Atlantean Research Journal,
and Atlantis from 1950 cont.
The Head of Medusa, By Edgerton Sykes (Summary on lecture May 26th
Caxton Hall)
Youngest of
the Gorgons; her dispute with Athena, which resulted in her hair turning into
snakes and her glance turning those into stone; and, finally, her death at the
hands of Perseus, armed by the might and wit of
Athena, on his way to rescue Andromeda, always appealed to Edgerton Sykes as
being worthy to investigate even though the task of unraveling the myths around
it is great.
The wars in
the middle seas have gone on for centuries, and even a casual glance at Greek
legends we see wars involving religions. "In my opinion, this dates back
to a time when the descendants of the Atlantean
refugees had populated the fertile Mediterranean
Basin, and were defending
themselves from the Indo-German and Semetic
invaders." "We find traces of this dispute in the earliest stages of
Greek Myth, with the revolt of the Titans and the Giants against the Olympian
Gods, which must represent an early stage in the age long struggle between the
followers of Sea Gods as represented by Poseidon and the followers of the Land
Gods as represented by the Olympian pantheon, headed by Zeus and Athene. Later there was a period when the Sea Gods reigned
in Athens, when
Poseidon Erechtheus, the king with the half serpent
totem, was worshipped as a god. The festival of the Panathec,
depicting the battle of the Giants, dates from this time. Many of the Athenian
rulers had serpentine totems, until the time when the Pelasgians,
or men of the sea, were driven from the mainland by the early Greek invaders,
perhaps
the Achae'ans. The interesting point here
is that Poseidon first came into Athenian history as a breeder of horses, and
everywhere he was worshipped horse racing was general. The Carthaginians, a
later people, had horses on their coins, and built equestrian statues wherever
they went. Poseidon was the reputed father of two horses, Pegasus by medusa,
and Arion by Demeter: horse races in his honor were
held in the Isthmus of Corinth." The Sea
people have left no record of their side of the conflict, but it is clear the
background of hatred and oppression is there from the beginning to the time of
the accusation that Posiedon had seduced medusa in
one of Athena's Temples, which appears to indicate the opening by medusa of a
temple to Poseidon in an area sacred to Athene. The
undercurrents show that when ever poseidon
backed a hero the hero was attacked by Zeus, and vice versa which shows how
long the hostilities historically lasted. The family tree of Medusa is very
interesting:
Pontus, the
Sea God, had a son Phorcys, who married Ceto. They had six daughters: The tree Graiae,
Pephredo, Enyo, and Dino;
and had three Gorgons, Stheno, Eurayle,
and Medusa.
By Hecate, Phorcys,
also had a daughter, Scylla. Her cousin Poseidon, was
the father of Charybdis by Gea,
of Polythemus by Thoosis,
of Triton by Amphitrite the Nereid. Gea was also the
mother of Typheus by Tartarus.
Poseidon- 2 children with Medusa------- Pegasus and Chrysaor, who married Kalirrhoe
and had two children, Geyron and Echidna. The
first was killed by Hercules, while the second married Typheus,
son of Gea, and had six children: Orthos,
the Two-headed dog; the Theban Sphinx; the Chimeria;
the Dog Cerberus; the Hydra or Echidna Lernaea; and
the Nemean Lion; several of whom were killed by
Hercules, as shown below. The point is they were all totems of poseidon and were attempted to be
exterminated by Hercules and his followers as clans that were victims of war
which were over run by Land Gods worshippers. Whether the war was religious, or economic by nature is unknown or the battle
between matriarchy and patriarchy was the catalist.
