The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts Author: Graham Robb | Language: English | ISBN:
B00COQ6XGI | Format: PDF
The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts Description
A treasure hunt that uncovers the secrets of one of the world’s great civilizations, revealing dramatic proof of the extreme sophistication of the Celts, and their creation of the earliest accurate map of the world.
Fifty generations ago the cultural empire of the Celts stretched from the Black Sea to Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. In six hundred years, the Celts had produced some of the finest artistic and scientific masterpieces of the ancient world. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar marched over the Alps, bringing slavery and genocide to western Europe. Within eight years the Celts of what is now France were utterly annihilated, and in another hundred years the Romans had overrun Britain. It is astonishing how little remains of this great civilization.
While planning a bicycling trip along the Heraklean Way, the ancient route from Portugal to the Alps, Graham Robb discovered a door to that forgotten world—a beautiful and precise pattern of towns and holy places based on astronomical and geometrical measurements: this was the three-dimensional “Middle Earth” of the Celts. As coordinates and coincidences revealed themselves across the continent, a map of the Celtic world emerged as a miraculously preserved archival document.
Robb—“one of the more unusual and appealing historians currently striding the planet” (New York Times)—here reveals the ancient secrets of the Celts, demonstrates the lasting influence of Druid science, and recharts the exploration of the world and the spread of Christianity. A pioneering history grounded in a real-life historical treasure hunt, The Discovery of Middle Earth offers nothing less than an entirely new understanding of the birth of modern Europe.
- File Size: 7717 KB
- Print Length: 416 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 29, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00COQ6XGI
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,686 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Reference - #3
in Books > History > Ancient > Europe - #5
in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Geography
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Reference - #3
in Books > History > Ancient > Europe - #5
in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Geography
The Celts of Europe, a loosely organized cultural group that shared language and religion, have remained fairly mysterious for historians and others. Because they didn’t write down much about their beliefs, rituals or laws, we are left with outsider accounts, primarily those of Roman writers. But it has always been obvious that the Celts helped shape Europe from the foundation of cities to material and artistic expressions. What Graham Robb suggests in his latest book is that the Celts, from Gaul all the way to Britain, shaped Europe in ways never before appreciated or even understood, by creating a map of the known world.
By looking at the placement of Celtic towns and sacred sites, and carefully mapping them by latitude, longitude and other measurements, Robb saw a pattern begin to emerge indicating that the Celts had a more sophisticated understanding of the world and a greater grasp of science than previously believed. Starting with the road, known as the Heraklean Way, which ran across the Iberian Peninsula as early as the sixth century BCE, Robb connects various ancient and contemporary towns to each other, illustrating what he thinks is not just a systematic ordering of the world by the Celts but a reflection of the worlds they felt existed above and below as well (hence this world as Middle Earth, a concept famously borrowed by Tolkien).
The science of the Celts, argues Robb, has been so overlooked because it is not the monumental feats of engineering we find with the Romans, Egyptians and other early civilizations. And there are no Celtic texts explaining their views on nature, earth or the cosmos.
Wow. I just finished this book, and I'm feeling overwhelmed. First of all, I am not an academic, but I take an academic interest in the history of the Celts. Therefore I am grateful for such a well-researched and well-documented book. My real interest is in the culture of the Celts and the function of the Druids in Celtic society. This book focuses on Celtic astronomy and geometry and how those sciences affected the layout of the Celtic homelands, particularly Gaul. That angle is of secondary interest to me. But along the way, as the author undertakes a sort of pilgrimage along the paths of the old roads through the old towns, he works in a variety of other information about the Celts taken from about 500 sources, which are listed in the back of the book. This list of sources alone is quite valuable. Just to mention one question that is of interest to me: Were the Celts matrilineal? The author makes a reference to "the matrilineal Celtic tradition," but it is not clear whether he is taking a stand. By contrast, in an article in the academic tome "The Celtic World," edited by Miranda Green, Timothy Champion seems to take a clear stand that Celtic arrangements were patriarchal. In chapter 9, Robb writes, "Following Celtic tradition, in which property passed through the female line...," but no source for this is given in the notes. So I am left tantalized, and in doubt, about many of my questions about the Celts including the status of the sexes, attitudes toward homosexual behavior, etc. Those questions, of course, are not the focus of this book. However, this book goes further than any source I'm aware of in attempting to outline the curriculum of Druid education, without straying into speculation.
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