Midgard

Midgard is one of the most heard words when it comes to talk about the nine cosmic worlds of the Norse cosmology, as Yggdrasil is the spiritual connection between out world and the next, so is Midgard.
Midgard is often refered as being our very world, the plane we inhabit, which isn't incorrect because from an ancient point of view, our world was indeed thought to be in the very center of the universe and all the other spiritual worlds and physical worlds were scattered around our very own.

After some years of research, anthropological work with Norse/Germanic shamanic cultures still around and also after a lot of shamanic/spiritual work, we know now that Midgard is also the name of a spiritual world which is included in the group of the nine cosmic worlds of the norse spiritual beliefs. As I have said before, the spiritual plane is so vast that shamans believed to be divided in many worlds because when they came to one place to work with the spirits the landscapes were so different of the ones of the other places they visited, and seldom there is the chance to travel from one place to another in the spiritual world because of its vastness, but in truth it is one huge spiritual realm and Midgard lies in it. So now we will have to leave behind the historical concept we know about Midgard and focus on the spiritual Midgard, that is what I will be writing today.

The spiritual world of Midgard is very much like our own was many centuries, I even dare to say a few millennia ago. It is a vast plane in the spiritual world with the seasons similar to ours, in fact the seasons vary depending on the place you are on that continent as you might imagine. Think of it as traveling from the Northern parts of Europe to the Southern parts in the mediterranean and going all the way to the east to the end of Siberia, as you might know, the weather varies a bit bit still, in winter there is snow and it is very cold especially in mountainous terrains and at the summer is hot, but in some places its hotter than others. The spiritual Midgard is a place where people some times make a spiritual journey without even noticing it, and it is some much similar with our world in terms of weather, nature, atmosphere and landscapes that it will be even harded to know if we are indeed on another world by means of out of the body experience. Most of us if not all, have spiritual journeys, some more than others, it might only occur once every year, but in truth we have, and it is because of the similarities between Midgard and our mortal plane, that  we may easily travel there unconsciously than traveling to anyother spiritual continent/place/realm.

Midgard is surrounded by a vast ocean receiving the waters of the many rivers that exist in this continent. To reach anyother realm, be that Asgard, Jotunheim etc etc, from Midgard the journeys are only made by sea, there isn't any part of the continent that is connected to the other realms by land. However, the ocean surrounding Midgard has a lot of small islands. To the north-east of Midgard the division between Midgard and Jotunheim is narrower and the ocean enters into that passage creating the Great Salt River of Elivagar that runs to the south, creating the eastern boundary of Midgard with Jotunheim. To the west lies Vanaheim and in the south after passing the cold ocean one might reach to the shores where the dark forest of Myrkwood lies which is part of Midgard and the boundary to Muspelheim. 
No one is certain if Myrkwood really belongs to Midgard or if it is part of Muspelheim since it lies on that flaming continent. 
Myrkwood is a dangerous place, a vast dark woodland where a lot of feral creatures live.

In the introduction of the poem Völundarkviða, it tells us about a place called Ulfdalir and the brothers  
Slagfiðr, Egil, and Völund lived there in a house near the shores of the lake Úlfsjár, some people who travelled to the northernmost parts of Midgard tell us of a place called Ulfdalir that also has a lake, another dangerous place where outlaws and outcasts live, but in my opinion those people might be guarding this place because it is said that in Ulfdalir lies an entrance to the realm of Helheim, if this is true, I know not.
There is also a fortress called Ysetur near the borderlands to the North-east between Midgard and Jotunheim. A fortress built by the Aesir to keep an eye on the Jotnar, but I think it might have been abandoned, or it might be the house of other folk because the Aesir gods no longer have any member there. It is said that Thor lived there for a time.

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Norse Warrior Magic and Shamanism

So the other day I wrote a post about shamanism practiced in the Norse culture and how Seiðr was the area of expertise for women and if men practiced such magics, that would be seen Ergi (unmanly) in the Norse society. I have also talked about other ways of spiritual magic that would be much more acceptable in society when dealing with male magic practices, and this is what I will be writing today and go deep into that subject.

There are different types of shamanic practices, and for men among the Norse society, there were ways to practice magic that would be more socially acceptable.
The Norse/Germanic society was very much warlike, and as such, there were always those elite group of warriors who practice shamanic magics that would help them in battle, this was such a way for men to practice magic in a way taht wouldn't be considered unmanly and people would accept it without judgment.

