Archaelogists uncover Plutonium in Turkey

This article appeared in the news section of the Discovery Channel website. It may be of interest to anyone who has read the work of Peter Kingsley, especially his "In the Dark Places of Wisdom," which partly inspired my research into the black sun for my MA in Cosmology and Divination thesis. 

Pluto's Gate Uncovered in Turkey

A “gate to hell” has emerged from ruins in southwestern Turkey, Italian archaeologists have announced.

Known as Pluto's Gate -- Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin -- the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition. Historic sources located the site in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale, and described the opening as filled with lethal mephitic vapors.

“This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death,” the Greek geographer Strabo (64/63 BC -- about 24 AD) wrote.
“I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell,” he added.

Announced this month at a conference on Italian archaeology in Istanbul, Turkey, the finding was made by a team led by Francesco D'Andria, professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento. D'Andria has conducted extensive archaeological research at the World Heritage Site of Hierapolis. Two years ago he claimed to discover there the tomb of Saint Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ.

Founded around 190 B.C. by Eumenes II, King of Pergamum (197 B.C.-159 B.C.), Hierapolis was given over to Rome in 133 B.C.

The Hellenistic city grew into a flourishing Roman city, with temples, a theater and popular sacred hot springs, believed to have healing properties.

“We found the Plutonium by reconstructing the route of a thermal spring. Indeed, Pamukkale' springs, which produce the famous white travertine terraces originate from this cave,” D'Andria told Discovery News.

Featuring a vast array of abandoned broken ruins, possibly the result of earthquakes, the site revealed more ruins once it was excavated. The archaeologists found Ionic semi columns and, on top of them, an inscription with a dedication to the deities of the underworld -- Pluto and Kore.

D'Andria also found the remains of a temple, a pool and a series of steps placed above the cave -- all matching the descriptions of the site in ancient sources.

“People could watch the sacred rites from these steps, but they could not get to the area near the opening. Only the priests could stand in front of the portal,” D'Andria said.

According to the archaeologist, there was a sort of touristic organization at the site. Small birds were given to pilgrims to test the deadly effects of the cave, while hallucinated priests sacrificed bulls to Pluto.

The ceremony included leading the animals into the cave, and dragging them out dead.

“We could see the cave's lethal properties during the excavation. Several birds died as they tried to get close to the warm opening, instantly killed by the carbon dioxide fumes,” D'Andria said.

Only the eunuchs of Cybele, an ancient fertility goddess, were able to enter the hell gate without any apparent damage.

“They hold their breath as much as they can,” Strabo wrote, adding that their immunity could have been due to their "menomation," “divine providence” or “certain physical powers that are antidotes against the vapor.”

According to D'Andria, the site was a famous destination for rites of incubation. Pilgrims took the waters in the pool near the temple, slept not too far from the cave and received visions and prophecies, in a sort of oracle of Delphi effect. Indeed, the fumes coming from the depths of Hierapoli's phreatic groundwater produced hallucinations.

“This is an exceptional discovery as it confirms and clarifies the information we have from the ancient literary and historic sources,” Alister Filippini, a researcher in Roman history at the Universities of Palermo, Italy, and Cologne, Germany, told Discovery News.

Fully functional until the 4th century AD, and occasionally visited during the following two centuries, the site represented “an important pilgrimage destination for the last pagan intellectuals of the Late Antiquity,” Filippini said.

During the 6th century AD, the Plutonium was obliterated by the Christians. Earthquakes may have then completed the destruction.
D'Andria and his team are now working on the digital reconstruction of the site.

You can see a gallery of pictures by visiting the Discovery.com website.

Further proof that Stonehenge may have been dedicated to sun worship

Check out this interesting article about Stonehenge and sun worship...

Secret history of Stonehenge revealed

By David Keys

Saturday, 26 November 2011

Extraordinary new discoveries are shedding new light on why Britain’s most famous ancient site, Stonehenge, was built – and when.

Current research is now suggesting that Stonehenge may already have been an important sacred site at least 500 years before the first Stone circle was erected – and that the sanctity of its location may have determined the layout of key aspects of the surrounding sacred landscape.

What’s more, the new investigation – being carried out by archaeologists from the universities’ of Birmingham, Bradford and Vienna – massively increases the evidence linking Stonehenge to pre-historic solar religious beliefs. It increases the likelihood that the site was originally and primarily associated with sun worship

The investigations have also enabled archaeologists to putatively reconstruct the detailed route of a possible religious procession or other ritual event which they suspect may have taken place annually to the north of Stonehenge.

That putative pre-historic religious ‘procession’ (or, more specifically, the evidence suggesting its route) has implications for understanding Stonehenge’s prehistoric religious function – and suggests that the significance of the site Stonehenge now occupies emerged earlier than has previously been appreciated.

