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Saronic Islands with Rackpeople

I have no sailor material in me. At all. I don't mean qualified skills that are fascinating and easily acquired through study and experience. I mean literally and physically, my body is simply not built for the navy. I realized that when I entered those 4D/5D theaters for the first (and last) time, about a dozen years ago. I remember anxiously waiting for that sophisticated motion ride system built into movie theater seats to come to my city, and when it finally arrived, I was among the first in the ticket line... And I was the first to get out of the small theater with a terrible motion sickness thundering throughout my entire body. I should have guessed what was going to happen after seeing the title of the short film had the word "rollercoaster" in it. I fully recovered more than 24 hours later. After that, I never stepped into any movie theater with more than a 3D label on its front gate. Sometimes, even in those, I check if the chair is fixed solid.

To be honest, I knew the outcome would be like this because it has happened to me many times at sea during summer vacations, and every time I promised myself the dancing boat floors would never see my foot again. However, in my case, it's just that all those self-promises are easy to reject when new experiences and adventures knock on the door. In that spirit, when my good friend Lasse, the head of Rackpeople, one of the leading IT companies in Copenhagen, asked me to join the cruise around the Saronic Islands this May in Greece, without thinking, I said yes. How could I say no to seeing all the wonders of the Saronic Gulf, its crystal blue waters, the amazing history of Ancient Greece, and the place where Themistocles' outmatched fleet defeated the forces of King Xerxes and drove the Persian army back to Asia, never to try again to conquer the Greek mainland?⁣

Bastions with old cannons at the Hydra entrance

The cruise started on the island of Hydra. I boarded a catamaran yacht, medium-sized but impressive in every way. Fortunately for me, the first two days of the cruise passed with extremely calm seas and enjoyable spring weather, which is usual for the Saronic Gulf at this time of the year. As for the island itself, two things immediately caught my eye. The residential area is so compact that there is simply no room for any type of motor vehicle, and by law, cars and motorcycles are not allowed (except for garbage trucks). To travel outside the port town, the only means are horses, mules, donkeys, and water taxis. The second site was bastions on the port entrance with lots of cannons still pointing toward the sea. They originated in the 18th century in order to protect the island from assault by the Ottoman fleet and pirates during the Greek war for independence.

At first, I thought that the island's name was connected to the legendary myth of the Lernaean Hydra, the multiheaded water monster who was slain by Heracles in his second labor, but unfortunately, very little is known about the ancient times of the island. The name in Greek is simply derived from the word "water" (ὕδρα). Although, in classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, which is close to the island of Hydra, just across the strait, and in ancient myths was represented as one of the entrances to the Underworld.

The view from Poros Clock Tower

The next destination, and where we spent the first night, was the well-known tourist destination, the island of Poros. It lies on the other side of Argolis, the eastern part of the region of Peloponnese, where it acts as the Saronic Gulf's southern arm. The Poros' main port is separated from the Peloponnese only by a 200-meter-wide sea channel, and my main impression in the morning was that of the poor little ferry, which is breaking the perfect silence connecting Poros with the town of Galatas across the strait every half hour. Sometimes carrying only a couple of people across. I'm sure a future bridge would be something worth building.

Fortunately, and I mean it when I say it out loud, we had ex-Royal Danish Navy sailors at the helm of every boat. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have running exercises in the morning, and if we hadn't had a morning run, we wouldn't have passed through the phenomenally narrow streets of the small town that stretch through the entire hillside by the marina. Running (and sometimes walking while catching our breath) down and up the small streets and countless stairs from the harbor to the famous clock tower made me think and better understand the life in such small towns where you can feel the ease of living life to the fullest.

Rackpeople at the Moni island and photos from the mainland

The next day was absolutely the best one on the cruise. It started with the sailing competition between the two boats. In the best spirit of the teambuilding activity, we competed in sailing between Poros Marine and Moni Island, the strange islet in the middle of the Saronic Gulf that absolutely hates humans, but let's get back to that later. One would think shutting the engines down and sailing at a speed of, on some occasions, less than one nautical mile per hour and sailing only by using maps, compass, and wind arrow is ridiculous, but it is the complete opposite. It requires full team effort and cooperation, just like in tech companies, and it was one amazing experience. From the navigation part, through speed and time tracking, steering the ship, and hard work with two sails, everything had to be synchronized and precise, and when inexperienced IT people do it, the result is exceptional and filled with all possible sailing phases, from challenges in understanding the basics of sailing and navigation to all the comical moments we went through but also all those proud moments when you realize you've done something right.

