Palil

Today I came across this paper: "Kissik, Düru and Udannu" and in it, I read this: "deities worshipped in the city Udannu: the god Nergal (always written in the form diGi.DU, which also suggests an alternative reading Palil)..."

This is very interesting... Nergal, the deified destructive "burning" sun, was depicted as a lion man, because Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year in Mesopotamia...Talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

Btw, Leo marks Jul/Aug, cause this is when Eurasian lions main mating season starts...

In Slavic folklore (remnants of old mythologies), middle of Leo, a week at the end of Jul, beginning of Aug, the hottest part of the hottest part of the year is called "kresovi' (fires)...This is because the sun during this period is so hot, that it burns the the land...

Now here is the interesting bit: in Slavic languages the word "pali" means "burns"...

So Palil, the alternative name for Nergal, the destructive, burning sun in Leo, in Slavic languages means "The one that burns", "The burning one (sun)"...

Weird, right? Also, did you know that Aplu was the Late Bronze Age Hittite and Hurrian god of plague, just like Nergal...And that Aplu was also a title given to the god Nergal, the destructive, burning sun, himself...

And even though we can read that Aplu means "the son of" (whom???), I think that much better meaning of this name is "The one that ignites, burns"...Found in Slavic languages, where "upali" means "ignites"...

And did you know that this Aplu was proposed to be one of the possible roots of the Greek Apollo, The "Terrible", "Feared" Sun god...Whose name in Slavic languages would mean "The one that burns"...Just like Nergal/Palil...

But this is surely a complete coincidence, right? Hmmm...It should be. But...Did you know that "there was an Akkadian god Erra who was syncretised with Nergal at an early date, and, especially in literary texts, they functioned as synonyms of each other"?

Also did you know that Erra is derived from the Semitic root HRR, and was etymologically related to the Akkadian verb ereru, "to scorch"? And that this means that Erra meant "The Scorching one"...

Where are you going with this, I can hear you ask...Here: did you know that Slavic word Jara (pronounced Yahrah) means "scorching heat"?

And that this word is the root of the Slavic Sun god Jarilo, The Scorching one...The Dragon...The Feared one...

Sooo...Not sure what to think of this...Amazing "coincidence"...If it was the only one...

Sumerian is a language isolate, without any known descendants or related languages...but...Interestingly, in it we find some very important words which (look like they) are direct cognates with Words from Balto-Slavic branch of IE languages...

Like words for:

King, Scribe and Tablet, Mind, Breath, Life, Grain, Weevil (Grain eating insect), Teeth, Sickle, Fly

BTW, Akkadian, a Semitic language, also has some very interesting words with (what look like direct) cognates in Balto-Slavic languages...

Like words for:

Axe, Balance (This could actually be a Sumerian word, we don't know), Gown, Acorn and Oak, Blood and Sacrifice

There is no explanation for how these words can be found in Sumerian and Akkadian, some of the oldest known Non IE languages, and in Balto-Slavic languages, allegedly "the youngest branch of IE languages"...

So what happened here? Is this just a giant pile of coincidences? I mean it must be, right? 

Or maybe we should look at Hurrians of the Mitanni and their Indo-Iranian elite as a possible link here???

As I said, I don't know...I am just documenting all this here...

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...

Fly

(In Mesopotamia) "There are flies that bite like bulldogs everywhere. . . The flies are awful; one black web of them this morning; in one's hair and eyes and mouth, in one's bath and shaving-water, in one's tea and in one's towel..." From: "Mons, Anzac & Kut" by Aubrey Herbert

Why am I talking about biting flies of Mesopotamia? 

Cause in the Sumerian lexicon we can find this entry:

"muš4: a biting insect"

Which is very interesting...

Cause of this: 

Serbo-Croatian: mušica = fly, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *máušāˀ, from Proto-Indo-European *mus- 

Cognate with Lithuanian mùsė, dialectal musià, Latvian muša, Latin musca...

Sumerian is a language isolate, without any known descendants or related languages...but...Interestingly, in it we find some very important words which (look like they) are direct cognates with Words from Balto-Slavic branch of IE languages...

Like words for:

King, Scribe and Tablet, Mind, Breath, Life, Grain, Weevil (Grain eating insect), Teeth, Sickle

And now fly???

BTW, Akkadian, a Semitic language, also has some very interesting words with (what look like direct) cognates in Balto-Slavic languages...

Like words for:

Axe, Balance (This could actually be a Sumerian word, we don't know), Gown, Acorn and Oak, Blood and Sacrifice

There is no explanation for how these words can be found in Sumerian and Akkadian, some of the oldest known Non IE languages, and in Balto-Slavic languages, allegedly "the youngest branch of IE languages"...

So what happened here? Is this just a giant pile of coincidences? I mean it must be, right? 

Or maybe we should look at Hurrians of the Mitanni and their Indo-Iranian elite as a possible link here???

As I said, I don't know...I am just documenting all this here...

BTW, there are more interesting words to be added to this list...Soon...

ZIB-BA AN-NA

In this article I would like to talk about the constellation Libra. 

