PREHISTORIC
PART 1 – Ch.VII
The commemorative mounds of Osiris.
The expedition of Osiris to the Istru –
traditions and legends about
his battle with Typhon, from the country
of the Arimi
In a very remote
prehistoric epoch, at least 3,000 years before Christ, an important event took
place in the countries of Dacia, event which had a big influence on the emerging
civilization of Europe, and which shook the very basis of the first world
empire of the Pelasgian race.
This big political
and cultural transformation in the history of Europe was caused by the
expedition of Osiris to the parts of
the Istru, and his battles with Typhon
in today Oltenia, a consequence of this war being that Egypt gained supremacy
over Europe.
Osiris, the king of the Egyptians, venerated
after death as divinity, and identified with the Sun of the Pelasgo-Graeco
religion, was one of the greatest heroes of prehistoric antiquity, whose memory
is preserved until today in our countries.
But the Egyptian,
Greek and Romanian traditions about Osiris are covered by the veil of antique
religious beliefs. We will try to extract from these traditions and tales their
true meaning, in order to re-establish the real historical character of some
important events, which took place in the countries of Dacia, in such obscure
times.
In the Teleorman district, in Romania, on the
hill near the village Lita, rises a
large mound, which bears even today the name of Ostrea.
About this mound,
the Romanian folk legends tell us the following:
East of the village
Viisoara, in the Olt district, there is a peaked hill
called the Peak of the Serpent. Here
a cavern can be seen, in which, as it is told, hid in ancient times a gigantic
serpent (dragon). This serpent was killed by a brave man called Ostrea, who made a big mound on the hill of Lita village, in the Teleorman district,
near Turnul Magurele, because from there he had shot his arrow on this dragon.
The wounded serpent turned against Ostrea. But he crossed the
[1. According to a tradition from
the village Slobozia – Mandra, Teleorman district, Magura Ostrei (TN – the Hillock of Ostrea) is on the eastern part
of this village, on the coast of the hill which bears this name. From this
hillock, the brave Ostrea might have shot his arrow on the serpent. The lair of
this dragon was in a cave from the village Soparlita (TN – little she-serpent),
Romanati district)].
In another version of
this ancient legend (from the village Prisaca, Olt district), the brave man
Ostrea appears under the name of Stroe
Novac.
In the old times,
this tradition tells us, there was a gigantic dragon, which dwelt in a cave,
close to the village Almas from Dolj district. This serpent had frightened all
the inhabitants of these lands, and his destructions were such, that they even
moved a great brave man of that time, Stroe
Novac. This brave man decided, either to die, or to kill the dragon. So,
Stroe Novac comes to
Finally here is
still another version of this legend (from the village Floresci, Dolj
district). According to this tradition of the heroic times, “the great dragon”,
which had terrified the whole antique world, dwelt in the western mountains of
[2. Also, according to another
tradition, from the village Costesci, Valcea district, this dragon dwelt in the mountains. The brave man called Novac, riding a black horse, followed
it to the mountains, where a terrible
battle ensued among them. Novac chased the dragon down, to the Iron Gates,
severing its head, which entered into a cave, in the mountains which strangle
the Danube.
This dragon, according to a legend
from the village Plenita, Dolj district, might have had nine heads, out of
which eight were severed, while the ninth saved itself by entering a crack of
the mountains at the Iron Gates. And a legend from the village Scalesci, Dolj
district, tells us that in its flight, this gigantic dragon left a trail on the
earth, called “the trail of the serpent”].
These folk
traditions about the brave man Ostrea, who fought the powerful dragon of the
ancient world, present, by the name of the hero, as well as by their mythical content,
the prehistoric Egyptian legend about Osiris and Typhon.
Diodorus Siculus, who tried to throw some light on the most
important prehistoric events, tells that the authors of antiquity recounted the
following, about the life and deeds of this ancient Egyptian king:
Osiris, the king of
Egypt, the son of Saturn, was a mortal man, but he did great things for the
humans (I.c.13) during his life. The wife of Osiris, queen Isis, was
the first to discover the importance of the wheat and barley, plants which
until then grew wild on the plains, exactly like the other weeds, their
usefulness being unknown to the humans. Osiris though was the one who invented
the way to cultivate these cereals, meaning that he introduced the agriculture
(I.c.14). Under the reign of Osiris, the first mining of copper and gold from
the regions of
Diodorus Siculus (I.c.27) also tells us that, according to
what some authors of antiquity said, the grave of Osiris and of his wife Isis
might have been in the city of Nysa in Arabia, where existed a column, which
had the following inscription, written with religious letters:
“My father was Saturn, the youngest of all the gods.
