The most widely accepted proposal about the location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland is the steppe hypothesis, which puts the PIE homeland in the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 4000 BC. Another possibility is the Armenian hypothesis which situates the homeland south of the Caucasus.

The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European homeland suggests that Proto-Indo-European was spoken during the 5th–4th millennia BC in “eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia” – the Armenian Highland.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as small parts of northern Iran. The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures.

Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture which flourished in this area around 4000–2200 BC. Later on, in the middle Bronze Age period (c. 3000–1500 BC), the Trialeti culture emerged. Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

The earliest Shulaveri-Shomu culture existed in the area from 6000 to 4000 BC. The Kura-Araxes culture followed after. The flourishing stage of the Trialeti culture began near the end of the third millennium BC.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance. It is believed that this was the result of the migration of near-eastern tribes from Mesopotamia to South Caucasus, especially to Azerbaijan.

Discovery of Soyugbulaq in 2004 and subsequent excavations provided substantial proof that the practice of kurgan burial was well established in the South Caucasus during the late Eneolithic. The roots of the Leylatepe Archaeological Culture to which the Soyugbulaq kurgans belong to, stemmed from the Ubaid culture of Central Asia.

In 2006, a French–Azerbaijani team discovered nine kurgans at the cemetery of Soyuqbulaq. They were dated to the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, which makes it the oldest kurgan cemetery in Transcaucasia. Similar kurgans have been found at Kavtiskhevi, Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia.

Several other archaeological sites seem to belong to the same ancient cultural tradition as Soyuq Bulaq. They include Berikldeebi, Kavtiskhevi, Leilatepe, Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa, and are characterized by pottery assemblages “mainly or totally in the North Mesopotamian tradition”.

The Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium, B.C. and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus. A number of Maikop Culture kurgans and Soyugbulaq kurgans display the same northwest to southeast grave alignment.

More than that, Soyugbulaq kurgans yielded pottery forms identical to those recovered from the Maikop kurgans. These are the major factors attesting to the existence of a genetic link between the two cultures.

The excavation of these kurgans, located in Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia, demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC.

The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture.

The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, closely associated with subsequent civilizations found on the Armenian Highlands. This is evident with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets, which closely resemble Armenian tonirs.

In 2012, the important site of Galayeri, belonging to the Leyla-Tepe archaeological culture, was investigated. It is located in the Qabala District of modern day Azerbaijan. Galayeri is closely connected to early civilizations of Near East.

The Maykop culture (3700 BC–3000 BC) was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop kurgan in the Kuban River valley.

In the south, the Maykop culture bordered the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. To the north is the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent.

The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense.

Maykop inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments. The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time.

In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles.

The Yamnaya culture, also known as the Yamnaya Horizon, Yamna culture, Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC.

Its name derives from its characteristic burial traditionis that is ‘related to pits (yama)’, and these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.

The people of the Yamnaya culture were likely the result of a genetic admixture between the descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers[a] and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus. Their material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture.

They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo.

In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Genetic studies have also indicated that these populations derived large parts of their ancestry from the steppes. The Yamnaya culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans, and is the strongest candidate for the urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language.

Recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions of a Caucasian homeland for a ‘pre-proto-Indo-European’. It also lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions of a Caucasian homeland for a ‘proto-proto-Indo-European’. It also lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Haak et al. (2015) states that “the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility” since the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. Yet, they also state that “the question of what languages were spoken by the ‘Eastern European hunter-gatherers’ and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open.”

David Reich, in his 2018 publication Who We Are and How We Got Here, states that “the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia.

This because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians.” Nevertheless, Reich also states that some, if not most, of the Indo-European languages were spread by the Yamnaya people.

According to Kroonen et al. (2018), Damgaard et al. (2018), the Armenian Highland “show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population.” They further note that the earliest attestation of Anatolian names, in the Armi state, must be dated to 3000-2400 BCE, contemporaneous with the Yamnaya culture. They conclude that “a scenario in which the Anatolian Indo-European language was linguistically derived from Indo-European speakers originating in this culture can be rejected.”

They further note that this lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Wang et al. (2018) note that the Caucasus served as a corridor for gene flow between the steppe and cultures south of the Caucasus during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, stating that this “opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus.”

Kristian Kristiansen, in an interview with Der Spiegel in may 2018, stated that the Yamnaya culture may have had a predecessor at the Caucasus, where “proto-proto-Indo-European” was spoken.

The Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end; in some locations it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC.

Altogether, the early trans-Caucasian culture enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km, and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories, the Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), northwestern Iran, the northeastern Caucasus, eastern Turkey, and as far as Syria.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Kura–Araxes culture is sometimes known as Shengavitian, Karaz (Erzurum), Pulur, and Yanik Tepe (Iranian Azerbaijan, near Lake Urmia) cultures. It gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak-ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.

Nowadays scholars consider the Kartli area, as well as the Kakheti area (in the river Sioni region) as key to forming the earliest phase of the Kura–Araxes culture. To a large extent, this appears as an indigenous culture of Caucasus that was formed over a long period, and at the same time incorporating foreign influences.

Rather quickly, elements of Kura–Araxes culture started to proceed westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into the area of Lake Van, and below the Urmia basin in Iran, such as to Godin Tepe. Finally, it proceeded into the present-day Syria (Amuq valley), and as far as Palestine.

In the 3rd millennium B.C., one particular group of mounds of the Kura–Araxes culture is remarkable for their wealth. This was the final stage of culture’s development. These burial mounds are known as the Martqopi (or Martkopi) period mounds.

The Trialeti culture, also known as the Trialeti-Vanadzor [Kirovakan] culture, is named after the Trialeti region of Georgia and the city of Vanadzor, Armenia. It is attributed to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC.

Trialeti culture emerged in the areas of the preceding Kura-Araxes culture. This Early Kurgan period, known as Martkopi-Bedeni, has been interpreted as a transitional phase and the first stage of the Middle Bronze Age. Some scholars speculate that it was an Indo-European culture.

This stage of the Early Bronze Age seems to represent the final stage of the Kura-Araxes culture. According to recent dating, the transition to the Early Kurgan period was around the mid of the 3rd millennium — somewhat between the 27th to 24th century BC.

Geographical interconnectedness and links with other areas of the Near East are seen in many aspects of the culture. For example, a cauldron found in Trialeti is nearly identical to the one from Shaft Grave 4 of Mycenae in Greece. The Trialeti culture shows ties with the highly developed cultures of the ancient world, particularly with the Aegean, but also with cultures to the south and east.

Martqopi kurgans are somewhat similar, and are contemporary to the earliest among the Trialeti kurgans. Together, they represent the early stage of the Early Kurgan culture of Central Transcaucasia. This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of Proto-Indo-European. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery.

The Trialeti pottery style is believed to have developed into the Late Bronze Age Transcaucasian ceramic ware found throughout much of what is now eastern Turkey. This pottery has been connected to the expansion of the Mushki.

The Mushki (sometimes transliterated as Muški) were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi.

Two different groups are called Muški in Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to the 9th centuries BCE near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates (“Eastern Mushki”) and the other from the 8th to the 7th centuries BCE in Cappadocia and Cilicia (“Western Mushki”).

Earlier Assyrian sources clearly identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi. Identification of the Eastern Mushki with the Western Mushki is uncertain, but it is possible that at least some of the Eastern Mushki migrated to Cilicia in the 10th to the 8th centuries BCE.

Although almost nothing is known about what language the Eastern or Western Mushki spoke, they have been variously identified as being speakers of a Phrygian, Armenian, Anatolian, or Georgian language.

According to Igor Diakonoff, the Mushki were a Thraco-Phrygian group who carried their Proto-Armenian language from the Balkans across Asia Minor, mixing with Hurrians (and Urartians) and Luwians along the way.

However, despite Diakonoff’s claims, the connection between the Mushki and Armenian languages is unknown and some modern scholars have rejected a direct linguistic relationship if the Mushki were Thracians or Phrygians.

Additionally, genetic research does not support significant admixture into the Armenian nation after 1200 BCE, making the Mushki, if they indeed migrated from a Balkan or western Anatolian homeland during or after the Bronze Age Collapse, unlikely candidates for the Proto-Armenians.

However, as others have placed (at least the Eastern) Mushki homeland in the Armenian Highlands and South Caucasus region, it is possible that at least some of the Mushki were Armenian-speakers or speakers of a closely related language.

Ninḫursaĝ

Ninḫursaĝ, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess. Temple hymn sources identify her as the “true and great lady of heaven” (possibly in relation to her standing on the mountain) and kings of Sumer were “nourished by Ninhursag’s milk”.

Possibly included among the original mother goddesses was Damgalnuna (great wife of the prince) or Damkina (true wife), the consort of the god Enki. The mother goddess had many epithets including shassuru or ‘womb goddess’, tabsut ili ‘midwife of the gods’, ‘mother of all children’ and ‘mother of the gods’.

Sometimes her hair is depicted in an omega shape and at times she wears a horned head-dress and tiered skirt, often with bow cases at her shoulders. Frequently she carries a mace or baton surmounted by an omega motif or a derivation, sometimes accompanied by a lion cub on a leash. She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.

Hathor

The omega symbol is associated with the Egyptian cow goddess Hathor, and may represent a stylized womb. The symbol appears on very early imagery from Ancient Egypt. Hathor is at times depicted on a mountain, so it may be that she is connected with Ninhursag.

Hathor, a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles, was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree.

Images of the Hathor-cow with a child in a papyrus thicket represented her mythological upbringing in a secluded marsh. Goddesses’ milk was a sign of divinity and royal status. Thus, images in which Hathor nurses the pharaoh represent his right to rule.

As a sky deity, Hathor was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs.

Mentuhotep II, who became the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom despite having no relation to the Old Kingdom rulers, sought to legitimize his rule by portraying himself as Hathor’s son. The first images of the Hathor-cow suckling the king date to his reign, and several priestesses of Hathor were depicted as though they were his wives, although he may not have actually married them.

Cows are venerated in many cultures, including ancient Egypt, as symbols of motherhood and nourishment, because they care for their calves and supply humans with milk. Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she may not have appeared until the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC).

Images of cattle appear frequently in the artwork of Predynastic Egypt (before c. 3100 BC), as do images of women with upraised, curved arms reminiscent of the shape of bovine horns. Both types of imagery may represent goddesses connected with cattle.

The Gerzeh Palette, a stone palette from the Naqada II period of prehistory, shows the silhouette of a cow’s head with inward-curving horns surrounded by stars. The palette suggests that this cow was also linked with the sky, as were several goddesses from later times who were represented in this form: Hathor, Mehet-Weret, and Nut.

A bovine deity with inward-curving horns appears on the Narmer Palette, both atop the palette and on the belt or apron of the king, Narmer. It is suggested this deity may be Bat, a goddess who was later depicted with a woman’s face and inward-curling antennae, seemingly reflecting the curve of the cow horns.

Hathor was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra’s feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity.

Hathor was given the epithets “mistress of the sky” and “mistress of the stars”, and was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which the sun god sailed, and they connected it with the waters from which, according to their creation myths, the sun emerged at the beginning of time.

This cosmic mother goddess was often represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him between her horns. Like Nut, Hathor was said to give birth to the sun god each dawn.

Hathor’s Egyptian name was ḥwt-ḥrw or ḥwt-ḥr. It is typically translated “house of Horus” but can also be rendered as “my house is the sky”. The falcon god Horus represented, among other things, the sun and sky. The “house” referred to may be the sky in which Horus lives, or the goddess’s womb from which he, as a sun god, is born each day.

Hathor was often depicted as a cow bearing the sun disk between her horns, especially when shown nursing the king. She could also appear as a woman with the head of a cow. Her most common form, however, was a woman wearing a headdress of the horns and sun disk, often with a red or turquoise sheath dress, or a dress combining both colors.

Sometimes the horns stood atop a low modius or the vulture headdress that Egyptian queens often wore in the New Kingdom. Because Isis adopted the same headdress during the New Kingdom, the two goddesses can be distinguished only if labeled in writing.

When in the role of Imentet, Hathor wore the emblem of the west upon her head instead of the horned headdress. The Seven Hathors were sometimes portrayed as a set of seven cows, accompanied by a minor sky and afterlife deity called the Bull of the West.

Kamadhenu

Kamadhenu, also known as Surabhi, is a divine bovine-goddess described in Hinduism as Gou Mata (the mother of all cows). Kamadhenu is also known as Gayatri and is worshipped as a heavenly cow. She is a miraculous “cow of plenty” who provides her owner whatever he desires and is often portrayed as the mother of other cattle and gives health, wealth, happiness and growth in the life.

In iconography, she is generally depicted as a white cow with a female head and breasts, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a peafowl or as a white cow containing various deities within her body. All cows are venerated in Hinduism as the earthly embodiment of the Kamadhenu. As such, Kamadhenu is not worshipped independently as a goddess, and temples are not dedicated to her honor alone; rather, she is honored by the veneration of cows in general throughout the observant Hindu population.

Hindu scriptures provide diverse accounts of the birth of Kamadhenu. While some narrate that she emerged from the churning of the cosmic ocean, others describe her as the daughter of the creator god Daksha, and as the wife of the sage Kashyapa. Still other scriptures narrate that Kamadhenu was in the possession of either Jamadagni or Vashista (both ancient sages), and that kings who tried to steal her from the sage ultimately faced dire consequences for their actions.

Kamadhenu plays the important role of providing milk and milk products to be used in her sage-master’s oblations; she is also capable of producing fierce warriors to protect him. In addition to dwelling in the sage’s hermitage, she is also described as dwelling in Goloka – the realm of the cows – and Patala, the netherworld.

Gavaevodata

Gavaevodata is the Avestan language name of the primordial bovine of Zoroastrian cosmogony and cosmology, one of Ahura Mazda’s six primordial material creations and the mythological progenitor of all beneficent animal life.

The primordial beast is killed in the creation myth, but from its marrow, organs and cithra the world is repopulated with animal life. The soul of the primordial bovine – geush urvan – returned to the world as the soul of livestock. Although geush urvan is an aspect of the primordial bovine in Zoroastrian tradition, and may also be that in the Younger Avesta, the relationship between the two is unclear in the oldest texts.

Although Avestan gav- “cow” is grammatically feminine, the word is also used as a singular for the collective “cattle”. In English language translations Gavaevodata is often referred to in gender-neutral terms as “primordial ox”. Other translations refer to Gavaevodata as a bull. The -aevo.data of the name literally means “created as one” or “solely created” or “uniquely created”.

Gawi ewdad’s role in the creation myth runs as follows: During the first three-thousand year period, Ahura Mazda’s (Ormuzd) fashioned the bovine as His fourth or fifth of six primordial material creations.

At the beginning of the second three-thousand year period, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) attacked the world, and the Creator responded by placing the primordial plant, bovine, and human in the respective heavenly spheres of the stars, moon, and sun. But Ahriman assaulted the sky and Ormuzd fed the bovine “medicinal mang” (mang bēšaz) to lessen its suffering. The bovine immediately became feeble, and then died.

But as it lay dying its chihr was rescued and carried to “the moon station”. In the care of the moon, the chihr of the beast was purified and became the male and female pairs of the animals “of many species.”

After the bovine’s death, fifty-five kinds of grain and twelve kinds of medicinal plants grew from its marrow. In another passage, the Bundahishn speaks of sesame, lentils, leeks, grapes, mustard, and marjoram issuing from various other parts of its body. For example, lentils from the liver, and mustard from the lungs.

Goshorun (from Avestan geush urvan), the soul of the primordial bovine, escaped to the star, moon, and sun stations where she lamented the destruction of the world. She was not placated until Ormuzd shows her the fravashi of the yet-unborn Zoroaster (whose protection she would receive). Contented with the promise of protection, Goshorun then agreed to be “created back to the world as livestock.”

Damona

In Gallo-Roman religion, Damona was a goddess worshipped in Gaul as the consort of Apollo Borvo and of Apollo Moritasgus. Mary Jones interprets Damona’s name as “Divine Cow” based on its resemblance to damos or “cow”.

She has sometimes been linked with the Irish goddess Boand on the basis of this bovine association. Van Andringa describes Damona and Bormana as the patron deities of the hot springs at Bourbonne-les-Bains and Saint-Vulbas, respectively.

Some seventeen inscriptions dedicated to Damona have been recovered, including nine from Bourbonne-les-Bains and four from Bourbon-Lancy, both spa towns in eastern France. In one inscription from Saintes, she has the epithet Matubergini.

Boann

Boann or Boand (modern spelling: Bóinn) is the Irish goddess of the River Boyne, a river in Leinster, Ireland. According to the Lebor Gabála Érenn and Tain Bo Fraech she was the sister of Befind and daughter of Delbáeth, son of Elada, of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Her husband is variously Nechtan, Elcmar or Nuada Airgetlám. With her lover the Dagda, she is the mother of Aengus. In order to hide their affair, the Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months; therefore, Aengus was conceived, gestated and born in one day.

Her name is interpreted as “white cow” (Irish: bó fhionn; Old Irish: bó find) in the dinsenchas, where she is also called “White Boand”. Ptolemy’s 2nd century Geography shows that in antiquity the river’s name was Bouvinda, which may derive from Proto-Celtic *Bou-vindā, “white cow”. An alternate version of her name is given as Segais, hence Well of Segais. We are also told that Eithne was the wife of Elcmar and that another name for Eithne was Boand.

Auðumbla

In Norse mythology, Auðumbla is a primeval cow. The primordial frost jötunn Ymir fed from her milk, and over the course of three days she licked away the salty rime rocks and revealed Búri, grandfather of the gods and brothers Odin, Vili and Vé.

The creature is solely attested in the Prose Edda, composed in the 13th century by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. Scholars identify her as stemming from a very early stratum of Germanic mythology, and ultimately belonging to larger complex of primordial bovines or cow-associated goddesses.

Rudolf Simek highlights that Roman senator Tacitus’s first century CE work ethnography of the Germanic peoples Germania mentions that they maintained hornless cattle (see name section above), and notes that the Germania describes that an image of the Germanic goddess Nerthus was led through the countryside by way of a cattle-driven wagon.

Simek compares the deity to a variety of cow-associated deities among non-Germanic peoples, such as the Egyptian goddesses Hathor (depicted as cow-headed) and Isis (whose iconography contains references to cows), and the Ancient Greek Hera (described as ‘the cow-eyed’).

Amaltheia

In Greek mythology, Amaltheia is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. The name Amaltheia, in Greek “tender goddess”, is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of “Dikte”.

There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia. Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion (“Goat Mountain”), sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage (the daughter of Oceanus, Helios, Haemonius, or—according to Lactantius—Melisseus).

The possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions. Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, which appear in mythology handbooks, are simply duplicates of Amaltheia.

In the tradition represented by Hesiod’s Theogony, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth. The mother goddess Rhea, Zeus’ mother, deceived her brother consort Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped to look like a baby instead of Zeus. Since she instead gave the infant Zeus to Adamanthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete, it is clear that Adamanthea is a doublet of Amalthea.

