Was Eve Created From Adam's Penis? Or - The Origin Of Knight Moves

How could I possibly resist posting this article - well, I couldn't, and here it is.  Perhaps this hypothesis holds the key as to why ALL human embryos start out as females and then some morph into males in a later phase of development.

From Discovery online:

Eve Was Created From Adam's Penis: Bible Scholar

DEC 30, 2015 03:59 PM ET // BY ROSSELLA LORENZI

Eve was not made from one of Adam’s ribs, but was instead created using a bone in his penis, a Biblical scholar has claimed, causing much stir.

The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 says God made Adam from of the dust of the ground, then created Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs.

Ziony Zevit, distinguished professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages at the American Jewish University in California, argues that the Biblical story has been wrongly interpreted since a mistranslation confused rib with baculum, or penis bone.

First presented in the 2013 book “What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?” Zevit’s shocking claim has recently resurfaced in a paper published in Biblical Archaeology Review [Bravo to Hershel Shanks], causing heated controversy among outraged Christian readers.

According to Zevit, the bone of contention — literally — centers around the Hebrew word “tsela,” used in the Old Testament to indicate the bone taken from Adam to create Eve.

“This Hebrew word occurs some 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, where it refers to the side of a building or of an altar or ark, a side-chamber, or a branch of a mountain. In each of these instances, it refers to something off-center, lateral to a main structure,” Zevit wrote.

Tsela was first translated as rib in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible dating to the mid-third century B.C.

It would have then lost its original meaning, which according to Zevit relates to “limbs lateral to the vertical axis of an erect human body: hands, feet, or, in the case of males, the penis.”

“Of these appendages, the only one lacking a bone is the penis,” Zevit wrote.

This would explain why the human penis has no “os baculum,” or bone, unlike most mammals, including primates such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

It would also clear up why men don’t have an uneven number of ribs compared to women.

In this view, the part in Genesis 2:21, in which God closes the flesh beneath the “tsela,” should be interpreted as to God closing up the flesh that exists on the underside of the penis.

Not surprisingly, Zevit’s phallic interpretation of the Biblical story has come under fire, with several readers of Biblical Archaeology threatening to cancel their subscription.

Israel’s daily Haaretz also entered the debate, arguing that ancient linguistics provide no support for the theory.

“Ziony Zevit’s theory is even more unlikely than the original story,” journalist Elon Gilad wrote.

He remarked that ribs generated life in stories predating the Hebrew bible, such as the Sumerian myth Enki and Nihursag.

He noted that tsela is still used in post-biblical Hebrew to mean rib, and has cognates meaning rib in other Semitic languages.

“That powerfully indicates that tzela meant rib thousands and thousands of years before proto-Semitic split up into the different Semitic language,” Gilad concluded.

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I am fascinated with the root meanings of words.  Could it be possible that tsela, a word of Semitic origin, might be demonstrated by the ancient Egyptian god Min (ancient Egyptian is closely related to Semitic languages), a pre-dynastic god of male fertility and power and also, perhaps, the original inspiration for "knight moves" (pun intended) - see image below - from the Tour Egypt article referenced below (no attribution of the image was given in the article):

Check out this information from touregypt dot com, under "Min":

Min was always a god of fertility and sexuality. He was shown as a human male with an erect penis. In Egyptian times, he was usually an ithyphallic bearded mummiform man, standing with both legs together, an arm raised holding his symbol or a flail and wearing the same low crown with twin plumes as Amen. (The way he holds his flail might be symbolic of sexual intercourse - the flail forms the V while his upraised forearm seems to thrust inside the V.) The Egyptian paintings and reliefs on tomb walls and temples didn't show Min's other arm, but the statues of the god show him with his hand encircling the base of his penis. During New Kingdom times he was sometimes shown as a white bull, an animal sacred to the fertility god.

Notice the "L" shape made by Min's bent arm upthrust (a 90 degree angle) into the "V" formed by the flail he is holding (actually, sort of balancing on his fingertips).  Notice also the "L" formed by Min's erect penis 90 degrees angled outward from his legs.