And I am Osiris, the king who led
his armies through all the countries, right to the uninhabited regions of the
Indians, and up to the regions which bend northwards, up to the sources of the river Istru, and back to the other parts leading to the Ocean … There is no place on earth
where I did not go, and with my goodness have distributed to all the people,
the things I discovered”.
From these few
still preserved historical fragments, which we have from Diodorus Siculus,
about the life and deeds of Osiris in such a remote epoch, it results that this
king of Egypt had made an expedition to the parts of Europe, and that he,
according to the inscription from Nysa, had victoriously advanced to the
sources of the Istru, and had conquered the whole European continent known to
the ancients.
But while this
Osiris legitimately reigned over Egypt, his brother Typhon, as the Osiric legends tell us, a violent and impious man,
tricked him, trapped him in a coffin, then killed him, and cut his body in 26
pieces, which he distributed between the members of his conspiracy, in order to
make them all responsible for this crime, and in this way to be entirely sure
of their help. But the queen Isis, Osiris’ wife, helped by her son Horus, took arms against Typhon the
usurper, defeated and killed him in a battle which took place near the village
Anteu, in Lower Egypt. She then reoccupied the throne of Egypt, and wishing her
deceased husband to be religiously venerated by all her subjects, ordered
life-size wax images of his figure or body to be made, with the intention to
distribute them in every region of her kingdom. At the same time, Isis called
to her all the priests subject to her rule, assured them, one by one, that only
at his place the remains of the deceased king will be interred, and forced each
of them, by oath, to bury at his place the wax body or face of Osiris, to
remind the people of the blessings of this king, and to venerate him with
divine honors. The priests did exactly as they were ordered; on one hand
because they remembered the good deeds of Osiris, on the other, to fulfill the
queen’s mandate, and finally, because their own interests required it.
That’s why, writes
Diodorus Siculus, each Egyptian priest insists even today, that the body of
Osiris is buried at his temple. At the same time, the Egyptians also consider
sacred the bulls dedicated to Osiris, with the names of Apis and Mnevis, because
with the help of these animals, Isis and Osiris, the discoverers of the
cereals, had introduced the benefits of agriculture (I.c.21).
After the divinity
and cult of Osiris were so established, the ancient Egyptian theology showed
Typhon, the powerful enemy of Osiris, as the principle of evil, as a demonic
spirit, as a dragon, from which all the physical and moral evils of the world
were born, and in particular, all the venomous animals and plants, and all the
perilous winds (Plutarch, Oeuvres,
Tome XI, 1784, p.346; Dupuis,
L’origine de tous les cultes, Tome I.p.477, II.p.300, 351. In antiquity,
exactly like in the Romanian legends, there was the belief, that all the animals which provoke wounds with their
bites, were born from Typhon: Acusilai,
frag.4, in Fragmenta Hist. graec. I. p.100) [3].
[3. In the ancient papyri laid next
to the mummies in Egyptian graves, Typhon,
the adversary of Osiris, bears different names, Apap, Sati, etc. He is
shown as a dragon from the ends of the
earth, or from the northern hemisphere, 70 ells long, which has his lair on
a high mountain, and the ditch in which this serpent lies, this “son of the earth”, is hewn in live rock, 10 ells wide and 3 ells
high. (TN – here follow 4 quotations from “Le livre des morts des anciens
Egyptiens”, Paris, Edit. Leroux, 1882, chapters: 82.1.2; 149.13.14; 108.2.3;
39.5-9).
The Romanian legends say the same
thing, that this dragon had encircled with the length of its body Oslea mountain, or some six other
mountain peaks (namely Pestisanul, Stana Stirbului, Stana Ursului, Oslea,
Oslita and Gropele from Mehedinti and Gorj districts), and that its trail, or
the serpent’s trail, is seen on earth
and on rock, on the coast of the mountains,
especially on Oslea mountain, where
it is called Troianul Sarpelui (TN –
The Serpent’s earth mound). It is also told that even the river Cerna might flow on the furrow cut in
the earth by this giant dragon, while it ran (Legends from the villages
Busesci, Hirisesci, Tismana and Isvernea)].
In the historical
Egyptian monuments, Typhon bears also the name Smu (Manetho Sebennytae, frag. 77 in Fragm. Hist. gr. II. p.613),
meaning Smeu (TN – balaur), word of
Pelasgian origin, having in this case the same meaning as the word dragon (Lexiconul de Buda, and Cihac, Dictionnaire, v.smeu). The epithet smeu and balaur is also
used in our folk poetry, as a symbol of the heroes’ remarkable courage (Alecsandri, Folk poems. 196; Teodorescu, Folk poems. p.557, 568).
