Civilization One: The World Is Not as You Thought it Was

by Christopher Knight, Alan Butler

This is the extraordinary story of how the quest to try to crack the mystery of the Megalithic Yard - an ancient unit of linear measurement - led to the discovery of compelling evidence pointing to the existence of an unknown, highly advanced culture which was the precursor to the earliest known civilizations such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians. There must have been a Civilization One. The authors show how this very precise unit of 82.966656cm, proven to have been used in the construction of thousands of megalithic structures in Britain and France, was derived from observing the rate of the spin of the Earth - based on a form of geometry that had 366 degrees to match the 366 rotations of the Earth in a year. They reveal how this is part of an integrated system, far more advanced than anything used today, which forms the basis of both the Imperial and the Metric systems. The ancient scientists understood the dimensions, motions and relationships of the Earth, Moon and Sun - they measured the solar system and even understood how the speed of light was integrated into the movements of our planet. The implications of these revelations go far beyond the fascination of discovering

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Science, Alternate History, Archaeology, Conspiracy Theories

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Christopher Knight is an author who has written several books dealing with pseudoscientific conspiracy theories such as 366-degree geometry and the origins of Freemasonry.
In an interview about the book Who Built the Moon?: 2005 Knight stated that the moon is an artificial construction probably built by humans with a message in "base ten arithmetic so it looks as though it is directed to a ten digit species that is living on Earth right now - which seems to mean humans." He believes that it was created to make life on Earth possible, including humans, and that the most likely builders were humans of the future using time travel.

Reviews

[Susie · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was poorly written, poorly researched, and full of mistakes. As a scientist, I can say that several statements made were completely wrong. The supposed precision of their measurements makes no sense and their understanding of uncertainty in measurements is seriously lacking. Also, the authors made the common mistake of assuming that something is related, making calculations based on the assumption, and then being surprised and amazed to see a relationship coming out of the calculations. Of course the relationship is there...you put it there to begin with!

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a very interesting read, and particularly the math in the first half was very convincing.

I think it was right that the author flirted with the "external teachers" theory without just declaring "aliens", but like many books on esoteric science without much in the way of peer review, it drifted around and got lost at the end.

They spend some time lamenting how mainstream science and archaeology won't ever agree with them because the system is flawed, but they just need to inspire popular interest for popular research to follow. Unfortunately, this book won't fly off the shelves because:

1) They drift around a lot of ideas - clearly trying to make the argument seem more persuasive by making the evidence more empirical, but ultimately diluting the argument with trivia. They need to stick to their strongest points because clutching for every hint of the Megalithic numbers makes it look weaker.

2) Concluding the book by outright declaring they'd found evidence of God was a complete turn-off. Readers can make their own theories and speculate on where the evidence leads, and I think the authors should focus on the practical possibilities without the bias.

I'm rating the book rather than the theory, which is why the score is lower. It really is worth a read, but don't expect the second half of the book to rock your world.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Numbers games, November 3, 2009


A most disappointing book. The authors theorize about possible relationships between various planetary and solar system dimensions and the 'megalithic yard' which appears to have been used to lay out various neolithic monuments. They offer no tangible evidence to support the thesis that this measure is evidence of a prehistoric super-civilization. While there is lots of relevant archaeological evidence, this book does not discuss that evidence nor provide more than an interesting conjecture about possible numerical links. A waste of time.

[Jennifer Linsky · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I am willing to be convinced that there was an ice age civilization which passed knowledge of stoneworking techniques and so on down to successor civilizations, this book does little to support the argument. It's like unto a philosopher who says, "let's imagine a world where..." and then proceeds to try producing observations about the real world from this imaginary data set.

Graham Hancock makes better arguments.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book is very interesting and presents some new ideas that I haven't seen presented anywhere else before. I am by no means an engineer, nor am I particularly good at math, but I was able to comprehend the maths that were presented, it was simple and easy to understand and as far as i can tell should all be easily verifiable by people trained in engineering, surveying, and also probably astronomy.

I know that isn't very helpful for the average reader but it is important because of what the second half of the book ends up being like. The authors start wandering into realms of speculation with little or no connection to the evidence presented earlier in the volume.

I gave the book three stars because I think there are some interesting ideas with real merit that deserve some honest review by archeologists, historians, and engineers. Unfortunately the end of the book was a let down for me. I don't know if the authors wanted to say that they think aliens or angels or whatever taught us how to do the things that are proposed but they may as well have gone ahead rather than beating around the bush.

[Tom Kenis · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is no way to easily explain the relationship between the modern meter, imperial units and the circumference of the planet earth, or how a supposedly primitive society knew and used knowledge of the shape and size of our world to establish a uniform measurement system, one seemingly shared by the Minoan culture, Sumer, the old Indus valley culture, and pre-modern Japan.
A true eye-opener albeit one written in a manner conducive to shuteye syndrome.
There must be a better way to write about this astonishing topic. For masochists only.

