Torine katun

Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In mountainous regions like Montenegro, it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower valleys in winter. 

In many languages there are words for the higher summer pastures, and shepherds summer camps built on them, and frequently these words have been used as place names. In the Balkans these words are Katun, Stan, Bačija, Torine...I talked about them in my article "Katun"...

In this article I would like to talk about one of these transhumance shepherds summer camps, Torine, which could just be one of the most important archaeological sites in Montenegro, and possibly one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe...

The archaeological site covers a small plateau 150X50 meters which was on the lower side fortified with a stone wall. 

The plateau is located in the Radman gorge 

The archaeological site was discovered by chance, when local villagers tried to widen the road that passed by the plateau, and in process bulldozing away half of the site

Luckily, while pushing through the site, the bulldozers unearthed several skeletons, and the locals thought they better call the police. 

Who called the archaeologists. The archaeologist who came to examine the site was Predrag Lutovac from Polimlje museum.

Archaeologists determined that the skeletons belonged to the people buried on the site during medieval time. 

Then they started opening exploratory trenches and what they discovered was pretty astonishing. One and a half meters of soil contained occupational layers from the end of the 5th millennium BC to medieval time...

The fact that the cultural layers were very thin and very rich in mobile artifacts, indicates that it was a seasonal shepherds summer settlement, Torine... 

According to Predrag Lutovac, the earliest layer located at the depth of only one meter and twenty centimeters, is Vinča cultural layer, from the Vinča-Pločnik phase, dated to the second half of the 5th millennium BC...This is where archaeologists discovered this figurine of a nude woman with a realistically represented torso and a pentagonal head characteristic of the Vinča culture. 

Similar figurines in fragments are known from other Vinča culture sites in Northern Montenegro: 

Trnje near the village of Bijedići which contained few dozen houses...

Beran-krš near Berane, which consisted of about twenty houses. 

Both settlements are believed to have existed from Late Neolithic through Copper Age and into Early Bronze Age period, from 4,500 to 3,000 BC.

Now the above figurine from Torine is similar in shape to the late Vinča culture figurines found in Kosovo, at Fatos and Predionica sites. But while the Vinča culture figurines found in Kosovo are dressed and or have painted decorations, the figurine from Torine is naked and has no decorations at all much like later Bubanj-Hum culture figurines...

This earliest Neolithic Vinča layer is followed by a mixed layer of late Neolithic Vinča culture mixed with the early Copper and Bronze Age Bubanj-Hum culture from Serbia and Mediterranean Copper and Bronze Age cultures, like Nakovana culture. 

These three cultures seem to have peacefully coexisted and merged into a new South Balkan Bronze Age cultural group, that covered huge area of Eastern and Southern Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia and Albania... 

This culture must have had a stronghold in northern Montenegro, because the area is full of Early and Middle Bronze Age fortifications: Tumbarice in Donja Ržanica, Gradac in Budimlja, Pećina grad in Radmanska klisura near Petnjica, gradina Bihor, Samograd in the village of Brzava near Bijelo Polje, Gradac above Godočelj near Petnjica, Gradac in Crnčia near Bijelo Polje, Jerinin grad in Plav, Gradina above the village of Šabotići, Gradina in Korita and Gradina above the village of Muslić.

It is in this Bronze Age layer of the Torine site, at the depth of half a meter, that archaeologists had unearthed a base of a Bronze Age house dated to mid 2nd millennium BC. 

Inside of this Bronze Age house, archaeologists discovered a large number of fully intact ceramic dishes, bone tools, pickaxes made of deer’s antlers, needles, bradawls, studs...All located around a central fireplace. 

A wolf’s teeth necklace was also discovered, showing that here already we have the some form of the wolf cult, not surprising considering that wolves are shepherds main worry in the mountains. After the weather.

Extremely interesting discovery at Torine was a mold for making bronze daggers of the type discovered in Momišići and other Copper and Early Bronze Age tumulus graves, located in the lowlands of the souther Montenegro. 

According to Lutovac this is another proof that Torine was a seasonal summer camp used by people who spent winters in Momišići....

Soooo why is Torine so important? You mean apart from the fact that this is a site used pretty much continuously as a summer camp by transhumance shepherds for 5000 years? Transhumance shepherds which were descended from Vinča people...

Torine site shows that when Vinča culture collapsed at the end of the 5th millennium BC, Vinčans didn't disappear into thin air. We know that some of them contributed to the development of Late Neolithic early Copper Age cultures in the Danube catchment area to the north of the old Vinča territory....

