Political Geography of the Permian - A Culture History of the Cthulhu Mythos

Jordan179 has made a tentative reconstruction of Earth's past political geography, based on the Kadath murals, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, testimony of channeled time travelers, and other fragmentary evidence of the deep past surviving to the present. He has correlated geological evidence for the position of the continents (noting Lovecraft's use of continental drift, at the time a disputed and largely rejected fringe hypothesis that would become the dominant geological paradigm a generation later).

I find the positioning of R'lyeh somewhat odd, placing it what would become central and northeastern Asia, but the scope of the future continent is still unknown so any suggestion at this point is tentative. And it keeps in the commendable spirit of many chroniclers of Earth's hidden history, with two sources rarely agreeing. And then there is the issue of the Cthulhi/Xothians and water, which has been discussed extensively elsewhere. I think there is a methodological issue in presenting this as somewhat static, collapsing vast amounts of time (the map is labeled as varying through time, but considering the huge amounts of time involved ...). But then, the source material also stretches empires over tens of millions of years, or longer, so this isn't out of character with the evidence.

But overall, an interesting approach to a problem typically handled textually. It reminds me of the culture history maps from archaeology's early professional days, when large blobs and arrows would translate artifacts, postmolds, and art styles into nation-like units to build histories before history. V. Gordon Childe, one of the most influential of culture historians, was publishing his reconstructions of Eurasian prehistory precisely at the time Lovecraft was writing the stories that most directly under gird this map. I find it quite fitting.

Neurobiology of the Elder Things

Working with the somewhat sketchy descriptions made by the survivors of the Miskatonic University Expedition to Antarctica, Caio Maximinio (a graduate student and adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Pará, Brazil) has authored a speculative paper on the neural evolution of the Elder Things. In "And through Strange aeons, even Death may Die" at The Descent of Brain at Nature.com, Sr. Maximinio examines the cladistic position of the Elder Things had they evolved on Earth (and addresses the issues with this assumption), and contradictions between their likely nervous structure and that described by the Peabody-Lake Expedition. An excerpt

"It is clear ... that Elder Things are characterized mainly by their barrel-shaped body. This body can be divided in similar halves by more than two planes that cross the longitudinal axis of the organism. In taxonomy, this is called radial symmetry, and two phyla in the kingdom Animalia have it: Cnidaria and Ctenophora. This plan is particularly good for animals which are sessile or sedentary, or for animals which are free-swimming, because they can sense their environment from all sides equally. Notice, however, the pair of wings that Elder Things' have. A paired structure such as this represents a variation in the "radial symmetry" theme, called biradial symmetry . The only phylum to present this type of organization is Ctenophora, composed of less than 100 species - all of them marine, occurring specially in warm oceanic waters. This is consistent with the hypothesis (made by Lovecraft, based on a few geological conjectures of his time) that the poles once were much warmer places."

Very interesting work, and illuminating on issues of both terrestrial and extraterrestrial biology.

Happy Birthday H. P. Lovecraft

120 years ago today.

The Call of Cthulhu in Under 2 Minutes

Self-guided audio tour headsets are available at the front desk.

The Moche Octopoid Headdress - A Representation of Cthulhu?

