The psychedelic origin of the Tyrian purple?

A factory for producing Tyrian purple dye from the 16th century BCE was found on the island of Aegina, adjacent to mainland Greece. The Phoenicians were not at their peak during that time, and it is likely that the factory was not Phoenician but Minoan. It turns out that the original producers of Tyrian purple dye were the Minoans and not the Canaanites. Findings of murex shells and evidence of local dye production have already been found at sites such as Palaikastro in Crete and the island of Kouphonisi. References to the purple dye, or what can be interpreted from the inscription po-pu-re-ia, were found on Linear B tablets from Knossos. The purple color is also dominant in Minoan art items, such as the frescoes from Thera (i.e., Santorini) and the sarcophagi found in Hagia Triada in Crete.

The word “porphyra” or “porphorea” is not of Greek origin but Minoan. At least, that is what Robert Stieglitz argues in his article “The Minoan Origin of Tyrian Purple” (1994), as the earliest mention is found there. Michael Astour (1965) claimed that the word “porphyra” comes from the Canaanite verb “parpar,” meaning “to boil”. In ancient Hebrew, “parur” means “pot” or “cauldron”, as seen in the biblical quote “and they ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and boiled it in a pot” (Number 11:8), and in another quote referring to the utensils in the tabernacle (2 Samuel 14). Thus, he argued, the Greeks borrowed the word from the Phoenicians for the process of making the dye, which involves crushing, boiling, and fermenting the shells of the snails. However, it turns out that the Phoenicians also borrowed the word.

The missing link can be found here: Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (1936) argued that in Hurrian, the term for purple dye was “kinahhu,” and thus the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean were called in Egyptian documents “Canaanites,” during the period when they had a monopoly on dye production—Canaanites, traders of textiles. The Greeks used the word to describe the purple color “phoenix” (Φοῖνιξ), and thus called them “Phoenicians”. Later, the Romans called them Punics after the Latin word for purple, “Poenus.” It seems that the Greek word originated from Mycenaean Greek, where the color was called “ponikio” 𐀡𐀛𐀑𐀍. Where did the Mycenaeans get it from?

It appears that only after the collapse of Minoan culture, when there was a vacuum in the dye production field, did other peoples from the Mediterranean coasts enter this industry. The Mycenaeans tried to maintain the monopoly the Minoans had when they took over Crete, but failed. Factories were also found in Troy (western Turkey) and Cyprus. But it turns out that the Phoenicians eventually prevailed.

Now for the technical details: During the excavations, evidence of the dye production process was found in the form of ceramic shards, grinding stones, and a waste pit filled with broken murex shells. Additionally, remains of pigs and sheep that were sacrificed were found. Why sacrifice animals in a dye production factory? The purple dye was produced from sea snails, and therefore was directly related to the sea. The ritual sacrifices might indicate a worship of Poseidon, in an attempt to make him protect the factory and bring abundance. Poseidon was considered to cause storms at sea by striking the seabed with his trident, creating large waves that washed snails ashore. Another thing that causes waves and washes snails ashore is the tide, related to the moon’s gravitational force. Although this was discovered by Pytheas in the fourth century BCE, it was probably known earlier. What Pytheas discovered was an exaggerated display of the tides since in areas close to the ocean (not the Mediterranean), the tides are much more extreme—several meters compared to less than a meter on Mediterranean coasts. Pytheas discovered this in Britain.

Poseidon was originally a chthonic god, lord of the underworld. The underworld was then considered a divine place, and people built their temples at its entrances. One such place was the so-called “Cave of Eileithyia” in Amnisos, which was considered the maritime gateway of Knossos in Crete. In the cave, they worshiped a goddess who gave birth once a year to a divine child, and his mother was considered “Our Lady”. The Minoans believed in the mother goddess whom they called Potnia, meaning “the mistress”. Potnia was a fertility goddess, protector of childbirth. Being a goddess of fertility, she is associated with the full and waning moon in cycles and therefore also with .the menstrual cycle. Eileithyia was similarly a protector of childbirth, and was likely “imported” to Crete by the Mycenaeans when they identified their own deities with the Minoan ones. While the Greeks believed in an Olympian pantheon, a worship of sky gods, the Minoans practiced chthonic worship. To identify the goddess of childbirth with Greek deities, they invented the story of Leto, Artemis, and Hera. Hera and Artemis were considered fertility goddesses, with Artemis inheriting the protection of childbirth from Eileithyia after Eileithyia failed to protect Leto in the birth of Artemis. Artemis was also the goddess of the moon at some point.

When Homer sought to describe the fertility goddesses protecting childbirth, he used the term “Potnia Theron” (Ἡ Πότνια Θηρῶν), meaning “Queen of the Animals”. In Exodus, the midwives were considered to “revive” (“vatechayena”, from “chaya” or HIW) the children, and women who gave birth without difficulties were called “animals” (chayot, same root). In the ancient Near East, the mother goddess was called “Mistress of the Animals” for this reason, and figurines of fertile and abundant women seated with animals were considered representations of the mother goddess.

