Posts Tagged ‘archaeology’

Prayer and song are elements of religious culture which anthropologists assume were some of the key early features of the world’s first religions thousands of years ago. The spoken or sung verbalization of a wish, a cry for help, a thank you and other types of prayer formalizes the supplicant’s desire ~ pushing it out from them and into the wider cosmos. It is a beautiful expression which bridges the gap between human and divine.

With the advent of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, these prayers began to be written down ~ their power deriving now as much from the vocalization of the desire as from the act of being written. Early writing was considered sacred. The knowledge of being able to read and write was a powerful skill; one which was possessed by the rare few; in fact, initially only priests, royal administrators, their scribes, and occasionally the royals themselves were capable of writing and reading. It was used as much for organizing the newly expanding Empires of the world as it was for magickal purposes. Over time, it would filter down to the merchants and beyond, sifting down through the ages until the invention of the printing press in China in the sixth century AD and the later, more prominent Western discovery of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century, and the wider spread of literacy that ensued because of these discoveries. But in ancient Mesopotamia, the power of the written prayer was myriad, and was used to call upon the gods for a vast array of purposes.

The following prayer, or hymn, to the goddess Ishtar is from approximately 1600 BCE, during the first Dynasty of Babylon. It was written in cuneiform on behalf of the King Ammiditana, and survived the ages, to be deciphered by the archaeologists of the early twentieth century and ultimately read by you, dear reader, at the beginning of the twenty-first.

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Mankind has always had a special relationship with the stars. In the modern world we explore them scientifically: searching for the answers to the Big Questions regarding the origins of life and the extent of the wider universe around us. We look up at the stars through veils of ambient electric lights and smog, wishing upon them still. We escape to the countryside to truly see the stars as best we may, watching them in place of the television sets which usually fill our nightly vision.

And in so doing we are continuing a bond man and womankind has had with the stars from the very beginning. For much of the time mankind has walked the earth, we did not know the stars as we know them to be today: huge balls of plasma energy strung out in space billions of light years away. Instead, we held them on high as something else, something magickal. In ancient societies, when the sun went down, there was the vast illuminated landscape of a starry sky lurking above them: mysterious and constant. It was a distinct part of their cultural worldview; its placement in the heavens and its occasional idiosyncrasies explained as part of ancient mythologies and religions. Imagine their wonder looking up at the night sky and imagining it looking right back at them.

And bear in mind, that without electric lights to dim the view, the night sky would have been distinctly brighter and filled with finer textures and gradients of colors and lights. The Milky Way not a slightly filmier band across the sky but a broad avenue of swirling colors stretching across an upside down starscape: a fitting pathway for the gods or divine river among the cosmos.

Shooting stars in particular hold a special place with the cosmic mythologies of most ancient civilizations. For the falling star represents an interaction between man and the divine. It represents something moving from a heavenly cosmic plain to the mortal, earthly world. It was probably with some surprise that upon tracking the falling place of a “star” to earth, they would discover a small crater filled with a glassy rock, which, today of course, we call a meteorite. Many cultures venerated meteor rocks as powerful magickal talisman, sent from the sky gods to the denizens of earth. The ancient Greeks believed that finding one would bring you a year’s worth of good luck and a wish; and it is from them that we have ultimately inherited the idea of wishing upon a star. Native American medicine men have been known to wear them as protective amulets, passing them down through generation after generation of shaman as symbols of their power. And temples throughout the ancient Mediterranean were in possession of meteorites, likewise holding them as sacred objects. Even in the modern world, a meteorite is one of the most venerated objects in contemporary monotheistic religious practices: the Black Stone of the Ka’baa. Believed to have been sent from God to Abraham and then passed down to Mohammad, the Ka’baa stone is technically a relic of all three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and is the centerpiece of the holiest of holy Mosques in Mecca in modern Saudi Arabia, a former temple to the local Moon/Water God.

Falling stars have traditionally had a myriad of metaphysical and spiritual meanings behind them as well.
Stars are, in particular, frequently associated with the idea of the human soul. In the Teutonic mythology of central Europe, it was believed that every person was represented by a star which was attached to the ceiling of the sky by the threads of fate. And when Fate ended your story on earth, she would snip the thread attaching your star and it would fall, presaging your death. In Romania, there is a belief that the stars are candles lit by the gods (and later the saints) in honor of each person’s birth and that the brighter the star the greater the person. The falling star represents the soul’s final journey to the afterlife as it is being blown out and across the sky by the divine candle keepers. In these and other cultures, falling stars and meteor showers were celebrated ~ they honored the ancestors who had come before them, and in particular the newly deceased who were joining the ranks of the highly venerated generations who had come before.

Even in the Middle Ages after the triumph of Christianity, the pagan equation between shooting stars and the movement of souls could not be snuffed out entirely. And so it was vilified; the shooting stars were cast as the souls of evil and impious men being cast out of heaven and down into the bowels of the earth.

Shooting stars have and always will hold a special amazement to those viewing them. For their beauty alone they are worth staying up for. And if you’re ready for the long haul tonight or tomorrow night (August 12th and 13th respectively) and you live in the Northern Hemisphere~ you’re in luck! It’s the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. Every year between August 9th and 14th, the Earth bumbles through the trail of rocky and icy debris left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle: creating one of the most dependable and spectacular arrays of shooting stars on earth. It has, undoubtedly, been witnessed by man for millennia; though the first recorded instance of it did not occur until 36 AD in China; with the first official scientific description of the shower occurring almost 2000 years later in Belgium in 1835.

