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calendar.htm
Hill of
Creation, a paleo-linguistic fable
Some 12,000 years ago, a Late Magdalenian tribe
settled in southeast Anatolia and built a five meters high earth mound on the
limestone outcrop known as Göbekli Tepe, Nabled Hill, and on top of the mound a
hypothetical calendar sanctuary consecrated to the triple goddess, the fire
giver PIR GID, the fur giver BIR GID, the fertility giver BRI GID, and her
triple hero AAR RAA NOS and AD DA MAN and GIS BAL CA MmOS whose names shall be
explained later on. In the center of the circular sanctuary on top of the hill
stood a Tree of Life, around it a dozen poles that symbolized the solar year of
a dozen months of 30 days each. The year was organized this way:
2 and
occasionally 3 days of the winter solstice, BRI GID (falcon) PIR GID
first
midwinter day consecrated to BRI GID
(occasional day in between consecrated to the falcon)
last
midwinter day consecrated to PIR GID,
night of the fire archers PIR RYT (origin of the river name Euphrates)
and
their ‘fingers of light and luck’ DIG LIC (origin of the river name Tigris)
turn
of the year, mild winter
3 times
30 days of PIR GID
3 times
30 days of AD DA MAN
3 days
of the summer solstice, AD DA MAN turtle AAR RAA NOS
first
midsummer day consecrated to AD DA MAN
second midsummer day consecrated to the turtle
third midsummer day consecrated to AAR RAA
NOS
3 times
30 days of AAR RAA NOS
3 times
30 days of BRI GID
swelling rivers, begin of rainy season
(and
again 2 or sometimes 3 midwinter days)
63 continuous periods of 30 days, or 270 weeks
of 7 days, are 1,890 days and correspond to 64 lunations, mistake less than one
minute per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime. This excellent relation of
month and lunation was found using the very ancient algorithm of transforming
lunations into days: 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 … days for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 … lunations.
17
lunations are 502 days
15
lunations are 443 days
17
lunations are 502 days
15
lunations are 443 days
64
lunations are 1,890 days
A dozen poles on top of the earth mound
represented a dozen months of 30 days, while the space between the Tree of Life
in the center and another pole near the tree represented the five and
occasionally six additional days of the solar year (two and sometimes three
days of midwinter, three days of midsummer). The dozen poles around the Tree of
Life in the center formed a wide circle. Four poles marked the cardinal
directions, the northern pole being consecrated to the fur giver BIR GID, and
the southern one to GIS BAL CA MmOS. This organization reflected the zones of
the land around the Göbekli Tepe:
North
--- BIR GID
Rising
midsummer sun --- AAR RAA NOS
Rising
midwinter sun --- BRI GID
South
--- GIS BAL CA MmOS
Setting
midwinter sun --- PIR GID
Setting
midsummer sun --- AD DA MAN
The dozen poles were arranged as the dial of a
clock. A flat horizon provided, this type of sanctuary served as observatory of
the rising and setting sun on the solstices and equinoxes, owing to the
geographical latitude of Upper Mesopotamia.
The triple goddess and her triple hero ruled
the land according to the number six in the above scheme, and according to the
number four according to the following scheme:
Sky ---
AAR RAA NOS
North
--- BIR GID
South
--- GIS BAL CA MmOS
East
--- AD DA MAN
West
--- BRI GID
Underworld --- PIR GID
The triple goddess was the fire giver PIR GID
and the fur giver BIR GID and the fertility giver BRI GID. Now for the names of
her triple hero. AAR RAA NOS was the god of the sky, mind NOS of the one
composed of air
The triple hero was represented in the
hieroglyph of a bucranium, the skull of a bull: AAR RAA NOS in the ring of the
head, AD DA MAN in the ‘digging’ horns turned downward, and GIS BAL CA MmOS in
the horizontal bar gt01.GIF PIR GID as the one who has the
say )OG or LOG was represented by a hollow
horizontal oval between a pair of vertical elements, or simply by the standing
H, the fur giver BIR GID was represented by a form that resembles a bowl, and
the fertility giver BRI GID was represented by a ring in the bowl that may
symbolize the primeval world BIR LAD, hill LAD in the cosmic fur BIR, separated
in the ring AC meaning earth, and in the hollow CA meaning sky. The hieroglyph
of the triple hero, namely the bucranium, is shown on the southern narrow face
of the western central pillar of temple D, and the standing H and the ring
inside a ‘bowl’ are shown on the southern narrow face of the eastern central
pillar of temple D. The hieroglyphs of the triple goddess can be read as a
message:
)OG BIR
AC CA
and this message may preserve the origin of the
world according to the understanding of the people of the Göbekli Tepe.
In the begin the goddess PIR GID called out to
her sister, the fur giver BIR GID, and asked her to use her cosmic fur in order
to haul the primeval world out of the primeval water. BIR GID did as her sister
asked, lowered her cosmic fur into the primeval water, filled it with clay, and
lifted her heavy fur out of the water. PIR GID called out to her other sister,
the fertility giver BRI GID, and asked her to form the lump of wet clay. BRI
GID did as her sister asked and formed the lump of wet clay into a ring,
separating earth and sky, the earth being the ring, teeming with the seeds of
life, and the sky being the hollow within. In the sky appeared AAR RAA NOS. He
asked his brother GIS BAL CA MmOS to open the ring. GIS BAL CA MmOS did as his
brother asked, opened the ring using his great force, and flattened the ring
into the earth as we know it, whereupon the sky escaped the narrow opening of
the ring and spread out and covered all of the earth. Now the water escaped
from the ring and flooded the surface of the earth. AAR RAA NOS called out for
his brother AD DA MAN and asked him to dig channels, so that the waters won’t
drown the earth but flow as rivers. AD DA MAN did so. Now PIR GID used her
torches to light the sun and the moon and the stars, the sun warmed the air and
the ground, whereupon plants of every sort sprouted out of the soil, and
animals of every species emerged from clefts in the rock, and populated all of
the earth and of the waters and of the sky. PIR GID liked what she saw, hung
one of her torches high into the sky, where it forms the constellation of PIR
SAI, fir PIR life SAI, known as Perseus, and retired to a beautiful cave that
became the Underworld KAL, and with her second torch PIR GID lighted a warming
fire inside the earth. We know her in the form of KAL GID pSAI Calypso, the
giver GID of life SAI or pSAI in the Underworld KAL, Calypso, weaving the web
of life in a spacious cave where a high fire was burning, and singing with a
lovely voice.
The first hieroglyph of earth and sky, AC CA,
was a ring, the second hieroglyph was the lying H, the lower horizontal bar
symbolizing the earth AC in flattened form, the work of GIS BAL CA MmOS, the
upper horizontal bar the sky CA, and the slim vertical bar the exchanges
between earth and sky, especially prayers for rain and sacrificial fires
imploring rain ascending to the sky, and rain rewarding the prayers and
sacrifices falling from the sky. The prayers for rain and the smoke of the
sacrificial fires imploring rain were symbolized by ascending snakes, while the
falling rain was symbolized by descending snakes. AC CA was the original name
of the Göbekli Tepe, meaning much as: where earth and sky are meeting. AC CA also
evolved into Latin aqua, and into the name of the Indo-European earth goddess
akka (Julius Pokorny), while the ancient Egyptians mentioned an unknown Syrian
province by the name of aqa … A polished form of AC CA may account for Eva,
Hebrew hawwa ‘mother of all life’.
The first hypothetical sanctuary on top of the
Göbekli Tepe gave way to at least nineteen stone pillar temples all over the
hill, only a few excavated so far by Klaus Schmidt and his teams, among them
the temples called A and B and C and D, all belonging to the early phase,
beginning some 11,600 years ago.
Follows a short interpretation of these
temples.
Temple A may be seen as the temple of rain -
thanking for rain in the mild winter, imploring rain in the hot and dry summer
(the climate in the flanky hills of the fertile crescent was rather special).
The diagonal web of snakes on the upper panel of pillar 1, ascending and
descending, has the meaning of praying for rain and imploring rain via the
smoke of sacrificial fires, and then of rain rewarding the prayers and
sacrifices, and the same holds for the one ascending snake and the three
descending snakes on the southern narrow face of pillar 1, while the ram below
the web of snakes may represent a sacrifice to the sky god who has the power to
make it rain (the slab at the base of pillar 1 has the size of a ram, so a ram
could have been sacrificed on this slab, at the base of pillar 1 in temple A).
Temple C is the temple of the boar as protector
of the western entrances to and eastern exits from the Underworld that were
passed by moon and sun, probably by the moon duck and the sun crane. The grim
dog-like animal guarding the ground, a sculpted part of the shaft of pillar 27
and marvel of early stone masonry (appearing also on many other pillars in the
simpler form of reliefs), may have hindered unworthy souls from leaving the
Underworld. Only worthy souls, especially the souls of worthy former supreme
rulers were allowed to return and climb the sky toward a heavenly abode. When a
ruler died, his soul entered the Underworld, was guided through the
subterranean labyrinth by the fox, returned, and climbed the sky toward a
heavenly abode. The guard of the ground, hindering unworthy souls from
returning, may have been RAG KAL DhAG NOS, able DhAG minded NOS (helper of the)
queen RAG of the Underworld KAL, and this name might have become Requalivahanus
much later, a minor god who warded off evil ghosts. The boar could have been SA
TYR DhAG NOS, able DhAG minded NOS (helper of) the one who overcomes in the
double sense of rule and give TYR from above SA, and this helper and protector
of the western entrances to and eastern exits from the Underworld could have
become Satuvahanus. The queen of the Underworld was PIR GID, also known as the
one who has the say )OG or LOG, and as
KAL GID pSAI Calypso, while the one who overcame from above in the double sense
of rule and give was AAR RAA NOS.
Temple D, a Neolithic zoo according to Klaus
Schmidt, may have been the Temple of Creation - the pillars show many animals,
the huge central pillar may represent the triple goddess and her triple hero,
the inscription on the central pillar of the triple goddess reading )OG BIR AC CA
may even anticipate Genesis 1:1. Pillar 33 of temple D is highly
interesting, the snakes on the wide faces, originally seen as pond by Klaus
Schmidt, may symbolize the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, while the standing H on
the narrow face represents PIR GID as the one who has the say, PIR GID on New
Year’s Eve, night of the fire archers, while the fire arrows are represented as
up shooting arrow-heads on the sides of the standing H. The fire archers would
have been called PIR RYT wherefrom Euphrates, and her arrows were metaphorical
fingers of light and luck DIG LIC wherefrom Tigris (consider the ancient and
the local names of these rivers). The spiders of six and eight legs may hint at
the division of the land around the Göbekli Tepe according to the number 6 and
the number 4 doubled in 8 (as explained above).
Archaeological evidence for the above fable
might perhaps be found in the plain of Adjaman, hypothetical ancient form AD DA
MAN, on the Karacadag, hypothetical abode of AAR RAA NOS, and in a cave on the
Euphrates in northern Syria, cave of PIR GID alias KAL GID pSAI Calypso.
The mythological pairings are:
PIR GID and AAR RAA NOS
BIR GID and GIS BAL CA MmOS
BRI GID and AD DA MAN
the latter pair accounting for Adam and Eve ---
AD DA MAN Adam, and BIR GID, former of the primeval ring of earth and sky AC
CA, wherefrom aqua and akka and hawwa and Eve.
Indus seals – honoring families for outstanding
contributions to the public weal?