Exhibit RLY003 - Moche gold octopoid hybrid headdress, possibly from La Mina, Jequetpeque Valley* In 1988, looters robbed a rich tomb at La Mina in the Jequetepeque Valley of north coastal Peru. This tomb was left by members of the Moche archaeological culture, a series of sites and artifacts participating in shared material culture, and especially an expressive iconography and art style for most of the first millennium AD. Tomb looting is rampant in Andean archaeology as it is elsewhere, but this is exacerbated in the case of the Moche because of the excellent preservation (much of coastal Peru is quite dry, and organic materials are found at many sites) and because Moche metallurgists were skilled in working gold, a substance that drives the most primal dreams of treasure hunters. In 2006, a gold Moche headdress was recovered in London, believed to derive from the La Mina tomb and looting. Police worked with an international art dealer to locate and take possession of the headdress, valued at possibly almost one million pounds (over 1.5 million $US). As of 2006, British authorities were working to return the object, described by some as the Moche Mona Lisa, to Peru. The headdress has been described as a sea god or goddess, an octopoid creature with a human/feline mixed face. Most Moche depictions of octopods portray the suckers with lines of dots or circles. In this case the triangles on the tentacles are more like those attached in Moche painting to the frill of an iguana or along the sides of a snake, perhaps suggesting a scaly surface, thought they are also found on fish fins, such as in the depiction below. The ends of the tentacles suggest mouths, similar to serpents often found protruding from figures in Moche artwork. Anthropomorphizing animals and objects was common in Moche art, as was combining elements of different creatures. Likewise, marine subjects were common in Moche art, dominating many scenes in the corpus of fine-line painted pots that make up the most important databank we have for elite Moche intellectual and religious concepts. Much of the background information here is found in Christopher Donnan and Donna McLelland's 1999 book Moche Fineline Painting: Its Evolution and Its Artists. Intriguingly, a marine hybrid creature more commonly depicted than the octopus is one Donnan and McLelland label 'The Demon Fish." Resemblances to stories of mermaids or fish humanoids elsewhere in the Pacific or off the coast of Massachusetts are plain.

Demon Fish, from Donnan and McLelland 1999:

The Demon Fish is one of many anthropomorphized marine creatures, carrying a tumi metal knife for ritual combat, throat slitting, blood drinking and decapitation for trophy heads. This mythologized activity in Moche artwork is reflected in a number of archaeological discoveries. Probably the most infamous example is the Huaca de la Luna (a huaca is a general Andean term for prehispanic ritual sites) at the Moche type site, where multiple sacrifice or execution events left behind individuals in positions suggesting they were bound, and showing not just cut throats, but horrific wounds across the body. Bioanthropologist John Verano has suggested that the placement of cut marks on bones, when compared with other Moche artwork, suggests that some bodies were defleshed but not dismembered, and were hung in a fashion not unlike windchimes. Comparison can be made with Inspector Legrasse's early 20th century report on the Cthulhu Cult in Louisiana, and their hanging of bodies for some undescribed creature that the adherents told police would attend their ceremonies. Perhaps there is some parallel in the Decapitator, the name given to a supernatural figure that appears in Moche artwork associated with these rituals. This entity often had arachnid elements
What are we to make of this headdress? It is gold or a gold alloy, depicting a bizarre sea creature. Compare with Robert Olmstead's description of a tiara in the possession of the Newburyport Historical Society when he visited Massachusetts in 1927, as described in the narrative "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," by Howard P. Lovecraft

"It was tall in front, and with a very large and curiously irregular periphery, as if designed for a head of almost freakishly elliptical outline. The material seemed to be predominantly gold, though a weird lighter lustrousness hinted at some strange alloy with an equally beautiful and scarcely identifiable metal. Its condition was almost perfect, and one could have spent hours in studying the striking and puzzlingly untraditional designs - some simply geometrical, and some plainly marine - chased or moulded in high relief on its surface with a craftsmanship of incredible skill and grace."

That object was a prime example of Marsh Gold, a scattered series of eccentric jewelry pieces turning up in New England between the mid-19th century and the 1930s. The artist or workshop is unknown, but local folklore associates the pieces with the Marsh gold refinery in Innsmouth, Massachusetts, shuttered in 1927 after a federal investigation into alcohol bootlegging. Stories have swirled around the gold for decades suggesting it came from a pirate hoard found by Captain Obed Marsh during his trade expeditions in the 19th century Pacific. Prehispanic artifacts have been recovered from sunken Spanish ships, and such shipments were the prime target of pirates. If the Marsh Gold objects could be demonstrated as having ties to Andean art traditions, perhaps Marsh did indeed find some pirate loot left over from the days of the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas. In light of the octopod-human-feline gold headdress, its similarities to the Marsh Gold, and prominent elements of supernatural anthropomorphic "Demon Fish" in Moche art, perhaps the geographical context should be examined. 

