Discovered: Thor's Shattered Viking Army and their Sacred Hammer of the Gods

Ancient Origins

The mysterious origins of almost 300 violently broken bodies discovered in a mass grave in Derbyshire, England, are “the Viking Great Army!”, announced archeologist Cat Jarman this week.

 Jarman is Head of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the The University of Bristol and she explained that the initial dating of the skeletons discovered in the 80s found them to “span several centuries”. However, Jarman doubted this dating because “the previous radiocarbon dates from this site were all affected by something called marine reservoir effects, which is what made them seem too old.” Basically, the carbon in fish is much older than in terrestrial foods and this confused the radiocarbon dating tests. When this error was accounted for, says Jarman, the bodies all date to the 9th century.

Land-Hungry Warriors
Known to the Anglo-Saxons as ‘The Great Heathen Army’, these land-hungry warriors formed a united army from Norway, Denmark and Sweden. They invaded the four kingdoms of England in 865AD and according to Historian Thomas Charles-Edwards in his bestselling 2013 book Wales and the Britons 350–1064 “having taken East Anglia and then York the following year, they were paid to leave Wessex by Alfred the Great and marched on Northumbria and London.” They reached Mercia by 873AD and spent winter at Repton, where they dethroned King Burgred and installed Cleowulf as ruler of the kingdom.

Viking army in battle (public domain)

This Was No Ordinary Burial
This week’s University of Bristol report informs that “80 percent of the remains were men, mostly aged 18 to 45, with several showing signs of violent injury.” Strewn among the Viking skeletons were “axes, knives and five silver pennies dating to the period 872-875 AD.” And, among the bodies four children aged between eight and 18 years old were discovered “in a single grave with traumatic injuries.” Archaeologist Cat Jarman said of these burial irregularities “The grave is very unusual…they are also placed in unusual positions - two of them back-to-back - and they have a sheep jaw placed at their feet. All these obscurities suggest human sacrifice formed part of Viking funeral rites

One of the female skulls excavated from the Repton burial site. Credit: Cat Jarman / University of Bristol

A National Geographic article this week detailed the contents of another double grave containing two men, the older of whom was buried with a “Thor’s hammer pendant and a Viking sword and had received numerous fatal injuries including a large cut to his left femur.” Furthermore, a boar’s tusk had been “placed between his legs, and it has been suggested that the injury may have severed his penis or testicles, and the tusk positioned to replace what he had lost in preparation for the afterworld.”

Thor’s Hammer Pendant May Settle Long-Standing Debate
Rightly, this week’s headlines are focusing on the discovery of one of the most successful forces to have ever invaded Britain. However, to me, the presence of a “Thor’s Hammer pendant” stands sentinel above all other discoveries. Outshines the lot! This truly is a Norse cultural treasure and its discovery, among Norse warriors, settles a long-standing archeological debate.

Example of a Viking Thor’s hammer pendant (Swedish History Museum / flickr)

Fist-size stone tools resembling the Norse god Thor's Hammer are known as “thunderstones” and are found in Viking graves in Norway. While one faction of specialists hold that Viking warriors worshiped Thor with grave deposits, others argue that thunderstones actually belonged to earlier, lower burials, and get accidentally unearthed in Viking graves. To settle this debate, Archaeologist Eva Thäte of the University of Chester in the U.K., with fellow archaeologist Olle Hemdorff excavated hundreds of Viking graves in Scandinavia and trawled through thousands of grave deposits. They found “ten Viking burials containing thunderstones up to 5,000 years older than the graves themselves” indicating Vikings reused prehistoric stone hammers as talismans and good luck charms to assist them in the afterlife.

But even with this data, many archeologists still maintain Thor’s Hammers are accidental finds. This Thor’s Hammer debate was highlighted in a 2010 in a National Geographic feature which claimed it was generally “accepted that they (thunderstones) were actually purposely placed by Vikings in graves as good-luck talismans,” but there are still skeptics out there. This week’s announcement, that the skeletons belong to the “Great Viking Army” married with the fact that a “Thor’s Hammer pendant” was discovered, is the smoking gun - the hard evidence that Viking warriors did indeed worship Thor, and “Thor’s Hammers” were used in burial rites.

