tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63463076451276641392024-02-28T15:44:00.517-08:00A Pagan PlaceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-27170535221955066502023-07-03T02:38:00.001-07:002023-07-03T02:38:07.796-07:00THE KILLING OF THE EARL OF RONE AT COMBE MARTIN<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="395" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mZ-INj5xqA4" title="YouTube video player" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Hunting of the Earl of Rone is an ancient ceremony in the village of Combe Martin in England which resembles the film “The Wicker Man”. Although local legend has it that the ceremony derives from the capture of the Earl of Tyrone who fled from Ireland in 1607, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Survivethejive">Survive the Jive</a></b> demonstrates that it has clear parallels in European pagan customs and in Hinduism, which proves that the procession, the hobby horse, the fool, and the drowning of the straw idol originate in pre-Christian seasonal Anglo-Saxon rites.<br /><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-23191499147535393062023-01-30T07:27:00.003-08:002023-01-30T07:33:19.732-08:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (31): The Temple of Apollo, Taymouth Castle, Perthshire <div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5jL1HzAjimH47GgztT4F4R-3xQWdUcVA2NWrv-rkbUHMQ6HbdDP3nbXumF-nypRW4RpC2-zakxhfPW63Ivjn0x59XVAcycJueVVVZf29eNqWZgUK8EuAAXoi_W5hG6ZQZrcc9kYtMjl493C6WwneD18RM0MRYPqN1ut9a_jrw-y8EylCMz9w7PNt8w/s800/DP00195296.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5jL1HzAjimH47GgztT4F4R-3xQWdUcVA2NWrv-rkbUHMQ6HbdDP3nbXumF-nypRW4RpC2-zakxhfPW63Ivjn0x59XVAcycJueVVVZf29eNqWZgUK8EuAAXoi_W5hG6ZQZrcc9kYtMjl493C6WwneD18RM0MRYPqN1ut9a_jrw-y8EylCMz9w7PNt8w/w640-h480/DP00195296.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br />Built in 1774, the Temple of Apollo at Taymouth Castle was part of the Neoclassical affectation that was then rife in much of Europe. Was it really a temple, we could well ask. Perhaps not in the sense of fanatical belief, but interest in Apollo, even in its 18th-century iteration, was something of a cult, with a focus on the intellect and the arts -- a more rarefied religion perhaps. <br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>Possibly the details of the temple will tell us more. </span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The building itself is small and rather humble, but not unpleasant to look at, and it is believed to have contained a statue that could only be that of the god Apollo. The photos here appear to have been taken in 2014.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbmAbaNLqedLFHOBKKl0siH3vkCnJN5wN2WTwJ9F7kg7iPOVjKiVOZTi1EC00Cl_iqwNmBTInHdHNF68uXfvFLL3wccJPmLXWHg0obp1quIRlqKkg0fsCu9eS6wNoxZse6IoPOkPVrEfljaNYkgwaKLaHKkcjlKDfzGozehN2xLkFBZ0wWplVbi019Q/s846/combine_images%20(5).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="592" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTbmAbaNLqedLFHOBKKl0siH3vkCnJN5wN2WTwJ9F7kg7iPOVjKiVOZTi1EC00Cl_iqwNmBTInHdHNF68uXfvFLL3wccJPmLXWHg0obp1quIRlqKkg0fsCu9eS6wNoxZse6IoPOkPVrEfljaNYkgwaKLaHKkcjlKDfzGozehN2xLkFBZ0wWplVbi019Q/w448-h640/combine_images%20(5).jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br />It was most probably built by the order of John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, who died childless in 1782. His successor, a cousin, pulled down the existing castle and built the present Taymouth Castle in its stead.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here are two brief accounts relating to the temple:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Circular, surmounting mound; semicircular arches with triple keystones, low ogee roof. Harled with margins. One of the spectacular and complete group of structures making up the Taymouth Castle estate (<i>Historic Scotland</i>).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is some evidence that the entrances were enclosed with doors and there are references to a "metal cast of a god, now lying at the base with disemembered limbs" suggesting the building originally housed a sculpture. (<i>RPS Consultants Ltd</i>)</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The temple has had a rather sombre fate and has fallen into ruin. The cult, such as it was, was not passed down the generations. The castle and its contents were sold in 1922, became a hotel for a time, then a hospital serving Polish troops during the war, was leased to a civil defence school, and then a boarding school, and is now the subject of contested plans for restoration. <br /><br />The grounds around the temple are occupied by a gold course, but the forested mound on which the temple sits (or once sat?) appears to be still undisturbed.<br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMJQAYkwBCXzFagg-7-gePnnRQ5c-JaCbdK7_dQlQqgZMxqp-91Uips_bUnn8vXt6EVjX7JzMUY19Cw5GPcYh5m8LRigw_D_1hk6BiCrCAUFM09OdIuqZDGldM6Cqtuoar4f3-up5pqXbH8v06Dk4YoDCsVgy0AZYhrNrs-aXwIiSzcmx2n0CQkVyiA/s1351/Taymouth%20Temple.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1351" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMJQAYkwBCXzFagg-7-gePnnRQ5c-JaCbdK7_dQlQqgZMxqp-91Uips_bUnn8vXt6EVjX7JzMUY19Cw5GPcYh5m8LRigw_D_1hk6BiCrCAUFM09OdIuqZDGldM6Cqtuoar4f3-up5pqXbH8v06Dk4YoDCsVgy0AZYhrNrs-aXwIiSzcmx2n0CQkVyiA/w640-h314/Taymouth%20Temple.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><i>Google maps image showing the location of the round hill in relation to the A827</i></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-5317445213265117162022-10-05T14:35:00.001-07:002022-10-05T14:35:27.002-07:00The Gods of Prehistoric Britain<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QjC0lGr4h04" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">According to the historian Ronald Hutton, Britain has the richest of all pagan heritages in Europe. In a wide-ranging and witty lecture, Hutton looks at what we know of prehistoric worship, focusing on Stonehenge and the bog body known as Lindow Man. He also deals with the negative image that Christians have given paganism and calls it into question.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-31504415075845296812022-05-15T03:24:00.003-07:002022-05-15T03:24:17.366-07:00SUMMONING THE GOD<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AWtaPp0Li98" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br /><div style="text-align: center;">How the gods are summoned in Japan. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-26366925661620113562022-04-01T14:17:00.003-07:002023-01-30T07:25:34.625-08:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (30): The Acropolis of Lindos<span class="fullpost">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsR2dfOoSK-ykiC_3QEa6OLoDtpMXkAya_MT8tdr88F6-8gWZRSdw1k8qoC-1DmqRqX2eq6PzXZmhIsBJFABqNB-fFYd8syaVzKyBpfww99q9jLJt15EdI0E9HNcR6GVYosfnx9A60DCMkDr2tqBa2qS2soPrbXe3dbIJ4Av6Cot9tFSMWlbWdfK4ltQ/s960/Temple%20of%20Athena,%20300%20BC.%20Acropolis%20of%20Lindos,%20Rhodes%20island,%20Dodecanese,%20Greece.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="960" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsR2dfOoSK-ykiC_3QEa6OLoDtpMXkAya_MT8tdr88F6-8gWZRSdw1k8qoC-1DmqRqX2eq6PzXZmhIsBJFABqNB-fFYd8syaVzKyBpfww99q9jLJt15EdI0E9HNcR6GVYosfnx9A60DCMkDr2tqBa2qS2soPrbXe3dbIJ4Av6Cot9tFSMWlbWdfK4ltQ/w640-h436/Temple%20of%20Athena,%20300%20BC.%20Acropolis%20of%20Lindos,%20Rhodes%20island,%20Dodecanese,%20Greece.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Following the defeat of the Titans, the World was divided between the three brother gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. In book XV of Homer’s epic poem <i>The Iliad</i>, Poseidon explains the division:</span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>We were three brothers whom Rhea bore to Cronus - Zeus, myself and Hades who rules the world below. Heaven and earth were divided into three parts, and each of us was to have an equal share. When we cast lots, it fell to me to have my dwelling in the sea forevermore. Hades took the darkness of the realms under the earth, while air and sky and clouds were the portion that fell to Zeus; but earth and great Olympus are the common property of all.</span></blockquote></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Zeus then of course fathered many gods and goddesses, but the most remarkable of his many children was Athena, who was produced without a mother, and sprang fully formed from his brow. <br /><br />It is for this reason that she was worshipped at Athens in a Parthenon (literally "the quarters of the Virgin") sited in the city's Acropolis ("sky city"). What more suitable place for a goddess who burst forth from the brow of the sky god than a elevated rocky eminence perched high above the world?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The same arrangement can be found at Lindos on the isle of Rhodes, a Doric Greek settlement from the 10th century BC. The temple, dramatically perched above the blue Aegean, is thought to have been built in the 6th century BC and rebuilt in the 4th century BC after being destroyed by a fire. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The temple is of great archaeological significance due to the "Lindos Chronicle," an inscription found on slabs used as paving blocks in the nearby church of Saint Stephen that originally came from the temple. <br /><br />Dated to 99 BC the "chronicle" is one of the longest surviving Hellenistic inscriptions, containing various decrees, dedications, memorials, and religious passages. The scholar Carolyn Higbie has published an <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jOOEehLcpf8C&pg">English version</a> of the text with explanatory notes.</div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-28227038555805087902021-12-27T09:36:00.003-08:002021-12-27T09:37:42.924-08:00El Tío and the Authenticity of Neo-Paganism<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpz3YuUqsuZct7EZfpsKIwJ7lKxvlJ7qb-0bbCKbx81GFWegHtVeWhEDqXAveqBdpGVc8aFcVNj2VS9JIAqtnielzOZP2qdyeMRD2zoKyqC_DjF2ETuuntpC-jQ9B9C3h-KrkZK9gVMwjrS11aocjQjm7Iynkyx97vpFktq12z_KUacQXSETirn0yEAg=s620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="620" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpz3YuUqsuZct7EZfpsKIwJ7lKxvlJ7qb-0bbCKbx81GFWegHtVeWhEDqXAveqBdpGVc8aFcVNj2VS9JIAqtnielzOZP2qdyeMRD2zoKyqC_DjF2ETuuntpC-jQ9B9C3h-KrkZK9gVMwjrS11aocjQjm7Iynkyx97vpFktq12z_KUacQXSETirn0yEAg=w640-h400" width="640" /></a></div><br />Neo-Paganism is usually assumed to be some LARPy middle class hipsters dressing up as Druids, carrying out some fake and over-elaborate, obviously concocted ceremony. <br /><br />Needless to say, <i>that</i> is not real paganism, as there is almost nothing authentic about it, and there is no genuine faith in whatever Gods are mentioned or supposedly invoked. It is quite likely that true faith is not even possible in a modern society. <br /><br />But, still, there is such a thing as Neo-Paganism. </span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>One example I can think of is El Tío, a deity worshipped, or at least respected, by the miners and others in the Potosi region of Bolivia. Although nominally Roman Catholic, these people hold El Tío in great respect as the "Lord of the underworld" and controller of all things under the ground. Not surprisingly his appearance is somewhat devil-like, but he is not the Devil, as he is invoked to bring good.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNvlITnKf_TULZyRS4m3Vfi6ku2Nx-J0OB2rWPf8fjWib4JuPBIKHCRdmHgk1xYI-Y_KHjRhTdd_wV5fo85uW1D687OQajt4ia6RJqKyweXcrXS61d_qRYILJZHoizwR-ktGN1Rb0FHi2d3T9YWXbEryLn-5u8arxw4aBMouFG8PeRBrUL65aa4bG0jQ=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="855" data-original-width="1280" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNvlITnKf_TULZyRS4m3Vfi6ku2Nx-J0OB2rWPf8fjWib4JuPBIKHCRdmHgk1xYI-Y_KHjRhTdd_wV5fo85uW1D687OQajt4ia6RJqKyweXcrXS61d_qRYILJZHoizwR-ktGN1Rb0FHi2d3T9YWXbEryLn-5u8arxw4aBMouFG8PeRBrUL65aa4bG0jQ=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></div><br />His name means simply "The Uncle," but there is a degree of sincerity in their attitudes towards him that is radically different from the practices of the LARPy "Neo-Pagan" in developed countries. This sincerity is partly generated by the fear of frequent cave-ins. <br /><br />The practice of the miners in this region is to create effigies underground, and then leave offerings of alcohol, coca leaves, and cigarettes. In some areas it is said that they even sacrifice llamas, smearing their blood on the mouths of the caves as a holy offering to El Tío.<br /><br />During Carnival celebrations, effigies of El Tío even appear above ground. Only then is he viewed as in any way like the Christian Devil, as effigies of the Archangel Michael are allowed to "vanquish" him and force him back to his realm, where he, not the Christian God, remains master.<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXKf9lHIMeDpzF-vDK0Gcb09SFH62DfBLvrUl69FquwfRBY8NJJ6ICPuZGnC512DIryj_DzrWkxpQI_Xeo-J-UAQ0HrTJvoqR54V2zB9RShOZAG-dB-YS-RVEpc1L5qQU5L4C8L4SAj9FpXCMtzdvbMzNcxtK8439vX5diCqAtDCBs5fRkBmA02k-1cw=s679" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="679" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXKf9lHIMeDpzF-vDK0Gcb09SFH62DfBLvrUl69FquwfRBY8NJJ6ICPuZGnC512DIryj_DzrWkxpQI_Xeo-J-UAQ0HrTJvoqR54V2zB9RShOZAG-dB-YS-RVEpc1L5qQU5L4C8L4SAj9FpXCMtzdvbMzNcxtK8439vX5diCqAtDCBs5fRkBmA02k-1cw=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><span class="fullpost">
