Category: March/April2017 – #122

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The Caves of Lascaux

“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. The stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the reading we give the sky, the stories we tell. —Rebecca Solnit

 

Lascaux Cave, Grotte de Lascaux, is in the Vezere River valley in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. The cave is situated in an area rich in earlier prehistoric sites—caves, rock shelters, and settlements. The discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux was first made public in 1880 and led to bitter controversy between experts, which continued into the early twentieth century. Many “experts” did not believe that prehistoric humans had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression, let alone the magnificent art on the cave walls. Acknowledgment of the authenticity of the paintings finally came in 1902 and changed forever the perception of prehistoric humans. The Lascaux paintings are dated to 17,000 years ago and have been called “the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.”

There are more than 350 cave-art sites in France and Spain alone that were occupied at various times over the 25,000 years preceding the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago. Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain are the most famous. Until recently, the earliest European Paleolithic cave art dates from around 32,000 years ago, at Chauvet in France. However, new research published in June 2012, in Science, reveals that hand stencils and disks, made by blowing paint onto the wall in El Castillo cave in Northern Spain, have been dated to at least 40,800 years, making them the oldest-known cave art in Europe. A large, club-shaped symbol in the famous polychrome chamber at Altamira was found to be at least 35,600 years old, indicating that painting started there 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, and that the cave was revisited and painted a number of times over a period spanning more than 20,000 years.

Four young boys exploring Lascaux Hill found the Lascaux Caves in 1940. The cave walls are decorated with more than 1,500 stunning images, spanning a distance of 850 feet (250 meters). Lascaux has long been closed to the public in order to protect the priceless prehistoric artwork, but December of 2016 marked the unveiling of a $94 million full-scale replica. Called Lascaux 4, the project has completely reconstructed one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. Simon Coencas, now 89, is the last surviving member of the original explorers. He was a special guest at the unveiling of the new replica.

Lascaux has three long and narrow subterranean galleries in the form of a letter ‘K,’ including what have become known as the Axial Gallery, the Hall of the Bulls, the Chamber of Felines, the Nave, the Apse, and the Shaft. Numerous monochrome and polychrome paintings and engravings cover most parts of the cave. Images include horses, aurochs (ancestors of modern cattle), bison, oxen, stags, ibex, felines, woolly rhinoceros, birds, bears, an anthropoid, and a chimera. There are some possible abstract representations of plants, symbols, geometric figures, series and sets of dots. Carbon-14 dates from charcoal used sparingly for painting, pollen analysis, and stylistic evaluations suggest that the majority of the rock pictures are associated with what is called the Lower Magdalenian culture from 17,000–15,000 BP. Magdalenians are considered Cro-Magnon and were known as reindeer hunters.

Some researchers have suggested that the Lascaux paintings are sympathetic magic, relating only to the hunt. Copying the animals onto the cave walls created a place to prepare, understand, and follow the animals during their seasonal migration. However, the idea that paintings at Lascaux represent stars or constellations is not new. In the 1990s Frank Edge, who taught mathematics and cosmology at Mitchell Community College in North Carolina, saw the Hall of the Bulls as a map of the summer sky. He explored his ideas in a research paper titled Aurochs in the Sky. The key to his vision was the seven dots painted above the shoulder of one of the bulls (circled in red above). Edge saw this as the Pleiades star cluster above Taurus, the Bull. The Pleiades, because of their position on the ecliptic, have drawn the attention of many cultures. The auroch is the ancestor of modern cattle, suggesting that this animal was an earlier depiction of what is now the constellation Taurus, the Bull. If true, this places the origin and identity of Taurus at least 10,000 years earlier than is currently believed.

French researcher Dr. Chantal Jegues-Wolkiewiez has been working on this for a decade. She affirms that there was a long tradition of sky watching among the Cro-Magnon people of Europe during the period from 30,000–10,000 BCE. Dr. Jegues-Wolkiewiez visited 130 caves in France over a seven-year period to identify solar alignments. She found orientations to sunset during solstices in 122 of the sites. She believes the famous paintings in the caves at Lascaux record the constellations of a prehistoric zodiac, which includes major stars as wells as solstice points. She examined alignments using modern astronomy software. Models were made of the western map of each constellation and then the orientation of the paintings was measured according to an astronomical compass. She was able to determine that summer solstice sunsets penetrated the caves and illuminated certain paintings. Her work is based on identification of dots and tracings superimposed on the paintings of bulls, horses, and aurochs on the cave walls. These appear to correspond to the constellation of Taurus, the asterism of the Pleiades, and the stars Aldebaran and Antares.

