The 12th Planet (9 page)

Fig. 22

Fig. 23

Fig. 24

There is now general agreement that the foundations of the distinct Greek civilization were laid on the island of Crete, where the Minoan culture flourished from circa 2700
B.C.
to 1400
B.C.
In Minoan myth and legend, the tale of the minotaur is prominent. This half-man, half-bull was the offspring of Pasiphaë, the wife of King Minos, and a bull. Archaeological finds have confirmed the extensive Minoan worship of the bull, and some cylinder seals depict the bull as a divine being accompanied by a cross symbol, which stood for some unidentified star or planet. It has therefore been surmised that the bull worshiped by the Minoans was not the common earthly creature but the Celestial Bull—the constellation Taurus—in commemoration of some events that had occurred when the Sun's spring equinox appeared in that constellation, circa 4000
B.C.
(Fig. 24)

By Greek tradition, Zeus arrived on the Greek mainland via Crete, whence he had fled (by swimming the Mediterranean) after abducting Europa, the beautiful daughter of the king of the Phoenician city of Tyre. Indeed, when the earliest Minoan script was finally deciphered by Cyrus H. Gordon, it was shown to be "a Semitic dialect from the shares of the Eastern Mediterranean."

The Greeks, in fact, never claimed that their Olympian gods came directly to Greece from the heavens. Zeus arrived from across the Mediterranean, via Crete. Aphrodite was said to have come by sea from the Near East, via Cyprus. Poseidon (Neptune to the Romans) brought the horse with him from Asia Minor. Athena brought "the olive, fertile and self-sown," to Greece from the lands of the Bible.

There is no doubt that the Greek traditions and religion arrived on the Greek mainland from the Near East, via Asia Minor and the Mediterranean islands. It is there that their pantheon had its roots; it is there that we should look for the origins of the Greek gods, and their astral relationship with the number twelve.

•

Hinduism, the ancient religion of India, considers the
Vedas
—compositions of hymns, sacrificial formulas, and other sayings pertaining to the gods—as sacred scriptures, "not of human origin." The gods themselves composed them, the Hindu traditions say, in the age that preceded the present one. But, as time went on, more and more of the original 100,000 verses, passed from generation to generation orally, were lost and confused. In the end, a sage wrote down the remaining verses, dividing them into four books and trusting four of his principal disciples to preserve one
Veda
each.

When, in the nineteenth century, scholars began to decipher and understand forgotten languages and trace the connections between them, they realized that the
Vedas
were written in a very ancient Indo European language, the predecessor of the Indian root-tongue Sanskrit, of Greek, Latin, and other European languages. When they were finally able to read and analyze the
Vedas,
they were surprised to see the uncanny similarity between the Vedic tales of the gods and the Greek ones.

The gods, the
Vedas
told, were all members of one large, but not necessarily peaceful, family. Amid the tales of ascents to the heavens and descents to Earth, aerial battles, wondrous weapons, friendships and rivalries, marriages and infidelities, there appears to have existed a basic concern for genealogical record keeping—who fathered whom, and who was the firstborn of whom. The gods on Earth originated in the heavens; and the principal deities, even on Earth, continued to represent celestial bodies.

In primeval times, the Rishis ("primeval flowing ones") "flowed" celestially, possessed of irresistible powers. Of them, seven were the Great Progenitors. The gods Rahu ("demon") and Ketu ("disconnected") were once a single celestial body that sought to join the gods without permission; but the God of Storms hurled his flaming weapon at him, cutting him into two parts—Rahu, the "Dragon's Head," which unceasingly traverses the heavens in search of vengeance, and Ketu, the "Dragon's Tail." Mar-Ishi, the progenitor of the Solar Dynasty, gave birth to Kash-Yapa ("he who is the throne"). The
Vedas
describe him as having been quite prolific; but the dynastic succession was continued only through his ten children by Prit-Hivi ("heavenly mother").

As dynastic head, Kash-Yapa was also chief of the devas ("shining ones") and bore the title Dyaus-Pitar ("shining father"). Together with his consort and ten children, the divine family made up the twelve Adityas, gods who were each assigned a sign of the zodiac and a celestial body. Kash-Yapa's celestial body was "the shining star"; Prit-Hivi represented Earth. Then there were the gods whose celestial counterparts included the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

In time, the leadership of the pantheon of twelve passed to Varuna, the God of the Heavenly Expanse. He was omnipresent and all-seeing; one of the hymns to him reads almost like a Biblical psalm:

It is he who makes the sun shine in the heavens,

And the winds that blow are his breath.

He has hollowed out the channels of the rivers;

They flow at his command.

He has made the depths of the sea.