In Greek ancient
mythology, which had adopted all its divinities and religious beliefs, part
from the Egyptians, part from the Pelasgians, Osiris, the powerful king-god of
antiquity, is identified with Jove,
and the queen Isis with Juno. Even
the genealogy of these two monarchs is one and the same. Osiris and Isis of the
Egyptians, and Jove and Juno of the Greeks, are the children of the old and
legendary king Saturn, who had reigned in those primitive times of history,
over most of Europe, over western Asia and northern Africa.
Although the Greek
legends, as written testimonies, are from a much later epoch than the Egyptian
ones, we find in the Greek version very precious extra details about the course
of this memorable prehistoric war between Osiris
or Jove and Typhon.
“After Jove chased
the Titans from the sky”, Hesiodus
tells us in his Theogony, the gigantic
Earth (Gaea, Terra, Tera) gave birth to her youngest son, Typhon. He had robust hands, capable
for work, exactly like those of a man, and the legs of a strong and tireless
god, but from his shoulders, one hundred terrible dragon heads rose, with black
tongues, and fire glowing in all the eyes of these dragon heads. All those
heads had voices, and produced all sorts of sounds, which can not be described,
as some time they sounded as to be understood by the gods (Homer mentions on various occasions the language of the gods, which was the ancient religious language
– Pelasgian), another time they resembled the bellow of a wild, strong bull, or
the roaring of a terrible lion, or the barking of dogs (allusion to a barbarian
language, not Greek), or they sounded like a terrifying rumble, which made the
high mountains echo. And truly, it would have been a terrible thing if Typhon
ruled one day over gods and mortals, and the father of gods and men (Jove)
understood very well the gravity of this situation. So Jove, gathering all his
strength, took his weapons, thunders and lightning, and rushing out of Olympus,
he hit and burnt all the gigantic heads of this fearsome monster, defeated,
mutilated it, and threw it into the vast Tartarus.
From Typhon were born the perilous storms,
which scatter the boats and drown the sailors, or blow on the surface of the
earth and ruin the labor of the men born of the earth [4].
[4. Hesiodus, Theog. v. 820-880 – According to Hesiodus, Typhon, the big and strong dragon, was
at the same time the father of storms.
This tradition still exists today with the Romanian people. “The people who
lived here before us, cast spells on serpents,
and took them into battle. Those
serpents were the children of the “strong
one”, a big dragon which goes
rumbling in front of the flood. People feared the storms and the floods,
which listened to the “strong one”, and that is why they cast spells on
serpents and took them into battle, so that the flood (big wave of muddy water,
which follows the torrential rains) will avoid them (communicated from the
village Orbic, Neamtu district).
A special importance presents this
legend in regard to the name Typhon
and Typhoeus, given to this
dragon-hero of prehistoric antiquity. In old Greek typhon means a destructive storm, a flood (TN – puhoiu) caused by rain, and because in the Doric and Aeolian
dialects p is often changed with t, the Romanian word puhoiu appears, by its meaning and by
its etymology, as identical with the Greek Typhon and Typhoeus].
We find other
characteristic data about this powerful king-dragon of prehistory, with Apollodorus.
After the gods
defeated the Giants, this author tells us, the furious Earth (Gaea) had sexual
relations with Tartarus, and gave
birth in Cilicia to Typhon, who had
a mixed nature, of human being and monster, and who surpassed, by the size and
power of his body, everyone who had ever been born on Earth until then. His
body had a human form down to his legs, but it was of an immense size, and
higher than any mountain. He often touched the stars with his head, with one
hand he reached to the west, and with the other to the east, and from his
shoulders raised one hundred dragon heads. His body was covered with viper
spirals (leather belts) from hands to feet, and these spirals, stretching to
his ends, produced fearsome whistling. He was covered with feathers all over
his body, and his rough and entangled long hair, as well as his beard,
fluttered in the wind. From his eyes, fire was flashing, and from his mouth he
threw a big flaming fire.
When the gods saw
him assaulting the sky, they all rushed to Egypt, and to conceal themselves from
his fury, they changed into different animal shapes. But Jove, seeing that
Typhon, who was chasing them, was still far away, hit him with his
thunderbolts, and when Typhon drew nearer, Jove frightened him with his steel
battle axe, and chased him to mount Casiu
in Siria. Here Jove closed in, and seeing that Typhon was tired, grabbed
him, but Typhon caught Jove, tied him up with his spirals (leather belts),
then, taking him on his shoulders, crossed the sea to Cilicia, where he shut
him in the cave called Coryciu, and
put the wild maiden, half she-serpent, named Delphina, to guard him. But Jove
escaped from the cave, with the help of Mercury (Hermes), and started a fresh
assault on Typhon, whom he followed with his thunderbolts to mount Nysa.
