Lascaux 20, ten commandments / Lord of Time

YHWH and the ten commandments, a demanding postscript to the series of messages on the Hebrew water finders (part 1/8)

Recapitulation: the archaeology of the Negev centered around the Har Karkom and Mount Seir and Kadesh-Barnea, as explored by Emmanuel Anati, may suggest a refuge for Egyptians and Hebrews and Canaanites over a couple of millennia, and a series of Moses figures and Aaron figures contracted to one single Moses and one single Aaron in the story telling of the Bible. By recognizing the symbols in early literature we can regain at least a blurred outline of the historical events.

Moses received the ten commandments on a mountain (Exodus 20). Let us render this mountain as a triangle of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 dots, from the base 10 to the top 1.

The top, Aleph or 1, may indicate the first commandment: YHWH or Jahwe or ja is your God, the only God.

The two dots below, Beth or 2, may stand for the second commandment: don't make and worship idols.

The three dots below, Gimel or 3, may stand for the third commandment: don't use the name of God in vain.

The four dots below, Daleth or 4, may indicate the fourth commandment: remember the Sabbath, rest on day seven of the week as the Lord did when he had created the world (seven being three and four).

The Pythagoreans regarded the number ten in the form of the tetractys (equilateral triangle 1 2 3 4) as the holiest of numbers.

While the first four commandments (top of the symbolical pyramid) concern God, the subsequent six lines of the big triangle concern the human sphere.

How many dots are in the triangle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ? Begin with Y or J for YHWH or Jahwe, numerical value 10. Half that number is H or 5. Add 1 and you obtain W or 6. Add H and W and multiply the sum by H or 5, thus you obtain 55 dots, number of all dots in the big triangle. And the key numbers of this rather kabalistic number game, 10 5 6 5, yield the tetragrammon YHWH for Jahwe.

The numerical version of YHWH, 10 5 6 5, is encoded in the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25), length 2.5 cubits, breadth 1.5 cubits, length of the wings of the cherubs 1.25 cubits each, yielding the following chain of proportions

length : wing : breadth : wing = 2.5 : 1.25 : 1.5 : 1.25

= 10 : 5 : 6 : 5 = Y : H : W : H

The tetragrammon implies the ten commandments and is encoded in the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant in the sanctuary KOD DhAG qodesh kadosh 'holy' at Kadesh-Barnea in the desert of Zin, KOD meaning tent or hut, and DhAG meaning able (among the derivatives of DhAG are Greek theos, Latin deus, and Sumerian dingir announcing a deity), together the sanctuary of YHWH or Jahwe.

The heavenly Lord will descend in a cloud, carried on the wings of cherubs, take place on the mercy seat, hidden behind a curtain, and if you abide by his ten commandments, he will mercifully consider what you may ask him for ...

The first representation of the ten commandments may then have been a triangle of pebbles laid out on a slope of the Har Karkom, identified as Mount Sinai by Anati.

YHWH and the ten commandments (part 2/8)

Laying out an equilateral triangle of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 pebbles on a slope that symbolizes Mount Sinai and the ten commandments received up there is rather tiresome. The large triangle could have been reduced to a small one, the so-called tetractys or decadon, Aleph 1 Beth 2 Gimel 3 Daleth 4, in all ten pebbles. Hereupon the small triangle may have been replaced by a single letter, Daleth, given as a -- triangle, most clearly in the upper case Greek Delta. These letters were preceded by an Egyptian hieroglyph showing an outstretched hand, maybe the hand of a god blessing his believers? then seen as the hand of Jahwe "shewing mercy on thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:6) but now transformed into a triangle symbolizing the ten commandments decreed by the Lord on Mount Sinai?

Dibér, Hebrew for 'word, speaking ability' begins on a Daleth. Wonderful surprise: Dibér belongs to a compound naming the ten commandments!

