DID ANTINOUS AND HADRIAN VISIT THIS SANCTUARY OF PAN/FAUNUS?

EXPERTS in Israel have discovered what may turn out to be a sanctuary to the god Pan/Faunus which may have been seen by Antinous and Hadrian during their trip through the Eastern Provinces.

Archaeologists unearthed a gateway in the city of Hippos where they discovered a large and rare mask of Greek God Pan. 

The mask is an extraordinary find and suggests the ancient sanctuary was dedicated to the Greek God Pan.

According to experts, bronze masks of this size are extremely rare and usually do not depict Pan or any of the other Greek or Roman mythological images.

University of Haifa archaeologist Michael Eisenberg led a team that unearthed a 1.8-meter-tall (6-foot-tall) Roman gate near a stone building where the mask was found, leading him to speculate that the gate might have led to a sanctuary dedicated to Pan. 

"The mask, and now the gate in which it was embedded, are continuing to fire our imaginations," Eisenberg says. 

"The worship of Pan sometimes included ceremonies involving drinking, sacrifices and ecstatic rituals, including nudity and sex. This worship usually took place outside the city walls, in caves and other natural settings." 

The possible sanctuary was located near the city gates and was constructed sometime during the reign of Hadrian, who was emperor from 117 AD to 138 AD. 

Hadrian and Antinous traveled through the area in 129-130 AD.

Hippos-Sussita is located about 2 km east of the Sea of Galilee in the Sussita National Park of the National Parks Authority.

In recent years, the mysteries of Hippos-Sussita have been revealing their secrets in an extraordinary way.

In 2011, scientists found an ancient sculpture of Hercules. Two years later a basalt tombstone with a sculpture of the deceased’s bust was uncovered. 

Now there is a new surprise: the only finding of a bronze mask of unnatural size, in the form of the god Pan/Faunus.

In Greek mythology, Pan was the god of the wild, hunting and companion of the nymphs. He was depicted as being half human, while having the legs and horns of a goat, just like a faun. 

His Roman counterpart was Faunus and he was in many ways similar to Herne the Hunter, the horned god and lord of the forest in British mythology.

Until now it was thought there were no temples attributed to Pan, but he was rather worshipped in natural settings such as caves.

A more thorough cleaning in the lab, revealed strands of a goat beard, long pointed ears, and other characteristics that led Dr. Eisenberg to identify the mask as depicting a Pan/Faunus/Satyr.

"Now that the whole gate has been exposed, we not only have better information for dating the mask, but also a clue to its function," Eisenberg said in a statement. "Are we looking at a gate that led to the sanctuary of the god Pan or one of the rustic gods?"

Pan is the son of Antinous .. not "our" Antinous, but "Antinous the Suitor" of Homer's Odyssey and Iliad.

At the online Temple of Antinous, our own ANTONIUS SUBIA  explains the esoteric reason for the connection between Antinous and Pan.  He notes that there are two deities named Pan ... the Great Pan who is "all things" ... and the lesser Pan who is the cloven-footed goat-horned god. 

The "Little Pan" is the son of Antinous ... not OUR Antinous, but rather the Antinous of Greek mythology who was slain by Odysseus for having hit on his wife Penelope while Odysseus was off on his Odyssey.

Two different Pans. Two different Antinouses.

It gets a little confusing.

But Antonius suggests there is a clue to the names ... he says it is because they all came from the same place. Antonius points out that it was in August of the year 128 that Hadrian and Antinous traveled through the Peloponnesus and visited the home of Antinous's ancestors in Arcadia, at the city of Mantineia. 

Here is how Antonius explains the Pan-Pan and Antinous-Antinous connection at the online TEMPLE OF ANTINOUS:

"This is an important first event for Antinous as it represents his return to the place of the origin of his blood, which is the source of his mysterious name. Mantineia was to become the fourth most sacred city of the religion of Antinous, honoring Our God with a Temple and Sacred Games. The Queen who founded the city was named Antinoea, she was led to the site of the city by a serpent or dragon. 

"While in the city, Antinous and Hadrian pay homage at the grave of Epaminondas, the great Theban general who defeated the Spartans in the battle of Mantineia, but died after shortly after the victory from his wounds. The battle was won because of the courage of the Sacred Band, also known as the Army of Lovers, a corps of 300 homosexual lovers. Mantineia is the home of the prophetess Diotima, who was the teacher of Socrates, from whom he learned his philosophy of Love, particularly the mysteries of Venus Urania, which is a metaphor for gay love. 

"And Mantineia is the birthplace of the horned god Pan, son of Penelope and 'Antinous the Suitor.' The patron deity of Mantineia, and of all Arcadia is the Great God Pan. There are two gods named Pan, the Great Pan, who is all things, and the Little Pan, who is the son of 'Antinous the Suitor.' 

"We dedicate ourselves to the dual nature of Pan, the most ancient faith of Antinous, the goat-horned god, who follows in the train of Dionysus, and is the King of Satyrs. We seek to understand that within our Antinous is the nature of the Great Cosmic Pan, and also the Little Cloven-hoofed Pan of Mantineia."

ANCIENT PRIESTS BLESSED TREASURES BEFORE THROWING THEM AWAY

YOU think you have trouble clearing out accumulated old things to make room for new acquisitions?

