Critics and Criticisms of Hamlet's Mill by Gary D. Thompson
Copyright © 2004-2012 by Gary D. Thompson
Part 1: The Book and the Authors: Context and Critique
1999 Italian-language edition of Hamlet's Mill , which was translated/edited by Alessandro Passi and comprised a new and expanded edition (630 pages).
The authors of Hamlet's Mill: Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend at MIT circa 1967/1968 - photographed in de Santillana's office. (Photographs used with the written permission of the copyright holder.)
Hamlet's Mill is a very curious book of mythological speculation. Nothing in the book provides conclusive evidence for its claims. Also, the book is lengthy, dense, and poorly constructed. Simply, it lacks a cogent argument. The knowledge of astronomy and philology exhibited by both the authors is inadequate for the task. It has been called a 'notorious New Age classic.'
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time by Giorgio de Santillana (1902-1974) and Hertha von Dechend (1915-2001) was first published in 1969. (The Library of Congress (Copyright Office) Catalog of Copyright Entries has 3 November, 1969, as the copyright date.) The authors presented the book as an exploratory effort in which they present pieces of a puzzle. Hamlet's Mill is a work of speculative scholarship. Much of the text can be described as cryptic/densely obscure. Certainly the analysis and interpretation by Hertha von Dechend is inventive. No university press would publish Hamlet's Mill. According to Colin Wilson the manuscript of Hamlet's Mill was rejected by academic publishers. (It is mistakenly believed by some persons that there was also a German-language edition published in 1969.) Though the English-language edition has been reprinted four times (i.e., 1970, 1977, 1983, and 1998) the authors never revised or corrected the book. Also, they did not publish any other book on the theme outlined in Hamlet's Mill. Hertha von Dechend incorporated some changes and additions to the German-language edition (Die Mühle des Hamlet) first published in 1993. (This was an authorized translation from the English by Beate Ziegs.) The German edition was 17 pages longer (x, 522 pages (but also indicated as comprising 578 pages)) than the original English edition (x, 505 pages). It would appear that the errata list that was enclosed in this German-language edition was left out of the 1994 reprint of such. (It would appear that this German-language edition was basically a translation of the English-language edition. For a review of the 1993 German-language edition see the (German-language) book review by P[?]. Richter in Sterne und Weltraum, Band 34, 1995, Pages 4-10.) (In Die Mühle des Hamlet (1994) reference is made to a forthcoming book An Introduction to Archaic Cosmology.) The Italian-language edition (Il Mulino di Amleto) published in 1983 was apparently simply a translation of the 1969 English-language book. It was reprinted in 1984, and 1998. An Italian-language edition appeared in 1983. However, the 1999 Italian-language edition, which was translated/edited by Alessandro Passi, comprised a new and expanded edition (630 pages). This particular edition was reprinted in 2000 and 2003. (The preface to this expanded edition was also written by Hertha von Dechend.) Also, a Hungarian translation (Hamlet malma) was published in 1995.
From the time of publication of Hamlet's Mill in 1969 (or perhaps even prior to its publication) it appears that Hertha von Dechend began collecting materials for a second book on the astro-mythological interpretation of the Pyramid Texts, the Amduat, and the Book of the Dead. (The text of 'Amduat' or 'Book of What is in the Underworld' appears on the burial chamber wall in the tomb of Thutmose II (near Thebes).) She believed that the astronomical knowledge and contributions of ancient Egypt had been under-estimated and up to her death was particularly interested in Erik Hornung's publication Das Amduat oder die Schrift des verborgenen Raumes (3 Band, 1963-67). However, it appears she only had four chapters completed (and ready for printing) by 1998. She procrastinated and never got around to completing the (final) fifth chapter. (It appears she had an English title Archeoastronomy for the title of the draft manuscript. It also appears it was dated 1997.) It appears she gave a lot of time to mythological material relating to the constellation Sagittarius. She also intended to continue with her particular philological approach - this time focusing on what she believed were deficiencies and false interpretations in the translations of the Gilgamesh epic and the Rig Veda. Her unpublished lecture manuscripts (described as 15 typed, bound volumes, averaging 120 pages in length, of her Frankfurt University lectures) are now in the Renaissance Institute at the University of Frankfort. (In his book The Origin of Scientific Thought (1961) Giorgio de Santillana had set out his belief in an astronomical origin of myth and fairytale. In the Prologue to this book "Of High and Far-off Times" he traces back the roots of scientific thought to its origins in Neolithic Period astronomers. He also wrote of myths providing an astronomical code that had been previously overlooked by modern scholars. The Prologue was also published in the quarterly magazine Midway, Volume XI, Number 1, Summer, 1970.) In her book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Volume 1, 1980, Page 279, Note 349) Elizabeth Eisenstein writes: "de Santillana, book review [of Yate's work on Giordano Bruno], American Historical Review, ... contains hints of de Santillana's later collaborative book with Hertha von Dechend: Hamlet's Mill." In his review of Yate's work on Giordano Bruno, he pointed to certain problems presented by the "churning turbid flood" of Hermetic, Cabalistic and other esoteric literature. (See: American Historical review, Volume LXX, January, 1965, Pages 455-457.)
The last joint publication by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend was a conference paper that appeared in 1970. I am not aware of who presented the paper. (See: "Sirius as a permanent center in the archaic universe." by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend. In: Enrico Castelli (Editor). Eternità e storia (1970). (Pages 235-263). The publication in which the paper appears is a collection of 1968 conference papers presented in Rome. Other details: I Valori Permanenti nel Divenire Storico. Atti del Convegno Internationale promosso delT Istituto Accademico di Roma, Roma 3.-6.10.1968.)
Brief biographical information for both de Santillana and von Dechend appears in The World of Physics (1987) edited by Jefferson Weaver. For brief biographical details of de Santillana see the entry in, Directory of American Scholars: A Biographical Directory, Volume 1, published 1969 by the American Council of Learned Societies.
Via Firenze 48, Rome. The residence of the de Santillana family (presumably an apartment within the building).
De Santillana was an Italian born and trained historian of science (physicist and philosopher) who made his career at MIT. Giorgio de Santillana was born in Rome, Italy, and was of Jewish descent. His parents were David de Santillana and Emilia (Emily) (Maggiorani) de Santillana. Some sources (mistakenly) state that David de Santillana was a Professor of Law (but he was a jurist). He was a specialist in Islamic law; and considered an expert in both Islamic and European law. David de Santillana was Tunisian Jew of Spanish descent. He was born in Tunis and studied in Rome where acquired a PhD in law. David de Santillana (Tunis 1855(sometimes mistakenly 1845)-Rome 1931) was a distinguished Orientalist (Arabist and expert of Islam) at the University of Rome; where he was Professor of Muslim history (Professor of the History of the Political and Religious Institutions of Islam). He was naturalised British and then Italian. In 1899 he compiled a draft code of civil and commercial law for Tunisia which was partially enacted in 1906. Emilia de Santillana was active in social movements (women's rights movements). She was (at least in 1923) Secretary of the National Council of Women. In 1881 she received payment of a large amount of funds (but as yet I do not know further details). In 1923 the address for Emilia Santillana-Maggiorani is given as: Via Firenze 48, Rome. (It was once the home of an Aristocratic family; now the small Seiler Hotel. The location is in the (historical) centre of Rome.) See: Women of 1923, International, and Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present. (An archive co-published by the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender at SUNY, Binghamton, and Alexander Street Press. Finalised 2012.) (Several sources give 1901 as the year of Giorgio de Santillana's birth - not 1902. It appears, however, that 1902 is correct. (One early source even gives 1906 as year of birth.) He died in 1974 (aged 72 years).) One source states he was an Italian marquis but this is likely confusion with the Medieval Spanish writer, the Marques de Santillana (1398-1458).
De Santillana's student studies were conducted at the University of Rome. He received a Ph.D. (graduated) in physics from the University of Rome in 1925. (His doctoral dissertation was on The theorem of least action in relativist dynamics.) He then did 2 years of graduate work in philosophy (at the Sorbonne?) in Paris and then he also did 2 years of graduate work at the University of Milan (Physics Department) - he was assistant to Aldo Pontremoli in the University of Milan 1926-1927. As a student Giorgio de Santillana was one of a number of people involved in the project by Federigo Enriques to present classical period mathematical texts in forms accessible to both students and teachers in secondary schools. Circa 1930 (1927?) he was asked by Federigo Enriques, Professor of Higher Geometry at the University of Rome, to help organise a department for the History of Science. The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who states: "Instructor, Rome University, 1929-1932." As an assistant of Federigo Enriques (in the Institute of the History of Science attached to the University of Rome) he taught the history and philosophy of science at Rome University. (He was an Instructor at the University for 2 years; working in the same university as his father.) He also collaborated with Federigo Enriques on a history of scientific thought that gave particular attention to antiquity. At this later date Federigo Enriques and Giorgio de Santillana worked together on a joint project to produce a comprehensive history of science. However they were only able to complete/publish a part in 1932 (Storia del pensiero scientifico) and then in 1937 (Platon et Aristotle). A publication (shortly after he arrived in the USA) included Mathématiques et astronomie de la période hellénique (1939, 78 pages) co-authored with Federigo Enriques. (Santillana's approach to history in some ways mimics Enriques.) In 1935 he gave a series of lectures at the Sorbonne, and he also conducted colloquia (seminars) in Brussels (Belgium) and Pontigny (France).
There seems to be three versions of how he came to the USA. One version implies Giorgio de Santillana left Mussolini's Italy in 1938 when the race laws (discriminating against Jews) were introduced in November, 1938, and sought shelter in the USA (as a displaced foreign scholar). The race laws, amongst other things, excluded Jews from State controlled employment. (See: Italian Mathematics Between the Two World Wars by Angelo Guerraggio and Pietro Nastasi (2005, Page 141).) According to a second version Giorgio de Santillana left Mussolini's Italy in 1936 (some say 1935) (as discriminatory measures against Jews there were increasing) and came to the USA, assisted by a committee in the USA, as a displaced foreign scholar. (He was sponsored by The New School for Social Research.) Perhaps the dates mean he left Italy in 1935 and left Europe in 1936. (Either way, he sought shelter in the USA at that general time. I have also seen a third version which states he came to the USA from Paris in 1936 and soon after joined the faculty of MIT. This seems to be the correct version.) According to The Atlantic (Volume 176, 1945) Santillana's opposition to Mussolini drove him into exile. The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who states: "Came to the US in 1936."
MIT is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861, it adopted the European polytechnic university model. In 1916 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) moved its campus from the Back Bay of Boston across the Charles River to Cambridge.
Aerial view of MIT campus in the 1920s.
From 1937 to 1938 de Santillana was an instructor at the New School for Social Research, in New York City. The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who states: "Lecturer, New School for Social Research, 1936-1937." This was originally founded in New York City in 1919 as a private coeducational institution of higher learning for adults. (In 1997 its name was changed to New School University.) (He was actually connected with the University in Exile. This was founded in 1933 as a graduate division of the New School for Social Research as a haven for scholars who had been dismissed from teaching positions by totalitarian regimes in Europe. See: Intellectuals and Exile: Refuge Scholars and the New School for Social Research by Claus-Dieter Krohn (1993; Page 209). Between 1933 and 1945, Alvin Johnson and the New School sponsored 183 refugee scholars, more than any other American institution.) (His association with the New School of Social Research may help explain his attention to political and social issues extending at least through the the end of the 1950s.) He then became a visiting lecturer at Harvard University (1941). (According to The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who he was a: "Visiting lecturer, Harvard University, 1937-1939.") The Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, Volume 38, Issue 20, states: "Dr De Santillana - History of Leading Scientific Ideas from the Earliest Times to the Close of the Nineteenth Century." The Harvard Crimson, Friday, January 28, 1938, states: "Three graduates of foreign Universities are among the appointments to the faculty announced yesterday, to take office next September 1. George de Santillana a graduate of the University of Rome, now at the New School for Social Research in New York City, has been appointed lecturer on the History of Science for one year." The Official Register of Harvard University for 1939, 1940, and 1941 each list George de Santillana of the New School for Social Research, New York City. It is frequently stated he joined MIT in 1941 as Professor of English and History. (One source states he joined MIT in 1942 as Assistant Professor, in 1948 he was made Associate Professor (he was certainly Associate Professor of History at MIT in 1949), and in 1954 he was made Professor of the History of Science [Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science].) The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who states: "Member, faculty, MIT, 1941." According to The Technology Review, Volume 44, 1942, Page 325, in 1942 de Santillana was promoted to the grade of Assistant Professor, Department of English and History. As late as circa 1950 he was referred to as George de Santillana. (In 1948 his office was 24-222, i.e., Building 24, Room 222. Building 24 was an 8-storey structure constructed in 1941.) According to one source he became a naturalised citizen of the USA in 1945. However, I believe the date for this is correctly 1947. (According to the magazine Scientific American (1949) George de Santillana was (then) associate professor of history at MIT.)
From 1943 to 1945 de Santillana was on the staff of the United States Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. I have no other knowledge/details of his war time service (The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who).
The spelling George di Santillana also appears. As example: For authorship of the articles "The Private and Public Life of Socrates." in The Commonweal, Volume 31, 1940; and "Galileo, the Ancient" in Science, Volume 96, 1942 (containing papers of Galileo symposium by the American Association for the Advancement of Science). (The spelling George di Santillana was used into the 1950s.) The American Association for the Advancement of Science Symposium in 1942 was in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. In addition to Giorgio de Santillana, on "Galileo, the Ancient"; the participants were Henry Crew, on "Galileo, Pioneer in Physics"; and Chauncey Leake, on "Contributions of Science to the Concept of Freedom."
At the time de Santillana secured his employment at MIT the recognition of the history of science as a scholarly discipline had not yet been established. (De Santillana was a second-generation historian of science as his father had been one of the most distinguished practitioners of that discipline at the turn of the 19th-century.) In the 1930s few universities in the USA had a graduate program in the history of science. Due to George Sarton's efforts at Harvard University the Ph.D. degree in the history of science was established. "Only recently has the history of science, thanks to the unflagging efforts of Dr. George Sarton and others, begun to achieve the recognition it deserves as a scholarly discipline in its own right." ("Science." by Francis Johnson and Sanford Larkey (Modern Language Quarterly, 1941, Volume 2, Number 3, Pages 363-401).) Both Willy Hartner and Giorgio de Santillana joined the Harvard group of history of science instructors in and shortly after 1935, and they both, in turn, formed new centres of work and instruction in the history of science. After World War II the principal persons who established the history of science as a recognised discipline within American universities are George Sarton, I. Bernard Cohen, Henry Guerlac, and Marshall Clagett.
De Santillana retained an interest in political and social issues. De Santillana specialised in parallels between historical issues in science and present conflicts (for example, Oppenheimer / Galileo). (This comparison did not always meet with agreement and was viewed by some as forced.) He also specialised in Galileo. His MIT courses showed flexibility. In the early 1950s Giorgio de Santillana, taught a one-year course on Dante for Seyyed Hossein Nasr and his friends. De Santillana also introduced Nasr to the writings of one René Guénon.
Giorgio de Santillana first met Hertha von Dechend when he participated in a symposium organised by Willy Hartner at the Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, in Frankfurt, in 1958. (By way of mentioning both were smokers - he a mainly a pipe and she cigarettes.) She sent him a summary of her ideas on precessional mythology in 1959 and he immediately accepted her arguments. (Giorgio de Santillana's close support helped the credibility of Hertha von Dechend's ideas. Without the good luck of meeting him her ideas would undoubtedly have remained little known.) (Another version of their 1958 meeting holds that they identified that, by different routes, both had independently reached the conclusion that world-wide myths at the end of the prehistoric era used metaphors to describe celestial phenomena, especially the precession of the equinoxes.) After von Dechend completed her Habilitation (teaching qualification (involving writing another thesis and giving a presentation), university level) in 1960 de Santillana invited her to the USA that same year for a lake trip vacation. (Her habilitation (Habilitationsschrift) was titled: Der Mythos von der gebauten Welt als Ausdrucksform archaischer Naturwissenschaft. This was the precursor to Hamlet's Mill.) (De Santillana's actual intention was to bring von Dechend to MIT to be a collaborator on a project/book on precessional mythology.) (This Hamlet's Mill project - judging from the state of von Dechend's seminar notes - appears to have been rather chaotic from start to finish. The authors acknowledge in Hamlet's Mill: "Much of the research for this book was supported by a grant from the Twentieth Century Fund." Considering that it was funded research the end result hardly justified the funding.)
There is little doubt that de Santillana's existing beliefs concerning the origins of intelligence and early science predisposed him to readily accepting von Dechend's ideas. De Santillana was keen to introduce revolutionary ideas, such as an early (Neolithic period) date for the establishment of scientific (astronomical) knowledge, into the history of science.
There is reason to believe that at least some of his ideas concerning the early history of science bordered on the mystical. In a 1994 (1997?) interview Jerome Lettvin related that de Santillana would conduct Tarot readings (and seemed to earnestly believe in the veracity of such). According to Lettvin, de Santillana conducted a Tarot reading for his wife Maggie and multiple Tarot readings for Walter Pitts, who constantly requested such. In his autobiography in The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography, Volume 2 (1998, Pages 222-243), edited by Larry Squire, Lettvin writes (Page 234): "One of my best friends at MIT was Giorgio de Santillana, the historian of ideas. He was a most learned and kindly man with a mordant wit. Walter, Wiener, and I often hung out at his office. Giorgio was a past-master at fortune-telling with the Tarot. Wiener loved having his fortune told. Giorgio vainly tried to persuade him that the Tarot should be a rare and sometime thing to be used only in crisis, but Wiener would have none of such excuses. For example, Walter and I used it when we started a new experimental venture." (At least one academic offered that in 1944 Giorgio de Santillana gave a talk in which he appears to have indicated his belief in a "quasi-mystical unanalyzable sort of event." (See: The Foundational Debate: Complexity and Constructivity in Mathematics and Physics edited by Werner DePauli-Schimanovich et al. (Series: Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, Volume 3; 1995, Page 271).) It appears de Santillana held the fantasy that he was the reincarnation of Merlin travelling backwards in time.)
One source holds that during her PhD research (for Die kultische und mythische Bedeutung des Schweins in Indonesien und Ozeanien (completed 1939) von Dechend realised for the first time that the myths of the South Seas inhabitants could only be understood if their science, especially astronomy, is decrypted. However, this ignores the earlier influence of Leo Frobenius and Panbabylonism.
