The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts

by Graham Robb

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393241358
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/29/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	337,773
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each selected as New York Times Best Books. His most recent works, The Discovery of Middle Earth, The Discovery of France, and Parisians, have earned several awards. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

Table of Contents

Protohistory ix

Part 1

1 The Road from the Ends of the Earth 3

2 News of the Iron Age 23

3 The Mediolanum Mystery, I 40

4 The Mediolanum Mystery, II 49

5 Down the Meridian 65

Part 2

6 The Size of the World 87

7 The Druidic Syllabus, I: Elementary 107

8 The Druidic Syllabus, II: Advanced 119

Part 3

9 Paths of the Gods 137

10 The Forest and Beyond 162

11 Cities of Middle Earth 176

12 The Gods Victorious 188

Part 4

13 The Poetic Isles 215

14 The Four Royal Roads 235

15 The End of Middle Earth 249

16 Return of the Druids 269

Epilogue: A Traveller's Guide to Middle Earth 289

Chronology 299

Notes 303

Works Cited 329

General Index 359

Geographical Index 371

Acknowledgements 389

Permissions Acknowledgements 391

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/26/2013
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. 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 “solstice lines,” organized their towns and cities to mirror the paths of their Sun god, in turn creating “the 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.)

Publishers Weekly

[A] daring theory…. thrilling.

Laura Miller - Salon

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

Intriguing and stimulating . . . by an author whose previous works have been, one after the other, precise, self-aware, and enlightening.

Jane Smiley - Harper’s

Upends nearly everything we believe about the history… of early Europe.

Gabe Habash - Publishers Weekly

Intriguing and stimulating . . . by an author whose previous works have been, one after the other, precise, self-aware, and enlightening.

Jane Smiley - Harpers

09/15/2013
Robb's (Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris) premise is that the protohistoric Celts of Northern Europe were pioneers in many cultural innovations, not least in their keen grasp of celestial movements. He posits that Druids, the equivalent of academics among the Celts, structured their entire society—towns, temples, tribal relocations, and battle sites—on this knowledge. Robb argues that traces of their civilization still remain, e.g., in the etymology of place names, in modern road locations, and in ancient earthworks. (The middle earth of the title indicates a site equidistant from two sites situated along solar paths.) Ironically, their rational grasp of solar happenings led to the Celts' downfall: in some of their crucial battles—as recorded in Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars—they had numerical superiority, but their solar reckonings led them to stage battles in less than advantageous spots. The Celts as a culture eventually assumed a submissive relationship to the Romans; hence, few primary sources regarding their literary and scientific prowess remain. Archaeological investigations show that many of their great works were built over by the Romans and subsequent cultures. Robb's writing is deft and his accounts of his own explorations lend a certain underpinning and charm to the complex narrative. VERDICT This will appeal to specialists but could be too detailed for the general reader, who may grow frustrated by the somewhat cryptic information regarding solstice lines. [See Prepub Alert, 5/20/13.]—Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM

Library Journal

2013-10-21
When planning a bicycle route through the Alps of central Europe, Robb (The Discovery of France, 2007, etc.) discovered a sophisticated ancient Celtic landscape that called for nothing short of a revision of ancient history. The author is a refreshing new voice in a canon of outdated, barbaric perceptions of an ingeniously advanced society and endlessly recycled quotes from Tacitus, Caesar or Cicero. "Tribes who used perishable materials where Romans used stone, and who recorded their histories in nothing more durable then brain tissue, are unlikely to be seen as sophisticated precursors of the modern world," writes the author. However, through use of celestial mathematics, etymology, geometry, mapping and a charming measure of common sense, Robb reveals a clear picture of a culture that has been buried by the Roman conquest. He shatters the misconception that Rome built the first roads in Gaul and Britain, describing the well-maintained long-distance routes used by the Celts to move around their territories. They demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of astronomy and celestial movements, and they made mathematically inspired art. They also created one of the most prestigious universities in the ancient world (12 centuries before the Sorbonne) and laid out their cities, towns and sacred places via a series of meticulously ordered geometric and astronomical lines, imposing an intriguingly spiritual map on a very real terrestrial landscape. The dizzying array of tribal and place names--not frequently enough given modern geographical reference--and the occasionally tedious explanations of the mathematical/geometrical calculations may be necessary, but they are the weakest links in this otherwise gripping text. Some readers will also wonder if the title itself is a play to win readership from Tolkien fans, most of whom would find the book too dry for their tastes. Flaws aside, Robb has broken significant new ground in this deep, fastidiously researched exploration into the ingenuity of the ancient Celtic people.

Kirkus Reviews