Product Description
Describes the findings of Smithsonian Institution scientists and other investigators regarding the Adena, Hopewell, and Temple Mound Peoples--the Mound Builders. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

fascinating history
The first two thirds of the book is devoted not to the mound builders themselves, but to the odyssey of American archeology discovering their existence.

Europeans had known about the mounds since the expeditions of De Soto in the early 1500s and mound building continued in some parts of North America until the early 1700s. However, beginning in the late 18th and continuing through most of the 19th century many Americans came to believe the myth of the mound builders.

These magnificent earthen structures, laden with artifacts of a lost civilization, requiring large, highly organized societies, were the work of a vanished race. The mound builders were Phoenicians or Greeks or the lost tribes of Israel or survivors from Atlantis. It was impossible that they could have been related to the heathen savages that the Europeans were so efficiently exterminating. Many versions of the myths had Native Americans as the villains in the story, destroying the mound builders civilization. It wasn't until the late 1800s that the myth was deflated and archaeologists allowed the mounds themselves to tell their story.

The final third of The Mound Builders tells of the three great mound building cultures in North America; the Adena, Hopewell and Mississippians. The Adena were the first to build mounds, beginning around 1000BC. The Hopewell arrived some 600 years later and the two cultures coexisted for several hundred years. The Mississippian culture was coming into being as the Hopewell disappeared, around 700AD. The culture was in decline long before the arrival of the Europeans.

The mounds of North America have many unsolved mysteries and Mr. Silverberg is careful to present multiple viewpoints regarding current speculations.

Mr. Silverberg mentions my current obsession, Cahokia, only in passing. Although Cahokia was the largest prehistoric city in North American and Monk's Mound dwarfs any other structure of the mound building cultures, much of the archaeological work in Cahokia had not occurred when The Mound Builders was published in 1970.

If you have even a passing interest in North American archeology, The Mound Builders is a good read.

Great Archaeology On The Moundbuilders
This book is good treatment on one the most interesting early cultures found within the United States. Why was this culture so interesting? Well, the were able to build mounds than enabled them to do very advanced things during the equinoxes. The also engaged in very significant trade when the possessed no what of moving goods quickly. The author recounts all of this in very good detail and never leaves you wishing you would die from boredom. I would recommend this book to anyone interesting in a culture that has been obscured within the American mind.

Amazing!
1. The Adena, Hopewell, Caddoan, Oneota sites are pyramids, cones, hillocks, terraced plate-forms, and animal shapes.

2. Prehistoric America had more pyramids than Egypt.

3. The earthworks displayed superior knowledge to hunter tribes of North America. Skill in pottery exceeded Native Indian pottery in sophistication and finish.

4. Cyrus Thomas explored 2,000 Mound Builder mounds in 24 states and collected 40,000 artifacts, in a four-year period of time.

5. The Adena people smoked pipes.

6. The Wilmington Table is 4 by 5 inches used for tattooing. There are 14 tablets in existence.

7. The Hopewell created mounds with mathematical and precise geometries, plazas, and avenues that sometimes extended for miles. The Hopewell practiced mound building in Southern Ohio. Three fourths of the burials were cremated.

8. A 100,000 fresh water pearls were discovered in Hopewell mounds. The pearls came from mussels found in the Ohio River.

Questions

What is the chronology of Mound Builders, Adena, Hopewell?

* Mound People: 3000 BCE to the 16th century
* Adena culture: 1000 BC to 200 BC migration from Mexico
* Hopewell Indians: 200 BCE to 500 CE

What are the Thirteen Adena tablets?

