How old is the Irish language?

How old is the Irish (Gaelic) language? Why am I asking this? Because there is something very interesting in the Irish language, which can possibly help us determine when and where this language had originally developed...This:

This image shows a person standing at the door of his house. The door is facing east. What is astounding is how these words for direction of movement and orientation match in the Irish (Gaelic) language...

This language characteristic can only be explained if we assume that this part of the Irish language was developed by the culture which lived in a world which faced east...Where facing east was something everyone did every day...

Like if their houses were built in such a way that the house entrances faced east...

It turns out that most rectangular [Irish] Neolithic houses had east facing entrances...

The same goes for the Irish Bronze Age round houses, which were also predominantly built with their doors facing East or South East...

So if you were a person living in this kind of the world, then your language will naturally develop in such a way that North is Leftward, South is Rightward...

I can't see any other reason why such a strange cultural trait would develop...Can you?

So when did this part of the Irish language develop? 

During Neolithic, 4th - 3rd millennium BC?

During Bronze Age, 3rd - 1st millennium BC?

Irish dictionaries

S. Dineen 1904 dictionary

Ó Dónaill 1977 dictionary

Neolithic houses

"Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland" by Gabriel Cooney

Bronze Age houses

"Bronze Age settlement in Oranmore" - blog article

"Middle Bronze Age Houses At Mitchelstown, Co. Cork" - excavation report

PS: The only other culture where I found something similar is Hebrew culture...

In "Doorway Orientation, Settlement Planning and Cosmology in Ancient Israel During Iron Age II" by Avraham Faust we can read that:

"An examination of Iron Age buildings and settlements in ancient Israel indicates that a large number of them were oriented toward the east, while the west was extremely under-represented...

An examination of various climatic and functional considerations does not seem to explain the phenomenon. But ethnographic studies, show that cosmological principles can have on the planning of buildings and settlements, and that in many cases the east is preferred...

The common Biblical Hebrew word for east is qedma (forward), while the west is ahora (backward). Additional words for these directions indicate that the east had a good connotation while the west had a bad one...

Thus, the archaeological pattern, along with language and texts (which are used as a substitute for human informants), seem to give an important insight into some of the cosmological principles of the ancient Israelites"...

I want to thank @ainiladra for pointing me to this table found in "Handbook of Ugaritic Studies" by Wilfred Watson and Nicolas Wyatt, which shows that exactly the same overlap between the sides of the world and directions found in Gaelic, is also found in Ugaritic, Akkadian, Hebrew and Arabic...And it obviously dates to at least the Bronze Age... 

Michael from Pavia

The Basilica of San Michele Maggiore is a church of Pavia, one of the most striking example of Lombard-Romanesque style. It dates from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Above the entrance is a bas-relief depicting St Michael standing on top of the defeated dragon. "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought..., and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven"...

This Michael is very interesting indeed. Look at what he is holding in his right hand. He is holding a plant. And look at his wings. His wings are turning into tree branches...

What about the dragon? Dragon is just an old snake...At least this is what Slavs believed...And not just Slavs...

Snakes are cold blooded, so they are out only during the hot part of the day and hot part of the year...

As I explained in many of my posts, this makes snakes pure solar animals. They are in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and are in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...

This also makes Snakes perfect symbol of the sun and the sun's heat. They are also symbols of the beginning of summer, as vipers, the most common Eurasian snakes, start mating in Apr/May, beginning of summer...

So no wonder we find snake linked to the sun over and over again...All over the world...

Interestingly, the key for understanding the link between snakes and the sun was best preserved in Slavic folklore (remnants of Slavic mythology). I talked about this in my post "Letnitsa treasure" and  posts linked from this post...

Dragon or a Great Serpent is the representation of the destructive Summer sun's heat which burns the earth. 

Dragon "steals the waters of heaven", clouds or "heavenly cows'...In Indo-European mythology this Dragon is killed by the Thunder god, who "releases the waters of heaven", clouds or "heavenly cows"...But this is not just Indo-European myth...It is found all over Eurasia...

Anyway, killing of the dragon (drought) saves the world and saves the vegetation...Saves the tree of life...

In Slavic mythology the Thunder god who kills the dragon is Perun. He fights it all summer, and he finally manages to kill the dragon at the end of summer and beginning of autumn. 