Typhon, seeing this, withdrew to Thrace
and the battle took place at Hem Mountain, from where he threw whole
mountains on Jove, and Jove hit him with his thunderbolts, and returned on him
the mountains he threw. A lot of blood (aima) flew on that mountain, from
which it is said that this mountain got its name of Haemos. From Hem Typhon ran across the sea of Sicily, where Jove
threw on him the great mountain Etna, from where fire spouts even today,
because, as it is said, of the many thunderbolts thrown there (Bibl. I.5.3).
These are the
ancient remains, preserved under the veil of Osiric religion, about the great
war of prehistory, between Osiris from Egypt and Typhon from the Istru, two
traditional kings, both sons of Saturn, one worshiped, the other condemned by
Egyptian and Greek theology.
We find the same
historical elements in Romanian traditions.
The victorious hero
is Ostrea or Osiris (in Greek form Ostris
/ Pauly, Real-Encyclopadie, V. Band.
1848, p.1011), or Iovan Iorgovan
(Hercules), Osiris’ military commander over Egypt, during his expedition. And
the defeated hero is the powerful king-dragon of prehistoric antiquity. Both
adversaries fight for the domination of the ancient world, and especially for
the succession to the vast empire of Saturn. But in the end the titan-king from
the Istru is forced to withdraw into the mountains, where he is defeated,
mutilated and thrown into a deep and dark cave.
In Romanian
legends, the hero Ostrea-Novac, who fought with the dragon, is presented as the
“king of the Jews” (TN – Jidovi, name very much similar with
Jove)”, or of the Semitic race. He had, according to the Romanian traditions,
very large courts in the parts towards
Tarigrad (TN – Constantinople), or the southern parts, and in his courts
were stone candle holders, stone tapers and coiled dogs of stone (Egyptian sphinxes); he was a great
king, “everybody knelt before him as if
he were God” and obeyed his commands (traditions from the villages: Maldar
/ Olt; Ciocanesci / Ialomita; Vertop / Dolj).
The legend of
Osiris and his battle with Typhon, is a legend with a lot of authority. It
formed the most glorious tradition of the Egyptian and Hebrew worlds, a sort of
religious folk history, which fueled the imagination for thousands of years,
and in Greek lands the autocratic power of Jove, either if he were the same
person as Osiris, or if he only helped him.
Now, from a
scientific point of view, we are faced with the challenge of finding the
positive essence of this legend, in order to re-establish the historical truth
of this theological synthesis, and especially to find out where took place this
grandiose war, which had decided the fate of the ancient world; the memory of
which, we repeat one more time, has been transmitted only under the form of
some figurate descriptions, edited and propagated by the Egyptian priests.
Homer’s Iliad (II.v.782-783), the most ancient
monument of Greek literature, tells us that the country of Typhon or Typhoeu,
as he calls him, was the country of the Arimi
(the form Arimi corresponds to Rimi; the Greeks said ‘Aripes
instead of ‘Ripes, to a population from Achaia), near the mountain
Typhoeu, where was also the abode of this brave and legendary dragon.
These Arimi, as Hesiodus says (Theog. v.304-306; 731)
dwelt at the northern edge of the earth known to the Greeks, the place where
there was also the vast subterranean cave, in which this ancient and powerful
monarch of the Istru was thrown. The placing of the Arimi in Asia Minor (cf. Strabo, XII.8.19; XIII.4.6) is
completely unscientific and is in total contradiction with Homeric and Hesiodic
geography, as well as with the Egyptian legends.
With the war
between Osiris and Typhon though, the political role of the Arimi comes to an
end. Their name disappears completely from Greek literature. They belonged to
an ancient world and their memory appears only as a far away echo, even in the
poems of Homer and Hesiod.
These Arimi, by the
importance given them by Homer and Hesiod, were during the first heroic epoch,
the most extended population of the lands of Thrace, the Lower Danube and
Scythia, and westwards we find traces of ethnic settlements of the Arimi right
to the Cotic Alps and beyond the Rhine valley.
Typhon is Arim or Ariman by nationality, and the dominant ethnic element in his
empire was the nation of the Arimi. Under the name Ariman, Typhon is shown in the national religion of ancient Iran as
the principle of evil. The great event that had happened at the Istru, had also
a deep impact in the entire prehistoric world, right to the banks of the
Ganges.
A great and united
empire had been destroyed, the largest which had ever existed, founded by
Saturn, the father of Typhon and Osiris; empire in the orbit of which fell a
large part of Europe, of north Africa and of western Asia, which is what Apollodorus means when he says that
Typhon reached to the stars with his head, with one hand to the west and with
the other to the east.
This Ariman, the doctrines of Zoroaster tell us, had tried, under the
shape of a dragon, to measure himself up with the sky. Ninety days and ninety
nights all the gods fought against him, and at last, he was chased out by
Ormazd, the god of light, and thrown into hell.
In essence and in
form, the theology of Zoroaster did not contain anything new.
