My favorite books on the hi-tech world of our distant ancestors

Why am I passionate about this?

I began life as an apprentice motor engineer before starting my own business. Before I married, I used my holidays to visit some of the great historical sites of the Middle East, including, of course, Egypt. That first look at the pyramids, both inside and out, set me on a lifetime study of them and other sites across Europe. Relying on the physical work of others I was able to put down on paper my thoughts on a much earlier civilization that seems to have come from nowhere, erected incredible monuments, and then simply vanished. Now, I still have a very keen interest in it all and slowly I'm amassing enough material for another book.


I wrote...

From Whence We Came – The Biblical Age of World Enlightenment

By Robert Soper,

Book cover of From Whence We Came – The Biblical Age of World Enlightenment

What is my book about?

When seeing the Giza pyramids for the first time in 1963 I listened carefully to what the tour guide had to say. And then I looked at the Great Pyramid and to me, as an engineer, it did not add up. Since then, I've looked at other sites across the globe and again, nothing made sense. When I retired, I put it all down on paper which ended up as two controversial books on the subject.

My own research came up with credible arguments on both sides of the Darwin v Creation debate and by comparing three other massive construction projects from our own era to the Giza complex, I showed that only a very advanced hi-tech society could be responsible. It also showed irrefutable links to other sites across the globe.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs

Robert Soper Why did I love this book?

I was well on with my book before I discovered Christopher Dunn, an English Aerospace engineer working in America. I give Dunn credibility because, as an engineer, he has got his hands dirty by physically checking out most of what I am talking about. This book is a very detailed, well-illustrated, look at the engineering aspect of the ancient world. His findings prove conclusively that many items found in Egypt can only have been made using technology that is only just being developed today. 

By Christopher Dunn,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the pyramids in the north to the temples in the south, ancient artisans left their marks all over Egypt, unique marks that reveal craftsmanship we would be hard pressed to duplicate today. Drawing together the results of more than 30 years of research and nine field study journeys to Egypt, Christopher Dunn presents a stunning stone-by-stone analysis of key Egyptian monuments, including the statue of Ramses II at Luxor and the fallen crowns that lay at its feet. His modern-day engineering expertise provides a unique view into the sophisticated technology used to create these famous monuments in prehistoric times.…


Book cover of The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh

Robert Soper Why did I love this book?

Flinders Petrie was the first, and remains, the greatest of all those who have studied Giza. Over many years he physically measured and surveyed the entire Giza site. It is those mathematical results that prove the complex was put there as a message for generations to come, rather than the more favoured ideas of burial complexes for obscure kings. He identifies tiny details, that I too identified on a visit to the Cairo museum, that just could not be done. The necessary lasers suitable are only just being developed over 100 years later.

By William Matthew Flinders Petrie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This early work by the British archaeologist, Flinders Petrie, was originally published in 1883 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh' is a scholarly work on the surveying and construction of one of the world's ancient wonders. William Matthew Flinders Petrie was born on 3rd July 1853 in Kent, England, son of Wlilliam Petrie and Ann née Flinders. He showed an early interest in the field of archaeology and by his teenage years was surveying local Roman monuments near his family home. Flinders Petrie continued to have many successes…


Book cover of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age

Robert Soper Why did I love this book?

Hapgood was a lecturer who used the bright young minds of some of his graduate students to make a detailed study of a pre-Columbian map drawn in 1513 by a Turkish Admiral by the name of Pirie Re’is. Rei’is had drawn his map using source maps made by Alexander the Great and even earlier peoples. It is of the Atlantic showing the Americas correctly drawn and placed. There is an ice-free Antarctica where the correct outline of the coast of Queen Maude land is less than 7 miles out of place. Hapgood’s similar analysis of other maps shows that there had been a global civilization on this planet sometime in the past.

By Charles Hapgood,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Some scholars have long claimed that a world civilization existed thousands of years ago - long before Egypt. They have even claimed that this lost civilization was almost as advanced as ours today.

In this book, Professor Charles H. Hapgood has produced the first concrete evidence of the existence of such a civilization. He has found the evidence in many beautiful maps long known to scholars, the so-called Portolano charts of the Middle Ages, and in other maps until now thought to have originated around the time of Columbus. Working with his students over a period of seven years, Hapgood…


Book cover of Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts

Robert Soper Why did I love this book?

Corless spent his life trawling through old magazines and scientific journals and recording articles about ancient artefacts that baffled the author at the time. He makes no comment on the articles, some of which reveal amazing discoveries. For example, the one about an iron cup that was found in a coal mine in Oklahoma. The coal had formed around it some 300m years ago and yet there it was—man-made but by whom. He outlines many other baffling discoveries as described in articles going back to the 19th century.

By William R. Corliss,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ancient Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nearly four hundred articles and archaeological investigations probe the enigmatic artifacts of prehistoric man including pyramids, mounds and engineering structures as well as tools, flints, pictographs, drawings, skeletons, and fossils


Book cover of Holy Bible

Robert Soper Why did I love this book?

From a secular point of view, and deliberately ignoring all religious content, the Holy Bible is the only contemporaneous account of the very ancient world. Add the omitted Book of Enoch, which sits in the Bodleian, and you get a remarkable account of our communal past. No one knows just how far back we must go when discussing Genesis but within that chapter lie some very interesting thoughts on the possible answer to all the problems outlined above. Enoch, especially, describes in great detail what might have happened and, if proven to be correct, would alter our complete understanding of our origins. A very good read.

By Unknown,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Holy Bible as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With an attractive new slipcase and binding, this compact Bible is an ideal gift and spiritual companion.

The full text of the ever-popular Authorized King James Version Bible, with all its literary beauty and poetic grandeur, in an attractive size and with beautiful binding and slipcase
making it an ideal gift.

Includes silver gilt edged pages and white marker ribbon.


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Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

By Kathleen DuVal,

Book cover of Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Kathleen DuVal Author Of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professional historian and life-long lover of early American history. My fascination with the American Revolution began during the bicentennial in 1976, when my family traveled across the country for celebrations in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. That history, though, seemed disconnected to the place I grew up—Arkansas—so when I went to graduate school in history, I researched in French and Spanish archives to learn about their eighteenth-century interactions with Arkansas’s Native nations, the Osages and Quapaws. Now I teach early American history and Native American history at UNC-Chapel Hill and have written several books on how Native American, European, and African people interacted across North America.

Kathleen's book list on the American Revolution beyond the Founding Fathers

What is my book about?

A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

By Kathleen DuVal,

What is this book about?

Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread…


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