The lost army of Cambyses -Redux

Cambyses II was the emperor of Persia (ruled 530–522 BCE) and successor to Cyrus the Great. Eager to emulate his father’s deeds of conquest, and to extend Persian rule across all the known nations (ie civilisations) of the world, Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525 BCE, defeating the last true Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus III. Yet today he is remembered not for his feats of conquest, but for his lost army – a force of 50,000 warriors, dispatched to conquer a tiny oasis kingdom, that vanished into the desert and was lost without a single survivor or the slightest trace being discovered for more than 2,000 years.

Desert explorers and adventurers including Count László Almásy – the model for the English patient in the book and film of the same name – have sought to uncover their final resting place and solve their mysterious disappearance.

Herodotus and Cambyses

The primary source for the tale of Cambyses and his lost army is the ancient Greek traveller and historian Herodotus, an intrepid man who travelled all over Egypt just 75 years after the Persian invasion. Herodotus followed in Cambyses’ footsteps and recorded the local tales and histories of the invader.

Unfortunately his impartiality is questionable; he had the typical ancient Greek antipathy towards the Persians and his Histories slander Cambyses remorselessly, painting him as a despot, madman and general ne’er-do-well.

Herodotus first recounts how Cambyses managed to cross the difficult Sinai desert region and meet the Egyptians with his army intact, which is relevant because it shows that the Persians were capable of coping with desert transits. They recruited Arabian tribes to create water depots at regular spots along the route – in effect, artificial oases – and in this manner were able to arrive at the battle site in good order and defeat Psammetichus.

Later, Cambyses travelled to the major Egyptian cult centres to be crowned pharaoh but, according to Herodotus, made only a perfunctory effort to learn about or pay respect to their customs. He then decided to launch military expeditions against the Ethiopians (to the south), the Carthaginians (along the coast to the west) and the ‘Ammoniums’ – ie the inhabitants of the Siwa Oasis, a small fertile enclave deep within the Western Desert, which was famous for the Oracle of the Temple of Ammon (the Siwan name for the Egyptian god Amun-Ra, whom the Greeks equated with Zeus). The priests of the temple were used to commanding respect from Egypt’s rulers, who were supposed to obtain ‘divine’ favour to legitimise their overlordship. Alexander the Great made sure to do this when he conquered Egypt 200 years later, but Cambyses, it seems, failed to follow the proper forms and disdained the Siwans.

The Siwan expedition

Cambyses took his army south along the Nile to launch his Ethiopian expedition, stopping at Thebes to detach a force to send to Siwa in 524 BCE. According to Herodotus, in Book III of his Histories, an army of 50,000 men was ordered to ‘enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle of Zeus’. Led by guides, the army set off into the desert, reaching ‘the city of Oasis’, known to the Greeks as ‘The Isles of the Blest’ (modern-day Kharga), seven days’ march to the west. After this, they were never seen again, although the Siwans themselves were somehow able to give Herodotus a rough account of what happened next:

this is what the Ammonians themselves say: when the Persians were crossing the sand from the Oasis to attack them, and were about midway between … [Siwa] and the Oasis, while they were breakfasting a great and violent south wind arose, which buried them in the masses of sand which it bore; and so they disappeared from sight. Such is the Ammonian tale about this army.

This is the full extent of what we know about the lost army, which has led many scholars to doubt the episode ever happened. Perhaps Herodotus was simply inventing the tale to make Cambyses look more foolish. Why would the Persian emperor waste his time launching a strike on Siwa? Why would he send such a huge army to conquer such a small place (probably only a few thousand residents at most)? Above all, why would he send them via such a perilous route with so little preparation or precaution?

Herodotus himself suggests, albeit indirectly, some of the answers. A possible motive for the expedition is that Cambyses was angered by the attitude of the priests of the Temple of Ammon, who – themselves angry at a perceived lack of due deference – may have been spreading the word that his kingship was illegitimate. They may even have predicted his death. Herodotus also drives home the point that Cambyses was an irascible drunk, given to fits of spite and cruel rage, and quite capable of nursing a lethal grudge. He was also unhinged enough to doom his men with inadequate planning and preparation.

An alternative explanation is that Siwa was only intended as a way point on a longer journey. Perhaps the real targets were lands further to the west. Cambyses’ intended assault on Carthage had been called off because the Phoenicians who provided his navy refused to move against their kin who had set up the colony at Carthage. Perhaps he intended to approach them by land instead – this would account for the apparently disproportionate size of the expeditionary force.

If Herodotus is right, the Persian army met a bleak end. The region they were travelling across includes barren depressions of bare rock and boulders; wind-sculpted buttes; plains of salt and dust; vast sand seas of impassable dunes; searing desert winds hotter than 40°C that blow for days on end; massive sand storms that will bury anything that stands still; and an utter absence of water. How the Ammonians knew the fate of the lost army is unclear, given that they specifically told Herodotus that not one soldier had reached Siwa, but perhaps they simply assumed the most likely scenario.

The army in the desert

Apart from being a great unsolved mystery, the miserable desert fate of the lost army of Cambyses also presents the intriguing likelihood that there could be a huge find of skeletons, armour, clothing, weapons and equipment from the ancient Persian era awaiting discovery. The army would have included in its number soldiers from many different parts of the antique world. In the uniquely arid conditions, with the possibility that sand may have covered and protected, the remains could be amazingly well preserved. There could be an archaeological treasure trove somewhere in the Sahara.

Hard target

Herodotus provides a few clues about the possible location of the lost army, describing the army’s route from the oasis known as ‘Island of the Blest’, which is today a major agricultural town known as Kharga. From here they would presumably have tried to follow the traditional caravan route to Siwa, which goes via the oases at Dakhla (a few hundred kilometres to the west) and then Farafra (a few hundred more to the north-west). From Herodotus’ account it sounds as though the Persians may have got to Dakhla or even Farafra, but were then lost as they attempted to complete the final leg of the journey. Even narrowing it down this far, however, leaves a dauntingly vast area to examine. If the Persians got lost out of Dakhla and started going in the wrong direction they could have ended up pretty much anywhere in the Western Desert.

The Western Desert is one of the hardest places in the world to be looking for lost relics. It is vast, covering about two-thirds of modern-day Egypt: an area of 680,000 square kilometres (263,000 square miles), equal to the combined size of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. The conditions, as described above, are incredibly harsh and desolate. Even modern vehicles with four-wheel drives and special equipment cannot cope with some of the dunes found in the sand seas. Much of the area is restricted owing to the security issues of the region: millions of landmines from World War II, the proximity of the border with Libya and sensitivities about oil operations and terrorism. And there is always the likelihood that any finds that are stumbled across will soon be covered up by the shifting desert sands, never to be seen again.

The enigmatic Count Almásy

Undaunted, many desert adventurers have dreamed of solving the mystery of the lost army. Probably the most famous was the Austro-Hungarian playboy, pilot and desert explorer Count László Almásy, whose life and times provided the model for the Ralph Fiennes character in The English Patient. Almásy started off as a self-taught dabbler in the exotic world of desert discovery, but his expertise with motor vehicles and his reckless disregard for personal safety led him to pull off some amazing escapades.

During the 1930s he was part of a crowd mainly composed of genteel British officers interested in desert travel and exploration, who were primarily fixated on locating the semi-legendary Zerzura, the Oasis of Little Birds, alluded to in medieval writings. Almásy amazed the other members of the Zerzura Club, as they had named themselves, by successfully discovering this hidden oasis, but his search for Cambyses’ army was less successful and even more dangerous.

Almásy was an avid fan of Herodotus, and in 1936 determined to follow the tracks of the army as described by the ancient Greek. His journey is described by Saul Kelly in the book The Lost Oasis: The Desert War and the Hunt for Zerzura. Kelly tells how on a previous expedition Almásy had discovered pottery fragments that suggested how the Persians had hoped to cross the waterless desert. By burying huge caches of amphorae (jars) along the intended route, and employing local tribesmen to ferry water to them, they could effect a similar operation to their successful crossing of the Sinai.

This at least was Almásy’s theory, but when he ventured into the desert from Farafra on his 1936 expedition, he discovered not caches of jars but a series of cairns that he described as ‘ancient hollow, circular pyramids of stone about the height of a man’, which seemed to mark the route across the forbidding sand seas. Perhaps the Persians had employed scouts to build them, hoping to follow them all the way to Siwa.