The personality of
Ariman in Zendavesta is the same as the personality of Typhon of Greek and
Egyptian theology (Dupuis, Origine
de tous les cultes. Tome II.285).
Zoroaster, the
founder of the ancient religion of the Persians, had lived with many centuries,
we can say even thousands of years, after the memorable event happened at the
Lower Danube, and he had only subsumed the ancient traditions, beliefs and
legends of the west, transmitted to Media and Parthia by the migrations of the
Scythians (Isidorus, Origines
XIV.3.9).
As we said though,
the ethnic name of the Arimi disappeared after their political ruin.
We find mentions of
various geographical traces of their dwellings at the Danube and at the north
of the Euxine Pontos, until late in historical times.
In the list of the
various ethnic nations settled near the shores of the Black Sea, Pliny the Old (Hist. Nat. VI.7.1)
mentions a population called Arim(ph)aei,
a nationality with the same mores, and on the same level of civilization as the
Hyperboreans, whose dwellings, as this author tells us, were near the Riphaei mountains, the ancient cradle
of the just people; mountains which, from a geographical point of view, formed
the western border of the plains called Scythia, and were therefore identical
with the Carpathians (Justini, Historiarum Philippicarum lib.
II. c.2).
Pliny again, this illustrious man of Rome, who,
with his spirit and vast knowledge, wanted to cover the whole world, tells us
also that, in a remote antiquity, various ethnic tribes of the Scythians had
the name of Aramaei (Hist. Nat.
VI.19.1)
These ethnic names
of Arim(ph)aei and Aramaei, which luckily were preserved
by the geographical sources of Pliny, present the Greek form of the name Arimi or Arimani, as, for example, the Greeks always used the expressions ‘Romaios
and ‘Romaioi
as correspondents for the terms Romanus
and Romani.
[5. The costume of Typhon, as
results from this symbolic presentation, was composed of a shirt with large
sleeves, and long embroidered tight trousers, having at the lower part the
shape of two wings for each leg, like the traditional trousers worn in Oltenia
today. Over the waist he had a leather belt. The Egyptian priests have also
attributed to Typhon a celestial character. On the Egyptian Planisphere, the
entire northern hemisphere bears the name of “Statio Typhonia”, or “Statio
Typhonis”. And Plutarch
(Oeuvres, XI, p.308) tells us that the Egyptian priests considered the
constellation Ursa, as the
astronomical symbol of Typhon. Under the “Big Ursa”, according to the ideas of
the ancients, dwelt the Sarmatians
and the Getae (Ovid, Trist. III. 11.8; V. 3.7-8)].
We find a precious
ethnic data regarding the Arimi, with the learned Alexandrine geographer Ptolemy, who had lived in the time of
Adrian and Marc Aurelius. He is the only one, among all the geographers of that
epoch, who mentions an ancient ante-Roman city called Ramidava (Geogr. III.c.8), meaning the city of the Rami, located in the southern part of
this province, namely close to the river called today Buzeu.
Another important
group of prehistoric Rami had in
those times their dwellings near the Meotic lake (Pliny, H.N.VI.7.2), and beyond the Rhine, Cesar’s expedition made
known to us the Remi or Rhemi (‘Remoi), one of the
largest, most noble and powerful populations of Belgian Gaul, friends and
allies of the Roman people (Caesaris,
B.G.II.3, III.5, VII.90; Pliny, lib.
IV. 31).
Homer’s Iliad has also preserved the memory of a
Pelasgian lord with the name of Rigm-os,
the son of Pirous of Thrace, hero who had taken part in the war with the Greeks
as ally of the Trojans (Ilias, XX.v.484-5).
Between Drava and
Sava, there appears during the Roman epoch, a locality with the name of Ramista (Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum,
Ed. Parthey, p.266), or Remista (Die
Peutingersche Tafel, Segm. V.3, Ed.Miller, 1888); in upper Moesia there was Remisiana (Itiner. Antonini, Ed.
Parthey, p.63) or Romesiana (Die
Peuting.Tafel, Segm.Vii.5); eastwards from Philippopoli there were Ramlum (Ibid. Segm.VIII.2) and Rhamis (Itin. Hierosol. P.269), and at
the foot of the Cotic Alps, in the Narbonnese Gaul, there was the town Ramae (Ibid.p.263) - geographical names
the origin of which goes back to the
ancient, extensive and homogenous population of the Rimi or Arimi, which had become so famous in prehistoric times.
We find new
geographical elements regarding the country of Typhon, and the power center of
the ancient Arimi, in the important description preserved by Apollodorus.
The first battle
with Typhon, this author tells us, took place at the mountain called Casiu, Kasion oros, and this
time the success was on the part of Typhon. The titan king from the Istru,
caught Jove, his adversary, and imprisoned him in the cave called Coryciu.