[Gwen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started out interesting, but went downhill fast when the authors kept exclaiming every other page how unbelievable everything they found was, and that while it could have been a coincidence it was obviously not the case. Also the point where the book went from scientific facts to ascribing it all to God was not really my favourite part.

[Chris Stevens · Rating 1 out of 5]

The problem with the book is NOT the investigation of the subject matter, nor the subject matter itself which I shall come to in a moment- but rather it is the quality of the authorship. Graham Hancock would have written this book so brilliantly it would have by now been made into a film. Unfortunately, the authors have fallen into the trap of solving a very real mystery before revealing any real evidence of one.
In addition, their level of historicity is Wikipaedian in style and shallowness, which puts the authors to shame. Unfortunately, this sense is amateurish ness makes one wonder if the rest of the very real interesting stuff is likewise made up from the vestiges of Hancocks waste paper bin. Which is a shame. To misquote Schiller " this sounds so stupid it must be true" , might be applied to the basic hypothesis of the authors, namely that the weights and measures we use today are related to those used during the neolithic period, and that such neolithic measurements show evidence of knowledge of the earth's circumference is really too interesting to have been left to these Wikipaedophiliac authors to explore. I, personally, agree with those who say the book is unreadable. Wheres Graham Hancock when you need him?

[Claudia · Rating 1 out of 5]

As stated earlier, I found this book extremely difficult to read.

The initial start regarding the "Wall of History" and everything that occurs before or after the creation of writing made it sound all the more interesting. Then was the introduction of what the authors and initial researchers called the Megalithic Rods, Megalithic inches and Megalithic yards which are measurements supposedly used throughout prehistory in the construction of megalithic structures like Stonehenge.

Then there are short visits to ancient civilizations and their forms of measurements in lengths and volume and how they compare to the Megalithic ones. And the imperial weights and measures... And astronomic distances and the use of Venus....

Seriously, I've read books on cosmology and astrophysics that were easier to understand and didn't have to repeatedly go back to the Megalithic measurements and how this progenitor culture is the basis of all measurements.

Admittedly, the authors could be right but their book just didn't manage to convince me.

[Frobisher Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book, Knight and Butler have made some interesting discoveries. There interpretations and conjectures, however, are pretty weak. I suppose they wanted to stay roughly within scientific consensus with this book; however, its not that any "scientist" is going to pay attention to it anyway, so it seems like a lost opportunity to create a stronger thesis than "the megalithic yard is real." I understand that their research is ongoing, its just a shame because the material in this book would work much better as a scholarly article, but who would publish it? Alternative research is always going to suffer in this manner I think, until the community coalesces in such a way so that alternative scholarly journals can exist and thrive. My advice is to read Knight and Butler's latest works as this one is more of a stepping stone than a monograph.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting stuff. it's a book about the history of civilizations told from the standpoint that there's a single common measurement, such as a yardstick, that shows up in the engineering and building of widely separated totally isolated and divergent peoples. this yardstick, all these peoples had in common and indeed many of the systems of measurement we use today are derived from it, yet these civilizations lived thousands of miles from other with no way to communicate and no knowledge of the other's existence.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The attempt to bring to light the original civilization by an examination of the Megalithic Yard.

Those interested in fringe theories and alt history will find this one interesting, but, in the end, the arguments fails to convince.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

[John Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this immediately. That's all.

[Valiant Thor · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and important book whose findings are solid and profound. It's a testament to the quality of the writing that the pages of a book about ancient weights and measures flew by.

[Justyna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Playing with numbers - level elementary school. Boring, so cannot even read as fiction.

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

uper-cultura

A existat o cultură super-avansată în preistorie? Dacă nu, atunci cum se face că oamenii presupus înapoiaţi ai Insulelor Britanice din Epoca Pietrei aveau un sistem de măsurare integrat, bazat pe o profundă înţelegere a sistemului solar?

Istoria „oficială” a evoluţiei societăţii umane de la vânătorul-culegător la locuitorii oraşului pare confortabilă şi previzibilă. Toate dovezile disponibile au sprijinit imaginea convenţională a unei evoluţii calme, datorată în mare parte ingeniozităţii oamenilor ce trăiau în Orientul Mijlociu. Dar apoi, după câteva decenii, un eminent profesor inginer, Alexander Thom, a deranjat lumea arheologiei făcând o afirmaţie surprinzătoare. El a susţinut că structurile rămase din Epoca Târzie a Pietrei (Neolitic) au fost ridicate folosindu-se o unitate standard de măsurare, extrem de precisă. Ideea că aceşti oameni simpli din preistorie puteau atinge o asemenea precizie a întrecut viziunea asupra lumii a majorităţii arheologilor. Cum era de aşteptat, descoperirile lui Thom au fost respinse de aproape toţi cercetătorii.