Kelly relates that the Almásy party then ran into problems that gave him an insight into the probable fate of Cambyses’ force. Their progress was halted by impassable giant dunes, and the hot desert wind called the khamsin (or khamaseen) blew up, whipping their vehicles with scalding, 44°C+ storm-force winds. All but one of the vehicles broke down and they were lucky to make it out of the desert alive in the third, following a corridor between two towering dunes until they reached Siwa four days later. Almásy planned a further expedition, but war broke out and he never got another chance.

Disputed discoveries

In the last decade there have been some slightly confused reports about discoveries in the Western Desert that sound almost too good to be true. According to Professor Mosalam Shaltout, chairman of the Space Research Center at the Desert Environment Research Institute of Egypt’s Minufiya University, an Italian-led expedition in December 1996 which was surveying for meteorites stumbled across archaeological remains in the El Bahrein Oasis area of the Western Desert. Aly Barakat, a geologist with the team, found a dagger blade and hilt, pottery shards, apparently human bone fragments, burial mounds, arrowheads and a silver bracelet, which, on the basis of a photograph, was identified as ‘most likely belonging to the Achaemenid period’ (ie ancient Persian).

Meanwhile, in 2000 there were widespread reports that a team of oil-prospecting geologists, said to be from Helwan University, in Cairo, had stumbled across similar finds in the same area, spotting scattered arrow heads and human bones.

In 2003 geologist Tom Bown led an expedition to the area, accompanied by archaeologist Gail MacKinnon and a film crew, to follow up Aly Barakat’s discoveries, which they, controversially, said had been suppressed by the Egyptian authorities. Bown claimed to have found remains at the same site, near the El Bahrein Oasis, at a place later named Wadi Mastour, the Hidden Valley. In fact he reportedly went as far as describing seeing thousands of bones littering the desert.

Yet another follow-up expedition in 2005, however, cast serious doubt on the claims of both Barakat and Bown. A team from the University of Toledo, in Ohio, together with British and Egyptian associates, travelled to the site near El Bahrein. They located a broken pot found by both Barakat and Bown, although they identified it as Roman, but they failed to find any other suggestive remains beyond a few burial sites, which they claim are common in the desert. Instead of fields of scattered human bones they found large numbers of fragments of fossilised sand dollars (sea urchin-like creatures that leave distinctive round calcite cases), which are apparently easy to mistake for human bones and could explain the previous claims.

Can Herodotus be trusted?

So despite tantalising claims and hints, the lost army of Cambyses has apparently not been found yet, nor any definitive proof that it really existed. The cairns and pottery found by Almásy and the weapons and bones allegedly seen by Barakat and Bown may not be what they seem, or perhaps they simply belong to some of the many other groups who have made the perilous desert crossing – for instance, the notorious Forty Days Road slave caravan used to follow the route through the Western Desert via Kharga.

Ultimately the credibility of the tale comes down to Herodotus. In this sense he was not highly regarded even by other ancient writers, some of whom felt the sobriquet ‘the Father of History’ bestowed upon him by Cicero should be changed to ‘the Father of Lies’. As already noted, he was biased against the Persians and his portrait of Cambyses has a touch of the pantomime villain. In fact it seems from other contemporary sources that many groups in Egypt welcomed the invader, and an inscription specifically records Cambyses as honouring the Egyptian religion and customs in a praiseworthy manner. This does not mean that Herodotus made up the story about the lost army, or even that his sources deceived him, but it does add another layer of uncertainty to an already difficult search.

Should you choose to believe him, however, you may be able to join the hunt yourself. In 2004 a tour operator called Aqua Sun Desert set up a desert safari to explore the Western Desert area around Dakhla, Farafra, Siwa and El Bahrein and to look for evidence of the lost army. It was reported at the time that the tours would continue for five years. As Aqua Sun manager Hisham Nessim says, ‘If we discover anything about the lost army, it will be the discovery of the century.’

THE WHITE SHIP

Appearance of the Cog (which is probably what the White Ship was an early example of) in the beginning of the XII Century was an important milestone in shipbuilding. Crusaders used them for their marches to the Holy Land, merchants of the Hanza union transported goods from Palestine and Africa to Europe. Cogs took part in all naval battles during the following three centuries

The year 1120 saw one of the most significant shipwrecks in English history; a tragedy that cost the lives of the flower of English nobility and would eventually plunge the nation into two decades of chaos and misrule – a period that has become known as The Anarchy. The heir to the throne of England and hundreds of scions of noble families perished when the White Ship, one of the most advanced vessels of the time, was lost with all hands. Its wreck and the potentially priceless cargo (in terms of historical and material value) it carried have never been located.

Between two kingdoms

Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, England was ruled by the dukes of Normandy. As overlords of two lands divided by the English Channel, it was routine for the Norman kings of England to shuttle back and forth between their dominions as they sought to preserve their territories on the Continent and in Britain. In 1120, Henry I, third of the Norman kings of England and youngest son of William the Conqueror, had been forced to travel to Normandy to confront the King of France, Louis VI. Accompanying him was his heir and only legitimate son, 17-yearold William Adelin. ‘Adelin’ is a latter-day rendering of ‘Atheling’ (the Saxon term for king) – he was named William the Atheling to show how the royal houses of the Saxons and Normans were unified in his person.

Henry had successfully resolved his dispute with Louis, gaining recognition for his son as the de facto Duke of Normandy, and was returning to England via the Norman port of Barfleur, from where his father had embarked for the invasion of England less than 60 years previously. The mood of the party was festive, especially since young William was habitually accompanied by a kind of ‘youth court’ – a youthful mirror version of his father’s court, which included many of the most important heirs and offspring of the noble houses of England and Normandy. With the party were his own half-brother and sister – Henry I was the most prolific father of illegitimate children in the history of the English monarchy. Despite this, William was his only legitimate son (one of only two legitimate children), and was therefore absolutely central to Henry’s dynastic ambitions.

Le Blanche Nef

On 25 November Henry was preparing to embark at Barfleur when he was approached by Thomas FitzStephen, master of the Blanche Nef, or White Ship, a fine new vessel of the highest specifications. FitzStephen’s father Airard had captained the Mora, the flagship of William the Conqueror’s invasion fleet, and now he himself begged William’s son for the honour of bearing him across the Channel in his splendid ship. Henry declined, as his own travel arrangements were already well in hand, but suggested that FitzStephen could carry his son, William Adelin, and his company. Henry boarded his own ship and departed not long afterwards, safely making the passage back to England.

Meanwhile William and his companions were feasting and drinking prodigiously, and their own departure was delayed while all the available casks of wine in port were loaded onto the White Ship. Once aboard, the partying continued, with the captain and crew apparently joining in. The company grew so inebriated that when a party of clerics led by the Bishop of Coutance arrived they were driven off with howls of derision. At least one of the passengers disembarked at this time: Stephen of Blois – possibly as a result of an attack of diarrhoea, or possibly because of an attack of common sense given the carryings on. It was a decision that would have fateful consequences.

Disaster strikes

By the time the White Ship was ready to depart everyone aboard was roaring drunk and night had fallen. On board were around 300 people, including 140 noblemen and at least 18 noblewomen. In relative terms, the Channel crossing was not especially dangerous – Henry had done it many times, while his father had made the crossing 17 times as king. But in the 12th century naval technology was still crude, and any sea journey was dangerous, particularly with a drunken crew, captain and pilot. To make matters worse, young William was keen to catch up with his father and get home first, and insisted that FitzStephen take the quickest route home.

This was to prove fatal. The correct route to take out of Barfleur harbour was to the south, avoiding dangerous shoals, after which the vessel would swing north towards England. The ship’s drunken pilot tried to cut corners by heading directly north, but succeeded only in driving the ship onto a rock called the Quilleboeuf, about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) out of the harbour.

The ship began to sink, but all was not lost for William. He was quickly hustled aboard the only ‘lifeboat’, but as he was rowed to safety he heard the piteous cries of his half-sister, Matilda, Countess of Peche, imploring him not to abandon her. William ordered the boat to turn back, but as it neared the sinking ship it was overwhelmed by the number of people who tried to climb aboard and it too was lost.

This at least was the tale told by a butcher of Rouen named Berthold, who had only gone aboard to chase up a debt. He clung to one of the masts that projected above the waves, and was rescued the next morning. He was the sole survivor: few people of that era could swim, and in the dark, amidst the waves and strong currents, a watery grave was inevitable. When the news reached England none of the barons or high officers of the court dared to tell the king; it was left to a child to tell him the terrible tidings. It is said that he fainted away, and that he never smiled again.

