A Humanitarian Past: Antiquity’S Impact on Present Social Conditions

By Adele Änggård

This book opens a window on our historical past. We find antiquity has drawn a blind over earlier and more humanitarian cultures, writing off their artistic and egalitarian practices while antiquitys social habits escalated stress.
Psychologists have recently made us aware that stress has very negative results for community life. Simultaneously, archaeologists have uncovered information about Neolithic cultures and art that makes no sense seen beside ancient Greek descriptions.
The more we learn about Old Europe, the more staggering and distorted the policies conveyed in ancient Greek myths, dramas, and epic poems become. Surprisingly, the Achaeans also show an intimate knowledge about their predecessors social values.
Sadly, the Renaissance uncritically fell for the ancient Greeks version of history, seeing it as the cradle of civilisation and our cultural heritage. They have even passed on these ideas to us today.
Discovering A Humanitarian Past pitches us into an exciting and previously unexplored part of the human story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496993342

Adele Änggård

Adele Änggård grew up in a family that moved to different countries in Europe, where foreign policies and social questions were continually under debate. With several artists in the family, travel naturally extended her interest in art, which eventually found an outlet in theatre design. Four decades of costume and set design brought her into contact with ancient Greek dramas and the culture’s social relationships, which revealed close connections between people’s art and their mentality. While living in Sweden, her work took her to the USA, England, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, and Poland. In Stockholm, she received her degree in archaeology at Södertörn University and worked for several Women’s Refuge Centres. The latter led to authorship on costs and methods of social denial.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2014 Adele Änggård. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/19/2016

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9332-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9334-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Illustrations on the cover are figure and animal images from Marija Gimbutas

1996 and 2006.

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

List of Permissions and Clarification of the Illustrations

Introduction

Cultural roots

Systemising war

The art of visual communication

Psychology and self-recognition

Theatre’s persuasions

Women’s refuges

The book’s structure and organisation

Part I

Chapter 1

Women: Blind Spots in Social Conditions

Suppression is not understood

Challenging accepted truths

The untouchable state

Chapter 2

Through the Eyes of a Child

All Greek to me

Shakespeare’s comfortable solution

Entrenched in mental complications

Chapter 3

Men: Out of Line with Human Needs

A battle with truth

Social structures impact a child

Awareness, brains, and patterns of thinking

Expanding knowledge

Part II

Chapter 4

Looking Back from Today

Art born out of a love for animals

Digging for victory neglects the social past

Aegean heroes annihilate their past

Writing’s impact

The evolution of Stone Age symbols

Disciplines draw similar conclusions

Chapter 5

The Value of Stone

An icy start

Standing up to face the future

A round world keeps ahead of time

Building in stone

Sailing out of the past

Life in miniature

Art as creativity

Chapter 6

The Kurgan Threat to Old Europe

Europe is shocked

Social differences

A changing system

Internal destruction

The language barrier

Part III

Overview

Forms of art as historical data

History’s unrecorded culture

Chapter 7

Symbols: A Snaky Business

Snakes as symbols of fun

Snakes as teachers

The blood purifier

The poisonous bite behind power

The re-emergence of the snake

Chapter 8

Minute Expressions of Great Importance

The art of drawing attention

The genders in unity

A reason for fun

Chapter 9

Antiquity’s Double-Headed Irritation

The importance of symbols takes many forms

Antiquity chops off double heads

Romanticism as seduction

The Renaissance gives Europe a cultural heritage

A rain man in the cupboard

Chapter 10

Pandora: The Evolution of a Myth

Identifying Pandora

Pandora the ‘giver’

Pandora our heritage

Hesiod translated

Pandora the pornographic child

Part IV

Overview

Considering history from the designer’s perspective

Chapter 11

Athens During the Fifth Century bce

Social conditions and public attitudes

The backlash of social inequality

Augmenting wealth

The law and psychology

Compiling the facts

Chapter 12

Literature’s Games

Homer’s reason for war

A warrior’s journey home

Homer’s conditions for monogamy

Circumventing common knowledge

Demands for peace

Chapter 13

A Critical Moment in Theatre History

Perceived in the image of god

The Oresteia in production

Deities discount Agamemnon’s murders

An audience’s emotional involvement

Property rights

A sign of peace

Chapter 14

Unwanted Symbols of Justice

Expiating the Erinyes

A first stage appearance

Symbolic twists

The well-known Old European religion

Chapter 15

How the Social Conscience Impacts Society

Erinyes as protective energy

The Erinyes as respect for death

The social conscience as Erinyes

The Erinyes and reality

Chapter 16

People’s Sense of Justice

Egality in north-western Europe

Dating the Brehon laws

The Brehon laws and society

Methods for change

Humans’ basic nature

Chapter 17

Learning to Coexist with Belligerents

Thinking in terms of conflict

Contagious beliefs

Removing emotions

Philosophy’s perception of others

Trauma as a ‘cultural heritage’

