Copper: The First Metal

Copper, like many aspects of modern civilisation, originated in the Middle East. The earliest known copper items, including needles, hooks and jewellery, date to around 8800BC and were discovered at Çayönü, a settlement around 50 miles from the temple site of Göbekli Tepe and dating in its earliest form to around 10,000BC.

The workable properties of copper, known as firestone in Broken Skies, were discovered by the Anunnaki and its magical properties are a key part of the story.

The copper was found in natural seams which could be worked directly, and was hammered into shape without heat. Later came the use of malachite (copper ore) which was heated and smelted and could be poured into moulds to create a variety of objects. The start of the Copper Age or Chalcolithic Period is dated to around 6000BC in the Middle East, when copper became widely used, and the technology rapidly spread across Europe and the East. The mixing of copper and tin to make the far superior bronze soon began to change the world beyond recognition.

Copper ore (malachite). Rob Lavinsky, Wikicommons,

The first appearance of metal objects, entirely unprecedented in the ancient world, was likely greeted with wonder and reverence for the people producing or owning them. Metal soon became a statement of wealth and power, and then came a new social order based on a few individuals, typically men, who controlled land, people and wealth. This was reinforced by the greater possibilities of metal: swords, daggers, shields, armour, and of course money. The vicious circle – wealth leads to danger and greed and fear, so the wealthy amass more wealth and armies and slaughter their rivals for fear of attack, while the poor grow poorer and become little more than pawns – is one which still governs our world today.

This will be a theme in the next book of the Ouroboros series.

Some of the Hittite-period jewellery and ornaments, found in Turkey dating to c1500BC.

Meteors: Faith and Fear

Comet Hale-Bopp (Philipp Salzgeber, Wikicommons).

Around 12,000 years ago, a huge comet smashed into Earth. The ensuing explosion, triggering infernos, tidal waves, pollution, toxic rain and darkness caused the extinctions of dozens of species and near wiped out humankind in large parts of the world. I’ve talked about this in detail in an earlier post.

Legends of this cataclysm have been handed down from our remote ancestors and are still told across the world today. And across the world, comets are still seen as a terrible omen. This may simply be because they are an anomaly in the perfectly predictable cycles of the skies. Or it may be a deeply buried race memory of the time when humankind nearly died.

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh describes fire and flood caused by a comet. In Mongolian lore, comets are the daughters of the devil and trigger destruction and storms. A comet was blamed for the Black Death in Medieval England and for the bloodshed between Caesar and Pompey in ancient Rome.

Meteorite fragment found in Russia. Svend Buhl / Meteorite Recon, Wikicommons.

The ancient sky-watchers would not have been able to distinguish between meteors, comets and other celestial phenomena as modern astronomers do, and all were considered moving or falling stars. Meteors often survive their impact with earth and have been revered objects for millennia. Their exceptional weight for their size, their reflective surface and their unique nature all added to their mythical status. 

Iron meteors were incorporated into Native American shrines. The Black Stone of Mecca, revered since pre-Islamic times, is probably of meteoric origin. A meteor was placed in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A large meteorite was incorporated into a Neolithic or Bronze Age burial mound in Wiltshire in southern England. The first iron used by ancient people was of meteoric origin and the previously unknown characteristics of metal would have added another dimension to the magical nature of meteors.

And this may have entirely originated with that ancient star fall, 12,000 years ago. This is the line I’ve taken in Broken Skies.

The Pleiades

The Pleiades is one of the smallest, enigmatic and myth-laden star groups. The tiny cluster of inconspicuous stars is nominally a part of the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, and can be found by following westwards the line of the three stars of Orion’s Belt in a link popularly emphasised in myth.

The Pleiades were seven maidens in Greek myth, turned into stars to save them from the giant Orion, who still chases them through the sky today. In other cosmologies as far afield as the Native Australians and the Native Americans of Florida, they are interestingly also seen as seven maidens.

The sky as seen in North American lore. The Pleiades are represented in the top right, along with the sun, the moon, and the stars of Ursa Major.

The Pleiades in fact contain six stars clearly visible to the naked eye. This suggests the possibility that one star has reached its natural death and vanished from the star group. Greek legend states that the maiden Electra, the seventh star, turned her face from the sky in shame after witnessing the destruction of Troy.

The stars’ importance in myth reflects into the ritual world. Many sacred buildings including the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico, the pyramids of Abusir in Egypt, the stones of Callanais in the Outer Hebrides, and the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia have claimed alignments to the Pleiades, although this is perhaps dubious and can be explained as finding what one is looking for. The cave paintings of Lascaux, dating to 15,000BC, include likely representations of the sky-bull (Taurus) and the Pleiades, showing that the stars’ importance far predates civilisation as we define it today.

Taurus and the Pleiades in Lascaux.

The Pleiades are linked to a dark realm in many sky-lores. Their arrangement, very similar to the stars of Ursa Major or The Plough which circles or ‘guards’ the Pole Star, has led to their equation with the counterbalance or opposite of these stars. The Pleiades is likely the location of Sokar, the dark realm and nemesis of creation discussed last week, which is at the heart of the story of Broken Skies.

The Pleiades also link to the legends of a falling star which near destroyed Earth 12,000 years ago. A myth from Suriname in South America describes a fiery serpent from the Pleaides which destroyed the earth with fire and flood. In Egyptian lore, the Pleiades was the foreleg of the bull Taurus, which had been torn from its body and caused devastation on Earth before being chained in the skies in its present location to stop it running amok again. This story may have its origin in the ancient Sumerian story of Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven.

Some Egyptian reliefs of the chained bull and the bull’s leg.

In Broken Skies, it was a star falling from Sokar which caused the Thousand Year Winter. Modern astronomy now tells us that stars and the celestial objects which impact with Earth are entirely different entities, something the ancients didn’t understand, although the Pleiad Electra, incidentally, is said to occasionally appear in the form of a comet.

Perhaps the approaching comet or flaming meteor seemed to come from this region of the sky. Perhaps the missing seventh star imploded and vanished at this coincidently key time. Perhaps, as researcher Walter Cruttenden has suggested in Lost Star of Myth and Time, there is an as-yet undiscovered dark star, the binary pair of the sun, which periodically approaches the solar system from the direction of the Pleiades with the expected consequential upheaval.

We are due its return. Perhaps we will soon find out.

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.