Essays Relating To The History Of
                                      
                       Occidental Constellations and
                                      
                     Star Names to the Classical Period
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        Critics and Criticisms of Hamlet's Mill by Gary D. Thompson

                 Copyright © 2004-2013 by Gary D. Thompson
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   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
   (30.5.1902-8.6.1974) and Hertha von Dechend (5.10.1915-23.4.2001) at
   MIT circa 1967/1968 - photographed in de Santillana's office.
   (Photographs used with the written permission of the copyright
   holder.)

   Introduction to Hamlet's Mill

   Hamlet's Mill is a very curious book of mythological speculation.
   (Chaotic in both structure and explanation.) There is a complete lack
   of organization to the book. The book begins with discussions of
   medieval legends (starting with Hamlet) without any explanation of why
   this is being done. The first introduction of an astronomical
   discussion is placed in an "Intermezzo" (no chapter number) after
   Chapter 4. The first clear introduction of the astronomical thesis
   comprising the book is placed nearly halfway through the book. The
   authors seek to justify this on the grounds that the archaic way of
   thought being discussed was not itself an organized system. However,
   this simply ignores the duty of good authors to clearly present
   unsystematic material in a systematic way. The central premise is
   somewhat odd. Through adoption of a 'cherry-picking' approach the
   authors of Hamlet's Mill claim to present the key to decoding early
   man's mythological imagination - ancient myths can be interpreted as a
   code language expressing the astronomical knowledge of precession of
   the equinoxes among early cultures. More specifically, (1) world
   mythologies are based on celestial (planetary) events, and (2)
   precession forms the setting for astronomical mythologies. Though
   somewhat vague, the authors propose that initial knowledge of
   precession originated circa 5000 BCE during a 'Golden Age' in the
   Neolithic Near East, with the commencement of a major calendrical
   system. Both the authors are ultra-diffusionists. Nothing in the book
   provides conclusive evidence for its claims. However that does not
   prevent the misguided claim: "De Santillana and von Dechend have made
   a special study of ancient knowledge regarding the Precession of the
   Equinoxes. (The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilley (2002,
   Page 80.)" 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.' At one time it was used
   at the University of Melbourne as a text book for history of science
   studies. Its content proved impenetrable to students. However,
   theories about astral myths continue to captivate people. This essay
   is a dispassionate examination - and critical review - of the authors
   and their book. The authors of the book have attained a somewhat
   mythical status as cutting edge (progressive) academics.

   The collaboration between Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend

   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.

   According to her co-worker Yas Maeyama (UniReport 5, 2001) in his
   obituary for von Dechend, her insights developed through close
   cooperation with Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), Wily Hartner (1905-1981),
   and Giorgio de Santillana (1902-1974). I believe this is very much a
   misunderstanding and an attempt at establishing a pedigree for her her
   ideas. There is no doubt she was influenced by Leo Frobenius. There is
   no doubt she influenced both Willy Hartner and Giorgio de Santillana.

   The last joint publication by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von
   Dechend

   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.)

   Work on the manuscript of Hamlet's Mill

   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 (sic) 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."

   The 'assembly' of Hamlet's Mill

   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 lengthy 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. In the Preface de
   Santillana also expressed his belief that Egyptian temple re-alignment
   was due to their exact knowledge of the rate of precession. (It
   appears that Giorgio de Santillana also believed the alphabet
   originated from astronomy and games.)

   Phil Norfleet, at his website(s) containing his recollections of
   Giorgio de Santillana (which seems to take information and leads from
   my website material, - nowhere acknowledged - certainly use of a
   copyright photograph of de Santillana without permission or credit)
   writes (http://waite2051.tripod.com/): "I first became aware of the
   Mithraic Mysteries in the early 1960s, when I took two seminars given
   by the well-known MIT professor of the history of science, Giorgio de
   Santillana (1902-1974). At that time I was a very young college
   undergraduate who had been fortunate enough to convince Professor de
   Santillana that I should be permitted to take his seminars, which were
   usually reserved for graduate students only. At that time, Professor
   de Santillana was at the peak of his intellectual powers; in 1961 he
   had published what I believe was his finest book: The Origins of
   Scientific Thought from Anaximander to Proclus, 600 B.C. to 500 A.D.
   He was a good lecturer and was even better in the give and take
   discussions of the seminar room. A great deal of reading and essay
   writing was required, but it was very interesting to me and I enjoyed
   making the necessary extra effort. The main focus of the course was on
   the early Greek philosophers, who flourished from about 600 to 300
   B.C. Professor de Santillana took the position that they had been
   extremely important in laying the intellectual foundation for the
   European scientific revolution of the 17th century. We only spent a
   day or two in discussing the Mithras cult and its significance to the
   philosophical and astronomical thinking of the Roman Empire. Even so,
   I do recall at least some of his ideas regarding the connection
   between the main Mithraic myths and the astronomical knowledge of the
   time. Many years later, in 1970, I acquired a copy of his last book,
   which he had co-authored with Dr. Hertha von Dechend (1915-2001)
   entitled: Hamlet's Mill, An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time.
   Unfortunately, I was more than a little disappointed in the lack of
   clarity and poor organization of the book. His main thesis was one
   which he had also expressed during his seminar; unfortunately, this
   published work lacked both focus and clarity. I later found out that
   Professor de Santillana was in failing health at the time and that
   most of the chapters in the book had really been written by his
   younger but less well organized colleague.* One area of almost total
   omission was a discussion of the Mithras belief system, even though
   this belief system was almost overflowing with
   astronomical/astrological ideas. Indeed, there was only one reference
   to Mithra (Mithras) which appeared on pages 263 and 264 of the book
   (see quotation cited in the Introduction Section). I have recently
   renewed my interest in the Mithraic belief system after reading the
   online, current edition of the Rosicrucian Digest; the entire issue is
   devoted to Mithras. The purpose of this website is to discuss my ideas
   concerning this rather strange mystery school and also record the
   ideas of Professor de Santillana on this subject, to the extent that I
   am able to recall them. It is to the memory of Giorgio Diaz de
   Santillana that I dedicate this website. * By my reckoning, only six
   of the 23 chapters were written or mostly written by Giorgio!"

   John Major Jenkins writes (http://edj.net/mc2012/mill1.htm): "Giorgio
   de Santillana published a book of his own the previous year and was
   still lecturing at M.I.T., so his work load during the late 1960s must
   have been intense."

   Publication of Hamlet's Mill

   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. Other photographs also show him smoking.)

   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.)

   Publishing history of Hamlet's Mill

   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. The authors even hint at being intentionally obscure!
   Certainly the analysis and interpretation by Hertha von Dechend is
   inventive. Hertha von Dechend spent her life interpreting ancient and
   medieval myths as a scientific code/shorthand for astronomical events.
   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, translated by Dr Végvári József)
   was published in 1995. A French-language edition/translation, titled
   Le Moulin d'Hamlet, was published in 2012.

   Critical book reviews of Hamlet's Mill

   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.)

   Hamlet's Mill as a 'package' for the different motives of its authors

   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.

   Ernset McClain posted to Bibal (Bibal Study Group) (December 6, 2006):
   "The problem with von Dechend is NOT with her general thesis, but
   rather with her own lack of ANY interest in the quantitative science
   that deSantillano (sic) outlines brilliantly in his introduction to
   what is really "her" book. She possessed none of the skills with the
   Pythagorean "quadrivium" (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy)
   that you demonstrate so well. But she was right in feeling that things
   had to be interconnected better than our fractured disciplines
   illustrate, and she undoubtedly influenced many young readers.  She
   and I found each other totally impossible. I had done most of my work
   on Greek science and mythology before reading her book, but there was
   no way of explaining to her the meaning of her own "hour glass" Holy
   Mountain. Our confrontation at an M.I.T. seminar and again later in
   Boston was fruitless. Very few people are able to "read me" with your
   kind of total insight. I can almost count them on one hand (as Marius
   Schneider warned me would happen before I published my first book [The
   Myth of Invariance (1978)]), having glanced at my first graphics for
   M.O.I. Not many people are ready to think "in this mode," although it
   has much in common with many branches of science ...."

   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.

   Assessing Hamlet's Mill

   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.

   Mythical origins of Hamlet's Mill

   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. Essentially, von Dechend
   carried on the work of her teacher Leo Frobenius. At Frankfurt she was
   certainly carrying on the work of Frobenius.

   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 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
   14^th-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.'

   The influence of Leo Frobenius on Hertha von Dechend

   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.") The Frobenius Institut lists her as an
   associate Researcher (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) from 1939-1945.
   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.)

   The influence of Panbabylonism on Hertha von Dechend

   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). Following the
   Panbabylonism of Alfred Jeremias the authors of Hamlet's Mill identify
   ancient references to a 'quadrangular Earth' with four corners or
   pillars as a coded picture of "the ideal plane [= the ecliptic] going
   through the four points of the year, the equinoxes and the solstices."
   (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. It appears that it was during her PhD work that she first
   concluded that only if Oceanic mythology was given an astronomical
   interpretation could it be understood. Her Habilitation (completed in
   1960) was Der Mythos von gebauten Welt als Ausdrucksform archaischer
   Naturwissenschaft. 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).

   Godfrey Higgins' Anacalypsis

   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 (1772-1833)
   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 authors also
   use it, at least once, in Hamlet's Mill (Page 256): Finally in
   Higgins' Anacalypsis there is a quote, without the ancient source but
   reasonably reliable: "Ganges which is also called Po." The book is
   listed on page 466 of the bibliography.) 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.

   In his essay: "Godfrey Higgins' Anacalypsis: A Critique," JPH writes,
   "The work of Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, is quite nearly as hard to
   find as a two-headed chicken -- and it is nearly as normal as one. ...
   It cites few sources for its claims, but those it does cite are the
   sort of things you won't find easily -- anyone wishing to back-check
   all of Higgins' comments will be in for a real lifetime chore ....
   There is no telling whether the bulk of Higgins' sources are credible
   or not (though we do have some hints). Anacalypsis is full of
   assertions that are either undocumented or come from sources whose
   credibility is completely unknown in this time .... It is also,
   furthermore, that Higgins is so outdated that any arguments he makes
   based on dating, language, and so on, require at this time a full
   re-argument before they can be accepted. ... Higgins' editor admits
   that Higgins was criticized by scholars who "felt that amateurs had no
   place in their special fields" [459], so even in his day he was
   obviously considered unreliable. How much more so today in light of
   what we know now? Anyone using Higgins as a source had best explain
   themselves as well as Higgins."

   Beginning of Giorgio de Santillana's belief in astronomical mythology 

   (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.)

   Assessment of the authors of Hamlet's Mill

   Neither Giorgio de Santillana or Hertha von Dechend can be accurately
   described as polymaths. Hertha von Dechend especially falls below that
   description. Richard Flavin, who has a prodigious intellect, helps to
   perpetuate a myth concerning Herth von Dechend with his obituary of
   her. See further than the summary: "Epigraphic Society Occasional
   Papers, Table of Contents, Volume 24, 2004, In Memoriam: Dr. Hertha
   von Dechend (2 pp) Richard D. Flavin 24-p 296. A controversial
   scholar, Hertha von Dechend is most often remembered for her
   co-authorship with Giorgio de Santillana of Hamlet's Mill: An essay on
   myth and the frame of time (Boston, Gambit Inc., 1969). Although she
   majored in archaeology and ethnology, Dechend concentrated most of her
   efforts in the study and teaching of science. Her major publications
   were few, but her intellect and influence were profound."

   Sources of biographical information for Giorgio de Santillana and
   Hertha [Herta] von Dechend

   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). 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. 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.

   Biographical information for Giorgio de Santillana

   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. Il mulino di Amleto: Saggio sul mito e sulla struttura del
   tempo (1983) carries the dedication, "Alla memoria dei miei genitori
   David de Santillana Emilia de Santillana Maggiorani." (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).

   He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

   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.

   Biographical information for David de Santillana

   David de Santillana (commonly David Santillana) was an Islamist and
   authority on Moslem law, born in Tunis, North Africa, 1855; and died
   in Rome, 1931. He was one of the foremost Islamists in Italy. For most
   of his career David de Santillana was Professor of the History of the
   Political and Religious Institutions of Islam, at the University Of
   Rome. See the short biographical entry: SANTILLANA, DAVID, in The
   Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 9, 1943, Page 365. 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. He is generally
   described as a Orientalist. David de Santillana was a 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 also lectured on Arabic and
   Islamic topics in Arabic at Cairo University. He was described as
   having a "pleasant Tunisian accent." David de Santillana 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. (At the end of the 19th-century, the protectorate authorities
   established a commission for the codification of the laws of Tunisia
   and appointed Professor David Santillana, an expert in both Islamic
   and European civil law, to draft the document. He prepared (1889) the
   scheme of a code of civil law and commercial law to be adopted in
   Tunisia; it was praised as a work of exceptional judicial value and
   ingenuity, in view of the difficulty of conforming Islamic law in
   Tunisia to a heterogeneous Arab-European population.) His
   books/publications include: On Comparison between Islamic Law and
   European Laws: Civil and Commercial Laws, published in 1928, and his
   translation and comments on the book Mukhtasar Khalil (Khalil's
   Treatise), published in 1919. Also, he wrote the chapter, "Law and
   Society," In: The Legacy of Islam, edited by Thomas Arnold and Alfred
   Guillaume (1931). A classic study is his, Istituzioni di diritto
   musulmano malichita, con riguardo anche al sistema sciafiita (2
   volumes, 1925-38).

   Biographical information for Emilia de Santillana

   Emilia de Santillana was active in social movements (women's rights
   movements). (Also perhaps one or more of the following: agricultural
   settlements, congregations of charity, orphanages, committees,
   charitable organizations for orphans of war.) She was (at least in
   1923) Secretary of the National Council of Women (using the name
   Emilia Santillana-Maggiorani). She was part of the movement of
   liberal, democratic, and radical women who before WWII were in the
   forefront of feminist agitation. This broad movement of women was not
   at all cooperative with the Fascist government, which actively sought
   to suppress the moment. 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.)

   Via Firenze 48, Rome. The residence of the de Santillana family
   (presumably an apartment within the building).

   Record of amount of yearly retirement/pension payments to Emilia
   Maggiorani.

   Giorgio de Santillana's student studies

   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 (also a Roman of
   Jewish descent) to present classical period mathematical texts in
   forms accessible to both students and teachers in secondary schools.

   Giorgio de Santillana's early academic career and publications

   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).

   Giorgio de Santillana's immigration to the USA

   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." Although the
   Italian dictator Benito Mussolini initially distrusted the racism of
   Hitler's National Socialism, he later accepted anti-Semitism.

   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 until 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.

   Giorgio de Santillana's early academic career in the USA

   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. I do not know whether his office changed
   location. During the 1960s he had a secretary and also, hanging on one
   of the office walls, a large portrait of Galileo.) 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.)

   The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

   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.

   Giorgio de Santillana's efforts in establishing academic recognition
   for the history of science

   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.

   Giorgio de Santillana's war time service

   From 1943 to 1945 de Santillana was on the staff of the United States
   Army newspaper Stars and Stripes as a 'war correspondent.' In 1945 de
   Santillana spent 8 months in Europe reporting on Italy. During the
   summer of 1946 he spent 4 months touring Italy and France. (See:
   "Europe Analyzed By De Santillana" in The Tech, Volume LXVI, Number
   28, December 6, 1946, Pages 1 & 2.) In 1946 at least he was still with
   the English and History Department, MIT. I have no other
   knowledge/details of his war time service (The Monthly Supplement,
   1955, Page 1742, for the International Who's Who). It was possibly
   because of his military service that his naturalisation as a USA
   citizen was facilitated.

   The spelling George di Santillana

   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."

   Giorgio de Santillana's abiding interest in political and social
   issues

   De Santillana retained an interest in political and social issues.

   Giorgio de Santillana's historical perspective

   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.

   Giorgio de Santillana's early occult and pseudo-scientific leanings

   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 René Guénon (sometimes spelled Guéron), who is considered
   by followers/disciples to be one of the 20th-century luminaries. René
   Guénon (1886-1951), also known as Shaykh 'Abd al-Wahid Yahya, was a
   French neo-Gnostic author and intellectual who still remains an
   influential figure in metaphysic studies, having written on topics
   ranging from metaphysics, "sacred science," and traditional studies,
   to symbolism and initiation.

   Guénon "wrote apocalyptic diatribes against rationalism and western
   ideas of progress." In his book, The Crisis of the Modern World
   (1978), he "identified a sacred tradition as the controlling force in
   the universe" and "argued that the sterility and degradation in the
   modern world was the direct result of the substitution of economic
   growth for metaphysics and the abandonment of the rigid tradition of
   medieval Christianity." (See: The Devil and James McAuley (1999, Pages
   92-93) by Cassandra Pybus.) See also the critique of René Guénon in
   Essai su le mystère de l'histoire by Jean Daniélou (1953, Pages
   120-126). Robin Waterfield notes that Guénon followers/disciples tend
   to see The Crisis of the Modern World "as an infallible textbook
   giving the correct attitude to be adopted when confronted with a
   problem or situation." The Primordial Tradition concept supported by
   René Guénon is a school of religious philosophy that holds its origins
   in the philosophia perennis (perennial philosophy), which is in turn a
   development of the prisca theologia of the Middle Ages. The Primordial
   Tradition seeks to establish a fundamental substrata of religious
   belief in all authentic religious teachings, adhering to the principle
   that universal truths are a cross cultural phenomenon and transcendent
   of their respective Traditions, mythologies, and religious beliefs.
   The process utilized is similar to the study of the history of
   religions and comparative mythology as is found in the works of
   authors such as Mircea Eliade. It can also be found in the school of
   archetypal psychology and in the ideas of Carl Jung.

   Interestingly, René Guénon believed in the existence of ancient Thule,
   a Nordic equivalent of the vanished civilization of Atlantis.

   Mircia Eliade (1907-1986) Romanian historian of religion, and
   professor at the University of Chicago. Eliade argued that the
   Panbabylonian school was was correct in comparing religious phenomena
   which were "historically related and structurally analogous." Eliade
   drew on a number of Panbabylonian ideas. "Wheatley's arguments
   concerning the axis mundi was based on the work of Eliade. Eliade in
   turn based his arguments on the Pan-Babylonian scholars - with the
   crucial difference that the Pan-Babylonian scholars saw notions of the
   sacred center as diffused from the Near East, whereas Eliade saw them
   as a universal aspect of what he called primitive cultures. In other
   words the entire notion of an axis mundi came originally from the
   Pan-Babylonian scholars' reading of Near Eastern materials, and
   Eliade, and later Wheatley, then universalized the notion. However,
   the existence of the notion of an axis mundi in the Near Eastern
   materials has been called into question as well. As Jonathan Z. Smith
   (To Take Place, p. 16) has argued: "There is no pattern of the
   'Center' in the sense that the Pan-Babylonians and Eliade described it
   in the Near Eastern materials." (To Become a God: Cosmology,
   Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China by Michael Pratt
   (2002, Page 42, Note 37.) Mircea Eliade has been described as
   "notoriously reluctant" to elaborate on the origins of mythological
   motifs. However, what few statements he did make on the issue
   demonstrate his close affinity with the ideas of the nature-school of
   the early 19th-century (i.e., Max Müller). (For example see Eliade's:
   Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958, Pages 449 onwards.)

   Seyyed Hossein Nasr (The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr (2001, Page
   17 & 18) makes several interesting comments about Giorgio de
   Santillana: "He had been a collaborator with Emile Meyerson in the
   effort to combat logical positivism. ... He was also seriously
   interested in Hinduism and Islamic thought, his father David de
   Santillana having been one of the foremost Islamicists of Italy. ...
   [H]e was deeply interested in traditional metaphysics and metaphysical
   philosophy and regretted their eclipse in the modern West."

   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. (Both Giorgio de
   Santillana and Hertha von Dechend were acknowledged influences on
   Jerome (Jerry) Lettvin.) 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.)