As for the Moni island, half of it is rocky and barren, but what was most interesting was its other half. The only inhabitants of that part are a family of wild peacocks, deer, wild goats, including Cretan ibexes, and, of course, many squirrels. Humans are limited to the only seasonal beach accessed only by sea, including us that day. The animals are not afraid of humans and wandered free even on the skirts of the forests, where ruins of humans's attempts to inhabit the Moni are visible all over. The old men of Aegina Island across the bay tell various stories about the history of the island that always include curses, inexplicable destructions, three fires, and an ongoing struggle between the divine forces and human stubbornness. Telling in whispers, they say that always when people tried to inhabit the island, no matter if that was in the Byzantine period when they tried to turn the island into a dairy farm or during the 1970s, when the island served as an organized camping spot, it always ended in large fires that devastated the little island to the full.

The spirit of Rackpeople after a long but a great day

But the sightseeing of the Moni after the cruise competition wasn't the end of the day. It continued with one amazing lecture given by Erik, the second ship captain, about leadership, relations between competence and confidence among team members, and all the connections between tech companies and sailing. The epilogue of the competition itself was unclear and ultimately not important; what mattered the most was great spirit and team-building closure, which ended in singing popular songs led by the first ship captain, Lasse, who surprised us all with his musical talent, which was not left unrewarded even by the people on the neighboring yachts with thunderous applause.

Unfortunately, in the spirit of the Moni Island hatred for people, that night came really nasty weather from nowhere. In the morning it turned into a small windy rollercoaster that woke me up with the first sunshine. I came on deck to find a spot where I could pass it as best I could, but soon it was the 4D movie theater all over again. Only this time it lasted several hours, and I sadly realized that the cruise for me is over, as I knew I would need more than a day to recover. After a couple of hours of 'pros and cons' measuring, with great regret, I opted out of the remainder of the trip. After all, being on the boat is all about being part of it; otherwise, it is something else entirely.


The Seaview from the hotel Methanion

At the next marina, a taxi took me to the nearby port town of Methana, where I missed the last ferry by an hour, so I went straight to the first hotel, where I took the night to recover. There, I witnessed a warm hospitality by the hotel owner, something I only felt before in Greece, especially in my childhood when we were visiting the country frequently on family vacations. Serbia and Greece have had this unusual friendship between the two countries from time immemorial. There was no part in the history of the two countries with any animosities between the two, let alone any conflicts or wars. So it's always nice to see a genuine smile on people's faces when I say where I am coming from. Anyhow, when she heard I am Serbian, with the warmest smile, she said, 'I will give you the best sea view in Methana'. And the best it was.

It turned out Methana is not an island at all. The best I could describe it is a 'wannabe island' peninsula. It has an island shape but is connected to the Peloponnese with a narrow land bridge. Methana is entirely of active volcanic origin, with the last eruption occurring in the 3rd century BC. Due to the pressure of the plate of North Africa, which slid under the Asia and European plates, there were active tectonic movements on the line of the Aegean islands, which include Methana, Milos, Santorini, and Nisyros. As it seems, the future of volcanism in Greece is not yet written, and Methana is one of the volcanoes that unfortunately has not yet said its last word. The last great eruption in Greece was the Minoan super-volcanic catastrophe that reshaped the island of Thera in the middle of the second millennium BC and devastated the entire Mediterranean for years.

Aegina port seen from the ferry

As a central island of the Saronic Gulf, Aegina shared the rich history of ancient Greece with other independent states. It was inhabited since the Neolithic and was at the peak of power around the 7th century BC and after, due to its strategic position. The Aegina economy was strong and competed with Athena with silver coins as a currency recognized in other states. They were rivals for many years, and Aegina even made a close collaboration with Persia until the battle of Salamis (480 BC), when the island ultimately sided with Themistocles. The rest of the history of Aegina's independence was full of turmoil, but its glory at the end faded out through numerous invaders and occupations in the face of Macedon, Romans, Venice, and Ottomans. Today it is a holiday and weekend resort for Athenians and tourists worldwide. Just next to it, Agistri, a small pine-clad island with pristine beaches and crystal-clear waters, shared the history of neighboring Aegina Island and considered being part of its statehood. It was unfortunately not a part of the cruise. Perhaps in the years to follow.

