Thule, Saturn, & an alternative explanation: Part 6
This is part of a video produced by the scientists at The Thunderbolts Project
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Wal Thornhill and Dave Talbott will each give two thought-provoking presentations at EU2014 Conference: All About Evidence, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, March 20 - 24, 2014. For more information on all the speakers start here:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/09/10/eu2014-home-page/
Here we offer David Talbott's first glimpses of celestial dramas in ancient times. Just a few thousand years ago a gathering of planets hung as towering forms in the ancient sky close to the earth, provoking spectacular electric discharge formations above our forebears.
For clips from episode 2, proceed to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_T6__JDeyw
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Electric Universe (Wal Thornhill):
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Essential Guide to the Electric Universe:
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The "electric universe" theory is gaining momentum; however, so many of the biggest names in "mainstream science" have entire careers invested into ideas which may not be true ("gravity universe", "black holes", "big bang theory"). As a consequence, they almost always will not even listen or respond to any new ideas; and will depend on the establishments of the world to back them up. The 1994 book 'Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race'--by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson--documents clear evidence that mainstream archeology literally hides away in storage locations because they can't explain them away.
The idea that a "Teutonic homeland" may have existed on the North Pole seems too incredible to believe until one looks at all the evidence. I see much more evidence to support it than there is evidence to the contrary. As to whether they were somehow a superior people isn't really applicable to whether or not this homeland existed. There's much more basis for an ancient Mediterranean origin of civilization than any other race or culture.
Could there have been an Earth with no seasons in the not-too-distant past? We know that Antarctica was once a continent with a warm climate and thriving with life. If you watched the above video, then if true it could explain a Thule-like civilization.. or at least a Teutonic settlement... literally on the North Pole. Was a still viable star Saturn the sun in the northern sky? Were the dramatically nearby interacting planets "the gods?" This electric solar system of only a few thousand years ago would be the last piece of evidence to finally prove Bal Gangadhar Tilak's theory of "the Arctic home in the Vedas."
As far as the massive "Saturnian symbolism" in the world today, that goes beyond where I want to go here. Also, the presence of some people who were eight to nine feet tall--which is true since there are the remains to prove it--still are not numerically numerous enough to point-blank state that "these were the ancient Teutons." They may have been a different type of human being altogether. I do, however, believe that the original Teutons could have been six and a half to seven feet on average. There is at least one sub-Saharan tribe today which has an average height of close to seven feet. The average height of Scandinavians today is 5'11", which would work as far as a northern Europe of largely Teutonic and proto-European mixtures.
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Thule, Saturn, & an alternative explanation: Part 3
The 80's musical track from the above video is entitled 'Hyperborea' by a German band called Tangerine Dream, which has been active from 1967 to the present. The theme song ('Betrayal') from the 1977 movie 'Sorcerer' was produced by them, as well as over sixty other film tracks. Anyway, I thought the above video captured the allure of what now seems clear to me to have been a real place; although there's no proof as of yet that it was a great civilization. At the very least, this ancient land of legend--and it's latter migrating peoples--are a big part of Indo-European history.
The "Arctic Home in the Vedas" is not just about Teutonic origins, but may say just as much about the very ancient proto-European culture. as well as the original pre-Greek and Roman Mediterranean civilizations. All three of those subraces are not given proper respect as far as their true origins. The Tarim mummies are just the tip of the iceberg. In hindsight, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was quite a pioneer; and the evidence proving him correct is mounting.
The ancient Greeks must have had periodic contact with these Teutons who were migrating outward after the last glacial movement. Perhaps some of them may even have contributed to ancient Greece and Assyria. I'm going to present this year some stunning information that may blow this thing out've the water as far as at least part of the Arctic circle being a livable place four or five thousand years ago. Much of this Greek-Teutonic contact likely occurred at the early stages of Greek civilization, where the legend developed.
This Hyperborean hypothesis seems to point to the logical location of northern Central Asia for what was probably some of the later settlements... like the Tarim Basin. It seems as though Greek conventional thinking later placed the Teutons as being from a location more like the British Isles; but they probably had it correct early on. Starting about three thousand years ago, some of these Teutons were migrating into Europe and merging with the proto-European/Alpine peoples; thus forming the "Celtic cultures." This is probably what confused them. It still confuses us today! Teutons were then associated with mary parts of the north from ancient Briton to ancient Tibet.
Hyperborea (Wikipedia)
In Greek mythology the Hyperboreans (Ancient Greek: Ὑπερβόρε(ι)οι, pronounced [hyperbóre(ː)ɔi̯]; Latin: Hyperborei) were a mythical people who lived "beyond the North Wind". The Greeks thought that Boreas, the god of the North Wind (one of the Anemoi, or "Winds") lived in Thrace, and therefore Hyperborea indicates a region that lay far to the north of Thrace.
This land was supposed to be perfect, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a day, which to modern ears suggests a possible location within the Arctic Circle. However, it is also possible that Hyperborea had no real physical location at all - for according to the classical Greek poet Pindar,
neither by ship nor on foot would you find
the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.
Pindar also described the otherworldly perfection of the Hyperboreans:
Never the Muse is absent
from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry
and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.
Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed
in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live.
Early sources
Herodotus
The earliest extant source that mentions Hyperborea in detail is Herodotus's Histories (Book IV, Chapters 32–36), written circa 450 BC. However, Herodotus recorded three earlier sources that supposedly mentioned the Hyperboreans, including Hesiod and Homer, the latter purportedly having written of Hyperborea in his lost work Epigoni: "if that be really a work of his." Herodotus also wrote that the 7th century BC poet Aristeas wrote of the Hyperboreans in a poem (now lost) called Arimaspea about a journey to the Issedones, who are estimated to have lived in the Kazakh Steppe. Beyond these lived the one-eyed Arimaspians, further on there were gold-guarding griffins, and beyond these the Hyperboreans. Naturally, Herodotus used to assume the location of Hyperborea somewhere in the Northeast Asia.
