As the pioneers of modern paganism die, fears grow that their wisdom will be lost

THANK THE GODS THEY ALL WROTE BOOKS

Today’s young Wiccans and witches tune in to social media for community.

(Image from Pixabay/Creative Commons)

August 1, 2024
By Heather Greene



(RNS) — The contemporary pagan community, unlike many traditional religions, has had direct access to its living founders for decades. Now many of those pioneers, born in the 1940s, are “crossing the veil,” a common pagan phrase. And their stories may be going with them as interest in their legacy wanes among younger generations in a changing world.

“Each death of old friends and contemporaries feels like another bit of my soul is being ripped away,” said Oberon Zell in an email interview with Religion News Service.

Zell, who now resides in North Carolina, co-founded the pagan Church of All Worlds in 1962. He is a well-known author and a long-respected figure in the pagan movement since its inception.

“We felt like pioneers, venturing into unknown territory of our imaginations,” Zell said. “We’d grown up as bright kids, often bullied.”

He believes that this “peer disdain” bred their creativity and courage to be “fearless.”

Zell’s group eventually mingled with the emerging Wiccan community, occultists and other magical practitioners. Their mission, he said, was “to make the world safe for people like us, and I believe we succeeded.”


Oberon Zell. (Courtesy photo)

Today, those young pioneers are now elders in their 70s and 80s, and every year sees the loss of a few more.

Wiccan priestess Mary Elizabeth Witt, known as Lady Pythia, died in June near the summer solstice, a widely celebrated pagan seasonal holiday honoring the longest day. “Trust her to wait for the brightest light to see her off on her journey,” her sister said.

While not as nationally known as Zell, Pythia was a key player in a largely decentralized, growing religious movement. She was co-founder of the Ohio-based Coven of the Floating Spring and became a trusted voice and leader within the Covenant of the Goddess, a national organization for Wiccans and witches.

RELATED: Rabbi David Wolpe’s pagans aren’t the ones I know

This year also saw the loss of author and Wiccan high priest Ed Fitch, who became a national figure in those early years. Among his many achievements, Fitch spoke publicly in support of witchcraft and was editor of one of the first U.S. witchcraft magazines.

Derrick Land had the “rare opportunity” to meet Fitch near the end of the author’s life. “It is different to have a (live) conversation with such a person” than just reading their books or seeing them on television.

Derrick Land. (Courtesy photo)

Land is the high priest of Shadow Wolf Coven, a Wiccan group in Austin, Texas. He is also the co-founder of Austin Witchfest, a popular pagan event held every April.

Being able to “tap the shoulder of an elder is priceless,” Land said.

Those trailblazers, as he calls them, were not only birthing a new religion, but were also activists, and Land urges his own students to never “lose sight” of that legacy.

“We are able to practice safely because of them,” he said. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

Land, who considers himself a xennial — a person born at the cusp between Generation X and millennials — acknowledged that today’s young pagans are far less impressed with those trailblazers than he, and he is not alone in that observation.

Paganism has evolved since Land began his pagan journey in the 1990s. There is a greater diversity of practice and less dependency on in-person training. More pagans are solitary, or practicing entirely by themselves. A decentralized movement has become even more so.

One main factor, according to our interviewees: social media.

Beckie-Ann Galentine, a millennial in Virginia who first found a witchcraft community through Tumblr, grew up in a rural community in Pennsylvania with no access to in-person groups. She read “anything she could find,” with no guidance on what was authentic.

When she discovered Tumblr’s magical community, she was hooked, describing its members as “breathing their authentic self.”

But there were pitfalls, Galentine said.

Beckie-Ann Galentine. (Courtesy photo)

“I had no conception of misinformation,” she explained, and the digital community eventually proved to be largely “driven by vanity.” The witch aesthetic was more important than spiritual practice. That was 2006.

“It was a crash course,” Galentine said, “on getting exposed to people, rather than having a deliberate goal.”

She believes that her early learning experience, from books to Tumblr, is a “perfect example” of what happens when you don’t have guidance from elders.

“Social media influencers are not a substitute for an elder or mentor,” Galentine said, recognizing the irony. Galentine has since become a popular social media influencer, known as My Bloody Galentine.

In the 2000s, she didn’t know the early pioneers existed. Very few elders were active online and, if they were, their voices were often drowned out by the “loudest social media voices.”

When you “only look at the beacons” on social media, Galentine warned, you miss the deeply personal connections that form from in-person connections.

“I don’t want to say it’s not possible,” she added, but without having guidance or a personal community connection, “it makes (learning) way messier than it needs to be.” She points to her own experience.

Galentine, however, stressed the need for discernment in choosing whom to follow. Some teachings are “deeply problematic,” she said, while others are simply no longer current in a changing pagan world.

Galentine, now a leader herself, typically directs young pagans to relatively new authors who connect well to the younger generation, but she still recommends the classic “Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft” — first published in 1986 and often referred to as “Buckland’s Big Blue” — as “a point of perspective,” she said.

“It may not make sense. But start there,” Galentine advises.

