Mystery of the Dropa Discs

The Dropa stones are said to be a set of 716 circular stone disks dating back 12,000 years on which tiny hieroglyphic-like markings can be found. Each disc is said to measure up to 1 foot in diameter and carry two grooves, originating from a hole in their centre, in the form of a double spiral. The discovery of the mysterious discs apparently took place in 1938 in the mountains of Baian Kara-Ula on the border between China and Tibet, where a Chinese professor, Chi Pu Tei, detected regularly aligned rows of graves. The skeletons measured only around four feet in height and had skulls which were large and over developed.  Inside a nearby cave system, Chi Pu Tei and his team found interesting rock art which depicted figures with round helmets. Engraved in the rock were also the sun, moon, earth and stars, connected by groups of pea-sized dots. Further inside the cave, the team found the collection of stone discs, most of them half buried in the floor of the cave. Tsum Um Nui For the next two decades, it is believed that the discs were labelled and stored at Beijing University before being given to Tsum Um Nui for study in 1958. Tsum Um Nui allegedly managed to decipher the hieroglyphic characters after 4 years of study which he claimed told the story of a spacecraft that crash landed in the area of the cave and that the ship contained the Dropa people.  One of the discs apparently said the following: "The Dropa came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last we understood the sign language of the Dropas, we realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions". Tsum Um Nui is said to have published his findings 1962 in a professional journal, and was subsequently ridiculed and met with disbelief. Shortly afterwards he is said to have gone to Japan in a self-imposed exile where he died not long after he completed the manuscript of his work. Russian Involvement in 1968 the Dropa

stones apparently came to the attention of W. Saitsew (also spelt Zaitsev), a Russian scientist who re-published the findings of Tsum Um Nui and conducted tests on the disks that revealed some very peculiar properties. Physically, the granite stones contained high concentrations of cobalt and other metals - a very hard stone indeed that would have made it difficult for the primitive people to carve the lettering, especially with such minute characters. As recorded in the Soviet magazine Sputnik, when testing a disk with an oscillograph, a surprising oscillation rhythm was recorded as if, the scientists said, they had once been electrically charged or had functioned as electrical conductors.

Supposedly, Ernst Wegerer (Wegener) was an Austrian engineer who, in 1974, visited the Banpo Museum in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, where he was able to see two of the Dropa stones. It is said that when he enquired about the discs the manager did not provide him with any information but allowed him to photograph them. He claims that in his photos the hieroglyphs cannot be seen as they have been hidden by the flash from the camera and have also deteriorated. In 1994, the German scientist Hartwig Hausdorf and colleague Peter Krassa, are said to have visited China and the Banpo museum in Xian in 1994, where they were told that the Director's superiors had ordered the discs destroyed and that officially they do not recognise their existence.  Hausdorf found out that the Chinese government do not have any official record of a tribe called Dropa, neither in the local area of Qinghai or whatsoever in China.  Have any of the Dropa people survived?  At the time of the discovery, the cave area was still inhabited by two tribes known as the Hams and the Dropas. Anthropologists have apparently been unable to categorize either tribe into any other known race; they are neither Chinese, Mongol nor Tibetan. They are yellow-skinned with thin bodies and disproportionately large heads, corresponding to the skeletal remains found in the caves in 1938. They have sparse hair on their bodies, have large eyes and their height measures between  3’6” and 4’7” with an average height of 4’2”. Controversies The Dropa stones are immersed in controversy with many claiming that it is nothing but a hoax.

Among the arguments against their existence are the following: It has been claimed that Tsum Um Nui is not a real Chinese name. There is no mention of him in China outside of his connection to the Dropa stones. According to Dropa enthusiast Hartwig Hausdorf, Tsum Um Nui is a former Japanese name, but adapted to the Chinese language. The vast majority of names and sources cannot be corroborated and existence the Soviet or Chinese scholars cannot be found. While reported to be a tribe of people with pygmy stature, the real Dropas are said to be nomadic herders who inhabit most of the northern Tibetan Plateau and who have regular height. The only photos of the stone discs do not show any evidence of the hieroglyphs and display a similarity to Bi discs, which are round jade discs dating to around 3000 BC, common in the Shaanxi Province. It seems unlikely that a scholar was able to decipher and understand a completely unknown language in 4 years. Deciphering ancient writings has usually taken decades for multiple teams of expert linguists and this is even when they can be linked to another known language. The stone discs were said to have been stored in various museums across China. However, none of these museums have any records or traces of Dropa stone ever being there. Fact or Fiction? Are the Dropa stones and the accompanying story simply part of an elaborate hoax or a fanciful story?  Or were hundreds of discs with evidence of extra-terrestrial visitation to Earth really discovered, and the facts surrounding the case covered up?

