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In his studies The Nordic Origins of the Odyssey and the Iliad: the Migration of Myth, Felice Vinсi provides convincing evidence of the location of the kingdom of Hades in the Lappish Arctic: the eternal darkness that pursues Homer's Cimmerians, clearly related to the period of polar winter in the Far North; coincidences in geographical descriptions by Homer, Jordanes and Saxo Grammaticus; the extraordinary similarity of the Lappish shamanic rituals of summoning the souls of the dead and the algorithms that the sorceress Circe shares with Ulysses, when sending him to the Underworld entrance point.
Felice Vinci, however, is not entirely sure of the exact location described by Homer. In the initial publication, Vinci associated the River Styx with an ancient river waterway from the White Sea to the Gulf of Bothnia. According to this old hypothesis, Ulysses had to make a long journey, starting from the island of Circe in the far north of Norway, sail around the entire Kola Peninsula and reach Kandalaksha, the supposed entrance to the River Styx. In the updated version of his study, however, Vinci moved the point to which Circe directed Ulysses – to the sacred 35-meter-high rock of Simalango at the intersection of the fjords Burfjorden and Jøkelfjorden in northwestern Norway, associating these fjords with “two roaring rivers confluencing near a rock”:
Go to the rotten home of Hades,
here the Pyriphlegethon flows into the Acheron
with the Cocytus , which flows from the water of the Styx
and there stands a rock at the confluence of the two noisy rivers. (Odyssey 10.512-515)
During the translation of Felice Vinci's study into Russian, we repeatedly searched the map of the entire coast of Norway and the Kola Peninsula, browsing it up and down, looking for an alternative place where two distinct large rivers would merge by a noticeable cliff, until we found it... very close to the present-day city of Murmansk. In between the estuaries of two mighty rivers, Tuloma and Kola, when their waters join and simultaneously flow into the long Kola Bay, there rises the famous 80-meter tall cliff of Suolovarra (and beneath it, on a lowland cape formed by these two rivers, there stands the ancient port and fortress of Kola).
The Five Rivers of the Kingdom of Hades on the Kola Peninsula
☑ Tuloma river (Lappish Tuållâmjokk, Tuellam yogk) is perhaps a ‘tracing’ name for the river Phlegethon, or Pyriphlegethon, literally “the fiery river” in Greek. Compare to the Lappish dolla, Karelian, Finnish tuli, Estonian tuli, gen. tule, Livonian tu’ļ, Vepssian tuli, tuľ, Erzia, Moksha tol, Udmurt ti̮l, tyl, Mari tul – “fire”. Compare also to Sumerian [dal] – “fire”.
☑ Kola river (Lappish Kuollāk, Finnish: Kuola, Kuolla) – possibly the river of the “dead”, the legendary Styx. Compare to Mansi χōli-, Khanty χăl-, Udmurt kuli̮ni̮, Erzia kuloms, Mari kolaš, Finnish kuolla, Estonian koolma, Livonian kūolõ – “to die”; Komi-Permian kolni – “to leave, to abandon”; Lappish: goalus, Karelian kolo, kolie, Finnish kolea, Estonian kole, Livonian kõ’l – “terrible, gloomy, horrible, monstrous”.
This same lexical stem is observed in the ancient languages of the south: in Hungarian halál – means “death”; in Sumerian [hal-] – “to leave, go away”; in Hebrew כלה [kala-] – “to end, finish, perish, die, collapse, fade away, disappear”; in Sanskrit [kala] – “death from old age”; in Persian [gâlid] – “to run away, escape”; in Ingush language in Caucasus къайладала [kʼayladala] – “to disappear, dive”; in Greek [khaláo] – “to dive, get drown in waters”.
The name of the river of Kola is usually etymologized as a “fishy” river, with comparisons made to the Lappish guolli, Khanty-Mansi χul, Nganasan koli̮, Finnish, Estonian, Karelian kala, Mari kol – “a fish”. It should be understood, nevertheless, that fish are the creatures of the Neither World in ancient mythologies, and, accordingly, their name in Finno-Ugric languages bears the same lexical stem as words with the meanings of “death” and “fear”, of “diving into the waters / getting to the Underworld”.
☑ Kitsa, the largest tributary of Kola river, probably corresponds to Cocytus, the “river of tears / cries / weeping”. According to confusing translations of Homer’s text, Cocytus is “the great branch of the Styx”. A branch is not a tributary, but a river flow that branches off and then rejoins; however, river branches rarely have a separate name. The Greek word used is ἀπορρώξ, “tearing off” (from the verb meaning “to tear, rip, break off”), which is more correct to translate as “the tributary” rather than “the branch”. Also, according to Hesiod, Cocytus flowed into the Styx (similar to how the Kitsa river flows into the Kola river).
☑ In this northern geographic reality it is also easy to identify Acheron, the river formed by the confluence of the Phlegethon (Tuloma) and the Styx (Kola) – this is the long narrow Kola Bay leading directly to the Barents Sea, the ending part of Gulf Stream (River Ocean).