The author, Raymond Buckland, originally from London, is one of the most well-known pagan trailblazers and was instrumental in bringing Wicca to American shores. He died in 2017.

Discernment, as Galentine described, has since become central to the social media engagement of paganism’s youngest representatives, according to Luma Notti, a digital media professional and Gen Z witch in Minnesota.

RELATED: As witchcraft becomes a multibillion-dollar business, practitioners’ connection to the natural world is changing

Luma Notti. (Photo by Lilly St. Laurent)

She believes that this critical skill is fueling, in part, the waning interest in the pioneers. “Many Gen Z folks look critically into witchcraft, New Age beliefs, politics and consumerism,” Notti said.

They are having “real conversations about spiritual psychosis and toxic spirituality,” she explained. “More than half of them are cautious about brand authenticity.” Just being a famous pagan doesn’t impress them much.

For Gen Z, she added, “consumerism, colonization and appropriation are intertwined.” And many of these concerns, along with others, are absent from early pagan teachings.

The digital media experience of Gen Z pagans, overall, is vastly different from that of millennials like Galentine. Gen Z members understand the concept of misinformation and other pitfalls because they grew up with it, Notti said.

“There is a lot of research on the loss of identity and subcultures of Gen Z because of being raised in the digital era and experiencing coming of age during lockdown,” she added. “Many Gen Zers are just trying to survive.”

Pushing back against stereotypes, Notti said: “Millennial and Gen X witches have asserted their presence (online) and already have a particular perception of Gen Z witches and spiritual practitioners.”

It isn’t all aesthetics, she insisted. Notti used the phrase “low key” to describe the trend in Gen Z pagan practices.

“We don’t want to make our practice our entire personality,” she explained. They are unconcerned with labeling how they practice, Notti added. But they still do seek community and often online.

But not always. Land said he has never had a problem finding new students for his Wiccan group and always sees young people enjoying Austin Witchfest.

Buckland’s “Big Blue” decades later still remains an educational staple.

So what does Zell think of all of this, decades after the movement began?

He sees no problem with any of it. “The diffusion at the periphery (of the pagan community) is the main indication” of the pioneers’ success, he said, proudly.

“It’s exactly as I envisioned and hoped it would be,” he said. “We have gone from a scary, paranoid, isolated and persecuted minority to an interesting mainstream phenomenon.”

All these decades later, Zell is still invited to speak at festivals, conferences and other events.

“It’s like having Grandpa at Thanksgiving dinner,” he said. “I’m delighted to see new generations of pagans coming in to take the place of those who are passing away.”

 

The Decline of Summer Festivals

How the Nuclear Family, Globalisation of Food Production, and International Trade and Travel has changed our relationship with Nature

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / September 7th, 2024

Bonfire Night, St. John’s Eve by Jack Butler Yeats (Ireland)

Traditional summer festivals have always revolved around the solstice and bonfires on the feast of St. John (24 June) in many countries. Maypole dancing was also an important aspect of some rural and agricultural summer events, and other summer festivals like Ferragosto (15 August), involved celebrating the early fruits of the harvest and resting after months of hard work. The summer solstice was seen as the height of the powers of the sun which has been observed since the Neolithic era as many ancient monuments throughout Eurasia and the Americas aligned with sunrise or sunset at this time. In the ancient Roman world, the traditional date of the summer solstice was 24 June, and “Marcus Terentius Varro wrote in the 1st century BCE that Romans saw this as the middle of summer.”

Saint John’s Fire with festivities in front of a Christian calvary shrine in Brittany, 1893

“Ferragosto (Feriae Augusti (‘Festivals [Holidays] of the Emperor Augustus’) were celebrated in Roman times on August 1st “with horse racing, parties and lavish floral decorations. Inspired by the pagan festival for Conso [Consus], the Roman god of land and fertility.”  The pagan Italian deity, Consus, who was a partner of the goddess of abundance, Ops, is believed to have come from condere (“to store away”), and so was probably the god of grain storage. The holiday of the Emperor Augustus was celebrated during the month of August with events based around the harvest and the end of agricultural work, and involved the rural community who were able to take a break from the back-breaking work of the previous weeks. In the 7th century, the Catholic Church in Italy adopted the holiday but changed the date of celebration from August 1st to August 15, to coincide with the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary so as “to impose a Christian ideology onto the pre-existing celebration”.

Therefore, historically the midsummer festivities ranged from mid June to mid August as the strength of the sun went into decline and the fruits of the harvest were beginning to come in.

However, compared to the other seasonal festivals, such as Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, which have a very strong presence in the media and in the shops, but not the summer festivals. Why is this? Except for commercial music and arts festivals, there are no major commercialised products associated with the historical summer agricultural and fertility rites. For example, Christmas’s rebirth is associated with Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and the giving of presents. Easter’s new life festival is celebrated with dyed eggs, chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies. Halloween’s reminders of death and the departed are celebrated with ‘trick or treating’, pumpkins, and bonfires.