There are two things skeptics have to accept here. Neolithic people in England were not wearing Thor’s Hammer pendants, so it did not belong to an earlier, lower grave, and did not get “accidentally” dug up. And finally, deceased Viking warriors were stripped naked and buried with carefully chosen items, to help them in the afterlife, so the pendant was a deliberate placement within the Viking warrior grave. The pendant suggests that 9th century England was taken by a band of merciless warriors under the command of their ancient god of thunder and war - Thor. That accepted, I wonder what the battle cry of Thor’s Army sounded like? Thunderous I’d imagine.

Top image: Battered and broken bodies of Viking warriors unearthed in Derbyshire, England, now identified as soldiers of the Viking Great Army. Credit: Martin Biddle / University of Bristol

By Ashley Cowie

Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 (History of Wales) Hardcover – 1 Feb 2013 by T. M. Charles-Edwards. OUP Oxford (1 Feb. 2013)

Britannia, Druids and the Surprisingly Modern Origins of Myths

Ancient Origins

The new TV series Britannia, which has won plaudits as heralding a new generation of British folk-horror, is clearly not intended to be strictly historical. Instead director Jez Butterworth gives us a graphic re-imagining of Britain on the eve of the Roman conquest. Despite its violence and chaos, this is a society bound together by ritual under the head Druid (played by Mackenzie Crook). But where does this idea of pre-conquest British religion come from?

 Contemporary sources of the period are very thin on the ground and were mainly written by Britain’s Roman conquerors. No classical text provides a systematic account of Druidical ritual or belief. In fact, little was written at length for hundreds of years until William Camden, John Aubrey and John Toland took up the subject in the 1500s and 1600s. But it took later antiquarians, including William Stukeley writing in 1740, as well as William Borlase in 1754 and Richard Polwhele in 1797, to fully develop their thinking.

Popular ideas of pre-Roman Britain today are derived from their elaborate Druidical theories: the bearded Druid, possessor of arcane knowledge, the stone circles, the ritualistic use of dew, mistletoe and oak leaves in dark, wooded groves, and the ultimate horror of human sacrifice and the bacchanalia that followed.

MacKenzie Crook as head Druid Veran in Britannia. (Sky Atlantic)

Ancient disputes
The antiquarians were a disputatious lot and their debates can seem baffling, but underpinning them were fundamental questions about the first settlement of the British Isles and its religious history. In particular, the antiquarians asked if ancient Britons were monotheistic, practising a “natural” religion awaiting Christian “revelation”, or polytheistic idolaters who worshipped many false gods.

The answer to this question determined how the antiquarians understood the monumental stone structures left by this past culture. Were Stonehenge, Avebury or the antiquarian riches of Devon and Cornwall not just relics of idolatry and irreligion but also evidence of the supposed hold the Celts once had over the land? Conversely, if the stone circles and other relics were evidence of the struggle by an ancient people to make sense of the one true God before Roman Catholicism corrupted their beliefs (remember these antiquarians were all Protestant thinkers), then a God-fearing Englishman could claim them as a part of his heritage.

Stukeley believed Britain’s first settlers were eastern Mediterranean seafarers – the so-called Phoenicians – and they brought Abrahamic religion with them. In studies of Stonehenge (1740) and Avebury (1743), he argued that the ancient peoples descended from these first settlers lost sight of these beliefs but retained a core grasp of the fundamental “unity of the Divine Being”. This was represented in stone circles, so “expressive of the nature of the deity with no beginning or end”.

By this reading, Druidical veneration of heavenly bodies, the Earth and the four elements was not polytheism but the worship of the most extraordinary manifestations of this single deity. Moreover, that this worship was conducted in the vernacular and relied on the development of a teaching caste intended to enlighten the people meant that Druidical religion was the forerunner of Protestantism.

Sacred site. (Sky Atlantic)

Borlase, surveying Cornwall’s antiquities, rejected much of this. He scoffed at Stukeley’s Phoenician theories, saying it was illogical that Britain’s first people were overseas traders, and he argued that Druidism was a British invention that crossed the channel to Gaul. Borlase reckoned patriotic French antiquarians, convinced Gauls and Druids had resisted Roman tyranny, were reluctant to admit that “their forefathers [were] indebted so much to this island”.

But was Druidism something to be proud of? By drawing on classical, Biblical and contemporary sources, Borlase developed an elaborate account of the Druids as an idolatrous priesthood who manipulated the ignorance of their followers by creating a sinister air of mystery.

