The ear ring of god

I while back, Shamekh H posted this tweet: 

"There is a Persian idiom which literally translates as "to have the servitude ring of someone in one's ear" which means great loyalty to someone. Achaemenid officials in Persepolis reliefs have earrings while the king and princes don't. The rings seem signify such servitude and loyalty".

The idiom is used both in classic Persian poetry and in contemporary Persian. The 14th century Persian Poet, Hafez, used it proudly to denote his devotion to the sage leader of the magi (a mythical sage serving wine). Various forms of the expression are still used.

This is the conversation between me and Shamekh that ensued:

Me: As in chained (symbolically)?

Shamekh: Perhaps took pride in their loyalty.

Me: 🙂 Perhaps...

Shamekh: In Persian literature there are examples where this expression is used proudly. And in Persepolis reliefs it is almost more common among high ranking officials. The kings and crown Princes are never depicted with the earrings.

Me: You know the expression "servant of god"? Check this article "Angra Mainyu" (and linked articles) talking about lion symbolism and Persian kings being God's representatives on earth...

Shamekh: I will read it and I'm sure I will learn things from it. In my own tweet I was more concerned about the symbolism of a small ornament.

Me: Yes, but why would someone be proud to be servant of anyone...Maybe because they saw themselves as being servants of god himself...

Shamekh: I've got my personal impressions. But first, I have to read the article to learn things before I discuss my personal point. That way, I will be able to learn even more through the whole discussion.

Me: About the (ear) rings...

Me: Lutf 'Ali Khan, Drawing of Sasanian rock relief: Ardashir I (r. A.D. 224-241) and the Zoroastrian divinity Ahura Mazda at Naqsh-i Rustam, southern Iran, A.D. 1860 (drawing). Currently in The Met: Ancient Near Eastern Art. 

Shamekh: Thank you. I already had this in mind as part of my impression (that favoured your point of view). Last night in a yalda party I read your article and found it so deep and amazing. I Need to finish reading & start thinking. 

Shamekh: Moreover, devotion and strict loyalty seem to have been brave 'manly' attributes.

Me: Silver coin of Persis, via Parthian rule, c. 140 BCE. The second image is a bird of prey with a diadem in its beak. The symbol itself is said to represent "Xvarənah" (glory/power of royalty and God).

Me: It is interesting that it is an eagle giving the ring, considering the link between eagles, rain, (rain) gods...

Now Ganjajizz joined the discussion...

Ganjajizz: They used to say at the time during achaemenid era that the people were "slaves to the king" And the king rules by divine mandate (the just server of god; ahura-mazda). It is called "Farr", only given to the chosen/worthy...Farr or Xvarenah means "glory/fortune". Etymologically it is connected to light. Many mazdaen/zoroastrian Yazatas/Divinities possess it, such as Ahura Mazda, and Mithra (who is "the most endowed").

Shamekh: Since words with the same denotation can have opposing connotations, they can sometimes be mis-interpreted. The word 'slave' can be a too strong word here. And I agree that the concept of Farr or (فره ایزدی)  was part of ancient Iranian belief system.

Ganjajizz: Yes but that is the term some foreigners used iirc, I’m only making reference to that. What it really means is that people were loyal subjects, not literal slaves

Shamekh: I know. And that's how words can be misinterpreted across cultures.

Now King Typo joined the conversation...

King Typo: The Hebrews may have connoted ear piercing with servitude. I read that a slave who had completed his term could choose to stay on in perpetuity, at which point his ear would be nailed to his master's doorpost. Possible connection?

Shamekh: Possible connection, but in a most grotesque manner. Seems more relevant to a penal code dealing with runaway slaves.

King Typo: I believe it was done voluntarily, not as a punishment

Shamekh: I didn't know that. Thank you for sharing the information. These pieces of information serve as pieces of a puzzle.

Now Janaína joined the conversation

Exodus 21:1-6, Deut 15:12-17

"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."

