Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time

Giorgio De Santillana · Hertha von Dechend

Jan 1977 · David R. Godine Publisher

About this ebook

"A book wonderful to read and startling to contemplate....both the history of science and the reinterpretation of myths have been enriched immensely."--Washington Post

A seminal work of scientific and philosophical exploration. Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed separately. But 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 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.

Ratings and reviews

Even though the authors dont directly say,this book clearly points to a civilisation, more than 10,000 yrs old,that had very advanced knowledge, especially in astronomy,and their stonework, which clearly shows they were at least as advanced a s present day society, but they seemed to b wiped out by some natural global cataclysm.

A significant work comparing and contrasting the various mythologies around the world.

About the author

Giorgio de Santillana was born in Rome and moved to the United States in 1936. In 1942, he became an Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he would spend the remainder of his academic career. Hertha Von Dechend was born in Heidelberg in 1915. She began her career as an anthropologist in 1934 at the Frobenius Institute. Between 1960 and 1966, she regularly taught and researched at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.