   Giorgio de Santillana's academic interest in art

   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.

   Giorgio de Santillana and Galileo

   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)) wrote: "Few who write on Resaissance science today can match
   de Santillana's knowledge of the philosophical currents of that era."
   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).

   For a quite different account of the origin of Galileo's troubles with
   Rome see, Galileo, Heretic by Pietro Redondi (1987). (See also: The
   Advancement of Science by Philip Kitcher (1995).

   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 reviews by Douglas
   McKie in The New Scientist, 3rd October, 1957, Page 35; and the book
   review in Scientific American, Volume 189, 1953, Page 104), which had
   involved de Santillana in painstaking research and also a painstaking
   revision of the Thomas Salusbury version. 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 (a revisionist view of events concerning
   Galileo's conflict with the Catholic Church.). 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).)

   At least Professor Robert Palter (when at the University of Texas at
   Austin) held that de Santillana's reputation as a translator of
   Galilean material is low present-day. (See: Black Athena Writes Back
   (2001) edited by David Moore.)  (Robert Palter was at least 1995-2006,
   Dana Professor of the History of Science (Emeritus), Trinity College,
   Hartford, Connecticut.) De Santillana's reputation certainly reached a
   low ebb with the publication of Hamlet's Mill.

   Giorgio de Santillana's frequent overseas trips

   Beginning early in the post WWII period de Santillana made a number of
   overseas trips to Europe. 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.

   He was a Fulbright Fellow in Italy, 1954-1955.

   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"). 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 is Italian, she was born in Venice (Italy) in 1955 (some
   sources incorrectly state 1950) and studied at the School of the
   Visual Arts in New York. She lives and works in Venice, Italy.
   Allessandro was born in 1959 in Paris (France) and was educated at The
   University of Venice, Venice, Italy.)

   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."

   The Experimental Epistemology Laboratory

   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.
   The name likely owes to to Warren McCulloch. (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.) For many years,
   Jerome Lettvin's laboratory located in the easternmost wing of
   ramshackle Building 20 at MIT had a sign reading "Experimental
   Epistemology Laboratory" on the door. 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.)

   Jerome Lettvin (23.2.1920-23.4.2011) was a cognitive researcher at MIT
   and eventually professor Emeritus of Electrical and Bioengineering and
   Communications Physiology. Lettvin 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.

   In 1943 Jerry Lettvin and Walter Pitts, both then in their early 20's,
   collaborated in a hoax. They coauthored a thoroughly nonsensical paper
   called "A Mathematical Theory of Affective Psychoses" which was
   published in The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, December, 1943,
   Volume 5, Issue 4, Pages 139-148. The paper comprised an invented
   mixture of mathematical equations and jargon having no sensible
   meaning or scientific merit. Abstract: "The theory introduces two
   variables q and f. The first represents the intensity of emotion, the
   second measures the intensity of activity. A set of
   integrodifferential equations is assumed to govern the the variation
   of f and q with respect to time. Since for increasing values of the
   conduct of the organism varies from great impassivity through a normal
   level of feeling to extremes of a circular depression or catatonic
   excitement; whereas an increase of q results in a transition from
   stupor to manic excitement, the solutions of the equations represent
   quantitative specifications of different psychotic states." The paper
   concluded with the statement: "As remarked above, these are no
   periodic orbits in the large, and unless continually disturbed, the
   particle will ultimately settle toward one of the equilibria."
   According to Lettvin they were surprised to receive praise for the
   article and were also offered research funding (which they declined).
   Lettvin was fond of repeatedly telling people of the hoax. Not
   mentioned is whether papers for publication were refereed.

From 1952 until his death in 1968/1969? Warren McCulloch (1898-1968/1969?) was
a professor at MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics. McCulloch was a
physician (who trained in neurology, 1928-1931) turned physiologist. McCulloch
characterised his work as 'experimental epistemology,' the study of the nature
of knowledge through understanding the nature of the brain within which it
resides. 'Experimental epistemology' is a pun on the EE of 'electrical
engineering.' Warren McCulloch worked with, and influenced, Jerry Lettvin at
MIT. Working with Walter Pitts, McCulloch constructed a logical model of the
nature of mental activity. (See: Systems Thinking by Magnus Ramage and Karen
Shipp (2009, Page 28).

   See the Obituary for Jerome Lettvin in The Boston Globe, May 15, 2011.

   The Neurophysiology Research Group at MIT

   In the early 1960s (or perhaps even earlier) there was a
   Neurophysiology Research Group established at MIT. It was, at one
   time, involved in 9 research projects. The group's research work was
   supported in part by Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.; the National
   Institutes of Health (Grant B-1865-(C3), Grant B-2480(C1), Grant
   MP-4737); The Teagle Foundation, Inc.; and in part by the U.S. Air
   Force (Aeronautical Systems Division) under Contract AF33(616)-7783.
   The research interests of this group went further than simply
   physiology. Among the 20-25 members of this group (the membership
   fluctuated) was Hertha (spelled Herta) von Dechend. Jerome Lettvin and
   Walter Pitts was also members. Giorgio de Santillana was not a member
   of the group. Walter Pitts (1923-1969) a logician who worked in the
   field of cognitive psychology at MIT, was teamed with a number of
   researchers on different research topics. Hertha von Dechend was
   teamed with Walter Pitts on the topic of: Evolution of Scientific
   Language. What exactly the content of their studies was is presently
   unknown to me. In one report-back by the entire group (RLE Progress
   Report No. 064 (1962) XXVII. Neurophysiology) von Dechend and Pitts
   simply state: "We intend to continue study of the origins of
   scientific language." There is the possibility that von Dechend joined
   this Group during her initial visit to the USA in 1960. (RLE =
   Research Laboratory of Electronics (at MIT).) The report was a
   quarterly progress report dated January 15, 1962 (Massachusetts
   Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics. Quarterly
   Progress Report, Number 64). In his profile of Walter Pitts, Neil
   Smalheiser writes that Pitts engaged in many discussions with von
   Dechend. A passing reference to neurophysiology is made in Hamlet's
   Mill (Pages 71-72).

   Giorgio de Santillana's preoccupation with 'genius' and 'discovery'

   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.

   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. A variety of
   ancient/early myths were specifically designed to transmit information
   about precession and its observed effects. 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.")

   Giorgio de Santillana's "project group" at MIT

   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.
   The Kabbalah contains what are deemed to be precessional numbers. For
   example see the somewhat odd book: The Universal Kabbalah: Deciphering
   Cosmic Code in the Sacred Geometry of the Sabbath Star Diagram by
   Leonora Leet (2004, Page 122).) 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.

   Some miscellaneous associates of Giorgio de Santillana

   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.

   A MIT seminar on archaic cosmology presented by Giorgio de Santillana?

   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.)

   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 as historian and polymath

   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.")

   An example of de Santillana's ability to identify historical issues is
   his paper on the relations between science and medieval art. In 1957
   de Santillana presented a pioneering but somewhat cryptic 30-page
   paper at an influential conference at the Institute for the History of
   Science at the University of Wisconsin, maintaining that some of the
   key ideas of the Scientific Renaissance - specifically new conceptions
   of space - were to be traced to developments in the arts. (De
   Santillana, Giorgio. (1959, Reprinted 1962, 1969). "The Role of Art in
   the Scientific Renaissance." In: Clagett, Marshall. (Editor). Critical
   Problems in the History of Science: Proceedings of the Institute for
   the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin, September 1-11,
   1957. (Pages 33-64). (De Santillana may also have published a later
   'paper' (1961), "A study of the relations between artistic and
   scientific thought in the early Renaissance.")) See especially the
   discussion in the book review essay "The Art of Science." by Geoffrey
   Cantor (reviewing The Science of Art by Martin Kemp (1990)) in the
   Oxford Art Journal, Volume 14, Number 1, 1991, Pages 101-104.

   But de Santillana had critics. 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 ...."

   Giorgio de Santillana as teacher and writer

   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 in Italy, 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-?

   Critique by Otto Neugebauer of the inaccuracies of Giorgio de
   Santillana as an historian of early science

   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 (endorsement) 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). Her personal
   opinions are presented as assumed facts. Many of her assumptions and
   conclusions have been refuted by more modern scholarship. 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. See
   also the discussion of the "Yates thesis": "Natural magic,
   hermeticism, and occultism in early modern science." by Brian
   Copenhaver, in: David Lindberg and Robert Westman (Editors),
   Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990, Pages 261-301). 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.)

   First meeting between Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend

   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.) 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. 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.)

   Giorgio de Santillana's several marriages

   One puzzle concerned several authors maintaining that Giorgio de
   Santillana was married. Bruce Mazlish, a long-serving Professor of
   History at MIT, recounts Giorgio de Santillana was known as "the cat
   who walks alone." (Possible a reference to his late-night solo walks
   on MIT campus.) 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. 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. The
   issue of de Santillana's marriage(s) is somewhat intriguing. When I
   recently (September, 2009) asked the ever competent and prolific
   researcher and writer Richard Flavin for assistance he promptly
   resolved the issue for me. The biography for Giorgio de Santillana in
   the Gale online database (2009) Contemporary Authors Online states in
   [September] 1948 he married Dorothy Hancock Tilton. I have since
   identified Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series, Volume 100
   (2001, Page 117) edited by Scot Peacock as a source. (They also had
   two sons: Ludovico and Gerald.) It appears that at the time of their
   marriage they lived in an apartment at 84 Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon
   Hill (Boston, across from the common) and later moved to a house in
   Beverly Farms, a neighbourhood at the eastern edge of the city of
   Beverly (Massachusetts), some 20 miles north of Boston. (The Social
   Register, Boston (1949, Page 69 lists (somewhat cryptically): Mr & Mrs
   Giorgio Diaz Santillana (Dorothy Hillyer). (This Beverly house is
   described by James Watson (Avoid Boring People: Lessons for a Life in
   Science (2007, Page 221) as an "elegant large square wooden house.")
   Stanley H. Hillyer (H. Tilton) is also mentioned. The Social Register
   (1952, Page 45 lists: Mr & Mrs Giorgio Diaz Santillana (Dorothy H.
   Tilton Hillyer), Beverly Cove, Massachusetts.) Richard Flavin also
   kindly brought to my attention the obituary for Dorothy de Santillana
   in The Boston Globe (a daily newspaper) for 25th June, 1980, Page 1.
   The Gale database entry opens doors. At least by 1955 Dorothy Tilton
   was still signing her letters Dorothy de Santillana.

   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.

   Biographical information for Dorothy Tilton

   Dorothy Tilton was born in 1904(1906?) and died unexpectedly in 1980.
   (See entries under Hillyer in: American Women, Volume 1, 1935, Page
   412; and Principal Women of America, Volume 2, 1936, Page 191.)
   Dorothy Tilton was the daughter of John Tilton (1870- ?) and Elizabeth
   (Seeley) Tilton. John Tilton was a wealthy real estate and insurance
   broker residing in Haverill (an upper-middle class suburb north of
   Boston, Massachusetts. (He was sufficiently prosperous to collect
   art.) In the Report, Humane Society of Massachusetts, for 1908, John
   Tilton is mentioned as receiving their Bronze Medal (connected with
   actions during a drowning incident?)

   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). Dorothy de Santillana is variously described as
   "beautiful and enormously fat," "fat and fierce," (it appears she had
   a rare glandular condition), "daunting," "formidably outgoing," "a
   great natural force," and a "wonderful editor." (It was also stated
   that "men gravitated to her like flies.") One writer described Dorothy
   de Santillana as "holding great personal prestige."

   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.)

   Giorgio de Santillana's written estate

   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.

   Biography of Hertha von Dechend

   Hertha von Dechend was born in Heidelberg, Germany, 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. Von Dechend died in 2001 after a short but
   severe illness.

   Music was a serious career challenger for Hertha von Dechend. At 13
   years of age she received violin lessons from Gösta Andreasson who was
   a renowned classical violinist for the Busch String Quartet (was 2nd
   violinist). 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
   violin with various classical string quartets.

   When she was 19 years old, von Dechend began informal studies at the
   Museum für Völkerkunde in Frankfurt. (Since 2001 known as the Museum
   der Weltkulturen (Museum of World Cultures).) The museum was directed
   by Leo Frobenius (who lacked formal training as an
   anthropologist/ethnologist) until his death in 1938. Initally, von
   Dechend lacked permission to study (Studienerlaubnis), but managed to
   obtain a certificate (Abiturzeugnis). Her difficulties were related to
   her staunch and public opposition to Nazism, which led her to disguise
   her interests with focuses on archaeology and the study of ancient
   languages. After performing her obligatory national service
   (Arbeitsdienst), von Dechend enrolled at the University of Frankfurt
   am Main (the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University). In 1939, during World
   War 2, she completed her doctoral thesis on an ethnological subject;
   the cultic and mythological meaning of the pig in Indonesia and
   Oceania. In 1943, von Dechend held a half-time position at the
   Institute for the History of Science in Johann Goethe University (now
   the University of Frankfurt am Main). It appears she played an
   integral part in running the university when Willy Hartner, the
   founder of the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, was on
   leave at Harvard. Von Dechend was also instrumental in building the
   university's library. She became a professor in 1960 and joined the
   faculty of the History of Natural Sciences in 1966.

   After the publication of Hamlet's Mill in 1969 and the death of
   Giorgio de Santillana in 1974 she continued to visit MIT and
   hold/teach seminars (on ancient cosmology).

   Interestingly, 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."

   She retired from the University of Frankfurt am Main, becoming a
   Professor Emeritus (Archaische Kosmologie) in 1980?/1982. 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.

   Von Dechend died in 2001 (aged 86) at Kronberg near Frankfurt am Main.
   Kronberg im Taunus is a town in the Hochtaunuskreis district, Hesse,
   Germany. She continued to work until shortly before her death. Her
   address was apparently Bahnhofstrasse 30, Kronberg, D-61476? Hertha
   von Dechend was a good friend of German internist Franz Volhard
   (1872-1950, a famous German specialist in internal medicine) and his
   extended family. Due to her continued close relationship with the
   Volhard family she was buried in the Volhard family tomb.

   According to Wikipedia (26/1/2013): "Von Dechend is best known for her
   collaborative work on Hamlet's Mill: an Essay on Myth and the Frame of
   Time, co-authored with Giorgio de Santillana, an Italian-American
   philosopher and historian of science on the faculty at MIT. Hamlet's
   Mill is a study of history, mythology, and specifically
   archaeoastronomy. Von Dechend's contribution was to connect
   astronomical phenomena to the myths that they represented and to clear
   up historical misinterpretations of those myths."  This is simply
   sympathetic (biased) and inaccurate. 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.

   Von Dechend published two papers on archaic cosmology: "Il concetto
   Tues simmetria arcaiche tional culture" (1973) and "Comments on the
   Thunderbolt" (1977) in the Willy Hartner Festschrift. Von Dechend also
   undertook research on the work of Justus von Liebig, a well-known
   organic chemist, publishing a review of letters between Liebig and
   chemist Friedrich Wöhler of Göttingen. 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."
   Unpublished works include her doctoral dissertation and her
   Habilitationsschrift (a postdoctoral thesis required for qualification
   as a professor), but the resources that she used to complete them
   still exist.

   Hertha von Dechend's influence on Giorgio de Santillana

   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. Manfred Pokert, The theoretical
   foundations of Chinese medicine (1974), Page xi, mentions a seminar of
   Giorgio de Santillana's in existentialism which was centred on the
   beginnings of scientific thought.

   Hertha von Dechend at MIT

   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.)

   Hertha von Dechend's MIT seminars on archaic cosmology

   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. (It also appears that de Santillana was reliant on
   Lettvin for advice on organising seminars.) Von Dechend 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.)

   Lettvin was one of the few academic supporters and exponents of the
   views of Hertha von Dechend. See: "The Use of Myth: The tales of the
   Makers are the first language of science." by Jerome Lettvin
   (Technology Review, June, 1976, Pages 52-59).

   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.

   According to Phil Norfleet, a student of de Santillana at MIT during
   the 1960s, de Santillana's seminars were usually reserved for graduate
   students.

   An article in Technology Review, Volumes 80-81, 1977, makes a
   reference to a Santillana?/Dechend seminar at MIT. This may have
   clarifying information. The puzzle presently remains. Ernest McClain
   (Bibal (Bibal Study Group, December 6, 2006) identifies MIT seminars
   and at least 1 presentation event at Boston, whilst Yas Maeyama
   (Obituary for Hertha von Dechend, UniReport 5, 2001) mentions special
   yearly symposiums in Boston to which people were invited. According to
   Yas Maeyama von Dechend was invited each year to a special symposium
   in Boston (on archaic cosmology?). Hertha von Dechend's papers from a
   1976/1977 seminar on ancient cosmology are available.

   Ernst McClain (2 personal communications, May 6, 2012): [Regarding
   MIT.] "Reiche invited me to lead one evening discussion for about 3
   hours, as I remember, perhaps 6:9 p.m. or thereabout, around 1980
   [perhaps 1977?]. I talked, there was very little discussion, and none
   with her except for a few minutes in his office. They were intent on
   giving me a chance to explain myself to their own total bewilderment,
   I believe in the interim between two essays that Reiche himself
   published on Atlantis. [Regarding Boston.] Ernest McClain (e-mail, 6th
   November 2011) has given more details: "Forty years [ago], and at
   M.I.T. where I led a 3-hour seminar with zero understanding from the
   professor who invited me; he could not imagine "a musical fifth" as
   part of an octave." About 1992-3 Jon Polansky [Dr. Jon Polansky,
   Research Scientist, Associate Professor, University of California, San
   Francisco], then editor of ESOP [Epigraphic Society Occasional
   Papers], invited me to a week- long conference in Boston, putting up
   those of us from out of town up in a hotel where we met all morning
   and afternoon for a serious (sic) [series] of many presentations and
   vigorous discussion, and at lunch and dinner. That was an extremely
   valuable experience for me, but I cannot remember if she [Hertha von
   Dechend] actually made a presentation, which seems likely. We were
   each given perhaps an hour or more followed by detailed scrutiny. But
   I cannot add any detail to what happened at M.I.T. I never met de
   Santillana whose feeling for Pythagoreanism was deep and articulate.
   HAMLET'S MILL was clearly her work, he makes clear, completely
   ignoring his own brilliant introduction. It was NOT possible to
   discuss music or math with Reiche and von Dechend. Unfortunately, it
   took me another 30 years to discover the overlap between us concerning
   Holy Mountain Meru, twin-peaked within 60^5=777,600,000, that I had
   mishandled at every effort within THE MYTH OF INVARIANCE. ... It [MIT]
   was in the process of disengaging from a 1950s effort to integrate
   other humanist studies. .... [Note: 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.] As I
   remember me (sic) [my] one appearance at M.I.T. there may have been 20
   or 30 listeners. There was no pointed questioning of assumptions,
   data, or conclusions. It was a "non-event." At the Boston conclave
   under Polansky, there were about a dozen of us, and the interchange
   was considerable and people were gracious. He belonged at M.I.T."
   (Note: Polansky, a cultural diffusionist, at that period of time was
   an associate professor of medicine at the University of California at
   San Francisco Medical Center and the director of the laboratory that
   first isolated and cloned the gene responsible for glaucoma; he was a
   student of Barry Fell's at Harvard in the 1960s.)

   It would appear that Reiche and von Dechend held another MIT (ancient
   cosmology ?) seminar in 1977 (or thereabouts) which was entirely
   focused on the ideas of McClain, and at which he was the sole
   presenter. Then circa 1992-1993 both McClain and von Dechend were
   invited attendees and presenters at annual conference organised by the
   Epigraphic Society (on ancient cosmology ?). To my question whether
   the composition of the MIT audience of 20-30 persons were
   professionals or students, or both, Ernst McClain emailed (8/5/12): "I
   took them to be students. The Boston conference was private to ESOP
   members and guests."

   Hertha von Dechend's MIT course notes

   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.)