(see also the
following chapter where a couple of seals and tablets are interpreted more
thoroughly on the background of the founding epic of the Indus Valley,
following the approach of Asko Parpola)
Illustrations in: Jagat Pati Joshi / Sayd Ghulam
Mustafa Shah and Asko Parpola, Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, 1.
Collections in India / 2. Collections in
We know about five thousand beautiful seals and
tablets from the Indus Valley, finely crafted steatite seals, most of them
carved in between 2 400 and 1 400 BC, the majority of them showing a big
animal, usually a buffalo / zebu / ‘unicorn’ / short-horned gaur, but also a
rhinoceros or a tiger or an elephant, and above the animal a short line of
ideograms. No other form of writing is known from the Harappan culture, no
inscriptions on statues or buildings or bricks or shards (ostraca), neither on sacred
nor on profane objects; no epic, no litany, no medical book, no magical
instruction, no historical record. Why did the Harappans develop an elaborate
system of signs but never used it for writing a longer text, as did the
literate societies of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia? I believe that the Indus
seals, true works of art, of the highest quality, helped ‘engineering’ the
Harappan society and required exclusivity for that very purpose.
The highly developed urban centers required
common efforts and contributions. I assume that families paid taxes by sending
valid members to work for some time, usually for a season of 90 days, in the
fields, or to form and bake and transport bricks – millions and millions of
bricks were needed for building and ever renovating Mohenjo-daro and Harappa –,
or to nourish all the many workers. Now people who did an excellent job while
working for free, thus paying their taxes, may have been rewarded with a seal
honoring their special effort and outstanding contribution to the public weal …
First a word on the Harappan calendars. A
horned god and a horned goddess and their animals are suggesting a lunisolar
calendar resembling the one of the Göbekli Tepe: indus2.JPG
Horned god, also known as Lord of the Animals,
three faces (looking to the left, at us, and to the right) --- Lord of the
Year, personification of the 3 days of midsummer, arrival of the monsoon,
element water
Rhinoceros --- season between midsummer and
autumnal equinox, monsoon, from very hot to hot and warm, 90 days, or 3 months
of 30 days
Buffalo / zebu / ‘unicorn’ / gaur (short-horned
bull) --- season between autumnal equinox and midwinter, busiest period of the
year when most of the communal work was dome, from warm to cool and cold, 90
days, or 3 months of 30 days
Horned goddess --- Lady of the Year,
personification of the 2 and sometimes 3 days of midwinter, her animals are the
pair of opposing goats (the goddess may be invisibly present in between them), element
fire
Tiger --- season between midwinter and vernal
equinox, from cold to cool and warm, 90 days, or 3 months of 30 days
Elephant --- season between vernal equinox and
midsummer, from warm to hot and very hot, 90 days, or 3 months of 30 days
A year had 360 regular days plus 5 and
occasionally 6 days (three days of midsummer, two and occasionally three days
of midwinter), while 63 continuous periods of 30 days, or 270 weeks of 7 days,
are 1,890 days and correspond to 64 lunations. One lunation or synodic month
calculated by these numbers lasts 29 days 12 hours 45 minutes, actual lunation
29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.9 seconds (modern average value from 1989),
mistake of the ancient value less than one minute per lunation, or half a day
in a lifetime.
This lunisolar calendar of the four seasons
that required no writing, just laying out pebbles, was encoded on many seals
and in a variety of forms:
Square, four elements marking the corners of a
square, four elements arranged in the form of a square, circles or dots or
loops, also an oblique cross --- calendar figure marking the four seasons of
the rhinoceros and buffalo and tiger and elephant, four times ninety days,
together 360 days
Cross (regular cross), five elements, four ends
of the arms plus the center --- solstices and equinoxes plus the 5 and
occasionally 6 additional days of the solar year
Square of nine elements, arranged as 3 by 3
dots or circles or groups of circles --- combined cross and square, again a
calendar figure, solstices and equinoxes plus four seasons, together a full
solar year of 365 and occasionally 366 days
Swastika --- another calendar figure
symbolizing the solar year
Swastika turning in clockwise direction ---
midsummer and season of the rhinoceros, autumnal equinox and season of the
buffalo, midwinter and season of the tiger, vernal equinox and season of the
elephant (read in outward direction)
Swastika turning in counter-clockwise direction
--- season of the elephant and midsummer, season of the rhinoceros and autumnal
equinox, season of the tiger and midwinter, season of the elephant and vernal
equinox (read in inward direction)
Disks of seven figurative elements, or seven
circles around a central one, indicate an alternative ‘lunar’ calendar. A long
week had 13 days, a long month 52 days, a solar year consisted of 7 long months
plus 1 and occasionally 2 days. But the main purpose of this calendar would
have been to count continuous periods of 52 days. The result is an amazing
concordance between lunations (first number in a pair) and long periods of 52
days (second number in a pair):
7–4
16–9 23–13 30–17
37–21 44–25 53–30
60–34 67–38 74–42
81–46
7 lunations are practically 4 periods of 52
days. 37 lunations are practically 21 continuous periods of 52 days and nearly
3 years. The best result is provided by the last number pair. 81 lunations are
practically 46 continuous periods of 52 days or 2,392 days. One lunation,
calculated by these numbers, lasts 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 26.66… seconds,
mistake less than half a minute per lunation, or six hours in a lifetime. Also
this calendar requires no writing, laying out pebbles is all one needed for
carrying out the calculations and noting the results.
The Sumerians called the Indus Valley ‘Land of
the Seven High Places’, a name that may refer to a hypothetical calendar
monument of seven artificial hills (high places) around a sanctuary in the
center. Such a calendar monument could have been encoded on several discs, a
beautiful example coming from Nindowari-damb (Nd-3).
Disc of seven elements --- visualizing the
alternative ‘lunar’ calendar
Disc of seven circles around a central one, for
example Nd-3 --- hypothetical calendar monument of seven artificial hills,
worshipped as the Seven High Places, a sanctuary embedded in the center,
between the seven hills
Pipal tree (ficus religiosa) --- Harappan tree
of life, associated with the horned goddess and the horned god whose symbolical
marriage may have been celebrated in the temple of the tree in downtown
Leaf of the pipal tree, also a heart, also
three circles or dots or lines, also a trefoil --- life, health, and offspring.
Consider the trefoils on the robe of the priest-king from Mohenjo-daro, on the
linga-stand from Mohenjo-daro, and on the fragment of a steatite statuette of a
bull from
Manger, wicker-basket, feed position before a
buffalo --- indicating that bulls were domesticated, even gaurs, and used for
heavy work such as dragging a plough, a sledge of bricks, or a cart
Standard before a bull, most often a ‘unicorn’,
sometimes also a rhinoceros, a pole with an often dotted bowl and above a grid
--- harvest in double form, real harvest of grains, and metaphorical harvest of
bricks. Rectangular grids indicate regular bricks, zigzag or undulating
patterns or a dome indicate special bricks, for example round ones needed for
tubes. In one case the bowl is replaced by a dough or a bread in conic form
resembling Egyptian bread, while the grid above is replaced by a lump of clay
hanging down on both sides, together an appealing plastic shape (M-741)
Buildings --- the incised copper tablet M-522
shows three buildings with a hint of perspective, a store house in form of a
rectangle with a pole on top and perhaps a flag blowing to the left side, in
the middle a palace with two flags blowing to the left side, and a family house
in form of a grid 4 x 3. The tops are slightly narrower than the bases, making
the buildings appear in the perspective of someone walking on the street. The
drawing of the palace is identical with the ideogram of the palace, basically
our H with additional vertical and horizontal strokes; the under half is the
building, the upper parts of the vertical side lines are flag-poles (more
later, also the humorous analogy of palace and dog honoring an excellent guard
who did as good a job as a watchdog)
Royal barque, M-1349 and bis --- the cabins of
these ships resemble the palace ideogram, hence these are royal barques, in the
cabins are two high boards on which appear sequences of triangular objects that
may be specially formed bricks, for example used for window frames in the form
of a pipal leaf, bricks being indicated by the grids on the backsides, and
these bricks of a high quality produced in a specialized manufacture would have
been shipped to palaces all along the many rivers
Now for some of the ideograms above the
animals:
Jar, basically an U --- provisions
Fish --- important in the Harappan diet. Fish
broth was consumed as an aphrodisiac. The extra signs may indicate how the fish
lived, was caught, and processed. An angle above or rather before the head may
indicate that the fish lived in a pond; two parallel wavy lines next to it may
indicate wild fish from a river; arrow-heads sticking in the gills may indicate
speared fish; a horizontal halving stroke may indicate fish cut in pieces; and
so on
Asymmetrical jar, with a slanting substance at
the bottom --- fish sauce or paste, comparable to the popular Roman garum,
tasty, rich in protein, not perishable, and easily transportable. Garum was
fermented tuna cut in pieces, but fish sauce or paste was also made by
fermenting small fish in jars. Fish sauce or paste is indicated when the
asymmetrical jar sign appears in between a fish and an arrow or lance
Arrow-head on a shaft --- arrow, spear, lance,
as verb to catch, also spearing fish
Mortar and pestle --- as verb to grind, cereals
into flour, also dried fish to flakes and powder. Fish meal, still being produced
in India, could have been added to soups, an instant fish broth, as it were. It
may also have been used as animal feed, and as fertilizer, especially when it
got rancid. The meaning of fish meal is indicated when the mortar and pestle
occurs in combination with fish and an arrow-head on a shaft (spear or lance)
Two short vertical strokes at the top ---
exposing to sun and air, drying fish or bricks or herbs
Horizontal boards fixed to a pole --- rack for
drying fish or bricks or herbs
Rectangle with a pole on top --- store house,
often a granary
Lens, rarely a full circle --- oven
Tree consisting of a trunk, a slanting branch,
and three twigs slanting to the other side --- firewood. This sign (with a
short trunk only) sometimes appears in a lens, indicating firewood in an oven
High standing triangle --- smoking chamber, for
example used for smoking fish
A cross in the form of an X with one side
closed by a vertical stroke and the other side open but the ends of the cross
enhanced with ‘thorns’ --- bellows for kindling the fire in an oven, since that
sign sometimes lies over a lens, and in other cases appears with flags for
wind, moving air. As the sign also occurs before a man (seal of the Lord of the
Animals or rather Year) it must have the additional meaning of cooling, causing
draught in a house by opening the right doors and windows while closing others,
consider the “sweet wind from the north” used by the Egyptians in order to cool
their tents and houses
A cross in the form of an X with one side
closed by a vertical stroke while the angle of the cross on the other side is
made broader, stronger --- warming and heating a house by generating a warm
stream using the hot air above a fire (the Harappans may not only have used
water tubes but also heating tubes conducting warm air)
Grid --- bricks, wall, house, tower, any
building made of bricks
Grid 4 x 3 --- indicating the Sacred Triangle
3-4-5 used by the Egyptian harpedontes (rope stretchers) in measuring out right
angles. Hemon, probable designer of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, developed a
systematic method for the calculation of the circle starting from this triangle
H sign with additional horizontal and vertical
lines --- palace, the poles decorated with flags
Standing rectangle with short vertical lines
attached to the top and bottom lines --- household, or a camp of workers
D sign overlaid with an oblique stroke / ---
bow and arrow, indicating a guard and protector
Pair of arms, raised or rather put forward --- worker,
to work, for example a baker kneading dough
Now let us translate the messages conveyed by
some typical seals, more or less in the order as I interpreted the ideograms:
H-93 shows an elephant, above a D for a bow
overlaid with an oblique stroke / for an arrow, and on the other side a jar U
---- The family honored by this seal provided excellent guards who protected
our provisions during the season of the elephant (between vernal equinox and
