[meteorite-list] Kaalijärv - Part 2 of 2

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:01:30 2004
Message-ID: <3CFD06E3.3404880A_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

"E.P. Grondine" wrote:

> If anyone has MAPS at hand, I would be most
> interested in the citations of Tacitus and Pytheas.


Hi again!

RASMUSSEN K.L. et al. (2000) The age of the Kaalijärv
meteorite craters (MAPS 35-5, 2000, pp. 1067-1071):

Apart from radiocarbon dating a Holocene meteorite crater precisely,
this crater and its age are interesting from a historical point of view.
The Roman historian Tacitus is widely known for his description of the
Germanic tribes, that is, those Europeans living north and east of the
Roman frontier, called the Limes. In his work Germanica, Tacitus wrote
in A.D. 98 that:

On the right (Eastern) side of the Swedish Ocean live the Estonians,
their habits and clothings are similar to the Suedes, but their language
is nearer to English. They worship the mother of gods. ("matrem deum
venerantur") (Tacitus 98).

In Greek and Roman mythology, the mother of gods is usually identified
with the Phrygian goddess Cybele (see Simon, 1997). The Cybele cult at
Pessinus in Asia Minor was renowned for the transfer of a meteorite to
Rome in 204 (or 205) B.C. (Simon, 1997; Kron, 1992). So there can be
little doubt that the mother of gods, Cybele, to Tacitus was associated
with meteorites.
It is conceivable that the witnessing of a large crater-forming
meteorite impact event releasing an amount of energy comparable to that
of the Hiroshima bomb could induce this kind of worship. This
possibility is substantiated by archaeological excavations at the main
crater that have revealed a wall-like or altar-like construction right
at the crater rim. Unfortunately, no material suited for radiocarbon
dating has been retrieved from the archaeological excavations. However,
judging from the pottery found near the site, habitation seems to have
started in either Early Iron age or Late Bronze age (from about 700 to
600 B.C.; Lougas, 1980). Also, from ancient times until A.D. 1800, the
name of Kaalijarv was Pljhha Jarw (Treumann, 1963), which means "the
sacred lake". In the vicinity of the Kaalijärv craters, there are
several settlements, which implies that this part of the world was
inhabited before and after the time of the impact. There is, of course,
no way we can prove that the worshiping at Kaalijiirv had any connection
with the fall of the meteorite, but it is not an unlikely hypothesis.



Best wishes,

Bernd
Received on Tue 04 Jun 2002 02:28:51 PM PDT