* Wilmington Tablet, found at Clinton County, Ohio. Avian creature in mirror negative reflex.
* Gaitskill Clay Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Avian figure with join dots in four "world" quarters composition.
* Gaitskill Stone Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Tarantula figure with mirror face feature.
* Mm6 Wright Tablet, found at Montgomery County, Kentucky. Five separate figures: raptorial bird, serpentine horizontal body, winglike serpentine, serpentine leg and missing wing.
* Berlin Tablet, found at Vinton County, Ohio. Bow-tie-shaped thick plate obverse face with incised abstract bird.
* Cincinnati Tablet, found at Mound Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. Faces, wing, claws, body and tail.
* Kiefer Tablet, found at Miami County, Ohio. It is covered with figures, two claw feet, and complete tail. May represent a bird's tail.
* Lakin A Tablet, found at Mason County, West Virginia. Depict six separate figures: human head, heads of raptorial bird, human hands, elaborate leg, tail, arms and claws.
* Lakin B Tablet, found at Mason County, West Virginia. Depict 8 distinct units: human face, serpentine figure, raptorial tail, 7 loops.
* Low 1 Tablet, found at Wood County, West Virginia. Two human full-front faces and bird forms in mirror image.
* Meigs Tablet, found at Meigs County, Ohio. Obverse covered with figures, reverse with eight grooves. Two heads, two wings, two claw feet, two tail portions, and two sided body.
* Allen Tablet, found at Miegs County, Ohio. Phallic and Vulva figures in six concentric circles, arranged in two rows of three, explicit of procreation and ancestry.
* Waverly-Hurst Tablet, found at Pike County, Ohio. Engraved side depicts five separate raptorial and serpentine figures very much like in the Wright Tablet.

Did the Hopewell link to Mexico?

*Hopewell linked with Mexico Jaguar worship. The Mound Builders predated the Hopewell Indians arriving in 1000 BC or earlier.

Did the Mound Builders construct truncated pyramids?

* Truncated pyramids resembling Tikal pyramid (gateways to heaven) were found by Hopewell ruins. Four of them, the largest of them 188 feet by 132 feet at the base, and ten feet high.The largest truncated pyramid is Monk's Mound.

* Monk's Mound is 100 feet (30 meters) high, 955 feet (291 meters) long including the access ramp at the southern end, and 775 feet

When did the Hopewells cease to build pyramid?

*Around 550 AD, the Hopewells ceased to build their ceremonial centers.

When did the Hopewells enter into Adena territory?

*Around 400 B.C., the Hopewell's Indians entered Adena territory

What was the dimension of an earthen pyramid?

Earthen pyramids, eighty to one hundred feet high and covering acres of ground, appeared first in Alabama, Georgia, and the rest of the Gulf coast states, and spread as far west as Texas and as far north as Illinois.

When did the Temple Mound construction end?

But by the end of the sixteenth century the Temple Mound culture was in decay, and its important centers --Cahokia in Illinois, Etowah in Georgia, Spiro in Oklahoma, Moundville in Alabama, and others--were abandoned.

What states have mounds or temple mounds?

* 33 states :

Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina
, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

What astronomical sightings did Woodhenge provide?

Woodhenge circle of posts were used to make astronomical sightings for solstices and equinoxes

Good Starting Point for Mound Exploration, For Better or Worse
This is actually a great little book and a handy reference that is much more open-minded than might seem at first glance, despite the suspicions or even objections of some.

Sure, Silverberg obviously feels the heat from the nagging, sagging conspiratorial dogma of the Establishment, or what might simply be called "pre-meditated history"; after all, when pure history is flogged by political poppycock (thinly disguised as "academic") it just ain't "history" anymore, and dishonest folks (ironically, often from the ranks of the "professionally employed") having such tendencies should indeed be banned from the sport.

However, Silverberg nicely covers his own butt by allowing generously for a supposed "exchange of ideology" between outside forces (meaning Mexico, typically) and the Mound Builders, without bowing to the theories of actual human migrations.Since I personally would consider the distinction between the two (ideas and people) to be the finest of lines, it's a tactic I can easily live with as it sure beats the heck out of the likely alternative.

Most impressively and surprisingly slick, Silverberg also takes us through the timeline of modern Mound Builder archeology and the accompanying Schools of Thought, providing pertinent background info for anyone with the slightest interest on this topic who will find it weaved together exceptionally well by the pleasingly straightforward narrative of "The Mound Builders."

