Friday, April 23, 2010

Indus Valley east theory challenged

G.S. MUDUR 


Mohenjodaro


New Delhi, April 5: A study of hundreds of ancient Indus Valley civilisation sites has revealed previously unsuspected patterns of growth and decline that challenge a long-standing idea of a solely eastward-moving wave of Indus urbanisation.

Researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), Chennai, combined data from archaeology, radiocarbon dating, and river flows to study how settlements around the Indus Valley region had evolved from around 7000 BC till 1000 BC.

Their analysis of 1,874 Indus region settlements has shown that the Indus urbanisation had three epicentres — Mehrgarh in present-day Baluchistan, Gujarat, and sites along an ancient river called the Ghaggar-Hakra in Haryana and Punjab.

The findings, published in Current Science, a journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences, dispute suggestions by international researchers that farming and urbanisation in the region was driven by a “wave of advance” moving eastward. 



“We’re looking at large-scale patterns of how the Indus civilisation changed over time,” said Ronojoy Adhikari, a theoretical physicist at the IMS, who led a team that analysed geographic movements of Indus region settlements over hundreds of years.

“It’s like looking at something from a mountain-top — you get a different perspective than from examining archaeological sites,” Adhikari told The Telegraph. The analysis has also bolstered evidence for the idea that the civilisation did not abruptly collapse. 


The 7000 BC site at Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, provides the earliest evidence for wheat and barley farming on the Indian subcontinent. But the new study and earlier archaeological data suggest that the Indus civilisation may have picked up rice cultivation from eastern India. 

“This work provides new evidence to suggest that the Indus Valley civilisation had influences from the west and from the east — it was not a one-way west-to-east flow,” said Vasant Shinde, an archaeologist with Deccan College, Pune, who was not associated with the study. 

Shinde said archaeological excavations had pointed to rice cultivation near present-day Gorakhpur in around 7000 BC — the same period as wheat and barley farming in Mehrgarh. Remains of burnt rice from sites in Haryana and Rajasthan, dated to between 4000 BC and 3500 BC, and signs of rice cultivation in the Indus Valley region around 2500 BC suggest an east-to-west flow of rice cultivation, Shinde said.

The analysis by Adhikari and his colleagues shows a dense distribution of Indus Valley sites around 2500 BC which marks the beginning of the mature period of the civilisation — lasting about 600 years until about 1900 BC. 

The researchers believe it is during this period of high stability that the civilisation’s culture matured, leading to its script, the design of seals, and weights and measures. Adhikari said it was still unclear what kind of political organisation contributed to this uniformity in culture. 

The study shows a “catastrophic reduction” in the number of sites in the Ghaggar-Hakra region around 1900 BC. Over time, the Indus sites moved upstream, but they were smaller in size and appear to show a breakdown in large urbanisation. But the decline around Mehrgarh and Gujarat occurred at a much slower pace. 

Gujarat remained relatively unscathed during the Ghaggar-Hakra collapse, Adhikari said. Archaeologists say the findings are consistent with the idea that a slow decline of the Indus urbanisaton eventually gave way to the growth of settlements along the Gangetic plain. “I think the most significant aspect of this work is its demonstration of a new way to look at the remote past,” Shinde said.

Several international researchers, including Stanford University geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, have argued that farming originated about 10,000 years ago in the region of West Asia known as the Fertile Crescent and radiated into Europe and Asia.



UM digs find 10,000-year-old Native oasis



Elaine Hale, Yellowstone National Park archaeologist, helps Montana-Yellowstone Archaeological Project students Andrew Bowen of Kent State University and Ryan Sherburne of the University of Montana excavate a feature at the Fishing Bridge Point Site. The large volcanic boulder was likely used as a table or work area about 3,000 years ago.



This large obsidian point was found near Lake Lodge in Yellowstone National Park in 2009. It’s 150 percent bigger than other spear points of the time, prompting researchers to believe it was used for ceremonial purposes. 


Thousands of years before Euro-Americans “discovered” the bubbling mudpots and eruptive geysers of what is now Yellowstone National Park, early Americans were spending part of their summer camping in the Yellowstone Lake area.

“It’s always been a destination resort,” said Elaine Hale, park archaeologist. “For at least 10,000 years people have been using the lake area.”

Thanks to archaeological digs around Yellowstone Lake last summer by University of Montana assistant archaeology professor Douglas MacDonald and 13 graduate and undergrad students, park officials are now getting a broader picture of early human use of the lake area.

