The Werewolf Cult of Mt Lykaion & Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece
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- čas přidán 18. 10. 2023
- Various texts from the Greco-Roman period speak of a strange cult on Mount Lykaion, in Greece, dedicated to wolves and which worshiped a form of Zeus known as Zeus Lykios--"Wolf Zeus". Those same texts, and ancient urban legends and folklore, tell us that the cult practiced human sacrifice. But what do we really know about this group, which supposedly could shape shift into werewolves?
SOURCES
“The Werewolves of Arcadia”, in “The Werewolf in the Ancient World”, Daniel Ogden, 2021
“Good to Think: Wolves and Wolf-Men in the Greco-Roman World”, in “Werewolf Histories”, Willem de Blecourt, 2015
“Myth and Ritual in Greek Human Sacrifice: Lykaon, Polyxena and the Case of the Rhodian Criminal”, in “The Strange World of Human Sacrifice”, Jan Bremmer, 2007
Happy Halloween everyone! Here's a link to the short playlist where you find out about Apollo's demon oracle, the cave of nightmares, and the Roman enterance to Hades & the Sybil of the dead!
czcams.com/video/J3Eu4WQ82T8/video.html
I prefer Robert Graves' interpretation of these myths. In fact, I prefer his interpretation of all the Greek myths. But then, I happen to like the Cambridge mythographers.
SO behind the times! SO "pseudoscientific", darling!
Yeah yeah yeah
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the first literary epic in history c 2100 BC, has the hero Gilgamesh mocking the goddess Ishtar (goddess of love, war, and fertility) for turning her lover into a wolf. "You loved the Shepherd, the Master Herder, who continually presented you with bread baked in embers, and who daily slaughtered for you a kid. Yet you struck him, and turned him into a wolf, so his own shepherds now chase him and his own dogs snap at his shins." The Epic of Gilgamesh also has the first historical mention of zombies when Ishtar, furious that Gilgamesh rejected her, threatens to unleash the dead upon the world. ""Father, give me the Bull of Heaven, so he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling. If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!"" .
now hold on, was that all from the original or from that Babylonian fanfiction that came centuries later?
@@deathsheadknight2137 Yeah the Epic was a consolidation of previous Sumerian tales which were likely based on even older oral traditions. The older story had Ishtar threaten the use of a world shaking scream instead releasing the dead. There are variations and the meaning of things referenced may be lost to us. Does the scream wake the dead?
@@TERMICOBRA hey man, I'm a purist. I like my Gilgamesh as close to the original oral versions as possible. none of that Akkadian special edition crap for me! 😁
the translations i have don't put emphasis on her "scream" in and of itself. she just goes sobbing to Anu and demands he give her the bull, threatening to release the dead if he does not. Her magical scream doesn't seem to be mentioned originally, at least not in this scene
"She turned her lover into a wolf! Funniest shit I've ever seen!"
- Gilgamesh, 3500 BC
@@deathsheadknight2137 #HumbabaSwungFirst
Mike: "Werewolf"
Me: "There Wolf! There Castle"
There's never been anything I've wanted to know more about
Great! Hope you like this, then!
I wonder if this cult had any ties to the Koryos of the bronze age.
That’s speculated toward the end of the video. It certainly seems like it
@TheFallofRome oh excellent! I didn't make it to the end of the video yet.
For those who don't know and are reading - the Koryos was an archetypical Proto-Indo European 'wolf cult' / wolf brotherhood for youths becoming men. See author Dan Davis's take on it - (czcams.com/video/alRlPt1zvg4/video.html)
I wonder if the 9 years is as a wolf is really 9 years as a raider. The "Mannerbund" was the institution of a warband for young men. When in the band, they were free to commit violence and raid rival communities. After a period, they would leave the band and return to "civilian" life.