The lost generation

The impact on the world of power politics in north-western Europe must have been tremendous, not to mention the personal toll on bereaved parents. The feeling that might have been prevalent is well captured by Winston Churchill in his account of the disaster in A History of the English Speaking People:

Two men remained afloat, the ship’s butcher and a knight. ‘Where is the Prince?’ asked the knight above the waves. ‘All are drowned,’ replied the butcher. ‘Then,’ said the knight, ‘all is lost for England,’ and threw up his hands [thereby casting himself into the waves].

The disaster has been likened to the sinking of the Titanic, which carried many rich and important people and had a colossal impact on Edwardian Britain. A more modern parallel might be the Thames’ Marchioness disaster of 1989.

For 12th-century England the sinking of the White Ship was to have grim consequences. Despite his extra-marital fecundity, Henry was unable to produce another legitimate male heir. Although he forced his barons to swear allegiance to his legitimate daughter, also called Matilda, the idea of a female ruler simply would not wash with the medieval mindset. When Henry died in 1135 most of the English barons promptly ignored their oaths and acclaimed Stephen of Blois, Matilda’s cousin and the same man who had so fortuitously stepped off the White Ship before it sailed to disaster, as king. Matilda was able to rally some support and attempted to reclaim the crown, plunging the country into nearly 20 years of civil war. It was a lawless and unstable time, when, in the memorable words of the contemporary Peterborough Chronicle, ‘Crist and alle his sayntes slept.’

12th-century treasure trove

The wreck of the White Ship represents a potential gold mine of archaeological and material significance. William Adelin and his party would have been richly caparisoned and loaded with jewels. He would probably have been accompanied by a considerable treasury of plates, goblets and other loot. Discovering this today would amount to a unique record of courtly life in the early 12th century. The ship itself would also be of tremendous importance. As the cutting edge of naval technology it could reveal fascinating insights into the evolution of ship-building, from the longships used by William the Conqueror to the medieval galleons with their high fore and rear castles.

The real issue, however, is whether there might be anything of the wreck or its contents left. Some, if not most, of the treasure aboard was probably salvaged at the time. The strong currents and tides in the area may well have washed away much of the rest. It is known, for instance, that many of the bodies were swept away to be cast ashore along the coast of Normandy for weeks afterwards. Possibly the same forces may have done considerable damage to the wreck, while shipworms and other aquatic organisms would have reduced the wooden parts of the ship unless it was quickly covered in preserving silt.

In other words, the prospects for significant salvage are not great, but the potential archaeological interest makes even a slim chance worth pursuing. Despite this, and despite the apparent agreement of all sources that it is known where the ship was wrecked, there is no record of anyone having mounted a search or exploratory dive. The local conditions would make such an undertaking difficult and perhaps dangerous, but with modern technology such as side-scan sonar and ROVs it is worth at least a preliminary investigation. Perhaps, lying in a sandy hollow beneath a sheltering rock, the bejewelled bones of William Adelin himself await discovery.

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THE QUESTING BEAST

The Questing Beast, whose more physically descriptive French name is the "Beste Glatissant" or "the barking beast," has a leapard body, a serpent head, a lion's hindquarters, and rabbit's feet. A noise like the barking of a hound pack issues from its stomach. Usually pursued by Pellinore, the Questing Beast's collection of unlikely body parts links it to chaos and incest. Indeed, the beast is said to be the result of a woman's desire for her brother. When the brother rejected his sister's incestuous advances, the she made a bargain with the devil, who then murdered the brother and fathered the Questing Beast on her. (Note that, in this story, incestuous desire is felt solely by the woman.) Significantly, Arthur catches a glimpse of this beast shortly after his own incestuous encounter with his half-sister Morgause. And, similarly, many versions of the story maintain that Arthur was unaware Morgause was his sister, and responsibility for their sin is solely Morgause's. In this episode, the beast functions as a symbolic reminder that the unrest and disorder it represents will be a consequence of Arthur's incestuous lust.

However, in a few stories, the symbolic meaning of the Questing Beast is much more benign. For example, in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, the Questing Beast is actually a misunderstood creature. There is, in fact, no good reason for Pellinore to be hunting him, and the Pellinore's long search for the beast epitomizes all the meaningless knightly pursuits encouraged by a chivalry ungrounded in the "might makes right" purpose.

BATTLE OF LOQUIFER

This is the part of a ceremony to create a knight, to tie a sword belt on the knight was part of the ceremony. Although, at some point before in the ceremony fealty was previously made by placing a hand on a bible or saints relic, this image is of the belt tying part of the ceremony. It symbolizes the knight’s membership of the "fighting class"

Losing fairies in Le Bel Inconnu and Bataille Loquifer

Composed by Renaut de Beaujeu during the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century, Le Bel Inconnu, or the Fair Unknown, is a 6266-line octosyllabic novel about the account of Fair Esmerée's liberation. She is captured and changed into a snake by two sorcerers, and only a kiss from a brave knight can break the spell. Throughout his adventures to save Princess Esmérée, Fair Unknown, sent by King Arthur, arrives at a magical land called the Golden Island governed by a fairy named Blanches Mains [White Hands]. Fair Unknown is struggling between his love for Princess Fair Esmerée and for fairy White Hands. The fairy clearly dominates the novel and holds the power of the outcome of the story despite the protagonist's wedding to Fair Esmérée.

We observe striking resemblances in the Cycle of Guillaume. Indeed, Bataille Loquifer [Battle of Loquifer], an anonymous account of the thirteenth century, is the story of Rainouard who is looking for his son Maillefer. Ordered by King Arthur, three fairies capture Rainouard and he arrives at Avalon, a magical kingdom. Like Fair Unknown who liberates an enchanted creature, Rainouard saves Chapalu who has been transformed into an enormous and monstrous cat. [1] Only the blood of a brave knight can break the spell. Similar to our hero in the Golden Island, Rainouard falls in love with a fairy, but decides to leave Paradise to find his son and ultimately his wife, Aélis. In both tales, the fairies, despite their magical powers, do not succeed in keeping the knights.

One may question why the authors of these two accounts decided to give power to fairy women and why the supernatural prevails if the outcomes are not a winning situation for the magical world.

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Renoart

The hero of the French La Bataille de Loquifer, who also appears in the Chanson de Guillaume and Aliscans. The texts are part of the non-Arthurian William of Orange Cycle, written in France in the thirteenth century. Loquifer contains a scene in which Renoart, is transported by Morgan le Fay to the Island of Avalon, of which Arthur is king. He has a tryst with Morgan which produces a son named Corbon. [Bataille]

Marsion [Marrion]

In the La Bataille de Loquifer, a sister of Morgan le Fay. She helped her sister bring the hero Renoart to the Isle of Avalon. [Bataille]

Corbon [Corbans]

In the French romance La Bataille de Loquifer, the illegitimate son of the hero Renoart and Morgan le Fay. [Bataille]

[1] In the Old French poem, Bataille Loquifer, which has many Celtic features, there appears a monster with cat-head, Chapalu (from Cymric cath, ‘cat,' and penlle, ‘head,' properly ‘headstead,' lle from older *lo).

Cath Palug

Usually "Palug's Cat", but also assumed to mean "clawing cat", palug being from the root pal, meaning "clawing, scratching."

The animal Cath Palug is described as a gigantic cat raised on the isle of Anglesey by the sons of Palug (presumably a local king). According to the Welsh Triads, Cath Palug was born of the sow Hen Wen when she was chased across Britain by her owner, Coll ap Collfrewy. Cath Palug was not born on Anglesey, but "at Llanfair in Arfon under the Black Rock... and the Powerful Swineherd threw it from the Rock into the sea." The cat then swam ashore at Anglesey and was adopted by the sons of Palug. The cat's siblings are a wolf and an eagle, and all three are described as bringing a "great oppression" to Britain. According to the poem "Pa Gwr," Cei went to Anglesey to fight lions, and here he was able to kill Cath Palug. Unfortunately, the poem is unfinished, so we never hear the full tale.

Cath Palug has continental versions, such as the giant cat that Arthur fought near Lake Bourget, according to one French romance. Reportedly, the battle's memory lives on in the landscape's names: Col du Chat (cat's neck), Dent du Chat (cat's tooth) and Mont du Chat (cat's mountain). Here, the animal is called Capalu.

Geoffrey Ashe argued that Cath Palug was actually a leopard kept as a pet by a chieftain on Anglesey. However, I'm not sure what he bases that information on. Presumably he means a black leopard, as the cat is never described as speckled.

