Where was Atlantis?
HereForNow:
Quote from: Nerc on May 30, 2008, 03:05:17 pm
Quote from: HereForNow on May 30, 2008, 12:29:32 pm
What is the Egyptian equal to Atlas?
And now a geographic Shu might be found.
Shu
Nerc:
In Italic traditions the titan Atlas, the king of the Hyperboreans, appears also as ancestor of the Ausones, in particular of the Latins and the Romans.
Eustathius, the archbishop of Thessalonika, wrote in the twelve century (Commentarii in Dionysium. v. 78) the following, based on older sources:
“According to what some say, Auson, from whom Ausones draw their name, had been the first to reign in Rome, and this Auson had been the son of Atlas and Calypso, as Stephanos Byzanthinos, the author of the work about the names of the tribes, tells us.
With Hesiod also, Auson (Nausinoos) was a son of Calypso (Theog. v. 1017), who though, according to Homer (Odyss. I. v. 50) had been the daughter, not the wife of the titan Atlas. (Hesiod claims though in his Theogony - 359, that Calypso was a daughter of the divine river Oceanos, but she hailed anyway from the same country in both versions).
The Ausones had formed in prehistoric antiquity the preponderant population of Italy.
They were characterized by the ancient authors as a strong and warlike race. Especially in poetic literature the name of Ausones was applied to all the inhabitants of Italy, “Ausonia” denoted the entire Italy (Virgil, Aen. IV. 349) and the word “Auson” was synonymous with Latin, Italian, Roman (Ovid, Pontica, Lib. II. 2. 72).
The Byzantine historian Priscus, sent by the emperor Theodosius the Young on a mission to Attila’s residence, which was on the plains of today Hungary, east of Tisa, calls the subjects of this barbarian king “Ausones”. They dwelt in the region where his palace was, spoke a rustic Roman language and lived there among the Huns and Goths (Excerpta de legationibus – Ed. Bonnae, 1829, p.190, 206).
The ambassadors of Theodosius, after crossing the Danube, had to travel northwards more than eight days, passing over extensive plains, over several rivers and swampy places, in order to reach Attila’s residence, which was in a locality which Priscus names “sat foarte mare” (TN – very big village), and Jornandes “vicum, ad in star civitatis amplissimae (De Get. Orig. c. 34). As results from the description of Priscus, this residence was not in Banat, close to the Roman army which defended the line of the Danube, but in the upper parts of today Hungary (TN – in 1900. Today part of Romania) at Satu-Mare. In this region must have lived therefore the inhabitants who spoke a rustic Roman language and whom Priscus names Ausones. In reality a part of the county of Satu-Mare is called even today “tera Oasului” (TN – the country of Oas) and its Romanian inhabitants are called Oseni. Tacitus mentions in Descriptio Germaniae (cap. 43) an important tribe called Osi, who dwelt behind the Marcomans and the Quazi, some on plains, others in forests, on valleys and on mountain peaks. They paid tribute to the Quazi and the Sarmatians and spoke the Pannonic language, or the ancient Pelasgian dialect from the middle Danube. Priscus’ Ausones, the Oseni of today, are therefore only a part of the ancient Pelasgian tribe from near the Northern Carpathians, called by Tacitus Osi. Another branch of this population lived, according to Tacitus (cap. 28), in upper Pannonia, beyond the Danube; and in truth, the Itinerary of the emperor Antoninus (Ed. Parthey, 263) mentions between Acinquum (Buda) and Sabaria (Stein am Anger) a locality called Osonibus (nom. pl. Osones)].
In antiquity also existed a similar tradition about the origin of the Latins.
As Dionysius of Halikarnasus writes, Latinus, the eponymous king of the Latins, had been a son of Hercules and a Hyperborean maid (lib. I. c. 43). And according to another tradition, king Latinus had been a brother of Auson, and both were the sons of Calypso (Apollodorus, Epit. VII. 24), a daughter of Atlas.
And there existed in Italy still another tradition, which connected the beginnings of Rome with the settling there of a Pelasgian tribe coming from Atlas mountain.
Evander, who had founded near the Tiber a town called Pallantium, from which Rome later developed, appears according to ancient genealogies, as a great grandson of Atlas (Virgil, Aen. VIII. 134-140); and the country of Evander had been, according to the same tradition, Arcadia, in which Atlas had dwelt and reigned, therefore not Arcadia from the Peloponnesus (Dionysius Halik. I. c. 31-33). This Evander, as historical traditions said, had transported to Italy several pastoral divinities (Ovid, Fast. II. v. 279), had founded temples there, had introduced holy days, laws and various useful industries (Livy, Hist. lib. I. c. 5).
So, Evander and his companions had settled in Italy coming from a country which enjoyed an old religious and political organization, and an advanced civilization.
According to the ancient ethnic genealogies, the territory of the titan Atlas from the country of the Hyperboreans appears as the original country of several tribes and a number of important princely families from Hellada, Asia Minor, Africa and Italy.
