The Stonehenge Mystery of the Altar Stone.

 

Ten or more years ago, my imagination was captured by the mind-blowing discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, where the archaeological dig had started uncovering this new discovery in a 2010 dig. Brick by brick, bone by bone, they revealed a 5500-year-old temple complex with more than 100 buildings, surrounded by a 10ft wall. Some of this complex is possible more than 800 years earlier than Stonehenge and could be as, if not more, important than the Wiltshire site.

The altar stone lies flat and buried under two fallen sarsen stones
and is barely visible to visitors. Photograph: Aberystwyth University

This week's jaw-dropping news about the Altar Stone at Stonehenge changes things again. Scientific research has revealed an extraordinary new mystery––the massive six-tonne stone at the heart of the monument was brought to Stonehenge from the far north of Scotland.

The Altar Stone is ritually the most important stone at Stonehenge. It marks the intersection of the winter solstice sunrise to summer solstice sunset alignment, and the summer solstice sunrise to winter solstice sunset alignment.

Individual crystals were examined which allowed the Altar Stone to be dated, showing Old Red Sandstone from the Orcadian basin in north-east Scotland. This basin was once a massive ancient water body called Lake Orcadie. It's possible that this was already a ritually important stone that  might even have been taken from the Orkney sacred site, or certainly the very north-east area of the mainland. 

Aberystwyth University geologist Nick Pearce
 analyses Neolithic standing stones in Orkney 
(Prof Richard Bevins, Aberystwyth University)

This journey of over 500 miles seems near impossible. It might have been brought by sea as there is evidence that people at this time were making sea journeys. However, it could have been dragged. That would mean organising teams of people to pull the stone, possibly swapping to new teams as the journey progressed south. But now we are beginning to realise how closely connected settlements might have been, this feels more realistic.

Speaking in the New Scientist,  geologist Richard Bevins from Aberystwyth University said, "Most stone circles are made from rocks found within a kilometre of the site. The thing that’s unique about Stonehenge is the distance that stones have been transported." 

Bevins’s team has already shown that the bluestones come from the Preseli hills in Wales, about 280 kilometres away. One idea is that they were part of an even older Welsh stone monument that was moved, a fascinating story to me, which I featured in this blog post here, because I live so close to these Welsh sites. 

It was always a possibility that early man travelled widely, and the news this week seems to confirm that both these sites were connected. 

An artist's impression of what
archeologists are uncovering

I first wrote about the amazing temple complex at the Ring of Brodgar after Jim and I visited Orkney just as they were starting to dig there. Even then,  it was quite apparent to us  that Orkney was a hub of society at that time, rather than an 'outback'.

You can read more about the full era of the Orkney complex  here on this blogpost, "Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Worship".

All this linking together of sites across England, Wales and Scotland (as we now think of it), suggests not only hardworking, intelligent and knowledgeable people living in the early Neolithic, but people who could plan, work and worship together. Of course, they may have argued, even fought each other too, but perhaps we might take a lesson from their achievements, which, in comparison, seem to outweigh our own 

The Siberian Shamanka: What we Know About Pre-historic Shamanism, PART ONE.

:   

Ice Maiden

I am the young girl:

warm-skinned,

beating-wild heart,

galloping with my tribe

across bleak plains,

calling to the wind.

I am the young woman:

dressed in silk tussah,

red-piped;

tasselled girdle;

boots, knee-high.

I am the story teller:

gold-leaf camels parade

my three foot crown;

prancing deer with

curling antlers

race across my skin.

I am ancient bones:

six dead horses

guard my grave-gate;

spices and mutton

nurture my silence.

I am the young girl:

I am treasure:

twenty-five centuries of

frozen sleep

and now they come to wake me;

warm water seeps through my ice mask,

but I do not smile

as the blue sky greets me.  © Theolyn Cortens 2000

What is a shaman? How far back into history can we trace shamanic work? The answers are startling, intriguing and convincing. They show a firm line from this century leading right back to the Mesolithic. 

But first we go back two thousand, five hundred years, and journey to Siberia.

The Siberian Shamanka (Shaman) showing tattoos

It was the summer of 1993. This was archeologist Natalia Polosmak's fourth season working with her team on the Altai Mountains, where the permafrost is a guardian of ancient secrets.

Diggers reported they had discovered a block of ice in which lay the mummified body of a 25-year-old woman.