Pindar, Simonides of Ceos and Hellanicus of Lesbos, contemporaries of Herodotus in the 5th century BC, also all briefly described or referenced the Hyperboreans in their works.
Location of Hyperborea
The Hyperboreans were believed to live beyond the snowy Riphean Mountains which Homer first referenced in his Iliad (15. 171; 19. 358)[7] or beyond the home of Boreas.
According to Pausanias: "The land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of Boreas."
Homer placed Boreas in Thrace, and therefore Hyperborea in his opinion was somewhere to the north of Thracian territory, perhaps Dacia. Sophocles (Antigone, 980–987), Aeschylus (Agamemnon, 193; 651), Simonides of Ceos (Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, 1. 121) and Callimachus (Delian, [IV] 65) also placed Boreas in Thrace. Other ancient writers however believed the home of Boreas or the Riphean Mountains were in a different location. For example, Hecataeus of Miletus believed that the Riphean Mountains were adjacent to the Black Sea. Alternatively Pindar placed the home of Boreas, the Riphean Mountains and Hyperborea all near the Danube. Heraclides Ponticus and Antimachus in contrast identified the Riphean Mountains with the Alps, and the Hyperboreans as a Celtic tribe (perhaps the Helvetii) who lived just beyond them. Aristotle placed the Riphean mountains on the borders of Scythia, and Hyperborea further north. Hecataeus of Abdera and others believed Hyperborea was Britain.
Later Roman and Greek sources continued to change the location of the Riphean mountains, the home of Boreas, as well as Hyperborea, supposedly located beyond them. However all these sources agreed these were all in the far north of Greece or southern Europe. The ancient grammarian Simmias of Rhodes in the 3rd century BC connected the Hyperboreans to the Massagetae and Posidonius in the 1st century BC to the Western Celts, but Pomponius Mela placed them even further north in the vicinity of the Arctic.
In maps based on reference points and descriptions given by Strabo, Hyperborea, shown variously as a peninsula or island, is located beyond what is now France, and stretches further north-south than east-west. Other descriptions put it in the general area of the Ural Mountains.
Later classical sources
Plutarch, writing in the 1st century AD, connected the Hyperboreans with the Gauls who had sacked Rome in the 4th century BC (see Battle of the Allia).
Aelian, Diodorus Siculus and Stephen of Byzantium all recorded important ancient Greek sources on Hyperborea, but added no new descriptions.
The 2nd century AD Stoic philosopher Hierocles equated the Hyperboreans with the Scythians, and the Riphean Mountains with the Ural Mountains. Clement of Alexandria and other early Christian writers also made this same Scythian equation.
Ancient identification with Britain
Hyperborea was identified with Britain first by Hecataeus of Abdera in the 4th century BC, as in a preserved fragment by Diodorus Siculus:
In the regions beyond the land of the Celts there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than Sicily. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind (Boreas) blows; and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop, and has an unusually temperate climate.
Hecateaus of Abdera also wrote that the Hyperboreans had a 'circular temple' on their island, and some scholars have identified this with Stonehenge. This is further supported by the fact that Stonehenge has been known as Apollo's Temple since classical antiquity, and Hyperborea in Greek legend was related to Apollo.
Pseudo-Scymnus, around 90 BC, wrote that Boreas dwelled at the extremity of Gaulish territory, and that he had a pillar erected in his name on the edge of the sea (Periegesis, 183). Some have claimed this is a geographical reference to northern France, and Hyperborea as the British Isles which lay just beyond the English Channel.
Ptolemy (Geographia, 2. 21) and Marcian of Heraclea (Periplus, 2. 42) both placed Hyperborea in the North Sea which they called the "Hyperborean Ocean."
Legends
Alone among the Twelve Olympians, Apollo was venerated among the Hyperboreans, the Hellenes thought: he spent his winter amongst them. For their part the Hyperboreans sent mysterious gifts, packed in straw, which came first to Dodona and then were passed from tribe to tribe until they came to Apollo's temple on Delos (Pausanias). Abaris, Hyperborean priest of Apollo, was a legendary wandering healer and seer. Theseus visited the Hyperboreans, and Pindar transferred Perseus's encounter with Medusa there from its traditional site in Libya, to the dissatisfaction of his Alexandrian editors.
Along with Thule, Hyperborea was one of several terrae incognitae to the Greeks and Romans, where Pliny, Pindar and Herodotus, as well as Virgil and Cicero, reported that people lived to the age of one thousand and enjoyed lives of complete happiness. Hecataeus of Abdera collated all the stories about the Hyperboreans current in the fourth century BC and published a lengthy treatise on them, lost to us, but noted by Diodorus Siculus (ii.47.1–2). Also, the sun was supposed to rise and set only once a year in Hyperborea; which would place it above or upon the Arctic Circle, or, more generally, in the arctic polar regions.
The ancient Greek writer Theopompus in his work Philippica claimed Hyperborea was once planned to be conquered by a large race of soldiers from another island (some have claimed this was Atlantis), the plan though was abandoned because the soldiers from Meropis realized the Hyperboreans were too strong for them and the most blessed of people; this unusual tale, which some believe was satire or comedy, was preserved by Aelian (Varia Historia, 3. 18).
Apollonius wrote that the Argonauts sighted Hyperborea, when they sailed through Eridanos.
