Hello guys
Just got back from a 5-day shamanism training session and it's late, so this will be brief for now and I'll check in again later.
Mircae Eliade is still THE DEFINITIVE BOOK on shamanism, even though it was originally published in 1951, and some of you may remember that I recommended this, a couple of months ago, as required reading for anyone trying to interpret artifacts from more than 2000 years ago.
This is still the case. You can't understand alternative archaelogy (in other words, what really went on instead of the twisted crap we've been fed) unless you understand (at least the outward manifestations of )shamanism, and Eliade's book is the best first step, and will take you a good way towards that goal.
Incidentally, I'd be interested to hear if anyone got this book, following my recommendation - and if so, how did you find it?
A bit later on, I will open a shamanism thread for us to discuss these issues.
the Central Asian Civilization...
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Re: Silk Road
Well yes. EW Barber, "The Mummies of Urumchi" mentions two 4000BP Ashrams in the Kara Kum near Gonur & Togoluk where intact bowls with ephedra, opium, and cannabis were found.Cognito wrote:That must've been some party. No wonder the Silk Road became so well-traveled. They were running drugs!So- 6000 years ago, some girls got on the first domestic horses, could ride faster than a warrior could run, and became the Amazons. By 4000 BP some of them made it all the way to China. Taking both Soma and dope with them. Meeting the purveyors of ephedra and opium. Musta been a high time.
Ethnobotanist Wasson, "Persephony's Quest" speculates that there must have been a "Soma Road" carrying dried mushrooms from the Urals to the Indus. Which I see would have crossed the early East/West "Silk Road" in this same area. Makes perfect sense. YMMV, and I've no way of evaluating how powerful Amanita Muscaria from the Urals was, but nowadays, a mere 7 grams of the dried Muscaria or Pscilocybin would keep an adept in a sacred trance most of the nite. Specially if given a boost by sniffing cannabis in an incense burner, perhaps another gram, or even 1/5 of a gram of opium.
Since an ox or a camel can carry 150kg, it would have been very profitable.
http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol ... _bloom.php
mentions a mail bag found in the Kara Kum that was lost in 331 AD. It makes me wonder what else is out there, just laying around, and uncovered as the dunes move on every year.
And even more in the Taklamakhan. I read that travelers to Kucha were unnerved because the road to Kucha was so clearly marked across the desert... by the skeletons of the dead. I know there must be many who lost sight of the road in a sandstorm, got lost, and not only are their bones still there, so is everything they had with them.
Last spring, the Chinese even found a whole city that got lost. Well, what they found was a graveyard. So, they know there's a city nearby somewhere that hasnt been seen in 2500 years. There should be some really spooky movies coming out of this. With real witches wearing tall, black, conical, flat brimmed hats.
I think there really was a "wicked witch of the East" and she ran a brothel in Kucha. "Kuchi coo?"
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
There you go.
In her coffin, the Ice Princess looks pretty good after 2000 years. Her face in not preserved but her shoulder is still in good condition.
By Winnie Allingham, April 16, 1999
In 1948, 120 miles north of the border between Russia and China, Russian archeologist Sergei Rudenko began excavating a group of tombs, or kurgans. The kurgans, from a distance, looked like little more than mounds of rocks piled high, but Rudenko suspected that excavating these mounds might reveal the secrets of the once powerful and fierce Pazyryk culture.
Tattoos like this were found on the Scythian cheiftain that Rudenko found
Fortunately for Rudenko, the stones of the burial mound had allowed water to seep into the permanently frozen layer of the ground, the permafrost. The groundwater became ice, effectively keeping the contents of the tomb in deep freeze for centuries. His team excavated sacrificed horses, and well preserved leather saddles. He found what he called an "apparatus for inhaling hemp smoke". However intriguing these artifacts were, they paled in comparison to what Rudenko found next.
He unearthed mummies unlike any seen before in the region. The most exciting body was a tattooed, powerfully built chieftain who had died when he was around 50. Most of his intricate tattoos were still fully visible and designed around an animal motif, with an interlocking series of designs depicted a donkey, a mountain ram, and two deer on his right arm. Especially striking were the four running rams that encircled his shin. Not only the permafrost but also scrupulous embalming techniques had preserved them for 2 millennia. Before their burial, the bodies' internal organs had been removed, inserted organic preservatives like peat, and then stitched their skin back together with horsehair. The effect of ice and these embalming techniques had left the mummies amazingly well preserved.