The Perseid meteor shower is named after its seeming origination in the nightsky from the constellation Perseus, itself named after the Greek hero of the same name. The stars which make up the constellation of Perseus have their own elaborate mythologies. In particular the star Algol; which, due to its variable eclipsing nature and unpredictable level of brightness was known first as the Gorgon’s Head after Perseus’ arch-nemesis the Gorgon Medusa, and then the Demon’s Head until it was simply just the Demon Star or the Ghoul Star (algol= al-ghoul). The shower was also later referred to in a more saintly manner. In medieval times they were called the Tears of St.
Lawrence in consideration of the fact that they would fall around his feast day on August 10th.

So if you can ~ go out late tonight or tomorrow night and watch the Perseids. Watch them and remember all those who have come before you to watch them down through the millennia. Watch them in honor of the souls they were said to represent. Watch them simply for the thrill of watching something so beautiful and cosmic and so beyond the human ken. Make some wishes. Catch one in your mind’s eye and never let it go.

Bibliography

Burke, J.G. 1986. Cosmic Debris: Meteorites in History. University of California Press.

Perseus Constellation: Myths, Stars, Deep Sky Objects, & Comets
Perseids: The Legendary Shower

Native American Landscapes at Lake Tahoe

In North American it is easy to forget how long mankind has been wandering around its sprawling landscape. History here seems to start post-conquest and often ignores the thousands upon thousands of years during which Native American groups initially crisscrossed the continent.

I myself was once guilty of this thinking. When I started my academic career I very pointedly steered myself towards classical Mediterranean subjects; explicitly ignoring the archaeology of my own American backyard. Older now, I recognize the error of my ways and the sublime interest and importance of all anthropological topics. I also recognize the primary reason why North American Indian topics are so easily overlooked by the education system and the media: lack of archaeological and anthropological evidence, and particularly lack of spectacular archaeological evidence. Alas, there will be no equivalent of Tut’s tomb in North America. But there is a rich and varied tapestry of ritual and mythology that belies this lack of archaeological evidence, perhaps making it all the more magickal for its mystery.

I recently had a chance to visit one of the most gorgeous natural wonders of North America, one which despite a loaded ancient past, is often ignored as a site of Native American importance: Lake Tahoe. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern California and Nevada, Lake Tahoe and its surrounding smaller lakes were created through a combination of fault line activity between the geological plates of the earth’s crust and the eruption of the nearby and now extinct Mount Pluto, which dammed up a large portion of the northern end of Lake Tahoe, resulting in the Lake’s particularly unique size and depth for the region. It is, in fact, the sixteenth deepest lake in the world, and the second deepest in North America.

Lake Tahoe is surrounded by ridiculously majestic mountains and strands upon strands of alpine trees. It is a place both of great beauty and abundant resources. It is no wonder that when mankind first migrated across the northern icy land bridges and into what is now the continental USA; many of them lingered by Lake Tahoe, refusing to follow their brethren farther south and east across the wider North American plains as indicated by the antiquity of the local dialect and its unique place within the linguistic branches of Native American culture. Classified in antiquity variously as the Martis complex and then the Kings Beach complex; when white settlers arrived in Lake Tahoe approximately 300 years ago, the local people called themselves the waashiw, which means ‘the people from here.’ A fitting term for a group who had indeed been ‘here’ as long as being there was humanly possible. Waashiw in turn was transliterated into the modern name for the group: the Washoe. The Washoe furthermore divided themselves up, not into tribes, for they did not consider themselves a tribe or to have smaller tribes within itself, but rather family units who associated themselves specifically with a particular side of the Lake. In my exploration of Lake Tahoe, I particularly explored the sacred sites round the south end of the Lake, the sites of the Washoe who called themselves Hanalelti.

Ritual Landscapes

The southern end of the lake encompasses both rocky cliffs dropping steeply into the freshwater below on its western side; narrow, boulder strewn beaches on its eastern, and gentle plains descending into the water between. It is a varied place. One minute you can be strolling through the forest with only trees ahead and the next you’re overlooking the lake in all its glory or below a pulsing waterfall. It is a place of natural wonder. And if it still conjures up images of a magickal landscape to modern eyes, one can be sure it did the same for ancient orbits. One of the widest trends in the majority of Native American mythology is its use of the local landscape to define itself. A tree is not simply a tree nor a mountain a mountain. They are ideas of a mythic place set in the mundane human world. They are portals into the Platonic realm of the otherworld where the divine shapes are kept. This tree is the tree of Ta-iw, the god of the sky; that rock is where the Star Wives fell to earth. Places were not simply places, they were a part of a cosmic mythos themselves.

