11.The
primordial twins
A prehistoric wall painting from
Tell Munbaqa, Syria,[1]
shows the primordial twins as two pillar-like creatures judging from the
sophisticated design of their heads: the nose has become a high peak running up
to the top of the scull, and the eyes are filling out and dominating the entire
face; they are visionaries, and they are world-columns. The castores as the
personified twin-peaks is also a common theme in the cult of Juppiter
Dolichenus where Dolichenus is a location in Northern Syria. Azizos and
Monimos, the divine brothers of Edessa, could also be seen as the followers of
Melqart; at least in the novel Wonderful things beyond Thule the
narrator of the novel is followed by 3 helpers “on his wanderings in quest for
information”: Carmanes, Meniskos and Azulis. Meniskos and Azulis are the
followers of the sun, the morning and evening star, Ázizu and Munim. Carmanes
is “the man from the land of the sunrise”, Carmania. Like Cadmos (“east”) and
Mithras named after the eastern god Mithra. He is probably a synonym for
Melqart. He travels with Meniskos to the island of the moon, and from here, by
the intervention of the Sibyl, he is transported on the wings of sleep across
the universe, and wakes up in the temple of Melqart in Tyre just as the two
young main characters of the novel (brother and sister) are returning to Tyre
to bring “revival and salvation to their parents”, who have been put to sleep
by a magic deadly drowsiness brought upon them by the Egyptian wizard Paapis.
This has all to be understood on the background of the famous Tyrian rite of
the “Arousal of Melqart”. On his travel through the eternal night to the island
of the moon, Melqart is only accompanied by Meniskos, the evening star – very
logical, as the sun is only followed by the evening star as it steps over the
threshold of night. The morning star goes in front of the daylight, breaking
the way for it: it was Azulis who found the words which could break the spell
of the deadly sleep which had fallen upon the parents.
The main female character is
Dercyllis. It is underlined that she “roamed about” (eplanêthe). She is the goddess Derceto-Europa travelling over the
western Sea, and by Zeus given into the custody of Asterios, king of Crete, cf.
the helper of Dercyllis called Astraios. That Astraios is the highgod, the high
heaven of the night, is seen from his pupils which changed with the phases of
the moon, cf. the custodian of Jo Argos with 1000 eyes = the stars. Dercyllis
becomes the mistress of the narrator.
After killing animals and taking
their hides as a clothing, after the fight with his brother, and after the
great flood, Usoos sailed out on a log. In the mysteries of the Cabiri on
Samothrace the myth tells that Iasion was killed by the lightening of Zeus, and
there was a great flood, but his brother Dardanos sailed out, dressed in a
wine-bag made of an animal’s skin. As Usoos is the founder of East-Tyre/Usu, so
Dardanos is the founder of the town of Dardania, and as Usoos and his brother
are living in a time of promiscuous women, so is the reason for Iasion being
killed by Zeus and the world being flooded, the fact that Demeter offered him,
a mortal man, her love.
To Philo of Byblos, who brings the
story of Usoos and his brother Hypsuranios they are a small part of a whole
chain of inventive pairs of brothers, and these inventors are among the
Phoenicians called the “Great Gods” because they invented things useful for
mankind. Now the Semitic word for “Great” is kabir, and it is very
likely that this is the reason for the gods of Samothrace being called Cabiri.
Cain means “smith”, and he is the founder of the first city, while Abel is a
shepherd. In the tradition by Philo “man of nature” contra city-founder and
metal-worker is mostly the key to the long row of inventive brothers.
First by Philo is
I: “Hunter (and fisherman)” – his
brother invented “bricks for the making of walls”
II: Inventor of “courts, pens and
caves” – his b. “improved, sun-dried bricks and roofs”
(for detaining captured animals!)
III: Inventor of herds of tamed
animals – his brother invented “villages”.
But the very first step in this
chain is Usoos inventing clothes made from the skin of animals – Hyps. “huts of
reeds & papyrus”.
Last step in the relationship to the
animals is the invention of salt for the preparation of their flesh (made by
Misor and Sydyk).
Alcinoos had a brother, Locros. They
quarrelled, Locros sailed to Italy, but was killed by Heracles, who founded a
city and gave it the name of Locros, Conon ap. Photios 134a.
Olynthos was killed by a lion during
a hunt. His brother mourned for him, and founded a city, giving it the name of
Olynthos, ibd.