Magdalenian BIR means fur, and TON means to make oneself heard. BIR TON may account for English word. Imagine a shaman or shamaness beating the fur of a TON BIR tambourine 'sounding fur' while speaking to the gathered tribe, accentuating the spoken words with a rhythmic boom boom. Latin verbum 'word' may combine BIR and onomatopoeic bum (bum bum bum). TON BIR could then have a further derivative in dibér

BIR TON word TON BIR dibér TON BIR tambourine

Another way of representing the ten commandments, less abstract, more graphic, is a petroglyph in the region of the Har Karkom. It shows a double tablet subdivided into ten fields. Anati documented this petroglyph that strongly evokes the two tablets from the Lord on Mount Sinai, and also identified the Har Karkom as candidate for Mount Sinai, which I find plausible.

YHWH and the ten commandments (part 3/8)

Early scripts vary. Also Egypt had a triangle for the letter that became Old Hebrew Daleth, while the Daleth in the Sinai script was different: a small circle in the middle under an oblique line, or a small square in the middle on a horizontal line.

These figures can be seen as a leather tube for keeping scrolls of papyrus, and as a wooden chest for keeping tablets and ostraca, combined with a pair of rods for carrying them, one rod behind the other, thus appearing as a single line, either leaning on the tube or lying on the ground.

We focus on the chest. A square is hidden in the large equilateral triangle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 sum 55. The odd numbers 1 3 5 7 9 sum 25 can be layed out as a square of 5 by 5 dots or pebbles, while the remaining even numbers 2 4 6 8 10 sum 30 yield a pair of rods, each rod 15 units long.

The Ark of the Covenant was 2.5 cubits long, 1.5 cubits broad, and again 1.5 cubits high. The small side measuring 1.5 by 1.5 cubits was a square.

Another Hebrew word beginning on a Daleth was din 'law', in a compound naming the Jewish law of the Torah, the law of Jahwe. Din may derive from TON for making oneself heard, also present in di- of dibér 'word, speaking ability'. And the Lord d i d make himself heard when descending in a thick cloud on Mount Sinai: the earth quaked greatly, trumpets waxed louder and louder, and the Lord spoke with a voice (Exodus 19).

Later versions of the Sinai Daleth may be seen as a vertical pole with a small circle for a scroll attached in the middle, perhaps the emblem of the law, widely spread in the southern Semitic area, while the Daleth of the Hebrew square script evokes a door, maybe the entrance to the tent or hut or house of the law din?

YHWH and the ten commandments (part 4/8)

A further version of the Daleth evokes a pole with a triangular flag or pennon pointing to the left side. Lay out a pattern with pebbles. Make the pole 30 pebbles tall. Divide this height into 18 and 12 pebbles. The 12 pebbles above serve as the vertical side of the triangular flag or pennon. Use 12 and 12 pebbles for the oblique sides of the flag, and one more pebble for the corner of the triangle at the left end.

Pole 30, additional pebbles of the flag 25, in all 55 pebbles, numbers of the large triangle

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 sum 55

2 4 6 8 10 sum 30

1 3 5 7 9 sum 25

The partial numbers 30 and 25 indicate a calendar with a month and a long lunation of 30 days, and a long period of 25 years.

15 and 17 lunations or synodic months counted in the 30 29 30 mode yield 443 and 502 days respectively, together 945 days for 32 lunations, doubled 1,890 days for 64 lunations (mistake less than one minute per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime). 1,890 days are 63 continuous periods of 30 days, or 270 weeks of seven days.

A year has 12 months plus 5 and occasionally 6 more days. A number sequence provides good values for the number of days in a series of years

365/1 (plus 1461/4) 1826/5 3287/9 4746/13 6209/17 7670/21 9131/25

25 years are 9,131 days (and less than eighty minutes more), nineteen regular years of 365 days and six leap years of 366 days.

