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...

Big man

This is Naram Sin, The Great king of Akkad, trampling his enemies...Appropriately, the Great King is depicted as a Big Man much bigger than his dead enemies...

Akkadians and their Great Kings, succeeded Sumerians as the rulers of Mesopotamia...And in Sumerian the word for "King" (see capital K) was  "Lugal" which comes from "lú" (man) + "gal" (big) and literally means a Big Man...

Now here is something "weird"...

In Serbian, the word for people is "ljudi", from Proto-Slavic *ľudьje (“people, men”)...

In Serbian, one of the words for big is "golem",  from Proto-Slavic *golěmъ...Cognate with Lithuanian "galėti" (to be able) and Lithuanian "galià"(power, might)

So coincidence that the roots are the same in Sumerian and Slavic? Again? Just like the roots for all these unimportant words:

Scribe, Tablet, Mind, Breath, Life, Grain, Teeth, Sickle

Just to be clear, Sumerian is a language isolate and has nothing to do with Slavic languages or any other Indo-European language for that matter...So what's going on here? Who borrowed all this from whom? Where? When? Or is this just an incredible coincidence...

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...

Scribe

I would like to talk about Sumerian writing: Cuneiform. Actually about their words for "write" and "tablet, document"...

Cuneiform emerged in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC to convey the Sumerian language, "a language isolate which has no relationship with any other language"...It is one of the earliest known systems of writing...

Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms...

In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract, eventually turning into symbols...

The pictograms (later symbols) were were cut on clay tablets, using a blunt reed for a stylus. Basically, cuneiform writing was "making marks on clay using chiseling technique"...

Now, the word for writing in sumerian was "sar, šar" written using this symbol:

And the word for tablet, document was "dub" written using this symbol:

Unsurprisingly the word for a scribe was "dub-sar" (tablet, document-writer):

And scribes learned their trade in "e-dub-ba-a" house of documents writing 

Here is a very interesting thing. 

Sumerian document (dub) was clay tablet (dub) with patterns, symbols gouged, chiselled, written (sar, šar) into it...

In Serbian, the word for chiselling, gouging is "dub" and the word for "making patterns, symbols" is "šar"...

So Sumerian dub-šar (scribe) literally means "one who gouges, chisels patterns, symbols" in Serbian...

Eee what? 

How can such important words in Sumerian, language isolate, have roots in Serbian, totally unrelated IE language, which only appeared after Sumerian language died out?

Now this must be a complete coincidence, a fluke. But unfortunately this is just another example where we find Slavic words related to very important words found in Sumerian. 

Like words related to knowledge...You can read more about this in my post "Um"

Or

Like words related to grain agriculture...You can read more about this in my posts "Breath" and "Sickle"

I don't have an explanation for this madness, but...Have a look at this: 

The Vinča symbols, sometimes known as the Vinča script are a set of symbols found on Neolithic artefacts from the Vinča culture (6th to 5th mill BC) from Central Europe with its centre in Serbia...

And these are the Tărtăria tablets, discovered in 1961 at a Vinča culture site in the village of Tărtăria, in Romania. Originally dated to c. 5300 BC. 

Looks familiar?

Here is the best bit. Apparently archaeologists are now proposing much later date, based on the signs!!! And are dating tablets to 2,750 BC-3,300 BC, when Sumerian proto-writing, otherwise known as dub-šar :), was developed...

Now to conclude. I actually believe that Sumerian is a language isolate. And is not related to IE languages, including Serbian. But It is annoying that we keep finding these isolated, important words in Sumerian with IE roots...Why? As I said I have no explanation of this madness...

But we can't just ignore all this...Right?

Sumerian dictionaries:

Sumerian cuneiform English dictionary ed. Peter & Tara Hogan
Sumerian Lexicon Version 3.0 by John A. Halloran
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary

Um

A ceramic vessel bearing the sculpture of a pensive-looking figure has been found in the Israeli city of Yehud. The vessel dates back about 4,000 years, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

But this is not the only nor the oldest ancient "thinker" figurine. This clay figurine depicting a person deep in thought, which with the height of 49cm far exceeds the usual figurine size for the Neolithic period, was found in Larissa – Greece. It dates to the period 4500 – 3000 BC.

This is another figurine depicting a person deep in thought. This one, known as the "Thinker of Tarpesti" was made by people of the Cucuteni culture at some point between 4750 and 4500 BC. Cucuteni culture was a Neolithic - Chalcolithic culture from Romania - Ukraine. This one is interesting as it portrays an old man with a beard, and elder...

This is the so called "Thinker of Hamangia". It was made between 5250 and 4550 BC by people from the Neolithic Hamangia culture, a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja (Romania and Bulgaria).

The first level of knowledge is experience. You experience things, and you learn what works and what doesn't. Basically you learn to survive. Then you pass this knowledge to your progeny so they can survive.  They will hopefully learn from your experience. Which is why in most cultures, elders were respected and used as advisors both in families and in societies.

The next level of knowledge is understanding of the reasons why something works and something doesn't work. This allows you to progress from "this works" to "this works because...".

The final level of knowledge is inventing new knowledge. This allows you to progress from "this works" and "this works because..." to "this new thing I just invented is better way of doing..."

Everyone (who is still alive) can learn from experience.
Some can understand their knowledge.
Very few can create new knowledge.

These precious few are depicted by the above figurines.

Without them we would still be animals...

What enables humans to learn, understand and invent is their mind, their "thinking machine".

Now here is something interesting.

The word "mind" comes from Proto-Germanic "*mundiz" (memory, remembrance), from Proto-Indo-European "*méntis" (thought), from Proto-Indo-European "*men-" (to think).