Ganesha

Ganesha, also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, or by numerous other names, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. Though not alluding to the classical form of Ganapati,the earliest mention of Ganapati,is found in the Rigveda.

Ganapatya is a denomination of Hinduism that worships Ganesha (also called Ganapati) as the Saguna Brahman. Ganapati has been worshipped as part of Shaivism since at least the fifth century.

Ganesha’s rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya.

The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularised the “worship of the five forms” (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. He instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalised the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Hinduism, some Hindus chose Ganesha as their principal deity. The title “Leader of the group” (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today.

Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet ‘gaṇapati’, translated “Lord of the companies (of the Maruts).” However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha.

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha’s elephant head makes him easy to identify. Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

Some have noted the roots of Ganesha worship, dating back to 3,000 BCE since the times of Indus Valley Civilization. In 1993, a metal plate depiction of an elephant-headed figure, interpreted as Ganesha, was discovered in Lorestan Province, Iran, dating back to 1,200 BCE.

First terracotta images of Ganesha are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram, and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with an elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd–3rd centuries CE).

An early iconic image of Ganesha with elephant head, a bowl of sweets and a goddess sitting in his lap has been found in the ruins of the Bhumara Temple in Madhya Pradesh, and this is dated to the 5th-century Gupta period.

Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rites and ceremonies.

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana (gaṇa), meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha (īśa), meaning lord or master. The word gaṇa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaṇas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva, Ganesha’s father.

Hindu mythology identifies him as the restored son of Parvati and Shiva of the Shaivism tradition, but he is a pan-Hindu god found in its various traditions. The family includes his brother, the god of war, Kartikeya.

Ganesha’s marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One lesser-known and unpopular pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmachari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India.

Another popularly-accepted mainstream pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha’s wives.

He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktachandana) or red flowers.

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī and the Ganesh Jayanti (Ganesha’s birthday). The Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of Bhadra or Bhadrapada or Bhaado or Bhadraba that corresponds to August/September in the Gregorian calendar.

In India’s national civil calendar (Shaka calendar), Bhadra is the sixth month of the year, beginning on 23 August and ending on 22 September. In Vedic Jyotish, Bhadra begins with the Sun’s entry into Virgo, and is usually the fifth month of the year.

It is a Hindu festival celebrating the arrival of Ganesha to earth from ‘Kailash Parvat’ with his mother goddess Parvati/Gauri. Thereafter Ganesha is believed to return to Mount Kailash to Parvati and Shiva. The festival celebrates Lord Ganesha as the God of New Beginnings and the Remover of Obstacles as well as the god of wisdom and intelligence and is observed throughout India.

The Ganesh Jayanti is celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of magha (January/February).” Maagha is a month of the Hindu calendar. In India’s national civil calendar, it’s the eleventh month of the year, it corresponds with January/February in the Gregorian calendar. In solar calendars, Maagh begins with the Sun’s entry into Capricorn, and is usually the eleventh month of the year.

Kartikeya

Kartikeya, also called Murugan, Skanda, Kumara, and Subrahmanya, the Hindu god of war, is an ancient god, traceable to the Vedic era. Archaeological evidence from 1st-century CE and earlier, where he is found with Hindu god Agni (fire), suggest that he was a significant deity in early Hinduism.

Three of the six richest and busiest temples in Tamil Nadu are dedicated to him. He is also found in other parts of India, sometimes as Skanda, but in a secondary role along with Ganesha, Parvati and Shiva. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, after which worship of him declined significantly. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose.

There are ancient references which can be interpreted to be Kartikeya in the Vedic texts, in the works of Pāṇini (~500 BCE), in the Mahabhasya of Patanjali and in Kautilya’s Arthashastra For example, the term Kumara appears in hymn 5,2 of the Rig Veda. The Kumara of verse 5.2.1 can be interpreted as Skanda, or just any “boy”. However, the rest of the verses depict the “boy” as bright-colored, hurling weapons and other motifs that later have been associated with Skanda.

The difficulty with interpreting these to be Skanda is that Indra, Agni and Rudra are also depicted in similar terms and as warriors. According to Fred Clothey, the evidence suggests that Kartikeya mythology had become widespread sometime around 200 BCE or after in north India.

The Epic era literature of ancient India recite numerous legends of Kartikeya, often with his other names such as Skanda. For example, the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata dedicates chapters 223 to 232 to the legends of Skanda, but depicts him as the son of Agni and Svaha. Similarly, Valmiki’s Ramayana dedicates chapters 36 and 37 to Skanda, but describes him as the child of god Agni and goddess Ganges.

A totally different legend in the later books of the Mahabharata make Shiva and Parvati as the parents. They were making love, but they are disturbed, and Shiva inadvertently spills his semen on the ground. Shiva’s semen incubates in River Ganges, preserved by the heat of god Agni, and this fetus is born as baby Kartikeya on the banks of Ganges.

Kartikeya means “of the Krittikas”. This epithet is also linked to his birth. After he appears on the banks of the River Ganges, he is seen by the six of the seven brightest stars cluster in the night sky called Krittikas in Hindu texts (called Pleiades in Greek texts).

These six mothers all want to take care of him and nurse baby Kartikeya. Kartikeya ends the argument by growing five more heads to have a total of six heads so he can look at all six mothers, and let them each nurse one.

Some legend state that he was the elder son of Shiva, others make him the younger brother of Ganesha. This is implied by another legend connected to his birth.

Devas have been beaten up by Asuras led by Taraka, because Taraka had a boon from ascetic celibate yogi Shiva that only Shiva’s son can kill him. Devas learn about this boon, and plan how to get Shiva into a relationship. So they bring Parvati into the picture, have her seduce yogi Shiva, and wed Parvati so that Skanda can be born to kill Taraka.

His theology is most developed in the Tamil texts, and in the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition. He is considered the God of Tamil language and he is mentioned a lot in Tamil Sangam literature. The iconography of Kartikeya varies significantly; he is typically represented as an ever-youthful man, riding or near a peacock, dressed with weapons sometimes near a rooster.

Kartikeya iconography shows him as a youthful god, dressed as a warrior, carrying the weapon called Vel. It is a divine spear, often called sakti. According to Hindu mythology, Goddess Parvati presented the Vel to her son Murugan as an embodiment of her power in order to vanquish the evil asura Soorapadman.

According to the Skanda Purana, in the war between Murugan and Soorapadman, Murugan used the Vel to defeat all the evil forces of Soorapadman. When a complete defeat for Soorapadman was imminent, the asura transformed himself into a huge mango tree to evade detection by Murugan.

But not fooled by Asura’s trick, Murugan hurled his Vel and split the mango tree into two halves, one becoming Seval (a rooster) and the other Mayil (a peacock). Henceforth, the peacock became his vahana or mount and vehicle and the rooster became the emblem on his battle flag.

Kartikeya symbolizes a union of polarities. He is handsome warrior and described as a celibate yogi. He uses his creative martial abilities to lead an army against Taraka and other demons, and described as a philosopher-warrior.

He is a uniter, championing the attributes of both Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hinduism that reveres Shiva as the Supreme Being, and Vaishnavism, also called Vishnuism, who considers Vishnu as the Supreme Lord.

Kartikeya’s youth, beauty and bravery was much celebrated in Sanskrit works like the Kathasaritsagara. Kalidasa made the birth of Kumara the subject of a lyrical epic, the Kumārasambhava.

Many of the major events in Murugan’s life take place during his youth, and legends surrounding his birth are popular in Tamil Nadu. This has encouraged the worship of Murugan as a child-God, very similar to the worship of the child Krishna in north India.

According to Raman Varadara, Murugan or Kartikeya was originally a Tamil deity, who was adopted by north Indians. He was the god of war in the Dravidian legends, and became so elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent too.

In contrast, G. S. Ghurye states that according to the archeological and epigraphical evidence, the contemporary Murugan, Subrahmanya and Kartikeya is a composite of two influences, one from south and one from north in the form of Skanda and Mahasena.

He as the warrior-philosopher god was the patron deity for many ancient northern and western Hindu kingdoms, and of the Gupta Empire, according to Ghurye. After the 7th-century, Skanda’s importance diminished while his brother Ganesha’s importance rose in the west and north, while in the south the legends of Murugan continued to grow.

According to Norman Cutler, Kartikeya-Murugan-Skanda of South and North India coalesced over time, but some aspects of the South Indian iconography and mythology for Murugan have remained unique to Tamil Nadu. According to Fred Clothey, as Murugan (also referred to as Murugan, Cheyyon), he embodies the “cultural and religious whole that comprises South Indian Shaivism”.

Most icons show him with one head, but some show him with six heads reflecting the legend surrounding his birth where six mothers symbolizing the six stars of Pleiades cluster who took care of newly born baby Kartikeya. He grows up quickly into a philosopher-warrior, destroys evil in the form of demon Taraka, teaches the pursuit of ethical life and the theology of Shaiva Siddhanta.

Thai Poosam during January – February month is celebrated as a 6-day festival. Vaikasi Visakam day, (during May –June month), Kavadis and Palkudams are taken by devotees in procession around Chhedanagar. Skanda Sashti during October-November month is celebrated as a 6-day festival.

The Trimurti of the three Hindu Gods: Brahmā, Vishnu, and Shiva

Trimurti and Tridevi

The Trimurti of the three Hindu Gods: Brahmā, Vishnu, and Shiva (left to right) at Ellora Caves, an archaeological site, 29 km (18 mi) North-West of the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra built by the Rashtrakuta dynasty (753–982).

Shakta Upanishads are dedicated to the Trinity (Tridevi) of goddesses – Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati.

Trimurti

The Trimūrti (English: ‘three forms’; Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्तिः trimūrti), also known as Tri Murati or Trimurati, is the concept of Triple deity of supreme divinity in Hinduism in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified as a triad of deities, typically in the forms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver and Shiva the destroyer or transformer though individual denominations may vary from that particular line-up.

These three gods have been called “the Hindu triad” or the “Great Trinity”, often addressed as “Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara”, all having the same meaning of three in One. They are the different forms or manifestation of one person, the Supreme Being, or Narayana/Svayam Bhagavan (“The Lord Himself”) – a Sanskrit theological term for the concept of absolute representation of God as Bhagavan – The Supreme Personality who possesses all riches, all strength, all fame, all beauty, all knowledge and all renunciation.

When all three deities of the Trimurti incarnate into a single avatar, the avatar is known as Dattatreya. One type of depiction for the Trimurti shows three heads on one neck, and often even three faces on one head, each looking in a different direction.

Dattatreya, Dattā or Dattaguru or Duttatreya, is a God and paradigmatic Sannyasi (monk) and one of the lords of Yoga in Hinduism. In many regions of India and Nepal, he is considered a deity. In Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Gujarat, Dattatreya is considered to be an avatar (incarnation) of the three Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, collectively known as Trimurti. In other regions, and some versions of texts such as Garuda Purana, Brahma Purana and Sattvata Samhita, he is an avatar of Maha Vishnu.

His iconography varies regionally. In western Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, for example, he is typically shown with three heads and six hands, one head each for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and one pair of hands holding the symbolic items associated with each member of the Trimurti: The jaapmaala and water pot of Brahma, the conch and sudarshana chakra (discus) of Vishnu, and the trishula (trident) and two headed drum of Shiva. He is popularly depicted as a reclusive and ascetical saadhu living in a forest or wilderness, suggestive of his renunciation of worldly comforts and possessions, and pursuit of a meditative yogi lifestyle.

In paintings and some large carvings, he is surrounded by four dogs and a cow, the dogs are not symbols for the four Vedas but Duttaguru’s teaching of similitude and equality among all creatures especially animals, right from the pure and holy cow to the dog, the least and lowest of lifeforms in Hindu thought; this exegesis was put forward by a charismatic personality, the avtari purush (godman) of the Dattatreya lineage, Shri Ramakrishna Saraswati Kshirsagar Swamiji of Ambikapur (Ahmednagar).

The cow is adored and reverenced mainly in North India as a symbol of the Mother Earth who nourishes all living beings. In the temples of southern Maharashtra, Varanasi (Benares), and the Himalayas, his iconography shows him with one head and two hands, with four dogs and a cow.

According to Rigopoulos, in the Nath tradition of Shaivism, Dattatreya is revered as the Adi-Guru (First Teacher) of the Adinath Sampradaya of the Nathas, the first “Lord of Yoga” with mastery of Tantra (techniques), although most traditions and scholars consider Adi Nath an epithet of Shiva. His pursuit of simple life, kindness to all, sharing of his knowledge and the meaning of life during his travels is reverentially mentioned in the poems by Tukaram, a saint-poet of the Bhakti movement.

Over time, Dattatreya has inspired many monastic movements in Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism, particularly in the Deccan region of India, south India, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Himalayan regions where Shiva tradition has been strong.

According to Mallinson, Dattatreya is not the traditional guru of the Nath Sampradaya, he was coopted by the Nath tradition in about the 18th century as a guru, as a part of Vishnu-Shiva syncretism. This is evidenced by the Marathi text Navanathabhaktisara, states Mallinson, wherein there is syncretic fusion of the Nath Sampradaya with the Mahanubhava sect by identifying nine Naths with nine Narayanas.

Several Upanishads are dedicated to him, as are texts of the Advaita-Dvaita Vedanta-Yoga tradition in Hinduism. One of the most important texts of Advaita and Dvaita Vedantas, namely Avadhuta Gita (literally, “song of the free”) is attributed to Dattatreya. An annual festival in the Hindu calendar month of Mārgaśīrṣa (November/December) reveres Dattatreya and is called Datta Jayanti.

Bhagavān or Bhagwan is an epithet for deity, particularly for Krishna and other avatars of Lord Vishnu in Vaishnavism and for Lord Shiva in the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism. The term is used by Jains to refer to the Tirthankaras, particularly Mahavira and by Buddhists to refer to the Buddha in India.

In many parts of India and South Asia, Bhagavān represents the abstract concept of a universal God to Hindus that are spiritual and religious but do not worship a specific deity. The term Bhagavān does not appear in Vedas or in early or middle Upanishads. There is the use of “Bhag” Term in “Mundakopanishad”, but not for the term “God”. Even Ishwar word is not used in vedic scripture, except ishawasyopanishad.

The oldest Sanskrit texts use the term Brahman to represent an abstract Supreme Soul, Absolute Reality, while using names of deities like Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva to represent gods and goddesses. The term Ishvara appears in later Vedas and middle Upanishads where it is used to discuss spiritual concepts. The word Bhagavān is found in later Vedic literature, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Puranas.

In Bhakti school literature, the term is typically used for any deity to whom prayers are offered; for example, Rama, Ganesha, Kartikeya, Krishna, Shiva or Vishnu. A particular deity is often the devotee’s one and only Bhagavan. Bhagavan is male in Bhakti traditions, and the female equivalent of Bhagavān is Bhagavatī. To some Hindus, the word Bhagavan is an abstract, genderless God concept.

In Buddhism’s Pali scriptures, the term is used to denote Gautama Buddha, referring to him as Bhagavān Buddha (translated with the phrase ‘Lord Buddha’ or ‘The Blessed One’) and Bhagavān Shakyamuni. The term Bhagavān is also found in other Theravada, Mahayana and Tantra Buddhist texts.

According to the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna is termed Svayam Bhagavan which means God Himself. As stated in Bhagavata Maha Purana, Hindu Vedic Supreme God Parabrahman Adi Narayana (Maha Vishnu) appeared before Vasudeva and Devaki in his divine original four armed form before taking birth as Krishna. Vasudeva and Devaki after praising Vishnu, requested him to hide his divine form, which Maha Vishnu agreed to do, transforming himself into a small baby Krishna. According to this account, Krishna never took birth from the womb of His mother like a common baby.

Tridevi

The Tridevi (English: three goddesses; Sanskrit: त्रिदेवी, tridevī) is a concept in Hinduism joining a triad of eminent goddesses either as a feminine version of the Trimurti or as consorts of a masculine Trimurti, depending on the denomination. This triad is typically personified by the Hindu goddesses Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. In Shaktism, these triune goddesses are the manifestations of goddess Yogmaya also known by the names of Adi Parashakti, Devi.

In the Navaratri (“nine nights”) festival, “the Goddess is worshiped in three forms. During the first three nights, Parvati is revered, then Lakshmi on the fourth, fifth and sixth nights, and finally Saraswati until the ninth night.”

Whereas in androcentric denominations of Hinduism the feminine Tridevi goddesses are relegated as consorts and auxiliary deities to the more eminent masculine Trimurti gods, in the Shaktidharma denomination the feminine Tridevi goddesses are given the eminent roles of Creatrix (Mahasarasvati), Preservatrix (Mahalaxmi), and Destructrix (Mahakali), with the masculine Trimurti gods being relegated as the auxiliary deities as agents of the feminine Tridevi.

Shakti or Vimarsh is the power that is latent in pure consciousness, required to reach pure consciousness and essential to create, sustain and destroy. Just as Energy can never be created nor be destroyed, but changes from one form to another; Devi took many incarnations to do different tasks. God is both male and female. But all different forms of energy or powers of God are with the Trimurti in the form of Mahasaraswati, Mahalakshmi, and Mahakali.

That is to say, a non-dimensional God creates this world through Srishti-Shakti (Mahasaraswati or Sound or knowledge), preserves through Sthiti-Shakti (Mahalakshmi or Light or resources), and destroys through Samhara-Shakti (Mahakali or Heat or Strength). It is also seen that God cannot create, generate or destroy because God does not possess any attribute. So True Energy or Adi Shakti does everything on God’s behalf.

Shiva

Shiva meaning “The Auspicious One”, also known as Mahadeva (“Great God”), is a popular Hindu deity. Shiva is regarded as one of the primary forms of God. He is the Supreme God within Shaivism, one of the three most influential denominations in contemporary Hinduism. He is one of the five primary forms of God in the Smarta tradition, and “the Destroyer” or “the Transformer” among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.

Shiva has many benevolent and fearsome forms. At the highest level Shiva is limitless, transcendent, unchanging and formless. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash, as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya and in fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also regarded as the patron god of yoga and arts.

The main iconographical attributes of Shiva are the third eye on his forehead, the snake Vasuki around his neck, the crescent moon adorning, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the trishula as his weapon and the damaru as his instrument.

The Puranic period (c. CE 300-1200) saw the rise of post-Vedic religion and the evolution of what R. C. Majumdar calls “synthetic Hinduism.” This period had no homogeneity, and included orthodox Brahmanism in the form of remnants of older Vedic faith traditions, along with different sectarian religions, notably Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktismthat were within the orthodox fold yet still formed distinct entities. One of the important traits of this period is a spirit of harmony between orthodox and sectarian forms.

Regarding this spirit of reconciliation, R. C. Majumdar says that: It’s most notable expression is to be found in the theological conception of the Trimūrti, i.e., the manifestation of the supreme God in three forms of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva… But the attempt cannot be regarded as a great success, for Brahmā never gained an ascendancy comparable to that of Śiva or Viṣṇu, and the different sects often conceived the Trimūrti as really the three manifestations of their own sectarian god, whom they regarded as Brahman or Absolute.