Part V

Overview

No ultimate solution

Chapter 18

Roman Admiration

No priesthood means religious liberty

Cicero’s Rome

Finding the ‘perfect’ solution

Monotheism

Chapter 19

Constitutional Results

The rigidity of the Middle Ages

Art grapples with inequality

Chapter 20

Our Emotional Inheritance

Theatre mirrors human discord

An ethnic pattern

A gender pattern

An animal pattern

Epilogue

A few reflections on how humans connect

A chain reaction, empathy’s loss

Incompatible human conditions and awareness gaps

Pluralistic humans

Time Line

Appendix 1

Milankovitch’s earth cycles and climate change

Appendix 2

Ales Stones in southern Sweden

Appendix 3

Old European symbols connected to beliefs

Animals as symbols

The bee

The bull

The bear

The bird

The dog

The snake

Other known symbols

Water

The underworld

Double heads

The deities

Artemis

Hera

Athena

Zeus

Appendix 4

Synopsis of the Oresteia

Agamemnon

The Libation Bearers

The Eumenides

Glossary

References and Resources

Notes to Chapters

Foreword

It has often been said that if we do not learn the lessons from our past, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes. But what if we only know part of our past, and then only from a particular perspective? What if a huge swath of our past has been suppressed?

These are some of the questions I addressed in the research for my book The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, which shows that humanity’s early cultural path was in a more peaceful and egalitarian direction of partnership rather than domination.

It now gives me great pleasure to write the foreword for this book, which, in fascinating page after page, brings together more evidence of our hidden past. By examining the clues to this past, especially in the literature and art of ancient Greece, Adele Änggård further removes the blinders from our eyes.

A Humanitarian Past reveals what has quite literally been hidden in plain sight. For example, most schools and universities include classical Greek plays such as the Oresteia, Aeschylus’ famous trilogy, in their curricula. We are taught that this play memorialises a major advance in civilisation: the shift from clan-based justice to a court trial. But this interpretation does not even touch on the central questions the play raises: why is the killing of a mother (Clytemnestra) by her own son (Orestes) not considered a crime under this new legal system?

That this obvious question is ignored, as British sociologist Joan Rockwell has noted, is a very big red flag. And, as Änggård documents, this red flag points directly to a massive cultural shift from a more egalitarian, gender-balanced, humanistic society to top-down rule backed by fear and force in both the family and the state.

In other words, what we have been taught as the beginning of ‘civilisation’ is actually the replacement of a more humanitarian culture with one that idealises violence and ‘strong-man’ rule. This massive cultural transformation is now being documented through findings from archaeology and the study of myth, and Änggård also draws from this new knowledge in the first part of the book. Then, with the keen eye of a historical detective, she examines what we can learn about the shift from this earlier time in works many of us are familiar with – all the way from the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod to the works of noted Greek playwrights such as Aristophanes, Euripides, and Aeschylus.

Änggård brings both a passionate voice and a unique background to this task of showing not only that we can build but also that we actually have built, more humanitarian societies. As a child, her mother’s interest in Stone Age cave paintings exposed Änggård to the creative expressions of our early artistic forebears (which, by the way, a recent study indicates were often women, since the handprints on ancient European cave walls are of the characteristically feminine rather than male configuration – another matter still ignored in what is taught in schools and colleges). Änggård’s aunt, an archaeologist, introduced her to the extraordinary Minoan art (once again, ignored in many conventional art and ancient history courses). But it was not until Änggård became immersed in the study of Hellenic literature and art, largely as a theatrical set designer, that she began to see patterns that put in issue the conventional idea of a linear progression from ‘barbarism’ to ‘civilisation’.