Finally, and historically, the most famous island is Salamina, where the already-mentioned battle of Salamis took place two millennia ago. It is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, and due to its close proximity to Piraeus, it is not the best choice for vacation time. If we add the fact that the northern part of the island is a home for the largest naval base of the Hellenic Navy, it is clear that the island is not as popular a tourist destination as the other islands, but it is far from lacking destinations worth attention. If I happen to visit it in the future, on the top of my list would be monuments dedicated to Salamis' ancient battle and the Cave of Euripides, where the playwright Euripides came to write his tragedies. The man was described as a misanthrope who avoided society by lurking in that cave, but even so, his 19 plays that survived the time since then are still performed and studied today over the distance of more than two millennia.

Concept art of the Battle of Salamis by artist Court Chu*

If I were to try to sum up the past week and describe my first cruise longer than a day in three words, it would definitely be "an extraordinary experience". Especially the part about learning new things about sailing and trying to be part of a team in close cooperation with colleagues. Being in Greece for the umpteenth time is also special to me, and having the opportunity to talk to locals is another dimension of the travel. Spending most of the time at sea limits that part of the experience, but in this case it was intentional and focused on teambuilding, which is perfectly fine. I am sure there are many methods to achieve this, and sailing is definitely among the top five.
 

Fairies of Naissus

In pre-Christian mythologies of the western and northern tribes and their pagan beliefs, female deities were not uncommon. Take, for instance, old Gaul's Matres or Valkyries of the old Norse mythology and, of course, all the goddesses from the history of all polytheistic religions around the globe. But perhaps the most interesting of them all are, you guessed it, the fairies. They are not actually deities per se and rather belong to the spirit realm of the afterlife and dead, but still you can find them, in one form or another, in almost all religious legends and myths. The city where I was born, the valley it resides in, and the river that splits it in half are no different. The history of this area is, metaphorically speaking, very colorful and full of wonders, all the way to the beginning of the Neolithic era, and over the centuries this valley literally saw lots of different cultures and deities. One of them dates way back to the Celtic Gauls and their tribe named Scordisci, who lived in this neighborhood almost 24 centuries ago. They were the ones who named the river and the first settlement Naissa/Navissos, which pretty much means 'the river and town of fairies'. Whether or not this area in BC was flooded with fairies, or perhaps the geography of it resembled their beliefs, or even the very "Celtic Otherworld" was pictured and portrayed like our own neighborhood, the name survived for centuries, and despite numerous conquerors and different cultures, the fairies stayed in the name and the 'spirit' of the town all the way till today. Perhaps the first document that 'officially' coined Celtic's name was published in Alexandria by the famous Claudius Ptolemy in his masterpiece 'Geography' (around AD 150), in which he mentioned Ναϊςςός (Latin: Naissus) as 'first among the four largest towns in Roman Dardania'*.

Kristine Opolais in Dvořák’s 'Rusalka' - The Met Opera***

When I said the town inherited not only the 'fairy tale' name but also the spirit that it is still living in legends and myths, what I really had in mind was one particular spot on the northern hill named 'Metoh' and the outskirts of the town where, almost throughout the millennium, stands a ruin of an old temple built on that particular spot by one of the Byzantine emperors in the 11th century. The official name of the temple was 'Holy Trinity Church', but over time it earned the prefix 'Rusalija', which pretty much originated from old Serbian folklore and, no doubt, connects the church with Rusalkas, mythical water nymphs or female spirits from old pagan Slavic mythology. In some Slavic languages, Russian included, the word 'rusalka' translated to English literally means 'mermaid'. This variation of immortal creatures from the spirit world is completely opposite from the 'Tinkerbell' kind of fairies; instead, they could be very malevolent and dangerous young undead girls who died in or near a river or a lake and spent eternity haunting the waterway. With their long red hair and beautiful appearance and singing, they lure young men into the depths to their deaths. In Serbian stories, even hearing their song results in immediate deafness. They are the most deadly for an entire week, 50 days after Easter, which comes in late May or early June every year. As it seems, legends say that they are only afraid of wormwood and garlic, so try to have them with you if you are a true believer.

