Sunday, June 7, 2009

New Evidence on Domestication of Cats

(Image: Bastet, from the Louvre Museum, 26th Dynasty, 664 - 332 BCE) It's a lengthy article. Here are the key points summarized neatly at Scientific American Online:
  • Unlike other domesticated creatures, the house cat contributes little to human survival. Researchers have therefore wondered how and why cats came to live among people.
  • Experts traditionally thought that the Egyptians were the first to domesticate the cat, some 3,600 years ago.
  • But recent genetic and archaeological discoveries indicate that cat domestication began in the Fertile Crescent, perhaps around 10,000 years ago, when agriculture was getting under way.
  • The findings suggest that cats started making themselves at home around people to take advantage of the mice and food scraps found in their settlements.
From the June 2009 Scientific American Magazine The Evolution of House Cats By Carlos A. Driscoll, Juliet Clutton-Brock, Andrew C. Kitchener and Stephen J. O'Brien It is by turns aloof and affectionate, serene and savage, endearing and exasperating. Despite its mercurial nature, however, the house cat is the most popular pet in the world. A third of American households have feline members, and more than 600 million cats live among humans worldwide. Yet as familiar as these creatures are, a complete understanding of their origins has proved elusive. Whereas other once wild animals were domesticated for their milk, meat, wool or servile labor, cats contribute virtually nothing in the way of sustenance or work to human endeavor. How, then, did they become commonplace fixtures in our homes? Scholars long believed that the ancient Egyptians were the first to keep cats as pets, starting around 3,600 years ago. But genetic and archaeological discoveries made over the past five years have revised this scenario—and have generated fresh insights into both the ancestry of the house cat and how its relationship with humans evolved. Cat’s Cradle The question of where house cats first arose has been challenging to resolve for several reasons. Although a number of investigators suspected that all varieties descend from just one cat species—Felis silvestris, the wildcat—they could not be certain. In addition, that species is not confined to a small corner of the globe. It is represented by populations living throughout the Old World—from Scotland to South Africa and from Spain to Mongolia—and until recently scientists had no way of determining unequivocally which of these wildcat populations gave rise to the tamer, so-called domestic kind. Indeed, as an alternative to the Egyptian origins hypothesis, some researchers had even proposed that cat domestication occurred in a number of different locations, with each domestication spawning a different breed. Confounding the issue was the fact that members of these wildcat groups are hard to tell apart from one another and from feral domesticated cats with so-called mackerel-tabby coats because all of them have the same pelage pattern of curved stripes and they interbreed freely with one another, further blurring population boundaries. In 2000 one of us (Driscoll) set out to tackle the question by assembling DNA samples from some 979 wildcats and domestic cats in southern Africa, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Middle East. Because wildcats typically defend a single territory for life, he expected that the genetic composition of wildcat groups would vary across geography but remain stable over time, as has occurred in many other cat species. If regional indigenous groups of these animals could be distinguished from one another on the basis of their DNA and if the DNA of domestic cats more closely resembled that of one of the wildcat populations, then he would have clear evidence for where domestication began. In the genetic analysis, published in 2007, Driscoll, another of us (O’Brien) and their colleagues focused on two kinds of DNA that molecular biologists traditionally examine to differentiate subgroups of mammal species: DNA from mitochondria, which is inherited exclusively from the mother, and short, repetitive sequences of nuclear DNA known as microsatellites. Using established computer routines, they assessed the ancestry of each of the 979 individuals sampled based on their genetic signatures. Specifically, they measured how similar each cat’s DNA was to that of all the other cats and grouped the animals having similar DNA together. They then asked whether most of the animals in a group lived in the same region. The results revealed five genetic clusters, or lineages, of wildcats. Four of these lineages corresponded neatly with four of the known subspecies of wildcat and dwelled in specific places: F. silvestris silvestris in Europe, F. s. bieti in China, F. s. ornata in Central Asia and F. s. cafra in southern Africa. The fifth lineage, however, included not only the fifth known subspecies of wildcat—F. s. lybica in the Middle East—but also the hundreds of domestic cats that were sampled, including purebred and mixed-breed felines from the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. In fact, genetically, F. s. lybica wildcats collected in remote deserts of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were virtually indistinguishable from domestic cats. That the domestic cats grouped with F. s. lybica alone among wildcats meant that domestic cats arose in a single locale, the Middle East, and not in other places where wildcats are common. (Emphasis added). Rest of article. Excerpts:
  • To get a bead on when the taming of the cat began, we turned to the archaeological record. One recent find has proved especially informative in this regard. In 2004 Jean-Denis Vigne of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and his colleagues reported unearthing the earliest evidence suggestive of humans keeping cats as pets. The discovery comes from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where 9,500 years ago an adult human of unknown gender was laid to rest in a shallow grave. An assortment of items accompanied the body—stone tools, a lump of iron oxide, a handful of seashells and, in its own tiny grave just 40 centimeters away, an eight-month-old cat, its body oriented in the same westward direction as the human’s. Because cats are not native to most Mediterranean islands, we know that people must have brought them over by boat, probably from the adjacent Levantine coast. Together the transport of cats to the island and the burial of the human with a cat indicate that people had a special, intentional relationship with cats nearly 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. This locale is consistent with the geographic origin we arrived at through our genetic analyses. It appears, then, that cats were being tamed just as humankind was establishing the first settlements in the part of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent.
  • Although the exact timeline of cat domestication remains uncertain, long-known archaeological evidence affords some insight into the process. After the Cypriot find, the next oldest hints of an association between humans and cats are a feline molar tooth from an archaeological deposit in Israel dating to roughly 9,000 years ago and another tooth from Pakistan dating to around 4,000 years ago. Testament to full domestication comes from a much later period. A nearly 3,700-year-old ivory cat [c. 1700 BCE] statuette from Israel suggests the cat was a common sight around homes and villages in the Fertile Crescent before its introduction to Egypt. [Baloney!] This scenario makes sense, given that all the other domestic animals (except the donkey) and plants were introduced to the Nile Valley from the Fertile Crescent. But it is Egyptian paintings from the so-called New Kingdom period—Egypt’s golden era, which began nearly 3,600 years ago [c. 1500 BCE - after the Hyksos were kicked out rulership]—that provide the oldest known unmistakable depictions of full domestication. These paintings typically show cats poised under chairs, sometimes collared or tethered, and often eating from bowls or feeding on scraps. The abundance of these illustrations signifies that cats had become common members of Egyptian households by this time.