Shamekh: Thank you so much for the reference

That's it. See! You can have really cool discussions on twitter...🙂 I want to thank all the people who contributed to this conversation for sharing their knowledge with the world...

The youngest son

There is a peculiar plot found in many Eurasian fairytales: Brothers (mostly three) have to complete a task (like kill a dragon), which will get them a princess and a throne...And all the brothers fail, except the youngest, who gets both the girl and the throne...

Russian: Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf

Serbian: The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples

German: The Queen Bee

Iranian: Simorgh

One interpretation of this fairytale plot is that it describes Ultimogeniture, the inheritance practice in which all the family land and the family house is inherited by the youngest son...

The fact that this plot is found in stories from Europe to Central Asia is very interesting, because in most parts of Eurasia in the past it was the oldest son who inherited all the property or the property was split equally between all the sons...

There were some exception to this rule though:

1. Slavs

Ultimogeniture was particularly prevalent in Russia, where it was enshrined in law in The Pravda Russkaya, or Yaroslav’s Law, written ca. 1017 AD by Yaroslav the Wise...You can read it here...

Ultimogeniture was recorded in the 18th and 19th century in many Slavic countries like Russia, Poland, Serbia... You can find some data about in in "Between Traditional Collectivity and Modern Individuality: An Atomistic Perspective on Family and Household astride the Hajnal Line (Upper Silesia and Great Poland at the End of the 18th Century)" and "Social Behaviour and Family Strategies in the Balkans (16th – 20th Centuries)"...

2. Mongols

Among Mongols, Ultimogeniture (the inheritance by the youngest son) was practiced in combination with Primogeniture (the inheritance by the oldest son) and several other inheritance rules. Which caused chaos...You can read about it in "Remnants of the Mongol imperial tradition"...

3. "Some people" from England, Eastern Germany, Denmark, Austria

Ultimogeniture was also practiced in certain parts of England where it was called "Borough-English" and was by the Normans called “the custom of the English towns”...And in some parts of Eastern Germany, Denmark and Austria...

Now this is interesting. The origin of the Ultimogeniture in England, Germany, Austria and Denmark is unknown...

Thomas William Shore, in his 1906 book "Origin of the Anglo–Saxon race" attributed this custom "to the West Slavic tribes which were part of Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain" and "to the West Slavic tribes who once lived in Germany, Austria and Denmark" 

Some have argued that this custom was brought to Europe by the Steppe nomads, like the Huns, Mongols and Turks...

But I couldn't find any mention of Ultimogeniture being practiced by the Huns or Turks who both practiced Primogeniture. And as I said, Mongols had several different conflicting inheritance rules which leads me to believe that they adopted Ultimogeniture from someone else...

Who? Well maybe the stuff I talked about in this post about the Iron Age nomadic societies of the Northern Chines borderlands can give us a clue...

But I think that Ultimogeniture originated not in Iron Age Eurasian steppe societies, but in much earlier, Bronze Age Indo-European steppes societies...

Why do I think so? Because we find Ultimogeniture at the core of the Ancient Greek myths...

There, Uranus gets overthrown by his youngest son Cronus. Only to be overthrown by his youngest son Zeus.

Yet the Greeks, like everyone else around them, practiced Primogeniture...So what's going on here?

I believe that this practice probably comes from the times of the expansions. When elder sons were sent away to "carve their own piece of land for themselves" and the youngest was left at home to take care of the parents and the ancestral lands...

Why this was practiced by some settled peoples like Slavs is not easy to explain...

Interestingly David, the youngest of 8 sons, becomes the king of Jews...Joseph of Genesis also the youngest son and favoured...And Isaac...

But just like Greeks, Jews practiced Primogeniture...

I wonder what's going on here...

Re'em

A re'em, also reëm (Hebrew: רְאֵם), is an animal mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. The Greek Old Testament (3rd-2nd c. BC) translated re'em as "unicorn" which stayed as the main translation of this word until the end of the 19th century...