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-43540953961063523502020-09-23T21:53:00.009-07:002020-09-23T22:04:24.039-07:00Stonehenge was Built to Amplify Sound During Ancient Rituals<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVZ83H0xdxe2zwJgbTkkernNbTOPd1CPxc11wEUwfISoEnPAEQ6r9WBgOtn7l7qcQy1Eb0X6HsmqhWdP_4arGrMmnOjeDjwbB85DYMIkyZZRP1-1-ftoh47P-2yW1mDB6g9Gn4jHZaK3Km/s990/56.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="990" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVZ83H0xdxe2zwJgbTkkernNbTOPd1CPxc11wEUwfISoEnPAEQ6r9WBgOtn7l7qcQy1Eb0X6HsmqhWdP_4arGrMmnOjeDjwbB85DYMIkyZZRP1-1-ftoh47P-2yW1mDB6g9Gn4jHZaK3Km/w624-h468/56.jpg" width="624" /></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A new study by acoustics engineers at the University of Salford suggests that the ancient pagan religious site of Stonehenge may have been designed to amplify sound in very specific ways. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Constructing a 1:12 scale model of the site, with missing stones also represented, the engineers tested the sound properties of the structure they called "Minihenge." Speakers and microphones were placed in and around it, and then ultrasonic sounds 12 times their normal frequency were used to account for the difference in scale.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>The results of their research have been published in the <i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440320301394">Journal of Archaeological Science</a></i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Constructing and testing the model was very time consuming, a labor of love, but it has given the most accurate insight into the prehistoric acoustics to date,” Trevor Cox, the project’s lead researcher, said in a <a href="https://beta.salford.ac.uk/news/sounds-stonehenge-results-112-acoustic-scale-model-published">statement</a>. “With so many stones missing or displaced, the modern acoustic of Stonehenge is very different to that in prehistory.”</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The study found that noises from inside the monument would have reverberated without much echo against the massive standing stones, increasing the volume inside, while decreasing exterior noise. This would have made it easier for those inside and harder for those outside the structure to hear what was going on inside. The study indicates that the stones were capable of amplifying the human voice by more than four decibels.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;">“You’d think that the sound would just disappear to the heavens, but there are enough stones horizontally that the sound keeps bouncing back and forth,” Cox told the <i><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209691-hear-what-music-would-have-sounded-like-at-stonehenge-4000-years-ago/">New Scientist</a></i>. “It’s quite magical that you could feel what it would have sounded like to have been in that space.”</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One inference drawn from this is that the religious rituals held at Stonehenge were "intimate" events limited to a small group of participants, even though the site’s construction would have required a huge amount of manpower. This suggests a highly hierarchic society, although it should be stressed that this is a major assumption.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPe2I9LxrWTq0tjeaYryKOIfRQh5GOG4AnLiDYoL_QWevfHGaOIXvLi5hRBYUMuUiPDoJ0IGRXALzcuOJjhwFrxtVgFJ2CJPq3AKxNTma8aCAA1L5aDGodmQlOsVPT3xiSxDMc31YDrdm/s745/Plan-showing-source-S-and-microphone-M-positions-Labelled-features-are-A-outer.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Plan for the Stonehenge scale model and the placement of speakers and microphones. Image courtesy of the Acoustics Research Centre/University of Salford, Manchester." border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="740" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPe2I9LxrWTq0tjeaYryKOIfRQh5GOG4AnLiDYoL_QWevfHGaOIXvLi5hRBYUMuUiPDoJ0IGRXALzcuOJjhwFrxtVgFJ2CJPq3AKxNTma8aCAA1L5aDGodmQlOsVPT3xiSxDMc31YDrdm/w637-h640/Plan-showing-source-S-and-microphone-M-positions-Labelled-features-are-A-outer.png" title="Plan for the Stonehenge scale model and the placement of speakers and microphones. Image courtesy of the Acoustics Research Centre/University of Salford, Manchester." width="637" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>Plan for the Stonehenge scale model and the placement of speakers and microphones. Image courtesy of the Acoustics Research Centre/University of Salford, Manchester.</i></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">While the sound properties the team at Salford are clearly important, they don't cancel out or exclude the importance of the astrological alignment of the stones that is generally believed to have been the primary factor in the placement of the stones. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 2014 Cox also speculated that some of the smaller stones used in the ancient site’s construction may have been chosen for their musical qualities, as they make sounds much like a metallic gong when struck. That theory was tested in a 2013 study conducted by researchers from the Royal College of Art in London, who were able to “play” Stonehenge’s ringing stones like a giant xylophone in a unique form of “rock” music.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Looks like Spinal Tap were right, after all.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qAXzzHM8zLw" width="560"></iframe></div><span class="fullpost">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-33487085206416819232020-08-26T14:01:00.003-07:002020-08-26T14:03:20.573-07:00The Remnants of Armenia's Pagan Past<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwW692GhdfXs5lcFIIh86qgWnGB8BuFbjuGMvgh41kYcJeiRn7WQy3n8IlVCAHawwbULzobJsEe8sdymVtXXP6H3rpWZnTnftzA6xhCjyImnNiaYrex6lRlT9-YSe8PqiYWes1tTlgNepC/s640/1200px-Vardavar_2014_in_Mihr_Temple_of_Garni-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Garni Temple 2014 (Photo: Pandukht/Wikimedia Commons)</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwW692GhdfXs5lcFIIh86qgWnGB8BuFbjuGMvgh41kYcJeiRn7WQy3n8IlVCAHawwbULzobJsEe8sdymVtXXP6H3rpWZnTnftzA6xhCjyImnNiaYrex6lRlT9-YSe8PqiYWes1tTlgNepC/s1600/1200px-Vardavar_2014_in_Mihr_Temple_of_Garni-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></i></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Originally published at <i><b><a href="https://armenianweekly.com/2019/11/27/the-remnants-of-armenias-pagan-past" target="_blank">Armenian Weekly</a></b></i>, this is an edited version of an article written by Knarik O. Meneshian:<br />
<br />
<i>[snip]</i>
<br />
<br />
Armenians were initially nature worshipers. They worshiped eagles, lions, the sun and heaven. They called themselves Arevortik (Children of the Sun). The sun-god was called Ar (Arev, meaning sun in Armenian). Later, nature worship was replaced with national gods, among them Vanatur, the supreme god of the Armenian pantheon; Nar, the goddess of fertility; Nane, the goddess of motherhood, wisdom and family protection (Nane’s influence is still a part of Armenian traditions, for the people usually call their grandmothers Nane, Nani or Nan); Tir, the god of writing and science, which shows that Armenia had a written language before their Christian alphabet was invented in the 5th century (“a type of hieroglyphics called Mehenagir [Pagan Temple Script]”); Tsovinar, goddess of the sea; followed by Zoroastrianism and Mithraism, and finally Christianity, which inspired a flood of literary works, art, architecture, (though some features of pre-Christian architecture can be found, such as the ancient monastery of Geghard), and an assortment of other works in various fields. “Art historians have always singled out Armenian architecture for its uniqueness.”
<br />
<br />
</span>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>[snip]</i>
<br />
<br />
The Armenian national epic, a story created during pagan times, has survived the generations. It is called Sassna Tsrer (Daredevils of Sassoun). It is the story of the courageous Mher (Mithra) who was referred to as “Lion Mher” and his brother, “Little Mher.”
<br />
<br />
Zoroastrianism in Armenia dates back to the 5th century B.C. during the Achaemenian and Parthian periods and was divided between Persia and the Roman Empire. Until Armenia’s conversion to Christianity, it was predominantly Zoroastrian. The Armenian pagan triad was Aramazd, (Ahura Mazda [Mazdaism—sun-worship—existed for centuries in Armenia and the god’s chief temple was in northern Armenia, and another on the plain of Ararat]), Anahit (Anahita), and Vahagn (the dragon reaper, sun-god, god of courage and god of war).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu-x3ufYH5Zy9Nugpe_8-WKg08ezTcD-6KjHwCCmcA0Ry5CG1TaVn8Y7dKBDX1O3xfNQuUDJRCcBSL2zCYVtg33kEpM_pqEpFeTdznmcJs5HT3ZfLJQahUSLAOvY73OvxHCi3Zn0KN0Sn/s1600/5d426c4a2faf453d9b157d0ff61dee19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="751" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu-x3ufYH5Zy9Nugpe_8-WKg08ezTcD-6KjHwCCmcA0Ry5CG1TaVn8Y7dKBDX1O3xfNQuUDJRCcBSL2zCYVtg33kEpM_pqEpFeTdznmcJs5HT3ZfLJQahUSLAOvY73OvxHCi3Zn0KN0Sn/s400/5d426c4a2faf453d9b157d0ff61dee19.jpg" width="281" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Bronze head of Anahita in the guise of <br />Aphrodite or Artemis (British Museum).</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Some of the gods the Armenians believed in during Zoroastrian Armenia were a mixture of both local gods and goddesses, while others were adopted from nearby areas. They were: Mher (Mithra), Aramazd, Anahit (whose temple statue was destroyed by Roman soldiers, but her bronze head survived and is now in the British Museum), Astghik, Nane, Tsovinar, Tir, Vahagn, Vanatur, who was eventually replaced with Aramazd.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Garni Temple was built in 77 A.D. and dedicated to Mithra. It has “nine steps leading to the main entrance, which displayed a statue of Mithra, but was destroyed by invaders. It has 24 columns representing the hours of the day, with six in front and back and eight on the sides, which is ‘the symbol of life.’” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mithraism played a major role in Armenian religion. The temple of Mithra was called Mrhakan Mehean, the Armenian word for temple is mehean, and the priests were known as mitereank. In the Van area of Western Armenia, now Turkey, there are two temples dedicated to Mithra. The temples are carved out of caves and are located near each other.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Garni Temple “survived the destruction of numerous pagan temples following countless invasions, the Armenian conversion to Christianity, and earthquakes, until its collapse in the catastrophic earthquake of 1679 A.D. The temple was left in ruins for hundreds of years.” In the late 19th century archaeologists began to explore the site. The fallen stones were protected between 1909 and 1911 in the hopes that one day the temple would be reconstructed. The temple was reconstructed between 1969 and 1975. Today, Garni Temple is the only standing Greco-Roman structure in Armenia and considered as a “symbol of Armenia’s classical past as well as its deep historical ties to the civilizations of Greece and Rome.” In ancient and medieval times, the areas surrounding the temple were utilized as a royal garrison and military fortress. “In the city of Artashat, southeast of the capital, Yerevan, Mithraic temple ruins, built from black marble, have been unearthed.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Although the Armenian nation is Christian, the influences of Zoroastrian and Mithraic beliefs still exist. For example, for Armenians February 14 is linked to sun and fire which were worshiped during pagan times. After the country’s conversion to Christianity, it became a religious holiday known as Diarentarach (“Presentation of our Lord [Jesus Christ] to the Temple,” following the 40 days after his birth on Armenian Christmas, January 6). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After church service, the congregation goes out to the yard to a bonfire that has been lit with a candle from the church. After singing hymns, newlyweds, young couples, followed by all those who wish to, jump over the flames after the flames have grown low. This ancient tradition symbolizes purification, good fortune, and for young couples also fertility. Another pagan holiday, celebrated in July, is Vardavar or the “Feast of Water” (Transfiguration), where all day long, people sprinkle or splash water on one other. There is much laughter and joy on this day, especially for children. The Armenian Apostolic Church preserved and incorporated such traditions and rituals into the Church because of their popularity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Two other pagan traditions that are also still very popular are the tying of strips of cloth on a bush or tree, especially near a church, in the hopes that God will see or hear their wishes. Another is the zoh or matagh (sacrifice) of an animal, especially sheep or chicken. It is an offering to God for answering one’s prayers, whether it is a cure from an illness, the coming home of a long-lost relative, a special event, such as a visit by a revered or honored person, or a memorial service for the deceased. I</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>[snip]</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The following are a few examples of what the names of the months were called when the old Armenian calendar was in use: the first month, Navasard, New Year (August 11), honored the beloved goddess, Anahit; the seventh month, Mehakan, Festival of Mithra; the eighth month, Areg, Sun month; the ninth month, Ahekan, Fire Festival. In the 18th century, when the Armenian calendar was reformed, January 1 was recognized as the New Year. Also, in the old Armenian calendar, the days of the month were given names of old gods, heroes or natural objects. Some examples are: Day 1, Areg, Sun; Day 2, Hrand, Earth mixed with Fire; Day 8, Mher, (Mithra); Day 15, Aramazd, (Ahura Mazda); Day 19, Ahahit, (Anahita); Day 24, Lusnak, Half Moon; Day 27, Vahagn, (Zoroastrian Vahram); Day 30, Gisherarev, Evening Star.