I know that the thread is about how the Bock Saga leads on to the LOTR. My favorite parts of the whole was the Shire life of Hobbits. Maybe in a way it is the sense of living without strife? I have posted the same information I am bringing in this post elsewhere but thought it relevant and maybe interesting? There seems real interest in this forum for the topics I am pursuing.
I am certain that overwhelming psychologic impacts of traumatizing assault (from catastrophes natural and man made) are humanity's challenge. I think that there was not ONE ELE episode but many. I have been investigating the history of these events. Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson have highlighted one around 13,000 years ago. IMO this was not the latest one that threw civilization into survival mode and had us trade our freedom for a safety net (though a misnomer).
The following are some thoughts I have had about some historic influences and also where valuable continuing threads of information may be stored. I was reminded by the Oera Linda information of a recent dating 2193 BCE. This is very close to another date 3100 BCE that has been called the "Biblical Flood".
The long time frame after the event 12,800 years ago to the approximate 2193 to 3100 BCE date is rather daunting to me. What I am interested in is evidence of threads of the qualitative that distinguished the Survivors and the Atlantis/Lemurian (I call them that) remnant cultures. I think that we have threads to gather.
I think the LOTR shows one glimpse of the Pagan world and the gentleman/gentlewoman (i.e. Gentile, heathen) groups that did not lose their minds in Two or more catastrophes....
Daughter civilizations after 3100 BC in Egypt in South America and Africa and Europe have many similarities pointed out elsewhere in abundance....such as in this video: Berbers or Slavs? So much culture in common that they could not really be independent.Quote:
THE FINGERPRINT OF A GLOBAL CATACLYSM 12,800 YEARS AGO
http://sacredgeometryinternational.c.../YDB_Field.jpg
The graphic shows the vast swathe of our planet that geologists call the Younger Dryas Boundary Field. Across this huge “fingerprint” spanning North America, Central America, parts of South America and most of Europe, the tell-tale traces of multiple impacts by the fragments of a giant comet have been found. Some of these fragments, were TWO KILOMETRES or more in diameter and they hit the earth like a blast from a cosmic scatter-gun around 12,800 years ago.December 4, 2014 at 1:36 pm
The Fingerprint of Global Cataclysm 12,800 Years Ago – Graham Hancock – Magicians of The Gods Preview
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzt-leWyGwU
I think that after 3100 BC, the offspring (several) civilizations started over again with help from Survivors. After the flood people still used the hydrologic works, megalithic structures and produced some beautiful and amazing works of art we have seen. But there was a difference in capacity and what we could do was less than before. Perhaps the great Survivor culture remained in the Russian Horde until wiped out by by ignorance as the Kali Yuga turned?
Atlantis/Lemuria is what I will call the culture dating from before the precession time period of Taurus. Plato dates the destruction of Atlantis as being around 12,800 years ago as does Graham Hancock. I think the culture itself survived globally in pockets. Then we have something about the Age of Taurus that is not fully assessed.
There was a flood in around 3100 BCE associated with sudden worldwide loss of civilization. It flooded all but high places where suddenly we have agriculture arise in the mountain areas.
Bull veneration (Taurus) takes place among a high but IMO NOT megalithic culture after that period. I wonder if there is a link to the Taurid meteors in veneration of bulls?
"I THINK": We have the daughter cultures of after the flood in around 3100 BC. I think that that is "our recorded history" Examples all over the world share common roots that are related to the remnants of the GREAT civilization from before the Great Flood. First we had the event 12,800 or so years ago, there was a sancturary in Hyperborea perhaps? Life continued and thousands of years passed....THEN I think we had the "Flood" that was a wipeout. In dating events, I think astrology/astronomy and geology will help us.
The Taurean Age was the time of the "flood" we read about in our bibles. It was 5,000 years ago for the latest "catyclysm", not 12,000 years ago.