Perhaps the Creator was "killing two birds with one stone," as the old saying goes: demonstrating sexual intercourse (Min's upright arm thrusting into the inverted "V" for vagina formed by the flail), and in case you missed that allusion it is difficult to miss Min's "stiff as a bone" erect penis, the 90 degree angle that incorporates the knight's move -- and hey - could those possibly be boardgame pieces to the right of Min at approximately thigh level (located underneath Min's erect penis, reminding us, perhaps, of the origins of the slang term "boner").  

Just as a reminder, here is a graph of potential moves a knight could possibly make on the chessboard - covering eight potential target squares (don't they make a lovely rosette in honor of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna):

From Reddit.com

Now darlings, lest you think I am completely insane, please read this very interesting article on why there are so many different words for "penis" in Hebrew, and then you tell me why tsela should NOT be included with, for instance, the Hebrew word zayin, as just another euphenism for penis:  Why Hebrew Has So Many Words for Penis, July 15, 2015, Haaretz.  Also informative was Strong's Concordance on the word tsela.

8,000 Year Old Seal from Western Turkey

From hurriyetdailynews.com

8,000-year-old seal unearthed in western Turkey
Monday, September 20, 2010
İZMİR - Anatolia News Agency



The seal shows that the settlement in İzmir began
some 8,500 year ago.

 Archaeologists have unearthed a seal believed to be 8,000 years old during excavations in the Yeşilova Tumulus, one of the oldest settlements in western Turkey.

Associate Professor Zafer Derin, who has been leading the excavations from Ege University’s Department of Archaeology, said they found a historical artifact that proved that settlement in the western province of Izmir began some 8,500 years ago.

"The seal is dated back to 6,200 B.C. It is evident that the seal belonged to an administrator. [How so???] This bull[a]-shaped seal is one of the oldest seals ever unearthed in Anatolia. We’ve unearthed many important findings during the excavations at this site since 2005. Some 700 pieces have been sent to museums for display. We give 150 pieces every year. This region is very important in terms of both tourism and science," he said.

Bornova Mayor Kamil Okyar Sındır recalled that the area was a third-degree archaeological-protected site. "We have organized an architectural project competition for this area and a jury is now evaluating projects. When the project is chosen, we will establish an exhibition and education center. This structure will be a model for the world. Education workshops and seminars will be given in the center and people will learn about the history of İzmir and Bornova."

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Well, darlings, when I saw this seal my first thought was - eight-pointed star = Inanna! Yeah, she was a Sumerian Goddess (who was later incarnated into various other forms throughout the Middle East and ancient Egypt), but she came from somewhere, didn't she, just like the people who eventually settled in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers came from somewhere, too.

