A New Theory on the Origin of the Alphabet

 

[ARYSIO – JULY 2002 – (FILE: SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE / LINGUISTICS) – SUBMITTED TO: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY – GUIDELINES]

 

 

 

There, where the day is born and the sun rises, resplendent with gold and tinging the waves with a ruddy color, lies the Oriental Ocean [Eoum pelagus].

There, it is said, are located the straits [freta] of the Indian Sea… There, the Ganges discharges its fast flowing abundance of waters and the Indian peoples celebrate the feasts of Dionysos Dissolver [Lyaeus]…

There, rising above the blue waves, is the land called of old the Island of Gold [Insula  Aurea]

because there the golden disk of the sun first reddens the skies… In front, presenting its immense mass above the waters, the island of Taprobane produces terrible elephants…

Avienus, Periegesis seu Descriptio Orbis Terrae (65-777)

Abstract

The present article proposes a novel theory on the origins of the alphabet. This scripture is usually believed to have been invented by the Phoenicians or, perhaps, by other Semites, according to both tradition and archaeological evidence. One puzzle that has so far defied proper explanation lies in the fact that the names of the letters, both in Phoenician and Greek, are ill-explained in either language. Another problem resides in the fact that the objects portrayed in the glyphs, when they can be identified, hardly correspond to their Semitic names, as noted by many authorities.

Our research has shown that the Phoenician alphabet presents compelling links with others such as the Egyptian and the Brahmi alphabets, a fact that is hard to explain via the current theory on its origin in Semitic countries. Moreover, we have also found that the glyphs’ shapes and names may be closely explained in Dravida, the Indian family of languages. This tends to suggest that the alphabet was invented by these people, probably in the magnificent Indus Valley Civilization.

According to our suggestion, the alphabet was apparently imported from this region by the Phoenician traders, who brought it to the Mediterranean region. The trade between the Indus Valley region and the Near East, both naval and on camelback, via the Silk Road, is now known to have been active since the earliest epochs. This commerce provides a possible route for the importation of the alphabet, along with the other specialties imported from the East Indies.

 

Introduction

As Einstein pointed out, theories, scientific or not, are free inventions of the human mind. As such, they are always tentative and provisory approximations to the truth, and are hence never definitive. Like living beings, in constant evolution, the fate of theories is to be substituted by ever better, more thorough explanations, at the measure that new evidence develops. Scientific theories, in contrast to metaphysical or mathematical ones, must accord to the empirical evidence, and are to be permanently tested against other contending theories in order to check which of them provides the best explanation of the known facts. If they are found at fault, or less fit, they are to be substituted by the newer, better theories, regardless of how well-established they formerly seemed to be.

It is in this spirit that we now present our new theory on the origins of the alphabet, which we find far more consonant with what is now known on this obscure matter. We hope that our proposal will stir up a revision of the whole issue, even if it ultimately proves that we are wrong and that the current opinion is indeed the one that best explains the available evidence. But, as we argue in the present work, we have found compelling evidence that an Indian origin of the alphabet provides a far better explanation of the presently available evidence, particularly in what concerns the names and the shapes of the alphabetic glyphs, which are far from clear at the present time.

To start with, the Phoenicians were a matter-of-fact people who loved to engage in practical matters such as naval exploits and commerce, rather than on purely intellectual, “armchair” adventures like phonetic research. The invention of the alphabet – that wonderful device for the expression and the recording of thoughts – requires an advanced knowledge of sciences such as Phonetics which the ancient Phoenicians obviously lacked. Moreover, there are great inconsistencies between the names of the letters and their shapes, and many of these names do not apparently seem to be originally Semitic, as will become apparent next.

The relationship between the Egyptian and the Phoenician alphabets is undeniable, even though the date and the circumstances of the passage from one to the other have always been something of a mystery. Likewise unclear is the passage of the Phoenician alphabet to the Greek one, which can be positively be placed before 800 B. C. or so. Since Greek retained about 50% of the Semitic names and shapes with only slight alterations, it seems that its alphabet in fact derives from theirs, as consensually admitted by researchers. The problem is establishing when and where this transference took place, as the story of Cadmus is clearly purely mythical.

According to Naveh, the Greek alphabet derived from a proto-Canaanite script before 1050 B.C.. Naveh also argues that the proto-Canaanite alphabet developed by about 1700 B.C., that the Phoenician alphabet derived from it by about 1100 B.C., and that the Hebrew alphabet derived from the Phoenician one by about 800 B.C. He adds that the Aramaic alphabet also derived from the Phoenician one at about 700 BC, that the Latin alphabet derived from the Greek one by 650 BC, and that the square Hebrew alphabet derived from Aramaic one in 200 BC or so.

Bernal, in turn, argues that the Greek alphabet was borrowed from an early Semitic alphabet having 28 letters between 1750 and 1400 B.C., and that the Phoenician alphabet also derived from the same source at about the same time or slightly earlier. Bernal adds that the order of the Greek letters was that documented for the (long) Ugaritic alphabet that also derived from this source, and that this number of letters was later reduced to the familiar 22, though the archaic Greek alphabets preserved 27 of these 28 letters. According to him, early in the first millennium B.C., the Greeks reorganized their alphabet to accord to the Phoenician one, moving the non-Phoenician letters to the end, and renaming their letter after their Phoenician names (aleph > alpha; beth > beta, etc.).

As is clear, no two experts agree on the matter of who borrowed from whom and at what date this borrowing actually took place. Moreover, though several similarities are undeniable, the actual differences among the different alphabets are also quite palpable. Hence, their origin may perhaps be better explained by the fact that both the Greek and the Semitic peoples actually borrowed their alphabets from a common source, adapting them for their own use and the nature of their respective tongues. The passage from Egyptian to Semitic poses an even greater problem. Though obviously imitated, none of the Egyptian phonetic signs were actually copied by the Phoenicians. If Egyptian was the true source, why did they not just copy and adapt these sounds, as the Greeks did? Again, this fact suggests a different source for the Phoenician alphabet, not impossibly the same one earlier utilized by the Egyptians themselves.

 

An ideographic letter or ideogram is actually a schematic representation of that object or thing. It should portray a familiar object so as to be readily recognized by all. Though this correspondence is not really necessary, it is highly desirable in practice, as it renders memorization far easier in practice. And it should be as easy to draw as possible, in order to allow speed in writing. Egyptian hieroglyphs are beautiful things to watch, as anyone knows. However, they require not only art and a lot of training on the part of the scribe, but also take a lot of time to write out. It was for this reason that the ancient Egyptians actually had three different systems of writing: hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic (or popular).

This simplification of the actual glyphs renders them difficult to interpret in practice unless there is a perfect continuity with the earliest forms of the script when the representation was still figurative rather than schematic. Cracking the code of what object or thing is really represented in a given glyph such as the ones of the alphabet is often difficult in practice, and is often inconsistent with the shape in question. But this decoding is important for the determination of the actual source of the glyph in question, as it renders possible the collation of the shape and the name or sound of the glyph, which should be acrophonic of the object portrayed.

Take, for instance, the case of the vaw sign in Semitic alphabets, some of which are shown in Fig 1. The object portrayed is usually said to be a nail, a hook, or a peg (treenail). But its shape, as represented in the alphabets shown, and in most others, is clearly incompatible with this function. The glyph certainly does not evoke the idea of a “hook”, and, even less, that of a nail. In fact, its shape suggests a fork or a tree branch and is clearly unsuited for being pushed with a finger or a hammer, or for hanging clothes on or for fishing, etc.. In fact, the vaw has an esoteric connection with the cross as an instrument of torture that is clearly incompatible with the shape displayed by the glyph.

 

Fig. 1 -Ancient SemiticAlphabets (Février, Hist. Écrit. Pg. 209)

 

Hercules, Linus, Cadmus and the Origin of the alphabet

We comment the Greek sources on the origin of the alphabet in more detail in Appendix I below. According to the main Greek traditions, Cadmus, the Phoenician, introduced the alphabet to them. The Greeks also gave several different accounts of the origin of the alphabet, which they called Φοινικήια γράμματα (“Phoenician letters”), whose introduction they attributed not only to Cadmus, but also to Linus, to Phoinix, to Orpheus, to Abraham, to Seth, to Phoinike, to the Phoenicians, and so on. In fact, the “Phoenicians” in question here seem to be the Indians, as we argue next. The word grammata is related to the radix graph– (“to draw”)], as can be seen in LSJ.

Cadmus is, of course, a purely legendary hero. So is Linus, the poet, who seems to be an alias of Orpheus himself. Apollodorus makes both Linus and Orpheus the sons of the muse Calliope by Apollo (Lib. 1:14-15). In one of the versions of the myth on the origin of the alphabet, Linus received the useful invention from Cadmus, and adapted it to Greek usage, adding the vowels and reshaping and renaming its letters that later became standardized.

The etymology of the name of Linus is controversial, just as are those of Orpheus and of Cadmos. Linus was a great poet and musician, like Orpheus. A son of Apollo, Linus was held to have been the instructor of Hercules and Iphicles in both music and the arts, writing included. Linus’mother was, as we just said, the muse Calliope or, according to others, Terpsichore.

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Some say Linus was also the instructor of Orpheus and other heroes as well and that he invented the arts of music, poetry and harmony, of which he was the very personification. We believe that the names of Linus, Cadmus and Orpheus derive, along with the alphabet, from Dravidian sources, as we now argue in some detail. Cf. also the comments on the matter we give below, in Appendix I, where we quote the main Greco-Roman sources on the matter.

According to Junito Brandão – perhaps the greatest authority on the matter ever – “the etymology of the name of Linus is obscure, and the name is perhaps of Oriental origin”. The Greek common substantive linos derives from the one of Linus and meant, in ancient Greek: “a sad, mourning song, a lamentation”. This word is said to be of Egyptian origin, and originally meant a mourning hymn sung at the festival commemorating the early, sorrowful death of Linus. This festival seems akin to the ritual lamentations for Osiris and for Tammuz which we encounter in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.

These festivals also related to the similarly tragic death of Dionysos Zagreus, murdered and cannibalized by the Titans while still an infant or the one of Pan, the great pagan god. Dionysos is an Indian god as is well-known among the experts. So, this connection again provides a clue for the Indian origin not only of Linus and Orpheus, his alias but also of the alphabet, his own invention. Orphism – the Mystery cult of the Orphics is Tantric in nature and also derives from India, as we argue in detail elsewhere. In fact, the name of Bacchus (Dionysos) is directly derived from the Skt. bhakti, itself connected to omophagia, the central and most mysterious ritual of Orphism.

The connection of linos and Linus with mourning songs is extremely ancient. The word figures in this sense in Homer (Il. 18:570) and in Herodotus (2:79). The word is also related to ailinos (“a melancholic mourning song or hymn”) and perhaps to *aulinos, derived from auleô (“to play the flute”). This is itself of unknown origin (? < aF = “to blow”?), and may ultimately be derived from the onomatopoeic howling of a dog. So, the name of Linus apparently derives from *aulinos (or ailinos) and means something like “flutist”, “howler”.

The myth of the flutist is extremely ancient. It is in fact an allegory of the Primordial Castration and as such is found not only in Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, but also all over the Near Orient and the East Indies. His giant “flute” is in fact his phallus, castrated and turned into his flute. This interesting myth is also found in the New World, as we argue elsewhere in detail. In India, the Flutist is Shiva or, according to some, Krishna himself. In North America, he is Kokopeli, the hunchback god of music and fertility of the Hopis and the Navajos. In South America, he is called Jurupari, and is symbolized by his giant flute phallus. In Australia, his name becomes associated with the Didjeridu, also a giant flute phallus.

Everywhere this cult of the flute is sacred and secret, often associated with Mystery rituals and the rhombus (bull-roarer), another instrument consecrated to Dionysos. In fact, the two instruments may well correspond to the mysterious pukku and mikku of Gilgamesh, which are also mysteriously connected to Tammuz, the castrated god of the ancient Mesopotamians. Above all, the myth pertains to Shiva, the phallic god who was also castrated after he ended the creative process, and to Krishna, his Aryan counterpart in Indian religious traditions.

Even more exactly, the mystery in question here is connected with the demise of Atlantis in the Primordial Conflagration. The myth of the Primordial Castration in fact alludes to the collapse of Mt. Atlas which exploded and collapsed into its own voided magma chamber, becoming a giant caldera. The volcanic peak was considered the Phallus of the World, just as the giant caldera it became was later commemorated as the Cosmic Vagina. In fact, the two objects are also commemorated as the Yoni and the Lingam, the two central objects of Hindu cults.

In Argos, the poet Linus was commemorated, along with Psamate, his mother, in a ritual where wailing songs were sung and all loose dogs were killed. This connection with dogs is extremely interesting. It again evokes the one we just argued of the name of Linus with “howling dogs”. In fact, these “dogs” may well be seadogs (seals), another animal closely linked not only with Apollo and Dionysos but also with Atlantis itself. These “seadogs” are the counterpart of the giant sea-serpent that is no other than the giant immortal phallus of the god thrown down into the sea and acquiring a life all its own.

Though farfetched, the etymology just given was probably in the mind of the composer of the myth of Linus as a “haline” personage. This name brings to mind the ones of Alkinoos and Alkyone and Alkyoneus. Alkinoos the king of the Phaecians whom we have identified to the Atlanteans, as we argued in detail elsewhere. Alcyone (halcyon), the “daughter” of Atlas is one of the Pleiades. Her name is often derived from hals (“sea”) + kuôn (“to be pregnant”). But this etymology is contested as popular by Brandão, the above one being far more likely.

Alcyone may well be an alias of Alcmene, the mother of Hercules. Her name, somewhat obscure, probably derives from alk-mene (“residing in the sea”), more or less synonymous with the popular etymon of Alcyone just given. What he means is Atlantis, as “the island in the middle of the sea”. Alkyoneus is one of the Giants, serpentine monsters akin to the Titans. He is the eldest of the Giants and was born of the phallus of Ouranos castrated by Kronos. The connection with seals (seadogs) and the phallus turned into a giant sea serpent brings to mind the myth of Shesha.

The Serpent Shesha is also the same as the giant fish (Matsya) who rescued Manu from the Flood. As such he is also Kama, who is no other than Shiva’s giant phallus cast into the sea, and turned into some sort of Leviathan. Psamathe (“the sandy one”) is the very personification of an atoll or dvipa, a sinking island (like Atlantis). She is the other, female serpent, of the pair associated with the caduceus, the uraeus, etc.. The myth of Linus and Psamathe, his mother and lover is also a variant of the myth of Atlantis.

Better yet, it refers to the twin Atlantises whose myth we tell in detail elsewhere. The Virgin Mother and her Wondrous Son are recurrent mythological personages who figure in essentially all traditions. In Judeo-Christianity they correspond to the Virgin Mary and her son, Jesus Christ, both of which are really deified personifications of Atlantis. The twin Atlantises are in fact one and the same in two consecutive avatars. We discuss this myth in great detail elsewhere, as well as on our Atlantis

Homepage, so that we do not have to redo this discussion here.

Suffice it to say that the first Atlantis –our Great Mother – was destroyed by Toba’s fiery conflagration some 75,000 years ago, whereas the second one was destroyed at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. In Amerindian mythology, the Virgin Mother is Changing Woman and her many aliases, whereas her wondrous son (or twin sons) is the Fallen Sun who impersonates Atlantis. Her periodic renewal, so like that of serpents molting their old skins or Hera regaining her virginity after the baptismal washing of the Flood, in fact, represents the one of Atlantis-Eden, consecutively purified by the Dispensations of Fire and Water just mentioned.

This myth is indeed central to all religions, both “primitive” and “advanced”. Such is the case of Hinduism, Buddhism, and, above all, Judeo-Christianism as well. In India, the myth of two fishes – the ones we find crossed in usual Christian symbolism or harpooned, etc., in this and other religious symbols – is given as that of Matsya (male) and Matsyâ (female), also commemorated as twin fishes or as Mother and Son, just as in other religious traditions.

