YAM SUPH

Scarab

2012-01-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Gravettian toolmaking industry of the Upper Paleolithic was prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It was named for the La Gravette type site of Dordogne region of France where its graveur style lithic tools were first found. The characteristic artifact of this industry is a lithic flake with a chisel edge called a burin. This specialized edge of a burin may have been used by prehistoric humans as a carving and engraving tool on wood, bone or softer stone. Burins are designed with a feature called a burin spall where the toolmaker struck increasingly smaller flakes in order to form the graving edge. It has an oblong heft that would fit comfortably into the palm of the artisan hand. The comparison of the burin shape to wood boring beetles is in accordance with the function of both. Perhaps the manufacture of the first burin was an attempt dislodge grubs and beetles as a meal.

Dawn's encroaching light that consumes the shadows and creates a new day was attributed to Khepre represented by the dung beetle Scarabeaus. The ancient Egyptian word for the dung beetle as well as the carved stone scarab artifacts is a'ov. Ovular shapes such as the beetle, egg and nuts are natural containers.The container that held the throne name of the Pharaoh was an ovular shape. Scarabs were inscribed with throne names of Pharaohs as well as high officials in later dynasties. The throne name inscribed on the scarab literally meant "Ra manifested through ________ (Pharaoh's name)." The grooves of the engraving allowed the name of the Pharaoh to be seen through the play of shadows. What magic indeed!

A geometrical ellipse is the locus of all points of a plane whose distances to two fixed points add to the same constant. It is is a closed curve and its horizontal and vertical axes are symmetric. In Euclidean geometry, an ellipse is usually defined as the bounded case of a conic section, or as the set of points such that the sum of the distances to two fixed points is constant. The proof of the equivalence of these two definitions uses focal spheres. The first theorem is that an ellipse is the locus of points such that the sum of the distances to two fixed points (the foci) is constant. The second theorem is that for any conic section, the distance from a fixed point (the focus) is proportional to the distance from a fixed line. The precise conic section of stone scarabs'oval shape illustrate the ancient Egyptians understanding of Euclidean geometry.

The Hebrew tri-lateral roots KRV and KRS build words that describe cutting and splitting. (keh'·resh - to split off, khä·rash' to cut into to engrave, makh·ar·eh'·sheth plow share cutting furrow, khä·rav' splitting of red sea, kheh'·rev tool for cutting stone, sword, knife) These carving words are also cognate to scarab. Scribe is another scarab word and has the meaning of to write or to copy. Scarab and scribe are both words that contain all the letters in which a conic section is required. All other letters can be inscribed with a combination of right triangle and/or isosceles triangle. The letters S, C and B must have a conic section to inscribe. Letters O, D, R, and P can be created using the S, C or B pattern. But nothing can replace the equivalence of the two fixed points of the scarab's flat underside.

Cherubim

2012-01-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

Professor Christopher Hutton's language research focuses on the link between linguistic theory and race theory. He states that "For in language the most important thing is not the object itself but the concept that the members of the speech community have of it. That the concept varies from place to place and period to period is so evident as not to require special justification". In the Latin language cerebrum meant profound understanding to people under Rome's domination. The profound understanding of Romans and the regions they conquered was the rule of the sword. "Ius Gladii" the Law of The Sword meant that Ceasar held the power of life over death. Roman officials, preceded by sword carriers, announced their supreme jurisdiction by virtue of Ceasar. The life of every human was not his own.The bronze sword's supreme jurisdiction was common to all Chalcolithic peoples. . The *keres- top of the head was easily separated according to the Law of the Sword.

Pe Kheruv "edge of the sword" is an Hebraism found in thirty-five chapters of the Old Testament. Pe Kheruv means to lay waste and is used in conjunction with the elimination of entire clans or tribes. Pe Kheruv literally translated is "mouth of the sword" and could be describing the curved area of the Canaanite khopesh. The khopesh blade is only sharpened on the outside portion of the curved end. The Egyptians adopted this implement from the Canaanites which was eventually rendered kopis as a result of the bronze trade with Greece. It was a weapon of slaughter - not fighting - and specifically designed to separate the head from the shoulders of man or beast.

Romans 14: 3"For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, and an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer".

This warning from Paul does not use the Ius Gladi sword word of Roman supreme jurisdiction. Instead, he uses the word for a large knife used for killing animals and cutting up flesh; mä'-khī-rä. Fabrication of the curved edges of a leaf shaped large knife requires a process of scribing. A pattern must be traced onto a blank form and then cut and polished. The Hebrew word makh·ar·eh'·sheth is the implement of scribing whether it be with the plow or engraver. In the creole language of the copper trade, a makira may have meant those implements that are traced and cut from a pattern. A form of this word for engraving was used when the God of Hebrew speaking people split the Yam Suph and allowed the Israelites to escape into freedom. Yam Suph, the crossing of the crevice, was a paradigm shift of profound understanding. The supreme jurisdiction was no longer Pharaoh but the Law of Moses engraved on tablets for all to read. Asiatic slaves created the first alphabet in the copper mines of Sinai appealing to the God of Adam. Their prayers were answered and an agent of wrath brought punishment onto the wrongdoers. Perhaps Paul was implying a similar scenario using language to defy the Ius Gladii of Caesar.

The first man and woman were instructed not to eat fruit from the Tree of Life. But they could not help themselves so the God of Adam placed Cherubim on either side of the garden gate each with flaming Kheruvim swords. Genesis 3:24 "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life". The Cherubim were the agents of God's supreme jurisdiction. They were the profound understanding gained from the merisms of the Tree of knowledge. Cherubim are the heavenly mirror image of man's holy countenance where language, speech and every supreme jurisdiction reside; the cerebrum.

The cerebrum is the most superior region of the central nervous system. A longitudinal groove separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral hemispheres that mirror each other. The cerebrum and cerebral cortex is folded into many peaks and valleys called sulcus and gyrus. The cephalitic enfolding of the cerebrum is the process by which the embryo develops. The dual wings of the cerebrum cover more primitive sections of the brain and are responsible for all speech and language skills as well as complex behaviors such as social interactions, thought and judgement. That could also be describing the Cherubim guarding the front gate of the Garden of Eden.

Khepre

2012-01-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

The tree of knowledge of good and evil is introduced in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. It has been suggested by a scholar of ancient languages,Cyrus Gordon, that the phrase "good and evil" is a figure of speech called a merism. The mirror image of good and evil are used together to create a third entirely new meaning defined as everything. The tree of knowledge of good and evil becomes the tree of all knowledge.

The mirror image approach to understanding creation is known as dualism and is a consistent theme in religion and philosophy. Symmetry is dualism's biological mirror image for which a tree is also an excellent metaphor. The trunk of the tree represents the connection of the mirrored halves and is the conduit between the two sides. The Cabbalistic Tree of Life (Sephirot) is a symmetrical network cabled together by a central trunk. Its redundant connections could be compared to the human brain. Kaphal is the Hebrew word for doubling and folding or making two out of one. It is surely the origin of kephale the Greek word for head which would make kaphal the origin of many words describing cephalization.Trees connect sky and earth, life and death, moisture and dryness and men to the divine. They are vascular plants and have veins that move water and nutrients throughout their structures. Xylem veins run from the roots throughout the entire tree to carry nutrients from the soil. Phloem sap is created at the leaves during photosynthesis and travels down to the roots.

The ancient Egyptian representation of the head is Khepre with the dung beetle (Scarabaeidae) as his totem. His job is to protect Ra on his journey through the night time underworld. Khepre means "to come into being" and came to represent the sun at dawn. During the night hours the sun is "hidden within" the dark beetle. Kaphir is a word that means black and must originate from this cephalic totem. Sephir of the Cabbalistic Sephirot may ultimately originate with this beetle. Khepre is also the ancient Egyptian word for hinna, a plant harvested for lawsone. Lawsone is a dark organic compound that binds with protein and has been used since antiquity as a dye. Men dyed their beards and women their fingernails with hinna and was considered a sunnah (fortunate) by Prophet Muhammad saaw.

The pineal gland is located in the center of the brain and secretes a dark hormone called melatonin. It is the Regulator-in-Chief of all secreted hormones including the female menstrual cycle. The pineal releases melatonin during the dark hours and plays a critical role in the sleep cycle. Circadian rhythm, governed by the pineal, duplicates the movement of the sun. The dualistic approach the ancient Egyptians used to understand natural laws placed Ra in the center of the cephalic vault during the night.

It is easy to make a comparison between the scarab beetle shell and the human skull. The dung beetle has a hard outer layer protecting a hemolymphic circulatory system and the grooves are similar to the sutures of a skull. The job of Khepre was to protect Ra on his journey through the underworld as the skull protects the important matter within. Noah was protected during the flood by an ark built of kopher wood. Kopher means to "cover over or to house something" and is also the word used for pitch. Pitch is a resin made from petroleum and possibly tree sap and was used in antiquity to waterproof boats.The word khepre may originate with the tree Noah used to build his ark. Cypress is a tree from which sap is collected and is used as the translation of kopher.

Linguists agree that is copper is a word related to Cyprus/cypress. They have decided that the metal was named for the island. However, copper ore was being mined in the Rift Valley on an industrial scale long before the island developed a high civilization. The earliest records relating to Cyprus dates to the middle Bronze age. Perhaps copper is derived from the from the ancient name for the bipennis, the Cretin version of Khepre. Bipennis means doubled wing and was used as a scepter by the Regulator-in-Chief. Bipennis and pineal, as well as pinia and pine, are ultimately derived from the same Hebrew root word Panah which means to "turn and face". Its derivatives are used to describe the Presence of God and the worship thereof.

Kherev is the Hebrew word for sword and originates with a word meaning to "divide into two halves". It must also be related to carob and cherub which are words related to scarab. The dual cherubim covered the Mercy Seat of the Arc of the Covenant with their wingspan. They were formed from one blank of bronze without any seams. Other related words are crab (creature with hard shell), karibu (Akk.one who blesses), grub (larvae of beetle), scorpion and groove.

Ultimately, the winged Khepre, the Bipennis, the Cherubim and Scarab are all derived from the corpus collosum; the abode of the Regulator-in-Chief. It is a wide bundle of neural cables beneath the cortex along the longitudinal groove. It connects the the doubled wings of the cerebrum (another sword word) and facilitates communication between the two hemispheres. This configuration may explain why humans interpret the world in a dualistic manner. We compare, contrast and create using the building blocks of earlier comparisons. Our amazing bipennate brain needs to compare heaven to earth to create the words that describe what we discover. Language is more than the croaking of frogs - even if they are the northern European variety.

Veil of the Horizon

2012-01-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

The ancient Egyptians used basin irrigation in their agricultural practices which not only watered but naturally fertilized their fields. The Nile River is the lower watershed of the Ethiopian highlands and the recipient of mineral enriched sediment that amends the topsoil. In ancient times, the Nile would create a floodplain to a depth of 1.5 meters. In mid July the river began to rise gently in the south and reached flood stage at the first cataract in mid August. The flood would then surge northward and reach the end of the valley about five weeks later. The farmers would capture the sediment by enclosing plots of land with dikes. The flood water was held fast giving the fertile silt and sediment time to settle. The surplus water would then be returned to the watercourse by breaching the dikes. July 17th is still celebrated as the "Night of the Drop" when the celestial tear fell and the Nile began to rise. Tatenen was the totem of this cyclical inundation and may be translated as "Realm of the Rising Mounds." The hieroglyph of Tatenen is accompanied by the sign for cloth.

In prehistoric Egypt, the watercourse of the flood would have evolved through the agricultural practices of farmers. Mounding the topsoil onto higher ground and digging ravines for water drainage would have eventually created permanent canals. The perennial flood waters would have traveled the same course both rising and receding.This circulating watercourse may have been called a kikker. "And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the kikker of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar." The floodplain of Jordan, although contained because of mountain ranges on each side, would fit the description of basin irrigation. However, because of the rapid descent of the River Jordan (Jordan means the descender) sedimentation would have soon been depleted. Unlike the Nile kikker, farmers of the Jordan floodplain would have had to eventually amend the soil. The floodplain in Guyana is similar to the Nile watershed and is farmed by descendants of African slaves. They call their basin irrigation system a koker which corroborates the definition of the similar kikker.

After the Nile began to recede, the dikes would be breached allowing the excess water to drain. The sun would dry the soil enough so that the plowing and planting could begin. A plausible word used to describe dike breaching is the Hebrew word shalaish which has cognates meaning to set seed. The definition of shalaish is "striking repeatedly" and/or "to impale." The rim of the dike would be slashed repeatedly and impaled with farming implements to create a ditch for the water to escape. A slow flow would be desirable so that valuable sediment remains in the basin. There is a noticeable similarity of shalaish and slash but also to shalosh the Hebrew word for three. Three slash marks is a ubiquitous symbol with a meaning lost to antiquity. Perhaps it represented breaching the dikes and release of water.

After the crop harvest, an important task would have been to repair the breaches in the dikes. The predictable flooding required advanced planning to prepare for the next cycle of sediment capture. An inevitable invention would have been a sluice gate. A sluice gate precludes the need for the repeated slashing and building back up of the basin embankment. Another benefit would be the ability to regulate the amount of water released. With a sluice gate installed, the dike could be permanently fortified and unintentional breaching could be deterred. Sluice and shalosh may have both evolved from shalaish. Watching the operation of a sluice gate, the word slice also comes to mind.

The single most important connection between heaven and earth was the moisture delivery system. Famine, disease and death were directly correlated to an absence of water. Understanding and controlling the water cycle was the foremost duty of the priestly class. They compared the heavens to the earth (as well as the human body) and tried to control hydrology by the obsessive creation of rituals. The priests interpreted the heavens as a kikker and releasing water must be through a similar device. Stars were the sluice gates of heaven and must be tears in the fabric of the firmament. Opening the sluice gates of heaven required ritual that focused on the body of the Pharaoh - especially in death. Celestial is another shalaish word and comes from the Greek word for heavenly bodies. A tear (water droplet) comes from the tear (laceration) but linguists say there is no connection. Tear and slash have about the same meaning.

The cloth of Tatenen was viewed as the earthly fabric of the kikker woven from one thread without any seams. Likewise, the continuous flow of the Nile was one thread that carried the life-giving silt and sediment throughout all farmland. Weaving with one thread could more accurately be described as or knitting or tatting. Weaving requires both warp and weft threads but tatting depends upon one continuous flow of yarn. If the Pharaoh was to be the pure light then the"veil of the horizon" (wrappings) would need to be tatted. Tait was the goddess responsible for mummy wrappings and also the fine linens that clothed the votive statues. Woven cloth is relatively rigid whereas tatted "lace" or intarsia is flexible, can be drawn closed or stretch when filled. Supermarkets sometimes provide tatted shopping bags that stretch to accommodate produce but shrink closed when empty.

The Wab priests were also known as Priests of Purity performed their duties in pristine linen. They were closely associated with Tait and were responsible for the health of the Pharaoh. Their primary duty, or at least, their only duty that can be confirmed, is to retrieve the bat to be used in an unknown potion. The bat was probably the Egyptian fruit bat or Egyptian Rousette. This bat had to be retrieved on the correct day at the correct hour supposedly to achieve the most benefit to the potion. The Rousette is proven to be the pollinator of the hinna plant called Khepre by the ancient Egyptians. The Edenic name of this bat is atalleph and is cognate to many words that mean to suspend.

The Rousette would be an appropriate totem for the suspended veil that divides heaven and earth. In fact, it does appears to be the creature depicted on the Was Scepter. In some iterations of this scepter, tear drops or rain is cascading down the shaft. In other funerary art, the Was Scepter is shown holding up the night sky. The striking resemblance to a tatting hook make the Was Scepter a fitting totem for the goddess Tait to tat the Veil of the Horizon.

Kalakala

2012-01-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Kalakala (kah-LAK-ah-lah) is a unique art deco ferry boat that operated on the Salish Sea and Puget Sound from 1935 until 1967. In 1933, the vessel was sold to the Puget Sound Black Ball Line and refit to operate as a ferry. It was a popular tourist attraction during the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. The Kalakala was issued FCC license #001 for the first commercial radar system.

