TURKMEN JEWELLERY – a Legacy of the Goddess

INTRODUCTION
This research is an attempt to discover the origins of the Turkmen people and to understand and
explain the complex symbolism behind their distinctive and elaborate jewellery. This study will use
contemporaneous accounts to establish direct and indirect influences and the most likely possibilities
of the ethnic and cultural origin of the silversmithing and jewellery making of the Turkoman. It will
analyse in detail the symbols contained within each traditional amulet and will compare each amulet
of similar type to examine any transition in shape and decoration. The amulets have very specific
forms; each with their own designated purpose and importance.

Modern Turkmen are fiercely independent nomadic warriors of Central Asia. Turkmen have the most
graceful, elegant & iconoclastic jewellery in Asia’s heartland. Unique and distinctive, with a
primordial power, Turkmen jewellery has a satisfying completeness suggesting a deliberate visual
language with a definite dialogue of meaning1.

Turkmen jewellery stands alone as the only ethnic cultural jewellery that decorates the back of the
body as well as the front (figure 1). Its gargantuan stature is unprecedented in any other jewellery
form. Traditional heart-shaped asyks2 (figure 18) that are gifted to a new bride on marriage by her in-
laws can be as much as half a metre long. This traditional gift is unique among all jewellery as it is
worn on the back, tied between two plaits. The jewellery is solid silver, gilded with gold and beset with
carnelian cabochons. Each traditional shape is designed to interlock with several others as each edge
is finished with a suspension loop (see figure 4 bottom right & 5 bottom & 12 right), indicating that
the jewellery is intended to be linked together like a beautiful jigsaw. There are many traditional
patterns of decoration engraved within the gilding. The most common pattern is that of the argali3
sheep (figure 5c, centre skirt), an endangered majestic full-horned wild sheep indigenous to the
mountains of Turkmenistan. Most Turkmen jewels are fringed with bells (figure 5c, hands). The
bells4 are a traditional protection talisman worn to ward off any impending danger. Tumar5 amulets
are topped with terrifying skulls6 or representations of the eye god7. The cords, which tie the amulets,
are carefully twisted black and white. Black and white cords personify the snake in Turkmenistan.
The symbol of the serpent or the ouroboros8 is both ancient and potent. This black and white snake9 is
valued as a powerful protective charm. Turkmen children are equally bedecked with fine jewels. The
boys’ shirts are carefully invested with beautiful talismans of fine archery bows to insure skilful
archery in adulthood. Similarly the girls’ dresses are a treasure trove of amulets and talismans
embroidered with consummate care. It is probably the Soviet domination of these desolate sandy
plains and impenetrable mountains, which has inadvertently preserved this nomadic culture so
exquisitely.

‘Many… Turkoman [artefacts] carr[y] meanings related to their history. Some ornaments have
homeopathic properties, some sympathetic magic, [and others represent] totemic spirits.’ 10 Kate
Fitzgibbon

CHAPTER 1
RESEARCH PROCESSES, METHODOLOGY & DEBATE THEMES
I will study empirical sources, and use the traditional method of comparing the full range of
established academic opinion, to build a picture of the history & culture of Turkmenistan: researching
anthropology, theology, archaeology, migration paths, trade routes, field work and textual studies.
Through examination of the material culture of the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological
Complex, Turkmenistan) region from its earliest beginnings. This study will compare and cross-
reference decoration and symbolism and its inherent meanings. A careful study of Scythian11 and
Sarmation art including contemporary Eurasian, Iranian, Cypriot and any other culturally connected
decoration. I will also use the concept of phenomenology, Goethe’s delicate empiricism and way of
science, to further illuminate ideas.

Discussion with Alan Fitzgibbon reveals that the Turkmen culture has had many theories imposed
upon the meaning and symbolism within. It is not only modern westerners but also Russians of the
late 19th and 20th centuries who are and were caught up in the debate. Whether it is Judy Chicago's
birth symbols or Rydin's belief in the readability of Kyrgyz rug designs, they all have one thing in

1
common. That is, the fact that none of these theories are based on information coming from the
people who made and used these objects. Today this is often explained by saying that the people have
"forgotten" the meaning of their art, that it has been suppressed by Islam or the communists. It may
be attractive to insist on a pre Islamic origin, and to remain aware of the possibility of a revisionist
reaction to the events of 9/11 and all of the Islamophobia that it engenders. It is important, if not
imperative in anthropological research to remain objective. It is even more important not to judge by
modern cultural values, and to transpose oneself into the atmosphere of the inhabitants, to connect
with their own specific concerns and vulnerabilities, using anthropological and archaeological
methodologies.
Always remembering the inevitable obfuscating of scholarly reflexivity12.

This research will seek to prove that the designs and patterns within Turkmen jewellery are the
vestige of a religious celebration of a fertility cult based on Goddess worship. The Bible13, Torah14 and
Koran are peppered with veiled and not so veiled allusions to the old religion, the golden calf, the
dance of the seven veils by Salome and Delilah’s cutting of Samson’s hair are examples. The ‘bull of
heaven’ is a fundamental icon of the fertility cult; the ceremony of Taurobolium15 was an important
regenerative rite of Kybele, still practised in Roman times. The skull of the bull and horned ram
represent the womb and fallopian tubes, a representation of the very vessel, which creates life. The
Spanish tradition of bull fighting is a remnant of Goddess worship, probably retained from the
Carthaginian16 occupation of Spain (c. 800BC). The number seven was the number of initiations in
the secret cult of Mithras (the Mithras cult borrowed heavily from the cult of Kybele, which also had
secret initiation rites). Long hair was a vital component in the spring festival of Kybele practised on
the 15th of March, the Goddess’s priests, the Galli danced like whirling dervishes, with their long hair
flowing freely. I will further research all available information on the earliest religions of the
surrounding area and countries known to have trade links with the Margush. I will always bear in
mind that it is perfectly plausible that sources about individuals in the ancient world were constantly
rewritten and reshaped in accordance with the contemporary agenda.

RECENT RESEARCH
The most recent research on Turkmenistan is a minefield of vested interests. In the book Turkmen
Jewellery by Asgabat (2003) 17 the introduction is a chillingly hilarious, hugely sycophantic homage
to the ‘lifetime President’ and self-proclaimed deity Turkmenbashi, whose antics have caused great
concern to Amnesty International. The book itself is hardly scientifically objective when it states
“[v]ery often Turkmen woman’s silver adornment is compared with the fighting armours of legendary
Amazons… one can hardly recognize the nature of the peaceable people that always assigned the
woman to be a home hearth keeper rather than a female warrior. (Asgabat, 2003, p37). i.e. it is
culturally unacceptable in current Turkmen society to imagine women as warriors. This cultural
reluctance (I received a Turkmen breast ornament labelled as a headdress because it was
unacceptable to acknowledge Turkmen women as wearing metal bras) to consider all evidence in
combination with eccentric and interesting translations will make my research a challenge.

The rigorously scientific work of Manfred Korfmann of 1992 18 in locating Troy has proven there is
hard kernel of truth at the core of Greek myth. Korfmann’s comparison of Greek and Hittite texts in
combination with archaeological fieldwork and historical geology well illustrates the benefits of a
cross-cultural approach. This insightful cross-referencing of multiple disciplines is an excellent
research model.

CHAPTER 2
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The persistent image of the ‘carry on’ caveman, happily dragging his wife by the hair must be
expunged. The old mental picture of the Bronze Age barbarian is wholly inaccurate. The recent
exciting discovery, in Northern Europe, of a solid gold 29” ‘high hat’ c.1000BC19(figure 2a), depicting
a complex solar-lunar conversion calendar, and the Nebra ‘sky disk’ c.1500BC20 (figure 3), with
intricate images of the sun, moon and the star cluster Pleiades, has led archaeologists to dramatically
re-think. The Iceman 3,200 BC, Oetzi21 (found in the Italian Alps), suffered from arthritis of the
spine. He had 58 tattoos, which coincide with acupuncture treatment points. This demonstrates that
acupuncture was known and used throughout Europe long before its earliest known occurrence in

2
China (c. 1000 BC). The extent of this knowledge confirms far-reaching intercultural contacts22
among prehistoric peoples. These and many other recent archaeological discoveries illustrate a highly
evolved Bronze Age society with deeply sophisticated knowledge of the universe around it. Perhaps
the Turkmen23 Jewellery is the equally complex and mysterious heritage of a similarly rich and
intricate ancient society.

THE PATH TO UNDERSTANDING

It is as if the image of this beautiful coned gold hat24 (figure 2a) is preserved in our subliminal
consciousness as the archetypal witches/wizards hat (figure 2b). Depicted in every modern image of a
witch or warlock, the witches’ hat is still emblazoned with the imagery of the sun and moon just like
the 3000-year-old original. This demonstrates the phenomenal ability of humankind to retain
prehistoric knowledge, without necessarily understanding the original meaning and symbolism, yet
still conserving an echo of the magical link. To understand the origins of Turkmen jewellery, it is
important to understand the origins of Turkmen culture and the spiritual beliefs of the society it
developed within. I will undertake to research the earliest civilisation of the Margush (the ancient
name for Turkmenistan, the ancient Greeks called it Margiana25) and how it developed, to illuminate
any vestiges of meaning inherent in Turkmen jewellery.

CULTURAL CONNECTIONS
Recent archaeological study implodes ideas of ancient civilizations existing in isolation. The Romans
are often considered a less intellectual, more visceral and military acquisitive facsimile of the ancient
Greeks. It is increasingly proven that the ancient Greeks, similarly, assimilated many Mesopotamian
traditions and spiritual beliefs26.

Alexander (356-323BC) the Great’s historians27 recorded a Greek village in Southern Uzbekistan
(which Alexander decimated as a punishment for their part in assisting the Persian invasion of Greece
one hundred and fifty years earlier). There was another Greek village recorded in northwest India
(the black people) who worshipped Dionysus and spoke an archaic form of Greek.

In the epic of Gilgamesh28, Gilgamesh (2700BC) travels to the island of Dilman29 (now called
Bahrain), where he ties a heavy stone to his feet (the ancient technique of pearl diving, as used in
Bahrain) to defeat the monster of the deep. Bahrain is covered in burial mounds, over one hundred
thousand, which contain ancient artefacts from the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, proving strong
trade links between the Kingdom of Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent30. This establishes the
fact that many different cultures existed in the area surrounding Turkmenistan. The Bronze Age
peoples of the east were highly mobile and adventurous, tributes from the Eurasian nomads have
been found at the temple of Mahrem Bilquis31 in Yemen and at the temple of Artemis32 at Ephesus33.
The people of the Margush were travelling from the tip of the Arabian peninsula to the edge of
Europe.

MYTHICAL FLOOD
Known as the ‘People of Noah34’ could the Turkmen be the descendants of Noah’s family. There is
much geological evidence that, the Black Sea, was enlarged by a cataclysmic flood35. Geologists Walter
Pitman and William Ryan have hypothesised that… About 12,000 years ago the Black Sea was an
isolated freshwater lake. Melting glaciers from the last Ice Age raised sea levels, the Mediterranean (c.
7500BC) suddenly broke through the narrow Bosporus peninsula, and water hit the Black Sea with
200 times the force of the Niagara Falls. Each day the Black Sea rose, expanding by more than a mile
a day. Seared into the memories of terrified survivors, the tale of the flood36 was passed down through
the generations and eventually became the Noah story. (Ryan & Pitman, 2000, National Geographic
Society).
This evidence is further corroborated by marine archaeologists…Remains found at bottom of the
Black Sea indicate that Noah's Flood was real. Maritime explorer Bob Ballard37 has found the first
evidence to suggest the floor of the Black Sea had been inhabited about 7,500 years ago. Stone tools
wooden branches and beams are among well-preserved remnants of the structure 300ft down on the
muddy seabed 12 miles off the coast.

3
The story told in the Torah is actually a retelling of a much earlier Mesopotamian epic, the adventures
of Gilgamesh38, the Sumerian King. Gilgamesh is listed in the Mesopotamian King List39 2800 ‹ 500
BC He was the grandson of King Enmerkar, (2750 BC). At the end of the book, Gilgamesh meets an
old boatman who helps him to cross the Sea of Death, after which the boatman captivates him with
stories of a gargantuan flood40. In the Turkmen creation myth41 first there was water, out of the water
came the sacred mountain, the axis mundi42, then there was man and woman. Essentially, many
aspects of Turkmen spirituality equate with early Mesopotamian beliefs43. A cultural heritage dating
back to 7000BC Mesopotamia is seen by many as the cradle of civilisation. The Mesopotamians
believed that the universe is composed of three layers. 'Heaven' and 'Earth' and the 'Netherworld'.

CHAPTER 3
HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS
Turkmen jewellery has a strong resemblance to the ancient depictions of the legendary gemstone
breastplate of the high priest of the temple of Solomon44. King Solomon45 970-928 BC reigned circa
950-930BC and was recorded as an intellectual wunderkind, with magical powers, including the
ability to communicate with animals and command genies (traditionally called Jinn46). Solomon is
said to have demanded that the Jinn build a palace for the Queen of Sheba, before her arrival. An
important spirit of the desert, the Jinn47 (genie) are normally invisible to mortals as part of the
Unseen (al-ghaib). Angels are created from light and, according to the Koran (55:15; 15:27), jinn from
smokeless fire; hence the nature of jinn is subtle and fugacious. Jinn are shape-shifters Very
commonly jinn travel about as whirlwinds. They are wont to cause great confusion in human society
with this ability, and in lands they dwell in it is often difficult to know when one is dealing with this
breed. King Solomon's ring, a gift from the four angels of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, gave him power
over the Elements48. King Solomon rebuilt Jerusalem, carefully placing twelve gemstones within its
foundations. Aaron 49, the high priest of Solomon’s Temple, was said to use the crystals, contained
within his breastplate as a conduit to communicate with the angels. ‘While in the desert, the Lord
gave specific instructions to Moses for the construction of the High Priest Aaron’s breastplate’
(Ezekiel 28).

The sculptures excavated at the temple of Mahrem Bilquis50 (c. 1500BC) near Marib are remnants of
the fertility cult51, practised by the Queen of Sheba52 (c. 10thC BC, named Makeda nee Bilqis). Makeda
made a well-documented voyage to pay tribute to King Solomon53 in Jerusalem. She is recorded as
arriving, draped in a red cloak, emblazoned with seven stars54. Symbolic animals, the bull, ibex, lion
and the sphinx represented her god Ilmaqah55. The ‘bull of heaven’56 was considered the origin of all
fertility for from his body grew useful plants and herbs, from its blood came the vine, and from its
semen came all useful animals. All the horned animals were considered to promulgate rain. It is
written in the Kebra Nagast57 (the Ethiopian book of Kings) that “[a]nd the people shall not worship
the sun and the magnificence of the heavens and the forests, the stones and the trees of the
wilderness, graven images and figures of gold or the feathered fowl which fly; and they shall not make
use of them in divining, and they shall not pay adoration to them. And this law shall abide forever”. It
is certain that before the arrival of monotheism, all of the Near East religions were heavily ensconced
in fertility cults58. This passage from the Kebra Nagast beautifully describes the old religion. It
explains that the sun59 and stars were worshipped, and that the practise of divination was
widespread.

Solomon is fated in the Ethiopian tradition as converting the glamorous and intelligent pagan, the
Queen of Sheba. It transpires that the converse is true60. Jewish scholars have found that the first
temple of Jerusalem contained a statue to the goddess Asherah. Raphael Patai61 in his study of the
Hebrew goddess has calculated that "the statue of Asherah was present in the temple for no less than
236 years, two-thirds of the time the Solomonic temple stood in Jerusalem." This worship, he asserts,
was part of the legitimate religion approved and led by the king the court and the priesthood".
(Patai.1990: 38) So those seeking Asherah would find her in groves and on the hills, and in the temple
of JHWH itself.

The heroic Persian religion of Mithras62 was so popular, amongst Roman soldiers63 and freed slaves,
it continued until the 4thcAD. It seems that Plato (c. 427–c.347 BC) heavily plagiarised Persian
religion in his philosophical writings. In Plato’s Republic, his concept of Hyperouranios

4
Topos64completely mirrors Persian Mithraicism, which is based on the ancient mythology of Kybele
the cave-dweller65. This cave goddess is likely to trace back to our Neolithic and even Palaeolithic
ancestors66. The power of the cave in relation to the Goddess suggests an ancient background belief in
animism 67. It is clear that the earlier concepts inherent in the Mithraic cult and Zoroastrianism68
were preceded by fertility cults69, which were celebrated all over near and far Asia. Mesopotamian
relics are peppered with esoterica and there is a rich vein of Mesopotamian magic70. Many of the
shamanistic71 aspects of the BMAC culture are inherent in Tibetan Buddhism as the indigenous
peoples fled from invading Muslim armies to settle in India and the Himalayas72.

Recent findings debunk the theory that the Turkmen arrived with Ghengis Khan. Bronze Age
terracotta sculptures of goddesses from the Gonur necropolis73 (3rd Millennium BC) are identical in
form to Turkmen Asyk (figure 4a & b), providing compelling evidence of longstanding habitation.
The traditional icons of Turkmen jewellery are indistinguishable in shape from third and second
millennium sculptures of the Goddess. Temporal pendants74 (figure 5a) are redolent of the terracotta
figurines (figure 5b) of the third millennia found at Gonur. It is surprising that this theory, that the
Turkmen are descendants of Ghengis Khan ever received any credibility. The Turkmen do not have a
Mongolian appearance, unlike the Uzbeks, Kazaks and Azerbaijanis. It is indicated that one in two
hundred men exhibit the Y chromosome of Ghengis Khan75, so it is likely that a few Turkmen may
have inherited his DNA, but certainly, they are not his direct descendants.

The fabulously fine artisanship of the Margush crafts people is breathtaking in the extreme. This
rarely explored region, untouched archaeologically until 197276, has yielded carving of such exquisite
beauty (figure 6) it recalls the verisimilitude of the statue of Zeus at Olympia. The drainage system of
Gonur citadel, was copied by the Greeks77, this ingeniously engineered design, has been proven to
speed up the flow of water. The blacksmiths of the Margush were highly advanced78, they had an in
depth knowledge of metallurgy, using highly advanced alloys in bronze smelting. The smiths of the
Margush may have developed iron79 smelting long before the official beginning of the Iron Age. This
advanced knowledge of ironwork would corroborate Homer’s reference to the ‘iron people’ in the
Iliad.

THE SEARCH FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

It is perhaps not surprising that many major religions have sprung from the desert. The desert has an
ability to focus the mind inward, on all that is spiritual; a vast expanse of nothingness concentrates
the spirit on the quintessence of existence. All of the distractions of the modern world are expunged.
Just humanity, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth.

STARS, PSYCHOPOMPS & PRECESSION

The Margush has been the spiritual centre of many theologies. Shivaism is postulated by Alain
Danielou80 as the original religion prior to the patriarchal religions (Gimbutas p.7). Siddharta,
Buddha himself, was said to be a Scythian. Zarathustra81 (c.628 – 55BC) settled here, the Gonur-Depe
findings indicate Zoroastrian ritual, goddess worship, extreme shamanism82 (ceremonial drinking
vessels have been found with remnants of mandrake root, cannabis and opium [mandrake root is a
highly toxic, extremely powerful hallucinogen, used by witches for divination and visions]) and
fertility cults. Many Near East theologies are based on complex astronomy83 and cosmology, which
may be considered intellectually arcane to a Bronze Age person. In chapter 23, ‘The twins’ of Oliver
Sacks’ book ‘The man who mistook his wife for a hat’84, identical brain damaged twins communicate
in prime numbers, hinting that the part of the brain which processes complex mathematics may be
separate from the intellect. Other autistic and ‘retarded’ people have reproduced this adroitness and
further demonstrate the skill to automatically count, huge numbers of objects, instantaneously.
Perhaps we have a primordial connection to cosmology, an instinctive knowledge. Nevertheless, I feel
it is disingenuous to consider Bronze Age people incapable of complex astronomy, as there are so
many examples of knowledge of precession in ancient Egypt. It is certainly well argued in David
Ulansey’s book ‘Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun’ and ‘The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries’85 that
the cult of Mithras was a celebration of precession86. It is most probable that this knowledge was
appropriated from Iran.

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Milutin Milankovich87 working in the 1930’s theorised that precession was a major factor in the
instigation of ice ages. It is true that we did not have an ice age every 25,920 years (this is the time
period of a complete cycle of precession, the passage of the twelve constellations through the sky), but
recent measurings of ocean sediment imply a cycle of 100,000 years in the recent past (Milankovich
failed to account for the warm equatorial currents removing saturated salt from the Arctic). This
possibility, of precession heralding the instigation of an ice age, would be a powerful reason for the
ancients to want to carefully chart the progress of precession. The journey of a soul taking its place in
the heavens, along with the ancestors, would require a very accurate cosmic map. This process would,
also, rely on accurate measuring of precession.

ANCIENT GODDESSES
To trace the origins of Turkmen jewellery I am studying the culture and spiritual beliefs of the
Margush. This entails a journey back in time before Islam, before Mithras, before Zoroastrianism88
back to the earliest religion.

Early religions in the Near East are besmirched by histories of cannibalism and human sacrifice89.
These illiterate societies have been recorded by those whom had vested interests90 in mind. The
barbarian hoards are portrayed by the Greeks91, Romans92 and Christians93 as unnatural, bloodthirsty
and barbaric.

The best-recorded example of shamanic tradition in the Near East is the wild, rhythmic and sexually
charged worship of Artemis at Ephesus94. This goddess was worshipped throughout the Iron Age.
Tributes have been excavated with origins in Egypt, Arabia, Siberia and Europe95, a goddess so
powerful that she was worshipped well into the 4th century AD. The orgiastic frenzy96 of goddess
worship was repulsive to the Greeks who were horrified by the mutilation and wild dancing which
characterised the cult97 of Cybele98 and Artemis. This tradition of bloodletting and rhythmic, trance-
inducing music continues today both in the Hindu festival of Thaipusam99 and the Shiite festival of
Ashurah100 (see additional information101).

The tradition of communicating with the goddess and receiving divine instruction was inextricably
linked with moon worship102, the serpent103 and the sacrifice of the bull104. The sacrifice of the bull
was a celebration of the life-giving power of the womb and fallopian tubes105, an expression of the
belief that blood itself was the essence of life106. The power of prescience was a uniquely feminine
preserve107; the oracles of Delphi were all female. The Greek tradition of Cybelline oracles inscribing
their prescient visions on leaves108, which is recorded in numerous classical texts, is a link with the
Tree of Life109 tradition.

Perhaps in order to circumvent this limitation the tradition of Galli110 was born. These male priests
would castrate themselves and be gifted female dress and jewellery by the first house they happened
upon after the act. Their presence was considered a blessing to the house, and female garments would
be worn by the initiate for the rest of his life. These transvestite priests were thus granted the gift of
prescience. This tradition of transvestite priests still continues today in India among the Hijra111.
Amusingly, archaeological evidence of transvestite Vikings112 has also been excavated.
It would seem that this practice was the product of a long evolution, which began as a small cut under
the scrotum to emulate menses.

The Greeks believed intoxication with wine could place you in direct communication with the gods.
According to Wasson, Hoffman, Ruck, et al.113, the ancient Greeks also used an ergot-based
preparation in wine as the entheogenic trigger of the Elusinian Mysteries114. Recent excavations at
Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan have unearthed beautiful alabaster115 vases filled with opium, cannabis
and mandrake root116, hinting that an intense tradition of shamanism flourished in the late 3rd
millennium BC. Aspects of the Greek pantheon117 and the mystery religion of Mithras are certain to
have been appropriated from the Near East118. The fact that Zarathustra was a staunch teetotaller,
vehemently opposed to intoxicants119 indicates that the origins of haoma soma120 (a highly narcotic
drink which is extensively eulogised in the Rig-Veda and Avesta) are a vestige of an earlier cult.

6
Soma121 supposedly gave access to the gods, and Rig Veda records many personal experiences of its
effects, perhaps many parts of it were written under the influence of soma. "Stretching out in flight,
holding the stem, the eagle brought the exhilarating and intoxicating drink from the distance.
Accompanied by the gods, the bird clutched the Soma tightly after he took it from that highest
heaven. When the eagle had taken the Soma, he brought it for a thousand and ten thousand pressings
at once [Soma is made by pressing the plant against stones]. The bringer of abundance left his
enemies behind there; ecstatic with Soma, the wise one left the fools." Rig Veda 4.26.6-7 p.129. "This,
yes, this is my thought: I will win a cow and a horse. Have I not drunk Soma? Like impetuous winds,
the drinks have lifted me up. Have I not drunk Soma? The drinks have lifted me up, like swift horses
bolting with a chariot. Have I not drunk Soma? I turn the prayer around in my heart, as a
wheelwright turns a chariot seat. Have I not drunk Soma? The five tribes are no more to me than a
mote in the eye. Have I not drunk Soma? The two world halves cannot be set against a single wing of
mine. Have I not drunk Soma? In my vastness, I surpassed the sky and this vast earth. Have I not
drunk Soma? Yes! I will place the earth here, or perhaps there. Have I not drunk Soma? I will thrash
the earth soundly, here, or perhaps there, Have I not drunk Soma? One of my wings is in the sky; I
have trailed the other below. Have I not drunk Soma? I am huge, huge! flying to the cloud. Have I not
drunk Soma? I am going - a well-stocked house, carrying the oblation to the gods. Have I not drunk
Soma?" Rig Veda 10.119.1-13 (all) p.131-132.

The practice of divination became highly sophisticated in the Near East. The concept of astrology is
first documented by the Babylonians in 3000 BC122.
‘The Assyrian king Esarhaddon (690-669 BC) was so fearful of lunar eclipses that during his reign he
enthroned substitute king-figures when eclipses occurred, who were afterwards executed to divert the
malign influence of the eclipse from the king himself’123 Whitfield, The Mapping of the Heavens, 1995.
124

The Babylonians were very concerned with predicting the future and understanding omens. They also
constructed a highly complex system of divination involving reading subtle changes in a sheep’s
liver125.

Recent excavations in Eurasia have unearthed a graveyard full of warrior princesses126. These are the
remains of a society lost to history, where gender roles were not defined according to sex and women
more often than not were tribal leaders with power and status. Two cemeteries had significant
numbers of female burials with mortuary offerings indicating they were priestesses of various degrees
of rank or importance.

Priestesses and warrior-priestesses127 were important members of their tribes, performing oracles
and divinations. Priestesses and warrior-priestesses wore elaborate headdresses decorated with gold
plaques.
It would seem that the Amazons128 of Greek myth have a genuine factual basis and they originated in
the Near East. They worshipped the moon goddess129; the moon was of huge importance to the
nomad as a way of measuring time and distance. It also had great importance as an inducer of
fertility130.

The Scythians131 and Sarmations132 buried their dead in kurgans, chamber tombs of larch wood, which
symbolised regeneration. Herodotus recorded that Saka Scythians used marijuana133.
When Alexander invaded Sogdia and Bactria134 the tribespeople rebelled135 because they hated urban
settlements and they were horrified by cremation having always left their dead to the vultures136. They
did not believe that the sacred earth or the sacred fire137 should be polluted by the dead. This
Zoroastrian practice ties in with findings at Catal Huyuk138. The people of Catal Huyuk worshipped
the vulture as part of a trinity139 of goddesses. It is also forbidden to harm or eat cattle within
Zoroastrianism, which is very probably a hangover from the previous goddess religion.

‘Do you believe that the sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not been
before magicians, alchemists, astrologers and wizards who thirsted after hidden, forbidden powers?’
Nietzsche, The Joyful Science, 1886

7
Reconstructing the fertility cults of the Near East is no easy task; the so-called ‘Bactrian princesses’140
are discarded as dolls or true likenesses of the corpse within whose burial mound they are discovered.
The strong similarity of their dresses, beautifully carved leaves, form a tantalising link with the Tree
of Life tradition and the Assyrian goddess Inanna141 who is depicted in a ‘tufted’ gown. It is strong
evidence that this goddess142 is the incarnation of Kybele the cave dweller, guardian of all wild things.

It is no accident that the Christian devil (See 22. for image) is a horned goat, for all horned animals143
were sacred to the goddess. The tradition of Taurobolium144 was a celebration of life; blood was
considered the essence of life ‘the life force’. This practice, probably introduced by the Phoenicians145
& Carthaginians in the early Iron Age is still continued today as the strangely dislocated macho
posturing that is bull fighting. The image of the bull’s s-shaped horns represented the womb and
fallopian tubes of the goddess. In the goddess trinity hair146 and horns represented the sacred celestial
sphere.

There are many vestiges of an earlier more ancient religion contained within Zoroastrianism and the
cult of Mithras. Victor Sarianidi claims that the Gonur Depe civilisation is a centre of Zoroastrian
worship147. This fails to take account of the fact that Zarathustra was born in the 7th century BC. The
temples and necropolis of Gonur Depe date back to the 3rd millennium BC. This leaves 2000 years of
history unaccounted for. Victor Sarianidi interprets the male figures with raised arms outstretched as
being in a ‘fighting pose’ this strongly ignores the more obvious interpretation that raised
outstretched arms is a traditional attitude of prayer or worship148. His highly subjective interpretation
of BMAC ignores the possibility of goddess worship149.

The most ancient objects of worship150 date back to 27,000BC. The so-called Venus figurines151 (figure
7) have been found all over the world. Many of the finds in Margush echo the discoveries of Catal
Huyuk152, the fat lady of Malta and the pottery of the Jomon people of Japan (figures 8 & 9).

The ancient Anatolian vulture153 goddess of extreme pre-history, discovered by Mellaart154, is pictured
in all her glory on the walls of Catal Huyuk155 (7000BC) temples. She is depicted as a young woman
giving birth or nursing a small child, and as an old woman accompanied by a vulture. The same
goddess appears all over the Gonur necropolis156. She also appears sitting astride a tiger (or lion, or
leopard) (figure 10) showing her connection to the wild, and her strength and power to protect, just
like the goddess Kybele (figure 11). The Vulture157 is one of the oldest mythologies of death and
resurrection. This image of the two-headed vulture is strikingly redolent of the traditional Dagdan
amulet158 of the Turkmen (figure 12a & b). As a vulture, the Goddess takes the dead into her body in
order to rebirth the soul in the form of an egg. She gives birth, she protects, and she resurrects.
Sometimes a human figure lies between her legs, showing her power to reproduce. It was this goddess
who evolved over thousands of years to become the Hittite Goddess Kubebe159 (1800-1200 BC). The
Magna Mater160 worshipped, until the 4th century AD at Ephesus, had many names161, Ishtar,
Rhea162, Demeter163, Artemis164, Hecate165, Aphrodite166, Cybele167 and Diana. The butterfly or
labrys168 image appears in the 2nd and 3rd millennia BCE in Crete, and in historic times, the writings
of Ovid, Virgil and Porphyry reveal that butterflies and bees169 were thought to be the souls of humans
born from a bull (Gimbutas170). The bull was the ultimate symbol of fertility, worshipped in ancient
Crete, the Levant and around the Black Sea. Still today in the remote mountains of Georgia, the men
of Svaneti171, swathed in red robes, clutching ceremonial gold axe172 heads, gather round the argali (a
fine horned ram) lantern, to sing hymns to the sun God.

This Pagan Goddess trinity was widespread over Asia, the Queen of Sheba’s God Ilmaqah173 presided
over a trinity of Goddesses, Allat174, the fertility Goddess, Manat175, the Goddess of fate, and Al-
Uzza176, the Goddess of all wild things. The vulture Goddess was succeeded by Kybele/ Kubaba177
(cave dweller), the Goddess of all wild things. She was worshipped on mountaintops and her
successor Cybele was worshipped in wild, bloody, orgiastic, cathartic, and highly emotional
ceremonies178.

DIFFERENT CULTURE, DIFFERENT VALUES

There is an untapped & unresearched resource of erotic sculpture and a tradition of erotic votive
imagery (figure 13), which has been carefully brushed under the carpet by generations of

8
embarrassed archaeologists. German excavations at Priene179 (c.900BC, west Turkey) uncovered
erotic statues in the Temple of Demeter. Strange goddesses with half human, half vagina faces.

The Egyptian village of Deir el Medina180 (1500BC) is rich with beautiful, lyrical and light handed wall
murals of naked musicians, dancers and women in childbirth. There is an absolute celebration of all
aspects of human life, and a total absence of our peculiar coy embarrassment over all things genital181.
A large number of ‘paddle dolls’182 (figure 14) were found, and initially considered to be children’s
toys, more recent examination suggests they may be masturbation aids, used in the way of magic
ritual to encourage fecundity. At that time Rameses II would masturbate into the Nile each spring, to
ensure a bumper harvest183. In the temple of Hatshepsut (1500BC), within the central Hathor
sanctuary, large baskets overflowing, with life size (and larger) wooden phalluses were discovered.
This discovery went unmentioned in reports of its excavation, as they were quietly secreted in the
bowels of the British Museum. The Romans184 covered their houses and doorways with phallic
ornaments185, many with beautiful wings, as symbols of protection186. And so it is, that all of our
ancestor’s joy and celebration of the gift of fertility and the pleasure of procreation was wiped from
history for fear of embarrassing our oversensitive western sensibilities187 (figure 15).

AMAZON WOMEN
Historians of Alexander the Great recorded his travels through Asia. The warrior queen Thalestris
visited him and became a mother by him. 188A very tall female warrior queen, with astonishing &
highly unusual dress, asking Alexander to make her with child saying, “I am the finest queen of my
people and you are the bravest warrior, we should have children together”. Three hundred female
warriors accompanied her. Alexander tried for thirteen days to satisfy her without success. Could she
be the queen of the legendary Amazons? Was she the ancestress of the modern Turkmen? There is a
possibility that Turkmen jewellery would function handsomely as defensive armour. The elegant
elongated Tekke Turkoman cuffs (figure 16) are extremely heavy, made of two plates of silver, filled
with pitch, covering the arm from wrist to elbow. It seems likely that the pitch formed a hard plastic
shield rendering the bracelets impenetrable. In the legend of Jason (c. 1600-1200BC, the tale of
Jason is now thought to be a conglomeration of stories of Mycenaean voyages into the Black Sea in
search of precious metals189) and the Argonauts, our brave hero is so terrified at the thought of
encountering the amazons, he deliberately avoids all of the eastern coast190 of the Black Sea, for fear
of having to fight the terrifying, ferocious and tempestuous women warriors.

The warrior women191 known to ancient Greek authors as Amazons192 were long thought to be
creatures of myth. Now 50 ancient burial mounds near Pokrovka193, Russia, on the Kazakhstan
border, have yielded skeletons of women buried with weapons, suggesting the Greek tales may have
had some basis in fact. Nomads known as the Sauromatians buried their dead here beginning ca. 600
BC; according to Herodotus194 the Sauromatians were descendants of the Amazons and the Scythians,
who lived north of the Sea of Azov. Females were buried with a wider variety and larger quantity of
artefacts than males, and seven female graves contained iron swords or daggers, bronze arrowheads,
and whetstones to sharpen the weapons. The bowed leg bones of one 13- or 14-year-old girl attest a
life on horseback, and a bent arrowhead found in the body cavity of another woman suggested that
she had been killed in battle.

AMULETS & TALISMANS

From the earliest times shells195 and gemstones were treasured as amulets196, talismans, charms and
fetishes197. Worn for protection from evil and disease or with magical powers to bring good fortune to
the owner. Amulets were thought to be influenced by the planets, and to be the abode of spirits. These
stones were treated with reverence and awe to insure the good will of the gods living within. Many
gems were carved in the likeness of animals; to give the owner the qualities of strength and courage of
the creature portrayed. Ancient people believed an occult empathy existed between a stone and its
owner198. In ancient Greece jet199 was the special mineral of Cybele200, goddess of all things produced
by the earth. It is a historical fact that the Kaaba (the black stone of Mecca201) is a remnant of an Al-
Uzza202 (the Arabic Kybele) temple; Al-Uzza203 was the patron Goddess of Mecca. This goddess
temple is reported to have contained 360 idols dedicated to the goddess of pagan Arabia. The concept
of Islam being preceded by goddess worship is discussed in The Satanic Verses204. Amulets of jet

9
helped ensure a good harvest. The early Pueblo dwellers of the southwest US believed persons who
wore amulets of jet were able to gain power over all the natural elements of fire, earth, air and water.

CHAPTER 4
Turkmen Jewellery; why carnelian & silver
It is a mysterious puzzle, that the Turkmen would choose Carnelian, and silver to create their
fabulous jewellery. Turkmenistan is situated next door to the finest lapis lazuli mine205 on earth (in
the Afghan mountains); the greatest turquoise mine on earth206 (both of which were used in antiquity
and known to the Pharaohs for 5,000 years), and the fourth largest gold reserves on the planet
(Uzbekistan is the world’s seventh largest gold producer, with the fourth largest reserves). Perhaps
the use of carnelian and silver was a tradition that the nomadic ancestors continued in their new
home, or, there are important spiritual or traditional religious reasons for the specific use of silver207
and Carnelian208. To the ancients, crystals and gemstones were considered to be a gift from heavenly
spirits or gods, linking the spirit worlds with humanity. They had the power to heal, to enhance
perception and protect the wearer from disaster. Crystals were used to expand accustomed limits &
transcend the normal world.

It is also possible that carnelian was used as a lantern by Noah, when guiding his Ark to safety. The
ancient name for red gems is Carbuncle (commonly thought to be garnet, but could be carnelian) this
is stated in the Torah, as being the stone used as a lantern for guiding Noah to safety through the
storm during the flood. A rather strange traveller’s tale may have some relevance here. French
explorer Captain V.D. Auvergne, reporting in the "Bihar and Orissa Research Journal" (vol. 26, part
2) near the turn of the 19th century, told how the Tibetans use crystals and sound to produce light.
"Entering the cave, I observed a gallery in utter darkness. The Che-sho priest picked up a metal gong
of polished bronze with highly ornamental decorative tracery of silver thread; he raised a wooden
hammer and struck the gong once. I was startled to see half a dozen lights of a strange green colour
slowly come into vision. They shone dimly at first, but grew in intensity, perhaps attaining some five
hundred candlepower each. The lights were only lumps of crystal, placed on a plate of metal, about
half an inch thick. Around the plate ran an ornamental tracing of thin lines of gold hieroglyphs. "The
Che-so priest said the sound of the gong penetrated the metal plate from which a vibrating force
emanated, infusing the crystal particles of bright luminous glow, growing in intensity with the volume
of vibratory sound. According to the priest, had the gong been struck with a metal hammer, the glow
would have been so great that the human eye could not stand it without a head covering of thick cloth.
Neither the crystal nor the plate produced a particle of heat." This information brings to mind the
story in Turkmen Jewellery209 (Asgabat, 2003) about Mohammed and the man who wished to see
him “A man dared to apply to the prophet: “I shall believe in you if I see your face”. “But you will
become blind”, the prophet replied. An audacious man insisted and then the prophet said: “come up
to this mountain, but remember I shall take off these veils from my face one by one.” The ground, the
mountain had been glowing, but the man continued to be obstinate. “I am taking off my last, the
tenth veil!” the prophet exclaimed. In a moment the surrounding was lit with heat and flame, having
deprived the poor wretch of sight and fused the mountain. And the mountain besought: “You have
punished the man having dazzled him, and what is my fault?” ‘I bestowed you the place between gold
and silver, henceforth you will exist among the people as carnelian,” the prophet answered. This tract
shows that carnelian is a gift from God and is borne of light. I aim to trace the importance of
carnelian into antiquity.

Archaeological study, of the ancient trade routes210, establishes carnelian as a highly important and
precious currency. Gems were also valued as much for their talismanic or medicinal value as for their
beauty. Carnelian was the gem most prized for seal stone engraving by Babylonians211 (circa 3500 BC)
until late Roman times. Today the stone barely makes the semi-precious list, but carnelian (figure 17)
was unquestionably one of the precious stones of antiquity. Carnelian was valued beyond its intrinsic
worth, and must have been perceived to have a special significance or power.

Pu-Abi212 (third millennium BC), a Sumerian Queen of Ur, wore a robe that contained Carnelian. The
Ancient Egyptians placed carnelian in tombs for protection from harm during transcendence;
carnelian would ensure the Ka’s (the soul’s) passage into the next world. The Egyptian goddess Isis213
protected the dead with a Carnelian Amulet named Thet214. After being soaked in Ankhami flower

10
water, on a Sycamore plinth & placed on the body of the deceased, Isis would grant the person
protection from harm while moving through the afterlife. The Book of the Dead instructed the placing
of a buckle of carnelian on the neck of the deceased & the 29th chapter of this sacred book was
inscribed on tablets of carnelian. Carnelian was the first stone designated for the Breastplate of the
High Priest, Aaron. Carnelian was used by Greek soldiers to stop bleeding from wounds and as the
warrior's protection stone. It was a very common practice to consult an astrologer, & amulets with
planetary signs carved on carnelian were very popular. Early Chaldeans (612-539BC) gave this stone
to their enemies to render them harmless. Mohammedans regard carnelian as a powerful talisman,
for the Prophet wore a silver ring set with a carnelian seal. Muslim tenets hold that engraving the
name of Allah on carnelian stones boosts courage & that Allah would grant all the desires of wearers
of the stone. More recently, Goethe (1749-1832) attributed carnelian with the powers of protection
against evil, of continuation of hope & comfort, & of good luck. "Carnelian is a talisman, It brings
good luck to child & man; It drives away all evil things; To thee & thine protection brings." Goethe.

The first major sources of mined silver were the mines around Anatolia215, in Turkey. The
Mesopotamians were the first culture to extract silver from other ores around 2500 BC. Silver has
been used in religious rituals for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian purification rites prescribed
basins of silver. Silver has recently been found to have powerful antibacterial properties; this would
make it an excellent choice of metal for armour manufacture. Silver trumpets were used in the
sacrificial rites of the Hebrews. In Celtic mythology, Nuada of the silver hand was a man who lost his
hand in battle, then received a silver hand from the Dian Cecht, the Irish god of healing.

Recent finds in Bulgaria have uncovered the most intricate and stunning Thracian gold216 dating back
to the 3rd millennia BC, these finds give a tantalising glimpse of an exemplary artistry the Thracian
artisans achieved. The ancient Persian Empire made frequent use of gold in its artwork as part of its
religion of Zoroastrianism. The Minoans grew rich via Mediterranean trade routes & jewellery
making flourished. The Minoans produced exceptional stamped gold sheeting, filigree & granulated
gold jewellery, burial masks & beads by 2000 BC217.

CHAKRAS & MERIDIANS

The positive magical quality of crystals impressed itself upon humankind far back in antiquity, for we
find among Neanderthal remains dating back to 70,000 BC collections of quartz stones and stone
balls made of quartz crystals. The Druids called certain coloured crystal forms ovus anguinum or
glein neidr -- 'serpent eggs' – who, they believed were created by etheric serpents of energy beneath
the earth and conjugated together at the time of the midsummer sunrise. Such stones, worn about the
neck, were considered to have the power of projecting one's auric field to favourably influence the
aura and mind of anyone else who came within range. Similarly, they understood that wearing
crystals over certain acupuncture points of the body aided in the healthy flow of physical and psychic
energies. The Emperor Tsin Shi (259-210 BC), possessed a mirror-like stone of crystal which
'illuminated the bones of the body' when a person stepped behind it. It was rectangular in shape,
measuring four feet by five feet nine inches, and glowed on both sides. The placing of the hand over
the heart somehow activated the stone, whereby the patient's inner parts were clearly portrayed, and
diagnosis of illness could be obtained. Two hundred and fifty years earlier, the Hindu sage Jivaka218
had a 'jewel' which 'illuminated the body like a lamp lights up a house,' and from which nothing
within could be hidden by any intervening obstacle. The medicine men219 of the Hopi Indians of the
American Southwest use crystals to observe the energy centres of the body, and can tell when physical
currents are impeded, causing ill health. This idea of a crystal, which is illuminated from within is
often mentioned in antiquity220. “Lucian (De dea syria) describes a statue of the Syrian goddess in
Hierapolis bearing a gem on her head called lychnis: "From this stone flashes a great light in the
night-time, so that the whole temple gleams brightly as by the light of myriads of candles, but in the
daytime the brightness grows faint; the gem has the likeness of a bright fire." The name of the jewel
lychnis, according to Berthold Laufer221, sprang from the Greek lychnos "a portable lamp." Thus
Pseudo-Callisthenes (II, 42) made Alexander the Great spear a fish, in whose belly was found a white
stone, so brilliantly bright that all thought it a lamp, and Alexander set it in gold and used it to light
his tent at night. Indeed, a night-shining stone.”

11
I believe this power of crystals is a wholly scientific one. It has just not yet been studied to a level of
common understanding. I have studied the effects of crystals on healing and here is my hypothesis. I
hypothesise that perhaps illness is shown by a change in cellular vibration, with each specific illness
having a specific vibrational anomaly pattern222. I predict a regulatory effect by the crystal (like an
interactive metronome), reducing or increasing the cell vibration to a healthier level. This would
suggest that crystals act as a pacemaker for the unhealthy cell. As quartz crystals are used in
timepieces for this purpose, it is not such a great leap of faith, merely an extrapolation of a proven
effect. This power of focusing and directing energy has been documented throughout antiquity. This
effect leads me to surmise that the carnelian contained in Turkmen jewellery as a focal point may
have been put there to serve a distinct purpose.

CONCLUSION
From my research to date, it has become increasingly likely that Turkmen jewellery was originally
constructed as an act of Goddess worship223 (figure 18) and may have been the armour of the
legendary Amazon warriors224.

Positioned on the earliest trade routes of carnelian (3,500BC), imported from India and the legendary
silk route, the Margush was a wealthy, vibrant and innovative cultural centre. The geographical
location, combined with the fact that Turkmen jewellery is unusually and uniquely worn to
completely cover the whole body, leads me to deduce that; Turkmen jewellery, could be the armour of
the Amazons, fantastically and meticulously preserved in perpetuity by the amazing Turkmen.

I will investigate the possibility that Turkmen jewellery is a ‘magical’ armour (figure 19), designed to
attract divine protection, instant healing of the energy meridians, and, in the direst circumstances
provide a psychopomp to transport the Amazon to the celestial realm.

Certainly the principles of acupuncture and energy meridians were well known in the period that the
Amazons are recorded (c. 2000-300BC). The careful positioning within Turkmen jewellery of the
carnelian cabochons in oval bezels (figure 20) does seem to imply deliberate intent. It will be
important to locate the earliest available examples of Turkmen jewellery to examine how the patterns
change. I will endeavour to obtain, through numerous Turkmen & Afghan contacts, the best and most
ancient examples of this mesmeric artisanship.

12
1
 http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/aug02str.cfm
In the mythological consciousness of the Turkoman, positive magic power is attributed to the decorative details crafted into their jewelry.
Water signs, mountain motifs, tree-of-life, ancestral symbols, horn representations, leaf and blossom designs, are paired, much as in the
Chinese concept of yin and yang, into male-female, east-west, sun-moon, bright-dark, etc., in a bid to preserve the balance of order in their
environment. These designs emanate from early animist traditions largely unchanged despite Muslim influence. Many customs combining
shamanistic ritual and Islamic practices involve using amulets and talismans to destroy malevolent forces. For an in-depth discussion of
these symbols, consult Schletzer’s Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman. In the most commonly used jewelry techniques, silver is melted over
a clay hearth fire fanned by hand bellows. Thin silver plates are poured out, and pattern lines are chased, engraved with gouges, or
hammered in with punches. Silver wire is drawn and corded, gently hammered into engraved notches, and soldered. To form a gold amalgam
with a very low melting point, gold plates are heated and mixed with about six times the amount of mercury. The surface to be gilded is
amalgamated with quicksilver and nitric acid. The alloy is applied to the surface with a copper brush, and heated so the mercury evaporates.
Silver wire is cut into tiny sections and heated on a perforated plate. When molten, the silver falls through into a bowl filled with cold water
and hardens; the resulting granules are soldered onto the jewelry base. To decorate, gilding is used to accentuate and define incised lines.
Fretwork is used on borders of larger elements. Solid gold is never found as the primary metal of old Turkmen jewelry, and is often avoided
by some Muslims. “Gold jewelry is inexpensive,”claims a Kyrgyzstan Web site, “because Kyrgyzstan takes the seventh position in the world
gold stocks rating,” and further mentions, “Kyrgyzstani women prefer silver to gold because it protects against misfortune.”
Among the Turkmen, young girls of marriageable age and women who haven’t yet had children wear amulets and talismans specifically
intended to exert a magical power on men and on their own fertility. In their hostile environment, where infant mortality was not long ago 60
percent, the very survival of their race relies on somehow tempering the capricious forces of life. Turkmen children are protected by
triangular cloth talismans called doga (an example of which hangs from the top of the headdress shown on page 20, another of my Internet
purchases).
Upon reaching puberty, a Turkmen girl wears her hair in four braids, usually two in front, hanging down the chest, and two down the back.
Married women wear two braids down the back. The distinctive heart-shaped asyk, a wedding gift from the groom’s family, is a braid
adornment for the bottom of the bride’s plaits, usually hidden by veils or scarves. This is probably the most universally recognized Turkmen
ornament. Its myriad manifestations — combinations of two and three of the shapes, variously embellished with chased and impressed
patterns — could, in themselves, comprise a magnificent collection, were a jewelry connoisseur to concentrate on that item alone. They also
make nifty necklace pendants.
Another distinctive ornament is the dagdan, or tree-of-life symbol, named for the Dagdan tree, from which potent wooden amulets are
fashioned. The prevalent ram’s horn motif in Central Asian jewelry is associated with many childbearing rituals. (When in doubt, you can
usually be safe in guessing that the desired effect of an amulet is something involving fertility.)
A large (four- to six-inch) circular jewel-studded silver button or pin used as a closure at the throat of a dress or coat is the guljaka, originally
worn by Caspian Sea area Turkmen women of the Yomud tribe, but later adopted by others. The circular form represents the rotation of the
world and the arrangement of the stones and motifs reflects the Turkmen view of time and space.
The magnificently detailed bracelets with fire-gilded patterns on silver, embellished with rows of carnelian, are worn in pairs. Most consist of
two rows, but can have as many as eight rows, reaching from wrist to elbow. Ones with a single row were brought to the West only to suit our
taste.
The carnelian, usually set in raised round or oval bezels, is considered Allah’s favorite stone by many Muslims. Some Turkmen claim it
protects the eyes from disease; other sources claim the Turkmen believe it gives general protection from death and illness and brings the
wearer good luck and peace. In some cases, another substance stands in for carnelian — most commonly, red glass. The Yomud tribe uses
other colors of stone or glass, and Yomud jewelry is further distinguished by its use of thin gilded silver repoussé plaques soldered on top of a
plain silver base, according to Fitz Gibbon.
And, indeed, the over 30 different tribal groups have distinctive styles. The jewelry we see most are from the Yomud, Ersari, and Tekke tribes.
It helps to remember these three if you really want to turn heads when you show off your jewelry. Saying “Turkoman” is not nearly as
impressive as saying “Tekke Turkoman” and being right. We really impressed our tour group with our spouting off; before long, they were
consulting us on potential purchases.
Although there are still a few conveniences that haven’t quite caught on yet in most of Central Asia (credit cards, for instance), we found there
were treasures to be had — dinged and otherwise — for American dollars, and we have many fond memories of the people and the historical
riches. As the Lonely Planet guide for Kazakhstan states, referring to a traditional game that dates from the time of Genghis Khan and is
wildly popular throughout Central Asia, “Any country which uses a headless goat carcass as a polo puck obviously has lots to offer.”
 Ilene Sternberg is a freelance writer based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with a special interest in ethnic jewelry and beads.
Daniëls, Ger, Folk Jewelry of the World, Rizzoli, New York, 1989
Kalter, Johannes, The Arts and Crafts of Turkestan, Thames and Hudson, Ltd., London, 1984
Kalter, Johannes and Margaret Pavaloi, Uzbekistan: Heirs to the Silk Road, Thames and Hudson, Ltd., London, 1997
Michaud, Sabrina and Roland, “Bold Horseman of the Steppes,” National Geographic, Nov. 1973
Schletzer, Dieter and Reinhold, Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 1983

2
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
A very ancient type of seated matrika has a triangular profile, often with the outstretched legs drawn up in a curved shape, or in their most
abstract form, flanged outward. These are among the oldest clay figurines, appearing in the 9th millenium at Tepe Sarab and Jarmo Iran
(where one archaeologist calls them “double-wing-based objects.” [Morales 1983: figures 157, 164]
Morales, Vivian Bromen. 1983. “Jarmo Figurines and Other Clay Objects.” In Prehistoric Archaeology of the Zagros Flank, Chicago: Oriental
Institute.
3
http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Tib.htm
Stone carvings of ibex, archers, and swastikas widespread throughout Ladak and the neighboring mountain countries - attributed to Bon
religion. "The ibex is very popular in the ancient fire cult of the Mongols." The svastika or gYung-drung is the symbol of the Bon
religion. Huge boulders decorated with figures of ibex, bowmen, circles of dancing men; such paintings are common throughout Tibet, and
some are contemporary and some are ancient.
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=grap
hical/full/&$+with+all_unique_id_index+is+$=OBJ3247&submit-button=summary
Animal-headed earrings were an extremely popular design during the Hellenistic period. Lions, bulls, dolphins, birds, panthers and gazelles
were amongst the most frequently used creatures. The use of wild goats on jewellery were also favoured amongst the Hellenistic élite classes.
The fashion may have been inspired by motifs commonly found in the near east, and these designs have been associated with Achaemenid
craftsmen. In this region, however, it was usual practice to have the animal heads facing the ear, and upside down. The Hellenistic Greek
manufacturers changed this practice and thereafter the animal heads on hoop-shaped earrings were still upside down, but the animal would
face the viewer, not the wearer.
These earrings are intricately worked with the hoop consisting of twisted gold wires terminating in the head of a wild goat. The goats large
eyes are set with a garnet, and above the animal's brow is another garnet in a gold casing. The use of semi-precious stones became popular
after the military campaigns of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) opened up trade routes with the east. Garnets were a particularly popular
stone, the finest of which were found in India.

Gold earrings shaped like wild goat heads

Hellenistic, around 200-100 BCProbably from Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece

4
http://www.khadijascaravan.com/turkomanpendant8.html

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Auto-horst
Sistrum
The sistrum was a sacred rattle, used in the worship of the Egyptian Great Goddess (Isis, Nephthys, or Hathor). the sound of its clattering
wires was said to dispel evil spirits, the same kind of magic later attributed to church bells in medieval Europe. It was decorated with various
designs, sometimes a head of the Goddess, sometimes a small phallus representing her consort.
Egyptian paintings show the sistrum not only in the hand of the Goddess herself, but also in the hands of her priestesses and other high
ranking women. Plutarch relates its many mystical meanings. The curved top stood for the orbit of the moon, presided over by a figure of the
Goddess in her cat form. The four rattles represented the four elements whereby she created the universe. Their sound indicated mingling of
the elements in the process of creation.
5
http://www.turkmenistan.gov.tm/people/pep_trad/2005/01-eng/120105-1_eng.htm
For example, the Turkmen women wore a special trapping, heykel (graven image), made in the shape of a quadrangular silver box incrusted
with cornelian. They believed that God protected those who wore a heykel on the left shoulder close to heart. In the heathen times the people
put a figurine of the deity they worshipped in the bag made of cloth. After introducing Islam, the people put a surah of the Quran in the
heykel. Until nowadays, the Turkmen old women put a surah of the Quran in their heykel. The jewellers made the heykel from glided silver
believing in purity of the precious metal. In the ancient times, the Turkmen jewellers without knowing physical and chemical nature of
precious stones and metals by intuition learned their qualities influencing the state of health and mood of the people who owned them. The
people believed that wearing the heykel on the left shoulder protected them, preserved purity of thoughts and stabilised blood pressure.

6
http://www.khadijascaravan.com/turkomanpendant25.html

http://www.khadijascaravan.com/turkomanpendant2.html

Dieter and Rienhold Schletzer discuss the symbolism of tumar amulets on p. 74:
 The Turkoman tumar is a type of pectoral jewelry or amulet. The etymology of the word tumar is interesting -- it can mean tree-trunk, a
roll, or generally a cylindrical object -- the root "tu" in certain tribes can mean mountain, or birth. Tumar pectoral jewelry consists of the
top "tumar" section -- the triangular mountain motif, and usually the middle "bozbend" tube, with its connotations of east to west
movement.