Maurice Winternitz notes that there are very few places in Indian literature where the Trimurti is mentioned. The identification of Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma as one being is strongly emphasized in the Kūrma Purāṇa, where in 1.6 Brahman is worshipped as Trimurti; 1.9 especially inculcates the unity of the three gods, and 1.26 relates to the same theme.

Historian A. L. Basham explains the background of the Trimurti as follows, noting Western interest in the idea of trinity: Early western students of Hinduism were impressed by the parallel between the Hindu trinity and that of Christianity. In fact the parallel is not very close, and the Hindu trinity, unlike the Holy Trinity of Christianity, never really “caught on”.

All Hindu trinitarianism tended to favor one god of the three; thus, from the context it is clear that Kālidāsa’s hymn to the Trimūrti is really addressed to Brahmā, here looked on as the high god. The Trimūrti was in fact an artificial growth, and had little real influence.

Freda Matchett characterizes the Trimurti system as one of “several frameworks into which various divine figures can be fitted at different levels.” The concept of Trimurti is also present in the Maitri Upanishad, where the three gods are explained as three of his supreme forms.

Vishnu

Vishnu, also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. The “preserver” in the Trimurti, Vishnu is revered as the supreme being and identical to the metaphysical concept of Brahman (Atman, the self, or unchanging ultimate reality) in the Vaishnavism Tradition. Lakshmi is the wife of Vishnu.

He is notable for adopting various incarnations (avatars such as Rama and Krishna) to preserve and protect dharmic principles whenever the world is threatened with evil, chaos, and destructive forces. In the Smarta Tradition of Hinduism Vishnu is also one of the five equivalent deities worshipped in Panchayatana puja.

The Vishnu Sahasranama declares Vishnu as Paramatman (supreme soul) and Parameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as the all-pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past, present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who supports, preserves, sustains and governs the universe and originates and develops all elements within.

Though he is usually depicted as light blue, as are his incarnations some other depictions of Vishnu exist as green-bodied, and in the Kurma Purana he is described as colorless and with red eyes. In Hindu sacred texts, Vishnu is usually described as having the divine pale blue color of water-filled clouds and as having four arms.

He is depicted as holding a padma (lotus flower) in the lower left hand, a unique type of mace used in warfare known as a Kaumodaki gada in the lower right hand, a Panchajanya shankha (conch) in the upper left hand and a discus weapon Sudarshana Chakra in the upper right hand.

Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a ‘Universal Form’ (Vishvaroopa or Viraata Purusha) Vishvarupa which is beyond the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination. It is said that he owns five weapons (pancha ayudham): Sudarshanam, Panchajanyam, Komodaki, Nandakam, and Sharangam.

Adherents of Hinduism believe Vishnu’s eternal and supreme abode beyond the material universe is called Vaikuntha, which is also known as Paramdhama, the realm of eternal bliss and happiness and the final or highest place for liberated souls who have attained Moksha.

Vaikuntha is situated beyond the material universe and hence, cannot be perceived or measured by material science or logic. Vishnu’s other abode within the material universe is Ksheera Sagara (the ocean of milk), where he reclines and rests on Ananta Shesha, (the king of the serpent deities, commonly shown with a thousand heads).

In almost all Hindu denominations, Vishnu is either worshipped directly or in the form of his ten avatars, the most famous of whom are Rama and Krishna. The Puranabharati, an ancient text, describes these as the dashavatara, or the ten avatars of Vishnu. Among the ten described, nine have occurred in the past and one will take place in the future as Lord Kalki, at the end of Kali Yuga, (the fourth and final stage in the cycle of yugas that the world goes through).

These incarnations take place in all Yugas in cosmic scales; the avatars and their stories show that gods are indeed unimaginable, unthinkable and inconceivable. The Bhagavad Gita mentions their purpose as being to rejuvenate Dharma, to vanquish those negative forces of evil that threaten dharma, and also to display His divine nature in front of all souls.

Vishnu is also venerated as Mukunda, which means God who is the giver of mukti or moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirths) to his devotees or the worthy ones who deserve salvation from the material world.

Brahmā

Brahmā is the creator god in Hinduism. Brahmā’s wife is Saraswati, also known by names such as Sāvitri and Gāyatri. Being the husband of Saraswati or Vaac Devi (the Goddess of Speech), Brahma is also known as “Vaagish,” meaning “Lord of Speech and Sound.”

He is also known as Svayambhu (self-born) or the creative aspect of Vishnu, Vāgīśa (Lord of Speech), Vedanatha (god of Vedas), Gyaneshwar (god of Knowledge), Chaturmukha (having Four Faces), Brahmanarayana (half Brahma and half Vishnu) etc. He is the creator of the four Vedas, one from each of his mouths.

He is more prominently mentioned in the post-Vedic Hindu epics and the mythologies in the Puranas. In the epics, he is conflated with Purusha.  Although Brahma is part of the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva Trimurti, ancient Hindu scriptures mention multiple other trinities of gods or goddesses which do not include Brahma.

He does’nt enjoy popular worship in present-age Hinduism and has lesser importance than the other members of the Trimurti, Vishnu and Shiva. Several Puranas describe him as emerging from a lotus, connected to the navel of Lord Vishnu. Other Puranas suggest that he is born from Shiva or his aspects.

According to the Brahmā Purāņa, he is the father of Manu, and from Manu all human beings are descended. In the Rāmāyaņa and the Mahābhārata, he is often referred to as the progenitor or great grandsire of all human beings. He is not to be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit in Hindu Vedānta philosophy known as Brahman, which is genderless.

Brahma, along with other deities, is sometimes viewed as a form (saguna) of the otherwise formless (nirguna) Brahman, the ultimate metaphysical reality in Vedantic Hinduism. In an alternate version, some Puranas state him to be identified with or the father of the Vedic god Prajapati. He is also linked to Kama and Hiranyagarbha (the cosmic egg).

Prajapati (Prajāpati-Rajjan or Rajanya, “lord of creation and protector”). Prajapati connotes many different gods, depending on the Hindu text, ranging from being the creator god to being same as one of the following: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Agni, Indra, Vishvakarma, Bharata, Kapila and many others. According to George Williams, the inconsistent, varying and evolving Prajapati concept in Hindu mythology reflects the diverse Hindu cosmology.

Prajapati is a compound of “praja” (creation, procreative powers) and “pati” (lord, master). The term means “lord of creatures”, or “lord of all born beings”. In classical and medieval era literature, Prajapati is equated to the metaphysical concept called Brahman as Prajapati-Brahman (Svayambhu Brahman), or alternatively Brahman is described as one who existed before Prajapati.

In the later Vedic texts, Prajapati is a distinct Vedic deity, but whose significance diminishes. Later, the term is synonymous with other gods, particularly Brahma or Vishnu or Shiva. Still later, the term evolves to mean any divine, semi-divine or human sages who create something new.

The origins of Prajapati are unclear. He appears late in the Vedic layer of texts, and the hymns that mention him provide different cosmological theories in different chapters. He is missing from the Samhita layer of Vedic literature, conceived in the Brahmana layer, states Jan Gonda.

Prajapati is younger than Savitr, and the word was originally an epithet for the sun. His profile gradually rises in the Vedas, peaking within the Brahmanas. Scholars such as Renou, Keith and Bhattacharji posit Prajapati originated as an abstract or semi-abstract deity in the later Vedic milieu as speculations evolved from the archaic to more learned speculations.

A possible connection between Prajapati (and related figures in Indian tradition) and the Prōtogonos (lit. “first-born”) of the Greek Orphic tradition has been proposed. Protogonos is the Orphic equivalent of Vedic Prajapati in several ways: he is the first god born from a cosmic egg, he is the creator of the universe, and in the figure of Dionysus— a direct descendant of Protogonos—worshippers participate in his death and rebirth.

According to Robert Graves, the name of /PRA-JĀ[N]-pati/ (‘progeny-potentate’) is etymologically equivalent to that of the oracular god at Colophon (according to Makrobios), namely /prōtogonos/. The cosmic egg concept linked to Prajapati and Protogonos is common in many parts of the world, states David Leeming, which appears in later Orphic cult in Greece.

Parvati

Parvati, or in her demon-fighting aspect, Kali, is the goddess of power, beauty, love, and spiritual fulfillment, as well as consort of Shiva, the destroyer of evil or transformer. She also represents the transformational power of divinity, the power that dissolves the multiplicity of the Hindu gods into their unity. She is a direct incarnation of Adi Parashakti.

Parvati, Uma or Gauri is the Hindu goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, children, and devotion; as well as of divine strength and power. “Parama” means absolute, “Satya” means “Truth” as per many Shakta texts. She is the Mother goddess in Hinduism, and has many attributes and aspects. Each of her aspects is expressed with a different name, giving her over 100 names in regional Hindu stories of India.

She is the daughter of the mountain king Himavan and queen Mena, and the wife of Shiva – the protector, the destroyer (of pure evil) and regenerator of the universe and all life. She is the divine energy between a man and a woman, like the energy of Shiva and Shakti. The Puranas also referenced her to be the sister of the preserver god Vishnu.

With Shiva, Parvati is a central deity in the Shaiva sect. In Hindu belief, she is the recreative energy and power of Shiva, and she is the cause of a bond that connects all beings and a means of their spiritual release. In Hindu temples dedicated to her and Shiva, she is symbolically represented as the argha.

She is one of the central deities of the Goddess-oriented Shakta sect. She is also one of the five equivalent deities worshipped in Panchayatana puja of the Smarta Tradition of Hinduism. Known by many other names, she is the gentle and nurturing aspect of the Supreme Hindu goddess Adi Parashakti.

It is also believed that Goddess Parvati is the complete and direct incarnation of Adi Parashakti. The Devi-Bhagavata Purana states that Adi Parashakti (Shivasakthi) is the original creator, observer and destroyer of the whole universe.

Durga, identified as Adi Parashakti, considered the Supreme Being in the Shaktism sect of Hinduism, and popularly referred to as “Parama Shakti”, “Adi Shakti”, “Maha Shakti”, “Mahadevi”, “Mahagauri, “Mahasaraswati”, “Mahalakshmi”, “Mahakali” Satyam Shakti or even simply as “Shakti”, is a principal and popular form of the Hindu Goddess.

She is a goddess of war, the warrior form of Parvati, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity, and Dharma the power of good over evil. Durga is also a fierce form of the protective mother goddess, who unleashes her divine wrath against the wicked for the liberation of the oppressed, and entails destruction to empower creation.

Durga is depicted in the Hindu pantheon as a Goddess riding a lion or tiger, with many arms each carrying a weapon, often defeating Mahishasura (lit. buffalo demon). She is a central deity in Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, where she is equated with the concept of ultimate reality called Brahman. She is revered after spring and autumn harvests, specially during the festival of Navratri.

One of the most important texts of Shaktism is Devi Mahatmya, also known as Durgā Saptashatī or Chandi patha, which celebrates Durga as the goddess, declaring her as the supreme being and the creator of the universe. Estimated to have been composed between 400 and 600 CE, this text is considered by Shakta Hindus to be as important a scripture as the Bhagavad Gita.

The three principal forms of Durga worshiped are Maha Durga, Chandika and Aparajita. Of these, Chandika has two forms called Chandi who is of the combined power and form of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati and of Chamunda who is a form of Kali created by the goddess for killing demons Chanda and Munda.

Maha Durga has three forms: Ugrachanda, Bhadrakali and Katyayani. Of these, Bhadrakali Durga is also worshiped in the form of her nine epithets called Navadurga (lit. Nine forms of Durga), which are nine manifestations of the goddess Durga in Hinduism, especially worshipped during the festival of Navratri where each of the nine manifested forms are venerated respectively for each night.

Navaratri is a Hindu festival that spans nine nights (and ten days) and is celebrated every year in the autumn. It is observed for different reasons and celebrated differently in various parts of the Indian cultural sphere.

Theoretically, there are four seasonal Navaratri. However, in practice, it is the post-monsoon autumn festival called Sharada Navaratri that is the most observed in the honor of the divine feminine Devi (Durga). The festival is celebrated in the bright half of the Hindu calendar month Ashvin, which typically falls in the Gregorian months of September and October.

Celebrations include stage decorations, recital of the legend, enacting of the story, and chanting of the scriptures of Hinduism. In all cases, the common theme is the battle and victory of Good over Evil based on a regionally famous epic or legend such as the Ramayana or the Devi Mahatmya.

The nine days are also a major crop season cultural event, such as competitive design and staging of pandals, a family visit to these pandals and the public celebration of classical and folk dances of Hindu culture.

On the final day, called the Vijayadashami or Dussehra, the statues are either immersed in a water body such as river and ocean, or alternatively the statue symbolizing the evil is burnt with fireworks marking evil’s destruction.

The festival also starts the preparation for one of the most important and widely celebrated holidays, Diwali, the festival of lights, which is celebrated twenty days after the Vijayadashami or Dussehra or Dashain.

Lakshmi

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, fertility, and material fulfillment, as well as consort of Vishnu, the maintainer or preserver. However, Lakshmi does not signify mere material wealth, but also abstract prosperity, such as glory, magnificence, joy, exaltation, and greatness. She is the wife of Vishnu. She is also considered as the daughter of Durga in Bengali Hindu culture.

Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, good fortune, prosperity and beauty. Lakshmi in Sanskrit is derived from the root word lakṣ and lakṣa, meaning to perceive, observe, know, understand and goal, aim, objective respectively.  These roots give Lakshmi the symbolism: know and understand your goal. A related term is lakṣaṇa, which means sign, target, aim, symbol, attribute, quality, lucky mark, auspicious opportunity.

The image, icons, and sculptures of Lakshmi are represented with symbolism. Her name is derived from Sanskrit root words for knowing the goal and understanding the objective. She is depicted in Indian art as an elegantly dressed, prosperity-showering golden-coloured woman with an owl as her vehicle, signifying the importance of economic activity in maintenance of life, her ability to move, work and prevail in confusing darkness.

Her four arms are symbolic of the four goals of humanity that are considered good in Hinduism – dharma (pursuit of ethical, moral life), artha (pursuit of wealth, means of life), kama (pursuit of love, emotional fulfillment) and moksha (pursuit of self-knowledge, liberation).

She typically stands or sits like a yogin on a lotus pedestal and holds a lotus in her hand, symbolizing fortune, self-knowledge and spiritual liberation. Her iconography shows her with four hands, which represent the four goals of human life considered important to the Hindu way of life: dharma, kāma, artha and moksha.

Archaeological discoveries and ancient coins suggest the recognition and reverence for Lakshmi by the 1st millennium BCE. Her iconography and statues have also been found in Hindu temples throughout Southeast Asia, estimated to be from the second half of the 1st millennium CE. The festivals of Diwali and Sharad Purnima (Kojagiri Purnima) are celebrated in her honor.

She is also called Sri or Thirumagal because she is endowed with six auspicious and divine qualities, or gunas, and is the divine strength of Vishnu. In Hindu religion, she was born from the churning of the primordial ocean (Samudra manthan) and she chose Vishnu as her eternal consort.

When Vishnu descended on the Earth as the avatars Rama and Krishna, Lakshmi descended as his respective consort as Sita and Radha ,Rukmini. In the ancient scriptures of India, all women are declared to be embodiments of Lakshmi. The marriage and relationship between Lakshmi and Vishnu as wife and husband is the paradigm for rituals and ceremonies for the bride and groom in Hindu weddings.

Lakshmi is also an important deity in Jainism and found in Jain temples. She has also been a goddess of abundance and fortune for Buddhists, and was represented on the oldest surviving stupas and cave temples of Buddhism. In Buddhist sects of Tibet, Nepal and Southeast Asia, goddess Vasudhara mirrors the characteristics and attributes of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi with minor iconographic differences.

Saraswati

Saraswati is the goddess of learning, arts, and cultural fulfillment, as well as consort of Brahma, the creator. She is cosmic intelligence, cosmic consciousness, and cosmic knowledge. She is the Hindu goddess of wisdom, knowledge, learning, music, art and cultural fulfillment. She is cosmic intelligence, cosmic consciousness, and cosmic knowledge. She is the consort of Brahmā, the creator god in Hinduism.

In Shanti Parva of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Saraswati is called the mother of the Vedas, and later as the celestial creative symphony who appeared when Brahma created the universe. She has taken different forms throughout history. She is usually depicted near a flowing river or another body of water, which depiction may constitute a reference to her early history as a river goddess.

Saraswati is often depicted as a beautiful woman dressed in pure white, often seated on a white lotus, which symbolizes light, knowledge and truth. She not only embodies knowledge but also the experience of the highest reality. Her iconography is typically in white themes from dress to flowers to swan – the colour symbolizing Sattwa Guna or purity, discrimination for true knowledge, insight and wisdom.

The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a goddess is in the Rigveda. She has remained significant as a goddess from the Vedic period through modern times of Hindu traditions. The Goddess is also revered by believers of the Jain religion of west and central India, as well as some Buddhist sects.

Some Hindus celebrate the festival of Vasant Panchami (the fifth day of spring, and also known as Saraswati Puja and Saraswati Jayanti in so many parts of India) in her honour, and mark the day by helping young children learn how to write the letters of the alphabet on that day.

World’s first temple?

Mardin

The territory of Mardin and Karaca Dağ was known as Izalla in the Bronze Age and originally part of a Hurrian (Armenian) kingdom. The Hurrians were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian and lived in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia. The Elamites gained control around 2230 BCE and were followed by the Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans and Byzantines.

The city and its surrounds were absorbed into Assyria proper during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC), and then again during the Neo Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC). Mardin comes from the Syriac word and means “fortresses”.

During the medieval period, the town (which retained significant Assyrian and Armenian populations) became the centre for episcopal sees of Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Church of the East, Syriac Catholic, churches, as well as a stronghold of the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose patriarchal see was headquartered in the nearby Saffron Monastery from 1034 to 1924.

During World War I Mardin was one of the sites affected by the Armenian Genocide. During the armed conflicts and plights caused by the war, many were sent to the Ras al-‘Ayn Camps, though some managed to escape to the Sinjar Mountain with help from local Chechens. Kurds and Arabs of Mardin typically refer to these events as “fırman” (government order), while Syriacs call it “seyfo” (sword).

After the Armistice of Mudros Mardin was one of the Turkish cities that was not occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers. In 1923, with the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Mardin was made the administrative capital of a province named after it. Many Assyrian survivors of the violence later on left Mardin for nearby Qamishli in the 1940s after their conscription in the Turkish military became compulsory.

The local Assyrians/Syriacs, while very reduced due to the massacres of the Assyrian Genocide and conflicts between the Kurds and Turks, hold on to two of the oldest monasteries in the world, Dayro d-Mor Hananyo (Turkish Deyrülzafaran, English Saffron Monastery) and Deyrulumur Monastery. The Christian community is concentrated on the Tur Abdin plateau and in the town of Midyat, with a smaller community in the provincial capital.

