God of Life

A conversation I had a while back with @PIELexicon

The miniature Hittite figurine from Karkamiš dated to the 13th century BC depicting ‘My Majesty, God of Life’ (SOL2 VITA)

Me: Is that a double edged axe he is holding in his hand?

@PIELexicon: No. It is the Hieroglyphic Luwian sign *369 VITA ‘life’, ‘the cross of life’, called Ankh in the Egyptian tradition, who had the same sign. As far as I can see, it actually represents a human body with head, hands, and legs (or at least this is suggested by some of its variants:

Me: In Egypt, ankh (life) was directly linked to water. Due to climate and hydrology, in Egypt this water that was the source of life was the water from the Nile. I talk about this in several of my posts: Sycamore goddess, Crux ansata, Lotus and papyrus...

@PIELexicon: That makes a lot of sense to me, because – although I have no explicit proof – I think that the ‘Storm-God of Life’ was also the ‘Storm-God of Water’, mentioned in the cuneiform texts: In the ancient view everything living had liquid, blood, water, which was the ‘elixir of life’.

Me: Hence axe ankh...Anatolian storm gods all weilded axes...

I talked about this in my posts Jupter-Zeus Dolichenus, Goibniu, Teshub killing snake

Axes which represented thunderbolts...

I talked about this in my posts Goibniu, "Thunder axe" and "Kataibates"...

And it was the rain that thunder gods brought that was the source of life in Anatolia...

@PIELexicon: The hieroglyphic sign *281  (ASCIA) ‘axe’ is slightly different from VITA (*369): The axe is shown in horizontal position, not vertical like VITA. In addition, *281 has a handle, not ‘legs’ like VITA, probably standing for a man (or a human, so probably two different things...

Me: Maybe because what the god is holding is not just an ordinary axe, but (thunder) axe that brings life...

It's a combination of two symbols, ankh + axe

BTW, I just noticed something. Does Emirgazi axe symbol actually have bull head as an axe head?

And he stood on a bull because...Officially we don't know, but actually we do know. He stood on a bull because:

This Hittite symbol means storm god. Bottom part (Bull head) means storm, the above part means god...

The thunderstorm season in Anatolia starts in Apr/May, Taurus...Which is why Hittite Thunder God stands on a bull...I talked about this in my post "Bull god from Arslantepe"

Apr/May, the start of the thunderstorm season in Anatolia and Southern Europe, is also the start of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle...

This is what Taurus, Bull (it really should be Calf), marks. It originally had nothing to do with stars. It was a marker for Apr/May, the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle. Talked about it in many of my posts...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Ashkelon invasion

This is a transcript made by the archaeologist Georges Perrot, of the Luwian inscription engraved on the 3,200-year-old, 29-metre-long limestone frieze which was discovered in Turkey in the 19th c. The stone with the original inscription was later destroyed...

This inscription is the longest known hieroglyphic inscription from the Bronze Age. When the text was eventually translated, it turned out to be a story about the "Sea People" naval expedition to Ashkelon in modern-day Israel (Illustration: Sea People by Giuseppi Rava)

The inscription tells the story of King Kupantakuruntas, who became king of Mira and ‘guardian of Troy’ after his father Mashuittas’s death, and was the brains behind the capturing of Ashkelon and turning it into a major army and navy base...You can read more about it in Rediscovered Luwian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions from Western Asia Minor...

Now recent genetic study "Genetic History of the Near East (Iron & Classical Ages)" - Haber at al. 2020 has shown that at that exact time the area around Ashkelon had a large influx of "Southern European and Western Anatolian DNA"...

You can read more about it in "A Genetic History of the Near East from an aDNA Time Course Sampling Eight Points in the Past 4,000 Years"

The important bit is that authors of the study say that "...according to ancient Egyptian texts and archaeology, the Sea Peoples conquered the Levant but failed to conquer Egypt. Therefore, we tested whether the Eurasian gene flow to Lebanon during the Iron Age had also reached ancient Egypt."

"The results of the measurement of the Steppe ancestry in both regions suggests that...either ancient Egypt did not receive the Eurasian gene flow that the Levant received during the Iron Age or that the Eurasian ancestry was replaced in Egypt later..."

Which matches the historical records from the area...