Page 224 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 28

The Machinery of Heaven

Although a modern reader does not expect a text on celestial mechanics to read
like a lullaby, he insists on his capacity to understand mythical ‘images’ instantly,
because he can respect as ‘scientific’ only page-long approximation formulas, and
the like.

He does not think of the possibility that equally relevant knowledge might once
have been expressed in everyday language. He never suspects such a possibility,
although the visible accomplishments of ancient cultures—to mention only the
pyramids or metallurgy—should be a cogent reason for concluding that serious
and intelligent men were at work behind the stage, men who were bound to have
used a technical language ...
1
The quotation is from the late Giorgio de Santillana, professor of the
History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the
chapters that follow, we shall be learning about his revolutionary
investigations into ancient mythology. In brief, however, his proposition
is this: long ages ago, serious and intelligent people devised a system for
veiling the technical terminology of an advanced astronomical science
behind the everyday language of myth.
Is Santillana right? And if he is right, who were these serious and
intelligent people—these astronomers, these ancient scientists—who
worked behind the stage of prehistory?
Let us start with some basics.

The wild celestial dance

The earth makes a complete circuit around its own axis once every
twenty-four hours and has an equatorial circumference of 24,902.45
miles. It follows, therefore, that a man standing still on the equator is in
fact in motion, revolving with the planet at just over 1000 miles per
hour. Viewed from outer space, looking down on the North Pole, the
2
direction of rotation is anti-clockwise.
While spinning daily on its own axis, the earth also orbits the sun (again
in an anti-clockwise direction) on a path which is slightly elliptical rather
than completely circular. It pursues this orbit at truly breakneck speed,
travelling as far along it in an hour—66,600 miles—as the average
motorist will drive in six years. To bring the calculations down in scale,
this means that we are hurtling through space much faster than any

1 Hamlet’s Mill, pp. 57-8.
2 Figures from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991, 27:530.

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