Viracocha

The Incas’ leading culture hero, believed to have escaped a world-class deluge that obliterated everyone else in his kingdom. He hid in the Cave of Refuge, emerging to found Andean Civilization. In a later variant of his myth, Viracocha rose from the depths of Lake Titicaca and recreated humans by breathing life into great stones lying about, a process that resulted in the pre-Inca city of Tiahuanaco. His action is similar to the transformation of stones into a post-deluge population achieved by the Greek deluge hero, Deucalion, suggesting a shared flood tradition. Viracocha’s name, “Sea Foam,” implies the bow wave of an arriving ship. He was described as fair-skinned, red-haired, and robed in a long garment decorated with a red flower motif. Viracocha taught the natives everything they needed to build the first Andean civilization, then sailed away from Peruvian shores into the west and was never seen again. It would appear that a culture-bearer associated with the Atlantis catastrophe around 2100 B.C. may have moved on to Lemuria after making his mark in Bolivia and Peru.

The mere appearance of Francisco Pizarro and his Conquistadors in South America during 1531 caused widespread confusion among the Incas. Emperor Atahualpa and his people were unsure if these bearded white men in the possession of magical technology were descendants of the beneficent Viracocha. The Spanish soon enlightened them on that account by kidnapping and executing Atahualpa, looting the Inca temples of their gold, demonizing their religion, and dismantling their empire. The paralysis that had gripped the Incas at the sight of Pizarro was identical to the Aztecs’ disabling uncertainty when confronted by Hernan Cortez, who they imagined might be their own white-skinned culture hero, Quetzalcoatl, the “Feathered Serpent.”

Wotan

His name derived from the German wut, “to rage,” which defined his identification with the dynamic forces of creation and destruction over which he had almost complete control. Also known as Odin, Wodan, Vodan, and Votan to the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe since deeply prehistoric times, he was chief deity of Asgaard, the abode of the gods in the Norse pantheon. He was also the great culture-creator and culture-bearer, who invented the civilizing gifts of poetry, literacy, wisdom, the arts, law, and medicine and brought them to mankind. Sometimes he appeared among mortals dressed in the great cloak and broadbrimmed hat of a traveler, his spear made to resemble a walking stick. At such times, he was the Wanderer, who roamed the world. He was known as the most potent sorcerer. Secret magic enabled his godhood and brought supernatural power to anyone with whom he shared some of his runic mysteries. In the cyclical myth of Ragnarok, the “Breaking of the Gods,” Wotan perishes or disappears in a worldwide conflagration extinguished by a universal flood. Eventually, the cycle begins all over again.

The West Africans of Dahomey still worship Vodun, a powerful sorcerer who brought their ancestors great wealth and wisdom from over the waves, but soon after returned to his palace at the bottom of the sea. Before he departed, he confided his wisdom to a secret spiritual society of select initiates. In his honor, they named the cult vodu, which signifies various deities called upon in their ecstatic rituals. The Gold Coast was the main source for black slavery, so when the enslaved cultists arrived in the New World, their vodu beliefs went with them, and thrive today in the “voodoo” magic of the Caribbean.

Directly across the Atlantic from West Africa, the Quiche Mayas of Mexico’s Lowland Yucatan region venerated the memory of Votan, a tall, bearded, fairskinned, light-haired man-god. He landed at Laguna de Terminos with his family and followers from the East in a great ship, then built the first stone cities in Yucatan, taught written language to the Mayas’ ancestors, and instituted the sciences of astronomy, medicine, and government.

Nunez de la Vega, the Bishop of colonial Yucatan in 1691, made a deep study of the Quiche Mayas’ religion, all the better to convert them to Christianity. He learned more about the mythic Votan than any Spaniard before or since, and was so impressed with the legend’s historical credibility, he concluded the ancient culture-bearer had been a son of Noah! When his native informants recounted that Votan knew of “a great wall that reached to the sky,” de la Vega assumed it must have been the Tower of Babel. But he realized that a biblical interpretation of the foreign hero did not entirely mesh with the Indians’ story.