 According to Borlase, Druidical ritual was bloody, decadent, immoral stuff, with plenty of sex and booze, and only compelling in atmospheric natural settings. Druidical power rested on fear and Borlase implied that Catholic priests, with their use of incense, commitment to the Latin mass and superstitious belief in transubstantiation, used the same techniques as the Druids to maintain power over their followers.

Going over old ground
 Poems such as William Mason’s Caractatus (1759) helped popularise the idea that the Druids led British resistance to the invading Romans – but by the 1790s sophisticated metropolitan observers treated this stuff with scorn. Despite this, Druidical theories retained much influence, especially in south-west England. In Polwhele’s histories of Devonshire (1797), he wrote of Dartmoor as “one of the principal temples of the Druids”, as evident in iconic Dartmoor sites such as Grimspound, Bowerman’s Nose and Crockern Tor.

Most important were the “many Druidical vestiges” centred on the village of Drewsteignton, whose name he believed was derived from “Druids, upon the Teign”. The cromlech, known as Spinsters’ Rock, at nearby Shilstone Farm invited much speculation, as did the effect achieved by the “fantastic scenery” of the steep-sided Teign valley.

Spinsters’ Rock, Dartmoor. Matthew Kelly, Author provided

Polwhele’s influence was felt in Samuel Rowe’s A Perambulation of Dartmoor (1848), the first substantial topographical description of the moor. Many Victorians first encountered Dartmoor through Rowe’s writings but the discussion of these texts in my history of modern Dartmoor shows that a new generation of preservationists and amateur archaeologists did not take Druidical theories very seriously.

For the late Victorian members of the Devonshire Association and the Dartmoor Preservation Association, scepticism was a sign of sophistication. If an earlier generation had detected Druidical traces in virtually all Dartmoor’s human and natural features, these men and women were more likely to see evidence of agriculture and domesticity. Grimspound, once a Druidical temple, was now thought to be a cattle pound.

Despite Protestant hopes during the Reformation that superstitious beliefs associated with landscape features would be banished, the idea that the landscape holds spiritual mysteries that we know but cannot explain, or that the stone circles of antiquity stimulate these feelings, remains common enough. Indeed, Protestantism came to terms with these feelings and the Romantics saw the beauties of the British landscape as the ultimate expression of God’s handiwork.

 Britannia recalls Robin of Sherwood (1984-6), with its mystical presentation of the English woodland and, of course, the BBC comedy Detectorists, that delicate exploration of middle-aged male friendship against the rustle of rural mysticism. A sense of spiritual presence can also inflect the British landscapes of the New Nature Writing.

But Butterworth is working according to an older tradition. Rather like his antiquarian predecessors, he has created a largely imagined universe from some scattered classical references and a great deal of accumulated myth and legend. Whether Britannia will re-enchant the British landscape for a new generation of television viewers is impossible to say, but my hunch is that those lonely stones up on the moors, such as the Grey Wethers or Scorhill on Dartmoor, are going to attract a new cohort of visitors.

Top image: Zoe Wanamaker in TV series ‘Britannia’. Source: Sky Atlantic

The article ‘Britannia, Druids and the Surprisingly Modern Origins of Myths’ by Matthew Kelly was originally published on The Conversation and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

A Tradition Revived? Inverted Christmas Trees May Have Pagan Roots

Ancient Origins

Hanging a Christmas tree from the ceiling makes some sense – it can keep your floor space clear and may protect your pets or young children from harm – but it is not common. The costly trend of hanging a tree upside-down is a whole other matter. As with many things that go against the norm, there is a lot of controversy and confusion about the practice of hanging an inverted tree from the ceiling. But it seems the idea is not a new one; in fact, the unconventional decorating idea may trace its roots, at least loosely, to pagan traditions.

 CBC News reports that inverted hanging Christmas trees can be found “dangling from the ceilings of exclusive hotel lobbies and public atriums from London to Vancouver.” It is certainly an eye-catching way to decorate for the holidays, but are the people who practice this method of tree-trimming really following a tradition from the Medieval period, or is the idea purely commercial?