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">[snip]</i><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">During Zoroastrian/pagan Armenia, light and fire were sacred, and in the temples, the altar was called “bagin or place of the god,” the fire altar was called “atrusan,” the priests were called “K’urms,” and their robes “patmujan.” Worshippers placed a dot of ash from the altar on their foreheads after worship. <b>The remains of a fire altar lie beneath the main altar of Holy Etchmiadzin, the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Church. After the country’s conversion to Christianity, the sons of the K’urms were taken and trained as priests.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Up until 1920, there were yet believers in Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Today, there is a small group of neo-pagan Armenians living in the country who worship at Garni Temple and perform pagan wedding ceremonies there. On December 22, they gather at the temple to celebrate Mher’s (Mithra’s) birthday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At the wedding of a young couple at Garni Temple, the pagan priest, wearing a robe, begins the ceremony with the words: “Oh Mother Anahit, Mother of all mothers…” He then says to the couple, “May the breath of your ancestors be in you… and your feet firmly on this ground…,” as he briefly holds a short knife (images of Mithra were often depicted with such a knife) in the flames of the cauldron that stands before him and the couple. The pagan priest then slowly removes the knife, and gently touches the top of the bride’s head, then the groom’s, as he blesses them with the words: “Anahit, with your mother’s love, I bless these rings… May the rings shimmer always on their fingers… Praise to you, Mother Anahit!” After wine is poured from a red clay jug into red clay cups and offered to the couple, the priest, and the wedding party, the priest then instructs the couple to each reach into a basket filled with pieces of wood and place their selected piece of wood into the flaming cauldron. They are then congratulated and wished a happy and bountiful life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNMkKvGg9_xcbaxnIBCDJCs4L96DReH3FlUEJTOGJPsQkhwkUY9SBxQd5xWj9uxGb231_LGopio6OBrfwXCNkV4Wyg1sSnVUuZ_EUlABpmG7LMrViH8lH_H8fym70EOmmv4ZfpzboOyfRo/s1600/marble-tombstone-of-grand-prince-hasan-jalal-vahtangian-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="730" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNMkKvGg9_xcbaxnIBCDJCs4L96DReH3FlUEJTOGJPsQkhwkUY9SBxQd5xWj9uxGb231_LGopio6OBrfwXCNkV4Wyg1sSnVUuZ_EUlABpmG7LMrViH8lH_H8fym70EOmmv4ZfpzboOyfRo/s400/marble-tombstone-of-grand-prince-hasan-jalal-vahtangian-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Arevakhach inside a six-pointed star</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hints of pagan or pre-Christian Armenia are still evident today, especially in the form of a specific and ancient figure called the Eternity Symbol, known also as Arevakhach (Sun-cross). It can be seen on buildings, especially churches, on very old tombstones, memorials, various coats of arms, logos, clothing, jewelry, medals, carpet designs, artwork and in print. Just as some of the pagan holidays and traditions continue to be a part of the country’s religious and secular holidays, the Arevakhach continues to be a significant symbol that is often carved with the Khachkar (Cross-stone, “the oldest khachkar was carved in 879, though earlier, cruder, examples exist”) resting on top of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">[snip]</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-20924121954438955712020-07-17T15:33:00.002-07:002020-07-19T09:36:16.218-07:00Pagan Art: "Thor's battle against the Jötunns" by Carl Johan Bonnesen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLE-rTZ2DfWrA9K-AcEdqft33V5OaIMr1__nFKcK5R9_NUcw7Ef-7BH3HAJ-mElK-aXh4sqavqy3mVpzcruLEabMikxWKTk7VSK_adSQcwu-5tRQ41gu0X0hh9YUIDsxH7xKgYvXQG3nVu/s1600/Ny_Carlsberg_Bryghus_-_Thor_sculpture+-+Edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLE-rTZ2DfWrA9K-AcEdqft33V5OaIMr1__nFKcK5R9_NUcw7Ef-7BH3HAJ-mElK-aXh4sqavqy3mVpzcruLEabMikxWKTk7VSK_adSQcwu-5tRQ41gu0X0hh9YUIDsxH7xKgYvXQG3nVu/s640/Ny_Carlsberg_Bryghus_-_Thor_sculpture+-+Edited.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In this iconoclastic age, when statues are being toppled by people who have little understanding of history, it is interesting that this sculpture, which problematically features several swastikas, is still standing atop the Carlsberg building in Copenhagen.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>
It is by the prominent Danish sculptor Carl Johan Bonnesen (1868-1933), and shows the Nordic thunder god Thor in his mythic battle against the Jötunns, a race of misshapen giants or ogres. The swastikas, of course, have no connection with Naziism as the sculpture was completed in 1901, when the symbol still represented the Sun and its power, as it still does in Oriental Hinduism and Buddhism. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_a2bhRujxtsjxQVGkaTDJhDr9vaG3AbEWD2Y7q15l4erxAHJpkgB6c5w63W3cvTA9Z7EpHBz5oZZcBLKSsMtRqHrqlmCYuLo_O7JcN8p7MPQED-BX2R3pILKfqkXwMvBTVx48vDaVwJi/s1600/Ny_Carlsberg_Bryghus_%2528Copenhagen%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_a2bhRujxtsjxQVGkaTDJhDr9vaG3AbEWD2Y7q15l4erxAHJpkgB6c5w63W3cvTA9Z7EpHBz5oZZcBLKSsMtRqHrqlmCYuLo_O7JcN8p7MPQED-BX2R3pILKfqkXwMvBTVx48vDaVwJi/s640/Ny_Carlsberg_Bryghus_%2528Copenhagen%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Carlsberg Building</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Bonnesen also created a work on the same theme in 1926, "</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thor’s Battle with the Giants." This is located on the Island of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thorø (Thor’s island)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> and was commissioned by Harald Plum, a Danish industrialist who had acquired the island in 1917. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The name of the island reflects the fact that the island was once sacred to Thor and allegedly a site of human sacrifice prior to the conversion of the Danes to Christianity.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLm4Emjx5A49SLcxM_rjmHe0cSP-1R9HYWPqkXy7KsZixhiRlUiiTUjOo7GrHp8yGc_xFsvHlUrmNccuZUULc0nDvpOrtM8hEclNZ_skQMxexKMctT-rYbgcxSiwW1zhJJ2_ji5umZSFx/s1600/ab0a1e91f2acf426a35f567664b05104.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="543" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLm4Emjx5A49SLcxM_rjmHe0cSP-1R9HYWPqkXy7KsZixhiRlUiiTUjOo7GrHp8yGc_xFsvHlUrmNccuZUULc0nDvpOrtM8hEclNZ_skQMxexKMctT-rYbgcxSiwW1zhJJ2_ji5umZSFx/s1600/ab0a1e91f2acf426a35f567664b05104.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thor’s Battle with the Giants" on the Island of Thorø</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="fullpost">
</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-1384258455417756222020-05-18T14:01:00.002-07:002020-05-20T10:14:14.232-07:00THE THUNDER GOD OF LEWIS?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ0p8KETLqZ1lxqpjCUuc3lY2eEKhuR9B2Dw7tbiyCe-hmOAfZUUMS4Ye1_cY5QlkZKbnZqBRMLmwiSsDhJZPv5o5EgFkQVkYLRv0g3T8k8LpuV-OaZdiUDkPAMNVjbe7TpuYY1urM935a/s1600/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_5dc15696-25c4-11ea-b78c-de7d985f5cad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1180" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ0p8KETLqZ1lxqpjCUuc3lY2eEKhuR9B2Dw7tbiyCe-hmOAfZUUMS4Ye1_cY5QlkZKbnZqBRMLmwiSsDhJZPv5o5EgFkQVkYLRv0g3T8k8LpuV-OaZdiUDkPAMNVjbe7TpuYY1urM935a/s640/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_5dc15696-25c4-11ea-b78c-de7d985f5cad.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Due to the cultural genocide of our pagan traditions by the Dark Age totalitarianism of the Christian Church, we have only been left with a few scraps and remnants of our ancient beliefs. There are vast yawning gaps in our knowledge, and to have any sense of our ancestral faiths we must spin out the little we can be sure of, with much conjecture and occasionally a little archaeology. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Such is the case of the Callanish Stone Circle on the Island of Lewis.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Undoubtedly this remote site was once a place of great religious significance, but, besides that, little is known. However, in recent months the veil of darkness has been pierced by the exciting discovery of an ancient lightning strike at the centre of a satellite stone circle, about 2.8km from the main circle. Yes, in addition to the main circle, a number of smaller, connected stone circles have also been discovered.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibTeXVMo8eFxIbdqS0MtZ7auDXe6XvKJjXuw0FTkMYRTdoPjWet5gQ38PoHBoT5up4msPOdBcSDFq-8k_lLkMIGboHbxpD_QT8v9IxB1ooE4lEtOkCanjHACBNRPcOqezr_Y_sZ3P2rMQs/s1600/Screenshot+2020-05-18+at+9.54.38+PM+-+Edited.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="477" data-original-width="751" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibTeXVMo8eFxIbdqS0MtZ7auDXe6XvKJjXuw0FTkMYRTdoPjWet5gQ38PoHBoT5up4msPOdBcSDFq-8k_lLkMIGboHbxpD_QT8v9IxB1ooE4lEtOkCanjHACBNRPcOqezr_Y_sZ3P2rMQs/s640/Screenshot+2020-05-18+at+9.54.38+PM+-+Edited.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The strike right at the centre of the stone circle.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This points to the site being, in some sense, connected to the worship, commemoration, or reverence of a god, deity, or supernatural phenomenon associated with thunder and lighting. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Could it be that Callanish was a site dedicated -- at least in part or for a period -- to some sort of now nameless thunder god? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The discovery was made by a team of archaeologists who used new technology to reveal a "star-shaped burn mark" seared into the bedrock under the satellite stone circle.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As reported by the <b><i><a href="http://archive.is/ZR0Mk" target="_blank">Guardian</a></i></b>:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">...archaeologists have uncovered dramatic new evidence that suggests our Neolithic ancestors were inspired to construct the megaliths as devotional monuments by the natural phenomenon of lightning strikes. A geophysical survey around one of the stones has astonished archaeologists by revealing a star-shaped pattern formed by one, or possibly multiple, earth-shaking lightning strikes. New technology has exposed a clear pattern covering an area of up to 20 metres in diameter, buried until now beneath peat bogs.<br /><br />The single stone, within “site XI”, is about 2.8km from the famous Callanish great circle in the island’s Loch Roag area. Geophysical techniques have mapped buried features and the new evidence shows that this 1.5-metre-high stone was originally part of another circle with the lightning strike pattern at its centre. The stones’ original positions have been revealed as magnetic anomalies in the survey.<br /><br />“We’re really excited,” said professor Vincent Gaffney, one of the archaeologists. “This was completely and utterly unexpected. Seeing the evidence for a massive strike, right in the middle of what now seems to be a stone circle, is remarkable.”<br /><br />He added that such a lightning strike may have hit an upstanding feature – perhaps a tree or a rock – in “a prehistorical equivalent of an act of God”: “It does rather look as if lightning was part of the game in creating this stone circle.”<br /><br />Dr Richard Bates, a geoscientist at St Andrews University, who is leading the project, described the discovery as highly exciting. He said: “We’re finally getting new results on these places because of new technologies, allowing us to look at standing stones in a whole new light.”</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Callanish great circle is thought to have to have been erected 5,000 years ago. Around 3,000 years ago peat started to form in the area as the climate grew colder and damper. It is believed that the lightning strike occurred before the peat formed. </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Did the lightning strike come first or did the building of the stone circle come first?" Bates asked. "The lightning strike occurred before peat started forming So we know it’s pre-peat, which started to form around 3,000 years ago. It seems more than coincidence that these are occurring in the same place.”<br /><br />“We’ve never seen this before. It just says so much about how our ancestors related to nature. It is not a great leap of the imagination to believe early societies would have been enamoured with natural events. Standing stones are linked, for instance, to astronomic events. Remember what Jove used as a weapon – lightning bolts. This is something which occurs in a number of religions. So we can identify here a rule of nature perhaps informing or reinforcing belief structures in the past.”</span></blockquote>