[Well known associations of the lion with the ancient Egyptian Sun God, RA, and the association of the lioness or lion-headed goddess as one of the "Eyes of Ra" - Sekhmet, an aspect of equally ancient Goddess Het-Hert (Hathor) indicate a much older association between the ancient Egyptians and cats. As far as I am aware, both of these deities pre-date the founding of the dynastic period in ancient Egypt, c. 3500-3400 BCE and are therefore at least 5500 to 5400 years old, and quite possibly older. See, for instance, this information from the Louvre Museum indicating that the bones of a cat were discovered in a predynastic tomb dating to around 4000 BCE - that is, about 6000 years ago].

******************************************************
For information on the Egyptian cat Goddess, Bast or Bastet, see: Tour Egypt, The Gods of Ancient Egypt - Bast Per-Bast.org For information on the importance of the cat in ancient Egypt (this would extend to any country where grain and other crops subject to the ravages of mice and rat infestations were a problem), see: Wikiland Mythology: Why were cats important in ancient Egypt? One of the key points I gleaned from this information is that the ancient Egyptians called cats "miu" or "miut" ("he or she who mews" - the "t" sound or glyph at the end of Egyptian words often designated a female) for the "meowing" sound that they made! That article cited above I found at the Louvre Museum says that "'The Ancient Egyptian word for cat was "mau", an onomatopoeia for mewing.' " Onomatopoeia is just a fancy word for this definition (from my trusty Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it."