7
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
“Eye goddesses” of ancient Syria and Iberia placed great emphasis on this feature. At Tell Brak, they were carved in stone, often with eyes in
the center of the breasts. Perhaps they signify the “eye of life” that Sumerians, farther down the Euphrates, attributed to the goddess
Ninhursag.
http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/projects/tellbrak.html
Tell Brak Project
Well-stratified material has been recovered from private houses of the 4th to the 2nd millennium BC. A number of important shrines have
been identified, including the famous Eye Temple and in the Akkadian period the temples of Shamash and Shakkan. In the early second
millennium the shrine of the Lady of Nagar was the source of political authority in the Khabur area.
8
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/uroboros

The Ouroboros (also spelled Oroborus, Uroboros or Uroborus) is an ancient symbol depicting a snake or dragon swallowing its tail,
constantly creating itself and forming a circle. It is associated with alchemy, Gnosticism, and Hermeticism. It represents the cyclical nature of
things, eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. In some representations the serpent is
shown as half light and half dark, echoing symbols such as the Yin Yang, which illustrates the dual nature of all things, but
more importantly, that these opposites are not in conflict. In alchemy, the ouroboros symbolises the circular nature of the alchemist's opus
which unites the opposites: the conscious and unconscious mind. It is believed to have been inspired by the Milky Way, as some ancient texts
refer to a serpent of light residing in the heavens.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm
Moses was a renowned magician and prophet. He carried the staff of the serpent (Num 21:8), a characteristic of both god and Mercury, and
standard as the uraeus crowning the heads of Egyptian deities and pharoahs. The serpent staff of magic he received in the epiphany of the
burning bush (Exod 4:4) strengthens this association. The term law'iu or Levite means serpent. The leviathan only later, like Tiamat, became
the dark forces of the underworld, like the dark moon. The brazen serpent he bore before him, crafted by the Midianite miners, called
Nehustan was only destroyed many centuries later in the reign of Hezekiah. The costume of Levite priests included a crescent moon on the
headdress. The concept of the sabbath day is implicitly lunar. Briffault notes that the association between the serpent and the moon God is
common to Ur, Babylonian pictography and South Arabia (3/108).
Black and white ibises were illustrated by Jules-Cesar Lelorgne de Savigny, a founder of morphology. His book on the natural history of the
ibis notes that the white ibis, venerated for protecting their land from serpents never eats snakes. Ancient embalmers respected and
conserved the myth however, by placing snakes in the stomach cavities of the birds they mummified (Sci. Am. Sept 94).
A variety of archaeological, historical and mythological evidence from Egypt suggests Moses was a priest of the moon god Thoth associated
with the ibis the snake-killing sacred bird (Silver 74-81).
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/paradise.html
"...The Biblical tree symbol came from pre-Biblical Mesopotamian works, such as one showing a snake wrapped around the trunk of a tree,
identical to later portrayals of the snake in Eden. From the tree in the Mesopotamian depiction hang two pieces of fruit. To the right of the
tree is the half-moon symbol of Ea, to the left is the planet symbol of Anu." - William Bramley, The Gods of Eden
http://shedrums.com/Medusa.htm
The menstrual blood of the Serpent Goddess that could heal, kill, and even raise the dead is reflected in the twin serpents of Life and Death
twining about the winged staff (Caduceus) that is today the emblem of the medical profession. Her blood was given by Athena to the God of
Healing, Asklepius, whose daughter Hygeia, Goddess of Health was in classical times the guardian of the sacred serpents in the healing
temples.
Athena later gave to phials of Medusa’s blood to Asklepius, the God of Healing. It was said that blood from her right vein could cure and
restore life, and that the blood from her left vein could slay and kill instantly. Others say that Athena and Asklepius divided the blood
between them; he sued it to save lives, but she to destroy and instigate wars. In some traditions it was Athena’s serpent son Erichthonius to
whom she gave the blood to either kill or cure, and she fastened the phials to his body with golden bands. Athena’s dispensation of the
Gorgon blood to Asklepius and Erichthonius suggests the curative rites used in this cult were a secret guarded by priestesses, which it was
death to investigate. The Gorgon’s Head was a formal warning to priers to stay away.
The venom from the bite of certain snakes induced the hallucinatory state in which the oracular vision was revealed. The
Gorgon face, often red in color, held the secrets of the menstrual wise blood that gave women their divine healing powers. Certain primitive
tribes believed that the look of a menstruating woman could turn a man to stone, which links Medusa with the menstrual blood mysteries.
The blood that Persues took from Medusa could both heal and kill; it may originally have been her menstrual blood rather than blood from
the wound in her neck. The mask was also worn by priestesses in the sacred sexual rites to symbolize that they were acting not as individuals,
but as representatives of the Goddess, whom she empowered to transmit her blessings of healing and regeneration through ritual intercourse.
The prophylactic mask was also donned by the funerary priestesses, who initiated people into the mysteries of death. In later times to
possess a replica of a Gorgon’s Head was to be protected with a charm against ills that repelled the attack of harmful forces. It was believed
to be a protection against the evil eye, and was often depicted in shields, ovens, town walls, and buildings to frighten enemies and ward off
malicious spirits.
With the passage of time, Libyan refugees emigrated to Crete. They had brought with them their Serpent Goddess Anatha, and by 4000 BCE
she had become known as Athena, the protectress of the palace. Her worship was adopted and then passed on to mainland Greece and
Thrace in the Minoan/Mycenaen period.
Historical evidence points to the fact that Medusa was a high priestess of Africa who presided over Libyan tribes of Amazon warror women.
Dating from at least 6000 BCE, these fierce and noble African Amazons populated not only North Africa, but also Spain and Italy. The Greek
legends of Poseidon mating with Medusa, and Perseus slaying the Gorgon, derive from actual battles waged by the patriarchal Greek soldiers
against these warrior women from North Africa. The tribe against whom Perseus fought was a race called the Gorgons.
Buffie Johnson explains that hair stands for energy and fertility. On the head hair signifies higher spiritual forces, and below the waist it
indicates the fertilizing forces. When snakes replace the hair as they replace the Gorgon’s tresses, they represent the higher forces of
creation.
The serpent symbolizes the kundalini force coiled like a snake at the base of the spine that stand behind our sexual procreative energy. When
kundalini is activated, it rises up through the central spinal column, activating each charka in turn, and eventually comes out of the top of the
head as cosmic enlightenment. When Medusa’s hair is transformed into snakes, this symbolizes the rising of the kundalini and our ability to
utilize this force for regenerative healing, mental creativity, oracular wisdom, and spiritual power.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm
The Babylonian lunar calendar was said to be invented by Nabu-Rimmani (Walker 646). Nabu is the god of writing, who bears the tablets of
the gods and is identifiable with Mercury. Rimmon the pomegranate is a symbol of the enclosed fruit of the Yoni, thus also
representing phallic male fertility (Walker 805). Nabu is also the wise serpent (Graves 470), the soothsayer and prophet, who
knew and foresaw everything and was willing to give advice on any subject. The inventor of tablets and writing (Maspero 670). The
features of Sin as moon god and Lord of Wisdom naturally complement those of Nabu and they come to have a close relationship, personified
in Egypt in one god, Thoth.

The 'Temptation Seal' Akkadian circa 2200 BC (Wolkenstein and Kramer 3)

It is difficult to decide whether this is Sin (Naramsin) and Ningal (consort) performing the rite of the sacred tree as did Ur Nammu or
whether it is Inanna and Dumuzzi. The seven branched tree echoes the menorah, the serpent Nabu.
This diverging relationship between the Moon God and the Fertility Goddess becomes pivotal in understanding the breakdown in relations
between Yahweh and his Asherah later in Old Testament times. The Fall from Eden is specifically associated with the sacrificial cycle of
Inanna and Dumuzi. Dumuzi becomes the dying Adam, doomed to mortality by the original sin of Eve, in accepting the advice of the Serpent
and eating the Fruit. This re-fomented the link between male death and sex, the original sin of Eve, human sacrifice, which reverberated in
the vulnerable line of patriarchal inheritance. In the above cylinder seal we see the four key components of the Eden myth, Dumuzzi and the
Horned Inanna, the serpent and the seven-limbed Tree of Life from which the Menorah is derived, both reflected in the seven days of the
lunar week and the seven levels of the descent. The three days of the descent also represent the three days between the old and new moon.
Sin himself is the chythonic 'green one' (Briffault v3 90) and is threatened by the seven devils of the underworld (Green T 196).

9
Paine, Sheila. Amulets: A World of Secret Powers, Charms & Magic. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-28510-1. ‘Snakes & Fearful
Creatures’ p. 124, 125. This book contains many excellent images of Turkmen artefacts.
10
Fitzgibbon, Kate. Turkoman jewelry. This article appeared in Ornament magazine's Volume 22 Number 3, Spring 1999 issue. email
ornament@cts.com
11
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/scythian_bows.htm Fabulous website with bibio and links
http://www.athenapub.com/8goldnom.htm Exhibition of Scythian art, Lajos, Kassai. Horseback Archery. Hungary: Gyomai Kner Nyomda
Rt., 2002.
http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/archery.html Scythian archery
http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/wmnarmor.html Warrior women
http://www.afghan-network.net/Culture/old_balkh.html Lots of stuff about Bactria and Scythians.

12
Studies in Reflexivity, Journal of Neuroscience. http://www.neoscience.org/reflexiv.htm
* Foltz, Tanice G., and Wendy Griffin. 1996. She Changes Everything She Touches: Ethnographic Journeys of Self Discovery. In Composing
Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing, edited by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, pp. 301-330. Walnut Creek CA:
AltaMira Press.
* Hufford, David.1995. The Scholarly Voice and the Personal Voice: Reflexivity in Belief Studies. Western Folklore 54, 1:57-76.
* Monaghan, Patricia.2003. Partial Truth: Scholarly Narrative and Personal Voice. Paper presented at October Symposium: Margins,
Boundaries and Thresholds-- Creativity Across the Disciplines, Vermont College, Montpelier, VT, October 10, 2003.
* Salomonsen, Jone. 2002. Enchanted Feminism: Ritual, Gender and Divinity Among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. London ;
New York: Routledge.

13
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
In Samaria, Jeroboam installed the golden calves at Bethel and Dan 1 Kings 12:28 "Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves
of gold, and said "behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put
he in Dan. And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." As Gen
28:17 refers to Bethel as "the house of god" and "the Gate of Heaven", this is consistent with the worship of Yahweh as much as any Ba'al.
Afterwards Asa did have a partial removal of the idols, but they did not extnd to the high sanctuaries: 1 Kings 15:11 "And Asa did that which
was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his
fathers had made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa
destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the
LORD all his days."
However Azaz and returned the equilibrium to the syncretic worship of the nations: 2 Kings 16:2 "Ahaz ... did not that which was right in the
sight of the Lord his God... But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the
abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high
places, and on the hills, and under every green tree."
Bull 12 th - 5 th cent Palestine, Fertility Goddess plaques, one Hathor/Qadesh
Incense holder from Taanach, with symbols of Inanna and Hathor
surmounted by a radiant calf. Terracotta Asherah 11th - 6th cent BC. (Gadon, Pritchard 1954)
At Gezeh remains of sacrificed cows and bulls are found consistent with worship of Yaho and Hathor (Briffault 3/110). At Kuntillet in the
eighth century BC Yhwh gives a blessing with his Asherah, identified with Canaanite Athirat (McCarter 143). Among the Jews of Elephantine
as late as the fifth century B.C., Yahweh was associated with his goddess, and the names of the Elohim were blended, as Anath-Yahu
(Kraeling 88).

14
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
The Woman at the Window
Several Biblical episodes are aitions for ritual events in the worship of Adonis and the Queen of Heaven as Astarte or Aphrodite. One classic
ritual image is that of the Lady at the Window 'prospiciens' who, according to Ovid is turned to stone while looking out at the funeral
processionof her rejected lover. More traditionally she is a smiling Goddess Astarte with braided hair and jeweled headdress who may have
appeared as a statue in an opened window as part of the ritual of the mourning for Adonis. However the same Aprodite was also described as
a shooting star falling into the water and one who leapt from the Leucadian promontory after the death of Adonis (Smith R 373). There are
also associated with this rite haunting images of the death of the priestess of the Goddess. In the legend of the death of Dido who leaps from
the palace heights into a funeral pyre. Two episodes in the Old Testament specifically portray women at windows who look out to their doom,
Michal on David and Jezabell on Jehu (Robertson).
2 Sam 6:13 "And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. ... And as the ark of the LORD
came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and
she despised him in her heart. ... And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to
day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!
And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the
people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own
sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no
child unto the day of her death."
2 Kings 9:30 "And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a
window. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Had Zimri peace, who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window, and
said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and
some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink,
and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of
her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands." One shoud note that, Ahab Jezabel's husband was a strong king while Jehu is
depicted fawning in tribute at the feet of the Assyrian king.

Obelisk of Shalmaneser king of Assyria (828-814 BC) showing Jehu kissing his feet. This man who exterminated the seventy sons of Ahab,
the forty-two sons of Ahaziah, a 'great multitude' of the followers of Ba'al, and had Jezebel thrown into the street ffrom an upstairs window,
trampled by horses and devoured by dogs did not protect Israel but bowed to the Assyrian yoke (Contineau). Josiah raped the sanctuaries
and within two deades Israel was taken into exile in Babylon. Not a good track record for the Yahweh-only movement's firebrand against the
feminine.
Jeremiah 44:16 notes the continuing popularity of the Queen: "As for the word thou hast unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not harken
unto thee. But we will certainly do whatever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the Queen of Heaven, and to pour
out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of
Jerusalem: for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven,
and poured out drink offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by the famine. And when we
burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we alone make her cakes or worship her or pour out drink
offerings to her, without our menfolk?"
His next passage in 7:15 is prophetic of what is to come. "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to
pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not
provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured
out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall
not be quenched."
Deut 12:1: "These are the statutes and judgements ... Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye possessed served
their gods, upon the mountain and on the high hills and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their alters and break their pillars
and burn their groves with fire ... But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes ... thither thou shalt come. ....
Take heed of thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest, but in the place the Lord shall choose in any one of
thy tribes." What is significant here is that Deuteronomy 12 confirms its identity as the concealed text in its specific concurrence with these
invections against the Asherah. What is also clear is that it is this Yahweh-only tract which has declared Judaism in the ending of the Hebrew
practice of small shrines and tabernacles dotted throughout the towns and countryside from time immemorial. It is thus clear that the
Ashaerah was a Hebrew goddess of the many shrines and not simply an alien Canaanite entity as some modern Jewish commentators
endeavor to make out.
Ezekiel writing during the exile laments at the things he suspects are going on back home in the temple: 8 1 "And I beheld and lo a likeness as
the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his loins even downward fire; and from his loins even upward as the appearance of brightness,
as the colour of amber. And behold the glory of the god of Israel was there. Then I lifted my eyes ... and behold at the gate of the altar was the
image of jealousy. Son of man seest thou what they do? even the grear abominations that the house of Israel do here that I should go far from
my sanctuary? In the temple 'he saw every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and the idols of the house of Isra-el portrayed on
the wall round about... and there stood before them seventy men of the ancients... and a thick cloud of incense went up.' At the north door
'there sat women weeping for Tammuz' ... and in between the porch and the altar 'five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple
facing the east and they worshipped the sun... Therefore shall I deal in fury : mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. '
He continues in this vein concerning cultural pollution 20 27: "Your fathers have blasphemed me...For when I had brought them into the
land, for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill and all the thick trees, and they offered there their
sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering; there they made also their sweet savour and poured out their drink
offerings... Wherefore say unto the house of Israel Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their
abominations?
Later in chapter 23 he relates the dowfall of such women: "there were two women, the daughters of one mother [Aholah of Samaria and
Aholibah of Jerusalem]: and they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts
pressed and they bruised the teats of their virginity ... and poured their whoredom on her ... And Aholah played the harlot when she was
mine; and she doted on her lovers, the assyrians and her neighbours, which were clothed with blue ... with all their idols she defiled herself,
neither she left her whoredoms brought from Egypt ... And Aholibah sent messages unto them in Chaldea ... and the Babylonians came to her
in the bed of love... therefore I will bring [thy lovers] against thee on every side ... because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen and
because thou art polluted with their idols... and with the men of a common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put
bracelets on their hands, and beautiful crowns on their heads ... and so they went in".
Josephus tells us that in his day many monuments of Abraham were at Hebron and that six furlongs from the town grew a very large
terebinth which was said to have stood there since the foundation of the world. Eusebus confirms this stood until the 4 th century AD. The
middle of Abraham's three guests Eusebius identified with Jesus himself. All three angels were worshipped by the local people. Constantine
wrote to him stating "The place which is called 'at the oak of Mamre' where we learn that Abraham had his home is said to be polluted by
certain superstitious persons in various ways ; for it is reported that most damnable idols are set up beside it and an altar stands hard by and
that unclean sacrifices are constantly offered". "There every year a famous festival is still held by the people of the neighbourhood as well as
the inhabitants of the more distant parts of Palestine and by the Phoenicians and Arabians. Very many also assemble for trade, to buy and
sell; for everyone sets great store on the festival.
The Jews do so because they pride themselves in Abraham as their founder; the Greeks do so on account of the visit of the angels; the
Christians do so because there appeared at that time to the pious man One who in after ages made himself manifest to the Virgin. ... and all of
them here refrain from women ... although the women beautify and adorn their persons and show themselves freely ... for there is no lewd
conduct though the sexes camp together and sleep promiscuously. No water is drawn from the well for some set lamps there , pour wine or
cakes money, perfumes or incense.
Thus it appears that at Hebron an old heathen worship of the sacred tree and the sacred well survived in full force down to the establishment
of Christianity. After the Jewish war and the last seige and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

15
http://www.gateserver.net/Topicdetails.aspx?Topicid=42814&name=&catid=105&topicname=Cybele
Some ecstatic followers of Cybele, know in Rome as galli, willingly castrated themselves in imitation of Attis. For Roman devotes of Cybele
Mater Magna who were not prepared to go so far, the testicles of a bull, one of the Great Mother's sacred animals, were an acceptable
substitute, as many inscriptions show. An inscription of AD 160 records that a certain Carpus had transported bull's testes from Rome to
Cybele's shrine at Lyon, France.
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/no_4_attis_cybele.htm
Cybele's most solemn ritual was the Taurobolium, a sacrifice of a bull, like Mithras's. The blood flowed through the slats of the sacrificial
platform. The initiate standing below thereby became "born again". People who could not afford a bull made do with a sheep and so were
"washed in the blood of the lamb".
http://www.gateserver.net/Topicdetails.aspx?Topicid=42814&name=&catid=105&topicname=Cybele
Cybele's Anatolian origins probably predate the Bronze Age. A figurine found at Catal Huyuk|Çatal Hüyük, (Archaeological Museum,
Ankara), dating about 6th millennium BC|6000, depicts the corpulent and fertile Mother Goddess, in the process of giving birth while seated
on her throne, which has two handrests in the form of lion's heads. At her shrine at Çatal Hüyük she was depicted with the mural crown that
promised she could be a protector of cities. In the 2nd millennium BC Cybele was known to the Hittites and Hurrians as Kubaba. In Phrygia
Rhea/Cybele was venerated as Agdistis, with a temple at the great trading city Pessinos, mentioned by the geographer Strabo. It was at
Pessinos that her son and lover Attis was about to wed the daughter of the king, when Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her awesome glory, and he
castrated himself. In Archaic Phrygian images of Cybele, her typical representation is in the figuration of a building’s façade, standing in the
doorway. The façade itself can be related to the rock-cut monuments of the highlands of Phrygia. She is wearing a belted long dress, a head
polos (high cylindrical hat), and a veil covering the whole body. In Phrygia, her usual attributes are the bird of prey and a small vase. Lions
are sometimes related to her, in a aggressive but tamed manner. Later, the sculptor Agoracritos, a pupil of Pheidias produced a version of
Cybele that became the standard one. It showed her still seated on a throne but now more decorous and matronly, her hand resting on the
neck of a perfectly still lion and the other holding the circular frame drum, like a tambourine, (tymbalon or tympanon), which evokes the full
moon and is covered with the hide of the sacred lunar bull.
16
http://www.livius.org/cao-caz/carthage/carthage.html

17
Asgabat. Turkmen Jewellery. Turkendowlethabarlary, 2003. ISBN 5-7270-0101-3
18
Korfmann, Manfred. - Dietrich Mannsperger, Troia, Homer, die Ilias und die Folgen (Istanbul 1992)
Korfmann, Manfred & Studenten, Ein Rundgang in Troia (Istanbul 1992)
19
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/17/wwiz17.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/03/17/ixworld.html
http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objectId=15&lang=en
20
http://www.archlsa.de/sterne/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2207297
21
http://www.archaeologiemuseum.it/f01_ice_uk.html
References:1 Allison., M. J. 1996. Early mummies from coastal Peru and Chile. In The Man in the Ice, Volume 3: Human Mummies, K.
Spindler, H. Wilfing, E. Rastbichler-Zissernig, D. zur Nedden, H. Nothdurfter (eds.), pp. 125-129.2 Dorfer, L., Moser, M., Spindler, K., Bahr,
E, Egarter-Vigl, E., and Dohr, G. 1998.
5200-Year- Old Acupuncture in Central Europe? Science 282:242-243.3 Zur Nedden, D., and Wicke, K. 1992.
The Similaun Mummy as Observed from the Viewpoint of Radiological and CT Data. In Der Mann im Eis, Vol. 1, E Höpfel, W. Platzer, K.
Spindler, (eds.), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria, pp. 131-148.4 Aspöck, H., Auer, H., and Picher, O. 1996.
Trichuris trÉhiura Eggs in the Neolithic Glacier Mummy from the Alps. Parasitology Today 12(I):255-256.50eggl, J. 1998. Oral
communication, University of Innsbruck, Austria.6 Bahr, E, Dorfer, L., and Suwanda, S. 1998.
Expert opinion concerning the tattoos in the Tyrolean Iceman.7 Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing Colleges of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
1980. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing.
22
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/needham-anthony.html
…certain marine animals were subject to a lunar cycle, increasing and decreasing in size as the moon waxed and waned…Aristotle said exactly
the same thing…the point to be emphasised here is that, although the many fragments which went into the composition of the Lu Shih Chhun
Chhiu cannot be exactly dated, most of them are to be attributed to just after the time of Aristotle himself, i.e. the late - 4th and early - 3rd
centuries. Aristotle's statements refer to the sea-urchin, and have been confirmed in our own time, but the question immediately presents
itself, what could be the relation between two such observations at the opposite ends of Asia appearing simultaneously? Could the
observations have been independently made by Greek and Chinese fishermen? Or is it conceivable that a Greek-speaking Scyth might have
conversed with a Chinese-speaking Hun about such matters, so that a rapid transfer of the idea took place over thousands of miles among
peoples who had never even seen the sea? The latter possibility is difficult to believe.
23
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/NearEast/hiebert-seal.shtml
Documenting the exciting discovery of an unknown ancient language in Turkmenistan.

Bronze-Age Stamp discovered by Dr. Hiebert's excavations in Turkmenistan.

24
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/17/wwiz17.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/03/17/ixworld.html
http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objectId=15&lang=en
25
http://www.livius.org/man-md/margiana/margiana.html
26
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_influence_on_greece5.php
Conclusion - In the fields of architecture and politics, the Athenians of the fifth century BCE copied several Persian innovations. In the
branch of architecture, this happened in two ways: practical and ideological. The first of these can be found in the production and elaborating
of rhytons, but also in the building of the Odeon and the Prytaneum. A Persian tent (and therefore a Persian architectural style) was used
when the city was rebuilt and offered space for cultural and political activities. At the same time, they offered proof of the Athenian victory in
war.
The second type of emulation can be found in the Parthenon frieze and the caryatids. The difference is twofold: in the first place, the
caryatids and the frieze are not based on something tangible like rhyta or tents; in the second place, not only a from, but also a general idea
are copied. In the Parthenon frieze, the Persian ideal of "unity under the king" has been "translated" to Greece. The image and idea were
adapted to Greek tastes, which made the work of art more accessible. In the caryatids, the original image (a bull or a feline) has been ignored
and only the essence, the general idea, is copied - to women. Apparently, the Greeks found women better motifs to show subjection than
animals.
Summing all up, a case can be made for the existence of Persian influence on Greek art. The same can be said for politics. The Athenians and
Persians both were masters of the Greek towns in Ionia, and since the Athenians had no experience in ruling an empire (whereas the Persians
stood in a long tradition), they copied Persian measures. Therefore, they copied the tribute system, organized their navy like their enemies
did, and appointed episcopi to control the subject towns.
It was the obvious thing to do. After all, it is sound policy to make use of knowledge developed by others. Nineteenth-century European
historians, however, have often ignored the Persian contribution to Greek culture. They believed in a "Greek miracle" and were unable to
conceptualize oriental influences. (They had more or less the same perspective on European history, which had developed -in their view-
autonomously.) Cultural contacts were ignored. Today, in a world in which cross-fertilization and clashes between cultures can no longer be
ignored, scholars are more interested in cultural contacts. This perspective does more justice to the complexities that existed when two
cultures encountered each other.
L. Schofield, 'The influence of Eastern religions on the iconography of ivory and bone objects in the Kameiros well' in J.L. Fitton (ed.), Ivory
in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period, British Museum Occasional Paper 85 (1992).
The Orientalizing revolution, Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early Archaic age. Harvard University press, London. 1992. 225
pages.
Negbi Ora (1988): "Levantine elements in the sacred architecture of the Aegean at the close of the Bronze Age". ABSA 83, 339-357.
Charles Penglase (1994): Greek myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influences in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod. Routledge, London.
278 pages.
David Ridgway (1994): "Phoenicians and Greeks in the West: a view from Pithekoussai". In: The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. (Eds:
Gocha R. Tsetskhladze; Franco De Angelis) 35-46.
Gocha R. Tsetskhladze; Franco De Angelis (Eds.) (1994): The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman.
Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Oxford. 149 pages.
William A. Ward (Ed.) (1968): The role of the Phoenicians in the interaction of Mediterranean Civilizations. Papers presented to the
Archaeological Symposium at the American University of Beirut; March, 1967. The American University of Beirut, Beirut. 152 pages.
http://www.gateserver.net/Topicdetails.aspx?Topicid=42814&name=&catid=105&topicname=Cybele
The geographer Strabo (book x, 3:18) made some useful observations: :"Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable
to things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites ... the Phrygian [rites of Rhea-Cybele are
mentioned] by Demosthenes, when he casts the reproach upon Aeskhines' mother and Aeskhines himself, that he was with her when she
conducted initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march, and that many a time he cried out ''evoe saboe,'' and ''hyes attes,
attes hyes''; for these words are in the ritual of Sabazios and the Mother [Rhea]." In Alexandria, Cybele was worshipped by the Greek
population as "The Mother of the Gods, the Savior who Hears our Prayers" and as "The Mother of the Gods, the Accessible One." Ephesus,
one of the major trading centers of the area, was devoted to Cybele as early the 10th century BC, and the city's ecstatic celebration, the
Ephesia, honored her. The goddess was not welcome among the patriarchal Scythians north of Thrace. From Herodotus (4.76-7) we learn
that the Scythian Anacharsis (6th century BC), after traveling among the Greeks and acquiring vast knowledge, was put to death by his fellow
Scythians for attempting to introduce the foreign cult of Magna Mater.
27
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_z1b.html
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander00.html
Bosworth, A. B. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge University Press,1988. ISBN: 0521343208
Bosworth, A.B. A Historical Commentary on Arrian's History of Alexander. Oxford University Press. 1985. ISBN: 0198148283
Brown, J. Carter, The Search for Alexander, Little, Brown and Co., Mass, 1980.
Engels, Donald W. Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. University California Press. 1981. ISBN: 0520042727
Fox , Robin Lane. Alexander The Great. 1994. ISBN: 0140088784
Grant, Michael, From Alexander to Cleopatra, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1982.
Green, P. Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography. University of California Press. ISBN: 0520071662
Heckel, W. Quintus Curtius Rufus: The History of Alexander. Penguin USA. 1980. ISBN: 0140444122
Pollitt, J.J. On the art of Alexander's Age: Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge University Press. 1986. ISBN: 0521276721
Stoneman, R. (trans). On the legend in art and literature: The Greek Alexander Romance. Penguin Classics, 1991. ISBN: 0140445609
Wood, Michael. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. BBC Books. 2004. ISBN: 0563521937.
28
Leeming, David Adams. Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero ("Gilgamesh: Sumerian-Babylonian".
Van Nortwick, Thomas. Somewhere I Have Never Traveled: The Hero's Journey (Chap. 1 "The Wild Man: The Epic of Gilgamesh").
Abusch, Tzvi. “The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay”. In The Journal of the American Oriental
Society.
Finkel, Irving. The Hero King Gilgamesh Looking at Myths and Legends. McGraw-Hill. 1995. ISBN: 0844247014
Harris, Rivkah, and NetLibrary Inc. Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia the Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Jager, Bernd. “The Birth of Poetry and the Creation of a Human World: An Exploration of The Epic of Gilgamesh.” In Journal of
Phenomenological Psychology.
Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. The Epic of Gilgamesh.
29
What the Ancients Did For Us – Mesopotamia. OU/ BBC.
http://www.open2.net/whattheancients/mesopotamians.html
30
http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/volumeonenumberone/sheba.html
Diana Pickworth, Visiting Scholar, University of California at Berkeley, Dept. Near Eastern Studies.
31
W. D. Glanzman, "Digging Deeper: The Results Of The First Season Of Activities Of The AFSM On The Mahram Bilqīs, Mārib",
Proceedings Of The Seminar For Arabian Studies, 1998, Volume 28, pp. 89-104.
W. D. Glanzman, "Clarifying The Record: The Bayt Awwām Revisited", Proceedings Of The Seminar For Arabian Studies, 1999, Volume 29,
pp. 73-88.
B. J. Moorman, W. D. Glanzman, J-M. Maillol & A. L. Lyttle, "Imaging Beneath The Surface At Mahram Bilqīs", Proceedings Of The Seminar
For Arabian Studies, 2001, Volume 31, pp. 179-187.
32
http://www.kusadasi.biz/goddess-artemis.asp
Known as a fierce hunter as well as protector, Artemis is known as the goddess of the night, the huntress, the goddess of fruitfulness, the
goddess of childbirth, Lady of the Beasts, the woodland goddess, the bull goddess, the personification of the moon, and the eternal virgin.
Artemis was one of the few goddesses immune to the enchantments of Aphrodite. As a huntress, she happily traveled in woods in the
company of dogs, wild beasts, and mountain nymphs. She brought about Orion's death, the unfortunate hunter, who either defied the
goddess, or else tried to seduce one of her companions, the virgin Opis, or perhaps attempted to personally ravish her. Artemis sent a
scorpion to sting his heel, and thus killed him. But when Orion was subsequently changed into a constellation, Artemis made sure the
scorpion received the same honor.
The Greek goddess, Artemis, is said to be the daughter of Zeus and Leto. She is the supposed twin sister of Apollo in most accounts. However,
in more ancient traditions it was recounted that Artemis was the mid-wife for the birth of Apollo and his twin sister. Artemis is one of the
prominent goddesses, and the lore that surrounds her is as colorful as she was proclaimed to be. Another hunter, Actaeon, met his death
because of a curse by the goddess. Acteon was the son of Aristaeus, and on his father's side, the grandson of Apollo. On day, when hunting
with his dogs in the mountains, he came across the goddess bathing naked in a stream. The goddess turned him into a stag; his dogs no
longer recognizing him, tore him to pieces. In an older version a hunter in a stag's pelt approached the goddess.
The Goddess Artemis – the second image clearly shows where the popular image for the devil originated.
Artemis sometimes wore the frightful mask of Gorgon on her neck, she was one of the goddesses over whom Aphrodite had no power.
Oeneus, the king of Calydon, once forgot to sacrifice his first crops to Artemis, as custom dictated. This provoked her wrath, and she sent a
monstrous boar to ravage his fields; a great hunt was organized and during it the hero Meleager was killed…One day, while waiting at Aulis
with the entire Achaean army for favorable winds in order to set sail for Troy, Agamemnon happened to kill a stag so expertly that he cried,
"Artemis could have done it no better." Artemis resented his boastful claim, and prolonged the stilled winds so the entire fleet could not sail.
Teiresias, the soothsayer, discovered the cause of this setback, and told Agamemnon that the goddess required him to sacrifice
Iphigeneia, his own daughter*, and in return she would remove the difficulties in his way. But at the last minute, on the sacrificial altar,
she substituted a hind in place of Iphigeneia, and took the girl to the country of the Tauri (Crimea); where she made her a priestess in a cult
that practiced in her honor. A legend says that the giant Tityos attacked Leto on her way to Delphi, he was slain either by a shaft of Artemis or
by a blow by Apollo. Odysseus reported seeing the offender in Hades where he was chained and two vultures picked ceaselessly at his liver.
Another story describes how Artemis took revenge on the children of Niobe. Niobe was the daughter of Tanthais, and she had borne Amphion
of Thebes, seven sons of seven daughters. In her happiness and pride she said one day that she was better than Leto, who had but one son
and one daughter. Leto took offense and asked her children to punish this insolent mother. Apollo killed the seven boys with his arrows, and
Artemis likewise slew the seven girls. Niobe, who in despair fled to her father on Mount Siplyon in Asia Minor, was turned into a rock; and
from this rock issued a stream formed by her ceaseless tears. In Asia Minor Artemis was the object of a cult very different from that on the
mainland. A sanctuary was dedicated to her at Ephesus, where her temple was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This
temple was thought to have been built by the Amazons, a race of warlike women, living by the river Thermodon. There are
several stories concerning the life led by the Amazons, of whom Artemis, the virgin huntress, appeared to be their protectress. However, the
legends of Artemis of Ephesus seem to relate to her pre-Grecian origins. She was a fertility goddess; called Mistress of Wild Beasts, who was
said to have suckled the young of every creature that roamed the forest. Artemis' Roman counterpart was Diana.
*A reference to human sacrifice – it is near certain that the goddesses of the Near East demanded human sacrifice, young boys were still
being sacrificed at the Temple of Kali in Calcutta as recently as 200 years ago, some say it still continues secretly.
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/Dict/ASP/OpenDictionary.asp?name=Artemis.html

33
Erdemgil, Selahattin. Ephesus, Museum Guidebook. text by, Archaeologist, Director of Ephesus Museum. (6). 1986.
Gokovali, Sadan, EPHESUS, Ticaret Matbaacilik, Izmir, Turkey.
Banthell, E.E. Jr. Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece. University of Miami Press, Florida. 1971. 416 pages.
Conkey, Margaret W. and Tringham, Ruth E. 'Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology' in Domna,
Stanton, C. and Stewart, Abigail J. (eds). Feminisms in the Academy. University of Michigan Press. 1995.
Helmut Koester, ed., Ephesos metropolis of Asia: an interdisciplinary approach to its archaeology, religion, and culture (Valley Forge, Pa.:
Trinity Press International, 1995)
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/cities/turkey/ephesus/ephesus.html
J.T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus (1877).
D.G. Hogarth , eds., Excavations at Ephesus (1908).
Bammer, A. Das Heiligtum der Artemis von Ephesos (1984).
Bammer, A. Muss, U. Das Artemision von Ephesos, Sonderh. AW 20 (1996).
Bammer, A. Sanctuaries in the Artemision of Ephesos, in: R. Hägg , eds., Ancient Greek Cult Practise from the Archaeological Evidence,
OpAth 15, 1998, 227 ff.
34
http://www.tourism-sport.gov.tm/en/articles/geograph/_nokhur.html
In the east, the legend about nine peries is widely spread — the mythical girls of paradise, sent by Allah to the earth for people to learn true
cleanliness and the beauty of heaven. This legend is so popular in the Asian countries, that, for example, in Turkmenistan a lot of sacred
places are connected to the legend. These sacred places attract constant pilgrims, who respect these sacred girls. Undoubtedly, that
monolatry to Goddis in the East is an echo of the archaic ancient cults belonging to matriarchal times. Thus, the legend about peri is a
reflection of heathenism, tincturing with tender romantic colour the Muslim sacred legend. Besides that, the monolatry to peri is a homage
not to a women, but to a heavenly angel. As the legend narrates, the names of peri were: Pa-ray-bibi, Niyaz-bibii Nur-bibi, Gul-bibi, Merjen-
bibi, Sara-bibi, Soltan-bibi, Uz-bibi. These names even today remain the most popular for girls in Turkmenistan, and the addition to each
name -«bibi» is a sign of a special respect. However, the central figure among these nine heavenly sacred was Gyz-bibi, who was the eldest
among the nine peri-sisters, and her name was especially respected by Turkmen. There are some sacred places connected with this name, for
example, Gyz-bibi Mausoleum in Merv (modern Bayramali city), pilgrimage sites in lolotan, Kaka, Turkmenabat. Also in Nohur there are two
further sacred places located, which are connected with peri. Cave Soltan-bibi in Konegala^ («the Old fortress») in Ay-dere gorge and Uz-bibi
cave, in the Imarat village of place Garrygala, in the Kozly mountains (Orekhoviye). However, the most famous among them is Gyz-bibi cave
in Nohur. This mountain area of Turkmenistan was considered from antiquity as highly sacred. The natural beauty of Nohur is extraordinary
and exclusive. Unique flowers and grasses grow here, medical qualities of which were known even by ancient Greeks and Romans, rare birds
and animals can be met here; mountain springs are born here, which have really fantastic medical power.
As it is known, inhabitants of Nohur, connect the name of their land with the name of bible patriarch Noah, whose ship was crushed on the
mountain of Manaman in times immemorial which is translated as «Men»-1, «Aman»-safe. Generally in Nohur there are numerous places
which are named by the names of an ancient bible prophets, for example, Shiyis gorge - last son of Adam and of the first prophet after him;
and Jirjis, the prophet, chopped up to pieces. Also under another version it is considered, that the name Nohur is descended from the
grandfather Abraham — Nohur, the first of Noah’s children born after the Flood, as a memory to the mountain on which Noah’s ark washed
up, translation of «noh» — Noah, «ur» -crush (the Koran, sura Merriam 19, ayat 47).
But there is also an opinion, that Nohur is descended from the name of peri, because «no» means nine, and «hur» — peri, and it is
considered, that nine heavenly ambassadresses were sent by God specifically to Nohur, and only after pursuit they had to run to the different
locations. Allah promised them that the road to Paradise will be opened through the Gyz-bibi cave in Nohur. So, we come back again to nine
wonderful heaven girls, who were always associated with angels — ambassadresses of Allah. So, peri are already on the earth, they preach a
true Word about good and peace, sent by Allah. The elder sister selects Nohur for a place of sermonizing; people are coming to her, finding
belief and hope. However, peri also have enemies, who pursue her during bad times. And when Gyz-bibi loses her strength and understands
that she is threatened with danger of death, she addresses God, asking God to open the stone monolith of Manaman, nicknamed among
people «Kokh» — huge. The cave opens in front of her and peri enters the mountain, which becomes her cloister, her things and animals
change into stone. These sculptures created by nature, for a long time were the decoration of a sacred place, but, unfortunately, they were
destroyed by heavy streams of water during hard rain. From this moment the cave in Kokh-Manaman rock, located near the settlement
Garry-Nohur in Baharden etrap of Akhal velayat becomes a sacred place, where pilgrims constantly come to bow to peri and ask her for
protection and help. People think that if you make a request to Gyz-bibi purely and sincerely, she will surely help. Gyz-bibi cave is very small
in size, but Nohur people say it used to be wider, and after several earthquakes it has been decreased. But the most wonderful thing is at the
centre of the cave is an entrance hole of a vein of marble. That is why, it is possible to imagine, that somewhere in deepness of the mountain
there is a magnificent marble corridor covered with fantastically beautiful carpets decorated, guiding to Paradise. Many inhabitants of Nohur
believe that Gyz-bibi constantly appears among people. For example, people tell about inhabitants of Nohur, which have visited Gyz-bibi, and
have brought as a gift of their Paradise grapes and pomegranates, which at peri’s willing should be planted in the gorges of Nohur. As a
confirmation of this, we can see in Nohur wild-growing pomegranate and grape groves. Another story tells of a woman who was living during
World War, Orazjemal Khojakulieva, who treated people and could foretell the future. As she asserted, Gyz-bibi helped her. Peri from the
east fairy tale, which became for many people comforter and protector before God was embodied in a sacred cult. People come to her with
prayers for treatment from illness, for granting the pleasure of motherhood, for peace and happiness. Here is carried out sadaka — sacrifice;
competitions and national holidays are arranged; girls sing their songs. A little below the cave, the ancient chinar tree is growing, which was
always sacred among Turkmen. Its twigs are covered with small ribbons, symbolizing monolatry and prayer. Gyz-bibi remains on the earth,
near to her people. © 2001-2003 State committee of Turkmenistan for tourism and sport
This story not only confirms the Turkmen link to Noah but also substantiates the ancient tradition of goddess worship in the spirit of
Asherah, as mentioned in the Bible and in the book ‘The Hebrew Goddess’.
Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess. Discus/Avon NY, 1978.
The Hebrew Goddess (ISBN 0-8143-2271-9) is a 1967 book by Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai. In this book, Patai argues
that the Jewish religion has historically had elements of polytheism, above all in the worship of goddesses and a cult of the mother goddess.
The book uses a combination of archaeological and textual evidence for veneration of feminine beings. Hebrew "goddesses" identified in the
book include Asherah, Lilith, the cherubim in Solomon's Temple, and the Shekhina.

http://members.lycos.nl/Kerkuk/ITP.html
In Zent-Avesta and Old Testament, the grandchild of the prophet Noah is called "Turk". Turac or Tur was the son of a ruler in Avesta, which
was reported as a tribe named Turk.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/mayjune96/kanehbosm.html
The Scythian Connection - Given that the Scythians and Israelites were involved in a trade of goods and knowledge, it is not surprising to find
the similar technique of using tents to retain smoke. Benet commented on the often overlooked connections between these two groups. The
Scythians participated in both trade and wars alongside the ancient Semites for at least one millennium before Herodotus encountered them
in the fifth century BC. The reason for the confusion and relative obscurity of the role played by the Scythians in world history is the fact that
they were known to the Greeks as Scythians but to the Semites as Ashkenaz. The earliest reference to the Ashkenaz people appears in the
Bible in Genesis 10:3, where Ashkenaz, their progenitor, is named the son of Gomer, the great-grandson of Noah.
http://www.dr-fnlee.org/docs6/cl/cl03/cl03.pdf
Genesis 9:27 to 10:5. Dr. Parsons says it is recorded of the original Irish in the ancient Psalter of Cashel that they began their genealogy from
Lamech the father of Noah. Genesis 5:28f. It is from Magog the grandson of Noah that the Scythian kings and heroes are derived. Cf.
Genesis 10:1-2f. There arose, according to this Ancient Irish Magogian history, a variety of tongues from the building of Babel by the Hamitic
sons of Nimrod. Genesis 10:8-12& 11:1-9. While they were busied about this tower, the fili or 'wise men' of Ancient Ireland say that Heber
from the family of Shem admonished men against such an enterprise, and himself refused to join in. Heber, for his pious behaviour upon this
occasion, had his language preserved pure in his family say these records of Ancient Ireland. Cf. Genesis 9:27f; 10:1-5; 10:25; 11:9-17. Finusa
the Scythian monarch of Ancient Ireland, from his desire to attain the language of Heber, sent out several learned men to accomplish that
noble design. He also commanded them to instruct the Scythian youths of Ancient Ireland. Dr. Parsons further explains that the Scythian
philosophers mentioned in Irish records always had corresponded with the Gomerian sages the druids even from the time of Japheth. The
worship of God was untainted in Britain and Ireland then, even many ages after its adulteration elsewhere. In Ireland, some centuries before
Christ, was Conla. He wrote the history of the whole system of the druids. The druids of Britain and of the Continent never committed their
mysteries to writing, but taught their pupils from memory. On the other hand those of Ireland, the Scotic druids, wrote theirs but in
characters different from the common mode of writing. Those descendants of Magog on the northwestern edges and those also of Gomer on
the southwestern edges of the European Continent, then travelled yet further westward. They kept their original Celtic languages
uncorrupted, also in their ultimate residence in Britain and Ireland. They also kept pure their worship of the true God for many centuries in
both places. They long continued to worship the true God in those kingdoms of Britain and Ireland as is recorded in the Annals of
Ireland.#19# S. O'Grady's History of Ireland describes#20# these Scythians as being tall, fairhaired and blue eyed. Southern European
Russia was the vast nest of that fairhaired race. In strong pulsations, those great Celtic migrations were jetted forth. The Scythian flood was
pouring through Germany into France and through Scandinavia and the Baltic into the British Isles. >From the Scythian stock, branches
shot forth over Europe: namely the Cymri, the Gaels, and the Teutons. The Celts were the foremost wave of that great Scythian tide which
swept westward across Europe. There is not a product of the human mind in existence so extraordinary as the Annals of Ireland. For in
them, from a time dating more than two thousand years before the birth of Christ, the stream of Irish history flows down uninterruptedly.
ADD REFERENCE BOOKS FOR THIS ARTICLE

35
Pitman, Walter C. and William B. F. Ryan. Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History. Simon &
Schuster. 1999.
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/story9_1.html
36
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060530flood.htm
May 30, 2006The Flood from Heaven

The legend of the flood is one of the best known and most appealing genres of myth. During the past few centuries, missionaries and
anthropologists have collected hundreds of versions from all parts of the world. Even Africa and Australia, long thought to lack proper
parallels to the deluge of Noah, have now been shown to have their share.
Not all flood myths need to be related nor do they have to refer to the same event. What can be demonstrated, however, is that the earliest
attested versions, originating in the ancient Near-East, derive from a common source and form a true literary tradition. These include the
famous Greek myth of Deucalion, the Jewish account of Noah, and the Mesopotamian myths of Ut-Napishtim, Ziusudra, and Atrahasis. The
Old-Babylonian clay tablet shown above, which is held in the British Museum in London, tells the story of Atrahasis, dated to 1635 BCE in the
conventional chronology.
When dealing with flood myths, one must tread with great care and not leap to conclusions. There is a good possibility that at least some
variations commemorate local floods of the kind that sometimes occur when earthquakes or tsunamis strike. Nevertheless, the myths that
speak of a universal inundation tend to relate to the cosmic axis in the centre of the world, a feature rarely if ever explored in the existing
literature.
This connection takes essentially two forms. A large class of myths portray the axis – in its familiar symbolic forms as a world mountain, a
cosmic tree, and so on – as the hero's place of refuge. An unambiguous example is the Greek Deucalion, whose ship safely lands on Mount
Parnassus. It is no coincidence that Parnassus was also the celebrated 'navel of the earth'. According to another group of myths the waters of
the flood poured forth when the axis was uprooted or displaced. This motif is particularly common in South-America. The Makiritare of
Venezuela, for instance, recall the giant tree Marahuaka, that grew upside down with its roots in the sky. When it was cut down, the flood
ensued.
Such clues indicate that a large segment of flood myths may belong to the complex mythology of the axis mundi. As argued on these pages,
the referent of these 'axis myths' was a stupendous high-energy plasma discharge tube with a semi-permanent character, whose existence
was terminated amid catastrophic circumstances. If this model is right and the outburst of the flood had something to do with the disruption
of this plasma column, one might contemplate the possibility that the water of the flood was not actually water, but a symbolic expression of
glowing plasma.
Far-fetched as this may sound at first, this assumption would actually clarify various issues. Commentators have often noted that, in many
myths, the flood comes down from the sky. Unless we are to resurrect the antiquated idea of 'watery comets' discharging their wet burden,
such assertions do not make much sense. Apart from that, a significant number of flood myths insist that the water was no ordinary water,
but a different substance – hot and fiery. Jewish legend had it that the rain was hot, scalding the skin of the sinners. The Makah of
Washington, the Quileute, the Chimakum, the Salinan of California and the Ipurina of Brazilian Amazonia agreed that the earth was
overwhelmed by a hot flood coming down from the sky. This intriguing lead does not seem to have been followed by any specialists in the
field, but the image of an outburst of 'fire-water' certainly reminds one of a return to chaos, in which water and fire were commingled into a
single substance.
The recurrent links of the flood with the world axis and an outflow of 'fire-water' spur a renewed examination of this fascinating body of
folklore,
Contributed by Rens van der Sluijs, Copyright 2006: thunderbolts.info

37
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html
38
Abusch, Tzvi. “The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay”. In The Journal of the American Oriental
Society.
Finkel, Irving. The Hero King Gilgamesh Looking at Myths and Legends. McGraw-Hill. 1995. ISBN: 0844247014
Harris, Rivkah, and NetLibrary Inc. Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia the Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Jager, Bernd. “The Birth of Poetry and the Creation of a Human World: An Exploration of The Epic of Gilgamesh.” In Journal of
Phenomenological Psychology.
Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Leeming, David Adams. Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero ("Gilgamesh: Sumerian-Babylonian".
Van Nortwick, Thomas. Somewhere I Have Never Traveled: The Hero's Journey (Chap. 1 "The Wild Man: The Epic of Gilgamesh").
39
http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/joe2pages/Mesopotamia%20Kings%20List.htm
http://www.b17.com/family/lwp/places/mesopotamia.html
40
http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/specex/ur/ur-flood.htm
NIPPUR TABLET
...a flood will sweep over the cult centers;
To destroy the seed of mankind...
Is the decision, the word of the assembly of the gods.
By the word commanded by An and Enlil...
All the windstorms, exceedingly powerful, attacked as one,
At the same time, the flood sweeps over the cult centers.
After, for seven days and seven nights,
The flood had swept over the land,
And the huge boat had been tossed about by the windstorms on the great waters,
Utu came forth, who sheds light on heaven and earth,
Ziusudra opened a window on the huge boat,
The hero Utu brought his rays into the giant boat.
- Sumerian clay tablet, late 17th century BC
41
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. Margus: Murgap der‡asynyn köne hanasynyn a‡agynaky gadymy gündogar salygy = Margus :
drevnevostochnoe tsarstvo v staroi del'te reki Murgab = Margus : ancient oriental kingdom in the old delta of the Murghab river.
Türkmendöwlethabarlary 2002 ISBN : 5727001005
42
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050510mountaingods.htm
The Mountain of the Gods

Worldwide traditions say that a cosmic mountain once rose to the center of the sky,
joining heaven and earth. Now plasma science offers a confirming witness, in the behavior of high-energy plasma
discharge.
The ancients lived in the shadow of a colossal mountain identified as the abode of the gods. The Sumerians and the Babylonians knew it as
the Khursag or the Kur, and as early as the 23rd century BCE it was depicted on the victory stele of king Naram-Sin of Akkad, shown above.
The two stars on the apex identify the rock as the residence of celestial powers to whom the mighty ruler pays homage for his victory.
This 'cosmic mountain' was given different names in different cultures. The Egyptians knew it as the Primordial Mound, the Israelites as
Sinai and Zion, and the Greeks as Olympus and Parnassus. Further afield, the Indians called the divine peak Meru or Sumeru, the Chinese
Kun-lun, Sung-shan, or Bu-zhou, the Icelanders Himinbjörg, the Aztec Colhuacan, and the Choctaw Nunne Chaha.
During the 20th century, specialists in each of these cultural areas have tended to downplay the role of the cosmic mountain, arguing that the
sacred peaks and pinnacles mentioned in the ancient writings were nothing more than the mountains found locally. According to them,
Naram-Sin's 'mountain of the sun' simply referred to the Zagros Mountains, over which the sun appears to rise for the natives of northern
Mesopotamia. But these scholars have vastly underrated the importance of the theme.
As 19th-century researchers have ably demonstrated, the reports given of the cosmic mountain in mythology indicate that it was a highly
unusual object, rooted in a universal archetype. The mountain's height was prodigious, reaching from the deepest underworld to the top of
the sky. At the creation of the world, it rose up from the waters of chaos, pushing heaven and earth apart as it grew. It stood exactly in the
centre of the universe and the forces of four cardinal directions met at its summit. It was of a luminous substance, ablaze with fire, or decked
with gold and silver. Two peaks crowned its summit. A bird was seated on its top, called Anzu or Imdugud in Babylonia, Phoenix in Egypt,
Garuda in India, and the thunderbird Wakinyan among the Sioux. Its interior was hollow and filled with a mysterious substance identified as
the juice of life, the divine breath, a perpetual flame, lightning, or the waters of the flood. The souls of the dead traversed it on their way from
the underworld to the sky or vice versa. The mythical hero or ancestor climbed it as part of his quest. And the Golden Age ended when the
mountain was ripped apart, the flood gushed forth, and the bond between heaven and earth was broken.
Each of these pervading themes shows that the cosmic mountain hardly answers to any familiar phenomenon in the natural world. Clearly, it
was a feature of the mythological landscape that was independently localised when different cultures identified it with different rocks in their
own environment. The striking parallels cry out for an explanation nonetheless. The detailed agreement of its characteristics in cultures from
far-flung corners of the world shows that there is definitely some reality behind it. And this is where plasma comes in. The remarkable
synthesis between the most up-to-date findings of plasma physicists and the artefacts and traditions of ancient mankind has the potential to
cast a refreshing light on the subject.
The present interdisciplinary investigation suggests that the features of the cosmic mountain—and dozens of additional motifs—can be
satisfactorily accounted for if the object commemorated in these traditions included a heaven-spanning plasma discharge tube, formed
during the late Palaeolithic in response to high-energy disturbances in the geomagnetic field. Extensive laboratory experiments performed
under the auspices of plasma physicist Anthony Peratt have shed much light on the specifics of the morphological 'cycle' such a plasma
column would have gone through. Down to the finest and most unusual details, this sequence matches the profile of the mythic “mountain of
the gods”.
The myth of the cosmic mountain, therefore, deserves rigorous cross-cultural exploration. Where cultures agree on unique details, this
consensus is evidence, and may well provide vital information about the ancient natural environment, suggesting promising lines for
scientific investigation.
contributed by Rens van der Sluijs, Copyright 2005: thunderbolts.info.

43
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/sumer1.htm
The polytheistic belief system of Sumer gradually became monotheistic with all the supreme entities - except the chief deity - turning into
angels, demons-satans, and jinns in the later belief systems. There are three basic myths. They are so widespread that we have no choice but
to call them 'basic.' All of these myths appear in Semitic mythology but their origin is Sumerian. The myth of Dumuzi and Inanna. The myth
of Creation. The myth of the Flood.
The Origin of the Universe: The goddess Nammu ('Primeval Ocean' - Sumerian 'Mother of the Gods') whose name is written with the
ideogram for 'sea', is the 'mother who gave birth to heaven and earth.' From other material, which are also recorded on clay tablets we learn
that heaven and earth were originally a mountain. Earth was the base and summit was the heaven.
Black, J. & Green, A. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, London: British Museum Press + Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1992.
Bottéro, Jean [2001], Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, (Teresa Lavender Fagan, translator), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Bottéro, J. & Kramer, S.N. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, Chicago, 1992.
Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford, 1989.
Diakonoff, I.M. [1995], Archaic Myths of the Orient and the Occident, [Orientalia Gothoburgensia 10], Göteborg 1995.
George, Andrew R. House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian Civilizations 5, Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, IN,
1993.
Jacobsen, Thorkild [1986], Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Jacobsen, Thorkild. "Formative Tendencies in Sumerian Religion", "Mesopotamian Gods and Pantheons", "Ancient Mesopotamian Religion:
The Central Concerns", and "Sumerian Mythology: A Review Article", in Moran, W.L. (ed.), Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays
on Mesopotamian History and Culture, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.
Lambert, W.G. "The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion", in McCullough, W.S.
(ed.) The Seed of Wisdom, Toronto, 1964, pp.3-13.
Lambert, W.G. "Myth and Ritual as Conceived by the Babylonians", JSS 13 (1969), pp.104-112.
Lambert, W.G. "Destiny and Divine Intervention in Babylon and Israel", Oudtestamentische Studien 17 (1972), pp.65-72.
Lambert, W.G. "The Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon: A Study in Sophisticated Polytheism", in Goedicke, H. &
Roberts, J.J.M. (eds), Unity and Diversity, Baltimore, 1975, pp. 191-200.
Lambert, W.G. "Old Testament Mythology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context", Vetus Testamentum Supplementum 40 (1990), pp.124-143.
Lambert, W.G. “Syncretism and Religious Controversy in Babylonia", AOF 24 (1997), pp.158-162.
Lawson, J.N. The Concept of Fate in Ancient Mesopotamia of the First Millennium: Toward an Understanding of ͙imtu, Wisesbaden, 1994.
[Reviewed: F. Reynolds, OLZ 92 (1997), pp.56-61; F. Rochberg, JNES 58 (1999), pp.54-58.]
Leick, Gwendolyn. A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, Routledge: London & New York, 1991.
Leick, Gwendolyn. Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature, London, 1994.
Maul, S.T. "How the Babylonians Protected Themselves against Calamities Announced by Omens", in Borger AV, [Cuneiform Monographs
10], Groningen, 1998, pp.123-129.
Maul, S.T. "Mesopotamian Mythologies" in Mythologies, compiled by Y. Bonnefoy, Chicago, 1991.
Ornan, Tallay. 2004 "Idols and Symbols - Divine Representations in First Millennium Mesopotamian Art and its Bearing on the Second
Commandment", Tel Aviv 31.1 (2004), pp.90-121.
Pritchard, J.B. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition with Supplement, Princeton, 1969.
Rochberg-Halton, F. "Fate and Divination in Mesopotamia", AfO Beiheft 19 (1982), pp.363-371.
Römer, W. H. Ph. "The Religion of Ancient Mesopotamia," in Historia Religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions, volume 1:
Religions of the Past, Leiden, 1969, pp.115-194.
Saggs, H.W.F. "The Divine in History," in Essential Papers, New York, 1991, pp.17-48.
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/NIP/NN_SEP90/NN_Sep90.html
Gibson, McGuire. Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology. NIPPUR, 1990: GULA, GODDESS OF HEALING, AND AN AKKADIAN TOMB.
The Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. The University of Chicago.
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/kingbyloveinanna.html
Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (2000) King by Love of Inanna - an image of female empowerment? In: Nin - Journal of Gender Studies in
Antiquity. Published by Styx, Netherlands and edited by J.M. Asher-Greve, A. Kuhrt, J.G. Westenholz and M. S. Whiting, Volume 1, 2000,
Thematic Issue on the Goddess Inanna.

