CONCRETE

Interior of a concrete mixer (A. de Cunha, 2013)

Having thus far concentrated our efforts on the linguistic environment surrounding the objects of our study, it seems we must now ask if there is anything meaningful in their makeup, anything of rational substance in their material substance — if there is anything concrete that might be extracted from this particular type of artificial stone.

To this end, we may first remark on how modern concrete (as we'll recall from Andrews) is a concoction some 5,000 years in the making, whereas the strands of our toponymical investigations seem to also go back at least this far. In fact, as one reads in Robert Courland's quite comprehensive book, Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Man-Made Material, there is evidence to suggest that certain concretious lime-clay mixtures date well back into the Neolithic (fittingly "new stone") age, being found at certain Anatolian sites like Çayönü, Çatalhöyük, Nevali Çori, and Göbekli Tepe — all which predate our Hittites in this region by millenia.

If, from here, we take the Sumerian inception of grammatical animacy as our starting point in earnest, we'll find, by way of Courland's chronology, interesting parallels in the geographic development of this substance along with our own mytho-linguistic observations — beginning with the Mesopotamians who, aside from lime, were early adopters of gypsum and tar-based building compounds; then the Egyptians who, by some contentious accounts, utilized an early form of limestone concrete in the construction of the pyramids; through to the Minoans and Greeks who employed volcanic pozzolan centuries before the Romans perfected its use.

But why should we tie this material, more than any other, to the subject of animacy? What, in this regard, has any fabricated form of stone over its naturally occurring counterpart? To answer this we may begin by pointing to its very artifice, then refer back to the ingredients of its composition, for within its manufacture one finds all of the paradox and ouroboric intrigue that one might expect to accompany such matter. It is, after all, significant in itself that concrete is made from inanimate materials, through animate means, to become, once again, an inanimate thing — yet a thing, as we've seen, which exhibits all the properties of what one might deem to be a "living stone" (heating as it sets, shrinking as it cures, expanding with the elements, and gaining constant strength through hydration).

Such behaviour is, of course, due to concrete's constituents, each feasibly symbolic in its own particular way. Indeed, the very quadripartite constitution typical of this mixture may suggest aspects of those numerous foursomes already detailed. As to its individual components, then, we might first observe that sand, together with gravel could well be seen as concrete's "twin" members, being simply gradations of the very same article: natural stone itself. They are, as such, the Dioscuri, or the Horus/Set of Hrwyfy. They are also, in substance, the authentic parts of the simulated whole. Water, meanwhile, the next constituent, requires little symbolic explication. We will merely note that, as with any such creation, concrete begins and ends with water — both water, in and of itself, and in the form of concrete's final and, perhaps, most important ingredient: cement, the binding agent which holds it all together. Cement, of course, is an amalgam of ingredients itself — the most crucial of which being, traditionally, limestone (related previously to our deneholes, and those white horse hill carvings), and here it relates back to water again, for limestone emerges from the sea, the product of compressed skeletal sediment formed from the calcium carbonate remains of various species of marine life. Moreover, when limestone is heated the water contained within it evaporates, leaving what is known as quicklime, or simply "lime." When water is then added back into this strange, powdery substance it heats further still, rather than cooling, forming calcium hydroxide, an even odder material which actually seems to "breathe" in a sense, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to become, in essence, limestone once more — only now much harder than it was to begin with.

Roman concrete at the Colosseum (Ø. Holmstad, 2010)

It was the discovery of this series of chemical reactions, many thousands of years ago, which gave birth to cement and, thus, eventually to concrete. We should note, however, that the temperature required to heat limestone to the point of quicklime is far beyond the potential of any conventional fire. What is needed is the service of a lime kiln, a specialized structure capable of firing limestone to temperatures exceeding 800°C. As Courland observes, such "high-temperature" ovens seem to have been with us since the dawn of civilization, oddly predating in the archaeological record any of the "low-temperature affairs for baking or roasting food." But how, then, did man come to this knowledge in the first place? As Courland rightly asks "why would our Neolithic ancestors go to such tremendous effort to build and service a high-temperature kiln for the purpose of making lime unless they first knew what the product would be — and how would they know that?" If some initial, accidental burning of this stone could not have produced the results described above, what set the first example for our ancestors to follow? Courland, with sound reason, theorizes lightening:

When lightning hits limestone, lime is created. The temperature of a lightening bolt is over 27,000°C (about 50,000°F), hotter than the face of the sun, so the "bake period" is instantaneous. While lightening is usually accompanied by rain — which would return the lime to limestone — sometimes it is not.