☑ The fifth of the five rivers of the kingdom of Hades, Lethe, the “river of oblivion,” is also identifiable in the Tuloma and Kola river basin. Lethe is probably the river of Lotta (Finnish: Lutto joki), the 235-kilometer-long largest tributary of Tuloma.
Unlike the five rivers on the Kola Peninsula, the two rivers in Greece (Αχέρων, Acheron and its tributary Κοκύτος, Cocytus) do not correspond to the descriptions in Greek mythology. In the Mediterranean geographic reality, Phlegethon is missing, and, accordingly, there is no confluence of two powerful rivers at the mouth of Acheron, contrary to what Odyssey tells us. In Greece it is also not possible to identify the high cliff, to which Circe leads Ulysses. And in Greece the rivers Styx and Lethe are not ‘materialized’ either.
The second descent from the ‘overflowing Styx’
In the early version of his study, Felice Vinci emphasized that the Iliad (2.749-755) gives an indication of the existence of a “second descent” from the “overflowing Styx” – and Felice Vinci connected the “river Styx” with the river waterway connecting Kandalaksha on the White Sea – and the Gulf of Bothnia:
It is noteworthy that the “Styx waters” of Kola river also have a “second descent”. From the upper reaches of Kola, one can get to both the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea and the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea: the source lake of the Kola river (Kolaozero) is separated by less than a kilometer-wide isthmus (perhaps, a place of an ancient ship portage) from lake Permusozero. The latter descends into lake Imandra, from which, in turn, the Niva river flows south into the Kandalaksha Bay.
The Iliad also provides the names of two rivers of the “second descent” – in particular the river Titaresius (possibly now known as Niva), “a tributary of the river Peneus”. It is noteworthy that in its lower reaches the Niva passes through the lake Pinozero (with an area of 14 km²), which may correspond to the Homeric Peneus:
The route from Circe’s realm to the kingdom of Hades
The sorceress Circe directs Ulysses from her distant island of Aeaea (according to Felice Vinci, in initial version, the island of Håja in the far north of Norway; in the latest update in Italian langiage, ‘I Segreti di Omero nel Baltico’, – the island of Sørøya in the far north of Norway), to the kingdom of Hades as follows:
...raise the mast, spread out your white sail, and just take your seat,
And then the breath of North Wind Boreas will take you on your way.
But once your ship has crossed River Ocean, drag it ashore
on the level beach (Odyssey 10.506–509)
Thus, Circe directs Ulysses with the North Wind to the south, across the River Ocean (the Gulf Stream) to the Kola Bay (Acheron), which is elongated like a river. At the end of the latter, at the confluence of the rivers of Kola (Styx) and Tuloma (Phlegethon), there are low level beaches (formed by the two rivers’ sediments), under the 80-meter tall cliff of Suolovarra.
In the Norwegian language, øya is any island (and the second part in many island names). If Homer's Aeaea lay north of the River Ocean (the Gulf Stream), it could as well be, for example, the remote Bjørnøya (“the Bear Island”) halfway between the far north of Norway and the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) archipelago:
An ancient settlement near the cliff mentioned by Homer
A convenient place with low banks at the confluence of the rivers of Kola (Styx) and Tuloma (Phlegethon) has been a historic settlement since ancient times, first of fishermen and whalers, then it served as a trading port and a site for a military fort (the major stronghold in the Kola peninsula). The first written mentions of the Kola fortress at the mouth of the Kola river date back to the 13th century – but most likely the settlement itself existed long before then.
On some old maps (like in the first map in this post), the name Kola was confusingly assigned to river of Tuloma.
Also, the Kola fort and its port were so important that the name later had spread to the entire Kola Peninsula.
map of 1598
And could it be that Homer tells us precisely of the town of Kola in the following verses?
... where there are the Cimmerians and their city,
shrouded in fog and clouds. (Odyssey 11.13–14)
Summoning the souls of the dead
It is likely that it was at this very place, on the cape at the confluence of the rivers of Phlegethon (Tuloma) and Styx (Kola), at the foot of the prominent cliff of Suolovarra, that the sorceress Circe instructed Ulysses to make a sacrifice in order to summon the souls of the dead for communication:
When you, hero, land there, as I tell you; under the cliff
dig a pit one cubit long and wide,
and around it pour out the libation for all the dead... (Odyssey 10.516-518)
The name of the cliff Suolovarra (Suolovara, Solovaraka) is usually translated as “mountain island”, due to the fact that it stands separately and differs from other hills and mountains in this area. The Lappish suolu, Finnish, Karelian salo means “wilderness, dense forest; large forested island”; the Lappish varr, varre, Finnish vuori, vaara means “mountain, hill, elevation”.
It is also worth considering such explanations for the first part of the name as:
– Lappish suoli, Karelian, Estonian, Finnish sala, Livonian salā – adjective with a meaning “secret, covert”; or
– Finnish sielu, Old Norse sala – English soul; or
– Finnish säiliö – “a reservoir, receptacle”; Karelian säilyö, Finnish säilyä, Estonian säilima – “to persist, be held, get preserved, survive, remain”.
The same first lexical stem is also observed in the name of the sanctuary Solovetsky Archipelago (Solovki) in the White Sea.