In all these cases the combination of commercialisation and tradition has seen reciprocal relationships as one feeds off the other. The globalised media and cinema indulge in the myths of each season creating updated versions of their traditions that result in new economic and cultural products; for example, the growing of pumpkins in Ireland to replace the original turnip lanterns that the Irish brought to the USA, or new movies based on new twists on the myths of Christmas. These aspects keep nature-based pagan festivals alive in the mind of the public throughout most of the year.

Not so with summer. In general there seems to be no particular object or tradition to exploit or commercialise, or at least not yet. There are various possible reasons.

The Feast of Saint John by Jules Breton (1875).

In the last 100 years or so we have seen a societal change from the community to the nuclear family. The general increase in wealth since the 1960s has resulted in mass international travel for summer holidays and tourism. The overall result of these changes in family, lifestyle, and the growth of non-agricultural occupations has seen people becoming more and more disconnected from the land and the agricultural traditions associated with farming and harvests. This was combined with the monopolisation and globalisation of agricultural production, and the international trade of agricultural goods.

Despite all of this, there are midsummer traditions that are persisting, although with a much lower profile than the other seasonal festivities.

What were the summer pagan traditions? Probably the strongest of the summer traditions is the bonfires of the feast of St. John. In the 13th century CE, a Christian monk of Lilleshall Abbey in England, wrote:

In the worship of St John, men waken at even, and maken three manner of fires: one is clean bones and no wood, and is called a bonfire; another is of clean wood and no bones, and is called a wakefire, for men sitteth and wake by it; the third is made of bones and wood, and is called St John’s Fire.

In Ireland, St John’s Eve bonfires are still lit on hilltops in various parts of the country. According to Marion McGarry:

Since the distant past, bonfires lit by humans at midsummer greeted the sun at the height of its powers in the sky. The accompanying ritual celebrations were primal, restorative, linked with fertility and growth. Midsummer and the time around St John’s Day have been traditionally celebrated throughout Europe.

Midsummer festival bonfire (Mäntsälä, Finland)

The bonfires were associated with purification and luck. Every aspect of the fire was important and taken into account: the flames, the smoke, the hot embers, and even the ash:

Jumping through the bonfire was a common custom. A farmer might do this to ensure a bigger yield for his crops or livestock, while engaged couples would jump together as a sort of pre-wedding purification ritual. Single people jumped through in the hope it would bring them a future spouse. Finally, the fire was raked over and any cattle not yet at the summer pasture were driven through the smouldering smoke and ashes to ensure good luck. The remaining ash was scattered over crops or could be mixed into building materials to encourage good luck in a building. The ash was considered curative too, and some mixed it with water and drank as medicine. Embers were brought into the house as protective talismans.

It was reported that John Millington Synge (playwright) and his friend, Jack B. Yeats (artist and illustrator) attended a St. John’s Eve celebration on a visit to County Mayo, Ireland, in 1905. At first, “they had been saddened by the depressed state of the area, but then Synge is quoted as saying: “…the impression one gets of the whole life is not a gloomy one. Last night was St. John’s Eve, and bonfires – a relic of Druidical rites – were lighted all over the country, the largest of all being in the town square of Belmullet, where a crowd of small boys shrieked and cheered and threw up firebrands for hours together.” Yeats remembered a little girl in the crowd, in an ecstasy of pleasure and dread, clutching Synge by the hand and standing close in his shadow until the fiery games were over.”

Bonfires were lit to honor the sun and to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southward again. They were “both a celebration of and devotion to the natural world.”

Maypoles were erected either in May or at midsummer as part of European festivals and usually involved dancing around the maypole by members of the community. It is not known exactly what the symbolism of dancing around the maypole is but most theories revolve around pagan ideas; e.g., Germanic reverence for sacred trees or as an ornament to bring good luck to the community. In England:

the dance is performed by pairs of boys and girls (or men and women) who stand alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon. They weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other and the ribbons are woven together around the pole until they meet at the base.

St. George’s Kermis with the Dance around the Maypole

When the church authorities could not co-opt pagan festivals like Ferragosto they banned them. For example, Kupala Night is one of the major folk holidays of the Eastern Slavs that coincides with the Christian feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and involved activities “such as gathering herbs and flowers and decorating people, animals, and houses with them; entering water, bathing, or dousing with water and sending garlands on water; lighting fires, dancing, singing, and jumping over fire; and hunting witches and scaring them away”.

In medieval Russia, these rituals and games were considered demonic and the hegumen [head] Pamphil of the Yelizarov Convent (1505) wrote to the Pskov governor and authorities describing them thus in the Epistle of Pamphilus of Yelizarov Monastery:

For when the feast day of the Nativity of Forerunner itself arrives, then on this holy night nearly the entire city runs riot and in the villages they are possessed by drums and flutes and by the strings of the guitars and by every type of unsuitable satanic music, with the clapping of hands and dances, and with the women and the maidens and with the movements of the heads and with the terrible cry from their mouths: all of those songs are devilish and obscene, and curving their backs and leaping and jumping up and down with their legs; and right there do men and youths suffer great temptation, right there do they leer lasciviously in the face of the insolence of the women and the maidens, and there even occurs depravation for married women and perversion for the maidens.

