HOME | DD

Description

In 1932, following the discoveries of the Natufian culture by Dorothy Garrod in the western Judean Mountains in the late 1920’s, Miskatonic University funded an expedition. The goal: to further explore the culture of this unknown society of hunter-gatherers, now credited with the invention of farming itself, and uncover the extent to which their society roamed in the holy land.

Professor Harold Windsor of Miskatonic University’s Archeological Department together with his protégé Mr. Albert Holmes, proceeded to Greater Lebanon to conduct surveys. Professor Windsor’s target: the triple mountain peaks of Mount Har-Hermon which straddles the Syrian/Lebanon border.

Windsor was convinced the long standing sacredness and infamy of the mountains was the key. The mountains were mentioned in all religious texts from the area, going as far back as the epic of Gilgamesh which Windsor was convinced was the retelling of still older legends. Subsequent cultures, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Muslims as well as less definable groups had all adorned the mountains with temples and places of worship.

But Professor Windsor had a different area in mind: one he had studied for years through ancient documents and the legends of the Bedouins that roamed the region for countless centuries. One area was distinctly vacant of any structures. A table-top slope half way up the Lebanese peak. The site seemed tailor made for a place of worship yet was empty all the same. All cultures throughout history had left it strictly alone. Or so it had seemed.

While the mountains were shunned for being the place where the Watcher angels, led by the angel Semjâzâ, willingly fell to earth and took an oath together to debauch the women of the newly emerged human race and teach man all forbidden magicks and conjurations as told in the book of Enoch, the site in question was held by the Nomads as the actual place were the angels had spoken the oath. Har-Hermon was ever after known as a place of unspeakable evil, as "the place of oath".

The team, comprised of very reluctant local laborers, quickly uncovered what appeared to be the oldest religious temple complex yet known. Adding to this profound discovery was the fact that relics discovered onsite (one of the extremely rare Natufian tool caches) strongly suggested that this site was built by the Natufians. Until then no one believed a Mesolithic society was capable of organizing a labor force to construct a site as sophisticated as the one Professor Windsor had found. It was on par, and in ways surpassing the level of design and construction of the megalithic henges of Northern Europe, which it predated by 6,800 years.

The elation however was short lived.

The site soon yielded a horrifying discovery: human bodies in profusion and the unmistakable signs of human sacrifice. A body presumably freshly killed had remained on the temples alter where it had died for over 12,000 years. In addition the bodies in and around the site all displayed signs of violent death followed by burning. The site had apparently been raided and destroyed in the middle of a ceremony.

And then there was the temple deity.

A huge toppled monolithic carving of a cephalopod-like being comprised of an unrecognizable type of stone. Though pulled down and broken the god would have towered over the complex at nearly 24 feet tall. The nature of the forgotten god was also strange: gods displaying sea creature attributes were far more common near coastlines, not high in a mountain range.

Additionally there was the well. A stone-lined offering well directly before the god, which almost certainly received the bodies of the sacrifices, was deliberately plugged with debris. When cleared it revealed itself to be the opening to a massive underground cave or grotto. The depth was impossible to determine due to a lack of available plumb bob rope, but its last charted depth was a staggering 400 feet deep. Sounds from within where harder to determine. The fluttering of large wings were distinctly heard recoiling from the light allowed in by the reopened aperture; the sound was put down to bats, though no one on the dig had ever encountered vermin large enough to account for the sheer size the sounds suggested.

The random disappearances and desertion of laborers began to take its toll on the dig so Windsor turned his attention to the relics. He would regret it for the rest of his life. The tools and implements were, on the surface, unmistakably Natufian. In-depth evaluation however began to display…oddities. The trademark sickle was itself a puzzle. The bladelets were obsidian glass, not the standard flint. While infinitely sharper these would not hold up to rigorous wild cereal harvests. The shaft too was a tine from an extinct form of elk from regions of Northern Europe, not the tine of a native Ibex, Gazelle or Antelope as in all other cases. The knife also was unusual, Natufian were a microlithic culture using small thin bladelets, this knife was thick, bulky and out of place. There was an unremarkable coil of rope (though well preserved) along with a beautifully carved personal fetish, a miniature carving of the temple deity for personal worship. The slingshot and bolas were also strange. Though intense levels of tannic acid in the soil had miraculously preserved the leather of these tools which were of the design common to the area since prehistoric times the weights and shot stones reflected other cultural influences.

The shot and weights were all carved with the distinct head of an unknown species of Bovidae. The images all displayed a very distinct set of headgear and pronounced proboscis or highly specialized prehensile upper lip. These carvings were clearly a form of sympathetic hunting magic, common for prehistoric hunters but again, from regions much further north. The deeper the Professor looked the more apparent it became that these worshippers were NOT Natufian, but a migrated society from Northern Europe who had begun copying their technology.

