Debunking of conspiracy: From the simple pursuit of a 'hidden truth' to the slow reconstruction of a complicated but documented reality

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The digitisation of the information and its publication in platforms like YouTube has enabled a broad audience to listen and watch conferences and interviews of great researchers. Some examples are the speech of Dr. Eric Cline regarding the presentation of his book about the Bronze Age collapse [here], the interview of Dr. Mary Voyatzis in which she talks about the results from the excavations of the temples of Alea Athena at Tegea and of Lykaios Zeus at Lykosoura [here] and a podcast with  Dr. Owen Rees in which he brings strong arguments against the conspiracy of alien participation in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids [here].

On the opposite end of the spectrum, such platforms give equal voice to some self-proclaimed researchers to present their own investigations. In this post we are criticising a video with a sci-fi picture as its thumbnail and the title the Proselenian Arkadians! What knowledge has Pausanias left us for the oldest city on Earth. The video is uploaded by a channel with a number of conspiracy videos on various topics. The narration is a mixture of Pausanias' work and the conjectures of the writer of the script regarding Lykosoura. (Don't be bothered to) Watch the video here.

Below, we are confronting three passages from the narration. On the one side, we have the grandiose statements and the baseless conclusions from the superficial research of the narrator. On the other side, we have modest investigations and evidence-based conclusions for issues raised in the narration. The aim here, amongst others, is to familiarise the audience with the time-consuming procedure of constructing valid conclusions. Finally, there will be a condemnatory comment for the impulsive epilogue of the narration.

1) Baseless chronology for Lykosoura:

'Lykosoura is considered the oldest city on the earth. The city is dated between 10,000 and 8,000 B.C. [...] Today only few remains from the wall of the acropolis have survived, dated in the 4th and 5th century B.C.'

Our knowledge regarding Lykosoura and the sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosoura is incomplete, for there are no meticulous or recent excavations. The last excavation from Konstantinos Kourouniotis took place at the beginning of the previous century.

This does not apply for the sanctuary of Lykaios Zeus close to Lykosoura, where there is an ongoing excavation conducted by Dr. Romano, Dr. Voyatzis and Dr. Karapanagiotou. Previous excavations indicated that the sacred place was in use since the Late Geometric period. In the interview mentioned above, Dr. Voyatzis underlined that there are strong indications that the worship of Zeus on Lykaion mountain goes back to the Mycenaean period (circa 1550-1200 BC). These are α) the fact that the use of the shrine was constant from the Mycenaean period until the Hellenistic, and β) the fact that Zeus' name appears in Mycenaean documents excavated in nearby areas and which list the gods that received worship and dedications. The non-stop use of the shrine throughout antiquity, the identification of Zeus in nearby-found Mycenaean inscriptions together with the ancient sources stating that Lykaios Zeus was worshipped at the exact place the following centuries, strengthen the argument that the same deity continued to be worshipped throughout antiquity, without breaks and without alternations. 

But the Mycenaean chronology of the shrine close to Lykosoura cannot be used as an argument for a Mycenaean chronology of the actual city. There is not enough evidence to argue that the shrine was created by locals dwelling on Lykaion mountain and/or with the purpose to serve a particular pre-existing surrounding community. Besides, the findings suggest that the dedications were arriving from different areas inside and outside the Arkadian borders. 

The excavation showed proof of human activity of an even earlier time. However, we cannot just assume that this activity is directly connected to the later findings without further examination. For the time, it is safe to say that the earlier findings belong to the Late Neolithic period (circa 4,500-3,200 BC). It is worth mentioning that the recent excavations at Marathousa 1, just 20km from the Lykaion mountain, yield archaic human activity that dates back to 450,000 BC (possibly Homo heidelbergensis according to Dr. Harvati). The research is conducted by the Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology and Speleology together with Dr. Harvati.

Therefore, the chronology given by the narrator can only be regarded as hypothetical, unsubstantiated and reckless. 