Couple jumping over a bonfire in Pyrohiv, Ukraine on Kupala Night

In another commentary from Stoglav (chapter 92, a collection of decisions of the Stoglav Synod of 1551) it was written:

And furthermore many of the children of Orthodox Christians, out of simple ignorance, engage in Hellenic devilish practices, a variety of games and clapping of hands in the cities and in the villages against the festivities of the Nativity of the Great John Prodome; and on the night of that same feast day and for the whole day until night-time, men and women and children in the houses and spread throughout the streets make a ruckus in the water with all types of games and much revelry and with satanic singing and dancing and gusli [ancient Russian instrument plucked in the style of a zither] and in many other unseemly manners and ways, and even in a state of drunkenness.

However, the importance of festive holidays lies in their value for reconnecting with family, friends and community. Michele L. Brennan examines the psychological aspects of traditional celebrations:

Holiday traditions are essentially ritualistic behaviors that nurture us and our relationships. They are primal parts of us, which have survived since the dawn of man. Traditional celebrations of holidays has been around as long as recorded history. Holiday traditions are an important part to building a strong bond between family, and our community. They give us a sense of belonging and a way to express what is important to us. They connect us to our history and help us celebrate generations of family. Children crave the comfort and security that comes with traditions and predictability. This takes away the anxiety of the unknown and unpredictable.

Maypole dance  during Victoria Day in Quebec, Canada, 24 May 1934

The seasonal festivals were based on the very real fear and anxiety of human survival, focusing on the means of sustenance: agricultural production. The vagaries of weather patterns meant that there was never any guarantee that fruits and crops would survive until successful harvesting.

While much of this anxiety was quelled by changes in the agricultural production methods of the twentieth century. However, now, in the twenty-first century, there is an ever growing recognition that modern agricultural systems are untenable, and that a new emphasis on alternative and sustainable food growing practices is essential:

Increasingly, food growers around the world are recognizing that modern agricultural systems are unsustainable. Practices such as monocultures and excessive tilling degrade the soil and encourage pests and diseases. The artificial fertilizers and pesticides that farmers use to address these problems pollute the soil and water and harm the many organisms upon which successful agriculture depends, from pollinating bees and butterflies to the farm workers who plant, tend and harvest our crops. As the soil deteriorates, it is able to hold less water, causing farmers to strain already depleted water reservoirs.

However, this in contrast with technocratic elites who have a very different perspective on the future of food, as Colin Todhunter writes:

It involves a shift towards a ‘one world agriculture’ under the control of agritech and the data giants, which is to be based on genetically engineered seeds, laboratory created products that resemble food, ‘precision’ and ‘data-driven’ agriculture and farming without farmers, with the entire agrifood chain, from field (or lab) to retail, being governed by monopolistic e-commerce platforms determined by artificial intelligence systems and algorithms.

While science and education has contributed to the changes in beliefs associated with ancient traditions revolving around purification and fertility, the psychological aspects of traditional holidays remain important. Furthermore, the growing awareness of the importance of good organic food is gradually competing with the monopolistic trends of globalist agritech.

The observance of traditional festivals, with their emphasis on nature and the annual cycle of seasonal changes focus attention on the here-and-now, on living according to our means and resources, and is a far cry from the teleological ideologies of patriarchal religion. The Christian church diverted people’s attention away from a practical, scientific cosmology towards their own heroes and saints who provided individualistic examples of concern for one’s own destiny after death and ‘judgement’ in the far future, as being more important than our present relationship with nature.

Over the centuries this process formed a gradual alienation of people away from nature itself, helped along now by the constant monopolisation of and the growth of agritech giants.

Dancing around the midsummer pole, Årsnäs in Sweden, 1969.

Instead of respecting the land, farmers use intensive farming to maximize yields, using more and more fertilizer and pesticides, depleting the nutrients of the soil and causing desertification to spread. When I was growing up, local annual horticultural festivals and competitions emphasised diversity, production over consumption, and quality food produced locally. Traditional festivals, with their focus on sun cycles and the seasons, complemented and structured our relationship with nature, as well as work and rest, life and death.

It is necessary to re-focus our attention back on this life, on how we plan to organise our basic sustenance into the future, and in a sustainable way, before others turn nature into a desert, a dust bowl of gigantic proportions, in their constant, remorseless drive to convert the earth into profit.

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. Read other articles by Caoimhghin.

Solstices brought Mayan communities together, using monuments shaped by science and religion

Structures aligned with solar events served various purposes: science, farming, religion and even politics.

An “E-Group” construction at the ancient Maya site of Caracol, in present-day Belize. Gerardo Aldana

June 25, 2024
By Gerardo Aldana

(The Conversation) — K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil knew his history.

For 11 generations, the Mayan ruler’s dynasty had ruled Copan, a city-state near today’s border between Honduras and Guatemala. From the fifth century C.E. into the seventh century, scribes painted his ancestors’ genealogies into manuscripts and carved them in stone monuments throughout the city.

Around 650, one particular piece of architectural history appears to have caught his eye.