The first thing she saw is the radical difference between early and later art. Specifically, she saw that the art of Stone Age Europe communicates a very different view of the world than later classical art conveys. To see this, however, she had to rid herself of preconceived ideas.

For example, the carvings of nude female figures found in Old Stone Age (Palaeolithic) caves in Europe were dubbed by nineteenth century archaeologists as ‘Venuses’ and often described as rather indecent sexual images made by ‘primitives’. But, as later archaeologists such as Marija Gimbutas and others have noted, these are actually highly sophisticated, stylised celebrations of the giving and nurturing of life. Similarly, the art of the New Stone Age (Neolithic) is also replete with abstract works combining human females and various animals, such as snakes and birds. When viewed in the context of what we are today learning from archaeology about the first part of the Neolithic period having been more peaceful and egalitarian, we can see that what this art is basically about is a sense of the unity of all life.

These themes are in sharp contrast to those of the art from after the shift to a system of domination (which archaeological data suggests was brought into Europe during the late Neolithic by nomadic invaders from the more arid regions of our globe). Now we begin to see the celebration of ‘heroic’ battles, of conquest, male violence, and domination. And these same themes are still prominent in classical Greece, which we are taught marked the beginning of civilisation in Europe.

Like other scholars (for example, Eva Kuels in her book The Rule of the Phallus), Änggård shows how one-sided and overidealised the conventional accounts of classical Athens still are. Neither Kuels nor Änggård ignores the artistic and philosophical contributions of ancient Athens. But this ‘cradle of democracy’ was actually a slave society where the vast majority of the population (all women and slaves of both genders) had few if any rights. Moreover, the most celebrated of Greek philosophers, Aristotle, taught that women and slaves were born to be subordinate to ‘free men’ – in other words, that this inequity is ‘natural’. Yet this too is left out or glossed over in our schools and universities.

Going back further, Änggård also brings to bear her extensive knowledge of classical stories, such as Hesiod’s tale of Pandora. As most of us have learnt from the famous story of how Pandora’s box let out a veritable plague on humanity, Pandora was blamed by Hesiod for all of ‘man’s’ ills. But new scholarship traces that story back to a very different tale – one where Pandora is the source of many of humanity’s blessings! Similarly, Änggård highlights how Homer’s Odyssey contains clue after clue to a time when descent was still traced through the mother and women were not yet deprived of their power.

In addition, Änggård adds fascinating new sources of information about our earlier more partnership-oriented heritage. One example is from Ireland: the Brehon laws. These oldest-known European laws clearly point to a more egalitarian past, as well as to a time when restorative, rather than punitive, justice was the norm.

In short, as the title indicates, in A Humanitarian Past, Adele Änggård brings to life a more humanitarian past. Not a perfect past, not a utopia, but a past that is much less violent, a time when women and men were partners, and when warfare had not yet become the norm. We need this knowledge. Indeed, we owe it to our younger generations, who recognise the urgency of new ways of seeing our world and living in it, to spread it far and wide.

Riane Eisler

Acknowledgements

To write in a vacuum is almost impossible, as the Norwegian clinical psychologist Halldis Leira’s invaluable research shows, making me aware of how dependent my present efforts are on those women and men who defied public opinion and pressed for egalitarian reforms and amendments to social laws. Without those courageous women, often backed by men, who committed their lives to enabling their sisters to be economically independent, to have the right to education and responsible jobs, and to gain the vote, assembling the present facts would not have been possible.

Women’s shelters provoked questions about egality from many angles. (Throughout this book, egality refers to social/political equality.) A platform for discussion was provided by Ebon Kram in Sweden and Nicola Harwin in England. The opportunity for debate meant meeting or learning from many, among them Maria Eriksson, Katarina Wennstam, Katarina Weinehall, Amy Elman, and Marianne Hester. My thanks for the opportunity to learn that came when groups of women met.

My early home had been a constant analysis of politics and foreign policy, which was in juxtaposition to my mother’s deep interest in history and equality, as well as the views of my aunt Vronwy, who was a classical archaeologist. I am grateful for the interests they shared with me.