Jahwe rules not only the human sphere but also commands moon and sun in the heavens above. ShA CA DhAG CA YHWH Jahwe, the ruler ShA in the sky CA, the able one DhAG in the sky CA:

YHWH and the ten commandments (part 5/8)

The Negev centered in the region around the Har Karkom (Mount Sinai) and Mount Seir (west of the Har Karkom, abode of Jahwe, rider of clouds) and Kadesh-Barnea in the desert of Zin (north of Mount Seir) was the cradle of the Jewish culture – a refuge for Egyptians and Hebrews (water finders) and Canaanites, melting pot of civilizations, where alphabetic writing was invented and letters were combined with numbers. KOD DhAG - KOD meaning tent or hut and DhAG meaning able – accounted for Old Hebrew qodesh 'holy' and modern Hebrew kadosh 'holy' and named Kadesh-Barnea, indicating a large tent of ShA CA DhAG CA YHWH Jahwe, ruler ShA in the sky CA, able one DhAG in the sky CA – and hidden behind a curtain was the Ark of the Covenant, serving as pedestal for the 'mercy seat' which encoded the name of the heavenly Lord via the proportions 10 : 5 : 6 : 5 = Y : H : W : H.

The Bible is right, only that we have to recognize the symbols. For example the big number of people who left Lower Egypt for the Sinai were relatively small groups who had the potential of becoming a numerous people. Moses was a series of Moses figures, and Aaron a series of Aaron figures. We can't read the Bible in the way we read a modern historical report. It conveys history in the form of long living stories and symbols and many telling numbers, for example 10 being the number Y of YHWH or J of Jahwe. Numbers in the light of Bronze Age mathematics are a precious help in finding the core of Biblical story telling.

Simple yet complex' is the formula approaching early civilization. It worked well in the case of ShA CA DhAG CA YHWH 10 5 6 5 Jahwe, rider of clouds from Mount Seir who gave Moses ten commandments on Mount Sinai.

The name of Mount Seir, abode of Jahwe, is an emphatic form of TYR for the one who overcomes in the double sense of rule and give, with a parallel in TYR emphatic Middle Helladic Sseyr (Phaistos Disc, Derk Ohlenroth) Doric Sseus (Wilhelm Larfeld) Homeric Zeus. Compare Seir and Sseyr ...

YHWH and the ten commandments (part 6/8)

A further calendar springs from the sum 26 of the YHWH numbers 10 5 6 5. A year has 14 short months of 26 days, 384 days, plus 1 and occasionally 2 more days, while 92 continuous periods of 26 days are 26 lunations, and 295 continuous periods of 26 days are 21 years.

These numbers are found with the same methods as the ones of the previous calendar (month and long lunation 30 days, and a long period of 25 years).

17 15 17 15 17 or 17 32 49 64 81 lunations are 502 945 1,447 2,392 days, the latter being 92 times 26 days. As for days in years you may remember the additive sequence

365/1 (plus 1461/4) 1826/5 3287/9 ... 7670/21 9131/25

21 years are 7,670 days or 295 times 26 days.

A pair of parallel calendars allow a better control of the time passing by.

Marie E.P. König identified the pair of antithetic ibices (Latin plural of ibex) in the niche at the rear end of the axial gallery in the Lascaux cave as emblem of the winter solstice. The same emblem is found in Asia Minor, sometimes the ibices replaced by mountain goats.

Ibices are the most frequent symbol among the petroglyphs in the region of the Har Karkom (maybe together with snakes, water symbols as on the Goebekli Tepe). They are always shown from the side, their long round horns forming a concentric double arc that may insinuate the trajectories of moon and sun, maybe also the pair of calendars?

In one case an ibex appears above a pair of giant footsteps in upward direction, maybe the feet of Jahwe? The full name of the supreme sky and weather god involved walking

ShA PAD TYR AS CA

DhAG PAD TYR AS CA

ruler ShA activity of feet PAD to overcome in the double sense of rule

and give TYR upward AS sky CA, able DhAG ...

The ruler ShA goes ahead PAD and overcomes in the double sense of rule

and give TYR up above AS in the sky CA, the able one DhAG ... (repetition)

ShA ... CA, DhAG ... CA Jahwe. For comparison: ShA PAD TYR Jupitter Jupiter Iovis Giove and his byname DhAG PAD TYR Dis pater.

