Lost

‘Now that the Phoenician’s had seen the amber gathered from the sea, they determined to keep the secret for themselves and thus guard the lucrative trade. When the fleets returned to Syria, many were the tales told of perils to the north, of lodestones which would draw the ships to destruction on hidden reefs, of whirlpools which would suck them down to the bottom of the ocean, of witches who enchanted men by turning them into beasts, of terrible sea serpents, and awesome monsters.
So well did these ancient sailors spin their yarns that for many centuries afterwards mariners feared these mythical perils’.

The process of ensuring the truth was hidden from mankind began in the early 18th century with the ejection of the Turks from Europe by the grand instigator himself, Prince Eugene of Savoy. It is clear from early Turkish maps that they viewed the world differently from Europeans at the same time. On their maps you could sail into the Rhine River and out the Rhone, or into the Adriatic or out the Danube. In fact early European maps had shown the same thing but that depiction quickly passed to recording a series of deadends many terminating in great lakes.

You might ask why this change would be important to our whole understanding of ourselves and why it had to be hidden from ALL of us no matter what race or religion. It is because this body of water is in all mythologies and belief systems and answers the perpetual questions we’ve asked and the lack of an answer keeps our controlled belief systems in place.

The chink in the armour was uncontrollable circumstance. What developed was a political system [communism] out of control of the establishment and it set in place a conflict that would explode post communism into an international lawsuit decided by the high court on planet earth wherein the great body of water in myth and lore would be reborn incontrevertably.

If there is one thing that is as true about man today as it was 12kya it is that man works to extreemities. In striving to do the best in order to outdo all those that came before he will always work towards the beyond of the previously regarded realistic limit. He will continue relentlessly until a point is reached where realism overcomes unimagineable and there is wholesale collapse.

It is difficult to imagine what might finally stop this never ending boom and bust cycle. We meet it so often and we can see that in the past there have been such events that we would not want to live through now but still we are never warned off any course. In never being warned off of any course or brought with solid basic understanding, we as humans fragment and divide and rejoin to larger tribes now working to larger extreemities with unknown boundries and scenarios so complex that we as normal humans are literally just being carried off by a strong current with absolutely no way of telling where we might be tossed ashore if we are that fortunate.

It would seem that if man instead of being fiercely proud of his tribe and wishing to conquer all other tribes realized that we are in fact one tribe or brothers sitting at the same table then maybe the extreemity we would work towards is paradise for all.

In Palaeolithic times as in the present day, hunters usually did not camp more than a few weeks in the same place. According to KRANTZ (1988: 19), the most probable tribal areas covered 5,000 square kilometres for hunting economies, 2,000 square kilometres for pastoral economies and 500 square kilometres for farming economies, with 80 kilometres as an average tribal diameter for hunters, 40 kilometre for pastoral economies and 25 kilometres for farmers. Hunter mobility is very well documented in Palaeolithic Europe and, as noted before, in many instances we can likewise document the use of materials from remote origins.
According to MALLORY (1994:146), “Mobile subsistence economies such as hunter-gatherers, or more certainly pastoral nomads, frequently retain linguistic uniformity over a wider area than is typically found among agriculturists”.

The richest house at Arpachiya would seem to have belonged to an artist-craftsman presumably producing for sale, not merely for the satisfaction of domestic needs.

Clay stamps, generally called pintaderas, appear in Danubian II and in Kiors sites that may be older. In form they closely resemble Asiatic stamp seals of stone and, like the latter, at first bear a filled cross design. In Europe such stamps, nowhere very numerous, are common only in the extreme southeast – Bulgaria, Wallachia, Transylvania, the Middle Danube plain; stray examples reach Moravia; still fewer the Upper Elbe and Oder basins. Such a distribution justifies their interpretation as copies of Asiatic stone seals. But in Asia proto-types can be found as early as Halafian times and in the Chalcolithic layers of Alisar. And there there are pedestalled bowls remarkably like those characteristic of Danubian II. The upper limits for that period could accordingly be pushed back to Alisar Chalcolithic or even Tell Halaf. And that is not the end of our comparisons. As Spondylus shells were being im- ported from the Mediterranean even in Danubian I times, so some Danubian I vases are decorated with patterns in which Neustupny rightly sees a representation of a double-axe. For the models he looked to Minoan Crete. But double-axes were used in Assyria as amulets even in Halafian times. So the terminus post quem provided by that motive can be relegated to a remote Tell Halaf period. Danubian I, admittedly the oldest neolithic culture discernible in Continental Europe, can be compared with Tell Halaf.

Another defining feature of Upper Paleolithic culture is its potent infectiousness. Innovations no longer flare up in little pockets and disappear. They metamorphose and diversify and inspire innovations. According to White, the ivory beads made in one site in France 33,000 years ago are exactly the same, in raw material, workmanship, and design, as the ivory beads in another French site two hundred kilometers away. Yet the ones from Germany are utterly different, bespeaking another tradition, another variation on the theme of bead. The Aurignacian industry itself is characterized by an abundance of large, unbeautiful blades, “beaked” buries, and carved-bone projectile points whose bases had been split to accept a shaft. The earliest known Aurignacian sites are in the Balkans, around 43,000 years old. Three thousand years later at the most, the Aurignacian appears across the continent in Spain. Within a few thousand years it covers most of the rest of Europe, picking up regional styles and acquiring new complexions as it goes. This is not simply a little more culture than there was before. For some reason, culture has become an epidemic.

“After two or three hundred thousand years of nothing new,” says Berkeley’s Tim White, “suddenly, in a tiny segment of time, after this huge gulf of nothing, you’ve got everything. There’s one style over here and another one over there; there’s trade, there’s art, there’s differentiation, all of this stuff just blowing up in your face. So you say to yourself, how come?”

Tim White is a demandingly meticulous researcher, one who does not like to waste time with speculations on grand questions. But on this one, he hardly hesitates a moment before answering his own question. “There’s only one thing that I can think of that is big-time enough to render such a huge behavioral shift,” he says. “It’s got to be language.”

It seems almost too obvious. Take any other innovation – a bone harpoon, for instance – and lay it down on the landscape. Now wrap it up in words. How to make it. How to use it to catch fish. When to expect what sorts of fish to arrive at what time of year, and communicate that information to others with whom you have dealings. How to have dealings. How to fillet fish in long thin strips and dry them on racks, extending their nutritional benefit into a future-a concept incommunicable without language. How to organize a cooperative fishing strategy and trade fish for other goods. While we are at it, how to name the river god and seek his intervention so that the catch will be plentiful. Which innovation will travel faster: the naked harpoon, or the one dressed up in language? Language similarly greases the flow of other ideas and inventions-new hunting tactics, new ways of constructing a hearth, preserving meat, or tanning hides. These may have been conceived of before. They may even have been a part of life in one isolated area or another for a thousand years. But language supplies the medium needed to send them zipping across space, human group to human group, brain to brain. It explains the contagion, the pumping up of the cultural volume, even the Neandertals’ demise. One has only to imagine two populations, one talking freely among themselves and the other communicating only with grunts and gestures. If they came into competition, would there be any doubt which would survive and which vanish? No wonder so many influential evolutionists from different disciplines ponder the Upper Paleolithic and converge on language as its prime mover: paleoanthropologists like Tim White, archaeologists like Lew Binford, Desmond Clark, Paul Mellars, and Richard Klein, geneticists like Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Allan Wilson before his death, to name just a few.

Before Amenta was created by the excavator Ptah within the nether earth there was no typical ascent of man. Indeed there were no men until the time of Tum, since which time the race has been considered human. When the sun-god Ra a rose up from the earth, or from the lotus, as the father of created man, or man the mortal, the legend of the human ascent was established.

We have seen somewhat of the descent of mankind from a celestial birthplace that was constellated as an enclosure on the mountain of the pole. We have now to trace the ascent from the regions of the nether-earth, which, as Egyptian, is an exodus from Lower Egypt and the ‘desert’ of Amenta.