midsummer)
H-252 till 277 and 859 till 870, all of the same
size and form, all showing a bull on one side, and on the other side this
sequence of ideograms: arrow-head on shaft (spear, spearing), fish (with
arrow-heads sticking in the gills (speared fish), two short vertical strokes
(dried in air and sun), tree with vertical trunk, slanting branch, and twigs
slanting the other way (firewood), high standing triangle, inside a vertical
pole crossed by three short horizontal strokes (smoking chamber, impaled fish
being smoked) --- This seal honors a family of excellent fish smokers who
supplied our workers in the fields, and in the brick manufactures, and other
places of communal work, with smoked fish during the season of the buffalo
(busy period of the year, between autumnal equinox and midwinter)
Seals showing the royal barque would have
honored families of excellent sailors (M-1349)
Seals showing calendar signs would have honored
families of excellent astronomers, counters of days
Seals showing grids would have honored families
of excellent architects and builders, arrangers of bricks, an ideal example of
such a seal being M-382, showing two grids 4 x 3 next to a man holding a staff
or measuring rod the length of his body height (human measure), see also the
comment on the grid 4 x 3 above, in the list of ideograms
The palace ideogram can resemble a dog, an
example of Harappan humor --- This seal honors a family of excellent guards and
protectors whose senses are as acute and sharp as the ones of a watchdog (a
high compliment in form of a visual pun)
Three elements have the meaning of life,
health, and offspring, also in the case of the trefoils on the robe of the
priest-king from Mohenjo-daro, on the linga-stand from Mohenjo-daro, and on the
fragment of a statuette of a bull from Mohenjo-daro --- May the king and may
the owner of this linga and may this bull enjoy long and healthy lives and have
plenty offspring …
The four faces of M-1431 may honor a family of
bards who narrated the story of the origin of the year, how the rhinoceros and
buffalo and tiger and elephant found together and were coaxed into the round of
the seasons
The three faces of M-1430 may honor another
family of bards for narrating the origin of medicine, showing a pipal leaf on
each face, and on face A, between the pipal leaf on the side and the pipal tree
in the center – Harappan tree of life – three women, the triple goddess,
probably emanations of the horned lady
M-304 and bis and ter show the Lord of the
Animals or rather of the Year surrounded by a rhinoceros and a buffalo and a
tiger and an elephant, the horned god is seated on a dais, under it appears a
pair of opposing goats, the Lady of the Year may be invisible between them. The
ideogram above the center of the wide horns is a jar with two short vertical
strokes indicating provisions (perhaps dried fish), on one side a man before
the signs of the cooling and heating bellows, on the other side a fish and a
jar --- This seal honors a family of excellent housekeepers who cared very well
for our provisions, also for cool rooms in summer, and warm ones in winter
Seal M-1103 graces the cover of the second
volume of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, Collections in
Pakistan indus.JPG
and shows a magnificent water buffalo, above the animal a short sequence
of ideograms, in the middle a pair of arms (worker, here a baker), next to them
a rectangle with a pole on top (store house, here a granary) and a mortar and
pestle (indicating the grinding of cereals to flour), and next to them a circle
divided in six radial compartments plus a short vertical stroke in middle
position (baking oven plus bread) and a rectangle with five short vertical
strokes along the top line, and again five short vertical strokes along the
bottom line, all inside the rectangle (household, or camp of workers) --- This
seal honors a family of excellent bakers who supplied our household, or a camp
of workers, with bread during the season of the buffalo … The linear order of a
text would be:
arms –
granary – mortar pestle – oven bread – household
but the signs appear in the symmetrical order
of a picture
camp –
mortar pestle – arms – granary – oven bread
The seals convey visual messages understood by
all the many people living in the wide area of the Indus Valley who probably
spoke different languages, Proto-Dravidian, Proto-Elamite, some Indo-European,
Sumerian, perhaps also a couple of African and Chinese idioms. The visual
messages of the seals could easily have been rendered in any of these
languages, also the mythological ones, and would have served a purpose of
integration, on top of their function of social ‘engineering’ by rewarding
outstanding contributions to the common weal.
Divine Hind and Bull Valley, Minoan Symbols,
Founding Epic of the Indus Valley, Indus seals and tablets again
(documenting my way of
working and developing ideas in 36 paragraphs)
1)
CER -: I -: or CER LIL (pronounce -: by
touching both lips with the tip of the tongue) was the divine hind or hind
woman. She licked moon bulls into life, thus creating time, lunations, periods
of 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 … days. Her constellation was Orion, ORE
EON, beautiful ORE shore EON, the goddess from the beautiful bank of the
heavenly river CA LAK galaxy Milky Way. The moon bulls waiting to go on their
heavenly mission were present in Aldebaran in Taurus, TOR for bull in motion.
The goddess was flanked by a pair of opposing ibices (Latin plural of ibex)
marking midwinter (Marie E.P. König) and could be present invisibly between
them, for example in the niche at the rear end of the axial gallery in Lascaux.
Twigs mark her function as vegetation goddess. Arbors were built in her honor,
a winter hut made of fir branches, a spring hut covered in blossoms, a summer
bower of green branches, and a colorful hut in the fall. The moon, waxing and
waning and waxing again, symbolized the cycles of plant life, animal life, and
human life and made the promise of a next life. Bees and bee swarms became
another emanation of the goddess.
2) Marie
E.P. König understands the horse in cave art as symbol of the sun, the bull as
symbol of the moon, the descending horses at the rear end of the axial gallery
of Lascaux as winter sun, lower and lower on the horizon, finally giving way to
a pair of opposing ibices that mark midwinter. The glorious rotunda at the
other end of the axial gallery would then symbolize midsummer, the red mare the
midsummer sun rising above the horizon in the early morning, and the proud
white bull by her side a full moon occurring at the same time, ideal start of
an eight-year period in the lunisolar calendar of Lascaux, while the lovely
‘Chinese horses’ in the axial gallery, moving in clockwise direction, heading
for the rotunda, are the symbol of spring, halfway in between the niche of
midwinter and the rotunda of midsummer. The Lascaux cave was used for
initiating aspiring rulers and shamans who gathered there and celebrated
midsummer. Before the red mare and the white bull in the rotunda appears a
group of stags wearing big antlers, representing the divine stag CER KOS whose
heavenly antlers were present in the summer constellations we call Scorpio and
Sagittarius. Across the sky from them is the winter constellation of Orion,
heavenly emanation of the divine hind woman CER
-: I -: or CER LIL, invisibly
present between the pair of opposing ibices in the niche at the rear end of the
axial gallery, in the negative space defined by the arcs of the horns and heads
of her emblematic animals. The Orion goddess in between a pair of opposing
ibices, or a pair of opposing mountain goats, became a well known symbol. A
bronze disc from Lurestan on the Iranian highland shows her between her ibices,
flanked by six flowers in the hourglass arrangement of Orion (more later).
3) The Altamira cave in northern Spain is
famous for the powerful bisons that inspired Picasso. By far the largest
animal, three meters long, is a marvelous hind licking the horns of a small
bull under her head and neck hind1.JPG The head of another hind is drawn
above a small ledge, the tongue indicated by a short vertical cleft hind2.JPG
Many animals in European caves and on rocks in southern Africa were
drawn and painted as if emerging from clefts and niches, or again disappearing
into them, an early understanding of life that resurfaced in Vernadzky’s famous
dictum of life being the metamorphosis of stone … The bisons of Altamira show
compact, rounded forms. They are moon bulls, representing lunations or synodic
months, periods of 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 … days. The bulls in the
rotunda of Lascaux are shining white, suiting the moon, whereas the bisons of
Altamira are red, symbolizing life. Dots in cave art, lines and fields of red
and black dots, represent SAI for life, existence. Especially red dots have the
meaning of life. Red dots on Neolithic houses in Switzerland would have said: May this house be blessed with life, may it
see many children … The compact red bisons of Altamira are dotting the
walls and ceilings of the splendid cave, wishing many moons or a long life for
the people of that region, plenty of moon bulls licked into life by the lovely
and motherly hind who was also the goddess of vegetation, and while the tails
of the bisons in other caves, for example Niaux and Lascaux, are rendered
realistically as ‘paintbrushes’, the tails of several bisons in the Altamira
cave are given as ‘twigs’ or ‘fir twiglets’ marking them as creatures of the
goddess.
4) A
relief in an abri at Angles-sur-l’Anglin shows the naked bodies of three women
whose heads disappear in a ledge anglin.GIF The goddess on the right side
has an accentuated hourglass figure, under her a bison. She is the divine hind
woman present in the constellation of Orion. At Veyrier, Geneva, Switzerland,
on the river Arve, close to the French border, in a former abri, destroyed when
the place was turned into a quarry, was found a bone whose fine incisions were
drawn on paper by none less than Abbé Breuil. The bone has a round hole at one
end, while the other end broke off. Such bones were used for straightening
arrow blades made from reindeer antlers. The drawing shows an ibex on one side,
emblematic animal of the divine hind woman, and a long straight twig of over
forty leaves on the other side, probably from a quivering aspen that may have
grown farther down the Rhone Valley. The destination of this bone as tool in
fabricating arrows goes to show that the hind woman was worshipped also as a
goddess of hunting (more later when we come to the Artemis of Ephesos).
5) A
bronze disc from Lurestan, Iranian highland, Final Bronze Age, about 3,200
years old, found in a tomb, pinned to the cloak of the buried man, diameter
11.5 centimeters, about the size of a CD, shows the goddess giving birth to the
head of a man, a round head emerging from her vulva in upside down position.
The woman wears a roof-like hat made of fir twigs and is flanked by six flowers
in the arrangement of the lateral stars of Orion (big flowers for Betelgeuse
and Bellatrix, small flowers for Alnitak and Mintaka, big flowers again for
Saiph and Rigel) and then by a pair of opposing ibices, emblematic animals of
the Orion goddess. The round head of the man born by her may indicate a lunar
god and make the promise of a next life in the beyond, somewhere along the
beautiful bank ORE EON of the celestial river CA LAK. Also animals were born
again in the beyond, indicated by animal bones inserted into a wall of a cave
of the dukes Bégouen in the Ardčche. Hunters place a twig between the lips of
an animal they shot. Where does this custom come from? Might it go back to an
archaic ritual of invoking the divine hind, asking her to give the animal a
second life in the beyond, so it may graze on the heavenly pastures along the
beautiful Orion bank of the celestial river?
6) An
incised piece of bone in the shape of a bull’s head from Bilcze Zlote,
northwestern Ukraine, Late Cucuteni, fourth millennium BC, shows a woman with
an hourglass figure who raises her arms and evokes the Orion goddess who licked
moon bulls into life, but also a bee, so the divine hind woman in her function
as vegetation goddess acquired a further emblematic animal, perhaps following
an epidemic among bees that caused the trees to bear no fruit, and made the
early farmers of the Ukraine realize how important that little insect is.
Ephesos was named for the bee whose pre-Latin name was something like aspasha,
maybee from AS PAS SA meaning upward AS everywhere in a plain PAS downward SA,
the bee lifting from a blossom, flying around, and alighting on another
blossom, an accurate description of a bee’s labor. Do you know how far a bee
must fly in order to produce half a liter of honey? 75,000 kilometers, nearly
twice around the equator (calculated at a Swiss university). Ephesia, bee
goddess of Anatolia, was taken over by Artemis who became the local Artemis
Ephesia. Artemis was also a goddess of hunting, her covering Ephesia shows that
the divine hind woman must also have been worshipped as a goddess of hunting,
she licked not only moon bulls into life, but every bull, and all other
animals, many of whom became the prey of hunters but were given a second life
in the beyond by the goddess.