Urkesh or Urkish (modern Tell Mozan) is a tell, or settlement mound, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It was founded during the fourth millennium BC possibly by the Hurrians on a site which appears to have been inhabited previously for a few centuries.

Urkesh was an ally of the Akkadian Empire through what is believed to have been a dynastic marriage tradition. Tar’am-Agade the daughter of the Akkadian king, Naram-Sin, is believed to have been married to the king of Urkesh. During the early second millennium BC the city passed into the hands of the rulers of Mari, a city a few hundred miles to the south.

The king of Urkesh became a vassal (and apparently an appointed puppet) of Mari. The people of Urkesh evidently resented this, as the royal archives at Mari provide evidence of their strong resistance; in one letter, the king of Mari tells his Urkesh counterpart that “I did not know that the sons of your city hate you on my account. But you are mine, even if the city of Urkesh is not.”

In the middle of the millennium, Tell Mozan was the location of a Mitanni religious site. The city appears to have been largely abandoned circa 1350 BC, although the reason for this is unknown to archaeologists at this time.

The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. Their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. The present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians.

It is unknown what language was spoken by the peoples of Urartu at the time of the existence of the kingdom, but there is linguistic evidence of contact between the proto-Armenian language and the Urartian language at an early date (sometime between the 3rd—2nd millennium BC), occurring prior to the formation of Urartu as a kingdom.

The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but went into gradual decline and was eventually conquered by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC. The geopolitical region would re-emerge as Armenia shortly after. Being heirs to the Urartian realm, the earliest identifiable ancestors of the Armenians are the peoples of Urartu.

In the 6th century BC, with the emergence of Armenia in the region, the name of the region was simultaneously referred to as variations of Armenia and Urartu. In the trilingual Behistun Inscription, carved in 521 or 520 BC by the order of Darius I, the country referred to as Urartu in Akkadian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in the Elamite language.

Armenian language

The most widely accepted proposal about the location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland is the steppe hypothesis, which puts the PIE homeland in the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 4000 BC. Another possibility is the Armenian hypothesis which situates the homeland south of the Caucasus.

The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European homeland suggests that Proto-Indo-European was spoken during the 5th–4th millennia BC in “eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia” – the Armenian Highland.

Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups.

Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian) and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek (centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (satem subgroup).

Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages. While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that the hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language.

W. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was an early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages, based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels.

There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian, although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well.

Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonov identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms.

Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage.

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-third millennium BC.

Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek (s > h).

Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into proto-Greek/Phrygian and “Armeno-Aryan” (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian).

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists for the Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands, the “Armenian hypothesis” that suggests that Proto-Indo-European was spoken during the 5th–4th millennia BC in “eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia”.

Armenian Highland

Recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions of a Caucasian homeland for a ‘proto-proto-Indo-European’. It also lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Haak et al. (2015) states that “the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility” since the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. Yet, they also state that “the question of what languages were spoken by the ‘Eastern European hunter-gatherers’ and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open.”

David Reich, in his 2018 publication Who We Are and How We Got Here, states that “the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians.”

Nevertheless, Reich also states that some, if not most, of the Indo-European languages were spread by the Yamnaya people. According to Kroonen et al. (2018), Damgaard et al. (2018) “show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population.”

They further note that the earliest attestation of Anatolian names, in the Armi state, must be dated to 3000-2400 BCE, contemporaneous with the Yamnaya culture, concluding that “a scenario in which the Anatolian Indo-European language was linguistically derived from Indo-European speakers originating in this culture can be rejected.”

They further note that this lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Wang et al. (2018) note that the Caucasus served as a corridor for gene flow between the steppe and cultures south of the Caucasus during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, stating that this “opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus.”

Kristian Kristiansen, in an interview with Der Spiegel in may 2018, stated that the Yamnaya culture may have had a predecessor at the Caucasus, where “proto-proto-Indo-European” was spoken.

Mushki

The Mushki (sometimes transliterated as Muški) were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Earlier Assyrian sources clearly identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, but later Greek sources then distinguish between the Phrygians and the Moschoi.

Two different groups are called Muški in Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to the 9th centuries BCE near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates (“Eastern Mushki”) and the other from the 8th to the 7th centuries BCE in Cappadocia and Cilicia (“Western Mushki”).

Identification of the Eastern Mushki with the Western Mushki is uncertain, but it is possible that at least some of the Eastern Mushki migrated to Cilicia in the 10th to the 8th centuries BCE. Although almost nothing is known about what language the Eastern or Western Mushki spoke, they have been variously identified as being speakers of a Phrygian, Armenian, Anatolian, or Georgian language.

The Eastern Mushki appear to have moved into Hatti in the 12th century BC, completing the downfall of the collapsing Hittite state (already largely annexed by Assyria), along with various Sea Peoples. They established themselves in a post-Hittite kingdom in Cappadocia.

Together with the Urumeans and Kaskas (Apishlu), they attempted to invade the Middle Assyrian Empire’s Anatolian provinces of Alzi and Puruhuzzi in about 1160 BC, but they were pushed back and subjugated by Ashur-Dan I. In 1115 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I conquered as far as Milid.

Whether they moved into the core Hittite areas from the east or west has been a matter of some discussion by historians. Some speculate that they may have originally occupied a territory in the area of Armenia; alternatively, ancient accounts suggest that they first arrived from a homeland in the west (as part of the Phrygian migration), from the region of Troy, or even from as far as Macedonia, as the Bryges.

According to Igor Diakonoff, the Mushki were a Thraco-Phrygian group who carried their Proto-Armenian language from the Balkans across Asia Minor, mixing with Hurrians (and Urartians) and Luwians along the way. However, despite Diakonoff’s claims, the connection between the Mushki and Armenian languages is unknown and some modern scholars have rejected a direct linguistic relationship if the Mushki were Thracians or Phrygians.

Additionally, genetic research does not support significant admixture into the Armenian nation after 1200 BCE, making the Mushki, if they indeed migrated from a Balkan or western Anatolian homeland during or after the Bronze Age Collapse, unlikely candidates for the Proto-Armenians. However, as others have placed (at least the Eastern) Mushki homeland in the Armenian Highlands and South Caucasus region, it is possible that at least some of the Mushki were Armenian-speakers or speakers of a closely related language.

It’s been speculated that the Mushki were connected to the spread of the so-called Transcaucasian ceramic ware, which appeared as far west as modern Elazig, Turkey in the late second millennium BCE. This ceramic ware is believed to have been developed in the South Caucasus region, possibly by the Trialeti-Vanadzor culture originally, which suggests an eastern homeland for the Mushki.

Trialeti culture

The Trialeti culture, also known as the Trialeti-Vanadzor [Kirovakan] culture, is named after the Trialeti region of Georgia and the city of Vanadzor, Armenia. It is attributed to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. This Early Kurgan period, known as Martkopi-Bedeni, has been interpreted as a transitional phase and the first stage of the Middle Bronze Age. Some scholars speculate that it was an Indo-European culture.

The flourishing stage of the Trialeti culture began near the end of the third millennium BC. According to recent dating, the transition to the Early Kurgan period was around the mid of the 3rd millennium — somewhat between the 27th to 24th century BC.

Trialeti culture emerged in the areas of the preceding Kura-Araxes culture. It is speculated that it was an Indo-European culture. The Trialeti culture shows ties with the highly developed cultures of the ancient world, particularly with the Aegean, but also with cultures to the south and east.

Trialeti-Vanadzor painted monochrome and polychrome pottery is very similar to that in the other areas of the Near East. In particular, similar ceramics are known as Urmia ware (named after Lake Urmia in Iran). Also, similar pottery was produced by the Uzarlik culture, and the Karmirberd-Sevan culture.

Martqopi kurgans are somewhat similar, and are contemporary to the earliest among the Trialeti kurgans. Together, they represent the early stage of the Early Kurgan culture of Central Transcaucasia. This Early Kurgan period, known as Martkopi-Bedeni, has been interpreted as a transitional phase and the first stage of the Middle Bronze Age.

This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of Proto-Indo-European. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery.

The Trialeti culture was known for its particular form of burial. The elite were interred in large, very rich burials under earth and stone mounds, which sometimes contained four-wheeled carts. Also there were many gold objects found in the graves. These gold objects were similar to those found in Iran and Iraq.

This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of Proto-Indo-European. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery.

In a historical context, their impressive accumulation of wealth in burial kurgans, like that of other associated and nearby cultures with similar burial practices, is particularly noteworthy. This practice was probably a result of influence from the older civilizations to the south in the Fertile Crescent.

The Trialeti pottery style is believed to have developed into the Late Bronze Age Transcaucasian ceramic ware found throughout much of what is now eastern Turkey. This pottery has been connected to the expansion of the Mushki.

Shaft Grave

Geographical interconnectedness and links with other areas of the Near East are seen in many aspects of the Trialeti culture. For example, a cauldron found in Trialeti is nearly identical to the one from Shaft Grave 4 of Mycenae in Greece.

This burial complex, known as Grave Circle A, was initially constructed outside the walls of Mycenae and ultimately enclosed in the acropolis when the fortification was extended during the 13th century BC.

Grave Circle A, a 16th-century BC royal cemetery situated to the south of the Lion Gate, the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae in southern Greece, and Grave Circle B, the latter found outside the walls of Mycenae, represents one of the significant characteristics of the early phase of the Mycenaean civilization.

Catacomb culture

The Catacomb culture (c. 2800–2200 BC) is a group of related cultures in the early Bronze Age occupying essentially what is present-day eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. The culture applied cord-imprinted decorations to its pottery and shows a profuse use of the polished battle axe, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East.

It was preceded by the Yamnaya culture. The Catacomb culture in the Pontic steppe was succeeded in the west by the Multi-cordoned ware culture from c. 22nd century BC, and the Srubna culture from c. the 17th century BC.

The name Catacomb culture comes from its burial practices. These are similar to those of the Yamnaya culture, but with a hollowed-out space off the main shaft, creating the “catacomb”. Animal remains were incorporated into a small minority of graves.

In certain graves there was the distinctive practice of what amounts to modelling a clay mask over the deceased’s face, creating an obvious if not necessarily correct association to the famous gold funeral mask of Agamemnon, a gold funeral mask discovered at the ancient Greek site of Mycenae.

The origin of the Catacomb culture is disputed. Jan Lichardus gives three possibilities: a local development departing from the previous Yamnaya Culture only, a migration from Central Europe, or an oriental origin.

The culture is first to introduce corded pottery decorations into the steppes and shows a profuse use of the polished battle axe, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East.

The language of the Catacomb culture must naturally remain unknown. Within the context of the Kurgan hypothesis expounded by Marija Gimbutas, an Indo-European component is speculated about, particularly in the later stages. Placing the ancestors of the Greek, Albanian and Armenian (perhaps Paleo-Balkan) dialects here is tempting, as it would neatly explain certain shared features.

More recently, the Ukrainian archaeologist V. Kulbaka has argued that the Late Yamnaya cultures of c. 3200–2800 BC might represent the Balkan-Indo-European-“Iranian” ancestors, and the Catacomb culture (to c. 2500 BC) that of the then still unified Indo-Iranians. However, according to recent glottochronological computations, these splits occurred much earlier.

Grigoryev’s (1998) version of the Armenian hypothesis connects Catacomb culture with Indo-Aryans, because catacomb burial ritual had roots in South-Western Turkmenistan from the early 4th millennium (Parkhai cemetery).[citation needed] The same opinion is supported by Leo Klejn in his various publications.

Kura-Araxes culture

This stage of the Early Bronze Age seems to represent the final stage of the Kura-Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture, a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC. The earliest Shulaveri-Shomu culture existed in the area from 6000 to 4000 BC. The Kura-Araxes culture followed after.

The Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end; in some locations it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC.

Some scholars have suggested that the earliest manifestation of the Kura-Araxes phenomenon should be dated at least to the last quarter of the 5th millennium BC. This is based on the recent data from Ovçular Tepesi, a Late Chalcolithic settlement located in Nakhchivan by the Arpaçay river.

Altogether, the early trans-Caucasian culture enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km, and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories, the Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), northwestern Iran, the northeastern Caucasus, eastern Turkey, and as far as Syria.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Kura–Araxes culture is sometimes known as Shengavitian, Karaz (Erzurum), Pulur, and Yanik Tepe (Iranian Azerbaijan, near Lake Urmia) cultures. It gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak-ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.

Nowadays scholars consider the Kartli area, as well as the Kakheti area (in the river Sioni region) as key to forming the earliest phase of the Kura–Araxes culture. To a large extent, this appears as an indigenous culture of Caucasus that was formed over a long period, and at the same time incorporating foreign influences.

Rather quickly, elements of Kura–Araxes culture started to proceed westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into the area of Lake Van, and below the Urmia basin in Iran, such as to Godin Tepe. Finally, it proceeded into the present-day Syria (Amuq valley), and as far as Palestine.

In the 3rd millennium B.C., one particular group of mounds of the Kura–Araxes culture is remarkable for their wealth. This was the final stage of culture’s development. These burial mounds are known as the Martqopi (or Martkopi) period mounds.

Inhumation practices are mixed. Flat graves are found but so are substantial kurgan burials, the latter of which may be surrounded by cromlechs. This points to a heterogeneous ethno-linguistic population. Here one can come to the conclusion that the Kura–Araxes culture developed gradually through a synthesis of several cultural traditions, including the ancient cultures of the Caucasus and nearby territories.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture

Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as small parts of northern Iran. The culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures.

Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture which flourished in this area around 4000–2200 BC. Later on, in the middle Bronze Age period (c. 3000–1500 BC), the Trialeti culture emerged. Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

The earliest Shulaveri-Shomu culture existed in the area from 6000 to 4000 BC. The Kura-Araxes culture followed after. The flourishing stage of the Trialeti culture began near the end of the third millennium BC.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

The Leyla-Tepe culture

The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance. It is believed that this was the result of the migration of near-eastern tribes from Mesopotamia to South Caucasus, especially to Azerbaijan.

The earliest kurgans date to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus, and researchers associate these with the Indo-Europeans. Kurgans were built in the Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Antiquity and Middle Ages, with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia.

Discovery of Soyugbulaq in 2004 and subsequent excavations provided substantial proof that the practice of kurgan burial was well established in the South Caucasus during the late Eneolithic. The roots of the Leylatepe Archaeological Culture to which the Soyugbulaq kurgans belong to, stemmed from the Ubaid culture of Central Asia.

In 2006, a French–Azerbaijani team discovered nine kurgans at the cemetery of Soyuqbulaq. They were dated to the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, which makes it the oldest kurgan cemetery in Transcaucasia. Similar kurgans have been found at Kavtiskhevi, Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia.

Several other archaeological sites seem to belong to the same ancient cultural tradition as Soyuq Bulaq. They include Berikldeebi, Kavtiskhevi, Leilatepe, Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa, and are characterized by pottery assemblages “mainly or totally in the North Mesopotamian tradition”.

The Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium, B.C. and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus. A number of Maikop Culture kurgans and Soyugbulaq kurgans display the same northwest to southeast grave alignment.

More than that, Soyugbulaq kurgans yielded pottery forms identical to those recovered from the Maikop kurgans. These are the major factors attesting to the existence of a genetic link between the two cultures.

The excavation of these kurgans, located in Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia, demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC.

The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.).

The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, closely associated with subsequent civilizations found on the Armenian Highlands. This is evident with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets, which closely resemble Armenian tonirs.

In 2012, the important site of Galayeri, belonging to the Leyla-Tepe archaeological culture, was investigated. It is located in the Qabala District of modern day Azerbaijan. Galayeri is closely connected to early civilizations of Near East.

Maykop culture

It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.

The Maykop culture (3700 BC–3000 BC) was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop kurgan in the Kuban River valley.

In the south, the Maykop culture bordered the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. To the north is the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent.

The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense.

Maykop inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments. The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time.

In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles.

Yamnaya culture

The Yamnaya culture, also known as the Yamnaya Horizon, Yamna culture, Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC.

Its name derives from its characteristic burial traditionis that is ‘related to pits (yama)’, and these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.

The people of the Yamnaya culture were likely the result of a genetic admixture between the descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers[a] and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus. Their material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture.

They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo.

In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Genetic studies have also indicated that these populations derived large parts of their ancestry from the steppes. The Yamnaya culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans, and is the strongest candidate for the urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language.

Subartu

The land of Subartu (Akkadian Šubartum/Subartum/ina Šú-ba-ri, Assyrian mât Šubarri) or Subar (Sumerian Su-bir4/Subar/Šubur) is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as Subari in the Amarna letters, and, in the form Šbr, in Ugarit. Some scholars have linked a district in the area, Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia.

Subartu was apparently a kingdom in Upper Mesopotamia, at the upper Tigris and later it referred to a region of Mesopotamia. From the point of view of the Akkadian Empire, Subartu marked the northern geographical horizon, just as Amurru, Elam and Sumer marked “west”, “east” and “south”, respectively.

Most scholars suggest that Subartu is an early name for Assyria proper on the Tigris and westward, although there are various other theories placing it sometimes a little farther to the east and/or north. Its precise location has not been identified.

However, the name Shupria was used to describe an area corresponding to modern eastern Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, and the Shuprians appear to have been a component of the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people.

The Sumerian mythological epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (Armenia) lists the countries where the “languages are confused” as Subartu, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (Akkad), and the Martu land (the Amorites). Similarly, the earliest references to the “four quarters” by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, and Sumer.

Eannatum of Lagash was said to have smitten Subartu or Shubur, and it was listed as a province of the empire of Lugal-Anne-Mundu; in a later era Sargon of Akkad campaigned against Subar, and his grandson Naram-Sin listed Subar along with Armani, which has been identified with Aleppo, among the lands under his control. Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Hammurabi also claimed victories over Subar.

The name Subartu is often regarded as the source of, or even synonymous with, the later kingdom of Shupria (Shubria), which is mentioned as in records from the 13th millennium BC. The Subartians, Hurri-Mitanni, Hayasa-Azzi, Nairi and other populations of the region, fell under Urartian rule in the 9th century BC. Their descendants contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Armenians.

Medieval Islamic scholars, relying on ancient sources, claimed that the people of Subar (Subartu or Shupria) and the Armani (Armenians) had shared ancestry. These scholars include the 17th century Ottoman traveller and historian Evliya Çelebi (Derviş Mehmed Zillî) in his most important work “Seyāḥat-nāme”(Book IV, Chapter 41).

Armani

Armani, (also given as Armanum) was an ancient kingdom mentioned by Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin of Akkad as stretching from Ibla (which might or might not be Ebla) to Bit-Nanib; its location is heavily debated, and it continued to be mentioned in later Assyrian inscriptions.

First mentioned as the land of Armani by Sargon, Naram-Sin boasted about his victory and destruction of the city. He gives a detailed account of the siege and the capture of Armani’s king in one of his inscriptions. Armani was later mentioned amongst the cities that rebelled against Naram-Sin.