Atlas, writes Diodorus Siculus (lib. III. c. 60), had several daughters, who, by marrying the most distinguished heroes and even gods, had sons who for their virtues were called heroes and gods, and were at the same time the originators of several families.
On a fragment of a vase discovered in Apulia, Atlas, the lord of the blessed country of the Hyperboreans, founder of several southern Pelasgian families, that Atlas in whose kingdom not only the fruit, but also the branches of the trees were of gold, is shown sitting on a throne, in complete regal paraphernalia (Roscher, Lexikon der gr. u.rom. Mythologie. I. p.710).
Doubtless, this image had a genealogical character. The artist had wished to represent one of the most glorious ancestors of some Ausonic family of Apulia.
As for the mythological representation of the titan Atlas, he is shown on another vase from Apulia supporting the sky, figured in the shape of a globe (Ibid. I. p.710). He appears in the same way also on an Etruscan mirror from Vulci (Daremberg, Dict. d. ant. See Atlas).
The idea to represent the sky or the universe in the shape of a globe is very ancient.
According to Plato (Axiochus – Ed. Didot. Tom. II. p. 561), the Hyperboreans had been the first to consider the universe as a sphere, at the centre of which was the Earth.
And according to Diodorus Siculus (lib. IV. 27. 5), king Atlas, whose empire was near Oceanos (potamos), had possessed very exact knowledge of astrology and had been the first to regard the universe as a globe, because of which it was said that the entire firmament rests on Atlas (Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. II. 2; lib. II. 6. 3; lib. VII. 57. 12).
The most famous statue of Roman art, which showed the titan Atlas with the globe on his back, is that from the museum of Neapole, commonly referred to under the name of Farnese.
Here Atlas appears crushed by the weight of his load. He supports himself with the right knee on a rocky crag. His head is pushed down under the globe and he has a tortured expression on his face. With tired eyes he still looks towards the course of the constellations.
In the same way was also symbolized in Egyptian art the god Shu, who supported on his head the sky in the shape of a concave semi-sphere, supported on his right knee bent to the ground (Maspero, Egypte et Chaldee, p.127).
Another analogous figure of Atlas is reproduced in the magnificent edition of the Aeneid, published by the Duchess of Devonshire. In it the powerful titan supports on his back, with both his hands, the sky column in the shape of a stunted pyramid, while he props himself on the ground with his left knee (Duruy, Hist. d. Rom. II. p.264. The idea that this figure might represent Sisyphus is wrong).
But what gives to the Neapole statue a special historical value, which distinguishes it from other analogous representations, is that this sculpture work is modeled after an original type, after the pyramid from near the Lower Istru, which had been considered from the most remote times as the rock of the titan Atlas on which the sky leans, as the northern pole of the sky, as the axle of the Hyperboreans, cardines mundi (Pliny, H. N. IV. 26. 11; Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis, II. 7).
The column from the Carpathians was a sacred symbol, was the most famous religious monument of the Pelasgian world.
There is an identity we can say absolute, to the smallest detail, between the exterior contours of these two monuments. On the column from the Carpathians can still be seen even the marks which seem to have once figured the arms lifted up in order to support on the back the shape of the globe which represents the vault of the sky.
Probably this memorable statue was sculpted during the time of the emperor Domitian, when the Roman legions had to sustain a long and tough war in order to conquer the holy mountain of the Dacians, called Gigantes and Hyperboreans, when the legends of Atlas had become once again popular in Italy, when the most distinguished poets of that epoch, Statius and Martial, wrote about the sky axle from the country of the Hyperboreans and with the torment of Prometheus on that rock.
“You go now, Marcelline, soldier”, says Martial, “to take on your shoulders the northern sky of the Hyperboreans and the stars of the Getic pole, which barely move. Behold the rock of Prometheus, behold also the famous mountain of legends, etc”.
Apart from the historical traditions and apart from the mythological legends regarding the titan Atlas, there existed also in Italy an archaic religious belief regarding the sky column from the Carpathians.
The Etruscans were considered during the Roman epoch, as the representatives of ancient Pelasgian theological doctrines. They had learned priests and a literature rich in rituals, to which the Roman people showed a particular respect.
One of the oldest necropolis of Etruria was in the mountains of Axia (today Castel d’Asso), on the territory of the ancient city Tarquinia, the birth place of Tarquinius the Old and the metropolis of the 12 confederate cities of Etruria. The inhabitants of Tarquinia originated, as Hierocles tells us, in the lands of the Hyperboreans (Stephanus Byz. see Tarquinia), those Hyperboreans where the griffons guarded their great gold treasures.
This mystical sign, which prehistoric archaeology could not explain so far, represents on its lower part the sky column, in the shape of a stunted pyramid (trapeze), having figured above it the sky, in the same shape as on the hieroglyphic monuments of Egypt, a horizontal line with the ends bent downwards.