   Hertha von Dechend's unpublished lecture notes

   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. David Ulansey posted to The Mithras List (February 3,
   2002): "... A number of years ago I had lunch at M.I.T. with Hertha
   von Dechend and her friend Harold Reiche (an M.I.T. professor). After
   lunch, Reiche took me back to his office and showed me an entire shelf
   of DOZENS of thick volumes of bound, typed manuscripts. These, he told
   me, were the UNPUBLISHED writings of von Dechend on astral mythology.
   I mention this because some of you ... who are interested in diving
   deeper into the whirlpool of the pre-history of precession and astral
   myth in general might be interested in going to M.I.T. and tracking
   down these manuscripts (Reiche died several years ago, but they must
   be somewhere)...." This description - at variance with those given by
   others - raises questions regarding accuracy. What is the exact number
   that 'DOZENS' means; what exactly is meant by thick volumes of bound,
   typed manuscripts;' what does UNPUBLISHED writings mean? There is no
   reason to believe the number could exceed 2 dozen; there is no reason
   to believe any exceeded 120 pages (or that double spacing was used,
   which would increase the number of pages); the claim for bound volumes
   seems odd for what is likely lecture notes but Reiche may have had his
   copies bound; and there is no reason to believe 'UNPUBLISHED writings'
   infers completed manuscripts, not lecture notes. As I discuss below,
   von Dechend's lecture notes were simply 'a mess' and not coherent.

   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.

   Available - I think through the effort of Franz Krojer - is the
   brochure of her 1976/1977 seminar: Einführung in die Archaische
   Kosmologie. Vorlesungen im Wintersemester 1976/77 (Differenz-Verlag,
   München 2011). (Details: Hertha von Dechend, Einführung in die
   Archaische Kosmologie [Introduction to the Archaic Cosmology]
   Vorlesungen im Wintersemester 1976/77 [Lectures in Winter Semester
   1976/77] Herausgegeben von Rainer Herbster [Edited by Rainer Herbster]
   Oder an: Differenz-Verlag Franz Krojer Postfach 90 03 15 81503
   München.)

   Hertha von Dechend's unfinished book

   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 ancient Egyptian Amduat or 'Book of What is in the
   Underworld' is the oldest of several funerary texts depicted on the
   walls of the pharaohs' tombs (i.e., in the tomb of Pharaoh Tuthmose
   (Tuthmosis) III) in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom, on
   the burial chamber wall in the tomb of Tuthmose (Tuthmosis) II (near
   Thebes). (It has been claimed on Hastro-L (2012) that the manuscript
   is with the German publisher, Springer.) ) The Amduat was one of the
   first completely illustrated texts that defined what the Egyptian
   underworld was imagined to look like, and depicted the nightly journey
   of the sun god, Re through the twelve hours of the underworld.) Von
   Dechend 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 4 chapters completed (and ready for printing) by
   1998. She procrastinated and never got around to completing the
   (final) 5th chapter (for MIT Press). (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.

   Miscellaneous associates of Hertha von Dechend

   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- .)

   Hertha von Dechend's written estate

   Hertha von Dechend's written estate comprises some 40 hand-manageable
   boxes of papers kept at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität. No
   real work of investigation and analysis has yet commenced with these
   papers.

   The support for Hamlet's Mill limited to MIT colleagues

   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 (who
   described the book as Polemic) 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.") 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.)

   Regarding "A Clue to the Atlantis Myth?" by Harald Reiche, in
   Astronomy of the Ancients edited by Kenneth Brecher and Michael
   Feirtag (1979); see the earlier explanation in "Atlantis and Its
   Institutions." by Robert Brumbaugh in his book Plato's Mathematical
   Imagination (1977, Pages 47-59).

   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 later 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). The book is weird. At present I have
   not seen his later book The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana (2007).

   John Major Jenkins, a supporter of alternative history, is also a
   supporter of Hamlet's Mill, which he classes as archaeoastronomy. In
   attempting to support the book he writes
   (http://edj.net/mc2012/mill1.htm): "Although it [Hamlet's Mill]
   tottered on the edge of oblivion for years, it has reemerged as the
   fundamental inspiration for many progressive researchers who find the
   precession of the equinoxes lurking within ancient creation myths
   around the world."

   Biography of Harald Reiche

   Harald Reiche (people often mispronounced his name) was born in
   Germany in February,1922 and died in Boston (USA) in July, 1994, aged
   72 years. He studied in Switzerland before he emigrated to the USA in
   1938. He obtained his AB, AM, and PhD, all in Classics, from Harvard
   University. His PhD was received 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; also, The Tech, Volume 114,
   Number 32, 1994, Page 6.) His focus was Greek philosophy and cosmology
   and myth. His research and publications were chiefly in the area of
   Greek philosophy and science and their interface with mythology. At
   the time of his death he was Professor Emeritus, School of Humanities
   and Social Science, History Faculty, MIT. The Harvard Alumni Bulletin,
   (Volume 54, Issue 2, 1951, Page 91) mentions: "Mr. and Mrs. Boris G.
   Bojenko of Paris and New York have announced the engagement of their
   daughter, Miss Irina Bojenko, to Harald AT Reiche, AM '44. Miss
   Bojenko [properly, Vojenko] is an alumna of Mauris Barres College
   [properly, Collège Maurice Barrès] in Paris." However, an obituary for
   Irene Reiche states they were, at the time of his death, married for
   45 years. This gives a date of 1949. At least one biographical entry
   states they moved to Boston, and lived in Concord MA. Harald and Irene
   Reiche were Housemasters of Baker House, MIT, for 1980-1989. Victoria
   Reiche Gaar wrote: "Irene loved her years at Baker House and continued
   contact with many of the students throughout the years." After Harald
   Reiche's death Irene Reiche had moved to the Forum at Brookside in
   Louisville to be close to her daughter Victoria (Gaar). Irene Reiche,
   was born in France in 1927 and died in the USA on March 30, 2012, aged
   85. The Reiche's are survived by 3 daughters, Elizabeth Reiche,
   Katharine Bigel and Victoria Gaar. There was a memorial service in
   Boston or Cambridge for Irene in early June 2012; her ashes are
   interred next to Harald's at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Some
   of his 'forgotten' books and articles include: Empedocles' Mixture,
   Eudoxan Astronomy and Aristotle's Connate (1960) (See the
   (English-language) book review by George Kerferd (University College,
   Swansea) in The Classical Review, (New Series), Volume 12, Issue 1,
   1962, Pages 93-94); translator, 1953, Tragedy is not Enough by Karl
   Jaspers; and "Myth and Magic in Cosmological Polemics: Plato,
   Aristotle, Lucretius." in Rheinisches Museum, N.F., Band 114, 1971,
   Pages 296-321 (a study of astral myths in cosmological polemics). 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
   was tending to make astral interpretations of material by the late
   1940s. Reiche believed the earliest royal genealogies of, for example,
   Babylon, and Denmark, and the Greek kings of prehistory were astral
   and planetary in human pseudohistorical guise. Kings were in charge of
   their national calendars and so were 'influential' in celestial
   movements. He also located Atlantis high in the sky. He surveyed
   Greco-Roman traditions of decline and end - which he believed were
   based on the mythic patterns of the end of the world in prehistoric
   cultures and early ancient civilizations, involving notions of
   declining world ages - in "The Archaic Heritage: Myths of Decline and
   End in Antiquity." In: Visions of Apocalypse: End or Rebirth? edited
   by Saul Friedlander, Gerald Horton, Leo Marx, and Eugene Skolnikof
   (1985).

   Obituary, August 17, 1994 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 39, Number
   2).: "Professor Harald Reiche dies. August 17, 1994. Services were
   held at Mount Auburn Cemetery July 29 for Professor Emeritus of
   History Harald A.T.O. Reiche, 72, who died on July 25. A classical
   scholar, Professor Reiche was the author or co-author of several books
   and many articles on classical history and thought. He became
   particularly interested in Greek cosmology and astronomy and wrote and
   lecutred widely in that relatively unexplored field. Professor Reiche
   was born in Germany in 1922 and studied in Switzerland before
   emigrating to the United States where he was graduated from Phillips
   Academy. After service in the US Army during World War II, he received
   the AB degree in classics from Harvard in 1943. where he also received
   the AM (1944) and PhD (1955) degrees. He was appointed assistant
   professor of classics and philosophy at MIT in 1955 and helped to
   organize, design and teach the introductory humanities program. He
   also taught electives in Greek philosophy and language, ancient
   history and Roman political thought. He was promoted to associate
   professor in 1960 and to professor in 1966. He retired in 1991. In
   addition, from 1980-90, Professor Reiche and his wife were faculty
   residents in Baker House, where they hosted Sunday evening suppers and
   symposia famous on the campus for good food and stimulating
   conversation. Professor Reiche held a Carnegie Fellowship in
   humanities when he was first at MIT. Later he held a Guggenheim
   Fellowship in Athens and a Ford Foundation visiting professorship at
   the Technical University of Berlin. For many years he was also a
   lecturer in humanities and philosophy at Suffolk University. Professor
   Reiche is survived by his wife, Irene Vojenko Reiche of Boston; a son,
   Christopher Reiche of Arlington; three daughters, Elizabeth Riddle of
   Syracuse, NY, Katharine Bigel of Seattle, WA, and Victoria Reiche of
   Geneva, Switzerland, and three grandsons. Remembrances may be made to
   the Baker House Fund, c/o Treasurer's Office, 238 Main St., Suite 200,
   Cambridge 02142."

   Obituary in The Boston Globe, April 1, 2012: "REICHE, Irene B. Of
   Boston's Back Bay, passed away in Louisville, Kentucky, surrounded by
   her loving family, on March 30, 2012, age 85, after a long struggle
   with pancreatic cancer. Irene Reiche (born in France) moved to Boston
   as a young bride to Prof. Harald Reiche of MIT (deceased). They lived
   in Concord, MA and brought up 4 children; Christopher Reiche
   (deceased), Elizabeth (Tita) Reiche of White River Junction, VT,
   Victoria Gaar of Louisville, KY, and Katharine Bigel of Marina del
   Rey, CA. They moved to Cambridge, MA, and served as Housemasters of
   MIT's Baker House for 10 years. They retired to Back Bay where Irene
   lived until 2011. She was a loving grandmother to 4 grandsons and an
   active member of the First Church of Boston, Unitarian Universalist.
   Irene was a familiar figure walking her little white dog, "Mr. Bobby",
   in Boston Public Garden." Also, obituary published in The Boston Globe
   on 3/1/2009: "REICHE, Christopher G.T. Age 56 of Arlington, passed
   away peacefully at home after a valiant battle with cancer. Beloved
   husband of Lisa Deschenes, cherished son of Irene Reiche & devoted
   father to Derek. He was preceded in death by his father Harald Reiche.
   Also lovingly survived by his sisters Tita Reiche and her husband
   Bruce Riddle, Victoria and her husband Dr. Earl Gaar and Kate and her
   husband Jordan Bigel. Devoted uncle to nine nieces and nephews who
   adored their "Uncle Chris". A memorial service will be held March 7th
   at 5 pm First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, MA
   02476. In lieu of flowers donations can be made in Chris' honor to the
   United States Tennis Association's Foundation USTA Serves
   www.foundationgiving.usta.com. Online guestbook at
   savilleandgrannan.com."

   Harald Reiche's position on ancient mythology

   Harald Reiche was one of the few academic supporters and exponents of
   the views of Hertha von Dechend.

   As example of Reiche's position on mythology see further the article
   summary: "Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers, Table of Contents,
   Volume 24, 2004, Article: The Language of Ancient Astronomy -A Clue to
   the Atlantis Myth? (21 pp) Harald A. T. Reiche 24-p 245. It is clear
   that Stone Age man lacked our mathematical systems and computational
   techniques and the knowledge of writing. It is equally clear, however,
   that he was able to raise Stonehenge and similar structures which
   involved precise measurements and celestial alignments. Reiche seeks
   to explain how they did it -what they used in lieu of technical
   language. He finds his answer in the vast storehouse of formulaic
   phrases (illustrated in the works of Homer). It is suggested that the
   form in which Neolithic and Bronze Age astronomers explained and
   transmitted knowledge was rhythmic (i.e., metric and versified
   speech), perhaps coupled with melody and elaborately styled pantomime.
   Reiche draws heavily on the work of Hertha von Dechend. He identifies
   4 corollaries which define the method: 1) the mythological motif of
   successive world ages; 2) the mythological motif of monstrous deeds
   followed by "catastrophes," usually floods or fires or both; 3) the
   association of each world age with a planetary ruler (i.e., one of the
   naked-eye planets); and 4) the consensus, virtually universal among
   ancients that the "true" identity of a foreign deity can be deduced
   from its attributes. In the remainder of the article, the author
   reconsiders Plato's Atlantis myth in the light of the above
   corollaries. He identifies Plato's Atlantis myth as a piece of sacred
   cosmology deliberately expressed in pseudohistorical and
   pseudogeographic terms familiar from "mythic" language in its ancient
   capacity as a technical shorthand for astronomical systems".

   The impact of Hamlet's Mill on the teaching of Polynesian studies

   Hamlet's Mill had an impact on the teaching of Polynesian studies. The
   influential figure Rubellite Johnson incorporated belief in the themes
   of Hamlet's Mill into her courses and writings. From 1967 to 1993 she
   was on the faculty of the University of Hawaii-Manoa (Department of
   Indo-Pacific Languages) and helped establish its Hawaiian studies
   program. On retirement she became Professor Emeritius of Hawaiian
   Language and Literature and continued to publish. She researched the
   history of the Kumulipo, a sacred chant of Hawaiian mythology, and
   early newspapers in the Hawaiian language. See her course study book
   MO'OLELO HAWAI'I, WORLD OF THE HAWAIIANS (1993), page 116. In it she
   misidentifies the authors of Hamlet's Mill. On page 116, when
   discussing Hamlet's Mill, she mistakenly writes: "*Note: Hertha von
   Dechend was science historian at Harvard University; Giorgio
   Santillana (sic) was mathematic professor at Massachusetts Institute
   of Technology." See also her book The Kumulipo Mind: A Global Heritage
   In The Polynesian Creation Myth (2000), page 179. In her book with
   John Mahelona, Na Inoa Hoku: A Catalogue of Hawaiian and Pacific Star
   Names (1975) the authors attempt to gather together the fragmentary
   record of Oceanic star knowledge. The main body of the book comprises
   3 annotated lists of star names: Hawaiian, Pacific, and Indo-European.
   The authors are out of their depth when dealing with Egyptian,
   European, and Near Eastern star lore. In these areas they can be
   completely unreliable through uncritically accepting dated popular
   material.

   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.) For
   Hamlet's Mill the Neolithic Period is both an age of mystery and an
   age of greatness during which formidable intellectual ability was
   demonstrated by a small group of people in the Near East by their
   establishment of mathematical calculus, careful observation of stellar
   movement leading to their discovery of precession, establishment of
   the equally divided 12-constellation zodiac, and development of a
   network of myths with common features. At the core of Hamlet's Mill is
   the claim that precession was not even an independently discovered and
   shared experience amongst cultures but discovered by a particular
   group of intellectuals ("Protopythagoreans") the Neolithic Near East
   and the discovery transmitted by them, coded in the 'technical
   language' of myth, over vast geological distances, before the
   establishment of writing. However, the primary centre of invention was
   not identified and proved by the authors and is yet to be proved by
   proponents of the ideas in the book. 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.') This point goes to the heart
   of the credibility of Hamlet's Mill. It is assumed by the authors of
   Hamlet's Mill that this diffusion of coded astronomical knowledge
   successfully proceeded, literally world-wide in a standardised manner,
   without continual contact and interaction by the originators, to more
   distant cultures! Also, there were no problems with the precessional
   knowledge being understood by any of these ancient cultures
   world-wide, even when they lacked the observational experience or
   framework of thinking! There are no examples of confusion
   (misinterpretation) or rejection.

   Geometry and Algebra in Ancient Civilizations by Bartel van der
   Waerden (1948, 1983), 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
   of 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).

   See also the recent (ultimately) speculative article: Kainzinger,
   Albert. (2011). "The mathematics in the structures of Stonehenge."
   (Archive for the History of Exact Science, Volume 65, January, Issue
   1, Pages 67-97). [Note: Abstract: "The development of ancient
   civilizations and their achievements in sciences such as mathematics
   and astronomy are well researched for script-using civilizations. On
   the basis of oral tradition and mnemonic artifacts illiterate ancient
   civilizations were able to attain an adequate level of knowledge. The
   Neolithic and Bronze Age earthworks and circles are such mnemonic
   artifacts. Explanatory models are given for the shape of the stone
   formations and the ditch of Stonehenge reflecting the circular and
   specific non-circular shapes of these structures. The basic
   mathematical concepts are Pythagorean triangles, thus adopting the
   construction procedures of the Neolithic circular ditches of Central
   Europe in the fifth Millennium bc and later earthworks and stone
   circles in Britain and Brittany. This knowledge was extended with new
   elliptical concepts. Approximations for the values of p and the square
   root of 2 are encoded in the henge. All constructions were performed
   using a standardized "Babylonian" metrology that shows a remarkable
   consistency and comprehensible development over some 14 centuries."]

   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. Why the ready diffusion of precession but not
   the diffusion of other more valuable and practical cultural items?
   Also, what was the rate and method of spread?

   "[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: Postings by Ernest McClain to Bibal Elucidating Hamlet's Mill

   Postings by Ernest McClain to Bibal (Bibal Study Group) are
   illuminating regarding Hamlet's Mill. Relevant snippets include:

   (1) (December 4, 2009): "... the book that follows is von Dechend's
   not his, and ignores quantification. He was dying at that time, and
   succeeded in ensuring a hearing for her."

   (2) (September 21, 2009): "... I never met this brief and brilliant
   essay of de Santillana from his paperback of 1983 because in 1972-3 I
   had to buy the hardcover first edition of 1969 to learn why my editors
   at MAIN CURRENTS IN MODERN THOUGHT were so excited about HAMLET'S
   MILL, in which he loaned his name to Hertha von Dechend to get her
   book into print. She shared none of his Pythagorean interest in
   quantification, but he recognized generously the significance of her
   recognition of pattern. (I was never aware of the paperback with his
   new essay.) I struggled to get my work in decent shape to present to
   him before he died in 1974, but failed to my own very great loss,
   because I thought him the only man then alive who could understand me
   properly (as I wanted to be). [That turned out not to be true, because
   Patrick Heelan, S.J., who edited my book with ease for publication in
   1976] produced a brilliant summary of his own in "Music as basic
   metaphor and deep structure in Plato and in ancient cultures." (J.
   Social and Biological Structures, 1979-2, pp. 279-291.)] Amlodi's Mill
   at the bottom of the sea is Iceland's variation on the Holy Mountain
   which is the subject of my book. ..."

   (3) (December 20, 2007): "... Hamlet's MIll (sic) was published in '69
   and I believe von Dechend's contributions were developed earlier
   before should could have met Palsson's work. [Icelandic scholar Einar
   Pálsson (1925-1996), whose 11-volume opus entitled Rætur íslenzkrar
   menningar (Roots of Icelandic Culture) published between 1969 and 1995
   is based on the author's research over 5 decades into the imagery of
   Iceland's ancient poetic and saga literature. Most of his numerous
   speculations - 'landscape-cosmogram theory' apply to the medieval
   period - continue to be untested.] Her interests and de Santillana's
   were very different. ..." (4) (July 28, 2007): "... My only problem
   with von Dechend was her total disinterest in the quantitative. To
   her, music was "off the wall." There was nothing to talk about. ..."