This mountain
Casiu, which had become so famous in the war of Osiris (Jove) with Typhon, also
had a historical role in the first war of Trajan with the Dacians.
Trajan, Suidas
tells us, dedicated to Jove from the
mountain Casiu (meaning to a sanctuary there), some silver craters and an
enormous gilded ox horn, as gifts for his victory against the Getae. So, it is incontestable that
this “Casion oros”, whose memory is preserved in two great wars which took
place near the Istru, could not be in Antioch Syria, where the Greek authors
have tried to place the first battles of Jove with Typhon, as well as the
solemn sacrifices made by Trajan in gratitude for his victories against the
Dacians [6].
[6. The mountain Casiu was, according to Apollodorus (I.6.3) in “Syria from beyond”. Which was though
this Syria from beyond? The term yper… used in this case by the sources
of Apollodorus, indicates quite exactly that here is not meant an Asiatic
Syria, but a Syria from the north of the Greek regions (cf. Polyb. IV.29.1). Stephanos Byzanthinos mentions a city or a region (polis)
in Thrace with the name Sirra, whose geographical situation
is unfortunately unknown. And in ancient times, under the name of Thrace was
understood the entire north of Europe,
above Greece (St. Byz.Skythai)].
An important part
of the crest of the Carpathians, which stretches from the Iron Gates up,
towards Retezat mountains, had and still has today the name of Cosiu, name identical in essence and
form with Kasion oros, mentioned by Apollodorus.
In the center of
this vast semi-circle of the Carpathians, which encloses the western plains of
Romania, and especially at the point of origin of the valley called Topolnita,
we are presented with one of the most important natural defensive positions of
this region, namely the mountain called Gradet,
and at the foot of this mountain, another steep crest called Cosuri, term which belongs to the same
type of names as Kasion and Cosiu. On
the top of this high peak of Gradet, can be seen even today the ruins of an
extensive gigantic wall called “Zidina
Dachilor” (TN – zid = wall). The remains of this strong and colossal
fortification belong to an archaic defensive system. It is a vast fortified
enclosure, whose primitive function was to protect the inhabitants of western
Oltenia against the enemy invasions, coming from the lower regions, or from the
Danube.
“I have never seen
until today”, writes Cesar Bolliac,
“any other Dacian fortress, with such a size, strength and built on such a
height. Here the stone is hewn from the neighboring mountains, and thrown on
this peak with a titanic force, then gathered and tied together with a cement
as strong as the rock” (Trompeta Carpatilor, nr. 785, 1869).
In the neighborhood
of this strong defensive centre, strengthened by nature and by the hand of man,
can be found even today various stone tools and Neolithic pottery. The
traditions tell us that here was in antiquity the theater of a great war with a
people from the southern regions (Spineanu,
Dict. Geogr. Jud. Mehedinti, p.166). Here could be seen until our days, between
the villages Balotesci and Scanteiesci, the enormous stone boulders of an
extensive necropolis, called by the folk people “the graves of the Jidovi”, or of the giants (Spineanu, ibid. p.166; Filip,
Studiu de geografie militara asupra Olteniei, p.96).
But what is of a
special importance for the study of these historical events, is that, in this
same region, between the villages Balotesci and Isvorul Barzei, not far from
the mountain Gradet, there is the village and tableland called Curecea, and facing this tableland,
there is a cavern with a particular folk tradition, analogous to that of Korikion
antron, namely that in this cavern from Curecea there was a Jidov or a
giant; imprisoned or not, the tradition doesn’t tell [7].
[7. This cave is situated in front
of the tableland Curecea, on the
hill called “Petra cu ciorele” (TN –
the Rock with the crows), which is
situated on the right bank of the river Topolnita, between the villages
Balotesci and Isvorul Barzei, close to Severin.
The positive etymology of the name Korikion
antron seems to be the word koraxi, Lat. Corax, raven, crow (TN – ciora).
We find a similar name with the geographer Mela
(lib. I.19; III.5), who mentions in a vague way a long chain of mountains
called “mons Coraxicus”, which was
connected to the Rhipaei mountains. We also find with Mela (I.13) an important
topographical note regarding this cavern (specus
Corycius). Near this cavern, he says, there is also a big river, which
springs from a vast mouth and which, after flowing for a short distance, sinks
and disappears again into the earth. Almost the same phenomenon presents today
the river Topolnita, which flows along the foot of the hill, in which there is
the cavern from nearby Curecea. Then this river sinks into the earth at the
hill named Prosec, and reemerges at the mouth of the Cave facing Topolnita
monastery].