Natalia found that this Siberian Ice Maiden was of Scythian descent––a tribe that roamed the steppes throughout the Bronze Age. The grandeur of the burial could only mean she was a princess. She was housed in a small cabin, and its wood has allowed her burial to be dated, indicating that the Ice Maiden was buried in the spring, at some point during the 5th century BCE. The Ice Maiden had intricate designs adorning her skin and lay surrounded by her six horses. Autopsy also revealed that the this young woman had suffered from breast cancer, and was using  cannabis to relieve her pain. 

Reconstruction of the tomb chamber of the Siberian Ice Maiden. Top, above, her costume reconstruction. Both can be seen in the Anokhin Museum.

Her costume was well preserved. Her blouse was wild silk, her full skirt was brilliant dyed. She wore a long cloak of marten fur, knee-high boots and a choker of wooden camels. Her headdress was particularly spectacular, and it seems to consist of her own elongated hair. Alongside her was a polished mirror (used for centuries as a divinatory tool) and the herb coriander, as seeds in a stone dish. 

the deer tattoo
.

It is her tattoos that lead archeologists to believe she was a shaman. She was marked with a deer motif on one of her shoulders, and on her wrist and thumb. 

The Sythians were a fascinating nomadic tribe which, by the time of the ancient Greeks, had settled on the Black Sea. To gain a colourful and beautifully realised picture of that time, try reading Naomi Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931, available from Amazon), a fabulous story of these ancient peoples.

But the Ice Maiden is by no means the oldest representation of shamanism discovered by archeologists. Shamanic activity and shaman costumes and tools  have been found around the world and indeed, in the United Kingdom. The  power to transcend spirit worlds, and to return with healing and knowledge can be traced into the distant past. In fact, as far back as the Mesolithic Period, around ten thousand years before our times.

I'll be returning to this subject in PART TWO of "What we Know About Pre-historic Shamanism". Watch this space! 

Return to my Trees – a three hundred mile walk through Welsh forests

 Dod yn ôl fy nghoed...

        To return to my trees.

What on earth is that Welsh phrase supposed to mean? Unsurprisingly, knowing the poetic and lyrical nature of the Welsh nation, it doesn't just mean 'nipping into the woods'. It's a phrase used when someone needs to clear their head, to think again.

Matthew Yeomans, a Cardiff author of Rough Guides translates it as 'to return to a balanced state of mind...' 

Something that has been medically proved to occur when we walk in amongst trees; our blood pressure reduces and so does our anxiety levels. We return from our walk feeling de-stressed and ready for life.

the mythic map

Yeoman, who has been a traveller all his writing life, didn't have to travel far geographically to write this fourth book. Having travelled the world, he decided to walk through the ancient and modern forests of Wales, losing himself in the stories of the these woodlands––their natural word, of course, and the history of the trees, but also their wider history, mythology and legends, especially those which appear between the covers of the Mabinogion, the ancient tales of Wales. While Yeoman  explored the paths, he also explored the religions, culture, arts and music of Wales, as well as the industrial past and present of his home nation. 

Yeoman started in the Welsh Marches, at Wentwood,striding across the south of the country, to the Black Mountains. Then he worked northwards, past the Devil's Bridge, through Snowdonia and Llangollen and onwards to the north-eastern border, finally stopping at Chirk. 

Such a grand idea: linking the forest paths throughout a modern country, walking those (often unmarked) ways, talking to the local people and learning about the land. 300 miles is a massive journey, and Yeoman is still walking, often with other people who want to encourage us all to walk.

On Radio 6, Matthew Yeomans explained how this walk emerged out of the cabin fever of Covid. 'I had to get out…I didn't  know much about trees, but I heard that the Welsh Government had announced a plan to create a  national forest of Wales.' He wanted to find out if it was possible to travel through Wales without leaving woodland behind.

Recently, I walked just a few miles of Yeoman's Mythic Map, over the Bwlch Mountain near Maesteg, walking with my son and my dog. I love walking with others because that's when the most intimate and interesting chats happen, when you're looking ahead at the path and the trees, listening to the brook and the birds, you can open your heart. But walking along introduces a new dimension––not only bringing down stress and puts our lives into perspective––it allows me reach 

Top of the Bwlch Mountain

the most creative parts of my mind. When I walk alone, my books, stories, characters and settings accompany me and grow clearer and more real as I progress along my route. Many writers walk to invent their stories.

I've used walking as inspiration for years. It doesn't matter if the surrounds are urban or rural, but naturally it's nicer if there are trees. The most important thing is that I am on my own. When I walk alone, I chatter to my characters, and they chatter back.