Review: Inanna and the Huluppu Tree

From The Miami Times Hey, I think this would go over really big in Vegas, baby... Playground Theatre's Inanna and the Huluppu Tree resurrects ancient myths By Brandon K. Thorp Published on December 15, 2009 . . . What Rhode Island should have — what every place should have — is an institution like Miami Shores' Playground Theatre. Currently running there is Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, a kids-appropriate bit of pagan revelry dredged up from the dawn of civilization — from the Sumerian Gilgamesh epic, specifically — and liberally adapted by Fernando Calzadilla and the theater's artistic director, Stephanie Ansin. And there's no sense denying it: Inanna and the Huluppu Tree is as pagan as pagan gets, and in the best possible way. It is full of color, noise, and pageantry and is infused with a sense of awe at the order of the cosmos that reflects both early humanity's cosmological thinking and the magic veil through which children see the world. It is a paean to the Earth, to the ancients, to imagination, and to magic — both the make-believe magic of childhood and the very real magic of make-believe, which the theater exists to create and celebrate. The show begins with a lavish scrim depicting the play's namesake goddess in stone relief. Behind it, priests chant the goddess's name along with booming, pre-recorded music that sounds as primeval as the sands of Mesopotamia. The priests are waiting for Gilgamesh, because today he is to be crowned king here, in the city of Uruk. But he's nowhere to be seen. Outside, the crowd — which, as it turns out, is composed of the kids assembled in the theater on the other side of the scrim — is getting restless. The priests summon the goddess Inanna (Caroline Sa) to help sort things out. When she appears, Inanna really does seem to descend from Heaven, her demesne, which is located in a smoke-filled, cavernous space somewhere above and beyond the stage. In turn, she summons her father, the moon god Nannausen (Armando Acevedo) and her brother, the sun god Utu (Noah Levine), who both arrive to great fanfare. Inanna wants to plant a huluppu tree at the steps of her temple in Uruk to nourish and bless the citizenry until Gilgamesh's arrival. (It is understood that this could take awhile: Gilgamesh has gone in search of the fruit of eternal life, which is notoriously difficult to find.) Inanna promises to look after the city while the tree grows. After receiving some dire warnings from her father, brother, and great-grandmother, Ninhursag (Melissa Almaguer, whose voice is piped through effects processors until every utterance sounds like a chorus of demons), Inanna plants her tree and bids goodbye to her fellow deities. Years pass, the tree grows, and the god of medicine, Ningizzida (Jeff Keogh), arrives. Seduced by the fruit, he gives up his life as a wandering healer and moves in to Inanna's temple. He is joined, ten years later, by Siduri, the goddess of merriment (Kristen Dawn McCorkle), and ten years after that by Anzu, the god of storms (Jesus Quintero). These deities come to think of the tree quite proprietarily and hoard the fruit for themselves. Inanna is troubled: The fruit was meant for the people of Uruk. Stymied and feeling a bit of self-loathing (her family had warned her that growing this tree might mean trouble for the city), she can't quite bring herself to act until Gilgamesh (Joshua Ritter) shows up in the play's final minutes. He devises a nonviolent solution to the problem, and everyone leaves happy. (Everyone except, perhaps, the sourpuss Ningizzida, who looks like he wouldn't know happy if it bit him on his big bald head.) Adults who accompany children to Inanna might have a hard time getting turned on by this plot, which is not only utterly G-rated but also devoid of the grownup-friendly double- and triple-entendres that have come to characterize kids' entertainment on film. But they can't help but get turned on by the Playground Theatre's eye-popping visuals — the crew's ability to import an atmosphere of mysticism and remote antiquity into a theater space that, pre-show, you'd think was too big and modern to seem like anything other than a big, modern theater. Thunderous music that sounds a lot like Dead Can Dance swells up from the theater's outsize PA with no warning. Assorted deities come and go in billows of smoke like you haven't seen since the last Kiss tour. Anzu, who looks like a cross between an ancient astronaut and the world's most ferocious chicken, blows an ear-splitting gale every time he opens his mouth. He, along with Siduri, fly around the set doing somersaults in the air. With Inanna, the Playground Theatre transports adults to a place where magic is a given. It cannot do the same for children, because the world of magic is one they already inhabit. What the Playground Theatre does for them, whether they know it or not, is make a promise: that one day, even after the long jading of growing up has taught them that the gods do not fly, that a city, no matter how divine, cannot be sustained by fruit, there is always a place beyond the footlights where those things can be true for a while.