The crucial new archaeological evidence was discovered during on-going survey work around Stonehenge in which archaeologists have been ‘x-raying’ the ground, using ground-penetrating radar and other geophysical investigative techniques. As the archaeological team from Birmingham and Vienna were using these high-tech systems to map the interior of a major prehistoric enclosure (the so-called ‘Cursus’) near Stonehenge, they discovered two great pits, one towards the enclosure’s eastern end, the other nearer its western end.

When they modelled the relationship between these newly-discovered Cursus pits and Stonehenge on their computer system, they realised that, viewed from the so-called ‘Heel Stone’ at Stonehenge, the pits were aligned with sunrise and sunset on the longest day of the year – the summer solstice (midsummer’s day). The chances of those two alignments being purely coincidental are extremely low.

The archaeologists then began to speculate as to what sort of ritual or ceremonial activity might have been carried out at and between the two pits. In many areas of the world, ancient religious and other ceremonies sometimes involved ceremonially processing round the perimeters of monuments. The archaeologists therefore thought it possible that the prehistoric celebrants at the Cursus might have perambulated between the two pits by processing around the perimeter of the Cursus.

Initially this was pure speculation – but then it was realized that there was, potentially a way of trying to test the idea. On midsummer’s day there are in fact three key alignments – not just sunrise and sunset, but also midday (the highest point the sun reaches in its annual cycle). For at noon the key alignment should be due south.

One way to test the ‘procession’ theory (or at least its route) was for the archaeologists to demonstrate that the midway point on that route had indeed a special relationship with Stonehenge (just as the two pits – the start and end point of the route – had). The ‘eureka moment’ came when the computer calculations revealed that the midway point (the noon point) on the route aligned directly with the centre of Stonehenge, which was precisely due south.

This realization that the sun hovering over the site of Stonehenge at its highest point in the year appears to have been of great importance to prehistoric people, is itself of potential significance. For it suggests that the site’s association with the veneration of the sun was perhaps even greater than previously realized.

But the discovery of the Cursus pits, the discovery of the solar alignments and of the putative ‘processional’ route, reveals something else as well – something that could potentially turn the accepted chronology of the Stonehenge landscape on its head.

For decades, modern archaeology has held that Stonehenge was a relative latecomer to the area – and that the other large monument in that landscape – the Cursus – pre-dated it by up to 500 years.

However, the implication of the new evidence is that, in a sense, the story may have been the other way round, i.e. that the site of Stonehenge was sacred before the Cursus was built, says Birmingham archaeologist, Dr. Henry Chapman, who has been modelling the alignments on the computerized reconstructions of the Stonehenge landscape

The argument for this is simple, yet persuasive. Because the ‘due south’ noon alignment of the ‘procession’ route’s mid-point could not occur if the Cursus itself had different dimensions, the design of that monument has to have been conceived specifically to attain that mid-point alignment with the centre of Stonehenge.

What’s more, if that is so, the Stonehenge Heel Stone location had to have been of ritual significance before the Cursus pits were dug (because their alignments are as perceived specifically from the Heel Stone).

Those two facts, when taken together, therefore imply that the site, later occupied by the stones of Stonehenge, was already sacred before construction work began on the Cursus. Unless the midday alignment is a pure coincidence (which is unlikely), it would imply that the Stonehenge site’s sacred status is at least 500 years older than previously thought – a fact which raises an intriguing possibility.

For 45 years ago, archaeologists found an 8000 BC Mesolithic (‘Middle’ Stone Age) ritual site in what is now Stonehenge’s car park. The five thousand year gap between that Mesolithic sacred site and Stonehenge itself meant that most archaeologists thought that ‘sacred’ continuity between the two was inherently unlikely. But, with the new discoveries, the time gap has potentially narrowed. Indeed, it’s not known for how long the site of Stonehenge was sacred prior to the construction of the Cursus. So, very long term traditions of geographical sanctity in relation to Britain’s and the world’s best known ancient monument, may now need to be considered.

The University of Birmingham Stonehenge area survey - the largest of its type ever carried out anywhere in the world – will take a further two years to complete, says Professor Vince Gaffney, the director the project.

Virtually every square meter in a five square mile area surrounding the world most famous pre-historic monument will be examined geophysically to a depth of up to two metres, he says.

It’s anticipated that dozens, potentially hundreds of previously unknown sites will be discovered as a result of the operation.

The ongoing discoveries in Stonehenge’s sacred prehistoric landscape – being made by Birmingham’s archaeologists and colleagues from the University of Vienna’s Ludwig Boltzmann Institute – are expected to transform scholars’ understanding of the famous monument’s origins, history and meaning.

Check out Manhattanhenge - a modern day pilgrimage

Pictures We Love: Best of July

Archaeologists now think that religion sparked off civilisation and not the other way round...

This interesting article on the National Geographic website looks at the oldest known religious site in the world, Göbekli Tepe, and what it can potentially tell us about the origins of Neolithic civilisation, and in turn, our own...

