History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Mystery and Initiation (Transforming Myths Series)

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Healing the wounded warrior through the Divine Feminine
A Reawakening

The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Mystery and Initiation (Transforming Myths Series)
Jean Houston
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0345365674
Release Date: 1992-02-25

Customer Reviews:

Healing the wounded warrior through the Divine Feminine.......2002-05-14

I very much hope that a publisher will move to get this wonderful book back into print and into the hands of the many readers who will be inspired by it to remember their spiritual identity and purpose and to follow it with greater courage and clarity and passion. "The Hero and the Goddess" is a beautiful extended meditation on the classic journey of a wounded warrior through many tests and ordeals into profound healing in the realms of women, through the nurturing power of the Divine Feminine. In requickening the remarkable vision journey recounted by Homer (and the anonymous woman writer who may have helped compose "The Odyssey", as Robert Graves believed) Jean Houston helps us understand how the true Guide of our life - the Friend of the soul - is never distant, and is always seeking to help us live from the depths and think from the heart. I frequently quote this book in my transformational workshops, and it is one of the seminal works that inspired me in writing my own book "Dreamgates".

A Reawakening.......2001-10-10

I found Jean Houston's "The Hero and the Goddess" to be wonderfully tapestry- A retelling of "The Odessy" in its classic form, while utilzing analysis and [individual/group] exercises to help the reader make the connections between the messages of the story and the unrecognized/untapped potential within each of us in our every day lives.

The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?

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A book that cannot be ignored
The Jesus Mysteries/ Jesus and the Lost Goddess
Pseudo scholarship
The fascinating truth behind Christianity's grand claims
More than I thought

The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?
Timothy Freke , and Peter Gandy
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0609807986
Release Date: 2001-09-25

Book Description

“Whether you conclude that this book is the most alarming heresy of the millennium or the mother of all revelations, The Jesus Mysteries deserves to be read.”
-- Fort Worth Star -Telegram

What if . . .
* there were absolutely no evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus?
* for thousands of years Pagans had also followed a Son of God?
* this Pagan savior was also born of a virgin on the twenty-fifth of December before three shepherds, turned water into wine at a wedding, died and was resurrected, and offered his body and blood as a Holy Communion?
* these Pagan myths had been rewritten as the gospel of Jesus Christ?
* the earliest Gnostic Christians knew that the Jesus story was a myth?
* Christianity turned out to be a continuation of Paganism by another name?

Customer Reviews:

A book that cannot be ignored.......2007-10-15

I read this book about five years ago, and it stunned me. Up until then, I had basically assumed John Dominic Crossan's view was correct. I came to view the conclusions of Freke and Gandy as the most sophisticated and honest assessments available of what probably occurred. I considered Christianity to be of limited life-expectancy; a dying religion based on a mythical man who never lived. I truly thought this book had dealt a death-blow to Christianity.

However, a rather strange thing happened to me some months ago which I find hard to explain. I came to understand that even in the dark night of the soul there can dawn a spiritual light. One can accept Freke and Gandy's premise that there may have been no historical Jesus as one possibility. But that doesn't need to destroy your faith. One can also view the Christ-event as an impenetrable mystery, a Mystery that will never be solved. I refer you to Nichole Nordeman's beautiful song 'Who You Are', which basically makes the same point.

What Freke and Gandy and the other mythicists tend to neglect is the sheer spiritual beauty of the gospel story. Of course, someone with a mature spirituality does not take the various gospels (canonical and non-canonical) to be a literal record of historical events. For the most part, they are symbolic of spiritual truths. Of course there will always be people who naively believe that Jesus was literally born of a virgin, walked on water, etc. For those who understand the underlying mythology of the Christ-event, and still can profess a belief in the Son of God, this wonderful book cannot ultimately damage their faith.

In summary, this book presents one of several alternative hypotheses about the Christ event. Other possibilities exist: Crossan's masterful study, 'The Historical Jesus', and the fascinating book by Alvar Ellegard: 'Jesus One Hundred Years Before Christ'. But the bottom line is, the Christ event is and always will be just as the title says: Mystery.

The Jesus Mysteries/ Jesus and the Lost Goddess.......2007-10-07

My psychic elucidated my poignant odysseys of The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess. Freke and Gandy compare history to fiction in these books. There was an historical Jesus; there was never an historical Osiris/Dionysus. The mythology of the Greeks and Romans was designed by the ancients to explain the unexplainable in their physical world. How could a serious student of ancient mysteries be impressed by this rambling? The authors have compared apples to oranges by placing side by side-- as though equivalent in value--the historical Jesus and the mythological fiction of the ancients as though both bear the same validity. This is ludicrous and not serious literature. It is also misleading to customers who are genuinely searching for answers and knowledge.