Big cats are not indigenous to Britain, despite persistant sightings of large, black cats, particularly in Wales, Scotland, and the Midlands. They are often described as panthers, pumas, leopards or lynxes (sp?). Though I do not claim that there is a connection between the phantom "big cats" of Britain and the Cath Palug, one does wonder if there is a connection, if Cath Palug is perhaps the earliest "sighting" of these big cats. Oddly, I've yet to see anyone make the connection between the supposed "big cats" and the story of Cath Palug. At any rate, the "big cats" of Britain still fall into the realm of cryptozoology; but then, so did the giant squid until recently. See also the Alien Big Cat.

The figure of Cath Palug likely inspired the animal Llyan, the giant cat in The Castle of Llyr, one of the books in the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. In that book, Llyan is given a magic potion which causes the oridinarly feral cat to grow to the size of a horse. She terrorizes the forests on Mona (modelled on Anglesey). She becomes the companion of the bard Fflewddur Fflam after his music tames her.

SOURCES:

"The Three Powerful Swineherds of the Island of Britain" Trioedd Ynys Prydain. ed. Rachel Bromwich. Cardiff: UWP, 1964.

"Pa Gwr" The Black Book of Carmarthen, ca. 1225. from The Four Ancient Books of Wales, ed. W.F. Skene. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1868.

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MANY ASPECTS – OSIRIS

ORIGIN Egyptian. Chthonic god of the underworld, also a corn or vegetation god.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 3000 BC until the end of Egyptian history circa AD 400.

SYNONYMS none, but many epithets are applied, reflecting the universality of his cult.

CENTER(S) OF CULT many throughout Egypt but chiefly at Abydos (Ibdju) in Upper Egypt and Busiris (Djedu) in the Nile delta of Lower Egypt. Other important sanctuaries are located at Biga (Senmet) in Upper Egypt south of Aswan, and at the Karnak complex of Thebes. Outside Egypt there is a major sanctuary at Philae in Greece.

ART REFERENCES innumerable sculptures, stone reliefs, wall paintings and papyrus illustrations.

LITERARY SOURCES Pyramid Texts; coffin texts including the Book of the Dead, etc.

Osiris is among the most significant and widely revered deities of the Egyptian pantheon. According to the genealogy drawn up by the priests at Heliopolis, he was born at Rosetau in the necropolis (gate of the underworld) of Memphis. His parents were GEB and NUT and he was the eldest of four siblings including his sister and consort ISIS, his adversary SETH and younger sister NEPHTHYS. Isis bore the god HORUS having impregnated herself with the semen of Osiris after his death. Though Osiris is most closely linked with Isis, he is also associated with ANUBIS, the mortuary god of embalming and the scorpion-like mortuary goddess SERKET.

Osiris is depicted in human form but often tightly wrapped in mummy linen with only his arms free, He holds the crook and flail. His crown, the atef, is distinctive, consisting of the conical white crown of Lower Egypt framed by tall plumes and rams’ horns. Often his skin is colored green. Osiris was perceived as the counterpart in death of the sun god RE.

As a grain god, Osiris was worshiped in the form of a sack filled with seed which sprouted green. He is also depicted by models with articulated members which women paraded through the streets at festivals and manipulated to demonstrate the god’s virility. His relationship with the Egyptian kingship was crucial. Each king was the divine embodiment of Horus in life, but became Osiris on his death.

The Osirian legend is known from pure Egyptian textual sources and from an embellished account of the Greek writer Plutarch. The latter describes how Osiris was persuaded by Seth to step into an exactly fitting sarcophagus during a drunken party. The coffin was nailed tight and thrown into the Nile. It was washed ashore at Byblos in the Lebanon where it became encased in the trunk of a growing tree. Eventually, the trunk was cut down and incorporated as a pillar in the palace of the local ruler. After years of searching, Isis found Osiris and brought his body home. She breathed life into it and impregnated herself with Osiris’s semen. She bore his son Horus. Meanwhile Seth found the body and once more destroyed it by hacking it into fourteen pieces and scattering them along the Nile valley. With the exception of Osiris’s penis, which Seth had thrown to a crocodile, Isis found all the pieces and buried them at the sites of various sanctuaries. She restored the penis with a replica which subsequently became a focus of the Osirian cult. The scattering of the body was allegorized with the winnowing and scattering of grain in the fields.

The purely Egyptian account omits the incident of the sarcophagus and the discovery at Byblos. Isis is sometimes represented in the form of a hawk being impregnated by the erect phallus of the dead god. The reference to the fate of the penis with a crocodile is also omitted. In the Egyptian version, the god’s phallus was buried at Memphis.

#

In many Egyptian tombs the burial chamber lay deep underground at the bottom of a steep shaft. This chamber, unlike the rest of the tomb, was regarded as being part of the Duat. The ba, the soul or manifestation of a dead person, is sometimes shown flying up the tomb shaft in bird form to visit the world of the living by day. The Book of Coming Forth By Day was the original name of The Book of the Dead. Such visits were not necessarily welcome. In a one literary text (The Contending! of Horus and Setti), Osiris threatens to send demon messengers from the Duat into the realm of the gods if his son Horus is not made king of Egypt. This seems to reflect an ancient view of Osiris as the grim ruler of a demon host which posed a threat to the living.

The form of a spell sometimes imitates other types of document written in hieratic, such as royal decrees, standard letters or legal judgements. For example, a spell to cure a feverish cold is in the form of a decree issued by Osiris as King of Upper and Lower Egypt to his Vizier, the earth god Geb. It orders him to take action against the malicious spirits who cause fever and catarrh. This was a device to increase the authority of the magician.

In myth, Osiris was the most vulnerable of the gods and this is exploited in magic. In the Book For Banishing an Enemy, Osiris is threatened with not being allowed to journey to his two sacred cities, Busiris in the north and Abydos in the south. The magician even threatens to take on the role of Seth and destroy the body of Osiris. In one spell in the Graeco-Egyptian papyri, the magician threatens to prevent the burial of the mummy of Osiris unless he gets his desire.

A fragmentary papyrus (Papyrus Vandief) dating to the late sixth or early fifth century BC contains the tale of a young magician called Meryra. Stories about Meryra were being told at least as early as the thirteenth century BC. In Papyrus Vandier, Meryra goes down into the underworld to save the sick Pharaoh Sisobek by winning him a longer life-span from Osiris. The king's other magicians are jealous of Meryra. While the young magician is trapped in the underworld, they encourage the king to marry Meryra's wife and to kill Meryra's young son. In order to take revenge from a distance, Meryra makes 'a man of clay'[Golem] and sends him to the world of the living. The clay man orders Pharaoh to burn the jealous magicians in the furnace of the goddess Mut at Heliopolis. Sisobek does not dare to disobey this grim supernatural messenger. He has the magicians executed and their bodies burned. It gives added point to the story that the magicians suffer the fate which they themselves would

In Papyrus Vantlier, Meryra seems to be rebuked by Osiris for sending the 'man of clay'.

The wedjat eye was ceremonially offered to the gods in major temples. Some other amulets are based on objects used during the daily cult or at religious festivals. These include the loop sistrum, a kind of sacred rattle, and the Osirian amulet known as the djed pillar. The mummy of Osiris was held to be the model for all human mummies, so this god was the original wearer of protective amulets. Several myths recorded in Papyrus Jumilhac tell of attempts by Seth and his followers to steal the objects that gave magical protection to the body of Osiris. In origin, the dyed may have been a corn sheath or some kind of temporary column raised in a harvest ceremony. By the era of The Coffin Texts, it was interpreted as the backbone of Osiris and symbolized stability or endurance. Rituals of raising the djed pillar are known from Memphis and Abydos.

Spell 101 from the The Book of the Dead, for protecting the deceased in the bark of the sun god, claims to be a very secret text originally written by Thoth for Osiris. This text, which may have been adapted from a temple ritual, was to be copied in ink made from myrrh and burned tamarisk onto a strip of the finest linen. This was to be placed as an amulet at the throat of the deceased. Written amulets have occasionally been discovered on mummies dating from the first millennium BC. A scrap of papyrus inscribed with a spell from The Book of the Dead was found at the throat of a High Priest of Amun buried at Thebes.

