Christian O'Brien
Encyclopedia
Christian Arthur Edgar "Tim" O'Brien C.B.E
(b. January 9, 1914 in Fulham, London – d. February 17, 2001 (age 87) in Dunmow, Essex
) was a British exploration geologist
and author. In 1936 he was also involved in the discovery of the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat in Southern Iran
. Appointed by BP
In 1967, he retired in 1971 as Chairman of the Boards and General Managing Director of the Iranian Oil Operating Companies, stationed in Tehran
, and was awarded a CBE
for services to the Oil Industry.
O'Brien devoted his retirement to researching prehistory, cuneiform
, archaeology
, astronomy
, archaeoastronomy
and the history of religion
.
. His geological
activities started in Southern Iran
under senior geologist, Victor Boileau in the winter of 1936–37 where he assisted with Boileau's discovery of the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat. O'Brien stayed for three years, and then was due for home leave. He happened to be in England when the Second World War started, and so joined up in the Royal Engineers
, eventually becoming Major after service in Italy and Tunisia
.
He returned to work in Iran
after the war and was also involved in exploration geology
in Canada & other countries. On October 16, 1958 he married Barbara Joy Kelly. After his retirement in 1970, he began researching and writing about ancient civilizations, taught himself how to read cuneiform, and published three books on the subject.
O'Brien published several other papers and books. "The Wandlebury-Hatfield Heath Astronomical Complex" described his surveying and discovering what he calls the Wandlebury Enigma
or Line A Loxodrome, a claim which has not gained much acceptance.
"The Megalithic Odyssey" presents evidence for an astronomical complex
on Bodmin Moor
in Cornwall, England, dated no later than c. 2500 BC. In the book he presents his view that 13 stone circles and 86 ridge-top cairns were designed and built for complex observational astronomy by a group of itinerant sages with links to Sumer
. A review in the journal Archaeostronomy describes the book as "a mishmash of erroneous statements and poorly conceived and unsubstantiated arguments." The reviewer suggests that O'Brien has misapplied statistical methods and that coupled with a dubious interpretation of the archaeology (e.g. assuming that all the cairns, all badly damaged and with only a few over two to three meters high, would have been over 10 meters high whereas similar sites have few cairns over 10 meters, with some of the 'cairns' possibly not prehistoric) "negates any value" it would have had as a claim for prehistoric archaeoastronomy. He further argues that the suggestion that the Sumerians introduced a calendar which made agriculture viable ignored the fact that agriculture had already existed in the area for over a thousand years, saying that "the book is full of statements which only confirm O'Brien's ignorance of our current knowledge of prehistory."
O'Brien made the geological discovery of a substantial hanging river bed on São Miguel Island
. Using Portuguese Admiralty Charts of the ocean floor in the area of the Azores
in February 1973, he argued for the former existence of a large island at this location on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
which he believed to be Atlantis
. He also made his own translations of the Bruce Codex
, Askew Codex
from Greek
cursive characters in the now extinct, Upper Egyptian
Coptic
dialect. He also translated a series of tablets from Nippur
including the Barton Cylinder
, which he collectively grouped and called the Kharsag Epics. He claimed to have used these as a primary source to discover the location of "Kharsag
", allegedly a location also mentioned in other Sumerian texts such as Atrahasis I that he equated with The Garden of Eden
in The Second Book of Enoch and The Bible
.
has recently discussed O'Brien's theories in 2006 in his book "The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt", noting "O'Brien's book, The Genius of the Few, received little notice. A few scholars, however, including the British Museum
Sumer
ian expert Irving Finkel, praised it. In 1996, British author Andrew Collins
expounded on O'Brien's work in From the Ashes of Angels. He goes on to mention that "When these tablets, now stored at the University of Philadelphia museum, were first translated, they were believed to be a Sumerian creation myth, and the personalities depicted in the epic stories were interpreted as gods. According to exploration geologist and historian Christian O'Brien (1915-2001), however, this religious interpretation was a product of preconceived notions; according to his analysis, it has had 'disastrous results for the truth'."
CBE
CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
(b. January 9, 1914 in Fulham, London – d. February 17, 2001 (age 87) in Dunmow, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
) was a British exploration geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
and author. In 1936 he was also involved in the discovery of the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat in Southern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. Appointed by BP
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
In 1967, he retired in 1971 as Chairman of the Boards and General Managing Director of the Iranian Oil Operating Companies, stationed in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
, and was awarded a CBE
CBE
CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
for services to the Oil Industry.
O'Brien devoted his retirement to researching prehistory, cuneiform
Cuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures." Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient astronomy, as modern...
and the history of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
.
Biography
O'Brien was educated at Tiffin Boys School, Kingston-upon-Thames and then went to Cambridge University where he read Natural Sciences, graduating in 1935. In 1936, he joined the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now British Petroleum and known universally as BPBP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
. His geological
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
activities started in Southern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
under senior geologist, Victor Boileau in the winter of 1936–37 where he assisted with Boileau's discovery of the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat. O'Brien stayed for three years, and then was due for home leave. He happened to be in England when the Second World War started, and so joined up in the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
, eventually becoming Major after service in Italy and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
.
He returned to work in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
after the war and was also involved in exploration geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
in Canada & other countries. On October 16, 1958 he married Barbara Joy Kelly. After his retirement in 1970, he began researching and writing about ancient civilizations, taught himself how to read cuneiform, and published three books on the subject.