Washoe rituals reflected this idea of space. The Washoe spent their summers up on the mountain slopes overlooking the lake, and their snowy winters and springs along the more congenial lake shore. This annual migration is reflected in what little is known of their rituals and where they were held. In September, when the pine-nuts, a Washoe staple food, were plentiful, they would hold the pine-nut dance, the Tlagum-las: a processional ceremony begun by the dance, culminated in the movement from the mountain slopes to the lake valleys as they harvested pine nuts along the way and ending again with the dance in their new encampment. They likewise had a similar acorn dance, the Mallun-las performed higher up the mountains at the elevations where the oak trees live and a Peleu-las, the jack-rabbit dance, performed in the forests to ensure a good hunt. As you can tell by the types of the festivals held, the Washoe were very interested in keeping their food supply bountiful, not surprising given the harshness their mountain winters.

Cave Rock: A Site of Shamanic Dreaming

The wisemen and women of the Washoe were likewise influenced by their landscapes. The Washoe believed that their shaman and herb-doctors (both of which, by the way, could traditionally be held by either a man or a woman: a delightful affirmative action rarity in the ancient world) earned their power and their sacred knowledge through dreams. And that dreams could be influenced by sleeping in certain sacred places within the landscape.

Cave Rock, on the southeastern shore of the lake is one such site. The Washoe believed that whilst sleeping in the caves there, their medicine men would be visited by the water sprites of the lake who would teach him or her about healing and potentially give them special medicinal powers. However, for all its magickal significance to the Washoe, Cave Rock, like much of the lake was sold to the US government by the Washoe between 1916-1924. And though a small national park hunkers just below it, much to my dismay, I learned on my trip that the actual caves themselves are now highway tunnels. To get round the eastern shore of the lake, one actually drives through these sacred caves on the main road just above Zephyr Cove. A very sad development indeed, and unfortunately just another in a long list of sites which have been regrettably misappropriated by the government or other agencies before their anthropological significance could be appreciated and the site thereby preserved.

The Mythic Origins of the Tahoe Landscape

But it was not just individual spots which held mythological and ritual significance to the Washoe. Local legend attributes the entire creation of the surrounding landscape to magick and myth. The following was recorded by local colonists attempting to document the fascinating anthropology and mythology of their Native American counterparts at the turn of the last century.

Legend has it that once upon a time, The Good Indian tried to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. But he was being chased by an Evil Spirit who did not want him to reach his destination on the western side, so he beseeched the spirits of the earth and sky and a Good Spirit heard him and gave him a magickal branch. The Good Spirit informed the Good Indian that whenever he plucked a bit from the branch and dropped it on the earth, it would create a body of water behind him to slow the Evil Spirit down long enough for the Good Indian to get away. For the Evil Spirit could not cross water and would have to detour around it. The Good Indian continued along his way and when next the Evil Spirit caught up with him, the Good Indian attempted to use the magickal branch. But in his haste to use the magickal branch the first time; he snapped off a huge piece of it and tossed it to the ground, thus creating Lake Tahoe, Tahoe meaning ‘big water’ or ‘big lake’.

The Good Indian fled further south through the canyons but eventually the Evil Spirit caught up with him again, and so he tossed a second smaller bit of the magickal branch to the earth and it became ‘doolagoga’ aka Fallen Leaf Lake. The Evil Spirit was briefly detoured but kept at him, and the Good Indian kept right on making lakes behind him until finally he came out of the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, thus reaching his destination and defeating the plan of the Evil Spirit to stop him. The Evil Spirit gave up and went away to torment another Good Indian and our Good Indian lived a long and happy life with the family he found in his new home.

My recent trip to Lake Tahoe and its sacred sites was, shall we say, otherworldly. And its brought home, literally, a very intriguing concept. There are statistically few places in the world that have not felt the instep of a human foot at one point or another. Look around at your own backyard. Who passed through it once upon a time? Even if there isn’t any archaeological evidence for anyone having been there doesn’t mean that it wasn’t once part of a greater mythic landscape which the modern world can but glimpse.

Bibliography

E. S. Curtis, 1907-1930. The North American Indian Courtesy Northwestern University Digital Library
G. W. James, 1917. The Lake of the Sky, Lake Tahoe, in the High Sierras of California.
Include link to Cave Rock website
Sacred Land Film Project: Cave Rock
Site Materials, assorted

This past week a group of Israeli archaeologists uncovered a particularly stunning and intriguing group of ancient ritual vessels dating to approximately 3,500 years ago. The objects were found at a site whose name and location have not officially been released in order to avoid looters, which is reportedly just south of Haifa on Jordan’s coast. Based on the vague structural patterns discerned so far, namely a step or potentially a series of steps leading into a natural hollow in the landscape, it either represents a small rustic temple or the merely the ceremonial resting place of the ritual vessels associated with a presumably nearby undiscovered temple: only further excavation will reveal which. The cache of remarkable and intact objects features, among a variety of other things: a cultic incense burner, a particularly beautiful cultic cup featuring the face of a woman (pictured), storage vessels for sacred oils, and a series of flatware, presumably for feasts. All of these vessels were deliberately, and carefully, buried; which has left them particularly intact, a rarity among pottery from this tumultuous time period (trust me on that one, I once excavated a piece of Iron Age cultic incense burner of a similar make from a nearby site and am entirely jealous that they’ve found a complete one). The archaeologists attached to the site, Uzi Ad and Dr. Edwin van den Brink, speculate that these ritual vessels were most likely entombed as such for one of two reasons. Either the local Iron Age chaos of the region threatened the objects, and potentially their temple; and they were subsequently hidden and no one ever came back for them. Or the cult or temple they were associated with fell out of favor, and the items were ritualistically buried as a sort of funerary sacrament for the defunct religion. Overall, it’s an exceptional and exciting find and one which has prompted me to explore the origin and nature of the ritual vessel in more depth.

