ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 16

ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION

[By Dr A. Lodewyckx, in the Melbourne .-‘Argus.’]

A GERMAN DISCOVERY.

Some years ago, when travelling in Sweden, I saw on the shore of the Baltic Sea, worked in the smooth surface of the rocks, strange drawings or pictures, reminding one of Egyptian hieroglyphics, or of the picture-writing of the Mayas of old Mexico. These pictures are very numerous all along the coast of Sweden and Norway, as far north as Trondhjem, more particularly in the district of Bohuslah, to the north of Goteborg. They represent various scenes from life, such as gatherings of people, battles oh land and on sea, etc. One can easily distinguish ships, sledges, waggons, arms (especially axes), armed men, men on horseback, all kinds of animals. Some of these pictures represent obviously important historical events; others seem to refer to religious ceremonies. Then there are swastikas, footsoles, circles, spirals, and other geometrical signs which must have some symbolical meaning. These inscriptions, although they are well known, have hitherto been very .imperfectly understood, and various theories have been propounded as to their origin. Now a German investigator, Franz Yon Wendrin, Berlin, announces that he has succeeded in deciphering these mysterious Inscriptions. He publishes as a first sample the full translation ofone of them, together with the chief facts disclosed by others, in the July issue, of ‘ Westermanns, Monatshefte,’ received here by the last European mail. If Von Wemirin’s in terKtion should prove correct, we would the presence of the most important historical documents known anywhere in the world, and this discovery would unexpectedly clear up the history of mankind as far hack as 20,000 years ago and more. The text of this first document, as interpreted by Von Wendrin, occupies about six columns of the magazine, and Is accompanied by very interesting illustrations. Condensed to about one-fifth of its length, it runs as follows: —About 20,000 years ago a great famine occurred in Southern Norway and Sweden, resulting from over-population. Therefore the King of Bohnslan, called the Great, proposed to his subjects, assembled with two neighboring tribes, to emigrate to the “Land of the many horses,’’ where meat was plentiful. Eight other tribes joined in the enterprise, A messenger, with four companions, was sent to the “ Land of many horses ” —i.e., present day Germany east of the Oder—to investigate and report on this wonderful country, which could be reached after a sea voyage of only two days. This scout returned in duo course, bringing a horse with him. Ho addressed his countrymen from his steed, and galloped in front of the assembly to show the swiftness of his mount. His favorable advice was accepted, and the expedition started in the early spring at the time of the melting snow.

Soon after the emigrants sailed a storm arose and caused heavy losses amongst them. Undaunted, tie fleet of the survivors continued the voyage, and passed by the Danish isles, and landed safely in the land of the horses, near the mouth of tho Oder. Two islands near by (Usedom and Wollin) were found to be inhabited. A town, perhaps the famous Vinota of German legend, was sighted. Sailing up the course of the Elver Beetle, only few horses wore found, ’lie king of the country appeared on horseback, and objected to their talking up land there. After this they sailed up the River Oder aa far as Glogau, a distance of about 200 miles, as well as several tributaries on both sides. Near Glogau a small settlement was formed. The country east of the Oder seems to have been quite uninhabited in those days. Herds of wild horses were discovered here. A certain number were captured, and some of them slaughtered. Immense difficulties were encountered in travelling with sledges through marshy country. A ship with a crow of nineteen was sent home with a supply of meat for the starving people left behind. The result of this was that another fleet of emigrants left the homeland with a new supply of sledges. Sailing up the Netze, enormous herds of horses were found. Here at last was the real .paradise of the horses. Entire herds were surrounded and captured, and several shiploads were sent home, some of tho animals being alive.

