ORPHEUS MYSTERIES HISTORY FOR WINE, WHEAT, BREAD, LIVE WATER AND SOMETHING ELSE
If we consider the wine production as a deliberate human activity rather than a seasonal coincidence of nature’s miracles and human watchfulness, we shall have to leave the beautiful legends for wine discovery and go back to the distant Neolithic Hellenic Period (8500-5000 B.C.). This is the human prehistory when the major prerequisites for new cuisine appear and the neolithic table was set with home-grown produce. The Neolithic societies are famous for abandoning the nomad life in favor of temporary settlements. This way of life provides gardens with cultivated plants and tamed animals. For the time being it is still unknown which of the characteristics of the new way of life has influenced most its ascertainment. Along with the Neolithic cuisine techniques for food processing develop fermentation, soaking, infusing, seasoning. It is said that the Neolithic peoples started producing the first bread, the first drink, meat and grain food which we continue to enjoy nowadays. Here, in the land of Bulgaria, during its Neolithic culture we discover more – the beginning of spirituality, hidden in a ritual circle of objects for the first Holy Communion. The development of crafts for preparation preservation and serving of food accompany the new cuisine. A very important is the appearance of pots, thanks to development of discovery and development of pottery. According to the world scientific press, it had appeared circa 6000 B.C. And yet, in Bulgaria we know that it happened at least 1000 years earlier. Clay’s elasticity is the ideal material for sculpting of curvy forms for casks, pitchers, troughs, jars and pots for storing, producing and maturing of ....wine. Baked at high temperature, the clay turns into an indestructible ceramics and its’ pore structure helps to absorb and store for eternity the organic materials stored in the vessel. „«... The jar, with capacity of about 9 litres (2.5 gallons), was found together with 5 similar ounces in the clay floor along the wall of the Neolithic dwelling which existed around 5400 – 500 B.C. It had consisted of a living room, twice bigger than the rest of the rooms, used probably also as a bedroom, ‘kitchen’ and two rooms for storing of supplies. Such dwelling would accommodate an expanded family. The assumption that the room with the jars had functioned as a cuisine, is valid because of the numerous clay vessels used probably to prepare food, together with the fire place.” ТThis story is not Bulgarian. She come from D-r P. McGovern, an American scientist, who swore to find the truth about wine. The place of action is Iran. Time – around 5000 B.C. Prior that the explorer traveled regions in today’s Turkey. He never reached Bulgaria anyway. And made a map of the Ancient Wine Road. So the ritual bread, wine, precious water and …. The first
idol in the world – the fantastic ceramic rhyton, sculptured deer remain unveiled for the world audience. It is them that the famous Bulgarian learned man, Prof. P.Detev, discovered 40 years ago in the skirts of Phodopi Mountain. And not accidentally his discovery is 1200 years older. The coarse ceramics “sheltered” the very first wine fermentation from Iran is a sign of rather inherited, adopted from abroad skills or of a late discovery. It is incompatible with the “Muldavian” treasure. It is inexcusable in today’s global world of instant communications to allow the arrows pointing the Road of Civilization, in this case the one of Wine, to point at the wrong direction – from Iran to Turkey and the rest of the European world, instead from the soils of old Trace (Bulgaria and the modern European Turkey) toward Iran, Egypt, Mesopotamia. I don’t mention the Hellenics because they are quite drones in these ancient culture.
ANCIENT WINE PRODUCTION The wine production relies exclusively on the wine growing which restricts it, on the other hand, due to lack of the necessary vessels and storage means. The wild wine DIOECIOUS is unisexual which should be pollinated by insects. Only the female plant produces grapes. It grows nowadays in the moderate Mediterranean basin and also in regions in west and central Asia. During the Neolithic Period, the wild Eurasian wine was cultivated to its present species. The cultivated wine is a hermaphrodite which starts selfpollination from wind and grapes production from every blossom. The genetic “history” – coded in the DNA of the modern wild and cultivated grapes and the present samples are an alternative way to track the wine development in the Old World. Using DNA methods (RECOMBINANT), it should be possible to define whichever specific region in the world and the approximate period of time when the wild grapes was cultivated. The hypothesis about Noah and the Black Sea flood searches the ancestor of the cultivated grapes and the sequence in its development and transplantation. (The Biblical Noah was declared the first wine producer after the flood because after he stepped on solid ground, he got drunk from some soar drink.)