By April Holloway

Trojans at the Battle of Qadesh

The Battle of Qadesh (Kadesh) immortalized the embellished feats of Ramesses II (i.e. Ramesses the Great), the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh of the New Kingdom of Egypt ca. 1279 - 1213 BCE. The pharaoh would use this battle as a marketing tool to show his Egyptian subjects and then the rest of the world, that he is not one to contend with. The year was 1274 BCE and the location,

Qadesh, an ancient Levantine city in what is now part of Western Syria. Ramesses led the Egyptians while Muwatalli II (ca. 1295 - 1272 BCE) led the Hittites (Healy, 21). In his youth and the early part of his reign, Ramesses campaigned northeast of his kingdom as he felt it was his obligation to reclaim the land his forefathers once ruled (Healy, 19). The land in question was overtaken by the Hittite forces under the direction of Mursilis II (ca. 1321 - 1295 BCE).

What would culminate into the Battle of Qadesh extends generations back into the past, toward the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (as early as the late 16th Century BCE). It all began with the desire of the great powers of the ancient Near East to exploit the economic resources and trade of the Levant. During this period Syria was at the crossroads of world commerce. Goods from the Aegean and beyond entered and left the Near East via ports such as Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra). These traded goods ranged from copper, tin, chemicals, tools, glass, ingots, ivory, faience, jewelry, timber, textiles, to even foodstuffs. Once reaching the Levant, the trade then expanded beyond that point by a network of extensive trade routes. It was an ideal location for imperial control. It is not surprising that the great powers of Egypt, Mitanni, and Hatti spilled a lot of blood in wars designated to ensure their respective control of this attractive region (Healy, 9-18).

In the early part of the 14th century BCE, the Hittite monarch Suppiluliumas extended his empire into Mitanni territory in what was northern Syria. This event would soon invalidate a few decades old peace treaty between the kingdom of Mitanni, or Hurrians, and Egypt, which originally gave Egypt claim to the land of Amurru, the Eleutheros valley, and Qadesh (Healy, 14). It was during this time of peace that the Egyptian New Kingdom reached its apogee, enjoying a period of wealth and prosperity. Tributes poured in from Egypt’s possession of Canaan and the established secure borders with Mitanni allowed for the unimpeded movement of goods along the Near Eastern trade routes (Healy, 9). So when that prosperous period was challenged by the Hittites and began to deteriorate everything that the Egyptians worked hard for, it was only natural for Egypt to defend its land. It was also only a matter of time before the power of Mitanni fell to the Hittites, leaving the Egyptians in conflict with the Hittites alone. During the Hittite expansion into Syrian territory toward the south, the province of Qadesh was eventually taken. Its recovery would be the focus of the Egyptians until the time of Ramesses II (Healy, 19).

The Hittite Empire at the height of its power (red), bordering on the Egyptian Empire (green). Credit: Wikipedia

The battle between two giant forces would eventually take place. In the aftermath, the Egyptians would boast of their victory. Its events would be retold and written on inscriptions and reliefs through the land. Archaeology, however, has shown us a different side to this tale. When the Hittite language was deciphered in the mid-20th Century CE (Macqueen, 24), a peace treaty between the two opponents would be translated, indicating that both parties had called for a truce. Neither side would truly emerge victorious. The Egyptian account of this event would also reveal the allies of the Hittites, which included tributary nations and mercenaries for hire, one of which is of particular interest; the one being the Trojans.