Among Votan’s titles was, according to the Bishop, “El Corazon de los Pueblos,” meaning “the Heart of the Cities.” After the Deluge and his subsequent arrival on the shores of Yucatan, he was said to have recorded details of the catastrophe, his survival, and prophesies for the Fifth Age following the Flood on a deer hide hidden in a sacred cave. Later, he went to the city of Palenque, where he transcribed this information onto golden sheets, which were dispatched to the great capital at Teotihuacan. There, they were preserved at the Temple of the Jaguar. Thanks to de la Vega, the Mayas’ Votan is adequately described as an alien civilizer.

Votan was known to another Yucatan tribe, the Chiapenese, who claimed they were the first human beings in Middle America. To them, he was the grandson of a man who built a great “raft” to save his family from the Deluge that ravaged the world. “He came from the east,” they said, then went on to found a great city known as Chan. On Peru’s north Pacific coast lie the ruins of Chan-Chan, a pre-Inca megalopolis. In fact, wall friezes at its Palace of the Governor display a pyramidal city sunken beneath the sea. The Chiapenese recounted that seven families arrived with Votan from over the “Ocean of the Sunrise.”

The occurrence of this figure on three continents forms a curious triangle. His name appearing at such widely separated locations is remarkable enough. But that three peoples as culturally different from one another as the Norse, Dahomey, and Mayas should share complimentary aspects of his myth exceeds mere coincidence, indicating an experience common to them all. Wotan/Vodun/Votan is not found outside the areas mentioned, so he was not part of some extra-historical phenomenon common to humanity in general. On the contrary, his appearance is very specific, as is his myth, among just those peoples dwelling close to the ocean who were obviously visited by the same “Wanderer,” a culture-bearer from some central point and from which he impacted the three continents separately. Today, that central point is only open sea, where several thousand years ago there flourished a maritime Asgaard.

These intercultural connections through Wotan are reinforced by his early characterization in Norse myth as god of the winds. So too, the Egyptian equivalent of Atlas was Shu, likewise portrayed as controller of the winds supporting the heavens. The Aztec Ehecatl—containing the indicative “atl” of Atlas—who was said to have arrived on the shores of Mexico near Vera Cruz, was the wind-god depicted in sacred art holding up the sky. Additionally, Wotan wore an azure cloak and was venerated as the patron of sailors. In Plato’s Kritias, the maritime kings of Atlantis wore sacred blue robes. The palatial estate of Wotan in Asgaard was, of course, the famous Valhalla, originally, Valhal. Remarkably, both the Quiche Maya and Chiapenese Indian versions of their Votan portray him arriving from his Atlantic home, known as Valum. Reason rebels at the dismissal of comparisons between the Norse Wotan-Valhal and the Central American Votan-Valum as “purely coincidental.”

In what may be correlating evidence, Rene Guenon, one of the greatest mythologists of the 20th century, reported that Hindu priests preserve traditions of Atlantis. In a description of the Atlantean written language, astrological glyphs stood for specific characters. They referred to this kind of “astral-alphabet” as Watan or Vatan. Was that alphabet named after a culture-bearer from Atlantis? Since the Atlanteans were supposed to have been the inventors of astronomy-astrology and continued to excel fore mostly in that science, their use of astrological symbols for letter values is credible.

Wotan, Vodun, Votan, Watan, Vatan, Valhal, Valum—their interrelating themes seem to describe the same Atlantean figure.

The Overseers

Standard of Dolichenus Bronze standard from Mauer, second century AD. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Several triangular standards, no two alike, show Jupiter Dolichenus with his consort Juno Dolichena. Many of them seem rather confused in imagery, but this one is quite plain in its arrangement of the pair on four different levels of being. At the apex is the Dolichene triad of eagle, sun and moon, i.e. the hypercosmic principle which is Jupiter in his highest manifestation, above the symbols of the opposites in the cosmos. Next are Jupiter and Juno in their respective bull- and stag-drawn chariots, symbols of the dynamic action of solar and lunar, or of positive and negative, influences. Below these the pair perform a sacrifice: the perpetual transmutation of matter and energy that sustains the world. At the bottom they both stand on bulls, flanked by army standards and facing a statue of Victory, representing their personal function as givers of good fortune and success.

