The lost realms: Book IV of the Earth Chronicles (The Earth Chronicles)

In the sixteenth century, Spanish conquerors came to the New World in search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. Instead, they encountered inexplicable phenomena that have puzzled scholars and historians ever since: massive stone edifices constructed in the Earth's most inaccessible regions . . . great monuments forged with impossible skill and unknown tools . . . intricate carvings describing events and places half a world away.

Who were the bearded "gods of the golden wand" who had brought civilization to the Americas millennia before Columbus? Who were the giants whose sculpted stone heads in Mesoamerica still mystify to this day?

In this remarkably researched fourth volume of The Earth Chronicles, author and explorer Zecharia Sitchin uncovers the long-hidden secrets of the lost New World civilizations of the Olmecs, Aztecs, Mayas and Incas, and links the conquistadors' quest for El Dorado to the extraterrestrials who searched there for gold long before.

Sitchin's arguments fit very nicely with the history of Sumeria, Egypt, and the Near East that he laid out in his earlier books. Basically, he argues that the Americas were exploited by the gods for the production of gold and other metals such as tin, which the Andean mountains in particular hold in abundance. Metals were refined here and shipped back to the Near Eastern lands long before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue. Sitchin believes that the Olmecs, of which very little is known besides what has been gleaned from the artifacts they left behind, particularly in the form of large stone blocks representing men of obvious African descent, did indeed come from Africa very early on--in fact, it was the Egyptian god Thoth who brought his followers here when he was displaced by Marduk. While the Olmecs mysteriously disappeared, other societies were formed by white gods and giants from across the sea. The traditions of the diverse Indian groups all shared a common mythology, including the story of a Great Flood; they also possessed amazing arts, technologies, and sciences (particularly astronomy) very similar to those of Sumeria and Egypt. The inadequacy of artifacts in the Americas necessarily hinder any scientist studying their earliest histories, but Sitchin constructs a remarkably compelling timeline in which the story of Mesoamerica fits very neatly into the history he has gleaned of the Annunaki and their relationships with mankind in its earliest days.

Even if Sitchin were dead wrong on everything he suggests, this book would still be worth reading just for the information about the amazing ancient cities and monuments built in the lower Americas that are only now emerging from their jungle tombs. The Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs are more mysterious than the Near Eastern cultures, and the suggestion that men traveled from the Old World and Africa centuries before Columbus is as compelling as it is fascinating. The illustrations in this book are sometimes rather grainy and hard to examine closely, but the images they convey, such as that of the giant stone heads left by the Olmecs, do much to enhance Sitchin's theories. This is thought-provoking, educational, stimulating material.


I bought copies for friends   February 13, 2000
Jefferson C. Bagby (Virginia, USA)
47 out of 51 found this review helpful

This was the first of Sitchen's books that I read, and I immediately bought the rest of The Earth Chronicles and read them all. While I do not agree with all of Sitchen's interpretations of the historical information presented, I now know that my North American Euro-centric education about world history is mostly garbage. We are taught in grammer and secondary school that if the white Europeans didn't do something or discover something, it just didn't happen. Well, we are wrong.

I am a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., and consider myself to be a skeptic. But I am a widely read skeptic. Sitchen's book The Lost Realms has opened new doors for the study of history for me.

Buy the book and read it. You will never think the same about our history again.


From Sumer over Africa to America   July 25, 2000
Alain Lipus
31 out of 33 found this review helpful

In this volume Sitchin compares Mesopotamia, Egypt and ancient American civilizations an comes to conclusion, that gods have visited America also. The reason for visit was simple - they have found precious metals like gold and copper, but they have also found tin, which has to be extracted from ores and gives hard bronze when mixed with copper. The sophisticated channels cut in the rocks were part of ore washing system. The resemblance of stories, buildings and myths suggests that behind names like Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan and Viracocha stand the same deities we know from the first three volumes. The most impressive thing is that Americans didn't knew and use metals (except gold, of course), yet archaeologists have found stone blocks dressed and connected with bronze claps. And bronze must be obtained through a metallurgical process, which was surely not known nor to Mayas, Incas or Aztecs. Who needed tin from lake Titicaca? The answer is obvious.


The Lost Realms   May 22, 2002
14 out of 18 found this review helpful

There are many pieces of the puzzle of our existence in the universe that I had figured out, or "seen", but there were still dots that I could not connect, gaps I could not fill in. When I read this book it was like deja vu, a recollection of things stored in our genetic memory/code long forgotten through evolution, now recalled causing gasps of recollection. This book logically and scientifically filled in the gaps. It makes sense, it all fits. Sitchin's bibliography to support his research is tremendously extensive and impressive. I recommend it highly for the searching mind, and have given copies as gifts to many friends and associates.


A fantastic journey trough time, space and other dimensions   September 6, 1999
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

This book must be read with an open mind. You must allow your mind to travel at the speed of Mr Sitching staggering theories. He does not try to prove anything, but all the clues and evidences he finds, makes you reach really astounding conclusions. I was compelled to ask myrself many times while reading this book:what if it's true? My ancestors come from South America, and more specifically, from the High Andes of Ecuador (Riobamba, the capital of Chimborazo province), so I think I felt a little more impressed than a regular reader. But I am not saying that no one else will find this book just amazing as well as informative.