If you search for the information about this constellation, you will find that "it was Romans who first marked Libra as a separate constellation". The sun at that time rose in Libra on the autumnal equinox, a day during which daylight and nighttime are evenly divided. So libra was the balance point of heaven. 

In my post about Libra zodiac sign, I wrote that Libra was originally just the Solar marker for the Autumn Equinox, the moment when we have "the balance of heaven" and that the constellation was a late addition...

The widely available info on Libra will tell you that "the ancient Greeks called the Libra “Chelae,” which means Claws". 

Why? 

Well because they didn't see Libra as a separate constellation that it is today. 

They saw the constellation we today call Libra as "Claws of Scorpio". 

This name was used in early Greek astronomy as a name of constellation Libra by Eudoxus, Aratus, Pseudo-Eratosthenus and the others...

The less widely available info on Libra will tell you that after the 3rd century BC. we find the name zygos "the balance", lit. "balance, beam of balance, yoke, lever" first mentioned as a name of the Libra constellation in Greek texts. 

Interestingly, in Ptolemy's Almagest both names occur. The Claw as the constellation name and The Balance as the zodiacal name (mainly in tables).

Anyway, we can see from this that it is quite possible (well certain) that Romans borrowed Libra as the name of the constellation from the Greeks...

But of course Greeks didn't invent this Libra = Balance thingy themselves. Like many other things, they borrowed this from their eastern neighbours....

To see where the Greeks could have nicked "Claws" as the name for Libra, we need to look at MUL.APIN (𒀯𒀳) a Babylonian text that deals with astronomy and astrology. Most likely compiled around 1000 BCE, the text is preserved in a 7th-century BCE copy on a pair of tablets...

And it this text we find this:

mulZI.BA.AN.NA SI mulGIR.TAB = zibanitu karan zuqaqīpu 

What the hell is this?

The Akkadian word for "scorpion" was "zuqaqīpu". It was written with the cuneiform signs GIR.TAB.

Seriously cool. It actually looks like scorpion...

Now what about ZI.BA.AN.NA?

Sumerians had two words meaning Scales, Balance": 

The first one was GIŠ.ERIN.

The second one, which is believed to have been a borrowing from Akkadian, was  ZI.BA.AN.NA. It was actually an expression consisting of two words: ZI.BA (balance) and AN.NA (heaven). Apparently, it was "a type of balance being provided with an otherwise unknown part or mechanism called *zibana". These words are derived from the common Semitic root "*zbn" which seems to convey the idea of making a special sort of bargain...

Both were found in astronomical texts as a name of constellation and zodiacal sign Libra. 

Sumerians obviously saw Libra as "the moment when heaven is in balance"...But did then mean  equinox (day day equal to night) or did they mean something else? 

In several of my posts, like "7 stars of Scorpio" and "Ploughing", I explained why Scorpio is where it is on the zodiac circle. The climate in Mesopotamia is divided into two seasons: dry, hot part (end of April, beginning of May-end of October beginning of November) and wet, cool part (end of October beginning of November - end of April, beginning of May). The moment when hot, dry part of the year turns into wet cool part of the year, the moment when "the balance tips from death to life" is the moment when the first winter rains arrive. And when the first rains arrive, scorpions disappear, because the weather gets too cold and wet...And when scorpions disappear, it's time to sow grains...Which is why we see scorpion above the sowing plough on this seal

So what tipping point was really marked by ZI.BA.AN.NA, "the balance of heaven"? Is it just "darkness returning / night overcoming day"? Or was it that and "life returning / rain and cold overcoming drought and heat"?  

Not sure. 

But, in my post about "Dilmun scorpion/goats seal" I talked about how scorpion, because of it's association with the arrival of rains, was in Mesopotamia, but not just in Mesopotamia, the symbol of the return of life. We can see this clearly on this seal on which a palm tree (the tree of life) grows out of a scorpion.

The Ibex goats are just another symbol of the beginning of the rain season, as they mate when the first rains arrive...I talked about this link between Ibex goats and rain Mesopotamia in my posts "Jumping goat", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", "Queen Puabi's cylinder seal" and many others...

Anyway, the mystery of what was the real meaning of the "balance of heaven", continues into Akkadian times and then into Babylonian times.  

Now that we know what ZI.BA.AN.NA and GIR.TAB mean, the above expression from the Babylonian text MUL.APIN

"ZI.BA.AN.NA SI GIR.TAB"

Can be interpreted in two ways:

1. As a listing of two unrelated features found in the night sky: 

"The Scales and The Horn (The Claws) of the Scorpion" 

2. as an equation of the two words referring to the same feature found in the night sky 

"The Scales otherwise known as The Horn (The Claws) of the Scorpion" 

Babylonians clearly saw Libra as Weighing scales. Their name for it was "Zibānu", the word related to "zibānītu" meaning "Weighing scales"...

But in Mesopotamia, weighing scale had the same shape as a Scorpion's claws

And as I already said earlier, we don't know what BALANCE of HEAVEN we are talking about... 

So it is easy to see why the Greeks understood the above excerpt from MUL.APIN as "ZI.BA.AN.NA, the name for the Libra constellation,  means claws of scorpion"...