The Hittite Peace Treaty. Credit: Wikimedia

The province of Wilusa (Greek: Ilion) or Truwisa (Greek: Troya) was a subject or tributary state to the greater Hittite empire. They paid tribute to receive aid and protection from Hatti (Bryce, 74). References to this province are routinely mentioned in the archives found at the old Hittite capital of Hattusha. A lot of those references also relate to a conflict between Wilusa and Ahhiyawa (Achaeans), one of the names given to the ancient Greeks, placing the ancient Greeks on Anatolian soil as early as the 14th-13th centuries BCE and inspiring the epic poem, the Iliad (Bryce, 102).

Through the persistent work of Heinrich Schliemann (1822 - 1890 CE), the location of Troy had been archaeologically uncovered and by the 1990′s it was determined that this was in fact the location of the Troy that Homer sung about (Bryce, 30).

Moving back to Qadesh and the inscriptions of Ramesses II, he lists the allies of the Hittites. One of those allies was the Drdnjj (vocalized as Dardany and the Greek: Dardanoi); that is, the Trojans (Bryce, 136). Dardania was a district of the Troad, lying along the Hellespont and adjacent to the territory of Ilium. On top of the people of Troya or Ilion (both used by the poet almost interchangeably), Homer refers to the Trojans by another name, the people of the Dardanelles. This should come as no surprise as the region of Truwisa was committed to aid the Hittite empire. Shortly following the Battle of Qadesh, the layer of Troy VIIa (considered by

some academics to be the possible candidate for the Trojan War) was burned to the ground (likely to be an outcome of war) at ca. 1180 BCE (Bryce, 65-66).

It is truly remarkable that archaeology has provided us with an Egyptian inscription referring to the Trojans and their activities outside of the Hittite historical records and later Greek and Roman (i.e. Aeneid) poetry.

Featured image: The battle of Qadesh. Image source.

By Petros Koutoupis

Sources

Bryce, Trevor. The Trojans and Their Neighbors. New York: Routledge, 2006. [Print]

Healy, Mark. Qadesh 1300 BC: Clash of the warrior kings. New York: Osprey P, 1993. [Print]

Macqueen, J.G. The Hittites: And their Contemporaries in Asia Minor. 2nd ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003. [Print]

In search of the Origins of the Philistines

They would be immortalized as ancient Israel’s worst enemy in the scriptures of the Old Testament. They are the Philistines. Much like the ancient Israelites, the Philistines were strangers to the foreign land of Canaan. Although to date, their origins still remain a mystery. From where did they originate prior to their settlement in Canaan? The Old Testament may shed a bit of light on this question. It is recorded in both the books of Genesis and Amos that the Philistines were from Caphtor. Gen. 10:14 ...the Pathrusim, the Casluhim, the Caphtorim, whence the Philistines came forth. Amo. 9:7 ...But also the Philistines from Caphtor... Caphtor, also known as Kaptaru or Kaptar in ancient Akkadian sources and Keftiu in ancient Egyptian sources has been generally accepted by modern scholars to be the island of Crete situated in the southern region of the Aegean Sea (Cline, 19). Despite these Biblical references providing us with an answer, it beckons the further question: “How credible of an answer is it?” Some of our earliest references to the Philistines can be traced as far back as the 12th century BCE in ancient Egypt. It is from an inscription located at a mortuary temple in Medinet Habu, situated on the western side of Thebes in Egypt. Dating to approximately 1150 BCE and commissioned by the Pharaoh Ramesses III, the inscription speaks of the battle and defeat of a confederation of Sea Peoples. In the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the inscription specifically identifies an ethnic group from within this confederation and in opposition to the Egyptians called the P-r-s-t which phonetically renders to the Peleset (Dothan, People of the Sea, 22). This is synonymous to the Hebrew ethnic term given to these same peoples of Pelishtim; that is, the Philistines. The inscription continues to state that after their defeat in the battle that took place in Nile delta region, the Egyptian Pharaoh resettled the Philistines in the land of Canaan to the East. The Philistines would then thrive in this region and establish their Pentapolis; that is, the five sites of

Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath (Cline, 157). The inscription of Ramesses III provides yet another valuable resource to these Philistines and that is, a clear image of their appearance.