   (4) (January 3, 2007): "... I do NOT believe that "acceptance of the
   Precession" as verified for the ancients is by any means "a done
   deal." Your statement is mainly an excuse to stop thinking about some
   difficult problems. As I see it, your intuition may prove correct, but
   the argument ignores a substantial amount of counter evidence. People
   explain the "unknown" in highly imaginative ways. I often inveigh
   against the conservatism of scholars, but it is instructive to follow
   their arguments closely when they make them. This argument merely
   jumps to a conclusion that allows mind to rest. That's how we help to
   choose our own fates. It's everybody's privilege. Precession is a very
   intricate idea.   "Appearances" can be accepted without being
   explained. I see NO evidence for a doctrine of professional secrecy
   except from practitioners of a craft trying to protect their own
   income. The old scribes were very proud to be serving the crown. ..."

   (5) (January 1, 2007): "This woman [von Dechend] apparently never
   suspected how very late her "precessional" documentation is, and was
   incapable of handling quantification of any kind whatever.
   Santillana's introduction to her book is one of the finest pieces of
   "Pythagorean" exposition. Her book that follows is totally fraudulent
   (but innocent) scholarship that has intoxicated thousands (including
   some of my own friends) and greatly encouraged nonsensical theories.
   Her failure to understand her OWN material means that the stone
   circles and monuments that have surfaced in many places on the globe
   can NOT be explained by HER evidence, and so the question as to
   whether ANYBODY actually recognized "precession" before Hipparchus
   remains wide open, and needs to be studied anew with an open mind. I
   no longer have time to pursue that line of thought. I'm simply warning
   a few of you to trust nothing you have borrowed from her as
   "evidence." And while you are at it, you'd better ignore me also. She
   has misled many people since 1969, including some who are otherwise
   very intelligent. I rejected her work at first glance about 1973-74,
   but without recognizing where the Kalevala material came from. I
   missed the brilliance of Homeric allegory until reading his work again
   with Augusta as she was failing after 2001. She loved the old
   classics--and drew me more deeply into them as we read to each other.
   I'm still betting on Hipparchus--which of course leaves quite a lot to
   be explained by somebody else. The old monuments, after all, do
   "exist" in substantial numbers."

   (6) (December 26, 2006): "... I am NO fan of von Dechend whatever.
   However the question here is when does evidence of precession surface
   in the literature. So far it cannot be proved by circular artifacts,
   however subtle. For one thing, the ancients are tracking the moon for
   lunar Sabbaths in the middle of the month, and to them lunar motion
   was highly elusive, measurement could only be approximate, and perfect
   regularity in moon behavior was NEVER assumed until the synodic lunar
   year eventually was recognized (when is unclear). Thus in the third
   millennium when this literary description surfaces there was
   apparently no theory that would have been surprised by "precession."
   Temples might have been reconstructed as you describe quite without
   such a theory. Once Greek reasoning postulates "perfect circles
   forever," however, there is now an "idealist" assumption that CAN be
   questioned, and it was immediately in the centuries following Plato as
   his model was touched up repeatedly before Ptolemy arrives to make
   explicit Pythagorean MUSICAL assumptions. At which point he applies
   precession casually to the double octave of 9/8 wholetones (and
   unspecified semitones). His monochord of 120x3600=432,000 hypothetical
   units thus "cuts off" the accuracy of the 13th pitch class in Spiral
   5ths, and leaves us (me) wondering why he didn't integrate Hipparchus
   value for the precession instead of accepting Plato's 60^4=12,960,000
   cosmology. (If you think I've got this wrong please correct me.) There
   is no evidence whatever in the Osiris mythology as I read it for
   precession: the twin mountains of sunrise and sunset are taken for
   granted, and so is the underground return nightly through the
   Underworld from West to East (viz. there is NO "celestial
   rotation"--only the "rotation of the model itself."... I also fault
   von Dechend for her attacks on reputable scholarship--which has become
   rampant since (as it had been before). ..."

   (7) (September 11, 2006): "... Hamlet's Mill opens with de
   Santillana's exquisite presentation of Pythagorean structuralism, one
   of the finest ever composed, but he is generously lending his name to
   ensure a hearing for von Dechend's work which suppresses all
   mathematical structuralism. [Note: In the preface to the book, de
   Santillana claims he is barely deserving of senior authorship of the
   book. This also has to do with the fact that the material comprising
   the book is basically von Dechend's.] And she has inspired many
   people, two of them notably (in my experience). Her book became famous
   while I was working hard on Plato, and I refused to read it until far
   along, with a draft of Pythagorean Plato behind and some initial work
   on The Myth of Invariance. And at that point she had nothing to teach
   me, I thought. When I presented my work to her seminar at M.I.T. (and
   drafts of my papers) she had ZERO response to anything at all. Ten
   years later I sat for two long days of seminar discussions with her
   and 4 or 5 others, and her inability to make the slightest sense of
   anything I said or thought was perfect. ..."

   (8) (December 3, 2005): "... My "Marduk Universe" is the inspiration
   for von Dechend's "World Tree" with its "hour-glass drum" shape, but
   her own disinterest in "quantification" blinds her enthusiasts to the
   fact that de Santillana's brilliant opening essay on Pythagoreanism is
   merely a "come-on" for her quite "un-Pythagorean" fantasy that
   follows. That opening essay remains a great introduction to my own
   work, but Santillana never knew the work of Kilmer, Crocker and Brown
   that documents musicology to "Old Babylon" (2000-1600 BC)--a thousand
   years before Pythagoras (who I regard as pure fiction, that is, a
   convenient Greek gloss on what it inherited sans detail that is still
   only now coming to light). And von Dechend never learned to handle
   quantitative material. ... You and others who are curious about the
   failure of von Dechend and myself to reach any understanding at all
   (when we finally met a second time in the 90's--ten years after I
   presented my findings to her seminar at M.I.T) will have to judge us
   for yourselves. I found it impossible to have ANY coherent
   conversation with her. My own digging still continues and is far from
   finished; she had no concept of the mastery of "quantification" that
   PRECEEDED the events that attract her attention. ..."

   Bibel.net is The Berkeley Institute of Biblical Archaeology &
   Literature. McClain has carried out his investigations in relative
   obscurity.

   Part 4: The Basic Problem: A Critical Overview

   The treatment of mythology

   Hamlet's Mill has been misdescribed as a work in cultural
   anthropology. Much of its content is too vague for this. Despite its
   vagueness Hamlet's Mill is essentially a book on comparative
   mythology. Hertha von Dechend has been described as a specialist in
   comparative mythology. Hertha von Dechend has also been described as a
   pioneering archaeoastronomer, but this description is not justified.
   The Frobenius-Institut lists her as an ethnologist and
   archaeoastronomer. Such descriptions are rather incredible, and
   distortive. 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.

   It has been stated that Hamlet's Mill is thematically similar to The
   Masks of God (4 volumes, 1957-1968) by Joseph Campbell. The Masks of
   God is also concerned with demonstrating the similarities between
   myths. The wide range of influences in addition to Carl Jung and
   Sigmund Freud, included the Dutch-born British biologist and
   ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988) and the Austrian zoologist,
   ethologist, and ornithologist Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), both credited
   as the founders of modern ethology. (Joseph Campbell often referred to
   physiological bases of mythological materials.) Whilst working on his
   first book Joseph Campbell had attended the lectures of Heinrich
   Zimmer (1890-1943), a German Indologist at Columbia University.
   Shortly after Zimmer died, Campbell devoted the next 12 years editing
   (almost coauthoring) Zimmer's lecture notes into 4 books: Myths and
   Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (1946), The King and the Corpse
   (1948), Philosophies of India(1951), and The Art of Indian Asia
   (1955). Joseph Campbell was born in 1904, in New York City. After
   seeing Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, at Madison Square Garden, as a
   child he developed an interest in Native American mythology and
   history. From 1921 to 1922 he attended Dartmouth College. He then
   transferred to Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor's
   degree in 1925 and a master's degree in medieval literature in 1927.
   During the next 2 years, he studied French and German medieval
   literature in Paris and Munich, as part of working towards a doctorate
   degree. He abandoned his plans to complete a PhD when informed that
   mythology was an unsuitable topic for his thesis. Campbell returned to
   the United States in the early 1930s and was unable to find immediate
   employment. He spent several years reading at a cabin in Woodstock,
   New York. In 1934, Joseph Campbell obtained a teaching position at
   Sarah Lawrence College in New York. He remained there until his
   retirement in 1972, teaching comparative mythology and literature. He
   died in 1987. "In The Hero with a Thousand Faces he described the
   monomyth (or the hero's journey), a narrative cycle that can be found
   embedded in all legends in whole or in part, and linked this to
   psychological roots. In his epic four-volume work The Masks of God, he
   explored the specific cultural variations of these commonalities from
   an anthropological perspective. The guiding idea behind these books
   followed Adolf Bastian's concepts of "elementary ideas"
   (elementargedanken) and "folk ideas" (volkergedanken), which also
   influenced Carl Jung's concept of "archetypes of the collective
   unconsciousness". The idea was that there are common elements
   ("elementary ideas") to all our mythologies which are wrapped up in
   local, cultural baggage ("folk ideas"). (Chris Batema:
   http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2009/06/what-did-joseph-campb
   ell-believe.html)"

   The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell is built on the work
   of the 19th-century German Polymath Adolph Bastian (1826-1905) who was
   a key contributor to the establishment of the modern disciplines of
   ethnology and anthropolgy. Bastian's theory of the Elementargedanke,
   led to Carl Jung's development of the theory of archetypes, and in
   turn this influenced the work of the Jungian comparative mythologist
   Joseph Campbell. Adolf Bastian first proposed the idea that world-wide
   myths appear to embody the same "elementary ideas" (= monomyth)." The
   Swiss occultist and mystic Carl Jung (1875-1961) adopted this theory
   and named these elementary ideas "archetypes." Jung held that these
   "archetypes" were the building blocks not only of the unconscious
   mind, but also what he termed the "collective unconscious." Jung
   believed that every person in the world is born with identical basic
   subconscious modes of constructing stories (story structure is part of
   a "hard-wired" mental "operating system"). Jung's developed his theory
   of archetypes with the purpose of using it as a tool to find meaning
   in the dreams and visions of mentally ill persons. Joseph Campbell
   used Jung's theory of archetypes to identify what he believed were
   common underlying structures underpinning all religions and myths
   across time and space. Interestingly, the ultimate source for the
   contents of Campbell's chapter "Circumpolar Cults of the Master Bear"
   (Pages 147-151) in his The Way of Animal Powers: Historical Atlas of
   World Mythology. Volume 1 (1983) may have been Geographische
   Kulturkunde by Leo Frobenius (1904).

   Also, Hamlet's Mill interprets sexual and other oddities by the
   gods/goddesses (such as sexual mutilation and cannibalism) as
   astronomical. As example: "... the emasculation of Ouranos stands for
   establishing the obliquity of the ecliptic: the beginning of
   measurable time. (Page 135)" But see the totally different discussion
   and interpretation of odd sexual and other behaviour by god/goddesses
   by Carolina López-Ruiz in her book When the Gods Were Born (2010,
   Chapter 4: Orphic and Phoenician Theogonies). She discusses such
   behaviour within the framework of a cosmic scheme of power.

   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.

   In his Blog article, "Hamlet's Mill: Precession or Solar Symbol."
   (4/12/2012), Jason Colavito states: "Almost all modern alternative
   claims derive from the work of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von
   Dechend in Hamlet's Mill (1969), which argued that "measures and
   counting," specifically as related to astrology, were "the frame on
   which the rich texture of real myth was to grow." That phrase--real
   myth--gave the authors license to selectively choose which myths were
   "real" based on how closely they conformed to an imagined prehistoric
   knowledge of precession."

   Numerous examples discussed in Hamlet's Mill actually date to the
   Medieval period, not earlier e.g., (1) the figures Hamlet, Kullervo,
   and Amlodhi, (2) Firdausi's epic Persian poem Shahmana, (3) the
   depiction of 'The Churning of the Milky Way' at Angkor Wat, and (4)
   the architectural depiction of the '7 planetary spheres' at Borobudur
   temple. Also, the Pythagoreans and Platonic ideas and myths have a
   pivotal role in their interpretations.

   No attempt is made to create a chronology and no attempt is made to
   identify the specific cultures that have common motifs. Broadly, in
   the ancient world, from Hesiod (Greek poet, circa 8th-century BCE) to
   St Paul (Roman citizen, 1st-century CE, a convert from Judaism to
   Christianity), the idea of things 'running down' ('entropy') is a
   dominant theme in ancient mythology.

   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
   Müller - is revived, despite its absurdity. The authors of Hamlet's
   Mill associate all myth with astronomy. In Hamlet's Mill myth is
   promoted as the early language of science - not a form of fiction
   opposed to science. 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."

   If the same system of astronomical ideas, expressed in the same
   symbolic language, existed across the pre-literate geographic/cultural
   blocks comprising Near East, Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Orient,
   Oceania, and Mesoamerica - as claimed by the author's of Hamlet's Mill
   - then what were the processes enabling this astonishing diffusion of
   coded astronomical ideas across cultures, oceans, and continents? Why
   is there a lack of other 'traceable' types of information? If there is
   a coded precessional monomyth widely distributed over the globe then:
   (1) how did this occur? (2) why did this occur? How was this new type
   of myth unfailingly introduced across the globe with consistency
   retained?

   Between the end of the Neolithic period and the time of the
   pre-Socratic Greek philosophers there was evidently a loss of
   understanding (world-wide) of the supposed astronomical content of
   myth.

   It has been incorrectly suggested by one person that von Dechend
   brings Jungianism into the book.  

   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. However, in a slide set (Journeys of the Goddess) William
   Thompson states: "My reading of myth owes everything to my faculty
   lunchtime discussions with Giorgio di (sic) Santillana and Hertha von
   Dechend at MIT in the 1960s." 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.)
   Interestingly, William Thompson has adopted the technique of using
   zodiacal timing (= 'zodiacal age') to frame historical research. 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.

   Note: Thompson (The Time Falling bodies Take to Light, Pages 107-110)
   claims that a 'primitive' zodiac is depicted within the Lascaux cave
   paintings.

   To boldly claim, as Matt Kane does, that Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin,
   and other fairy tale persons are actually mnemonic tales of celestial
   cycles dating back to the Ice Age, is simply fantasy. The earliest
   known mention of Rumplestiltskin occurs in Johann Fischart's
   Geschichtklitterung, or Gargantua of 1577 (a loose adaptation of
   Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel) which refers to an "amusement" for
   children named "Rumpele stilt or the Poppart".

   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.

   Both Matt Kane and William Thompson were not informed regarding modern
   research into the origin and nature of fairy tales. Whether nursery
   rhymes and fairy tales are some surviving remnant of an ancient oral
   tradition (especially conveying some form of scientific/astronomical
   wisdom) has now become even more controversial. There is a strong case
   that both are relatively modern and have their roots in the medieval
   period. (Interestingly, so-called fairy tales most often have little
   to do with fairies). See especially: Fairy Tales: A New History by
   Ruth Bottigheimer (2009). From the Back Cover: "Where did Cinderella
   come from? Puss in Boots? Rapunzel? The origins of fairy tales are
   looked at in a new way in these highly engaging pages. Conventional
   wisdom holds that fairy tales originated in the oral traditions of
   peasants and were recorded for posterity by the Brothers Grimm during
   the nineteenth century. Ruth B. Bottigheimer overturns this view in a
   lively account of the origins of these well-loved stories. Charles
   Perrault created Cinderella and her fairy godmother, but no
   countrywoman whispered this tale into Perrault's ear. Instead, his
   Cinderella appeared only after he had edited it from the book of often
   amoral tales published by Giambattista Basile in Naples.
   Distinguishing fairy tales from folktales and showing the influence of
   the medieval romance on them, Bottigheimer documents how fairy tales
   originated as urban writing for urban readers and listeners. Working
   backward from the Grimms to the earliest known sixteenth-century fairy
   tales of the Italian Renaissance, Bottigheimer argues for a book-based
   history of fairy tales. The first new approach to fairy tale history
   in decades, this book answers questions about where fairy tales came
   from and how they spread, illuminating a narrative process long veiled
   by surmise and assumption." Author information also from the back
   cover: Ruth Bottigheimer [2009] teaches European fairy tales and
   British children's literature at Stony Brook University, State
   University of New York. She is the author of several books, including
   Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition.
   Author information from Wikipedia: "Ruth B. Bottigheimer is a literary
   scholar, folklorist, and author. She is currently an adjunct professor
   in the department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at
   Stony Brook University, State University of New York where she
   specializes and teaches courses in European fairy tales and British
   children's literature. See the book review at
   http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=32534 by Daniela Richter
   (Central Michigan University). See also: Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous
   Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile by Suzanne Magnanini
   (2008). See also the critical book review: "Fairy Tales: A New History
   (review)" by Cristina Bacchilega (Children's Literature Association
   Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 4, Winter, 2010, Pages 468-471).

   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.
   Jarita Holbrook, guest post Cosmos Diary blog, June 1, 2012 writes:
   "The idea of myths and legends possibly containing scientific truths
   about the sky is not new. Studies trying to tease out astronomy facts
   from the narrative of myths have been fraught with methodological
   errors center around the question of `what myths are the best
   candidates for having astronomy content?' Books have been written in
   answer to this question that offer guidelines for identifying
   celestial motifs in myths across cultures. My 2008 analysis of African
   creation myths focused on identifying common cosmological themes that
   appear in more than one ethnic group. For that study, the myths
   selected were chosen from published sources--which can present
   problems that should be taken into consideration. For example,
   oftentimes the person recording the myth has: a) combined several
   versions of the myth into one version for simplicity, and b) changed
   the language used in the myth in order for it to read better for
   academic audiences. It is rare to impossible to find original
   transcriptions of African creation myths."  (Jarita Holbrook is a
   researcher at UCLA (2012) and among the first African American women
   to earn a doctorate in astrophysics in the USA.)

   Andrew Dalby in his book Rediscovering Homer (2006, Page 191) writes
   (regarding epic poem transmission): "Parry and his followers showed,
   then, that singers learn from their predecessors the poetic language,
   the system of formulas, the traditional stories and characters. What
   they do not learn from each other is the precise wording of a story or
   poem. Whole poems are not transmitted from one poet to another."
   Applied to the concept of hyper-diffusion of precessional mythology
   from Mesopotamia the inevitable variations in accuracy from an
   original version poses problems of a garbled code.

   Modern mythologists overlooked in Hamlet's Mill

   The 3 giants whose works remain the most important theoretical
   contributions to the study of myth are: (1) Georges Dumézil
   (1898-1986), Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), and Mircea Eliade
   (1907-1986). Recently the veracity of some of the work of Eliade has
   been questioned.   

   Part 5: The Eight Key Claims: A Critique

   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. Mèlanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, Volume
   61, 2008, Page 26: "This group [of Panbabylonists], among them [Hugo]
   Winckler, [Alfred] Jeremias, [Peter] Jensen, and [Ernest] Weidner,
   following the idea first promulgated by the amateur comparative
   mythographer [Eduard] Stucken, claimed that the source of a tendency
   to personify and allegorize the movements of the heavenly bodies as
   mythic projections of the activities of deities was to be found in
   Mesopotamia, from where the phenomenon diffused throughout the ancient
   world as astral mythology and astral religions." Von Dechend, the main
   force behind Hamlet's Mill, held many similar ideas to the
   Panbabylonists, made frequent reference to their literature, but
   avoided making any direct reference to Panbabylonianism.

   Exactly which Neolithic peoples had this sophisticated astronomical
   knowledge is not explained nor is the manner of its world-wide
   diffusion. Circa 5000 BCE humankind must have been few in number,
   scattered, and nomadic. Also, peoples living in the American continent
   have been (or mostly been) separated physically from the Eurasian
   continent for at least 10,000 years.

   Rather curiously, the conjectured ancient astronomers - though able to
   deal with precession - did not recognise the proper motions of stars.

