History is like Gods Playing the Hesse's Glass Bead consciousness Game with Pythagoras
Mathematics is described as the science of pattern and music as the art of pattern, both using meditation within the process of contemplation developing own language of symbols.
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Theatre is one of the oldest way of expression. It was at first a religious expression, meant to communicate with the Gods. A Scottish friend of mine Nicholas Jackman acted Macbeth, in the Shakespeare’s performance, at the Valletta’s Manuel Theatre this weekend. To be true to the play, at the time of our ancestors, the actors did believe in the witches they portrayed. To the audience, witches were a fact of life, real force manifestation, as real as the Hamlet’s ghost of his late father. That is why it is the most difficult to act a mad man.
In traditional societies the first shamans were our first actors. They improvised, channelling subconscious states. What psychologist Jung found in alchemy (transforming metal into gold) is a precursor guide to the psychology of humanity.
Carnival in the Middle Ages took not just a few days, but the period between Christmas and Lent. In those two months, of winter, when the most of the population rested from their usual hard agricultural work, populations celebrated.
The Roman Saturnalia, was a festival organised at the same time, with lots of food and drink, dress-up and parades. The social order was reversed and rules of behaviour were suspended, also a temporary King was crowned and everyone had to abide by his orders. Even today, participants elect a King Carnival.
Historically in Malta, this festival can be traced to the 1400s where we find the Universita’ issuing directives about the price of meat during carnival.
With the arrival of the Grand Masters of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (1530-1798), Carnival was recorded in 1535. At that time the festival was all about knights entering various tournaments.
Ancient Ritual King Carnival
The two festivals share features of masks, role reversals, temporary social equality, and permitted rule breaking.
Yesterday I visited Mdina Cathedral, to listen to a talk of Prof Adrian Mario Gellel from the Faculty of Education from University of Malta about a symbols Literacy project his Department is conducting with year one pupils of Primary Schools in Malta.
The five year old explored the themes provided by the 16th Century painting of Mattio Preti in Mdina Cathedral.
The idea behind the project is to allow the painting to come to life through symbols.
Public Lecture 1493 Mdina Siege the 16th Century painting of Mattio Preti in Mdina Cathedral
Malta Micro and Macro Historical Dynamics
Standing mid-way between the western and eastern halves of the Mediterranean world with Sicily and Tunis 100 miles away, the place has a favourable position for multicultural interaction. A part of the Eastern Roman Empire or the Byzantines (sixth to ninth century, by 600 AC the island had a bishop subject to Syracuse), Musilim emirate (ninth to eleventh), Latin Christian Kingdom (11th to 13th cemtury) and Catalan-Aragonese affiliate (13th to 16th century). Malta boast a variaty of cultural experiences across two major divides: Muslim-Christian and Latin-Greek. Both Salini Bay cemeterial complex and St Paul’s Catacombs are Byzantine oratories. The basilica construction with a Christian baptistery, discovered at Tas-Silg was built on the site of an ancient Greek religious complex.
In September of 1429, the population of the island was 10,000 to 12,000 with 4,000 able to fight with just two main fortifications: Fort St Angelo and the Mdina bastions.
It is recorded that the soldiers were called “Guardia”, who used to guard the shores, and the “Dejma”, who used to guard the villages.
The Egyptian chronicler wrote that the Lord of Tunis sent a fleet with 200 horses and 15,000 fighters to Sicily where they took the town of Mazara and they moved on to Mdina (Malta) which they kept besieging. After they took 3000 people into slavery the siege was lifted.
The archaeologists identiied amazing 120 Starčevo settlements in the region around the rivers Sava, Danube, and Drava.
"Late Neolithic Culture Vinča sites" is the term now used to identify the archaeological complex of people, and cultural heritage that belonged to ancient civilization settlements in Serbia, western Bulgaria and southwestern Romania.
Early Neolithic settlements in the northwestern Balkans were usually located in valleys of major rivers, on fertile land. Archaeological evidence indicates that, during the Early Neolithic, settlements were relatively small. They consisted of small rectangular houses made of wattle and daub.
In western Romania, more than 300 Early Neolithic sites have been identiied, in the region of Šumadija in Serbia, around a 200 Starčevo Culture sites have been noted, while in tHungary, there are 230 sites. The site size varies from 0.2 ha to as large as 12 ha.
So far, only a few Early Neolithic settlements have been excavated.
The excavated settlement in Serbia, called Biserna Obala-Nosa near Subotica is from the Starčevo-Körös Culture, with several houses and as many as forty storage pits. Pit walls were covered with clay. The Neolithic community using this settlement was sedentary, and the settlement was long-lived.
Their above ground houses were diferent from the traditional Neolithic architecture in southern parts of the Balkans. Within the Starčevo settlements the majority of ovens, fireplaces, were located in the open. Various zones for comunal or ritual purpose were identified. Distinct areas represent houses, spaces for production of pottery, or stone tools, food storage places had been also identiied.
The setting up of the Starčevo Culture settlements in Bosnia are linked to the exploitation of the salt mines.