It was now decided to tame these wild horses in order to nse them in the same way as they had seen in the country west of the Oder, where other tribes of the pamo race as themselves were living Naturally the Great King had to bo provided with a riding horse before everybody else. A beautiful but very wild stallion was picked out. But this animal did not seem to appreciate the great honor bestowed on it, threw off the Royal horseman, and ran away, with its tail liigli in the air. The various tribes now were given separate tracts of land, and began to cultivate this with the aid of cattle brought from home. During tills peaceful occupation they were twice attacked by the Lappo-Finnish people from the north, who used to visit these parts on hunting expeditions. Regular intercourse was maintai’jnd with the “ homeland of the sledges ” in Scandinavia. The next winter, the first which they spent in their new home, was a very severe one. The ground was covered with snow for five months, and they had only their tents as a protection. During the next summer wooden dwellings were built. In the meanwhile they had learnt to break dn their horses. The wild herds rapidly decreased, but the domesticated animals increased, and so they prospered, individual colonists owning several hundreds of horses. 'A number of tame horses were now sent to the old homeland in Scandinavia. This is the content of this inscription as interpreted by Yon Wendrin. He further gives a page of reproductions of constellations, such as the Great Bear, Orion, etc., as they appear in the rockpictures of Bohuslan. The relative position of the stars having changed in the course of time, this allows him to calculate the age of these Inscriptions. Ho Bays that the oldest representation of a constellation which he has found is one of tli© Great Bear, which he estimates as about 375,000 years old. As already mentioned, ho places the document about 20,000 years ago. Who were the people who wrote these inscriptions ? Von Wendrin has no hesitation in saying they were of Germanic race. In fact, he main talus that they were simply the ancestors of the present-day Germans and Scandinavians. They had, in his opinion, attained a high degree of civilisation: they were agriculturists and dairy farmers, cultivated the soil with a plough, used waggons on wheels and sledges; they invented navigation, transforming gradually their sledges into ships; they made pottery, invented the swastika. Von Wendrin also believes that they were astronomers, that they knew that the earth is round long before the Greeks, and sailed on the high seas and the Mediterranean many thousands of years before the Egyptians or the Phoenicians. As proof of this a map of the Nile Delta is reproduced from the rook-piotnres, and this map is said to be 34,000 years old. They are supposed to have used raeta.ls in those olden times, to have discovered America, and to have sailed on the Arctic seas and the Pacific.

If all this is true, those Germanic ancestors must have carried their civilisation, hundreds of centuries ago, to the Orient, where they founded, according to Von Wendrin, the Egyptian, the Cretan, and Mycenaean civilisations. There are even indications that they founded also the great empires of the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayas in America; and it is considered within the range of possibility that Chinese civilisation is of Germanic origin. Proof of the world-wide influence of these early Germanic peoples is to be found in the fact that they brought all kinds of tropical trophifij to their northern homo. On the rocks they depicted giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, camels, lions, panthers, ostriches, Brazil boas, palm trees, cactuses, etc. In short, Von Wendrin believes that ho has discovered conclusive evidence that all civilisation on this globe t

has originated amongst Ida Germanic ancestors in Scandinavia, and that ho holds the key to the history of mankind for many thousands of years, back to tho time between the second and the third glacial periods. What must wo think of this startling discovery? If a true and reliable interpretation of the rock pictures of Scandinavia, has really beeu found, and if these documents can be approximately dated, the. value of this discovery for unravelling the mysterious past of the lands of the Eddas and Sagfw may lie immense. But even if tee above translation is substantially correct, and if many other similar records of old-time expeditions and explorations can he explained, tee sweeping conclusions arrived at by Von Wendrin seem far from warranted at first sight. What has become of this brilliant northern civilisation? How are wo to account for tee fact that these rock pictures and certain stone and bron/.e antiquities are practically the only relics that are left behind in the land where it grew up, and whence, it is alleged to have conquered the globe? There is now in Germany, even as during the romantic period early in tee nineteenth century, a widespread tendency to turn from the miseries of the present time to the glories of the German or even the Germanic past, and this may account to some extent for the probably much exaggerated value claimed by Von Wendrin for his investigations of the rock pictures of Scandinavia. But it is premature to form a definite opinion on the subject with tee scanty information contained in this first article, published by Westermanna Monatshefte. The larger work which tee author promises us will bo awaited with no little curiosity.