Dr. Michael Rappenglueck, from the University of Munich, has arrived at similar conclusions. He believes the paintings of Lascaux represent not only constellations but also the cosmology of Paleolithic shamans. He suggests that an enigmatic painting of a male figure, a bull, and a bird on a pole represent the stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair, all of which supports the earlier work of Frank Edge. These bright stars form what is now called the Summer Triangle. Rappenglueck says these three stars would have been prominent in early spring skies 17,000 years ago.

Rappenglueck also identified what might be the earliest known depiction of Orion that was carved into the tusk of a mammoth and has been dated to 32,000 years ago. He also identified what could be the oldest lunar calendar on the walls of Lascaux, showing symbolic paintings dating back 15,000 years. The German researcher says groups of dots and squares painted among representations of bulls, antelopes, and horses depict the 29-day cycle of the Moon.

A number of Lascaux pictures have possible astronomical significance. These include the ‘e’ and ‘fronting ibex’ in the Axial Gallery and the ‘crossed bison’ in the Chamber of Felines; the stag-and-horse motif and related dots in the Axial Gallery and the five ‘swimming stags’ in the Nave; the aurochs in the Hall of the Bulls with its clusters of dots; and two pictograph panels in the Shaft. The majority of the animals depicted at Lascaux show seasonal characteristics that could have functioned as calendars. For example, deer are represented in their rutting season at the start of autumn, horses at the time of mating and foaling in late winter/early spring, and ibexes at the time when they congregated during late summer/early autumn in same-sex herds. Paintings of animals accurately represent their seasonal coat colors, and indications of particular seasons are sometimes enhanced by drawings of stylized plants. The ‘Chinese horse’ in the Axial Gallery is shown in its summer fur, pregnant, and surrounded by stylized branches, illustrating the time of foaling around summer solstice.

Some abstract designs associated with seasonal animals may be like almanacs. It’s been argued that a set of 13 dots and another of 26 that appear beneath a roaring stag and a pregnant horse (representing autumn and spring, respectively) in the Axial Gallery represent the 13- and 26-week intervals from summer solstice to autumn equinox and then to the spring equinox—each spot counting seven days. Two pictograph panels in the Shaft have been interpreted as the sky panorama that would have been seen by the Magdalenian people from the top of Lascaux Hill around midnight at the time of summer solstice circa 14,500 BCE.

Herodotus, a Greek historian from the fifth century BCE, claimed he received his material from Egyptian priests who, in turn, claimed that their Egyptian history was at least 14,000 years old. Charles Berlitz, in his book, Atlantis, quoted Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century CE, who said, “The Egyptians were strangers who, in remote times, settled on the banks of the Nile, bringing with them the civilization from their mother country, the art of writing and a polished language. They had come from the direction of the setting Sun and were the most ancient of men.” Authors Graham Hancock, Dr. Carmen Boulter, and others believe that what we call “Atlantis” was not merely an island nation in the Atlantic Ocean but was instead a number of sophisticated cultures around the globe that were destroyed by a series of ancient cataclysms.

According to the famous psychic Edgar Cayce, Atlantis was destroyed by volcanic and earthquake-like explosions on three distinct and widely separated occasions. Cayce said in trance sessions that each of these destructions lasted over a period of months, or years, not just in a single day and night. The first of these disasters appear to have taken place about 50,700 BCE and the second about 28,000 BCE. The third and last destruction occurred around 10,000 BCE, which is the most familiar timeframe in Atlantis lore. If there were multiple destructions over a 40,000-year time span, it makes sense that colonists and survivors would go to great lengths to preserve and protect knowledge that was critical to their survival, as they may have done at Lascaux and elsewhere.