During its final years, Ebla—in alliance with Nagar and Kish—conducted a great military expedition against Armi and occupied it. Armi wasn’t mentioned after the destruction of Ebla. Many theories have been proposed for this destruction.

Armi, was an important Bronze Age city-kingdom during the late third millennium BC located in northern Syria. Giovanni Pettinato describes Armi as Ebla’s alter ego. However, the relations between the two cities is complicated, for it wasn’t always peaceful: the texts of Ebla mention the exchange of gifts between the kings but also wars between the two kingdoms.

Historian Michael C. Astour believes that the destruction of Ebla and Armi would have happened c. 2290 BC during the reign of Lugal-zage-si of Sumer, whose rule coincided with Sargon of Akkad’s first years.

King Naram-Sin of Akkad mentions that he conquered Armanum and Ib-la and captured the king of Armanum, the similarities between the names led historian Wayne Horowitz to identify Armanum with Armi. If Armi was in fact Armanum mentioned by Naram-Sin, then the event can be dated to c. 2240 BC.

According to Astour the Armanum mentioned in the inscriptions of Naram-Sin is not the same city as the Eblaite Armi, as Naram-Sin makes it clear that the Ebla he sacked (c. 2240 BC) was a border town of the land of Arman, while the Armi in the Eblaite tablets is a vassal to Ebla and (according to Astour), the Syrian Ebla would have been burned in 2290 BC (based on the political map given in the Eblaite tablets) long before the reign of Naram-Sin.

New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution

For years, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists have struggled to explain the existence of menopause, a life stage that humans do not share with our primate relatives. Why would it be beneficial for females to stop being able to have children with decades still left to live? Now, a computer simulation supports the idea that grandmothers helped our species evolve social skills and longer lives.

In Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology, the Wise Old Woman and the Wise Old Man are archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. ‘The “wise old woman”…[or] helpful “old woman” is a well-known symbol in myths and fairy tales for the wisdom of the eternal female nature’. The ‘Wise Old Man, or some other very powerful aspect of eternal masculinity’ is her male counterpart.

In Jung’s thought, the individuation process was marked by a sequence of archetypes, each acquiring predominance at successive stages, and so reflecting what he termed an ascending psychic scale or ‘hierarchy of the unconscious’.

Thus, starting with the intermediate position of ‘anima or animus…just as the latter have a higher position in the hierarchy than the shadow, so wholeness lays claim to a position and a value superior’ still. The Wise Old Woman and Man, as what he termed “Mana” personalities or “supraordinate” personalities, stood for that wholeness of the self: ‘the mother (“Primordial Mother” and “Earth Mother”) as a supraordinary personality…as the “self”‘.

As von Franz put it, ‘If an individual has wrestled seriously and long enough with the anima (or animus) problem, so that he, or she, is no longer partially identified with it, the unconscious again changes its dominant character and appears in a new symbolic form representing the Self, the innermost nucleus of the personality.

In the dreams of a woman this centre is usually personified as a superior female figure – a priestess, sorceress, earth mother, or goddess of nature or love. In the case of a man, it manifests itself as a masculine initiator and guardian (an Indian guru), a wise old man, a spirit of nature and so forth’.

The masculine initiator was described by Jung as ‘a figure of the same sex corresponding to the father-imago…the mana-personality [a]s a dominant of the collective unconscious, the recognized archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits’. Similarly, ‘the wise Old Woman figure represented by Hecate or the Crone …the Great Mother’ stood for an aspect of the mother-imago.

The archetypes of the collective unconscious can thus be seen as inner representations of the same-sex parent – as an ‘imago built up from parental influences plus the specific reactions of the child’. Consequently, for the Jungian, ‘the making conscious of those contents which constitute the archetype of the mana personality signifies therefore “for the man the second and true liberation from the father, for the woman that from the mother, and therewith the first perception of their own unique individuality”‘.

In Jung’s view, ‘all archetypes spontaneously develop favourable and unfavourable, light and dark, good and bad effects’. Thus ‘the “good Wise Man” must here be contrasted with a correspondingly dark, chthonic figure’, and in the same way, the priestess or sibyl has her counterpart in the figure of ‘the witch…called by Jung the “terrible mother”‘. Taken together, male and female, ‘The hunter or old magician and the witch correspond to the negative parental images in the magic world of the unconscious’.

But judgement of such collective archetypes must not be hasty. ‘Just as all archetypes have a positive, favourable, bright side that points upwards, so also they have one that points downwards, partly negative and unfavourable, partly chthonic’ – so that (for example) ‘the sky-woman is the positive, the bear the negative aspect of the “supraordinate personality”, which extends the conscious human being upwards into the celestial and downwards into the animal regions’.

Yet both aspects, celestial and chthonic, were (at least potentially) of equal value for Jung, as he sought for what he termed a “coniunctio oppositorum”, a union of opposites. ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light’, he argued, ‘but by making the darkness conscious’. Similarly with respect to the goal of the individuation process itself, ‘as a totality, the self is a coincidentia oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither’. At this stage of development one possesses discernment or some other virtue.

Coming to terms with the Mana figures of the collective unconscious – with the parental imagos – thus meant overcoming a psychic splitting, so as to make possible an acceptance of ‘the Twisted side of the Great Mother’; an acceptance of the way ‘the father contains both Kings at once…the Twisted King and the Whole King’.

The name Hannahanna derives from the Akkadian (Sumerian), Hebrew and Hittite-Hurrian roots: “(Inanna) (Ḥannāh) (hannas)”, meaning “grandmother”. Hannas, in Hittite-Hurrian mythology, is a “mother goddess” related to or influenced by the pre-Sumerian goddess “Inanna”, and is similar in name to the Biblical Hannah, mother of Samuel. In fact, in the Czech language, the name is translated “channa-channa” directly from the Hebrew “Channâh”.

Ḫannaḫanna (from Hittite ḫanna- “grandmother”) is a Hurrian Mother Goddess related to or influenced by the Sumerian goddess Inanna. Ḫannaḫanna was also identified with the Hurrian goddess Hebat (Eva), the mother goddess of the Hurrians known as «Mother of all Living» and «Queen of Heaven». The mother goddess is likely to have had a later counterpart in the Phrygian goddess Cybele.

Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations dated to the 6th millennium BC and identified by some as a mother goddess.

She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its national deity. In Phrygian art of the 8th century BC, the cult attributes of the Phrygian mother-goddess include attendant lions, a bird of prey, and a small vase for her libations or other offerings. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC.

She was readily assimilated to the Minoan-Greek earth-mother Rhea, “Mother of the gods”, whose raucous, ecstatic rites she may have acquired. As an exemplar of devoted motherhood, she was partly assimilated to the grain-goddess Demeter, whose torchlight procession recalled her search for her lost daughter, Persephone.

In Greece, as in Phrygia, she was a “Mistress of animals” (Potnia Therōn), with her mastery of the natural world expressed by the lions that flank her, sit in her lap or draw her chariot. Inara, the daughter of Hebat and the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt, was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe. She corresponds to the “potnia theron” of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis.

The mother goddess Hannahanna promises Inara land and a man during a consultation by Inara. Soon after, Inara went missing and when Ḫannaḫanna was informed of this by the Storm-god’s bee, she apparently began a search with the help of her female attendant.

The story resembles that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, in Greek myth. Apparently, like Demeter, Ḫannaḫanna disappears for a while in a fit of anger and while she is gone, cattle and sheep are stifled and mothers, both human and animal, take no account of their children.

As the Hittite kingdom expanded, the cults of the various peoples of Anatolia, all of whom had their own religious traditions and local gods, were incorporated into the Hittite system. Interference between these theological systems resulted at times in gender change: the male Hattic/Hittite ruler of the underworld Lelwani became female under Hurrian influence and was identified with the Hurrian goddess of the underworld, Allani. The Hattic goddess Kait, the deity of vegetation, became the Hittite god Halki (Grain).

Important goddesses of the Hattic pantheon were the two sun-goddesses, the sun-goddess of the sky, Wurunshemu, the consort of storm-god, and the sun-goddess of the earth (or the netherworld). The name of the sun-goddess of the earth in both Hattic and Hittite is unknown while in late Hittite texts she was referred to by the Hurrian designation Allani. Next in importance was Inar (Hittite: Inara), a young warlike goddess, the protective deity of the land. In addition to being a goddess of the wild animals, she was said to have power over fields and floods.

At the head of the Hittite pantheon were the storm-god and the sun-goddess of Arinna, identified with Hattic Wurunshemu. A mother goddess, Hannahanna (Grandmother), was a wise old woman, skilled in healing and childbirth, whose advice was regularly sought by other gods in the old Hittite vanishing god myths. Two important groups of goddesses were the Gulsh(esh) goddesses of fate and the mother goddesses. Kamrushepa, the Luwian goddess of healing, was responsible for the curing of earthly and heavenly diseases and illnesses.

In the sanctuary at Yazilikaya, a procession of the chief divinities of the Hurrianized Hittite pantheon was carved on its walls: one procession of gods on the western wall and another procession of goddesses on the eastern, with the principal deities meeting in the center. This monument provides an affirmation of the symmetry and equal importance of the gods and goddesses.

According to apocryphal Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. The story bears a similarity to that of the birth of Samuel, whose mother Hannah (Hebrew: Ḥannāh “favour, grace”; etymologically the same name as Anne) had also been childless.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Hannah is ascribed the title Forebear of God,[citation needed] and both the Nativity of Mary and the Presentation of Mary are celebrated as two of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church. The Dormition of Hannah is also a minor feast in Eastern Christianity. In Lutheran Protestantism, it is held that Martin Luther chose to enter religious life as an Augustinian friar after crying out to St. Anne while endangered by lightning.

Origin of the Letter N and the name Nina

Her Cyclopedia: The Goddess Anne

The Goddess Hannahannas – holladay paganism

Goddess Worship: Goddess Worship in the Ancient near East

Hittite Kinship A~ID Marriage

Armenians have traditional clothing for women called “taraz”. There are varieties of tarazes from different regions of the country that are decorated with Armenian ethnic ornaments. The same is with traditional jewelries that are made of silver, and based on the ornaments. Getting familiar with tarazes and traditional jewelry will help you to have already a notable background on Armenian culture.

Not a long time ago, there was a woman called Lusik Aguletsi, a famous painter and ethnographer, who used to walk in the streets of Yerevan wearing traditional clothing and jewelry. Since she was almost the only one in modern Armenia to follow “old Armenian fashion”, she became famous in the town.

Lusik Aguletsi’s house-museum is located in one of the suburbs of Yerevan, but you do not have to spend much time to get there. This is the house where Ms. Lusik used to live until a year ago. Entering her house is the same as entering an ancient Armenian house. It feels like stepping into another world. Those who visit it feel the warmth of hospitality that was created by Lusik Aguletsi.

At Lusik Aguletsi house-museum you will get a warm welcome from the hosts and have a chance to spend a fantastic time in a very traditional place. Here you can find traditional interior and decoration attributes. There are separate parts of the house where personal items of Aguletsi are represented, such as different belts, necklaces and other jewelry, clothes, bags, carpets and rugs, head-wearings and so on.

The majority of the items are hand-made. Besides the above-mentioned ones, there are also hand-made dolls, paintings, and everything that one should have at the house, but the difference is that the ones you see here are traditional and impressive. If traditional garments impress you and you want to buy something with the same motives, you can order the modern interpretation of it at the Teryan cultural center in Yerevan.

New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution

Jungian Archetypes

For years, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists have struggled to explain the existence of menopause, a life stage that humans do not share with our primate relatives. Why would it be beneficial for females to stop being able to have children with decades still left to live? Now, a computer simulation supports the idea that grandmothers helped our species evolve social skills and longer lives.

In Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology, the Wise Old Woman and the Wise Old Man are archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. ‘The “wise old woman”…[or] helpful “old woman” is a well-known symbol in myths and fairy tales for the wisdom of the eternal female nature’. The ‘Wise Old Man, or some other very powerful aspect of eternal masculinity’ is her male counterpart.

In Jung’s thought, the individuation process was marked by a sequence of archetypes, each acquiring predominance at successive stages, and so reflecting what he termed an ascending psychic scale or ‘hierarchy of the unconscious’.

Thus, starting with the intermediate position of ‘anima or animus…just as the latter have a higher position in the hierarchy than the shadow, so wholeness lays claim to a position and a value superior’ still. The Wise Old Woman and Man, as what he termed “Mana” personalities or “supraordinate” personalities, stood for that wholeness of the self: ‘the mother (“Primordial Mother” and “Earth Mother”) as a supraordinary personality…as the “self”‘.

As von Franz put it, ‘If an individual has wrestled seriously and long enough with the anima (or animus) problem, so that he, or she, is no longer partially identified with it, the unconscious again changes its dominant character and appears in a new symbolic form representing the Self, the innermost nucleus of the personality.

In the dreams of a woman this centre is usually personified as a superior female figure – a priestess, sorceress, earth mother, or goddess of nature or love. In the case of a man, it manifests itself as a masculine initiator and guardian (an Indian guru), a wise old man, a spirit of nature and so forth’.

The masculine initiator was described by Jung as ‘a figure of the same sex corresponding to the father-imago…the mana-personality [a]s a dominant of the collective unconscious, the recognized archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits’. Similarly, ‘the wise Old Woman figure represented by Hecate or the Crone …the Great Mother’ stood for an aspect of the mother-imago.

The archetypes of the collective unconscious can thus be seen as inner representations of the same-sex parent – as an ‘imago built up from parental influences plus the specific reactions of the child’. Consequently, for the Jungian, ‘the making conscious of those contents which constitute the archetype of the mana personality signifies therefore “for the man the second and true liberation from the father, for the woman that from the mother, and therewith the first perception of their own unique individuality”‘.

In Jung’s view, ‘all archetypes spontaneously develop favourable and unfavourable, light and dark, good and bad effects’. Thus ‘the “good Wise Man” must here be contrasted with a correspondingly dark, chthonic figure’, and in the same way, the priestess or sibyl has her counterpart in the figure of ‘the witch…called by Jung the “terrible mother”‘. Taken together, male and female, ‘The hunter or old magician and the witch correspond to the negative parental images in the magic world of the unconscious’.

But judgement of such collective archetypes must not be hasty. ‘Just as all archetypes have a positive, favourable, bright side that points upwards, so also they have one that points downwards, partly negative and unfavourable, partly chthonic’ – so that (for example) ‘the sky-woman is the positive, the bear the negative aspect of the “supraordinate personality”, which extends the conscious human being upwards into the celestial and downwards into the animal regions’.

Yet both aspects, celestial and chthonic, were (at least potentially) of equal value for Jung, as he sought for what he termed a “coniunctio oppositorum”, a union of opposites. ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light’, he argued, ‘but by making the darkness conscious’. Similarly with respect to the goal of the individuation process itself, ‘as a totality, the self is a coincidentia oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither’. At this stage of development one possesses discernment or some other virtue.

Coming to terms with the Mana figures of the collective unconscious – with the parental imagos – thus meant overcoming a psychic splitting, so as to make possible an acceptance of ‘the Twisted side of the Great Mother’; an acceptance of the way ‘the father contains both Kings at once…the Twisted King and the Whole King’.

Dingir (𒀭, usually transliterated DIĜIR) is a Sumerian word for “god.” Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

The cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word diĝir (“god” or “goddess”) and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon An, and a phonogram for the syllable /an/.

Akkadian took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the native ilum and from that a syllabic reading of /il/. ʼĒl (or ʼIl, Ugaritic: 𐎛𐎍; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤋;[1]‎; cognate to Akkadian: 𒀭, romanized: ilu) is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity”. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʼ‑l, meaning “god”.

Anu (Sumerian) or Anu (Akkadian) is the divine personification of the sky, supreme god, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one “who contains the entire universe”. Anu’s primary role in myths is as the ancestor of the Anunnaki, the major deities of Sumerian religion.

He is identified with the north ecliptic pole centered in the constellation Draco and, along with his sons Enlil and Enki, constitutes the highest divine triad personifying the three bands of constellations of the vault of the sky.

By the time of the earliest written records, Anu was rarely worshipped, and veneration was instead devoted to his son Enlil, but, throughout Mesopotamian history, the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, meaning “Heavenly power”.

Anu’s consort in the earliest Sumerian texts is the goddess Uraš, but she is later the goddess Ki and, in Akkadian texts, the goddess Antu, whose name is a feminine form of Anu.

His primary cult center was the Eanna temple in the city of Uruk, but, by the Akkadian Period (c. 2334 – 2154 BC), his authority in Uruk had largely been ceded to the goddess Inanna, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, desire, fertility, war, justice, and political power.

Inanna was originally worshipped in Sumer and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was known as the “Queen of Heaven” and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star.

In Uruk, Inanna was usually regarded as the daughter of the sky god An, but, in the Isin tradition, she is usually described as the daughter of the moon god Nanna (who was later known as Sin). In literary texts, she is sometimes described as the daughter of Enlil or the daughter of Enki.

Utu, later worshipped by East Semitic peoples as Shamash, was the ancient Mesopotamian Sun god – god of justice, morality, and truth, and the twin of the goddess Inanna, In Sumerian texts, Inanna and Utu are shown as extremely close; in fact, their relationship frequently borders on incestuous.

The authors of the Hebrew Bible generally attempt to portray the sun in a non-anthropomorphic manner, sometimes using it as a symbol of Yahweh’s power. The Hebrew word for “sun”, šapaš or šemeš, is often substituted for euphemisms, such as the word or, meaning “light”. These authors appear to have made a conscious effort to avoid implications of sun worship, even of a Yahwistic variety, at all costs. Specifically, God creates the “greater light,” the “lesser light,” and the stars.

According to Victor Hamilton, most scholars agree that the choice of “greater light” and “lesser light”, rather than the more explicit “Sun” and “Moon”, is anti-mythological rhetoric intended to contradict widespread contemporary beliefs that the Sun and the Moon were deities themselves. However, the Woman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, may directly allude to ancient Near Eastern sun goddesses.

In ancient Hittite religion, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by his son Kumarbi, who bit off his father’s genitals and gave birth to the storm god Teshub. Teshub overthrew Kumarbi, avenged Anu’s mutilation, and became the new king of the gods. This story was the later basis for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony.

Kumarbi is the chief god of the Hurrians. He is the son of Anu (the sky), and father of the storm-god Teshub. He was identified by the Hurrians with Sumerian Enlil, by the Greeks as Kronos and by the Ugaritians with El.

Enlil, later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hurrians. Enlil’s name comes from ancient Sumerian EN (𒀭𒂗𒆤), meaning “lord” and LÍL meaning “wind”. His name therefore literally translates as “Lord Wind”.

The Babylonian god Bel (from Akkadian bēlu, signifying “lord” or “master”) was a syncretic deity of Enlil, Marduk, and the shepherd deity Dumuzid. It is a title rather than a genuine name, applied to various gods in the Mesopotamian religion of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. The feminine form is Belit (“Lady, Mistress”). Bel is represented in Greek as Belos and in Latin as Belus. Linguistically Bel is an East Semitic form cognate with Northwest Semitic Baal with the same meaning.

