About the author – Dennis Price

Dennis Price was born in South Wales and grew up in a landscape of legends, hauntings, primaeval standing stones and ancient hillforts. He won a scholarship to Monmouth School in South Wales in 1971, where he went on to study Latin, Greek and Ancient History. He began working on archaeological excavations in the early 1970s in his home town of Usk, which had previously been the Roman cavalry fort of Burrium, while before that, it appears to have been Ptolemy’s Bullaeum, the capital of the fearsome Silures tribe who managed to resist the Roman legions for almost 40 years. He lived on Salisbury Plain for 10 years [1996 - 2005], which gave him the opportunity to visit nearby Stonehenge as many as 3 times a week.  He made a ten minute film on the ruins in 1998 and in the same year, he became one of only 100 people allowed inside Stonehenge to witness the Solstice sunrise. As well as inspecting the ruins during open access on every Summer Solstice from 1996 - 2005, he has also made visits to the site and to the inner sanctum after having been granted special access by English Heritage. He worked for Wessex Archaeology from Jan 2000 to Aug 2003, in the Finds, Archives and Environmental Departments, as well as on site on excavations such as the Stonehenge A303 Test Pit Project in 2002. He was in charge of the annual Work Experience intake, he taught archaeology at schools all over the Wessex region and he edited & contributed to the official Wessex Archaeology magazine Insite. He was working in the Communications and Finds departments at Wessex when the Amesbury Archer or King of Stonehenge was brought to light in May 2002, so he saw everything about this momentous discovery at first hand, and he facilitated the many national and international broadcasts that were made about this unprecedented archaeological find. In May 2003, he did the same for the Boscombe Bowmen or Builders of Stonehenge, and he also filmed and assisted with the unique excavation. Dennis has followed the ongoing work of the Stonehenge Riverside Project and has regularly visited the excavations in the Stonehenge landscape. He runs the Eternal Idol site, providing original information on the ruins and collating as many observations, views and facts about the place as time allows. Many of these investigations been widely reported in the media over the years, but his proudest moment came when the SETI League placed one of his original studies alongside others by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the late astronomer and writer who also had an intense interest in the ruins on Salisbury Plain.

More recently, Dennis became the last archaeologist inside Silbury Hill, Britain’s only official pyramid, before work began to seal it off forever in November 2007.

In 2004, he began to look into the legends of Christ visiting the West Country and he started visiting and studying locations such as Glastonbury and Priddy in Somerset.  He has also spent years investigating allegedly haunted sites in Britain and abroad, out of curiosity and in an attempt to connect with the world view of our ancestors for whom evil spirits and demonic infestations were very much a reality. In addition to studying this neglected yet entirely valid aspect of the ancient world, Dennis continues to correspond with experts in their respective fields in an ongoing attempt to cast some further light on the so-called “missing years of Jesus”. For more information and developments on the book, please visit www.eternalidol.com. Dennis and Blue rest after visiting Silbury Hill

My thoughts on the author of this book

Dennis Price is a scholar and a writer who possesses a breadth of vision and gift of expression that captivates the reader with an incessant desire to follow his line of thought and depth of analysis in search of the truth, as he sees it. His relentless and passionate pursuit of the solution to a particular mystery often leads him to discover treasures of knowledge outside his initial scope, so although his end focus is never compromised, he enriches his readers with the side experiences gained along the way. If there is any true measure of a scholar, then Dennis possesses it, because he is uncompromising, unflattering, unwavering and unforgiving even of himself in trying to present the best that can be thought and said, which he does with the conviction of apostles and the fearlessness of martyrs. I wish that all scholars and writers who choose to apply themselves to a study of the apparently insoluble mysteries of the ancients would take Dennis as their example and model.

- Salim George Khalaf, Author, Editor & Owner of this Website
https://phoenicia.org

About the Book

The Bible tells us of the birth and early years of Jesus, but the accounts fall mysteriously silent when he reaches the age of twelve. The story resumes when he reaches the age of thirty and embarks on his famous ministry, which means that there is a gap of eighteen years during which he is unaccounted for, a period that has baffled scholars for centuries or more and which has been the subject of much speculation in recent times.

Jesus Christ is the single most famous human being ever to have lived, so it follows that our apparent lack of knowledge of his whereabouts for almost two decades constitute the single greatest historical mystery that we’re aware of. Comparatively few people know of the many detailed and sober legends that place a young Jesus in the West of England in the early years of the first century AD, while these legends find their most famous expression in the words of William Blake’s “Jerusalem”, a song that has gone on to become Britain’s unofficial national anthem with its evocative opening line “And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green?”

These legends were recorded by three British clergymen in the early decades of the last century, but no one has ever seriously investigated the possibility that a youthful Messiah may have sailed from one of the Phoenician ports in the eastern Mediterranean to the west of England, despite the fact that there are reliable records of other such voyages in antiquity. There is a huge amount of evidence that Jesus visited the West of England and that he remained there for a considerable period of time – this captivating original material is presented for the first time in “The Missing Years of Jesus – The Greatest Story Never Told”, by archaeologist and writer Dennis Price.

Reviews or quotes from reviews

“Dennis Price has audaciously tackled a question that has been bafflingly neglected for almost 2,000 years - where was Jesus for most of His life? The life of every other major religious figure has been documented and subjected to intense scrutiny, but there is a huge and apparently unfathomable gap of 18 years in our knowledge of the most famous human being who has ever lived.

From his experience as an archaeologist and his extraordinarily wide-ranging book learning, Price has approached the sources for the life of Jesus from a fresh and highly perceptive angle, and has ruthlessly applied logic and reasoning to establish a series of likelihoods regarding the defining characteristics of Jesus as an animated, historical individual of flesh and blood.

