PREHISTORIC DACIA

PART 4 – Ch.XXI

Prehistoric monuments of metallurgic art in Dacia

The eschatological tablets of the Hyperboreans

PART 4

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The Copper tablets of the Hyperboreans, sent as a gift, with the virgins Opis and Hecaerge, to the temple of Apollo in the island of Delos, are mentioned among the most important monuments of prehistoric metallurgy from the northern parts of the Danube.

Socrates speaks as follows about these Tablets (Plato, Axiochus):

“Here is another tale which the magus Gobryas told me.

At the time when Xerxes had crossed with his army in Europe (480bc), his grandfather, who had the same name (Gobryas), had been charged with the defense of the island Delos, where the two gods, Apollo and Diana, had been born. Here he had learnt the contents of some copper tablets, which (the virgins) Opis and Hecaerge had brought from the Hyperboreans.

They said that the soul of man, after leaving the body, goes to an unknown place, to an underground dwelling, where is the royal residence of Pluto, which is no smaller than Jove’s palace. The gate which serves as entry to the road leading to Pluto’s residence, is closed with 200 padlocks and keys; and after this gate is opened, the soul reaches the river Acheron, then the river Cocyt, and after crossing these rivers, it must be taken to Minos and Rhadamanthis. Here the judges keep council and ask each of those who come, what kind of life had they led and what had they done while they were inside their bodies. In front of these judges it is impossible to lie. Then those who had been guided by a good genie when they lived, receive a place in the region of the pious, where the seasons produce in abundance all sort of fruit, where flow springs of clear water, where the plains are covered with all sorts of spring flowers, where the soul assists at philosophical conversations, at the poets’ theatrical representations, at music concertos, at feasts with song and music, where are tables laden with food prepared by itself, innocent enjoyment and a pleasant life. Here are neither hard winters, nor high temperatures, but a temperate climate, sweetened by the gentle rays of the sun. Those who had been initiated (in these mysteries) have a higher place and they carry out the religious ceremonies. It is said that here had been initiated Hercules and Bachus / Osiris (Diodorus Siculus, lib. I. 11. 3; Herodotus, II. 42), before their descent to hell.

And those who had spent their lives in wicked deeds are taken by the Furies through Tartaros to Erabus and Chaos, in the region of the unpious, where the daughters of Danaos try continuously to fill the bottomless vase, where is seen thirsty Tantalos, where the vultures (or serpents) rip out the liver of Tityus, where Sisyphus labors in vain to roll a huge stone boulder up a mountain, only to start all over again after reaching the top; where the monsters lick the bodies of malefactors; where the divinities of punishments burn them with lighted torches and where they suffer all sorts of eternal torments. These were communicated to me by Gobryas”.

As we see, these copper tablets (called deltos,oi), which had a triangular shape, contained the theological doctrine of the Hyperboreans about the destiny of man after death.

(According to Ovid – Met. XV. 809-810 – some huge copper and iron tablets, on which were written the fixed destinies of man, also existed in the palace of the Parces).

This doctrine was based on the principle of the eternal life of the soul, on the idea of a supreme judgment, on a retribution beyond the grave for the good and wicked deeds; ideas predating the Old Testament, which the Hyperboreans, or the Pelasgians from north of Istru, had spread far off in the entire antique world, and which had become therefore the fundamental basis of the popular religion in Hellada, Egypt, the western parts of Asia and later, in the Roman empire.

These famous epigraphic tablets present at the same time a picture about the form in which were organized the great mysteries of the Hyperboreans, mysteries which were celebrated in a subterranean dwelling, where the courts of Pluto were enacted, the last judgment headed by the great legislators Minos and Rhadamanthis, the region of the pious, or the places of eternal happiness, and the Tartarus with all its horrors [1].

[1. Minos and Rhadamanthis appear in the ancient legends as the sons of Jove. It was said about Minos that he had been a just king, remarkable for his intelligence, a symbol of the pre-Greek legislation. He had reigned over Crete, over the islands of the Aegean Sea, and over the sea-shore of Asia. Envying his brother Rhadamanthis for his high feelings of justice, he had sent him to the extreme parts of his empire (Diodorus, V. 84. 2). Both of them were appointed after death as judges in the empire of the other world].

The Pelasgians, and especially the Hyperboreans, had been the only people of antiquity who had excelled in their science of organizing mysteries and oracles, a very powerful means of propagation of their belief in a future life and at the same time a school for moral and religious philosophy.

The mysteries of the Hyperboreans from north of Istru were the oldest, which, as the Tablets sent to Delos tell us, had existed even at the time of Hercules and Osiris, themselves initiated in these mysteries, and transformed as a result in faithful devotees of this religion.

And in truth, the Osiric paradise and hell, as we shall see later, are also localized in this region of the Hyperboreans from the Istru.

The temple of Apollo of Delos, exactly as the temple and oracle of Delphi, had been founded by the Hyperboreans from north of Istru (see Ch. IV.2 and VI.3). From here had departed persecuted Latona and had given birth in the island of Delos to Apollo and Diana.

The Hyperboreans preserved ever since those remote times, continuous religious ties with the sanctuaries of Delos, an island inhabited by Pelasgian tribes emigrated from the Carpathians.

As Herodotus tells us (lib. IV. c. 33), the Hyperboreans, this wealthy and pious people, sent each year to the sanctuaries of Delos gifts, wrapped in sheaves of wheat. In the beginning they sent these gifts with two virgins, accompanied for safety by five Hyperborean leaders. The virgins Opis and Hecaerge (Ibid, lib. IV. c. 35) went with the first sacred mission to Delos, and took with them a precious gift for Ilitya, who had helped Latona at the birth of the two gods. (This gift was, according to ancient traditions, a magnificent gold chain, woven from gold threads – Preller, Gr. Myth. I, p. 154).

According to Socrates, these same two virgins, Opis and Hecaerge, had taken to Delos the tablets about the doctrine of the last judgment. This is a very important note regarding the age of these monumental tablets. Their age goes back therefore to the times of Latona, or to the first times of the founding of the sanctuaries of Delos.

These eschatological tablets of the Hyperboreans, which had had a huge influence over the religion of Delos and of the islands of the Aegean Sea, had been therefore made and written in the countries from north of Istru, in Dacia.

Their text had been certainly redacted in the sacred language of the Pelasgians, and, as we shall see later, the sacred books from the territory of Hellada had also been written in the beginning, in the same language [2].

[2. It seems that the inhabitants from the north parts of Istru, following the ancestral custom, had continued to send gifts to Delos with two virgins, almost to the time when the city and the temples of Delos had been sacked and destroyed by Menophanes, a general of Mithridates, in 87bc.

(See the two marble tablets from the 2^nd century bc, reproduced by Tocilescu in “Monumente epigrafice”, I. 436 seqq, regarding the virgins Martina and Heraclea.

Virgil also mentions (Aen. IV. 146) the picti Agathyrsi at the feasts of Delos].

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