   The claim for Neolithic discovery of precession

   Hamlet's Mill sets out that precession was the single greatest
   preoccupation of all ancient cultures. However, it appears there was
   no 'plain language' discussion of it. Also, the date of its supposed
   early discovery is left vague in Hamlet's Mill. The authors even imply
   that it was perhaps discovered earlier than the Neolithic Period.
   Their brief remarks on the issue appear on page 340 of Hamlet's Mill
   (1969). The 4000 BCE date is given importance - and identified as the
   latest possible date for the realization of precession - by the
   authors because it was, in their view, the ending of the Golden Age
   (and they claim that this gave rise to the various flood myths). They
   assert their belief that the actual date for the discovery of
   precession was much earlier, perhaps by many millennia. "Its beginning
   has already been placed in the Neolithic, without setting limits in
   the past, let prehistoric archeologists decide. (Hamlet's Mill, Page
   340)." The authors also claim in footnote 4 on the same page: "These
   people could compute backward as well as forward." However, the
   authors set out sufficiently enough that when the whole scheme started
   "Time Zero" was circa 5000 BCE and relates to the junction of the
   Galaxy and (the plane of the) ecliptic when the vernal equinoctial sun
   was in (and leaving) Gemini the Twins. Also, the area of the sky was
   occupied by both the Milky Way and the bright stars of the belt of
   Orion.

   Thomas McEvilley, a classical philologist and a disciple of Hamlet's
   Mill, following the speculations of its authors, would have us believe
   the discovery of precession in the Neolithic Period was not too
   difficult. It does not require having a grandfather who has a tree and
   passes down stories about his lifetime observation of the night sky.
   For McEvilley (The Shape of Ancient Thought (2002), Neolithic
   astronomers were aware of the slippage along the ecliptic of the
   equinoctial sunrise. This was the 'trigger' for research leading to
   the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Knowledge of the
   cycle of precession became part of their knowledge of invariances in
   nature that were their 'pivot points' to work from in their
   constructions of reality. McEvilley also sets out that "ancient
   traditions" involved both knowledge and channels of communication that
   were kept rigorously secret. Implied in this is the assumption that
   between the supposed consolidation of knowledge of precession in the
   Neolithic Period by circa 4000 BCE, and its discovery by Hipparchus of
   Rhodes (flourished 2nd-century BCE), it was never rediscovered by
   persons not heirs to the supposed world-wide system of 'secret
   knowledge' known only to a world-wide close/restricted intellectual
   elite. Also, it was apparently separated from, or kept from, persons
   involved in calendar construction; regardless that accurate calendar
   construction was one of the most important issues in the ancient
   world. McEvillery does, however, give an account of of McClain's
   acoustic theory of the basis of mythology (The Shape of Ancient
   Thought (2002, Pages 81-82)) and acknowledge that
   sexagesimal/precessional numbers can be fitted to acoustical
   arithmetic as to precessional arithmetic. He views McClain's argument
   as, in effect, an adaptation of the Hamlet's Mill argument to another
   context. More correctly McClain likely has the correct context.

   Two addition difficulties for the claim in Hamlet's Mill that the
   'real' meaning of ancient myths was known only to the intellectual
   elite, or priesthood, of prehistoric human society are raised by Roy
   Willis and Patrick Curry in their book, Astrology, Science and Culture
   (2004, Pages 45-46): "There are two principal objections to this
   one-dimensional 'reading' of mythical language. The first is that all
   we know of hunter-gathering peoples from first-hand modern studies and
   ancient story suggests that out prehistoric ancestors lived in
   nomadic, socially unstratified and normatively egalitarian groups
   until the later stages of the Neolithic and the so-called Bronze Age.
   In these social circumstances, it would be surprising to find a closed
   elite possessing 'secret' knowledge, as posited by the authors of
   Hamlet's Mill. The second objection to their theory is provided by the
   monumental work of Lévi-Strauss and his exhaustive demonstration of
   the complex transformations of mythical narrative across cultures and
   continents, together with the work of his disciples and emulators in
   Africa and Asia. To suppose that this kaleidoscopic material conveys a
   stable, precise mapping of celestial events that could be seen as
   congruent with the ordered, mechanical universe of Newtonian astronomy
   seems less than plausible." There is little evidence of developed
   social stratification in most Neolithic societies. Most Neolithic
   societies were relatively simple and egalitarian. During most of the
   Neolithic people lived in small tribes/clans of 150-2000 members that
   were composed of multiple bands or lineages. Social stratification is
   largely associated with the later Bronze Age.

   The proponents of ancient (pre-Hipparchan/Neolithic) knowledge of
   precession are basically reflecting the ideas of Panbabylonism. No
   proof has been found for knowledge of precession antedating
   Hipparchus. No firm proof has been found for Western constellations
   existing prior to circa 2000 BCE. Also, the zodiac originated in
   Babylonia as late as circa 5th-century BCE.

   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 (and ultimately fire). 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 actual overall point being made by the story is the
   equilibrium of the physical and moral world (both equally divine
   appointments) depend on the presence of the god Marduk. For a
   discussion of some content of the epic of Erra and Isum (its theme of
   alternating destruction through flood and fire) as a possible
   mythological antecedent to the later astronomical theory of the 'Great
   Year' see: "A Possible Babylonian Precursor to the Theory of
   ecyprosis." by Marinus van der Sluijs (Culture and Cosmos, Volume 9,
   Number 2, Autumn/Winter, 2005, Pages 1-19).

   The Babylonians and the Greeks conceived the doctrine of a 'Great
   Year;' the doctrine of recurrent cosmic conflagrations. It was the
   time after which the planets would realign themselves in identical
   positions in the sky. This was the period of the cosmos from creation
   to destruction. The 'Great Year' of the Classical world arose from the
   mythical conception of a cosmic periodicity the origin of which is
   ultimately traceable to Babylonia. The Babylonians developed the
   notion of a repetitive cosmic 'Great Year;' a that belief immense
   cycles of time culminated in huge catastrophes and recurrence of
   creation. Berossos the Babylonian (residing on the Greek island of
   Cos) wrote of a 'cosmic year' of 432,000 years. Identifying Babylonian
   sources before Berossos is problematic. Despite the common opinion
   that the idea of a 'Great Year' originated in Babylonian circles,
   there is no clear and unambiguous evidence of a Babylonian expectation
   of an end of the world in any form before Berossus. However, the epic
   of Erra and Isum, when carefully evaluated, seems to provide this.
   Berossos writes the work of creating the world carried within its
   structure repetitively recurring celestial cycles of destruction and
   recurrence. (Perpetual celestial cycles involving immense cycles of
   time and recurrent catastrophes involving huge floods and
   conflagrations.) The Babylonian 'Great Year' was about all the planets
   gathering within one particular zodiacal sign. (More the simultaneous,
   periodic return of all the planets to the same point of the zodiac.)
   There were later variations in what was meant by the 'Great Year' but
   basically it is linked to a great cycle involving the sun, moon,
   planets, stars, and seasons returning to their original arrangement
   i.e., to the same sign they originally set out from when created. One
   cycle of a 'Great Year' would last until the planets aligned in their
   original position or zodiac sign in the cosmos. The idea of a 'Great
   Year' encompassed the doctrine of a Flood and Ekpyrosis. Aristotle
   stated that in the winter of this year a flood (kataklysmos) takes
   place, in the summer a conflagration (destruction by fire)
   (ekpyrosis). The Stoics were certainly interested in the 'Great Year'
   concept. It is thought that the Babylonian 'Great Year' was adopted by
   the Stoics. The Greek formulation of the 'Great Year' involved
   recurrent cataclysms of flood and fire. "The early Stoic version of
   the eternal recurrence is that a great conflagration (ekpurôsis) marks
   a stage in the cycle of the reconstitution of the cosmos
   (apokatastasis). One cycle, a Great Year (SVF, 2.599), would last
   until the planets align in their original position or zodiac sign in
   the cosmos (SVF, 2.625). Each age would end in Fire, the purest of
   elements and the irreducible cosmic substance, and would be followed
   by a restoration of all things. ("Hellenistic Astrology." by Marilynn
   Lawrence (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy))" (Note: SVF =
   Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, ed. J. von Arnim (Leipzig: Teubner,
   1903.) In the Classical world it was Plato (writing before Berossos'
   account) who first made a clear statement of the 'Great Year' which he
   called the 'Perfect Year.' Plato defined the 'Perfect Year' as a
   period at the end of which the fixed stars and planets return to the
   point from which they started their revolution. Aristotle called the
   same period the 'Greatest Year.' When I see 36,000 in Mesopotamian
   records my spontaneous association is with the 'Great Year' of
   planetary conjunctions - which was not estimated with reference to
   precession. Plato's 36,000 year length is linked to the idea of
   powerful conjunctions and is not linked to the idea of precession (or
   to the solstices and equinoxes). In later Greek and Latin texts this
   cosmic period is called the 'Great Year.' Precession is not
   necessarily involved. The 'Great Year' and the 'precessional year' are
   entirely different in concept but get mixed. In some of the older
   astro-mythology books it is common to see the cycle of precession
   referred to as the 'Great Year' or 'Platonic Year' (and also as the
   'precessional year of Hipparchus'). Amongst the Greeks the estimated
   length of the 'Great Year' varied. The duration of the 'Great Year'
   was not reliant on exact astronomy - ideas of the time of a 'Great
   Year' varied between very long cycles and (in later Greek and Latin
   writers) very short cycles. Cicero estimated 11,460 year for the Great
   Year whilst Macrobius estimated 15,000 years for the 'Great Year.'
   Heraclitus appears to have estimated 10,800 years for the 'Great
   Year.' Plato's later figure of 36,000 years for the 'Perfect Year' was
   later identified with the 'Great Year.' Oenopidus and later Philolaus
   both had estimates of 59 years for the 'Great Year.' It appears
   Democritus estimated 77 years for the 'Great Year.'

   See also: The Thousands of Abu Ma'shar (1968) by David Pingree. The
   book is a detailed study of the topic of the East-Iranian astrologer
   Abu Ma'shar's version of the idea of world periods initiated and
   terminated by cataclysms - cyclically recurrent floods and similar
   catastrophes, and determined astronomically by a conjunction of all
   planets at the zero point of the ecliptic. A (English-language) book
   review, "The Thousands of  Abu Ma'shar," by Willy Hartner, in which he
   endorses Hamlet's Mill, is published in The Journal of the Royal
   Asiatic Society, (New Series), Volume 104, Issue 1, January, Pages
   63-65.

   The reliable reference on the 'Great Year' is Annus Platonicus: A
   Study of World Cycles in Greek, Latin and Arabic Sources by Godefroid
   de Callatay (1995).

   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. There
   even appears to be a belief that the zodiac originated as 12 equal
   divisions. 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 Enuma 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. De Santillana and
   von Dechend set out that the precession of the equinoxes through a
   12-part equally divided zodiac was expressed in terms of
   universal/catastrophic floods. Although change due to precession
   occurs extremely slowly it is asserted by de Santillana and von
   Dechend that it was expressed in mythology 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. This in spite of the fact that
   nothing violent is suggested by the slow gradual process of precession
   proceeding at the almost imperceptible rate of about 1° in 72 years.

   It is not explained why Babylonian astral sciences have no concept of
   zodiacal world ages or simply world ages per Hamlet's Mill. If this
   knowledge originated in the ancient Near East it is not explained why
   the Babylonians were not heir to it. The assyriologist Alasdair
   Livingstone, dealing with problems posed by the claim by Werner Papke
   for a high standard of astronomical knowledge being achieved shortly
   after the invention of writing, pointed out that it must be envisaged:
   (1) this astronomical knowledge did not subsequently develop and was
   ultimately forgotten, and (2) this astronomical knowledge had no
   appreciable effect on the rest of Babylonian "science." These same
   points apply to the claim put in Hamlet's Mill.

   Cultures heavily dependent upon agricultural practices seem unaware of
   precession either by: (1) slow changes in the sky (i.e., altered
   heliacal rising of stars, or 'tilting' of the sky evidenced at the
   horizon; or (2) the calendrical use of the stars.

   The claim the mill myth is astronomical

   The content of the myth of Amlodhi's Mill ('World Mill') as given by
   the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, explicitly states it is
   referring to the ocean. According to Saxo Grammaticus, Amlodhi has a
   great quern in the sea. The authors of Hamlet's Mill, however,
   interpret it as referring to the sky. Apart from 'cherry-picking' the
   myths they will deal with, the authors demonstrate they will make
   interpretations to suit their purpose. For de Santillana and von
   Dechend, the mill is an astronomical metaphor/code for the movement of
   the heavens around the world axis. The myth of the mill has
   commonality/parallels only amongst Indo-European peoples and originate
   from an ancient common source. (The Indo-European myth of the mill was
   explored in detail by 19th-century philologists and folklorists (and
   usually given a nature-myth explanation). As example, see: Curiosities
   of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore (1863) by the historian
   Walter Kelly.) The authors of Hamlet's Mill concede there are no myths
   of mills amongst non Indo-European peoples.

   The claim for precessional numbers in mythology

   In his book, Altgermanische Kulturprobleme [Problems of Ancient
   Germanic Culture] (1929, approximately 160 pages), Franz Schröder
   (1893-1979, Professor in the University of Wutzburg) pointed out the
   presence of certain numbers that repeatedly appear in mythology
   world-wide. (See the unfavourable book review by Gustav Neckel, (from
   1923 Professor of Old Germanic Studies at the University of Berlin),
   in DLZ [Deutsche Literaturzeitung], Band 50, 1929, Pages 521-524. The
   issue had first been investigated around the turn of the 19th-century
   by the German star-myth school.

   Since the publication of Hamlet's Mill it is now common for a range of
   popular writers and pseudo-historians to claim that the principal
   precessional code numbers in mythology are:

   12 (= number of constellations in the zodiac),

   18 (= ?),

   30 (= number of degrees allocated along the ecliptic to each zodiacal
   constellation),

   72 (= years for 1 degree of precessional movement - number of years
   required for equinoctial sun to complete a precessional shift of 1
   degree),

   360 (degrees; 12 multiplied by 30 degrees = 360 = total number of
   degrees in the ecliptic),

   72 x 30 (= 2160 number of years required for sun to complete passage
   of 30 degrees along the ecliptic),

   2160 x 12 (= 25,920 [also: 360 x 72] The Great Year or one complete
   precessional cycle) (but see above: The Claim for Precession in the
   Erra-Epic),

   4320 (= number of years required for equinoctial sun to complete
   precessional shift of 60 degrees; also stated as 72 x 60 = 4320),

   72 + 36 (precessional shift of 1/2 degree) (= 108),

   108 x 100 (= 10,800),

   108 divided by 2 (= 54),

   54 x 10 (= 540), and

   432,000 (= 540 multiplied by 800; 2160 multiplied by 200 = Norse
   Myths: Valhalla's fighters = 432,000 - last battle against Fenrir Wolf
   (but see analysis below),

   25,920 (= 72 multiplied by 360; also 12 by 2160 (precession movement
   through 1 zodiacal sign)); then use of these two numbers to derive
   108, 216, 432, and 540,

   25,920 divided by 60 (= 432),

   and 10,800 (= 540 multiplied by 200 (sic); 2160 multiplied by 50
   (sic)).

   According to proponents of Hamlet's Mill the number 72 is the
   precessional number that is the foundation for various derivatives and
   multiples that occur in myths. Hamlet's Mill has an unidentified
   Neolithic culture establishing a 360 degree circle moving 1 degree
   every 71.6 years, but in encoding the number in mythology they round
   it to 72! (The rate of precession is not constant. A representative
   recent figure is 25720 years = 2143 years per 'zodiacal age' = 71.4
   years per 1 degree. With 72 years for precession to move 1 degree =
   2160 per 'zodiacal age' = 25920 years for the entire cycle to repeat.
   According to John Major Jenkins (http://edj.net/mc2012/mill1.htm) the
   traditional estimate of precession was 25920 years. The question is:
   If we accept ancient knowledge of precession is this a real or
   rounded/ideal figure?) As Jason Colavito has pointed out in his
   27/11/2012 website article "Civilization and Precession (Part 1"):
   "[T]he numbers ... identified in myth have a much simpler explanation:
   they are all multiples of 2 and 3, the smallest numbers capable of
   generating complex multiples. ... Early peoples who did not use a
   decimal system, tended to use multiples of 2 and 3 because these were
   the easiest numbers for generating large multiples."

   In his book, The Myth of Invariance, McClain demonstrates that the
   various sexagesimal/precessional numbers were as uniquely and
   specially fitted to acoustical arithmetic as to precessional
   arithmetic. In effect he adapts the structure of the Hamlet's Mill
   argument from a presumed astronomical to a likely musical context. The
   numbers involved in McClain's musical arithmetic include: 30, 60, 216,
   360, 432, etc; 12 multiplied by 360 = 4,320; 40 multiplied by 432 =
   12,960, etc.

   As an example of the problem with the uninformed use of numbers in a
   supposedly astronomical context. It is not unusual to hear the claim
   repeated that knowledge of precession appears in the Eddas (a
   collection of old Norse poems and tales dating circa 10th-century CE).
   The claim simply rests on verse 23 of the poem Grimnismál in the
   Eddas. At Ragnarok ("end of the world") out of each of the 540 doors
   of Valholl ("hall of the dead" or "hall of the slain") will come 800
   warriors. (It is also pointed out that in verse 24 of the poem there
   are 540 rooms (or "floor-rooms") in Thor's palace of Bilskirnir.)

   Stanza 23 of Grimnismál has the descriptive lines: "Five hundred doors
   and forty, Think I there at Valholl; Eight hundred einhergar go out
   one door, When they go to fight with the wolf."

   Valholl was the largest building in Asgard, the celestial realm of the
   Norse gods/goddesses. The number of doors is multiplied by the number
   of warriors emerging from each door to achieve an end number of
   432,000 warriors. (This calculation and the resulting number of
   432,000 is not in the Eddas.) The claim is then made that the number
   432,000 refers to a precessional "great year."

   It is correct that according some sources Valholl has 540 doors each
   wide enough for 800 warriors. It is correct that the 540 rooms (or
   "floor-rooms") in Bilskirnir can match the version of 540 doors of
   Valholl. However, I do not recall any "associated number" such as 800
   (or 960) warriors (or whatever) connected with Bilskirnir. Also,
   according to other sources Valholl has 640 doors each wide enough for
   960 warriors. Hence out of the medieval tale we can multiply the
   former figures and get the resulting number 432,000 or we can multiply
   the latter figures and get the number 614,400. The figure of 432,000
   may be linked with the Babylonian doctrine of "cosmic recurrence"
   (i.e., a "great year" linked to "powerful" conjunctions, not a
   precessional "great year"). I have never seen the figure 614,400
   touted as belonging to either. (A prime candidate for uncritically
   promulgating this sort of arithmetic is the Jungian mythologist Joseph
   Campbell in his (for example) book The Masks of God: Occidental
   Mythology (1964, Page 459).)

   The supporters of knowledge of precession in the Eddas seem to have no
   knowledge of the old Germanic system of calculation. In the old
   Germanic system of reckoning the "long hundred" had the value of 120.
   In all likelihood the "five hundred ... and forty" and the "eight
   hundred" have the Germanic "long hundred" value (not the decimal value
   100). Hence 640 doors and 960 warriors. Even orthodox writers may or
   may not indicate knowledge of the old Germanic system of calculation.
   Norse Mythology by John Lindow (2001) simply gives 540 doors and 800
   warriors. World Mythology by Donna Rosenberg (2nd edition., 1994)
   simply gives 640 doors and 960 warriors. Myth and Religion of the
   North by Edward Turville-Petre (1964) gives both 540 (or 640) doors
   and 800 (or 960) warriors. An important discussion of the issues by
   Magnus Olsen appeared in (the Danish language) Acta Philologica
   Scandinavica, Volume VI, 1931-1932. (The particular paper was later
   included in his collected papers Norrone studier (1938).) See also
   "Numeracy and the Germanic Upper Decades." by Carol Justus (Journal of
   Indo-European Studies, Volume 24, 1996).