THE POWER OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES The archeological chemical laboratory at the Penn University was developed with the supervision of Dr. Patrick MacGovern and has supreme equipment. It has no equal even in the U.S.A. Starting with chemical identification of the first Royal lawn, the famous paint from the Phoenicians, the laboratory continues to develop techniques to identify curdled drinks – beer from barley, mead from honey and, of course, the early wine drinking. The museums would have won a lot from the new technologies. The non-destructive analysis of skeleton material, the botanical remains and remains in pottery will shed new light at the human cultural and technological development, will write new and exciting pages in the History of Civilization. The archeological chemistry became an adult in the last twenty years. Ancient food, perfumery, paints and natural fertilizers were only described in ancient reports. Today they are found regularly by oversensitive instruments. Whole new chapters, describing the human species and its’ genetic development, our cuisine and medical practice, are opened again and should be “revised”. I see in this unique chance for our pre-historic culture.
DR. MACGOVERN’S EVIDENCES „The complex infrared, liquid chromatographic and wet chemical analysis which were made, show the presence of wine acid in the vessel. In the nature it is found in big amounts only in grapes. In normal conditions and at room temperature, grapes juice ferments quickly into wine. Due to the slow methods of grapes press in antiquity and high temperatures in the Middle East, the fermentation most probably started even before the liquid was pour in the jar. The clay plugs with size approximately the mouth of the jar were found nearby, so the expertise was complete – sealing of the jar protects the wine from turning into vinegar. The highly productive chromatographic liquid results show that there are traces of glue from turpentine tree. This gave extra evidence that the jar contains wine. In regions with altitude and flora as Hadji Firuz, the wild grapes and terpentine wine accrete and produce grapes and glue during one and the same time of the year (?!) So mixing together these products as the results of the biochemical analysis show might have been an accident or a result of an innovative impulse. Regardless of all, the p r o d u c t stored in the jar, might have be only wine, produced in this region.”
HISTORY OF WINE I review the chronology; build with scientists’ efforts and as a result of their past research. I respect Dr.MacGovern’s statements and begin with contemporary Iran because according his current research; it was there that the oldest traces of wine production were found – at Mount Hadji Firuz, in mountain Zagros.
Mesopotamia
When we start talking about wine history, until now we begin with the barley which was used to produce alcoholic drinks in Ancient Sumeria (present Iraq). The warm, dry climate there created difficulties for wine growth and wine production and they date back only from the second millennium A.D. Based on the chemical analysis on the jar interior, used for transportation, the wine there was from 3500 – 3100 A.D. The marks on the stamps from early dynasties show the king and entourage’s drinking. It was distributed with pipes from the big vessels to the small ones. The images show also a hand holding mugs filled, most probably, with wine. The wine imported in the valley of the vast Mesopotamia, might be from the North Mountains of Zagros in Iran or other regions along the 600 kilometers long east strip of land. In 5 century B.C. the Greek historian Herodotus describes the wine forwarding down river Tiger and Effrat from Armenia. Wrapped up in fur boats were loaded with cask from Phoenician palm trees filled with wine and given to Babylon. The river transportation was also an alternative during the early Bronze era. But if the drink demand was big enough, transplantation of vineyards towards closer places in central Zagros and probably far south is very probable. When during the early Bronze era trade roads were suddenly cut off, pressure to plant productive vineyards closer to the main city centers increased. Future excavations will be crucial to follow-up the pre-history of wine culture and wine production in this region from the Ancient Middle East. An indication already exists, that a factory for cultivated grapes was built circa third century B.C., which is seen in the Assyrian relieves two thousand years later when men and women, seated under bowers for wine, most probably drink wine Egypt The wild wine had never grown in ancient Egypt. In spite of that, the prosperous king’s winery was found in the delta of the Nile – probably because of trade from the times of early bronze between Egypt and Palestine, rounding contemporary Israel, west coast and the Gaza strip as well
river Jordan. All that started from the period of the Old Kingdom. Scenes for winery appear on the walls of graves and are accompanied with lists including wine, produced from wine in the delta. Until the end of the Old Kingdom, five types of wine – probably produced in the delta – participate in the canon set of supplies, something that looked like a fixed ‘menu’ for the afterlife. Testimony for winery in the delta in the times of early dynastic period (first and second dynasty) is deductive. Instead of recording a big number of wine jars in a list, the available jars were buried in graves of pharaohs at Abidos and in Sahara, the major religious centers. Proofs are hidden in many vessels used to store wine. The chemical tests assert that vessels from the first dynasty and second dynasty held wine. A little less impression made the common stamp on jars’ lids with hieroglyphic signs for ‘vineyard’ and geographic locations/i.e. Memphis, the north capital, as addition to pharaoh’s name/. Such stamps were interpreted as wine label, giving the location of wine production and its owner while pharaoh’s name was considered as a shortened form for registration of jars with wine. The contribution of wine culture from Egypt is in showing the first ‘fruits’ of emerging industry. Is it possible to know when the first vineyard was planted in the delta of the Nile? A painting with imprints of a stamp from a lip with the name of Hashemui II, from the dynasty of the pharaohs, shows how he runs by trellis wine or a bower. It is still arguable which one of the two is true, but the answer is important for the pre-history of this industry which sooner or later spreads along the whole delta towards the big west oases and even towards the towns of upper Nile, where the climate seems to impediment the wine culture.
