Arqueologia

When people ask you " what animal is the king of all animals? " the first creature to come to mind is the lion. But in truth, before the church imposed the lion as the king of all the animals, the bear was the real king, at least in the European continent. The bear was the symbol of power, strength and majesty. It is possible that our ancestors during prehistoric times already worshiped bears. We can find bear skulls aligned in niches in caves, and they weren't placed in there at random. There might have been an early bear cult, and unlike the image we grow up with, of people living in caves, our ancestors actually built houses made of huge animal bones and tusks, tree-trunks and animal skins, so those caves with beautiful paintings, were in fact out ancestors' first temples. But let's not go back so much in history. Anyway, we can find traces of the utmost respect, even fear and also admiration our ancestors had for these creatures, in folktales, changed by time and the different political and social realities throughout history, and of course, changed by new faiths. We can also see it in sacred places, christianised, but were once the places of pagan deities and with the new faith became the dwelling places of saints and Christian mythological accounts. For instance, the Celts worshiped a goddess which was represented with a bear on her side or in front of her. The bear goddess called Artio, and the name has a lot of similarities with Arthur, who in turn is also a name connected with bears. This was a primitive deity, linked to the fertilizing force of the earth, in a time when gods had not yet been anthropomorphized and were still represented as animals. There were certain early Cristian accounts that show the importance the bear had to the pagans, and as such, the devil often took the form of a bear to come and terrorized the monks. The king of animals was turned against those who admired it, by demonizing the poor animal. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the bear often has a negative symbology, and you can see that in the Old Testament. When the missionaries began their process of evangelization through Europe, they encountered a variety of pagan deities, many of which were either associated with bears, or were bears themselves. To the Germanic and Celtic populations of Europe, the bear was the animal associated with royalty, so it isn't a coincidence that the most famous legendary king, Arthur, was also associated with the bear. It's interesting to see that the bear, well, the she-bear, was connected to the warrior goddess Brigid, of whom the Celtic kings were sons of, making them little bear cubs. So there was the necessity to christianise this goddess, and so Saint Brigid was born, and later, this pagan goddess, now christianised, was associated with a real abbess of Kildare named Brigid, who died more or less in the year of 525 of our era. To the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples, the bear was connected to the warrior spirit, personified by the god Thor. It appears that in certain Germanic groups, one of the imposed trials to the young warriors, was the solitary bear hunt. Although it hasn't been proven yet if these initiation rites were real or just mythical. Anyway, what is real is that the strength and the ferocity of the bear was an inspiration to the Germanic and Scandinavian warriors. Many ancient cities throughout Europe still have the representation of the bear in their coat-of-arms. The survival evidences of the bear being the king of animals before the church replaced the symbolic functions of the bear for the lion. The lion was an exotic animal, and by the time it replaced the bear, sometime in the year 1000, the lion didn't belong to the European Fauna so this almost mythical creature during medieval times was easily adopted.