BTW this is the distribution of the rain/thunder storms in Europe per month...You can see that in the Balkans the thunderstorms (Perun fighting Veles, the Dragon) start at the beginning of summer and end at the end of summer... 

With the arrival of Christianity, one of the saints that replaced Perun was St Michael, whose name means "Who is like God". Now have a look at this: Left is the wheel of Svetovid, Sun god. Right is the wheel of Perun, Thunder god. Perun's wheel is Svetovid's wheel on fire...

Interestingly the oldest church dedicated to St Michael, St Michael at Sosthenion, was built on the site of a temple dedicated to "Winged Zeus"... Constantine interpreted the winged statue of the temple as a Christian angel... I talked about this in my post "Archangel Michael"...

BTW, check this article, "Pero" in which I proposed that the root of the name of the Slavic thunder god Perun is "pero" = feather, which would make Perun = Feathered one, and not from PIE perkwus, meaning "oak" or "mountain". Zeus, Jupiter, Perun were all linked to eagles. And the oldest descriptions of Mesopotamian thunder gods described them as thunder birds...

Phoenician drachm, 4th century BC, on exhibit in the British Museum. The coin shows a seated deity, labelled "YHW". This is EL to whom "MichaEL" is like...

The arrangement of the deity sitting on a winged wheel has been compared to Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh's throne as flying about the heavens on four wheels (chariot). I talked about this "vision" in this post about "Four living creatures"...

It is interesting that the main Christian "replacement" for Perun in Serbia, St Elijah the Thunderer, drives on top of the clouds in his chariots, causing thunder and lightning when the chariot wheels bump off the surface of the clouds...I talked about this in my post "Thundering sun god"...

When we look at the climatic effect of the end of summer and beginning of autumn, we see that Thunder god's function is to "defeat the Sun god", who is about to burn the earth to cinder...And he does that after a looong fight which lasts the whole summer...

So, St Michael is celebrated at the end of summer (Catholic church) / the end of autumn (Orthodox church) for a reason 🙂 ...

If we look at it more closely, we realise that there is actually no fight going on here. The sun's heat (Sun god's power) rises during summer, to it's maximum at the end of summer and it then it subsides...It is a naturally occurring oscillatory process...

This adds interesting twist to the question about the identity of Satan, who was defeated (replaced) by Michael...Until next spring of course, when snakes come out of the underground...

Especially when we know that it looks like Hebrews worshipped sun in their first temple. I talked about this in my post "Sun god from the first temple"...Sun was their EL...BTW, Sun still is the EL of Hebrews...I talked about this in my post "The tree of life"...To whom MichaEL was like...So if Michael replaced Thunder god, whose duty is to "kill dragon", Sun, Sun's heat, and Sun was the god of Hebrews/Christians...

This doesn't mean that Hebrew and Christian god is Satan 🙂 It means that Christian god is Sun...Life giving in the spring. Life destroying in the summer...And so He is finally cast from heaven into the underworld at the end of summer/autumn (depending on the local climate) where He stays until next spring...You know the story...

Daevas vs Devas

Zoroaster said that "daevas" were "wrong" or "false" gods that should be rejected...Were Iranian "daevas" actually Indian "devas"? And if so, what could have turned devas (good guys) into daevas (bad guys)??? Well, the opposite climate of course...

In both Indian subcontinent and Iraq/Iran the climatic year is divided into two halves, a dry and wet half. 

India

Iran

If we look at the climate in India, we can see that the year is divided into wet part (Jun-Sep) and dry part (Oct-May). 

It is the opposite in Iran and Iraq...There, the year is divided into wet part (Oct-May) and dry part (Jun-Sep)... 

Now to understand how this affected the religion in these two parts of the world, we have to look at the animal calendar markers, the base layer of all the religions in the world. Animal calendar markers were used to create first calendars, by marking the time of the year when some prominent local animal mated or gave birth or migrated with the image of that animals. 

For instance:

Asiatic lions mating season starts in Jul/Aug. 

Asiatic water buffalo mating season starts in Oct/Nov.

In India, the beginning of the mating season of lions marks the peak monsoon season, the wettest time of the year. At the same time, the beginning of the mating season of water buffaloes marks the beginning of the dry part of the year. 

