Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
usually negligibly small. The total pore space is full of life and chemical reactions
and provides a variety of pathways for storage and transport within and through
each soil. Muddy water is “purifi ed” during its fl ow through soil. Nutrients impor-
tant for the existence of plants are dissolved in soil water and enter together with
water into roots. The soil pores are spaces where microbes, microscopic fungi, and
all forms of life simultaneously perform various reactions and transformations
inside of soil and especially in the vicinity of plants' roots. The global distribution
of all soils is the essential key for water to circulate in all directions of the Earth's
water cycle that we usually take for granted.
The soil could emphatically declare, “I am the protective fi lter and the mediator
of energy, I am responsible for transformation of inorganic and organic compounds,
I am the sustainer of productive life, and I am the cradle of man's life and culture.
At the same time I am the medium for deposing the dust remaining after the death
of man. I am the myth.”
The soil could be proud that its qualities were most advanced in Egyptian mythol-
ogy. The Egyptians discovered divinity in every part of environment and especially
in happenings for which they had no explanation except of mythology. Just from the
start of permanent settlement of the Nile valley, their experience did not predict the
height that a Nile fl ood would reach and therefore what harvest they could expect.
Low discharge meant a catastrophe especially when it happened in a series of sev-
eral years and soils did not receive the needed portions of water and of fi ne fertile
mud. But extremely high discharge resulted in catastrophe, too, with all signs of
catastrophic fl oods. The combination of Nile discharge observation with some
social acts or without current behavior of certain animals led to the birth of magic.
Finally, the ritual of soil fertility amelioration was believed to be reached by repeat-
ing unusual acts or by killing animals as the bearers of oddities. The key factor of
myths was the substitution of chaos by order, replacement of chaos by balance of
natural forces, which were not described in an abstract form but as gods.
Ra was the great sun god at Heliopolis (Lunu in old Egyptian or On in Coptic).
Shu and Tefnut were his children and Geb and Nut were their offspring. Geb was the
god of earth and of soil. Osiris, the fi rst child of Geb and Nut, was a god of nature
and vegetation, and thus, he was also close to soils. He represents the Nile with its
annual fl ooding and withdrawal; his sister goddess Isis represents the fertile farm-
land of Egypt, which was made productive by the Nile; one of his brothers, Set who
personifi ed evil, represents the arid desert that is separated from the Nile and the
fertile land along the Nile, while his sister, goddess Nephthys, represents the mar-
ginal areas between the farmland and desert. This separation of soils was actually
the fi rst classifi cation of soils.
Classical Greek myths speak about Demeter, the daughter of Kronos who swal-
lowed her together with four other sisters and brothers. When she was liberated by
Zeus, she was asked to take care of grain, farming, and soils. But her part among the
gods started to be much more complicated. Her daughter Persephone was abducted
by Hades, the son of Zeus and god of the underworld. Because she could not escape
back from the underworld, her mother Demeter being extremely sad withdrew to
her temple and changed the earlier fertile soils into complete infertility. The starving