In 1967 the vessel was sold to a seafood processing company and towed to Alaska to work as a crabbing ship. After a time the Kalakala was beached in Kodiak and used to process shrimp and as a cannery. In 1998, she was rediscovered and, after complicated financial negotiations, the ship was re floated and towed back to Seattle by the fearless Holly James. However, since sufficient funds could not be raised for her refurbishment, she languished in Seattle's Union Bay until she was evicted. Next, the Maakah First Nation people of Neah Bay took pity on her and allowed the Kalakala to be moored free of charge in a tribal harbor.

Kalakala means seagull in Chinook Jargon, a "creole" language created from native Pacific Northwest dialects for use in trade with the "Anglo" people. It was said of her gleaming hull that she looked like a seagull sitting on the water. Seagulls do not have a good reputation in the coastal Northwest. They are very noisey scavengers and tend to indiscriminately deposit bird droppings. They are also carrion eaters and are often seen fighting over the smelliest fish carcass. The Black Ball Line understandably wanted their vessel to be known as the Silver Swan but it was the name Kalakala that has endured.

The native tribes of the Northwest are concentrated around coastal regions and estuaries. Their culture is intimately connected to the sea and inland waterways. Historically, each tribe occupied an economic niche that exploited natural resources while not infringing on the food sources of other tribes. An exception would be during salmon runs when the plenitude allowed everyone to take as much as they could cure. The Maakah people of Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula were seal and whale hunters. They would await the yearly whale migration at the Seiku bluff and could immediately tell which specie had arrived by their seal point.

At the notification by the lookout the Maakah men would rush to their canoes and paddle out to intercept the whale. Their highly structured society was built on status achieved at these whale hunts. One hunter would harpoon the whale with a device that was attached to a seal skin float. This float was filled with air and slowed the behemoth and kept it from deep diving. More floats would be attached until the whale tired and eventually stopped swimming. At this point, a high-status young man or a man wishing to achieve a higher status, would jump into the freezing water with the dying behemoth and sew the mouth shut. This was to prevent the whale from taking on water and sinking. What an amazing connection these people must have had with the sea and the animals that inhabit it!

There has not been much ethnographic research regarding these tribes or their myths and legends. As a matter of fact, their burial rites and other cultural practices have been historically met with contempt. When an area bridge needed to be rebuilt, it was discovered that the area the old pylons had been built was back-filled with bones from an ancient burial ground. How did these people dispose of their dead? Anecdotal evidence shows that each tribe may have had very different methods.

Jim Trainer, an arborist in the ancestral Suquamish tribal area has found burials sites inside massive tree trunks. Canoes containing bones were interred inside living trees as if they were to become part of its continued growth. It is not known if only certain individuals achieved this rite or if only select trees received this honor. Tree burials immediately call to mind the myth of Osiris who was embedded in the trunk of a tree. Also, Egyptian barqs were buried near Pharaohs tombs for his journey through the underworld. Perhaps these ancient people had a similar view of the afterlife? Finding an area on the coast where a human could be buried underground would be a daunting task. Glaciation has laid down a deep stratum of hardpan clay soil that is denser than concrete. A much more practical and culturally significant method would be to lay the deceased in a canoe and float it out to sea. Other peoples connected to the sea have adopted this method. If so, the body would undoubtedly be excarnated by seagulls and, therefore, returned to the sea for fulfillment of the cycle. In the cultures of the Red Sea, the completion of this cycle is called Sheva or Saba.

It is now time for the Kalakala to complete her cycle. She deserves to be allowed to lie on the floor of the sea to become a home for fish fry and other sea creatures. It is so sad to see the once proud vessel list in the mud of Foss waterway. Please, Steve Rodriquez, end her suffering. Let the Kalakala go to her eternal resting place on the ocean floor.

The Heb Sed Jubilee

2011-12-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Heb Sed Jubilee was celebrated after 30 years of a Pharaohs' reign to reaffirm his right to rule and as protection for his continued good health. There is speculation that this rite was the replacement of the earlier tradition of regicide (king sacrifice.) In this solemn ceremony, the Pharaoh was sacrificed and then brought back to life in a symbolic re-enactment. The Pharaoh of the First Dynasty was already celebrating the Heb Sed with all its dramatic components which places the origin of this sacrament in the far distant past.

A connection to Osiris as well as the constellation of Ursa Major give us clues to the meaning behind these symbolic rituals. Heb Sed has been translated as Festival of the Tail and, indeed, the ceremonial attire of the Pharaoh includes a bushy tail connected to his tight fitting garment of linen. Egyptologists see the tail as a remnant of an earlier garment made completely of animal skin but another explanation will be offered here at Yam Suph. In this theory Ursa, Osiris, Asar as well as horse and arse all share the same root and have the meaning of tail. Saur is a Greek word for tail and is used to build the word dinosaur, the extinct animal whose petrified bones consist mainly of tail. Uraeus is a Greek word also derived from tail. The Osiris bone is the only bone required for the body to reconstitute itself in Rasta (heaven) and is identified as the coccyx or tail bone. The brightest star of Ursa Major is called Mizer in Arabic and is translated as loin which is where the coccyx resides. This is the star that mariners use to find True North. Perhaps Mizer is somehow related to m'ezer; from a fitting helper (Eve) for Adam. Urs is the Arabic word meaning to wed.

Ursa Major contains the asterism known as the Big Dipper and, to northern language groups, known as the Bear. It is disconcerting to see antique depictions of this constellation as a bear with a long tail. The meaning of tail must have remained attached to this asterism as the science of astrology spread throughout the world. Most likely, the animal that inspired this word does not exist in colder climates. That would eliminate the wolf or fox as the Ursus as they are well adapted to northern climates although they have long, bushy tails. The British Islands see the Ursus as a plow. In the UK, the beast of burden that pulled the plow was a horse which does have a long hairy tail. Perhaps the reason the bear was chosen was its propensity for eating honey. The Ursus was famous for the ability to obtain honey and was undeterred by the sting of the bee. Honey was required for the transformation of the Pharoah from a man/god into a star. Also, the tail bone bears the weight of fetus before the mother bears the child. A son was viewed as a continuation of the father; "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh."

The Semitic word for the number ten is esar and is unique in all the Afro-Asiatic language groups. The tenth portion is that which is set aside to charge the next cycle. Seeds and rhizomes are set-aside portions and are tails for the next season's harvest. The head eats the tail. The word Sed may be cognate to sud which is a rhizome that dies off but reappears in another location or season through underground tails. Surely Sed is the originating meme of the English word seed. The Osiris bone may have been thought of as providing the same function; rebirth of the spirit/entity in heaven. Likewise, the Sud tail was a representation of the rebirth of the Pharoahs' next thirty-year cycle.

The animal that fits the description of the Sed is not the wolf or jackyl but the African honey badger. Its long bushy tail is the length of its body and its front paws rival the ten claws of the bear. Another name of the Sed is "the opener of the ways" and the honey badger is known to other predators for opening the dens of rabbits and mice. Jackyls and hawks follow the honey badger waiting for an opportunity to snatch the escaping prey. It is not bothered by the sting of the bee nor the bite of a cobra. The honey badger can be repeatedly bitten by the poisonous snake and seem to succumb - but then, miraculously, the honey badger recovers and returns to his badgering ways. The honey badger is the bravest bad-arse in Africa and is a fitting totem for the rebirth of a Pharaoh of Egypt.

Ras and rosh are a reversal of the SR bi-radical root and have the meaning of top or head and sometimes beginning. Arsis is a Hebrew word meaning to elevate and Rasta is an ancient Egyptian word for Heaven (G. Massey). Ceres is the Greek goddess of agriculture and the tyranical saurus has a large head as well as a gigantic tail. Rise and sewer seem to fit this pattern. A sure sire ensures a legitimate child.

Marjia Gimbuta has noted the similarity between the bovine skulls from Catal Huyuk and the female reproductive system in her book The Language of The Goddess. A comparison could be made to the coccyx as well.

The Reed Sea

2011-11-27T08:05:00.001-08:00

Exodus is the story of the Israelites' journey to freedom from slavery. The central drama is crossing the Red Sea which was made possible by a miraculous parting of the waters. Throughout history, the exact location of the crossing has been hotly debated and centers on the translation of the name of the body of water. Red Sea is a direct and undisputed translation of the Greek name Erythra Thalassa which may simply be the Greek color-identifier for a southern sea. Biblical scholars have theorized that the Exodus story was based on an ancient psalm entitled Song of the Sea found embedded in the Jawist source of Torah. According to this song, the original incident clearly places the crossing in the Gulf of Aqaba. The references to the "Edomites, Moabites and inhabitants of Philistia" make this identification certain. The map on the right does not show the Gulf of Aqaba so perhaps Greek speakers did not have a frame of reference for this arm of the Red Sea. The original Hebrew name, Yam Suph, has been translated as Reed Sea and has no etymological connection to Erythra Thalassa.

When it was widely disseminated that Yam Suph translates to Reed Sea, everyone turned their attention elsewhere to find this sea of reeds. While papyrus thrives in brackish water, the Gulf of Aqaba is much too salty to sustain any form of shoreline vegetation. The fresh and brackish lakes of ancient Nile delta were choked with many species of reeds in ancient depictions and popular opinion moved the location of the Yam Suph nearer to ancient Egypt. However, other biblical passages place the Yam Suph in the Gulf of Aqaba and it is never associated - in scripture - with the Nile delta. In Exodus, the Hebrews quit Goshen and Ramses; assumed to be places in the region of the Nile. Evidence shows that the Egyptians were involved in copper mining throughout the Sinai, Negev and Jordan Valley. The ancient Egyptian sphere of influence went far beyond the Nile river and delta area. Wadi Faynan in Jordan and the Timna mines north of Eilat, Israel are two examples. Egyptian scarabs, aegides of Mawt and images of Hathor have been discovered at these locations. The copper deposits in the Faynan and Timna districts belong to the same family of rock-hosted mineral deposits. Host rocks are part of Early Cambrian lagoonal strata and both sites are geologically identical.

The Gulf of Aqaba, Arava and Dead Sea of the Great Rift Valley divide the Arabian and African plates of the supercontinent Gondwanaland. The Sinai Peninsula is part of the African plate and has historically been administratively controlled by Africans. Slave labor and complex supply chains for the ancient bronze market would have required a powerful and organized controller of people. Industrial scale copper smelting at the Rift Valley sites has been ongoing for 5,000 years. In the early and and middle Bronze Age, it was the Egyptians that had the military might to exploit and control an industrial operation. A powerful Egyptian colonial power subjugating an indigenous Rift Valley populace could produce enough smelted copper to supply the entire ancient world! If Hebrew speaking slaves quit Goshen and Ramses then the copper mines of the Rift Valley could not be eliminated as their point of departure.

Fluvial Geomorphology is the study of river related landforms. The FG of the southern Arava was perennial meandering streams 7,500 years ago. In Water, Life & Civilization: Climate, Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley, the data suggests "wet conditions requiring an excess of precipitation over evaporation." Rainfall 7.5 ka BP may have been as high as 800 mm per year. Surveys of pollen show that the Faynan region was on the southern edge of the Mediterranean Forest Zone with "C4 sedge (papyrus) becoming the dominant plant in the south". Arava means willow and the paleosol record has periods of calcrete nodule formation. Calcretions are formed by a simultaneous increase in temperature and rainfall which may have been aided by a canopy of water-soaking willows.

The Rift Valley is a narrow tube hemmed in on both sides by mountain ranges until it reaches Sharm el Sheik in the Sinai. Sea water fills the deep crevice in the south and silt fills in the central Arava.Water would have a hard time escaping this tub/tube because of the concave topography. A picture is emerging of an ancient valley swampland giving way to trees in higher elevations. Papyrus would have choked the lowland and become a natural barrier between Africa and Arabia as was the Gulf of Aqaba. Traveling northward, the swamp becomes willow and sycamore and finally hardwood forests of the Mediterranean Forest Zone. The Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee were combined into one body of water which was replenished by the Hermon snow melt.

The rapid desertification of this region is profound compared to similar ancient population centers. The Faynan industrial complex could be the reason. Locating the copper mines on the southern boundary of a forest zone would be a convenient source of fuel.The amount of charcoal required for the furnaces of the bronze age surely contributed to deforestation. Slaves to work the mines could be obtained from local people but would be hard to control. The sea of papyrus would have been a welcoming refuge for escaping slaves or those that did not want to become the property of the Pharaoh. The chariots and horses of the Egyptian state would be useless in the impenetrable suph.

Moses had sojourned in Midian (Arabia) and so was familiar with the mountain passages as well as the suph sea. He had to cross it in his escape after murdering an Egyptian. A man traveling through suph would be hidden by walls of reeds and sound would be baffled. Having a common Egyptian enemy may have united escaping slaves so that they gave assistance to others in similar situations.One important way to help would have been to show them the hidden passages through the suph sea. Symbols for pathways could easily be translated into lines for mapping of escape routes. These lines could be cut into wet clay with a reed stylus. Reading reed roads (w)rought by (w)riting reed rods. Rush also is a word for reed. Rush is wind caught in the rosh (head) of suph.

Teba is a reed word that may be from tef (tsuf, suph, chufa) and is used to build words that are "unsinkable". Reeds stand high above the water, can be hollow and, when bundled together, can hold a man afloat. Tub and tube may be words stemming from the unsinkable word for the ark of Moses - teba. As a baby, Moses had been found floating in a teba amongst the suph of the Nile. Another teba was the floating ark of the deluge. Noah floated his household and livestock so they would not sink. The Akkadian tabalu is a continent which was thought to float above the primordial water. Syriac tabayl is the "world fit for habitation" or that which would not sink. Table and tablet must also originate from a tub. Moses knew the hidden roads and topography from tablets of reed writing (Arabic k'tob). Since he had sojourned here before he knew where the sea floor was gently sloping and where it dropped off into the chasm of the tehowm. Moses seems to have lured the Egyptians into the water and perhaps the charioteers were not familiar with the area and did not know about the crack in the earth.

There is such a place in the Gulf of Aqaba. It has a gently sloping shoreline but then suddenly drops off into a deep crevice. It is called Taba and is the ancient name given to the place where the suph meets the abyss of the tehowm. Taba is located on the ancient edge of the tub of suph. Perhaps this is precisely where the Israelites entered the water and so has always been remembered as the place of the unsinkable Taba.

Leech

2011-11-22T09:39:00.001-08:00

The Edenic root of leech combines two sub-roots, LaK (moisture) and KHaiKH (palate), with the mem prefix (from, by). The letters of these two words are used to build the Hebrew word LaKaKH; to lick. The English word lick is also a double guttural and was surely created from the Edenic combination of moisture and palate. Newborns lick their mother’s teat to stimulate lactation flow (*GO!). Mammalian mothers lick their infants periodically to stimulate nursing. Licking also stimulates healing of open wounds. Milk sounds like it should originate from this word but linguists disagree.

The feline Bastet was the lower Egyptian Goddess of pregnant women and medicinal ointments. The alabaster jar on the left is an example of the finely crafted jars for medicinal purposes. The etymology of alabaster is ultimately derived from Bastet and refers to the mineral calcite, a carbonate of calcium. This Egyptian mineral was mined extensively in Egypt and many ancient quarries have been found in the hills overlooking the plain of Tell el Amarna. After unification with upper Egypt, Bastet was associated only with the domestic cat and Sekhmet took over the role of lioness. Both were seen as protectors of the Pharaoh from disease supposedly because cats kill rats and rats carry disease. Since the association of rats to disease via fleas was not discovered until the 18th century this theory is highly unlikely.

