Dennis Poulter wrote
> I have been following your correspondence on Semele and Demeter.
Following Heredotos' statements that the names of nearly all the gods
came to Greece from Egypt, I offer below a couple of proposals for your
consideration:
>
> 1.. Semele - from Egyptian sm3(y)t (the 3 stands for the Egyptian
double aleph, Vulture hieroglyph, which in Old/Middle Egyptian had a
consonantal value sometimes represented by "r" and sometimes by "l" in
Egyptian names attested in other languages/scripts).
> The meaning is "royal consort". This seems to fit better than "moon
goddess" or "earth mother". Surely Hera's punishment was based on the
fact that she was not divine.
Hera's wrath came to all "mortal" consorts of Zeus, including Io,
Europa, Leda etc. Robert Graves in his Greek Myths Vol 1 & 2 suggests
that these were originally local "mother goddesses", paired with Zeus
when the Indo-European Greeks arrived in the Aegean. It would seem
that they were originally different aspects of the Great Mother (Hera
herself is an aspect of this chthonic divinity).
> Linguistically, within Greek, there seems to be no basis for
positing lunar connections. And as for "earth", how does one derive
"sem-" from "ghem"?
>
> 2.. Demeter - from Early West Semitic *gway/gwaye, a reconstructed
form reflected in Canaanite "gaye' / ge' ", meaning "land, wide
valley". That West Semitic can be reconstructed with labio-velars is
based on internal evidence from other Semitic/Ethiopic languages, and
that they broke down during the 2nd millennium is based on evidence of
tablets found at Ebla. There is also the Phoenician city named
"Byblos/Biblos" in Greek, "Gublu(m)" in Akkadian, "Gebal" in Biblical
Hebrew and "Jebeil" in modern Arabic. There is also a (rare) Greek word
"gyes" meaning a measure of land. So this word appears to have been
borrowed on three separate occasions :
I would have thought De-meter comes from a contraction of the
Indo-European Danu to Denu-meter... Danu in the Greek Pantheon is also
found as Dione, in Latin Diana, in Welsh Don, Irish Dana, Sanscrit
Danu, and in Germanic Nana and so seems very wide spread (the English
word Nanna for Grandmother comes from the same source). Some have
suggested she derives from the Sumerian Inanna.
> 1.. when both WS and Gk. retained labio-velars, giving Gk. "de"
> 2.. when WS still retained, but Gk. had lost labio-velars, giving
Gk. "gyes"
> 3.. when both languages had lost labio-velars, giving Gk. "ge/gaia".
> While there is no problem with meaning, the problem with the IE
derivation is again, how does one derive "da/de" from "dhghom/ghem"?
A better derivation of Ge/Gaia again comes from the Sumerian where
"Ninhursag" (Lady Mountain = the Sumerian Mother Goddess par excellent)
was also known as Ki = Earth. Her son, Enki (Lord Earth) was the
Sumerian God most friendly to humankind. Known to in Akkadian as Ea,
to the West Semites (at Ebla) he was Yah, to the Hittites, Ya, and to
the Jews as Yahweh.
Ki seems early on to have divided into multiple goddesses. One of her
atributes was "The Mother of All Living" - which in Sumerian has a pun
"Ninti" - which also means "Lady rib". In Hebrew I understand HWH -
Hawwah - (Eve) means the mother of all living. The story of Eve being
made from Adam's rib perpetuates the punchline of the Sumerian pun
(Ninti), without acknowledging the source. As Inanna she was described
as "The Queen of Heaven" from the Sumerian misunderstanding of her
pre-Sumerian name. Ninanu = Lady Sky would have been "Queen of
Heaven", but her real name was Inanna, and so we see a Sumerian account
trying to explain who this goddess was. (It would be a little like an
Englishman saying Mary was called Mary because she was married).
Inanna seems to have been an original goddess of life and death. She
split with Inanna keeping the goddess of life atributes, whilst her
"sister" Ereshkigal (Eresh = Under Ki = Earth Gal = the Great) became
the goddess of death. This led to the Sumerian myth of the Descent of
Inanna, which seems to have been the archetypal myth for the
Persephone-Kore Demeter cycle, and even for Orpheus and Eurydice in
Greek myth (and ultimately for the Christian death and resurrection).
Inanna's resurrected return to life led to Damuzi's death. The fact
that there was an early myth of a male season followed by a female
season is shown by the fact that Damuzi's "sister" Gestinanna (Inanna
of the grape = Geshti) took his place. Inanna's name seems to have
survived in the Western Semites as Hannah, leading to the feared
Canaanite goddess of war Anath (the Carthaginian Tanit), and ultimately
to the Biblical Saint Anne. Amongst the Persians she was known as
Anahita.
Inanna in Akkadian was Ishtar, Syrian Astarte, Hebrew Ashtaroth,
Persian Esther, Cyprian Aphrodite, Egyptian Auset (Isis). Her Consort,
known as Tammuz amongst the West Semites, was also called "Lord"
(Adonai) which led to the myths about Adonis and Aphrodite, and even
later Attis.
> More generally, Greece, Crete and the Aegean were integral parts of
an East Mediterranean cultural and economic sphere dominated by Egypt,
at least from the founding of the XI Dynasty until the invasions of the
Sea Peoples, i.e. for most of the 2nd millennium BC. Anatolia,
dominated as it was by the Hittites the traditional enemies of the
Egyptians, was excluded from this sphere. It would therefore seem more
useful to look at Egypt and the Levant when seeking elucidations of
Greek myths, divine and mythical names and other non-Greek words,
rather than Anatolia or even further afield, which, despite intensive
scholarship, has proved singularly unproductive.
Denis, given the evidence above of Greek - Middle Eastern connections
above, I feel the connections with the Aegean - Egypt were not as close
as with the connections between Aegean - Anatolia - Mesopotamia - Iran.
These connections did not come with a period as close as the Egyptian
XI-XIX Dynasties, but were far older going back to Ubaid times (at the
latest) if not back to the beginnings of agriculture itself with the
spread of the Japethic substratum linguistic phyllum languages.
Hope this helps
John