The theatre has brought me many social and community insights, as well as requirements: Mary Skeaping’s demands never to give up in seeking an answer; Eva Sköld’s and Anita Blom’s knowledge and loyalty, as well as their ideas and recognition of design’s importance; Mikael Strandberg’s and Göran Gentele’s talents, trust, and demands; Peter Brook’s three invaluable lessons, (1) the supreme importance of artistic integrity, (2) that ‘it is only a fool that is too arrogant not to learn from the past’, (3) that the audience’s response to a performance is anchored in social conditions at the time of the production. These individuals’ thoughts and influences on this book during my writing process have been very valuable for me while gathering the information and material, and I am grateful.

It was upon my discovery of the authorship of Eva Moberg, Marilyn French, and Riane Eisler that the way was paved for a wider understanding of the past, which provoked my wish to contribute. I am indebted to these authors.

Sweden has had unique social conditions for the last half-century and been open for free expression, which has provided the opportunity and atmosphere in which writing was possible. This was important. Friends with political, social, and ecological professions have shown an interest in my work. I want to particularly thank Kristina Berglund and Ewa Larsson for their supportive encouragement.

At the practical level of authorship, Claude le Jeune’s generosity made computer knowledge and writing techniques possible; Peri Hankey solved many small technical problems; Marina and Elcido Concepcion’s generosity kept the computers going with great professionalism. Sara and David Kaye have given me many years of support, and David’s help in producing images on the computer was invaluable.

I owe much to the essential readers who always encouraged me: Palle Granditsky, Irma Wallin, Eva Broms, Beverly Bjerke, Denise McClusky, Eileen Battey, Goldina Smirthwaite, and Thomas Palme, who guided me round many pitfalls.

Hild Lorenzi must be thanked for her guidance in aiding the literary construction; Barbro Metell and Märta-Lena Bergstedt, among others, must be thanked for much-informed debate. Carin Holmberg has broadened my understanding of the animal world and been enormously encouraging; Naud Vanarot was invaluable in sorting out the ideas. They all have my warmest thanks.

I also want to warmly thank Authorhouse and all those involved, for what they have done to make it possible to produce the book in its present form.

Finally, many thanks to my family for their forbearance, and to Mikael Runsten for the generosity of his library of pictures.

List of Permissions and Clarification of the Illustrations

The illustrations are in groups. The first group (figs. 1 to 9), all well-advertised visual images from our culture, expresses modern awareness or debated ideas. The second group (figs. 11 to 27, with the exception of fig. 25) are intended to familiarise you with prehistoric forms of artistic expression in order to make clear that no culture can represent ideas in art that are not already part of their consciousness. The third group (figs. 28 to 60) are prehistoric art and symbols, some of which were transformed during antiquity and which are also found with later interpretations. The fourth group (figs. 61 to 89) are about the Renaissance’s legacy and modernity’s artistic interpretations. The fifth group (figs. 90 to 101) asks the questions: What does this art mean for us and our behaviour? What do we see in buildings and artistic creations?

The list of images below is for permission to illustrations with a few exceptions. The omitted numbers are either images I have drawn, or for some other reason have not required printing permission.

Introduction

Figure 1: Looking for Alice, courtesy of © Fredrik Wretman.

Figure 2: Climate Meeting, courtesy of © Jan Ed Nyköping.

Figure 3: Stele of the Vultures, photo Eric Gaba, Wikimedia Commons, author’s drawing.

Fig. 4: The Phrenologist’s view of the functional organization of the cranium, in Torkel Klingberg’s Översvämmade hjärnan, (The overflowing brain), (2009: 95). How we thought of our brains functioning during the nineteenth century.

PART I

Figure 5: Portrait of Ulla Isaksson, photo © courtesy of Ulla Lemberg.

Figure 6: Expectancy and Trust, © author’s photo.

Figure 7: The Golden Island, courtesy of the Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin. © author’s sketch of the painting.

Figure 8: Old Woman/Young Woman, by Jad King, © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium, courtesy of Exploratorium Museum, San Francisco.

Figure 9: Goblet Portraits, courtesy of © Zeke Berman, 1977.

Fig. 10: flint tools, depending on who sees and analysis them. They are not necessarily weapons or used with an aggressive intention. People had to live and needed such tools for food, cloths and daily necessities. These are finds chosen from 8,000 to 5,000 bce in Scandinavia; author’s illustration.

PART II

Figure 11: Bulls, Combarelles cave painting, southern France, 15,000–13,000 bce; © author’s drawing.