Now, the wolf is an equivalent for the jackal. In Egyptian the wolf and jackal (Seb) are synonymous; and the jackal was the guide of roads in Amenta who led the people through its wilderness, and showed a way for them to ascend into the world of light. All the myths and legends of an underworld depend upon there being an underworld, or nether-earth, and this again depends on there being a double-earth which was hollowed out by the god who represented the nocturnal sun for the passage through the mount of earth by night, and who as Egyptian was Ptah, the founder of Amenta.

According to Caesar, the Druids taught the Gauls that they were all descended from Dis Pater, the Demiurge[26]-that is, from the god of Hades or Amenta, who is Tanan as consort of the goddess, and whose name was taken by Ptah-Tanan, the better known Dis Pater, who was earlier than Osiris in the Egyptian cult, and from whom the solar race ascended, whether from Puanta or from the Tuat.

It is not written in the Old Testament what the Lord did for Israel in the vale of Arnon, but the Targum of Jerusalem tells us that when the Beni-Israel were passing through the gorge or defile the Moabites were hidden in the caverns of the valley, intending to rush out and slay them[39]. But the Lord signed to the mountains, and they literally laid their heads together to prevent it; they closed upon the enemy with a clap, and crushed the chiefs of the mighty ones, so that the valleys were overflowed with the blood of the slain. Meanwhile Israel walked over the tops of the hills, and knew not the miracle and the mighty act which the Lord was doing in the valley of the Arnon. Thus the miracle of the Red Sea was reversed. In the one case the waters stood up in heaps and were turned into hills; in the other the solid hills flowed down and were fused, whilst Israel passed over them as if they were a level plain.

The Egyptians were already tillers of the ground when Ptah laid out and planted the lower Aarru-paradise, as their other field of work, in an earth that was ruled or tyrannized over by the powers of evil, headed by the Apap-dragon. This was the earth of the abyss, the primeval desert which had to be reclaimed by the pioneers and planters of that underworld. It was laid out strictly on the allotment system. Each one of the manes had a portion in which to plough and sow and reap.

Anhur is the lord of the scimitar. He is designated ‘smiting double horns’; ‘the god provided with two horns’. This twofold character of Anhur is indicated when he is described as ‘the king of upper and lower Egypt, Shu-si-Ra.’ This was the Egypt of Amenta. Thus, as the king of lower Egypt he was Anhur the uplifter of the firmament for the chosen people to come forth. At daybreak he assumed the character of Shu, the son of Ra, who lifted up the solar disk at dawn on the horizon, otherwise upon the mount of sunrise. The Magic Papyrus, which contains ‘the hymn of the god Shu,’ is called ‘the chapter of the excellent songs which dispel the submerged.’ It is the celebration of the great victory over the Apap-reptile and all dangerous animals lurking in the depths of the mythical Red Sea.

Shu, who stands upon the height of heaven, rod in hand, and who was imaged in the constellation Kepheus as the Regulus or lawgiver at the pole.

23. SOLON’S PARTIALLY COMPLETED EPIC, “ATLANTIS”

The description of the country as a whole is best introduced by telling the story of Atlantis.

Solon, who gave the Athenians their constitution, came of a noble family which had lost its fortune. He became a merchant, for I I in his time, as Hesiod says, work was a shame to none, nor was any distinction made with respect to trade, but merchandise was a noble calling, which brought home the good things which the barbarous nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their kings, and a great source of experience.” (Plutarch; Solon.) He secured Salamis for the Athenians, reformed their calendar and was the first to discern the fact that the scattered Homeric poems were parts of a whole and to take steps to have them collected. After giving the Athenians the laws known by his name he went to Egypt and studied for some time with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis the Saite, the most learned of the priests.

He was first of all a poet, and many of his verses were sung at the public festivals of Athens. After his retirement as a legislator it was his ambition to write an epic which should rank with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The subject was to be the noble deeds of the Athenian nation, long before the war with Troy, in opposing, alone, the domination of Atlantis; of which he had been told by the Egyptian priests, and he had collected a large amount of material from examination of their records.

On his return to Athens he found his legislative work largely undone by Pisistratus, who shortly after established a tyranny. Solon had to drop the epic for more immediate matters, and died with the work scarce begun.

24.. PLATO’S INTERRUPTED REVELATION OF SOLON’S DATA

But the material collected survived, in part at least, and came down to the philosopher Plato, who was a descendant of Solon’s on his mother’s side. Plato held Solon in great reverence, was himself a traveler, and endeavored to follow in Solon’s footsteps and to give a constitution to Syracuse. He piously desired to preserve the results of Solon’s labor, and published a portion of the material in Timaeus, and proposed to complete it in two other dialogues. The second of these, Critias, breaks off in the middle, for Plato died.

Some great scholars, Jowett for example, whose translation I am going to quote from because it is sure to be better than anything I can do, hold that Plato’s relation was a fiction. Now I am a great admirer of Jowett’s, so much so that Mallock’s book bores me. He was a great man in so many ways, he, and A. L. Smith, turned out Lao many great men, scores of them, and did so much for Oxford (Jowett’s ” sat prata biberunt” and Smith’s playing fields); and for his scholarship, the quip that he was elected to the chair of Regius Professor of Greek “in order to encourage him in the study of the subject” has only its bubble of wit for a life preserver. Yet I cannot feel that he had altogether taken into account all the circumstances. Plato had much pride of family, that is seen in his Dialogues. For example:

Critias. “Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale which is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropsidas, as he himself says repeatedly in his poems, and Dropsidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and told me. Now the day was the day of the Apaturia which is called the registration of youth, at which, acceding to custom our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the songs of Solon, which had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so, or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I well remember, brightened up on hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only like other poets made poetry the business of his life and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled by reasons of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod or any poet.”

Now those who told “traveler’s tales” were looked upon with a rather peculiar contempt by the Greeks. Is it likely then that Plato should have made the most distinguished and revered member of his family a Baron Munchausen. Would he not have put the fictitious tale in the mouth of a fictitious person. To me this would be conclusive, even if I did not from other sources know that the relation was true.

Jowett says, in discussing another point, “It is singular that Plato should have prefixed the most detested of Athenian names to this dialogue.” Singular indeed, if the relation were a fiction. But if Plato knew it was true would it not be rather unavoidable that he should give to the dialogue the name of the man from whom he had received the material gathered by his famous ancestor and which constituted the entire dialogue.

Plato went out of his way, in the face of expressed incredulity, to say he believed it. Posidonius cites the opinion of Plato, “That the tradition concerning the island of Atlantis might be received as something more than a mere fiction.” As regards the theory that Solon himself might have invented it, we know Solon’s opinion of fiction. Moved by curiosity he went to see the first play, acted by Thespis. After it was over he called Thespis aside and asked him if he were not ashamed to tell so many lies before so many people. Thespis said there was no harm to do so or say so in play. Solon struck his staff vehemently on the ground; said “If we honor and commend this in play we shall soon find it in our business.” Hardly the man to think his reputation would be increased by making up traveler’s tales.

25.. THE ROUTE TO ATLANTIS – WHY IT WAS IMPASSABLE AFTER THE DELUGE

To come to the story itself. Critias learned it word for word.

“When a child I listened with great interest to the old man’s narrative at the time; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again arid again to repeat his words- and I rehearsed them, as he spoke them, to my companions, that they as well as myself might have material of discourse.”

Critias says: Solon learned it at the city of Sais, in Egypt, which city had a deity “which is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes called Athene” (this was correct; Aeth and Aethon). One day, in discussing history, one of the older priests said that their records contained accounts of a number of great deeds by the ancient Athenians and others. Solon asked about he Athenian deeds. The priest said:

“One of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia and to which your city put an end.

“This power came out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable.” (It will be better to read this with the map; with especial reference to the passages I have marked by italics.) And there was an island situated in front of the straits” (of Kertsch) “which you call the Pillars of Hercules; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way” (by the Manytsch Lakes and other passages, see map) “to other islands” (Ust-Urt and others), “and from the islands you might go to the whole of the opposite continent” (western Mongolia) “which surrounded the true ocean” (the Ocean of Atlantis).