Considering that it is rain season that brings life, and that it is dry season that brings death to western India and Pakistan, lion = rain, fertility, good symbol, buffalo = drought, barrenness, bad symbol...

Climate played a huge role in forming of early agricultural religions. The forces that brought fertility of the land were deified, while the forces that took that fertility away were demonised...

This is exactly which happened to the animal calendar markers lion and buffalo. 

And so, in Indian mythology, Deva Durga, riding on a lion (peak of monsoon season), kills buffalo (beginning of the dry season) Asura Mahisha...I talked about this in my post "Mahishasuramardini"... 

In Iran/Iraq, because of the opposite climate, the rain season starts with mating of buffalos and the mating of lions falls in the middle of the driest part of the year...So in Iran and Iraq, lion, deva = bad, buffalo, asura = good...

Is this the reason behind Zoroaster's claim that the "daevas" are "wrong" or "false" gods that are to be rejected? Cause they were all wrong in Iran/Iraq...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Party

Winter Solstice Celebration, by the Latvian painter Evalds Dajevskis, Acrylic, 1989...

The traditional masked characters dancing in the room are all symbols of death and resurrection  of nature...

stork

bear

goat

white horse

death, the dead

bride

sheaf of wheat

Ever wondered why these characters? Well, because they all represent the idea of death and resurrection...

Stork:

Storks are migratory birds, which disappear in the autumn and reappear in the spring...Slavs believed that in autumn, migratory birds followed the sun to Iriy, the land of the dead...And that they came back from Iriy to our world in spring, again following the sun...

In pre-Christian times, Slavs believed that souls of their dead entered birds and through birds entered heaven, Iriy. So feeding birds with grain during  winter was basically a form of feeding the ancestors, sacrificing to the ancestors...

Slavs also believed that migratory birds brought the souls back from Iriy, so they can be (re)born as people...And so the belief that storks brought babies...

I talked about this in my posts "Leto", "Julenek", "Nav", "Bird wedding", "Inviting spring"...

So stork = death - resurrection...

Bear:

Bear goes underground, underworld (to hibernation) in the autumn and comes out from the underground, underworld, in the spring, with cubs...

So Bear = death - resurrection...

I talked about this in my post "Bear dancers", about a winter ritual bear dance from Romania. 

During which:

Bear dances (spring, summer, autumn)

Bear falls cause a demon took over him (winter) 

Bear is killed and bled to let the demon out (hibernation. death-rebirth)

Bear gets up and dances again (spring, summer...) 

Bears also danced during the winter in Russia, during Koliada, Christmas (Winter Solstice processions)...

Goat: 

Ibex goats mate during the winter, with the peak in midwinter, Winter Solstice. The mating season is marked by vicious male goat fights, which from the distance look like a dance...

This is why ibex goat is the symbol of winter throughout its range. Hence Slavic Christmas carol goat mask...

In Slavic lands the carollers performed ritualistic dance which showed the goat dying and then being brought back to life...You can read more about this in my post "Krampus"...

This basically depicts the winter zodiac:

Sagittarius (start of winter), Capricorn (mid winter), Aquarius (end of winter, snowmelt)...

Hunter, (almost) kills the goat, from whose blood spring spring flowers...The meaning of these symbols was preserved in Slovenian legends. You can read about this in my post "Trentar", "Zlatorog"...

So Goat = death - resurrection...

Oh look, goat, bear and stork dancing together in Russia...

Horse:

Horse fertility is governed by the sunlight, meaning horses are most fertile on summer solstice, peak fertile time of the year...Which is why horse is one of the main solar symbols and symbols of summer...I talked about this in my posts "Trojan horse", "Archaic rider", "Hayagriva", "Shamash playing with solar horse", "Goddess on a horse", "Longma"...

A dead horse would then be a good symbol for...Winter and Winter Solstice of course... The day when the sun is reborn...I talked about this in my post "Gray mare"...

So Horse = death - resurrection 

Sheaf of wheat:

In the autumn, grain dies and gets buried (sown)...It then gets resurrected (sprouts) over winter and spring and grows into new grain...

So Grain = death - resurrection

The last sheaf of grain represents the living "sprit of grain"...I talked about this in my posts "Diduch", "Julenek", "Corn dolly"...