Centuries before, village masons built special structures for public ceremonies to view the Sun – ceremonies that were temporally anchored to the solstices, like the one that will occur June 20, 2024. Building these types of architectural complexes, which archaeologists call “E-Groups,” had largely fallen out of fashion by K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s time.

But aiming to realize his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have found inspiration in these astronomical public spaces, as I’ve written about in my research on ancient Mayan hieroglyphically recorded astronomy.

A section of the ancient Maya ‘Madrid Codex,’ including information on astronomy.
Andrew Dalby/Wikimedia Commons

K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s innovations are a reminder that science changes through discovery or invention – but also occasionally for personal or political purposes, particularly in the ancient world.
Viewing the horizon

E-Groups were first constructed in the Mayan region as early as 1000 B.C.E. The site of Ceibal, on the banks of the Pasión River in central Guatemala, is one such example. There, residents built a long, plastered platform bordering the eastern edge of a large plaza. Three structures were arranged along a north-south axis atop this platform, with roofs tall enough to rise above the rainforest floral canopy.

Within the center of the plaza, to the west of the platform, they built a radially symmetric pyramid. From there, observers could follow sunrise behind and between the structures on the platform over the course of the year.

At one level, the earliest E-Group complexes served very practical purposes. In Preclassic villages where these complexes have been found, like Ceibal, populations of several hundred to a few thousand lived on “milpa” or “slash-and-burn” farming techniques practices still maintained in pueblos throughout Mesoamerica today. Farmers chop down brush vegetation, then burn it to fertilize the soil. This requires careful attention to the rainy season, which was tracked in ancient times by following the position of the rising Sun at the horizon.

Most of the sites in the Classic Mayan heartland, however, are located in flat, forested landscapes with few notable features along the horizon. Only a green sea of the floral canopy meets the eye of an observer standing on a tall pyramid.



A small pyramid in the ancient Mayan city of Copan.
Wirestock/iStock via Getty Images Plus

By punctuating the horizon, the eastern structures of E-Group complexes could be used to mark the solar extremes. Sunrise behind the northernmost structure of the eastern platform would be observed on the summer solstice. Sunrise behind the southernmost structure marked the winter solstice. The equinoxes could be marked halfway between, when the Sun rose due east.

Scholars are still debating key factors of these complexes, but their religious significance is well attested. Caches of finely worked jade and ritual pottery reflect a cosmology oriented around the four cardinal directions, which may have coordinated with the E-Group’s division of the year.
Fading knowledge

K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s citizenry, however, would have been less attuned to direct celestial observations than their ancestors.

By the seventh century, Mayan political organization had changed significantly. Copan had grown to as many as 25,000 residents, and agricultural technologies also changed to keep up. Cities of the Classic period practiced multiple forms of intensive agriculture that relied on sophisticated water management strategies, buffering the need to meticulously follow the horizon movement of the Sun.

E-Group complexes continued to be built into the Classic period, but they were no longer oriented to sunrise, and they served political or stylistic purposes rather than celestial views.

Such a development, I think, resonates today. People pay attention to the changing of the seasons, and they know when the summer solstice occurs thanks to a calendar app on their phones. But they probably don’t remember the science: how the tilt of the Earth and its path around the Sun make it appear as though the Sun itself travels north or south along the eastern horizon.
United through ritual

During the mid-seventh century, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil had developed ambitious plans for his city – and astronomy provided one opportunity to help achieve them.

He is known today for his extravagant burial chamber, exemplifying the success he eventually achieved. This tomb is located in the heart of a magnificent structure, fronted by the “Hieroglyphic Stairway”: a record of his dynasty’s history that is one of the largest single inscriptions in ancient history.


Stela M and the Hieroglyphic Stairway at the archeological site of Copan.
Peter Andersen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Eying opportunities to transform Copan into a regional power, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil looked for alliances beyond his local nobility, and he reached out to nearby villages.

Over the past century, several scholars, including me, have investigated the astronomical component to his plan. It appears that K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil commissioned a set of stone monuments or “stelae,” positioned within the city and in the foothills of the Copan Valley, which tracked the Sun along the horizon.

Like E-Group complexes, these monuments engaged the public in solar observations. Taken together, the stelae created a countdown to an important calendric event, orchestrated by the Sun.

Back in the 1920s, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley noted that from Stela 12, to the east of the city, one could witness the Sun set behind Stela 10, on a foothill to the west, twice each year. Half a century later, archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni recognized that these two sunsets defined 20-day intervals relative to the equinoxes and the zenith passage of the Sun, when shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days is an important interval in the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the length of a “month” in the solar year.

My own research showed that the dates on several stelae also commemorate some of these 20-day interval events. In addition, they all lead up to a once-every-20-year event called a “katun end.”


The altar from Quirigua, displayed in the San Diego Museum of Man.
Daderot/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil celebrated this katun end, setting his plans for regional hegemony in motion at Quirigua, a growing, influential city some 30 miles away. A round altar there carries an image of him, commemorating his arrival. The hieroglyphic text tells us that K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil “danced” at Quirigua, cementing an alliance between the two cities.