Pseudo scholarship.......2007-09-28

The authors have lots of books on their shelves - the book contains 89 pages of footnotes and seven pages of bibliography. Not one of the cited works is in French, German,Italian or any other modern language. I cannot see even one reference to an article in a learned journal. There is no discernible evidence that the authors can read Greek and precious little that they can read Latin. Some works have been read in translation, but most citations are re-quotes from secondary sources. The sources used most commonly used include hoary old stuff - S. Angus - Mystery Religions, 1925; Fraser - The Golden Bough, 1922; Cumont - The Mysteries of Mithras, 1905. Some of the most interesting statements - eg 'The Cross was a sacred symbol to the ancients. Its four arms represent the four elements of the physical world - eath, water, air and fire' have no citations at all.

The one good thing about this book is that it might annoy fudamentalist bible bashers. It seems one step up, maybe one and a half steps up, from 'The Da Vinci Code'. Like that awful book, this is one where I find myself littering the margins with query marks, exclamation marks, and interjections of 'Prove it!'

The fascinating truth behind Christianity's grand claims.......2007-08-16

This book is a well-written description of the truth behind the Jesus story. It's hardly a new revelation, and Arthur Findlay in books such as The Curse of Ignorance or The Rock of Truth provided all the same info plus more back in the 30s and 40s, filling in some other details. And he didn't make this stuff up, but based his book completely on books such as Pagan Christs by J.M. Robertson, Mithraism and Christianity by Patterson, even Gibbon's classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. These people were all serious, academic historians. Interestingly, he comes to the conclusion that on the basis of cause and effect, Jesus must have existed for a new religion to have evolved. But that's the only argument in favour of Jesus' existence. We've all heard about the forgeries in Josephus, and the reviewer who claimed that some scholars accept its truth must mean some Christians. They cannot be unbiased scholars because the interpolation was accepted by Theologians as a forgery even in Findlay's day in the 1940s. The interpolation is competely unconnected with the material both before and after it where it appears in his text, and is written in a style completely unlike that which both precedes and follows it in the book. And to top it all, Josephus was a practicing Jew who Origen, the church father, himself said did not believe Jesus to be the Christ, as no Jew does or did, and is extremely unlikely to have proclaimed the truth of something he is on record as saying he didn't believe in in his greatest literary work. Thus, of 40 historians who covered the events of Palestine during the life of Jesus, in great enough detail to cover the rise of various Messiahs and many other obscure events, not one wrote a single word on Jesus! Thus, Jesus may have existed as a minor character who did not attract anyone's attention, but the events in the Bible, such as the whole of Jerusalem in uproar for example, or Jesus' dramatic trial and execution, can then only be gross exaggerations or more likely, fabrications.

16 Christs are known to history, The Jewish one being the last and only surviving one, all having the same basic elements to their life stories.
For example, a Babylonian tablet from circa 2000BC reveals the life story of the Babylonian Christ, Bel, or Baal to the Hebrews, (who when fighting the Philistines had thus been fighting supporters of the Babylonian Christ) in the instructions for the scenes of their mystery play, performed by them at our Eastertime. Nobody believed this stuff had ever actually occurred, and they would have doubted the sanity of anyone who thought that the various scenes of what was an obvious myth had really taken place.
Babylonian Legend:
Bel is taken Prisoner
Bel is tried in the Hall of Justice
Bel is smitten
Bel is led away to the Mount
With Bel are taken two malefactors, one of whom is released
After Bel has gone to the Mount the city breaks out into tumult
Bel's clothes are carried away
Bel goes down into the Mount and disappears from life
A weeping woman seeks him at the gate of burial
Bel is brought back to life

Thus, the Christian legend merely has different names and takes place in a different country.

Of the 16 Christs that existed in history, why has only the Jewish one remained? Well, if the Romans had not invaded Palestine, there would be no Christianity today. Simple as that. Christians would in all likelihood now be worshipping Mithras or Dionysius, or another of the Mediterranean Jesuses. Importantly, if the Romans had not destroyed Jerusalem in 72AD, there would have been no Jewish refugee Christians in Rome to start the religion and it would have died out in Israel like the 15 other 'Christianities' died out in their countries over the centuries. And perhaps most importantly, if the Barbarian hordes who sacked Rome in the 5th century hadn't been Christians themselves, converted just a few centuries before, the religion would have ended there and then. Thus, Christians should be eternally grateful both to the Roman Empire and the Barbarians (two supporters of the religion I certainly wouldn't want on my team), without whom their religion would not exist. The claims by another reviewer that Christian atrocities are exaggerated in this book are simply not true. On the contrary, the book downplays these atrocities, for the account of Hypatia's murder in Alexandria (Archbishop Cyril's punishment for criticizing him for murdering 30000 Jews) tells the story of just one of Christianity's 25 million victims, many of whom died in equally or more excruciating ways than she did. To deny Christianity's atrocities is no better than denying the Holocaust, and numerically speaking, far worse. This book is seriously recommended for the open-minded Christian or those interested in religious history.

