faculty member at the College of General Studies at Boston University since 1984, earned his Ph.D. in geology and geophysics at Yale University. Dr. Schoch has been quoted extensively in the media for his work on the Sphinx, and he was featured on the Emmy-winning documentary "The Mystery of the Sphinx," hosted by Charlton Heston.

Robert Aquinas McNally is a writer and poet whose early education in classical Latin blossomed into a lifelong fascination with ancient civilization and mythology.

Voyages of the Pyramid Builders
By Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.,
with Robert Aquinas McNally
A Tarcher/Putnam hardcover
xii + 338 pages (includes bibliography and index)
Illustrated with a 16-page color photo insert
Copyright 2003
ISBN: 1-58542-203-7
$24.95 U.S./$37.50 Canada
In the U.S., call Penguin Putnam toll-free: (800) 788-6262

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online retailers

(For jpegs of the front and back jacket of "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders," contact Robert Schoch at: schoch@bu.edu or Rmschoch@aol.com)

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Kirkus Reviews [from http://barnesandnoble.com/]

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" by Robert M. Schoch with Robert Aquinas McNally (Tarcher/Putnam, 2003)

With an assist from Robert Aquinas McNally, his coauthor for "Voices of the Rocks" (1999), but using the first person throughout, Schoch again asserts that the conventional view about the rise of civilization is both untimely and wrong. As before, Schoch (Mathematics and Science/Boston Univ.) also works initially from the Sphinx at Giza with its accompanying pyramids and other structures, citing rock types and weathering effects he interprets as proof that the great stone beast is up to 3.5 millennia older than most Egyptologists believe. Thus it predates the Mesopotamian civilization that according to academia predated the Egyptian. Schoch immediately proffers the notion that ancient pyramids -- similar, not identical, to those built by the Sphinx-builders -- are found in every continent on the globe except Australia and Antarctica. Some readers may sense the stuff of Sunday comics to follow, but the professor does not stoop. His case for the existence of prehistoric cultured societies with both the inclination and capability to spread their influence and hallmarks around the globe, including the Americas, is carefully crafted. Artifacts like Roman masons' marks found on Mesoamerican stonework, cultural "coincidences" (e.g., both the Aztecs and ancient Chinese looked at the moon and saw a rabbit, not a man's face), and even Old World plants and animals (mummified dogs in Peru resembling those of Egypt) have all been scientifically shown to predate the "first contact" voyages of Columbus. The presentation of this material is as entertaining as science-writing gets, and Schoch doesn't shrink from debunking spurious "facts," whether they support his case or not. As for ocean barriers, the 20th-century rafting and reed-boat adventures of, respectively, Kon-Tiki and Ra speak for themselves, he says. His theory that huge astronomical disasters like comets or meteor strikes provided the incentive for ancient mass migrations comes, however, as an extended anticlimax. Gee-whiz industriously wrapped in solid science.

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Publishers Weekly [from http://amazon.com]

"Voyages of the Pyramid Builders" by Robert M. Schoch with Robert Aquinas McNally (Tarcher/Putnam, 2003)

The great pyramids of Egypt provide a wonderful glimpse of the artistry, skill and imagination of the ancient world. But pyramids can be found in India, China, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Ireland. In this provocative book, geologist Schoch (noted for his work in redating the Sphinx, which was recounted in his "Voices of the Rocks") wonders how so many diverse cultures built such similar structures with similar purposes. Using geological, linguistic and geographical evidence, he contends that a protocivilization of pyramid-building peoples was driven out of its homeland, the Sundaland, which geologists believe connected Southeast Asia with Indonesia, by a rise in sea level caused by comet activity between 6000 and 4000 B.C. Fleeing their homeland, these peoples took their knowledge of pyramid building with them into Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Peru. Schoch hypothesizes that the pyramids were built to reach into the skies and to penetrate the mystery of the heavens, source of catastrophe. Schoch also asserts that the pyramids point to unity and symbolize the deep concerns shared by all humans. Schoch builds his engrossing case on geological details of the pyramid sites he has examined around the world. In the end, however, even he admits his evidence of a Sundaland protocivilization is speculative. As controversial as this book is bound to be, Schoch's evocation of the pyramids forcefully reminds us of their enduring power as monuments to the spirit of human creativity. 16 pages of color photos not seen by PW. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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