Such a lightening strike would thus present the process in all its various stages, allowing ancient man to copy and experiment with its reproduction. It may also align this substance, in certain ways, with our very own network of "red king" symbolism, being, in such manner, an actual gift from the storm-gods; falling literally "as lightning," like Lucifer himself. Its discovery, in any case, was undoubtedly an event of momentous spiritual and cultural impact. As Courland writes of it:

In a way, it must have seemed like some divine power transferred to humankind, for only the gods could make rocks. The 'magic' of lime may have given its discoverer a power that soon transcended the immediate hunter-gatherer group and led to the first intertribal communities based on a particular belief system and set of rituals. The discovery of lime also seems to have coincided with some of the earliest instances of carving limestone for construction purposes or to create art. It is as if the discovery of lime focused people's attention for the first time on the other attributes of limestone, especially the fact that it is the most malleable of hard rocks. As lime was almost certainly considered a sacred substance, so must limestone been regarded as a sacred rock, for its use — both in construction and art — was, like lime concrete, restricted for many centuries to religious complexes like Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çori.

Indeed, at Nevali Çori, as Courland continues, "a limestone bust of a man's head — the earliest known life-size anthropomorphic figure — was also discovered. The man's head is bald, except for what appears to be a crawling snake on top — or his hair cut to resemble a crawling snake — and may represent a shaman or priest." ...Or gorgon, perhaps? Great-great-great-grandfather of Medusa. The similarity is striking, it must be said, to this mythical creature with the power to mineralize; to in-animate. Likewise, the serpentine shape of a lightening bolt strikes one as potentially significant here, given all that has been already discussed. What is more, we might point out, is that Nevali Çori, like Thackeray and elsewhere, is now submerged beneath a reservoir formed by the damming of the nearby Euphrates — that river which flows from the eye of Tiamat, and which stands, for some, as the Eridanus, "watery grave of Phaethon ... starry river leading to the other world." Here we'll recall that "contradictory union of serpent, stone, and water" as previously noted above, while observing how this site is ouroborically returned to the aqueous realms of its compelling stone's birth.

Neolithic limestone sculpture from Nevali Çori

We may now stop to think of other such origins, and other such blendings of liquid and stone — of Mesopotamia's theogony of gods arising from water and silt, or of Hamlet's great Maelstrom "grinding rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool." As alluded to earlier, this latter imagery, as it relates to the cosmic mill, relates also, and almost directly, to our own concern of concrete; for, aside from the ingredients so named above, where else is this material produced but in the colloquially termed "cement mixer" (more precisely, a concrete mixer)? — and what is such a device but simply another type of mill?

We may continue to draw parallels along these lines, further connecting this substance to our prior investigations. So much so, in fact, that we might now ask if the toponyms we've been unravelling here are not so much symbolic keys to unlock the purpose or pedigree of these concrete ruins, but, rather, keys for unlocking the symbolism embedded within the concrete itself. Assuming our assumptions are in any way correct, there would at least appear some referential loop running between the two. But what exactly is being referred to — and by whom — still remains enticingly obscure. We speak of "animacy," but in what form? Is it the animate or the inanimate which is being appealed to here? The transition from one to the other, or just a general acknowledgement of both? To be, or not to be inert? That seems to be the question stirred-up in this maelstrom of mixing signals.