Wall relief of Philistines captives, mortuary temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu, Theban Necropolis, Egypt. Photo source: Wikipedia The battle with Ramesses III took place at a time of great turmoil and change. It was marked by the end of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BCE) and the beginning of the Iron Age. In this period of history, civilizations such as the Mycenaeans (of the Aegean) and the Hittites (of Anatolia) would disappear completely, paving the way for new ethnic groups that would eventually redefine the Western world. As part of the events that took place during this transition, mass migrations would occur as many ethnic groups searched for a new life and new opportunities. Parts of these migrations were recorded by the ancient Egyptians as they labelled these groups collectively as the Sea Peoples, again, the Philistines being one of them.

Ancient Egyptian portrayal of a Philistine dating to the reign of Ramesses III. Author’s image. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. So, before settling in Canaan and

transforming into the rivals of the Israelites, we can archaeologically trace the Philistines back to Egypt. We still do not have a definitive answer to their origins prior to this. From whence did they come? Part 2: Traces of the Philistines on the island of Crete By Petros Koutoupis Sources Castleden, Rodney. Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. London: Routledge, 2002. [Print] Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B. New York: Cambridge UP, 1958. [Print] Cline, Eric H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014. [Print] Dothan, Trude. "Queen of the Philistines. BAR Interviews Trude Dothan." Interview by Hershel Shanks. Biblical Archaeology Review Sep/Oct. 2010: 58-64. [Print] Dothan, Trude and Moshe Dothan. People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. New York: Macmillion Publishing Company, 1992. [Print] JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. [Print] Karageorghis, Vassos. “Exploring Philistine Origins on the Island of Cyprus.” Biblical Archaeology Review Mar/Apr. 1984: 16-28. [Print] Ventris, Michael and John Chadwick. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 1973. [Print] Featured image: ‘Delilah’s Betrayal and Samson’s Imprisonment by the Philistines’ by Joos van Winghe (1544-1603). Image source: Wikipedia

Commonly referred to as the modern Queen of the Philistines, archaeologist Trude Dothan, believes that in some part, the Philistines originated from the island of Cyprus to the North of Egypt and West of Canaan (Dothan, Queen of the Philistines, 59) Dothan would continue to excavate outside of Israel and on Cyprus. Working closely with Cyprus’s director of the

Department of Antiquities, Dr. Vassos Karageorghis, who previously excavated the site of Kition, Dothan focused specifically on the Cypriot site of Atheniou, which eventually yielded extraordinary finds of Mycenaean IIIC 1:b pottery which date to approximately 1200 - 1025 BCE. This pottery was reminiscent of the local manufactured pottery found in land of the Philistines in Canaan. Other clues linking the Philistines to Cyprus were the Enkomi ivory made game box, their dress (i.e. the short panelled kilts with wide hem and tassels and the ribbed corselet found above the waist and over their shirts), and an image of a warrior with similar headdress as seen in Egyptian reliefs (see images above) engraved on a stone seal (Dothan, People of the Sea, 95).

Ivory game box found at Enkomi Cyprus. Image source: Wikipedia While the excavations of Dothan indicated that there was a Philistine presence on the island of Cyprus at the time and/or just prior to their invasion of Egypt and resettlement in the Levant, it still did not conclusively produce sufficient evidence to claim that they originated from Cyprus. Based on personal research, it is this author’s opinion that the Old Testament verses may be correct on this matter.  Possible earlier references and never before associated links to the Philistines may be found on the island of Crete, but before we identify those pieces of evidence, let us briefly summarize the history of the Aegean. During the Late Bronze Age period of the Eastern Mediterranean, at approximately 1400 BCE, the Mycenaean Greek civilization overtook the pre-existing Minoan control of the Aegean and began to occupy Crete among the other Aegean islands. In the process of extending their dominion and influences from mainland Greece to these regions, they adopted and adapted the Minoan Linear A form of writing, which has been dubbed as Linear B by modern scholars and they also resumed the Minoan trade routes throughout the Near Eastern world (Cline, 47). It is uncertain as to whether the Mycenaean expansion into Minoan territory was a peaceful integration or a violent takeover but one thing is for certain, what didn’t assimilate under the new Mycenaean regime simply vanished and traces of the older Minoan ways were to disappear completely off of the historical record until British archaeologist, Sir