“The lake may have served as a crossroads of sorts for Native Americans from multiple regions,” MacDonald said.
*****
Why here?
The reasons are several.

Obsidian, a valued rock used to create razor-sharp points for weapons and tools, is located about 20 miles to the northwest at Obsidian Cliff. The lake area contains a variety of flora – everything from camas to wild onions – that would have created a great stew or to create medicines. And there was plenty of wildlife in the region. One archaeological site turned up blood residue from bear, wolf and deer as well as rabbit sinew.
“The lake area was clearly an important warm-weather hunting and gathering grounds for Native Americans from all over the northwestern Great Plains, northern Great Basin and northern Rocky Mountains,” MacDonald said.

His group’s explorations are part of the university’s Montana-Yellowstone Archaeological Project, which is now entering its fourth year. The partnership offers students the opportunity to perform field work while Yellowstone receives inexpensive research help.

This past summer, MacDonald’s crew made some unique finds. Along the northeast shore, the crew uncovered the park’s first Early Archaic hearth, dating to 5,800 years ago.

“The feature indicates that Native Americans used the park during the hot and dry altithermal climate period,” MacDonald said.

The Altithermal Period followed the last ice age, after large mammals like woolly mammoths had become extinct. Yellowstone Lake, during that time, would have been a huge oasis drawing people, and wildlife, from throughout the region.
*****
Hale said analysis of campsites showed some visitors could have been small parties of male hunters, while others were families staying for longer periods.

“There are sites along the lake where there was extensive processing of hides,” Hale said. “We found sites where freshly quarried obsidian cobble had been transported to the area. This is a lithic workshop area.”
Another campsite was littered with about a dozen shaft abraders, used to smooth arrows and spears.
“That smacks of duration,” Hale said.

Another unique find was a large obsidian spear point. MacDonald theorized that the point was created for ceremonial purposes, since it’s 150 percent larger than other spear points of the same time.

The point was shaped in the style of the Hopewell Culture of about 1,500 years ago. The Hopewell Culture is known for being one of the first in North America to lead a more sedentary life that included farming, and metal working, and created burial mounds along the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. They also traded extensively.

“It is well known that Obsidian Cliff obsidian was traded eastward to the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys,” MacDonald said. “Some archaeologists also speculate that Hopewell Native Americans themselves actually traveled to Obsidian Cliff to collect obsidian.

“Our large spear point was likely a ceremonial item, as was much of the obsidian for Hopewell people,” he said. “Most of the obsidian at sites back east is found within burial contexts.”

The UM research also indicates that “most Native Americans using the northern end of the lake traded and traveled primarily to the north, east and west, rather than to the south,” MacDonald said. “Other work at sites along the south shore of the lake indicated that Native Americans in that area were focused more southward.”
So there seemed to be some reason, possibly a cultural one, for why the people traveling from the south into the lake area didn’t move farther north.

“It just so happens that Yellowstone Lake is at the edge of multiple different tribal territories,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald and a crew of 22 graduate and undergraduate students will continue their work in the park this summer, their fourth year, surveying other parts of the lake’s shore. By identifying important cultural resource sites, park officials can plan any development to exclude and protect those areas, Hale said. Four of the five sites uncovered last summer are being considered for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“This is a huge benefit to the park for very little cost,” Hale said. “It’s a huge benefit to the students, too, because they have a big area to do archaeology in.”

Hundreds of rare Roman pots discovered by accident off Italy's coast by British research ship



A British underwater research team has discovered hundreds of rare Roman pots by accident, while trawling the wreckages of ships on the sea bed.

The team had been using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to scour modern wrecks for radioactive materials.
They were amazed to come across the remains of a Roman galley which sank off the coast of Italy thousands of years ago.

The crew from energy company Hallin Marine International, based in Aberdeen, found a number of ancient pots lying in the mud 1,640ft below the waves.

After the first sighting the crew worked around the clock for two days to bring them to the surface without damaging them.

Supervisor Dougie Combe  said the team managed to recover five of the 2,000 year-old vessels intact. They cleared debris off them using water jets.

 
They were then handed over to an archaeology museum in the historic Graeco-Roman city of Paestum, in northern Italy.

Mr Combe, from Speyside, Scotland, said: 'They would have probably been loaded on some kind of merchant ship which sank all those years ago.'

