Duality in mythology: Dual Deities, Devine Couple, or Devine Twins beyond Proto-Indo-European

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Gemini (constellation)

“Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. It was one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century CE astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. Its name is Latin for twins, and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology. Its old astronomical symbol is  (♊︎). Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north, Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south, and Orion to the south-west.” ref

“In classical antiquity, Cancer was the location of the Sun on the northern solstice (June 21). During the first century CE, axial precession shifted it into Gemini. In 1990, the location of the Sun at the northern solstice moved from Gemini into Taurus, where it will remain until the 27th century CE and then move into Aries. The Sun will move through Gemini, next, from June 21 to July 20 through 2062.” ref

“Gemini is prominent in the winter skies of the northern Hemisphere and is visible the entire night in December–January. The easiest way to locate the constellation is to find its two brightest stars Castor and Pollux eastward from the familiar V-shaped asterism (the open cluster Hyades) of Taurus and the three stars of Orion’s Belt (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka). Another way is to mentally draw a line from the Pleiades star cluster located in Taurus and the brightest star in Leo, Regulus. In doing so, an imaginary line that is relatively close to the ecliptic is drawn, a line which intersects Gemini roughly at the midpoint of the constellation, just below Castor and Pollux. When the Moon moves through Gemini, its motion can easily be observed in a single night as it appears first west of Castor and Pollux, then aligns, and finally appears east of them.” ref

“In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins. The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively ‘The One who has arisen from the Underworld’ and the ‘Mighty King’. Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.” ref

“In Greek mythology, Gemini was associated with the myth of Castor and Pollux, the children of Leda and Argonauts both. Pollux was the son of Zeus, who seduced Leda, while Castor was the son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta and Leda’s husband. Castor and Pollux were also mythologically associated with St. Elmo’s fire in their role as the protectors of sailors. When Castor died, because he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give Castor immortality, and he did, by uniting them together in the heavens.” ref

“Gemini is dominated by Castor and Pollux, two bright stars that appear relatively very closely together forming an o shape, encouraging the mythological link between the constellation and twinship. The twin above and to the right (as seen from the Northern Hemisphere) is Castor, whose brightest star is α Gem; it is a second-magnitude star and represents Castor’s head. The twin below and to the left is Pollux, whose brightest star is β Gem (more commonly called Pollux); it is of the first magnitude and represents Pollux’s head. Furthermore, the other stars can be visualized as two parallel lines descending from the two main stars, making it look like two figures. H. A. Rey has suggested an alternative to the traditional visualization that connected the stars of Gemini to show twins holding hands.” ref

“In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Gemini are located in two areas: the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and the Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què). In some cultures, the twin in Gemini refers to ‘the unborn twin’ and represents a spiritual or dual self that exists within. The modern constellation Gemini lies across two of the quadrants, symbolized by the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and the Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què), that divide the sky in traditional Chinese uranography. The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 雙子座 (shuāng zǐ zuò), meaning “the twin constellation.” ref, ref

The Divine Twins

“Gemini, the sign of The Divine Twins. We can find the concept of The Divine Twins around the world. It is a powerful concept that, like its astrological equivalent, Gemini, takes on many forms. The Twins are depicted as two beings. Men, women. A man and woman. Two figures with multiple genders, or are beyond gender. Moreover, they are often interchangeable, with interchangeable genders, roles, and powers. I cannot say with any certainty which of these concepts was “first,” but it doesn’t matter, as they all illuminate facets in each other.” ref

Nearly all ancient civilizations recognized biologically occurring twins as holy, unique, blessed, or cursed.

“Whether identical, fraternal or conjoined, the birth of a set of twins was a significant occasion. There are many superstitions around twins. Many groups see twins as “astral” in nature, coming from or affiliated with “the stars.” However, as Holy archetypes go, the Twins are almost always closer in their behavior and habits to humanity than many many other deities.” ref

“There are some nearly universal consistencies among the holy Twins we see in various myths and religions around the planet. Duality and multiplicity are at the heart of much of our Twin symbolism. Further, almost all Twins represent polarities, and two sides of the same coin; light/dark, good/evil, mortal/divine, male/female, etc.” ref

Another symbol connected to Gemini and the Divine Twins is the horse.

“Even the Pegasus and the Unicorn connect to the Twins. The famous Greek twins that the constellation Gemini depicts, Castor and Pollux, were known far and wide for their horsemanship. Other twins have mothers or fathers associated with horses. Epona, for example, is a Gaulish/Celtic Horse Goddess who ran a race against horses and won. She then died on the finish line as She gave birth to twins. The good folks of Mackinac Island in Michigan still worship Her every year in late Spring. The island allows no cars. Horses are still the main form of transportation.” ref

Many Divine Twins have split parentage.

“Many myths feature one mother and two fathers. Or, the twins are born in two different ways, with one born naturally and one coming from an egg or some other unusual source. This split parentage speaks directly to the duality nature of these archetypes. Even from their genesis they are the same but different. Often their Holy parent is a Sky-Related Deity, like storm, air, lightning, wind, thunder, and in particularly Sun Deities. Many Twins are the natural siblings and dual protectors of Solar Maidens in particular.” ref

The Mayan Hero Twins

“The Mayan Hero Twins are named Hunahpu (One-Blowgunner) and Xbalanque (Jaguar-Sun, Jaguar-Deer, or Hidden-Sun). These Twins are a great example of twins that include many symbols of this archetype. They represent complimentary forces – life/death, sky/earth, day/night, sun/moon, male/female. Also, the twins experienced a harsh pregnancy and upbringing. They often use cleverness or trickery to solve their problems.” ref

“The twins are bird hunters and known for their hypnotic dances. While fighting the God Seven Macaw (Vucub Caquix), Hunahpu loses an arm (Gemini rules arms). At one point in their myth, they challenge the Gods to a game to retrieve the head and body of their father. All in all, the Gods pull many tricks on them, including attempting to kill the twins. The Gods succeed, but the twins are brought back to life in a river. At another point in the myth, one twin loses his head but continues to play ball. Ultimately, the twins win; they retrieve their father’s body and kill the Gods.” ref

Yoruba Divine Twins

“In Yoruba land pantheons, the Orishas Ibeji are the Holy Twins. In the diaspora Yoruba of Latin America, these twins are equal to same as Saints Cosmas and Saint Damian. Yoruba land peoples believe twins are magical. And the great ancestor God-Father Shango, who oversees thunder, lightning, justice, dance, and virility guards them. In these communities, if one twin dies, it is a bad omen, not only for the family but for the community as well. The family will ask a Babalawo (an Ifa Priest) to carve a wooden replacement for the lost twin. The family then dresses it and cares for it as a member of the family. In their myth, the 1st twin is Taiwo, 2nd is Kehinde (Omokehinde), the elder. The 2nd twin is the older twin. Taiwo goes first to make sure the world is fit for Kehinde.” ref