THE LEGEND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND

The text containing the Legend of the Destruction of Mankind is written in hieroglyphs, and is found on the four walls of a small chamber which is entered from the "hall of columns" in the tomb of Seti I., which is situated on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. On the wall facing the door of this chamber is painted in red the figure of the large "Cow of Heaven." The lower part of her belly is decorated with a series of thirteen stars, and immediately beneath it are the two Boats of Ra, called Semketet and Mantchet, or Sektet and Matet. Each of her four legs is held in position by two gods, and the god Shu, with outstretched uplifted arms, supports her body. The Cow was published by Champollion, 1 without the text. This most important mythological text was first published and translated by Professor E. Naville in 1874. 1 It was republished by Bergmann 2 and Brugsch, 3 who gave a transcription of the text, with a German translation. Other German versions by Lauth, 4 Brugsch, 5 and Wiedemann 6 have appeared, and a part of the text was translated into French by Lefébure. 7 The latest edition of the text was published by Lefébure, 8 and text of a second copy, very much mutilated, was published by Professor Naville, with a French translation in 1885. 9 The text printed in this volume is that of M. Lefébure.

The legend takes us back to the time when the gods of Egypt went about in the country, and mingled with men and were thoroughly acquainted with their desires and needs. The king who reigned over Egypt was Ra, the Sun-god, who was not, however, the first of the Dynasty of Gods who ruled the land. His predecessor on the throne was Hephaistos, who, according to Manetho, reigned 9000 years, whilst Ra reigned only 992 years; Panodorus makes his reign to have lasted less than 100 years. Be this as it may, it seems that the "self-created and self-begotten" god Ra had been ruling over mankind for a very long time, for his subjects were murmuring against him, and they were complaining that he was old, that his bones were like silver, his body like gold, and his hair like lapis-lazuli. When Ra heard these murmurings he ordered his bodyguard to summon all the gods who had been with him in the primeval World-ocean, and to bid them privately to assemble in the Great House, which can be no other than the famous temple of Heliopolis. This statement is interesting, for it proves that the legend is of Heliopolitan origin, like the cult of Ra itself, and that it does not belong, at least in so far as it applies to Ra, to the Predynastic Period.

When Ra entered the Great Temple, the gods made obeisance to him, and took up their positions on each side of him, and informed him that they awaited his words. Addressing Nu, the personification of the World-ocean, Ra bade them to take notice of the fact that the men and women whom his Eye had created were murmuring against him. He then asked them to consider the matter and to devise a plan of action for him, for he was unwilling to slay the rebels without hearing what his gods had to say. In reply the gods advised Ra to send forth his Eye to destroy the blasphemers, for there was no eye on earth that could resist it, especially when it took the form of the goddess Hathor. Ra accepted their advice and sent forth his Eye in the form of Hathor to destroy them, and, though the rebels had fled to the mountains in fear, the Eye pursued them and overtook them and destroyed them. Hathor rejoiced in her work of destruction, and on her return was praised by Ra, for what she had done. The slaughter of men began at Suten-henen (Herakleopolis), and during the night Hathor waded about in the blood of men. Ra asserted his intention of being master of the rebels, and this is probably referred to in the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII., in which it is said that Ra rose as king for the first time in Suten-henen. Osiris also was crowned at Suten-henen, and in this city lived the great Bennu bird, or Phoenix, and the "Crusher of Bones" mentioned in the Negative Confession.

The legend now goes on to describe an act of Ra, the significance of which it is difficult to explain. The god ordered messengers to be brought to him, and when they arrived, he commanded them to run like the wind to Abu, or the city of Elephantine, and to bring him large quantities of the fruit called tataat. What kind of fruit this was is not clear, but Brugsch thought they were "mandrakes," the so-called "love-apples," and this translation of tataat may be used provisionally. The mandrakes were given to Sekti, a goddess of Heliopolis, to crush and grind up, and when this was done they were mixed with human blood, and put in a large brewing of beer which the women slaves had made from wheat. In all they made 7,000 vessels of beer. When Ra saw the beer he approved of it, and ordered it to be carried up the river to where the goddess Hathor was still, it seems, engaged in slaughtering men. During the night he caused this beer to be poured out into the meadows of the Four Heavens, and when Hathor came she saw the beer with human blood and mandrakes in it, and drank of it and became drunk, and paid no further attention to men and women. In welcoming the goddess, Ra, called her "Amit," i.e., "beautiful one," and from this time onward "beautiful women were found in the city of Amit," which was situated in the Western Delta, near Lake Mareotis. 1 Ra also ordered that in future at every one of his festivals vessels of "sleep-producing beer" should be made, and that their number should be the same as the number of the handmaidens of Ra. Those who took part in these festivals of Hathor and Ra drank beer in very large quantities, and under the influence of the "beautiful women," i.e., the priestesses, who were supposed to resemble Hathor in their physical attractions, the festal celebrations degenerated into drunken and licentious orgies.

Soon after this Ra complained that he was smitten with pain, and that he was weary of the, children of men. He thought them a worthless remnant, and wished that more of them had been slain. The gods about him begged him to endure, and reminded him that his power was in proportion to his will. Ra was, however, unconsoled, and he complained that his limbs were weak for the first time in his life. Thereupon the god Nu told Shu to help Ra, and he ordered Nut to take the great god Ra on her back. Nut changed herself into a cow, and with the help of Shu. Ra got on her back. As soon as men saw that Ra was on the back of the Cow of Heaven, and was about to leave them, they became filled with fear and repentance, and cried out to Ra to remain with them and to slay all those who had blasphemed against him. But the Cow moved on her way, and carried Ra to Het-Ahet, a town of the nome of Mareotis, where in later days the right leg of Osiris was said to be preserved. Meanwhile darkness covered the land. When day broke the men who had repented of their blasphemies appeared with their bows, and slew the enemies of Ra. At this result Ra was pleased, and he forgave those who had repented because of their righteous slaughter of his enemies. From this time onwards human sacrifices were offered up at the festivals of Ra celebrated in this place, and at Heliopolis and in other parts of Egypt.

After these things Ra declared to Nut that he intended to leave this world, and to ascend into heaven, and that all those who would see his face must follow him thither. Then he went up into heaven and prepared a place to which all might come. Then he said, "Hetep sekhet aa," i.e., "Let a great field be produced," and straightway "Sekhet-hetep," or the "Field of peace," came into being. He next said, "Let there be reeds (aaru) in it," and straightway "Sekhet Aaru," or the "Field of Reeds," came into being. Sekhet-hetep was the Elysian Fields of the Egyptians, and the Field of Reeds was a well-known section of it. Another command of the god Ra resulted in the creation of the stars, which the legend compares to flowers. Then the goddess Nut trembled in all her body, and Ra, fearing that she might fall, caused to come into being the Four Pillars on which the heavens are supported. Turning to Shu, Ra entreated him to protect these supports, and to place himself under Nut, and to hold her up in position with his hands. Thus Shu became the new Sun-god in the place of Ra, and the heavens in which Ra lived were supported and placed beyond the risk of falling, and mankind would live and rejoice in the light of the new sun.

At this place in the legend a text is inserted called the "Chapter of the Cow." It describes how the Cow of Heaven and the two Boats of the Sun shall be painted, and gives the positions of the gods who stand by the legs of the Cow, and a number of short magical names, or formulae, which are inexplicable. The

general meaning of the picture of the Cow is quite clear. The Cow represents the sky in which the Boats

of Ra, sail, and her four legs are the four cardinal points which cannot be changed. The region above her back is the heaven in which Ra reigns over the beings who pass thereto from this earth when they die, and here was situated the home of the gods and the celestial spirits who govern this world.

When Ra had made a heaven for himself, and had arranged for a continuance of life on the earth, and the welfare of human beings, he remembered that at one time when reigning on earth he had been bitten by a serpent, and had nearly lost his life through the bite. Fearing that the same calamity might befall his successor, he determined to take steps to destroy the power of all noxious reptiles that dwelt on the earth. With this object in view he told Thoth to summon Keb, the Earth-god, to his presence, and this god having arrived, Ra told him that war must be made against the serpents that dwelt in his dominions. He further commanded him to go to the god Nu, and to tell him to set a watch over all the reptiles that were in the earth and in water, and to draw up a writing for every place in which serpents are known to be, containing strict orders that they are to bite, no one. Though these serpents knew that Ra was retiring from the earth, they were never to forget that his rays would fall upon them. In his place their father Keb was to keep watch over them, and he was their father for ever.

As a further protection against them Ra promised to impart to magicians and snake-charmers the particular word of power, hekau, with which he guarded himself against the attacks of serpents, and also to transmit it to his son Osiris. Thus those who are ready to listen to the formulae of the snake-charmers shall always be immune from the bites of serpents, and their children also. From this we may gather that the profession of the snake-charmer is very ancient, and that this class of magicians were supposed to owe the foundation of their craft to a decree of Ra himself.

