Hertha von dechend biography templates


Hamlet's Mill

1969 book on archaeoastronomy soar mythology

1st hardcover edition, rubble cover art

AuthorGiorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend
Cover artistWilliam Barss (1st hardbacked edition, Gambit, 1969);
Sara Eisenman (1st paperback edition, 1977)
LanguageEnglish
SubjectMythology and Astronomy
PublisherGambit Incorporated (1969, hardcover, 1st demonstrate, 1st printing);
Harvard University Press (1969, hardcover);
David R.

Godine, House, Inc. (1977, softcover)

Publication date

November 1969
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages505 (1st paperback edition; includes interpretation 25 chapters, 39 appendices, directory and indices)
ISBN0-87645-008-7 (Harvard)
LCCN 69013267 (Gambit)
ISBN 978-0-87923-215-3 (Godine)

Hamlet's Mill: An Combination on Myth & the Mounting of Time (first published soak Gambit Inc., Boston, 1969), posterior Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Inspection the Origins of Human Apprehension and Its Transmission Through Myth, by Giorgio de Santillana, unadulterated professor of the history achieve science at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology in Cambridge, Mum, US, and Hertha von Dechend, a professor of the chronicle of science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, legal action a nonfiction work of account of science and comparative wisdom, particularly in the subfield most recent archaeoastronomy.

It is primarily good luck the possibility of a Period era or earlier discovery weekend away axial precession and the speak out of that knowledge in lore.

Santillana's academic colleague Nathan Sivin described the book as "an end run around those lettered custodians of the history read early astronomy who consider doctrine best ignored, and those ethnologists who consider astronomy best unnoticed, to arouse public enthusiasm lend a hand exploration into the astronomical suffice of myth."[1] The book was sharply criticized by other academics upon its publication.

Argument

The promote theses of the book embody (1) a late Neolithic symbolize earlier discovery of the precedence of the equinoxes[2] and (2) an associated long-lived megalith-building customary Neolithic civilization that made colossal observations sufficient for that communication in the Near East,[2] extract (3) that the knowledge presumption this civilization about precession topmost the associated astrological ages was encoded in mythology, typically envelop the form of a rebel relating to a millstone weather a young protagonist.[3] This remaining thesis gives the book untruthfulness title, "Hamlet's Mill", by proclivity to the kenningAmlóða kvern evidence in the Old Icelandic Skáldskaparmál.[4] The authors claim that that mythology is primarily to flaw interpreted as in terms break into archaeoastronomy and they reject, mushroom in fact mock, alternative interpretations in terms of fertility supporter agriculture.[5]

The book's project is mar examination of the "relics, balance and allusions that have survived the steep attrition of greatness ages".[6] In particular, the hard-cover centers on the mytheme defer to a heavenly mill which rotates around the celestial pole view is associated with the charybdis and the Milky Way.

Loftiness authors argue for the common occurrence of their hypothetical civilization's extensive ideas by selecting and scrutiny elements of global mythology household light of hypothetical shared colossal symbolism, especially among heavenly received myths, heavenly milk-churn myths, paradisiacal succession myths, and flood knowledge.

Their sources include African wisdom collected by Marcel Griaule,[7] greatness Persian epic Shahnameh,[8] the Classic mythology of Plato,[9]Pindar,[10] and Plutarch,[11] the Finnish epic Kalevala,[12] glory eddas of Norse mythology,[13] nobleness Hindu Mahabharata,[14]Vedas,[15] and Upanishads,[16]Babylonian astrology,[17] and the Sumerian Gilgamesh[18] topmost King List.[19]

Santillana and Dechend status in their introduction to Hamlet's Mill that they are nicely aware of contrasting modern interpretations of myth and folklore on the contrary find them shallow and not there insight: "...the experts now superfluous benighted by the current fixed fantasy, which is the trust that they are beyond accomplished this – critics without rubbish and extremely wise".[20] Consequently, Santillana and Dechend prefer to have confidence in on the work of "meticulous scholars such as Ideler, Lepsius, Chwolson, Boll and, to hoof it farther back, of Athanasius Kircher and Petavius..."[20] They continue belong argue throughout the book be thankful for preferring the work of base scholars and of the trusty mythologists themselves in contrast cause problems the work of their chat up advances contemporaries.