7) The
etymology of Demeter is not clear. Some explain her name as da-mataer ‘earth
mother’, which doesn’t convince others. My explanation is AD DA MAI TYR, toward
AD away from DA female zone of a Magdalenian camp MAI to overcome in the double
sense of rule and give TYR, a compound designating the heavenly ones who
overcome in the double sense of rule and give, and who watch over the entrance
to and exit from the female zone of a camp, namely the fire giver PIR GID and
the fertility giver BRI GID and the fur giver BIR GID, a trinity carved in rock
in the abri of Angles-sur-l’Anglin anglin.GIF So we may assume that women were
responsible for the fires in a camp, for all aspects of fertility, and for the
many tasks involving fur, from placing a baby on fur to sewing fur clothes and
cooking in a pit laid out with a hide and filled with water and heated with hot
stones rolled in from a fireplace to healing by wrapping a patient in a warming
fur smeared on the inside with a mixture of fat and medicinal herbs … The
triple goddess PIR GID and BRI GID and BIR GID became the Celtic Brigit and the
Three Mothers of Burgundy and Greek Demeter, while Elaia in Crete and in
Arcadia on the Peloponnese was an alter ego of Demeter, her emblems being an
olive tree and a giant bee on a gold ring from Mochlos.
8)
CER -: I -: accounts for northwestern PIE *kerdeha-
‘herd, series’ and for the cow-eyed Hera and for PIE *ker- ‘to grow’ and of
course for Latin cervus French cerf meaning stag. The second part of her name
has many derivatives, among them lip, German Liebe ‘love’ and Leben ‘life’,
Ugaritic dd ‘beloved’ and Phoenician Dido ‘loved one’, then Lily, and perhaps
also Ukrainian lyalka ‘doll’. The PIE version of love is *leubh-, close to
German Laub ‘foliage’ and Laube ‘bower, bowery, arbor’, akin to Latin laubia,
lobia, and English lobby and lodge, derivatives of -: I -:
considering the twig of the goddess who was also responsible for the
vegetation and in whose honor arbors were built, as indicated by the fir branch
hat of the goddess on a bronze disc from Lurestan, evoking the roof of a hut
made of fir branches.
9) An
Indian linguist who uses the pseudonym of Analyst informed me that BIR has more
potential derivatives, among them Latin pellum, English filament and wool, again
Latin vir for man, originally naming a brave hunter clad in fur and hunting the
ferocious bear for its precious fur … Analyst is right, -R is easily replaced
by -L, so we can get from BIR to Latin pellum Old English fell and German Fell,
also Latin vellum, and English wool German Wolle, and French file ‘file’ and
English filament. Analyst told me also that MUC for bull might survive in
Sanskrit mahisha ‘bull’ and in mahi ‘large’ and magha ‘wealth’. MUC is the
origin of Greek megas ‘big’, perhaps also of English big, certainly of English
much and Swiss Mocke for something big and round. The bison was a big animal
for the early hunters. A drawing in the cave Le Gabillou, Dordogne, shows a
giant bull and a tiny hunter in front of the animal, the master bull hunter MAS
whence Latin masculus ‘little man’, small in comparison. A further drawing in
the cave Le Gabillou shows a man wearing the hide and horns of a bull
performing sort of a dance while being attacked with lances, in my opinion the
master bull hunter MAS acting as bull, teaching boys (not visible in the
drawing) wielding toy lances how to attack a bull and to carry out the first
and all deciding blow, and what were the risks of a move, how the bull reacts
in a given situation. A master bull hunter could act as a bull, and the most
successful master bull hunter became the bull man who was born again in the
sky, in the region of the Summer Triangle Deneb Vega Atair, as indicated by the
drawing on a stalactite in the rear hall of the Chauvet cave.
10) We
have two word groups for world, English world German Welt, and Latin mundus
Italian mondo French monde. I explain English world via BIR LAD, the primeval
hill LAD in the cosmic fur BIR of the goddess BIR GID, Magdalenian BIR LAD
(werlad) Old English werald English world German Welt. Latin mundus Italian
mondo French monde goes back to MUC DAL, valley DAL of the bulls MUC. The
universal tool of the Stone Age was a celt or hand axe in the shape of an
almond, Greek amygdala German Mandel. The world was seen as a giant bull whose
body accounts for the mass of the earth while his horns are present in the
eastern and western mountains where the moon and stars and sun rise from and
set on, then traversing the Underworld and emerging again on the eastern horizon,
moving in big arcs and circles, Sanskrit mandala ‘circle’. The divine bull
Nandi was an old symbol of the earth. The Nandi mountains owe their name to a
resemblance with a lying bull. The heavenly cow Hathor resided in the western
mountain of Upper Egypt, a long ridge resembling a lying cow, the pyramidal
Qoru above Deir el-Bahari and the Valley of Kings indicating her head and horn,
while the lesser known Valley of Queens farther south leads to a grotto which
is occasionally flooded by a waterfall from a wadi above and was a pre-dynastic
invocation place of the birth giving goddess. Nut, alter ego of the heavenly
cow Hathor, arching herself over the earth, resting on her feet and hands,
swallowed the evening sun and gave birth to the sunchild in the morning, so
that we can equate the western mountains with a devouring mouth, German Mund,
and the eastern mountains with the os uteri, German Muttermund. Latin Mons
‘mountain’ could originally have been the mountains where moon and stars and
sun rise from and disappear into. German Mund and Latin Mons could well be
further derivatives of MUC DAL, and of course also German Mond ‘moon’, formerly
a bull, the moon bull.
11) MUC
DAL amygdala almond Mandel mundus mondo monde mandala Mons Mond Mund Muttermund
… Are there further derivatives? Yes, a particular one, Magdalenian, and Hebrew
mGDL ‘big’. The idea of the world as bull valley is present in mysterious
pre-Celtic objects resembling neck-rests carved of white marble or baked of
clay, a pair of standing horns, in one case on the four legs of a bull,
sometimes decorated, with indented small circles near the points of the horns
indicating the moon and sun before leaving the Underworld, ready to climb the
sky, and just having entered the Underworld, ready to traverse it; then we can
see arcs indicating the travel through the Underworld, and in one case a pair
of triangular mountains, the eastern mountain where the moon and sun rise from,
and the western mountain where they set upon. These objects would have given way
to the Celtic torq, a gold ring the size of a necklace with round ends that
indicate the trajectory of the sun across the sky – in one case the ends of the
torque are big golden ‘pearls’, on each one a winged horse, the morning sun
horse ready to climb the sky, and the symmetrical evening sun horse looking
back before entering the Underworld. A heavy silver counterpart weighing some
seven kilograms has the arc underneath while the ends at the top render a pair
of opposing bull heads. The name torq may stem from this version of the torq
whose original form could have been TOR CA or TOR KAL, bull in motion TOR sky
CA or Underworld KAL.
12) The
Minoans came from Asia Minor, probably from Ebla where also a minotaur was
known, Minos tauros, TOR for bull in motion, and Minos from Mi-Nu-The, given in
hieroglyphic Minoan, Linear A and Linear B as head of a bull for Mi-, as visual
pun of a bull leaper on his or her feet hands feet for -Nu-, and as tree of
life for -The. Mi- represented by the head of a bull might well go back to MUC
for bull that is also present in Myc-enae. The generic name of a bull leaper
could have been AD TOR OC CO, toward AD a bull in motion TOR with open eyes OC
and a focused mind CO, a formula for the conditio humana that became Mycenaean
atoroqo and Greek anthropos, also andros andra, genitive and accusative of
anaer ‘man’, and Sanskrit Indra (more on him later). Begin of Homer’s Odyssey:
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, polytropon hos mala polla / plangchthae … Tell me,
Muse, of the man who traveled far and suffered many evils … Odysseus confronted
his bull, so to say, and more than one bull, for he waged war on Poseidon, his
arch enemy, founder of Troy, to whom hecatombs of bulls were sacrificed,
already in 1:25, indicating that Poseidon had the force and power of hundreds
of bulls, and waging war in the Bronze Age was far a greater challenge than
confronting a bull in Magdalenian times.
13) Most
hymns in the Rig Veda are dedicated to Indra, Agni, and Soma. Indra may go back
to the bull hunter of old who became the bull man and then the divine bull, the
cosmic bull himself, and the helper of the cosmic bull as well. The name Indra
may go back to the above formula for the conditio humana, AD TOR OC CO. The
name of the fire god Agni and English ignite may be explained via GNE for the
nine days and nights of the Magdalenian full moon, a bright white fire in a
pitch black sky in a time when there was no light pollution, glowing yellow and
orange when rising from and setting on a dusty horizon. Soma as god was a bull,
a bird, and a lunar deity, hence the winged moon bull. Soma as juice might have
been the semen of the cosmic bull, from SOMm for body, his vital essence
present in the soil, extracted by a variety of plants whose roots, pressed out,
yielded a juice that was mixed with milk and consumed as a vitalizing and
energizing drink. Our young generation consumes an energizing drink called Red
Bull. ‘Bull’ is one of the epithets of Indra. As a hero he drank soma which
made him strong and vigorous. As cosmic bull he is spending soma in the form of
rain, life giving water, and as helper of the cosmic bull he fought the serpent
that blocked rivers from flowing …
14) The
sacred bull Nandi is connected with Shiva and embodies the god’s creative
powers, at least Nandi in the shrine at Khajuraho, 11th century AD.
Shiva is a minor god in the Rig Veda, nevertheless he might go back to the
ancient weather god whose generic name was ShA PAD TYR AS CA, the ruler ShA who
goes ahead PAD and overcomes in the double sense of rule and give TYR up above
AS in the sky CA … ShA PAD TYR Jupitter
Jupiter Jovis Giove, originally a storm god in form of a bull, probably a
descendant of the weather god from Mont Bego in the Alpes Maritimes in
southeastern France near the Italian border. TYR Middle Helladic Sseyr Doric Sseus Homeric
Zeus, perhaps akin to the Serri bull of the Hittite weather god; Zeus in the
guise of a bull abducted Europa from Syria that may preserve the same TYR,
consider Tyros, TYR CA origin of the
Turk- words and names. ShA … CA Jahwe, a
storm god from Mount Seir (!) in the Negev, rider of clouds, perhaps also
worshipped as a bull, consider the bronze figurine of a bull from the top of a
hill near Samaria from the 12th century BC. ShA PAD TYR AS CA Jupiter/Giove-asca Giubiasco in the canton of
Ticino in southern Switzerland, once a station on the way to and from the Swiss
Alps where good weather was implored and thanked for. ShA PAD Shiva, also a bull when we consider Nandi and
the seated god wearing buffalo horns on a well known Indus tablet, known as
Pashupati ‘Lord of the Animals’, Sanskrit pati ‘Lord’ being a derivative of PAD
TYR. When we combine ShA PAD with PAD TYR we obtain ShA PAD TYR, origin of
Jupiter. Sanskrit shiva means auspicious and Latin auspex means augur, someone
who looks out for favorable signs in the sky, from birds, in a second and
literary sense also leader, chief commander, protector, so shiva as adjective
could well have been a derivative of ShA PAD as rump form of ShA PAD TYR AS CA.