<span class="fullpost">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The idea that stone circles = astronomical structures is well known, but the apparent religious commemoration of lightning at Callanish fits in well with the radical climate change that was turning areas like the Western Isles of Scotland into increasingly stressed and marginal lands. </span></div>
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The period 4000 - 3500 BC (some references say 4000 - 2500 BC) is usually referred to as a "climatic optimum" with <a href="https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-400-to-100bc/" target="_blank">calmer, warmer weather and weaker, less frequent spells of significantly low pressure (i.e. stormy weather)</a>. In other words, excellent farming weather for our Neolithic ancestors. </span></div>
<span class="fullpost" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Around 3000 BC this started to change. While the weather was still warmer than today, there was a downturn in climatic conditions with cooler/colder and wetter periods, and a lot more stormy weather. This is when the peat started to form.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This would have had a much more disproportionate impact on areas like Lewis, at the edge of the zone of human cultivation, than areas further south. It is therefore easy to imagine how this would have played on the beliefs of our pagan ancestors and inculcated a sense of awe for the "storm gods."</div>
</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-37474342425557240252020-02-17T08:51:00.001-08:002020-02-17T09:18:14.157-08:00The Pagan Sites of the Middle East Remembered: (4) The Temple of Anahita at Kangavar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhChwDWw-3R5ObPUC0XH0LrHvUozJ6wNhYLMD7Q_ajtfl2Jy8Al_DFq61KzqBnisEymrdKlv_NqS7hFEIn6BAHKiL5JB6YhdXwWX-MqlYv07nXlfBEk9Igmi6Fr-DkxiwhTRmuboasjLgQW/s1600/1-Kangavar-Columns.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhChwDWw-3R5ObPUC0XH0LrHvUozJ6wNhYLMD7Q_ajtfl2Jy8Al_DFq61KzqBnisEymrdKlv_NqS7hFEIn6BAHKiL5JB6YhdXwWX-MqlYv07nXlfBEk9Igmi6Fr-DkxiwhTRmuboasjLgQW/s640/1-Kangavar-Columns.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a flat-topped hill in the small Iranian town of Kangavar, you can see the remains of the vast temple of Anahita, an ancient Iranian goddess whose origins date back before Zoroastrianism, but who continued to be venerated long into the reign of the new religion, and whose memory has not been erased even by the advent of Islam.</span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anahita is a cosmological goddess, associated with the "Star River" (the Milky Way) and thus venerated as the divinity of "the Waters." For this reason she was associated with fertility, healing, and thus wisdom. The Greeks sometimes identified her with Aphrodite. Herodotus calls her Aphrodite Urania and compares her with the Assyrian Mylitta and the Arabian Alilat. Through this she also came to be identified with the Babylonian Ishtar. But it seems that a more accurate equivalent is Artemis, the huntress Goddess. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zoroastrianism was essentially a form of Persian monotheism that was the state religion of the Iranians from around 600 BC to the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. But for much of that millennium, elements of polytheism remained strong, at least until the Sassanian restoration (224), whereupon Zoroastrianism became increasingly a monotheistic and iconclastic religion. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A good idea of the less monotheistic form of Zoroastrianism can be gleamed from the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-359 BC). In his inscriptions the name of Anahita appears directly after that of Ahura Mazda, the Supreme and later the only god of the Persians, and before that of the Sun-God Mithra. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Artaxerxes' inscription at Susa reads: </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"By the will of Ahura Mazda, Anahita, and Mithra I built this palace. May Ahura Mazda, Anahita, and Mithra protect me from all evil."</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipcze-6Gzh2_YL7cV1bumw6M2JHz5iSN_njjAIVo-Hiju_INzyDokAv5JYEPEp3CL8Aa4CUtomyby5bB5d_sf_85Hcxwxp1EOpwAvvh0PKLjC8jXzoDod0mVbHeVqukM2slG4bh9s1Kbr7/s1600/download+%25288%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="187" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipcze-6Gzh2_YL7cV1bumw6M2JHz5iSN_njjAIVo-Hiju_INzyDokAv5JYEPEp3CL8Aa4CUtomyby5bB5d_sf_85Hcxwxp1EOpwAvvh0PKLjC8jXzoDod0mVbHeVqukM2slG4bh9s1Kbr7/s400/download+%25288%2529.jpeg" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Anahita</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anahita is viewed as the virgin mother of Mithra and is often depicted </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as riding a lion with the Sun in the background.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 405 BC, the year of his accession, Artaxerxes II Mnemon donned the cloak of Cyrus and received consecration in the kingship at a temple at Pasargadae in Persis dedicated to a warrior goddess. Plutarch mentions this in his life of Artaxerxes III, comparing the goddess with Athena; but it was more likely that this was a temple of Anahita in one of her most important aspects as a war goddess. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This consecration also suggests that the Achaemenid monarchy had close links with Anahita. </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cult of Anahita spread across the Persian Empire but the ruins at Kangavar are the most impressive. They lie roughly half-way on a line from Tehran to Baghdad. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The present day visitor can see a large site full of enormous broken columns, suggesting an</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> edifice built in a Hellenistic style and measuring around 200 meters long. There is controversy over the date of construction but it seems likely that a temple existed here for some time and that further construction may have continued even into the early Sassanian period.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">Alexander the Great is said to have visited it in 335 BC, when he apparently plundered it. It also suffered from similar raids by the Successors of Alexander, including Antigonus and Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Seleucid Empire. In 210 BC the Seleucid king </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Antiochus the Great again raided it, whereupon he found columns covered with gold and silver tiles, along with gold and silver bricks, from which he struck coins of an unknowable quantity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwfVOC3Wxt5DYK4B9K2xDtewQpi6-KZdA8YeqQefFCyVra4CR9FMOuODMZ0rA7FZ7jdByHkAKp2WZvWt5SvEy9Q_bpaaD6NSRIZic7ghx7SK_dgKZm54dVgHUP1Csx6P3H3WuKN19Vc88/s1600/Kangavar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="964" data-original-width="926" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwfVOC3Wxt5DYK4B9K2xDtewQpi6-KZdA8YeqQefFCyVra4CR9FMOuODMZ0rA7FZ7jdByHkAKp2WZvWt5SvEy9Q_bpaaD6NSRIZic7ghx7SK_dgKZm54dVgHUP1Csx6P3H3WuKN19Vc88/s640/Kangavar.jpg" width="614" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-23954400758165386922019-06-05T09:26:00.004-07:002019-06-05T13:56:06.090-07:00THE PAGAN CLERGY OF EUROPE REMEMBERED: (1) BROICHAN THE DRUID<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdL8UqCeAWs_crkotZdTc1khSaDMXQdHDXjep5uSGAciE2rcfKW0akZoZGvL-4uxUZafzYbKB2SefML7hE-Jzjscjo3pF6V6xyeyPLYGcvHGXup4zHoc8iOdvclYY6djzaXz6a5J5a3CJS/s1600/Stagnaro-LOCHNESS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="546" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdL8UqCeAWs_crkotZdTc1khSaDMXQdHDXjep5uSGAciE2rcfKW0akZoZGvL-4uxUZafzYbKB2SefML7hE-Jzjscjo3pF6V6xyeyPLYGcvHGXup4zHoc8iOdvclYY6djzaXz6a5J5a3CJS/s640/Stagnaro-LOCHNESS.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Mural in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery showing Saint Columba preaching to the Picts. (William Brassey Hole, c. 1899). The Druid Broichan is presumably the elderly gentleman leaning towards the seated king.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />Sadly we only have the accounts of his enemies to tell us about Broichan, the Druid of King Bridei of the Picts, who lived in the time of Saint Columba (521-597).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The only mention of the Druid is in Adomnan’s <i><a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/columba-e.asp" target="_blank">Life of Saint Columba</a></i>, a highly fanciful and chronologically scattered account of the Irish saint. The first mention of Broichan is in Chapter 34 of Book II of the <i>Life</i>, which mentions a visit by Columba to the Pictish capital of Inverness.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>After bringing a dead boy back to life, the saint decided to take his pagan rival down a few pegs, commanding him to liberate a Scottish female slave. When Broichan refused, Columba threatened him.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Know, O Broichan, and be assured that if thou refuse to set this captive free, as I desire thee, that thou shalt die suddenly before I take my departure again from this province," he is reported as saying,</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After this he left, and went to the banks of the River Ness. After a while, two messengers of the king arrived with the news that Broichan was gravely ill and begged the by-now-very-smug saint to return and save Briochan in the king’s name. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Having heard the messengers, St. Columba sent two of his companions to the king with a pebble which he had blessed, and said to them:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"If Broichan shall first promise to set the maiden free, then at once immerse this little stone in water, and let him drink from it and he shall be instantly cured; but if he breaks his vow and refuses to liberate her, he shall die that instant."</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the threshold of death, Briochan was understandably in a mood to compromise. Accordingly, he released the slave and drank the water in which the pebble had been immersed. Immediately he recovered.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If this account were true, however, it seems odd that shortly afterwards, Briochan was still not reconciled to Columba. In the sequel, he was so ungrateful for Columba supposedly saving his life that he actually threatens him, according to Adomnan’s account.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In Chapter 35 of the <i>Life</i> it is reported that the two had the following conversation:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Broichan: </b>“Tell me, Columba, when dost thou propose to set sail?”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Columba:</b> “I intend to begin my voyage after three days, if God permits me, and preserves my life.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Broichan: </b>“On the contrary, thou shalt not be able, for I can make the winds unfavourable to thy voyage, and cause a great darkness to envelop you in its shade.” <br />
<b>Columba: </b>“The almighty power of God ruleth all things, and in His name and under His guiding providence all our movements are directed.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Columba then set off for Loch Ness, presumably to sail down the Loch in the general direction of Iona, his monastic base. But, on his arrival at the water's edge, the Loch was wild and stormy and the winds unfavourable for his voyage. Columba, however, chose to ignore the danger. Calling on Christ, he embarked in his small boat and ordered the reluctant sailors to raise the sails against the wind.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As often happens with the Scottish weather, there was a sudden change. The Loch waters calmed down and the wind softened to a breeze and veered round to help Columba on his way. No mention is made of how Broichan took this new "miracle." One suspects he was glad to see the back of the Saint.</div>
<span class="fullpost">
</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-817434470003430742019-01-20T04:41:00.002-08:002019-01-20T04:43:33.333-08:00THE SCOTSMAN: THE RETURN OF THE BALLACHULISH GODDESS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBwAzxNFsMeAj1BoknA6UD2-BafQZuc3UXaDO-d2tv-TkL5l9nf5pUFCDBgs8Q24PRVRC4QLG5iYlmBUT5hK5UULVV3DtXZfq-Y4IlAn_UJgobFcR50x5rdfkTDfxu2Sy5XtSmod_JCGu/s1600/DGfu3RhXcAEv3VT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBwAzxNFsMeAj1BoknA6UD2-BafQZuc3UXaDO-d2tv-TkL5l9nf5pUFCDBgs8Q24PRVRC4QLG5iYlmBUT5hK5UULVV3DtXZfq-Y4IlAn_UJgobFcR50x5rdfkTDfxu2Sy5XtSmod_JCGu/s640/DGfu3RhXcAEv3VT.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Read at the pop-up-ad-infested <i><a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/the-return-of-the-2-500-year-old-ballachulish-goddess-1-4542330?" target="_blank">Scotsman</a></i> or read below:
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The 2,500-year-old Ballachulish Goddess has “returned” to the Highland lochside where she was found after the Iron Age figure was recreated by a team of archaeologists. The life-size carving, which dates to around 600BC, was discovered face down in Highland peat by workmen in 1880. The original carving which is held by National Museums of Scotland (NMS).
