Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

4 - Temuen, The Island They Call Nan Madol
the German ethnologist Paul Hambruch gives a detailed survey of the sagas, myths and
legends of the Caroline Islands. The District Economic Development Office on Ponape sells
tourists a brochure containing data about the history and legends for a dollar. If I have
concentrated here on the dragon legend, I have a good reason for doing so. It is not because
I have found a unique key witness for my theory of the gods.
On all the South Sea islands which can show the ruins of ancient buildings and confirm
their past in myths, one finds the wild claim that big stones flew through the air to their
appointed places. The most prominent of these legends-cum-prophecies (because it is
world-famous) concerns Easter Island. In their myths the Rapanui have handed down
through the ages the "knowledge" that some 200 colossal statues around the coast of the
island landed in their positions "from the air" and "by themselves."
The dragon and dove legends are found everywhere, naturally in different versions. The
mass of additional legendary material is dominated by warlike events, lists of the
descendants of ruling royal families, marriages and murders, as well as verifiable historical
facts of more recent date. This extensive part of the legends is based on facts; it has a core
of reality. That seems only logical to me, for even the boldest imagination needs a spur, a
launching pad, as it were, for daring ideas. Thus, when it is dealing with an apparent Utopia,
the human imagination tends to use what it has experienced or at least what is conceivable
at that time. Now dragons are a global element in myths and legends. The earliest Chinese
sagas mention them and they have their natural place in Mayan mythology. These
fire-breathing monsters are familiar to every ancient people in the South Sea community,
though sometimes in the form of noisy, flying snakes. But they all possess the fabulous art
of being able to carry very large and heavy objects over vast distances and setting them up
in a prearranged order in a given place. What master builder of our own day would not like
to be a dragon with such abilities?
The imaginative early inhabitants built Nan Madol. Not in a day. With the help of a friendly
mathematician, I calculated that it would have taken them about 300 years. They toiled with
blood, sweat and tears for many generations. Why has not this tremendous achievement by
the islanders been recorded and given prominence in established history if-as the
archaeologists claim-it only took place 500 years ago? The "proof of this recent dating is
very flimsy. Six years ago some charcoal remains were found under a basalt block near the
"well." Carbon 14 examinations gave a date around A.D. 1300.
Apart from the well-attested inaccuracy of the C 14 method, which presupposes a constant
relation of the radioactive isotope of carbon (C) with the atomic weight 14 in the
atmosphere, it is much more possible or even probable that later generations lit a fire on the
basalt buildings that had already been in existence for a long time. These are not proofs to
be taken seriously, they are tricks to bluff us when scholars have nothing else to rely on.
Polynesia (Greek: country of many islands), the archipelago of the eastern ocean, lies in the
large triangle between Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand. The original inhabitants of
all the Polynesian islands (total area 15,800 square miles) have common sagas and legends;