Homo Sapiens in the Balkan
The first modern humans in Europe arrived about 40,000 years ago and were known as Cro-Magnon. They looked like us, had developed communication skills (language), art, abstract thinking ability and developed religiosity. They believed in life after death, world of spirits and used shamanic practices. They were hunter gatherers who lived in small groups of around 20- 25 people, spending part of their time in caves.
They first appeared in southwestern France around 35,000 years ago. Traces of this new type of human being, that soon enough inherited the earth, can be found in the Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay. From there Cro-Magnon men migrated to the rest of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. However, the last findings from Bulgaria suggest that the Balkans were the place where Homo Sapiens first appeared in Europe and not southern France. In the Magura Cave next to Belogradchik, remains of a Homo Sapiens from 40,000 years ago were found, and also in Bacho Kiro cave next to the Dryanovo Monastery in the Balkan Mountains (The Homo Sapiens in this case were mixed with other kinds of human beings, so the findings are inconclusive). Remains of Homo Sapiens were also found in the Peștera caves in Romania, from the other side of the Bulgarian Danube, as well as in the Kozarnika Cave which is near Belogradchik[1].
Based on archaeological findings, historians believe that the Cro-Magnon people treated their sick and wounded with care, that their relationships were characterized by mutual support and brotherhood, and that they had deep religious beliefs expressed in burial customs. They knew how to weave baskets and cloth from linen, and how to produce and use sophisticated stone tools. They knew how to create colors and jewelry, and they might even have had a lunar calendar. In short, they had an advanced and sophisticated level of civilization, with great knowledge of anatomy, an understanding of the natural world, and developed spirituality.
Cave as Womb
According to Michael Rappenglück, there is evidence that the ancients treated certain caves as wombs, with their external and internal parts corresponding to the female reproductive system. From the time of the appearance of Cro-Magnon man, about 40,000 years ago, the cave became the matrix of the great cosmic mother. Entering the cave was seen as a transition between two realms: outside, there was light and a certain kind of sensation, while inside, there was darkness and a different kind of sensation. These differences were perceived by Cro-Magnon man as distinctions between the mundane and the sacred, the natural and the magical, giving caves a cosmogenic and cosmological significance that was later transferred to houses.
In other words, visiting specific caves—to which humans returned as part of their “sacred journey” around the land—was an essential component of religious life. In the last century, remarkable rock paintings from this period were discovered in caves in southern France and Spain, providing evidence of the advanced culture and spirituality of these people, as well as in the Balkans.
Human nature is to interpret reality; we possess a dual perception—of reality itself and of its interpretation. This duality gives rise to the development of art, language, values, ideals, strategy, vision, and religious belief. From the very beginning, humans have sensed a sacred, significant, and eternal layer of reality beyond the mundane, and have aspired to connect with it. As Mircea Eliade puts it, we are Homo Religiosus. In prehistory, caves served as a means of connecting to the Sacred.
The “religiosity” of caves is largely related to the fact that we are physically born from an enclosed, protected space—the womb—and aspire to return to its safety. This is perhaps why spiritual birth is associated with being inside an enclosed space, often a type of cave. For example, the mysteries (initiation rites) of the Greeks, Thracians, and other ancient inhabitants of the Balkans involved entering (descending) into a cave (or cave-like space) and experiencing a symbolic death within it, followed by rebirth into the spiritual world. On another level, the cave was seen as a cocoon from which the butterfly emerges after undergoing the process of transformation.
The cave paintings
the wonderful prehistoric cave paintings found in Europe and the Balkan span a long period of time, from 30,000 BC to 9,000 BC, it is “an amazing unity of artistic content.” as Eliade puts it,
The motifs of the painting’s location imply that they were made for religious purposes. They were painted in inner halls of the caves, far away from the entrance, which were a kind of temple. The most famous finding is the paintings in the Lascaux Cave in southern France (from 18,000 years ago) of bulls, horses, human figures and other animals. In other caves, scenes of dancers, shamans and humans engaging in ritual activities were discovered.
The paintings indicate high artistic ability, but according to the interpretation of some researchers, they also represent developed spirituality. Dr. Michael Rappenglück from the University of Munich claims that the points in the paintings along with the figurative images represent star systems such as the Pleiades star cluster. That the bison in the paintings represents the female and the horse represents the male: “When you decipher things in light of this symbolism, the cave turns out to be an incredibly organized and meaningful world.”
Horst Kirzner offers an interesting interpretation of one of the paintings in the Lascaux Cave. The bison turns his horns at a man lying on the ground that looks like dead but actually passes through an initiation process that the animal symbolizes.
What is the importance of these findings?
The importance is that they are evidence of ancient and advanced culture and spirituality of the Cro-Magnon men. It is important to note in this context that the cave symbolized the uterus of mother earth. The caves have a special atmosphere, especially in those with stalactites, narrow transitions, halls and running water that implies life’s renewal. The halls with the paintings were found to have special acoustic qualities. Man made these special caves into temples and painted his beliefs on their walls.