The Psychology & Origin of the Idea of a “Cup”

Imagine yourself back in the good ole hunter-gatherer days. You sleep in caves and outdoors, you subsist off the land entirely, you move around a lot. You have few worldly possessions, and what you do have you use to hunt with. But what do you store your food and water in? Think about it. You kneel down at a nice lil’ gurgling creek and scoop out water with your hands, but you don’t get very much water. You try using leaves. But while the big leaves are useful for carrying those pesky berries you’ve been collecting for dinner, the water spills out when you travel over long distances and you can’t set it down to drink it later. You need something more substantial. And thus the cup was inevitably born. Cups and bowls carved from rock and wood, made from animal bladders and bone, and molded from clay and metal would have revolutionized the business of eating, living, and yes, praying, for the ancient man (and woman).

It seems like such a simple idea to the modern world. We’ve grown up with the idea of containment: with cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and the convenience of rolling suitcases. You’ve had bottles, sippy cups, wine goblets, champagne flutes, soup bowls, mixing bowls, and all sorts of useful containers around since infancy. But in a world just evolving and creating these things, consider the importance of that initial cup or bowl. The magick it must have held for its creators. You put something in it and it stays. It captures things inside and doesn’t let it out. It is as if you have made a permanent new set of hands, separate from yourself, which can hold the water you were trying to drink from that rambling stream much better than you can. And on top of that, there is simply the act of creation itself. Where once there was nothing, you have made something. You have given birth to this tiny little creature made from mud that can do your bidding and hold your water, grapes, seeds, and what have you. It’s quite a novel concept. Often it is the first creation of fire that is seen as the dawn of civilization, I suggest that it was the first cup instead.

It is difficult to pinpoint the evolution of the idea of the cup and other similar vessels and match them up with the human timeline; but it seems likely that its widespread use was a hunter-gatherer, homo sapien sapien phenomenon. Vessels, especially tiny oil lamps, begin appearing in the archaeological record alongside the infamous cave paintings of continental Europe. In order to light their way around the darkened caves to paint their lovely animals, bird-men, and hunting scenes, these early men and women took little bowls of lit oil in there with them. Archaeologically speaking, where the negative items in the record often are more significant than those we have evidence from, if such bowls were being used to such novel usage then and are accidentally preserved as such, it is likely that by this time the vessel was in much more mainstream usage and that few of these everyday cups and bowls remain for archaeologists to find.

With the advent of pottery about 18,000 years ago, bowls, cups, and other vessels appear more regularly in the archaeological record. From then on much of the archaeological record itself is actually determined entirely by the styles and types of pottery being created. When a man is found with a handled cup with a wide lip archaeologists can estimate he lived circa X thousand years ago, whereas when a man is found with a shallow bottomed bowl with a rippled top edge, scholars can say that he was approximately from Y thousand years ago. It’s a system called typology and it’s been a boon to archaeologists for the past two centuries, one which admittedly is being reevaluated and expanded with the advent of technologies like radiocarbon dating which can test the dating sequences in real time.

The Specialization of the Ritual Vessel

But then, like any priceless item, the value of cups and bowls become distinctly overlooked once there are many of them. Anthropologically, psychologically, and even economically speaking, when we start having plates and windows and cars made out of diamonds, we’ll stop valuing them as highly as we do. And the same thing happened to the once special “cup”. If everyone has something that can hold water, oil, or food it stops being a special invention. It stops being a magickal object of supernatural power and just becomes an everyday item. Or so it seems.

Humans, however, are keen on the specialization of things; and when applied to a civilization’s seemingly uninteresting cups and bowls, this penchant for specializing and using certain items for specific uses makes for quite a more interesting story. Just as we now have the dinner plate versus the side plate, the wine glass versus the coffee mug, so too the early civilizations had a variety of types of vessels. And to some of them, they ascribed that earlier wonder they once felt for this ‘idea of the cup,’ and these became the ritual vessels of the title.

The cups, bowls, and plates for offerings became imbued with the power of the offering, they too were part of the ceremony, part of the power between the supplicant and the god and/or goddess. In richer communities where there were many containment vessels, specific vessels were made ONLY for ritual use: be this holding sacred oil for temple fires, perfumes to anoint statues of the gods with, or carrying the special bits of sacrificial meat up to your nearby temple in. Often these ritual vessels have particularly ornate decoration carved or painted on them. These decorations range from simple designs to more complicated imagery, including the occasional image of the vessel being used in rituals on the vessel itself or an inscription describing the ritual or spell the vessel was intended to partake in. Ritual vessels are often more decorated than was typical for everyday rough and ready vessels which were far more likely to break through constant usage and handling. Ritual vessels on the other hand, were set apart from other objects and used only in special circumstances and therefore in a certain sense “lived” longer. They could be passed down through generations as well, imbuing them with further oomph via associations with ancestors and their worship, a huge part of early ritual and one which has persisted in various forms into the modern world.

So, the next time you bust out your grandmother’s china for Thanksgiving dinner, raise a glass in a toast, or just simply take a sip from your coffee cup: take a second to realize the remarkable meaning and journey of the vessel you’re using and the power it once, and could still, wield.

