By Angelique Serrao
A stone calendar that is apparently older than 75 000 years has been discovered in Mpumalanga.
Adam's Calendar - as it has been named by the two South Africans who discovered the find - is reportedly the oldest man-made structure on Earth.
This astonishing claim, which could set the scientific world in a spin, has been made in a picture book which is being released worldwide on Monday.
The two authors, Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger, are claiming that the find is older than Stonehenge and the Giza Pyramids.
Despite renowned academics' view that the stone structure is not what Heine and Tellinger claim it to be, the two explorers are determined to show the world that architecture began in South Africa.
Heine, who is a firefighting pilot, discovered the circular structure of stones, which lies at the tip of a mountain in Mpumalanga, when he was searching for a colleague's plane, which went down near the site in 2003. Immediately he noticed strange-looking stone monoliths which looked out of place in the area.
Heine invited Tellinger, a maverick scientist who caused controversy with his latest book, Slave Species of God, to study the monoliths.
"We invited four or five academics to come and look at the site, but with their typical dogmatic thinking, they said there was no way this was a human-built structure; they said it was just rocks," Tellinger said. "But now geologists, archaeologists and astrologers have all said it is something more than that."
Tellinger believes that the site ties up with an era when human beings first started painting in caves and started their migration into Europe and Asia from Africa between 60 000 and 70 000 years ago.
"We have evidence of early human consciousness through cave paintings, but what about their lives" Tellinger asked. "This has been overlooked by historians, and we believe that stone structures which lie all across Southern Africa are the earliest human structures ever made."
Tellinger said that once the world begins to hear of Adam's Calendar, SA could become the new Egypt, where archaeologists and astrologers will come to do research into a whole new period of human development.
He said they dated the rocks in several ways to come to the conclusion the stones were moved there 75 000 years ago.
"The most conclusive is the geology report, which proves without doubt that the rocks were both moved there from a few kilometres away and were worked with human hands."
The monoliths are dolomite while the bedrock is black reef cordite, said Tellinger. "There are also clear grooves, which someone has obviously carved onto the rock."
Heine and Tellinger found that the monoliths were placed into exact geometrical alignments and lined up exactly with north, south, east and west.
The two explorers also found that two of the central rocks work as a calendar, with a tall rock casting a shadow on a shorter, flat rock. The shadow moves across the rock in exactly one year.
Amanda Esterhuysen, a Wits University academic from the geography, archaeology and environmental sciences department, isn't that convinced, however.
"These guys are talking nonsense. We are doing extensive research in Mpumalanga and these sites are fairly well known.
"While we don't dispute that structures like this are man-made, there is no way it is 75 000 years old. The type of science they use to date these sites is highly questionable," she added.
- Tours will be conducted to Adam's Calendar, starting next month. If you would like to see the site, email [email protected] or [email protected]. Adam's Calendar is available for R250