He added: 'It was a big surprise when we came across the pots as we were looking for modern wrecks from the last 20 years or so.

'It's certainly the oldest thing we've come across on the seabed.

'We managed to get five up altogether, but there must have been hundreds of them there.'

The Mare Oceano was searching for low-grade radioactive material alongside Italian company GeoLab when they made the discovery.

They were trawling off the coast of Capo Palinuro, near Policastro, Italy.

The jars that were found are believed to be ancient Greek or Roman and are thought to date back at least 2,000 years.

Parthenon yields clues to quake-proof design



ATHENS: Japanese scientists will next month look into seismic resistance secrets in the design of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon which has withstood scores of quakes.

"The Parthenon had great resilience to earthquakes, as did most classical Greek temples," said Maria Ioannidou, the archaeologist in charge of conservation of the ancient Acropolis citadel where the Parthenon stands.

"The ancient Greeks apparently had very good knowledge of quake behaviour and excellent construction quality," she added.

Toshikazu Hanazato, a professor of engineering and an expert in post-quake reconstruction, at Japan's Mie University, heads the research team which is visiting Greece next month to study the famed marble temple.

"Excellent construction"

Both countries have high levels of seismic activity and the Japanese believe there are common elements between ancient Greek temples and their own monuments, Ioannidou said.

The Parthenon has sustained significant damage in its long history but most of it was caused by man.

The temple is partly built on solid rock but also has stone foundations going 12 metres deep, and its walls were held together by metal joints coated in lead to prevent rust, Ioannidou said.

It withstood a 373 BC quake that destroyed the city of Elike in the Peloponnese and a subsequent 226 BC temblor that toppled the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic bronze statue numbered among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

More recently, a 5.9-Richter earthquake in 1999 that killed 143 people around Athens shifted some of the Parthenon's architectural elements, but caused no major damage.

MEENAKSHI TEMPLE


Sri Meenakshi Temple (built 1623-59 onward)
Sri Meenakshi is Hindu temple constructed in the early 17th century for Shiva and his wife, Parvathi (also known as Sundareshwara and Meenakshi, respectively). In a typical style for this area, the temple's precincts are defined by a square outer wall pierced by 12 gopuras (gates), with one major gopura facing each of the four directions.


This is one of the most incredible structures I've ever encountered.




Tuesday, April 13, 2010

THE PYRAMID OF MOUNT TAYGETUS




Mt.Taygetos is the highest peak in southern Greece with 2.407m. Old legend tell that it was the 1st pyramid ever built on earth. There is a big question mark over whether this rock structure is manmade or a natural occurrence. Visitors have described how the texture of the rock surface suddenly becomes smooth, relative to that below, where the pyramid shape begins.





The highest peak of the mountain has the shape of a pyramid. Some researchers are convinced that this structure, found on one of the peaks of mount Taygetus, was carved by the hand of man, in remote antiquity, to form this pyramid shape. Others, however, believe that this is nothing but a natural rock formation. No erosion mechanism has been suggested (to date) which could create this shape naturally. Particularly curious are the strange shadows cast at dawn and sunset. It is said that in ancient years, Spartans built a temple of Apollo at the peak. A church of the prophet Elias can be found at the same place.

Neanderthals wouldn't have eaten their sprouts either


Visitors at the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac look at a reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Spanish researchers say they have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Spanish researchers say they're a step closer to resolving a "mystery of evolution" -- why some people like Brussels sprouts but others hate them.

They have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The scientists made the discovery after recovering and sequencing a fragment of the TAS2R38 gene taken from 48,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found at a site in El Sidron, in northern Spain, they said in a report released Wednesday by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

"This indicates that variation in bitter taste perception predates the divergence of the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans," they said.

Substances similar to PTC give a bitter taste to green vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage as well as some fruits.

But they are also present in some poisonous plants, so having a distaste for it makes evolutionary sense.
"The sense of bitter taste protects us from ingesting toxic substances," the report said.

What intrigued the researchers most is that Neanderthals also possessed a recessive variant of the TAS2R38 gene which made some of them unable to taste PTC -- an inability they share with around one third of modern humans.

"This feature ... is a mystery of evolution," said the report.

"These (bitter) compounds can be toxic if ingested in large quantities and it is therefore difficult to understand the evolutionary existence of individuals who cannot detect them."