“For this sea” (of Azov), “which is within the Pillars of Hercules is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance” (straits of Kertsch, where the city Heraklea and the Pillars were), “but that other” (the Ocean of Atlantis) “is the real sea and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent.”

“Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island and several others as well as over parts of the continent, and besides these they subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Hercules as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia” (northern Italy).

The Athenians withstood them, “But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is the reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable” (shoals in upper Azov), “because there is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.”

Examination of the contour maps show that the Manytsch and other passages were formerly considerably wider than at present, and have been almost obliterated by the silting.

26. DESCRIPTION OF ATLANTIS

In the next dialogue of the trilogy, Critias goes on with the description. (In passing I may say, as pointed out before, that the country of Athens to which the Egyptian priest’s records related was not the later Athens of Solon and Plato, but an earlier land of Athens, the triangle included between the River Urup, the Oceanus (or Aesop) and the Caucasus Mountains. ~ This is immaterial to the story, but not uninteresting.) After describing the Athenians and their government, he gives details of the chief city of Atlantis, i.e. Tartarus, and the surrounding country.

From examination of a large scale map, giving contours, it will be seen that the northern portion’ of the Caucasus isthmus is a low plain. To quote the Encyclopedia Britannica, article Caspian:

“Although the Black Sea proper is separated from the southern portion of the Caspian by the mountainous region of the Caucasus, yet between the Sea of Azov and the northern portion of the Caspian there is only the low steppe inhabited by the Don Cossacks and the Kalmucks; and according to Major Wood, an elevation of the Black Sea of no more than 23 feet would cause it to overflow into the basin of the Caspian by the line of the Manyteh.”

This low plain was densely populated. A great system of canals drained and watered its entire extent. A few, sheltered by projecting spurs, escaped complete silting by the Deluge, and Pharnaces, about B.C. 50, “brought the river Hypanis” (the Oceanus was called also the Hypanis because it was one of the boundaries, “Hpana,” of Atlantis; many of these names survive in the Basque) “over the territory of the Dandarii, through some ancient canal, which he had caused to be cleared, and inundated the country.” (Strabo, 11; 2;11.)

The soil was deeply alluvial, easily excavated, and some of the canals were of large section; especially those connecting the Oceanus and Styx-Alontas and constituting a drainage system for carrying off the flow from the Caucasus slopes. Though silted up, it might still be possible to trace some of them out from an aeroplane; the method which has been found so valuable in locating the silted up canals of Mesopotamia.

HEPTACYCLIC FLOW OF THE STYX

The Egyptian-Phoenician tradition states that Tartarus was encircled by three concentric canals, the land between the outer and middle canals being three-eighths of a mile wide, and that between the middle and inner canals a quarter of a mile wide.

This did not seem probable, and I was inclined to discard that dialogue of Plato’s in which this statement is made. Later, I remembered that in several traditions from Greek sources the Styx is described as encircling Tartarus seven times (see Smith, Classical Diet. art. Styx), which has no intelligible meaning as applied to a river. But taking the two statements together they make a consistent and rational whole, for if the opening from the Styx into the canal system were at the eastern side of Tartarus (which would be the proper engineering side) then according to the older Greek way of reckoning the Styx would flow around Tartarus seven times.

Both Egyptian-Phoenician and Greek traditions give Tartarus three walls, which is consistent with three canals or moats. This made me re-consider the dialogue, “Critias,” because when A hands on a statement, `absurd and incomprehensible to him, which he has received from B, about X; and C hands on a second equally absurd and incomprehensible statement about X which he has received from D; and the two independent statements make a consistent and reasonable whole, this is the strongest kind of evidence that all parties were telling the truth. One illustration of this is the first circumnavigation of Africa. Herodotus, 4; 42; says: “On their return they declared- I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may- that in sailing round Libya they had the sun on their right hand.” A second is the visit of Abaris to Greece. Herodotus says, 4; 36; “As for the tale of Abaris, who is said to have been a Hyperborean and to have gone with his arrow” (his insignia as a priest of Apollo on a mission) “all round the world without once eating, I shall pass it by in silence.”

Herodotus did not know that, going west, south of the equator the sun rose on the right hand and so, as Rawlinson points out in his note, this is conclusive evidence that Africa was actually circumnavigated. And Herodotus did not know that the Hypibereans were vegetarians (see Strabo and Smith, quoted above), and that therefore Abaris, like George Bernard Shaw, ate nothing at public functions. Shaw, asked why he did not eat at least the vegetable courses, said that it would spoil his appetite, so he had his dinner before; and Abaris was probably equally sensible.

28. THE NAMES OE THE TEN PRE-DELUGE KINGS OF ATLANTIS, WHEN TRANSLATED, THE SAME AS THOSE OF THE TEN PRE-DELUGE KINGS OF THE BABYLONIAN AND SEMITIC TRADITIONS

The fact that the Greek and the Egyptian-Phoenician traditions, incomprehensible apart, were clear and confirmed each other when taken together, was interesting and important. But further examination of the dialogue, Critias, led to a discovery of such nature that the authenticity of Plato’s narrative can never be rationally questioned in future. For I found that he gives a list of ten kings, followed by a Deluge; in exact agreement therefore with the Priestly narrative in Genesis and with Berossus’s transcription from the Babylonian records. Moreover, though these lists will no doubt ultimately be found to be in agreement, so far only two or three of the names in the list of Berossus have been identified satisfactorily with those of the Priestly narrative, but I have been able to identify no less than six in that list with names, corresponding, in the list given by Plato.

The agreement of some of the names is provisional because what Solon did was to ,get the Egyptian priest to give him the meaning of the names and then to translate them into Greek, and no man has the right to think he has been able to reverse that process and then identify the result with the Babylonian names from which those of Berossus’s list are derived without making mistakes. More competent Orientalists than myself will no doubt reject some of the identifications; others, perhaps most, may be accepted.

The names of Plato’s ten kings are to be found in a certain list of ships and it has been argued that this is a proof that the kings are fiction. This is a curious illustration of the way the same fact will be interpreted by different men. For myself, if I wished to know the names of the members of the royal family, or of the kings of England, or of its counties or great battles, in the absence of other reference books I should go to a list of the ships of the British navy.

29. THE CITIES WHERE THE TEN PRE-DELUGE KINGS OF THE BABYLONIAN TRADITION LIVED IN THE KINGDOM OF ATLANTIS, IN THE CAUCASUS ISTHMUS

(Note added Sept. 12th, 1923. Since the above was written I have received a copy of Dr. Clay’s “Origin of Biblical Traditions” containing Professor Langdon’s translation of a fragmentary list from a tablet in the Ashmolean Museum, i.e.Place on list.

City on list. My identification (in Caucasus isthmus)
1 and 2 Khabur Abur
3 and 4 Larsa Karsa
5 and 6 Dur Tibiri Tibir
7 and 8 Larak and Sippar Arak and ?
9 and 10 Su-kur-Lam Sakar

In this list the names appear in pairs, with the exception of 7 and 8. In Plato’s list the names also appear in pairs. In Abur (Iberia) the kings were chosen in pairs. “The nobles, from whom two kings were chosen.” See also Strabo, 11; 3; 6. And they had a double deity, Ur-Al (Khur-Khal). Compare the Cabeiri.

30. SOLON ‘S LIST OF KINGS MADE MORE THAN THREE CENTURIES BEFORE BEROSSUS MADE HIS BABYLONIAN LIST; AND MORE
THAN TWENTY-FIVE CENTURIES BEFORE THE SEMITIC LIST WAS DISCOVERED

Solon was in Egypt about 600 B.C. Plato wrote his dialogues before 350 B.C. Berossus transcribed his list from the Babylonian records 100 years later, i.e. about 250 B.C. Ezra the scribe did not collect the Pentatuch until about 450 B.C. i.e. 150 years after Solon, and the Priestly narrative was not isolated until quite recently and does not divide the names into pairs.