We can therefore affirm
that, according to traditions and legends, as well as to the identification of
the topographical names, the first episode of this great war between Jove and
Typhon, or the so-called battle from the Casiu mountain, took place in western
Oltenia, in the mountain which was named in ancient times Cosiu, close to the cavern at Curecea,
where the defensive base of Typhon was formed by the mountain Gradet, at the
point of origin of Topolnita valley, which dominates the whole plain of the Severin.
But Jove, as
Apollodorus tells us, escaped quickly from the cavern of Coryciu and the
gigantic war between the two coalitions of races, of the south and of the
north, starts again. This time the battles are fought with extreme violence
near the Hem mountain.
Those were times
far beyond the limits of history and we have to make clear the following
geographical notion:
Hem mountain of the
sacred legends of ancient times is not the Hem mountain of historical times, or
the mountain chain of the Balkans, south of the Lower Danube.
With Suidas and Stephanos Byzanthinos, the strong crown of the Carpathian mountains appear under the name of Hem. (The Agathyrses, as
Herodotus tells us – IV.38 – dwelt
near the river Maris, meaning the
central parts of today Transilvania. And according to Stephanos Byzanthinos and
Suidas, they dwelt in the inner parts of the Hem mountain). Even the
geographical sources which Herodotus
used (lib.IV.c.49), told that the river Atlas
or Oltul sprang from the top of the
Hem mountain (Tomaschek, Die alten
Thraker, I.p.10).
(TN – I feel compelled to add here
some explanation of my own. According to British Encyclopedia – Europe - the
true geological limit of the Carpathians in the south is the structural
depression of the Timok River in Yugoslavia, although split apart at the Iron
Gate by the gap valley of the Danube. So in time, the name Hem was applied only
to the mountains south of the Danube).
At this Hem
mountain, at the north of the Lower Danube, came to a close the last act of the
great prehistoric drama, the memory of which took a symbolic form, and was
preserved in the sacred history of the ancient world [8].
[8. According to Pherecydes, a Greek historian (5th
century ad), Typhon, chased by Jove, withdrew in the Caucas mountains, but there, the mountains taking fire, he was
forced to run to Italy (Fragmenta
Histor. Graec. I. 72. Fragm.14). In antique geography, the Carpathians often figure under the name of Caucas. A proof in this regard is the inscription from the epoch of
Trajan: Ad Alutum flumen secus mont(is) Caucasi (Froehner, La Colonne Trajane, Append. Nr.16; Jornandes, De reb. Get. C. VII)].
Leaving now the
mythical envelope of this important event of ante-Trojan times, we can
recapitulate the historical essence of these traditions as follows:
In a very remote
prehistoric antiquity, epoch which coincides with the beginning of the decline
of the great Pelasgian empire, two powerful kings, both Saturn’s sons, born
from two different mothers, by country, nationality and education, one reigning
in the south, with his residence in Egypt, the other in the north, with his
power centre in Dacia, fight for the domination of the ancient world. Typhon’s
empire was vast. His power stretched, as Apollodorus writes, from west to east,
and this legendary monarch of prehistory, wanted to reign not only over men,
but also over the sky. He aspired to divine honors, exactly as Uranos had, his
grandfather and Saturn, his father. The war is long and of extreme violence.
The expedition of Osiris over Ethiopia, Arabia, and to the extreme parts of
India, then his return over the Iranian plateau and his crossing over the
Hellespont to Thrace, had as a consequence the establishing of a powerful
coalition formed from Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs, Indians and other Asian
barbarians, in order to defeat the domination of the northern Pelasgians, of
the Arimi, and to conquer the Rhipaei mountains. The big war strategy of Osiris
targets the Istru, and the theatre of the principal battles is on the territory
of ancient Dacia, close to the Iron Gates. The balance of victory alternates.
In the first war Typhon is victorious; he catches Jove or Osiris and imprisons
him in the cavern from Coryciu (Curecea). In the second war, Typhon defends
himself with great energy on the strong positions near the crests of Cerna (Hem
mountain). Finally he is defeated by the allied powers of the Egyptians,
Greeks, Arabs and Indians, and, forced to withdraw towards Italy, the country
where Pelagian tribes from near the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea always found
refuge, when fate was persecuting them.
With the defeat of
Typhon, the Egyptian supremacy and its religious influence are established at
the Lower Danube, in Scythia and in the central parts of Europe, and the Osiric
legends conceived by the Egyptian theology, present the defeated hero as the
father of darkness, as typifying all the moral and physical evils, as a
demon-dragon, enemy of the gods and humankind.
In this symbolic
form it was established and propagated the apotheosis of Osiris, not only in
Egypt and Asia, but also in Europe, and it has been preserved until today in
Romanian legends.
At this expedition
of Osiris in the parts of Dacia refers an important passage from the
Argonautica of Valeriu Flaccus (VI.