The ancient priests of Antinous ... along with priests of many other deities ... couldn't just throw out statues, offerings and other artefacts that worshipers had donated to their temples. The objects had to be ritually blessed, deconsecrated and given burials befitting their sacred nature.

Very often, these caches of "discarded" artefacts survive to the present day ... as has happened at the Temple of Ptah at Karnak in Egypt.

Ironically, treasures which remained in the temple sanctuaries often ended up being looted by invaders, which the "discarded" artefacts remained intact for thousands of years in the "rubbish heap" under the temple.

For example, the photo at left shows the only known portrait of Khufu (or Cheops), the 4th Dynasty pharaoh who (allegedly) built the Great Pyramid at Giza, is a very tiny ivory figurine only 7 centimeters (3 inches) tall.

It was discovered covered in dried feces IN AN ANCIENT CESSPIT next to the temple of Seti at Abydos in Egypt.

We can only assume that, thousands of years ago, some harried novice priest "flushed it away" during routine spring cleaning to clear out old statuary to make room for new items.

After years of being washed, perfumed and fed in ancient Egypt, the statue of the revered Egyptian deity shown at the top of this page was given a proper burial with other "dead" statues more than 2,000 years ago.

Ancient Egyptians buried the statue of the deity Ptah ... the god of craftsmen and sculptors ... with other revered statues, including those of a sphinx, baboon, cat, Osiris and Mut, in a pit next to Ptah's temple.

The statue of Ptah had likely sat in the temple for years, but it and the other sacred objects were respectfully buried after they accumulated damage and were declared useless by the ancient Egyptians, the researchers said.

"We can consider that when a new statue was erected in the temple, this one [of Ptah] was set aside in a pit," said study co-researcher Christophe Thiers, director of the French-Egyptian Center for the Study of the Temples of Karnak. 

"The other artifacts were also previously damaged during their 'lifetime' in the temple, and then they were buried with the Ptah statue."

Archaeologists discovered the pit in December 2014 at Karnak, an Egyptian temple precinct, and spent about a month excavating its rich assemblage. 

The pit held 38 objects, including:

• Fourteen statuettes and figurines of Osiris.
• Eleven fragments of inlay from statues. The inlay included that of an iris, a cornea, a false beard, a cap, a strand of hair and an inlay plaque.
• Three baboon statuettes (representing the god Thoth).
• Two statuettes of the goddess Mut (one with hieroglyphic inscriptions).
• Two unidentified statuette bases.
• One head and one fragmentary statuette of a cat (Bastet).
• One small fragmentary faience stele (a stone slab) recording the name of the god Ptah.
• One head of a statuette of a man in gilded limestone.
• One lower part of a statue of the seated god Ptah, sawn and repaired.
• One sphinx.
• One unidentified metal piece.

SAINT WILLI NINJA

ON September 2nd, the Religion of Antinous honors St. Willi Ninja, who made the whole world take notice of a gay ghetto dance style called Vogueing.

Vogueing ... with its angular body movements, exaggerated model poses and intricate mime-like choreography ... and the colorful characters who populated Willi Ninja's world were introduced to the public at large by Paris Is Burning, the award-winning 1990 documentary about New York's drag vogue-ball scene. Later in his career, Willi Ninja also performed in works by postmodern choreographers including Doug Elkins, David Neuman and Karole Armitage.

Vogueing had been around for years, but Willi Ninja brought it to a level of visibility and perfection in performance that no one had ever reached before, according to Sally Sommer, a professor of dance at Florida State University.

"He was tall man, about 6-3," she said, "and God gave him the biggest, broadest dance shoulders in the world, so when he would do those things with his arms it was just so impressive."

Willi Ninja is featured in Sommer's 2006 documentary Check Your Body at the Door.

William R. Leake was born in Queens New York on April 12, 1961. He began dancing at 7. By the early 1980s he was vogueing in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and at drag balls throughout Harlem. He prided himself on being a clean, sharp dancer, with swiftly moving arms and hands, and he was deeply inspired by the martial arts ... hence his adopted name, Ninja.

As the "mother" of the House of Ninja ... part dance troupe, part surrogate family ... he became a New York celebrity, known as much for his quick wit and sharp tongue as for his darting limbs.

His ensembles ... a coat made of braided synthetic hair, a suit jacket with a skirt and Doc Marten boots ... also turned heads wherever he went: "SEVERE" is the word.

An androgynous, self-described "butch queen," St. Willi Ninja taught vogueing throughout Europe and Japan, modeled in runway shows for the fashion designers Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler and danced in music videos such as Madonna's 1990 hit "Vogue".

He also taught models how to strut, giving stars like Naomi Campbell pointers early in their careers. Before his death in 2006, he worked with the socialite Paris Hilton, whose red carpet sashay has since become her signature.

In 2004, he opened a modeling agency, EON (Elements of Ninja), but he never gave up dancing, appearing on televisions series like "America's Next Top Model" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live", and dropping in at local clubs.

"If he saw someone doing something on the dance floor that he loved, he'd walk up to them and say, 'Oooh, child, you are fierce,'" his friend Archie Burnett recalled. "That was one of his highest compliments."

In 2003 he was diagnosed with HIV, but he continued working to support his elderly mother, despite the fact that he could not afford medical health care for himself.