The site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, which upended the conventional view of “hunter gatherers,” has been dated at about 11,700 years ago. This date corresponds with eerie precision to the end of what is called the Younger Dryas (named for an alpine tundra wildflower that is an “indicator genus”), a geological period from circa 12,900–11,700 BCE. The Younger Dryas saw a sharp decline in temperature over most of the northern hemisphere at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, which is often colloquially referred to as the Ice Age. This geological epoch lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world’s most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene also corresponds with the end of the so-called Paleolithic Age. The change was relatively sudden, taking place in decades, and resulted in the extinction of most of the large mammoths and the rapid demise of the North American Clovis culture. The Younger Dryas ice age lasted for about 1,200 years before the climate warmed again.

Could at least parts of the zodiac, which we think originated in Babylon, be instead a legacy of Atlantis? It is possible to imagine, based on growing evidence of the antiquity and sophistication of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal cultures, that the spread of civilization may have come over thousands of years from Atlantis and may have affected ancient cultures in Europe and Asia as far back as 40,000 years ago?

It seems natural that before artificial light, the night sky was a canvas upon which the shining dots of light were connected into star pictures, and tales were told to mark the passage of the seasons. What ancient stories might have been shared, by fires and inside caves, to bring meaning to a universe that must have seemed remote, unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous? A change in the sky could portend disaster. It is both humbling and inspiring to imagine that some of the paintings on cave walls such as those at Lascaux, like the Bull of Heaven, have survived as art and symbolism for many thousands of years. We have much in common with our ancient forebears. We still gaze at the stars and study the constellations, reflecting on their mythic stories and decoding their symbolic meaning.

 

Visit: www.JulieLoar.com

Classic Astrology

March/April2017 – #122

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The Medjugorje Apparitions

Apparitions of Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, are not confined to the past and such long-time Catholic pilgrimage sites as Guadalupe in Mexico, Fatima in Portugal, and Lourdes in France. If the six “visionaries” from the village of Medjugorje in the country now known as Bosnia-Herzegovina (previously part of Yugoslavia) are to be believed, they are continuing today. In fact, they have been ongoing there since June 24, 1981, when some children witnessed the first such apparition.

According to the Medjugorje Web (medjugorje.org), “over 40 million people of all faiths, from all over the world, have visited Medjugorje and have left spiritually strengthened and renewed.” Moreover, it states, “countless unbelievers and physically or mentally afflicted have been converted and healed.”

The first such apparition, nearly 36 years ago, took place when Mirjana Dragicevic, 16, and Ivanka Ivankovic, who would turn 16 the following day, went for a walk. In her 2016 autobiography, My Heart Will Triumph, Mirjana, now 51, and with the married name of Soldo, recalls that she had just arrived from her home in Sarajevo to spend time with her uncle and aunt in Medjugorje as she had during previous summers, and the walk was to catch up on things. Ivanka lived in another village but spent the summers with her grandmother in Medjugorje. As they sat and talked in a shady spot on an unpaved road in the shadow of Podbrdo Hill, the two girls, both Catholics, saw a “beautiful woman” a hundred or more meters up the hill and agreed that it was “Our Lady.” Frightened, both ran home.

Mirjana states that she had never heard of other so-called “apparitions” of Gospa, the Croatian name for, as Catholics know her, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and because Yugoslavia was then a communist country, religious books were practically contraband.

After working the next day in the tobacco fields, Mirjana sought out Ivanka and along with Marija Pavovic, 16, Vicka Ivankovic, 16, Ivan Dragicevic, 15, and Jakov Colo, 10, they were drawn to Podbrdo Hill by three flashes of white light. Together, the six children ran up the hill towards the lady. “The first time I gazed upon the woman up close, I realized she was not of this world,” Mirjana writes. “Immediately—and involuntarily—we fell to our knees. Not sure what to say or do, we began to pray the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. To our astonishment, the woman prayed along with us, but she remained silent during the Hail Mary.”

Mirjana further recalls that the woman before them was encompassed by a beautiful blueness, and her skin was imbued with an olive-hued radiance. Her eyes reminded her of the translucent blue of the Adriatic Sea. Most of her long black hair was covered by a white veil. A long dress with a blue-gray glow extended to her feet. There was great intensity in her gaze. “Her very presence brought with it a feeling of peace and maternal love, but I also felt fear because I did not understand what was happening.”

