Thursday, 28 May 2020

The Crane


The crane has long been a sacred bird across Europe and the Middle East. In the ancient town of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, which was occupied as early as 7400BC, cranes were among the wild creatures portrayed in murals in the houses. A crane’s wing which probably formed part of a ritual costume was also found during the excavations. Is this an indication of the antiquity of the Crane Dance, supposedly invented by the hero Theseus in Classical times? According to legend, Theseus invented the dance to honour Apollo, a Greek God with shamanic connections, to celebrate his defeat of the bull-headed Minotaur. Huge horned cattle, wild and dangerous and still a long way from domestication, were a predominant part of Çatalhöyük‘s ritual and culture.


A reconstruction of Çatalhöyük’s murals, depicting a pair of dancing cranes.


An elaborate, costumed crane dance was also documented among the Ostiak shamans of Siberia in the 18th century. Some of the reliefs carved into the stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey also likely represent cranes, and compellingly, their legs appear to be more human than bird-like. They may in fact represent a shaman in crane-guise. Further links between the crane and shamanism come from the myths of Celtic Britain and Scandinavia, where shamans and Gods often possessed a craneskin bag which had various magical and ritualistic attributes.


Dancing cranes. Wikicommons.



The importance of the crane may derive from their renowned propensity to dance. This is often linked to courtship but entire groups of cranes can join in an elaborate, circular dance which would have been spectacular to watch and may have emulated by the human observers.

They also migrate in huge flocks, spending the winter in southern Europe and the Middle East before moving to northern climes to breed. This migration, linked to the twin balance points of the spring and autumn equinoxes, is key to their importance in Broken Skies.

Another characteristic of the crane is their migrating flight path, up to 10,000 metres above earth. The crane is the highest-flying bird known, and people on the ground watching the flocks flying higher and higher until they vanished from view would have believed them to fly as high as the stars. This is why I believe the sacred Benu-bird, which as I’ve discussed before was linked to the dawn of creation and the axis around which creation revolves, was originally a crane, and their unique journey to the stars is the reason for their ancient reverence.


Jozefzu, Wikicommons.

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