But it seems that at least some of them moved into the highlands to the south of the old Vinča territory and continued living there...And they mixed...And they got influenced and they influenced the seafaring cultures of the Eastern Adriatic coast...

I talked about them in my post about Nakovana cave in Croatia and the Neolithic seafarers...

These are the guys who sailed and traded all along the northern coast of the Mediterranean sea. All the way to Iberia...And beyond? To the Atlantic coast...Ireland???

All of which resulted in the development of some very very interesting Late Neolithic, Early Copper Age links between Montenegro and Ireland...

In my series of articles about Montenegrine tumuli, I showed that archaeological finds from both Montenegro (just south of Pelješac peninsula where Nakovana cave is located) and Ireland, point at a strange link between Copper age Montenegro and Ireland, and indicate that the copper age could have been brought to Ireland by people who arrived there from Montenegro...

And guess what: the Irish legends, which were first time written down during early medieval time, say that the first farmers, miners and metalworkers arrived to Ireland by sea from the Balkans, via Sicily and Iberia...

This voyage, according to the Irish Annals, took place during the 3rd millennium BC...Of course every historian and archaeologist in the world dismissed these legends as "pseudo history"...No one was able for such maritime voyage at that time...Hmmm.....

But, some of these cultural similarities between Ireland and the Balkans predate the Copper Age, and fall right into the Late Neolithic period between disappearance of Vinča culture and the appearance of the Yamna people in the Balkans...And they have a very strange "Vinča" undertone...Which I couldn't explain, because of the time gap of a 1000 years between the disappearance of Vinča culture and the appearance of Vinča like artifacts in Ireland...Until now...

This is Newgrange, a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built about 3200 BC. 

This is Newgrange entrance before excavation and renovation. You can clearly see the carved stone standing in front of the entrance. 

This is what Newgrange entrance looks like now. The carved stone is still standing in front of the entrance into the tumulus. 

Why is this stone placed in front of the entrance and what does this stone represent?

I believe that this stone is a huge votive bread. It is placed in front of the entrance of the tumulus, because this entrance represents vulva and vaginal opening of the mother earth. As I said I believe that Newgrange was designed to represent pregnant mother earth in a shape of a pregnant woman's belly together with reproductive organs. And as pregnant women give birth to babies through the vaginal opening, to continue with the symbolism, this votive bread was placed in front of the entrance (which is in this case viewed as exit) to symbolise mother earth giving birth to bread. And to give mother earth a hint how much bread we want her to give birth to. A lot.

Why do I think that this stone represents votive bread. Well have a look at these two pictures:

Entrance stone, with carved diamond and spiral ornaments, Newgrange, Ireland, 4th millennium BC:

Ritual clay votive bread with carved diamond and spiral ornaments, Potporanj - Kremenjak, Serbia, Vinča culture, 5th millennium BC, currently in Vršac museum. Quite a few of these ritual clay breads were found in Vinča sites, and they all have these types of decorations: 

From my post "Newgrange" and "Can you see me" 

Also this

Here are some examples of the so called "carved stone balls" from Scotland, dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC:

At least 1000 years earlier, in Serbia, people from Vinča culture made very very very similar objects from burned clay which they wore as amulets.

This one is from Vinča Beli Breg settlement near Belgrade

And then we have this: Knowth tumulus complex, in the Boyne Valley, also dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC...

And this one of the two miniature carved stone ball bead found under the Mound 1 at Knowth...

They were published in 1986 (Eogan 1986, fig. 21) but their significance has not been appreciated until 2011 when professor Alison Sheridan, during her visit to Dublin, saw them and realized that they were miniature versions of a very distinctive type of artefact well known from Neolithic Scotland – the carved stone ball...And a copy of Vinča objects...

I wrote about these objects in my post "Clay balls - stone balls"...

As I said I couldn't explain the almost 1000 years between the Balkan objects and Irish objects mentioned above...But now that we know about the Montenegrin settlements which span period 4500-3000BC and link between Vinča culture and the Late Neolithic and Copper Age cultures of the Mediterranean....

The young one

In this article, I will give another proof for the incredible age of the Irish oral tradition, first written in medieval time.

This is Newgrange, a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built about 3200 BC...

Once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage, illuminating the inner chamber...Pic: Irish Archaeology.

The sun shines through a box like opening above the entrance...

In this post about Newgrange I postulated that this ancient structure was primarily built as a temple dedicated to the rebirth of the new young sun, new solar year...

Anyway, few years ago I came across an article, in which Michael Gibbons, a former State archaeologist, claimed that: "Newgrange may be Ireland’s match for Stonehenge, but it has gained international renown for all the wrong reasons..."