In other words, K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil’s “solar stelae” did more than track the Sun. The monuments brought communities together to witness astronomical events for shared cultural and religious experiences, reaching across generations.

Coming together to appreciate the natural cycles that make life on Earth possible is something that – I hope – will never fade with fashion.

(Gerardo Aldana, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

UNESCO wants to add Stonehenge to list of endangered heritage sites

Paris (AFP) – The UN's cultural organisation said Monday it recommended adding Stonehenge, the renowned prehistoric site in England, to its world heritage in danger list, in what would be seen as an embarrassment for London.

Issued on: 25/06/2024

Stonehenge in southwest England -- carved and constructed at a time when there were no metal tools -- symbolises Britain's semi-mythical pre-historic period, and has spawned countless legends 

© William EDWARDS / AFP

The site has been in the UN organisation's sights because of British government plans to construct a controversial road tunnel near the world heritage site in southwestern England.

In a written decision seen by AFP, the World Heritage Committee recommended that Stonehenge be added to the UN body's heritage in danger list "with a view to mobilising international support".

The decision will have to be voted upon by the member states of the World Heritage Committee at a meeting in New Delhi in July.

One diplomat told AFP that the decision will likely be approved.

Stonehenge has had UNESCO world heritage status since 1986.

Placement on the UN body's heritage in danger list is seen as a dishonour by some countries.

Last July the British government approved the construction of a controversial road tunnel near Stonehenge despite efforts by campaigners to halt the £1.7 billion ($2.2 billion) project.

The diplomat pointed out that London had decided to approve the project "despite repeated warnings from the World Heritage Committee since 2017."

The planned tunnel is intended to ease congestion on an existing main road to southwest England that gets especially busy during the peak holiday periods.

Experts have warned of "permanent, irreversible harm" to the area.

Druids have held protests against the tunnel at a site they consider sacred and where they celebrate the summer and winter solstice -- the longest and shortest days of the year.

Built in stages between around 3,000 and 2,300 BCE, Stonehenge is one of the world's most important prehistoric megalithic monuments in terms of its size, sophisticated layout and architectural precision.

UNESCO runs a list of sites with World Heritage status around the world, a prestigious title that countries compete to bestow on their most famous natural and man-made locations.

A listing can help boost tourism -- but it comes with obligations to protect the site.

The port city of Liverpool in northwest England lost its World Heritage status for its docks in 2021 after UNESCO experts concluded that new real estate developments in the city had taken too much of a toll on its historical fabric.

© 2024 AFP

Stonehenge not visibly damaged by protest paint. It’s clean and ready to rock the solstice.

 Revelers gather at the ancient stone circle Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, near Salisbury, England, June 21, 2023. Summer kicks off in the Northern Hemisphere once again with the summer solstice

By Brian Melley - Associated Press - Thursday, June 20, 2024

LONDON — Stonehenge monuments that have stood for thousands of years appear unscathed after climate protesters were arrested for spraying orange paint on them, an official said Thursday.

Workers cleaned the stones and the roughly 4,500-year-old monument was visibly undamaged, said Nick Merriman, the chief executive of English Heritage.

“It’s difficult to understand and we’re deeply saddened,” Merriman told BBC Radio 4. “It’s vandalism to one of the world’s most celebrated ancient monuments.”

The UNESCO World Heritage Site site reopened and was expected to host thousands of revelers celebrating the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, early Friday.

Stonehenge was built on a windswept plain in southern England in stages starting 5,000 years ago. Its origin and purpose remain somewhat of a mystery though the stone circle aligns with the summer solstice sunrise and winter solstice sunset, drawing crowds of spiritualists, druids and sun worshippers.

A 73-year-old man and 21-year-old woman were released on bail Thursday after being arrested a day earlier on suspicion of criminal damage, damaging an ancient monument and deterring a person from engaging in a lawful activity.

The climate change activism group Just Stop Oil took responsibility for the act Wednesday and released video showing a man it identified as Rajan Naidu blast a fog of orange from a fire extinguisher at one of the vertical stones.

People gathered at the site could be heard yelling “stop” and one person intervened, running up to Naidu and grabbing his arm. As the person struggled to pull him away from the monument, another man joined the tussle and and wrestled the paint can free.

The second protester, identified as Niamh Lynch, 21, managed to spray three stones before she was stopped.

Just Stop Oil said the paint was made of cornstarch and would dissolve in the rain.

Merriman said experts cleaned the orange powder from the stones because they were concerned about how it might react to water.

The publicity stunt was among a long line of disruptive acts by Just Stop Oil to draw attention to the climate crisis. The protests have halted sporting events, sullied famous works of art and caused traffic jams. The acts have led to convictions, jail terms and widespread criticism.

The Stonehenge demonstration was swiftly condemned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who called it a “disgraceful act of vandalism.” His main opponent in the election next month, Labour leader Keir Starmer, called the group “pathetic” and said the damage was “outrageous.”