Figures 12: Cross shaped figurine, Marie-Louise Winbladh (1992) Cypern: Möte mellan kulturer; © courtesy of the National Museums of World Culture, The Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm; author’s drawing.

Fig. 13: Two genders, so called Minotaur, Marie-Louise Winbladh (1992) Cypern: Möte mellan kulturer; © courtesy of the National Museums of World Culture, The Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm; author’s drawing.

Figure 14: When the cold sets in, photo © courtesy of Mikael Runsten.

Figure 15: Ales Stones, © courtesy of the AntiquarianTopographical Archives, the National Heritage Board, Stockholm, photo by Nil Nilsson.

Figure 16: Gobekli Tepe megaligh stone carvings, © courtesy of German Archaeological Institute. photo Klaus Schmidt

Figure 17: Hal Salfieni’s corbelled roofing, photo Daniel Cilia, © courtesy of the National Museum of Archaeological, Malta.

Figure 18: Çatalhöyük, – reconstruction of a room, seventh millennium bce’, Wikipedia commons.

Figure 19: Two-storey building, Gimbutas (1999); figure 20: Miniature clay model, Gimbutas (1996); figure 21: Reconstruction of a cult table, Gimbutas (1996); figure 22: Nippled vase with a beak mask, Gimbutas 2006; figure 23: Mycenaean figurine Gimbutas 2006; figure 24: Anthropomorphic urn Gimbutas 2006; figures 19–24 © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 20: Miniature clay model, Gimbutas (1996); figure

Figure 21: Reconstruction of a cult table, Gimbutas (1996)

Figure 22: Nippled vase with a beak mask, Gimbutas 2006.

Figure 23: Mycenaean figurine Gimbutas 2006

Figure 24: Anthropomorphic urn Gimbutas 2006; figures 19–24 © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 25: Maria in Yugoslavia, photo of sculpture © 1995, courtesy of Lena Lervik.

Figure 26: Sámi drums, illustration by Eva Rahmqvist, in LYKSÄLIE 2007, © courtesy of Lycksele municipality.

Figure 27: Indented symbols, Gimbutas 2006, © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

PART III

Figure 28: The art of humour, three illustrations by Henry Hankey 1985, 1989, © by courtesy of Henry Hankey’s Estate.

Figure 29: Pottery snake from Predionica, Serbia, Gimbutas 1996, © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 30: Mask in the shape of a snake Bansonyi, Guinea, Baga, Nalu, Landuma, middle of the nineteenth to twentieth century ce. Hardwood, red, black and white pigments, pieces of mirror. H. 215 cm. Collected in the field in 1957. Former Dr Mandelbaum collection 1968. Inv. 1001–21. © courtesy of Musée Barbier-Mueller, Photo Studio Ferrazzini.

Figure 31: Snake deity (1996); figure 32: Painted snake on vase (2006); figure 33: Snake figurine (2006); figures 31–33 © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 32: Painted snake on vase (2006)

Figure 33: Snake figurine (2006); figures 31–33 © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 34: Zeus-Meilichios, Harrison (1991)

Figure 35: Zeus the snake, Harrison (1991)

Figure 36: Heroes as snakes Harrison (1991)

Fig. 37: Minoan Snake figurine, from Knossos, Crete, found by Arthur Evans, dated to 1,600

bc

e; author’s drawing.

Figure 38: Vase painting of a snake Harrison (1991); © courtesy of Princeton University Press.

Fig. 39: Figurine from the Damascus museum, France recognized the Stone-Age art as schematic and abstract already in the 1960s.

Fig. 40: Savignano figurine made of highly polished Serpentine or marbled steatite that is beautifully coloured. Dated from around 25,000 bce; author’s drawing.

Figure 41: Savignano figurine, original drawing by E. Gatti, in Mussi (2001) © courtesy of Margherita Mussi, author’s drawing.

Figure 42: Monpazier figurine, author’s drawing, Wikimedia Commons.

Fig. 43: a, b, and c, Phallus symbol visible in the Savignano figurine. This is my diagram to clarifying why this figurine can have a dual gender interpretation as found in fig. 33.

Figure 44: Pendant bead, at the Ice Age Art exhibition, courtesy of the British Museum, © author’s drawing.

