Volume 2, Issue 11
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Volume 2, Issue 11 |
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Archives
The Grave of the Sun, Part
Two published: October
18,2004 "a fiery island in a fiery lake, a fiery eagle on the
fiery island..." " What of
Pytheas? Without this solitary adventurer we
would have no tale to tell, no credible witness to account for the Grave
of the Sun in the folklore of the north, regardless of the geological
evidence. As it was, his lost book On the Ocean (Περι του Ωκεανου)
was disparaged by later and envious geographers such as Polybius and
Strabo who felt his exploits were imaginary. The praise of Hipparchus, one of the greatest of the ancient
astronomers who relied on Pytheas's data confirms
our adventurer as a credible source. As an observational scientist, our
adventurer relied heavily on the gnomon. Using this tool throughout his
travels he was able to determine the latitude of Massilia and ascertain
the circumference of Britain among other things. The Ptolemaic map of the
ancient world was based in part upon his findings. It's worth noting that he was also among the first of the
Greeks to understand that the tides had a connection with the lunar
cycle. Maybe Pytheas was an easy target for criticism. Though we
consider him Greek from our perspective, to his contemporaries he may have
been of less than "Hellenic" blood. This is my own speculation but it
wouldn't surprise me if Pytheas on his mother's side was of Ligurian
ancestry, the indigenous people of southern France. Such a mixed heritage
could also explain why Pytheas was able to move beyond the cultivated
climes of the known world with what appears to be relative ease. For as observed about the dangers of travelling beyond
the "classical" world: "The Greeks and Romans of classical times thought
nothing of sailing the friendly Mediterranean. Wealthy Romans would book
passage to Egypt or Palestine as casually as we might buy a plane ticket
to London today. But to travel into Europe's dark interior was another
matter. Nobody knew where such a journey might lead." Richard Poe, Black Spark, White Fire, 1997,
Prima Publishing, page 5 Last month I left Pytheas with the Veneti at Vannes, more
likely (since Pytheas himself mentions it) he stayed at the Ostimioi
stronghold of Le Yaudet on the northwest coast of Armorica before setting
forth to the Cassiterides and beyond. The Isles of Tin Without tin there would have been no Bronze Age. Though the
official end of that period in Europe was around 700 BC, tin was still a
valuable and sought after commodity when Pytheas made his journey. The Cornish tin mines had been operating for millenia,
supposedly a trade secret of the Carthaginians who controlled the sea
routes, but the Brythons also engaged in trade with the Veneti and
Ostimioi who made use of the overland routes to Massilia, so the source of
tin was hardly a mystery to Pytheas. The historian Diodorus Siculus describes how the Brythons
handled the tin trade: "The inhabitants of that part of Britain which is
called Belerion [that is to say Land's End], are very fond of strangers
and from their intercourse with foreign merchants are civilised in their
manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully the earth
in which it is produced. The ground is rocky but it contains earthy
veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted and purified. They
beat the metal into masses shaped like astralgi [knuckle-bones] and
carry it off to a certain island off Britain called Ictis. During the
ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry and they carry over to
the island the tin in abundance in their wagons." There is quite a bit of debate about the exact location of
Ictis, the mercantile hub of the tine trade. Some archaeologist and
historians claiming Ictis was Mount St. Michael in Cornwall, or Falmouth,
possibly even the Isle of Wight. It may be impossible to determine the exact location of
Ictis for the Atlantic Ocean has over time washed away a good portion of
Cornwall. The now mythical land now known as Lyoness was supposedly
located between St. Michael's Mount and the Isles of Scilly, as mentioned
by William Camden in 1586 AD. The process has been hastened by such
catastrophic events as the tsunami of 709 AD that wreaked devastation on
the shores of Cornwall and northern Brittany. Pytheas claims to have explored a large portion of Britain,
going into the interior where accessible. Aside from classical Greek
sources we have no direct written records of the Brythons themselves.
Archaeologists such as Barry Cunliffe have spent years researching into
the culture of the Brythons and I strongly recomend the
following site if your pc can handle a 300k streaming connection. http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/videoguide.asp Ultima Thule For whatever reason, most probably wanderlust, Pytheas
continued north. How he worked out his travelling arrangements and
protection is a complete mystery, but we can guess he travelled in the
hide boats that traversed the Irish Sea known as curraghs. There is no record of him visiting Ireland or Hierni as it
was then known. The island appears to have had a fearsome reputation as
the home of cannibals and the cthonic god Cromm Cruach- to whom the
inhabitants sacrificed one third of their progeny in times of hardship.