Arthur Evans, would rediscover the lost civilization at the beginning of the 20th century CE. Evans would have the privilege of naming the civilization after the mythical king Minos (Castleden, 1). Prior to the Mycenaean takeover, Minoan influence extended beyond the Aegean and their legacy would be found throughout Anatolia, Egypt, Cyprus, the Levant, and even Mesopotamia (Cline, 19). Going back to Cyprus, the Cypriot kingdom of Alashiya (the name given to this island in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern records), most likely centered at the site of Enkomi would adopt the Minoan Linear A script and adapt it for their own use. This would give way to a new Cypro-Minoan syllabary which would later be referred to as Linear C. The undeciphered Linear C script would eventually evolve and be used to inscribe the later spoken Arcadocypriot language (read below)

Tablet inscribed with Cypro-Minoan 2 script. Late Bronze III. Photo source: Wikipedia

Archaeologists Dothan and Karageorghis may have been on the right path and not too far from the truth all along. Although they were missing a vital piece to the puzzle and that piece was to be found on the island of Crete and at Pylos on the southern Greek mainland in the Peloponnese. As mentioned earlier, the Mycenaean Greek language was recorded with the Linear B script. The syllabary was comprised of hundreds of signs that represent syllabic, ideographic, and semantic values. Linear B was deciphered and translated by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick between 1951 - 1953, providing insight into the more archaic form of Greek spoken by the Mycenaeans (Chadwick, 84). Following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization at the end of the Bronze Age, new dialects of the Greek language emerged which included variations of Doric, Aeolic, Attic, Ionic, and Arcadocyriot; the latter of which we are concerned with at the present.

In the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaean Greek language was established as the lingua franca of the Aegean world. When the Mycenaean civilization collapsed entering into a Dark Age (ca. 1200 BCE) and the centralized places and outlying settlements dispersed into the highlands and

into more isolated communities, various dialects descending from the once unified Mycenaean Greek language emerged and would continue to evolve. Eventually Greece stepped out of that Dark Age and into the Archaic Period at approximately the 8th century BCE. In this period we can archaeologically observe the Greek colonization of (and communication with) the Aegean, Anatolia, and Cyprus to the East and also southern Italy and Sicily to the West; thus spreading the various dialects throughout the Mediterranean world. By this time, these variations of the Greek language had evolved so much that the only dialect that seemed more like its direct descendent (i.e. Mycenaean Greek) was Arcadocypriot. It was spoken in the central Peloponnese and on Cyprus. The earliest recorded evidence of Arcadocypriot Greek dates to the 11th century BCE with an inscription found on a bronze skewer in a tomb in Palaepaphos in southwestern Cyprus. The inscription is written in the same Cypro-Minoan syllabary mentioned earlier and contains the Greek proper name, Opheltas (Karageorghis, 28). This find showcases that a post-Mycenaean Greek presence existed on Cyprus during the Dark Age. Did groups of Mycenaeans migrate from the Aegean and to Cyprus following the collapse of the Mycenaean empire, between 1200 and 1100 BCE? The inscription and the Mycenaean style pottery of local manufacture seem to indicate that this is the case. That aside, our next step is to locate an origin of departure.

As we sift through the surviving inscriptions of Mycenaean Linear B tablets, a recurring word seems to hold a link. Transliterated by both Ventris and Chadwick, the terms in question is still undeciphered. These terms are, pe-ri-te and pe-ri-te-u. Based on the Pylos inscription number Vn 130, Pe-ri-te is written in the dative case (Ventris, 571), that is stating that a product came from a region known as Pe-ri-te; suggesting that it was a town of some sort. Another inscription from Pylos, number An 654 speaks of a “Klumenos, a senior coast guard officer, of Pe-ri-te,” however, in this case, it would seem that it is written in the toponym case, Pe-ri-te-u (author’s interpretation). This second form is also observed on two separate tablets found at Knossos on Crete: C 594 and B 5025. One of those two tablets seems to indicate a possible offering of sheep from this town or region. The second is too badly damaged to interpret.