This religious symbol of the future life and of the divine region tells us therefore that the ancient Etruscan religion was the same as the religion of the Pelasgians from the Istru, Argos and Egypt. This symbol expressed in particular the same religious belief that the souls of the deceased went to the residence of the gods (at the Oceanos potamos), where was the Atlantean Olympus, in the country of the just, long lived Hyperboreans, where the sky was supported on the earth, where the supreme judgment took place, where was the place of happiness, the region of the pious .
The Etruscan discipline had had its beginnings in some mountainous lands outside of Italy. Pliny (lib. X. c. 17), speaking about the birds which served as augurs, tells us that in Etruscan discipline were mentioned several types of birds which nobody had seen.
In regard to the ancient dwellings of the Etruscans, it is important the tradition communicated also by Pliny (III. 81) that the town of Pisa in Etruria had been founded by Pelops or by the Teutani.
On the principal column of Atlas mountain, the same mountain and the same column which dominate the whole SE corner of the Carpathians, was, according to the old legends of theogony, chained Prometheus, the most superior mind of the Pelasgian world.
Prometheus’ legend presents one of the most sublime images of the nascent civilization of the Pelasgian people.
After Jove defeated old Saturn and took his place in all the divine and political honors, a grave misunderstanding took place, according to these legends, between the mortal men and the new autocrat. The representative of the discontented world was the wise titan Prometheus.
In one of the best tragedies of Eschyl, Prometheus, the father of civilization and the friend of mankind, inculpates Jove like this: that as soon as he ascended his father’s throne, to rule over gods and men, he gave all good things to gods only, without being concerned at all with the lot of the poor mortals, and even more, that Jove had wished to extinguish the whole human genus and create another, and that only himself, Prometheus, had opposed this plan (Prometheus vinctus, v. 228 seqq).
Jove had become powerful over gods and men through his reigning position, but Prometheus was powerful through his wisdom, superior by the force of his thinking, and he was supported by the humans. Great jealousy and quarrel issued because of this in the counsel of gods between Prometheus and Jove.
The first cause of the discord was, according to Hesiod, the following:
While the gods and the people had held a common assembly at Mecone, in order to decide the honors and duties reserved to each party, Prometheus fetched for sacrifice a big ox and proposed to divide it .
Mechone, an obscure locality. It was considered by some Greek authors as identical with Sycion or Sicyon in the Peloponnesus (Strabo, VII. 6l 25). But because the events of theogony and particularly the tragic episode of Prometheus happened at the north of Istru, or in Scythia, we must look for the ancient locality Mecone here.
Prometheus then slaughtered the victim and made two heaps. On one side he put all the meat with the good intestines and fat, which he covered with the skin of the ox. And on the other side he put only the bones, which he cunningly covered with white, shiny fat. In this way Prometheus wanted to trick Jove, to choose the leanest part for the gods. Although Jove had observed immediately the trickery, he intentionally chose the bad part in order to have a good reason to revenge himself on the mortals, as he already had no good intentions towards them. Since that time, says Hesiod, the custom was introduced to humans to burn only the bones on the altars of gods.
Now Jove, deeply angry that the gods had been shortchanged in their honors, forbade the use of fire to the humans. But Prometheus, with his titanic skills, stole from the eternal fire of Jove a few sparks, which he brought and presented to the mortals .
Hyginus also tells this legend but with some more details (Poeticon astronomicon. II. 6).
According to what he says, the ancients used to sacrifice to gods in great ceremonies, in which they burned whole carcasses, and because of this waste the poor could not make sacrifices. Prometheus obtained from Jove the favor that the mortals might be allowed to burn but a part of the victims’ meat, leaving the rest for their personal use. Jove accepting, Prometheus killed two bulls, put the intestines on the altar, then, gathering together the rest of the meat from both victims, covered it with one of the skins, after which he put all the bones together, which he covered with the other skin. He then suggested to Jove to choose one part or the other for burning. Jove, who, although a god, could not see everything, chose the bones, believing that each part represented the remains of one bull. But seeing that he had been deceived, he took the fire from the mortals, so that they would have no use for the meat of the victims, being unable to boil it. But Prometheus, always inventive, thought how to give back to mankind the fire which it had lost because of him. So he went to the place where Jove’s fire was, took a few sparks, put them inside the plant called ferula and brought them to the mortals].
So, the great step towards the civilizing of the human genus had been made. The humans started to enjoy the benefits of the fire, this divine element. What had happened could not be undone. And Jove, seeing from afar how the flames of the fire burned on the hearths of the humans, burned with anger, and because he did not want his rival Prometheus to earn a higher consideration in the eyes of the mortals than the gods had, because of this gift, decided to punish him for this daring deed. He ordered Vulcan to chain him on the high and solitary stony peak of Atlas mountain from the ends of the earth, or from the country of the Scythians.