It was common in ancient civilizations the belief in an axis mundi, a central point around which the world existed, a connection between the heavens and the earth, the source of all life and also a connection between different reality planes. The very thing connecting the realms of the divine; the sky, the earth and the infernal. Infernal not in a Christian sense, related to Hell, because pre-Christian or pre-Abrahamic religions had not the concept of an infernal realm for punishment; infernal rather in a sense of an inferior realm, underworld, just like the world above is called supernal (celestial). To the Scandinavians and other Germanic peoples, this axis mundi was Yggdrasil, the world tree. Now, we have to take in mind, that the oldest documentations we have about Yggdrasil, are from the X century, and we have to be careful with this, because this was already a period in northern Europe when paganism was coming to an end, and since the IX century Christianity was already a force to be reckoned with in the north. And such polytheistic accounts were registered by Christians who perhaps had lost the true meaning of the pagan folklore, because they wrote such accounts many years after the conversion of the countries, and also, the Norse beliefs at this time had already a lot of influence from the new religion-Christianity. Speaking of this, let's take a closer look into two of the most important sources to understand Norse mythology-The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda-which date from the XIII century. The Poetic Edda is a combination of poems that date far back before the coming of Christianity, but from oral tradition, and there's no telling how much these poems have changed with time. The Poetic Edda is the medieval version of such accounts. And the Prose Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson, is a manual of Skaldic poetry using periphrases or metaphors of mythological references. Snorri Sturluson turned to folklore, to poems contained in the Poetic Edda and other poems which survived in oral tradition to create this work. This work by Snorri Surluson is a synthesized and simplified view of the Norse mythology, in contradiction with other sources and influenced by Christianity since Christianity was the official religion in Iceland in Snorri Sturluson's time for two hundred years already. But about these sources I think it's best to write another article, so let's go back to the subject. We shall stick with the version we know from Yggdrasil, being the world tree. The term " Yggdrasil " comes from two elements: Yggr, which is one of the names for the god Odin, meaning " terrible " as in Odin being The Terrible/The Fearful/The Dreadful. And the term drasill, which refers to " the one who walks " something, " the one who rides " something, and it's also a poetic term for a mount, a horse. So, as you might rightfully guess, Yggdrasil is Odin's mount, vehicle, or horse. Meaning that this deity used the World Tree to travel between worlds; he uses this cosmic axis to journey into different worlds. But the term drasill can also be connected with the gallows, or hanging as a form of execution, which was compared, for some reason, with the horse. For example the XI century poem Háleygjatal, from Eyvindr Finnson, which refers to Sigarr's horse (a legendary Scandinavian king) as also being his gallows. This gives us the connection of Yggdrasil being the very thing Odin used to hang himself, kill himself, in order to be able to free himself to pursue the knowledge he so deeply wished for. We can see in here an old shamanic tradition of freeing the spirit from the body to reach the world of the spirits and gain knowledge, and communicate with the spirits and gods.

The Druids are still a fascinating subject, and the unknown still brings mystery, and what is mysterious and almost mystical nowadays, gives us a certain delight in knowing that beyond our dull lives in a civilized world, there is still magic out there, somewhere. It's still extremely hard to understand what the Druids were up to. We know they studied a variety of arts for 20 years, maybe more, but left no written records of their doings. Fortunately, and unfortunately, we have written roman sources describing the religious, intellectual and social functions of the druids within their communities, but these are the points of view from a society with a different cultural, historical and traditional background, seeing from afar something they had never come in contact with; ancestral practices so deeply carved upon the Celtic tribes, impossible for outsiders to fully understand the true essence of Druidism. Even so, during Caius Iulius Caesar wars on Gaul (the very same who played such an important role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire), we have really interesting accounts about the druids, especially duo to Caesar's friendship with Diviciacus of the Aedui, of course a Romanised name for a person we may never know his true name. Now, there might be a certain confusion here, because there was another Diviciacus during Caesar's time, and he was also a Gaul, a Gaulish King to be more precise, but we know this Caesar's friend was a Druid, not by Caesar himself but by Marcus Tullius Cicero, a roman politician who had a very peculiar career before becoming an active figure in the political