20 comments:

Unknown said...

Demographically.which part ohe world has the largest cat population?is there a human one that runs along parallel?For example can we find the biggest group in China or India where we can find the largest populations?How do these feline creatures manage in countries that have extreme hot or cold conditions to contend with (Iceland,Greenland North /South Pole,Congo,Latin America,Sahara)And is there any evidence of tribal movement?

Jan said...

Hi Roland,

I cannot answer your questions! But I have a guess, based upon what I read in the article, this particular species of wild cat that became domesticated, was then taken by people as they spread out from the Fertile Crescent and took their agricultural practices with them. In areas where crops did not readily grow (and, therefore, there was not a mouse or rat problem), cats did not thrive; in areas where crops readily grew, mouse and rat populations likewise thrived, and the cats who survived on them thrived too.

More than that, I cannot say.

Jan

Unknown said...

...cat/ecatl(N/day2souls)=life
itself, our wind. cat is the birthing animal, ocelotl, animal
of the regent of souls. neander/
neandra's habitat of water/altepe/
mountain is where they are found,
cats preferring elevated caves to spot game and water below. their domestication, if that can be said of big cats begins when neander/dra
competes with them for housing.
from ocelotl we get the word for,
leo(n), a teotl(N)= teo/tea/deo,
and,ly(n)x, and leopard, it's even
suspected that the od name for london=lud, comes from the back end of ocelotl. ah, cheetah, from,
chitraka(skt), from, chitra(skt)=
spot/chi tlatla(N)=on top flame,
chi/on top tlatla/flame being, or,
chi/on top tlaca/body, a sign of
it's elevated status as animal of
the goddess? ah, chitrakaya=having
speckled body.
as a bonus, look on my tzopilotl
wordpress at the question quest
post for a novel roo(s)ting of
the word, chess.

Unknown said...

...in an interesting way, cheetah/
chitlatla(N)=flame on top is not
root-related to ocelotl but to
the goddess flame/tlatla tzol/hole
teotl tea thea dea, herself, as
her personal animal. when one looks at the ocelome(N/pl)dancers
of zatal huyuk, 7k bc, one sees
leopards that look like cheetahs,
and it may be the case that they
are the fire drill animal of the
goddess who ruled there.

Unknown said...

...ah, still on the trail of,
check, which may or may not be the
root of the word, chess, but,
i think through letra=chec/ss,
it is. the root of check as it goes
back into, xaque(pg/portuguese),
eschac(OFr)/escac(provençal)/
scacco(ital)/scaccu(arab/persian), so we are looking for...ah, here
it is in remí simeon= caquiltia/
caquitia(Nauatl)=notificar una cosa
á alguien/notify someone of something, so, using letra forward
from caqui-(N)= cac/qu(i)=(s)caccu,
yeah, that's the persion/arab, the
-u(arab) comes off the, -qu(i),
qui(N/Latin)=who.

Jan said...

Hola Carlos!

"Cat is the birthing animal."

One of the most famous images of the Mother Goddess or Queen is from Çatal Höyük, showing a woman giving birth (or a very pregnant woman), sitting upon a great throne. Under her arms rest two leopards or female lions. Or perhaps they were ocelots :) Catal Hoyuk now has it's own website: http://www.catalhoyuk.com/. It is generally dated c. 7500-5700 BC.

The thing is - if such an image was created during the time of Catal Hoyuk, it seems evident that the big cats (and the smaller "wild cats") would have already been intimately integrated into the lives of the people of Catal Hoyuk. Therefore, the Mother Goddess or Queen image on the throne with the two leopards or lionesses could be older than what we currently think.

Are there other cultures where the "cat" is associated with birth and/or the Sun?

Jan

Unknown said...