   References to Valholl can thus have the numbers 540 and 800 or 640 and
   960. References to Bilskirnir simply have the number 540 but not 640
   nor 800 or 960. Some people are keen to multiply 540 by 800 but not
   640 by 960.

   For the number 540 Vincent Hopper suggested (Medieval Number
   Symbolism, 1938, reprinted 1978) that the Medieval Norse (1) had an
   idealised 360 day year calendar (adjusted by intercalation), (2)
   calculated time by half years; and (3) 540 denotes a calendar cycle of
   3 half years (winter-summer-winter). It seems we may be playing with
   nothing deeper than mundane calendar-based numbers.

   A further (standard) study of Valholl is Walhall by Gustav Neckel
   (1913). His opinion was the "five hundred ... and forty" doors intends
   to express nothing more than a large number and was perhaps influence
   by Norse knowledge of the numerous doorways (and vomitoria) of the
   Roman Colosseum (Coliseum). There were 80 entrances at ground level.
   However, the Colosseum incorporated a number of vomitoria -
   passageways designed so that the venue could quickly disperse people
   into their seats (in 15 minutes), and evacuate them abruptly (in 5
   minutes).

   Note: The ideas that numbers have magical significance is very old and
   likely originated in Mesopotamia. The number 72 is now commonly
   claimed as a precessional number by devotees of Hamlet's Mill. The
   origin(s) of the number 72 remain obscure. There is no compelling
   reason to associate this number with astronomy or the seasons (6 x
   12). The Babylonian ideal year of 360 days divided by 72 gave 5-day
   weeks (conversely the division of 5-day weeks into the ideal year of
   360 days gives the number 72. The number 72 is a reciprocal number. It
   can originate through multiplication (9 x 8 = 72) and it is 1 of 24
   divisors into 360 (= 5). The number 72 is indeed close to the 71.667
   years it takes to move through one degree of one sign of the Zodiac.
   However, 72 (years) also figures in the cycles of Jupiter and Venus.
   It takes Jupiter 71.1708 years to go around the Sun 6 times. Venus
   goes around the Sun 8 times whilst the Earth goes around the Sun 5
   times. It takes the Earth two days longer to complete this interesting
   cycle. Due to this ratio, Venus appears to draw a pentagram around the
   Sun every 8 years. Venus takes 72 years of 365.25 days each, less 18
   days to complete 9 pentagrams around the Sun. Also, 72 (years) figures
   in the Saros cycle (used in ancient times to calculate eclipses). This
   cycle was 18.03 years, 4 x 18.03 = 72.12 years. More mundanely,
   Confucius is said to have had 72 disciples (the 72 Worthies), he was
   also said to be 72 years old when he died. Also, there are 72
   malignant spirits in Chinese folk medicine. In the Chuang-tzu there
   are 72 treacherous rulers. The legendary Chinese ruler, Shen Nong, is
   said to have discovered tea as an antidote to the 72 poisons he
   encountered in the development of traditional Chinese medicine. The
   number 72 appears frequently in Chinese folklore: 72 halls in an
   underwater palace, 72 merits of a hero and 72 stars in the sky. The
   number 72 has a relationship to the number 70. There are many example
   where the number 72 interchangeable with the number 70. Within the
   context of Mesopotamian number magic it has been noted that all
   derivatives or multiples of 7 carry with them the idea of wholeness.
   The number 72 is closely associated with other number '7s'
   principally: 7 (commonly associated with cosmic perfection), 70, 71,
   72, and 73. 70 = 10 x 7; 72 can be divided by: 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18,
   24, and 36; 77, and 7 x 7 are self explanatory, as well as 700, 7000,
   70,000, 700,000. The number 7 may symbolise the literary/mythical
   vertical (levels)/horizontal (chambers) structure of the cosmos.

   The claim for precession as secret knowledge

   I am unsure who originated the argument that supposed knowledge of
   precession was supposedly kept secret by its discoverers comprising
   some sort of 'elite priestly class' (even though diffused world-wide
   by them). The proponents of the argument are unable to make any sort
   of evidentiary case. The claim for world-wide ancient knowledge of
   precession being kept as secret knowledge is simply baseless
   speculation. Otto Neugebauer has made the point that no transmitted
   sources contain any hint which implies ancient secret knowledge of
   precession or advanced astronomical knowledge deliberately withheld
   from widespread communication. It is a rather odd claim for a number
   of reasons. The claim is somewhat limited to precession impacting upon
   established religions and cults and causing 'panic' among devotees.
   Strangely, this supposed determination for alleged secrecy ensured
   that calendrical assistance was also withheld. This robs the argument
   that knowledge of precession held by an ancient elite enabled them to
   exercise power over the uninformed general population. Why some sort
   of world-wide 'professional/academic secrecy'  would make a difference
   to eventual commonly observable changed appearances is not explained.
   Why the ancient Neolithic discovers of knowledge of precession
   'packaged' this knowledge for world-wide diffusion is not explained.
   It hardly matters as it only adds more baseless conjecture to the
   imaginary schema. It is possible to accept and adjust to changing
   celestial appearances without the need for explanation (and an
   anxiety-driven one at that).

   Also, the myths are not myths secretly kept by an intellectual elite -
   they are common myths.

   Part 6: An Alternative Explanation for the Mythology of Hamlet's Mill

   For de Santillana and von Dechend the main source of myth was
   astronomy. For Ernest McClain, The Myth of Invariance, the main source
   is music. McClain argues that the connections between music
   (pre-Pythagorean mathematical/musical theories) and myth/traditions
   are much deeper than any connections between astronomy and myth. In
   attempts to understand mythology the ideas (convincing
   reinterpretation) of McClain must be considered. In antiquity musical
   symbolism was understood by all educated persons. There are 2 types of
   apparent invariances in the natural world that are perceptible by the
   human senses: astronomical recurrences and harmonic intervals. In
   adopting a musical approach to myth McClain was influenced by Antonio
   de Nicholas in his book Meditations Through the Rg Veda: Four
   Dimensional Man (2003). De Nicholas stressed harmonic invariance.
   Spanish-born Antonio de Nicolas was educated in Spain, India and the
   United States, and received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham
   University in New York. He received his spiritual training, and his
   education in the Greek and Latin classics at the 12^th-century
   Monastery of Santa Maria de Veruela in Northern Spain. He is Professor
   Emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony
   Brook. De Nicholas has persuasively demonstrated that so-called
   'precessional number' are uniquely matched to acoustical arithmetic,
   rather than to 'precessional arithmetic.' Hipparchus stated that
   "Geometry is frozen music."

   Ernest McClain (1918- ) is widely known for his efforts to establish
   the ancient mathematical discipline of music as the means to unlock
   the inner meaning of history's great religious and philosophical
   texts. After receiving a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia
   University, he joined the Music Faculty of Brooklyn College (part of
   the City University of New York in 1951, where he taught until his
   retirement in 1982. Ernest G. McClain is currently (2012) Professor
   Emeritus at Brooklyn College. He is also a clarinetist. McClain has
   been retired since 1982 and currently lives in Washington. His
   persuasive (but ultimately imaginative and suggestive reconstructions
   from epigraphic evidence) explanations of crucial passages in texts of
   world literature - the Bible, the Rig Veda, the Egyptian Book of the
   Dead, and Plato - that deal with numbers, are quite complex. However,
   he is able to explain the meaning of these numbers within the context
   of four ancient mathematical disciplines: arithmetic, music, geometry
   and astronomy. His explanation embraces identical or similar numbers
   and parallel mathematical constructs in ancient Sumer, Egypt, Babylon,
   Palestine and Greece.

   According to Ernest McClain the relationship of music and numbers to
   ancient cosmology may go back as far as the Neolithic period of
   Mesopotamia, India, and China. A snippet from The New York Times,
   April 23, 1987: Critic's Notebook; Magic, Music and Math: "Modern
   authors, notably Ernest G. McClain in his books ''The Myth of
   Invariance'' and ''The Pythagorean Plato,'' have argued persuasively
   that the ancient Babylonians, Hindus, Egyptians and Greeks developed
   elaborate traditions of tonal symbolism. Phenomena such as harmonic
   resonances and the tempering of musical scales were related to
   observations of biological and astronomical cycles. The plotting of
   these cycles, and the urge to embody them in sound as well as express
   them in equations, helped spur the development of both music and
   mathematics."

   Both de Santillana and McClain specify the origins of numbers based
   myths in the Neolithic Period. McClain interprets numbers in
   mythology, not as astronomical as was done in Hamlet's Mill, but to
   the mathematics of acoustics and tuning theory. Part of a 2006 book
   review on Amazon.com by Mark Rankin: "His work delves into the lost
   connections between the musical/mathematical/cosmological theories of
   the ancient world and the philosophies of the ancient Greeks, the
   ancient Hebrews, the ancient Hindus, and the ancient Babylonians. In
   our modern world we use our highest technology to find a unified field
   "theory of everything". The ancients were no different, except that
   they used their highest technology to find a "theory of everything"
   that was based on musical tuning, an ancient sort of "string theory"."

   McClain credits colleagues Ernst Levy and Siegmund Levarie and their
   writings (including, A Theory of Harmony (1985 (by Ernst Levy and
   edited by Siegmund Levarie))) for introducing him to Pythagoreanism
   via the insights of 19th century theorist Albert von Thimus, who
   provided the keys to unlocking Plato's mathematical riddles. McClain's
   3 books were published during a decade of collaboration with the
   Spanish scholar Antonio de Nicolas. This collaboration opened a window
   into other ancient philosophical and religious writings. An important
   article published in the early 1970s was "Plato's Musical Cosmology,"
   and "Musical Marriages in Plato's Republic." Albert von Thimus
   (1806-1878), the Gentian lawyer, philologist, and musical scholar is
   considered one of the most outstanding modern thinkers on the
   metaphysical aspects of harmony. In his long forgotten (small) book,
   Die harmonikale Symbolik des Alterthums: Zwei Abteilungen (1870;
   reprinted 1988), Albert von Thimus, a polymath and indefatigable
   researcher into ancient harmonic theory called attention to many
   arithmetical and graphical structures in the tonal imagery of the
   ancient world.

   For a discussion of McClain's ideas see: Beyond Measure (2002) by Jay
   Kappraff; Harmonies of Heaven and Earth (1987) by Joscelyn Godwin;
   and, The Shape of Ancient Thought (2002) by Thomas Evilley. See also
   the importance article: "Music as Basic Metaphor and Deep Structure in
   Plato and in Ancient Cultures." by Patrick Heelan S.J. in (the now
   defunct) Journal of Social and Biological Structures, Volume 2, Number
   4, Pages 279-291).

   De Santillana and von Dechend posit the Early Neolithic and McClain
   posits the Late Neolithic. De Santillana and McClain share an interest
   in Pythagoreanism. McClain's book title The Myth of Invariance is
   based on a statement by de Santillana in his introduction to Hamlet's
   Mill.
In a posting to talk.origins (8 August, 1994) Leroy Ellenberger writes: "... th
e implicit imprimatur they [de Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill] give
McClain's approach. ... [D]e Santillana allows:  "Mathematics was moving up
to me from the depth of centuries; not after myth, but before it ... *Number* g
ave the key [emphasis added]. ... [T]he list of world-class scholars who are *i
nterested* in McClains's insights includes: H. von Dechend (Frankfort),
H.A.T. Reiche (M.I.T ...), S. Parpola (Helsinki) and A.D. Kilmer (Berkeley). ..
. [According to] McClain's work, the harmonic numerology of the Sumerians is mo
del-drive and proceeds from 30-60 and 360-720 "octaves" to larger
bases in order to achieve better whole number fraction approximations to the ir
rational ratios that inhabit the octave, especially the square root of two that
 harmonically bisects it." This account is contrary to McClain's recollection.
McClain is quite clear that neither Hertha von Dechend or Harald Reiche showed
any real interest in, or attempt to understand, his ideas. Neither did they inc
orporate them into their own work.

   Part 7: Some Critics and Criticisms

   Hamlet's Mill has been described as "subjective exegesis." Properly,
   exegesis is the careful investigation of the original meaning of texts
   in their historical and literary contexts. It involves critical
   analysis, interpretation and explanation. There are solid reasons to
   conclude the authors fail to accurately interpret the meaning of
   texts. Numerous supporters of Hamlet's Mill readily engage in 'word
   smithing' exercises to try and 'work around' the informed criticisms
   of the book. 

   (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 Frederic [Frederick] Amory:

   A neglected/forgotten (English-language) critique of Hamlet's Mill is:
   Amory, Frederick [Frederic] (1925-2009). (1977). "The Medieval Hamlet:
   A Lesson in the Use and Abuse of a Myth." (Deutsche
   Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte,
   Volume 51, Number 3, September, 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. At the time of his death Frederic Amory was Emeritus
   Professor of English at the University of San Francisco, San
   Francisco. He was trained in the graduate schools of Harvard
   University and the University of California, Berkeley, in comparative
   and interdisciplinary ethnography.] A sample of Amory's informed
   critique: "The methodology of Hamlet's Mill is uninfluenced by the
   structuralism of Lévi-Strauss, or the comparative methods of
   Dumézil,^53 but the authors, nevertheless, should not have entrenched
   themselves in nineteenth century German scholarship against the newer
   French schools of linguistics, mythography, and anthropology
   (Griaule's group of Africanists excepted), for they have perpetuated
   through their dependence on that scholarship many ancient and
   ridiculous errors of fact and interpretations, and they have never
   faced up to the crucial dilemma before the "science of myth" - how to
   reconcile the mythmaking propensity with the sympathetic investigation
   of myths - which Lévi-Strauss seized so boldly by the horns in the
   preface to the first volume of his Mythologiques (1964)."

   See his essay:
   http://www.houseofideas.com/mscornelius/resources/hamlet/saxo_grammati
   cus__frederic_amory_essay_date_september_1977_269831-.pdf

   [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); and the
   (English-language) book review by ? in International Journal of
   Behavioural Development, March, 1999, Volume 23, Number 1, within
   Pages 272-281. I have not seen the article discussion in Zeitschrift
   für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 1975, Volume 64,
   Part 1.]

   Part 8: 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 9: 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.)

   Astralmythen: Religionsgeschichtliche untersuchungen (5 parts,
   1896-1907) by Eduard Stucken. Eduard Stucken (1865-1936(sometime
   incorrectly given as 1937)) (Germany (Stucken was born in Moscow and
   died in Berlin)) Writer/Amateur Philologist. Stucken Edward was the
   son of a German-American merchant. After attending high school in
   Dresden from 1882 to 1884, he completed a commercial apprenticeship in
   Bremen. Subsequently, he studied art history, Assyriology and
   Egyptology in Dresden and Berlin. He worked temporarily at the German
   Naval Observatory in Hamburg and traveled extensively, including to
   Greece, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Italy and England as well.
   During 1890/1891 he took part in a scientific expedition to Syria.
   From 1891 he worked as a freelance writer in Berlin. In the following
   decades, he published a number of scientific studies in addition to
   anthropological and historical subjects. His extensive published
   output also included literary works. Eduard Stucken has been described
   as an exotic and esoteric writer of neo-Romantic tendencies with a
   predilection for mythological themes. His literary work includes
   novels, short stories, poems and plays. In his early, neo-romantic
   dramas his works are often derived from Celtic mythology. His prose
   works are characterized by the author's penchant for opulence and
   exoticism, and a tendency toward a bombast style. Stucken produced
   wordy verse fairy tales in his 8-part dramatic Holy Grail cycle (most
   of which appeared 1902-19l6, Die Zauberer Merlin appeared in 1924).
   Stucken also wrote several Arthurian plays in rhyming verse, which
   were produced by M. Reinhardt, Gawan (1902), Lanzelot (1909), and
   Merlins Geburt (1912), and treated the story of Tristan in the play
   Tristram und Ysolt (1916). Stucken's most successful work was the
   multi-volume (trilogy) historical novel, Die weißen Götter (1918-22),
   describing (inaccurately) the destruction of the Aztec empire by the
   Spanish. The set of historical novels deals with Mexico and Montezuma
   in the period before and after the advent of Cortes. See the critical
   (English-language) book review (in The Saturday Review of Literature,
   November 17, 1934, Page 289) by Oliver Farge of the English-language
   translation (by Frederick Martens), The Great White Gods (1934).
   Stucken is criticised for being a mediocre historian. Another of his
   historical works that was translated into English was The dissolute
   years; a pageant of Stuart England, translated Marguerite Harrison,
   published New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1935. Stucken's 5 volumes of
   Astralmythen appeared over the years 1896-1907. Stucken had
   intellectual connections with the star-myth school of Siecke in that
   he adopted the methods of the star-myth school. However, Stucken (an
   amateur Orientalist/philologist) knew no restraint and attempted to
   trace the whole system of world myths (at least those he believed to
   be astral) back to Babylon. It was the work of Stucken that paved the
   way for the attempt to make Babylonia the prime centre of all
   religious thought. The sources for old Babylonian religion included an
   emphasis on, both actual and imagined, astronomical and meteorological
   phenomena. When the notion of diffusion was added on we had
   Panbabylonism. The religious nature of scientific knowledge in ancient
   Mesopotamia was quickly recognised from the earliest studies of
   cuneiform scientific texts. This - and building on the claims of the
   amateur comparative mythologist Stucken - was the foundation for the
   Panbabylonist claim for the existence of astral religions. Eduard
   Stucken belonged to the Prussian Academy of Arts and remained a member
   even after the Nazi purges of the Academy in 1933. In October 1933 he
   was one of the "loyal German authors" who were signatories of the
   loyalty pledge "Faithful Pledge of Allegiance ("Gelöbnisses treuester
   Gefolgschaft")," addressed to the Hitler regime. (See also: "Eduard
   Stucken: Eine Studie." by Clemens de Baillou (Kentucky Foreign Romance
   Quarterly, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1961, Pages 1-6).) Less accessible is
   the most detailed examination of Eduard Stucken, Eduard Stucken: Eine
   Monographie by Ingeborg Carlson (1924-?) (1961, Reprinted 1978 as
   Eduard Stucken : (1865-1936) : ein Dichter und seine Zeit,
   German-language PhD thesis).)

   Eduard Stucken (Photograph details unknown)

   Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes (1904) by Leo Frobenius. Leo Frobenius
   (1873-1938) had, from the early 1900s, published Panbabylonian ideas
   and claimed correspondence between mythological themes and celestial
   phenomena, world-wide. The German ethnographer Leo Frobenius 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. See: Leo
   Frobenius, anthropologue, explorateur, aventurierle monde étranger,
   c'est moi (1999) by Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs. Frobenius was an eccentric
   amateur German ethnologist/anthropologist and archaeologist, who was
   the originator of the concepts of the Kulturkreise (culture circles)
   and of the Paideuma (or "soul" of culture). He lacked formal academic
   qualifications and was criticized by scientists for his non-systematic
   and rather romantic approach to anthropology. Frobenius was involved
   in extensive research in Africa, which was made possible by donors and
   by his own income from books and lectures. He left school without
   gaining any formal qualifications because his family moved constantly,
   and Frobenius did not attend school regularly. For this reason he
   could not satisfactorily take up his studies at a university but
   became an autodidact. His PhD thesis was rejected. Leo Frobenius, a
   pupil of Friedrich Ratzel, expanded on the "culture circle" concept.
   See: Frobenius, Leo (1898) Die Weltanschauung der Naturvolker. The
   Kulturkreise (culture circle) school of thought was proposed by
   Friedrich Ratzel and the concept then widened by his student Leo
   Frobenius. This version formulated by Leo Frobenius in Vienna was
   called "culture circles" or Kulturkreise. In Das Zeitalter des
   Sonnengottes, Frobenius sought an ancient sun myth origin for
   world-wide mythology.

   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).)

   Altgermanische Kulturprobleme (1929) by Franz Schröder.

   Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur (2nd Revised Edition,
   1929) by Alfred Jeremias. (Written from a Panbabylonian perspective.)