<br />
<br />
</span>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A team from University College Cork travelled to Lochaber earlier this month to recreate the figure as part of their research into prehistoric creativity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new goddess, carved from birch with Iron Age tools, was then placed to overlook Loch Leven close to the peat bog where she was found. Some believe she was originally worshipped by sailors to insure safe passage over the water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dr Benjamin Gearey, archaeology lecturer at UCC, said:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“The Ballachulish Goddess is something that has haunted me for many years. She is a very evocative character. There seems to be a tradition across Europe in carving this type of figure, but the Ballachulish Goddess is quite exceptional.”</span></blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkpPS12PEYAEdmaG2TEk7vE09hfXZtGtHh6HOmaBP38GavFkLYvfROb1V8IxeMGUznuf4eIv7-LnqSZFRT18c60-bdzkC3aDU5IL22RFpn9n8DWJszQBh-v46j5DRk-SPPVWd2tL91PUU/s1600/Csoo8AZWYAEr0qm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirkpPS12PEYAEdmaG2TEk7vE09hfXZtGtHh6HOmaBP38GavFkLYvfROb1V8IxeMGUznuf4eIv7-LnqSZFRT18c60-bdzkC3aDU5IL22RFpn9n8DWJszQBh-v46j5DRk-SPPVWd2tL91PUU/s640/Csoo8AZWYAEr0qm.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The original figure today, showing wood warping</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The original goddess is held by the National Museums of Scotland but its conservation in the late 19th Century was something of a nightmare. The figure dried out after those charged with her transportation from Lochaber could not find a container big enough to hold her in water. She began to warp, with parts of her legs then falling off after she arrived in Edinburgh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dr Gearey, who has a special interest in woodwork found in wetland areas, where the material is naturally preserved, added:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“What is interesting about the goddess is that what you see in the museum is very different to what she looked like.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new model, made by woodworker Mark Griffiths, is based on a photograph taken shortly after she was found. The lecturer added:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“You get a slightly different sense of her. Some people see her as quite benevolent although others less so. The figure has been to local schools. Some felt she had a protective quality but also someone wouldn’t touch her and thought she was quite threatening.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dr Gearey said the story of the Ballachulish Goddess was still well known in the area.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Most people in Ballachulish knew something about her. We heard lots of different stories, including how the local railway workers refused to carry her because they thought she was a Pagan idol.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The figure was described as a pagan idol at a meeting of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland in 1881. The meeting heard of a “curious and interesting relic” found in the Old Ballachulish moss, according to a contemporaneous report in The Scotsman. It said:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“The report is that of a nude female, as rudely modelled as it is almost possible to conceive, but at the same time presenting a distinctly recognisable imitation of the human form.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The report added:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“The head has a rounded protuberance which has been suggested to be the hair gathered into a top knot, the face is somewhat flattened, the nose partly obliterated and the eyes made by the insertion of quartz pebbles to represent eye balls. Nothing akin to this remarkable image has hitherto been known either in Scotland or Ireland.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Similar objects had been found in Holderness in Yorkshire, and parts of the Continent - but nothing of the scale of the Ballachulish find, the meeting heard.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Early photographs shows the figure with a container which appears to hold a number of pointed objects. According to NMS, she is also holding something that looks like a “man’s private parts” in each hand.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When found, a number of intertwined branches and twigs surrounded the figure which suggests she may have been held in a wickerwork container - or was surrounded by a shrine. The new goddess has now been buried in a similar way 20 to 30 metres away from the spot where she was found. It is planned to excavate the figure sometime next year to determine how the carving has been affected by the wet conditions. The project has been funded by World Wood Day.</span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-21833346895078969062018-12-02T09:17:00.002-08:002018-12-02T09:17:17.722-08:00DAILY TELEGRAPH: OWNER OF UK'S FIRST PAGAN BURIAL MOUND IN 5,000 YEARS TOLD HE MUST PAY BUSINESS RATES AS A "STORAGE UNIT"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Cx9ek9psEE8JLgZK4Ecp_2INUtszZH__Mpb4rd4UxAX_UIY7USq7_zs3Gv2R2OZPmAyJldsXw48Lr_-u-CvT3USF4RU4uVdKoxkeg4MXKVpCcQghCU3BhNoqeHc470JohDcanLhULF5e/s1600/TELEMMGLPICT000182193656_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqL2PAfGWOBj0LpZQ6m31qIyomZDKJPGgkfFEN58E09AI+-+Edited.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1239" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Cx9ek9psEE8JLgZK4Ecp_2INUtszZH__Mpb4rd4UxAX_UIY7USq7_zs3Gv2R2OZPmAyJldsXw48Lr_-u-CvT3USF4RU4uVdKoxkeg4MXKVpCcQghCU3BhNoqeHc470JohDcanLhULF5e/s640/TELEMMGLPICT000182193656_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqL2PAfGWOBj0LpZQ6m31qIyomZDKJPGgkfFEN58E09AI+-+Edited.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Read the article below or at the <b><i><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/29/uks-first-pagan-burial-tomb-5000-years-hit-business-rates-bill/" target="_blank">Daily Telegraph</a></i></b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A farmer who built the first new long barrow tomb in the UK in more than 5,000 years has been told that he must pay thousands of pounds in business rates on it.
<br />
<br />
Tim Daw, the owner of the burial ground used by Pagans, has been told by the Valuation Office Agency that he must pay between £4,500 to £5,000 a year in business rates for his burial mound where people pay to inter the ashes of their loved ones.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Long barrows were in widespread use in the early Neolithic period and examples still exist today, but the burial method fell out of use.<br />
<br />
Usually, church graveyards and burial grounds are exempt from the tax as they are seen as places of worship. But Mr Daw has been told that his long barrow is a commercial storage facility that must pay the tax, as it falls above the rateable value on a business property of £12,000.<br />
<br />
Mr Daw, from Devizes, Wiltshire, said the decision means mourners visiting his tomb will have to “pay to pray” and that the move discriminates against non-Christian forms of worship.<br />
<br />
Mr Daw, a farmer, said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"I got an email from the business valuation office saying they considered my long barrow as a place for storage, like a warehouse you would store car parts in.<br /><br />Them describing it as 'storage' is demeaning to the families whose loved ones are buried here.<br /><br />I couldn't believe it. It's not right and it should be treated the same as a Christian church. It feels like discrimination.<br /><br />We are being told we must pay to pray. There is one rule for the established Christian religions and another for ancient pagans."</span></blockquote>
Responding to the decline in people wanting traditional Christian burials, Mr Daw decided to create the long barrow.<br />
<br />
He used conventional stone working techniques to create the unusual site at his farm in All Cannings, Wiltshire.<br />
<br />
The tomb is designed on an alignment that means the sun shines down the central chamber on the Winter Solstice, which also makes it a popular place of worship with druids and pagans.<br />
<br />
Mr Daw says the building, which took nine months to construct, cost him around £200,000.<br />
<br />
The long barrow is about 220ft long and 20ft tall and has stone chambers with a series of shelves, called niches, where people pay to have their loved ones' ashes stored.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRj6mYCY7CFMeqC3_vcyhpmZbL16Ny23dE6P-sE8O7v08GuE-63RaLExAWnSYDXsAHO_IO9Rgp-EOOZLLRTLoreQ8BxcySI6-ZKIuDI34vpZzCdI-adg_WB28crTcjrGc11okdh8xMmD_V/s1600/_77622357_dsc_0331.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="624" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRj6mYCY7CFMeqC3_vcyhpmZbL16Ny23dE6P-sE8O7v08GuE-63RaLExAWnSYDXsAHO_IO9Rgp-EOOZLLRTLoreQ8BxcySI6-ZKIuDI34vpZzCdI-adg_WB28crTcjrGc11okdh8xMmD_V/s640/_77622357_dsc_0331.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
It has 340 niches that can hold two or three urns and each niche carries a one-off charge of £1,000. All of the niches are now reserved, although only 40 are currently filled with urns.<br />
<br />
Mr Daw, makes an average of £1,000 a year from the burial site, but would have to pay £5,000 a year in business rates.<br />
<br />
He puts any money he takes towards the maintenance of the long barrow and has said that anyone, whatever their religion, is welcome to visit it.<br />
<br />
He said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"The long barrow is built like an ancient druid temple and we've had druids come here to worship.<br /><br />It has also become used for a loose kind of pagan worship, so I just always assumed it was a place of worship and that was that, like a church.”</span></blockquote>
Mr Daw said he has since had confirmation from a different government agency, the registrar, accepting the long barrow as a place of worship.<br />
<br />
A spokesman for the Valuation Office Agency said they could not comment on specific cases.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-34345156475932921852018-12-01T03:23:00.001-08:002018-12-02T09:06:01.829-08:00BBC: FIRST LONG BARROW IN 5,500 YEARS APPROVED FOR DRUID WORSHIP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-zMAsjn9M_aZFA4GXiZbW2YGZG_c11ABZkPUXMj54eM0ahVFFgs-siW2SLVdBwm82j8Wrcb0faXaTrW1mOCVI46YT5IAtusMUsbhCK46u-gMK-lRQEyqsC8MDvA9gEsBV5nx5AMof9FZ/s1600/_77636170_finishedlongbarrow2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="660" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-zMAsjn9M_aZFA4GXiZbW2YGZG_c11ABZkPUXMj54eM0ahVFFgs-siW2SLVdBwm82j8Wrcb0faXaTrW1mOCVI46YT5IAtusMUsbhCK46u-gMK-lRQEyqsC8MDvA9gEsBV5nx5AMof9FZ/s640/_77636170_finishedlongbarrow2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Exterior</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Read the story below or at the <b><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-46222146?fbclid=IwAR0gIO1x53Y-_Fp2HFtf0qVk86NhfwFLCEznIBjYCfqTMqb48x3tn_d0aIc" target="_blank">BBC</a></b>:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A replica Neolithic long barrow built in 2014 has been registered as a place of worship for druids.
<br />
<br />
The burial chamber, which can hold up to 1,000 urns, was opened at All Cannings in Wiltshire four years ago.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Aligned to the winter solstice sunrise, the barrow already hosts four services a year to mark solstices and equinoxes.<br />
<br />
Owner Tim Daw said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"A terraced house in Lancashire is registered as a druid temple but the barrow is the first proper structure to be recognised."</span></blockquote>
The long barrow is the first to be built in the UK for 5,500 years.<br />
<br />
Constructed using traditional methods over nine months, the chalk mound has four large chambers, each housing 55 niches, which can hold up five urns each.<br />
<br />
Clients are charged about £1,000 for use of a niche and all them have now been reserved.<br />
<br />
"I'm not a druid myself but the barrow was built as a temple, copying the ancient long barrows and aligned to the mid-winter sunrise," said farmer Mr Daw.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"For the winter solstice, the sun lights up the whole passageway and we get around 30 to 50 druids and people coming along for the view."</span></blockquote>
The Southfield Temple of Druidic Worship, on the ground floor of a terraced house in Lancashire, is the only other place registered as catering to a druid denomination.<br />
<br />
However, Mr Daw insists the long barrow is not "exclusive" to pagans.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"It's not like a parish church, there is a congregation in an elusive sense but it's a bit more of a virtual community," he said.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx16YCVZWvkhdA1K_NCaD8cvQzt_pwIWcmmSldt8icxWzdcuTZT4dokTzrxFV_zQvLdBl8MmHX1I3CMLuHYGNigttHixC2ZT2YGkCw82iOqgmDfjN2u2jzizh4YmpwGlf92244djuTALoN/s1600/_77622357_dsc_0331.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="624" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx16YCVZWvkhdA1K_NCaD8cvQzt_pwIWcmmSldt8icxWzdcuTZT4dokTzrxFV_zQvLdBl8MmHX1I3CMLuHYGNigttHixC2ZT2YGkCw82iOqgmDfjN2u2jzizh4YmpwGlf92244djuTALoN/s640/_77622357_dsc_0331.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Interior</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-28684322015160351392018-11-18T00:55:00.001-08:002018-11-18T02:00:43.476-08:00WILL THE RESTORATION OF PAGAN SITES HAPPEN?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdYKn_9YZ1x_9ACZhOM3wDw7TKTbsQw2kSTFlj6U9Od2CTwyDXTTS1rJ5a8JUghBNAiBboq8-bwo1K2_KZtz2YZbj0fMXyp_f16_F9GViuu6dHkMYuGhFBUzPoodbrEt6EpMX2z65NMINW/s1600/The_Church_against_neopaganism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdYKn_9YZ1x_9ACZhOM3wDw7TKTbsQw2kSTFlj6U9Od2CTwyDXTTS1rJ5a8JUghBNAiBboq8-bwo1K2_KZtz2YZbj0fMXyp_f16_F9GViuu6dHkMYuGhFBUzPoodbrEt6EpMX2z65NMINW/s640/The_Church_against_neopaganism.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
As we have detailed on this site, many important Christian sites were built upon pagan sites in acts of spiritual and cultural genocide. In fact, this site first <a href="https://pagan-place.blogspot.com/2011/07/slaves-of-semitic-sky-god-michele.html" target="_blank">popularised the term "cultural genocide"</a> to refer to this process.
