Ancient Greek mythological elements engraved on Chinese princess' stone grave

Chinese archaeologists have found new evidence of international cultural exchange on the ancient Silk Road.

Four European-looking warriors and lion-like beasts are engraved on an empress’s 1,200-year-old stone coffin that was unearthed in Shaanxi Province, in northwestern China.

The warriors on the four reliefs had deep-set eyes, curly hair and over-sized noses — physical characteristics Chinese typically associate with Europeans.

The 27-tonne Tang Dynasty (618-907) sarcophagus contained empress Wu Huifei (699-737), Ge Chengyong, a noted expert on Silk Road studies, said Tuesday.

Ge said one of the warriors was very much like Zeus, the “father of gods and men” in Greek mythology.

The coffin was also engraved with deer, tigers and goats.

“It’s noteworthy that goats signify tragedy in Greek mythology. The word ‘tragedy’ itself means ‘song of the man-goat singer’,” he said.

He said the tragic element coincides with the empress’s unhappy life: several of her children died young and she herself lived constantly in fear.

Ge said the exotic sarcophagus is rare for China, where ancient coffins almost always had Buddhist-themed reliefs and murals depicting harmony, happiness and peace.

The elements of Greek mythology on Empress Wu Huifei’s coffin suggest cross-cultural exchange was common in Chang’an, capital of the Tang Dynasty, located in today’s Xi’an, he said. “There could have even been clergymen from Western countries serving in the Tang imperial court.”

Wu Huifei was Emperor Xuanzong’s favorite concubine and was posthumously known as Empress Zhenshun, meaning “the virtuous and serene empress.”

Her sarcophagus – 4 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2 meters high – was stolen from her tomb in the southern suburbs of Xi’an in 2006.

Police said it was then smuggled out of China and sold to a businessman in the United States for 1 million U.S. dollars.

It returned to China in April and has been housed at the Shaanxi History Museum from June.

source:http://www.medievalarchives.com/

The Cataclysm in the Greek mythology and the truth that it conveys.

Most of the ancient nations and mainly those of the middle East  have incorporated in their mythologies an account about a  global cataclysm.From the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh to the Hindu puranic texts we see a common theme that suggests perhaps a historical reality of catastrophic regional floods which the people connected with divine rage or retribution.

The most famous of these stories is the Old testament story of Noah which i am sure most of the people know as all the three Abrahamic religions acknowledge it. In this post though, i am going to focus on the Greek myth about the cataclysm.

In all these cataclysmic stories there is a hero who is being favoured by the gods and survives in order to make a new start.The protagonists of the  Greek story are Deucalion and Pyrra who according to the myths later became the parents of Hellen(Greek). In some way we can say that Deucalion and Pyrra were cousins as their ancestors were the brothers Epimetheas and Prometheus with the latter being more known from the story where he stole the fire from the gods giving it to humanity and as a consequence he was punished to be bound eternally.

Deucalion and Pyrrha throwing stones behind them according to Zeus' orders.

In most of these stories the cataclysm is incited by the gods in order to punish humanity. In the Greek version Zeus the king of the gods was upset because during the time that Deucalion and Pyrra lived(according to those who tried to estimate the time it was near 1796 BC), everyone was disrespectful towards the gods.Thus one day it started raining unstoppably and the whole world was covered by water except some mountain peaks.

In the story of Noah we know that god ordered him to build an ark. In the Greek version we have Prometheus who was Titan consulting his son Deucalion to build an ark for him and his wife. Deucalion's ark wandered around the seas for only 9 days until he disembarked on the peak of mount Parnassus.While in Noah's story God doesn't interfere anymore after the beginning of the new life of Noah and his family in Deucalion's story Zeus send Hermes to ask whether Deucalion had any wish to make.Deucalion wanted more people cause he was feeling alone in the world.Then Zeus ordered Deucalion and Pyrra to start walking forward and throw stones behind them.The stones behind Pyrra became women and those behind Deucalion became men.