The group struck again Friday when it took credit for spray painting private jets at an airport outside London. Two women were arrested.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Ti

Just Stop Oil activists paint Stonehenge orange; two arrested 

WANKERS


“It’s time for us to think about what our civilization will leave behind -- what is our legacy?” Niamh Lynch, an Oxford University student, said. “Standing inert for generations works well for stones -- not climate policy.” Photo courtesy Just Stop Oil


June 19 (UPI) -- Two British climate change activists from the group Just Stop Oil on Wednesday were taken into custody after spray-painting the ancient site at Stonehenge, the prehistoric megalithic structure, the color orange to protest the country's ongoing use of fossil fuels.

The local Wiltshire Police confirmed two arrests of Rajan Naidu, 73, and Niamh Lynch, 21, at the ancient Stonehenge site in southern England roughly 88 miles, southwest of the country's capital London.

"At around noon, we responded to a report that orange paint had been sprayed on some of the stones by two suspects," the Wiltshire police said in a statement. "Officers attended the scene and arrested two people on suspicion of damaging the ancient monument. Our inquiries are ongoing."

The vandalism to the ancient site came as thousands are expected to descend on the area the next day Thursday for the summer solstice, the earliest in 228 years since 1796.

"It's time for us to think about what our civilization will leave behind -- what is our legacy?" Lynch, an Oxford University student, said. "Standing inert for generations works well for stones -- not climate policy."

Just Stop Oil said the orange paint was made of cornstarch, "which will wash away in the rain, but the urgent need for effective government action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate and ecological crisis will not," the group posted on X along with a video of Lynch and Naidu getting arrested.

Both Britain's major political party leaders condemned the group's actions as the country is barely two weeks out from a general election which the current conservative government is widely viewed as likely to lose.

"This is a disgraceful act of vandalism to one of the U.K.'s and the world's oldest and most important monuments," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on X.

It came nearly a week after the Labor Party's manifesto recommitted Britain to ending all future oil and gas licenses if Labor wins the July 4 parliamentary election, as many have surmised it will, but Just Stop Oil contends the Labor's plan does not go far enough.

"The U.K.'s government in waiting has committed to enacting Just Stop Oil's original demand of 'no new oil and gas,'" a Just Stop Oil spokesperson said. "However, we all know this is not enough."

"Continuing to burn coal, oil and gas will result in the death of millions. We have to come together to defend humanity or we risk everything," Just Stop Oil said. "That's why Just Stop Oil is demanding that our next government sign up to a legally binding treaty to phase out fossil fuels by 2030."

Photo courtesy Just Stop Oil

But Labor Party leader Keir Starmer called the "damage" done to Stonehenge "outrageous."

"Just Stop Oil are pathetic," Starmer put on social media Wednesday morning local time. "Those responsible must face the full force of the law."

In reply to Starmer about a half hour later, Just Stop Oil willingly took responsibility.

"We are accountable for our actions," the group posted on X Wednesday morning local time. "When will the oil and gas executives responsible for destroying the lives of millions of people face the full force of the law?"

The group, known for leveling a series or similar past actions in protest of climate change, threw soup in 2022 over Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting in London as part of a protest against climate change the same year a man in the Netherlands in western Europe attempted to glue his head to Johannes Vermeer's iconic painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" in a Dutch museum.


Just Stop Oil also gave warning of a "failure to commit to defending our communities" which, Just Stop Oil claims, citizens in other countries in Europe like Austria, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland "will join in resistance this summer, if their own Governments do not take meaningful action."

Just Stop Oil sprays Stonehenge orange on eve of summer solstice

WANKERS

Two climate activists, named by the group as Niamh Lynch, 21, and Rajan Naidu, 73, defaced the ancient monument near Salisbury at around 11am on Wednesday. #Juststopoil #JSO #stonehenge

4,000-year-old 'Seahenge' in UK was built to 'extend summer,' archaeologist suggests

Tom Metcalfe
Tue, June 11, 2024 

People excavating seahenge on a beach.


A mysterious Bronze Age wooden circle known as "Seahenge" on England's east coast was built more than 4,000 years ago in an effort to bring back warmer weather during an extreme cold spell, a new study suggests.

The theory is a new attempt to explain the buried structure — a rough circle about 25 feet (7.5 meters) across, made from 55 split oak trunks surrounding a "horseshoe" of five larger oak posts around a large inverted oak stump — that was controversially dug up and moved into a museum in 1999.

Other researchers have suggested it was built to commemorate an important individual who had died, or that it was a place for "sky burials," where the dead would be pecked by carrion-eating birds.

But the idea that Seahenge and another circle of buried timbers found beside it were built to "extend summer" fits with what's known about the climate at the time, said David Nance, an archaeologist at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom and the author of the new study.

Related: Prehistoric henge accidentally discovered in England in search for Anglo-Saxon hermit

The construction took place during "a prolonged period of decreased atmospheric temperatures and severe winters and in late springs placing these early coastal societies under stress," he said in a statement. "It seems most likely that these monuments had the common intention to end this existential threat."

