On March 17 I posted on the King in the Mountain in regards to my Bohemian kindred. Hence, we have taken a journey worthy of the History Channel to Iran, to a cave, where stands a colossus worthy of Rhodes and Lady Liberty. The statue is Shapur 1 who may be kin to the Merovingian Long-hair Kings of France. Shapur looks like my Teacher, Meher Baba, called ‘The Awakener’. This giant was known in the west since, but, only recently was it discussed. Did the family and followers of Meher Baba know about this King of Kings who defeated three Roman emperors and their Roman legions?

Note the angels standing guard at the entrance of another cave where Shapur and his kindred rest. In my old blog I showed many archways. This royal family has been usurped by radical Muslims, who took many Americans prisoner when the toppled the Shah of Iran. Shah means ‘King of Kings’ a titled applied to Jesus, who many authors claim sired the Merovingian Franks who spring from the union of Pharamond and Rosamond. My families Rose name is now associated with Iranian history. This is key when you study the Roza Mira prophecy. One can say I have pulled the sword from the stone.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

King in the mountain stories involve legendary heroes, often accompanied by armed retainers, sleeping in remote dwellings, including caves on high mountaintops, remote islands, or supernatural worlds. The hero is frequently a historical figure of some military consequence in the history of the nation where the mountain is located.

The stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm concerning Frederick Barbarossa and Charlemagne are typical of the stories told, and have been influential on many told variants and subsequent adaptations. The presence of the hero is unsuspected, until some herdsman wanders into the cave, typically looking for a lost animal, and sees the hero. The stories almost always mention the detail that the hero has grown a long beard, indicative of the long time he has slept beneath the mountain.

In the Brothers Grimm version, the hero speaks with the herdsman. Their conversation typically involves the hero asking, “Do the eagles (or ravens) still circle the mountaintop?” The herdsman, or a mysterious voice, replies, “Yes, they still circle the mountaintop.” “Then begone! My time has not yet come.”

The herdsman is usually supernaturally harmed by the experience: he ages rapidly, he emerges with his hair turned white, and often he dies after repeating the tale. The story goes on to say that the king sleeps in the mountain, awaiting a summons to arise with his knights and defend the nation in a time of deadly peril. The omen that presages his rising will be the extinction of the birds that trigger his awakening.[1][2]

Historical painter, born in Bockenem, Hanover, 15 April, 1809; died in Düsseldorf, 27 Jan., 1885. Little is known concerning his early life. In 1828 he went to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts to begin the study of art under Professor Wach, and was there so impressed by pictures of the Düsseldorf School that he placed himself under Schadow, the director of the Dusseldorf Academy. Deger, says Dr. Banz, “lived in religion, had a profound conviction of the nobility of his art, and painted what he felt, believed and hoped.” He was only twenty-one when his “Pietà” brought him fame, and thenceforth he devoted himself to religious painting. In 1837 he went to Italy with Ittenbach and the Müller brothers to study the frescoes by the old masters in Florence and Rome. Overbeck, leader of the German pre-Raphaelites and head of the “Nazarene School”, gave advice and encouragement to these young zealots, and Deger especially gained much from contact with this master; Deger was intrusted with the most important frescoes in the church of St. Apollinaris (Remagen), and, fully equipped after his four years’ study, he returned from Rome in 1843 and began the work. In eight years he finished a noble series of paintings, representing the events in the life of Christ; these Apollinaris frescoes, the most remarkable productions of the “Nazarites”, mark the zenith of the German school of religious painting, called by Cardinal Wiseman “the restorer of Christian taste throughout all Europe.”

Tagh’e Bostan is a series of large rock reliefs from the Sassanid Era located 5 kilometers from the city center of Kermanshah. It is located in the heart of the Zagros Mountains, where it has endured almost 1,700 years of wind and rain. The carvings, some of the finest and best-preserved examples of Persian sculpture under the Sassanids, include representations of the investitures of Ardeshir II (379–383) and Shapur III (383–388). Like other Sassanid symbols, Tagh’e Bostan and its relief patterns accentuate power, religious tendencies, glory, honor, the vastness of the court, game and fighting spirit, festivity, joy, and rejoicing.