More than I thought.......2007-06-21

This book is more than I thought it would be. It appears that the authors were looking to find the truth and didn't have a preconceived idea and then tried to make it fit. It appears that they just followed where the information took them. The thing I was most interested in is the myths and I was most satisfied in what I found. There are alot of booknotes,four pages of Bibliographies and an index,plus more. It certainly doesn't look like this book was just thrown together I think they tried to be very thorough with their research which is one of the reasons I gave it 5 stars.

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The King Must Die
Not Free SF Reader
Brilliant on every level
An introduction to ancient Greece
Everything any reader could ask for in a story...

The King Must Die: A Novel
Mary Renault
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0394751043
Release Date: 1988-02-12

Book Description

The story of the mythical hero Theseus, slayer of monsters, abductor of princesses and king of Athens. He emerges from these pages as a clearly defined personality; brave, aggressive and quick. The core of the story is Theseus' Cretan adventure.

Customer Reviews:

The King Must Die.......2007-09-28

"The King Must Die", as presented by Mary Renault, bids fair to be recognized as the greatest novel ever written about the life, morality and challenges of the era of ancient Greece. An astute reader will discover that Theseus does not kill a monster, but executes King Minos on private order by the King himself. An educator or mentor, with a knowledge of exegesis, can bring into focus a clash between the new and enlightened burgeoning democracy of Athens and the persistent pagan rituals of the then-dominant Crete.
Theseus rescues Crete from gluttonous conspirators, and hopes to take Princess Ariadne back to Athens as his bride. It is not to be.
We suggest that a tutor also read the sequel "A Bull From The Sea", to appreciate the ongoing struggle, by Prince/King Theseus to modernize the Aegean and point the way to our challenges today.

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

Mary Renault's the King Must Die is a novel about Theseus. She tries to turn the story into something that could theoretically have happened, or almost, anyway.

So rather than fighting monsters, as a young man Theseus was a bull dancer, one of a trouple that did crazy stunts in a public arena involving acrobatics and large bovines.

The book is not completely devoid of fantasy though.

Brilliant on every level.......2007-08-16

The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea were the first two books I read by Renault. I would place Mary Renault in the august company of only a few other writers (John Fowles, Umberto Eco, Iain Pears, Charles Palliser, John Crowley and Mervyn Peake) that I consider to be the most gifted of the past 50 years. Reading Mary Renault is like picking up an ancient manuscript and diving into the poetic beauty and brutality of the time. Her grasp and use of the English language is so powerful that you will feel as if you are reading something from another time. Since reading TKMD and TBFTS, I have collected every other novel written by Mary Renault. Exceptional without exception (is that an oxymoron?) I wish more people were required to read her work.

An introduction to ancient Greece.......2007-08-12

Mary Renault has written these novels to bring the Greek myths of Theseus and the Minotaur to life. It is told in the first person and she manages to make real a period of history lost in the mists of legend. The novel was written 50 years ago but is timeless. It is highly recommended, as are all her novels of ancient Greece.

Everything any reader could ask for in a story..........2007-02-19

This is one of Renault's finest novels in a multitude of great novels. The King Must Die chronicles the adventures of Theseus, the mythological King of Athens in a more or less realistic style, which by re-telling becomes the myth that has passed down to us through the ages.
As a young Theseus travels toward Athens to meet his father the king, who he has never seen, and claim his birthright, he is waylaid by the Queen of Eleusis and forced to wrestle the Year King (the loser is sacrificed to the goddess) for the dubious right to become the next Year King. Here Renault fills in the myth with a bit of unearthed history and conjecture; the legend of Theseus was ancient even when the Greeks dominated the Mediterranean world. Worship of the Helene gods, Zeus, Apollo, Athena and Poseidon were still in competition with the much older Earth Goddess of matriarchal societies.
Theseus is not one to merely waste his year lounging in the Queen's bedchamber doing nothing, besides servicing the Queen, so he characteristically turns the tables on her. The author seems to suggest that the myth of Theseus, who may or may not be a historical figure, gives us a rare glimpse as to how the old order might have been, for better or worse, usurped by patriarchal male dominated warrior society. But this is just one many exciting and fascinating epidodes in the life of Renault's Theseus, which continue in a second novel,"Bull from the Sea".
Another really enlightening aspect of this book is Theseus' devotion to the Gods. As in Gore Vidal's "Julian", Renault makes us see that faith in the Helene Gods was really not so barbaric, or remote or different from faith in the God of the contemporary religions. Phenomena such as earthquakes in the early Bronze Age could only be explained as the rumbling of the Gods, so that was the truth of the day, as truth is always subjective.
One of Renault's literary devises is for the narrator to tell their story as if the reader is their contemporary, thus will not explain in much detail things you would already know, but being readers from the 21st Century we often do not know! So you may have to puzzle over what you just read, perhaps re-read a paragraph or a page a couple times, but this is one of the traits that make Renault's books so engaging and intimate.
On the back cover of the paperback edition that I read (Bantum 1976) there is a short excerpt from a review by the Los Angeles Mirror-News, "A book that has everything any reader could ask for in a story". That summarizes my own feelings for "The King Must Die" perfectly.