In a 2013 interview, Vicka remembers the initial apparition a little differently, saying that Mirjana and Ivanka, accompanied by Marija’s sister Milka, went to look for some grazing sheep and wanted her to join them. As she was on her way to meet up with them, she saw Milka running towards her, excitedly telling her that “Our Lady” was there. As Vicka ran to see what it was all about, she encountered Ivan, who was with another boy also named Ivan. They soon joined Mirjana and Ivanka and all four witnessed the woman on the hill, now called Apparition Hill. The two boys were so scared that they fled. “We were standing on the road and Our Lady was up on the hill,” Vicka relates. “We really could not see Her very clearly, not as distinctly as we can see Her now. We could see Our Lady beckoning to us to come to Her, but we did not dare. It was not only that we were scared; we just were not relaxed and open enough to go to Her. Then we turned around and left the place.”

Mirjana and Vicka both agree on a very curious point involving the second apparition. It should have taken about 12 minutes to climb the hill, then covered with thorn bushes and stones, to where the apparition was, but the six visionaries seemed to effortlessly fly up the hill until they found themselves standing in front of the woman. “It was as if I simply glided—or something carried me—to the place where the woman was standing,” Mirjana recalls, while Vicka remembers it more like flying. They dropped to their knees as the beautiful woman said in perfect Croatian, “My children, be not afraid.” Mirjana describes the voice as having a resonant, melodic tone that no human could ever duplicate.

So in shock were the six visionaries that little was said beyond the prayers at that first meeting, although Ivanka asked about her mother, who had died a month or so earlier. “She is with me,” was the reply.

While the six visionaries had already guessed the identity of Gospa, it was the next day that she said, “I am the Blessed Virgin Mary and I come here because there are a lot of faithful people here.” (This is the English translation. She likely identified herself as Gospa.) Even though the communist regime, with its atheistic ideology, had made every effort to stamp out religion, Mirjana remembers that, “the great majority of people in the parish of Medjugorje lived for God.” The government realized that it could not completely eradicate such a deep-rooted mindset and was content to treat religion as a necessary nuisance, permitting Franciscan priests to run the parish of Medjugorje.

Mary began appearing daily, often giving short messages, primarily petitions to love, pray, forgive, overcome, fast, live in peace, and expect eternal life. “Our Lady asks us to return the Word of God to our homes,” Mirjana offers in her recent book. “Do not let it sit in a dusty corner like a decoration, but put it in a place of honor where it will be seen and touched.” She quotes a typical message given to her on August 2, 2015: “With a simple heart accept His word and live it. If you live His word, you will pray. If you live His word, you will love with a merciful love; you will love each other.” (The visionaries would write down the messages as soon as the apparition disappeared, and the words may not have been exact.)

Word of the phenomenon quickly spread, and on the third day, hundreds of villagers gathered to observe, though none could see what the six children claimed to see. By the sixth day, thousands were coming every afternoon. The government made every effort to discourage gatherings and to silence the children, even having Mirjana expelled from school, resulting in her being sent to a school for delinquents in Sarajevo, but the apparitions continued and the crowds grew.

Seemingly more significant than the regular messages received over the past 35-plus years are the “10 secrets” entrusted to the visionaries individually. All 10 have been received by Mirjana, Ivanka, and Jackov, but the other three have not received the tenth. The secrets will not be revealed until Mary tells the visionaries that it is time to do so. The visionaries were told not to compare notes or discuss the secrets with each other or anyone else. Indications are that the secrets deal with future events. Mirjana and Vicka will say only that after the first two secrets come to pass, Mary will leave a permanent sign on Apparition Hill, where she first appeared, and it will be evident that human hands could not have built it. It will be permanent and indestructible.

To this day, the Catholic Church cautiously sits on the fence relative to the apparitions, neither affirming nor denying their supernatural character, but the judgment of the Church is that there is no evidence of fraud, mental illness, or the demonic. It encourages its members to participate in events, which presumes the authenticity of Medjugorje, but it forbids its clergy from officially sanctioning such events.