YHWH and the ten gifts (part 7/8)

Still another Daleth is given as a fish. What can this mean?

The triangular Daleth represents the triangle 1 2 3 4 dots or pebbles, called tetractys or decadon, a holy figure for the Pythagoreans. The numerical value 4 of the Daleth refers to the base 4 of that figure, and the sum 10 to the Y of YHWH or J of Jahwe, and corresponds to the ten commandments.

TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus overcame in the double sense of rule and give, and so did Jahwe on Mount Seir. He not only ruled the Israelites but also provided them with what they needed, primarily water and food, and both might be combined in the fish that lives in water.

Maybe the ten commandments were balanced by ten gifts of the Lord? And someone will compile their list from petroglyphs around the Har Karkom in the Negev dubbed Mountain of God by Emmanuel Anati?

One petroglyph shows a woman giving birth to a smiling child, she spreads her arms and legs, two arms and two legs making Daleth 4 elements – life is the first gift. Although the ibices are drawn from the side their Daleth 4 legs are marked, while the concentric arcs of their long horns represent a pair of complementary calendars, hence time, given to us in order that we make the best of it.

YHWH (8/8)

A famous petroglyph in the region of the Har Karkom or Mount Sinai or 'Mountain of God' (Anati) shows an eye, the 'eye of God' (Anati), with seven eyelashes of the upper lid, and seven eyelashes of the lower lid, in all fourteen eyelashes that evoke the fourteen short months of 26 days, the number 26 being the sum of the YHWH numbers 10 5 6 5.

The petroglyph is ambiguous. The small circle of the pupil can also be the sun, the 'sloppy' oval of the eye a cloud, and the eyelashes beams of the sun beyond the margin of the cloud, and this again might be a symbol of the Lord hiding his glory behind a cloud – maybe even the Lord letting there be light, light for us to behold the marvel of creation ...

The Hebrew word for seven derives from SAP for everywhere (in space), here, south and north of me, east and west of me, under and above me, in all seven places. Whereas letter number seven, sign of the number 7, is called Zajin, present in 'zohar 'shine, beaming, rays' and zarax 'radiate, shine, rise (sun)' and zrixa 'sunrise'. The old letter is a vertical line confined by a pair of shorter horizontal strokes that may indicate the height of the rising sun above the horizon.

The eye reduced to the small circle of the pupil became the letter 'Ajin of the numerical value 70, the 7 of Zajin multiplied by the 10 of Y in YHWH or J in Jahwe.

We can almost see how the Semitic alphabet was formed. And maybe there is a treasure of inscribed tablets ritually deposited in a cache somewhere in the central Negev?

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Pashupati of the Indus Valley as Lord of Time (1/3)

Asko Parpola identified Pashupati whose name means literally ‘Lord of the Animals’ as god seated on the imaginary mountain of the heavenly pole (by then near Thuban, alpha Draconis), fixed the stars to the air roots of a sacred pipal (fig) tree, held the air roots with his crab claws and whirled them around, thus making the stars revolve in the sky.

He can be seen on several Indus Valley tablets. Here two pictures of him, the lower one a modern impression of a steatite seal from Mohenjo-daro, between 2600 and 1900 BC (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY), another date being 1800 – 1400 BC, strongly enlarged, the actual seal measures just 3.56 by 3.53 centimeters but provides a plethora of information, as you shall see in the following summary indus2.JPG