15)
Shiva as Maheshvara, Elephanta, Mumbay, 7th century AD, has
three faces: the left profile representing the destroyer, traditional role of
Shiva; the majestic middle head with closed eyes representing the creator,
traditional role of Brahma; and the right and rather feminine profile
representing the preserver, traditional role of Vishnu. Also the seated god
wearing buffalo horns has three faces, on the gray and the simpler yellow
tablet tablets.GIF Let us compare Shiva with the
early god of the Indus Valley: left buffalo horn, western mountain where moon
and sun set and disappear, their light extinguished, Shiva as destroyer,
traditional role of Shiva --- sheaf of emmer (gray tablet) and pipal tree of
life (yellow tablet) in the middle of the horns, Shiva nourishing the plants
from below, from the Underworld indicated by his closed eyes, restoring the
powers of moon and sun so that they may return, Shiva as creator, traditional
role of Brahma --- right buffalo horn, eastern mountains where moon and sun
rise, guarded by Shiva the preserver, traditional role of Vishnu. The
triple-faced god is then indicating the trajectories of moon and stars and sun.
With closed eyes: from the western horizon to the eastern horizon, traversing
the Underworld, passing under the roots of the pipal tree of life. With open
eyes: from the eastern to the western horizon, traveling across the sky,
passing over the leaves of the pipal tree of life.
16)
James Mellaart, excavator of Çatal Höyük, saw the reliefs of figurines
with raised arms and legs and marked navel on the walls of several houses of
the layers VI and VII, often in combination with a bucranium, as the pregnant
goddess giving birth to a bull. So we have here another descendant of the divine
hind who licked moon bulls into life, thus creating time, lunations or synodic
months, periods of 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 … days and nights. The
divine hind was also the hind woman, animal and woman and goddess at the same
time. In 2005 a clay seal in the shape of a bear was found in layer V of the
southern Çatal Höyük area, a bear with raised arms and legs and a marked navel.
This bear may then be understood as the triple goddess BRI GID and BIR GID and
PIR GID in one, the fertility giver BRI GID being present in the pose of giving
birth, in the marked navel, and in the grooves of the womb that anticipate the
double spiral on the womb of the pregnant bird goddess from the Balkans (one
spiral for the mother and one for the child, rolling inward and outward,
beautiful symbol of the subsequent generations), the fur giver BIR GID being
present in the deep grooves indicating a soft fur and appearing as ridges of a
seal impression, and the fire giver PIR GID being present in the fire that
baked the clay and in the light red color of the terracotta seal. BRI GID gave
birth and helped giving birth, the fur of BIR GID, preferably the one of a
bear, kept a baby warm, and the fire of PIR GID achieved the same, keeping the
baby warm. The bear seal from Çatal Höyük may then have anticipated the divine
mother and nurse from the Balkans wearing bear masks and a pouch of fur for the
baby on her back. The goddesses from Çatal Höyük should not be confounded with
the animals in downward position appearing on several Göbekli Tepe pillars:
those grim animals baring their teeth were guarding the ground, allowing only
worthy souls to leave the Underworld and return to the surface of the earth and
climb a heavenly abode.
17) A
small stone tablet from Jerf el Ahmar in northern Syria, close to the Anatolian
border, on the eastern shore of the Euphrates, about 11,300 years old, may
commemorate the construction of the Göbekli Tepe: stone pillar temples on up to
five meters of earth deposited on the limestone hill in the Sanli-Urfa
region tablets.GIF One face of the tablet shows a pair of rings in the sky, above four
pillars of a temple, symbolizing the sky by night and day, moon and sun, and
hinting at the calendaric function of temple B on the Göbekli Tepe goebekli.GIF
and probably of other temples as well. The workers are symbolized in a
giant ant whose body is partly eclipsed by the four already standing pillars, a
labor marked as achievement by four dots along the curve of the hind body
segment of the industrious animal. The large ant is busy erecting a further
pillar on the right side, a slab suspended in an oblique position, held by the
left antenna-arm of the insect. On the left side hangs a long snake from the
sky, tail above head below, indicating rain. Imploring rain was an important
function of the sanctuaries, for example of temple A on the Göbekli Tepe. The
other face of the stone tablet shows about six rows of rounded angles filled
with big dots tablets.GIF leather bags filled with earth,
carried to the hill and emptied on top of it, where earth was required in order
to round the shape of the hill. Assuming an area of 200 by 200 meters, an
average layer of 25 centimeters of earth, and a capacity of 10 liters for a
leather bag we obtain one million fillings and as many walks to the hill that
may well have appeared as ‘ant processions’ to an onlooker from a distance. At
the top and in the middle of this tablet face is a wider bag that may also be
seen as a pair of bull horns, inside a round hill under four dots, apparently
the Göbekli Tepe under moon and stars and sun. The sign is then combining the
primeval hill in the cosmic fur BIR LAD with the valley of bulls MUC DAL, and
the mound in the center is the Göbekli Tepe, hill of creation, under moon and
stars by night, under the sun by day …
18)
Aurochs and snake were the predominant symbols of the wider Göbekli Tepe
area. The skull of an aurochs with wide horns was fixed to the wall opposite
the entrance of the round house 1A at Hallan Çemi over 12,000 years ago. The
bull man of old became the triple god and hero of the Göbekli Tepe region,
indicated by the bucranium on pillar 31 temple D, composed of three graphic
elements, the ring of the head for AAR RAA NOS, the horns whose points are
turned downward for the digger of ditches AD DA MAN, and the bar on top for GIS
BAL CA MmOS who broke the ring of the primeval world apart and flattened the
lower half into the world we live upon according to the Göbekli Tepe myth of
origin encoded in the inscriptions of the central pillars of temple D gt01.GIF
AAR RAA NOS, mind NOS of the one composed of air AAR and light RAA is
visible ex negativo through the big limestone ring found in a rectangular
temple of the second building phase ouranos.JPG A fragment of a stone tablet from
Tell Abr 3 near Jerf el Ahmar tablets.GIF shows the god on a ring for the
sky, the halving of the ring indicated by short horizontal strokes, inside the
ring a long snake heading upward, to the man or god on the ring, while an arrow
head above a long vertical zigzag line and a succession of arrow heads shooting
upward are seen on the sides of the ring. The snake heading skyward symbolizes
prayers for rain and sacrificial fires imploring rain. Also arrows shot into
the sky might have implored rain, perhaps with white bands attached to the arrows
that would have waved in the air. A second tablet from Jerf el Ahmar tablets.GIF
shows many long vertical snakes heading skyward, an arrow head pointing
upward, two rings with snakes inside heading upward, and a man standing on one
of the rings, while a sign on the ground combines a woman raising her arms with
the tree of life in a poignant gesture of asking for rain. The other side of
the tablet shows a grid of long horizontal and shorter vertical lines, under it
a snake, so the lines are water ditches and the rectangles in between planting
beds where lentils and herbs and berries may have grown, well protected by the
water, the roots always humid, and the plants kept warm by the warmth given off
by the water during the night. The Göbekli Tepe hieroglyph of the lying H
symbolizes the earth AC and the sky CA (horizontal bars) and the exchanges
between them (vertical bar), prayers for rain and sacrificial fires and wishing
arrows imploring rain, ascending, and rain rewarding the prayers and
sacrificial fires and wishing arrows, falling. A more elaborate version of the
AC CA sign is found on a polished pebble from Netiv Hagdud tablets.GIF
Earth and sky are indicated by three and four horizontal lines while the
exchanges between them are indicated by a double snake line meandering down up
down up down up down up and down again in fading lines visualizing rain,
implored from and granted by the bull man in the sky. AC CA became Latin aqua
‘water’, while the ancient Egyptians mentioned a Syrian province by the name of
aqa …
19)
Temple B on the Göbekli Tepe combines the solar year with the life of a
supreme ruler goebekli.GIF Begin the calendar walk with
pillar 16 in the official counting, here given as pillar ‘a’, New Year
following midwinter and the night of the fire archers; start in
counterclockwise direction and perform a double loop roughly in the shape of an
eight: pillar a 30 days – pillar b 30 days – pillar c 30 days – pillar d 30
days – pillar e 30 days – central pillar f 30 days – space between the central
pillars f and g, midsummer, 3 days – central pillar g 30 days – pillar h 30
days – pillar i 30 days – pillar j 30 days – pillar k 30 days – pillar l 30
days – space between the central pillars f and g, midwinter, 2 and occasionally
3 days, and back to the first pillar, yielding a solar year of 365 and
occasionally 366 days. Before the first pillar of the calendar walk stood a
proteome, a stone phallus. The first pillars a b c d e symbolize the life of
the young ruler, the central pillars f and g his appointment as ruler, the
pillars h i j k l his life as supreme ruler, and the crossing of the space
between the central pillars the end of his life. His body may have been placed
between the central pillars, while his soul visited the Underworld, was guided
by the fox through the subterranean labyrinth, returned to daylight – if the
grim guards of the ground allowed him to pass, finding him a worthy soul – and
climbed the sky toward a heavenly abode, indicated by the foxes on the central
pillars f and g whose heads and backs form elegant arcs evoking the trajectory
of the rising sun … In his heavenly abode the former ruler became the bull man
in the sky, helper of AAR RAA NOS, even a part of him, listening to the prayers
for rain and smelling the smoke of the sacrificial fires imploring rain and
admiring the wishing arrows with their lovely waving bands, and rewarding the
prayers and sacrificial fires and wishing arrows with falling rain that filled
the river beds … The prayers for rain and the smoke of the sacrificial fires
and the waving bands of the wishing arrows imploring rain were symbolized by
snakes heading upward, and the falling rain was symbolized by snakes heading
downward. Before the first pillar of the calendar walk, pillar 16 in the
official counting, pillar ‘a’ in my notation, stood a proteome, a stone
phallus. Another proteome, this time a head and upper body and erected phallus,
was found at another place on the Göbekli Tepe. Foxes are numerous, all male,
and each one shows a phallus, apart from the fox on the central pillar f,
pillar 9 in the official counting: this pillar shows a pair of snake heads
instead, linking the phallus with water and making its erection a symbol of the
ruler in the sky, the bull man up above, spender of life in the form of rain.
Before the fox on pillar f or 9 is a bowl carved into the temple floor. We can
be sure that it was filled with water during a ceremony invoking the deified ruler
and bull man in the sky as spender of rain.