Where, then, to begin? With the architecture and configuration of our ruins largely enduring in their mystery, we might first approach this question in the broadest possible way. We will note that the construction of any type of monument (presuming our "menhirs" and obelisks are meant to be such) is, of course, a customary appeal to permanence; an abiding testament to the animacy which built it, and a reminder for the animate who remain thereafter. Structures of a more practical sort, meanwhile (our bridges, gateways, walls, and the like), are usually erected in aid of the animate, to serve the purpose of some continued action. Both, however, if built firm enough, will long outlive their builders — their forms, eventually, outliving their function to stand, at last, as monuments only to themselves and their own inanimacy. We are, in this way, in a certain sense, the tools of the inanimate. Every structure we build becomes an unwitting shrine to either side of the issue.

The use of a material like concrete, then, for reasons already described, adds yet another layer of ambiguity to these particular structures. Its static, dynamic, and ouroboric nature speaks equally well to all. Here, though, we might look again to the positioning of our ruins for some further clue to their meaning; observing once more their unanimous location by water. Each structure, as such, is situated in a floodplain and subject to the effects of occasional submersion. As we'll now recall, one such effect on the substance of concrete is that of continual strength gain. In this way, this "living stone" maintains the semblance of "life." But strength gain, in the sense of a stone, could also be looked upon as simply advancing the process of hardening; of solidification, calcification — of unrelenting in-animation. What is more, hard as any concrete might become, this increased contact with water would only hasten its inevitable erosion, while leaving these structures suseptible to damage from flotsam carried on the tides of deluge. Inbuilt within each of these ruins, therefor, is the principle cause of their ruination. Each has been slighted from the outset, a sacrifice to itself; destined to sink back into the watery source from which it initially came.

One can't help but be reminded here of Neumann once again; of his downward pull into "natural inertia," and his gradual dissipation into an undifferentiated everything. We might then note that, as denizens of the floodplain, our ruins are also intrinsically low-lying, and such regions pertain symbolically to what Neumann calls the "Great Mother":

Anything deep — abyss, valley, ground, also the sea and the bottom of the sea, fountains, lakes and pools, the earth, the underworld, the cave, the house, and the city — all are parts of this archetype. Anything big and embracing which contains, surrounds, enwraps, shelters, preserves, and nourishes anything small belongs to the primordial matriarchal realm.

Light and dark visions of the matriarchal landscape; details from the Splendor Solis

Yet this realm, while possessing all the maternal sanctity of our oft implied Madonna, contains also the dark allure of what Neumann terms "uroboric incest." Building on earlier psychological work by the likes of Rank and Ferenczi, he writes:

Uroboric incest is a form of entry into the mother, of union with her, and it stands in sharp contrast to other and later forms of incest. In uroboric incest, the emphasis upon pleasure and love is in no sense active, it is more a desire to be dissolved and absorbed; passively one lets oneself be taken, sinks into the pleroma, melts away in the ocean of pleasure - a Liebestod. The Great Mother takes the little child back into herself, and always over uroboric incest there stands the insignia of death, signifying final dissolution in union with the Mother. Cave, earth, tomb, sarcophagus, and coffin are symbols of this ritual recombination, which begins with burial in the posture of the embryo in the barrows of the Stone Age and ends with the cinerary urns of the moderns.

Here, then, we have the Madonna as Tiamat; the mother who would destroy her spawn. Cronos, who devours his own children, might be seen as the masculine representation of this principle. Likewise Apsû, Tarhund, or the kings of the Perseus and St. George myths — any who would kill or sacrifice their offspring. Yet here we have also the compliant victim, and must also recall of our explorations the numerous, reiterating references to mortality, noting the associations and similarities of certain of our ruins with actual forms of burial — having then, in some cases, a tomb, within a river valley, within a city; a threefold amplification, perhaps, of the Great Mother theme by way of these concrete "insignias of death." Reflecting now upon Bayley's mysterious "shrines dedicated to the prehistoric Madonna" — those limestone re-entries dug down into the womb of Mother Earth herself — what then of their more modern concrete counterparts, and their potential connection to this most prehistoric and primordial matriarch?