44
http://phoenicia.org/didyouknow.html
King Solomon's great Temple was built in the style of Tyre's Melqart Temple by Phoenician artisans using the Cedars of Lebanon.
King Solomon, in his old age, became a worshipper of the Phoenician goddess Ashtarte.
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/solomon.html
During the period traditionally assigned to the era of Solomon - Iron Age IIA (1000 to 900 B.C.E.) - "the so-called cities of Megiddo, Gezer
and Hazor, and Jerusalem itself were in reality more like villages....Within were relatively small public buildings and poorly constructed
dwellings with clay floors. The objects reveal a material culture which, even by the standards of the ancient Near East, could not be judged
sophisticated or luxurious...The 'magnificence' of the age of Solomon is parochial and decidedly lackluster, but the first book of Kings implies
exactly the opposite."
Prof. James Pritchard, Solomon and Sheba (1974), p. 35

45
Conway, Moncure Daniel, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, Haskell House, NY, 1973, pp.59-65
Rappoport, A.S. Myth and Legend in Ancient Israel, vol. 3, Ktav Publishing, NY, 1966, pp. 122-30.
Zelig, Dorothy, "Solomon, The Man and the Myth" chapter 7 of Zelig, Psychoanalysis and the Bible, New York, 1974.
Finkelstein, Israel. The Bible Unearthed. Simon and Schuster, 2002.
http://www.vdu.lt/~ktv/solomon/
46
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Labyrinth/2398/bginfo/turks/jinn.html
Dan Fredrick, The Jinn in Islamic Theology and Folkore (Honours Thesis, Religious Studies), Calgary, 1994.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/940602_Genie.html
http://muttaqun.com/jinn.html
47
http://www.surrenderworks.com/library/imports/transmission.html
In some countries, Europe and the United States included, Muslims walk around with numerous 'magic squares' on scrolls attached to their
bodies. Magic squares play an important role in Islamic talismanic designs. The first appearance of such a square (called a wafq in Arabic) in
Islamic literature occurred in the alchemical writings attributed to J?bir ibn ?ayy?n. This early magic square was recommended as a charm
for easing childbirth. So, let not the traditional Muslim fault Sufis for what they themselves practice! Much of the 'Islamic magic' used in
Muslim countries concerns the Jinn (protection spells against them, or spells to call them up). Magic in the form of Qur'anic numerology (in
relation to letters), amulets, scrolls carried on the body, and the repetition of various Names of Allah a specific number of times, is still widely
practiced by some Sheikhs and women Sufi healers throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle and Near East. A favorite contemporary Muslim
amulet consists of a square-inch miniature of the Koran enclosed in metal and worn around the neck. Another great favorite amulet is the
'Hand of Fatima' which is also known as the 'Hand of Miriam' in the Jewish religion. Much of Islamic amulet lore is based on the need to use
all possible means to protect oneself against the 'evil eye.' A popular internet Islamic jewelry store sells 'silver effect' cylindrical taweez
lockets. Diameter 7 mm. You can purchase pure silver taweez lockets also.
48
This human desire to control the elements has not abated. Staurolite, a cross-shaped stone believed to command the elements was & is
owned by many powerful figures.
http://groups.msn.com/pparanormal/mysticalhealingformulaes.msnw
Staurolite-"Fairy Cross"
Brown/grey, crosslike extrusions. Represents 4 elements and joining of spirit with earth/matter. Staurolite is believed to be a very powerful
protector and bringer of good luck.
http://www.littlefallsmn.com/CrossRocks.php
It is well known that the late ex-President Theodore Roosevelt and ex-President Wilson, Thomas A. Edison, Colonel Charles Lindbergh, and
many other prominent people of this country as well as some of the crown heads of Europe and prominent officers and men in the European
War carried one or more of these little lucky pieces tucked snugly away about them.
http://www.highhopes.com/fairystones.html
… thousands of people have held these little crosses of stone in more or less superstitious awe, being firm in the belief that they will protect
the wearer against witchcraft, sickness, accidents and disasters of all kinds.
49
http://home.ix.netcom.com/~kiyoweap/myth/arms-weap/aarons-breastplate.htm
http://www.domini.org/tabern/highprst.htm
http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~jafarr/THE%20BREASTPLATE%20OF%20THE%20HIGH%20PRIEST.html
50
Phillips, Wendell, Qataban and Sheba, Harcourt, Brace & Co., NY, 1955.
Scientific articles
Suryal Atiya, Dr. Aziz. The Arabic Manuscripts of the Mount Sinai Library. Johns Hopkins.
Drs. Albright, Frank, Le Baron Bowen, Richard, Jr. Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia. Johns Hopkins.
Jammie, Dr. Albert, W.F. Sabaean Inscriptions from Mahram Bilqis (Marib). Johns Hopkins.
Cleveland, Dr. Ray. An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis — Objects from the Second Campaign (1951) in the Timna Cemetery. Johns
Hopkins.
Van Beek, Dr. Gus W. Hajar Bin Humeid — Investigations at a Pre-Islamic Site in South Arabia. Johns Hopkins.
http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/volumeonenumberone/sheba.html
Diana Pickworth, Visiting Scholar, University of California at Berkeley, Dept. Near Eastern Studies
Budge, Sir Ernest A. Wallis, translator, The Queen Of Sheba And Her Only Son Menyelek, the Kebra Nagast, Oxford University Press,
London, 1932.
Levine, Faye, Solomon And Sheba, St. Martins Press, NY, 1980.
Pritchard, James B., editor, Solomon And Sheba, Phaidon Publishers, London, 1974.
Black Koltuv, Barbara. Solomon & Sheba: Inner Marriage and Individuation. Nicolas-Hays (April 1993) Paperback: 160 pages. ISBN:
0892540249
Philby, H St John. The Queen of Sheba. Quartet, 1981.
Warner, Marina. From The Beast to the Blonde. Vintage , 1995.
Phillipson, David. Ancient Ethiopia. British Museum, 1998.
Phillipson, David. The Monuments of Aksum. British Museum, 1998.
Hoyland, Robert G. Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge, 2001.
Stark, Freya. The Southern Gates of Arabia. John Murray, 2003.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. Penguin, 1991.
[22] The best example of it can be seen in W. Phillips, Qataban And Sheba: Exploring Ancient Kingdoms On The Biblical Spice Routes Of
Arabia, 1955, Victor Gollancz Ltd.: London. This book deals with the story of the expedition to Qataban and Sheba and is eminently readable.
Like Nielsen, Wendell Phillips also clubbed the Arab pantheon of gods into a triad. Thus Phillips had lifted the hypothesis of Nielsen without
giving any serious critical thought and resorted to conjectures. For example, he says [p. 69]:
The moon was the chief deity of all the early South Arabian kingdoms - particularly fitting in that region where the soft light of the moon
brought the rest and cool winds of the night as a relief from the blinding sun and scorching heat of day. In contrast to most of the old
religions with which we are familiar, the Moon God is male, while the Sun God is his consort, a female. The third god of importance is their
child, the male morning star, which we know as the planet Venus.
A similar claim concerning the South Arabians worshipping a triad is repeated in p. 204:
Like nearly all the Semitic peoples, they worshipped the moon, the sun, and the morning star. The chief god, the moon, was a male deity
symbolized by the bull, and we found many carved bull's heads, with drains for the blood of sacrificed animals.
51
http://volker-doormann.org/the0.htm
In preIslamic times in Arabia and also in Mecca the goddess Al'Lat (Q're), Al'Uzza and Menat or Manat were well known. In the 'Al Haram'
on the Ka'bah in Mecca - which was build also prior to Muhammad - the corners are aligned to very special Azimuths, an special object is
directed to East-South East.
The goddess Al'Uzza was connected with the planet Venus as the morning star. The astrologic symbol of the conjunction of Venus and Moon
is full loaded with its attributes of beauty, sensitivity and warmth. Above the eastern horizon this conjunction is placed in the 12th astrologic
house and symbols with it the sensitivity, holiness and seclusion of love to a 'place of the woman' (Arab. 'Haram'). 'El Haram' is 'the holy
place of the woman'. In the Hebrew language 'Beth-ha-Ram' means a "place or house east of Jordan".
A worship of this holy place is processed ever in the 12th (Moon-)month of the Islam calendar at a time when the moon builds a trigonal
aspect to the sun, this is ever exact 10 days after the Islam New-Moon event.
From this preIslamic time exist also reports about the goddess in Arabia. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, wrote in the 4th century
C.E., that the Nebataens worship a virgin 'Chaabou'. He also has heard the name of kabu, ("rectangular stone"), as a symbol of the goddess
"Al'Lat". An Arabian scribe had said to him, that a stone with four sides was worship as "Al'Lat", which is named in a Nebataen inscription as
"Mother of gods". Epiphanius said, that the male deity 'Dusares' (dhu Saar) (Greeks call him: Dionisos) was an offspring of the virgin
'Chaabou'. The title of the goddess 'Al'lat' is "Mother of the gods". The "Great Mother of the gods" of the Babylonian was 'be Ælet ilaµni'
("Queen of gods"), and this her title was also "Mother Goddess". Epiphanius has identified 'Chaabou' also with the goddess 'Core' or 'Kore',
who is called 'Ashtar' by the northern Semites and 'Ishtar' by the Babylonians. [1].
52
Breton, Jean-Francois. Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D. University of Notre
Dame Press. 2000. ISBN 0268020043.
Simpson, st John (Editor). Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen. British Museum Press (June 1, 2002) Paperback: 304 pages.
ISBN: 0714111511

53
Solomon was said to have converted to goddess worship.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
Solomon, was also a sacred king who was renowned for building the Temple at Jerusalem, but equally reviled for also following the deities of
his many wives and building sanctuaries to them on the high places round Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was simultaneously dedicated
to Yahweh and to the Queen of Heaven. The pillars Jachim and Boaz were said to stand for the sun and moon. Before it stood the 'asherah,'
the symbolic tree [or post] that [was] throughout Semitic lands associated with the female aspect of the deity" (Briffault). The son of
Solomon, went further and moved the image of the goddess into the Temple itself.

54
http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/number3.html#
Ancient philosophers were enthralled by the mathematical relationships they found in nature, and believed that numbers underlay every
aspect of reality. HILDI HAWKINS explains how certain numbers then acquired their own symbolic 'personality'
THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL arithmetical operation is tallying: the matching one for one of one set of objects with another or with marks in
the dust, or pebbles, or knots in a string in order to compare quantities. The next step is to give names to numbers and to match objects
against these in sequence - that is, to count. Some peoples, such as certain New Guineans and Brazilian Indians, have no names for numbers
beyond three. And the number words that do exist may vary according to the type of object being counted. (This survives in modern English:
we speak of a brace of gamebirds, pistols or dogs, but of nothing else.) It must have been a magical moment when the abstract nature of
number was realised: the idea that three trees, three people, or even a collection of three different things all had one thing in common: their
'threeness'.
The power of this abstract idea must have been apparent very early. Number seemed somehow to underlie reality: all collections of three
objects were united by their 'threeness'. At a very deep level, perhaps they were the same. It is small wonder that the mysterious power of the
concept of number inspired a powerful tradition of mystical thought that still colours the way we think about numbers. The tradition comes
to us from the medieval Christian Church, which in turn drew its inspiration from two major intellectual traditions, Greek Pythagoreanism
and Hebrew gematria. The school of Pythagoras was a religious community founded by the semi-legendary figure of Pythagoras in the Greek
colony of Croton, in southern Italy, around 530 BC. It was dedicated to the study of geometry, mathematics and astronomy, and to
experimentation in music. The Pythagorean school studied the variations in pitch produced by vibrating strings of varying lengths, and is
credited with the discovery that musical intervals may be represented in terms of simple ratios of whole numbers. It may have been the
discovery of the mathematical nature of musical intervals that gave the Pythagoreans their idea that number was the key to the Universe.
Whatever the origin of the belief, they clung to it fervently and bequeathed it to the West.
Pythagoras

Pythagoras and a disciple experiment with musical tones. The size of a bell or the amount of water in a cup determines the pitch of the note
each produces. The discovery by Pythagoras that simple numerical ratios between these quantities correspond to harmony or discord
between notes fed his belief that 'all is number'
Seven is a number rich in biblical associations. There are seven deadly sins, seven Christian virtues, seven petitions in the Lord's prayer; on
the seventh day of the siege of Jericho, Joshua marched seven times round the walls of the city and flattened them with a blast from seven
trumpets; and Pharaoh's dream which Joseph interpreted, involved seven fat and seven lean cows, seven plump ears of corn and seven
blighted ones. In folklore too mystery attaches to the number seven, magical properties are attributed to seventh sons and seventh sons of
seventh sons. The power of the number seven stretches far back in time: around 2500 BC the great Sumerian king
Lugulannemund built a temple in the city of Adab to the goddess Nintu, with seven gates and seven doors, purified with
the sacrifice of seven times seven fatted oxen and sheep. One can only guess at the significance of this frequent use of the
number - but it seems that it is linked with the phases of the Moon, which take about 28 (=4 x 7) days to go through a
complete cycle. The ancients believed that the cycles of birth and death, growth and decay, depend on the waxing and
waning of the Moon.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/orsin3.htm
The Nabateans, like the Harranians, followed a complex system of astral worship, involving the sun and moon and seven major planets, in
which in her varying forms, the Goddess represented Venus and the Moon (Glueck 453). As Moon Goddess she is identifiable with Tyche,
Selene and Atargatis-Artemis of Hierapolis. Selene was worshipped in the new and full moon. She stands prima inter pares at the centre of
the main dieties of the Nabatean pantheon the seven planets and the zodiac, although sometimes displaced by Zeus. The snake twined eagle
is shown in at least one relief standing above both the sun and moon at Jebel Druze. However the fertility goddess, who was also in her
aspects the dolphin-crowned Sea Goddess (Aphrodite-Mari) of seafarers and the Moon Goddess clearly dominates the sculptures at Khirbet
Tannur, the outstanding Nabataean high sanctuary, archetypal of the biblical high places (Glueck).
Wood, Michael. In Search of Myths and Heroes. BBC Books. 2005. ISBN: 0563521872
Quote from Thomas Aquinas (c.1125-1274) & The Koran sura 27 + 34. & Diodorus of Sicily.
http://www.livius.org/di-dn/diodorus/siculus.html
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/sumer3.htm
The number seven in the Old Testament is thought to have been based on a mystical understanding (probably coming from Sumer).
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/NumberSeven.htm
The German journal Die Gegenwart has a serious and learned article upon "the significance of the number seven" introduced to the readers
as a "Culture-historical Essay."…‘The number seven was considered sacred not only by all the cultured nations of antiquity and the East, but
was held in the greatest reverence even by the later nations of the West. The astronomical origin of this number is established beyond any
doubt. Man, feeling himself time out of mind dependent upon the heavenly powers, ever and everywhere made earth subject to heaven. The
largest and brightest of the luminaries thus became in his sight the most important and highest of powers; such were the planets, which the
whole antiquity numbered as seven. In course of time these were transformed into seven deities. The Egyptians had seven original and higher
gods; the Phœnicians seven kabiris; the Persians, seven sacred horses of Mithra; the Parsees, seven angels opposed by seven demons, and
seven celestial abodes paralleled by seven lower regions. To represent the more clearly this idea in its concrete form, the seven gods were
often represented as one seven-headed deity. The whole heaven was subjected to the seven planets; hence, in nearly all the religious systems
we find seven heavens’.
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/m/mystical_number_seven.html
http://towerwebproductions.com/alt-lib/seven.shtml
Seven - A mystic or sacred number. It is composed of four and three, which, among the Pythagoreans, were, and from time immemorial have
been, accounted lucky numbers. Among the Babylonians, Egyptians, and other ancient peoples, there were seven sacred planets. The Hebrew
verb for "to swear" means literally to come under the influence of seven things; thus, seven ewe lambs figure in the oath between Abraham
and Abimelech at Beersheba (Gen. 21:28); and Herodotus describes an Arabian oath in which seven stones are smeared with blood. There are
seven days in Creation, seven days in the week, seven graces, seven deadly sins, seven divisions in the Lord's Prayer, and seven ages in the life
of man; climacteric years are seven and nine with their multiples by odd numbers; and the seventh son of a seventh son was held noble.
Among the Hebrews, every seventh year was sabbatical, and seven times seven years was the jubilee. The three great Jewish feasts lasted
seven days; and between the first and second were seven weeks. Levitical purifications lasted seven days; Balaam would have seven alters,
and sacrificed on them seven bullocks and seven rams; Naaman was commanded to dip seven times in Jordan; Elijah sent his servant seven
times to look out for rain; ten times seven Israelites went to Egypt, the exile lasted the same number of years, and there were ten times seven
elders. Pharaoh in his dream saw seven years for each of his wives; seven priests with seven trumpets marched round Jericho once every day,
but seven times on the seventh day. Samson's wedding feast lasted seven days; on the seventh he told his bride the riddle, he was bound with
seven withes [sic], and seven locks of his hair were cut off. Nebuchadnezzar was a beast for seven years. In the Apocalypse, there are seven
churches of Asia, seven candlesticks, seven stars, seven trumpets, seven spirits before the throne of God, seven horns, seven vials, seven
plagues, a seven-headed monster, and the Lamb with seven eyes. The old astrologers and alchemists recognized seven so-called planets.
According to the Muslims, there are seven heavens. Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia (Siepmann, 1987)
http://www.wiccanway.net/teach35.html
The number seven has always been a magical and mystical number. The sacredness of the number seven is taken from Pagan sources, as it is
found in the famous pagan romance, The Golden Ass, by Lucius Apuleius, who was a priest of Isis. The story is a parable of his initiation, and
he tells how he obtained a vision of the goddess upon the seashore by night, at the time of the full moon: "Wherefore, shaking off my drowsy
sleep, I arose with a joyful face and moved by a great affection to purify myself, I plunged my head seven times into the water of the sea;
which number seven is convenable and agreeable to holy and divine things, as the worthy and sage philosopher Pythagoras hath declared."
(William Adlington's translation, 1566)
There is an important idea connected with this number which is less well known, and that is its association with the magic circle. In the magic
circle, we have the four quarters, or cardinal points, north, south, east and west, plus the height and depth, above and below. These are the
six directions, and the center of the circle, the place of stillness from which they all radiate, is the seventh.
THE CENTER (Mircea Eliade)
A universe comes to birth from its center;
It spreads out from a central point that is,
As it were, its navel...
The Center is precisely the place where a break in plane occurs,
Where space becomes sacred, hence pre-eminently real.
A creation implies a super-absence of reality, in other words,
An eruption of the sacred into the world.
Apuleius, Lucius, Morwood, James (Introduction), Adlington, William (Translator). The Golden Ass (Wordsworth Classics of World
Literature). Wordsworth Editions Ltd. 1996. 224 pages. ISBN: 1853264601
http://www.ccru.net/zones/Zn7.htm
The figure seven (7) includes the only pure diagonal to be found amongst the numeral figures (and depends upon this oblique line to
differentiate it from the numeral ‘1,' as also to break it's rotational bond with the (upper-case) letter ‘L'). It is ideographically connected to the
lightning-stroke, and related by composition to the (similarly associated) letter ‘Z.'
The biblical importance of the number seven is established at the beginning of Genesis, with the religious derivation of the seven-day week
(from the six days of creation +1). Jewish mysticism deepens this association between seven and sacred time with an account of seven
discarded creations (preceding the current one, and cast into the abyss). The number seven is also notably prominent in Revelation (where it
is referred to the seven ancient churches, to the seven angels, seven seals, seven last plagues, seven vials of wrath, and to the seven heads of
the great beast (which perhaps refer - in turn - to the seven hills of Rome)). The heptamania of Revelation is the probable source of the
structurally ambivalence of seven within popular Christianity, where it is attributed both to the seven cardinal virtues, and the seven deadly
sins.
A crescendo of seven-obsession is found in the Theosophical writings of Madame Blavatsky, who divides the cosmic process into seven
phases, each characterized by one of seven sequential ‘root races.' Blavatsky draws from biblical sources, but is more directly influenced
(through the teachings of her ‘Ascended Tibetan Masters') by the usage of the number seven in a variety of Eastern religions (including the
Hindu seven worlds, seven divine mothers, and seven Rishis - or sages -, the seven Buddhas, and the seven Shinto gods of good fortune).
Religious and mystical investments of the number seven are closely connected to the seven planets of classical astronomy and traditional
astrology (from which the phrase ‘seventh heaven' is derived). In recent times, the Seven Sisters (or Pleiades) have taken up an increasing
proportion of this cosmic-numerical freight.
The triplicate reiteration of the number seven is used as the title for Alistair Crowley's book of numbers, 777 (a number corresponding to the
gematria value of the law of Thelema according to Alphanumeric Qabbala).

55
There is some etymological evidence that in Ilmaqah was a fertility deity.
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/External/sheba.html
But just as the Greek local patron deities such as Athene in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus, etc., figure more prominently than the remoter and
universal Zeus, so in South Arabia the most commonly invoked deity was a national one, who incorporated the sense of national identity. For
the Sabaeans this was 'lmkh (with an occasional variant spelling 'lmkhw). A probable analysis of this name is as a compound of the old
Semitic word 'l "god" and a derivative of the root khw meaning something like "fertility" (cf. Arabic kahā "flourish"); the h is certainly a root
letter, and not, as some mediaeval writers seem to have imagined, a tā marbūta, which in South Arabian is always spelt with t...
Many European scholars still refer to this deity in a simplistic way as "the moon god", a notion stemming from the "triadic" hypothesis
mentioned above; yet Garbini has produced cogent arguments to show that the attributes of 'lmkh are rather those of a warrior-deity like
Greek Herakles or a vegetation god like Dionysus.
G. Garbini, "Il Dio Sabeo Almaqah", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 1973-1974, Volume 48, pp. 15-22.
56
http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/sarabiansculpture/51.293.html
Funerary Stele

3rd century B.C.; South Arabian (Yemen); Alabaster; height 32 cm (12 5/8 in.); Gift of K. T. Keller; 51.293
This commemorative stele is decorated with the head of a bull, symbol of the moon god 'Anbay, chief of the state. It is inserted into a
separate alabaster base inscribed in the South Arabian alphabetic script with "Taba'karib," the name of the deceased or dedicant and by
"M'dm," his clan or tribe name.
A. Hiltebeitel, “Rama and Gilgamesh: The Sacrifices of the Water Buffalo and the Bull of Heaven”, History of Religions 19 (1980).
http://www.svabhinava.org/friends/FrancescoBrighenti/ShamanisticEchos.htm
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
Classic matrika shapes cross over into other media in some places. Rock art and offering vessels underline their ceremonial context.
Silhouettes shaped like matrikas appear in rock art at Beyuk-dasha, in the western part of the former USSR. Eight women stand in front of a
large bovine creature; though armless, they are shown as if holding staves or crooks.
57
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/kn/index.htm
Brooks, Miguel F. (Editor). A Modern Translation of the Kebra Nagast: (The Glory of Kings). Red Sea, August 1, 1996. Paperback: 193 pages.
ISBN: 1569020337
58
http://www.infohub.com/Articles/20010219.html
Malta: Ancient Home to Goddesses and Fertility Cults
http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/cyprus/AncCyp-Aph-05.html

This terracotta figurine of a fertility goddess, dated to circa 13th century BC, is very similar to Astarte figurines found in
Syria. They first appeared at the beginning of the 15th century.
http://www.xenos.org/classes/papers/aneidola.htm
Babylonian Pantheon
At Lagash--Anu, the god of heaven and his wife Antu.
At Eridu--Enlil, god of earth who was later succeeded by Marduk, and his wife Damkina. Marduk was their son.
Other gods included: Sin, the moon god; Ningal, wife of Sin; Ishtar, the fertility goddess and her husband Tammuz; Allatu, goddess of the
underworld ocean; Nabu, the patron of science/learning and Nusku, god of fire.
Canaanite Pantheon
The Canaanites borrowed heavily from the Assyrians. According to Ugaritic literature, the Canaanite pantheon was headed by El, the
creator god, whose wife was Asherah. Their offspring was Baal, who married Anath (The OT indicates that Ashtoreth, a.k.a. Ishtar, was Baal's
wife). Dagon, Resheph, Shulman, Koshar and Mot were other gods of this pantheon. The cultic practices included animal sacrifices at high
places; sacred groves, trees or carved wooden images of Asherah. Divination, snake worship and ritual prostitution were practiced. Sexual
rites were supposed to ensure fertility of people, animals and lands.

59
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
A statuette at Yalangach-depe, Turkmenistan, has legs painted with patterns and sun symbols.
60
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
Solomon, was also a sacred king who was renowned for building the Temple at Jerusalem, but equally reviled for also following the deities of
his many wives and building sanctuaries to them on the high places round Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem was simultaneously dedicated
to Yahweh and to the Queen of Heaven. The pillars Jachim and Boaz were said to stand for the sun and moon. Before it stood the 'asherah,'
the symbolic tree [or post] that [was] throughout Semitic lands associated with the female aspect of the deity" (Briffault). The son of
Solomon, went further and moved the image of the goddess into the Temple itself.
61
 The Hebrew Goddess (ISBN 0-8143-2271-9) is a 1967 book by Jewish historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai.

62
Clauss, Manfred. The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries. Routledge 2001. ISBN: 0415929784
Daniels, C.M. Mithras and his Temples on the Wall. 3rd ed. Newcastle upon Tyne. 1989.
Vermaseren, M.J. Mithras, the Secret God. 1963.
Vermaseren, M.J. Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae. (2 vols., 1956 and 1960)
http://eawc.evansville.edu/essays/mithraism.htm
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/mithra.html
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/dave/Cults/cults.html
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/dave/Cults/mithras.html
Rituals and Interpretation
Most of the Roman cults of Mithras shared the same rituals and organization. The initiates were divided into seven classes, and were
supposed to work their way up through them. This ascension represented the rising of the soul after death. Meetings were generally held in
subterranean caves, most of which would hold no more than a few hundred worshippers. Within the cult there appeared to be no particular
hierarchy: all of the full members were apparently equal. Initiations may have involved baptism, purifications, and chastisement. Regular
ceremonies probably included a meal. One of the main tenets of Mithraic theology is that the soul of man descended from heaven through the
realms of the seven plants, taking on vices at each level. The goal of the individual is to liberate his soul from these vices and thus ascend to
the realm of the stars.

63
http://www.zanc.org/intro_to_z.html#ZarathushtraAndTheRomans
Zarathushtra And The Romans
In Hellenistic and Roman times the image of Persia was a land of mystery, wisdom and learning. Its religious teachings appealed to the
conquering Roman soldiers, who then transferred it across the empire in the form of Mithraism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism. Mithraism
flourished in the Parthian period, around the same time as Christianity. It rapidly spread as far west as England and as far east as India, until
it succumbed to the rise of Christianity in the 4th century CE. Hundreds of Mithraic temples have been discovered across Europe, the latest
one unearthed by construction workers in London in the 1970s.
64
Pappas, Nickolas. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the "Republic". Routledge, June 26, 2003. ISBN: 0415299977
Plato.Timaeus. IndyPublish.com, 2002. 148 Pages. ISBN: 1404333991
Plato, Waterfield, Robin (Editor). Republic (Oxford World's Classics) 548 pages. March 5, 1998. ISBN: 0192833707
http://www.hermetic.com/webster/hekate-review.html
His last article, “Chaldean Hekate”, is part of a larger discourse on the nature of the Chaldean Theurgy of late antiquity. This tradition of god-
work (theo-ergy) as a spiritual practice had profound impact on the philosophy of the Neoplatonists who preserved the many fragments that
we have of the Chaldean Oracles. Through the Neoplatonists the Chaldean Oracles effected the development of Christian doctrine. These
Oracles were delivered through the mediation of specially prepared initiates who might be called ‘channels’ today. The classic Olympian
deities associated with the celestial planets were invoked by special ritual techniques alluded to in the Oracles. The theurgists also invoked a
set of cosmic beings and messenger spirits unique to the Chaldean cosmology revealed in these Oracles. One of these was the Cosmic Soul
and called Hekate.
Ronan refers to the four standard works in the field and several scholarly articles on the Chaldean Oracles to draw together all of the passages
that refer to Hekate. We hear the echoes of long debate about what of the Neoplatonic corpus are in fact quotes from the Oracles as many
passages are known to be. The scholarship can be thick to wade through but rewarding especially if the standard works have already been
read as Ronan necessarily presumes. Practitioners of the magick of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn will be particularly struck by the
translations and explanations of many phrases familiar from their rituals.
The Goddess Hekate, Published in Gnosis, Review by Sam Webster ©1993
The Goddess Hekate: Studies in Ancient Pagan and Christian Religion & Philosophy Volume 1. Edited by Stephen Ronan.
http://oraltrad.blogspot.com/
According to Plato in our life before birth, we all had wings and knew everything. We were then born without wings as human babies and
must remember all that was forgotten at birth. Just as we have lost our wings, we have also lost the men who could captivate an audience
with only their tales. We have lost “poets who got so caught up with the description of the hero’s shield that they completely lost the narrative
track” (Ong 143). We have lost great feats of memory but we have gained creativity.
65
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/moc/moc18.htm

66
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/gimbutas.html
The Goddess as Macrocosm and Life Giver - The Palaeolithic Goddess was typically a macrocosmic extension of a woman's body. Her
essential parts - vulva, breasts, buttocks, belly - were endowed with the miraculous power of procreation. These symbols continued into the
Neolithic and can later be explained as a reflection or memory of a matrilineal system in which paternity was considered unimportant or
difficult to establish. The Goddess was a cosmic Creatrix, Life- and Birth-giver, while the father image is not known to Palaeolithic or
Neolithic art. There follows a resume of the three main aspects of the Goddess.
Mistress of Nature - This goddess is a manifestation of life-giving and life-destroying energies of nature. Her pattern is cosmic - the
endlessly repeated cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, corresponding to the phases of the moon and to spring, summer, and winter. She was
worshiped in nature - on mountain tops, in caves, at wells, brooks, and streams - and in tombs and temples as a Regeneratrix.
Goddess of Fertility - The Pregnant Goddess, rising and dying with vegetation, is a metaphor of the death and renewal of plant life. She
was worshiped at bread ovens in courtyards or in houses as bread giver.
Goddesses as Symbols of Perpetual Life - The Bird and Snake Goddesses are incarnations of life energy and a link between the
ancestors and living members of the family. These house and temple goddesses developed from the beginning of agriculture and settled life
into protectresses of the family and hearth.
Male Deities as Partners of Goddesses - There are no sculptures of male gods in the Palaeolithic, and there are no male gods associated
with life and birth giving or death wielding throughout the Neolithic period. The half-human, half-animal figure that appears in cave art,
usually interpreted as a shaman, may have been a "Master of Animals and Forests" since the existence of such a mythical image is well
documented in European mythologies. As a complementary figure to Mistress of Nature, Master of Animals appears in Catal Huyuk wall
paintings. The rising and dying Earth Fertility Goddess had a male partner, year god, a fructifying consort, who appeared in the spring,
matured in the summer, and died in autumn with the vegetation. This god cannot be traced in the Palaeolithic and is associated only with the
cultivation of agriculture. In Neolithic art, as already discussed in chapter 7, he is portrayed as strong and youthful in an ithyphallic posture
and as an old sorrowful god seated on a stool or throne with hands on knees or supporting his chin. ...The representation of copulation in
Neolithic imagery may be connected with Sacred Marriage. Such a sculpture of a female embracing a male was found at Catal Huyuk in
central Anatolia from the 7th millennium B.C., while a similar sculpture from the 5th millennium B.C. was found in Gumelnita, Romania. In
the Near East, an "erotique" statuette from the Natufian culture was discovered at Ain Sakhri, which sets the beginning of this imagery at
nearly 10,000 B.C. The hieros gamos was celebrated in erotic hymns at Sumer (Inanna's story and hymns were published by Diane Wolkstein
and Samuel Noah Kramer, 1983). A strong continuity of hieros gamos persists in myth and ritual throughout history and well into the 20th
century. A ritual mating with the local goddess has been the basis of inauguration of each of the 150 tribal {p. 343} kings reigning in Ireland
in the first centuries A.D. The earliest traditions about Medb identify her as the Goddess whose wedding periodically created a king at Tara. A
similar tradition of kings mating with the Goddess is known in Scandinavia prior to the late 5th century A.D. There is also the celebration of
Beltane in the British Isles and the marriage of a May Day Queen and King in rituals practiced in Germany in the 19th and early 20th
centuries. ...
Women's rituals inherited from matristic cultures in which men are not allowed are not only expressed in fairy dances, but also in essential
birth and agricultural rituals performed in historic times as well as in our own times in {p. 344} patriarchal societies. The examples are many.
It will suffice here to mention one of the most characteristic rituals from ancient Greece: the festival of Demeter Thesmophoria, a birth and
earth fertility ritual known to us from epigraphic evidence and from an account by Aristophanes. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess
Deities fitting the modern conception of the Mother Goddesses as a type have clearly been revered in many societies through to modern
times. James Frazer (author of The Golden Bough) and those he influenced (like Robert Graves and Marija Gimbutas) advanced the theory
that all worship in Europe and the Aegean that involved any kind of mother goddess had originated in Pre-Indo-European neolithic
matriarchies, and that their different goddesses were equivalent.
Although the type has been well accepted as a useful category for mythography, the idea that all such goddesses were believed in ancient
times to be interchangeable has been discounted by modern scholars, most notably by Peter Ucko [1]. The actual cultural and religious
context of Upper Paleolithic figures like the Venus of Willendorf has not been established.
Paleolithic Figures
Several small, corpulent figures have been found during archaeological excavations Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf being perhaps
the most famous. Many archaeologists believe they were intended to represent goddesses, while others believe that they could have served
some other purpose. These figurines predate the available records of the goddesses listed below as examples by many thousands of years, so
although they seem to conform to the same generic type, it is not clear if they were indeed representations of a goddess, that there was any
continuity of religion that connects them with Middle Eastern and Classical deities.
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_01.html
The weight of circumstantial evidence then from geography, religious tradition in the region and continuity through to historical times, the
parallel and attested career of Cybele, and Hesiod's known association with Hittite myth – all suggest that Hekate, like the other great
goddesses of Asia Minor, Cybele and Diana of Ephesus, who share many traits, iconographic features, and epithets, may plausibly be taken as
Phrygio-Hittite syncretic goddesses with real linkages to the tradition of Paleolithic and Neolithic goddess worship in that region.
It is Philippson's thesis (‘Thessalische Mythologie’) that Thessaly was the center of Neolithic chthonic religion in pre-Greek times,
concentrated in the earthgoddess who reigned there, the bride of tauriform Poseidon Gaiochos, then still primarily an earth-god.
http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/Stelae_of_Tiya.html/cid_1091031310_Tiya03.gbi

Ethiopian Stelae of the Goddess, the Tree of Life and stars.

67
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu/animism.htm
WHY DOES PHILOSOPHY HAVE A DIFFERENT DEFINITION FOR THE 'SOUL' ?
Under the title of 'Taboo and Totemism' Spenta Mainyu mentioned animism. The word to keep in mind is anima 'breath' or 'soul.' Animism is
the doctrine of the reality existence of souls. As mentioned earlier 'there is a spirit in everything.' Do you want to hear what is said about this
very important thing called the 'soul'? 'Mind or soul is an immaterial element that cooperates with the body through the brain and nervous
system' is the view of biology and psychology. But philosophy theorizes that 'all natural objects are animate, ensouled or spirit-directed from
within, and that mental and physical life has as its source or ground soul, or spirit.' Philosophy emphasizes the soul-anima. Why? What is
the cause of this difference of opinion between biology and psychology on the one hand and philosophy on the other? The clue exists in the
meaning of philosophy: 'A pursuit of wisdom. A search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than
observational means. An analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs.' If you add to this the meaning of ' to
philosophize,' you will have a clearer picture: 'To expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy. To consider from or bring into
conformity with a philosophic point of view.' So philosophy pursues wisdom, general understanding of values and reality. How? By
speculative rather than observational means. If there is nothing to observe in the quantitative and/or qualitative sense, and if it has to
analyse the grounds of and the concepts expressing fundamental beliefs it has to have a dimension which would link the material to the
incorporeal, because it has to expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy. That dimension is the soul or the spirit. Philosophy has
to find a way to explain this thing called the incorporeal and all the other subjects related to it. It is still trying. To no avail! That is the reason
behind this difference of opinion.
EVERYTHING IS ALIVE WITH SPIRITS
Animism probably will always be known chiefly as the term used by Sir Edward Tylor. In Primitive Culture he used this term to describe his
theory on the origin of religion and the beliefs of primitive peoples. Tylor wrote his great work to prove that religion began with animism.
Animism is the attribution of a soul or spirit to living things and inanimate objects. Animism maintains that nothing is really inanimate;
everything is alive with spirit, active or not. According to Tylor 'thinking men yet at a low level of culture were deeply impressed by two
groups of biological problems:'
* What was it that made the difference between a living body and a dead one, and what caused waking, sleep, trance, disease and
death?
* What were those human shapes which appeared in dreams and visions?
'GHOST SOUL'
Looking at these two phenomena, Tylor wrote, 'the ancient savage philosophers probably made their first step by the obvious inference that
every man has two things belonging to him, namely a life and a phantom.' Both life and phantom are perceived to be separable from the
body: Life was perceived as able to go away and leave it insensible or dead; and the phantom perceived as appearing to people at a distance.
And according to Tylor the second step taken by 'the ancient savage philosophers' was to combine the life and phantom and thus arrive at
'that well-known conception which may be described as an apparitional soul, a ghost-soul.' As Tylor argued that in further steps of reasoning
it was thought that the ghost soul was able to enter into, possess and act in the bodies of beasts, birds, reptiles and plants. But that's not all.
The theory of souls stretches beyond this limit: 'Certain high savage races distinctly hold and others making more or less close approach to, a
theory of separable and surviving souls or spirits belonging to sticks and stones, weapons, boats, food, clothes, ornaments and other objects
which to us are not merely soulless but lifeless.' As Spenta Mainyu wrote earlier 'there are spirits in everything.'
So what is a belief system within this framework? It is an attempt by man to establish a relationship between himself and the spirits which he
felt 'possessed, pervaded, crowded' all nature.
R.R. Marett in l899 and later in his book The Threshold of Religion (1914) brought in two qualifications to Tylor's theory. Marett, limited the
primitive's conception of aliveness to objects that behave in an unusual way or queerly or that seem about to behave thus; such objects the
primitive tends to regard as sacred, full of special potency. So not everything was considered to be 'alive.' And secondly Marett maintained
that this special potency or aliveness would not necessarily lead primitive man to attribute a soul or spirit to the object. The object might be
animated or alive without necessarily having a soul or spirit inside it. The sophisticated distinction between the body of the object and its soul
was at first not drawn. Marett called this animatism or preanimism. Melanesian example led him to this view, where mana, not a soul but 'a
kind of communicable energy ' distinct from physical power was involved. Marett was sure that while animism is characteristic of primitive
peoples it is accompanied, and probably preceeded by animatism.
Ancestor worship and animism are interrelated phenomena. The souls of the dead are believed to survive the dissolution of their bodies, to
linger near the scene of their former lives and to depend on the living for food, remembrance and loyalty. This has been the basic factor in the
popular religion of China for 3000 years.
Animism is also an aspect of nature worship. The object of worship may be far above the category of souls or spirits - some supreme being or
initiator of all things.

68
http://www.zanc.org/intro_to_z.html
http://www.zoroastrianism.com/
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/zoroastr.htm
69
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/pip.htm
Devout muslim explains pre-Islamic Paganism.
http://volker-doormann.org/the0.htm
Symbols of the Goddess.
70
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/necronomiconandmaqlu_jgonce.htm
Wisdom Gonce, III. John. THE SIMON NECRONOMICON AND THE MAQLU TEXT.
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/wizzards1jgonce.html
Wisdom Gonce, III. John. THE SIMON NECRONOMICON AND MESOPOTAMIAN MAGIC
Part One: WIZARDS WITHOUT A CLUE.
71
http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Magic.htm
Ancient Persian oracles were supposed to cast themselves into shamanistic trances by drinking hashish. Tibetan oracles fall into shamanistic
trances, and in these trances often bend swords or even twist them into spirals; such a sword is called rdo rje mdud pa, knotted thunderbolt;
it is highly priced, a valuable talisman against evil spirits, and is kept wrapped in white scarfs and fastened above the house door for
protection. Knotted ribbons are also given away by oracles in trances, and these amulets guard against sickness. Sick people are brought into
the presence of a possessed oracle, who will beat them with his sword to drive the evil out of them.
Walter Heissig, The Religions of Mongolia
Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet

72
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_affinities_licchavis_review.php
The Bon 13 religion, which preceded Buddhism in Tibet, is said to have originated from Tajik (Persia). According to Dub-thah-sel-kyi-me-
long, twenty generations of Tibetan Kings from Nya-thi-tsan-po down to Thi-je-tsan-po followed no other religion than the Bon, which
prevailed in Tibet up to 780 AD, when it was persecuted by King Thi-srong-de-tsan. The various black arts- such as witchcraft, exorcism,
magic, performance of miracles, sacrifice of animals, etc. in which the Bon-po priests were skilled - must have been imported from Nisibis
(Persia) by the Magi priests, who accompanied the Licchavis into Tibet. Sen-rab, who was one of the most prominent Bon-teachers, had
among his spiritual descendants a Persian sage, named Mu-tso-tra-he-si.
That there was intercourse between Persia and Tibet in the ancient days, is evident from Kālidāsa's (Sanskrit) Raghuvaṁsa, Canto IV (verses
60-81) in which the foreign conquests of Raghu are described. Raghu after subduing the Pārasīka (Persians), Huna (Huns) and Kamboja (the
inhabitants of the Hindukush mountains, which separate the Gilgit Valley from Balkh), ascended the Himalayas, where he fought hard
against the mountain tribes called U-tsa-va-saṁ-ketān,14 and afterwards crossing the Lauhitya (Brahmaputra river), came down to
Prāgjyotiṣa (Assam). This conquest of Raghu is, perhaps, a mere fiction, but it shows that in the days of Kalidasa, about 500 AD, the people
of India were aware of a route existing between Persia and India on the one hand and Persia and Tibet on the other. 13. Vide Rai Sarat
Chandra Das's article on "The Bon Religion" in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Part I, 1881.

73
Sarianidi V. Temples of Bronze Age Margiana: Traditions of Ritual Architecture in Antiquity, v.68, n.259. 1994.
Sarianidi V. New Discoveries at Ancient Gonur in Ancient Civilization, 2,3, Leiden. 1995.
Sarianidi V. Myths of Ancient Bactria and Margiana on its Seals and Amulets. Moscow. 1998.
74
http://www.khadijascaravan.com/turkomanpendant27.html

75
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
Sabloff, Paula L. W. Modern Mongolia-Reclaiming Genghis Khan. University of Pennsylvania. 2001. 148 pp. ISBN 0-924171-90-1
76
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. Margus: Murgap der‡asynyn köne hanasynyn a‡agynaky gadymy gündogar salygy = Margus :
drevnevostochnoe tsarstvo v staroi del'te reki Murgab = Margus : ancient oriental kingdom in the old delta of the Murghab river.
Türkmendöwlethabarlary 2002 ISBN : 5727001005

77
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. Margus: Murgap der‡asynyn köne hanasynyn a‡agynaky gadymy gündogar salygy = Margus :
drevnevostochnoe tsarstvo v staroi del'te reki Murgab = Margus : ancient oriental kingdom in the old delta of the Murghab river.
Türkmendöwlethabarlary 2002 ISBN : 5727001005
78
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. Margus: Murgap der‡asynyn köne hanasynyn a‡agynaky gadymy gündogar salygy = Margus :
drevnevostochnoe tsarstvo v staroi del'te reki Murgab = Margus : ancient oriental kingdom in the old delta of the Murghab river.
Türkmendöwlethabarlary 2002 ISBN : 5727001005
79
http://skyscrapercity.com/archive/index.php/t-178197.html
The Hittites were one of the first peoples to smelt iron successfully.
80
 Daniélou, Alain. Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus (also published as Shiva and Dionysus). Inner
Traditions; Reprint edition (May 1, 1992) (Paperback). 264 pages. ISBN: 0892813741.
81
http://www.zarathushtra.com/
Avesta, Yasna. Taraporewala, Irach J. S. (Editor). Gathas of Zarathustra: Text. Ams Pr. June 1947. 307 pages. ISBN: 0404128017
Godrej, Pheroza J. (Editor). A Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Religion & Culture. Mapin Publishing Pvt, Ltd. July 2002. 726 pages. ISBN:
1890206229
Mehr, Farhang. Zoroastrian Tradition: An Introduction to the Ancient Wisdom of Zarathustra. Element Books. November 1991.176 pages.
ISBN: 1852302542
Nanavutty, Piloo (Translator). The Gathas of Zarathushtra: Hymns in Praise of Wisdom. Mapin Publishing Pvt, Ltd. December 1999. 192
pages. ISBN: 1890206091
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger The Rig Veda : An Anthology Penguin Books 1981, 1984 ~1400-800 B.C.
Palsetia, Jesse S. The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City (Brill's Indological Library, V. 17). Brill Academic Publishers
(May 15, 2001). 368 pages. ISBN: 9004121145
Taraporevala, Sooni. Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India : A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY. Overlook Hardcover. October 7, 2004. 252 pages.
ISBN: 1585675938
http://www.zoroaster.net/indexe.htm
http://lexicorient.com/e.o/zarathus.htm
82
These arrows emanating from the body are linked to shamanistic ceremony and can be seen in prehistoric rock art.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/03/nc/hob_1984.4.htm

Openwork stamp seals, late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C.

Central Asia (Bactria-Margiana)
Copper alloy; 3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm)
Purchase, David L. Klein Jr. Memorial Foundation Inc. Gift and Gift of Lester Wolfe, by exchange, 1984 (1984.4)
Western Central Asia, now known as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northern Afghanistan, has yielded objects attesting to a highly
developed civilization in the late third and early second millennium B.C. Artifacts from the region indicate that there were contacts with Iran
to the southwest.
Openwork copper or bronze stamp seals, often called "compartmented" seals, were cast in both geometric and figural patterns in Bactria-
Margiana and are distinctive to that region. This copper-alloy example represents a male figure dressed in a short kilt and mountain boots
with upturned toes. If his horned headdress is similar in meaning to examples found in Mesopotamia and Iran, the figure may be divine. The
arrow-shaped forms emerging from his shoulders and under his arm may represent snakes or lightning bolts.
Meyer-Melikyan N. Analysis of Floral Remains from Togolok-21 in V.Sarianidi, Margiana and Protozoroastrianism, Athens, 1998.
Meyer-Melikyan and Avetov. Analysis of Floral Remains in the Ceramic Vessel from the Gonur Temenos in V.Sarianidi, Margiana and
Protozoroastrianism, Athens, 1998.
http://fusionanomaly.net/soma.html
Archaeological evidence
Excavations of an early 2nd millennium BC BMAC site in the Kara Kum desert, Turkmenistan (Gonur South) revealed ceramic bowls in the
context of a temple or shrine. The vessels were analysed by Professor Mayer-Melikyan and yielded traces of both Ephedra and Cannabis. In
an adjacent room, ceramic pot-stands were found which appear to have been used in conjunction with strainers designed to separate the
juices from the twigs, stems and leaves of the plants. A shrine at a later site (Togoluk 1, mid-second millennium) revealed a similar pottery
strainer, but without traces of hallucinogenics. The late second millennium site Togoluk 21 yielded vessels containing traces of Ephedra
again,in conjunction with pollen of poppies. These finds support the theory that the Indo-Iranian Sauma drink was a composite psychoactive
substance comprising of Ephedra and variously Cannabis or Opium, and probably other ingredients, and that the Sauma plant was Ephedra.
Other analyses of the residues from the Gonur and Togolok-21 vessels by Professor C.C. Bakels and other botanists, however, found traces
only of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum).
Frawley David: The Rig Veda and the History of India, 2001.(Aditya Prakashan), ISBN 81-7742-039-9
Parpola, Asko, The problem of the Aryans and the Soma: Textual-linguistic and archaeological evidence, in: The Indo-Aryans of Ancient
South Asia ed. G. Erdosy, de Gruyter (1995), 353–381.
Nyberg, Harri, The problem of the Aryans and the Soma: The botanical evidence, in: The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia ed. G. Erdosy, de
Gruyter (1995), 382–406.
Soma article from The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances by Richard Rudgley Little, Brown and Company (1998) (huxley.net)
Haoma article from Encyclopædia Iranica (iranica.com)
Bakels, C.C. 2003. “The contents of ceramic vessels in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, Turkmenistan.” Electronic Journal of
Vedic Studies. Vol. 9. Issue 1c (May 5)
http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/ejvs0901/ejvs0901c.txt
83
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/orsin3.htm
The Nabateans, like the Harranians, followed a complex system of astral worship, involving the sun and moon and seven major planets, in
which in her varying forms, the Goddess represented Venus and the Moon (Glueck 453). As Moon Goddess she is identifiable with Tyche,
Selene and Atargatis-Artemis of Hierapolis. Selene was worshipped in the new and full moon. She stands prima inter pares at the centre of
the main dieties of the Nabatean pantheon the seven planets and the zodiac, although sometimes displaced by Zeus. The snake twined eagle
is shown in at least one relief standing above both the sun and moon at Jebel Druze. However the fertility goddess, who was also in her
aspects the dolphin-crowned Sea Goddess (Aphrodite-Mari) of seafarers and the Moon Goddess clearly dominates the sculptures at Khirbet
Tannur, the outstanding Nabataean high sanctuary, archetypal of the biblical high places (Glueck).
http://petra-archaeology.com/
Glueck, N. Deities and Dolphins. Farrar Straus & Giroux (June 1965). ISBN: 0374136688

84
Sacks, Oliver. The man who mistook his wife for a hat. Picador. 1986. ISBN: 0330294911
85
http://www.well.com/~davidu/hypercosmic.html
Ulansey, David. Mithras And The Hypercosmic Sun. In Studies in Mithraism, John R.Hinnells, ed. (Rome: "L'Erma" di Brettschneider, 1994)
pp. 257-64.
Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. Oxford University Press. 1991. ISBN:
0195067886
Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries : Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. Oxford University Press, USA. March
28, 1991. 168 pages. ISBN: 0195067886
86
http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra_2.htm
As we have seen, rather than it being a "discovery" by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd [3rd?] century, the knowledge of the
precession of the equinoxes extends back thousands of years, possibly to the Age of Gemini or even earlier, as evinced by notable astronomers
such as Dr. Krupp. [chk] That the ancients followed precessional ages is revealed abundantly in the archaeological record. For example, the
sacred bull motif is found in numerous places around the "known world" precisely during the Age of Taurus. The change between the ages of
Taurus and Aries is recorded even in the Bible, at Exodus 12, where Moses institutes the sacrifice of the lamb or ram instead of the bull.
Clearly, something is amiss with our historical chronology; keeping in mind the massive destruction of culture and the pervasive tendency
towards secrets and mysteries, it is wise not to take sudden "discoveries" of this sort on face value.
The discernment of the Mithraic bull as representing the sign and age of Taurus is likewise not new; indeed, in the 18th century Dupuis
insisted upon the identification, as did Volney. By the end of the 19th century, Bunsen also wrote about the Taurean bull, first speaking of
Buddha as represented by the Lamb, but not the Bull, unlike Mithra:
Buddha is never represented as a bull, like Mithras and the more ancient solar heroes of the time when Taurus was the spring equinoctial
sign.
Bunsen further says:
Like Ormuzd, Mithras is represented riding on the bull, and Jehovah is described as riding on the Cherub, Kirub or bull. This bull is almost
certainly the constellation of Taurus; and the same Mithraic representation connects with the bull a scorpion, evidently the opposite
constellation. Also the Hebrews knew traditions according to which the Memra or Word of God, the Messiah, was symbolised first by fire,
that is, by the fiery or brazen serpent, which probably pointed to lightning, and later the Hebrews symbolised the Word by the sun.
In addition to the bull motif are the degrees of initiation within Mithraism, which Volney names as the "raven, griffin, soldier, lion, Persian,
courier of the sun, and father." He further states:
The real initiation was called sacramentum, possibly from the oath not to divulge the doctrine and rites of which the initiate gained
knowledge. The various steps were accompanied by ablutions and aspersions, signifying the purging away of sins. It would seem that on
attaining the rank of soldier, the candidate was branded with a hot iron.
In his "Letter to Laeta," Jerome relates the levels of Mithraic initiation as "Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Perseus, Sun, Crab, and
Father." Like the bull, these initiation degrees have been determined to represent constellations, as part of the Mithraic "star map," as
demonstrated most recently by David Ulansey. In an article excerpted from his book, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and
Salvation in the Ancient World, Ulansey says:
For the constellations pictured in the standard tauroctony have one thing in common: namely, they all lay on the celestial equator as it was
positioned during the epoch immediately preceeding the Greco-Roman "Age of Aries." During that earlier age, which we may call the "Age of
Taurus," lasting from around 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the celestial equator passed through Taurus the Bull (the spring equinox of that epoch),
Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion (the autumn equinox): that is, precisely the
constellations represented in the Mithraic tauroctony.
In this "Age of Taurus" the celestial equator passed through Taurus, Canis Minor, Hydra, Corvus, and Scorpio: precisely the constellations
pictured in the Mithraic bull-slaying icon.
Thus all of the figures found in the tauroctony represent constellations that had a special position in the sky during the Age of Taurus. The
Mithraic tauroctony, then, was apparently designed as a symbolic representation of the astronomical situation that obtained during the Age
of Taurus.
Regarding the slaying of the Mithraic Bull, Freke and Gandy remark:
Scholars now understand that altar-pieces representing Mithras slaying a bull are actually star maps depicting the ending of the Age of
Taurus.