Also the Ugarit-text “The Graceful
Gods, Shahar and Shalim” calls this Dioscuric pair of brothers “the first to
found a city in the desert”, and “cleavers of the sea”.
It seems as if both the classical
and the Phoenician tradition are working with the same elements as Gen 1-11:
the first city founded by the primeval brothers seen as a pair of contrasts.
One killing the other. And heavily mixed with that the tradition of the sons of
gods (Gen 6,1ff.) being struck by the great flood, but one of them (or both)
surviving in an ark. On the island of Thassos were ruins of great Phoenician
mines, and the society of the Thassians was said to be founded by Thassos, who
landed on the island in an ark or coffin.
The things Philo has to tell about
El Cronos in Byblos (I,10,20) are also variations on the themes found in Gen
1-11:
I: “After that …
Cronos founded the first city…” cf. Gen 4,17.
II: “After that … he
threw his own brother down and buried him in the depth of the earth…” cf. Gen
4,11.
III: ”At the same
time, those who were descendants from the Dioscuri constructed rafts and ships
and sailed … and after being cast ashore at Mt.Cassios, they consecrated a
temple there…” Gen 8,20.
IV: “The allied of El Cronos were
now called Eloim” Gen 6,1-4.
There is still, among the
shepherd-tribes of East Africa, an initiation of the young men after they have
lived for 7 years among the cattle in the bush. Every seven years there is a
great feast for the young men returning to society, their leader gets the rank
of chief, and they are now free to marry and have a family. In the period they
are living in the mountains taking care of the cattle they wear a special
hairdo, very similar to the hairdo of the Curoi-statues so well known from
Early Greek art.
As a matter of fact, Apollo must be
seen as the god of the young Curoi, the god for the initiation of the young men
of the “unshorn lock”[2].
After murdering the dragon both Apollo and Cadmos have to flee and serve 8
years as shepherds in the wilderness. In the Ugarit texts it is said to the two
brothers “In the holy desert you have to roam… 7, yea 8 years”. The two holy
brothers were especially seen as the gods of the Arabs, they were gods for
those living in the wilderness. They are gods for the young men returning to
the village after their stay in the mountains. In Germanic religion the society
of the young warriors was identified with the hoard of demons when on certain
feast days, they “sacked” the village [3](
In the Ugarit text the young men coming from the wilderness, where they have
stayed for seven years, are described as having the appetite of demons, and
they are begging food and vine from the villager, the “Guardian of the Sown
Land” (just like children dressed as demons at Halloween). They are wild men
that have to be reintegrated into civilisation.
The Anthropologist W.Koppers[4]
has developed the theory that petrified remnants of very old religion can be
found on the outskirts of the inhabited earth, and has therefore made important
investigations into the initiations practised by a tribe at the southern tip of
South America. It was a cultural initiation, not an initiation into everlasting
life, and centred round the myth of the two primeval brothers, described as
opposite natures: one was stupid, and one was smart. From the facts collected
above we have seen that in the Middle East the two brothers are also closely
connected to the moving of mankind from a primitive to a more advanced state.
Also the famous mysteries of Eleusis were centered around the brothers Demophon
(who is killed) and Triptolemos, who, like Cain, travels through all the world to
teach mankind the art of agriculture. Cain is the founder of the first
city, and has a son by name Hanok = “initiated”.
The Syrian cavalier god (see below)
is often split up into two: the morning and evening star = the primordial twins
– or they can be the world mountain, the highgod himself split up into two.
With the highgod or the sun hero they form a holy trinity. The twin brothers
are found everywhere in Syrian iconography, and even in the early Christian
“Acts of Thomas”: “Holy pigeon, who gives birth to the young twins” (ch.50).
The twins are here the apostle Thomas, who, like the cavalier god, travels to
the land of the sun, India - not on horseback, but by catching 4 wild donkeys
and making them pull the holy quadriga, the chariot of the sun. Cf the Tyrian coin
showing Melqart catching four stags able to run on the surface of the sea under
the guidance of the morning star (Brit.Mus.Coins,
Phoenicia, pl. XXXIII,5; XLIV,6). Thomas´s heavenly twin is Jesus. The Acts of Thomas is probably from
Edessa, where the cult of the divine twins played a major role. Thomas is also
described as the typical bringer of culture: he is able to make ploughs, yokes,
oars and masts for ships and build palaces and temples.