Could Suolovarra mean a mountain of “mysteries ~ cult rites”? or a mountain of “souls” of the deceased? or “a receptacle, shelter, refuge”? If we consider that Ulysses comes here to perform a sacrament, and summon the souls of his deceased relatives and military comrades, the puzzle comes closer and closer together.
As Felice Vinci points out, “the archaic rites connected to the journey to Hades’ home, told by a “shamanistic” character such as Circe, could be the meeting point between very ancient forms, perhaps dating back even to Neolithic rites. The “descent into Hell” is a typically shamanistic theme: Mircea Eliade writes that, according to Altaic shamans, it occurs by passing through “a hole which is the entrance of the other world, called yer mesi [earth’s jaws],” while the Indian Tuanas “make a hole in the ground (...) and mime forcefully the fight with the ghosts”. This is echoed by the attitude of Ulysses, who repeatedly menaces with his sword the ghosts gathered around the pit (Odyssey 10.536; 11.49, 95, 231)”.
Eliade, Mircea, Lo sciamanismo e le tecniche dell’estasi, Rome 1983 (Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. London 1989), p. 335.
In this vein, it is interesting to think of the name Hades (Greek Ἅδης) used for “Hell, Underworld, Underground kingdom of the Dead”; “Lord of the Underworld”. Like many other ancient terms, word Hades is considered to be a “word of unknown origin”: https://www.etymonline.com/word/hades .
If Hades is localized, however, in the far north, it is worth referring to the lexicon which was used in the north. E.g., compare Hades to Estonian haud, Karelian haudu, Finnish hauta, Livonian ōda – which meant “a hole; a pit; a grave; also a deep place on a river or on a sea”. Also in the Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Vologda north-western Russian dialects the word ad (aд, aдъ), in addition to “the Underworld”, also had a meaning of “a mouth; jaws; a throat”.
Stone labyrinth which once stood at the foot of the Suolovarra cliff
Scattered throughout the British Isles, along the Atlantic coasts of Norway and the Kola Peninsula, on the White Sea islands, on Novaya Zemlya, as well as in Sweden and Finland, there exist the stony structures in the form of a labyrinth, laid out on the surface of the earth with small stones. The short axis always passes through the “entrance” of such labyrinths. Stones are laid out in a single row, forming the concentric circles of complex spirals. In the center of these labyrinths, sometimes there is a small dolmen-like structure.
There is some interesting historical data that one of such labyrinths was located at the foot of Suolovarra cliff, prior to the construction of the Kola fortress and erection of Christian churches in its place. Dr. A.Spitsyn reports in the News of the Imperial Archaeological Commission No. 6 of 1904 as follows: "... the [stone] frame on the site of the city of Kola was demolished when the fort was built" (in 1582).
Известия императорской археологической комиссии №6 1904 года, https://www.kolamap.ru/library/1904_spicyn.html
Stone labyrinths on the Solovetsky Islands (provided as a comparative illustration)
According to the opinion of some researchers, the stone labyrinths of the North “could have served as giant altars for shamanistic rituals and entrances to the Underworld”.
And, as we know, at the insistence of the sorceress Circe, Ulysses arrived at the foot of a high cliff at the confluence of two rivers (probably at the junction of Kola and Tuloma rivers by Suolovarra cliff), to pass into the kingdom of Hades, make sacrifices and communicate with the souls of the dead!
The reversal tide flows of rivers
The contemporary researcher and writer Elena Kovaleva describes what she saw at the confluence of these two great rivers of Tuloma and Kola, when she visited the place in the fall of 2024:
“...[Here we stand] on the cape where Tuloma meets Kola, and together they form this wonderful Kola Bay. We arrived early, the low tide is at its minimal level point, and the pebbles I am standing on and the black island will get completely under water in just an hour and a half. The deepest tides are taking place here – with fluctuations up to 6 meters. And we were lucky enough to observe a tidal wave [backflow] on the Tuloma river. It is a miracle! The waters of a strong river meet a powerful stream from the Great Ocean – forehead against forehead. And a wonderful “dance of waters” begins. Curls, breakers, small and large, funnels, whirlpools – a lace, shining and shimmering under the rays of the northern sun.”
Also Homer tells us of the backward flows of the rivers during tides in Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians (identified by Felice Vinci with the Norwegian skerries and the predecessors of vikings of the southwest coast of Norway): after the crash of his raft, Ulysses follows along the Scherian coast, and eventually manages to find a place to land “at the mouth of a fine river / which seemed to him to be the best place / as it was free of rocks” (Odyssey 5.441–43). Here a sort of miracle occurs: the god of the river
stopped its current at once, halted its flow,
became still and drew him to safety
in the mouth of the river (Odyssey 5.451–453).
As Felice Vinci stresses it out, “while this is very uncommon in a Mediterranean context, where the tides are almost imperceptible and the rivers’ currents push unceasingly to the sea, this phenomenon is absolutely normal on Atlantic shores, where the flood tide periodically washes up the rivers, allowing ships to come into the estuaries”.