“For the Dahomey people, this was Lisa and Mawu, the twin/lovers who birthed the universe together over four days as the androgynous figure Mawu-Lisa. And the Dogon Tribe sees them as the Nummo Twins, who are both androgynous and hermaphroditic. Both figures express any, all and no genders, in turn. The Nummo Twins are Shapeshifters and connected to the Serpent. They are usually depicted as Conjoined twins and are described as the Mothers of the Earth.” ref

“In Haitian Vodoun, these twins are Marassa Jumeaux. They are polygendered children, but more ancient than any Loa. They represent and govern issues concerning astronomical and astrological learning, divine power vs. human impotence, justice, truth, reason, and mystery.” ref

The European world also has its Divine Twins 

• “The Latvian Dieva dēli, who were the sons of God
• Sicilian Palici; one legend claims the Palici are the sons of Zeus, or possibly Hephaestus, but another story insists the Palici were the sons of the Sicilian deity Adrianus.Ancients associated them with geysers and the underworld.
• Germanic Gods Alcis, a pair of young male brothers worshiped by the Naharvali.
• Italian Wolf-Gods Romulus and Remus, whose story tells the events that led to the founding of Rome.
• Anglo-Saxon warrior brothers Hengist and Horsa, who’s names mean “Stallion” and “Horse” respectively.
  From Wikipedia: “On farmhouses in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, horse-head gables were referred to as “Hengst und Hors” as late as around 1875. Rudolf Simeknotes that these horse-head gables can still be seen today, and says that the horse-head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings. Martin Litchfield West comments that the horse heads may have been remnants of pagan religious practices in the area.”
• Norse Freyr and Freyjawere the twin son and daughter of the Sea God, Njord. Both were deities of fertility.
• Slavic Lada and Lado, female and male personifications of beauty and fertility who were seen as twins, and as mother and son.
• Welsh Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Dylan ail Don, twin brothers who are born when Arianrhod is tested for virginity. Dylan takes on the nature of a sea creature when he comes into contact with water, while Lleu is related to the pan-Celtic plural hero god Lugus. In the related Irish story of the birth of Lugh Lámfada, one version indicates that Lugh was a surviving triplet, whose twin brothers were drowned. Some interpreters of the legend view Dylan as representing darkness and Llew connected to light.” ref

The Solar connection is essential and oft repeated.

“Many, many religions and myth cycles have an image of The Sun being pulled across the sky by a chariot drawn by two horses. Often the horses are twins or exact opposites from each other. For example, the Chariot card from Tarot depicts this image nicely. Interestingly, the Chariot card connects to Cancer, the sign directly after Gemini.” ref

“In particular, The Twins have some specific roles they play in nearly every myth around the world: 

-Protectors at Sea

-Battle Protectors

-Protecting Oaths and Contracts

-Magical Healers

-Fertility

-Assisting at Birth

-Dances and Dancing

-Founding Cities

Ultimately, in true Gemini style, The Divine Twins stand for multifold experiences.” ref

“The Divine Twins represent the duality and multiplicity we experience as we shed old forms of ourselves. We are that person, but they are dying. We are the new person, but they’re not quite here yet. And we are the beings in between, shapeshifting and shedding skins.” ref

“They express the camaraderie we feel when we find our “twin” in a stranger, who suddenly becomes a best friend, a best Judy, a “sister from another mister” or “a brother from another mother.” Maybe we actually look alike, but often what we mean by this phrase is that this person feels that close to us, like someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows us from the inside out, and thinks about and sees the world just like us.” ref

“You share clothes, you share lovers, you share passwords. These are our “ride or die bitches,” and we often get into some of our craziest capers with them. We might feel like we would sacrifice a lot for them. We might even face (or tempt) death with them. They see our struggles, they see where we screw up, they see our messy, and they are here for all of it.” ref

The Divine Twins are also two people after union. They became a single being, and now have parted again, but with an intimate knowledge of each other.

“There is the experience of seeing ourselves in other people, and there is also the experience of seeing other people in ourselves. The Divine Twins represent the duality and multiplicity we experience as we shed old forms of self and reveal new ones during personal growth work like self-care, cord-cutting, and other profoundly altering ritual forms. There is our current self, but they are changing. Also, we’re the new person forming, but they’re not quite here yet. And we are the beings in between, shapeshifting and shedding skins.” ref

The Divine Twins also represent a profoundly holy concept. As above, so below.

“One twin divine, one twin mortal. These are the polarities of ourselves. Our mundane, extremely faulty mortal self is, in fact, the twin of our divine self, our soul, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Ka, etc. These are the same, but different, but the same. And, as it is expressed in spiritual practices stretching back through time, if you affect the spiritual body the mortal body will feel it, but also that the inverse is true. If you affect the mortal body, the spiritual twin will react.” ref

“And in the rhythmic pulse of infinite phases experienced while moving between these two extremes – mortal and holy – we discover our lives. Who we are. What we are. How we deal with and integrate the blessings and hardships introduced by our spiritual battles and our mortal experiences. The Sun, balanced between to spinning wheels. Along with the Chariot card, we can work with The Lovers card, as it is ruled by Gemini, and is a fantastic magical image for all these ideas.” ref

“This is the deep magical teaching of working with the Divine Twins as we leave Spring and Beltane season and head into Summer. Finally, we are getting some feedback on our full immersion of the real world. Being born unto the Earth plane, we are married to the consequences of our actions. We are married to reality. And now we are meeting our real world self, and learning to love them.” ref

“Most of the old Pagan religions in Europe were part of an original source: Proto-Indo-European religion. We can discover how the primordial religion looked like by comparing myths of different cultures and ethnic groups. Through this method, scholars have been able to reconstruct the entire pantheon of the primeval gods and goddesses.” ref

“One of the central figures in the Indo-European pantheon is the Sky Father. He is also known by his reconstructed Proto-Indo-European term, *Dyeus. The patriarch of the gods has an intricate web of family relatives — as it is well evinced, for example, through both Vedic and Greek mythologies. Among these relatives, the sons of *Dyeus are probably the most relevant ones. They are the divine Twins.” ref

“There is an unusual academic consensus around the ancient Indo-European origins of the divine Twins. It is considered one of the few original myths within the primordial Proto-Indo-European pantheon. We can find the same divine Twin figures in Greek, Vedic, Roman and Baltic mythology. They are the original “Sons of God.” ref

Creation Myth of Twins

“Key figures in Dogon religion are the twins Nummo and Nommo, primal spirits of Dogon ancestors, sometimes seen as deities. These are hermaphroditic water creatures, seen similarly to water deities (to-vodun) in West African vodun; they can be depicted with a human body and a fish tail. Nommo is supposed to be the first living creature created by the supreme god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo spawned into four pairs of twins, with one pair defying the order established by creator Amma. To restore order, the god Amma sacrificed another creature, whose body he cut up and scattered throughout creation. A shrine for the god Amma was to be built at each place where a fragment of the body landed.” ref