...the cat is so early in domestication that she was the
animal of the firedrill goddess,
tlatla, who gave us fire=tletl=
t/l/red/t/l, the oldest god.
the cat shared habitat preference
with neandra/neander, the altepeptl, the mountain/water site
which becomes the first word for
town in nauatl, or anywhere.
at the time of tletl and tlatla
we were just making the symbolic
connexion between fire/sun. our
major problem was our birth rate,
we needed sons/daughters for the
future, and the cat became the
symbol of fire/birth at that time,
even (cel)estial fire as ceiling/
cielo/celeste comes from ocelotl, also,
cell, lust, luthe(c.f., etruscan
prayer, liber linteus)=luz/dar luz
(sp)=give birth.
at zatal huyuk women were reserved for breeding to incubate
the race, so wherever you have cat/
ocelotl, you have our race trying
to increase its numbers through
the feline cult of tlatla tzol
teotl. this is the origin of the
sacred whore concept, they were
holy(and still are)because cave existence depended on them. an apt
comparison may be the arms races we've had and are having with other countrys, the hysteria involved, but today it is a cult
of destruction, back then it was
biologic birthing warfare. to give
you an idea of the extent of this
struggle, the aztec system of warfare was based on the birthing
priciple: bring your prisoner in
alive. tks, for the site, jan, oh,
i'm working on the origin of the
berbers of n.afrika, matilda ate
by best post on it(too outrageous/
clashed with her haplogroup), they
appear to be ancient deer cult
people, e.g., their name for themselves, mazyes=mazatl(N/day7),
they have 50k bc euro mtDNA, which
gives you an idea of what a great tool linguistic archeology is,
they've come back close to their
ibero iveri iueli(N)=powerful bear
land, and probably left iberia by
the same north afro corridor 50k
bc, at 30k, they were in the caucasus, and on their way back
to north afrika. i think they went
further east to the altai, and
you'll see why in a few days on
tzopilotl wordpress.

Jan said...

Hola Carlos,

I am still trying to catch up with your posts!

Regarding your comments on the word "check" - my understanding is that the word arose out of Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and is the word for Shah - "King." The players of Chatrang were obliged to call out the warning to the Shah when he was put in danger on the gameboard. The Arabs adopted the word when they adopted the Persian game of Chatrang, which they called "Shatranj."

The Arabs did not call their Kings "Shah." As far as I know, the Arabic word for King is "Malik" which is consistent with the Semitic word meaning "King" used in ancient times, and its variations: Malek, Moloch, Molech, Malchizedek (meaning 'King and Priest') and the like. To this day, the word "immolate" means to burn up entirely, just as the ancient Hebrews, Canaanites and others used to sacrifice their children by throwing them into raging fires.

The words "Chatrang" and "Chaturanga" are rooted in the Indo-European word for "four". I am not convinced that this is a reference to the "four branches of an army" used in ancient times, but I know that "chatur" (Sanskrit) and "chatra" (Pahlavi -- Middle Persian) both are root words meaning "four." Four corners of the earth, the four directions, the four winds, four square.

Unknown said...