2) Confusing sources-contradictory statements:

'Despoina was born on the Lykaion mountain when the pro-Olympian goddess Demeter visited the area in search for her daughter Persephone. [...[ Her real name was known only to those initiated into her rituals. Homer says her name was Persephone and Despoina was called Persephone in other areas. Although some identified (Despoina) with Kore, this deity with the unspeakable name was related to the ancient nature of Artemis [...] a sacred dear wandered at that sacred place as if there was a garden in the middle of a forest. People used for her the epithets Anassa, Potnia or simply Despoina. 

The narrator's heterogeneous mixture suggests that Homer has recorded the real name of the Arkadian deity and remorselessly states that Despoina is, in short, the goddess Persephone which we encounter in other regions. Then he overturns this identification, which he himself made, in order to make a new connection to Potnia Theron by mentioning the 'ancient nature' of another goddess. Moreover, our narrator is certain that he has detected other epithets for Despoina, in particular Potnia and Anassa.

First of all, let us clarify that there is no passage in Homer, where he records that Persephone is the name of the Arkadian goddess Despoina, nor is there an indication that Despoina was called Persephone by any of her followers in any region within Arkadia. Persephone, also known as Kore, is not identified with Despoina and, in fact, in the survived myth of the latter it is clear that Demeter has already given birth to a daughter named Persephone before getting pregnant with Despoina. There are, though, some similarities between the two which, perhaps, imply that at some point in the past the first-born child had an impact on the rituals and iconography of the second one. After all, both children are the result of Demeter mating with a god who tricked her by using his ability of transformation. Furthermore, the only survived representation of Despoina shows the goddess sitting next to Demeter, wearing a veil, holding a sceptre and ciste. Other details that remind us of the Eleusinian Mysteries come from an inscription of the 2nd century BC and from Pausanias' account four centuries later. The inscription (EM 11 522) informed those entering Despoina's temple that they could offer -amongst others- oil lamps and white poppies, and the geographer informs us that, in his own time, pomegranates were forbidden offerings. 

Regarding the narrator's effort to identify Despoina with Artemis, we may recall the group sculpture of Despoina which includes Artemis and Pausanias' account in which he recalls a myth that presents Artemis as daughter of Demeter (Paus. 8.37.6). Not only was there no effort to replace or hide one or the other as excess, but, to the contrary, it was their co-existence that made the worship complete. Opposite Despoina's temple there was another dedicated to Hegemone Artemis (Agemone). In his recent excavations close to Asea, at the sanctuary of Artemis Lykoatis, Dr. Forsen found tiles saying that the building was dedicated to two deities. More specifically, it bears the names of Artemis Lykoatis and Despoina. 

The narrator attempts to create a fallacious relation between the two, by implying that the famous frieze of the dancing animal-headed figures on the veil of Despoina, and the lore of Despoina possessing a sacred dear, prove her descendance from Artemis. But not just any Artemis. The connection is between Despoina and the 'ancient' Artemis, the one whose origins must be attributed to the representations of ancient female (and also male) figures influencing the animal elements of their iconography, recognised also in Mycenaean inscriptions as Potnia Theron. But this motif was quite common in the Mediterranean as well as the Middle Eastern Art and it should be regarded as an iconographic tendency of the time, which influenced the representation of different deities in and out of Greece. Therefore, the fact that the iconographic tendency of Potnia Theron can be found in Geometric and Archaic sanctuaries of Artemis, cannot be seen as a sign of relation between Artemis and Despoina, whose Hellenistic (probably) veil depicts animal-headed figures.

The most problematic statement, though, is to be found in the narrator's belief that people used different epithets for Despoina, like Anassa and Potnia. The name of the goddess with the epithet Despoina is not saved by any source, thus, it is impossible to be recognised next to other epithets. As Palamidis notes, there are many deities that receive the epithet Despoina. Some examples are a poem of Anakreon, where he refers to Artemis as 'ἀγρίων δέσποιν΄ Ἄρτεμι θηρῶν' [απόσπ. 348], a poem from Pindar in which Aphrodite is mentioned as 'Κύπρου δέσποινα' [απόσπ. 122], and Medeia who in Euripides calls Hekate 'δέσποινα' [στ. 395]. In the poem Ὕμνος εἰς λουτρά τῆς Παλλάδος, Kallimachos calls her 'πότνι΄ Ἀθάνα' [στ. 55], and in the poem Φαινόμενα Aratos mentions 'πότνια Μαῖα' [στ. 263]

The narrator has created a logical fallacy by connecting all deities who receive epithets with Potnia Theron, a theory that he tried to promote by using the phrase 'ancient nature of Artemis'. In short, the narrator has gathered different pieces of information which individually require further research, but all together create confusion rather than conclusions. This confusion is key for the narrator to introduce more convincingly the following section of his video with the title ''Is there a hidden part of the true history??''.