“The mistress” in the ancient language was mainly called so because she was the wife of “the mister”. The “wife” was called so assuming that “husband” was “potis” in archaic Greek. In slightly more modern Greek (Koine), the ‘t’ turned into an ‘s’, thus it became “posis”. This is important because in the Cave of Eileithyia, the role of the goddess’s consort, who was called “the earth-shaker”, is mentioned. The main role of a chthonic god is to cause earthly catastrophes like volcanoes or earthquakes. In Linear B, this is called e-ne-si-da-o-ne, and in Greek, Enesidaon. Together with the word “posis” describing the husband, it can be fused to form Pose-Enesidaon or simply “Poseidon”.

Elsewhere, the father god, the consort of the mother, was called “Anax” Although the ‘a’ evolved from the Greek letter digamma ϝ, the original word was ϝάναξ. Digamma evolved to be the letter W, although in some places it was pronounced like the letter v (hebrew: “vav” or “waw”, letter no. 6), thus the sixth letter in the Latin script is F, as ‘v’ and ‘f’ are interchangeable. The digamma letter is no longer in use in modern Greek, or even in Koine Greek, but only in archaic Greek. Therefore, the original title of the god is not Anax but rather “Fanax”, meaning “king”. His wife, the queen, was called in Minoan language “Wanas” or “Fanas”.

We have reached the stage where we link Poseidon to the Fanax, and Poseidon’s role in bringing the snails to the snails themselves and their purple color. It turns out that Tyrian purple is named after the chthonic underworld god, who eventually became the god of the sea and storms. On this occasion, we should note that in shamanic tradition, caves and especially temple-caves were places where incubation was performed and different states of consciousness were achieved. Poseidon was considered the god of madness, partly because he is associated with horses running amok, and the horses themselves were considered symbols of fertility among Indo-European peoples. Even Potnia was called in the Linear B tablets “Potnia Hippea” (i.e of the horses), a title later borrowed by Athena. Athena or Minerva was associated with the Celtic goddess Sulis, linked to rebirth and altered states of consciousness. When we talk about birth in general, we need to suspect that it also refers to rebirth, so the talks about birth in caves and about Potnia require this interpretation. It is not surprising to discover that in ancient times, Tyrian purple was used to induce altered states of consciousness and create a “visual hiccup in the brain” due to its striking color (17:28 in the next video). Even today, purple is considered a psychedelic color. Jimi Hendrix once called it Purple Haze…

The evolution of the sacrifices: from blood sacrifices to a spiritual sacrifice

This week’s Torah portion “Vayikrah” deals with sacrifices. The sacrifices and especially the blood sacrifices formed the center of the two religions of the ancient world, the Greek religion and the Jewish religion. There is a similarity and of course there is a difference between the two religions. The difference is clear, the nature of the slaughter which is supposed to be “kosher” only for the Jews and the specific animals they sacrifice. The similarity is evidenced (albeit at a much later stage, and from a polemical approach) by the emperor Julian the Apostate, when he writes “The customs of the Jews are similar to the pagans, except that they recognize only one god. This thing is unique to them and foreign to us. But we share the rest of the things – halls, temples, altars, drivers of purity, and certain laws in which there is no difference between us – and if so, only in marginal details”.

Among the Greeks, the sacrifice offered was usually something called “thusia” (θυσία), a ceremony that included partial burning of the sacrifice, after separating the parts that can be “read” (i.e: liver for divination) and the parts that are eaten in a festive manner. Something similar to the Jewish “shelamim” sacrifice ceremony (Leviticus 3). This ceremony was mainly aimed at the worship of “Olympian” gods and was done during the day.

Among the Greeks, there was also something that paralleled the “olah” sacrifice (Leviticus 1), in which the whole animal is completely burned. This thing is called sphagia (Σφαγία), after the sphagion, a vessel designed to collect blood. Something perhaps similar to the “sprinkling bowl” (“mazrek”) described in the Sacrifice of the “shelamim”. The mazrek is so called because it was used to collect the blood that the priests threw (that is, sprinkled, “zarak”) on the horns of the altar, but in both cases it is a receptacle. The princes of Israel are told in the book of Numbers that they donated silver “mazrek” or “mizrak” (that is, bowls). In Solomon’s temple it is said that there were copper and gold “mizrakot”. The reason they had to collect the blood is because there was a special emphasis on cutting the main artery, what is called in Judaism “the tube and the esophagus”. The Greeks would pierce them and the squirt would pour directly into the vessel.