The mirror image of pregnancy and healing is death and disease. Sekhmet became the representative of both after the unification of upper and lower Egypt. Both Bastet and Sekhmet had temples constructed in the middle of sacred Isheru lakes much like the Great Mother Maut. Both feline goddesses were closely associated with Maut who was the source of all earthly moisture. However, the majority of statuary in all of Egypt is a depiction of Sekhmet. Seven hundred granite Sekhmet statues have been uncovered in Thebes alone. Many more statues made of calcite have dissolved away because it is one of the more water soluable salts. Perhaps the intended melting of these statues was a form of alchemy to summon the healing moisture. The licking lioness representing all death and disease would melt away and with her all the illnesses of her worshipers.

Melt may be ultimately derived from the same source of the Edenic word for sodium chloride or salt; melach. Melach means to vanish or pass away and salt is a rock that dissolves. Mollusks melt with salt and so may be derived from this word. Molting is the passing away of feathers. Smelting is melting with fire.

Although Sekhmet usually appeared naked, her breasts were always adorned with rosettes. Egyptologists have traced this back to the hair whorls on lions but another rosette of naturally occurring calcite exists in Egypt. This desert rose is found deep in caves considered to be the lair of Maut. The symbolism of rosette breasts is very clear; melt is the milk of Sekhmet.

Licking wounds to accelerate healing is common to all mammals except those that are fully or semi-aquatic. Perhaps the old English word for healer or physician (leace) shares a common origin with lick. At least it is agreed that leace is the origin of the modern English word leech. Linguists admit they do not know the origin of leace, therefore, I am permitted to suggest the Edenic LaKaKH. Leeching describes the process of attaching blood sucking worms on specific areas of the body to promote healing. Paintings of medicinal leeches have been found in Pharaohs’ tombs so this treatment was known to the ancient Egyptians. The Solomon Parables describe leeches for treatment of wounds and the Roman physician Galen advocated leech therapy to achieve a healthy balance of humors. Medicinal leeches have made a modern day comeback in microsurgery to combat venous insufficiency. Small veins sometimes cannot be reconnected resulting in the death of tissue. The leeching action draws oxygenated blood through the damaged section and at the same time prevents swelling caused by coagulation.

Linguists have determined that leech did not enter the English vernacular until 1784. Since leeches were surely around before that date they must have been known by another name. Wyrm was probably used to describe all creatures that motate without the benefit of arms or legs. Etymology Online says, “wurm, variant of wyrm, serpent – dragon. Perhaps it is the leech that is climbing the Rod of Asclepius.

Melusine

2011-10-30T11:10:00.001-07:00

The Hadhramaut region of the Arabian Peninsula is an arid strip of land along the Gulf of Aden extending eastwards from Yemen to the borders of the Dhofar. Traditionally, the Hadhramaut encompasses the incense route that brought frankincense and myrrh to Mesopotamia. This ancient route was made possible by intermittent oases created by artesian springs. Modern scholars translate Hadhramaut as "Courtyard of Death". Death as Maut in South Semitic languages means "to become one with the Great Mother Maut". Upon death, the soul merges with the Great Mother and becomes nourishment for the people through her effluence - the Nile River inundation. Her lair was thought to be in the Ethiopian highlands and is, in fact, the location of the source of the Nile. Lake Tana was associated with Maut in antiquity and is still considered a holy lake surrounded by many ancient monasteries. There is a legend that the Holy family stayed near this lake during their sojourn in Egypt and a monastery there bears the name of the Virgin Mary.

Maut was the ancient Egyptian word for mother (mwt) and was depicted as a vulture, and in later centuries, a cobra or cow. Her temple at Karnak was built next to a sacred lake which was fed by an artesian spring and shaped like a crescent moon. She was considered to be the creator deity existing since primeval times and was called the Great Lady of Heaven and the Queen of the Gods. Green trees and flowering shrubs were her lovely adornments; a stark contrast to the brown sand and rocks of the surrounding desert. Hadera is the South Semitic word for feminine adornments and cognate to many Sabean words for dwelling, courtyard, and central water plaza. Hadhramaut could mean “lovely embellishments of the Great Mother Maut” and may describe the oases associated with artesian water sources. The Greek Hydra (water serpent) may be derived from Hadhra and may also be the root of hydrology; the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water.

The connectivity of all water systems below dry land seems to have been a universal concept shared by the ancients. A majority of these waters was bitter (miryam) and a smaller portion was flowing (mayim). The sweet water was associated with the milk of the Goddess Mother and gave life to the plants and animals of the earth. Bitter seawater was the amniotic fluid that birthed the sun each day but was poisonous to drink. Tidal contractions pushed the sun through the birth canal until his cap crowned on the horizon. The lair of the Great Mother in Northern Israel was beneath the Hermon and was the source of the life-giving waters of the Kinneret and Jordan River. The influx of patriarchal tribes into the Levant demonized the Goddess most likely because of conflict over access to water for grazing flocks of goats and sheep. She remained, however, associated with water sources although relegated to a subservient position. In regions of water scarcity, the Great Mother became synonymous with sin and the fall of man from God’s grace.

Perhaps the earliest representation of the Goddess Mother can be found in the Anatolian temple at Catal Huyuk. Her name is not known but her lair must be under the twin mountain peaks of Hasan Dag and her sacred lake may have been the Black Sea. During the peak of the last interglacial period, the water of the Black Sea was much less saline because it is virtually isolated from the world’s oceans. Many estuaries that line the shores were home to ancient peoples but are now covered with rising sea levels. The economy of Catal Huyuk was based on obsidian trade created from ancient eruptions of Hasan Dag. Projectile points from this region have been found as far away as Jericho. The Goddess Mother may have traveled via the obsidian trade routes much as she did with the incense trade.

The depiction of the goddess of Catal Huyuk is also found throughout Europe and in the Pictish culture as well as on mountains in Peru. Her flipper-like arms and legs attest to her aquatic environment. The spiral superimposed on her umbilicas is the source of life on earth and reflects the spiral snake of the cosmos. Her head is a representation of the full moon which has always been associated with the menstrual cycle. The lace that covers her body is more difficult to discern but perhaps it has something to do with her lair. The similarity of wall paintings at Catal Huyuk to the cave paintings at Lascaux has been noted by archaeologists. The lace could represent moonmilk - a white, creamy substance found inside caves. It is similar to other deposits, but its unique quality is that it does not harden or turn to stone. It is plausible to conclude that caves were thought by the ancients to be the chthonic home of the hydrologic goddess and that she lactates moonmilk to sustain the plants and animals of the earth. Galaxy, lace and lactate, are all derived from the same root word lacht or *glact.

We know the name of the European hydrologic goddess; Melusine. She inhabits the locals of sweet water wells and springs. Alternatively, she is called a mermaid or the Dragon Princess and legends say she is half human and half dragon/fish/snake. The lineage of Merovingian kings claim her as progenitress and gave them their right to rule. The etymology of her name is disputed but may be related to melit which means sweet and is also related to the Greek word for honey. The Merovingian line is choc full of legends that pass for history and so nothing more can be learned about the Serpent/Dragon Goddess that can be trusted. Also, the etymology of the word dragon is not at all helpful. It is supposedly from a Greek word that means good eyesight and has no known cognates which is extremely unusual.

Jericho

2011-10-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

Situated well below sea level north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. The Sultanian site at Jericho is the type site for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPN A) and B periods which include the famous wall and a mysterious tower. Artesian springs in and around Jericho have made it an attractive site for human habitation for at least eleven thousand years. Curvilinear mud brick dwellings stack pueblo -style created a rookery of human habitation.

The archaeology of Jericho tells the story of an ancient city of Asiatic origin destroyed around 1550 B.C. during a time of harvest. The mud brick wall had fallen in many areas and was hastily repaired. The harvested grains had been burnt whole and the destruction left for later inhabitants to witness. It has been theorized that the story of Joshua’s victory over Jericho was created at a later date incorporating the burnt harvest and breached wall into their story of origin.

Jericho is derived from the Aramaic ariha which means aroma. The root of ariha is ruach which is used to describe the sweet savor (aroma) of burnt offerings. The Canaanite words for moon and month also comes from ruach. Ruach is also cognate to words that describe following a prescribed path such as migration of birds. The phases of the moon arc in an array and are compared linguistically to the wings of a bird. The smallest feather was the new moon and each succeeding feather incrementally increased to the largest flight feather.The comparison of birds in flight to aroma may well have its origin in the Anatolian form of burial known as excarnation. Exposure of the dead to scavenging vultures was the Neolithic cult of the dead in the Near East. Vultures were seen as psychopomps, soul-carriers, a role also played by the rook (ruach?) in Europe. The sky god was able to smell the aromatic goodness of the soul and send his angelic messengers for retrieval. It seems plausible, with the discovery of 11,000 year old Gobekli Tepe, that the Jericho tower was used for sky burials. Other evidence exists for this conjecture such as the retaining of the skull and discarding the rest of the bones which is similar to other cultures that practiced excarnation.

There have been suggestions that the population increase in Jericho during the middle bronze age was attributed to the rise of the Maryannu chariot warrior caste. It is theorized that mercenary chariot teams offered protection to the agricultural city-states throughout the Levant. The charioteers, in turn, would receive land in perpetuity from the king. This economic arrangement was the catalyst for the rise of the Mitanni high civilization. Later, Hurrian culture absorbed the Mitanni and may have been the Jebusites of Biblical fame.

A majority of linguists have determined the etymology of Maryannu/Marijanni to be from Indo-Aryan young man. For this to be the source, the timeline of this word would need to be disseminated, forgotten and then reintroduced. Maryannu is attested in cuneiform tablets found at Amarna, Egypt so perhaps this word is an Egyptian interpretation of Hurrian chariot technology. In the Logical Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume 1 by Gabor Takacs, hieroglyphic symbols MRJ (marya) are used to represent the Nile crocodile. The crocodile is an excellent totem for charioteers by virtue of their lamellar armor. Lamellar technology must have changed the nature of warfare by allowing small, mobile teams of men where larger armies could not be maintained. This type of armor was produced by plates of hardened leather connected by cords. The individual plates allow movement of the arms for the archers. The fierce attributes of the Maryannu combined with the lamellar armor could be the inspiration for borrowing the word for crocodile.

The Rechabites were a guild of charioteers that became incorporated into Israelite culture through the priestly Levites. They were instrumental is eliminating the Ba’al cult from northern Israel and bringing to an end the House of Ahab. Their obedience to their patriarch, Jonadab brought praise from the Temple hierarchy. They were incorporated into Temple service as scribes and their daughters were allowed to marry Levites. One of the commandments of Jonadab to all of his guild members (Sons of Jonadab) was to remain living in tents. Their Tekoa or tent city was at Haccarem and they entered Jerusalem through the Dung Gate.

The Biblical story of Rachab of Jericho may be the etiological explanation for the Rechabite ancestry of King David. Rachab was a resident of Jericho that assisted Joshua’s spies by hiding them when they were about to be discovered. She professed faith in the God of the Israelites and so her life and the lives of her family were spared while the rest of the inhabitants were massacred. She later married Salmon of Judah and became the mother of Boaz and an ancestor of David. That would also make her an an ancestor of Jesus and John. It is interesting that the family of Mary and Elizabeth lived in the village of Haccarem during the time of the temple service of their male relatives. Also, as I recall, the Holy family had a connection to Hammath.

Rachab is also the Aramaic word for dragon. Descriptions of this dragon could very well be attributes of crocodiles. It lives between the water and the shore but moves silently into the deep. It is proud, bold, stealthy and ferocious. The twisting and turning of Rachab could describe the predatory technique used by the crocodile to tear off chunks of meat or to drown its prey. Egypt is also called Rechab by Israelites. Crocodiles were holy to Egyptians so their totem is very appropriate.

Venus of Willendorf

2011-09-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

The retreat of the glaciers 10,000 years ago in northern Europe set the stage for human advancement. Pinniped hunters exploited the waterways and islands of lakes to harvest the aquatic mammals of the near shore. Seals were easily caught with minimum risk and energy expenditure. During the winter a hunter need only to wait above an airhole in the ice until a seal surfaced to take a breath. Breeding season was equally profitable with hunters clubbing pups and adults alike. Inland seas, great lakes, rocky fjords and island chains were habitats shared by a variety of pinnipeds and early man.

The migration of peoples into northern Europe followed the coastline and inland waterways as they depleted each region of seals. From south to north, pinniped rookeries on mainland sites were eliminated. Some species of river dolphin and freshwater seals went extinct. At the northern most point of this human invasion was the inland gulf of Bothnia and Saimaa basin. The last remnant of freshwater seal still survive here. There is more shoreline in Saimaa per unit of area than anywhere else in the world with a total length of nearly 15,000 kilometres (9,300 mi). It's many rocky islands (over 14,000) offer safe haul-outs for adults and marshy deltas hide juveniles to adulthood. The ancient word used for seal in this region is orken. The en ending is similar to oxen indicating a group of ox or a group of ork.

The Sami were the first migrants to this region arriving first along the shore. The archaeological evidence for these people can mostly be found after they started to move inland. Pottery found inland has been dated to 5,600 b.c.e. however, artifacts from bands of people that lived mostly on canoes would likely be at the bottom of the body of water. It has been well established that bands of humans followed the departure of glaciers so the ancestors of the Sami may have arrived as early as 10,000 b.c.e.

This northern region is one of the few places ceramic technology developed before farming. Large quantities of pottery shards that have a distinctive shape and cross-hatch pattern incised over the entire piece have been discovered. One style is made from 90% asbestos mined from only one vein located on the shore of the gulf of Bothnia. The pottery shape has a rounded or pointed bottom. Scientists speculate the pot was set in a fire and the rounded end made it more stable. However, amphora have the same type base and were used as storage for liquids while packed on ships. A layer of sand was used as a stabilizer and the handles were strung together with cord. The asbestos pit-ware could provide a similar function as liquid storage on a boat or canoe. The thermodynamic character of asbestos allows the clay to prevent heat transfer from the stored liquid. A pot filled with seal oil could then be used on a canoe as a lamp for nightime hunting without heat transferring to the boat. Later evolutions of ceramic vessels found look amazingly like trypots; cauldrons for blubber rendering used on whaling ships.

Charles Darwin described canoes on the coastline of Tierra del Fuego with similar small fires built in the bottom of the boat. The Yamana people lived primarily on their canoes and maintained a small fire in a pile of sand. Darwin stated in his writings that the boats floating on the water resembled the stars in the sky with their twinkling fire. Seal oil lamps would create a similar effect; a glowing arc of light made possible by the oil of ork. The round uniform edge of the pot imitates the curvature of the earth and the glow would produce a miniature arc of light likened to the rising sun. PIE *ark; "to hold, contain and guard". PIE *arku- "bowed, curved, arched".

Orc is a very ancient phoneme and is the root of many words. Porc is an animal whose fat is rendered to make oil. Torque is modern word meaning the power generated from the burning of fuel. Torch is a wick dipped in oil and set on fire to use as a lamp. Turk may come from Orkhon, an ancient river in Mongolia. The Archons are the first beings to inhabit the earth in Greek Mythology. Finally, archaeology may have at its root orc as the phoneme that carries the ancient meaning of glowing seal oil.

The pot of oil would require a wick first made from fibers of dried, twisted rush and later spun linen and cotton. A ball of tightly twisted wick would burn evenly and consistently. Releasing the fire held within the wick was possibly the first alchemy. Duplicating the Divine spark and creating combustion made humans into magicians. Wick twisting would surely have been accomplished by women. Gathering rush reeds and processing them for torching would be a subset of wickerwork. Wicce, witch and wick could be derived from the ancient skill of wick twisting and rendering fat at the cauldron.

The Venus of Willendorf may represent a Wicce giving birth to the arc of the sun. Her head is a ball of twisted wick, her bulbous form relates to the round ball of the sun. She does not need feet and arms as her only purpose is combustion. This carved stoneage art captures the mother the moment before she gives birth to the sun. In the next second, birth occurs and the brilliant arc of combustion appears on the horizon.

Hod

2011-09-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Hod (הוד) in the Kabala Tree of Life is the sephira associated with the left foot of men. It has the meaning of praise as well as submission. Hod is the sephira of language, symbols and communication. The angelic order of Hod is Bene Elohim.

