Ozymandias Syndrome

Back in the 1970s, I remember a certain Erich Von Daniken, who made the best seller range with his "Chariots of the Gods". There were a cluster of like minded books, many of which were also devoted to the idea that the ancient gods were, in fact, ancient astronauts. Others did not go quite so far, but also propagated ideas of advanced super-civilisations, which had been lost in a catastrophe - and, of course, the name Atlantis invariable figured somewhere in these narratives.

Like the creationists with the biblical texts of Genesis, they tried to take mythical stories literally, but theirs was an age of science, Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology", and the literalism was not to prop up faith, but almost as a backlash against the dangers of science.

If we look at the Romantic movement before, we see the god Pan coming to the foreground in the literature of the time. As Ronald Hutton has explained, Pan was a rural god, a village yokel, and contrasted with Zeus and the Olympian pantheon of urban and civilised deities. Pan had long languished in obscurity, while English scholars extolled the virtues of Ancient Greece, and retold the Greek legends, but as the Industrial revolution moved into high gear, enclosure of fields shifted people who were drawn to the industrialised cities rather than remaining working on the land, and now the Romantic movement found in Pan the god of the woods. Pan was thereby a reaction to the alienation of modern society from its rural roots, and is, of course, still popular in Neopaganism today as a result.

That alienation is with us today. Many people live in flats with no gardens, and some find increasing solace in cyberspace, in Second Life, where they can live out vicariously the world they cannot find in the everyday. We live in a society of clocks, not rhythms of day and night, of calendars, not seasons, and the acceleration of this pattern of change can be seen most clearly in the harvest festival, where once a farming community brought grown food, but now, if fruit and vegetables remain a part of the festival, most of the congregation source it from supermarkets and farm shops. Even the seasonality of food, still present when I was young, has diminished, as a result of forced growing to create longer seasons of crops, and importations from far abroad. Counter-cultural movements, such as allotments and farm shops are increasingly popular because people are aware of what has been lost.

The other alienation from technology is later, and comes in the fifties and sixties, and is the threat from the atom bomb, from radioactive disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and from nuclear war tearing the planet apart. It is from these roots that the ancient high-technology stems, both as a warning of catastrophes like our own (which are read into the ancient texts) and also of the possibility of escape from our situation (the astronauts or UFOs may return and rescue us from our predicament).

An example of the kind of story and how it is "literalised" is one that is popular in circulation:

Mahabharata clearly describes a catastrophic blast that rocked the continent. "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. "The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white." "After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river." Historian Kisari Mohan Ganguli says that Indian sacred writings are full of such descriptions, which sound like an atomic blast as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He says references mention fighting sky chariots and final weapons. An ancient battle is described in the Drona Parva, a section of the Mahabharata. "The passage tells of combat where explosions of final weapons decimate entire armies, causing crowds of warriors with steeds and elephants and weapons to be carried away as if they were dry leaves of trees," says Ganguli. "Instead of mushroom clouds, the writer describes a perpendicular explosion with its billowing smoke clouds as consecutive openings of giant parasols. There are comments about the contamination of food and people's hair falling out."

Archeologist Francis Taylor says that etchings in some nearby temples he has managed to translate suggest that they prayed to be spared from the great light that was coming to lay ruin to the city. "It's so mid-boggling to imagine that some civilization had nuclear technology before we did."

...a single projectile Charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as the thousand suns Rose in all its splendor... a perpendicular explosion with its billowing smoke clouds... ....the cloud of smoke rising after its first explosion formed into expanding round circles like the opening of giant parasols... ..it was an unknown weapon, An iron thunderbolt, A gigantic messenger of death, Which reduced to ashes The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. ...The corpses were so burned As to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, And the birds turned white.

When asked in an interview at Rochester University seven years after the Alamogordo nuclear test whether that was the first atomic bomb ever to be detonated, Robert Oppenheimer replied, "Well, yes, in modern history."

Most of the excerpts are found in the Mahabharata, in parts, but not with reference to a single context. Descriptions of various happenings, unrelated to each other, from various segments of the epic have been selected and weaved together to create a text which does not exist in this form.

The excerpt "An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendor" actually appears in the section 34 of the Karna Parva of the Mahabharata( http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m08/m08034.htm ), as follows.

