The Red Lands

The Red Lands
By John K. Lundwall

I stood beneath a sweltering, noon-day sun. The torrid heat pressed upon me as if it had mass; and the effulgent sun trimmed every shadow. Yet it was not the sun's rays that caused my eyes to dialate and blink, straining to focus on the image. No. It was the large and ancient temple wall that stretched out of the ground painted in such a vibrant red hue that I could only stand blinking at it. Atop the ancient wreck stood a Catholic church that had been constructed out of the old temple stones that formed its base. Only a few pillars and walls remained of the ancient, sacred structure: two courtyards in shambles was the site of the Zapotec religious center in Mitla, Mexico.

I clicked a few pictures. Later, I would be completely dissatisfied with how they turned out. The photo print had somehow darkened the vibrancy of that massive red wall. But at the moment I stood in silent awe. I remembered the numerous red pillars and walls at Teotihuachan thirty miles outside of Mexico city I had visited several days before. I also noticed the color red as the dominant color of every sacred site from Mexico City to Mitla. I had stopped at over twenty major and minor sites along a three thousand mile trek. Wheverever there was a surviving pigment clinging to a wall or stelle, the color red was to be found. But none were this bright; this radiant.

I began to realize that in their original, fresh coats, the ancient world of Mesoamerica would have been completely alive with color. What I had seen were just the pale and diminished shadows of color and design; cracked and caked with centuries of dust and inattention.The color schemes of the Maya, Aztec, Olmec, and Zapotec were well outside what my culture considered as "good taste". You would never see such clashing and boisterous shades suggested by Martha Stewart. Of course the flora in this equatorial world was equally bright and vibrant, and I began to imagine a city filled with bold designs and colors, landscaped in well ordered trees, plants, and flowers, of equal colorful measure, and peopled by busy artisans and craftsman, farmers and tradesman, wearing vibrant pigments in their clothing. What a sight it must have been.

I walked up the stone steps, passing numerous, multi-ton pillars, and entered the second courtyard, relatively intact. It's walls were over twice my height, and everywhere wild, geometric designs were carved into stone. Again, what color survived was red. Red was everywhere. And I began to question if this had any significance.

After leaving Mitla we headed towards Cholula; a large city planted within the shadows of a towering volcanic mountian. There, the largest pyramid in the world stood, again, with a Catholic church atop it. In truth, little excavation, as compared to the area to be excavated, had been done. But a large fresco was being unearthed during our visit. A steel and tin covering had been erected to protect the fesco from the elements. Again the color red was the dominant hue. I asked a guide employed at the site about the color. He seemed to think that the materials that produced the pigment were in great supply and thus were used regularly. As it turns out, everyone I asked seemed to come to the same conclusion.

This conclusion was wholly unsatisfactory to me. Civilizations that could expertly build structures with massive and weighty stones, who could astronomically align major temple complexes, and even whole cities to equinoxes, the sun's zenith, and certain constellations, and who could create a massive canal system, such as the one found in South America, which could irrigate enough fields to feed millions, could certainly paint their sacred sites a different color, regardless of the red ochres and plants that prevailed in the countryside. In fact, I also found many vibrant blues, greens, and yellows, but these were minor in comparison to the color scheme this ancient world used at its most sacred sites. I could not believe that the color choices were purley for economic reasons.

When I came home I went to the library to see if any archeologist had written on ancient color schemes. But my trips to the library were nearly in vain. I couldn't find a single scrap of writing which addressed this topic. Yet I did find something else equally interesting. It turns out that the ancient Mesoamerican's were not the only ones with a severe fascination with red. Everywhere in both the ancient and modern world I found red as a dominant color scheme at sacred sites.

I turned page after page and saw pictures of red roofs and pillars in the pagodas and toriis of Asia; red walls and murals in Tibet and Cambodia, red robes and painted tatoos in India and Ethiopia. If the abundant supply of red dye's was the cause of the prolific use of this color, then why, in the modern age, where any color can be manufactured, did this color persist? Was it just tradition? Perhaps. Yet it now seemed convincing that there were reasons beyond the economical. I began to dig deeper, beyond architectures and textiles, and into the archetypal realms of cosmology and mythology.

When one thinks of the ancient world one always thinks of Egypt, and specifically the Sphinx and pyramids. Coincidentally, the ancient Sphinx was painted red for most of its history (Hancock 1998, 170). To the ancient Egyptians the Sphinx was often called Hor-em-Akhet, or Horus in the Horizon. Debate continues as to exactly what this means, and there is no consensus. Nevertheless, there is a 'Horus' in the 'Horizon', known by the ancient Egyptians as Hor Dshr, or Horus the Red. The title was placed on the planet Mars (Hancock 1996), the red star in the eastern sky. In the city of Dashur, two pyramids also seem to correlate to an astronomical counterpart: the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. It has been suggested that these pyramids align with the stars epsilon-Tauri and Aldebaran respectively. The Red Pyramid, built of solid red stones, may thus align with the red giant Aldebaran, or the eye of Taurus (Hanckock 1998, 236).

One cannot help but to recognize the cosmological significance of heavenly bodies and the color red. The most obvious and bright adornment in the sky is our own sun, represented as the red rising sun upon the national flag of Japan. Indeed, as the sun approaches the horizon, whether rising or setting, the color red sprays across the atmosphere like a glorious paint upon a diamond canvas. Many ancient myths retell how the sun rises out of the underworld to light the land of man; setting again at night to return to the underworld. Red oft times accompanies this transition in the sky and so may have been significant as symbolic of the other world.