Pashupati on the seal impression is surrounded by four big animals, in clockwise direction a tiger, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a water buffalo. Their eyes can be identified with four stars: eye of the tiger Algol in Perseus, eye of the elephant Vega in Lyra, eye of the rhinoceros Arcturus in Bootes, eye of the water buffalo Procyon in Canis Minor. The four big animals indicate four seasons: the Algol tiger 90 days, the Vega elephant 90 days, the Arcturus rhinoceros 90 days, the Procyon buffalo 90 days, in all a basic year of 360 days (mirrored in the 360 degrees of the heavenly circle). Add 3 days for the midsummer festival honoring Pashupati, and 2 occasionally 3 days for the midwinter festival honoring the Orion goddess invisibly present between the pair of antithetic ibices under the seat of Pashupati (Marie E.P. König identified such pairs of ibices or mountain goats as midwinter emblem, see the niche at the rear end of the axial gallery in the Lascaux cave) and you get a regular year of 365 and an occasional leap year of 366 days, while 21 continuous periods of 90 days are 1,890 days and correspond to 64 lunations or synodic months; mistake less than one minute per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime. This would be a variation of the Goebekli Tepe lunisolar calendar. Pashupati would then have been the Lord of Time who kept the merry-go-round of the four seasons in motion …

Pashupati was succeeded by Shiva who had a byname in Kala ‘Time’.

Pashupati (2/3)

Mark Algol in Perseus and Vega in Lyra and Arcturus in Bootes and Procyon in Canis Minor on a good star map. Connect Algol---Arcturus and Vega---Procyon with a pair of straight lines. Thus you obtain an oblique cross whose center lies near the then heavenly pole. The angles of the cross are practically 110 70 110 70 sum 360 degrees and correspond to 440 280 440 280 sum 1,440 minutes or 24 hours or one day.

A very close approximation to the oblique cross are the diagonals of the rectangle 7 by 10 or 10 by 7. The number 10 is given by the ten intervals of Pashupati’s arms: 5 + 5 = 10.

The shape of the seal is a square. This geometrical figure can be calculated with a number column derived from the numbers 5 7 10

1 1 2

2 3 4

5 7 10 *

12 17 24

29 41 58

70 99 140

If a square measures 5 by 5 units, the diagonal measures practically 7 units, and if a square measures 7 by 7 units the diagonal measures practically 10 units. And if the side of a square measures 5 + 7 = 12 units, the diagonal measures in a better approximation 7 + 10 = 17 units …

Inscribe a circle in the rectangle 7 by 10 or 10 by 7. The diameter measures 7 and the circumference practically 22 units according to the best value of the pi sequence

4/1 (plus 3/1) 7/2 10/3 13/4 16/5 19/6 22/7

Pashupati (3/3)

Asko Parpola identified Golden Boy on an Indus Valley tablet.

Golden Boy might have been the hero of an early epic. In his young age he would have astounded people by stealing the fire of life PIR SAI from the tiger of the Algol eye. Then he wandered in a wide arc along the heavenly river of the Milky Way until he encountered the elephant of the Vega eye. This one helped him across the mighty river and showed him the entrance to the Draco Valley. Golden Boy followed this valley up to the mountain of the heavenly pole, where he rested and looked over the wide land. He heard people lament. A big rhinoceros (comparable to Behemoth in the Bible) drank empty the rivers and made the land parch. Nobody can cope with the beast! So he left his heavenly mountain, went down into the plain, pulled the Spica sword out of the rock (a parallel to the legend of Arthur) and pierced the bony skin of the grotesquely swollen pachyderm and thus released the first monsoon … Later on he tamed the savage buffalo that ruined the fields. Across the heavenly river he saw the Orion goddess and fell in love with her. In order to please her he climbed the heavenly mountain a second time, fixed the stars to the air roots of the sacred pipal tree, held them with his crab claws, whirled them around, made the stars revolve in the night sky and set the merry-go-round of the four seasons in motion …

Asko Parpola also identified the fish hieroglyph as star via a Sanskrit pun. This hieroglyph appears in the inscriptions of the Pashupati tablets where you can also find hieroglyphs based on the oblique cross.

What if the Indus Valley tablets represent episodes of the hypothetical epic, and were bestowed on people who contributed something worthwhile to their society?

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Finnish time (1/2)

Where did Finnish aika ‘time come from? This word might go back to the sky god AAR RAA NOS of the Göbekli Tepe in the alternative form of AAR RAA CA, he of air AAR and light RAA in the sky CA whose eyes were moon and sun

AAR RAA CA A I CA aika ‘time’ ???