According to Gibbons, "The theory that our Stone Age ancestors designed the passage tomb to capture the rising sun during the winter solstice is a 50-year-old construct rather than accurate reconstruction of a 5,000 year-old practice..."

Gibbons, who was a student of Prof Michael O’Kelly, who excavated and reconstructed Newgrange, argues that O'Kelly's contention that the tomb was largely unaltered from the Neolithic period some 5,000 years ago is not true...

Mr Gibbons claims that late Prof O’Kelly lifted the Lightbox during reconstruction of the entrance "to make the sun shine through it on winter solstice"...

He also says that: "When Prof O’Kelly revealed his new Newgrange Solstice phenomenon at a lecture 40 years ago, it did not get support... Too polite to speak, we said nothing, but it must have dawned on everyone there afterwards that it constituted a monumental mistake..."

Soooo...What are we to make of this? Is Newgrange Winter Solstice phenomenon a modern forgery, or was this structure originally built as a solar temple? I believe that Professor O'Kelly was dead right. Newgrange was definitely built in such a way to let the Winter solstice sun in

And the Irish have preserved the proof of this in their oral tradition. In my post about the Flood of Partholon, I already gave one proof that these stories are in some cases over 5000 years old.

There is another story, directly linked with Newgrange, that is as old. This is the story of Aengus. In Irish mythology, Aengus, is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He was a son of Dagda (Giving god) and Boann (Goddess of the river Boyne). Pic: Victorian depiction of Aengus...

Officially 🙂 Aengus was "probably originally a god associated with youth, love"...In Old Irish his name is Óengus or Oíngus. The name is attested in Adomnán's Life of St Columba as Oinogus(s)ius. Officially: "This is believed to come from a Proto-Celtic name meaning true vigour"

Hmmm...The god of youth and love? Well this "probably" comes from the fact that Aengus was also known as "Óengus Óc/Aengus Óg" (Aengus the young), "Mac Óc/Mac Óg" (young son)...

I find it very interesting that the Gaels had to qualify Aengus  as "The young one"...When his name sounds sooooo much like "Jungaz" (The Proto-Germanic root meaning young one). But that is surely "just a coincidence"!!!

Remember Mr Gibbons, who slated Professor O'Kelly for his claim that Newgrange was built to capture winter solstice sun? He suggested that Newgrange may have been an Iron Age burial site dedicated to an “Irish elite” with links to Roman Britain...Based on archaeological evidence from the site. Any Germanic speakers among them?

That is very interesting indeed...

I will let this simmer 🙂

This, however controversial, is nothing compared to the legend related to "How Aengus stole Brú na Bóinne (an area of the Boyne River Valley that contains the passage tombs Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth) from Dagda"...

According to the 11th century Book of Lecan, the Dagda had built the Brú for himself and his three sons Aengus, Cermait, and Aed. But Aengus wanted it all for himself. The 12th century Book of Leinster describes how Oengus tricked Dagda into giving him the Brú for all eternity...

Aengus asked his father if he could live in Brú na Bóinne for "a day and a night", and Dagda agreed. Irish has no indefinite article, so "a day and a night" is the same as "day and night", which covers all time, and so Aengus took possession of Brú na Bóinne permanently...

Well, this is the story and its interpretation. But what if Aengus actually really meant "a day and a night" and the "cunning trick" part was added later because the original meaning of this story was forgotten?

Here is what I think. Aengus, Jungaz, Mac Og, The Young one, is the young sun, known in Slavic mythology as Jarilo. Just like Aengus, Jarilo was the "Youngest son". According to Slavic beliefs, Jarilo is born on Winter Solstice. The same day when the first morning sun, new born sun, enters Newgrange through the entrance. The only day sun enters Newgrange...

The new sun is born in one day, the day of winter solstice. Interestingly, the story of the birth of Aengus tells us that Dagda, had an affair with the river goddess Boann, when Aengus was conceived. In order to hide Boann's pregnancy, Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months so that Aengus was conceived, gestated and born in one day...

Very interesting indeed.

I believe that Aengus was The young sun and that his name actually means "Young one", not "True vigour". Just like Jarilo, whose name also means "Young one". 

Their equivalent in Greek mythology was Apollo, the Young Sun. 

Now look at this:  

When Apollo was born, "swans circled Delos seven times".  From his father Zeus, Apollo had also received a golden chariot drawn by swans.

What is very interesting is that Swans of Apollo are not just any swans. They are Singing Swans. And the only swans that sing are "Whooper swans".

