Fingerprints of the Gods

Looking back some years later, after subsequent re-consideration, I have concluded that while my initial worshipful praise of the book was unmerited, neither does the volume deserve the reproof and utter condemnation accorded it by some previous reviewers.

It is certainly dangerous to uncritically accept many of the more improbable theories of this book, most notably the claim that Atlantis was in fact Antarctica, which itself (in an ice-free state) was home to an ancient and highly advanced civilization. The appeal here, as in many other instances, is to popular imagination rather than rational inquiry: the book is not written for specialists, but for the public, and as such Hancock can afford to spout baseless theories knowing full well that many gullible readers will be taken in. The opinionated attacks on so-called "orthodox" Egyptologists and the highly tenuous astronomical, mythological, and historical claims are not only irresponsible and unscholarly, they aid the spread of misinformation among a public that is obviously all too eager to absorb any new, enticing, "unorthodox" theory.

At its very core, however, the book is grounded in fact, and it is at this most basic level that the astute reader can glean some genuine insight. The chapter dealing with Giza, in particular, raises some perfectly valid questions about the building methods of the Egyptians. Why, for instance, are the pyramids of Giza totally unadorned? Not a single commemorative line, cartouche, or relief sculpture graces the inner chambers of what are reputed to be the burial places for three great Pharaohs of a prominent Egyptian dynasty. How where these great structures built, and why did the builders prefer cyclopean, 200-ton blocks to smaller, more manageable ones, which would have been perfectly adequate in terms of structural and aesthetic qualities? These questions, and many more (particularly those concerning the antiquity of the sphinx) are sound and thought provoking.

Despite some of the clear-headed logic that emerges in certain instances, the book often lapses into far-fetched theories on subjects as varied as Aztec mythology and Ice-Age climate. Hancock takes a valid point and carries it far beyond its logical conclusion. The book is at heart entertainment, and it is written to please the imagination rather than the intellect. We all want to believe in an ancient, highly-advanced civilization, a mysterious "Golden Age," lost in the depths of antiquity, during which humanity attained a godlike perfection. This desire (it unquestionably exists) is more the realm of psychology than history, and Hancock has taken it, as many of the myths he analyzes, far too literally.

So, if anyone has bothered to read this far, the book is an entertaining read which provides descriptions of some of the world's most intriguing and ancient structures: it simply does not provide believable answers to the questions it raises. Take what you can from its more lucid passages, and approach the rest with a dose of logic and measured skepticism.


Intriguing, fun and just plain silly   August 10, 1999
Michael Bulger (Rochester, NY, USA)
43 out of 65 found this review helpful

Graham Hancock is at this point perhaps the best known popularizer of what might generously be termed "alternative archaeology," one of the major points of which is that civilization originated far earlier than commonly thought, and was subsequently destroyed (i.e., Atlantis). Then again, this particular field is populated almost entirely by popularizers, who with rare exceptions (Robert Schoch, perhaps Robert Bauval) are unfamiliar or even hostile to establishment scientific principles such as peer review. Hancock's work is occasionally given to fits of pique at the supposed monopoly that establishment archaeologists have on the dissemination of knowledge; little understanding is shown of the simple fact that in scientific journals all ideas are subject to review by other scientists, and that if you wish to publish your views, you must present convincing evidence for them. Hancock and others like him should (and probably do, at least in private) be gratified that, as the parade of positive reviews of his books here on the Amazon.com web site attests, the establishment view of archaeology enjoys no monopoly on ideas in the public sphere, and in fact is if anything underrepresented. For an illustration, I would suggest that you go to your local bookstore and find something by Hancock, West, Bauval, Schoch, Cremo, the Flem-Aths, Sitchin, von Daniken, or Colin Wilson. Now find the establishment archaeological view. Which was more prominent? Which was there at all?

In any case, "Fingerprints of the Gods" is Hancock's defining work (even after the publication of its sequel, "Heaven's Mirror") and provides the most comprehensive summary of the "evidence" for a lost civilization in antiquity as currently espoused by the above writers. You will find summarized here the notions that the Sphinx is far older than modern archaeologists would like to think, that the pyramids may be as well (which Hancock has since retracted, though he maintains that the ground plan is still super-ancient), and that other monuments in Latin America similarly speak of origins far in the distant past; that collected myths and legends from peoples all over the world speak of a common origin, in a civilization of great technical prowess that was destroyed by a worldwide cataclysm (essentially a summary of de Santillana and von Dechend's "Hamlet's Mill," albeit with conclusions they did not reach); that a series of old maps provides evidence of knowledge of the earth's contours in remote antiquity (a summary of Charles Hapgood's "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings"); that the cataclysm in which this new vision of Atlantis was lost could be repeated the next time the earth's crust decides to shift (borrowed from Hapgood again).

It is a mistake to consider anything that Hancock has done "research," as several other reviewers have done. His work consists of travelling the world to view ancient monuments and compiling the speculations of others. What results is often sloppy and inaccurate: Hancock repeats verbatim an assertion first made by Sitchin that early Egyptologist Howard Vyse forged the "quarry marks" in the Great Pyramid that link it to the pharoah Khafre, and this assertion has been rather conclusively proven wrong (as Hancock has admitted). Hancock also swallows whole the long-discredited theory of "earth crust displacement." Proponents make much of the fact that Einstein apparently liked this theory, but then Einstein was not a geologist, knew nothing of plate tectonics, and was wrong many other times in his life. Regardless, the "evidence" for a massive, concerted shift of the entirety of the earth's crust over such a short period has been completely invalidated by modern science. When Hancock mentions trees indicative of deciduous forest buried in Antarctic ice, he fails to recognize that these trees are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years old. And so on.

