Re: Hamlet's Mill Pdf Free 18
Argimiro Krishnamoorthy
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth (first published by Gambit, Boston, 1969) by Giorgio de Santillana (a professor of the history of science at MIT) and Hertha von Dechend (a scientist at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt) is a nonfiction work of history and comparative mythology, particularly the subfield of archaeoastronomy. It is mostly about the claim of a Megalithic era discovery of axial precession and the encoding of this knowledge in mythology. The book was severely criticized by academics upon its publication.
The book's project is an examination of the "relics, fragments and allusions that have survived the steep attrition of the ages".[3] In particular, the book reconstructs a myth of a heavenly mill which rotates around the celestial pole and grinds out the world's salt and soil, and is associated with the maelstrom. The millstone falling off its frame represents the passing of one age's pole star (symbolized by a ruler or king of some sort), and its restoration and the overthrow of the old king of authority and the empowering of the new one the establishment of a new order of the age (a new star moving into the position of pole star). The authors attempt to demonstrate the prevalence of influence of this hypothetical civilization's ideas by analysing the world's mythology (with an eye especially to all "mill myths") using
[...] cosmographic oddments from many eras and climes...a collection of yarns from Saxo Grammaticus, Snorri Sturluson ("Amlodhi's mill" as a kenning for the sea!), Firdausi, Plato, Plutarch, the Kalevala, Mahabharata, and Gilgamesh, not to forget Africa, the Americas, and Oceania....[4]
Santillana and Dechend state in their introduction to Hamlet's Mill that they are well aware of modern interpretations of myth and folklore but find them shallow and lacking insight: "...the experts now are benighted by the current folk fantasy, which is the belief that they are beyond all this - critics without nonsense and extremely wise". Consequently, Santillana and Dechend prefer to rely on the work of "meticulous scholars such as Ideler, Lepsius, Chwolson, Boll and, to go farther back, of Athanasius Kircher and Petavius..."
They give reasons throughout the book for preferring the work of older scholars (and the early mythologists themselves) as the proper way to interpret myth; but this viewpoint did not sit well with their modern critics schooled in the "current anthropology, which has built up its own idea of the primitive and what came after".[5]
Santillana had previously published, in 1961, The Origins of Scientific Thought, on which Hamlet's Mill is substantially based. Compare various statements in Hamlet's Mill to this quotation from The Origin of Scientific Thought: "We can see then, how so many myths, fantastic and arbitrary in semblance, of which the Greek tale of the Argonaut is a late offspring, may provide a terminology of image motifs, a kind of code which is beginning to be broken. It was meant to allow those who knew (a) to determine unequivocally the position of given planets in respect to the earth, to the firmament, and to one another; (b) to present what knowledge there was of the fabric of the world in the form of tales about 'how the world began'."[6]
Hamlet's Mill was severely criticized by academic reviewers[7] on a number of grounds: tenuous arguments based on incorrect or outdated linguistic information;[8] lack of familiarity with modern sources;[9] an over-reliance on coincidence or analogy;[10] and the general implausibility of a far-flung and influential civilization existing and not leaving behind solid evidence. At most, it has been given a grudging sort of praise. Thus, Jaan Puhvel (1970) concluded that
This is not a serious scholarly work on the problem of myth in the closing decades of the twentieth century. There are frequent flashes of insight, for example, on the cyclical world views of the ancients and on the nature of mythical language, as well as genuinely eloquent, quasi-poetic homilies.[4]
[The] authors' insistence that between about 4000 B.C. and 100 A.D. a single archaic system prevailed throughout most of the civilized and proto-civilized world is pure fantasy. Their attempt to delineate the details of this system by a worldwide scatter of random oddments of mythology is no more than an intellectual game. [...] Something like 60 percent of the text is made up of complex arguments about Indo-European etymologies which would have seemed old-fashioned as early as 1870.[11]
[...] amateurish in the worst sense, jumping to wild conclusions without any knowledge of the historical value of the sources or of previous work done. On the Scandinavian side there is heavy dependence on the fantasies of Rydberg, writing in the last [19th] century, and apparent ignorance of progress made since his time.[12]
In contrast the classical scholar Harald Reiche positively reviewed Hamlet's Mill.[13] Reiche was a colleague of Santillana at MIT, and himself developed the archaeoastronomical interpretation of ancient myth in a series of lectures and publications similar to Hamlet's Mill (dealing more specifically with Greek mythology), including an interpretation of "the layout of Atlantis as a sort of map of the sky".[14]
The Swedish astronomer Peter Nilson, while recognizing that Hamlet's Mill does not qualify as a work of science, expressed admiration for it as well as it being a source of inspiration when he wrote his own book on classic mythologies based on the night sky: Himlavalvets sllsamheter (1977).
The full hardcover title is Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth & the Frame of Time. Later softcover editions would use Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and its Transmission Through Myth. The English edition was hastily assembled and published five years prior to Santillana's death. Hertha von Dechend (who is generally held to have written most of the book)[17] prepared an expanded second edition several years later. The essay was reissued by David R. Godine, Publisher in 1992. The German translation, which appeared in 1993, is slightly longer than the original. The 8th Italian edition of 2000 was substantially expanded.[18]
I'm glad you point out the analogy between Hamlet's mill(stone) and fire-making, something that seemed evident when I read that excellent if at times taxing essay. Fire is essential to humans especially in the Arctic, from where according to the authors of The Megalithic Empire, modern humans originated.