This is the kind of logic I'm always looking for in talk of old stories. We're so quick to jump to magic and wonder, but what if, in a few thousand years, people unearth a story where we use the adage, "he traveled straight as the crow flies" and jump to, "they had stories of turning into birds".😂
9 years,9/11 k-9
That myth was invented by a nazi folklorist without basis, please dont spread this stuff
After all the park ranger stories I’ve heard, this is starting to make a WHOLE LOT of more sense.
16:52 It certainly would make sense for these early periods to have human sacrifice. Because we do have mentions of that in both the Agamemnon myth and the Minotaur myth.
Sure, that’s totally possible. Although the researchers did note that, although we have this one skeleton, it’s the only one that has been found so it would certainly be odd that legends about this would have reached the classical period, if it was a one time thing. But, maybe more digging will uncover something else
Only time can tell.
bro, we still sacrifice humans up here in..
...
Partially, remember how artemisa saved iphicenua in the last moment....
I doubt we should put to much stock in Ovid's rehashing of a very ancient myth. The story of Tantalus is pretty much the same deal, and dates back to at least 700 years before Ovid.
Tantalus was even mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, so it was probably a story being told in oral tradition was back in the early bronze age.
The story is interesting because it forms the basis of the Oresteia, a trilogy of plays written by Aeschylus around 500 BC. The plays concern the curse of the House of Atreus, the descendants of Tantalus. Very briefly, Orsetes is the son of Agamemnon, who is murdered by his wife because he sacrificed their daughter to appease the gods so he could sail to Troy and make war. Orestes murders his mother as revenge, fulfilling the curse of his bloodline.
So, Tantalus earned the curse upon his house by serving up his son, Peolops, to Zeus at a feast, and he was made to stand in a pool of water, with a fruit branch overhead for eternity. If he reached up to take the fruit, the branch rose out of reach. If he bent down to drink, the water receded out of reach. Thus he was forever tormented by thirst and hunger, from whence we obtain the word "tantalize".
The Oresteia is a fascinating trilogy, because it describes the origin of the jury trial, and marks the evolution of all subsequent systems of western law away from tribal systems of justice. You see, under tribal law, Orestes was bound by duty to murder his mother in "revenge" for killing his father. It's not that he wanted to do it. He was a baby when it happened, and his mother had good reason. His father had murdered his own sister, after all. Yet he was bound by tribal duty, and so he was cursed to belong to the House of Atreus.
In the trilogy, Athena steps in and stops the furies (not to be confused with the furries) from pursuing Orestes, and calls for a trial of the youth on a rock outside Athens. He is spared, and so a new way of doing justice is created, and greek society moved away from tribal obligations and into the first system of judgement by trial.
It's a big deal, because it represents the first time the law treats the individual as separate from their clan, and it stops the incessant cycle of violence that plagues tribal society. It's the origin of all our ideas of modern law, and gives insight into the dangers of tribal notions of duty and "justice".
Anyway, that is the background to Ovid's version of the story..
About the sacrifice of iphigenia, there are versions that says artemisa saved her in the last moment replacing her by a deer, which adds to the idea that the greek gods didn't liked those sacrifices.
Modern law did not come from mythical figures like Athena, Zeus, etc. They never existed lol. 😂
tobystewart4403:
Please correct the word "Orsetes" in the 4th line of your text to the proper name.
@@ntinoshlios8024Κάθε ώρα φέρνει δώρα!!!.. ρήση ΕΝΩΔΩΝ!!!
@@zanir2387Those are probably later addition
How does one even find out about this in the first place? Keep up the good work!
Fascinating! And thanks for the playlist.
You’re welcome!
Top notch research. Thank you.
You’re welcome!
Did the Vikings have something similar to that carry on?
'The berserkers and the wolfskins (also known as 'heathen wolves') were a special group of very skilled and dangerous warriors associated with the god Odin.'
Yes the Norse seem to have had warrior brotherhoods with similar ideas. It’s usually referenced in werewolf literature as an example of what brotherhoods employing wolf or dog symbolism in other cultures may have possible looked like
Bearskins, Wolfskins, Lionskins, Tigerskins, Crocodileskins. Nothing new understands the Sun. Different groups of Elite Military Warriors. God is A Man Of War. The Lord Of Hosts.