Hod is the sphere of alchemy and all metabolic pathways that break down energy to it's smallest subset. It also where this subset is translated into a new form. Respiration is a good example of what can take place in the realm of Hod; oxygen is passively diffused between the external atmosphere and internal blood. The hydrologic cycle is also a function of Hod; water is broken down into gaseous vapor, rises and is then released in the form of rain.

Hu is the ancient name for God (Heh, Allah Hu, Huto) and combined with the rising plume of Oud creates a plausible etymology of Hod. The PIE root of God may derive from Hod (*ghudho). The foot is the source of the pathway taken by the rising plume of Hu and is then distributed thoughout the living being by blood. My research has shown that Father is derived from pedr/petr which, in turn, is derived from Greek pied (young child). Ped is also the origin of foot. (Note: Linguists have determined that father is derived from infantile baby-speak Pa). Pedigree means The Foot of the Crane (ibis).

The foot/father of the family not only supports his children but also their children's children according to the Kingdom Principle of Hod. The Byt (House) of the Father should continue to rise to the top most sephirot and not be cut off. If the father did not have sons or if his sons were to die - the shroud could not quicken and the branch would wither and die. However, a way to redeem the father so that his name would perpetuate is explained in the Book of Ruth.

Ruth, a Moabite, was the daughter-in-law of Naomi, an Israelite woman from Ephrata. Naomi migrated to Moab with her husband, Elimelech, and two sons during famine. The sons married Ruth and Orpah and then all of the men of this family succumbed to illness and died. It is interesting that the sons were called Mehlon (sick) and Chilion (weak). Naomi told both daughter-in-laws to return to their own mothers and remarry. Orpah leaves but Ruth does not. Ruth tells Naomi "For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."

When the two women return to Ephrata it is harvest time. Ruth gleans the fields of Boaz, a close relative of Naomi's dead husband, to support her mother-in-law. Boaz allows this because of Ruth's loyalty to Naomi. Naomi wants security for Ruth so she tells her to prepare herself as if she were to be married. She then tells Ruth to mark the location of Boaz as he sleeps on the threshing room floor. Naomi instructs Ruth to go to him in the night and uncover his feet. Boaz then covers her with his cloak and they have a son that redeems the Hod of his kinsman Elemelech. Ruth would become a wife of the left hand or leavings of the hind of the father.

When Prince Charles wanted to marry Camilla Parker-Boles it was suggested that she become a Wife of the Left Hand. Her status as wife could be attributed to the tradition that developed around this story. However, since there was already a son to raise the Hod of the House of Windsor, there could be no redemption. She could not be a wife of the leavings of the threshing room floor.

Bennu

2011-09-03T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Bennu archetype is found in mythologies of Arabian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian and Phoenician peoples. It is known by many names most notably the Phoenix but also Firebird. The mythic storyline varies but basically tells of a bird with beautiful plumage that recreates itself from fire after it's thousand-year life cycle.

In Ancient Egypt the fruit of the palm tree, as well as the tree itself, was known as bennu. The bennu bird is mostly described as an ibis in Egyptian lore but later iterations of the fierce firebird have little resemblance to this specie. The bennu was considered the heart/soul of Osiris as well as the heart/soul of Ra. Millions (!) of different ibis-type birds have been found mummified in tombs of Pharaohs. Boston University is undertaking a study to determine the DNA of these birds and track the genetic change over thousands of years. At least one ibis was extracted from the heart cavity of a mummified human.

There has been much speculation about which specie of ibis would most fit the profile of the Bennu. One guess is a large extinct specie of great heron that was indigenous to Arabia. Another ibis, the Hadada, seems to be a more likely candidate. This bird loudly announces its presence by calling out its own name; ha-Da-DA. In Egyptian mythology Ra called into being all species of creation by saying it's name. The Bennu, by saying his own name, was called The Self-Created One. The Hadada has a grey body with black legs and iridescent green wings. Iridescence is an optical phenomenon caused by turning the angle of light on a surface with multiple refractive, transparent planes. The light is amplified by the multiple surfaces and creates shine. As the Hadada spreads its' wings on launch, the turning angles of refracted light on infinite transparent surfaces flash repeatedly to create shine.

In the Book of Exodus 33:20 God says "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see Me and live". The Hebrew word used for face in this verse is panim which means turnings. The optical phenomenon caused by turning the angle of light with infinite refractive, transparent planes creates fire and no man could survive. Panim is amazingly like the Greek word Phuein which means permeating light and is symbolized by the sign of Phi. Phi is the Golden Ratio in mathematics and art. Plato describes his five regular solids calculated by the Golden Ratio.

Dakkel is the Hebrew word for palm tree which must surely be the origin of dactylos the Greek word for finger. The rungs of dead fronds mark the passing of each year. The feather/fingers of the Ibis are as numerous as a thousand years.

The Arabic word for ibis is waben, from bennu, but also has the meaning of rise and shine. The Coptic word ouoein is derived from waben and is pronounced one. Ouoein is used in the Coptic 'Book of Thomas' to describe the light of the Father that resides in the heart of men. The akaat (fruit) of the Doum Palm indigenous to highlands of Ethiopia has a similar typology in the Amharic language; akaat means unity and the number one. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one".

Leavings

2011-08-31T10:09:00.001-07:00

Leavings is that portion that has been set aside to charge the birth of the next cycle. The old way of breadmaking sets aside a portion of each days dough to charge the next. The new sun rises and then passes away but leaves a portion of light, cradled by the moon, to charge the next newborn sun. The word eleven is derived from leavings with the meaning of ten; plus one set-aside portion. The portion is consumed, the head eats the tail and a new cycle begins. One Becomes two; the hind is the father of the head.

Genesis explains that before the cycle of birth and death there was only the unity of the Father. His creation of Adam, Adamah, Eden and all the species was formed but not born. His formed creation was not charged but quickened. The quickening is described as a 'weightless shroud rising from the earth and covering all facets of creation'. In Genesis, this shroud is called ad and is surely pronounced oud. Descriptions by scientists of life found on asteroids originating from Mars sound amazingly like this account of Genesis. The digital pictures sent back from this dead planet show the leavings of life but not life itself. The interaction of the organism with Mars atmosphere caused a reaction that created a shroud. It is the shroud we are able to detect but are completely clueless about the life from which it was created.

After the fall of Adam the cycle of birth and death was only possible because of the original set-aside portion of quickening. Shaqah is the Hebrew word used and is the root of Shekinah (Holy Ghost) and shaqed (almond tree). Linguists will not agree but it most assuredly is the source of Shakti as well as the Indo-European root of quick. After Adam, the birth of the next new cycle started with David. He was the youngest son of Jesse but was not with all his brothers when the prophet Samuel came to select the new king. David was the set-aside portion chosen by God to quicken the new cycle. His shema reflects this like no other; the mimation of dalet with the root word of oud.

There is no archaeological proof that David was the name of the great king that killed Goliath and united Israel. However, an inscription with "House of David" has been found at two locations; Tel Dan, Israel and Dibon, Jordan. The Mesha Stele found in Jordan may have two references to the House of David. In 1998, Biblical scholar, Anson Rainey, translated a two-word phrase in line 12 of the Mesha Stele as another reference to David. The line in question reads: "I (i.e. Mesha) carried from there (the city of Ataroth) the ariel of its DVD and I dragged it before Kemosh in Qeriot". The David in this line is clearly a cultic object that could be stolen. Is this object an Oud?

An Oud is a wooden pear-shaped musical instrument that has ten strings in courses of two with one string set apart at the bottom. The antiquity of this instrument is unknown but it is at least 5,000 years and probably originated in North Africa. It is played with a plectrum made of plastic but in the ancient world was made from a strong feather. The Oud does not have frets enabling the vibrato to be played expressively. The single string can be plucked as the slide is applied to the other course of ten. David is described as a musician from the beginning of his introduction in the Old Testament and throughout his life. He is said to be the writer of Psalms which was surely set to music evidenced by its pentameter. The plectrum and sistrum may be related, however, plectrum and plume both come from the same root word. A plume is a feather from a flightless bird such as ostrich. Without the need to fly, a feather from a Ratite (flightless bird) becomes fluffy and full of air with the appearance of weightlessness. Perhaps that is why, in hydrodynamics, a plume is one column of gas moving through another.

It is written that King David played the Harp - not the Oud but Harp has an interesting etymology. Harp and heart are derived from the same root *kerd (also herd). Carpe (harp) deum is "pluck the day". Music is said to play on the heartstrings.

Tree of Life

2011-08-17T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hyphaene Thebaica, common name Doum Palm, was sacred to ancient Egyptians and was a symbol of male strength and virility. The fruit or seeds of this tree have been found in tombs and depictions of it's distinct dichotomous trunk shape are found on tomb walls. The Doum Palm is sacred to the Goddess Opet (Ipy, Ipet, Apet), mother of Osiris. Coptic tradition says that this is the tree Adam brought out of Paradise.

There is little doubt that men have aided in the cultivation of Palm trees with the Doum species most widely distributed. Although it is thought to have originated in Ethiopia, it is found on the perimeter of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and its islands. Contrary to it's wide range, the Doum Palm is hard to germinate. The outer skin and pulp must first be removed, therefore, elephants and baboons were probably the initial method of dispersal. It takes about a year for the shoot axis to appear above ground because the seed is spending most of it's energy sending out a tap root and locating underground water. During this year, the seedling must remain moist but can then withstand a year of arid conditions. It is unknown how long the seed can remain underground in a dormant state waiting for wet conditions. The Eritrean word for this palm is Arkobkobai but I could not find the etymology. (Perhaps Arkob is cobra?) The masticated outer rind of the fruit is used medicinally for many ailments. Traditionally, it has been used as a fertility enhancer, a hypertension reliever and to kill tapeworms. Studies conducted by Egypt's Mansoura University found that it significantly lowered high blood pressure, lowered bad cholesterol, and raised the good cholesterol.

The entire palm tree is utilized by indigenous peoples. The fronds cover a wooden frame to create shelter. The hard center of the nut is carved into fetishes and is called nut ivory. The sap is used as a tincture and the fleshy outer fruit is brewed into a tea. Domus is a "house of God" and could be derived from this word. Dome, home, domestic, dame and a myriad of other words pertaining to domicile seem to be related but are not attested. Doum is also the Arabic word for "drum".

The hieroglyphic representation of the Doum is m3m3 with a palm leaf ideogram. This is most assuredly pronounced the same as mama. Since Opet is the mother of Osiris, perhaps this is the origination of this word (although linguists will say it is a coincidence). The mother of Osiris is the pre-dynastic earth mother of the upper Nile region. I contend that the m3 phonogram that resembles a Hebrew "lamed" is a symbol of the first arc - the maternal pelvic bone that supports and cradles the pre-born child while still in the womb. Paleontologists are able to immediately distinguish the sex of skeletal remains by examining this bone. Ritualized insemination of mothers of Pharaohs take place in a hollow tree trunk to; 1) hide paternity so that Ra could take his place, and; 2) to emulate Osiris' conception. One of the oldest artifacts found not made of stone is a hollow Doum trunk from the Kharga Oasis. The Hebrew letter vav which means to "swell forth" could be from the ancient belief that the Doum palm creates fecundity. The divine virility of the Doum rises through the trunk and can be exploited at the fork. It is interesting that trunk, fork and Throne all derive from the same proto-Indo European root. If phonemes carry meaning then the traditions associated with the Doum can explain the common denominator of these words.

Another clue that the Doum is responsible for creation of life is a fermented wine called mkoma. The new growth of a palm limb is cut off and produces a naturally fermented drink when turned upside down with water added. The ostracon on the left shows the new growth cut off on the bifurcated trunk. The two baboons on a leash appear to be retrieving the fruit nuts and are controlled by the Nubian. Baboons are holy (qodesh) to the god Thoth and are frequently seen on either side of the Djed symbol. Perhaps the Djed pillar is the new growth of the Doum cut off and turned upside down awaiting the creation of new life - fermentation. And since blood is life perhaps this is the origin of the Nilo-Saharan word for blood - Dam.

Merkaba

2011-08-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Israelite tradition of second burial in ossuarys was short lived - approximately 200 BCE through 130 CE. This timeframe approximates the Seleucid cultural influence on the Lavant up to the annhiliation of Jerusalem's population. Ossuarys have been found in the Galilee dated after the 70 CE destruction of the Second Temple but none in Jerusalem proper after that date.

Secondary burial was not unknown to Israelites before the introduction of ossuaries. The hallmark of a proto-Israelite home was the charnal pit under the occupied layer containing several generations of remains. Since Judaic tradition allowed the blessings of God to be passed from father to son, it was imperative that an Israelite be buried with his family. When Moses quit Egypt, Rabinic tradition states he took the bones of the patriarch Joseph from the bottom of the Nile for secondary burial in the Promised Land. The reanimation of Ezekial's "dry bones" would be as an entire chosen people. This reminds me of a song my mother sang to me when I was a child;
If you get to heaven
Before I do
Just drill a little hole
And pull me through!!!

The Seleucidic Greek influence was responsible for the rift in the political/religious heirarchy of the Jerusalem Temple. The conservative Sadducee sect wanted a strict adherence to Torah but the Pharisees, comprised of influential commoners, were more open to Greek influence. One area of contention was the fact that an individual not under the covenant of the Patriarchs could be "reanimated". Could a soul, without a covenential relationship with YHWH, be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven? The Pharisee position was a resounding yes! An individual chayah could separate himself from the charnal pit and still enjoy eternity with the Divine. Good news indeed!

But if there were not a patriarch waiting to "pull you through" then how could a separate soul reach a union with the Divine? The answer could be a Merkaba - a cosmic ferry transporting a cleansed soul to face his creator. All semblance of earthly sin residing in the flesh must be gone before the bones of the corpse can be placed in the ossuary. The sinews and ligaments that connect the dry bones must be dust. I contend that an ossuary is the earthly mimation of the Merkaba; the cosmic ladder of the Kabala. A Merkaba, as described in Ezekiel's vision, is a box shape with four circles being pulled along by chayot (living creatures).

An ossuary is a limestone box that is large enough to house a long leg bone. It has six sides, a lid and the name of the individual engraved on the long side. The name may be finely engraved or hastily scratched with a sharp object. On more elaborate engraved ossuarys, the front side is divided into two panels with a shushan engraved on each. Sometimes the shushan is shown from the top and looks like a six-petal flower. On other ossuarys, the shushan is shown from the side with the classic fleur-de-lys form.

L.Y. Ramani has published the most conprehensive list of Jerusalem ossuarys and is considered to be the leading expert. His interpretation of the symbols engraved on provenanced ossuaries is that they are for decoration and are meaningless. However, why would ONLY this symbol be used? If the engraving was for decorative purposes only, why wouldn't other designs be found? The shushan is the barren branch that bloomed for Aaron but it has a much more ancient symbolism. Shushan is from the Egyptian word ss ssn and is an important element in the Egyptian creation story. The shushan is a water lilly and it's bloom heralds the ordering of chaos on primordial earth. In the beginninng were waters of chaos until the water lilly rose from the abyss. It blooms each morning and reveals a golden center to dispel the darkness. "O world! Listen! I have ordered you to! I am the cosmic water lily that rose shining from Nun's black primordial waters, and my mother is Nut, the night sky. O you who made me, I have arrived, I am the great ruler of Yesterday, the power of command is in my hand." -- Spell 42, The Book of the Dead.

Another "decorative element" found on the lid is a Docena that replicates the portal of Solomon's Temple. Two pillars caped with a triangle symbolize the portal of the Vega asterism with the enclosed circle representing the ascending soul. The twin pillars of the first temple were described as having a Shushan carved on the top portions. Shushan is the portal that opens the connecting ladder to reveal the brilliant light of the Divine.

The etymology of the word "Merkaba" is hotly contested and many different opinions exist. Merkab is an Arabic word for "saddle" and has been translated as "seat". However, further investigation reveals that merkab was originally the horn of the saddle only and gradually came to mean the entire seat. Linguist contend that the root word for Merkaba is "rechab" and is translated as "rider" but rechab can also mean "vastness" and "wide expanse". Adding a "mem" to the beginning of Hebrew root word denotes "place of" so perhaps Merkaba in it's earliest form meant "place of transporting through vastness". It is interesting that Rahab is the Hebrew word for "primeval serpent" and also a poetic term for the Egyptian civilization.