The Goddess and the Palm Tree

From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." (Image: 12th century CE, Byzantine representation of Inanna, the Tree of Life -- a date palm) Palm Tree In the Babylonian myth of the primal garden, the palm tree was the Tree of Life, a dwelling-place of the Goddess Astarte. The Hebrew version of her name was Tamar, "Palm Tree."(1) Her male counterpart was Baal-Peor, or Phoenix, the god of Phoenicia whose name meant "Land of the Palm." As a phallic deity, Baal-Peor was symbolized by a palm tree between two large stones. Sexual orgies in the temple celebrated his union with the Goddess in Phoenicia and in Israel until priests of Yahweh killed the celebrants in the midst of their rites (Numbers 25:8): [Here's the story in the Bible, from the "Living Bible" translation: Numbers 25:1: While Israel was camped at Acacia, some of the young men began going to wild parties with the local Moabite girls. (2) These girls also invited them to attend the sacrifices to their gods, and soon the men were not only attending the feasts, but also bowing down and worshipping the idols. (3) Before long, all Israel was joining freely in the worship of Baal, the god of Moab; and the anger of the Lord was hot against his people. (4) He issued the following command to Moses: "Execute all the tribal leaders of Israel. Hang them up before the Lord in braod daylight, so that his fierce anger will turn away from the people." {such a kind, loving god, ahem...} 5) So Moses ordered the judges to execute all who had worshipped Baal. {If ALL of Israel was joining freely in the worship of Baal, who would be left to continue the nation of Israel after Moses had them all killed??? - What is being talked about here is the MEN of Israel, that is, dudes old enough to copulate.} (6) But one of the Israeli men insolently brought a Midianite girl into the camp, right before the eyes of Moses and all of the people, as they were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle. (7) When Phineas (son of Eleazor and grandson of Aaron the priest) saw this, he jumped up, grabbed a spear, (8) and rushed after the man into his tent, where he had taken the girl. He thrust the spear all the way through the man's body and into her stomach. So the plague was stopped, (9) but only after 24,000 people had already died. {Okay, so after ordering Moses to have his priests kill the Israelites because they had ALL SINNED, Yahweh changes his mind - without telling Moses - and decides to kill the Israelites more slowly, with a plague, and they were gathered around the Tabernacle praying for their lives as Yahweh was no doubt sitting on his throne up on Jupiter or wherever laughing his butt off; and then one Israelite dude decides to bring a girl into camp to screw in his tent, right under the eyes of everyone??? Yeah, right. If they were that stupid, it was better their genes were killed than passed on to children!

What I want to know is why the priests did not carry out Yahweh's orders to kill ALL of Israel immediately after the order was issued? Did their arms get tired? And is Moabite the same as Midianite? Moses MARRIED a Midianite woman himself!} (10, 11) Then the Lord said to Moses, "Phineas (son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest) {I guess the Lord had to let Moses know just who the good guy was in case Moses didn't understand which Phineas killed the bad guy and his gal} has turned away my anger for he was angry with my anger, and would not tolerate the worship of any God but me. So I have stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended. (12, 13) Now because of what he has done - because of his zeal for his God, and because he has made atonement for the people of Israel for what he did - I promise that he and his priests shall be priests forever." (14) The name of the man who was killed with the Midianite girl was Zimri, son of Salu, a leader of the tribe of Simeon. (15) The girl's name was Corbi, daughter of Zur, a Midianite prince. (Emphasis added). [Summary: Yahweh got his BLOOD SACRIFICE of both an Israelite prince and a Midianite princess, and thus his blood lust was temporarily satisfied. This is classic substitute king sacrifice, in this case, the "king" being Moses, who was raised in the Egyptian rites. Being a relatively new Hebrew religion, the priests added the "bad girl" into the blood sacrifice because she represented a much older tradition of the Temptress Goddess, which was a great threat to the upstart god Yahweh's authority, and therefore she had to be diminished in some way. What better way than to kill her off with a "spear" (phallic symbol) through her "stomach" (a euphenism for her female parts) while she was copulating with the sacrificial male victim, who himself was a substitute for the very same god that ordered his death?] Still, the feminine connotations of the palm tree remained. The Goddess was often embodied in a Mother-palm, giving the food of life in the form of coconut milk or dates. A complicated biblical myth shows Tamar the Palm-tree as the mother of a slain "firstborn of Judah;" and as a veiled sacred harlot decorated with the signet, staff, and bracelets of the nation of Judah; and as a widow (Crone) to whom offerings of goats were made; and as an idol "by the wayside," whom priests of Yahweh wanted to burn (Genesis 38). She gave birth to the rival twins Pharez and Zarah, Hebrew counterparts of Osiris and Set. The spirit of the palm tree was still the Great Mother in the tradition of early Christians, who gave the title of Holy Palm (Ta-Mari) to the virgin Mary.(2) Yet Egyptians continued to call a man's penis his "palm tree."(3) Notes: (1) Graves, W.G., 197. (2) Hughes, 55. (3) Book of the Dead, 518. Compare Ta-Mari to this Walker entry on Ta-Mera: "Land of Waters," an old name of Egypt. Mera or Mara was an archaic name for the Goddess of the primordial sea [thus, for instance, all those "Mares" {"sea of"} names on the face of the Moon and Mars - named by male scientists, by the way, lol!] In Egypt she was even coupled with the sun god as an androgynous deity, Meri-Ra. Among the meanings of Mera were such female symbols as a water-course, ditch, pit, sea, and lovingness.(1) Notes: (1) Budge, E.I., 76. ********************************************************************** Just why is it that female horses are called MARES, and in xiang qi (Chinese chess) the horse is called "ma?" It couldn't have anything to do with "sea horses," could it? And I'm not talking about those cute little critters one keeps in an aquarium. Staunton's model for his knight was reputedly the horses of the Elgin Marbles stolen from the Greek Parthenon. But we all know where the Greeks got their inspiration from...