In earlier periods of history, the elite warriors were militia groups or warbands, but with time and during the Viking ages, these groups became more restricted, more closed and ritual practices would be done away from society. We know of such groups like the berserkers as I have written on another post, there weren't ordinary warriors, their initiation rituals, fighting techniques, and the spiritual practices were as complex as anyother shamanic magic practiced by any shaman, these warriors could be considered as Shaman-Warriors.
Such warriors would work their rage in trance before they went to battle, we know of these berserkers as being warriors who would run into battle, sometimes without any armour or any other type of clothing, shouting and howling, putting their shield away, most of the time they would even abandon their weapons. This was a sign of who they were, people knew a berserker in the battlefield, this was their mark and their presence alone would strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. The animal symbols of these warriors were often the wolf and the bear, and while in battle-trance, these warriors would call upon the strength of such animals, working with their spirit totems to invoke such powers. Now this is when we enter another subject related to these practices, the totemistic warriors.

Totemistic Warriors

Totemism in groups was very often related to the military in ancient Norse/Germanic society. Many of these military societies had an animal as a totem, a wolf or a bear as I have written previously. Shamanicaly, these warriors would work with the spirits of these animals in order to possess the ferocity and strength of them when they entered into battle.

Initiation rites for new members of these totemic groups would start by living for a while in the wilds, in which the means of obtaining food would be by hunting or stealing from the near by villages. A link with the wild had to be made, the warrior would have to live such as wolves or bears, even learning to kill to survive. This link with the natural world was important because these warriors had to adopt the way of life of their totemic animal. There was a clear distinction of realities, the mortal world or the world of the society where rules were applied with the aim of maintain order, and the other reality which was the wild world, dark and magical, where chaos reigned and the only law was the law of the strongest. There is a clear distinction here as it is in Norse cosmology, which tells us that the forces of order are always in battle against the forces of chaos.
With the progress of these rituals, the individual would identify himself with the animal and was spiritually united with it. the Initiation ended in group when the individual was accepted by the "pack", wearing the skin of his totemic animal, the wolf or the bear, which would be a marking that claimed the position of this individual as someone who went beyond the limits of humanity and became something more, something more beastlike, more ferocious. People knew this, and there wasn't anything more frightening to encounter in battle than these kind of warriors.
These rituals were something more than just symbolic, this included having the behavior of the animal due to the individual being possessed by his totemic animal.

During the Viking Age society two totemic groups' names are often heard (and it seems they have been the most powerful and the ones that left more marks of terror in their enemies' hearts) the Berserkers / Berserkir which means "bear-shirts" and the úlfheðnar "Wolf-Hides" and it isn't that hard to know which animal was the totem of which group.

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Neolithic structure in Pielinen island

In the Lake Pielinen in Northern Karelia which is in Finland, a Neolithic stone structure was found on an island. Of course previously sites similar to this one have been found but only in the Ostrobothnian coastal areas. This is the first of this kind inland in Finland.

The enclosure of the structure measures 25 x 18 metres. Typical to structures such as this, its outlines are traced with earth mounds, and there are several piles of stones around it. Depressions have also been dug in the ground.

The axle of this complex is aligned with the winter solstice sunrise and the summer solstice sunset, this is a design that we have already seen before in other areas, such as the famous Karnak temple complex in Egypt and of course Stonehenge in Britain.

Structures like this one are often called  “jätinkirkot” which means “giants’ churches” in the Ostrobothnian tradition, they are usually circular or rectangular, and date back around 3,000 and 1,800 BCE. Fifty structures like this have already been found in FInland, located near the shores of the Bay of Bothnia, in Ostrobothnia. It is still unknown for what purposes were these Neoithic structures used for, most think it was for religious purposes, but that is a bit shallow, however, the astronomical accuracy of the complexes also points to agricultural purposes, as these could have aided in accurate observation of the seasons, and it was most likely build by the hunter-gatherers of the late Stone Age.

The roads of the Celts

On an old post I have written, I believe it was in 2012, I talked about the possibility that the Celts might have been the first to make a network of roads for comercial purposes and to link important settlements all over Europe, before the Romans made their own roads on top of the already existing ones of the Celts. As you might know, when the Celts started to spread all over Europe, 1000 years before they came to Irland and the others countries of Great Britain, the first place they have settled was the Iberian Peninsula, today Portugal and Spain, and they have settled mostly in the Northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula, but mostly in Northern Portugal and Galicia and Central Portugal between two great rivers, Durius ( today's Douro ) and Tagus ( today's Tejo ), and that area was exactly where the tribe of Celts later called Lusitanians by the Romans, have settled and thus the history of Portugal and their national symbols were born. Because the Iberian Peninsula was so important for many cultures, not just the many tribes of Celts, but also to the Greek and the Phoenicians, so trading routes were needed that led to the main land and the eastern parts of Europe to pass through the many regions where the Celts had settlements, because during this time trading was mostly done by sea and little was taken to areas further inland. So the Celts made those road networks that linked the important Hellenic and Semitic Ports to their own settlements all the way from the Iberian Peninsula as far as the Swiss mountains* and beyond probably to nowadays Czech Republic.