But the two often become the twin nagas of the caduceus and other such Hindu symbols. It is certainly no coincidence that Jesus and Dionysos, to name a few, are both represented as fishes, (Fig. XXX), often twin and crossed. The “crossing” symbolizes sexual union, as well as the very symbol of Atlantis itself as the true site of the yoni-lingam and its many, bewildering aliases

 

Fig. XXX –

(a) – Christian Cross Guarded by Two Fishes (6th. Century) Dict. Symb. Chrétiens, pg. 153, left)

(b) – Dolphin Impaled on an Anchor (Disguised Cross) (Dict. Symb. Chrétiens, pg. 58) (c) – Dolphin Impaled on a Trident (Idem) (ibid., pg. 179)

(d) – Twin Fishes Forming the Cross (ibid., pg. 153, right)

(e) – Hindu Caduceus (Nagakal) (Dict. Civ. Ind., pg. 435)

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It is certainly no coincidence that heroes or gods such as Dionysos, Apollo, Cadmus, Hercules and so forth are connected with dragons (or serpents or dolphins, etc.). Cadmus is famous for having killed the dragon. Hercules kills (or maims) the dragon of the Hesperides in order to get the Elixir. Apollo kills the Delphine, the terrible dragon of Delphi, who is an alias or dual of Python, also defeated by the solar god. Dionysos was often identified with the dolphin. So was Apollo, as we already said. As such, the gods were considered the saviors of men, a role often ascribed the dolphins. Such is also the case of whales, witness the one of Jonas.

Psamathe, the mother (and probable lover) of Linus is herself the very personification of a sea-monster or serpent. There are in fact two heroines called by that name, and probably esoterically identical. The first was a Nereid (marine deity) who, united to Eacus, mothered Phocos. This name means “seal, seadog”. According to the legend, the Nereid changed herself into several animals, to escape Eacus. The last shape was that of a seal, in which the love affair was consumed. the second was loved by Apollo, a god, and hence technically a “virgin”, she became the mother of the famous poet.

Fearing the ire of her father, Psamathe exposed the boy. The baby was rescued by some shepherds, but their dogs later devoured it. The irate father eventually discovered the affair and buried the unfortunate girl alive. Apollo got angry at the double death and sent a monstrous serpent to ravage the country. Its name was Pene, and its habit was one of devouring the children as soon as they were born. The name means “punishment” in Greek and corresponds to the Latin poena. In fact, it also plays with “penis” (Lat. penem) and expresses the connection with the castrated phallus of the god.

As usual, the “virgin birth” of the hero, his early death and the connection with the marine serpents or dragons are themes esoterically connected with Atlantis all over the world. Here, the burying alive of the heroine symbolizes the similar fate of Atlantis itself. So does the one of their becoming sea serpents and marine deities, another usual symbol of Atlantis. The dolphin is often made the totem of Poseidon, the founder of Atlantis and alias of Atlas himself.

Cadmus and the Indian Origin of the Alphabet

We believe that the name of Φοινικήια γράμματα [“Phoenician letters”] given in the Sudas Lexicon [see Appendix I below] provides the correct clue to the true origin of the Greek alphabet. As can be seen in LSJ, and as stated here, the word “Phoenician” also means “of the date palm”. Now, the Indians, as also most other peoples of the Far East, wrote their holy books on date palm stems [ola], in fact very adequate for the purpose. We believe that the name of Cadmus – which has no satisfactory etymology in Greek – ultimately derives from the ola palms used for writing in ancient India, and which was called by names such as #App. 23/24 kad– (“ola palm leaf, paper, canvas used for writing, parchment, stylus for writing”).

This base word also means the basket used for keeping the ola leafs, called kodama, kodame, kottam, kuttan, etc. (Kal.#1817). The first root, kad-, is probably related to #1122 kad– (“an animal skin used to sit or write on”); #1123 kad– (“male of cattle, sheep or ram”); #1170 gad– (“stylus used for writing on palm leaves”);

The Dravidian base kad– or kat– has several etyma which play with the myth of Cadmus as some sort of Dravidian “signature” of the myth: “basket, chest” (used for keeping the olas, the basket used by Cadmus to cross the sea, etc.); “cow” (the cow followed by Cadmus); “skin” (the parchment used for writing); “crossing over on a ship” (Cadmus crossed the sea from Phoenicia on a ship).

Moreover, we also have the same Dravidian root with the meanings of: “hero” (Cadmus was a dragon-slaying hero); “to bite” (the teeth sown by Cadmus); “clever” (Cadmus was a cunning master at several arts); “palm tree” (phoinix, Phoenicia, etc.); “lament” (the ritual lamentation for Linus); “basket” (the basket for storing ola leaves); “the Sun” (the connection with Apollo, the fallen sun); “to sacrifice” (the sacrificed cow); “neck, windpipe (the flute, the howling dogs); “ritual ablution” (the purificatory ablutions of Cadmus after killing the dragon); “troublesome, fighter” (the “Spartans” sown by Cadmus); “to write (kut-, kud-; writing introduced by Cadmus); “to lie” (Cadmus was held to be a

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liar, like all Phoenicians); “love, harmony” (the connection with Harmonia); “beard” (strangely enough, dragons normally have beards); “to sting” (serpents are normally called “stingers”).

We also note that, in Hindu mythology, Kadru is the name of the wife of Kashyapa, and the two are the ancestors of a race of nagas (serpents), who inhabited the Patala, a sort of paradisial hell. This evokes the myth of Cadmus and Harmonia turned into serpents (or dragons) and coming to inhabit the Isle of the Blest, the Greek counterpart of Patala, which is no other than Atala, that is, sunken Atlantis. The etymology of the name of Kadru is obscure, and probably derives from the Dravida, as is so often the case with such onomastics.

The name of Kadru means “red, tawny”, which is more or less synonymous with “Phoenician”, the other name of Cadmus. The name is said by Monier to be derived from the radix kav– or kab– (“to color, paint, compose, draw”), itself derived from the Dravida #1490 kavi (“red ochre, cloth dyed with red ochre, for painting on”). We recall that the etymology of “to write” is related to “to draw”, so that Kadru seems to be the goddess associated with writing and drawing in India (Sarasvati). In fact, the script introduced by Sarasvati is called devanagari, a word perhaps related to naga, though said to be derived from nagari (“city”), a name that may refer to Atlantis, known as “the City”.

Several other etymons could be further adduced. But their explanation would demand too much space, which is at a premium here, so that the above must suffice for now. It is clear that the above list is far more than a coincidence. Those who may think otherwise, are invited to try to do the same in their own languages, and to see how many fits they are able to obtain. We calculated the a priori odds against that, and each match has about 1 in 1,000 chance, unless the tongues are directly related to Dravida which is unrelated to Indo-European, according to linguists.

Cadmus as an Alias of Hercules, the Phoenician Hero

With that said, we turn to the second half of Cadmus’ name: –mus. This is again pure Dravida, and means several different things connected with the myth of the Phoenician hero. To start with, we have #5030 muč- (“to bring together, gather, join, throng, herd, enclose”). Hence, we form kad-muč-(“to herd cattle”), just as in the name of Gadeiros, Govinda, Hercules and other such cow-herders. Interesting enough, the Phoenicians, though skilled navigators, were not noted as cowboys, since their hilly land is unfit for the purpose.

Few livestock is supported in Lebanon, and is essentially confined to smaller animals such as poultry, goats and lambs. In other words, local conditions in Phoenicia preclude the local importance of pastoral gods, and we have to seek the origin of the myth of Hercules-Gadeiros elsewhere, despite the apparently Semitic origin of his name. By the way, we note that the name of Gadeiros, often claimed to be Phoenician, is really Dravidian in origin.

The radix kad– of gad– means “cattle”, as before. And -eiros, pronounced “iros”, derives from the Dravida #480 iru (“to keep in a place, dwell, reside, stay, be stable”). This word exactly corresponds to the idea of “stall, stable”, as a place where cattle is kept enclosed (that is, fixed to a place) as in the Latin stâre (“to stand”) and the IE stâ- (idem). So, the Dravidian etymon of the name of Gadeiros corresponds to “one who keeps or owns cattle (that is, animals) attached to his household”. In other words, a cattle-herder, like Govinda-Gadeiros.

The idea here is more that of an owner of cattle than really a cowboy, who works at it. In fact, the name closely evokes the myth of Gada and Agada (“Cattle-Rich” and “Cattle-Poor), the name given to the Ashvin Twins in Sanskrit, the holy tongue of ancient India. Some authorities, quoted in Appendix I below, affirm that the name of Cadmus derives from the Semitic kadmon meaning “Easterner, Oriental”. In fact, the hero’s name closely evokes the one of Adam Kadmon and that of Eden as the “garden in the Orient” (Gen. 2:8).

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The Meaning of the Word “Orient”

The word “Orient” is not really a direction, but a region: the Far East, the Land of Dawn. Now, Dawn is Aurora (Ushas), the female half of Shiva himself. Her name means “rosy” or “ruddy” in Sanskrit. And she is the same rhodacktylos Eos (“rosy-fingered Aurora”) insistently evoked by Homer in the Odyssey. This is also the meaning of the name of Taprobane, the very site of Eden, as we demonstrate in detail elsewhere. Again, Taprobane is indeed the same as the sunken continent (Atala). Atala or Hades is, in turn, no other than Atlantis-Eden itself, turned into the Land of the Dead after its destruction.And Taprobane is indeed Indonesia, the India extra Gangem.

The name of Adam also means “ruddy, ochre, laterite, red clay”, more or less like the names of Cadmus, Kadmon and Kadru. And we believe that this etymology has, in fact, to do with his name Adam Kadmon, which is “easterner”, as we just argued. We also believe that the above radix kab– (or kav-) also forms the name of the Cabeiri, the mysterious Samothracian deities worshipped not only there but also in Thebes, Lemnos and so on. Needless to say, Lemnos is the site connected with some very mysterious Etruscan alphabetical inscriptions, as well as with the goddess Ilithyia, whose myth we comment in detail elsewhere. In myths, this “Orient” is Ethiopia, alias Taprobane, the Land of Dawn which Ulysses and other heroes such as the Argonauts visited in the Far East.

Cadmus was also confusedly called Cadmilus, held to be the chief Cabeiros. And the Cabeiri were said to have introduced the arts to Greece, including agriculture, metallurgy, the thoreutic arts, the alphabet, and so on. In later times, the Cabeiri became identified to the Twins, Castor and Pollux. In some versions, they are likened to Hermes and Apollo and, more obscurely, to Hercules and Dionysos and other such pairs of twin gods.Above all, the Cabeiri are the fallen angels, the Gibborim (or Giants or Nephelim) who are no other than theAtlanteans themselves.

The Cabeiri are in fact, Phoenician deities. So are Hercules and Herakles, whom Marcel Bréal (Hércule et Caccus, Paris, 1865) showed to be as different as the Greeks and the Romans were one from the other. In fact, Hercules and Herakles are duals and twins, just as are Atlas and Gadeiros, their other selves, according to Plato’s Timaeus. Hercules and Herakles are the Greco-Roman counterparts of Baal Melkhart. And Baal and Baalit in turn derive from Krishna and Bala (Balarama), the archetypal Twins of the Hindu traditions.

A text from the Suda Lexicon (s.v. “Abraham”) which we quote and comment further below in Appendix I affirms that Abraham, the Chaldee, introduced the alphabet to the Greeks:

“First among the patriarchs… Abraham came from the land of the Chaldeans, who devoted their entire lives to the stars and heavenly bodies. Abraham was trained, as was their ancestral custom, to observe the motions of the heavenly bodies… Abraham invented sacred writing and devised the language of which Hebrew children used to have a command, as they were this man’s followers and descendants. Moreover, the Greek alphabet received its impetus from this script, and the Greeks went on to variously adapt this writing method to their own purposes. Proof of this is in the pronunciation of the first and preeminent letter “alpha” because it derives its name from the Hebrew ‘aleph’ by way of the Blessed, First, and Eternal Name”.

The Suda also gives other three sources – Phoenicia, Chalcidia and Miletus – for the Greek alphabet, which we quote and comment in Appendix I. Here we have yet a fourth account of the origin of the Greek alphabet: Chaldea, that is, from Mesopotamia. Now, this is strange, as Chaldea is substantially away from Phoenicia (Lebanon), and would hardly be confused with it by the Byzantines. Moreover, Mesopotamia used a cuneiform script, rather than a cursive one down to about 600 BC or so. So, how can it be held that the Phoenician alphabet originated in Chaldea?

The answer is rather simple.

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The “Chaldea” in question here is not really Mesopotamia, but an entirely different location. The name of Chaldea – from the Greek Chaldaia, Assyrian Kaldu, Babylonian Kasdu, Hebrew Kasddim – is of obscure meaning. In fact, the word derives from the same root as Cadmus (or Cadmilus or Casmilus) and as Adam Kadmon which, as we just argued really means “easterner”. In fact, all these “reds” or “ruddies” are connected with the idea of “Orient”: Adam, Kadmon, Cadmus, Cadmilus, Chaldees, Phoinix, Phoenicians, and so forth.

Taprobane as the Site of Eden

The idea of “red one” in fact derives from the Dravidian radix kad– (or kav– or kab-) which passed into the Hebrew as kadmon and, more secludedly, as the name of Adam Kadmon himself. This root often changes into kald-, particularly in Dravida, where it originated. Such is also the meaning of the name of Taprobane (Tamraparna = “copper colored”), of Erythea (“ruddy one”) of Rhodopis (idem), of Ushas (Dawn), of the Phoenicians, and so on. In fact, red is the heraldic color of the Dravidas, held to be the original Kshatryas, in contrast to the brahmanical Aryans, whose heraldic color is white. Theirs is the epithet “red” which we find in a great many tongues designating the red races such as the Phoenicians, the Tocarians, the Amorites, the Guanches, and so on.

In fact, the name derives from one of the real Taprobane (in Indonesia) as the “Land of Gold”. This is also the same as the Suvarnabhumi (“Land of Gold”) or Suvarnadvipa (“Island of Gold”) of Hindu traditions, whose Latin name was Aurea Chersonesos and the Greek one Chryse Chersonesos (both literally meaning “Peninsula of Gold”). Indonesia was also called Eoos (“Oriental”) by the Greeks and the Romans. The “peninsula” in question is the Malay Peninsula. In an alternative derivation, the name of Eden may be derived from the Drav. endi– (“fiery”) and related forms. These correlate with the Hebrew edom (“red”), the name of Esau. In other words, Esau, the ruddy hero is in fact a Phoenician “red”.

Now, the name of Chersonesus would never fit Sri Lanka, hardly a peninsula at all. This region was also named Taprobane in Greek, a name derived from the Skt. Tamraparna, which can also be derived from Dravida as tamara-parana meaning “land of gold”. In Sanskrit the metal invoked is copper (tamra) or tin or bronze (tamara). All these are ruddy metals and were hardly produced in Sri Lanka, in contrast to Indonesia, where these metals abound even today, with the world’s largest gold and tin mines being located there. By any standards, Sri Lanka is a second rate Taprobane, as we argue in detail elsewhere.

Coincidentally enough, the “red” (or coppery) races” such as the Phoenicians, the Tocharians, the Amorites, the Canaanites, and so forth are also originally from this region of the world, further supporting the etymology just given. And this is further enhanced by the fact that the region is in fact considered the Far Orient, the Land of Dawn where the sun starts, by convention, its daily journey. In other words, Indonesia was the site of Lanka, the International Dateline of ancient traditions. This name survives in the region, for instance as the one of Japan, the Land of Sunrise (Cipango).