It is these Atlantic tides (along the coasts of France, Britain, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula) that also allow us to lift the curtain on the main secret of the stone labyrinths, as will be revealed below.
Stone labyrinths of the North and Greek labyrinths
Archaeologist N.Gurina, who was exploring the stone labyrinths of the North, was traveling by train to Murmansk in 1947 and made the following unexpected discovery at the mouth of the Kola river:
“…Closer to Kola, high hills made of sand and pebbles became visible again. From Kola to Murmansk, out of the train window, we could observe the following picture: the Kola river flows into a narrow sea bay. There was a strong low tide when our train moved along this part of the coast. Fishermen nets were visible everywhere, tied to stakes driven into the ground. Some of them were located at an angle, some in the form of spirals, with the entrance facing the shore. The fish, following the decreasing waters of the low tide, were getting caught into the nets [through these entrances]. We could see fishermen wandering along the wet bottom and collecting fish. All this reminded me of... labyrinths and their orientation – with the entrances facing the shore.
A few days later we came to examine these structures up closer. We learned that they were called “caches” («тайники»), and made sketches and photographs of the now forever forgotten traps:”
Gurina continues: “A brief description of the traps-hides can be reduced to the following. Near an island or continent, a wall of net is installed, perpendicular to the shore, about twenty-four meters long. Perpendicular to it, there is another high wall of net, the ends of which are rounded in the form of an unclosed oval, leaving a narrow gap for the fish to enter. The principle of fishing is based on the fact that at the moment of the low sea tide, the water does not cover the high net all the way to the top. When the water level goes down, the fish that entered the net try to follow the decreasing waters, but stumble upon the net, which runs parallel to the shore. In search of an exit, the fish makes its way into a narrow gap – the opening of the ovals – and gets trapped.”
In the pictures: a schematic representation of similar traps in North America
“The most interesting thing is that the lower ends of the net are secured with a row of stones that form a heart-shaped figure. Thus, after the water recedes, stone structures similar in configuration to the labyrinths laid out on the shore are revealed at the bottom of the sea!
It is also significant that right here, next to the real fishermen networks at the mouth of the Kola, on the peninsula, there stood a [ritual] labyrinth that was destroyed by the construction [of the Kola fortress in 1582].”
Gurina concludes that:
“Stone labyrinths on the shores of the seas, in places richest in fish, reveal similarities with [fishing] traps and, most likely, symbolize them.”
Время, врезанное в камень. Н.Н. Гурина (Из истории древних лапландцев), Мурманское книжное издательство. 1982 г. https://kandalaksha.org/interesno/377-kamennye-labirinty-severa-prodolzhenie.html
Gurina further supports the thesis about the connection between stone labyrinths and fishing traps with the following arguments: “A more detailed examination of the location of northern stone labyrinths, and in particular in the Kola Peninsula, Finland and Norway, led us to the conclusion that the absolute majority of them are located not merely on the seashores, but near large river estauries, especially rich in fish, mainly those where salmon come to spawn. It is therefore not surprising that several labyrinths were laid out near large rivers (e.g. at Ponoy, Varzina estuaries).”
Before then, Gurina’s team discovered, during an examination of one of the labyrinths near Varzina river on the Kola Peninsula, a human-processed vertebra of a young whale placed under one of the stones of the labyrinth. Gurina suggested that “the ancient inhabitants wanted to ‘lure’ not only fish into the traps with the help of labyrinths, but also, obviously, the sea animals”:
In the picture: a whale vertebra found in a labyrinth at the mouth of Varzina river; exhibited in the Kola City History Museum
Gurina points out that the traps themselves were also widespread along rivers inside the continent: “...in Northern Asia they were called “kotets” («котец»), in Central Russia – “kotezy” («котезы») and “zabory” («заборы»), in the North – “ubegi” («убеги»).
In the picture: fishing traps (kottsy, koty) of the Neolithic era from the Oka river valley
Source: https://dzen.ru/a/WrgxLQQitLklOfX9
Compare the name of the fishing traps “kot, kotets, kotez” with Udmurt kӧt, Estonian kott, Finnish kotti – meaning “a bag”; “a belly”.
Accordingly, it is appropriate to compare the Greek word λαβύρινθος with the Greek λαπάρα – “a groin”, “a womb”.
Below are some examples of fishing traps used along the Atlantic coast in Western Europe:
Tidal traps in Britain and the Atlantic coast of France
It is curious that the shape of the stone labyrinths of the North corresponds to the mosaic images of labyrinths in Greece and the drawings on Greek coins:
Greek coin copying the labyrinths from the Bothnian coast of the Baltic:
The labyrinth patterns are similar to those depicted in the Mediterranean, where, however, there are no significant tides and similar fishing traps were not set up. Thus, we can conclude that the Mediterranean labyrinths reflect the memory of the historical northern homeland.
There are more and more parallels and facts testifying to the northern ancestral home of the Mediterranean civilization and Greek mythology and culture. Also, the place of the entrance to the Kingdom of Hades and its five rivers, becomes clearly identifiable at the Kola Peninsula, unlike in the Mediterranean georgaphy.
