The mysteries of ancient history are constantly revealing themselves to investigators and historians. While historians are typically of the belief that civilization as we know it started a few thousand years ago, there’s evidence that even older and more advanced communities existed. Uncharted X, a history website and YouTube channel started by Ben van Kerkwyk, explores that possibility, and you can help fund his efforts with Bitcoin SV (BSV).
We reached out to Mr. van Kerwyk to learn more about his research, and why he opted to start accepting Bitcoin donations. The choice to begin accepting BSV as a donation method was purely to meet the demand of his audience. “I have had several supporters of my work request various types of cryptocurrencies, so I try to support as many as I can, I’m extremely grateful for any measure of support,” he told us. “As long as the currency is truly decentralized, and it can be easily converted to fiat, then in general crypto’s seem to be a valid choice for diversity of assets, and that’s mostly how I see them.”
So if you donate BSV to Uncharted X, what are you supporting? A fascinating look into ancient civilizations, and the ruins they’ve left behind.
As Ben shows in his videos, many of the clues left behind by ancient empires, like the Egyptians for example, show evidence of advanced tools and technology that historians previously hadn’t thought possible in those times. Adding to that the common cultural clues left behind across the globe, and there’s a possibility that an even older, more advanced civilization existed that the typical historical record doesn’t account for. He tries to explain the evidence to us:
Their methods and tools are unknown to us, and the only thing that remains after both cataclysm and time are the remnants of megalithic architecture (and structures) around the world, and in certain areas like Egypt, precision objects and perhaps even small outposts or pockets containing some remnants from the actual civilization, and some knowledge and information was passed on, the dynastic Egyptians call themselves a legacy civilization, after all.
So how did this all happen? There’s no definitive answer, but he has a theory. A Human or hominid advanced civilization, one that existed far in the past, anywhere in the 100,000 to 20,000 years ago range, a civilization of a far different nature to ours, but advanced and global nonetheless,” he tells us. “They were utterly destroyed by the Younger Dryas Cataclysm, or by any of the other traumatic and destructive events that took place through the Bolling Allerod and Younger Dryas period, the same period that saw sea levels rise 400 feet and half of the megafauna in the world go extinct.”
Before you think of Ben as one of those Ancient Aliens guys from the History Channel, he carries a healthy skepticism to his research. In a visit to Sacsayhuaman in Peru, he questions the theories given by local tour guides when they seem a bit too far-fetched from the evidence found.
This isn’t the type of research you’ll find from most historians, as archaeologists are still working from theories that are slow to debunk. “Institutional inertia, the dogma of establishment, which is particularly strong when it comes to this area of history, because all we’re really doing here is telling stories, it’s not a hard science,” he told us. “It’s a loose interpretation of incomplete evidence, and academia’s authority derives from their expertise over this story of history – when radical new ideas that come along and seek to somewhat sweep the rug out from under it all, I can understand some of the resistance – I think some people are defending careers more than really searching for the truth.”
So in a way, Uncharted X is very much like Bitcoin itself. When the world got a little too comfortable with the truth it wanted to believe, a pioneer came along and found a new way to look at things. If you’re an enthusiastic member of the BSV community, it might be worth taking a look back at history with Uncharted X.
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