This region is also called “Ethiopia” in ancient traditions, for instance in Homer, speaks of two Ethiopias, one in the Far West (Africa) and the other in the Far East (Indonesia), as we also argue in detail elsewhere. In the Far East lived the Pious Ethiopians, dear to the gods, according to the great bard himself. And these Pious Ethiopians were in fact no other than the Atlanteans themselves. In fact, their name means something like “red”, though facetiously interpreted otherwise by the Greeks, who affirm that it means “charred faces” and applied the name to the blacks in general.

Far more exactly, the word is be derived from an IE radix aith– (“to burn, be fiery”) + ops (“face, countenance”). Hence, the Ethiopians are indeed “the fiery countenanced” that is, the “reds”. In biblical terms, they are the Chams, whose name also derives from the idea of “flame” (Port. chama, Drav. čan, etc.). In fact, this base has to do with the idea “dog” or, more exactly, the Indian red dog (Cuon alpinus) the probable ancestor of the domestic canines. Again, the word also relates to the ferocious Indonesian volcanoes and the fiery gods such as Hephaistos and Phaëthon whom these guys used to worship in connection with the Fallen Sun.

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The Pious Ethiopians of the Far East – whom Pliny and others place in Taprobane and affirms to be fair-haired and blue-eyed – are indeed the Tocharians, some sort of Far Eastern ancestors of the Indo-Europeans. From Taprobane they gained China via south East Asia, and established themselves in Mongolia and the Tarim Basin region. The name of the Tocharians in turn also means “red ones”, from the Dravida tukkara or *tokkara (“red”). All these etymologies are exact, and can hardly be easily refuted. I provided the proofs, and it is incumbent on those who allege them to be false to provide the counter-proofs that invalidates them, as required by scientific ethics and moral.

Avienus’Description of Taprobane

The text of Avienus quoted at the head of the present chapter deserves further comments, as it provides important clues to the true location and status of Taprobane. Avienus had ample access to secret documents now lost and is hence rich in information for those who are able to read his somewhat obscure poems. We quote that passage in more extended form here, and add the applicable comments to it, as it is crucial for a good understanding of what Taprobane’s real location really was, and the implications this has for a true comprehension of the ancient traditions on it.

Avienus was born in Volsena, at the very heart of Etruscan territory. As an Etruscan noble, Avienus had access to secret Etruscan documents now lost or hidden away somewhere. Among these secret documents are the “Phoenician” pleripluses that Avienus quotes extensively, including the ones of Himilco, Hanno Pytheas of Marseille, Skylax of Caryanda and others such. The name of Himilco is a Greek rendition of the Phoenician Chimilkat (“brother of Melkhart”). Now, Melkhart is Hercules (Gadeiros) himself. And his brother is Atlas, according to Plato.

So, what his name is esoterically disclosing to the initiates is that these pleripluses and maps came directly from Atlantis itself. In fact, Himilco is said to be the brother of Hanno, and to have traveled at about the same time as him, one towards the north, the other one towards the south. Hence, it seems that Hanno was truly Atlas himself. In fact, it seems that Hanno’s name (Channon, in Phoenician) is really the same as Cham (or Ham), that is, the “red one” himself.

This type of document is generally full of esoterisms, and is very difficult, as they are intended for the initiates only, and hence written in a coded form that fails to make sense to the inquisitive, unauthorized profanes. We comment on the Ora Maritima and the Periplus of Hanno in detail elsewhere, and the interested reader is directed to these works of ours. Suffice it to say here that the Hanno in fact visited the East Indies (Indonesia), and that the red “gorillas” he captured there are indeed orangutans.

Gorillas are black, and orangutans are red. The name “gorillas” was improperly applied by a European explorer of Africa familiar with Hanno’s Periplus. Avienus too is, in his Ora, describing the features of the Indonesian coasts as they were during the Ice Ages. He does this in esoteric terms and bases himself on esoteric information he got from secret documents dating from Atlantean times. In his Periegesis the description of Indonesia becomes less surreal, as he is doing it in present terms, as these coasts are now. But he also uses the traditional initiatic language, and the important messages and clues are disguised and can only be understood by the initiates themselves.

The below explanations are a sample of the way in which this information must be exegeted. Many of the terms used by Avienus are standard “technical terms” in the esoteric literature and can only be recognized by the initiates and the experts familiar with this terminology. For instance, the “abundance of whales” figures in Homer’s Odyssey (12:98) in nearly the same way that it figures in the above passage of Avienus.

But the sloppy translations which we just mentioned disfigure the passage, and render it utterly meaningless, as they only speak of “seamonsters” The result is that sacred texts such as these soon become as nonsensical as Hanno’s “red gorillas”. As we argue in detail elsewhere, Ulysses in fact sailed the South Seas, and the region here described by Homer is exactly the one being described by Avienus, the one around Taprobane.

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My Commentary on Avienus’ Text

The text of Avienus’Periegesis just mentioned is as follows, in our English translation from the Latin source just linked, and quoted at the head of the present chapter::

“There, where the day is born and the sun rises, resplendent with gold and tinging the waves with a ruddy color, lies the Oriental Ocean [Eoum pelagus]. There, it is said, are located the straits [freta] of the Indian Sea… There, the Ganges discharges its fast-flowing abundance of waters and the Indian peoples celebrate the feasts of Dionysos Dissolver [Lyaeus]… There, rising above the blue waves is the land called old the Island of Gold [Insula Aurea] because there the golden disk of the sun first reddens the skies. Note how the sea there bends towards the south, heading into the straits of the blue Ocean Sea [Oceanus freta ponti caerula curvet]. The lofty back of the Colias Rock you will now see, an enormous fortress stretched on its summit. In front, presenting its immense mass above the waters, the island of Taprobane produces terrible elephants. Above it burns the fiery constellation of Cancer. It extends, is immense, and deploys everywhere over the seas its vast shores. Its coasts are frequently sported by huge schools of whales, vagrant monsters of the deep”.

A close comparison with the texts of Homer’s Odyssey just quoted and our exegesis of Odysseus’travels will show that the regions in question are in fact identical, down to a matter of detail. But what interests us here is the true location of Taprobane and its connection with Atlantis-Eden. First of all, note that Avienus is disclosing that the sun is born in the region of Taprobane itself. And that region is, in Hindu traditions, the one of Lanka itself, the International Dateline of remotest epochs such as the one of Atlantis.

Avienus also affirms that the region is the Land of Dawn, that is, the one of Rhododaktylos Eos (“Rosy-fingered Aurora”) so often mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey. Indonesia was called Eoos (“Oriental”) by both the Greeks and the Romans. This word is synonymous with Eos, the Greek name of Dawn or Aurora, the goddess of morning.

Her Hindu name is Ushas, a word related to the Greek Eos, meaning “shiny, fiery, ruddy”. Hence the connection with the “reds”, who had in her their great goddess. The Eoos Okeanos of the Greeks (Eous Pelagus, in Latin) is really the Indian Ocean, the one of the East Indies. The Occidental Ocean is in fact the Atlantic, which the Greeks and Romans generally considered coterminous with the Pacific, ignoring the interposedAmericas separating the two.

This mistake – of course never done by the initiates like Plato – was indeed the same one made by Columbus, who never really understood the ancient traditions on the matter, like most people. Hence, the sunset in the Atlantic Ocean at the day’s end crossed it back to the Far East during the night, and rose again there, in order to start the new day. The Atlantic and the Pacific were the fearful nocturnal ocean no one dared to navigate, except the almighty gods such as Ra, Shamash, and other such personifications of the Sun God.

The straits [freta] of the Indian Sea [Indica ponti] is indeed the Strait of Malacca, the one of which Homer equates with Scylla and Charybdis, and describes to be as narrow as a bowshot, as it indeed was. So much so, that the ancient robber barons often put an iron chain across it to prevent the ships from crossing without paying the dues. The Ganges river in fact pours its mighty waters in that Ocean, the region usually called Bay of Bengal. This location hardly fits the one of Sri Lanka, far to the south and really outside that oceanic bay.

Dionysos Dissolver (Lyaios or Lyaeus) is usually called Liber (“Loosener”) in Latin. The connection is with the Flood which dissolves all things at the end of an era, preparing it for the new one that is about to start. In fact, the connection is with Shiva and the Pralaya (“Dissolution”), a

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Sanskrit word derived from the same root (laya = lyaios). As we said above, Dionysos is an alias of Shiva, and is now known to have originated in India, as even the Greco-Roman authors themselves affirm. Of course, the real meaning of the expression is disguised by exoteric explanations intended to stray from the profane, as we just said.

So are the meaning of the rituals such as the Phallophoria where a most respectable matron was made to kiss and crown a giant phallus representing the god (emblem of both Shiva and Dionysos) and others such as the dissolution of wine in water, the swinging of Dionysos’effigy, etc..

The “Indian people celebrating the feast of Dionysos” are indeed the same as the Pious Ethiopians of Homer. The feast of Dionysos corresponds to the Phallophoria and the Liberalia of the Greeks and the Romans. These feasts were usually terminated by great banquets partly dedicated to the gods. As Homer affirms in the Odyssey, the gods themselves attended the banquets that the Pious Ethiopians offered them at the world’s end, the region of Taprobane.

What this feast really commemorates is the Great Sacrifice of the Flood, where a great quantity of flesh is offered to the vultures and other such scavengers. This motif is recurrent in myths and rites such as Holy Communion, as we explain elsewhere. Terrible, terrible disclosures concerning our past which only survive as myths and rites whose true meaning has long been utterly forgotten by all, but the guardians of truth are entrusted with their safekeeping for the proper occasion.

The “Island of Gold” [Aurea Insula] is the Aurea Chersonesus or Chryse Chersonesos that we already mentioned. This is the traditional name of Indonesia and Burma in ancient traditions. It translates the Skt. Suvarnadvipa and the middle-Indian Suvannadipa meaning the same: “Island of Gold”. In fact the word dvipa (dipa) means both “island” and “continent” and, more exactly, a sinking island or atoll. This region was also called Suvarnabhumi meaning “Land of Gold”.

Chersonesos is Greek and means something like “promontory”. As we already argued elsewhere, it really means “dry land” and refers to the “firmament” which separates “the waters from the waters”, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis. This is also the “head of the two waters” mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The idea is that this divide which separates the two oceans (Indian and Pacific) never sinks, even when the waters rise as they did at the end of the Pleistocene, when sea level rose by 130-150 meters, flooding all coastal lands to an extent of several hundreds of kilometers. Avienus again repeats the idea that it is there that the sun rises there first of all, in order to start the new day, and “reddens the skies” turning it into the “Land of the Reds”. He also emphasizes the connection with the “sun” and with “gold”, the ruddy metal after which the region is named.

So are its people who, by a strange coincidence were originally blond, as we already mentioned. But even the dark Malays who now rule the region call themselves Kanakas, meaning precisely “golden”, despite their charring by the fierce sunshine of these tropical regions. And so did the “red” races that moved away from there into India and the Mediterranean region, after the region was devastated by the Flood and sunk away under the seas for good.

The lands that remained above the water line they considered unsafe and doomed, and so they decided to move away for good from this site which they considered the unlucky Land of the Dead, and which they euphemistically renamed “Isles of the Blest” and, above all, Hades or Latium, a name meaning “hidden away” because its reality was hidden away under the impenetrable veil of myths and metaphors which have defied deciphering up to now for several millennia.

Avienus correctly notes that the sea there “bends towards the south, heading into the straits”, as it indeed does in the region of Southeast Asia, when one proceeds from India. Such is hardly the situation in the region of Sri Lanka, which lies in the wrong side of the sea when one comes from the west, from the region of the Old World. The “Ocean Sea” is also an initiatic term that has to be decoded before it is really understood. It is precisely the same as the Mar Oceano of which Columbus wanted to be named the admiral.

This ocean is indeed the mysterious Oceanus sailed by Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey. In fact, it is the Pacific Ocean, the one where the coveted Spice Islands indeed hid, inflaming the brows of audacious sailors and investors with holy gold fever (aurea sacra famis). This strait was a mandatory passage for those heading there, in contrast to Sri Lanka, the phony Taprobane. The Colias Rock is

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somewhat more mysterious. As Jean Filliozat explains: “the Colias Rock corresponds to the Coliacum of Pliny (HN 6:86) and the Kory of Ptolemy (Geogr.7:1:11)”. Ptolemy confuses – as so many authors both ancient and modern – Taprobane with both Sri Lanka and Sumatra.

In fact, the name refers to Colias, a surname of Aphrodite meaning “dancer”. It also applied to a cape in Attica, where there was a temple of Aphrodite Kolias. The idea of “dancer” implies a choral dance, a whirling one. Aphrodite is really an alias of Dawn, the insatiable lover. The connection with shipwrecks is an esoteric reference to the Flood and the sinking of Atlantis, so often likened to a ship and, more exactly, The Ark. So is the one with Ilithyia, the Genetyllides. Ilithyia and her daughter were deemed the goddess of birth because they “loosened” the wombs of women at birth. This “loosening” is akin to Dionysos’one just explained.

Homer and Hesiod explain the “choral dances” of Dawn as the place where she whirls around with the Sun, in order to herald the new day that starts precisely there, as we just commented. The whirling corresponds to the International Dateline, as we just said. Dawn, it is known, resided in Ethiopia, another esoteric name of Indonesia as the Land of Sunrise. This whirling also corresponds to one of the eras which again are reset there, the site of the Vadavamukha that really affects the transition. The Vadava is the terrible maelstrom that Homer names Charybdis, as we explain in detail in our work on Ulysses’ wanderings in the South Seas. There the ships also “whirl around”, passing from this world into the otherworld, the gloomy one of the dead.

The “dance” in question is the one of Shiva, the terrible tandava. It is also the rasalila of Vishnu which we commented on further above. It means the whirling of the eras, the whirling of the Vadavamuka (Charybdis = “Whirpool of Death”), the whirling of the day and, of course, the one of Dawn, who dances together with the Sun, her master in the endless yabh-yum that is so central to Hindu tantrism. And this Sun is the Fallen Sun, who fell down precisely in that region of the world, the river Erydanos being no other than the Irawaddy, the main river of Burma.

In fact, the Cape Colias of Avienus is the one now called Pagoda Point. Pagoda Point is so named because it has a famous temple of Dawn. The cape is the extreme point of Burma, precisely at the mouth of the Irawaddy and just in front of the Malacca Strait and the island of Sumatra (Taprobane), as can be seen in a map of the region of Southeast Asia. We note that Cape Colias, called Kory by Ptolemy embodies a wordplay with the name of Kore, the daughter of Demeter. Kore (or Persephone), the Queen of Hell is precisely the same as the Kumari (“princess, queen”) of Hindu traditions.And Kumari also means something like “girl” or “virgin”, just as does the Greek kore.

The name of Cape Colias apparently translates the local one of Cape Negrais. This word seems derived from the Dravida #3730 *negari (“to dance”) + #778 *is, hence meaning “the dancer of dawn” (negari-isi). Remove the extra vowels – so often superabundant in Dravida – and you have exactly “Negrais”. The name of Cape Colias is the exact equivalent of the one of Cape Anostos or Strophaios. These words play on the idea of “return” and “no-return” (nostos, a-nostos) and on the return voyage of Ulysses and the other heroes of the War of Troy which is yet another allegory of the destruction of Atlantis in the great war.

The second root of Negrais is related to the name of Ushas (Dawn), which really derives from Dravida. The Dancer of Dawn is a famous figure in myths, the Shulamite. She is Ishtar in Mesopotamia and Hathor in Egypt, where she figures in vase decorations of the Naqada Period (3,500 BC). In the Bible she is the Shulamite, the Veiled One, dancing her sensuous belly dance before the two armies about to wage the Great War of Atlantis which would end up destroying the world, exactly as Plato tells.

It is perhaps more than a coincidence that the shape of Burma is precisely that of a female  dancer dancing her piece, as can be seen in Fig. XXX. In fact, this “dance” is the earthquake that destroyed Atlantis, and caused the whole world to quake in great fear. This is no fancy creation of mine, as it figures in the ageless legends of Burma and India. So do others that point out the close resemblance of Southeast Asia with an elephant (Aryavata), precisely the ancient name of the region (Irrawaddy orAyeyarwaddy).