Which is why sheafs of grain dance around Europe every winter. I talked about this in my post "Walking sheafs of wheat"...

Winter was in Continental Europe seen as the time of death. The nature died at the beginning of winter, when the sun went to the land of the dead...The nature got resurrected at the end of winter when the sun returned from the land of the dead...

While in the land of the dead, sun had a lot of time to chat with the dead. And, Slavs believed, it was the dead ancestors which were remembered by the living, that "put the good word in for the living" and were the source of the prosperity of their descendants...

I talked about this in my several of my posts: "Diduch", "Lapis manalis", "White feast"...

The dead ancestors also visited their descendants during the winter (the scull guys behind St Nick). St Nick is telling the kids that they should be good Christians...The reason why kids are not looking at St Nick, is cause they are staring at St Nicks gang of the dead ancestors standing behind him, ready to take bad Christians away...Somewhere in Austria...I talked about this in my post "Little Christmas"...

The ancestors expected to be wined and dined by them and shown the good time during winter parties...Or else...In some parts of Serbia, on Christmas Eve people used to take a table laid with food on the doorstep of the house and would invite the dead to the feast in the same way... I talked about this in my post "Wolf feast"...

The people on this picture from Moldova are "Koledari", Slavic masked "Christmas" carollers. The man with the blackened face, representing dead ancestor, holds ritual solar bread called kolač or kovrtanj (wheel). Slavs believed that all good comes from ancestors...

So The Dead = death - resurrection

The Bride:

The Bride is the hag (winter earth) which magically gets transformed into the maiden (spring earth)...

A girl dressed as a faceless "bride", who brings presents (and good luck) to Sorbian families on the last Wednesday before Christmas (originally probably on Winter Solstice day). I wrote about it in my post "Bescherkind"...

In Scotland a special folk dance commemorates the death of "The old woman of the mill dust" and the marriage of her daughter....

"Bablji mlin", meaning "Granny's mill" scene, Slovenia. An old hag is being milled, and thus transformed, into a young maiden. Winter being transformed into Spring...In this depiction of the rebirth scene, the granny is being pushed into a mill by a goat...I talked about this in my post "Bablji mlin"....

At Imbolc, the first day of Spring according to Gaelic calendar, St Bride's "bannock" or "bonnach" was baked and given to the young girls as a blessing. One was also left outside as a gift for St Bride when she passed in the night to bless all the homes...I talked about this in my post "Bannock"...

Here is the "bride" representing St Bride (Brigid), made out of the butter churn on Imbolc, the day that marks the beginning of spring...

Slavs call the day that marks the beginning of spring, "Maslenitsa" (butter festival)...Oh, and on Maslenitsa, they hold a festival that celebrates the death (end) of the old hag (winter earth), and the arrival of the young bride (spring earth). During the festival, people parade the effigies of Marzana (goddess of death and winter) which are dressed in white, like brides (or snow maidens)...

Add to this the Snow-White story, where a young maiden gets killed by her own mother by a poisoned apple, only to get resurrected by a young prince to whom she then gets married...I talked about this in post "Snow-white"...

So The Bride = death - resurrection

Ready for the party?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Willow whistle

Willow whistles and flutes are made in the spring when willow sap rises and loosens the bark...

Because they were easy to make, these flutes and whistles were favourite kids instruments...(Pic The Willow Whistle, 1888, Ellen Day Hale)

Now if you wanted to have a musical child, that can make music and not noise, this is what you were advised to do in 18th century Sweden:

"In the spring fetch water from a stream that flows southwards. The water should be taken where it murmurs the most loudly..." (Pic Kamajokk river Sweden)

"...Then a child's parent should blow into the water with a willow flute that a child had used. The child then has to drink this water for three days on an empty stomach. This would ensure that the child would have a very good ear for music"...

That would also insure that the child's parent would save his/her ears 🙂

This music spell can be found (with loads of other interesting stuff related to ancient European musical instruments) in "Music and sounds in ancient Europe"...

Now there were times when you wanted to make noise and not music with your willow whistles, flutes and trumpets...Like these ones from the Balkans:

During the night before St George's day, in the Balkans, these instruments were blown "to scare witches (winter) away"...

I talked about this in my post "May horns"...

A lot more interesting Slavic willow folklore can be found in my article "Willow in Slavic folklore"...