Temple at Tarxien

Sir Themistocles Zammit’s excavations at Tarxien, the most complex of the Maltese temples, produced significant information regarding the cult practices associated with these buildings. At Tarxien it seems that the interior shrines were true altars. In the recess in the base of one of them Sir Themistocles found a flint knife and, together with charred bones of sheep and cattle, some shells and pottery. Large stone basins were found in the temples and traces of burning on the floors suggest that the sacrifices may have been performed there. The divinity of Tarxien is surely represented by an over life-size statue of a woman preserved only in its lower part with oddly bulbous legs. The figure wore a fleece skirt. Smaller figures are preserved in their entirety. Representations of phalloi (male organs) and vegetation, as well as the sheep, cattle and pig already mentioned, show that the cult of the goddess had a definite fertility aspect. There are numerous figurines of women including some asleep on couches.

Some information about the layout of the furnishings survived in the temples of Tarxien, which were excavated between 1915 and 1919. The lower half of an enormous statue of a “fat lady” was found in the temple precinct. Next to it is an altar within which the remains of food were found. The altar faced the carved figures of animals that may have represented sacrifices. Deeper within the recesses of the temple, excavators found the images of people who may have been priests, caches of precious pendants and even architectural models of the temples themselves.

Inside the caves the Tarxien builders leveled the earlier burials to provide a fresh (albeit bone-riddled) surface for the installation of stone monuments. The niches and smaller caverns were subdivided with pairs of upright stones and rough walls, which created additional, enclosed places for burials. At the center of the main cavern, the Maltese builders set up megalithic slabs in a semicircle, at the heart of which was a huge carved stone bowl. The stonework surrounding this bowl was elegant, and there is evidence that some of it included animal figures and pitted patterns. The builders did not apply red ocher as liberally as their predecessors did, and they painted only a few of the nearby slabs. Available supplies were made to stretch further.

Bodies were buried in the compartments around this central shrine. One noteworthy burial site was a natural cavity in the cave floor where hundreds of bodies were laid to rest. At first sight, the remains seemed incomplete and in confusion. Our further work has shown, however, that the bones from many bodies had been carefully sorted and stacked by type: skulls in one place, femurs in another and so on. This pattern suggests that as part of the burial ritual, old bodies being removed from compartments were disarticulated.
The prehistoric Maltese of the Tarxien period seem to have invested most of their artisanship and craft into cult objects that were more than mere grave gifts. For example, a ceramic strainer and a unique stone sculpture were unearthed from near the stone bowl in the megalithic shrine. The strainer was probably meant to be used with the bowl, perhaps for straining out unwanted objects or for sprinkling liquids onto bodies.

The sculpture shows a beautifully carved and painted pair of obese figures. They are seated on an intricately carved bed, daubed with red ocher, that shows woven struts on the underside and curvilinear designs on the upper. The fat figures are not explicitly male or female. They wear the familiar pleated skirts, painted black, of the finest Maltese cult figures. The head of one figure sports a haircut that includes a pigtail at the back. The other’s head is missing. Both figures hold objects on their laps: one a tiny dressed person (who may be a baby), the other a cup.

Aside from the sculpture’s fine craftsmanship, it is astonishing because the portrayal of several humans together is almost unknown from that period in Europe: even individual figures, other than the fat ladies, are uncommon. A few artifacts with features that are reminiscent of this sculpture have been found elsewhere in ancient Malta, such as the fragments of carved beds and the terra-cotta Sleeping Lady of the Hypogeum. Nevertheless, this discovery is one of the earliest and most thought-provoking groups of sculpture from European prehistory.

Fertile Crescent farmers took DNA to Germany

Artistic impression of a neolithic farmer in Central Europe. Held in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany (Source: Karol Schauer/PLoS)
DNA evidence suggests that immigrants from the Ancient Near East brought farming to Europe, and spread the practice to the region's hunter-gatherer communities, according to Australian-led research.

A genetic study of ancient DNA, published in PLoS Biology today, adds crucial information to the long-running debate about how farming was introduced to Europe's nomadic hunter-gatherer societies almost 8000 years ago.

An international research team, led by University of Adelaide experts, compared ancient DNA from the remains of Early Neolithic farmers at a burial site in central Germany with a large genetic database of European and Eurasian populations.

They found that these early farmers had a unique and characteristic genetic signature, suggesting "significant demographic input from the Near East during the onset of farming".