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)

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Check and see
Suprise! Suprise!
Prescient St Augustine?
Something of a disappointment
Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy..

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
Anatoly T Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2913621066

Product Description

`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.

Customer Reviews:

Check and see.......2007-06-21

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09

After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.

However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:

- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.

I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.

The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.

It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?

Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.

Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).

Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30

If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?

Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.

Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..

Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.

Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books)

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"Behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes."
Man makes the gods in his own image
Excellent Detailed Information
A Fascinating Classic
Indispensible classic

Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books)
Jane Ellen Harrison
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691015147

Book Description

Jane Harrison examines the festivals of ancient Greek religion to identify the primitive "substratum" of ritual and its persistence in the realm of classical religious observance and literature. In Harrison's preface to this remarkable book, she writes that J. G. Frazer's work had become part and parcel of her "mental furniture" and that of others studying primitive religion. Today, those who write on ancient myth or ritual are bound to say the same about Harrison. Her essential ideas, best developed and most clearly put in the Prolegomena, have never been eclipsed.

Customer Reviews:

"Behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes.".......2006-03-02

Jane Ellen Harrison was a ground breaking scholar in the field of mythology--she was one of a group of what was called the "Cambridge Ritualists" who believed that contrary to prior belief that myths arose from rituals rather than rituals from myths.

Her primary thesis in Prolegomena is that the religion of the Greeks and Romans has been only selectively reported in order to support a vision of rational, highly civilized people as the progenitors of western thought. Scholarship of the 19th century was founded on the notion that "the integrity of Western Civilization depends upon the exceptionality of the Greeks" (p. xx). This vision was developed by the Romantic movement to support a superior intellectual foundation to western civilization that emerged from the Greek and Romans.

Harrison argues that in fulfilling this desire to have exalted ancestors, the true religion of the Greeks has been overlooked. Her scholarship is focused on what has not been noticed-her conclusion is that the Olympian gods of Homer are the final product of centuries of evolution from a more primitive collection of chthonic deities or forces.

Harrison is more interested in the earlier forms of religion--the underworld beings that were placated to prevent evil. She is a master at examining greek texts and art to delineate these ancient deities. As Harrison says: "Great things in literature, Greek plays for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes"

This book can be utilized as a reference to understand certain Greek myths more easily--or read it straight through to get a more thorough understanding of the world of Greek mysticism!!

Man makes the gods in his own image.......2005-08-08

Although partly out-of-date, Jane Harrison's analysis of 'neglected' aspects of Greek religion proves these aspects to be 'essential'. By dissecting rites, ceremonies, festivities and mysteries, she exposes the real obsessions of the Ancient Greek (Plato included). Instead of being 'possessed by a set of conceptions based on Periclean Athens', she shows astonishingly that Ancient Greece was still a totally irrational, savage and primitive society, dominated by ignorance and fear. Her picture is far more gloomy than the rosy one drawn by other scholars, who imposed their own language on ancient societies ('We should not monotheize').

In Ancient Greece, there was no 'civil' law. Law was essentially magic and in the first place a curse. People thought that they could injure their enemies by curse tablets, swathed figures ... In Plato's 'Laws', people who injured other citizens by magic had to die.

Ignorance and fear concerning the souls of the death, sprites, ghosts and demons were a fertile ground for theology (better: demonology). Evil spirits reflected the population's own savage, cruel and irrational passions and relations. (Porphyry: 'No Greek sacrifice of a camel or an elephant').
The Greek believed that evil was a physical infection that could be transferred on animals and human beings. The latter could be sacrificed in order to purify the rest of the population. One is astonished to learn that human sacrifices still took place in the 5th century BC. 'Pharmakoi' were kept and fed at the public expense in order to be slaughtered in rites of Aversion (riddance of evil spirits).
Winds were believed to be ghosts who had to be placated by sacrifices. The latter (humans were better than animals) took also place for mandic reasons.

