Robert M. Schoch - Forgotten Civilization: New Discoveries on the Solar-Induced Dark Age

A Note on the Authorship of the Revised and Expanded Edition of This Book

The actual text was penned by me, Robert M. Schoch, and the first edition carried only my name on the title page. However, during our years together, Katie and I have been (and remain) close collaborators regarding the material contained within this book. This has been all the more so since the first edition was published in 2012. Therefore, I believe it is only fitting that she be given credit for all that she has contributed, as this book is truly a product of our joint efforts. Thus, the title page now carries the authorship of Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., with Catherine Ulissey at my insistence. However, I have maintained the first person throughout, and I want to keep the dedication that I included in the first edition, which reads:

I dedicate this book to my beloved wife, Catherine (Katie) Ulissey.

She has truly been the inspiration and driving force behind it. As is evident in the pages that follow, this book could not have been written without her.

FORGOTTEN CIVILIZATION

Schoch is a true scientist, following the data wherever it leads, heedless of political pressures or worn-out paradigms. His redating of the Sphinx in 1991 launched the New Archaeology. Forgotten Civilization distills all that has happened since into a simple conclusion: that solar activity ended the last cycle of high culture and may destroy ours in turn. Schoch is no scaremonger, no hawker of a pet theory. What we do with this knowledge is up to us, but once digested, it changes everything.

JOSCELYN GODWIN,AUTHOR OF ATLANTIS AND THE CYCLES OF TIME

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special thanks goes to Grzegorz Popawski, who invited me to participate in a conference in Warsaw, Poland, on May 29, 2011, which he organized. The first edition of this book was a direct outgrowth of my presentation there.

I thank Wendell Davis, who has become a cherished friend to Katie and me, for his unwavering encouragement and support. In many ways, and on a personal level, he helped to make this revised edition possible.

C. Alicia Schoch (ne Goetz), my mother, was touched by the manuscript of the first edition, which she read in its entirety before she unexpectedly passed away on April 2, 2012. While I was undertaking the revision of this book, my father, Milton R. Schoch, passed away due to COVID-19 on May 14, 2020. Here I want to acknowledge all of the love and support that both of my parents gave me. It is because they provided me with the opportunities that they did when I was a young child, and instilled in me a love of reading, history, and seeking out knowledge, that I pursued the paths that I have, leading to the writing of this book. I also want to acknowledge a few other close family members: my sister, Marguerita (Rita) Schoch; my sons, Nicholas Schoch and Edward Schoch; and my late grandmother, Adriana M. Goetz (ne den Turk), who in my youth encouraged my fascination with ancient cultures.

I appreciate the care Inner Traditions put into the publication of this book, and in particular I thank Mindy Branstetter, Manzanita Carpenter Sanz, Jon Graham, John Hays, Eliza Homick, Jeanie Levitan, Erica Robinson, and Patricia Rydle.

Since the first edition of this book was published in 2012, my longtime colleague and friend, John Anthony West (19322018) passed away. It was J.A.W. who first introduced me to the issue of the true age and origins of the Great Sphinx in the late 1980s. That introduction to a geological mystery (How could the Sphinx have been so severely weathered and eroded by rain and water if it dates back to only circa 2500 BCE, long after arid Sahara conditions had become established in the vicinity of the Sphinx?) changed the course of my life.

Milton R. Schoch (left, 19312020) and C. Alicia Schoch (right, 19322012), parents of Robert M. Schoch; photograph taken in December 2010.

(Photograph courtesy of R. Schoch and C. Ulissey.)

I can think of no major valid scientific or scholarly theory in place today that has not undergone a long process of development involving correction, winnowing, refinement and revision. The quest to redate the Sphinx is no different.

JOHN ANTHONY WEST
SERPENT IN THE SKY (1993EDITION, PAGE 225)

Finally, and it may seem silly to some, but there are a few other living entities I wish to acknowledge, for I carry them with me in my heart. Mighty was a tree in our local neighborhood that was cut down, literally, by the authorities in its prime. With its roots continuously endeavoring to regrow, Mighty always was and continues to be an inspiration for Katie and me. And I thank a few exceptional cats, all of whom have passed away but were there for me in companionship during different periods of my life: Tinkerbell, Thomas the Cat, Rowan, Tabby, and Daryl. Their souls were precious, loving, and unique.

PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

Initially, I was hesitant to produce a revised edition of Forgotten Civilization. For me, it is in some ways easier to start fresh and write a new book (and I have several in mind). However, Forgotten Civilization has found a wide audience, and I feel that at this point, nearly a decade since its original publication, readers deserve an updated version while keeping the tenor and feel of the original edition (first published in 2012). With this in mind, the original text (chapters 1 through 14 and appendices 1 through 5) has been kept intact. I have incorporated selected updates in these chapters, but none of these chapters has been fully rewritten.

The major addition to this revised and expanded edition of the book is chapter 15. In this new chapter, I discuss various developments that have taken place, evidence that has come forward, which supplement and reinforce the major themes of Forgotten Civilization. Now more than ever, I stand by the data and analyses that I present below. True civilization existed at the end of the last ice age but was decimated by the natural catastrophesnamely, solar outburststhat brought the last ice age to a sudden end, circa 9700 BCE. Today it is imperative that we learn from the past, as our active and sometimes unstable Sun is posed to unleash another major solar outburst, the likes of which we have never experienced in modern times. (The Carrington Event, discussed in chapter 12, is a minor herald of what the future will bring.)

While going through this revised and expanded version of Forgotten Civilization, I continue to be impressed by how much we do not know, how much we do not understand, and thus how much there is still to learn. Relative to some of the material in chapter 14 in particular, I think of the early scientists working with electricity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They knew of electricity primarily in such forms as static electricity, spontaneous sparking, and lightning. How many people in circa 1740 could have imagined how we would tame, control, and use electricity for everything from cooking and heating to communicating through the internet and smartphones? In the future, how much better might we understand some of the topics discussed in this book? Topics that are highly controversial today, or even dismissed entirely by conventional mainstream status quo thinking, may be accepted as common knowledge in the future. And I wonder how much ancient people may have understood, what knowledge and insights they may have possessed, that have since been forgotten.