In 3100 BC, during the age of Taurus serious catyclysmic events may have occurred from meteors known as the Taurid meteors.Quote:
The Age of Taurus
Symbol for Taurus: Sacred bull
Zodiacal sign: the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere) is occurring in Taurus;
Timeframes
Zodiacal 30 degrees:
Neil Mann interpretation: began ca. 4300 BC and ended ca. 2150 BC
Patrick Burlingame interpretation: began ca. 4006 BC and ended ca. 2006 BC
Constellation boundary year:
Shephard Simpson interpretation: began ca. 4525 BC and ended ca. 1875 BC
Overview
"The Age of Earth, Agriculture, and the Bull" This age is claimed to have occurred approximately around the time of the building of the Pyramids in Egypt.
Religious similarities
Bull worshiping cults began to form in Assyria, Egypt, and Crete during this mythological age.
Ankh: thoracic vertebra of a bull - Egyptian symbol of life
Worship of Apis, the bull-deity (see also Bull (mythology)), the most important of all the sacred animals in Egypt, said to be instituted during the Second Dynasty of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and worshipped in the Memphis region until the New Kingdom (16th century BC).
When Moses was said to have descended from the mountain with the ten commandments (c. 17th – 13th century BC, the end of the Age of Taurus), some of his people or followers were found by him to be worshipping a golden bull calf. He instructed these worshippers to be killed. This represents Moses "killing" the bull and ending the Age of Taurus, and ushering in the Age of Aries, which he represents.
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"The outrageous suggestion that I am going to make is that the Taurid Complex was producing phenomenal meteor storms between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago, accompanied by multiple Tunguska-class atmospheric detonations, and that Stonehenge I was designed to allow the (awestruck, terrified) culture of southern England to make observations of the Phenomena and to perhaps predict their recurrence. Peter Lancaster Brown, in his book on megalithic sites, wrote that "Eclipses, comets and meteorites were astronomical phenomena widely observed by the ancients. But probably only eclipses were predictable." (Steel means to imply that Stonehenge I was needed to make observations because meteorite falls are far more unpredictable, but and at the same time may be long-lasting and recurring. - TN.)
Steel continues this theme in Peiser et al.: Natural Catastrophes (Oxford, 1998) by commenting that he sees no connection between the original Stonehenge I (built in 3100 BC) and the thousand year later Stonehenge II and Stonehenge III except the place. The original one was a scientific observatory, not for Sun, or Moon, or eclipses, but for watching dangerous meteorites, asteroids and comets. The later Stonehenges with their stones (the image of Stonehenge that we have of it today), was more that of a ritual and sanctuary than for any practical/scientific purpose. Of course it could be used for some trivial astronomical calculations (solstices, eclipses), but its original purpose was hardly known for the later builders. The world's first scientific astronomical observatory changed to a ritual place, because it was not anymore needed for its original purpose when the Taurids did not at that moment bother mankind, in fact the Taurids lived only in legends. Today the legends are coming part of a serious scientific study. What a change in paradigm!
Rogue Asteroids: "Comet Encke is associated with the Taurid Complex. If we follow the orbit of P/Encke backward, we find that it intersected that of the Earth around 1,800 and 5,000 years ago (ascending) and 2,100 and 4,700 years ago (descending)."
The Taurid complex is a comet/meteor swarm complex, whose main body is the periodic comet Encke with an unknown number of meteoroid swarms plus possibly some small body pieces. When the Taurid complex intersected Earth 5000 years ago, maybe around 3100 BC, it may have caused a 100 year long period of tunguskans and mini-tunguskans.
Clube and Napier have already in their legendary "The Cosmic Winter" (Oxford (UK), Cambridge (US), 1990) told the Taurid story:
"It seems clear that we are looking at debris from the breakup of an extremely large object. The disintegration, or sequence of disintegrations, must have taken place within the past twenty or thirty thousand years as otherwise the asteroids would have spread around the inner planetary system and be no longer recognizable as a stream.