Having presented a series of propositions regarding Jesus’ background, Price has tracked down folklore and traditions in the West Country and in his native Wales to make a powerful case for the presence of Jesus in late Iron Age Britain, prior to embarking on His public ministry in the Holy Land.”

- Peter Mills is a senior archaeologist who has directed excavations at some of the most important and prestigious sites in Britain, which include Westminster Abbey, the Royal Mint, the Preceptory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, the Palace of Westminster and the Tower of London. He is a Director of the Mills Whipp Archaeological Consultancy based in central London.

“Absolutely fascinating....I recommend it to anybody interested in the subject. There’s a lot more in there than just Jesus.”

- Phil Gardiner of Gardiner’s World: best-selling author,
TV chat show host and award-winning filmmaker.

“Dennis, I’ve just read your book and I’m most impressed by it, especially by your (as usual) excellent use of textual and archaeological material. I’m quite persuaded that Jesus was not in the Holy Land for 18 years, that he could have gone and very likely did go to England with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, and that he would likely have visited Stonehenge and profited from the visit in some way.”

- Dr Robin Melrose, retired lecturer in linguistics,
University of Portsmouth, England.

“Dennis approaches his research in highly original way, treating this as a 2,000 year old “missing persons” case. His method and thinking are meticulous, and yet this book is not just totally readable but engrossing and manages to avoid being dry or technical.

With the instincts of a blood hound, Dennis tracks down fascinating clues in the New Testament that make very compelling evidence once they’re identified, pieced together and placed into context, so you will wonder at how you had never noticed them before. Next, he explores the landscape and features of the West of England, bringing into play many archaeological insights about the region in which the legends place Jesus.

Finally, he profiles the prominent individuals and groups who may hold value in this search for the truth. It all paints an intriguing and insightful picture of what Jesus might have been like during his formative years, but I’m left wondering why no archaeologist or churchman has properly investigated this subject before?

Considering Dennis’s obvious impartiality and the high quality of the mass of evidence he presents, some of which shows certain archaeologists in a very poor light, the many implications of this book are simply staggering.

This book is very well researched and the incredible case is presented so meticulously that the burden of proof has shifted dramatically - now those who would contest the idea that Jesus spent up to eighteen years in Britain must prove otherwise.”

- Frank Somers, Head of the Stonehenge Druids.

“Dennis Price has an unconventional yet first rate intellect that enables him to pursue his investigations into aspects of human history so remote and inaccessible that few others are prepared to explore them. Uncluttered by any form of prejudice, he possesses the strength of character to express fearlessly and with great clarity the conclusions he has reached. It is one thing to hold controversial views, but quite another to back them up with the sheer weight of compelling and thought-provoking evidence that Dennis Price has presented.”

- Dr Richard Brough BA MSc PhD, former archaeologist
and more recently international management consultant
and adviser to national Governments and the
European Union on global development issues.

"This eminently readable and engrossing book is divided into three main parts.....Dennis Price casts the net far and wide, and in the process hauls in a very impressive selection of curiosities, anecdotes and enigmas, meaning that even if some readers aren't wholly convinced of the basic premise of the book, they will nevertheless find many fascinating insights into the distant history and mythology of Britain, as well as some rather surprising observations on various figures from our more recent past...there are plentiful points of interest throughout a very well written and clearly expressed set of ideas, many of which draw the reader's attention to people and places that may not be immediately familiar to all.

This book should be of great interest to anyone who likes a good mystery, and wishes to decide for themselves to what extent a discrete set of data points could be assembled to form a coherent explanation to a mystery that has for the most part, never been fully explored in over 2,000 years.

Although I've covered some of the salient points raised in this detailed and analytical book, I have by necessity given a greatly abbreviated account in this review, partly because there is so much material to cover, and partly because it should be for the reader to embark upon an adventure which, through various twists and turns, makes for one of the most readable books I've encountered in a very long time".

- From Tim Jones at Remote Central, one of the very few archaeological websites
recommended by British Archaeology magazine.

"Replete with ground-breaking material, this book is an extraordinary read; it continually demonstrates Dennis Price's scholarly handling and expertise in consolidating his subject into a thorough and fascinating account of the 'missing years' of perhaps the most enigmatic individual in history."

- Jasmine Bonning MA, Director, Archaeosophia.

“Of course, Dennis Price is right. The likelihood of Jesus remaining in Nazareth as a carpenter is surely low?…Certainly, this is a book I would recommend to everyone who is interested in archaeology and in the history of religion.” (full review)

- Colin Wilson, author and philosopher,
one of the world’s greatest living authorities on ancient mysteries.

"Overall, I found Price's treatment of Jesus' missing years intriguing. He has presented his evidence in a clear manner no matter how tenuously documented. His style is readable and his theory believable. It is certainly plausible to suggest Jesus travelled during his missing years. The plausibility of his travels to England, while fascinating, must remain forever as simply a theory. The fact is we simply do not have the documentary or archaeological support to suggest with any degree of certainty where exactly Jesus travelled during his missing years. Nevertheless, Price introduces us to an interesting and sometimes compelling description of a theory that many will want to examine further."

- Dr Michael T. Cooper, Associate Professor of Religion and Contemporary Culture.
See full review in Sacred Tribes Journal

Fra Angelico. Christ in Limbo. c.1450. Fresco. Christ carrying the Flag of England with the Cross of Saint George

In his own words, Dennis Price comments on his book.

 

Please find an article by Dennis Price in this site The Incomparable Hannibal — A Personal View

Additional references, sources and bibliography (Please don't write and ask me for references. You can find them at the end of article or in Bibliography)
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