Agamemnon's Mask - 1500 B.C.
(found by Heinrich Schliemann in Mycenae, 1876)

The very first vanguards of those who would latter be defined Germans, Italics, Hellenics, Persians, Indians, started to migrate from the great anthropological Indo-European bowl that likely was Eastern Europe (Urals, Baltic Sea); these populations crossed each other with pre-Indoeuropean populations, from western Europe to India, as military elités more advanced technically, holding copper and bronze metallurgy, thrusting upon subject populations their social structure and their religion. This structure is patriarchal, organized as a big tribal clan around a 'pater familias' (transl: 'family father'), and the main divinities are heavenly and male (Zeus, Cronus, Uranus, Saturn) in a strong opposition with the lunar-earthling mother goddess cult.
Indo-European gods are related with the sun and the sky, since – perhaps – this is the only unvariant in the landscapes of nomadic populations. God – father – heaven, in its features of immutablity, omniscience and omnipotence, express itself par excellence in deities like *Dyeus *pətēr (Indo-European: 'luminous heavenly father'), which we would latter have Zeus patēr (for Greeks), Iuppiter (Giove) in latin, Diauh pitā of ancient vedic hymns, Teiwaz-Týr of Germans.
Describing Indo-European religiosity, Hans F.K. Günther writes:

«For Indo-Europeans the issue of soul and body is not so important, even into religious life. This issue never oppressed them, since they despised the body in order to give a greater value to soul. The idea of a body restricted within the world, dirty cage of a yearning to eternity, is absolutely far from them.»

Our common ancestral identity of Europeans is well documented in its main features, since also very distant populations geographically speaking actually hold strong elements into vocabulary, into linguistic morphology, into grammar and culture, too.
According to the french scholar Georges Dumézil we have strong assonances with religion, institutions, family; Indo-European societies seem hierarchized everywhere and divided into three castes: the productive one (free men and women, tradesmen, artisans and peasants), the military one (warriors, knights, tribe heads, earls and kings), the sacral one (priests) with servants and slaves usually relegated in a lower position. At the the head of the social body we find a king, a charismatic head elected by warriors. There's a linguistic affinity between indoeuropean *rēgs, the latin rēx, the celtic rīx, the sanscrit raja and the greek arégō.
In the indian and hellenic branch of Indo-European, in Vedas and in Mahābhārata and Ramayana Vedic poems, so as into omeric poems, is described a noble and heroic society which crosses upon pre-Indoeuropean peoples.
The religious Indo-European spirit expresses itself into poems and greek tragedies, from Homer to Aeschilus, in which the preminent features are daring, pushing constantly beyond limits, enjoy life, though keeping a profound sense of duty, of honour, of integrity. The tragicity of existance, most of all, permeates Indo-European religiosity, wher man stands still before fate, the mystery which encompasses men and gods, with respect and dignity.

 
 
Aeschilus' Agamemnon
 

Aeschilus' tragedy 'Agamemnon' depicts the struggle between matriarchal society, represented by Clytemnestra, and the patriarchal one, with Agamemnon as champion: he sacrifies his daughter Iphigenia trying to calm gods, which don't allow him to set sail for Troy. Clytemnestra, Iphigenia's mother and Agamemnon's wife, has been waiting him for ten years thinking obsessively revenge, managing to kill him at his home-coming. Orestes and Electra, their sons, kill Clytemnestra, revenging the father.
Another main element emerges from the tragedy: there's a deep link with the family of origin, the ghénos, struggling with the civic sense of duty, just as strong as the first, towards the pòlis, the society. Agamemnon will make up all fathers' misdeeds sacrifying his life at the same time for a logic of state and conquest, just as Ulysses preferres war and the quest of limits rather to his duties of father and husband.
The theme of sophronéin constantly re-occurs in this tragedy: the importance of being wise, not much intellectually rather from an ethic point of view; we must acquire a sense of humilty and respect toward the divinities. The greek principle of pathèin mathos, of learning through sufference, is expressed into the individual experience of human life, made from pain and fear. It is perhaps the highest attempt within the pre-christian world to put the issue of evil on a religious point of view; deity has the capability to direct human existances according to an inscrutable design.
 
 

The published material upon these pages is taken from “Runemal, Il Grande Libro delle Rune” - L'Età dell'Acquario editions. For info and bookings please write to info@runemal.org