Now, if we recall the Egyptian rendering of the term Philistine, that is Peleset. It is written with hieroglyphs as p-r-s-t; where the letter ‘R’ is sometimes interchangeable with the letter ‘L.’ The same can be said with Mycenaean Greek. The syllabary does not account for the letter ‘L’ which is why in some cases, the letter ‘R’ can be rendered as such. Another interesting fact about Mycenaean Greek and Linear B is that there are cases in which the letter ‘T’ can be rendered as ‘ST.’ An excellent example for both cases can be observed with the Mycenaean word te-re-ta which equates with the later Greek word, telesta translating to “an official” (Ventris, 585). If we apply the same logic to the word pe-ri-te and pe-ri-te-u, we would read Peliste and Pelistu which shows an uncanny similarity to the Egyptian Peleset, the Hebrew Pelishtim (the ‘im’ ending indicates that it is an ethnic term in the Hebrew dialect, thus translating to “people of Pelesht”), and even the Akkadian Palastu. If we continue to follow the clues with the few surviving inscriptions containing the two variations of this word, there seems

to be some sort of indication that this town or province may have been located outside of the Greek mainland and local to the island of Crete.

If what is being proposed here for the first time is true, then we have the earliest reference to the Philistines within the historical record; that is, dating to before 1200 BCE. This would either mean that the Philistines that eventually migrated to the Levant were either Mycenaean or the product of the intermingling of the Mycenaean and indigenous Minoan stock, from a town or province on the island of Crete, proving the Bible’s claim to be true. As they moved eastward, some would have stopped on the island of Cyprus either permanently or briefly before moving on to Egypt and the Levant.

Featured image: A relief carving of the ‘Sea Peoples’. Image source.

Part 1

By Petros Koutoupis

Sources

Castleden, Rodney. Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. London: Routledge, 2002. [Print]

Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B. New York: Cambridge UP, 1958. [Print]

Cline, Eric H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014. [Print]

Dothan, Trude. "Queen of the Philistines. BAR Interviews Trude Dothan." Interview by Hershel Shanks. Biblical Archaeology Review Sep/Oct. 2010: 58-64. [Print]

Dothan, Trude and Moshe Dothan. People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. New York: Macmillion Publishing Company, 1992. [Print]

JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. [Print]

Karageorghis, Vassos. “Exploring Philistine Origins on the Island of Cyprus.” Biblical Archaeology Review Mar/Apr. 1984: 16-28. [Print]

Ventris, Michael and John Chadwick. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 1973. [Print]

Treasure trove of Ancient Phoenician artifacts discovered in Lebanon

Archaeologists have unearthed a treasure trove of ancient Phoenician artifacts at an archaeological site in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to a news report in The Daily Star of Lebanon. The findings included a 4-foot-high statue of a Phoenician priest dating back more than 2,500 years. According to the excavation leader, it is the most unique find for

Lebanon in decades. The Phoenicians were the direct descendants of the Canaanites of the south Syrian and Lebanese coast who, at the end of the second millennium BC, became isolated by population and political changes in the regions surrounding them. The name derives from the Greek, Phoinikes, referring to the purple coloured dye which the Phoenicians extracted from the murex shell, and with which they produced highly prized textiles.  Phoenicia was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean and pioneered the development of multi-tiered oared shipping throughout the region.

The discovery of the Phoenician artifacts was made at the Freres College site, which has been under excavation for 16 years. The most significant finding was the statue of a priest dating back to the 6th century BC, depicted with a pleated kilt, known as a “shenti,” with a pendant flap from the waist to the kilt’s hem. The left hand is in a closed fist and holding an unknown object, believed to be either a scroll or a handkerchief. “Nothing comparable has been found in Lebanon since the early 1960s, and only three other examples originating from Sidon, Umm al-Ahmed and Tyre are housed in the Beirut National Museum,” said head of the excavation, Claude Doumit Serhal. In addition to the statue, researchers found a bronze symbol representing the Phoenician goddess Tanit, Roman-era figurines of Osiris, three new rooms in a third millennium B.C. public building, along with a 200-kilogram deposit of charred wheat called einkorn, 160 kilograms of broad bean and 20 burials belonging to both adults and infants from the second millennium B.C. Featured image: A worker shows one of the statuettes found at the Freres College excavation site in the southern city of Sidon, Credit: The Daily Star/Mohammed Zaatari