Solon and Plato have therefore handed down to us a tradition of the Deluge, entirely independent from and equally authentic with, the other great Deluge traditions. And this tradition is our first, and so far, though we have much archeological information, our only written source of knowledge of this great civilization which existed before the Deluge.

31. OTHER BABYLONIAN TRADITIONS RELATING TO ATLANTIS; SHAMASH AND MARASH

Other Babylonian traditions may refer to Tartarus. For they speak of mountains “whose back extends to the dam of Heaven and whose breast reaches down to Arallu” (hades; see Clay, Amurru. p. 77). Examination of the map will show that the expression applies well to Tartarus, and both Tartarus and Erebus are sometimes called Ur-al. Also, in the Gilgamesh tradition there is some evidence that the mountain at Shamash and the gap at Marasy which together form a rude observatory resembling Stonehenge except that the gap is natural, and where the zero meridian of longitude passed, were the place of Mar-tu, where Shamash, the sun, entered in, and where Noah built the ark. If so, Gilgamesh may have come from the neighborhood of Lake Urmia to pay his visit. That Ashurta went round Tartarus and left portions of her clothing at each of its seven gates is not inconsistent with the Greek traditions

32. THE CEREMONIAL SINGLY CONFERENCES AT UR-AL-U; THE ROUND TABLE OF URT-UR; THE GRAAL; THE WATER OF LETHE

The ten rulers governed the land and held conferences in Tartarus every fifth and sixth years alternately, concerning inter-state matters.

These conferences were held in the temple of Neptune, only the kings being present, and all matters were decided in one day. I.e. they not only had a league of nations, but they had discovered the only possible way to operate such a league to get results. The procedure was as follows:

The conference was held in the Temple of Neptune. The kings first caught and sacrificed one of the sacred cattle of that temple. For the capture nooses and staves only must be used. This ceremony appears to have been the prototype of the ceremonial Minoan bull fights. Compare also Herodotus’ description 7; 85; of the Sagartians, an Al race living between the Caspian and Black Seas. “It is not the wont of this people to carry arms of bronze or steel, except only a dirk. When they meet the enemy, straightway they discharge their lassoes, which end in a noose,” Herodotus wrote approximately B.C. 400, or almost two centuries later than Solon’s visit to Egypt.

The captured bull was led up to a column of orichalcum on which the laws were engraved, laid on it, and his blood shed over the sacred inscription. The column was then purified.

A ceremonial oath was taken. A large bowl was filled with wine, into which each king put a few drops of the sacrificial blood, and then all drank from it in golden cups, pouring some of it on the sacrificial fire and making oath that they would judge in accordance with the laws on the column. Compare Herodotus 4; 70; “Oaths among the Scyths are accompanied with the following ceremonies; a large earthen bowl is filled with wine, and the parties to the oath, wounding themselves slightly with a knife or an awl, drop some of their blood into the wine; lastly the two contracting parties drink each a draught from the bowl, as do also the chief men among their followers.”

Note. The cobalt-blue patinated (kuano) altar of orichalcum, sapphirus, the round table of Urt-ur, was brought to Wales and was in existence A.D. 1,100. Search should be made. The laws are graved on its top. The Ghur-al, which held the drops of blood of the Five Tribes, went to Aburon.

“After spending some necessary time at supper, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on the most beautiful azure robes, and sitting on the ground, at night, near the embers of the sacrifice over which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment if any of them had any accusation to bring against any one; and when they had given judgment they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet and deposited them, together with their robes that they might be a testimony.”

The azure robes may have been dyed with woad, which was known in that district. (Herodotus, 1; 203.) The reason why the kings sat about the embers of the sacrificial fire while giving judgment was not known to Plato, but may, I think be known to us, for in that country there grew (Herodotus, 1; 202) “A tree which bears the strangest produce. When they are met together in companies they throw some of it upon the fire round which they are sitting, and presently by the mere smell of the fumes which it gives out in burning” they are affected in such a way that (Ency. Brit. 17 ; 232 😉 ” the intellectual powers are at first acute and strong.” From other sources we learn that the “sacred vapor of prophecy” of the atechnic oracle was a fume so produced. The water of Lethe (1-aeth-e, water-empty-ness) was a decoction of the seeds; see Dr. Safford’s paper, ibid. for a description of its use by the Indians to produce entire forgetfulness of past life.

33. EXPLANATION OF THE REPUTED LONGEVITY OF THE KINGS – THE KINGDOMS

It was the practice to call these kings after the name of their kingdoms or people, so the king’s name was always the same. The king of Aedon (Aides, Hades, Gades) was always called Aetas (Aides, Hades, Gades) or Aidoneus (Adonis). This may be the reason why such long reigns are attributed to these kings and the origin of the belief in their great longevity. The kings also had specific titles, e.g. Aidoneus was also called Thammuz. Tham or Am meant ruler or lord. Uz (aes) meant rock or mountain and later something very hard and strong, iron, bronze, power. So Thammuz meant “Lord of the Mountains.” In tracing out the kingdoms it must be remembered that the name of Atlas was first given to Mt. Kasbek, and only after a long time transferred to Mt. Elbruz. There are indications that in some way this transference was at first accidental, i.e. that those who saw ‘ Mt. Elbruz thought they were seeing Mt. Kasbek; why, is not evident.

The first city, Atl-ont (Atlontas, Atlantis) was founded by the A1 on the eyot between Cocytus, Styx and Pyriphlegethon. Later it took the name Tartarus, from the Ur. Possibly the change of name did not take place until shortly before the Deluge, excavations may tell us about this.

The kingdom of Hades appears to have been at first between Ail-ont and the Caucasus range, and later to have conquered Atl-ont, which then took the name of Tartarus. We must first definitely locate the other pair of pillars of Hercules, i.e. those which were inland and are referred to by Ptolemy as “Pillars of Alexander,” also the artificial channel of the Alontas, about ten miles long and 100 yards wide, which should be somewhere near the present Braguny, before we can speak with any definiteness of the boundaries of the kingdoms. Another kingdom was that of Udon, and another that of Aethon, between the Urup and the Azov. The kingdom of the Chalybea (or Chaldaei; this does not depend merely on Strabo ‘s statement that “the present Chaldaei were anciently called Chalybes,” Strabo 12; 2; 19; or on the statements of other Greek writers; there is other evidence) was at first in the peninsula of Apscheron or Ashur but was later extended to the neighborhood of Mt. Tamischiera, the lordly mountain of metals, of which the writer of the book of Enoch seems to have heard, and which was near the Caucasus or “white mountains,” north of Elbruz. At the time of the Deluge the Chalybes or Alyb were ruled by a queen Ashurta or Ashirta. Tradition states that she was married to Aidoneus or Adonis, king of Hades and Tartarus, who was also called Tham-uz, Lord of Power.

Other names of nations have been found but most of them seem merely variants. E.g. the Meropes, who settled Cos and of whom Silenus speaks were the dwellers on the Urup River. The Tammes who settled Boetia and other places were subjects of Tham-uz, i.e. Aedi. The Telchini were Chalybes.

WHY MANKIND HAD ITS ORIGIN IN THE CAUCASUS ISTHMUS

Physical characteristics, more extraordinary than it world have been possible to conceive, were the cause of the development of civilization in this northern portion of the isthmus. On Map A the southern extension of the last glacial age is shown by a wavy line. On the east it came down to the Ocean of Atlantis, on the west the region between the glaciers and the northwest shore of the Black Sea was a vast morass of which as late as Herodotus’s dap, “according to the account which the Thracians give, the country beyond the Ister is possessed by bees (mosquitoes) on account of which it is impossible to penetrate further” (Herodotus, 5; 10). The life which had been pushed down by the glaciers of this region was therefore pocketed between the glaciers on the north, the Ocean of Atlantis on the east, the Black Sea on the west and the Caucasus, impassable then, because its hidden gate was yet to be discovered, on the south. It is doubtful if there would be much search for a passage south, for the snowcapped mountains world probably be considered as glaciers to the south.