87
http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sprecess.htm
88
http://www.zarathushtra.com/
Avesta, Yasna. Taraporewala, Irach J. S. (Editor). Gathas of Zarathustra: Text. Ams Pr. June 1947. 307 pages. ISBN: 0404128017
Godrej, Pheroza J. (Editor). A Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Religion & Culture. Mapin Publishing Pvt, Ltd. July 2002. 726 pages. ISBN:
1890206229
Mehr, Farhang. Zoroastrian Tradition: An Introduction to the Ancient Wisdom of Zarathustra. Element Books. November 1991.176 pages.
ISBN: 1852302542
Nanavutty, Piloo (Translator). The Gathas of Zarathushtra: Hymns in Praise of Wisdom. Mapin Publishing Pvt, Ltd. December 1999. 192
pages. ISBN: 1890206091
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger The Rig Veda : An Anthology Penguin Books 1981, 1984 ~1400-800 B.C.
Palsetia, Jesse S. The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City (Brill's Indological Library, V. 17). Brill Academic Publishers
(May 15, 2001). 368 pages. ISBN: 9004121145
Taraporevala, Sooni. Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India : A Photographic Journey. Overlook Hardcover. October 7, 2004. 252 pages. ISBN:
1585675938
http://www.zoroaster.net/indexe.htm
http://lexicorient.com/e.o/zarathus.htm
Rivetna, Roshan (Ed.). The Legacy Of Zarathustra: an Introduction to the Religion, History and Culture of the Zarathushtis (Zoroastrians).
FEZANA. 2002. 100p. ISBN: 1-883345-03-0.
http://www.vohuman.org/

89
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
2 Kings 16:2 "Ahaz ... did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God... But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and
made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of
Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree."
http://www.urantia.org/papers/paper89.html
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1689904
http://www.philipharland.com/Blog/2005/05/
Arens, William. The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Davies, Nigel. Human Sacrifice. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1981.Gibbons, Ann. "Archaeologists Rediscover Cannibals." Science 1 Aug.
1997: 635-637
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. Divine Hunger: Cannibalism As a Cultural System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Shelby Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context (JSOT/ASOR Monograph Series,
vol. 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), p.149.
http://www.wikimirror.com/Human_sacrifice

90
This website beautifully explains the numerous reasons for the re-writing of history to confirm religious and ethnic beliefs.
http://phoenicia.org/
Roman Bad Press, Bible Writers, and Fanatics
Also, anti-Phoenician sentiments were the result of bad press by Roman historians, particularly after the Punic wars, and Jewish zealotism
and hate of Phoenician religion by Bible writers. This was particularly so because of the infestation of pagan worship in the religion of the
Israel caused by Queen Jezebel of Israel (a Phoenician Princess). Fundamentalist obsession with the literal interpretation of their religious
book or political fanaticism of others with various agenda cloud the truth.
91
Herodotus. Rawlinson, George (Transl.). The History of Herodotus. Written 440 B.C.E
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html
92
Of the Celts Diodorus notes that:
Their aspect is terrifying...They are very tall in stature, with ripling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not naturally so:
they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it in lime and combing it back from their foreheaads. They look like wood-demons, their hair
thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. Some of them are cleanshaven, but others - especially those of high rank, shave their cheeks but leave a
moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food...The way they dress is
astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a
brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. These cloaks are striped or checkered in design, with the seperate checks close together and in
various colours.
[The Celts] wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns, which made them look even taller than they already
are...while others cover themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most content themselves with the weapons nature gave them:
they go naked into battle...Weird, discordant horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their
swords rythmically against their shields.
Diodorus describes how the Celts cut off their enemies' heads and nailed them over the doors of their huts, as Diodorus states:
 In exactly the same way as hunters do with their skulls of the animals they have slain...they preserved the heads of their most high-ranking
victims in cedar oil, keeping them carefully in wooden boxes.
Diodorus Siculus, History.
"Let us suppose that in modern Europe the faithful had deserted the Christian churches to worship Allah or Brahma, to follow the precepts of
Confucius or Buddha, or to adopt the maxims of the Shinto; let us imagine a great confusion of all the races of the world in which Arabian
mullahs, Chinese scholars, Japanese bonzes, Tibetan lamas and Hindu pundits should all be preaching fatalism and predestination, ancestor-
worship and devotion to a deified sovereign, pessimism and deliverance through annihilation — a confusion in which all those priests should
erect temples of exotic architecture in our cities and celebrate their disparate rites therein. Such a dream, which the future may perhaps
realize, would offer a pretty accurate picture of the religious chaos in which the ancient world was struggling before the reign of Constantine."
Franz Cumont
The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
93
Arnobius was one of those scholarly converts who rejected paganism more than they accepted Christianity. He flourished about 300
B.C.E., some five hundred years after the cult of Cybele had been introduced into Rome. There is no doubt that he had been outraged by
witnessing the gruesome atrocities performed in the public dramas representing the passion of Attis. We gain a vivid impression of what
these were like from his description of the emasculated priests, "the Galli, with disheveled hair, beating their breasts." They must, he
surmised, "be involved in the infamy of some shameful deed. For who would believe that there is any honor in that which the worthless Galli
perform, effeminate debauchers complete?'' (Adversus Gentes, V, 16-17).
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/no_4_attis_cybele.htm
The early Christians were determined to destroy the cult and St Augustine condemns Her as a "demon" and a "monster" and the Gallae were
"madmen" and "castrated perverts" (hardly an unbiased opinion). In the 4th century CE Valentinian II officially banned the worship of
Cybele, and many of her followers perished at the hands of zealous Christians.
Justinian continued the persecution of the cult and the Gallae. Under his reign, transgendered persons, and those indulging in same sex
eroticism had their property confiscated, sacred texts burned, temples raised; they were tortured, forced to commit suicide, or burned alive.
It made its last appearance under the pagan revival of Eugenius in AD 394
By the start of the 6th century CE, the Cult and the ancient Gallae were extinct. Elements of the cult were transferred into Christianity in a
manner similar to that of Isis. There is a much of Cybele and Isis in the Virgin Mary.
http://www.carnaval.com/cybele/
Christ recognizes the effort of the Ephesian brethren, in spite of many obstacles, to keep the faith and carry out the commission He had given
them. "I know your works, your labor, your patience," He told them, "and that you cannot bear those who are evil" (Revelation 2:2).
In Ephesus was much evil to avoid— within and without the congregation. It was there that Paul had warned the "elders of the church" (Acts
20:17): "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves
men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves" (verses 29-30).
Moreover, the Ephesian brethren had to resist the many temptations the immensely popular pagan temple worship offered them.
Archaeologists have found at Ephesus the ruins of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Diana, or Artemis, also
mentioned in the Bible (Acts 19:27). Thousands of priests and priestesses served the temple; many of the priestesses were dedicated to cultic
prostitution.
Centuries earlier Heracleitus, an Ephesian philosopher, described the inhabitants there as "fit only to be drowned[,] and the reason why
[they] could never laugh or smile was because [they] lived amidst such terrible uncleanness." Such was the reputation of ancient Ephesus. It
would have been difficult to live as a Christian in the midst of such an immoral city.
Certainly the Old Testament identifies Satan's chief seat of activity as being in ancient Babylon, where the doctrines of its mystery religion
"made all the earth drunk" (Jeremiah 51:7). This would make its religious successor, Pergamos, the temporary new "Satan's seat" of the
Babylonian mystery religion.
Revelation 17:4-5, 18 reveals that in the end time a powerful religious system from the ancient past will again reign over the nations and be
identified as "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth."
Christ says about this congregation: "I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than
the first. Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and
seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols" (Revelation 2:19-20).
http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn35/archaeologyrevelation.htm
A. T. Fear's article, "Cybele and Christ" (pp. 37-50) in Eugene N. Lane (ed.), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M. J.
Vermaseren. Religions in the Greco-Roman World, 131. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996. Pp. vi + 441. $138. ISBN 90-04-10196-9.
Clement of Alexandria (c 150 - c 230 CE) (born Titus Flavius Clemens) united philosophy and theology by using ideas from Greek philosophy
(primarily Plato) to elucidate truths within Christian doctrine. His three main works (Protrepticus, Paedagogus and the unfinished
Stromateis)
http://watch.pair.com/symbol.html
"The 'heiros gamos,' the sacred prostitute was the votary chosen to embody the goddess. She was the goddess' fertile womb, her passion
and her erotic nature. In the union with the god, embodied by the reigning monarch, she assured the fertility and well-being of the land and
the people. . . she did not make love in order to obtain admiration or devotion from the man who came to her, for often she remained veiled
and anonymous; her raison d'être was to worship the goddess in lovemaking, thereby bringing the goddess love into the human sphere. In
this union -- the union of masculine and feminine, spiritual and physical -- the personal was transcended and the divine entered in. As the
embodiment of the goddess in the mystical union of the sacred marriage, the sacred prostitute aroused the male and was the receptacle for
his passion . . . . The sacred prostitute was the holy vessel wherein chthonic and spiritual forces united." (7)
Now certainly I am not suggesting that true sexuality and spirituality should be untied in this way. After all, this was what the Apostle Paul
was trying to straighten out in the Corinthian church because some of the believers were apparently still having intercourse with sacred
prostitutes (I Cor. 6:15-20). In order to correct this perversion, he encourages the cultivation of a sexual relationship in marriage as a
prevention from this abundant "sacred sex." Apparently, even the married couples had become abstinent as an overreaction to the Corinthian
extremes and had thrown the sexual relationship totally out of marriage. To this problem, Paul tells them to "stop depriving themselves," and
to recultivate the sexual area of their marriage lest they be severely tempted by the culture (or Satan). In similar fashion the Church has been
reacting and overreacting on the relation of sexuality to spirituality ever since.
(7) Nancy Qualls-Corbett, The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1988), pp. 39-40.
94
Juvenal recorded the rites of Cybele with horror.
‘And now, behold! in comes the chorus of the frantic Bellona and the mother of the Gods, attended by a giant eunuch to whom his obscene
inferiors must do reverence. . . . Before him the howling herd with the timbrels give way; his plebeian cheeks are covered with a Phrygian
tiara. With solemn utterance he bids the lady beware the coming of the September Siroccos if she do not purify herself with a hundred eggs,
and present him with some old mulberry-coloured garments in order that any great and unforeseen calamity impending may pass into the
clothes, and make expiation for the entire year. In winter she will go down to the river of a morning…’ Juvenal (Sat. VI, 510-40).
Bammer, A (1985) Architektur und Gesellschaft in der Antike. Zur Deutung baulicher Symbole, rev. ed., Graz/Vienna: Osterr. Archaeol.
Institut
Bammer, A (1984) Das Heiligtum der Artemis von Ephesos, Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt
Bammer, A (1974) Fuhrer durch das Archaeologische Museum in Selcuk- Ephesos, Vienna
95
Romer, John and Elizabeth. The Seven Wonders of the World: A History of the Modern Imagination. Seven Dials, London, 2000. ISBN:
184188037X
96
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_01.html
Her other eastern cults included orgiastic mysteries on Aegina and Samothrace.
Marquardt, A Portrait of Hecate, p. 251.
http://www.carnaval.com/cybele/
"Frenzied fans (a word derived from the Latin fanatici, for maddened worshippers of Cybele)”
97
http://hunter.apana.org.au/~gallae/QueerStuff/religion/gallae/cultrituals.htm
http://www.aztriad.com/fasti.html
http://www.aztriad.com/gallae.html

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http://hunter.apana.org.au/~gallae/QueerStuff/religion/gallae/cultofcybele.htm
Cybele had a reputation for miracles and retribution. Apart from the re floating of the ship carrying the holy relic, She was also held
responsible for good crops and military victories (such as the one over the Carthaginians after She entered Rome). At other times She
appeared to uphold her own and her follower's honour.
When the Battakès intended to harangue the crowds in the Forum, he was driven from the Rostra by a tribune Aulus Pompeius who called
him a charlatan and the crowd hurled insults at him. The tribune was taken with a burning fever and died three days later, whereupon the
Battakès reappeared at the Forum and a repentant populace honoured him with gifts.
On another occasion a lady of noble aspirations entered the Aedes Magna Matris and stole a string of pearls from a statue of Cybele. Several
days later she was found strangled to death with them.

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http://www.2goglobal.com/2GoChronicals/2%20Go%20Photos/Asia/malaysia/2_go_thiapusam.htm
http://www.geocities.com/seameo2000/festivals.htm
http://penangpage.com/thaipusam/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/features/thaipusam/devotion.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam
http://glennh.tripod.com/wa_sing_tpsm.htm

100
http://www.answers.com/topic/day-of-ashurah
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1890541.stm
101
Ashurah also means
http://www.aztriad.com/godesses.html
Asherah: She is the Queen of Heaven, in other languages and ages identified as Ashtoreth, Athirat, Astarte, and Ishtar. Yahweh, the Hebrew
God elevated to become the sole deity , was Her consort. Her "male" priestesses were known as kelabim, the faithful "dogs" of the Goddess,
who practiced divinatory arts, danced in processions, and served as hierodules, qedeshim, in the company of other priestesses. Elements of
the goddess worship were largely erased in a cultural purge c. 630 BCE by King Yosiah, at the behest of Yahweh's priests, who required
supremacy.
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/hachi-bushu.shtml#ashura
Asuras are demigods, or semi-blessed beings. They are powerful, yet fierce and quarrelsome, and like humans, they are partly good and
partly evil. Some say Ashura was an Indian royal who converted to Buddhism. In other Hindu traditions, Ashura is a sun goddess, feared for
bringing droughts.
Ashura is sometimes identified with sunshine and helping crops to grow. Many sources depict the Asura as demons, yet they are not always
portrayed as sinister, and some are even godlike in their piousness. In Japan, Ashura is often shown with three faces* and six arms, with the
side faces often expressing the violent warrior aspects associated with Ashura's Hindu origin.
* This links with the mythology of Hekate and the Triple Goddess.
Frederic, Louis. Buddhism: Flammarion Iconographic Guides. France. 1995. ISBN 2-08013-558-9.
Quote from Flammarion Iconographic Guide:
The king of the Ashura, often shown with three-faced head (or three heads*) and six arms (sometimes four arms). He is often shown holding
the sun, moon*, bow and arrows, a mirror*, and has two hands in the Anjali mudra. Hair is usually bristling. The king of hunger, an ogre in
perpetual anger, the king of quarrels. Of the three heads (faces), the central head has a suffering expression, and the others appear angry.
102
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm

The Venus of Laussel holds up a moon horn with 13 notches. Pregnant goddess and horned bulls of Catal Huyuk. The Golden calf on a lyre
burial chamber Ur (Campbell 1987, Mellaart, Eban).
Ancient Roots of the Moon God - Briffault notes that the Moon as a deity is in its ancient form male, the male nature complementing the
natural moon-related cycle of female fertility. This can be appreciated when we consider that a common thread runs from the ancient Venus
of Laussel dating from around 18,000 - 20,000 BC, with her 13 notched upheld moon horn, representing the lunar months, through Catal
Huyuk with the horned Bulls and pregnant fertility goddesses, to the golden calves of Ur and of Israel and the bull-horned El of Canaan, who
although no longer specifically a Moon God retains his ancient fertility symbol. the human menstrual cycle.
The association of the Bull's horns with fertility expresses in one image the virility of the bull and the moon-driven rebirth of human fertility
in the blood flow of the menses. This association has also become cyclically steeped in the blood of sacrifice, for it was perceived that out of
blood came new life. In this parallel truth of the fertilized soil came endless cycles of animal and human sacrifice to the fertility goddess so
that the harvest would spring forth anew and nourish the agricultural peoples. The moon deity, as a waxing and waning god. This causes the
moon to be associated both with the dead and the underworld and with immortal life. It also became associated with the agricultural
sacrificial cycle and the resurrection on the third day of the new moon.
The period in which the Moon completes an orbit around the Earth and returns to the same position in the sky--the sidereal month - is 27
days, 7 h, 43 min. Because the Earth is moving in its orbit around the Sun in the same direction as the Moon, the time needed to return to the
same phase--the synodic month - is longer: 29 days, 12 h, 44 min. This period is the time interval that, for example, elapses between two
successive full moons, a period that was known within a second even in ancient times (Grollier). The natural period of the human menstrual
cycle is about 28 days, the nominal month we still use of four seven day weeks. 13 such 28 day months constitute just one day short of a year,
however they lose synch with the moon, as the number of synodic lunar months is 12.38 per year, enough for 13 notches, but not for 13
revolutions. A transition thus occurred in history from a 13 month year to a 12 month year and 13 became the unlucky number.
Something of the idea of how fundamental the moon deity is to our cultural evolution can be understood from the fact that 'men' - the moon
is the source of both 'menses' - the blood flow of human fertility and 'mens' - the mind. The association between moon and mind thus extends
from the fringes of lunacy across the entire mental realm. The moon is thus specifically associated with both fertility and the mind itself. You
could say the ancient moon god was both the god of the cosmic mind and the cause of menstruation - the source of conception! His
widespread name Sin means God of Wisdom. The collection of the major heavenly bodies, the houses of the moon, around the seven names
of the week is also a lunar-centred description, emphasizing the central role played by the moon among the astronomical bodies.
"But while the moon, as 'the real husband of all women', is thought of as a male, it is at the same time associated with the functions, not of
men, but of women. It is the source not only of their reproductive powers but all their other powers, especially their magic powers.
Furthermore the moon stands in primitive thought for perpetual renewal, immortality, eternity" (Briffault v2 583). The moon is the real
measure of time. It its three days of darkness is the origin of myths of descent and resurrection in the new moon on the third day. "In
primitive thought the eternal time-creating nature of the moon imparts to it an inexorable character, setting it above all other powers" (ibid).
The resurrecting moon has an inextricable link with the serpent, which sheds its skin. So intimate is this association that
... wherever we find the serpent, ... we may expect to find a lunar cult. This link is accentuated by the idea that
menstruation is caused by union between a woman and a serpent. The great leviathan of the deeps is also naturally the moon tide.
"The moon is the regulator and cause of menstruation, which is frequently regarded as being the result of actual intercourse between the
moon and women. ... The dangerous character ascribed to women is also attributed to that celestial body which is everywhere associated with
women, the moon."Belief that the moon, or moonlight can precipitate conception is culturally widespread." (Briffault v2 585).
Briffault, Robert. The Mothers. I, II, III, London, 1927.
The moon deity thus combines an astral cosmic and mental aspect with the core principles of female fertility in a way in which the genders
form a natural and meaningful complement. It is simplistic to attempt to identify the Moon God as being merely the God of the Moon,
because his aspects extend into the core aspects of meaning and being.
http://www.aztriad.com/godesses.html
Diana: The cultus of the Roman Diana eventually merged with that of the Hellenic Artemis, goddess of the moon and of the legendary
Amazons. She was worshipped in Ephesus as a black meteoric stone fashioned by the Ionians into the many-breasted image of the same
Great Mother revered throughout Asia Minor. Even the Christian scriptures jealously echoed "...Great is Diana of the Ephesians" (Acts
19:28). Diana is quintessentially the Goddess of the Antianeirai, female warriors, lovers of the hunt, who refused marriage and the typical
feminine roles of the age. Antianeirai, having little regard for men, favored the companionship of women ... and welcomed gallae as sisters.
Diana was served by two kinds of priestess: the melissai, "honeybees" , and the remarkable male-to-female megabyzes, the title of Persian
origin. The megabyzes, attired in gold-embroidered actaea of Tyrrhian purple, were famed throughout the known world for twin attributes of
wisdom and beauty. They carried the image of the Goddess in grand processions on her local festival in late May. These gender-variant
priestesses commonly served as makers of magic amulets... telling fortunes through casting of Ephesian "runes". The Great Temple, one of
the famed Seven Wonders, met final destruction in the year 405 CE. Constantinople's Hagia Sophia was raised from the profits of this pillage,
though many feared that its stones might yet be tainted by the presence of the Ancient Goddess.
http://shedrums.com/Medusa.htm
The Serpent-Haired Queen Medusa (Sovereign Female Wisdom)
The Dark Goddess, in her guise as Medusa, was best known as the third Gorgon sister, whose beautiful abundant hair became a
crown of hissing serpents and the gaze from her evil eye turned men into stone. Yet Medusa was once known for her beauty. She was
depicted with graceful golden wings arched above her shoulders, and she took the Sea God as her lover.
The Orphics called the moon’s face the Gorgon’s Head. According to Robert Graves, during the earlier matriarchal times the Gorgon
sisters were representatives of the Triple Moon Goddess. They were masked guardians, the protectors of her mysteries. The fact that
Medusa was the only one of the three sisters who was mortal and could die suggests her association as a dark goddess connected to the dark
closure aspect of the lunar cycle.
In Libya, Neith, known as Anatha, was said to have arisen out of Lake Tritonis, the Lake of the Triple Queens. She displayed her triple nature
as Athena, Metis and Medusa, who corresponded to the new, full, and dark phases of the moon. Athena was the new moon warrior maiden
who inspired the Amazon tribes of women to courage, strength, and valor. The Sea Goddess Metis, whose name means “wise counsel,” was
the full moon mother aspect of this trinity who, in later mythical tales, conceived Athena from Zeus. Medusa embodied the third, dark aspect
as destroyer/crone, and she was revered as the Queen of the Libyan Amazons, the Serpent Goddess of female wisdom.
The tale of Perseus’s slaying of Medusa is on of the most ancient of all the Greek myths. The classical version may actually be based on a far
older myth, preserved by local folk tradition, which extend back to the Mycenaean Period of the second millennium BCE. It was later
overlaid with heroic elements that were so popular among the Greeks of the historic age. Graves feels that this story portrayed actual events
during the reign of the historical King Perseus (ca. 1290 BCE), founder of the new dynasty in Mycenae. During this period the powers of the
early moon goddesseses in North Africa were usurped by patriarchal-dominated invaders of mainland Greece. The legend of Perseus
beheading Medusa means that the Hellenes overran the Goddess’s chief shrines, stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks, and took
possession of the sacred horse. This historical rupture and sociological trauma registered itself in the following myth.
In order to penetrate the mystery that stands behind the Gorgon’s Head, we must first untangle the threads that weave and bind Medusa and
Athena. Medusa and Athena are aspects of the same goddess who emerged from Lake Tritonis in Libya. They are both associated with
female wisdom, which is depicted in the serpent symbolism that surrounds them – Medusa with her serpent locks and Athena with her
serpent-fringed aegis. Medusa, as wise crone, holds the secrets of sex, divination, magic, death and renewal. Athena, the eternal maiden, is
linked with the new moon and presides over the female qualities of courage, strength and valor. This African triple goddess, who was born
out of the sea and reigned in the desert, displayed herself as both the armored chaste virgin warrior Athena and the serpent-crowned Queen
Medusa, protector of the dark moon mysteries, who celebrated the sexual rites with the lineage of sea gods.
The warrior form of this Libyan triple goddess was clothed in the original legendary aegis – a goatskin chastity tunic. She also wore a Gorgon
mask and carried around her waist a leather pouch containing sacred serpents. This outfit was duplicated in the dress of the Amazon women,
and later worn by the classical Athena in her Olympioan reign. Any man who removed one of these tunics without the owner’s consent would
be killed for violating the potent maidenhood of these young women.
The infamous Gorgon masks were called gorgoneions. They portrayed a face with glaring eyes, bared fanged teeth, and protruding tongue,
similar to many images of Kali. They were worn by priestesses in moon-worshipping rituals, both to frighten away strangers and to evoke the
Goddess herself. The purpose of the mask was to protect the secrecy required for the magickal work associated with the third or dark triad of
the Triple Moon Goddess. It served to warn people against intruding upon the divine mysteries hidden behind it.
These ceremonies included divination, healing, magic, and the sexual serpent mysteries associated with death and rebirth. The
female face, represented by Medusa, surrounded by serpent hair was a widely recognized symbol of divine female wisdom. The Ephasus
Gorgons with four wings each almost duplicate the flying Gorgons at Delphi, the temple of the world’s greatest oracular priestesses. The
venom from the bite of certain snakes induced the hallucinatory state in which the oracular vision was revealed.
The mask was also worn by priestesses in the sacred sexual rites to symbolize that they were acting not as individuals, but as representatives
of the Goddess, whom she empowered to transmit her blessings of healing and regeneration through ritual intercourse. The prophylactic
mask was also donned by the funerary priestesses, who initiated people into the mysteries of death. In later times to possess a replica of a
Gorgon’s Head was to be protected with a charm against ills that repelled the attack of harmful forces. It was believed to be a protection
against the evil eye, and was often depicted in shields, ovens, town walls, and buildings to frighten enemies and ward off malicious spirits.
With the passage of time, Libyan refugees emigrated to Crete. They had brought with them their Serpent Goddess Anatha, and by 4000 BCE
she had become known as Athena, the protectress of the palace. Her worship was adopted and then passed on to mainland Greece and
Thrace in the Minoan/Mycenaen period. From this era there arose a new genealogy of the birth of Athena. She now was said to have sprung
forth from the head of her father, Zeus. Earlier versions reveal that Athena was conceived in a union between Zeus and a mother goddess
named Metis/Medusa, who came from the sea.
Historical evidence points to the fact that Medusa was a high priestess of Africa who presided over Libyan tribes of Amazon warror
women. Dating from at least 6000 BCE, these fierce and noble African Amazons populated not only North Africa, but also Spain and Italy.
The Greek legends of Poseidon mating with Medusa, and Perseus slaying the Gorgon, derive from actual battles waged by the patriarchal
Greek soldiers against these warrior women from North Africa. The tribe against whom Perseus fought was a race called the Gorgons.
The Gorgon mask, as the face of the moon, suggests that Medusa was one of the three aspects of the pre-Hellenic Moon Goddess, and the
small native horses of these indigenous peoples were sacred to the early moon cults in rainmaking ceremonies. Poseidon’s rape of Medusa in
the form of a stallion tells the story of how the first wave of invading Hellenes from Greece, who rode large vigorous horses,
forcibly married the Amazon moon priestesses and took over the rainmaking rites of the sacred horse cult through the
birth of Pegasus.
This is one variation of many similar stories that appear all over the Mediterranean Crescent around this time, describing the
transition from the reign of the goddesses to that of the gods. The supremacy of the Great Goddess who took the young God as her
Consort/lover was overturned and the God matures and then usurps her power by forcibly raping, marrying and subjugating her and by
suppressing her worship. Poseidon’s soldiers likewise raped the Amazon priestesses, and they ignored the injunction of the aegis and Gorgon
mask to stay away unless invited. The Gorgon mask then turned into the portrait of horror, fear, and rage frozen on the faces of these warrior
women resulting from their forceful violation.
The serpent symbolizes the kundalini force coiled like a snake at the base of the spine that stand behind our sexual procreative energy. When
kundalini is activated, it rises up through the central spinal column, activating each charka in turn, and eventually comes out of the top of the
head as cosmic enlightenment. When Medusa’s hair is transformed into snakes, this symbolizes the rising of the kundalini and our ability to
utilize this force for regenerative healing, mental creativity, oracular wisdom, and spiritual power.
The menstrual blood of the Serpent Goddess that could heal, kill, and even raise the dead is reflected in the twin serpents of Life
and Death twining about the winged staff that is today the emblem of the medical profession. Her blood was given by Athena to the God of
Healing, Asklepius, whose daughter Hygeia, Goddess of Health was in classical times the guardian of the sacred serpents in the healing
temples.
http://sambali.blogspot.com/2006_02_06_sambali_archive.html
During the medieval period, Albumasar apparently develops these old Iranian concepts into a theory of tides in his work Great Introduction
to Astrology. Albumasar's theory was adopted by Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, William of Auvergne, Albert the Great
and others. The influence of the Moon on tides and the ocean is interesting in connection with the elixir as "Soma" is also a Sanskrit name for
the Moon.
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http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm
The resurrecting moon has an inextricable link with the serpent, which sheds its skin. So intimate is this association that ... wherever we find
the serpent, ... we may expect to find a lunar cult. This link is accentuated by the idea that menstruation is caused by union between a woman
and a serpent. The great leviathan of the deeps is also naturally the moon tide.
"The moon is the regulator and cause of menstruation, which is frequently regarded as being the result of actual intercourse between the
moon and women. ... The dangerous character ascribed to women is also attributed to that celestial body which is everywhere associated with
women, the moon."Belief that the moon, or moonlight can precipitate conception is culturally widespread." (Briffault v2 585).
Briffault, Robert. Taylor, Gordon R. (Editor). The Mothers. Holiday House (February 1977). ISBN: 0689705417
http://www.humanevolution.net/a/matrilineal.html
"The beautiful Hera, one of the most revered of the Greek Goddesses, is the likely descendant of the prehistoric Snake Goddess." "Homer
called her "cow-faced." boopis. Egyptian Hathor was also a cow and is described as the primeval serpent who ruled the world." (Gimbutas,
Marija (1989) The Languages of the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p.134)
http://shedrums.com/Medusa.htm
The serpent symbolizes the kundalini force coiled like a snake at the base of the spine that stand behind our sexual procreative energy. When
kundalini is activated, it rises up through the central spinal column, activating each charka in turn, and eventually comes out of the top of the
head as cosmic enlightenment. When Medusa’s hair is transformed into snakes, this symbolizes the rising of the kundalini and our ability to
utilize this force for regenerative healing, mental creativity, oracular wisdom, and spiritual power. To the extent that we have culturally
repressed and feared the powers of this Dark Goddess and have accepted the patriarchal view of her as a monster to be destroyed, we have
cut ourselves off from our ability to access our sexual power to create, regenerate, and know the truth from within ourselves. In face we have
been taught to shirk from and reject the kind of menstrual, ecstatic, and nonreproductive sexuality that activates these powers. Medusa in us
carries the patriarchy’s projection of women’s dark sexuality as evil.
104
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm

The Venus of Laussel holds up a moon horn with 13 notches.

Pregnant goddess and horned bulls of Catal Huyuk
The Golden calf on a lyre burial chamber Ur (Campbell 1987, Mellaart, Eban).
http://alexm.here.ru/mirrors/www.enteract.com/jwalz/Eliade/150.html
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/lucretius-reruma.html
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, translation by William Ellery Leonard.
‘One aspect of the cult was the use of baptism in the blood of a bull, a practice later taken over by Mithraism.’
http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/cybele.html
http://hunter.apana.org.au/~gallae/QueerStuff/religion/gallae/cultrituals.htm
Other Rituals
Two rituals should be noted in particular -- the Taurobolium and the Criobolium. These involved sacrifices of a bull or ram respectively to
produce a baptism of blood. The initiate would stand underneath the sacrificial animal in a pit. It was then slaughtered and the blood poured
up the person beneath it. Sometimes the testicles of the animal would be removed as well. It is thought that this was intended as a substitute
castration. Instead of the initiate castrating themselves, the animal was sacrificed and castrated instead.
The gallae were also associated with fortune telling for money. They were also known to compose spells, create philters, fashion amulets and
talismans (for lovers, farmers and travellers) and supposed to hold power over wild animals. Some people thought they could make rain, and
exorcise spirits and engage in rituals of purification.

105
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1605/history.html
6500 BC...Catal Huyuk, neolithic site in Turkey (Central Anatolia) flourished...At Catul Huyuk the goddess images were shown with the bull
horns emerging from her womb. (June Campbell..pg 41)
5th Century BC..."According to Kuznetsov, Bon was introduced to Tibet in the fifth century BC, when there occurred a mass migration of
Iranians from Sogdhiana in north-east Iran to the northern parts of Tibet. They brought with them an ancient form of polytheistic Mithraism
and the Araimic alphabet, named after Aramaiti, the Iranian Earth Goddess." June Campbell: "Traveller in Space"...
Campbell, June. Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. George Braziller. 1996. 225 pages. ISBN: 0807614068

The bull's head as UTERUS is placed below the abdomen on this anthropomorphic marble vase from the Clyclades in Greece. (Circa 2000
B.C.).
106
Conkey, Margaret W. and Tringham, Ruth E. 'Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology' in Domna,
Stanton, C. and Stewart, Abigail J. (eds). Feminisms in the Academy. University of Michigan Press. 1995.
Devdutt, Pattanaik. The Goddess in India : The Five Faces of the Eternal Feminine. Inner Traditions. 2000. ISBN: 0892818077.
Getty, Adele. Goddess, Mother of Living Nature. Thames and Hudson. London. 1990. (80)
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper & Row, (xix ). 1989.
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. Faber & Faber. 1948.
Graves, Robert. Mammon and the Black Goddess. Cassell, 1965.
Robertson, Dale N. The Biblical Ciphers Unsealed : A Revival of the Hebrew Goddess. St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2001.
Stone, Merlin. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: A treasure of Goddess and Heroine Lore from Around the World. Beacon Press: Boston,
Mass. 1984: pages 198-201.
Walker, Barbara G. The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Castle Books: Edison, NJ. 1996.
107
Alexander, Paul J. The Oracle of Ballbek: The Tiburtine Sibyl in Greek Dress. J. J. Augustin: Locust Valley, New York. 1967.
This scholarly book takes great care in showing the Latin and Greek translations of the Sibylline Prophecies. The book traces the time and
location that each book (the 5th and 6th century versions) was created, based on the descriptions given and the vocabulary in the books.
Collins, John J. Seers, Sybils and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism. Volume 54.
Koninklijke Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands. 1997: pages 181-238.
Collins explores the role of the Sibyl and the Sibylline books in religion. He comments, "Both Jews and Christians propagated oracles in the
name of the Sibyl because of her reputation in the pagan world. But in the process they changed the kind of oracles attributed to the Sibyl,
and there by extended her reputation long after the gods of antiquity had faded away" (page 181). He also speaks of the "false Sibyls,"
suggesting that there are only the Greek, Italian and Jewish Sibyl. He believes that all the other Sibyl's are really the Jewish one with different
names.
Dronke, Peter. F.B.A. Hermes and the Sibyls: Continuations and Creations. Inaugural lecture. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, Mass.
9, March 1990.
Peter Abeland (12th century writer) is quoted in this book as saying, "If we extent this grace of prophecy to the pagans, let the fates, the Sibyl,
come into our midst and tell what was revealed to her about Christ. If we compare all the male prophets, even Isaiah himself, with her, we
shall see that in this grace a woman far surpasses men" (page 12).
Fontenrose, J E (1988) Didyma: Apollo's Oracle, cult, and companions, Berkeley: California UP
Fox, R L (1986) Pagans and Christians, Harmondsworth: Viking
Grabar, A (1969) Christian iconography. A study of its origins, Princeton, NJ: UP
Guenther, W (1971) Das Orakel von Didyma in hellenistischer Zeit, Tuebingen: Wasmuth
Parke, H. W. McGing, B. C. (Ed.). Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity. Routledge. 1992. 256 pages. ISBN: 0415076382.
Parke, H. W. The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor. Routledge. 1993. ISBN: 0415095719.
Weis, B K (1983) Das Orakelheiligtum des Apollon von Didyma, Ludwigsburg: Karawane-Verlag
Wood, J T (1877) Discoveries at Ephesus, reprinted Hildesheim: Olms 1975.
108
http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/cybele.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl
109
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_02.html
Sacred Pole.
The above attestations of Hekate's maternal character are confirmed by the central pole of the hekataion, whose meaning is to be sought in
the context of ancient Near Eastern concepts of numinous place, considered in detail as they relate to witch-depiction below. Briefly, these
are water, trees and heights.(48)
It is the tree which particularly concerns us here.
Especially frequent in Mesopotamian iconography, trees are used particularly as fertility symbols, and biblical denunciations of worship:
“...on the hills, under every verdant tree...” (Dt. 12:2, I K.14:23, etc.) provide sour confirmation of the pattern.
A like practice was the marking of sacred places with poles. This would make particular sense in regions where trees were uncommon -- such
as Iraq. (It will be remembered that Gilgamesh’s great quest was to a distant land --probably Lebanon -- to bring back cedar. (49)) Again, the
Bible is quite forthcoming on this point. On the “high places”, bamoth it was customary to set up a massebah, an upright stone symbolic of
male deity, and its female equivalent, the asherah or sacred pole. Asherah means in Hebrew “fertility” and is the name applied by the
Hebrews and the Canaanites to that goddess (and her pole-fetish) whom the Amorites called Ashtoreth, the Akkadians Astarte and the
Sumerians Inanna. I quote de Vaux (p. 286): “The Asherah itself was made of wood (Jg. 6:26), cut into shape by man (Ex.34:13, Jg. 6:25)...it
must have been a kind of post or stake. It is impossible to be precise about its appearance and there is no proof that the post was carved to
look like a goddess”.
The Sumerian version of the asherah is the gatepost-emblem of Inanna which, singly or in pairs, is her symbol both in the earliest
pictographic script and in art from her native city-state Uruk -- a pair of upright posts, each surmounted by a ring and a streamer. It is
suggested that these designate the entrance to her temple — possibly bundles of reeds tied with bands. Some houses in modern Iraq are still
constructed with such posts. The ring and streamer would have had this use: a pole passed through the ring i would support a mat which was
lowered to close or raised and secured by the streamers to open the building. This post was later used as a “sentry”, an apotropaic gate-post
warder -- a propulaia or hekataion. There is a school of thought which holds the post to be a female form and schematic totem of Inanna.
Both explanations could be true.(50)
Further examples of the asherah are unnecessary. Sumerian thought traveled over the entire ancient Nile-to Oxus.(51) Mesopotamian
cylinder seals have been found at Troy, the pharaohs carried on diplomatic correspondence in Akkadian, and most importantly for our
enquiry, Near Eastern mythology surfaces in Hesiod.
Unquestionably then the asherah was known in ancient Turkey and even to Crete, whose “tubular idols” (52) strikingly echo the Asherah
figures of ancient Israel,(53) and the association of trees with goddess-worship there as well is attested on Mycenaean gems -- such as show a
goddess seated by a tree which Nilsson connects with “the tree cult” and the simple pillars heraldically flanked by griffins and lions (as were
the “mother goddesses” of Asia Minor, and the “Mother of the Mountains” from Knossos).
The sacred tree or pole participates in what Eliade calls the Symbolism of the Center. This shall presently be discussed in its implications for
Hekate's place in a three-realm cosmology: here we need only note its generative nature. The Center is identified with the origin-point of the
original creation, like the Ben-ben or pyramidal hill that first rose from the waters of Nun (Chaos) in Egyptian mythology.
It is the point at which creative growth first breaks forth from sterile disorder and ever after radiates life-giving power. In Egypt this was
always symbolized by the pyramid, and it was doubtless the pyramid's primordial associations with the origins of life that made it an ideal
locus for the continued life of the dead. Elsewhere a tree was frequently the sign of this vivifying center, like the tree of immortality that grew
in the center of Eden, or the Norse world-axis tree Yggdrasil, which, fed on by various animals, from dragon to bee, architecturally sustains
and physically nourishes the worlds: of Yggdrasil it is reported in the Eddaic Svipdagsmal:
“Tell me this, then, Fjolsvid”, Svipdag said: 'What issues from the seed of this mighty tree that neither axe nor fire will fell?” “Women in
childbirth cook the fruit” said the giant. “Then the hidden child is delivered safely. That's why people esteem it.” (54) a rather direct parallel
with kourotrophic Hekate whose precision will come clearer when we consider her as World-Tree. A passage in Apollonius describes, in
reference to Hekate’s cognate goddess Cybele, rites which may be taken as emblematic of every feature of the hypothetical development of
Hekate from a goddess worshipped in groves on high places, to a wooden figure or post representing her as "tree-goddess" to the late,
humanized depiction of her with oak-leaves in her hair, not omitting the funereal overtones -- here supplied by Rhea-Kybele's attendants:
Now there was a sturdy stump of vine that
grew in the forest, a tree exceeding old;
this they cut down, to be the sacred image
of the mountain goddess;
and Argus smoothed it skillfully,
and they set it upon that rugged hill
beneath a canopy of lofty oaks,
which of all trees have their roots deepest.
And near it they heaped an altar of small stones,
and wreathed their brows with oak leaves
and paid heed to sacrifice, invoking the mother of Dindymus,
most venerable, dweller in Phrygia, and Titias and Cyllenus, who alone of many are called dispensers of doom and asessors to the Idaean
mother...” (Arg. 1: 1117-28)(55)
By Lucan's time the recollection of these wooden goddess images was an embarrassment and an incomprehension. Thus he writes, with
civilized scorn, of “...simulacraque maesta deorum arte carent caesisque extant informia truncis”. (Lucan. Belli Civilis Libri Decem. A.E.
Houseman, Oxford, Blackwell, 1958. 3: 412-13) “The images of the gods, grim and rude, were uncouth blocks formed of felled tree
trunks”.(56)
These are described as the statuary of an evil grove, the site of primeval barbaric religion involving human sacrifices for chthonic gods.
Human sacrifice in a chthonic context (cf. Rex Nemorensis) suggests fertility religion, and the particular relevance of wooden images to
goddess-worship is described below in I: B: 4. The entire passage develops, negatively, but in considerable detail, tree-sacrality.
We might similarly read a deionization of Hekate's original dendric/fertility/kourotrophic character in Ap. Rhod. Arg. 3. 1214 ff., (Hekate’s
theophany, “...scary serpents in oaken sprays crowned her...” ) and in the accompanying scholion which quotes Sophocles' Rhizotomoi
chorus:
“...Hekate... crowned with oak and the woven coils of fierce serpents...” (my trans.) (Radt. 535)
The same image is found in Apollonius of Rhodes, where Hekate manifests
...she was crowned round about with horrible serpents entwined among oak-boughs; (Arg. 3: 1214-15)(57).
A “missing link” between the Mycenaean Tree-Goddesses, the Ashera Poles, etc. and the classical Greek Hekataion seems to be provided by
an 8th century Boeotian stamped amphora, showing a goddess-figure, flanked by lions, who uplifts protective or blessing arms over two
female figure who embrace her closely from either side (National Museum, Athens, Mus. # 5898) (58). “The goddess wears a crown with
branches projecting on either side, and the whole tableau surmounts a frieze of animals, possibly deer”. Marquardt goes so far as to say: “The
vase appears to depict a kourotrophos with arms raised over the heads of young women standing closely by her sides. In this respect, the
goddess could represent Hecate. The pose of the figures, in fact, calls to mind the later Hecataea which depict maidens encircling a harm of
Hecate”. (59) The lions, kourotrophy, hekataion-like pose with the maidens, branch-crown, and source in Boeotia, a center of Hekate worship
at nearly the same time Hesiod was writing his hymn, puts the identification with Hekate beyond reasonable dispute.
Hekate’s later lunar identification, to be discussed below, further confirms Hekate’s image as ‘great mother’, and maintains her in that
character to the end of antiquity.
The role of nurturing great mother, kourotrophos as central and original to Hekate, is stated by Hesiod, and confirmed by her hymeneal
function, nymph (generation-spirit) -like characteristics, the parallel with the Great Mother Cybele, and above all the Hekataion’s central
pole as a fertility fetish of a kind attested from Crete to Sumer. This valuation of Hekate re-emerges explicitly at the end of antiquity in the
P.G.M. where she is called “...mother of gods and men, and Nature, Mother of all things...” (PM, 2832-34. )
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_05.html
Abbreviations, Bibliography and Articles
(48) Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, vol.2, “Religious Institutions”, Ch. 1, “Semitic Sanctuaries”, pp. 274-81.
(49) And when he and Enkidu arrived:
“They beheld the cedar mountain, abode of the gods.
Throne-seat of Inirai (i.e. Inanna.)”. (Gilgamesh, tablet 5: 1) Anet. p. 83, Speiser trans.
(50) This discussion of the Inanna posts is derived from D. Wolkstein and S.N. Kramer, Inanna. Queen of Heaven and Earth. 1983, Harper
and Row, N.Y. See p. 188, notes 44-45.
(51) It would be impractical to give citations for this truism, the cultural intercommunication of the ancient Near East, which has become
basic to any consideration of the countries involved. As regards Sumerian influence throughout the region, S.N. Kramer's History Begins at
Sumer will provide an overview.
(52) Charles Picard, Les Religions Prehelleniques (Crete et Mycenes). 1948, Presses Universitaires de France. See pp. 76-77.
(53) Israel provides from the 2,000 - 600 BC period over 300 terra-cotta figurines with protruding breasts but instead of torso and legs a
straight cylindrical column with a flaring base -- ceramic counterparts of the Asherah-poles. (Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess.
Discus/Avon NY, 1978. See p. 23 and plates 1-8. )
(54) Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths. Pantheon, NY 1980. See p. 123.
(55) R.C. Seaton, Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica. Loeb 1930.
(56) D. Iunii Iuvenalis. Saturae XIV. J.D. Duff, Camb. U. Pr. 1957.
(57) modified text. R.C. Seaton, Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica. Loeb 1930.
(58) Patricia A. Marquardt, A Portrait of Hecate. A.J.P., vol. 102 no. 3, Fall 1981, pp. 243-260. See pp. 256-59, considers the branch-crown
inconsistent with Hekate, in whom she would rather see a muted Potnia Theron than Agricultural Great Goddess. Similarly, due to her
fixation on the Potnia Theron, she dismisses the flanking lions as mere decorative motifs (pp. 258-59. In fn. 19 (p.256) she lists the opinions
of scholars, who have been reluctant to give the figure a specific name.
(59) Patricia A. Marquardt, A Portrait of Hecate. A.J.P., vol. 102 no. 3, Fall 1981, pp. 243-260. See p. 257.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
…the 'asherah,' the symbolic tree [or post] that [was] throughout Semitic lands associated with the female aspect of the deity" (Briffault)
Briffault, Robert. Mothers the Matriarchal Theory of Social Origins, The. Kessinger Publishing (March 5, 2004). 328 pages. ISBN:
076618692X
http://www.vohuman.org/Article/The%20Sumerian%20Tree%20of%20Life.htm
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
…violin-shaped matrikas appear in the Namazga culture of Turkmenistan. One from Altyn Depe has coffeebean eyes, a large dotted vulva,
and a “tree of life” pattern incised on her torso.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268
The Queen of Heaven, under whatever name,. she may have been worshipped - possibly Miriam, ... the high-priestess among the Levites, -
belonged from time immemorial to Jewish cult ... The Host of Heaven - the very Elohim of the astral deities was a notable component of this
worship. ... The temple of Jerusalem was simultaneously dedicated to Yahweh and the Queen of Heaven. Before it stood the asherah,
symbolic trees that are throughout Semitic lands assocaited with the female aspect of the deity" (Briffault 3 110)
"Among the sacred trees of the ancient Hebrews the oak and the terebinth seems to have held a foremost place.
"The oaks which thus abound ... are still often regarded with superstitious veneration ... almost every village in the wadys and on those
mountains has one or more of such thick oaks which are believed to be inhabited by Benat Ya'kob - daughters of Jacob, seemingly an ancient
pre-Islamic idolatory. In Syria there remained at Bludan an ancient temple of Ba'al with a grove of ancient oaks beneath it and at Barado two
groves of evergreen oaks which are wishing places where the peasants will break a crock or lay up a new stean in the little cave beneath a
rock. Connected is the custom of burying their holy men under those trees and erecting domed shrines Wely to them there. Many of these are
ancient high places, which have become groves of the saints, stations of Mukams. The wood of the sacred trees is not supposed to be
burned for fuel."
"A similar association of tombs with trees is to be found at Tel el Kadi "the mound of the judge" the ancient Dan where the springs of the
Jordan take their rise. The place is a natural mound of limestone rock some eighty feet high and a half mile across. On the western side are an
almost impenetrable thicket of reeds oaks and oleanders with the largest single fountain in the world. On the eastern side overhanging
another feeder of the Jordan stand a noble holm oak and a terebinth, shading the graves of Moslem saints. Their branches are hung with
rags and trumpery offerings. At the site of ancient Shiloh is a large and noble oak tree called Balutat-Ibrahim - Abraham's oak - one of
the 'inhabited trees' which the local inhabitants are afraid to sleep under."
"The terebinth is not in forests but in open spaces, relieving the monotony of the rolling downs in ancient Moab and Ammon. Many
terebinths remain to this day objects of veneration in their neighbourhood, often covered in rags and again a favourite burying place for local
sheiks. In the warm dry climate of Moab the terebinth is the principal tree while in the cooler rainier districts of Gilead and Galilee the oak
flourishes more."
"Trees may grow near a sanctuary or solitary near a spring or on a hill and are nevertheless revered as having a spirit who is in effect
circumscribed by the grove or tree, unlike the saints in the shrines who can transport themselves to where they are invoked. "Woe to the Arab
who would dare to cut a branch or even a leaf" Under its shade the sick go to be healed of their infirmities. The mere touch communicates to
them the virtue of the tree. Fastening a cloth fastens the sickness from the patient to the tree. Hair may also be left shorn in veneration for the
tree as in ancient worship of Astarte."
We have mentioned how Hosea, Ezekiel have denounced the sacred groves and high places. Isaiah is even more specific "For they shall be
ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired and ye shall be confounded for the gardens which ye have chosen" - perhaps the gardens of
Adonis. And the second Isaiah "Ye that inflame yourselves among the oaks under every green tree, that slay the children in
the valleys under the clefts of the rocks" appears to refer to the sacrifice of children to Moloch, which is simply 'king' with an
ominous intonation. This has been variously identified with Yahweh himself at Topet, with king worship and with Astarte. Jeremiah says
again "Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor: I have not found it at the place of breaking in but on every oak"
It thus appears that the blood of the sacrificed children was offered to or smeared on the oaks before they were burned in
the fire.
At all events in its history we meet again and again the sacred oaks and terebinth. Thus Jacob took the "strange gods" of his household
together with the amulet earrings and buried them under the oak or terebinth at Shechem (Gen 35:4). Under such an oak at Shechem
Joshua set up the stone as a witness (24:26) and at the oak of the pillar in Shechem that Abimelech was made king (Judg 9:6) and later
Joshus 19:26 we hear of the 'king's oak' on the border of Asher. Rebecca's nurse Deborah was buried under the oak of weeping (Gen 35:8)
and Saul was buried under the oak at Jabesh (1 Chron 10:12). Saul shortly before his coronation also met three men with loaves (1 Sam 10:3)
suggesting a ritual role akin to Abrahams three men and cementing his burial again as a sacred kinly cycle associated with the oak.

110
http://community.livejournal.com/ancient_gallae/957.html
http://www.carnaval.com/cybele/
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:Z1fjwXyqabEJ:www.jeramyt.org/papers/paulcybl.doc+galli++castrate+ceremony+dress&hl=en&gl=u
k&ct=clnk&cd=7
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/tsg07.htm#fr_105
http://essenes.net/syriangoddess.html
The Story of Kybele and Attis
15 - There is another holy story which I heard from a wise man, that the goddess is Rhea [Kybele] and the sanctuary founded by Attis. Attis
was a Lydian by birth, and he first taught the ceremonies that belong to Rhea [Kybele]. And all rites which Phrygians, Lydians, and
Samothraceans perform, they learned from Attis. For when Rhea [Kybele] castrated him, he ceased to lead the life of a man, but changed to
female form, and donned women's clothing. He went out to every land and performed ceremonies and related his sufferings and praised
Rhea [Kybele] in song. Eventually he came to Syria, and since the people beyond the Euphrates did not accept him, nor his rites, he founded
the sanctuary in this place. And here is the proof. The goddess for the most part resembles Rhea [Kybele], for lions draw her and she holds a
tympanum and she wears a tower on her head, just as Lydians depict Rhea [Kybele]. Also the wise man spoke of the Galloi who were in the
temple, saying that Galloi castrated themselves and mimic Attis, not for worship of Hera [Atargatis] but for worship of Rhea [Kybele].
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/no_4_attis_cybele.htm
During the ceremonies, initiated castrastred themselves in imitation of the castrated god, and presented their severed genitals to the Goddess
along with those of the gelded bull sacrificed at the Taurobolium. All these male remnants were deposited in the sacred cave of the Great
Mother.
http://community.livejournal.com/ancient_gallae/957.html
The gallae of Atargatis dressed as the Goddess in Egyptian feminine attire. Their duties included caring for sacred fish and participating in
the Feast of Fire in Early spring. They were involved a great slave rebellion of 135-131 BCE and later were victims of Hebrew zealots.
Fish – the Indus Valley sign for star. Fire – adopted by Zoroastrianism.
http://hunter.apana.org.au/~gallae/QueerStuff/religion/gallae/ancientgallae.htm
Appearance
The gallae were concerned with fashion, both for themselves and as an expression of reverence for the Goddess. They tended to dress in
combinations of feminine and sacerdotal dress, only infrequently wearing men's garments (and then mostly of foreign design).
They dressed in silk or linen stolea and chiridotae -- robes and tunics worn by women and gender variant men in Roman and Greek society.
Popular colours were grass-green, chartreuse, purple and saffron, and may have had patterns of arrows, checks and stripes. On their feet they
wore gold, red or pink sandals or slippers. On their heads they wore golden hairnets or wreaths of gold leaves. On other occasions those of the
highest rank might were miters, turbans or tiaras with ribbons falling to the shoulder.
The gallae also sometimes wore exquisite jewelry -- necklaces, brooches, rings, earrings and ankle bracelets. Pierced ears signified devoted
service to the Goddess. They also wore makeup, plucked their eyebrows (and indulged in depilation), and outlined their eyes with kohl. Their
hair was allowed to grow long though it was seldom let down. Instead elaborate hairstyles were common, and those who were bald wore wigs.
The gallae also used oils and perfume.
They were also said to have certain speech and mannerisms peculiar to themselves. They were also said to speak in shrill tones, to lisp, to
giggle and whispier, to use women's oaths and address each other in feminine gender.

111
http://www.geocities.com/leylasuhagi/hijra.html
http://www.geocities.com/leylasuhagi/hijradef.html
Nanda, Serena; Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India; Wadsworth Modern Anthropology Library, ISBN 0-534-12204-3.
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/kolam/kolam1/alieng.html
http://www.columbia.edu/~blw2102/
112
http://forum.skadi.net/archive/index.php/t-36098.html
TRANSVESTITE VIKINGS. By Tina Lauritsen and Ole Thirup Kastholm Hansen
A number of prehistoric graves from Scandinavia, Holland and England challenge traditional assumptions about gender roles in the Viking
Age. These prehistoric graves contain men buried in women's clothes and with what we perceive as typical female grave goods; and in death
women have been supplied with weapons for their journey to the other side.
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/206_shetland1.shtml
How the tradition continues today.

113
Mark Hoffman (editor). Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality. Entheomedia.org. 2001-2002.
Mark Hoffman, Carl Ruck, & Blaise Staples, “Conjuring Eden: Art and the Entheogenic Vision of Paradise”, in Entheos, Issue 1, 2001, pp. 13-
50.
Michael Hoffman. “The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death”, in Salvia Divinorum, Issue 4, 2006. Egodeath.com.
Edmund A. Wasson. Religion and Drink. ISBN: B000861CLM. 1914.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Seeking the Magic Mushroom”, in Life, May 13, 1957. Druglibrary.org
R. Gordon Wasson. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. ISBN: 0156838001. 1968.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Persephone’s Quest”. pp. 17-81 in R. Gordon Wasson, Stella Kramrisch, Jonathan Ott, & Carl Ruck: Persephone’s
Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. ISBN: 0300052669. 1986.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Lecture to the Mycological Society of America” in The Psychedelic Reader. University Books: New York. ISBN:
0806514515. 1961.
R. Gordon Wasson, “The Sacred Mushroom”, letter to the editor in The Times Literary Supplement, August 21, 1970 and September 25, 1970.
R. Gordon Wasson. “The Divine Mushroom of Immortality” in Furst (Editor). Collection of papers written by Wasson at Harvard. 1972.
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, & Carl A. P. Ruck. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. ISBN: 0151778728.
1978.
Valentina Pavlovna Wasson & R. Gordon Wasson, Mushrooms, Russia & History, 2 volumes. ISBN: B0006AUVXA. 1957.
Valentina Pavlovna Wasson. “I Ate the Sacred Mushroom”, in This Week magazine. May 19, 1957.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/eleucont.htm
Valencic, Ivan. ‘Has the Mystery of the Eleusinian Mysteries been solved?’ Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness,
Issue 3, 1994, pp325-336. ©VWB - Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 1995.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/valencic.htm
114
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/eleusinian_mysteries.html
Within the Eleusinian Mysteries the role of Demeter is vitally important. She took her name from Mother Earth, as was among the
generation of children born of Cronus and Rhea. Her name provides a link with the Indo-European deities that the Hellenes brought with
them. Almost with certainty, the triad in the Sumerian system would have been represented by Inanna and Ereshigal with Dumuzi, or his
counterpart, the king in whom his spirit was incarnate; while in the Classical Greek supposed the triad in the Eleusis mysteries was composed
of Demeter (the mother-goddess Earth), Persephone (Queen of the Underworld), and the young king, their foster child, Triptolemos (once a
local king), who is said to have brought Demeter's gift of grain into the world, and as the fosterling of Persephone, to now reign in the land of
the dead.
The seed-time festival of Thesmophoria lasted three days, the first day being named Kathodos (downgoing) and Anodos (upcoming), the
second Nestia (fasting), and the last Kalligeneia (fair-born or fair-birth); and it was during the first that the suckling pigs were thrown,
probably alive, into an underground chamber called a megara, and left there to rot for a year, the bones from the year before being carried up
to the earth again and placed upon an altar. Figures of serpents and human beings made of flour and wheat were also thrown into the chasm,
or "chamber," at this time. And the author of this information wrote: "They say that in or about the chasms are snakes which consume the
most part of what is thrown in; hence a rattling din is made when the women draw up the remains and when they replace the remains by
well-known images, in order that they snakes which they hold to be the guardians of the sanctuaries may go away."
115
The moon[1] was considered the cup which held the drink Soma for the gods, and one reason that the moon waxed and waned was due to
this fact. When the moon waned, it was because the gods were drinking down all the Soma; as it waxed, the god was re-creating himself, only
to be consumed again once the cup was again full.
http://fusionanomaly.net/soma.html
[1] The containers are made of alabaster to represent the moon, alabaster has the same semi-translucent glow as the full moon.
116
Meyer-Melikyan N. Analysis of Floral Remains from Togolok-21 in V.Sarianidi, Margiana and Protozoroastrianism, Athens, 1998.
Meyer-Melikyan and Avetov. Analysis of Floral Remains in the Ceramic Vessel from the Gonur Temenos in V.Sarianidi, Margiana and
Protozoroastrianism, Athens, 1998.
117
Hekate, Cybele, Artemis, Potnia Theron, Medusa and many other Greek deities have their origins in the Near East.
118
The Orientalizing revolution, Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early Archaic age. Harvard University press, London. 1992.
225 pages.
Negbi Ora (1988): "Levantine elements in the sacred architecture of the Aegean at the close of the Bronze Age". ABSA 83, 339-357.
Charles Penglase (1994): Greek myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influences in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod. Routledge, London.
278 pages.
David Ridgway (1994): "Phoenicians and Greeks in the West: a view from Pithekoussai". In: The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. (Eds:
Gocha R. Tsetskhladze; Franco De Angelis) 35-46.
Gocha R. Tsetskhladze; Franco De Angelis (Eds.) (1994): The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation. Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman.
Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Oxford. 149 pages.
William A. Ward (Ed.) (1968): The role of the Phoenicians in the interaction of Mediterranean Civilizations. Papers presented to the
Archaeological Symposium at the American University of Beirut; March, 1967. The American University of Beirut, Beirut. 152 pages.
119
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/zoroast1.htm
The bull and the haoma (Sanskrit 'soma') plant were sacred in the Indo-Iranian belief system. Bull would be sacrificed and the priests and
people would drink the fermented juice of the haoma plant at the sacred ceremonies. Zarathustra forbade these presentations to the supreme
entities that he had rejected. This haoma juice must have been fermented to be intoxicating. Intoxication is the perfect catalyst leading to a
'softened' perception, comprehension and skepticism all of which create a crooked perception of the environment as a whole and lead to a
credulous person.
(This information may be an attempt to make Zoroastrianism acceptable to Muslims as the sanctioning of drugs would be unacceptable to
them and thus will need further corroboration).