The battles Hercules has against these monsters is proof enough of Poseidon's
memory was what Hercules was after to be destroyed. At the time of the Medusa
episode hercules specialized
in matriarchy clan attacks, and went after the 'sisterhoods' wherever he could
find them whose members ranked as Nereids or Sea
Nymphs. One of these was headed by the three gorgons, others by the Scylla, and
the Charybdis. There was a male clan headed by Typheus
Who may
have been in Greece, Scylla
and Charybdis in Italy,
the Graiae in Madeira, and the Gorgons in the
Canaries or the Azores. Andromeda, who was rescued by Perseus
was the daughter of an African Chief, and was either a hostage or a pupil of
the Gorgons. Perseus himself has egyptian connections, which may explain his political
interests in another African Princess. Perseus lands
an attack on Graiae and his weapon was supposed to be
'one eye and one tooth' ( we do not know if it refers
to a catamaran ram front on the boat). He murders many women, and moves on to
the next Island of Gorgons, perhaps the Island which had once been Calypso's,
for being the daughter of Atlas, she was also under the ban of the land gods.
In regards to Medusa hair it is likened to squid or cuttle
fish with two eyes resembling a football. "That this was the Totem of the Medusae is shown by the numerous representations found on
Minoan pottery, Crete being one of the centers
of the Sea Religion destroyed by Hercules, as mentioned above. The turn to
stone was the venom that a poisonous octopus or some cuttle
fish can do in paralyzing the human body to a point of not moving, coma, or
death. Hypnosis has been suggested, but is to recent a comment to not point out
the violent outcome to her gaze, more the animal freezes then is hypnotized by
its own reaction. The Medusae Clan had an existence
based on the finding of Paul LeCour in a temple of a
stone drawing of a squid accompanied with the remains of a jelly fish, in a
passage tumulus at Pornic in Brittany, and also discovered in a Basque
tomb. One may suppose that in some rockey pool in a
cave on the seashore, the Medusae kept their totem
squids and jellyfish, and that it was through this secret entrance that Perseus made his way. "This view is confirmed by the
use of a brightly polished shield or mirror, as even to this day the method of
fishing for octopus or squid is, at night, with the aid of a bright light to
dazzle them. The mirror could have been used in this manner by reflecting the
light from the mouth of the cave onto the surface of the pool. Normally the
squids and the jelly fish would be kept in a state of torpor by constant
feeding, except when it was desired to sacrifice to them, in which case they
would be left without food for a day or so." Perseus
murdered Medusa then rescued Andromeda who was held hostage while the other
Gorgon sisters pursued him and survived only to be killed later by Hercules. Perseus with his victory took the symbol of the Gorgons as
his own totem. The possiblity that both Poseidon and Zeus
may have at one time been matriarchal is not ruled out, since matriarchy was
common in the ancient world before prolific male deities. The fact that most of
the women were in charge of major temples and based on the diffusion of their
temples were centers simaler to places of oracles
like Sybils who advised sailors the weather, or to
where to sail. Unfortunately, outside of the Periplus
of Hanno very little information of what the mariners
faith was or believed. The situation is worsened the fact that until Plato
studied the whole of the middle seas and before the writing of Timaeus and Critias, greek philosophers abstained from vulgar sea people or
their stories thus most of the records have dissipated. One of the best
accounts is by Diodorus who refers to the Amazons and
the Gorgons. The Amazons lived in the Island
of Hesperia (or Hespridies)
off the Western Coast, which was of great size, full of
fruit trees of every kind, with multitudes of flocks and herds, but no grain.
Their Queen was Myrina, having an army of 30,000
foot, and 3,000 horses, proceeded to attack the Atlanteans
who dwelt in a prosperous country and possesed great
cities. After capture of Cerne, which she put to the
sword, the Atlanteans capitulated. After peace had
been made Myrina built a new city to take the place of Cerne and gave it her name. She also built Cherronesus on the Peninsula in Lake Tritonis.
The Atlanteans, however, were frequently being raided
by the Gorgons, and asked myrina to help them to
stop. She took three thousand women captive and killed after they tried to
revolt and killed quite a few Amazons. The dead were buried in three mounds
called Amazon Mounds. Diodorus concludes "But
the Gorgons, grown strong again in later days, were subdued a second time by Perseus, and in the end both they and the Amazons were
entirely destroyed by Hercules, whilst Lake Tritonis
vanished in a earthquake."