"The second discovery, due mainly to the Czechoslovakian astronomer Stohl, is that enveloping the Taurids, Comet Encke and these particular asteroids is a broad tube of meteoric debris. ... The Stohl stream is apparently double due probably to an exceptional fragmentation... The mass of the meteoric material within the Stohl stream is 10 or 20 billion tonnes. ... Adding in the mass of gas and very fine dust ... we find that the original body must have been about 100 kilometres across. ... Backtracking the orbits of Encke and Oljato, we find that 9500 years ago their orbits were nearly identical. It is possible there was a major disintegration of the prime body then, with much debris created of which Comet Encke and Oljato are the largest known bodies ... Oljato itself is in an orbit which brought it virtually into the Earth's orbital plane for some centuries around 3000-3500 BC."
Was it Oljato's tail that swarmed Earth around 3100 BC? Did it have a partner or is Swift-Tuttle a part of a parent body of both or did the parent body disintgrate into three parts: Oljate, Swift-Tuttle and a third part that rained on Earth 13 August 3114 BC, the Mayan day zero?
Darwin was not wrong while saying that evolution is the survival of the fittest, but today we must add that evolution is the survival of the fittest of the luckiest. The Third Millennium BC (3100-2100 BC)
To understand as much of the threads as we can of the Survivor cultures on every continent together IMO could really help us reconnect to our human will. There are themes we can decipher that empower us.
This interview with Klaus Dona is a classic (thank you Bill Ryan). I think he is showing artifacts maybe even dating to BEFORE the 12,800 event.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmMwo1Xzgus
I am not attached to what Fomenko and others think are specific events but I think the history we learned has ignored the true global state of the world in the recent millenium. I think we can look to the same"kind" (BUT NOT AS GLOBAL OR INTENSE) of issues as with the cataclysm of 3100 BC.
Woodcut commemorating 4TH CENTURY cometary evets from Stanilaus Lubienietski's Theatrum Cometicum (Amsterdam, 1668)
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/6...carving-lg.jpg
I have a post here about the comets.
MAYBE ITS COMETS COMETS COMETS all the way down??
I consider this source of earth changes to be important because they were not always catastrophic but influenced people.
Along with the Bull, there is also veneration of the Bee in the ancient Taurus time frame. The myths show that after the Flood, we had "ark"s and life ensuring qualities and technology were taught by holy people.Quote:
Italy, 345 BCE: A ‘shower of stones rained down and darkness filled the sky during daylight’ (Livy 7, 28) and Rome contemplated the omen with considerable apprehension. In crucial matters of state such as this there was only one thing to do. They consulted the Sibylline Books, or Libri Sibillini, a collection of oracular utterances acquired by Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. The sacred texts were acquired from a sibyl, a Pagan priestess who prophesied at sacred sites while under the influence of drugs and the divine influence of a deity, often a woman of established social order, known reverently as a ‘bee goddess’..........
................Nearly one hundred and fifty years had passed since the last ‘shower of stones rained down’ on Rome, but return they did. The year was 205 BCE and the Second Punic War, known as the War Against Hannibal, was coming to a close. Reports were widespread of ‘frequently falling rocks’ in the region and the phenomenon was creating religious fervour throughout the land. The meteorites had returned.THE GODDESS WHO FELL TO EARTH
I think that REAL and healthful spiritual veneration and connection to God/Goddess (meaning reverence, not necessarily worship) is of an earth based natural kind. Medicines, knowledge of agriculture, hygiene, animal husbandry was all a SACRED lifestyle of the Wise Ones. This was SYSTEMATICALLY attacked by the rulers. The Heathen world was destroyed.
What about this legacy of evidence of veneration of the Bee? IMO there are sources to investigate that look at the way that the Bee and agriculture informed the remnants of Survivor cultures. I want just share some things that interested me about the bee and veneration across the world.
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LOST TRADITION OF THE SACRED BEE
Incredibly, bees over 100 million years old have been discovered in amber, frozen in time, as if immortalized in their own honey. The Greeks called amber Electron, associated with the Sun God Elector, who was known as the awakener, a term also given to honey—which resembles amber—a regenerative substance revered across the ancient world. This association led to the bees’ illustrious status amongst ancient man, exalting their fossilized remains over the preserved vestiges of all other insects.