The wise pagan Celsus thought it probable that from the beginning the different parts of the earth had been allotted to different overseers, and that it was thus entirely proper for men to worship their own local gods and goddesses. Being a Platonic philosopher, Celsus did not confuse these lesser gods, daemons, angels, folk-souls (call them what you will) with the Supreme God. But local pride and provincialism tended to blur the distinction in the minds of many. It is inevitable among unphilosophical people, and in general there is no harm done by identifying one's overseer with the Absolute, any more than in treating one's family as if they were the most important people in the world. In this section we pass in review some ten of these beings. Most of them are quite a mystery to modern researchers, since there are no records of their doctrines and rituals. Fragmentary inscriptions and occasional mentions in literature are all we have to supplement the iconography and architectural remains in which they appear in all their glory.

Roman Syria stretched from the Taurus Mountains to the Euphrates, and every region had its own local pantheon whose head was the Lord of Heaven. These are the 'gods of the heathen' of the Old Testament, and their nature is well illustrated in I Kings 18 where Elijah and the prophets of Baal compete for a celestial thunderbolt to kindle their offerings: they are at once supercosmic powers and telluric weather gods. Hence their eagles and thunderbolts, symbols of unsurpassable heights and irresistible magical power. When the Romans annexed Syria in 64 Be they encouraged the inhabitants to equate their various overseers with Jupiter: the Jupiter Optimus Maximus or even the Jupiter Exsuperantissimus around whom all the other Roman deities were tending to revolve. For the Romans such assimilation was an easy matter, but in fact there was much variety in the Syrian religion, and many vestiges of a more primordial cult which they overlooked in their synthesizing enthusiasm. Some of the gods reacted by imposing their religions on their conquerors, in cults that stretched from one end of the Empire to the other.

One such was the god of Dolichenus , who had his territory in Commagene, a small area now in southern Turkey which the Romans added to Syria in AD 72. From these obscure beginnings his influence spread along the Danube and the Rhine, through the Netherlands and up to Hadrian's Wall. Syria was the most fertile source of slaves and soldiers in an expanding economy that felt an increasing need for both, and these were probably the first to propagate his cult. But as provincials were promoted and given citizenship, so also Dolichenus climbed the social ladder, gaining adherents among senators and knights and reaching his apogee in the time of the Severi around AD 200. In contrast to the dedications by individuals to Mithras, the other favourite god of the legionaries, Dolichenus received votive dedications from entire units, suggesting that his was a more open and exoteric cult, probably without any profound initiatic content although its symbols are deeply rooted in Aryan tradition.

The overseers of the Syrian tribes all bore the name Bel or Baal, and like Dolichenus fulfilled both the position of a supreme deity above the cosmos - Baal Shamin, 'Lord of Heaven' - and that of an approachable and personal father and weather god. Many inscriptions in Palmyra address Baal, like his successor Allah, as 'the Compassionate and Merciful', and record gratitude 'because the God listened to the prayer'. But there was also in Syria and throughout the ancient Near East a cult of non-anthropomorphic symbols of the overseers: a cult of stones and mountain-tops, of totems and star-lore. High places are always associated with the Sky God: they encourage observation of the stars and planets, and-afford contact with elemental forces; in them one feels elevated above the human condition, unprotected but also unencumbered by the everyday life of the valleys beneath. They are peculiarly the haunts of local overseers and have always been recognised as holy. Sacred stones also come from the sky. Meteorites, regarded as actual thunderbolts, are gifts from the Lord of Heaven, and just as the local Baals are in a sense lesser reflections of him, so the meteorite is a fragment of heaven and is revered as such. Examples which have affected more than local history are the Ka'ba Stone at Mecca; the meteoric image of Cybele at Pessinus; and the Betyl of Emesa (modern Horns) which the Emperor Elagabalus brought in triumph to Rome in his attempt to force the entire Empire into obeisance before the local Baal of which he happened to be high priest.

All the Baals have female consorts, at least in theory: they are not often shown as a reigning pair. These are the saktis of the gods in Hindu theology, meaning the 'power with which a god, otherwise self-contained, 'procreates' and thus creates and influences lower levels of being. Baal Hadad of Hierapolis (now Membij) in north Syria had a notable consort in Atargatis, known to the Greeks and Romans simply as the 'Syrian Goddess'. Lucian has left a vivid account of her festivals, which included the raising of gigantic phalli, people swimming out to deck an altar in the middle of a sacred lake, the sacrifice of animals, and self-mutilation. It was just such religious enthusiasms that St Paul found so repulsive at Ephesus, where the Ephesian Artemis had one of the most magnificent Ionic temples of the ancient world. Here and in other centres of Asia Minor Aphrodisias, Samos, Sardis, Pergamum - the inhabitants seem to have favoured goddesses, who presided over their development in Hellenistic and Roman times until their cities became bywords for elegance and luxury.

