2.6 Pandora and her Pyxis: Fragments of our Pyrophilic Past

“Be merciful, O purifier, unto the man who is rich in sacrificial food, and who invites Agni to the feast of the gods.” Rigveda, Mandala I, Muller, 1990.

Until 2015, none but aboriginal myth could explain how Australia’s only native palm tree (Livistona mariae) arrived on the continent. Hence, David Bowman and peers decided to investigate if the myth’s story holds any factual ground, to find DNA analysis makes clear it does (Bowman et al, 2015). “The gods from the high North brought the seeds to this place a long time ago”, said the myth, which translated to L.mariae having diverged from its closet relative L.rigida, which is native to an area 1,000km North, between 7-31tya (Ibid, p.33). Which begs the question, is the most universal of all myths - the Origin of Fire myth - rooted in fact, and if it is, what does that tell us about ancient societies and their relationship with the environment?

In 6 BC, archaic Greek poet Sappho wrote, “After creating men, Prometheus is said to have stolen fire and revealed it to men” (Sappho, 1982, p.191). Her words echoed those of Athenian “Prometheuses” [Prometheus worshippers] of a century earlier (Williams, 2014, p.285), while anticipating those of Hesiod in Theogony, in which he spoke of Prometheus cunningly concealing fire in a fennel-stalk, by means of its transportation to humanity (Hesiod, 2007). Sappho’s reference to fennel [Foeniculum vulgare] drew on contemporary pyro practice, the “smouldering burning pith within fennel stems” being ancient Greeks preferred mode of transportation of fire (Wickens, 2001, p.258). However, ancient Athenians spoke not merely of the theft of fire, but of the knowledge to manipulate it, which Prometheus was said to have taken from the Mount Olympian workshop of Athena and Hephaestus. They spoke too of the price that humanity would pay for the acquisition of the insights of the “technologically informed trio” (Ibidem), which, in archaic times was said to manifest in “two evils”, they being “women and disease” (Sappho, 1982, p. 191). The creation of Pandora, she being the Eve of the Athenian world, is variously attributed to Hephaestus, Athena, and Prometheus (Williams, 2014). In Hesiodic mythology, at the behest of Zeus, Hephaestus fashioned Pandora from clay, after which she was dressed by Athena, thereon bestowed an array of skills. Her purpose was to be a vessel of misfortune. But, sensu amplo, it was not the “all-gifted” Pandora, but her pithoigia [opening] of her pyxis [10], as gifted to her by Zeus, that would unleash all manner of misfortune upon humankind (Ibidem; Panoply, 2017: Orlin et al, 2017).

Promethean myth mirrors that of Vedic in the form of Mātariśvan (Oldenberg, 1993), he being the messenger of Vivasvat [the Sun], and epithet of Agni, meaning ‘fire’, but connoting the fire god (Fortson, 2004), who is elsewhere referred to as the ‘heavenly bird that flies’ (Doniger, 1981). In the Sanskrit hymn the Rigveda [11] (circa. 1.5 – 1.2 tya), the Veda attributed the acquisition of fire, which had been hidden from humanity to Mātariśvan, who was said to have brought celestial fire from “the Sky to the Earth” (Nagy, 1996, p.103). But, like Prometheus, Mātariśvan was said to bring forth not merely fire itself, but the knowledge to control it (Ibidem), the means of fire’s transportation not of a fennel stalk, but fire-sticks (Jamison and Brereton, 2014). In a passage affiliated to the venerated Sanskrit Brahmarshi [seer], Visvamitra the Rigveda reads, “Here is the base for fire-churning; here is the readied begetting tool [upper fire-churning stick]. Bring here the clanlord’s lady [lower fire churning stick]. Let us churn Agni in the ancient way” (Ibidem, p.503). The Veda believed Agni’s presence in the fire-sticks came about because he “descends from the Sky as an embryo in rainwater”, to then be absorbed by plants, from which he is then extrapolated by means of the application of friction to wood (Nagy, 1996, p.103). Both Grecian and Vedic tradition associated fire with the origin of the species, which in the case of the latter manifested in Vivasvat as “ancestor of the human race” (Oldenberg, 1993, p.68). Etymological scholars have posited the possibility that Prometheus, meaning ‘the one who steals’, relates to the Vedic verb pra-math, meaning ‘to steal’ (Fortson, 2004), suggesting that the theft of fire myth is of Indo-European origin, which though published as early as 1.5 tya, dates to several millennia earlier, passing from one generation to another via such communication mediums as symbolism, storytelling and song.