“The cult of the god Amma – like the entire Dogon religion – is closely tied to the Bandiagara cliff where the Dogon live. The cult of the god Amma is geographically defined by this cliff, it is not practiced elsewhere. The Bandiagara cliff is a sandstone terrain fault approximately 150 km long, reaching a height of up to 500 m in some places. The Dogon inhabit mud villages built on the upper edge of the cliff, villages directly attached to the cliff at its lower edge, but also at various heights in the wall, also villages scattered under the cliff, and a labyrinth of caves right in the cliff. The architecture of the villages and the religiously motivated urban arrangement of mud houses centered on the hogon priestly building is unique in the context of the whole of Africa. The Dogon language forms an independent branch of the Niger-Congo language family and is not closely related to any other language.” ref

“Legend says that a long time ago in China there were immortal twins, one who brought harmony and the other, union. So artists made figurines showing the twin brothers, called ”He-He. ” They often were pictured and given to brides, because it was thought they brought a happy marriage.” ref

“He-He Er Xian, translated as the Immortals of Harmony and Union and as the Two gods of Harmony and Union, are two Taoist immortals. They are popularly associated with happy marriages. He and He are typically depicted as boys holding a lotus flower (荷, hé) and a box (盒, hé). There are a number of legendary tales behind two celestial beings of He and Ho, among them there is one regarding the two monks living a secluded life in Tiantai Mountain in the Tang dynasty by the name of Hanshan and Shide and no one know about their subsequent whereabouts. The story is based on Poems of Hanshan and Shide composed by Lv Qiuyin. They were officially canonized as the God of Harmony and the God of Good Union in the first year of Yongzheng rule in the Qing dynasty. They are widely regarded as gods who bless love between husband and wife.” ref

“The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, who serve as rescuers and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like other Proto-Indo-European divinities, the Divine Twins are not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, but scholars of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies generally agree on the motifs they have reconstructed by way of the comparative method.” ref

Common traits

“Scholar Donald Ward proposed a set of common traits that pertain to divine twin pairs of Indo-European mythologies:

• dual paternity;
• mention of a female figure (their mother or their sister);
• deities of fertility;
• known by a single dual name or having rhymed/alliterative names;
• associated with horses;
• saviours at sea;
• of astral nature;
• protectors of oaths;
• providers of divine aid in battle; and
• magic healers.” ref

“Although the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) name of the Divine Twins cannot be reconstructed with certainty based on the available linguistic evidence, the most frequent epithets associated with the two brothers in liturgic and poetic traditions are the “Youthful” and the “Descendants” (sons or grandsons) of the Sky-God (Dyēus). Two well-accepted reflexes of the Divine Twins, the Vedic Aśvins and the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, are linguistic cognates ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European word for the horse, *h₁éḱwos. They are related to Sanskrit áśva and Avestan aspā (both from Indo-Iranian *Haćwa), and to Old Lithuanian ašva, which all share the meaning of “mare“. This may point to an original PIE divine name *h₁éḱw-n-, although this form could also have emerged from later contacts between Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers, which are known to have occurred in prehistoric times.” ref

“Represented as young men rescuing mortals from peril in battle or at sea, the Divine Twins rode the steeds that pull the sun across the sky and were sometimes depicted as horses themselves. They shared a sister, the Dawn (*H₂éwsōs), who is also portrayed as the daughter of the Sky-God (*Dyēus) in Indo-European myths. The two brothers are generally depicted as healers and helpers, travelling in miraculous vehicles to save shipwrecked mortals. They are often differentiated: one is represented as a physically strong and aggressive warrior, while the other is seen as a healer who rather gives attention to domestic duties, agrarian pursuits, or romantic adventures.” ref

“In the Vedic, Greek and Baltic traditions, the Divine Twins similarly appear as the personifications of the morning and evening star. They are depicted as the lovers or the companions of a solar female deity, preferably the Sun’s daughter but sometimes also the Dawn. In the majority of the stories where they appear, the Divine Twins rescue the Dawn from a watery peril, a theme that emerged from their role as the solar steeds. During the night, the Divine Twins were said to return to the east in a golden boat, where they traversed a sea to bring back the rising sun each morning. During the day, they crossed the nocturnal sky in pursuit of their consort, the morning star. In what seems to be a later addition confined to Europe, they were said to take a rest at the end of the day on the “Isles of the Blessed”, a land seating in the western sea which possessed magical apple orchards. By the Bronze Age, the Divine Twins were also represented as the coachmen of horse-driven solar chariots.” ref

“The Gaulish Divanno [de] and Dinomogetimarus are said to be protective deities and “the Gallic equivalents” of the Greek Dioskouroi. They seem to be represented in monuments and reliefs in France flanked by horses, which would make them comparable to Gaulish Martes and the Germanic Alcis. Scholars suggest that the numerous Gallo-Roman dedicatory epigraphs to Castor and Pollux, more than any other region of the Roman Empire, attest a cult of the Dioskoroi. Greek historian Timaeus mentions that Atlantic Celts venerated the “Dioskouroi” above all other gods and that they [Dioskouroi] had visited them from across the Ocean. Historian Diodorus Siculus, in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, writes that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”. The conjecture that it refers to the Gallic gods Divanno and Dinomogetimarus has no firm support.” ref

“In one of the Irish myths involving Macha (the Dindsenchas of Ard Macha), she is forced to race against the horses of King of Ulster while in late pregnancy. As a talented rider, she wins the race but starts giving birth to Fír and Fial immediately after crossing the finish line. The archetype is also partly matched by figures such as the Gallic sun god Belenus, whose epithet Atepomarus meant “having good horses”; Grannus, who is associated with the healing goddess Sirona (her name means “star”); Maponos (“Son of God”), considered in Irish mythology as the son of Dagda, associated with healing, The Welsh Brân and Manawydan may also be reflexes of the Divine Twins.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“The Polish deities Lel and Polel, first mentioned by Maciej Miechowita in 1519, are presented as the equivalents of Castor and Pollux, the sons of the goddess Łada (counterpart of the Greek Leda) and an unknown male god. An idol was found in 1969 on the Fischerinsel island, where the cult centres of the Slavic tribe of Veleti was located, depicting two male figures joined with their heads. Scholars believe it may represent Lel and Polel. Lelek means “strong youth” in Russian dialect. The brightest stars of the Gemini constellation, α Gem and β Gem, are thought to have been originally named Lele and Polele in Belarusian tradition, after the twin characters. According to Polish professor of medieval history, Jacek Banaszkiewicz, the two Polabian gods, Porevit and Porenut, manifest dioscuric characteristics. According to him, the first part of their names derives from a Proto-Slavic root -por meaning “strength,” with first being “Lord of strength” – the stronger one, and the other “Lord in need of support (strength)” – the weaker one. They both have five faces each and appear alongside Rugiaevit, the chief god.” ref