114-119), who, based on some old historical sources, mentions the multitudes of
peoples pouring out of Egypt, Arabia and India, to conquer the Rhipaei
mountains.
“The holy prophet
Varus (Abaris?)” he writes, “brings swarms of peoples from the holy forests of
Hyrcania (to fight against the Argonauts). For three years he’s been
foretelling to Scythia the coming of the brave Argonauts with the ship called
Argo (to steal the Golden fleece). Believing his oracles, the wealthy nations
of India and the cultivated fields of Egyptian Thebe with one hundred gates,
and the entire Arabia, rush to conquer the Rhipaei mountains (rich in gold)”.
The place where
Osiris was buried it has remained unknown to the ancients [9].
[9. There still exist with the
Romanian people some traditions regarding the death and the grave of this
distinguished hero. Ostrea-Novac, tells us a legend from the village Soparlita,
was buried alive in a mountain, and
according to other legends from the villages Bursucani, Covurlui district, and
Topal, Constanta district, Novac and Iorgovan were very adept at using the bow
and arrows, and both buried themselves alive, when the deceptive fire arms were
invented in order to replace the old ones, saying that “they go now
underground”. This tradition is basically identical with the antique legend
about the descent of Hercules and
Dionysus (Osiris) to hell (Plato,
Axiochus)].
This had been in
fact the wish of Queen Isis, who had decided to bury in each city a wax
simulacrum of her deceased husband. Cause for which, writes Diodorus Siculus (I.c.21), each
Egyptian priest believed that the body of Osiris was buried at his place.
On the territory of
the Romanian country there are two primitive monuments, which serve as
testimony of those events, two large
mounds, very ancient, which have the name of Ostrea or Osiris. One of these
mounds is on the territory of the Teleorman district, near the village
Slobozia-Mandra, and the other is in the district Dolj, at the village
Comosceni. By traditions, these archaic tumuli of our countries appear only as commemorative mounds.
Osiris, Diodorus Siculus tells us (lib.I.c.19),
after wandering about India, as far as the uninhabited lands, left there
several monumental markers, in the memory of his expedition. Some of these
monuments about the “arrival” of Osiris in India, were probably only simple
commemorative mounds. King Darius of
the Persians did the same thing also. When reaching the river Artiscus, from
the region of the Odrysi in Thrace,
he asked his soldiers to erect there several mounds of rocks, as signs for the
posterity that the vast empire of the Persians had extended also to Europe (Herodotus, lib.IV.c.92).
Such commemorative
monuments of the expedition of Osiris existed not only in the countries of
Dacia, but even across the Danube.
On the south-west
side of the city Philippopoli (TN – today Plovdiv) there is even today a
village named Ostra Mogila, meaning
the Mound of Ostrea or Osiris.
Another mound with the name of this legendary monarch was at the ancient Gate of the Hem mountain. From
Philippopoli towards the Danube, the shortest road and most practicable was in
antiquity through the mountain pass between Karlovo and Trojan (Jirecek, Die Heerstrasse von Belgrad
nach Constantinopel, p.156; Kanitz,
Donau-Bulgarien, II.97), which bears even today the name Ostra Mogila, (Kanitz,
Donau-Bulgarien, III.171). This is an important reminiscence about the crossing
of the Balkan mountains at this point, by the great Egyptian conqueror, who
came on the North with his infinite columns of Africans and Asians. At the
northern side of this mountain pass there was during the Roman epoch a city
called Sostra (Tab. Peut.), which is
a simple official variant of the folk form Ostrea, Osiris being identical with
Sesostris.
A promontory at the
straits of the Bosphorus, on the territory of Bithynia, had in antiquity the
name ‘Oxirrous
akra, because on this height had probably been erected a mound, or a
column, in the memory of the arrival of Osiris to the most important point of
the ancient world, where the roads of the west and east met with those of the
north and south (Dionysius Byzantius,
Anaplus Bospori, in Fragm. Hist. Graec. V. p. 188).
Similarly king Darius,
as Herodotus tells us, arriving at
the Bosphorus, sailed with his ship to the islands called Cyaneae, from where
he admired the beauty of the Black Sea, then, returning to the bridge that had
been built by the architect Mandroclus, erected on the shores of the Bosphorus
two columns of white stone, with the names of all the peoples led by him to war
against the Scythians (lib. IV. c. 85-87).
The mounds on the
territory of the Romanian country and on the Balkan peninsula, which bear even
today the name of Ostrea, appear therefore as primitive monuments, but solemn
ones, destined to perpetuate the memory of the expedition and of the glory of
this famous monarch.
They correspond
entirely to the itinerary of this famous conqueror of the ancient world, who had
crossed from Asia to Thrace over the Hellespont, and had advanced towards the
sources of the Istru, which at that time were considered to be at its
cataracts.