De Santillana's advice enabled Hertha von Dechend to receive a Sloan Foundation grant for post-graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he lectured. He also assisted her to become a research associate (within the Humanities Department) at MIT. (Within a university the title research associate is given to post-doctorates who are conducting post-doctoral research. Hertha von Dechend's research would have been leading towards the book Hamlet's Mill.) It would also appear that Hertha von Dechend remained a research associate at MIT throughout the 1960s and between 1960 and 1969 either stayed in the USA or made regular (annual) lengthy research and teaching visits to MIT. During this period, with leave-of-absence from Frankfurt University, she apparently resided in the USA for at least a considerable number of years on one visit. Some sources hold she resided in the USA from 1960 to 1969. (Yet another source suggests she was a research associate at MIT for 5 winters from 1962 to 1967.) The most reliable source states that 1960-1969 she made regular research and teaching visits to to MIT. (This period was her only break with her otherwise continuous employment, since November 1943, at the Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, in Germany (founded by Willy Hartner). In 1969 she returned to the University of Frankfort and her post as Professor of the History of Science (and Emeritius from 1980). (The Wikipedia article on Hamlet's Mill (January, 2010) erroneously identifies her as a scientist.)) (According to one source at the Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften her regular research and teaching visits to MIT spanned 1960-1969. According to another source she was a research associate at MIT for five winters spanning, 1962-1967. Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau, is now perhaps the best guide. Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau, Volumes 16-17, 1963, Page 458, has Hertha von Dechend as: Priv.-Doz. (Privatdozent (= holding all formal qualifications (both doctorate and habilitation) [unsalaried lecturer if a formal position not held?]) researching at MIT for winter semester 1964/1965 (... wird im WS 1964/65 zu Forschungszwecken am Massachusetts Institute of Technology ....). According to Who's who in Germany 1990: Part 1, A-L, Page 254: "Dechend ... spent six winter terms in visiting capacity at MIT, Cambridge, Mass., USA. 1960-1967 ...." (Once again, other sources give 1960-1969.)
It would appear that Giorgio de Santillana organised the two seminars on archaic cosmology at MIT (in 1961 and 1966) that Hertha von Dechend lectured at. She presented, at least in 1966, the topic titled "Introduction to Ancient Cosmology." It also appears that at these seminars Giorgio de Santillana actually gave most of the presentations. (Hertha von Dechend, though considered an excellent presenter and able to demonstrate enormous learning, was not comfortable speaking in English - her lack of fluency in English was a major barrier.) On several occasions Jerome Lettvin presented (but I am not sure during which year(s)). (See his articles: "The Use of Myth." in Technology Review, Volume 78, Number 7, 1976, Pages 52-57, 63; and "The Gorgon's Eye." in Technology Review, Volume 80, Number 2, 1977, Pages 74-83. Technology Review is an MIT publication.) (See also: Technology Review, Volumes 80-81, 1977, Pages 100.) The core persons for the two seminars in the 1960s were undoubtedly Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend, Harald Reiche, Jerome Lettvin, and Philip Morrison. In her 1961 seminar notes Hertha von Dechend refers to seminar speakers (plural). The language of some parts of the 1961 seminar notes indicate that sometimes it is Giorgio de Santillana that is presenting. This leads to the conclusion that her seminar notes reflect what was jointly presented by multiple presenters. (The collection of essays comprising the book Astronomy of the Ancients edited by Kenneth Brecher and Michael Fiertag (1979) was published in the same year as the last MIT seminar on ancient astronomy given by Hertha von Dechend. Both editors were MIT staff and 3 of the 8 essays were by MIT staff. Many of the essays in it can be considered an extension of Hamlet's Mill.)
No syllabus for any of the Archaic Cosmology/Ancient cosmology seminars appears to have survived. No evidence of a syllabus exists in her course notes. A syllabus is an outline or a summary of the main points of a text, lecture, or course of study. A reference to "Hertha von Dechend, syllabus for a course in ancient cosmology, MIT, spring, 1966, pages 38, 40.6." is somewhat cryptic.
Unfortunately, the nature of von Dechend's involvement with the [Introduction to] Archaic Cosmology seminars at MIT, though mentioned by both herself and Uta Lindgren, are not clearly explained. (The seminars are nowhere mentioned in The Tech, MIT's oldest and largest newspaper, established in 1881.) In his book The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (1996, Page 268) William Thompson states that Hertha von Dechend was [at least 1966-1967] part of the Department of Humanities at MIT. In his book The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (1996, Page 268) William Thompson writes: "... Hertha von Dechend's syllabus for her course in "Ancient Cosmology" given at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1966-67." (At this time William Thompson (a cultural historian) was Associate Professor of Humanities (i.e., Associate Professor of Literature) Department of Humanities, MIT, and a colleague of Hertha von Dechend. According to William Thompson, in 1966 he was working as an instructor at MIT, in the Humanities.) It is indicated by some sources that they were not student seminars but seminars specifically convened for specialist academics. However, this may not be quite correct. The neurologist and psychiatrist Jerome Lettvin, a former professor at MIT and close associate of both Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, recollects that each year the seminars were held there were a series of 5 or 6 seminars that would span a single term (or per each term for the year?) and the duration of each seminar was around 2 hours. (The organising of the seminars by way of fixing the dates was sporadic.) Circa 1967 Jerome Lettvin was focused on teaching the "History of experimental approaches to epistemology." Hertha von Dechend's lecture notes for the 1966 seminars are marked "Autumn, 1966, Introduction to Ancient Cosmology." For the 1979 seminars her lecture notes are simply marked "Fall, 1979." (The seminar title seems to have consistently been: Introduction to Ancient Cosmology. This was the exact title used for the 1966 seminar.) The seminars were open to everybody - students, faculty, and the public. The seminars were possibly held in the Charles Hayden Memorial Library Lounge (Hayden Library Lounge, Room 14E-310 (also written as 14-E310)). (The starting time was likely 5.00 pm and the finishing time was likely 7.00 pm.) This room was frequently utilised by Giorgio de Santillana, and also other Humanities Department staff, when organising the presentation of lectures by visiting academics. (It was located on level 4 mezzanine?) It was the Humanities Library (built 1950), and Giorgio de Santillana was in the Humanities Department. The American Historical Association Newsletter, Volume 6, 1967, noted de Santillana's retirement in that year. The (3-hour) colloquium to honour Giorgio de Santillana on his retirement was held in the Hayden Library Lounge (in May, 1967) which comfortably seated two hundred attendees. (The exact location of 14E-310 is a little confusing. Building 14E is described as being located near the Hayden Library. The address for 14E-310 appears as 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge.) During 1961 at least Giorgio de Santillana was teaching the course "The Origins of Scientific Thought." Immediately before his retirement he was focused on teaching Greek and Renaissance scientific thought. At the time of his death in 1974 Giorgio de Santillana was Professor Emeritus, History and Philosophy of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
An article in Technology Review, Volumes 80-81, 1977, makes a reference to a Santillana/Dechend seminar at MIT. This may have clarifying information.
There is the likelihood that in 1965 Giorgio de Santillana may have organised and directed his own seminar on archaic cosmology and science, focusing on the period from 8000 BCE to 2000 BCE aimed at demonstrating the narrowness of the traditional historicistic vision on the origin and early development of science. (See: Italian Quarterly, Volumes 9-10, 1965, Page 87.)
In the 1960s MIT was given a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to design new courses in the humanities for scientists and engineers. William Thompson, who stayed 3 years at MIT, was involved in this. He designed a particular new course.
Steven Wolfe describes de Santillana as a forgotten polymath, humanist, and Galileo scholar. Henry Guerlac noted his skill in discovering the unity of the history of science. An example is: Development of Rationalism and Empiricism, with Edgar Zilsel (1941, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science Foundations of the Unity of Science; Volume 2, Number 8, Pages 1-52; 2nd Edition, 1970, Volume 2, Pages 751-801). De Santillana also wrote (the pamphlet) Aspects of Scientific Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century. Guerlac also notes that de Santillana's way of viewing the rise of modern science is no longer fashionable. Steven Wolfe also states that nobody reads de Santillana anymore. However, the exception would be Hamlet's Mill.
The obituary by his friend Nathan Sivin (Isis, 1976) states: "His office and classroom doors were always open. Those who passed in and out most often were among the most capacious and independent minds MIT has nurtured - Norbert Wiener, Jerome Lettvin, Warren McCullough, Philip Morrison, and Walter Pitts, to name a few." Jerome Lettvin (in 1998) described Giorgio de Santillana as "a most learned and kindly man with a mordant wit." Jerome Lettvin was an especially close friend of Giorgio de Santillana. (An article in Technology Review, Volume 69, 1966, describes circumstances where Giorgio de Santillana would "... next morning ... be in the inner book-lined fortress with Jerry Lettvin, Hertha von Dechend ...." Though de Santillana's official retirement was in 1967 this 1966 article refers to "Emeritius Giorgio de Santillana.") It appears that de Santillana's trip to Europe in 1961 (encompassing at least Oxford, England and Naples, Italy) was at least partly in the company of Jerome Lettvin and his family. (Jerome Lettvin and family visited Naples in 1961.) De Santillana's trip to Italy may have encompassed meeting his son Ludovico and his wife Anna, and grandchildren Laura and Allessandro. (Laura was born in Venice (Italy) in 1955 (but some sources incorrectly state 1950) and studied at the School of the Visual Arts in New York. Allessandro was born in 1959 in Paris (France) and was educated at The University of Venice, Venice, Italy.)
My copy of Hertha von Dechend's MIT course notes (purchased from a bookseller in France) may not be entirely complete, at least regarding the "cover pages." Only 2 course codes are given. These course codes are: (1) 21.93 T, Autumn, 1966; and (2) 21.965 J = STS 630 J, Fall, 1979. These course codes, even given my remoteness in time and space and familiarity, help to identify the nature of her MIT seminars. The number 21 identifies Course XXI (= Humanities) that was begun in 1952 at MIT. This identifies that the seminars were conducted as part of (or under the auspices of) Course XXI (Humanities). STS is the MIT abbreviation for: Science, Technology, and Society. The seminars (or at least the latter 2) would seem to be presented as part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP) which is a special 4-week term held each year that runs from the first week of January until the end of January. The IAP provides members of the MIT community (students, faculty, staff, and alumni) with the opportunity to organise, sponsor, and participate in a wide variety of activities, including forums and lecture series that are not possible during the semester. All of these short courses of one term duration, were, and still are, open to the MIT university community. (It appears that for "Ancient Cosmology" there were 6 seminars per term of approximately 2 hours each.) Judging by recent examples a seminar series conducted during this short term would, and still do, usually consist of a weekly evening lecture of 2-3 hours (by one of more presenters), some expected core reading, and some minor essays/projects. (An IAP could also occur during the Spring.) Strictly speaking Winter (89 days) begins on December 21. Autumn/Fall (90 days) begins on September 22. The nature of the seminar coding, however, seems to clearly support this type of identification of von Dechend's seminars. (According to William Thompson (The Time Falling bodies Take to Light) Hertha von Dechend (Spring, 1966) issued a detailed syllabus for "... her course in "Ancient Cosmology" given at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1966-67." From memory this is the only reference to one of her MIT seminars extending across 2 years.)
For information on the authors see the sympathetic (English-language) obituary of Giorgio de Santillana (1902-1974) by Nathan Sivin (a former student of de Santillana at MIT), Professor of Chinese Culture and the History of Science, University of Pennsylvania, in Isis, Volume 67, 1976, Pages 439-493; and the (English-language) obituary of Hertha von Dechend (1915-2001) by Uta Lindgren, Professor of the History of Science, University of Bayreuth in Isis, Volume 94, 2003, Pages 112-113). For other obituaries of Giorgio de Santillana see: America, History and Life, Volume 15, 1979, Page 4 (Page 105 and Page 189 for obituaries). (Professor Uta Lindgren mistakenly credits Hertha von Dechend with being was the first person to analyse myths for their astronomical content. This sort of analysis was a common 19th-century pastime for some writers such as George St Clair and Gerald Massey. A 20th-century precursor to Hamlet's Mill was contained in (the unpublished?) Mystery of the Zodiac (dated circa 1948) by (the somewhat obscure Polish writer) Witold Balcer.) Each obituary contains a photograph of the respective author. Both authors were experienced, though not major, historians of science. Giorgio de Santillana described himself as as a scientific rationalist but, on the basis of Hamlet's Mill, he could also be described as an eccentric historian. It is undoubtedly correct to describe him as a polyhistor. See also "Ein Vulkan ist erloschen: Hertha von Dechend in memoriam." by Uta Lindgren in Nachrichtenblatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Jahrgang 51, Heft 2, Sommer, 2001, Pages 148-151; "The Foundations of Archaic Cosmology: Hertha von Dechend (1915-2001)." by Lindgren Uta in XXII International Congress of History of Science, Book of Abstracts, 2005, Pages 338; and the (German-language) obituary for Hertha von Dechend by Yas Maeyama in UniReport 5, 13. Juni 2001, Jahrgang 34, Page 14. (This is a publication of Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.) Further, see "In Memorium: Hertha von Dechend." in The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers, Volume 24, 2006, Pages 296-297.
One puzzle concerned several authors maintaining
that Giorgio de Santillana was married. MIT colleague information is that he
remained a bachelor. It was popularly believed that he was a bachelor. Neil Smalheiser (2000) described him as a "bachelor popular
with the ladies." De Santillana was described as having considerable charm. (I am also informed that another person who knew him well described him as being
quite a womaniser.) However, after considerable research, I identified in
2009 that a number of persons asserted that he was married
(at one time) and
his wife Dorothy de Santillana was senior editor/managing editor at
Houghton Mifflin Company (Trade Division). (See for example: Jerzy Kosinski:
A Biography by James Sloan (1996, Page 173; and Sunset and Twilight: From
the Diaries of 1947-1958 by Bernard Berenson (1963, Page 373).) In his mid
40s Giorgio de Santillana married Dorothy Tilton.
Dorothy
Tilton was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, attended Goucher College, and was a graduate of
Radcliffe College (a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, affiliated with Harvard University)
One writer described Dorothy de Santillana as "holding great personal prestige." Who was Who in America with World Notables (2007, Page 110, Entry: Giorgio de Santillana) states that Giorgio de Santillana married Dorothy Tilton on September 1, 1948.
In 1926 Dorothy Tilton married the poet Robert Hillyer (1895-1961), who was one of her teachers at Radcliffe College, and in 1943 they were divorced (in Reno). In the US Federal Census for 1930 both Robert Hillyer and Dorothy Hillyer are listed as teachers in Windham County, Connecticut. Robert Hillyer was married 3 times. In 1937 Robert Hillyer was named Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard College. He received a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1934 for The Collected Poems of Robert Hillyer (1933). He dedicated the book to his wife and son. In 1944 he retired to Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Robert Hillyer and Dorothy Tilton had a single child, a son, Stanley Hancock Hillyer. After serving as book editor of The Boston Globe in the late 1930s and very early 1940s, she joined Houghton Mifflin Co. of Boston as an assistant editor in 1941. Between 1941 and 1969 Dorothy Tilton was progressively Editor, then Managing Editor (Trade Department of Houghton Mifflin), then Senior Editor at Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston. From 1969 onwards she was Executive Editor. (In 1936 she was one of a small group of people who established in Brooklyn an associated chapter of New York's Museum of Modern Art. ) She retired in 1973. During her editorial career of more than 30 years with Houghton Mifflin Company she was principally an editor of fiction, although she also dealt with other literary forms and was recognised for discovering and developing of young talent. Among writers with whom she worked were Jerzy Kosinski, Archibald MacLeish and Willie Morris. Whether Dorothy Tilton was ever divorced or legally separated from Giorgio de Santillana is not yet known. It is likely that neither was the case, but it appears there was a rift in the marriage. (The Massachusetts Death Index gives her name as "Dorothy Desantillana.") At the time of her death she lived on Curtis Point (The Massachusetts Death Index states Beverly, Massachusetts).
The estate of Dorothy de Santillana was sold at auction on Friday, June 26, 1981, by Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc (New York). Dorothy de Santillana (played by Helen Coxe) was a character in the 2009 movie Julie and Julia (based on the autobiographical book of the same name). According to The Boston Globe, Dorothy de Santillana had two grandchildren, Elizabeth and Francesca Hillyer, both of Beverly. (No children of Dorothy de Santillana are mentioned.) Elizabeth Hillyer is a veterinarian and part editor of the book Ferrets, Rabbits, and Rodents: Clinical Medicine and Surgery (1996). Francesca Hillyer is an educationalist(?) and part author of Diversity in Action (1998). Stanley Hillyer (1927-1969) graduated from MIT and in the mid 1940s completed postgraduate studies at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. In 1948 he was living in Boston; in 1950 he graduated from MIT; and in 1954 he married Laura Venini at Venice, Italy, and they had a family of two daughters (Elisabeth Hillyer and Francesca Hillyer. His wife, Laura Venini Hillyer, was vice president of Vignelli Associates, a New York design concern. Stanley Hillyer was the executive vice president of Far Eastern operations for Raytheon in Waltham, Massachusetts. In 1966 he was named its senior corporate representative in the Far East with headquarters in Tokyo. (He died in the USA.)
Tracing Ludovico de Santillana and Gerald de Santillana is presently a little more perplexing. Giorgio de Santillana dedicated his book The Crime of Galileo (1955) to Ludovico and Anna de Santillana and included the date 28th December, 1953, and the Latin abbreviation Q.B.F.S. They are clearly identifiable as Ludovico de Santillana (architect and glass artist, March 6, 1931 (Rome) - March 15, 1989 (Arezzo)) and Anna Venini (glass artist, and a daughter of Paolo Venini (and Ginette Gignous), glass artist) who married in 1953. However, in her book My years at Villa I Tatti (1980, Page 63) Eleanor Murdock mentions a person named Ludovico de Santillana as being a son of Giorgio and also mentions Ludovico's wife Anna. (The glass artists Ludovico and Anna de Santillana had 2 children, Laura de Santillana (Laura Diaz de Santillana) (born in Venice, Italy, 1955 (some sources incorrectly state 1950), and starting 1977 studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, previously attended Liceo classico, Venice, Italy ) and Alessandro de Santillana (who became an architect). Currently (2011) Laura de Santillana lives in Venice and works in Murano. She is described as an "artist who has created exceptional and sometimes unexpected examples of art glass.") In their book Italian Glass, Murano, Milan, 1930-1970: The Collection of the Steinberg Foundation (Art & Design) (1997, Page 322) the authors Helmut Ricke and Eva Schmitt state that Ludovico Diaz de Santillana (born 1931, Rome - died (after a lengthy illness) 1989, Arezzo) was the son of the philosopher Giorgio Diaz de Santillana. (Ludovico Diaz de Santillana, (Architect, designer, and entrepreneur), 1937-1949, attended and graduated from a French High School in Rome; 1949-1956, studied architecture in Venice. He graduated with a degree in Architecture.)