"The universe is similarly said to consist of Vishnu. Vishnu is, again, the Soul of the holy Bhava of immeasurable energy. For this the touch of that bow-string became unbearable to the Asuras. And the lord Sankara cast on that arrow his own irresistible and fierce wrath, the unbearable fire of anger, viz., that which was born of wrath of Bhrigu and Angirasa. Then He called Nila Rohita (Blue and Red or smoke)--that terrible deity robed in skins, looking like 10,000 Suns, and shrouded by the fire of superabundant Energy, blazed up with splendour. That discomfiter of even him that is difficult of being discomfited, that victor, that slayer of all haters of Brahma, called also Hara, that rescuer of the righteous and destroyer of the unrighteous, viz., the illustrious Sthanu, accompanied by many beings of terrible might and terrible forms that were endued with the speed of the mind and capable of agitating and crushing all foes, as if with all the fourteen faculties of the soul awake
about him, looked exceedingly resplendent".

"It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas." is actually found in Section 1 of Mausala Parva.( http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m16/m16001.htm).

and the whole text is not exactly reminiscent of nuclear war but looks like something more to do with intoxication

"Endeavoured to be deceived by those wicked ones, those ascetics, with eyes red in wrath, looked at each other and uttered those words. Having said so they then proceeded to see Keshava. The slayer of Madhu, informed of what had taken place, summoned all the Vrishnis and told them of it. Possessed of great intelligence and fully acquainted with what the end of his race would be, he simply said that that which was destined would surely happen. Hrishikesa having said so, entered his mansion. The Lord of the universe did not wish to ordain otherwise. When the next day came, Samva actually brought forth an iron bolt through which all the individuals in the race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas became consumed into ashes. Indeed, for the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas, Samva brought forth, through that curse, a fierce iron bolt that looked like a gigantic messenger of death. The fact was duly reported to the king. In great distress of mind, the king (Ugrasena) caused that iron bolt to be reduced into fine powder. Men were employed, O king, to cast that powder into the sea. At the command of Ahuka, of Janarddana, of Rama, and of the high-souled Vabhru, it was, again, proclaimed throughout the city that from that day, among all the Vrishnis and the Andhakas no one should manufacture wines and intoxicating spirits of any kind, and that whoever would secretly manufacture wines and spirits should be impaled alive with all his kinsmen. Through fear of the king, and knowing that it was the command of Rama also of unimpeachable deeds, all the citizens bound themselves by a rule and abstained from manufacturing wines and spirits"

And archaeologist Francis Taylor simply does not exist, and the quotation from Robert Oppenheimer also appears to be made up, probably by the author Charles Berlitz.

Regarding Kisari Mohan Gangul, he did indeed translate the Mahabharata into English. But there is a catch. The interpretation was done between 1883 and 1895, a good 50 odd years before the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and a good 90 odd years before the interview quoted! He lived from 1842 to 1895.

In conclusion, a lot of these stories circulate in a fairly precise short form on the internet, and do not vary much, but what seems common to all is that they fail to give precise sources. In this respect, they function like Urban Legends, circulating rapidly and widely by means of cut and paste. Because of this, unlike oral tradition, they are often repeated in a very similar form. Given time, the originals can be tracked down, but it takes time to do this because most of the texts picked up by search engines are the same duplicated forms. When, however, one does this, these are invariably often spurious or misleading (using quotations out of context etc). The wide dissemination has a lot to do with the inability of people to check sources, and consequently to copy the pericopes as if they were accurate. Quotations are given from real people to give verisimilitude to what is at first sight a plausible story.

But why should people believe it in the first place? As I stated in my introduction, I think it has a good deal to do with alienation from modern technology. The cataclysms of the myths are "literalised" into forms which speak directly to the emotional fears of today. The need to believe in these warnings also has much to do with the impotence of people in today's society to do anything about these fears, for some of the threats are very real. If countries like Iran have nuclear weapon capability, who knows how unstable the world may become again? Nuclear power is still feared because of appalling failures in safety, and radioactivity is an invisible, unseen, but potent killer. Is it any wonder that people look to the past and create a dark scientific mirror of the present?

