Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating The Origi... ⇒

: The authors interpret the "World Tree" or "Axis Mundi" found in many cultures as a representation of the Earth’s axis. The Argument for a Prehistoric "High Culture"

First published in 1969, is a seminal work by Giorgio de Santillana, a professor of the history of science at MIT, and Hertha von Dechend, an anthropologist at Frankfurt University. The book proposes a radical reinterpretation of ancient mythology as a sophisticated technical language used to preserve and transmit complex astronomical data, specifically the Precession of the Equinoxes . Core Thesis: Myth as Encoded Science Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origi...

Despite its influence on alternative archaeology and archaeoastronomy, Hamlet's Mill was largely rejected by the mainstream academic community of its time. : The authors interpret the "World Tree" or

Santillana and von Dechend suggest that a high-level Neolithic or early Bronze Age civilization discovered precession thousands of years before Hipparchus, its traditionally credited discoverer in 127 B.C.. This knowledge was so vital that it was encoded into oral traditions to ensure its survival through "the steep attrition of the ages". Academic Reception and Criticism Core Thesis: Myth as Encoded Science Despite its