There are many Indo European myths and archeological records that involves wolves from Scandinavia to India. A common thread can be put together where youth as a rite of passage are cast out of a village to live like wolves. They live of the land, thieving and raiding, form warbands to raid neighbouring tribes. They only wear skin of animals usually wolves dogs, bears. Often kidnap women to take home as wives or to settle in a new land.
Navajo skinwalkers?
Well done.
You have a new subscriber.
Thanks! Welcome aboard!
Thank you brother. Nice work 🤗🙏🏽
What you’re missing is a biblical perspective. This is Genesis 6, Book of Enoch, Book of Giants, and lots of Native American history have a great backstory for this type of discussion.
Check out Dogman encounters radio, if you're interested.
Interesting talk, thank you.
You’re welcome! Hope you enjoyed it
Wake up baybe, #The Historian's Craft new video jaut dropped!
I'm up, I'm up already! You took all the blankets last night! And trim your toenails, you scratched me up.
Enjoyed the research, Happy Halloween.
Happy Halloween!
Another thing about these myths is there were actually more versions that are lost and we know this by the apostle Luke's account of the arrival of the church in Greece. One of the major selling points Saint Paul used was that there were so many versions of the Greek creation story that no one could even define the whole mythology and when the church took off in many Greek towns there were mass book burnings because whole libraries worth of stories were dismissed. In deep hindsight this is regretable, because in modern times the surviving myths are often our only sources available for early Greek culture.
In a version of the story, they speak of traveling to Ireland duo to a belief that the Irish could somehow cure lycanthropy.
Can you clarify or post the author's of the references you cited at 2:00- I tried to look them up by title on Amazon and wasn't having any luck.
Sure thing, I just posted them in the video description. They are all essays in different books. I’d highly recommend all of them
@@TheFallofRome Much obliged- thanks! Great content!
Just a quick note that the Athenian ephebia as you mentioned it was a very late development and, from memory, only dates to the 330s or 320s BC. Prior to that it seems to have been much more of a rich boys club and didn't have any particular military role
Fantastic!
You almost sound like Harold Ramis, you got my sub.
I had no idea Greece had these kinds of cults. That is, if it IS a cult. The Greeks still seem to surprise us.
All modern cults are around the Ellenic ones (such as illuminate, or masons). The Pythagoreans are the pillar of a very big amount of modern day occultism. Also the new wave, the universe stuff, is also of Ellenic descent and so is arithmology, lexarithm and gematria, as the Ellenic language is a wonder of it's own having insane maths behind it and even meanings in it's letters, words etc.
Werewolf cults seem to be the basis for many religions. The Viking one was featured in the movie Northman. The early Romans had them and the American Indians. The Turkish nation was formed by brothers who were raised by wolves if I remember right. Zues Lykos is the oldest form of Zeus from Arcadia. Hera was said to tzke wolf form when she walked the Earth. Diana the huntress is always depicted with a wolf. I have never seen a werewolf or any physical eveidence of one but I have no doubt they exist. They have to! Or else something even more unbelievably outrageous is going on. 😂
Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf and then they founded Rome.
SheWolves Of The S.S.
@@simhess9720 I put in SS werewolves into search engine once and was shocked by how many hits it got of all kinds. There is even a Lego one. The stories keep coming up because they are something real. Most people prefer to live in ignorance, but the truth is right there it's just often called fiction or mythology to keep those people happy.
@@silviuvisan505 yes and they had soldiers called Vellites who wore wolf skins in battle.