In Greek theology, there were 'no gods at all', only conceptions of the human mind. Theology's formulary was 'panta rei'.
New gods developed out of heroes or crystallized out of a gentler form of ghost or were imported from other regions. One of the new gods was Dionysos coming from Thrace. He was the god of all growing things and of physical intoxication. His double was the god of spiritual intoxication: Orpheus (Orphism). The latter Mystery had a profound influence on Plato and his theory of the immortality of the soul (essentialism).

The author's analysis of the Eleusian Mysteries and Orphism are interesting but partly out-of-date, because new sources of information were discovered after the publication of her book.
For Eleusis I recommend G. Meautis's 'The Mysteries of Eleusis', and for Orphism, W. Guthrie's 'Orpheus and Greek Religion'.

This book contains excellent graphic material, which is magisterially analyzed by the author.
Harrison's book is still a must for all those interested in Ancient Greece. It is the work of a superb free mind.

Excellent Detailed Information.......2003-09-16

I was searching for an answer to the mystery that was in the Greek Mysteries. Harrison provides the answers. Prolegomena provides a very detailed account of the Mysteries that are rooted in worship of the the Chthonic (Earth) Gods that preceded the Olympian deities. The reading level of this book is probably the most difficult I have ever experienced in a book that I am reading purely for pleasure. You must have a burning interest in the field of ancient Greek religion to be able to appreciate this book for the great work it is.

Jaime Gomez

A Fascinating Classic.......2003-03-03

Although published in the early 1900s and outdated in certain areas, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion is still an essential read for anyone interested in Greek Religion. Perhaps the best description of the book would be to call it the Greek Golden Bough.

In this classic work, Harrison sought to uncover the primitive substratum of Greek religion, so rather than focusing on the
Olympian deities, she spends the better part of the book discussing ghosts, 'demons', and the chthonic deities. The religious landscape that she illuminates is therefore nothing like the cheery and rational world of the Olympians. The dark, the creepy and the uncanny tend to predominate.

The book is very well-written, and the author's fascination with her material is infectious. I found it so powerful a reading experience that I can only describe Prolegomena in terms of a kind of anthropological prose poetry. Although its ostensible topic is a rather specialized and obscure field of enquiry, one comes away from the book with a feeling of having gained a deeper insight into that most general of topics, the human condition.

I have to agree with the other reviewer who emphasizes that this is not a book for those completely unfamiliar with ancient Greek religion. Moreover, parts of it might be frustrating and tedious for readers without knowledge of the ancient Greek language, since Harrison is constantly engaged in the elucidiation and discussion of Greek religious terminology.

All in all, an unforgettable book that, unlike most academic studies, is a piece of great literature.

Indispensible classic.......2002-11-16

This book is an indispensible classic for anybody interested in Greek religion. I was considering following up Prof. Harrison's weighty tome by writing the sequel: "Avgolemeno to the Study of Greek Soup Making," but I couldn't find an interested publisher, for some reason.

Book Description

The Sanctuary of Eleusis, near Athens, was the center of a religious cult that endured for nearly two thousand years and whose initiates came from all parts of the civilized world. Looking at the tendency to "see visions," C. Kerenyi examines the Mysteries of Eleusis from the standpoint not only of Greek myth but also of human nature. Kerenyi holds that the yearly autumnal "mysteries" were based on the ancient myth of Demeter's search for her ravished daughter Persephone--a search that he equates not only with woman's quest for completion but also with every person's pursuit of identity. As he explores what the content of the mysteries may have been for those who experienced them, he draws on the study of archaeology, objects of art, and religious history, and suggests rich parallels from other mythologies.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent resource!.......2004-11-06

This is an excellent book, favored especially by many women who find the mother-daughter archetype something that they want to explore. There are many excellent facts of great interest to those seeking to know the background of Demeter's Mysteries.

The first edition of this book was in 1967. I think it holds up pretty well. The reviewer who calls himself "flygadfly" thereby identifying himself with the ancient philosopher Socrates, states that the information is outdated. To expect current values and philosophies to exist in a book that was published 37 years ago is an illogical expectation.

I really love this book. It has an honored place in my home library.
-Gem

Well worth the money.......2004-04-29

Kerényi's scholarship *might* include a touch of fantasy, but on the whole, it is well-researched, and he provided documentation for his claims through extensive footnotes. I used this book as the foundation of my MA thesis, and have never regretted it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to study the Eleusinian Mysteries in a serious way, but remember to read this with "a grain of salt," as one should with any book.

