Featured Title:
Stones Playing Cards, great gift idea |
 |
| The Seven Wonders of the World £4.50+p&p |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 83 guests and 2 members online.
You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here |
| |
| Review your Reply |
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
 OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2010-09-19 08:00
Oh; thank you, tiompan. Those guys` approach is really refreshing and I`ll study their book on the Bronze Age beginnings and look through their articles, as e.g. at the Aegeum.
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-29 16:22 ]
|
tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2655
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-18 17:26
Vlad , to paraphrase Wainwright the Picts are a problem ,it has often been suggested , with little justification , that they came from Scythia .A connection with Scandanavia seems likely even if only cultural (the engravings found on some of the Gotland stones do have similarities with the Pictish stones and proably have a similar function ) The Pictish stones , apart from a few later historical mentions are all we have to go on ,even the few suggested words that are said to be Pictish e.g. Pit ( a generic in place names ) Hen = old , Aber =confluence are close to Brythonic and similarly Iron Age .If the people who lived in the same area i.e. eastern Scotland in the Bronze Age and earlier were the ancestors of the Picts or whether the Picts were incomers we don't know, yet . It was these earlier peoples who were the megalith builders , the Picts built what appears superficially to be defensive sites . We have plenty Pictish bone the site at Forteviot which has been important from Neolithic to the medieval period is yet another Pictish cemetery that is currently being excavated ,the results from tooth enamel etc might prove to be as interesting as the discovery that there was an influx of Irish genes into the heartland of the Picts , Moray , in the medieval period iirc .This is where archaeo genetics and archaeo linguistics meet , maybe in the next couple of decades many of the problems will be less problematic . I have never read the Vennemann book so can't comment but personally I believe on the evidence we have that megalithism was introduced to Britain from France and Iberia but it seems likely long distance trade and contact was very likely .Of course your local lads , Kristiansen and Larsson are the prime movers for a far NW to eastern Mediterranean /western Asian connection and it seems perfectly reasonable .
George
|
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-18 16:26
@ tiompan
In the meantime, I`ve found a book - "Europa Vasconica, Europa Semitica" by Theo Vennemann, ISBN 3-11-017054-X, Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter, 2003, which discusses CHS cultural kinship. (Celtic - Hamitic - Semitic) In this perspective, both Picts and Vänir of Scandinavia were megalithians and of course the "megalithic impulse" was brought up there to NW Europe by the Hamites from North Africa. Were Semites involved, it opens a possibility of using Ugarit materials as a reference in some contexts.
|
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-17 03:51
Well; I didn`t made it to a career within the academic world, after my early immigrant episode (above) in the Volkskunde Studies at the Niedersächsische Universität of Gottingen, West Germany. I`ve been earning my living as a M.Sc.Chem.Eng., within chemical industry, under many years, instead. But after an early retirement, I went back whole-heartedly to my passion - rediscovering spiritual bonds between early man and his environment.
I`m focused not on large artificial 3D sacred landscapes but rather on their predecessors and humble neighbours - single life-energy nodes in the economical landscapes of early hunters, pastoralists and agroculturalists. Once upon a time, Vladimir Propp stirred up interest among ethnographers maintaining that myths are products of local folk-tales`refining. Provocatively saying; the Russian Baba-Yaga tales could have been older than Greek myths.
Now I`m saying that the supposed Fianna`s meat-cooking basins, wrought-out in the rocks, could have been older than some neighbouring megalithic structures. "Locality. locality..." - as cropredy repeats to say. Around such a place imo an idea could hang of animal "souls" having there a shortest way back to the Potnia Theron. (The Ruleress of Animals) Those were quite possibly "sacred meals", which were held there.
Old Irish and Welsh texts have visions of "glass pigs" being fetched with otherworldly "courraghs" into a special place. During the syncretic period of Cisalpine Christianity coexisting with the "old ways", that courragh-idea probably contributed to frequently encountered folk-visions of otherworldly church-bells, floating over lakes, in the mists of Easter spring equinox. Funny thing; the Cistercian monks, colonizing the wild Central Europe, took with them from Gaul the notion of those "glass pigs" as far out as Silesia and Pommern. It had been e.g. remembered as a part of imagery of a Spring Flood (comprising animal "souls"), around their former monastery of Neu-Stettin. (Now: Szczecinek, Poland; Trzesiecko lake)
And back to Rigveda. Rishis in a soma-trance, appealing to the god Soma to liberate "red cows" from their "stone imprisonment" were surely promoting, in their own view, the economic interests of their pastoralist tribes. We should imo remember that by those cows they`ve probably meant a stream of cow "ideas" or "life-sparks" (Fire-within-/primaeval/Waters), coming out of a major sacred node in their economical zone. Rigvedic "golden deposits in rocks" (a fecundity potential!?) and a Devil (Vedic Agni) "luttering gold" in the European Lowlands is a more abstract version of those Rigveda visions, in my opinion.
Let`s switch now to a notion of a sacred shaman-king, which maybe we could have chance to discern more clearly first with the development of large 3D sacrificial landscapes such like early nome-centers of Egypt, Silbury or Stonehenge. (BTW Were the Asssyrians the first imperial-minded people!?) To understand the role of a sacred shaman-king, why not ponder the enigmatic praise of a good pharaoh: - "The Nile was flowing through Him!!". It was the Nile flooding the valley and bringing "life-seeds", which should enliven the life-forms waiting in the mud. Well; as for empaths trying to tune up to former ceremonial realities of the megalithic centra in British Isles, - maybe they should take into consideration a possible existence of similar personages at those precincts...