THe moment of lifting the lid from the coffin of the Ice Princess was fraught with tension.
In 1993, Russian archeologist Natalya Polosmak found the famous Ice Maiden of Gorno Altai, in a Pazyryk burial chamber just inside the strip of no-man's-land that is the border between Russia and China. At first Polosmak had no idea of the gender of the mummy, frozen as it was in a thick block of ice. As the thawing progressed, she realized the corpse was female. Along with the horses sacrificed outside the burial chamber, the Ice Maiden was found with gilded ornaments, dishes, a brush, and a hand mirror. A small stone dish found at the end of the coffin contained seeds, thought to be marijuana until closer examination revealed they were coriander. Polosmak speculated that these seeds were burnt for their scent, perhaps to cover the odor of the body.
The tattoo on the Ice Princess' thumb.
The Ice Maiden's costume was one of the oldest pieces of female clothing ever found from a nomadic society. Her well-preserved thigh high riding boots were still supple. Her blouse was made of a non-local silk from undomesticated silkworms, which offered exciting evidence of long distance trading with India. On the Ice Maiden's head was a 3-foot headdress made of felt which took up a third of her coffin. Like Rodenko's warrior, she was also elegantly tattooed. Her left shoulder and arm were decorated with fantastic animals, twisted oddly at 180 angles, the horns tapering into flowers.
Both Rudenko's and Polosmak's discoveries have offered rare clues into this obscure culture which has left so few traces. Who were these enigmatic people?
The only unlooted tomb of a Scythian chieftain ever found, found in a 30-foot-tall kurgan 120 km south of Kiev near the village of Ryzhanovka in Ukraine
The Pazyryks were a tribe related to the Scythians, an ancient horse-riding race of nomads who ruled the steppes of Central Asia between the 8th century BC until they disappeared around the 4th century BC, possibly victims of conquest and intermarriage. During their reign over regions ranging from Southern Russia and the Ukraine through Northern India to Northwestern China, these fierce warriors ruled by terror. They dominated trade routes towards the Black Sea, and practiced trade themselves, especially in horses for which they were renowned.
Much of what we know about the Scythians, who had no written language, has come to us through the Greek historian Herodotus. He devoted half a volume to them, stressing their ferocious and war-like nature. He claimed, for example, that young women had no chance to marry until they had killed their first enemy in battle. Graves of men and women showed that both genders were buried with their own weapons, indicating that women may indeed have been warriors in their culture.
Because of the nomadic lifestyle of the Scythians, archaeologists have found few remains left behind in villages or settlements. Fortunately for future generations, the Scythians had a penchant for elaborate tombs, some of which were dug into permafrost layers. They may have been nomadic while alive, but after death, like the Egyptians, Scythians wanted to take it all with them. Scythian royal tombs are filled with their favorite items, such as gold, silk and horses, slaughtered for the occasion. Wives and servants also appeared to be part of the funeral bonus for dead Scythian chieftains. Certain less well-adorned corpses have been found with their fingers appearing to claw the ground, substantiating Herodotus' grisly accounts that servants were strangled in the grave to serve their earthly masters in the afterlife.
The shoulder of the Ice Princess reveals her tattoo.
In the case of the Ice Maiden, the trademark embalming techniques had been practiced. Parts of the body that quickly rot, such as her internal organs, had been removed. A two-inch hole was found in the back of her skull through which her brains had been removed after death. Her organs were replaced with fur, wool, peat and bark, with the tannin found in the peat and bark helping to preserve her. A Swiss forensic pathologist, Rudolph Hauri, made a macabre discovery while examining her: even her eyes had been cut out and replaced with fur, in order to halt the sinking of the eyelids as the eyeballs dehydrated.
Polosmak speculates that the reason why the Ice maiden was buried with such care and ceremony is because she was no ordinary member of society. She had been found without weapons, which means she wasn't one of the Amazonian women Herodous wrote about. Perhaps she was a storyteller, who memorized the history and myths of her culture, an important position in a culture without written words. Polosmak thinks that she also could have been shaman, with the power to heal people, or predict the weather.
The ancient culture of the Pazyryks is important because it is the legacy of the present peoples of the Altai region. While it is unclear if the Ice Princess was of a Caucasian or an Asiatic race, the ancient customs have withstood the test of time. To this day the modern day people in Southern Siberia sacrifice horses when they bury their dead.
To all -
Her hat was conical, and made from felt.
john
In her coffin, the Ice Princess looks pretty good after 2000 years. Her face in not preserved but her shoulder is still in good condition.