Sometimes referred to as the Fertile Crescent, the Near East would include modern-day Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, says study leader Dr Wolfgang Haak, genographic project senior research associate at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide.

The revolutionary element of this study was the addition of ancient DNA , explains Professor Alan Cooper, director of the Centre for Ancient DNA, as previously researchers could only use genetic data from modern populations to examine this question.

"We have never had a detailed genetic view of one of these early farming populations - there's been a lot of inference around it... but it's all been guesswork" he says.
Migration from Anatolia and near East

Using the new high-precision ancient DNA analysis, researchers were also able to determine a possible migration route the farmers took from the Near East and Anatolia into Central Europe.

Farming first originated about 11,000 years ago in the Near East and then spread across Europe during the Neolithic period, the researchers explain.

"Whether it was mediated by incoming farmers or driven by the transmission of innovative ideas and techniques remains a subject of continuing debate in archaeology, anthropology, and human population genetics," they write in PLoS Biology.

"[This] really answers this long-running debate about whether people picked up ideas or picked up and moved", says Cooper.

Haak says these latest findings might not completely settle the debate on the origins of farming in Europe, but they would "push it in a certain direction".

Haak is keen to see other research teams build on this proof of concept study, building a picture about this transitional period in other regions and helping to put the pieces of the jigsaw together globally.

Meanwhile, Haak and colleagues at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA want to discover how communities in this region in central Germany evolved over the next 3000 to 4000 years leading up to the Bronze Age.

"The early farmers are still quite different to modern day populations from the same region," he says, "so that means something must have happened after that."

The project involved researchers from the University of Mainz and State Heritage Museum in Halle, Germany, the Russian Academy of Sciences and members of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project.
Rebecca Jenkins
ABC

Early human ate young Neanderthal: study

The research strengthens the argument that competition from modern humans contributed to Neanderthal extinction, say researchers (Source: NASA/JPL)
Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News

Sometime between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago, an anatomically modern human in what is now France may have eaten a Neanderthal child, according to a new study.

It is the first study to suggest Europe's first humans had a violent relationship with their muscular, big-headed hominid ancestors.
The evidence, which includes teeth and a carefully butchered jawbone from a site called Les Rois in southwestern France, could represent the world's first known biological proof for direct contact between the two human groups.
The research, published in the Journal of Anthropological Science, also adds to the growing body of evidence that Europe's first modern humans, who comprised the Aurignacian culture, used human bones and teeth for adornment and possible symbolic meaning.

Matching cut marks

"Four Aurignacian sites, including Les Rois, have yielded perforated human teeth, which confirms the interest in using human bone, and teeth in particular, by Aurignacians, for symbolic purposes," say Fernando Rozzi and his team, which also identified butchered reindeer bones excavated at the site.
Cut marks on the reindeer bones likely produced by the humans' flint tools matched those found on the Neanderthal jawbone.
A recreation of ancient butchering techniques by the scientists indicates the marks "may have resulted from slicing through the geniohyoid muscle (a narrow muscle at the bottom of the oral cavity) to remove the tongue," says Rozzi, a researcher at Paris's National Center for Scientific Research.
Marrow from the bones appears to have also been consumed.
It remains unclear, however, if a modern human killed the Neanderthal youngster outright, or if the parts were scavenged from an already dead body.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Neanderthal jawbone actually belonged to a modern human with Neanderthal characteristics, which would suggest these two human groups made love and not war.
British anthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, believes the new study is "very important."
Although Stringer doesn't think it proves we hunted Neanderthals to death, he says the research strengthens the argument that competition from modern humans "contributed to Neanderthal extinction."

Big game hunters

But, Neanderthals weren't always at the losing end of battles.
In another new study, for the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, researchers found that Neanderthals were big game hunters who directly competed with hyenas. Both had a similar diet and occupied the same carnivore position on the early European food chain.
Hyenas and Neanderthals also appear to have eaten each other, but project leader Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, says Neanderthals were superior hunters due to their greater intelligence, communication skills and ability to cooperate.
Dusseldorp indicates that, per Rozzi's study, it's possible modern humans butchered Neanderthals.
But he believes Neanderthal reliance on large prey, such as rhinos, brown bear, bison bulls and horses, may have played a bigger factor in their demise, since large animal shortages could have left them hungry.
Modern humans, in contrast, are thought to have fished and hunted smaller, yet more plentiful, prey, like rabbits and birds.
"After environmental crises, modern humans may then have recovered more quickly than Neanderthals, and may have started usurping territories that before the environmental crisis were occupied by Neanderthals," says Dusseldorp.