Physical appearance
Greek legend asserts that the Boreades, who were the descendants of Boreas and the snow-nymph Chione (or Khione), founded the first theocratic monarchy on Hyperborea. This legend is found preserved in the writings of Aelian: "This god [Apollon] has as priests the sons of Boreas (North Wind) and Chione (Snow), three in number, brothers by birth, and six cubits in height [about 3 metres]."
Diodorus Siculus added to this account: "And the kings of this (Hyperborean) city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreadae, since they are descendants of Boreas, and the succession to these positions is always kept in their family."
The Boreades were thus believed to be giant kings, around 3 metres tall, who ruled Hyperborea.
No other physical descriptions of the Hyperboreans are provided in classical sources. However, Aelius Herodianus, a grammarian in the 3rd century, wrote that the mythical Arimaspi were identical to the Hyperboreans in physical appearance (De Prosodia Catholica, 1. 114) and Stephanus of Byzantium in the 6th century wrote the same (Ethnica, 118. 16). The ancient poet Callimachus described the Arimaspi as having fair hair but it is disputed whether the Arimaspi were Hyperboreans.
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Thule, Saturn, & an alternative explanation: Part 2
Thule (Wikipedia)
Inhabitants of Thule
The inhabitants or people of Thule are described in most detail by Strabo in his Geographica, having preserved fragments of the account of Pytheas who was an alleged eye-witness in the 4th century BC:
...the people (of Thule) live on millet and other herbs, and on fruits and roots; and where there are grain and honey, the people get their beverage, also, from them. As for the grain, he says, since they have no pure sunshine, they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of sunshine and because of the rains.
Solinus in his Polyhistor repeated these descriptions, noting that the people of Thule had a fertile land where they grew a good production of crop and fruits.
Claudian believed that the inhabitants of Thule were Picts. This is supported by a physical description of the inhabitants of Thule by the Roman poet Silius Italicus, who wrote that the people of Thule were blue painted:
... the blue-painted native of Thule, when he fights, drives around the close-packed ranks in his scythe-bearing chariot.
The Picts are often said to have derived their name from Latin pingere "to paint"; pictus, "painted". Martial talks about "blue" and "painted Britons", just like Julius Caesar.
Eustathius of Thessalonica in his 12th century commentary on the Iliad, wrote that the inhabitants of Thule were at war with a dwarf-like stature tribe only 20 fingers in height. The American classical scholar Charles Anthon believed this legend may have been rooted in history (although exaggerated), if the dwarf or pygmy tribe were interpreted as being a smaller aboriginal tribe of Britain the people on Thule had encountered.
Middle Ages to nineteenth century
During the Middle Ages the name was used first of all to denote Iceland, such as by Dicuil, by the Anglo-Saxon monk Venerable Bede in De ratione temporum, by the Landnámabók, by the anonymous Historia Norwegie and by the German cleric Adam of Bremen in his Deeds of Bishops of the Hamburg Church, where they cite ancient writers' use of Thule but also new knowledge since the end of antiquity. All these authors also understood that other islands were situated to the north of Britain.
Petrarch in the 14th century wrote in his Epistolae familiares (or Familiar Letters) that Thule lay in the unknown regions of the far north-west.
A madrigal by Thomas Weelkes entitled Thule from 1600, describes it thus:
Thule, the period of cosmography,
Doth vaunt of Hecla, whose sulphureous fire
Doth melt the frozen clime and thaw the sky;
Trinacrian Etna's flames ascend not higher...
Note: Hekla is an Icelandic volcano. Thule is referred to in Goethe's poem "Der König in Thule" (1774), famously set to music by Franz Schubert (D 367, 1816), and in the collection Ultima Thule (1880) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Dream-Land" (1844) begins with the following stanza:
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule –
From a wild weird clime, that lieth, sublime,
Out of Space – out of Time.
Modern use
A municipality in northern Greenland (Avannaa) was formerly named Thule after the mythical place. The Thule People, the predecessor of modern Inuit Greenlanders, were named after the Thule region. In 1953, Thule became Thule Air Base, operated by United States Air Force. The population was forced to resettle to Qaanaaq, 67 miles to the north (76°31′50.21″N 68°42′36.13″W only 840 NM from the North Pole).
Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, one of which is called Thule Island. The island group is a part of the British overseas territory of the United Kingdom and uninhabited.
The Scottish Gaelic for Iceland is "Innis Tile", which means literally the "Isle of Thule". Ultima Thule was the title of the 1929 novel by Henry Handel Richardson, set in colonial Australia.
Additionally, Thule lends its name to the 69th element in the periodic table, Thulium.
Ultima Thule is also the name of a location in the Mammoth Cave system. It was formerly the terminus of the known-explorable southeastern (upstream) end of the passage called "Main Cave," before discoveries made in 1908 by Ed Bishop and Max Kaemper showed an area accessible beyond it, now the location of the Violet City Entrance. The Violet City Lantern tour offered at the cave passes through Ultima Thule near the conclusion of the route.
Popular culture
Thule is used in Hal Foster's work, Prince Valiant, as the homeland of the eponymous character.
Nazi "Aryan" Thule
Nazi occultists believed in a historical Thule/Hyperborea as the ancient origin of the Aryan race. Much of this fascination was due to rumours surrounding the Oera Linda Book "found" by Cornelis Over de Linden during the 19th century. The Oera Linda Book was translated into German in 1933 and was favored by Heinrich Himmler. The book has since been thoroughly discredited. Professor of Frisian Language and Literature Goffe Jensma wrote that the three authors of the translation intended it "to be a temporary hoax to fool some nationalist Frisians and orthodox Christians and as an experiential exemplary exercise in reading the Holy Bible in a non-fundamentalist, symbolical way."