HOME OF BREAD, WINE AND MYSTERIES
Our unique pre-history had dominated the cultures emerging in the rest of the world and was ahead with more than 1000 years. All past data and the collected evidence show us as world leaders during the first 2 millennium from the history of civilization. It is a long period that lasted from the end of the 8th C. until the end of the 5th C. Homogeneous material local culture from that time, as well as its aesthetics hidden in typical decorations, show that Paleobalkanic population and the tribes from Asia Minor and the land around the Black Sea basin /at that time, a lake/ were made by the native population from homogeneous ethnical origin. But only the Rhodopy Mountain and its appendix in Strandja Sakar washing tha bank of then lake are carriers of a primary and very original spiritual culture. All this is buried in indeserved obscurity and when we are encouraged to tell the truth about it, the world will be a little less inclined to revise its long time ago accumulated postulates. It is now time for new discoveries made due to modern technology. As a result of the new discoveries a little but important correction should be made – adding in the first pages of the First Chapter of History of Civilization. The task is simple and it will restore the human sense towards civilization impulses appearing from the first discoveries about the nature and its’ laws, from the first instruments and technologies, from creating the first adequate forms in which we recognize unmistakably the fundamental first step from the eternal spiral of human progress. We, and only we, could offer the world to make ancient its ideas for human civilization with a little more than 1000 years. And then, everything will come in its place. It is about time to realize that the first 2,000 years from the world culture were written here, in Bulgaria. I take the occasion from Dr. MacGoverns’ story about the wine and his wonderful discovery. What does it tell us? That, while in Iran they drank grape juice that fermented by accident, forgotten by some housewife in a clay kitchen jar, here, in the skirts of Rhodopi Mountain, but only 1,200 years earlier, they not only knew the wine, but had a magic recipe for the preparation of this elixir to accept the first Holy Communion in its earliest act of spirituality – sacrifice ritual to God – Sun and the secret of Spring. Subsequently the wine culture here spread its tentacles and wrapped up all Thracian mysteries. Some believe that it put the foundation of Civilization itself. But the Thracian God – Dionysus is not the merry drunkard as he is described by our fellow Greeks. Even they know that here the wine had a special price – as a medicine, social glue, a substance, changing its mood and….Communion. Even circa 6,300 years B.C., the wine was in the focus of different cults and proto-formation, and the Neolithic cuisine was important part for the economy and society. A symbol, reminding of blood, it was used in temple ceremonies and with its 12
resurrecting power strengthened the heart of the one taking Communion. So let’s take now our first Thracian Communion.
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Muldava, 6300 years B.C. The ravine of forty springs Temple of Fertility In Thracian Land of Origin I shall tell this story as I heart it from my father. He had dug it by the village Muldava and claimed that it is more than 8,000 years old. It might be a story but it might be only a myth. Archaeological data exist … It is possible that once wise men and scientists believed in it, but it is possible also that only illiterate and trusting hearts loved and saved it. One thing is certain, it is alive, and it exists. You will be surprised when you find out how solid traces of the past life are. These vessels bear the first mystery, born in our land about a Deer, considered as a God’s envoy, and its turning through Offering into an Idol. Of course, we have only the result – this exquisite ceramic rhyton - Idol of the GodSun. As a real Horn of plenty it serves the participants in the ritual the first wine in the world. Unseen divine elixir, knead from the first fermented wild grapes and precious with qualities and taste water, purified with a magic. It is hidden in miraculous Rhodope minerals put in a magic mug. The first Thracian mystery was born from the power of spirit and oversensitive Hierophant, governing the mystical transformation of the God’s envoy, the Deer, sacrificial, was turned into an idol-rhyton and as a real Horn of plenty spread the power of the God-Sun. This ritual was played every spring in honor of the great spring sacrament. Nowadays, two Bulgarian museums host these unique vessels from the first sacred table found in the Rhodope Mountain, the spiritual mother of the Thacians. Its respectable age reaches the ninth millennium.