In his studies The Nordic Origins of the Odyssey and the Iliad: the Migration of Myth, Felice Vinсi provides convincing evidence of the location of the kingdom of Hades in the Lappish Arctic: the eternal darkness that pursues Homer's Cimmerians, clearly related to the period of polar winter in the Far North; coincidences in geographical descriptions by Homer, Jordanes and Saxo Grammaticus; the extraordinary similarity of the Lappish shamanic rituals of summoning the souls of the dead and the algorithms that the sorceress Circe shares with Ulysses, when sending him to the Underworld entrance point.
Felice Vinci, however, is not entirely sure of the exact location described by Homer. In the initial publication, Vinci associated the River Styx with an ancient river waterway from the White Sea to the Gulf of Bothnia. According to this old hypothesis, Ulysses had to make a long journey, starting from the island of Circe in the far north of Norway, sail around the entire Kola Peninsula and reach Kandalaksha, the supposed entrance to the River Styx. In the updated version of his study, however, Vinci moved the point to which Circe directed Ulysses – to the sacred 35-meter-high rock of Simalango at the intersection of the fjords Burfjorden and Jøkelfjorden in northwestern Norway, associating these fjords with “two roaring rivers confluencing near a rock”:
Go to the rotten home of Hades,
here the Pyriphlegethon flows into the Acheron
with the Cocytus , which flows from the water of the Styx
and there stands a rock at the confluence of the two noisy rivers. (Odyssey 10.512-515)
During the translation of Felice Vinci's study into Russian, we repeatedly searched the map of the entire coast of Norway and the Kola Peninsula, browsing it up and down, looking for an alternative place where two distinct large rivers would merge by a noticeable cliff, until we found it... very close to the present-day city of Murmansk. In between the estuaries of two mighty rivers, Tuloma and Kola, when their waters join and simultaneously flow into the long Kola Bay, there rises the famous 80-meter tall cliff of Suolovarra (and beneath it, on a lowland cape formed by these two rivers, there stands the ancient port and fortress of Kola).
The Five Rivers of the Kingdom of Hades on the Kola Peninsula
☑ Tuloma river (Lappish Tuållâmjokk, Tuellam yogk) is perhaps a ‘tracing’ name for the river Phlegethon, or Pyriphlegethon, literally “the fiery river” in Greek. Compare to the Lappish dolla, Karelian, Finnish tuli, Estonian tuli, gen. tule, Livonian tu’ļ, Vepssian tuli, tuľ, Erzia, Moksha tol, Udmurt ti̮l, tyl, Mari tul – “fire”. Compare also to Sumerian [dal] – “fire”.
☑ Kola river (Lappish Kuollāk, Finnish: Kuola, Kuolla) – possibly the river of the “dead”, the legendary Styx. Compare to Mansi χōli-, Khanty χăl-, Udmurt kuli̮ni̮, Erzia kuloms, Mari kolaš, Finnish kuolla, Estonian koolma, Livonian kūolõ – “to die”; Komi-Permian kolni – “to leave, to abandon”; Lappish: goalus, Karelian kolo, kolie, Finnish kolea, Estonian kole, Livonian kõ’l – “terrible, gloomy, horrible, monstrous”.
This same lexical stem is observed in the ancient languages of the south: in Hungarian halál – means “death”; in Sumerian [hal-] – “to leave, go away”; in Hebrew כלה [kala-] – “to end, finish, perish, die, collapse, fade away, disappear”; in Sanskrit [kala] – “death from old age”; in Persian [gâlid] – “to run away, escape”; in Ingush language in Caucasus къайладала [kʼayladala] – “to disappear, dive”; in Greek [khaláo] – “to dive, get drown in waters”.
The name of the river of Kola is usually etymologized as a “fishy” river, with comparisons made to the Lappish guolli, Khanty-Mansi χul, Nganasan koli̮, Finnish, Estonian, Karelian kala, Mari kol – “a fish”. It should be understood, nevertheless, that fish are the creatures of the Neither World in ancient mythologies, and, accordingly, their name in Finno-Ugric languages bears the same lexical stem as words with the meanings of “death” and “fear”, of “diving into the waters / getting to the Underworld”.
☑ Kitsa, the largest tributary of Kola river, probably corresponds to Cocytus, the “river of tears / cries / weeping”. According to confusing translations of Homer’s text, Cocytus is “the great branch of the Styx”. A branch is not a tributary, but a river flow that branches off and then rejoins; however, river branches rarely have a separate name. The Greek word used is ἀπορρώξ, “tearing off” (from the verb meaning “to tear, rip, break off”), which is more correct to translate as “the tributary” rather than “the branch”. Also, according to Hesiod, Cocytus flowed into the Styx (similar to how the Kitsa river flows into the Kola river).
☑ In this northern geographic reality it is also easy to identify Acheron, the river formed by the confluence of the Phlegethon (Tuloma) and the Styx (Kola) – this is the long narrow Kola Bay leading directly to the Barents Sea, the ending part of Gulf Stream (River Ocean).