His mother was a wheelchair-bound woman suffering from Parkinson's. One of Ninja's best friends, fellow dancer Archie Burnett, said St. Willi was always grateful that his mother had taken him to the ballet and the Apollo when he was a boy, which inspired him to become a dancer. So he was determined to care for her at the expense of his own seriously declining health.

St. Willi Ninja died September 2, 2006, three years after an HIV diagnosis. In the end, the famous dancer had lost his sight and become paralyzed. But that didn't stop him from being fabulous.

"He was weak, but let me tell you, he was running the show," his friend Archie said, recalling how his acolytes did his hair in the hospital room.

He said, "Child, if I gonna die, then I want to look as fabulous as possible."

The Religion of Antinous honors Willi Ninja as a Saint of Antinous and Blessed Prophet of Homoeros for his courage in overcoming racial discrimination and homophobia. While others of his generation turned to drugs or alcohol or dysfunctional violence to assuage their shattered self-esteem ... St. Willi Ninja turned to the dance floor, where he converted the simple act of walking into a high-art form of sheer FABULOUSNESS.

THIS COLORFUL GOBLET REVEALS ROMANS WERE NANOTECH EXPERTS

THIS colorful 1,600-year-old glass goblet shows the Romans were experts at nanotechnology, according to scientists.

The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s.

The mystery wasn't solved until researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers, according to a report in SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE.

They impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.

The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing ... "an amazing feat," says one of the researchers, archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London (UCL).

The ancient nanotech works something like this: When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the color depending on the observer's position.

 Gang Logan Liu, an engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has long focused on using nanotechnology to diagnose disease, and his colleagues realized that this effect offered untapped potential.

"The Romans knew how to make and use nanoparticles for beautiful art," Liu says. "We wanted to see if this could have scientific applications."

When various fluids filled the cup, Liu suspected, they would change how the vibrating electrons in the glass interacted, and thus the color.

The original 4th Century AD Lycurgus Cup, probably taken out only for special occasions, depicts King Lycurgus ensnared in a tangle of grapevines, presumably for evil acts committed against Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.

If inventors manage to develop a new detection tool from this ancient technology, it'll be Lycurgus' turn to do the ensnaring.

ANTINOUS ENABLES YOU TO DISCOVER THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE HEART

IN ancient times, Antinous was known as a miracle worker. His worshipers prayed to him for miracles, oracles, visions and answers to problems in their daily lives.

The Egyptian hieroglyphs on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS state clearly that Antinous answers the prayers of all who call upon him through dreams and visions, for example.

The hieroglyphs also make cryptic references to his ability to work magic through his heart. This is a reference to the Ancient Egyptian concept of the "Intelligence of the Heart."

The Egyptians knew that the brain is the center of motor activity and sensory perception. But they believed the heart is the center of a form of intelligence which has baffled most mainstream Egyptologists ... who assume the Egyptians believed the heart was where cognitive thinking occurs.

But the Egyptians had a very different view of the universe from our rational, scientific view of the universe. We dissect facts and analyze them. But while the Egyptians were very good at analyzing facts, they also retained the Zen-like ability to see the whole ... which leads to contemplation ... not analysis.

The Egyptians understood that if you want to find an intelligent solution to a problem, your brain can do the work. You have all the necessary intelligence inside the bone in your skull.

However, most people use their brains the same way they use their muscles. You can strain your head just as if it were a muscle, and work very hard trying to arrive at an answer, but it doesn't really work that way.

When you really want to find an answer to something, what you need to do is contemplate the problem. Visualize your question as well as you can, and then simply wait.

If you don't, and if you instead try to find the solution through brute mental strength, you may be disappointed, because any solution that comes in that way is likely to be wrong.

But when you have waited for a while, the solution will come of itself. That is what the Egyptians called the Intelligence of the Heart ... using your heart instead of your head.

It will work for you in the same way your stomach will digest your food for you without your having to supervise it consciously. Our attempts to supervise everything consciously have all led to consequences that aren't too good for our stomach, and the reason for that is quite simple.

Conscious attention, which employs words, cannot think of very much. We are forced, therefore, to ignore almost everything while we are thinking. We think along a single track, but the world doesn't proceed along a single track.

The world is everything happening altogether everywhere, and you just can't take all that into consideration because there isn't time.

However, the Intelligence of the Heart can take it all into consideration because it is capable of handling innumerable variables at once, even though your conscious attention cannot...

The hieroglyphs on the Obelisk of Antinous promise that Antinous the Gay God enables us to discover the Intelligence of the Heart ... the Intelligence of HIM ... he opens his heart to you .... 

ANTINOUS WORSHIPERS WORLDWIDE TAKE PART IN LION HUNT CEREMONIES

ANTINOUS worshipers worldwide participated live online tonight in ceremonies commemorating the SACRED LION HUNT, the final recorded event in the brief life of Antinous ... when he and Hadrian slew a man-eating lion in Egypt in August of the year 130 AD.

Worshipers on both coasts of North America as well as worshipers in South America, Europe and Africa took part in the ceremonies originating at the Hollywood Temple of Antinous.

The skin art image shows Antinous subduing the man-eating Marousian lion in the Egyptian desert in the year 130 AD.

The SACRED LION HUNT was immortalized in poetry and in stone, showing Antinous brashly attacking the lion with his adamantine-tipped spear and wounding it ... so that Hadrian had to gallop to his rescue and dispatch the beast.