Goddess Tanit

From Barbara Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets."

Tanit
Carthaginian name of the Phoenician Great Goddess, Astarte - the biblical Ashtoreth or Asherah. Her temple in Carthage was called the Shrine of the Heavenly Virgin. Greek and Roman writers called it a temple of the moon.(1)

Another of her titles was Astroarche, Queen of the Stars. Her priestesses were famous astrologers, whose prophecies were circulated throughout the Roman empire and even rivaled the pronouncements of the Cumaean sybils.(2)

Though Romans destroyed Carthage in the Punic Wars, Roman legend traced the very origin of Rome to the Carthanginian mother-city, as shown by the story of Aeneas, who came directly across the Mediterranean from there, to found Rome.(3) The primitive Roman queen Tanaquil, who conferred sovereignty on the "fatherless" Latin kings, the Tarquins, was none other than the Lybyan Goddess Tanit. She was also known as Libera, Goddess of Libya, whose festival the Liberalia was celebrated each year in Rome during the Ides of March.(4) An alternative name for the festival was Bacchanalis, dramatizing the love-death and resurrection of Bacchus Liber, or Dionysus, or Consus, which were various names for the same fertility god.(5)

The distinctive symbol of Tanit was a pyramidal shape, like a woman in a very full skirt, topped by a dis-shaped full-moon head, with upraised arms in the manner of the Egyptian ka.(6) Similar smbols represented such goddesses as Aphrodite, Athene, Venus, and Juno.

Notes:
(1) Reinach, 42.
(2) Lindsay, O.A., 327.
(3) Reinach, 106.
(4) G.R. Scott, 165.
(5) Graves, W.G., 399.
(6) Larousse, 84.
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Some personal observations: Tanit is on the order of the "Hannah/Anna" goddesses, great mother goddesses, previously posted about - I've got to get some kind of search engine installed at this blog! Think of the ka shape as a referee's arms signalling "touchdown!" That's the form.

Was Car the goddess of Carthage - that is, the same as the goddess Tanit?

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.