Seeing how the six visionaries are now revered by the many pilgrims to Medjugorje, the skeptic can easily surmise that it started as a prank or a collective hallucination by the six children and was perpetuated by the celebrity status that each quickly gained and enjoyed in spite of the harassment by government authorities and even indifference and some resistance by Church authorities. Why else would it continue for more than 35 years? Certainly, an advanced spiritual being, if such a being exists, should have been able to communicate whatever she had to say in a much shorter time frame. Considering that three of the six are still experiencing daily apparitions and the other three periodic ones, the messages should fill at least a dozen thick volumes by now.

The skeptic will also note a strong Catholic bias, with Mary asking for rote prayer for the souls in purgatory, fasting on bread and water, mentioning devils with horns and tails in a Dante-like inferno, and describing heaven as a place where one apparently does nothing but praise God. While the petitions for love and peace are paramount and have a universal appeal, transcending orthodox Christianity, the humdrum heaven and horrific hell are all too much for any rational person, skeptic or believer, to accept as truth. Such twaddle as devils with horns and tails seems to have contributed significantly to the impeachment of religion in the first place.

And yet, a number of studies by scientists—neurological and psychological, including polygraph (lie detection) tests and hypnosis—have ruled out deception by the visionaries. They have undergone electro-encephalographs, electro-oculographs, eye reflex, and auditory tests while they are in what researchers call a state of “ecstasy” communicating with the apparition. “Suddenly their gaze, already fixed on the location of the apparition, becomes more intense,” Monsignor René Laurentin and Professor Henri Joyeux report of their studies with five of the visionaries during 1984. “There are hardly any movements of the eyelids. Their faces become almost perceptibly brighter and turn toward the invisible speaker. They kneel down very naturally, all at the same time… Their lips can be seen moving, but no voices are heard, just as it was with Bernadette at Lourdes. They were not conscious of this and were surprised when we questioned them about this unusual phenomenon. They believe they are speaking normally.”

Close observation by the researchers has given no indication of play-acting or any attempt to follow a leader in the group or otherwise coordinate their movements. The visionaries seem to lose contact with the surroundings and remain insensitive to stimulation, even pinching and prodding. At the beginning of the ecstasy, eye movements cease almost simultaneously and the eyes remained immobile.

Laurentin makes special note of the humility and sincerity of the visionaries. “The visionaries, with all their strengths and admirable naiveté, do not behave as magicians or fortunetellers, or guardians of the absolute,” he offers, “but rather as beneficiaries of a unique encounter that transcends them and is responsible for the light and benefits that accrue to them and others.”

Dr. James P. Pandarakalam, a London psychiatrist, has been to Medjugorje 70 times during the past 30 years to study the visionaries and agrees with Laurentin. He says that he has confined himself to observations without equipment and of a non-quantifiable nature. “I went as an investigator and returned as a pilgrim,” he writes in a 1995 book, Medjugorje and Theistic Parapyschology, adding that he cannot explain the apparitions without the presence of Mary.

Pandarakalam, a Catholic since birth, sees the rote prayers of the rosary (repeated recitation of the “Hail Mary” prayer), as often recited by the visionaries, as an element of self-hypnosis and mindfulness—a preparation for spiritual communication with higher dimensions. Others have said that it leads to a meditative state, more “mindlessness,” which opens one up to a deeper awareness. Nor does Pandarakalam see such prayers as a need for adoration on the part of Mary. Rather, it is a more of a matter of her not being able to help unless humans ask to be helped through her intercession.

As for fasting, Pandarakalam explains that it generates hypoglycemia in the brain, causing it to become less active and for psychical powers to thus become more active. “A fasting person becomes spiritually more attuned with the higher dimensions if he also prays,” Pandarakalam says. “Prayer is seeking God, a dialogue with God, a surrender to God.”

A difficult conundrum presents itself from all of this, especially for those who believe they have achieved a reasonable degree of spiritual consciousness. If they accept that the visionaries are actually communicating with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and further accept that all the messages involving love, peace, forgiveness, and charity have value, and that the world does need to become more spiritual and less materialistic, must they also accept a return to more primitive ideas, such as devils with horns and tails in a fire and brimstone environment, and a heaven with angels doing nothing but singing praise to God for eternity? Can they be selective, choosing to believe what appeals to reason, while discounting the twaddle? Or is it possible that such twaddle is really truth?