By the time the Romans emerged and started their campaigns across Europe, they already knew where to go and which places where the most important for the Celts and especially to the Lusitanians ( the greatest power in the Iberian Peninsula at the time, the most likely to resist and drive the Romans back ) because of the already existing roads, they followed the paths and easily conquered the lands, after that, they built their own roads on top of the already existing ones, as we can see in the case of the the Via Heraklea, an ancient route that runs a thousand miles in a straight line from the tip of the Iberian Peninsula to the Alps, and this also happened in other countries, including the ones in Great Britain, or at least, the parts where the romans could get.

My theory wasn't far from the truth, because it seems that the straight Roman roads has been exposed by a new book which claims that these extraordinary engineering feats were in fact the work of the Celts. The findings of Graham Robb bring a new enlightenment to this subject and places into question two millennia of thinking about Iron Age Britain and Europe and the stereotyped image of Celts as barbarous, superstitious tribes.
In truth, Druids and other Celt’s scientific and spiritual leaders, have been some of the most intellectually advanced personalities of their time, it is said that they have developed the straight roads in the 4th Century BC, hundreds of years before the Italian armies marched across Europe.
The first theory was around the Via Heraklea, when it was realised that it was plotted along the solstice lines through several Celtic settlements, mapping the positioning of hundreds of other towns and cities in France, Britain and Ireland and found that the Celt’s had organised them to mirror the paths of their Sun God, created a network straight of tracks following the solstice lines across the continent. This suggests that the Druids possessed map-making skills that historians believed were discovered centuries later. Unfortunately as you may know, their scientific and mathematical achievements have been long forgotten as there is no written evidence and their history has been replaced the stereotypes of them as wood-dwelling wildmen, it is a real pity that in the Celtic society it was a rule not to write any document that contained any history of this people, and all kind of knowledge was passed through the teachings trough language, in order to keep all practices within the community and not reasing others, which leaves the entire history of the Celts, shrouded in mystery and that is why nowadays it is hard to believe that such people did amazing and extremely sophisticated things. 


*It is important to emphasize these routes between the Iberian Peninsula and in the Swiss Alps, as the Celtic tribe with more power in ancient Iberia, was the tribe of the Lusitanians who were the first European people to form a nation by uniting with other Celtic tribes, and it is thought that the origin of the Portuguese, in this case the Lusitanians, was in the Helvetic Alps in Switzerland, the site chosen by the Celts in their early migrations.

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Totemism in the Norse Culture

Before the existance of deities in human form among the early tribal communities with shamanic practices, the symbols of power and spiritual guidance were the animals. Each person or a group of people had a totem, that totem could be an animal or a plant, and the individual was bound to the totem and they were in a mutual spiritual relationship. The totem was generaly held to be a guardian or even an ancestor, and one way or another, the totem was effectively a part of the human-self.
This kind of spiritual practice was known worldwide, but when talking about "Totem" we often visualise the American Indian tribes or the peoples from Alaska or the Inuit folk. But all over the world, this was one of the first spiritual practices to be held by many cultures, and seldom does the Norse culture comes into argument when speaking of Totemism.

To the Norse and other Germanic peoples, totemism is manifested in two specific prominent and powerful areas which are, the animal helping spirits, known as Fylgjur, and the patron animals of shamanic military societies who had their own rituals turned to warlike events.

What are the Fylgjur ?

We have all heard about the cats, ravens and other animals associated with witches, and this is something that comes from an ancient past, familiar spirits who are often the companions of witches in European folktales, but in truth, the early shamanic tribes who made their religious and spiritual practices around totems, had these animals to aid them, not just the cat and the raven, but all animals that you can think of, powerful animals that helped each person, and while in trance, these creatures aided shamans and shamans could take the form of those animals to better understand their ways and follow them to whatever quest while in trance, working in the spiritual world. In the Norse old spiritual traditions, these familiar animals were called Fylgjur ( plural ) or Fylgja ( singular )

 The Fylgja is an animal spirit, however, a human helping spirit is also called a Fylgja in Old Norse literature sometimes, this shows us that a totem can also be an ancestor. The well-being of the  Fylgja is intimately tied to that of its owner, as a result, if the  Fylgja dies, its owner dies as well. Its character and form are closely connected to the character of its owner. This helping spirit can be seen as the totem of a single person rather than of an entire group.