Castell Cerreg Cennen:
 "castle on the rock above the river Cennen"

I'm keen to walk more trails on Yeoman's mythic map. I've already visited the lake of Llyn y Fan Fach, which features in the story of The Physicians off Myddfai, and the area around Trap, near Llandelio, where Castell Carreg Cennen  looms over the landscape where, in the Mabinogion, the magical boar, the Twrch Trwyth, sped past having killed most of Arthur's war band. 

This wonderful, inspiring book,  has grown, turning from one man's long walk into a book, a mythic map, and a Welsh playlist plus a list of podcasts all of which can be downloaded

As Yeoman, walks, linking just some of the woodlands and forests of Wales into one long passageway for animals, birds invertebrates and even humans, he constantly seeks an answer to the question; when and how did we humans lose our connection with nature – and how do we find it again? It occurs to me that this walk, this linking of trees with each footfall and rest against a bole of a friendly tree, is that first connection. Every time we walk among trees, they calm us, enliven us and tell us the deepest of Gaia's truths.

They are matchless,

My trees in winter. 

While I watch telly and eat carbs, 

Put the fire on, the heating up, 

They stand naked to the battle;

Steady for storm, ready for gale. 

Winter trees communicate in semaphore

Black flags against the half-day’s light.

They are gallows for bats,

Rigging for gulls,

Blue cages for robins 

Steeples for stormcocks.

In the cold sun, 

The oaks glow emerald with moss;

Planes strike piebald patterns;

Birch trunks shimmer like a high moon. 

I pull on gloves, hat, scarves,

Brave the cold to watch 

As they wait secure, 

Dreaming sap dreams,

Expectant for spring.                                                 (Trees in Winter by Nina Milton)

Not everyone lives near a forest. But I'm sure you can find some trees to enjoy. So go and enjoy them. Return to them, to clear your head, find a better perspective, solve you problems and, even, perhaps, write a book. You may return to a balanced state of mind. You may even  return to a balanced state of soul.

The Beautiful Tau Banner of Lady Dai; Duchess of Ancient China

 

 Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai)


 In 1971 some builders stopped for a smoke as they dug out an air raid shelter on a hill in Hunan, China. They were puzzled; as they dug deeper into the hill, the soil crumbled away as if it had  previously been disturbed. They lit their cigarettes and noticed that the matches burned with a deep blue flame. They might not have known that decomposition of human remains can release highly flammable gasses, but they left the site quickly, and reported their finding. 




The outside cavity holding the three coffins



When the archeologists arrived a few months later, they established that this was the resting place of a noble family of the Han dynasty. Two tombs, of the Marquis of Dai, who died in 186 BCE,  and  a male relative, who may have been a son or brother, had been disrupted and robbed. But the final tomb, built circa 163 BCE, for the Marquis's wife, Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai), was intact, and the archaeologists discovered  an opulent, spectacular and surprising interior. 



One of the three inner caskets

• The tombs were accessed via rectangular vertical shafts dug deep into the earth, a method originating from the bronze age. Lady Dai's funnel-like crypt contained more than 1,000 precious artefacts, including makeup, toiletries, lacquerware, and 162 carved wooden figures which represented her staff of servants. A meal was even laid out to be enjoyed by the 50 year-old duchess in the afterlife. In the central area lay three nesting coffins. Inside many layers of silk was the beautifully preserved mummy, wrapped in her finest robe, her skin still soft to the touch. The fact that she was quite corpulent, from her amazingly rich diet – scorpion soup was apparently a favourite – may have helped the quality of her ancient skin.

  