By Winnie Allingham, April 16, 1999
In 1948, 120 miles north of the border between Russia and China, Russian archeologist Sergei Rudenko began excavating a group of tombs, or kurgans. The kurgans, from a distance, looked like little more than mounds of rocks piled high, but Rudenko suspected that excavating these mounds might reveal the secrets of the once powerful and fierce Pazyryk culture.
Tattoos like this were found on the Scythian cheiftain that Rudenko found
Fortunately for Rudenko, the stones of the burial mound had allowed water to seep into the permanently frozen layer of the ground, the permafrost. The groundwater became ice, effectively keeping the contents of the tomb in deep freeze for centuries. His team excavated sacrificed horses, and well preserved leather saddles. He found what he called an "apparatus for inhaling hemp smoke". However intriguing these artifacts were, they paled in comparison to what Rudenko found next.
He unearthed mummies unlike any seen before in the region. The most exciting body was a tattooed, powerfully built chieftain who had died when he was around 50. Most of his intricate tattoos were still fully visible and designed around an animal motif, with an interlocking series of designs depicted a donkey, a mountain ram, and two deer on his right arm. Especially striking were the four running rams that encircled his shin. Not only the permafrost but also scrupulous embalming techniques had preserved them for 2 millennia. Before their burial, the bodies' internal organs had been removed, inserted organic preservatives like peat, and then stitched their skin back together with horsehair. The effect of ice and these embalming techniques had left the mummies amazingly well preserved.
THe moment of lifting the lid from the coffin of the Ice Princess was fraught with tension.
In 1993, Russian archeologist Natalya Polosmak found the famous Ice Maiden of Gorno Altai, in a Pazyryk burial chamber just inside the strip of no-man's-land that is the border between Russia and China. At first Polosmak had no idea of the gender of the mummy, frozen as it was in a thick block of ice. As the thawing progressed, she realized the corpse was female. Along with the horses sacrificed outside the burial chamber, the Ice Maiden was found with gilded ornaments, dishes, a brush, and a hand mirror. A small stone dish found at the end of the coffin contained seeds, thought to be marijuana until closer examination revealed they were coriander. Polosmak speculated that these seeds were burnt for their scent, perhaps to cover the odor of the body.
The tattoo on the Ice Princess' thumb.
The Ice Maiden's costume was one of the oldest pieces of female clothing ever found from a nomadic society. Her well-preserved thigh high riding boots were still supple. Her blouse was made of a non-local silk from undomesticated silkworms, which offered exciting evidence of long distance trading with India. On the Ice Maiden's head was a 3-foot headdress made of felt which took up a third of her coffin. Like Rodenko's warrior, she was also elegantly tattooed. Her left shoulder and arm were decorated with fantastic animals, twisted oddly at 180 angles, the horns tapering into flowers.
Both Rudenko's and Polosmak's discoveries have offered rare clues into this obscure culture which has left so few traces. Who were these enigmatic people?
The only unlooted tomb of a Scythian chieftain ever found, found in a 30-foot-tall kurgan 120 km south of Kiev near the village of Ryzhanovka in Ukraine
The Pazyryks were a tribe related to the Scythians, an ancient horse-riding race of nomads who ruled the steppes of Central Asia between the 8th century BC until they disappeared around the 4th century BC, possibly victims of conquest and intermarriage. During their reign over regions ranging from Southern Russia and the Ukraine through Northern India to Northwestern China, these fierce warriors ruled by terror. They dominated trade routes towards the Black Sea, and practiced trade themselves, especially in horses for which they were renowned.
Much of what we know about the Scythians, who had no written language, has come to us through the Greek historian Herodotus. He devoted half a volume to them, stressing their ferocious and war-like nature. He claimed, for example, that young women had no chance to marry until they had killed their first enemy in battle. Graves of men and women showed that both genders were buried with their own weapons, indicating that women may indeed have been warriors in their culture.
Because of the nomadic lifestyle of the Scythians, archaeologists have found few remains left behind in villages or settlements. Fortunately for future generations, the Scythians had a penchant for elaborate tombs, some of which were dug into permafrost layers. They may have been nomadic while alive, but after death, like the Egyptians, Scythians wanted to take it all with them. Scythian royal tombs are filled with their favorite items, such as gold, silk and horses, slaughtered for the occasion. Wives and servants also appeared to be part of the funeral bonus for dead Scythian chieftains. Certain less well-adorned corpses have been found with their fingers appearing to claw the ground, substantiating Herodotus' grisly accounts that servants were strangled in the grave to serve their earthly masters in the afterlife.