"In
spite of what Diodorus says I am inclined to the
opinion that by the time of Perseus, the
remants of this matriarchal Poseidon
worshipping tribe, the Gorgons, living on the Islands
in the
Western
ocean, had sunk to the level of being a clan of priestesses of the Poseidon
cult, much as
the Levites to the Israelites and the Magi to the Persians."
The attack
of Perseus was a precursor to Hercules larger
campaign, which was piracy with a backing. The Squid totem was in relation to
the Hydra clan almost the same. As far as the size of Giant Squids the Ancients
knew about it in reports of Pliny who in 77 A.D. in his 'Natural History' mentions
them as making nightly raids from the sea on the curing stations on the shore
for salted tuna, while Aelian, writing 160 years
later, refers to one that used to crush the barrels of salted fish with its
tentacles.
"The
identification of the squid with the Kraken was, however, only effected in the
Northern lattitudes, and the first referance I can trace is by Olaus
Magnus in 1555, although the actual name is perhaps due to Paulinius,
who wrote of a creature infesting the coast of Norway resembling Gesner's Heracleticon. He was followed by Eric Pontoppidian,
Bishop of Bergan, whose Natural History, published in
1759, refers to the Kraken by name; while Denys de Montfort in his Natural
History , published about 1790, gives a drawing of a gigantic cuttle fish grasping a ship in its tentacles. I am afraid
that this drawing is some-what exaggerated, but his story that a captian who cut off an arm 25 feet long from one of these
creatures which tried to drown a member of his crew is probably correct. One
hundred and fifty years ago, one of these creatures was cast ashore in Denmark. It was
21 feet long with tentacles of 18 feet, making a total of nearly 40 feet.
Berthelot, French Consul in Tenerife in 1861 saw one which had a body 16-18
feet long, while in 1873 one was encountered by fisherman off Newfoundland,
which was reputed to be 74 feet in length."
Albatross Expedition, Island traces off Amazon Estuary, D. Nyheter of Stockholm
A series
of deep sedimentation cores taken by the Albatross expedition at a point about
600 miles off the Amazon Estuary, have been under investigation by Dr. Boerje Kullenberg of the
Gothenburg Marine Institute. Dr. Kullenberg reports
that these samples, taken from twenty to thirty feet below the sedimentary
surface, show traces of typical fresh water plants, of land
river and lake mixed with sand.
Discoveries at Tabago, Pamela O'Reilly
Mr.
Cambridge, Warden of Tabago, has an extensive and
varied collection of both Carib and Arawak relics. Digging in the south east part of the Island, in about 10 feet of ground, the warden came upon
a burial ground, which he states with some assurance contained at least five
bodies. Innumerable stone axes, cooking utensils and some stone implements had
been buried with them and indicate that these people possessed a certain degree
of culture. The stone implements some were of granite, others of a hard green
stone, and they were beautifully polished and sharpened which a few were
grooved. There were hundreds of pottery pieces, as well as replicas of birds,
squirrels, fish, bison and iguanas. It is interesting to note that the
existence of the bison in the West Indies is unknown, therefore these people must have had contact with
the mainland at one time or another. The bowls although fragments were fashioned
in the shape of a Armadillo, or a turtle. Another bowl
2/3rds intact was in the shape of a square with well defined ridges running
round the inside. Part of a water pitcher, with a spout remaining was one of
the larger pieces. Faces of either gods or the natives with squat features and
thick lips had also been fashioned. These were fashioned on the handles of
bowls.
Spear
heads, or a more clumsey kind than the stone
implements mentioned above, and battle axes, some of great weight were
indicative that it was Caribs rather than Arawaks who settled in Tabago. Generally assumed around the 8th century, as the age of
the bones found at Plymouth
(southwest of Tabago) has been put at 1,000 years.
(Webmaster
note- the strange part is that in the 8th Century A.D. before Columbus commercial trade had long since been established
between the America's
and that there are some extinct forms of Bison that it may refer to?)
1951
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