Figure 45: Nea Nikomedeia figurine, Gimbutas (1996)

Figure 46: Stačevo figurine, Gimbutas (1999) © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 47: The Acropolis 1953, © author’s photo.

Figure 48: Woman with two heads, Grimaldi, shown at the Ice Age Art exhibition, courtesy of the British Museum, © author’s drawing.

Figure 49: Dual-headed vase, Gimbutas (2006)

Figure 50: Headless figurine with mask, Gimbutas (1999)

Figure 51: Dual headed Bird Goddess, Gimbutas (1996); Double headed figure, Gimbutas (1996)

Fig. 52: Double-headed figurine, discovered at Gomolava in Croatia. The holes are perforations for perishable attachments (wings, plumes?), Vinča culture from the mid-fifth millennium bce. Gimbutas (1996: 127), author’s drawing.

Figure 53: Hercules killing the Hydra, Harrison (1991) © courtesy of Princeton University Press.

Figure 54: Pollux killing Lynceus, author’s illustration from a relief at Villa Albani in Rome, © author’s drawing.

Figure 55: After the battle is over, photo Julien Bryan. © permission Sam Bryan.

Figure 56: Perseus killing Medusa, © author’s drawing.

Figure 57: Mycenaean figurine, in Den skäggiga Gudinnan, Marie-Louise Winbladh 1995, © courtesy of National Museums of World Culture, The Mediterranean Museum, Stockholm, author’s drawing.

Figure 58: Pandora receiving gifts, original vase painting, at the British Museum, © author’s rendering.

Figure 59: Pandora and Epimetheus, Arthur Rackham colour illustration, Wikimedia Commons, © author’s rendering.

Figure 60: Pandora releasing evil, Arthur Rackham, colour illustration, © author’s rendering.

PART IV

Figure 61: Sergeant Musgrave’s dance; sketches and preliminary research drawings for Peter Brook’s production, 1962, © author’s sketches.

Figure 62: Athens, Acropolis museum at sunset, photo by Flickr user Maarten Dirkse, Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 63: Agamemnon and his nameless slave, Helsingborg Town Theatre’s production of Iphigenia at Aulis; photo permission of © Tomas Montelius.

Figure 64: Object of fear, Dagens Nyheter, an anonymous cartoon, © author’s drawing.

Figure 65: Hertha Hillfon’s sculpture, photo courtesy of © Lars Hallén.

Figure 66: Swan figurines, shown at the Ice Age Art exhibition, courtesy the British Museum, © author’s drawing.

Figure 67: Leda and the Swan, courtesy of © Georgios Kyriakou Cyprus Heritage, Cyprus.

Figure 68: Fresco Mycenae © Diana Wardle 1998, from The Mycenaean World by K.A. Wardle and Diana Wardle, Bristol Classical Press, by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Figure 69: Athena painted, © author’s photo.

Figure 70: Epidaurus theatre being viewed by Anita Blom, © author’s photo.

Figure 71: Athena as the decor, in the Oresteia, Strandberg-Zell production, photo Hans Hammarskiöld 1996, © courtesy of Hans Hammarskiöld Heritage 2014.

Figure 72: Epidaurus Theatre, Andreas Praefeke or Morn, Wikimedia commons.

Figure 73: The Erinyes as dogs, in Mnouchkine’s production of Les Atrides, (Les Euménides d’Eschyle) Théâtre du Soleil, Cartoucherie, 1992 © Michèle Laurent.

Figure 74: Clytemnestra and Orestes, in the Oresteia, Strandberg and Zell production, photo Hans Hammarskiöld 1995, © courtesy of Hans Hammarskiöld Heritage 2014.

Figure 75: Erini Siri Derkert etchings at Östermalm Underground station, © author’s photo.

Figure 76: The slaying of Eriphyle, Harrison (1991), © courtesy of Princeton University Press, author’s drawing.

Figure 77: A chorus of dogs, in Mnouchkine’s production of Les Atrides, (Les Euménides d’Eschyle) Théâtre du Soleil, Cartoucherie 1992 © Michèle Laurent.

Figure 78: The Erinyes as humans, in the Oresteia, Strandberg Zell production, photo Hans Hammarskiöld 1996, © courtesy of Hans Hammarskiöld Heritage 2014.

Figure 79: The Gorgon illustrated on a vase, Gimbutas (2006), © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 80: Detail of Eriphyle and the snake Erinys, Harrison (1991), © courtesy of Princeton, author’s drawing. University Press.

