Sokar

Sokar is one of the most enigmatic entities of Egyptian myth. Sokar was a falcon-headed God of the dead in later Egyptian dynasties, and is believed one of the oldest Egyptian Gods. He was associated with the vast necropolis of Giza, whose first funerary monuments predate the pyramids by many centuries, and was invoked during funerary rites.

Sokar is linked to bja or meteoric iron, which was in pre-metal eras a magical and devastating entity which brought great gift and great destruction in equal measure. It was also linked to the Bennu bird who instigated creation.

Sokar was invoked during funerary rites when the deceased must successfully navigate various regions of the Duat or underworld in order to reach eternal life. The realm of Sokar is a place which snatched away the soul, a place of silence, a gate-keeper in darkness, as black as night. Even the Sun God Ra, on his nightly journey through the underworld, could not enter the realm of Sokar. A place to be avoided at all costs, even by the Gods.

Sokar as a God of the dead.

 Many beliefs of Middle Eastern civilisations developed from older cultures and traditions, and the origins of Egyptian lore can be traced through the older cultures of Sumer and Iraq to the people of Göbekli Tepe, who flourished 8000 years before the dawn of Egyptian civilisation. There is no evidence that the stories of Sokar originate in this period, but it is plausible. Sokar’s existence is ancient and Egyptian lore itself states that Sokar was linked to the First Time, the mythical Golden Age period when the Gods brought civilisation to earth and has been linked to Göbekli Tepe.

Sokar is the realm whose corruptive influence spreads through the entire land of Kur-Gal in Broken Skies. It was the balance to the realm of creation, in a world where everything, no matter how devastating, was a necessary part of existence. This influence is channelled by a fallen star or meteorite, whose link to Sokar was known in Egyptian lore.

As to its physical location in the sky, I have linked it to the Pleiades star group, whose inconspicuousness in no way equals its singular importance in star lore worldwide. This will be the subject of next week’s post.

The Pleiades. Juan lacruz, Wikicommons.

Absu: Heart of Creation

Modern science tells us that the universe was created from a single focal point during the Big Bang, and even after expanding for infinite time and space, that primal essence still links between everything in existence: the enigmatic concept of String Theory, which forms uncanny bridges between astrophysics and the supernatural.

Ancient mysticism from diverse cultures also states a similar point of creation. To the Sumerians, who flourished in the Middle East 5000 years ago and whose cultural ancestry dates back to the time of Göbekli Tepe and the dawn of civilisation, around 10,000BCE, this was known as Absu or Apsu, the primal sea from which the Earth rose and all springs and rivers ultimately source. From this derives our word ‘absolute’, and also ‘abyss’, meaning a vast and unknowable chasm which is feared and avoided, except by those who have the wisdom and skill to enter and understand it. It is sometimes linked to the Pole Star, the axis around which the heavens pivot.

Hittite illustration of Gilgamesh

The hero Gilgamesh descended into Absu during his quest for immortality, but his gift was stolen from him by a snake as he returned. His wisdom proved ultimately lacking, perhaps because immortality for a human would prove a curse rather than a gift.

In Broken Skies, Absu is the source of all existence and all life, where spirits return after life and descend after birth, and for those who have the gifts to access it, it offers glimpses of all places and all times, and the opportunity to rearrange the weave of the threads of existence extending from it. Just as modern String Theory states.

Like all things in existence, Absu has its opposite. The realm of Sokar, a place of destruction and anti-creation, will be the subject of next week’s post.

Wolfstone: Obsidian

Obsidian spearheads with finely worked serrated edges, found at Göbekli Tepe.

Obsidian is a volcanic glass, usually black but occasionally a range of colours, which can be knapped like flint into blades and other tools of surgical sharpness. In the later prehistoric Middle East, it was also polished into mirrors and elaborate jewellery and even today it has near mythical associations.

Obsidian is found in mountainous regions of volcanic origin, and only a few sources are useable for craftwork. In the Middle East, these are focused around Bingöl and Lake Van in eastern Turkey and in Armenia. These are precisely the same regions linked to the paradisiacal land of Eden or Dilmun, home of the advanced people known variously as the Anunnaki, the Irin and the Peri.

Mountainside obsidian deposit. James St John, Wikicommons.