Information on Gerald de Santillana is presently more difficult and uncertain. A person named Gerald de Santillana attended Pomona College and in 1960 his B.A. Thesis was British public opinion on the Sepoy mutiny, 1857-1858. The Foreign Service List (1962) by the United States Department of State lists Gerald L de Santillana. In 1966 at least a Gerald de Santillana was a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Lima. In the 1970s and 1980s a Gerald de Santillana was Director of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. (See: A history of organized labor in Peru and Ecuador by Robert Alexander and Eldon Parker (2007, Page 89).) In 2005 a Gerald de Santillana is mentioned as a significant donor in Partners of the Americas: 2005 Annual Report. Some names and dates appear less puzzling if Giorgio de Santillana had a family in Rome prior to coming to the USA from Paris in 1936. Additionally, the Italian architect Ludovico Diaz de Santillana is stated to have brothers. Urban Glass (Fall, 2009, Volume 7, Issue 3, Page 3) states that Laura Venini Hillyer was the sister of (the late) Anna Diaz de Santillana (who was the wife of Ludovico de Santillana). It presently appears that the/an Italian-born son of Giorgio de Santillana, Ludovico de Santillana, married Anna Venini (de Santillana) (a daughter of the lawyer and famous glass artist Paolo Venini (1895-1959)) in 1953, and the son of Dorothy Tilton Hillyer, Stanley Hancock Hillyer, married Laura Venini (Hillyer) (another daughter of Paolo Venini) a year later in 1954. Anna Venini de Santillana is presently a consultant of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice.
Giorgio de Santillana had an academic interest in art. (See: De Santillana, Giorgio. "The Role of Art in the Scientific Renaissance." In: Critical Problems in the History of Science edited by Marshall Clagett, (1959) pages 33-65; Reprinted in: The Rise of Modern Science edited by G. Basalla (1968) pages 76-82.) At least for 1961-1962 de Santillana was a member of the Renaissance Society of America.
Jean Kelly in the United Kingdom has kindly brought my attention to information about Giorgio de Santillana she has uncovered on Ancestry (September, 2010). New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 records that in 1936 he departed from Cherbourg in France (by the passenger ship SS Aquitania, on 6th April) and on 14th April, 1936 he arrived at New York, New York State. This low resolution scan, though difficult to read, seems to state that Giorgio de Santillana was married. It also gives his occupation as lecturer. The List also records that in 1946 a Giorgio Santillana departed Orly Airport, Paris and on 21st October, 1946 he arrived at New York, New York State. If this is Giorgio de Santillana then this would have involved one of his first post-war trips overseas. (A Giorgio di Santillana departed Rome, Italy in 1955 and arrived on 13th August, 1955 at Boston, Massachusetts. This is undoubtedly Giorgio de Santillana.) U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes Records, 1794-1995 records that on 26th March, 1945 he became a naturalised citizen of the USA. (Some record details are: Record number: 6551091; Name: Giorgio Diaz deSantillana; Residing at: 383 Harvard Street, Cambridge 38; Age: 42 years (May 30, 1902); Petition number: 282628; Alien registration number: 3178854. 383 Harvard Street is the address of Ware Hall. Ware Hall was built in 1893 and was added to the National Historic Register in 1983. It was primarily a residence comprised of apartments.) The Social Security Death Index records that in 1974 Giorgio Desantillana died in Essex, Massachusetts. (This is undoubtedly Giorgio de Santillana.) (The Florida Death Index, 1877-1998 records that in 1974 Giorgio Diaz Desantillana died in Dade, Florida.) In November 2010 Jean Kelly kindly sent me a high resolution copy of a 1939 page from the U.S. Department of Labor, List or Manifest of Passengers for the United States of America, also uncovered on Ancestry. The information given on this page (unfortunately still sometimes difficult to read) includes: Sailed: Cherbourg, 26th August on the Empress of Australia [A 21,560-ton ocean liner that stayed in service intil 1952. The partially completed hull was launched on 20 December 1913 and her first trip was 1 December 1919.
The ship was built by Vulcan AG shipyard in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) for the Hamburg America Line as SS Tirpitz. She was taken as a war reparation in 1919 and sold to Canadian Pacific Steamships and was renamed firstly Empress of China in 1921 and then Empress of Australia in 1922]; Name: George de Santillana; Age 37 years; Married or single: M[arried]; Calling or occupation: Lecturer; Immigration Visa Number: N. Q. 71; Issued at: Paris; Date: 26th [?] August, 1939; Last permanent residence: Rome, Italy. This means he left Italy in 1935, left Europe in 1936 (for the USA), and he returned to Europe again only to leave again in 1939 (and return to the USA). By convention the date generally given by historians for the start of World War II is 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
De Santillana also visited England several times (at least 1957 and 1961). The Oxford Magazine, Volume 76, 1957, reported that Giorgio de Santillana was visiting Oxford on Friday, 30th May (to lecture on "The Issues in Galileo's Trial").
Giorgio de Santillana's papers are held by the MIT Archives. One letter by Dorothy de Santillana and 21 letters by Giorgio de Santillana are held in the George Sarton Papers Archive at Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. (Included is a a curriculum vitae dated 1943.) Correspondence from both Giorgio de Santillana and Dorothy de Santillana are held in the Archibald MacLeish Archive, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (Correspondence Box 20). (Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) was a poet.) Letters by Dorothy de Santillana are also held in the Julia Childs Papers Archive at Radcliffe College. Correspondence from Giorgio de Santillana is held at the Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin, and his letters are also in the Norbert Wiener Papers collection at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Robert Hillyer Papers are held at at Syracuse University Library. The University of Chicago Press Records, 1892-1965, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, contains files on de Santillana's books published by the Press.
Work on the manuscript of Hamlet's Mill had begun in 1967. (In his book Secrets of the Great Pyramid (1971) Peter Tompkins write: "About ten years ago I exchanged manuscripts with Hertha von Dechend, who was then beginning to write her book Hamlet's Mill." I am disinclined to believe she had any kind of working manuscript circa 1961. It is more likely she only had seminar notes for that year. According to a 1977 article in Technology Review (published by MIT) "for the past twenty years Professor von Dechend has been comparing and assembling the pieces of an immense puzzle ....") It would seem, however, that the ideas of Hamlet's Mill were first publicly put forward by de Santillana in an address given at a 1961 symposium in England. (See his presentation: "On Forgotten Sources in the History of Science" In: Crombie, A. (Editor). Scientific Change (1963), Pages 813-828, with participant commentary in succeeding pages. The book comprises the Symposium on the History of Science at the University of Oxford, 9-15 July, 1961. In the content of the book he acknowledges his great debt to Hertha von Dechend (who declined to be acknowledged as a joint author) and considers it a joint paper. Incredibly, he considered Charles Dupuis a reliable authority on ancient astronomy. Later, in Hamlet's Mill, he claimed only a fleeting familiarity with Charles Dupuis.) Interestingly, Hertha von Dechend is listed as a member of the 1961 Symposium - but Giorgio de Santillana is not. (Amongst the listed papers of Joseph Needham held at Cambridge (England) the following record appears: Title: Joseph Needham's notes from a talk on 'astral myths' by Herta von Dechend at a Symposium in Oxford; Reference: SCC2/69/1/28; Covering Dates: 13 July 1961; Extent and Medium: 1 document; Paper.)
The committee of the Associazione Culturale Italiana invited de Santillana to give a lecture in Turin in March, 1963, entitled "Fato antico e fato moderno" ("Ancient and Modern Ideas of Fate"). One of the major points of the lecture was the idea that "the great cosmological myths both preceded and had been the equivalent of modern science." ("When lecturing in Italy in 1963 Giorgio de Santillana restated the theory that a scientific hypothesis precedes the formulation of a myth." (Understanding Italo Calvino by Beno Weiss (1993, Page 95).)) In the Preface to his book Reflections on Men and Ideas (1968) Giorgio de Santillana mentions a forthcoming book by himself in collaboration with Hertha von Dechend with the (working) title An Introduction to Archaic Cosmology. De Santillana presented similar ideas at an international colloquium organised by UNESCO (Science and Synthesis (Published 1971)). He presented on modern cosmologies within the historical perspective of the ancient cosmological doctrines: "The Great Cosmological Doctrines."
Circa 1965 de Santillana conducted a seminar at University of California on the early origins of scientific thought. (Italian Quarterly, Volumes 9-10, 1965, Page 87.) Giorgio de Santillana spent the last 10 years of his life collaborating with Hertha von Dechend. (In his 1970 letter to the New York Review of Books de Santillana stated that writing Hamlet's Mill "involved ten years of specific studies in technical astronomy, ancient and archaeological history and myth.") Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend received supportive funding for much of their their research in the nature of a grant from the Twentieth Century Fund. (However, a number of other persons, both MIT students and academics, were also involved in the research for the book.) Hamlet's Mill is basically and attempt to re-introduce some of the basic ideas of Panbabylonism. The two key ideas of Panbabylonism that the authors attempt to revive are (1) Mesopotamian establishment of an equally divided, 12-constellation zodiac by circa 4000 BCE, and (2) Mesopotamian knowledge of the effects (at least) of precession (and the incorporation of such into ancient mythological themes), by circa 4000 BCE. Abe Aronow, a student at MIT from 1958 to 1962, knew Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend, and Harald Reiche. (He also participated in some of the research for Hamlet's Mill. In her 1961 seminar notes Hertha von Dechend openly invites interested listeners to help in the research.) He recollects that Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins (2 Volumes; 1833-1836, Reprinted 1965) was a favourite book of Hertha von Dechend. The author of Anacalypsis identifies and discusses similar (religious) beliefs held world-wide. A basic theme of the book is that there is a universal basis to all languages and religions and Godfrey Higgins sought to identify the common thread. Godfrey Higgins (1722-1833) hypothesized that all religions had sprung from one common origin, which he sought to trace, and he further suggested the existence of a secret religious order, that he termed Pandeism, that once held sway across much of the globe. (Hertha von Dechend mentioned Godfrey Higgins and his book Anacalypsis in her 1979 seminar.) The influence of Higgins' concept of an ancient world-wide secret religious order sharing knowledge, on the similar idea expressed in Hamlet's Mill that a secret world-wide net of scholars existed and shared coded astronomical information should not be overlooked.
At MIT Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend, Harald Reiche, Jerome Lettvin, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts were all part of a group which called itself the Experimental Epistemology Laboratory. (Norbert Wiener may have been also.) This was Jerome Lettvin's laboratory and office and was a gathering point for group meetings. (Jerome Lettvin's office and multiple laboratories occupied Wing C of Building 20.) Tim Wilson, writing in 2005 about his student experiences at MIT in the early 1970s, recollects that he "got to hang out at Lettvin's lab, which was a kind of nearly-never-ending bull session on everything." Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and Giorgio de Santillana discussed the construction of a practical philosophy of technology for the modern age. (Jerome Lettvin and others would also meet in Giorgio de Santillana's office.) (During 1965-1966 Douglass Carmichael - then a student - spent a lot of time with Jerry Lettvin.) In 1951 Giorgio de Santillana and Walter Pitts collaborated in a rebuttal of Erich Frank's attempt in the 1920s to reject all the fragments attributed to the 5th-century Greek philosopher Philolaus as spurious. (See: "Philolaos in Limbo, or: What Happened to the Pythagoreans?" by George de Santillana and Walter Pitts (Isis, Volume 42, Part 2, 1951, Pages 112-120).) Walter Pitts and Hertha von Dechend were also very close friends, had lots of lengthy conversations, and Walter Pitts had a small influence on Hamlet's Mill. Walter Pitts was a participating audience member for the 1961 seminar. He also prepared a critical summary of Norman Lockyer's work, The Dawn of Astronomy, which Hertha von Dechend presented as the 1961 seminar continued. (During the early 1960s Giorgio de Santillana and Walter Pitts collaborated on a book on Parmenides. It later appeared as an essay only. Walter Pitts believed that he had a metaphysical experience when he was young that enabled him to see that logic rules the universe.)
De Santillana was a boyhood friend of Lauro de Bosis (1901-1931), the gifted Italian poet and aviator. Harvard University offers a Lauro de Bosis Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Jerome Lettivin joined MIT in 1951. In Encounter, Volumes 64-65, 1985, Page 18, Dr Jerome Lettvin is described as "Professor of Communications, Physiology, and Bio-engineering in the Departments of Computer Science, Biology, and Electrical Engineering at MIT." For a time both Jerome Lettvin and Walter Pitts lived in Walter McCulloch's house. Lettvin remained a lifelong friend of Walter Pitts.
Mark Stahlman (son of the eminent science historian William Stahlman) has enabled some insights into Giorgio de Santillana's time at MIT and the background to Hamlet's Mill. It appears that Norbert Wiener (Professor of Mathematics at MIT, and also a capable historian) was a close collaborator with Giorgio de Santillana. Both wished to understand the nature of "genius" and "discovery." (Giorgio de Santillana was obviously not prepared to sweep aside the question of genius as many historians had frequently done.) Giorgio de Santillana was no doubt taken by the fact that many ancient cultures believed consciousness was not linear by cyclical. (Norbert Wiener had an interdisciplinary approach to his work and was known for his ability to find connections between mathematics and other fields.) In the mid-1950s Norbert Wiener turned his attention to the question of "genius." He shared his interest in "genius" with Giorgio de Santillana and other historians (both at MIT and elsewhere). Mark Stahlman believes that Hamlet's Mill is the primary statement of Norbert Wiener's investigations to understand how genius had functioned throughout history. It appears Norbert Wiener believed that the Greek-Egyptian polymath Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus, astronomer, mathematician, geographer, life dates circa 90-170 CE, resided in Roman Egypt) was the best example of genius in history.
William Stahlman, later to become a science historian and Ptolemy specialist, was a student of Giorgio de Santillana at MIT. (He was a Class of 1948, Course XXI - Humanities graduate.) More broadly he was a student of Greek and pre-Greek mathematical astronomy. In 1960 William Stahlman earned a Ph.D. from Brown University, History of Mathematics Department, under Otto Neugebauer. His doctoral dissertation was: The astronomical tables of Codex Vaticanus graecus 1291. William Stahlman had already taught at MIT, Harvard University, and University of Wisconsin prior to gaining his Ph.D. (At the time of his employment (tenureship) at University of Wisconsin in 1960 he was completing his Ph.D.) At University of Wisconsin he taught courses in science in antiquity until his death in 1975 from serious illness. In March 1963 William Stahlman gave a talk at MIT on early astronomy. Mark Stahlman states that William Stahlman was a member of Giorgio de Santillana's "project group" contributing towards Hamlet's Mill. Mark Stahlman also states that William Stahlman was a protégé of Giorgio de Santillana and was perhaps encouraged by him to study the genius of Ptolemy and his discoveries. While a student at MIT and a member of Giorgio de Santillana's "project group" Abe Aronow states he worked on the mythological and cosmological references in the Midrash and the Zohar. (This appears to have been directed by Giorgio de Santillana. Some people believe that this type of Jewish material contains precessional references. Some persons believe the secret doctrine of the Kabbalah and other Jewish mystical books/writing is precession.) It is difficult to accept Mark Stahlman's claim that William Stahlman was the primary resource for Hamlet's Mill. At the time of his early death in 1975 William Stahlman was with the Department of History of Science, University of Wisconsin. It would seem that Giorgio de Santillana had a practice of assigning persons (including students) to study various topics related to the "Hamlet's Mill project." It would be interesting to know just how much of this was utilised by Hertha von Dechend and incorporated into her chaotic seminar notes.
Giorgio de Santillana was advisor to George Craig (1914-2002) who taught English at Amherst College from his appointment in 1940 to his retirement in 1985. Craig received his Ph.D. in 1947. The topic of his dissertation was the 17th-century Cambridge Platonist Henry More. Craig’s dissertation was, among other things, about More' prose style and in it Craig combined his literary, philosophical, and scientific interests and knowledge.
Giorgio de Santillana believed that genius and the origin of scientific discovery is to be found in the Neolithic Period. Hertha von Dechend believed that she had discovered one expression of this Neolithic Period genius and discovery, namely, knowledge of precession transmitted through mythology as a technical language. This Neolithic knowledge of precession was not general but involved the knowledge of the scientifically accurate rate of procession through an established zodiac of 12 equal divisions. Eric Voegelin in a 1970 letter to (the German prehistorian) Marie Köenig (See: Selected Correspondence 1950-1984 (2007) by Eric Voegelin et al writes "Santillana formulates it specifically as the transmission of the inorganic and biological developmental period to the human period, in which things are simply approached differently.")
Hamlet's Mill has received, and continues to receive, an enormous amount of uncritical support despite the fact that it presents an obscure and confusingly argued case. It is flawed speculative scholarship. It has been described as "tortuous and occasionally baffling." It is highly speculative, its arguments are based on little evidence, and there is little substantiation of its arguments. The contents of the book are poorly organised and presented. The book contains an immense amount of loosely related information but there is no persuasive evidence presented for the connections being made. The case being made is attempted with dis-jointed and piece-meal arguments. There is no reason to believe that much of the evidence cited in the book has actual relevance to the claims being made. (As the fruit of a long collaboration between the authors the book is an academic mess.) A glaringly obvious defect is that both authors lack an expert knowledge of the history of Babylonian astronomy. (They chose to use early and unreliable sources from the pioneering stage of recovery of Babylonian astral sciences.) Indeed, their combined lack of knowledge of astronomy, philology, history, and mythology have resulted in fantastical conclusions. Remarkably, though the central theme relies on the establishment of a very early zodiac any attempt to establish evidence for such is ignored by the authors. A troublesome feature of the book is that its authors have neglected the obvious precaution of learning some elementary astronomy. The authors should have asked when the zodiac was first devised. The answer would have conclusively pointed to a maximum antiquity in the 1st-millennium BCE. However, the authors did not ask and answer the question and have cheerfully wandered many thousands of years beyond this period. The authors simply write their book on the assumption that an early zodiac and precessional mythology both existed.