20) The
elegant female figurines from El-Mamariya in Upper Egypt, pre-dynastic eg1b.GIF
eg1a.gif symbolize the Nile Valley: her
lower body in the shape of a carrot the fertile ground, her breasts the surface
of the earth where we find our nourishment, her raised arms the slopes of the
eastern and western hills and mountains, her hands the stars that rise from the
eastern mountain and set on the western mountain (five fingers of a hand, five
points of an Egyptian star), her head of a bird the height of the sky, and her
eyes moon and sun … These figurines have an equivalent in the star decorated
head of a cow on a palette, the horns corresponding to the raised arms of the
female figurine, a star on both points of the horns. I imagine a ritual dance
of creation performed by a priestess in lieu of the goddess: hands on the womb
– hands on the breasts – hands on the head, fingers together, touching the head
– closed arms raised as a circle above the head – arms opened – fingers spread
… Min was the male personification of the Nile Valley, worshipped as Bull of
the Great Phallus, a symbol of the river Nile, swelling every summer and
flooding the river plain. In his raised arm he held a cereal stalk or a flail,
now symbolizing the fertile land. His gesture of smiting indicated the borders
of the river oasis that had to be defended against intruders. His name Min may
go back to MAN for the right hand, considering his role as reaper, and as
defender of the borders.‘Pashupati’ on the gray and yellow Indus tablets may
personify the Indus Valley in much the same way
indus2.JPG His buffalo
horns are the eastern and western mountains where moon and sun rise and set,
while the sheaf of emmer (gray tablet) and pipal tree of life (yellow tablet)
in between the horns indicate the fertile land. The triple face anticipates
Brahma the creator, middle face; Vishnu the preserver, right face; and Shiva
the destroyer, left face, here associated with the setting moon and sun, their
light being extinguished. ‘Pashupati’ became Shiva in all three roles of
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Brahma goes back to BRA MAN, right arm BRA right
hand MAN, naming the god who created the world by playing his lyra. Shiva as
destroyer may also have protected the land, in the same way as Min. Sanskrit
minati ‘he diminishes, destroys’ would then go back to the same MAN for the
right hand (accounting for our mathematical term minus, while BIR meaning fur
accounts for plus, a fur bag full of goods, Avestan par ‘full’). Now the arms
of ‘Pashupati’ are peculiar, covered by bangles they resemble fish skeletons,
the bangles evoking fish bones and the hands fish tails, apparently symbolizing
the river arms rich in fish. Tamil miin ‘fish’ may then refer to the fish hands
of ‘Pashupati’. The Tamils came from the north and may well have imported the
word miin that ultimately would go back to MAN for the right hand.
21) The
lunisolar calendar of the Göbekli Tepe had a week of 7 days, a month of 30
days, and a season of 3 months or 90 days. Season of PIR GID following
midwinter and the night of the fire archers, 90 days --- season of AD DA MAN,
90 days --- midsummer festival, 3 days, day of AD DA MAN, day of the turtle,
day of AAR RAA NOS --- season of AAR RAA NOS, 90 days --- season of BRI GID, 90
days --- midwinter festival, 2 and occasionally 3 days, day of BRI GID,
occasional day of the falcon, day of PIR GID, night of the fire archers PIR RYT
and their ‘fingers of light and luck’ DIG LIC, whence Firat Euphrates and Dicle
Tigris … The ancient way of counting lunations was 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30
29 30 … days for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 … lunations. 17 plus 15 plus 17 plus
15 lunations counted in this manner yield 502 plus 443 plus 502 plus 443 days,
all in all 1,890 days for 64 lunations. 1,890 days are also 63 continuous
periods of 30 days, or 270 weeks of 7 days. These numbers yield an excellent
numeric definition of the lunation or synodic month, 29 days 12 hours 45
minutes, exact average value from 1989 AD 29d 12h 44m 2.9s, mistake of the
ancient value not even one minute per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime …
‘Pashupati’ on the gray tablet is the Lord of a similar calendar, numerically
even the same calendar: 3 days of midsummer, festival of ‘Pashupati’ --- 90
days of the rhinoceros --- 90 days of the buffalo --- 2 and occasionally 3 days
of midwinter, day of the first ibex or mountain goat, occasional day of the
goddess invisibly present between her emblematic animals, day of the second
ibex or mountain goat --- 90 days of the tiger --- 90 days of the elephant. New
Year may have occurred between the seasons of the tiger and the elephant,
around the vernal equinox. The lunation was defined in the same way as in the
basic Göbekli Tepe calendar … Also an Egyptian month had 30 days. The eyes of
the Horus falcon were moon and sun. Seth destroyed the lunar eye, whereupon
wise Thoth healed it, adding the pieces and their numerical values 1/2 and 1/4
and 1/8 and 1/16 and 1/32 and 1/64, or simply ‘2 ‘4 ‘8 ’16 ’32 ’64. The
restored eye was called The Whole One. However, the numbers don’t really add up
to 1. Why then The Whole One? Multiply a month of 30 days by the Horus eye
series ‘2 ‘4 ‘8 ’16 ’32 ’64 and you obtain 29 ‘2 ’32 days, or 29 days 12 hours
45 minutes, one whole lunation or synodic month, mistake half a day in a
lifetime. (May AAR RAA CA also account for Horus, and AAR RAA AC for Horakhty,
Horus on the horizon?)
22) A Minoan seal from
23) The following chapters refer to a paper by
Asko Parpola, published in Volume 1 of SCRIPTA in September 2009, the first
paragraph marking a difference // Asko Parpola made a discovery by equating
the archer on a bronze tablet from Mohenjo-daro with a sign he reads as ‘crab
inside fig’, the supreme god as crab inside the heavenly fig tree. He then
identifies the archer with Rudra –Skanda – Murukan, the name of the latter
given as pair of bangles. Bangles hung in fig trees implored children from the
god up above among the stars … I read the crab as bellows and identify the
archer with Varuna or VaruNa, descendant of AAR RAA NOS from the Göbekli Tepe,
mind NOS of the one composed of air AAR and light RAA. Air and light are
combined in the bellows that make wind, move air, and nourish fires that give
light. The body of the archer is decorated with arrow heads that shoot upward.
A similar succession of arrow heads shooting upward is seen on the fragment of
the broken tablet from Tell Abr 3 near Jerf al Ahmar tablets.GIF imploring rain from AAR RAA NOS on the ring in the sky. VaruNa would
then have had the same function as AAR RAA NOS in the region of the Göbekli
Tepe: sending rain from his heavenly abode, his arrows representing flashes
that light up the sky, his long eyes indicating the all-seeing god … In my
opinion the Indus seals and tablets honor families for outstanding
contributions to the common weal. The signs at the top of the ‘Pashupati’
tablets may convey this message: A family honored with such a tablet provides
excellent keepers of the house who supply us with fish all year long, and air
the house well, keeping it cool in summer and warm in winter … The ‘drawing’ on
the gray ‘Pashupati’ tablet is elevated, so it was not a seal but a gem and
order, maybe worn on the body, perhaps decorating and honoring a keeper of the
palace, denoting him half humorously half seriously as VaruNa in the house …
VaruNa would have been present in the space between the buffalo horns of
‘Pashupati’, the rain he granted filled the river beds and made fish thrive,
the river arms being represented by the arms of ‘Pashupati’, the bangles
evoking fish bones and the hands fish tails. Fish were an important part of the
Harappan diet, fish was also consumed as an aphrodisiac and promised a young
wife a son, which would go along with the custom of hanging bangles into a fig
tree as prayer for children.
24) Murukan as Lord of the Universe, honoring
Asko Parpola, developing a deeper understanding of his approach // Asko
Parpola tries to understand the Indus seals and tablets as Proto-Dravidian
rebuses concerned with royal cosmology, if I may say so --- pun on pun on pun
in a poorly documented language, an almost hopeless undertaking, yet he does
the very best he can. The central figure of that royal cosmology is Murukan,
Proto-Dravidian muruku, god of war, knowledge, and fertility. Murukan
originated from a Golden Seed in the heavenly region of the Plejades on the
morning of the vernal equinox. (The astronomers of Babylon considered Aldebaran
and the Plejades gate posts of the ecliptic and called them Golden Door.)
Murukan was a beautiful boy, and he rode a peacock that fed on snakes. The
reverse of M-453 shows him seated in the presence of a pair of snakes, while
the obverse calls him by his name (here given in my words): Murukan (pair of
bangles) darling (pair of parallel lines for love) among the stars (fish, Tamil
miin ‘fish’ and miin ‘star’), plus a few more signs. Murukan as man resides in
the navel of the universe, he is present in the pole star, by then Thuban,
alpha Draconis, called rope star. He resides as crab way up in the heavenly fig
tree, the banyan tree, Ficus bengalensis or Ficus indicus, a tree of long air
roots that gave rise to the idea of the god holding the stars with arms that
are ropes of wind and hands that are the claws of a crab … Bangles hung into a
fig tree implored children from the god of fertility. A king has to emulate
Murukan, residing in the ‘navel’ of his country, holding the ‘ropes’ of his
kingdom, as it were, guided by divine knowledge, we may infer. The roots of the
banyan tree can crash a building, and this image was involved when Murukan was
invoked as war god. Now we may attempt a new reading of the gray ‘Pashupati’
tablet in combination with my previous interpretations tablets.GIF
Murukan who sprang as Beautiful Boy from the Golden Seed in the Plejades
at the vernal equinox is present in the male figure on the left side, between
tiger and elephant, while Murukan as man is present in the inscription and the
walking man at the top of the tablet: Murukan (male figure) holding together
earth and sky (crabs or bellows) among the stars (fish, Tamil miin ‘fish’ and
miin ‘star’) in the heavenly fig tree (V and U signs). ‘Pashupati’ seated on
his dais would then be Murukan in the center of the universe, holding all
together, his arms no longer rivers but ropes of wind, his hands evoking fish
tails or the claws of a crab are now stars (fish miin star), and his dais
becomes the navel of the universe, pole star, by then Thuban, resting while all
other stars move around on ropes of wind … Maybe I have to abandon my view of
the seals honoring families for outstanding contributions to the common weal
and support Asko Parpola in his struggle of deciphering the seals as records of
a royal cosmology?
25) Seeing
a possibility for combining my approach with the one of Asko Parpola // Or
perhaps the two approaches can be united? AAR RAA NOS, mind NOS of the one
composed of air AAR and light RAA, bull man in the sky, provider of rain,
supreme god, visible ex negativo through the big limestone ring on the Göbekli
Tepe, indicated by a pair of heavenly rings on one of the stone tablets from
Jerf el Ahmar, sky by night and by day, shining moon and sun – this god became
Ouranos in Greece and VaruNa in the Indus Valley, VaruNa also being a sky god
and provider of rain, and a sender of flashes, we may assume, therefore a
bowman and archer, with long all seing eyes, wearing the horns and tail of a bull
on a bronze tablet from Mohenjo-daro, his body decorated with six up-shooting
arrow heads, wishing arrows, two of them flanking the phallus, reminding of the
ithyphallic proteomes on the Göbekli Tepe. Magdalenian RYT means spear thrower,
wherefrom Greek rhytaer ‘archer’ and the Vedic archer Rudra who was also the
fire god Agni, from GNE for the nine days of the Magdalenian full moon, white
fire in the night, glowing yellow and orange on a dusty horizon. VaruNa resided
in Harappa, from AAR RAA AD DA, god of air AAR and light RAA on the river that
flows toward AD the sea while coming from DA the mountains, AD DA being a
generic river name, softened to Indus (Harappa on a side arm of the Indus). AAR
RAA CA, god of air AAR and light RAA in the sky CA became muruku Murukan in
southern India, represented by a pair of bangles that remind of the heavenly
pair of rings on a stone tablet from Jerf el Ahmar tablets.GIF The raised arms of the goddess from El-Mamariya in Upper Egypt symbolize
the eastern and western hills and mountains, her hands the rising and setting
stars, hand = star. The arms of the Indian Lord of the Universe residing on
earth are river arms rich in fish, the arms covered by bangles evoke fish
bones, the hands fish tails, hand = fish. The arms of the god in the sky are
wind ropes and his hands are stars, hand = star again. Magdalenian MAN means
right hand, Tamil miin both fish and star … If the tablets of Murukan, formerly
Pashupati or ‘Pashupati’, honor keepers of the palace, then the plain fish sign
may have the meaning of water rather than fish, and we may imagine the
following praise: A family honored with one of these tablets provides excellent
keepers of the palace who care well for cool air in summer and warm air in
winter, for the fires yielding warmth and light, and for fresh water, all gifts
of our heavenly Lord …
26) Uniting the calendar of the early Indus
Valley with Asko Parpola’s cosmology, proving Parpola right // Calendar of
AAR RAA CA muruku Murukan, residing in AAR RAA AD DA Harappa on a side arm of
the river AD DA Indus, also residing in the navel of the sky, on his Thuban
dais, way up in the heavenly fig tree, holding the stars with arms that are
ropes of wind and hands that are the claws of a crab. His eyes were moon and
sun, on long antennae like the eyes of a crab, moving around in big circles.