120
Schwartz, Martin (U.C., Berkeley). Haoma and Hormaline: The Botanical ID of the Indo-Iranian Sacred Hallucinogen "Soma" and its
Legacy in Religion, Language, and Middle Eastern Folklore (1989).
http://fusionanomaly.net/soma.html
Hindu Mythology:
Soma is a very difficult deity for many outside of India to comprehend. He works on numerous levels, all of which are tied together rather
strangely. Soma is firstly a plant. He is also an intoxicating drink which was brewed from that plant. As the blood of animals and the sap of
plants, Soma courses through all living things. He is Inspiration to those who seek it, and so is the god of poets. He is also the god of the
moon. He is the dwelling place of the venerated dead, as well as the divine cure for evil. The ancient Hindus did not differentiate between
these divergent aspects; all were the god Soma.
Luna
Soma was one of the more important gods in the Rig Veda; 120 hymns and one entire book are dedicated to him. He has many different
forms. He is seen as a celestial bull, a bird, a giant rising from the waters, the lord of plants, and as an embryo. He rarely is seen as a fully
grown human.
As a drink, Soma is the ambrosia of the gods. It was due to this influence that they could rise above all obstacles to achieve their goals. Indra
was a great drinker of the substance; before his confrontation with Vritra, he drank rivers of it to gain the strength needed to overcome the
fearsome dragon. Agni also consumed it in large amounts. Soma was what gave the Vedic gods their immortality. It was also a drink for
mortals, a golden-hued nectar which was derived from the Soma plant, which may be a species known as ephedra vulgaris to botanists. This
drink brought hallucinations and ecstasy to those who consumed it. It helped warriors to overcome their fears in battle, and it helped poets
to become inspired to create. Soma was a bridge between the mortal world and that of the gods. This drink is the same as Haoma in Persian
mythology.
As the moon, Soma became equated with the god Chandra, who originally was the moon deity. The moon was considered the cup* which held
the drink Soma for the gods, and one reason that the moon waxed and waned was due to this fact. When the moon waned, it was because the
gods were drinking down all the Soma; as it waxed, the god was re-creating himself, only to be consumed again once the cup was again full.
As the Vedic age ended and the Brahmans asserted themselves, the power of the gods no longer came from Soma but instead from sacrifices
made by humans; Soma came more and more to be just a god of the moon. In later times, the waxing and waning of the moon was due to a
curse put on Soma. Soma had twenty-seven wives (who correspond to the twenty-seven stations of the moon). They were all the daughters of
Daksha. Daksha felt that Soma was paying too much attention to one of his daughters, thereby neglecting the rest. He cursed Soma to die a
withering death. But Soma's wives intervened, and so the death became only periodic; during half the month, the moon slowly dies away, but
is reborn and comes around again to full vigor.
http://www.amanitashop.com/embodensoma.htm
Detailed information concerning the botanical origin of Soma.
121
http://www.spiralcastle.net/ig/html/sumeria_9.html
Ninkasi prepared beer for the gods and was the goddess of intoxicating drink. She was created by Ki to heal a pain in Enki's mouth. Ki said
she should be the goddess who satisfies desire.
Source: Sumerian Mysteries
122
www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/gregory/325/handouts/h03_bab.doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
http://www.livius.org/di-dn/diaries/astronomical_diaries.html
Astronomical diaries: collection of Babylonian texts in which astronomical observations and political events are recorded.
The omen catalogue
One of the most remarkable texts from ancient Mesopotamia is the collection of celestial omens known as Enûma Anu Enlil, which was
discovered in the library of the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal in Nineveh. The authors of these seventy tablets believed that the gods had
created the movements of the planets to give the people on earth indications of the future. Enûma Anu Enlil was a dictionary of the heavenly
language and contains all kinds of explanations, like:
When in the month Ajaru, during the evening watch, the moon eclipses, the king will die. The sons of the king will vie for the throne of
their father, but will not sit on it.
[Enûma Anu Enlil 17.2]
Koch-Westenholz, U. Mesopotamian astrology. An introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian astrology. Copenhagen. 1995.
http://essenes.net/nazastrology.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1605/history.html
2084 BC..."the signs of the Zodiac were fixed in the year 2084 BC by Babylonian astrologers" (Mackenzie..pg 323)...
Mackenzie, Donald...."Myths of Babylonia and Assyria"...London
123
Whitfield, Peter. The Mapping of the Heavens. Pomegranate Communications Inc. 1995.144 pages. ISBN: 0876544758
This fear of eclipses and cosmic omens continued to have a powerful impact for millennia.
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander08.html
Alexander visits the oracle in Egypt
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander09.html
But a worse omen was to shock the Persian soldiers: on the evening of 20 September, the moon was eclipsed, almost immediately after it had
risen in the east. To make the omen even worse, Saturn was close by: this was one of the worst possible signs. Moreover, it happened in the
sixth month, which was bad for the king of Persia; the western wind suggested that his end would come due to an intruder from the west. A
Chaldaean (i.e., an astronomer in Babylon) wrote that during the eclipse, 'deaths and plague occurred'. Everybody understood that this
meant the eclipse of an eastern power, especially since the Magians regarded the moon as the symbol of Persia.
Persian nervousness about eclipses.
One of the discoveries that Alexander's men made in Babylon, was the Astronomical diary of the Esagila, the temple of the Babylonian
supreme god Marduk. For centuries, the officials of this sanctuary had systematically described the celestial phenomena they had witnessed.
One of them, Kidinnu, was the first to give an accurate estimate of the length of the year (365 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes, 12.52 seconds,
instead of 48 minutes, 45.17 seconds) and proposed a reform of the calendar.
The reports of the Babylonian astronomers were translated into Greek; Alexander's court historian Callisthenes of Olynthus sent them to his
uncle, the philosopher Aristotle. The new knowledge was immediately applied: the astronomer Callippus of Cyzicus recalculated the length of
the lunar month and proposed a new calendar, in which he used a longer cycle than was usual among the Greeks. His new era started at 28
June 330, eight months after the capture of Babylon.
How the Greeks learnt astronomy from the Babylonians.
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander16.html
Evil omens
In February 323, Alexander ordered his men to prepare for the march to Babylon. When he reached the cultural capital of the ancient world,
an astrologer of the Esagila temple complex with the name Belephantes came to him, saying that there were evil omens. According to Arrian
of Nicomedia, Alexander was not supposed to enter the town through the eastern gate, because in that case, the king would have to face to the
west, or, to follow Arrian's colleague and contemporary Appian of Alexandria, the setting sun. (It may be noted that this Belephantes is also
known from the Babylonian Astronomical diaries; his real name was Bêl-apla-iddin.)
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 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1603542.htm?ancient
Solar eclipse calls on dragons and spirits, Richard Ingham, Agençe France-Presse, Wednesday, 29 March 2006.

Total solar eclipse, as seen in 2002 (Image: NASA/Steele Hill/Arne Danielsen)

It has been called the Sun-eating dragon, the spirit of the dead and the eye of God. It has been a harbinger of great events, good and evil - famines, bumper
harvests, wars, and the birth and death of kings.
Far back in time
Eclipses are infrequent events, and their rarity is enhanced by the fact that most take place over the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the world's surface,
and so they go unwitnessed except by seafarers and remote islanders. But writings dating back to the dawn of civilisation testify to thrill and dread as the
Sun, the bringer of life, was gradually blotted out, the stars appeared in an indigo sky, the terrified birds stopped singing and bats left their roost. "Nothing
can be surprising any more, or impossible or miraculous, now that Zeus, father of the Olympians, has made night out of noonday, hiding the bright
sunlight, and ... fear has come upon mankind," wrote the Greek poet Archilochus after an eclipse in 648 BC. "After this, men can believe anything, expect
anything. "Don't any of you be surprised in future if land beasts change places with dolphins and go to live in their salty pastures, and get to like the
sounding waves of the sea more than the land, while the dolphins prefer the mountains." For the ancient Chinese, the eclipse was a Sun-eating dragon,
which had to be scared away by the banging of cymbals and pans. For the Vikings, it was caused by two chasing wolves, Skoll and Hati. Hindu mythology
blames a demon called Rahu who spitefully takes a bite out of the Sun from time to time. Even today, in some cultures, eclipses are believed to bring
poisonous vapours and so food and water containers are turned upside-down in protection.

125
Koch-Westenholz, Ulla. Babylonian liver omens. CNI publications. Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000. ISBN 8772896205.
126
http://www.csen.org/archaoeology_pokrovka/e.excav.report.html
http://www.csen.org/WomenWarriors/Statuses_Women_Warriors.html
"Warrior Women of the Eurasian Steppes" in Archaeology, January-February, pp. 44-48; about the Issyk Warrior Priestess in Archaeology,
September-October 1997.
Davis-Kimball, Jeannine. Behan, Mona. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines. Little, Brown. USA.
February 6, 2003. 288 pages. ISBN: 0446679836
127
http://www.amazonation.com/AmazonEcstasy.html
It seemed no accident that the earliest shamanism—originating in Siberia—was female shamanism, connected with the Great Bear
constellation and the Great Goddess Artemis; and that Artemis was also the name applied to the Great Goddess of Catal Hüyük in the 7th
millennium BCE as well as the Amazons in the 5th century BCE—seventy centuries later! - V. Noble
The female skeletons and mummies found in the steppe burials are consistently buried with spoons (for the sacred mare's milk koumiss),
mirrors (for healing and divination), gypsum (Robert Graves said the priestesses painted their faces with white gypsum before rituals),
portable altars for offerings, and often with their own weapons as well—swords, daggers, and arrowheads. Some wear headdresses
(sometimes as grand as three feet high) - V.Noble
Noble, Vicki. The Double Goddess. Women Sharing Power.
Noble, Vicki. Artemis and the Amazons.
Noble, Vicki. Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World: The New Female Shamanism.
Noble, Vicki. Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess Through Myth, Art, and Tarot.
Noble, Vicki. Uncoiling the Snake: Ancient Patterns in Contemporary Women's Lives (A Snakepower Reader).
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http://www.myrine.at/Amazons/
Excellent resource on the history of the Amazons.
http://www.amazonation.com/AncientAmazons.htm
"...we find the characteristic weapons of the Amazons, the pelta or shield shaped like an ivy leaf or a crescent moon, a bow and arrows, a short
sword and the battle-axe." The labrys, or double-bladed axe comes from the Goddess Artemis.
"Their costume is usually a short tunic girt up for action, frequently open at one side in order to display the woman's figure. The effort is
always, not to show them to be foreigner's who wear a fantastic garb, but to indicate plainly that they are women warring with men." Long
narrow trousers, long coat/tunic, and soft, long boots, panther skin capes and armor.
florence mary bennett-Religious /cults Associated with the Amazons
...reported by Herodotus: Amazons tattooed themselves. Amazon women covered themselves with geometric and animal motifs. The Greeks
reported that the Amazons were great tamers of such wild animals as lion, panthers, deer, bulls, goats, rams, eagles and falcons.
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/wilde.shtml
…the Greeks had finally subdued the savage women and sailed away in three ships with them. In the middle of the Black Sea the Amazons
rose up and overcame their captors, but unfortunately did not know anything about sailing a boat and so, and after days of drifting at the
mercy of the wind and waves, were washed up on the shores of the Sea of Azov (the little sea at the top right hand corner of the Black Sea.).
They came across a herd of horses, which they promptly tamed and mounted, and set about pillaging the local Scythians.
The Scythians fought back and were astonished to find, when they examined the corpses of the Amazons they had slain, that their enemies
were women. They decided not to try to kill the survivors but to woo them instead, thinking that they would make good strong children. So a
group of young Scythian men went off and camped near the women, being careful to be on good behaviour so that eventually the women
realised they meant no harm. I'll let Herodotus carry on the story from here:
In the middle of every day the Amazons used to split up into ones or twos and go some way apart from one another in order to relieve
themselves. When the Scythians noticed this, they did the same thing. One of them approached one of the women who was all alone and the
Amazon did not repulse him, but let him have intercourse with her. She could not speak to him because they did not understand each other,
but she used gestures to tell him to return the next day to the same place and to bring someone else with him; she made it clear to him that
there should be two of them, and that she would bring another woman with her too. The young man returned to his camp and told the others
the news. He kept the appointment the next day, taking someone else along too, and found another Amazon there as well, waiting for them,
When the other young men found out, they joined in and tamed the remaining Amazons. After that the two sides joined forces and lived
together, forming couples consisting of a Scythian and the Amazon with whom he first had sex.
http://www.amazonation.com/AmazonEcstasy.html
Naturally the horse is the totem of the Amazons.
The Amazons felt a profound magic connection for the horse. In a magic way something of a symbol of strong desires and a propellant of
their urges, especially when its hoofs struck fire and thus symbolized fire,"the shiny tongue of the Gods."
It also has a bearing on the myth that Pegasus sprang forth from the blood of the Lybian Amazon Medusa. therefore the Amazon presumably
has magic horse blood in her veins.
Myrine, obeying an apparition in a dream decided to sacrifice horses.
In highly secret rites, a white stallion was sacrificed. The "sacred marriage" between the divine animal and the queen supposedly served the
magic renewal for the people. - H. Diner
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Auto-horst
Mare
The Greek/Cretan Leukippe, "White Mare," was the daytime aspect of Mareheaded Demeter. Her destroyer aspect was called Melanippe,
"Black Mare," otherwise known as Demeter the Avenger (Erinys) in the form of a night-mare, punisher of sinners. The same title was applied
to the Queen of the Amazons, who also appears in Greek myth as Antiope, or Hippolyta, "Charging Mare." Epona's name came from Gallic
epo, in turn from Indo-European ekwo, which also gave the Latin equus.
Scandinavian witches were said to turn themselves into mares, after the manner of the ancient priestesses who may have worn equine masks
like Leukippe's mareheaded priestesses. Such witches were called volvas. The cult of the divine mare persisted in Ireland up to the twelfth
century, when Giraldus Cambrensis described the coronation of a king of Ulster, involving the kings sexual union with a white mare, which
was afterward sacrificed and sacramentally eaten. Pagan religious feasts often used horsemeat, which was otherwise taboo or devoted to the
Goddess. Modern prejudice against the eating of horsemeat seems to have developed from Christian condemnation of the old rites.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Auto-horst
Labrys
The labrys or double bladed ax stood for the Amazons and their Goddess under several of her classical names: Artemis, Gaea, Rhea, Demeter.
Perhaps originally a battle ax, it became a ceremonial scepter in Crete and at the Goddess's oldest greek shrine, Delphi. Her priests adopted
the name of Labryadae, "ax-bearers." The labrys became an attribute of Cretan kings in their labyrinth (house of the double ax) and was
probably used in ritual slaughter of the sacred bulls. The labrys also appeared in India, carried by the hand of Shiva. Egypt's god Ptah was
also represented by an ax.
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http://www.amazonation.com/AncientAmazons.htm
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.22.5
Pausanias also saw and described the religious sanctuary built by the Greeks of Stymphalos and dedicated to the goddess Artemis. He
reported that the temple had carvings of the Stymphalian birds up near its roof. Standing behind the temple, he saw marble statues of
maidens with the legs of birds*.
*This links Artemis with the Queen of the Night who is so fabulously depicted in the Burney Relief.
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=dp2&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical%2
52ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2529
%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3dgoddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch%26
_IXSESSION_%3d7qJu5H9w0ly%26_IXsearchterm%3dgoddess&_IXFIRST_=37&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXsea
rchterm=goddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch&submit-button=summary

http://www.amazonation.com/AmazonEcstasy.html
Amazons followed several religions. The one constant in all these religions was the belief in mysticism and supernatural energies. The
underlying idea of the cult of Cybele: In the actual ceremonies performed at Cybele's shrines the original warlike character was almost lost in
the mystic frenzy which found expression in noisy shouting and self-affliction.
Measured beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the music of the pipe, which set the rhythm for the ecstatic motion of the
worshippers.
Of her inspiration came a form of holy madness, which endowed the worshipper with a sense of mystic ecstasy and supernatural strength.
F.Bennett
http://www.amazonation.com/Artemis.htm
The Amazons were especially devoted to the Goddess of hunting, Artemis. Granted, Amazons did worship Goddesses associated with hunting
and war, but many also appeared to have worshipped other Goddesses as well.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/anahita.htm
Link between moon & cube.
The close connection between the mother goddess and the moon, and worshiping her which has been found all over the world shows a
correspondence between the lunar month and the menstruation period of women, i.e. 28 days. This significant resemblance which basically
indicates the passage of time in ancient times before the discovery of astronomy and invention of the clock has contributed to the relation
between the two creatures, and that is one reason why women are described as the moon. In later historical periods, religions that in some
way worshiped the mother goddess continued to use the lunar calender, in contrast with religions based on the worship of the sun.
The Iranian mother goddess was also worshiped in the east, including India. Anatolian mother goddesses too had many temples. According
to a Roman historian, noble girls were asked to practice prostitution in such temples before getting married. This tradition which was current
also among Venus worshipers of Egypt has its roots in the group marriages of the matriarchal period mentioned earlier. A statuette of Venus
with a dolphin has been found in Tunisia.
The tradition of worshiping Venus was also widespread in ancient Arabia, where 360 gods and goddesses were adored. Venus's special day of
the week is Friday and the form of this goddess is a cube, which is the sacred form for Arabs.

130
http://www.humanevolution.net/a/matrilineal.html
"Despite individual variation, repeated statistical studies consistently show that the average human female menstrual cycle length is 29.5
days (Gunn et al. 1937; McClintock 1971; Vollman 1977; Cutler et al. 1980). the average duration of pregnancy is 265.78 or 265.79 days
counting from conception to birth (Menacker and Menacker 1959). As Menaker and Menaker (1959) point our, this is nine times the
menstrual cycle length (9 multiplied by 29.5 gives 265.5)..."Not only arithmetic by astronomy seems supportive in this connection: there are
unmistakable suggestions of a correspondence between human reproductive periodicity in general and the 29.5 day cycle length of the
moon." (Knight, C. (1991) Blood Relations. Yale Univ. Press: New Haven p. 215)
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/origsin.htm
The moon is rightly believed to be the star of the spirit
that saturates the earth and fills bodies by its approach
and empties them by its departure
the blood even of humans increases and diminishes with its light
and leaves and herbage are sensitive to it
the same force penetrating into all things.
Pliny. (Allegro 1970 70).

Research has proven that the moon is much more important than previously thought. The full moon lights up the sky ten times brighter than
a new moon. Under the light of a full moon many marine creatures are inspired to spawn. The moon even has a hold over human fertility.
Women who have a 29.5 day cycle are the most fertile, much more so than say women who have a 26 or 40 day cycle. These more fertile
women generally begin their period at the full moon. Research at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) has proven that planting seed
and harvesting in synchronicity with the phases of the moon is the most fecund method of agriculture. Many standing stones are designed to
be moon calendars, such as the standing stones on the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis called Callanish. Beyond a range of mountains in the
form of a reclining woman the moon rises and sets. A standing stone marking each transition of position in its cycle. At the Winter Equinox
the moon disappears into the woman’s mouth and magically reappears to illuminate the tallest central stone.
http://freespace.virgin.net/ancient.ways/callanis.htm
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/481437

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http://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/cc02/scythians.html
The Scythian's horses were also outfitted in beautiful and ornate costumes, and were seen ridden for the first time among many of the
peoples they descended upon. Many of the Scythians had full body tattoos with extremely intricate tribal designs, depicting both real and
imaginary beasts as well as events from their mythology. Looking like the forerunners of modern-day Hell's Angels, the fierce appearance of
the Scythian nomads had a formidably terrifying effect on the people whose lands they invaded. The astonishing victories of the Scythians
brought them a great deal of fame, and much of Western Persia fell under the rule of Scythian chieftains. It has been recorded that they
invaded Syria and Judea around 625 BC, and even reached the borders of Egypt where peace terms were reached with them by the
intimidated rulers of that kingdom.
Equality in War - The act of war was one in which the Scythian women are said to have participated in equally with the men. Scythian women
were tattooed like their mates, and the ancient historian Diordorus commented that Scythian women 'fight like the men and are nowise
inferior to them in bravery'. It has been recorded that Scythian women had to kill three enemies in battle before marrying, and that a
mastectomy of the right breast was performed on female infants so that their pectoral muscle wouldn't weaken and they would be able to
brandish a sword better!
http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/scythians/scythians.html
http://www.athenapub.com/8goldnom.htm
Excellent exhibition of Scythian gold with lots of information about the Scythian culture.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Golden%20Deer/golden_deer_images.htm
The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian Steppes – exhibition.
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.4.iv.html
Herodotus discusses the traditions of the Scythian nomads.
Kingdoms of Anatolia and the Scythians, The. http://www.worldhistory1a.homestead.com/anatolia~ns4.html
This is a basic history of the different people that came into Anatolia, mainly the Scythians. There are images and the background of the
traditions of these people.
The Scythians never had a writing system so until recent archaeological developments most of our information about them came from the
Greeks. Homer called them "the mare-milkers"; Herodotus described them in detail: their costume consisted of padded and quilted leather
trousers tucked into boots and open tunics. They rode with no stirrups or saddles just saddlecloths. Herodotus' histories allegedly report that
Saka Scythians used marijuana but the specific reference is unclear. The Scythian philosopher Anacharsis visited Athens in the 6th century
BC and became a legendary sage. Scythians were also known for their usage of barbed arrows, nomadic life centered around horses -- "fed
from horse-blood" according to a Roman historian -- and skill in guerilla warfare. The Scythians are thought to have been the first to tame
the horse and use it in combat as well.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/scythia
Vryonis, S (1975) "Nomadization and Islamization in Asia Minor", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 29, 1975, 43-71.
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/scythian_bows.htm
Fabulous website with biblio and links
Lajos, Kassai. Horseback Archery. Hungary: Gyomai Kner Nyomda Rt., 2002.
http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/archery.html
Scythian archery
http://www.yoni.com/bitchf/kali.shtml
Kali of terrific countenance, wearing a garland of bones, using a human skull as cup
Rawson, Philip. The Art of Tantra. London: Thames & Hudson, 1973. Page 131.
Woodroffe, Sir John (a.k.a. Arthur Avalon). Hymns to the Goddess and Hymns to Kali (1913). Wilmot, WI: Lotus Light, 1981
Woodroffe, Sir John (a.k.a. Arthur Avalon). The Great Liberation (Mahanirvana Tantra, 1927). Madras, India: Ganesh & Co, 1985
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/goto?id=enc429
The most complete tomb discovered belonged to a lady identified as Pu-abi from the name carved on a cylinder seal found with the burial.
The majority of graves had been robbed in antiquity but where evidence survived the main burial was surrounded by many human bodies.
One grave had up to seventy-four such sacrificial victims. It is evident that elaborate ceremonies took place as the pits were filled in that
included more human burials and offerings of food and objects. The excavator, Leonard Woolley thought the graves belonged to kings and
queens. Another suggestion is that they belonged to the high priestesses of Ur.
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/whymeso.htm
AN OVERVIEW OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY
Dr. PAUL COLLINS, PhD Archaeology University College London, UK - BRITISH MUSEUM GALLERY LECTURER
Uruk was not the only large settlement in Southern Mesopotamia. The wealth of one of these city-states is demonstrated by the Royal Graves
of Ur, which date to around 2600 BCE. Of the thousands of graves excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur in the 1920s, sixteen were
particularly rich. Woolley called them ‘Royal’ because he believed they were the graves of Ur’s queens and kings. The most remarkable aspect
of these burials is the large number of human bodies found in the pits. These are interpreted as sacrificial victims*, accompanying their
leader in death, and it would appear that they died relatively peacefully. The excavations found cups close to some of the bodies: where these
perhaps poison chalices? The victims are identified as soldiers, harpists and serving ladies on their rich clothes and ornaments - made from
gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian and shell.
*It is interesting that this practice seems to emulate the traditions of the Scythians by burying sacrificial young men with the King at death
and at the anniversary of death.

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http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/artl/sarmatian.shtml
http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/sarmatians/sarmatians.html
http://www.anthroglobe.ca/docs/Sergei/scythian-sarmatian-symbols.htm
Scythian and Sarmation symbols.
http://public.kubsu.ru/~usr02898/sl37.htm
Scythian and Sarmation Influence on Russian Mythology.
http://public.kubsu.ru/~usr02898/sl29.htm
Home Page – article on Motifs
Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2001. The Interpretation of Scythian, Sarmatian and Meotian-Sarmatian Motifs and Records. "THE SLAVONIC
ANTIQUITY"
133
http://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/cc02/scythians.html
Cannabis and the Dead - Cannabis was an integral part of the Scythian cult of the dead, wherein homage was paid to the memory of their
departed leaders. After the death and burial of their king, the Scythians would purify themselves by setting up small tepee-like structures
which they would enter to inhale the fumes of hemp seeds (and the resinous flower calyxes surrounding the seeds) thrown onto red-hot
stones. In a famous passage written in about 450 B.C., Herodotus describes these funeral rites as follows: ...when, therefore, the Scythians
have taken some seed of this hemp, they creep under the cloths and put the seeds on the red hot stones; but this being put on smokes, and
produces such a steam, that no Grecian vapour-bath would surpass it. The Scythians, transported by the vapour, shout aloud. It is most likely
the seeds described by Herodotus were seeded buds, and that the charred seeds found by archeologists are what was left over from the burnt
buds.
Proving the Myth - Herodotus' ancient records of the Scythian hemp rites were once believed to be mythical, but they were verified in 1929,
with the discovery of a Scythian tomb in Pazyryk, Western Altai, by Professor S. I. Rudenko. As cannabis expert Ernest Abel explains in
Marihuana, the First 12,000 Years: Digging into some ancient ruins near the Altai Mountains on the border between Siberia and Outer
Mongolia, Rudenko found a trench about 160 feet square and about 20 feet deep. On the perimeter of the trench were the skeletons of a
number of horses. Inside the trench was the embalmed body of a man and a bronze cauldron filled with burnt marihuana seeds! Clearing
the site further, Rudenko also found some shirts woven from hemp fibre and some metal censors designed for inhaling smoke which did not
appear to be connected with any religious rite. To Rudenko, the evidence suggested that inhalation of smoldering marihuana seeds occurred
not only in religious context, but also as an everyday activity in which Scythian women participated alongside the men.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica describes the cauldrons found at these Scythian burial sites as follows: These cauldrons varied in size from
quite small examples to others weighing as much as 75 pounds. An overwhelming majority have a solid base, shaped like a truncated cone,
around which the fire was heaped. The upper section is a hemispherical bowl... with handles (shaped like animals) fixed to the rim opposite
each other... at Pazyryk, small cauldrons filled with stones and hemp seeds were found standing beneath leather or felt tentlets with three or
six supports.
The first solid evidence of the Hebrew use of cannabis was established in 1936 by Sula Benet, a little known Polish etymologist from the
Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw.
Benet, Sula. Early Diffusions and Folk Uses of Hemp; Reprinted in Cannabis and Culture edited by Vera Rubin; Mouton; 1975.
http://www.abcog.org/abp3.htm
"Herodotus also reported that the Scythians liked to get high from marijuana! 'In order to cleanse their bodies, the men make a booth by
fixing in the ground three sticks inclined toward one another, and stretching around them woolen felts; inside the booth a dish is placed on
the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp seed. Immediately it gives out such a vapor as no
Greek vapor bath can exceed'" (Frank Trippet, The First Horsemen, Time-Life Books, New York, 1974, pp. 9, 18, 105-106, 112, 122).

134
http://www.livius.org/ba-bd/bactria/bactria.html
http://www.afghan-network.net/Culture/old_balkh.html
135
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander12.html
The Sogdian revolt
Their leader was the man who had betrayed Bessus, Spitamenes. This is interesting, because the Persian name Spitâmaneh suggests a
connection with Zoroastrianism: the founder of this Iranian religion, the legendary prophet Zarathustra, was also called Spitama. It is
probable that the invaders had insulted the native population that had initially supported him. One of our sources mentions that a cavalry
commander named Stasanor had tried to make an end to the Zoroastrian practice of exposing the dead to the dogs and the vultures, and this
may well have been the cause of the Sogdian revolt. Another cause may have been cattle raiding. It is impossible that the invading army did
not confiscate cows - the only sin that was condemned explicitly in the Zoroastrian creed.
It marked the beginning of a completely new phase in the war in a dusty steppe country that was unsuited for phalanx operations. The
Sogdians -and the Sacae, Massagetes and Dahae who were to join their rebellion- were excellent mounted archers. To these formidable
horsemen, the Macedonian Companion cavalry and the phalanx were unequal, and Alexander was forced to reorganize his cavalry. He had to
make use of Iranian horsemen, something that he may have been planning for some time. After all, the king of Asia had already appointed
Iranians as satraps and had Persian courtiers, so the introduction of native soldiers was only a small step.
136
http://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/balkh.php
When the Greeks came to Bactria [with Alexander], they were impressed by some features of Bactrian culture, namely clean and spacious
suburbs. However, they were disgusted with the treatment of the dead. After the Achaemenian dynasty, especially during the Sasanian
dynasty, the Zoroastrian religion required the bodies to be left exposed on a Dakhma [tower of silence] so that the birds of pray could eat
them. On the other hand, dogs too ate the dead and they were considered sacred - to injure a dog was more offensive then man-slaughter, in
the Vendidad. The streets were full of half wild dogs, and full of bone - presumably because they were the bones of the dead.
The original population of Bactria were largely Scythian. Apparently the Aryans who came over and took control, formed a military
aristocracy over a technologically less developed people - as was the case with early Greeks, Romans and Gauls.
These people lived simple lives and were not effected by the luxury which spoiled the Persian Empire - they had the virtues of the true
Persians. Their geographical location exposed them to all invaders, so they were in constant war. They also kept the warrior spirit alive.
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_affinities_licchavis_review.php
The custom of exposing the dead to be devoured by wild animals, as it prevailed in Vaisāli and is still found in Tibet, was, I believe,
introduced into those countries from Persia by the Licchavi immigrants. It is hardly necessary to add that the practice of exposure of the dead
is widely followed in Persia and its dependancies, including Nisibis.
The Bon 13 religion, which preceded Buddhism in Tibet, is said to have originated from Tajik (Persia). According to Dub-thah-sel-kyi-me-
long, twenty generations of Tibetan Kings from Nya-thi-tsan-po down to Thi-je-tsan-po followed no other religion than the Bon, which
prevailed in Tibet up to 780 AD, when it was persecuted by King Thi-srong-de-tsan. The various black arts- such as witchcraft, exorcism,
magic, performance of miracles, sacrifice of animals, etc. in which the Bon-po priests were skilled - must have been imported from Nisibis
(Persia) by the Magi priests, who accompanied the Licchavis into Tibet. Sen-rab, who was one of the most prominent Bon-teachers, had
among his spiritual descendants a Persian sage, named Mu-tso-tra-he-si.
http://www.zanc.org/intro_to_z.html#DeathAndTheFuneralCeremony
Death And The Funeral Ceremony
Death is viewed as a transformation, a time of passing of the spiritual elements from the physical body. It is one's soul that chooses between
good and evil in this life; and it is the soul that is responsible for these actions and gets rewarded (in heaven) or retribution (in hell) after
death. Ultimately, Evil shall be vanquished by Good, and all souls will be raised in a blissful state, (frashokeret). Upon death, extensive
prayers and rituals are performed, to ensure a safe passage of the soul into the spiritual realm. In India, the ancient tradition of disposal of
the dead in 'Towers of Silence' open to the elements and birds of prey, is still practiced. Elsewhere, cremation, and to a lesser extent burial,
are practiced.
http://www.afghan-network.net/Culture/old_balkh.html
The faith of Zoroastrianism required the bodies to be left exposed on a dakhma [tower of silence] so that the birds of pray could eat them. On
the other hand, dogs too ate the dead and they were considered sacred - to injure a dog was more offensive then man-slaughter, in the
vendidad. The streets were full of half wild dogs, and full of bone - presumably because they were the bones of the dead.
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander12.html
Alexander had Bessus cruelly mutilated: his ears and nose were cut off. This was shocking to the Macedonians, but it was what Alexander had
to do as a Persian king who punished a regicide. Two centuries before, Darius I the Great had ordered the same treatment for Phraortes, the
last ruler of independent Media (see Behistun inscription, section 32). After the mutilation, Alexander handed Bessus over to Darius' brother
Oxyathres, ordering that he should bring the rebel to the place where he had killed his master, crucify him and keep the vultures away from
the dead body. This was a very gruesome deed: the Zoroastrians believed that the dead must be devoured by birds. It was the Persian
equivalent of the Greek denial of burial.
Vultures and Zoroastrianism
137
http://www.zanc.org/intro_to_z.html#TheRoleOfFire
The Role Of Fire
Zoroastrian rituals and prayers are solemnized in the presence of a Fire. which is scrupulously tended with sandalwood and frankincense and
kept burning in a silver urn in the inner sanctum of every Zoroastrian ‘fire-temple’ also called a 'Darbe Mehr' (house of divine light). Fire is
revered as a visible symbol of the Inner Light, the divine spark. that burns in each and every heart; a physical representation of the Illumined
Mind, Enlightenment and Truth. It is important to note that Zoroastrians do not "worship fire," as the religion denounces the worship of any
idols or deities.
Parpola, op. cit., pp. 205 ff.; Id., “The Pre-Vedic Indian Background of the Shrauta Rituals”, in F. Staal (ed.), Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the
Fire Altar, Berkeley, Asian Humanities Press, 1983, Vol. II, p. 51; Patnaik, op. cit., p. 19.
138
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/archive_reports/
Marija Gimbutas, “Wall Paintings of Catal Hüyük, 8-7th Millennia BC”, Oriental Rug Review. Vol 11, no 2 (dec.-jan 1991), 32-39.
Alastair Hull en Nicholas Barbard, Living with Kilims. Londen, 1996.
Marla Mallett, ‘A Weaver’s View of the Catal Hüyük Controversy’, Oriental Rug Review (aug./sept. 1990) vol X nr 6, 32-43.
http://www.rugreview.com/orr/132marl.htm
Marla Mallett, ‘The Goddess from Anatolia, An updated View of the Catal Hüyük Controversy’, Oriental Rug Review (dec.1992/jan 1992) vol.
XIII nr 2.
Andrea Maréchal, “The Riddle of Catal Hüyük”. Hali, 26 (april-mei-juni 1985), 6-11.
James Mellaart, “Excavations at Catal Hüyük”, Anatolian Studies (1962) 12: 41-66.
James Mellaart, “Excavations at Catal Hüyük 1962, Second Preliminary Report”, Anatolian Studies 13 (1963a) 43- 104.
James Mellaart, “Excavations at Catal Hüyük 1963, Third Preliminary Report”, Anatolian Studies 14 (1964) 39-121.
James Mellaart, “Dieties and Shrines of Neolithic Anatolia”, Archaeology 16 (1963b) 29-38.
James Mellaart, “Catal Hüyük West”, Anatolian Studies 15 (1965) 135-56.
James Mellaart, “Excavations at Catal Hüyük 1965, Fourth Preliminary Report”, Anatolian Studies 16 (1966)165- 192.
James Mellaart, Catal Hüyük. A Neolithic town in Anatolia. Londen, 1967.
James Mellaart, Excavations at Hacilar . I, II, Edinburgh, 1970.
James Mellaart, Belkis Balpinar, Udo Hirsch, The Goddess from Anatolia. Milaan, Adenau, 1989, I, II, III, IV.
James Mellaart, The Neolithic of the Near East. Londen, 1975.
James Mellaart, ‘De Pre-Urbane Periode in Azië’, Geïllustreerde wereldgeschiedenis van de archeologie. Helmond, 1981, 363-376.
James Mellaart, “The Earliest Representations of the Goddess of Anatolia and Her Entourage”. Anatolische Kelims; symposium Basel, Die
Vorträge, Jurg Rageth ed., Basel, 1990, 27-46.
James Mellaart, “James Mellaart Answers His Critics”. Hali 55 (februari, 1991), 86-7.
139
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm#The%20Three%20Goddesses
The triplicity of the Goddess is very important. This is not merely a multiplying by three, but rather a threefold manifestation; the Goddess
reveals herself on three levels, in the three realms of the world and of humankind.
Those three faces correspond to heaven, earth and the underworld; or past, present and future. McLean continues:
The most important triple aspect of the Goddess is her manifestation as Virgin/Mother/Crone. This is perhaps the easiest representation
with whom people can identify, as this triplicity corresponds to the three phases of woman’s life... the Young Woman/Mother/Old woman.
(Adam McLean, The Triple Goddess. An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine (Grand Rapids, 1989), 14-15.)
It is noteworthy that those three goddesses were, in certain places, represented by meteorites or aeroliths, stones that had fallen from heaven,
just as the Kaaba stone in Mecca. (Ibid, 52.) Merlin Stone noted that in Aphrodite’s temple in Cyprus a certain stone was anointed by oil each
year at the feast of the goddess. The same stone worship was conducted at Baalat’s temple at Byblos. (As Allat was the feminine version of
Allah, so was Baalat the feminine version of Baal.) The Romans venerated the captured Carthagian stone-goddess Cybele and also the Greeks
in Asia Minor. (Merlin Stone, ‘Goddess Worship in the Ancient Near East’ in Religions of Antiquity, 65-66.) Concerning our subject, we find
the same character-istics. All over Arabia, these same symbols have been found as representing the worship of a triple Arabian goddesses.
McLean states:
Long before the coming of the austere patriarchal system of Islam, the Arabic people worshipped this trinity of desert Goddesses who
were the three facets of the one Goddess. Al-Uzza (‘the mighty’) represented the Virgin warrior facet; she was a desert Goddess of the
morning star who had a sanctuary in a grove of acacia trees to the south of Mecca, where she was worshipped in the form of a sacred stone.
Al-Lat, whose name means simply ‘Goddess’, was the Mother facet connected with the Earth and its fruits and the ruler of fecundity. She was
worshipped at At-Ta’if near Mecca in the form of a great uncut block of white granite. Manat, the crone facet of the Goddess, ruled fate and
death. Her principal sanctuary was located on the road between Mecca and Medina, where she was worshipped in the form of a black uncut
stone. (McLean, The Triple Goddess, 80.)
McLean, Adam. The Triple Goddess. An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine. Grand Rapids, 1989.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/pip.htm
The word Nasr means both vulture, eagle and falcon or any bird of prey, it represents the spiritual qualities of sharp sight and insight.
Nasr: Eagle, or Vulture, or Falcon.
It is not clear whether these names are to be connected with true Arabic verbal roots or are merely Arabicised forms of names derived from
foreign cults, such as those of Babylonia or Assyria, the region of Noah's Flood. The latter supposition is probable. Even in the case of Wadd
(Affection, Love) and Nasr (Eagle), which are good Arabic words, it is doubtful whether they are not, in this connection, translations or
corruptions of words denoting foreign cults.
The Arabic word for hawk and vulture are the same, the role of the hawk as psychopomp is well described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead
http://interoz.com/egypt/bod105.htm
The complete text of the Egyptian Book of the Dead can be found at: http://interoz.com/egypt/bkofdead.htm

140
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225283&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3
Ecnt_id=10134198673225283&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500803&bmUID=1146585853742&bmLocale=en
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/03/nc/hod_1989.281.41a,b.htm
Stone seated female figure, late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C.
Central Asia (Bactria-Margiana)
Chlorite or steatite, and limestone; 3 3/4 in. (9.5 cm)
Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989 (1989.281.41a,b)
Western Central Asia, now known as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northern Afghanistan, has yielded objects attesting to a highly
developed civilization in the late third and early second millennium B.C. Artifacts from the region indicate that there were contacts with Iran
to the southwest.
Among the few three-dimensional images assigned to this period in Central Asia are a group of stone female figures seated or squatting on a
platform and wearing a robe decorated with a pattern, perhaps imitating sheep's fleece. They are always composite figures of soft green
chlorite or steatite, with heads of white limestone. This example has a typical abstract form with an armless body and legs represented by a
protruding ledge.
Excavated examples of this figure type come from sites in Margiana in southern Turkmenistan, a possible center of their production.
Similar seated females on cylinder seal impressions from southwestern Iran appear to depict royal figures. On compartmented stamp
seals from western Central Asia, a possible version of the female figure appears where she is sometimes flanked by or seated
upon animals or mythical creatures. These attributes could indicate a divine quality.

141
http://www.dhushara.com/book/hieros/hieros.htm
The hieros gamos of Inanna and Dumuzi.
Inanna, whom we may also identify with Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Aphrodite, Astarte, to a certain extent Asherah, and Oestre, Ostara, the sea
goddess Mari, or Miriam and many others, is the evening star, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven. She was the creatrix, the mother of all men.
She was Queen of Heaven astronomically as well as theologically. She was horned, and was brought up out of the foam by water-gods, like
Aphrodite, thus explaining her close connection with Mari goddess of the sea. Her journey to the earth and then to the underworld cements
relationship between the shepherd kings and hieratic planter queens which formed the basis of the flowering of the cities of Sumer from 3500
B.C., the centre of catalysis of successive civilations to the present day.
Several authors, including Barbara Walker and William Irwin Thompson (163) comment that the Sumerian era now represents the fall of the
Great Goddess to the phallic onslaught of the male Godhead represented by the trinity An, Enki and Nannar who may have been introduced
by the first Indo-Aryan incursions, and that the order of reproductive power has changed to that of erotic power to become the Goddess of life
and battle and of the seasonal abundance and regress. Although male gods, such as Enki certainly have have entered the pantheon, the young
Goddess is nevertheless mighty and resurgent with her youthful power:

The descent of the seven veils, the curse of Dumuzi (Wolkenstein and Kramer 57, 72).
The onset of the lean season after the harvest, however brings out the fierce dark side of the goddess of death and destruction. It is celebrated
by the entry of Inanna to the underworld, where she dances the dance of the seven veils as her worldly attire and then her life is reduced to
nought. Inanna decides to experience the dark side her elder sister Ereshkigal knows as Queen of the Underworld in the death rites of the
Sacred Bull of Heaven, Gugalanna, thus disguising her formal purpose of discovery in the formal act of witnessing the death rites of another.
Returning from the underworld, accompanied by demons who must have a mortal in compensation, she fixes the eye of death on her absent-
minded partner who is engrossed in affairs of state, and he is chased by the demons of hell, losing his possessions, his genitals and his life.
Inanna afterwards laments her actions and searches for him and ensures his resurrection so that he can be brought back for six months of the
year to ensure the fertility of both the womb and the soil. Seasonal male sacrifice of the "king" reverberates through the goddesses from
Greece to India and over much of Africa including Cybele, Hecate and Kali. In the Sumerian view, the purpose of human life was merely to
provide sustenance for the deities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna
Inanna or Inana, the original "Holy Virgin" (as the Sumerians called her), is the first known divinity associated with the planet Venus. This
Sumerian goddess became identified with the Semitic goddesses Ishtar and Astarte, Greek Aphrodite and Etruscan/Roman Venus. Inanna's
name may originally have been Nin-anna. Nin = Lady; An = heaven, sky, or the god An; Na = of, so Ninanna = Lady of Heaven or Lady An
(the female version or consort of An [Akkadian Anu]). It sounds very close to "Nanna" the name of the Sumerian moon god, which indicates
that the two deities may at one time have been one, or they may have a common origin. Inanna's name is also similar to that of the Hurrian
and Hittite goddess Hannahanna, whose name means grandmother (Hannah = mother).[1] One culture may have borrowed the name from
the other, or the two names may have a common origin. In some traditions Inanna was said to be a granddaughter of the creator goddess
Nammu or Namma.
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/kingbyloveinanna.html
Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (2000) King by Love of Inanna - an image of female empowerment? In: Nin - Journal of Gender Studies in
Antiquity. Published by Styx, Netherlands and edited by J.M. Asher-Greve, A. Kuhrt, J.G. Westenholz and M. S. Whiting, Volume 1, 2000,
Thematic Issue on the Goddess Inanna.
http://www.spiralcastle.net/ig/html/assyria-babylonia_2.html
Astarte "Great Goddess" She was closely tied to Ishtar. Goddess of love, fertility, and war. She is depicted as mostly naked with two horns.
Associated with the dove and the Evening Star. Because of her fame among the Egyptians she was admitted into the Egyptian pantheon in or
around 1500 BCE. In Egypt, she was known as the goddess of battlefields and soldiers. Her temples were known to have been places of
ritualized prostitution.
http://www.spiralcastle.net/ig/html/assyria-babylonia_4.html
Gula - The wife of the war god Enurta. She brought both illness and good health; her symbol was a dog or an orb with eight rays.
http://www.spiralcastle.net/ig/html/assyria-babylonia_6.html
Ishtar - Goddess of love and war. Sister of Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Underworld. Uses and seen with a quiver and a bow. She is
associated with the lion as well. Her temples known to have been places of ritualized prostitution.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/asherah.htm#anchor1038268

Bull 12th - 5th cent Palestine, Fertility Goddess plaques, one

Hathor/Qadesh, Incense holder from Taanach, with symbols of Inanna and Hathor surmounted by a radiant calf. Terracotta Asherah 11th -
6th cent BC. (Gadon, Pritchard 1954)

142
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/index.htm
Lucian recounts, his personal observations of the worship of the Goddess Atargatis (a form of Isthar or Astarte) at the temple of Hierapolis,
in what is today Turkey. Lucian writes in the style of Herodotus, and, remarkably, in Herodotus' dialect of Greek, which at that time was over
five hundred years old. Lucian describes huge phalliform idols, cross-dressing priests who castrated themselves, ritual prostitution of female
worshippers, and occasional infant human sacrifice. Unlike most of the other writings of Lucian, he is not being explicitly satirical or ironic,
nor is he writing fiction. Strong and Garstang claim that this was largely a historically valid description, supported by other ancient writers,
texts, and archaeology. Among other passages of interest, there is a variant account of the Greek flood myth of Deucalion which is here
blended with pre-biblical Ancient Near Eastern deluge accounts.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________
There are many representations of ‘lady at a window’, these are very likely to be representations of the Magna Mater.
http://www.gateserver.net/Topicdetails.aspx?Topicid=42814&name=&catid=105&topicname=Cybele
In Archaic Phrygian images of Cybele, her typical representation is in the figuration of a building’s façade, standing in the doorway. The
façade itself can be related to the rock-cut monuments of the highlands of Phrygia. She is wearing a belted long dress, a head polos (high
cylindrical hat), and a veil covering the whole body.
143
http://search.aras.org/record.aspx?ARASnum=8Jf.030&image=a&v=13154

Archetypal Commentary
While skin-covered masks are found only in Nigeria and Cameroon, they are related nevertheless to the worldwide pattern of honoring the
head. Their Janus-faced shape takes its name from another culture, of course; while the four horns of our picture belong not only to
quaternity symbolism but also to the universal symbolism of horns. Horns are not actually a part of the human body, yet they are often
associated with the human head as an expression of the head, like hair. Moses is a classic case in our own culture. Exodus 34.29 reads in the
Jerusalem Bible today: "the skin on his face was radiant. after speaking with Yahwah." But Jerome, in his great Latin translation, the Vulgate,
recorded that Moses' "face was horned" (cornuta) -- since the Hebrew verb garan can actually mean "to send forth beams" as well as "to be
horned." Most scholars today believe the saintly translator made a mistake, but it was one with consequence: Gothic and Renaissance artists,
Michelangelo among them, sculpted the Old Testament hero sprouting small horns. That no great debate arose around this odd iconography
probably was due to the fact that horns are age-old animal symbols of power and fertility -- which Moses did indeed possess, in the more
civilized form of religious authority and creativity.
Since the Stone Age, horns have been important to human beings. The "Venus of Laussel" hold aloft her horn for a hunting culture that
buried its dead surrounded by horns, while the subsequent agricultural period continued to value the horns of the bull in particular -- they
were so obviously powerful and dangerous yet attached to a body whose fertility was just as conspicuous. A cornucopia or "Horn of Plenty"
emerged as a significant symbol of abundance in Latin culture while scientists of the time hypothesized that horns on an animal were
concentrated out-crops of the life-substance normally contained within the head: "The moisture, being continuous and flowing in, thrusts out
the parts in front of it and the emerging liquid outside the body becomes hard, the air congealing it and turning it to horn" (Onians, 237).
Christianity inherited an appreciation for horns since it was the horn of a ram, antelope, or ibex that was blown ritually at the Jewish New
Year as the "Voice" of Yahweh; it followed that the "trumpet" of the archangel Gabriel sounding the Second coming of Christ would be no
brass instrument --as artists would have it -- but this same shofar (see Revelation 11). Nevertheless, the Christian "Devil" was derived from
Pan, a Greco-Roman goat god with horns which therefore had to be suppressed. it followed in ascetic Christendom that when one felt sinfully
concupiscent or "lustful" -- one felt "horny."
An art historian once remarked that the "realism" of the Skincovered masks of the Cross River region "is sometimes almost embarrassing"
(Nicklin, 14). He may have been referring to the head-hunting practice that scholars take to be the origin of this art form or may have been
reacting to something else in the masks that we as "civilized" human beings would rather not see about ourselves. In the case of janiform
heads, we are certainly confronted by the embarrassing fact of being "two-faced." We are nice to persons we cannot stand, say the opposite of
what we moan, present in public -- and even to ourselves in private -- a false face that has nothing to do with how we actually are. In other
words, the conflict of "Beauty and the Beast" in the Boki masquerade is just the African version of that universal problem of the personal
Shadow. The raucous danced masquerades of Basel, New Orleans, and the carnival of Rio de Janeiro are collective attempts to deal with it.
Yet at bottom we are dealing here with something even more serious; to borrow the title of Joseph Campbell's masterwork, our artifact is one
of the "Masks of God." We are being shown that the deity too is duplicitous, double-dealing, has a Shadow. With little thanks from otherwise
thoughtful people, Jung called attention to this polarity within the Judeo-Christian image of God. Indeed, the altar of Yahweh in ancient
Israel displayed at its corners four home; at the dedication of the temple of this otherwise compassionate Lord Solomon slaughtered there,
we are told, twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep (1 Kings 8.63). The sneer numbers of this "dedication
festival" remind us of the more recent slaughter of eight million Jews - and suddenly we find ourselves impaled upon the "horns of a
dilemma" which goes far beyond embarrassment.
But these are just ideas, if they are not "realized." If we do not become conscious of them and integrate them into a new worldview, if they are
not communicated with feeling in a written word difficult to deny, if they are not enacted in some change of behavior that everyone can
experience, they remain "creative life substance" within the head and have not yet congealed in the open air as "horn." Jung wrote at the very
beginning of his autobiographical statement Memories, Dreams, Reflections: "My life is a story of the self-realization of the
unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious
conditions and to experience itself as a whole" (3). The horns of our picture display their beastliness -- both raw animal instinctuality and
harmony with nature -- with which we need to come to terms personally and transpersonally; and yet they show us at the same time what it
means to actualize a creative impulse. Being fourfold and symbolic of wholeness as well, these horns are a veritable cornucopia of meaning.
http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/ancientsilver/56.18A.html
Helmet
ca. 400 B.C.; Thracian; Silver; height 24 cm (9 1/2 in.); Founders Society Purchase, Sarah Bacon Hill Fund; 56.18
The richly ornamented helmet was fashioned for a wealthy member of a northern Thracian tribe living near the Danube river in modern
Romania or Bulgaria. It was hammered from one sheet of silver with a high dome to accommodate the top-knot of hair worn by many
Thracians.
The main elements of the design are in low relief; the details were chased and engraved. On the brow piece fierce eyes with bushy eyebrows
stare out. One cheekpiece bears a horned animal, the other a huge bird of prey with a fish in its beak and a rabbit in its claws. The back and
upper edges are embellished with linear designs of rosettes, vines, feathers and scallops. The interpretation of the imagery is uncertain, but
the motifs may refer to traditional myths well known to contemporary Thracians and appropriate to the elaborate armor of a warrior.
http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/specex/witwine/witwine.htm

HEAD AND NECK OF BULL.