...chatur(skt)chatra(pahlavi)
chatrang, if you notice the chat=
ecatl(N)=wind goddess, hecate,
this is where 4 comes from, the
4 directions of the wind and the
loom of weaving, whose goddess she also is. let's go into walsh/welch
for their word for battle=
cadwent, here we see, the two 4's
together, unetli/wind and ecatl/cad, meaning wind offering
which is what war is, as herman
wouk knew also in his winds of war.
so you can see the melding
of the numerical value, 4, from
one word to another, both wind
words, one the roo(s)t of wind/
uentli, the other the goddess,
hecate/ehecatl, whose planet,
venus was a warsign for the aztecs.
now malik=malli ca(N)=garland
being, malinalli is garland/twist
in hindi, also, malli(N)=prisoner,
e.g., malta=prisoner island=
malli tlan. a king in a very
real sense is prisoner of his people, ask elizabeth regina,
at one time he was ritually
lamed by his subjects(robert graves). this is refelcted in
chess where the king is limited
one space at a time.
the good sense of malli/malinalli
comes out in the word malhuia(N)=
to tend a garden, to value oneself,
going on to nemalhuiliztli(N)=
self-estimation, then,
amemaluiliztli(N)=gross, brutish,
well, it's the word, animal, but
in it's positive form=anima=spirit.
we use it a lot in mexico, e.g.,
animo!=courage, animate.
shah is part of the word xaque
(pg), which comes from,
caqui(l)tia(N)=to notify someone
of something. the word shah for
king is quite recent, in fact,
chess/caquitia(N)=quit(E) is
the older word. shah is more of
an administrative word, notify,
than an old word for king, e.g.,
konig(ger)appears to be,
co(N)=come nech(N)=to me, nech
being, (k)nech(t)=knight,
a rallying cry the king would
use in battle when surrounded.
hope this helps. what will
also help will be for you to get
remí simeon's nauatl dictionary
isbn 968-23-0573, so you can have
pie and see for yourself where all
words come from, and i can help
you with letra, the code, or you
can pick it up on tletl or tzopilotl wordpress, it's easy
once you know how, and indipensible
for mythographers.

Unknown said...

...the word, four, does come from,
for/por/pal(N)/par(Fr),
it's a transferrance coinage,
e.g., when you are going for
somewhere you have no center
and are naui/N)/navigating/
going like the wind. ecatl(N)=4
because she is the wind/breath of 4 beings=uan(N), and directions,
and offerings=unetli/uena(N)=big4
is the same and even has the
(n=na=4)embed, the highest greek
te(m)ple=tepetl(N)= the naos,
even the basque 4=
lau=oalauh, alaua(N)=annoint,
notice all the n4's in annoint,
the praise/laud goes to the 4=
ana(N)=to grow, gr(an)d, anna.
speaking of praise,
matilda did publish my post,
alaua(N)/halleluja/hallow/hello.

Unknown said...

...to roland, the cat has adapted all over the world, the most successful mammal until man, and it took adam much longer, of the 5
ages in the tonalamatl/soulpapers,
there is ocelotonatiuh, the age or
tun(mayan)/tone/tune of ocelotl,
the cave age, in australia feral
housecats are succeeding in the wild and have easliy gone back to
their earlier role as top predator,
the only thing that saved man and
his prototypes, i've always opined,
was the dog, as always in a hunter-
gather situation whoever captures
a litter has the key to the animal
in question, but we were not top
mammal then, cats were, and it
was touch and go with our small
population, once tamed and deified,
the cat hunts with us and becomes
the birthing animal of firedrill
tlatla cave venus. it's not so long ago if one remembers the olmec
jaguar cult. the bear cult in
finland, europe, iberia eclipsed the cat age with animal christ.
the western eurasian landmass,
at 35k bc had lions, they prefer the wide plains, where they can pride,in the mountains, tibet snow
leopard, they are know as queen
of the mountain, which is number
8, god of the night in the soul-paper/tonalamatl, 8/ocho/tochtli/
toca(N)=our/to-ca/being in nauatl,
therefore, the birthing animal,
whose name=tepeyollotl=heart of
the mountain=tepetl=te(m)ple,
which appears to be tibet=tepetl,
in the mountains they are solitary
and therefore goddess, up there
in the big sky cats became our
adoration, in their mountain temple, not too many early deitys
begin on the aryan flatland, which
may be the core problem of plains
people, they have to settle for
mirage prophets who sunburn but
don't have natural majesty and
turn inward, but not tepeyowl,
the magnificent, prime mammal
of an entire age, first goddess
to the tree of our species,
now gone the way of dinosaur,
not a chicken but a housepet,
her magic still intact.
by the way, jan, if you want to use any of this i'm scirbbling, please do,let's spread the word and be free.

Unknown said...