Figure 81: Flying hounds, Gimbutas (2006), © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 82: Vulture symbols, Gimbutas (1999), © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 83: Knowth passage grave, http://flickr.com/photos/khoffman/8679751854, Wikimedia commons.

Figure 84: Carrowmore Dolmen, Ireland, http://flickr.com/photos/khoffman/8679751854, from Wikimedia commons.

Figure 85: Clay stamp with snake, Gimbutas (2006), © reprinted by permission of the Marija Gimbutas Estate.

Figure 86: Erinyes as snakes, Harrison (1991), © courtesy of Princeton University Press, author’s drawing.

Figure 87: The Parthenon 1953, Athens, © author’s photo.

Figure 88: Bust of Socrates, photo Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikimedia commons.

Figure 89: Plato and Aristotle by Raphael, Wikimedia commons.

PART V

Figure 90: Does justice have to be blind?, illustration © courtesy of Helena Davidsson, Neppelberg.

Figure 91: Sculpture by Hertha Hillfon, photo courtesy of ©Lars Hallén.

Figure 92: The Colosseum in Rome, photo courtesy of © Mikael Runsten.

Figure 93: The Stadium, Palatine Hill in Rome, photo courtesy of © Mikael Runsten.

Figure 94: Gothic architecture, Notre Dame, Paris, photo courtesy of © Mikael Runsten.

Figure 95: The towers of Notre Dame, photo courtesy of © Mikael Runsten.

Figure 96: The Free-born Englishman, anonymous, 1819, British Library collection of cartoons.

Figure 97: The Balancing Act, originally drawn for Månväven (The Web of Life magazine), March 2013, no.10. © author’s illustration

Figure 98: Creating a Garden, © author’s photo.

Figure 99: A plant’s conditions, © author’s photo.

Figure 100: Milankovitch diagrams, drawn by Geoff Penna, © Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, from The Complete World of Human Evolution, by Chris Stringer and Peter Andres, Thames & Hudson, reprinted by courtesy.

Fig 101. Ales stenar (Ales stones). Draftsman C.G.G. Hilfeling’s drawing from 1777 (above) show that the two outside side stones at half of the ship’s length, can have been used as correction stones and indicators at the winter and summer solstice. There are some side ships that are not shown on Hilfeling’s drawing . Bob Lind (author’s trans.). Below is Bob Lind’s diagram of Ales stones from 2004. Both are on the same page in his book Ales Stenar – ur ett arkeoastronomiskt perspektiv (Ales stones – from an archaeoastrological perspective).

001_a_hilantan.jpg

Fig. 1: Looking for Alice Fine by Fredrik Wretman. A picture of this sculpture from 2006 was hung in an exhibition called ‘The Deluded Eye. Five Centuries of Deception’ at the National Museum, Stockholm 2008. The catalogue points out: ‘our ability to see has limitations, which people have studied and made use of for hundreds of years, to fulfill a variety of different intentions’. This picture can be interpreted as an illustration of how our sensory organs’ functions have limitations that can distort our understanding of ourselves, of others and the world around us.

F2%20Jan%20Ed%20original%20ok%20.jpg

Fig. 2: Climate meeting, even official organisations can behave in ways that defy their objectives. Jan Ed’s cartoon, 2009.

Introduction

Cultural roots

Humans in themselves are not necessarily aggressive, but in a social structure that enhances belligerence they can become lethal. Through evolution our consciousness seems primed to single out and recognise the facts which we have become familiar with when young. We are trained to hop over the unfamiliar. The well-documented children’s stories from antiquity are a good example of how the effects of war are used to indoctrinate the young.

This means that many people grow up unable to recognise that antiquity’s endless battles were a contradiction to the requirements needed to create a stable community life. The ancient Greeks (i.e. Greeks of the classical period; also referred to as Achaeans, Dorians, and Hellenes) purported that such battles were a matter of rescuing Europe from disorder and primitive barbarity. In fact, they were doing the opposite. Fighting resulted in plunging Europe into social chaos.

Because the ancient Greeks shielded their actions by means of contradictory descriptions of battles, few today seem to know that antiquity’s military success was only possible because of the criminal suppression of the native Pelasgians (the earliest inhabitants of the Aegean area of Greece). This was part of a political policy that carefully misconstrued, maligned, and indeed revamped what the earlier cultures stood for.