At first, these were settlements which today look like hills of various sizes. In Sesklo in Thessaly (Greece) the excavation of the hill of Kastraki has revealed a tell type settlement from the Early and Middle Neolithic. In the history of archaeology, archaeologists of all nations had explored these artificial hills.
The prominent position of the hill and their history, including the social memory, have in Balkan's countries revealed the Neolithic communities and their ancient settlements.
The tells and flat settlements often had coexisted, surrounded with an established social and economic network, and bound by identity.
The collective identity of Neolithic groups is evidenced, bound by a trench, or a dry wall, in south-eastern Europe, during the Neolithic, fortiications were rare. Putting up fortiications as defence against wild beasts also has a symbolic role, separated nature from culture.
Archeologists and sociologists emphasize that the houses were set in a circle surrounding a public space or a large central dugout or fireplace.
Archaeological excavations in Slavonski Brod, measured areas of 6200 m², in Galovo over 2200 m², and Tržnica in Vinkovci, over 12000 m². In Galovo, radiometric measurements indicate that the construction of the Neolithic settlement was done in several phases, while in Tržnica in Vinkovci, the evidance suggest a single layer settlement In Vinkovci, another house from the Starčevo Culture has been excavated.
At the famous Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, we find a different story, dating from 7400 - 6 200 BC, houses were built like honeycomb – they shared walls. The way in was an opening in the roof, which was also the only source of light.
In contrast to the Near East and Anatolia, in Vinča, people favoured timber as the construction material. With mudcovered wickerwork, with a north-west to south-east orientation and dozens of metres between each house. The area surrounding the long houses was used for production of pottery, used as gardens, farm yards or places in which other daily activities were taken place. The area adjacent to the houses was sometimes used for burials, usually children.
On their Radmilovic estate at Vinča Serbia, the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Agriculture had built a replica of the prehistoric fishermen's village within Mali Dunav (Little Danube). The houses were reconstructed on the basis of archaeological and etno-archaeo data. The project was managed by an architect, a master builder in traditional materials, an archaeologist, & the curator of the Belgrade City Museum. For the reconstruction of houses a traditional mix of clay (30%), sand (40%), and chaff (30%) was used.
On the autumn morning just after the full moon of the Equinox month, in the year 1460 BC, an un-named volcano in Southern Italy that had been silent for decades, suddenly burst into life and exploded. By the end of the following day, the islands of Malta and Crete were buried under ash, rock and mud, carried by an 80 meters high tsunami wave, where they remained lost and forgotten for the next 4,500 years.
Malta Temple Culture 3,500 BC Rituals
At the time of eruption, the temples were long abandoned by its builders, following a harsh climate change that increased storms and rains, removing layers after layers of carefully cultivated and for centuries fertilised land. The evidence of this catastrophic event was found on the skeleton of the last generation of Neolithic Temple Builders, around 2400 BC. In an attempt to keep the land from disappearing, many ancestors’ bones show the evidence of strained wrists.
A rich and bustling community of 2,000 people, at its peak, had built 66 temples during the period of 1,000 years. Now, a new exciting archaeological excavation at Tas-Silġ in Marsaxlokk, sheds further light about Neolithic Temple Builders of Malta.
National Geographic photo of now not existing Coradino 3 Temple
In British times Neolithic were confused with Phoenicians origins, so most of the artefacts did stay in Maltese hands, now exhibited in Archaeological Museum in Valletta and within the Temple Complexes. With the development of meta-physics, meta-psychology, or micro-biology, our scientists and researchers stay amazed with the Culture that used healing with sounds within their rituals, had extra-ordinary artists that sculpted with precision, had architects, clothes makers, and farmers that fertilised their cultivated land.
The British Excavation in 1830 - 1840
The Island’s first Temples have been unearthed during the British excavation in 1830 - 1840, at the same time with Crete excavation, and since the Islands were during the Second World War a British colony, viewed as a military zone, they have experienced lots of bombarding and damage to all the buildings.
Several Maltese civilians sheltering within the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, a prehistoric underground temple, BBC war image
Hypogeum, the most amazing 11 meters deep, carved in stone underground temple, was for example used as a Bomb Shelter. It was only in 1970s that Malta gained its independence, and its scientists & archaeologists have started claiming the natural heritage from the investors, roads builders, and various other intruders.
The Xaghra Stone circle excavated in 1890s
Nearly 6,000 years, numbering several thousand people, is far denser than the people of mainland Europe. The islands were visited by neighbouring islands, was a trading port and ritual site at the heart of the Mediterranean. The decisive blow to the Culture occurred around 2350 BC, when the whole region, geologists tell us, suffered a catastrophic climate event.
With 66 temple sites buried under the earth, most of the Neolithic culture remains would have decayed long ago, or been built over, if the earth hadn’t buried it.
Another under volcanic ash buried Italian city, at the time of its destruction, in 79 AC, Pompei was a rich and prosperous city with splendid public buildings, a library, 5 public baths complexes, a court and a number of luxurious villas with amazing wall paintings of Greek myths and history, 2 theatres and an amphitheatre in a maze of perfectly architecture parallel streets,. The most powerful job was a magistrate, and this was 2,000 years ago. One of the houses had a mosaic of 25 year old Alexander the Great.