The Cult of Nania

Or "Give Us Our Nana Back." Rashid suggests that Nania or Nana was imported into ancient Mesopotamia from the Indus civilization, where she was Eanna or Inanna and, to the Assyrians, Ishtar. Perhaps the "unnamed brother" who may be a water god (see article) is Enki, and not a brother at all. From the Daily Times of Pakistan January 25, 2008 Footloose: Bibi Nani —Salman Rashid The cult of Nania, or Bibi Nani as we know her, is thus one of the oldest in the world: it has survived for over four thousand three hundred years. And so over the millenniums, caravans carrying trade and philosophy back and forth between Mesopotamia and the cities of the Sindhu Valley dispersed the name of this goddess across the countries Below a road bridge across a usually dry stream at the bottom end of the Bolan Pass there is a simple grave thickly draped with the prescription green satin of a holy burial. An untidy scrawl on a nearby rock tells visitors that this is Bibi Nani — Venerated Old Lady. For some peculiar reason, Bibi Nani never made it to the stardom of sainthood and remains a rather obscure sort of figure: there are no yarns of the miracles she wrought or the heathens she converted to the true faith. There is just one, rather insipid, tale, however. It was in the time of the Fire Worshippers that Bibi Nani and her brother (whose name remains unknown) came to this country to spread the word of Islam. But the kafir king would have none of that and he sent out his soldiers to bring in the pair in chains. As the holy brother and sister saw the kafir army bearing down, they fled. But at one point, despairing of ever getting away, they decided to split up. The soldiers chased the brother into the Bolan Pass and then when he was but a sword’s length from his pursuers, he calmly walked into the rock wall. Since that day he has been called Pir Ghaib — the Invisible Saint. An ancient spring of copious, tepid and slightly sulphurous water is believed to mark the spot where the saint walked into solid rock. This outflow cascades over a rock wall richly festooned with brown, blue and green lichens and splashes into a limpid pool below. Ten kilometres southwest of Mach, this setting is what any film producer would die for. Muslims attribute the water to Pir Ghaib and the Hindus to Mahadev or Shiva. On holidays adherents of both faiths co-mingle to celebrate their own deities. The nameless brother is celebrated because of the spring and has over time become a giver of sons. A tree outside the domed shrine near the spring is adorned with dozens of miniature cribs donated by parents whose prayers for sons were answered. Bibi Nani, buried under a road bridge some ten kilometres to the south of the spring, on the other hand, has no miracles attached to her. Nor indeed do we know how she died. Her tomb is simple and open to the sky. Only the sheets of green signify its importance. Several hundred miles to the south, on the Balochistan seaboard, there is another shrine once again worshipped by Hindus and Muslims alike. For the former Sri Mata Hinglaj is where one part of goddess Durga is buried; for the latter, it is the last resting place of Bibi Nani. Like Pir Ghaib, Hinglaj too is one delightful little spot on a subsidiary stream of the Hingol River. Here too palm and mulberry trees grow and birds sing in an otherwise arid setting. For the curious mind, there is no legend concerning Bibi Nani at either of the two places: she is simply the Venerated Lady. It is very interesting that both these Nani shrines lie athwart of ancient east-west highways connecting the subcontinent with Mesopotamia. One ran through Moen jo Daro and Mehrgarh, the other along the coast; the ancient precursor of the modern Coastal Highway. These were roads that we now know were in use as far back as the 9th millennium BCE. For the learned mind, the identity of Bibi Nani is no enigma: she is Nana or Nania, the goddess worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia and Persia. Back in the year 2280 BCE, Kudur-Nankhundi, king of Elam (southwest Persia), sacked the city of Erech in the kingdom of Ur (Mesopotamia). Among other treasures the victor carried away from Erech to his capital city of Susa was the highly revered idol of the goddess Nania. This was duly installed in an Elamite temple and worshipped. Such was the esteem for Nania among the people of Mesopotamia that for no less than one thousand six hundred years successive Mesopotamian kings smarting under the humiliation of that defeat and theft, vainly sought the recovery of the idol. It was only in the year 645 BCE that king Assurbanipal, taking advantage of the weakness of the Elamite kingdom, set out to right that ancient wrong. A bitter contest followed and after fourteen Elamite cities had been sacked, Susa fell to the Mesopotamians. The city was pillaged and trashed, but before that came to pass, the idol of Nania was preserved and restored to the temple of Erech. The cult of Nania, or Bibi Nani as we know her, is thus one of the oldest in the world: it has survived for over four thousand three hundred years. And so over the millenniums, caravans carrying trade and philosophy back and forth between Mesopotamia and the cities of the Sindhu Valley dispersed the name of this goddess across the countries. The name persisted in human memory in our part of the world (albeit with a slight modification) while in the west it was confined only to cuneiform tablets. The question then is why it was not forgotten in the Sindhu Valley. Mark Kenoyer, the renowned archaeologist who has worked on the Indus Civilisation tells us of the great traffic of trade, art, crafts and culture between our part of the world and Mesopotamia. And that the Sindhu Valley had some superior arts and culture to transfer to the west. I suspect that long before the king of Elam stole her statue from the temple at Erech, traders and craftsmen from the Sindhu Valley were carrying the cult of Nania westward to Mesopotamia. She was favoured there, became deeply entrenched in their pantheon and around her an entire cult grew. Of the cult we know from the multitude of cuneiform tablets that have been discovered and deciphered. But in her own home, the written word has been so scant as to defy interpretation. I tend to believe that Nania was known by the same name in her original temples in the cities of the Sindhu Valley. Over time as the great cities crumbled and were smothered by dust and a new culture took over, Nania changed form. Her name nonetheless persisted in a tiny corner of the collective human memory. And so the goddess of the unknown name who was worshipped thousands of years ago on the banks of the Sindhu became Nania or Nana to the ancient Mesopotamians and Bibi Nani to modern Pakistanis. As for Bibi Nani’s sibling whose name we do not know, he too seems to be an ancient deity worshipped for protecting sources of water. Eight thousand years ago, caravaners bound for Mesopotamia would have taken the six-kilometre detour off the Bolan Pass road to pay homage to this nameless saint at the spring that has never ceased to spew. Long afterwards the Hindus and then the Muslims appropriated the ancient god to call him Mahadev or Pir Ghaib.

