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A review by wart
Dawn of Genius: Rediscovering Europe's First Super Civilization - The Minoans and Their World by Alan Butler
5.0
You can find this and other reviews at Things I Find While Shelving
[I received a free ARC of this book via NetGalley. This fact has no bearing on my review.]
I love mythology. I love learning about what the world was like when said mythology came into being/developed/what not. I love learning about the cultures who told these myths and what their lives were like and what their worlds were like. And I particularly love reading non-fiction that doesn't feel like a text book and is accessible and understandable and not boring.
Dawn of Genius covers all my bases.
Butler's writing is accessible to the layman (or the lazy...), even in the appendices where he goes into detail about the math behind the Phaistos disc and its function (hint: the Minoan calender was 99.9999 percent accurate...and that's just for the Sidereal year, the disc could also be used for the tropical year, and that system was 99.9997 percent accurate). Butler presents his findings in an understandable way, and his writing isn't dry, which is nice because I have trouble with some non-fiction (I found Christopher Abram's [b:Myths of the Pagan North: The Gods of the Norsemen|10567033|Myths of the Pagan North The Gods of the Norsemen|Christopher Abram|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333925516s/10567033.jpg|15473965] very interesting, but super dry and hard to get through sometimes).
In Dawn of Genius, Butler talks about the Minoans. Aka the culture that developed on Crete years before the Mycenean Greeks and before the Ancient Greeks we talk about today. He talks about, as I said above, their calender and how they adjusted for the fact that the solar year isn't actually a whole number of days. He talks about their units of measurement and the fact that it is related to a unit of measurement that was found to be used in the megalithic structures built in Britain. Which ties into Bulter's discussion of the trade that developed between the Megalithic culture in Britain and the Minoan culture on Crete. Probably for Tin.
BY THE WAY. There are carvings on Stonehenge that could be Minoan - one's a double headed axe, which was called a Labrys, which is where the word labyrinth comes from. Also, the palace uncovered at Knossos was huge and twisty and kind of labyrinth like in and of itself, so it's likely that's where the myth of the minotaur stemmed from.
Speaking of myths! The eruption at Santorini, which pretty much crippled Minoan civilization in a day as well as having global effects that we don't even know everything about yet because of lack of written records (though in China they've found records that talk about atmospheric and weather changes due to the eruption) is probably where the myth of Atlantis stems from. Coupled with the megalithic cultures of Britain, Butler theorizes that facts about the two cultures became jumbled over the years, and that's where Plato came up with Atlantis: a culture beyond the pillars of Hercules (the Megalithic cultures) that was a great sea power (in order to trade for anything, the Minoans had to have a good sea presence and needed a strong navy to fight pirates) and was destroyed in a day (the eruption of Santorini may not have completely destroyed them, but it definitely brought them to their knees).
There's a lot of really cool information in this book, presented in a way that is easy to read and accessible even when Butler gets technical. Another thing I really liked is when he talks about things in his other books, he doesn't just say "You can read about that in my other book!" he actually says "this is what I talk about in said book and how it relates to what I'm talking about now" which is fantastic because then if you aren't interested in reading said other book it's not a big deal because Butler is giving you the information instead of saying "go find it for yourself".
Loved reading this.
[I received a free ARC of this book via NetGalley. This fact has no bearing on my review.]
I love mythology. I love learning about what the world was like when said mythology came into being/developed/what not. I love learning about the cultures who told these myths and what their lives were like and what their worlds were like. And I particularly love reading non-fiction that doesn't feel like a text book and is accessible and understandable and not boring.
Dawn of Genius covers all my bases.
Butler's writing is accessible to the layman (or the lazy...), even in the appendices where he goes into detail about the math behind the Phaistos disc and its function (hint: the Minoan calender was 99.9999 percent accurate...and that's just for the Sidereal year, the disc could also be used for the tropical year, and that system was 99.9997 percent accurate). Butler presents his findings in an understandable way, and his writing isn't dry, which is nice because I have trouble with some non-fiction (I found Christopher Abram's [b:Myths of the Pagan North: The Gods of the Norsemen|10567033|Myths of the Pagan North The Gods of the Norsemen|Christopher Abram|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333925516s/10567033.jpg|15473965] very interesting, but super dry and hard to get through sometimes).
In Dawn of Genius, Butler talks about the Minoans. Aka the culture that developed on Crete years before the Mycenean Greeks and before the Ancient Greeks we talk about today. He talks about, as I said above, their calender and how they adjusted for the fact that the solar year isn't actually a whole number of days. He talks about their units of measurement and the fact that it is related to a unit of measurement that was found to be used in the megalithic structures built in Britain. Which ties into Bulter's discussion of the trade that developed between the Megalithic culture in Britain and the Minoan culture on Crete. Probably for Tin.
BY THE WAY. There are carvings on Stonehenge that could be Minoan - one's a double headed axe, which was called a Labrys, which is where the word labyrinth comes from. Also, the palace uncovered at Knossos was huge and twisty and kind of labyrinth like in and of itself, so it's likely that's where the myth of the minotaur stemmed from.
Speaking of myths! The eruption at Santorini, which pretty much crippled Minoan civilization in a day as well as having global effects that we don't even know everything about yet because of lack of written records (though in China they've found records that talk about atmospheric and weather changes due to the eruption) is probably where the myth of Atlantis stems from. Coupled with the megalithic cultures of Britain, Butler theorizes that facts about the two cultures became jumbled over the years, and that's where Plato came up with Atlantis: a culture beyond the pillars of Hercules (the Megalithic cultures) that was a great sea power (in order to trade for anything, the Minoans had to have a good sea presence and needed a strong navy to fight pirates) and was destroyed in a day (the eruption of Santorini may not have completely destroyed them, but it definitely brought them to their knees).
There's a lot of really cool information in this book, presented in a way that is easy to read and accessible even when Butler gets technical. Another thing I really liked is when he talks about things in his other books, he doesn't just say "You can read about that in my other book!" he actually says "this is what I talk about in said book and how it relates to what I'm talking about now" which is fantastic because then if you aren't interested in reading said other book it's not a big deal because Butler is giving you the information instead of saying "go find it for yourself".
Loved reading this.