'Holy Trinity Rusalija' - abandoned temple from 11th century

Well, we didn't have any garlic in our pockets last November when we visited the church, and I truly hated my curiosity when I read about Rusalkas before we drove there. Sometimes it is extremely wise to read about horror myths after you visit the spot where these malicious fairies live. Firstly, the site was eerie—the church is abandoned, and to get to it, you have to drive through the old graveyard. People seem to visit the place only once a year, during 'Holy Trinity' week. Secondly, the weather was way too windy and spooky, and I had to engage all my driving skills to enter the churchyard; the car simply didn't want to enter due to the poor quality of the stone entrance and kept rolling backwards. Thirdly, it was almost sunset, part of the day usually identified with 'twilight hour'. When we finally got inside, my wife refused to get out of the car, and in a couple of minutes of intense bravery, only Viktor and I went out to take a couple of photos. Needless to say, the feeling was truly cheerless, and the only bright part of the site was the view. The location was perfect, and we glimpsed the entire city with a large orange sun on the horizon, and I finally took one of the best sunsets in our collection along with great shots of the little temple itself. Confidentially speaking, if Viktor didn't bring his plastic gun toy, we would probably stay less time listening to that spooky Rusalka's songs... or heavy wind whistles... or whatever it was. Although I would be feeling much safer with a couple of garlic cloves... Ahem ...

The sunset from the 'Holy Trinity' church (Metoh hill)

However, besides city and river names, the history of this area in BC is not very well documented, archaeologically speaking, and even though there is plenty of evidence and finds, before Ptolemy's reference, nothing is certain. But the names are always interesting, and as they survive millennia, there are many speculations of their origin. Celtic 'Navissos' is no doubt related to fairies; I mean, even the word 'fairy' was coined by ancient Gauls in what is nowadays France, and the root is in the Old French word 'faerie', which means 'enchantment' or 'under the spell'. However, even before the Celtic invasion of the Balkans in the 3rd century BC, this land was populated with various forms of societies and civilization. It lies on the crossroads between north and south and west and east, and as I described in post Constantine & Naissus, it was always under siege or some sort of raid. Due to this geographic misfortune, one tribe never managed to rule this area for, relatively speaking, long periods of time. Before the Celtic tribe of Scordisci, who stayed here after the Celts retreated from the invasion of Greece, the land was occupied by people of Dardani, who originated either from an estranged Illyrian tribe or, as some scholars suggest, directly from the ancient city of Dardania, located next to the city of Troy, as described in Homer's Illiad, who moved to the Balkans millennia before AD. Even before Dardani's rule, at some point in the 4th century this area was raided and occupied by Triballi tribes, and if you add Greeks and Romans and constant threats from Goths and Huns from the north and far east, you'd get the picture of how unwise it was to settle around here in ancient times. Anyhow, the point is that almost everybody managed to spend some time here and to contribute a little in those violent times. Or, to be precise, to contribute to everything but changing the original name that stayed the same from the very beginning.

Niš downtown by the old fortress and Nišava river

So let's try to summarize the names from all those conquerors over time: Navissos, Ναϊσσός, Naissus, Nais, Niş, and Niš, all of them related to fairies in different languages. Perhaps the most interesting connection with the name is during Greek rule, especially from the golden prosperity times of Macedonian expansion at some point centuries before Christ. In Greek mythology exists the famous mountain of Nysa, which was the traditional place where the rain nymphs (Hyades) raised the semi-god Dionysus, who was one of those bad guys from Olympus—the god of wine, ritual madness, and religious ecstasy. And to quote Wikipedia, Dionysus represents everything that is chaotic, dangerous, and unexpected, everything that escapes human reason and that can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods. I guess there is no need to add that one hypothesis of the location of Nysa (which is still unknown if it's not made up) is within ancient Tribalia or, pretty much... this neighborhood again. Tribalia and triballian tribes were located entirely in what is nowadays Eastern Serbia, which borders the Niš Valley and its northeastern mountains. By the myth, and just like their half-sisters, sea-nymphs Pleiades and rain-nymphs Hyades were transformed into a cluster of stars that was afterwards associated with rain. So if you look up on a bright starry night and see the Hyades in the constellation of Taurus, which is the nearest open star cluster to the Solar System, remember that their five brightest stars might have been living just around within my north neighboring mountains in their... fairy existence.