For more on the Israeli discovery, click here.

And don’t forget to check out the ritual vessels on offer in the Sacred Mists Shoppe: chalices, potion bottles, offering bowls, and more!

Petra is one of those places that has to be seen to be believed. Sure, it looks mega fabulous in films and documentaries, but it’s nothing like the pop culture simulacra the media has invented for it. The real place is so magnificent, so eye-popping and jaw dropping, it can only be defined as nothing less than an awe-inspiring, and truly religious experience.

An iconic site, Petra sits nestled in the Shara Mountains in southern Jordan. The Shara are sacred peaks, associated with the cult center of the Nabataean god Dhushara, lord of the mountains and son of all fates. But Petra isn’t just that one gorgeous building from Indiana Jones and the last Crusade (which is actually called al-Khazneh or the Treasury) nor is it just the Tomb of the Primes featured so prominently in last year’s Transformers 2 (which is typically actually called the al-Deir Monastery): it’s a vast cosmopolitan complex of sandstone wonder carved into a series of canyons and mountain tops over a series of approximately 36 square miles. You need days and days and oodles of energy to cover at least a partial hike of all the various sections of Petra proper (not to mention Little Petra several miles away from the more tourist-y central area). But it’s worth it, and if you ever get the chance to visit: do it. Just don’t forget comfortable shoes and a water bottle.

At the end of this last winter, I had two wonderful days out of my dig schedule to tour. The first I spent simply wandering through the ultra-tourist-y sections of the site. Petra, especially during high season in the fall, is exceptionally crowded. But as it’s an exceptionally big place, there’s always room for everyone to have their turn and pose for photos next to all the essential spots. And there truly never will be another moment in my life quite like walking up the long processional Siq and coming to its end and seeing al-Khazneh for the first time. It’s very Indiana Jones (and yes, my fellow archaeologists and I even had the theme song playing in the background off an I-pod to reinforce that notion) and it is a not-to-be-missed moment for anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing the world. However as impressive as it is now, imagine how amazing and magickal it would have been centuries ago as a culminating point for sacred parades. Hundreds would have trekked through the winding canyons to reach the space in front of al-Khazneh. Perhaps by torch light or by day light, the festive parishioners would have carried offerings; leaving some at the tiny altars carved into the walls they passed, and reserving others for the final destination. Sacred songs or chants, perhaps even dances would have been performed, but alas little is known of the ritual minutiae associated with this marvelous ritual landscape. However, participants would have come not necessarily to see al-Khazneh, but to have born witness to what was going on above it. For the cliffs above “the Treasury” rise ultimately to the High Place of Sacrifice, which for centuries, perhaps even pre-dating the more famous architecture below, a large basalt rectangle on a wind-swept plateau served as the ultimate offering place to the gods.

The High Place of Sacrifice, a two hour hike up and around the mountains is not often on the general tour. Typically a visit of Petra proper consists of a wander through the famous tombs, a stroll, or as in my latest visit, a camel ride across the Roman center of the city (which features the only remaining standing building, a later temple to the goddess al-Uzza), and a hike up a particularly treacherous mountain to see both the al-Deir Monastery and a panoramic of the site below.
The tombs stand out as the most prominent remaining feature, and many assume it was simple a necropolis. But what most people don’t realize about Petra is that it was a city of the living AND a city of the dead. Tombs and homes alike were carved into the mountain or else homes were built freestanding just beyond the ancestral tombs. And the living did not just live among the dead, they interacted with them on a frequent basis, often leaving feasts for the dead in the tombs and having celebratory feasts of their own. Later tombs, like the Tomb of the Obelisk just outside the Siq, even incorporated this element into their design and feature a special central room encircled with stone benches for the living to sit on as they enjoy their macabre meal. The close family ties this type of ritual communion implies and the respect of ancestors must have been a particularly satisfactory form of worship, because many of the Romans that were stationed in Nabataea, particularly the higher up commanders converted: living, dying, and being entombed according to local customs.

On the second day of my recent visit, in an effort to see some more of the quieter, less well known bits of Petra, I hiked even further off the beaten tourist path. Veering off just before the Siq a winding sandstone canyon, worn silky smooth by years of flood run-off, leads
up to an area of Petra called Moghar al-Nasara: a section of Petra you are virtually guaranteed to have to yourself on any given day. The canyon, a processional route, like most canyons round Petra, is dotted with carved altar niches to the various local gods. Some are topped with their totem symbols, and others, worn smooth by the wind, sand, and reverent hand, are mysteries even to the contemporary Bedouin tribe who work among the ruins. Several of the niches even contained recent offerings of stacked stones and small change. Upon encountering a particularly well worn niche which featured an intact and simple crescent moon above it (the symbol of the goddess al-Uzza), I too left a small offering of coins. I’m not sure how much of the goddess’ favor I can curry with 35 piastres, but I do really believe that it’s the thought that counts.