   Les Cycles du retour éternel (1963 (2 Volumes)) by Jean-Charles
   Pichon.

   Die vedischen Nachrichten von den Naxatra (2 Parts, 1860-1861) by
   Albrecht Weber. Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) was a German Indologist and
   historian. His field of specialisation was Vedic literature. Weber
   also made valuable contributions in the field of Jain studies and
   Prakrit. He was considered one of the outstanding scholars of the
   latter half of the 19th-century. In 1842, he went to Breslau
   University where he studied Sanskrit with the Indologist Adolf
   Stenzler. He also attended lectures on classical philology and
   history. He later went to Bonn and Berlin and then returned to
   Breslau. He received his PhD at Breslau where, in 1845, he submitted
   his doctoral thesis Yajurveda Specimen cum commentario. From 1846 to
   1848 he visited England and France in connection with his studies. A
   travel grant from the Prussian Academy enabled Weber to stay in France
   and England. During his stay in these countries he collated
   manuscripts of the White Yajurveda. On his return to Germany, he went
   to the University of Berlin, where he was privatdocent. In 1848, Weber
   qualified as university professor in Berlin. In 1856 he became an
   Adjunct (Associate) Professor of the Language and Literature of
   Ancient India. In 1867 he was appointed full professor. Weber was a
   member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and was the author of
   many books and periodical contributions on classical subjects. Weber
   educated a whole generation of Indologists. Also, he was a close
   friend of Max Müller. The problem of the chronology of Indian texts
   induced Weber to study astronomical texts. In his Die vedischen
   Nachrichten von den Naxatra ("Vedic accounts of the Nakshatras"),
   published in 2 parts, 1860 and 1861, he concluded (correctly) that the
   Indian 'lunar mansions,' the nakshatras, could not have originated in
   China ('lunar lodges') as this type of system was mentioned earlier in
   India. After studying the semantic development of the word nakshatra
   in Vedic sources, Weber concluded (incorrectly) that the Indian (and
   other ?) concept of lunar 'mansions' had been borrowed from Babylonia.

   Influential Panbabylonian proponents or supporters referenced a the
   end of Hamlet's Mill include: (1) Anton Deimel, (2) Friedrich
   Delitzsch, (3) Fritz Hommel, (4) Georg Hüsing, (5) Peter Jensen, (6)
   Alfred Jeremias, (7) Eduard Stucken, (8) Knut Tallqvist, (9) Albrecht
   Weber, (10) Ernst Weidner, and (11) Heinrich Zimmern

   The belief in coded astronomy pre Hamlet's Mill

   Astro-mythological interpretations of mythology involving precession
   certainly existed prior to Hamlet's Mill. The belief in 'coded
   astronomy' in myth also existed prior to Hamlet's Mill. It's
   foundations originated in the 1930s with Friedrich Röck, a professor
   at the University of Vienna. Röck (following Eduard Seler (who, by
   1906, was influenced by the German star myth school and Panbabylonism)
   and the Viennese priest Damien Kriechgauer) believed that Mesoamerican
   manuscripts contained hidden astronomical content. Röck called his
   method "Ortugskunde," "the science of getting one's bearings." (In the
   early 1950s Röck was Professor Emeritus.) Karl Nowotny (1904-1978, an
   authority on ancient Mesoamerica), who studied art history and
   ethnology at the University of Vienna in the 1930s and was a student
   of Röck, in his doctoral dissertation (Kommentar zum Codex Laud)
   completed in 1939 critically discussed the concept coded astronomy in
   the Mexican Codex Laud. The use of Röck's "Ortugskunde," and
   concessions to it, were forced on Nowotny by Röck as his dissertation
   supervisor.

   The influential and productive Americanist Eduard Seler (1849-1922) is
   considered the founder of pre-colonial Mexican and Amerindian studies
   in Germany. He traveled to Mexico six times between 1887 and 1910 with
   his wife (who was his co-researcher). Eduard Seler's work is closely
   linked to that of his wife, Caecilie Seler-Sache.

   Friedrich Röck was born in Imst (Tyrol), July 14, 1879, and died in
   Linz (Upper Austria), November 10, 1953. He was an ethnologist and in
   1927 he established the Vienna Ethnological Museum and became its
   director. (The opening ceremony was on May 25, 1928.) He popularised
   ethnology and decoded the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus (Maya
   hieroglyphs).

   Karl Nowotny (21.6.1904, Hollabrunn (Lower Austria) - 31.12.1978,
   Vienna) was an Austrian ethnographer, art historian and academic,
   specialising in the study of Mesoamerican cultures. He is most
   renowned for his pioneering analyses and reproductions of Mesoamerican
   codices, and his commentaries on their iconography and symbolisms.
   Nowotny also contributed extensively to the study and interpretation
   of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendars, their functioning and how
   they were used. His analysis and exposition of the ritual and
   divinatory importance of the Tonalamatl Almanac has been regarded as
   of "critical importance" to the modern understanding of this almanac,
   and a significant development beyond the primarily astronomically
   based approach of Eduard Seler and other predecessors. Nowotny studied
   Anthropology, Philosophy, and Art History at the University of Vienna.
   In 1939 he completed his Ph D thesis and graduated. He participated in
   military service in World War II and after being released from a
   prisoner-of-war camp in 1947 he took an assistant position at the
   Museum of Ethnology in Vienna (Museum für Völkerkunde). He progressed
   to become a custodian at the museum and also chair of its Department
   for Central and South America. In 1954 Nowotny finished his
   habilitation thesis and in addition to working in the museum he began
   lecturing at the University of Vienna. (According to one source he was
   promoted to professor at the University of Vienna in 1953.) In 1965 he
   received the rank of "University Professor Extraordinary." In
   1964-1965 he held an interim (visiting) professorship at the
   Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of
   Mainz. From 1965 to 1977 he was a visiting professor at the University
   of Cologne. After his return to Vienna he gained a full professorship
   at the University of Vienna, where he lectured not only on
   Anthropology but also on ancient American cultures. He specialised in
   studying ancient Mexican cultures and their historical documents. In
   1966 Nowotny took up a visiting professorship at the Department of
   Social and Cultural Anthropology in Cologne. He also he conducted a
   number of research projects on several ethnic groups on in Northern
   and Central America. In 1977 he returned to Vienna, where he died in
   1978 at the age of 74.

   In his articles published in the German periodicals Tribus and Indiana
   between 1972 and 1974, the German academic Thomas Barthel supported
   the concept of 'information coding' in Mesoamerican manuscripts. For
   this approach he drew heavily on the writings of Friedrich Röck (and
   also Karl Nowotny). Thomas Barthel founded the Indo-Mexican Institute
   at Tübingen.

   Thomas Barthel was born on January 4, 1923 in Berlin. He was the son
   of Max Barthel, a socialist poet. During WWII Barthel worked as
   decoder for the German Forces - his later scientific interest in
   deciphering sign systems is considered to be directly related to his
   wartime work. In 1946 Barthel studied Völkerkunde in Berlin with
   Richard Thurnwald and Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch, as well as Geography
   with Albrecht Haushofer. In 1949 he studied Ethnology in Leipzig with
   Julius and Eva Lips. Finally, he moved to Hamburg (to study with Franz
   Termer), where he finished his PhD in 1952 on the Dresden Maya
   Manuscript. Together with Ursula Schlenther, Wolfgang Haberland and
   Günter Zimmerman, Barthel formed part of the so called Hamburg School
   of Old Americanists. In 1957/1958 he carried out field research in
   Atacamenos/Chile, as well as on Easter Island. In 1965/1966 he worked
   in Mexico, 1970 in Peru. Barthel habilitated in Hamburg (1957/1958) on
   the Easter Island Scripture (Rongorongo) and in 1959 Tübingen
   University appointed him an extraordinary professor. From 1964 to 1988
   Barthel led the new Institute for Ethnologie in Tübingen. After the
   traumatic GAA-Conference of 1969 in Göttingen (which was partly
   related to the accusations of German complicity with the genocide on
   Brazilian indians), Barthel chaired a commission to shed light on the
   accusations. He died on April 3, 1997 in Tübingen.

   Vienna pre WWII was the centre of the diffusionist school which
   developed out of the ideas of Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954). Friedrich
   Röck was not a member of the diffusionist school. Neither was Karl
   Karl Nowotny.

   See the the foreword by Ferdinand Anders in (the edited
   English-language translation) Tlacuilolli by Karl Nowotny (2005,
   original German-language publication 1961). In this book, Nowotny
   offers informed alternatives to the astral interpretations of Eduard
   Seler and his students. Nowotny opposed the type of speculative
   approach engaged in by Röck. Ferdinand Anders writes (Foreward, Page
   XIII): "Nowotny's avoidance of fantastic attempted interpretations and
   contrived conjectures lasted throughout his life's work. His words
   provide a warning that the works of Eduard Seler, translated in the
   past into English and Spanish, are to be understood as a collection of
   historic sources and should not be the impetus for new attempts at
   astral decipherment ... Again may we never forget Nowotny's urgent
   warning against easy and false conclusions."

   The main academic figures comprising an influential stream of
   comprising the Viennese Mythological School, including Karl von
   Spiess, promoted a theory of the ritualistic origin of myths in
   ancient cults and their secret societies and their survival in
   contemporary folklore (i.e., stories and customs). It would be
   surprising if Hertha von Dechend was not aware of these ideas. For
   some adherents of the Viennese School of Mythology ancient cultures
   had secret societies whose members retained knowledge which later
   survived as legends, folk stories, and folk customs. This provided
   another 'well' of ideas which Hertha von Dechend could draw upon.

   Part 10: Some Books and Articles Influenced by Hamlet's Mill

   "Wilderness No Wilderness." by Norman Newton (Canadian Literature,
   Number 63, Winter, 175, Pages 18-34). [Note: Republished in Canadian
   Literature, 8 December, 2011. The title of the article is sometimes
   incorrectly given as "Wilderness To Wilderness." Life dates for
   Canadian-born Norman Newton (an actor, radio playwright, radio
   producer, and writer/literary figure) are: 1929-2011.]

   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. (Though erroneous, Sullivan's thesis is
   more coherent than that presented by von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill.)

   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.

   "Time Cycles in Indian Mythology." by Roopa Naragan. (No publication
   details identified to date).

   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.)

   The strange case of David Mathisen

   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). In his 'blogspot' dated
   Friday, January 20, 2012 he talks about his success at correctly
   understanding the issues and my 'failure' to do so. As example,
   Mathisen assures that the Erra Epic does really contain an account of
   precession as claimed in Hamlet's Mill. It is a classic case of claim
   by a non-expert without any evidence being offered - a subjective
   opinion only; the same as the nature of the claim by the authors of
   Hamlet's Mill! (The entire basis/framework of Hamlet's Mill is
   subjective opinion.) No need for assyriologists and cuneiform
   philologists! Mathisen does absolutely nothing to establish his
   credentials as a reliable expert voice. He does not cite any experts
   in the field who support his claims and he does not cite any experts
   in the field who support his claim to expertise. He simply makes a
   claim. 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. His
   reply (certainly not rebuttal) to my critique comprises selective
   misrepresentations of my critique. It's a manipulative piece of
   writing. 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.

   Amusingly he writes (his 'blogspot' dated Friday, January 20, 201):
   "It is somewhat ironic that Gary David Thompson accuses the authors
   (he is especially critical of von Dechend) of being disorganized,
   saying: "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." Ironic because Mr. Thompson's essay can also be accurately
   described as containing an "immense amount of loosely related
   information." The first 2/3 of his essay reads like a disjointed
   recitation of everything that came out of a very vigorous web search,
   with no explanation as to the significance of the information, how it
   is connected, or why Mr. Thompson included it at all (or why the
   reader would be interested in learning it). I am not sure why the room
   number of lectures from the 1960s or the times that seminars met is
   important to his argument at all, nor why I should want to know which
   airport Dr. de Santillana flew out of on a trip to Europe. In fact,
   the first part of Mr. Thompson's criticism of the authors of Hamlet's
   Mill recalls the ad campaign describing an imaginary syndrome called
   "search overload," in which jumbles of information without any context
   would be recited by a character in a trance-like state, to humorous
   effect (...  -- the first half of the article suffers from the same
   problem). I can only believe that Mr. Thompson included all of that
   very detailed information about the personalities and lives of de
   Santillana and von Dechend as a giant ad hominem attack that is
   supposed to discredit them and dissuade anyone from reading their
   work. I do not believe that is a good way to determine whether or not
   someone's analysis has merit -- I believe it is much more important to
   examine the person's analysis itself and make a judgment that way. I
   believe it is quite unfair to attack the author, as if there are any
   human authors about whom you cannot find plenty to criticize. ... Of
   course I do not agree with every sentiment espoused by de Santillana
   and von Dechend, nor with every aspect of their own personal belief
   systems or with everything they did during their lifetimes. But to
   mock them for things they did or believed during the decades that they
   lived (which were very different times in the world of academia than
   those of today or of the past couple decades) is both uncharitable and
   unhelpful."

   The failure to take into account the beliefs and intentions of the
   authors cripples any assessment of how the book was actually cobbled
   together (i.e., constructed). No one has really previously bothered to
   understand and explore this most fruitful path of inquiry.

   On Page 1 of my website I carefully have explained for a decade that
   all my posted essays can be considered drafts. I also wrote on Page 1
   that "Criticisms are given in the spirit of honest inquiry." Also, 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.)" Now that I am finally
   semi-retired (beginning November, 2012) I have recently taken the time
   to initially reorganise aspects of my web site, including this
   critique. See below for a repeat of this point. Why vigorous web
   searching is an issue with Mathisen is unclear. Perhaps he believes
   the marvellous convenience of the web for uncovering and assembling
   details should not be used in legitimate research! Having spent 10-20
   hours per week for some 20 years, systematically working library
   shelves to uncover material I will opt for the convenience of the
   web.

   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. What Mathisen apparently fails to
   understand - or perhaps simply chooses to ignore - is the very obvious
   fact that my critique includes the attempt to recover all information
   known about de Santillana and von Dechend. It appears that if Mathisen
   is not interested in such then nobody else should be! What Mathisen
   apparently fails to understand - or simply ignores - is the very
   obvious fact that my critique includes the attempt to recover all
   information known about de Santillana and von Dechend. Even supporters
   of Hamlet's Mill, such as Walter Cruttenden and Phil Norfleet, take
   critical biographical information I have uncovered and use it (without
   credit to me). (Walter Cruttenden is quite happy to refer to de
   Santillana as being somewhat mystical.) 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." This type/style of
   defensive posturing is a clear indication of lack of substance and
   ability to deal with specific critical comment. 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." However, my original essay was somewhat
   loosely divided into a biographical first part and a second part
   comprising the critique. Thought the first part was originally
   somewhat loosely written the second part was not. It formed a cogent
   case against Hamlet's Mill. This person 'drrayeye' also seems
   reluctant to investigate much. Possibly he can't - it is outside of
   his ability. Better perhaps to find any way to avoid any comment
   instead of exposing one's lack of knowledge. Amusingly, 'drrayeye' has
   earlier resorted (Graham Hancock website, 11/10/2007) to an ad hominem
   attack on myself and demanded from me a standard that is excluded for
   Graham Hancock! According to 'drrayeye' The sheer evasiveness of the
   posting by 'drrayeye' is a continuing demonstration of the absence of
   critical/scientific method by believers in alternative history. I
   identify myself, give part of my educational background. "Drrayeye'
   does not identify himself/herself and does not give any information
   about their educational background. Though my material is posted on my
   website, and this is how 'drrayeye' accessed it, 'drrayeye' sets out
   that my arguments need not be dealt with unless they are published in
   a peer-reviewed journal. This means that 'drrayeye' should stop
   posting arguments and comment unless in a peer reviewed journal. But
   'drrayeye' seems happy to support Graham Hancock even though Graeme
   Hancock has no qualifications for the topics he deals with and also
   has no articles on his alternative history ideas published in a peer
   reviewed journal. The failure to understand and establish objective
   standards enables the carnival of ideas to be kept in place.

   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). It is increasingly my experience that
   supporters/advocates of Hamlet's Mill, both amateur and academic, have
   uncritical acceptance of its themes and hostility towards any critics.

   The recovery of details of the de Santillana-von Dechend period at
   MIT, and their personalities, in order to gain an insightful
   interpretation is apparently not not wanted or appreciated by Mathisen
   and ilk. However, no one is above critique and no one can survive
   inspection for perfection. Why and how the authors formed their ideas
   is important and is discoverable. Unsurprisingly they did not attempt
   an impartial approach to the topic. These supporters/advocates also
   fail to realise that nearly half a century on since its publication
   they have still not met the case made against the book by competent
   critics. It is simply part of the responsibility of an historian,
   whether professional or amateur, to publish as much as can be gleaned
   about the development process for Hamlet's Mill. It seems that for
   supporters it is about maintaining the mythical status of the authors,
   viewed as a hero and a heroine. The only apparent purpose of
   Mathisen's self-proclaimed 'rebuttal' seems to be to give assurance to
   laypersons unable to understand and/or apply basic principals of
   critical thinking. Mathisen forgets to include any reason why he is an
   expert on all the issues he supports. He has not indicated any attempt
   to independently investigate critical sources quoted to gather a more
   detailed understanding. Interestingly, there is no real indication
   that Mathisen has bothered/will bother to do any critical
   investigation of pro and con issues. I still await a serious
   'rebuttal' attempt from David Mathisen.

   Part 11: The Origin of the Nature Myth School

   Max Müller

   The German scholar Max Müller in the 19th-century defined myths as
   metaphors/allegories for solar phenomena. Max Müller (1823-1900) was a
   Sanskrit scholar and philologist, and professor at Oxford, who founded
   the study of comparative religion. He was one of the founders of
   comparative myth investigation and also of the nature school of
   interpretation of myths. Max Müller was very influential for the
   entire 2nd-half of the 19th-century. During the 1850s and 1860s Müller
   proposed a number of philologically-based theories on the nature of
   Aryan mythology. His ideas saw the establishment of an influential
   school of comparative mythology/folklore research ("nature myth
   movement") which abruptly- and almost completely - disappeared around
   the turn of the 20th-century. There were several notable exceptions.
   One exception was Wilhelm Schwartz (Friedrich Leberecht Wilhelm
   Schwartz, 1821-1899) who continued to vigorously promote nature myth
   interpretations (see his: Ursprung der stamm- und gru¨ndungssage Roms
   unter dem reflex indogermanischer mythen (1898)). Another exception
   was Georg Hüsing who held that all myths were solar myths (see his:
   Contributions to the Kyros Myth (1906)). (The discrediting of nature
   mythology coincided with the growth of anthropology based on field
   observation in a single culture. An exception was Georges Dumézil, who
   compared structure, not etymology.) Müller was an ardent solar
   mythologist who thought that nearly all myths were
   symbolic/allegorical stories about the rising and setting sun, light
   and darkness, and the seasons. Some followers of Müller's approach
   quickly modified the original theory and espoused nature mythology.
   Myths were explanations of meteorological and cosmological phenomena.
   In this view deities were associated with one or more natural
   phenomena such as clouds and thunderstorms. Comparative mythology in
   the 19th-century was driven by the wide acceptance of interpretations
   of myths as natural phenomena, primarily the sun and moon, etc.

   Aldabert Kuhn

   Slightly prior to Max Muller the German philologist and folklorist
   Franz [Aldabert] Kuhn (1812-1881) was an important early adherent of
   nature mythology. In the 19th-century Adalbert Kuhn and Wilhelm
   Schwartz (also misspelled Schwarz), and also Carl Muellehoff, held to
   a "meteorological theory" of folklore. They believed that
   folklore/myths could be traced to the deification of thunderstorms,
   lightning, and winds. Kuhn made important contributions to comparative
   philology, and is regarded as the founder of the science of
   comparative Indo-Germanic mythology. From 1841 he was connected with
   the Kollnisches Gymnasium at Berlin, and he was appointed its director
   in 1870. Kuhn was the founder of a new school of comparative
   mythology, based upon comparative philology. Inspired by Jakob Grimm's
   Deutsche Mythologie, he initially devoted himself to German stories
   and legends but his reputation is founded on his later researches into
   the language and history of the Indo-Germanic peoples as a whole. He
   maintained that the origin of myths is to be looked for in the domain
   of language.