BTW, one sure-fire accomplice to the whole Mound Builder story that never gets properly addressed (by Silverberg or anyone else, for that matter) is the ancient copper extraction in the Lake Superior basin that was apparently conducted on a massive, systematic scale from 2500 to 1200 B.C.As there may yet be much to be disclosed about the Mound Builder saga via any future revelations (with Poverty Point in Louisiana possibly holding a key) about this archaic commercial mining, I recommend for some interesting insight the book titled "Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi" by Roger Jewell, as listed at Amazon.com.

The Best Mound Builder Resource
Silverberg reviews the history of the mound builders from the beginning, including all of the debates, controversies and bizarre fantasies that arose around the mounds. Mormans hate this book because it shows how their beliefs were based on fantasies. It sounds like some of their reviewers never read this book. It is sad that so many mounds have been lost and destroyed, they showed that that Indians weren't hapless primitives. Just as sad is the Mormon revisionists holding on to outlandish and unsupportable theories. ... Read more

Product Description
A lively and relevant collection of columnist, author andeditor Robert Silverberg's columns constituting a vivid chronicle ofevents both in science fiction and the world in general during thepast two decades. Thoughtful, serious, funny, tongue-in-cheek - alwaysintriguing, they run the gamut. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pontifications
Here is a collection of essays (mostly from _Galileo_, _Amazing_, and _Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine_) that Robert Silverberg describes as "pontifications." They may be placed alongside John W. Campbell's _Collected Editorials From Analog_ (1966). But my approach in analyzing the books is a little bit different. With Campbell, part of my task is to separate editorials with which I agree from editorials with which I disagree. With the Silverberg collection, no sifting is needed. I find myself in agreement with Silverberg on virtually every topic that he tackles: creationism, political correctness, gay gene research, holocaust deniers, genetic hysteria, the importance of spelling, definitions of words, children's books, a sense of wonder, and writing techniques.

Silverberg,like Campbell, may be described as a "libertarian/conservative" (xviii). But there are differences between Campbell and Silverberg:

I am not such a doctrinaire libertarian that I favor the abolition of government inspection of food products or an end to government regulation of medicines; I am not such a doctrinaire conservative that I look kindly on government attempts to legislate morality, or favor manditory religious instruction in state schools. (xviii)

Perhaps Silverberg might best be described as a moderate rationalist using his essays as a means of urging a sense of sanity on an increasingly radical world.

Another difference between the essays of Campbell and those of Silverberg is their style. Campbell's essays are assertive; he wants to grab you by the lapels and shake you into thought. Silverberg's essays are more gentlemanly-- the writings of a man who used to be an arrogant little pisher, but who gradually learned (sometimes painfully) that there was more to writing and life than he once believed. The style is polite-- the mark of a man who somewhere along the line learned that other people's feelings matter. But none of this style prevents Silverberg from being honest about his positions.

Here he is on the proposal to teach creationism as an alternate hypothesis to evolution:

Why not, you say? Shouldn't all viewpoints be given equal opportunity for testing?
Well, actually, no... If we teach Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden to our children at school, should we not also teach the Creation myths-- pardon me, Creation theories-- of other all cultures? (110)

And here he is on the hypersensitivity of minority goups in political correctness criticism:

And-- minority sensitivities or no-- _it is not the job of the artists to be nice to people_. We are not social workers. We are not therapists. We are not crusaders. We are tellers of tales, inventers of fiction. What we offer is not comfort but vision. Not all the visions are cuddly ones. (353)

Of particular interest are a number of portraits of science fiction writers and editors, including John Campbell ["Not only did he know what went into a good sf tale, he understood how the universe worked"(264)], Robert A. Heinlein ["The word that comes to mind for him was _essential_"(248)], and Isaac Asimov ["He was... more unique than any of us"(247)]. But my favorite was his portrait of Lester del Rey: "My feelings for Lester went beyond metaphor. I was one of his sons; he was one of my fathers, with all the complexities and turbulance that such a relationship implies" (261).

