Maeshowe cairn 6th century BC
Mystery of Maeshowe Orkney
Rune inscriptions c. 900 AD: to cut the roots of the tree of life
Use of light to symbolically measure the time of a solar year that shines down a passage in the tomb of Maeshowe Orkney influenced Roman Emperor Hadrian when the Pantheon & Mysteries of Mithras were designed in Rome in the 2nd century. The thread of knowledge can be traced via Delphi where Plutarch described these histories in popular texts which were mostly destroyed, but a few survived with crucial knowledge: the route to India went through Petra, “city of cave-dwellers” where people meditated. The history of meditation in Europe ended after 1,700 years, expressed by over 30 rune inscriptions made by Vikings in the tomb of Maeshowe. The complexity of the inscriptions, translated in this text, is evidence of the high level of their knowledge.
Mystery of Maeshowe Orkney
Unexpectedly the 30 rune inscriptions of the Maeshowe cairn in Orkney appeared, the decision to do two or three examples revealed the highest quality translations and exceptionally skilful use of the runes – proof that the rune alphabets were never intended to be phonetic. The rune inscriptions revealed the highest level of application – but the environment of Orkney also revealed the broad support of the international community.
A long debate about the role of the Romans in Scotland can be clarified by the exceptional objects such as massive silver chains and standing stones with symbols that do not only relate to Scandinavia and Siberia, but can be linked via Trusty’s Hill and Plougastel-Daoulas to Spain, from where the trail leads to Rome and the Pantheon built by Hadrian. Hadrian was known to be a keen “philosopher” who studied and later supported Athens and several other regions where “philosophers”, that may have been the word used to describe meditators in the early years, were studying and practising. Symbols in Petra, the “city of cave-dwellers” described by Plutarch, who also described “holy men on the islands of Britain (Maeshowe), connects India with Rome, and in turn with Maeshowe in Orkney. A coherent and systematic intellectual environment was developed and supported by Hadrian and his successors.
If the interpretations of the texts of Plutarch, Plotinus and the later Christian authors Gildas and Jordanes are correct, there is not only written proof that the Buddhist system of meditation was thriving in Europe for many centuries, but also enough information to expose the hidden intellectual world of Buddhist learning centres found at several locations in Europe, with a history that started in the lifetime of the Buddha and lasted until the 12th century.
Contents is the personal view of the author.
Maeshowe text in 3 parts
The investigation of the Maeshowe tomb led to a very surprising result. Were the Romans meditators? Did Hadrian build “the wall” only described in half a sentence in only one spurious text of the 5th century – or did he build the southern brochs of Scotland in an effort to promote peace in the Roman Empire? If modern historians focused too much on corrupted texts that promoted chaos for political gain, is it possible that several Roman emperors instead encouraged peaceful trade successfully? Did the traders who traveled to Asia for centuries bring back the habit of meditation with their merchandise?
The Maeshowe
cairn Orkney
Rome and the role of Hadrian
Maeshowe runes translation
The Pantheon’s design based on light as used in Maeshowe
When the texts of Plutarch are read with a fresh approach a new interpretation of the same historical facts is entirely plausible. If “some emperor” did not send the grammarian from Tarsus to investigate Orkney to wage war against them but to inspect the extra-ordinary effects of light that shines into the tomb but to design the beam of light in the Pantheon, then history is looked at from the wrong perspective. Hadrian and Plutarch cooperated on one of the most important peace projects in European history, still recognisable by the numbers used to design objects that are still seen today: the oldest existing Roman building , the Pantheon of Rome, thousands of rune stones in Sweden, Denmark and Norway and the tomb in Maeshowe where the light still shines on the rear wall for 1/16th of each solar year – or 1/32 before the death and 1/32 after the “rebirth of each new year. The same numbers were used persistently since the 6th century BC to design all these objects, not yet noticed by western scholars. The numbers are also used to describe the meditation system originally taught by the Buddha. Did people in Europe meditate for up to 1,700 years?