Based on revelation coming to us through various mystics, visionaries, mediums, near-death experiencers, and others able to penetrate the veil into a greater reality since the time of Swedenborg, many “believers” have discovered a more intelligent afterlife, one in which hell is really a “fire of the mind,” like a bad dream, and a state from which there is an escape. Above that lowest level are a number of realms through which souls advance and progress toward Oneness with the Creator while retaining their individuality. Those realms, the believers come to understand, involve much more activity than strumming harps for eternity. Have such believers been misled?

As Laurentin suggests, the communication strikes the sense faculties of the visionaries, as well as the many pilgrims, according to their ad modum recipientis. In effect, this means that they comprehend it based on their limited knowledge and understanding of things. Much of it is beyond their comprehension and vocabulary, and they do their best to convert it to words and symbols familiar to them. That would account for devils with horns and tails, but one is left to wonder why an advanced spiritual being would not realize that her communication would be significantly distorted and confuse those who have discovered a more intelligent afterlife. Could it be that Mary was and is focused on reaching the masses—those who had lost simple faith, as was the case in communist countries, and needed to be brought back to at least a basic level of spiritual consciousness, one from which they might later advance? In other words, did she find it necessary to begin with Religion 101, not 301?

Could it also be that those who believe they have achieved a higher spiritual consciousness than the limited one with the primitive ideas and symbolisms of the visionaries are expected to reason and understand Mary’s tactics, at the same being reminded of the essential teachings of love, peace, forgiveness, and charity?

Perhaps it will all make more sense if and when the 10 secrets are revealed. Stay tuned…

 

To witness Mirjana in ecstasy during a very recent apparition, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrfbl3AKeOo

 

CAPTIONS: The visionaries, as they witness an appearance in early 1980s (photo: courtesy of James P. Pandarakalam). In The Song of Bernadette (the 1943 movie), Jennifer Jones played St. Bernadette of Lourdes, to whom Mother Mary often appeared. Medjugorje visionaries in 2000 (photo: courtesy of James P. Pandarakalam).

March/April2017 – #122

The Other Side

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The Secret of America's Name—Unsolved Mystery

We all know in 1492 Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and “discovered” America. Well, actually, Columbus did not believe that he had discovered anything. He believed that he had sailed to Asia. In fact he believed the natives he encountered were Indians (of the Indian subcontinent).

Five years later, it would be an agent for the Medici family, Amerigo (or Alberico) Vespucci, who would cross the Atlantic. Vespucci did understand that it was not Asia but a New World. In fact he would publish the record of his journey as the Mundus Novus. This is why the New World was supposedly named after him, or was it?

Vespucci was born in March of 1454 three years after Columbus. His family was wealthy and played patron to Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Da Vinci. His cousin Simonetta Vespucci was a beautiful woman who served as a model for Botticelli. Vespucci received his education from Georgio Antonio who tutored Rene II, the future Duke of Lorraine. Readers of Holy Blood, Holy Grail might remember that Rene II was the son of Iolande de Bar, a grandmaster of the Priory of Sion. Iolande’s husband was the lord of Sion-Vaudemont and one of the original knights in the Order of the Crescent.

In Rene’s region of Lorraine was a village called St. Die. It was a little town of woodcutters, brick makers, and flax weavers. The area surrounding St. Die had a reputation of boorish, backward peasants. Amidst the backwoods area was a printing establishment created by the Canon of St. Die who was secretary and chaplain to Rene II. In the employ of this establishment was Martin Waldseemuller, a cartographer, and Matthias Ringmann, an Alsatian professor. Their mission was to produce an edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. In 1507 Rene II received what became known as the Soderini letter. It was a description of the four voyages of Vespucci. It was almost certainly a fake, as Vespucci made only two voyages. Weaving through the crudely written “letter” is the claim that Vespucci deserves the credit, not Columbus. Why would such a text be written? Possibly because the first account of the voyages of Columbus were a best-selling profit source. And who would benefit? The printing establishment itself would benefit, but not because of any specific name. Columbus passed away a year before the book and map were printed so was never part of the issue.