The Traditionalist School expositor Rene Guenon believed in the existence of ancient Thule on "initiatic grounds" "alone". According to its emblem, the Thule Society was founded on August 18, 1918. It had close links to the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (DAP), later the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, the Nazi party). One of its three founding members was Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954). In his biography of Liebenfels (Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab, Munich 1985), the Viennese psychologist and author Wilhelm Dahm wrote: "The Thule Gesellschaft name originated from mythical Thule, a Nordic equivalent of the vanished culture of Atlantis. A race of giant supermen lived in Thule, linked into the Cosmos through magical powers. They had psychic and technological energies far exceeding the technical achievements of the 20th century. This knowledge was to be put to use to save the Fatherland and create a new race of Nordic Aryan Atlanteans. A new Messiah would come forward to lead the people to this goal." In his history of the SA (Mit ruhig festem Schritt, 1998), Wilfred von Oven, Joseph Goebbels' press adjutant from 1943 to 1945, confirmed that Pytheas' Thule was the historical Thule for the Thule Gesellschaft.
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Thule, Saturn, & an alternative explanation: Part 1
The ancient original Teutonic homeland which I have loosely coined "Týrland," was first written about by ancient Greeks and Romans (Thule). This land was apparently based on legends of a land in the "far north" going clear back into the ancient world. Speculation since the time of these writings has always suggested various locations in the far north of Europe, Greenland, and northern stretches of western Asia. It was not even determined who the inhabitants of Thule were. Therefore, then as now, Thule has become something of a legend such as Atlantis or Lemuria.
Thule (Wikipedia)
Thule (Greek: Θούλη, Thoúlē), also spelled Thula, Thila, or Thyïlea, is, in classical European literature and maps, a region in the far north. Though often considered to be an island in antiquity, modern interpretations of what was meant by Thule often identify it as Norway, an identification supported by modern calculations. Other interpretations include Orkney, Shetland, and Scandinavia. In the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Thule was often identified as Iceland or Greenland. Another suggested location is Saaremaa in the Baltic Sea. The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world". Sometimes it is used as a proper noun (Ultima Thule) as the Latin name for Greenland when Thule is used for Iceland.
Ancient geography
The Greek explorer Pytheas is the first to have written of Thule, doing so in his now lost work, On the Ocean, after his travels between 330 BC and 320 BC. He supposedly was sent out by the Greek city of Massalia to see where their trade-goods were coming from. Descriptions of some of his discoveries have survived in the works of later, often skeptical, authors. Polybius in his Histories (c. 140 BC), Book XXXIV, cites Pytheas as one "who has led many people into error by saying that he traversed the whole of Britain on foot, giving the island a circumference of forty thousand stades, and telling us also about Thule, those regions in which there was no longer any proper land nor sea nor air, but a sort of mixture of all three of the consistency of a jellyfish in which one can neither walk nor sail, holding everything together, so to speak."
Strabo in his Geography (c. 30), Book I, Chapter 4, mentions Thule in describing Eratosthenes' calculation of "the breadth of the inhabited world" and notes that Pytheas says it "is a six days' sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea." But he then doubts this claim, writing that Pytheas has "been found, upon scrutiny, to be an arch falsifier, but the men who have seen Britain and Ierne (Ireland) do not mention Thule, though they speak of other islands, small ones, about Britain." Strabo adds the following in Book II, Chapter 5:
Now Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle. But from the other writers I learn nothing on the subject—neither that there exists a certain island by the name of Thule, nor whether the northern regions are inhabitable up to the point where the summer tropic becomes the Arctic Circle.
Strabo ultimately concludes, in Book IV, Chapter 5, "Concerning Thule, our historical information is still more uncertain, on account of its outside position; for Thule, of all the countries that are named, is set farthest north."
Nearly a half century later, in 77, Pliny the Elder published his Natural History in which he also cites Pytheas' claim (in Book II, Chapter 75) that Thule is a six-day sail north of Britain. Then, when discussing the islands around Britain in Book IV, Chapter 16, he writes: "The farthest of all, which are known and spoke of, is Thule; in which there be no nights at all, as we have declared, about mid-summer, namely when the Sun passes through the sign Cancer; and contrariwise no days in mid-winter: and each of these times they suppose, do last six months, all day, or all night." Finally, in refining the island's location, he places it along the most northerly parallel of those he describes, writing in Book VI, Chapter 34,: "Last of all is the Scythian parallel, from the Rhiphean hills into Thule: wherein (as we said) it is day and night continually by turns (for six months)."
The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela placed Thule north of Scythia.
When scientists of the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science of the Technical University of Berlin were testing the antique maps of Ptolemy, they recognized a pattern of calculation mistakes which occurred if one tried to convert the old coordinates from Ptolemy into modern geographical coordinates. After correcting for the mistakes, the scientists mapped Ptolemy's Thule to the Norwegian island Smøla.
Other late classical writers and post-classical writers such as Orosius (384-420 A.D) and the Irish monk Dicuil (late 8th and early 9th century), describe Thule as being North and West of both Ireland and Britain. Dicuil described Thule as being beyond islands that seem to be the Faroes, strongly suggesting Iceland. In the writings of the historian Procopius, from the first half of the 6th century, Thule is a large island in the north inhabited by twenty-five tribes. It is believed that Procopius is really talking about a part of Scandinavia, since several tribes are easily identified, including the Geats (Gautoi) in present-day Sweden and the Saami (Scrithiphini). He also writes that when the Heruls returned, they passed the Varni and the Danes and then crossed the sea to Thule, where they settled beside the Geats.