Visit the National Geographic site to read the full article.

For a podcast interview with the author, Charles C. Mann, visit: http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2011/06/gbekli_tepe_1.html

News Story: Mysterious light spotted during Japan earthquake

Yahoo! NewsWritten by Orlando ParfittA mysterious flashing light was captured on video over Japan as yet another earthquake hit the beleaguered country on Thursday, but what was it?See video of light

The footage clearly shows a ball of light pulsing for around eight seconds on the
horizon in Tokyo during the aftershock.

It registered 7.1 on the Richter scale and struck 40 miles east of Sendai along the
same fault line as last month's quake.

We take a look at several theories as to what could have caused the bizarre
phenomenon, from the plausible to the wacky, and get some insight from an
expert seismologist.

Earthquake light

The most widely circulating explanation is that this was an 'earthquake light' -
literally a light that appears in the sky during times of seismic activity.

There have been a number of recorded instances of these - at Kalapana in 1975,
L'Aquilla in 2009 and Chile in 2010 - but the phenomenon is not universally
accepted in the scientific community.

Dr David Robinson, an earthquake researcher at Oxford University, told
Yahoo! News one reason why these might happen.

"The idea is that just before an earthquake, you might get some build up of stress
just prior to the event.

"People have invented all kinds of mechanisms whereby this stress gets released as
an electromagnetic excitation of the upper atmosphere, which can cause things like
lights appearing, similar to the Northern Lights."

The problem with this theory, said Dr Robinson, was that no-one has yet come up
with a plausible reason for why this actually happens. "Anything which is caused
by an unknown mechanism is dubious," he said.

A second issue is that while there have been several recorded instances of
'earthquake lights', they don't happen during every earthquake.

"There are satellites up there that record every thunderstorm that happens on
earth. If you're getting something similar to a flash of lightning during an
earthquake then they're going to measure it, but that's not happening."

There are a couple of other explanations that could explain this though. The
first concerns quartz. When tectonic plates containing the mineral rub against
each other, they create intense electric fields (called piezoelectricity). This could
manifest itself as flashes of light.

A second, tantalizing possibility is these lights could actually predict upcoming
quakes. This theory suggests that before a quake, the ground 'exhales' radon,
which results in light emissions in the atmosphere. Dr Robinson says this is
"clutching at straws" though.

He doesn't rule out earthquake lights, but feels the subject needs more study.

"Just because they can't be explained doesn't necessarily make them not true.
But until anyone comes up with a plausible mechanism it will be on the fringes
of earthquake study."

Electrical explosion

Another possible theory for the burst of light is that it was some kind of
electrical explosion. It's been speculated that the flash was an electrical
transformer exploding after being struck by the quake.

During Thursday'squake 3.6million homes in North East Japan area lost power,
traffic signals and road lights also stopped working. 900,000 houses were still
affected on Friday afternoon.

A spokesman for the Tohuku Electric Power Company said six power plants in the
area went down after the tremor and power lines throughout the area were
damaged, making this explanation a possibility.

A US 'superweapon'

We're into the outlandish territory now. Many commentators, including oddball
conspiracy theorist David Icke, have said the footage was evidence of 'Haarp'
(High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program).

Based in Alaska, this weather program was set up by the US Air Force, Navy and
University of Alaska to research the upper atmosphere (the ionosphere) with a view
to improving satellite communication.

Some have speculated that Haarp can physically change weather conditions, and
the project's been blamed for triggering floods, hurricanes, droughts, the earthquakes
in Haiti and Pakistan and even Gulf War Syndrome. Mind control is another one of
its supposed capabilities.

Suffice to say the events in Japan have also been attributed to this 'superweapon' -
with former governor of Minnesota and pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura telling Piers
Morgan recently:

"The US's HAARP weapon system can cause natural disasters, including
earthquakes and tsunamis like the one that happened in Japan."

UFOs

Whenever grainy handheld footage of a glowing light in the sky surfaces, it's only a
matter of time before it's held up as evidence of UFOs. This video is no exception.

A quick YouTube search reveals a spate of alien sightings in the build up to the
Japan earthquake, with little green men spotted above Kyoto and the Sakurajima
Volcano. Even Chinese news agency Xinyua reported UFOs flying over Mount Fuji
in February.

An alien spacecraft was also spotted during recent Japanese news coverage of the
Earthquake, but this was later confirmed to be a helicopter.

The Religion of Science

The Times published an article yesterday called Astronomer faces fellow scientists' wrath after accepting £1 million religious prize. (7 Apr 11)

The astrophysicist in question, Lord Rees of Ludlow, the former Astronomer Royal, a self-confessed atheist (which of course does NOT preclude him from having spiritual beliefs - just not those that have a godhead or god figure of any kind, making him perfectly able to be a Buddhist, for instance, without in any way affecting his atheistic persuasions) was awarded the prize for his contribution to furthering our understanding of nature, the Universe, as well as 'life's spiritual dimension.'