Apart from Giorgio de Santillana being seriously ill when he put the manuscript of the book together (his health had began failing quite rapidly) the process of publication itself was apparently a nightmare with material and notes to the publisher becoming lost. In his book The Media Symplex (2004, Page 68) Frank Zingrone states: "Professor de Santillana worked on editing von Dechend when he was sick and near death .... de Santillana ... was furiously working to finish the book before he died. He just barely managed to do that; it was an heroic battle won with the energetic help of his collaborator, Hertha von Dechend." (This simply repeats the information - with a bit added on - given by William Thompson in his book The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (1996, Page 268). Also see pages 268-270.) After looking through several years of Hertha von Dechend's MIT seminar notes it is painfully obvious there is nothing there in the way of an organised, clear, and connected argument. No clearly defined trail is being blazed by von Dechend.) It is likely that de Santillana died of a tobacco/smoking related disease. (He was a smoker all of his life. The portrait photograph accompanying the obituary by his friend Nathan Sivin in the journal Isis, 1976, shows him holding a cigarette between fingers in his right hand.)
In the Winter-semester 1954-1955 Hertha von Dechend was involved in compiling and editing notes - with Ralph Marcus (University of Chicago) - regarding the Frankfurt-Chicago-Seminar "Östliches und Westliches Denken in der Spät-antike und im Mittelalter." held at the Universität Frankfurt. It would be interesting to see the state of these notes. (It appears these notes were published in 1955.)
From George Mason University's History News Network (http://hnn.us/roundup/54.html): "William H. McNeill is Robert A. Milikan Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago. He taught at the university from 1947 until his retirement in 1987. McNeill is also a past president of the American Historical Association (1984-1985). McNeill has authored over thirty books ...." ... [McNeill writes (The Pursuit of Truth: A Historian's Memoir (2005)] "In 1955, Gustav von Grunebaum invited me to join him in a seminar at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. The seminar was conducted in German so I had to learn the language as never before, and during the three months I spent in Frankfurt a learned teaching assistant, Fraulein von Dechend guided me through pre-war German scholarship about pre-history and the history of steppe peoples." (McNeill is a Canadian-American historian. Life dates: 1917- .)
It is usually stated that the book was basically written by Giorgio de Santillana. However, Hertha von Dechend states that she worked on the manuscript of the book during the 1960s. (This is supported by comments by Harald Reiche in his essay included in the book Astronomy of the Ancients (1979) edited by Kenneth Brecher and Michael Feirtag.) Whilst deemed a collaborative work the greater content and framework of ideas are those of Hertha von Dechend. There is little doubt that the numerous appendices were exclusively written by Hertha von Dechend. (This is stated by Santillana within the Preface of the book, see page viii.) It is also easy to discern that the greater contents of the book are von Dechend's work and owes much to her early MIT seminars. (It is a mistake to think the first two-thirds of the book is the work of de Santillana and the last one-third (the appendices) is the work of von Dechend. Almost the entire book is closely based on von Dechend's MIT lecture/seminar notes.) During 1961, 1966, and 1979 Hertha von Dechend (when a research associate at MIT) delivered (or help to deliver) seminars on ancient cosmology at MIT. (It is likely that the 1979 seminar was organised by Harald Reiche.) It appears that for all of these occasions she was hosted i.e., stayed as a house guest with a MIT faculty member. (An ex-student of de Santillana, who was a student at MIT from 1962 to early 1966, states that a least during most of the first half of the 1960s von Dechend was a frequent (though largely unidentified) presence in de Santillana's office. Richard Flavin advises that she most often stayed with Harald Reiche and his wife. It appears she also stayed with Jayant Shah and his wife over many years.) (Her lecture notes for these seminars were available for a time and they are full of errors regarding both spelling and sense.)
The basic role of Giorgio de Santillana as "co-author" was evidently that of editing her English-language material. The problem of the book being poorly organised, and lacking unity and coherence, undoubtedly largely originates from the combination of von Dechend's MIT lecture notes being poorly organised and also the fact that de Santillana was seriously ill at the time of his involvement in the preparation of the manuscript of the book. However, de Santillana's collaborative connection with von Dechend probably had its roots in their 1958 meeting. Undoubtedly, he was probably interested in the theme of an astronomical basis for mythology prior to their 1958 meeting. His somewhat independent thoughts on the issue appeared briefly in his book The Origins of Scientific Thought (1961). De Santillana attempted to marshall the material that is available on the prehistoric origins of science. In this book he attempts to sift out and collect the material available on the prehistoric origins of science. He begins with mythology and and attempts to show its astronomical significance. In the book de Santillana holds the origin of Greek science (especially astronomy) can be traced to the Neolithic period. Aspects of the book present a radical and unconventional view of the origins of Greek science. (Edward Madden, Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, wrote a book review of The Origins of Scientific Thought.) See also: "Geek Astronomy." by George de Santillana in Scientific American, (Volume 180?), April, 1949, Pages 44-47. It appears reasonable to assume that during the early 1960s the (flawed) work of the British astronomer Joseph Lockyer (The Dawn of Astronomy (1894)) on the astronomical alignments of Egyptian temples also influenced de Santillana's ideas. Giorgio de Santillana wrote a new and extensive Preface for the 1964 reprint issued by MIT Press. In this Preface de Santillana sketched some of his ideas on archaic astronomy and the astronomical content of mythology. (It appears that Giorgio de Santillana also believed the alphabet originated from astronomy and games.)
In the decade following World War II Giorgio de Santillana was one of a handful of scholars who ensured that the history of science as a discipline was established on a firm scientific footing. It is worth mentioning that Giorgio de Santillana was usually an excellent writer. (He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the History of Science Society.) During the 1940s and 1950s he was a contributor to The New Republic, and the Atlantic Monthly. In 1958 he was honoured with the Sidney Hilman Foundation journalism award (magazine reporting category) for his article "Galileo and J. Robert Oppenheimer." (The Reporter (1958)). At MIT Giorgio de Santillana was considered a visionary philosopher. Both de Santillana and Lettvin were regarded as excellent teachers by their students. (Giorgio de Santillana wrote 5 articles on Italian literature for the first edition of the Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature (1947). It is perhaps worth mentioning that Giorgio de Santillana was one of a number of visiting professors at La Scuola Italiana di Middlebury College (Scuola Italian or Casa Italiano), one of the Summer Language Schools of Middlebury College (located at Middlebury Campus, Green Mountains of Vermont).) In 1954 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His residence at this time was Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1958 the journal Isis (Volume 49, Pages 2) noted that de Santillana was preparing the papers of Vincenzio Viviani for publication. (Vincenzio Viviani (1622–1703), was an Italian mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Ducal Court in Tuscany, and also Galileo's scientific secretary.) He was Fulbright Teaching Fellow, 1954-1955. The Monthly Supplement, 1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who states: "Fulbright fellow in Italy, 1954-1955." (See also: Harper's Magazine, Volume 212, 1956.) In 1964 (April 16), de Santillana gave The Wilkins Lecture: Galileo Today. It appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Volume 280, 1964, Pages 447-?
De Santillana was The Atlantic (journal) correspondent in Italy in the years immediately following the end of World War II. In 1946 at least (and probably as early as 1943) he was a foreign correspondent in Italy and Yugoslavia for The Atlantic. He made annual visits abroad during the summer.
The origins of the theme and ideas in Hamlet's Mill have never been clearly explained by either author. According to Hertha von Dechend the astronomical interpretation of mythology was made clear during her work on Polynesian mythology. However, apart from a slight mention of this in Hamlet's Mill no further discussion ever occurred. In Hamlet’s Mill (Page vii) Hertha von Dechend claimed her understanding of the astronomical content of Polynesian myth was established "when, on looking (on a map) at two little islands, mere flyspecks on the waters of the Pacific, she found that a strange accumulation of maraes or cult places could be explained only one way: they, and only they, were exactly sited on two neat celestial coordinates: the Tropics of Cancer and of Capricorn." (Though written by de Santillana he is wholly reliant on Von Dechend for the story.) The epiphany episode is not dated by von Dechend but it can, at earliest, only date to the 1940s or 1950s. There is enough literature for wider possibilities to be considered. There are various types of maraes. Basically a marae is an open-air sacred place comprising a paved court, (sometimes) a low-walled enclosure, and a raised platform (ahu) across one end, which served both religious and social purposes in pre-Christian Polynesian societies. The most comprehensive archaeological research on Nihoa(/Nihua) Island and Necker Island was conducted in 1923-1924 by Kenneth Emory of the Bishop Museum. In 1928 he published Archaeology of Nihoa and Necker Islands. It remains the baseline of our present-day knowledge regarding the archaeology and technology of Nihoa(/Nihua) and Necker. (Emory is considered to have perhaps overstated marae similarities to those in the Society Islands.) Robert Aitken, Research Associate in Ethnology, spent 2 years in the Austral Islands, principally on Tubuai, as a member of the Bayard Dominick Expedition of the Bishop Museum, 1920-1922. His preliminary report appeared in the Annual Report for 1922 of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. His full report, Ethnology of Tubuai, appeared in 1930. Some persons see von Dechend's described 'event' as the impetus for her 'intellectual journey.' The description is devoid of suitable context i.e., the discussion of work previously done by others. The story is not believable as the impetus for her 'intellectual journey.' It is, however, believable for illustrating her methods - or lack of such. (This model is one that others seem bent on imitating.) Hertha von Dechend's teacher Leo Frobenius had, from the early 1900s, published Panbabylonian ideas and claimed correspondence between mythological themes and celestial phenomena, world-wide.
A considerable number of her basic claims are borrowed from the Panbabylonian 'classic' Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients (2 volumes) by Alfred Jeremias. The 3rd revised edition appeared in 1916. Hertha von Dechend merely wanted to reassert and expand the ideas of Leo Frobenius (and Panbabylonism). (Von Dechend studied Cultural and Historical Anthropology at the Frobenius Institute and Museum of Ethnology.) The story told by von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill does illustrate the shallowness and limitations of her research methods. She never engaged in a critical discussion/assessment of all the evidentiary issues but was simply persuaded by her initial 'snap' decision. She never revisited this decision, or introduced the ideas of other researchers. Though Hertha von Dechend does not name the two islands they are identifiable as Necker and Tubuai. The Tropic of Cancer presently passes just south of Necker. Tubuai presently lies just inside the Tropic of Capricorn (i.e., the Tropic of Capricorn currently lies just south of Tubuai). The Tropic of Cancer is a line of latitude approximately 23 degrees to the north of the equator. The Tropic of Capricorn is a line of latitude approximately 23 degrees to the south of the equator.
The astronomical explanation of Polynesian mythology remains controversial and uncertain. The astronomical explanation to account for the high numbers of temple platforms on Necker and Tubuai is also controversial. It involves the suggestion that the Polynesians had a keen interest in the passage of the sun through the zenith. The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn establish the limits for the sun passing through the zenith (at noon). At any location inside the tropical points the sun passes through the zenith on two different days in the year. The actual dates are dependent upon the latitude. The Tropic of Cancer marks the most northerly latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead (the zenith) at noon. The Tropic of Capricorn marks the most southerly latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead (the zenith) at noon. At a location on the Tropic of Cancer, or the Tropic of Capricorn the sun passes directly overhead on only one day a year. This is the June solstice only for the Tropic of Cancer and the December solstice only for the Tropic of Capricorn. Necker, a northwestern Hawaiian island, was once inhabited. It was the furthermost island within easy reach of the main Hawaiian group. Necker and Nihoa(/Nihua) are the two main islands closest to the main Hawaiian Islands. The dense grouping of maraes on Necker Island is not found in Hawaii but is found in the Society Islands. The large number of maraes (33), constructed at different times, suggest that the occupation of the island was not a one time stop over by a fleet of voyaging canoes. The uniformity of the archaeological remains on Necker Island suggest that the island was inhabited for only a limited number of years. It is possible that drought was involved in their abandonment. However, maraes were used as ceremonial sites not dwelling sites. With no trees, 8 or 9 rock shelters, and limited water, it may have been a temporary occupation site, which was repeatedly visited. These northwestern islands were the base for hunting excursions for turtles and seabirds. Nihoa(/Nihua) is home to a tremendous amount of birds and lots of marine life, including seals and turtles. Necker had 33(/34) temple platforms almost identical to those found in Polynesian islands to the southeast. The temple platforms were erected by inhabitants who lived on the island in the 14th-century CE, or perhaps earlier (circa 1000 CE). Oral traditions and archaeological data attest to Native Hawaiian voyaging and colonizing of Nihoa(/Nihua) and Necker. Nihoa(/Nihua) also has Necker-style manaes. They may also have been part of a migratory movement towards the Hawaiian Islands. (See: Sacred Places North America by Brad Olsen (2008) for succinct information.) In his book Isles of Refuge (2001, Page 49) Mark Rauzon writes: "We could see the shrines along the crest of Necker. To the crew, they symbolized pushing the limits and proving one's sailing ability. Perhaps the rigid structure of the ancient class society in the main islands may have forced independent-spirited people to set off on their own and seek new lands. Each voyage might have required a shrine and could account for the thirty-three marae on Necker." Nihoa(/Nihua) it is a dry place covered with brush and grasses. The only tree growing there is an endemic palm. Nihoa(/Nihua) is home to a tremendous amount of birds and lots of marine life, including seals and turtles. The numerous ruins include cultivation terraces, house sites, and ceremonial structures. It is estimated that the island could have sustained a small population of perhaps 100 to 150 people.
Closer to the main Hawaiian islands is Kahoolawe, a low and unfertile island. It is the smallest island of the Hawaiian island chain, comprising 8 major volcanic islands. It is located 10 kilometres southwest of Maui Island. It has had transient inhabitants but has not retained a permanent population. It is considered a sacred island and has more than 600 archaeological and culturally significant sites. Tubuai is part of the present-day Austral Island Group (Tubuai Islands), one of a number of islands east of the Cook Islands. The Tubuai Islands are a long chain of remote islands located in the far South Pacific. There are seven main islands of which five are inhabited. The largest island is Tubuai. Tubuai is one of several islands close to the Tropic of Capricorn that has an unusually large number of temple platforms. There are hundreds of ceremonial sites located throughout Polynesia. There is little evidence for any intentional astronomical alignments. The astronomer William Liller, who investigated the temple platforms first-hand, has not established any clear evidence for astronomical alignment of temple platforms on Necker. Polynesian ethnographic literature makes no mention of a solar cult. According to the archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles there is no evidence that the early Polynesian voyagers "were interested in determining the zenith passage of the sun very precisely." An astronomical explanation for the high number of temple platforms may not be relevant. The archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles suggests the sacredness of Necker may simply originate "from its extreme location - an end place beyond which there were no more habitable islands." (See: Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth by Clive Ruggles (2005).) It is also possible that Necker served as some sort of pilgrimage site. Perhaps because of the combination of the occurrence of a single zenith and its extreme location as an 'end place.'
In his book The Origin of Scientific Thought (1961) Giorgio de Santillana had set out his belief in an astronomical origin of myth and fairytale. However, the book Hamlet's Mill also clearly shows the influence of Hertha von Dechend's teacher Leo Frobenius (who had written several books mirroring some Panbabylonian ideas, and the correspondence between mythological themes and celestial phenomena). The major influential book by Leo Frobenius influencing von Dechend was Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes (1904). During and after her PhD studies at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität von Dechend was a co-worker at the Frobenius-Institut and the Museum für Völkerkunde. (According to one short obituary notice: "Hertha von Dechend studied ethnology, philosophy, history and archeology (Frankfurt). Ph.D. in 1939. During and after her studies she was a co-worker at the Frobenius-Institut and the Museum für Völkerkunde. She has been at the IGN since November 1943. Habilitation 1960, apl. Prof. 1966, Emeritus since 1980. 1960-1969 regular research and teaching visits to the M.I.T., Cambridge, MA.") Hertha von Dechend was very much a disciple of Leo Frobenius. (The German ethnographer Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) was the founder of the Institute of Cultural Morphology, which was destroyed by Allied Bombing in World War II. His work is now regarded as outdated and flawed. He created dozens of speculative/foolish theories. See: "Leo Frobenius and the Revolt Against the Western World." by Suzanne Marchand in Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 32, Number 2, April, 1997, Pages 153-170. In 1911 he claimed to have discovered the 'lost continent of Atlantis' in Africa.)
Another strong influential source for Hamlet's Mill would have been two Panbabylonian books by Alfred Jeremias listed in the Bibliography of Hamlet's Mill - Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients (3rd Revised Edition 1916 (2 Volumes)); and Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur (2nd Revised Edition, 1929). In the former Alfred Jeremias sets out such ideas as: (1) zodiacal world ages due to precession, (2) the change in world ages represented in myths, and (3) the celestial earth in the zodiac (ecliptic). (It has been remarked that von Dechend also seems to have been influenced by Jungian ideas.) Hertha von Dechend published very little material. Her PhD dissertation Die kultishe und mythische Bedeutung des Schweins in Indonesien und Ozeanien (= The significance of pigs in myth and culture in Indonesia and Oceania) (Frankfurt: Goethe Universitat, 1939 (but I have seen the date given as 1943)) remains unpublished. (I do not know what she did for her Habilitation (completed in 1960).) In 1973 and 1977 she published 2 short articles on the subject of ancient cosmology. (On of these was "Bemerkungen zum Donnerkeil [Comments on the Thunderbolt]." in: Prismata (Festschrift für Will Hartner), 1977; Pages 95ff.) Another, little-known, article by Hertha von Dechend is "Il concetto di simmetria nelle culture arcaiche." in: La Simmetria, edited by Evandro Agnazzi [sometimes given as Agazzi] (1973, Pages 361-397(399?)). The publication in which the paper appears is a collection of 1973 conference papers presented in Venice. Giorgio de Santillana published substantial material on the history of science. Yet another little-known article by von Dechend is "Erinnerungen an die Friihzeit des Instituts." In: Ad Radices edited by Anton von Gotstedter (1994, Pages 3-11).
Hertha von Dechend was born in Heidelberg in 1915. Her parents were Alfred von Dechend and Elsbeth (née Krohn). Dr. Alfred von Dechend was a Chemist. In 1913 he completed his doctoral dissertation on chemistry; Üeber die genaue Messung der Lichtbrechung in Gasen; at Ruprecht-Carls-Universität zu Heidelberg. From 1907-1910 he was assistant to Professor Max Trautz (sometimes misspelled as Trauts) in Freiburg in Baden. Hertha von Dechend studied ethnology, philosophy, and archaeology at the University of Frankfurt am Main. She obtained her doctorate in 1939. In 1943 she was Assistant, Institute for the History of Science, Frankfurt am Main. In 1966 she was Associate Professor.
Music was a serious career challenger for Hertha von Dechend. At 13 years of age von Dechend received violin lessons from Gösta Andreasson who was a renowned classical violinist for the Busch String Quartet. At 15 years of age von Dechend made a decision in favour of a career in science but never completely separated herself from music. Throughout her early academic career she continued to play music with various classical groups.