Such is really the reason for Avienus’ reference to the “terrible elephants produced by Taprobane”. But it is true that the island of Sumatra (Taprobane) in fact produces giant elephants, far larger and/far more terrifying than those of India and ofAfrica. These elephants were, in antiquity exported to the other nations of the region that used them in war. So, the reference is indeed ambiguous, as is normally the case with myths.

After all, subtlety is the name of the game, and only the experts – capable of collating a myriad such – in fact, discover the hidden message of myths and symbols such as the ones we are discussing. An inspection of a map of the region of East Asia shows that it indeed closely resembles an elephant (inverted) with its tail near Beijing, its rump in Shangai, it’s head in Southeast Asia its trunk in the Malay Peninsula and its mouth in Burma. Even its legs are closely represented by the four great rivers of China, the Yangtze, Huang Ho, Chang Jiang, Salween.

Fig. XXX – The Map of Burma as a Dancer (http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar/index.htm)

 

In fact, an inspection of the map of Fig. XXX shows that the dancing girl is lame, with a whole leg missing. This has certainly to do with the myth of Kanyakubja (“the lame virgin girl”). The term kanya (“virgin, girl”) is really pejorative and designates a temple prostitute, a devadasi or a dancer. The myth of Kanyakubja, the Lame Dancer, dates from the remotest antiquity, and figures in the Ramayana (1:32:11). Kanyakubja (or Kanyakumari) is the name of Durga, precisely the Dancer (as golden Gauri) who turns sours and destroys the word (as Kali, the black one).

The name also applies to an ancient city and the surrounding region – which was later imitated by several others – said to have been larger than London and to rival with Ayodhya, the capital of Rama. Now, Rama is the hero of the Ramayana, the destroyer of Lanka, which is no other than Atlantis itself. So, it is clear that Kanyakubja was an epithet of Lanka. Lanka was often personified as a goddess of surpassing beauty, a whore and a dancer. Kanya is also the archetype of Virgo, the constellation which starts the Zodiac in the universal traditions. This start takes place, as we show elsewhere, some 12,000 yeas ago, the same as the one of Atlantis’s demise.

Too many coincidences to be ascribed to chance. Moreover, we have the map coincidences evidence just pointed out, which demonstrate the existence, in the remotest epochs, of a nation capable of accurately charting extensive regions such as Southeast Asia and China so well as to be able to recognize their actual shapes and even chart its great rivers, which we have elsewhere identified with the Four Rivers of Paradise. Geodesy is a demanding science that requires high technology in order to be carried out with the required accuracy.

So, how could this charting ever have been done by the ancient nations we know of, which clearly lacked this capability? The sole explanation lies, we think, in the hypothesis of Atlantis itself. Examine the maps, examine the evidence I provided here and elsewhere cooly and with an open heart and mind or at least as a working hypothesis, as the scientists often do. Check my claims out with the documents you may find. After all, the effort may well be worth it. What is at stake is Paradise and its scientific reality as Atlantis. Find it, and perhaps we will all be able to bring back the Golden Age and its promise of happiness to all, instead of the unhappy realities of the present age.

Cancer as an Image of Atlantis

We finally turn to the reference to “the constellation of Cancer burning above Taprobane”. The site of Paradise is everywhere equated with a monstrous crab or similar marine animals such as a tortoise, a lobster, an alligator, and so forth. In India, the alias of Cancer is Kurma, the Turtle Avatar of Vishnu so deeply connected with the myth of the Flood – the Churning of the Ocean of Milk – as we argue elsewhere. In the Americas it is Cipactli, the giant crocodile which represents Paradise in Aztec

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traditions. In Egypt, the turtle was eventually substituted by the scarab beetle (Scarabeus sacer), which there became equated to Cancer.

In Chinese mythology, a turtle-dragon (Ku-ei) emerged from the waters soon after the waters of the Flood receded. It became the new earth and proceeded to perform creation. We believe that this

turtle is indeed Sumatra, so often compared to a turtle and a dragon. In fact, the map of the region of

East Asia just linked shows that the Elephant (Southeast Asia) apparently has a sword tied to its trunk, as the war-elephants of ancient India often did, and has just struck the islands of Sumatra and Java, cleaving them apart. In fact, the duel of the elephant Aryavata and the sea monster (a giant crocodile or sishumara) is a well-known mythological motif in India. Since the elephant is there deemed a dragon (naga), we actually have two dragons dueling, as in the caduceus (nagakal).

The Tortoise is also Kashyapa, the great rishi who partakes in so many Hindu myths. Some Hindu-tibetan mandalas such as the one shown in Figg. XXX below shows the tortoise as a terrifying replica of the world. A close inspection of that mandala will show that it is indeed an animal personification of Atlantis, here represented as the disk in front of its belly, also an image of the Wheel-of-Time. Interestingly enough, the Tortoise is also closely connected with the Zodiac, whose disk it symbolizes. In fact, the Hindus – or better, the Atlanteans – invented the Zodiac as some sort of Cosmic Clock able to date events in the far past such as the one we are here computing.

 

Fig. XXX – The Turtle as a Replica of the Cosmos (Atlantis)

[http://www.khandro.net/animal_tortoise_1.htm – also in my files]]

An Astronomical Calculation

The Mayas and other Indians also have very similar traditions which we comment on in more detail elsewhere. Here, we concentrate in the astronomical aspects of the myth, which provide scientific proof that either the ancient Atlanteans or the Indians were quite skilled in Positional Astronomy, a science as demanding, and perhaps even more so than Geodesy itself. Precision Positional Astronomy such as the one we argue here – capable to date astronomical ephemerides tens of thousands of years ago – is far beyond presumed ancient possibilities and, to a great extent even of Modern Astronomy, despite its use of high-speed computers and potent telescopes.

It demands advanced knowledge of theoretical sciences such as spherical trigonometry, advanced algebra, and series developments, as well as the ability to build power telescopes of high resolution to compute complex phenomena such as the Precession of the Equinoxes (period: 25,920 years), Earth’s Librations (period: 41,000 years), and so on. All these tools are required to compute the position of the stars, planets and constellations over large periods such as the ones at play here, and which are, even nowadays, somewhat beyond modern capabilities, as we shall see next.

Avienus affirms that “above it [Taprobane] burns the fiery constellation of Cancer”. What does this really mean, since constellations such as Cancer ceaselessly whirl around the earth at a great speed and never stop above any place, except at the poles of heaven? For that purpose we invoke the help of Jean Filliozat, the great Indologist, whom we now quote on precisely that passage of venus:

The constellation of Cancer, Puśya, in Sanskrit, does not really shine above Taprobane (Ceylon). The declination of its determinant, δ, is about 20o. So, the star culminates at the zenith of a latitude that does not reach the north of Ceylon (less than 10o). but this star is celebrated in many traditions of India and Sri Lanka.

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So, the ancient Hindus apparently did err in their calculations? Not really! In fact, the erudite professor is wrong, and the Hindus are right, as we now show. Filliozat is making the usual mistake of all experts, both ancient and modern. Taprobane is not Sri Lanka, despite the widespread mistake. It is the island of Sumatra and, even more exactly, it and the neighboring Malay Peninsula, on the other side of the Malacca Strait. The island is centered at the line of the equator and lies astraddle it. In fact, Sumatra stretches from about 6oS 95oE to 6oN 106oE, being fully 1,650 km long, and hence one of the biggest islands in the whole world.

It is clear that Cancer does not now culminate above the island of Sumatra. But it did a long time ago when the myth of its zenithal passage over Taprobane was composed. In other to compute the date of that seminal event, we have to use a computer program such as StarCalc 5.7 which allows one to see, as if in a planetarium, the configuration of the skies at all dates in the past up to tens of thousands of years ago. We used that (and other) programs to peruse the skies for the dates when Cancer was directly over Sumatra and also did the calculation by hand in other to include corrections such as earth’s librations which StarCalc does not take into account.

The results are extremely interesting. Considering the epochs in which Cancer shone zenithally over Sumatra. We obtained that this constellation began to shine above the southern tip of Sumatra by about 9,800 BC, and exited its northern tip by about 6,900 BC or so. So, Cancer shone over Sumatra for slightly over one zodiacal era (2,160 years), which is more or less precisely the Age of Cancer, which lasted from 8,640 BC to 6,480 BC according to the usual convention.

Now, this result is remarkable in more ways than one. Either the Hindus or other peoples such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians determined it the way we did, by mens of astronomical calculations or else, they determined it by direct observation. But this is impossible in the present paradigm, as such a calculation demands an advanced knowledge of advanced mathematics, as we just said, as well as of Positional Astronomy, an even more difficult proposition. So much so, that the advanced computer programs that attempt to do this calculation are often grossly in error, as we just argued. So, this hypothesis can be ruled out, according to the present paradigm on human prehistory.

The other alternative is even more unacceptable according to the present canons. It means that the ancient Hindus were able to perform accurate astronomical observations by as early as about 10,000 BC or so and, moreover, to keep these records for many millennia. Now, these dates takes us back to Atlantis itself. And the hypothesis of Atlantis is visibly the only one capable of resolving the puzzle placed by these observations, which cannot be explained in any other way, unless someone is kind enough to provide one that is more acceptable, or of proving my calculations wrong.

The Egyptian Tradition

The Egyptian traditions exactly confirm the Hindu ones. Both, in turn, confirm the traditions of other peoples such as the Chinese and the Mayas, who tell of the gradual emergence of the Turtle (Cancer) at the start of the present era in order to effect Creation. In fact, these traditions tell that when the era of Cancer was entered, the Flood resulted, and the earth, its image, sunk, to reemerge again later and restart the process of Creation. This is, for instance, the meaning of the myth of Kurma, the Tortoise avatar of Vishnu, and several others such.

For instance, Hercules crushing under his foot the crab sent by Hera to sting him is an allegory of the destruction of Atlantis which took place at the start of the Era of Cancer. The Buddhists believe that the crab symbolizes the sleep of the dead and the interval between successive reincarnations. This belief brings to mind Hindu traditions on Vishnu sleeping the sleep of the dead between the intervals of Creation. And this of course means the submergence of the world as told in the myth of Kurma, the  Turtle, the second avatar of Vishnu.

Interestingly enough, Hindu traditions tell how the Kalki avatar and the return to the Satya

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Yuga (GoldenAge) will take place when a conjunction of Brihaspati (Jupiter), the moon and the sun takes place in the sign of Cancer. This is in fact a repetition of the former conjunction, given that the Hindus believe time to be cyclical. To the Aztecs, the crab symbolized Cipactli, the Primordial Earth that is indeed the same as the one of Paradise, submerged by the Flood. To the Incas the Crab symbolized the Great Mother and the waning of the moon devoured by a crab, itself an allegory of the dissolution of the Cosmos, that is, of Paradise.

Egyptian traditions – reported by Makrisi and others – tell how the Flood would take place when the sun left the sign of Leo to enter the one of Cancer. Now, this transition took place for Taprobane at about 9,600 BC, as we saw above. And this is precisely the actual date of the Flood, both according to Plato (Atlantis’demise) and to actual reality, the catastrophic end of the Pleistocene, as we have been arguing for two decades now.

No one familiar with Egyptian religion ignores the importance the scarab (dung-beetle) had for them since the earliest epochs, down to the end of the Ptolemaic period. Images of the scarab, used as an amulet or a seal have been found by the thousands all over Egypt, and even outside it. For instance, the collection of Phoenician amulets in the British Museum shows that these people also used scarab seals imitating those of Egypt, and hence held the same beliefs regarding them as did the Egyptians, according to Sir Wallis Budge (Amulets and Superstitions, Oxford, 1930, pg. 252).

From the earliest epochs, the Egyptians associated the scarab with the god of Creation (Kheper) and its ball of dung with the sun. The god was believed to roll the sun in the skies just as the beetle rolled its egg-ball on the ground. But the imagery was far deeper than just that. in fact, it involved the very act of Creation, performed by Khepra. It also symbolized resurrection. The scarab was likened to the heart of the diseased and hence its own soul. A scarab made of stone, glazed clay, or glass was invariably placed inside the mummy’s wrappings, in order to insure his resurrection and prevent his own hearts of declaring against him in Osiris’tribunal.

Such scarabs were often inscribed with the passage of the Book of the Dead (ch. 30), dedicated to precisely this subject, and entitled: “How to prevent that a man’s heart is taken from him in the netherworld”, which begins thus: “My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother! My heart by means of which I was born! Let nothing come up against me in my judgment… You are my double (ka) that inhabits my heart, the god Khnum”. In pre-Dynastic Egypt, the Turtle played the same role later played by the scarab, according to Sir Wallis Budge.

Khnum is the Creator, who fashions Man from clay in his potter’s wheel. This moving prayer is indeed a profound allegory of Atlantis and its rebirth, imaged as the re-creation of humanity from the silt deposited by the Flood, a myth found worldwide. Khnum is also the double of Ra, the supreme sun god of whom he is said to be the helper. Some images of the beetle symbolism of the ancient Egyptians can be seen in fig. XXX below.

 

Fig. XXX – The Egyptian Symbolism of the Beetle Deity

(a) – (Rundle Clark, Myth and Symb., pg. 40a) (b) – Khepra Pushing the Sun Out of the Netherworld (ibid., b) (c) – Khepra Sailing Over the Sea-Serpent Apophis (ibid., c)

(d) – Symbolic Ways of Writing To, “the God’s Land” (ibid., 41 (all 4)) (e) –

Nun Raising Boat with Sun-Scarab (ibid., 224b (pl. 15))

This esoteric symbolism is masterfully explained by R. T. Rundle Clark (Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, London, 1959), perhaps the best book on the subject ever. Unfortunately, this explanation is long and difficult, and is only given in its essentials here. The interested reader isd directed to the book itself, or to our works on the obscure subject of Egptian symbolism. It should be kept in mind that this symbolism has never been cracked before in its entirety, particularly as concerns Atlantis and its eventual rebirth.

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The secret of Atlantis was handed by the Egyptians to the Greeks, as Plato himself acknowledges in his Critias. It was the core of the secret of the Mysteries and was only told in full to the initiates, of whom Plato and Solon obviously made part. The Primordial Hill (a) is the Mountian of Sunrise. It is the same as Mt. Meru and, as such, as Mt. Atlas itself. The “sun” is the giant volcanism that destroyed Atlantis-Eden, the same as the Land of the Gods (Punt) of Egyptian traditions. Here, its resurrection is allegorized as the birth of the sun, its daily image in the skies.

Kepra is both the symbol of this resurrection itself and of the Cancer constellation, as we already argued. This resurrection and the return of the Golden Age is to take place, according to Hindu traditions when the conjunction of Jupiter, the sun and the moon takes place in the constellation of Cancer (Karkata), as we told above. According to the prophecy: “When the moon, the sun and Brhaspati (Jupiter) are together in the constellation Karkata (Cancer), and all three enter simultaneously into the lunar mansion Pushya (δ Cancri, in Cancer) – at that exact moment the Age of Satya, or Krta (the GoldenAge), will again begin)”.

The prophecy also affirms that “the thieves who pose as kings and lords will be killed by the millions”. Kalkin, riding a white horse, is precisely the same as the White Knight of Revelation. In fact, this testament cribbed its prophecies from Hindu sources. If I were one of these thieves, I would stat trembling right now, since the secret has been revealed and is indeed one of the main signs of the fast approach of the Last Days. In fact, this long-awaited event is a repetition of the Creation which took place at the start of the present era, the Kurma avatar and the reemergence of the earth from the primeval chaos at the start of the Era of Cancer, when it started to shine over Taprobane-Sumatra, some 9,600 years ago.