An upside-down Christmas tree. Galeries Lafayette. (Laika ac/CC BY SA 2.0)

Followers of the upside-down Christmas tree practice say that it was a popular way of doing things in in the 12th century in Eastern Europe. Yet it is important to note here, the hanging element was generally just the top of a fir tree – not a huge, heavily decorated tree like you may find in a shopping center or luxury hotel today. In Poland, the top of the tree, or a branch from a fir tree, was hung pointing down from the rafters, usually facing the dinner table, in preparation for the holiday of Wigilia or Wilia. These decorative features were adorned with fruit, nuts, shiny sweets, straw, ribbons, golden pine cones, and other ornaments. An article by The Spruce says that the treats and sweets on the tree could not be eaten until the day after the festivities.

There is a legend that may explain the peculiar practice. The traditional story says Saint Boniface was the first to hang a “Christmas tree” upside-down, in the 8th century. Apparently, Boniface saw pagans preparing to celebrate the winter solstice by sacrificing a young man under an oak tree – a sacred tree in their beliefs. He was angered by their actions and cut the tree down. A fir tree grew in its place and Boniface supposedly decided to hang the inverted tree and use the triangular shape as a tool to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagans while trying to convert them to his religion.

Boniface chops down a cult tree in Hessen, engraving by Bernhard Rode, 1781. (Public Domain)

Some historians say that the tradition of hanging a Christmas tree was still popular in certain European countries as recently as 100 years ago. But the reason had changed by then. Bernd Brunner wrote in his book, Inventing the Christmas Tree, that people living in the 19th century needed the floor space. However, it’s worth mentioning that the tree was right-side up.

It seems the modern tree-hanging practice is meant to essentially serve the same purpose in stores. Dan Loughman, vice president of product development at Roman Incorporated, told NPR in 2005, “By having a tree upside down, you're taking a very small footprint on the floor, and you're placing all the ornaments at eye level. And then the retailers can move their store products around the bottom of the tree or on shelves, you know, just behind it.”

An upside-down Christmas tree is suspended from the ceiling at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel in Richmond, B.C. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

The tradition of putting up Christmas trees may be tied to the German reformer Martin Luther, who popularized the use of the Christmas tree in 1605 after being inspired by the beauty of the stars on Christmas Eve night. Pine trees also used to have a place in ‘miracle plays’ that were performed in front of cathedrals at Christmas time –the Church eventually banned the practice, but the tradition of having a decorated Christmas tree has continued.

Top Image: An upside-down Christmas tree. Source: This is Why I’m Broke

By Alicia McDermott

Pagan Gods and the naming of the days

Ancient Origins

We speak the names of the gods on a daily basis and most people do not even realise it. Every day of the week, religious and non-religious people alike follow the old pagan tradition of giving thanks to the gods of old.

 In ancient Mesopotamia, astrologers assigned each day of the week the name of a god. In a culture where days were consumed by religion, it is unsurprising that the days of the week were made in homage to the gods believed to rule the lives of mortals.

 Many centuries later, the Romans, upon beginning to use the seven day week, adopted the names of the week to fit their own gods. These were then adopted by Germanic people who also adjusted the names according to their gods. It is predominantly these Germanic and Norse gods that have lived on today in the days of the week, which are outlined below.

Sunday, as you may be able to guess, is the “Sun’s Day” – the name of a pagan Roman holiday. In many folklore traditions, Sunday was believed to be a lucky day for babies born. Many societies have worshiped the sun and sun-gods. Perhaps the most famous is the Egyptian Sun-god Ra, who was the lord of time.

Monday comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘monandaeg’ which is the “Moon’s Day”. On this day people gave homage to the goddess of the moon. It was believed by ancients that there were three Mondays during the year that were considered to be unlucky: first Monday in April, second in August and last in December.

Tuesday is the first to be named after a Germanic god – Tiu (or Twia) – a god of war and the sky and associated with the Norse god Tyr, who was a defender god in Viking mythology. Tiu is associated with Mars. He is usually shown with only one hand. In the most famous myth about Týr he placed his hand between the jaws of the wolf Fenrir as a mark of good faith while the other gods, pretending to play, bound the wolf. When Fenrir realised he had been tricked he bit off Tyr's hand.

Wednesday means “Woden’s Day” (in Norse, ‘Odin’), the Old Norse’s equivalent to Mercury, who was the messenger to the gods and the Roman god of commerce, travel and science. He was considered the chief god and leader of the wild hunt in Anglo-Saxon mythology, but the name directly translated means “violently insane headship” – not exactly the name of a loving and kind god! Woden was the ruler of Asgard, the hoe of the gods, and is able to shift and change into different forms.