The report's lead author, Carles Lalueza Fox of the University of Barcelona, speculated that such people may be "able to detect some other compound not yet identified."

This would have given them some genetic advantage and explain the reason for the continuation of the variant gene.

Neanderthals and modern humans shared a common ancestor from which they diverged about 300,000 years ago.

Excavations since 2000 at the site at El Sidron, in the Asturias region, have so far recovered the skeletal remains of at least 10 Neanderthal individuals.

The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years but traces of them disappear some 28,000 years ago, their last known refuge being Gibraltar.

Why they died out is a matter of furious debate because they existed alongside modern man.

The CSIS research was published in the British Royal Society's Biology Letters.

The rat that's the size of a cat: BBC team discovers 40 new species in 'lost world'


No fear: The rat is not afraid of humans, which could make it vulnerable

Rats as big as cats, fanged frogs and grunting fish - they sound like something from a horror movie.

But, incredibly, there is a 'lost world' on a distant island where these nightmarish creatures really exist.
A team of scientists discovered the bizarre animals - and dozens of others - at a remote volcano in Papua New Guinea.

In the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi, they found a habitat teeming with life which has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago.

Among the new species was the the Bosavi Woolly Rat.

One of the biggest rats in the world, it measures just over 32 inches from nose to tail and weighs 3lb.
The silvery grey mammal has dense fur and its teeth suggest it has a largely vegetarian diet and probably builds nests in tree hollows or underground.

Mr Buchanan and Smithsonian biologist Dr Kristofer Helgen were first on the scene when the rat was found by a tracker from the local Kasua tribe. Dr Helgen said:

'This is one of the world's largest rats. It is a true rat, related to the same kind you find in the city sewers, but a heck of a lot bigger.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

Friday, April 2, 2010

Midgard


Midgard is a realm in Norse mythology. Pictured as placed somewhere in the middle of Yggdrasil, Midgard is surrounded by a world of water, or ocean, that is impassable. The ocean is inhabited by the great sea serpent Jörmungandr (Miðgarðsormr), who is so huge that he encircles the world entirely, grasping his own tail. The concept is similar to that of the Ouroboros.

In Norse mythology, Miðgarðr became applied to the wall around the world that the gods constructed from the eyebrows of the giant Ymir as a defence against the Jotuns who lived in Jotunheim, west of Mannheim, "the home of men," a word used to refer to the entire world (there is no direct relation to the German city of Mannheim, which is attested from the 8th century, named after an early settler called Manno).

The realm was said to have been formed from the flesh and blood of Ymir, his flesh constituting the land and his blood the oceans, and was connected to Asgard by the Bifrost Bridge, guarded by Heimdall.

According to the Eddas, Midgard will be destroyed at Ragnarök, the battle at the end of the world. Jörmungandr will arise from the ocean, poisoning the land and sea with his venom and causing the sea to rear up and lash against the land. The final battle will take place on the plain of Vígríðr, following which Midgard and almost all life on it will be destroyed, with the earth sinking into the sea.

The name middangeard occurs half a dozen times in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, and is the same word as Midgard in Old Norse. The term is equivalent in meaning to the Greek term Oikoumene, as referring to the known and inhabited world.

The concept of Midgard occurs many times in Middle English. The association with earth (OE eorðe) in Middle English middellærd, middelerde is by popular etymology; the continuation of geard "enclosure" is yard. An early example of this transformation is from the Ormulum:

        þatt ure Drihhtin wollde / ben borenn i þiss middellærd

        that our Lord wanted / be born in this middle-earth.

The usage of "Middle-earth" as a name for a setting was popularized by Old English scholar J. R. R. Tolkien in his The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy works; he was originally inspired by the references to middangeard and Éarendel in the Old English poem Crist.

Crist I

Old English Earendel appears in glosses as translating iubar "radiance, morning star".

In the Old English poem Crist I are the lines (104–108):

    éala éarendel engla beorhtast
    ofer middangeard monnum sended
    and sodfasta sunnan leoma,
    tohrt ofer tunglas þu tida gehvane
    of sylfum þe symle inlihtes.

    Hail Earendel, brightest of angels,
    over middle-yard to men sent,
    and true radiance of the Sun
    bright above the stars, every season
    thou of thyself ever illuminest.