Dyēus (PIE: *Dyḗws, *Dyḗus, or Dyēus ; litt. “Daylight-Sky-God”), also Dyēus Ph₂ter (PIE: *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, *Dyḗus Pḥatḗr, or Dyēus Pətḗr ; litt. “Daylight-Sky-God Father”) is the reconstructed name of the Daylight-Sky-God in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Dyēus was the Sky or Day conceived as a divine entity, and thus the dwelling of the gods, the Heaven.

There is some disagreement on the exact reconstruction (*Dyēus, *Dyḗws, *Dyḗus), the matter being further complicated by the multiplicity of connotations associated with the root (the sky, brightness, day, and divinity), all of which playing a part in the original meaning. Despite this, cognates stemming from the word are among the most widely attested in Indo-European languages.

While its existence is not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, Dyēus is considered by scholars the most securely reconstructed deity from the Indo-European pantheon, and identical formulas that referred to him can be found in later Indo-European languages and myths of the Greeks, Latins, Illyrians, Indo-Aryans and Hittites.

As the gateway to the deities and the father of both the Divine Twins and the goddess of the dawn, Hausōs, Dyēus was a prominent deity in the Proto-Indo-European pantheon. He was however likely not their ruler or the holder of the supreme power like Zeus and Jupiter.

Dyēus was the daylight sky imagined as a deity and the seat of the gods, the *deiwós. Associated with the bright sky and the fertile rain, he was often paired with *Dhéǵhōm, the Earth Mother or Mother Earth, who represents, or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth.

Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ (Vedic Sanskrit: Dyáuṣpitṛ́, literally ‘Sky Father’) is the ‘Father Heaven’ deity of the Vedic pantheon related to and possibly from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European Sky father god, Dyeus. He is also referred to under different theonyms: Dyavaprithvi, for example, is a dvandva compound combining ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ as Dyaus Pitr and Prithvi Mata.

Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ appears in hymns with Prithvi Mata ‘Mother Earth’ in the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The noun dyaús (when used without the pitā́ ‘father’) refers to the daylit sky, and occurs frequently in the Rigveda, as an entity. The sky in Vedic writing was described as rising in three tiers, avamá, madhyamá, and uttamá or tṛtī́ya.

He is significant in comparative philology scholarship of Proto-Indo-European religion as similar vocative and nominative concepts share a similar derivation from the Indo-European language, such as Dies Pater and Jupiter (Latin), Zeus Patér (Ancient Greek), Dievas, Tius or Zio (Old High German) and Toutiks dipater (South Picene), all of which like Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ mean ‘sky father’.

This, and many other parallels such as the similarity of Vedic rain god Parjanya to Slavic Perun, Lithuanian Perkūnas, and Norse Thor and Fjörgyn, led 19th-century scholars to comparative mythology studies and a conjecture that Vedic, post-Vedic, Greek, and Roman rituals likely had more ancient Proto-Indo-European roots.

In Egyptian mythology, Ptah (Ancient Egyptian: ptḥ, reconstructed [piˈtaħ]; Ancient Greek: ⲡⲧⲁϩ) is the demiurge of Memphis, god of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the husband of Sekhmet and the father of Nefertum. He was also regarded as the father of the sage Imhotep.

Ptah is an Egyptian creator god who existed before all other things and, by his will, thought the world into existence. It was first conceived by Thought, and realized by the Word: Ptah conceives the world by the thought of his heart and gives life through the magic of his Word. That which Ptah commanded was created, with which the constituents of nature, fauna, and flora, are contained. He also plays a role in the preservation of the world and the permanence of the royal function.

Ptah is generally represented in the guise of a man with green skin, contained in a shroud sticking to the skin, wearing the divine beard, and holding a sceptre combining three powerful symbols of ancient Egyptian religion: The Was sceptre, the sign of life, Ankh, and the Djed pillar. These three combined symbols indicate the three creative powers of the god: power (was), life (ankh) and stability (djed).

Sekhmet is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. It was said that her breath formed the desert. She was seen as the protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare. Upon death, Sekhmet continued to protect them, bearing them to the afterlife.

Sekhmet is also a solar deity, sometimes called the daughter of Ra and often associated with the goddesses Hathor and Bastet. She bears the Uraeus, which associates her with Wadjet and royalty, and the solar disk.

Nefertem (possibly “beautiful one who closes” or “one who does not close”; also spelled Nefertum or Nefer-temu) was, in Egyptian mythology, originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters. He represented both the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian blue lotus flower, having arisen from the primal waters within an Egyptian blue water-lily, Nymphaea caerulea.

Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstjt “She of the Ointment Jar”) was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). She was originally worshiped throughout most of ancient Egyptian history in Bubastis in Lower Egypt as a fierce lioness warrior goddess of the sun, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet.

As protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the king, and consequently of the sun god, Ra. Along with other deities such as Hathor, Sekhmet, and Isis, Bastet was associated with the Eye of Ra. She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, an enemy of Ra.

In addition to her solar connections, sometimes she was called “eye of the moon”. Bastet was also a goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, possibly because of the fertility of the domestic cat.

She was later she was changed into the cat goddess that is familiar today, becoming Bastet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.

Her name also is rendered as B’sst, Baast, Ubaste, and Baset. In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros (“cat”). She then was depicted as the daughter of Ra and Isis, and the consort of Ptah, with whom she had a son Maahes.

Maahes (also spelled Mihos, Miysis, Mios, Maihes, or Mahes) was an ancient Egyptian lion-headed god of war, whose name means “he who is true beside her”. He was seen as the son of the Creator god Ptah, as well as the feline goddess (Bast in Lower Egypt or Sekhmet in Upper Egypt) whose nature he shared. Maahes was a deity associated with war, protection, and weather, as well as that of knives, lotuses, and devouring captives. His cult was centred in Taremu and Per-Bast, the cult centres of Sekhmet and Bast respectively.

The name of Maahes begins with the hieroglyphs for the male lion, although in isolation it also means (one who can) see in front. Some of the titles of Maahes were Lord of Slaughter, Wielder of the Knife, and The Scarlet Lord. He was pictured as a man with the head of a male lion, sometimes holding a knife and a bouquet of lotus flowers, referring to his connection with Nefertum, who was symbolized by the lotus.

Maahes was considered the son of Ra with the feline goddess Bastet, or of another feline goddess, Sekhmet. He was sometimes identified with another son of Sekhmet, Nefertum. Maahes was said to fight Ra’s archenemy, the serpent Apep, during Ra’s nightly voyage. Considered to have powerful attributes, feline deities were associated with the pharaohs, and became patrons of Egypt. The male lion hieroglyphic was used in words such as “prince”, “mashead”, “strength”, and “power”.

Reisebrev

Beklager at det har tatt lang tid å skrive dette nyhetsbrevet. Når det kommer til mytologi og historie så klarer jeg ikke å stanse, men fortsetter kun. Uansett har jeg inkludert disse skriveriene her, da det er langt mer enn nok slik det er. Uansett så er jeg for lengst tilbake til Jerevan. 

Her går ting som de skal. Nyttårsaften var jeg på stor utendørskonsert på Den republikanske plass med Goran Bregović, en av de mest kjente moderne komponistene på Balkan. Han har komponert endel filmmusikk, blant annet for regissøren Emir Kusturica. 

Lille Juleaften tilbrakte jeg sammen med en venn av meg, Lusine, i Edzjmiatsin, også kjent som Vagharsjapat, som ligger ca. 20 km vest for Jerevan og er det religiøse senteret i Armenia. Byen var hovedstad for kongeriket Armenia fra om lag år 120 til 330. Her er sete for alle armeneres øverste patriark og katolikos, som er det åndelige overhode for Den armenske apostoliske kirke. Setet for armenernes katolikos har den vært fra 301 til 485 og igjen fra 1441.

Byen har tre svært berømte kirker: Edzjmiatsin-katedralen, St. Gayane og St. Hripsime, og to mindre berømte kirker: Shoghakat og Guds Moders kirke. Det er et stort område og man kan komme inn nesten i alle bygninger og kirker. Ettersom det var Lille Juleaften så var det mange som vandret med levende lys i sine hender på vei hjem. Det er en tradisjon å hente med seg lys fra kirken og bringe med hjem – det bringer visst hell og lykke. 

Som sagt begynner det å bli noen dager siden jeg ankom fra Libanon, hvor jeg befant meg i 12 dager. Det var min første tur til landet. Har tidligere vært i land som Palestina/Israel, Jordan, Irak, Iran, Tyrkia og i Armenia, så det er bare Syria jeg ikke har vært i når det kommer til landene i Sørvest Asia, også kjent som Nære østen eller Midtøsten.

Flyturen fra Jerevan til Beirut gikk helt uproblematisk (tok to timer). Den var ikke billig. Koster like mye å komme seg fra Jerevan til Beirut som flyturen koster til Norge. Og nå starter blant annet Ryan Air flyturer fram tog tilbake til Europa og ser at en tur til Berlin kun vil bli på snaue 500,-, og til Berlin kommer man billig ved hjelp av billige fly som Ryan Air. 

Namaa og hennes søster Raheeq møtte meg på flyplassen. Tok deretter taxi rett hjem til leiligheten; en stor, fin og gammel leilighet i sentrum av Beirut. Dette ble utgangspunktet for de reisene vi kom til å foreta oss i de kommende dagene. 

De første dagene var vi stort sett i Beirut, hvor stort sett Raheeq og jeg dro til ulike steder, slik som til nasjonalmuseet, mineralmuseet og et galleri, i tillegg til ulike restauranter og barer, før vi dro til kystbyene Tripoli, Batroun, Byblos, Sidon og Tyr. Ble også kjent med ulike venner av Namaa og Raheeq og vi både hadde og ble invitert til ulike middagsselskaper, inkludert på juleaften.

I Beirut viste Raheeq meg også ulike bygninger av historisk verdi, inkludert bygninger som var blitt ødelagt av den lange og grusomme borgerkrigen som hadde foregått i landet, plassen hvor de som protesterer mot dagens styresett befinner seg, et naturlig landemerke utenfor kysten av bydelen Raouché som blir kalt Duens sten, og selvsagt den armenske bydelen, Bourj Hammoud.

Jeg leser at juletradisjoner i de nordiske landene har blitt vanskelige på grunn av klager for muslimer osv. Her i Libanon var det jul og ikke minst julesanger over det hele – i hver fall i de kristne bydelene. Det ble spilt julesanger fra morgen til kveld, og på de store kjøpesentrene danset sexy damer kledd som julenisser etter julesanger spilt med discorytmer.

Kort sagt var det en vellykket tur til Libanon. Har forsøkt å skrive noen ord om de ulike stedene.

Nasjonalmuseet

Et av stedene vi besøkte var nasjonalmuseet i byen, Matḥaf Bayrūt al-waṭanī, som er det viktigste arkeologimuseet i Libanon. Uansett var det ikke akkurat mye å skryte av. Få gjenstander og nesten ensidig fra en periode som strakk seg på 500 år (fra rundt 250 f.vt. til år 250).

Samlingen startet etter første verdenskrig, og museet ble offisielt åpnet i 1942. Museet har samlinger på til sammen 100.000 gjenstander, hvor av de fleste av dem er fra forhistorisk tid til middelalderens Mamluk-periode. Uansett blir kun rundt 1300 gjenstander stilt ut.

I løpet av den libanesiske borgerkrigen i 1975 sto museet i frontlinjen som skilte de stridende fraksjonene. Museets egyptiske vekkelsesbygning og dens samling led omfattende skader i krigen, men de fleste av gjenstandene ble reddet ved forebyggende tiltak i siste øyeblikk.

Raouché

Vi besøkte også Raouché (arabisk: romanisert: ar-Rawše), som er et naturlig landemerke utenfor kysten av bydelen Raouché som blir kalt Duens sten. Det befinner seg på Beiruts vestligste spiss, der de to enorme fjellformasjonene møtes.

Noen historikere mener at ordet “raouché” stammer fra det arameiske ordet rosh eller arabisk ordet ras, som begge betyr hode, eller konge. Andre historikere hevder at det stammer fra det franske ordet roche (rocher), som betyr sten.

Raouché hevdes også å være restene av et havmonster den greske helten Perseus, som var den største greske helten før Herakles tok den rollen, drepte for å redde Andromeda, som var datteren til den etiopiske kongen Cepheus og hans kone Cassiopeia. Monsteret ble til sten da Perseus brukte Medusas hode mot det, noe som førte til at det ble til en stein.

Det er et populært reisemål for både lokalbefolkningen og besøkende. Bydelen med samme navn er kjent for sine eksklusive leilighetsbygg, samt sine mange restauranter og kaféer som ligger langs Avenue de Paris, som er en del av Corniche Beirut, en strandpromenade med utsikt over Middelhavet mot vest og toppene av Libanonfjellet mot øst.

Mimodactylus

Vi besøkte også et mineralmuseum, Mineral Museum (MIM), med alle slags mineraler, og en flyveøgle. Fossiljegere har gjort viktige funn i Hjoûla Lagerstätte, som ligger i nærheten av byen Hjoûla 35 km nord for Beirut og 10 km innover fra byen Byblos. Et sjeldent skjelett av en flyveøgle ble funnet av en anonym velgjører og gitt til mineralmuseet i Beirut.

Mimodactylus, som har fått sitt navn fra forkortelsen MIM (Mineral Museum) for museet som huser den, er den mest komplette av sin art som har blitt funnet på dette kontinentet. Den stammer fra en period kjent som senere eller øvre Kritt for 95 millioner år siden.

Flyveøgler var flyvende krypdyr i forhistorisk tid som tilhørte den utdødde arten pterosaurer (fra gresk pteron og sauros, som betyr «flyveøgler»). De dukket opp i slutten av Trias og levde samtidig i Mesozoikum. De levde for 228 til 66 millioner år siden.

Vingene besto av en membran av hud, muskler og annet vev som var spent mellom kroppen, over- og underarmen og den sterkt forlengede fjerde fingeren. Hodet var lite og med store øyne og meget lange kjever, som hos noen av artene var besatt med tenner.

De første var rhamphorhynchide med lange haler. De manglet det store kileformede brystbenet som hos fugler er feste for flyvemuskelaturen. Mens de minste var på størrelse med dagens kråker, og sannsynligvis jaget insekter, hadde de største et vingespenn på opp til 3 meter og levde av fisk.

De er en søstergruppe til ‘Dinosauria’ og begge gruppene tilhører ‘Ornithodira’. I slutten av Jura fortrengte de korthalede pterodactyle flyveøglene, som kunne oppnå et vingefang på opp til 12 meter, de største rhamphorhynchide flyveøglene, mens fuglene fortrengte de mindre.

Bourj Hammoud

Armenere etablerte sin første kjente kontakt med Libanon da Tigranes den store erobret Fønikia fra Seleukidene og gjorde det til en del av hans kortvarige armenske rike. Da Romerriket etablerte sitt styre over både Armenia og det gamle Libanon, dro noen romerske tropper av armensk opprinnelse dit for å utføre sine oppgaver som romere. 

Etter at Armenia konverterte til kristendommen i 301, etablerte armenske pilegrimer kontakt med Libanon og dets folk på vei til Jerusalem; noen av dem ville bosette seg der. I dag er det mange armenere som lever rundt om i Libanon. 

Historisk sett har de fleste levd i Beirut og Matn distriktet, et distrikt i Libanonfjellene øst for Beirut, samt i landsbyen Anjar i Bekaa regionen. Matn er et av de mest populære områdene i Libanon med vakker natur og utsikt over Middelhavet. Befolkningen er nesten utelukkende kristen, men huser også noen drusere og sjia-muslimer. 

Vi besøkte bydelen Bourj Hammoud, som er armenernes bydel i Beirut og i dag er en del av Matn, eller Nord-Matn. Mange kommer til Bourj Hammoud på handletur fra andre deler av Beirut. Det er primært bosatt av armenere og fungerer som sentrum for armenerne i Libanon. Her er det både gode restauranter og mange billige klesbutikker. 

Vi besøkte her blant annet den lokale armenske kirken, et armensk kultursenter og klubbhuset til det armenske politiske partiet Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), som startet med små studentgrupper på 1890-tallet og har vært et offentlig parti i Libanon siden 1920-tallet.

Da overlevende etter det armenske folkemordet i 1915. Da de syke og utmattede armenerne, som hadde overlevd dødsmarsjene i Deir ez-Zor i Syria, nådde Beirut fikk de tillatelse til å bygge skur på østbredden av Beirutelva, som på den tiden var et myrlendt område. De fikk deretter tillatelse til å bygge hus og bygninger. Disse står fremdeles.

Området ble grunnlagt av den armensk-katolske presten Paul Ariss, som la grunnlaget for området. Han fungerte som ordfører og hovedgaten i Bourj Hammoud er oppkalt etter han. Området økte i omfang på 1930-tallet og ble i 1952 til en selvstendig kommune. Det er i dag et av de tettest befolkede distriktene i Sørvest Asia.

Den libanesiske borgerkrigen

Rundt om i Beirut var det synlige spor etter den libanesiske borgerkrigen, som var en borgerkrig med sterke innslag av utenlandsk milits. Den foregikk med varierende intensitet i perioden 1975–1990. Den resulterte i anslagsvis 120.000 omkomne.

Det var en krig mellom ulike folkeslag og politiske partier i landet som inngikk allianser med hverandre, og med utenlandske støttetropper. Ved krigens utbrudd kunne partene grupperes i en kristen høyreallianse og en muslimsk venstreallianse. Deretter ble det med tiden en krig hvor alle kjempet mot alle; en krig på alle fronter.

Stridene fortsatte etter en kort våpenhvile i 1976, som ble fremforhandlet gjennom mekling av Den arabiske liga. Mens krigen pågikk ble alliansene endret i et raskt tempo og i uforutsigbare retninger. Den var særdeles blodig og vekket oppmerksomhet globalt gjennom flere gisseldramaer, massakrer og mord på høytstående politikere.

De nasjonale partene besto av sjiittiske, palestinske, maronittiske, sunnittiske og drusiske grupper. Mellom gruppene fantes det også uenighet, og mot slutten av krigen hadde nesten alle parter vært alliert med hverandre og gradvis forrådt hverandre. De utenlandske partene var hovedsakelig Syria, Israel, Iran, Irak og USA.

Konflikten ble forverret av demografiske forandringer, palestinske flyktningstrømmer mellom 1948 og 1970, strid mellom de kristne og muslimer, Israel-Libanon-konflikten, samt at Syria og PLO blandet seg inn. Den var verst Sør Libanon, som først ble okkupert av PLO og deretter av Israel.