Prehistory is full of clues that hint at ancient man’s obsession with bees. In the Cave of the Spider near Valencia in Spain, a 15,000-year-old painting depicts a determined looking figure risking his life to extract honey from a precarious, cliff-side beehive. Honey hunting represents one of man’s earliest hunter / gatherer pursuits—its very difficulty hinting at the genesis of the bee’s adoration in prehistory. And, of course, it was the bee that led ancient shamans to the plants whose hallucinogens transported their consciousness into the spirit world of the gods. Curiously, recent research has revealed that the sound of a bee’s hum has been observed during moments of change in the state of human consciousness, including individuals who have experienced alleged UFO abductions, apparitions, and near death experiences. Was this phenomenon known by the ancients and believed to have been one of the elements that made the bee special?
Honey Hunting in Spain
In Anatolia, a 10,000-year-old statue of the Mother Goddess adorned in a yellow and orange Beehive-style tiara has led scholars to the conclusion that the Mother Goddess had begun to morph into the Queen Bee, or bee goddess, around this time. At the Neolithic settlement of Catal Huyuk, rudimentary images of bees dating to 6540 BC are painted above the head of a Goddess in the form of a halo; and beehives are stylistically portrayed on the walls of sacred temples. Not surprisingly, it was the Sumerians who soon emerged as the forefathers of organized bee keeping. Mesopotamia—modern day Iraq—flourished from the early sixth century BC and is known as the cradle of civilization; and it is here that the Sumerians invented Apitherapy, or the medical use of bee products such as honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and venom.
Sumerian reliefs depicting the adoration of extraordinary winged figures have often been interpreted by alternative history writers as proof of extraterrestrial intervention. In the context of the benefits of beekeeping, it is more likely they depict the veneration of bees. Significantly, the Sumerian images gave rise to the dancing goddess motif, a female dancer with her arms arched over her head that scholars believe represents a bee goddess priestess or shaman. The motif, which would become central to Egyptian symbolism, appears to allude to the bee’s unique ability to communicate through dance, the waggle dance as it is known, or the ability to locate food up to three miles from home and return to communicate its whereabouts to the hive through dance, sort of prehistoric satellite navigation.
So, society had discovered the immense value that bees provide, ten thousand years ago or more, back in the mist of prehistory. As life along the River Nile evolved and Dynastic rule in ancient Egypt slowly developed, the seeds of bee veneration had already been sown. But the tradition was about to be embraced like never before, or since.
The Bee Goddess in Ancient Egypt
Egyptologists, such as David Rohl, believe that Sumerian culture migrated across the Eastern Egyptian Desert and into the Nile Valley. This desolate expanse of Wadis is renowned for its pre-dynastic rock art depicting exalted-looking figures with exaggerated plume-like decorations. The unusual lines extending upwards from the main figures’ heads recall the antenna of the bee while hinting at the shape of the plumes that would characterize the headdress of Egyptian Kingship for thousands of years to come. The images also depict the Dancing Goddess motif, a woman with her hands bowed over her head just as the ‘dancing’ bee Goddess had been depicted in Sumerian and Central European reliefs thousands of years earlier. The icon is widespread in Egyptian mythology and appears to have originated from an understanding of the bee’s unique ability to communicate through ‘dance.’
Another clue to the bee’s artistic influence can be found in ceremonial Egyptian dress, which has certain stylistic similarities with the bee, namely the headdress, or nemes, which consists of alternating yellow and dark horizontal stripes. This visual synchronicity is discernible in many reliefs and sculptures but is perhaps best illustrated in the death mask of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh, Tutankhamen, which famously depicts the Pharaoh adorned in alternating black and yellow stripes or bands, just like a bee.
The Egyptian Death Mask
Egypt’s fascination with bees stems from the earliest of epochs. Northern Egypt, or the land stretching from the Delta to Memphis, was known as “Ta-Bitty,” or “the land of the bee.” King Menes, founder of the First Egyptian Dynasty, was bestowed with the office of “Beekeeper”, a title ascribed to all subsequent Pharaohs, and an image of the bee was positioned next to the Pharaoh’s cartouche.
