Saturday, October 20, 2012

Arkaim, gold and the ancient shamanic rituals





In the previous two posts, we have been examining the implications of the fascinating and newly-discovered geoglyph near Lake Zyuratkul in Russia (in the Urals) that has been dubbed the "Russian Nazca" by some in the media.  See "That's not an elk -- it's a Set-beast!" and "Set-beast and Saiga Antelope" to catch up on the discussion if you haven't seen it yet.

Both posts note that the "new" geoglyph was discovered in a region of the Urals that was already home to significant ancient megalithic monuments, including the stone circles, dolmens, and other structures found around Lake Turgoyak (and particularly Vera Island), as well as the enigmatic circular "city" of Arkaim, discovered in 1987, which has been called a "Russian Stonehenge" (see image above, found in this Russian-language video discussing Arkaim).

The relative locations of the three sites are shown in the map below:






















As pointed out in the previous posts, and as is apparent in the map above, the three sites are located in or near some significant mountain ranges -- and not just any mountain ranges but mountain ranges that are clearly "hogbacks," formed when the strata of the earth are "tipped upwards" and broken off, such that the layers form long parallel ridges as they protrude like long spines.  

We discussed these important terrain features in previous posts, such as "Hogbacks of the California Coast" and "The unbelievable bathymetry of Mavericks."

You can create your own model of the formation of hogbacks by holding your palms towards your face while extending the fingers of each hand towards each other, touching the tips of the fingers together (or at least the tips of your two middle fingers).  Then rotate one hand so that the parallel fingers (representing layers of strata) protrude upwards -- these represent your hogbacks, where the crust has been disrupted and pushed upwards such that the layers "go vertical" to some degree, creating a situation where looking down from the air allows you to see the layers that once were beneath the earth but are now protruding.



Below is a close-up view of some of the mountain ranges to the west of Arkaim, clearly showing hogback geology.



We have seen that hogbacks -- perhaps by virtue of their "uplifted" formation mechanism -- often prove excellent locations for mining for precious metals, including gold (such as in California) and copper (such as in Michigan's Upper Peninsula).  Hogback regions can almost be thought of as locations where surface-dwellers can more easily "leaf through the pages" of the earth's strata in search of precious metals and minerals.

This certainly appears to be true of the Chelyabinsk region of the southern Urals where these concentrations of ancient monuments are being discovered.  The area has been and continues to be an important mining region in modern times, and it appears that the ancients also conducted mining activities in the area.  In fact, this extensive discussion of the incredible ancient ruins of Arkaim reveals that not only was this circular city-site a functioning astronomical observatory of great accuracy, but it also contained "remnants of [. . .] metallurgic furnaces, and mines."

This fact is very interesting, especially given the great age and apparent sophistication of Arkaim.  The possibility that this area may have been chosen due to the mining resources may be extremely significant.  Lucy Wyatt (whose work we have discussed in previous posts, such as this one entitled "The shamanic tradition in ancient Egypt") has noted that many other very ancient settlements -- such as Catal Huyuk -- are also located in mountainous regions, which is not what we might expect if we follow the conventional theory that mankind's earliest city-building centered around the transition to agriculture from hunter-gathering.  

Forbidding mountains are not ideal sites for agriculture.  Why are very ancient sites such as Catal Huyuk and now Arkaim located in mountainous regions?  In her book Approaching Chaos: Could an Ancient Archetype Save 21st Century Civilization, discussing the enigmas of ancient civilization and the evidence that it did not follow the pattern our conventional historians propose, Lucy Wyatt argues that these ancient sites were located in these mountainous regions because the ancient civilizers were more interested in gold than in agriculture!

In a chapter entitled "Why Civilization Mysteriously Starts in Mountains," Lucy writes:
What was the reason for spending so much time and effort in such in such difficult and unprepossessing terrain?  What was so important to the ancients about inhospitable mountains both in the Middle East and South America?  Oddly enough, Genesis itself gives one answer: gold

In mentioning the first river to flow out of Eden, the Pishon, Genesis states that this river flows around 'the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good.'   [. . .]

Mesopotamia to the south had a word for gold, KU.GI, but no gold itself [Potts, 1994, p164].  It all came from the mountains -- either the Taurus Mountains to the north, or the Zagros Mountains to the east.  When the king of Uruk made his demands in cuneiform tablets on the mountainous kingdom of Aratta in the third millennium BC for large amounts of gold and silver to be sent for the temples in the south at Eridu and Uruk, his request may have been typical of an exchange that had been taking place for millennia beforehand [Rohl, 1998, p75, p130].  

[. . .]  Quite possibly gold deposits were the reason for the ancients being there in the first place -- after all, pottery could be made from clay found anywhere.  66-67.

What gives this argument added strength is Lucy's remarkable analysis of the importance of gold.  She believes that its use went far beyond simple decoration or demonstration of wealth, and that gold in fact played a key function in enabling the out-of-body or shamanic travel undertaken by the priest-kings of ancient civilization.   If these out-of-body shamanic experiences were used to gain critical knowledge -- as the evidence seems to suggest -- and to keep ancient civilization on track for hundreds and even thousands of years, then obtaining gold was not just a luxury: it was a necessity.

As discussed in that previous post on evidence of shamanic out-of-body travel by pharaohs in ancient Egypt, Lucy believes that the qeni garment (also described as the "embrace of Osiris" in ancient texts) may have protected the king's heart during the experience, during which electricity and ultrasonic energy may have also been involved, perhaps interacting with the gold or with a powder made from the gold.  

She also believes that the "Opening of the Mouth Ceremony," which conventional historians describe as a strictly funerary ritual, may have been conducted on the living pharaoh during the ritual. This ceremony involved a ritual adze, which is often shown being brought towards the mouth of the pharaoh by a sem priest.  Lucy asks:  "Have we misunderstood 'opening the mouth' when in fact it might have meant 'keeping open the mouth'?  If the pharaoh were lying on his Heb Sed bed in a shamanic trance, then the iron adze might have been necessary both to conduct a mild electrical current and perhaps to stop him from swallowing his tongue" (170-171).




































As noted in the first post on this subject of the ancient monuments in the Urals, it may be extremely significant that the one tool singled out for mention as being most prevalent at the newly-discovered "Russian Nazca" shape (which I believe may represent a "Set-beast") is the adze.

Thus, these little-known but extremely interesting (and fairly newly-discovered) sites in the Urals of Russia appear to contain important clues that may support Lucy Wyatt's bold thesis:  They are located in close proximity to hogbacks and in a region known for extensive mining activity (including gold mining).  The site of the enigmatic circular city-compound of Arkaim contains clear evidence of smelting and mining.  They are very old.  And they appear to contain important symbols (in the form of the adze) relating to the civilization-affirming ritual that Lucy believes the ancients needed all this gold for in the first place.

This is an extremely interesting line of inquiry, and (it would appear) an extremely promising one.