Mr.Caws:
>But I do think that Aphrodite's Cyprus birth story might be referring
>to Turan as worshipped by Tyrrhenian speaking Eteo-Cypriot writers,
>and that Troy's special relationship with Aphrodite might be to a
>Tyrrhenian Turan. Maybe.
Well, I'm not going to fight you on the power of *Xastora. The whole
reason why I reconstruct the name for Neolithic Proto-Tyrrhenian is
because the name just pops up everywhere across the Mediterranean.
Since it's reasonable to presume that Tyrrhenians had a long history
of sea trade, this goddess must have travelled around at an early
date to reach languages like Semitic (*`aTtar-... with initial
ayin!) and possibly also Egyptian (Hathor, natively reanalysed as
"House of Horus", again suggesting an initial laryngeal). That,
together with its correlation to IE *xste:r, and its later attestation
as Turan in Etruscan, all makes for a totally righteous theory.
Even if we examine the surrounding mythologies of the area, we
find oodles of cases showing that there is some matrifocality going
on underneath these belief systems. Basically, it shows that the
beliefs of the Mediterranean developed from the simple and logical
observation that since it is the female who gives birth to life,
it must be that a woman gave birth to the entire universe (note
Nyx and the story of creation). This is *Xastora as she was
originally understood.
At some point, it appears that *Xastora was divided into
three parts (three parts of the universe: sky, earth, waters) and
given three split personalities to represent these three realms
(maiden, mother, crone). She was also given appropriate animal
symbolisms for each realm (hence the bird/serpent thing). This
is probably when the whole idea of the upraised arms of goddess
figurines starting popping up. The curved arms of these figurines
represented the crescent moon, their eyes represented the sun and,
in all, the figurines were purposefully posed as if she were the
World Tree itself in the center of the universe with her
arms being also suggestive of branches.
Later, more symbolism became overlayed on top of the existing scheme.
So eventually, we find that the goddess has turned into horns and
a doubleaxe. The horns are the crescent moon (her abstractified
arms), the doubleaxe (her eyes) represent the sun, and overall, she
still represents the Great Tree in the centre of the universe.
However, by this time, patriarchy was moulding these beliefs into
something new - Enter the "two men".
First, we see the goddess with husband and son, and then,
being courted by two rivalling suitors (lo and behold, one with
a doubleaxe, the other with bullhorns). Finally, the goddess has
nothing more than a secondary role to the two rivalling deities
(eg: El/Baal, *Dye:us/*PerkWnos, etc).
At any rate, I figure *Xastora would have held on best amongst the
Tyrrhenians where this goddess cult was likely to have originated.
-------------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
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>
>-Mr. Caws
>
>
>
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