"What about "Nile" around Stonehenge!?" - some could ask. To answer this question, we could make use of the cultural continuation unique for the old Chinese civilization. Chinese geomancy could give us an insight that the allegoric Fire (celestial "life-seeds") can be abstracted as a major yang element and the Primaeval Waters of the "Nile" as major yin-flows in a sacred landscape. Still; within the Vedic heritage we have maybe not so abstract "celestial" Saraswati river, coinciding with Ganges and Jamna confluence, where the Kumbh Mela celebrations take place.
Oups; I`ve just happened to look into my book-shelves and rediscovered a booklet under a title - "The Light in Britain: A Vision of the Ancient Spiritual Centres" by Grace and Ivan Cooke, publ. by The White Eagle Publishing trust, 1971, Fletcher a. Sons, Norwich. I`ve bought it at a marketplace late in the eighties and its lecture sparked my first geomantic walks, here in Sweden. I hope, you value British visionary traditions as much as I do. OK; that`s how`s the cookie crumbling; more or less, in my view... A good day to all of you.
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-18 13:57 ]
|
tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2655
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-16 16:19
Quote:
|
On 2010-09-16 03:05, vlad wrote:
As an introduction; I`d recommend the book of Jeremy Naydler - "Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt"; publ. by Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont, 2005. The book is based on his Ph.D. thesis, at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
He writes in his Introduction: "From the beginning of the twetieth century, there has been a broad consensus within Egyptology against any form of mysticism in ancient Egypt and this remains the situation today". (No wonder, if they tried to skim through the Schwaller de Lubicz`s books!?)
Well; the bad word "shaman" has been used, at last, and I really don`t like it. But what about ascribing the imperial-type megalithic remnants of British Isles to possible practices centered on pharaoh-like "sacred kings" - a late Neolithic (?) development of the worldwide "shaman" tradition!?
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-16 03:05 ]
|
|
I don’t know enough about Egyptian cosmology to comment although the Pyramid Texts are exactly the sort of thing I was referring to earlier in relation to more contemporary texts i.e Silbury was just being built . No mysticsm in Egyptian religion ? Maybe I have a different conception of mysticism .
We certainly have imposing megalithic monuments but whether they could be considered imperial or dedicated to a single pharaoh like figure has rarely been
accepted .Those that do have funerary remains don’t have an obvious focal point /central figure and often the deposits are peripheral with no obvious indication of a retinue or suttee being practiced . It certainly appealed to the Marxism of the early 20 th C archaeos that the Neolithic seemed King free and only the materialism of the later BA brought that problem but then again we don’t have the settlement sites either ,or for that matter the vast majority of the bodies that lived in the period , so maybe there were kings and they just didn’t get the burials that their eastern cousins did .
George
|
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-16 03:05
As an introduction; I`d recommend the book of Jeremy Naydler - "Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt"; publ. by Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont, 2005. The book is based on his Ph.D. thesis, at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
He writes in his Introduction: "From the beginning of the twetieth century, there has been a broad consensus within Egyptology against any form of mysticism in ancient Egypt and this remains the situation today". (No wonder, if they tried to skim through the Schwaller de Lubicz`s books!?)
Well; the bad word "shaman" has been used, at last, and I really don`t like it. But what about ascribing the imperial-type megalithic remnants of British Isles to possible practices centered on pharaoh-like "sacred kings" - a late Neolithic (?) development of the worldwide "shaman" tradition!?
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-16 03:05 ]
|
tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2655
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-15 20:17
Quote:
|
On 2010-09-15 19:40, vlad wrote:
Well; now and then, I had discussions with some archaeologists, when in Greece. My remarks above have been based on that experience. I´ve just assumed that such attitude - focusing on separate artefacts, one by one, - belongs to the craft. Now; if it`s possible to continue; I`d like very much to hear your opinion on the Egyptian connection.
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-15 19:51 ]
|
|
I'm not an archaeologist .
I know very little about Egypt but would be happy to discuss a connection if I was capable and knew what the connection was .
|
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-15 19:40
Well; now and then, I had discussions with some archaeologists, when in Greece. My remarks above have been based on that experience. I´ve just assumed that such attitude - focusing on separate artefacts, one by one, - belongs to the craft. Now; if it`s possible to continue; I`d like very much to hear your opinion on the Egyptian connection.
[ This message was edited by: vlad on 2010-09-15 19:51 ]
|
tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2655
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-15 18:45
Quote:
|
On 2010-09-15 17:50, vlad wrote:
That thing with Logos and its energies is rooted in the ancient neolithic Egypt. But as you are not accustomed to ponder abstract ideas and allegories, I`ll let it go at this stage of discussion.
|
|
Why mention it then ?
But more to the point how can you possibly make assumptions from the very limited content here about whether I'm accustomed to ponder abstract thought or allegories ?
If you have something to say ,say it , rather than make snide comments .
|
vlad
Joined:
13-05-2006
Messages: 1291
from Stockholm
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2010-09-15 17:50
That thing with Logos and its energies is rooted in the ancient neolithic Egypt. But as you are not accustomed to ponder abstract ideas and allegories, I`ll let it go at this stage of discussion.
| |
|
Main News