Making an exegetical observation, Vedic myth not merely endowed Agni with attributes associated with Prometheus, but with a second member of the Grecian pyrophilic trio. Agni, was hailed as the eldest son of Brahma, he being cited as the ‘creator of the universe’ and “supreme in the triad of great Hindu gods” (Cartwright, 2015, online), whereas Athena was declared the daughter of Zeus, “the supreme Greek god and ruler of all the other gods” (Clayton, 1990, p.191). Both Agni and Athena are associated with knowledge, wisdom, and the intellect, and with the dissemination thereof to mortals. In Grecian myth, the latter was born of the forehead of Zeus, birthed when Hephaestus took an axe to it (Ibidem). While manifold are the myths of origin of Agni, Vedic texts of circ. 3 tya state that Agni was delivered from the forehead of Prajapati (Bodewitz, 1976), he being a creator god that connotes, amongst others, Brahma (Dalal, 2010). Hypotheses of Agni’s Indo-European origin include that of zoolatry [12], wherein Agni was perceived, therein worshipped in bird or bird-like form (Doniger, 1981). Similarly, studies of Athena’s Neolithic anthropological ancestry suggest that her mythology emerged from the zoomorphic beliefs of the Vinča culture [Southeastern and Central Europe, 5.7 – 4.5 tya], in which, it has been posited, like her Predynastic Egyptian counterparts, such as the vulture goddess Nekhbet, she was worshipped in therianthropic [13] mode, as a bird (Dexter, 2011), which over millennia morphed into the form of her syncretic avatar, the little owl [Athene noctua] (Eason, 2008). Agni’s avian associate was Garuda, a “golden-bodied” fire-bird which “the devourer”, carries “the seed of life” (Cartwright, 2015, online): a bird of the Egyptian Bennu’s feather [14], and of other cultural incarnations of the Phoenix, such as the flame-feathered Vermillion bird of Taoist tradition.

Hypotheses of the symbolism of early Indo-European bird deities include that of representing “a continuum of the life force: birth, death, and rebirth” (Dexter, 2011, p.186), which is consistent with the mythology of the therianthropic deities of the Old World. For example, paleoanthropologists have postulated that eggs have been “symbols of regeneration and rebirth” since circa. 14 tya (Ronnberg and Martin, 2010, p. 14). Two centuries after Sappho, Hellenistic and early Roman literary fragments evidence that followers of a religion of which the origin was attributed to the mythical Greek poet Orpheus, believed that a golden-winged primeval deity of procreation, Phanes [later known as Protogonus, meaning “first-born”] had hatched from an egg (Taylor, 1824). Fire and its properties are prominent in Orphic hymn, of which an example reads, “I call strong Pan, the substance of the whole, ethereal, marine, earthly, general soul, Immortal fire; for all the world is thine, and all are parts of thee, O pow’r divine, Come blessed Pan, whom rural haunts delight, come leaping, agile, wand’ring, starry light; The Hours and Seasons [Horai], wait thy high command, and round thy throne in graceful order stand” (Theoi Project, 2017). In Vedic text, an eidetic image of the Orphic egg was attributed to Prajapati: its meaning described as one and the same (D’Costa, 2013). Another egg in this most ancient clutch hatched in Egypt, where a myth spoke to “He Who is Like the Ibis”, the god of wisdom, Thoth, in therianthropic form, laying “the cosmic egg which holds all of creation” (Mark, 2016, online).

In ode to the Rigveda, the Brhaddevata, Vedic hymn spoke of Agni’s flesh becoming the resin of the Indian bdellium tree (Commiphora wightii), his bones becoming pine tree, their marrow sand and gravel, his blood and bile minerals, and his sinews and hair grasses (Cartwright, 2015). Further attributes broadly ascribed to Agni included that of being reborn daily from the wood in which he hides, thus embodying qualities both destructive and beneficent (New World Encyclopedia, 2008). Agni, so Vedic tradition stated, was both torch and torchbearer, illuminating all that he touched, both literally and metaphorically. Additionally, Agni was worshipped as a purifier: that which rids the land of its ills. Grecian myth largely concords in its biotic affiliations with fire, and more generally with the regenerative properties of fire-adapted species, with the genera Pinus, Quercus, and Olea [Olive] attributed particular providence. The pine is affiliated with several Greek deities, including the trident wielding god of, amongst other things, natural hazards, Poseidon, and with the protector and protectress of nature, the god Pan and goddess Artemis. Longevity, indestructibility, immortality, metamorphosis, and cyclic renewal are, in each instance, central narratives of the deities’ respective Pinus mythologies. The oak was sacred to the god Zeus and his wife Hera, the association born of the genus’ tendency to attract, yet often endure lightning strikes, which though observed anecdotally in antiquity, has been evidenced by contemporary dendrological studies (DeRosa, 1983). Revered as the Tree of Life (Ronnberg and Martin, 2010), both the wood and oil of Olea europaea [European olive] fuelled the eternal flames of Grecian temples, including that of Athena Polias [of the city], she of the epithet Parthenos, meaning ‘virgin’ [purity], the Acropolis, Athens. A site inhabited since 3.9 - 3.1 tya at the latest, the original temple complex was destroyed during a Persian invasion that took place circa 2.5 tya. Herodotus wrote of the event, “they pillaged the temple, and set fire to every part of the Acropolis”, but the olive-tree sacred to Minerva [Athena] endured and “the next day after... they saw a shoot risen from the trunk, of a full cubit [approx. 1/3 m] in height” (Herodotus, 1824, p. 241 - 242). Unlikely though it is that a shoot of such length had sprouted within 24 hours, Herodotus’ account nonetheless speaks to a citizenry as was, relatively speaking, accustomed to the behaviours of the flora indigenous to their city-region: an ecologically literate society.