Ivan Kramskoi, Русалки (Rusalki), 1871

Of course, Greek mythology doesn't end this story about the origin of the name of my birth town with fairies. Even in Scandinavian mythology, there is a 'Nis', a dwarfed male fairy in Danish Jutland (Nisse god-dreng, Nisse good lad**), who offers his help to run households if, of course, he is pleased by a treat (groute) every evening. In the end, I am sure that Niš, or old Naissus, if you will, is one of the rarest cities on the planet with a real fairytale in its name origin, and I would really like to see a tribute to fairies, even to the evil Rusalkas, in the form of some sort of street art or museum or something that could show a modest traveler, tourist, or web surfer not only the history of one town's name but also a hint of how once our ancestors pictured the spirit world and their interaction with people. If this happens anytime in the future, this post will definitely get its sequel with hopefully great photos and more stories.

Inage credits and direct refs:
*** https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts...rusalka.html
* http://www.poesialatina.it/_ns/greek/testi/Claudius_Ptolemaeus/Geographia_(lib._1-3).html
** http://www.celtic-twilight.com/otherworld/fairy_mythology/scandinavia3.htm
http://www.guideforthearts.com/renee-fleming-to-star-in-the-title-role-of-rusalka/
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014/06/fairies-haunt-springs-wells-and-rivers.html
http://www.niscafe.com/grad-nis/

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka
http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/faeries.html
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014/06/fairies-haunt-springs-wells-and-rivers.html
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014_06_01_archive.html
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_sveta%20trojica%20matejevac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scordisci
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-7653/2006/0350-76530637007P.pdf
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/AnatoliaDardania.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nysa_(mythology)
 

Goddess Zhiva

My great-great-grandfather was born in 1845, and he spent his entire life in the turmoil of the second half of the 19th century. Little is known about his life; after all, life in rural Serbian villages in past times wasn't really documented well, and literacy among the majority of people wasn't something our ancestors could be proud of. However, what was a major disadvantage for most people turned out to be a great opportunity for my great-great-grandfather. Besides being literate and educated, he was gifted with a human property only a few others possess. He owned a strong and melodic voice that would probably guarantee him at least a radio host job if he were born a century later. Anyhow, one of his tasks was to read newspapers, various dispatches, and communiques while standing in the center of the village square, surrounded by neighbors and people from nearby settlements. Soon enough, he earned valuable prominence in his family, and his children decided to devote our family name to him. Ever since then and after, more or less 100 years, our last name has been carrying my great-great-grandfather's, Zhiva.


Artistic presentation of Goddess Zhiva

But his name goes even further in the past. A millennium or two before my great-great-grandfather, this name belonged first to someone else entirely. Zhiva (Živa) was the name of the old Slavic goddess of life, fertility, and marriage, one of numerous terrestrial goddesses. It literally means "living, being, existing", and compared to other religions of the past, Zhiva was the goddess similar to Hera, Demeter, and Aphrodite of the ancient Olympians and very much alike goddess Sif from the old Norse mythology. Thanks to modern pop culture, especially comics and, in recent years, movie blockbusters, we are pretty familiar with the old beliefs of our ancestors in Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, but tremendous and equally colorful stories are hiding in old Slavic mythology as well. Like with our family name, in one way or another, old stories of ancient mythology survived all these years. And not just stories—the customs, celebrations, and rituals are very much alive even today, despite all the efforts from the new Christian religion that tried or are still trying to eliminate old paganism from people's minds.

