Markings:
Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes – Marilyn Bridges (1986)
What a gorgeous
photography book! The “Library Angels”
were kind once again, guiding this amazing book into my hands. Reader of the Book Journey will note my
long-standing interest in ancient megaliths, earthworks, and the civilizations
that created them. Marilyn Bridges, an
outstanding photographer, took it upon herself to take to the skies over Peru
in the 1970’s to better experience the “Nazca Lines” her indigenous guides
described. The sense of awe engendered
by what she saw led her to seek more opportunities to fly and photograph the
ancient works of humanity. Facing her
fears, Marilyn Bridges learned to fly small airplanes, allowing her to dictate
exactly how she would photograph the overwhelmingly complex lines, images, and
ruins left behind by our ancestors.
In the classic
documentarian style of photography, Bridges utilizes stark black and white film,
all shot from far above, to showcase the ruins and burial sites better seen
from the sky. This is the “view of the
gods” as she describes it. Her
impeccable eye for detail, lighting, framing, and composition make each single
image a work of art, regardless of the subject matter.
This book begins with an
informative and poetic preface by one Haven O’More, detailing Marilyn Bridge’s methods and the magic she
creates. O’More describes to us to the
four sections of this book, each with an engrossing introduction. The first section details Bridges’
photography of the famous Nazca lines and geoglyphs, some of the first images
to draw the attention of the world at large to perhaps the most mysterious and
massive earthworks and drawings ever created by our human species. The stark images perfectly capture the
inherent emptiness of the Nazca landscape, contrasted by the almost
overwhelming amount of lines and drawings and shapes left behind by the
creators, a people we call “Nazca” but of whom we know almost nothing, not even
the name they chose to call themselves.
They communicate with us and for all time through their artworks.
The second section of
this book explores the remnants of the greatest non-European, non-Asian,
non-African civilization in our human history, the Mayan Empire of Central
America, which the book states encompasses “…what is now Guatemala, Belize,
western Honduras, El Salvador, and the southern Mexican states of Yucatan,
Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and eastern Chiapas.” Going back to 2,000 BCE, and existing until
around 900 CE, the Maya culture flourished in the middle of some of the
harshest tropical forest climates around.
In the 1840’s, a traveler and writer named John Lloyd Stephens explored
the area and his two seminal books were integral in bringing the knowledge of
the Maya empire to the wider world.
Marilyn Bridges’ photographs capture both excavated buildings and cities
and completely overgrown pyramids and temples alike, lending the images an
otherworldly quality, as if the jungle was erasing our human history, which it
most certainly does cover up! The Mayan
language, the only complete written language ever created in the New World, is
still nearly indecipherable. Because of
this, and because the fucking ignorant and psychopathic religious fervor of
Spanish Roman Catholic priests “forced” them to burn every Maya text they
found, much of Maya culture remains decipherable solely through their
earthworks and architecture. Such a
pity. I firmly believe the world would
be a far better place today if every single Bible in existence had been burned
up around 400 CE, but I digress.
The third section
details the many prehistoric geoglyphs and burial mounds found throughout North
America. From 500-year old figures
carved out of the Mojave desert in California, to the ceremonial centers of the
Mississippian people, to the effigy mounds of the Adena people who lived in
what is now Ohio between 1000 BCE and 30 BCE, North America is littered with
evidence of ancient culture and people, far removed from the lies told by white
colonists of a barren, history-less landscape given to them by their white
god. What these ignorant assholes called
“Indians” and “savages” were a people with culture, cities, agriculture,
temples, burial sites, and an involved society.
Marilyn Bridges’ photographs help us remember this fact.
The final section
describes the truly ancient earthworks, henges, and artificial hills created by
the ancient people of what is now England.
The most famous of these is Stonehenge, and rightfully so, but my
favorite is the Cerne Abbas Giant, a figure created by removing the sod and
topsoil above a chalk hill in Dorset. A
180 foot tall figure, with a massive 30 foot long erect dong, represents either
the Celtic god Helith, or his Roman counterpart Hercules. Either way, the dude is an obvious ass-kicker
with his massive war-club held high overhead.
Not discussed much is the fact that in England exists a human built
earth pyramid rivaling the size of the pyramids in Egypt, but created maybe one
thousand years before. INSANE! Silbury Hill , as it is called, was first
constructed around 2500 BCE and remains the largest man-made hill in all of
Europe. Our ancestors were mighty,
inventive, intelligent bad-asses of the highest caliber!
Books like this fill me
with awe, with a feeling of overwhelming unity and love for my fellow man, and
for all our ancestors trying to make sense of a seemingly random and violent
world. Humans understand pattern better
than almost any other creature on Earth.
Because of this, through careful, extended observation, our ancient
forebears realized that the seeming permanence of the night sky, along with the
solar and lunar cycles, allowed us to experience the passage of time without
fear, for we could predict when the rains would come, when an eclipse happened,
when the winter solstice came, etc. In all parts of our world, different humans
looked at the same skies and came up with the same realizations, creating
calendars, observatories, and other tools to measure our world and the passage
of time. To know that this was mostly
done by people with no means of writing, no alphabets or glyphs to record
information, humbles me greatly. We
stand on the shoulders of every single human that came before us, and every
human after us will stand on our shoulders.
This is a responsibility that most of us ignore. I am deeply thankful our ancestors did not,
and that people like Marilyn Bridges, through her insight and emotion, saw the
importance of capturing these images and sharing them with the world at
large. I am eternally grateful, as we
all should be.
(This amazing book can be purchased used here: https://www.abebooks.com/9780893814236/Marilyn-Bridges-Markings-Sacred-Landscapes-0893814237/plp )