Profesorul Thom şi-a numit unitatea de măsură descoperită „yardul megalitic”, dar a murit (în 1985) fără să fie vreodată capabil a explica cum oamenii din Neolitic, aproape cu 3.500 de ani înainte de Christos, au fost capabili să descopere o asemenea unitate de măsură sau cum o puteau reproduce consecvent cu o asemenea precizie incredibilă.

Chiar şi astăzi există multe zeci de mii din aceste construcţii megalitice răspândite prin Insulele Britanice şi în vestul Europei continentale. Scopul nostru iniţial a fost simplu: doream să aflăm dacă Thom într-adevăr descoperise o unitate de măsură preistorică sau dacă fusese indus în eroare de imensa cantitate de informaţii strânse din cercetarea siturilor arheologice răspândite din insulele din nordul Scoţiei până în Bretania (peninsula Bretagne), pe coasta de vest a Franţei. Am judecat că, dacă yardul megalitic al lui Thom ar fi imaginar, ar trebui să nu aibă valoare (nu s-ar putea verifica în teren), dar dacă ar fi într-adevăr o unitate de măsură neolitică ingenioasă, ar trebui să aibă o realitate fizică dincolo de ea şi un fel de mijloace ştiinţifice de reproducere.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rather impressive investigation into the nature of the Megalithic Yard, Minoan foot and things like that: the measures that were the basis of the precise measurements seemingly used to construct the prehistoric sites which presumably were used by the prehistoric austronomers to go about their business.

I love how refreshing this sounds:
Q: ... it was implicit that the Neolithic peoples of western Europe had measured and understood the polar circumference of the Earth. At first view this may sound far-fetched – but it is not. In our opinion it is not unreasonable to assume that the astronomer-priests of this period did indeed achieve this feat. Few, if any, experts deny that many Megalithic sites were created for sky watching. Any culture that spent dozens of centuries studying the interplay of solar, lunar and stellar movements must surely have come to understand that the Earth is a giant ball. In the process it could quite readily have gained sufficient knowledge to gauge the Earth’s size.

Given that the human brain has enjoyed its current level of intellectual processing power for tens of thousands of years, it has to be acknowledged that prehistory must have had its share of individuals with the imagination and insight of Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. It is not outlandish, therefore, to assume that the Megalithic builders would have established the true nature of the Earth, including measuring its dimensions using simple observational astronomy. Indeed, the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes is said to have single-handedly calculated the polar circumference of the Earth in 250 BC to an accuracy of 99 per cent without the considerable benefit of thousands of years of concentrated observational astronomy known to have been conducted by the people who built such sites as Stonehenge in England. (c)
Actually yes, why are we so intent on painting our ancestors as dumb? They were anything but.

Q:
This ‘wall’ effect actually says a great deal more about current thinking than it does about the people who occupied our world before history began. Being human, we tend to view ourselves, and our society, as being somehow definitive – the measure of ‘rightness’ by which to gauge others. (c)

Q:
The so-called cuneiform (from the Latin cuneus meaning ‘wedge’) characters developed by the Sumerians were made by pressing wedge-shaped sticks into wet clay. These Sumerian tablets may look rather unimpressive to us today but these ‘talking’ patterns were thought to have powerful magic by ordinary people. At first, the content of these documents was very basic, but as time went by improvements added layers of sophistication until around 800 BC when the Greeks created a full alphabetic writing system that finally separated consonants from vowels. The period immediately before these early records were left by the Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians has become a virtual wall, separating what we call ‘history’ from everything that happened before – which we label ‘pre-history’. (c)

[Nuno Lourenço · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fiz questão de ler este livro até ao fim. Pela forma como está escrito mereceria apenas 1 estrela.

Pelo assunto poderia merecer muitas mais. O tema não é desinteressante, longe disso. Não custa acreditar que antes da civilização suméria possa ter existido um sistema de medição cujos registos se tenham perdido (ou que não tenham ainda sido encontrados). Não me espantaria que esses conhecimentos tivessem sido transmitidos através de ensinamentos e rituais entre gerações (a associação da ciência ao divino deveria ser comum, olhemos o "recente" Pitágoras) e que, ao longo do tempo, se fossem transformando noutras. Tal como não me espantaria que a transmissão desse conhecimento estivesse de alguma forma ligada ao desenvolvimento de grupos fechados (escolas?) que estado na origem de organizações para proteção do conhecimento e influencia social como a maçonaria (no que ela contém de "guarda" de conhecimentos ligados à construção e, claro, de prepeonderância social).