1000-600 BC.
Height - 12.875 inches.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=14967

Stag-Shaped Drinking Horn, Unknown Parthian, about 50 B.C. - A.D. 50 Silver, gold, glass, and garnet
rim 86.AM.753

144
http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra_2.htm
In the Phrygian cult of Cybele and Attis, but not in that alone, for we find it in various other Asiatic cults and in that of Mithra, a singular
ceremony, called the taurobolium, took place. It formed part of the mysterious initiatory rites exclusively reserved for believers. A deep pit
was sunk in the precincts of the temple into which the initiated descended and it was then covered over with a grating upon which a bull was
solemnly sacrificed; its blood flowed like red rain into the pit and fell on the naked person of the novitiate, endeavoring to bathe all parts of
his body in it. This baptism accomplished, the genital organs of the animal sacrificed were deposited in a sacred vessel to be presented as an
offering to the goddess, after which they were buried beneath a memorial altar.
Concerning this Phrygian rite, Robertson states:
The great vogue of the Phrygian institutions of the Taurobolium and Criobolium, or purification by the blood of bulls and rams, must have
reacted on Mithraism even if it were not strictly of Mithraic origin. Mithra, like Osiris and Dionysus, was the bull as well as the God to whom
the bull was sacrificed.
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/dave/Cults/mithras.html
The Central Myth: Mithras Slaying the Cosmic Bull
Mithras Slaying the Bull The central myth of Mithraism is essentially a creation story involving the sacrifice of a bull, which is depicted in
much of the Mithraic artwork. Mithras was born of the Earth in the shade of a sacred tree beside a sacred stream holding a knife and a torch.
He received word via a Raven from the Sun god that he was to slay the mystic white bull. Upon slaying the bull, the bull became the moon,
and Mithras' cape became the sky. Day and night began to alternate, animals and plants were created, the seasons began to change, and time
was created. Along with all of this, the battle between good and evil, of which man is a part, began. At this point, Mithras climbed into the
Sun god's chariot and began to ride it across the sky.
http://libro.uca.edu/mckenna/pagan1.htm
THE RELIGION OF THE PHOENICIANS IN SPAIN
Besides the cults of the natives of Spain, the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans who settled there left an appreciable influence upon the
religious life of the Peninsula. With the religion of the Phoenicians may be linked that of the Carthaginians, for the two people worshiped [12]
the same gods and had the same religious beliefs. Among the Phoenicians there was in each locality a deity known by the general name of
Baal, whose power was limited to the place in which he was worshiped. (59) In the city of Gades (Cadiz) there were two temples to Cronus
and Melkarth (= "king of the city"). (60) The god, Hercules Gaditanus, probably a Latinized form of Melkarth, was very popular among the
Romans, and his name is often found on the coins used in Roman times. There are no extant remains of the Phoenician temples at Cadiz.
Toutain has called attention to the fact that in Roman times there were in Africa and Spain many dedications to the Genius municipii. (61) As
most of the places where these inscriptions have been found had formerly been settlements of the Phoenicians he concludes that the worship
of the local BaaI of the Phoenicians continued under the Roman name of Genius municipii.
As was mentioned above the Phoenician god Melkarth was probably worshiped at Gades under the name of Hercules. (111) The Greco-Roman
Hercules was very popular in southern and eastern Spain where twenty inscriptions to him have been found. At Carteia [19] (Rocadilo) and
Epora (Montoro) not far from Gades, mention is made on the inscriptions of the "priests of Hercules." (112)
ORIENTAL MYSTERY RELIGIONS IN SPAIN
The last forms of paganism to enter Spain during the first three centuries after Christ were the oriental mystery cults. The first of these was
the religion of Phrygia, whose great goddess was believed to have saved Rome from disaster during the war against Hannibal. The principal
characteristic of this Phrygian cult was the taurobolium or criobolium, a ceremony which is also found in the religion of Mithras. This rite,
which the Spanish poet Prudentius has described, (129) consisted in the slaying of a bull or ram on an open platform. [21] The neophytes who
stood beneath the platform allowed the blood which flowed through the crevices to pour over the different parts of their body and often in
their eagerness moistened their lips with it. A spiritual meaning was attached to this ceremony. The descent into the pit was regarded as a
burial, and the sprinkling with blood signified the beginning of a new life.
While there were two principal deities of this Asiatic cult, Cybele and Attis, the latter is seldom mentioned in the Spanish inscriptions. Cybele
was usually addressed as Mater Deum. (130)An inscription in northwestern Spain identifies her with the Roman goddess Juno. (131) In the
Balearic Islands a temple was dedicated to Mater Magna et Atthis. (132) The inscriptions to the Phrygian deities are found in southern
Lusitania and Baetica, in the northwestern section, and in the seaport town of Barcino (Barcelona). (133) The names of many of the persons
who dedicate these inscriptions are oriental, such as T. Licinius Amaranthus, Docyricus Valerianus, and Flavia Tyche. (134) The earliest
known inscription to Magna Mater in Spain was made in the year 108 A.D. (135) The latest one that can be dated with certainty was made at
Corduba (Cordova) about the year 238 A.D. (136)
The Syrian cult of Atargatis seems to have been popular in southern Spain. (137) Traces of this Syrian religion have been found at Cordova.
(138) An inscription found at Málaga refers to a settlement there of Syrian merchants who probably continued to worship the deities of their
native land. (139)
[22] There are fourteen inscriptions to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis in Spain. While the title Domina is generally given to Isis, (140)
she is called in one inscription Isidi puellari, perhaps because she was regarded as the patroness of girls. (141) An inscription discovered near
a fountain may be an indication that Isis was regarded as a fountain-deity. (142) An inscription to Isis at Corduba (Cordova) mentions the
jewels and other precious ornaments which the worshiper offered to the goddess. (143) One inscription to Serapis joins his name with that of
Jupiter. (144) Another inscription addresses him as Serapis Pantheus. (145)Inscriptions in his honor are found in southern Lusitania, in
Baetica, in northwestern Spain, and also along the Mediterranean coast, where there was a temple to Serapis at Emporion.
The inscriptions to these Egyptian deities are made by soldiers, slaves, or freedmen who have oriental names. At Valentia (Valencia) Isis is
honored by the sodalicium vernarum, who may have been descendants of oriental slaves. (146) Among the oriental names may be mentioned
those of Flaminica Pale, Livia Chalcedonica, and Sempronia Lynchis. (147) The only inscription that can be dated with certainty is that found
at Corduba (Cordova) in the middle of the second century. (148)
About twenty-five inscriptions to Mithras have been found in Spain. The center of his cult appears to have been at Merida where a number of
statues to Mithras have been discovered. (149) He was also worshiped at Tarragona, in parts of Baetica, and in the military [23] sections of
the northwest. (150) Mithras is usually addressed as Sol Dominus Invictus. (151) On an altar to him at Menda are engraved the words, Ara
Genesis Invicti Mithrae, which probably refer to the birth of the god. (152) The cult of Mithras appears to have been very popular in the
middle of the second century A. D. (153) Most of the inscriptions were made by soldiers. (154)
The oriental mystery cults were popular in the maritime and military cities of Spain. No inscriptions to these eastern deities have been
discovered in the central part of the Peninsula or in northwestern Lusitania. These religions did not make a deep impression upon the natives
of Spain as may be judged from the fact that the names on the inscriptions are those of soldiers or of people evidently oriental. (155) The
oriental religions led to the practice of magic and astrology in many countries of the West. While Toutain stresses the paucity of documents in
Spain in regard to magic and astrology, he believes that Spain was permeated with magic. (156
There is evidence, however, that the syncretistic movement which had been going on in Roman religion from a very early period reached its
culmination when the oriental cults entered the empire. (157) This syncretism and its logical consequence, pantheism, are evident in the
Spanish inscriptions. Mention has already been made of the frequency with which the Roman deities were associated with Cybele, Isis, and
Mithras. In northwestern Spain, not far from Bracara (Braga) an altar was dedicated to more than twenty Greco-Roman deities. (158) Some
of the other inscriptions are made to Iuppiter Pantheus Augustus, Pantheus Augustus, Serapis Pantheus, and [24]PantheusTutela. (159) Five
of these syncretistic inscriptions have been discovered in northwestern Spain and four in the province of Baetica. The other inscriptions are
found in southern Lusitania and along the eastern coast.
http://drseuss.biz/books/classic_greece_rome/mom/mom09.shtml
p. 179
In the union of Mithra and Anâhita the counterpart was found of the intimacy between the great indigenous divinities Attis and Cybele, and
this harmony between the two sacred couples persisted in Italy. The most ancient mithræum known to us was contiguous to the metroon 1 of
Ostia, and we have every reason to believe that the worship of the Iranian god and that of the Phrygian goddess were conducted in intimate
communion with each other throughout the entire extent of the empire. Despite the profound differences of their character, political reasons
drew them together. In conciliating the priests of the Mater Magna, the sectaries of Mithra obtained the support of a powerful and officially
recognized clergy, and so shared in some measure in the protection afforded it by the State. Further, since men only were permitted to take
part in the secret ceremonies of the Persian liturgy, other Mysteries to which women were admitted must have formed some species of
alliance with the former, to make them complete. The Great Mother succeeded thus to the place of Anâhita; she had her Matres or "Mothers,"
as Mithra had his "Fathers"; and her initiates were known among one another as "Sisters," just as the votaries of her associate called one
another "Brothers."
p. 180
This alliance, fruitful generally in its results, was especially profitable to the ancient cult of Pessinus, now naturalized at Rome. The loud
pomp of its festivals was a poor mask of the vacuity of its doctrines, which no longer satisfied the aspirations of its devotees. Its gross
theology was elevated by the adoption of certain Mazdean beliefs. There can be scarcely any doubt that the practice of the taurobolium, with
the ideas of purification and immortality appertaining to it, had passed under the Antonines from the temples of Anâhita into those of the
Mater Magna. The barbarous custom of allowing the blood of a victim slaughtered on a latticed platform to fall down upon the mystic lying in
a pit below, was probably practised in Asia from time immemorial. According to a wide-spread notion among primitive peoples, the blood is
the vehicle of the vital energy, and the person who poured it upon his body and moistened his tongue with it, believed that he was thereby
endowed with the courage and strength of the slaughtered animal. This sacred bath appears to have been administered in Cappadocia in a
great number of sanctuaries, and especially in those of Mâ, the great indigenous divinity, and in those of Anâhita. These goddesses, to whom
the bull was consecrated, had been generally likened by the Greeks to their Artemis Tauropolos, and the ritualistic baptism practised in their
cult received the name of tauropolium (Greek)which was transformed by the popular etymology into taurobolium
p.181
But under the influence of the Mazdean beliefs regarding the future life, a more profound significance was attributed to this baptism of blood.
In taking it the devotees no longer imagined they acquired the strength of the bull; it was no longer a renewal of physical strength that the
life-sustaining liquid was now thought to communicate, but a renovation, temporary or even perpetual, of the human soul. 1
When, under the empire, the taurobolium was introduced into Italy, it was not quite certain at the outset what Latin name should be given
the goddess in whose honor it was celebrated. Some saw in her a celestial Venus; others compared her to Minerva, because of her warlike
character. But the priests of Cybele soon introduced the ceremony into their liturgy,--evidently with the complicity of the official authorities,
for nothing in the ritual of this recognized cult could be modified without the authorization of the quindecemvirs. Even the emperors are
known to have granted privileges to those who performed this hideous sacrifice for their salvation, though their motives for this special favor
are not clearly apparent. The efficacy which was attributed to this bloody purification, the eternal new birth that was expected of it,
resembled
p. 182
the hopes which the mystics of Mithra attached to the immolation of the mythical bull. 1 The similarity of these doctrines is quite naturally
explained by the identity of their origin. The taurobolium, like many rites of the Oriental cults, is a survival of a savage past which a
spiritualistic theology had adapted to moral ends. It is a characteristic fact that the first immolations of this kind that we know to have been
performed by the clergy of the Phrygian goddess took place at Ostia, where the metroon, as we saw above, adjoined a Mithraic crypt.
The symbolism of the Mysteries certainly saw in the Magna Mater the nourishing Earth which the Heavens yearly fecundated. So the Græco-
Roman divinities which they adopted changed in character on entering their dogmatic system. Sometimes, these gods were identified with
the Mazdean heroes, and the barbaric legends then celebrated the new exploits which they had performed. Sometimes, they were considered
the agents that produced the various transformations of the universe. Then, in the center of this pantheon, which had again become
naturalistic, as it was at its origin, was placed the Sun, for he was the supreme lord that governed the movements of all the planets and even
the revolutions of the heavens themselves,--the one who suffused with his light and his heat all of life here below. This conception,
astronomical in its origin, predominated more and more according as Mithra entered into more intimate relations with Greek thought and
became a more faithful subject of the Roman state.

145
http://www.bibleorigins.net/BullsApisBaalEl.html
The Bull was associated with the Syrian (Ugaritic) gods El, called Bull-El, and Baal, also called Baal-Hadad. Thunderclouds which brought
rain, lighting and thunder, were called "Hadad's CALVES". Yahweh- Elohim's manifestation at Mt. Sinai was as a Thundercloud, shortly
thereafter Aaron makes a Golden Calf for Israel to adore.
(p.80. Reader's Digest. The Great People of the Bible and How They Lived. Pleasantville, New York. 1974)
http://www.lgic.org/english/eng-mainphoenix-m.htm
http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/loc/phoenici.htm
The Phoenician civilisation could be traced back as far as the XIIIth century B. C..

146
(157) The web of association becomes more apparent when we compare the central European superstitious belief that if you pull out and
bury the hair of woman who is under lunar influence (menstruating) it will turn into snakes; there is also a Breton legend which states that
the hair of a witch turns into snakes. Here the information becomes so pertinent I shall quote Eliade: “There is a great deal of ethnological
evidence to show that witchcraft is a thing bestowed by the moon (either directly, or through the intermediary of snakes). To the Chinese, for
instance, snakes are at the bottom of all magic power, while the Hebrew and Arabic words for magic come from words that mean “snakes”.
Because snakes are “lunar” — that is, eternal — and live underground, embodying (among all the other things) the souls of the dead, they are
the source of all wisdom, and can foresee the future”. (P.C.R. p. 168)
http://www.zohardancing.com/goddessheritage.html
***probably has the bit about long hair being sacred and dancing for the goddess.
147
Sarianidi V. Temples of Bronze Age Margiana: Traditions of Ritual Architecture in Antiquity, v.68, n.259. 1994.
Sarianidi V. Margiana and Protozoroastrianism. Athens. 1998.
148
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041210-female-figures.htm

Archaeologists have uncovered scores of so-called 'female figurines' in Mycenaean layers, dated from Late Helladic IIIA (1450-1300 BCE) to
Late Helladic IIIC (1180-1050 BCE). One might be tempted to dismiss these images as crude representations of human beings, but there are
good reasons to suspect that something else may have been behind the production of these objects. After all, Mycenaean art is not normally
known for its crudeness and the artists would probably have been able enough to produce more naturalistic objects.
A comparative study of the statues in case, some of which are portrayed above, uncovers a number of recurrent features. The figurines all
have a cylindrical base. Their torsoes are invariably decorated with vertical stripes and come in three types. Due to the resemblance of these
types to some letters of the Greek alphabet, specialists have called these Phi (Φ), Tau (Τ), and Psi (Ψ) types. The headdresses of some of the
women are shaped like bowls or cups, and often an equilateral cross is placed across the inside of these cups.
The axis mundi is the common designation for the column that connects the poles of the earth with the celestial poles, around which we see
the stars revolve. One of the most profound symbolic expressions of this axis in world mythology is the image of a giant human being
upholding heaven with his head or arms. The classic examples of this motif are the Greek Atlas, the Chinese Pan-Gu, the Vedic Purusha, the
Judaeo-Gnostic Adam Qadmon, and the Egyptian Shu.
http://www.aztriad.com/godesses.html
Isis: Gender-variant priestesses, often self-emasculated, danced and performed magic rites with the other women devotées. Such a dance can
be viewed on a marble relief at Ariccia, near Rome on the Appian Way. Ecstatic dancing, lifting of skirts, shaking of buttocks, tossing of heads
and raising of arms reveal the enthusiasm of the dancers. It also reveals that some are clearly male-born. Such as these were called cinaedi.
http://www.wbenjamin.org/nc/poppy_opium.html
Kritikos, P.G. The Poppy, Opium and Its Use in Late Minoan III: Remarks on the Discovery of the Minoan Poppy Goddess Idol.
[The Greeks] decorated statues of Apollo, Demeter, Aphrodite, Cybele and other gods, which either wear poppy wreaths on their heads or
carry poppy bouquets with or without stalks of wheat in their hands. The fruit of the poppy with or without stalks of wheat can also be found
in pictures, reliefs, vessels, coins and jewelry.
It is reported that Demeter, in despair over the abduction of her daughter, ate of the poppy to forget her pain and sleep.
The papaver growing wild in the fields became the symbol of this goddess. A bouquet of poppy and stalks of wheat is depicted on a ciste at
Eleusis.
Both symbolize abundance and fertility.
The poppy was also sacred to Aphrodite.
Hughes, Bettany. Helen of Troy : Goddess, Princess, Whore. Knopf. 2005. 496 pages. ISBN: 1400041783
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=dp2&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical%2
52ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2529
%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3dgoddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch%26
_IXSESSION_%3d7qJu5H9w0ly%26_IXsearchterm%3dgoddess&_IXFIRST_=59&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXsea
rchterm=goddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch&submit-button=summary
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=dp2&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical%2
52ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2529
%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3dgoddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch%26
_IXSESSION_%3d7qJu5H9w0ly%26_IXsearchterm%3dgoddess&_IXFIRST_=74&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXsea
rchterm=goddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch&submit-button=summary
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
At Ovcharovo Tell in Bulgaria, archaeologists excavated a similar “cult scene” of painted figurines with their arms raised. They were
accompanied by an array of clay furniture, including painted panels, little chairs, tables with tiny lidded vessels, querns and grinding stones,
as well as a couple of larger bowls. [Stefanova et al., 2004:7]
Stefanova et al. 2004 “Bulgarian Lands in Antiquity.” National Museum of History: A Guide, edited by M. Totomanova and V. Shishkova.
Sofia.
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
Another abstract figurine with raised arms was fashioned on a pot at Umm Dabaghiyeh, Iraq, circa 6500 BCE. The vulture-faced matrikas of
Amratian Egypt are famous for their invocational stance, with arms raised in a curve above their beaked heads. This motif is repeated in
ochre-painted pots of the Gerzean period, which frequently show a goddess or priestess lifting her arms in a circle-shape. Usually the woman
stands in a boat, as the focal point of a tableau of people, birds, and animals. This scene is repeated in a petroglyph in the eastern desert: she
stands in a boat that a group of women are towing up the Nile. The upraised curve of her arms is strongly reminiscent of the dances that
women in Uganda and Namibia still perform in honor of the cow.
149
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
Matrikas are also clearly treated as sacred images in 6th millennium Iraq. In the early levels of Tell es-Sawwan, alabaster female icons were
found in rooms where thick layers of residue showed that offerings had been burned there over long periods. One matrika stood in a central
niche in the wall of the end room. D.G. Youkana thinks the building “had a religious purpose”: the veneration of “a mother deity with
prominent buttocks.” He compares this shrine to a building of similar layout at Yarim Tepe, which had “no domestic debris” and “a number
of figurines representing a mother deity...” Rooms of similar orientation and contents were excavated in level IV at Tell Hassuna. Another
shrine was found at Choga Mami, in a heavily plastered room with three conical pillars in its corners (and traces of a fourth), along with
“remains of clay figurines representing seated women” and “highly polished pestles.” [Youkana 1997: 16-17, 50-58]
Youkana, Donny George. 1997. Tell es-Sawwan: the Architecture of the 6th Millennium BC. London: Nabu Publications.
Perhaps the most spectacular case of proven cultural diffusion is the spread of al-Ubaid matrikas and ceramic styles from southern Iraq to
Turkmenistan in the Namazga epoch, and from there to Baluchistan in the hills west of the Indus. Another well-known example is the spread
of a prototype originating in the area of Halaf, Syria. The Halafian style rapidly swept over much of west Asia at the height of the neolithic
era. The spread of its distinctive breast-cupping matrikas and vessels painted with bull’s heads, butterflies, and Maltese crosses, was a
veritable cultural movement, and not associated with conquest or ethnic migration.
The spread of artistic styles is likely to have borne along ideas and ceremonial practices as well. The newly adopted features were, after all,
used in offering vessels and grave goods. As Marija Gimbutas recognized, “formal repetition” of symbolic elements is a key element of the
ancient iconography. [Gimbutas 1974: 38]
Gimbutas, Marija
1991 The Civilizationof the Goddess: The World of Old Europe. San Francisco: Harper
1974 The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 7000-3500: Myths, Legends and Cult Images. University of California Press, Los Angeles.
150
http://www.religioustolerance.org/goddess.htm
It is important to realize that many of these findings by archaeologists and historians are speculative in nature. For example, the
interpretation that the old European culture stressed the female as divine is largely based on the number of carvings of a female shape found
from this era. Some point to the relative lack of equivalent male statues as evidence of a Goddess culture. Others suggest that the female
statues might have been the old European culture's equivalent of modern-day erotic photographs.
This "old European" culture lasted for tens of thousands of years in what is now Europe. They generally lived in peace; there is a notable lack
of defensive fortifications around their hamlets. As evidenced by their funeral customs, males and females appear to have had equal status.
Many historians and archaeologists believe that:
Their society was matrilineal; children took their mothers' names.
Life was based on lunar (not solar) calendar.
Time was experienced as a repetitive cycle, not linearly as we think of it.
Many academics believe that the suppression of Goddess worship in Western Europe occurred a few thousand years BCE, when the Indo-
Europeans invaded Europe from the East. They brought with them some of the "refinements" of modern civilization: the horse, war, belief in
male Gods, exploitation of nature, knowledge of the male role in procreation, etc. Goddess worship was gradually combined with worship of
male Gods to produce a variety of Pagan religions, among the Greeks, Romans, Celts, etc. Author Leonard Shlain offers a fascinating
alternative explanation. He proposed that the invention of writing "rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture.
Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues
that literacy reinforced the brain's linear, abstract, predominantly masculine left hemisphere at the expense of the holistic, iconic feminine
right one. This shift upset the balance between men and women initiating the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in
literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed."
151
http://www.humanevolution.net/a/matrilineal.html
"In summary, the cemetery evidence in central and east-central Europe during the 5th millennium B.C. speaks for the existence of kinship
based societies. Graves were arranged in rows or in groups of twenty to thirty-five people, which may refect kin-related units. The most
honored members of the Old European society were elder females, perhaps heads of the stem or queens, and girls who were very likely
members of a hereditary line or priestesses. Their graves do not indicate the accumulation of personal possessions but are marked by
symbolic items, sometimes of exceptional quality, and by the erection of gigantic mounds and consecrated structures. The graves of girls and
female infants were consistently equipped with exceptional ritual objects not found in other graves. Analysis of blood groups testify to a
pronounced indogamous society which may suggest that these girls were important heiresses in a hereditary female line." (Gimbutas, Marija
(1991) The Civilizationof the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p. 338)
"Judging from mythologies and surviving kinship terminology, the brother of the queen (or priestess, as representative of the Goddess),
rather than her consort, played a major role. In Neolithic times, the queen-priestess presided over agriculture and religious life. Her brother
may have assumed leadership responsibilities (but not dominating control) over public works, craft organization, and trade." (Gimbutas,
Marija (1991) The Civilizationof the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p. 344)
"codes of Roman Law vestigial features can be recognized to a matrilineal order of inheritance" in first European recognition of matristic
order in 1861 by Johann Jakob Bachofen. (Gimbutas, Marija (1989) The Languages of the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p. forward, 1st page by
Joseph Campbell)
"The major aspects of the Goddess of the Neolithic --- the birth-giver, portrayed in a naturalistic birth-giving pose; the fertility-giver
influencing growth and multiplication, portrayed as a pregnant nude; the life of nourishment-giver and protectress, portrayed as a bird-
women with breasts and protruding buttocks; and the death-wielder as a stiff nude ("bone") --- can all be traced back to the period when the
first sculptures of bone, ivory, or stone appeared, around 25,000 B. C. and their symbols --- vulvas, triangles, breasts, chevrons, zig-zags,
meanders, cupmarks --- to an even earlier time." (Gimbutas, Marija (1989) The Languages of the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p. xix)
"Greek Artemis, Eileithyia, Thracian Bendis, Venetic Rehtia, and Roman Diana, as well as the living Fate in European folk beliefs ---
particularly the Baltic Laima and the Irish Brigit --- are unquestionable descendants of the prehistoric Life-giving Goddess. This Goddess has
nothing to do with the Indo-European pantheon of gods. She must have survived the process of Indo-Europeanization and was carried over
to our times from generation to generation by the grandmothers and mothers of countless families. The historic and prehistoric Life-giver
was a Mistress of mountains, stones, waters, forests, and animals, and incarnation of the mysterious powers of nature. Being an owner of
wells, springs, and healing waters, she was a miraculous bestower of health. Through prehistory and history she appeared as a bird woman,
bird, or woman. As a waterbird she was a nourisher of humanity and an increaser of material goods. She was the guardian of the well-being
of the family and from Paleolithic times must have been considered to be the ancestress and progenetrix of the family or clan." (Gimbutas,
Marija (1989) The Languages of the Goddess. Harper: S. F. p.111)
http://www.dhushara.com/book/hieros/hieros.htm
About 35,000 years ago, there appears suddenly an explosion of representational art. It is as if the birth of culture has occurred from the
primal continuum of the paleolithic. Prominent among these first and most artistic creations are diverse representations of the creatrix
goddess of fertility, complemented by sculpures and wall paintings of animals and the hunt of a more shamanic content. The consistency and
the careful beauty of these figurines is consistent with the worship of the female as generator of the continued line of living existence. While
primitive men were wandering hunters who had to remain silent in the shamanic meditation of the hunt, the women were collecting and
recognising a wide variety of plants, talking more and socializing, forming the foundation skills that underpinned the birth of civilization. The
myths of diverse tribal cultures hint at a previous era when women were the founding influence in this way.
Baring, Anne. Cashford, Jules. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (London: Penguin, 1993)
Cohen, Claudine. La Femme des origines: Images de la femme dans la préhistoire occidentale (Paris: Hescher, 2003)
Dobres, Marcia-Anne. "Venus Figurines," in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Edited by Brian M. Fagan (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996), 740-741
Delporte, Henri. L'Image de la Femme dans l'Art Préhistorique (Paris: Picard, 1993)
Duhard, Jean-Pierre. Réalisme de l'image féminine paléolithique (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1993)
Duhard, Jean-Pierre. "Upper Palaeolithic Figures as a Reflection of Human Morphology and Social Organization," Antiquity 67 (1993), 83-90
Gimbutas, Marija. "The "Monstrous Venus" of Prehistory or Goddess Creatrix," Comparative Civilizations Review 10 (1981), 1-26
Knight, Chris. Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991)
McDermott, LeRoy. "Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines," Current Anthropology 37 (1996), 227-275
Rice, Patricia C. "Prehistoric Venuses: Symbols of Motherhood or Womanhood?" Journal of Anthropological Research 37 (1982), 402-414
Russell, Pamela. "The Palaeolithic Mother-Goddess: Fact or Fiction?" in Reader in Gender Archaeology. Edited by Kelley Hays-Gilpin and
David S. Whitley (London: Routledge, 1998), 261-268
Soffer, Olga, Adovasio, J. M., Hyland, D. C. "The "Venus" Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic," Current
Anthropology 41 (2000), 511-537
Soffer, Olga, Adovasio, J. M., Hyland, D. C. "The Well-Dressed "Venus": Women's Wear ca. 27,000 PB," Archaeology, Ethnology, and
Anthropology of Eurasia 1 (2000), 37-47
http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com/goddesses.html
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_01.html
Anatolia in Asia Minor, the very area that was home(2) to Hekate, saw the most impressively developed of the Near-Eastern Neolithic
cultures, for which (by definition) the worship of a goddess or goddesses closely associated with the agricultural cycle played a most central
role, and, what is most suggestive, a culture of demonstrable continuity with Paleolithic religious and artistic patterns. I shall here briefly
survey these periods to refresh the reader's memory as to the historical setting. By 40,000 BP, in the upper Paleolithic, we find the “Venus”
figures of which Willendorf furnishes the best known example -- stylized female forms with big fat attributes. The radical conventionalization
of these figures, in a context of contemporary naturalistic painting and sculpture, suggests that a deliberately symbolic quality was sought --
the abstract quality of fertility which the images fairly proclaim.
Though too much can be made of the goddess worship, these figures imply (they occur in a much larger context of animal images and
unexplained abstract symbols) they attest that fertility in land and animal, symbolized by a generous female form and regarded as numinous,
was a concept dawning by 40,000 BP(3)
In the Neolithic (8,000-3,000 BC), with the wide adoption of settled agricultural life, when fertility religion came to replace the hunting-
centered and shamanic religion of the Paleolithic with shrines, priests and seasonal repeating festivals, these goddesses occupied center stage
in human religious conceptions -- though in a context of stylized bulls, bucrania and phalloi which conservative opinion regards as
representing the “male principle”, as well as animal and abstract imagery already known from the Paleolithic(4) In the Near East, Neolithic
culture developed sophisticated urban societies in Iraq, Israel and Anatolia -- the last of these being the site where the Near Eastern Neolithic
reached its highest development, as the excavation of Catal Hüyük demonstrates.
This site, c. 30 miles southeast of Konya (ancient Iconum) in Turkey and c. 200 miles from Hekate's great temple at Lagina, has provided
spectacular finds sophisticated metalwork and ceramic articles bespeaking developed trade, and a sacred art which provides a “missing link”
between the naturalistic Paleolithic and the more symbolically and geometrically inclined Neolithic(5) There is no way of telling whether
Hekate was introduced late into Anatolia, or was indigenous. Nor is there any reason for preferring one theory to the other since some
connection -- by direct descent or syncretism -- between Hekate and her goddess predecessors in Anatolia is to be presumed. Mother-
goddess figures retain their prominence in Asia Minor's archaeology from every period, and indeed their distinctive form, seated and lion-
flanked. That the oldest Greek image of Hekate, an archaic seated figure, seems to mirror the throned ‘Great Mother’ from Catal Hüyük, is a
delight but not a surprise(6)
Even if one of the peoples who overran Anatolia in the post-Neolithic period simply cooped ancient shrines and iconographies for Hekate as a
newly introduced deity, certain features of the most ancient goddess worship and without doubt the glamour of the primordium still attached
to the locations and were transferred to their latest tenants. We can think of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who occupies the site and retains many
of the physical features and abilities of the Aztec goddess Tonantsi she replaced. Some link with the most distant past in Anatolia, either
inherited or acquired, will then exist for Hekate. Entering the light of History and the darkness of the Bronze Age we find the Indo-European
Hittites migrating into Asia Minor through the 3rd millennium. The Hittite empire was more a federation held together by a ruling city-state
than a unified nation, and adopted the gods of allies and dependencies as a means of consolidating political power. Accordingly they
federated native Anatolian gods with their own, as they did those of the Hurrians whose influence they felt somewhat later. We know, for
example, that the Hittite pantheon featured prominently a Hurrian weather-god, Teshub, and his consort Hepat (7) (There is not enough
evidence to see in Hepat the proto-Hekate, and the consonantal changes involved are linguistically improbable).
Another feature of Hittite culture that will concern us is its connection with the Sumero-Akkadian culture (e.g. copies of the Gilgamesh Epic
circulated in Anatolia of this period.) This will help justify parallels between Hekate and the Sumerian Inanna, direct influence being
possible.> The Phrygians, who appear in Asia Minor -- from where is uncertain -- c. 1200 BC, establish their kingdom there by c. 800 BC,
which is the limit of the time-frame that concerns us. What is known of their religion is so from such of their cults as were exported, such as
Sabazius (Dionysus) and Cybele, whose ecstatic character seems echoed in the witch-religion(8)
This is the historical ambiance in which Hekate either grew or into which she was introduced. A possible scenario is suggested by the career
of Kubaba, originally a local goddess of Carchemish, who attained central religious status as goddess of the Neo-Hittite kingdom (who looked
to Carchemish (9) as their metropolis.) Through the Phrygians, this Kubaba is transferred to Rome as Cybele or Cybebe(10) Henri Graillot
(11) traces the development of this chthonic great Mother, mistress of mountains and wild beasts, through the Neolithic (though he lacked
the word) to historical times. He shows probable Cretan and Sumero-Akkadian influence and continuity, and very clearly describes the role
of Cybele as principal deity of the Phrygians and her association with the Thracian Dionysian religion (the Corybants.) Though somewhat
hampered by the then less advanced stage of archaeology, his overview is, as far as it goes, quite accurate, and agrees in every detail with my
model of the probable prehistory for Hekate.

152
http://www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH2.html
The Oldest Boom Town: the Case of Çatal Höyük
A string of early archaeological sites stretches from western Turkey to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. Their inhabitants built
villages of stone and mud-brick, hunted and herded animals, and grew crops, from about 7400 BC. Their stone technology was advanced, and
many of the very early sites, particularly Çayönü, were within easy reach of important obsidian sources at Aksaray, Bingöl, and around Lake
Van.
Obsidian is volcanic glass. In the hands of a craftsman, it can be made into a broad variety of tools with very sharp edges. Even today,
surgeons prefer glass knives over steel for some procedures. Trade in flint and obsidian is relatively easy to reconstruct archaeologically, even
in a pre-literate culture. Flints and obsidian are practically indestructible, even after the tools are useless for their original purpose: they
cannot be recycled in a way that destroys evidence of their original use. They often carry geochemical traces that allow their source rock to be
identified precisely. Around 7000 BC, obsidian from northeast Anatolia was traded in large quantities locally, and small pieces of it have
turned up as far away as the southern Levant and the Persian Gulf. Marine shells were apparently traded the other way, and jadeite and other
ornamental stones were traded out of the Taurus mountains into the Levant.
We do not know what the original inhabitants called Çatal Höyük. It certainly wasn't Çatal Höyük, which is the modern Turkish name for a
fascinating archaeological site in the hills of central Anatolia, the highland plateau that makes up most of modern Turkey. The Neolithic city
at Çatal Höyük lay on the edge of an alluvial plain, so was well placed for food production. (The detailed topography still has to be worked
out, because the landscape has changed a lot in 9000 years.) The city itself contains twelve successive levels of building spanning about 1000
years from 6300–5400 BC. Closely packed houses of mud brick provided homes for perhaps 6000 people, so it was a substantial city for its
time. Only a small part of Çatal Höyük has been excavated, but we can already form an evocative picture of the daily life of the town 8000
years ago.
Animal bones on the site suggest a diet rich in meat, from domesticated goats, sheep, and cattle to wild boar and deer. Store rooms contained
wheat, barley, and peas, suggesting that agricultural skills were already well developed, and clearly, people had mastered the logistics of
maintaining a city of thousands of people. Homes consisted of a living room with store rooms attached, and had built-in ovens, hearths, bins,
and sleeping platforms.
The technology of the time is expressed in beautifully worked obsidian spear points, arrow heads, knives, and polished mirrors. Luxury goods
were being traded, because there are beads and pendants made from various minerals. Some vessels were used to keep perfumes and oils,
and wood carving and basketry work is highly intricate. Some of the earliest paintings on man-made walls are found here. The artists used a
wide color range of natural pigments, including the reds and browns and yellows of ochre, and the greens and blues of the copper minerals
malachite and azurite. The motifs include geometric patterns, symbols, and designs taken from nature. Plaster heads of bulls, paintings of
hunting scenes, and clay statuettes may have been aesthetic or religious; probably the skulls painted red with the mercury mineral
cinnabar were religious. The world's earliest landscape painting shows Çatal Höyük with the volcanoes behind it in eruption! Textiles were
woven and dyed, and clay stamps were used to apply pigment to them in pre-set patterns.
Some of the world's earliest practical pottery occurs at Çatal Höyük in levels dated at about 6000 BC. It was probably fired in a kiln, because
the potters had learned how to produce either red or black pigmented pots from the same clay, by allowing or preventing free air flow around
the pots as they were fired. Apart from their technological significance, the pigments show that Çatal Höyük potters were already adding
aesthetic design to the basic utilitarian function of domestic pottery. Çatal Höyük lies near the volcanoes from which its obsidian supplies
came, the only known source of obsidian for hundreds of miles around. Coral and decorative shells (from the Mediterranean) and
Syrian flint suggest that Çatal Höyük traded valuable goods over long distances. Obsidian from Çatal Höyük has been
identified as far away as Jericho.
Çatal Höyük does not lie in the best situation for agriculture. The juniper beams from which its dwellings are made have very closely-
spaced growth rings, showing that the climate was even drier than today's. Crop yields would have good only in wet years, and could have
been disastrous in dry years. In other words, this was not a region of abundant food, and it was not an obvious site to develop a city full of
hungry mouths. There must have been a compelling reason for the establishment and long-term success of Çatal Höyük, and it was most
likely the trade based on its abundant and unique obsidian resources. Çatal Höyük is thus the oldest known boom town, situated on the wild
northwest frontier of the "civilized" agricultural world of the time, with its wealth based on geology and maintained only as long as its
resources remained available and desirable.

153
http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/mesopotamia/47.181.html
Eagle-Headed Deity

883-59 B.C.; Mesopotamian, Neo-Assyrian; Limestone; height 1 m (39 3/8 in.); Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie H. Green; 47.181
An eagle-headed, winged divinity stands facing a tree of life (the ends of the branches are just visible at the right edge). The figure was a
small section of the wall decoration in the state apartments of the royal palace at Nimrud in northern Iraq, built by Assurnasirpal II, King of
Assyria. The deity holds a bucket in one hand and in the other a spathe (leaflike sheath for the flowers) of the date palm. He is
tending the tree, a symbol of vegetal life and fertility. He, and many more like him, originally brightly highlighted with black, white,
red, and blue paint, formed the ornamentation around a room near the throne room thought to have served as a place of ritual bathing. The
motif stresses the political and religious importance of nurturing both the kingship and the land for the prosperity of Assyria.

154
Mellaart, James; Hirsch, Udo; Balpinar, Belkis. The Goddess from Anatolia. Adenau: Udo Hirsch; 1989. 4 volumes (I: xviii + 104 pages
[including 23 plates]; II: 100 pages [including 15 plates]; III: 105 pages [including28 plates. (]; IV: 87 pages [including107 illustrations])).
ISBN: 88-85210-09-0. Analysed.
Mellaart, J (1978) The archaeology of ancient Turkey, Oxford: OUP
Mellaart, James. Earliest Civilizations of the Near East. McGraw-Hill. 1965.
Mellaart, James. Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. McGraw-Hill, 1967.
155
http://www.dhushara.com/book/hieros/hieros.htm

Hieros gamos, creatrix goddess, shrine with bulls heads and pregnant Goddess.
Catal Huyuk Anatolia 7,500 B.C. - 5,500 B.C. goddess (Melaart).
Catal Huyuk 6,500 B.C. illustrates the transition from hunter-gatherer society to agricultural centres in which trade (e.g. in obsidian) and the
complementation between male pursuits of hunting, herding and animal husbandry and the planting, harvesting and seed selection of the
agricultural domain of the women. The environmental confluence of natural grain-producing areas with pasture and forest made certain
areas of the Near East, as exemplified by old Jericho circa 10,000 B.C. and Catal Huyuk, provided an ideal backdrop for this
complementation. The central place of the generative goddess and the counterpoint between the horned male bull and the pregnant goddess
is again reflected in the hieros gamos, sacred marriage, or ritual consummation, clearly portrayed as being consequentially linked to birth.

Temple with bulls heads, skulls and vultures picking headless men (Melaart).
There are some skulls present in the temples, and death vultures are depicted pecking headless men. The central and sacred place of the
woman's family bed in house design contrasts with the variable and satellite position of the male sleeping arrangements and burial places.
http://www.earthcountries.com/Europe/Turkey/History-of-Turkey-2.html
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons2.html
The famous goddess from a granary at Çatal Höyük sits on a throne flanked by leopards, the prototype for Kybele and her lions many
millennia later. At Hacilar, too, a woman sits on a leopard throne, their tails snaking up her back. Another stands with a leopard cub balanced
on her hip, the tail dangling. At Lago Valencia, Venezuela, it is snakes that hang from the matrika’s shoulders to her inner thighs. A serpent
also crawls over the lap of a seated figurine of the Namazga culture, Turkmenistan.
156
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. Margus: Murgap der‡asynyn köne hanasynyn a‡agynaky gadymy gündogar salygy = Margus :
drevnevostochnoe tsarstvo v staroi del'te reki Murgab = Margus : ancient oriental kingdom in the old delta of the Murghab river.
Türkmendöwlethabarlary 2002 ISBN : 5727001005

157
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/d/doors_of_precession_the.html
The associations of the bull's heads and the image-clusters of regenerative life forms with emblems such as the bee and butterfly with their
"antennae like bull horns and wings in the form of a lunar crescent" become a dominant theme in Neolithic art because of their similar forms
(Gimbutas Old Europe 183). However, the images of death such as the vulture or vulture skulls which also appear frequently with bucrania
are less similar in schematic form to the bull and the moon. Although they are depicted in many Neolithic temples, the vultures and bird
forms appear as separate deities from the image-cluster, yet as a necessary part of the schemata. As an early association of the bird-goddess,
the vulture appears on temple murals at Çatal Hüyük in reference to the Neolithic excarnation rites. According to Melaart, as the giver of life,
the goddess as vulture is also the taker of life because she cleaned the dead before the bodies were returned to the family for burial and
rebirth (24). Campbell also notes a chapel in Çatal Hüyük where the bull's head as returning moon has a vulture facing it on another wall
where the vulture is eating back the head of a headless body as a type of rebirth or recycling of the soul which, according to Campbell, might
be construed as being contained in the head. (Transformations of Myth Vol. I).
Although the majority of the representations of the bull or moon and the goddess of regeneration are in artistic forms, a significant number
of representations in the Neolithic Era are abstract symbols depicting the same process of life, death, and re-birth associated with the moon
and the passage of time. It is almost as if a symbolic language has been created to express the passage of cyclical time. Gimbutas notes that
spirals, circles, coils, crescents, hook, horns, four-corner signs, brushes, combs, hands and feet, and animals with whirls or processions are all
symbols of energy and unfolding. Gimbutas continues: "These dynamic symbols are either themselves energy incarnate or are stimulators of
the process of becoming. Moving up, down, or in a circle, they symbolize cyclical time. The pulse of life demands an unending stream of vital
energy to keep it going" (Language of the Goddess 277). Among those mentioned many such as horns, crescents, and the four-corner signs
are obviously notations of lunar cycles.
Campbell, Joseph. "And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea: Gods and Goddesses of the Neolithic Period" Program 3, Vol. I, Tape II.
Campbell, Joseph. Transformations of Myth Through Time. Public Media Video, 1989.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. New York: Thames and Hudson,
1989.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Living Goddesses, Ed. Miriam Robbins Dexter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Mellaart, James. "Çatal Hüyük and Anatolian Kilims" The Goddess of Anatolia. Volume II. Adenau, West Germany: Eskenazi, 1989.
158
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/orsin3.htm#anchor1457443
The Nabateans, like the Harranians, followed a complex system of astral worship, involving the sun and moon and seven major
planets, in which in her varying forms, the Goddess represented Venus and the Moon (Glueck 453). As Moon Goddess she is identifiable
with Tyche, Selene and Atargatis-Artemis of Hierapolis. Selene was worshipped in the new and full moon. She stands prima inter pares at the
centre of the main dieties of the Nabatean pantheon the seven planets and the zodiac, although sometimes displaced by Zeus. The snake-
twined eagle is shown in at least one relief standing above both the sun and moon at Jebel Druze. However the fertility goddess, who was
also in her aspects the dolphin-crowned Sea Goddess (Aphrodite-Mari) of seafarers and the Moon Goddess clearly dominates the sculptures
at Khirbet Tannur, the outstanding Nabataean high sanctuary, archetypal of the biblical high places (Glueck).
http://www.khadijascaravan.com/turkomanpendant1.html
The upper world is represented by a world tree-- which helps us to understand the Turkoman notion of a tree called dagdan which grows in
the mountains but is otherwise unclassifiable. The middle world is represented by a horizontal east-west axis, similar to the bozbend tube in
tumar pectoral jewellery. The lower world is represented by two inverted forms, the lower of which depicts a butterfly - wolf motif with
double rows of pendants. It is comparable with the anthropomorphic female form in asyk jewellery.
p.157 of Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman by Dieter & Reinhold Schletzer.
http://www.turkmenistan.gov.tm/people/pep_trad/2005/01-eng/120105-1_eng.htm
The splendid gold and silverware served not only as trappings but also miracle-working talismans possessing certain magic qualities. Our
ancestors believed that jewellery protected them from the evil eye, incantations, frightened the evil spirits away and attracted happiness, luck
and prosperity.
The Turkmen people have many sayings and proverbs about protecting functions of jewelry such as “He who wears a dagdan will never slip
but if he does he will never die”. A dagdan is a sacred relic of the Oguz tribes that worshipped some animals such as a bull, a wolf, a pigeon or
a falcon considered them the tribes’ founders and patrons. The Oguz women’s gold and silver ware with the animals engraved reached our
days. Originating from our ancestors’ beliefs a dagdan preserved the status of a relic.
The people believed that a thing made from a dagdan tree remarkable for wood strength embodied a woman. The statuettes protecting the
people from the evil eye were made from the rare tree. Many scientists, including S. Demidov, considered that the ancient hunters and
herders were occupied with making the dagdan statuettes regarded as a business pleased by God.
http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/aug02str.cfm
Another distinctive ornament is the dagdan, or tree-of-life symbol, named for the Dagdan tree, from which potent wooden amulets are
fashioned. The prevalent ram’s horn motif in Central Asian jewelry is associated with many childbearing rituals. (When in doubt, you can
usually be safe in guessing that the desired effect of an amulet is something involving fertility.)
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/04/nc/hob_28.68.4.htm

Belt plaque with three ibexes, Xiongnu type, 2nd–1st century B.C.
Northwest China
Bronze; 2 1/4 x 5 3/8 in. (5.7 x 13.7 cm)
Gift of George D. Pratt, 1928 (28.68.4)
An interest in real animals in naturalistic settings characterizes the designs found on belt ornaments made for the Xiongnu, a powerful
confederacy that controlled much of eastern Central Asia in the third and second century B.C. On this plaque, two ibexes with their bodies in
profile and their heads shown frontally stand to either side of a third figure. The animals inhabit a wooded setting. The foreleg of each
flanking ibex is raised and hooked over a branch of tree trunk. The remains of a curved hook on the right side of the plaque indicate that it
would have been paired with a matching piece to form a complete belt buckle.
159
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_01.html
Another feature of Hittite culture that will concern us is its connection with the Sumero-Akkadian culture (e.g. copies of the Gilgamesh Epic
circulated in Anatolia of this period.) This will help justify parallels between Hekate and the Sumerian Inanna, direct influence being
possible.> The Phrygians, who appear in Asia Minor -- from where is uncertain -- c. 1200 BC, establish their kingdom there by c. 800 BC,
which is the limit of the time-frame that concerns us. What is known of their religion is so from such of their cults as were exported, such as
Sabazius (Dionysus) and Cybele, whose ecstatic character seems echoed in the witch-religion.
This is the historical ambiance in which Hekate either grew or into which she was introduced. A possible scenario is suggested by the career
of Kubaba, originally a local goddess of Carchemish, who attained central religious status as goddess of the Neo-Hittite kingdom (who looked
to Carchemish (9) as their metropolis.) Through the Phrygians, this Kubaba is transferred to Rome as Cybele or Cybebe(10) Henri Graillot
(11) traces the development of this chthonic great Mother, mistress of mountains and wild beasts, through the Neolithic (though he lacked
the word) to historical times. He shows probable Cretan and Sumero-Akkadian influence and continuity, and very clearly describes the role
of Cybele as principal deity of the Phrygians and her association with the Thracian Dionysian religion (the Corybants.) Though somewhat
hampered by the then less advanced stage of archaeology, his overview is, as far as it goes, quite accurate, and agrees in every detail with my
model of the probable prehistory for Hekate.
(9) Modern Karkamis in southeast Turkey, on the Euphrates at the border with Syria.
(10) Gurney, The Hittites. pp. 111-114.
(11) Le Culte de Cybele. esp. “Preliminaires”, pp. 1-24.
_____________________________________________________________
Munn, Mark. ‘Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context’ Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Ancient Anatolia: An International
Conference on Cross-Cultural Interaction. Emory University. September 17-19 2004.
http://mesas.emory.edu/anatconf/abstracts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubaba
Other Cultures and Dieties
The earliest reference we have to a goddess worshipped as a cube-shaped stone is from neolithic Anatolia. Alternatively, 'Kubaba' may mean
a hollow vessel or cave - which would still be a supreme image of the goddess. The ideograms for Kubaba in the Hittite alphabet are a lozenge
or cube, a double-headed axe, a dove, a vase and a door or gate - all images of the goddess in neolithic Europe.
Deities of other cultures known to have been associated with black stones include Aphrodite at Paphos, Cybele at Pessinus and later Rome,
Astarte at Byblos and the famous Artemis/Diana of Ephesus. The latter's most ancient sculpture was, it is said, carved from a black meteorite.
The earliest form of Cybele's name may have been Kubaba or Kumbaba which suggests Humbaba, who was the guardian of the forest in the
Epic of Gilgamesh - the world's oldest recorded myth from Assyria of circa 2,500 BCE and, as scholars reveal more of the text as the source of
most of the major mythological themes of later civilizations.
The origin of Kubaba may have been kube or kuba meaning 'cube'.
http://www.crystalinks.com/blackstone.html
160
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/mother.html
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/mother.html#Animals

161
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm#The%20Three%20Goddesses
This goddess appearing under many names throughout the world of antiquity is the same as was represented as Baal’s wife. She was called
Astarte, Semiramis, Ashtaroth, Isis, Venus, Fortuna, Diana, Asherah, Elat, etc.. Indeed, Isis was known as the mother of one thousand names.
However, regardless of her various titles, she was Baal’s wife and worshipped as such. (Judges 2:13). Baal is said to have had three daughters,
who were apparently called by different names around the ancient world. (Cooper, Canaanite Religion, 86.) They were also considered his
brides, with whom he swore to build a house. The ‘Building Saga’ is discussed in (Julian Obermann, Ugaritic Mythology. A Study of Its
Leading Motifs (New Haven, 1948)). The Quraysh adopted Allah as Baal, and added the goddesses to his cult the same way as Baal had three
daughters in the Fertile Crescent. They venerated him and his three female companions in his new House, the Kaaba at Mecca.
One of the aspects of goddess worship that has survived in Islam, as well as, for example, in Roman Catholicism, is the rosary. Through the
ages the worshippers of goddesses had used the rosary for prayers and it is still in use in the worship of female deities all over the world, for
example by Hindus in India. The rosary is connected with fertility worship when the deity’s name is repeated over and over again. (Compare
to Matthew 6:7-13 and Acts 19:34.) It is called tasbih or subha in Arabic, and simply means ‘an object which one praises.’ The Muslim rosary
is supposed to contain 99 beads, representing the titles of ‘Allah’, but usually it only has 33 beads, slipped through one’s fingers three times.
(Compare to the Koran 7:180.) This pagan custom, which is dated to Astarte worship from about 800 BCE, still survives in Islam as well as
in many other cults around the world.
Ancient Middle Eastern mythology often pictured the Mother goddess with a son, such as Isis-Horus in Egypt and Astarte-Tammuz in the
Fertile Crescent. This mother-son worship was established throughout the world. In China there was the Mother Shingmoo, Hertha in
ancient Germany, Nutria in ancient Italy (Etrusca), Indrani in India, Aphrodite in Greece, Venus in Rome, Cybele in Asia Minor and
Carthage, Diana in Ephesus, Isis in Egypt etc.. In Hijaz, on the other hand, there was no harvest and thus no worship of fertility gods as such.
Its patriarchal society soon changed the ancient mother-son worship to father-daughter worship. Allah was the father, and his daughters
were Al-Lat, Manat and al-Uzza.
http://www.aztriad.com/godesses.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1605/history.html
3500 BC...Tel Brak. Sun Temple in Eastern Syria. Staring divine eyes...(Gimbutas: 1989: pg 54)
*Gimbutas, Marija..."The Language of the Goddess"...SF: 1989
2300 BC...Astarte, one of the ancient forms of the universal great goddess, was worshipped by the Iranians in her form as Anahita. Her image
was found in Sumeria around 2300 BC. In the Tibetan pantheon she is a manifestation of the sky goddess Kaladugmo (mkhah.la.gdug.mo) or
Ma Namkha (ma.nams.mkha) or 'Mother Sky'....
1700 BC... 17th and 15th centuries BC...Asherah was their mother goddess. The consort of Jehovah. 'She who treads on the sea'..."(Petty:
1990)...
*Pettey, Richard J. . Asherah: Goddess of Israel (American University Studies Series VII, Theology and Religion). Peter Lang Pub Inc. 1991.
231 pages. ISBN: 0820413062
1400 BC...The roots of Mithraic belief are found in the worship of the Sky Goddess Mitra in northern Mesopotamia
1400 BC...Avesta composed in Avestan (an East-Iranian Language)
1400 BC.....INDO-IRANIANS...."Until the year 1400 BC, the Iranians and Hindus were still united and had several gods with similar names.
One of these was Mithra." (Canney: pg 244)
1400 BC..."In Boghazkoy, the capital of the ancient Hittites in the north of the Anatolian plateau, tablets on Mithra dating from 1400 BC were
discovered in 1907." (Vermaseren: 1963..pg 13)...
*Vermaseren, M.J...."Mithras, the Secret God"...1963
1200 BC.....PHRYAIANS...(1200 BC)...Indo-European speakers who occupied central Anatolia. Chief deity was called Ma, the Great Mother."
(Langer: Ency World History: 1940)...
900 BC..."The sacrificial deities, Agni and Soma, as personifications of the ritual order, effectively survived the transition from theism to
pantheism in 900 BC." (James: 1963...pg 77)...
*James, E.O..."The Worship of the Sky God"...London:1963
800 BC....In Persian sources, the Scythians (8-3rd C BC) were called Saka......
7th Century BC..."Aristeas of Proconnesus journeys into the Scythian territory looking for the mythical race of Hyperboreans. Peaceful,
happy, vegetarian, northern mythical land.' (Piggott: 1985, pg 93)...
*Piggott, Stuart. The Druids (Ancient Peoples and Places Series). Thames & Hudson. 1985. ISBN: 0500273634
630 BC..."The Sacae conquered Media and ruled for 28 years. The Saka warriors taught the Median youth to shoot the bow and to speak their
language." (Rudenko: 1970..pg 225)
*Rudenko, S. I. . Frozen tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk burials of Iron Age horsemen. Dent. 1970. 340 pages. ISBN: 0460077155
628-551 BC...Zarathustra launched his movement in Chorasmia (Persian Khorasan, Western Afghanistan, Turkmen Republic). (James:
1963..pg 79)...
*James, E.O..."The Worship of the Sky God"...London:1963
530 BC.....The Saka peoples appear North East of Iran as mounted nomads in 530 BC. Cyrus failed to subdue (and was killed) the Massagetae
beyond the Oxus in 530 BC." (Phillips: 1965..pg 129)…
*Phillips. Royal Hordes Nomad Peoples of Steppes. McGraw-Hill. 2000. ISBN: 0070497834
500 BC..."The Sacian aristocracy in 500 BC had close blood links to the Parthian nobility. Their dress was the Central Asian gown."
(Rudenko: 1970..pg 89)...
*Rudenko, S. I. . Frozen tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk burials of Iron Age horsemen. Dent. 1970. 340 pages. ISBN: 0460077155
5th- 3rd Centuries BC..."Bodies in the royal tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai prove that Mongols were mingling with Indo-European stock."
(Hawkes: 1976..pg 178)
*Hawkes, Jaquetta. The Atlas of Early Man : The Rise of Man Across the Globe, From 35,000 B.C. to A.D. 500. St. Martin's Griffin. 1993. 256
pages. ISBN: 0312097468
5th Century BC..."According to Kuznetsov, Bon was introduced to Tibet in the fifth century BC, when there occurred a mass migration of
Iranians from Sogdhiana in north-east Iran to the northern parts of Tibet. They brought with them an ancient form of polytheistic Mithraism
and the Araimic alphabet, named after Aramaiti, the Iranian Earth Goddess." June Campbell: "Traveller in Space"...
*Campbell, June. Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. George Braziller. 1996. 225 pages. ISBN:
0807614068
5th Century BC...."Herodotus adds that the Argippaie, north of the Scythians were virtuous, vegetarian peacemakers who have no warfare or
weapons." (Piggott: 1985..pg 93)...
*Piggott, Stuart. The Druids (Ancient Peoples and Places Series). Thames & Hudson. 1985. ISBN: 0500273634
330 BC...."Alexander met with Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons in Parthia in 330 BC (Near the Caspian Sea). She arrived with 300 women
warriors in full armour, equipped as horse warriors. She told him she wanted a child by him. He spent 13 days with her.She died soon
afterwards and with her disappeared the name of the Amazons." (Newark: Women Warriors..1989)
*Newark, Tim. McBride, Angus (Illustrator). Women Warlords: An Illustrated Military History of Female Warriors. Blandford. 1990. 144
pages. ISBN: 0713719656
328 BC..... Alexander fought against the Massagetae, a people of the nomadic Saka confederacy in 328 BC on the site of the modern
Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes. This became Alexandria Eschate, (40 N, 80 E), his farthest excursion into Central Asia. (Encyclopedia
Britanica)..."At Nysa on the Caspian sea, Alexander saw the most sought after horses in Asia, the Nysaean steeds." (Newark: 1989..pg 27)...
*Newark, Tim. McBride, Angus (Illustrator). Women Warlords: An Illustrated Military History of Female Warriors. Blandford. 1990. 144
pages. ISBN: 0713719656
165 BC....SAKA... A Scythian tribe originated near Lake Balkash but were forced to move south in 165 BC. Occupied the Swat Valley and
Gandhara after conquering the Indo-Greeks. The earliest Saka King was Maues, (Mauakes Moga) 95-75 BC. Mathura (in modern Uttar
Pradesh) was an early headquarters. Their coins not only included the Indian goddess Lakshmi, but also the Greek Palla Athene and
Herakles.
154 BC...."On the map of Shambhala, Saka is shown exactly where it is supposed to be, north of Bactria, near Lake Balkash (45N-75E).
Between 154 and 114 BC the Saka broke the Parthian defense lines and seized a region in eastern Iran known as Sakastan (Seistan)."
(Kuznetsov: 1970..pg 568)..
*Kuznetsov, B.I.and Lev Gumilyev..."Two Traditions of Ancient Tibetan Cartography"...Soviet Geography:New York Geographic Society
(Sept: 1970)
129 BC... "Scythian (Yueh-chih plus Sakas) Era when the Saka rule moved across the Oxus into Bactria, dispossessing the Greeks." (Thomas:
1952..pg 110)...
*Thomas, F.W..."The Scythian Period"....Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society:1952
http://www.amazonation.com/ArtemisIII.html

162
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/rheia.html
Rheia Ree ah
* Mother to the Olympians
* Rheia in The Iliad (reference)
Mother to the Olympians - Rheia was the wife of devious Kronos (Cronos) and mother to the Olympians: Zeus, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon,
Hera and Demeter. Without her help, Zeus would never have come to power. As Kronos was about to slay his father, Ouranos (Heaven), he
was warned that his own son would someday depose him. In fear and greed, Kronos swallowed his first children as they were born, but Rheia
tricked Kronos and when the sixth child, Zeus, was born, she substituted a stone for the infant and Kronos swallowed it down, not knowing
that his father’s prophecy was coming to fruition. Zeus was hidden by Rheia and raised in secret until he was old enough to fulfill his destiny.
One day Zeus ambushed Kronos while he out hunting. Zeus kicked Kronos in the stomach so hard the aged god vomited up the stone and the
five divine, undigested gods and goddesses.
Kronos was punished and sent to the Underworld. Rheia was rewarded for her kindness and held in high regard by all the Olympians.
Rheia in The Iliad (listed by book and line)
* 14.203 ...Hera tells Aphrodite that she is preparing to go to the depths of Okeanos (Oceanus) to see Tethys because Tethys took her from
Rheia (Rhea) and cared for her when Zeus was warring with his father, Kronos (Cronos)
* 15.187 ...Poseidon tells Iris that he, Zeus and Hades were born to Rheia (Rhea) and Kronos (Cronos)

163
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/demeter.html
Demeter duh MEE tur
* Goddess of the Harvest
* Demeter and the Abduction of Persephone
* Demeter in The Iliad (reference)
* Demeter in The Odyssey (reference)
Goddess of the Harvest - The Titans, Kronos (Cronos) and Rhea, had six children: Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia and Zeus.
Demeter is the fairhaired earth goddess who blesses all phases of the harvest. She walks the furrowed fields dressed in green and displays her
moods with feast and famine.
Demeter and the Abduction of Persephone - The story of the adduction of Persephone is best told in the Hymn to Demeter. The story begins
in the middle, i.e., Persephone is kidnapped as part of a secret agreement between Zeus and Hades. Although Demeter is one of the six
Olympians and brother to Zeus and Hades, she was not told of the fate of her beloved daughter until it was (almost) too late.
While at play with the beautiful daughters of Okeanos (Ocean), Persephone was picking flowers... but these weren’t earthly flowers... these
flowers were the work of Zeus and put there for “a girl with a flower’s beauty”. The flowers were there to guide Persephone to The Trap. A
beautiful, divine trap... the trigger for the trap was an irresistible flower with one hundred stems of fragrant blossoms. When Persephone
reached out with both hands to pluck the flower the earth opened at her feet. Hades roared forth in his golden chariot and seized her before
the alarm could be raised.
No mortal on the earth heard Persephone’s pleas for help before she vanished into the Underworld. Of the immortals, only two heard the
faint cries of the abducted girl: Hekate (Hecate) and Helios (the Sun).
Demeter began searching in vain for her daughter. Her sorrow was so great that she denied herself all food, drink, and comfort for nine days.
When Dawn arrived on the tenth day, Hekate came to Demeter and told her that she had heard a voice but had not seen the abduction of
poor Persephone. The two goddesses went to Helios because he sees all mortal and immortal actions. Helios, indeed, knew the plot and the
players. He told Demeter that the blame was that of Zeus, Zeus and Hades. He further advised her to accept the situation because Hades was
Lord of Many and not an unseemly bridegroom. Demeter did not like his advice and choose a long, brooding path to regain her precious
daughter.
In a strange act of revenge, Demeter, disguised as a mature woman, settled in the city of Eleusis and became the servant and nanny for the
infant son of Keleos, and his wife Metaneira. The boy, Demophoon, was raised to be noble and pure but Demeter was surely ‘stealing’ the
boys affection and loyalty away from his parents (just as her daughter had been stolen from her). One night she was caught transforming the
young boy into an Immortal by placing him in the fireplace, but before Demeter (still in disguise) could make Demophoon immortal,
Metaneira recognized Demeter for the goddess she was and stopped the ceremony.
Keleos, and the other nobles were glad to oblige when Demeter demanded that a temple be built in her honor. After it was completed, she
retreated into the temple and her brooding took on a deadly turn. The following year, no seed sprouted. No barley grew in the plowed fields.
The mortals were doomed to famine and eventual destruction if Demeter did not lift her curse.
Zeus sent Iris to dissuade Demeter from her destructive course but Demeter was unmoved. In turn, all the immortals came to Demeter’s
temple and begged the blond goddess to change her mind and give life back to the earth. She refused them all.
Zeus now sent Hermes to the underworld to speak with Hades and Persephone. Hermes explained the situation and suggested, with gentle
words, that Persephone be returned to her mother. Hades was filled with compassion but he was also intent on keeping his bride. He offered
Persephone a honey-sweet pomegranate seed as she departed. By tasting the seed she became eternally bound to Hades and the Underworld.
Demeter was joyous when she saw her darling Persephone again but her joy was tempered with the fact that Hades had tricked the innocent
Persephone and she must eventually return to him.
Now, in an effort to save the earth and appease his sister, Zeus sent Rhea, mother of the Olympians, and offered Demeter honors if she would
only return to Mount Olympos (Olympus) and lift the curse that was killing the earth. Zeus promised that Persephone could spend two thirds
of the year with her mother but the remaining third of the year would be spent with her husband, Hades.
Demeter was moved by her mother’s plea. The earth began to swiftly recover it’s vitality and became fertile again. Demeter and Persephone
ascended to Mount Olympos and it is said that those on earth whom they gladly love are thrice blessed. It’s interesting to note that the year
was divided onto thirds, just as the three brothers, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, divided creation into thirds after the overthrow of Kronos.
When Persephone is with Hades the earth is wracked by the sorrow of her mother. But, when Persephone returns from The Underworld to
walk the earth again, Demeter pours forth the blessings of Spring to welcome her beloved daughter home.
Her age old feud with her brother, Poseidon, might serve to explain why the edge of the sea is barren of crops. The origin of this feud is vague.
She is most often confused with the Roman goddess, Ceres.
Demeter in The Iliad (listed by book and line)
* 02.696 ...Protesilaos (Protesilaus), the first man to be killed in the Trojan War, was from Pyrasos (Pyrasus), a precinct of Demeter
* 05.500 ...The Akhaians (Achaeans) did not break their ranks or separate like the grains of Demeter on the threshing floor
* 13.322 ...Mortals such as Aias eat the bread of Demeter as opposed to the ambrosia of the Immortals
* 14.326 ...Zeus tells Hera that he loves her more than any of his previous lovers including Demeter of the lovely tresses
* 21.076 ...Lykaon begs Akhilleus (Achilles) for his life and reminds Akhilleus of the time he had been allowed to enjoy the yield of
Demeter, i.e. bread
Demeter in The Odyssey (listed by book and line)
* 05.125 ...Kalypso (Calypso) reminds Hermes that Demeter was allowed to take Iasion as a lover until Zeus struck him down with a
thunderbolt

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/Dict/ASP/OpenDictionary.asp
Demeter - The Greek goddess of agriculture, who gave mankind the secrets of growing corn. At Eleusis in Attica her cult included Mysteries
through which initiates achieved promise of immortality. She is shown as a matronly figure, carrying corn or torches. Her daughter
Persephone married Hades and is often shown beside her mother.