...oh, cat and the soulpapers/
tonalamatl, ocelotl day number=
3=calli/being, which is the cave/
ca(lli)ve/ue(letra)=calli ue(N)=
house/ca(lli)ue/big. the link with bighouse being establishes the
human-cat connexion at cave time,
which is to say there was no way
to compete with top predator, cat,
other than adopt it, domesticate it, understand it into peaceful
existence, live with it and have it live with us until it was no longer a threat but part of the family, if we can do that between
species why can't we intra-species,
our record is poor there probably
because we are meat-driven and have
reverted to the esoteric form of
cannibalism known vulgarly as war
and at the moment in iran, revolution, in which a country
eats its young, a process one
can only view with loathing,
not for nothing do newspapers
who send their reporters to these
frays call their storys deadlines.
cat culture gives way to bull
culture, now the challenge is
to replace bull culture with
transgenic culture so we all can
be elite with no one left behind,
and enter calli/being once again,
not as torturers of animals including ourselves but as
managers who value ourselves
and the life on the blue planet,
that we too go the way of the
most successful predator and
enter the potential of our being
as architect of happiness and
understanding.

Unknown said...

...lastly, we go to the etruscan
prayer, ati, cathe, luth, cel,
which reduces to nauatl pie,
atl, ecatl, -lotl, ocel-
water wind luz/light cell,
cel=greening of life, the one green. now, when the large etruscan
O is put in, the ollin/holy insert,
we get, cathe=caO=chaos(gk/E),
but it's cel/cell, the front part
of ocelotl(N/pie) that is the
4th element in the prayer, which
concerns us, -lotl/luthe/luz/luO
is the back/birthing part of
oce-lotl, the 3rd element, 3=calli=
being. so we take the 4th element,
cel, the front of ocel-otl, and
get, celOim= (c)elohim(Hebrew/god),
the plural of ocelotl being, ocelome. elohim directly links
the hebrew/tepeua to tlatla,
her animals, ocelome/celOim/
elohim, to cave, to zatal hoyuk,
7k bc as well.

Unknown said...

...hohle fels cave, 35k bc birdbone
flutes! flute/flauta, from the verb,
pauilia(N)=to paul/limn bird/fish.
two 5-hole mute swan wingbone flutes.
one griffon vulture birdbone flute,
partial 8.5" long, mouthpiece has
2 v shaped notches, and 4/naui fine
lines near each hole, hmmmm,
4=naui=nauatl(language=tlangua=
tlaca(N)=daca(letra)=danca=da(n)ce)=
naua(N)=to dance.
near ulm also, at geissen klosterle cave, one 3-hole
mammoth ivory ivery iueli flute,
40k bc. 10k yrs before neander/
neandra left europe, so what
happens with all these flutes,
and in the altai as well. what
we have is music and language/dance intertwine,
muse amuse amoxtli(N)=book,
and we book language as music
and dance onto the planet,
nauatl/naua/naui(square dancing
it seems as naua means to dance
giving one hand then another,
with feet in time to the oncoming
partner), it spreads like wildfire
as song and dance and eurasia
cooks nauatl/naua as the tongue
pie will slice into the
languages/dances we have on the
rainbow planet, rocknroll from
the stone age. one likes to think
wolfman jack was the dj as language
rokced onto the stage at 42k bc.

Unknown said...

...and to link partners in the
altai, the japanese word for,
flute=fue(J)=bagpipe also, ah,
f(l)u(t)e, from, potli(N)=
companion/both/bridge/brother/
pod/foot/f(l)oat/pont/punt/pond.
not unusual for present word to
have more than one foot rooted
in pie, e.g., root= r/l/t/potli,
or, the spanish=raíz=
r/l/tla(i)za=
tlaza(N)=throw down.

Unknown said...