What I did find remarkable was the accompanying commentary by Harry Kroto, a fellow scientist, who criticised Lord Rees for accepting the prize, saying:

'In my view, the Templeton Foundation awards its prize to the most prominent scientist who is prepared to say that they see no conflict between science and religion.'

He goes on to say, and this for me, was the most interesting statement, that:

'...nine out of ten eminent scientists [note - noone lowly within the scientific community, with perhaps less credibility] are atheist-freethinkers [read Richard Dawkins clones] for whom science is primarily about the reliable determination of truth. [my emphasis] For this, evidence is essential, and the conflict between truth (science) and congenital wishful thinking (religion) is an unethical one and irreconcilable.'

Theologians, no doubt, would have a field day with this statement - since when does science have a monopoly on truth?!!! However, this statement brings out into the open what many critics of what has been called the 'religion of science' have long been saying: in the West, we have actually come to believe that this is true.

Not only are there so many ways of thinking and viewing the world, along with different types of intelligences, than logic and cause-and effect or what has been termed 'linear' thinking, but not so long ago, there would have been NO conflict between science and religion. It is only since the so-called 'Enlightenment' that we have been conned into thinking that logic and empiricism = truth.

As Hamlet said to Horatio:

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

(Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1)

Scientists who continue to perpetuate this philosophy, for that is what it is, fail to realise the hubris in what they say, or the religious fervour with which they say it (oh, the irony!) - and may come to regret it in the coming years when what are now considered to be 'gospel' assumptions about the divisions between the world of spirit and matter begin to unravel (or dissolve, if Neptune in Pisces has anything to do about this!).

As one wise creature said in Ursula Le Guin's fabulous novel, 'The Left Hand of Darkness':

'They say here "all roads lead to Mishnory." To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar.'

New earthquake in Japan

A powerful earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, took place yesterday at 11:22pm near Sendai in Japan, close to the centre of the large earthquake which occurred on the 1th of March.

Fortunately this time, there was no subsequent tsunami and fewer casualties or damage to buildings. However, it does suggest that the warning by geologists that another powerful event is likely to occur offshore in the region of Tokyo could well be more likely to happen in the near future.

Strangely, this earthquake took place just as the Moon entered Gemini, which is rather uncanny, as this mirrors events nearly a month earlier. In the first event, the Moon was at 0 degrees Gemini and this time, it was at 1.5 degrees Gemini, so very close. Coincidence or synchronicity?

I am not sure exactly what one can make of this from an astrology point of view - Gemini is an air sign and not really one traditionally associated with the symbolism of earthquakes or natural disasters. Perhaps one could say that, having just traversed the final degree of earth-sign Taurus prior to its Gemini ingress, it may have amplified Taurean energy? Or perhaps, looking at this from a slightly different perspective and say that magnetically or gravitationally, there is something about planetary bodies moving over that particular part of space that tends to upset the tectonic balance of that particular part of the world (though, of course, scientists would have none of this!) I suppose the only way to tell would be to see whether any further events take place when other planets cross that degree. The Sun is due to be at this position on the 21st of May, followed by Mercury on the 2nd/3rd of June. Let's wait and see...

What I can't help remarking on is the fact that the lunar nodes (in late Sagittarius and Gemini) were straddling the Ascendant-Descendant axis with Pluto in the vicinity, as they were during the Chile quake - again, is there anything in this or not?

The ruler of the chart, Jupiter, happened to be in a huddle with several other powerful planets (including the Sun, Mercury, Mars and Uranus, all in Aries), near to the IC, so in cosmological terms, deep underground - perhaps indicative of rumblings and grumblings below the surface?

Pluto, ruler of the underworld, was also making a square to Mars, ruler of Aries, between the first and 3rd houses - a very volatile combination often associated with violence, tyranny and accidents - which is a very apt aspect for such an event.

The Sun was also opposing Saturn, positioned near the midheaven position from below ground - a very strange configuration in a way. The Sun is clearly at its weakest power when at the midnight (as opposed to midheaven) position whilst Saturn, one of the so called malific planets, is very strong, being in Libra - the sign of its exaltation, and in the 10th house - the house it traditionally rules, so also is also a strong omen that the forces of darkness are stronger than those of light. This is symbolically significant for me because in my dissertation, I wrote that Saturn, in both alchemy and ancient astrology, had a very particular relationship with the Sun, and was sometimes referred to as the Black Sun...Hmmm...

Which reminds me, I MUST get round to writing that blog about Saturn and the Japan birthcharts and Hiroshima.

At any rate, what this all means remains to be seen. Let's wait until May before we draw any further conclusions. (How 'scientific' of me!)