Fingerprints of the Gods
Encyclopedia
Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization is a book first published in 1995 by Graham Hancock
Graham Hancock
Graham Hancock is a British writer and journalist. Hancock specialises in unconventional theories involving ancient civilizations, stone monuments or megaliths, altered states of consciousness, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past...

, in which he echoes nineteenth century writer Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism , and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory...

, author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831...

(1882), in contending that some previously enigmatic ancient but highly-advanced civilization had existed in prehistory, one which served as the common progenitor civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

 to all subsequent known ancient historical
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

 ones. Supposedly, sometime around the end of the last Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

 this civilization ended in cataclysm, but passed on to its inheritors profound knowledge of such things as astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

. Most of his claims are based on the idea that mainstream interpretations of archaeological evidence are flawed or incomplete. Rather than supplying new evidence, part of Hancock's argument is towards a reassessment of existing archaeological evidence, which in the introduction to a new edition he outlines as being more important than the theory he uses to link together his conclusions.

Thesis

The book pivots on "fingerprints" of these civilizations, evidence of which Hancock finds in the descriptions of Godmen
Superhuman
Superhuman can mean an improved human, for example, by genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or as what humans might evolve into, in the near or distant future...

 like Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...

, Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

, Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...

, and Viracocha
Viracocha
Viracocha is the great creator god in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Full name and some spelling alternatives are Apu Qun Tiqsi Wiraqutra and Con-Tici Viracocha...

. These creation myths predate history, and Hancock suggests that in 10,450 BC, a major pole shift took place, before which Antarctica was further from the South Pole than it is today, and after which it was moved to its present location. This civilization was supposedly centered around Antarctica, and later survivors initiated the Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....

, Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

, Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

, and Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 cultures.

The book was influenced by Rand and Rose Flem-Ath's When the Sky Fell: in Search of Atlantis (1995/2009) in which they expand the evidence for Charles Hapgood's theory of earth crust displacement and propose Antarctica as the site of Atlantis.

The pole shift hypothesis hinges on Charles Hapgood
Charles Hapgood
Charles Hutchins Hapgood was an American college professor and author who became one of the best known advocates of a pseudo-historical claim of a rapid and recent pole shift with catastrophic results.-Biography:...

's theory of Earth Crustal Displacement . Hapgood was also fascinated with the story of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....

 and suggested that crustal displacement may have caused its destruction. His theories have few supporters in the geological community compared to the more accepted model of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

.

The title of the book seems to play off of Erich von Däniken
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...

's earlier book, Chariots of the Gods?, which examines much of the same archaeological, geological and historical evidence as Hancock, while reaching a far different conclusion as to the origin and significance of such evidence.

Reception

Members of the scholarly and scientific community have described the proposals put forward in the book as pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

 and pseudoarchaeology
Pseudoarchaeology
Pseudoarchaeology — also known as alternative archaeology, fringe archaeology, fantastic archaeology, or cult archaeology — refers to interpretations of the past from outside of the academic archaeological community, which typically also reject the accepted scientific and analytical methods of the...

.

Fingerprints of the Gods has been translated into 27 languages and is estimated to have sold more than three million copies around the world.

A second edition of the book was published in 2001, entitled Fingerprint of the Gods: The Quest Continues. It includes a new introduction and new appendices in which Hancock responds to some of his critics.

Influence

  • In 2009, Roland Emmerich
    Roland Emmerich
    Roland Emmerich is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer.His films, most of which are Hollywood productions filmed in English, have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, more than those of any other European director...

    , Hollywood Director released his blockbuster disaster movie 2012
    2012 (film)
    2012 is a 2009 American disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. It was produced by Emmerich's production company, Centropolis Entertainment and was distributed by Columbia Pictures...

    citing Fingerprints of the Gods in the credits as inspiration for the film. In a November 2009 interview with the London magazine Time Out, Emmerich states: "I always wanted to do a biblical flood movie, but I never felt I had the hook. I first read about the Earth's Crust Displacement Theory in Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods."
  • Also in the extras of the blu-ray 10,000 BC
    10,000 BC (film)
    10,000 BC is a 2008 American fantasy film from Warner Bros. Pictures set in the prehistoric era. It was directed by Roland Emmerich and stars Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008 at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin...

    , the director Emmerich and the co-writer Harald Kloser
    Harald Kloser
    Harald Kloser is an Austrian-born film composer and writer who has won the BMI Film Music Award in 2005 for both of his scores of Alien vs...

    , said that they had found inspiration to the same book .

External links

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