The Primordial Hill illustrated here is indeed an allegory of the giant volcanism which destroyed Atlantis, rather than really the sun being born behind an ordinary hil. In fact, that hill became the Nun, the Primordial abyss, when it erupted and collapsed, turning into a giant volcanic caldera, as we argue in detail elsewhere. In (b) we have a likewise remarkable allegory. Here, Khepra is pushing the ball of dung which represents the earth out of the Underwold, where it has sunken, more or less as told in the Hindu myth of Varaha commented above. In (c) Khephra is pushing up the sun (Atlantis) from the Solar Boat which is sailing upon the Primordial Abyss, here represented by Aophis, the Primordial Serpent who is no other than the serpent shesha of Hindu mythology.

In (d) we have several distinct manners of writing the hieroglypic word to (“land”). More exactly, this land is To-wer, the Primordial land, which is no other than Paradise itself (Punt-Atlantis) the Land of the Gods of Egyptian traditions. The first consists of Khepra himself together with the hieroglyph for “hilly land”, a usual designation of Punt. In the second the word is “God’s Land”, the other name of Paradise. Here we have Khepra with the flag which means “god”, and the Triple Hill which is itself the designative of “hilly land”, a foreign country in general, and the God’s Land (Punt) in particular.

In the next, we have three scarabs. The number three alludes to the plural “lands”. At a more esoteric level, it means the Land of the Triple Mountain, which is again Atlantis-Eden, characterized, in Hindu myths by the Triple Mountain (Trikuta), the Holy Mountain of Lanka. In the last figure, we have two rearing cobras spitting poison. This sis said to represent Egypt’s two lands (north and south). In reality, the glyph refers to Primordial Egypt, in which the Hat-ka-Ptah (“Ptah’s Second Abode” = Egypt) was merely the replica. The two cobras vividly represent the twin volcanoes of Atlantis (Toba and Krakatoa) spitting their poisonous magma and destroying the entire region.

The last of these figures, (e) is more detailed and is hence even more remarkable. Here, the idea of resurrection from the Primeval Abyss is quite explicit. In fact, these myths refer to real events, the connection with spiritual resurrection being sheer exoterism. The figure with the raised arms is Nun, the personification of the Primordial Abyss itself. Nun seems to be an alias of Khnum, the primordial creator.

Here he raises the solar ship which is a standard symbol of Atlantis, as we argue in detail elsewhere. Inside the ship, we have again a replica of this profound motif: the sun, encasing Khepra, rising between the peaks of the Mountain of sunrise. Again, this mountain or hill is the symbol of Atlantis’ volcano in an eruption so bright as to be comparable to the sun itself. The cow’s head represents Hathor, the Great Mother of the Egyptians. In fact, the goddess represents the first Atlantis,  the “mother” of the second one represented by Khepra.

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It corresponds to the first destruction of 75 kya [kiloyears ago] by the Toba explosion, whereas the second one corresponds to the destruction wrought by the Krakatoa some11,6 kya. The two baboons are the Baboons of Dawn and correspond to the twin guardians that we have in most mythologies of Paradise. In India they become the Lokapalas and in China (as in Egypt) they become the twin lions (Ruty, etc.). In Mesopotamia, they are the Kariby which passed into Judeo-Chritianity as the twin Cherubs who guard the doors of Eden.

The twin baboons also symbolize the two Pole Stars (north and south = Vega and Canopus), another usual allegory of the twin Atlantises. In front of each of the baboons, we have glyphs representing a bread loaf and a vase full of wine. The idea is that the baboons represent the eucharist as the Primordial Sacrifice. Even more exactly, the twin baboons of dawn represent the two races of Atlantis destroyed in the Primordial Sacrifice. The arched structure represents the sky. And the cartouches both bear the name of Amenophis I.

In Egypt, Khepra was known as “the Becoming One”. This means the rising of the god and the Paradise he represented out of the waters of the Primordial Abyss, in the long process of becoming. In ch. 85 of the Book of the dead, the All-Creator says: “I came into being by myself in the misdst of the Primeval Waters; in this my name of Khepra”. It is clear that Khepra is not really the sun, but the Primordial Hill that rose from the Nun during Creation. And this is the earth itself, and more exactly, the land of Paradise. This interpretation is attested by the Pyramid Texts (§199).

When the diseased, represented by his statue in the final ceremony inside the pyramid, was invested with the red crown of Egypt and placed upon a mound of sand spread upon the floor, the following prayer recited: “Rise upon it, this land which came forth from Atum, the spittle which came forth as Khepra. Assume your shape upon it, rise high upon it, that your father may see you, that Ra may see you”. The sand represents the Primeval Mound. Its land is an exhalation – literally spitting of frothy “saliva” by the god, more or less as the one spit by the twin cobras of Fig. XXX (d). In fact, this frothy saliva consists in the pumice stone (literally “froth” = pumex) shed by the giant volcanism and becoming the new earth that covered the previous one, turned into hell itself.

The Etymology of “Chaldea”

We are finally in a position to derive the true etymology of the name of Chaldea. The word truly relates to the Greek khalkos meaning “copper, bronze, brass”, and hence connects to the one of Tamraparna, meaning more or less the same, as we just saw. This radix has several forms which ultimately derive from the Dravida. The radix khald– or khalk– ultimately relates to the idea of smelting metals, and smithing them, a Dravidian art par excellence, witness the Gypsies and their fine cauldrons of copper or bronze.

In fact, the European ancestors of the Gypsies are the Cabeiri and Telchines and such who introduced the arts of smithing along others to the West. This is why the Bible affirms that these arts are due to the Fallen Angels, the Nephelim. And the Nephelim are no other than the Atlanteans after their fall. It is precisely in the East Indies that we find this myth in full force, witnessing the myth of Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka and the Budha footprints in Indonesia.

The Mesopotamian “Chaldea” was, like Sri Lanka itself, no more than a shabby replica of the primordial Taprobane, in Atlantis-Eden. So with Phoenicia, Ethiopia and even with Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Rome. In fact, the whole western hemisphere was built as a replica of the eastern one, with all thing duplicated, as in a mirror image. This is what is really meant by the idea that the earth (our hemisphere) reflects heaven (the eastern one). Such is also the meaning of Hermes’ aphorism “as above so below”.

Interestingly enough, the Gypsies specialize precisely in Astrology and Metallurgy, the very arts of their Chaldean ancestors. Such was also the specialties of the Etruscans and the Pelasgians, as

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well as their semi-mythical counterparts, the Cabeiri, the Corybantes, the Telchines, and so on. We can now understand why the Suda (cf. Appendix I at the end) unashamedly affirms that the alphabet came from Miletos, from Phoenicia, from Chalcis, and from Chaldea almost in a single breath.

Chalcis derives its name from khalkos (“copper”), implying an identity with Chaldea, meaning more of less the same, as we just saw. And so does Phoenicia, which also means more or less the same as Tamraparna (Taprobane), the Land of Dawn. Miletos apparently means, according to Junito Brandão, “hospitable, pleasant” in Lithuanian and Old Slav. The Greeks derive its name from an eponymous founder, Miletos. His myth is essentially identical to the one of Linus.

Born in Minoan Crete, of Apollo and Acacalis, the daughter of King Minos. As soon as the child was born, it was exposed by its mother, fearful of the ire of her father. Apollo caused the child to be fed by wolves, until it was rescued and raised by shepherds. Minos later tried to rape the boy, who fled to Caria, wher he founded the city of Miletos. The above etymology of Miletos seems farfetched, and the name apparently really derives, as usual, from the Dravida #4872 mil- (“to shine, be prosperous or famous, be briliant”) + #796 ettu (“lofty”). Hence, mil-ettu (“the lofty, properous one”).

Add Melitta, Melitta = ship, crossersetc.As a last point

Chalcidians = ethiopians -= pious ethiopians, = chaldees = magians

The Chaldees =Astrologers = Magians –- Ethiopians-Copper =Chaldean = Kalderash (copper)

The Etymology of “Dravida”

So, it seems that Miletos was indeed a Pelasgian city before it became a Greek city. In fact, such was usually the case with Pelasgian cities, including Athens which, as Herodotus relates, was a Pelasgian city before joining the Greek union. Such is also the advice of the famous geographer, Strabo (Geog.12:8:5), who affirms:

“Not only the Carians, who in earlier times were islanders, but also the Leleges, as they say, became mainlanders with the aid of the Cretans, who founded, among other places, Miletus, having taken Sarpedon from the Cretan Miletus as founder; and they settled the Termilae in the country which is now called Lycia; and they say that these settlers were brought from Crete by Sarpedon, a brother of Minos and Rhadamanthus, and that he gave the name Termilae to the people who were formerly called Milyae, as Herodotus says, and were in still earlier times called Solymi, but that when Lycus the son of Pandion went over there he named the people Lycians after himself.

The Carians and the Lelegians were both Pelasgian peoples. It is interesting to hear Strabo affirming that they came from Minoan Crete, as this means that the Cretans too were Pelasgians. But the most interesting part is the mention of the Termilae. These Termilae seem to be the same as the Tamils or Dravidas. In fact, the name of the Tamils is variously written in Sanskrit: Taramila, Dramila, Dramida, etc.. It seems that the r is super correct, as is so often the case with Sanskrit words, and that the original form was something like “Tamila” or “Tamira”. Both the Aryans and the Dravidas of India have endlessly discussed the etymology of the word “Dravida”, but to no avail.

Actually, such ethnocentric discussions are above all ethnocentric in character, and seldom lead anywhere but to dissent. The Tamilian word for “Dravida” or “Tamil” is tamir, with variants in other Dravidian languages such as tamira, tambara, tobil, tamulu, tambulu, tamizh etc.. These should be compared to the Sanskrit parallels: dramila, dravida, drâvida, etc.. One of the few scholars who cooly addressed the problem is Dr. Madhusudan Mishra, in a Discussion Group on Tamils, with a post

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entitled: Etymology of word “dravida”:

“Though the word dravida or drâvida has been current in India for a long time, it has acquired a derogatory sense in the recent ethnology, especially in relation to the racially Aryan concept of the west. Really, it has no ethnological connotation. As a geographical region, it relates to south India. But when the people are considered, even the Maharashtrans and Gujratis are included, specially the Brahmins living there. It is however true that Maharashtra and Gujarat cannot be reckoned as the Dravida country.

“The word dravida or drâvida has no etymology. It may be taken to be an agglutinative formation: dra +vi + da. The central –vi– is also replaced by –mi-, and the name Tamil has actually come from dra-mi-da. Then it appears that dra– is the basic element. It was extended by –mida for one region and by –vida for the other. Later this distinction was lost and the word Dravida became more common. “Though dra– occurs in a passage in the AV (11,7,3), its meaning is not known. But da = “heat” + ra = “fire” making dra may refer to the “hot sun”, and the following –mida or –vida may stand for a “region”. Thus dra-mi(vi)-da seems to mean “the country of the hot sun”. Later it began to refer to the people inhabiting that region”.

Interrogated by another member of the forum on how he had reached that conclusion since he did not profess to know any Dravidian tongues, Dr. Mishra, admits, in a subsequent post that he had contrived the etymology from the monosyllabic roots of Sanskrit, the “isolating stage” which many scholars presume to have been the primitive stage common to both Sanskrit and Dravida, as well as the Munda languages themselves. According to him, the original roots were: da (“heat, pain, mountain”) + ra (“fire”) > dra (“hot fire, hot sun”) + va (“dwelling) or ma (“mother”).

Hence, he concluded that: “at the Isolating Stage of the language, dra-vi-da could have been a clause meaning “the hot Sun burns the dwelling” or something like this. Gradually the clause fossilized as the phrase “the region of the hot Sun”. The dear admits that “needless to say my supposition is open to question”. And indeed it is, as it seems contrived and somewhat fanciful. With loose methods and hypotheses like that, one may reach almost any desired result.

The main mistake of most Indologists seems to be the underlying assumption that Sanskrit is indeed the mother of all Indian languages or, at best, their common sister. Of course, at the heart of the issue lies the age old controversy on the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) which has shed a lot of ink and again threatens to shed a lot of blood as well. It would be a great surprise to find out that the Aryans did not invade India after all, given the fact that they did in fact conquer most countries, including America,Australia and, of course, Europe itself.

In fact, it is quite logical to presume that the name of the Dravidas (Tamils) derives from their own language, and was adopted by the Sanskrit Aryans with a superexcrescent r, as dravida or dramida, etc.. This is what some other members of the list pointed out, providing far more likely evolutions such as: tamila > damila > dramila > Dravida. A post from the Indology List points to a work that affirms that in contrast to the theories which derive the word Tamil from the Sanskrit Dravida: “the modern view is that tamil, initially changed into dramida, to become drâvida later. The Sanskrit and Prakriti work only give the form dramida”.

In other words, it seems far more reasonable to derive the word Dravida from Dravidian terms such as tamir, tamira, tambara, tobil, tamulu, tambulu, tamizh, etc., as so many Indian authorities do, rather than from Sanskrit and other such Indo-European tongues. We believe that the best candidate is #3001 tamara (tin, tin-can, tin alloys such as brass and bronze”). This word is related to Skt. tamara (“tin”) and tâma (“gold, copper”) or tâmra (“ having a golden or coppery color”).

As is clear, the word suffered degradation in passing from Dravida to Sanskrit, which is characteristic of Aryan snobbism in relation to the darker Dravidas. In Dravida, the word meant noble metals such as gold and tin or silver, whereas in Sanskrit it meant dark metals such as copper and iron or its rust. In fact, the base relates to the idea of #2998 tak– (“shiny, glittering, glowing, fiery”) or #2998 tak– (“burning with love”) or yet, #3005 tak– (“proper, fit, excellent, pious, virtuous”). By contrast, in Sanskrit, it relates to the idea of tâmas or tamish– or tamra (“darknes, sin, ignorance,

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oppression”). Tâma is a gloomy hell full of smoke and choking. It probably refers to the site of Paradise Destroyed and turned into a veritable Hell (Patala, Atala, Tartarus, Dhumâdi, etc.).

It is easy to recognize in the Dravidian bases the origin of names such as those of the Pious Ethiopians as well as those of the candent Chams, their heads incended with their ruddy hair and their brows burning with love for the mortal girls which would lead them into doom and turn them into Fallen Angels. The further correlations of this base are too many to usefully exploit here. But they explain many obscure etymologies which we explain elsewhere, and which enter the composition of myths such as the ones we find in India, Egypt, Greece, the Bible, and so forth.

We are now in a position where we can explain the real etymology of the name of the Tamils.. It ultimately relates to Tamra-parna (Taprobane), as we explain in more detail elsewhere. In fact, Tamra-parna is said to mean “copper foil” or “copperleaf” in Skt.. The place is also named Tamra-dvipa (“copper island”) in that tongue. But this is probably the type of Aryanist degradation we just mentioned or, perhaps, an attempt to hide the true name of the famous place, the very site of Paradise. It is perhaps for the same reason that Taprobane is usually said to be the island of Sri Lanka, when the actual place is indeed Sumatra and, even more exactly, the Malay Peninsula.

Better yet, as the name of the place suggests – parna or pattra really meaning a wide, flat extension of land – the name originally referred to the site of Paradise, the wide land known as Elysian Fields or Tritonian by the Greeks, as Sekhet Aaru (“Field of Reeds”) by the Egyptians and so forth. After the Flood, the region was reduced to the Malay Peninsula and the adjacent islands of Java and Sumatra, which inherited the name. It is usual for Hindu patronymics to be composed of the name of the people who inhabit the region, plus a suffix meaning “country, land”, as is the case here. Other examples include, for instance: Afghanistan (“Country of the Afghans”), Tamil-nadu (“Country of the Tamils”), Kurukshetra (“Land of the Kurus), etc.. So Tamra-parna really means “Country of the Tamiras”, that is, the Tamils.

