Ancient World Review

Ancient Greek Ritual Animal Sacrifice

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, there were three stages in an ancient Greek sacrifice: the preparatory stage, the kill and the treatment of the meat:

Preparatory: An animal was led to the altar, usually in a procession. The participants assembled in a circle, rinsed their hands in lustral [purifying] water, and took a handful of barley grain from a basket. Water was sprinkled on the victim to force it to 'nod' agreement to its own sacrifice. The main sacrificer (not necessarily a priest) then cut hair from the victim, put it on the altar fire, and uttered a prayer which defined the return that was desired [...] for the offering. The other participants threw forwards their barley grains.

"The kill. The victim's throat was cut with a knife; larger victims had been stunned with a blow from an axe first. Women participants raised the cry known as ololyge [shrill cry]. In Attic practice, it was important to 'bloody the altar;' small animals were held over it to be killed, the blood from larger ones was caught in a bowl and poured over it."

Treatment of the meat. There were three stages to the treatment of the meat after the sacrifice. "First the god's portion, typically the thigh bones wrapped in fat with (in Homer) small portions of meat cut 'from all the limbs' set on top, was burnt on the altar fire. Wine was poured on as it burnt. [...] Then the entrails were roasted on skewers and shared among all the participants. Finally the rest of the meat was boiled and distributed [...]; in contrast to the entrails, this boiled meat was occasionally taken away for consumption at home, though a community feast on the spot was the norm. Omens were often taken both from the burning of the god's portion and from the condition of the entrails."

Comment: Blood sacrifice, especially animal sacrifice, was an integral part of religious practice all over the ancient world. This is something that modern "neopagans" don't seem to grasp. A true pagan revival would necessarily mean a revival of these ancient rituals and it would also mean dropping all of the "belief systems" of modern paganism.

Real pagan religions, especially in the Mediterranean region, were entirely ritualistic. They weren't dogmatic or ideological. For instance, adherents didn't have to subscribe to a particular set of teachings like they do with Christianity. They didn't have to be believers to sacrifice to the gods; that's why Roman aristocrats who thought the gods were just superstitions useful for controlling the masses could serve as priests without being hypocrites.

Modern neopagans will never take the step into real paganism, however. They're too "civilized," whatever that means, so they will never advance beyond the stage of role-playing when they get together at sites like Stonehenge to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your point of view.

Related: How to make a sacrifice in ancient Rome.

Anchor Church Caves Were The Home Of An Exiled Anglo-Saxon King

"A British cave dwelling has been identified as the refuge for an exiled Anglo-Saxon king, according to archaeologists." Source: Live Science.

"Anchor Church Caves, located by the River Trent in a secluded part of the countryside in central England, was long considered to be an 18th-century 'folly' — an extravagant building made solely for ornamentation or as a joke.

"But a new study has revealed that the cave house is the real deal. The 1,200-year-old structure was built during the tumultuous life of the Northumbrian king Eardwulf, who was hounded from his throne to live as a hermit, and later became a saint."

Video from 2019. If these new findings are correct, this guy is wrong when he says that the church dates back to 1820.

"Local legend said Eardwulf, or St. Hardulph [1] as he was later known, lived inside the cave dwelling after he was deposed and exiled for mysterious reasons in A.D. 806. A fragment from a 16th-century book states that Eardwulf ''has a cell in a cliff a little from the Trent,'' and the banished king was buried in A.D. 830 at a location just 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the cave."

[1] "Eardwulf is identified by historians with the Saint Hardulph or Hardulf, to whom the Mercian royal church of Saint Mary and Saint Hardulph at Breedon on the Hill [next video] is dedicated. The connection, though unproven, has been made by several historians and is uncontroversial. Supporting evidence comes from a twelfth-century list of the burial places of saints compiled at Peterborough. This calls the Saint Hardulph to whom Breedon was dedicated 'Hardulfus rex'—King Eardwulf—and states that he was buried at Breedon." (Wikipedia)

Why Weren't New World Rabbits Domesticated?

"Rabbits were raised for over a thousand years in Mexico without becoming domesticated. A new study finds that their solitary lifestyle and greater species diversity made domestication unlikely." Source: Science Daily.