The appearance of God
The new Cro-Magnon men who appeared in Europe was a religious person, but not in the sense of the usual and institutionalized religion, but in the sense of “feeling part of something greater than oneself, of creation” and the recognition of the existence of worlds beyond. Religion was part of his essence, understanding, way of going on. It is difficult to perceive this in a world like ours that strives for secularism, but belief in a force that is outside the human and aims at good was part of the new Cro-Magnon men life and worldview.
Homo Sapiens believed in the existence of other worlds, spiritual beings, energies, soul and spirit, life after death, and meaning to life. This can be seen in the remains they left behind, burials, temples, art. The ancient remains that humans have left behind are an expression, among other things, of their beliefs. Religion is not an intellectual invention that has occurred at some point in history, but a fundamental part of Human existence, just like art or music. This is why it appears in all primitive societies, even those that have been disconnected from other people for tens of thousands of years, such as the aborigines in Australia.
In every human society, there is a belief in a power that is beyond us, and it is the same belief that existed in prehistory and the dawn of human Civilization. According to Mircea Eliade, “Experience of the Sacred is one of the foundations in the structure of consciousness.” Eliade calls the new Homo Sapiens “Homo Religiosus” and I agree wholeheartedly.
Alternative theories
Alternative theories posit that before the end of the last ice period there existed advanced Civilizations, such as Atlantis or Lemuria, who were extinct and their traces were lost in a catalytic event, perhaps the biblical flood. Important spiritual teachers such as Peter Dunov in Bulgaria and Rudolf Steiner in Austria argued that these Civilizations had advanced technologies, the kind we do not have today.
Dunov argued that Atlantis had a magical mystical language and alphabet that was common to all human races (which is reflected in the story of the Babylon tower). This language enabled the Atlanteans to transmit spiritual energies. The sacred languages of today, like Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanskrit, originated from this language. He reconstituted this language and taught it to his students, wrote songs with it and inscribed its symbols in special places on specific rocks in the Seven Lakes area in the Rila Mountains.
According to Dunov, the title Bulgarian comes from the word blago – good (which appears the Bulgarian word Blagodarya – for thank you), and not as claimed in the history books – from a name of a Turkish tribe who took over the Bulgarian lands at the end of the 7th century.
Dunov believed that there was an early unknown advanced Civilization in Bulgaria of people that came from bacteria in Central Asia (Pamir Mountains), and these people founded advanced kingdom that was called Bulgi or Bulgarian. They had an amazing capability of processing gold and other metals, which they found in the Rhodope Mountains[2].
It should be remembered that Plato claimed that there was an older Athens who disappeared with Atlantis 11,000 years ago. And so, Dunov tells us that the ancient Bulgarian people have set up sacred centers in the Mountains. One of their illuminated teachers was Orpheus, the legendary mythological Lira player, who lived in much more ancient times than known.
Moreover, Rila Mountains in Bulgaria are one of the most holy places on earth, if not the holiest. The Mountains are very ancient and during Earth’s history were never covered with water, while the rest of Bulgaria’s Mountain ranges were under the sea from time to time, including the nearby Pirin Mountains. Today they are not very high (3,000 meters), but in the past they were much higher.
According to Dunov, Rila Mountains are the oldest home of humanity created in the image of God. Every prophet, teacher, guide, every religion and teaching were aware of them and came to them. Orpheus, the great spirit of the sun, a master and the guide of the Balkan, reached the Rila Mountains in those ancient times and imprinted in the rocks and water of the Seven Lakes the Akashic (energetic) knowledge of the essence of man and his destiny. There are different ways of storing knowledge, one is in crystals or stones, another way is in water that remembers (as Dr. Masaru Emoto from Japan showed in his book “The Hidden Messages in Water”), Orpheus used both.
Even if we do not accept Dunov’s theories, the big question is how suddenly, out of nowhere, Homo Sapiens appeared? New and advanced type of Hominoid. According to the alternative theories, this happened because of external intervention and genetic engineering by people (aliens) that came from other stars. From this point on the human race was guided by illuminated people that taught humanity agriculture and encouraged them to live in villages and homes instead of caves.
According to Harry Salman, a Dutch professor close to the “White Brotherhood” and anthroposophy, refugees from Atlantis established centers all over the world, especially in Europe, from where the seeds of new human Civilizations were sewn. During the peak of the ice period – 16,000 years ago, when London covered by a 2,000-meter glacier, the cultural and initiation centers of humanity were in Italy, Spain and especially in the Balkans.
Notes
[1] where the remains of other types of ancient were also found, some of them from 1.6 million years ago, which makes them the oldest in Europe
[2] Indeed, gold treasures from very ancient times were found in Varna and can be seen at the National Museum in Sofia. It is the oldest gold in the world and there is no logical explanation for its presence in this place and time – 6000 years ago.