“During childbirth, the mother of the Polish hero twins Waligóra (“Mountain Beater”) and Wyrwidąb (“Oak Tearer”) died in the forest, where wild animals took care of them. Waligóra was raised of by a she-wolf and Wyrwidąb by a she-bear, who fed them with their own milk. Together, they defeated the dragon who tormented the kingdom, for which the grateful king gave each of them half of the kingdom and one of his two daughters as a wife. The sons of Krak: Krak II and Lech II also appear in Polish legends as the killers of the Wawel dragon. Amphion and Zethus, another pair of twins fathered by Zeus and Antiope, are portrayed as the legendary founders of Thebes. They are called “Dioskouroi, riders of white horses” (λευκόπωλοι) by Euripides in his play The Phoenician Women (the same epithet is used in Heracles and in the lost play Antiope). In keeping with the theme of distinction between the twins, Amphion was said to be the more contemplative, sensitive one, whereas Zethus was more masculine and tied to physical pursuits, like hunting and cattle-breeding.” ref

“The mother of Romulus and Remus, Rhea Silvia, placed them in a basket before her death, which she put in the river to protect them from murder, before they were found by the she-wolf who raised them. The Palici, a pair of Sicilian twin deities fathered by Zeus in one account, may also be a reflex of the original mytheme. Greek rhetorician and grammar Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his work Deipnosophistae, Book II, cited that poet Ibycus, in his Melodies, described twins Eurytus and Cteatus as “λευκίππους κόρους” (“white-horsed youths”) and said they were born from a silver egg, a story that recalls the myth of Greek divine twins Castor and Pollux and their mother Leda. This pair of twins was said to have been fathered by sea god Poseidon and a human mother, Molione.” ref

“Another possible reflex may be found in Nakula and Sahadeva. Mothered by Princess Madri, who summoned the Aśvins themselves in a prayer to beget her sons (thus them being called Ashvineya (आश्विनेय)), the twins are two of the five Pandava brothers, married to the same woman, Draupadi. In the Mahabharata epic, Nakula is described in terms of his exceptional beauty, warriorship and martial prowess, while Sahadeva is depicted as patient, wise, intelligent and a “learned man”. Nakula takes great interest in Virata’s horses, and his brother Sahadeva become Virata’s cowherd. Scholarship also points out that the Vedic Ashvins had an Avestic counterpart called Aspinas. The pair of heroic brothers and main characters of the Albanian legendary epic cycle Kângë Kreshnikësh – Muji and Halili – are considered to bear common traits of the Indo-European divine twins.” ref

“The Armenian heroes Sanasar and Baldasar appear as twins in the epic tradition, born of princess Tsovinar (as depicted in Daredevils of Sassoun); Sanasar finds a “fiery horse”, is more warlike than his brother, and becomes the progenitor of a dynasty of heroes. In an alternate account, their mother is named princess Saṙan, who drinks water from a horse’s footprint and gives birth to both heroes. Scholar Armen Petrosyan also sees possible reflexes of the divine twins in other pairs of heroic brothers in Armenian epic tradition, e.g., Ar(a)maneak and Ar(a)mayis; Eruand (Yervant) and Eruaz (Yervaz). In the same vein, Sargis Haroutyunian argues that the Armenian heroes, as well as twins Izzadin (or Izaddin) and Zyaddin (mentioned in the Kurdish Sharafnama), underlie the myth of divine twins: pairs of brother-founders of divine origin.” ref

“The mytheme of the Divine Twins was widely popular in the Indo-European traditions; evidence for their worship can be found from Scandinavia to the Near East as early as the Bronze Age. The motif was also adopted in non-Indo-European cultures, as attested by the Etruscan Tinas Clenar, the “sons of Jupiter”. There might also have been a worship of twin deities in Myceanean times, based on the presence of myths and stories about pairs of brothers or male twins in Attica and Boeotia. The most prevalent functions associated with the twins in later myths are magic healers and physicians, sailors and saviours at sea, warriors and providers of divine aid in battle, controllers of weather and keepers of the wind, assistants at birth with a connection to fertility, divinities of dance, protectors of the oath, and founders of cities, sometimes related to swans. Scholarship suggests that the mytheme of twins has echoes in the medieval legend of Amicus and Amelius. In Belarusian folklore, Saints George and Nicholas are paired up together, associated with horses, and have a dual nature as healers. The veneration of the Slavic saint brothers Boris and Gleb may also be related.” ref

“Lugal-irra (𒀭𒈗𒄊𒊏) and Meslamta-ea (𒀭𒈩𒇴𒋫𒌓𒁺𒀀) were a pair of Mesopotamian gods who typically appear together in cuneiform texts and were described as the “divine twins” (Maštabba). There were regarded as warrior gods and as protectors of doors, possibly due to their role as the gatekeepers of the underworld. In Mesopotamian astronomy they came to be associated with a pair of stars known as the “Great Twins”, Alpha Geminorum and Beta Geminorum. They were both closely associated with Nergal, and could be either regarded as members of his court or equated with him. Their cult centers were Kisiga and Dūrum. While no major sanctuaries dedicated to them are attested elsewhere, they were nonetheless worshiped in multiple other cities. Lugal-irra’s name was most commonly written in cuneiform as dLugal–GÌR-ra. It can be romanized as Lugalirra as well. It has Sumerian origin and can be translated as “the strong lord”. The variant Lugal-girra, ^dLugal-gír-ra, reflects a late reinterpretation of the name as “lord of the dagger” and is no longer considered an indication that ^dLugal-GÌR-ra was ever read as Lugal-girra. Despite the phonetic similarity, the second half of Lugal-irra’s name is most likely unrelated to the theonym Erra (variant: Irra), and its Akkadian translation was gašru according to lexical lists.” ref

“Twin deities manifested integrating or opposite natural elements in ancient Egypt. Two identical falcons represented Horus and Seth. Isis and Nephtys were also a divine twin of the same gender. Shu and Tefnut were an example for unlike-sexed divine twins. The souls of Osiris and Re were the twin children of Horus. This research studies the Egyptian divine twins beside the Greek twin deities which appeared in Egypt on a limited scale. Some of them had an Egyptian origin such as; the sign of Gemini which was inspired from Shu and Tefnut. Apollo and Artemis were also venerated in Egypt.” ref

“Twins in mythology are in many cultures around the world. In some cultures they are seen as ominous, and in others they are seen as auspicious. Twins in mythology are often cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing a bond deeper than that of ordinary siblings, or seen as fierce rivals. They can be seen as representations of a dualistic worldview. They can represent another aspect of the self, a doppelgänger, or a shadow.” ref

“Twins are often depicted with special powers. This applies to both mortal and immortal sets of twins, and often is related to power over the weather. Twins in mythology also often share deep bonds. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux share a bond so strong that when mortal Castor dies, Pollux gives up half of his immortality to be with his brother. Castor and Pollux are the Dioscuri twin brothers. Their mother is Leda, a being who was seduced by Zeus who had taken the form of a swan. Even though the brothers are twins, they have two different fathers. This phenomenon is a very common interpretation of twin births across different mythological cultures. Castor’s father is Tyndareus, the king of Sparta (hence the mortal form). Pollux is the son of Zeus (demigod).” ref