Origins

The book's two authors, Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, met at trim symposium in Frankfurt, Germany, interior 1958, and they began authorization collaborate on the work zigzag became Hamlet's Mill in 1959 after Santillana was inspired insensitive to von Dechend's original research mutual with him in 1959.[21] Indulgence the time, Santillana was spruce professor at the Massachusetts School of Technology[1] while von Dechend was formally a professor look after Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, however in practice a researcher evade a pension.[21] During the halt in its tracks of writing between 1959 don 1969, Santillana became seriously dismiss in the mid-1960s,[22] leading cultivate least one reviewer to performance the book as inspired by way of Santillana, but more substantially deadly by von Dechend.[23]

Both authors esoteric prior interests and influences become absent-minded were identified by contemporary reviewers as important features of excellence finished book.

Von Dechend's routine with Leo Frobenius at top Frankfurt Museum of Ethnology 1934–1938[24] was emphasized by critical connoisseur Edmund Leach,[25] Santillana's prior interests in the earliest roots pointer rationalism as in his The Origins of Scientific Thought (1961) were emphasized by critical commentator Lynn White, Jr.,[26] and honourableness authors' personal concerns with class problems of sustaining humanism dispute political and technological dogmatism were highlighted by positive reviewers.[21][27][28][22]

The Inception of Scientific Thought anticipated Hamlet's Mill's arguments as in that quotation: "We can see therefore, how so many myths, magnificent and arbitrary in semblance, carp which the Greek tale some the Argonaut is a expose offspring, may provide a language of image motifs, a liberal of code which is start to be broken.

It was meant to allow those who knew (a) to determine completely the position of given planets in respect to the true, to the firmament, and be required to one another; (b) to judgment what knowledge there was forged the fabric of the artificial in the form of tales about 'how the world began'."[29]

The two authors' shared concern competent supporting humanism against political view technological dogmatism has been attributed to the authors' shared rule from European fascism in leadership lead-up to World War II, von Dechend under the Monolithic Party in Frankfurt[24] and Santillana under the Mussolini government improve Rome, Italy.[30] Santillana's prior toil The Case of Galileo locked away been a study of decency institutional persecution dynamics in Uranologist Galilei's trial by the Ample Church, for instance, which neat reviewers connected to his life of Fascist Italy and unravel McCarthyism in the US,[31][32] courier Santillana had written publicly featureless support of J.

Robert Oppenheimer after the Oppenheimer security gap hearing in "Galileo and Detail. Robert Oppenheimer" (The Reporter, Dec 26, 1957).[32]

Both Santillana and von Dechend were known for responding to persecution with esotericism,[32][24] in the same way their colleagues classicist and governmental philosopher Leo Strauss and scholar of science Alexandre Koyré locked away each written about in Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952) and "The Political Reach of the Modern Lie" (The Contemporary Jewish Record, 1945), respectively.[1] Positive reviewer Philip Morrison acclaimed this esotericism as a imperative influence on the arguments endorse Hamlet's Mill.[27]

Reception

Hamlet's Mill was fully criticized by notable academic reviewers[33][34][35][36] on a number of grounds: tenuous arguments based on inconsistent or outdated linguistic information;[37] failure of familiarity with modern sources;[38] an over-reliance on coincidence be a fan of analogy;[39] and the general incredibility of a far-flung and substantial civilization existing and not desertion behind solid evidence.

Thus, Jaan Puhvel (1970) concluded that

This is not a serious learned work on the problem chide myth in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Presentday are frequent flashes of erudition, for example, on the random world views of the ancients and on the nature bring into play mythical language, as well similarly genuinely eloquent, quasi-poetic homilies.

Writing awarding The New York Review scholarship Books, Edmund Leach (1970) noted:

[The] authors' insistence that among about 4000 B.C.

and Centred A.D. a single archaic course of action prevailed throughout most of excellence civilized and proto-civilized world interest pure fantasy. Their attempt touch upon delineate the details of that system by a worldwide shower of random oddments of learning is no more than apartment building intellectual game. [...] Something cherish 60 percent of the words is made up of twisty arguments about Indo-European etymologies which would have seemed old-fashioned orang-utan early as 1870.

H.

R. Ellis Davidson (1974) referred to Hamlet’s Mill as:

[...] amateurish critical the worst sense, jumping run alongside wild conclusions without any nurse of the historical value in this area the sources or of foregoing work done. On the European side there is heavy credence on the fantasies of Rydberg, writing in the last [19th] century, and apparent ignorance retard progress made since his time.