“Atlas”, writes Hesiod (Theog. v. 517 seqq), “supports the vast sky at the ends of the earth with his head and tireless arms, being constrained to do this by a double necessity. This fate was decided for him by wise Jove, who tied and chained astute Prometheus with thick, unbreakable chains, on the middle column. And he sent against him a vulture with wide wings, who continuously picked at his liver, which was never wholly consumed, because it grew back overnight. Hercules, the brave son of Alcmene, the goddess with fine feet, killed this bird and freed Prometheus from his anguish”.
From a historical point of view, Prometheus’ legends present a special interest for the origins of European civilization at the north of Lower Istru, and for the progress of this civilization towards the southern regions.
According to Hesiod, Prometheus was a brother of Atlas and both of them sons of the titan Iapet, who lived at the borders of the known world together with Saturn (Ibid, Theog. v. 507, 509-510; Homer, Iliad, VIII, v. 479). According to Hesiod, the mother of Atlas and Prometheus had been a daughter of Oceanos (ancient Istru) named Clymene.
And the historian Herodorus, who lived before Herodotus, tells us that Prometheus was a king of Scythia (fragm. 23). Where great historical, religious or political events were concerned, the old Greek authors usually understood under this geographical name of Scythia the lands from the north of Istru, and from the NW corner of the Black Sea. Even with Herodotus, ancient Scythia stretched along the Lower Istru and ended in the regions of today Olt.
According to legends, Prometheus, the most genial figure of prehistoric world, gave man not only the benefit of fire, but a great many other good things, which Eschyl enumerates like this:
“Men”, says Prometheus, “had in the beginning the mind of a child, and I made them wise and I gave them the power of thought. In the beginning the things which they saw, they saw in vain, and what they heard they did not hear. For a very long time they confused all things, as the phantoms of some dreams are confused. These men”, continues Prometheus, “did not know how to build brick houses, exposed to sunlight; they did not know how to work the wood, but dwelt in underground places, as ants, hidden inside the dark womb of the caves; they had no sure sign, either for the beginning of winter or of spring, or summer, when the fruit ripens, but lived without any sort of knowledge, until I taught them to know the rise and setting of the stars, which is a thing more difficult to remember; I invented the most useful sciences, the system of numbers, I found the way to combine letters, and how things can be memorized, this is the mother of all sciences. I first yoked the cattle, to be used for transport…and still I, and not another, discovered the sails so that the ships would be able to navigate on the sea…Moreover, when someone fell sick, had no cure, and no way to live, and men died for lack of remedies, until I first taught them how to make useful medicines, with which to protect themselves against all illnesses; I taught them different ways to prophesy…Finally, who could affirm to have discovered before me the things useful to mankind which are hidden under the earth, the copper, the iron, the silver and the gold, and, summarizing all this in a few words: know that all the arts, the mortals have learnt from Prometheus” (Prometheus vinctus, v. 443 seqq).
In antique legends Prometheus appears also as the creator of a new human genus. Prometheus, Apollodorus tells us, shaped men from water and earth and gave them the fire, which he’d stolen from Jove and which he’d brought to them hidden in the plant named ferula (Bibl. I. 7. 1; Ovid, Met. I. 81) .
Stephanus Byzanthinus writes that at the time of Deucalion’s flood, after all mankind had perished and the earth had dried again, Jove ordered Prometheus and Minerva to form clay idols, then, calling all the winds, gave them souls and life].
We find a more complete version of this legend with the poet Claudianus (Eutropium, II. v. 470 ):
According to what legends tell us, he says, two twin brothers, Iapet’s sons, shaped from the same matter the first ancestors of our human genus, but with different success. Prometheus had put more divine spirit in the clay of the men created by him with a lot of care, and they, being created by a better master, knew in advance what was going to happen, so they were ready to meet the events which could harm them. But the second author of the human genus, whom the Greek poets name by right Epimetheus (mindless), being a lesser master, had chosen clay of an inferior quality and had not inspired any divine essence into it. These people, exactly like animals, could not avoid dangers, could not predict things and what was going to happen, and after they suffered a misfortune, only moaned and lamented.
It is impossible to know today the true historical meaning of this legend about the creation of man from water and clay. The origin of this belief harks back to very ancient times.
It is the same legend which had migrated from north to south, which had passed from the Carpathians to Hellada and from Hellada to Egypt, and which later was introduced by Moses in the holy books of the Hebrews. The times of Prometheus are much more ancient than the release of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt; especially the northern legend about the creation of man from water and clay, is much more archaic than the final redaction of Moses’ books.
According to Hesiod’s theogony, chained Prometheus suffered on the famous column on Atlas mountain.
Apollodorus locates Atlas mountain in the country of the Hyperboreans.
And Pindar tells us that the Hyperboreans were the people who dwelt near the sources (cataracts) of Istru (Olymp. III. v. 14. 17).