No entanto a orientação tomada ao longo do livro toma como certas premissas e calculos que, à falta de melhor prova, dificilmente se enquadram numa "civilização" de parcos recursos e, sobretudo, sem escrita. O que resta é bastante ressentimento face à "academia" e uma concepção baseada na hipótese de uma civilização superior (divina ou semi-divina?) ter espalhado "a palavra".

O tema fica à espera de muitos melhores dias.

[Neil Wilkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is simply astounding in oh, so many different ways that a review here will barely be able to do justice to. The starting premise was a very simple sounding one - was Alexander Thom correct when he stated that Neolithic People used a standardized system of measurement he called 'The Megalithic Yard', or was he overwhelmed by all the data he collected over 50 years of on-site investigations and saw something that wasn't really there.
Spoiler alert - the MY was not only very real, but things went a whole lot further and the rabbit-hole proved to run true and extremely deep. Not only does the MY really exist but it is tied to so much more than a way to construct stone monuments in what we call 'Pre-History'.
All you need to verify every claim made in this book is a basic ability to do maths, plus a calculator - and you can cross-check everything you will read.
I won't say any more at this point because I don't want to spoil anybody's enjoyment of this superbly researched book - but I would urge anybody who is interested in the real history of our species to get a copy.

[Jim Ballantine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book that starts well, investigating the origin of our weights and measures and looking at the systems used by diverse ancient civilizations. The path taken is quite radical and has no doubt raised a few hackles. However, the ideas are fresh and at least there is enough detail in the book to allow checking and verification. Each chapter ends with a useful summary of the conclusions reached.

Unfortunately, the book does start wandering around toward the end. There are so many cross relationships between apparently disparate fields (music frequencies, earth resonance, light, the orbital speed of the earth) that it feels like a stretch too far.

[Philip Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book whichever way you look at it.

I’m sure it’s riddled with mistakes particularly around the accuracy of measures and coincidences and their probability.

But the bottom line is Neolithic people produced surpluses and traded they must have had a common unit of measure and weight that had developed over thousands of years.

They also viewed the stars over thousands of years and embedded their movement in their structures. So this required a deep understanding of the planet and of its movement .

Of course the great age of human knowledge was subsequently confirmed after this book by the discoveries at gobekli tepi

[Robert Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

A case for revising human history.

Definitely a very eye opening and informative book. It outlines in a very logical and verifiable fashion the origin and rational for our existing systems of measuring time and space - simply amazing how it is all connected. A very good case is made for a very advanced civilization existing prior to the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures. A very strong case in deed for the need to revise human history.

[George R. Mugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth Reading

Definitely worth your time and fascinating. Though, as an engineer, I found some of the phrasing of certain things (possibly just an attempt to simplify for the layman) took a little of the impact out of these revelations. Particularly references pertaining to volume measures was quite distracting.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short interesting book about ancient civilizations, the book is basically about metrology, and how such a measure was used by the whole ancient world and was in fact much more sophisticated than it could be assumed in the first place. The relationship between the Moon, Sun, and the pendulum is one of awe, also most of the measures that we use today came from exactly this time.

[Peter Berg · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book starts out well and held my interest but somewhere towards the last third of the book it falls apart and becomes repetitive. The end conclusion suggesting a designed world and the existence of ‘god’ was wishful thinking on the part of the authors.

[Anthony Yvonnica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Very though provoking. Very believable. Easy to read.

[Scott Goglin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not smart enough to understand this book.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, I thought this was going to be a boring book, I was definitely wrong !

[David Tangredi · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, I didn't know anything about it. It quickly caught my interest and then kept building upon that interest. The information portrayed, the theory presented, is well represented and sound. If you have any interest in pre-history or the megalithic structures and their builders, give this a read!

[Ferio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es uno de esos estudios de los que uno no tiene nada claro qué pensar. Por una parte las pruebas que presentan parecen terriblemente coincidentes con su teoría pero, por otra parte, no estoy seguro de que pudieran pasar el filtro de la Teoría de Errores a la hora de hacer los redondeos. Además cometen una serie de maguferías al querer equiparar el sonido y las ondas electromagnéticas con motivos espirituales que no vienen a cuento; luego ya te confiesan que al menos uno de ellos es masón y entiendes todo, pero creo que el libro ganaría si depurasen un poco estas cosas menos científicas.

Aún así, no deja de ser una teoría curiosa y hasta probable; ahora bien, se centran demasiado en los megalitos más conocidos por el gran público pero no realizan ningún comentario sobre yacimientos arqueológicos de los que se sabe a ciencia cierta que no encajan con la Historia conocida y que probablemente desbarajustasen sus teorías. Tsk tsk.