Hadrian added medallions to the Arch of Constantine showing him and Antinous with feet on the lion's neck and also making sacrifice to the great lion-killer Hercules.

Soon legend would have it that scarlet-red lotus blossoms had sprung forth from the pool of the lion's blood ... which we honor as the LOTUS MOON, the Pisces Third Quarter Moon in June.

Within a few short weeks after the Sacred Lion Hunt, Antinous himself would be dead. The Sacred Lion Hunt is the last recorded event in His short life.

Flamen ANTONIUS SUBIA celebrated the liturgical ritual in Hollywood.

Antonius noted that the brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. Tonight's rituals and meditations were aimed at enabling participants to traverse the road between who they think they are and who they can be. The key is to set forth on the journey ... with adamantine-tipped spear in hand ... galloping forward.

THE ANCIENT PRIESTS OF ANTINOUS KNEW HOW THE LEOPARD GOT ITS SPOTS

ANCIENT PRIESTS of Antinous at the Great Temple at ANTINOOPOLIS in Egypt were familiar with leopard-skin priestly robes. 

Whether they actually wore leopard skins in the Egyptian priestly manner is unknown, but it is certainly possible.

The Ancient Egyptian magical SEM priests always wore a leopard skin ... as do many African shamans even today.

Indeed, it is highly likely that the Ancient Egyptians got the idea from their southern neighbors — where else could they have got the idea, after all? 

The Egyptians were accustomed to lions and we know that lions were a menace even in the 2nd Century AD when Hadrian and Antinous conducted the SACRED LION HUNT. But it is safe to say that leopards were very rare and highly prized species even in Ancient times — which made them even more magical.

The Egyptians said the leopard started out as a variety of sacred lion, the lion being associated with the sun god Ra and of pharaoh's power and rulership as an incarnation of the sun god. 

The leopard lived in the desert like the lion and was indistinguishable from the lion because the leopard originally had no spots.

This is the cue for Anubis and Seth to enter the scene!

Anubis had a very odd love/hate relationship with Seth. Some said that Anubis was the son of Seth by Seth's consort Nephthys. Others said Anubis was the son of Osiris and Seth's consort Nephthys and that Nephthys placed the baby in the care of her sister Isis to avoid Seth's wrath. 

At any rate, little Anubis was raised by the Osiris side of the divine family, not the Seth side. Anubis and Seth had a very strained relationship, to say the least, full of doubt and suspicion on both sides.

Not surprisingly, Anubis took sides with Isis (as his foster mother) and her son Horus (perhaps his biological half-brother? ) in seeking to avenge the death of Osiris (his own true father?) after Seth murdered Osiris by drowning and mutilating his body.

The struggle between Horus and Seth continues to this day, of course. Seth has the advantage of being able to transform himself into any creature, thus eluding his pursuers. Sometimes he is a hippo. Sometimes he is a crocodile. Sometimes he is a giant serpent. Often, he is a graceful antelope. He can be deceptively beautiful and entrancing.  

The Lie takes many deceptive forms,

always posing as the Truth. 

But Anubis was able, by means of his keen canine senses, to sniff out Seth in whatever form he takes. 

Once, Seth assumed the form of a leopard and blended into the desert sand so well that Horus was unable to spot him from the air as he circled high in the sky upon his falcon wings, using his sharp falcon eyes to scan the Earth.

But Anubis sniffed out Seth and decided to brand him so that everyone would be able to see him. Anubis trotted over to the banks of the Nile and dunked his paws in rich black Nile mud. Then he leapt onto the leopard and left indelible muddy paw prints all over Seth's hide.

That is how the leopard got its spots, according to the Ancient Egyptians.

The highest caste of Egyptian magician/priests wore leopard skins to symbolize the never-ending struggle between the Truth and the Lie. The Lie persists. Seth the Deceiver was not killed by Anubis. But Anubis revealed Seth for the Lie that he is.

And that is why the Priests at the Great Temple of Antinoopolis may have worn leopard skins ... to demonstrate that it is possible to see through the Lie to uncover the Truth that lies underneath.

JUAN GABRIEL IS A SAINT OF ANTINOUS GAY ICON TO MILLIONS IN MEXICO

WE honour Juan Gabriel, a superstar Mexican songwriter and singer who was an icon for millions of LGBT people in the Latin music world. He is a saint of Antinous.

Born 7 January 1950, he dropped dead 28 August 2016 at his home in California only hours after performing a standing-room-only crowd. He performed for two hours at the Los Angeles Forum on Friday, clad in one of his typical brightly colored outfits. In its review of the concert, Billboard called him "the ultimate showman." He was 66.

Juan Gabriel was Mexico's leading singer-songwriter and top-selling artist. 

His ballads about love and heartbreak and bouncy mariachi tunes became hymns throughout Latin America and Spain and with Spanish speakers in the United States.

He brought many adoring fans to tears as they sang along when he crooned his songs about love and heartbreak, including his top hits, "Hasta Que Te Conoci" ("Until I Met You") and "Amor Eterno" ("Eternal Love").

His hit "Querida" ("Dear") topped Mexico's charts for a whole year.

The adjectives "flamboyant" and "eccentric" followed him all his career, and he was imitated by drag queens in gay clubs throughout Mexico.

He skirted rumors of gayness his whole life. 

He liked to wear jackets covered in sequins or dress in shiny silk outfits in hot pink, turquoise blue or canary yellow, and he was known for tossing his head before dancing or jumping around the stage.