The Egyptian God Min was known as the ‘Master of the Wild Bees’ and dates to 3000 BC or earlier. Similarly, the Egyptian Goddess Neith was a warrior deity also possessing fertility symbolism and virginal mother qualities, all attributes of the Queen bee. In Sais, Neith was regarded as the Goddess of the ‘House of the Bee’ and the Mother of RA, the ‘the ruler of all’. Egyptian mythology contains countless references to bees, including the belief that they were formed from the tears of the most important god in its pantheon, RA. The bee is even featured on the Rosetta Stone.
Bees are portrayed on the walls of Egyptian tombs, and offerings of honey were routinely presented to the most important Egyptian deities. Indeed, honey was the ‘nectar of the gods,’ and like the Sumerians before them, Egyptian physicians relied on its medicinal value for many important remedies and procedures, including early forms of mummification.
One Egyptian monument that exhibits a peculiar form of bee symbolism is the Saqqara step pyramid, which recalls the six-sided shape of a bee’s honeycomb, with six levels above ground and one very special level below—the Apis bull necropolis known as the Serapeum. Egyptologists believe that the Apis bull was bestowed with the regenerative qualities of the Memphite god Ptah—the Egyptian god of reincarnation. They also believed that those who inhaled the breath of the Apis bull received the gift of prophesy; and perhaps most importantly of all, the Egyptians believed that the bull was transformed into Osiris Apis, after death. ‘Bee’ in Latin is ‘Apis’, which may have derived from Sipa / Asipa in Mesopotamia; Sipa meaning ‘Great Shepherd in the Sky’ and Apis meaning Osiris. This relates to the belief that after death, the Pharaoh’s soul joined Osiris as a star in the constellation of Orion.
Legend tells us that an Apis bull produced 1000 bees, and that the bees represented souls. Intriguingly, the Egyptian Goddess Nut was the goddess of the sky—the domain of bees—and keeper of the title She Who Holds a Thou*sand Souls, which appears to refer to the 1000 bees—or souls—that are regenerated from the body of an Apis bull.
Similarly, the Hebrew letter Alef | Aleph carries the meaning ‘thousand’ and both the Proto-Sinatic Hieroglyphic and its Pro-Canaanite symbol depict a bull’s head, alluding to the fact that 1000 bees—or resurrected souls, are produced by the sacrifice of an Apis bull. Additionally, Christ—the saviour archetype of Osiris, renowned for his resurrection, is written in Hebrew as ‘QRST’ and carries the value 1000.
The ancient belief that bees were born of bulls leads me to think that the underground necropolis known as the Serapeum may have been a ritual center of regeneration designed to recycle souls from the heads of bulls, and not simply a mausoleum for bulls. Might the rituals carried out in the Serapeum represent the earliest form of Mithraism, the Roman mystery religion involving the ritualistic slaughter of bulls?
Another ancient culture influenced by the ancient Egyptians was the Minoan, a civilization with close ties to the ancient Egyptians who were experts in beekeeping, a craft they later imparted to the Greeks. This leads us to another fascinating aspect of Egyptian bee symbolism; the Sphinx, the famed rock-hewn statue known by the Egyptians as Hun nb, but re-named Sphinx by the Greeks. How does all this relate to the bee? Quite simply, the Minoan word for bee was ‘sphex’ (Hilda Ransome, The Sacred Bee P64, 1937).
So what can we conclude from this revelation? The civilization that educated the Greeks in the craft of beekeeping used the word ‘sphex’ to describe the bee—and the Greeks named the goddess-like rock statue ‘Sphinx’. Was the Sphinx already present when Menes first established Kingship and was it known that the Sphinx represented a bee goddess, hence the Pharaoh’s title, Beekeeper? The possibility is tantalizing, and given the Egyptians fascination with bees, not altogether far-fetched.
The Lost Tradition
The influence of Sumerian and Egyptian bee veneration spread to Greece, where Greek mythology depicted bees on the statues of their most important gods and goddesses and evolved the notion of bee Goddesses into the honored position of female bee shamans called Melissa’s, which later morphed into the sacred status of Sybil’s. In fact, the second temple at Delphi is said to have been made entirely by bees, and the great oracle stone resembling a hive encircled with bees.