Then came the terrible revelation.

It began when an aid brought the sling stones to the Professor’s desk in a tray. They had been allowed to roll around. It was then Professor Windsor saw the engravings with fresh eyes, they had been upside down. What appeared to be antlers where legs, an animal’s face was actually a body trunk, and a proboscis was a human head. This was indeed sympathetic hunting magic…to hunt humans. The images were of people, arms down to the side to encourage a passive nature.

The scene came crashing in: these worshippers were stealing technology and converting the tools into weapons for hunting sacrificial victims. The tool cache was not a farmer’s satchel but raiders weapons used to capture living victims. In his trembling hand Professor Windsor held the sickle, now aware he may be holding the first ever example of the farmer’s tools turned into the weapons of slaughter.

The information never reached the outside world.

While on a trip to Beirut to send a status report to Miskatonic with these revelations Mr. Holmes, the only other American on the dig, was killed and robbed of all documentation by a group of strangers who dispersed as quickly as they had surrounded him. After that the team was officially recalled but Windsor did not reply or return. After the university coordinated with French authorities the professor was located residing in a cheap hotel in Beirut. His condition was reported as “in a state of great agitation and dishevelment”. Upon return to the states he abjectly refused to divulge details regarding the dig. Most critically: the location itself. Before legal proceedings could begin to force his cooperation Professor Windsor resigned and self committed to Arkham Sanatorium. He had become hopelessly addicted to morphine and drink. It was widely suspected that this move was to avoid being forced to reveal the dig site location for the university to stage another expedition.

The site was never found again. Professor Windsor remained in the sanatorium until his death in 1954. The only relevant piece of information ever conveyed was from Windsor’s estranged wife. She reported to the university faculty what Windsor had divulged to her: before abandoning the site he had spent a considerable amount of his personal fortune to hire out of country laborers to rebury the site, to attempt to correct his mistake, to hide the place of evil the same way those ancient farmers had when they rose up to destroy it, burying it to erase from the memory of man this place where, as he put it, “hell and earth actually touched”.

To this day the only relics from the dig, the “tool cache” which was found in Windsor’s possession and shipped to the university by the French authorities, remains mercifully misidentified as Natufian artifacts.

Description

In 1932, following the discoveries of the Natufian culture by Dorothy Garrod in the western Judean Mountains in the late 1920’s, Miskatonic University funded an expedition. The goal: to further explore the culture of this unknown society of hunter-gatherers, now credited with the invention of farming itself, and uncover the extent to which their society roamed in the holy land.

Professor Harold Windsor of Miskatonic University’s Archeological Department together with his protégé Mr. Albert Holmes, proceeded to Greater Lebanon to conduct surveys. Professor Windsor’s target: the triple mountain peaks of Mount Har-Hermon which straddles the Syrian/Lebanon border.

Windsor was convinced the long standing sacredness and infamy of the mountains was the key. The mountains were mentioned in all religious texts from the area, going as far back as the epic of Gilgamesh which Windsor was convinced was the retelling of still older legends. Subsequent cultures, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Muslims as well as less definable groups had all adorned the mountains with temples and places of worship.

But Professor Windsor had a different area in mind: one he had studied for years through ancient documents and the legends of the Bedouins that roamed the region for countless centuries. One area was distinctly vacant of any structures. A table-top slope half way up the Lebanese peak. The site seemed tailor made for a place of worship yet was empty all the same. All cultures throughout history had left it strictly alone. Or so it had seemed.

While the mountains were shunned for being the place where the Watcher angels, led by the angel Semjâzâ, willingly fell to earth and took an oath together to debauch the women of the newly emerged human race and teach man all forbidden magicks and conjurations as told in the book of Enoch, the site in question was held by the Nomads as the actual place were the angels had spoken the oath. Har-Hermon was ever after known as a place of unspeakable evil, as "the place of oath".

The team, comprised of very reluctant local laborers, quickly uncovered what appeared to be the oldest religious temple complex yet known. Adding to this profound discovery was the fact that relics discovered onsite (one of the extremely rare Natufian tool caches) strongly suggested that this site was built by the Natufians. Until then no one believed a Mesolithic society was capable of organizing a labor force to construct a site as sophisticated as the one Professor Windsor had found. It was on par, and in ways surpassing the level of design and construction of the megalithic henges of Northern Europe, which it predated by 6,800 years.

The elation however was short lived.