Big finger gives away naughty Neanderthals

Neanderthals outperformed their human counterparts when it cae to sexual relations (Source: erix/Flickr)

Neanderthals may have been underdeveloped mentally compared to modern humans, but in one respect they outperformed us: In the number of sex partners.

That's the conclusion of a study published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which suggests finger length can indicate promiscuity among hominins, as the ancient family of humans is known.
Researchers led by Emma Nelson of Liverpool University, northwestern England, looked at fossilised fingers from four hominin species.
They comprised Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid who lived around 4.4 million years ago; Australopithecus afarensis around three to four million years ago; Neanderthals, who disappeared around 28,000 years ago; and a fossil of an early Homo sapiens, as anatomically modern humans are known, from around 90,000 years ago.
Nelson's theory is based on the ratio between the length of the index finger and that of the ring finger.

Competitiveness and promiscuity

Previous research by her group concluded that exposure in the womb to key sex hormones known as androgens, which includes testosterone, affects finger length - and future behaviour.
High levels of in-utero androgens increase the length of the fourth finger in relation to the second finger, which thus lowers the ratio.
They are also linked with competitiveness and promiscuity, according to this work.
So how did the primates line up?
A low finger ratio showed Ardipithecus ramidus was likely to "play the field", while a high finger ratio indicated Australopithecus afarensis was more likely to stay at home.
Meanwhile, low ratios from the Neanderthal and the early human "suggest that both groups may have been more promiscuous than most living human populations," say the authors.
The scientists admit that their approach is novel, and further evidence is needed to shed light on the social behaviour of ancient humans.
"Although finger ratios provide some really exciting suggestions about hominin behaviour, we do accept that the evidence is limited and to confirm these findings we really need more fossils," says Nelson.
The study's conclusions add a new element of debate over human lineage. More promiscuous species of hominins would theoretically have an advantage over monogamous ones, both in terms of more offspring and a more varied gene pool.

Neanderthals sang like sopranos

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News

Neanderthals had strong, yet high-pitched, voices that the stocky hominins used for both singing and speaking, says a UK researcher.

The theory suggests that Neanderthals, who once lived in Europe from around 200,000 to 35,000 BC, were intelligent and socially complex.
It also indicates that although Neanderthals were likely to have represented a unique species, they had more in common with modern humans than previously thought.
Stephen Mithen, a professor of archaeology at the University of Reading, made the determination after studying the skeletal remains of Neanderthals.
His work coincides with last week's release of the first complete, articulated Neanderthal skeleton.
Information about the new skeleton is published in the current issue of the journal The Anatomical Record Part B: The New Anatomist.
Mithen compared related skeletal Neanderthal data with that of monkeys and other members of the ape family, including modern humans.
In a recent University College London seminar, Mithen explained that Neanderthal anatomy suggests the early hominins had the physical ability to communicate with pitch and melody.
He believes they probably used these abilities in a form of communication that was half spoken and half sung.
Mithen says he hopes people who are interested in his research will read his upcoming book The singing Neanderthal: the origin of language, music, body and mind, which will be published in June.
A head and neck for singing?
Jeffrey Laitman is professor and director of anatomy and functional morphology, as well as otolaryngology, the study of the ear, nose, and throats, at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
He is also an expert on Neanderthals, particularly in terms of analysing their head and neck regions.
"My curiosity is peaked by Mithen's theory that Neanderthals sang and had feminine-toned voices. But I think these attributes would be difficult to prove even with the recent Neanderthal reconstruction," Laitman says.
"No Neanderthal larynx exists because the tissue does not fossilise. We have to reconstruct it."
Laitman says he and other researchers often use existing portions of Neanderthal, and other early hominin skulls to build the voice box area.
Through such work, he has learned that Neanderthals, Australopithecines and other prehistoric hominins had a larynx positioned high in the throat.
"The structure is comparable to what we see in monkeys and apes today," Laitman says. "Apes do have language and culture, but the sounds they make are more limited than those produced by humans."
Due to the Neanderthal's impressive brain size, which was larger than the grey matter of most modern humans, Laitman emphatically believes they had linguistic abilities.
"They were not mute brutes just because they were not exactly like us," he says. "Neanderthals probably made different sounds because, in part, they could not have used all of the vowels we do. For example, they could not have said 'ooh', 'ahh' or 'eee'."
Since Neanderthals had distinctive nasal, ear and sinus anatomical features, Laitman believes they were specialised for respiration, which would have given them a 'nasally' voice.
It is unclear why the larynx of modern humans dropped lower in the throat around a million and a half years ago.
Laitman thinks the change might have been linked to desired extra air intake through the mouth for short-burst running.
A sing-song debate
Associate Professor Janet Monge, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and another Neanderthal expert, is sceptical about the new singing Neanderthal theory.
"[But] if we sing, then I am sure that all very modern looking ancient humans could too," she says.
She says that language and singing do not use the same neurosubstrates, so she questions how a link could be made between the two, especially since in humans, language can be melodious and high-pitched without literally moving into full song.
But Monge adds, "Certainly linking language to Neanderthals makes them more like modern humans."
Laitman believes Neanderthals were a separate species that modern humans actually helped to kill off.
"Their ear, nose, and throat anatomy would have made them very susceptible to respiratory infections and to middle ear infections," he says.
"We know they traded and were in contact with modern humans, so Neanderthals would have been in harm's way for germs.
"In the days before cures like penicillin, illness could have flown through their populations very quickly and contributed to their demise."