It is chiefly by presenting a relentlessly one-sided view of the "evidence" he cites that Hancock creates the illusion of a coherent argument. In truth, the closer one looks at any single line of evidence in "Fingerprints," the less convincing it seems. Too many of Hancock's arguments rely on the inability to accept anything as coincidence, and the almost pathological impulse to manufacture coincidences where they may not actually exist. Anyone reading this book should be honor-bound to seek out the other side of the story--for example, Paul Jordan's "Riddles of the Sphinx" provides an excellent summary of how conventional archaeologists date the monuments of Egypt. It is not that difficult to find attempted refutations of most of Hancock's arguments on the internet. There is simply no excuse for taking "Fingerprints" as the last word on any of its subjects.

This book is typical of tracts of "alternative archaeology" (one writer whose name escapes me termed pursuits such as these "pathological science") in that it often consists of first-person narrative. Hancock is a journalist and knows how to spin a tale for greatest effect; readers such as myself, however, who are not fans of travelogues may therefore find themselves impatient in certain sections. I give the book 3 stars simply for entertainment value--regardless of the truth or falsity of what's in "Fingerprints," it is fun to think about in a science-fictional vein. Those looking for the next paradigm shift should be greatly disappointed. _Should_ be, that is.


But people want to believe it, don't they?   July 26, 2004
Jonathan Armstrong (Denver, CO United States)
37 out of 50 found this review helpful

Dear reader: before you see my low rating and immediately decide to give me an 'unhelpful' review, please consider the following. I am not hostile to the author's thesis, and I am inclined, in fact, to believe that there very well _could_ be a technologically advanced Atlantean civilization that existed prior to our own.

Let it be known that I tend to trust scientists and spiritual writers within their own contexts. (A few writers _can_ successfully bridge these two gaps, but they are not the norm.) As a general rule, scientific types, who only know how to deal with the minutiae of quantity, are best left writing about scientific ideas in their own particular niche or subspecialty. They almost always fail when attempting to extrapolate their findings onto the larger realm of human discourse. Likewise, those of a spiritual bent are best when discussing spiritual matters; at this point, I don't think we need any more people discussing how particle physics proves the existence of God, clarivoyance, or ESP when they have little or no idea what they are talking about. Those possessing true spiritual enlightenment always mitigate against ascribing too much literalism to their allegories. Anthropomorphic or archetypal elements in spiritual writing should be used to convey universal spiritual _principles_, not taken literally.

Now, who I don't trust are hack writers who take a jumbled pile of assorted geologic, archaeological, and spiritual 'facts' and throw them all in a pot to create a Procrustean stew that serves no purpose other than to satisfy their own sensationalist theses. (But hey, how else are you going to get your own series of BBC specials?) Hancock manages to enter the realm of elite pseudoscholars such as Sitchin, Von Daniken, etc. by proceeding as follows: first, proceed with an outlandish thesis that you take for granted as 'true'. Then, proceed to take any available 'evidence' and twist it to support said thesis. If a perceived 'fact' should perhaps be interpreted in a more Jungian, archetypal, or manner appropriate to the mythology of a region, treat it as a literal fact. But in the case of hard science, be sure to interpret it in as creative a manner as possible. After all, (per Hancock's own admission on his web site!) he's not saying whether or not his thesis IS true, he's just raising a possibility. That's all fine and dandy, but Aldous Huxley raised a lot of possibilities with _Brave New World_, and that book is still powerful today because it is a powerful piece of _fiction_.

Hancock loves employing cognates (words that sound alike and have a similar meaning in disparate languages) to support his thesis which have been a favorite of pseudoscholars for at least a hundred years, and have been employed to 'prove' dodgy theories such as the British-Israelite theory. However, any linguist can tell you that completely unrelated languages will often contain similar or identical words, especially for common subjects. For example, 'dog' means the same thing in English as it does in Australian Aboriginal languages, yet the two languages are in no way related; likewise, 'mahni' and 'many' mean the same thing in Korean and English, yet the two are in no way related. Statistically, large numbers of words will always be false cognates between languages.

Hancock also likes to take symbolism which is much more at home in a Jungian or similar such allegorical context and treat it as evidence of some literal truth. One of his favorite subjects is how the notion of water (or a flood) is contained in a wide variety of different myths and legends. However, does this point to the literal, materialistic fact that there was a giant flood that engulfed humanity, or is it just that water is processed in a similar archetypal manner on a near-universal basis?

Nevertheless, these errors could very well just be inevitable given a 'true believer' lacking in the critical thinking department. What I find to be most alarming, however, is how Hancock deliberately misrepresents geological science. The fact that the Earth could undergo certain changes over the course of millennia somehow gets twisted into evidence that a certain 'disaster' could happen almost instantaneously. To me, this error is so great that I cannot believe that Hancock actually read the article he is referencing, especially since it is so central to his thesis. And when I see something misrepresented so badly, I cannot help but automatically question the veracity of most of his other 'sources', as well as his overall motives.

There is some compelling evidence out there that ancient peoples possessed knowledge in certain areas that far surpasses what conventional scholarship would have us think (cf. Hapgood's 'Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.') And I wouldn't be surprised if this came from some previously unknown advanced civilization. But for spiritually minded people (I subscribe to Vedic cosmology myself) any knowledge of these facts is going to be contained in spiritual doctrines; any attempt to elucidate on these subjects by working 'upward' from modern reductionist science is doomed to failure. (But if you're going to take this approach, you could at least not misrepresent the authors you are invoking.) For those interested in cosmic cycles and their implications, you would be MUCH better off reading John Major Jenkins' 'Galactic Alignment' or Weidner & Bridges' 'The Mystery of the Great Cross of Hendaye', both of which treat the notion of any potential cataclysm in a much more even-handed manner devoid of Hancock's sensationalism.