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Around 6,300 years B.C., in a beautiful place, The Revine of 40 springs, nearby the present village Muldava, the local population from valley of the ancient river Hebros (Maritsa) established its first own Temple of fruitfulness. Up there, from the high, the springs from this strange place sprinkle as the bright eyes of the God-Sun who shines as daylight. These springs are wonderful. They go down unknown roads from the very top of the mountain. Up, they can be found by lodge Martsiganitsa, and then they disappear from sight down in the valley where they rise again from the depths of the earth. Even today geologist wonder at this miracle and our ancestors bow down before nature’s phenomena. They considered it a “sign from God” – a sacred place for thousands of years it left lasting marks in their spiritual culture. Probably, that is the reason why its name survived – MULDAVA – from the Thracian word ‘mulda’ (fortified sanctuary) and the area remains covered with scattered chapels, churches and monasteries. They found traces from the primary cult towards the God-Sun and his envoy on Earth – the Holy Deear in the temple.
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Pre - history Keepers at the Door of Knowledge We don’t have precise information how people had reached this cultural phenomenon and when the first conditions for it appeared, but the last researches show that on the north slopes of Rhodope Mountain (or maybe somewhere else) there was not an Ice Age. Even during the late Paleolithic Age we find early traces of agriculture and stock – breeding. People tamed a lot of animals in the end of 8th and the beginning of 9th C. They became well acquainted with the wild grain food. Often by the dwellings a part from the ground seeds fell in crumbly ground where they grew and matured. People started to gather and sow them. In such manner the stock – breeding and agriculture gradually developed during the Mesozoic Era and became the main means of living for the people. This must have continued at least 1,000 years before this cult center emerged. Once they stepped in the Path of Knowledge, our ancestors’ achievements are quite surprising. For the first time in Europe, here they made their own manufacturing food line from agriculture and stock – breeding. They found grain crops, improved the tools, developed the spirituality. They reached a complete harmony between the Nature’s and human resources – fertile soil, natural sources for watering – snow, rain, natural tanks and skills to cultivate and grow crops and animals. The Neolithic standard here shows very well the way in which the first promised lands were created. The choice of residence shows ‘superior’ reasons which show knowledge and over sensuousness. This ancient science is called geomantics (science for the earth’s spirit). In such manner our ancestors brought up their unique skills to mold nature until their entire merging with it, to derive gifts for the body and soul.
The discovery The temple complex had a central building and two side buildings – “cellar” and “winery”. In the yard, there are a fireplace, alter and frour pyramids from gravel and limestone, surrounding the sacred space. The Temple has a room for feasts or reception room. In the “celler’ a collec
tion of 9 alters wasalters was preserved – flames from the Resurrection to the Holy fire. In the “winery”, there was the pythos for wine, a vessel for pouring, table sup, the Deer – rhyton, a fireplace, small equipment and a vessel for carrying liquids. Weapons, instruments, objects and jewelry made from deer horns and bones – the deer was a sacred animal.
The Holy Deer and the Ritual
This is a story from the time when people were friends with animals. They wanted a union with their main GodSun and looked to find various ways to reach Him. They had chosen the Deer, for many reasons, to be his envoy. In a disparate attempt to unite with the God-Sun, they decided that his envoy must be sacrificed. With the act of sacrifice they gave God the soul of his favorite and their warm prayer for fruitfulness. In a mystery ritual, including the meeting
with the young fawn, his sacrifice and the following acceptance of the Solar Power and Benevolence, they created the First Idol which was respected in these lands. The rhyton, this Horn of plenty, was chiseled out from clay exquisitely for the first time here, in the character of the ceramic young fawn. Thus, the embodied God-Sun showed as a Holy young fawn, accepting his sacrifice and embodied in the idol. From him only our ancestors took the first Holy Communion!
The God-Sun, the Holy Deer And hope for Fertility The cult for the Sun is a primary earth cult. On the earth the Sun has a friend – the Fire. The cross formed from the rubbing of two trees yields the Holy fire and the Flame of Ascension. We find them in many alters which accom-
pany the ritual. But they provide only the mass in which the Flame of the Torch outlined the circle of the Sacred to separate it from the everyday. In this fire circle the present fire – dancers, these reborn from the old times fire-walkers, dance their rare dance.
The Spring Sacrament
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the Sky kisses the Earth for the very first time, the Germ of life was born. This Germ bore everything else. The rest is ‌rebirth. The conceiving is covered in the secret of holy marriage. The conceiving hides the power of Fruitfulness. I always welcome spring’s arrival to conceive life and to give you my rich fruits as the grain enters the moist soil, merges with earth, water, sun and gives rich harvest. The remains from the Temple near Muldava testify for the sacred sowing, grains for sowing and the spring experience of penetration and growth.