Ancient literature
Virgil coined the term Ultima Thule (Georgics, 1. 30) meaning furthest land as a symbolic reference to denote a far-off land or an unattainable goal.
The 1st century BC Greek astronomer Geminus of Rhodes claimed that the name Thule went back to an archaic word for the polar night phenomenon – "the place where the sun goes to rest". Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis also touched upon this subject as did Martianus Capella. Avienus in his 'Ora Maritima' added that during the summer on Thule night lasted only two hours, a clear reference to the midnight sun.
Cleomedes referenced Pytheas' journey to Thule, but added no new information.
A novel in Greek by Antonius Diogenes entitled The Wonders Beyond Thule appeared c. AD 150 or earlier. Gerald N. Sandy, in the introduction to his translation of Photius' ninth-century summary of the work, surmises that Thule was "probably Iceland."
The Latin grammarian Gaius Julius Solinus in the 3rd century AD, wrote in his Polyhistor that Thule was a 5 days sail from Orkney:
...Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque quinque dierum ac noctium navigatio est; sed Thyle larga et diutina Pomona copiosa est.
...Thyle, which was distant from Orkney by a voyage of five days and nights, was fruitful and abundant in the lasting yield of its crops.
The 4th century Virgilian commentator Servius also believed that Thule sat close to Orkney:
...Thule; insula est Oceani inter septemtrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, iuxta Orcades et Hiberniam; in hac Thule cum sol in Cancro est, perpetui dies sine noctibus dicuntur...
...Thule; an island in the Ocean between the northern and western zone, beyond Britain, near Orkney and Ireland; in this Thule, when the sun is in Cancer, it is said that there are perpetual days without nights...
Early in the fifth century AD Claudian, in his poem, On the Fourth Consulship of the Emperor Honorius, Book VIII, rhapsodizes on the conquests of the emperor Theodosius I, declaring that the Orcades ran red with Saxon slaughter; Thule was warm with the blood of Picts; ice-bound Hibernia [Ireland] wept for the heaps of slain Scots." This implies that Thule was Scotland. But in Against Rufinias, the Second Poem, Claudian writes of "Thule lying icebound beneath the pole-star." Jordanes in his Getica also wrote that Thule sat under the pole-star.
Over time the known world came to be viewed as bounded in the east by India and in the west by Thule, as expressed in the Consolation of Philosophy (III, 203 = metrus V, v. 7) by Boethius.
For though the earth, as far as India's shore, tremble before the laws you give, though Thule bow to your service on earth's farthest bounds, yet if thou canst not drive away black cares, if thou canst not put to flight complaints, then is no true power thine.
The Roman historian Tacitus, in his book chronicling the life of his father-in-law, Agricola, describes how the Romans knew that Britain (which Agricola was commander of) was an island. He writes of a Roman ship that circumnavigated Britain, and discovered the Orkney islands and says the ship's crew even sighted Thule. However their orders were not to explore there, as winter was at hand.
Seneca the Younger writes of a day when new lands will be discovered past Thule. This was later quoted widely in the context of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America.
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The Arctic Home in the Vedas (Wikipedia)
The Arctic Home in the Vedas is a book on the origin of Aryans by Lokmanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak, a mathematician turned astronomer, historian, journalist, philosopher and political leader of India during 1880 to 1920. It propounded the theory that the North Pole was the original home of Aryans during pre-glacial period which they had to leave due to the ice deluge around 8000 B.C. and had to migrate to the Northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of lands for new settlements. In support to his theory Tilak has presented certain Vedic hymns, Avestic passages, Vedic chronology and Vedic calendars with interpretations of the contents in detail.
The book was written at the end of 1898, but was first published in March 1903 in Pune.
Background
Man was believed to be post-Glacial and the theory of Asiatic Home of Aryans prevailed. The age of the oldest Vedic period, however, was carried back to 4500 BC by scholars including the author himself after scientific astronomical research in correlation with the evidence found in the Vedic hymns.
The Author held the view that further study of Vedic hymns and Avestic passages might reveal the long vista of primitive Aryan antiquity.
Summary of Tilak’s polar theory
* Neolithic Aryan race in Europe cannot be regarded as autochthonous, nor European Aryans descended from the Paleolithic man. Hence, question of the original Aryan home is still unsettled.
* In the early geological ages, the Alps were low, the Himalayas not yet upheaved, Asia and Africa were represented only by a group of islands and an equable and uniform climate prevailed over the whole surface of the globe. In those days, however, a warm climate prevailed in the Arctic region.
* The close of the Pliocene and the whole of the Pleistocene period were marked by violent changes of climate bringing on what is called the Glacial and Inter-Glacial epochs. A succession of cold and warm climates must have characterized these Glacial and Inter-Glacial periods which were also accompanied by extensive movements of depression and elevation of land, the depression taking place after the land was weighed down with the enormous mass of ice.
* Thus a period of glaciations was marked by elevation, extreme cold and the invasion of the ice-caps over regions of the present Temperate zone; while an inter-glacial period was accompanied by depression of land and milder and congenial climate which made even the Arctic regions habitable.
* According to the latest geological evidence, the last Glacial period must have closed and Post-Glacial must have commenced at about 10,000 years ago or 8,000 BC. There were at least two Glacial and one Inter-Glacial period, and the geographical distribution of land and water on the earth during the Inter-Glacial period was quite different from what it is at present. It was the coming on of the Glacial age that destroyed this genial climate and rendered the regions unsuited for the habitation of tropical plants and animals.