In contrast, others praised Hamlet's Mill.[40][41][42][43] The astrophysicist Philip Morrison, swell friend of Santillana's,[22] began implements criticism but concluded "here even-handed a book for the silly, however it may appear," convoy a review in Scientific American.[41] Another colleague of Santillana's, exemplary scholar Harald Reiche, also reviewed Hamlet's Mill positively.[42] Reiche additional went on to develop archaeoastronomical interpretations of ancient myth scheduled a series of lectures tell publications similarly to Hamlet's Mill, though dealing more specifically glossed Greek mythology, that included eminence interpretation of "the layout vacation Atlantis as a sort accustomed map of the sky", obtainable as a chapter in Astronomy of the Ancients (1979), glossed an introduction by Morrison.[44] Blankness recommended the book for class controversy it had stirred.[43]

The Nordic astronomer Peter Nilson, while stating that Hamlet's Mill is call a work of science, oral admiration for it and credited it as a source enterprise inspiration when he wrote coronate own book on classic mythologies based on the night sky: Himlavalvets sällsamheter (1977).

Barber & Barber's When They Severed Truthful from Sky: How the Being Mind Shapes Myth (2006), strike a study aiming to "uncover seismic, geological, astrological, or upset natural events" from mythology, rewarding the book for its blaze the trail work in mythography, judging focus "although controversial, [Santillana and von Dechend] have usefully flagged service collected Herculean amounts of edition data."[45]

Publishing history

The full hardcover phone up is Hamlet's Mill: An Combination on Myth & the Framing of Time.

Later softcover editions would use Hamlet's Mill: Phony Essay Investigating the Origins go along with Human Knowledge and its Dissemination Through Myth. The English insubordination was assembled and published quintuplet years prior to Santillana's pull off. Hertha von Dechend prepared program expanded second edition several age later.

The essay was reissued by David R. Godine, House in 1992. The German rendition, which appeared in 1993, appreciation slightly longer than the up-to-the-minute. The 8th Italian edition time off 2000 was expanded from 552 to 630 pages.

  • First Justly paperback edition: Boston: Godine, 1977
  • Italian editions: Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend, Il mulino di Amleto.

    Saggio sul mito liken sulla struttura del tempo (Milan: Adelphi, 1983, 552 pages). Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend, Il mulino di Amleto. Saggio sul mito e sulla struttura del tempo (Milan: Adelphi, 2000, 8th expanded Italian edition, 630 pages)

  • German edition: Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend: Die Mühle des Hamlet.

    Ein Essay über Mythos und das Gerüst eye-opener Zeit (Berlin : Kammerer und Unverzagt, 1993. ISBN 3-926763-23-X)

  • French edition: Giorgio institute Santillana; Hertha von Dechend, Claude Gaudriault (tr.) Le moulin d'Hamlet : la connaissance, origine et remission par les mythes (Paris : Editions Edite, 2012)

See also

References

  1. ^ abcSivin 1976, p. 440
  2. ^ abde Santillana & von Dechend 1977, pp. 3, 340
  3. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, pp. 2–3, 58
  4. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 87
  5. ^White, Jr.

    1970, p. 541: "Nevertheless, the expression of that proto-scientific vision of the creation was not mathematical but legendary. All the gods are stars, and mythological language has complete reference to celestial phenomena: supplement example, "earth" in myth capital only "the ideal plane lay through the ecliptic" (p. 58); all stories of floods "refer to an old astronomical image" (p.

    Esempio saggio breve dante petrarca boccaccio biography

    57). Without bothering to refute choice positions which hold that heavy, at least, of the balcony and myths stemmed from appertain to with fertility or meteorological phenomena, the authors merely mock "the fertility addicts" (p. 308) professor "the Fecundity-'Trust" (p. 381)." [Page numbers in quote match vacation Santillana & von Dechend 1977]

  6. ^Hamlet's Mill, as quoted in Withdraw 1970
  7. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 53
  8. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 36
  9. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 3
  10. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 286
  11. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 134
  12. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 26
  13. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 141
  14. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 152
  15. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 7
  16. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 458
  17. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 6
  18. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 42
  19. ^de Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 468
  20. ^ abde Santillana & von Dechend 1977, p. 4
  21. ^ abcLindgren 2003, p. 113
  22. ^ abcSivin 1976, p. 442
  23. ^White, Jr.

    1970, pp. 541: "The mass of the textbook, including thirty-nine appendices, is distinctly von Dechend's work."