   In the 19th-century Adalbert Kuhn and Wilhelm Schwartz (also
   misspelled Schwarz), and also Carl Muellehoff, held to a
   "meteorological theory" of folklore. They believed that folklore/myths
   could be traced to the deification of thunderstorms, lightning, and
   winds. However, there was no way to test these theories. Until the
   growth of anthropology nobody really bothered to investigate living
   people - the actual sources of many myths - and ask what they thought
   their myths meant.

   Ernst Siecke

   Ernst Siecke (1846-1935) (Germany) Philologist?/Teacher/Author/Editor.
   His published PhD thesis seems to have been, De Niso et Scylla in Aves
   mutatis (Scripsit Ernestus Siecke, 1884, 15 pages). At head of title:
   Wissenschaftliche beilage zum Programm des Friedrichs-gymnasiums.
   Ostern [Easter?] 1884. - "Programm no. 56." Ernst Siecke was a
   teacher, a member of the staff of a prestigious Berlin high school,
   Friedrichs-Gymnasium. He was a proponent of the German Volk and was
   openly anti-Semitic, but not openly anti-Semitic towards Jewish
   students in his classes. (See: The Crisis of German Ideology:
   Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich by George Mosse (1981, Page
   156). Also: Die Judenfrage und der Gymnasiallehrer by Ernst Siecke
   (1880).) It appears likely that Siecke was a follower of Adolf
   Stöcker. Adolf Stöcker (1835-1909) was the court chaplain to Kaiser
   Wilhelm II, a politician, and a German Lutheran theologian who founded
   one of the first Christian Social Gospel political parties in Germany,
   the (anti-Semitic) Christian Social Party. He found that he could
   attract more followers to his conservative Christian Social political
   movement by attacking the Jews in Germany. The German folklorist Ernst
   Siecke was the real founder and most active supporter of the star-myth
   movement. In 1892 Siecke published his Liebesgeschichte des Himmels.
   This was the first of his many books and pamphlets supporting an
   astronomical interpretation of mythology. The result of his
   publications was that interest in star myths generally and the
   particular interest in Babylon had a mutual affect on each other and
   resulted in their combining together. Ernst Siecke interpreted
   Indo-Germanic mythology as a struggle between the sun and the moon.

   According to Joseph Campbell (Flight of the Wild Geese, 2002, Page
   199), Siecke followed the lead of Max Müller and cogitated on the
   lunar phases and the interplay of sun and moon. It appears that Max
   Müller was an influence on Siecke's early star myth books/monographs,
   Die Liebesgeschichte des Himmels (1892) and Die Urreligion der
   Indogermanen (1897). Both these publications supported "Panlunarism."
   The Star-Myth Movement laid emphasis on the predominant importance of
   the Moon ("Panlunarism") and also the sun. Siecke identified that the
   number 9 occurs conspicuously in numerous moon sagas and saw its
   origin in an ancient application in time division. See also Siecke's
   early publication: Beiträge zur genaueren Erkenntnis der Mondgottheit
   bei den Griechen (1885). (Note: The title also appears as: Beiträge
   zur genaueren Kenntnis der Mondgöttin bei den Griechen (1885). Eduard
   Stucken also likely followed the nature-myth theories of Max Müller.

   Part 12: Viktor Rydberg

   Abraham Victor Rydberg (1828-1895) a Swedish writer (author,
   journalist, poet and novelist) has both enthusiastic supporters (who
   consider him an early authority on Teutonic/Germanic myth) and
   informed detractors consider him speculative and subjective. He has
   been described as "Primarily a classical idealist" and "Sweden's last
   Romantic." He first attracted attention with his novel The Doctrine of
   Christ According to the Bible (1859). He was highly regarded as a
   novelist was regarded as one of Sweden's leading literary figures. The
   focus for his detractors is his Teutonic Mythology (2 volumes,
   1886-1889). (See: Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, första delen
   (1886), (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume I), translated
   1889; Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, andre delen (1889),
   (Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Volume 2, Parts 1 & 2). It is
   stated that Rydberg started Teutonic Mythology as an attempt to save
   the Old Norse Eddaic myths from allegations of Christian and Classical
   influence. He then began to form the idea that they were not only very
   ancient but also fragments of a vast and coherent mythical epic. He
   then laboured for almost a decade trying to reconstruct and prove this
   epic. The results set out in the volumes comprising Teutonic Mythology
   were largely dismissed by other scholars as his poetical imaginations.
   "The main thesis in Undersokningar is that the originally individual
   myths were arranged in an epical chain, starting with chaos and
   creation, and ending with Ragnarok and the new creation, during the
   Neolithic period (the oldest Indo-European age, according to Rydberg.
   Rydberg sees the epical chain as the essence of the Teutonic and
   Indo-Iranian mythologies. He probably got this idea from the Old Norse
   poem Völuspá, which contains a kind of eschatological epos. The focus
   on apocalypse and eschatology in the ancient Iranian religion probably
   also inspired him. (Viktor Rydberg och den jämförande indoeuropeiska
   religionshistorien = Viktor Rydberg and the comparative study of the
   history of Indo-European religion by Anna Lindén (2004, Doktorand,
   Lund University))" From 1838 to 1847 Rydberg went to school in
   Jönköping where he attended the Vaxjö Superior School (= Grammar
   School), and afterwards he studied law at the University of Lund for 1
   year (1851-1852). Lack of funds compelled him to quite the University
   of Lund without completing a degree. He then became a private tutor.
   At the age of 27 he was befriended by the editor of "Goteborgs Handels
   - och Sjöfartstidning" and appointed as a contributor to the
   newspaper. Over a period of 20 years he wrote articles on a variety of
   subjects for the newspaper, as well as short stories and serialised
   novels. From 1870 to 1872, Rydberg was a member of the Swedish
   Parliament as a supporter of the Peasant's Party. For his lifetime of
   literary achievement, Rydberg received an honorary doctorate from the
   University of Uppsala. In 1888 ("The New York Times" obituary has
   1877) he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy. In 1889, he was
   also elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
   Starting 1883 he was a teacher, then from 1884 ("The New York Times"
   obituary has 1877) he was appointed professor, of the History of
   Culture at the Superior School of Stockholm (högskola), now Stockholm
   University, and from 1889 as the first holder of the J. A. Berg Chair
   of the History and Theory of Art, also at Stockholm University.
   Between 1886 and 1889, his literary work was focused on Norse and
   broader Germanic mythology. Rydberg identified the mill in the sea
   (the Ocean-Mill) with the "world-mill ("heavenly-mill/"cosmic-mill")"
   of Scandinavian mythology, which supposedly produced the regular
   motion of the starry sky and also of the sea (the Maelstrom). (See
   his: Investigations into Germanic Mythology (1886).) The "world-mill"
   involves the analogy of the rotating sky and a rotating mill.
   Rydberg's conjecture of a world mill turning the constellations has
   been taken up in Hamlet's Mill and given a central focus. Henrik
   Schück wrote at the turn of the 20th-century that he considered Viktor
   Rydberg the "last - and poetically most gifted - of the mythological
   school founded by Jacob Grimm and represented by such men as Adalbert
   Kuhn" which is very synthetic in approach to understanding of myth.

   Part 13: Traditional Diffusionism versus Dynamic Cultural Interaction

   Development of Diffusionism

   Gold, Daniel. (2003)."Explaining Together: The Excitement of
   Diffusionist Ideas." In: Gold, Daniel. Aesthetics and Analysis in
   Writing on Religion: Modern Fascinations: "This chapter traces the
   fate of some British and German diffusionist theories in the early
   twentieth century and reveals how explanatory hypotheses really can
   provide common grounds for working groups, even if these dissolve and
   become forgotten, as their hypotheses have been proven false.
   Diffusion theories appeared in the first few decades of the twentieth
   century, positing diversity among human cultures. Radical diffusionist
   projects were often promoted by just one or two people taken up with a
   daring new idea about the origin and spread of cultures. Championed by
   outspoken proponents able to arouse an initial exhilaration among a
   group of colleagues, these ideas have led to collaborative work that
   eventually petered out. In contrast to interpretive phenomenological
   visions, diffusionist explanations provided concrete programs of
   collective research. In the study of early cultures and civilizations
   at the turn of the twentieth century, diffusion vied with evolution as
   a concept that could explain the similarities found in the lifeways of
   diverse peoples."

   Diffusionism attempts to understand culture in terms of the origin of
   culture traits and their spread from one society to another. Early
   versions of diffusionist thought included the conviction that all
   cultures originated from one culture center (heliocentric diffusion);
   the view that cultures originated from a limited number of culture
   centers (culture circles); and the notion that each society is
   influenced by others but that the process of diffusion is both
   contingent and arbitrary. Diffusionist research originated in the
   middle of the 19th-century when some scholars attempted to understand
   the nature of culture and whether it spread to the rest of the world
   from few or many innovation centers. Among the major questions was
   whether human culture had spread from innovation centers by diffusion.

   The diffusionist approach was slowly replaced by studies concerning
   acculturation, patterns of culture, and the relation between culture
   and personality. By World War I, diffusionism was also being
   challenged by the newly emerging Functionalist school of thought lead
   by Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942; a Polish-born British-naturalized
   anthropologist) and Alfred [A. R.] Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955; British
   anthropologist). They argued that even if one could produce evidence
   of imported aspects of culture in a society, the original culture
   trait might be so changed that it served a completely different
   function that the society from which it diffused. A more holistic
   approach, stemming from the play of diffusionism against evolutionism,
   has provided a more adequate understanding of the overall picture. In
   the 1920s, Franz Boas (1858-1942; German-American anthropologist and a
   pioneer of modern anthropology) and other American anthropologists,
   such as Robert Lowie (1883-1957; Austrian-born American
   anthropologist) and Ralph Linton (1893-1953; American cultural
   anthropologist), argued that cultural change had been influenced by
   many different sources. They argued against the attempted grand
   reconstruction of both evolutionists and diffusionists.

   The German anthropologists tended to be extreme diffusionsists. German
   and Austrian diffusionists argued that there were a number of culture
   centers, rather than just one, in the ancient world. Culture traits
   diffused, not as isolated elements, but as a whole culture complex,
   basically due to migration of individuals from one culture to another.
   Their school of thought was dominated by the Catholic clergy, who
   wanted to reconcile anthropological prehistory and cultural evolution
   with the Book of Genesis. The Kulturkreise (culture circle) school of
   thought, was proposed by Friedrich Ratzel, and the concept then
   widened by his student Leo Frobenius. This version formulated by Leo
   Frobenius in Vienna was called "culture circles" or Kulturkreise. This
   concept provided the criteria by which Fritz Graebner would study
   Oceania at first and two years later cultures on a world-wide basis.
   This influenced Fritz Graebner at the Berlin Ethnological Museum to
   write about Kulturkreise in his studies about Oceania, then on a
   world-wide scale. One of the best known leaders in this attempt was
   Wilhelm Schmidt, who had studied and written extensively on the
   relationships between religions of the world. Father Schmidt became a
   follower of Fritz Graebner, who was also working on a world-wide scale
   with "culture-circles." After becoming a follower of these ideas
   Wilhelm Schmidt created his version of the Kulturkriese, and began the
   journal, Anthropos (official journal of the Anthropos Institute; the
   journal's scope covers ethnology, linguistics and related human
   sciences). The "culture circle" concept proposed that a cluster of
   functionally-related culture traits specific to a historical time and
   geographical area diffused out of a region in which they evolved. Both
   Fritz Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt claimed that they had been able to
   reconstruct a "limited number of original culture circles."

   Diffusionism occurred in its most extreme form in the ideas of the
   British school of thought. William Rivers was the founder of these
   ideas. His studies were confined to Oceania, where he sought to
   explain the contrasts between Melanesian and Polynesian cultures by
   the spread of original complexes, which supposedly had been spread by
   successive waves of migrating people. He also applied this extreme
   concept of diffusionism to Australian burial practices. The leading
   proponent of this extreme diffusionist school was Grafton Elliot
   Smith. The diffusionist theory proposed by English scholar Grafton
   Elliot Smith was Egypt was the primary source for many other ancient
   civilizations. This form of diffusionism is known as heliocentric
   diffusionism. He claimed that Egypt was the source of culture and that
   every other major culture in the world was due to diffusion from
   Egypt, but that a dilution of this civilization occurred as it spread
   to increasingly greater distances.

   Key figures include:

   (1) Freidrich Ratzel (1844-1904) was a German anthropologist who was a
   significant contributor to 19th-century theories of diffusion and
   migration. He developed criteria by which the formal, non-functional
   characteristics of objects could be compared; based on the belief that
   it would be unlikely that these characteristics would have been
   simultaneously invented. See: Ratzel, Friedrich (1896 (A. J. Butler,
   translator); original German publication 1885-88) The History of
   Mankind.

   (2) Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) was a German ethnologist and
   archaeologist, who was the originator of the concepts of the
   Kulturkreise (culture circles) and of the Paideuma (or "soul" of
   culture). He lacked formal academic qualifications and was criticized
   by scientists for his non-systematic and rather romantic approach to
   anthropology. Frobenius was involved in extensive research in Africa,
   which was made possible by donors and by his own income from books and
   lectures. He left school without gaining any formal qualifications
   because his family moved constantly, and Frobenius did not attend
   school regularly. For this reason he could not satisfactorily take up
   his studies at a university but became an autodidact. His PhD thesis
   was rejected. Leo Frobenius, a pupil of Friedrich Ratzel, expanded on
   the "culture circle" concept. See: Frobenius, Leo (1898) Die
   Weltanschauung der Naturvolker.

   (3) Fritz Graebner (1877-1934) was a German anthropologist, who was a
   leading diffusionist thinker. He was a cultural diffusionist. Graebner
   supported the school of "culture circles" (Kulturkreis), which could
   trace its beginning to Friedrich Ratzel, the founder of
   anthropogeography. The ideas of Leo Frobenius influenced Fritz
   Graebner, then at the Berlin Ethnological Museum (1904), to write
   about culture circles and culture strata in Oceania. Two years later,
   he applied these concepts to cultures on a world-wide basis. In 1911
   he published Die Methode der Ethnologie in which he attempted to
   establish a criterion for identifying affinities and chronologies,
   called the Criterion of Form. See: Graebner, Fritz (1911) Die Methode
   der Ethnologie.

   (4) William [W. H. R.] Rivers (1864-1922) was a British doctor and
   psychiatrist who became interested in ethnology after accompanying a
   Cambridge expedition to the Torres Straits in 1898. He later pursued
   research in India and Melanesia. Rivers was converted to diffusionism
   while writing his book, The History of Melanesian Society, and was the
   founder of the diffusionist trend in Britain. In 1911, He was the
   first to speak out again social evolutionism (later linked with
   independent invention). See: Rivers, W. H. R. (1922) History and
   Ethnology.

   (5) Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954), born a German citizen but became an
   Austrian national, was a Catholic priest in Germany/Austria and an
   ethnologist who studied the religions of the world and wrote
   extensively on their inter-relationship (Barnard 1996:589). At about
   the same time that Fritz Graebner (1906) was applying the
   culture-circle and culture-strata ideas on a worldwide scale, Father
   Schmidt help to promote these ideas, began the journal Anthropos, and
   created his own version of the Kulturkriese. Although both Fritz
   Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt believed that all culture traits diffused
   out of a limited number of original culture circles, Father Schmidt's
   list of Kreise (culture circles) was the most influential.

   (6) Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (1871-1937) was a prominent British
   anatomist, and William [W. J.] Perry (1868-1949) (British geographer
   and anthropologist), a student of William Rivers, hypothesized that
   the entire cultural inventory of the world had, after the advent of
   navigation, diffused from Egypt. The development began in Egypt,
   according to them, about 6,000 years ago and was spread during
   Egyptian migrations by land and sea. See: Smith, Grafton Elliot (1928)
   In the Beginning: The Origin of Civilization; and Smith, Grafton
   Elliot (1933) The Diffusion of Culture.

   Hamlet's Mill and the Nature Myth School and Diffusionism

   The early diffusionist model is adhered to in Hamlet's Mill. Hamlet's
   Mill reverts back to (1) the basic approach introduced by the founders
   of the "nature myth school" of the 19th-century, Aldabert Kuhn and Max
   Müller, that of philologically based comparative mythology, and (2)
   the basic method introduced by Eduard Stucken of defining myths by
   their motifs and comparing motifs between myths to claim parallels.

   In his book review (The New York Review (of Books), February 12, 1970,
   Page 36) the anthropologist Edmund Leach writes: "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 [Aldabert] 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!" In his book review (Parabola, Volume III, Issue 1,
   1978, Pages 113-115) the folklorist David Leeming writes: "...
   Hamlet's Mill reads like a parody of nineteenth century scholarship of
   the German variety."

   According to the tenets of diffusion/Panbabylonism - and embodied in
   Hamlet's Mill - is the assumption the more 'developed' culture (i.e.,
   ancient Babylonia) imposes its models (i.e., astronomical knowledge)
   on a passively receiving neighbouring culture, or neighbouring
   cultures - and likewise these recipient neighbours do the same -
   fundamentally because the receiving neighbouring culture have a 'blank
   slate' on the matter. This ignores the likelihood of a more active
   process of circulating ideas and constant and creative adaptation
   being the norm. It is now being realised that it is a trap to ignore
   the dynamics of cultural interaction and culture-specific mechanisms
   of adaptation.

   Dynamic Cultural Interaction

   Common myth/cult pattern throughout regions of the world has led to
   various attempts at explanation. The 3 models for consideration are
   (1) cultural isolationism, (2) cultural diffusion, and (3) dynamic
   cultural interaction. According to the tenets of
   diffusion/Panbabylonism it is simply assumed that cultural traits
   naturally moved from more developed cultures to less developed
   cultures. The particular diffusionist theory of the Panbabylonists
   resulted in comparative similarities being held as evidence of
   borrowings by the younger culture from the older culture. The
   assumption is the more 'developed' culture (i.e., ancient Babylonia)
   imposed its models (i.e., astronomical knowledge) on a passively
   receiving neighbouring culture, or neighbouring cultures - and
   likewise these recipient neighbours do the same - fundamentally
   because the receiving neighbouring culture have a 'blank slate' on the
   matter. This ignores the likelihood of a more active process of
   circulating ideas and constant and creative adaptation being the norm.
   It is now being realised that it is a trap to ignore the dynamics of
   cultural interaction and culture-specific mechanisms of adaptation. A
   modern approach to the subject of cultural exchange in the ancient
   world is lucidly set out in When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies
   and the Near East by the Spanish-born scholar Carolina Lopez-Ruiz
   (2010). The author bypasses traditional diffusionism in preference for
   a model of cultural exchange which encompasses an active process of
   circulating ideas and constant and creative adaptation.

   Convergence in mythology/folklore where myths/tales from totally
   different sources appear almost identical may simply be due to similar
   lines of development. However, of interest is Introducing the
   Mythological Crescent: Ancient Beliefs and Imagery connecting Eurasia
   and Anatolia by Harald Haarman and Joan Marler (2008). Using examples
   such as the 'Mother Goddess' and 'Bear Cult' the authors propose an
   interconnected zone of Paeolithic culture. In the Paeolithic era there
   was a culturally interconnected zone that reached from Western Europe
   to Eastern Siberia: "There was a broad cultural region with related
   traditions of mythical beliefs interconnected by longterm (sic)
   contacts during prehistoric times. This area - called here the
   "Mythological Crescent" - is a zone of cultural convergence that
   extends from the ancient Middle East via Anatolia to Southeastern
   Europe, opening into the wide cultural landscape of Eurasia."
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