John:
>An excellent, and highly controvercial book by Thomas L Thompson [...]
I personally prefer to read the mainstream books before I dabble in the
controversial.
>The first, based primarily on comparative Hamitic and Semitic >linguistics,
>is that the early Semitic populations of Palestine and >the ancient Near
>East at large migrated from north Africa in the >period 6000-4000 B.C.E.
In the past week and a half, I've been catching up on the archaeology and
I've become thoroughly convinced that it was the _Natufians_ who spoke an
early stage of Semitic (or rather, of both Semitish and Semitic). We see a
very early spread of Natufian cultural elements (architecture, lithic) into
Beldibi and Belbasi (SW Anatolia) at around 8000 BCE or so and apparently,
at first, they imported their obsidian from Ciftli. This would be the early
Semitish speakers spreading into Anatolia from Syria and Palestine, leaving
the Semitic people behind. It was only when the Semitish were already
established in West and North Anatolia, even Crete, that the Hattic started
spreading out by 7000 BCE and influencing their aceramic culture with
archaeology and pottery, pushing them into the Balkans.
Now, here's where things get cool. I was also reading up on the Goddess, who
was worshipped by Anatolians before any intrusion from the south and that
would continue to be worshipped until the kurgan spread starting 4500 BCE.
I'm reading about this because I wanted to gain a mythological basis for the
Semitish theory. I find myself very satisfied too.
Marija Gambutas makes connections between the Goddess and the later IE
mythology. She basically blaims war and pestilence on the patriarchal
(non-gylanic) IndoEuropeans and therefore all men are inheirantly evil. :) I
would like to take a less feministic approach and say that the IE are in
fact not the main originators of their mythology afterall. Rather, I suspect
the belief system is mostly inspired by the Semitish who were already using
a hybridized belief system of the monotheistic Goddess combined with African
polytheistic values.
The Goddess mythology basically goes as follows. There is only the Goddess
which created the world and everything in it. She lives in everything - the
sky, the waters and the land. As such, she is represented in various forms,
but primarily the bird (sky), the serpent (waters) and the bull (land).
So, the Semitish may have been worshipping the Goddess as creator but at the
same time, preserving the spirits or gods that they brought with them from
Palestine. Apparently, the southernmost Natufian has this thing with skulls
and ancestor worship. If I read correctly, it appears that the bodies are
buried in a dismembered-like fashion, almost as though they were afraid that
their ancestors would come back to haunt them. Perhaps, they originally
viewed ancestors as the mediators to the gods, worshipping them for a better
life and to protect them from harm, whilst making sure that they stayed in
the underworld where they belong (ie: return of the living zombies, yikes!).
The Semitish would have brought this African style belief with them. They
also certainly adopted the native Goddess belief of creation - you know: In
the Beginning, there was darkness and only the Goddess (as a bird, aka
Nyx/Yahweh) who laid an egg; the upper shell became the sky and the lower
shell the land; there's a great tree that holds up the sky (aka
Yggdrasil/Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad); don't forget the duelling
twins with one of them founding mankind (aka the Horse Twins Castor and
Pollux, or should I say, Cain and Abel), yadayada.
The two mythologies would have merged into a Eurafrican mix so that the
Creator Goddess (rather than the ancestors) became the mediator to the other
gods. In fact, since she was creator, obviously she would be an "ancestor"
too. Hence, the connection. Therefore, gods like *`ATtaru (Venus) and
*Hadadu (Thunder) would exist side by side with the worshipped Goddess, but
the Goddess still may have represented the entire pantheon as a whole and a
mediator to the other gods.
It would also appear that *Hadadu (thunder god with horns and axe), or
according to the early IndoEuropeans, *Dye:us, merged with the Goddess,
producing *Dye:us Pxte:r "Lightning Father". Why? Because both of them were
associated with the bull. I guess that would be the reason why the word
*dyeus which would have originally meant "lightning" came to be the word for
"god" in general, since *Dye:us, as the embodiment of the Goddess would
pervade in everything and be the one and only god (at least, for a while).
This may be the reason why Zeus was suckled by the wolf (being the Goddess
in disguise and hence, his mother, lending validation to his worship).
There is also *`ATtaru (Ishtar or Venus) which we can easily connect with
the IE word *xste:r "star" since she was represented as such. Venus is the
brightest planet in the sky, you know. Like all other Semitish goddesses,
she would be intrinsically associated with the Creator Goddess too.
There's more, it would appear that the _Semitic_ peoples were also later
influenced by the Goddess (evidenced as well in the archaeology with venus
figurines eventually strewn about in Palestine) and hence we have the
thoroughly pagan Bible with all the elements that are attributed to the
original Goddess religion with a smattering of African voodoo for good
measure. In fact, there's even evidence of a slight southward cultural
migration from Syria later on. Perhaps some Semitish went back south as the
Hattic were spreading.
Let's see John squirm outta this one. Hehehe...
- gLeN
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