På 1980-tallet var situasjonen spesielt blodig og prekær, da store deler av Beirut ble lagt i ruiner. Flere krigsforbrytelser og terroristaksjoner ble utført under krigen, inkludert massakren i Damur i 1976, da PLO drepte 500 ubevæpnede kristne innbyggere i kystbyen Damur, samt massakrene i Sabra og Shatila i 1982, hvor kristne militser massakrerte 800 ubevæpnede palestinske flyktninger.

Egget

For å få bedre utsikt klatret jeg opp på det såkalte Egget, eller kuppelen, som er en uferdig kinostruktur bygget i 1965 i Beirut. Konstruksjonen ble avbrutt under den libanesiske borgerkrigen, og den hesteskoformede kuppelen som er igjen i dag har blitt et av byens landemerker.

Snakk om mulig riving de siste to tiårene har mobilisert studenter og arkitekter til fordel for bevaring av den. Under de pågående protestene i Libanon ble stedet tatt i bruk og de nåværende eierne ønsker nå å bevare det og å integrere det i et nytt prosjekt.

Dagens konflikt

Dagens protester er en serie landsdekkende, ikke-sekteriske protester. Den umiddelbare avtrekkeren er de planlagte skattene på bensin, tobakk og telefonsamtaler på nettet, som for eksempel gjennom WhatsApp. Protester i hele landet brøt ut rett etter at skattene skulle ratifiseres innen 22. oktober.

De er motivert av den libanesiske regjeringens manglende evne og vilje til å finne løsninger på den økonomisk krisen som har funnet sted det siste året på grunn av korrupsjon, sløsing av offentlige penger og at statlige enheter blir stjålet. Landets økonomi har nærmest kollapset.

Protestene er med andre ord en reaksjon mot sekterisk styre, stillestående økonomi, arbeidsledighet, endemisk korrupsjon i offentlig sektor, lovgivning (som bankhemmelighet) som oppleves for å beskytte den regjerende klassen fra ansvarlighet og svikt fra myndighetene til å levere grunnleggende tjenester som strøm, vann og sanitær.

Det er ennå de samme gruppene som slåss mot hverandre under den libanesiske borgerkrigen som regjerer – de deler makten mellom seg. Få av politikerne og dem som sitter ved makten tenker på Libanon som et eget land, men heller på hvordan de kan fortsette ved makten gjennom å dele ut privilegier til de gruppene de representerer, samt på hvordan de kan fylle sine egne lommer.

Ifølge nasjonaltraktaten skal Libanons president være maronitt, mens statsministeren skal være sunni-muslim, formannen i parlamentet sjia-muslim, og viseformannen druser. De som nå protesterer vil ha en slutt på alt dette og heller etablere Libanon som en moderne sekulær stat.

Et stort problem er at befolkningen er splittet, slik at de ulike gruppene snarere angriper og ødelegger for hverandre enn å stå samlet mot autoritetene, noe som gjør at det militære og politiet snarere hindrer konflikt enn å forsvare autoritetene.

Nahr al-Kalb

Vi besøkte også Nahr al-Kalb (arabisk: «Hundeelven»), en periodisk elv på 30 km som i antikken ble kalt Lycus eller Lykos, som er gresk for «ulv». Elven har sin start i Jeita nær Jeita-grotten i Libanonfjellene og renner ut i Middelhavet like sør for byen Jounieh, en havneby ved kysten 15 km nord for Beirut. Om sommeren er den kun en kilde i nærheten av Jeitagrotten noen kilometer fra kysten; øvre løp er da uttørret.

Ravinen som Nahr al-Kalb flyter gjennom har vært bebodd siden paleolitikum. Generaler og erobrere fra fortiden har tradisjonelt brukt området ved elvens munning som et sted for minnesmerker over deres erobringer og kampanjer, kjent som minnestavene til Nahr el-Kalb, og de ulike minnesmerkene ble ført opp på UNESCOs liste over verdensarv i 2005.

På begge sider av elva har det blitt hugget om lag 20 innskrifter fra ulike epoker inn i klippeveggene. Her finnes tre hieroglyfiske steler fra egyptiske invasjoner, inkludert en avtale som konkluderer med at Ramses II satte Nahr al-Kalb som grensen mellom Egypt og området til hetittene fra 1200-tallet f.vt.

Det finnes også kileskrift-inskripsjoner fra assyriske og babylonske konger, samt greske, romerske og arabiske påskrifter. Andre innskrifter handler om Napoleon den tredjes invasjon i 1860, Libanons uavhengighet fra Frankrike i 1943 og Israels tilbaketrekkingen fra Sør-Libanon i 2000.

Haigazian University 

Artsvi, en venn av meg i Jerevan, ba meg frakte noen bøker til ham som jeg skulle hente fra en armener ved navnet Antranig i Beirut. Vi avtalte å møte ham ved det armenske universitet i Beirut kalt Haigazian, en institusjon for høyere utdanning grunnlagt i 1955.

Universitetet har flotte og historiske bygninger og befinner seg i en bedre bydel i hjertet av Beirut. Alle grader fra Haigazian er anerkjent av den libanesiske regjeringen og Association of International Colleges and Universities. Engelsk er hovedspråket, selv om noen kurs tilbys på armensk og arabisk.

Universitetet støttes av det armenske evangeliske samfunnet, og ble først og fremst opprettet for å imøtekomme behovene til den store libanesisk-armenske befolkningen. Universitetet er imidlertid åpent for alle studenter og har professorer og studentorgan fra alle deler av det libanesiske samfunnet.

Harissa

Sammen med Antranig, som hadde bil så vi lett kunne ta oss frem, dro vi blant annet til landsbyen Harissa, som er en liten landsby og et viktig katolsk valfartssted i Libanon. Et midtpunkt er en stor 15-tonns hvitmalt bronsestatue av jomfru Maria (Vår Frue av Libanon) med utstrakte armer. Inne i statuens base er det et lite kapell.

Beliggenhgeten er høyt opp i åsene over havnebyen Jounieh nord for Beirut, med en fantastisk utsikt over middelhavskysten fra Beirut og nordover mot Byblos. Den ligger tett ved der gondolbanen (le téléphérique) fra Jounieh kommer opp. I nærheten ligger den to store basilikaer, hvor av en er moderne maronittisk-katolsk og en er bysantiskpreget melkittisk-katolsk.

Jounieh, en kystby i Keserwan-distriktet, omtrent 16 km nord for Beirut, er kjent for sine badestrender og yrende natteliv, så vel som sin gamle markedsplass, havn, paragliding og gondolheis. Innbyggere i Jounieh og de omkringliggende byene er overveldende maronittkatolikker.

Maronittene utgjør en av de viktigste religiøse grupper i Libanon, der ca. 21 % av befolkningen er maronitter. Kirken har rundt 3 millioner tilhengere. Den maronittiske kirke (eller maronittisk-katolske kirke; maronittiske gresk-katolske kirke) er én av den katolske kirkens 23 særkirker.

Kirken følger den bysantinske ritus og bruker syrisk og arabisk som liturgisk språk, men anerkjenner paven som religiøst overhode. Den skriver seg tilbake til St. Maron, som grunnla en klosterorden på 400-tallet. På 600-tallet utviklet maronittene seg til en egen kirke, da de var tilhengere av monoteletismen. Bispedømmet til det maronitt katolske patriarkat ble opprettet i 858.

Bkerké 

På veien opp mot Harissa besøkte vi også en ås med navnet Bkerké, som er en del av Libanonfjellet og har utsikt over Jounieh-bukten. Bkerké er også navnet på en melkittkirke som ligger 650 m over havet ved Jounieh. Det er den maronittisk-katolske patriarks residens og den maronittiske kirkes hovedsete. Det er bispedømmet for det maronittiske katolske patriarkatet i Antiokia.

Selv om området nå utelukkende blir brukt av kirken ble området tidligere eid av den adelige Khazen-(også El-Khazen, Al-Khazen eller DeKhazen, og i noen tilfeller Khazem) familien, som er en fremtredende adelig levantinsk familie og klan basert i Keserwan-distriktet, Libanon, Damaskus, Syria, Nablus, Palestina, så vel som andre distrikter rundt Levanten, overveiende i Galilea.

Familien var opprinnelig drusisk, men konverterte og ble maronitter. Flere medlemmer har spilt ledende roller i politikken i mange generasjoner. Den kan spores tilbake til 900-tallet, da de befant seg mellom Houran, Damaskus, Baalbeck og Nablus. 

De begynte å kjøpe land og anskaffet seg landområder i Libanonfjellet på 1500-tallet. Først primært i Jaj, som i dag ligger i Byblos distriktet. Derfra flyttet de til Keserwan-distriktet, der de kjøpte land fra sjia-stammene. Dette førte til at sjiaene til å flytte til som i dag er kjent som Sør-Libanon, mens maronittene bosatte Keserwan-distriktet.

Frankrikes konge Kong Ludvig XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 1638-1715), også kjent som Louis den store (Louis le Grand) og Solkongen (le Roi Soleil), opphøyet familien til fransk adel og omtalte dens medlemmer som “fyrster av maronittene”. 

Pave Clement X kalte dem for pfalzgrever, en tittel brukt om individer som hadde en viktig rolle i de frankiske og tyske kongenes tjeneste. Pfalzgreven var kongens stedfortreder og forvalter av en pfalz (latin palatium, palass), som vil si en kongsgård der kongene allerede fra karolingisk tid oppholdt seg og utøvet sine funksjoner som dommere.

Den tidligste bygningen på Bkerké-stedet var et kloster konstruert av Khattar al-Khazen i 1703. I 1730 begynte antonittmunker, en orden oppkalt etter den egyptisk kristne helgen Antonius den store (ca. 251-356), og godkjent som orden av pave Urban II i 1095, å bruke klosteret. 

I 1750 brukte biskop Germanus Saqar og nonne Hindiyya al-‘Ujaimi den til den hellige Jesu religiøse orden. Til slutt, i 1779, ble den tatt i bruk av den maronittiske kirken, og i 1830 ble den vinterresidensen til den maronittiske patriark av Antiokia, som leder den melikittiske kirken og har sitt sete i klosteret Bkerké. 

Bispedømmet til det maronitt katolske patriarkat har aldri vært i Antiokia. I stedet var den opprinnelig i Kfarhay i Batroun-fjellene, og fortsatte deretter å flytte til forskjellige steder i Byblos-fjellene de neste 500 årene, som Yanouh, Mayfouq, Lehfed, Habeel, Kfifan, al-Kafr og Hardeen. 

Den flyttet deretter på grunn av intensivert forfølgelse til Qannoubine i Kadisha-dalen og forble der fra 1440 til 1823, da den flyttet til Dimane og til slutt til Bkerké i 1830. I dag bruker maronittiske patriarker Dimane som sommerbolig og Bkerké som vinter.

Bzommar og Antelias

Sammen med Antranig dro vi også til Bzommar, som er setet for den armenske katolske kirken, mens Bikfaya, en by i Matn distriktet i Libanonfjellene, er setet for den armenske apostoliske kirken. Bzoummar er en landsby som ligger 36 km nordøst for Beirut rundt 920-950 meter over havet. Her ligger det også et nonnekloster, hvor Vår frue av Bzommar blir dyrket, som ble bygd i 1749. Innbyggerne i Bzoummar’ er primært melkitter og armensk katolske. 

På veien dro vi også innom Antelias, en by 5 km nord for Beirut, i 1930, som huser Katolikatet Kilikia. Navnet Antelias er opprinnelig gresk og satt sammen av ordene anti, som betyr «mot», og helios, som betyr «sol», som vil si den del av fjellrekken som møter solen. Byen ligger ved middelhavet, ved utløpet av elven med samme navn. Byen er kjent for den maronittiske klosteret St Elié-klosteret.

Byens befolkning er i hovedsak kristne: maronitter, orientalske katolikker, gresk-ortodokse og armensk ortodokse. Byen har fungert som setet til den armenske katolikos av Kilikia siden 1930. Dette gjør den til en av den armenske kirkes to hovedseter.

Den armenske apostoliske kirke

Den armenske apostoliske kirke, også kjent som den armensk-ortodokse kirke, er en orientalsk-ortodoks kirke og er Armenias dominerende trossamfunn. Den betegnes som apostolisk fordi den ifølge tradisjonen ble etablert av to av Jesu apostler, Taddeus og Bartolomeus, som skal ha misjonert i landet.

Taddeus skal ha kurert Kong Abgar V av Edessa for spedalskhet med Bildet av Edessa, noe som førte til hans omvendelse i 30 e.vt. I følge kristen tradisjon var Bildet av Edessa, også kjent som Mandylion, en hellig relikvie bestående av et kvadrat eller rektangel av tøy som det var innprentet et mirakuløst bilde av Jesu ansikt på – det første ikonet (“bildet”).

Thaddaeus fikk deretter i oppdrag av Abgar å spre det kristne budskapet i hele Armenia. Han konverterte kong Sanatruks datter, som til slutt ble martyrert sammen med Thaddeus da Sanatruk senere frafalt. Han betraktes som den første biskopen av Armenia fra 43 til sitt martyrium i 66.

Etter dette kom Bartholomew til Armenia og brakte et portrett av Jomfru Maria, som han plasserte i et gartneri han grunnla over et tidligere Anahit-tempel. Bartholomew konverterte deretter søsteren til Sanatruk, som nok en gang martyrerte en kvinnelig slektning og apostelen som konverterte henne.

Sanatruk var et medlem av arsacide dynastiet av Armenia og etterfulgte Tiridates I, grunnleggeren av arsacide dynastiet av Armenia i 53. Oldtidens kongedømme Armenia var et uavhengig monarki fra 331 til 428 e.vt. Dets fremste tid i makt og i tilpasning av hellenistisk kultur under Tigranes den store og hans sønn Artavasdes II er også referert til som Det armenske rike.

I år 43 e.vt. ble kongedømmet styrt av arsacid-dynastiet, også kjent som Arsacid Armenia. I 387 ble Armenia delt i bysantinske Armenia i vest og persiske Armenia i øst. Persiske Armenia forble under styret til arsacidske underkonger fram til 428. I dag, når man ikke viser til Wilsonske Armenia, er Stor-Armenia vanligvis en referanse til kongedømmets grenser under arsacid-dynastiet.

Begge apostlene ordinerte innfødte biskoper før sin henrettelse, mens andre armenere hadde blitt ordinert utenfor Armenia av Jakob den rettferdige, også kjent som Jakob av Jerusalem, som blir regnet som den første biskopen av Jerusalem og forfatteren av Jakobs brev i Det nye testamentet, og er omtalt som bror av Jesus.

Armenia erklærte seg kristent under kong Trdat (Tiridates) III i 301. Som Armenias apostel nevnes også Gregor med tilnavnet «Lysbringeren», på engelsk kjent som St. Gregory I the Enlightener, eller Gregory the Illuminator. Ut fra legendene om hans virksomhet betegner den armenske kirke seg som den “apostoliske” og/eller “gregorianske” kirke.

Den armenske kirke var representert ved konsilet i Nikea i 325 og deltok aktivt i den felleskirkelige utviklingen i de følgende århundrene. Især etter at Armenia hadde fått sitt eget alfabet på 400-tallet, noe som var med til å skape en ny gullalder med stor litterær aktivitet med kristent fortegn, inkludert oversettelse av Bibelen, samt oldkirkelige skrifter og liturgier.

Etter Chalkedon-synoden i 451 regnes den armenske kirke blant de monofysitiske kirker og var derfor, samt på grunn av nasjonale og politiske grunner, forskjellig fra både den persiske, nestorianske kirke og den bysantinske, ortodokse kirke.

Armenia lå utenfor det muslimske området, noe som gjorde at de kunne fortsette med å bygge kirker på 900-1100-tallet. Særlig kirkehistorisk betydning fikk det kilikiske Armenia (1100-1375), dels som en ikke-bysantinsk kristen “havn” for korsfarerne, dels i kraft av den sammenhengende nære kontakt med romerkirken.

Slaget ved Manzikert ble utkjempet mellom det bysantinske riket og seldsjukkiske tyrkere fra Sentral-Asia ved Manzikert (nå Malazgirt), en by nord for Tyrkias største innsjø Vansjøen som var et viktig handelssenter i kongedømmet Armenia og senere i Det bysantinske riket, i 1071.

Slaget ved Manzikert ble kjempet like utenfor byen i august 1071. Bysantinerne led til slutt et knusende nederlag, og Alp Arslan tok keiser Romanos IV Diogenes til fange.Nederlaget førte til omfattende religiøs og etnisk omveltning i Anatolia, som følge av at de muslimske seldsjukkene vant kontrollen over Anatolia. De opprettet sultanatet Rum, som var forløperen til Det osmanske riket.

For Bysants var tapet av Anatolia et ødeleggende slag, ettersom Anatolia var den tettest befolkede delen av riket. Rikets dager som stormakt var med dette omme. Ute av stand til å gjenerobre de tapte landområdene så keiser Alexios I Komnenos seg nødt til å be om hjelp fra Vesten. Pave Urban II svarte med å oppfordre kristne til å befri det hellige land fra muslimsk styre, en oppfordring som ledet til korstogene.

Seljuktyrkiske invasjoner av Armenia ble etterfulgt av etnisk rensning eller forvisning av armenere som utvandret til Det bysantinske rike, og i 1080 grunnla Ruben I av Armenia, en slektning av den siste kongen av Ani (en tidligere bystat som i dag befinner seg i den tyrkiske provinsen Kars), et lite fyrstedømme ved Taurus som gradvis ekspanderte til å bli det armenske kongedømmet Kilikia.

Denne kristne staten, omgitt av muslimske stater som var fiendtlig til dens blotte eksistens, en stridfylt historie i rundt 300 år, ga verdifull støtte til vestlige korsfarere, og hadde handel med de store kommersielle byene i Italia.

De gamle armenske kirkene og klostrene var viktige sentre for undervisning og kulturell aktivitet, og også i nyere tid har den armenske kirke spilt en stor rolle for opprettholdelsen av nasjonal og folkelig identitet, også når det kommer til dem som befinner seg i diasporaen i USA, Latin-Amerika, Midtøsten og Middelhavslandene.

Kirkens overhode

Gregor Lysbringeren, skytshelgenen av den armensk apostoliske kirken, spilte sammen med kong Tiridates III av Armenia en viktig rolle i kristningen av Armenia. Gregor organiserte den armenske kirkes hierarki. Fra da av har lederne av kirken blitt kalt katolikos, som vil si overhoder.

Katolikos av hele Armenia er overhodet for den armenske apostoliske kirke. Samtidig er han patriark av Edzjmiatsin, som betegnes som armenernes moderkirke, og biskop av Ararat, som har høyest rang blant bispedømmene i Armenia. Katolikatet av hele Armenia omfatter 28 bispedømmer i Armenia og Nagorno-Karabakh, samt i Amerika, Australia, Egypt, Europa og Irak.

Gregor, som var den første katolikos av den armenske kirke, valgte den daværende armenske hovedstaden Vagharshapat, også kjent som Etchmiadzin, som setet for katolisatet i 301. Katolisatet hadde før dette (i perioden 267-301) vært basert i Sis i Kilikia. Gregor var katolikos frem til 325.