* At the North Pole, one sees the heavenly dome above seems to revolve around one like a potter's wheel. The stars will not rise and set but move round and round in horizontal planes during the long night of six months. The Sun, when it is above the horizon for six months; would also appear to revolve in the same way but with some difference. The Northern celestial hemisphere will alone be visible spinning round and round and the Southern half remain invisible. The Sun going into the Northern hemisphere in his annual course will appear as coming up from the South. Living in the temperate and tropical zones, however, one sees all heavenly objects rise in the East and set in the West, some passing over the head, others traveling obliquely.
* The long dawn of two months is a special and important characteristic of the North Pole. As we descend southward, the splendor and the duration of the dawn will be witnessed on a less and less magnificent scale. But the dawn occurring at the end of the long night of two, three or more months will still be unusually long, often of several days duration.
* All these characteristics of an Arctic home are clearly recorded in several Vedic hymns and Avestic passages and they come to us sometimes as the description of the prevailing conditions or the day-to-day experience or stories told by the earlier generation and sometimes as myths.
Chronology of the post-glacial period
* 10,000 to 8000 BC – The destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice Age and the commencement of the post-Glacial period.
* 8000 to 5000 BC – The age of migration from the original home. The survivors of the Aryan race roamed over the northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of lands suitable for new settlements. Tilak calls it as ‘Pre-Orion Period’.
* 5000 to 3000 BC. - The Orion period, when the vernal equinox was in Orion. Many Vedic hymns can be traced to the early part of this period and the bards of the race seem to have not yet forgotten the real importance of the traditions of the Arctic home inherited by them. It was at this time that first attempts to reform the calendar and the sacrificial system appear to have been systematically made.
* 3000 to 1400 BC – The Krittika period, when the Vernal equinox was in Pleiades. The traditions about the original Arctic home had grown dim by this time and very often misunderstood, making the Vedic hymns more and more unintelligible.
* 1400 to 500 BC – The Pre-Buddhistic period, when the Sutras and the Philosophical systems made their appearance.
Contents
The book has about 500 pages containing a Preface by the Author and thirteen chapters.
1. ‘Prehistoric Times’
2. The Glacial Period
3. The Arctic Regions
4. The Night of the Gods
5. The Vedic Dawns
6. Long Day and Long Night
7. Months and Seasons
8. The Cow’s Walk
9. Vedic Myths— The Captive Waters
10. Vedic Myths— The Matutinal Deities
11. The Avestic Evidence
12. Comparative Mythology.
13. The Bearing of our Results on the History of Primitive Aryan
Culture and Religion.
* At the end, a General Index and Index of Vedic and Avestic
Passages are given.
Evidence in support of the theory
1) Vedic Evidences
* Particulars of Hymns and Verses in ten Mandalas of Rigveda are given.
For example Hymn 1, Verse 2, Page 459.
* Particulars of Passages in Taittiriya Samhita are given.
For example Passage I, 3, 9, 2, Page 91.
* Particulars of Hymns in Vajasaneyi Samhita are given.
* Particulars of Sama Veda Samhita are given.
* Particulars of Atharva Veda Samhita are given.
* Particulars of Aitareya Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Kaushitaki Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Taittiriya Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Shatapatha Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Tandya Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Shadvimsha Brahmana are given.
* Particulars of Taittiriya Aranyaka are given.
* Particulars of Upanishads are given.
2) Avestic Evidences
* Particulars of Vendidad passages are given.
* Particulars of Yashts passages are given.
* Particulars of Yasna passages are given.
Influence
The Arctic Home in the Vedas has been cited in the works of Julius Evola and Savitri Devi.
References
The Arctic Home in the Vedas by B.G. Tilak, edition 1925.
External links
Text of The Arctic Home in the Vedas
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"As we have already shown, the symbol of the zero is likewise derived from the holy-sign of the circle, which symbolizes the unrevealed God, and also the other numerical symbols--falsely called "Arabic--were developed from the circle combined with the sign of multiplication, the gibor-rune: X which resulted in this matrix...... The series of these holy number-runes which appear in the following manner in a 13th century manuscript in the Royal Imperial Library in Vienna, the so-called Imperial Chronicle...... whence the old linear formations can still rather closely be made out. That these numerical signs have been referred to as "Arabic-Indian numerals" in more recent times, proves that belief in Aryanism is finally beginning to break through. Certainly the same thing is true for Sanskrit, but it should not be thought that Sanskrit is the root, but rather it is but one of the older branches of the Aryan World-tree, which was derived from the proto-Aryan, like our Germanic languages. Therefore, it shares a common origin and is of the same age as our Germanic languages in which Old Aryan still lives." --Guido von List, 'The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk'
World tree
From Wikipedia:
The world tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European religions, Siberian religions, and Native American religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the world, and, through its roots, the underworld. It may also be strongly connected to the motif of the tree of life.
Specific world trees include világfa in Hungarian mythology, Ağaç Ana in Turkic mythology, Modun in Mongolian mythology, Yggdrasil (or Irminsul) in Germanic (including Norse) mythology, the Oak in Slavic and Finnish mythology, and in Hindu mythology the Ashvattha (a Sacred Fig).
Norse mythology
In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the world tree. Yggdrasil is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Yggdrasil is an immense ash tree that is central and considered very holy. The Æsir go to Yggdrasil daily to hold their courts. The branches of Yggdrasil extend far into the heavens, and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations; one to the well Urðarbrunnr in the heavens, one to the spring Hvergelmir, and another to the well Mímisbrunnr. Creatures live within Yggdrasil, including the harts Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór, an unnamed eagle, the squirrel Ratatoskr and the wyrm Níðhöggr. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the etymology of the name Yggdrasil, the potential relation to the trees Mímameiðr and Læraðr, and the sacred tree at Uppsala.
