December already..
So I've been spiralling around the subject of just one myth since July, 2010. I really didn't think I'd taken so much time..but ok, the reason for that is we do not have the resources to get us to anywhere directly associated with the Persephone myth, such as Greece or Sicily..
That left me with Britain.
...England
...just Wessex!
Because I had to start somewhere.
I soon found that comparing just two sites was too difficult for me, and focused on one:
The Sanctuary.
Hours walking around with string, joining dots.
Trying to work out the internal structure.
And stars...
And sun...
And moon...
Leaving aside the theories as to why the internal corridors do not line up with the sun, let alone any theories about why they should...
Left me asking; what did the people who buried a fourteen year old beside a standing stone, here, believe? Left me asking what the people who visit this place believe, left me puzzled by the culture I live within.
There is such an emphasis on scientific fact that people will believe any old rubbish about a place; handing over responsibility for the narrative, ignoring how they themselves fit into a landscape.
Mostly though, I felt as if I had forged a connection with the monument as it is and as it was. Arising from this sense, comes the question: what should I do next with the Sanctuary?
We had quite a few light sticks, so I tried to make the paths (after pouring the ale)...
Not enough sticks!
I bought more lights sticks, I will mark out the paths as glowing lines on the earth, and it scares me to think of doing this.
Which brings me back to that Hittite sentence..
To Hittite mythology
To Indo-European mythology.
To Proto-Indo-European contact with 'Babylon' at the time of Hammerabi..
To Persephone herself as Ereshkigal.
Queen of the Great Earth.
To her Hittite counterpart, Lelwani..
Iron, chariots and horses...
But the body curled up with a beaker, by the stone had already been dead for at least five hundred years.
So why don't I just stick with Marija Gimbutas's theories about the beliefs and symbols used by the late Mesolithic, and Neolithic people?
Everything fits...
Even down to frog bones in one post hole...
Do I have a better theory?
No...
It's just that there were a lot of arrows at the Sanctuary.
And why align it pretty close to the solar or lunar paths?
Did it tether the sun, catch the moon?
Fill with light?
Why the arrows?
I'd love to think of the Sanctuary as dedicated to Dark Apollo, with his plague arrows...
But yet again Apollo-Nergal- is a Mesoptamian myth.
Unless I'm getting things back to front?
If the Hittites were the Trojans, and the idea of a cthonic solar god who descended to the Underworld to take the throne from its queen was already in Europe (cthonic Apollo as a Hittite god) before it was in Mesopotamia?
Possible I suppose.
At the Sanctuary I found an arrow head.
5000 years old, edge carefully tapped to a serrated line.
The magic arrow...
That left me with Britain.
...England
...just Wessex!
Because I had to start somewhere.
I soon found that comparing just two sites was too difficult for me, and focused on one:
The Sanctuary.
Hours walking around with string, joining dots.
Trying to work out the internal structure.
And stars...
And sun...
And moon...
Leaving aside the theories as to why the internal corridors do not line up with the sun, let alone any theories about why they should...
Left me asking; what did the people who buried a fourteen year old beside a standing stone, here, believe? Left me asking what the people who visit this place believe, left me puzzled by the culture I live within.
There is such an emphasis on scientific fact that people will believe any old rubbish about a place; handing over responsibility for the narrative, ignoring how they themselves fit into a landscape.
 |
| Pour a libation of finest ale... |
Mostly though, I felt as if I had forged a connection with the monument as it is and as it was. Arising from this sense, comes the question: what should I do next with the Sanctuary?
We had quite a few light sticks, so I tried to make the paths (after pouring the ale)...
Not enough sticks!
I bought more lights sticks, I will mark out the paths as glowing lines on the earth, and it scares me to think of doing this.
Which brings me back to that Hittite sentence..
To Hittite mythology
To Indo-European mythology.
To Proto-Indo-European contact with 'Babylon' at the time of Hammerabi..
To Persephone herself as Ereshkigal.
Queen of the Great Earth.
To her Hittite counterpart, Lelwani..
Iron, chariots and horses...
But the body curled up with a beaker, by the stone had already been dead for at least five hundred years.
 |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture |
Everything fits...
Even down to frog bones in one post hole...
Do I have a better theory?
No...
It's just that there were a lot of arrows at the Sanctuary.
And why align it pretty close to the solar or lunar paths?
Did it tether the sun, catch the moon?
Fill with light?
I'd love to think of the Sanctuary as dedicated to Dark Apollo, with his plague arrows...
But yet again Apollo-Nergal- is a Mesoptamian myth.
Unless I'm getting things back to front?
 |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hat |
If the Hittites were the Trojans, and the idea of a cthonic solar god who descended to the Underworld to take the throne from its queen was already in Europe (cthonic Apollo as a Hittite god) before it was in Mesopotamia?
Possible I suppose.
At the Sanctuary I found an arrow head.
5000 years old, edge carefully tapped to a serrated line.
The magic arrow...