Another Finnish word for time is kerta ‘time, turn’, among the proposed cognates Old Prussian kerdan ‘time’. Kerdan kerta inspire the Magdalenian reading CER TON, stag hind shaman shamaness CER to make oneself heard TON. This compound has a perfect match in cave art, namely, the roaring stag in the axial gallery of the Lascaux cave, facing the lovely pair of ‘Chinese’ horses, calling them from the midwinter niche to the glorious midsummer hall, making the seasons turn

winter sun horse CA LAB, sky CA cold LAB – gallop, German Klepper for an old and tired horse (nag)

spring sun horse CA BEL or CA BEL IAS, sky CA warm BEL healing IAS, the warm sun of spring healing ailments of a long and harsh winter – ABelios AFelios Helios, Greek sun god with a quadriga of horses

summer sun horse CA BAL, sky CA hot BAL – Latin caballus (etymology unexplained, says my dictionary) Spanish caballo

Hear them run

CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB …

CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL …

CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL …

CER TON was the Divine Stag who made the seasons turn, also the shaman who announced the seasons and the turn of year.

The same compound would account for Finnish kertoa ‘tell, narate’. Imagine a shaman or shamaness reciting or singing a ballad, making themselves heard. A Celtic bard memorized up to 10,000 lines, nearly the size of a Homeric epic (some 12,000 lines).

CER is also present in Greek kyrios ‘master’ wherefrom Dutch kerk German Kirche Finnish kirkko English church, the bells of a church announcing the hours.

Pashupati was followed by Shiva who had a byname in Kala ‘Time’ from CA ) or CA L for the heavenly one CA who has the say ) or L.

By the way, also India knew a horse-pulled sun wagon, represented in monumental form and size by the Surya temple at Konarka, 13^th century AD.

And the opening line of Goethe’s Faust invokes the sun that sounds in the old way, Sonne tönst in alter Weise (quoted from the memory).

Finnish time (2/2)

AAR RAA NOS on the Göbekli Tepe was implored for rain. Snakes are the most frequent animal in the iconography of the region. Snakes heading upward symbolize prayers for rain and sacrificial fires imploring rain. Snakes heading downward symbolize falling rain provided by the god. And snakes undulating horizontally symbolize rivers (also irrigation channels on a contemporary stone tablet from Jerf el-Ahmar). AAR RAA NOS with the alternative name AAR RAA CA, he of air AAR and light RAA in the sky CA provided air and light and water, elements of life, so he might have accounted for Proto-Indo-European *aiw ‘life, vital force’

AAR RAA CA A i Cw aiw ???

Mallory and Adams 2006 mention something like *hoyus ‘vital force, life, age of vigour’ and the Latin cognate aevus ‘long period of time, eternity’. *Hoyus might have a parallel in Hor Horu Latinized Horus, the old Egyptian sky god whose eyes were moon and sun (cf. AAR RAA AC Horakhty, Horus on the horizon, AC meaning an expanse of land and water). Osiris ruled the Underworld; his son Horus was the living king, so we have a connection AAR RAA CA Horus life.

Among the emanations of the god were Horus the rejuvenator, and Horus of hundreds of thousands of years.

The eyes of the Horus falcon were moon and sun. Seth destroyed the lunar eye. Wise Thoth healed it by adding the fractions ‘2 ‘4 ‘8 ’16 ’32 ’64 and called the restored lunar eye The Whole One. However, the numbers don’t really add up to one. Why then The Whole One? This expression refers to a whole lunation or synodic month. Multiply a (solar) month of 30 days by the Horus eye series ‘2 ‘4 ‘8 ’16 ’32 ’64 and you obtain 29 days 12 hours 45 minutes for a lunation of 29d 12h 44m 2.9s (modern average from 1989 AD).

This might confirm the derivation of Finnish aika ‘time’ from the alternative name of the sky god

AAR RAA CA A i CA aika ‘time’

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