Hertha von Dechend was a member of the International Astronomical Union sub-group, Inter-Union Commission for the History of Astronomy (ICHA).
In 1960 Hertha von Dechend was Professor of cultural morphology. Her listings in academic directories (at later dates) include: (1) Fünfzig Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland by Elisabeth Boedeker and Maria Meyer-Plath (1974) "Folk-Narrative Research ... 1966 Spezielles Lehrund Forshungsgebeit: Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Archaische Kosmologie und Astronomie." (2) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volumes 2-3, 1979 "Lehrgebiet: Frühgeschichte der Naturwissenschaft; Forschungsschwerpunkt: archaische Kosmologie." (3) Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, [Volume 41, Issues 7-12, Page 634], 1990 "Gestchichte der Naturwissenschaften, Archaische Kosmologie." Her slim book (in which her role was that of an editor) on Justus von Liebig (published 1953, 2nd edition 1963) basically consists of her annotations to key excerpts from letters, journals and newspaper articles (chronologically arranged) concerning important events involving Justus von Liebig; and a bibliography of 369 publications. One (English-language) book review (by Ralph Oesper, University of Cincinnati, Ohio) appeared in the Journal of Chemical Education, Volume 41, Number 10, October, 1964. His concluding remark is: "This is an unusually interesting book." Close to the truth is the comment by one writer that Hertha von Dechend "... spent her life reinterpreting ancient stories as a kind of scientific shorthand for astronomical events." Her principal fields of research were archaic cosmology and astronomy.
Hertha von Dechend retired in 1982 on a modest pension (enabled by her having secured a permanent teaching position with the university). For details concerning von Dechend as an ethnologist see Frauen in der deutschsprachigen Ethnologie: ein Handbuch (2007) by Bettina Beer. It contains brief details of the other 2 female ethnologists (Hildegard Klein (1904-1989, PhD, an excellent ethnologist and scholar) and Karin [Hahn-]Hissink (1907-1981), PhD, who participated in ethnological expeditions) employed at the Frobenius-Institute, and conflicts. Also see: Leo Frobenius, anthropologue, explorateur, aventurierle monde étranger, c'est moi (1999) by Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs, for further brief details of Hertha von Dechend.
The only real support for the book Hamlet's Mill came from certain faculty members of MIT who were associated with Giorgio de Santillana. One supporter reviewer described the book as "A brilliant speculative inquiry into the origins of scientific thought ...." See the sympathetic (English-language) book reviews by Philip Morrison in Scientific American, Volume 221, Number 5, November, 1969, Page 159 (at which time he was the book review editor); and by Harald Reiche in The Classical Journal, Volume 69, Number 1, October/November, 1973, Pages 81-83; and by Carroll Quigley (historian and polymath; Professor of History at MIT) in The Washington Sunday Star, 25 January, 1970 ("Delving Into Linguistic Archaeology."). Harald Reiche was one of Hertha von Dechend's few academic exponents. (Giorgio de Santillana and Harald Reiche had previously jointly-authored the book Aristotle and Science: A Critical Controversy which was published in 1959. It also appears that they worked at least on the draft of an essay titled: "A Memorandum on Greek Science.") Reiche was born in Germany in 1922 and died in Boston (USA) in 1994. He emigrated to the USA in 1938. He obtained his PhD in Classics from Harvard University in 1955. He was Professor of Classics and Philosophy at MIT from 1955 to 1991. He was a specialist in Greek philosophy and the Church fathers. (See the short obituary notice in Klio, Volume 83, Number 2, 2001, Page 467.) In the early 1960s Harald Reiche was one academic who advised Life magazine on the content for its new series of articles on ancient Greece, beginning with Volume 54, Number 1, January 4, 1963. (Reiche believed the earliest royal genealogies of, for example, Babylon, and Denmark, and the Greek kings of prehistory were astral and planetary in human pseudo historical guise. Kings were in charge of their national calendars and so were 'influential' in celestial movements.) Philip Morrison (who also wrote the Introduction to Astronomy of the Ancients edited by Kenneth Brecher and Michael Feirtag (1979), was Professor of Physics at MIT, and Harald Reiche was Professor of Classics and Philosophy at MIT. ("A Clue to the Atlantis Myth?" by Harald Reiche included in Astronomy of the Ancients, a volume of essays by various (mostly MIT) authors, on mythology and ancient astronomy, is an updated version of an article originally published by Reiche in Technology Review (an MIT periodical).) (See also the (English-language) book review by Arthur Meadows (University of Leicester) in Ambix, Volume XIX, 1972, Page 220. Further, see the sympathetic (Estonian-language) book review by Heino Eelsalu in Akadeemia [an Estonian journal], Number 6, 1995 Pages (Columns?) 1300-1301. Heino Eelsalu (Life dates: 1930-1998) was an astronomer.) A sympathetic book review by Bernard de Voto appeared in Saturday Review, Volume 53, 1970, Pages 102-105. After the retirement of Giorgio de Santillana his history of science classes at MIT were continued by Harald Reiche, a Professor of Classics and Philosophy at MIT, who was an avid supporter of Hamlet's Mill. In 1960 Harald Reiche was promoted to Associate Professor, Department of Humanities. He stayed at MIT and progressed through to Professor and then Professor Emeritus. (After his retirement it appears Giorgio de Santillana continued to lecture at MIT until he became seriously ill.)
It would appear the intention of Harald Reiche to edit Hertha von Dechend's extensive German-language lecture notes, from lectures and seminars at Frankfurt University beginning 1970, was never fulfilled. He did make use of her unpublished material in at least one of his essays. It has been stated that Harald Reiche borrowed heavily from Hertha von Dechend. (It appears that von Dechend left her papers to Jerome Lettvin as executor. The library of Giorgio de Santillana also passed to Jerome Lettvin. It would be interesting to know the content and size of the library he inherited.) These lecture notes have, to my knowledge, never been translated or made generally available.
Harald Reiche promoted Hamlet's Mill and its method. However, Harald Reiche's astronomical interpretation of the Atlantis myth is anything but convincing. Writing in 1994 the ex-Velikovskian catatastrophist Leroy Ellenberger stated: "Had it not been for the masterful hegemony of Harald A. T. Reiche, Classicist at M.I.T., who impressed me with the validity of the wisdom revealed in HAMLET'S MILL, I would not be a "player" today; but I refuse to acquiesce to the Saturnists' delusion now that I see what the REAL possibilities are. Milton Zysman deserves credit for organizing a conference in Toronto in 1990, where Victor Clube, as the keynote speaker, put fire and brimstone into his "puny meteor shower model" making it a viable alternative to "right-running" Velikovskians ...." Since 1990 Leroy Ellenberger has actively promoted the comet catastrophism (Taurid Complex) model of Clube and Napier (first proposed in the early 1980s), which is now named "coherent catastrophism." The astronomer David Morrison has noted that the Clube/Napier model of catastrophism has attracted many people who were once impressed by Velikovsky's model of catastrophism.
The efforts by the British mathematician Richard Thompson to support the ideas in Hamlet's Mill is set out in the book Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy (1996). At present I have not seen his later book The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana (2007).
Some of the critical (English-language) book reviews of Hamlet's Mill are by Edmund Leach in The New York Review (of Books), February 12, 1970, Page 36, (Giorgio's De Santillana's protest letter regarding this review appeared in "Letters," The New York Review, May 7, 1970); by Jaan Puhvel in The American Historical Review, Volume LXXV, Number 6, October, 1970, Pages 2009-2010; by Lynn White Junior in Isis, Volume 61, 1970, Pages 540-541; by Geoffrey Kirk in The Spectator , Number 7434, 19 December, 1970, Page 809; by Gerald Gresseth in Journal of American Folklore, Volume 84, Number 332, April/June, 1971, Pages 246-247; by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Volume 3, 1972, Pages 206-211; by Albert Friedman in Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume X, 1972, Page 479; by Hilda Davidson in Folklore, Volume CXXXV, 1974, Pages 282-283; by David Leeming in Parabola, Volume III, Issue 1, 1978, Pages 113-115; and the (German-language) book review by Thomas Barthel in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Band 99, Heft 1 und 2, 1974, Pages 284-287). (I have not yet seen the French-language book review of Hamlet's Mill in Revue de l'histoire des religions, Volume 180, 1971, Page 216.)
Neither Giorgio de Santillana or Hertha von Dechend can be accurately described as polymaths. Hertha von Dechend especially falls below that description.
For a short critique by Otto Neugebauer of the inaccuracies of Giorgio de Santillana as an historian of early science see "The Survival of Babylonian Methods in the Exact Sciences of Antiquity and Middle Ages." in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 107, Number 6, December 20, 1963, Page 531. See also the short critique of Giorgio de Santillana by Asger Aaboe in the book review "Historians of Science." in The Yale Review, Volume 52, Winter, 1962, Pages 326-328. Further, see the short critique by Marshall Clagett, of de Santillana's uncritical acceptance that Thales predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BCE, in The American Historical Review, Volume LXVII, Number 4, July, 1962, Page 999. Giorgio de Santillana also supported the views of Frances Yates on the Hermetic tradition in the Renaissance. (See his enthusiastic review of her 1964 book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition in The American Historical Review, Volume 70, Number 2, January, 1965, Pages 455-457. (This was an influential book that helped to catapult her to academic stardom.)) In 1966 de Santillana (through the Department of Humanities and its Course XXI Club) arranged a lecture by Frances Yates on "Renaissance Science and Hermetic Tradition" at the Hayden Library Lounge (Room 14E-310). However, see the extended, devastating analysis of Frances Yates as a historian and scholar by the academic Christopher Lehrich in his book The Occult Mind (2007). It is clear her historical reconstructions were wildly speculative and lack any real evidence. Her ideas now have no solid academic support and historical explanations of the Renaissance proceed without them. For de Santillana's errors and exaggerations regarding Leonardo da Vinci's use of Latin texts see Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler by David Lindberg (1981, Page 155). (See also: Charles Olson & Cid Corman: Complete correspondence 1950-1964 by Charles Olson and Cid Corman (1987, 2 Volumes, Page 243); edited by George Evans for the comment "(... Giorgio de Santillana, now Prof at MIT) who is bright enough, but who never found a keel for their cut-water in themselves ....)." See also: Letters for 'Origin' 1950-1956 by Charles Olson 1968/9 (Page 155); edited by Alfred Glover.)
Mary Lefkowitz and Guy Rogers (Black Athena Revisited, 1996, Page 223), discussing Martin Bernal's claims for de Santillana, state: " ... de Santillana was at best a minor figure, hardly "one of the greatest, if not the greatest, historians of Renaissance science" (BA I:275). His provocative, sympathetic and pro-Galileo, and passionately anticlerical book on Galileo's trial, The Crime of Galileo (1955), does not stand up very well in the light of recent research on Galileo's trial and its background, and his revision of a seventeenth-century English version of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1953) was already superseded when it appeared by the publication of Stillman Drake's superior translation in the same year." (Worth referring to is: "New Galilean Studies." by by Giorgio de Santillana (Isis, Volume 33, Number 6, June, 1942, Pages 654-656.) De Santillana's edition of Galileo's Dialogue on the Great World Systems [Concerning the Two Chief World Systems] was the first modern English translation in 300 years, based on the early translation of Thomas Salusbury (published in 1661). In 1664 Salusbury also published a life of Galileo. Critics did praise de Santillana's efforts (see the favourable English-language book review by Douglas McKie in The New Scientist, 3rd October, 1957, Page 35), which had involved de Santillana in painstaking research. It had a 40-page historical introduction and inclusion of numerous notes. However, it is criticised for remaining muddled and inaccurate in places. It was during the course of these efforts that de Santillana had the idea of writing The Crime of Galileo. Critics of this book pointed out errors and erroneous claims, especially in de Santillana's discussion of "Ad Lectorem." (See: The Copernican Achievement by Robert Westman (1975, page 240).)
Henry Guerlac states that for de Santillana "Galileo is the central symbolic figure linking the Ancients with the Moderns." (Galileo's lifework in mechanics was a sort of watershed between medieval and modern science. A large part of Galileo's work challenged previously held Aristotelian assumptions. Among the most prominent were his studies of projectile motion and inertia. Galileo destroyed the fabric of Aristotelian science on which medieval thought had rested. Due to the influence of Aristotelian philosophy on religion at the time it can be seen that these new views were an indirect challenge to religious authority.) George Basalla (The Rise of Modern Science (1968)) wote: "Few who write on Resaissance science today can match de Santillana's knowledge of the philosophical currents of that eara."For errors in De Santillana's scholarship on Galileo see: Galileo, Science, and the Church by Jerome Langford (1992). Also see: Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue by Rivka Feldhay (1995).
In his book Love and the Idea of Europe (2009, Page 154), Luisa Passerini wrote: "... an immoderate [excessive] piece by Georges [sic] de Santillana, ... claimed that the 'Mediterranean spirit' had passed from Parmenides to Plato and from Leopardi to Valery ...."
It is clear that both Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend had different motives for their approach and claims. The wider vision was held by Giorgio de Santillana who wanted to establish the earliest possible date for the origins of science and human genius/intelligence. (He most likely believed the book was an exploration of archaic consciousness.) It seems Hertha von Dechend merely wanted to reassert and expand the ideas of Leo Frobenius (and Panbabylonism). (She was very much a disciple of Frobenius.) De Santillana was susceptible to, and reliant on, the enormous work done by von Dechend - who proved herself capable of only working obscurely. Ultimately, Hamlet's Mill is a testament to their willingness to use incomprehensible speculation as a method to reach their respective aims.
In his talk "Time in Literature." Enrico Palandri (University College London) stated: "The scholar Giorgio De Santillana is a solitary modern thinker to have felt a great fascination for the epoch before the word. Unlike our common, rather self content perception of the pre-historic time as a barbaric and undeveloped age, he thought of that original age as an epoch of mysterious greatness. In his opinion, these ancestors of ours must have had some formidable ability in mathematical calculus: we inherit from them the observation of the movement of stars, the Zodiac [de Santillana wrongly believed the zodiac was developed during the Neolithic period], and in his opinion also a network of common features which is a substratum of several mythologies of the Historic period. In his book Hamlet’s mill (Il mulino di Amleto) he suggests that there may have been a link between several cultural similarities in worlds that our conception of the prehistoric age as "undeveloped" epoch would not explain. The idea of Indo-European language is related to this pre-written epoch. We imagine our language to have developed from a previous substratum of a language no longer existing."
Both Hertha von Dechend and Giorgio de Santillana were too easily seduced by the illusionary scholarship of the Panbabylonists. Unfortunately Hamlet's Mill still remains a book to mislead incautious readers for decades to come. Some readers are eager to be misled. One enthusiastic supporter of the book writes in his review (2008): "A simultaneously wonderful, annoying, fascinating and baffling book. Cited by many … as a flawed … condemned by many more as a woefully muddled throwback to late 19th century "Panbabylonism", its very nature as a bold, disputed, unclassifiable mess endears it to me." My only comment on this type of uninformed nonsense is the Panbabylonian ideas Hamlet's Mill is based on originated in the early 20th-century - not the late 19th century. But supporters of Hamlet's Mill seem unaffected by matters of accuracy, or the need to do some genuine research.
After the death of Giorgio de Santillana a staff member of Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Professor Dr Walter Saltzer, became a colleague of Hertha von Dechend. Walter Saltzer’s key area of interest is the genesis and development of scientific ideas. He believes the period of the Presocratics and the period comprising the 17th- century happens to be the periods of decisive scientific progress. Saltzer is the deputy-director of the Institute for the History of Science. See his slim book Theorien und Ansatze in der Griechischen Astronomie (1976, Pages viii, 162, Figures 38). Also, the book reviews in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Volume 9, 1978, Pages 149-150; and Erasmus, Volume 31, 1979, Pages 374-377.
Part 2: The Basic Argument: A Critical Overview
The basic argument is myth was the technical language of the archaic period 4000-3000 BCE, primarily for precessional phenomena. Based on her Polynesian studies, Hertha von Dechend interpreted early world-wide myths as having 3 rules: (1) animals are stars, (2) gods/goddesses are planets, and (3) topographic references are metaphors for locations - usually of the sun - on the celestial sphere. (See, for example Hamlet's Mill, Pages viii, and 62-65.)
Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend believed they had found (and demonstrated) an underlying coherence behind hundreds of apparently chaotic sagas and myths. (Their focus was on cultural (i.e., mythological) material.) In order to do this they assume an historical relationship between world-wide myths. They make no attempt at all to demonstrate this assumption. They proposed a single astronomical origin in the ancient Near East for the entire global corpus of mythologies, including those of the Americas. Their basic method is to present comparative motifs between myths. This parallels/copies Eduard Stucken's method underlying his Astralmythen (5 parts) which was to define myths by their motifs, not by persons or types, and maintained that as it was motifs that were passed from people to people then only motifs could be used for the purposes of comparison. The method makes it easier to claim parallels and as such lacks rigour.
The authors promote the concept of an archaic high culture in the Near East. "The main thesis of the book is that at a remote period [preceding the civilizations of Babylonia, Egypt, India, and China] a few men discovered the precession of the equinoxes (usually attributed to Hipparchus, ca. 120 B.C.) the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the shifting of the Celestial Pole. Four points of reference (equinoxes and solstices) form the frame or true ground of all myth. In particular, all Flood, world destruction, and succession type myths are seen as due to the shifting of this frame (as the vernal equinox enters a new zodiac sign precessing along the ecliptic). The authors further contend that this essentially scientific information was put into the preliterate code language (p. 344) of myth which then made its way about the earth apparently from "that 'Proto-Pythagorean' mint somewhere in the Fertile Crescent. (p. 311), ... completely unaffected by local beliefs and customs (p.345)." (Gerald Gresseth in Journal of American Folklore, Volume 84, Number 332, April/June, 1971, Pages 246-247.) (The foundation of the theory of Panbabylonism was the claim for an early date for scientific astronomy in Babylonia. This entailed knowledge of precession of the equinoxes and a system of astronomical/astrological 'World Ages.')