Finally, the Latin poet Martialis tells us even clearer (Epigr. Lib. IX. 46) that Prometheus’ rocks and the fabulous mountain (of Atlas) were in Dacia. In one of his finest epigrams dedicated to a Roman soldier who was going to Dacia, he says so: “Marceline, soldier, you go now to take on your shoulders the northern sky of the Hyperboreans and the stars of the Getic pole, which barely move. Behold also the rocks of Prometheus. Behold that famous mountain of legends. Soon you will see all these with your own eyes. When you will contemplate these rocks in which echo the great pains of the ancient man, you will say: Yes, he was even tougher than these tough rocks, and to these words you could still add that he, who could endure such torments, could in truth also form the human genus.
Near the simulacrum of Zeus aigiochos from the highest peak of Bucegi Mountain (2508m), between Prahova district and the county of Brasov, rises a gigantic rock column, which dominates the entire south-eastern corner of the Carpathians, and near this column, two other rocky peaks, born from the womb of the earth in the shape of powerful monoliths, rise their tops into the sky. Exactly like the figure of Zeus aigiochos, this column had in prehistoric antiquity a particular religious celebrity with all the Pelasgian tribes which had emigrated from the Carpathians towards Hellada, Asia Minor and Egypt.
This column was considered in the southern legends as the miraculous column of the earth, which supported the starry vault of the sky, or the northern pole of the universe.
We will examine firstly the old Hellenic traditions regarding the geographical position of this column and we will present then the legends and the important role which this column had in the ante-Homeric religious beliefs.
According to the old Greek geographical traditions, this legendary column of the sky was located in the extreme parts, or northern, of the known world, on the high and vast mountain called Atlas, in the country of the Hyperboreans.
This Atlas is one of the great figures of the Saturnian times.
As the old historical sources used by Diodorus Siculus said (lib. III. 57. 60), Atlas was Saturn’s brother and both were the sons of Uranus and Gaea. The titan Atlas especially was a powerful and wealthy king who ruled over the people of the Atlantes, who were part of the big family of the Hyperboreans.
It was said about this Atlas that he had flocks of fine sheep, of a reddish golden color (Ibid,lib.IV.27). And the poet Ovid presents this shepherd king from the times of the theogony with the following words: ”Thousands of flocks and cattle herds wander on his plains. His country is not pressed on either side by his neighbors’ boundaries. On his trees leaves grow glowing with gold, the branches of the trees are of gold and of gold also are the fruit that covers them” (Metam. lib. IV. v. 634 seqq).
This Atlas, brother of Saturn, had taken part in the Titans’ war against Jove, from which cause, after the total victory of this new monarch, was condemned to one of the most difficult labors known in the legendary history of antiquity, namely to support the sky with his head and tireless arms (Hesiod, Theog. v. 517).
The grammarian Apollodorus of Athens, who had lived around 145bc, had written an important work about the traditions and legends of the heroic times, which he had extracted from the cyclic poets, the ancient logographers and historians. In this work of his, of a great value for the history of ante-Homeric times, we find the following geographical data regarding the region over which the titan Atlas had once ruled: Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, Apollodorus tells us, had asked Hercules to accomplish also an eleventh labor and to bring him the golden apples from the Hesperides. But these apples, writes Apollodorus, were not in Libya (or the lands of Africa), as some say, but at the Atlas Mountain in the country of the Hyperboreans (Bibl. Lib. II. 5. 11).
Jove, on the occasion of his wedding, had presented these apples to Juno, and they were guarded there by an immortal dragon, who had one hundred heads, born from the union of Echidna and Typhon, and this dragon used many and different kinds of voices. Hercules, traveling across Libya, reached the External Sea, from there he crossed with his ship to the facing continent, and went to the Caucasus mountain, where he killed with his arrows the eagle (also born from Echidna and Typhon), who picked at Prometheus’ liver. So he freed Prometheus from his chains, and Prometheus advised him that, once arrived at Atlas, in the country of the Hyperboreans, he was not to go in person for the apples, but to send Atlas to bring them, while he, Hercules, supported on his shoulders, in Atlas’ stead, the pole of the sky (Apollodorus, II. 5. 11; Cicero, De nat. deor. II. 41) .
The Greek writers had lost very early the exact knowledge about the geographical position of the Atlas mountain. Because of this, some placed it in Mauritania in Africa, others in Italy, and finally some in Arcadia in the Peloponnesus. But no other mountain with the name of Atlas ever existed in any part of the ancient world, except in the country of the Hyperboreans. To the indigenous populations of NW Africa the name Atlas was totally unknown. This name was given to that mountainous range only in the Greek literary writings (Pliny, V. 1.13; Strabo, XVI. 3. 2)].