The name is here taken to refer to John the Baptist, addressed as the morning star heralding the coming of Christ, the "Sol Invictus". Compare the Blickling Homilies (p. 163, I. 3) which state Nu seo Cristes gebyrd at his aeriste, se niwa eorendel Sanctus Johannes; and nu se leoma thaere sothan sunnan God selfa cuman wille, that is, "And now the birth of Christ (was) at his appearing, and the new eorendel (morning-star) was John the Baptist. And now the gleam of the true Sun, God himself, shall come."

J. R. R. Tolkien was inspired by references in the Crist poem, deriving both the character Eärendil, also associated with the morning star, and his use of Middle-earth  from it (see Sauron Defeated p. 236f.). The Quenya phrase, "Aiya Eärendil, elenion ancalima!", literally "Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars!", bears a strong similarity to the line "Hail Earendel, brightest of angels" in Crist I, even so far as to use the same syntax as the Old English version.

Real Middle Earth

Middle-earth. J.R.R. Tolkien’s invented mythology centred on an epic story of the struggle between Good and Evil, but it also included an elaborate backstory, a complex of languages, genealogies, cultures and peoples – and a map.

Created by Tolkien somewhere in the 1930s, the map shows the ‘mortal lands’ of Middle-earth, which according to Tolkien himself is part of our own Earth, but in a previous, mythical era. At the time of the events described in ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Middle-earth is moving towards the end of its Third Age, about 6.000 years ago.

Tolkien didn’t create Middle-earth ex nihilo: ancient Germanic myths divide the Universe in nine worlds, inhabited by elves, dwarves, giants, etc. The world of men is the one in the middle, called Midgard, Middenheim or Middle-earth. That term doesn’t thus describe the entirety of the world Tolkien thought up. The correct term for the total world is Arda – probably derived from German Erde (’Earth’) and only first mentioned posthumously in the Silmarillion (1977); and Eä (for the whole Universe).

The Hobbits are described as inhabiting ‘the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea’, and therefore it’s tempting to associate their home with Tolkien’s own, England. Yet, Tolkien himself wrote that ‘as for the shape of the world of the Third Age, I am afraid that was devised ‘dramatically’, rather than geologically, or paleontologically.” Elsewhere, Tolkien does admit “The ‘Shire’ is based on rural England, and not any other country in the world.”

Tolkien at least compares his ‘Old World’ with Europe: “The action of the story takes place in the North-West of ‘Middle-earth’, equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean (…) If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.”






But, as Tolkien states in the prologue to ‘The Lord of the Rings’, it would be fruitless to look for geographical correspondences, as “Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed…” And yet, that’s exactly what Peter Bird attempts with the map here shown. Bird, a professor of Geophysics and Geology at UCLA, has overlapped the map of Middle-earth with one of Europe, which leads to following locations:

• The Shire is in the South-West of England, which further north is also home to the Old Forest (Yorkshire?), the Barrow Downs (north of England), the city of Bree (at or near Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and Amon Sul (Scottish Highlands).
• The Grey Havens are situated in Ireland.
• Eriador corresponds with Brittany.
• Helm’s Deep is near the Franco-German-Swiss border tripoint, close to the city of Basel.
• The mountain chain of Ered Nimrais is the Alps.
• Gondor corresponds with the northern Italian plains, extended towards the unsubmerged Adriatic Sea.
• Mordor is situated in Transylvania, with Mount Doom in Romania (probably), Minas Morgul in Hungary (approximately) and Minas Tirith in Austria (sort of).
• Rohan is in southern Germany, with Edoras at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Also in Germany, but to the north, near present-day Hamburg, is Isengard. Close by is the forest of Fangorn.
• To the north is Mirkwood, further east are Rhovanion and the wastes of Rhûn, close to the Ural mountains.
• The Sea of Rhûn corresponds to the Black Sea.
• Khand is Turkey
• Haradwaith is the eastern part of North Africa, Umbar corresponds with the Maghreb, the western part of North Africa.
• The Bay of Belfalas is the western part of the Mediterranean.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Battle of Ragnarok





Ragnarok, sometimes called the Twilight of the Gods, is the final cataclysm that will destroy this world and the gods. After three terrible winters, a universal war will break out and the god Loki—now an enemy of the Aesir—and his son, Fenrir the wolf, will break from their bonds. Loki will then sail with an army of the dead to the final battle, in which Fenrir will swallow the sun, and kill Odin; Thor will slay the World Serpent, but die from its poison; and the gods will perish. Finally Surt, guardian of the fires of Muspell since the beginning of time, will release them and engulf the world in flame. After this world is destroyed, a new one will arise. Only Odin’s sons Vidar and Vali, and Thor’s sons Modi and Magni, will survive, and the gods Balder and Hod will return to life. They will sit on the new earth and talk of the world that was; in the grass they shall find the golden chess pieces of the gods. Two people, Lif and Lifthrasir, will survive in the branches of the World Tree and repopulate the earth.