Towards the far end of the long and winding canyon, the niches take on a more decidedly Roman flavor with inscribed columns, more pronounced pediments, and a drastic increase in size. One along the way was more than 600 times the size of the regular 15×9-ish niches and more resembled a doorway. This change in style is not surprising however, considering that the canyon ultimately ends in another canyon, perpendicular to the first and parallel to the Siq farther south. This canyon is haphazardly lined with dozens upon dozens of purportedly later tombs, the nucleus of the later Roman enclave of Petra as the center of the region moved farther and farther away from the previous center below the High Place of Sacrifice and more towards the water sources farther southeast. The later Islamic period township is likewise even farther removed and the modern town of Wadi-Musa is even farther beyond that.

Seriously though, if you can go to Petra. Don’t leave it on your bucket list until it’s too late. Not only will it be a pain in the you know what unless you can get an ass to ride you round it; but carved as it was into the local sandstone: Petra is eroding away. Older tombs are already soft washed and blend into the background of the canyons, leaving only the odd opening shapes or occasional pediment to temporarily mark their passing. Petra is melting away into the desert cliff faces, blending in with the Gaudi-like landscape that the ancient Nabataeans changed to suit their religious and urban aspirations over two millennia ago.

Within Wicca, the Celtic Tradition is a facet of this pagan religion that honors the Celtic/Druidic pantheon of deities and the ancient Celts’ way of interacting with their world on a physical, magickal, and spiritual level. Wiccans of the Celtic Trad have a strong affinity towards Nature, the Elements, Healing, and the Fae. Today we will be taking a brief glimpse at the history of the Celts and their religion, a look at four prominent deities, and some specifics regarding Celtic magick as it relates to the Celtic calendar, the Ogham alphabet, sacred tree lore, and animal magick.

To understand the Celtic Tradition we must first understand and acknowledge its roots. While today most people think of Ireland when they think of Celts, the Celts actually were originally spread out over a large part of Europe in addition to the British Isles. They occupied vast areas of western and central Europe during the last half of the first millennium BC. Although the early Celts were comprised of a number of different races and tribes, they were all linked by common origins and language, common religious traditions, and a close similarity of laws.

Our knowledge of the religion and mythologies of the Celtic people comes from three
different areas in Europe. From Gaul, which is modern day France, Britain (most specifically Wales), and Ireland. The Celts themselves did not commit their traditions to writings, but handed them down orally. Thus our knowledge of the Celts is dependent largely on fragmentary texts transcribed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by Christian monks, which provide us with ancient legends and heroic tales, but not many hard facts. Archaeological evidence has provided us with clues as well, however, so we are able to piece together a fairly accurate picture of the Celtic world. It appears that the Celts of Ireland maintained their cultural integrity until close to 500 AD, and it is there that the pagan Celtic mythology has been best preserved. For this reason, what follows primarily focuses on Irish Celtic lore, with a smattering, here and there, of Welsh.

Trying to piece together the origins and details of the Celtic religion that the Wiccan Celtic Tradition is based on is no easy feat. As mentioned earlier, the Druids did not keep written records, and what information we have is pieced together and transcribed by Christian monks and colored, undoubtedly, but their viewpoints. However, we do have details of some rituals and festivals, as well as lore regarding the important Irish pantheon of the Tuatha de Danaan.

The Tuatha de Danaan was an Irish pantheon of various gods and goddesses, both specialized to specific crafts, and generalized (like the paternal Dagda). Some of these gods correspond to the continental Celtic ones, some don’t, and some Celtic gods have no counterpart in Ireland. It has been suggested that the Tuatha de Danaan may actually be an artificial composite of deities stitched together by later storytellers. However, the story of the Tuatha de Danaan is an interesting tale, regardless of its origins, and many Tuatha de Danaan deities are called upon today by Celtic Wiccans.

In brief, the Tuatha de Danaan, who originated from Greece, were a highly skilled band of faery-folk, with great knowledge and skill in the arts of magick, music, poetry, and weaponry. They came to Ireland from four cities situated on the corners of the wind, Findias (South), Gorias (East), Murias (West) and Falias (North). The Tuatha de Danaan quickly conquered the Fir Bolg, who had colonized Ireland under a treaty with the Fomorians. Soon after, the Tuatha King, Lugh, defeated Balor -the Fomorian’s greatest warrior, and the Fomorians were driven from the island.

Each city held a master of wisdom who gave a treasure (or Hallow) to ensure the Tuatha De Danaan flourished. Uscias gifted the sword, Esras gifted a spear, Semias gifted the cauldron and Morfessa gifted a stone, each representing the cities respectively. The Danaan ruled Ireland for a hundred years, when, on the First of May, the Milesians attacked the island. Despite the great magick and prowess of the Tuatha, the Milesians triumphed. One of the Danaan’s great gods, The Dagda, led them underground and found retreats for them in hollow hills encompassed by hidden walls, to live undisturbed by mortals.

Present-day Celtic pagans have brought this ancient Irish pantheon back to prominence and now once again, requests for aid and guidance are being asked of such deities as Brigid, Dana, Oghma, and Lugh, just to name a few. The enduring success of this group of deities is due, in part, to the richness of this pantheon andthese goddesses and gods give the Celtic Wiccan a wonderful foundation to base their faith upon.

The Celts honored a wealth of deities. For the most part, Ireland, Wales and Gaul worshiped different localized deities, but some gods were known across all the pantheons, even if their names differed slightly from country to country. Here we will be focusing on two prominent female deities (Brigid and Rhiannon) and two prominent male deities (The Dagda and Cernunnos).