  An artefact found in the tomb

• The outermost coffin was a plain box. Inside were the three nesting coffins painted with  hugely expensive lacquer in black, red, and white. This protected from water damage and bacterial invasion. I cannot imagine how awed the archeologists must have been as they steadily revealed each coffin.
• But even more magnificent than all of this, was the banner that lay on top of the innermost of the coffins. This almost intact piece of beautifully painted silk would have been part of the procession of the Marquise  to her resting place. And on it were full and intricate instructions for her soul. The banner instructed Xin Zhui's spirit how to reach her paradise. 
• This T-shaped silk banner was over six feet long and in excellent condition for 2000-year-old fabric. It is a very early example of pictorial art in China.
• I first encountered this breathtaking story of life in Ancient China at a lecture given at Lampeter University, in West Wales. Fabric specialist had travelled from across the country to learn more about Lady Dai’s banner, its art and its messages. 
• The banner is divided into four horizontal sections. In the first, Lady Dai is pictured standing on a platform, leaning on a staff, wearing an embroidered silk robe. Framing the scene are white and pink sinuous dragons, their bodies looping through a 'bi' (a disc with a hole,  representing the sky). This section is remarkable in itself, as it is the earliest example of a painted portrait of a specific individual in China.
• In the section below this scene, sacrificial funerary rituals are portrayed in a mourning hall. Tripod containers and vase-shaped vessels for offering food and wine stand in the foreground. In the middle ground, seated mourners line up in two rows.
•  On a mound in the  between  two rows of mourners there are the patterns on the silk that match the robe Lady Dai wears in the scene above this.
• Lady Dai’s banner helps the modern world understand the religion she followed two millennia ago, and how artists began to represent depth and space in early Chinese painting. They made efforts to indicate depth through the use of the overlapping bodies of the mourners. They also made objects in the foreground larger, and objects in the background smaller, to create that illusion of space.
• Above and below the scenes of Lady Dai and the mourning hall, are images of heaven and the underworld. Toward the top, near the cross of the “T,” two men face each other and guard the gate to the heavenly realm. Directly above the two men, at the very top of the banner, is  a deity with a human head and a dragon body.
• Dragons and other immortal being look down from the sky to a toad standing on a crescent moon flanks the dragon/human deity and  what looks like a three-legged crow within a pink sun. The moon and the sun are emblematic of a supernatural realm above the human world. In the lower register, beneath the mourning hall,  the underworld is painted with a red snake, a pair of blue goats, and an earthly deity, holding up the floor of the mourning hall Two giant black fish cross to form a circle beneath him. The beings in the underworld symbolize water and earth, and they indicate an underground domain below the human world. 
• 
  
• While other mummies tend to crumble at the slightest movement, Dai is the most well-preserved ancient corpse yet to be discovered. Unlike most of the mummies found in ancient Egypt, her organs were all intact –  there was still blood in her veins—Type A. This allowed pathologists the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform an autopsy on the preserved body, 2,100 years after her death, ultimately giving us a firsthand glimpse at how the richest of the rich lived during the Han Dynast and is arguably the most complete medical profile ever compiled on an ancient individual.
• Thanks to her luxurious lifestyle, the Marquise had osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, gallstones, liver disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol. She must have been in pretty constant pain from a fused spinal disc.
• Immediately after she was exposed to oxygen for the first time in 2,000 years, her body started to break down, which caused some of the visible decay apparent in the photograp of her mummy at the top of this blog.  Her body and belongings were taken into  the care of the Hunan Museum, where she now lies in state.
• 
  

The Vernal Equinox – How Demeter lost her Daughter and gave us Spring

 

March 21st –  SPRING EQUINOX;  also known as   ALBAN EILER, ASTORA, and the vernal equinox,  takes place when the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to north. This marks the beginning of astrological spring. For three days, the world stands still as we reach this balance of star and stone.

As day begins to dominate night, and the weather grows warmer and lighter, we turn our thoughts to the progress we make through our lives. As birds return to mate and build their nests, and the first flowers of the year grace our gardens, as the crops are being sown, we can thing about decisions of the past and present and how they effect the pathways of our life. Now is a time to take stock, take a moment, to consolidate the pathways we have chosen to be on. 

Working with the goddess Demeter, and experiencing her daughter's journey into the Underworld of Hades, is a useful way to think about what is happening during the equinox, and how it can relate to our lives. 

First, listen to Demeter's story:

I am a mild Goddess; I have a gentle soul. I aim to do no harm to any being. My delight is to care for the land. When I am happy, the earth is happy. When I am ready to enjoy the fruits of nature, they blossom, flower and fruit for everyone. In my youth, I was always happy and the earth was always fruitful; every day way a day of bounty, of harvest, where each had what they needed, and more. 

Every part of the land had a cornocopia of plenty and no creature went without. Everyone was warm, sheltered, fed to fullness...and so they had time to turn to thoughts of love. 

It was my role to show you timid humans how to truly love each other; how to give pleasure in the showing of your love. I was not immune from my own counsel, I became inflamed with the nectar of love on occasion...too many occasions, perhaps. I lay upon the couch of love with my own brother, Zeus, and from this heady union came my dear and beautiful daughter, a goddess in her own right. Persephone. She is as fresh as a spring dawn. 

Her hair is as golden as ripened corn; her face is as clear as the spring moon. When she was still a maiden, she loved to run with her friends in the meadows among the flowers; I often did not know whither she had run, but trusted her to return to me, as a mother should. 

One glorious spring day, my brother, Hades, saw Persephone. She was kneeling close to a fast-running brook, and the glitter of the water shone fair upon her face. She was picking the flowers that grew along its bank, the pale lemon flowers of spring. As she plucked them, she took in their scent, and the look of wonder upon her young face was so radiant, that Hades fell in love with her on that instant. 