The whooper swans live and breed in far North of Eurasia (yellow). They winter in Southern and Western Europe (Blue, Green).

They arrived to Greece at the beginning of winter. To announce the immanent arrival of Winter Solstice and the birth of Apollo, the birth of new Sun, the birth of new Solar Year.

Interestingly, "It was said that four swans always hovered round Aengus's head..."

The arrival of Singing Swans to Ireland in the late autumn, signals the immanent arrival of Aengus, Young sun...

All this points to Aengus being the Young sun. 

Now this is an old photo of the Newgrange entrance before it was reconstructed. The Lightbox is covered by earth, the support stones are half collapsed. No light ever entered Newgrange...

By medieval time, the link between Newgrange and winter solstice was completely forgotten and the main date associated with the whole area was Samhain...

Two hills in the Boyne Valley were associated with Samhain: Tara, where the entrance passage to the Mound of the Hostages was aligned with the rising sun around Samhain, and Tlachtga which was the location of the Great Fire Festival which begun on the eve of Samhain...

The fact that Gaels associated Newgrange with Samhain, Aengus's request to reside in Newgrange for "a day and a night", coupled with the Winter Solstice phenomenon observed in Newgrange, can mean only one thing: This is a story describing the original function of Newgrange...

And it comes from the time before this tumulus fell into disuse and disrepair...From the time when Newgrange was the centre of the solar cult, where people celebrated rebirth of the new sun, new solar year, on the day of winter solstice...

When was the last time Newgrange was used for this before it was restored to its old glory 50 years ago? This is how old this story is...

PS:

As I finished my post I was pointed to the article which discusses the same issue entitled:

"Re-discovering the winter solstice alignment at Newgrange, Ireland. In C. Papadopoulos and H. Moyes (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Light in Archaeology" by Robert Hensey

In it I found that some Irish historians have come to the same conclusion before me. 

"Waddell (2014) contends that certain kinds of information were more likely to transfer through time, and notes that for a prehistoric person, the rebirth of the sun may have been equivalent to the resurrection for medieval Christians—thus significantly increasing the likelihood for the survival of knowledge of Newgrange’s solar associations. He further suggests that it is ‘quite conceivable that figures such as the Dagda, … Óengus and Bóand or their precursors—and events associated with them—were part of the beliefs of those who frequented Newgrange over such a long timespan’, even allowing that ‘Aspects of their myths may well be incorporated in constructional and morphological elements of the monument"


"John Carey (1990) has argued that the unique motifs in myths centred on Newgrange (and Dowth) in medieval Irish manuscripts (see below), viewed in light of the discovered solar orientation at Newgrange, suggest that elements from these stories may have Late Neolithic origins, or at least ‘cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence’ (p. 29). These literary tales, in several cases directly connected with Newgrange, contain an intriguing set of references to the manipulation of time, specifically to the manipulation of time over one day, and the control of, or temporary stopping of, the sun. Furthermore, as observed by O’Kelly (1982) and Ó hÓgáin (1999), these tales feature recognized solar deities, in particular the Dagda, keeper of the Brugh, and his son Oengus"

The article also states that the locals actually told archaeologists that "on certain dates" the sunlight enters the tumulus and illuminates the stone with the triple spiral...

The article then goes to postulate that it is possible that Newgrange was used as a sacred place where solstice was celebrated until Christianity arrived to Ireland. That would then explain the solar mythology related to Newgrange not as survival of the Neolithic mythology, but as survival of the Iron Age mythology. 

I don't know what is more fascinating. The fact that Neolithic solar temple was still used by the local inhabitants for solstice ceremonies during early medieval time, or that the memory of the Neolithic solar temple survived among the local inhabitants until early medieval time. 

What do you think?

Newgrange

This is Newgrange, a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built about 3200 BC. Newgrange is a large circular mound (tumulus) with a stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by 'kerbstones' engraved with artwork. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance.

Once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage, illuminating the inner chamber. Pic: Irish Archaeology

This illumination lasts for about 17 minutes. The sunlight enters the passage through a specially contrived opening, known as a roofbox, directly above the main entrance. Solar alignments are not uncommon among these so called "passage graves". Which makes you wonder if they were graves at all or maybe temples where distinguished and important people also got buried, in the same way distinguished and important people were buried in cathedrals and churches... Anyway, Newgrange is one of few of these tumuluses with solar alignment to contain the additional roofbox feature; Cairn G at Carrowkeel Megalithic complex is another, and it has been suggested that one can be found at Bryn Celli Ddu. The alignment is such that although the roofbox is above the passage entrance, the light hits the floor of the inner chamber. This is because the entrance corridor is built in such a way that it climbs upwards towards the main chamber.