The Omphalos and Bee Veneration?
The Romans practiced Mithraism, a secret religion predicated on the ritualistic slaughter of bulls that is reminiscent of Egyptian bull / bee rituals that were performed in the underground temple known as the Serapeum. Curiously, the practice appears to have been preserved in modern times in the controversial sport of Bullfighting, and many of Spain’s oldest bullrings are built on or near Mithras temples, confirming the association.
Mayan culture venerated the bee and depicted gods in its image in their most sacred temples; and as far away as India religions adopted bee gods and goddess into their mythology. Even the Catholic Church incorporated the bee as a symbol of the Pope’s authority; evidence of which can be seen in Vatican City today.
Beehive-styled stone huts were constructed in antiquity from Ireland to Africa, and many places in-between, such as Germany, where Heinrich Himmler, the most powerful man in Germany after Adolf Hitler, constructed the SS’s most sacred ritual chamber in the shape of a beehive in the basement of the 17th century Wewelsburg Castle.
Political movements, such as Communism, drew upon the altruistic behavior exhibited in a beehive as a blueprint for their ideologies;while rulers such as Napoleon followed the tradition of their ancestors, in this instance, the long-haired Kings of France known as the Merovingian’s—believed by some to represent the bloodline of Christ—whose famous King Childeric was discovered buried with 300 bees made of solid gold.
Precursor to the Fleur-de-lys
Not only did Napoleon ensure that the symbol of the bee was infused in the decor and style of the royal court, and greater society, he adopted ‘The Bee’ as his own nickname. It is also believed that the bee was the precursor to the fleur-de-lys, the national emblem of France. The theory is supported by many, including the French physician, antiquary, and archaeologist Jean-Jacques Chifflet. In fact Louis XII, the 35th King of France, was known as ‘the father of the pope’ and featured a beehive in his Coat of Arms.
And then there is the strange tale of Pierre Plantard, a Frenchman who in the later half of the 20th century promoted his association with the Merovingian’s and was regarded by some as the last direct descendant of Jesus Christ. Plantard claimed to have been a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, a controversial society with considerable interests in the Merovingian lineages commissioned by Napoleon. Curiously, Plantard’s family crest featured both the fleur-de-lys and the bee, and he is purported to have written, ‘we are the beekeepers’ in his private correspondences.
French Freemasonry soon spread to the United States of America, aided by early American forefathers such as Thomas Jefferson, who wrote passionately about the importance of bees, while others such as President George Wash*ington featured the beehive on his Masonic apron. In no uncertain terms, early American society borrowed many of its philosophical principles from Freemasonry, which had incorporated bee symbolism and themes into its rituals, and established its government on the orderly, stable and altruistic behavior exhibited in a beehive, like societies and movements before them had for thousand of years.
An indication of the bee’s importance to early American forefathers is expressed in the fact that the entire Western Region of the United States was originally named Deseret (honeybee). Not surprisingly, folk culture embraced the bee, and the concept of ‘telling bees’ about the death of a loved one became common practice. The Austrian philosopher and esotericist Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925) wrote and lectured extensively on the bee and predicted its demise in just under a 100 years time, right about now. So too did Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) predict the demise of the bee. The famed physicist is attributed with having said;
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
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Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 - 1994) writes of this passage by Porphyry: “...we learn that Artemis is a bee, Melissa, and that both she and the bull belong to the moon. Hence both are connected with the idea of a periodic regeneration. We also learn that souls are bees and that Melissa draws souls down to be born. The idea of a ‘life in death’ in this singularly interesting concept is expressed by the belief that the life of the bull passed into that of the bees.”