His reign also came sooner or later to an end. Indra, the god who slew the celestial "Dragon," claimed the throne by slaying his father. He was the new Lord of the Skies and God of Storms. Lightning and thunder were his weapons, and his epithet was Lord of Hosts. He had, however, to share dominion with his two brothers. One was Vivashvat, who was the progenitor of Manu, the first Man. The other was Agni ("igniter"), who brought fire down to Earth from the heavens, so that Mankind could use it industrially.

•

The similarities between the Vedic and Greek pantheons are obvious. The tales concerning the principal deities, as well as the verses dealing with a multitude of other lesser deities-sons, wives, daughters, mistresses—are clearly duplicates (or originals?) of the Greek tales. There is no doubt that Dyaus came to mean Zeus; Dyaus—Pitar, Jupiter; Varuna, Uranus; and so on. And, in both instances, the Circle of the Great Gods always stood at
twelve,
no matter what changes took place in the divine succession.

How could such similarity arise in two areas so far apart, geographically and in time?

Scholars believe that sometime in the second millennium
B.C.
a people speaking an Indo-European language, and centered in northern Iran or the Caucasus area, embarked on great migrations. One group went southeast, to India. The Hindus called them Aryans ("noble men"). They brought with them the
Vedas
as oral tales, circa 1,500
B.C.
Another wave of this Indo-European migration went westward, to Europe. Some circled the Black Sea and arrived in Europe via the steppes of Russia. But the main route by which these people and their traditions and religion reached Greece was the shortest one: Asia Minor. Some of the most ancient Greek cities, in fact, lie not on the Greek mainland but at the western tip of Asia Minor.

But who were these Indo-Europeans who chose Anatolia as their abode? Little in Western knowledge shed light on the subject.

Once again, the only readily available—and reliable—source proved to be the Old Testament. There the scholars found several references to the "Hittites" as the people inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia. Unlike the enmity reflected in the Old Testament toward the Canaanites and other neighbors whose customs were considered an "abomination," the Hittites were regarded as friends and allies to Israel. Bathsheba, whom King David coveted, was the wife 'of Uriah the Hittite, an officer in King David's army. King Solomon, who forged alliances by marrying the daughters of foreign kings, took as wives the daughters both of an Egyptian pharaoh and of a Hittite king. At another time, an invading Syrian army fled upon hearing a rumor that "the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians." These brief allusions to the Hittites reveal the high esteem in which their military abilities were held by other peoples of the ancient Near East.

With the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs—and, later on, of the Mesopotamian inscriptions—scholars have come across numerous references to a "Land of Hatti" as a large and powerful kingdom in Anatolia. Could such an important power have left no trace?

Forearmed with the clues provided in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, the scholars embarked on excavations of ancient sites in Anatolia's hilly regions. The efforts paid off: They found Hittite cities, palaces, royal treasures, royal tombs, temples, religious objects, tools, weapons, art objects. Above all, they found many inscriptions—both in a pictographic script and in cuneiform. The biblical Hittites had come to life.

A unique monument bequeathed to us by the ancient Near East is a rock carving outside the ancient Hittite capital (the site is nowadays called Yazilikaya, which in Turkish means "inscribed rock"). After passing through gateways and sanctuaries, the ancient worshiper came into an open-air gallery, an opening among a semicircle of rocks, on which all the gods of the Hittites were depicted in procession.

Marching in from the left is a long procession of primarily male deities, clearly organized in "companies" of twelve. At the extreme left, and thus last to march in this amazing parade, are twelve deities who look identical, all carrying the same weapon. (Fig. 25)

The middle group of twelve marchers includes some deities who look older, some who bear diversified weapons, and two who are highlighted by a divine symbol. (Fig. 26)

The third (front) group of twelve is clearly made up of the more important male and female deities. Their weapons and emblems are more varied; four have the divine celestial symbol above them; two are Winged. This group also includes nondivine participants: two bulls holding up a globe, and the king of the Hittites, wearing a skull cap and standing under the emblem of the Winged Disk. (Fig. 27)

Marching in from the right were two groups of female deities; the rock carvings are, however, too mutilated to ascertain their full original number. We will probably not be wrong in assuming that they, too, made up two "companies" of twelve each.

The two processions from the left and from the right met at a central panel which clearly depicted Great Gods, for they were all shown elevated, standing atop mountains, animals, birds, or even on the shoulders of divine attendants. (Fig. 28)

Much effort was invested by scholars (for example, E. Laroche,
Le Pantheon de Yazilikaya)
to determine from the depictions, the hieroglyphic symbols, as well as from partly legible texts and god names that were actually carved on the rocks, the names, titles, and roles of the deities included in the procession. But it is clear that the Hittite pantheon, too, was governed by the "Olympian" twelve. The lesser gods were organized in groups of twelve, and the Great Gods on Earth were associated with twelve celestial bodies.