Archaeology is a chthonic practice that provides more than the written word alone. It recovers secrets directly from the earth and can enable us to touch a past unknown to written history. So many ancient spells from inscriptions, clay tablets, and worm-eaten papyri are owed to archaeology that one wonders whether it was the spirits themselves that led the excavators to where these things were found.  

Archaeology also deals with prehistory, the time before writing was invented and a much longer period than historical times. Much more is left to imagine and gain from working with archaeological accounts of ancient bones, artifacts, and the prehistoric sites in which they are found. This is not a suggestion to dig up or otherwise use actual antiquities in magic. That’s usually illegal, can involve desecration, and denies others access to those materials and that knowledge. Instead, I am suggesting the greater use of accounts of archaeological finds from reputable publications, internet sites, and museum collections to inform and inspire magical work with new insights that challenge the viewpoints and biases of ancient authors. The possibilities are virtually endless.

Solo and with friends, for some time I’ve worked with a ritual inspired by unique remains from the Bronze Age period in the Eurasian steppe grasslands that were once traveled by the Mongol hordes of the khans, and far earlier by the nomads who first domesticated the horse, crossed the steppes in carts like traditional Romani wagons, and invented the chariot, which appeared only centuries later in the ancient civilizations of the Near East. The people that inhabited the region during that time are reputed to be descendants of nomads who settled there to take advantage of its natural resources.

The evidence for ancient rites with dogs and wolves during that time is intriguing and the seed from which this grew.  

Unlike a lot of rituals that ask you to identify with kings or queens, planets of sovereignty like Jupiter or the Sun, the priests and priestesses that controlled state cults in the distant past, etc., in this ritual the performers identify with nomads and pastoralists who lived in carts, yurts, and huts at the barbarian fringe of ancient civilizations, at times harassing them like a (literal) biblical plague. By the time of Hammurabi’s Babylon, which was roughly contemporary with the Late Bronze Age in the Eurasian steppes, laws were enacted against nomads who were ancestors of the ancient Canaanites because they refused to remain settled and serve wealthy and privileged landowners or their gods.

Archaeology is an act of collective remembering that recovers forgotten ways people have lived. These memories can challenge the norms of the present day. They remind us we can reject what does not serve our needs while inspiring us to pursue what does.

Magic is also remembering. Remembering who we truly are and what we are capable of, in contrast to the limits and restrictions we may have sometimes felt we had to accept.

If you find those thoughts appealing and this is your thing, stay tuned.