It dies you say? A spirit can die?

Well, lets put it like this, "dies", you see, when the animal spirit is linked to the body of the mortal, it can suffer whatever the mortal body might suffer, and that goes the other way also, because a shaman while in trance, his/her spirit can catch any disease on the othr world, the spirit might not be ready for some trials, and that is even worse than the other way around, because if the spirit suffers anything, it reflects on the body and a shaman can die, that happens to other people that aren't shamans but are able to have out of the body experiences, and people might lose their mind, go mad, cerebrally paralyzed, or catch a "flu" that the body isn't able to respond and dies, because the body without the soul/spirit, doesn't work properly. So you have to take care of your spirit animal as you take care of yourself or your own soul ( which is something most of us have no idea what to do ) because what ever happens to you or to it, it will reflect on the other and the spirit animal might "die" and leave you.

There are many gods and goddesses in the Norse pantheon that have personal totem animals which may or may not be Fylgjur. For example, Odin is particularly associated with wolves, ravens, and horses, while Thor is with goats, and Freya and Freyr with wild boars. It should come as no surprise, then, that their human devotees have personal totems of their own.


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The most ancient monotheistic Religion - Zoroastrianism

Being a pagan, doesn't mean we have to close our mind to all the other religions that work around a single deity, in fact I think that if we want to find a religion that makes us feel better with the world around us and helps us understand the course of life or a spiritual path that makes us happy and completed some how, we really should make a long study about religions, not all of them or we would take a long time, but most of them, different religions from different cultures, knowledge is one of the most precious things we have and no one can take it from us.
Today I am going to give you friends a little bit of History, about the most ancient monotheistic religion which is still practiced today in some parts of India, however, it isn't a religion that was formed in that country. Along this post, you will find out really good ethical values and also some similarities with Christianism, but that is normal, in a lot of ancient religions both monotheistic or polytheistic, we find a lot of similarities with Christianism because in truth the Christian faith is based on a lot of ancient belief from a lot of religions.

Zoroastrianism is the most ancient monotheistic Religion still practiced today, even if it wasn't, it would probably be the most ancient one to worship a single deity. It was formed on Ancient Persia in the area which ​the ​current country of Iran is. The pantheon of the old Iranian deities was vast and the religious philosopher Zoroaster made it simple when the god of all creation appeared to him in a prophetic dream, his name was Ahura Mazda. This god was the embodiment of all the previous gods and as such, this deity should be venerated as the sole creator god, the bearer of light, bringing the total goodness in the world. Unlike the Christian god, which in fact contradicts his nature of being the all mighty but in truth there is Satan which was created by him and is the oposite and negative force and God can't destroy him, so that doesn't make him the all mighty at all, Ahura Mazda was the creator of the cosmos and the very forces of nature but not all mighty because Angra Mainyu or Ahriman. which means Prince of Darkness, existed and was the dark side of all things, an evil spirit, the evil entity. As such, both of the deities fought battles, the good agaisnt evil and both sides created other deities to aid in the fight.

Thus Zoroaster wrote the first religious book called Avesta with seventeen hymns (Gathas), a religion that believed in the immortality of the soul, while the body dies and disappears, the soul remains and is subject to trial, a final judgment after all acts committed on earth. With an ethical code, behave well, have a right conduct.
 In this religion the sacrifice of animals was forbidden, the man must respect animals because the animals are here to serve us, the animals are the source of food, such as fire, fire also should not be touched by man, and as such was prohibited, therefore cremation of bodies was also prohibited.

Later, after the creation of the Christian religion, in this same Area of ancient Persia, nowadays Iran, another similar religion but yet perfected, appeared, it was called Manichaeism, which comes from the prophet Mani. This religion was the the final revelation, this was a religion which proposed unification of all other religions, the religion of light. Yet again, this religion had a God creater of the cosmos and put it to work, a force of nature that was not all powerful because there was one negative entity in the world, an opponent called Satan (Again you can see that Christianism never stoped attaching other's beliefs to their own religion, is there something that is really genuine in Christianity? of course, but few things compared to the many other peoples beliefs that were attached to this religion). Anyway, in this religion, the eternal battle of good against evil was still on, but this faith was a was a highly individualistic religion, God didn't choose what ones life would be like, nothing in human life was governed by his will, each person chose their way, would be the bad one or the good one, but in the end it had everything to do with personal choice, the free will.