I have read all of the essays in this book at least three or four times, and I expect to reread them many more times in the future. I can think of no higher praise.

Future Grand Master of Science Fiction
This is a good book for anybody who reads a lot of science fiction/fantasy and has a real interest in the people who write it.Robert Silverberg is an author who will be given the Grand Master award from SFWA in the future. His novels like Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and A Time of Changesare classics of the field.Even some of his later works like The Face ofthe Waters and The Alien Years show signs of greatness.

But, this bookis a collection of essays that RS has written over the years.They show usinside his thinking process.He also tells us about the world of an SFwritter and about the other personalities who make up the field.

Goodbook for people interested in the author and his work.

This book changed my life.
I discovered Robert Silverberg's work while browsing the library. I was a book called The Book of Skulls. I thought it looked interesting so I took it home and read it. I haven't looked back since. I have read nearlyeverything I can find by this wonderful man. That brings me to this book.When I finished this book, I had reached a turning point in my life. Ibegan reading Golden Age SF. It really bothers me when younger people saywhy should I read that? A bunch a dead guys wrote that smelly stuff (sincemost/nearly all SF was in the pulps). I have read Cliff Simak, LewisPadgett (who is really C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner), Robert A. Heinlein,Lester del Rey, John W. Campbell (Night is beautiful), A.E. van Vogt, andmany others, and I must say, though some is extremely corny (The Vault ofthe Beast by van Vogt..."Ha! We're going to take over mankind!), itprovided much of the richness that is now in the field. Before readingReflections and Refractions, I had no idea about this other world. Now Ihave begun reading about the authors themselves, and the editors, anddefinitely believe my life is fuller because the great Golden Age. ... Read more

Product Description
The national bestselling saga from the stunning imagination of Robert Silverberg continues in the first new hardcover Majipoor novel in nearly a decade. As a prequel to Silverberg's earlier Majipoor novels. Sorcerers of Majipoor provides a deep, dark vision for the background of the conflict inLord Valentine's Castle and Valentine Pontifex.

Treachery and wizardry run rampant under the reign of the mighty Pontifex, as both the rightful and the unworthy heirs to the throne anxiously await his demise. Korsibar, son of the current Coronal, plots with his twin sister and ambitious companions to seize the power of the Coronal when his father ascends to the throne of the Pontifex.

But the burdens of the crown and scepter exactahigher price than Korsibar is prepared to pay. His rival fights to take his appointed place as keeper of his beloved Majipoor... and to restore order to the utter chaos that has befallen their world.

"Silverberg has created a big planet, chock-a-block with life and potential...."-- The Washington Post ... Read more

Customer Reviews (49)

This is getting more than a little dated
When I was a kid, I read this and loved it. That was a long time ago now. I think that the passage of a few decades and the more discerning pallet I have as a reader have combined to just destroy any kindness I have towards Lord Valentines Castle.

First of all... this is such a hippie story. Majipoor is this world with technology mostly existing in mid-evil levels. Yet it is filled with technology well beyond where we are today. The world itself is several times more vast than Earth. People can live here in normal gravity because it is a lot lighter than Earth. Many other alien races live here too. The entire world is ruled over by a single man. Lord Valentine.

Valentine starts the book without knowing where he is. In one day he finds a young lad who becomes an apprentice. He finds a life calling 'juggler'. and a soul mate in the form of a pretty follow juggler. They seem all ready to spend the next 200 years doing tricks when Valentine starts to remember that he is 'lord' and something happened to him that was not right.

This whole story was very booooring. Its heavy on humorless dry style. Its very serious. Valentine is a self important pap that deserves a good beating.

Some books that are similar in style to this that I would recommend in its place would be 'the Kin of Ata are waiting for you' and.... hmmm

Grand Plot - A Revisit to Valentine's Castle!
Somewhat dazed, Valentine wakes up in a field somewhere and is discovered by a passing herd boy.And thus begins Valentine's journey, from a puzzled and confused amnesiac to discovering who he really is.