The ancient Greeks may have idealised their own system, but it is the negative results of war that were actively overlooked and thereby included into a way of life for later Europeans. A complete oversight of abuse as negative during the Renaissance then enabled the systems in the following centuries to develop and encourage belligerence and social violence. This book takes up this aspect of our present-day interpretation of antiquity’s behaviour as part of a social inheritance that colours popular historical concepts and thereby society today.

A serious reason for revising our view of the past is that psychotherapists today explain militarism and war as disruptive values, which by means of trauma, cause internal social frictions and differences. Conflict, particularly experiences during war, leaves indelible memories in people’s minds. They talk of battles as physically and mentally crushing, producing conditions of total public disorder. Horrors connected with military attacks create terrifying and chaotic mental situations, which are so disorienting en masse that the social system loses its foothold. The perpetrator, in enamouring war, is as badly affected as anyone – a psychological dynamic that is seldom understood.

There is another important reason for revising our view of the past. Archaeologists have discovered that Stone Age Europe had a well-organised social life long before antiquity. Even as I write, information is being unearthed of previously unrecognised Stone Age sophistications which lacked the later collective violence. One archaeologist has clearly recognised this, describing, ‘Village sites are not remarkable for their defensive positions. ... Hill forts in inaccessible locations are not known to Old Europe, nor are daggers, spears, and halberds,’ she means as weapons used against other humans.¹ Please note that this is not a testament of Stone Age social perfection, only evidence of people’s ability to create a society on a set of characteristics other than those given priority today.

In other words, because of what we know today of how the social changes took place, it is not unreasonable to ascertain that belligerence is not a built-in human deformity but, rather, one that is socially induced depending on what a system prioritises.

Systemising war

In the Aegean area, there is wide academic acceptance that the native Pelasgians were originally less violent than the Achaeans and Dorians. Much suggests that the Pelasgians had similar values and symbols to those of Old Europe. Few contemporary researchers have identified that the system introduced by the ancient Greeks opposed the Pelasgian values system. Their name has fallen from view through lack of interest. In short, it has not been accepted to give the earlier periods equal social validity to those of later warring cultures.

During my research for this book, I was amazed to find the social systems that accepted war and traumatic circumstances as normal had come to Europe so late. True, there had been Kurgan (Proto-Indo-European) invasions from 4400 to 2800 bce (before the Common Era), causing pockets of serious change in different regions and weakening Old European values. However, the arrival of Achaean and Dorian tribes in Attica and the Peloponnese, which takes up so much space in history books, did not occur until around 1200 bce, possibly even later. It was a good four centuries afterwards that the public was manipulated into accepting war and traumatic conditions as an inevitable part of the social system. Not surprisingly, the arrival of these tribes’ was followed by a dark age.

Today, after centuries of unreserved praise provoked by the Renaissance, historians are taking a more critical view of the classical period’s practices. It is high time, because antiquity’s education of boys encouraged war, and this still influences education today. Once young people are primed to war as representing ‘order’, other values seem to be totally unacceptable. What we learn as children seems so powerful that we even become blind to how the better social qualities of humans are constructed.

The bias was established when the victors wrote antiquity’s history. Slaves and the less affluent were not accounted for, and in a patriarchal society women had no place; in addition, death in battle was glorious, and suffering was not considered important. The socially omitted groups are numerically so large that the victor’s claim to positive achievements is out of context with the social experiences of the community as a whole. This aspect of antiquity’s influence on us today is a door which has never been properly opened or analysed.

The art of visual communication

If we work backwards in time from the Pelasgians, research into Old European cultures makes it evident that before writing existed, art filled the gap in communication and was a semi-literate form of expression. The valued material at this time for both genders was stone. Old Europeans were master carvers, working in all sizes, from huge constructions to minute images. They also left behind them well-inscribed megalithic structures. In Mycenae, the colossal stones were so immaculately seamed together, they were said to have been produced by giants. Such construction was the result of a technique that had clearly later been lost. Megalithic buildings are found in Western Europe. On the Mediterranean islands, they date from around 5000 to the first millennium bce. There is also exciting evidence of numerous tiny and well-etched figurine sculptures that have