The above map displays several items of significant interest. The rough location where the headdress was believed to have been looted is noted on the South American mainland. To the southwest, we can see the rough location of the biologically emptiest spot in the ocean, waters exceedingly clear because they are more devoid of life than other areas of the open oceans, as discussed in a previous exhibit. South of this area we find the triangulated position of "The Bloop," an acoustic phenomenon to be discussed in a future exhibit, and the rough location of the mystery island, called R'lyeh by some, described in the Johansen Diary. These locations roughly outline the area suggested by theosophist James Churchward for the southeastern tip of sunken Mu, but as Lovecraft noted,

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survival in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism.

*note: while the information about the Moche is accurate, discussion of the Marsh Gold, Innsmouth, Inspector Legrasse and his investigations of the Cthulhu Cult are for edutainment purposes only

Cannibalism in earliest Britain - The Real "Rats in the Walls?"

Cheddar Gorge at the turn of the 20th century
Image LC-DIG-ppmsc-08150 from the United States Library of Congress (Wikicommons)

Exhibit EXH001: The Gough's and Kent's Cave Bones


Recent study of disparate bits of hitherto unrelated knowledge have suggested some deep roots for the repellent behavior of the Delapores of Exham Priory, as chronicled in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls."

Anthropological testing of bones from Gough's Cave, in Cheddar Gorge, United Kingdom, have revealed some startling information about some of the earliest settlers of Britain after the glaciers started to recede. As reported in The Guardian, a battery of new tests and procedures suggest that immediately after a rapid warming in temperatures 14,700 years ago, Gough's Cave was inhabited by humans. The precision of dating the settlement derives from a new method for filtering carbon samples for radiometric dating, one primarily suited for bones as it isolates collagen.

Some of these humans were butchered intensively, stone tools used in a manner identical to the techniques used to butcher animals, and dumped in a pit. While the numbers are small and do not suggest a large-scale practice, and there is no evidence of violent death, the intensive processing methods are striking.

"They were stripping off all of the muscle mass. Brains seemed to have been removed. Tongues seemed to have been removed. And it is also possible that eyes were being removed. It was very systematic work"

It should be noted that this processing is not a guarantee of cannibalism, as the evidence only speaks to the intensive removal of flesh and marrow in a manner equivalent to animals assumed to be used for food.

Map of sites mentioned in the text. In addition, three other locations are noted. S. T. Joshi (1997) suggests that Alchester may have inspired Anchester, the general area of Exham Priory, while Hexham Priory in the north may have inspired the name of the place itself. Piltdown is referenced in the story in relation to the hominid remains found under the Priory.

It is notable that Cheddar Gorge is not very far from some other points of interest in regards to "The Rats in the Walls." Roman history is part of the de la Poer heritage, and while he made an error in the number of the legion stationed there, Lovecraft was clearly inspired by the Roman camp at Isca Silurum in Wales, a site that fascinated him. In 1923, the year "Rats" was written, Lovecraft had read about the place and fantasized of it, as demonstrated in a letter in May of that year to Frank Belknap Long (HPL letter to Frank Belknap Long, May 13, 1923, Published in Lovecraft 1965: 228) (he would write of it in a similar manner in other letters through the years). The inspiration by Isca Silurum with the invocation of the Cymric (Welsh) language suggests that the general area near the Wales/England boundary isn't a bad place to place Exham Priory.

Just to the south of Cheddar Gorge, another interesting piece of the Exham Priory puzzle can be found at Glastonbury. Though I am not aware of any evidence that Lovecraft was familiar with it, in 1919 Frederick Bligh Bond published The Gate of Remembrance (intriguingly, the New York Times did not get around reviewing it until January 1923, the same year Lovecraft wrote "Rats")(New York Times, January 14, 1923). In it, Bond discusses his employment of a psychic researcher in his excavations of Glastonbury Abbey a decade prior, similar to the presence of Thornton, a psychic investigator, in Delapore's party of explorers under Exham Priory. This revelation led swiftly to Bond's dismissal from Glastonbury, though I suppose this is not as harsh a fate as the committal to a mental institute suffered by Thornton.

Returning to Gough's Cave, the descendants of these early settlers would have not survived directly to the present, in Britain at least. Climate grew colder again with the onset of the Younger Dryas, sending the North Atlantic back into a glaciation for about a thousand years, before warmer and more familiar temperatures became the norm after 11,500 years ago. Britain was settled again, and once again the spectre of cannibalism would raise its head. In 1866, a human arm bone was excavated at Kent's Cave, Devon, amongst thousands of animal bones. Re-analysis of this bone in 2009 (as reported by the BBC) showed cut marks not unlike those from Gough's Cave. That said, cannibalism is a flashy topic, and taking a look at some of the promotional material from the Cheddar Gorge museum might give us pause before jumping to conclusions.

Similar sensationalism has been invoked in historical discussion of another tale of British cannibalism, this one much more recent, the infamous case of Sawney Bean. Like the de la Poers in "The Rats in the Walls," the Bean clan supposedly lived in a cave (since the nineteenth century associated with Bennane Cave) and ate hundreds or thousands of victims, leaving behind a vast subterranean bone bed. In both cases, this reign of terror came to an end during the reign of King James I, a monarch so obsessed with witchcraft that he became personally involved in witch hunts and wrote Daemonologie, a manual for hunters. The reality of the Bean legend is not entirely clear, and it has been suggested it may have been nothing more than a print media hoax of the eighteenth century (read original text here) based on earlier tales.

Such tales are alive and well today, though more often associated with paranormal folklore and tourism. Nicholas Redfern in his "gonzo" Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monsters, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs, and Ape-Men includes relict (or time traveling) cave men and savages amongst the various terrors encountered or alleged during his journey up and down Britain in search of the strange. More than one reviewer has suggested (with a mix of praise and disdain) Redfern and his traveling companions resemble a punk version of Lovecraft's seekers of "strange horrors," and indeed the book plays with a mythology of (somewhat New Age-tinged) extradimensional old ones who can be found in forgotten places by those who disturb what should be left alone. Likewise, the tale of Sawney Bean appears to be a staple of the Edinburgh paranormal tourism industry (a development not approved by all).

Works cited above

Bond, Frederick Bligh (script by John Alleyne)
1921 The Gate of Remembrance: The Story of the Psychological Experiment which Resulted in the Discovery of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury. Fourth Edition. E. P. Dutton and Company, New York. Source Google Books.

King James the First (edited by G. B. Harrison)
1922 - 1926 Daemonologie [1597] and Newes from Scotland [1591] From the series Bodley Head Quartos published by John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd. Source Sacred Texts

Joshi, S. T. (ed.)
1997 The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, annotated by S. T. Joshi. Dell, New York.

Lovecraft, Howard Phillips
1965 Selected Letters: 1911 – 1924. Volume I. Edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin.

Redfern, Nick
2004 Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monsters, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs, and Ape-Men. Paraview Pocket Books. New York.

The Innsmouth Genes

Exhibit INS001 - Actinodin 1 & 2 (Image source: Bjorn Christen Torrensen, via wikicommons)

University of Ottawa researchers Jing Zhang and Marie-Andrée Akimenko have discovered that if the proteins actinoden 1 & 2 are suppressed in fish, fin development gives way to something like leg development. These two proteins are found in fish, but not in reptiles, mammals, or other tetrapods. (discussion, original article). The date of this original transition is immensely far into the past, and new research continues to push it back into the temporal gulf.

That such a small alteration is all that governs such a huge change should not be surprising to those familiar with the history of Innsmouth and similar communities.

"everything alive come aout o' the water onct an' only needs a little change to go back agin."

- Zadok Allen, Innsmouth Massachusetts, July 15, 1927

One wonders what the researchers would find if they were able to examine biological samples collected by the federal investigation of Innsmouth.

UPDATE: Meet Tiktallik, the 375 million year old "fishapod" discovered six years ago. It has all the basic structures that will form the human body. Perhaps we should instead call it Dagon?