Perhaps the original meaning of this word can be found in Egypt. Kheb is the Egyptian personification of Breath of God. The Breath of God is responsible for transporting the Pharoah on his holy arc after death. The Breath of God was responsible for translating Enoch "in a whirlwind" without first experiencing death and decay. In Ezekial's vision, a Great Wind blew into the dry bones and they were reanimated. Kheb is the transporter of the Ba or Soul of the rightous and may be the ancient phoneme that carries the ancient understanding of Merkaba. Words that may be formed from this root; Kaporet (Mercy Seat), Kaphar (cleanse of impurity), Kufir (redeem), Mikrab (Ethiopian Temple), Kiblah (Rose Line).

Ankh

2011-07-17T10:37:00.001-07:00

Scholars believe that El, a word translated as Lord, comes from Elah the word for Terebinth or Oak tree. The sap of the Terebinth is the source of incense resin burned in temple worship so perhaps Elah was used first to describe this tree. Tree veneration was extensive throughout Asia, the Mediterranean region and Europe. Ancient peoples viewed trees as gifts from the Great Mother who was the divine source of all life. They reasoned that the life spirit swells up from the earth through the roots of the tree to create new growth. They also believed that this same life spirit provided by the divine Mother was the source of all animal life. The life spirit was thought to enter men and beasts from the Great Mother through the heel of the foot or hind hoof (see posts on Jacob's Ladder and Master of Beasts.)

The holy Terebinth and mighty Oak remained firmly rooted in groves surrounding water sources. Chayot, however, were able to move freely by virture of their connecting joints. Chayot is derived from the hebrew root word for life and include both men and animals. The skeletal tree enabled chayot to stand upright but the movable joints enabled them to move freely between sources of water. The fibula inserted into the talus of the ankle creates a hinge that moves at the optimum angle for running and jumping. The oldest Indo-European word (that I could find) for joint is galenk which is also the root word for link. Galenk is the word used not only for the joint of the ankle but also the moveable uvula at the base of the soft palate and aids in the function of speech. Galenk is the key to walking and talking.

Both the fibula and uvula have the same basic shape of a stem ending in a bulbous mass. The Ankh symbol could be the ancient representation for both of these anatomical miracles that separate the animal kingdom from the plant kingdom. I contend that galenk is derived from Ankh and could also be the source of words having to do with speech such as gloss and glot. Ankle, angle and angel could also be derived from galenk. Hebrew words such as Gilgal, Galil and Golgotha have a root meaning of "to surround" and could be cognate to galenk. The gal surrounds the ankh as the talus surrounds the tibula and the throat surrounds the uvula. Gal could be the ancient root of chalice, well and grael. Other GL words that describe "shining" words such as glitter and glow have entered the English language from northern European countries where the Yule Log tradition originated. The burning Yule Log was thought to be "licked" by "tongues" of flames. Yule, uvula and fibula could be derived from the same root word; jil.

The purpose of ancient Egyptian tomb paintings was to provide the deceased with the tools necessary for an afterlife. However, as beautiful as they are they remain as silent and stationary as a tree. The key to walking and talking is an Ankh and seldom is there a tomb painting where it does not appear.

Punt

2011-07-03T08:22:00.001-07:00

The replication of heaven on earth is acknowledged to be a contribution of the ancient Egyptians. Properties of the physical world were codified by incantations and projected onto the heavens. The Egyptian ritualized matter, motion, force and energy was extreme. Greek visitors complained that the religious requirements of Egyptian culture was bordering on obsessive. However, to the peoples of the Nile valley the "Holy Land" (Ta Netjer) was Punt.

"The distinctive character of the 1st dynasty, which separates it from all that went before, is the conquest and union of the whole land of Egypt. It became thus subject to the falcon-bearing tribe of Horus, which was the natural enemy of the Aunu, the Set-bearing tribe. This falcon tribe had certainly originated in Elam, as indicated by the hero and lions on the "Araq knife handle". They went down the Persian Gulf and settled in the "horn of Africa." There they named the "Land of Punt," sacred to later Egyptians as the source of the race. The Pun people founded the island fortress of Hafun, which commands the whole of that coast, and hence came the Punic or Phoenic peoples of classical history. Those who went up the Red Sea formed the dynastic invaders of Egypt, entering by the Qocier-Koptos road. Others went on to Syria and founded Tyre, Sidon and Aradus--W.M. Flinders Petrie

The knife found at Gebel el-Arak clearly show one symbol of Punt to be the crescent and a circle of Sa'ba people with ancient sites in Ethiopia and South Arabia. The handle is carved from hippopotamus ivory to enhance power. Hippo ivory is indicative of the god Set and places the origin of the Sa people in a riverine ecosystem. The Land of Sa (Set) must be in lowland Ethiopia. The ancient Sa'ba people of South Arabia and the Hadhramaut utilized wells, cisterns and dams for irrigation of plants and animals. The Gebel el-Arak knife suggests the curved crescent shape is an actual boat. The type of boat used in shallow, slow-moving water conducive to hippo is a punt. A punt-type boat is pushed through the water with a poll. Perhaps the standards shown in the close-up picture are punt poles.

Infant funeral urns found in China have the same crescent and circle symbol combined with another symbol that could be a mountain or a flame. The origin of some Chinese logosyllabic characters has been found to originate with the symbols on the funeral urns. Linguists interpret the circle as representing the ascending soul and the curve as the separation of heaven and earth. The South Arabian word for ascending soul is Ba. South Arabian and all Semitic languages use the word RaQia to describe the separation of heaven and earth. Raqia is translated to Firmamentum (firmament) in the Latin Vulgate . Ba (soul) and Raqhia (firmament) is BaRuQ; the Hebrew word for blessing.

The same symbol appears on the top of a monolith at the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe. Above it, a double pole symbol shows the circle in the middle. Perhaps this circle also represents the soul ascending to heaven.

The Nebra sky disk found in Germany has the curve and circle symbols. It has been interpreted to be a calendar.

Abracadabra

2011-06-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

With the exception of the sun, Vega has been the most studied light source in creation. Around 12,000 b.c. the precession of equinox was anchored by the pole star Vega. It formed the vertex of an easily recognizable pattern of stars shaped as a triangle. This Great Triangle or Summer Triangle appeared upright near the horizon during the summer months but rotated and became upended during the winter. On moonless nights, the stars of the Milky Way could be seen and appeared to pass through this triangle.

The name Vega comes from the Arabic waqi which means "swoop" or "hover" in reference to the phrase an-nasr al-wāqi‘ "the alighting vulture". Al Waqi'a is also the name used in the Quran for the Redeemer. The vulture must land and the Redeemer must walk the earth; both are inevitable. This inevitability is illustrated in the ceremony of an-nasr al waqi. The host stands aloft and pours the libation into cups held at a lower level. As the liquid leaves the pitcher, it fills the cup if the cup is in alignment. If the focus of the cupholder is on the pitcher, then a connection can be made and the cup can be filled. In 12,000 b.c. the focus of the pole star Vega appeared to be on ancient men.

The Hebrew word for star Vega is Barqat. The root of this word is used to build words for; blessing, growth and prosperity. Blessings inevitably bring growth and prosperity. Other words built from this root are flash, shine and lightening. Lightening occurs when a connection is made between sky and earth. Mountaintops offer the most intense focus and is where many connections are made. After the connection is made, lightening is inevitable. The light of the heavens travels down the ladder of focus and fills the earth with cosmic libation.

Peridot is the alchemical representative for Vega. Peridot is a green crystal gemstone that is very soft and has special refractive qualities. It is found on an island in the Red Sea off the coast of southern Egypt called Zabargad (Egyptian word for Vega). This island is geologically unique as it is a fragment of the sub Red Sea lithospere's uplifted mantle. The island became present above sea level after African and Asiatic plates converged to cause rocks in the lower crust to be uplifted. Peridote found on the island of Zabargad is the purest form of a class of gemstone known as "Serpentenite" or serpent stone. Peridote crystals are the only gemstone found in meteorites. The island of Zabargad is also the breeding colony of several bird species, most notably the sooty falcon.

The breastplate of the high priest in Jerusalem surely had peridot as one of the gemstones. This would inevitably attract blessings from Vega, the Morning Star. The faceting of the gemstone would ensure a surface that would make a connection and obtain focus. The evidence that a connection has been made is a sudden FLASH. Al Waqi pours out blessings through the ladder connecting the star and gemstone. The blessing is focused by the peridot onto the wearer of the ephod. "Like attracts like" according to Kabalistic physics and the stone found on Zabargad was a chip (PTR) from Vega.

The magical effects of crystalite stone is still a part of folklore today. Perhaps the etymology of the word abracadabra can be explained by this gemstone's properties. A-BRCH (the blessing) DBR (holy of holies). The blessing from Holy of Holies would need a stone for focus and connection. Perhaps this stone was Peridot and is what was known as an "Abraxes" stone.

Jacob's Ladder

2011-06-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

"Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled with him (Genesis 32:25-26)."

Jacob's struggles against his spiritual doppelganger are said to be the reason Jews must remove the sciatic nerve from the hindquarters of ungulates before consuming them. This sinew is called gid ha'nasheh in Hebrew. The sciatic nerve begins at the heel of the foot and travels up the back of each leg to the base of the spine. This nerve is enclosed in a protective sinew that is common to all mammals. When the angel touched his own thigh, the thigh of Jacob was damaged. The connection Jacob had with his angel was located in the gid or sciatic nerve.

Daybreak was an auspcious time for this episode to occur because the morning star would still be visible. The pole star Vega or Wa'gi in Arabic was the heavenly opposite of the earthly sun that rose as Vega disappeared. When both were visible, a heavenly connection was inevitable. Jacob's dream of angels going up and down a ladder could be how ancient people understood the Wa'gi connection. When a connection was made a blessing was transmiited through the heel via the gid to the backbone.

Anthropologists know that the sinew from the hind quarters of ungulates was specifically used by ancient people to string bows and to string musical instruments. A picture of a harp was discovered in a cave in France thought to be from 15,000 b.c. The ancient Egyptian harps were derived from bows. I don't want to upset any linguists but from my research it appears the word guitar and gut are from the same root word - maybe gid? The ancient Greeks saw the Vega constellation as a harp. Of course, the harp would need a gid and accordingly there is a constellation identified in ancient Egypt as the hind leg of an bull that is located just below the Vega star. Star asterisms were not named because of what they resembled but for their functionality in heaven. In my opinion, ancient Egypt was called The Two Lands because it contained both heaven and earth. Also, the Star of David is representative of this spiritual concept; triangle up superimposed on triangle down - just like Jacob's ladder.

Jacob and his angel sound amazingly close to the story of Castor and Pollux. Perhaps the iconographic symbol of two columns is really describing the connection between heaven and earth. Jacob's ladder and the Docena of Castor and Pollux seem to come from the same proto-Indo European source. The Arabic word for harp is a loan word from Greek.

Shofar

2011-01-11T06:51:00.001-08:00

Exodus 19:16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud Shofar blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.

The ceremonial Shofar (ram's horn) is an important symbol of the covenantial relationship between God and man. It was sounded at the head (rosh) of the new year, at the beginning of the Smitta cycle and before Israelite military battles. The sound of the Shofar has the power to break the tehome (veil) that separates men from the Divine and allows them to gaze upon the face of YHWH. The Gate of Heaven is opened when the sound of the ram's horn is placed in the ear of God. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one".

The sound of the Shofar can be both fearful and mercifully hopeful. According to the Talmud, the Shofar should follow the sequence; Tekiah, Teruah, Tekiah. The Tekiah is an continuous, unbroken note symbolizing confidence and hope for the coming year. A Teruah is sounded between the Tekiah to represent humility. It is a hesitant, modulated wail which goes from high to low and back to high.

Cantillation or ritual chanting of Biblical Scriptures is, perhaps, an attempt to replicate the vibrato of the Shofar. The Hebrew letters of the Tanakh have been annotated with marks to describe how the consonants are to be cantillated to create tropes. These tropes follow a grammatical system that have been codified and passed down through the millenium via trained Kantors. Using intonations to inflect meaning to slightly or drastically change original meaning was a revolutionary leap in human evolution. With the development of vowel symbols, the primitive consonants began to "swell forth." Each tri-consonantal root became pregnant with meaning resulting in the birth of many new words.

It seems to me that language was born from our attempt to communicate with the Divine. Words were not "invented" but were born from the fattening of old words. New words and concepts were generated from old roots through human desire to be heard by our God. The people in the covenant with YHWH have realized their responsibility to self-create. Each year, they must rise from the ashes of the past year as better men with the improved ability to be heard by God. By blowing the Shofar at the head of the new year cycle, men show their willingness to be born anew with a deeper understanding of Kingdom Principles.

Self-creating does not require a masculine/feminine dichotomy which is why the cornu is a perfect symbol. The horns of the moon are the waxing and waning slices that represent the masculine. The over-flowing cornucopia represents the feminine. Together, the cornu is self-creating by the yearly rebirth of God's Covenant with his people. Perhaps YHWH means "I am He whom I have become."

Cornucopia - Domestication of the Goat

2011-01-08T09:43:00.000-08:00

Horn of Plenty The Domestication of the Goat

The earliest depiction of Horn of Plenty shows Tanit holding two bovine horns (cornu) as pomegranate and grape spring forth. She is above the dalet or triangular shaped door to the Divine Mother. This triangle is built from ashlars so we can guess this portal to the goddess is a man-made temple. Tanit stems upward through bud stage of growth, then leaf stage and finally - fruition! She appears again in lower right side, her hand symbolizing a torc directly connected to the portal door. Above her head is a waning moon and sun in the guise of the Green Man.

The hand of the female is a torc symbolizing the portal of the earth. It is made of 4 metals mined from the underworld but is coiled to symbolize the goddess of the cosmos. The four strands of twisted metal also represent the Shining Path of the Labyrinth of Crete. Plants and trees owe their life to Tanit but not their form. Their form is determined by Khumn the Ram God with whorl-shaped horns.

Domestication of goats occurred over 10,000 years ago in the Zagros Mountains. Men went from hunting to herding and expoiting the milk, hair and meat of Caprinae. Research by Dr. Melinda Zeder, Curator of Old World Archaeology & Zooarchaeology at the National Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Brian Hesse of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, shows that goats, hunted in the region since the time of Neanderthals, were culled by killing the young males allowing only a few rams for breeding. 10,000 years ago, men became the husbanders directing the cosmic whorl of the Goddess through the chosen Ram. My guess is the horn whorl was ritually selected as coiled to immitate Khumn. All species with horns were subject to the husbandry of ancient man. Cornu are made from fast-growing keratin and the form is easily changed through selective breeding. Changing the whorl of the cornu would make the specie dependant on man for protection.

Cernunnos (Roman name derived from cornu) is a Celtic horned god shown here with a torc hanging from his inmature antlers. His image can be found throughout Neolithic Europe and parts of Near East and Asia. He is usually shown with wild game animals and seated with his right heel touching his genitalia. Sometimes he is shown with fully developed trees in place of antlers or with one tree and one torc.

Amalthea the she-goat was the foster mother of the god Zeus who nourished him with her milk in a cave on Mount Ida in Krete. When the god reached maturity he created his thunder-shield (aigis) from her hide and the horn of plenty (keras amaltheias or cornucopia) from her horn.

The Buddhist Triratna symbol is been shown to be connected to the tannin and soma of Tanit. It clearly includes the torc and inmature antlers.

Angelic Vultures

2011-01-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

Exodus19:4 Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and, how I bare you on vulture's wings, and brought you unto myself.