He knew, should he ask me for her hand in marriage, I would refuse. So he simply took her. He went to her in the meadow and abducted her. He forced her into his black carriage and drove the horses full speed down into the dark drear of his underworld. Who can blame him? He lived alone down there, amid the dead, with no companion and no sight of the light of the day or living beings. 

You see...I am a mild and forgiving Goddess. I can understand. I can forgive. But that does not lessen the pain of losing your daughter. I wandered far in search of Persephone, not understand why she did not run back to me, laughing. I called her name, I asked those I passed if they had see her. I wept for the loss of her. Food did not pass my lips as I searched. And, as I am the fruitfulness of the earth, as I did not eat, neither did it. It wasted away as I went upon my quest, neither seeding or fruiting. The rivers dried. The corn withered before it ripened. And the crops, once gathered, did not grow again.

Finally, I came upon old Hecate, my sister in Olympus, who told me her story. She had been walking early one morning when she’d heard a young girl crying RApe! Rape! She’d run to help her but found nothing. Together we approached Helius, for, as he makes his daily circuit of the earth, he sees everything. Finally, he admitted he had seen Hades take my daughter through a gaping hole in the earth. Now, we had our evidence, we approach Zeus. His pronouncement was that Hades should restore Persephone to me and to the light and the living...so long as she had not eaten the food of the dead. 

This gave me such hope; Persephone is a bright girl and would have taken care to do no such thing. But she had, without knowledge of it, consumed just seven pomegranate seeds.

I was consumed with rage. I am not a vengeful or wrathful goddess, but I spoke then, I cried out to heaven that I would never remove my curse from the earth if my daughter was not returned to me. It would continue to wither and die and there would be no harvest from now on.

And so, a compromise was reached. It was the time of the equinox, a time of balance and arbitration. Six months I was to have Persephone with me, her slight frame running with joy through the warm air, her nose buried into the scent of flowers. But for six months also, she would belong to Hades, and return to the underworld. And for that time, I would mourn and the earth would whither and die. 

And so it does. Every winter it remains in this dormant state while my daughter goes to do her duty to her so-called husband. And every spring, she returns to life and the to world and to me. Then, the earth begins to warm, the rains come, the soil bursts with life, the animals give birth and the corn grows tall, ripens, and before winter is upon us, it is cut down for the bread of life...

NOW IT IS YOUR TIME to experience Persephone’s journey into the Underworld. By making this journey, we have the opportunity to meditate upon the things that make up our own underworlds; the things that lie most deep and dark in our hearts and in our conscious and subconscious minds. 

Place on your alter a posy of spring flowers, narcissi, crocuses, snowdrops, almond blossom....whatever you chose and can find locally. Also have to hand somewhere comfortable to sit, and a pen and notebook.

Bury your face into the delicate scents of spring and breath in the perfume. Take in their scent and think about their own journey through the winter, in darkness deep below the earth's cold surface. Allow their perfume to slightly alter your perceptions of the moment and trigger a slight shifting of the veil of the underworld.

Visualise Persephone, walking through the meadow, gathering flowers, in innocence and delight.

Do not be concerned in passing through it; your time there will be but a brief moment. Return to your places immediately, find a comfortable position in which to meditate. Six months will become six minutes; time to explore your own Hades and perhaps, at this time of the equinox, to find restorative balance therein. 

What you find in your journey to the Underworld, may not reflect Persephone's journey. It is your own time here, in which you will be able to contemplate your  decisions of the past and present and how they effect the future pathways of your life. The spring equinox is a time to take stock, take a moment, to consolidate the pathways we have chosen to be on, and to think about action; as the seeds are scattered on the fertile soil, think about your hopes and desires, your goals and ambitions, and how they might germinate and grow as the sun continues to warm the earth.

At the end of this time, it is time to return, from the underworld. Come back into the room quietly and slowly, feel the floor beneath you again and watch the flickering candles. Now rise up from the underworld and pass, each of you, through the veil that will take you into the real world. Bring with you only the memories of your mediation and any resolves you have reached through this process.

Gaze once more on the posy of spring flowers you've gathered. Write of your  journey in the underworld, and allow the experience to grow and consolidate in your mind as you do so. You don't have to share this writing with anyone, but if you wish you can share it with me and my followers by leaving a comment to the blogpost.

Happy Spring Equinox to everyone!

If you'd like to use a ritual to enjoy the Vernal Equinox, look here