In the book "Noah's Cataclysm" the two geologists and authors of the book Walter Pitman and William Ryan supported a theory that the Cataclysm stories derive from a real massive flood in the Black sea.In 1999 Bob Ballard the person who discovered the wreck of Titanic explored the coastal areas of the Black sea and he ended up with the same conclusion that Pitman and Ryan made.

The Black sea was a lake before the alleged cataclysm.

According to the theory until before 7.500 years ago the Black sea was a lake. This is based on the discovery of shells that grew only in lakes and the geological analysis that showed an abrupt change in the geomorphology of the region that was caused by a huge event.According to Pitman and Ryan 12.000 years ago the ices started to melt and the sea levels started to become higher and higher ,this caused the sea of Marmara to put pressure and break the natural dam of Bosporus flooding the lake with sea water.

It was the Sumerians

Some theories suggest that the story of the flood of Noah is loaned from the Sumerian flood story. Therefore the Greek legend due to its similarity with the other stories was also taken from the East.Continuing with these theories it is suggested that the initial homelands of the Sumerians were around the pre cataclysmic Black sea. We don't know if the cataclysm was so abrupt and catastrophic as it is mentioned in most of the stories but it's sure that many people survived and went south towards Mesopotamia where they created the first urban civilization in history.

The Aegiis question

The Greek flood myth wasn't only one. There were two more floods that caused migrations of alledgedly pre-Greek populations. Plato states in Timaeus and Critias:

"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left."

As we see Plato mentions only islands remaining after a great flood that occured 9.000 years before his time.This may be another one of his "Atlantis" myths but it may also be based on historical reality.So here we come in a separate cataclysmic event from the Black sea. This flood occured somewhere between 12.000 and 11.500 BC a proximate date to the one that Plato suggests and was cause by the melting of the ice and the rise of the sea level.

the eastern mediterranean in 12.000 BCE. Notice the Aegean islands being connected in one and the Marmara and Black sea being lakes.

The flood of Dardanus

Dardanus was a mythical person who descended from the present day Arcadia in Greece. According to the myth he migrated with his family and settled in the north western Aegean. After a great flood only himself and his family survived by staying on a piece of land that would later be known as the island of Samothrace.

Samothrace on the top left was connected to the mainland according to the Dardanus myth.

My conclusion is that the theme of a universal flood exists only as an exaggeration by the storytellers. The historical evidence shows that indeed there were a series of regional floods in really distant times where writting was not still invented and all the populations were religiously biased.This resulted the creation of stories that included divine wrath and because they mentioned divine wrath it should be something big and intimidating in the fantasy of the listener. 

sources:

http://users.cwnet.com/millenia/Sumer-origins.htm
wikipedia
Paparigopoulos Istoria tou Ellinikou ethnous

hypnos: The god of sleeping

Hypnos and Thanatos the twin brothers

"Και γαρ τ' όναρ εκ Διός εστίν""But come, let us ask some seer or priest, or some reader of dreams—for a dream too is from Zeus"Homer,Iliad,A 63  

The God Hypnos(Sleep) ,according to the ancient Greeks was the twin brother of Thanatos(Death), the son of the Goddess Nychta(night) and Herebos.They imagined him as young, handsome with wings on his shoulders, making tired people fall asleep by sprinkling them with a branch drenched with oblivion or by watering them with a horn full of hypnotic essences.
Hypnos was really powerful.He was able to make all the people fall asleep and the gods too. He once made  Zeus the king of the gods to fall asleep after urges by Hera who wanted to intervene in the Trojan war.According to the story Hera visited the Greek island of Lemnos where Hypnos dwelled and pronounced him Archon(lord) of Gods and mortals in order to persuade him .Hypnos was doubtful about dealing with Zeus but finally he was persuaded by an offering to marry one of the three Charites(Graces), particularly Pasithei with whom he had fallen in love. Pasithei symbolized relaxation and rest, that's why she was desired by Hypnos.The plan went well for Hera.While she was seducing Zeus, hypnos appeared transformed as a bird and hypnotized him.