Other cultures
Remnants are also evident in the Kalpavriksha or "wish-fulfilling tree" of the South Asian religions.
In Brahma Kumaris religion, the World Tree is portrayed as the "Kalpa Vriksha Tree", or "Tree of Humanity", in which the founder Brahma Baba (Dada Lekhraj) and his Brahma Kumaris followers are shown as the roots of the humanity who enjoy 2,500 years of paradise as living deities before trunk of humanity splits and the founders of other religions incarnate. Each creates their own branch and brings with them their own followers, until they too decline and splits. Twig like schisms, cults and sects appear at the end of the Iron Age.
A reoccurring daydream
For as long as I can remember, I have had a daydream--maybe a night dream as well--of being at low elevation and traveling in a straight line towards a very high point far in the distance. As I travel along, I keep climbing towards higher and higher elevation. From grassy lowlands, I travel through rocky highland forests, with the sun still beating down from a clear sky. Soon it becomes cloudier as I start to see sparse pockets of snow, and I can no longer see where I started from. I picture myself in an automobile, because that makes it easier to imagine. Eventually it's overcast and windy, with less tree cover as I climb up steep mountains in a slow ascent. Finally, usually after a blizzardy phase, it's somewhat clear again, and I just keep climbing upward towards a peak that I never reach. I don't want to look back. I know that this road leads to the "roof of the world." THE top of the earth.
Perhaps it's the result from the genetic memory of possibly thousands of years of living in the pre-Alps, and always seeing the endless ascent to the sky. Maybe it could be from some ancient memory from Teutonic ancestors who lived in a strange, harsh, very far off unrecognizable place, with strange animals abound, many thousands of years ago. Perhaps it was within view of an ominous, mile high sheet of ice. Some of my ancestors were known as the "Winnili," which is similar to the word "Wihinei"--a word which List used for esoteric religion. Sometimes I imagine the location of my reoccurring daydream; Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, the Sierra Nevadas, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps... but maybe somewhere very deep in my genetic memory... maybe it could be the Himalayas, "the roof of the world." I feel the same as I do during winter hikes when I reach a peak or high point, and feel invigorated by the cold wind.
The republication of 'The Arctic Home in the Vedas' (2011)
'The Arctic Home in the Vedas' was written by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and first published in India in 1903. Ironically, his biography sounds similar to Guido von List. The only difference was that Tilak was knee-deep in revolutionary resistance, while List merely knew nationalists as he was not directly "political."
Book Description
The idea of a lost ancient civilization located at the North Pole at a time when its climate was friendlier to human habitation is suggested in many of the world's oldest myths and sacred scriptures. Drawing upon his vast knowledge of the Hindu Vedas and the Zoroastrian Avesta, Tilak makes a painstakingly detailed analysis of the texts and compares them with the geological, astronomical and archaeological evidence to show the plausibility of the Arctic having been the primordial cradle of the Aryan race before changing conditions forced the Aryans southward into present-day Europe, Iran and India. Although this theory has never gained widespread acceptance among mainstream scholars since it was first published in 1903, Tilak has made a compelling case which is not easily refuted.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), who was given the honorary title Lokmanya ("chosen leader of the people"), was one of the fathers of India's independence movement in opposition to British colonial rule. He was imprisoned several times for his vocal advocacy of violent revolt against the colonial authorities on the basis of Vedic scripture. His time in prison gave him time to work on his more scholarly projects, such as the present book. Although he did not live to see the ultimate victory of the movement he had helped to establish, he is widely acknowledged as having been one of the main driving forces behind it due to his influence on Gandhi and the other leaders who saw his mission through to its end in 1947.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Lokmanya Tilak, born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak (23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), was an Indian nationalist, journalist, teacher, social reformer, lawyer and independence activist who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called him "Father of the Indian unrest". He was also conferred with the honorary title of "Lokmanya", which literally means "Accepted by the people(as their leader)".
Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of "Swaraj" (self-rule) and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. His famous quote, "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!" is well-remembered in India even today.
One more look at climate, timeline, demographics, and geography
Actually, the 45 degree latitude for the northern ice sheet was accurate in some places, such as North America. However, in Europe, the ice sheet covered the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany, before taking a slight southernly direction at Poland and through eastern Europe; then a sharp northeastern direction in Asia. The Alps were covered in ice, and there seemed to be a harsh region north of it, likely preventing northern passage for a long period. What this all boils down to is that the region of ancient Iran was probably more like modern British Columbia in terms of climate, while India was perhaps something similar to Oregon and California.
Also, the last ice age seemed to end about 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, which fits perfectly into this "Ice Age Iran/proto-Norse" theory. I would guess that there were proto-Norse tribes living north of the mountains of Iran, probably all around the Caspian Sea at this time. Remember, this was long before Semitic, Turkic, and Mongol expansion. These more northern tribes were more than likely the ones who migrated across northern Europe, and they would explain the mummies of the Tarim Basin in what is today far western China. They were the ones who remained. Archeologists just assumed that they migrated from northern Europe. In other words, psychologically, they can't seem to geographically divorce "Nordics" from northern Europe.
I would theorize that at the end of the last Ice Age twelve thousand years ago, Europe was about 60% of its current habitable land, and was populated by Alpine peoples of which the Basques are a modern survival. Smaller early bands of proto-Norse, probably over thousands of years, migrated across northern Europe and most of Spain and intermingled with the native Alpine peoples. This cultural fusion formed the various Celtic cultures over a large area. When the bulk of the proto-Norse finally did arrive later on, they swarmed over Scandinavia and northern Germany, but were checked at Gaul and southern Germany. Only much later did they finally overrun south Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, driving many Celtic tribes into Italy.