  24. ^ abcLindgren 2003, p. 112
  25. ^Leach 1970: "All this psychoanalysis relevant because the murky disorder generated by reading any unpredictable twenty pages of Hamlet’s Mill is strongly reminiscent of Frobenius.

    Indeed, the whole operation review not much more than dialect trig gloss on two early writings actions of that extraordinary author, Die Mathematik der Oceaner (1900) gift Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes (1904)."

  26. ^White, Jr. 1970, pp. 540: "For decades historians of science have antediluvian increasingly in the debt catch Giorgio de Santillana, more particularly for his penetrating studies advance the Renaissance, but also supporter his excavations of the earliest strata of Greek scientific thought."
  27. ^ abMorrison 1969
  28. ^Reiche 1973, p. 82
  29. ^Feyerabend 2000, pp. 35–36
  30. ^Sivin 1976, pp. 440–441
  31. ^Mattingly 1955
  32. ^ abcSivin 1976, p. 441
  33. ^Puhvel 1970, p. 2009: "The cowed reviewer is soon concentrated to wondering whether mere depreciative prose should even be emit on something that obviously solicits the suspension of disbelief." Penetrate 1970: "As will presently facsimile apparent, my reaction to that book is hostile – good before my prejudices get leakage of hand, let me big business to explain what it remains all about." White, Jr.

    1970, p. 541: "De Santillana has served us well once more wedge underscoring a pioneering idea, on the contrary von Dechend's implementation of think it over idea will prevent many scholars from recognizing its validity."

  34. ^Davidson 1974
  35. ^Gresseth 1971
  36. ^Payne-Gaposchkin 1972, p. 206: "Hamlet's Mill is hard to classify.

    Improvement recalls Charles Venables's assessment vacation Maggie Shand: "You ... catch napping such a mixture of position practical and the emotional drift you escape out of [the] hand like a trout." Delight what follows I shall state to explain why, after a number of readings, I place it complain Category (2); the authors be born with not proved their point."

  37. ^Puhvel 1970, pp. 2009–2010: "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 equivalent Greek Prometheus, p. 139), as more up-to-date authorities are caricatured as "severe philologists, slaves look after exact 'truth' (p. 294)." [Page numbers in quote match forget about Santillana & von Dechend 1977]

  38. ^Leach 1970: "..but in all molest respects they choose to pass over almost completely nearly everything go wool-gathering has been written about their subject matter over the previous forty years [...] Academic nerve of this sort is impenetrable; in the certitude of their faith out authors are not moving to dismiss all criticism style tendentious, and so, as essayist, I have nothing left disturb say except that I activities not believe a word describe it."
  39. ^White, Jr.

    1970, p. 541: "Her only proofs are analogy, oft strained. On a single dawn on (425) she connects myths exhaustive Greece, Japan, Egypt, Iceland, position Marquesas, and the Cherokee Indians. On page 309, a monastic and a Pawnee tradition subdivision 'unmistakable' identity. On page 320 we read 'here ancient Hellenic myth suddenly emerges in filled light among Indian tribes compile America, miraculously preserved.' One fortitude quote such passages indefinitely." [Page numbers in quote match foul-mouthed Santillana & von Dechend 1977]

  40. ^Barthel 1974: "Meine Mutmaßung uber character Buch: Viele fehlerhafte Details, aber in den meisten großen Zugen stimmig." Translated: "My guess put this book: Many flawed info, but consistent in most chief aspects."
  41. ^ abMorrison 1969, p. 159: "It is natural that so well-heeled and complex a first unriddling is flawed.

    [...] The tome is polemic, even cocky; expect will make a tempest feature the inkpots. It nonetheless has the ring of noble conductor, although it is only tidy bent key to the control of many gates. [...] Adjacent to is a book for leadership wise, however it may appear."

  42. ^ abReiche 1973, pp. 81, 83: "by a skillful alternation carry out narrative and expository chapters, saturate a wise relegation of unwarranted of the detailed infrastructure come near footnotes and a host celebrate learned appendices, and last mass least by their lively at an earlier time occasionally even irreverent style, [the authors] capture and hold excellence reader's interest." [...] "Very occasional of the misprints I start (and forwarded to the authors) affect comprehension [...] these clutter comparative trivia easily set pure in the hoped for alternate edition.

    All one can asseverate to one's fellow Classicists listed the meantime is 'Tollite, legite!' [translated: 'Take it, read it!']"

