Customer Reviews

The Mystery of the Serpent Mound: In Search of the Alphabet of the Gods

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is one of the most incredible books on the Serpent Mound I have read. Traditional archeologist, of course, will not accept the theories presented here because they contain numberology, spirituality, and most of all, the fact that the Greek alphabet is encrypted within the Serpent Mound. The author, however, doesn't notice that this aludes to the fact that builders of the Serpent Mound where aware of the Green Language of the Alchemist, also known as the Language of the Birds. These subjects are covered fully in William Henry's "Language of the Birds" and David Ovason's "The Secrets of Nostradamus".
One of the most important discoveries in this book is that the Great Serpent Mound is meant to mirror the constellation of Draco. This constellation is important to Eastern esoteric sciences such as Tao, among others.

Methinks Mark Newbrook doth protest too much. This is brilliant stuff.
Yes, it's a tough read for those readers not from a scientific background, but nothing worthwhile comes easy. The author hits the nail on the head. There are deep deep truths in this monument, as there are at Stonehenge, Angkor Watt and the Pyramids. Ross Hamilton has made a great discovery and deserves our admiration and respect.

I love this book, and understand why few (if any) used copies are available now that it has gone out of print: people want to hang on to their copy. It speaks to a great mystery, and Ross Hamilton seems to take care to preserve that sense of what is unanswerable and unfathomable for the reader, allowing one to make-up one's own mind while shedding some light.
These reviews weren't intended to be message boards or a venue for debate, but I noticed that one reviewer submitted two pieces which reduced the star average so much as to make the book appear mediocre and unworthy of acquiring. This kind of leverage goes against the written guidelines of this forum, and so I shall add a five star rating in the hope of countering that fellow's illegitimate actions. Because I have my own copy, I see that he did not bother to actually read the book as the author has requested, apparently selectively isolating various parts in what appears an effort to raise his own reputation.
We here in the Ohio Valley treaure our Great Serpent, and the advent of Hamilton's book has made the earthwork's reputation for a mystery study entirely legitimate and quite welcome by both Native Americans and their white brothers and sisters. I have been to Serpent Mound on more than one occasion, and you can bank on it being truly a magnificant piece of architecture, however damaged it has become with time. I do not believe that it is in anyone's better interests to further damage this earthwork's study; and I apologize for breaking the rules myself in order to get at the heart of this matter.

Leslie LaBoda

I became intrigued with the Serpent Mound after watching the infamous series: Ancient Aliens on the History channel. As a international radio show host for my show called Living A Spiritual Life with Tina Sacchi, I decided to contact the author, Ross Hamilton, so that he can be a guest on my show. I then was lecturing in Ohio and thought perhaps he would give me a tour of the Serpent Mound. We spent 6 hours together and discovered how passionate and driven Mr. Hamilton is regarding this largest effigy on the planet! He will also be a radio show guest soon and his podcast will be available for those who miss it. I understand that he occasionally conducts workshops at the Serpent Mound, so if you're going to be in the area, be sure to inquire about his workshop dates.

This book is a chock full of information and challenges our imagination. Mr Hamilton describes the multitude of ways and possibilities on how this mound came to be. It touches upon how the mound relates to sacred geometry, constellations, alchemy, etc. etc. There has been no stone left unturned. Mr Hamilton's research is thorough and concise.

The book is intense, deep and thought provoking. I know Mr Hamilton is in the process of publishing another book this year which perhaps would be a great beginner book to this condensed version.

If you are intrigued about prehistoric architecture, then this book is a must! And visiting the Serpent Mound physically is a must. Pictures do not do it justice. Wow!

Mark Newbrook's adamant rant about the irrationality of the author's theory spurred me to buy the book. When I run across someone vehemently denying any other possibility due to staunch dogmatic platitudes revolving around "rational thinking" that automatically tells me there is possibly something more lurking here. I say this only because people who cling to any "belief" regardless of origin often will reduced to uivvering mess if/when their belief is proven otherwise. In this case, Newbrook's belief will probably stick until our culture advances enough to build time-travel and then go back to observe the origins of the Serpent Mound.