Thursday was “Thor’s Day”, named after the Norse god of thunder and lightning and is the Old Norse equivalent to Jupiter. Thor is often depicted holding a giant hammer and during the 10 th and 11 th centuries when Christians tried to convert the Scandinavians, many wore emblems of Thor’s hammer as a symbol of defiance against the new religion.

Friday is associated with Freya, the wife of Woden and the Norse goddess of love, marriage and fertility, who is equivalent to Venus, the Roman goddess of love.

Lastly, Saturday derives from “Saturn’s Day”, a Roman god associated with wealth, plenty and time. It is the only English week-day still associated with a Roman god, Saturn. The Hebrews called Saturday the "Sabbath", meaning, day of rest. The Bible identifies Saturday as the last day of the week.

The seven-day week originates with in ancient Babylon prior to 600 BC, when time was marked with the lunar cycle, which experienced different seven-day cycles. A millennium later, Emperor Constantine converted Rome to Christianity and standardised the seven-day week across the Empire. Rome may initially have acquired the seven-day week from the mystical beliefs of Babylonian astrologers. But it was the biblical story of creation, God making the Heavens and Earth and resting on the seventh day that will have led the first Christian emperor of Rome to make sure it endured to this day.

By April Holloway

The Story of Sif, Powerful Wife of Norse God Thor

Ancient Origins

The warrior god Thor is well known from Old Norse literature. He has become a popular cultural icon, but his wife seems to be largely forgotten these days. However, Sif was once recognized as an important Norse goddess and a powerful ''neck, which ruled the head''.

 A Goddess of Wheat, Fertility, and Family
Sif is known as a Norse deity whose powerful position was dictated by her marriage. She appears in the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, which are the best known 13th century traditional sources on Norse mthyology.

In these texts, Sif appears as a beautiful woman with long golden hair. She was described as the mother of the goddess Thrúd (meaning ''Might'', a goddess of the storm), and god Ullr (meaning ''The Magnificent'', a god of winter). Researchers suggest that she represented the fields of wheat, which had a golden color similar to her hair.

Since the beginning, Sif was associated with fertility and family caregiving, and she was connected to the rowan tree. Her name means ''relation to marriage''. She may also be represented in the Old English poem Beowulf. The number of references of the goddess suggests that she was very important to the Norse people until at least the early medieval period.

Sif (1909) by John Charles Dollman. (Public Domain)

The Legend of Sif
The story in both Edda's about Sif is similar. She appears in the poem Hárbarðsljóð, of the Poetic Edda, where she meets Thor. They two engage, but Harbaror refuses to ferry Thor to the bay. The action of the poem contains many insults from Thor. Harbaror punishes him by telling him that Sif has a lover. Thor gets angry, but tells his enemy that it's a lie.

Image from The Elder or Poetic Edda. (Public Domain)

In another part, Sif appears in a scene with Loki, another Norse god. It's a scene related to the crystal cup of mead, but also provides an example of Loki’s personality, as the god lies by swearing that Sif had a romance with him.

Sif sleeps while Loki lurks behind in an illustration (1894) by A. Chase. (Public Domain)

In the Prose Edda, Sif appears in the Prologue section and in chapter 31 of Gylfaginning, but also in a few more places. Analysis of these texts reminds one of reading an old alphabet in the dark, but some researchers have made interesting conclusions about her based on these accounts. According to Ellis Davidson, there are some explanations about her position in the pantheon of Norse deities:

''The cult of Thor was linked up with men's habitation and possessions, and with well-being of the family and community. This included the fruitfulness of the fields, and Thor, although pictured primarily as a storm god in the myths, was also concerned with the fertility and preservation of the seasonal round. In our own times, little stone axes from the distant past have been used as fertility symbols and placed by the farmer in the holes made by the drill to receive the first seed of spring. Thor's marriage with Sif of the golden hair, about which we hear little in the myths, seems to be a memory of the ancient symbol of divine marriage between sky god and earth goddess, when he comes to earth in the thunderstorm and the storm brings the rain which makes the fields fertile. In this way Thor, as well as Odin, may be seen to continue the cult of the sky god which was known in the Bronze Age.''