network of Rome. Cicero had been an Augur, a priest whose purpose was interpreting the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds. So Cicero met this Diviciacus in Rome and had long debates with him, because they were colleagues of some sort and both argued about the art of divination. This is one of the most important sources we have about druidism. However, as you might have guessed, it's only a tiny portion of what druidism is and was. We are talking about druidism practiced in Gaul, from a certain Celtic group within a Celtic group, and obviously other druids did things differently, with certain similarities, but we can't possibly say that all druids were the same everywhere. Also, these are written roman sources with that beautiful roman political touch of the Roman Republic. But the question is, what concrete knowledge did the Celts and the Druids had on the stars and how did they applied such knowledge on their societies? In truth, we aren't certain (sorry), but we have a variety of studies which gives us a glimpse of such a knowledge which seems with each passing year we come to the conclusion that these societies knew much more than we realised the year before, and the year before that. We can count on the yearly celebrations, harvesting cycles, equinoxes and solstices, we can count on the traditional folklore written by Irish priests, and of course we can count on the studies made by Archaeologists and Astronomers about the orientations of the monuments of antiquity. However, this last one, unlike most people think, such megalithic monuments are not Celtic; they were raised during the Neolithic, so we are talking about roughly 5000-4000 years before the Celts, of course the chronology differs a lot from place to place, still, we know the Druids used such monuments during the Iron

This is a story about a man named Geirmundur Heljarskinn, born in Rogaland (Norway), between the years 850-950 AD. He was one of the first explorers to settle in Iceland, going with the early Viking expedition teams. This is not a fictional character from Norse mythology or the Sagas. This person is in fact an historical figure and nowadays in Iceland people can still trace their bloodline through genetic tests to this ancestor of theirs (and such tests have been performed). He was a "black" Viking, but not in the way you might think; not black because he was of African ancestry, nor because he was so evil that he gained this seemingly ominous title of being "dark" when darkness is associated with evil, mystery, death and even magic. He was black/dark according to the perception of the people of those times. The reactions people had in relation to this man, are really interesting and makes us wonder about certain attitudes society has towards people who are physically different. The rather short story of Geirmundur Heljarskinn is present within the Landnámabók, which is " The Book of Settlements " , a medieval Icelandic written record which describes the settlement of Iceland by the Norse between the 9th and 10th centuries. If you research the story, it's called Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, and this story is about Geirmundur and his brother Hámund. This account comes in great detail about the lineage of Geirmundur, which I will not write it here so we can go straight to the point. Suffice it to say that there was a man called Hjör, doing the regular raiding and pillaging to obtain wealth. This Hjör went raiding in Bjarmland, the westernmost part of Siberia, where there was a great trading activity between the natives and the Norse. Hjör took as a hostage of value a young Siberian woman called Ljufvina, the very daughter of the "king" of Bjarmland. Hjör ended up marrying this woman. Now, in Siberia there were no kings, these were nomadic people, so it's quite possible that this whole story of her being a princess was made up to have a royal justification for her to become a queen in Norway, otherwise, without a royal lineage, she would have no claim to the throne. The majority of Siberians are of Mongol origins-with dark hair and skin-and Ljufvina was no exception. Now, speaking of genetics, we know that when two people, both having different skin-colors from one another, the darker pigmentation tends to thrive and be more visible. But this is nowadays that we have this knowledge, back in medieval times people expected their sons to follow their father's lineage, therefore more prone to look like their fathers. Hjör was a man with Nordic features, so people were surprised when Ljufvina gave birth to two boys with dark hair and skin. To the ancient Scandinavian societies, people with darker skin-colours were considered to be, well, back. But being " black " during these times, at least in ancient Scandinavia, wasn't necessarily a motive for prejudice, intolerance. The only problem here was the fact that the father was white, tall, fair of hair, and the social belief that children should look like their fathers. These were patriarchal societies. Another problem, was that the children looked nothing like the royal lineages of the kings and queens of Norway, they looked much more like Thralls-slaves-and this was absolutely unconceivable for nobles. This isn't a case of racism in ancient societies. The problem wasn't directly due to their skin, the problem was breaking the royal lineage.