His nose pointed toward Mizar-Alcor in the American Big Dipper. The position of
Mizar-Alcor regarding Thuban at midnight indicated the solstices and equinoxes.
The god revolved around his body axes, thus creating time, and swirling around
the guiding stars of the four seasons, Algol in Perseus, guiding star of the
season of the tiger, Vega in Lyra, guiding star of the season of the elephant,
Arcturus in Bootes, guiding star of the season of the rhinoceros, and Regulus
in Leo, guiding star of the season of the buffalo, thus driving the
‘merry-go-round’ of our year: 3 days of the midsummer festival, early monsoon,
day of life and day of health and day of children, heavenly fig tree, pipal
tree of life, three leaves, trefoil, king wearing a sheaf covered in trefoils
presiding over the festival, Mizar-Alcor in horizontal position left of Thuban
at midnight --- 3 months or 90 days of the rhinoceros, guiding star Arcturus in
Bootes, above the western horizon around midnight --- fall equinox, Mizar-Alcor
in vertical position above Thuban at midnight --- 3 months or 90 days of the
buffalo, guiding star Regulus in Leo, on or above the eastern horizon at
midnight --- 2 and occasionally 3 days of the midwinter festival, day of the
first ibex or mountain goat, occasional day of the horned goddess, day of the
second ibex or mountain goat, Mizar-Alcor in horizontal position right of
Thuban at midnight --- 3 months or 90 days of the tiger, guiding star Algol in
Perseus, above the western horizon around midnight --- vernal equinox,
Mizar-Alcor in perpendicular position under Thuban at midnight; New Year, the
god springing as Beautiful Boy from the Golden Seed in the Plejades near
Perseus --- 3 months or 90 days of the elephant, guiding star Vega in Lyra,
above the eastern horizon at midnight … (astronomical relations valid for the
time of Harappa). A week had 7 days, a month 30 days, and a season 90 days. 270
weeks or 63 continuous periods of 30 days are 1,890 days and correspond to 64
lunations or synodic months; mistake per lunation half a day in a lifetime.
27) First ideas about an epic underlying the
Indus tablets // The Indus seals and tablets might preserve an epic of AAR RAA
CA who sprang as Beautiful Boy from the Golden Seed in the Plejades, fought the
Algol tiger, reached the Cygnus peacock – Deneb the head, zaetha epsilon gamma
delta iota kappa Cygni the fan –, rode him, escaped the Vega elephant, came
into the snake infested Draco valley but luckily the peacock fed on the snakes.
Beautiful Boy was called by the Mizar-Alcor woman who implored his help for the
poor people on earth who suffered in a double way, the Arcturus rhinoceros
drinking their water, and the Regulus buffalo devastating their fields. Now the
epic tells how the strong young man obliged, made the Acrturus rhinoceros give
back the stolen water and thus generated the first monsoon, then braced himself
for the hardest task, confronting the Regulus buffalo demon, AD TOR OC CO,
toward AD the bull in motion TOR with open eyes OC and a focused mind CO,
atoroqo andros andra Indra. He overcame the bull, freed the people, and
instructed them about the ways of civilization, in a first lesson how to bake
bread and bricks. He built a stone ring, placed dry fig wood inside, igniting
it with a fiery glance, and maintained the fire with air from the great bellows
of his lungs, then he placed a dough inside the oven and baked it. Hereupon he
built a second oven, formed bricks from river mud and baked them also. In
further lessons he taught the grateful people how to build walls and houses and
basins, he showed them the many ways of preparing fish, a healthy food, he told
them to observe the sky, his heavenly abode, how to use a calendar, and how to
organize their life: they should work for the common weal for some time of the
year, and honor those who do a good job when working for the community … The
Mizar-Alcor woman observed the young man from above and was amazed about his
strength and knowledge, so she and the other wise woman of the ‘Big Dipper’,
all in all seven wise women, agreed to appoint the young man Lord of the
Universe on the Thuban dais. The Mizar-Alcor woman transformed the young man
into a crab, made a banyan tree shoot up into the sky, taking the crab with it,
and when the crab reached Thuban it cut four long air roots from the heavenly
tree and used them as leashes for swirling around the guiding stars of the four
seasons, the Algol tiger, the Vega elephant, the Arcturus rhinoceros, and the
Regulus buffalo. Revolving around his body axis he created time, the ever
changing seasons of the year, one year following the other. And then, one fine
day, he saw the lady of the pair of opposing ibices walk by and fell madly in
love …
28) Further developing the founding epic of the
Indus Valley // We may expect both confirmation and corrections of the
hypothetical AAR RAA CA epic from Indian iconography, Shiva of the many arms
dancing inside a ring of flames surely followed the ancient god who swirled
around the stars, while the gem on his tiara, later also the beauty spot on the
front of a god, marks the Golden Seed. Occasionally the gem on the headdress of
Shiva appears inside a stylized banyan tree, and later a small Buddha could
replace the gem on a headdress. I derive the names of a variety of gods from
ShA PAD TYR AS CA, the ruler ShA who goes ahead PAD and overcomes in the double
sense of rule and give TYR up above AS in the sky CA. The name of Shiva may go
back to ShA PAD, while the name of Durga, the incarnation of his wife who
killed the buffalo demon, may go back to TYR … CA, her deed commemorating the
taming of the buffalo – once the demon was driven out of the bull, he became
the Nandi bull, symbol of the earth and creative principle of Shiva. Also the
elephant was tamed, and honored for doing heavy work. The veneration of Ganeshe
may tell us that the Vega elephant in the early epic might have played a
friendly role, contrary to the other animals, and on the gray Murukan tablet
the elephant is the only big animal that is turned away from the god, not
aggressing him. Perhaps the Vega elephant showed Beautiful Boy the way to the
Draco valley and summoned the Cygnus peacock for him to ride? The peacock fed
on the snakes in the Draco valley, thus freed the way for Murukan, and later he
acted as love messenger. The Thuban mountain could have been the origin of the
Buddhist stupa, reflected in a lovely miniature painting from the Malwa school;
two beautiful women talking inside a house, a peacock standing on the side of
the roof, gazing up to the golden pinnacle on the round roof on top of the
tower above the middle of the house, beak open, as if calling. Another
miniature painting from the same Malwa school shows a woman flanked by peacocks
in front of a pavilion of twin turrets and across a lawn by the shore of a
lotus pond. The Cygnus peacock, his head being Deneb, proceeds along the Milky
Way toward Orion, ORE EON, beautiful ORE shore EON, the goddess on the beautiful
bank of the heavenly river CA LAK galaxy Milky Way. Orion stands upright on the
southern horizon at midnight in December, also during her midwinter festival.
May she be the woman the god fell in love with, invisibly present between the
pair of opposing ibices or mountain goats under his Thuban dais?
29) Gaining confidence, reading the yellow
tablet of Murukan // The Indus seals and tablets are best understood as
complex references to the founding epic of the Indus Valley civilization, as I
shall explain in the case of the yellow AAR RAA CA tablet tablets.GIF
The heavenly Lord is alone, no animals around him. His horns evoke the
eastern and western mountain and the valleys in between, in the middle a hill
and a pipal tree of life. The signs above are an X with a stroke in upper
position and a stroke in lower position, on the left side, and on the right
side a fish and a pair of wavy parallel lines and a U sign with four short
horizontal strokes outward the rim if the sign is regarded as a jar. The X on
the left side represents the god on his Thuban dais holding the wind ropes of
the guiding stars of the four seasons. The strokes mark the summer half year
(above) and winter half year (below), thus indicating the love binding the god
of the midsummer festival to the goddess of the midwinter festival, also the
power that holds heaven and earth together, for Thuban is always high in the
sky, while Orion stood on the ground and periodically descended below the
horizon. The arms of the god evoke fish bones and his hands fish tails, thus
indicating river arms, rich in fish, food provided by the god, while in the sky
his arms are ropes of wind that hold stars. The U sign is the heavenly fig
tree, the four short horizontal strokes again indicating the guiding stars of
the four seasons, but then the U sign is also a jar, or a basket, or a gourd,
emblem of the goddess considering a terracotta figurine balancing a pair of
baskets on the head. Asko Parpola identified the pair of long parallel strokes
as sign of love, so the wavy parallel lines are again a sign of love, as
undulating lines evoking the heavenly river, the god residing on the left side,
and the goddess on her beautiful bank on the right side … The X has the meaning
of the god holding the stars with arms of wind and hands that are the claws of
a crab, so the X is also a crab. The ropes of wind are generated by the lungs
of the god, his bellows, as it were, so the same sign can mean bellows, and has
then an earthly component used in the honoring aspect of the tablet: A family
honored with one of these tablets provides excellent keepers of the palace who
care for cool air in summer, warm air in winter, fresh water all year long, and
for our provisions (jars of fish), and do their work with a portion of the love
that holds the world together …
30) A love story // Inspired by symbols of
the eastern gate of the big stupa at Sanchi in central India one may propose a
spiraling way of the enamored god on his way from the Thuban mountain down into
the Draco valley, to the wise women, the Vega elephant, the home of the Cygnus
peacock, and then along the Milky Way to the Orion goddess. The stars on his
traveling route were Thuban, iota thaeta aetha zaetha omega psi Draconis,
Dubhe, Megrez, Alioth and Mizar-Alcor in the Big Dipper, Vega, Deneb, and the
stars of the Milky Way toward Orion. His travel may have included a struggle
with a water demon, as indicated by another miniature painting from the Malwa
school. When the god and goddess finally met, a pillar grew out of the earth
and carried the loving couple into the heavens, Their marriage was celebrated
every fourth midwinter, when a leap day was inserted, day of the goddess who
stands upright on the southern horizon at midnight.
31) First
glance // The impression of the seal M-414 shows a fish on the left side,
with a short stroke inside for a dot, in the middle a big fig tree of many
leaves, and on the right side a peculiar sign Asko Parpola considers a scorpion
for the clearly visible sting. Fish miin star, dot Golden Seed, heavenly fig
tree, the god on the Thuban dais again. The peculiar sign is basically another
cross or X indicating the god holding stars, and the emblems of the arms tell
us what stars are meant this time, in clockwise direction: sting, Spica and
Heze in Virgo, lance of the young hero god, pointing toward Arcturus, the lance
he used in fighting the Arcturus rhinoceros -- ear of an elephant, Vega, ear of
the Vega elephant -- phallus, Albireo Sadr Deneb in Cygnus, body of the Cygnus
peacock, invoking the bird as love messenger -- a pair of parallel strokes of
medium length, Castor and Pollux in Gemini, twin turrets of the Gemini
pavilion, love pavilion of the god and the goddess, across the heavenly river
from Orion … From this we may glean a new version of the epic. The Arcturus
rhinoceros drank all water and made the land go dry and the plants whither. The
greedy rhinoceros got ever bigger and rounder. Many tried to pierce its armor,
but nobody was strong enough, and all the lances broke, deflected by the bony
plates of the hard skin. Then came the young hero god with his marvelous Spica
Heze lance, and lo and behold, he succeeded, perforated the hard skin, the
water gushed out, fell as the first monsoon on the earth – and was a new menace
for the people and the dry land, for now came so much water all of a sudden!