Hercules obeyed Prometheus’ advice, took the pole of the sky on his shoulders in Atlas’ stead, and Atlas went to the gardens of the Hesperides, took three apples and returned to Hercules. (This scene is represented on a bas-relief from the temple of Jove at Olympia). But now Atlas did not want to take back on his shoulders the pole of the sky, saying that he himself will take to Eurystheus the apples, while Hercules will continue to support the sky in his place. Hercules promised firstly to do that, but using a ruse, taught him by Prometheus, he put again the sky on Atlas’ shoulders. Namely, Hercules asked Atlas to support the sky for only a few moments, so that he could put a cushion on his head. Atlas put down the apples and took the sky, while Hercules grabbed the apples and went away.
This is the oldest tradition, and the most accredited at the same time, about the country of the titan Atlas, a king from the country of the pious Hyperboreans.
The Hyperboreans, the inhabitants of a very fertile and blessed country, a pastoral and agricultural people, full of virtues, religious and just, contemporary with the gods of Olympus, who considered themselves born from the glorious race of the titans (Boeckhius, Pindari opera,II.96), were an extended Pelasgian population living at the north of Istru and the Black Sea (Pindar affirmed that the Hyperboreans lived near the sources, or cataracts, of the Istru –Olymp.III.14-17).
Later though, Atlas, this powerful ruler of the people of the Atlantes, was turned into a huge mountain, continuing to support on his head the northern pole or the axis of the sky.
This legend is the following:
Perseus, the mythical hero from Argos, the son of Jove and the nymph Danae, was sent by king Polydectes from the island of Seriphos to bring him the head of Gorgona Medusa, which had the magic power to turn mortals into stone. Perseus arrived to the sources of the river Okeanos (the cataracts of Istru), where the three legendary gorgons lived (Apollodorus, Bibl. II. 4.2.8; Hesiod, Theog. v. 274. 281; Preller, Gr. Myth. II, 1854, p.44), cut Medusa’s head, put it in his bag and went away. He stopped at king Atlas on his way back, in the country of the Hyperboreans, and asked for his hospitality for one night. But Atlas, remembering an old prediction that a son of Jove will steal his golden apples, told him harshly to be off immediately, as otherwise neither his false brave deeds, nor his father Jove, will protect him from his wrath.
Perseus took then out of the bag the ugly head of Medusa and Atlas, big as he was, was instantly transformed into a mountain, his head becoming the top of a high peak (Ovid, Metam. lib. IV. 627 seqq; Pindar, Pyth. X. 50), while his body an immense mountain range .
A similar legend exists with the Romanian people: that the figure from “Omul” mountain represents a shepherd whom God punished for his lack of piety by changing him into a strong rock (Muller, Siebenburgische Sagen, p.174)].
The fundamental idea in Atlas’ legends is that this shepherd-king of the ancient world supported with his head and arms the pole, or the northern extremity of the axis around which the sky vault rotates. And Atlas mountain is also located in the northern regions of Europe by Ovid (Metam. IV. 130-131), by Hesiod (Theog. v.518, 736) and by Virgil in his Aeneid, these last two works having been written on the basis of the geographical data of the sacred literature.
Mercury (Hermes), Virgil tells us, sent by Jove to Africa with order to Aeneas to leave without delay for Italy, flew over countries and seas, helped by his sandals’ wings. “In this travel of his through the air, Hermes sees the cap and the precipitous slopes of hard Atlas, who supports the sky with his head. His head is crowned with fir trees and always surrounded by black clouds, beaten by winds and rain. His shoulders are covered by masses of snow, and rivers of water rush forth from the old one’s face, while his terrible beard is full of ice” .
In another poem of his (Georg. III. 349 seqq), Virgil also mentions near the Istru the long shape of the Rhodope mountains range (Carpathians), which arches back around the central axis of the sky.
St. Paulinus in his poem dedicated to the bishop Niceta from Dacia at 398ad, also considers that the Dacians lived under the northern pole].
So far we talked about Atlas as of one of the great personalities of the prehistoric times, as of a powerful king rich in flocks and wealthy in gold, from the country of the Hyperboreans; we also talked about Atlas as an important mountain from the same region, which represented, by name and legends, the ancient titan.
But in Greek antiquity, the name Atlas had another special geographical meaning.
With Herodotus, Atlas is the name of a significant river, which flows from the heights of old Hem (Carpathians) and into the Lower Istru (Herodotus, lib. IV. 49; Gooss, Studien zur Geographie d. Trajanischen Daciens, p.10; Dio Cassius, lib. LXVII. 6), identical with Alutus fluvius of the Romans and with the river Olt of today (Germ. Alt) .
The name Alutus (Greek ‘Atlas) presents itself as an old Pelasgian word, whose primitive meaning was without doubt “washed gold” and the place where gold is washed (Lat. alluo, to wash). From here derives also the legend that in Atlas’ kingdom even the leaves on the trees were of gold. The term alutatium, with the meaning of gold found on the surface of the earth, was still used in the times of Pliny (H. N. XXXIII. 21. 2) by the gold miners who washed gold in Dalmatia.