It is likely that a name that sounded like ‘Amerigo’ was assumed to be the explorer’s name. There is evidence that such a name may have been already in use in the New World. Waldseemuller and his scholars were unaware and added “and since Europe and Asia received names of women, I do not see any reason not to call this latest discovery Amerige, or America, according to the sagacious man who discovered it.”

It may have come as a surprise to Vespucci, as he was not a person to steal another’s discovery. He also seemed to be concerned over the affairs of Columbus. When he was the agent for Juanoto Berardi in Seville, Columbus borrowed a half-a-million maravedis from Berardi. When Beradi died, Vespucci was in charge of liquidating the estate. Vespucci saw to it that the debt owed by Columbus to the estate disappeared.

Many other places named by Europeans often followed another rule. The names of the men making the discovery were often the surname, as in Columbia, Bolivar, and (Henry) Hudson River. If the person was royalty then the first name was used, as in Georgia, Virginia, and Prince Edward Island. To use Vespucci’s surname would have the New World being called “Wasp Land” as “vespa” is the Italian word for that stinging insect.

In any case, the booklet and map created was a success. Then other printers copied it and added names such as “New World,” “Brazil,” and “Terra Sanctae Crucis.” Waldseemuller at some point may have realized the clerics had been suckered by the Soderini letter. He printed the work again calling the new world “Terra Incognita” (Unknown Land). He also pointed out that Columbus was the discoverer.

 

Amaruca to America?

In the fifteen years that separated the discovery of the New World and the placing of the name ‘America’ on the map, there were numerous ocean crossings that may have brought home the name ‘America.’ Numerous Spanish voyages reached the Caribbean Islands and Central America. In Nicaragua the Spanish explorers met up with a tribe called the ‘Amerrique.’ The people told the Spanish that their land was rich in gold. A French geologist, Jules Marcou, said the Spanish brought this name home. The mountain range in Nicaragua was “land of perpetual wind” and called ‘Ameriaque’ and, actually recorded in the sailing logs of Columbus himself. Augustus Le Plongeon said the word ‘America,’ or ‘Amerrique’ actually meant, “Land of the Wind” in the Mayan language. Le Plongeon was a French-American photographer, archaeologist and author who produced several books that connected the Mayans to the Old World.

A Peruvian people were called the ‘Amaruca.’ They worshipped a god named ‘Amaru’ who was similar to the Plumed Serpent of the Maya. Discoveries continue to be made in the land of ‘Amaruca,’ which contains the remarkable Machu Picchu. The last of the Incan leaders was Tupac Amaru who was executed by the Spanish in 1572.

When the Spanish landed in Columbia they were also told they were in the land of Amaruca. It would not be incorrect to assume this was a wide-ranging area that held a group of related civilizations sharing certain characteristics.

 

A Celtic Source?

Frank Joseph, author of Lost Colonies of Ancient America, makes a strong argument for trans-Atlantic contact long before Columbus. The Phoenicians, he says, sailed by a star they call La Merika. They were not strangers to the Atlantic coast where the Keltic people of the peninsula known as Armorica nearly defeated Julius Caesar.

The Keltic Venitii had a fleet almost as great as Caesar’s fleet. Caesar had commented that this navy was adept at ocean sailing at which the Romans were not as experienced. Caesar’s admiral, however, was inventive enough to use long billhooks to grab the Venitii ships and enable the heavily armed Romans to board. A disastrous sea battle allowed the Romans to attack the coastal ports of the Kelts one-by-one and defeat them. How many of the Armorican ships used their ocean sailing to escape their enemy? There are many legends of a bearded white man crossing the sea and bringing knowledge of agriculture and medicine. In what became Columbia, this man had the title of “Serpent.”

Author James Bailey wrote The God-Kings and the Titans questioning whether the Akkadian word for “Western Lands,” which was ‘Amurru,’ could have been given a –ca ending just like Inca, Titicaca, and Cajamarca. If Semitic sailors from even before the Phoenicians reached the New World and were told by inhabitants of Central and South America they had arrived in Amaruca, they may have adopted the word for western lands.