The shoulder of the Ice Princess reveals her tattoo.
In the case of the Ice Maiden, the trademark embalming techniques had been practiced. Parts of the body that quickly rot, such as her internal organs, had been removed. A two-inch hole was found in the back of her skull through which her brains had been removed after death. Her organs were replaced with fur, wool, peat and bark, with the tannin found in the peat and bark helping to preserve her. A Swiss forensic pathologist, Rudolph Hauri, made a macabre discovery while examining her: even her eyes had been cut out and replaced with fur, in order to halt the sinking of the eyelids as the eyeballs dehydrated.
Polosmak speculates that the reason why the Ice maiden was buried with such care and ceremony is because she was no ordinary member of society. She had been found without weapons, which means she wasn't one of the Amazonian women Herodous wrote about. Perhaps she was a storyteller, who memorized the history and myths of her culture, an important position in a culture without written words. Polosmak thinks that she also could have been shaman, with the power to heal people, or predict the weather.
The ancient culture of the Pazyryks is important because it is the legacy of the present peoples of the Altai region. While it is unclear if the Ice Princess was of a Caucasian or an Asiatic race, the ancient customs have withstood the test of time. To this day the modern day people in Southern Siberia sacrifice horses when they bury their dead.
To all -
Her hat was conical, and made from felt.
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Thanx John.
In Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, coriander seeds are part of the sexual ritual. The lady was a Shakti. She combined sacred potions, sacred sex and meditation to spiritually enlighten men. He explains that coriander has a certain symbolic meaning- of two things, the mirrored parts of the seed, making one thing.
So ya, she was a real big deal. Feminists today just dont get it.
In Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, coriander seeds are part of the sexual ritual. The lady was a Shakti. She combined sacred potions, sacred sex and meditation to spiritually enlighten men. He explains that coriander has a certain symbolic meaning- of two things, the mirrored parts of the seed, making one thing.
So ya, she was a real big deal. Feminists today just dont get it.
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
-
Rokcet Scientist
<Sex, drugs, and Rock 'n Roll!
So what else is new?>
The fact that, after 5000 years, the brave heart, strong right arm, sword in hand... cant stop it any more.
Sex has always been the favored weapon of women, and it still works, but now, Smith & Wesson guarantees equal rights for women.
In a similar manner, when horses were first domesticated, only women were light framed enuf to ride them far or fast. That *military* advantage produced the Amazons. But now, again, we are seeing the military advantage of men nullified, so we are, again, seeing women rise to power.
i filled my freezer last year with venison shot by a Cherokee witch. I have no doubt whatsoever, that she can shoot bipeds as effectively.
I take a close interest in the sequence of matriarchic cultures, beginning with the Neolithic Anatolian cities, thru the Danubians, Amazons, and Tocharians to get some idea of what we are in for. A lotta guys dont want to hear about it, and rag on my ass as if stopping me is going to stop it from happening. I'm just the messenger boy.
Some Wiccan women are already in practice. I witnessed a safe sex sacred orgy last year. I also picked up on how, for weeks afterwards, all one of my young male friends could talk about was how he could advance the agenda of the witches that hosted the event. "Kuchi Coo?"
So what else is new?>
The fact that, after 5000 years, the brave heart, strong right arm, sword in hand... cant stop it any more.
Sex has always been the favored weapon of women, and it still works, but now, Smith & Wesson guarantees equal rights for women.
In a similar manner, when horses were first domesticated, only women were light framed enuf to ride them far or fast. That *military* advantage produced the Amazons. But now, again, we are seeing the military advantage of men nullified, so we are, again, seeing women rise to power.
i filled my freezer last year with venison shot by a Cherokee witch. I have no doubt whatsoever, that she can shoot bipeds as effectively.
I take a close interest in the sequence of matriarchic cultures, beginning with the Neolithic Anatolian cities, thru the Danubians, Amazons, and Tocharians to get some idea of what we are in for. A lotta guys dont want to hear about it, and rag on my ass as if stopping me is going to stop it from happening. I'm just the messenger boy.
Some Wiccan women are already in practice. I witnessed a safe sex sacred orgy last year. I also picked up on how, for weeks afterwards, all one of my young male friends could talk about was how he could advance the agenda of the witches that hosted the event. "Kuchi Coo?"