Despite these intriguing and prominent examples, it is indeed to mythology that the red color scheme is most interestingly associated with immortality. In ancient Egypt, the royal palm tree, with its vibrant reddish bark, was named phoinic, according to classic mythologist Jacob Bryant. The royal palm was thought to be immortal; if it withered, it would spring up anew somewhere else. Hence the bough of this tree, called bai, was the residence of the human soul, also called bai, thought to be immortal and migratory between the realms of heaven and earth (Bryant 1774).

The word phoinic, describes Bryant, was applied to both the color red as well as to those who were the highest esteemed: the noble, wise, and true. And in fact the Greeks took the word and changed it to phoenix, the red, fiery, sun-bird of immortality; and also applied it to the famous Phonecians, a culture esteemed highly in the ancient world for their knowledge and wisdom (Ibid).

In a curious polynesian myth, McLeish retells the story of Tangaroa and Rongo, twins born from the creator gods Papa and Vatea. They were given dominion over the earth. Tangaroa was the elder twin, but allowed Rongo to be born first. "Tangaroa also knew all the secrets of the universe and taught Rongo how to look after growing things." Tangaroa, as elder, should have been given the sole rulership of the earth, "but Vatea said his saltiness (for Tangaroa was the sea god) would kill all things on the earth and therefore gave Rongo title to rule." Tangaroa agreed, "asking only that he be allowed rule of everything red in creation: red birds, red fish, red leaved trees, red vegetables and fruit, and red-haired people." Rongo accepted, and the result was that "although red creatures and produce are the minority in creation, they are also the choicest" (McLeish 1996).

In a Tahitian tradition , "...the first human pair was made by Taaroa, the principal deity acknowledged by the Tahitian nation. . . . They say, that after Taaroa had formed the world, he created man out of ararea, red earth . . ." (Loveland 1976).

This tradition plainly corresponds to the ancient Hebrew idea of the first man, or adamic man, named Adam, which name literally means "red earth". Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, but not just any earth: he was formed from the first earth that rose from the sea (Genesis 1:9-10). This was the cosmic mountain, the axis mundi, the navel of creation; and the mountain was red earth of the divine.

Nibley quotes a Jewish scholar, A. Yahuda, who notes a signifant tie between Egypt and Israel: the Egyptian word tesheret, meaning "the red one" and signifying the "red land" from which Adam was expelled. Adam was to till the earth by the sweat of his brow, but it was the fallen, black earth of Egypt he was to till (Nibley 1981). Literally the ancient Egyptian name for Egypt was Khem or Khemi, meaning "black land or earth". Thus the red earth was the goal of Adam's return; it was the Eden from whence he came. The black earth was his domain, the place from which he had to rise again after his fall. The red earth is thus symbolic of the Holy Land or Promised Land; and the red man is it's inhabitant.

We have now some promising connections between color and sacred space. It is clear that the ancient pyramids were a representation of the cosmic mountain: the place of creation. Less clear, but somewhat obvious is the idea behind painting them red, for red was the color of the divine land and the divine man. It seems therefore that to pain ancient temples red was to signify their holy and sacred space next to the divine. These places were the connecting points between heaven and earth.

Nibley also relates of a Hopi tradition passed down to present. According to the Hopis, their ancestors came from the south, from the "Great Red City". Their ancestors had great knowledge, but because of their wickedness they and their city were destroyed (Nibley 1990).

Thinking of Teotihuachan and remembering its red temples and murals, I wonder if there is a connection? I am also told by a guide at this ancient Mexican site the name Teotihuachan is a Nahuatl word meaning "the place where men became gods". Standing at the foot of the great Pyramid of the Sun, rising out of the morning fog like the mountain of first creation, one cannot help but to think of the divine, and wonder what could have happened to a civilization that built a landscape in arhcitecture and color that by its very nature heightened the spiritual senses? This civilization seems to have disappeared far before the blood-thristy Aztecs, or the human-sacrificing Zapotecs. One gets the sense that the red temples descend from a vast and very ancient tradition.

There are no smoking guns to tell us where to look and what to believe. There are a smattering of clues which give suggestions. Red certainly is a sacred color and certainly has connections with the red heavens: Mars, Aldebaran, or our own red rising sun to say the least. And it seems certain that these red heavens did descend in a cosmic moment of creation bringing forth the red mountain, the first land. From this sacred earth man was formed; the divine breath of life fused into his red blood to bring him forth.

Little seems arbitrary in ancient symbol, and the plentitude of red dyes may be due to the sacred ideas associated with the color painted upon civilizations that were mostly sacrosant in nature; that is surrounded by a sacred ideal and center. The red temple; the red mountain, the red city, and the red man was a message of divine origins and a hope for a divine return. In our modern world, where color is solely a materialistic choice, perhaps these ancient ideas have something still to teach us; now, and in our future.

Works Cited

Bryant, Jacob. New System or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Part 2. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2003.

Hancock, Graham. The Mars Mystery. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1998.

Hancock, Graham and Robert Bauval. The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996.

Loveland, Jerry K. Hagoth and the Polyneisan Tradition. BYU Studies, vol. 17 (1976-1977), Number 1 - Autumn 1976.

McLeish, Kenneth. Myth: Myths and Legends of the World Explored. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1996.

Nibley, Hugh. Abraham in Egypt. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1981.

Nibley, Hugh. Teachings of the Book of Mormon--Semester 1: Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988--1990. Provo: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1990.

Posted by john at June 18, 2004 10:31 AM