☑ The fifth of the five rivers of the kingdom of Hades, Lethe, the “river of oblivion,” is also identifiable in the Tuloma and Kola river basin. Lethe is probably the river of Lotta (Finnish: Lutto joki), the 235-kilometer-long largest tributary of Tuloma.
Unlike the five rivers on the Kola Peninsula, the two rivers in Greece (Αχέρων, Acheron and its tributary Κοκύτος, Cocytus) do not correspond to the descriptions in Greek mythology. In the Mediterranean geographic reality, Phlegethon is missing, and, accordingly, there is no confluence of two powerful rivers at the mouth of Acheron, contrary to what Odyssey tells us. In Greece it is also not possible to identify the high cliff, to which Circe leads Ulysses. And in Greece the rivers Styx and Lethe are not ‘materialized’ either.
The second descent from the ‘overflowing Styx’
In the early version of his study, Felice Vinci emphasized that the Iliad (2.749-755) gives an indication of the existence of a “second descent” from the “overflowing Styx” – and Felice Vinci connected the “river Styx” with the river waterway connecting Kandalaksha on the White Sea – and the Gulf of Bothnia:
It is noteworthy that the “Styx waters” of Kola river also have a “second descent”. From the upper reaches of Kola, one can get to both the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea and the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea: the source lake of the Kola river (Kolaozero) is separated by less than a kilometer-wide isthmus (perhaps, a place of an ancient ship portage) from lake Permusozero. The latter descends into lake Imandra, from which, in turn, the Niva river flows south into the Kandalaksha Bay.
The Iliad also provides the names of two rivers of the “second descent” – in particular the river Titaresius (possibly now known as Niva), “a tributary of the river Peneus”. It is noteworthy that in its lower reaches the Niva passes through the lake Pinozero (with an area of 14 km²), which may correspond to the Homeric Peneus:
The route from Circe’s realm to the kingdom of Hades
The sorceress Circe directs Ulysses from her distant island of Aeaea (according to Felice Vinci, in initial version, the island of Håja in the far north of Norway; in the latest update in Italian langiage, ‘I Segreti di Omero nel Baltico’, – the island of Sørøya in the far north of Norway), to the kingdom of Hades as follows:
...raise the mast, spread out your white sail, and just take your seat,
And then the breath of North Wind Boreas will take you on your way.
But once your ship has crossed River Ocean, drag it ashore
on the level beach (Odyssey 10.506–509)
Thus, Circe directs Ulysses with the North Wind to the south, across the River Ocean (the Gulf Stream) to the Kola Bay (Acheron), which is elongated like a river. At the end of the latter, at the confluence of the rivers of Kola (Styx) and Tuloma (Phlegethon), there are low level beaches (formed by the two rivers’ sediments), under the 80-meter tall cliff of Suolovarra.
In the Norwegian language, øya is any island (and the second part in many island names). If Homer's Aeaea lay north of the River Ocean (the Gulf Stream), it could as well be, for example, the remote Bjørnøya (“the Bear Island”) halfway between the far north of Norway and the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) archipelago:
An ancient settlement near the cliff mentioned by Homer
A convenient place with low banks at the confluence of the rivers of Kola (Styx) and Tuloma (Phlegethon) has been a historic settlement since ancient times, first of fishermen and whalers, then it served as a trading port and a site for a military fort (the major stronghold in the Kola peninsula). The first written mentions of the Kola fortress at the mouth of the Kola river date back to the 13th century – but most likely the settlement itself existed long before then.
On some old maps (like in the first map in this post), the name Kola was confusingly assigned to river of Tuloma.
Also, the Kola fort and its port were so important that the name later had spread to the entire Kola Peninsula.
map of 1598
And could it be that Homer tells us precisely of the town of Kola in the following verses?
... where there are the Cimmerians and their city,
shrouded in fog and clouds. (Odyssey 11.13–14)
Summoning the souls of the dead
It is likely that it was at this very place, on the cape at the confluence of the rivers of Phlegethon (Tuloma) and Styx (Kola), at the foot of the prominent cliff of Suolovarra, that the sorceress Circe instructed Ulysses to make a sacrifice in order to summon the souls of the dead for communication:
When you, hero, land there, as I tell you; under the cliff
dig a pit one cubit long and wide,
and around it pour out the libation for all the dead... (Odyssey 10.516-518)
The name of the cliff Suolovarra (Suolovara, Solovaraka) is usually translated as “mountain island”, due to the fact that it stands separately and differs from other hills and mountains in this area. The Lappish suolu, Finnish, Karelian salo means “wilderness, dense forest; large forested island”; the Lappish varr, varre, Finnish vuori, vaara means “mountain, hill, elevation”.
It is also worth considering such explanations for the first part of the name as:
– Lappish suoli, Karelian, Estonian, Finnish sala, Livonian salā – adjective with a meaning “secret, covert”; or
– Finnish sielu, Old Norse sala – English soul; or
– Finnish säiliö – “a reservoir, receptacle”; Karelian säilyö, Finnish säilyä, Estonian säilima – “to persist, be held, get preserved, survive, remain”.
The same first lexical stem is also observed in the name of the sanctuary Solovetsky Archipelago (Solovki) in the White Sea.