Are the Eddas reliable? First of all, what does " Edda " mean? Opinions differ, greatly, as to be expected. But the most usual meaning is that the word is related to ódr (poem/poetry) and may be translated as " poetics ". Our knowledge of the pagan deities comes from several sources, and most prominent among them are the two Icelandic works, the Poetic Edda, a collection of songs relating the deeds of Nordic gods and heroes, and the Prose Edda, a work composed by Snorri Sturluson. These are two essential works to have an understanding of pagan Germanic religion. But let's start with the Prose Edda first, which seems much more complex to talk about. The Uppsala Codex is one of the three most important manuscripts composed by Snorri Sturluson, the first part is about the Aesir and Ymir, then comes the Skáldskaparmál (Poetic Diction) and last the Háttatal (Account of Meters) a composition about King Hákon and Duke Skúli. Snorri Sturluson writes his Prose Edda during the 13 th century. He made good use of the Poetic Edda, but also other accounts, some lost forever, obviously, but others which have survived through oral tradition. He gives us a synthesized and simplified version of the Norse mythology. This work of his comes in contradiction with other sources, and also, quite possibly, his work was influenced by Christianity, which already was the official religion in Iceland for 200 years, already in Snorri Sturluson's time. It's also very likely that the sources Snorri used to compose this mythology comes solely from the region of Throndheim, in Norway, such sources composed by the end of the X century. The very myth of creation, transmitted to us by Snorri, which he refers to it as – in the beginning there was only a great void and two worlds were created, one of ice and another of fire – might give us the indication that this might be a very Icelandic perspective of the creation of the world, adding familiar elements to the story, the landscape of Iceland – glaciers and volcano activity – combined to create a land. This brought to my attention that mythology is clearly different from place to place, not only because of historical, cultural and traditional factors, but also because of geographical factors. To the Scandinavian communities further south, where the landscape is clearly different of that of the north, such communities wouldn't have the same perspectives on the creation of the cosmos. Another aspect is that the great majority of the sources were composed by poets, financially sponsored by political and military authorities, and also poems to spread amongst warriors. Which means, poems to be read and listened by certain groups, where certain deities were more popular than others, which helps to explain why in archaeology Freyr was much more relevant in ancient Scandinavian societies, and why in Denmark there are more place names related to this deity, and also Týr, but then in the sources, particularly in the Prose Edda, Odin seems to be the most important deity, almost to the point of being the major deity, because in the Prose Edda Odin is seen as a god not only related to war, but also poetry, and here we can see the connection between poets and the military and political leaders.

To establish a context, I'll start with the history behind the rune staves, but let's not go that far back in time. To better understand the rune staves, we must understand the historical background of Iceland during the Middle-Ages, for that is the historical line I draw here because it was a time of great changes in the Scandinavian pagan mind. Iceland was first settled in the latter decades of the 9 th century, mainly by Norwegians and their Celtic thralls (slaves). These Norwegians came to this unpopulated island to seek political and religious freedom, running away from a monarch who was " hunting down " pagans – King Haraldr hárfagra (fair-hair). This king was still a pagan, but under the political influence of Christian Europe he set about to conquer Norway and bring it under a Christian-style monarchy. The new Icelanders set up a social order deeply rooted in their native heritage, so the land was ruled by local priest-chieftains, goðar (sing. goði). The Icelanders practiced the religion brought with them – their polytheistic Germanic heathenism – which is a religion that allows as much individual freedom as possible. Of course there were a number of Christians among the Celtic thralls brought to Iceland, and even some of their masters converted to the faith. The Icelanders originally tolerated such religious differences, but eventually Christianity was accepted as the official religion of Iceland due to a variety of social, economic and religious pressures of the Iceland's foreign contacts who had all become Christians. The acceptance of Christianity by Icelanders was highly formalistic, so the old practices were maintained, in private, even though certain aspects were forbidden, in public. The individual freedom of their native faith allowed Icelanders to compose works about certain aspects of their spirituality. In terms of magic, manuals were scarce in the beginning but there was still a lot of oral tradition and practices which survived within the families, and of course the Sagas and the poems. The written records we have of such magical practices were written during Iceland's Catholic period; the social and religious realities were very much different, great changes had occurred, and obviously the