He was once famously asked by a television interviewer: "People look at you and say you are homosexual. What do you say?" His answer became part of his enduring myth.

"Lo que se ve no se pregunta," he answered … "Don't ask about something that is obvious."

Then Juan asked the interview what he saw when he looked at him.

The journalist said: "I see a singer before me, I see a winner" and Juan Gabriel replied: "That is the most important thing, because it is what you do that counts in life."

Juan started out as a waif ... having been sent to an orphanage after his father went insane with grief over the loss of Juan's mother and burned down their village and had to be carried off in a straitjacket.

Little Juan fled abuse at the orphanage by hiding in a rubbish bin and being transported to freedom in a garbage truck. 

Arriving in Juarez, he sang for tips and tricks in seedy clubs, where he caught the eye of a "talent scout" ... and the rest is showbiz history.

In 2015 artist Arturo Damasco painted a 40-square-meter mural of Juan Gabriel on a building in Juarez.

Juan Gabriel never married. According to The Associated Press, a former secretary of his, Joaquín Muñoz, claimed that the two men had a sexual relationship in a tell-all book, "Juan Gabriel and I." 

It confirmed what most fans already believed, but his fans were surprised when years later it became known that he had fathered four children with a friend, Laura Salas.

Juan Gabriel performed to packed auditoriums, including New York's Madison Square Garden and the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. 

A six-time Grammy nominee, Juan Gabriel was inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and received countless industry awards.

He also garnered ASCAP Songwriter of the Year in 1995, Latin Recording Academy's Person of the Year 2009, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year.

The singer, who was born 7 January 1950, wrote his first song at age 13 and went on to compose more than 1,500 songs. He died 28 August 2016 at age 66 … a homeless orphan who came to be loved by millions.

WE WEEP FOR JOHN J JOHNSTON

WE weep for our dear British Egyptologist friend John J Johnston, a cultural historian and one of the world's leading authorities on Antinous, who died suddenly and wholly unexpectedly on August 28, 2025.

John was a professional lecturer, writer, and editor. An eloquent speaker and raconteur with an engaging manner and dapper style, his research interests encompassed Egyptian mortuary belief and practice, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, the history of Egyptology, and the reception of the ancient world in modern popular culture.

A former Vice-Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society (2009-2015), he lectured extensively at major academic and cultural institutions in Britain and other countries.

In addition to contributing numerous articles to both academic and general publications, he co-edited the volumes "Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East: Literary Linguistic Approaches" (Peeters, 2011), "A Good Scribe and an Exceedingly Wise Man" (Golden House, 2014), and an anthology of classic mummy fiction, "Unearthed" (Jurassic London, 2013). 

Formerly, a member of the Editorial Board of the journal "Egyptian Archaeology" (2011-2020), he was a Trustee of By Jove Theatre Company (2020-25), and Editor-at-Large for "Horrified Magazine" (2020-25). 

He made onscreen contributions for major documentaries on the Blu-Ray releases of more than twenty, gloriously restored, Hammer Films, originally produced between 1958 and 1976, in addition to making onscreen contributions to the television documentaries "Egypt's Unexplained Files" (360 Productions Ltd, 2019), a ten-episode series, "Tutankhamun in Colour" (BBC, 2020), and "The Curse of Tutankhamun" (Viacom International, 2020).

NINE MILLION MUMMIFIED DOGS FOUND AT EGYPTIAN TEMPLE OF ANUBIS

AS Antinous and Hadrian journeyed up the Nile in August and September of 130 AD, they must have seen the mighty monuments at Memphis ... and the sprawling cliffside ANUBIEION, the mystery-shrouded Temple of the jackal-headed Egyptian deity Anubis at Saqqara south of modern Cairo.

But was Antinous aware that nine million dog mummies were entombed there?

The unique, terraced temple compound was built into the face of the cliffs overlooking the ancient Egyptian capital city of Memphis-Mennefer. Beyond the Anubieion lay the necropolis city of the dead. In front of it lay the teeming city nestled in the Nile Valley.

For decades, experts were unsure what purpose the Anubieion served. No where else in Egypt is there a temple dedicated solely to Anubis. Some temples to other deities had niche shrines to the jackal-headed deity who conveyed the souls of the dead to everlasting life.

But the discovery of myriads of mummified dogs in the Anubieion's catacombs makes it clear that the Anubieion was indeed a temple whose goal was to assist people in making the transition from earthly life to eternal life.

The dog mummies were sold to serve as "guide dogs" for souls of the departed.

As Christianity spread in Egypt, Anubis morphed into St. Christopher ... and many early Coptic images of Saint Christopher depict him with the head of a dog (image at left).

The discovery came during routine excavations at the dog catacomb in Saqqara necropolis by an excavation team led by Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo (AUC), and an international team of researchers led by Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University.

Initial inspection reveals that dogs of all breeds and ages were mummified, from newborn puppies to decrepit old dogs.

“We are recording the animal bones and the mummification techniques used to prepare the animals,” Ikram said.

Ikram also told National Geographic, which is financing the project, that "in some churches people light a candle, and their prayer is taken directly up to God in that smoke. In the same way, a mummified dog's spirit would carry a person's prayer to the afterlife".