There actually IS ancient religious depictions of an anthropomorphic wolf deity, Wepwawet in Pharaonic Egypt. His depictions are easily confused with Anubis, they both had funerary roles, Wepwawet specifically was the "opener of the way" to the Duat (spirit world). Back in ancient times, hieroglyphs would often be painted in full color, so the distinction between Anubis as a black jackal and Wepwawet as a grey-headed wolf would have been clearer. Obviously, thousands of years later the paint isn't there anymore. It's the same sort of thing with Greek and Roman statues, they were originally painted. So we've probably all seen depictions of Wepwawet that have just been mislabeled and mistaken to be Anubis. The holy center of Wepwawet, the city of Asyut, was called Lycopolis by the Greco-Roman period further reinforcing the distinction that this was a *wolf* deity, not a jackal like Anubis.
Unfortunately, Pharaonic Egypt is really the only major (and well studied) civilization that featured anthropomorphized deities, most other ancient religions used full animal depictions for when gods didn't have a human-looking form. There's stories of Zeus banging women while in the shape of everything from a bull to a goose, but never as a half-man half bull (or half goose); which is honestly a shame. Can you image finding a fresco of that scene on some nobles villa?
Great topic! thank you.
Did they inspire the Spartan Krypteia? They hunted Helots for sport. Was the Krypteia really a secret police or more like this Wolf Cult?
I've long thought "secret police" is a rather anachronistic description, terror enforcers would be more appropriate. As for cult relations, the Spartans were famously devout worshippers of their violent gods, so plausible.
The wolf-cult in indo-european folklore is always connected with the KORYOS, a freeroaming band of young warriors, send out to conquer new territories. The wolf represents their fierce lawlessness. One of the main tasks of the priests of the wolf god (like Zeus or Odin) was to reintegrate the morally rotten young warriors into the community after their raidings. In ancient Greece the Koryos had a central role in founding new city states. The Lykaion was the central sanctuary for the young warriors wolf-worship.
There is no "Indo-European folklore". Iapetic or Pelasgic folklore. Pelasgians are the ancestors of Greeks.The cradle of civilization: Ancient Hellas.
i like the theory that Werewolf are a metaphor for the savage man living in the wild like an animal the where a symbol off the premeal savagery off humanity twisted and distorted
I’m visiting mt lykaion this summer
Reminds me of the Grim Brothers Folktale "Bearskin," where a man is cursed to wear a bear skin for a certain no. of years. Bearskin also coincides with Berserkers quite well.
excellent, im actually surprised at the knowledge of most people in the comments....most excellent....we have werewolves here in the UK
When Frank Oz has a PhD in humanities/classics. 😘
A rite where a single person is chosen by lot to vanish for close to a decade sounds a lot more like Ostracism than a coming of age rite. If multiple families were all sending a son you could get a warband but this sounds more like a large aristocratic clan getting rid of a single member.
There's also a Indo-European legal tradition of outlaws being given legal werewolf status that in spite of having been noted by Jakob Grimm may have been little explored since a 1970s dissertation by a Mary Roche Gerstein. Wolf status as punishment may go back to Hittite times. 9 years isn't a unusual time length for a criminal sentence in the way it is for an initiation rite.
Choosing a single child by lot sounds like some kind of sin bearer being sacrificed, maybe as a payment to a rival clan to end a blood fued.
Using the comparative method to flatten out oddities by ignoring uncommon details doesn't sit well with me. Comes across as too close to mystical perenialism.
Payment of a single child to a rival clan kinda sounds like "mutual hostages". I have a faint recollection of that being done in the past until it "morphed" more into a de-escalation/peacekeeping gesture . Can't recall the earliest version.
Anyone ever hear of that mutual exchange? Any details?8
Dogmen and werewolves are not a figment of imagination from continent to continent. Sasquatch is as real as they are!
Dumbass if sasquatch is real then find it
wolfs can notice a thief, even the description of Lykaion morphing (limbs to legs, clothes to furr, it also can depict him became ferral, treat his clothes as furr, get use to whalk on all four) - Shamanism will give an interesting answer, a soul flight into animals body that they bonded with, or littarly shift in semi-corporeal animal-form.
This remind me me the conected trillogies of "Far-Seer" and "The Golden Man", who got a shamanic touch, soul flight, astral parasitism and a settle but smooth grace❤️🔥😤😎🤩🙏
Kratos from Scandinavia has joined the chat since he is busy with monsters from Vikings...