This review is short-sighted and only partly correct. First Finnish is a Uralic language, not Indo-European. Second, when other translations appear among other peoples such as churning, fire-drilling, and rocker-mill these words are synonymous with milling. Just because they aren't spoon fed to us as such doesn't mean that isn't what they are....
Hi,
I just started reading your blog after watching several hours of the history channel's show, and there is a lot of interesting debunking in one place. I searched around to see what you though of hamlet's mill and found this article, and I think you are trying too hard to debunk their work when they agree totally with you.
To me their theme was 'We don't need space aliens or giants to explain ancient buildings, the ancients that built the pyramids and other structures were serious people and didn't make up myths for fun, they were trying to pass on information gleaned by pre-writing cultures using myths.' Those myths have a lot of similarities between different cultures in different places, implying that there was one ur-culture.
It's an interesting book because it makes one look back at the ancient humans and not think airy-fairy star worshipers, but serious people.
anyway, keep up the good work.
Thanks for this very helpful summation, and the sensible interpretation. I tried without success to make it through all the wending paths of "Hamlet's Mill" and, much as I liked the precession-cosmology angle, your alternate take is convincing.
Hi Jason, really enjoyed this post. I wonder if you could elaborate just a little on this thought..."According to legends preserved in Germany down to the nineteenth century, the Milky Way was the meal that spewed forth from the churning mill as it worked to light the sun each night."
What is the legend or legends...and the link with Milky Way? Is it called stars? How do we know the legends are talking about the Milky Way?
Jason C said;
"The sun, in turn, has been associated with a flaming wheel or wheeled-chariot since Proto-Indo-European times, and the grinding wheel-stone of the mill is but another version of this myth.
(Later writers would expand the idea of solar mythology to ridiculous extremes, but their wrongheaded theories have no bearing on the present question.)"
Jason C (hereinafter JC) I am glad that you are aware that the mill-stone can be easily associated to the sun as a flaming solar wheel, linked to the wheeled chariots, quadriga etc., so to suggest and ask who invented the wheel is an interesting question in itself and what status would the wheel have in ancient times if rotation of a wheel and the sun were seen as one and the same etc.?
So the leap of faith that everybody fails to make and I cannot figure out why is what is the connection between the macro solar sun often symbolized by the 12,000+ year old 'swastika' AND the micro nano light 'mill' that profoundly speaks of a higher consciousness showing us the way ... fulfilling the axiom 'as above, so below' in so many respects as ye shall come to understand.
-day-in-the-life-of-the-137-ss-mystic-august-27-2013-swastika-solar-light-mill-motor/
^^^ After 11+ years of researching the swastika which appeared as an epiphany to me back in 2004 it is clear to me JC that the next level of discussion is how easy it is to connect the swastika to the theory put forth in Hamlet's Mill...regarding precession etc.and so so so much more.
The rotating threshing millstone, what happens if the wheel should break, only a 'tool maker consciousness' would be able to fix it, and be able to move on, because in fact cultures that were in 'possession' of the wheel have died out, but the 'tool maker' moves on and adapts to the ups and downs of life, keeping step with an evolution of consciousness receiving impulses not yet understood.
JC can you measure a feeling or how fast a thought based on that feeling might travel?
IF the mind and the heart are primary to the discussion and understanding of 'the human condition' then without getting into ALL the detail to support a simple idea, please explain why in the QaBaLaH (QBLH =137) the unattainable Kether or Crown is associated to the swastika and why China completed the world's tallest statue called the Spring Temple Buddha and placed a swastika on the Buddha's bosom as a a seal for the heart?
Please explain why this gesture goes unnoticed or discussed in the west?
What if a country in Europe had done a similar gesture?
JC did you know that the Aztec used the swastika as a symbol for precession of the equinoxes?
JC are ye ready to discuss sir what the master taught ME+me in the throes of an epiphany?
Itzhak Bentov or 'Ben' is one fine example of a cheerleader genius cheering me on from the other side, he and me agreed that 'the system wants to teach us about the system' ...
Easy to prove.
JC please go here;
-itzhak-bentov-mystical-friend-of-mine/
As a result of 11+ years of research it is clear that the swastika is a heaven sent, or maybe stolen technology that also belongs to the gods.
It is in fact the best evidence that humanity has that an intelligent design is in place.
The swastika is clearly so much more than JC knows, and this is a fact.
It can be used to pull on your heartstrings and pushing your buttons, the swastika can be used to manipulate consciousness, and this is understood as this next link illustrates.
^^^ And JC please do not cherry pick through the pile of evidence thus far recovered for discussion and discount the bigger picture, maybe your learning curve is about to begin?
Embrace your ignorance.
That is the key.
Most folks spend their lives defending their ignorance.
knowledge is good
ignorance is evil
-Socrates
simple insight and it still rings true blue today
selah V
RaphaEL ;)
p.s. JC I have cut and paste this link to a faKebook page that I author.
Please RSVP the FSC JC
or maybe you could 'like' and 'share' this faKebook page?
-Sacred-Swastika-Science-320420841301320/timeline/