Antiquities: The Hottest Investment

From Time.com By Maria Baugh Wednesday, December 12, 2007 The sculpture is just three and a half inches tall and looks like a female body-builder with a lion's head. But there's no question that the 1948 purchase of the "Guennol Lioness" by Alistair Bradley Martin was a brilliant investment. The 5,000 year-old piece of Mesopotamian religious art — presumably of Inanna, goddess of sex and war — was sold at auction by Sotheby's New York last week for a record-shattering $57.2 million. Found at an archaeological dig near Baghdad, it is an extremely rare representation of the goddess — known elsewhere as Ishtar — in animal form. She is one of the earliest of the gods whose names have survived through history. Before her sale, the most expensive piece of sculpture of any period sold at auction was a piece by Pablo Picasso which went for $29 million. The previous antiquities record was set by a Roman bronze which sold for $28 million. Such prices may scare away ordinary investors from even considering antiquities, which are defined as relics of ancient times that include coins, sculpture, tools, pottery and jewelry. among other objects. Can such objects even be a possibility for folks of much more modest means? The good news is that it is possible for the individual investor to buy antiquities — and for a surprisingly moderate sum. According to John Ambrose, founder and director of Fragments of Time, a Boston-area antiquities dealer, they're within even a modest investor's reach. "For under $10,000 a year you could acquire two to four quality objects with good provenance that you could expect would not only hold their value but increase in value over time," he says. In the past, the increase was anywhere from 8 to 9% annually, but in recent years that figure has gone up. Hicham Aboutaam, who is co-owner with his brother, Ali, of Phoenix Ancient Art in New York City and Geneva, attributes the increasing value to a couple of factors. For one, there is now a finite number of legitimate objects circulating in the U.S. due to more stringent art import legislation, enacted within the last few years. In addition, there is an increased interest in art and antiquities as investment. "People have started to appreciate the fact that this is a field where you can still get high quality objects for a fraction of what you would spend on a contemporary art object, where speculation is the biggest element determining value," he says. Ambrose agrees: "The art market has gained status as a respected asset class." So what should the novice collector know before jumping in and buying the first Greek vase they find? Ambrose advises that they study up on an era or object that they are truly interested in. He also suggests building rapport with a dealer. "A respected dealer will work with you...and they love to share their knowledge," he says. Aboutaam says that the new collector needs to understand the importance of the provenance, or history, of the object. "Check the authenticity of the piece. Who is selling it and who has seen it in terms of scholars or experts?" he says. "And it's crucial to get a condition report from a third party." Are there particular eras that the investor should look at now? "In terms of investments I do think there are still pockets of antiquities that are generally undervalued," says Ambrose, sounding as much like a stock broker as an art dealer. He lists Roman lamps, Roman bronze brooches, Greek pottery (especially south Italian Greek pottery) and Egyptian amulets, which, he says, are overlooked. "There can be fascinating intact examples," says Ambrose. And, no matter how ornate a stock certificate might be, an Egyptian amulet is always going to look better in your living room display case.