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Cybele The first goddess

Throughout the history of humankind there has always been many deities to explain each thing in the natural world. At first, the tribes worked with shamanic pratices ( which many tribal communities still do nowadays ) and the powers of divine were seen in nature and each animal was sacred, each animal had abilities and a way of dealing with life itself in a particular way, and such abilties and gift we humans also needed, so by watching how nature worked, we did the same, and there was what we call Totemism, a community belief in which every human is thought to have a strong spiritual connection  with an animal, be it a physical or a spirit animal, each person would have a Totem and follow its wisdom. But then those divine powers started to appear in the form of human beings, and that human shape of the divine spread through many cultures worldwide, there were thousands of gods and goddesses and that gave birth to religions, some more complex than others, as the human mind evolved, so did the gods and so did the necessity of explaining other complex things of the universe. But the figure of a goddess has always been present, a figure that comes from the Neolithic and even before that, the Mother goddess of the Earth,, of fertility, the goddess who gave birth to all and even to the gods. We see many of these statuettes through time and the cult of this mother goddess lived through the ages and had great adhesion in many cultures, such was this adhesion that religions were formed around her.
To our days comes the name of Cybele, the goddess mother of all men, goddess of the earth and fertility, giver of life and sustenance, a goddess who makes the synthesis of previous various religious realities. She is the goddess of all and this figure was created according to the cults of the earth goddess that comes since time immemorial, Cybele was created in the central area of the Turkish peninsula, the zone where Phrygia was. Since she was also a goddess of rebirth, her cult was around the 4th of April during Spring time. There is even the myth of Attis the shepherd, when the goddess Cybele fell in love with him and made him her priest with the condition that he would always be faithful to her, but one day he fell in love with a nymph, breaking the vow of chastity and the goddess killed him, not with her own hands or any power, not in a way that she could lets say " get her hands dirty " but by driving him mad in such a way that he was forced to mutilate himself. But after his death he turns into a three or revives in human forme, either way, he comes back in one form or another at spring, showing the powers of rebirth of this goddess, the symbolism of Spring.

 This worship of the mother goddess had a great importance in Roman society, and as such, it has reached us spreading throughout Europe. So important was her cult that we see in history several Mother Goddess' cults all over Europe until the present day. Portugal was one of many European countries to be invaded by the Romans and the Roman cults were placed in the country, and as the Romans adopted various deities even Portuguese ones (Lusitanian) the Lusitanian people also adopted this goddess, Cybele, and in many archaeological excavations we met traces of the worship of this goddess, figurines and such. In Portugal the cult to this goddess was great in the Central, southern and coastal regions of the country. In the Northern regions of Portugal the Roman cults weren't that much, in many places didn't even existed, because those regions are more mountainous and much cooler and to create pathways for these regions was difficult and even the transportation of soldiers and goods was dangerous and the romans lost more than they won, so the Northern parts of Portugal the cults remained Celtic and Germanic.

After the christianization of Europe and most Lusitanians got killed, or adopted Roman cults and later Christian ones, and the old deities were almost forgotten, a cult around the virgin Mary replaced the Roman cult to Cybele, the goddess of fertility, nature and of humankind and of gods, became virgin Mary which is symbolicaly very similar in the way that she is the mother of the son of the divine powers. As such, the cult of the virgin Mary became so important to the Portuguese people, which in fact comes from a Roman pagan past.

In Ancient Rome the celebrations to Cybele were very violent, it started with the sacrifice of a bull ( Taurobolium ) and a sheep ( Riobolium ) and the priest bathed in the blood of these animals, symbolizing the birth, in blood leaving the womb, and also by the symbolism of these animals that are generators of life by consumption. The importance of the bull as a symbol of strength in classical antiquity, was so marked in the festivities to Cybele while the Romans remained in the  Iberian peninsula, that still somehow remained as a cult and we can still see it in the bloody Bullfighting in Portugal and Spain (a tradition of which I am totally against).

The blood bath of the priest in these celebreations is still visible in christianity, when the wine was poured onto the head of the faithful, literally bathed in wine as in antiquity bathd in blood, of course with the passing of ages it is now drunk, the symbolism is implicit.

Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing of Bragi made by me. If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

Stud farm of Alter - Neolithic past and funeral rituals

The Neolithic period was the starting of a new era for humankind, the great revolution and evolution of the human condition and social behaviour. It was the time when us humans started to produce our own food, we moved from a society of hunter-gatherers to a society of farmers and started to domesticate animals. Agriculture was found and the necessity of storing food in containers to carry them in a safe manner and to let the food sufficiently protected from the various climate variations, also gave "birth" to the creation of ceramics. The human being began to settle in one place instead of being a constant nomad searching for food, creating their own food, which led to healthy food habits which in turn led to the growth of the population. As such, people started to create villages all over the world and taking with them this new way of life, teaching others about agriculture and having their own domesticated animals.

Portugal has always been one of the first places in Europe to accept these great evolutions, a place where thusands of cultures throughout history have settled and left behind their stories and their cultures. For many years people thought that the megalithic phenomenon in Portugal had a lo of influences from the other mediterranean countries, but in truth, it has more in common with the megalithic structures from the Atlantic countries ( in truth, Northern Portugal has Atlantic influences and the very climate is an atlantic climate ) such as Irland, Scotland, Wales and Britain, but also a lot of influences from Northern European countries and Central Europe Countries.

Giving this big introduction, I will tell you about the Archaeological excavations that took place in Alter which is on Alentejo in Portugal, inside a Stud farm from the VIII century and still working, and the Neolithic findings there, 15 years ago, were amazing and in that time, was something totally new in Archaeology.

People knew about the "death places" of the pré-historic peoples, their megalithic monuments and every thing involving the cult of the dead and the buildings where they placed them, so the question was, where did they live? In what did they live? Was it some kind of an house? an Hut? Well, indeed it was found a place where these people had lived for a period of time, since this was the time where agriculture and ceramics were something new, the findings were from the period where people were starting to settle in one place. It was found that these people already pave the ground of their dwellings, but the walls of these places were natural stone formations and the roof was made of natural elements such as wood. leafs etc. But as it is a place that when it rains... it rains a lot, they built channels around these shelters, for draining the water, the whole place was kept dry, in fact, during the excavations, it rained a lot, which made it difficult to work, and so that the archaeologists found and cleaned these drainage channels and after almost 6000 years these were still in perfect working order and helped a lot during the excavations in winter. What was also found, were the first ceramic works ever found which indicates that these people were not just evolved but wealthy and Ambar was also found, and from where does the Ambar comes? That is right, from the Baltic Sea, which means that these people from what would be later called Portugal, already had trading roots with the Norther peoples of Europe and vs versa, in a period of time before the Egyptians, whom also had Ambar almost 3000 years after the Neolithic peoples of Portugal.

Among the findings in this excavation, there was also one of the most ancient ovens of all time, with the base perfectly intact, this shows the mark of evolution and the first sedentarization process of the  peoples of the Neolithic.

Now people knew how these people lived, but not during the entire year, only for an amount of time, but in that area, there was a lot of megalithic structures, and the remains in there weren't all equal in the way of placing the deceased or preparing the body of the funeral rituals. Some remains were intact, meaning that the people died in the zone while they were living in there, other remains were inside a bag made ​​of animal skin, with bones vwith isible marks on how the meat has been removed, post-mortem, leaving only the bone, which means that the person died away from the site, most likely during the commercials routes or elsewhere where they would live the other part of the year, and therefore the body was thus prepared for easy transportation by the family members and when the time came to return to the same place, the body could then be placed among the ancestors. Others were cremated, again for the easy transportation, others show that they were previously buried in temporary sites and then transferred to the place and some bones showned that they were cut in half and opened, again after-death, deliberately cut, no fault in the preparation of the body, for in that they did sa good job without damaging the bones, these bones were so cut open so that the inside of those, the marrow, could be eaten, a cannibalistic ritual, a very common thing in many cultures, the person that ate that, was absorbing the essence of the dead, to have a bit of it, and as so prolonging life.

One of my teachers of PreHistory and Archaeology said about this kind of ritual cannibalism, now this my shock some very christian folks, is that this practice has been around for thousands of years worldwide and it is still practiced nowadays in some places, and even Christ turning to his disciples Said, referring to the bread: "Take, eat, this is My body." And, referring to the wine: "This is my blood" (Mt 26:26-28) and for three days no one heard of him anymore after his death, and after those three days he appeared, he was resurrected and ascended to heaven, this might be the symbolism of his soul that left the world and went to the afterlife, while in those three days, his disciples prepared his body, making the same cannibalistic rituals as Christ instructed them to do, by eating his body and his blood and having his own essence. Something to think about.

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