But luckily the Vega elephant saw what happened, came by with his Hercules
herd, they all raised their trunks into the air and absorbed the water that
came rushing down, then lowered their trunks and gently filled the river beds,
making the dry earth grow grass and the trees leaves, and the flowers bloomed …
The hero god looked around him, very pleased, and when he glanced over to the
Gemini pavilion he saw the Orion goddess between the twin turrets looking
across the river, he saw her, she had watched him, and they both fell in love
with each other. The god walked toward her, but alas, he was hold up by the
wild buffalo demon. A long fight ensued, and finally the young and strong hero
god won, taming the buffalo and freeing the people from his tyranny. Then he
helped people further, showing them how to bake bread, how to form and bake
bricks and use them in building houses, also how to use the calendar, and how
to organize the common life: every family should send valid members to do work
for the public weal during some time of the year, and those who do a really
good job shall be honored … When the god finished his teachings, the goddess
had vanished below the horizon, so he returned to his dais on top of the Thuban
mountain, where he prepared his long journey to the Orion goddess that took him
a couple of years … The episode of the water rushing down survived in a legend
of Shiva holding up the water with his head, while the famous carved rock at
Mamalla-puram showing that scene includes giant elephants, and the rhinoceros
on the gray calendar tablet looks rather deflated indus2.JPG
M-414 may have honored a family of gardeners: The family honored with
this seal provides excellent gardeners who care well for the plants, always
giving them enough water but never too much, the trees are covered in splendid
foliage, and the blooming flowers delight our women …
32) Combining
the two approaches for good // One of the signs on M-112 indus3.JPG
shows a pair of vertical strokes of medium length, on top of each stroke
a tiny triangle, while an arrow head intrudes the space between the strokes
from below. The strokes may be the twin turrets of the Gemini pavillon, Castor
and Pollux, and the arrow head may indicate the young hero god looking over to
the Orion goddess behind the Gemini pavilion. Castor and Pollux as twin turrets
of the Gemini pavilion are on the left bank of the heavenly river. Harappa,
Mohenjo-daro and Amri were built on the left bank of the respective river,
perhaps claiming an earthly version of the love pavilion of the divine couple
as their origin? The people who had been given lessons by the god may well have
enlarged the first humble pavilion into a splendid citadel, doing as the god
himself instructed them, and this required plenty of work for the common weal
that would have been honored with a seal or a tablet, if it was a really
outstanding contribution. The sign I read as palace, for example on H-6, can be
seen as an enlarged version of the Gemini pavilion, basically a standing H with
doubled and enforced horizontal bar and slightly curved vertical strokes whose
upper parts could well replace the twin turrets of the Gemini pavilion indus3.JPG
Most communal work was done during the season of the buffalo, and most
people worked in the fields and in the brick manufactures along the rivers. The
animals on M-112 and H-6 and on the vast majority of the other seals are
buffaloes, the animal tamed by the hero god, and the standard in front of the
animal consisting of a dotted bowl and a grid above the bowl may well
commemorate the god’s first lesson, how to bake bread and bricks, the dotted
bowl evoking grains and dough, and the grid above the bowl bricks … Now the two
approaches come together, the seals and tablets evoking the deeds and lessons
of the god, and the seals and tablets honoring outstanding contributions to the
common weal are no longer contradictory but emanations of the same spirit,
evoking the deeds of the god and his lessons, and helping to make his will come
true by honoring people who emulated him and followed his example, doing as he
told them while spending time on earth, called down by the wise woman of
Mizar-Alcor.
33) King Arthur, the dragon of Lannion in
Armorica, the sword Calibrus, and Merlin // The young hero god of the Indus
Valley reached the foothills of the Thuban mountain, was implored for help in
fighting the Arcturus rhinoceros and Regulus bull by the wise woman from Mizar
Alcor and overcame the rhinoceros with the help of the Spica Heze lance in
Virgo. So far the adventure as reconstructed from seals and tablets. Now this
episode has a stunning parallel in another Indo-European legend, namely the one
of King Arthur and the dragon of Lannion in Armorica, Britanny, on the Breton
coast, opposite of Plymouth and Exeter in southwestern Britain. Here a
description of the dragon from the Barzaz Breiz, translated by Jan Jaczek, a
perfect match for Bootes (explaining brackets inserted by me): Now the dragon came out of its lair (rose
from the horizon), vile and steaming. It
had a single red eye on its forehead (Arcturus a red star, glowing orange) and its body was covered in green scales (analogous
to the bony plates of the rhinoceros). It
had the body of a fully-grown bull, but its tail was twisted into a spiral,
like an iron screw (reference to the meteor shower of the Quadrantides,
radiating from the Nekkar end of Bootes in early January) and thin needle-sharp horns at every joint, to deter any attacker from
coming too close (alpha pi zaetha Bootis and alpha aetha tau ypsilon
Bootis, the alpha star being Arcturus, and the aetha star Muphrid) … Calibrus the magic sword would then
have been the Celtic equivalent of the Spica Heze lance of the hero god from
the Indus Valley, and Merlin the one of the wise woman of Mizar Alcor. In the
time of Chauvet, 32,000 years ago, the fast moving Arcturus was the head of
Bootes, above Nekkar, the constellation was seen as the bear hunter ARC TYR,
overcomer TYR of the bear ARC, a generic name that survived in the name of the
star Arcturus, and in the name of the dragon slayer Arthur (bones of the long
extinct cave bear having been regarded as remains of dragons). The ancient ones
looked up into the sky, in a time when there was no light pollution, and
projected their life and life conditions into the stars and constellations. The
starry sky was their cinema. And how do we call a famous actor? a star …
34) Bootes as dragon of Lannion // Bootes
was the dragon of Lannion, rising above the northeastern horizon in early
January at midnight, in horizontal position, the orange Arcturus eye on the
right side, the Nekkar stump of a tail on the left side, the meteor shower of
the Quadrantides radiating from the Nekkar end from January 1 till 6, maximum
January 3 and 4. Arthur fought three days and nights with the dragon, must have
been in early January when the dragon twisted his tail in a spiral, like an
iron screw, radiating meteors. The narrative in the Brazaz Breiz is embedded in
a sad love story, the one of Efflam and Enora who spend their married life
apart yet in close proximity, reminding of Castor and Pollux, the twin turrets
of the Gemini pavilion, love pavilion of the Thuban god and the Orion goddess
from the Indus Valley. Bootes appears in vertical position, the Arcturus eye
below, looking at the Heze point of the Spica sword, on the western sky at
midnight on June 21, at 1 o’clock on June 6, at 2 o’clock on May 21, at 3
o’clock on May 6, at 4 o’clock on April 21, and so on, allowing to predict the
struggle of the hero god with the rhinoceros and arrival of the monsoon long
before midsummer … King Arthur may have been an emanation of the supreme Celtic
god Dagda, the good god in the sense of the able god, from DhAG DhAG meaning
able able. Also the Thuban god was an able god, able in every way, and enabling
those who followed him.
35) Arcturus rhinoceros, Lannion dragon, and
behemoth // The rhinoceros of the early Indus Valley and the Lannion dragon
have a fellow demon in behemoth of the Levant, as described in the Bible, Job
40:15-24, here the relevant passages (my explanations given in brackets): Behold now behemoth … he eateth grass as an
ox (the Lannion dragon has the form of a fully-grown bull; the name of
behemoth is the augmentative plural of Hebrew behemah ‘beast’, -mah perhaps
from MUC meaning bull) … he moveth his
tail like a cedar (the needle-like leaves of the cedar spiral around long
shoots while the tail of the Lannion dragon is twisted into a spiral, like an
iron screw, both images conveying the meteor shower of the Quadrantides
radiating from the Nekkar end of Bootes in early January) … he who made him can make his sword to approach unto him (only
God can raise the sword against behemoth, only Arthur could pull the magic
sword Calibrus out of the rock, and only the hero god of the Indus Valley could
pierce the armor of the Arcturus rhinoceros with the help of the Spica Heze
lance in Virgo) … Behold, he drinketh up
a river, and hasteth not; he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth
(in my reconstruction of the founding myth and epic of the Indus Valley the
rhinoceros drinks all water and makes the land go dry) … When the hero god of
the Indus Valley travels along the heavenly river he has to fight one more
demon, a sea monster, leviathan in the Bible (Job 41) whose constellation might
have been Cassiopeia, which would also have been the constellation of the
Indian sea monster. The begin of the name leviathan involves a coil, or the
verb to coil, twist. On a miniature painting of the Malwa school the god Vishnu
emerging from a big fish kills the sea demon emerging from a big winding sea
shell or snail. I explain the name of Vishnu from PIS NOS, mind NOS of water in
motion PIS, also bodies moving in water, Sanskrit piccha Latin piscis pisces
English fish. Further derivatives of the compound are Latin penis – consider
the phallus of the peculiar sign on seal M-414 indicating the Cygnus peacock as
love messenger, and when Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, shared the bed with the
lovely Rudha he wore the crown of a peacock – and Venus, an emanation of the
fertility giver BRI GID whose constellation was Orion, on the beautiful ORE
shore or bank EON of the celestial river CA LAK …
36) Vishnu’s Panchajana conch of life //
Leviathan might symbolize the rolling sea, waves, the seven heads breaking
waves, one may think of the famous wave of Hokusai, the green scales regular
patterns of smaller waves on the surface of the Aegean Sea called the Great
Green by the Egyptians, while steam and smoke and fire might keep a memory of
the eruptions of the Thera volcano that caused terrible tsunamis, far reaching
waves that washed pumice-stone up the shores of the Levant and Egyptian delta.
Job: Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a
hook or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? No, we can’t hook
and rope a wave. The constellation of leviathan would have been Cassiopeia, by
then near the zenith at midnight following the fall equinox, announcing the
gales of October and mainly November, December and January in the Aegean and
perhaps the entire Mediterranean, high going water, leviathan rising, while
still at midnight in early October the heavenly river formed a big arch across
the sky, from the western to the eastern horizon. Cassiopeia was the mother of
Andromeda who was rescued from a sea monster by Perseus. Vishnu on the
miniature painting from the Malwa school, emerging from a big fish, has four
arms that hold a lotus blossom, a bangle, the Panchajana conch of life, and a
golden lance whose point pushes back the raised white sword of the sea demon
emerging from a big conch on the water, a winding sea shell. The demon is
wearing small horns whose points are marked with a pearl each, so the water
demon might indicate periodic water events going along with moon and sun: high
tide, monsoon, the flooding of the river plain, both a blessing (Panchajana
conch of life) and a menace (conch of the demon), perhaps also the bi-annual
turning of the trade-wind that may provoke storms, and in this case the demon
symbolizes the perils of seafaring, while the pearls of the conch symbolize the
benefit of sea trading. Four women on the river bank or sea shore, wearing
necklaces of pearls and coral beads, are supporting Vishnu, the god emerging
from the fish, wearing on top of his yellow headdress a peacock crown adorned
with a seam of pearls. Flowers bloom on the river bank or sea shore. Many
symbols of life ban the demon, the biggest one the fish in the middle, guise of
the god whose origin goes far back in time. Already the founders of the
Harappan civilization knew how to tame a river and cope with the flooding in a
common effort that would have shaped the society of the Indus Valley and may
explain the marvelous infrastructure of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.
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