Saqqara dog catacomb was first discovered in 1897 when well-known French Egyptologist Jacques De Morgan published his Carte of Memphite necropolis, with his map showing that there are two dog catacombs in the area.

However, mystery has overshadowed such mapping as it was not clear who was the first to discover the catacombs nor who carried out the mapping, and whether they were really for dogs.

"The proximity of the catacombs to the nearby temple of Anubis, the so called jackal or dog-headed deity associated with cemeteries and embalming, makes it likely that these catacombs are indeed for canines and their presence at Saqqara is to be explained by the concentration of other animal cuts at the site," Nicholson wrote on his website.

"These other cults include the burials of, and temples for, bulls, cows, baboons, ibises, hawks and cats all of which were thought to act as intermediaries between humans and their gods."

Despite the great quantity of animals buried in these catacombs and the immense size of the underground burial places, Egyptologists have focused on the temples and on inscriptional evidence rather than on the animals themselves.

The mysteries behind De Morgan's mapping were unsolved until 2009 when this team started concrete excavations at the cemetery in an attempt to learn more about the archaeological and history of the site.

"Results at the first season showed that De Morgan map has substantial inaccuracies and a new survey is under way," Nicholson said.

"The animal bones themselves have been sampled and preliminary results suggest that as well as actual dogs there may be other canids present. Furthermore the age profile of the animals is being examined so that patterns of mortality can be ascertained."

ANTINOUS WORKS MIRACLES FOR YOU WHILE YOU DAYDREAM AT WORK

NEXT time you have a difficult problem to solve, and concentrating on it just isn't getting you anywhere, consider this: Maybe you're thinking too hard.

"Walk over to a window and think about the people or cars going by for a few minutes, until you get bored," suggests Josh Davis, research director at the New York Neuro-Leadership Institute. 

"Let your mind wander."

How will that help? "Always being 'on' blocks the brain processes that occur when we daydream," says Davis. 

His book, TWO AWESOME HOURS Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done, draws on new discoveries in brain science.

The idea is certainly not new. This enkoimesis (ἐγκοίμησις) "dream-incubation" was used in Abaton sleep chambers of Aesculapius temples where worshipers sought healing visions from the god to cure their ailments.

The Ancient Priests of Antinous knew that enkoimesis "dream-incubation" and zoning out, even for a few minutes, allows your brain to tackle tasks it can't handle when you're busy. 

They called it the medium for Antinous to work miracles in your life.

In ancient times, Antinous was known as a miracle worker. His worshipers prayed to him for miracles, oracles, visions and answers to problems in their daily lives.

The Egyptian hieroglyphs on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS state clearly that Antinous answers the prayers of all who call upon him through dreams and visions, for example.

The hieroglyphs also make cryptic references to his ability to work magic through his heart. This is a reference to the Ancient Egyptian concept of the "Intelligence of the Heart."

The Egyptians knew that the brain is the center of motor activity and sensory perception. 

But they believed the heart is the center of a form of intelligence which has baffled most mainstream Egyptologists ... who assume the Egyptians believed the heart was where cognitive thinking occurs.

But the Egyptians had a very different view of the universe from our rational, scientific view of the universe. 

We dissect facts and analyze them. But while the Egyptians were very good at analyzing facts, they also retained the Zen-like ability to see the whole ... which leads to contemplation ... not analysis.

The Egyptians understood that if you want to find an intelligent solution to a problem, your brain can do the work. You have all the necessary intelligence inside the bone in your skull.

However, most people use their brains the same way they use their muscles. You can strain your head just as if it were a muscle, and work very hard trying to arrive at an answer, but it doesn't really work that way.

When you really want to find an answer to something, what you need to do is contemplate the problem. Visualize your question as well as you can, and then simply wait.

If you don't, and if you instead try to find the solution through brute mental strength, you may be disappointed, because any solution that comes in that way is likely to be wrong.

But when you have waited for a while, the solution will come of itself. That is what the Egyptians called the Intelligence of the Heart ... using your heart instead of your head.

It will work for you in the same way your stomach will digest your food for you without your having to supervise it consciously. Our attempts to supervise everything consciously have all led to consequences that aren't too good for our stomach, and the reason for that is quite simple.

Conscious attention, which employs words, cannot think of very much. We are forced, therefore, to ignore almost everything while we are thinking. We think along a single track, but the world doesn't proceed along a single track.

The world is everything happening altogether everywhere, and you just can't take all that into consideration because there isn't time.

However, the Intelligence of the Heart can take it all into consideration because it is capable of handling innumerable variables at once, even though your conscious attention cannot...

The hieroglyphs on the Obelisk of Antinous promise that Antinous the Gay God enables us to discover the Intelligence of the Heart ... the Intelligence of HIM ... he opens his heart to you ....

THE HISTORY OF THE ROSY LOTUS OF ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD

 

When Emperor Hadrian visited Alexandria,
the poet Pancrates presented him
with a beautiful lotus flower.

Awestruck by the magnificent rosy-red petals,
Hadrian agreed to name the flower
after his beloved Antinous.

Drawings by Julien

Beautiful CG Art by Antonius Subia

Music by Kevin MacLeod

For more info: THE TEMPLE OF ANTINOUS

THE SACRED LION HUNT POEM BY PANCRATES OF ALEXANDRIA

 

AVE ANTINOE!