There is an apparent dichotomy in the fact that Sheriar is referred to in biographical sources as both a Zoroastrian and a Sufi dervish, as Sufism is a branch of Islam and not a part of Zoroastrianism. However, this fact is explained in Bhau Kalchuri’s Lord Meher. Sheriar’s personal philosophy incorporated elements from both Zoroastrianism and Sufi mysticism, a characteristic that he adopted from his father Moondegar who was an enigma to his Iranian Muslim neighbors because as a Zoroastrian he participated in both Muslim and Zoroastrian festivals and was a devout follower of a Muslim saint.[4] Because there are no mystic, mendicant, or ascetic traditions in Zoroastrianism, Sheriar chose to practice an Islamic mystic path such as that of the Sufi mendicant. However he neither officially converted to Islam nor left his birth religion of Zoroastrianism. After his marriage, arranged by his sister Piroja to a Zoroastrian girl Shireen in India, Sheriar rejoined his Irani community in Poona, was a householder and followed all Zoroastrian practices. Thus he could be said to have returned to his Zoroastrian roots.

The general claim by Meher Baba’s devotees that Sheriar’s famous son was also Zoroastrian is supported by the fact that Meher Baba wore the Zoroastrian sudra (a muslin undershirt) and the 72-thread kusti girdle all his life. ‘Meher’ is a Zoroastrian theophoric name that reflects his father’s devotion to the Yazata Mithra. Also Meher Baba always signed his name ‘M. S. Irani’ and never ‘Meher Baba’. Considering his teachings, which often included Sufi references, it seems plausible then that Meher Baba acknowledged both Zoroastrian and Sufi philosophies like his father.

A king in the mountain, king under the mountain or sleeping hero is a prominent motif in folklore and mythology that is found in many folktales and legends. The Aarne-Thompson classification system for folktale motifs classifies these stories as number 766, relating them to the tale of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

The smaller arch bears two Pahlavi scriptures and carvings of Shapur II, or Shapur the Great, and his son Shapur III facing each other. The figures of the two Kings have been carved in silhouette and each figure stands 2.97 meters tall. Shapur II is on the right and Shapur III is on the left with each figure’s hands placed on a long straight sword which points downwards. The right hand is holding the grip and the left rests on the sheath. Both figures wear loose trousers, necklaces, curled hair, and a pointed beard ending in a ring.

The colossal statue of Shapur I is standing in the Shapur cave which is located in the south of Iran and about 6 km off the ancient city of Bishapur. With a height of about 6.70 m and a shoulder width of more than 2 m, it’s one of the most impressive sculpture from the Sassanian period.
The monumental statue is chiseled of a stalagmite grown on the spot. It’s standing about 35 m from the cave entrance, on the fourth of a total five terraces which are in the sector A of the cave. The head with the stepped battlements crown and the body of the sculpture are now in good condition while large parts of the arms and legs are missing. After its fall caused very probably by a strong earthquake between fifteenth and nineteenth century, the sculpture was raised in the middle of the twentieth century on two concrete pillars which are now standing near the original feet of the statue.
Because of the shape of the crown which changing in the Sassanian period from king to king and on the basis of art historical considerations, the colossal statue can be identified as Shapur I, the second Sassanian king. Due to the details of the hairstyle, G. Reza Garosi succeeded to date the colossal statue exactly in the second half of the sixties of third century AD.
Although the colossal statue of Shapur I is known in Europe since at least 1811, it was not dealt detailed till recently. It was mentioned, for example, by Roman Ghirshman, Kurt Erdmann and Georgina Herrmann. The first comprehensive research about the cave and the colossal statue of Shapur I was done by G. Reza Garosi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahita

The Sassanid era, during Late Antiquity, is considered to have been one of Persia’s/Iran’s mosthttp://historicaliran.blogspot.com/2010/07/taghe-bostan.html important and influential historical periods, and constituted the last great Iranian empire before the Muslim conquest and the adoption of Islam.[9] In many ways, the Sassanid period witnessed the peak of ancient Persian civilization. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanid period.[10] The Sassanids’ cultural influence extended far beyond the empire’s territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe,[11] Africa,[12] China and India.[13] It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art.[14]