 

An English Source?

In 1412, the Icelandic Annals reported a ship of English fishermen on Dyrholm. It was a time when, due to harsh weather and the reduced population post-plague, Norway was sending less than one ship each year. Then England started dispatching around thirty each year. The powerful Hanseatic League wanted to put a stop to it. So England ordered that no English fishermen go to Iceland.

The League was founded in the twelfth century and attempted to monopolize trade and even shipbuilding in the Baltic and North Sea. Their alliance had them joining together to take on any trespassers in a territory that ranged from Russia to London. Henry II of England, and later Henry III, had allowed their access not only to ports but also to inland trade fairs, even while the league stopped English shipping from the fishing banks of the North Atlantic.

The entrepreneurs of Bristol took a different approach to sailing for the lucrative cod as far away as the Grand Banks. They claimed they were exploring in the Atlantic and specifically searching for an island known as ‘Hy-Brasil’ or “Brazil.” Oddly enough, this island appeared on maps as old as 1325. The island was part of a legend. In legend it was perceived as an island due west of Ireland that could only be found every seven years.

On July 15, 1480, a ship (of eighty tons) owned by John Jay and John Lloyd sailed from Bristol in search of Brasil. They were described as the most expert seamen in all England. They hit bad weather and returned without finding it.

The next year, two ships owned in part by Thomas Croft set out to find Brasil. Croft had been denied a license for trade. His ship was carrying 40 bushels of salt. While he would claim he was on a voyage of exploration, it would be unusual to carry such a great amount of salt if one was not planning to return with fish, particularly cod fish. So Croft and others may have been fishing on their own or simply buying cod from the Basques or others. There are few records of such ventures and Croft acted like the Basques, keeping his discovery a secret. He was, however, found out and prosecuted. His claim was that he got the cod from an area in the Atlantic. It was a good story and a friendly jury acquitted him.

In 1956, a letter from one John Day to Christopher Columbus turned up in the archives of Simancas. It describes the voyages of John Cabot but also mentions the Isle of Brasil discovered by men from Bristol, possibly before 1480.

John Cabot came to Bristol in 1495 and would sail to America two years later. He was an adventurer and, no doubt, privy to the secrets of the sailing clans in Bristol. He was also aware that the Sheriff of Bristol was also the tax collector. Sheriff Richard Amerike was like royalty in Bristol who would deal with both merchants and pirates. He was given credit for funding Cabot’s voyage and even for owning Cabot’s ship, The Matthew. Author Rodney Broome gives him credit for not only naming the New World for Cabot’s patron but also claiming a relationship between the Amerike coat of arms and the American flag.

 

The Vikings

Five hundred years before Columbus and Cabot sailed the Atlantic, Vikings from Scandinavia ruled in Ireland, Scotland, the Orkney Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. Most historians took their own sagas as fiction until a whole Viking village turned up in Canada’s Newfoundland. Today, Parks Canada rebuilt the village that was discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows. While just how far their explorations took them is in debate, there is no debate that they crossed the Atlantic. They sailed in open boats, often with animals, so it is likely they hopped from one island to another, with no segment longer than three days.

From Scotland, the first step might have been the Faroes. From there, they would sail on to Iceland and then Greenland. Finally the farthest landfall was America. The Old Norse word for “farthest outland” was, in fact, Ommerike. In 1477, Columbus sailed to Ireland where two brown bodies turned up on a beach. Then he sailed to Iceland, which was settled by Norse farmers and traders.

It is then possible that Columbus is responsible. He had heard of the Norse sailing to Ommerike. He had correspondence referring to Cabot’s voyage. He mentions the word Ameriaque in his own log. Columbus also had knowledge few were privy to. He had married the daughter of a Knight of Christ. This was the reconstituted Knights Templar Order. Bartolomeo Perestrello sailed for Prince Henry the Navigator, and his job was to explore the Atlantic Ocean. He discovered Madeira and made his home there. After his death, his wife gave Columbus all the maps and charts compiled by the Knights of Christ’s explorers. It is possible the term ‘Amaruca’ had been recorded long before Columbus sailed.

Lost History

March/April2017 – #122