Can you imagine, a person who was king (or "Coronal" in this case) who was somehow magically switched with another body, and the new Coronal is really wearing a new body.

Scary stuff.The first half of the book deals with not only his self-discovery, but his new loves and new adventures with people he may never have met, had he not been cast from his high and mighty throne.

The crux of the story really has to do with his own self-discovery, his haughtiness replaced with a simple understanding of reality, and then the merging of these two into Valentine the Coronal.

Several parts to this book I like.The author doesn't let on that Valentine is really actually the Coronal but weaves his readers through the self-discovery, laying clues along the way.And he does a bit of planet-building too.New aliens, ancient civilizations and so on.Unfortunately these are not fleshed out all that much.

Silverberg gets into the Metamorphs, the original race that "wasn't really using the planet anyway" and are on reservations.They're called Metamorphs because they can change themselves to look like anyone - shapeshifters.

Valentine meets with a group of jugglers who slowly realize he is not what he seems.It takes some convincing to get him to see that he is in fact the Coronal and that there is an usurper on the throne.And even then, he would prefer the simple life of a juggler to the dubious monarchy.What a conflict!

Despite the fact that there are aliens on this planet and that Earth is all but forgotten, and even the technology laid out in the story is forgotten as well, this story could easily fit in Medieval England or in a Marion Zimmer Bradley story.Calling it "science fiction" is a loose term.It's definitely a fantasy tale.

Bottom Line:Great story, full of imagery, bravery and self-discovery.I would have fleshed out some of the other alien races more and given less to the biology and geography of the planet.Perhaps Silverberg does so in the other books of the series.

Recommended!

Others of Interest:

The Book of Skulls
Valentine of Majipoor : Lord Valentine's Castle/Majipoor Chronicles/Valentine Pontifex
Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg: Volume 1 Secret Sharers

Ripped off
The book was described as in "Good Condition" - WRONG. It was a library book first of all and so the book was marked accordingly all over the sides of the pages as well as the front cover. More noticeably was the wear and tear you come to expect from a library book - actually no significant tears but the pages were yellow with age and appeared to have been exposed to moisture. The book was dirty inside and out. There is no way this book could be consider good condition. I'd say closer to "poor". The seller ripped me off. Sure the book was only a dollar but the shipping was 4 times more and it was described misleadingly. Jerk seller. Never will buy from again.

More than anything, the Juggling
Reading the passages of Valentine learning how to juggle from the early days up until taking his final seat at Castle Mount and doing that final juggling round with his friends is entrancing and mind bending. You feel as if you want to take up the balls and start juggling yourself. You sense yourself in the back of the cart with Lisamon and her gigantic weapons. More than anything you *feel* the scale of Majipoor in this book.

In my mind, one of the greatest fantasy/sci-fi epics every written. The rest of the Majopoor cycle? Not so much.

An enthralling adventure especially recommended to listen to on long car or plane trips
Read by Grammy-winning audiobook producer Stefan Rudnicki, Lord Valentine's Castle is the unabridged audiobook rendition of Neubla Award-winning author Robert Silverberg's science fiction classic about a young, amnesiac apprentice juggler hired by a traveling troupe, amid a planet shared by a diversity of alien races as well as humans. With the aid of his friends, Valentine searches to regain his lost memory, his legacy, and indeed, his castle - but even when the secrets are rediscovered, one last, crucial test awaits him. With tracks every three minutes for easy bookmarking, Lord Valentine's Castle is an enthralling adventure especially recommended to listen to on long car or plane trips. 16 CDs, 19 1/2 hours.
... Read more

Product Description
One of the most popular, prolific, and important science fiction writers, Robert Silverberg is given penetrating analyses by major scholars and critics of the genre, who assess his body of work as being manifest of the modernist literary tradition. Noted Silverberg scholar Thomas Clareson contributes an overview of Silverberg's literary career, and the editors provide a bibliography of his major fiction and selected secondary studies. The trapdoor metaphor used in the title refers to the complexity of reading Silverberg: What appears to be a firm foundation for reality may turn out to be a trapdoor. ... Read more

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female mag ... Read more

Product Description
In this exciting collaboration a noted author and a distinguished nature artist together explore and illuminate nature's saltwater aquariums, the innumerable tide pools along the temperate coastlines of the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An English Seaman in Darkest Africa in the 16th Century
This is a well-written historical novel from an author who's best known fro his science fiction/fantasy writing. Interestingly, the auther (Silverberg) has an interest in history and archeology and has written another couple of historical novels, including one titled "Gilgamesh the King" set in Sumer and based on one of the first written epics.