Brigid is probably the most famous of the Irish deities, as her worship endured into Christian times. Even to this day she is worshiped as her eternal flame has been re-lit at her convent in Kildare. In earliest times, she was a member of the Tuatha de Danann (the daughter of the Dagda and Boann and the wife of Bress). Later, she was made a saint in the Catholic pantheon, and earned the nickname “Mary of the Gael”. Even within the Christian pantheon, however, Brigid kept most of her pagan attributes, chiefly her association with fire.

Today we know Brigid best as the goddess we honor during the Celtic festival of Imbolc, celebrating the birth of spring. In addition to the importance Brigid holds for us during Imbolc, she is also believed to aid healing and fertility, as well as help assist women in labor. She is the Goddess of poetry, feminine crafts, the hearth, martial arts, healing and inspiration.

In today’s magick and ritual, Brigid can be called upon to aid you in virtually any endeavor you wish to undertake. She may be called upon for assistance in fire magick, crafting, inspiration, animal magick, fertility, healing and childbirth. Brigid is truly a powerful and prominent goddess.

Rhiannon is a Welsh goddess. Her original name is thought to be Rigatona (Gaulish), meaning “great queen”, which indicates that she once held a much higher status in the Celtic pantheon than she enjoys today. Rhiannon is a potent symbol of fertility, yet she is also an Otherworld and death Goddess, a bringer of dreams, and a moon deity who is symbolized by a white horse. Her father was Heveydd the Old, and she was married to both Pwyll and Manann. The story of her marriage to Pwyll, and the subsequent accusation of the murder of her child, is well documented and most people are familiar with Rhiannon from this tale.

In her guise as a death Goddess, Rhiannon could sing sweetly enough to lure all those in hearing to their deaths, and therefore she may be related to Germanic stories of lake and river faeries who sing seductively to lure sailors and fishermen to their doom. Her white horse images also link her to Epona, and many scholars feel they are one and the same, or at least are derived from the same archetypal roots.

In today’s magick and ritual, Rhiannon can be called upon to aid you in overcoming enemies, exercising patience, working magick, moon rituals, and enhancing dream work. My personal affinity to this goddess is strong, which turns out not to be too surprising, as though my journey over the years I found that my love of horses, moonstones, and dream work all correspond to her. I have talked to other witches who also are drawn to her, and am reassured that Rhiannon is enjoying a resurgence in importance to the Celtic pagan.

Dagda, the Good God, is the Irish Lord of the Land and the husband of Boann, the goddess of the river Boyne. Druids see him as a God of wisdom with extreme power, abundance and the ability to restore life, a belief sacred to the Celts. Portrayed as ancient man with hair of gray, he is grounded and simple in every way. He possesses a cauldron known as “the Undry”, which came from Murias, one of the Tuatha de Danann’s four mythical cities. This cauldron gave food to all, according to the individual’s merits. No one ever left it unsatisfied.

As Lord of the Land, he was a valiant defender of it, and performed great deeds in the battle between his family, the Tuatha de Danann, and the Fomors. In peace-time the Dagda played his living harp, which has two names – “Oak of the Two Cries”, and “Hand of Fourfold Music”. As he played upon it, the music causes the seasons to change – spring to summer, summer to autumn, autumn to winter, and winter again to spring. The Dagda’s final resting place is said to be a small barrow near the river Boyne, known as the Tomb of the Dagda, which has never been excavated.

In today’s magick and ritual, you can call on Dagda’s energies for almost any purpose you might need. He may be called upon for wisdom, animal magick, warrior skills, fertility, protection, assist in faery contact, elemental magick, or to increase mental prowess. Like Brigid, he is an extremely powerful and prominent deity.

Cernunnos was known to all Celtic areas in one form or another. He was called The Horned God; God of Nature; and the Great Father. The Druids knew him as Hu Gadarn, the Horned God of Fertility. He is usually portrayed sitting in a lotus position with horns or antlers on his head, long curling hair, a beard, naked except for a neck torque, and sometimes holding a spear and shield. His symbols were the stag, ram, bull, and horned serpent. He represented virility, fertility, animals, physical love, Nature, woodlands, reincarnation, crossroads, wealth, commerce, and warriors. Born on Alban Arthuan (Yule) he is often seen holding or wearing a golden torc signifying his connection as a solar deity and the wealth he may share with others.

In today’s magick and ritual, you can call upon Cernunnos for aid in fertility, magick and animals. Cernunnos is perhaps the most prominent and well-known of all Celtic deities, and many pagans of all paths honor him as the god that shares life’s journey with the Triple Goddess.

Wiccans following the Celtic Tradition usually employ various aspects of Celtic lore when creating and performing their spells and rituals that goes beyond simply calling on the various Celtic deities. Some aspects include following the Celtic Calendar, using the Celtic Ogham alphabet in divination or writing spells, utilizing specific sacred trees for spells and healing, and calling on totemic animals for aid and guidance.

The Celts based their calendar on the cycles of the moon instead of the sun. The Celtic year consisted of 13 months, 12 of which were roughly the same as our modern months, and one extra three day ‘make up’ month leading into the new year. Each month was governed by a moon, and had a sacred Ogham tree associated with it.

