Ancient civilizations' overviewAugust 21, 2007 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book assembles a large number of evidences left by ancient civilizations. Written in an "adventure" format, the reading is quite easy and captivating. You'll enjoy better the subjects that you know little or nothing about (since it would not be possible to collect all the details over a so large number of occurrences). Strongly recommended for those searching for an initiation on the "ancient civilizations" quest.
Interesting bookAugust 6, 2007 My husband introduced me to this book while we were dating and I enjoyed it. The author, Graham Hancock, has visited the sites of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Peru, China, Easter Island, and such, and has found evidence of similar and very advanced methods of construction, mathematics, and water management as well as parallel legends that originated at these far-flung places.
highly recomendedJune 11, 2007 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This thought provoking piece of investigative archeology will inspire you to think about the mysteries of the origin of our civilisation. Very well written so that even moderatly educated people can come to grips with highly technical conclusions that are arrived at using common sense and logic.
InterestingJune 5, 2007 4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found most of this book utterly fascinating. I found that Hancock's ideas about all the similiarities between Ancient cultures pretty enlightening. I never realized that so many of the myths were so common among the ancient people like the story of the great flood or deluge. One has to wonder if they new about it, witnessed it, or it was orally passed down. This part of the book was great. You start asking yourself how did these similar stories get around the globe? How did the similarities in their building techniques get around the globe?
And here is where Hancock wants you to take a GIANT leap. For him all of it, everything from the stories to buildings to the gods they worshipped came from a so-called "Lost Civilization" that he thinks lived on Antartica. Fine, I can certainly see how one may come to this conclusion. But I think Hancock simply ignores easier theories because he so blindly believes his own with a scary single-minded tenacity. Hancock himself goes into great detail about how he believes that the ancients were great sailors of the oceans. The boats found buried near the pyramids gives this pretty good footing. So if they were such good sailors and were mapping the continents, Couldn't they have also spread their way of life and their knowledge this way? Couldn't it be as simple as a 'sharing of ideas' among the ancient cultures rather that some hidden, unseen, secret civilization teaching everyone their secrets? I mean the ancient egyptians could have easily sailed to the Americans and shared their building techniques and religious stories. If not the egyptians if could have been the Minoans.
I did like a lot of this book but I think sometimes Mr. Hancock is searching for something so extrodinary that he sometimes ignores the very clues and facts that he DOES find. If you don't believe me read his other books. He is so dead set on there being a "lost" society that he refuses to see somethinge right in front of his face.
No connective tissueJune 3, 2007 5 out of 8 found this review helpful
The basic gist of the book it: (1) there was an advanced human civilization that developed on what is not Antarctica before the last Ice Age when the continent was habitable and further north; (2) this civilization developed sea-faring technology and journeyed to South/Central America, Egypt/the Middle East, and India; (3) these people passed on aspects of their culture and technology which have come down to us through myths, legends, and certain physical structures.
Hancock takes a lot of cultural traditions and archeological evidence and tries to fit it all into his over-arching thesis; it's kind of like a "unified theory of pre-history." True, it's very interesting and true, there are really no adequate explanations for some his evidence but that's very far from making the case. There just isn't much connective tissue here; it's mostly bizarre pieces of data stuck together with conjecture and imagination (or, as Hancock puts it: intuition).
To read this book and conclude that Hancock has "proved" the existence of pre-glacial civilization(s) (as have some reviewers here, apparently), you would have to be a moron. I have to admit, however, that there is enough here to give one pause. One cannot completely dismiss the theory.
It certainly seems possible (and, perhaps, even probable) that humanity reached some degree of civilization before the last Ice Age and all the global climatic catastrophes that went with it. But Antarctica? Even if you accept the explanation that the continent suddenly shifted south by 2,000 miles about 15,000 years ago, why would this super-civilization emerge there and so outpace human societal evolution elsewhere in the world? How would people have gotten there in the first place (or would Hancock claim that a branch of the human race evolved there independent of Africa and elsewhere?)
I could go on but I won't. Bottom line is: interesting but not compelling. It's an interesting theory and might even be possible, but lots of things are possible. FotG does not "prove" anything; it just presents one tantalizing theory to explain historical oddities that will probably never be explained.