164
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/artemis.html
Artemis AHR tuh mihs
* The Virgin Goddess, twin sister of Apollon
* Artemis in The Iliad (reference)
* Artemis in The Odyssey (reference)
The Virgin Goddess, twin sister of Apollon - The children of Zeus and Leto, Artemis and Apollon were born on the island of Delos. Both are
associated with the bow. Apollon is said to use the curved bow and Artemis uses the silver bow. She is one of only three who are immune to
the enchantments of Aphrodite... the other two are Hestia and Athene (Athena).
She is a friend to mortals, and dances through the countryside in her silver sandals giving her divine protection to the wild beasts,
particularly the very young. She rides her silver chariot across the sky and shoots her arrows of silver Moonlight to the earth below.
She, like the other Olympians, has favorites among the mortals but she could not protect the fine huntsman, Skamandros (Scamandros),
from the spear of Menelaos at the battle for Troy.
Unlike her brother Apollon, Artemis is not skilled in warcraft but she can punish and kill as the will of Zeus dictates. In The Iliad (book, 24,
line 603), her mother, Leto, was insulted by a woman named Niobe. Niobe boasted that she had twelve children and Leto only had two. As
punishment, Apollon killed Niobe’s six sons and Artemis killed her six daughters.
In The Odyssey (book 15, line 403), Odysseus was told the story of a wonderful island, Syria, where hunger and grim old age have no
dominion. When the Fates determined that the noble inhabitants of this island were at the end of their lives, Artemis and Apollon would
swoop down and painlessly kill them with their silver bows. She is sometimes confused with the Roman goddess, Diana.
Artemis in The Iliad (listed by book and line)
* 05.051 ...Artemis taught the Trojan, Skamandrios (Scamander), how to strike down all wild things in the mountain forest
 * 05.053 ...Artemis of the showering arrows could not help Skamandrios (Scamander) when he was killed at Troy
* 05.447 ...Artemis and Leto heal Aineias (Aeneas)
* 06.205 ...Glaukos (Glaucus) related the story of how Artemis killed Laodameia, the daughter of Bellerophontes (Bellerophon)
* 06.427 ...Artemis killed Andromakhe’s (Andromache) mother after Akhilleus (Achilles) had released her for ransom
* 09.532 ...Artemis, of the golden chair, was angered at Oineus (Oeneus) for neglecting her in sacrifice and sent a boar to ravage the
countryside
* 09.536 ...Artemis, the daughter of great Zeus, was denied the first fruits by Oineus (Oeneus)
* 09.538 ...Artemis is called ‘Lady of Arrows’
* 09.547 ...Artemis caused great anger when the boar was dead and the hunters argued over possession of the boar’s head
* 16.183 ...Hermes fell in love with Polymele when he saw her dancing in the choir of clamorous Artemis
* 19.059 ...Akhilleus (Achilles) wishes that Artemis had killed Briseis instead of letting her become a point of dissention between himself
and Agamemnon
* 20.040 ...Apollon, Artemis, Aphrodite, Leto and Xanthos (Xanthus) fought on the side of the Trojans
* 20.071 ...Artemis of the showering arrows stood against Hera when the Immortals entered the battle for Troy
* 21.470 ...Apollon’s sister, Artemis, scolds him for not fighting Poseidon
* 21.472 ...Artemis refers to Apollon as ‘striker from afar’
* 21.480 ...Hera says that Artemis is shameless and bold for daring to stand against her in battle
* 21.491 ...Hera grabs Artemis and knocks the bow and arrows from her shoulder; Artemis flees in tears
* 21.505 ...Artemis, the maiden, bowed at the feet of Zeus
* 21.509 ...Zeus speaks to Artemis and asks which of the gods has shamed her
* 21.511 ...Artemis answers Zeus and says that Hera hit her during the fighting at Troy
* 24.604 ...Akhilleus (Achilles) tells Priam about how Apollon had killed Niobe’s sons and Artemis had killed her daughters
Artemis in The Odyssey (listed by book and line)
* 05.123 ...Kalypso (Calypso) reminds Hermes how chaste Artemis had killed Orion with her painless arrows because he was the lover of
Eos (Dawn)
* 06.102 ...Nausikaa was dancing like Artemis
* 06.107 ...Artemis dances with the nymphs in the mountains
* 06.151 ...Odysseus compares Nausikaa with the goddess Artemis in beauty and stature
* 11.172 ...Odysseus encounters the ghost of his mother, Antikleia (Anticleia), in the Underworld and asks her if she died of illness or by the
painless arrows of Artemis
* 11.324 ...Artemis killed Ariadne on the island if Dia when Dionysus testified against her
* 15.410 ...Apollon and Artemis come to the island of Syria and kill the aged painlessly with silver arrows
* 15.478 ...When the swineherd, Eumaios (Eumaeus), was a child, he was kidnapped by Phoenicians with the help of his wicked nurse;
Artemis killed her because of her betrayal
* 17.037 ...Penelope was as lovely as Artemis or golden Aphrodite
* 18.202 ...Penelope wishes that chaste Artemis would give her the peace of death
* 19.054 ...Penelope was as lovely as Artemis or golden Aphrodite
* 20.060 ...Penelope prays first to Artemis
* 20.061 ...Penelope calls upon Artemis, daughter of Zeus, to pierce her heart and ease her pain
* 20.071 ...Penelope thinks of the daughters of Pandareos (Pandareus) and how Hera gave them beauty, chaste Artemis gave them stature
and Athene (Athena) gave them skill
* 20.080 ...Penelope wishes that the gods would make her vanish or that lovely haired Artemis would kill her so she could be with
Odysseus in the Underworld

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/Dict/ASP/OpenDictionary.asp
Artemis - The Greek goddess of unmarried women and hunting. Twin sister of Apollo. She is first shown as a Mistress of Animals, sometimes
winged; later as a huntress with dogs and female attendants. Her weapon is the bow. She fights beside her brother on various occasions:
killing Niobe and her children, and against Herakles over Apollo's tripod. She kills Aktaion who claimed to be a better hunter, or because he
saw her bathing naked. She turned him into a stag which was then set upon by his dogs. At Ephesus she was worshipped as a multi-breasted
idol (Diana of the Ephesians).

Above: Marble statue of Artemis. Selçuk, Ephesus Museum © Ephesus Museum, Selçuk

165
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Hekate - A primeval goddess, probably from Anatolia, not Olympian but witchlike in her activities and powers. She may be associated with
Artemis. Her familiars are dogs, and she may be shown in triple form, as a goddess of the crossroads.
Above: Marble statue of Hekate. Basel, Sammlung Ludwig © Sammlung Ludwig, Basel
* See Medusa
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/gorgon.html
The Gorgons GOR guns
* The Gorgons
* Perseus
* The Aegis of Zeus
* The Gorgons in The Iliad (reference)
* The Gorgons in The Odyssey (reference)
The Gorgons - The Gorgons are three sisters, daughters of ancient, pre-titan gods, Phorkys and Keto (Ceto). The sisters Sthenno and Euryale
were immortal but the third, Medusa, was mortal. All three were so hideous, the shock of seeing them would turn anyone to stone. Medusa is
called The Gorgon or simply, Gorgon.
Perseus - When Perseus (a son of Zeus) killed Medusa by cutting off her head (Theogony, line 280), from the drops of her blood sprang the
winged horse, Pegasus, and Khrysaor (Chrysaor). In The Shield of Herakles, by Hesiod, we are given a glimpse of Perseus’ reckless escape
from the angry sisters after he had beheaded Medusa. He was wearing winged sandals and the Helm of Hades but the Gorgons were at his
heels, the serpents on their heads and at their waists were snapping at Perseus as he sped away (Sword 220).
The Aegis of Zeus - Athene (Athena) carried the shield called the Aegis of Zeus at Troy. The gigantic head of Gorgon, a thing of fear and
horror, was the centerpiece of a series of warcraft icons: Terror, Hatred and Onslaught (Iliad, book 5, line 741).
The Gorgons in The Iliad (listed by book and line)
* 05.741 ...Athene (Athena) carried the aegis of Zeus with the face of the grim Gorgon on the front
* 08.348 ...When Hektor (Hector) fought the Danaans at the ditch which protected the ships, he had the eyes of a Gorgon or of murderous
Ares
* 11.036 ...Agamemnon’s shield had the blank-eyed face of the Gorgon upon it
The Gorgons in The Odyssey (listed by book and line)
* 11.635 ...Odysseus feels genuine fear before he finally leaves the Underworld; he fears that Persephone will send the head of the Gorgon
from the house of Hades to attack him

166
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/aphrodite.html
Aphrodite af ruh DY tee
* Goddess of Love
* Aphrodite in The Trojan War
* Aphrodite and Ares
* Aphrodite in The Iliad (reference)
* Aphrodite in The Odyssey (reference)
Goddess of Love - According to Hesiod (Theogony, line 190), when Kronos (Cronos) had cut off his father’s members, he tossed them into the
sea. The immortal flesh eventually spread into a circle of white foam... from this foam, Aphrodite was created. Her name literally means
foam-born. She was attended by Eros (the primal god of Love) and Himeros when she was first born but when she stepped ashore on the
island of Kypros (Cyprus) she was a “modest and lovely Goddess”, since known as the Lady of Kypros. Her gentle domain was intended to be
“the sweetness of love” and “the whispering of girls” but her adventures, and the adventures of her children, caused as much misery and
bloodshed as any of the immortals (except for Ares (the god of War) and Athene (Athena), they thrived on the sanguine).
Aphrodite in The Trojan War - Her love of Alexandros (a.k.a. Paris) helped move the Trojan War into it’s bloodiest and saddest phase. The
Trojans and the Achaians, (Greeks), agreed that Menelaos (Helen’s Achaian husband) and Alexandros (Helen’s Trojan lover) would fight for
Helen, and her possessions, in single combat. The assembled armies swore oaths that they would abide by the results of the duel and all
declared an end to their nine year quarrel. The duel began . . . (Iliad, book 3, line 380) Alexandros was dealt a deadly blow and should have
died on the battlefield, but Aphrodite covered him in mist and removed him to his perfumed bedchamber, unharmed. Aphrodite then went to
Helen (Iliad, book 3, line 426) and threatened to encompass her with “hard hate” if she did not go to Alexandros and comfort him.
The Trojan War was, of course, not Aphrodite’s fault but her love for Alexandros, and her meddling caused considerable misery and death
among both armies. Later (Iliad, book 5, line 311), Aphrodite, once again, entered the fray to save the life of her son Aineias (Aeneas). As she
was shielding her staggering son from the thunderous assault of Diomedes, she was wounded in the hand. Athene, another meddler in the
Trojan War, had given Diomedes the power to see the immortals on the battlefield. She advised him (Iliad, book 5, line 129) to avoid all the
gods except Aphrodite, “her at least you may stab”. Diomedes lunged at Aphrodite and his pitiless bronze spear tore through the robe that the
Graces had carefully woven and cut the flesh of her immortal palm. The blood of the gods, ichor, poured darkly on her perfect skin (Iliad,
book 5, line 340) as she fled the battlefield and went to Mount Olympos (Olympus) to seek comfort from Dione. Zeus advised her, No, my
child, not for you are the works of warfare. Rather concern yourself only with the lovely secrets of marriage... (Iliad, book 5, line 428).
Aphrodite and Ares (Love and War) - In The Odyssey of Homer (book 8, line 266), the singer, Demodokos, tells the tale of how Aphrodite
and Ares secretly laid together in the bed of her husband, Lord Hephaistos (Hephaestus), the smith of the gods. Helios (the Sun) secretly
observed the lovers and told Hephaestus. The smith went to his work and devised clever fastenings that would ensnare and hold the lovers in
an unbreakable trap. The careless lovers fell into the trap and Hephaestus stood before the other Olympians and demanded his gifts of
courtship be returned. Only after Poseidon (Lord of the Sea) offered to pay the adulterer’s damages if Ares defaulted would Hephaestus loose
the bonds. After being freed, Aphrodite went to her sacred precinct on the island of Kypros where she was bathed by the Graces and Ares
went Thraceward. Seeing the two lovers in the indignity of the snare, Apollon asked Hermes how he would feel in such a situation. Hermes
answered that he would suffer thrice the number of bonds if only he could share the bed of Aphrodite the Golden (Odyssey, book 8, line 342).
She is often confused with the Roman goddess, Venus.
Aphrodite in The Iliad (listed by book and line)
* 02.820 ...Aineias (Aeneas), son of Aphrodite and Ankhises (Anchises), a mortal
* 03.054 ...Hektor (Hector) warns Alexandros (Paris) that the favors of Aphrodite will not protect him in hand to hand combat with
Menelaos (Menelaus)
* 03.064 ...Alexandros (Paris) tells Hektor (Hector) that the sweet favors of golden Aphrodite are given by her own will
* 03.374 ...As Menelaos (Menelaus) was dragging Alexandros (Paris) from the battlefield by his helmet plume, Aphrodite broke the
chinstrap so that Alexandros could escape
* 03.380 ...Aphrodite wrapped Alexandros (Paris) in a mist and lifted him from the battlefield and put him safely in his bedchamber
* 03.383 ...Aphrodite, disguised as an old woman, found Helen in a high tower of Troy and spoke to her
* 03.389 ...Disguised as an old woman, Aphrodite bids Helen to join Alexandros (Paris) in his chambers
* 03.396 ...Helen does not recognize Aphrodite because she is disguised as an old woman but knows that she is a goddess and questions
her
* 03.399 ...Helen speaks to the ‘strange divinity’ and says that she will not go to comfort Alexandros (Paris); she suggests that the goddess
either marry Alexandros or become his slave
* 03.413 ...Aphrodite angrily threatens Helen with ‘hard hate’ if she does not obey
* 03.420 ...Aphrodite leads Helen from the high tower unseen by bystanders
* 03.424 ...Aphrodite places a chair in front of Alexandros (Paris) so that Helen can sit facing him
* 04.010 ...Zeus rebukes Hera and Athene (Athena) for not protecting Menelaos (Menelaus) and the other Akhaians (Achaeans) saying that
Aphrodite forever stands by her son, Aineias (Aeneas)
* 05.131 ...Athene (Athena) urges Diomedes to stab Aphrodite
* 05.248 ...Sthenelos (Sthenelus) urges Diomedes to fight Pandaros (Pandarus) and Aphrodite’s son, Aineias (Aeneas)
* 05.312 ...Aphrodite shields her son, Aineias (Aeneas), with her robe
* 05.318 ...Aphrodite carried her son, Aineias (Aeneas), safely from the battlefield
* 05.343 ...Aphrodite is stabbed by Diomedes
* 05.348 ...The wounded Aphrodite is taunted by Diomedes
* 05.352 ...The wounded Aphrodite withdraws from the battlefield assisted by Iris
* 05.359 ...The wounded Aphrodite begs Ares on bended knee for his chariot so that she can escape the battlefield
* 05.363 ...Ares gives the wounded Aphrodite his chariot so that she and Iris can flee the battlefield
* 05.370 ...After arriving on Mount Olympos (Olympus), the wounded Aphrodite fell to her knees before the goddess, Dione
* 05.375 ...Aphrodite tells Dione that it was Diomedes who stabbed her on the battlefield
* 05.416 ...Dione wiped away the ikhor (ichor) and pain from Aphrodite’s wounded arm
* 05.422 ...Athene (Athena) teases Aphrodite and says that she must have cut herself on a golden needle while attending the Trojan women
* 05.427 ...Zeus speaks to Aphrodite and tells her to concern herself with the secrets of marriage and leave war-craft to Athene (Athena)
and Ares
* 05.459 ...Apollon rebukes Ares for allowing Diomedes to attack Aphrodite who he refers to as Lady of Kypros (Cyprus)
* 05.760 ...Hera speaks to Zeus and asks why Ares is allowed to rage against the Akhaians (Achaeans) while Kypros, i.e. Aphrodite, and
Apollon take their ease on Mount Olympos (Olympus)
* 05.820 ...Diomedes reminds Athene (Athena) that she encouraged him to stab Aphrodite
* 05.883 ...Ares reminds Zeus that he is responsible for the war at Troy and the violence that has caused the wounding of the Kyprian, i.e.
Aphrodite
* 09.390 ...Akhilleus (Achilles) says that he would not marry a daughter of Agamemnon even if she was as lovely as Aphrodite or as skilled
as Gray-eyed Athene (Athena)
* 14.187 ...Hera asks Aphrodite if she is angry because they have taken opposing sides in the Trojan War
* 14.193 ...Aphrodite assures Hera that she will do anything in her power to help her
* 14.197 ...Hera asks Aphrodite for loveliness and desirability so that she can seduce Zeus
* 14.211 ...Aphrodite gives Hera a love-charmed corset so she can enchant Zeus
* 14.219 ...Aphrodite tells Hera to hide the love-charmed corset in her bosom and that she will get her hearts desire
* 14.224 ...Aphrodite enters her home on Mount Olympos (Olympus) as Hera flies to meet Zeus on Mount Ida
* 19.282 ...The loveliness of the captive girl, Briseis, is compared to the beauty of golden Aphrodite
* 20.040 ...Apollon, Artemis, Aphrodite, Leto and Xanthos (Xanthus) fought on the side of the Trojans
* 20.106 ...Apollon addresses Aineias (Aeneas) and confirms that Aphrodite is his mother and that Thetis is the mother of Akhilleus
(Achilles)
* 20.107 ...Apollon tells Aineias (Aeneas) that his mother, Aphrodite, is the daughter of Zeus
* 20.209 ...Aineias (Aeneas) boasts to Akhilleus (Achilles) that his mother is Aphrodite
* 21.416 ...After Athene (Athena) knocked Ares to the ground, Aphrodite helped him flee the battlefield
* 21.421 ...Hera refers to Aphrodite as a dog-fly for assisting Ares and urges Athene (Athena) to attack her
* 21.425 ...Athene (Athena) hits Aphrodite in the breast and knocks her and Ares to the ground and tells them that the same fate will befall
any Immortal who sides with the Trojans
* 21.430 ...Aphrodite is injured by Athene (Athena) as she helps Ares flee the battlefield
* 22.470 ...Andromakhe (Andromache) fainted when she saw her dead husband, Hektor (Hector), being dragged through the dirt; she let
the veil that Aphrodite had given to her fall to the ground
* 23.185 ...Aphrodite drove the dogs from the corpse of Hektor (Hector) and anointed his body with immortal oils so that it would not be
torn as Akhilleus (Achilles) dragged the lifeless body around the burial mound of Patroklos (Patroclus)
* 24.699 ...Kassandra (Cassandra), a girl like Aphrodite, was the first to see Priam returning the body of Hektor (Hector) to Troy
Aphrodite in The Odyssey (listed by book and line)
* 04.014 ...The daughter of Helen and Menelaos (Menelaus), Hermione, was as lovely as Aphrodite the golden
 * 04.261 ...Helen says that she was in the grip of the madness of Aphrodite when she deserted her home and went to Troy with Alexandros
(Paris)
* 08.267 ...The poet Demodokos (Demodocus) sang of the illicit love between Ares and Aphrodite
* 08.289 ...Ares entered the house of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) to make love to Kythereia, i.e. Aphrodite
* 08.308 ...Hephaistos (Hephaestus) shows the other Immortals how he has trapped Aphrodite and Ares in their secret love affair
* 08.338 ...Apollon asks Hermes if he would suffer the embarrassment that Ares endured at the hands of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) in order
to share the bed of Aphrodite the golden
* 08.342 ...Hermes tells Apollon that he would suffer thrice the bindings of Ares at the hands of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) if he could share
the bed of Aphrodite the golden
* 08.362 ...After Aphrodite was caught being unfaithful to her husband, Hephaistos (Hephaestus), she went to Paphos where the Graces
pampered her
* 17.037 ...Penelope was as lovely as Artemis or golden Aphrodite
* 18.193 ...Athene (Athena) used salves, such as Kythereia (Aphrodite) uses, to make Penelope look youthful
* 19.054 ...Penelope was as lovely as Artemis or golden Aphrodite
* 20.068 ...Shining Aphrodite nurtured the orphaned daughters of Pandareos (Pandareus)
* 20.073 ...While shining Aphrodite was trying to get Zeus to agree to the marriages of the orphaned daughters of Pandareos (Pandareus),
the storm-winds carried the girls away and gave them to the merciless Furies
* 22.444 ...Odysseus orders Telemakhos (Telemachus) to murder the maidservants because they had Aphrodite with them when they
seduced Penelope’s suitors
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/Dict/ASP/OpenDictionary.asp
Aphrodite - The Greek goddess of Love and child of Zeus, said to have been born from the sea. The wife of Hephaistos, who caught her
making love to the god Ares (Homer); she also had affairs with various mortals - Adonis, Phaon, Anchises (by whom she bore Aeneias). She is
often shown with her child Eros, and sometimes Peitho (Persuasion). She attends many scenes with a love interest - e.g., Menelaos
confronting Helen after Troy. In Greek art from the 4th century BC onwards, she is commonly shown naked, the first artistic nude in the
history of art, devised by the sculptor Praxiteles. On many vases a woman attended by Eros might be either the goddess or a mortal bride
assimilated to her.

167
168
http://www.turkmenistan.gov.tm/people/pep_trad/2005/01-eng/120105-1_eng.htm
The Turkmen girls and young women wore the massive jewellery on their heads, hands, chest and clothes, around the necks and in the plaits.
The old women wore light-weighted silver jewellery, such as the kebelek, head jewellery in a shape of butterfly.
http://www.aztriad.com/godesses.html
Ma-Enyo: At Comana, in Asia Minor, this war Goddess was served by a community of thousands of hierodules known as fanatici. Among
these were gallae attired in heavy black robes, garland necklaces, and tiaras over dyed-blond braids. They carried double-axe emblems in
procession and used a whirling dance to achieve states of ecstasy. The latter fragment of tradition remains today in the dervishes of Konya.
The Roman Goddess Bellona became syncretized with Ma-Enyo in late Roman times, though practices changed little. Patriarchists among the
Greek population condemned Comana as a city of effeminacy and un-manly luxuries.
169
http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/TheBestiaryProject.htm
BEES: Latin apes, from which the word apiary is derived. Bees are born from the carcasses of oxen: to create them the flesh of slain calves is
beaten so from the decayed gore worms are born which grow into bees. If irritated, the same bees have a poison which they spread in their
honey. Demokritas is cited with Virgil and Mago for effecting the generation of bees from bullocks' corpses. The Book of Albertus Magnus
claims that drowning bees and flies may be revived if placed in warm ashes of pennyroyal.
The Lydian goddess Artemis of Ephesos was served by a college of priestesses called melissae, "the bees".
The Greeks believed that bees came from dead oxen and could be raised by killing an ox and leaving it in a sealed room for thirty-two days.
This story persisted for hundreds of years; directions for producing bees this way were last published as late as 1842. Until 1609, when an
English beekeeper observed a queen laying eggs, queens were believed to be "kings" who ruled over their hives; Virgil wrote that bees
collected their young from leaves and sweet plants; Xenophon called the queen the housewife of her hive, its guiding brain. The Dutchman
Swammerdam thought that queens were fertilized by an "odoriferous effluvia" produced like an exhalation of perfume from drones. The
Roman scholar Varo wrote that diarrhea in bees could be cured by giving them urine to drink and that bees gathered wax from flowers. Piny
the Elder wrote that bees could be slain by echoes. It was widely believed that the sound of clashing cymbals caused bees to swarm.

170
Gimbutas, Marija. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. New York: Thames and Hudson,
1989.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Living Goddesses, Ed. Miriam Robbins Dexter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
171
Wood, Michael. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. BBC Books. 2004. ISBN: 0563521937.
172
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Auto-horst
Labrys
The labrys or double bladed ax stood for the Amazons and their Goddess under several of her classical names: Artemis, Gaea, Rhea, Demeter.
Perhaps originally a battle ax, it became a ceremonial scepter in Crete and at the Goddess's oldest greek shrine, Delphi. Her priests adopted
the name of Labryadae, "ax-bearers." The labrys became an attribute of Cretan kings in their labyrinth (house of the double ax) and was
probably used in ritual slaughter of the sacred bulls. The labrys also appeared in India, carried by the hand of Shiva. Egypt's god Ptah was
also represented by an ax.
173
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/External/sheba.html
But just as the Greek local patron deities such as Athene in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus, etc., figure more prominently than the remoter and
universal Zeus, so in South Arabia the most commonly invoked deity was a national one, who incorporated the sense of national identity. For
the Sabaeans this was 'lmkh (with an occasional variant spelling 'lmkhw). A probable analysis of this name is as a compound of the old
Semitic word 'l "god" and a derivative of the root khw meaning something like "fertility" (cf. Arabic kahā "flourish"); the h is certainly a root
letter, and not, as some mediaeval writers seem to have imagined, a tā marbūta, which in South Arabian is always spelt with t...
Many European scholars still refer to this deity in a simplistic way as "the moon god", a notion stemming from the "triadic" hypothesis
mentioned above; yet Garbini has produced cogent arguments to show that the attributes of 'lmkh are rather those of a warrior-deity like
Greek Herakles or a vegetation god like Dionysus.[35]
[33] G. Garbini, "Il Dio Sabeo Almaqah", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 1973-1974, Volume 48, pp. 15-22.
174
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm#The%20Three%20Goddesses
Al-Lat (Allat)
Al-Lat, the female version of the Aramaic Allah, was the ‘Lady of the Temple’ at the Semitic Pantheon of Palmyra, frequently mentioned in
sources from ancient periods. Her cult was shared by the tribes of Bene Maazin and Bene Nurbel in that city. The former tribe probably
provided the guardians or priests for her sanctuary, which was probably established after the Nabatean occupation of Syria, including
Damascus, in 85 BCE. (Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon at Palmyra, 55-58.)
Al-Lat was the mother goddess (al-Ilahah), representing the sun. She was the mother figure among the gods and goddesses, the Great
Earth Mother of ancient mythology, and the Astarte of the Arabs. Javier Teixidor states:
It is not surprising to find at Palmyra different names for the same deity. Allat ... Astarte ... all conceal one sole goddess, the female deity of
heaven in whose cult Arab Palmyrenes as well as members of the western tribes were united. (Ibid, 61.)
She was brought to the Hijaz from Palmyra, probably through Teima. Alfred Guillaume states:
Al-Lat... is mentioned by Herodotus; in old Arabian inscriptions; and in the pre-Islamic poets; and was the great mother goddess who,
under various names, was worshipped all over the ancient world. Ta’if, a town near Mecca, was the centre of her worship [in Arabia proper].
(Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 24, 38.)
In Ta’if there was a temple dedicated to al-Lat, (Guillaume, Islam, 7.) the city’s deity, according to Ibn Ishaq, and she was represented by a
square-stone. (Hitti, History of the Arabs, 98 ). The Mother goddess was often repres-ent-ed by a stone, mountain, cave, pillar or rock.
Stones are among the oldest symb-ols of Mother worship, as Erich Neumann discussed in detail. (Erich Neumann, The Great Mother
(Princeton, 1953/1991), 260.) The Meccans had been on friendly terms with the Ta’ifians, especially since most of their food was bought or
grown in Ta’if, and that city was also the main commercial centre in the Hijaz, since it lay on the Yemen-Mesopotamia overland trading
route. According to Ibn al-Khalbi:
Al-Lat stood in al-Ta’if and was more recent than Manat. She was a cubic rock beside which a certain Jew used to prepare his barley
porridge. Her custody was in the hands of Banu Attab ibn Malik of the Thaqif, who had built an edifice over her.... The Quraysh, as well as all
the Arabs, were wont to venerate al-Lat. They used to name their children after her, calling them Zayd al-Lat and Taym al-Lat. (Quoted in
Peters, Muhammad, 110).
The Nabateans also venerated Allat as the ‘mother of the gods’, the same as the Urania of Hellenism. According to Tor Andrae:
Thus we have a right to assume that in Arabic circles Allat correspond-ed with the great Semitic goddess of motherhood, fertility and
heaven, and especially with the form which she assumed in Western Semitic reg-ions. In Taif, where her most important sancturay was
located, she was called simply Al Rabba, ‘sovereign’, a title which belonged also to Ishtar (Belit) and Astarte (Baalat). (Tor Andrae,
Mohammad. The Man and His Faith (London, 1936), 17.)
When Muhammed conquered Mecca and some of its neighbouring tribes, he turned to Ta’if and its temple of al-Lat. A Muslim poet said
about the attack on Ta’if:
Don’t help al-Lat for Allah is about to destroy her.
How can one who cannot help herself be helped?
She was burned in black smoke and caught fire.
None fighting before her stones, is an outcast.
When the apostle descends on your land
None of her people will be left when he leaves.
(Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 588.)
Allat was the equivalent of Ishtar-Astarte in the mother-father Semitic cult worship. In contrast to the Fertile Crescent region, the Arabs
worshipped her as the sun, not the moon which is masculine in Arabia. However, the Semitic cults connected the goddess worship with love,
and thus, its absence with the opposite. As Erich Neumann states:
Withdrawal of love can appear as a withdrawal of all the functions constituting the positive side of the elementary character. Thus hunger
and thirst may take place of food, cold of warmth, defenselessness of protection, nakedness of shelter and clothing, and distress of
contentment.... Consequently, the symbols of exile and desert also belong to the present context. (Neumann, The Great Mother, 67-68.)
Thus, the Arabs were left with the loneliness of the desert and in order to make the best of the situation, the moon-goddess of the fertile lands
was transformed into the sun-goddess of the desert. Al-Lat was the Great Mother who fed her children as necessary. But when it came to
fortune the Arabs turned to Manat.

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http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm#The%20Three%20Goddesses
Manat
Manat is believed to be the Arabs’ original goddess, appearing some time before al-Uzza and al-Lat. Her name appears in the house of Baal in
32 CE, but she originated much earlier among the Arabs. Manat seems to have arrived in Arabia from Palmyra, where she was worshipped
along with Baal. She was venerated beside several other deities in a temple called ‘the house of the gods,’ (Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra
3, 12-18 — The Pagan god, 116.) the Palmyran equivalent of the Kaaba. Manat was the controller of the Arabs’ fortunes and the mystery of life
and death. She was the chief deity of al-Aus and al-Khazraj and other pagan inhabitants of Yathrib (Medina). It seems that she was
represented by a wooden image, which was covered in blood during her worship. (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 38-39, 207.) Manat’s
sanctuary was in a place near Yathrib where the Aus and Khazraj visited on their way back from their pilgrimages to Mecca. Ibn al-Khalbi
states:
The Aus and Khazraj, as well as those Arabs among the people of Yathrib and other places who followed their way of life, were accustomed
to go on Hajj and observe the ‘standing’ at all the appointed places, but not shave their heads [as was customary during the pilgrimage]. At
the end of Hajj, however, when they were about to return home, they would set out to the place where Manat stood, shave their heads and
stay there for a while. (Quoted in Peters, Muhammad, 110.)
This goddess of fate and time in ancient paganism was revered and worshipped with the same zeal as the Mother figure itself. In Greece
Moirai, the goddess of fate, was the daughter of the Night, as well as Moros and Erinyes (compare to al-Lat and al-Uzza). Attributed to the
goddess of fate was the sharing of booty, land and labour between clans. She was concerned with birth, marriage and death and, in the
relation with men, warfare and raids.
Manat was much revered by the Arabs but her worship was dwindling at the time of Muhammed, probably due to Jewish influence in
Medina. This shows how easily the al-Aus and al-Khazraj tribes were willing to abandon their religion in favour of Islam.

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http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm#The%20Three%20Goddesses
Al-Uzza
 Some sources say that al-Uzza was brought to Mecca by the Quraysh and enjoined to the already established Kaaba worship, but she
probably was a local deity in Mecca since the time of ‘Amr ibn Lubayy. In Muhammed’s time, al-Uzza was the most important of the Meccan
local deities, perhaps save for ‘the Lord’ Hubal. Her main sanctuary was in a valley called Hurad, just outside Mecca. ‘It was complete with a
haram and a sacrificial altar.’ (Ibid, 110.) Alfred Guillaume states that evidence ‘for her worship from the fourth century AD is copious.
Tradition states that in his youth Muhammad sacrificed a white sheep to her.’ The Arabs offered human sacrifices to al-Uzza and the blood of
the victims was smeared or poured on them while the tribes-men danced round the stone... The devotees licked the blood, or dipped their
hands in it, and thus a reciprocal bond held them to one another and the deity to whom the stone belonged. Nilus, a Christian writer, gives a
fairly full account of such a sacrifice to Uzza. Though there is no trace of human sacrifices in the Quran, it is clear from the authority just
quoted and from early Arab sources that human beings were sacrificed to these gods in Duma and Hira. (Guillaume, Islam, 8-9.)
Ibn Ishaq states that al-Uzza had a slaughter place (ghabghab), where the blood was poured out. An Arab poet said:
Asma’ was given as a dowry the head of a little red cow
Which a man of the Banu Ghanm had sacrificed
He saw blemish in her eye when he led her away
To al-Uzza’s slaughter-place and divided her into goodly portions.
Muhammed had, according to tradition, sacrificed a sheep to her, and it might very well be that it had been done at Mount Hira, which was
now Muhammed’s place of devotion to the moon-god Allah and his daughter al-Uzza. It has been stated that the Arabs sacrificed infant boys
and girls to the morning star, al-Uzza. (Andrae, Mohammed, 17-18.) Ibn al-Khalbi states:
The Quraysh as well as other Arabs who inhabited Mecca did not give to any of their idols anything similar to their veneration of al-Uzza.
The next in order of veneration was Al-Lat and then Manat. (Peters, Muhammad, 111.)
During the armed confrontation between the Meccans and Muhammed at Badr (AH 2), the former carried al-Uzza’s banner to battle.
Tradition says that Muhammed sent Khalid ibn al-Walid, who later conquered Syria for Islam, to destroy al-Uzza’s temple in Nakhla. There,
some of the tribes of Quraysh and Kinana, and all the Mudar tribe, used to worship. When the guardian of al-Uzza heard that Khalid was
approaching "he hung his sword on her, climbed the mountain on which she stood," and said:
O ‘Uzza, make an annihilating attack on Khalid,
Throw aside your veil and gird up your train
O ‘Uzza, if you do not kill this man Khalid
Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian.
However, according to tradition, Khalid and his army destroyed the al-Uzza idol and returned to Muhammed. (Guillaume, The Life of
Muhammad, 565-566.) When these idols had all been destroyed, ‘Allah’ reigned supreme in the Hijaz. The threefaced Mother Goddess had
vanished from the visible sphere, but still lives in Muslim legends according to the ‘Satanic verses’.

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http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=dp2&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical
%252ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2
529%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3dgoddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch
%26_IXSESSION_%3d7qJu5H9w0ly%26_IXsearchterm%3dgoddess&_IXFIRST_=110&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_I
Xsearchterm=goddess%26_IXspage%3dsearch&submit-button=summary
Baring, Anne and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. Viking Arkana: London, England. 1991.
Many of the images found from my website, “Tracing Sibyl” came from this book. Also, a good amount of the historic text found within my
website came from this book. For anyone who is interested in seeing the progression of the Goddess Iconography throughout the different
ages would be interested in this book.
http://www.factbites.com/topics/Kubaba
http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/out.php?cilid=425
http://www.rock-cut.thracians.org/en/c_resume.php
http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/cybele.html
Excellent website explaining the origin of Cybele and the Sibyls. Explains the castration cult and how it developed.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/moc/moc18.htm#fr_357
http://www.byegm.gov.tr/yayinlarimiz/NEWSPOT/2000/Sep-Oct/N3.htm
http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~arkeo/blacksea/thursday1.htm
Roman kybele worship near the Black Sea.
Cybele
The worship of Cybele, called the great "Mountain Mother" , is believed to have originated in Phrygia, northern Anatolia. Cybele represented
the fertile earth, and the death of her consort, Attis, represented the end of the growing season.
The Romans began to celebrate Cybele in 204 BCE when the Carthaginians were close to conquering the city. The Sibyl was consulted and
the Romans were told to bring the black stone (a meteorite) from Asia Minor and place it in the Temple of Victoria, which they did. Thirteen
years later, the Carthaginians were defeated. Cybele was usually portrayed with her lions, signifying her link to the images of the Mother
Goddess giving birth between 2 felines found at the Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük.
Kybele was the Phrygian Goddess of the Earth whose worship spread to Greece and then throughout the Roman Empire. Once a year, on
March 22nd, a procession was held to celebrate the renewal of the earth. A pine tree, symbolizing Kybele's wounded consort, Attis, was cut
down, bandaged, strung with violets and ribbons, and carried in the procession. The pine tree, an evergreen, symbolized everlasting life;
violets were said to have sprung up where the blood of Attis touched the earth (Kybele).
On April 3rd and 4th a great festival was held to celebrate the regenerative powers of Kybele as Great Mother, the earth. Her priests, the galli,
were self-emasculated eunuchs, attired in female garb and wearing long hair, fragrant with ointment. This Drumming Goddess was
worshiped for thousands of years in Babylon, Egypt and Greece. Regally seated upon her lion-throne, we can sense her queenship as Magna
Mater of Rome. During the transition to Christianity, Cybele's massive temple was replaced by St. Peter's Basilica. Lapis Niger (black stone) is
sacred to her, as are lions, and her flower is the rose.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/chartreuse/AvatarsOfTheGoddess/RomeC.htm
Kybele (Phrygian/Minoic/Roman) Originally probably a mother goddess, in Phrygia a mountain and cave goddess, also city goddess of
Sardis. To the Romans, she was protector of their Trojan forebears and a vegetation goddess. Also sometimes seen as an earth goddess.
Symbolic animals are lion and tiger, her attribute a chariot.
Born to a pair of kings, Kybele was cast out and saved by a family of shepherds after having been nourished by panthers and lionesses. After
her parents, taking her back, killed her lover and her foster parents, she went crazy and went abroad, leaving her native Phrygia in the arms
of a pestilence which could only be ended by worshipping her and her benefactors. As no mortal remains of her lover could be found, his
image was worshipped instead, and therefore is always found beside Kybele in her temples.
The Roman empresses identified with her as Magna Mater, wherein her capacity as mother goddess is reinforced, and she was equalled to the
Greek Rhea and the Latinic Ops.
She was worshipped in a holy stone, which was brought to Rome from Pessinus around 203 BCE. Her temple in Rome was looted and burned
by Christians in the 4th century CE, the foundations used for a Christian church. Since then, the stone is missing. [2,3,4,5,10]
http://homepage.mac.com/dykow/libpagan/k.html
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:gVBlYUvzIKoJ:www.teicrete.gr/daidalika/documents_language2005.pdf+kybele+cave+kubaba&hl=e
n&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=10
178
http://www.fact-index.com/c/cy/cybele.html
This site contains some information about Cybele based on the culture that adopted her. So, for example, you see her through the eyes of the
Phrygians or other tribes.
http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/cybele.html
As the worship of Dionysus spread the wine cult throughout the world, the Bacchae of the Goat-like Bacchus (from Buccus - buck--male goat)
joined the Sibyls of Thrace who were known as Sabazius. Sabazius was a Cretan demigod from which the Greeks got the name Zeus. Prior to
the Greeks, however, Sabazius appears to have been a title for priestesses, and not the god it was later said to be.
Showerman, Grant. The Great Mother of the Gods. Argonaut, Inc: Chicago, Il. 1901.
This book gives an extensive history of how the iconography and myth behind The Goddess Cybele and Attis has changed from era to era and
place to place.
http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=ancienthistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aztriad.com%2Fnrcybele
.html
Cult of cybele good resource
Vermaseren; Maarten J. Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult. Thames & Hudson. 1977.
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/ceremonies/index.html
Now, when they are coming to the city of Bubastis they do as follows:--they sail men and women together, and a great multitude of each sex
in every boat; and some of the women have rattles and rattle with them, while some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the
voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands; and when as they sail they come opposite to any city on the way they
bring the boat to land, and some of the women continue to do as I have said, others cry aloud and jeer at the women in that city, some dance,
and some stand up and pull up their garments.
This they do by every city along the river-bank; and when they come to Bubastis they hold festival celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine
of grapes is consumed upon that festival than during the whole of the rest of the year. To this place (so say the natives) they come together
year by year even to the number of seventy myriads of men and women, besides children.
Thus it is done here; and how they celebrate the festival in honour of Isis at the city of Busiris has been told by me before: for, as I said, they
beat themselves in mourning after the sacrifice, all of them both men and women, very many myriads of people; but for whom they beat
themselves it is not permitted to me by religion to say: and so many as there are of the Carians dwelling in Egypt do this even more than the
Egyptians themselves, inasmuch as they cut their foreheads also with knives; and by this it is manifested that they are strangers and not
Egyptians.
Herodotus ‘Histories II’ – Herodotus records mutilation in Egypt during worship of Isis.
http://www.svabhinava.org/friends/FrancescoBrighenti/ShamanisticEchos.htm#_ftnref77
…the ordeal pertaining to…mystic experience…is conceived as a bloody, painful or…dangerous religious practice. Within theistic cults,
ordeals aim at purifying the soul of the penitent, who usually practises self-torture to get into an ecstatic communion with his/her own elect
divinity. Within shamanistic cults, on the other hand, the end of the ordeal usually consists in the overcoming of the profane condition by a
sacred specialist who may be variously a shaman/shamanin, a medium-diviner or a medicine-man. Whereas in the former case the ordeal is
celebrated in fulfilment of a vow to get the favours of a personal divinity, in the latter it is undertaken as a rite of passage performed in order
to authenticate a change in sensibility in both the tribal sacred specialist’s body and soul. In either case the ordeal represents a moment of
initiation to a new and more direct relationship with the divine, this being reflected in a person’s ability to bear his/her own ritual agony in a
state of ecstasy.
In both such modes of an ecstatic experience achieved through tolerance of pain, it is of fundamental importance that the performer of the
ordeal gets through it unharmed…the aim of devotional and shamanistic ordeals is not reached unless the penitent’s or the shaman’s
immunity from the consequences of self-torture is publicly shown. Be it executed by walking on hot coals, handling red-hot materials,
rotating or oscillating while being suspended in the air, piercing one’s own flesh with skewers or hooks, lying on a nailed plank or swinging to
and fro on a swing of thorns, the ultimate aim of all religious ordeals is one and the same, namely, to show the bystanders that the penitent,
or the shaman, is insensitive to bodily torments, wounds, loss of blood, burning heat, etc.
According to M. Eliade,[1] the origin of…self-injuring ritual practices resides in the elaboration of the concept about
“initiatory death”. Through tortures and mortifications inflicted on his/her own body, either the tribal shaman and the adept of a theistic
cult would express their will to change their sensibility, turning it from profane into mystic. This involves one’s transcending the
human condition to enter a different spiritual universe where a direct contact with the godhead (or, among the tribals,
with spirits) is possible. The raising of the threshold of pain is perceived as an overcoming of the penitent’s or the tribal sacred specialist’s
spiritual condition anterior to the celebration of the ordeal and, therefore, as the most evident sign, along with the trance, of an “initiation in
progress”, here and now.

179
Raeder, J (1984) Priene: Funde aus einer griechischen Stadt im Berliner Antikenmuseum, Berlin (Bilderheft der Staatlichen Museen
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 45/46)
Romer, John and Elizabeth. The Seven Wonders of the World: A History of the Modern Imagination. Seven Dials, London, 2000. ISBN:
184188037X
180
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s7283.html
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7283.html
Fowler, Barbars H., Love Lyrics of Ancient Egypt. (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994).
Leick G. 1994 Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature London
Lesko, Leonard H. (Ed.). Pharaoh's Workers: The Village of Deir El Medina. Cornell University Press. 1994. 197 pages. ISBN: 0801481430
Manniche, L., Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt. (London and New York: Kegan Paul International. 1987)
McDowell, A. G. Village Life in Ancient Egypt : Laundry Lists and Love Songs. Oxford University Press, USA. 2002. 314 pages. ISBN:
0199247536
Meskell L. 1999 Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class et cetera in Ancient Egypt Oxford
Meskell, Lynn. Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt. Princeton University Press. 2002. 288 pages. ISBN: 069100448X
Montserrat, Dominic Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt. (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996).
A study of sex in ancient Egypt drawing on documents that include magic spells and judicial accounts of sex crimes. It also deals with the
sexual practices of individuals and the ways in which sexual activity was woven into the fabric of social and communal life.
Parpola S., Whiting R.M. (eds) 2003 Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East = Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriolgique
Internationale Helsinki
Sex BC Channel 4 Optomen Television
Sex BC. Arts & Entertainment Network, Two Hour Special TX: 2nd March 2003 ... Sex BC. Channel 4, 3 x 49 minutes TX: July/August 2002
...
www.optomen.com/previous2.html
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/partytime/carousing.htm
Sex - Nudity was an accepted part of Egyptian life and had little to do with sex. Children were often naked and even grown ups removed their
clothes when the work they were doing required it. Depictions of phalli are not infrequently found in temples as part of fertility scenes rather
than sexual activity. The purification rites priests had to undergo before entering their temple point to there having been a taboo on sex in
sacred grounds. In Egypt, unlike in some Middle Eastern countries, there was apparently no 'temple prostitution' [5]. From the Turin Erotic
Papyrus Little is known about the sexual mores, and the rarity of any mention of sex has been variously interpreted as being the result of
prudish attitudes or, conversely, of it being an accepted, natural phenomenon [8]. Depictions of sexual character [3] have been described as
satires or as symbols of the creation acts of the gods [4]. The fact that there was some pornography might be interpreted that there were at
least periods when sexuality was repressed. How widespread prostitution was cannot be verified; that there would have been customers of
such services we can be sure of [9]. As Ankhsheshonq said in his demotic Instruction:
Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey; his purse is what restrains him.
M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume III, p.178
To the fictitional Setne Khamwas, son of Pharaoh Usermare, one hour with Tabubu, the daughter of the prophet of Bastet, was worth 10
pieces of gold:
Setne said to the servant: "Go, say to the maid, 'It is Setne Khamwas, the son of Pharaoh Usermare, who has sent me to say, "I will give you
ten pieces of gold - spend an hour with me....
Setne Khamwas and Naneferkaptah
M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume III, p.134
In the story Tabubu was less offended by the proposition itself but rather that she was being treated like a low woman of the street. While
there was little explicit sex in literature, erotic love poetry was widespread in Ramesside times. The terms 'brother' and 'sister' generally
referred to one's beloved.

181
http://prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/eros_in_egypt.htm
Eros in Egypt
David O'Connor
Archaeology Odyssey, September-October, 2001
We moderns tend to believe that ancient Egyptian art contains little that is overtly sexual. Egyptian painting seems to lack the strong sensual
qualities of much classical art…In the "low" art of papyrus scroll-painting, on the other hand, Egyptian artists created explicitly erotic images.
Unfortunately, only one of these scrolls has survived.
The most erotically graphic—some would say pornographic—work of Egyptian art is the so-called Turin Erotic Papyrus (Papyrus 55001), now
in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy. Painted in the Ramesside period (1292-1075 B.C.E.), the severely damaged papyrus has not been
treated well by time and the elements.(1) It consists of a continuous series of vignettes drawn on a papyrus scroll about 8.5 feet long and 10
inches high. The first third of the scroll (reading from right to left) shows animals and birds carrying out various human tasks. The rest
consists of explicit depictions of sexual acts.

182
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=xz4&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical
%252ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2
529%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3ddoll%26_IXspage%3dsearch%26_
IXSESSION_%3dhrzpkqv3Y_W%26_IXsearchterm%3ddoll&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXsearchter
m=doll%26_IXspage=search&submit-button=summary
http://www.swan.ac.uk/egypt/infosheetgen/health.htm
W769 Paddle doll. This wooden doll on display in the Egypt Centre may be more a fertility figure than a child's plaything. It has been
suggested that the enlarged section at the base represents an emphasised pubic area. However, maybe we should be aware that emphasising
female genitalia need not be associated with male titillation but perhaps a female desire for fertility. We need to look at the context in which
they are found. Such dolls are after all found in female graves. The shape of the paddle doll is similar to the other female objects such as the
'menit' counterpoise.
183
Other religions had similar ceremonies and rituals to encourage fecundity.
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/fertilitysacremarriage.html
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva, In the Wake of the Goddesses: women, culture and biblical transformations of pagan myth, (1992) Fawcet Columbine,
New York.
184
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=g
raphical/full/&$+with+all_unique_id_index+is+$=OBJ11876&submit-button=summary

Terracotta votive womb. Italy, 400-200 BC

It was common practice in antiquity to place terracotta models of body parts in the 'healing sanctuaries' that were scattered across southern
Etruria, Latium and Campania, down the western side of Italy. The afflicted part of the body was represented, either in thanks for a cure or in
the hope of finding one.
In the case of the wombs it may be that the votary hoped to conceive. There is one known instance where the womb is represented in a flaccid
state, indicating the mother had died, perhaps as the result of a Caesarean section, which illustrates the extent of medical knowledge of the
period.
On this example the cervix is clearly represented, as are muscular ripples suggesting contraction during childbirth. Other model wombs have
a small pellet of clay inside them that rattles and which probably reflect the desire for fertility.
GR 1865.11-18.119
Room 69, Greece and Rome: Daily Life, case 3

185
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/gimbutas.html
ALLUSIONS TO DIONYSUS - Dionysus is a pre-lndo-European god of great antiquity in spite of his composite name (dio-nysos, 'god of
Nysa or Nysai'; the latter probably is a pre-Indo-European place name). His cult in Greece is evidenced by temples, sculptures of phalli and
descriptions of processions carrying huge phalli as late as the second century BC, and the persisting tradition of Dionysiac festivals even into
later times is attested by a group of mythical images having strong roots in the local (southeast European-western Anatolian) soil.
Discussions about the origin of the Greek Dionysus - whether he came to Greece from Thrace, Crete or western Asia Minor - are pointless,
since all these lands originally belonged to the same Mother Culture. Dionysus was a bull-god, god of annual renewal, imbued with all the
urgency of nature. Brimming with virility, he was the god most favoured by women.
The abundance of phalli in Dionysiac festivals, in sculptures near the temples, on herms used as signposts on the roads and before the doors
of houses suggests that the ancient Greeks were no less obsessed by phallic magic than were the Old Europeans. ...{p. 227} The key to a more
complete understanding of the male god and the Bull God of Old Europe lies in the Dionysiac festivals - Anthesteria, Lenaia and the Greater
Dionysia. In these festivals, which have assimilated elements of deep antiquity, Dionysus appears as a year-{p. 228} god. The idea of renewal
is predominant throughout the festivals of winter and spring. Each re-enacts an orgiastic agricultural scenario with phalli, phallus-shaped
cups, ladles and cult dishes and the bullman (Dionysus) marrying the queen (goddess).
Bachofen, Johann Jakob. Das Mutterrecht (“Mother Right”). 1861.

186
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXSR_=ru3&_IXSS_=_IXFPFX_%3dgraphical
%252ffull%252f%26_IXNOMATCHES_%3dgraphical%252fno_matches%252ehtml%26%2524%2b%2528with%2bv2_searchable_index%2
529%2bsort%3d%252e%26_IXDB_%3dcompass%26%257bUPPER%257d%253av2_free_text_tindex%3dphallus%26_IXspage%3dsearch%
26_IXSESSION_%3dlKDiqEo8Qms%26_IXsearchterm%3dphallus&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&_IXse
archterm=phallus%26_IXspage=search&submit-button=summary
Johns, C. Sex or symbol : erotic images of Greece and Rome. The British Museum Press. 1982.