The original Mediterranean peoples stayed in the Middle East and founded the earliest civilizations. They also migrated across southern Europe and north Africa, up into France, and into the British Isles, and fused with the various Alpine and Celtic peoples. I'm oversimplifying it. The earlier westward proto-Norse migrations into Europe probably overlapped the westward Mediterranean migrations. I'm only considering the time frame from approximately 13,000 to 5,000 years ago.
The ancestors of the people who we today call "Arabs" were true Semites who lived at the southern part of the Saudi peninsula and perhaps the horn of Africa. At this time, they would have looked very different than the ancient Middle Easterners. This was the Ice Age. Everything in the world would have been pushed south! The contact we're looking at is between these Mediterranean/proto-Norse "Aryans," and the dark skinned Dravidian race in India. I don't see any other explanation for this "Aryan and Indo-European language" quagmire that so many people have pondered and deliberated about for so long.
Before the Aryan culture, could the "Arctic Home in the Vedas" have been the Ice Age proto-Norse who lived around the Caspian Sea; a region which would have been "Arctic" prior to 13,000 years ago? Some could have migrated over the mountains to the south and settled in a warmer climate and merged with the very ancient Persian Mediterraneans, whose homogenized descendants were the Aryans! You need to force your mind to see the world at it existed then... not now. It's possible that the early proto-Norse occupied a larger region north of the Himalayas.
According to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the last post-glacial period occurred between eight and ten thousand years ago, which easily fits the above hypothesis. In part six, you can see that Tilak was presenting a theory which was largely different than this one. However, it's not entirely impossible that the two ideas could tie-in closely. In other words, these proto-Norse may have migrated southward into the region around the Caspian Sea from far northern stretches at an earlier time; and then some eventually moving southward over the mountains of northern Iran, and settling in the high interior plateau, which may be more-or-less be the same basic theory. It should be added that the bulk of the proto-Norse migrated across most of northern Europe, which again would be fairly consistent with Tilak's book.
It would seem that the ancient Mediterraneans--in a world with only a tiny fraction of todays population--would have remained in the lowlands of the Near East, which would have been green and comfortable then. It's not likely they would have been especially interested in living in the harsher mountainous conditions of ancient Iran until well after the weather cooled down. When they eventually did, it probably then resembled modern Colorado.
12-14-12 ADDITION: All individual storehouses of knowledge and solutions to problems (not mere dead memorized data!) are thus evaluated. Such storehouses are not lost upon death, but rather they are preserved in death and once more brought back to the world of men upon the next reincarnation. People call these spiritual storehouses that the reborn individuals bring to the earth "natural abilities," "talent" or "innate genius," which has already been established and discussed above. But just as the unrevealed God is only able to reveal himself in matter and become the world-spirit (First Logos), and just as the revealed God has to activate himself in creation generatively (Second Logos), in order to come to a vision and knowledge of himself, and finally just as the human spirit (Third Logos) had to attain this through an apparent descent from divinity for the sake of awareness of divinity itself, i.e. his own selfhood, so too the human being can only rediscover the divinity within himself (the divine inwardness) after he has lost it, after he has searched for God unseccessfully outside himself "up there in heaven," in temples and churches, finally only to rediscover his God within his own heart on the painful detour through atheism--and this time he does so in a way that God will never again be lost. And here we recognize in the world-ash, Yggdrasil--the imagematic tree of knowledge--the holy tree Zampuh of Tibetan myth, the Assyrian tree of life, and the other similar tree in Indian, Persian and other mythologies. Thus we find our way back to Yggdrasil again. --Guido von List, 'The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk', from pages 45 and 46 of the Runa-Raven Press translation.
List was explaining what he called the "Garma" of the soul, and it's ascent over many incarnations. He mentions here "The Tree of Life," and it's existence in Germanic, Tibetan, Assyrian, Indian, and Persian spiritual traditions. Although so much of the technology from the "cradle of civilization" came from ancient true-Mediterraneans, the spirituality seemed to come from the proto-Norse people migrating south from their trans-Himalayan homeland... and ultimately from their very ancient Arctic homeland. It sounds like just a fanciful notion until you really look at the evidence. Aside from ancient Persia and later the Indus Valley, some of these proto-Germanic people may have migrated to other locations--like ancient Assyria--where they spread those spiritual traditions... such as "The Tree of Life."
In Greater Tibet, I would guess that the migrating proto-Norse were small in number, and their characteristics disappeared with later expansion from the Far East. Only their spirituality remained, and could be symbolized by the triskelion motif, a symbol they left behind, which is still popular in the region today. The triskelion probably went all the way back to the Arctic homeland. It was brought by very early migrating proto-Norse into Europe, where it manifested into the Celtic cultures. Today, the same symbol is present on the flags of the Isle of Man, Sicily, and places that I couldn't pronounce in the Caucasus, and far east into the Russian administrative territories; as well as in symbolism and arms from Greece, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, etc.
It probably should be pointed out again--despite the genuine and fascinating lore of the early proto-Norse migrations--they were not "the Aryans." The Aryan civilization was the result of east-migrating true-Mediterraneans and south-migrating proto-Norse, culturally and genetically merging together in ancient Persia. Technology from true-Mediterraneans merged with deep spiritual traditions of the proto-Norse, which developed into one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. This spirituality was not exactly the same as what later became known as Odinism or Asatru. These spiritual traditions were constantly evolving, mainly due to contact with other peoples. For example, Odinism may have been influenced by earlier Alpine peoples.
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