Hannah, Bride of the Lord of Death

Notice the mention of the Goddess Inaras and her particular use of the temple tower - rather "chessly" wouldn't you say? Consider also the geometry of the five-pointed star (pentacle) and how it is played out on the chess board. From Barbara Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." Related to the entry about Jupiter, below. Hannah Biblical version of the Anatolian Grandmother-goddess Hannahanna, or Anna. Hittites called her Hwanhwanar, the Nether Upsurge, married to a sacred king at the Puruli festival, shortly before he was sent down into her Abyss to become the new Lord of Death.(1) Hannah's biblical son bore the same name as the Lord of Death, Sama-El, Sammael or Samuel, from Samana, a Hindu title of the death-god Yama as Conductor of Souls.(2) In Old Iranian, a clan matriarch was the hana, "grandmother." Similarly, the Mother of the virgin mother was worshipped through the Middle East under such names as Hannah, Anna, Nana, In-anna, or "Queen Nana, the Creatress."(3) In Christian tradition she was Anna, the Grandmother of God.(4) Mother of the Virgin Mary was Anna or Hannah, just as Anatolian Hannahanna was the mother of the virgin Mari. Sometimes her virgin aspect was named Inaras, who was also a death-goddess. She annually imprisoned the sacred king in a temple tower, mated with him, then killed him.(5) See Anne, Saint.) Notes: (1) Gaster, 7. (2) Larousse, 346. (3) Stone, 219. (4) Graves, W.G., 410. (5) Hooke, M.E.M., 98-99. Anna-Nin Sumerian prototype of the many forms of the Great Goddess named Anna, Ana, or Hannah throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean lands. The name meant Lady of Heaven. See Anne, Saint. Anne, Saint Mythical mother of the virgin Mary, from the Middle-Eastern Goddess Anna, or Hannah, or Di-Ana, mother of Mari. From Sumeria to pre-Roman Latium she was known as Anna, the Grandmother-Goddess; Anatha in Syria, Anat in Canaan, Ana or Anah in several Old Testament transformations. Long before the Bible was written, the Goddess Anna wa already known as the Grandmother of God. Hence, the choice of her name for the mother of God's Mother is hardly surprising.(1) Syriac versions of the Book of James said God's Grandmother was not Anna but Dinah, actually the same name, a Semitic Di-Ana or "Goddess Ana." Dinah was the ancestress of Dinaite tribes who settled in Sumeria (Ezra 4:9). As Anatha, she was the consort of Yahweh at Elephantine.(2) As Anna Perenna she was Grandmother Time to the Romans, mother of the Aeons. As Ana or Anu she ruled Celtic tribes. As Nanna, she was an incarnation of Freya in the mother-bride of Balder. In Phrygia too, she was Nana, mother of the Savior. She was really as old as the oldest civilization. A Sumerian prayer declared: "Hear O ye regions, the praise of Queen Nana; magnify the Creatress, exalt the dignified, exalt the Glorious One, draw nigh unto the Mighty Lady."(3) Romans worshipped the Goddess as Anna Perenna, "Eternal Anna," mother of the Aeons. She stood at the change of years, a two-headed Goddess of Time with two facesnamed Prorsa and Postverta, looking forward and backward from her heavenly gate among the stars, where one celestial cycle merged into the next. So she stood for both Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Under the name of Carmenta she invented all the letters in between.(4) She was also Jana, or Juno, mother of the January New Year. [My birth name Janet is a derivative.] Classical myths masculinized her as the two-faced Janus, god of gateways. Christians may have confused icons labeled IANA with the mother of the Virgin; for Jana-Juno was the virgin mother of the savior-god Mars. [The Chief, Ricardo Calvo, didn't call me "Patton" for nothing... .] Ovid said Anna was the same as the Moon-goddess Minerva. Sappho named her "the Queen."(5) To the Celts, she was the same as their Ana, first of the female trinity of the Morrigan, associated with the Cauldron of Regeneration. Her moon-teple used to stand at Cnoc Aine in Limerick, now a shrine of "St. Anne."(6) To Irish pagans, Ana means "mother." It also came to mean wealth, plenty, treasure.(7) As Grandmother-goddess, Ana could be a destroying Crone. Some myths called her Morg-ana, "Invincible Queen Death." Medieval Christians called her Anna of the Angles, or Black Annis, or Angurboda, the Hag of the Iron Wood, mother of Hel.(8) The magic pentacle was the sign of Morg-ana.(9) A similar five-pointed star stood for the underworld in Egyptian hieroglyphics(1) This same star was the official sigil of St. Anne.(11) In her Christianized form, Anne had three husbands, gave birth to many saints, and became the patron of midwives and miners. [The miners are a connection to her mate Dis-Pater/Dyaus Pitar/Jupiter - see posts below.] Neumann says "All this bears witness to her original fertility aspect as Earth Mother."(12) St. Anne was of crucial importance in the dogma of the virgin Mary's immaculate conception, adopted as an article of faith in 1854, after seven centuries of controversy.(13) [No offense against true believing Catholics, but this really cracks me up - finally declaring the virgin birth in 1854, ha ha ha! Perhaps in honor of her Majesty Queen Victoria? Ha ha ha!] In the official Catholic view, original sin was transmitted by sexual acts. Therefore, so Mary could be born without taint of original sin [har!], St. Anne herself had to be innocent of sexuality. Accordingly, Johannes Trithemius proclaimed that Anne "was chosen by God for her appointed services before the foundation of the world. She conceived 'without the action of man' and was as pure as her daughter."(14) At first the church accepted this doctrine, because it seemed to solve the problem of Mary's sinlessness. Later it was rejected. Two virgin births made one too many. In the end, St. Anne was said to have conceived Mary in the normal way but the child was freed in the womb of original sin. Though these intimate matters are supposed to be known in minute detail, churchmen incongruously admit that "nothing whatever is known about the parents of the Virgin Mary."(15) The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are the same people who point their fingers at the so-called Pagans and say their myths are full of baloney! Ha! Notes: (1) Graves, W.G., 411. (2) Hays, 89. (3) Stone, 219. (4) Larousse, 210. (5) Graves, W.G., 408. (6) Loomis, 387. (7) Joyce, I., 261. (8) Sturluson, 56. (9) Loomis, 342. (10) Budge, E.L., 75. (11) Brewster, 343. (12) Neumann, A.C.U., 57. (13) Young, 203. (14) Neumann, A.C.U., 59. (15) Attwater, 186.