😏
I like to believe that werewolves exist. That they live amongst us, and eventually, when human society crumbles, they will become apex predators once again.
1:39 Or, to take it a bit further, or, to take it a bit further...
I love how the ancient Koryos warriors over time turned into supernatural shapeshifting mumbo jumbo
@@AzathothTheGreat pop culture on steroids.....hmmm?. more like pop culture on LSD/meth
Would you please pin a comment with the complete titles of the three sources you cited? I’ve tried looking them up and can’t find anything. Thank you!
Sure thing, I just added them in the description. They are all essays in different books. I’d highly recommend all of them
Actual sources cited right at the beginning and they're good sources... you win at youtube sir. it never occurred to me that feeding human meat to Zeus would logically translate as sacrificing a human on the altar instead of a goat. Which, presumably, you eat once god's had his share if it's a goat...
Meh.....Aztec warrior class ate the victims of the old "rip the heart out of a living person atop a pyramid" sacrifice
Is this how they came up with the word lycanthropy?
Kinda makes me think of Conan
I think there was probably a lot of little societal things back then that we will never really understand fully. There are lots of stories of young men leaving their villages or cities or whatever to form little warrior bands with other young men. Like the founding of Rome they’d be an all male group who would take women and stuff away from other groups and form new civilizations or colonies of the overarching civilization.
I descend from schwaben werewolf cult priests... Even I think wtf? about it.
Ahh the companions
"Paul! You is a werewolf!"
Roman legionnaires would wear wolf pelts, i wonder if it was connected to the Greeks. (the ones you held the flags/eagles)
I wonder if they started after or before the conquest of greece by the romans, and their symbolism did roman scouts start to wear wolf pelts after but not before.
the velites (skirmishers) wore wolf pelts on their heads. Good point!
I mean, wolfs were important in roman mythology as well, the very foundation myth of Rome has Romulus and Remus being raised by and fed by a female wolf.
Polybius, whom is the source for this, states that this was simply to distinguish themselves from other soldiers:
"They also wear a plain helmet, and sometimes cover it with a wolf's skin or something similar both to protect and to act as a distinguishing mark by which their officers can recognize them and judge if they fight pluckily or not."
~ Polybius, Histories, 6.22.3
👍👍👍
I find many of the supposed encounters with werewolf or "Dogman" beings extremely interesting. And they haven't let up. "Dogman encounters radio" regularly has guests claiming experiences with, something that resembles, werewolves. I went in for a laugh, but whatever is causing these very real traumatic experiences, isn't funny. Well, some are. Some of these people are seemingly, the real deal, or intelligent storytellers with great imaginations. I don't know. It's everywhere in human culture, and my Seneca gf wound get extremely nervous if you spoke of Dogmen and shape shifters.
Don't ever ever ever ever ever , mess with a werewolf
Could be an evolutionary offshoot from a common ancestor of the Berserkr cults of the Germanic cultures.
Roman infatuation with wolves as sort of their founding mythology may also have a common origin.
Sure, that’s something that comes up in the literature. I touch on it at the end of the vidoe
It makes sense we have mormons and clearwater Florida with scientology. I bet the ancient world was full of weird stuff like this.
I believe werewolves are more terrifying nowadays but we call them Furries and they are weird.
Like the world lycanthropy. Interesting. One of the saints were said to be a dog man. Cant remember the name tho. U can google it
i was a teenage werewolf.
now, we are talking science here..
Who wasn't?
Me watching this after seeing the mamamax drama: "wait, werewolf cult is real?"
The first Brotherhood of the Wolf...
I don't think I completely agree with Becker, but this actually squares with much of my religious outlook on existence. It also really explains the sort of reactionary movements at play in the world right now.
And so, the first turk was created. Half man,half wolf.
Clothes being hung for over 9 years and then being taken up again.. good quality garments, you don't find anything like that nowadays 🤣
The textual analysis seems very uncertain.