The washing of gold from the sands of Olt was in use in the Romanian Country until almost 1848.
Tunusli says (Ist. politica si geografica a Terei romanesci, p.37): “Gold is extracted from the sand of the rivers Olt, Topolog, Arges and Dambovita, by the royal gypsies called rudari”. Sulzer also speaks about the gold found in the river Olt (Geschichte d. transalp. Daciens I. 152-153)].
The name Olt had and still has with the Romanian people the same archaic meaning as both mountain and river at the same time. The important chain of the Southern Carpathians, which once harbored the pastoral Pelasgian tribes – starting from Barsa country to the sources of Motru – bears even today the name of the mountains of Olt and the mountains of the Olteni (Teodorescu, Folk poetry, p.557; Marienescu, Carols, p.133) [5].
[5. In folk poems from Banat “the Peak of Olt” is the highest mountain towards Transylvania (Hodos, Folk poetry from Banat, p.127).
Fagaras mountains are also called in Transylvania the mountains of Olt. Apart from the river Olt, there are also in Romania three hills called Olt, in the districts Valcea and Dolj)]
Finally, the legendary history of Atlas presents also an archaeological character.
According to old Hellenic traditions, the highest peak of Atlas mountain showed the petrified figure of this powerful representative of the race of the titans.
“As great as Atlas was” writes Ovid (Metam. IV. v. 656 seqq) “he was changed into a mountain. His beard and locks now became forests, his shoulders and arms, extensive hills; what had before been his head, now is the top of the highest mountain; his bones became rocky crags; and then, growing in all directions, he reached an immense size”.
Virgil also mentions Atlas’ head, crowned with fir trees and surrounded by clouds, his shoulders covered by masses of snow, the big face of the old man from which rivers of water rush forth, and his terrible beard full of ice.
This colossal figure turned to stone, described with such realism by Atlas’ legends, still exists today near the column which rises on the top of Omul mountain. It is the grandiose simulacrum of Zeus aigiochos, formed by an entire mountain peak.
And the words of the Roman poet Statius (Thebaid. Lib. XII. V. 650) referred to the same figure, when he talked about Jupiter nubilus from the axis of the Hyperboreans.
These legends of Atlas belong to the second period of prehistory, when the old traditions about the holy places from the north of Istru had been lost in the southern regions, when the miraculous simulacrum of Saturn as Zeus euruopa aigiochos from the mountains of Olt was considered to be the titan Atlas, turned into stone. It is the same monument of the ante-Homeric times, but this time with different names and legends [6].
[6. This lack of geographical knowledge regarding the regions from the north of Istru is stated by Herodotus, in the following words: ”northwards from Thrace, what sort of people dwell, nobody can precisely tell. Only that it seems that beyond the Istru there is a deserted and infinite land].
We are presented now with the last geographical matter from the history of the legends of the titan Atlas, namely: which is the origin of the name “the Sky Column” of the colossal pyramid from the top of the Omul mountain.
With Eschyl (Prometheus, v. 349), this majestic monument of the Pelasgian world bears the name “the column of the sky and earth”.
And Homer mentions in his Odyssey (I. v. 53-54) “the long columns” on the Atlas mountain, “which separate the sky from the earth”, without saying anything though about their number. But Hesiodus tells us (Theog. v. 521-522) that Atlas supports the sky with his head and tireless arms, and this author also adds that Prometheus had been chained on the middle column.
So, according to the old legends of the Theogony, there were three stone columns on Atlas mountain, out of which one, the highest and strongest, was considered as the principal column. Three columns with particular shapes, which had once represented some sacred symbols, can still be seen on the highest peak of Omul mountain, dominating from above the figure of Zeus aigiochos (from the point of view of its geological formation, the peak called Omul was and still is considered as only one of the peaks of Caraiman mountain – Frunzescu, Dict. top. p. VI).
The name “the Sky Column” was doubtless in the beginning only an expression of the sacred geography. It designated not an imaginary miraculous column, which supported the starry vault of the sky, but a real, grandiose column, from the most sacred mountain of the ancient times, called in Greek literature Ouranos, megas ouranos, today Caraiman (Cerus manus), column which had been consecrated to the supreme divinity of the sky.
According to traditions and the positive archaeological data which we have, the first religious monuments which humanity had erected in honor of the celestial divinities, were only simple wooden or stone columns.
So, the gigantic columns of Hercules, so famous once in the ancient world, were, as the scholiast of Dionysius Periegetus tells us (Fragm. Hist. gr., Ed. Didot, III. 640. 16), consecrated firstly to Saturn, the god who represented the great divinity of the immense sky.
And Pausanias, in The description of Greece, mentions that, on the road from Sparta to Arcadia there were seven columns, erected according to the ancient rite, about which it was said that represented the simulacra of the seven planets (lib. III. 20. 9).