And there would be no inducement to go farther. It would almost seem as if the Creator, growing impatient at the futile and tedious Paleolithic developments, had swept Man up into this corner and said “Here is everything yon can possibly need,” for here were fire, metal ores, timber, alluvial soil, irrigating streams and useful animals and fruits and grains.

After the Babylonian deluge, Hasisadra built an altar on the peak of a mountain. After the flood, Babylon turned to sin. There was a revolt against the great god Anu, “king of the holy mound.” The rebels built a stronghold, but were confounded in their work. What they constructed by day was undone at night. The supreme god gave a command to make strange their speech. The basic idea was that the Tower of Babylon represented the shift in the polar star. This is supported by the Hindu legend which claims a Tree of Knowledge, located in the center of the earth grew tall to the heavens. The tree was proud that its branches protected all the people and gathered them all together. Brahma decided to punish the tree’s pride by cutting off the branches and dispersing mankind all over the surface of the earth.

There is an old Egyptian legend which claims when Shu-Anhur lifted up the paradise or park of Am-Khemen he was compelled to make use of a mound or staircase with steps in order to reach the height. According to Maspero, the mound was famous throughout Egypt. This event supposedly took place at Hermopolis, where Thoth, a moon god was lord. A figure of the mound is pictured in the Ritual illustrates it as a pyramid with seven steps known as the ladder or staircase of Shu. Shu is pictured as a man standing with arms raised, usually holding his daughter Nut and standing over his son Geb. Shu, along with his sister Tefnut, were the first deities to be created by Atum. He is the lord of cool air and the upper sky. He was believed to be the one responsible, like Atlas, for holding up the firmament and separating it from the earth. Like the Tower of Babel, the Egyptians related the story to an actual location.

According to a Hebrew Midrash the Tower had seven staircases on the eastern side to ascend and seven on the western side to descend. (Perhaps they were using both constellations for the Tower- that would explain a lot.) From the top of the Tower, Nimrod’s men would shoot arrows in the heavens. The angels would catch them; put some blood on them for deception and toss the arrows back. The archers thought they had killed all of heaven’s inhabitants. This last part would seem to indicate they were on Ursa Major shooting at the angels on Ursa Minor.

Ptah, the deity of Memphis, is presented in sharp contrast to the sun god Ra, who was of Asiatic origin, and the deified King Osiris, whose worship was associated with agricultural rites. He was an earth spirit, resembling closely the European elf. The conception was evidently not indigenous, because the god had also a giant form, like the hilltop deities of the mountain peoples (see Chapter XII). He was probably imported by the invaders who constituted the military aristocracy at Memphis in pre-Dynastic times. These may have been the cave-dwellers of Southern Palestine, or tall and muscular “broad heads” of Alpine or Armenoid type who prior to the Conquest appear to have pressed southward from Asia Minor through the highlands of Palestine, and, after settlement, altered somewhat the physical character of the “long heads” of the eastern Delta.

Allowance has to be made for such an infusion in accounting for the new Dynastic type as well as for the influence exercised by the displacement of a great proportion of the mingled tribes of Libyans. The Palestine cave-dwellers may have been partly of Alpine origin.

A people seldom remember their early history, but they rarely forget their tribal beliefs. That being so, the god Ptah is of special interest in dealing with the tribal aspect of mythology. Among all the gods of Egypt his individuality is perhaps the most pronounced. Others became shadowy and vague, as beliefs were fused and new and greater conceptions evolved in the process of time. But Ptah never lost his elfin character, even after he was merged with deities of divergent origin. He was the chief of nine earth spirits (that is, eight and himself added) called Khnûmû, the modellers. Statuettes of these represent them as dwarfs, with muscular bodies, bent legs, long arms, big broad heads, and faces of intelligent and even benign expression. Some wear long moustaches, so unlike the shaven or glabrous Egyptians.

At the beginning, according to Memphite belief, Ptah shaped the world and the heavens, assisted by his eight workmen, the dwarfish Khnûmû. He was also the creator of mankind, and in Egyptian tombs are found numerous earthenware models of these “elves”. who were believed to have had power to reconstruct the decaying bodies of the dead. As their dwellings were underground, they may have also been “artisans of vegetation”, like the spirits associated with Tvashtar, the “master workman” of the Rig-Veda hymns and the “black dwarfs” of Teutonic mythology. A particular statuette of Ptah, wearing a tight-fitting cap, suggests the familiar “wonder smith” of the Alpine “broad heads” who were distributed along Asiatic and European mountain ranges from Hindu Kush to Brittany and the British isles and mingled with the archaic Hittites in Asia Minor. The Phœnician sailors carried figures of dwarfs in their ships, and worshipped them. They were called “pataikoi”. In the Far East a creation artificer who resembles Ptah is Pan Ku, the first Chinese deity, who emerged from a cosmic egg.

Like Ra, Ptah was also believed to have first appeared as an egg, which, according to one of the many folk beliefs of Egypt, was laid by the chaos goose which came to be identified with Seb, the earth god, and afterwards with the combined deities Amon-Ra. Ptah, as the primeval “artificer god”, was credited with making “the sun egg” and also “the moon egg”, and a bas-relief at Philæ shows him actively engaged at the work, using his potter’s wheel.

A higher and later conception of Ptah represents him as a sublime creator god who has power to call into existence each thing he names. He is the embodiment of mind from which all things emerge, and his ideas take material shape when he gives them expression. In a philosophic poem a Memphite priest eulogizes the great deity as “the mind and tongue of the gods”, and even as the creator of other gods as well as of “all people, cattle, and reptiles”, the sun, and the habitable world.

According to the tradition perpetuated by Manetho, the first temple in Egypt was erected at Memphis, that city of great builders, to the god Ptah at the command of King Mena. It is thus suggested that the town and the god of the ruling caste existed when the Horite sun worshippers moved northward on their campaign of conquest. As has been shown, Mena also gave diplomatic recognition to Neith, the earth goddess of the Libyans, “the green lady” of Egypt, who resembles somewhat the fairy, and especially the banshee, of the Iberians and their Celtic conquerors.

The Ptah worshippers were probably not the founders of Memphis. An earlier deity associated with the city is the dreaded Sokar (Seker). He was a god of the dead, and in the complex mythology of later times his habitation was located in the fifth hour-division of night. 1 When sun worship became general in the Nile valley Sokar was identified with the small winter sun, as Horus was with the large sun of summer. But the winged and three-headed monster god, with serpent body, suffers complete loss of physical identity when merged with the elfin deity of Memphis. Ptah-Sokar is depicted as a dwarf and one of the Khnûmû. Another form of Sokar is a hawk, of different aspect to the Horus hawk, which appears perched on the Ra boat at night with a sun disk upon its head.

Gerioneus tricharenos (with three heads, because they were three brothers). On an inscription from Gallia (Orelli nr. 1993) he is called Trigaranus and had as symbols three ravens. In ancient Greek language geranos, garan in the neo-Celtic languages, means raven

A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent

A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn’t the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn’t flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.

The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.

Dresden James

Though nearly all Egyptologists agree about the meaning of the word being “the place of departed souls,” yet it has been translated in various ways, different scholars locating the Tuat in different parts of creation. Dr. Brugsch and others place it under the earth, others have supposed it to be the space which exists between the arms of Shu and the body of Nut, but the most recent theory put forth is that it was situated neither above nor below the earth, but beyond Egypt to the north, from which it was separated by the mountain range which, as the Egyptians thought, supported the sky. The region of the Tuat was a long, mountainous, narrow valley with a river running along it; starting from the east it made its way to the north, and then taking a circular direction it came back to the east. In the Tuat lived all manner of fearful monsters and beasts, and here was the country through which the sun passed during the twelve hours of the night; according to one view he traversed this region in splendour, and according to another he died and became subject to Osiris the king, god and judge of the kingdom of the departed.