What these and other mythologies suggest is that Indo-European mythologies are more than the sum of their individual parts, in that while they make sense in and of themselves, myths invariably relate to one, more often several others, and in the process form a mythological knowledge system, more specifically, a socio-ecological knowledge system. Greek citizens, like they of both earlier, and later Mediterranean and Near East civilisations, were familiar with the mythologies of the sacred gods and goddesses of their locale, and in particular the deistic protectors of their cities (Kriwaczek, 2010; Leick, 2002), for archaic in origin, the myths were embedded into the everyday activities of their age, including but not limited to ritualistic practices. Furthermore, then, as now, visual communications of various kinds were used as educational and memory aids, including engraving, statuette, and painted image and symbol on artefacts and architectures both temporary and permanent. But, varied though the visual media, the symbolism throughout remained sufficiently consistent to have enabled the wider citizenry to understand its meaning and intent. Arguably, the evolution of formulaic practice in the codification of visual representations – of symbols and pictures – laid the foundations for one of the most pivotal innovations in human history: the advent of writing. Comprised of logograms not letters, cuneiform is, in effect, a form of visual shorthand – of simplifying an image. The succinctness of its style suited a society accustomed to improvisation in the recollection of information, therein adept at working with content akin to bullet-points not script, thus prescriptive quantitatively, but not qualitatively. One might perceive of the Mesopotamians as the originators of branding, for they imbued icons, colours, and numbers with a breadth and depth of meaning that far outstripped that of even the most established of contemporary corporate brand identities. However, whereas it’s not beyond the realms of theoretical possibility that were we able to present a Mesopotamian with a modern-day logo device, such for example as one that embedded the Phoenix motif, they may grasp the fundamentals of its meaning, whereupon we reversed said scenario, and presented their modern-day counterpart with a mythological image authored in the Bronze Age, it’s unlikely they would be able to decipher all but its most rudimentary meaning. Thus, whereupon reading ancient mythologies, whether referring to the original texts, i.e. Mesopotamian tablets and Vedic hymns, or to contemporary interpretations thereof, rather than read the contents at face value, therein literally, we need recognise what’s hidden in plain sight: the codification of the content. Whereupon the Indo-European theft of fire mythologies are considered in the context of state-of-the-art scientific insights into fire’s behaviour, and in particular with respect to fire ecology, severalfold are the ways in which the former suggests that ancient peoples had at least some, and possibly profound understanding of aspects of the latter. Furthermore, whatsoever their level of understanding, their spoken, thereon literary legacy provides indisputable evidence of fire’s role not merely in genus Homo’s physiological and cognition development, but its psychologies, beliefs, and behaviours.

Footnotes

[10] Popular in classical Greece, pyxides were vessels used for the storage of personal items, such as cosmetics and jewellery, and it is to a pyxis, not a ‘box’ that classical Grecian poets and playwrights referred in mythological accounts of Pandora.

[11] One of the oldest extant Indo-European texts, the Rigveda is a collection of over 1000 Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to the Rigvedic deities including Indra and Agni.

[12] Zoolatry refers to the ritualistic worship of animals in the belief that they incarnate of deities and other supernatural forces.

[13] Therianthropic refers a mythological human-animal hybrid.

[14] Integral to Egyptian creation myths, the sacred Bennu bird, as descried in some pyramidal texts as “He who came into being by himself” (Hart, 2005), was symbolic of rebirth and periodic self-renewal.

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Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.