Sphagia was usually sacrificed before going to war. This Greek sacrifice is called Holokautein (ὁλοκαυτεῖν), which means “holo” from the word “whole”, and “kaustos” from the word “burnt”. In Latin “holocaustum” and later in English “holocaust”. This sacrifice is of Chthonic origin, and was usually sacrificed to these gods, such as for example the gods of the underworld. It is therefore understandable why it is said that in archaic times a human being was sacrificed, but because of the reluctance to sacrifice human sacrifices it was changed to an animal. In this there may be a parallel to the worship of the Moloch (as described in 2 Kings 3), and this was abominable in the eyes of the “civilized” nations. Among the Jews, we also see the conversion of the human sacrifice into an animal, in the story of Binding of Isaac where Abraham took the knife (“Maachelet”), a word that was supposedly also taken from the Greek, where the knife with which the sacrifice was slaughtered was called “machaira” (μαχαιρα). This is how it was with the Greeks, the conversion of a human sacrifice into an animal.

Following the destruction of the Temple, the Jews stopped sacrificing because there was obviously nowhere to and how to, and converted their sacrifices with prayers. But did they do it under practical circumstances, or simply because they were influenced by the Neoplatons who, at exactly the same time, began to despise blood sacrifices?

We see Porphyry, a vegetarian Neoplatonist, abhors blood sacrifices and explains the logic of this approach in his essay On Abstinence from Eating Animals”. Porphyry bases his theory on Theophrastus in his book “Peri Eusebeias” (“On Piety”). He claims that the true priest to the supreme God is none other than the philosopher, who worships his God, above all, with the moderation of his spirit (σωφροσύνη) that allows him to approach God with a pure body and a fresh soul. “The mind of the wise man is the true temple” The wise man turns his heart into an altar, on which stands the true statue of God, his intellect. Vegetarianism is also a tool that allows the philosopher to detach himself from the masses participating in the sacrifice of the polis. Whoever eats meat, will participate in the blood sacrifice ceremony. Those who are vegetarian will give it up.

Porphyry, following Theophrastus, distinguishes, however, between the animal sacrifice among the Jews and the sacrifice among the Greeks, and he obviously means “thusia”. And I am quoting from Guy G. Stroumsa’s book “La fin du sacrifice : Mutations religieuses de l’antiquité tardive“: The sacrifices of the Jews are not at all similar to those of the Greeks, because the Jews do not eat the meat they sacrifice to their God, but burn the animal entirely. But the Greeks are careful not to imitate them in this! Because the Jews are a “race” of philosophers: their sacrifices are opportunities to connect with the divine, “and they dedicate the night to observing and reading the stars, and calling to God in their prayers”. Although the Jews offered blood sacrifices, they did not do so because of their lust for flesh, like other gentiles, but because they had no choice. The famine, writes Porphyry following Theophrastus, pushed humans to cannibalism which became human sacrifice, while the original sacrifice of mankind were only from the plant. Blood sacrifices represent a later stage than human sacrifices.

What is the purpose of the victims? “We must unite with God, become like Him and offer Him as a holy sacrifice our ascension, since it is the service of our soul and its redemption. This sacrifice is embodied in the equanimity of the soul and in the contemplation of God,” writes Porphyry. Iamblichus, another Neoplatonic philosopher, although he disagrees with Porphyry about vegetarianism, still agrees that superior beings do not need sacrifices at all. In his book “On the Mysteries of Egypt” he claims that only the lower gods, the material, require sacrifices. The blood sacrifices represent the material aspect of the worship, alongside the spiritual aspect that exists in it; the dual composition of man, both material and spiritual, is the reason for this ritual duality. Along with the blood sacrifices there is another type of sacrifice, more spiritual. Spiritual sacrifices These are the ones sacrificed by the philosophers, who ascend to the One, above and beyond the multiplicity of divinities: a small elite that exists beyond any law. Blood sacrifices, on the other hand, are committed to the “hoi polloi”, the people of the polis who need a lawgiver (chapter 22).

Towards the end of the fifth book, Iamblichus discusses the prayer that accompanies the sacrifice (chapter 26). The purpose of prayer is to bring us closer to the gods, to establish contact with the divine. The sacrifice and the prayer complement each other. Union with the gods is also at the center of a small treatise, “On the Gods and the World”, which presents the main beliefs of later paganism and was written by Sallustius. For Sallustius, temples are nothing but exact replicas of the heavens, reflecting unattainable heavenly powers. Despite this, in these temples there is no use for the gods (and what use can they have?), but for us, since there we can unite with them. Blood sacrifices represent our lives, which we sacrifice symbolically. Prayers that are not accompanied by sacrifices are empty words without any value, while when they are said during the sacrifice they become “living words”. The soul of the sacrificed animal ascends in some way to heaven, together with the words of the prayer in which we seek to unite with the gods (chapter 16).