The site soon yielded a horrifying discovery: human bodies in profusion and the unmistakable signs of human sacrifice. A body presumably freshly killed had remained on the temples alter where it had died for over 12,000 years. In addition the bodies in and around the site all displayed signs of violent death followed by burning. The site had apparently been raided and destroyed in the middle of a ceremony.

And then there was the temple deity.

A huge toppled monolithic carving of a cephalopod-like being comprised of an unrecognizable type of stone. Though pulled down and broken the god would have towered over the complex at nearly 24 feet tall. The nature of the forgotten god was also strange: gods displaying sea creature attributes were far more common near coastlines, not high in a mountain range.

Additionally there was the well. A stone-lined offering well directly before the god, which almost certainly received the bodies of the sacrifices, was deliberately plugged with debris. When cleared it revealed itself to be the opening to a massive underground cave or grotto. The depth was impossible to determine due to a lack of available plumb bob rope, but its last charted depth was a staggering 400 feet deep. Sounds from within where harder to determine. The fluttering of large wings were distinctly heard recoiling from the light allowed in by the reopened aperture; the sound was put down to bats, though no one on the dig had ever encountered vermin large enough to account for the sheer size the sounds suggested.

The random disappearances and desertion of laborers began to take its toll on the dig so Windsor turned his attention to the relics. He would regret it for the rest of his life. The tools and implements were, on the surface, unmistakably Natufian. In-depth evaluation however began to display…oddities. The trademark sickle was itself a puzzle. The bladelets were obsidian glass, not the standard flint. While infinitely sharper these would not hold up to rigorous wild cereal harvests. The shaft too was a tine from an extinct form of elk from regions of Northern Europe, not the tine of a native Ibex, Gazelle or Antelope as in all other cases. The knife also was unusual, Natufian were a microlithic culture using small thin bladelets, this knife was thick, bulky and out of place. There was an unremarkable coil of rope (though well preserved) along with a beautifully carved personal fetish, a miniature carving of the temple deity for personal worship. The slingshot and bolas were also strange. Though intense levels of tannic acid in the soil had miraculously preserved the leather of these tools which were of the design common to the area since prehistoric times the weights and shot stones reflected other cultural influences.

The shot and weights were all carved with the distinct head of an unknown species of Bovidae. The images all displayed a very distinct set of headgear and pronounced proboscis or highly specialized prehensile upper lip. These carvings were clearly a form of sympathetic hunting magic, common for prehistoric hunters but again, from regions much further north. The deeper the Professor looked the more apparent it became that these worshippers were NOT Natufian, but a migrated society from Northern Europe who had begun copying their technology.

Then came the terrible revelation.

It began when an aid brought the sling stones to the Professor’s desk in a tray. They had been allowed to roll around. It was then Professor Windsor saw the engravings with fresh eyes, they had been upside down. What appeared to be antlers where legs, an animal’s face was actually a body trunk, and a proboscis was a human head. This was indeed sympathetic hunting magic…to hunt humans. The images were of people, arms down to the side to encourage a passive nature.

The scene came crashing in: these worshippers were stealing technology and converting the tools into weapons for hunting sacrificial victims. The tool cache was not a farmer’s satchel but raiders weapons used to capture living victims. In his trembling hand Professor Windsor held the sickle, now aware he may be holding the first ever example of the farmer’s tools turned into the weapons of slaughter.

The information never reached the outside world.

While on a trip to Beirut to send a status report to Miskatonic with these revelations Mr. Holmes, the only other American on the dig, was killed and robbed of all documentation by a group of strangers who dispersed as quickly as they had surrounded him. After that the team was officially recalled but Windsor did not reply or return. After the university coordinated with French authorities the professor was located residing in a cheap hotel in Beirut. His condition was reported as “in a state of great agitation and dishevelment”. Upon return to the states he abjectly refused to divulge details regarding the dig. Most critically: the location itself. Before legal proceedings could begin to force his cooperation Professor Windsor resigned and self committed to Arkham Sanatorium. He had become hopelessly addicted to morphine and drink. It was widely suspected that this move was to avoid being forced to reveal the dig site location for the university to stage another expedition.

The site was never found again. Professor Windsor remained in the sanatorium until his death in 1954. The only relevant piece of information ever conveyed was from Windsor’s estranged wife. She reported to the university faculty what Windsor had divulged to her: before abandoning the site he had spent a considerable amount of his personal fortune to hire out of country laborers to rebury the site, to attempt to correct his mistake, to hide the place of evil the same way those ancient farmers had when they rose up to destroy it, burying it to erase from the memory of man this place where, as he put it, “hell and earth actually touched”.

To this day the only relics from the dig, the “tool cache” which was found in Windsor’s possession and shipped to the university by the French authorities, remains mercifully misidentified as Natufian artifacts.