In Iliad (book 14,224-291)

There she met Sleep, the brother of Death; and she clasped him by the hand, and spake and addressed him: “Sleep, lord of all gods and of all men, if ever thou didst hearken to word of mine, so do thou even now obey, [235] and I will owe thee thanks all my days. Lull me to sleep the bright eyes of Zeus beneath his brows, so soon as I shall have lain me by his side in love. And gifts will I give thee, a fair throne, ever imperishable, wrought of gold, that Hephaestus, mine own son, [240] the god of the two strong arms, shall fashion thee with skill, and beneath it shall he set a foot-stool for the feet, whereon thou mayest rest thy shining feet when thou quaffest thy wine.”

Hypnos

Hypnos and Pasithei had children that were called Oneiroi(Dreams). The oneiroi were four brothers: Morpheus, Ikelus, Phobetor and Fantasus. The Oneiroi lived at the shores of the ocean(the ancient greeks believed that there was a single ocean surrounding the world). The Oneiroi were sending dreams to the mortals  via two gates. The one gate was made by Keratos and through it they were sending real dreams as warnings for real life conditions while through the second gate which was made of ivory they were sending fake dreams.

In Homer's Odyssey Penelope  says: (Τ 559-566 )

 “Stranger, dreams verily are baffling and unclear of meaning, and in no wise do they find fulfillment in all things for men. For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them .

Selene persuaded Zeus to make Endymion stay eternally young. So Zeus ordered hypnos to put Endymion in eternal sleep.

Hypnos features also in the story of Endymion. Endymion was sentenced by Zeus to eternal sleep and received the power to sleep with his eyes open. He was granted this trait by Hypnos in order to be able to constantly watch his beloved Selene(moon), according to the poet, Licymnius of Chios.

Morpheus 

Morpheus: The name derives from the word Morphe(shape). His ability was to appear in dreams with any human shape.He was the only god who could intervene in dreams of kings and heroes and the only one who conveyed messages of gods to mortals through dreams.

Phobetor:His name derives from the word phobos(fear). He was the personification of nightmare and he could take the shape of monsters and scary animals.

Fantasus:His name derives from the word fantasia(Fantasy). He produced unexplainable and abstract dreams. He was the personification of fantasy and could take no living form.

Ikelus: He was adjusting the parts of dreams that depicted reality to make them more realistic

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Lucian: The ancient Greek Steven Spielberg

A Syrian-Greek writer responsible for the first fictional accounts of extraterrestrial life. Lucian, whose parents had hoped he might become a sculptor, made a fortune by traveling around Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and other lands giving entertaining speeches, before settling down in Athens to study philosophy. This was a time – the second centuryAD – when faith in the old gods had all but evaporated, Greek culture and thought was in decay, and the great literature of Greece at its height had given way to shallow novels of adventure or romance. All this was grist to Lucian's satirical mill and in his two extraterrestrial stories – precursors of science fiction – he parodies the kind of feeble fantasy that had become popular.

 The concluding sentence of the preface to his True History reads: "I give my readers warning, therefore, not to believe me." And with that he launches into a tale of a group of adventurers who, while sailing through the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar), are lifted up by a giant waterspout and deposited on the Moon. There they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale interplanetary war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun over colonization rights to Jupiter, involving armies which boast such exotica as stalk-and-mushroom men, acorn-dogs, and cloud-centaurs. 

«...τυφὼν ἐπιγενόμενος καὶ περιδινήσας τὴν ναῦν καὶ μετεωρίσας ὅσον ἐπὶ σταδίους τριακοσίους οὐκέτι καθῆκεν εἰς τὸ πέλαγος, ἀλλ᾿ ἄνω μετέωρον» 
 A watersprout typhoon made the ship ascend to the skies  300 stadiums high without afterwards falling down to the sea, it remained on the air.
A passage from Lucian's(Lucianos in Greek) Αληθής Ιστορία(Alithis Istoria)=True story. 