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
Yeah...you better watch out, Daybrown. We're coming to get ya!daybrown wrote: Some Wiccan women are already in practice. I witnessed a safe sex sacred orgy last year. I also picked up on how, for weeks afterwards, all one of my young male friends could talk about was how he could advance the agenda of the witches that hosted the event. "Kuchi Coo?"
A "safe sex sacred orgy"? The mind boggles! What was it - conjugals with condoms?
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
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Minimalist
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 16015
- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:09 pm
- Location: Arizona
Once again...that would seem to be taking all the fun out of it.I witnessed a safe sex sacred orgy last year.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
The witches ensured that condoms were used properly. Now, this year, I'd recommend that there be no mouth-to-mouth contact either because of the growing risk of pathogens; but its not upta me.Ishtar wrote:Yeah...you better watch out, Daybrown. We're coming to get ya! 8)daybrown wrote: Some Wiccan women are already in practice. I witnessed a safe sex sacred orgy last year. I also picked up on how, for weeks afterwards, all one of my young male friends could talk about was how he could advance the agenda of the witches that hosted the event. "Kuchi Coo?"
A "safe sex sacred orgy"? The mind boggles! What was it - conjugals with condoms?
Since I was 66 at the time, I didnt feel free to participate, so I cant advance much of an opinion on what it was for those who did. If you recall, Petronius satirizes a sacred orgy in the Satyricon, which seems similar in some respects, and no doubt was a lot funnier to an audience that was personally familiar with them.
But since then, as trade grew so did STDs, which made them eventually unsafe, most especially for the women. But now, women, especially those in healthcare professions, can see that supervised sex is safer for them given the risk of husband picking up something in unsupervised sex. Too many women have died of AIDs for marriage to be seen as an effective method anymore. Even monogamy is no longer safe sex, so Rocket Scientist is correct.
I read a report from a Medieval English monastery graveyard in which they find 70% of the skeletons have lesions on the bones from syphilis. Hypocrisy goes back a long ways with Christian values. But the ancient witches did all right with syphilis, the transylvanian graveyards seem to have a rate of 1%. Given a culture where a man, seeing a sore on his dick and not feeling any shame, he'd show it to the witch who'd treat it and keep him out of action, or use intestinal condoms till the contagious phase of the disease subsided. But I dont know that they ever found an effective way to treat gonorrhea.
Now, however, almost any kind of direct personal contact poses a risk, and we see the hype about hand washing. Which frankly I think will be nearly useless. The appropriate response is to return to the hominid village model, where people only interact with a small set every day, and there are not enuf new victims to sustain a microbe long enuf for it to mutate into a new strain.
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
Great post Digit, I like it. 
http://www.cais-soas.com/News/2007/Nove ... /05-11.htm
http://www.cais-soas.com/News/2007/Nove ... /05-11.htm
Archaeologists have discovered the world's most ancient inscription in the Iranian city of Jiroft, near the Halil Roud historical site.
"The inscription, discovered in a palace, was carved on a baked mud-brick whose lower left corner has only remained,” explained Professor Yousof Majid-Zadeh, head of the Jiroft excavation team.
“The only ancient inscriptions known to experts before the Jiroft discovery were cuneiform and hieroglyph,” said Majid Zadeh, adding that,”the new-found inscription is formed by geometric shapes and no linguist around the world has been able to decipher it yet.”
Archaeologists have found many artefacts confirming the existence of a rich civilization dating back to the third millennium BCE, during the 5 previous seasons.
The sixth season of Jiroft excavations will focus on the temple and the sites where the tablets were found during previous phases.
Archaeologists believe the discovered inscription is the most ancient written script found so far and that the Elamite written language originated in Jiroft, where the writing system developed first and was then spread across the country.
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Minimalist
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- Location: Arizona
On hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away, Katie went
straight to her grandparent's house to visit her 95 year old
grandmother
and comfort her.
When she asked how her grandfather had died, her grandmother replied,
"He had a heart attack while we were making love on Sunday morning."
Horrified, Katie told her grandmother that 2 people nearly 100 years
old having sex would surely be asking for trouble.
"Oh no, my dear, " replied granny. "Many years ago, realizing our
advanced age, we figured out the best time to do it was when the church bells would start to ring. It was just the right rhythm. Nice and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the Ding and out on the Dong."
She paused, wiped away a tear and then continued, "And if that damned
ice cream truck hadn't come along, he'd still be alive today!"
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin