Identification of the key players responsible for the metabolic phenotype

The ancient city of Leptis Magna, while not only a World Heritage site and possibly the world’s best preserved Roman-era city, is also a sacred site to the goddesses Cybele and Artemis with their temples still standing intact today.

These two aspects of the Divine Feminine found throughout Europe, Turkey, and the Mediterranean share mutual characteristics. At one time both were ven-erated in the form of a black stone, just like the goddesses of the Kaaba stone at Mecca. They were also both high profile goddesses in Asia Minor, or Phrygia, each holding sway over animals and the wild things of the earth with Cybele earning the title, “Mother of all gods and men.” Scholar Savina Teubal suggests Cybele may represent the transition toward domestication of animals as she was usually depicted with leopards. Teubal states the “taming of wild animals, such as leopards (for protection or sympathetic magic for healing) or sheep, goats, and cattle (as livestock), would more likely have initially been in the hands of the women who bore and reared their own young.”

Cybele or Kybele, the Phrygian Mother, was also called Mother of the Mountain, Magna Mater, meaning Great Mother or Mater Kubile by the Romans.

Cybele has been associated with Rhea and Demeter, and equated to Aphrodite.

According to scholar James Rietveld, Cybele was a Near Eastern Goddess from Pessinus in Phrygia, “the heartland of ecstatic religions of all kinds” and her wor-ship, described as “hierarchical, exclusive, and exotic, with very strange rituals and a troop of adherents who performed acts of self-flagellation” spread into Greece, Rome, and neighboring countries. While in Anatolia, (the region roughly occupied by Turkey today), devotees saw her as a grain Goddess and carried her image in a cart which they pulled across a field in hopes for a bountiful harvest.

They also washed her image in a river to symbolize the irrigation of the fields.

Scholar Walter Burkert reports her figure was often carved in rock facades or

niches made for her image which was often depicted standing between two lions.

Some images show her crowned with a high headdress, or polos, between lyre and flute players. Her more benign rituals were often accompanied by the wild and chaotic music of flutes, drums, and cymbals hypnotically leading her practitio-ners into a kind of trance possession of ecstatic bliss.

When Hannibal of Carthage was threatening Rome, the Cumaean Sybil proph-esied the only avenue to victory for the Romans was veneration of the powerful Goddess in the guise of her meteorite stone. This would require her stone to travel from Anatolia to Rome, though the Phrygian king was not too willing to let Cybele’s image leave his kingdom until Cybele herself appeared to him in a dream and expressed her desire to go. King Attalusat could not deny the Goddess this request, so her image traveled to Rome and the Romans eventually defeated Hannibal.

Cybele’s cult was celebrated by the Phrygians, Greeks, and Romans and known throughout the regions for the galloi, or self-castrated male clergy, honor-ing Cybele by mimickhonor-ing her lover Attis thought to have torn off his penis in anguish for having betrayed Cybele. Attis is said to have bled to death from this act, though it is understood his death is a metaphor for the growing seasons and his sacrifice gives life to the land. Despite this macabre castration element that sometimes did take place according to ancient reporters like Ovid, scholar Burkert states this mutilation was “far from always part and parcel” of the cult.

Romans were more tolerant of the rites of Cybele due to the aforementioned prophecy found within the Sibylline Books that stated no army could invade Rome as long as Cybele resided in the city, yet the galloi were restricted to the temple precinct on Palatine Hill in Rome. Scholar

Renee Salzman cites the galloi of Rome were allowed outside the precinct only during special April celebra-tions, and their feminine appearance and dress was a curiosity to the conservative Romans. Greeks, on the other hand, were reported to have thrown clergy of Cybele into a ravine where criminals were hurled, according to scholar Robert Turcan. Rietveld, quot-ing Arthur Darby Nock, states that “we must not be surprised that the eunuch priest, in spite of his special holiness, often failed to receive public respect” since they enacted “an un-Greek custom.”

Author Henri Schindler describes the Roman ritu-als embracing Cybele and Attis in 204 ^BCE as celebra-tions of debauchery that culminated in some of the priests of Attis emasculating themselves with their severed organs reverentially placed upon the altar of the deities. The castrated priests were given the reward of a phallus image to wear around their neck as a token of their sacrifice, which Schindler says was used to entertain other male members of their group.

Soon cross-dressing and wearing masks became the rage and men dressed as women offered themselves to other men in their congregation. In a private con-versation with Mr. Schindler, he made associations between these ancient rituals with traditions still

▲

Statue of the

many-breasted Black Artemis.

alive in the Roman Catholic Church. Interestingly, he noted that the hand ges-ture used by priests today in blessings with the index and second finger pointing up, while the other two digits and thumb are down, is called the “hand of Attis.”

Today priests still wear elaborate dress-like vestments and practice celibacy, both according to Schindler, are remnants of these ancient rituals. Some scholars referred to this cross-dressing and the relinquishing of the masculinity through ritual castration as a means to connect more closely with the feminine aspects of nature or Goddess. And not to be overlooked, circumcision, a lesser form of geni-tal mutilation widely practiced in today’s society, is well documented as having its origins as a requisite ritual in which humans made a covenant with God.

Here in Leptis Magna it was probable that ancient ceremonies included the procession of the images of Cybele carried on carts and wagons, pulled by gar-landed oxen. The images were taken down to the nearest stream and ritually bathed before being returned to the temple. The ox was usually sacrificed and its blood used to anoint the celebrants in order to wash away their sins. According to Schindler, in France, Druid priests celebrated their spring rite called fete du soleil in which they led a young bull through the street, festooned with flowers, before sacrificing it to the Druid deities. Reflections of these ancient rituals are alive today as the carnival floats in the Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans often depicting imagery of ancient gods and goddesses, along with the fourth float of the Rex parade always being the Boef Gras, or fatted ox. Until 1960 when the Boef Gras became made of paper mache, an actual ox was used in the parade, which was slaughtered afterwards.

Scholar Patricia Monaghan tells of a renewal baptism performed by Cybele worshippers once in their lifetime, or every few decades, where a devotee would stand in a pit and allow himself to be thoroughly covered in the blood of a slaugh-tered ox to enact his rebirth and emergence from the womb revitalized in this love for Magna Mater. Worship of Cybele was far and wide. Interesting associa-tions include the heretic second century Christian sect called Montanists who venerated Cybele and associated Attis with Jesus, as well as the Roman Emperor Augustus who believed his wife Livia was Cybele’s earthly incarnation.

The city of Leptis Magna began as a Phoenician port of call around 900 ^BCE and later flourished under the Roman rule of Septimus Severnus in 193-211 CE. Many of the major buildings are from the reign of Severnus and include a multitude of monuments which would take all day to visit. There is a Roman forum, temples, nymphaeum, basilica, the standing market called the Macellium, and an amphi-theater which was adjacent to the temple of Artemis. The shrine of Magma Mater (Great Mother) was built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE by a certain Iddibal, son of Balsillec, a native of the city. It is said Hannibal arranged to buy elephants at Leptis Magna for his crusades against the Romans, who later procured elephants here for their warped amusement in the Roman Coliseum.

Getting to Leptis Magna

Leptis Magna is located 123 miles (198 km) east of Tripoli. Travel to Libya is no longer restricted. Major airlines fly into Tripoli, though travel is restricted to organized tours and tour operators who are responsible for requiring the neces-sary visas. Ground travel by way of Tunis is another option. There is a check point at the Tunisia-Libya border. At Matmatma, in Tunisia, Libyans meet tourists and

escort them into the country. Once past the checkpoint, with papers in order, it’s smooth sailing. With the ever-changing political climate in our modern world, it is always important to double check travel restrictions, and recommendations of the U.S. State Department before traveling to places that might possibly have become unsafe for tourists. Organized tours will probably include the ancient cities of Sabratah and Cyrene, both of which have standing temples dedicated to goddesses.

Goddess Focus