PIE "*men-" is the root of the word for mind in pretty much all Indoeuropean languages:

Proto-Indo-Iranian

mánas = mind, intellect, thought

Ancient Greek

μένος (menos) = mind, desire, ardor, wish, purpose, anger, courage, spirit, vigor, power, strength, force, violence

Latin

Minerva = goddess of wisdom

Proto-Celtic

manyetor = to think

Old Church Slavonic

мьнѣти (mĭněti) = think, assume, believe

And then in Slavic languages we have these words:

"um" which comes from Proto Slavic "umъ" which means mind, thought, understanding.
"uman" = wise, smart (one who has um) probably from "um" (mind) + "on" (him)
"razum" = ras + um = split, separate + mind = intellect, reason, understanding
"umeti" = to know how, to be able to (literally to have mind)
"umetnost" = art (literally to be really good at being able to do something)
"umešnost" = artistry, skill

Now the etymology of this word is uncertain. Officially it is "possibly from PIE *men- meaning to think"...

Deriving "um" from "men" is problematic. You could say that "um" (mind) was derived from "uman" (wise, smart) which is derived from "u" (in) + "men" (think) =  with thoughts inside...??? But that is very unlikely as we actually have the word "mineti" which is derived from "men". 

I would propose that it was actually the opposite. The PIE root "men" (to think) was derived from even older root "um" (mind)  through "uman" (wise, smart, able to think) by dropping "u" at the beginning. This root was preserved for some weird reason only in Slavic languages.

There are several reasons why I think that this is the case.

1. The root "um" (mind) can be derived from "u" (in, inside) + "m" (me, myself) = inside of me, the inner me, mind.

I talked about this in my post "Vowels", in which I discussed the intrinsic values vowels have in Serbian. 

Here is the relevant excerpt: 

The holy sound of Vedas which is said to represent "the whole of Vedas", is OM, pronounced as "AUM"

I actually believe that this sound was originally AOUM but that O was lost first only for AU to be later replaced with O.

And here is something very interesting:


AOUM consists of these vowels: A - outside, O surface of the body, U inside of the body, M core. M is one of the only two sounds that can be made with your mouth closed. And the only sound that produces the vibration of the whole central cavity, our core. This is why M is the core sound of words that mean me, my, myself (me, mene in Serbian), the words whose meaning is directed inwards. So the above mantra brings our focus from outside into our core, (m)ind by using emotional discharge through descending vowels. The word for mind in Serbian is UM. This word derives its meaning from U + M = inside + me = mind. This is probably the old "AOUM" shortened down to the absolute minimum number of sounds necessary to convey the intended meaning of internal me, real me....mind, UM.

That this ancient root is not just my fantasy can be seen from the fact that we find it in derived words in Sumerian, which was already completely separate unrelated languages during the 5th millennium BC. 

umum, umun

umum  -  metalworker, smith, mold, raw form or material

I love the fact that ideas are linked to mold. Just like objects are created from ideas, metal objects are created from molds

umun - deep thinking, knowledge, scholarship, idea;
umun - title of respect (the knowledgeable one, the wise one, elder)
nam-umun-na: sovereignty (abstract prefix + "title of respect, elder" + nominative).

I love the fact that it seems that in Sumerian knowledge was respected to the point where "the wise one" became the title of respect which gave the root to the work sovereignty...

ki-umun-(m): "place of knowledge" (school)

And this is great:

umu, um: old woman; nurse; wise or skilful teacher.

Women were original preservers and passers of knowledge...

um-mi-a

um-mi-a = scholar, expert, craftsman

In Slavic languages "ume" = "he knows how"

umuš: discernment; intelligence; reflection, consideration; decision
umuš...kúr: to change one's mind ('discernment; decision' + 'to change').

That this is not just a "weird coincidence" can be seen from the fact that some other, pretty important root words, like the words for life and grain are also the same in Slavic and Sumerian languages. I wrote about this in my post "breath".

The million dollar question is still opened: How did Slavic and Sumerian, two totally unrelated languages, end up sharing these words? Considering that the meaning of the base root "um" (mind, my inner self) can be derived from the meanings of even simpler Slavic roots "u" (in, inner) and "m" (me) suggest that the borrowing went from PIE to Sumerian. When did this borrowing happen? Probably during metalwork expansion from the Balkans eastward into Mesopotamia, probably at the very beginning of the Sumerian civilisation. 

Interesting, right?

Finally where does the word "human" come from? Official etymology says from Latin "humanus" (humane) which comes from "humus" (ground, floor, earth, soil)...

Apparently:

"The phenomenon of a derivational relationship between the words for both earth and man is also seen in Semitic languages: Hebrew אָדָם‎ (adám, “man”), אֲדָמָה‎ (adamá, “soil”)"

I mean this is mad. Men, animals, plants are "of earth", born by Mother Earth...There is nothing special there about humans...


Is it possible that the root is "um" (mind, brain, intelligence) through "uman" (one who has mind, brain intelligence) = human, not animal???

And I think these ancient words prove that this indeed could be the case:

Enemy, malevolent. From dus (negative prefix) + (u)manas, (u)menas = bad human

Indo-Iranian: *dušmánas 
Hellenic: *dusmenḗs

Friend, benevolent. From hsu (positive prefix) + (u)manas, (u)means = good human

Indo-Iranian: *Hsumánas
Hellenic: *ehumenḗs

But this would mean that these words from "ancient" Indoeuropean language branches would have to be derived from a word root from "the youngest" Indoeuropean language branch...Not a very popular suggestion...



Sumerian sources: 

https://www.sumerian.org/sumlogo.htm

https://www.bulgari-istoria-2010.com/Rechnici/Sumerian_Cuneiform_English_Dictionary_12.pdf