Contrary to the old Greeks, Romans, or Scandinavians, who more or less occupied smaller territories, Slavs spread to vast areas of nowadays Asia and Eastern Europe. Numerous cultures and nations emerged from several migrations and gave birth to slightly different mythology of the same deities, and in different Slavic languages and histories, Zhiva is known with different names, and the most prominent ones were Zhibog (life god), Živa, Жива, Siwa, Šiwa, etc. Along with the variety of names comes the variety of descriptions, and searching for definite and the most accurate ancient text is the mission impossible or one of those Sisyphean tasks if we want to stay in the realm of old legends and stories. However, I did find one mutual description of her that pretty much covers all sources, and it explains the goddess as: "Zhiva is the main female goddess in the world of the Slavs. Like the god Svarog, she covers the whole world with his light and closely follows the basic laws of the Kind. Goddess Zhiva gives tenderness, care, kindness, heart, and care to all pregnant women and lactating mothers." Zhiva existed as a supreme goddess, and she was the offspring of the main Slavic deities (Rod as a main supreme god, creator of everything; Svarog, god of heaven; and three great goddesses), a sister goddess to other female deities (Vesna, Morana, and Lada, terrestrial goddesses related to Earth seasons), the sister of the god of thunder and lightning Perun, and the wife of Dabog (Dazhbog), the god of sun, justice, and well-being.

Artistic presentation of Slavic temple

I can imagine that it is very hard to enumerate all Slavic gods, their relations, and all their pantheons due to the vast diversity of Slavic people, but if we consider only South Slavs who migrated to the Balkans at some point in the 6th century, one thing is for sure. They immediately collided with upcoming and already established Christianity that took heavy root in the Roman and Byzantine empires. Almost immediately, missionaries are sent to start conversion and kill old beliefs for good. It turned out it was another wave of Sisyphean tasks that required centuries to process. Serbs accepted the new religion only later in the 9th century, but not entirely. While god in plural ended with its existence almost fully with the start of the second millennium, many customs remained until today. For example, Serbian people still celebrate a family religious day called slava, which was dedicated to the god the family had chosen to be their protector in the old days. Christianity never succeeded in eliminating this custom and only managed to convert it into worshiping Christian saints instead. What was once a day dedicated to Perun, god of thunder, is now replaced with Saint Elijah (Sveti Ilija), which is also connected with thunders and lightnings in Christian tales. Old Serbs believed that gods could take the form of ordinary people who were visiting family homes at random times, and one of the related customs was warm hospitality toward strangers who knocked on their doors. The oak was the holy tree, and all the temples were built out of it instead of using heavy and everlasting stones. In the aftermath, no Slavic holy sights and temples persisted today. In temples dedicated to goddess Zhiva, high priests wore ritual hats or helmets with horns, which were symbols of fertility among Slavic people and other religious folklore throughout Europe in the old times.

Aside from Slavic deities, Serbs believed in other godly creatures who had influence over nature, like ghosts, fairies, demons, dragons, and forest mothers, and also human-like creatures that originated from people like vampires, witches, werewolves, etc. The list is endless. To better live with all those beasts and scary underworld monsters, many rituals are invented and practiced all over. One in particular is still alive in Eastern Serbia in the event called Rusalje, where women fall into trances after ritually caroling and dancing and virtually connect to the ghosts and afterlife world in order to predict future events and understand upcoming dangers. Interesting facts are that many women refused to exert 'the healing procedure' in local monasteries performed by Christian priests and willingly performed the ritual every year. Of course, these were the extremes, but there were other more benevolent rituals that were practiced in the past, and I would not be surprised if they are still alive today. For example, if we are talking about Zhiva, human worshipers were ceremonially providing bouquets of flowers, fruits, and wheat on numerous occasions, but also there was a ritual of sacrificing a rooster before the time when wheat is sown and/or after the harvest is over.

Christian church on the Isle of Bled

If we are considering the Eastern European Slavic history, perhaps the strongest sites where Zhiva was worshiped were throughout the lands of nowadays Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and eastern Germany, but perhaps the most interesting site where the temple of Zhiva once existed was the famous Lake Bled in Slovenia. More precisely, the foundation of the temple that provided the support for a square wooden house in the 8th century was excavated under the Christian church on the Isle of Bled. Attached to the foundation was a square building with an apse from the 9th century that clearly indicates the transition from a pagan temple to an early Christian church. Christian missionaries dedicated to shutting down old Slavic sites and temples at the time almost always transferred the sites of worshiping Slavic goddesses into the worship of the Mother of God to ease the transition, and the nowadays church on Lake Bled is consecrated to the Ascension of Mary. The temple of Zhiva on the Isle of Bled and the waterfall on the nearby Savica river were commemorated and celebrated in the epic poem 'Baptism on Savica' by the 19th-century Slovenian poet France Prešeren.