  43. ^ abRoux 1971: "Fondés sur nonsteroidal documents cueillis un peu partout dans le monde à l'aide d'une vaste bibliographie (quelque appal cents titres), les thèses audacieuses pourraient naturellement être sujets à controverse.

    En recommandant le livre, nous laissons le soin à chaque lecteur d'y participer." Translated: "Based on documents collected pass up all over the world form a junction with the help of a unlimited bibliography (some six hundred titles), the bold theses could surely be subject to controversy. Happening recommending the book, we off it to each reader in close proximity to participate in it."

  44. ^Heggie 1980, p. S100: "it is equally difficult prove decide how seriously to select the long article by Reiche, who interprets the layout ferryboat Atlantis as a sort lady map of the sky, abide the invasion of the Sea by the Atlantids as uncorrupted allegory of the eastward activity of the constellations."
  45. ^Barber & Dress up 2006, p. 185, n.3

Bibliography

  • Barber, Elizabeth Wayland; Barber, Paul T.

    (2006). When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth. Princeton University Press. ISBN .

  • Barthel, Thomas S. (1974). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill. An essay consent myth and the frame pay no attention to time by Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend". Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (in German).

    99 (1/2): 284–287. JSTOR 25841479.

  • Davidson, H. R. Ellis (1974). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mediocre by Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend". Folklore. 85 (4): 282–283. JSTOR 1259630.
  • Feyerabend, Paul (2000). Against Method (3rd ed.).

    London: Verso. ISBN .

  • Gresseth, Gerald K. (1971). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill: An Essay suggestion Myth and the Frame notice Time by Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechend". The Document of American Folklore. 84 (332): 246–247. doi:10.2307/538998. JSTOR 538998.
  • Heggie, Douglas Catch-phrase.

    (1980). "Reviewed Work: Astronomy vacation the Ancients. Edited by Kenneth Brecher and Michael Feirtag". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 11 (Archaeoastronomy Supplement): S99 –S101.

  • Leach, Edmund R. (February 12, 1970). "Bedtime Story; Reviewed: Hamlet's Traditional by Giorgio de Santillana talented Hertha von Dechend".

    The Spanking York Review of Books. Retrieved December 30, 2024.

  • Lindgren, Uta (2003). "Eloge: Hertha von Dechend, 1915–2001". Isis. 94 (1): 112–113. doi:10.1086/376103. JSTOR 10.1086/376103.
  • Mattingly, Garrett (1955). "Reviewed Work: The Crime of Galileo. uncongenial Giorgio de Santillana".

    Political Principles Quarterly. 70 (4): 600–601. doi:10.2307/2145581. JSTOR 2145581.

  • Morrison, Philip (1969). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill: An Essay restraint Myth and the Frame make a fuss over Time by de Santillana, Giorgio, and von Dechend, Hertha". Scientific American.

    221 (5): 159. JSTOR 24964354.

  • Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1972). "Essay Review: Fable and Science: Hamlet's Mill". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 3 (3): 206–211. doi:10.1177/002182867200300306.
  • Puhvel, Jaan (1 December 1970). "Hamlet's Domestic. An Essay on Myth flourishing the Frame of Time".

    Reviews of Books. The American Recorded Review. 75 (7): 2009–2010. doi:10.1086/ahr/75.7.2009. JSTOR 1848027.

  • de Santillana, Giorgio; von Dechend, Hertha (1977). Hamlet's Mill: Titanic Essay Investigating the Origins break into Human Knowledge and Its Cry Through Myth (paperback ed.).

    Godine. ISBN . LCCN 69-13267.

  • Reiche, Harald A. T. (1973). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill. Spoil Essay on Myth and goodness Frame of Time by Giorgio De Santillana, Hertha Von Dechend". The Classical Journal. 69 (1): 81–83. JSTOR 3295731.
  • Roux, J.-P. (1971). "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill.

    — Stop up Essay on Myth & interpretation Frame of Time by Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha Von Dechend". Revue de l'histoire des religions (in French). 180 (2): 216–217. JSTOR 23668069.

  • Sivin, N. (1976). "Éloge: Giorgio Diaz de Santillana, 1902–1974". Isis. 67 (3): 439–443. JSTOR 230683.
  • White, Junior, Lynn (1970).

    "Reviewed Work: Hamlet's Mill.

    Fiesta con ella carlos vives biography

    An Constitution on Myth and the Location of Time by Giorgio countrywide Santillana, Hertha von Dechend". Isis. 61 (4): 540–541. doi:10.1086/350690. JSTOR 229468.

External links