Sometimes the Great Goddess has as her consort not a mature Zeus-type but a younger man, perhaps her son. Cybele and Attis are the best-known example; in Anatolia and Phrygia there was also Men, a moon god, who had important centres near modern Antalya at which it appears that the Mysteries involved a sacred marriage ceremony. There is a tradition, probably the oldest one of all, that the moon is not female but male and that it is the Man in the Moon, not the husband, who really impregnates women - for in primitive societies sexual intercourse is not necessarily connected causally with pregnancy. A modern resurgence of this belief is the method of birth control by considering the relation of the phase of the moon to the woman's natal horoscope: conception is most likely when the sun and moon are in the same relationship as at her birth. So old superstitions are modernized and reborn, and so the celebration of the hierogamy of Men and the Great Mother Goddess may have had a practical as well as a ritual purpose.

Sabazius, originating in Thrace (now Bulgaria), is another local overseer of whom very little is known nowadays. As with Men and so many others, his remains are from later epochs - Hellenistic and later - by which time he had undergone assimilation and no doubt distortion. The Greeks equated him with Dionysus, the Romans at first with Bacchus then, in the increasingly syncretistic atmosphere of the Empire period, with the same cosmocratic Jupiter as had swallowed up the individual Baals. Sabazius' symbols are the snake and the pine-cone, and this is enough to indicate that he was an initiatic god and not merely a tribal totem. They symbolize the Kundalini and the Third Eye, with which the true Mysteries concern themselves. According to Clement of Alexandria, the Sabazian Mysteries involved drawing a live serpent across the breast of the initiate in imitation, he says, of the 'God who penetrates the bosom'. Here is a clear example of a ritual action, seemingly bizarre, paralleling an interior experience in the heart-centre: 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace'.

Hill of Tara

The hill of Tara (Irish, Teamhair na Rí, “Hill of the King”) is a low limestone ridge standing at 646 feet (197 m) running near the river Boyne in County Meath, Leinster. Its prominence dates to very ancient times, and it has long held a place of singular significance in Irish legend and lore. In the Lebor gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland), the earliest complete copy of which dates to the 12th century, Tara is named for Téa, wife of Eremon, the first Gaelic ruler of Ireland, in replacing the earlier name of Druim Cain (Cain’s ridge).

The remnants of an oval-shaped Iron Age hillfort known as the Fort of the Kings, or the Royal Enclosure (Ráith na Rig), stand at the summit. Enclosed by an internal ditch and an external bank, two ringforts linked to each other within the fort are known as Cormac’s House (Teach Chormaic) and the Royal Seat (Forradh). In the middle of the latter, a standing stone protrudes, believed to be the Stone of Destiny (Lia Fáil) at which the high kings of Ireland were supposedly crowned and which, when touched by the royal hand, after the claimant to the throne had won a series of challenges, would emit a screech heard all over the island.

The importance of Tara predates Celtic times, and a legendary account names Tara as the capital of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

The list of those bearing the title of “high king of Ireland” goes back to the second millennium b.c.e (though the earliest names are mostly mythical), and although no proof has been found that Tara served as the political and spiritual capital of the earliest Celtic people in Ireland, it is known that the site evolved to become the chief center of these high kings from before the sixth century c.e. It retained that status until sometime during the 12th century, although its splendor declined over time.

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Manchac Swamp, Louisiana

The Manchac Swamp, a.k.a. the “haunted swamp,” near New Orleans is a Southern Gothic fan’s dream. An imprisoned voodoo queen is said to have cast a curse on these watery surroundings around the turn of the last century, resulting in the disappearance of three hamlets in a hurricane in 1915.

This swamp is a wilderness jewel. Sims’s photographs and John Kemp’s text have made timeless the people and place of Manchac Swamp.

The Manchac Swamp Bridge is a bridge in the US state of Louisiana. With a total length of 22.80 miles (36.69 km) it is the third longest bridge in the world by total length (see List of bridges by length). The bridge carries Interstate 55 over the Manchac Swamp in Louisiana, and represents one-third of the highway’s approximately 66 miles in Louisiana.

