Fingerprints of the Gods

Fingerprints of the Gods Written and narrated by Graham Hancock My own ideas are in a constant state of flux and are always changing as I learn new things. That's half the fun of my job. Also, in studying and writing about the possibility of a forgotten episode in human history, I rely to a great extent on the research of others, so as new breakthroughs are made or come to my attention, I try to take account of them. Where I referred to the Mayan calendar end date in previous editions of Fingerprints of the Gods, therefore, I now speak more broadly of the epoch of 2012, reflecting the new understanding brought by the work of John Major Jenkins and other scholars. Writing new books, rather than going back to tamper with books already written, is, however, my preferred way of integrating new material and of responding to criticisms. Accordingly, I also refer the listener to Underworld, 2002, which documents my seven years of scuba diving along coastlines submerged by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, and in particular to the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods, which was published in 2015 and is entitled Magicians of the Gods. It is in Magicians that I explore most fully the implications of the new, more nuanced understanding of the astronomical basis of the Mayan calendar and of the meaning and implications of that end date of the 21st of December 2012, which was always only an indication date roughly in the middle of an eighty-year window that the Maya foresaw as one of danger and transformation, but also, ultimately, of rebirth. Still Standing What about Fingerprints of the Gods? Does it contain mistakes? Or, worse still, was it a mistake? The answer to the first question is yes, of course Fingerprints contains mistakes. That's because it's not a bank ledger or a balance sheet. It's a book of big ideas, written by a fallible human being. The answer to the second question is no. I'm proud of this book and continue to stand by it, despite the unremitting hostility and criticisms of academics and their friends in the media. When I was writing in the early 1990s, I deliberately set out to take risks about history and prehistory, to explore uncharted territory, to question a priori assumptions, and to draw attention to areas of darkness and mystery in our understanding of the past. I wanted to stir up thinking and reinvigorate debate about a subject that seemed to have gone cold in the public imagination, the possibility of a lost civilization, and I realized that the only way to do this was not to write a safe book. Instead, I opted for a frontal assault on mainstream thinking, combined with passionate advocacy of an alternative view of history. I made a lot of enemies along the way, but I think the record shows this strategy of confrontation worked, still stirring up controversy today. Fingerprints stands like a gladiator in the Coliseum, although it is scarred and battered from many assaults, it is, I note, still standing, the essential prerequisite of survival in any ring.