This verse has been traditionally interpreted as referencing the Israelites escape from Egypt. However, the vulture has a much more ancient symbolic meaning of divine power that is common to Asian, Aryan, Middle Eastern and Ancient Egyptian cultures. Nesher is the Hebrew word for vulture and is cognate to the Arabic nessir which also means vulture. The head, wings and eyes are the divine elements of this raptor bird. Baldness on the top of the head of men was considered a priestly sign perhaps because of the baldness of the nesher. The long wingspan of the vulture was used as a zoomorphic attribute of the Goddess Nekhbet which contributed to her ability to protect the Pharoah. The eyes of the vulture were thought to be all-seeing and may have been the totem of the Sumerian Watchers.

The oldest temple site yet to be discovered is located in Turkey and thought to be over 11,000 years old. Gobekli Tepe means Navel Hill and is theorized to be the site of ancient sky burials. Sky burials are still practiced in Tibet so we are able to understand how this ritual may have evolved in antiquity. The body (except for the head) is placed on a rocky outcroping after dismemberment. Vultures pick the bones clean of flesh and the cleaned bones are collected and interred. These vultures are called Dakina which means sky dancer and are considered to be a type of angelic messenger. The soul of the dead are transported to the Divine Presence via the Dakina to await their next incarnation. Zoroastrianism has a similar ritual, where the dead bodies are placed on the rooftop of a high tower, called the Tower of Silence. The bodies are then left open to the vultures. The body is, however, not dissected as in the Tibetan ritual. instead, after a certain number of days, the bones and remains are swept into a pit in the center of the building.

The Assyrian vulture deity was called Nisroch which was thought to have derived from the earlier Mesopotamian god called Nusku. Nusku was Enlil's gatekeeper of his palace in heaven and is akin to the Hebrew Metatron whose cult was centered in Harran. Nusku was known as the Purifyer and was responsible for ridding populations of disease. As such, he became the representative of fire and, thusly, the home hearth. and protector of the family.

The griffin is also a representation of the divine elements of the vulture. Linguists attribute gryphon (griffen) as cognate to karub which is where the word cherub is derived. Cherubs encircle the divine presence (Shekinah) with their protective wings on the kapporet of the Ark of the Covenant.

Nekhbet was the ancient Egyptian goddess depicted either as a vulture or as a zoomorphic goddess with huge wingspan. She was the protector of Egyptian royalty and was considered the mother of mothers who hath existed from the beginning. The Egyptian term for goddess was neteret (nṯrt; netjeret, nečeret) and the term for god was neṯer (nṯr; also transliterated netjer, nečer). This word sounds amazingly close to the Hebrew nesher but, so far, I seem to be the only person that thinks so!

Cain and Abel

2010-12-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Genesis 4: Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "I have gotten a man with the help of YHWH". She again bare his brother Abel. The Hebrew word used for again (yasaph) is an adverb meaning to continue to do a thing. Yasaph implies that Eve gave birth to Cain and continued to do the same thing by giving birth to Abel. In other words, Cain and Abel were twins. The profession of Abel was shepard and Cain was a farmer and city builder.

The tradition of twins as the progenitors of tribal units or city builders is very well documented in Semitic and Indo-European cultures. When birth order is specified, the younger twin always receives the blessing over the first born brother. In the account of the sons of Adam, the first born twin is envious of the second and commits fratricide. There are many variations on this theme in other twin genesis accounts. Jacob is fearful that Esau will kill him, Romulus killed Remus and Gwyn and Gwythurin in Celtic tradition duel every May.

The Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, shared a mortal and an immortal existence. Castor was killed on a cattle raid but Pollux persuaded Zeus to allow the brothers to switch places periodically. The word Gemini comes from the PIE root *ym which means 'to pair'. This word is very similar to the Hebrew im mimation suffix but, of course, linguists say they are unrelated(sigh).

Building and cutting of ashlars is a common theme in Gemini symbolism. Castor could be related to English ceaster which means city or town (as in Winchester, Dorchester, Manchester, etc. etc.) Ceasters were originally towns built around fortified Roman army camps and the root of this word comes from the PIE * to cut. Some derivatives are; castrate, castle and caste. (From Constellation of Words)

All of these immortal twins had temples dedicated to them called Docana. Docanas were a pair of pillars that were intersected by two beams; one on top and one on the bottom. This is the astrological symbol of Gemini. It seems very similar to the temple porch Solomon built and named Boaz and Jachin.

In my opinion, the most ancient concept of pairs is related to the dual activity of agriculture and building a protected enclosure to house the harvest. Planting and harvesting was accomplished during half the year and the other half was occupied with fortress construction. The full year cycle was teomim; completion/perfection.

Mimation

2010-11-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

In most African tribes, twins were considered a bad omen. Mothers with twins were either exiled or put to death with their twins. These infants were buried in obscure, unmarked locations and were taken to their resting place via a path that was never used again. Sometimes a new exit was torn in a wall of their dwelling to allow the mother and babies to be removed. In modern times, twins are no longer murdered but are sometimes still removed and nurtured by another tribe.

In contrast to this harsh culture is the Yoruba tribe. The Yoruba venerate twin births and use a special naming scheme. The Yoruba say that the first twin to be born tastes the climate of the world and tells the second twin if it is good. The second twin is stillborn if the first twin gives a negative report. The Yoruba traditionally say that second born is the true elder of the twins despite being the last to be delivered because the first twin was preparing the way.

The ancients Egyptians also believed that twins were a good omen. Osiris/Set and Isis/Nepthys were twin births. In the reign of Amenhoptep III, the "Clerk of the Works" were twin brothers and were immortalized on a stele that resides in the British Museum. The biographical information engraved on one side shows that twins were not ashamed to "come forth from the belly at the same time".

Indo-Europeans have a tradition of sacred twins that can be traced to Luwian tribes and the double-headed axe. The Greek Dioscuri, the Vedic Ashvins, the Latvian Dieva, deli and Roman Romulus and Remus are the most well known. The Indo-European view is that creation is ordered in pairs. Night and day, sun and moon, fire and ice; pairs are a Kingdom Principle. Within these pairs, functions are divided into three levels. These levels tend to be judicial, religious or militaristic. "And there is the odd fact that the deities associated with the third function tend to be twins; since one is frequently mortal and one immortal, this may be a recognition of life and death as two sides of the same coin..." (Ceisiwr Serith, PIE Religion).

Semitic speaking people also had a positive view of twins. The ancient semitic word for twins is "teomim" which is a mimation of the word meaning perfection or completion. Arab cultures believe Cain and Abel each had a twin sister. In Hebrew tradition, the patriarch Jacob was a younger twin that usurped his older brother's birthright. Jacob received the blessing, the covenant with YHWH and became the ancestor of the Israelites. Tamar, the Levirite bride of Judah was the mother of twins. Their unusual birth order came about when one stuck his hand out of the uterus but then withdrew back to allow for the birth of the other. Tamar became immortalized as the progenitress of King David and, therefore, Jesus the Messiah.

The Hebrew tribe Ephraim could be another example of ordered pairs. This tribe was given the central hill country of Canaan as a homeland. It appears that this is the same general area that archaeologists have identifed the first Israelites. The root of this name has no cognates in semitic languages but the "im" suffix denotes a pair. The same could be said of Mizraim, the Hebrew name for Egypt. It supposedly means "two lands" for Upper and Lower Egypt.

Twin births were the hallmark of the genesis of European, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Yoruba peoples.

Bo-Apis

2010-11-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

The emotional subtext of this Hera bronze was already an archaism by the second half of the 7th century BC. Much like the ancient Egyptians, her headpiece says her identity at a glance. She is the Matre Dei, Mother of God and the Axis Munde of all creation. Her name is so ancient there is no agreement on its origin but perhaps it is derived from Wer which translates as The Great Coiled One. The Coiled One is the spiral of the Milky Way and has consistently been used in Mediterranean cultures to signify the Mother Goddess of Creation.

Hera's function in ancient Greek society was to preside over blessed marriage and the children of blessed marriage. She was the progenitress of nations and determined who would be the Brides of Destiny for mythic heros. A Bride of Destiny was required so that the perfect son would be conceived to carry on the House of a man of reknown. The perfect son would perform all the required sacrifices and rituals to elevate the status of the hero so that he would achieve a type of imortality. Helen of Troy was the archetypal bride that was destined to produce a perfect son and therefore establish a dynasty that would last through the ages. The literary account of her kidnapping and rescue is a legend that still reverberates today in Western societies.

The Bride of Destiny motif was uniquely Indo-European and always associated with cattle. Hera was called Boopis by Homer which has been translated as cow-eyed but cow-faced could also be the meaning. The hair whorls on her forehead indicate her relationship to the Apis bull tradition. In fact, Boopis could be derived from Bo (cattle) and Apis (offspring of Virgin.) She has 8 whorls signifying the 7 perfect sons and 1 unique daughter that would immortalize the name of the father. Her brow is idealized as the chevron of Tanit. But her most mesmerizing attribute is her enormous cow eyes which were probably precious stones but are now missing. A Bride of Destiny was easily recognizable by her resemblance to cattle. She was a highly prized commodity and was worth the launching of a thousand ships.

Mehet-uret was an early Egyptian cow goddess that has been translated as Great Flood. This translation does not seem quite accurate. THE Great Flood was an inundation which was unlikely to bring fruitfulness. It seems a better translation would be influx of fresh water. Heavy bovines are still used to clear waterways of sud thus allowing fresh water to reach all the papyrus huts of a community. Her beautiful cow-eye was the symbol of Udjet, the eye of Horus. Gerald Massey has translated "eye" as seed which is appropriate for the goddess who gives birth each day to the god Horus.

The Egyptian Hathor was a later iteration of the cow-eyed goddess whose name means House of Horus. "House" also has the meaning of enclosure which harkens back to the walled harem of the Apis bull. The walled harem ensured the purity of progeny and was essential in creating the Great House of Horus. To the present day in India, the tradition exists that the sun hides in the body of a cow.

Many Brides of Destiny were selected for in antiquity by men who wished to gain imortality. Their progeny is easily recognized by their mesmerizing cow-eyes peeking out from their veils of purity.

Bos Primigenius Mauretanicus

2010-11-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

Dr. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University states that genetic traits are linked in complex ways. In her article for Western Horseman, As I See It, she warns "Over-selecting animals for physical traits often causes changes in behavior." She relates the case of a Russian geneticist who conducted a long-term study of selection for tame behavior in foxes. He succeeded in turning wild foxes into tame pets by selecting and breeding the calmest fox pups from each succeeding litter. However, behavioral changes were accompanied by changes in appearance. Ear shape, tail position, and the appearance of a white muzzle, forehead blaze, and white shoulder hair were significant changes. Gradin notes that the white color pattern on the head of these pups is similar to many domestic animals.
Dr. Gradin has also documented the relationship between hair whorl position and temperament. It has long been known by horse people (men and women) that a relationship exists between hair whorls and behaviour. Cattle also have hair whorls on the forehead and Gradin has proven a connection between the whorl location and temperament by studying feedlot cattle. Perhaps this relationship exists because of the myelin sheath that surrounds the axon of each neuron in the central nervous system? Myelin is derived from glial cells whose duties include regulating the release of ATP from the synaptic cleft of neurotransmitters. Glial cells are derived from the ectodermal tissue of the germ layer created during embryogenesis. This ectodermal layer forms the central nervous system, the lens of the eye, the ganglia and nerves, pigment cells, head connective tissues, the epidermis, hair, and mammary glands.
The ectodermal layer is most affected by environmental factors. Sometimes mutations are evident in just a few generations such as the pre-industrial moths of London. Humans can change the environment and thus affect the ectoderm of species either on purpose or by accident. The shell of the heike crab looks like the face of a mythical man because of intervention by humans. Fishermen refused to harvest those crab that resembled a human face because of a mythical back-story. Perhaps this is how the auroch evolved into the many domesticated cattle species that are the main contemporary source of protein for human consumption.
In past posts, I have described how the bee was intimately studied by ancient man. Honey was an important commodity that had magical properties and would transport without spoiling. Bees were thought to spontaneously generate from the bodies of bovines by the neolithic peoples of the Fertile Crescent. Antigonos of Karystos writes in 250 B.C., "In Egypt, if you bury an ox in certain places so that only his horns project above the ground and then saw them off they say bees fly out for the ox putrifies and is resolved into bees."
Herodotus described the status of the Apis bull in Egypt; “Apis is the calf of a cow which is never afterwards able to bear young. The Egyptians say that fire comes down from heaven upon the cow, which thereupon bears Apis (bees).” Furthermore, the ritual of the male was separate from the female;“it was only the black bulls with special marks – a white disc between its horns being one of the most important – who were really entitled to the name Apis.” Perhaps this "disk" is the hair whorl that Dr. Gradin has studied. We know the white coloration that was selected for by the Egyptians was in the shape of a triangle as shown in the symbol of Tanit. Disk could have been the word Herodotus used instead of whorl. Interestingly, the word whorl is derived from the root word of Horus.
After the Apis bull was ritually selected by the white triangle on forehead whorl, he was given a harem and venerated until sacrificed. His mother was not allowed to produce any more calves. This ritual seemingly produced similar results to the Russian fox experiment. The Apis bull tradition arrived in Egypt fully formed and easily merged into the indigenous religious traditions. The scientific community agrees that domestication of aurochs occurred first on the island of Crete or Cyprus. However, aurochs were not indigenous to these islands or the island of Malta. It is thought that aurochs could swim but not over long distances. They preferred the wet bogs and riverine ecosystems that are similar to moose habitat and so were at home in Lower Egypt.

The Coiled One

2010-11-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Wadj Wer (The Great Green) is a region on the eastern side of the Nile Delta. In ancient times it was filled with lakes and brackish marshes. However, the papyrus Rameseum VI advises the reader that the Wadj Wer "is to be crossed on foot and not boat." The Mediterranean Sea was also known as Wadj Wer. There was no separation in ancient Egypt between the lake district and the sea.

Wadj is one of the many Egyptian words for "papyrus" and as the goddess Wadjt, one of the most ancient symbols of Egypt. An even older symbol is the Milky Way spiral of stars represented in much of the ancient world by a snake. Wer means "the coiled one" and is the word used to build many other words such as Horus and hour and could be the origination of the PIE root "wesr". Wesr (hweorsa) means to spring or turn. Many Latin words ending in verse, vert and English words with the prefix of ward may be derived from this root.

The coiled spiral of the Milky Way was known as Phusis to the ancient Greeks. In Orphic Hymn 10 the attributes of the Coiled One are sung as tribute; "Thy feets still tracing in a circling course" describe the continuous, unending spiral of Phusis. "Immortal first born ever the same, nocturnal, starry , shining, powerful dame." "Without a father of thy wonderous frame, thyself thy father from whence thy essence came." The snake was believed to have been conceived without a father perhaps because of its lack of "frame". This frame could be the skeletal support of the body which was thought to be a contribution of the father.

Standing on two hind legs was the conduit of the creative power of uprightness. The father provided the support, the "long shin bones" and the bending tendons - words which are all built with the phoneme "ib" translated by Budge as "father". Uprightness could be the concept behind tsadic or rightousness. Standing upright is the obvious unique ability that humans have over the rest of the animals on earth. Rightous uprightness was fetishized in ashera groves and steles in the ancient world. Stand is derived from the Sanskrit word "tisthati" and is used to build words such as stand, stasis, stet, still and the Greek word h'istos. Perhaps this word was derived from tsadic but I could not find any evidence. However, the coiled power of the cosmos was delivered to the earth-bound organism through the bottom of the feet of the father.

It is interesting to note that the word for "plant" comes from the word for "foot". As explained by linguists this is a description of farming practices. When a seed is planted, they reasoned, it is pressed into the ground with the foot. This explanation was obviously invented by non-farmer. NEVER press the seed into the ground with your foot.

Another word that is derived from the root word of foot is "placenta".