Ritual bread
Even then the Bread started the laying of the ritual feast. The sacred ceremony in the name of spring sacrament showed his way – form the grain and its growing to the ritual bread. The wonderful ritual tray was made to serve it. It was knead for Him. Only after that, this ritual bread could have fed the people.
Rediscovery of the live water
Amongst the insignificant objects that remained in the box from the big carrying of the Muldaviam treasure, three little stones stood prominently. They were close to the unique cup with 3 bulging half-spheres. It was liken to many things throughout the years but what was its real service noone could tell. One day I filled it up with unpurified water. I put in it the little stones I found. After 3 days … the water had purified. What are these magic stones? This is how I rediscovered the mineral zeolite. Put in water it gradually destroys putrefactive and other dangerous bacteria living in it. It cam improve the taste and clarity, absorbs the admixture of heavy metals or speeds up their settling. It saturates the water with micro elements necessary for the body. A hydro geological laboratory confirmed that this mineral only can make for 3 days every kind of water drinkable; after a week it is up to all modern standards for drinkable water. The found zeolite stones could purify entirely only … 200 ml water!? Did I really find the first alchemic in our lands that were making ‘life water’ to mix it with the thick wine? And all that in an area famous for a kept well even nowadays a unique sort of grapes?
The legend The mythical character of the deer, mediator between the God-Sun and the people, is present in the oldest pagan rituals in our lands. Our ancestors believed that his sacrifice in the name of the spring revival send his soul to the God-Sun so that they can ask for fruitfulness. Relics from this ritual are kept up to present in the folklore. They are the basis for legends for emerging of prehistoric village hill mounds in our land. The people believe that ancient temples of fruitfulness are buried there. Each spring around George’s Day the deer arrived there and voluntarily obeyed people. Welcomed, fed and allowed tor rest he was then sacrificed. Through the ritual gift people prayed the Sun for fruitfulness and happy life. They were waiting to receive a good omen and believed that the deer’s soul will bring fruitfulness to them. But once, they did not wait for the animal to rest well, they sacrificed it and were punished for that … People destroyed the temple and left it, hoping that one day, the deer will return to them again … The legend, the cult assemble and the known until present folklore holidays between Syrni zagovezni and George’s
Day describe with amazing simplicity the spiritual culture of the Neolithic population from the Valley of Maritsa river. At Syrni’s Monday even today mummers’ mask as deer and the holiday itself is dedicated to fire, the earthly image of the Sun, the spring revival and all hopes for fruitfulness connected with it. All they come to us fro ancient times, from local farmers-shepherds that made this piece of heaven into a promised land. The Muldovian temple of fruitfulness stored cult objects from the sacred ceremony, and the faith that without morality, even the worship is degraded and troubles come to everyone. This was the oldest cult object in these lands. The Muldavian Temple had left us unsurpassed with their beauty and imagination cult objects which amazing manifacture and idea, as well as the faith, which brought life, have no analogue in the world from that time. Their possible dedications are towards the spring sacrament and the rituals for raising the fruitfulness accompanying the ritual sacred sowing. The ritual included sacred wine singing which, unfortunately remains to the side of this story. This is the beginning of the Orpheus Mysteries in the land of Thracians.
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The ornaments Challenges from Muldava come also from the ornaments on the vessels which form the local Neolythic style. But up to where it had spread? Information about it comes literally from the entire Balkan Peninsula, the Black Sea area and Asia Minor. This pre-historic decoration consists of 12 motifs which is spread everywhere in this vast region. What should we think about such early similarity of the culture if the paleobalkanic population living in the mentioned areas? By the way, how many proofs we need to prove the obvious – that this culture is autochthonous?! We own to the local population dating from far-off antiquity its’ spiritual and cultural phenomena, the archetypes of our own national culture Mr. MacGovern, my father, the discoverer, is no more. Now you are interested in the oldest wine in the world - you should come to visit us, in the skirts of out sacred Rhodope Mountain. To show you what was the Beginning of the Thracian Orphism. To continue his legend!
When the Thracian kings, many years later, celebrated their victories with wine, they took care to provide its abundance even in afterlife. Some of them were real wine cultures. And when today as we sip from a glass of water as if to summarize this dynamic story, the wild grapes which we put under the microscope will help us feel better the huge variety of taste and bouquets of the local wine culture. Jordan Detev 23
International foundation for spiritual and cultural heritage “Prof. Peter Detev� www.detev.com (C) 2008