If it was certain, this channel wouldn't cover it
Use sound like you're trying to hard to use a fake voice
"Rise from your grave!"
With cults like this can we really blame the Christians for interpreting the old gods as demons.
Ofc, They will be blamed Forever for The misinformations about foreign cultures they create and preach..And Who the hell need those Cults when we've Cults Like yours which kills, plunder and wrape In the Name of One True Lord..
Yes because it's not accurate. Also isn't Christianity literally centered around a human sacrifice? To say nothing of the atrocities committed in it's name...
I like the version of Zeus being served his own son lol. Zeus sucks
Yeah it’s one of the crazier myths from antiquity I’ve come across for sure
He was also depicted as a rapist… while his predecessor Enki like to have sex with his daughters… and animals. Isle of Dr. Moreau…
T
Werewolves are definitely real, make no mistake about that, not to be confused with Dogmen which are somehow connected in a way. I'm not sure how, but I've been digging for the answer for awhile now.
Yes but why would you look for them?
Let's hear what you've learnt my friend please
brings to mind shape shifters from native American lore....
Altered beast takes on a whole new meaning for me now.
How ironic the subject of “wolves” and Hellenic deities have been in my mind lately, Hail Zeus and hell yea werewolves in general
My name is mark anthony wise and my dads name is Neal ARTHUR Wise. ⚕️it was a mayday
The OG furries
😴
There were no human sacrifices in ancient greece.
There very much were my dude.
In myths......@@theangryholmesian4556
First.
Fuck, you beat me!
The old gods that were generated from earlier versions of the messiah game on the previous Gaia - the planet that used to be where the asteroid belt is now were captured within that planet and became the pieces from which the Earth and its moon were made. The more powerful of these spirits rose to form mountains from which their power could be exerted over a wider range, being limited by the 1/r2 law of diminishing power with distance. Thus the mountain and its spirit were essentially "one", drawing the locals to worship with blood sacrifices to retain the favor of their local god with adrenochrome spiritual energy. This is exactly what is described in the Torah if you translate it properly. Yahweh was just another mountain spirit, a totally different entity than "El Shaddai" - stupidly translated as "God almighty", but actually one of the chief demons of the adversary.
Are you A Scientologist or something?😂
@@simhess9720 you know you've really hit a hive mind nerve when they start deleting your comments
@@simhess9720 Thanks for getting CZcams to openly delete my comments for no good reason. You are exposing the real criminals of the internet age.
@@theomnisthour6400 What are you talking about?
@simhess9720 the truth that was hidden from mankind to give it time to serve as the final crash test dummy species of the Gaia experiment. The truth that those who hate God have been working to suppress to delay the finish of this apocalypso dance contest so we can get on with day 8 of creation. Don't understand? Don't worry, you will after you experience the individual apocalypse you've earned, for better or worse
Unfortunate narrator, some voice training might help.
Bug off
LIES LIES i am from Arcadia and i wasnt sacrificed !!!
@@AzathothTheGreat Μιλαει για την κληρονομια του λαου μας αν δεν καταλαβες και υποστηριζει μια καθαρη αστηρικτη εικασια ως ιστορικο γεγονος που δεν συνεβει ποτε,αν δεν το εχεις παρει χαμπαρι ακομα.Καλως κανει λοιπον και φωναζει!
Lycaion... lycanthrope... we named this possible beast from this myth
Clean up your audio.
Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece NEVER happened.
Who said they did?
If you cant explain and understand something say it is a symbolism or rithuals, or just an ignorant savage faith.
Savage like commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaak?
You also forgot to mention of all the eye witnesses who see modern-day werewolves all the videotapes all the missing people you forgot to look at that to
So, tldr, if we ignore the burned corpse and take pick and choose which details related to ancient myth we give credit, we have an answer that fits modern sensibilities? Ok.
and they excavated like 8 or 9% of that mound lmao
Pity murder murda