When the Dravidas moved to India, they took the name along and transferred it to the island of Sri Lanka, which many now confuse with the original Taprobane, and link to legends such as the one of Adam falling down from Paradise on top Adam’s Peak, or Buddha doing more or less the same, and leaving his footprint imprinted on its top. In Pali, the name of the place is Tambapanna. According to one tradition, told in the Mahavamsa, the name is owed to the fact that, when King Vijaya and his men landed in the place:

“At the spot where the seven hundred men with the king at their head, exhausted by (sea) sickness and faint from weakness, had landed out of their vessel, supporting themselves on the palms of their hands pressed on the ground, they sat themselves down. Hence, their palms became copper-coloured (tamba-pannayo), and from this circumstance, the wilderness obtained the name of Tambapanna. From the same cause, also, this renowned land became celebrated under that name.”

In other accounts which we comment elsewhere, the dust on the beach was gold dust. In fact, this legend correlates with one of St. Brendan and his men landing in the Isles of the Blest (Paradise) and finding the beach covered with gold dust, more or less lie the Eldorado. What these traditions really mean is that Taprobane was really the same as Suvarnadvipa, the “Island of Gold”. And Sri Lanka is really poor in the noble metal, which instead abounds in Sumatra and Southeast Asia, even today great producers of gold and gemstones.

But what the name really means is tin (tamara), a semi-precious metal often confused with silver in ancient traditions, due to its white, shiny color. Tin is a main component of bronze, its alloy with copper. As such, tin was a crucial commodity in the Bronze Age. In fact, as we argue in detail elsewhere, the famous Tin Islands (or Cassiterides) was no other than Taprobane itself. England (Corwall) was only discovered after the Bronze Age was through, and hence was of no avail. So the other mines such as Kulteppe (Turkey) whose production was minimal.

In fact, the Tin Islands were the famous Śvetadvipa, whose name means just that in Sanskrit. The metal is also confused with silver, and hence the word śveta designates both silver and tin as well as other white or shiny metals and substances such as mercury and even gold itself. It also designates

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the white races which lived in the place. In fact, the Mahabharata (II:1172) accordingly affirms that the island of Taprobane (Tamradvipa) was inhabited by the Romakas, who are no other than the Sakas themselves, rather than really the Romans or the Etruscans. Śvetadvipa was, like Taprobane, and even more so, equated to the site of Paradise in Hindu traditions.

Taprobane and Śvetadvipa corresponded to the islands known as Chryse (“Golden”) and Argyre (“Silvery”) in Greek traditions. The name also remotely corresponds to the one of Tarshish, which also means something like “tin”, as we argue elsewhere. Tarshish was of course the semi-fabulous land where King Solomon fetched his immense amounts of gold and silver, as told in the Bible. This island could never have been Sri Lanka, which never produced these commodities, nor even the other ones mentioned in the Bible: sandalwood, cedar, spices, dyes, and so on.

The name of Tamraparna also assonates with the one of Tamalapattra. Tamalapattra means something like “golden leaf”. In fact, it alludes to tamala (cinnamon or cassia or laurel). This name has to do with the mysterious Golden Bough whose meaning Sir James G. Frazer vainly sought in the mythologies of the whole world without, of course, being able to find its true meaning and origin. The name,e has to do with the crown of laurel used by victorious heroes and athletes, as well as the visitors of Hades such as Aeneas. It is clear, in hindsight that the tradition was a cryptic allusion to Tamraparna, alias Tamalapattra.

In summary, Tamraparna or Tamradvipa (Taprobane) is hence “the Island of the Tamiras”, that is, the Tamils. As such, the name really means “the Island of the Reds”. In Dravidian traditions, the name of the Tamils corresponds to the golden races, and in Aryan ones – those of their former enemies – it means something like tamas, that is, “dark ones”. In both traditions, however, the name is also more or less synonymous with copper, tin and tin alloys such as bronze and brass. In relation to tin, their name is often confused with silver, and these islands are called Argyre or Sveta Dvipa, that is, “Islands of Silver”

As such, their island, the former site of Paradise, is no other than the fabulous Cassiterides, the “Island of Tin”, as well as the no less famous “Island of Gold” which the Hindus called Suvarnabhumi or Svarnadvipa, the Greeks knew as Chryse Chersonesos, and the eRomans as Aurea Chersonesus. The Tamils are the “reds” of all traditions. These legendary islands also corresponded to the fabulous Eldorado, whose fame had reached pre-Columbian America (as Manoa) and incended the conquistadors with gold fever.

They even figure in the Bible as Tarshish, more or less the same as Tartessos, the “Silver Islands” of the Greeks. Some traditions even equate these pristine Tamils to the races of gold, the men of the Golden Age.As such, they are the “gods” or “angels” of former times, the undecayed Atlanteans. After the fall they became identified to the Fallen Angels, and receive the name of asuras, having lost their golden tint. At that time, the two races of Paradise – Aryans and Dravidas – had not yet parted company. That partitioning took place after the War of Atlantis, won by those who would later become the Aryo-Semites. And these would again part into two moieties, the Aryan and the Semites. And now all three parties fight, as they formerly did, at the dawn of time.

As a final point in this issue, we now present another derivation of “Dravida” which is in fact correct for this word, and only approximately so for “Tamil”. We believe that the two words, though connected, are only approximately so. The Dravidas of the famous Indus Valley Civilization were famous for their navigational skills. In fact, these “reds” seem to have been the ancestors of the Phoenician “reds”, who later moved into Lebanon, the succedaneous Phoenicia, when their land got dry and sterile leading to their decay and superseding by the Aryan invaders.

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We have identified the “cult object” which figures in essentially all Indus steatite seals – which some think to be a Soma press or a forge or a potter’s wheel – as a sail ship seem from the front. This becomes quite obvious (a posteriori, though) when one examines in detail these seals, where even the planks of the ships and the tessiture of the sails is quite apparent in some exemplars. Since sailing (for commercial purposes) was the main activity of the Indus Valley, this interpretation becomes rather compelling, now that it is given. In fact, this clue was basic for our decipherment of the Indus Valley script, which we present in detail elsewhere. Like the Egyptian hieroglyphs, this script is part alphabetical, part logographic, and is surprisingly advanced for its early date.

Accordingly, the name of the Dravida or Taramilas was a later development of the original one of the Tamiras or Tamils, as we now explain. It was probably thus that the word acquired the intrusive r, which is not really superexcrescent, but due to a subtle change in the meaning of the word. The Sanskrit word taramila is probably to be derived from tara-mîra, where the first root means “to cross over (in a ship or ferry boat)” and the second means “ocean”. Hence, the word tara-mîra, later shrunk to tarmila originally meant “those who cross the ocean on their ships”, as the Dravidas of the Indus Valley – the predecessors of the Phoenician “reds” indeed did, alone of all peoples in their time.

The word mîra also means “boundary, limit”.As such, tara-mîra alo had a derogatory meaning of “those who transgress the limits” that is, those who sin by excessive pride (hubris), a usual epithet attending the Fallen Angels and, above all, their leader, Lucifer. Crossing the ocean was deemed a sinful transgression of the usual limits imposed on us all and, as such, a most grievous sin.

The word tara, particularly when lengthened to târa acquires the meaning of “to carry to safety”, and hence “Saviour”. As such, the name applies to the Tirthankaras and, above all, to Shiva (Rudra) as the rescuer or Saviour, particularly of those who are at sea or in great peril, for instance, the Deluge. Târâ (the feminine) is also the name of the great savior goddess of the Tantric Buddhists, who is no other than Shiva in his female avatar.

The word târa also means “star”, the usual attribute of Târa as the goddess of the Pole Star as well as a common one of the Dravidas everywhere, particularly in their association with Luciferus, the Morning (or Pole) Star. Moreover, the word also means “tin, silver”, in direct connection with the name of the Tamils. In Dravida, the word has a slightly different connotation. Mila means, in that tongue, the idea of “excellence, superiority”. This word also means “to float or be above”, implying the idea of crossing over the waters in a ship or, also, that of those who are superior or supreme, like the gods, the angels, etc..

In Dravida, the word tara– means the idea of “brokerage, middleman ship, merchant”, as in #3090 taraku. It also relates to “star” and, more exactly, as “star gazer, astrologer” as in #3100 taruču. As such, it explains the etymology of “Astrologer” or “Magian” so often associated with the Chaldeans and the Pious Ethiopians. It is certainly more than a coincidence that the Tocharians – whose mummies were recently found in the Tarim Basin by the hundreds – usually wore tall hats decorated with stars and planets, much as did the astrologers everywhere.

The related Dravidian base tala– or *tara means “head”, as in #3103 tala, tarè. This is related both to Atlantis (Atala) and to the Dravidas as “superior, princely, chieftains, princes”. Again, it means “fiery, shiny, brilliant, dawn, morning star”, as in #3125 taļa. Cerebral ļ is often confused with cerebral ŗ which then changes to normal r. So, these bases may all be deemed identical for practical purposes such as the present one. In #3178 târ, the base expresses the idea of “fallen”, as in the name of the Nephilim, the fallen angels of the Bible and of Hindu traditions.

This base has forms such as târtti or târčči, designating Tarshish (or Tartessos) as a sunken land, like Atlantis. As is clear, the Dravidian etymologies, along with the Sanskrit ones explain the usual etymologies attached to the names of the Dravidas or Tamils and the many other peoples derived from them: the Tarsenoi of Tyrrhenians (Etruscans), the Chaldeans (“coppersmiths”), the Kalderash (idem), the Ethiopians (“reds”), the Phoenicians (idem), the Tocharians, and so on. Their name implies a connection with Tamraparna, the sunken region which survived as the island of Sumatra and the nearby Malay Peninsula, the Land of Gold (Suvarnabhumi, Suvarna Dvipa, Chryse Chersonesos) of the ancient traditions of both the Hindus and the Greeks.

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Hercules as an Alias of Govinda (Krishna)

The name of Hercules ultimately derives, as we argue elsewhere in detail, from the Dravida herk-kula meaning “cattle-herder”. This name is in fact synonymous with the one of Gadeiros, the twin brother of Atlas, and co-founder of Atlantis, according to Plato. Plato renders the name of Gadeiros as

Eumelos (“cattle-rich”). And this name is in turn a rendering of Govinda, the avatar of Krishna as the Cow-Herder. As such, Krishna is also called Venugopala, “the divine flute-player” or, more exactly, “the cattle-herder flute-player”.

Again that identity brings us back to the myth of Atlantis and its demise in the Flood, some 11,600 years ago, every date declared by Plato. In other words, Krishna-Govinda is in fact Hercules, just as Bala (Balarama), his strong twin, is Herakles, the fair counterpart of the dark god. Myths once again prove to from a coherent whole on a global scale that cannot be escaped, and which never fail to make sense, once they are properly interpreted.

Like some sort of rasalila, the wild dance of Krishna and the gopis, myths go round and round, and unerringly come back again to the start, in ever-widening circles, as some sort of a giant maelstrom that encompasses the whole world. The parallels between Hercules and Cadmus in fact extend far more than in the coincidence of the true etymon of their names as “cow-herder”.

As the Cabeiri, both heroes are deemed the civilizers and in fact partly ancestors of the Greeks. Hercules led the cattle of Geryon from distant Erytheia to Greece, whereas Cadmus followed the sacred cow to that place. Cadmus taught the natives the arts such as writing, agriculture and metallurgy, whereas Hercules became immortal and joined the gods in Olympos, whereas Cadmus was also immortalized and taken to the Isles of the Blest, where the immortal heroes lead an easy life. Both Hercules and Cadmus were dragon-killers who later turned into dragons, Hercules with the Orphics, and Cadmus in the Samothracian Mysteries.

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Teames, Sally (Fort Worth ISD): “The Astronomical Origin of the Alphabet”

The Proto-Semitic alphabet is the ancestor of Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and all existing true alphabets in use today. It was the immediate predecessor of the early Semitic alphabets of the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, Aramean, and South Arabians. Each of the twenty-two letters in the Proto-Semitic alphabet matches a constellation or asterism in or along the ecliptic. Not only do they match in shape and pattern, they also fall in the same general order, with only two constellations (Pisces and Aries) being out of sequence in alphabetical order. The matching of certain letters is strengthened by the association of certain aspects of Mesopotamian sky lore and by the fact that most of the corresponding letters in the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet (15001200 BC) also match the same constellations. The implications of the findings of this research are threefold. First, the Proto-Semitic alphabet did not derive from the primitive Proto-Sinaitic alphabet at the turquoise mines at Serabit Al-Khadem and did not develop piecemeal, but was instead created as an organized unit of symbols designed after star patterns along the ecliptic. Second, the Proto-Semitic alphabet and the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet may have originally been calendrical numbering systems (perhaps based on lunar stations). Third, similarities existing between the Proto-Semitic and the Ugaritic letter shapes, both being patterned after the same constellations and following the same general sequence, imply that the origin of the two may have been geographically close.

{{Melitê

###TheAlphabet -COURSE ON LINGUISTICS 201 TheAlphabet Page I –– II

Recent findings suggest that the earliest writing system was developed in ancient Egypt not Mesopotamia, as scholars have traditionally asserted.

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS- FIRST WRITING EVER?

26/43

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS- FIRST WRITING EVER? EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS- FIRST WRITING EVER?

PROTO-CANAANITEAND PHOENICIANALPHABETS– VAW = O–-ALPHABET ORIGINS – DE SAUSSURE SIGNIFIE SIGNIF

GOOD JOURNALS:

American Journal ofArchaeology [Guidelines for authors] Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society

Bulletin of theAmerican School of Oriental Researches

1) Cross Symbolism – The Tau = Celtic Cross = Hindu 2) Death Symbols

3) Cross Symbol of Death 4) Cross = death

5) The Christian Cross symbolism 6) Cross symbol of death

7) Cross = Death

8) Cross in Rome = Death 9) Cross Death Poem

10) Cockfights

11) Cockfights in Thailand 12) Cockfights in Bali

13) Cockfighting Spurs 14) Cockfight in Cebu 15) Cockfights

16) Gaff Tying

17)### Gaff Photos [market]

18) Linguistic Journals – Linguist List 19) Linguistic Journals

20) Linguistic Journals

21) Linguistic Journals on Net 22) Linguistic Journals on Net 23)About com – alphabet 22)Alphabet Bibliography 21)

}}

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APPENDIX I – CLASSICAL TEXTS ON CADMUS AND THE ALPHABET’S ORIGIN

[Our comments are placed between brackets, after the textual

quotes. These are linked to the actual sources, in the Perseus Project]

 

I – Suda On Line

[The Suda is the famous Byzantine lexicon, a true heritage from the Classical World and its views on myths and traditions. Here we quote the main ones concerning the origin of the alphabet. The above link provides access to its online version, which can be consulted via a search mechanism. In the next entries we also quote and comment the main entries on the origin of the alphabet.]

[x ]

X) Headword: Γράμματα – Translated headword: “Letters, alphabet”.
 Translation: “Note that the Phoenicians were the first to invent the alphabet. For this reason, the letters are called Phoenician. And they say that Cadmus first brought them into Greece; but Apis the Egyptian brought medicine, and Asclepius advanced the art”.

[The Greeks gave several different accounts of the origin of the alphabet, whose introduction they attributed to Cadmus, to Phoinix, to Linus, to Abraham, to Seth, to Phoinike, to the Phoenicians, and so on. In fact, the “Phoenicians” in question here seem to be the Indians, as we argue in the next entry. The word grammata is related to graph– (“to draw”)], as can be seen in LSJ.]

X) Headword: Φοινικήια γράμματα – Translated headword: “Phoenician letters”.
 28/43

Translation: “Lydians and Ionians call the letters thus from their inventor Phoinix, the son of Agenor. But the Cretans disagree with them, saying that the name was derived from writing on palm leaves [phoinika]. But Skamon in his second book On Discoveries says that they were named from Phoinike the daughter of Aktaion. Legend tells that this man had no male children, but had daughters Aglauros, Erse, and Pandrosos; Phoinike, however, died while still a virgin. For this reason, Aktaion called the letters Phoenician, because he wanted to give some share of honor to his daughter”. For other accounts of the introduction of writing, see alpha 69, gamma 416, kappa 21, kappa 22, lambda 568.