187
http://www.kusadasi.biz/ephesus_museum.asp

188
This story is very likely to be apocryphal, Alexander was a very talented self publicist with a razor sharp awareness of the benefit of
prophetic and mythical propaganda.
‘Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this
passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus, Lysimachus reportedly quipped "I wonder where I was at the time."
Thalestris was the name given to a (fictional) queen of the Amazons. She ruled the Amazons who lived between the Caucasus and the River
Phasis (Curt. 6.5.24-25). While Alexander campaigned in Hyrcania in 330 BC, Thalestris arrived at his camp with an honour guard of 300
warriors. She explained that she had come with the intention of conceiving his child. Alexander granted his army a rest period of thirteen
days, during which time he spent his furlough assisting Thalestris in his quest! At the end of this period Thalestris considered that she was
indeed pregnant; she left the camp and Alexander moved on with his army into Parthia (Diod. 17.77.1-3; Just. 12.3).
Curtius tells the same story, but with embellishments: he describes the Amazons’ appearance (paying particular attention to their bare
breasts and the fact that one of the breasts was cauterised to facilitate weapons-handling); and he adds that Thalestris was a bit disappointed
by Alexander’s physique—the fact that he was not of extraordinarily heroic build, of course, rather than that he was in any way unathletic
(Curt. 6.5.29).
It is clear that the story of Thalestris is a fiction: although Plutarch read it in at least five writers (including Cleitarchus and Onesicritus), he
also cites nine authors (including Aristobulus, Chares and Ptolemy) who said it was fiction. Further weight is added by Plutarch’s tale that,
when Onesicritus was reading the passage to Lysimachus (some time before 281 BC), the king smiled and said "And where was I, then?"; and
Plutarch also cites a letter in which Alexander himself denied Thalestris’ visit (Plut. Alex. 46.1-2; see also Strabo 11.5.4).
However, the story might have arisen from another tradition (told by Alexander himself, according to the letter in Plutarch), that says that
Alexander was offered a Scythian princess in marriage. Alexander graciously refused; but if this indeed happened then it might have been the
kernel from which the Thalestris legend grew. (Arr. 4.15.1-5; Plut. Alex. 46.2; Itin. Alex. 42).’
Nonetheless earlier accounts of the Amazons have a firmer historical basis and many related architectural landmarks.
Bennett, Florence M. (1967). Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons. New York: AMS Press Inc.. Chapter 5
The legend of the Amazons was rooted not only in Athens, but also in memorials of the Amazons at Troezen, Megara, Chaeronea, Chalcis, and
Thessaly. It is believed that the Amazons may have worshipped the god Ares. The famous tragedian Aeschylus mentions the Amazons’
worship of Ares during their siege on Athens. There are legends about the Amazons sacrificing horses to Ares. This may be the basis of the
belief that the Amazons were skillful horsewomen. Ares does not appear to be as important to the Amazons as the Mother (the goddess
known as Rhea or Cybele).
189
http://members.tripod.com/~sondmor/index-4.html
Silver, Morris. The Argonaut Epos and Bronze Age Economic History. Economics Department. City College of New York. 2004.
190
Archaeological finds from Samsun in eastern Turkey, the region that Jason was avoiding.
http://www.myrine.at/Amazons/terme.html
Archaeological Finds from Dündartepe
In Dündartepe, near the sea coast some kilometers east of the town Samsun, there were found the remains of a approximately 4000 till 5000
years old settlement. The most interesting fact of this excavation was that the finds there are quite different to the contemporary finds
outside this area.
Furthermore the finds allow the conjecture that in this culture women had a preeminent position!

Female buttock with tattoos Female Idol from Dündartepe

http://www.myrine.at/Amazons/1372210e.html
Amazon Research Centre website with information on all archaeological finds.
The Land of the Amazons - A Photo-tour along the Thermodon
Get an imagination of the legendary homeland of the Amazons.
Follow the Photo-tour along the river Thermodon from its spring to its mouth!
Amazon
* Themiskyra - Famous capital of the Amazons
o Vestiges of Themiskyra - Research campaign 1987
* Karpu Kale - Last refuge of the Amazons
o Research campaign 1987
o Research campaign 1999
* Lykastia and Chadesia - Other cities of the Amazons
o Ancient references and archaeological situation
o The cemetery at Tekkeköy
o Tekkeköy - Research campaign 1999
o Ikiztepe - Research campaign 1999
Penthesileia
* Aretias - The sacred island of the Amazons
o Ancient references and archaeological situation
o Research campaign 1999
* Further fortresses and monuments round the Thermodon region
o Caleoglu Kale and Kekirkalesi
o Asar Kale - Research campaign 1999
Myrine
* Lemnos - Highly developed civilization of Amazons in the Aegean
o Research campaign 2002
o Recent discoveries - research campaign 2003
* Samothrace - Sacred island of the »Great Goddess«
o Research campaign 2004 (PDF file - 587 KB)
* Southern Tunisia - In Search of the Libyan Amazons' Homeland
o Research campaign 2005 (PDF file - 621 KB)
Amazon Maps
Here you get a detailed overview of the landscapes where the Thermodon Amazons, the Lemnian Amazons and the Libyan Amazons are
located.
Ancient original texts on Amazons
How did the ancient Greeks see the Amazons?
There is a lot of literature concerning the Amazons and most of the writers had no doubt that they had really existed.
Read the most significant original texts in English!
praying Amazone Religion and cults of the Amazons
Nearly 100 years ago - in 1912 - Florence Mary Bennett published the book: RELIGIOUS CULTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE AMAZONS. Her
well-founded research work provides a complete overview of all aspects which show Amazons in connection with religion and cult in ancient
tradition. The results are amazingly identical with ours. In fact, the Amazons can only be explained in connection with matriarchal
civilization. In her conclusions she states: "We may believe then that the tradition of the Amazons preserves memories of a time when women
held the important place in state and religion in Aegean lands, and that they reflect the goddess of this civilisation." The "Great Mother" was
the central goddess of the Amazons - an almighty goddess. She was worshipped at sacred stones.
Amazons in Sicily by Marguerite Rigoglioso
http://womenvisionaries.com/Marguerite/
Amazon Research Network member Marguerite Rigoglioso researches and teaches about female divinities and women’s spiritual history, and
she has published articles and presented her research at conferences for organizations such as the American Academy of Religion, the Society
of Biblical Literature, and the American Italian Historical Association.
Her master's thesis deals with the question of Amazons in Sicily, although she doesn't specifically say that in the abstract that is posted. The
full text is not available on the site, but people can request it.
191
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2001/2001-07-14.html
Nanno Marinatos, The Goddess and the Warrior: The Naked Goddess and Mistress of Animals in Early Greek Religion. London/New York:
Routledge, 2000. Pp. 162. ISBN 0-415-21829-2.
192
http://people.uncw.edu/deagona/amazons/bibliography12-9.htm
Wilde, Webster Lyn. On The Trail of The Woman Warriors: The Amazons in Myth and History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Weinbaum, Batya (1999). Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities. University of Textas Press.
Van Bothmer, Dietrich (1957). Amazons In Greek Art. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Shapiro, H.A.(1983) “Amazons, Thracians, and Scythians,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 105-114.
Hardwick, Lorna (1990). Ancient Amazons – Heroes, Outsiders or Women? Greece and Rome 36.1: 15-36.
Deacy, S. (1997). Athena and the Amazons: mortal and immortal femininity in Greek myth. What is a God? Studies in the nature of Greek
divinity. Ed. Alan B. Lloyd, London: Duckworth. 153-168
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~class164/carlier_on_amazons.htm
Carlier, J. Voyage in Greek Amazonia September 24, 2002.
Bennett, Florence M. (1967). Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons. New York: AMS Press Inc.
Chapter five in Florence Bennet’s, Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons focuses on the Amazons’ relationship with the Greek war god,
Ares. The legend of the Amazons was rooted not only in Athens, but also in memorials of the Amazons at Troezen, Megara, Chaeronea,
Chalcis, and Thessaly. It is believed that the Amazons may have worshipped the god Ares. The famous tragedian Aeschylus mentions the
Amazons’ worship of Ares during their siege on Athens. Pausanias describes the temple of Ares at Troezen as a trophy of the Victory of
Theseus over the Amazons. Other Historians and writers such as Euripides and Herodutus have called the Amazons, “the children of Ares” or
“the daughters of Ares.” Arctinus called Penthesilea (an Amazon queen during the Trojan War) a “Thracian” and a the daughter of Ares. This
may have be the origin of the theory that the Amazons were the children of Ares. Many modern authorities believe that the cult of Ares was
of Thracian origin. There are legends about the Amazons sacrificing horses to Ares. This may be the basis of the belief that the Amazons were
skillful horsewomen. Ares does not appear to be as important to the Amazons as the Mother (the goddess known as Rhea or Cybele).
193
Davis-Kimball, Jeanine. Sauro-Sarmation Nomadic Women: New Gender Identities. The Journal of Indo-European Studies. Vol. 253/4
1997. Pg.327-343.
Davis-Kimball, Jeannine and Mona Behan (2002). Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. New York,
NY: Warner Books, Inc.
Moshkova, Mirina (1995) A Brief Review of the History of the Sauromatian and Sarmatian Tribes. In Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Vladimir
Bashiolv, and Leonid Yablonsky, eds. Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age “Chapter 4” (1995): Zinet Press, Berkely.
Kingdoms of Anatolia and the Scythians, The. http://www.worldhistory1a.homestead.com/anatolia~ns4.html
This is a basic history of the different people that came into Anatolia, mainly the Scythians. There are images and the background of the
traditions of these people.
194
Brown, Frieda and Wm. Blake Tyrrell. 1985. A Reading of Herodotus’ Amazons. The Classical Journal 80.4: 297-02.
http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/herodotus01.htm
195
 http://www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/Artefact_Review2.html
In hunter-gatherer societies beads communicate, among other things, the personal, social and ethnic identity of the holder. Fully syntactical
language is arguably an essential requisite to sharing and transmitting the symbolic meaning of each beadwork. Since the use and
transmission of such means of visual communication imply contacts with surrounding groups, sharing similar needs, the Blombos shell
beads cannot represent an isolated or idiosyncratic behaviour.
Evidence for an early origin of modern human behaviour has long remained elusive. Recent finds in > 70 000 year old African sites of objects
bearing abstract engravings, large quantities of pigment and formal bone tools have been rejected as clear-cut evidence for behavioural
modernity on the grounds of context, dating and/or because deliberate symbolic intent could not be warranted. The BBC beads add an
unambiguous marker of symbolically mediated behaviour to the list of innovations already identified in the MSA. It clearly reflects the
acquisition of fully modern cognitive abilities by southern African populations 75,000 years ago.

196
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem2.htm#Diana
Diana was served by two kinds of priestess: the melissai, "honeybees" , and the remarkable male-to-female megabyzes (wisdom and beauty),
who carried the image of the Goddess in grand processions on her local festival in late May. These gender-variant priestesses commonly
served as makers of magic amulets... telling fortunes through casting of Ephesian "runes". The Great Temple, one of the famed Seven
Wonders, met final destruction in the year 405 CE.
197
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=g
raphical/gt/sel/&$+with+all_unique_id_index+is+$=ENC11893&_IXtour=ENC11893&submit-button=summary
A Kind of Magic
People have used talismans, charms and amulets to protect themselves from harm and to promote good fortune since the earliest times.
The first amulets were probably the claws and teeth of animals like lions and tigers, carried because it was thought they connected the wearer
with the animal spirit world that would empower and protect them. Since then, the belief in powerful objects has been almost universal and
can still be witnessed in people's behaviour today.
The objects in this tour illustrate the many ways in which magical or powerful objects have been used. Some were worn by the living to avoid
common ailments or as charms for good luck or a general sense of well-being. Others were placed in graves and in tombs to protect the dead.
There are also objects that were used to protect whole buildings rather than individuals.
This tour was written to accompany the exhibition A Kind of Magic at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2 April-29 June 2003). The
exhibition was curated by Stephen Feeke and James Putnam. It was part of a series of collaborations between the Henry Moore Institute, part
of the Henry Moore Foundation, and the British Museum's Contemporary Arts and Cultures Programme.

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This tradition continues today in the Phillipines where amulets are inserted under the skin to protect from knives and bullets.
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t15631.html
Haring Bakal
http://www.inq7.net/lif/2004/may/18/lif_22-1.htm
Haring Bakal – Ang explains the initiation rite.
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http://www.luckygemstones.com/jet-jewelry-black-mourning-gem.htm
Jet was important to many ancient civilizations, including the Chinese, Europeans, Greeks and Native American Zuni Indians. It was
considered protective against illness, the evil-eye and personal attacks. It was believed that wearing Jet Jewelry would absorb any illness or
negative energies, thereby protecting its wearer. In Ancient Greece, Pliny first mentions Jet as Gaget, after the River Gages where it was first
mined. Followers of Cybele, the Goddess of Growth and Plants, wore Jet to incur the Goddess' favor.
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http://inanna.virtualave.net/roman.html
Other names and titles:
Agdos name for Cybele , when she takes the form of a rock.
In his work on the Christian Black Virgins and their origins, Ean Begg relates Cybele to the Ka'bah.
"Her name is etymologically linked with the words for crypt, cave, head and dome and is distantly related to the Ka'aba, the cube-shaped
Holy of Holies in Mecca that contains the feminine black stone venerated by Islam" Begg, p.57
Cybele, like the Ephesian Artemis and many other goddesses, was also venerated in the form of a black stone. Once this stone had been
brought to Rome, both stone and goddess were worshipped in the Roman Empire until the 4th century CE.
A Roman name for this goddess was Mater Kubile, and sometimes also simply Magna Mater, meaning "Great Mother".

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http://volker-doormann.org/the4.htm
In the Kaaba in Mecca the symbols of the Mother Goddess of the preIsllamic Arabians are preserved.
The Kaaba is also called 'Bayt ul Haram'. 'The honorable house'.
- Ka'bah - Cybele - Kubaba - Kumbaba - Humbaba -
The Kaaba with its symbols was long before Muhammad protected by the Koreshits: 'The child's of Kore'.
From this tribe also Muhammad's family is descend.
Muhammad has distorted all 360 preIslamic symbols of the Kaaba.
The northern gate of the Mosque is named the 'Gate to Paradise' ( Bab ej-Jinah )
The same symbol that is worshiped in the Kaaba in Mecca is also still worshiped as holy in India.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/orsin/orsin3.htm
The Nabateans had two principal gods in their pantheon, and a whole range of djinns, personal gods and spirits similar to angels. These
deities were Dhu Shara, or Duchares and al-Uzza. Duchares means Lord of Shera (Seir), a local mountain and thunder god who was
worshipped at a rock high place as a block of stone frequently squared, just as Hermes was the four-square god. Suidas in the tenth century
AD described it as a 'cubic' black stone of dimension 4x2x1 (Browning 44). All the deities male and female were represented as stones or god-
blocks.
http://www.crystalinks.com/blackstone.html
The Black Stone of Mecca
The earliest reference we have to a goddess worshipped as a cube-shaped stone is from neolithic Anatolia.
Alternatively, 'Kubaba' may mean a hollow vessel or cave - which would still be a supreme image of the goddess.
The ideograms for Kubaba in the Hittite alphabet are a lozenge or cube, a double-headed axe, a dove, a vase and a door or gate - all images of
the goddess in neolithic Europe.

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Al-Uzza
Some sources say that al-Uzza was brought to Mecca by the Quraysh and enjoined to the already established Kaaba worship, but she
probably was a local deity in Mecca since the time of ‘Amr ibn Lubayy. In Muhammed’s time, al-Uzza was the most important of the Meccan
local deities, perhaps save for ‘the Lord’ Hubal. Her main sanctuary was in a valley called Hurad, just outside Mecca. ‘It was complete with a
haram and a sacrificial altar.’ (Ibid, 110.) Alfred Guillaume states that evidence ‘for her worship from the fourth century AD is copious.
Tradition states that in his youth Muhammad sacrificed a white sheep to her.’ The Arabs offered human sacrifices to al-Uzza and the blood of
the victims was smeared or poured on them while the tribes-men danced round the stone... The devotees licked the blood, or dipped their
hands in it, and thus a reciprocal bond held them to one another and the deity to whom the stone belonged. Nilus, a Christian writer, gives a
fairly full account of such a sacrifice to Uzza. Though there is no trace of human sacrifices in the Quran, it is clear from the authority just
quoted and from early Arab sources that human beings were sacrificed to these gods in Duma and Hira. (Guillaume, Islam, 8-9.)
Ibn Ishaq states that al-Uzza had a slaughter place (ghabghab), where the blood was poured out. An Arab poet said:
Asma’ was given as a dowry the head of a little red cow
Which a man of the Banu Ghanm had sacrificed
He saw blemish in her eye when he led her away
To al-Uzza’s slaughter-place and divided her into goodly portions.
Muhammed had, according to tradition, sacrificed a sheep to her, and it might very well be that it had been done at Mount Hira, which was
now Muhammed’s place of devotion to the moon-god Allah and his daughter al-Uzza. It has been stated that the Arabs sacrificed infant boys
and girls to the morning star, al-Uzza. (Andrae, Mohammed, 17-18.) Ibn al-Khalbi states:
The Quraysh as well as other Arabs who inhabited Mecca did not give to any of their idols anything similar to their veneration of al-Uzza.
The next in order of veneration was Al-Lat and then Manat. (Peters, Muhammad, 111.)
During the armed confrontation between the Meccans and Muhammed at Badr (AH 2), the former carried al-Uzza’s banner to battle.
Tradition says that Muhammed sent Khalid ibn al-Walid, who later conquered Syria for Islam, to destroy al-Uzza’s temple in Nakhla. There,
some of the tribes of Quraysh and Kinana, and all the Mudar tribe, used to worship. When the guardian of al-Uzza heard that Khalid was
approaching "he hung his sword on her, climbed the mountain on which she stood," and said:
O ‘Uzza, make an annihilating attack on Khalid,
Throw aside your veil and gird up your train
O ‘Uzza, if you do not kill this man Khalid
Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian.
However, according to tradition, Khalid and his army destroyed the al-Uzza idol and returned to Muhammed. (Guillaume, The Life of
Muhammad, 565-566.) When these idols had all been destroyed, ‘Allah’ reigned supreme in the Hijaz. The threefaced Mother Goddess had
vanished from the visible sphere, but still lives in Muslim legends according to the ‘Satanic verses’.

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The Three Goddesses
Mediterranean mythology included the worship of the Mother goddess who appeared under three natures, names and faces. Adam
McLean, a leading authority on goddesses, states:
The triplicity of the Goddess is very important. This is not merely a multiplying by three, but rather a threefold manifestation; the
Goddess reveals herself on three levels, in the three realms of the world and of humankind.
Those three faces correspond to heaven, earth and the underworld; or past, present and future. McLean continues:
The most important triple aspect of the Goddess is her manifestation as Virgin/Mother/Crone. This is perhaps the easiest
representation with whom people can identify, as this triplicity corresponds to the three phases of woman’s life... the Young
Woman/Mother/Old woman. (Adam McLean, The Triple Goddess. An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine (Grand Rapids, 1989), 14-15.)
It is noteworthy that the three goddesses were in certain places, represented by meteorites or aeroliths, stones that had fallen from
heaven, just as the Kaaba stone in Mecca. (Ibid, 52.) Merlin Stone noted that in Aphrodite’s temple in Cyprus a certain stone was anointed by
oil each year at the feast of the goddess. The same stone worship was conducted at Baalat’s temple at Byblos. (As Allat was the feminine
version of Allah, so was Baalat the feminine version of Baal.) The Romans venerated the captured Carthagian stone-goddess Cybele and also
the Greeks in Asia Minor. (Merlin Stone, ‘Goddess Worship in the Ancient Near East’ in Religions of Antiquity, 65-66.) Concerning our
subject, we find the same character-istics. All over Arabia, these same symbols have been found as representing the worship of a triple
Arabian goddesses. McLean states:
Long before the coming of the austere patriarchal system of Islam, the Arabic people worshipped this trinity of desert Goddesses who
were the three facets of the one Goddess. Al-Uzza (‘the mighty’) represented the Virgin warrior facet; she was a desert Goddess of the
morning star who had a sanctuary in a grove of acacia trees to the south of Mecca, where she was worshipped in the form of a sacred stone.
Al-Lat, whose name means simply ‘Goddess’, was the Mother facet connected with the Earth and its fruits and the ruler of fecundity. She was
worshipped at At-Ta’if near Mecca in the form of a great uncut block of white granite. Manat, the crone facet of the Goddess, ruled fate and
death. Her principal sanctuary was located on the road between Mecca and Medina, where she was worshipped in the form of a black uncut
stone. (McLean, The Triple Goddess, 80.)
This goddess appearing under many names throughout the world of antiquity is the same as was represented as Baal’s wife. She was
called Astarte, Semiramis, Ashtaroth, Isis, Venus, Fortuna, Diana, Asherah, Elat, etc.. Indeed, Isis was known as the mother of one thousand
names. However, regardless of her various titles, she was Baal’s wife and worshipped as such. (Judges 2:13). Baal is said to have had three
daughters, who were apparently called by different names around the ancient world. (Cooper, Canaanite Religion, 86.) They were also
considered his brides, with whom he swore to build a house. The ‘Building Saga’ is discussed in (Julian Obermann, Ugaritic Mythology. A
Study of Its Leading Motifs (New Haven, 1948)). The Quraysh adopted Allah as Baal, and added the goddesses to his cult the same way as
Baal had three daughters in the Fertile Crescent. They venerated him and his three female companions in his new House, the Kaaba at
Mecca.
One of the aspects of goddess worship that has survived in Islam, as well as, for example, in Roman Catholicism, is the rosary. Through
the ages the worshippers of goddesses had used the rosary for prayers and it is still in use in the worship of female deities all over the world,
for example by Hindus in India. The rosary is connected with fertility worship when the deity’s name is repeated over and over again.
(Compare to Matthew 6:7-13 and Acts 19:34.) It is called tasbih or subha in Arabic, and simply means ‘an object which one praises.’ The
Muslim rosary is supposed to contain 99 beads, representing the titles of ‘Allah’, but usually it only has 33 beads, slipped through one’s
fingers three times. (Compare to the Koran 7:180.) This pagan custom, which is dated to Astarte worship from about 800 BCE, still survives
in Islam as well as in many other cults around the world.
Ancient Middle Eastern mythology often pictured the Mother goddess with a son, such as Isis-Horus in Egypt and Astarte-Tammuz in
the Fertile Crescent. This mother-son worship was established throughout the world. In China there was the Mother Shingmoo, Hertha in
ancient Germany, Nutria in ancient Italy (Etrusca), Indrani in India, Aphrodite in Greece, Venus in Rome, Cybele in Asia Minor and
Carthage, Diana in Ephesus, Isis in Egypt etc.. In Hijaz, on the other hand, there was no harvest and thus no worship of fertility gods as such.
Its patriarchal society soon changed the ancient mother-son worship to father-daughter worship. Allah was the father, and his daughters
were Al-Lat, Manat and al-Uzza.

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The ‘Satanic Verses’
The chapter of Muhammed’s life the Muslims want to forget most of all is the affair of the ‘Satanic verses’, made worldfamous by Salman
Rushdie’s novel by the same name. The setting is Mecca, some years before the hijra, most likely in 619 CE, when Muhammed’s protector,
Abu Talib, and his wife, Khadija, had both died. The Meccans had become increasingly hostile towards him and ridiculed his mission in every
possible way. What was probably worse, they tempted Muhammed by promising him fame and fortune if he would refrain from attacking
their deities. Muhammed was unwilling to compromise his mission and declined their offer. Then the next temptation came, as al-Tabari
narrates:
‘If you will not do so, we offer you one means which will be to your advantage and to ours.’ ‘What is it?’ he [Muhammed] asked. They said:
‘You will worship our gods, al-Lat and al-’Uzza, for a year, and we shall worship your god for a year.’ ‘Let me see what revelation comes to me
from my Lord’ he replied. Then, the following inspiration came from the Preserved Tablet [the Koran which ‘Allah’ preserves in heaven]. (W.
M. Watt and M. V. McDonald (transl. & annotators), The History of al-Tabari (volume IV: Muhammad at Mecca. New York, 1988), 107.)
The continuation al-Tabari adopted from Ibn Ishaq’s narrative which stated:
When the apostle saw that his people turned their backs on him and he was pained by their estrangement from what he brought them
from Allah, he longed that there should come to him from Allah a message that would reconcile his people to him. Because of his love for his
people and his anxiety over them, it would delight him if the obstacle that made his task so difficult could be removed; so that he meditated
on the project and longed for it and it was dear for him. Then Allah sent down ‘By the star when it sets your comrades errs not and is not
deceived, he speaks not from his own desire.’ (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 165.)
Then Muhammed’s revelation continued: ‘Have you thought upon Al-Lat and al-Uzza and on Manat, the third other? Are yours the males,
and His the females?’ (The Koran 53:19.) In a patriarchal society it was a shame to have only daughters, as Muhammed had only daughters
and was embarrassed for this very reason. Thus ‘Allah’ would be imperfect due to his inability to procreate sons. Muhammed thus concluded
that it would be better for ‘Allah’ to have no children at all.
Ibn Ishaq stated that Muhammed added: ‘... these are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved.’ A Gharaniq was thought to be
an angelic creature, who could fly at a great height, and thus were exalted above men. Muhammed’s acceptance of the three daughters of
Allah as being semi-divine delighted the Quraysh who prostrated themselves in the place of prostration (masjid — mosque) along with the
Muslims.
When the Quraysh heard that, they rejoiced and were happy and delighted at the way in which he spoke of their gods, and they listened to
him, while the Muslims, having complete trust in their Prophet in respect of the messages which he brought from God, did not suspect him of
error, illusion or mistake. When he came to the prostration, having completed the Surah, he prostrated himself, the Muslims did likewise,
following their Prophet, trusting in the message which he had brought and following his example. Those polytheists of the Quraysh and
others who were in the mosque likewise prostrated themselves because of the reference to their gods which they had heard, so that there was
no one in the mosque, believer or unbeliever, who did not prostrate himself. (Watt & McDonald, The History of al-Tabari, 108-109.)
Alfred Guillaume stated that all "of these interpolated words meant that the divine or semi-divine beings were inter-cessors with Allah, an
office which in Islam is accorded only to Muhammad himself." The words Muhammed uttered, and were later deleted from the canonised
version of the Koran, were a chant the Meccans used when they walked around the Black Stone. (Guillaume, Islam, 36.) Muhammed had now
made serious compromises with paganism. And just as Catholicism solved this problem, Muhammad found only one solution, incorporate
those competitors and everybody would be happy: the pagans for being able to indirectly worship their deities, and Islam (as Catholicism) by
merging with paganism.
According to Muslim tradition, the Quraysh agreed to embrace Islam when those concessions had been made. Also, the Muslims who had
earlier fled to Abyssinia, now returned and among them was Uthman, who later became a caliph. However, Muhammed then denied his
previous revelation, which he said was nothing but ‘Satanic verses.’ The conversion of the Quraysh was thus withdrawn and this manoeuvre
only strengthened the Meccan opposition. If this legend is true, which Muslims generally admit, we cannot be certain the rest of the Koran
was not similarly inspired by Satan. It seems reasonable to assume that the ‘whisperer’ was the same in this case as in all others. One of the
best established hadiths is the following speech from ‘Allah’ to Muhammed:
My servant [Muhammed] approaches me steadily through voluntary works of piety, until I come to love him; and when I love him I am
his eye, his ear, his tongue, his foot, his hand. He sees through me, he hears through me, he speaks through me, he moves and feels through
me. (Goldziher, Introduction, 42-43.)
If ‘Allah’ spoke and did everything through Muhammed, and vice versa, it is no wonder these ‘Satanic verses’ embarrass Muslims to this day.
However, Muhammed found an escape route through another ‘revelation’. He stated:
Never have we sent a single prophet or apostle before you with whose wishes Satan did not tamper. But Allah abrogates the interjections
of Satan and confirms His own revelations. Allah is all-knowing and wise. (The Koran 22:52. (N. J. Dawood - with a replacement of Allah for
God)).
Since we know that some verses contradict, or abrogate, others, we must conclude that several koranic passages were Satanic inspirations,
which other verses have abrogated. If not, this verse is incorrect. But how could Satan manipulate Muhammed at almost any time, and utter
koranic revelation through him at his will? Wherever the occult powers override true worship, the force behind the occult and New Age
always marks its territory through images. Even the Islamic Crescent bears the mark of its founder, Mystery Babylon paganism.
The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus and American Indians, like the Babylonians, all believed that their gods were just
representations of the one god. The ancient people, shortly after the flood, had a knowledge of the True God of Noah, Shem, and Abraham.
But the worship of the True God of Noah, Shem, and Abraham soon became perverted into idolatry by the larger population when Nimrod
tried to unite the whole world into a One World Government. Just as the ancients believed their various gods to be different expressions of
the Only god, so did Muhammed, when he united the 360 gods at Mecca into just one god, Allah.
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http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Lapis.htm
History of the lapis mine in Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli

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http://www.indianvillage.com/turquoiseinfo.htm
http://www.americana.net/jewelry_history_turquoise_article.html
Persia
The legendary home of the world’s finest turquoise is the mines at Nishapur. Turquoise became a major trade and barter item for the early
Persians. Persian turquoise was found in ancient graves in Turkistan and, in the 1st to 3rd century A.D., in graves throughout Caucausus.
Persian stones were much coveted in Afghanistan and as far north as Siberia. It was used in art, medicine, and in jewelry in India.
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http://tyro123.tripod.com/
Mystical Qualities of Silver: The ancient Persians believed their Anatolian silver breastplates made them invincible in battle. Silver is
thought to intensify and purify, to be feminine and protective It is the Moon's metal and enhances the powers of that celestial body, thus is
very important to Wiccans in summoning the Moon Goddess or repelling unwelcome spirits. High Priestesses wear medallions of silver and
the metal is frequently used in spells and on altars. Silver, when combined with gemstones, has the ability to attract and retain within itself
the energies of the gemstones, drawing negative energies from the body while transferring the positive energies of other minerals.
Medicinal Qualities: Silver is said to eliminate toxins at the cellular level and cleanse the body via the pores. It is thought to be helpful in the
treatment of hepatitis and to increase the assimilation of vitamins A and E. It is believed to be effective against epilepsy, oozing and festering
wounds.
Because of silver's reputed powers, owning silver was restricted throughout most of history, especially if it was in the form of jewelry. In the
earliest Egyptian records, it was considered more precious than gold.
Archaeological excavations show that silver jewelry in Anatolia predates what most of the world knows as the Early Bronze Age.
Unquestionably, silver was being mined in Anatolia before the advent of recorded history.
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http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/aug02str.cfm
The carnelian, usually set in raised round or oval bezels, is considered Allah’s favorite stone by many Muslims. Some Turkmen claim it
protects the eyes from disease; other sources claim the Turkmen believe it gives general protection from death and illness and brings the
wearer good luck and peace.

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Asgabat. Turkmen Jewellery. Turkendowlethabarlary, 2003. ISBN 5-7270-0101-3
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http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/trade/index.html
Precious stones and other luxury goods
Lapis lazuli, mined in Bactria, was imported since pre-historic times. An East Iranian lapis lazuli statue was found in Egypt and dated to
around 3000 BCE, preceding the first dynasty. Tapur, called Tefrer by the Egyptians [3], a fortified town on a canal between the Euphrates
and Tigris, was their main trading centre for this gem. Turquoise found in Khorasan, gold, agate, carnelian and other precious stones were
also carried on the Oxus road from Tepe Yahya near the Persian Gulf overland to Retenu and Egypt or by ship around the Arabian peninsula
to Qoseir or the Nile-Red Sea canal. Vegetable oils, eye paints and other cosmetics also had their origins in eastern Iran and Afghanistan.
Punt was the main source of myrrh, frankincense and fragrant woods. Attempts were made to produce incense locally by importing trees
under Hatshepsut.
During excavations at Memphis and Amarna (see Smith, Bourriau and Serpico) amphorae were discovered and analysed. They originated
from the northern Levant. Residue of pistacia species resin was found in vessels coming from central and northern Canaan, while the
amphoras originating in Lebanon, coastal Syria and southern Turkey were used to transport oil.
http://nabataea.net/items.html
India pioneered the making of hard stone beads from lapis lazuli and carnelian, and began exporting these beads centuries before the
Romans. They also imported coral beads from Arabia. India also developed the darkened agate (gem onyx), etched carnelians, and other
altered bead types.
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http://www.anaviangallery.com/cylinder_seal_preface.html
It was in the greatest of the early cities that the first cylinder seals appeared, at Uruk. They were created by the Sumerian's who dwelt mostly
in southern Iraq, known to later historians as Mesopotamia or "the land between the rivers," the Tigris and Euphrates.
The clay jar sealings impressed with a continuous, repeated design rather than the simple stamps were found in Uruk at the level dated to
3300 B.C., and in contemporary Susa in Iran, a closely allied society.
From the beginning, figurative designs prevailed on the cylinders. Although scenes with wild animals were preferred at first, these gradually
faded out in favor of domestic animals and religious themes, reflecting the growing importance of the city and its inhabitants over nature.
Cuneiform, a system of syllabic notation, was developed by the Sumerian's around 3000 B.C.. It was written with a wedge shaped stylus on
clay tablets which offered a perfect surface for cylinder seals and their picture bands. Were they impressed on both tablets and jar sealings
has a mark of ownership? Or do they also have a protective function? Probably both. Many excavated seals are found in temples or graves,
pointing to their use as votive gifts.
Although different seals often have the same motif, each is completely individual. Generally of soft stones at this time--steatite and chlorite,
limestone and serpentine--the Uruk seals tend to be large. The best engravings have rounded modeling and show careful observation of
anatomy, both animal (such as the lovely pastoral scene on No. 26) and, for the first time, human. Early Neolithic cave paintings have
remarkably accurate animal portrayals, but man is only schematically drawn until the Sumerian's. Tiny details were done with infinite skill
by an artist working at a negative design on a smooth stone cylinder. No magnification was available. Using copper or bronze tools, a small
bow drill and abrasive powder, the Sumerian seal cutter achieved a unique art and realized it fully.
During the Jamdat Nasr period (3100-2900 B.C.), although many fine seals were made, designs tend to be limited, repetitive and coarsely
engraved. The rounds drilled holes and sharp engraver slashes were not carefully joined and filled out to make realistic figures as before, but
used rawly in an abstract manner to indicate man or animal.
Some of the most puzzling of all seals were made then, among them the "pigtailed lady" series. Three or four drill holes indicate the lady,
straight lines her two arms and pigtail. Sometimes she appears to be seated on a low stool or bench, and the objects in front of her, on which
she is probably working, are various combinations of hemispheres and lines which defy interpretation. Or, as in No. 32, she apparently is part
of a ritual with standards.
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http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/specex/ur/ur.htm
The royal cemetery tomb of Queen Puabi, like the tomb of King Tutankhamun, was an especially extraordinary find for being intact, having
escaped looting through the millennia. The tomb featured a vaulted chamber set at the bottom of a deep "death pit"; the lady was buried lying
on a wooden bier. She was identified by a cylinder seal bearing her name that was found on her body. The seal is carved in cuneiform and
written in Sumerian, the world's first written language.
Queen Puabi wore an elaborate headdress of gold leaves, gold ribbons, strands of lapis lazuli and carnelian beads, a tall comb of gold,
chokers, necklaces, and a pair of large, crescent-shaped earrings. Her upper body was covered in strings of beads made of precious metals
and semi-precious stones stretching from her shoulders to her belt, while rings decorated all her fingers.
QUEEN PUABI'S HEADDRESS.
Gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian.

A famed "Ram in the Thicket" statuette of a goat (misnamed with a Biblical reference) all attest to the exceptional artistry of the period.
"RAM CAUGHT IN A THICKET."
Gold, silver, lapis lazuli, copper, shell, red limestone, and bitumen. Height 42.6 cm.
http://www.clemusart.com/exhibit/ur/
Apparently the afterlife sought by the people of Ur included communal beer drinking, because the implements buried with Puabi included a
four-foot-long straw of gold for the purpose.
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http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/dave/Cults/isis.html
The Isis Mysteries
Isis, the Earth Mother
The central deity of the Isis Mysteries is the Egyptian goddess, Isis. Isis reflects the archetypal earth mother by serving as a goddess of life,
fertility, and protection. She was generally associated with the waxing moon, and is symbolically represented by many objects included the
door, the sky, and thet (a knot or buckle representing life or blood). Isis was generally given a human form (seen at right), though often with
the head of a cow, serpent, or scorpion.

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http://www.ingenious.org.uk/site.asp?s=S2&DCID=10284908
Ancient Egyptian amulet, the girdle or knot of Isis (Thet/Tyet), 4000-30 BC.

Picture Number:10284908
Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
An amulet is a personal ornament which, because of its shape, material, or colour, is believed to endow its wearer with certain powers or
capabilities and offer protection. The Ancient Egyptians often used amulets to protect themselves against disease. The Egyptian words for
'amulet' come primarily from words meaning 'to guard' or 'protect' and also 'well being'. The Egyptian goddess Isis protected the dead with a
Carnelian stone amulet named Thet, or Tyet. After being soaked in Ankhami flower water and placed on the body of the deceased, Isis would
grant the person protection from harm while moving through the afterlife.
http://isisadmin.freeyellow.com/page7.html
The Thet Knot
"I walk in harmony, heaven in one hand, earth in the other. I am the knot where two worlds meet. Red magic courses through me like the
blood of Isis, magic of magic, spirit of spirit. I am proof of the power of the gods. I am water and dust walking." The Knot of Isis from
Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis
The thet "knot" is a symbol of the Egyptian goddess Isis, Lady of Magic, Goddess of Motherhood, among many other names and titles.
Scholars debate exactly what is represented by this symbol, but most believe it is either a stylized representation of the female reproductive
system, or that it is a menstrual bandage. It definitely represents the Blood of Isis, as a spell of consecration for this amulet states it.
That knots were made of many materials in Ancient Egypt. Most of the time, they were of red stone, such as carnelian or jasper, but yellow
examples are also found. In metal, they might be of gold, but the original spell expects that the Thet will be made of wood from a sycamore
tree, long sacred to Nut, Isis, and, later, to Hathor. The symbol was also used to decorate funerary and ritual objects, and is often found in
conjunction with the djed pillar, another mysterious object which may represent the spine of Osiris, a tree, or something else entirely. While
the djed represented the masculine forces,, the thet was specifically feminine.
The spell mentions "water of ankham flowers". This flower has not been specifically identified, but some researchers believe that this was the
flower of the henna plant, the same plant which provides a dye for body art. Other candidates include the lotus and the white, blue, or pink
waterlilly.
Alternate spellings include tet, tit, tyet, and, unexpectedly, set, perhaps a contraction of Isis' name in Egyptian, Auset. The name of the
pharaoh Seti can be "spelled" using the thet or set hieroglyph.
"You have your blood, O Isis; you have your power, O Isis; you have your magic, 0 Isis. This amulet is a protection for this Great one which
will drive away whoever would commit a crime against this one. " Faulkner, The Book of the Dead
http://www.open-sesame.com/Isis.html
The prime magical charm of Isis is the tyet amulet, which is shaped like a knotted loop with tassels. It has also been called the thet, Isis knot,
buckle of Isis, and blood of Isis. The amulet is said by some to represent the tie on her girdle, but others say that it symbolizes her menstrual
pad, and represents the magical power of menstrual blood.
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http://www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/~GEL115/115CH6.html
Ancient Silver
Silver ornaments and vases were found at Troy, and in the 19th Dynasty of Egypt. They may well have been made from native silver, however.
Ore must be smelted to refine silver in quantity, and this cannot have been an easy process to apply on a large scale. Nevertheless, copper
smelting was well advanced during the bronze age, and silver and lead were being produced (presumably by similar methods) in some
quantity in Armenia and Anatolia, because Sumerians and Assyrians traded for it. After the fall of the Hittites, the Assyrians record looting
large quantities of silver in raids into the mountains of Anatolia around 880 BC.
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http://terraeantiqvaefotos.zoomblog.com/cat/1643

Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis - The Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis which experts qualify as "the world's oldest gold" and a trace of "Europe's
most ancient civilization" was a sensational discovery. It is situated about 500m to the north of Lake Varna and about 4 km to the west of the
downtown. In 294 graves were discovered more than 3000 golden objects dating back 6000 years. In Hall 6 of Varna Museum of History is
exhibited the whole inventory from some of the most significant graves. On both sides of the entrance are represented the graves with masks
of human faces shaped out on spot and appliquéd with gold plates. The rich variety of funeral utensils going along with the dead is best
illustrated by two of the symbolic graves / No 4 and No 36/. In grave No 4 have been found two unique vessels where the typical for the time
decoration of strongly stylized geometrical symbols is fulfilled in golden paint.
Panagyurishte Treasure - September 8th, 1949 three brothers while digging for clay for brick-making near the town of Panagyurishte in
Sredna Gora Mountain of central Bulgaria, came upon what was obviously an important treasure. Dated to the turn of the fourth and third
century BC, the find was sensational, not only for its weight in gold - over 6 kg, but also for the originality of its forms. It consists of 9 golden
vessels and represents a wine drinking set: seven rhytons - three with the form of an animal head, three with the form of an Amazon, one
with the form of a fore-part of a goat, one amphora-rhyton and one phial.
Vratsa Treasure from Mogilanska Mound - The treasure of Vratsa from the Mogilanska mound comprised three tombs which were yielded,
during 1965-66 excavations in the heart of the city. Two were plundered back in antiquity, and the third contained a funeral of a man and a
woman, one of the richest to be discovered in Thrace. There are several striking artifacts among the multitude of gold and silver objects
intended to serve the deceased in the next life. A silver cone-shaped pitcher suggests that the dead were initiated into the Dionysian cult,
since the cone was a symbol of Dionysus. The gold laurel wreath and earrings show remarkable sophistication and craftsmanship. The gold
pitcher is interesting with its handle fashioned like a Herculean knot which is right over the plume-ornamented bodies of the two chariots
drawn by four horses each. Since the chariot is always a symbol of the sun god, many scholars believe that the chariot driver is Apollo - the
principle god of the Tribally. Here a unique knee-piece with a female head figure was found. Knee-pieces were part of ancient warriors'
protective armor and were intended to protect legs. A perfectly symmetrical, framed by an intricate coiffure and crowned with a gilded ivy
wreath human face covers the kneecap. There are bird-shaped earrings, with two serpents outlining the face in the background. In the lower
part, their bodies blend into those of roaring lions, whose heads lock right under the chin. Another two serpents on the knee-piece have
promotes that blend into griffin lions.

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http://www.tigtail.org/TIG/S_View/TVM/E/Ancient/Greek/Greek-art/greek-1.mycenaean.html
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/g/gold.html

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http://www.internaturalhealth.com/ayur_masters.htm
JIVIKA
Jivika was a famous physician of India in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. …his patients included the Buddha, Emperors and the people. Jivika
was the son of Salavati, a courtesan of Rajagnha (modem Patria). He was thrown after his birth on a dust heap where people noticed that he
was still alive (Jivati). Prince Abhaya, the son of Bimbisara named him Jivaka and brought him up. He is also known as Jivaka Kumarabwla
(the one brought up by the Prince). He studied medicine for seven years at Taxila, a famous Indian center of learning near Rawalpindi.
Jivaka is said to have performed surgical operations. Jivaka was declared by Buddha as the chief amongst his lay-followers. He also included
in the list of good men who had been assured of the realization of immortality. Buddha enjoined upon monks to take exercise to protect
health at the requisition of Jivaka.
http://www.dlshq.org/messages/ayurveda.htm
Jivaka, the personal physician of Buddha, is said to have practised cranial surgery, with success. The Hindus were the first to do skin-
grafting and plastic surgery, cataract operation, amputation, the caesarean operation, etc.
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http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheNatureofMan-Hopi.html
…a medicine man, knowing how man was constructed, could tell what was wrong with a man by examining these centers.
First, he laid his hands on them: the top of the head, above the eyes, the throat, the chest, the belly. The hands of the medicine man were seer
instruments; they could feel the vibrations from each center and tell him in which life ran strongest or weakest.
Sometimes, the trouble was just a belly ache from uncooked food or a cold in the head.
Other times, it came "from outside," drawn by the person's own evil thoughts or from those of a Two Hearts. In this case, the medicine man
took out from his medicine pouch a small crystal about an inch and a half across, held it in the sun to get it in working order, and then looked
through it at each of the centers. In this way, he could see what caused the trouble and often the very face of the Two Hearts person who had
caused the illness.
Beck, Peggy V., Anna Lee Walters and Nia Francisco. The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College
Press. 1992.
http://www.crossingworlds.com/articles/nativehealing.html
Quotshomgnewa, Hopi:
“Take bad energy out and give it to the Creator, release your inner self. Then you regain power. Prayers, use lots of prayers. I use different
types of herbs for different problems on body points. I look inside the body using a crystal like an x-ray and see things that should not be
there.
220
http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Diamond3.htm
Herodotus (II.44) mentions a temple of Hercules at Tyre in Phoenicia with two pillars,- one of pure gold, the other of smaragdos, shining
with great brilliancy at night. Smaragdos is usually now translated as 'emerald' but a temple with a pillar of solid emerald upholding the
ceiling would be a marvel indeed; some sort of semi-precious stone such as a marble or porphyry would be closer to the mark. Pliny too has a
story of luminous smaragdos: "They say that on this island above the tomb of a petty king, Hermias, near the fisheries, there was the marble
statue of a lion, with eyes of smaragdi set in, flashing their light into the sea with such force that the tunnies were frightened away and fled,
till the fishermen, long marvelling at this unusual phenomenon, replaced the stones by others."
Lucian (De dea syria) describes a statue of the Syrian goddess in Hierapolis bearing a gem on her head called lychnis: "From this stone
flashes a great light in the night-time, so that the whole temple gleams brightly as by the light of myriads of candles, but in the daytime the
brightness grows faint; the gem has the likeness of a bright fire." The name of the jewel lychnis, according to Berthold Laufer, sprang from
the Greek lychnos "a portable lamp." Thus Pseudo-Callisthenes (II, 42) made Alexander the Great spear a fish, in whose belly was found a
white stone, so brilliantly bright that all thought it a lamp, and Alexander set it in gold and used it to light his tent at night. Indeed, a night-
shining stone.
221
Laufer, Berthold. The diamond: A study in Chinese and Hellenistic folk-lore. Field Museum of Natural History. 1915. 75 pages. ISBN:
B0000CQM5A
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http://www.mysticalsun.com/cymatics/cymatics.html
The Creative Vibration
What did Hans Jenny find in his investigations?
In the first place, Jenny produced both the Chladni figures and Lissajous figures in his experiments. He discovered also that if he
vibrated a plate at a specific frequency and amplitude - vibration - the shapes and motion patterns characteristic of that vibration appeared in
the material on the plate. If he changed the frequency or amplitude, the development and pattern were changed as well. He found that if he
increased the frequency, the complexity of the patterns increased, the number of elements became greater. If on the other hand he increased
the amplitude, the motions became all the more rapid and turbulent and could even create small eruptions, where the actual material was
thrown up in the air. The shapes, figures and patterns of motion that appeared proved to be primarily a function of frequency, amplitude, and
the inherent characteristics of the various materials. He also discovered that under certain conditions he could make the shapes change
continuously, despite his having altered neither frequency nor amplitude!
When Jenny experimented with fluids of various kinds he produced wave motions, spirals, and wave-like patterns in continuous
circulation. In his research with plant spores, he found an enormous variety and complexity, but even so, there was a unity in the shapes and
dynamic developments that arose. With the help of iron filings, mercury, viscous liquids, plastic-like substances and gases, he investigated
the three-dimensional aspects of the effect of vibration.
In his research with the tonoscope, Jenny noticed that when the vowels of the ancient languages of Hebrew and Sanskrit were
pronounced, the sand took the shape of the written symbols for these vowels, while our modern languages, on the other hand, did not
generate the same result! How is this possible? Did the ancient Hebrews and Indians know this? Is there something to the concept of "sacred
language," which both of these are sometimes called? What qualities do these "sacred languages," among which Tibetan, Egyptian and
Chinese are often numbered, possess? Do they have the power to influence and transform physical reality, to create things through their
inherent power, or, to take a concrete example, through the recitation or singing of sacred texts, to heal a person who has gone "out of tune"?
An interesting phenomenon appeared when he took a vibrating plate covered with liquid and tilted it.The liquid did not yield to
gravitational influence and run off the vibrating plate but stayed on and went on constructing new shapes as though nothing had happened.
If, however, the oscillation was then turned off, the liquid began to run, but if he was really fast and got the vibrations going again, he could
get the liquid back in place on the plate. According to Jenny, this was an example of an antigravitational effect created by vibrations.
Universality?
In the beginning of Cymatics,Hans Jenny says the following: "In the living as well as non-living parts of nature, the trained eye encounters
wide-spread evidence of periodic systems. These systems points to a continuous transformation from the one set condition to the opposite
set."(3) Jenny is saying that we see everywhere examples of vibrations, oscillations, pulses, wave motions, pendulum motions, rhythmic
courses of events, serial sequences, and their effects and actions. Throughout the book Jenny emphasises his conception that these
phenomena and processes not be taken merely as subjects for mental analysis and theorizing. Only by trying to "enter into"phenomena
through empirical and systematic investigation can we create mental structures capably of casting light on ultimate reality. He asks that we
not "mix ourselves in with the phenomenon"but rather pay attention to it and allow it to lead us to the inherent and essential. He means that
even the purest philosophical theory is nevertheless incapable of grasping the true existence and reality of it in full measure.
What Hans Jenny pointed out is the resemblance between the shapes and patterns we see around us in physical reality and the shapes and
patterns he generated in his investgations. Jenny was convinced that biological evolution was a result of vibrations, and that their nature
determined the ultimate outcome. He speculated that every cell had its own frequency and that a number of cells with the same frequency
created a new frequency which was in harmony with the original, which in its turn possibly formed an organ that also created a new
frequency in harmony with the two preceding ones. Jenny was saying that the key to understanding how we can heal the body with the help
of tones lies in our understanding of how different frequencies influence genes, cells and various structures in the body. He also suggested
that through the study of the human ear and larynx we would be able to come to a deeper understanding of the ultimate cause of vibrations.
Trinity
In the closing chapter of the book Cymatics,Jenny sums up these phenomena in a three-part unity. The fundamental and generative power is
in the vibration which, with its periodicity, sustains phenomena with its two poles. At one pole we have form, the figurative pattern. At the
other is motion, the dynamic process. These three fields - vibration and periodicity as the ground field, and form and motion as the two poles
- constitute an indivisible whole, Jenny says, even though one can dominate sometimes. Does this trinity have something within science that
corresponds? Yes, according to John Beaulieu, American polarity and music therapist. In his book Music and Sound in the Healing Arts,he
draws a comparison between his own three-part structure, which in many respects resembles Jenny´s, and the conclusions researchers
working with subatomic particles have reached. "There is a similarity between cymatic pictures and quantum particles. In both cases that
which appeares to be a solid form is also a wave. They are both created and simultaneously organized by the principle of pulse
(Read:principle of vibration). This is the great mystery with sound: there is no solidity! A form that appears solid is actually created by a
underlying vibration."(4) In an attempt to explain the unity in this dualism between wave and form, physics developed the quantum field
theory, in which the quantum field, or in our terminology, the vibration, is understood as the one true reality, and the particle or form, and
the wave or motion, are only two polar manifestations of the one reality, vibration, says Beaulieu.
In conclusion, I would like to cite Cathie E. Guzetta´s poetic contemplation of where the investigation of the relationship between sound
and the arising of various life forms might lead us in the future: "The forms of snowflakes and faces of flowers may take on their shape
because they are responding to some sound in nature. Likewise, it is possible that crystals, plants, and human beings may be, in some way,
music that has taken on visible form."(5)
Disclaimer! The quotes from Hans Jenny´s book Cymaticsis not exactly as they appear in the book. The reason for this is that the author of
the article doesn´t have access to the book in question for the moment, but he´s working on it. Although the overall spirit and meaning of the
quotes is accurate
the responsibility lies totaly on the author.
Footnotes:
1. Klein, Cecilia F.: "Woven Heaven, Tangled Earth: A Weaver´s Paradigm of the Mesoamerican Cosmos", in Ethnoastronomy and
Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics, Ed. by Anthony P. Aveni and Gary Urton, Annals of the Academy of Science, Vol. 385, New York,
1982, p. 15
2. McClellan, Randall: The Healing Forces of Music: History, Theory and Practice, Element, Inc., 1991, p. 50
3. Jenny, Hans: Kymatik: Wellen und Schwingungen mit ihrer Struktur und Dynamik/Cymatics: The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and
Vibrations, Basilius Press, 1967, p. 10
4. Beaulieu, John: Music and Sound in the Healing Arts, Station Hill Press, 1987, p. 40
5. Guzzetta, Cathie E.: Music Therapy: Nursing the Music of the Soul, in Music: Physician for the Times to Come, Campbell, Don (Editor),
Quest Books, 1991, p. 149
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060116-1147107,00.html
http://www.rmlearning.com/MusicInClassroom.htm
…music of a certain frequency…orchestral Mozart (Mozart's piano concerto's did not work). The response…was dramatic…pupils became
calm and cooperative within minutes...Savan's notes from lesson 1 report, "No one spoke, quarreled, asked to borrow anything, wanted to go
to the toilet for the whole lesson. I have not had such a relaxed lesson ever."
…subsequent research [indicates] the music relaxed pupils enough to improve physical coordination and lower frustration levels [helping] to
perform manual tasks effectively and efficiently.
http://www.mozarteffect.com/OnlineStore/MERCProductd.php?d=0791
"Paul Madaule's new book may fundamentally change our understanding of the workings of the human ear in both disease and health. For
parents with children who suffer of learning disabilities as well as for adults who want to increase their communication skills, this book will
prove immensely helpful.”
http://www.ciis.edu/publicprograms/sound/whystudysound.html
Since time immemorial, every spiritual tradition of the world has used sound for healing. Sound is an integral part of the healing power of
shamanic practices, and is used extensively today in scientific research, as well as in integrative medicine and as a tool in pain management.
Sound supports the process of transforming energy patterns, reveals measurable effects in the physical body, and facilitates the connection
between mind-body-spirit. The singing voice, for example, as a fabric of breath, vibration, and emotion, can affect the body and mind more
efficiently than any other form of sound. Vocal sounds are a primary source of energy, balancing and stimulating the brain. Indeed, certain
sounds are considered a tonic for the brain, and they are used frequently in the treatment of chronic depression and pain.
http://tkdtutor.com/06Theory/Techniques/Kiai.htm
Samurai warriors were renowned for their powerful kiai in battle—a startling war cry that was said to paralyze opponents with fear. A warrior
who could summon a powerful kiai would rarely be viewed as weak or tired by his opponents. Unfortunately, most people think of the
whining howl used by Bruce Lee or other movie martial arts is the sound that all martial artists make. Actually, the grunt or puff sound used
by boxers is closer to a kiai than most movie martial arts yells.
http://members.aol.com/koshinage/terms/K.HTM
When the Ki-ai is uttered by a martial artist, the vibration of the sound may momentarily paralyse the opponent's functioning and render him
or her more susceptible to an attack.
http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=158
In his book "The Fighting Arts of Japan," E. J. Harrison tells the story of Yagyu Matajuro, the son of a well known sword master and tutor to
the Shoguns…Matajuro looked into the garden and saw a few sparrows perched on a branch of a pine tree. Fixing his gaze on them he uttered
his kiai (shout) and the birds fell to the ground senseless.When Matajuro removed his attention from the birds they soon regained
consciousness and flew away…Harrison notes that this feat was known in Japanese sword schools as "toate-no-jutsu," or "the art of striking
from a distance."…In the past the art of kiai, or kiai jutsu, was a highly esoteric and secret discipline often taught to professional warriors, or
senior students of martial arts.
223
Baring, Anne and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. Viking Arkana: London, England. 1991.
224
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_amazon/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_amazon/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_amazon/interview.html
Interview with Jeanine Davis-Kimball
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_amazon/resources.html
Amazons -- warrior women or ancient myth?
http://tx.essortment.com/amazonswarrior_ryci.htm
Did Amazon warrior women, the Antiope and Hippolyte, belong to an extinct matriarchal warrior society? Or were they simply fictional
characters depicted in ancient Greek mythology?
Who were the Amazons?
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/amazons/amazonwho.html
What is known of the actual Amazons within the Aegean is very little, and yet intrigue about a race of dominant warrior women in the bronze
age has flourished from ancient times into the present.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/amazons/amazonarchaeology.html
Amazon archaeology
http://www.myrine.at/Amazons
Excellent resource on the history of the Amazons. Is there more behind these famous warrior women than mere fantasy? Join in a virtual
archaeological expedition to fathom this mysterious myth.
Homer's THE ILIAD
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html
The Trojan War
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/troyilium/a/trojanwar.htm
A sequence of major events in the Trojan War.
The Trojan War: The Judgement of Paris
http://www.royalty.nu/legends/Troy.html
According to legend, the chain of events that led to the Trojan War started at a royal wedding.