Whether such a viewpoint was accurate can't be known. Six days north of Britain, Pytheas visited an island called
Thule. Again, without his lost book and his lost gnomon readings,
historians have to speculate where exactly he went. Was it Iceland? The
Shetland Islands? The Norwegian coast? What is known from the fragments
preserved was that the inhabitants of Thule made use of barns to thresh
their grain inside rather than outside and that they (the people) made a
drink out of grain and honey. In Thule, the nights were only two to three
hours in length so his trip was undertaken during the summer months. Beyond Thule, Pytheas recorded, was a void where land, nor
sea, nor air existed in a strange suspension through which no navigation
or exploration was worthwhile. The best description Pytheas could muster
to explain the condition of sea, slush and ice mixing in fog. The Source of Amber Where Pytheas went next has been a source of contention,
mistranslation or just blatant revision. At the very least it appears he
returned from Thule down the east coast of Britain, somewhere crossing
over to the continent where he worked his way up the coast to Jutland and
the Frisian coast. Having confirmed the source of tin, our adventurer now
wished to know the source of the equally lucrative amber trade. Amber was
much sought after in the Hellenic world as it was used in jewelry and
other items. Pliny in his Natural History relies upon the account
of Pytheas and claims that amber is: "At all events, the amber is washed up on the shores of
the mainland, being swept along so easily that it seems to hover in the
water without settling." Pliny, Natural History 11.42 The Germanic tribes mentioned by Pytheas are the Guiones or
Gutones, later known as the Goths who would gathered the amber off the
shores and the Teutoni.who appeared to be the middlemen in the amber
trade. The tin trade had Ictis, the amber trade had an equally
mysterious locale known as Abalus or Basilia - whose exact location is
unknown and whose reputation enjoys almost supernatural renown - being the
Germanic Avalon. Tacitus in his account of the Germans makes passing
reference to the isle, and if one is willing to accept the veracity of the
Oera Linda manuscript, the island may have been a center of the old
earth mother religion. In regards to Pytheas, best to pass by these
speculations... Regardless, the ocean's work has erased most of Abalus.
Pytheas may have mentioned the destruction that occurred along the
coastline 20 years (350 BC) or so before his voyage, that isolated the
West Frisian islands from the mainland, and let the sea into the fresh
water lake now known as the Zuyder Dee. Later would follow the great
inundation that would drive the Cimbri and Teutoni towards their fateful
encounter with Rome. Xenophon claimed Abalus was a three days sail from the
coastline and of immense size. Today, the island of Heligoland, the best
guess, is hardly immense in any way, though "its red cliffs, two
hundred feet high create a reassuring and easily recognizable landmark...
an ideal off-shore port-of-trade."- Barry Cunliffe Most curiously, the priests or priestess's of Abalus
ceremonially burnt amber. An offering to the gods of the sky? For as the
tale went, amber were the tears of the sisters of Fetonte, who wept along
the banks of the Eridanus after his fall from heaven. The Grave of the Sun "...the Aests showed him the grave of the Sun, or the
place where the Sun fell asleep." Barry Cunliffe in his book The Extraordinary Voyage of
Pytheas the Greek makes no claim that Pytheas ventured into the Baltic
sea area, J. Oliver Thomson believes he did in order to learn more about
amber and that the Massaliot did indeed visit "the whole of the coasts of
Europe." If he did then the above quote would be confirmation that
Pytheas had encountered the Aestii, a Fenno-Ugric people inhabiting
present day Estonia. And there is only one spot that would match "the
place where the Sun fell asleep." Off the coast of Estonia is the island of Saarema. Here
archaeologists have found the remains of towns (the Asva dig), indicating
that during the Bronze Age the island was, relatively speaking, densely
populated. Whether these people were the Aests, or if the Aests came later
in unknown, but whoever they were enough has been found to indicate a
thriving culture, dependent on cattle, agriculture and fishing. The exact date of their demise is unknown, sometime between
800 BC and 400 BC, the people of the island would suffer an apocalyptic
fate. Then storytellers would tell how the chariot of Helios Apollo,
driven by the hapless Phaethon (Fetonte) would burn the earth. Now
scientists know that a 1000 ton iron meteorite struck Saarema, causing a
20 kiloton blast, larger than the nuclear bomb that destroyed
Hiroshima. A layer of glass spherules and meteor fragments have been
uncovered. Six kilometers west of the impact site, the telltale sign of
iridium (an impact ejecta) was found in the Piila bog and confirmed
through the usual methods such as carbon dating. A layer of charcoal
indicates that forest fires must have engulfed most of the island in the
aftermath of the blast. The impact crater is easily found. 350 feet across, the
shallow lake known as the Kaali Crater marks the site, surrounded by eight
smaller craters. This Estonian website has greater detail on the
event. Recovery was slow in the aftermath of Kaali, though people
eventually did return - crop cultivation started again after a hundred
years. The lake would become a sacred place - and exploited
economically once the fear was gone and it was realized that the
meteorite fragments could be smelted into iron. By the time of Pytheas, a
log fortress with five towers had been erected at the site, a stone wall
built around the crater. A Flight of Fancy The Massaliot returned home, and published his account, the
book eventually finding a home in the ill-fated Library of
Alexandria. There are no details how he fared after his epic voyage or
whether he undertook similar expeditions. Has too much been read into the exploits of
Pytheas by later researchers? Probably. There appear to be
conflicting quotes about the exact location of the grave of the sun. Was
the statement meant to refer to refer to the far reaches of the Atlantic
beyond Thule as interpreted by Cunliffe - or did he indeed venture east
into the Baltic to Kaali? We do know that Pytheas did indeed sail beyond the known
world of his age. And we do know that Kaali was indeed a catastrophic
event, only remembered in myth. Whether they have any connection, is
probably imagination, but well worth the
try.
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