mixture between paganism and Christianity greatly influenced the people who composed these works. Hard to say how far the reliability of such accounts go, but in terms of magic, and cultural aspects in general, the Catholic period in Iceland wasn't that radical. Luckily, one of the traditional areas of Germanic magic survived in some parts of Scandinavia as late as the 19 th century, and this area is " rune-magic ". In pagan times the runic sorcerers/magicians, were well known and honoured members of the society. Traditionally these people were members of a social order interested in intellectual and/or spiritual pursuits. Now, the general technique of rune magic during pagan times consisted of 3 steps: 1) Carving the symbols in an object; 2) Colouring them with blood or dye; 3) Speaking a vocal formula over the staves to imbue them, load them, with magical power. We have several examples of this technique in Old Icelandic literature, this kind of magical work can be read in " För Skírnis " or " Skírnismál " , a poem in the Poetic Edda; we have an example there of a curse, for instance. Or in the Egil's Saga, in order to detect poison in his drinking horn, Egill drew out his knife and stabbed the palm of his hand, he rubbed the blood in the horn which was carved with runes and changed an incantation. So the runes are symbols of power, but in order to awaken that power, one must give part of him – blood – life itself and probably all the ancestral history printed in the blood, all the knowledge of the ancestors, and also an incantation, giving breath to it, the breath of life, a sort of spiritual part of yourself and the

In northern pagan traditions there is a celebration called Álfablót – a sacrifice to the Elves. This was a celebration held at the end of autumn, but we have to take in mind that to our Norse ancestors autumn did not count as a season. There was spring, a short summer and a very long winter. After the end of the harvesting season, when all the crops were reaped and the animals well fed, it was time to go indoors. The long winter and harsh weather forced people to shut themselves in. Just as nature would sleep beneath the cold mantle of winter, all birds ceased to sing and a dead silence fell upon the world, so did humans retreated to their dwellings and spent the winter indoors, surviving by feeding on the stored food. The true essence of paganism is to celebrate life; to facilitate well-being to the family and the community by working together. Each individual plays an important part in the welfare of the community. But the Álfablót is a different celebration, not like the other blóts or other pagan celebrations and festivities. This is a small celebration that can be made by one individual or one family. It was a local celebration at the homesteads of each family, and it was administered by the lady of the household. During this time, strangers were not welcomed near the homesteads when the celebrations were being held, because this is a private blót, a private sacrifice, a moment to be shared with the ancestors and honour them at their burial mounds. A celebration that focuses on the particular affections and love that people feel for the family members that are already dead. This celebration is not only to honour the ancestors, but also all kinds of other spirits, such as the Elves and the Landvaettir (Spirits of the Land). The Elves are seen as spirits closely connected to the fertility of the land but also in contact with the dead. They are a source of spiritual power and through them people can communicate with the dead and the gods. Much like the Celtic belief in faerie, the Norse/Germanic peoples also believed that they were always surrounded by entities of great power all over the land. Gods and Goddesses, land spirits/landvaettir, Alfar (Elves), Duergar (Dwarves), ancestors, Trolls, Huldrefolk and so on. Every entity lived in the land, on trees, rocks, streams, in animals etc. and helped the people in their daily needs, mundane life. They would also help giving guidance and wisdom, or for some, giving a hand in magical works. People lived in close association with these spiritual entities, and the connections and friendship between both sides were forged through a series of ritual actions. The most important ritual or celebration in this matter was the Álfablót. The Álfablót was a celebration held during or after the Winternights/Vetrnaetr (the three days which mark the beginning of the winter season). The aim of this celebration/sacrifice was to help the participants connecting with the local spirits surrounding their farmstead, and to begin to establish the relationship of mutual trust, respect, and support with them. As I've said, strangers were not allowed near the farmsteads during these times. We can assume to know why