“This brothers were said to be born from an egg along with either sister Helen and Clytemnestra. This etymologically explains why their constellation, the Dioskouroi or Gemini, is only seen during one half of the year, as the twins split their time between the underworld and Mount Olympus. In an aboriginal tale, the same constellation represents the twin lizards who created the plants and animals and saved women from evil spirits. Another example of this strong bond shared between twins is the Ibeji twins from African mythology. Ibeji twins are viewed as one soul shared between two bodies. If one of the twins dies, the parents then create a doll that portrays the body of the deceased child, so the soul of the deceased can remain intact for the living twin.” ref

“Without the creation of the doll, the living twin is almost destined for death because it is believed to be missing half of its soul. Twins in mythology are often associated with healing. They are also often gifted with the ability of divination or insight into the future. Divine twins in twin mythology are identical to either one or both place of a god. The Feri gods are not separated entities but are unified into one center. These divine twins can function alone in one body, either functioning as a male or as male and female as they desire. Divine twins represent a polarity in the world. This polarity may be great or small and at times can be opposition. Twins are often seen to be rivals or adversaries.” ref

Africa

Egyptian

• Nut and Geb, Dualistic twins. God of Earth (Geb) and Goddess of the sky (Nut)
• Osiris – Isis’ twin and husband. Lord of the underworld. First born of Geb and Nut. One of the most important gods of ancient Egypt.
• Isis – Daughter of Geb and Nut; twin of Osiris.
• Ausar – (also known by Macedonian Greeks as Osiris) twin of Set. Set tricked his brother at a banquet he organized so as to take his life.

West African

• Mawu-Lisa – Twins representing moon and sun, respectively. Ewe-Fon culture.
• Yemaja – Mother of all life on earth. Yoruba culture.
• Aganju – Twin and husband of Yemaja
• Ibeji – Twins of joy and happiness. Children of Shango and Oshun.

Amerindian

See also: Hero Twins in Native American culture

• Gluskap and Malsumis – A cultural hero and its evil twin brother for the Wabanaki peoples.
• Hahgwehdiyu and Hahgwehdaetgah – Sons of either Iroquois sky goddess Atahensic or her daughter Tekawerahkwa.
• Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé and Yolkai Estsan – Navajo goddesses.
• Monster Slayer and Born-for-Water – Navajo Hero Twins.
• Jukihú and Juracán – Twin sons of Atabex (Mother Nature), the personifications of Order and Chaos, respectively; from the Taíno Arawak nation which once stretched from South America through the Caribbean and up to Florida in the US.
• Hun-apu and Ixbalanque, the Maya Hero Twins – Defeated the Seven Macaw
• Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl or Tezcatlipoca
• Kokomaht and Bahotahl – Good and evil forces in nature.

Ancient Mesopotamian religion

• Inanna and Utu.

Greek and Roman mythology

• Divine
• Helios and Selene – God and Goddess, children of Hyperion and Theia
• Apollo and Artemis – God and goddess, children of Zeus and Leto
• Hypnos and Thanatos – Sons of Nyx
• Despoina and Arion – Goddess and immortal horse, children of Demeter and Poseidon.
• Palici – Sicilian chthonic deities in Greek mythology and Roman mythology.
• Phobos and Deimos – Sons of Ares and Aphrodite
• Eros and Anteros – Sons of Ares and Aphrodite
• One divine, one mortal
• Heracles and Iphicles – Though their mother was Alcmene, Hercules was son of Zeus while Iphicles was son of Amphitryon.
• Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioscuri – Though their mother was Leda, Castor was mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus.
• Helen and Clytemnestra – Sisters of the Dioscuri, they were the daughters of Leda by Zeus and Tyndareus, respectively.
• Children of a god or nymph and a mortal
• Atlas and Eumelus/Gadeirus, Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes – Five sets of twins, sons of Poseidon and Cleito, and Kings of Atlantis in Plato‘s myth.
• Belus and Agenor – Sons of Poseidon and Libya.
• Aegyptus and Danaus – Sons of Belus and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile.
• Aeolus and Boeotus – Sons of Poseidon and Arne.
• Lycastus and Parrhasius – Sons of Ares and Phylonome, daughter of Nyctimus of Arcadia.
• Amphion and Zethus – Sons of Zeus by Antiope
• Centaurus and Lapithes – Sons of Ixion and Nephele or Apollo and Stilbe.
• Pelias and Neleus – Sons of Poseidon and Tyro.
• Romulus and Remus – Central characters of Rome’s foundation myth. Children of Rhea Silvia by either the god Mars, or by the demi-god Hercules.
• Eurytus and Cteatus – Sons of Molione either by Actor or Poseidon
• Ascalaphus and Ialmenus – Sons of Ares and Astyoche, Argonauts who participated in the Trojan War.
• Mortal
• Kleobis and Biton – Sons of a Hera priestess in Argos
• Iasus and Pelasgus – Sons of Phoroneus or Triopas
• Proetus and Acrisius – Rival twins, children of Abas and Aglaea or Ocalea.
• Porphyrion and Ptous – Sons of Athamas and Themisto
• Thessalus and Alcimenes – Sons of Jason and Medea.
• Cassandra and Helenus – Children of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy with prophetic powers.
• Procles and Eurysthenes – Great-great-great-grandsons of Heracles, sons of Aristodemus and Argia.
• Sisyphus and Salmoneus – Rivals who angered Zeus with their deceit and hubris. Sons of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete.

Ancient Syria

• Arsu and Azizos – Gods of the evening star and morning star.

Norse mythology

• Freyr and Freyja – God and goddess, children of Njörðr
• Baldr and Hodr – “The Shining One” and “The Blind God”, Children of Odin and Frigg
• Móði and Magni – Courage/Bravery and Strength. Although not Twins in every Source, they often come in a pair. In some iterations, Twin sons of Thor and Sif.

Hinduism

• The Ashvins – Sons of the sun God, Surya. Represent dualities such as building and destroying.
• Koti and Chennayya – Twin heroes
• Yama and Yami – God and Goddess of death.
• Lava and Kusha – Children of Rama and Sita.
• Nakula and Sahadeva – sons of the last born of the Pandavas
• Lakshmana and Shatrughna – Children of Dasharatha and Sumitra
• Indra and Agni – Mirror twins
• Nala and Nila Ramayan

Jewish

• Jacob and Esau – Sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Represented two nations.

Christian

Thomas the apostle and his unnamed twin brother.

Zoroastrian

• Ahura Mazda and Ahriman – Twins of opposing forces: good and evil.

Ossetian mythology

• Akhshar and Akhsartag – one of the main characters and progenitors of the Nart saga

Afro-Caribbean cosmologies

• Marassa Jumeaux – The divine, children twins in Vodou.
• Ibeji – Twins of joy and happiness. Children of Shango or Sango and Oshun.

East Asian

• Izanagi and Izanami – God and Goddess, creators of the Japanese islands.

Cain and Abel, the First Human Brothers in the Bible 

“In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Abel’s offering, but had no regardfor Cain’s. Cain killed Abel, and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod (נוֹד, ‘wandering’), where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.” ref

“The story of Cain‘s murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4:1–18:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain,

“Why are you angry,
and why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well,
will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well,
sin is lurking at the door;
its desire is for you,
but you must master it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.” — Book of Genesis, 4:1–18

“Since they cannot be linked together to a common linguistic origin, other reflexes found in the Indo-European myths are less secure, although their motifs can be compared to that of the Divine Twins. Three Indo-European traditions (Greek, Indic and Baltic) attest the mytheme of equestrian twins, all associated with the dawn or the sun’s daughter. Although their names do not form a complete group of cognates, they nonetheless share a similar epithet leading to a possible ancestral name or epithet: the ‘sons or descendants of Dyēus‘, the sky-god.” ref

• (?) PIE: *diwós suHnū́ (‘sons of Dyēus’), or *diwós népoth₁e (‘descendants of Dyēus’),
• Vedic: the Divó nápātā (the Aśvins), the “sons of Dyaús“, the sky-god, always referred to in dual in the Rigveda, without individual names,
• Lithuanian: the Dievo sūneliai (the Ašvieniai), the “sons of Dievas“, pulling the carriage of Saulė (the Sun) through the sky,
• Latvian: the Dieva dēli, the “sons of Dievs”, the sky-god,
• Greek: the Diós-kouroi (Castor and Pollux), the “boys of Zeus“, the sky-god.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_twins
• Italic: both Paelignian Ioviois Pvclois and Marsian Ioveis Pvcles are interpreted as a calque of the Greek theonym Diós-kouroi.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“There is possibility that Ūsiņš (alternately, Ūsinis), a Baltic god mentioned in the dainas, is a reflex of the mytheme in Latvian tradition. He is associated with horses, the light and sun, and possibly one of the sons of Dievs. Historical linguist Václav Blažek argues he is “a functional and etymological counterpart” of a minor Vedic character Auśijá- (a servant of the Vedic twins and related to bees) and the Aśvins themselves. Also, according to David Leeming, Usins appears as a charioteer, conducting a chariot pulled by two horses across the sky.” ref

“It has also been argued that Auseklis is the other reflex of the mytheme in Latvian. Auseklis is referred to as male in the context of the dainas (folksong), and is seen as the groom of Saules meita (“daughter of the sun”), who came all the way to Germany to court her. In addition, according to scholar Elza Kokare, Auseklis belongs to a group of heavenly deities that take part in a mythological drama about a “celestial wedding”. Auseklis is seen as a groom of Saules meita, a daughter of Saule, the female Baltic sun. Sometimes, he is deprived of his bride (Ausekļa līgaviņa and variations) because of Meness’s quarreling. In other accounts, he is a guest or member of the bridal cortege at the wedding of Saules meita with another character. He is also said to own a horse, bought by him or for him. According to Marija Gimbutas‘s analysis, Auseklis is a “dievaitis” (‘little god’) that appears with a horse the Sun gave him, and falls in love with the daughter of the (female) Sun (“Saules dukterims”).” ref

“Dualism or dualistic cosmology is the moral or belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. It is an umbrella term that covers a diversity of views from various religions, including both traditional religions and scriptural religions. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of, or conflict between, the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview that has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, duotheism, bitheism or ditheism implies (at least) two gods.” ref

“While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system could be one in which one god is a creator and the other a destroyer. In theology, dualism can also refer to the relationship between the deity and creation or the deity and the universe (see theistic dualism). That form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism. Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. Within Chinese culture and philosophy the opposition and combination of the universe’s two basic principles are expressed as yin and yang and are traditionally foundational doctrine of Taoism, Confucianism and some Chinese Buddhist Schools.” ref

“Many myths and creation motifs with dualistic cosmologies have been described in ethnographic and anthropological literature. The motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two demiurges, culture heroes, or other mythological beings, who compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world. There is a huge diversity of such cosmologies. In some cases, such as among the Chukchi, the beings collaborate rather than compete, and they contribute to the creation in a coequal way. In many other instances the two beings are not of the same importance or power (sometimes, one of them is even characterized as gullible). Sometimes they can be contrasted as good versus evil.” ref 

“They may be often believed to be twins or at least brothers. Dualistic motifs in mythologies can be observed in all inhabited continents. Zolotarjov concludes that they cannot be explained by diffusion or borrowing but are rather of convergent origin. They are related to a dualistic organization of society (moieties); in some cultures, the social organization may have ceased to exist, but mythology preserves the memory in more and more disguised ways. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism (see below), moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles. Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and—unlike ditheism/bitheism—independent of how these may be represented.” ref

“For example, Mazdaism (Mazdean Zoroastrianism) is both dualistic and monotheistic (but not monist by definition) since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated–is an absolute one. Mandaeism is monotheistic and Gnostic, and in its cosmology, the World of Light (alma d-nhūra) that is good, is contrasted with the World of Darkness or underworld (alma d-hšuka) that is evil. Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism) and Manichaeism are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the suppressed Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous “thought”—that is described to have created man—brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon. Duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy.” ref

“Moral dualism began as a theological belief. Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life). The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazda’s order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated. From this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in human life for Ahura Mazda or they do not and give druj power. Personal dualism is even more distinct in the beliefs of later religions. The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God (good) will inevitably destroy Satan (evil). Early Christian dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism (See: Neoplatonism and Christianity). There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian soul.” ref

“When used with regards to multiple gods, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism. Although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent: ditheism/bitheism implies (at least) two gods, while moral dualism does not necessarily imply theism (theos = god) at all. Both bitheism and ditheism imply a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties; however, while bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive (cf. theodicy). In the original conception of Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda was the spirit of ultimate good, while Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) was the spirit of ultimate evil.” ref

“In a bitheistic system, by contrast, where the two deities are not in conflict or opposition, one could be male and the other female (cf. duotheism^[clarification needed^]). One well-known example of a bitheistic or duotheistic theology based on gender polarity is found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. In Wicca, dualism is represented in the belief of a god and a goddess as a dual partnership in ruling the universe. This is centered on the worship of a divine couple, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God, who are regarded as lovers. However, there is also a ditheistic theme within traditional Wicca, as the Horned God has dual aspects of bright and dark – relating to day/night, summer/winter – expressed as the Oak King and the Holly King, who in Wiccan myth and ritual are said to engage in battle twice a year for the hand of the Goddess, resulting in the changing seasons. (Within Wicca, bright and dark do not correspond to notions of “good” and “evil” but are aspects of the natural world, much like yin and yang in Taoism.)” ref

