THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

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cycle of birth, death, and regeneration, embodied in the feminine principle, a
Mother Creatrix. The Kurgan ideology, as known from comparative
Indo-European mythology, exalted virile, heroic warrior gods of the shining and
thunderous sky. Weapons are nonexistent in Old European imagery; whereas the
dagger and battle-axe are dominant symbols of the Kurgans, who, like all
historically known Indo-Europeans, glorified the lethal power of the sharp
blade. 12
So while we are still commonly taught that it was to Indo-European invadersCsuch as
the Achaean warriors, celebrated by Homer, who eventually sacked TroyCthat we owe
our Western heritage, we now know that they in fact did not bring us civilization.
Rather, they destroyed, degraded, and brutalized a civilization already highly advanced
along wholly different lines. And, just as the factuality of how these truly savage peoples
demoted both women and goddesses to the subservient status of consort or wife has
now been established, the fact [that] they brought in warfare with them is also
confirmed.
Once again, as when Heinrich Schliemann defied the archeological establishment
and proved that the city of Troy was not Homeric fantasy but prehistoric fact, new
archeological findings verify ancient legends and myths. For instance, the Greek poet
Hesiod, who wrote about the same time as Homer, tells us of a Agolden race,@ who lived
in Apeaceful ease@ in a time when Athe fruitful earth poured forth her fruits.@ And he
laments how they were eventually replaced by Aa race of bronze@ who Aate not grain@ (in
other words, were not farmers) and instead specialized in warfare (Athe all-lamented
13
sinful works of Ares were their chief care@).
Perhaps one of the most fascinating legends of ancient times is, of course, that of
the lost civilization of Atlantis. And here again, as with the once only legendary city of
Troy, archeological findings illuminate our true past. For what new findings suggest is
what the eminent Greek scholar Spyridon Martinatos already suspected in 1939: that the
legend of a great civilization which sank into the Atlantic is actually the garbled folk
memory of the Minoan civilization of Crete and surrounding Mediterranean islands,
12
M. Gimbutas, AThe First Wave of Eurasian Steppe Pastoralists in Copper Age Europe,@
Journal of lndo-European Studies, 1977, p. 281. [Au.]
13
13 Hesiod, quoted in J. M. Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968), pp. 12-14. [Au.]