3) Unfounded criteria of dating evidence:                          

''The fact that Lykosoura was built in such old times is attested by the primitive worship with divine attributes of primal content, primitive depictions, xoana, ritual type etc. [...] We only know that any animal domestic or wild could be sacrificed in her honour and that the animals were not slaughtered as it was happening during the rituals of other gods but were dismembered in a form of delirium. [...] It seems that in the very old years, the prehistoric, human sacrifice took place, after mystical and orgiastic rituals, in which the victims were dismembered. Later on, animals replaced the human victims and the mysteries were performed by people wearing animal-like masks. In the course of time the sacrifice itself was replaced by the dedication of animal-like figurines, some of which can be seen today. [...] That in the very old times there was the habit of human sacrifice, it is further supported by the fact that human sacrifice was also conducted at Lykaion mountain to honour Zeus.''

Let us begin with the small detail that any animal could be sacrificed for Despoina. Indeed, this information is given by Pausanias and we need to recognise that our narrator was clear, already from his title, that he follows his account. But the aforementioned inscription (EM 11 522) which is dated four centuries before Pausanias' work, limits the appropriate animals to small, white and female. Note that the inscription is fragmentary.

By combining two of Pausanias' passages, the dismembering of animals for Despoina and the myth of human sacrifice for Lykaios Zeus, the narrator goes as far as to create the completely baseless argument that Lykosoura must have been super ancient because it emits a 'primitive' character. His theory is the following: Initially the ritual of Despoina included the dismembering of the victims, who were later replaced by animals, which were also replaced by human figurines with animal masks.    

According to Dr. Averett, the aforementioned offerings probably belonged to the Hellenistic and Roman periods, influenced by a general wave of nostalgia that was spread widely around those times. A wave that could go as far as to create 'traditions' and 'customs', so long as the outcome would seem appropriate and meet the 'romantic' expectations of the current audience. 

This is the very same period that Pausanias travels around Greece and reports anything belonged to the glorious past and had not yet vanished into oblivion. It is remarkable that Pausanias' work excludes references to the Roman element evident in the everyday life of the residents at the locations he visited. In Arkadia, Pausanias focuses mostly on temples that meet two criteria. They should be pre-Roman and still in use in the Roman era. The reason for this, as Dr. Pirenne-Delforge notes, is the fact that Pausanias perceives the sacred areas as a safe and accurate means of accessing the Past. For he believed that the very rituals he was able to witness were products of a very distant past, they were transmitted uninterruptedly throughout the centuries and they were kept intact by the pious followers. The exact belief of the average person lived in Pausanias' time.          

The exact belief of our narrator.

This simplistic approach has been disputed. Firstly, let us bring the example of Laphria Artemis in the close-by Patras, and the cruel ritual of burning living animals, reported by Pausanias. The research of Dr. Pirenne-Delforge has shown that this custom was produced at some point after Augustus transformed Patras into a settlement for veteran Roman soldiers. Thus, a custom had to be formed at Patras to worship the newly introduced Laphria Artemis, and in a way that manifested its 'ancient' origins, in harmony with the regular violent shows frequently presented to the Roman audience of the time. For the case of the cult of Daidala, Dr. Haniotis concludes that the form of the ritual which Pausanias was fortune to witness, could not have been but the product of a long-lasting procedure of merging and reshaping. Last but not least, a great instance, which proves that violence should not be perceived as evidence for the oldness of a ritual, is the ritual of lashing young men during the cult of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. Amongst other researchers, Dr. Hughes and Dr. Pomeroy note that this spartan ritual became violent during the Roman period. For, although the ritual is found in earlier sources, it is only in Pausanias' account that we read the 'ancient-like' aetiological myth involving human sacrifice in order to explain a ritual which becomes such violent only from Cicero's time onwards. For Dr. Pomeroy, the ritual was reformed under Roman influence so that it could ravish the eye of an audience relishing bloody shows. 