<br />
<br />
Here are some examples of Christian sites built upon pagan ones:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://pagan-place.blogspot.com/2010/10/pagan-sites-of-europe-remembered-11.html" target="_blank">The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered: (11) Donar's Oak, Geismar, Germany</a><br />
<a href="https://pagan-place.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagan-sites-of-europe-remembered-13.html" target="_blank">The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (13): Goodmanham, Yorkshire</a><br />
<a href="https://pagan-place.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-pagan-sites-of-europe-remembered-29.html" target="_blank">The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (29): The Cathedral of Milan</a><br />
<br />
Having recognized this fact -- and also noting the rapid decline of Christianity for various reasons -- the question arises: <b>Is now a good time for some of the Pagan sites to be restored?</b>
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>From a moral point of view, and from the Christian Church's own declared aim to co-exist harmoniously with other religions, the answer is unequivocally yes. This is true even despite the much disorganised state of contemporary Paganism, which is itself a legacy of centuries of Christian cultural and religious genocide.<br />
<br />
But the main barrier to this rightful restoration is simple inertia and the fact that things have been "this way" for so long.<br />
<br />
Now, however, it looks like a group of pagans in the UK are making moves to right the wrongs of centuries by writing to the Church of England to demand redress.<br />
<br />
As reported by the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/27/pagans-demand-return-church-buildings-stolen-1300-years-ago/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw&fbclid=IwAR1IWAojERSi--8oFahJFI1mCGo-zySLXiBa0mH5HD6fmC_maKZXeWpKFOA" target="_blank"><i>Daily Telegraph</i></a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A group of pagans has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury demanding two churches to make amends for those it says were stolen 1,300 years ago.<br /><br />The Odinist Fellowship, which represents 1,000 members of the pagan religion, wrote to the Church of England last month asking for two churches to be returned to make up for actions which took place during the Christianisation of England.<br /><br />The letter, addressed directly to Archbishop Welby, said: "With a view to re-establishing better relations between the Odinist Fellowship and the Christian churches in England, and persuaded that a restitution of past wrongs is the best way to lay the foundations of improved relations, we wish you to be aware that the great majority of Odinists believe that honour requires the English church to issue a public apology for its former crimes against the Odinists."<br /><br />Ralph Harrison, director of the Fellowship, told the Sunday Telegraph: "Two bishops have sent responses, which have been polite, but nothing substantial.<br /><br />"The objective is just to get the Church to acknowledge that it has got a history of persecution when it comes to the Odinist religion and it has to take stock of that and not just write it out of history.<br /><br />"Within the Odinist community there is a strong sense of antagonism towards the institutional Church."<br /><br />The group wants one church from the diocese of York and one from the diocese of Canterbury.<br /><br />It said that during the Christianisation of England, which began in the 7th century, many temple grounds were seized by early church leaders including St Augustine and turned into churches.<br /><br />Mr Harrison called this process a "spiritual genocide". "As things stand, the Church of England is in possession of a vast quantity of stolen property," he said.</span></blockquote>
There is some pushback against these rightful demands, based on the fact that much of England was repaganised by Anglo-Saxon invaders who conquered the formerly Christian Britons:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dr James Palmer, a historian of early medieval Europe at the University of St Andrews, said the belief that early Christians had "stolen" churches from pagans was partly based on letters sent by Pope Gregory in which he encouraged his missionaries to change existing temples into Christian places of worship in the hope that natives would continue to attend and be converted that way.<br /><br />But, he said, many of the pagan temples had been originally converted from Christian churches left behind by the Romans, who had left at the start of the 5th century.<br /><br />"It's all very nice of the Odinists to say that the English were there and they're pagans, but actually the British were there too, and they were Christians," he said.<br /><br />"They've only been ancestral lands for at best 100 years before the pagans turn up, and it is most likely that any pagan temples were on old church sites.<br /><br />"I think it's all a bit of tit for tat. If you can claim that the church took the land off the pagans, they had taken it off Christians to start with."<br /><br />He added that in many places the two religions co-existed in the same space. One leader, Rædwald of East Anglia, was said to have had an altar for the Christian worship alongside a pagan one.</span></blockquote>
This is a false argument, as Christianity was clearly a totalitarian system that sought to illegitimately wipe out other competing faiths. Britain was Christian before the Anglo-Saxon invasions only because the Christian mafia had successfully eradicated earlier forms of paganism. While the fact that Christianity later wiped out Anglo-Saxon paganism is itself proof of the relative tolerance shown to this pernicious Abrahamic faith by trusting Pagans.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Colin Liddell</i><br />
<i>A Pagan Place<br />18th November, 2018</i><br />
<span class="fullpost">
</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-14466575025731077092018-03-27T02:00:00.002-07:002018-03-27T02:18:31.124-07:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (29): The Cathedral of Milan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPIHISK-_P5aeKZGQEV5ApnhxZDOfvjeKCKJuB8Rpcopo17zDeRP8T9qBpIr0EMgVbtxobhJxH6MOPw2zxm-J8nJDONeHJvTVg4fyGupTRkpU2aHjZ_ugJ60v_WEEpftdfoVT4FQqlXepU/s1600/The-cathedral-of-Milan-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPIHISK-_P5aeKZGQEV5ApnhxZDOfvjeKCKJuB8Rpcopo17zDeRP8T9qBpIr0EMgVbtxobhJxH6MOPw2zxm-J8nJDONeHJvTVg4fyGupTRkpU2aHjZ_ugJ60v_WEEpftdfoVT4FQqlXepU/s640/The-cathedral-of-Milan-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The proportions of a garden shed combined with the ostentation of the Babylonians.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Cathedral of Milan is in many ways symptomatic of the Christian Delusion, a grandiose jabberwocky of a building, a realization in stone of the twisted, restless, tortured soul of this most conflicted and paradoxical of faiths, one that has never sat easily on the hearts of men, but has instead crushed its devotees like an incubus or drained them of life like a spiritual leech.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Don't take my word for it. Listen to the great Victorian architectural critic John Ruskin:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Throughout the cathedral there are mixtures of stealing from every style in the world; and every style spoiled. One or two of the traceries have capitals to their shafts, but capitals of the most vile proportion; the niches are as base as base can be, absolute curled wigs of petty crockets, heavy and mean at the same time; some of the windows have them running up their jambs, but they look stuck full of extinguishers; others have steep canopies and finials in their traceries, as in Merton large east window, but so mixed with the absurd flamboyant that they are of no use; finally, the statues are all over of the worst possible common stonemason’s yard species, and look pinned on for show; the only redeeming character about the whole being the frequent use of the sharp gable ... which gives lightness, and the crowding of the spiry pinnacles into the sky."
</span></blockquote>
The cathedral is such a concatenation of architectural absurdities because of a long and chequered history that is testament to the crime, sacrilege, and presumption that serves as the foundation of this unholy edifice. It is almost as if the continuous impetus to complete this building over the centuries has always faced an unseen adversary.<br />
<br />
What that was, has not been clear until 2014 when it was disclosed that, as usual with such pompous Christian edifices, it had been profanely built on the ruins of an earlier pagan temple. This followed archaeological work exploring the old Roman city that found the remains of a temple of the Roman goddess Minerva under the basement of the building housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. The archaeological excavations had concentrated on <a href="http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2014/01/29/Pagan-temple-remains-unearthed-Milan-Cathedral_9982795.html" target="_blank">uncovering the old forum</a> of the Roman city:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"So far, part of the floor made out of what is known as 'Verona stone' has been found. The base of a section of an arcade can also be seen. The entire forum occupied an estimated surface area of 166 by 55 square meters. While waiting to be able to extend the excavations, the zone has been fitted with a special entrance on the side of the building, walkways, and illustrative signs to make visits by the public possible."
</span></blockquote>
In the fourth century, as part of the effort to shore up the power of the failing Roman state, the old pluralistic and naturalistic religious traditions were subsumed into the arid, unnatural, and totalitarian creed of Christianity. It was at this time and in subsequent centuries that the rich pagan traditions of Europe were ploughed into the soil by this form of religious Communism. But the architectural schizophrenia of the Milanese Cathedral suggests that even architecture can suffer from bad karma.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv6XpydFzO1k8zYebR9dwkJ_d6rU9cZNIb7vQ9yJ7bxHO9E71F7iU9DU-X2oSc7Jor9TNiAw_foWbGBYeGJWirvNPTOMT4AXlEhP2JRw_9R105dC0ZCycAddMPv8GmoLYBK5QnGFQ5S2Jt/s1600/Mantegna,_trionfo_della_virt%C3%B9,_dettaglio_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv6XpydFzO1k8zYebR9dwkJ_d6rU9cZNIb7vQ9yJ7bxHO9E71F7iU9DU-X2oSc7Jor9TNiAw_foWbGBYeGJWirvNPTOMT4AXlEhP2JRw_9R105dC0ZCycAddMPv8GmoLYBK5QnGFQ5S2Jt/s640/Mantegna,_trionfo_della_virt%C3%B9,_dettaglio_02.jpg" width="577" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Don't build on me!</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-53715321875786229502017-10-06T22:42:00.004-07:002017-10-06T23:15:34.347-07:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (28): Bull Rock, Ireland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxZWF1pLp23x5hoh4NDbyykG-DBUJ0QTfhgqL4F9rJ6PHnMES9mqb06370N-ibShQZghRevCEMZm58gn-F4I5a-JkmBNqCpWXnxXz8sBWcPTuidF_TslicOgWqx1yNjm2Fb-bqxKcTiXU/s1600/Bulls+Head+Ireland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1600" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIxZWF1pLp23x5hoh4NDbyykG-DBUJ0QTfhgqL4F9rJ6PHnMES9mqb06370N-ibShQZghRevCEMZm58gn-F4I5a-JkmBNqCpWXnxXz8sBWcPTuidF_TslicOgWqx1yNjm2Fb-bqxKcTiXU/s400/Bulls+Head+Ireland.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With Halloween approaching, let us consider a site connected with the Irish god of the dead, Donn.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Out in the sea off the South West coast of Ireland, beyond the Island of Dursey, is a large and impressive rock that is a major hazard to shipping. Accordingly it has its own lighthouse that is commonly reached by a helicopter. There is also a large tunnel that has been carved by the sea through its base. It is not surprising that such a remarkable geological feature became associated with a pagan deity of some importance.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4emBTKIpmDVnokxgQyM69A3qwFDrFviD_72eGg89Z0KYyOLQoTgCwAZ-cAJMFvQWDJznBfGDo8JeDEEkoLhIN3ACstjQUhxVj8eS-HUcxL23wAuXrUnGgg3cc56HKvxpDREcvOnzOKS2/s1600/701fc5cc1fdffb5ef71d9d6edd922434--british-isles-lighthouses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4emBTKIpmDVnokxgQyM69A3qwFDrFviD_72eGg89Z0KYyOLQoTgCwAZ-cAJMFvQWDJznBfGDo8JeDEEkoLhIN3ACstjQUhxVj8eS-HUcxL23wAuXrUnGgg3cc56HKvxpDREcvOnzOKS2/s400/701fc5cc1fdffb5ef71d9d6edd922434--british-isles-lighthouses.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
<br />
How did this happen? The first point to consider is the Celtic belief that the souls of the dead passed across to the "Otherworld" by heading in the direction of the setting sun. The West is therefore associated with the Land of the Dead or the routes to that mystic realm. This is why <a href="http://pagan-place.blogspot.com/2010/02/pagan-sites-of-europe-remembered-5.html" target="_blank">Santiago de Compostela</a> has long been a sacred site in the Galician part of Spain -- it is the extreme West!
<br />
<br />
Bull Rock is in an ideal position in this respect, especially in the Autumn and towards the holy day of Samhain, as it points in the direction of the Sun setting in the West by South West.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwn2f1tegNy0a039UuMUI3wdSV1Y9rDLHUNSN4zjmuZSmaOqtFWSXU6k6h1YfP3wRJ0yyUN5zBHh0mkCvEdJ-bL6Mp-Itr_5fPF6KRp1DioG9cy86CCKkgQW3e2MvXVjna4J5n490jCIdB/s1600/Bull+Rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="644" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwn2f1tegNy0a039UuMUI3wdSV1Y9rDLHUNSN4zjmuZSmaOqtFWSXU6k6h1YfP3wRJ0yyUN5zBHh0mkCvEdJ-bL6Mp-Itr_5fPF6KRp1DioG9cy86CCKkgQW3e2MvXVjna4J5n490jCIdB/s400/Bull+Rock.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Secondly, there appears to be an historical legend connected to the place, with the idea of the god of death becoming conflated with someone who may well have been a historical person. This possible historical person (aka "a legend") was Donn, the leader of the Milesians, one of the waves of invaders recorded in Irish legend.
<br />
<br />
The invasion of the Milesians is documented in the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gab%C3%A1la_%C3%89renn" target="_blank">Lebor Gebala Erenn</a></i> and the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_the_Four_Masters" target="_blank">Annals of the Four Masters</a></i>. Arriving in a fleet of sixty five ships, they were led by seven brothers, the sons of Mil, possibly from Spain. The chief of them all was Donn.
<br />
<br />
When they landed in Ireland, they marched to Tara, but the Denann kings, who then ruled the land, claimed they could not fight as their army was not ready, so the two sides arranged to repeat the landing. But when the Milesian ships were out at sea again the druids of the Denann kings caused a great storm to arise that killed four of the brothers, including Donn, whose ship was destroyed on the Bull Rock, which became known as <i>Teach Duinn</i> (the "house of Donn" or "house of the dark one").
<br />
<br />
Despite this great setback, the surviving Milesians subsequently defeated the Denaan, and thus Donn became the irish Lord of the Dead, and the great rock where he died was identified as the portal to the Other World. When the night was stormy it was said that Donn was riding across the sky on a white charger.