The Ancient Stone Labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky

On a small collection of remote islands in the White Sea of Russia lies the highest concentration of ancient labyrinths on the planet. Despite numerous theories, archaeologists and historians have

not come to any agreement about why they were built and what their purpose was. The labyrinth remains one of the most mysterious symbols found on Earth – thousands of years ago, it appeared at the same point in history on all inhabited continents in the world – why? Today, we use the term ‘labyrinth’ to refer to any maze-like structure. However, there is a key distinction between a labyrinth and a maze.  A maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a labyrinth is a single-path (unicursal) pattern that has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the centre. The long history of the labyrinth The word ‘labyrinth’ comes from the ancient Greek words ‘labrys’, a word for the iconic ‘double axe’ which was used by the Minoans on the island of Crete, and ‘inthos’ meaning ‘place’. Thus, labryinthos has been interpreted to mean ‘house of the double-headed axe’.   The complex palace of Knossos in Crete is usually implicated.  According to Greek mythology, King Minos of Crete had the craftsman Daedalus construct the labyrinth in order to conceal the Minotaur, the half-bull, half-human offspring of Minos' wife Pasiphae and a bull. For some unknown reason, Daedalus and his son Icarus were confined in the labyrinth. Constructing wings of feathers and wax, the two were able to escape by flying above the walls of the labyrinth. Young Icarus, however, impetuously flew too near the sun. His waxy wings melted and he drowned in the Icarian Sea.  While the legend of the Minotaur was long thought of as a myth, the remains of the labyrinth of Knossos were uncovered in the early 20th century by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.

Although there are numerous labyrinth designs found throughout history, such as the seven circuit, eleven circuit, and twelve circuit labyrinths, in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean, a common symbol of a 7-circuit labyrinth was associated with the legends. Known today as the Cretan labyrinth, it consists of a single path winding back and forth to a centre point in a series of seven concentric rings.   Intriguingly, the shape of the 7-circuit labyrinth also mirrors the motion of the planet mercury in the sky over a long period of time. Did some ancient astronomer record this motion, and create the labyrinth symbol based upon it?  We will probably never know.  The earliest known use of the 7-circuit labyrinth symbol occurs on a clay tablet from the Mycenaean palace at Pylos in Greece. A fire destroyed this palace around 1200 BC, baking the clay tablet and preserving it for archaeologists.

A depiction of a seven circuit labyrinth While the word ‘labyrinth’ is closely tied in with Greek history and mythology, labyrinths have been around a lot longer than the legend of Knossos and the Minotaur.  Dating back nearly 4000 years is the famed labyrinth of antiquity, the Egyptian temple precinct of a pyramid complex of many courts, built at Hawara by Amenemhet III of the 12th Dynasty (1844-1797 BC).  There were twelve separate courts of considerable size all facing one another throughout this labyrinth and all connected by corridors and colonnades and shafts. Criss-crossing alleys and false doors sealed by stone plugs all protected the central burial chamber of the pyramid of the king. But the labyrinths of Greece and Egypt are just the tip of the iceberg.  Labyrinths have been found in just about every major religious tradition in the world, have formed an integral part of many cultures, and have been found on every inhabited continent.  At about the same time as the appearance of the Greek labyrinth, an essentially identical pattern appeared in Native American culture, the Tohono O'odham labyrinth, which features I'itoi, the "Man in the Maze".   A prehistoric petroglyph on a riverbank in Goa shows the same pattern and other examples have been found among cave art in northern India and on a dolmen shrine in the Nilgiri Mountains. In terms of ancient archaeological monuments, more than 300 examples of labyrinths can be found in various locations around the world.  Many questions remain around how the same pattern managed to appear at the same time in apparently disparate cultures.  While recorded history links the creation of labyrinths to a period beginning around 4,000 years ago, the earliest labyrinths are much older than that and first appeared in Neolithic rock carvings and stone formations concentrated around Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. The labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky The Solovetsky Islands (or Solovki), are an archipelago located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, Russia.  It is here where there can be found thirty-five Neolithic labyrinths, known as ‘vavilons’ (‘Babylons’) in the local dialect, which date back to around 3,000 BC.  The most remarkable are the stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, a group of fourteen labyrinths in a 0.4km2 area.  They are particularly well preserved and have been documented and speculated about, without any definite conclusions being reached as to their purpose. In addition to the labyrinths, as many as 850 heaps of boulders have been found on the island, many containing bone fragments. Other stone formations discovered on the island include a representation of the sun, complete with radial spokes. It is generally agreed that these ancient labyrinths and stone formations were related to spiritual beliefs, and may have symbolized a border of sorts between the material world and the underworld – the mythical abode of the dead. The labyrinths are constructed from boulders placed on the surface of the ground, and it has been determined that these boulders were gathered locally. The smallest labyrinth measures around six meters in diameter, with the largest being 25.4 meters in diameter. The rows of boulders form spirals, with some consisting of two spirals, described as resembling two serpents with their heads in the centre. The entrances to the labyrinths are mostly on the south and while there are five different settings, they each have only one entrance/exit point. All the labyrinths on Bolshoi Zayatsky are found on the western side of the island, while the eastern part of the island features a significant collection of stone formations, but no labyrinths. Although the labyrinths have become quite overgrown with the island's shrub-like vegetation, their shapes remain clearly visible.