Ra next sent for the god Thoth, and when he came into the presence of Ra, he invited him to go with him to a distance, to a place called "Tuat," i.e., hell, or the Other World, in which region he had determined to make his light to shine. When they arrived there he told Thoth, the Scribe of Truth, to write down on his tablets the names of all who were therein, and to punish those among them who had sinned against him, and he deputed to Thoth the power to deal absolutely as he pleased with all the beings in the Tuat. Ra loathed the wicked, and wished them to be kept at a distance from him. Thoth was to be his vicar, to fill his place, and "Place of Ra," was to be his name. He gave him power to send out a messenger (hab), so the Ibis (habi) came into being. All that Thoth would do would be good (khen), therefore the Tekni bird of Thoth came into being. He gave Thoth power to embrace (anh) the heavens, therefore the Moon-god (Aah) came into being. He gave Thoth power to turn back (anan) the Northern peoples, therefore the dog-headed ape of Thoth came into being: Finally Ra told Thoth that he would take his place in the sight of all those who were wont to worship Ra, and that all should praise him as God. Thus the abdication of Ra was complete.

In the fragmentary texts which follow we are told how a man may benefit by the recital of this legend. He must proclaim that the soul which animated Ra was the soul of the Aged One, and that of Shu, Khnemu (?), Heh, &c., and then he must proclaim that he is Ra himself, and his word of power Heka. If he recites the Chapter correctly he shall have life in the Other World, and he will be held in greater fear there than here. A rubric adds that he must be dressed in new linen garments, and be well washed with Nile water; he must wear white sandals, and his body must be anointed with holy oil. He must burn incense in a censer, and a figure of Maat (Truth) must be painted on his tongue with green paint. These regulations applied to the laity as well as to the clergy.

Footnotes

xxiii:1 Monuments, tom. iii., p. 245.

xxiv:1 Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. iv., p. 1 ff.

xxiv:2 Hieroglyphische Inschriften, Bl. 85 fl.

xxiv:3 Die neue Weltordnung nach Vernichtung des sündigen Menschengeschlechtes, Berlin, 1881.

xxiv:4 Aus Aegyptens Vorzeit, p. 71.

xxiv:5 Religion der alten Aegypter, p. 436.

xxiv:6 Die Religion, p. 32.

xxiv:7 Ä. Z., 1883, p. 32.

xxiv:8 Tombeau de Seti I., Part IV., plates 15-18.

xxiv:9 Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. viii., p. 412 ft.

xxvii:10 It was also called the "City of Apis," (Brugsch, Dict. Geog., p. 491), and is the Apis city of classical writers. It is, perhaps, represented by the modern Kom al-Hisn.

WHO BUILT THE PYRAMIDS?

Granite in the King’s Chamber

Socket: casing-stone in average corner-socket (The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh by W. M. Flinders Petrie, Pl. XI)

Figure 1

Figure 2

The Great Pyramid at Giza Egypt is the largest stone building ever constructed on Earth.

The Great Pyramid is located at the center of the land mass of Earth.

The architect(s) had advanced science and geography data and knew the size and shape of the continents on a global scale. The basic dimensions of the Pyramid also include measurements of the size and shape of the Earth.

In the period 3000 – 2500 BC man did not have the tools or knowledge necessary to build the pyramids.

Who built the pyramids? Aliens or men?

The best answer is: aliens (angels) and men.

Quartz occurs abundantly in many rocks, including granite.

On a hardness scale (Moh’s relative scale) of 1 to 10 (talc at 1, a penny at 3, a knife at 5.5, glass at 6, and a diamond at 10) most granite is rated between 6 and 7.

LINK

Because of the hardness of minerals that make up granite, it requires diamonds along with water to cut and polish granite.

LINK

Has it ever been demonstrated that copper or bronze can cut granite?

Never!

Why?

Because that is impossible!

The Kings Chamber (and the Coffer) is constructed of large blocks of granite. More granite-casing stones on the East face of Menkaure's Pyramid showing an area of finished stones:

LINK

LINK

ORIGINAL ARCHITECTURAL DIMENSIONS

Socket: casing-stone in average corner-socket (The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh by W. M. Flinders Petrie, Pl. XI)

Architectural dimension of the Gr. Pyramid's socket sides: 9131.5 inches.

F. Petrie: Socket Sides:

N.....................9129.8 inches

E......................9130.8 inches

S......................9123.9

w...................…9119.2

(The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh by W. M. Flinders Petrie, page 38)

9131.05

- 9130.8

---------------

0.25 inches = 0.635 cm = 6.35 mm

----------------------------------------

LINK

PYRAMIDIST VS PYRAMIDOLOGISTS

What is the base? A base is foundation: lowest support of a structure. The Great Pyramid was built on the base of the ground's solid rock (red line, Figures 1- 2).

What is the height? The vertical dimension of extension; distance from the base of something to the top! What is the real height of the Great Pyramid? It is height above ground level of the base to the top of the Pyramid, vertical distance from the base of the pavement to the top of the Pyramid.

Pyramidists*: the original base of the Great Pyramid casing on the platform (pavement), is of these dimensions inches:

N.......................9069.4

E.......................9067.7

S.......................9069.5 = 23,036.53cm

W......................9068.6

Mean................9068.8

(The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh by W. M. Flinders Petrie, page 39) F. Petrie: Socket Sides:

N......................9129.8

E......................9130.8 = 23,192.232cm

S......................9123.9

W.....................9119.2

(The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh by W. M. Flinders Petrie, page 38) Pyramidologists**: original architectural dimension of the Gr. Pyramid's socket

sides: 9131.5 inches = 23,192.867cm.

------------------------------------------

*A pyramidist is an Egyptologist who specialises in the study of the pyramids of Egypt, a specialist on the Egyptian pyramids from the archaeological standpoint.

**Pyramidologist is a scientist who deals with the Great Pyramid's scientific facts that correspond with the biblical truth.

ORIGINS OF THE NORSE PANTHEON

Paul Karlsson Johnstone

Have you ever “gone berserk”? I have, just a few times, and enjoyed it immensely. All other human feelings, good or bad, including many more worthwhile, seem tiny, feeble things compared to berserksgang.

To begin, you get angry. Angry? What a puny word that seems for what you feel! You are mad, and the enormous strength of madness comes pouring in. You are suddenly feeling fourteen feet tall and made of stainless steel. You can move so fast that other people seem paralyzed. Instead of being an ordinary, fallible human being, as you usually are, subject to various weaknesses, you are, for a moment, the Wrath of God made actual. In that mood you may pick up objects far beyond your normal strength, or murder your best friend, or easily overpower a champion athlete. You feel invulnerable and, for a little while, you may be. Beyond that, you feel different. And you are. You feel like an aerial torpedo in mid-flight. For life or death or whatever, you don’t care. You don’t care. And you are fiercely, exultantly, joyously happy. This mood is fickle and desperately treacherous. It may desert you at any second, leaving you weak and spent. Worse still, it may lead you to deeds you will regret as long as you can remember. Yet it is possible, just barely possible, to keep it under control, as it is possible to ride a wild horse. Possible, yes. Safe or easy, no! But if you can, you can do wonders. For a little while. Berserksgang is ages old. Our ancestors of the Wurm Ice Age, who with weapons of wood and stone, without even bows and arrows, hunted and killed mammoths by hundreds, building their homes of mammoth hides and tusks, must have known it well, for the wrath of a wounded elephant is no small thing to face. Yet they faced it, day after day.

Hans Schutte, the great Danish archaeologist, in his great work: Our Ancestors; The Gothonic Nations, pointed out that the oldest surviving Gothonic (Teutonic, Germanic) language, the Gothic of Ulfilas, about A.D. 330, contains a word, ulbandws, which seems not to derive from Greek and Latin elphas “elephant” but to be a rule-right Gothonic cognate of it. Ulfilas, in his translation of the Old Testament, applied the word to camels. Since European mammoths died out before 10,000 B.C., the ulbandws could have only survived in folklore, as a huge, misshapen, hairy, ferocious animal dimly remembered. And after the mammoth was gone, the men who lived around the Baltic hunted the aurochs, a nearly as large and even more dangerous ancestor of the Spanish fighting bull. Before all recorded history, our almost-naked (in warm weather) forefathers dared to hunt these beasts and others—the cave lion and the cave bear, the dire wolf — successfully, or we would not be here today. Berserksgang must have been a tool at their disposal, just as it has been used in “modern” times by Norwegian farmers, clearing a new field of glacial boulders that they could not stir normally.