The eastern mountain peak was called Bakhatet, and the western Manu. 7. I.e., the Field of reed plants.] {p. cv} The Fields of Aaru and Hetep. Sekhet-Hetep,[l] and was supposed to lie to the north of Egypt. Here dwell Horus and Set, for the fields of Aaru and Hetep are their domains

Some of the texts speak of Amenti as situated far to the north of Egypt, although it is more commonly referred to as the Silent Land of the West

Mentu
The principal god of Thebes, before the rise of Amon. Mentu was represented as a falcon, and was also a thought of as a parallel to Horus. Also spelled Month and Montu.

Egyptian Myth and Legend
by Donald Mackenzie

Amon was fused with several deities as his various animal forms indicate. The ram’s head comes, of course, from Min, and it is possible that the frog’s head was from Hekt. His cult also appropriated the war god Mentu, who is depicted as a bull. Mentu, however, continued to have a separate existence, owing to his fusion with Horus. He appears in human form wearing a bull’s tall with the head of a hawk, which is surmounted by a sun disk between Amon’s double plumes; he is also depicted as a hawk-headed sphinx. As a bull-headed man he carries bow and arrows, a club, and a knife.

In his Horus form Mentu stands on the prow of the sun bark on the nightly journey through Duat, and slays the demons with his lance. He was appropriated, of course, by the priests of Heliopolis, and became the “soul of Ra” and “Bull of Heaven”.

Since the publication of the Ras Shamra poetic texts, it is clear that we are to understand this as meaning ‘king of the underworld,’ thus proving the old explanation errorneous which connected the name with the city of Tyre whose chief deity was Milquart. As albright has shown, the gods of Canaan were ‘not figure of local origin, limited to sharply defined areas, but were cosmic deities, precisely like the deities of Mesopotamia and the Aegean.’ (B.A.S.O.R. No. 87 (1942) 29).”

