Heaven's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization - Hardcover

Graham Hancock

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517708116 ISBN 13: 9780517708118

Publisher: Crown, 1998

Synopsis

In Heaven's Mirror, author Graham Hancock continues the quest begun in his international best-seller Fingerprints of the Gods to rediscover the hidden legacy of mankind--the revelation that the cultures we refer to as ancient were, in fact, the heirs to a far older forgotten civilization and the inheritors of its archaic, mystical wisdom.

Working with photographer Santha Faiia, Hancock traces a network of sacred sites around the globe on a spectacular voyage of discovery that takes us from the pyramids and temples of ancient Egypt to the enigmatic statues of Easter Island, from the haunting ruins of pre-Columbian America to the splendors of Angkor Wat, in order to crack the code of our lost ancestors. It is an odyssey that leads to sunken monuments and hidden chambers--a journey through myth and magic, and astounding archaeological revelations, that forces us to rethink our entire conception of the origins of civilization.

The first fully illustrated book by Graham Hancock, Heaven's Mirror is a stunning and illuminating tour into the spirituality of the ancients--a search for a secret written in the language of astronomy and recorded in the very foundations of the holiest sites of antiquity:
A secret that speaks of a mysterious connection between earth and heaven.
A secret that transforms temples into stars and men into gods.
The deepest and darkest secret of our forgotten past.
What would these fifteen gigantic Moai on Easter Island say if they could speak?

The only voice left to these statues and other ancient monoliths is that of the astronomical alignments that govern them. These alignments point to a common link, reveal a shockingly sophisticated understanding of the solar system, and perhaps even encompass the Holy Grail of immortality.

About this title

Review

It could be true! That's the enthusiasm that author and scholar-mystic Graham Hancock counts on--in himself and in his readers--as he lays down his theories of an ancient (Atlantean, perhaps?) civilization that disseminated a sophisticated religion of ground-sky dualism and a "science" of immortality. Hancock's previous work, including the popular and controversial Fingerprints of the Gods, has drawn criticism for its leaps of faith and allegedly pseudoscientific conclusions, but Heaven's Mirror proves at least a little more substantial. His chief thesis is that numerous ancient sites and monuments--the pyramids of Mexico and Egypt, the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the monuments of Yonaguni in the Pacific, and the megaliths of Peru and Bolivia--are situated in such a way, geodetically, that they point towards some separate and uniform influence, some lost civilization or "invisible college" of astronomer-priests. And that civilization, as evidenced in the mathematics and architecture of the sites, points towards some gnosis, or body of knowledge, that would allow humanity to transcend the trap of mortality, a worldview in which the knowledge-giving serpent of Eden is not a villain but a hero.

Whatever you think of Hancock's ideas and theoretical musings in archaeo-astronomy, Heaven's Mirror is a gorgeous book, thanks to the photography of Santha Faiia. Lush, evocative photos of the monoliths on Easter Island and temples deep in the Cambodian jungle are enough to set the mind to introspective wandering--maybe, just maybe, Hancock's got it right after all. --Paul Hughes

About the Author

Graham Hancock is a former East African correspondent for The Economist and has traveled around the world writing books and filming movies on archaeological discoveries and their connection to our distant past.  He is the author of the best-selling Fingerprints of the Gods, The Sign and the Seal, and The Mars Mystery.  He lives in Devon, England.

Santha Faiia is an internationally published photographer specializing in ancient cultures and monuments. She lives in Devon with her husband, Graham Hancock.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0517708116
• ISBN 13: 9780517708118
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336