CITIES OF DREAMS: WHEN WOMEN RULED THE EARTH

This is a work of breathtaking scope and originality. Yet Stan Gooch's reconstruction of the lost civilisation which preceded our own, and unlike other such attempts, is based at every turn on hard and accepted archaeological fact, the extensive red ochre mines of southern Africa (100,000-40,000 years Before Present) the bear skull altar of Drachenloch in Switzerland (75,000 years Before Present) the flower graves of Iraq (60,000 years Before Present). It is not just the case that we were not the first. It is the case, amazingly, that all ancient legends are true. The Minotaur did live at the centre of the maze, Sleeping Beauty did waken to the Knight's kiss, the fairy people did meet and dance in the moonlight, and Woman once ruled the whole magical Earth.