Obsidian from Bingöl and nearby areas was traded across the Taurus Mountains as far as Iraq and the Levant, a remarkable distance of up to 1000km, from as early as 14,000BC. This predates the earliest known dates for Göbekli Tepe by over 4000 years, indicating that an advanced and long-distance social network existed long before any known established civilisation, and long before the Younger Dryas or Thousand Year Winter which near devastated global populations. Following this cold period, obsidian trade increased and continued into the historic period.

At sites such as Göbekli Tepe, dating to 9600BC and associated with the dawn of civilisation, obsidian formed a small percentage of the tools used, and its acquisition was strictly controlled by and for a select few. Only those deemed worthy could possess it.

The Bingöl Mountains. Izzettin Ekinci, Wikicommons

Interestingly, the obsidian trade routes precisely mirror the spread of domesticated cereal plants across the Middle East from their origin in south-eastern Turkey, and indicates that the people who controlled the obsidian trade were also the first to develop agriculture. And these routes also mirror the locations of the legends of an advanced people who long ago educated and subjugated humankind.

Folklore in Turkey and Armenia also refers to the obsidian mountains. In eastern Turkey, once part of Armenia, a region of mountains was known as Gaylaxaz-ut, meaning ‘abounding in wolf’s stone’. ‘Wolf’s stone’ can refer to both flint and obsidian, but only obsidian is sourced in this region.

In Armenian tradition the Wolf Stone Mountains, revered for thousands of years, were linked with powerful people known in modern Christian lore as the ‘servants of Satan’ who were linked with wolves and snakes. Were these the powerful people who once controlled the obsidian trade across the Middle East, who inspired the legends of the Peri and other superhuman people?

This is the basis for the Anunnaki in Broken Skies, who live among the mountains of Dilmun and are known as the Wolf People who terrorise the clanspeople living on the plains.

Mingöl: Mountains of Heaven

Izzettin Ekinci, Wikicommons

The Bingöl Mountains are a vast and largely impregnable range of mountains in eastern Turkey, in what was once part of Armenia. The area has long been revered as sacred and both folklore and archaeology have revealed its importance in the dawn of Middle Eastern civilisation.

Bingöl translates as the Turkish for ‘Land of a Thousand Lakes’, referring to the countless springs which form on the mountain slopes which feed pools and streams which eventually become some of the great rivers across Turkey and the Middle East, including the Tigris and Euphrates. In both a practical and a spiritual sense, the mountains were the source of life for the region.

The area has been ruled by many cultures over the past five thousand years, including the Hittites, Persians, Romans and Byzantines and its name has changed many times, but all reflect the same meaning. The Persian name of Mingöl translates as ‘heavenly waters’. In Classical times it was known as Abus Mons, or ‘Father Mountain’, and in Armenian tradition it is considered the Mountain of Life, akin to the World Mountain or cosmic axis in many mountainous cultures. The more recent historical name of Çapakҫur, meaning ‘River of Heaven’, is said to have been given by Alexander the Great. He made a long journey to drink the healing waters after suffering a long and incurable illness, and was miraculously cured, although he didn’t quite gain the immortality he had been hoping for.

The Bingöl region in Kurdish folklore is associated with the Peri, a race of beautiful, pale-skinned, superhuman entities whose stories are widespread across Turkey, and were probably once linked to the ancient Gods of the region, although local belief states that unlike other beings in myth, the Peri were genuine living people. The legends of the Peri formed the basis for the Irin and the Anunnaki in Broken Skies, and Mingöl is the home of the spirit-walkers, who live in the inhospitable mountains and are feared even by the most powerful people on the plains.

As I’ve said in Broken Skies, mountains have long been linked to spiritual ordeals and spiritual gain. The trainee lamas of Tibet, for example, were once taken to a snow-bound mountain and wrapped in a soaking wet sheet. They weren’t allowed to move until they had dried it using only their body heat, staving off hypothermia using will alone. The enforced physical and mental hardship of constant cold, danger, altitude sickness and lack of oxygen is said to force the body and mind into new ways of existence, the reason for the spiritual gifts the holy people of both ancient and modern times.

An old monastery near Bingöl.

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 18^th 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.

The Cedar and the World Tree

The World Tree, and its counterpart the Holy Mountain in mountainous regions such as India, forms the axis of existence around which all worlds are fixed. It is the source of life and death, the source of wisdom and prophecy and the indelible record of all things that have ever been. Shamans, deities and seers commonly acquire their gifts from the World Tree after great sacrifice. The Scandinavian God Odin spent nine days hanging on Yggdrasil and sacrificed an eye in return for his prophetic gifts. The God Tir endured similar sacrifice. According to esoteric legend, the cross on which Jesus was sacrificed was made from the trunk of the Tree of Life in Eden.