May you all be blessed 

as we celebrate 

THE SACRED LION HUNT

~ANTONIUS N. SUBIA

WILLEM ARONDEUS SAINT OF ANTINOUS: 'HOMOSEXUALS ARE NOT COWARDS'

WE honor Willem Arondeus (22 August 1894 – 1 July 1943) as a saint of Antinous for his courage in standing up against hatred, intolerance and bigotry.

He was a Dutch gay non-Jewish artist and writer who led a group in bombing the Amsterdam Public Records Office in order to hinder the Nazi round-up of Jews, was executed with 12 others by firing squad.

He had started life as an illustrator, designer of posters and tapestries and a painter. In 1923 he was commissioned to paint a large mural for Rotterdam City Hall. During that same period, he illustrated poems by J. H. Leopold, Pieter Cornelis Boutens and Martinus Nijhoff. He admired the older Dutch designer Richard Roland Holst, as can be seen in his work. He did not attain much fame and lived in impoverished circumstances.

Around 1935, he gave up visual arts and became an author. The poems and stories he had written in the 1920s went unpublished, but in the year 1938 he published two novels, Het Uilenhuis ('The Owls House') and In de bloeiende Ramenas ('In the Blossoming Winter Radish'), both illustrated with designs by Arondeus himself. 

The year 1939 saw the publication of his best work, Matthijs Maris: de tragiek van den droom ('The Tragedy of the Dream'), a biography of the painter Matthijs Maris, who was a brother of the Dutch artists Jacob and Willem Maris. 

Two years later, Figuren en problemen der monumentale schilderkunst in Nederland ('Figures and Problems of Monumental Painting in the Netherlands') was published, again with designs by the author. 

At that time in 1941, however, Arondeus was already involved with the Dutch resistance movement.

In the spring of 1941, Arondeus started an underground periodical in which he tried to incite his fellow artists to resist the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Earlier than others, Arondeus realized that the demand by the Nazi occupiers that all Jews register with the local authorities was not, as the Nazis claimed, for their own safety, but rather so they could be deported to the Westerbork concentration camp and from there to the death camps in occupied Poland. 

In the spring of 1942, Arondeus founded Brandarisbrief, an illegal periodical in which he expressed the artist’s opposition to the edicts imposed by the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture); the Nazis' cultural committee. 

In 1943, Brandarisbrief merged with De Vrije Kunstenaar ("The Free Artist"), where sculptor Gerrit van der Veen was one of the editors. Together with composer Jan van Gilse; openly lesbian publisher and writer Tine van Klooster and her partner, publisher Koos Schregardus; sculptor Frits van Hall and his sister, dancer Suzy van Hall; and a number of other artists and intellectuals, the group called for mass resistance against the German occupation.

A concerted operation was underway to hide Jews among the local population, with various underground organizations preparing forged documents for Jews. 

Arondeus was a member of one such group, Raad van Verzet (Resistance Council), which also included openly lesbian cellist and conductor Frieda Belinfante and typographer Willem Sandberg, who was then curator at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. 

Within a short while, the Nazis began to expose the false documents by comparing the names with those in the local population registry. 

To hinder the Nazis, on 27 March 1943, Arondeus led a group in bombing the Amsterdam Public Records Office. Thousands of files were destroyed, and the attempt to compare forged documents with the registry was hindered.

Within a week, Arondeus and the other members of the group were arrested. Twelve, including Arondeus, were executed that July by firing squad.

In his last message before his execution, Arondeus, who had lived openly as a gay man before the war, told his lawyer these words, traditionally translated thusly: "Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards!"

The Dutch original quote is "Zeg de mensen dat homoseksuelen niet per definitie zwakkelingen zijn!" ... literally: "Show people that homosexuals are not by definition wimps!"

NO WELL-GROOMED ROMAN MALE WAS WITHOUT AN ANTINOUS BALSAMARIUM

"CLEANLINESS is next to Godliness" ... was Ovid's advice to young men setting out on amorous conquests in his poem Ars Amatoria.

A clean body and a well-groomed appearance was not only indispensable in the art of love, but was also considered a fundamental feature of Roman self-esteem, frequently contrasted with the uncleanliness and unkempt appearance of Barbarians living outside the borders of the Empire.

The third Friday in August is Men's Grooming Day and the ancient Romans apparently considered Antinous to be their role model because a BALSAMARIUM (bath unguent jar) in the form of the head of Antinous was hugely popular.

Any well-groomed Roman male owned an array of bathing implements, combs, strigilae, lamps, water-resistant flip-flops and other articles ... including a balsamarium to hold his bath oils or skin lotions.

Antinous balsamaria were exceedingly popular in Rome. Suitable for holding bath oils or moisturizers, an Antinous balsamarium suggested that its owner would emerge from the baths looking like a God. 

And we thought modern advertising came up with that gimmick!

THE SACRED LION HUNT

ON the 21st of August, with the Sun in the final degrees of Leo the Lion, we commemorate the Sacred Lion Hunt ... when Hadrian and Antinous slew a man-eating lion in Egypt in August 130 AD.

Priests of Antinous celebrate the event in with ritual ceremonies at the Hollywood Temple of Antinous which also see worshipers participating live online from North and South America, Europe and Africa.

During the special ceremonies they also honor the Sacred Rosy Lotus of Antinous ... the pink waterlily said to have sprung forth spontaneously from the lion's blood as it splattered the banks of the Nile.

