When Zarathustra Spoke: The Reformation Of Neolithic Culture And Religion (Bibliotheca Iranica: Zoroastrian Studies)

Best book on the subject

Feel better soon JZ :-)

The central thesis of this book is that the pre-historic transition from hunting & gathering to sedentary agricultural society was due to the teachings of Zarathustra, the ancient Iranian prophet. The writer goes on to marshal various evidence in support of her thesis. Regrettably, the evidence, such as they are, from linguistics, botany, and archeology is not definitive - in my opinion.From an evidentiary perspective, the book is weak. It is a book of scientific speculation rather than fact. On the other hand, from a scientific hypothesis point of view the book is very strong. The hypothesis of Zarathustra's teachings causing the transition from hunting & gathering economy to agricultural economy ought to be treated as an instance of the application of the "The Revolution of the Symbols" meta-theory or meta-hypothesis of the late Jacques Cauvin.That is, it should be considered, like Darwinian Evolution or Special Relativity, as scientific principle or conjecture that helps explain a host of other phenomena but its own veracity (or falsity) has to remain - at least for now - beyond our reach.I personally found the speculations plausible. Consider:The Quran recognizes the teachings of Zarathustra as authentic Revelations of God.That the magi, as priests of the Zoroastrian religion, endured for many millennia - just like the priesthood of the Catholic & Orthodox Christian Churches have endured.At least two of the revelatory religions after Zarathustra seem to have had some sort of connection with that religion: the Magi were present at the birth of Jesus and the Prophet of Islam had a companion - Salman the Persian - who had left Iran in search of religious truth.I think that it is eminently plausible that the authentic message of Zarathustra was corrupted over such a long period of time (8500 years) and especially in the absence of an alphabet that could reduce the changes of the language.The Duality Doctrine of Zarathustra's Teachings also might have been due to the evolution - or corruption - of his initial teachings. One needs only look at the contemporary religious scene among the Protestant Christians in the United Sates whose faith, willy-nilly, seems to be converging into a god of Light and Wisdom and a god from whom evil deeds emanate.

Is it possible that Zarathustra, the famous founder of the Persian religion which bears his name, could have lived during the seventh millenium? The great German mystic Rudolf Steiner, for one, thought so. And so did the Greeks, for some of them regarded him as living at about 6500 b.c. Most modern scholars of the subject vacillate between the two dates of 500 b.c. and about 1500 b.c., and since the language of the Gathas bears many similarities with that of the Sanskrit Rig Veda, many favor this latter date. But Mary Settegast has revived the tradition of dating him in the seventh millenium, for she believes that the archaeological evidence from this period most closely fits with the narrative schemas of Zoroastrianism. The middle of the seventh millenium was a time of great change in which the preceding period, known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, with its skull cults and worship of male virility in the form of statues and bull's heads, was begining to fade away. The making of weapons, furthermore, in the form of arrowheads and speartips, simply vanishes during the new period, that known as the Pottery Neolithic, as farming communities in both Greece and Iran began to take up the practice of agriculture in earnest. This phenomenon is interesting, according to Settegast, in light of the fact that Zarathustra privileged the farmer over the warrior class. The newly dawning Pottery Neolithic also brought with it new culture forms, such as the making of the world's finest painted pottery on vessels which apparently had no practical use, copper and lead metallurgy, irrigation and generally smaller settlements. The iconography of the pottery from this period is elaborate and amazing. Far from being--as some scholars think--mere decoration, the motifs articulated on these vessels have a definite cosmological and mythological significance. Whatever such significance was, it is now lost to us since no writings--or even oral traditions--have survived from this period, but Ms. Settegast believes that its iconography becomes intelligible in the light of Zoroastrian mythology. The emphasis on dark and light contrasts, checkerboard patterns, double axes, all are motifs based on the principle of cosmic polarity, which is, of course, the whole basis of Zoroastrian cosmic dualism. Other phenomena from this period may also fit well with the Zoroastrian ethos. Irrigation, for example, which appears during this phase for the first time, was known in later Zoroastrian texts such as the Vendidad as a sacred duty. We also find miniature mortars and pestles from this period, which is interesting in light of the later Zoroastrian ritual of the yasna ceremony, in which the cosmic mortar and pestle were used to grind the sacred haoma plant. Ms. Settegast's book is full of such wonderful speculations--such as the totally fresh idea of Catal Huyuk as a possible early stronghold of Indo-European traditions, which turns its conventional associations upside down--and if the book has a major flaw, it is that it is too short. At only 154 pages it is only a fraction of the length of her earlier masterpiece Plato Prehistorian, and one can only wish that this book had been longer, so full of fresh ideas does it seem. Ms. Settegast is able to look at the Neolithic with a gaze undiminished by the bland writings of the Levantine specialists in this field, and one can only hope that she will write another book soon.

Mary's research and co-relation of time frame is a path breaking stupendous work. It details logically that civilizations on earth were not just ancient, but rose and fell to oblivion. For cultures that had a verbal heritage of observations of far off planets affecting weather patterns, only confirmed in recent times (like the Sirius 1 and 2 stars) ,of rivers (Saraswati/Harahvati) that dried up and disappeared, of cities (Dwarka) that sunk into ocean depths (now dated to 6500BC); of birds (Simurg) that went extinct; of rule of law, based on justice; this makes absolute logical sense. While natural calamities are factors, it was a society imploding from its own contradictions (like the modern "occupy" movement), and the resultant loss of knowledge and scientific advancement within a generation that caused mankinds ascent schedule to be re-set, from time to time. Thus the timeline of 4500BC set by the Bible is not technically incorrect. It simply identifies a date of new beginnings after a long time in darkness caused by the collapse of the then existing society. If one accepts the term "Indo-European" languages, one has to factor in a logical reason why so many people decided to lift anchor and travel thousands of miles to new locations. This is what Mary does eloquently and I salute her scholarship.