Divine couples in religion

“One of the most ancient concepts in religion is that of the divine couple. In Sumeria the divine couple appears as part of perhaps the earliest notion of Trinity. God the Father was symbolized as the Sun, his consort was symbolized alternately as either the Moon or the Earth, and the king was viewed as their offspring: the Son of the Sun; a living representative (or emanation) of God on Earth. In many traditions the gods and goddesses who comprise the divine couple are not seen as being separate or distinct entities, but rather as differing aspects of one another, or even emanations of one another. In this we see traces of an even more ancient tradition, God as the primordial androgyne. Such a notion has been part of many theologies, although the idea has largely been forgotten or (perhaps) ignored.” ref

Yin and yang

“Yin and yang (English: /jɪn/, /jæŋ/), also yinyang or yin-yang, is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are important for cohesion of the whole.” ref

“In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang form and matter. ‘Yin’ is retractive, passive and contractive while ‘yang’ is repelling, active and expansive; in principle, this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference, such as biological and seasonal cycles, evolution of the landscape over days, weeks, and eons (with the original meaning of the words being the north-facing shade and the south-facing brightness of a hill), gender (female and male), as well as the formation of the character of individuals and the grand arc of sociopolitical history in disorder and order.” ref

“Taiji is a Chinese cosmological term for the “Supreme Ultimate” state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be contrasted with the older wuji (無極; ‘without pole’). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy which this universe was created from is known as qi. It is believed that the organization of qi in this cosmology of yin and yang has formed many things. Included among these forms are humans. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality, as a unity of opposites, lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science, technology and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine, and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, tai chi, daoyin and qigong, as well as appearing in the pages of the I Ching.” ref

“The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice. The term “dualistic-monism” or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin and yang symbol (or taijitu) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.” ref

“In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu (c. 2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang. The Ahom philosophy of duality of the individual self han and pu is quite similar to yin and yang of Taoism. The tradition was originated in Yunnan, China and followed by some Ahom, descendants of Dai ethnic Minority. The Chinese characters 陰 and 陽 are both considered to be phono-semantic compounds, with semantic component 阝 ‘mound’, ‘hill’, a graphical variant of 阜—with the phonetic components 今; jīn (and the added semantic component 云; yún; ‘cloud’) and 昜; yáng. In the latter, 昜; yáng; ‘bright’ features 日; ‘the Sun’ + 示 + 彡; ‘sunbeam’.” ref

Fuxi and Nüwa in Chinese Creation Mythology

“Fuxi or Fu Hsi (伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2900 or 2000 BCE or around 4,900 to 4,000 years ago. Fuxi was counted as the first mythical emperor of China, “a divine being with a serpent’s body” who was miraculously born, a Taoist deity, and/or a member of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Some representations show him as a human with snake-like characteristics, “a leaf-wreathed head growing out of a mountain”, “or as a man clothed with animal skins.” ref 

24,000 Years Old Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations? Became: Proto-Afroasiatic, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Transeurasian, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Na-Dene, Proto-Caucasian, Sumerian, Proto-Austronesian, and the Basque language

Twins as the Sacrifice?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Sungir Grave 2 had two adolescent children placed head-to-head, together with an adult femur filled with red ochre, and were all adorned with elaborate grave goods that included ivory-beaded jewelry, clothing, and spears. The children are considered a twin burial, thought to have ritual purpose, possibly sacrifice. The findings of such complete skeletons are rare in late Stone Age, and indicate the high status of the male adult and children. The children had the same mtDNA, which may indicate the same maternal lineage, but new analyses determined they were not siblings. The site is one of the earliest examples of ritual burials and constitutes important evidence of the antiquity of human religious practices. The extraordinary collection of grave goods, the position of the bodies, and other factors all indicate it was a burial of high importance.” ref

“In 2017, researchers successfully sequenced the DNA of multiple individuals from Sungir (c. 34,000 years BP), including one from Burial 1 (Sunghir I) and three from Burial 2: the two adolescent burials (Sunghir II and Sunghir III) and the adult femur accompanying the burial (Sunghir IV). The younger adolescent from Burial 2, Sunghir III, yielded high coverage genomes. Sungir III was previously thought to be female; however, genetic analysis shows that all four of the tested individuals at Sungir were male. Contrary to previous interpretations of the burials, genetic analysis shows that none of the individuals are closely related (none of the individuals were third-degree relatives or closer).” ref

“However, when compared against other populations, the individuals at Sungir are genetically closest to each other. The individuals at Sungir show closest genetic affinity to the individuals from Kostenki, with closer affinity to the individual from Kostenki 12 than to the individual from Kostenki 14. The closer affinity between Kostenki 12 and Sungir individuals was mutual, with Kostenki 12 being closer to the Sungir remains than to Kostenki 14. The Sungir individuals are inferred to have descended from a lineage that was forming a sister branch to Kostenki 14.” ref

“The Sungir individuals also show close genetic affinity to various individuals belonging to Vestonice Cluster buried in a Gravettian context, such as those excavated from Dolní Věstonice. In terms of their Y-chromosome, they all belonged to a subclade of haplogroup C1 (C1a2), which was common among early West Eurasian specimens, such as the ones in Kostenki (C1b*), but today rare among Europeans. The maternal haplogroups of S I belonged to U8c, while S II, S III, and S IV belonged to a subclade of U2, which is close to the ones observed among the Kostenki specimens. DNA analysis on a medieval individual from the Sungir 6 site (730-850 cal BP) showed it to belong to the mtDNA haplogroup W3a1, and Y-DNA haplogroup I2a1b2 (I-A16681).” ref

34,000 years old Russan “Sungir” Early Totemistic-Shamanism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Native American “fake twin babies” died 11,500 years ago in Alaska.

“DNA analysis of an infant and a pre-term fetus buried together in central Alaska 11,500 years ago provides a clearer picture of the genetic diversity present in the ancestors of Native Americans. The findings are significant because the date of the burials is only a few thousand years after the initial dispersal of people from Beringia into the Americas and there are few individuals dating prior to 8,000 years ago from which scientists have genetic data, Raff said.” ref

“The research fills a gap into the genetic record of populations that migrated from Siberia via the Bering Land Bridge before eventually spreading south across the Americas. The analysis of the two children’s mitochondrial genomes, which reveals a person’s lineage from the mother, revealed the children belonged to mitochondrial haplogroups C1b and B2, both of which are rare or absent in contemporary Alaskan populations in the region.” ref

“This shows us that not only was genetic diversity greater in this region in the past but is also consistent with predictions from the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, a model that posits that a stable resident population containing the ancestors of contemporary Native Americans lived in Beringia for a period of time variously estimated at less than 8,000 years or as high as 15,000 years,” Raff said.” ref