Prehistoric Julia Roberts found

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News

Bulgarian archaeologists have found what they claim is Europe's oldest skeleton, which they have named "Julia Roberts" because the woman was a "rare beauty" with a nearly flawless set of teeth.

The archaeologists reported their findings in the Sofia News Agency and Bulgaria's Standart News newspaper.
If radiocarbon analysis, scheduled to take place in Germany, confirms the skeleton's suspected age of 9,000 years old, the find will predate all other human remains discovered in the Balkans by several centuries. The female skeleton will represent the first agricultural civilisation in the region.
A team of archaeologist led by Dr Georgi Ganetsovski, director of the prehistory department of the Vraca District Museum, excavated her remains near the village of Ohoden in the Vrasa district of northwest Bulgaria. In the past few days, another dig at nearby Moguila village in the district of Yambol yielded several 3,000-year-old skeletons of unusual height for the time, over 6 feet 6 inches.
The remains of the tall individuals were found curled up in a foetal position, which was believed to lead to immortality.
Researchers say all of the skeletons, including the Stone Age Julia, were Thracian, a race that originated at the Black Sea steppe and was praised by Homer. The Greek epic poet wrote that the Thracians took part in the Trojan War "with the most handsome and well-built horses, whiter than snow and fleet as deer."
The ancient female skeleton, which like a real movie star had a less glamorous name - Prehistoric Todorka - before becoming "Julia," died as a young woman at what appears to have been an ancient farming community.
"This woman skeleton is five centuries older than those that were found in the Balkans and belongs to the first generation of farmers that inhabited the region," said Ganetsovski.
Charred wheat grains, cattle bones and flint tools were found at the same site, along with a well-preserved dwelling that contained a cellar. The early farmers dug the residence into the ground so that half of it would have been subterranean.
Ganetsovski said that Prehistoric Julia had Mediterranean features and would have possessed a dazzling smile due to her near-perfect, straight, white teeth, which were almost unheard of in ancient times because of poor dental care and gritty diets that wore down enamel.
"She was a rare beauty and could have competed with today's Hollywood stars with her perfect set of teeth," Ganetsovski said. "She is a Stone Age Julia Roberts. She would have had a perfect smile - it really is a puzzle."
The archaeologist suspects that, in addition to good genes, Julia might have used an early toothpaste concoction. Last year, a team of Viennese scientists discovered an old Egyptian toothpaste formula. It suggests that teeth cleaning in the ancient world was not as rare as experts once thought.
The Egyptian recipe, which might have inspired a Thracian toothpaste, included rock salt mixed with smaller amounts of mint, iris and 20 grains of pepper. All of the ingredients were pounded into a paste before being applied to the teeth.
Sofia Archaeology Museum director Vasil Nikolov agrees with the importance of the recent Bulgarian finds.
When asked about the female skeleton, he said the discovery confirms that "a modern European civilisation lived in our region".
Future excavations are planned in Bulgaria at the archaeological sites, which are now collectively referred to as the "Valley of the Thracian Kings." In 45 A.D., the Romans conquered the Thracians, who interbred with locals and later lost their once distinct culture.

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.