«Ahighiava» Hittite Inscriptions and Mycenaean Greece.-In R. &t. GT. sliii, 202 (July- September 1930), pp. 279-294, M. FORRER discusses the discovery of Mycenaean Greece in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Hlttite empire. Forrer, in an address made before the Socibtt! nsicrizqrre c t des a ~ r ~dies Z’Orzent, tells of having been the one to unpack these inscriptions upon their arrival at Berlin. He set about to llst place names, finding about 200, and to sketch the limits of territory involved (in the second millennium B.c.). Ahhijavu is mentioned in these texts along vith the names of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria, whose kings regard the king of Ahhijava as a brother “great king” and so address him. This country (once it is referred to as rlhhija, is by the author identified with the empire elsewhere in the texts knoan as “the sea.” Such proper [lames as, e g., Ant(a)rAvas, TavagiaL Ihvas, Atarissias, Ttairoisa, all of which play no unimportant part in the texts, are by M. Forrer identified with Andreus, Eteocles, Atreus, Troja; to which, it must be conceded, they all appear to present some parallels. The theory is interesting. RI. Forrer has been at this work noTv for some years; time alone \<-ill tell if it is, as to many no doubt it appears, “too good to be true.” Atreus, King of the Achaeans(?).-In R. Arch., fifth series, XIX, 1924, p. 403, S. R. quotes a letter of DR. EMILFORREinR which he declares that he has discovered Atreus (Attarissyas), king of Achaea (Ahhija) in the text of a tablet from Boghaz Keui. The date is 1240-1210. Sir Arthur Evans seems to accept the identification, but calls attention to the fact that the date separates Atreus definitely from the Mycenaean and Minoan civilization. (London Times, March 8 and April 8, 1924; cf. Orientulische Literatur-Zeitung, March, 1924.) As early as 1924, Emil Forrer announced his discovery of Homeric Greeks in the Hittite texts from Bogazkoy.’ Not only did he claim that Greece was meant by the term “Land of Ahhiyawa,” but also that a number of personal names could be equated with the names of Homeric heroes. It did not take long for other Hittitologists to challenge this sensational claim. After critical articles by Friedrich and G o e t ~ e it was Sommer who presented a careful reinterpretation of all the sources with detailed philological discu~sionH.~e came to the conclusion that none of the points adduced by Forrer could be taken as real proof; consequently, he rejected the whole theory. This total rejection was seen by others as going too far. Already in 1935, Schachermeyr countered with a monograph4 in which he concluded that, despite the lack of real proof, the assumption that the name Ahhiyawa indeed referred to Greeks was highly probable. The discussion has continued up to the present. The most outspoken advocate of connecting Ahhiyawa with the Mycenaean Greeks was H u ~ l e yI.n~ disagreement was Steiner, who tried to disprove every sive literature. I shall concentrate on a few problems, mainly of text interpretation. But first, a few general observations: Regardless of whether the term Ahhiyawa refers to Greeks or not, the country of that name must be placed on the map somewhere. Localization outside Asia Minor, either in Mainland Greece or on one of the islands, obviously was advocated only by the adherents of the Greek theory. Placement on the Asiatic of Madduwattas. Still another new find is the discovery, by Harry Hoffner, of a “joinn to the socalled Milawata Letter (of which we shall speak later). It is obviously impossible here to discuss all the claim. After critical articles by Friedrich and G o e t ~ e , ~o pinions expressed and reasons adduced in this extenit was Sommer who presented a careful reinterpretation of all the sources with detailed philological discu~ sionH.~e came to the conclusion that none of the points adduced by Forrer could be taken as real proof; consequently, he rejected the whole theory. One point is the increase of knowledge since the time of Forrer and Sommer. The decipherment of Linear B showed that the people whose civilization had been called Mycenaean were indeed Greeks, confirming what until then had been surmised but not proven. Also, the number of West Anatolian sites yielding Mycenaean finds has increased considerably. Another change is the redating of certain Hittite texts from the end of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth. I, among others, find the reasons for this redating quite convincing. One text among these has a ~di rect bearing on the Ahhiyawa problem: the Indict- Altment of Madduwattas. Still another new find is the discovery, by Harry Hoffner, of a “joinn to the socalled Milawata Letter (of which we shall speak later). The oldest source, then, is the Madduwatta text.8 It was written by an unnamed Hittite king who refers to both his father’s and his own reigns. Goetze was able to identify these two kings as an Arnuwandas and his father, Tudhaliyas. With the redating, these are now taken as Tudhaliyas I1 and Arnuwandas I, three and two generations, respectively, before the great Suppiluliumas; that puts the text some thirty to fifty years before 1400 B.C. (See Addendum). At the beginning of the text we are told that Madduwattas was driven from his country by Attarissiyas, the man of Ahhiyd. The name of Madduwattas’ country is not given. The short form Ahhiy2 (as against the more frequent Ahhiyaw2) also occurs in an oracle text of about the same period, which mentions Ahhiyd as an enemy. Thus the short form is the older one. Madduwattas fled to Tudhaliyas, who prevented Attarissiyas from pursuing him any farther, gave Madduwattas the land of Mt. Zippasla (not otherwise known) and made him a Hittite vassal. Among his duties as vassal is the prohibition of any contact with Attarissiyas. Thereafter Madduwattas attacked Arzawa, an enemy of the Hittites, but was utterly defeated, so that he had to be rescued by a Hittite army. Nevertheless, the king reinstated him in his old position. Later Attarissiyas returned, seeking to kill Madduwattas. Tudhaliyas sent out a general to help Madduwattas who was unable to withstand the attack. The Hittites fought a battle against Attarissiyas, who brought 100 chariots with him. We then read: “One leader of Attarissiyas was killed, and one leader of ours, named Zidanzas, was killed.” The fact that in the context of a chariot battle the death of one leader on each side is singled out, even with the name of the Hittite one, is unique in Hittite historical texts and somehow recalls Homeric battles! Then a town named Dalawa or Talawa began hostilities against the Hittites, and the general who had just fought Attarissiyas now turned against this city. The name Talawas has been equated by most scholars with that of the city of Tlds in Lycia, whose Lycian name was T l a ~ aI.n~ th e course of the operations the town of Hinduwa is mentioned; this name, which in Hittite texts occurs only here, has by some been equated with Kandyba, some 90 km. from Tlds. It is true that both equations are based on phonetic similarity, but the proximity of the two places supports such a double identification, apart from the fact that the Lycian Tlawa is practically identical with the Hittite form.1° While Attarissiyas’ name is not connected with this city, the fact that the Hittite general who had just fought Attarissiyas in the next paragraph turns against Talawa suggests that the “man of Ahhiyd” operated in Southwest Anatolia. In the following parts of the text no reference to Ahhiy2 is made until the last item, the much discussed attack on Cyprus. Someone, probably king Arnuwandas, reproached Madduwattas with these words: “Since AlaSiya belongs to My Majesty, [why did you attack it?]” Madduwattas replied: “When Attarissiyas and the man of Piggaya made raids on AlaSiya, I also made raids. Neither the father of Your Majesty nor Your Majesty ever advised me (saying): ‘AlaSiya is mine! Recognize it as such!’ Now, if Your Majesty wants captives of AlaSiya to be returned, I shall return them to him.” (To this, the king replied:) “Since Attarissiyas and the man of Piggaya are independent of My Majesty, while you, Madduwattas, are a subject of My Majesty, why did you join them?” We do not know on what grounds Arnuwandas could claim Cyprus for himself or who “the man of Piggaya” may be. The verb used in connection with AlaSiya is the iterative form of “to attack,” which is best rendered as “make raids.” The text does not speak of conquest, and raids cannot be expected to leave tangible traces. I mention only briefly a fragment which may say that a Hittite king banished his wife to Ahhiyawa,l1 and an oracle text of Mursilis’ time1* according to which a deity of Ahhiyawa and a deity of Lazpa were going to be brought to the ailing king. Mursilis I1 mentions Ahhiyawa in two places in his Annals13; unfortunately both are badly mutilated. Forrer (1926), Sommer (1932) and Goetze (1933) each restored and interpreted them differently. The first mention is from the beginning of Mursilis’ third year. According to Forrer,14 Uhhazitis, the ruler of Arzawa, incited the city of Millawanda to rebellion against Ahhiyawa, whereupon the Hittite king sent out the generals Gullas and Malazitis, who attacked and sacked Millawanda. This would mean that the Hittite king helped the king of Ahhiyawa against a rebellious vassal, sacking his city in the course of this intervention. Sommer15 understood the beginning of the passage in a similar way, but then made the king of Ahhiyawa the subject of the sentence “sent out Gullas and Malazitis.” Goetze showed that the traces of the verbal form could only belong to the first person singular preterite, not to the third,16 and thus ruled out Sommer’s idea that the king of Ahhiyawa employed a general with a Luwian name. Goetze’s own understanding was that Uhhazitis took the side of Ahhiyawa and caused the city of Millawanda to do the same, and that Mursilis dispatched the two generals. To me, this last reconstruction seems the best. In the course of his third year Mursilis conquered Arzawa and entered its capital, Apasa, whence Uhhazitis fled “into the sea.” He was later joined there by his two sons. The account of the fourth year takes the story from there. Preserved are only the following scraps: “[. . .] was in [ . . .] son of Uhhazitis [ . . .] and he from the sea [. . .] with the king of Ahhiyawa [. . .] I sent by ship [ . . . (broken verb in the third singular preterite)], and they brought him back.”” Both Sommer and Goetze restored the first few lines to mean that the son of Uhhazitis, who had been “in the sea,” i.e., on an island, left that place. Thereafter the two interpretations differ. Sommer thought18 that Mursilis sent the prince to the king of Ahhiyawa- he completely restored “[The (Hittite) army captured him]” in the preceding gap-continuing with another restoration: “[Since I was by the sea] I sent him by ship.” (Since for Sommer Ahhiyawa was in Anatolia, this would have been along the coast.) The following “they brought back,” according to him, refers to (restored) captives. Goetze restores: “[He went away] from the sea and [came to stay] with the king of Ahhiyawa. Then I, [My Majesty], dispatched [(someone, name lost)] by boat. [The king of Ahhiyawa deliverled [him to him] and they brought him back.” Again, I prefer this last interpretation, except that I would rather restore “he (the emissary) [took him away]” instead of “[the king of Ahhiyawa deliverled.” In that case the extradition mentioned by some scholars may not have been voluntary. According to Goetze’s reconstruction, the prince leaves his island of first refuge and goes to the king of Ahhiyawa, who apparently is somewhere across the water, since a ship is needed to bring the prince back. I know that this is no proof for an overseas location of Ahhiyawa. But since Goetze’s interpretation remains possible, this source should not simply be dismissed. The most famous document bearing on the relations of Hatti with Ahhiyawa is the so-called Tawagalawa Letter.l9 Preserved is only the third tablet (of ca. 275 lines). From internal evidence it is clear that it was written by a Hittite king of the New Kingdom to a king of Ahhiyawa. The names of the two kings are not mentioned, since this is not the beginning of the letter. Scholars have attributed the text to Mursilis 11, Muwatallis and Hattusilis 111. I think that Mursilis I1 is out of the question, and of the other two, Hattusilis is the more likely. Throughout the letter the king of Ahhiyawa is addressed as “My Brother.” This was the standard address among sovereign kings of the time, such as those of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni and Hatti, in their letters found at Tell el-Amarna and Bogazkijy. The question was raised whether or not the term implies equal rank; in other words, whether or not the address as My Brother shows that the king of Ahhiyawa was a Great King in the terminology of the time. Some thought that it did, but Sommer adduced the correspondence between the Pharaoh and the king of Cyprus as an example of the use of this address between rulers of unequal power.20 There is, however, a passage in the Tawagalawa Letter that can be interpreted as showing that the king of Ahhiyawa was indeed considered a Great King.2 l The Hittite king states that, having received a message from the king of Ahhiyawa, he said: “‘If anyone of my lords(?) had spoken to me-or one of my (other) Brothers-I would have listened even to his word.'” Sommer’s translation continues: “‘But now My Brother wrote to me as a great king, my equal. The word of one equal to me I do not hear!”