Could Suolovarra mean a mountain of “mysteries ~ cult rites”? or a mountain of “souls” of the deceased? or “a receptacle, shelter, refuge”? If we consider that Ulysses comes here to perform a sacrament, and summon the souls of his deceased relatives and military comrades, the puzzle comes closer and closer together.
As Felice Vinci points out, “the archaic rites connected to the journey to Hades’ home, told by a “shamanistic” character such as Circe, could be the meeting point between very ancient forms, perhaps dating back even to Neolithic rites. The “descent into Hell” is a typically shamanistic theme: Mircea Eliade writes that, according to Altaic shamans, it occurs by passing through “a hole which is the entrance of the other world, called yer mesi [earth’s jaws],” while the Indian Tuanas “make a hole in the ground (...) and mime forcefully the fight with the ghosts”. This is echoed by the attitude of Ulysses, who repeatedly menaces with his sword the ghosts gathered around the pit (Odyssey 10.536; 11.49, 95, 231)”.
Eliade, Mircea, Lo sciamanismo e le tecniche dell’estasi, Rome 1983 (Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. London 1989), p. 335.
In this vein, it is interesting to think of the name Hades (Greek Ἅδης) used for “Hell, Underworld, Underground kingdom of the Dead”; “Lord of the Underworld”. Like many other ancient terms, word Hades is considered to be a “word of unknown origin”: https://www.etymonline.com/word/hades .
If Hades is localized, however, in the far north, it is worth referring to the lexicon which was used in the north. E.g., compare Hades to Estonian haud, Karelian haudu, Finnish hauta, Livonian ōda – which meant “a hole; a pit; a grave; also a deep place on a river or on a sea”. Also in the Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Vologda north-western Russian dialects the word ad (aд, aдъ), in addition to “the Underworld”, also had a meaning of “a mouth; jaws; a throat”.
Stone labyrinth which once stood at the foot of the Suolovarra cliff
Scattered throughout the British Isles, along the Atlantic coasts of Norway and the Kola Peninsula, on the White Sea islands, on Novaya Zemlya, as well as in Sweden and Finland, there exist the stony structures in the form of a labyrinth, laid out on the surface of the earth with small stones. The short axis always passes through the “entrance” of such labyrinths. Stones are laid out in a single row, forming the concentric circles of complex spirals. In the center of these labyrinths, sometimes there is a small dolmen-like structure.
There is some interesting historical data that one of such labyrinths was located at the foot of Suolovarra cliff, prior to the construction of the Kola fortress and erection of Christian churches in its place. Dr. A.Spitsyn reports in the News of the Imperial Archaeological Commission No. 6 of 1904 as follows: "... the [stone] frame on the site of the city of Kola was demolished when the fort was built" (in 1582).
Известия императорской археологической комиссии №6 1904 года, https://www.kolamap.ru/library/1904_spicyn.html
Stone labyrinths on the Solovetsky Islands (provided as a comparative illustration)
According to the opinion of some researchers, the stone labyrinths of the North “could have served as giant altars for shamanistic rituals and entrances to the Underworld”.
And, as we know, at the insistence of the sorceress Circe, Ulysses arrived at the foot of a high cliff at the confluence of two rivers (probably at the junction of Kola and Tuloma rivers by Suolovarra cliff), to pass into the kingdom of Hades, make sacrifices and communicate with the souls of the dead!
The reversal tide flows of rivers
The contemporary researcher and writer Elena Kovaleva describes what she saw at the confluence of these two great rivers of Tuloma and Kola, when she visited the place in the fall of 2024:
“...[Here we stand] on the cape where Tuloma meets Kola, and together they form this wonderful Kola Bay. We arrived early, the low tide is at its minimal level point, and the pebbles I am standing on and the black island will get completely under water in just an hour and a half. The deepest tides are taking place here – with fluctuations up to 6 meters. And we were lucky enough to observe a tidal wave [backflow] on the Tuloma river. It is a miracle! The waters of a strong river meet a powerful stream from the Great Ocean – forehead against forehead. And a wonderful “dance of waters” begins. Curls, breakers, small and large, funnels, whirlpools – a lace, shining and shimmering under the rays of the northern sun.”
Also Homer tells us of the backward flows of the rivers during tides in Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians (identified by Felice Vinci with the Norwegian skerries and the predecessors of vikings of the southwest coast of Norway): after the crash of his raft, Ulysses follows along the Scherian coast, and eventually manages to find a place to land “at the mouth of a fine river / which seemed to him to be the best place / as it was free of rocks” (Odyssey 5.441–43). Here a sort of miracle occurs: the god of the river
stopped its current at once, halted its flow,
became still and drew him to safety
in the mouth of the river (Odyssey 5.451–453).
As Felice Vinci stresses it out, “while this is very uncommon in a Mediterranean context, where the tides are almost imperceptible and the rivers’ currents push unceasingly to the sea, this phenomenon is absolutely normal on Atlantic shores, where the flood tide periodically washes up the rivers, allowing ships to come into the estuaries”.