Overall the book author's "belief" about the effigy seemed quite New Age to me as a scientist. But unlike Mr. Newbrook, I do not lash out with Occam's Razor at every belief that crosses me. For instance, we know the biblical Genesis account of creation is but a myth or story because we know the dinosaur era lasted millions of years preceding man. The proof is the bones left behind. For those who believe in Genesis, then I classify that as a useful lie until the believer tries to force me to believe in it too.

The author offers several useful lies that may or may not provide you with answers. Much like Erik Von Daniken did with his Chariots of the Gods series it is fun to speculate and enjoy but it has no proof it actually happened the way he states it. Much the same with this book.

I give it four of five stars and recommend it to you for an entertaining theory.

Hamilton argues that there are historically and spiritually significant links between the Great Serpent Mound (Ohio) and the Greek alphabet.

I say nothing here about non-linguistic issues in the book, but this should not be taken to mean that I see no problems on these fronts (I see many). I simply think it best to concentrate here on my own main relevant areas of expertise, namely general and historical linguistics and the history of the Greek language.

One problem which is shared with most amateur proposals in this area involves the use of outdated comparative linguistic methods in 'establishing' historical links between words. It is demonstrably unreliable to equate (even tentatively) forms (from pairs of languages, whether known to be related or not, or even within any one language) on the basis of superficial, unsystematic phonetic similarities between forms with related meanings - even more so if the semantic link is not at all obvious. Most such cases will involve accidental similarity. Eg, there is NO basis for suggesting a link between <ophion> and <Ohio> (p 138). (This has been known for very many years, and now the statistics have been calculated.) In some cases it is actually clear that forms which are equated are NOT connected, because the etymologies are known; eg, <thesauros> is clearly NOT <theo-> + <sauros> ('god-lizard') (p 151). The known historical phonology of Greek excludes this: the vowels in <the(o)-> and the position and type of the inherent accent on <sauros> differ between the two cases, showing that the forms are unconnected. In other cases Hamilton accepts a standard etymology but offers a redundant reinterpretation involving a 'deeper' sense. Eg, the letter-names <o-micron> and <o-mega> (p 147) very clearly refer to the LENGTHS of the vowels named (short and long respectively). There is no basis for an interpretation in terms of 'spirit'.

The identifications of Greek letter-forms with parts of the Serpent Mound (pp 153-191) are essentially impressionistic and do not appear at all persuasive. One would need to see evidence that at least a high proportion of these identifications or the set as a whole should be preferred (eg on statistical grounds) to other possible interpretations and especially to the null hypothesis of there being no link between the Mound and the alphabet. The null hypothesis would appear to have the strength (in terms of Ockham's Razor) of a better fit with the lack of historical evidence of contact between the two entities. In addition, there are further specific worries here, eg confused comments about Etruscan and the origin of gamma on pp 156-157, inaccurate phonetics on p 191.

Other points in the linguistic section (pp 141-152): 1) The Greeks did NOT invent the alphabet (pp 141, 150) but rather (as Hamilton actually acknowledges) adapted a Semitic (probably Phoenician) abjad to Greek, using consonant symbols not needed for Greek to represent vowels (this does occur in Semitic scripts but became universal in Greek) and (naturally) adding symbols to represent additional consonants and clusters requiring their own characters. This was clever but does not demonstrate any superior facility with Semitic symbolism. (Naturally, the senses of the Semitic letter-names were not carried over into Greek with its very largely unrelated vocabulary. By the time of transfer, the pictographic element in many of the letters was no longer obvious, in any case.) 2) The ordering of the alphabet as recited and used in dictionaries was derived from the Semitic scripts. (p 141) I know of no evidence that the numerological values of the letters had any significance beyond numerology. 3) There is no link between the earlier syllabic Greek scripts and the alphabet; in all probability, most Greek communities went through a period of illiteracy in the interim. (p 141) 4) Language naturally flourished in Greece (as elsewhere) even in the absence of literacy. The Homeric poems were originally composed by illiterates. (p 143) 5) It is not clear what would count as evidence for or against various mystical-sound statements about language on pp 143-147, or even what some of them mean. They appear susceptible only to subjective/ impressionistic confirmation or disconfirmation - which would naturally tend to involve unresolvable disagreements and thus could not carry much weight. 6) The counter-criticism of mainstream scholarly methods in these respects on p 151 is not adequately justified. 7) No good evidence is produced for the claims (p 144) that there is an important link between numerical symbology and the adoption of alphabetic writing and that the alphabet was very deliberately planned. 8) The choice and structure of the linguistic terminology is strange, eg (alpha), (gamma), <CLASSIC dental> (delta), beta described as the 'mean' of the mutes (plosives), beta described in terms of manner (plosive) but gamma and delta in terms of position (velar, dental), the non-technical term <guttural>, etc (p 144-145). 9) It is quite possible that some parts of the Semitic abjad system were derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs (p 144), but this does not show that any specific cultural influence is even likely, still less that any such influence later penetrated to the Greeks. 10) No good evidence is produced for the claims about changes to the spellings of letter-names and their motivation and significance, made in general terms on pp 144-145 and later in more detail (eg on p 156 for ). 11) The minuscule forms of Greek letters are late developments only. (p 152).