Tsade; To Extrude

2010-10-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Ages before Daphne was a greek goddess she was the Egyptian Tefnut goddess of the green origin of mankind. Tefnut represented moisture and the photosynthesis of the sun. She turned sunlight and water into GREEN. As Daphne, she was a member of the genus "Thlaspi" and her laurels circled the heads of heros. As Tefnut the goddess she caused the buds to spring forth (tsamach), store up to make treasure (tsar) in the swamp (tsphar) and finally produce tsuph. The tsuph can be dried and pressed into cakes (tsamook)can be preserved and over-wintered (natsar), and the kernals (tsan) can be harvested (katsar). It can also be made into spirits (Tammuz; but that is another post).

Tefnut caused the extrusion of the thorn and, hence, the puncture of the tehom. She causes the tongue of the snake to flick in and out. That is why tsade means "to extrude".

Phallic Seeds of Osiris

2010-10-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

This picture shows everything required for rhizome cultivation. The most important is the Osiris phallus divided into seeds for planting. The tools required are shown along side; sawt (unknown purpose), the ankh (life-giver), the tet pillar (to store dormant rhizomes) the was septre (two holes are pierced into each rhizome) and, at the bottom, the chufa.

Please see post "Osiris Lord of Dormancy" below.

Osiris Lord of Dormancy

2010-10-05T08:08:00.001-07:00

In the Book of the Dead, Osiris is pictured here as the chief of Amenti (other world). In earliest depictions, his job is to preside over the judging of human deeds for the coming harvest. The Greeks have translated "Wasir" as Osiris but scholars do not agree on the etymology. Perhaps it originated from "waw" and "Seir". Monsoon rains (waw) from the mountains of Seir supplied the Red Sea region with life sustaining moisture.

Osiris was known by many names. "Foremost of the Westerners" was alluding to his position of Lord of Afterworld. "Osiris Wennofer" can be translated Osiris is everlasting in good condition. "Sekhet Aaru" which means field of reeds. The cartouche of throne and eye represents Osiris in his name of "many-eyed". Gerald Massey has translated the Egyptian word for eye as "seed" so perhaps the cartouche means "many seeds."

The ancient story tells of the brother of Osiris, Set(hippopotamus), breaking his body into thousands of pieces and broadcasting them over the land. In fact, hippos do break up papyrus rhizomes and can clear running streams that have been clogged. The story continues as Isis, his sister wife, collects the bits of his body and stores them in a chest. Rhizome cultivation would require collection of roots to be over-wintered in a dark, dry box. During planting season, the saved rhizome or "eye" could be replanted on woven mats at the edge of lakes. Evidence for chufa planted on mats is shown in the picure above. Osiris is sitting on a throne that sits on the woven mat with chufa growing out of the plaits. The canopied Sukkah is reminiscent of the huts of Sukkot.

Rhizome Cultivation

2010-10-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

Evidence for the domestication of chufa comes from the ancient site of Succoth
in the eastern Nile delta. The Succoth region was traditionally available to
herder tribes when other areas were suffering drought. It has been described as
perennially green and lush and we know it was once the site of a very deep
lake. It is also the starting place of the migration out of Egypt told in the
story of Exodus.
The hydrography of the ancient Nile is one of lakes where fresh water meets sea
water though the pourous rock of underground aquifers. High salinity, stable,
brackish water is the environment chufa requires. The word “Succoth” is derived
from “tsuf” the word for chufa and "suq" has an alternate meaning of "woven".
Weaving tsuf to cultivate tubers could be the earliest form of agriculture.
Placing woven tsuf mats around the rim of lakes affords the gatherers the
opportunity to stay in one place. Cutting up rhizomes and placing bits on mats
needs little understanding of agriculture. Some of the earliest myths relate the
act of cutting up gods to distribute the parts of the body over the earth (or at
least along the coast to Byblos). Egyptian hieroglyphics clearly show chufa
tubers hanging below platforms with plant material on top. Chufa tubers are also
used as fish bait so a mat with chufa would also attract a plethora of fish and
could be thought of as a one-stop shop for sustenance or “souk”. Hydroponic
farming could have allowed settled human habitation long before grain
domestication.
Many thousands of years of chufa cultivation would change the landscape from one
of lakes to grassland by gradually filling in depressions with plant material.
Perhaps chufa domestication predicated bovine domestication by providing
grassland near permanent settlements without the need to follow migrating herds.

The Foot of the Hippo

2010-09-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

The river horse was one of the first symbols of fecundity and “t’b” was one of the original words. T’b (hippopotamus) is an onomonopiea created by approximating the sound of a Hippopotamus call. It also contains the morpheme ‘b which is used to build some of the oldest words in antiquity. To the ancient Egyptians, ib was the core of an entity where the life and mind resided in unity. This has been translated as “heart”.

During the Pleistocene Epoch, the hippo experienced a population surge due to the increase in their fresh water habitat. A large variety of species evolved in the various niches created during this wet period. All but two of these have become extinct and none remain in the Nile. The oldest evidence of human interaction with hippo comes from the Bouri hoarst formation in Awash Valley, Ethiopia. Hippopotamid bones have been found with cut marks from butchery. “These are the earliest documented percussion marks made by hominids who were presumably processing these bones for contained fatty marrow. …These are the earliest documented cut marks made by hominids.” As noted by its excavators, the evidence from the site shows that “a major function of the earliest known tools was meat and marrow processing of large carcasses. Finally, they extend this pattern of butchery by hominids well into the Pliocene.”

The shared habitat of hippos and humans through the many layers of occupation at Bouri horst attest to humans’ intimate understanding of this mammal. Morphemes associated with hippos have been used to build words used to describe the hind quarters of all grazing animals. Words are built using ib that describe the Achilles tendon. Ib was the power of the bull from their hindquarters as they mounted the cow. The power that imbued the hindquarters of men was thought by the ancients to come from the same source. That source was the earth. Words symbolizing clay and silt were built using ib. The word for a human father, patriarch and lord was built using the hippopotamus ib (Ab). Perhaps the ancients attributed standing on two legs as an intimate connection to the god-power that, obviously, came from the earth.

The female hippo was the symbol for pregnancy and childbirth. Her watery abode was the inspiration for the heavenly course of the sun after it disappeared under the horizon line. The night sky of Ursa Major was a sea and the stars were “fish shine”. As the god Tawaret, the hippo was the protector of pregnant women. Her image was carved into ivory teeth and placed next to women in childbirth.

What attribute of the hippo made ancient people associate human fecundity with that of the water horse? The answer lies in the earth, the source of life for early humans many thousands of years before the domestication of grain. The life giving silt washed down from the high places covering the old papyrus rhizomes to spur new growth. The ground united with the rain to create new life. The ground was the source of male power, It traveled up their heels into their buttocks and spewed out the male member. The sky was the source of female fecundity; water pouring out of the pitcher onto the earth.

Knot of Isis

2010-09-07T08:33:00.001-07:00

In written sources the meaning and symbolism of this object, known as the Tyet (Tiet, thet) is often translated as "life" or "welfare." The Tyet is found as a decorative motif as early as the 3rd Dynasty but was a symbol from pre-dynastic times and probably into antiquity. Tyet is the twin created by tying the ancestral cord. The knot creates the new bicameral entity from the mystic cord that connects all beings to the Great Mother, Queen of Heaven. She was the giver of life, knowledge and morality. Mirrors were made with Tyets to symbolize replication. Knots similar to Tyet are shown on pictures of Mary, Mother of Jesus.

The ancestral blood flowed through the cord connecting the Great Mother through the umbilicus to child. The Great Mother, as the anthropomorphic serpent, "twinned" herself by congealing her blood and shedding her outer skin. This second skin is a type of placenta and was a part of the connecting cord completely surrounding the fetus protecting it. The ouroboros depicts the snake as the protecting placenta of existence. In Africa, the snake is an important symbol of protection and family ties. The rainbow-god of the Ashanti was conceived to have the form of a snake and in many parts of Africa the serpent is looked upon as the incarnation of deceased relatives. Among the Amazulu, like the Betsileo of Madagascar, certain species are assigned as the abode of certain classes. The Maasai, on the other hand, regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.

The divine regenerative ability of the snake was a symbol of the understanding humans held of natural science. As they obtained new information, their understandings progressed and new words were built. Hebrew thet was first written with a circle and x. IMO, the circle represents the oroboros and the X is the twinning knot. Western linguists suggest this ideogram is a basket but what would this basket hold with holes in bottom? What words were built using thet that describes attributes of baskets?

The Vav (Waw) Connection

2010-09-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth below, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: Gen. 49:25.

Each of these blessings are preceded by the Vav Hachibur or the vav of connection. Vav has been translated as "and" but that does not convey the full meaning. The connection to the devine emination "fills" the created. In Strong's, the only words that start with vav are borrowed from other languages. It is used only as a connection or a 'fattening' of consonants. It is unique in all the Hebrew letters. When used as a prefix, vav can change the future into past and past into future. It can change the gender of a word. It gets its power from the connection to the creative power of the devine.

During the holiday of Succoth waving the branch of the date palm is an important commandment. The "lulav" (fattened with vav) must be tightly closed and ramrod straight. The leaflets must not have begun to differentiate and must not be bent in the slightest. When the lulav is waved, the connection to the patriarchs is open. This is the time to say the greeting. If the lulav leaflets have begun to "twin" then the connection is closed. When the branch is tiyomet (twin) then conception has occurred. Tav seals the cord tying off the devine emanation and reproduction is complete.

After the lulav transports the creative force to the palm, it is no longer needed. It dries up and falls off, sacrificing itself to conception. It has completed the task it for which it was created; the swelling of the fruit. Without the sacrifice of the lulav, the date could not swell forth. Perhaps this is why martyrs graves are marked with palm fronds.

The Bee Economy

2010-07-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

The ancients must have known that the Bee will lead them to honey. Bees "talk" to each other in their manner of flight and perhaps the ancients learned to read their patterns. Surely the sweetness of Honey made it a highly prized commodity. The reward for learning the flight language of Bees was great indeed! The clever Bees created precious honey in their hexagon hives in a mysterious way known only to God. The semetic root DVR/DBR is associated with many Bee attributes. Flit, flight, thought, language, word, commune, speaker, etc. The bee hive also has inspired many ideas such as; solder, weld, NECK, inner sanctuary, Holy of Holies and oracle. The ancients that learned the language patterns of bees were highly successful and modern humans are the benefactors.The story of Joseph and Aseneth tells how Bees were able to transform a pagan into a child of God. Aseneth loved Joseph but was a daughter of a pagan priest. Her transformation was brought about by Bees building a honeycomb surrounding her so that God could work his miracle. The creative power of Bees became the word of God that could remake a pagan into a holy mother.

The six-sided cell of the honeycomb is also the inner chamber of the Star of David and the shape of the early church. The six sides were the earthly abode of men but the seventh was given to God.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80bea ... rted-bees/Row upon row of hives with trap doors for easy access to honey. DBR is the symbol for the honey economy of this tribal region. The following paragraph is from Abarim-publications.com;"The word dabar, however, outdoes even elyon and is a universe of meaning in itself. The root, its many derivations and the many meaning of each derivation occur over 2,500 times in the Old Testament (first in Genesis 12:4) - TWOTOT reports that the King James uses more than 110 different English words and expressions to translate this one Hebrew word."The story of Deborah tells how an Oracle convinced various tribes to come together to defeat a looming threat. To do this, the language of Bees was utilized. Common cultural symbols were combined to speak the concept of looming danger and arrange for it's alleviation. Bringing forth of the honey used the same language as Word of God. The miraculous appearance of honey allowed these people to have a belief in unseen forces. Hive symbology occurs at the very core of this cultural heritage. Understanding the language of bees helped this group of people become more successful and sustained them through adversity. Their language was built upon their beekeeping culture and their culture was built on belief in DBR (miraculous appearance of honey).

Beekeepers must be very careful and not introduce foreign organisms into hive. Hive collapse is a common and mysterious event. Even modern man has not fully solved this problem. The purity laws proscribed by priests entering the DBR/Inner Sanctum were quite specific. This priest must live 12 cubits from anyone else (and be downwind.) He must not have a discharge or come in contact with anyone that has a discharge within 7 days. He must bathe and then not touch any other part of his body with his hands. If he touches anything at all, he must wash his hands before he enters the inner sanctum. The man dedicated to entering the DBR would need to be supported because ritual purity requires intense effort and concentration. As a culture was built around the DBR, common symbols were deployed to build language required for the cooperative effort. Keeping the priest pure would have been an enormous expenditure of resources requiring much new language.

Tebah or House of the Hippopotamus

2009-11-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

To the Egyptian mind, rebirth was not only synonymous with death, it took the place of it. Mes (birth) takes the place of death (mut) and mastebah is the sarcophagus considered as the place of rebirth. The first, the original, the primordial waters (Teb) was represented by the hippo the bearer of the merukabatu (chariot) or Ursa Major. Ah means abode so tebah means primordial waters of the first abode and mastebah means primordial waters rebirth of first abode.

Remnants of our Arboreal Past

2009-10-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

The creation myth of the proto-Nilotic people of the Yam Suph (Reed Sea) is very specific. The creator God 'Nun' allowed an island of earth to rise up from the waters. This island is called the Benben and is represented in the golden top of every pyramid. Nun then gave the people the primodial 'egg' and Tree of Knowledge.

These Benben (son, innheritor, prince, principality) and the trees that were left became sacred as the Mediterranean basin refilled from the Atlantic Ocean. The tree of Knowledge was the tallest tree the Benu bird (hoopoe) would perch on when he visited the Benben.

Chufa/Suph

2009-10-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Chufa or Suph is a C4 sedge and “may be the oldest domesticated crop in the world. They appear in large quantities in Egyptian archaeological contexts from predynastic Amratian period about 3900-3600B.C.” (Zohary, Hopf). "A simple calculation shows that 100/g Chufa fully satisfies the human daily requirement for vegetable fats including essential fatty acids. Chufa provides carbohydrates including polysaccharides, fiber, iron, phosphorus and other trace minerals".(Manmade Closed Ecological Systems) Chufa is rich in calcium, vitamin E and C and is gluten free.The ancient Nilotic people used Chufa for flour, oil, beer, pig feed and fish bait. It also was used as a substitute for milk. It is being cultivated in the southern U.S. as pig feed. Wasn’t a substantial quantity of pig bones found with Ardi?

Yatir the Kenite

2008-12-26T13:35:00.000-08:00

Interest in Kenite culture has intensified since William Dever published his paper on origins of proto-Israelite. Of course the most famous Kenite is Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. Jethro is described as a "Midianite Priest" that counciled Moses on administering the law of YHWH. Jethro understood that Moses could not personally adjudicate every law. Therefore, the Semicha system was a way that the law of YHWH could be distributed justly to every member of the community. Semicha means laying on of hands or ordination. Semicha Rabbanut means Rabbinical ordination and was practiced in an unbroken line of succession until Hillel around the 4th or 5th century C.E.

Rabbinical ordination consisted of 3 types of Semicha; Yoreh Yoreh, Yadin Yadin and Yatir Bechorot Yatir. Yatir is from the Hebrew YTR which is also the 3-letter root of "Jethro". It would seem that Jethro was not the name of Moses Father-in-law but the title of a priest. The Midian priest was a Yatir that proclaimed the laws of YHWH as they pertained to the husbandry of sheep and goats. The Yatir was a priest of nomadic sheep herders.

Adam Vs. Eve

2008-08-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

The post below was excerpted from a book but I have, unfortunately, lost the reference.

We have to lay at Adam's feet, in the spermatogenic evolutionary strategy, responsibility for all the unstable features of competitive and exploitative instability society is displaying. Instability which compromises our future viability and sustainability - an endlessly exponentiating relentless industrializtion, extinction-risking boom and bust economics, winner-take-all exploitation of natural and non-renewable resources, population crisis, environmental impacts which are never addressed until the damage is possibly irreversible, and the devastation of a billion years of evolutionary diversity. The use of controlled violence combined with reproductive competition has led to war, atrocity and genocide as well as the development of industrial civilization and post-modern culture. These features began with the patriarchal dominion of large city states, exacerbated by patriarchal religious leaders who insist on the male right to reproduce as well as man's dominion over nature. They have resulted in war and genocide to the point of final end-game 'solutions' such as sheol and the nuclear madness of mutually assured destruction. For this reason it is necessary to exorcise the doctrine of original sin which has cursed Eve throughout the history of patriarchal monotheism.