<br />
<br />
Each year, the spirits of the dead would walk the land until at Samhain they would hear Donn's horn, calling them to Teach Duinn, from where they travelled to the West.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qLOAUwhjyMYD19IvhNmLCDWpLR2YueJ2EiaVY7PztI1q_jXmgs0Alig3pqLS89U72f4E5E5BteY-lSId2dvobTNreXChgMFDqcLaskDpNYnSo3_zJqUXyYjsj5SsB60glxb4tJ2c2kZj/s1600/Gundestrup+Cauldron+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="850" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qLOAUwhjyMYD19IvhNmLCDWpLR2YueJ2EiaVY7PztI1q_jXmgs0Alig3pqLS89U72f4E5E5BteY-lSId2dvobTNreXChgMFDqcLaskDpNYnSo3_zJqUXyYjsj5SsB60glxb4tJ2c2kZj/s400/Gundestrup+Cauldron+003.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Image from the Gundestrup Cauldron, showing a Celtic scene symbolic of death and rebirth in the Otherworld.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-21574746013838165392016-03-31T19:18:00.000-07:002016-03-31T19:18:04.869-07:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (27): Harzburg Castle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitDuxr8N-XDpVGHWOoz77pcBE0oLfoe0Jcn7LfiZDEOX5rspVxZkt9Nq-ood2ETMAWUr9fXi9UgOWxloxPJ7Y5PzNyzpwj2r9HubbHIvulD5HyQHvagFN13V06vKT9rkrIcXbAm4JPszqx/s1600/KrodoHarzburg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitDuxr8N-XDpVGHWOoz77pcBE0oLfoe0Jcn7LfiZDEOX5rspVxZkt9Nq-ood2ETMAWUr9fXi9UgOWxloxPJ7Y5PzNyzpwj2r9HubbHIvulD5HyQHvagFN13V06vKT9rkrIcXbAm4JPszqx/s400/KrodoHarzburg.jpg" width="365" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is strong but confusing evidence that Harzburg Castle in Germany was once an important pagan site.<br />
<br />
Given the extent of the cultural genocide committed against European Paganism by the Abrahamic religion, and in light of the fact that Pagans sacralized almost any important geographical feature, this means that there is a practical certainty that Harzburg was in fact an important Pagan site, even if this is now conveyed to us through garbled and imprecise sources.
<br />
<br />
Harzburg Castle is the most prominent site in Bad Harzburg, a spa town that lies at the Northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Saxony. These mountains are not particularly high, with the highest point being 3,743 feet.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The basis for the Pagan pedigree of Harzburg Castle is the <i>Saxon Chronicle</i> of 1492 attributed to the Brunswick goldsmith Conrad Bothe (c. 1475 – c. 1501). This is partly based on the <i>Sächsische Weltchroniuniversal</i>, a history written between 1229 and 1277, and other unknown sources.<br />
<br />
Critics imply that Bothe was freely using his own imagination, and call Krodo a "pseudo god." A degree of fanciful elaboration is not unlikely, although the idea of pure invention is inconsistent with the times and culture in which the chronicle was written. Bothe's reliance on the <i>Sächsische Weltchroniuniversal </i>clearly suggests that he was sincerely presenting his best knowledge of the facts and existing legends at the time.<br />
<br />
In the <i>Chronicle</i>, Bothe describes Krodo as a Saturn-like god, partly inspired by military standards erected by the Romans during their military expeditions in Germany, including one at the site of what later became Harzburg Castle. The god was subsequently represented by an idol that Bothe has depicted in the <i>Chronicle </i>as a man standing on a fish, holding a bucket of roses and a wheel, and with a linen belt wafting in the breeze. These symbols seem to represent the four classical elements: fish (water), roses (earth), wheel (fire), and belt (air).
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86l4cFUJzwq2MWGmSz4Rg3NyP3rvjUB6D7PecFVMoM56vz59ea_Ah54Drcj5_0Phv3CQyB138hpaGeRUXUoWIrfMY00am3nty1TWZrh-NhPnEixFmbMNSF5OjqSMY1WGHIgMWsnu2w_GX/s1600/Charlemagne+has+a+statue+of+the+Saxon+god+Krodo+torn+down.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86l4cFUJzwq2MWGmSz4Rg3NyP3rvjUB6D7PecFVMoM56vz59ea_Ah54Drcj5_0Phv3CQyB138hpaGeRUXUoWIrfMY00am3nty1TWZrh-NhPnEixFmbMNSF5OjqSMY1WGHIgMWsnu2w_GX/s400/Charlemagne+has+a+statue+of+the+Saxon+god+Krodo+torn+down.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Charlemagne has the statue of Krodo destroyed.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In 780, the area was invaded by the Christian Frankish king Charlemagne, who, the <i>Chronicle </i>mentions, attacked and destroyed the statue and its shrine.<br />
<br />
In 2007, a statue of Krodo based on the illustration in the <i>Chronicle </i>was erected, recognizing the confused echo of the site's pagan past. Krodo is now used as the town's mascot and as a means to promote tourism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Colin Liddell<br />A Pagan Place</i><br />
<i>1st April, 2016</i></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-72430802049924354982015-07-19T01:13:00.000-07:002015-07-19T13:25:04.121-07:00FREGER'S "WILDER MANN"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQICZaMjKIYEVYi3IfL6KEorE4cX8t8FRkZbdBvP3z3b-K1G5bGlhcEqD-7MYdy5P4oFAHnQk-S42pBs6gfdjjOetQw1qu02EIHxmF0TSHbhuYcRdlUO59jK26paJG3c3OxWcDBbws8u9k/s1600/Cerbul+%2528Stag%2529%252C+Corlata%252C+Romania%252C+2010-2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQICZaMjKIYEVYi3IfL6KEorE4cX8t8FRkZbdBvP3z3b-K1G5bGlhcEqD-7MYdy5P4oFAHnQk-S42pBs6gfdjjOetQw1qu02EIHxmF0TSHbhuYcRdlUO59jK26paJG3c3OxWcDBbws8u9k/s400/Cerbul+%2528Stag%2529%252C+Corlata%252C+Romania%252C+2010-2011.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cerbul (Stag), Corlata, Romania<br />(Click to enlarge)</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Photographer Charles Fréger has a keen interest in pagan rituals and customs. In the winters of 2010 and 2011, he travelled to several countries to photograph pagan rituals connected to the onset of Winter, which he published in his book <i>Wilder Mann</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I found myself in front of something very radical, with no face," Fréger told <i>Slate</i> of his experience. "It was more of a character with a mask and a focus where the body is more important than the face itself."
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's like they are representing everything which is from outside of reality," Fréger explained to <i>Interview</i>.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">
In Sardinia, men dress as goats and boars. Austrians don the costume of Krampus, Santa Claus' Satanic shadow. Others resemble snowmen, scarecrows, or overgrown Christmas trees.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKsrB1MR66qMT_3oT3LpnXEpMdtj1UMErj_1EzMHx_yoDSfEctOZwQsxC5wvhr87HwWA5IAxaFh66ZX_OOR8NnBbiva58ta8rfFc1kxh19bqDtHzHSpEB93arrqQVCNEJAy_VqyDs64fCz/s1600/Wilder+Mann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKsrB1MR66qMT_3oT3LpnXEpMdtj1UMErj_1EzMHx_yoDSfEctOZwQsxC5wvhr87HwWA5IAxaFh66ZX_OOR8NnBbiva58ta8rfFc1kxh19bqDtHzHSpEB93arrqQVCNEJAy_VqyDs64fCz/s400/Wilder+Mann.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Wilder, Telfs, Austria /// Chaushi, Razlog, Bulgaria
</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHE79tzS9NBhyphenhyphenxqlM4EMCpUbmHtBHF-TSVkfxGWhw8e_tbr98uEFc3PdhXzz-ZorKdi8wPTGCHIx8WLJu5OxQ2fkXBdbfveiD7yU2uGZp_B771wgHjppj5MeD-R20DlZBbhZhYhmFnah7S/s1600/Wilder+Mann2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHE79tzS9NBhyphenhyphenxqlM4EMCpUbmHtBHF-TSVkfxGWhw8e_tbr98uEFc3PdhXzz-ZorKdi8wPTGCHIx8WLJu5OxQ2fkXBdbfveiD7yU2uGZp_B771wgHjppj5MeD-R20DlZBbhZhYhmFnah7S/s400/Wilder+Mann2.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Certi, Nedašov, Czech Republic /// Juantramposo, Alsasua, Basque Country, Spain</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is obvious that Christianity has always been a poor fit for the soul of European man, and has never fully satisfied our internal "Wilder Mann." <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3868282955/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=3868282955&linkCode=as2&tag=alterright093-20&linkId=LMQRWO2IWHPAB5OJ">Fréger's book can be bought here</a>.
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-58833871888144090362015-07-10T02:50:00.002-07:002015-07-10T02:50:51.174-07:00DEATH MARKED THE BEGINNING OF LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgng4tg9Bk0G9WB_hw1wCisa3nb3zHdmnyXOfhLAEZVJIunWmN8AfofK_3HV9B96SSQcSnRrpx0hCVK2F2xhOJP37LAQJF_BgCxzuFlopOwIFYedmrL5SOqoV83iulu2LjB5MHQJaxPeApD/s1600/A+page+from+the+Book+of+the+Dead+of+Hunefer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgng4tg9Bk0G9WB_hw1wCisa3nb3zHdmnyXOfhLAEZVJIunWmN8AfofK_3HV9B96SSQcSnRrpx0hCVK2F2xhOJP37LAQJF_BgCxzuFlopOwIFYedmrL5SOqoV83iulu2LjB5MHQJaxPeApD/s1600/A+page+from+the+Book+of+the+Dead+of+Hunefer.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>A page from the Book of the Dead of Hunefer from around 1300 B.C.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A good portion of Japan’s summer is dedicated to honoring the dead. Memorial services in early August remember lives lost to the atomic bombings of 1945, while the Bon holidays pay respect to familial ancestors.<br />
<br />
The Mori Arts Center Gallery in Tokyo is also set to commemorate the dead, but not the spirits of this country. July 7 sees the opening of “Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead,” an exhibition from the British Museum in London that hopes to distinguish itself from previous Egypt-themed shows by focusing less on the riches of the civilization and more on its customs, beliefs and rituals.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>It’s also only the second time the 37-meter-long Greenfield Papyrus, a copy of the actual Book of the Dead held by the British Museum has been shown in its entirety.
<br />
<br />
All exhibitions focusing on ancient Egypt (3100-332 B.C.) smell of the tomb to some degree, simply because the best artifacts have been recovered from the graves — this is true of “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” an exhibition currently being held at the Osaka Tempozan Exhibition Gallery and which comes to the Ueno Royal Museum on Aug. 4. According to professor Jiro Kondo, a director of the Institute of Egyptology at Waseda University and the curator for the “Book of the Dead” exhibition here, such shows usually follow a set pattern.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Every two or three years in Japan we have some sort of ancient Egyptian exhibition,” Kondo says. “The focus is on golden objects and jewelry rather than a theme, leading Japanese people to think ancient Egyptian civilization is gold, mummies and jewelry. But this time, we are following the British Museum exhibition and taking a deeper look at the beliefs related to the afterlife.”</span></blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgjQvRwOLtSvbR_NG1sWZ5_gvvCEe-7aHv9sNnkSTcbtP-CC4jF0Z6xmACeVuoP6oXaoWR6EL2XP6HSm8O_dQ1ta04GgehYNAkGK6Q_sEyOlgKcTwi6AokxDJMDoESUNKpxm7EJGsEcUMa/s1600/Prof+Jiro+Kondo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgjQvRwOLtSvbR_NG1sWZ5_gvvCEe-7aHv9sNnkSTcbtP-CC4jF0Z6xmACeVuoP6oXaoWR6EL2XP6HSm8O_dQ1ta04GgehYNAkGK6Q_sEyOlgKcTwi6AokxDJMDoESUNKpxm7EJGsEcUMa/s320/Prof+Jiro+Kondo.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Professor Jiro Kondo</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The exhibition features around 80 objects sourced from a show held in autumn 2010 at the British Museum, with the centerpiece being the Greenfield Papyrus. This remarkable scroll, made for a high-ranking priestess named Nestanebtasheru in 930 B.C., contains a richly illustrated version of the <i>Book of the Dead</i>, an ancient Egyptian funerary text that is a rich source of information about the civilization.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“This is a unique papyrus, adding cosmology to the normal Book of the Dead contents,” Kondo says.
</span></blockquote>
The two exhibitions on ancient Egypt, along with “The Inca Empire Revealed” exhibition earlier this year at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, are all part of the Japanese public’s love affair with ancient cultures and civilizations, according to Kondo.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“We are interested in ancient cultures and also expeditions to learn about them,” he says. “We have a lot of information from these civilizations and many TV programs and books about them, so we are very familiar with their cultures, monuments and history.”