Geometry and Algebra in Ancient Civilizations by Bartel van der Waerden (1948, 1984), and the critical book review "The Geometer and the Archaeoastronomers: On the Prehistoric Origins of Mathematics." by Wilbur Knorr (The British Journal for the History of Science, Volume 18, Number 2, July, 1985, Pages 197-212.) Waerden (influenced by Abraham Seidenberg (1916-1988), Professor of Mathematics, University f California, Berkeley, retired 1987) speculates that the primary tradition arose within the Neolithic culture of Indo-European peoples who migrated into Central and Northern Europe in the 4th and 3rd millennium BCE. Specifically, a single Indo-European group, the so-called ‘Beaker people’ in the 3rd millennium BCE, were the primal source for the geometric and ritual traditions, extending from Europe and the Near-East to India and China. In an article in ANTIQUITY (1997) Euan MacKie again argued for his long-standing belief that there existed in later Neolithic Britain and Ireland theocractic elites who possessed precise and sophisticated astronomical and mathematical knowledge. However, see the capable critique, "Cosmology, calendars and society in Neolithic Orkney: a rejoinder to Euan MacKie." by Clive Ruggles and Gordon Barclay (ANTIQUITY, Volume 74, Number 283, 2000, Pages 62-74); and “Will the data drive the model? A further response to Euan MacKie.” by Gordon Barclay and Clive Ruggles (ANTIQUITY, Volume 76, Number 293, 2002, Pages 668-671).
As stated above: The influence of Higgins' concept of an ancient world-wide secret religious order sharing knowledge, on the similar idea expressed in Hamlet's Mill that a secret world-wide net of scholars existed and shared coded astronomical information should not be overlooked.
According to de Santillana, throughout history the most advanced scientific knowledge is grasped only by a handful of people. My only comment is why didn't the channels of communication - whatever they supposedly were - also get used to carry other technical information such as metalworking.
"[I]t is claimed that the widespread symbol of the World Tree must be based on the 'world axis', while the two great circles of the equinoxes and the solstices are represented by the image of the World Mill. Yggdrasil, Samson's pillar, the tree up which Mani climbs to heaven in the Polynesian story - all are reflections of man's early knowledge of the starry sky, based on a close and systematic observation of the movements of the heavens. The idea of a succession of worlds, of the destruction of the earth by Flood or fire, and many stories of the fall of great kings and heroes, are based on the disappearance of the Pole Star and its replacement by another, due to the phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes (described pp. 59 ff.)." (Hilda Davidson in Folklore, Volume CXXXV, 1974, Pages 282-283.)
Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend believed the astronomical content of myth preceded shamanism. Florence and Kenneth Wood, the authors of Homer's Secret Iliad (1999), mention that in the 1960s Edna Wood (who initially developed the idea of an astronomical code in the Iliad) received supportive letters from Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend at MIT, for her astronomical interpretation of the Iliad. Later (in 1996), Florence and Kenneth Wood mention that they visited Hertha von Dechend at the University of Frankfurt and received support for their ideas on Homeric astronomy from both Hertha von Dechend and Walter Saltzer. This enables some insight into what ideas and dates both de Santillana and von Dechend were prepared to accept. Though the book apparently lacks a wholly clear position on constellation origins (but the thrust is evident in Chapter 1 (see especially page 2) for implying a system of astronomy and constellations thousands of years prior to Homer) see page 244 regarding the suggestion for the origin of the constellations as early as the eighth millennium BCE. See also pages 207-208, 212, 217, & 220 for the reliance on a system of early zodiacal constellations stretching back to the eighth millennium BCE.
According to de Santillana and von Dechend (1) the scientifically accurate rate of the precession was known in the late Neolithic Period (circa 4000 BCE), (2) the precession is the main source of all the major myths of the world (and these myths spread from a common source in the ancient Near East), and (3) these myths represent preliterate science (are a preliterate scientific and technical language) and deal with the precession and the cosmology of celestial dimensions. They believed that all so-called 'high cultures' had myths based on precession. Changeovers in zodiacal signs, i.e., shift of vernal equinox due to precession, are described in terms of catastrophes. The astronomical phenomenon of precession was conceived as causing the rise and cataclysmic fall of the ages of the world.
De Santillana and von Dechend believed myth was the only technical language in archaic times. In seeking to uphold their explanation of the cryptic nature of the language of myths Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend claim that the language of myth was from the very beginning intended to be understood by initiates as compendia of cosmological teachings. "The main merit of this language is its ambiguity. Myth can be used as a vehicle for handing down solid knowledge independently from the degree of insight of the people who do the actual telling of the stories, fables, etc. In ancient times, moreover, it allowed members of the the archaic "brains trust" to "talk shop" unaffected by the presence of laymen: the danger of giving something away was practically nil. (Hamlet's Mill, 1969, Page 312)." (Amazingly, the need for secrecy is simply assumed and never explained. Also, the assumption of an 'international club' of people 'in the know' and storytellers who were not, but none-the-less ensured these particular myths dominated and never changed the essential structure of the supposedly coded information is simply assumed and never explained. Also, why the precessional knowledge set that was kept so secret was never again rediscovered in a repeat process by other persons, and again coded, is left in silence. The use of material from the literary period of China (by David Pankenier and Deborah Porter) as examples for verifying Hamlet's Mill remain late examples of astronomy being placed into myth (by only a few persons), and also culturally limited examples.)
Part 3: The Basic Problem: A Critical Overview
The Treatment of Mythology
Hamlet's Mill has been misdescribed as a work in cultural anthropology. Hamlet's Mill is essentially a book on comparative mythology. Hertha von Dechend has been described as a specialist in comparative mythology. It is evident that the parallelomania of Panbabylonism underpins Hamlet's Mill. (Von Dechend has been mistakenly described (by Patrick Heelan) as a classicist.) Von Dechend spent her academic life reinterpreting ancient myths as a scientific code for astronomical events. She believed there was a world-wide cultural homogeneity in myths. In their book Hamlet's Mill Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend claim there is a profound coherence behind the many thousands of seemingly chaotic myths, legends, and stories. Ancient myths can be interpreted as a code language for the precessional cycle. However, the comparative method is inevitably full of uncertainties, and still not well developed. The German Protestant theologian Hans Schaer, following the ideas of Carl Jung, has set out that people, ancient and modern, have common patterns of thinking. This works against diffusionism as a necessary answer for cultural similarities.
In their introduction to Hamlet’s Mill the authors state they are well aware of modern interpretations of myth and folklore but they 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." The authors instead 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." Throughout the book the authors give reasons for preferring the work of older scholars (and the early mythologists themselves) as the proper way to interpret myth. The basic procedure of de Santillana and von Dechend copies from (mostly) from the amateur German philologist Edward Stucken (Astralmythen, 5 Parts, 1896-1907) and also the German assyriologist Peter Jensen (Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, 2 Volumes, 1906-1928). They compare motifs. Stucken's method was to identify motifs within Mesopotamian stories and then identify correspondences. Stucken based his theory on certain similar features of narratives/myths. Whilst he collected a huge number of parallels from all over the world they largely remain unconvincing. (Stucken was criticised for knowing no restraint.) As example, Stucken was unconcerned when matching motifs whether certain features of a historical tale were analogous to certain features of a mythical story. De Santillana and von Dechend claim analogical features. They also looked for similarities in iconography.
No attempt is made to create a chronology and no attempt is made to identify the specific cultures that have common motifs.
Mythology as Astronomical Language
Hamlet's Mill is an amazing exhibition of academic narrow-mindedness, unrestrained speculation, and lack of expert knowledge, on the part of its authors. Within the framework of the book recent scholarship is ignored or dismissed. Modern anthropological research is mostly ignored (and indeed distrusted). Trust is given to older authorities - such a Rydberg and his fantasies concerning a 'world-mill' - even when genuine modern scholarship has shown them to be out of date and misleading. The 'monomyth theory' - traceable all the way back to Max Muller - is revived, despite its absurdity. The author's of Hamlet's Mill associate all myth with astronomy. Their claim that all myths are strictly astronomical and all trace back to a single unidentified Neolithic civilization, located somewhere in the Near East, is unsustainable.
Hamlet's Mill is far from being a demonstration of how the language of ancient stories can be simultaneously poetic and scientifically/technically precise/accurate. It is certainly a demonstration of how obscurantism can win wide and uncritical admiration. One supporter of Hamlet's Mill writes that ancient myths encode a vast and complex body of accurate astronomical information (scientific data of the highest level and greatest precision)! Another supporter of Hamlet's Mill writes: "An exhaustive look at the astronomical themes and terminology in myths worldwide."
Hamlet's Mill is an extension of earlier attempts to establish an astronomical interpretation of mythology. Their treatment of major myths as astronomical systems having a word-wide basis mimics the German star-myth school of the late 19th-century and early 20th-century. Advanced astronomical information had been gathered before the invention of writing and transmitted through myth (an archaic technical language). Specifically, precession was the fundamental focus of archaic astronomy. Astronomical interpretations of mythology (often incorporating precession as the "key") have been extensively promoted in numerous books published between circa 1880 and 1930. Historically, proponents of a scheme of astronomical mythology (nearly always based on an equally divided 12-constellation zodiac) have ceaselessly demonstrated that it is possible to incorporate a diverse and differing range of astronomical data into their interpretations. Almost all the authors interpret the same mythology or epics with different astronomical data i.e., identify different astronomical phenomenon. Simply, an "astro-mythic" scheme can bear several several interpretations. (It is also interesting to see the apparently Jungian "astro-mythic" slant given to Hebrew mythology by Tom Chetwynd in his The Age of Myth (1991).) Such multitude of divergence indicates that the methodology is flawed or that the interpretations are forced. In a nutshell: The problem is no "astronomical key" has been identified - as is evidenced by the diverse astronomical methods of interpretation. This facilitates the criticism that often the method(s) of "astro-mythic" interpretation is perhaps not a method after all. A reasonable analogy would perhaps be the elaborate "Bacon is Shakespeare" ciphers that have been "discovered". What stands out is the fact that the coding systems and underlying identification messages are never the same. The 2 volumes by Ignatius Donnelly titled The Great Cryptogram (1888) are a prime example. John Nicolson's book No Ciphers in Shakespeare (1888) showed that the cipher scheme "discovered" by Ignatius Donnelly can be used to produce any required result. Likewise, elements within a single scheme of astronomical mythology can produce several variant interpretations.
The problem is illustrated by two "recent" publications using the same tale in the context of Hamlet's Mill (1969). They are Heavens Unearthed in Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales by Matt Kane (1999) and Imaginary Landscapes: Making Worlds of Myth and Science by William Thompson (1989). Both authors refer to Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time. In "Chapter 5: Rumpelstiltskin" of Kane's book he interprets the tale as a lunar myth. In "Chapter 1: Rapunzel: Cosmology Lost" of Thompson's book he interprets the tale as involving the sun and moon and the planetary motion of Mercury, Venus and Mars. (William Thompson was a colleague of Hertha von Dechend when she was at MIT. Both were in the Department of Humanities. He was at MIT from 1965 to 1968; Associate Professor of Humanities (i.e., Associate Professor of Literature) from 1966. At his current website (2010) he states that Hertha von Dechend discussed her ideas on ancient mythology and astronomy with him at their lunches in the student cafeteria. The version by John Ebert in his book Twilight of the Clockwork God 1999) is distortive. It is set out by William Thompson that von Dechend's ideas helped him to develop one level of his multi-layered reading of the Rapunzel story.) A successful theory is such because it can best fit all the known facts. Also, within each of the sciences a single controlling theory tends to dominate. Two opposing theories which can use similar starting points but arrive at different explanative outcomes to fit the facts need to be given further investigation before one is accepted (with or without modification) or neither is accepted. It is also really up to the proponents of an idea to reasonably establish their case - including answering all reasonable criticisms raised.
The content of the speculations of the above-mentioned authors, however, apart from the premises which enable them, are essentially in conflict. Relative harmony would be a better indicator of the reliability of the "astro-mythic" method. What perhaps would also be more credible is an astronomical interpretation that did not incorporate a scheme of ancient zodiacal constellations to prop the "precession in mythology" approach. The nature of the claims for precessional mythology (invariably based on a conjectured ancient 12-constellation zodiac of 12 equal divisions) require that any difficult facts arising from such need to be critically discussed and myopic approaches avoided. We need to separate conviction from science and to ensure we satisfactorily do such we should not disable our skepticism.
According to Bill Lauritzen (The Invention of God: The Origins of Religious and Scientific Thought, 2007), much of Hamlet's Mill can be interpreted as describing volcanic and geological processes.
Part 4: The Four Key Claims: A Critique
The Claim for Precession in the Erra-Epic
The authors of Hamlet's Mill hold that the clearest statement of precession exists in the Erra-Epic (also known as the Erra and Ishum Epic). (See: Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend (1969) Pages 325.) The authors write: "... it is necessary to leave Era's somber prophecy unfulfilled, relating as it does to a coming world age: "Open the way, I will take the road, The days are ended, the fixed time is past." But with it comes the clearest statement ever uttered by men or gods concerning the Precession. Says Marduk: When I stood up from my seat and let the flood break in, then the judgement of Earth and Heaven went out of joint ... The gods, which trembled, the stars of heaven - their position changed, and I did not bring them back." Amazingly, the authors fail to to engage in any developed discussion, scholarly or otherwise, of this section of the text. The source of the "Marduk quote" in Hamlet's Mill is the late version of the Erra-Epic, generally believed by scholars to have been written circa the eighth-century BCE, and is likely derived from (the German-language) book Das Era-Epos by Felix Gössmann (1956). (The author of the Erra-Epic, Kabti-ilani-Marduk of the Dabibi-family, claimed that the work was revealed to him in a dream.) Which author of Hamlet's Mill made the English-language translation is not known. Unfortunately Gössmann's edition of the Erra-epic has problems due to the fact he did not have access to all suitable material.
In the Erra-Epic there is a scenario involving disorder affecting the earth and heavens when Marduk temporarily leaves his throne. The context is an apocalyptic type scenario similar to the Biblical book Apocalypse of John (i.e., Book of Revelation). (See the discussion in Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come by Norman Cohn (1993). Erra is an Akkadian warrior god. The result of Erra's assault is that the world is plunged into darkness and as a result Marduk is displaced from his throne and forced to descend to the underworld. Erra temporarily seizes control of Babylon from Marduk during the latter's temporary absence. As the phenomena of precession is completely unconnected with any occurrence of celestial darkness this type of imagery can hardly be descriptive of precession. The theme of the chosen imagery of the Erra-Epic is believed to refer to a disastrous military event that occurred to the city of Babylon in the "dark age" at the beginning of the first millennium BCE. The central theme of the poem is concerned with the assault by Erra on the kingdom of Marduk. Babylon was the residence of the god Marduk and the centre of the universe. The disaster was interpreted in religious terms as the temporary replacement of Marduk by Erra. It is possible the poem is descriptive of a raid by the semi-nomadic Sutian people on the city of Babylon. The Sutians (who lived along the Euphrates River) periodically raided Mesopotamian cities. It has also been proposed that the epic was composed following the recovery of the statue of Marduk from Susa by Nebuchadnezzar 1 after its removal by the Elamite king Kutir-Nahhunte. (Statue-napping was a significant issue in ancient Mesopotamia.) This event is dated to the 12th-century BCE. Circa 1160 BCE King Kutir-Nahhunte invaded Mesopotamia and took the city of Babylon. Included amongst the items he brought back from Babylon was the Code of Hammurapi. Circa 1120 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar 1 conquered Elam.
Erra is the god of war and pestilence. For an authoritative discussion that the Erra poem (a narrative poem) is not myth; it is mythologised history, see the paper "The Epic of Gilgamesh: Thoughts on Genre and Meaning." by the assyriologist A. R. George.
The Claim for a Neolithic Zodiac
The myth of a prehistoric 12-constellation zodiac (of equal divisions) is not yet extinguished. De Santillana and von Dechend are believed by followers of their book Hamlet's Mill to have shown the extremely ancient character of an evenly divided 12-constellation zodiac. George St. Clair (Myths of Greece Explained and Dated (2 volumes, 1901)) pioneered the use of simply assuming an early equally-spaced 12-constellation zodiac to explain mythology. The technique reached its zenith with the book Hamlet´s Mill (1969). The suggestion that the zodiac was originally established as an intended scheme of 12 constellations and 12 equal divisions some 6000 years ago (or even earlier) is untenable. The tide of claims up to the early 20th-century for the great antiquity of the zodiac (made by many historians, astronomers and Assyriologists) have been definitively discredited by an understanding of relevant Mesopotamian cuneiform sources. Nineteenth-century arguments made frequent (misplaced) use of mythology and symbolism i.e., Recherches sur le culte public et les mystères de Mithra en Orient et en Occident by (the French archaeologist) Félix Lajard (1867). The idea that a 12-constellation equally divided Babylonian zodiac originated circa 6000 BCE (enthusiastically promoted by the Panbabylonists Fritz Hommel (Semiticist) and Alfred Jeremias (Archaeologist)) did not begin to be entirely discarded until the pioneering work of Franz Kugler on Babylonian astronomy began appearing. There is no evidence that the Greek scheme of 12 zodiacal constellations existed anywhere prior to its evolvement in Greece circa 500 BCE. The Assyriologist Peter Jensen was the first to show, in his book Die Kosmologie der Babylonier (1890), that the Greek zodiac (and zodiacal constellation names) was adapted (with few changes) from the (newly developed) zodiacal scheme of the Babylonians.
The pioneering work on Babylonian astronomy was the monumental Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel (1907-1935, 2 volumes and 3 supplements in 7 parts) by the Jesuit mathematician and Assyriologist Franz Kugler. He clearly demonstrated the late origin of Babylonian scientific astronomy and convincingly demonstrated that the Babylonians had a late and sidereal zodiac and a late mathematical astronomy. This meant that precession could not have been marked at an early date through either the constellations or signs of the zodiac. Also, from his study of cuneiform texts, Kugler pointed out that the concept of precessional movement of the tropical points through ecliptic constellations was not contained in early Babylonian astronomical texts. There is nothing in the Babylonian texts to prove a Twins-, Bull-, and Ram-period of precession. The later studies of the mathematicians Otto Neugebauer and Bartel van der Waerden on cuneiform astronomy have clearly shown that the zodiac originated in Mesopotamia and not earlier than the 1st millennium BCE. It was not handed down to the Babylonians from an earlier culture. (Bartel van der Waerden believed he had succeeded in reconstructing a mathematical science that must have existed in the Neolithic Period between 3000 and 2500 BCE, and spread from Central Europe.)
Incredibly, de Santillana and von Dechend believe that after 3000 years of writing a supposedly extant and ancient zodiacal scheme is finally only attested by writing circa 500 BCE.