Even in the second century b.c., the grammarian Apollodorus of Athens had established, based on older texts, that the majestic Atlas mountain which supported the northern pole of the sky, was not in Libya or NW Africa, but in the country of the Hyperboreans, an extended Pelasgian population from north of Thrace or the Lower Istru.
The same truth is confirmed today by the names and geographical descriptions, as well as the monuments mentioned in the legends of Atlas.
According to all these different geographical indications of antiquity, the immense Atlas mountain, the pastoral mountain of the Hyperboreans, corresponds to the southern chain of the Carpathians, known in Romanian history under the name of the mountains of Olt.
Especially the apex of old Atlas presents itself as identical in everything with the majestic peak called Omul, from the Bucegi massif, that massif on which there are also the simulacrum of Zeus aigiochos, the cyclopean altars, and the three columns of stone, about the legends of which we shall speak in the following chapters [7].
[7. As in antiquity the countless flocks of the titan Atlas had become famous for their golden fleece, similarly was renowned, to our very days, the race of sheep with fine, short and curly fleece from the mountains of Fagaras and Barsa (Fridvalszky, Mineralogia M. Pr. Transilvaniae, 1767, p.6). And also regarding the great flocks and herds which grazed once this group of mountains, Babes writes (Din plaiul Pelesului, p.58-63): “From prehistoric times, on the peaks of the mountains and the highest tops of the Carpathians, were brought to pasture countless flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and horses…There were shepherds who owned hundreds and even thousands of horses, others who had flocks of ten to twenty thousands of sheep…The predominant races of sheep in our country are tsurcana or barsana and tsigaia….Tsigaia sheep are of the type with curly and fine fleece; as for color, tsigaia is white, black, reddish or smoky”. The religious songs from Dobrogea still mention these sheep: ewes with yellowish fleece, with golden fleece, with silken fleece.
The peaks of Omul are usually covered in clouds and mists today also, exactly as it was said about old Atlas; and under the cover of the rocks, the snow is permanent (Turcu, Escursiuni, p.20). Atlas was considered in the old legends as the highest mountain of the known world (Ovid, Met. VI. 115; Virgil, Aen. IV. 482).
HereForNow:
Bangong Lake (Palgon Lake), about 155km in length from the west to the east, and width range from 40meters to 15km, the average deepth about 57meters, alt 4242m. In lake there are at least 5 islands such as Shu Island, Tu Island etx, and one largest is Bird Island, about 300meters in length and 200meters in width, is the kingdom of birds, also breeding place in Spring for some birds such as Anser ndicus, some ducks etc back there in May and Jun, some island for special birds' habitat, such as Anser ndicus in Egg Island.
Qoais:
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Bangong Lake (Palgon Lake),
What country? Where?
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qoais
have you come across the story of the scythian tribe where the men went off on a long campaign but before they left they blinded all the slaves.
when they came back 20[?] years later they found that their women had bred a new generation with the slaves and they had built great walls to keep their returning men out?
Nope - can't say as I have but it puts me in mind of that old song:
Rueben, Rueben I've been thinking,
what a grand world this would be,
if the men were all transported,
far beyond the northern sea!
Nerc:
On their return to their homes after the long absence of twenty-eight years, a task awaited them little less troublesome than their struggle with the Medes. They found an army of no small size prepared to oppose their entrance. For the Scythian women, when they saw that time went on, and their husbands did not come back, had intermarried with their slaves.
Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, to use them in preparing their milk. The plan they follow is to thrust tubes made of bone, not unlike our musical pipes, up the vulva of the mare, and then to blow into the tubes with their mouths, some milking while the others blow. They say that they do this because when the veins of the animal are full of air, the udder is forced down. The milk thus obtained is poured into deep wooden casks, about which the blind slaves are placed, and then the milk is stirred round. That which rises to the top is drawn off, and considered the best part; the under portion is of less account. Such is the reason why the Scythians blind all those whom they take in war; it arises from their not being tillers of the ground, but a pastoral race.
When therefore the children sprung from these slaves and the Scythian women grew to manhood, and understood the circumstances of their birth, they resolved to oppose the army which was returning from Media. And, first of all, they cut off a tract of country from the rest of Scythia by digging a broad dyke from the Tauric mountains to the vast lake of the Maeotis. Afterwards, when the Scythians tried to force an entrance, they marched out and engaged them. Many battles were fought, and the Scythians gained no advantage, until at last one of them thus addressed the remainder: "What are we doing, Scythians? We are fighting our slaves, diminishing our own number when we fall, and the number of those that belong to us when they fall by our hands. Take my advice- lay spear and bow aside, and let each man fetch his horsewhip, and go boldly up to them. So long as they see us with arms in our hands, they imagine themselves our equals in birth and bravery; but let them behold us with no other weapon but the whip, and they will feel that they are our slaves, and flee before us."
The Scythians followed this counsel, and the slaves were so astounded, that they forgot to fight, and immediately ran away.
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.4.iv.html
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