Well, temples dedicated to Zhiva definitely no longer exist, but it is documented that many places, at least in Serbia, with names that survived the last millennium and have the words 'deva' or 'baba' in their roots (which means goddess mother) suggest sites of worshiping the female deity, most likely locations of Zhiva's temples. A couple of those places and nearby mountains have such words near the village where my great-great-grandfather lived and where our summer house still stands. Also, lots of people's names and surnames have the word 'Živa' in the root, and they all originate in old Slavic beliefs. Years ago, during my education in high school and faculty, Živa was my nickname, and I always turned around if I heard somebody call it.

Image refs:
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2017/08/10/reanimating-slavic-gods-the-man-who-breathes-life-into-deities_820264
https://www.locationscout.net/locations/6017-lake-bled
http://www.1zoom.me/de/wallpaper/156998/z349.2/

Refs:
http://www.starisloveni.com/Bogovi.html
https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/550443944/goddess-zhiva-wood-birch-statue-slavic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_of_Slavic_religion
https://www.rasen.rs/2017/01/rusalje-ili-zene-padalice/#.W26_Kegza00
https://www.srbijadanas.com/vesti/info/misterija-istocne-srbije-ko-su-zene-koje-padaju-u-trans-i-predvidaju-buducnost-2017-05-20
https://vesna.atlantidaforum.com/?p=3916
http://lifestyle.enaa.com/horoskop/Kdo-je-bila-Ziva.html
http://vladimir-uno.blogspot.com/2015/09/ziva-goddess-of-living-water-life-love.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Pre%C5%A1eren
 

Atlanteans

If I am going to give a thought or two about ancient Atlantis, its mysterious people, and all the conspiracy theories behind it, there is no doubt that I'll first think of the origin of the story. Classical Greece and Plato. One of the most famous scholars from BC. In his own time, Plato was definitely the top Greek philosopher from ancient Athens, who lived in the fourth century before Christ and dedicated his entire scholarly life to philosophical research and development of modern society and politics. The method he used in his publications was dialogues, a very popular way of expressing scientific thoughts at the time. Plato's dialogues, in which he never took the role as one of the participants, were often the front story accompanied with narration, but in some of them he even excluded the narrator and presented his work in pure novel style, with his characters carrying the story all the way.


In regard to today's title, two dialogues are especially interesting—Timaeus and Critias. Participants in the dialogues were Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias, and Plato tried to describe the perfect society time-framed way back before the old Classical Greece. In short, these two dialogues describe a tale from a man called Solon, another Athenian, who, during his travels throughout ancient Egypt, learned about mysterious people who lived and perished many generations before. Twenty years or so before these dialogues, Plato had written his masterpiece "The Republic", in which he discussed what he thought of an ideal state with a 'just man' and the meaning of justice in general from the point of view of Greek cities from the classical time. His ideal state was named 'Ancient Athens', placed in existence 9000 years before Plato's time (or 900 if the suggested error in translation is true), and governed with a superior and almost utopian society. As it seems, Atlanteans are used in Plato's books just as an example of how even the enemy that was so powerful, beyond any current comprehension, is incapable of defeating a perfectly regulated society. After that the story went wild, and Atlanteans, who tried to enslave the entire Mediterranean, were easily defeated by 'utopian' and perfectly organized Athenians. In the aftermath, their superb armada retreated to their island, and the gods in their final rage destroyed the entire Atlantean civilization, which Plato described in his famous words, "There occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea." In the second dialogue, "Critias", Plato described in more detail the origin of the 'ancient' Atlanteans, with extensive use of old Greek mythology, as Poseidon's heaven, who created a perfect society that ultimately, over time, started to fade out as soon as they started losing their divine origin and got overwhelmed in corruption.