Warning!.......2003-05-06

Be forewarned! Kerenyi, in all his works, offers a piece-meal, unsupported archaeologically, imaginative creation of what he WISHED Greek Religion could have been. Kerenyi seems to have had an image in his mind, and he assembles anything and everything from different time periods, locations, and rituals in order to "prove" his theories. A closer, archaeological reading would show a high percentage of his "facts" contradicting each other - how can you support Hellenistic mystery cults with evidence from non-Greek Minoan Crete? It'd be as if one made a connection between Southern Baptist Christianity and Native American religion, solely because both functioned in similar geographical locations. Just a warning! Kerenyi is really easy to become enchanted with, but not accurate.

Shame on you, Princeton!.......2003-03-01

I was quite excited to see this book & read the comments. Princeton University Press doesn't publish much classics, and I had high hopes for this volume. When it arrived, I was upset to learn that it was a Bollingen imprint -- Jungian propaganda, with a lot of imagination, outdated scholarship and contempt for scholarly values. It really is despicable of Princeton to tarnish their reputation with their Bollingen imprint, and I feel like a sucker to have wasted my money on such a preposterously worthless book, and I wish that Amazon.com would put a warning label on the Bollingen imprints, so clearthinking people can be more careful when ordering. (The problem is, of course, that few excellent books are mixed in with the nonsense, so one can't dismiss Bollingen books out of hand, but there is usually a 90% chance that they are garbage.)

Profound analysis of the mysteries of Eleusis........2002-09-01

I recommend this book as a formidable try to unravel one of the most important ancient pagan mysteries, that survived for more than a thousand years in the Ancient world.
For Kerenyi, the core of the mysteries was the message that 'a birth in death was possible', also for human beings. This message was 'shown' through the ancient myth of the search of Demeter for her ravished daughter Persephone. She finds Persephone under the earth, where she gives birth to Dionysos. The hope of life in death was symbolized through Demeter's offering of the grain, that will grow again. We can see this important hapenning on a stele in the Ancient museum of Athens.
The initiated had to fast and were given a drug (the kykeon) just before the procession.
Nearly all Roman emperors were initiated (with a special place for Marcus Aurelius).
One of the initiated was Plato, who speaks about it in his work 'Phaidoon'.
The influence on Christianity by the mysteries cannot be underestimated, for Plato's theory of the soul was adopted by the Church.
A compelling read.

Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions (Hellenistic Culture and Society)

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Sound Conclusions
"If everybody knows the secret, I don't know who is mistaken"
O great another history book!!
For those who like History and a mystery
The Alexander medallions

Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions (Hellenistic Culture and Society)
Frank L. Holt
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0520238818

Book Description

To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance--how he abetted the belief that he enjoyed divine favor and commanded even the forces of nature against his enemies--is the subject of Frank L. Holt's absorbing book.
Solid evidence for the "supernaturalized" Alexander lies in a rare series of medallions that depict the triumphant young king at war against the elephants, archers, and chariots of Rajah Porus of India at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq in sensational and sometimes perilous circumstances, these ancient artifacts have long animated the modern historical debate about Alexander. Holt's book, the first devoted to the mystery of these ancient medallions, takes us into the history of their discovery and interpretation, into the knowable facts of their manufacture and meaning, and, ultimately, into the king's own psyche and his frightening theology of war. The result is a valuable analysis of Alexander history and myth, a vivid account of numismatics, and a spellbinding look into the age-old mechanics of megalomania.

Customer Reviews:

Sound Conclusions.......2007-09-04

Professor Holt must be a stimulating, admired lecturer in his subject, for this book brings a wealth of knowledge together from a large variety of sources. Primary sources are the medallions themselves, of course. As for myself, this is the first time I have been fascinated with numismatics enough to stay with the whole book (which is easily absorbed in a day). Never again will I briefly skim over exhibits and pictures of ancient coins! Dr. Holt has made me a bit of an expert on many aspects of this subject, and he invites us to delve further with extensive, annotated footnotes on each page. He is certainly a dedicated scholar with deep and wide knowledge of his field, able to clearly present his interpretation while giving a balanced analysis of various theories. Each of his conclusions is supported by strong references to the literature.