Before being used for astrological speculation the zodiac was an astronomical development whose stages are recoverable from Babylonian astronomical cuneiform texts dating from circa 1000 BCE with the Mul.Apin series. The zodiac of signs was invented for use as a reference point in mathematical astronomy. The Babylonian origin of the zodiac is assured on the basis of cuneiform documentation. (In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy (2010) by Francesca Rochberg (Chapter Seven: Babylonian Contribution to Hellenistic Astrology); The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (2004) by Francesca Rochberg (Chapter 4: Sources for Horoscopes in Astronomical Texts).) Babylonian equivalents of the names of constellations later used for the divisions of the zodiac occur in Babylonian star lists and other cuneiform texts of the 1st-millennium BCE. The earliest cuneiform evidence for the existence of the 12-sign 'ecliptic' zodiac comes from 5th-century BCE astronomical diaries (Number -453 iv 2, Number -440 rev.3', and Number -418:5, 10 rev.8' and 14'). (Babylonian Horoscopes (1998) by Francesca Rochberg (Chapter 3: Elements of a Babylonian Zodiac).) The concept of the zodiac cannot be found anywhere else before the 5th-century BCE (the pre-Seleucid, Babylonian Persian (Achaemenid) Period). "One can posit the following steps in the development of the zodiac, although it must be said that our knowledge of how the zodiac was first developed is provisional. The division of the schematic calendar into 12 months of 30 days each, such as was used in MUL.APIN, the Astrolabes, and Enūma Anu Enlil, could be correlated with twelve constellations through which the sun was found to travel in one ideal "year" of twelve 30-day months. Because the spring equinox, which was always close to the beginning of the Babylonian year, was to occur in Nisannu (I.15 according to the tradition of MUL.APIN) then Nisannu, or month I, was when the sun was in the constellation Aries (MUL.LÚ.HUN.GA = Agru "the hired man"). For each ideal month, the sun's position in the sky could be identified by the name of a constellation but schematized to correlate the sun's passage through the constellations with the twelve 30-day intervals. The result would be an association of twelve 30-day months and twelve constellations, later standardized to intervals of 30º along the ecliptic." (The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (2004) by Francesca Rochberg (Chapter 4: Sources for Horoscopes in Astronomical Texts, Page 129).)
The Claim for 'World Ages'
According to the author's of Hamlet's Mill many ancient cultures believed in 'World Ages.' This involved belief in 'Cycles of 'Dark and Golden Ages'' (= cycles of consciousness rising and falling). These ancient cultures are stated to have rather accurately known the length of the precessional cycle and also the length of a zodiacal age. (The authors of Hamlet's Mill believed that precession was discovered by circa 4000 BCE at least.) The assertion that ancient cultures viewed history as comprised of periodic cycles (a progression of changing world ages) is associated with the precession of the equinoxes and is tied by de Santillana/von Dechend to their assumption that an equally divided 12-constellation zodiac had been established in archaic times. No evidence exists for an equally divided 12-constellation zodiac before circa 500 BCE. The fantasies of de Santillana/von Dechend that ancient cultures viewed the world in terms of zodiac-based cyclic time (driven by precession) fail on this crucial point. Precession is held to be described mythically in terms of catastrophes. (It has been asserted that de Santillana and von Dechend believed the zodiac was invented to described cyclical disasters.) Also, the archaic myths are held to embody precession-based cataclysmic fears. Although change due to precession occurs extremely slowly it is asserted by de Santillana and von Dechend that it was expressed in terms of violent catastrophes (floods) - due to an apparent shift in the rising of a zodiacal sign of 30 degrees and the apparent shift also of the setting of a zodiacal sign of 30 degrees.
The Claim for an Archaic (Astronomical) Science
In Hamlet's Mill Giorgio de Santillana claims that a "great worldwide archaic construction" of knowledge was in existence long before the Greeks were an established civilization, and that remnants of this knowledge survive in misunderstood myths and fairy tales. (Old mythological lore is claimed to be riddled with coded references to precession.) Basically, Hamlet's Mill argues for a pre-literate world civilisation. It shared an international pre-literate code language of numbers, motions, and measures. However, the coherence the authors argue exist behind diverse myths is not evident in their arguments. According to de Santillana the Pythagorean tradition was a expression of this ancient "gnosis," repeated in the language of archaic myth, and from this source we have much of the foundation of modern civilization (including the beginnings of mathematics and the doctrine that the world is formed according to number). According to de Santillana Plato could "speak the language of archaic myth" and built the first modern philosophy on this foundation. De Santillana believed that behind Plato's myths was his knowledge of the 'ancient system' and that Plato used this language in his allegories - "without divulging their precise meaning: whoever was entitled to the knowledge of the proper terminology would understand him." Needless to say, this is all simply de Santillana's speculations. De Santillana has also pointed out that Plato and his school moved away from the more scientific attitude of the earlier Ionian scientists and replaced their physics by an astro-theological cosmos which discouraged experimenting.
In Hamlet's Mill, de Santillana and von Dechend adhere to the same fallacy which effectively undermined Panbabylonism - namely, an uncritical belief in the existence of a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy in antiquity.
Part 5: Some Critics and Criticisms
(1) Some summary points in the book review by Edmund Leach [Anthropologist] in The New York Review (of Books), February 12, 1970, Page 36:
"[T]he murky confusion generated by reading any random twenty pages of Hamlet's Mill is strongly reminiscent of Frobenius. Indeed, the whole operation is not much more than a gloss on two early works of the extraordinary author, Die Mathematik der Oceaner (1900) and Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes (1904)."
"Whether any such cosmic legend ever existed anywhere at all, all in one piece, seems, on the evidence of this book, to be extremely doubtful, but those who want to believe in such improbabilities as flying saucers are never likely to be put off by mere lack of evidence."
"The whole enterprise is rather like a demonstration that Francis Bacon wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. Provided you are certain of your answers before you start, the clues and acrostics can be found almost anywhere."
"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."
"It was proposed by Kuhn in 1852 that the name Prometheus is a corruption of Sanskrit Pra-mantha, a fire stick. Although this etymology has long ago been completely rejected as linguistically quite impossible ... Hamlet's Mill not only resurrects the equation but gives it enormous elaboration so that Prometheus's fall from celestial grace is made to provide evidence that our ancestors of 6000 years ago could recognize a shifting in the position of the Pole Star!"
"But the skeptic need never feel browbeaten by the battery of foot-notes and appendices. Half the time the authors get their references wrong anyway. For example, at p. 142 they blandly assert that "during the last hundred years it has been taken for granted that no one could have detected the Precession (of the Equinoxes) prior to Hipparchus's alleged discovery of the phenomenon in 127 B.C.," and they then go on to argue that evidence of a much earlier understanding of the phenomenon is to be found in ancient mythology. But this is just false. The issue has been discussed repeatedly ...."
(2) Some summary points in the book review by Jaan Puhvel [Philologist/Historian] in The American Historical Review, Volume LXXV, Number 6, October, 1970, Pages 2009-2010:
"[The authors set out to prove that] ... myth is a repository of arcane astronomical (and astrological) knowledge .... This the authors do by a combination of heavy scholarship, withering hubristic polemicism, and portentous oracular style."
"The long-forgotten period-piece etymologies of Max Müller and Adalbert Kuhn ("surely a great scholar," p. 381) are blithely resurrected (for example, Sanskrit Pramantha matching Greek Prometheus, p. 139), while more up-to-date authorities are caricatured as "severe philologists, slaves to exact 'truth' (p. 294)."
"In brief this is not a serious scholarly work on the problem of myth in the closing decades of the twentieth century."
(3) Some summary points in the book review by Lynn White Junior [Historian] in Isis, Volume 61, 1970, Pages 540-541:
:"In his preface (p. x) de Santillana expresses admiration for von Dechend's virtue of "scornful indignation." "Arrogant oversimplification" might be an equivalent phrase."
"Von Dechend assumes a single astronomical origin in the Near East for the entire global corpus of mythologies. Her only proofs are analogy, often strained. On a single page (425) she connects myths of Greece, Japan, Egypt, Iceland, the Marquesas, and the Cherokee Indians. On page 309, a rabbinical and a Pawnee tradition show "unmistakeable" identity. On page 320 we read "here Greek myth suddenly emerges in full light among Indian tribes in America, miraculously preserved." One might quote such passages indefinitely."
"The Norse hero Amlodhi had a great quern in the sea where Nine Maids ground out his meal. In his classic Hamlet in Iceland Sir Israel Gollanz concluded that "Hamlet's Mill" may mean anything."
"But admitting that drills and churns offer a possible symbolism of the retrograde parts of the observed paths of the planets, anyone who has operated a fire drill or churn knows that the alterations in directions of rotation are necessarily so swift that to turn them into symbols of the solemn wheeling of the heavenly bodies is a psychological absurdity."
(4) Some summary points in the book review by Gerald Gresseth [Philologist/Classicist] in Journal of American Folklore, Volume 84, Number 332, April/June, 1971, Pages 246-247:
"[I]t does not appear (the authors never say) why this information had to be encoded in myth - and not in simple asterisms, at that, but in complex myths that on the surface at least would seem to have no reference to even the stars, let alone the precession."
"[T]his theory precludes, in accordance with its own criteria, any way of accounting for the variants and combinations of motifs in any one myth type (Flood myth for example). One feature of Flood myths is the suddenness of the flood - hardly in keeping with the precessional motion of the earth."
"Even granting that this ancient "brains trust" did encode such knowledge in myth, how does it happen that the code was so completely lost that even the learned do not know it, though these same societies managed to hand down other types of information well enough?"
"[T]here seems to be no other record other than the code of the myth for this important astronomical knowledge."
"[T]here is no attempt in the book to demonstrate how this astronomical information was diffused in myth from the ancient Near East to North America, Polynesia, and other parts of the world."
"There is much else that folklorists would like to have the authors explain. For instance, did these ancient thinkers use already existing myths to encode their discoveries in? If so, what was the origin of these myths?"
(5) Some summary points in the book review by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin [Astronomer] in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Volume 3, 1972, Pages 206-211:
"[T]he threads of the argument are not closely knit. Rather they are loosely braided, and the final pattern does not leap to the eye. I tried without success to reproduce the development of the theme by writing a brief paragraph to summarize each chapter."
"Much of the book will be unfamiliar to anyone save an extremely well-read specialist. The flamboyant and allusive style serves only to deepen the obscurity. Why should the reader be expected to recognise allusions to The possessed, or Mabinogion, or Flaubert's unfinished satirical novel? Why should he be bewildered by a punning reference to quasars? What is he to make of the author's comment on Nonnos: "It takes some nerve to say of the Galaxy that it meanders - actually the Greek text has it that it moves in a helix"; for that is exactly what it does, and perhaps Nonnos was announcing a proleptic discovery of galactic rotation."
"The minor evidences of carelessness [on the part of the authors] suggest a certain insouciance in composition, and impose ... the problem of examining the book's fidelity to its sources."
"The treatment of classical mythology and its derivatives seems to be needlessly obscure, and (as the authors remark of Eisler) "provides more information than guidance.""
"The "good reason to assume" an earlier discovery [of precession to Hipparchus] must rest on the idea that it was likely. It is argued that "our ancestors ... were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours", therefore they were capable, "always given the means at hand", of perceiving Precession. They may have done so; it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative. But to use the myths as evidence that they did, and then to use this conclusion to interpret the myths, smacks of a circular argument."
"The Zodiac forms a sort of backdrop to the drama, but it falls somewhat out of focus. Yet the origin of the zodiacal constellations seems to lie at the heart of the mystery. We could wish that the book included a documentation of this fascinating subject. The authors glance at a few details .... But they claim that they "must not be drowned in the abyss of details of comparative constellation lore." In other words they do not consider the history of the constellations as important a subject as others to which they devote massive documentation. It is in fact a question of which abyss you choose."
(6) Some summary points in the book review by Albert Friedman [Folklorist/Historian] in Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume X, 1972, Page 479:
"The authors, both seasoned historians of science, have concocted a book that reads like Velikovsky bouncing along the Road to Xanadu."
"This archaic astronomical monomyth, diffused from China to Peru, no longer exists in its pristine integrity but has to be painfully teased out of the flotsam and jetsam that surfaces sporadically in chronicles, epics and latter-day literary myths, and it is to this task that the authors address themselves. The result is unconvincing."
"Erudite references are heaped together with too little attention to designing a credible argument; tenuous associations are passed off as sensational and indubitable proofs; their is much sleight-of-hand with entymologies; passages in epics are eccentrically explicated to yield the desired interpretation."
"But what is most exasperating about the book is the author's coy way of paying out their findings. Just as a train of argument is about to come to the point, a digression is maddeningly introduced to heighten the suspense; the startling promises of topic sentences and paragraphs somehow never get realized in the tangle of forced facts and dubious speculations that follow."
"[N]ow and then an arresting idea emerges, but these tidbits hardly compensate for the frailty of the thesis and the overly calculated exposition."
(7) Some summary points in the book review by Geoffrey Kirk [Classicist] in The Spectator, Volume 225, Part 2, Number 7434, 19 December, 1970, Page [220?] 809:
"This imaginative and perverse volume represents a further installment of a vision developed over the past twenty years within the improbable portals of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."
"The ... theory is that world mythology contains relics of a lost archaic belief that world-ages succeed one another in accord with the precession of the equinoxes, an idea [held] familiar several millennia before Hipparchus. This remarkable and improbable conclusion is presented in language that is mystical and apocalyptic as much as vague and dogmatic: 'mathematics was moving up to me from the depth of centuries'."
"The basic intuition about a vast but fugue-like corpus of ancient astronomical knowledge is very loosely supported by reference to the Pythagoreans and Plato, to number-imagery in the Vedas, to the Avesta, to Gilgamesh and other Mesopotamian figures, and to the northern tales of Hamlet that give the book its title. Amlodhi in Norse legend owned a mill that ground out peace and prosperity; later it degenerated to producing salt; ultimately, at the bottom of the sea, it produces mere rock and sand and is the source of the Maelstrom, one of the entrances of the underworld: 'This imagery stands, as the evidence develops, for an astronomical process, the secular shifting of the sun through the signs of the zodiac which determines world-ages ...'."
"The chaotic presentation of the argument is defended by reference to the 'non-catenary' nature of the archaic structure of ideas it seeks to disclose."
"The style in which these ideas are presented varies from the imprecise and pretentious (Socrates's 'inimitable' habit of using myth for the discussion of serious matters) to the absurd ('The epics of Gilgamesh and Era offer too many trees for our modest demands.')."
"More serious, there is virtually nothing in the way of cogent argument. Even in the appendices where the texture of thought appears least diffuse, it is rare to find two propositions of which it may be said that the one follows necessarily or even probably from the other."
"Yet at the points where I was qualified to test it the information the information was either inaccurate or wilfully interpreted: something that the authors, who defy 'experts' and the like, would obviously not accept."
(8) Some summary points in the book review by Hilda Davidson [Folklorist/Historian] in Folklore, Volume CXXXV, 1974, Pages 282-283:
"It is assumed, although the evidence of the Dogon in Africa (quoted in Appendix L) would seem to contradict it. that the general system of astronomy must always follow the same fundamental lines among early and preliterate people."
"[The book] ... is 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 century, and apparent ignorance of progress made since his time."
"No one can take seriously an elaborate theory based on an extremely obscure and imperfectly preserved passage of skaldic verse, relying on one translation, that of Gollanz."
"It is nonsense to state (p. 26) that the culture of the Finno-Ugric peoples was utterly cut off from the Scandinavians until recently: and one might continue on these lines indefinitely."
"[The book] ... attempts to dogmatize in fields in which the authors are not sufficiently at home."
(9) Some summary points in the book review by David Leeming [Folklorist] in Parabola, Volume III, Issue 1, 1978, Pages 113-115:
"The book seems to ... be an attempt to prove a pet theory, to the exclusion of others equally valid."
"[T]he authors appear to be blinded by their own voluminous scholarship; their extensive footnotes, appendices, and tangential meanderings most of the time bury whatever it is they are trying to say. In fact, Hamlet's Mill reads like a parody of nineteenth century scholarship of the German variety. For all its pretensions to freshness and originality, it is ... one of the most muddled books yet written on the subject of myth."
"Hamlet's Mill is, finally, fantasy, but it is too top-heavy to enjoy. ... The problem is, Santillana and von Dechend try to prove a nearly exclusive connection by means of a parade of loosely related information. This is the rationalist fallacy. Give me a theory - especially one as wild as this - and with enough mythic material I can "prove" it, simply because there are so many mythic "facts" to draw from."
(10) Some summary points in the (favourable) book review by Carroll Quigley [Historian] in The Washington Sunday Star, 25 January, 1970:
"[T]his volume is ... badly organized and badly written. The main arguments should have been clearly stated at the outset, and the evidence including that derived from folklore, should then have been mobilized to support the arguments. Instead the arguments only emerge by implication, and not in the early chapters, where they are buried and confused by a flood of stories from worldwide folklore fragments."
"[T]he purpose of the book is largely defeated, not by its scholarship but by its confused presentation. ... The chapter headings and the language of the text are similarly allusive and poetical. But a scientific argument has to be written in the clearest prose possible, with the thesis presented and precision. No theses such as these can emerge by implication nor be proved by even the most copious cumulation of ambiguous stories from folklore."
"There is a second weakness in this volume: its authors are so obsessed with the precession of the equinoxes that they refuse to see that primitive thinkers had other worries. ... In this they are in grave error and simply reveal their inability to get inside the minds of archaic men."
(11) Article critique by Frederick [Frederic] Amory:
A neglected/forgotten (English-language) critique of Hamlet's Mill is: Amory, Frederick [Frederic]. (1977). "The Medieval Hamlet: A Lesson in the Use and Abuse of a Myth." (Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, Volume 51, Number 3, Pages 357-395). [Note: Includes 123 references. Abstract: I. Réfutation de l'interprétation cosmologique donnée par G. deSantillana et H. von Dechend (Hamlet's Mill, 1969) de l'histoire d'H. Le moulin magique dans les mythologies nordiques et scandinaves, dans le folklore, la religion germanique, et les épopées nordiques. II. L'A. considère Hamlet comme le personnage du fourbe décrit par Lévi-Strauss dont la fourberie résoud dans un mythe un cas d'inceste. L'Hamlet de Saxo Grammaticus: sources irlandaises et islandaises, diverses formes de la légende. Son achèvement chez Shakespeare.]
[Note: Other book reviews appear in Atlas, Volume 18, 1969, Page 15-?; The Library Journal Book Review, (R.R. Bowker Company), 1969, Page 528; Chicago Tribune Book World, Volume 3, 1969, Page(s) ?; The American Scholar, Volume 39, 1970, Page 171-? (by William Shimer); Saturday Review, Volume 53, 1970, Pages 102-105 (by Bernard De Voto); Saturday Review, Volume 53, 1970, Page(s) ?; Revue de l'histoire des religions, Volume 180, Issue 180-182, Pages 216-217, 1971 (by J.-P. Roux (French-language); Dialogue, Volume 11, 1978, Page(s) 85-? (by William Dibble, then professor of physics at Brigham Young University - that is very peculiar); The Griffith Observer, Volumes 51-52, 1987, Pages ?; Bulletin de la société de mythologie française, Issues 160-169, 1991, Page 41 (re 1990 Adelphi edition). I have not seen the article discussion in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 1975, Volume 64, Part 1.]