How did these titles of Melissa for the Great Mother and her priestesses as Melissae come about? The Melissae may have inherited their title from an old order of nymphs - to this day the larva of bees are called nymphs! Priestesses of the Bee: The Melissae
http://andrewgough.co.uk/bee_comp4.jpgQuote:
The Bee featured prominently in another ancient culture – the Dogon, a tribe from the West African region of Mali whose Nommo ancestors and Sirian mythology were made famous by Robert Temple in his book, The Sirius Mystery. The Dogon belief system is ancient, and until approximately 140 AD, its zodiac featured the Bee as the symbol of the constellation presently occupied by Libra. The Bee’s position in the Dogon Zodiac is significant to esoteric thought leaders such as Cabalists, who recognize the Bee’s role in establishing balance and harmony in the zodiac – and in life. Curiously, two of the most common Dogon symbols resemble schematized figures identified by Marija Gimbutas as Bees; one is associated with vital food supplies and the other with reincarnation. Together, the Dogon images reflect the essence of the Bee’s perceived value in ancient times.THE BEE: PART 1 – BEEDAZZLED
Goddess wearing a beehive tiara from Turkey, circa 8000 BC
http://andrewgough.co.uk/P1010.jpg
Pythia – the ‘Delphic Bee’ sitting on the Delphic Tripod Cauldron
http://andrewgough.co.uk/P2016.jpg
Minoan Bee Goddess laden with honey
http://andrewgough.co.uk/P2012.jpg
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Beekeeping in Russian Forests
We think in this age of beekeeping as a small time pursuit for either the small business or for some form of esoteric pass-time. In the past bee-keeping was anything but that. As an industry in Eastern Europe it probably reached a climax around 1200-1400. The reason that Eastern Europe was probably much better at producing honey than the west was simply that it had larger relatively undisturbed forests…. Or at least the forests had a smaller head of both human and domesticated animal population. Large quantities of grazing will eventually produce grass, whereas a smaller quantity of grazing will induce flowering ground cover and ideal areas for bees.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...ce70ce8645.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...60286e71f7.jpg
The Germans in classical times used to venerate their beekeepers (this reference I can not find) and they achieved a priest like significance within their tribes. I could never quite get my head around this until I understood the economic significance of honey as well. Most of the following comes from Studies in Historical Geography (1983 Volume 1 (Academic Press) edited by Bater and French). The particular essay is Russians and the Forest by R.A. French p23-44.
French talks of the vast quantities of berries that could be picked by the peasants of Russia with productive areas producing up to 100kg/hectare of berries (bilberries and cowberries) per year as well as up to half a ton of mushrooms etc. However the honey was the most impressive with one village in 1599, Oreshenko in Belorussia having 1044 “bee-trees” listed in their records. 94 were oak and 950 were pine. 99 swarms were counted with an occupancy of roughly 10:1. In other parts the occupancy got as high as 6:1.
Bees made it into the Russian law books in the 12th century when the law codes, Russaya Pravda, were produced. In 1529 Lithuanian statutes also laid don laws against bee-tree destruction, determining that you could not go too close when ploughing or damage the tree by fire. In economic terms bees provided the most valuable forest resource and was one of the key drivers to eventual Russian expansion into Siberia.
Just how important was this industry? It was a major trading commodity in both Russia and Lithuania. As an example one nobleman, one Prince Suyatoslav of Kiev, had a honey store, in 1146, that totalled 500 berkovtsy, or 80 tonnes. At some times peasants were supposed to give half their honey takings to the crown in Russia, so honey became the business of everyone from peasant to csar.
In some areas peasants were employed to look after the crown’s bee-trees, and even in making new ones. (This was done by hacking out appropriate hollows in the trees.) The volume of honey produced was one thing but also beeswax was bought and sold as well. In the sixteenth century Customs Rolls of boats going down the river Neman to Konigsberg 600tonnes of beeswax was recorded as having passed by in just 6 weeks. Even in the 18th century the trade continued with the expansion towards the south and east and prime honey lands were moving east and south with the expansion. At that time the Province of Voronezh was exporting 900tonnes of honey per year. It was thus not really difficult to see why both the peasant and the aristocracy were interested in bees.
With the expansion of Russia in the 16th to 20th centuries one finds the forest quality of the interior diminishing and thus the bee-farming being pushed more often than not towards the frontiers. Here the “natural” (I am not a fan of this word as it implies no human interference, which is rubbish) forest was less disturbed and the berries still proliferated and thus was the perfect bee place. The more livestock the less bees I am assuming.