The World Tree Myth


According to the Norse poem The Lay of Grimnir, “Of all trees, Yggdrasil is the best.” Yggdrasil is a huge ash tree that stands at the center of the cosmos, protecting and nourishing the worlds. The gods are described as riding out each day “from Yggdrasil” to deal out fates to mankind, and it was on Yggdrasil that the supreme god Odin willingly sacrificed himself, hanging in torment for nine long nights before he could seize the runes of power. Yggdrasil supported nine worlds, set in three layers. At the top was Asgard, the realm of the Aesir, or warrior gods, Vanaheim, the realm of the Vanir, or fertility gods, and Aflheim, the realm of the light elves. In the middle, linked to Asgard by the rainbow bridge Bifrost, was Midgard (Middle Earth), the realm of mortal men, and also Jotunheim, the world of the giants, Nidavellir, the home of the dwarfs, and Svartalfheim, the land of the dark elves. Below was Niflheim, the realm of the dead, and its citadel Hel. The ninth world is sometimes said to be Hel and sometimes the primeval fire of Muspell, which will devour creation at the end of time. Yggdrasil itself will survive, and will protect in Hoddmimir’s Wood the man and woman who will re-people the world. The branches of Yggdrasil spread out over the whole world, and reach up to heaven.

Ahura Mazda and Ahriman


When it was time for the twins to be born, Zurvan promised that his first-born should rule the world. Ahura Mazda, who was gifted with foresight, told his brother this, and evil-hearted Ahriman forced his way out first, and lied to his parent, saying, “I am your son, Ahura Mazda.” But Zurvan was not deceived, and answered, “My son is light and fragrant, but you are dark and stinking.” And Zurvan wept.

Ahura Mazda Sun Emblem This glazed brick relief from the sixth or fifth century bce was found at Susa in Iran. It shows the winged sun emblem of Ahura Mazda placed above two winged sphinxes, who appear to be standing guard.

In the dualistic mythology of Zoroastrianism, twin brothers Ahura Mazda, who lived in the light, and Ahriman, who lurked in the dark, are in opposition. Between them there was nothing but air. The twins were born from the god Zurvan, “Time,” the ultimate being who existed in the primal void. Ahura Mazda, the wise and all-knowing, created the sun, moon, and stars. He brought into being the Good Mind that works within man and all creation. Ahriman (also known as Angra Mainya, meaning “the destructive spirit”) created demons and attacked Ahura Mazda. But Ahura Mazda sent him back into the darkness, saying “Neither our thoughts, teachings, plans, beliefs, words, nor souls agree.” Then Ahura Mazda created Gayomart, the first man and the first fire priest. But Ahriman renewed his attack and broke through the sky in blazing fire, bringing with him starvation, disease, pain, lust, and death. So Ahura Mazda set a limit to time, trapping Ahriman inside creation. Ahriman then tried to leave creation, but he could not. So he has remained, doing evil until the end of time.

The End of All Things
As the end of time draws near, the savior, Saoshyant, will arise. He will prepare the world to be made new, and help Ahura Mazda to destroy Ahriman. In the time of Saoshyant, people will grow pure. They will stop eating meat, then milk, then plants, then water, until at last they need nothing. Then there will be no more sin, and Az, the demon of lust created by Ahriman, will starve. She will turn on her creator, and try to swallow him up. Ahriman will beg Ahura Mazda to save him, and Ahura Mazda will cast him from creation, through the very hole he made when he broke in. Then time will be at an end, and the world will begin again. Saoshyant will raise the dead, and Ahura Mazda will marry body to soul. First to rise will be Gayomart, the first fire priest, then the mother and father of humanity, Mashya and Mashyoi, then the rest of humanity. All the metal in the mountains of the world will melt, and each man and woman will pass through the stream of molten metal and emerge purified. To the good, the stream will feel like a bath of warm milk; to the evil, it will be agony, as their sins are burned away. The new world will be immortal and everlasting, and free of taint.