In regard to the human sacrifice at Lykaion mountain, the recent excavation, which has reached Neolithic levels, presents no signs of such rituals, but yield plenty of animal remains. As for the skeleton found near by, it belongs to a complete body (and not dismembered) found inside a grave of a later period. In addition, let us remember an older post about Lykaon's myth of human sacrifice, which survives today as a complete role-play scenario, and which we disintegrated in such way to reveal possible joints between self-contained stories. 

In conclusion, the violence in rituals is not self-evidence for primitivity as the narrator implies.  

Unapproved epilogue:

'[...] Time, together with religious fanaticism and the new religion imposed by the Byzantine emperors, people were destroying every creation of the ancient world, plus the criminal ignorance of the later years [...]. Wandering around these ruins of Lykosoura, one finds evidence for the phrase said about some, that when Greece was civilised, the rest residents of the planet lived primitively [...]. Today, they try to hypnotise and deceive the neo-Greeks by loading them with useless knowledge, hiding from them at the schools the true history of their ancestors. The real history of this planet and of Greece is known to the few and powerful.'

But, why waiting the archaeological excavations and the subsequent results of the research when there is this chronologically accurate method of the eyes of a person such as our our narrator! The problem with these simplistic explanations and the linear narratives of various historical events is that the Past becomes prey in the hands of people that disregard the content and, instead, focus on isolated phrases that secure the title of the best, of the first to achieve, of the unreplaceable, of the good guy of History (and the list goes on). People that attribute any gaps emerged from their insufficient research to the conspiracies for 'those who deceive the neo-Greeks'. 

At the opposite side of those searching historical pieces to support their feeling of superiority, we -the other guys- stand firm. We, who realise that humans are only a small part of the perpetual and multi-dimensional history of our hometowns. We, who perceive as our ancestors all those who once dwelled under the foundations of our homes, all who cultivated and consumed products of the same soil, all who observed the sun rising above the same mountains. Regardless of the culture, religion and time period. Against the selective approach of the 'narrators', we embrace every historical and cultural aspect found within the levels of the Arkadian past.    

Bibliography:  

Interview of Dr. Harvati (in Greek): https://www.tovima.gr/2019/12/15/science/enas-proimos-homo-sapiens-sti-mani/

Interview of Dr. Voyatzis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsMuJx62z4E

Website for Mt. Lykaion and Survey Project: http://lykaionexcavation.org/

For Artemis Lykoatis: http://arachamitaiexcavation.info

Despoina's inscription mentioned above: https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/32662?bookid=12&location=1632

Averett, E. W. (2019) 'Theriomorphic Figures in Hellenistic and Roman Arcadia: Nostalgia and Ritual' in Papantoniou, Michaelides, Dikomitou-Eliadou (eds), Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas, Leiden.

Chaniotis, A. (2002) ‘Ritual Dynamics: the Boiotian Festival of the Daidala’ in Horstmans-Hoff, Singor, Van Straten, Strubbe (eds), Kykeon. Studies in Honour of H.S. Versnel, Leiden.

Forsén, B. (2016) ‘Artemis Lykoatis and the Bones of Arkas. Sanctuaries and territoriality’ in Melfi – Bobou (eds.), Hellenistic Sanctuaries. Between Greece and Rome, Oxford.

Kourouniotis, Κ. (1912) «Το εν Λυκοσούρα Μεγαρον της Δεσποίνης», ΑΕ.

Hughes, D. D. (1991) Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, London.

Palamidis, A. (2018) ‘The sanctuary of Despoina. A Megalopolitan Creation?’ in Tausend (ed.), Ancient Arcadia. History and Culture of a Mountainous Region, Graz.

Pirenne-Delforge, V. (2006) ‘Ritual Dynamics in Pausanias: The Laphria’ in Stavrianopoulou (ed.), Ritual and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World, Liège.

Pomeroy S. B., (2008) ‘Spartan Women among the Romans: Adapting Models, Forging Identities’, MAAR Vol. 7.