If I was going to coin a term for this kind of fear, I'd call it "Ozymandias Syndrome", after the poem by Shelley, which gave warnings about the transitory nature of all societies, except that unlike Shelley, his modern counterpart sees everywhere warnings from the catastrophes which they think engulfed civilisations just like out own, or even more advanced.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

The Blackbird Myth

I have today a story which was published in the Whitnash Parish magazine, 1868, which is told about Chief Blackbird. It illustrates the power of myth, how stories can propagate, and be taken to be true, simply by repetition. It is noteworthy that when one looks at the sources for stories, this kind of story invariably depends upon hearsay rather than documentary or archaeological evidence. It is a danger to which newspapers and blogs are particularly prone. So first, the story....

"Upwards of forty years since, Black Bird, a famous chief of the Omahaws, visited the city of Washington, and on his return was seized with small-pox, of which he died on the way. When the chief found himself dying, he called his warriors around him, and, like Jacob of old, he gave commands concerning his burial, which were as literally fulfilled.

The dead warrior was dressed in his most sumptuous robes, fully equipped with his scalps and war-eagle's
plumes, and borne about sixty miles below the Omahaw village, to a lofty bluff on the Missouri, which towers far above all the neighbouring heights, and commands a magnificent landscape.

To the summit of this bluff, a white steed, the favourite war-horse of Black Bird, was led; and there, in presence of the whole nation, the dead chief was placed with great ceremony on its back, looking towards the river, where, as he had said,, he could see the canoes of the white men, as they traversed the broad waters of the Missouri. His bow was placed in his hand, his shield and quiver, with his pipe and medicine-bag, hung by his side. His store of pemmican, and his well-filled tobacco-pouch, were supplied to sustain him on his long journey to the hunting grounds of the great Manitou, where the spirits of his fathers awaited his coming.

The medicine men of the tribe performed their most mystic charms, to secure a happy passage to the happy hunting fields; and then each warrior of the chief's own band covered the palm of his rig-lit hand with vermilion, and stamped its impress on the white sides of the devoted war-steed. When this had been done by all, the Indians gathered turfs and soil, and placed them around the feet and legs of the horse. Gradually the pile rose under the combined labour of many willing hands, until the living steed and its dead rider were buried together under the memorial mound; and high over the crest of the lofty tumulus which covered the warrior's eagle plumes, a cedar post was reared, to mark more clearly to the voyagers on the Missouri the last resting-place of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahaws.

In the old Pagan barrows on the wolds of Yorkshire, and far northward towards the Moray Firth, the ancient British and Saxon charioteers have been exhumed, with the iron, wheel-tires and bronze horse-furniture, the wreck of the decayed war-chariot, and the skeletons of be horses, buried there with the dead chief, that he, too, might enter the Valhalla of his' gods, proudly borne in the chariot in which"he had been wont to charge the ranks of his foes. For man in all ages and in both hemispheres is the same ; and, amid the darkest shadows of Pagan night, he still reveals the strivings of his nature after that immortality, wherein also he dimly recognises a state of retribution." [Dr Daniel Wilson].(1)

Now Chief Blackbird (c.1750-1800) was the leader of the Omaha Native American Indian tribe who commanded trade routes used by Spanish, French, British and American traders until the late 18th century. He was one of the first of the Plains Indian chiefs to trade with white explorers:

"Without the say-so of Chief Blackbird, French and Spanish fur traders could not do business with tribes farther up the Missouri. Under Blackbird's leadership the Omaha gained wealth, political prestige, and military strength. But in 1800, the tribe was ravaged by smallpox, one of the diseases that accompanied Europeans. The epidemic killed as many as one-third of the Omaha, including Blackbird." (2)

Chief Blackbird died during a smallpox epidemic in 1800. In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition members were led to Chief Blackbird's burial site, which sits on a bluff on the west side of the Missouri River, in present day Nebraska.

What is interesting about this story is that there are darker alternatives.