Before you read below and acquire the wrong impression about Lucian. I recommend you to read his biography in wikipedia in order to understand what kind of a person he was.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian

Lucian of Samosata. A Syrian sophist/author who was writting in Greek.

Jules Verne wrote his science fiction works and foresaw the creation of submarine in the 19th century. In the 60's the U.S.A achieved to send humans on the moon.However before all this in 160 A.D Lucian wrote about a journey to the moon using an air-ship  and about a moon base called Lychnopolis. With an imagination that even Steven Spielberg and George Lucas would envy Lucian an author of the late antiquity with an excellent potential on written discourse takes us to to worlds to which even now many centuries later we can only travel  with our imagination.


In his book he says that he decided to make this trip because of curiosity and to learn what nations are living on the other side of the  Great Ocean. After 80 days of travelling across the unknown ocean they reached a strange island.There they found an inscription written in Greek an mentioned that Hercules and Dionysus had been there.(Stories about voyages of Hercules beyond the Atlantic and campaigns of Dionysus as far as India were very common in the ancient Greek world) 
When they landed on the island they saw a big river but instead of water there was wine coming from the roots of the vineyards. There were also some strange fish around there and once you ate them you would get drunk.


They left the island behind and when they went in the middle of the Ocean suddenly a tornado made their ship to fly above the water but didn't let it to fall down. For 7 days they were travelling on the skies and in the 8th day they saw in front of them a new earth on the air which seemed like a shining island in a shape of a circle. They achieved to land on it and when they took a look around they found out that the land was inhabited and fertile.


Lucianos mentions that this new earth was inhabited by monstrous looking beings.One of those beings arrested them and took them in front of their king who was called Endymion. The king realised that they were Greeks from their outfit and asked them how did they achieve to fly through the skies until his land. He also explained to them that they were on the moon which they are able to see every night from their
earth.

Moreover he revealed that there were also many other kingdoms. Lucianos mentions the Selenites and Heliotes who had a common colony in Eosphoros and a peace treaty. Here there's a really impressive show of Lucianos' imagination. He mentions that the treaty was written on an electric column and they left it in the middle of the air standing between the borders of the two kingdoms.


Lucianos mentions many other paradoxical habits and facts about the "moon-people" . One of them was that men were giving birth to children and that there were no women. Men were marrying men. Except the sexual paradox Lucian says that when that moon people get old they don't die but they just vanish like  smoke.


The really extraordinary mind of Lucian has many other oddities to narrate.He says that the moon-people were coming into contact with the people on earth by using a large mirror which was over a big hole on the ground. If somebody entered that hole, he could hear everything that the people of earth were saying. Lucian mentions that he used it himself and that he was able to see his home. He also added that if somebody doesn't believe that this exists he should travel to the moon to see by himself!!!!


After staying on the moon Lucian travelled between the star clusters of Pleiades and the Hyades to a place called Lychnopolis. It was called like that because there were only lamps there(lychnos=lamp polis=city)


This was the space travel of Lucian in his work called "The true story". Later he mentions how he returned to earth and was eaten by a sea monster in which he lived until it died.


No Lucian was not a crazy person. The true story was a parody of some fantasy stories by contemporary or ancient sources that were considered true by the majority of the people.However there is also an alternative opinion that it was purely a science fiction work containing the following elements that prove it

• travel to outer space
• encounter with alien life-forms, including the experience of a first encounter event
• interplanetary warfare and imperialism
• colonization of planets
• artificial atmosphere
• liquid air
• reflecting telescope
• motif of giganticism
• creatures as products of human technology (robot theme)
• worlds working by a set of alternate 'physical' laws
• explicit desire of the protagonist for exploration and adventure

sources:http://www.echedoros-a.gr/2009/05/to.html(in Greek), translation made by me
wikipedia.org
 http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/Lucian.html

August full moon and ancient Greece

Every year each August when it's full moon the archaeological sites remain open all night for visitors. The whole full moon atmosphere along with the energy that the these ancient sites are transmitting , attract thousands of people every year for a free night visit . The municipal authorities often organise events like theatrical festivals , concerts and anything related to culture that wouldn't be insulting for the archaeological site.This year nearly 70 archaeological sites remained open for this event.