Sif from a Swedish translation of the Edda. (Public Domain)

Thor was her second husband; the first one was the Giant Orvandil. Sif seems to be a similar goddess to Freya, Fjorgyn, Jord and Gefjun. It is likely that the legends about these deities were inspired by each other. She was also sort of a Norse Demeter, who was associated with vegetation on the surface of the earth, as well as fertility.

Moreover, Sif is depicted as a prophetess who knew and could see more than those around her. She was believed to be a goddess who helped others to find solutions and peace in difficult times. It was once tradition for people to bake breads with many grains to honor this goddess and ask for her help.

A Goddess for All Times
Other themes associated with Sif are: kinship, the arts, summer, passion, and the sun. In iconography, her symbols are gold, a beautiful female with golden cascading hair, and the sun. She was an Earth goddess, whose long golden hair was described as shining brighter than the sun.

Sif was also able to dominate the sky with her light. Moreover, during the summer she supposedly liked to make love to Thor beneath the open sky in the fields. Sometimes people would say that if they heard a couple making love in such a place it could have been Sif with Thor, so they didn't disturb them.

The Norse people of Iceland always greet the first day of the summer with much joy and gratitude. It seems that Sif (as an Earth Goddess) played an important role in this celebration.

 In the 19th century, a researcher named Jacob Green wrote about Sif in his works, bringing her back to Scandinavian folklore. Her popularity rose with the resurgence of past folklore and the rise in the importance of old traditions and beliefs. Since Thor's temple has started to become a new reality in Iceland, his wife is also becoming one of the most popular deities of the Norse religion.

Sif became a main character of the Marvel Comics and in the movie Thor by Marvel Studios as well. Her name was also used to name a volcano on the planet Venus – the Sif Mons.

Artwork for the cover of Thor: Son of Asgard 3 (Jun, 2004). Art by Adi Granov. (Fair Use)

Top image: A depiction of the Norse goddess Sif. Source: Journeying to the Goddess

By Natalia Klimczak

May Day

 May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half of a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and neopagan festivals such as Samhain. May Day marks the end of the uncomfortable winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

 As Europe became Christianized the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either changed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were merged with or replaced by new Christian holidays as with Christmas, Easter, and All Saint's Day. In the twentieth century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival again.

Entering an Unknown Pagan Sanctuary: New Discoveries Made at a Roman Site in Israel

Ancient Origins

A team of researchers have finally found the missing link in the ancient Israeli city of Hippos-Sussita. Following discoveries of a large bronze mask of the Greek god Pan and a monumental gate, they were searching for the last piece of evidence to ascertain the era and purpose of the rich site. Through the discovery of a large theater and a bathhouse, they have declared it was almost definitely occupied during peacetime. However, the theater seems to have been used as a space for something other than entertainment - the experts speculate that it could have been a religious center instead.

An Important City During Roman Times
The new discoveries were made during recent excavations in the Hippos-Sussita Excavations Project, a research project conducted by a team from the University of Haifa with partners from all over the globe, at Hippos, overlooking the Sea of Galilee in Northern Israel.

Hippos Saddle Ridge - December 16 by University of Haifa Photogrammetry Lab on Sketchfab

The Roman amphitheater they uncovered leaves no doubt about the site’s era. As Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the University of Haifa and leader of the Hippos Excavations Project, revealed,

"The excavations outside the city over the past few years are falling into place like in a detective story.” He went on to explain, “First we found the mask of Pan, then the monumental gate leading to what we began to assume was a large public compound - a sanctuary. And now, this year, we find a public bathhouse and theater in the same location, both facilities that in the Roman period could be associated with the god of medicine Asclepius or with gods of nature such as Dionysus and Pan.”

Early excavations of the Roman theater. There is a semicircular passage between the lower and upper seating arrangements (praencinctio) and an entrance to a vaulted corridor (vomitorium). (M. Eisenberg)

As previously reported on Ancient Origins, the team of archaeologists unearthed a large bronze mask of the Greek god of forests and shepherds (Pan) while excavating a catapult armory outside Hippos-Sussita in 2015. They suggested that it dates to the Pax Romana, a time of peace in the Roman Empire.

Dr. Michael Eisenberg holding up the bronze mask of Pan. (Michael Eisenberg)

The Missing Link is Found
Despite all the evidence, there was a missing link that didn’t allow the researchers to state the site’s exact era with certainty: The Roman Theater. As Eisenberg described,

“No self-respecting Roman city in this period could allow itself to remain without a theater. It’s simply unthinkable that any Roman polis could have existed without a theater.”