"...Rabbits were buried at the Sun and Moon Pyramids and are found in the stomach contents of sacrificial carnivores, such as eagles and pumas. Rabbit bones found in the carnivore stomachs contain a type of carbon that indicates a diet unusually rich in corn or cactus, suggesting human-raised rabbits had, in turn, been fed to the carnivores."

New Analysis Reveals More About Tollund Man's Last Meal

"A re-analysis of the stomach contents belonging to a naturally mummified Iron Age man is providing new insights into his surprisingly nutritious final meal and compromised state of health." Source: Gizmodo.

"Tollund Man died around 400 BCE in what is now the Jutland peninsula of Denmark. He died by hanging, in what is believed to be a ritual sacrifice. His body was preserved in a Danish bog for 2,400 years, allowing for an analysis of his stomach contents."

Though not identified, I'm pretty sure the bog body featured here is Tollund Man.

"The new findings, published in Antiquity, suggest Tollund Man ate his final meal some 12 to 24 hours before his death and that it consisted of porridge and fish—both common dishes during the Danish Early Iron Age. It was a nutritious, likely tasty meal, but Tollund Man was not in the best of health, as he was infected with several parasites. The new research was led by archaeologist Nina Nielsen from the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark."

1500-Year-Old Visigoth Sarcophagus Discovered At Roman Villa Site In Spain

The Chi Rho symbol was engraved on the Visigoth sarcophagus discovered in Spain.

"The Visigoths, the so-called barbaric tribe that would ultimately defeat the Romans and bring down the Roman Empire, were an early Germanic warring people. The course of their wars would ultimately lead them to settle in southern Gaul and then Hispania, from the 5th to the 8th century AD. And now, a Visigoth sarcophagus with human remains, over 1,500 years old, has been discovered among the ruins of a Roman villa in southern Spain [next video], reports the  Murcia Today  news outlet." Source: Ancient Origins.

"...The coffin, two meters (3.2 feet) in length has been dated to the 6th or 7th century AD and was unearthed next to a  Christian church built after the Romans abandoned the villa in the 5th century. The coffin was decorated with a swirling geometric pattern and renderings of ivy leaves, with a Chi Rho symbol on its top where the head of the corpse would have been."

Note: The Roman villa of Los Villaricos, where the sarcophagus was discovered, "is one of the most important villas of its kind in the Region of Murcia and is a substantial structure with evidence of several hundred years of occupation." (Murcia Today) "...Although it is an extensive site, there are still large areas of the villa remaining unexcavated to date."

Video from 2017. No English translation available, but good views of the site.<

Pope Cracks Down On Traditional Latin Mass

The priest here is being as diplomatic as possible. See next video for a different opinion.

"Pope Francis cracked down Friday on the spread of the old Latin Mass, reversing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s signature decisions in a major challenge to traditionalist Catholics who immediately decried it as an attack on them and the ancient liturgy." Source: AP.

"Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict relaxed in 2007, and went further to limit its use. The pontiff said he was taking action because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church and its liturgy."

Comment: This is clearly an attack on conservative traditionalism by the forces of liberal modernism that took over the Catholic church after the disastrous reforms of the Second Vatican Council. There's a lot that could be said about the results of those reforms and their role in things like the recent church scandals, but I can't write about that stuff openly in the current climate.

It will be interesting to see what will come out of all of this. If the pope is worried about the divisions caused by Benedict's relaxation of the restrictions on the Latin Mass, he should be even more worried about the divisions caused by his re-imposition of those restrictions. A lot of Catholics feel very strongly about the "trad mass" despite the moderation of their public statements. Some traditional parishes, I expect, will simply ignore these new directives and if the pope decides to crack down on their bishops and congregations as a result I could see this leading to a serious schism.