O'Brien published several other papers and books. "The Wandlebury-Hatfield Heath Astronomical Complex" described his surveying and discovering what he calls the Wandlebury Enigma
Wandlebury Enigma
The Wandlebury Enigma refers to a number of suggested hypotheses about the purpose, function and decoration of Wandlebury Hill.The first is the suggestion that an ancient hill figure had once been carved into the side of Wandlebury Hill, similar to the Cerne Abbas Giant. This was thought to have...
or Line A Loxodrome, a claim which has not gained much acceptance.
"The Megalithic Odyssey" presents evidence for an astronomical complex
Astronomical complex
An astronomical complex or commemorative astronomical complex is a series of man-made structures with an astronomical purposes. It has been used when referring to a group of Megalithic structures that it is claimed show high precision astronomical alignments...
on Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and originally dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history....
in Cornwall, England, dated no later than c. 2500 BC. In the book he presents his view that 13 stone circles and 86 ridge-top cairns were designed and built for complex observational astronomy by a group of itinerant sages with links to Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
. A review in the journal Archaeostronomy describes the book as "a mishmash of erroneous statements and poorly conceived and unsubstantiated arguments." The reviewer suggests that O'Brien has misapplied statistical methods and that coupled with a dubious interpretation of the archaeology (e.g. assuming that all the cairns, all badly damaged and with only a few over two to three meters high, would have been over 10 meters high whereas similar sites have few cairns over 10 meters, with some of the 'cairns' possibly not prehistoric) "negates any value" it would have had as a claim for prehistoric archaeoastronomy. He further argues that the suggestion that the Sumerians introduced a calendar which made agriculture viable ignored the fact that agriculture had already existed in the area for over a thousand years, saying that "the book is full of statements which only confirm O'Brien's ignorance of our current knowledge of prehistory."
O'Brien made the geological discovery of a substantial hanging river bed on São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
. Using Portuguese Admiralty Charts of the ocean floor in the area of the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
in February 1973, he argued for the former existence of a large island at this location on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. It separates the Eurasian Plate and North American Plate in the North Atlantic, and the African Plate from the South...
which he believed to be Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. He also made his own translations of the Bruce Codex
Bruce Codex
The Bruce Codex is a gnostic manuscript acquired by the British Museum. In 1769, James Bruce purchased the codex in Upper Egypt. It was transferred to the museum with a number of other Oriental texts in 1842...
, Askew Codex
Askew Codex
The Askew Codex is a parchment manuscript now held by the British Library which contains Coptic translations of the Gnostic Pistis Sophia and parts of what G. R. S. Mead referred to as "extracts from The Books of the Savior." It was purchased by the British Museum in 1795 from Dr. Anthony Askew...
from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
cursive characters in the now extinct, Upper Egyptian
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
dialect. He also translated a series of tablets from Nippur
Nippur
Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...
including the Barton Cylinder
Barton Cylinder
The Barton Cylinder is a Sumerian creation myth, written on a clay cylinder in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC, which is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology...
, which he collectively grouped and called the Kharsag Epics. He claimed to have used these as a primary source to discover the location of "Kharsag
Kharsag
Hursag is a Sumerian term meaning "mountain" or "hill". Mountains play a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with deities such as Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag....
", allegedly a location also mentioned in other Sumerian texts such as Atrahasis I that he equated with The Garden of Eden
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
in The Second Book of Enoch and The Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
Latest reception of work
Edward F. MalkowskiEdward F. Malkowski
Edward F. Malkowski is a American author, software developer and researcher of ancient history. He lives in Champaign, Illinois. His latest works deal with the subject of Spiritual Technology or Spiritual Science....
has recently discussed O'Brien's theories in 2006 in his book "The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt", noting "O'Brien's book, The Genius of the Few, received little notice. A few scholars, however, including the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ian expert Irving Finkel, praised it. In 1996, British author Andrew Collins
Andrew Collins
Andrew Collins may refer to:* Andrew B. Collins , a U.S. research analyst* Andrew Collins , British journalist, scriptwriter, and broadcaster...
expounded on O'Brien's work in From the Ashes of Angels. He goes on to mention that "When these tablets, now stored at the University of Philadelphia museum, were first translated, they were believed to be a Sumerian creation myth, and the personalities depicted in the epic stories were interpreted as gods. According to exploration geologist and historian Christian O'Brien (1915-2001), however, this religious interpretation was a product of preconceived notions; according to his analysis, it has had 'disastrous results for the truth'."
Positions, awards and accolades
- O'Brien was awarded a CBECBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
in 1971 for services to the oil industry. - Chairman of the Boards, Managing Director, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 1967–1971
Books
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1953, Salztektonik in Sudpersien, Stuttgart.
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1957, Salt Diapirism in South Persia, London and Amsterdam.
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1960, The Structural Geology of the Boule and Bosche Ranges in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, London.
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1975, The Wandlebury-Hatfield Heath Astronomical Complex, Thaxted.
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1983, The Megalithic Odyssey, A.C. Wellingborough. ISBN 0-85500-188-7
- O'Brien, C.A.E. & O'Brien B.J., 1985, The Genius of The Few, Wellingborough. ISBN 0-946604-17-7 (Revised edition by Dianthus Publishing 1999)
- O'Brien, C.A.E., 1985, The Path of Light, The Deram Beas, India. ISBN 0-09466-0427-4 (Revised edition by Dianthus Publishing 1999)
- O'Brien, C.A.E. & O'Brien B.J., 1999, The Shining Ones, Dianthus Publishing ISBN 0-946604-20-7 (Revised edition by Dianthus Publishing, 2001)
- O'Brien, C.A.E. & O'Brien B.J., 2005, Eastern Odyssey – Experiences of a Young Geologist, E & E Plumridge, Cambridge. ISBN 0-9516563-9-2