| Can I Come Look At These Items? | | This online store is in association with Amazon.com, so these great, high-qualiy products will come from their warehouse or from other partners. Thanks for shopping! |
|
|
|
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth | 
 enlarge | Author: Giorgio De Santillana; Hertha Von Dechend
Publisher: David R Godine
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy Used: $6.94
You Save: $15.01 (68%)
New (22) Used (32) from $6.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 124226
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd paperback edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.6
ISBN: 0879232153
Dewey Decimal Number: 100
EAN: 9780879232153
ASIN: 0879232153
Publication Date: August 1, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: 100% GUARANTEED! Fast shipping on more than 1,000,000 Book, Video, Video Game & Music titles all in one location! Discover Your Entertainment at goHastings.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed separately. But what came before the Greeks? What if we could prove that all myths have one common origin in a celestial cosmology? What if the gods, the places they lived, and what they did are but ciphers for celestial activity, a language for the perpetuation of complex astronomical data? Drawing on scientific data, historical and literary sources, the authors argue that our myths are the remains of a preliterate astronomy, an exacting science whose power and accuracy were suppressed and then forgotten by an emergent Greco-Roman world view. This fascinating book throws into doubt the self-congratulatory assumptions of Western science about the unfolding development and transmission of knowledge. This is a truly seminal and original thesis, a book that should be read by anyone interested in science, myth, and the interactions between the two.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 Profound October 6, 2008
I probably should have dinged this book one star due to how difficult it is to read. The reason I did not is because of the incredible profundity of its content.
These folks really did their homework. The book shows that ancient knowledge of the gentle "wobble" of the Earth which causes the North Star to change every couple of thousand years not only existed but has been handed down through "stories and legends".
Hard to read, but more profound than any book of its kind I've ever read.
 Goes Off In Many Directions April 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wasn't too crazy about this book.
When a book randomly jumps around to the mythology of many different cultures this creates confusion for the reader.
There's quite a few passages and quotations in this book that are not in English.
It tries to explain the true meaning of myths and legends by loosely relating them to various metaphors like a 'world tree' or a mill that contains a gigantic mill stone. There's also a tie in with some sort of play about Hamlet. These things supposedly represent the Milky Way galaxy, the primordial earth, etc.. if I understood correctly which I may not have.
It talks quite a bit about the Scandinavian or Nordic mythological stories.
The conclusion as I undertand it is that mythology attempts to explain astronomical concepts and the positions of the constellations and astronomical objects over large time frames.
This conclusion may be correct in some ways but then again it may not be because those mythological gods like Zeus and Poseidon are real. People didn't just make them up for fun or to explain the heavens.
As one example Poseidon is always associated with the number three. This is not just a coincidence. There is a very mysterious significance about this.
I believe conventional Egyptologists and archeologists today are confused and mistaken about many things such as the age, origins, and real purposes of the pyramids and monuments in Egypt and all over the world really.
Edgar Cayce was the reincarnation of the Egyptian diety Osiris I think.
The number twelve comes up a lot in this book. Twelve is a mystical number because there are twelve universes I heard.
As we move further and further back in time mythology takes over where history and archeology leave off I guess.
I will say the authors had a great vocabulary and grasp of different languages. I picked up quite a few new words in this book.
I don't doubt that the authors are very knowledgeable about mythology and literature.
Jeff Marzano
Plato: Apology
The Giza Power Plant : Technologies of Ancient Egypt
The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls: A Real Life Detective Story of the Ancient World
Edgar Cayce's Atlantis and Lemuria: The Lost Civilizations in the Light of Modern Discoveries
The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Reader's Edition)
Ufo...Contact from Planet Iarga
Initiation
Initiation in the Great Pyramid (Astara's Library of Mystical Classics)
"A Ring of Noble Metal" April 17, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Like so many of the readers of this fascinating book, Hamlet's Mill, it is a work that I have read several times, learning much with each reading. When first published in 1969, it was reviewed by the late MIT Professor Emeritus, Philip Morrison, who was reknown as a distinguished theoretical astrophysicist and interpreter of science for the general public. He wrote " "The book is polemic, even cocky; it will make a tempest in the inkpots. It nonetheless has the ring of noble metal, although it is only a bent key to the first of many gates." Many since that time have taken Santillana's lead and attempted to apply this "bent key" to other gates...as I did in 1992 with my book, "The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt." After several readings of Hamlet's Mill I became convinced that a concerted search through the writings and artwork of Egypt, a culture whose myths diSantillana and Dechend had only written of superficially, would serve as a reliable test of the book's assertions. I certainly came away from that endeavor, convinced that Hamlet's Mill did indeed offer a valuable key to the many puzzles of ancient religious myths and beliefs.
Offkilter January 3, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
A lot of interesting theses and odd connections, but the horrid presentation and possibly untrustworthy sources lessen the value of this book.
Hamlet' farm November 3, 2006
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
The book is based on old texts that are not commonly known. The subject is interesting and in the same directions with recent discoveries on the human race past. The book is difficult to be read due to the way it is written by the author.
|
|
|
| |
News 