...with a little hard work and a
piece of pie, one can get by onomatopoeia, cat is named much later by ecatl, the weaving/life
goddess whose planet is venus.
the early words for cat come from
the ancient word for spear=mitl(N)=(s)mite/smith(E), which is part of the word for fish/michegan/michoacan=michin(N),
which divides into 3 nauatl words=
mi=mitl/chi(N)=on top/n-n=4=
spear/mi-chi-n/on top square/4,
the word,aim(E)=ami oan(N)=ami(N)=
atl mitl=amimitl(N/fishergod). spanish say to their cats, miche,
miche, which means fish, fish, but
also, quimichin=mouse, mouse, so
one has both words, mouse and fish,
applied to the cat's appetite which
eventually become it's name, as in
the egyptian, miu/mi(u)t, where
the mi- of mitl/michin/quimichin(N)
is still intact, only the (u) being
onomatopoeic, as in, mau(anc.egyp), the (u) is also onomat., but looking at the root
word, mitl(N)=spear(transmit/permit/demittus), we have 2 basic words, m=ma=hand,
and, itta(N)=see, so, spear=
mitl(N)=hand/m(a)itta(N)=mitt(E).
letra grinds exceedingly fine.
the reward tidbit for all this
verbal microscopy is, quimichin(N)=mouse=who/qui-michin/fishes,
from the arly russina riverine
fishers i believe, who also gathered grains, wouldn't you
on a diet of fish and maybe mice?

Unknown said...

...hi, jan, kubaba/cybele post,
tzopilotl wordpress, for the
goddess of games. the totem animal
of games must be a cat!

Unknown said...

...kubaba, quiubole?, cubilete is
a mountain near here, guanajuato,
with a polos, the polos is a huge
statue of christ. i was told cubilete meant dice cup, and it does, also axle socket, cybele is
associated with cups, goblets, gaming devices, and rides a car
with 2 lions, sometimes up to 7/
ce uentli(N)=one offering, pulling her along, 7 is the number of the goddess, a chariot of flesh, she
invents the same, the afghan plaque
has two in the chariot and in the sky a face and the moon, the splandor/spiked halo of the face
has 13 rays, a trecena in the tonalamatl she is regent of as,
tlatla-tzol-teotl. she's older
than history and there have always been games, the venus figurines
of 35k bc are the first move in
gaming, the tonalamatl itself,
of whom kubaba/cybele is regent,
is 52yrs long, 4 suits, related
but prior to modern cards and
tarot. and so it began in the caves of middle turkey.

Unknown said...

...to follow up on the splandor/
halo of 13 in the afghan plaque,
the trecena/13 is the number of the
old goddess in the tonalamatl, her
name is, ilama/ilamatl(N)=anciana,
vieja, respectable woman, also,
tlamatqui(N)=qui(N/Lat)=who is
able, wise, dextrous, ingenious, astute, fine, deceiver, seductress.
her animal is the parrot(because
the parrot lives to great age and
is very intelligent. while i was standing in front of the house of
the turtle at uxmal=thrice built,
a pawl of them came flying by at eye level having an in-flight conversation in which every member
of the group was participating,
but don't go out and buy one, they
belong in the wild and in captivity
lose the knack of looking up, making them easy prey to hawks,
whom they can outfly when they're
free. so that's her, ilama/ilana/
anna(mother of mary), tlamatqui/
mat/mater(Lat), she gives us the crown/polos, the car/chariot,
the axle of the race without which we don't roll, excelsis ocelot,
goddess of cup and gaming, and we need her today more than ever now that we have dirty little
boys with toys who leave the one
world strewn with their diapers.

Unknown said...

...one last link for cheetah=
chi-tlatla(N)=on top flame, is
related to the firedrill word,
chitoni(N)=spark(on top tona/flame)=ch(i)thonic(gk/E). the ocelotl
is considered a wind, therefore life , animal in the tonalamatl,
related to ollin, cats are fascinated by movement. i named a cat, ollin=holy=ulli(mex)=rubber, and used a large elastic=alaztic(N)/alactic(N)=slippery, for her
collar, she loved it, and never shied her head when i put it on.
the regent of ollin, movement from the center=tlatla tzol teotl,
making her totem animal not only
ch(i)thonic tonic but earth goddess
as well because ocelotl seeks out
las entrañas/guts of the earth we
call caves.

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