[See our comments in the main text on Cadmus and his myth.]

X) Headword: Κάδμος – Translated headword: “Kadmos, Cadmus”.
 Translation: “The Milesian, inventor of the alphabet. In an epigram of Zeno: “But if your fatherland is Phoenician, what ill-will is there? It is also the home of that Cadmus, from whom Hellas has

the written page”.

[Miletus is the Turkish city now called Balat. Miletus was located in western Anatolia, on the Aegean coast. The city was formerly inhabited by Carians. Before 500 BC or so, Miletus was the largest Greek city in the east and was the homeland of pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Hecateus. Miletus is far from Phoenicia (Lebanon), and the confusion may stem from the fact that Anatolia means “easterner”, more or less as the name of Cadmus. It is far more likely, however, that the hero is purely legendary, and was invented in order to explain the tight contacts between the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the earliest times, before the IE invasion of the region.

The Carians are in fact close of kin to the Etruscans. They too spoke a non-Indo-European tongue which seems to be Pelasgian or Etruscan. Their script was in a great part akin to the Etruscan and the Greek alphabets, with some syllabic signs perhaps derived from the MinoanAlinear scripture. Herodotus affirms, based on a Cretan tradition, that the Carians were formerly called Leleges and had come from the islands [of Crete] during the times of the Minoans, that is, in the mid-2nd millenium BC. All in all, it seems that the Carians were indeed Pelasgians or Etruscans so that the link with Dravidian India and perhaps the Indus Valley is clearly delineated.]

X) Headword: Κάδμος – Translated headword: “Kadmos, Cadmus”
 Translation: “Son of Pandion, from Miletus, historian, who first (according to some) wrote a book in prose. He was a little younger than Orpheus. He composed the Founding of Miletus and of all Ionia in 4 books. Note that they say Cadmus was the first to bring to Greece the alphabet, which the

Phoenicians first invented”.

[This Cadmus seems to be the same as the previous one. However, here he is made the transmitter, rather than the inventor of the alphabet, which he got from the Phoenicians.]

X) Headword: Λίνος – Translated headword: “Linos, Linus”

Translation: “Of Chalcis, son of Apollo and Terpsichore, but others say of Amphimaros and Ourania, others of Hermes and Ourania. This man is said to have been the first to bring the alphabet from Phoenicia to the Greeks. He is also said to have been Heracles‘ teacher of letters, and the first leader of lyric song”.

[Here, it is Linus who brings the Phoenician alphabet from chalcis to Greece. The connection of Linus with Hercules is highly interesting. Hercules is in fact a personification of the Greek people, being the hero who led them out of Paradise Destroyed into Greece, their Promised Land. Linus was the unfortunate instructor of Hercules and Iphicles, and was killed by them. Chalcis is located in Greece (Euboea). The Chalcidian alphabet is similar to the Greek and the Etruscan ones, probably ancestral to them.A tenacious tradition places Chalcis in connection with the Etruscans.

Most experts believe that the Etruscan alphabet originated, via Cumaea, from a Chalcidian alphabet. In fact, the similarity of the two alphabets is striking. But the passage could well have been the other way around, with the Greeks borrowing from the Etruscans, via the Chalcidian alphabet, for instance, rather than vice-versa. No matter what, this and the above entries show how unsure the Greeks were that their alphabet really came from Phoenicia, rather than from the Chalcidians or the

Milesians, that is, the Pelasgians and/or the Etruscans. Moreover, a close comparison of these and other alphabets of the region clearly shows an astounding paradox. Whereas the Etruscan alphabets are relatively fixed in both time and space since earliest times, the Greco-Roman are comparatively far more changeable, as if attempting to adjust themselves to the features of the Indo-European languages. In other words, the evidence of the facts points to a direction of borrowing from Greece to Etruria, rather than vice-versa and to the fact that the “Phoenician” alphabet is far fitter for recording Etruscan than it is to record Greek or Latin.]

X) Headword: Αβραάμ – Translated headword: “Abraham”
 Translation: “First among the patriarchs…Abraham came from the land of the Chaldeans, who devoted their entire lives to the stars and heavenly bodies. Abraham was trained, as was their ancestral custom, to observe the motions of the heavenly bodies… Abraham invented sacred writing and devised the language of which Hebrew children used to have a command, as they were this man’s followers and descendants. Moreover, the Greek alphabet received its impetus from this script, and the Greeks went on to variously adapt this writing method to their own purposes. Proof of this is in the pronunciation of the first and preeminent letter “alpha” because it derives its name from the Hebrew ‘aleph’by way of the Blessed, First, and Eternal Name”.

[Here we have yet a fourth account of the origin of the Greek alphabet: from Chaldea, that is, from Mesopotamia. Now, this is strange, as Chaldea is substantially away from Phoenicia (Lebanon), and would hardly be confused with it. Moreover, Mesopotamia used a cuneiform script, rather than a cursive one. So, how can it be held that the alphabet originated in Chaldea? The answer is rather simple. The “Chaldea” in question here is not Mesopotamia, but an entirely different location. The name of Chaldea – from the Greek Chaldaia, Assyrian Kaldu, Babylonian Kasdu, Hebrew Kasddim is of obscure meaning. In fact, the word derives from the same root as Cadmus (or Cadmilus or Casmilus) discussed in the main text and meaning “easterner”.

The Chaldees ]

X) Headword: Σήθ – Translated headword: Seth
 Translation: “The son of Adam. Concerning him it is said: “And the sons of God went in to the daughters of mankind” (that is, the daughters of Cain). For the men of that time called Seth a god because he had invented the Hebrew letters and the names of the stars. Besides, they admired his great piety”.

[x ]

X) Headword: Σιμωνίδης – Translated headword: Simonides
 Translation: “The son of Leoprepes. A citizen of the city Iulis on the island Ceos, a lyric poet, later than Stesichorus in chronology, who was also called Melikertes because of his sweetness… He also invented the longs (long vowels) and doubles (double consonants) of the alphabet and the third string for the lyre. He was born in the 56th. Olympiad; some have written the 62nd”.

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II – Linus, Linos, Oetolinus

X) Aeschylus, Agamemnon (ed. Robert Browning) line 104

CHOROS. Ah, Linos, say — ah, Linos, song of wail! But may the good prevail! [Ailinon ailinon eipe, to d’ eu nikatô.]

[Cf. LSJ on ailinon, etc.. ]

X) Pausanias 9.29.8:

“It is said that this Linus was a son of Urania and Amphimarus, a son of Poseidon, that he won a reputation for music greater than that of any contemporary or predecessor, and that Apollo killed him for being his rival in singing. On the death of Linus, mourning for him spread, it seems, to all the foreign world, so that even among the Egyptians there came to be a Linus song, in the Egyptian language called Maneros. Of the Greek poets, Homer shows that he knew that the sufferings of Linus were the theme of a Greek song when he says that Hephaestus, among the other scenes he worked upon the shield of Achilles, represented a boy harpist singing the Linus song: ‘In the midst of them a boy on a clear-toned lyre played with great charm, and to his playing sang of beautiful Linus’.2 3

Pamphos, who composed the oldest Athenian hymns, called him Oetolinus (Linus doomed) at the time when the mourning for Linus was at its height.

[x ]

X) Homer, Iliad book 18, line 565

And in their midst a boy made pleasant music with a clear-toned lyre, and thereto sang sweetly the Linos-song with his delicate voice; and his fellows beating the earth in unison therewith followed on with bounding feet mid dance and shouting.

[This passage of Homer is commented in the next entry.]

X) Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900) book 18, commline 570

“The Linos-song was one of the ancient dirges which have been traced to Semitic sources (the wailing for Thammuz, etc.), and apparently were originally laments for the departing summer – so that they would be appropriate at the vintage-feast. The name is probably from the refrain ailinon, so familiar in the great chorus of the Agamemnon, which was taken to mean woe for Linos. Movers has ingeniously suggested that it is the Phoenician ai lenu, ‘woe to us.’The loci classici on Linos are Herod.II:79… Compare also the fragment of a Linos-dirge in Bergk P. L. {3} p. 1297 (corrected, from Schol. B). Though this explanation is the most satisfactory, the other is not indefensible; for the metaphor of the string ‘singing’ may be paralleled by Od. 21.411

31/43See above, in the main text our comment on that etymology, originally due to Frazer.

The connection of myths to the seasons and other such ephemerides was conventional among the authors of the 18th. century, but has now finally been superseded by more serious reconstructions.]

[x ]

X) Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon alphabetic letter *a,

entry: ailinos

ah me for Linos!

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon alphabetic letter *l, entry

*linos

Linos, a mythical minstrel…

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon alphabetic letter *l, entry

*linos

asAppellat., the song or lay of Linos, whether composed by him or upon him;

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon alphabetic letter *l, entry

linwdia

the lament for Linos.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 2, chapter 19, section 8

Here are graves; one is that of Linus, the son of Apollo by Psamathe, the daughter of Crotopus; the other, they say, is that of Linus the poet. (7.60)

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 2, chapter 19, section 8

The story of the latter Linus is more appropriate to another part of my narrative, and so I omit it here, while I have already given the history of the son of Psamathe in my account of Megara.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 29, section 6

To Linus every year they sacrifice as to a hero before they sacrifice to the Muses. (3.36)

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 29, section 6

It is said that this Linus was a son of Urania andAmphimarus, a son of Poseidon, that he won a reputation for music greater than that of any contemporary or predecessor, and that Apollo killed him for being his rival in singing.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 29, section 7

On the death of Linus, mourning for him spread, it seems, to all the foreign world, so that even

among the Egyptians there came to be a Linus song, in the Egyptian language called Maneros.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 29, section 7

Of the Greek poets, Homer shows that he knew that the sufferings of Linus were the theme of a Greek song when he says that Hephaestus, among the other scenes he worked upon the shield of Achilles, represented a boy harpist singing the Linus song:—In the midst of them a boy on a clear-toned lyre

Played with great charm, and to his playing sang of beautiful Linus.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 29, section 8

Sappho of Lesbos, who learnt the name of Oetolinus from the epic poetry of Pamphos, sang of

both Adonis and Oetolinus together. (7.81) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter

29, section 9

Other tales are told by the Thebans, how that later than this Linus there was born another, called the son of Ismenius, a teacher of music, and how Heracles, while still a child, killed him.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id

aphrodite

But to this, her time of joyful action, was opposed a season of sorrow, when her creations wither and die—a sentiment expressed in her inconsolable grief for her beloved Adonis (q.v.), the symbol of vegetation perishing in its prime, a myth derived by the Greeks from the Babylonian worship of Adon or Thammuz, and akin to those of Linus, Hyacinthus, and Narcissus. (4.17)

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id

fig.00259

Calliopé bore to Oeagrus a son named Linus, who was killed by his pupil Heracles.

(Kalliopê). One of the Muses, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyné. She presided over epic poetry and eloquence, and was represented holding a close-rolled parchment and sometimes a trumpet. She derived her name from her beautiful voice (apo tês kalês opos). Calliopé bore to Oeagrus a son named Linus, who was killed by his pupil Heracles (Apollod.i.3.2). She had also by the same sire the celebrated Orpheus. Others, however, made Apollo the sire of Linus and Orpheus. Hesiod (Frag. 97) says that Urania was the mother of Linus.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id heracles Chiron instructed him in the sciences, Rhadamanthus in virtue and wisdom, Eumolpus (or according to another account, Linus) in music.

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[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id linus

An Argive tradition related that Linus was exposed by his mother after his birth, and was brought up by shepherds, but was afterward torn to pieces by dogs. Linus (Linos). The personification of a dirge or lamentation, and therefore described as a son of Apollo by a Muse (Calliopé, or by Psamathé or Chalciopé) or of Amphimarus by Urania. Both Argos and Thebes claimed the honour of his birth. An Argive tradition related that Linus was exposed by his mother after his birth, and was [p. 960] brought up by shepherds, but was afterwards torn to pieces by dogs. Psamathé’s grief at the occurrence betrayed her misfortune to her father, who condemned her to death. Apollo, indignant at the father’s cruelty, visited Argos with a plague; and, in obedience to an oracle, the Argives endeavored to propitiate Psamathé and Linus by means of sacrifices and dirges, which were called lini. According to a Boeotian tradition, Linus was killed by Apollo because he had ventured upon a musical contest with the god. The Thebans distinguished between an earlier and later Linus; the latter is said to have instructed Heracles in music, but to have been killed by the hero.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id thracia The earliest Greek poets, Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, and others, are all represented as coming from Thrace.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id urania The ancient bard Linus is called her son by Apollo, and Hymenaeus also is said to have been a son of Urania.

[x ]

X) Perseus Encyclopedia alphabetic letter L: Linus

a youth lamented in Greek song, identified by Herodotus with the Egyptian Maneros: Hdt. 2.79

[x ]

X) Perseus Encyclopedia alphabetic letter MManeros

son of Min, the first king of Egypt; lament for his early death identified with the Greek Linus–song: Hdt. 2.79; Paus. 9.29.7

[x ]

X) Perseus Encyclopedia alphabetic letter OOetolinus name given to Linus by Pamphos and Sappho: Paus. 9.29.8

34/43x

]

X) Perseus Encyclopedia alphabetic letter OOrpheus brother of Linus:Apollod. 2.4.9

[x ]

X) Tacitus, The Annals book 11, chapter 14

According to one account, it was Cecrops of Athens or Linus of Thebes, or Palamedes of Argos in Trojan times who invented the shapes of sixteen letters, and others, chiefly Simonides, added the rest. It was the Egyptians who first symbolized ideas, and that by the figures of animals. These records, the most ancient of all human history, are still seen engraved on stone. The Egyptians also claim to have invented the alphabet, which the Phœnicians, they say, by means of their superior seamanship, introduced into Greece, and of which they appropriated the glory, giving out that they had discovered what they had really been taught. Tradition indeed says that Cadmus, visiting Greece in a Phœnician fleet, was the teacher of this art to its yet barbarous tribes. According to one account, it was Cecrops of Athens or Linus of Thebes, or Palamedes of Argos in Trojan times who invented the shapes of sixteen letters, and others, chiefly Simonides, added the rest. In Italy the Etrurians learned them from Demaratus of Corinth, and the Aborigines from the Arcadian Evander. And so the Latin letters have the same form as the oldest Greek characters. At first, too our alphabet was scanty, and additions were afterward made. Following this precedent, Claudius added three letters, which were employed during his reign and subsequently disused. These may still be seen on the tablets of brass set up in the squares and temples, on which new statutes are published.

III – Cadmus, Kadmos,Alphabet

X) Herodotus, The Histories (ed.A. D. Godley) book 5, chapter 58, section 1

These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks.

[x ]

X) Tacitus, The Annals book 11, chapter 14

The Egyptians also claim to have invented the alphabet, which the Phœnicians, they say, by means of their superior seamanship, introduced into Greece, and of which they appropriated the glory, giving out that they had discovered what they had really been taught. (3.19)

[x ]

X) Tacitus, The Annals book 11, chapter 14

At first too our alphabet was scanty, and additions were afterward made.

[x ]

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X) Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer) book 3, chapter 1,

section 1

Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons; but Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix. Libya had by Poseidon two sons, Belus and Agenor. Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons; but Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix.2 But some say that Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix.3 Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete.4 There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys;5 but according to Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon.6 On the disappearance of Europa her fatherAgenor sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found Europa. With them her mother, Telephassa, and Thasus, son of Poseidon, or [p. 301] according to Pherecydes, of Cilix,7 went forth in search of her. But when, after diligent search, they could not find Europa, they gave up the thought of returning home, and took up their abode in divers places; Phoenix settled in Phoenicia; Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia; and Cadmus and Telephassa took up their abode in Thrace and in like manner Thasus founded a city Thasus in an island off Thrace and dwelt there.8

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

2 The ancients were not agreed as to the genealogies of these mythical ancestors of the Phoenicians, Cilicians, and Thebans… Herodotus also (Hdt. 7.91) represents Cilix as a son of the Phoenician Agenor, and he tells us (Hdt. 4.147) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, left a Phoenician colony in the island of Thera. Diodorus Siculus reports (Diod. 5.59.2ff.) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, planted a Phoenician colony in Rhodes, and that the descendants of the colonists continued to hold the hereditary priesthood of Poseidon, whose worship had been instituted by Cadmus.