A trait going back that far cannot be exclusively Gothonic. We know that in the battle of Telamon in 225 B.C. the Romans found themselves faced by naked (save for a leather belt) Celtic spearmen, Gaesati, fetched from beyond the Alps, who were considered invincible. Fighting under the ardent Italian sun, against rank after rank of disciplined legionaries, they tired and went down. But not before they had impressed themselves on the Roman imagination. Why did they go into battle stark naked? These were wealthy men. They could afford shields, helmets, coats of mail, but they did not wear them. Mere bravado then? I think not.

Under some little-understood circumstances, the human body can grow suddenly larger. Daniel Dunglas Home could suddenly increase his height by at least nine inches. Body diameters can also increase. So the berserk warrior could find a coat of mail suddenly become a crushing, stifling burden. They would throw it off, and their clothing, keeping only a weapon.

In the days when Christianity and writing on vellum came to the North, the tradition of berserksgang came with the cult of Woden (Wotan, Odin), by incomers from what is now South Russia, the Dnieper valley. According to Heimskringla and the Ossetian scholar, Dzambulat Daulanty, it fits well within the traditions of the Alans, preserved in the fastnesses of the Caucasus. According to “Odin l’Ossete” by Daulanty, in Oss-Alanes, Vol. II (1953) pp. 11-12, there is an Ossentian (Alanic) tale of a boy called either Uyd-daen or Ud-daen (“I am the soul”) who discovered the secret of smelting bronze (actually millenia older) and making weapons. He kills a wicked giant, assembles a host of Alan warriors, and goes north in search of women with long golden hair. Eventually he and his army arrived in the far north of Europe, which Daulanty plausibly identifies with Scandinavia, and is there accepted as a god. Uyd-daen married the king’s daughter. Just as in Sturlason’s Heimskringla, Odin is not presented as a conqueror, but simply as an accomplished and wealthy foreigner who penetrates an existing people and culture, introducing new ideas.

In his old age, Uyd-daen returned to the Caucasus, leaving behind his son Votan. The Alans were the strongest of the Sarmatian tribes which then dominated much of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. They rode horseback and used stirrups, wore coats of mail. When did this occur? Certainly not in the Bronze Age, nor even in the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt) period.

The Alans only reached a position from which such an expedition would be practical about 150 B.C. But the most likely point is somewhere around 63 B.C., when Pompey the Roman general was pursuing Mithradates to his death in the Crimea. Now Mithradates, as his name shows, was an Iranian, a white man, speaking a Wiro (Aryan) tongue, closely related to Persian and Hindustani. These Alans, as we know from contemporary descriptions, were essentially Nordics, though less blond than Scandinavians. They were, then, men likely to appreciate blonde beauty of Scandinavian girls. The Romans never occupied the Dnieper basin at any time. But they did hold the Crimea for centuries, and that was too close for the comfort of any intelligent Alanic dynast. So it is about 60 B.C. that we can suppose that Uyd-daen (the name may well be mythical, but the man behind it is not) made his way northward, through the territories of primitive Slavic and Baltic tribes. Some of them possessed a well-developed Iron Age culture, as Marija Gimbutas has shown, but none able to resist the well-armed and generally friendly Alan host, who asked only free passage. It is Votan, Uyd-daen’s son, whose name seems to have passed over into Gothonic as Wodan.

It’s notable that Eddaic poetry, in its present form far later, presents Odin not as a great conquering hero, but as a cunning magician, adept in unmanly arts of seid- craft. In a later age such a man would have been given the despised name of scrat and burnt in his house as one unworthy of life. This means that the new religious cults brought in by the Alanic magicians was not acceptable to all.

I say “cults”, for there were two waves of Alanic religion reaching the North: the Aesir cult dominated by Wodan-Odin and the Vanic cult of Nerthuz and Njord, Frey, and cat-Freyja. The distribution pattern of their place-names strongly suggests that the Vanic gods preceded the Aesir. Down to historical times, the nobility of Uppland, (the heart of later Sweden, see Det Svenska rikets oppkomst by Birger Nerman) claimed descent from Frey. The great temple at Old Uppsala held an idol of Odin, but was dominated by the Priapic Frey, with his cult of the horses’ phallus. The Swedish royal family of that day, which did not claim descent from either Odin or Frey, became Christian in the time of Olof Skottkonung in 1025. However, they did not dare to interfere with the great shrine of Frey until 1118, when King Philip, having been driven from Uppland by a heathen usurper, reformed his forces in Varmland and then led a small mounted force on a midwinter raid through the snow and burnt the heathen and his temple.

Odin place-names are thickest in Denmark, Skane and Oster- and Vestergotland. They are almost unknown in Norway, where the cult of Thor (Old English Thunor, “thunder”) is dominant.

Thor and Tyr (Old English Tiw) are older Gothonic gods whose cults managed to survive the coming of the Vanir and Aesir. So, probably, is Heimdall, whose alternative name of Rig (Keltic for “King”) hints at a period of Keltic dominance in the North. This period ended with the floods which forced the migration of the Cimbri and Teutones, whose plebeians may have spoken Gothonic but whose leaders certainly spoke Keltic. It may have been from Denmark that the proto-Picts reached Eastern Scotland about 700 B.C. If so, the Cimbri and Teutones were P-Kelts. They certainly were practitioners of a horrible cult of human sacrifice and the collection of blood in great bowls, which is also attested in Skane about 1000 B.C. Was it only toward the end of the Viking Age that the Scandinavians began to forsake Odin? That is the impression that most histories give.

But it is mistaken. We know that while the great Ostrogothic King Theodoric, the Western Roman Emperor in everything but name, ruled in Italy (493-526), a young Gothonic king from the far north came to his court and stayed long enough to be remembered. Now Theodoric was very definitely a Christian. It is not likely that a client prince could stay very long at his court without being baptized, or at least “prime-signed.”

The name of this young king is given as Rodvulfus, King of the Rani. There is a small district in Scandinavia, Ranrike. But at just this time there was a great Danish king who ruled at Lejre in Sjaelland. He figures in Beowulf as Hrothwulf, and in Saxo Grammaticus as Rolvo Krake (usually given as meaning “the Crow”—but perhaps really the Creaca (Greek)—that is, a man who had “fared southward to Greekland” (the Mediterranean). And it takes only a shift from “r” to “d” to change Rani to Dani, and there is the adjoining Rodvulf to explain it. All of which would not be worth mentioning save for the well-remembered fact that Hrolf Krake and his men were remembered in Denmark for their consistent refusal to ever offer any sacrifice to Odin or any other god. The old, old song of the Bjarkamal, the “egging on of the housecarles” which was sung before the doomed host of St. Olaf on the day of his martyrdom, has the dying Berserk, Bothvarr- Bjarki, ask his wife, Hrut (King Hrolf’s sister) if she can see “Frigg’s husband” (Odin) anywhere, so that Bjarki might, in his last breath, destroy the King of the Gods. All this fits in neatly with the idea of a Christian mission to Denmark about A.D. 510. It perished in the ashes of Lajre, but folk remembered that one could be a hero and not serve any of the old gods.

AEGYPTIUS GOD KHEPRI

Sun-god creator in the form of a scarab beetle.

The image of the scarab is almost synonymous with Ancient Egypt. The choice of an insect to convey one of the forms of the sun-god illustrates the keen eye of the Egyptian in observing nature and his imagination in trying to understand the universe. Khepri is the sun-god at dawn on the eastern horizon. His iconography is that of the scarab beetle (of which there are numerous varieties in Egypt) pushing the disk of the sun upwards from the Underworld to journey across the sky. In their own local environment the Egyptians would have noticed the scarabs busily rolling balls of dirt across the ground and translated this method of propulsion into an explanation of the sun’s circuit. However, the analogy did not stop there. Observing that out of the ball emerged a scarab, apparently spontaneously, it was logical to see the insect as Khepri – ‘he who is coming into being’, i.e. self-created of his own accord without undergoing the natural cycle of reproduction. The creator sun-god was therefore aptly manifest in the ‘scarabaeus sacer’ or dung beetle.