Why were the labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky built?

Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain why the Neolithic settlers of the Solovetsky Islands went to the considerable effort of constructing numerous stone labyrinths. 

In the 1970's, the predominant hypothesis, advanced by N. Gurina, was that the labyrinths were built as traps for fish.  Evidence comes from the fact that all of the labyrinths in the region were built close to the sea and water levels were much higher 5,000 years ago, when it is believed they were constructed.  The fish would have swum in through the entrance and become trapped in the labyrinth, making it easier for fisherman to retrieve their catch.  However, the major flaw in this argument is that numerous labyrinths have been found inland throughout the world.

Researcher L. Ershov had a different theory.  Ershov maintained that within the lines of labyrinths was the schematic reflection of both the sun's and moon's orbits, thus the labyrinths were used as calendars.  However, this has been debated on the basis that labyrinths do not have a consistent direction of entrance.

One theory popular today, particularly among esoteric circles, is that a labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness.  It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own centre and back again out into the world. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which one awakens the knowledge.  It is believed that walking the path of the labyrinth brings about a change to one’s state of consciousness and the perception of time and space.  Indeed, Vlad Abramov, a researcher who explored the labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky, described the surreal experience of walking the twisting and turning paths of the labyrinth.

After entering a labyrinth and circle several times around the centre you leave it through the same entrance. Just after several turns it becomes unclear how much you have walked and how much more to walk. Subjectively, the time stops, but by watch the great labyrinth is passed in 15 minutes. It is difficult to think about something collateral; the path is narrow and you are required to look permanently underfoot. The path is twisting clockwise and anticlockwise. At last – the exit; and you are happy that the journey is over.

Despite the theories presented above, and numerous others, the accepted theory today, and one which has been put forward by Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, is that the construction of the labyrinths was linked to religious beliefs.  Prehistoric labyrinths are believed to have served as traps for malevolent spirits, as defined paths for ritual dances, and/or as a symbol for the barrier between this world and the underworld.  It is speculated that the labyrinths may have been included in rituals to assist the souls of those who have died to cross over to the underworld.  Archaeologist A.L. Nikitin suggests that labyrinths, as indicated in legends, point the way to the ‘entrances’ and ‘exits’ of a subterranean kingdom which could be opened only by those who knew the ‘magic key’ to this back door. 

This suggestion is consistent with widely held belief among prehistoric cultures in the theory of ‘Three Worlds’, according to which ancient people thought that the Universe was separated into a Lower World, where souls of the deceased would go after death, the Middle World, consisting of the physical plane of existence, and the Upper World of the stars, clouds, and gods.

To this day, the far northern islands of Russia continue to beckon curious travellers and scholars, eager to solve the mystery and the true meaning of the labyrinth.

Featured image: One of the stone labyrinths on Bolshoi Zayatsky Island. Photo source: Wikimedia

By April Holloway

References

Kola Peninsula and Solovki Labyrinths – Solovki

On semantics of stone labyrinths north – VA Burov