Part 6: Some Corrections
Some corrections and additions to the original English-language edition of Hamlet's Mill:
Page xvii: The Royal Art of Astronomy = The Royal Art of Astrology.
Page xi: Quote is incorrectly attributed to Troilus instead of Pandarus.
Page 7: 9 X 13 = 9 X 12.
Page 34: Shakespeare's Hamlet is misquoted.
Page 69: raciation = ratiocination.
Page 137: Shakespeare's Hamlet is misquoted.
Page 139: appendix #15 = appendix #14.
Page 142: The reference to Hipparchus' discovery that the north pole turns about the ecliptic pole should be reworded to avoid creating the impression that the discovery of the latter was a consequence of the discovery of the phenomenon of precession. It is the obliquity of the ecliptic itself, i.e., the solar year, which implies an ecliptic pole distinct from the north pole.
Illustrations between pages 142-143: The figure legends on each page have been interchanged.
Page 163: alternative = alternating.
Page 197: Heliand = Heiland. (But Rodger Cunningham kindly brought to my attention that Heliand is the correct Old Saxon form as the authors seem to be referring obliquely to the medieval poem of that title.)
Page 197: Pier della Vigna = Pier delle Vigne or Petro della Vigna. (Kindly brought to my attention by Roger Cunningham.)
Page 211: Red Sea = Persian Gulf.
Page 242: Johannes = Johannis.
Page 338: Tennyson's verse is misquoted.
Page 349: St. Cecelia's Day = St. Cecilia's Day.
Page 367: Appendix 9 has no page (text) reference but page 93, line 3 is most likely intended.
Page 377: Paradise Lost, 10 = Paradise Lost, 9.
Page 380: alternative = alternating.
Page 389: oscillating = alternating.
Page 409: mission = mansions.
Page 427: Appendix 37 has no page (text) reference but page 319 or 320 is most likely intended.
Page ?: Lysis (by Plato circa 380 BCE) instead of Lysias (Greek speech writer and story teller (life dates: circa 445-380 BCE)).
Note: The brief errata list that was enclosed with the 1993 German-language edition (by Hertha von Dechend) was left out of the 1994 reprint of such.
Part 7: Some Books Preceding/Influencing Hamlet's Mill
The Orion or Researches into The Antiquity of the Vedas (1893) by Bál Tilak. (Demolitions of Tilak's fantasies (which later proponents copy) can be found in: "The Home of the Aryans: an Astronomical Approach," by N. R. Waradpande. In: Shantaram Bhalchandra Deo and Suryanath Kamath (Editors). The Aryan Problem (1993, Pages 123-134); The RigVeda, a Historical Analysis by Shrikant Talageri (1st edition 2000; 2nd edition 2009); The Saffron Swastika by Koenraad Elst (2001, Volume 2). Some comments from publications by Koenraad Elst: "This erratic theory is so inordinately popular among Western racists for providing "independent" Indian confirmation to a North-European Homeland Theory (in reality, Tilak had tried to bend the Vedic evidence often ludicrously, to bring it in conformity with fashionable Western theories)." "The main point is that Tilak goes to absurd lengths to read "Arctic" references in Vedic episodes, e.g., the Battle of the Ten Kings is interpreted metaphorically as referring to the "ten cold months" ...." Tilak's "... theories find no genuine support whosoever in the Vedic text or in any other expression of Hindu tradition, which is why at the end of his life, Tilak developed doubts." Tilak's argument also relied on now outdated early studies of the Vedas by European scholars who advocated a great antiquity for Hindu astronomy. Also, Tilak saw support for his (flawed) chronology in the studies of Hermann Jacobi (whose dating arguments for the 5th-millennium BCE as the date of the Vedas are largely rejected). The proper foundations for the history and antiquity of the Vedas and Hindu astronomy were laid by Max Müller and Henry Colebrooke. The work of David Pingree has clarified many issues and further supports a recent origin for Indian astronomy.)
Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes (1904) by Leo Frobenius.
Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients (3rd Revised Edition 1916 (2 Volumes)) by Alfred Jeremias. (The claim of the German Panbabylonists (especially Alfred Jeremias) that Mesopotamian/Sumerian astrology originated in the supposed zodiacal age of Gemini (circa 5,000 - 6,000 BCE) and is the foundation of all the religions and cultures throughout the world is impossible to maintain. Both Hugo Winckler and Alfred Jeremias claimed the astral theory underpinning the 'Weltanschauung' ('view of the universe') originated in the 'Age of the Twins' (Gemini). Winkler dated such between 5,700 BCE and 2,500 BCE. Alfred Jeremias (The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Near East, (English edition (1911), Volume 1, Pages 13 & 71) claimed mythological motifs connecting the beginning of a new era with Gemini (Dioscuros myths) indicate that the zodiac was devised in the 'Age of the Twins.' He further claimed: "A planisphere from the library of Assurbanipal [K 8538 (CT 33, 10)], based upon ancient calculations ... show's a graduation of the sun's course and marks for the zero point a point between the Bull and the Twins ("Scorpion's Star, 70 degrees")." Alfred Jeremias concluded that the zodiacal division of the heavens was devised in the 'Age of Gemini' prior to the Sumerian civilization beginning. Also, he claimed: "In the most remote time upon which we have as yet any historical light, the spring equinox was in the zodiacal sign of Gemini." It would be a mistake to think that Alfred Jeremias was a pioneering assyriologist. Alfred Jeremias was, of course, no such person. After studying Assyriology and theology Alfred Jeremias spent most of his life working as a Lutheran Pastor in Leipzig. He basically pursued assyriology as a pastime and only late in life came to hold a permanent university position in assyriology. Following World War 1 Jeremias spent his time mostly updating his key publications and produced only a few new pamphlets. Alfred Jeremias would be judged "odd" by reasonable benchmarks. He held that the various cultures of mankind are no more than the dialects of one and the same spiritual language. He became an admirer of the notorious racist Hermann Wirth who was a Dutch-German lay amateur folklorist and historian of ancient religions and symbols. It appears Alfred Jeremias was not above toying with reincarnation and characterising the Panbabylonist Hugo Winckler as an old Babylonian king. During the hey-day of Panbabylonism (early 19th-century) the chronology of early Mesopotamian/Babylonia was in a confused state. Very early dates were mistakenly established. Mesopotamian/Babylonian chronology was not suitably stabilized until circa the 1940s. At the turn of the 19th-century Sargon of Akkad was dated to circa 3,800 BCE until decades later circa 2,350 BCE was confidently established. (In one of his publications Jeremias dated Sargon to 2,650 BCE.) Hermann Hilprecht had no problem with dating Enshakushanna, an early king of Uruk, to circa 6,500 BCE. The current dating is circa 2,500 BCE. At this period in assyriology new material always compelled lowering of dates. (See, for example: "A Third Revision of the Early Chronology of Western Asia." By William Albright (Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research, Number 88, December, 1942, Pages 28-36).)
Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur (2nd Revised Edition, 1929) by Alfred Jeremias.
Les Cycles du retour éternel (1963 (2 Volumes)) by Jean-Charles Pichon.
Part 8: Some Books Influenced by Hamlet's Mill
At the Edge of History (1989) by William Thompson.
The Myth of Replacement: Stars, Gods, and Order in the Universe (1991) by Thomas Worthen.
The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt: An Essay on Egyptian Religion and the Frame of Time (1992; 2nd edition, 2003) by Jane Sellers.
The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time (1996) by William Sullivan.
From Deluge to Discourse: Myth, History, and the Generation of Chinese Tradition (1996) by Deborah Porter. (N. J. Girardot (2002) asserts: "Recent archaeoastronomical methods especially draw upon the multicultural and interdisciplinary insights of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend's Hamlet's Mill ...." This is likely an example of such. Its weaknesses are obvious. It seems unnecessary to invoke Hamlet's Mill as a basis for making astronomical interpretations of early Chinese literature. On a number of occasions an astronomical basis is claimed internally within within early period Chinese literature.)
Homer's Secret Iliad (1999) by Florence and Kenneth Wood.
Mysteries of the Sacred Universe (2000) by Richard Thompson.
Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy (2003) by Richard Thompson. (A clear demonstration that very clever people can write very strange books.)
When They Severed Earth From Sky (2004) by Elizabeth Barber and Paul Barber.
Homer's Secret Odyssey (2011) by Florence and Kenneth Wood.
The Mathisen Corollary (2011) by David Mathisen. (The author is another amateur 'tub thumping' historian promoting their brand of pseudo-history. (Interestingly, Mathisen (who views himself as a good analyst of material) tends to stamp his authority by describing himself as an author (but has lately started to call himself an historian).) Mathisen is confident he has things correctly worked out (whereas lots of other people have misinterpreted the evidence). Using the 'vacuum cleaner' technique he combines disparate ideas - Hamlet's Mill ideas with the Hydroplate Theory of creationist Walter Brown (who has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering). J. Hicks has made the point (Amazon Customer Reviews) that this type of theory has been previously promoted by (amateur historians) Alan Alford and Ian Wilson. The paperback edition is published in the USA by Beowulf Books. Googling the company profile for the USA reveals Beowulf Publishing Group, Inc. has an annual revenue of $140,000 and employs a staff of approximately 2. David Mathisen has also conducted a pseudo-review/assessment of this web page. His personal and biased reading leads to specious remarks and insubstantial comments. Like many pseudo-historians he attempts to dictate the terms of evidence and set an expectation that if critics don't produce a short 'killer argument' (that is to his satisfaction) then there is no suitable case to be made. Nowhere does Mathisen recognise that Hamlet's Mill is a reworking of Panbabylonism. He is also obviously uneasy regarding any detailed background information on de Santillana and von Dechend being assembled. An example of his distortions and sleight of hand is illuminating. In a demonstration of over-confidence he manufactures a case. In his 'blogspot' dated Friday, January 20, 2012, Mathisen includes this comment in his pseudo-review/assessment of this web page: "He brings up a book by William Thompson which interprets the fairy tale of Rapunzel as "involving the sun and moon and the planetary motion of Mercury, Venus and Mars." This interpretation is not dealt with directly (in other words, no argument is offered to demonstrate that Rapunzel is not about celestial bodies) but rather is "discredited" by saying that William Thompson knew Hertha von Dechend and that she "discussed her ideas on ancient mythology and astronomy with him at their lunches in the student cafeteria." This does not discredit the thesis of Hamlet's Mill at all either! In fact, the possibility that Rapunzel contains such information is further validation of their thesis (Hamlet's Mill cites several cases in which folk tales appear to contain the same celestial information as epics and sagas contain, but using more "rustic" characters such as the farmer's cat instead of great heroes or warriors). I have compared this to actors who appear in very different costumes in different movies or plays, but who are the same actors." Ignored by Mathisen is the fact that the onus is on William Thompson to convincingly prove his case. Thompson does not. He makes it obvious that he is involved in speculation. For example he frequently writes such sentences as: "If Rapunzel is Venus, Frau Gothel the Moon, and the Prince Mars, then one suspects that the mother must be Mother Earth .... If my interpretation of the tale is valid. (Imaginary Landscape, Page 37.)" I mention William Thompson in a number of contexts. This is completely ignored by Mathisen. In relation to Mathisen's distortive quote my larger argument is (also see above): "Astronomical interpretations of mythology (often incorporating precession as the "key") have been extensively promoted in numerous books published between circa 1880 and 1930. Historically, proponents of a scheme of astronomical mythology (nearly always based on an equally divided 12-constellation zodiac) have ceaselessly demonstrated that it is possible to incorporate a diverse and differing range of astronomical data into their interpretations. Almost all the authors interpret the same mythology or epics with different astronomical data i.e., identify different astronomical phenomenon. Simply, an "astro-mythic" scheme can bear several several interpretations. (It is also interesting to see the apparently Jungian "astro-mythic" slant given to Hebrew mythology by Tom Chetwynd in his The Age of Myth (1991).) Such multitude of divergence indicates that the methodology is flawed or that the interpretations are forced. In a nutshell: The problem is no "astronomical key" has been identified - as is evidenced by the diverse astronomical methods of interpretation. This facilitates the criticism that often the method(s) of "astro-mythic" interpretation is perhaps not a method after all. A reasonable analogy would perhaps be the elaborate "Bacon is Shakespeare" ciphers that have been "discovered". What stands out is the fact that the coding systems and underlying identification messages are never the same. The 2 volumes by Ignatius Donnelly titled The Great Cryptogram (1888) are a prime example. John Nicolson's book No Ciphers in Shakespeare (1888) showed that the cipher scheme "discovered" by Ignatius Donnelly can be used to produce any required result. Likewise, elements within a single scheme of astronomical mythology can produce several variant interpretations. The problem is illustrated by two "recent" publications using the same tale in the context of Hamlet's Mill (1969). They are Heavens Unearthed in Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales by Matt Kane (1999) and Imaginary Landscapes: Making Worlds of Myth and Science by William Thompson (1989). Both authors refer to Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time. In "Chapter 5: Rumpelstiltskin" of Kane's book he interprets the tale as a lunar myth. In "Chapter 1: Rapunzel: Cosmology Lost" of Thompson's book he interprets the tale as involving the sun and moon and the planetary motion of Mercury, Venus and Mars. (William Thompson was a colleague of Hertha von Dechend when she was at MIT. Both were in the Department of Humanities. He was at MIT from 1965 to 1968; Associate Professor of Humanities (i.e., Associate Professor of Literature) from 1966. At his current website (2010) he states that Hertha von Dechend discussed her ideas on ancient mythology and astronomy with him at their lunches in the student cafeteria. The version by John Ebert in his book Twilight of the Clockwork God 1999) is distortive.) A successful theory is such because it can best fit all the known facts. Also, within each of the sciences a single controlling theory tends to dominate. Two opposing theories which can use similar starting points but arrive at different explanative outcomes to fit the facts need to be given further investigation before one is accepted (with or without modification) or neither is accepted. It is also really up to the proponents of an idea to reasonably establish their case - including answering all reasonable criticisms raised. The content of the speculations of the above-mentioned authors, however, apart from the premises which enable them, are essentially in conflict. Relative harmony would be a better indicator of the reliability of the "astro-mythic" method. What perhaps would also be more credible is an astronomical interpretation that did not incorporate a scheme of ancient zodiacal constellations to prop the "precession in mythology" approach. The nature of the claims for precessional mythology (invariably based on a conjectured ancient 12-constellation zodiac of 12 equal divisions) require that any difficult facts arising from such need to be critically discussed and myopic approaches avoided. We need to separate conviction from science and to ensure we satisfactorily do such we should not disable our skepticism. According to Bill Lauritzen (The Invention of God: The Origins of Religious and Scientific Thought, 2007), much of Hamlet's Mill can be interpreted as describing volcanic and geological processes." So much for Mathisen's investigative accuracy! I remain curious whether this example of shoddiness typifies his book. It is also doubtful whether he has read Imaginary Landscape. I think not. Mathisen has failed to identify that until 28/1/2012 I spelled 'Imaginary' in the title erroneously as 'Imaginery.' The relevant part of Mathisen's reply posted to Graeme Hancock's 'Message Boards' on 29/1/2012. Once again, his distortions and sleight of hand is interesting.: "Interesting that he doesn't seem to really confront my arguments but after quoting my discussion immediately returns to attacks on the arguments of William Thompson, Tom Chetwynd, etc. I don't really see any substantive discussion of any of the points I raised about his main criticism of the argument in Hamlet's Mill but I believe that if he or anyone else reads my book I present quite a lot of evidence. I will leave it up to readers of his article to determine if he is being ad hominem in his arguments against Hertha von Dechend and Giorgio de Santillana or not, but I would say that his description of me as a "another amateur 'tub thumping' historian promoting their [sic -- this is a grammatical error on Thompson's part] brand of pseudo-history" certainly feels a little "ad hominem" to me. His conclusion that "I remain curious whether this example of shoddiness typifies his book" also throws around fairly loaded terms -- the example of "shoddiness" he cites appears to be the fact that I do not specifically mention a book by Bill Lauritzen published in 2007 entitled The Invention of God: The Origins of Religious and Scientific Thought." Though I make it clear that my limited comments are restricted to an example, Mathisen ignores this. However, he reinforces my case in the context of his further comments. Once again his personal and biased reading leads to specious remarks and insubstantial comments. It is interesting that Mathisen sets out that when he criticises he is discussing but when I point out correctives or criticise I am attacking. Regarding the supposed grammatical error. A wider command of English would have identified that I am following the increasingly common use of 'their,' even though not accepted by strict grammarians. Throughout my website I also use the increasingly common BCE, even though B.C. is insisted upon by strict grammarians. Perhaps in more formal essays. Another supporter of Hamlet's Mill and also David Mathisen, who names himself/herself 'drrayeye', posted to Graeme Hancock's 'Message Boards' on 9/1/2012: "Dave (dwm) took the time to respond in detail to the substance of the "debunking." I didn't see any need to go further. Without agreeing or disagreeing, I'd have required a complete rewrite before I even edited it. You weren't the first and you probably won't be the last to have concerns. Giving him (and you) the greatest benefit of the doubt, I'd say that you both have concerns/questions about Hamlet's Mill that might be worth exploring further if they were better expressed. In astonomical (sic) terms, that's several light years away from debunking." This person also seems reluctant to investigate much. On Page 1 of my website I clearly state: "The posted essays are draft form only and will be subject to revision as time permits. Several comprise little more than a rough draft and the "roughest" are flagged as being "under construction." (Revisions or additions to essays are incorporated without extensive rewriting.)" This Hamlet's Mill devotee has a very closed mindset. Not only is he keen to find any reason to ignore/dismiss the only detailed critique of Hamlet's Mill on the web but, at the same time, he is quite prepared to struggle with the atrociously written book which fails to provide a coherent argument, and (undeniably) should have been subject to rigorous editing. The strength of their wishful thinking has created immunity against criticisms and an unwillingness to deal with contrary findings of mythologists, philologists, archaeologists, and geologists (unless in an evasive manner).
This web page was last updated on: Sunday, February 5, 2012, 9.30 pm.
This web page was created using Arachnophilia 4.0 and FrontPage 2003.
You can reach me here by email: 