“The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass — which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught — but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.” (Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers [New York, 1959], p. 427.)

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. Most of us are familiar with this old adage but very few, I suspect, are aware that such ideas originated during the prehistoric period. Already at the dawn of civilization, Mesopotamian skywatchers identified the planet Venus as the Queen of Heaven and Mars as the prototypical masculine heavenly power. Sumerian texts from over four thousand years ago celebrate a sacred “marriage” (hieros gamos) between the planet Venus and her youthful paramour Dumuzi (Mars) much as, many centuries later, Homer sang of the sexual liaison between Aphrodite (Venus) and Ares. Even the great bard himself was beholden to such traditions—Shakespeare devoted his first major publication to the celebrated love affair between Venus and Adonis (Mars). Truth be told, the amorous adventures of Venus and Mars continue to resonate with us to this very day. How is it possible to explain the enduring appeal of these timeless traditions—not to mention their capacity to stir human emotion and inspire sublime works of art? As we document here, the archaic myth of Venus’s union with Mars commemorates extraordinary and decidedly catastrophic natural events as witnessed by ancient man the world over. Properly understood, the planetary history encoded in ancient myth heralds a revolution in our understanding of the solar system’s recent history, not to mention the origins of human civilization and its most treasured institutions (religion, monumental architecture, drama, dance, music, sports, etc.).

The present web site offers a generous sampling of my published writings. Included are several chapters from Martian Metamorphoses: The Planet Mars in Ancient Myth and Religion and the companion volume The Many Faces of Venus: The Planet Venus in Ancient Myth and Religion. A number of recent, mostly-unpublished monographs are also featured below:

You will also find a number of presentations on my new video page.

Special thanks to Ian Tresman for his prodigious efforts and generosity in designing and hosting my website.

This site will be updated on a regular basis. Comments are welcome and will be addressed in a timely manner. (Last updated 4-21-2022. Long live Iggy Pop!) The author can be reached at ev.cochrane@gmail.com.