THE DIVINE FIRES OF CREATION. HOMERIC HEPHAESTOS AS A COMET / METEOR GOD. PART III: THE GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE Amanda Laoupi Centre for the Assessment of Natural Hazards and Proactive Planning - NTUA
11. THE GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 11.1. Lemnian Earth and the destruction layers The ‘flame of Hephaistos’ or his ‘red breath’ (characterized as purest flame) was a leit motif among ancients (Orphic Hymn 66 to Hephaestus; Homer Iliad, II.426, IX.467, XVII.88 & XXIII.33 and Odyssey xiv.71; Hesiod Theogony, 864; Aristophanes Birds, 436; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 13.170,13. 367 & 4.160; Suidas, s.v. 'Hephaistos'). Although ancient writers mention it together with Keian, Cappadocian and Sinopic earths, [82] all four being identified as red earths, Pliny’s comment makes the difference. This earth (terra lemnia, rubricata or sigillata) resembles cinnabar ( 35.14), it had a pleasant taste, too, while Galen (13.246b) adds that “it differs from miltos because it doesn’t leave a stain when handled”. The same writer , during his visit to Hephaestias , analyzes the myth of Hephaistos and his relationship with Lemnos, saying that “the mythical hill, also known as Mosychlos, appeared to be burnt due to its color and from the fact that nothing grows on it”. Belon, during his journey in the 16th cent., refers also to the yellow/white colors of the earth, equally explained by the presence of hydrothermally altered rocks. The ritual of its extraction highlights its peculiarity. On the other hand, the god was reknown as an ‘ aithaloeis theos’, meaning the sooty god (Suidas , s.v. 'Aithaloeis theos') and in Lemnos, Hephaestos was worshipped as a god of healing, his priests possessing antidotes to poisons. Later on, the priestesses of Artemis had the right to use this earth (http://www.gla.ac.uk/archaeology/projects/indminerals/LemnianEarth). [83] That Artemis was connected to the Anatolian nucleus of Amazons. Consequently, hydrocarbon evolution due to past volcanic activity may be one explanation. Destruction layers with hydrocarbon presence and other characteristics mentioned above (like cinnabar, with sweet taste, loosing its power with the time passing over or being periodically recharged) may be another evidence of past celestial events (combustion residues, chemical fusion). In his dissertation, LaViolette [61] proposed that invading cosmic dust would have caused the Sun to become more luminous and engage in continual flaring activity. At least on one occasion, the Earth and Moon may have been engulfed by a large prominence remnant ‘fireball’ (coronal mass ejection) thrown out by the Sun in a highly active T-Tauri like flaring state at as much as 1000 times currently observed levels. Satellite observations showed solar flares ejecting expanding balls of plasma, capable of travelling outward beyond the Earth's orbit. Similarly, astronomers announced that they had observed large explosive outbursts from the surfaces of nearby normal sunlike stars. This confirmed the Lovell hypothesis and increased the plausibility of LaViolette's suggestion that the Sun was producing mega solar flares and intense plasma fireballs at the end of the last ice age. Furthermore, in the late 1970's , Dr. Han Kloosterman was arguing that a global conflagration was the cause of the black layer found in AllerΩd sediments in S. England and in the Great Lakes Region. Later in 2002, when Dr. LaViolette examined, in a geological field trip, the accumulating evidence of the black Usselo Horizon [61] dating from the AllerΩd/Younger Dryas transition and correlative with similar horizons found in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and the S.W. U.S. A. They both