Curator’s Introduction
Based on our examination of the Peter Littman Corpus (PLC), we propose that there existed a civilisation prior to the “antiquity” known to us from classic versions of history, a civilisation with deep knowledge of mathematics, physics and astronomy, and with a harmonised spiritual world view. Spiritual in that it was anchored in sacred elements of mathematics and geometry. Possessing what we refer to as the Ante-Antiquity System (AAS).
We further propose that this System, though diluted and often perverted, can be traced back and partly reconstructed with the help of analytical methods applied to the various old texts that contain humanity’s collective memory.
Our enquiry seeks a deeper understanding of the AAS and how it influenced history, but we are not looking to define the original golden age civilisation in terms of time or location. To do so would in our opinion be futile and counter productive.
Up until the age of Enlightenment around the French Revolution and the 19th century trend towards an empirical science philosophy largely driven by British and German influencers, people generally accepted that the ancient past had been more advanced and sophisticated that the present day world. And that great cataclysms in the distant past had destroyed great kingdoms and altered the world. This all changed in favour of the view that mankind had reached an unprecedented high point in human understanding of everything, and would continue to progress towards ever higher levels of civilisation. Suddenly the Darwinistic view of life on Earth came to prevail. Though he concerned himself with the evolution of species, Darwin’s overall principle of gradual steady changes over extremely long periods of time gained ground in other fields as well. In turbulent times people are drawn to what gives them stability, which is exactly what the enlightened approach to the sciences offered.
It was easy to dismiss the ancient wisdom, as manifested in old texts of religion and mythology, as mere legends or fairly tales. From there followed a general intellectual condescension towards those not fortunate enough to live in the modern era.
Recently there has emerged a multitude of alternative thinkers and researchers who question the established historical narrative, and indeed keep unearthing fascinating new archeological evidence. Some are quite serious in their pursuit, while others are seem driven by a web-click business model. Though a few do operate within academic institutions, unfortunately most seem to be shunned or dismissed by the establishment.
We take the view that it is neither feasible nor necessary to define the original civilisation that created the Ante-Antiquity System. In the first instance, because evidence becomes scarcer the further back we go even if we know where took look, which we don’t. The modern mind is curiously unconnected with the effects of millions and billion of years, but considers our recorded history of about 6000 years an eternity! It is perfectly reasonable to theoretically place the AAS 10,000, 100,000 or a million years earlier. There is ample room in our planet’s 4.5 billion year journey towards the present!
In the second instance, whilst knowing the unknowable would be nice, we don’t need to in order to understand and appreciate the AAS.
As we gradually publish conclusions of our work with the PLC on this website, we shall put forward a number of conclusions about the AAS and what its originators knew about the world. We do not however present our findings as proven facts, but rather seek to construct chains of reasoning where credible evidence points towards a plausible yet ultimately unprovable conclusion. In this we hope to appeal to those who with an open mind wish to broaden their own field of enquiry into humanity’s ancient past.
Martin Doktar, August 2026