Then, in 1899, Johann Ulrich Duerst discovered that the word "re'em" it was based on the Akkadian cognate "rimu", meaning "Auroch", the Eurasian wild cattle...This has been "generally" 🙂 accepted today as the correct translation, "even among religious scholars" 🙂....

Now, I would like here to talk about the folklore related to re'em. Which is really interesting as it is directly based on the ancient Hebrew solar cult from the time of the First Temple...You can find more about this cult in my post "Sun god from the First Temple". Pic: Sun on the seal of the kingdom of Judah (739-687 BC)

Re'em in folklore: 

1. "The re'ems live at the opposite ends of the earth, one in the east, the other in the west" Solar symbolism? 

Well yes...

Serbian riddle:

Q: "I slaughtered a bull behind one hill and the blood spurted from behind another" 

A: Sun, setting in the west and rising in the east

Another example of the deep link between bull and sun in Serbian culture...And possibly an explanation why there are ever only two "re'em" animals...Sun rising in the east and setting in the wast? But why would "re'em" be the symbol of the sun? Read on...

2. "They meet only when they mate, after which the female kills the male" 

Summer starts in Taurus, which is the time when Aurochs calving season starts...

Summer ends in Leo, which the time when Aurochs mating season starts...

You can read more about why Taurus is where it is on the Zodiac (Solar year) circle in my post "Ram and bull"...

Which is why Bull is the symbol of summer...

You can read more about the animal symbols of the seasons in my post about "Symbols of the seasons"...

By the way, summer ends during Auroch's mating season...Bull (summer) dies during Auroch's mating season...

3. "The female becomes pregnant...[At the end of her pregnancy] she cannot walk...and she survives only because her saliva waters the earth around her sufficiently to produce enough vegetation for her support"

Female aurochs gestation lasts 9 months...They are pregnant during autumn, winter and spring...During the cooler, wetter part of the year...Which is why cows are in many mythologies linked with clouds, rain, feminine...While bulls are linked with sun, masculine...

4. "Instead of giving birth, her stomach bursts open and she dies instantly. However, twins are born, one male and one female. They get up immediately and wander away, one to the east, one to the west"

This is here just so it is obvious that we aren't talking about real animals

Finally here is the "interesting bit":

So David, the guy who bought a threshing floor (used in the past as solar observatories), on which the First Temple was built (later denounced as a place where people worshiped sun) is minding his own business...

Pic: Threshing floor observatory how to...

You can read more about the link between the threshing floor and the First Temple in my post "Boaz and Jachin"... 

When he happens to stumble upon a re'em (gigantic bull representing summer which starts at the beginning of May in Taurus-Bull) and mistakes it for a mountain (often used as a symbol for sun's ascent and descent and used for solar cult celebrations)...

David starts climbing the mountain (the summer progresses). The "re'em" wakes up, looks at David and goes, WTF, and lifts David up on his gigantic horns (sun between the bull horns, sun above middle of a bull, summer solstice, when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky)...

Summer continues...David prays...Lord sends lion (because the beginning of the mating season of the Eurasian lions starts in Jul/Aug, in Leo...

The "re'em", the gigantic bull, bows down before the lion (because summer, symbolised by the bull, ends in Leo, which is why lion is the symbol of autumn)...Hence lion killing bull symbol which is literally everywhere in Eurasia and North Africa...

Lion looks at David, goes "mmmmm" and licks it's lips...David prays again...Lord sends deer (because the mating season of fallow deer, most common deer species in the middle east, starts in August, in Leo)...Lion goes off chasing deer (autumn progresses)... 

You can read more about the fallow deer as an ancient solar calendar marker in my post about the "Entemena vase"...

David stays on the border between summer and autumn...A very peculiar point on the solar circle...The point where sky gods are worshiped...Like Elijah (allegedly old god, Helios???) whom Hebrews (allegedly) worshiped in the First Temple built by David...And whom Serbs also worshiped as Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer)

Anyway, interesting beast that "re'em"...