Alexander Militarev in "Once more on the origin of Semitic and Greek star names: an astronomic- etymological approach updated" says that this is exactly what Arabs did. Their name for Libra "az-zibana" meaning "Claws (of the Scorpius)" was a misinterpretation of the Akkadian/Sumerian "ZI.BA.AN.NA" by the Arabs and its replacement with their "ZUBAN/ZABAN" meaning "insect bite"...

Interestingly, the Sumerian/Akkadian word ZI.BA (balance) has no known etymology. One proposition found in the paper "The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and Their Regents" by W. Muss-Arnolt is that it is derived from the root *zibu=gold, presuming weighing scales were originally invented to weigh gold only...So "zibānītu" would literally mean "the gold thing"...

Hardly likely... 

Now here is something mad...Proto-Slavic "zybati" meaning "to cradle, to rock, to swing"...From Proto-Slavic "*zybь" meaning "oscillation" but beyond that - of uncertain origin...

???

Remember "ZI.BA (balance) was a type of balance being provided with an otherwise unknown part or mechanism called *zibana"

I mean ziba = oscillate, rock, swing is what zibanitu, zibanu = scale does...Until ziba = balance (or tipping point???) is reached...Right?

But that balance is short lived. The scale swings (ZI.BA) all the time. Summer follows winter which follows summer which...

Anyway, another old Mesopotamian root found in Slavic languages...

Like Sumerian words for Mind, Writing, Grain, Grain devouring insect, Sickle, Life, Breath, Teeth. And Akkadian word for acorn

How? Why?

Ehh if I only knew the answer to this question...

Kaunakes

The earliest type of dress attested in early Sumerian art of the Pre-Dynastic period (4000-2700 BC) is a sort of kilt made of smooth fabric, which is quite closely fitting the lower body, while the upper body remains bare...Warka Vase detail, Uruk period, c. 3200–3000 BC

During the same period, these "kilts" were also depicted with the "fishnet" design...Some say it's a depiction of tartan...But I would say that it is a way of depicting "woven fabric". You can see an example of this on this Uruk period (c. 3100BC) cylinder-seal...

But then during the Early Dynastic Period (2700-2350 BC), the fashion begins to change...We still see plain smooth fabric kilts and dresses, but we also begin to see the clothes with tasseled ends and fully tasseled garments...Hoard of Sumerian statues from Tell Asmar, Iraq...

To be finally replaced by this: Kaunakes...Statue of Iku-Shamagan, King of Mari, wearing the "Kaunakes". Circa 2500 BCE...

During the Dynastic period, kaunakes seem to have became the cloths worn by "important" characters, a symbol of distinction...Votive relief of Ur-Nanshe, king of Lagash, Early Dynastic III (2550–2500 BC), with all important figures wearing "kaunakes"

Now the exact nature of the "kaunakes" seems to be still debated...You can read about this in "Que savons-nous exactement du kaunakès mésopotamien?" by Catherine Breniquet...

I believe that originally this was just a sheep or goat fleece cut and stitched together into sheets...Just like this shepherds cloak from Romania:

But later, it became a woollen fabric with tassels, woollen dreadlocks, made to look like a fleece...Just like this shepherds cloak from Montenegro:

Which was made like this:

There are two interesting things related to this real and artificial sheep fleece clothes...

First the name...

I am not sure if we know the Sumerian name for it. Akkadians called it "GU-NAK-KU". It was the Ancient Greeks who called it καυνάκης (kaunakes) or γαυνάκης (gaunákēs)...

Now in English we have word "gown" which apparently comes "from Anglo-Norman gune, goune ("fur-trimmed coat, pelisse"), from Old French goune, from Late Latin gunna ("leather garment, a fur"), from Ancient Greek γούνα (goúna, "coarse garment") from "unknown origin"...

Two roots are proposed: 

1. Perhaps from a Balkan or Apennine language...

Well, I don't know about Apennine languages, but in the Balkans languages, more precisely Serbian, we find the word "Gunj". Gunj is Serbian word which means a cover and clothes made from sheepskin, woollen fabric with clumps (tassels) made to look like artificial sheepskin, or woollen felt...I talked about this in my post "Gunj"...

2. Perhaps from Proto-Iranian "*gawnám" (fur) (compare Younger Avestan "gaona" (body hair) and Ossetian гъун (ǧun))...

But what about the Akkadian "GU-NAK-KU"? We can't just ignore this, right?

So is this another Sumerian (Akkadian) - PIE cognate? Remember my article about the PIE - Akkadian words for acorns? Or someone borrowed it from someone? Who borrowed it from whom? And when? 

The second interesting thing. 

Was this change in Sumerian fashion a reflection in the political and ethnic change at the top of the Sumerian society? Why were all of a sudden all the big heads wearing sheepskins or imitations of sheepskins?

What were they trying to show? That they were the "sheep" people and not the "grain and cattle" people? Was this new fashion the result of the herders subduing the farmers? And were the big shots wearing their sheepskin clothes as a symbol of their superiority?

What do you think?

By the way...Central Asian people seem to have liked kaunakes a lot too...From the beginning...Bactria, late third millennium BC – early second millennium BC