‘ To my knowledge the three terms “My Brother, Great King, my equal” can only be in apposition to one another. Also, Sommer’s version would be rather offensive to the addressee, in contrast to the cautious, in part even apologetic tone of the rest of the letter. I therefore translate the second clause as a rhetorical question. Such a question would express the Hittite king’s displeasure with the tone of the message he had received through subtle irony rather than through the bluntness of Sommer’s translation. I translate: “‘But now, My Brother, the Great King, my equal, has written to me; shall I not listen to the word of my equal?’ So I myself drove there.” From this I conclude that in the early thirteenth century Ahhiyawa was indeed considered equal to Hatti, ruled by a “Great King.” From the latter part of the same century we have the much debated passage in a treaty with Amurru (in Syria)22 in which Tudhaliyas IV enumerates the kings who are his equals: those of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and-erased-Ahhiyawa. This erasure has been taken by some as showing that Ahhiyawa was of equal rank, and by others, that it was not. It is true that in the section immediately following this list there is no mention of the king of Ahhiyawa, in contrast to the other three kings. The text considers the possibilities that the kings of Egypt and Babylonia might be either friend or foe, but calls the king of Assyria an enemy as a matter of fact. The vassal king of Amurru is told to prevent merchants from entering Assyria through his country. There follows (now) an inserted paragraph about his military duties in the war against Assyria. After that (line 23) it seems that the original text resumes the subject of the embargo by enjoining the vassal to let no ship of Ahhiyawa “go to him,” i.e., unload merchandise destined for Assyria. Thus, Sommer may be right in claiming that the name Ahhiyawa got into the list of kings by mistake because the scribe thought he had to include all the countries mentioned afterward in the text. I am still inclined to think that even so the scribe would not have made this mistake if Ahhiyawa had been unimportant; but I admit that the text cannot be used as proof of its equal rank. (Intriguing is the thought that the original paragraph now erased and replaced by lines 19-22 might have dealt in some way with the king of Ahhiyawa.) Tawagalawa Letter. The main subject of the third tablet is the affair of a certain Piyamaradus, but for reasons not quite clear the first sections deal with a man named Tawagalawas or Tawakalawas. From the evidence in conthis tablet it appears that his base of operation, if not his residence, is the city of Millawanda. It has generally been accepted that he was somehow close to the king of Ahhiyawa. Forrer’s claim that he was the king’s brother was rejected by Sommer, who thought that he had actual proof against it.23 In the passage in question the words “your brother” and Tawagalawa stand side by side, each one preceded by the same Akkadian preposition. Sommer had found no clear example of such a repetition of the preposition with a noun and its apposition. He also thought that a small trace after Tawagalawa was the beginning of the Hittite enclitic -ya, “and.” So he translated “with my brother and Tawagalawas.” Since Sommer’s time, good examples of the repeated preposition have been found in texts of Hattusilis 111, and an enlarged photograph shows that the traces cannot be the beginning of -ya. Therefore I now return to Forrer’s translation: “This charioteer used to step on the chariot together with me and with your brother Tawagalawas.” Why did the Hittite king write about this man to the king of Ahhiyawa? Where our text begins we are told that, after someone had destroyed the town of Attarimma, the people of Lukka approached the Hittite king, just as they had approached Tawagalawas, who then came “to these countries.” So the Hittite king set out for the same region. When he reached Sallapa, a station on the road, he received a message from Tawagalawas, saying: “Take me on as a vassal. Send me the tuhkanti (so that) he will escort me to Your Majesty.” Thereupon the king dispatched a high official, but Tawagalawas somehow took offense and refused to go with him. He continued by saying: “Give me the kingship here, on the spot; if not, I shall not come!” Why should a high-ranking Ahhiyawan, actually, as just demonstrated, the king’s brother, seek the overlordship of the Hittite king? The reasons, or at least antecedents, may have been contained in the preceding tablet. At least he asked for “kingship,” just as other Hittite vassals were called kings. (See Addendum). From the next station on the road the Hittite king wrote him: “If you want my overlordship, let me not find any of your men in Iyalanda when I get there!” But in fact the Hittite king was attacked at Iyalanda in three places by an unnamed “enemy,” and a certain Lahurzi or Laharzi, “his brother” (whose? Tawagalawas’ or the unnamed enemy’s?), laid an ambush for him. Somebody, however, heeded the prohibition of entering Iyalanda; I would restore his name, which is lost, as Tawagalawas rather than Lahurzis. The Hittite king takes great pains in the next lines to assure the king of Ahhiyawa that this report of what happened is true. At this point Piyamaradus, who is the main object of the greater part of the letter, enters the narrative. The Hittite king, who was still engaged in action, summoned Piyamaradus in a letter sent to Millawanda, while simultaneously informing the king of Ahhiyawa of Piyamaradus’ constant raids. The king of Ahhiyawa replied that he had instructed Atpas to hand Piyamaradus over to the Hittite king. So the Hittite king went to Millawanda, where Atpas resided. As an additional reason for going there he gave the following: “The subjects of My Brother shall hear the reproaches I shall make to Piyamaradus.” (From this we learn that subjects of the king of Ahhiyawa lived in Millawanda.) But when the king arrived, Piyamaradus had already left Millawanda by boat. At least Atpas and Awayanas, his sons-in-law, heard the words of the Hittite king. Not only Piyamaradus had left Millawanda before the king arrived, but also Tawagalawas. At this point the writer of the letter reminds the addressee of all the things he did for Tawagalawas: he sent him that high official, but he refused to go with him; now the king came in person, only to find that he had left! This is the end of the Tawagalawas chapter. Of the parts concerning Piyamaradus let me only comment on a few points. We just read that Piyamaradus had left Millawanda by boat. Now the writer speaks of the possibility that this man might approach the addressee with his plan to present himself to the king of Hatti. So apparently Piyamaradus is now in Ahhiyawa. The writer then assures the addressee that he has given Piyamaradus all the guarantees of safe-conduct. In addition he had also dispatched Dabala-Tarhuntas, the charioteer, to stand in for him. The writer stresses the high rank of this man by reminding the addressee of the fact that this charioteer used to step on the chariot with the writer and with Tawagalawas, and that he was related to the queen. The writer also wrote to Piyamaradus that, if the interview did not lead to a solution satisfactory to him, one of the king’s men Tudhali would escort him back to Ahhiyawa. Nowhere is it said that the charioteer would do that, as some of the advocates of putting Ahhiyawa in Anatolia have claimed; on the contrary, Dabala-Tarhuntas “shall sit in his place while he comes here, until he returns there.” We cannot follow Piyamaradus’ adventures; his name also occurs in other texts. From the letter it would seem that he was a protCgC of the king of Ahhiyawa, despite his Luwian name, and a man of some importance. The city of Millawanda or Milawata also is mentioned in a very fragmentary tablet that was named the “Milawata Letter.”24 Recently Harry Hoffner identified another fragment as joining it.25 He presented his find to the Rencontre Assyriologique in Vienna in July 1981 and kindly allowed me to use the enlarged text here. I can only mention one point important for our topic. The text is a letter of a Hittite king to a vassal whom he addresses as “My Son.” Since the addressee’s own father is mentioned in the letter, it is clear that this is the address for a subordinate, known from other examples. In one place the added part shows that instead of “As we, My Majesty and (you) My Son [have set] the boundaries of Milawata,” the verb restored as “set” is really “take away”; so the passage says: “As we, My Majesty, and (you) My Son, took away territory of Milawata”; and a little later: “that I did not add [(such and such places)] to the territory of Milawata for you.” Other results of his find are discussed by Hoffner in his paper which is to appear in the Comptes Rendus of the Rencontre. Here I only want to stress that instead of Milawata/Millawanda as a Hittite dependency, we now have a city from whose territory both the Hittite king and his unnamed vassal enlarge their own realms. The text is definitely late and probably belongs to Tudhaliyas IV (second half of the thirteenth century). A fragment of another historical textz6 has been quoted to show that the king of Ahhiyawa was personally engaged in warfare on Anatolian soil. The fragmentary context mentions the Land of the Sheha River and Arzawa. After the verb “made war,” whose subject is lost, there follows the short clause which was tentatively translated by Sommer: “The king of Ahhiyawa retreated(?).” I think that the meaning “to take refuge with, to rely uponn attested elsewhere for the verb in question yields a better sense here: “[(Soand- so)] made war and relied on the king of Ahhiyawa.” He could rely on him from a distance, without the king’s being on the scene. Finally it is Tudhaliyas IV again who mentioned ships of Ahhiyawa that might arrive in the land of Amurru in Syria, and whose scribe deleted the name of Ahhiyawa from the list of equals. None of the above points is real proof for the assumption that Ahhiyawa is Greek territory, be it in Anatolia, on one of the islands, or in mainland Greece. But I want to say that, if the opponents of the theory blame the advocates for being biased in always choosing, among possible alternatives, the one that is favorable to their views, the same must be said of the opponents. They either choose that interpretation which can be used against the theory or reject all arguments that cannot be completely proved. Common sense tells me that the Hittites must have known the Mycenaeans, and that what they say about Ahhiyawa fits the picture if that name refers to them. I am not worried about the alleged linguistic difficulties: I do not think that phonetic laws apply to foreign names. As far as geography is concerned, I confess to be unable to reconstruct a map of Hittite Asia Minor; others have correctly called it “a mess.” Again, those who put various Anatolian countries more and more toward the Northwest do so either for the sake of an assumed “tin route to Bohemia” or, if for other reasons, with intentional disregard of even the possibility that Ahhiyawa may have anything to do with the Mycenaean settlements of the Southwest. For me, Garstang and Gurney’s reconstruction of the route to Arzawa and the West ending in Apasa-Ephesos and Milawata-Miletos is plausible on internal evidence, apart from leading to the Mycenaean town at Miletos. There is no evidence for the existence of a country Ahhiyawa in Asia Minor; the evidence from the fourteenth- thirteenth centuries points overseas, and I prefer mainland Greece to any of the islands as seat of the Great King of Ahhiyawa. Attarissiyas, the man of Ahhiy5 in the fifteenth century, is different; as I see it, he may have come with his 100 chariots from one of the Mycenaean settlements in the Southwest.