The temple of Poseidon in Sunion during August full moon

What's so important about the August full moon? There is a  modern Greek proverb that says Του Αυγούστου το φεγγάρι, παραλίγο μέρα μοιάζει(tou avgoustou to feggari paraligo mera moiazei) which means: The night of the fullmoon of August is almost like morning. This proverb is not far from reality cause the in August the full moon in the northern hemisphere is very low on the horizon and this makes it seem to be very close to earth so close that some people by instict stretch their hands to touch it. The proximity of moon to earth increases the light and makes the moon look like a sun. The whole night is like an endless dusk or twilight.




The ancient Greek calendar like many other calendars of the ancient world was lunisolar and therefore the moon phases were important for counting time.

Greek mythology has associated many deities with the moon.


A very known myth is  the  myth of Endymion and Selene, the moon (Selene) fell in love with a handsome young king named Endymion and bore him 50 daughters. One version of the story says that Selene placed Endymion in eternal sleep to prevent him from dying and to keep him forever beautiful.
This myth inspired John Keats to write his homonymous poem.


Another pre-Olympian deity associated with the moon was Hecate. Hecate was a cthonian goddess related with the darkness and the underworld(not with bad connotation).

Hekate

Pasiphae was called the moon goddess of the Cretans.Pasiphae was an immortal daughter of the sun-god Helios. Like her two siblings, Aeetes and Kirke, she possessed the powers of witchcraft (pharmakeia). Pasiphae wed King Minos of Krete, and bore him a number of sons and daughters. However, as punishment for some offence against the gods committed either by herself or her husband, she was cursed with the desire to be coupled with the king's finest bull. The Queen conscripted the great artisan Daidalos to assist her in the endeavour, and he built for her a hollow wooden cow, wrapped in a bovine skin and endowed with mechanical life. Hiding herself inside this contraption she conceived and bore a hybrid child, the bull-headed Minotauros. Pasiphae's husband Minos also proved unfaithful. When the Queen learned of his indiscretions she cast a spell on him which caused him to ejaculate poisoned creatures and so destroy his lovers. Pasiphae herself, being an immortal, was alone immune. Minos was eventually cured by the Athenian girl Prokris who devised a remedy for his strange afflication.

Pasiphae

Among the Olympians Artemis/Diana symbolised the moon. She was a twin sister of Apollo who was the god that symbolized the sun. Artemis' cult probably was imported from Minor Asia. She was the goddess of moon and hunting and patron goddess of the mythical Amazons.

Artemis. Notice the moon crescent on her forehead

There is not, perhaps any spectacle more enchanting than that of a clear night, when the moon shines in all her splendour and advances in silent majesty through the stars.Nature has at that time resigned the variety of her colours , and their shades have disappeared ,but the placid light shed on every object is perhaps not less attractive,whether it is reflected from the bottom of the smooth wave or illuminates the contour of the objects around.The summits of the mountains exhibit a splendid amphitheatre, while the woods below form a darker shade.The general calm that reigns the nature the solemn silence , so propitious to thought and solitary meditation, and which is only disturbed by the plaintive sounds of sorrow, or the tender accents of love, adapt the mind to every soft impression.

diodorus sicelus

sources:http://spcom.ca/hellenicspirit/2011/07/30/Month-Of-Metageitnion-%CE%9C%CE%AE%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%82-%CE%9C%CE%B5%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%BD%CE%B9%CF%8E%CE%BD.aspx ,http://www.mythencyclopedia.com, ://www.theoi.com