Eisenberg also added that Dr. Arthur Segal, leader of the Hippos project for many years and a top expert on the theaters in the Roman East, was the one who insisted that there must be a theater in the city. As one can easily understand, its discovery gives a new meaning to the project and the reassurance local researchers needed to verify their theories and speculations.

Dr. A. Iermolin (standing) and Dr. M. Eisenberg during the excavation of the first vaulted passage (vomitorium). (A. Nakaryakov)

Religious Ceremonies
Instead of Entertainment However, Haaretz reports that all the findings so far have led the experts to speculate that the theater was more likely used for religious purposes than a place of entertainment. As Eisenberg said,

“What is even more exciting for the researchers than the discovery of the theater is the fact that they may have uncovered an expansive sanctuary outside the city walls. Dionysus, the god of wine, is associated with change and the loss of identity, and accordingly, with the masks used in the theater.”

Additionally, Eisenberg explained that the gate, which is almost unearthed, probably bore the bronze mask of Pan that was found in one of the gate towers, “All these findings suggest that this was a large sanctuary outside the city – something that completely changes what we knew about Hippos and the surrounding area, until now.”

Hippos (Sussita) Excavations - A Portal for Pan by mayzenb on Sketchfab

Hippos (Sussita) Excavations - A Portal for Pan by mayzenb on Sketchfab

He makes sure to note, however, that all this is just a hypothesis for the moment, and only further research – and possibly more findings – will clear things up.

Top Image: A view of 2016 excavations the archaeological site at Hippos. Source: Hippos-Sussita Excavations Project

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Designs revealed for Iceland's first pagan temple in 1,000 years

By Matt Finn
Fox News

For the first time in 1,000 years a new pagan temple is being constructed in Iceland’s capital city that will house a shrine to the Norse gods Thor, Odin and Frigg.
“We see this as so much part of our heritage,” said Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, high priest of the Asatru religion.

 

The temple is ten years in the making and is currently under construction. The 4,000 square foot facility will overlook the Icelandic capital and be completed in 2016. It will give Icelanders the opportunity to publicly worship at the shrine to gods.  

“Some people love the idea, they really want to go back to the Viking era,” Hilmarsson said.
Iceland was originally founded by pagan settlers. Asatru remained the sole religion of the country for over 100 years until it gave way to Christianity in the year 1000. Some Icelanders experienced religious conflicts with northern European countries.
“Some Icelanders converted to Christianity, but it was a business deicision because some business owners would not trade with pagans,” Hilmarsson said.
The high priest tells Foxnews.com Norse paganism experienced a revival in Iceland beginning in the 1970’s that’s paved the way for the new temple.
The temple will serve as a place of worship but it won’t be a lively or organized celebration.
“It’s more like coming together, sanctifying the movement, having a sacred space,” Hilmarsson said. “More close to Hindu ceremonies.”
Hilmarsson said Thor, Ordin and Frigg are important deities in the religion. Thor is the protector of mankind, Ordin is the god of wisdom and poetry, and Frigg is the goddess of domestic and love.
If names like Thor ring a bell, it might be because some Asatru gods have recently seen a surge in America thanks to Marvel’s blockbuster films about them.
“There is a skewed vision because the Marvel version is like a Shakespeare,” Hilmarsson said. “We certainly enjoy them but don’t see them as religious in any sense.
The priest said the gods are viewed as mystical and symbolic. Most modern worshipers don’t consider them to be living beings that are capable of flying down from the clouds.
“We don’t tend to be literal in our beliefs in Iceland, not even the Christian ones,” Hilmarsson said.
The Asatru religion might describe itself as poetic--but if some Christians, especially those in the Western hemisphere, were to take a literal look at the new altar to pagan gods they might consider it satanic. Hilmarsson says Norse is the opposite of devil worship.
“There is nothing remotely satanic or demonic in this,” Hilmarsson said. “This is a very gentle movement on how to be a good friend, good to your family and an honorable person.”
Hlynur Gudjonsson, the Consul General and Trade Commissioner of Iceland’s consulate in New York tells Foxnews.com that most American’s might not understand what Asatru is—but those who do realize it’s a peaceful practice.  
“I’ve never met anyone who has anything negative to say about it,” Gudjonsson said.