Scarab/Cherub

2008-04-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

These are bullae from the Judahite King Hezekiah. These seals are l'melech meaning "belonging to the king". It clearly shows a dung beetle rolling the sun across the sky and infers the right of the king to rule. During his reign these bullae were suddenly replaced with the Assyrian rossette. Judah had become a vassel state of the Assyrian empire even though King Hezekiah remained on the throne.

Reed People

2008-03-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

The following is exerpted from Ancient Egypt; The Light of the World by Gerald Massey

The Egyptian record when correctly read will tell us plainly that the human birthplace was a land of the papyrus reed, the crocodile, and hippopotamus; a land of the great lakes in Karua, the Kolôe of Ptolemy, or in Apta at the horn point of the earth - that is, in Equatoria, from whence the sacred river ran to brim the valley of the Nile with plenty. It is in vain we judge of the race by the figures and faces of the rulers portrayed in monumental times. Primary data must be sought for amongst the Fellaheen and corroborated by the skulls. Captain Burton wrote to me in 1883, saying, “You are quite right about the African origin of the Egyptians, and I have sent home a hundred skulls to prove it” . (Does anyone know what became of these skulls ?) The African legends tell us that the Egyptians, Zulus, and others looked backward to a land of the papyrus reed as the primeval country of the human race. There is a widespread African tradition, especially preserved by the Kaffir tribes, that the primeval birthplace was a land of reeds. The Zulus told the missionary Callaway that men originally “came out of a bed of reeds” . This birthplace in the reeds was called “Uthlanga” , named from the reed. No one knew where it was, but all insisted that the natal reed-bed of the race was still extant. It was a sign of lofty lineage for the native aristocracy to claim descent from ancient Uthlanga, the primeval land of birth. The Basutos identify Uthlanga the human birthplace with a cavern in the earth that was surrounded by a morass of reeds. The Zulu birthplace in the bed of reeds was repeated and continued in the nest of reeds and the morass that were mythically represented as the birthplace of the child, which was constellated as the uranograph of Horus springing from the reed. What indeed is the typical reed of Egypt, first in the upper, next in the lower land, but a symbol of the birthplace in the African bed of reeds ? Lower Egypt, called Uat in the hieroglyphics, has the same name as the papyrus reed. Also Uati is a title of the great mother Isis who brought forth Child-Horus on her lap of the papyrus flower. Uat in Egyptian is the name of Lower Egypt; Uat is the oasis, Uat is the water, Uat is wet, fresh, evergreen Uat is the reed of Egypt, the papyrus reed, and a name of the most ancient mother in the Kamite mythology. [Page 256] Seb, the father of food, is clothed with papyrus reeds. The Mount of Earth was imaged as a papyrus-plant in the water of space. Lastly, the Mount of Amenta in the Ritual rises from a bed of papyrus reeds. Hor-Apollo says of the Egyptians, “To denote ancient descent they depict a roll of papyrus, and by this they signify primeval food” (B. I, 30). This is the same as with the Zulus. The papyrus reed, Uat, was turned into a symbol of most ancient descent precisely because it had been the primeval food of the most ancient people, a totem of the most ancient mother of the race when called Uati in Egypt, and a type of the African paradise. As the symbolism shows, people were sometimes derived from and represented by the food on which they lived. Thus the papyrus reed that symbolizes ancient food and long descent would be the sign of the people who once lived on or who ate the shoots of the water plant. The Egyptians continued to be eaters of the lotus and papyrus shoots. Theirs was the land of the reed, and they, like the Zulus or the Japanese or the Pueblos, were the reed people in accordance with the primitive mode of heraldry, just as with the Arunta tribes the witchetty-grub people are those who live on the witchetty-grub as their special totemic food. In later times the papyrus plant was eaten by the Egyptians as a delicacy. Its shoots were gathered for that purpose annually. Bread made from the roots and the seed of the lotus was the gourmand's delight. Lily loaves are mentioned in the Papyrus Anastasi. It is said in the Hymn to the Nile that when food is abundant the poor man disdains to eat the lotus or papyrus plant, which shows that it had been his diet when other food was scarce. Uthlanga is not irrecoverable. We glean from other Zulu legends that this was the African birthplace in the bed of reeds, where the two children, black and white, were born of dark and day, and where the race of the reed people broke off in the beginning. This cradle of creation is repeated mythically with Child-Horus in his nest of reeds or bed of the papyrus plant, when the field of reeds was figured in the heavens as the primitive paradise of food and drink.
In the so-called “cosmogony” of the Japanese it is set forth that the first thing in which life appeared on earth at the beginning was the reed, and the earliest land or “country-place stand” (Kunitoko tachi) was the land of the reed. Japan was named as the central land of the reed expanse from the fields of reed, whether geographical on the earth or astronomical in the fields of heaven. The “great reed” of the Japanese mythos is identical with the papyrus reed that represented the Mount of Earth in Egypt or the lotus of Meru in India. Any country figured as being atop of the reed would be the midland of the world, as Japan is said to be, and the Kamite reed will explain why the land of the Kami should be called Ashi-hara, the plain of reeds, when the reed is identified with the papyrus plant. Ashi-hara no naka tsu Kuni, “the Middle Kingdom of the Reed Plain” , which [Page 257] lies upon the summit of the globe, is an ancient name for Japan. This, if mundane, corresponds to the land of the papyrus reed in equatorial Africa, the summit of our earth; or, if only mythical, i.e., astronomical, to the reed field of the Aarru paradise upon the summit of the mount in heaven. Again, the great reed standing up out of the water is identical with the typical mount of earth in the Navajo mythology. As the mount grew higher, higher grew the reed. At the time of the deluge all that lived took refuge there, and were rescued from the drowning waters by the reed. This is the papyrus reed which cradled Horus amid the waters, like the infant Moses in the ark of bulrush, applied in a folk-tale on a larger scale (Matthews).
It is now proposed to seek for the birthplace of the beginnings in Central Africa, the land of the papyrus reed, around the equatorial lakes, by the aid of the Egyptian astronomical mythology and the legendary lore. In the first place, the Kami of Egypt, like the Kami of Japan, identify themselves by name as the reed-people. And the goddess Uati is the African great mother in the bed of reeds. For it was thence, in the region of the two lakes and in the land of the papyrus reed, that souls in the germ first emanated as the soul of life from water. The Kaffir tradition thus appears to preserve the natural fact which the Egyptians rendered mythically by means of the reed plant as a symbol of the primeval birthplace on earth with Horus issuing from the waters on the reed, which became the lap of life, the cradle and the ark of the eternal child, who is also called the shoot of the papyrus, the primitive Natzer. A spring of water weIling from abysmal depths of earth, that furnished food in the papyrus reed and other edible plants, is the earliest form in which the source of life was figured by the Kamite mystery teachers. This is recorded in the Ritual (ch. 172). It was in the birthplace of the reeds and of the reed people in the region of the reeds that light first broke out of darkness in the beginning in the domain of Sut, and where the twin children of darkness and of light were born. The stands of the offerings presented to the gods in the Ritual are commonly crowned with papyrus plants, which commemorate the food that was primeval. Thus the doctrine of life issuing in and from the papyrus reed was Egyptian as well as Japanese. Naturally the earliest life thus emanating from the water was not human life, but this would be included sooner or later in the mythical representation. Hence the legend of the first man, or person who issued from a reed in the water of the deluge. In this American Indian version the reed is a figure of the birthplace instead of the Zulu bed of reeds, or Uthlanga, the land of reeds, but the typical origin is the same; and as Egyptian the mythos is to be explained. The origin of a saviour in the guise of a little child is traceable to Child-Horus, who brought new life to Egypt every year as the Messu of the inundation. This was Horus in his pre-solar and pre-human characters of the fish, the shoot of the papyrus, or the branch of endless years. In a later stage the image of Horus on his papyrus [Page 258] represented the young god as solar cause in creation. But in the primitive phase it was a soul of life or of food ascending from the water in vegetation, as he who climbs the stalk, ranging from Child- Horus to the Polynesian hero, and to Jack ascending heavenward by means of his bean-stalk. Now, of all the lands on earth there is no reed land to be compared with the land of the reeds round the equatorial lakes, where the papyrus grows about the waters in jungles and forests so dense that a charging herd of hippopotami could hardly penetrate the bush, which stands out of the water full fifteen feet in height (Johnston, H. H.), and there if anywhere upon this earth Uthlanga, the original reed land or birth land in the reeds, will yet be found. That is the natural fact which underlies the mythical representation when the Egyptians show us Horus “on his papyrus” rising from his natal bed of the papyrus plant. Child-Horus on his papyrus is the reed-born in mythology who reflects the natural fact of the human birthplace in the field, the bed, or nest of reeds on earth or in heaven - that is, the African oasis of the beginning, whether the offspring represents food or other elemental force. Now the Egyptian Aarru or paradise, established by Ra, was “a field of reeds” in seven divisions, and these were papyrus reeds which sprang up from the marshes. Thus the Kamite paradise was a land of the papyrus plant repeated on the summit of the mount in heaven at the north celestial pole (Naville, Destruction of Mankind).

"Fertility" Figure YAM Canaanite Sea Goddess

2008-02-16T18:03:00.001-08:00

The Yamana people of Tierra Del Fuego are virtually extinct. The last Yamanan of ethnic parentage died in 1975. Several different groups of anthropologists visited this region starting with H.M.S. Beagle kidnapping 4 young Yamanan boys to be taken to England.

In ancient times the Yamana were matriarchial and all ceremonies were conducted by women. It was the women who dove into the icy water to retrieve the shellfish. There were men shaman as well as women but in times of a dispute, the decision of the women was final since it was believed that women ruled the sea, and the sea held the key to their survival. They put to sea in fragile and delicate canoes made of the bark of any plant that could be found. The center of the canoe held a "hearth" made of a bed of carefully packed sand, rock, and the fire. In all kinds of weather, the fires of the canoes could be seen bobbing out to sea. Women rode in the stern looking for the thick kelp beds which were hiding places for shellfish and smaller fish. They would dive into the frosty and icy kelp beds, harvest what could be found, place their bounty very carefully into the canoes not to tear the delicate bark, and continue this work until the canoe could hold no more. They would then maneuver the canoe as close to land as possible without running the risk of being thrown into rocks, firmly anchor it to the nearest kelp bed, and ferry the men and older children to shallow water where they could wade to shore. The woman swam trip after trip until all the passengers and the catch for the day was safely ashore. They would then place their babies on their heads, and finally swim to shore.

Extended families lived together as often as the food supply would allow. All relatives, including the most distant of cousins, were welcome in these communities. Shelters were built by digging very large holes in the earth, placing a fire pit in the center for warmth, and surrounding the pit with whatever materials could be found that would serve as a windbreak. The diet of the Yamano consisted primarily of shellfish supplemented with fish and larger animals of the sea such as seals and porpoises, along with sea birds which nested in the rocks. However, fish were not in plentiful supply, and the larger animals moved in schools which quickly passed by. Once the food source was depleted, the Yamana broke up their family gathering and moved on. When a beached whale was discovered, smoke signals were immediately sent up to announce the finding of this storehouse of food, skin, oil and grease.

This picture is Halaf fertility goddess from Sumer. It has large thighs and breasts. The head is "pinched" or flattened and sometimes have painted eyes on either side. The body painting and flattened head resemble the Yamana ceremonial body painting. Supposedly this figurine is giving birth but I think this is representing sustenance - not fertility. This figure is kneeling in the front of a canoe like the ancient Yamana women, presenting full breasts to feed humanity. The pinched head is a fish head. This is YAM the Canaanite Sea Goddess sitting in the bow of the canoe guiding humans to sustenance from the sea.

3 Evolutionary Stages of Human Foot

2008-02-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Stage 1: Grasping Hallux; adapted to arboreal habitat or to semi-arboreal habitat (chimps and gorillas)

Stage 2: Stationary Hallux: adapted to cane forest habitat and fully bipedal. Australiopithecines have this type of foot morphology. ttp://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/faculty/mchenry/JHE50.pdf

Stage 3: Elongated metatarsal bones. The elongation of these bones allows homo to "run on toes". All mammals with the ability to run - run on toes. Some of these mamals are prey and some are predator. Homo cannot outrun prey animals so this adaptation could not be for predatory purposes. But then, Homo cannot outrun predatory mammals so this adaptation probably is not for the purpose of outrunning that which will eat you.

The elongation of the metatarsal creates a "spring" which also allows for jumping and makes running possible. Did ancient homo "jump" away from predators? This sounds unlikely unless the subject is jumping into water where land-based predators could not follow. Springing into water is like diving from a stationary platform. Those that evolved the "springing" ability would be more likely to not be eaten. Those that did not have this mutation would be eaten more quickly and therefore not reproduce.

Human Hallux Riddle

2008-02-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

The human hallux is stationary and assumes an in-line presentation early in fetal development. Current wisdom asserts bipedalism freed hands for specialized tasks. But Gorilla hands have ability to peel cane and weave beds. Gorilla feet have oposable hallux indicating double functionality (grasping, walking). Humans have stationary hallux and had ancestors with stationary hallux. None of the above primates have stationary hallux nor ancestor with stationary hallux.

There is evidence that a later pithicene relative [Gigantopithecus] lived in asian bamboo forests. Bamboo is a cane plant with marrow that can be extracted with fingers and teeth. It is low in calorie content so eating would have consumed a lot of time. Bamboo grows in mountainous regions so Gpith could have augmented bamboo with mountain beaver and other types of small burrowing mammals. This primates powerful long arms could rip apart a colony.

One of these types of pithecines that no longer could climb trees and were adapted to cane habitat must have been progenitor of homo. But this apith would be lowland adapted. The type of cane consumed would be in marshland. Papyrus cane would be likely food. And since primates have always augmented diet with regionally available protein, fish would be most convenient.

The following paragraph is from:Fossils, feet and the evolution of human bipedal locomotion
W E H Harcourt-Smith1 and L C Aiello2
1Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
2Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK

Robinson (1972) agreed with Napier (1964) that P. robustus and A. africanus (which he calls H. africanus) were different in their pelvic and femoral morphology and thus gait, but favoured a more linear scenario akin to the early theories of Keith (1923) and others for the ape precursors of hominin bipedalism. He envisaged a ‘stream of evolution’ (Robinson, 1972, p. 255) from a hypothetical African variant of the Asian genus Gigantopithecus to P. robustus with subsequent speciation in P. robustus leading to A. africanus and ultimately to modern humans.

Molar Enamel Comparison Study

2008-02-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

"G. blacki relative enamel thickness overlaps slightly with Pongo and completely with Homo."

Am J Phys Anthropol. 2007 Oct 16; : 17941103
Molar enamel thickness and dentine horn height in Gigantopithecus blacki.
[My paper] A J Olejniczak , T M Smith , W Wang , R Potts , R Ciochon , O Kullmer , F Schrenk , J-J Hublin

The diet of G. blacki has been compared to modern day pandas. Reeds.

If molar morpology has been used to determine other primate economies, why not homo?

Nile Estuarine

2008-02-06T00:39:00.000-08:00

A great forest of cane papyrus in the Nile estuarine may be the aquagenesis of homo. Many miles wide and 15 feet high this sea of reeds could provide food and shelter for earliest homo. At other Nile cataracts great hippos trampeled the reed forest and water flowed freely. Crocadilla, fish, snakes and turtles fought for survival. But in the Yam Suf it was the apiths that exploited the thick cane papyrus. Weaving beds so tightly they were able to exist and adapt to their water environment. Mothers unable to weave were deselected (see babes in baskets YahooATT.)Industrious apiths peeling cane to get at the marrow. Also fish, bugs slugs and frogs. A diet rich in fatty acids and prolific breeding was catalyst for rapid change. The aquatic environment allowed greater neotany for head delivery. The apith adaptation to semi-aquatic niche of giant cane papyrus may have been birth of homo.