The Celtic Calendar included two primary fire festivals; Samhain (the beginning of winter,) and Beltane (the beginning of summer,) marking the movement from the dark into the light time of the year. Two other seasonal fire festivals were also celebrated: Imbolc (February 1), and Lughnasadh (August 1). Dates and seasonal associations noted here are that of the Northern hemisphere. For those who reside in the Southern hemisphere, the exact opposite dates and seasonal associations apply.

The onset of each season was observed at the Albans (Solstices and Equinoxes,) although the central point of each season was celebrated and recognized by a Fire Festival. These four Albans were Alban Arthuan (winter solstice or Yule), Alban Eiler (vernal equinox or Ostara), Alban Heruin (summer solstice or Litha), and Alban Elved (autumnal equinox or Mabon).

This Wheel of the Year is widely used among Traditions and pagans worldwide; not just Celtic Wiccans. This celebration of the turning of the seasons is an important part of how we view the world and is a cornerstone for our faith.

Ogham is a form of writing originally used by the Celtic people of the British Isles prior to the introduction of the Roman alphabet and Christianity. Each letter of the Ogham alphabet has the name of a tree or other plant, and each of these trees had a meaning in the Celtic religion.

The alphabet consists of twenty letters. Each letter consists of one to five strokes extending from or crossing a horizontal line. Ancient Ogham inscriptions are generally found cut into the edge of hewn stone, with the edge representing the horizontal line. When the edge is actually horizontal, the letters read from left to right. Vertical edges
were usually written from top to bottom, and in the case of a three-edge structure, such as a dolmen arch, the writing began at the lower left, ran up the left side, across the top, and down the right side.

Today, modern Celtic witches use Ogham for divination and spell work. For divination, the letters can either be carved on sticks and cast, or painted on cards and read like tarot. In other uses, the letters can be carved into candles to assist in spells or used to write out requests that are presented to the gods during rituals.

The culture of the ancient Celts was influenced by a great unity with nature, which we continue today. Reverence is given to all aspects of nature, but perhaps nothing was as sacred to the ancient Celts as the tree. The Druids actually created a calendar from the trees to personify the spirit of the Esbat, and today many people wonder why the tree played such a significant role in the Celtic life. Perhaps one reason is so many cultures modeled the universe and spiritual progression after a “Tree of Life” or a “World Tree”. Trees were a physical representation of unity with all things because of their visible upper parts which reached into the heavens, and the unseen bottom parts, or roots, which reached far into the ground. These bottom parts were virtually identical to the upper parts and perhaps reflected to many the ancient adage “As above, So below”. Trees physically unite the heaven and earth making the Earth Goddess and the Sky God one, united two halves of the whole and making them a powerful source of creative magick

Today the counting of the Celtic tree calendar begins with the full moon nearest Yule.
Once this is pinpointed, count off the thirteen moons of the lunar year and mark them
with their Tree. The Trees’ order is as follows: Birch, Rowan, Ash, Alder, Willow, Hawthorn, Oak, Holly, Hazel, Vine, Ivy, Reed and Elder. Each Tree has its own power, polarity, and magickal significance which we can call upon to strengthen our spells. The Trees also can be used for herbal magick spells, as various parts of these Trees have healing properties. Trees can be an invaluable aid in many of our magickal endeavors, and should be honored with the same respect given them by our Celtic ancestors.

Everywhere one looks in the ancient Celtic myths there are animals. They are the allies of heroes, the helpers of those who travel in search of wisdom, and the companions of shamans and witches. Animal symbolism found in Celtic myths include boars, birds, serpents, fish, horse and cattle, just to name a few. Boars symbolize courage and strong warriors. Fish, especially salmon, are associated with knowledge and secrets. Snakes and dragons are portents of trouble, strife and infertility. Birds also may presage bad luck or bloodshed. Horse and cattle represent fertility, as do many occurrences of animals in Celtic legend.

These legends have helped shape how we, today, relate to these animals in our own mediations and magick. Many following the Celtic path have strong relationships with their animal familiars, both physical and astral, and feel comfortable calling upon the strengths of other animals that are not their familiars. Animals hold a wealth of
knowledge and wisdom (as the ancient Celts well knew) and following the Celtic path allows us to reap the benefits of these close ties with our animal brethren.

As you can see, there is an incredible amount of knowledge a Wiccan of the Celtic Tradition should learn in order to honor their chosen Trad properly. Entire books have been written on Celtic lore and magick alone, and this essay has only been able to touch the tip of the iceberg. However, it is important to remember that following a Celtic Path requires not only knowledge of deities, plants, trees, animals, seasons, rituals, healing, history, etc., but also the appropriate attitude of reverence and celebration of spirit that ties us with Nature and our past. Celtic Wiccans should have both a strong sense of personal responsibility and a code of personal and social ethics that binds us all “in perfect love and perfect trust”.

References:

Conway, D.J. Celtic Magic. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1990
Conway, D.J. By Oak, Ash, & Thorn – Modern Celtic Shamanism. St. Paul, MN:
Llewellyn Publications, 1995
Cotterell, Arthur and Storm, Rachel. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology. New
York; Hermes House, 1999
Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles – Their Nature and
Legacy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1991
McCoy, Edain. Celtic Myth & Magic. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995
Matthews, John. Celtic Totem Animals. London, England: Red Wheel, 2002.