You can watch the video about this subject in here: [Ragnarök Video] Let's start with the most obvious question: What is Ragnarök? If we want to have a shallow idea of what it is, well, it's simply the end of the world as we know it. But of course I'm not here to give you a simple explanation. For some people Ragnarök already happened, if we understand that after this chaotic event, a Golden Age will begin, an age of peace and compassion, the rebirth of the earth and a new prosperous world. More or less 10.000 years ago the Ice Age finally came to an end, and we progressively stopped being hunters and gatherers and began to tame the land through agriculture and pastoralism. Controlling the earth and flora and the domestication of the fauna, was a great step to the so called progress of civilization, and our dominion over the earth is leading to its destruction and the extinction of many species. In the long run, this is Ragnarök, a battle of more than 10.000 years. Humanity versus nature, and we are actually winning and accelerating our doom, but intelligent as we are, we are finding better solutions to reduce the stain upon the earth that we left, so in other words we are now progressivity walking towards a Golden Age. This is just one perspective of what Ragnarök might be if we take a look at our nowadays reality. Due to the popularity of Norse mythology and the history of the Viking Age, today in the movies, television, literature and games, many people who until then did not know the myths, or knew little about it, became more interested in the subject. So before I jump to something a little bit more complex, I'll first try to give you a simple and straightforward comprehension of what Ragnarök is. First things first, Ragnarök is a myth of Nordic origins, created by the peoples of medieval Scandinavia. It might be a myth with older origins, but as it reach us today, the whole concept seems much more medieval than prehistoric. In the middle Ages, between the V and XI centuries, between the Vendel Period (V-VIII) and the Viking Era (VIII-XI), the Norse mythology took shape and was developed into the perspective we have on the written sources. The Medieval interpretation of Ragnarök refers to future events in an unspecified period of time, in which catastrophic events will occur that will profoundly change the world as we know it. All stories must have an end, but just like in every mythological account and also religious interpretations, Ragnarök isn't the end of time, rather it's an event with a purpose, a period of change. We must not forget that the written sources we have to read about Ragnarök, were sources written in medieval Iceland during the thirteenth century, a period in Iceland's history already greatly influenced by Christianity, and the entire idea of Ragnarök seems a lot like the " End of Times " Prophecy as it is written in the Bible. So let's take a look into some similarities: Before Ragnarök actually happens, there will be a great winter that will last three years. In here we can see the Icelandic perspective of things. A great portion of mythological accounts are shaped by the geographical realities people live in. So a world of Ice and frost is a harsh reality for Scandinavian peoples, especially during medieval times. Iceland itself all around is filled with glaciers and volcanic activity, so fire and ice is the perfect combination for the end of times in an Icelandic perspective. But after this long winter, humanity shall rise up and fight each other, great and terrible wars, in the Bible that's what happens before the end of days – War on a large scale (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:4.). If you study military medieval history, you know that the greatest fear of war during medieval times wasn't the war itself but famine which led to an increasing of crime (Famine: Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:5, 6.; Increase of crime: Matthew 24:12.) Before Ragnarök the survivors of the great wars will only have morning dew to feed on (Vafþrúðnismál). During this time the Prose Edda speaks of incest as one of the things that will occur, " siblings do incest " , and also in the Völuspá speaks of the sons between brothers and sisters that will stain kinship, as we also have in the Bible during the " end of days " – " Breakdown of the family, with people who have " no natural affection " " (2 Timothy 3:2, 3.). Then we have great earthquakes also in the Bible (Luke 21:11.) and in the Prose Edda as I will quote: " The whole surface of the earth and the mountains will tremble so that the trees will be uprooted from the ground, mountains will crash down ". In the Völupá a fear will quake all when Heimdall blows the great horn Ghallarhorn, and Yggdrasil itself shakes. We also have this reference to earthquakes in the Poetic Edda. I could go on with more similarities between the Bible's " End of Days " Prophecy and the Norse Ragnarök, like that part when the dead will walk the earth again as it says in the Bible, and during Ragnarök the great ship Naglfar will come, built with the nails of the dead, and possibly bringing the dead along, because the dead from the realm of Hel will also be in great activity during

"In 2011, during an archaeological work at Rua da Saudade (Saudade Street) in Lisbon, a ceramic pot was found. It is an hand-build vessel, produced using wheel and low-fired kilns, burnished in the outer surface. This characteristics differ largely from the ceramics found in the portuguese contexts from the Early-Modern Period, so it has been associated with traditional African pottery. A possible exogenous origin of this artifact or a possible approach to foreign communities, lead us to use it as a pretext for a discussion about the archeology of slavery in Portugal, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In this article, our main purpose is to reflect on the existence of archaeological evidences of the material culture possibly produced / used by African slaves. We intend to raise some key questions for the review of the heritage legacies related to the common history of Portuguese and Africans."