It is these Atlantic tides (along the coasts of France, Britain, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula) that also allow us to lift the curtain on the main secret of the stone labyrinths, as will be revealed below.
Stone labyrinths of the North and Greek labyrinths
Archaeologist N.Gurina, who was exploring the stone labyrinths of the North, was traveling by train to Murmansk in 1947 and made the following unexpected discovery at the mouth of the Kola river:
“…Closer to Kola, high hills made of sand and pebbles became visible again. From Kola to Murmansk, out of the train window, we could observe the following picture: the Kola river flows into a narrow sea bay. There was a strong low tide when our train moved along this part of the coast. Fishermen nets were visible everywhere, tied to stakes driven into the ground. Some of them were located at an angle, some in the form of spirals, with the entrance facing the shore. The fish, following the decreasing waters of the low tide, were getting caught into the nets [through these entrances]. We could see fishermen wandering along the wet bottom and collecting fish. All this reminded me of... labyrinths and their orientation – with the entrances facing the shore.
A few days later we came to examine these structures up closer. We learned that they were called “caches” («тайники»), and made sketches and photographs of the now forever forgotten traps:”
Gurina continues: “A brief description of the traps-hides can be reduced to the following. Near an island or continent, a wall of net is installed, perpendicular to the shore, about twenty-four meters long. Perpendicular to it, there is another high wall of net, the ends of which are rounded in the form of an unclosed oval, leaving a narrow gap for the fish to enter. The principle of fishing is based on the fact that at the moment of the low sea tide, the water does not cover the high net all the way to the top. When the water level goes down, the fish that entered the net try to follow the decreasing waters, but stumble upon the net, which runs parallel to the shore. In search of an exit, the fish makes its way into a narrow gap – the opening of the ovals – and gets trapped.”
In the pictures: a schematic representation of similar traps in North America
“The most interesting thing is that the lower ends of the net are secured with a row of stones that form a heart-shaped figure. Thus, after the water recedes, stone structures similar in configuration to the labyrinths laid out on the shore are revealed at the bottom of the sea!
It is also significant that right here, next to the real fishermen networks at the mouth of the Kola, on the peninsula, there stood a [ritual] labyrinth that was destroyed by the construction [of the Kola fortress in 1582].”
Gurina concludes that:
“Stone labyrinths on the shores of the seas, in places richest in fish, reveal similarities with [fishing] traps and, most likely, symbolize them.”
Время, врезанное в камень. Н.Н. Гурина (Из истории древних лапландцев), Мурманское книжное издательство. 1982 г. https://kandalaksha.org/interesno/377-kamennye-labirinty-severa-prodolzhenie.html
Gurina further supports the thesis about the connection between stone labyrinths and fishing traps with the following arguments: “A more detailed examination of the location of northern stone labyrinths, and in particular in the Kola Peninsula, Finland and Norway, led us to the conclusion that the absolute majority of them are located not merely on the seashores, but near large river estauries, especially rich in fish, mainly those where salmon come to spawn. It is therefore not surprising that several labyrinths were laid out near large rivers (e.g. at Ponoy, Varzina estuaries).”
Before then, Gurina’s team discovered, during an examination of one of the labyrinths near Varzina river on the Kola Peninsula, a human-processed vertebra of a young whale placed under one of the stones of the labyrinth. Gurina suggested that “the ancient inhabitants wanted to ‘lure’ not only fish into the traps with the help of labyrinths, but also, obviously, the sea animals”:
In the picture: a whale vertebra found in a labyrinth at the mouth of Varzina river; exhibited in the Kola City History Museum
Gurina points out that the traps themselves were also widespread along rivers inside the continent: “...in Northern Asia they were called “kotets” («котец»), in Central Russia – “kotezy” («котезы») and “zabory” («заборы»), in the North – “ubegi” («убеги»).
In the picture: fishing traps (kottsy, koty) of the Neolithic era from the Oka river valley
Source: https://dzen.ru/a/WrgxLQQitLklOfX9
Compare the name of the fishing traps “kot, kotets, kotez” with Udmurt kӧt, Estonian kott, Finnish kotti – meaning “a bag”; “a belly”.
Accordingly, it is appropriate to compare the Greek word λαβύρινθος with the Greek λαπάρα – “a groin”, “a womb”.
Below are some examples of fishing traps used along the Atlantic coast in Western Europe:
Tidal traps in Britain and the Atlantic coast of France
It is curious that the shape of the stone labyrinths of the North corresponds to the mosaic images of labyrinths in Greece and the drawings on Greek coins:
Greek coin copying the labyrinths from the Bothnian coast of the Baltic:
The labyrinth patterns are similar to those depicted in the Mediterranean, where, however, there are no significant tides and similar fishing traps were not set up. Thus, we can conclude that the Mediterranean labyrinths reflect the memory of the historical northern homeland.
There are more and more parallels and facts testifying to the northern ancestral home of the Mediterranean civilization and Greek mythology and culture. Also, the place of the entrance to the Kingdom of Hades and its five rivers, becomes clearly identifiable at the Kola Peninsula, unlike in the Mediterranean georgaphy.