The Holy Lance Church

These are photos from the church in Armenia, ex part of Soviet Union, now a separate country. They have those unique churches that were caved in the mountain with the part of the original solid rock as the pillars and walls. These churches are more than 1500 years old and according to the history of this particular church the “Holy Lance” or “Spear of Christ”, the lance that pierced Jesus while he was on the cross to stop his sufferings was stored during 500 years in this place. The name of place is still “The Church of the Holy Lance”.

photos by Anna via myphototravel

The Temple of Borobudur

The colossal pyramid temple at Borobudur, on the island of Java, is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments. Constructed in the eighth century, it depicts the path to spiritual enlightenment in stone. Sculptures and relief portrayals of the life of the Buddha at the lower level depict the world of desire. At higher elevations, they give way to empty bell towers and culminate at the summit with an empty and closed stupa, signifying the state of Nirvana. Shortly after it was built, Borobudur was abandoned as a new ruler switched his allegiance to Hinduism and ordered the erection of the Hindu temple of Prambanan nearby. Buried for a thousand years under volcanic ash and jungle, Borobudur was rediscovered in the nineteenth century and has recently been restored to its former splendor.

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Mapmaking 101

Karl Musser hosts a page where Arthur describes the principles in fantasy mapmaking. You will find many useful hints on his pages. While you are there, remember to ask Karl to finish the pages he is missing:-)

Introduction:

Map making is an art form dating back into the depths of time. Before therewere GPS' (global positioning satellites) , there were maps. It took askilled mathematician and artist to create a precise map, and sailors andnavigators around the world relied on exact accuracy. Maps can be symbolic,imaginary, or just plain useful. But there are too many types of maps todiscuss in one place, so I will concentrate my energies on a single subject:that of fantasy map making.

Wari Archaeological Complex

Wari vase

Pikillacta

The Wari people were the first to use military force to conquer the surrounding states. After conquering another people, as in most conquests, the Wari subdued the old cultures and enforced their own way of life forbidding any practice of the former culture, losing all traces of the unwritten culture that was conquered.

The Wari people spread to every corner of Peru eventually conquering the entire country. The capital of the Wari Empire is located near the city of Ayachuco, Peru; however there were many major outposts throughout the country. Wari cities were made up of large rectangular shaped buildings that were laid out in strict grid patterns that would resemble most of today's city block structures.

There is evidence that much of the Inca culture came from the ideas of the Wari people. The Wari people had made up an extensive road system which is the basis for the Incan system of transportation. The Wari people also built strong, stone buildings that had a ventilation system and were earthquake resistant. Another interesting building excavated by National Geographic, was an underground tomb found near the ancient capital Wari that was dug out in the shape of a llama and lined with smooth rocks.

The ancient city of Wari covers close to ten square kilometers and is situated on a hill in southern Peru. Below this aging city, there are numerous tunnels crisscrossing the entire city. This city also lies on one of the major trade routes reaching from the Pacific Ocean and continues on beyond the city. The close proximity to a major trade route is a contributing factor as to why this particular city became the capital.

The Wari People began to decline around 1000 B.C. There is much mystery as to how and why the large Wari Empire disappeared. There is evidence suggesting that the empire failed at a site called Kuelap. This site was situated in a remote location with an enormous wall speculated to be built of three times more material than Egypt's largest pyramid. This site was built by a people known as the Chachapoyan Cloud People who were said to be a tall people with very fair hair. There is no evidence suggesting where these people came from, however, this is possible that Kuelap is the place where the Wari were defeated.

After the steady decline of the Wari people, the Incas had begun their conquest defeating the Wari. However, the Wari king convinced his people that the upper class Wari people were just like the Incas, too good to be under Inca rule. This caused the Wari to flee to the lower jungles of the Andes.

The Wari or Huari Empire was a sophisticated civilization established in the central Andes of Peru during the Middle Horizon (between about AD 750 and 1000). Wari structures were typically large rectangular enclosures, laid out in a strict grid pattern of squares or patios. The largest capital was Pikillaqta; a second center was Jincamocco.

Archaeologists most associated with the Wari include Wendell Bennett, Max Uhle, William H. Isbell, Gordon F. McEwan and Katharina Schreiber.