"If everybody knows the secret, I don't know who is mistaken".......2007-07-11

Where should I begin? Above all, Holt supposedly invented a mysterious story, but there is no real mystery in it. In fact since the coins were found researchers have come to understand that those coins had been imprinted in memory of the battle between Alexander the Great and Porus, the Emperor of India. It is only the place and time which we think are of secondary importance could not have been determined precisely. In the introduction to his book Holt assumes himself to be Sherlock Holmes, but the solution he suggests at the end of the book is far away from reminding the persuasive arguments of the famous detective and only serves to surprise the reader because of its speculative quality. The majority of the book deals with many ideas which had been previously proposed and refuted by other studies, and apparently re-refutes all of those. When we reach the final part, we encounter the very principal elements of "Sherlock" Holt's solution; the first of these is about the imperfect apperance and imprint of these coins and Holt explains this unusual event by the rushed minting of these coins on a return journey from the Indian expedition, under exteremely difficult conditions caused by muson rains! The historian meticulously discarded a great many arguments throughout the book yet he surprised us by bringing forth this meteorological solution towards explaning the bad apparences of the coins. Perhaps this can justify a reader who may come to propose that the man who was in charge of the minting process was having a bad day! Or even because he did not received the merits he deserved from Alexander. Even more surprising is the explanation which concerns the other side of the coin showing the Alexander holding a thunderbolt. We can't understand why Holt discards the perfectly reasonable, simple yet adequate solution which is in accord with the traditional Alexander narratives deifying him- especially the one which deals Apelles' portrait of Alexander-. Instead he insists on seeing particularly a reference to the the rainy night on which Alexander won a victory against the Indian King Porus. Yes, there are many events in history about rainmaker army leaders. But, for God's sake, Alexander and his troop already knew India's disastrous air and field conditions. While, they advanced to the interior parts of India, they always encountered with such stormes, muds...So, if storm and rain had been an unexpected incident, maybe Alexander's powers which brings rain would have been good and miracolous news. And even after that battle, during the journey to the Babil, Macedonian army suffered from bad meteorological conditions. According to Holt's argument, one may think, Alexander, just after the battle, having been minted that coins, maybe has also seen responsible for that terrible field conditions! But, this time, his men, could not mint properly those coins, because of very same musons(in last chapter, the sentence which concludes with footnote 25!)
Thus Holt's theory -searching the "textual" help to that night- extends to the assumption that these coins were minted in memory of "a dark and stormy night" and these coins function as a narrative picture of the whole war. But this sounds rather weird or impractical because Alexander gifted each of these coins, which allegedly individually represents a particular scene of the war, to his men which means the coins would never come together to form such a picture: One of the generals saves the one with elephant, other has Alexander with thunderbolt and maybe other one has the one with a chariot? As a matter of fact Holt himself was not persuaded by his suggestion that he claimed that these imperfect coins were indeed a turning point in the history of numismatic by this aspect.

As for the much praised popular style of the book, as I read the translation I am unable to comment adequately; however I did not see any extraordinary features that deserve credit. By the way, it seems to me, Mr. Holt's only field of interest -expect coins- Darwinist biology. He mentions him several times, curiously enough, but most of these are unnecessary element of the failed rhetorical construction.

O great another history book!!.......2005-07-16

That is exactly what I thought when I was assigned this book in Dr. Holt's class, but I was later proved wrong. As stated before he definitely has a knack for communicating with those not in this academic circle. Although I have had the privilege to have a class with Dr. Holt this does not in any way taint my recommendation. I encourage others to read other works by Dr. Holt especially his latest "Into the land of Bones"

For those who like History and a mystery.......2004-03-14

This book is a delightful read. Like a good mystery, I was mystified by the clues as they were presented in the narration and wondered at times "so what?" But that only made the satifaction so much more pleasant when the meanings of the clues were revealed at the end and the medallions tell their story after thousands of years.

The Alexander medallions.......2004-02-03

"Alexander The Great And The Mystery Of The Elephant Medallions", by Frank L. Holt. Published by The University Of California Press.

Holt tells us that there have been 2000 books and papers published about Alexander in the last 40 years. What he kindly omits is that most of them have been rubbish; this one is not. It is a fine and valuable contribution to Alexander Studies admirably thought out and very well written. The University Of California Press has, as usual, well presented and marketed the work which is enjoying a popularity it should not have had otherwise. Basically a study of some unusual coin- like medallions depicting Alexander battling elephant mounted men. Holt gives us what might have been a tedious article in an obscure numismatic journal as a fascinating mystery and, along the way, manages to present an unsullied glimpse of Alexander without any of the contemporaneous tints which have been so blithely applied to him over the years. This is an excellent small book by a fine scholar with a keen analytical mind and an unusual facility for communicating with non scholars without pandering.

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Orphism was first and foremost a literature

an outdated "classic"

And thus... he sang...

Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books)
William Keith Guthrie
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Hymns of Orpheus: Translated from the Original Greek With a Preliminary Dissertation on the Life and Theology of Orpheus to Which Is Added the E

Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life

The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts

Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter

The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World

ASIN: 0691024995

Book Description

The tales told of Orpheus are legion. He is said to have been an Argonaut--and to have saved Jason's life. Rivers are reported to have stopped their flow to listen to the sounds of his lyre and his voice. Plato cites his poetry and Herodotus refers to "practices that are called Orphic." Did Orpheus, in fact, exist? His influence on Greek thought is undeniable, but his disciples left little of substance behind them. Indeed, their Orphic precepts have been lost to time.

W.K.C. Guthrie attempts to uncover and define Orphism by following its circuitous path through ancient history. He tackles this daunting task with the determination of a detective and the analytical rigor of a classical scholar. He ferries his readers with him on a singular voyage of discovery.

Customer Reviews:

Orphism was first and foremost a literature.......2004-12-14

Guthrie's tentative exploration of one of the most influential mysteries of the Ancient World, together with Eleusis, is very revealing.

The author situates the origin of Orphism with a Thracean hero/singer who was adopted as founder/teacher by mystical sects and whose songs became sacred texts. Although this sects contained only a small group of devotees, some aspects of their philosophical message were taken over by Plato and influenced indirectly Christian belief.

Like many other religions, Orphism's basis was man's aspiration of immortality.
The sacred texts included dogmas and precepts. Dogmas were a belief in a god as a creator and supreme ruler of the universe, man's original sin, a belief that purity of life and observance of the rites would be rewarded by perfect divinity (immortality) eventually after a cycle of rebirths and that punishment awaited the uninitiated and impure.
The precepts were directed towards eradication of sin through ascetism and prohibitions (e.g. meat-eating).
Life was considered as a period of trial and a practise for death. It was seen as a punishment for the soul for previous sins, wherefore the soul was fettered to a body. The body was seen as a source of evil.
Other important characteristics were the emphasis on free will and personal responsibility as well as misogynism.
Each individual had a divine part and a part prone to sin. He had to make a choice between them.

Guthrie explains clearly the crucial differences with Christianism. Orphism excluded the possibility of the resurrection of the body. It had no social ethic. It was selfish for one could save only his own soul.
He also shows the difference with the Eleusian Mysteries. The latter were only a ritual, whereas Orphism was a way of life.

This is a very rich book which treats also other important aspects of religion (e.g. syncretism).
It contains excellent illustrations and a very interesting introduction by Larry J. Alderink.
This book is an essential read for the understanding of a very influential Ancient Mystery.

an outdated "classic".......2004-06-29

As Alderink acknowledges in the Forward, a whole lot of new evidence and new scholarship has seen the light of day since the book's publication in *1935*, particularly the discovery in 1962 of the all-important Derveni papyrus and the discovery in the 1970s and 80s of revealing new gold burial leaves/plates.

(The present edition is a reprint of the second (1952) edition of Guthrie's book. Alderink says, "In the preface to the 1952 reprint, [Guthrie] remarked that he found major alterations unnecessary; his confidence in his earlier conclusions enabled him to use a supplement [pp. 275-278] to mention new writings on Orphics and to make minor corrections and additions" (xxiv). Guthrie's own explanation of this is: "No striking new evidence has appeared on the subject or is likely to appear" (xxxix). So, he explains, "[with regard to the new evidence/literature that has surfaced since the first edition] I have summed up my position, with some reference to later discussions, in ch. xi of my book _The Greeks and their Gods_ (Methuen, 1950), which there is no need to repeat" (xxxix-xl).)

As Alderink points outs, "Some of Guthrie's conclusions will stand and some will fall as new evidence and new interpretations put his work to new analyses" (xxxiii).

So this evidently is not the best place to start (unless one is interested specifically in history of scholarship), and certainly not the best place to finish. For a brief, excellent, and up-to-date overview of the evidence, see Robert Parker's "Early Orphism" in Anton Powell's _The Greek World_ (1995).

And thus... he sang..........2001-09-18

This work contains excellent notes,
supplements, and photographic plates, as
well as illustrations in the text itself
which have been taken from vases, reliefs,
and other sources.
Guthrie's work is an excellent source of
knowledge, insight, and inspiration concerning
Orpheus, this ancient figure who was poet,
harmonic musician, priest, prophet,
and oracular magus all in one.

Greek Lyric: Volume IV, Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others (Loeb Classical Library No. 461)

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Greek Lyric: Volume IV, Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others (Loeb Classical Library No. 461)
Bacchylides , and Corinna
Manufacturer: Loeb Classical Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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