Whether or not the general theory can be made to hold up (which one must doubt), Hamilton will need to address points such as those made above and to increase the sophistication of his linguistic discussion. Until he does this, he will struggle to attract the interest of experts in these matters.

Reply to Drucker: the above is NOT an 'adamant rant' about this book, nor does it contain any 'dogmatic platitudes'. I merely rehearse various rational arguments that tell against the claims and proposals made in it. How else can one try to assess novel empirical claims? (Is Drucker really suggesting that rational analysis is inappropriate?! Surely not?) Naturally, Drucker is entitled to disagree and to argue back. And of course I might be wrong - and if I am so convinced (rationally) I will acknowledge this. Drucker is quite wrong if he thinks that my reaction to the book involves awareness or fear that 'there is possibly something more lurking here' which might somehow disturb scholars ('reduce them to a quivering mess'). We are perfectly accustomed to the challenge of novel theories. But if these theories appear irrational or poorly supported we will not accept them. Indeed, I have shown more interest in this book than most scholars would: I have taken it seriously and have bothered to review it. (There ARE cases of dogmatic rejection of novel ideas, some of which turn out to be correct - but this is much less common than is often suggested.) I myself doubt if time-travel is possible even in principle, but even if it IS possible and is one day achieved it will be a brave person who bets that Hamilton's theory of the origins of the Serpent Mound will thereby be confirmed. As things are at present, however, we must rely on the evidence that we do have - and on our use of rational thought to evaluate it and assess rival hypotheses concerning it. In this context, I do not understand why Drucker apparently eschews Ockam's Razor, which I think I use as appropriate. If Drucker thinks that there are powerful specific rejoinders to my specific criticisms, he should produce them. I will then consider them. Incidentally, Erich von Daniken's material is rather 'worse' than Drucker seems to suggest. It is woefully unscholarly.

This book opens your mind. Unless you've got the lock of rationality and science chained around it.

Many people like the "DR." who reviewed this book will not get it. It is outside the tiny box they have squeezed their minds into.

For a well researched and thoughtful look at some of human history, without the fear of grasping at the circa 1950 type of rationality, buy this book.

'A reader from Great NorthWest' claims that Hamilton's book 'opens your mind unless you've got the lock of rationality and science chained around it'. The reference is apparently to my own earlier review. But rationality (including science) is exactly how we evaluate competing theories about the world. It is NOT out of date ('1950') and it is NOT the same thing as closed-mindedness or thinking inside a 'tiny box' (that does occur but is very rare in serious scholarship). If Hamilton wants us to accept a radically novel & in many ways implausible account of the matters discussed, he must produce better evidence and argumentation than he does in his book. After all, if he is right, large parts of existing theories and ideas which are themselves very well supported must somehow be wrong. Perhaps 'reader from Great NorthWest', or some other admirer of Hamilton, can marshall evidence & argumentation and rebut my criticisms (which could be expanded to considerably greater length & detail). If so, I will cheerfully accept and promote Hamilton's views. If not, I stand by my criticisms; and on current evidence I am confident that other scholars would endorse them. (No one can say I ignored the book because of the views it expresses. Some scholars would think it unworthy of comment, but I am an active skeptic and thus take a different view.)