The next report came out shortly before the formal announcement from the Vatican. The bishop here, Athanasius Schneider, is a "Kazakh Roman Catholic bishop, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. He is a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra. He is known for championing the pre-Vatican II liturgical traditions and practices of the church and for protesting certain policies, including some associated with Pope Francis." (Wikipedia)

Bishop Schneider isn't alone in his belief that the ban on the traditional mass is an abuse of power. It's quite possible that many Catholic churches could end up associating themselves with the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) affiliated orders and continue to practice the Latin rites in defiance of Rome. Whether this will lead to a full-blown schism remains to be seen, but considering the situation in the Vatican right now I think that would be a positive development.

I could be wrong about a lot of this, however. I don't pretend to understand all the internal politics of the Catholic church. Some observers, for instance, believe that the existence of the SSPX orders shows that a schism has already occurred. The next video includes a detailed discussion of the history of the dispute from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

The Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple

"The Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple sits on a wide terrace roughly eight feet lower than the base of the Sphinx. This terrace was originally paved with alabaster with granite facing but this has almost all gone now and it is in poor condition." Source: Ancient Egypt Online.

"The Sphinx temple is built from the same blocks of limestone as the Sphinx itself and the valley temple of Khafre leading many to suggest that the Sphinx is contemporaneous with Khafre’s pyramid complex. These blocks are of relatively poor quality and have eroded badly. "

"The Great Sphinx is, like many other monuments in Egypt, a complex rather than simply a single colossal statue. At the Sphinx on the Giza Plateau near Cairo, there are actually two Sphinx temples. One of them, directly in front of the Sphinx, dates to the time when the Sphinx monument was built, while the other is of New Kingdom construction." Source: Tour Egypt.

The Old Kingdom Sphinx temple "was probably built by the same men who constructed the Pyramid temples of Khafre and is in fact almost an exact copy of the court of Khafre's mortuary temple. In fact, Khafre's lower temple was at one time thought to be the Sphinx Temple."

Note: According to Ancient Architects (next video), old photographs show that there were at least five Sphinx temples, but I haven't been able to verify this.

Fragments Of Egyptian Book Of The Dead Digitally Reunited

"A torn 2,300-year-old mummy wrapping — covered with hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead — has been digitally reunited with its long-lost piece that was ripped away." Source: Live Science.

"The two linen fragments were pieced together after a digital image of one segment was cataloged on an open-source online database by the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Historians at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles who saw the image quickly realized that the institute had a shroud fragment that, like a puzzle piece, fit together with the New Zealand segment."

Archaeologists Find Ruins Of Medieval Nubian Cathedral In Sudan

Views of Old Dongola, Sudan.

"Archaeologists digging in Old Dongola, northern Sudan, have discovered the remains of what appears to be the largest Nubian church ever found in the region. They suggest that it could have been a Medieval cathedral that was a seat of power for archbishops in the Nubian kingdom of Makuria, where Christianity took hold in the mid-sixth century." Source: The Art Newspaper.

Note: Makuria was one of three Christian kingdoms that rose following the collapse of the Meroitic kingdom around 350 AD. The next time you hear someone blame white people for slavery, just remember that the Christian Nubians also practiced slavery and even had their own version of the Fugitive Slave Act:

"By the seventh century, Makuria expanded and became the dominant power in the region. It was strong enough to halt the southern expansion of Islam after the Arabs had taken Egypt. After several failed invasions the new Muslim rulers agreed to a treaty with Dongola, called Baqt, to allow peaceful coexistence and trade, contingent on the Nubians making an annual payment consisting of slaves and other tributes to the Islamic Governor at Aswan; it guaranteed that any runaway slaves were returned to Nubia." (Wikipedia)

Secret Patterns Found In Arrangement Of Medieval Islamic Tombs In Sudan

"Thousands of medieval Islamic tombs in eastern Sudan were arranged in hard-to-detect patterns, with sacred 'parent' tombs hosting subclusters of emanating burials, according to archaeologists who studied the funerary monuments with a method designed for cosmology." Source: Live Science.

"The team used satellite imagery to identify the locations of more than 10,000 monuments in the Kassala region of eastern Sudan. The monuments include tumuli, which are made of stone and are 'relatively simple raised structures, widespread throughout African prehistory and history,' and 'qubbas,' which is a term that referred to Islamic tombs and shrines in the pan-Arab world, a team of researchers wrote in a paper published July 7 in the journal PLOS One."