[x ]

X) John Conington, Commentary on Vergil’s Aeneid, Volume 2 book 11, commline 543 Sat. 3. 8 declares that the word Casmilus is Greek, and used by Callimachus, evidently referring, as Müller observes, to the Cabeiric god known as Cadmilus, Casmilus, or Cadmus.

[x ]

X) Euripides, Bacchae (ed. T.A. Buckley)

Dionysus I, the son of Zeus, has come to this land of the Thebans—Dionysus, whom once Semele, Kadmos‘ daughter, bore, delivered by a lightning-bearing flame.

[x ]

X) Herodotus, The Histories (ed.A. D. Godley) book 2, chapter 49, section 3

But I believe that Melampus learned the worship of Dionysus chiefly from Cadmus of Tyre and those who came with Cadmus from Phoenicia to the land now called Boeotia.

[x ]

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X) Herodotus, The Histories (ed.A. D. Godley) book 2, chapter 145, section 4

Now the Dionysus who was called the son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, was a hundred years before my time, and Heracles son of Alcmene about nine hundred years; and Pan the son of Penelope (for according to the Greeks Penelope and Hermes were the parents of Pan) was about eight hundred years before me, and thus of a later date than the Trojan war.

[x ]

X) Herodotus, The Histories (ed.A. D. Godley) book 4, chapter 147, section 4

On the island now called Thera, but then Calliste, there were descendants of Membliarus the son of Poeciles, a Phoenician; for Cadmus son of Agenor had put in at the place now called Thera during his search for Europa; and having put in, either because the land pleased him, or because for some other reason he desired to do so, he left on this island his own relation Membliarus together with other Phoenicians.

[x ]

X) Herodotus, The Histories (ed.A. D. Godley) book 5, chapter 58, section 1

These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks.

[x ]

X) Hesiod, Theogony line 940

And Semele, daughter of Cadmus was joined with him in love and bore him a splendid son, joyous Dionysus,—a mortal woman an immortal son.

[x ]

X) Homer, The Odyssey (ed. Samuel Butler) book 5, line 333

When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called Leukothea, saw him.

[x ]

X) Homer, Odyssey book 5, line 330

But the daughter of Cadmus, Ino of the fair ankles, saw him, even Leucothea, who of old was a mortal of human speech, but now in the deeps of the sea has won a share of honor from the gods.

[x ]

X) J. Wells, W. W. How, A Commentary on Herodotus book 5, chapter 58, section

1grammata.

H.’s theory that the Greek alphabet, as he knew it, was of Phoenician origin is borne out by comparing the forms, names, and order of the early Greek and Phoenician letters (Roberts, Greek Epigraphy, § 4 f.). It contrasts favorably with the ascription of the invention to mythical

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heroes, such as Palamedes (Stesichorus), Prometheus (Aesch. P. V. 460 f.), Musaeus, Orpheus, or Linus. Of course H. Knew nothing of the primitive Cretan and Mycenaean scripts (A. J. Evans, J. H. S. xiv, xvii, and Scripta Minoa), which being earlier must probably have contributed to the formation of the Phoenician alphabet. His connexion of the earliest Greek alphabet with Cadmus and Boeotia is simply a part of his theory of Phoenician settlement, as is the hypothesis that it spread first among Ionians. H. has not the learning to distinguish the alphabets of Eastern and of Western Hellas, or to recognize that the Ionic alphabet in its final form is a late development of the former.

[x ]

X) Flavius Josephus, Against Apion (ed. William Whiston,A.M.) book 1, section 6

But as for the place where the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand destructions have overtaken it, and blotted out the memory of former actions… It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they now use; for those who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest antiquity pretend that they learned them from the Phoenicians and from Cadmus; yet is nobody able to demonstrate that they have any writing preserved from that time, neither in their temples nor in any other public monuments. This appears, because the time when those lived who went to the Trojan war, so many years afterward, is in great doubt, and great inquiry is made, whether the Greeks used their letters at that time; and the most prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth, is, that their present way of using those letters was unknown at that time. However, there is not any writing which the Greeks agree to be genuine among them ancienter than Homer’s Poems, who must plainly he confessed later than the siege of Troy; nay, the report goes, that even he did not leave his poems in writing, but that their memory was preserved in songs, and they were put together afterward, and that this is the reason of such a number of variations as are found in them. 1

[x ]

X) Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon alphabetic letter *k,

entry *kadmeiw/nh

daughter of Cadmus, i.e. Semele.

[x ]

X) Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon entry

*)inw/

Ino, daughter of Cadmus, worshipped as a sea-goddess by the name of Leucothea,

[x ]

X) D. B. Monro, James Riddell, W. Walter Merry, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886)

book 11, commline 260Amphion and Zethus, the two sons of Antiope by Zeus, are represented here as the first builders and fortifiers of Thebes. This is an earlier account than the common story of the foundation of Thebes by Cadmus…Apollodorus, following the older logographers, places Cadmus first, and introduces Amphion and Zethus at a later point in the series, representing them as having built the lower city of Thebes at the foot of the citadel Cadmeia. So Pausan. 9. 5, 6tên polin tên katô prosôikisan têi Kadmeiai. To this later stage of the legend belong the stories of Lycus, Dirce, and Nycteus, in connection with Antiope, and of the walls of

Thebes rising to the sound of Amphion’s lyre… The analogy of the ThebanAmphion and

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Zethus to the Lacedaemonian Dioscuri is worth notice. Euripides (Phoeniss. 606) calls them theoi leukopôloi, and in Aristoph. (Aristoph. Ach.906) the Boeotian swears nê tô siô, where see Bergk, ‘Iurat per Amphionem et Zethum tanquam Thebanus. Cum Lacon aliquis aut Lacaena iurat nai tô siô intellegit Castorem et Pollucem.’ Later mythology regarded Zethus as the son of Epopeus, and therefore mortal and inferior to Amphion the son of Zeus. Similarly in the case of Castor and Polydeuces, of Iphicles and Heracles, the former in each pair was the inferior mortal of human parentage.

[x ]

X) Pausanias, Description of Greece book 9, chapter 12, section 1

As Cadmus was leaving Delphi by the road to Phocis, a cow, it is said, guided him on his way… Those who think that the Cadmus who came to the Theban land was an Egyptian, and not a Phoenician, have their opinion contradicted by the name of this Athena, because she is called by the Phoenician name of Onga, and not by the Egyptian name of Sais. The Thebans assert that on the part of their citadel, where to-day stands their market-place, was in ancient times the house of Cadmus. They point out the ruins of the bridal chamber of Harmonia, and of one which they say was Semele’s into the latter they allow no man to step even now. Those Greeks who allow the Muses sang at the wedding of Harmonia, can point to the spot in the marketplace where it is said that the goddesses sang.There is also a story that along with the thunderbolt hurled at the bridal chamber of Semele there fell a log from heaven. They say that Polydorus adorned this log with bronze and called it Dionysus Cadmus.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id agenor

). (1) Son of Poseidon and Libyé, king of Phoenicia, brother to Belus, and father of Cadmus and Europa

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id

fig.00061

ascribe the perfection of letters to various individuals, such as Palamedes, and Simonides of Ceos, the actual introduction of the alphabet was almost universally credited to Cadmus (q.v.), a Phœnician settled in Boeotia – the name Cadmus being undoubtedly the same as the Hebrew Kadmi, “an Eastern.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id Cadmus CadmusThe ancient tradition was that Cadmus brought sixteen letters from Phœnicia to Greece, to which Palamedes added subsequently four more, th, x, ph, ch, and Simonides, at a still later period, four others, z, ê, ps, ô. The traditional alphabet of Cadmus is supposed to have been the following: A, B, G, D, E, Ph, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, and the names were, Alpha, Bêta, Gamma, Delta, Ei, Phau, Iôta, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Ou, Pi, Rhô, Zigma, Tau. The explanation which has just been given to the myth of Cadmus, and its connection with the Pelasgi, have an important bearing on the question relative to the existence of an early Pelasgic alphabet in Greece. See Alphabet; Pelasgi… He resigned the kingdom to Illyrius; and then he and his wife Harmonia were changed into serpents, and carried by Zeus to Elysium.

[x ]

X) Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898) id

harmonia

The daughter of Ares and Aphrodité, and wife of Cadmus. Cadmus gave her a costly garment and a necklace, the workmanship of Hephaestus, which he had received from Aphrodité, or (according to another account) from Europa. (3.91)

[x ]

X) [x ]

X) [x ]

X)

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON ALPHABET

[ABOUT.COM LINK] + Amazon.com ANTIQUITY JOURNAL

###Opsopaus: I have also found some relevant information on the history of the Greek alphabet. There is considerable evidence that the Greek alphabet was derived from a proto-Canaanite script before 1050 BCE (Naveh 178). In fact this is the approximate chronology given by Naveh (10): Naveh, Joseph. Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Paleography. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1987:

BCE 1700 proto-Canaanite developed

1100 archaic Greek derived from proto-Canaanite

1050 proto-Canaanite -> Phoenician

800 (Early) Hebrew derived from Phoenician

700 Aramaic derived from Phoenician

650 Latin derived from Greek

200 Square Hebrew (or Jewish) derived from Aramaic

Martin Bernal goes further. He argues that between 1750 and 1400 BCE the Greeks borrowed an early Semitic alphabet with 28 consonants. Bernal, Martin. Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West before 1400 B.C. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.

The order of the letters was that documented for the (long) Ugaritic alphabet, which also derives from this Semitic alphabet. Later Semitic alphabets reduced the number of consonants to the 22 familiar ones, but archaic Greek kept 27 of the original letters, Much later, early in the first millenium BCE, under influence of the (22 letter) Phoenician alphabet, the Greeks reorganized their alphabet and borrowed the Phoenician names of those 22 letters (aleph -> alpha, etc.), and their order (non-Phoenician letters were moved to the end). (See Bernal chs. 3, 5, 6, esp. pp. 61, 66-9, 114, 123-8)

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1) Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson (Hardcover)

Studia alphabetica : on the origin and early history of the Northwest Semitic,

South Semitic, and Greek alphabets

by Benjamin Sass ()Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet by Barry B. Powell (Paperback – January 1997)

Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: A Linguistic Interpretation of the

Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek Literacy by Roger D. Woodard (Hardcover – October 1997)

Alphabet: An Account of the Origin and Development of Letters-2 vols. by Taylor Issac (Hardcover

The Origin of Writing

by Roy Harris (Hardcover – July 1986)

### Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (1996), The World’s Writing Systems, Oxford.

Diringer, David. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind (2 vv.). New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1968.

Diringer, David. The Story of the Aleph Beth. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960; World Jewish Congress, 1958.

S. Mercer, The Origin of Writing and Our Alphabet (1959); D. Diringer, The Alphabet (2 vol., 3d ed. 1968); O. Ogg, The 26 Letters (rev. ed. 1971); C. Grafton, Historic Alphabets and2 Initials (1977);A. Gaur, A History of Writing (1984).

There are hundreds of excellent resources on ancient scripts and the origin and development of the alphabet. Here are a few that I have found particularly useful: A few that I have inclulded here are listed because they are recent and do not show up in the older bibliographies. In the library, many of these books can be found on the shelves under the reference numbers (LC) P 211 and (Dewey) 411.

Albright, Wm. F. (1950?) The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment. Albright, Wm. F. (1950?) The Phonology of Ancient Egyptian…

##### Bett, Steve T. (1996) The Origin of the Alphabet. unpublished manuscript. Carpenter, Rhys. (1933) The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet.

American Journal of Archaeology, 37: 8-29. (in electronic format at UT) 700 B.C.-Phoen. alphabet to Rhodes & Crete,Athens, Delos,

670 B.C., Etruscan inscriptions, 600 B.C.Lycian & Lydian alphabets adopted, Iliad written down. After 600 B.C., Phrygian alphabet adapted from Greek. The civilization of 9th and 8th century Greece overestimated. A people devoid of architecture, painting, etc. were not likely to be literate. Homer ca. 800 b.c.and other storytellers were illiterate but the principals in the stories were not.

Cottrel, Leonard. (1980) Reading the Past University of California Press.

Coulmas, F. (1989) The Writing Systems of the World. Oxford. Basil Blackwell. Cross, F.M. (1979) Early Alphabetic Scripts. Cambridge:American Schools of Oriental

Research.

Cross, F.M. (1979) The Invention and Development of the Alphabet in Senner, Frank (ed.) The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press

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Crystal, David (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. Diringer, David. (1960) The Story of the ‘Aleph-Bet. New York

Primary focus on Semitic and Jewish scripts

–––––––––––– (1962) Writing. London: Thames and Hudson. ––––––––––– (1968) The Alphabet. 3rd. ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. ––––––––––– and Freeman, Hilda (1983) A History of the Alphabet.

Headley: Gresham Books.

––––––––––––. (1980?) Article on writing in the Encyclopedia Britanica see also the 11th (1910) and 14th (1929) editions.

de Rouge, Manuel. (1874) Memorire sur l’origine Egyptienne de l’alphabet Phenicien. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.

Driver, G.R. (1976) Semitic Writing: From Pictograph to Alphabet. London: Oxfrord University Press. (first edition, 1948)

Drucker, Johanna. (1995) The Alphabet Labyrinth. Thames & Hudson, London. (This book, subtitled the alphabet and the imagination, is very good at including sections from many old out of print books on the subject)

Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1957) Egyptian Grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press. –––––––––––––––– (1916) The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet.

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 3: 1-16. ––––––––––––––––- (1961) Egypt of the Pharaohs.

Gaur, A. (1984-7) A History of Writing. London, The British Library.

Gelb, I.J. (1963) A Study of Writing. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. First published in 1952 by Routledge & Keagan Paul. Ltd. London

Healey, John. (1990) The Early Alphabet. London: British Museum. Cf. Reading the Past Series, Univ. of CA. (1990).

Jensen, Hans. (1969) Sign, Symbol, and Script. New York. Originally published as Geschiche der Schrift (1925) Hanover. See also

Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1935) Hamburg.

Miller, D. Gary. (1994) Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge. John Benjamins Publishing Co. Ch. 4. The Greek Alphabet – 33 preclassical

Neveh, Joseph. (1982) The Early History of the Alphabet. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Ray, John D. (1986) The Emergence of Writing in Egypt. World Archaeology,

17 (3) 390-398.

Robinson, Andrew. (1995) The Story of Writing. Thames & Hudson, London. Moscati, Sabatino. (ed.) (1988)The Phoenicians. NY: Abbeville Press.

(See Giovanni Garbrini, The Question of the Alphabet, pp. 86-103) Sampson, G. (1985) Writing Systems. London: Hutchinson.

Sass, Benjamin. (1988) The Genesis of the Alphabet and its Development in the 2nd Millenium B.C.

Saussure, Ferdinand de (1959) Course in General Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library.

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. (1978) The Earliest Precursors to Writing, Sc. Amer. 238:50-59.

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. (1992) Before Writing. Austin: University of Texas Press. Taylor, Isaac. (1899) The History of the Alphabet: An account of the origin and

development of the letters, 2 vol. London: Edw. Arnold.

Ullman, B.L. (1927) The Origin and Development of the Alphabet, American Journal of Archaeology, 31, 311-328.

–––––––––. (1932) Ancient Writing and Its Influence. Amer. J. of Archaeology 31, 311-328.

 

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