"The Omaha people of today insist the story that Blackbeard was buried sitting astride his horse, on a promontory from which his spirit could watch the river, is not true. Blackbird had benefited from the friendship of white traders, and had gained power among his own people. He maintained his power by poisoning his enemies - until . Some say it was grateful traders who concocted the legend of his enshrinement"(3)

"Blackbird and the traders grew rich together, but his people grew poor and began to complain. A wicked trader noticed this and gave Blackbird a secret by which he could maintain his power. He taught him the use of arsenic and gave him a large supply of that deadly poison. After that the terror of Blackbird and his mysterious power grew in the tribe. He became a prophet as well as a chief. When anyone opposed him Blackbird foretold his death within a certain time and within that time a sudden and violent disease carried the victim off in great agony. Before long all his rivals disappeared and the people. agreed to everything Blackbird wished"(4)

So what is the truth? Evidently the story about the horse burial still does the rounds; I found a notice of it in a 2009 newspaper and tourism site. It is a colourful story. But to the truth, we have to go to the archaeology, which confirms, in part, that the Omaha people are correct in denying the story. Chief Blackbird was not buried on a horse, but like at Hougue Boete in Jersey, horses - or remains of horses - have been found in other graves. In "Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Omaha Indians", the following is noted:

"Archaeological observation may clarify some confusion in the ethnohistorical accounts of the role of the horse in Omaha mortuary ritual. This confusion is epitomized by the varied accounts of the burial of the feared Omaha chief Blackbird in 1800. Lewis and Clark in their journey up the Missouri river learned of Blackbird's death and unique burial. Members of the Long expedition also recounted the story:

"Agreeably to his orders, he was interred in a sitting posture, on his favourite horse, upon the summit of a high bluff of the bank of the Missouri, "that he might continue to see the white people ascending the river, to trade with his nation." A mound was raised over his remains, on which food was regularly placed for many years afterwards; but this rite has been discontinued, and the staff, that, on its summit, supported a white flag, has no longer existence." [ James 1823, 1:204-5]

Since Blackbird's death occurred in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and was not observed by any non-Omahas, all accounts, from Lewis and Clark on, are at best based on second- and third-hand information; the accounts of later travelers, such as De Smet, Irving, and Catlin, amount to frontier lore.

In fact, the burial of Blackbird was a much simpler affair and more in accord with the burials observed at Big Village. As a child Madeline Wolf, the daughter of Blackbird's son Village Maker, was present at the burial of Blackbird. She noted that at the time of Blackbird's death the tribe was in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and individual families were dispersed along the banks of the Missouri River. This precluded any special ceremonial event or honors of the kind described by Catlin. Blackbird's burial was performed by his immediate family in much the same manner as a normal Omaha burial:

"It was with feelings of fear rather than of sorrow that the family prepared the body of the once imperious chief for burial. . . . And at morn they wrapped the form in its robes of deerskin, fearfully tied it to its place on the rude hearse of long poles fastened to the sides of the cherished spotted pony and started up the steep incline to carry out the last order of the chief whose living orders it would have meant death to disobey and whose last expressed wish they dare not disregard. "Bury me high," he had said; "high on the bluff above us, on the highest point, that I may see the steamboats which the palefaces say will come up the river in great numbers. Place me on the highest point that I may see you all; that the Blackbird may still rule." And at nightfall a fire was built to light the spirit on its long journey, and thus for four nights, according to the ancient Omaha custom. [ Beck 1899:30]"

Mrs. Wolf also noted that although a horse was sometimes killed by the graveside of the dead, this was not done for Blackbird, much less was he buried astride one ( Beck 1899:30). Fletcher and La Flesche similarly minimize the role of the horse in Omaha funerary custom and poke fun at the fantastic accounts of Blackbird's burial.

"The romantic picture of his [Blackbird's] interment on horseback must be credited to grateful traders, as must also be the bestowal of his name on the hills and creek where later the Omaha built a village when they moved to their present reservation. It is a fact that horses were frequently strangled at funerals and their bodies left near the burial mound, which was always on a hill or at some elevation, but they were never buried alive or interred with the body. [ 1911:82-83]"

The discovery of horse bone in two Omaha graves at 25DK2 suggests that such categorical denials may misrepresent the true role of the horse in nineteenth-century Omaha funerary ritual. The skull, mandibles, and vertebrae of a full-grown horse were encountered in the fill immediately above the interment... It might be argued that the horse bones are secondary to this feature, and indeed, there is evidence for some disturbance and looting of the grave in modern times.. Yet, if the horse remains were a later, accidental addition, it is strange that more postcranial elements were not encountered. A horse cranium which had been painted red was found, along with four human skulls, on a small raised platform at the foot of the grave of the cremated individual... In this feature there is no evidence for disturbance, and there can be no doubt that the occurrence of the horse skull was intentional. Again, the presence of only the cranial elements seems to strengthen the argument that the horse remains were purposely placed...