The celestial counterpart of the World Tree is the Milky Way, which flows across the night sky from the stars of Scorpio to the stars of Cygnus, now portrayed as a swan but once a vulture, and the former Pole Star Deneb. It is no accident that the original T-shaped ‘Tau’ Cross of Middle Eastern mysticism mirrors the four stars of the Sky Vulture.

The Tiwaz (Tir) rune, representing the God Tir who was hanged on the World Tree.

 A Methodist stained glass window. Chris Light, Wikicommons.

Just like the Milky Way, the World Tree is commonly topped by a bird: an eagle in Norse myth; the zu-bird in ancient Sumer (modern Iraq); a macaw in Mayan myth. Around its base is coiled a serpent or dragon, occasionally a scorpion. Representations include the Norse Nidhogg, the serpent coiled around the Biblical Tree of Knowledge, and the Vedic Naga-serpent Vasuki who was coiled around Mount Mandara. Scorpio was once depicted as a serpent in many cosmologies.

A replica of a totem pole, itself a representation of the World Tree, in Ketchikan, Alaska. W. Knight, Wikicommons.

The World Tree has been linked to many different species. Yggdrasil in Scandinavian lore is commonly described as an ash, known for its longevity and its ability to reshoot even when it is felled or toppled. It has been suggested that Yggdrasil was originally a yew, an evergreen and near-immortal tree whose boughs, leaves and berries are deadly poisonous.

In Middle Eastern countries, the cedar was likely the sacred tree, as seen in the 4000-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh. The cedar grows to immense heights, is evergreen – universally seen as a symbol of eternal life – and the prolific resin found in its cones has long been used for healing, purifying and magical purposes. It also has mild psychoactive effects, as I have described in Broken Skies. Cedar forests were probably once common across the Middle East although by the recorded historical period they were largely limited only to Lebanon, whose flag depicts a cedar.

In Broken Skies, the cedar represents the earthly counterpart of the celestial axis and is used in all shamanic rites, and it is also where the dead are left for the vultures to devour and guide their spirits back to the All.

Drifting Stars: The End of the Golden Age

The Golden Age, Pietro da Cortona. Wikicommons.

Legends from cultures as diverse as the Greeks, Aztecs and Tibetans talk of a one-time Golden Age where the world was in perfect and blissful harmony. Thanks to cosmic or human agency, this came to an end and the world was condemned to strife and hardship, but with the hope that at some time in the distant future, the Golden Age could be restored. Adam and Eve’s eviction from the Garden of Eden is one of the most well-known variants.

                        The Garden of Eden

Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, in their epic book Hamlet’s Mill, have analysed these worldwide myths and linked them to a phenomenon called Precession of the Equinoxes. This is caused by a wobble in the earth’s axis, whereby it drifts in a 26,000-year cycle. From Earth we see this as a slow drift in the location of the Pole Star and also as a shift in the Zodiacal constellation housing the sun during any particular month. A vast number of myths, sacred buildings and cultural practices worldwide have been linked to the monitoring of and the attempt to control this drift.

The Egyptian Sphinx, believed to align to the rising of the constellation Leo, the lion, in its celestial position of c10,000BC.

Many of the myths are linked to a celestial mill, linked to the Milky Way and the cosmic axis, which ground out good fortune during the Golden Age but subsequently broke or became corrupted and ground out only hardship as linked to the present world. This links to the drift of the star Deneb, the ‘true’ pole star, from its axis as discussed last week and which forms the background to the story told in Broken Skies.

Churning the Milky Ocean, from a Vedic (Hindu) epic.

This drift would cause little effect on Earth. It was not suddenly wrenched from its true balance as the stories suggest, but simply drifts in its natural cycle just as it rotates and orbits the sun. But disorder in the heavens was linked to disorder on Earth: as above, as below.

And the stories do contain a grain of truth. Soon after the shift of Deneb (Benu in Broken Skies) from true, a vast comet is known to have smashed into Earth, causing vast floods, fires and toxic fallout which plunged the Earth back into the Ice Age, caused countless extinctions and left humans worldwide fighting for their survival. Just as the stories told.