“Archaeological and genetic records have consistently indicating the Bering Land Bridge served as the primary entry point from Asia to the Americas during the Late Pleistocene era; however, there are gaps in our knowledge. Rising sea levels have separated Alaska from Siberia and covered the land bridge, inundating likely sites of human occupation or burial or both. The two individuals were buried in a residential feature at the Upward Sun River site near the confluence of the Little Delta and Tanana rivers in central Alaska. A third individual — from whom DNA was not obtained for this study — was cremated at the site. Because the two children’s DNA belonged to separate mitochondrial haplogroups, they did not share the same mother.” ref

“This is the first time we’ve been able to look at DNA from multiple burials in such an early context in the Americas,” Raff said. “And these results give us an important insight into mortuary practices and ceremonial behavior. Namely, that children buried together didn’t necessarily have to be full siblings.” ref

“Future genetic testing would shed more insight into the infants’ biological relationships, including whether they shared the same father, she said. Raff added the identification of the two haplogroups are significant from burials dating so close to migration into Beringia because both groups, B2 and C1b, are commonly found in Native Americans populations that settled to the south across North and South America, though not present-day Alaska populations.  “We are very sure of where the ancestral gene pool of ancient Native Americans came from, but this is letting us get at some of the more fine details of the migration, such as timing,” she said.” ref

“Native Americans descend from people who first left Siberia and crossed the Bering Strait when sea levels were lower and the region formed a land bridge, sometime between 23,000 and 30,000 years ago. But the details and timing of that process are up for debate. During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered all of Canada and blocked the entrance to North America as recently as 20,000 years ago. Many geneticists and archaeologists have suggested that the ancestors of Native Americans were stuck and therefore lingered in the region between Siberia and Southern Alaska, called Beringia for millennia — a theory called the Beringia standstill hypothesis.” ref

“Though northern Alaska is now an extremely forbidding environment, at that time, “there were pockets of tundra, and maybe even forests, that large mammals and humans could actually live in, and it wasn’t as harsh as it is nowadays,” Tackney said. “People could eat, find food and find freshwater and survive for thousands of years.” But archaeologists and geneticists don’t agree on just how long people were stuck in Beringia. And some have even argued that people came to North and South America in multiple migration waves, some of which didn’t pass through Beringia.” ref

“One reason for the uncertainty is that there are no human remains that date to the probable time of the migration, and no ancient human remains from anywhere near Beringia. The earliest human remains in North America come from a child, known as the Anzick Boy, who died 12,600 years ago in what is now Montana. Other ancient remains, such as those of the Kennewick Man found in Washington, are thousands of years younger.” ref

Ancient surprises

“The recently discovered remains, which are 11,600 years old, were uncovered deep in Alaska’s interior, at a site known as Upward Sun River. “This is the oldest human remain we’ve found so far north,” Tackney said. The site contained the burials of three children; a cremated 3-year-old; a premature baby; and a 6-week-old infant. The researchers analyzed the little ones’ mitochondrial DNA (DNA that is passed on from mothers to their children). It turned out that the two babies, originally believed to be twins, had different mothers. (The cremated baby had no usable DNA.) One of the babies had a genetic lineage, or haplogroup, known as C1b, whereas the other had a B2 lineage, the researchers reported today (Oct. 26) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both lineages appear in modern Native Americans, but B2 has previously been found only in tribes that currently live farther south, such as the Navajo and the Anasazi of the American Southwest.” ref

“Because the B2 lineage is common in Native Americans but has never been found in modern-day northern Siberians or North American Indians at high latitudes, some researchers have proposed that one wave of migrants from Siberia colonized the Americas, while a second colonization wave carried the B2 lineage, said Connie Mulligan, a genetics professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the study. But the new findings nix that notion, she said. The new result “really solidifies the argument for a single migration by showing that all major New World mitochondrial haplogroups can be found in ancient populations in the New World at the right time and in the right place,” Mulligan told Live Science.” ref

“The genetic data suggests that the ancestors of modern people with the B2 lineage came across the Bering Strait, whereas their ancestral population in Siberia died out, she added. Still, the new study can’t settle the debate about how long people hung out in Beringia, Tackney said. Native Americans reached a site in southern Chile, called Monte Verde, 14,800 years ago, meaning the migration out of Beringia occurred at least 3,000 years before these ancient babies died. Completing the timeline for the settlement of the Americas would require finding older human remains in the Beringia heartland — which is unlikely, given that most of that territory is now covered by ocean, he said.” ref

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“Two Neolithic figurines a female and male (9000–7000 BCE or 11,00 to 9,000 years ago), gypsum with bitumen and stone inlays, excavated in Tell Fekheriye, in Syria, on/near the border of Turkey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Téviec or Théviec is an island situated to the west of the isthmus of the peninsula of Quiberon, near Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany, France. The island is an important archaeological site due to its occupation during the Mesolithic period. Many archaeological finds have been made dating back to over 6,700 years before the present day, including the remains of over 20 people. One of the most remarkable finds was that of the grave of two young women who had apparently died violently but had received an elaborate burial under a “roof” of antlers, their bodies decorated with jewellery made from shells.” ref

“The island is one of only a few known Mesolithic sites in Brittany, along with Pointe de la Torche, Hoëdic and Beg er Vil on the Quiberon peninsula. During the Mesolithic period, the sea level was much lower – it was possible to walk from France to England – and Téviec was situated in a lagoon. Extensive middens were found near places of habitation on the island, containing the remains of shellfish, crustaceans, squid, fish, birds, cetaceans and terrestrial mammals including wild boar, red deer, roe deer, dogs and so on. The hunter-gatherers of Téviec buried their own dead in the middens. This helped to preserve the graves, as the carbonates from the shells in the middens insulated human bones from the acid soil. Many tools made of bone and antler were found along with numerous flint microliths. They were originally believed to date to 6575 years ago (± 350 years) but have now been dated to between 6740 and 5680 years ago. This indicates a longer occupation than previously thought, with its end coming at the beginning of the Neolithic period.” ref

“Ten multiple graves were discovered at Téviec containing a total of 23 individuals, including adults and children. Some of the remains were scattered between different locations. Several of those interred appear to have died violent deaths. One individual was found to have a flint arrowhead stuck in a vertebra. In another grave, the skeletons of two women aged 25–35, dubbed the “ladies of Téviec”, were found with signs of violence on both. One had sustained five blows to the head, two of which would have been fatal, and had received at least one arrow shot between the eyes. The other had also traces of injuries. However, this diagnosis is disputed by some archaeologists, who have suggested that the weight of earth above the grave may have been responsible for damaging the skeletons.” ref

“The bodies had been buried with great care in a pit that was partly dug into the ground and covered over with debris from the midden. They had been protected by a roof made of antlers and provided with a number of grave goods including pieces of flint and boar bones, and jewellery made of sea shells drilled and assembled into necklaces, bracelets and ringlets for the legs. The grave assemblage was excavated from the site in one piece and is now on display at the Muséum de Toulouse, where its restoration in 2010 earned a national award.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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