This evidence suggests that at least the head of a horse, either as a cleaned and prepared skull or as an articulated anatomical unit (including the mandibles and neck), was on occasion placed either in the grave or immediately above it on the raised earth covering. Such a symbolic use is not surprising, as La Flesche himself notes the use of a horse tail as a grave symbol for members of the horse society ( 1889: 10 ). It also is clear, however, that individuals were buried neither on nor with their animals, and that the fanciful burial of unsuspecting horse and rider suggested by Catlin and others is the product of Euro-American myth and not Omaha practice.

Links:
(1) Whitnash Parish Magazine
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Blackbird
(3) http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=1052
(4) http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2002-11/ancestralbones.html
(5) http://www.olden-times.com/oldtimenebraska/n-csnyder/nbstory/story6.html
(6) Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Omaha Indians: The Big Village Site
by John M. O'Shea, John Ludwickson (1992)

Cell replacements myths and facts

In "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins quotes a writer who claims that hardly any of the atoms that made up our brains when we were children are still in place in our bodies. He was quoting Steve Grand, who said:

"[think]of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, mabye even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else would you remember it? Be here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. . . Matter flows from place to place and momentarily becomes you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. "

I've heard that claim so many times, in various forms. But is it true?

Snopes looked at it, and one commentator came up with what I think is a very good counter-example:

"When thinking about having all of the atoms in your body replaced in 1 or even 10 years all I can think it that it is impossible. Radium dial workers were found to have significant amounts of radium in their bodies up to 15years after their exposure and even many years after death their bodies were radioactive. Lead, which is treated as calcium by the body, is deposited into bone tissue and can remain there for 20-30 years. Meaning a young girl with lead poisoning will pass lead onto her future children when she breastfeeds. If the concept of having all of the atoms in your body replaced held true then that means both the dial workers and people who were lead poisoned would have to be constantly exposed to the same level of chemicals. This is obviously not true. The dial workers only high level of contact with radium was while they worked at the plants. And children who have lead poisoning often have abatement done to reduce their future exposures. True, both radium and lead have half lives in the body and can eventually be cleared but to replace, say 10ppm of lead in the bone (I guessing at numbers here) they would need to be exposed to high levels all the time."

Someone else managed to find a proper scientific reference, in Brendon S. Noble and Jonathan Reeve (2000) "Osteocyte function, osteocyte death and bone fracture resistance" :

"In adult humans and many other vertebrates, although not normally in the rat, cortical bone is remodelled throughout life by an internal process termed haversian remodelling. Cutting cones of osteoclasts traverse the cortex longitudinally and the spaces created are filled in by a wave of osteoblastic bone formation. The new bone formed, as well as the cells associated with it, are supplied with nutrients by a central capillary. The remodelling of cancellous (trabecular) bone is similar in principle, although it almost invariably occurs on the bone surface. Consequently, in adult humans, the youngest bone is found superficially and the older, interstitial bone is found sandwiched between two layers of younger material. The rate of bone remodelling in the adult cortex can be quite slow, as little as 2% annually in the distal radius ranging up to 50% annually in the rapidly remodelling trabecular bone of the ilium. "

At last some hard science. This is more like it; not only does it clearly have some kind of background facts against which it is stated, but also makes it clear that different kinds of bone, for example, can change at different rates, and how it is done. So it is not a complete myth mentioned, there is a nugget of truth there, but it is a very, very misleading statement, and is virtually an urban myth; it is certainly a complete falsehood as stated by Grand, and taken over lock, stock and barrell by Dawkins, who just cites this somewhat woolly statement as if was gospel truth. Not the kind of mistake the great source checker, Stephen Jay Gould, would have been likely to make!