Nance detailed his study of the two Seahenge structures — known formally as Holme I and Holme II — in a research paper published April 2 in GeoJournal.
Ancient timbers

Nance said dating with dendrochronology — a technique that studies the annual growth rings of trees still visible in ancient timbers — showed that both Seahenge circles were built from trees felled in the spring of 2049 B.C.

He noted that the horseshoe of five larger posts inside the main Seahenge circle seems to have been aligned with sunrise on the summer solstice. It may have mimicked a cage for a young cuckoo, designed to extend summer by keeping the bird singing — a belief described in ancient folklore, he suggested.

Seahenge exhibit in museum

Nance explained that the cuckoo — a symbol of fertility to the ancient Britons — was believed to stop singing on the summer solstice and to return to the "Otherworld," taking the warm summer weather with it.

He proposed that Seahenge and the second wooden circle built beside it were used for different rituals, but with the same intent: "to end the severely cold weather."

Seahenge gained national attention in late 1998 when erosion at the site near the village of Holme-next-to-the-Sea exposed its timbers and central tree stump. However, local people had known about it for many years.

The structure got its name from British newspapers, which likened it to the famous Stonehenge monument in Wiltshire that many archaeologists now think was a Neolithic ceremonial center and burial ground.
Controversial excavation

In the 1990s, Seahenge occupied a salt marsh near the beach, which was protected from the sea by sand dunes and mudflats. Authorities were concerned that further erosion at the site would destroy the wooden monument, so it was completely excavated in 1999.

But the excavation was controversial because many people thought the monument should have stayed in place, and questions have been raised about the role of the archaeological television show "Time Team," which featured the excavations in a special episode.

Partly as a result of that controversy, the ancient wooden circle built next to Seahenge — Holme II — has been left in place near the beach and is being monitored for erosion.

Archaeologist Brian Fagan, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara who wasn't involved in the latest study, told Live Science that fine-grained climate data from recent studies meant researchers could now look more closely at links between archaeological sites and climate change in a way that would have been unthinkable even a generation ago.

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"This is an imaginative look at a complex problem, which brings in interpretations from the intangible as well as climatology," he said in an email. "It's an original approach, but it is bound to be controversial."

And Stefan Bergh, an archaeologist at the University of Galway in Ireland who also wasn't involved, said the paper created a "highly useful framework" for insights into the beliefs and religions of Bronze Age peoples.

"We as archaeologists too often shy away from pushing the envelope beyond our comfort zone of hard material evidence," he told Live Science in an email. "It is, however, often when reaching outside that comfort zone that archaeology really comes alive, which Nance's paper is an excellent example of."


‘Incredibly fascinating’ Roman, Iron Age and Bronze Age settlements unearthed in UK dig

Issy Ronald, CNN
Wed, June 12, 2024 

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of Roman, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements in Essex, southern England, in findings described as “incredibly fascinating.”

The settlements, discovered during excavations before a planned water pipeline was laid, provide a “real picture into what ordinary people’s lives were like,” Benjamin Sleep, a senior archaeology and heritage consultant at Stantec – the company employed to oversee the archaeological element of the scheme – told CNN Tuesday.

Evidence suggests that there was Late Bronze Age activity in the area, dating back roughly 3,000 years, Sleep said.

It was already widely known that the Romans had settled in Essex, but excavating an area as part of a pipeline project offered the opportunity to investigate a huge swathe of the countryside, rather than the more common archaeological sites in or around towns and cities, he added.

The largest settlement found was a farmstead with surrounding buildings that archaeologists believe housed livestock and provided space for metalworking or pottery making, Sleep said.

And the artifacts they uncovered show “that the Romans didn’t come in and wipe everything out and then set up their own settlements,” he said. “It’s very much they’re integrating with communities.”

There was a continuation of certain pottery types, he added, explaining that objects made from locally sourced material continued to be used alongside imported Samian pottery from northern France.

“It’s sort of like you’d have your fine china, then you’d have your everyday pottery,” he said. “These things tend to melt into one another in the archaeological records, which shows there’s continuity there.”

Pottery allowed archaeologists to learn more about the interactions between Roman and British culture. - Oxford Archaeology

This pottery from northern France, or Gaul as it was known in Roman times, also highlights the level of international trade present at the time, even in the countryside and not just in port cities, he added.

Archaeologists excavated 14 areas across the 19.5-kilometer (12.1-mile) pipeline.

“Not all of those 14 areas turned up absolutely amazing archaeology… the reason they were chosen was because they showed something was going on,” Sleep said. “And then in a couple of these locations we found really interesting stuff.”

The excavation then took place over seven months, with four months of trial trenching from April to September 2023 – where archaeologists investigate the potential of the site – before three months of further excavations, Daniel Wilson, a project manager at the Essex and Suffolk Water Company, told CNN.

“We were all quite excited by the fact that the team had found these finds,” he said. “It gives us the opportunity to engage with local communities on another level and embellish their local history… We already knew of Roman activity in the area… but this adds to it and confirms it.”

Now, the pottery, objects and coins that archaeologists unearthed will go to the local museum, while all the features uncovered have been recorded, photographed and mapped so they will be available to use by future researchers, Sleep said