</span></blockquote>
While there is no denying the keen interest, many ancient civilizations have remained enigmatic and elusive. However, ancient Egypt benefits from being both fabulous and familiar, with copious amounts of material left over to testify to its awe-inspiring reign.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“There are so many pictures and paintings, so many hieroglyphic writings and inscriptions, so much architecture,” Kondo says. “Because so much information still remains I think it is easier to directly access ancient Egyptian society.”
</span></blockquote>
But a wealth of material can also be confusing, especially with a civilization as complex as Egypt’s, which, among other things, had a pantheon of dozens of major gods and hundreds of minor ones, the result of political unification around 3100 B.C. Kondo, whose special area of research is the Necropolis of the city of Thebes during the New Kingdom (16th century B.C.-11th century B.C.), offers some clues to unraveling the mystery.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The thought and religious philosophy of the ancient Egyptians was based on contrasted dualities: for example, desert and riverside, morning and evening, east and west, north and south, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, and of course life and death,” he explains.
</span></blockquote>
Many of these dualities took their origin from the landscape and environment of Egypt, dominated as it was by a river flowing due north and the sun moving on a perpendicular axis through a cloudless sky. While the waters of the Nile create a sharply demarcated area of fertility, the blazing heat of the sun gave rise to the largely lifeless deserts. These deserts were also important in insulating Egypt from other countries and populations, helping to create the additional duality of Egyptians and non-Egyptians, according to Kondo.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYe85BQ-o9sYuU327ni-MqtFjSFvCGu_79Y67fI0y3ClcvUdMOQcX8UDwMZXMuhOSj0DoqX4I5kGotQuScGrikafRIsDFGEkrXAAHnJuUbRRdBX_wR54LUalr2TLzz2DvdssIBlSxCQ6h/s1600/Geb-Nuit_Greenfield_Papyrus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYe85BQ-o9sYuU327ni-MqtFjSFvCGu_79Y67fI0y3ClcvUdMOQcX8UDwMZXMuhOSj0DoqX4I5kGotQuScGrikafRIsDFGEkrXAAHnJuUbRRdBX_wR54LUalr2TLzz2DvdssIBlSxCQ6h/s400/Geb-Nuit_Greenfield_Papyrus.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The sky-mating of Nut (heaven) and Geb (earth) from the Greenfield Papyrus. Click to enlarge.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unlike Mesopotamia, the other important area of early civilization, Egypt experienced comparatively few invasions or influxes of population. This facilitated a stable society that was culturally conservative. This factor helped to contribute to the elaboration of rituals and ceremonies recorded in the various <i>Books of the Dead</i> that have been found. These include nearly 200 distinct spells designed to aid the deceased in the afterlife by helping to reunite elements of the dead person’s being and to overcome various obstacles.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The ancient Egyptians believed that real life started after death,” Kondo explains. “During their lifetime they were preparing for this afterlife, thinking it was more real than this life.”
</span></blockquote>
Part of the afterlife assault course involved the weighing of the heart, when the moral worth of the deceased was judged by the gods. This is depicted in part of the Greenfield Papyrus, where we see the jackal-headed god and guide to the dead Anubis weighing a human heart while the Ibis-headed god Thoth apparently takes note of the result.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The key element of Egyptian civilization was its sense of eternity,” Kondo says. “Our society and civilization is very highly developed, but it changes every 50 or 100 years, but in the case of ancient Egypt the continuity stretches over thousands of years.”
</span></blockquote>
The conservative nature of ancient Egypt contrasts with the more dynamic character of Mesopotamia. With no clear borders, there were constant influxes of populations and various competing states, leading to more chaos but also more progress. The result of this was that Egypt began to borrow ideas from Mesopotamia, rather than the other way round.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Egypt had many influences from Mesopotamia,” Kondo says. “Some architectural elements are from Mesopotamia, such as some fort designs and the way of making walls from mud bricks; also, pottery styles and the use of animals in cultivation, and some of the concepts connected to political and urban life.”
</span></blockquote>
The flow of ideas from a politically unstable area of competing polities to a relatively isolated and stable society is reminiscent of the dynamic that developed between Japan and the West in the 19th and 20th centuries. While Egyptian influence may have been weak in Mesopotamia, Kondo believes it was stronger in other areas.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“I think there was a strong influence on Judaism and later Christianity,” he says. “Jerusalem was only a short distance away.”
</span></blockquote>
Egyptian religion began to go into decline after the country became more closely integrated with the wider Mediterranean world, first through the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled the country, then through its absorption into the Roman Empire in 30 B.C., following the suicide of Cleopatra.<br />
<br />
This introduced a period of religious fusion that saw Greek and Roman gods worshipped in Egypt and the Egyptian goddess Isis venerated throughout the Roman Empire. It also saw central concepts of Egyptian religion, like the judging of souls and the belief that the afterlife was more real than this life, subsumed into the new ascendant religion of Christianity that finally displaced Egypt’s “eternal” religion.
<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, it is still remarkable that the religion that inspired the Great Pyramids could fade away so easily. A possible weakness is hinted at by one of the items at the exhibition, a box of funerary figurines called <i>shabtis</i>. These dolls represent servants who were supposed to attend the dead person in the next world. As such they were substitutes for human sacrifices that Kondo says were part of the funeral rites practiced during the first dynasty (c. 3100-2890 B.C.).
<br />
<br />
If the ancient Egyptians truly had believed that the afterlife was more real and worthwhile than this life, as their priests taught, then it seems odd that they would feel the need to save the lives of servants and slaves by replacing them with dolls. Perhaps, then, the best way to read the rituals and spells of the <i>Book of the Dead</i> is as a means of hiding this intrinsic lack of faith in an intricate religious system.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>C.B. Liddell</i><br />
<i>The Japan Times</i><br />
<i>6th July, 2012</i><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-29284533992457174122015-06-16T16:19:00.002-07:002015-06-17T02:40:45.737-07:00BRITAIN'S PAGAN FOLKLORE: THE BRITANNIA COCO-NUTTERS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsb2uAzxPjeMJQW2J7g9D94gNLkBY_vyHW__7QKMWIe_vFUlQ5GXJ-vJ9ok1R_25figlw8DUwbZTPlzQsafnEB1fg-XcTDETwskrQ2cnHz1dLiFRLhQw3ZYQ3ZOCWez4f3O2GaA5WiyPax/s1600/Britannia_Coco_nut-Dancers_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsb2uAzxPjeMJQW2J7g9D94gNLkBY_vyHW__7QKMWIe_vFUlQ5GXJ-vJ9ok1R_25figlw8DUwbZTPlzQsafnEB1fg-XcTDETwskrQ2cnHz1dLiFRLhQw3ZYQ3ZOCWez4f3O2GaA5WiyPax/s640/Britannia_Coco_nut-Dancers_1.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
Britain has a wealth of folklore and tradition, much of which is rooted in a pre-Christian, pagan past that continues to live in much cherish local festivals. The above image by Henry Bourne is from his book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0500517975/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0500517975&linkCode=as2&tag=therevofrifra-21&linkId=F3LSOTGFFJQFU52U">Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait</a></i>. It shows one of the Britannia Coco-nutters. Every Easter Saturday, the Coco-nutters black up and dance through the streets of the town of Bacup, England, stopping at pubs along the way.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span class="fullpost">
</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-84606729736052128622015-01-02T16:16:00.000-08:002015-01-02T16:16:28.333-08:00The Pagan Sites of Europe Remembered (26): The Temple of Lacinian Hera in Southern Italy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClwSre_5GlI9hFBnUZxupjT0yPejnoCKILLon7iXaWa18Gi3AXT9Vye0axDWpL5ZEU4kd5zLWbmtQDxz1svo_YUCerbMvmn5qmUI5O6lHqWfZJxVdz4JgMxIn-0NfXHcKaxJWO4ojbTjo/s1600/Croton_The-Temple-of-Hera-Lacinia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClwSre_5GlI9hFBnUZxupjT0yPejnoCKILLon7iXaWa18Gi3AXT9Vye0axDWpL5ZEU4kd5zLWbmtQDxz1svo_YUCerbMvmn5qmUI5O6lHqWfZJxVdz4JgMxIn-0NfXHcKaxJWO4ojbTjo/s1600/Croton_The-Temple-of-Hera-Lacinia.jpg" height="344" width="550" /></a></div>
<br />
The holiest pagan site in Magna Graecia, the part of Southern Italy settled by the Greeks, was the temple of Lacinian Hera. This was six miles from the then important city of Crotona on the Lacinian promontory.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>It was the scene of a great annual assembly of all the Italian Greeks, at which a procession took place in honour of the goddess, to whom splendid offerings were made. This festival became a favourite occasion for the Greeks of the neighbouring cities to display their magnificence.<br />
<br />
The temple was large and impressive but fell in gradual decline as the economic importance of the area declined in the 4th and 5rd centuries BC. Many of the ruins were destroyed in the 16th century to build the episcopal palace at Crotone, the modern Italian name of the declined ancient city. Now all of note that stands is a single Doric column about 27 feet high that was probably left as a landmark for sailors.
<br />
<br />
Hera was the queen of the gods in the Greek pantheon and presided over marriage. Lacinius was an Italian hero. One legend of the temple’s foundation is that when Heracles was returning from the West with the famous oxen of Geryon, Lacinius stole some of the oxen and in response was killed by Haracles, who then purified the site and dedicated the site built to Hera.
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-9583581427830393482014-10-25T22:24:00.000-07:002017-10-07T01:07:58.608-07:00Pagan Poetry: "If Indeed He Died?" by C.P.Cavafy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1-0ypw2Yo61XWZOxIVhyphenhyphenX6ywVNC0spNflci6FpKdoxLGO7NVbK57WwspIEqcgN1Omj8hIgtVkc1Ehn3DNgzfny6RyBwTQ71OhHa_-fwvrfGNdSRq8LAf8Q3U0CQ3ZKTNSUuxA-W_0VEo/s1600/imageedit_47_7613951802.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1-0ypw2Yo61XWZOxIVhyphenhyphenX6ywVNC0spNflci6FpKdoxLGO7NVbK57WwspIEqcgN1Omj8hIgtVkc1Ehn3DNgzfny6RyBwTQ71OhHa_-fwvrfGNdSRq8LAf8Q3U0CQ3ZKTNSUuxA-W_0VEo/s1600/imageedit_47_7613951802.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Constantine P. Cavafy was a Greek poet, born in Alexandria in 1863, who developed a fascination for the classical ― and therefore the pagan ― world. This is a translation by the poet himself of his Greek poem into English.</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a>"Where did the Sage withdraw? where was he lost?<br />
After the numerous miracles he worked,<br />
after the fame and glamour of his teaching<br />
that spread themselves throughout so many nations,<br />
he hid himself; and no one ever learnt<br />
with certainty what had become of him,<br />
(nor anybody ever came across<br />
a tombstone under which he lay).<br />
There were who said he died at Ephesus.<br />
But Damis never wrote it; nothing of death<br />
of Apollonius did Damis write.<br />
Others asserted that he had become<br />
invisible at Lindus. Or, perchance<br />
may it be true that ancient tale which told<br />
how he was lifted up from Crete, from near<br />
Dictynna’s ancient shrine? But then we have<br />
his marvellous, his supernatural<br />
showing of himself to a young man studying<br />
at Tyana. Perhaps the time for his return<br />
and re-appearance to the world at large,<br />
is not yet come; or it may be that even at this time<br />
he wanders in our midst in some disguise,<br />
unknowable. But he will surely<br />
appear again, just as he was before<br />
and teaching what is right; and then, no doubt,<br />
he will bring back the worship of our gods,<br />
and our Hellenic and artistic festivals"<br />
<br />
<i>So, in his squalid, narrow dwelling-house,</i><br />
<i>after he had perused Philostratus,</i><br />
<i>"Concerning Apollonius of Tyana," —</i><br />
<i>mused one of the few pagans that were left,</i><br />
<i>the very few pagans now left; otherwise, one</i><br />
<i>of no account, a timid, timorous soul,</i><br />
<i>who publicly professed to be a Christian</i><br />
<i>and showed himself in church. It was the period when,</i><br />
<i>with godliness and reverence, old Justin reigned,</i><br />
<i>and Alexandria, a God-fearing city,</i><br />
<i>abhorred all miserable idolaters.
</i><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6346307645127664139.post-81505085699928335202014-10-22T09:03:00.000-07:002014-10-22T09:03:20.146-07:00Video: Britain BC - the Druids<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RhJzoiFVg9s?list=FLZPr-r8I3Mv3Z_DZO3V57hA" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Archaeologist Francis Pryor considers the religious life of the ancient Britons and counters the myth that pagan Britain was uncivilized before the Roman conquest.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0