Inscriptional evidence for Khepri occurs in the pyramids of the Old Kingdom: a wish is expressed for the sun to come into being in its name of Khepri. The priesthood of the sun-god combined his different forms to assert that ATUMKhepri arises on the primeval mound in the mansion of the BENU in Heliopolis. Referring to the myth of the sun-god’s journey through the hours of night, Khepri is said to raise his beauty into the body of NUT the sky-goddess. From noticing the somewhat slimy consistency of the scarab beetle’s dirt-ball, the earth is made from the spittle coming from Khepri.

From about the Middle Kingdom representations of Khepri, as the ovoid scarab, regularly occur in three-dimensional form carved as the amuletic backing of seals. These scarabs, by implication, connect the wearer with the sun-god. The underside could be incised, not just with the titles and name of an official, but also with good-luck designs, deities and the names of royalty used for their protective power. Kings would use the undersides of large scarabs to commemorate specific events – Amenhotep III (Dynasty XVIII) has left a number of these news bulletins which inter alia give information on his prowess at lion hunting and celebrate the arrival of a Syrian princess into his harem. The scarab could form the bezel of a ring or be part of a necklace or bracelet – the tomb of Tutankhamun has provided us with splendid examples of scarabs made of semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli set in gold. One of the young king’s pectorals in particular stresses the dominance of Khepri the sun-god as well as being a masterpiece of the jeweller’s craft: in the centre of the design is a scarab carved from chalcedony combined with the wings and talons of the solar hawk, representing Khepri who, as controller of celestial motion, is shown here pushing the boat of the moon-eye.

Paintings in funerary papyri show Khepri on a boat being lifted up by the god NUN, the primeval watery chaos. In some depictions Khepri coalesces with other conceptions of the sun-god to present the appearance of a ram-headed beetle. On a wall of the interior chamber in the tomb of Petosiris (fourth century BC) at Tuna el-Gebel, Khepri was carved quite naturalistically in low relief, painted lapis lazuli blue, wearing the ‘atef’ crown of OSIRIS. Less frequently Khepri could be shown as an anthropomorphic god to the shoulders with a full scarab beetle for a head. Bizarre as it might seem, the Egyptian artist has left some magnificent depictions of Khepri in this form – e.g. in the tomb of Nefertari (Dynasty XIX) in the Valley of the Queens.

Although relatively few examples are extant in museums or in Egypt, it seems likely that the major temples each possessed a colossal hard-stone statue of Khepri. Raised on a plinth, the scarab symbolised architecturally the concept that the temple was the site where the sun-god first emerged to begin the creation of the cosmos.

Chinese world map, 1763 - Now A vailable for fantasy use!

In January 2006, a Chinese collector, Liu Gang, announced that he had acquired, in 2001, a hand-drawn map that referred to Admiral Zheng He’s expedition in 1418. The Economist (12 January 2006) ran an article, 'An ancient map that strongly suggests Chinese seamen were first round the world', describing it as 'a copy, made in 1763, of a map, dated 1418'

There are two issues: the supposed connection with Zheng He, which was seen as tying in with Gavin Menzies's theories about a 1421 discovery of America; and the question of whether the map (supposedly subjected to radiocarbon-dating testing) was a (misinterpreted?) eighteenth-century original or a modern fake.

Both sides of the argument can be accessed via the '1421 exposed' site, which sets out reasoned arguments against the overlapping Menzies and Liu Gang theories. See also 'The "Liu/Menzies" world map: a critique' (pdf article by Geoff Wade, in: e-Perimetron, 2:4 (Autumn, 2007), pp. 270-7). [Added 29 June 2008.]

Posting by Dr. Geoff Wade on the Maphist list - 24 March 2006

I remain convinced that this “1763/1418” map is a 21^st-century fake. It was certainly produced by someone educated in simplified characters (meaning under the PRC in the last 50 years) and the purpose of the map is to support the Menzies thesis (and so it was produced within the last four years). I have incorporated, along with my own thoughts, some comments and observations from Jin Guo-ping, Zhou Zhen-he, Gong Ying-yan, and Hou Yang-fang in the following critique.

A. There are a number of issues about this map which need to be noted:

1. It is a dual-hemisphere map, a cartographic tradition exclusively European. California is represented as an island, copied straight from European maps of the 17^th century. China is placed at the centre of the map as it was in early Jesuit maps of the world produced in China. It is based on a rough copy of a Jesuit map of the world.

2. It copies some parts of the text from early Jesuit maps.

3. Creating such a map is conditional upon recognition that world is a sphere. No indigenous Ming maps show that there was a belief that the world was a sphere.

4. For a sphere to be represented on a flat plane, there needs to be knowledge of and methods for projection. Chinese cartographers did not have this knowledge.

5. The amount of non-coastal detail (including riverine systems extending thousands of miles from the coast) indicate that these maps could not have been produced by maritime voyagers. The information in the maps was obviously amassed over time by cultures who had travelled widely. It fits perfectly within the history of European cartography, but is a complete anomaly in Chinese cartography.

6. The map is supposedly drawn in 1763 for submission to the Court by someone called Mo Yi-tong, partially based on a "map of the barbarians from all under Heaven who offer tribute to the Court" drawn in the 16th year of the Yong-le reign (1418), with those inscriptions circled in red. Such mode of attribution is not a part of Chinese cartographic tradition and neither is circling particular names in red to indicate that they are from an earlier map. No one has identified this unknown person who supposedly suvbmitted this map to the court.

7. The representation of China is poor. Why should Chinese cartographers have represented the lands with which they were so familiar so poorly?

8. Some of the persons who are supposed to have authenticated the map -- Professor Robert Cribbs, Dr. Gunnar Thompson, Charlotte Harris Rees, Lam Yee Din, Robin Lind, Gerald Andrew Bottomley and Anatole Andro -- have not even seen the map. None of these persons is an expert in any relevant field.

B. Annotations

1. The map is named the 'Overall Map of the Geography of All Under Heaven' (tian-xia quan-yu zong-tu) which makes no sense as a map name. It is grammatically incorrect to use 'quan yu' (complete geography) and 'zong tu' (overall map) in the one title.

2. The term 'quan-yu' (complete geography) is never used in Chinese classical writing.

3. The eunuch Zheng He is referred to as Ma San-bao. No one would have dared to use his original name given that the emperor had assigned him the surname Zheng.

4. The term “shi-gong-tu” is used instead of “zhi-gong-tu” to indicate a map of tributaries. This shows the faker did not understand the institutions of imperial China. Liu Gang’s explanation that this meant that the tributaries had been “recognised” is neither logical nor feasible. There is no example of that term in imperial Chinese works.

5.. There are various simplified characters ( particularly yu), used in the map, which while in use during the 18^th century , would not have been used on a map intended for submission to the Court. This also suggests creation of map by modern person who was unfamiliar with the classical distinctions between these characters.

6. The map uses the term "all under Heaven" for this world map. During the Qing, this term referred to the Qing empire, not the world.

7. The Himalayas are marked as the highest mountains in the world. This fact was only discovered in the 19^th century.

C. The annotations in red are supposedly from 1418.

1. The style of the language used in the annotations is not congruent with usual Ming language, cartographic or otherwise. It is a modern attempt at sounding “classical”.

2. In eastern Europe, there is an annotation in a red border which notes: "The people here all worship God (shang-di) and their religion is called 'Jing'." The term “shang-di” in reference to the Christian God was created only in the late 16^th century, and the recognition in China of Nestorianism (“Jing”) as a branch of Christianity occurred only in the early 17^th century.

3. The name of Korea is given as Gao-li. By 1418, it had long been changed to Chao-xian.

4. The name of Vietnam is given as Annam. By 1418, this had long become the Chinese province of Jiao-zhi.

5. The provincial names Hu-bei and Hu-nan are given. In 1418, these had not been created. The areas were part of Hu-guang.

6. There are a number of annotations “Great Qing Ocean” in red in the seas off China. These are supposedly to date from 1418, 230 years before the Qing dynasty had been established.

7. Taiwan is named as “Ryukyu”. During the Ming, the country of Ryukyu was a tributary of the Ming and the Ming certainly knew where it was. There is no evidence that Taiwan was referred to as Ryukyu during the Ming.

8. The map refers to the southern and northern capital areas (zhi-li), but these were only created in 1421, 3 years after the map was supposedly drawn.

In short, the map is simply a litany of errors, many simplistic. There is absolutely no possibility that this is anything but a 21^st century map, produced in order to try to profit from Menzies’ 1421 hypothesis.

Of course the dating of the paper reveals that the piece of paper tested could be from the 18^th century. This means nothing, as there is no evidence that it came from the map which Mr Liu Gang has been showing the world.