Back to this book, the plot is straightforward - young Bristish seaman Andrew Battell is part of the crew of an English ship seeking treasure along the coast of Brazil. Battell is abandoned onshore after Indians attack the crew and is then captured by the Portugese, shipped in chains to the portugese colony of Angola, he becomes a pilot for the Portugese before falling foul of the authorties and being jailed and sentenced to death. He escapes into the African interior and joins a bllod-thirsty and savage African warrior tribe that rules the interior of Angola, where he becomes the blood-brother of the warrior king called the "Lord of Darkness." Eventually he makes his way back to England in his old age.

As a historical fact, Andrew Battell and many of the other characters in this novel actually existed. Battell went to sea in 1589, was captured in Brazil, shipped to Angola and spent 20 years there before returning to England in 1610, where her dictated his memoirs to the geographer Samuel Purchas. An abridged and garbled version was published in the book "Purchas His Pilgrims" in 1625, of which a modern edition appeared in 1901: "The Strange Adventure of Andrew Battell" edited by E G Ravenstein (London, the Hakluyt Society). These served as the basis for Silverberg's historical novel, but while the main facts of the story are historical, much of the detail in the book is fiction.

It's quite a well-written historical novel, as another reviewer mentioned, much in the style of James Clavell's Shogun and set around the same time. Also gives a bit of insight into the early Portugese colonies - as were most of the european outposts in Africa until the 18th Century, there "colonies" were merely small forts on the coast used to collect slaves for shipment to the Americas.

lord od literature
Out of the 30 or 40 books of silverberg's that I've read, this one 'The lord Of Darkness' would have to be one of his most accomplished. Notable for his Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it came as a nice surprise to find this book of his as a Fictional/Factual historical novel.The writing is exceptionally articulate, graphic and highly entertaining.I wont go into the guts of the story, only that it's about an Englishman named Andrew Battel who was a pirate for the British, who ended up as a prisoner of the Portugals, and who spent the best part of 20years in Western Africa living among the Jaqqa's.(It's surmised anyway)
Lot's of sex and cannibalisism to satisfy any morbid reader of these sort's of books.This book has much more to offer than blood and guts though, and it's up to the individual reader as to what they get out of it.
Try it, you'll be surprised, even if you're a hardened Silverberg fan

Exciting, serious -- a good historical read!
Written in a fashion which recalls Clavell's Shogun, this is a tale of an English sailor's adventure in deepest Africa during the early years of European colonization. Lost on the shores of Portuguese Africa, our hero finds himself first impressed into the service of the European masters of this land -- later establishing himself in the local colonial community. But the real highlight of this book occurs when he finds himself trapped in the back country where he becomes a servant to a savage cannibal king whom the Europeans and other native peoples live in fear of. Sliding into the very savagery of the people who adopt him, he becomes one of them and lives, for a time, the life of barbarism & adventure their rough existence decrees -- leading their armies into grim and bloody battles and partaking in their bloody and gruesome feasts. In the end this man finds his European self again and manages to make his escape from his adopted kinsmen, returning to England with a mulatto wife to live in retirement and write his memoirs.

It's not clear if this story was based on or elaborated from real events but it reads like it could have been. I read it years ago and so am a little cold on some of the details but thought, then as well as now, that it was a worthy contribution to the kind of literature which Shogun exemplified -- though it's not quite as compelling. --- SWM author of The King of Vinland's Saga ... Read more