Flamen Antonius Subia relates in vivid detail the events of the Sacred Lion Hunt: The place is Egypt, somewhere in the rocky wilderness between the scattered oases southeast of Alexandria. 

The time is August of the Year 130 AD. The Sun is poised to enter the Sign of Leo. The Constellation of Aquila the Eagle is at its zenith in the nighttime sky ... just as it is now.

It is the constellation of the Emperor. And the Emperor and his Beloved are touring Egypt when they hear grisly accounts of a man-eating lion marauding the countryside on the edge of the cultivated land. The "Marousian Lion" it was called.

They lead a hunting expedition out into the wilderness. The whole expedition is rife with symbolism from the start since the Sun is in Leo in the daytime skies and the Eagle is soaring in the nighttime skies and the Ancients believed killing lions was tantamount to defeating death itself. Lion hunting was the sport of kings.

When at last the Imperial party flushes out the man-eater, the huntsmen and archers stand back and leave Hadrian to close in on the beast with his steed. Hadrian has just got off an arrow which wounds the animal when, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, young Antinous rides ahead, his reins in his left hand, an adamantine-tipped lance in his upraised right hand.

As the Imperial retinue looks on in horror, the snarling lion charges toward the boy, causing his panicked horse to whinny and wheel about in terror. But Antinous maintains his balance and, instantly judging distance and angle, sends his lance sailing towards the lion as it quickly closed the gap between them. 

The lance slams into its rear flank, inflicting a serious but not fatal wound. Enraged even more, the lion uses its fangs to pull out the lance and charges anew against the Boy who is fumbling with his quiver to ready a shot with his bow. But an arrow is already in the air from behind Antinous, and it whizzes past his ear and hit its mark in the throat of the lion.

It has been fired by Hadrian, who is approaching at full gallop and who, even while the first arrow was still in the air, had already readied a second arrow, which this time penetrates both lungs.

The lion spins about and collapses writhing in the dust, rage in its eyes, blood and saliva guttering from its fanged mouth, gasping for breath as it struggles to get to its feet — because Antinous has dismounted and is sprinting toward it with a drawn dagger.

Hadrian draws his steed to a halt and dismounts with an agility and  lightness befitting a man half his age, fueled by adrenaline and alarm for his Beloved Boy, who faces imminent peril from the mortally wounded lion, still capable of severing an artery with one swipe of its mighty paw.

Hadrian draws his hunting axe from his belt and holds it high as he  lunges onto the lion's back and dispatches the beast with one powerful blow which splits its skull in two with a frightening crack and a spurt of bright red blood which bathes both the older man, now panting and perspiring heavily, and the younger man who still shows no visible expression of concern, just a wild-eyed look of excitement in his eyes, as if he never realized the danger he had been in — as if he thinks he is immortal.

A cheer goes up from the coterie of onlookers when they realize the lion is dead, killed seemingly by a single blow from the Emperor's hand. Courtiers whose eyes are unskilled in the ways of hunting will later claim Hadrian had struck the lion dead with a club.

As soldiers and nervous bodyguards rush forward to make sure everything is all right, the emperor, his adrenalin-strength ebbing as quickly as it came, shakily wraps a blood-spattered arm around Antinous and plants his gilded, spike-soled sandal on the dead animal's neck and nods to Antinous to do the same.

There they stand, bathed in blood and bathed in the adulation of the Imperial coterie, each with one foot on the vanquished man-eater as the animal's blood spreads out and covers the surrounding rocks and sand and a few scrubby wildflowers growing from a crevice in a rock.

Even the flowers are splattered with blood. And these red blossoms  will be plucked by members of the entourage to take back as souvenirs to show to envious courtiers who had not been invited along.

THE SACRED LION HUNT was immortalized in poetry and in stone, with Hadrian adding medallions to the Arch of Constantine showing him and Antinous with feet on the lion's neck and also making sacrifice to the great lion-killer Hercules.


Soon legend would have it that scarlet-red lotus blossoms had sprung forth from the pool of the lion's blood, the lion which had been brought down by Antinous and which had been dealt its death blow by Hadrian — the SACRED RED LOTUS.

Under the Sign of Leo. And under the Constellation of the Eagle. 

Within a few short weeks, Antinous himself would be dead. The Sacred Lion Hunt is the last recorded event in His short life.

And some time afterward, grieving Hadrian would look up into the  nighttime skies with tear-filled eyes and his court astronomers would point out a New Star which had appeared in the southern part of the Constellation of Aquila the Eagle.

The New Star would be interpreted as a celestial sign that Antinous had been raised to the firmament, that the Constellation of the Imperial Eagle had been joined by the CONSTELLATION OF ANTINOUS. It was a sign that Antinous was now a God.

If you go outside tonight and peer out into the darkness with all its deep and hidden dangers, remember Antinous and how he peered out into the barren wilderness with all its deep and hidden dangers. 

He charged forth, his bridle-reins in his left hand and an adamantine-tipped lance in his right, and he faced death unafraid.

For Antinous knew he was immortal.

The Constellation of Antinous, still under the wing of the Imperial Eagle, will be right directly over your head tonight ... shining proof that Antinous is a God and that he is indeed immortal.

Don't look out into the darkness around you and be afraid. Instead, look up and remember the Beloved Boy, who was a fearless hunter, who stalked death itself, and who emerged victorious over it.