Today, we have great knowledge about ancient Greek times, and so far there are no scientific facts in favor of "ancient of the ancient" Greek society that is older than 3 millenniums BC, who fought mighty civilizations that came from the other side of the Pillars of Hercules and both vanished without a single trace. However, there is a faint clue and tons of theories of where Plato really found inspiration for this incredible tale.

Reconstruction of a late Cycladic Ship (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the faint clue, I would vote for the ancient Minoan civilization and their predecessors, who preceded the Greeks in the Aegean and suffered ultimate decimation from both natural disaster and human invaders. They lived on the island of Crete within the ancient settlements of Knossos and Gortyn and also on the northern Aegean island of Thera (Santorini) in the ancient site of Akrotiri, which, just like Roman Pompeii, is remarkably preserved after the tremendous volcanic eruption. Their civilization flourished in the late Bronze Age and, like in Plato's words, within a single day and night, around the year 1600 BC, disappeared into the sea in one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in the history of the entire world. What is today known as 'The Minoan eruption of Thera', seismologists tend to classify as four times more powerful than the well-known explosion of Krakatoa. If Minoans had more settlements in the neighborhood, which was likely, they were all destroyed and sunk during the natural reshaping of the archipelago. A massive eruption, no doubt, created a large tsunami wave that probably reached all the way to Crete and ultimately decimated the Minoan people in the northern part of the island. In the following years, pirates and thieves from the sea and land took the chance and made sure for Minoans to never recover to what they once were.

Well, in conclusion and after this small history glimpse, if you ask me, there is a fair chance that Plato's Atlanteans are truly based on ancient Minoans. After all, 2300+ years ago, in Plato's time, the world wasn't big, and the entire cradle of the civilization, as we popularly call Greek Classical times, was small and all about the Aegean Sea. Even the Mediterranean was too large for wooden galleys and far travels. Ancient Minoans came to the Aegean two millennia before Plato, and after their misfortune, I am sure the legends and myths about them grew slightly above the facts. Still, their language, clay tablets, art, pottery, architecture, and overall history prove they once were a very respectful and organized society.


There is no doubt that Atlanteans from Plato's 'Timaeus and Critias' served just a supporting role in this piece of philosophy, but still, ever since, the Atlantis story has had a large impact on literature, comic books, and movies. They are used in tons of novels and portrayed as an insanely advanced civilization with all the technological wonders, perfect cities, flying ships, state-of-the-art armory, etc. There is no bay or gulf in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Caribbean that some rich adventurer or scholar didn't try to find the Atlantean ruins or at least to post a new theory of the Atlantis site or a conspiracy theory of some sort. To be honest, I am really ok with that—if you look at it from the entertainment point of view, what you get is very much fun, and if you read it on the beach, it surely adds another level to your vacation time.

This is exactly what I did this summer, and during our ten days of R&R on Thassos Island of the northern Aegean, I loaded all three books of The Origin Mystery on my Kindle and swallowed them all in record time. Honestly, from this trilogy I expected a lot, and this is exactly what I got! You have to be brave to make yet another novel about Atlanteans, and A.G. Riddle wrapped it just right. He managed to connect several sci-fi genres into one successful story. For my taste all the sciences are there and connected perfectly. Biology, virology, genetic research including junk-DNA involvement, physics and space travel, quantum entanglement, Antarctica, known history, and the use of connection and conspiracy theories like the Nazi bell (Die Glocke) or the Roswell UFO sighting. Play with time dilation and hibernation. Space battles of enormous proportion. Explanation of gods and ancient astronauts. If you add the usual 'Indiana Jones' type of adventures and romance, there was no better choice for me this July. Perhaps, using so many connected sciences in the plot is too risky, as the author faces the challenge of choosing what is more important and deserves to be explained better at the expense of other technologies or speculations, but I don't mind. All in all, Riddle's Atlanteans are perhaps the best version I've read in a long while, and I warmly recommend it.

Reconstruction of the Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the real Atlanteans, or in this case ancient Minoans, I hope some of next summer will lead us to the southern Aegean, and then this story will earn another post in the thread. No doubt with images from ancient Akrotiri. In the meantime, don't miss the below link with incredible scientific reconstructions from before the Minoan Eruption made by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archeology (LBI ArchPro).

Image credit:
* The Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)