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The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts, by Graham Robb
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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.
- Sales Rank: #323408 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-11-04
- Released on: 2013-10-29
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Presenting one of the most astonishing, significant discoveries in recent memory, Robb, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize and Ondaatje Award for The Discovery of France, upends nearly everything we believe about the history—or, as he calls it, €œprotohistory€—of early Europe and its barbarous Celtic tribes and semimythical Druids. Popularly dismissed as superstitious, wizarding hermits, Robb demonstrates how the Druids were perhaps the most intellectually advanced thinkers of their age: scientists and mathematicians who, through an intimate knowledge of €œsolstice lines,€ organized their towns and cities to mirror the paths of their Sun god, in turn creating €œthe earliest accurate map of the world.€ In his characteristically approachable yet erudite manner, Robb examines how this network came to be and also how it vanished, trampled over by a belligerent Rome, which has previously received credit for civilizing Europe—though in Robb's account, Caesar, at the helm, appears dim, unwitting, and frankly lucky, and the (often literally) deeply buried Celtic beliefs and innovations seem more relevant in modern Europe than previously assumed. Like the vast and intricate geographical latticework that Robb has uncovered, the book unfurls its secrets in an eerie, magnificent way—a remarkable, mesmerizing, and bottomless work. 50 illus. Agent: Gill Coleridge, Rogers Coleridge & White (U.K.). (Nov.)
From Booklist
Were an atlas of the Celtic world before the Roman conquests ever created, it could derive from the information amassed in this volume. The author of a prior geographical investigation, The Discovery of France (2007), Robb remarks that this one begins with a scholar’s hypothesis that Celtic settlements, sacred places, and roads were sited on abstract lines based on summer and winter solstices. Off and running after explaining one such line, named for the classical hero Hercules, Robb proceeds to delineate scores of lines at whose intersections archaeological evidence of Celtic habitation has been excavated in modern France and Britain. Dozens of diagrammatic maps visualize Robb’s somewhat complex accounts of Celtic cartography, which developed in the course of Celtic migrations. When one of these reached Rome in 387 BCE, Celts entered a written history that Robb taps for his narratives of Celtic resistance and defeat in Rome’s invasions of Gaul and Britannia. Assiduous research into the obscurities of an ancient culture, including its Druids, Robb’s opus should lure readers interested in the Celtic domains. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
“Presenting one of the most astonishing, significant discoveries in recent memory, Robb, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize and Ondaatje Award for The Discovery of France, upends nearly everything we believe about the history―or, as he calls it, 'protohistory'―of early Europe and its barbarous Celtic tribes and semimythical Druids…. Like the vast and intricate geographical latticework that Robb has uncovered, the book unfurls its secrets in an eerie, magnificent way―a remarkable, mesmerizing, and bottomless work.” (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review and Pick of the Week)
“[A] daring theory…. thrilling.” (Laura Miller - Salon)
“Upends nearly everything we believe about the history… of early Europe.” (Gabe Habash - Publishers Weekly)
“Combines travelogue and historical detective story…. The work of a man to whom the past is vividly present.” (Ian Morris - New York Times Book Review)
“Fascinating…The historical value of Robb's vivid portrait of Celtic culture is unquestionable.” (Wendy Smith - Los Angeles Times)
“Raises intriguing questions about the relationship between tribe and empire, local identity and larger superstructure.” (Rachel Donadio - New York Times)
Most helpful customer reviews
50 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting, challenging and thoughtful
By Bookreporter
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. Instead, they may have been brilliant surveyors, mapmakers whose greatest map was totally to scale and incorporated their ideas about nature, earth and cosmos in one holistic schema.
If even part of Robb’s theory is true, it would change how we think about the Celts and early European history. If nothing else, it is an exercise in creative and critical thinking about aspects of history that have been left unquestioned for thousands of years. Besides the big ideas in THE DISCOVERY OF MIDDLE EARTH, there are plenty of smaller and equally compelling tidbits. The final chapters are especially fun to read: full of tales of heroes and monarchs, the decline of “protohistorical” superpowers and even a discussion on King Arthur and Camelot. Still this is a difficult read, full of geographic and astronomical vocabulary and concepts. It is sometimes on the dry side, but Robb skillfully weaves in the account of his long bicycle journey across the Heraklean Way, which adds to the flavor of the book.
From Celtic art to French villages, from the mysteries of the Druids to modern cartography, THE DISCOVERY OF MIDDLE EARTH is interesting, challenging and thoughtful --- the perfect book for a reader with a keen and imaginative mind interested in re-examining part of the world as we think we know it. Towards the end of the book, Robb writes, “as soon as a geographical pattern is imposed on the inhabited earth, significance rushes in like water into a channel dug in a damp field.” For patient and open-minded readers, the significance Robb assigns to those geographic patterns will be fascinating.
-Sarah Rachel Egelman
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Essential reading if you're interested in the Celts
By Abbot of Acorn Abbey
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. The author takes a clear stand that the Druids were highly trained, that they were scientists, and that Celtic society was an intellocracy. I bought the hardback version, then bought the Kindle edition as well just to be able to search the text. Before reading this book, I'd recommend getting familiar with how the notes are arranged. Clearly the idea was to keep the number of footnotes down, and most of the citations are grouped together by page number in the back of the book. Anyone who is seriously interested in the Celts will want to read this book and have it as a reference. I am hoping that this book also will encourage other academics to write good books about the Celts for general readers, instead of cringing in their cloisters out of fear of feeding the neo-Druids and New Agers. My personal view -- and maybe this is because my ancestors were Celts -- is that what Rome and its church did to the Celts was one of the greatest cultural disasters in history. Robb rightly uses words such as genocide, annihilation, and "catastrophically destabilized." We need to recover as much as possible of what was lost. This is especially true for those of us who would like to be rid of what Rome and its church put in the place of what it systematically destroyed in several centuries of ugly, ugly work.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting Idea
By Polyester Jones
Robb's theory is that Iron Age Celts used geometry to organize their settlements and spiritual centers along sun solstice angles. His argument is plausible. Whether you buy into it or not, the history--especially the material that concerns the Druids--is fascinating. This book appears to be written for the general-interest reader. It will be interesting to revisit this topic after some scholarly debate has further shaped the theory.
The writing is dense at times, but hey--the book is about history, math and surveying. Stick with it. I did and I don't regret it.
Warning: If you buy the Kindle edition, the maps and illustrations will be difficult to view. It's not a huge deal, but I like maps. I kind of wish I'd bought the paper version. In fairness to the Kindle, I'm middle aged and use reading glasses. Still, I had to stack up two pairs at once to see the maps.
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