Today the first light enters about four minutes after sunrise, but calculations based on the precession of the Earth show that 5,000 years ago first light would have entered exactly at sunrise.

Every year on winter solstice morning, hundreds of people gather to whiteness this event. And today, the 21st of December 2016 is no different. Except that hundreds of people who gathered in front of Newgrange today are going to be pretty pissed off. It's pissing with rain and the sky is covered with thick clouds, so it is unlikely the sunlight will enter the chamber today.

Why did our ancestors build Newgrange the way they did?

The whole construction of the Newgrange tumulus indicates that it was constructed as a shrine dedicated to the holy union between father sky and mother earth. The tumulus is shaped like a pregnant woman's belly. The inside of the tumulus resembles female reproductive organs. 

The door (vulva, vaginal opening) leads into a long narrow passage (vagina and cervix) which climbs upwards and eventually opens up into corbelled, domed chamber (uterus) with three side chambers. Each of the smaller chambers has a large flat "basin stone". The tow side ones (ovaries) and the top one (fundus). The fundus, the topmost portion of the uterus and is known as the roof of the uterine cavity. During pregnancy, this is usually when the fertilized egg implants. 

And guess what the sun rays hit then they penetrate the inside of the tumulus? The bawl located in the top chamber, the fundus....

On top of this the entrance is shaped like a penis, with the roofbox, or better lightbox, being the head of the penis:

Just in case you didn't get the hint yet :)

Anyway, the sun rays entering the main chamber deep inside the earthen mound and hitting the bawl in the fundus is literally copulation, intercourse between the father sky and mother earth. The fact that Newgrange was aligned with the sunrise on the Winter Solstice, allows the young father sky to penetrate mother earth on the first day of the new solar year, and thus ensure the mother earth's fertility. The whole construction was designed to help young father sky "find the way"considering that he was just born, and lacks experience and practice... :)  I believe that the idea was that once the young father sky did it once, he will not be able to stop and will keep at it for the rest of the year....Because it is this copulation, intercourse between the father sky and mother earth which produces all life on earth. 

And bread...Which is really why people bothered making Newgrange. They needed grain, and without father sky getting mother earth hot and bothered and pregnant, there will be no grain and no bread...And this brings me to the mysterious stone that stands in front of the main entrance of the Newgrange tumulus. 

This is Newgrange entrance before excavation and renovation. You can clearly see the carved stone standing in front of the entrance. 

This is what Newgrange entrance looks like now. The carved stone is still standing in front of the entrance into the tumulus. 

Why is this stone placed in front of the entrance and what does this stone represent?

I believe that this stone is a huge votive bread. It is placed in front of the entrance of the tumulus, because this entrance represents vulva and vaginal opening of the mother earth. As I said I believe that Newgrange was designed to represent pregnant mother earth in a shape of a pregnant woman's belly together with reproductive organs. And as pregnant women give birth to babies through the vaginal opening, to continue with the symbolism, this votive bread was placed in front of the entrance (which is in this case viewed as exit) to symbolise mother earth giving birth to bread. And to give mother earth a hint how much bread we want her to give birth to. A lot.

Why do I think that this stone represents votive bread. Well have a look at these two pictures:

Entrance stone, with carved diamond and spiral ornaments, Newgrange, Ireland, 4th millennium BC:

Ritual clay votive bread with carved diamond and spiral ornaments, Potporanj - Kremenjak, Serbia, Vinča culture, 5th millennium BC, currently in Vršac museum. Quite a few of these ritual clay breads were found in Vinča sites, and they all have these types of decorations: 

See any similarity? 
Now remember my article "Clay balls - Stone balls"? 

In it I talked about the possibility that the origin of the Scottish so called "stone carved balls" could be found in the clay amulets from Serbia. And clay amulets found in the Boyne valley, and dated to the same period as Newgrange and which are almost identical to the the ones from Vinča sites...

At the end of the article I said that the carved balls were not the only type of artefacts which were first found in Vinča cultural layers in the Balkans, small and made of burned clay, only to be found later in Britain much larger and made of stones. Progressively bigger and bigger stones. 

This is another example. A small votive clay bread from Vinča culture became a huge votive stone bread. But the message stayed the same:

"Holy mother and father give us this day our daily bread....A lot of it...."

It looks like the British Megalithic culture could be in a way the continuation of the Vinča culture. Vinča culture which somehow got to Britain and there went Megalomaniac and Megalithic. 

What do you think about all this?