Katolisatet ble flyttet til den nye hovedstaden av Armenia, Dvin, i 485. Det ble deretter flyttet til Dzoravank og deretter til Aghtamar i 927, til Arghina i 947 og til Ani i 992. Det flyttet fra Armenia til det armenske kongedømmet Kilikia (i dagens Tyrkia) i 1051.

Setet for katolikatet var først Sebasteia, også kjent som Sivas (1058–1062), men ble flyttet flere ganger: Tavbloor (1062–1066), Dzamendav (1066–1090), Kesun (1090-1116), Dzovk (1116–1149) og Hromgla (1149–1293) før det endte opp i Sis (1293-1930).

Det armenske kongedømmet Kilikia ble i 1375 erobret av mamelukkene, men katolikatet fikk bestå. Katolikoset fungerte etter dette som en verdslig fyrste for armenerne i Kilikia. I 1441 ble også katolikatet i Edzjmiatsin gjenopprettet, som vil si at kirkeledelsen flyttet fra Kilikia og tilbake til sin moderkirke i Armenia, mens Sis forble et katolikatssete og ble kjent som Katolikos av Kilikia.

Katolisatet ble med andre ord flyttet fra Armenia til Kilikia i 1058, og selv om den vendte tilbake til Echmiadzin i 1441 så fortsatte katolisatet i Kilikia sin eksistens, og har fortsatt sin eksistens frem til i dag. Denne delingen var ikke skismatisk, da begge katolikosene anerkjente hverandre.

Dette har resultert i to rivaliserende katolikos med seter i henholdsvis Etjmiadzin i Armenia, som er kjent som Katolikatet Etjmiadzin og regnes som overhodet til hele den armensk apostoliske kirken, og Katolikatet Kilikia, som ble værende i Sis.

I 1517 ble Kilikia en del av Det osmanske rike. De osmanske sultanene gjorde den armenske patriarken av Konstantinopel til de armenske kristnes politiske leder. Dette til tross for at han hadde lavere kirkelig rang enn en katolikos. Katolikatet Kilikia ble flyttet til Antelias i 1930.

I tillegg kommer patriarkatene i Istanbul og Jerusalem, som ble opprettet på 1400-tallet og har også spilt en betydelig rolle både politisk, kulturelt og kirkelig. Det samme gjelder den romersk-katolske mekhitharist kongregasjonen med klostre i Venezia og Wien siden 1700-tallet. Tidligere eksisterte to ytterligere katolikater (Aghtamar 1113–1916; Aghvank 706–1815).

Katolikos av Kilikia og patriarkene av Jerusalem og Konstantinopel anerkjenner katolikos av hele Armenia som kirkens overhode, men er ellers autonome. Deres egne og underordnede bispedømmer hører altså ikke til katolikatet av hele Armenia.

Rundt 94 % av Armenias befolkning – og sannsynligvis en like stor andel av befolkningen i Nagorno-Karabakh – bekjenner seg til den armenske apostoliske kirke. Den har med armenerne også spredt seg til mange andre land, spesielt Midtøsten, Øst-Europa, USA, Argentina og Frankrike.

Katolikos av Kilikia

Katolikos av Kilikia, som betegnes som det armenske katolikatet av storhuset Kilikia og omtales også som Den hellige stol av Kilikia, er en av to biskoper i den armenske apostoliske kirke som innehar kirkens høyeste tittel, katolikos. Han har lavere æresrang enn armenernes øverste patriark og katolikos i Edzjmiatsin, men har stor autonomi innen kirken.

Katolikos av Kilikia omfatter i dag 13 bispedømmer i Midtøsten, samt i Hellas og Amerika. Før Første verdenskrig omfattet katolikatet 15 bispedømmer med ca. 284000 medlemmer. Under folkemordet på armenerne ble katolikatet av Kilikia opphevet i 1916 og katolikos Sahag II ble først sendt til Jerusalem og året etter forvist til Damaskus.

Han prøvde å gjenopprette katolikatet i 1918, men måtte flytte setet fra Sis til katolikatets eneste gjenværende bispesetet i Aleppo i 1921. For å opprettholde katolikatet ble bispedømmene Damaskus, Beirut og Kypros overført fra patriarkatene Jerusalem og Konstantinopel til katolikatet av Kilikia. I 1930 ble setet flyttet på nytt og har siden ligget i Antelias.

I løpet av den kalde krigen ble forholdet mellom katolikatene av Kilikia og Edsjmiazin (som lå i Sovjet) anstrengt. Begge katolikatene opprettet parallelle eksilmenigheter og til og med bispedømmer i flere land. Selv om det aldri har vært snakk om et skisma består denne situasjonen fremdeles i Hellas, Canada og USA, der det fins både «kilikianske» og «edsjmiazinske» biskoper.

Katolikos av Kilikia har sommersete i Bikfaya, som er en by i Matn sistriktet i Libanonfjellene. Her bor det rundt 20000 mennesker, hvor av de fleste er melkittisk katolske, gresk-ortodokse og gresk katolske, samt armensk ortodokse, baptister og andre kristne kirker. Det hører til blant Libanons mest ettertraktede bydeler i nærheten av Beirut og en av Libanons mest sommerresidenser.

Navnet Bikfaya, også skrevet Bickfaya, Beckfayya eller Bekfaya, er en sammentrekning av det arameisk (syriske) sammensatte uttrykket “Beit Kiifa”, med “Kifayya” som det relative adjektivet til ordet “stein” eller “stein” på arameisk. Navnet betyr derfor “huset av stein” eller “det steinete / steinete huset” med den semantiske konnotasjonen “stedet med steiner eller steinbruddet.

Den armensk-katolske kirke

Etter at den armenske apostoliske kirke, sammen med de øvrige orientalske ortodokse kirker, brøt med den katolske kirke etter konsilet i Kalkedon i 451, søkte flere armenske biskoper å opprettholde enhet med den katolske kirke. Katolikatet av Kilikia hadde alltid et godt forhold til den katolske kirke, og inngikk i flere perioder, inkludert under korstogene, et formelt samarbeid med pavekirken.

I 1195, under korstogene, gikk kirken i det armenske kongedømmet i Kilikia inn i en union med den katolske kirken, og denne varte fram til kongedømmet ble erobret av mamelukkene i 1375. Unionen ble formelt gjenopprettet i 1439, men hadde lenge ingen praktisk betydning.

Den armenske menigheten i Aleppo utropte sin katolskvennlige biskop, Abraham-Pierre I Ardzivian, som patriark av Sis i Kilikia i 1740 I. To år senere, i 1742, etablerte pave Benedikt XIV formelt den armensk-katolske kirke viss overhode har tittelen patriarken av Kilikia. Hovedsete ble senere flyttet til utenfor Beirut, og i 1749 til dagens lokasjon i Bzoummar. De fleste armenerne forble imidlertid trofaste mot sin armensk-ortodokse katolikos.

Den armensk-katolske kirke er én av den katolske kirkens 23 særkirker. Den har omtrent 540.000 tilhengere, hovedsakelig i Armenia, Midtøsten og Nord-Amerika. Den følger den armenske ritus og bruker klassisk armensk som liturgisk språk, men anerkjenner paven som religiøst overhode.

Om lag 12 % av den armenske befolkningen er armensk-katolsk. Kirken er dermed mindre enn den armensk-apostoliske kirke (86 %), men større enn den romersk-katolske (1 %). Særkirkens overhode er patriarken av Kilikia, som siden 1749 har sitt sete i Bzommar utenfor Beirut.

Sidon 

En av byene vi besøkte var havnebyen Sayda (tidligere Sidon), Libanons tredje største by. Den ligger ved middelhavskysten sør i landet, mellom Tyr og Beirut. Byen er administrasjonssete for distriktet Sayda og provinsen Sør-Libanon, og ligger 40 km fra Beirut. 

Det fønikiske navnet Ṣīdūn (ṣdn) betydde sannsynligvis “fiskeri” eller “fiskerby”. Det opptrer på bibelsk hebraisk som Ṣīḏōn og på syrisk som Ṣidon. Dette ble hellenisert som Sidṓn, og opptrer på latinsk som Sidon. Det opptrer på klassisk arabisk som Ṣaydūn og på moderne arabisk som Ṣaydā.

Denne gamle fønikiske byen har hatt stor religiøs, politisk og kommersiell verdi. Det er en veldig gammel by og har en historie som strekker seg helt tilbake til oldtiden. Den sies å ha vært bebodd siden 4000 f.vt. I første mosebok er byen (stamfaren til sidonerne) den førstefødte sønnen til Kanaan, som var sønn til Kam. Sidon var derfor oldebarn til Noah. 

Byen har i tillegg til at den har vært både en muslimsk og en kristen by befunnet seg under både Aleksander den store og Herodes. Sigurd Jorsalfare stormet byen med en flåte på 60 skip høsten 1110. Etter at Sayda falt fikk de en flis av Kristi kors som relikvie av kong Baldvin I av Jerusalem.

Her besøkte vi blant annet byens sjøslott, som ble bygget som en festning for det hellige landet av korsfarerne på en liten øy tilknyttet fastlandet med en smal 80 meter lang bro på 1200-tallet. Øya var tidligere stedet for et tempel til Melqart, den fønikiske versjonen av Herakles. 

Det vakre ved slottet kan sees i gamle illustrasjoner av det; etter å ha vært gjennom flere kriger har det imidlertid blitt skadet og renovert flere ganger. Det ble delvis ødelagt av mamlukkene da de overtok byen fra korsfarerne, men ble bygget opp igjen. Slottet falt senere ut av bruk, men ble restaurert på 1600-tallet av Emir Fakhreddine II kun for så igjen å bli skadet. 

Det er en mulighet for at øya som slottet er bygget på var stedet for den fønikiske kongens palass og flere andre fønikiske monumenter, som har blitt ødelagt av Esarhaddon, også stavet Assarhaddon og Ashurhaddon (akkadisk: Aššur-aḫa-iddina, som betyr “Ashur har gitt meg en bror”), som var konge av det neo-ssyriske riket i perioden 681-669 f.vt., og deretter av naturlige jordskjelv.  

Tyr

Fra Sidon dro vi videre sørover til byen Tyr eller Sur (arabisk: aṣ-Ṣūr; fønikisk: Ṣur; latin: Tyrus; akkadisk: Ṣurru; gresk: Týros), som er distriktshovedstad i distriktet Tyr i provinsen Sør-Libanon i Libanon, ligger på samme sted som den antikke fønikiske byen med samme navn, rundt 37 km nord for Akko og 32 km sør for Sayda. 

Byens navn betyr «klippe» etter klippeformasjonen som byen ble bygget på. Den består av to adskilte deler. En festning på noen klipper ved strandlinjen kalt Ushu, eller «gamle Tyr» , og selve Tyr, som er bygget på en liten befestet klippeøy rundt 1 km fra strandlinjen. 

Tyr er i dag den fjerde største byen i Libanon og inkluderer en av de største havnene i landet. Turisme er en stor industri. Det er en gammal fønikisk oldtidsby og den legendariske fødebyen til Europa og Elissa (Dido). Her er det mange flotte og storslagne romerske ruiner.

Byen er beskyttet i henhold til Haag-konvensjonen i 1954 for beskyttelse av kulturelle eiendeler i tilfelle militær konflikt. Byen har mange stader fra antikken, som den romerske Hippodromen, som ble lagt til verdsarvlisten i 1979. 

Tyr har flere ganger blitt angrepet under Israels aksjon for å jage Hizballah ut av landet. Mange av innbyggerne har flyktet. Ødeleggelsene har etter hvert blitt omfattende. I forhold til befolkningens lidelser blir beskyttelse av kulturminner et sekundært anliggende. Ingen har foreløpig ingen rettet direkte angrep mot verneverdige mål, men for hver ny opptrapping av konflikten øker risikoen. 

Tyr ble grunnlagt i henhold til den greske historikeren Herodot rundt 2750 f.vt. Den blir nevnt på monumenter så tidlig som på 1300-tallet f.vt. Handelsvirksomheten i den antikke verden var samlet i varehusene i Tyr. Byens handelsmenn var de første som våget å navigere i Middelhavet og de grunnla sine kolonier og etablerte byer rundt om på middelhavskysten.

Byen Tyr var spesielt kjent for produksjonen av en sjelden og spesiell form for purpurfarge, som ble produsert fra et skalldyr (murex) og kjent som tyrisk purpur. Fargen var så sjelden og kostbar at den i mange kulturer og helt fram til moderne tid var reservert for kongelige eller i det minste adelen. 

Tyr ble ofte angrepet av Egypt og ble beleiret av den assyriske kongen Salmanassar V av Assyria, som først opptrer som guvernør av Zimirra i Fønikia i styret til sin far, kong Tiglat-Pileser III av Assyria. Men som rykket fram da hans far døde og overtok tronen i Assyria i år 727 f.vt. Han endret da sitt opprinnelig navn Ululayu til «Salmanassar» («ild-dyrker»).

Opprøret i hovedstaden Samaria (Šomron) i kongedømmet Israel (nordriket) skjedde under hans styre, men han døde under beleiringen av den jødiske opprørsbyen i 722 f.vt., og kronen ble da overtatt av hans bror Sargon II. 

Navnet Salmanassar er hva som er benyttet for ham i Bibelen som tilskriver skylden på ham og hans far for å ha deportert folket i Israel i landflyktighet, hvilket var generell praksis for assyrerne for erobrede områder. Det er en del av opphavet til legendene om Israels ti forsvunne stammer. 

Både Sargon II og dennes sønn Sankerib skal også ha deportert jøder i deres påfølgende kriger. I 17. og 18. kapitler av Andre kongebok er han beskrevet som erobreren av Samaria og den som sendte byens innbyggere i eksil. 

Byen ble også forsøkt erobret av Nebukadnesar II av Babylonia (586–573 f.vt.), dog uten suksess, skjønt et kompromiss av en fredsavtale ble inngått hvor Tyr ble tvunget til å betalte tributt til Babylonia. Byen kunne dog ikke motstå makten til perserne og ble erobret. 

Byen ble deretter erobret av Aleksander den store etter en beleiring som varte i syv måneder i år 332 f.vt., men fortsatte å opprettholde mye av sin kommersielle betydning fram til den kristne tidsalder. Alexander fikk blant annet bygget en veifylling fra fastlandet og til øya. Dette påvirket vannet og sørget for at sedimenter samlet seg og gjorde forbindelsen permanent. 

Aleksanders tidligere general Antigonus beleiret også byen, som ble erobret i 314 f.vt. Tyr ble uavhengig igjen fra Selevkidriket i 126 f.vt., og fikk senere beholde mye av sin uavhengighet selv da området ble en romersk provins i år 64 f.vt.

En menighet ble grunnlagt her kort tid etter at sankt Stefanus, som blir ansett for å være den første kristne martyren. Stefanus var en kristen diakon, helgen og én av apostlenes første hjelpere. Han var diakon med særlig omsorg for enker og fattige, men døde i 35 e.vt. Hans minnedag er Sankt Stefanus dag 2. juledag i vest og 3. juledag i øst, hvor han feires den 2. august. Han nevnes i Apostlenes gjerninger kap. 6, 7 og 8. 

Apostelen Paulus (Saulus, født ca. 10 e.vt. i Tarsus, død ca. 67 i Roma), en av oldkirkens apostler, og forfatter av flere brev som er inkludert i Det nye testamente, tilbrakte en uke i samtale med disiplene i Tyr, da han kom tilbake fra sin tredje misjonsreise.

Paulus regnes for å ha vært en av de første kristne misjonærer og en av de første teologer. Hans teologi la grunnlaget for den moderne kristendom. Den viktigste kilde til kunnskap om ham er hans egne brev, dernest Apostlenes gjerninger.

Byen ble i 1124 erobret under Det første korstoget og var en av de viktigste byene i kongeriket Jerusalem. Det var en del av den kongelige besittelse, skjønt det var også selvstendige handelskolonier der for italienske handelsbyer. 

Byen var sete for erkebiskopen av Tyr, som er en underbiskop av den latinske patriarken av Jerusalem; dets erkebiskoper tiltrådte ofte til patriarkatet. Den mest kjente av de latinske erkebiskopene var historikeren Vilhelm av Tyr. 

Etter erobringen av Akko av kong Rikard Løvehjerte ble setet for kongedømmet flyttet dit i 1191, men kroningen ble holdt i Tyr. Tyr ble atskilt fra den kongelige besittelse som et eget korsfarerdømme på 1200-tallet. I 1291 ble den erobret av mamelukkene. Deretter fulgte det muslimske osmanske styret før dagens moderne stat Libanon ble erklært i 1920. 

Batroûn

I nord besøkte vi blant annet byen Batroun (gresk Botrys; arabisk al-Batrun; arameisk Bitron), som er en kystby og et viktig turistmål i Nord-Libanon. Selve Batroun har titalls historiske kirker, både katolske og gresk-ortodokse. Byen er òg en badeby med et yrende natteliv som inkluderer puber og nattklubber. Byen er rik på sitruslunder og byen har vært kjent fra tidlig på 1900-tallet for den ferske limonaden, som blir solgt på de fleste kafeer og restauranter i hovedgaten.

På veien dit passerte vi festningen Mseilha (romanisert: Qal‘at al-Msaylḥa) fra middelalderen, som er bygget på en isolert, lang og smal kalkstein med bratte sider i nærheten av elven Nahr el-Jawz. Fortet, som ligger midt på en slette omgitt av fjell, er et festningsverk bygget av Emir Fakhreddine II på 1600-tallet for å vokte ruten fra Tripoli til Beirut. 

Veggene er konstruert med små sandsteinblokker fra steinbrudd ved den nærliggende kysten og bygget på kanten av kalksteinen. De større kalksteinsblokkene er de eneste restene av en tidligere struktur som antagelig er bygget av samme defensive grunn.

En rekke forskere har studert historien og arkitekturen til Mseilha. Noen antar at berget som fortet står på har blitt brukt siden antikken som militærposisjon, men fortet inkluderer imidlertid ikke i sin nåværende konstruksjon noe element relatert til en tidligere periode, heller ikke korstogene. Alt tyder på at 1600-tallet var den tidligste perioden for den nåværende strukturen som ble bygget.

Fønikerne grunnla Batroun på sørsiden av en odde som i antikken ble kalt Theoprosopon, under Bysants, Lithoprosopon, og som i dag er kjent som Ras Shekka. Det eldste benevnelsen opptrer i skriftene til den greske historikeren Polybius som kalte den for Theou Prosopon («Guds ansikt»).

De greske geografene Ptolemy og Strabon kalte den også for Theouprosopon, mens den romerske geografen Pomponius kalte den for Promontorium Euprosopon («Det gode ansikts nes»). Navnet Lithoprosopon ble ikke brukt før Bysants, da området kristnet og navnet ble skiftet fra “Guds ansikt til Lithoprosopon («Steinens ansikt»).

Arameiske og syriske historikere oversatte navnet til Parsuph Kipa og senere oversatte arabiske historikere oversatte det til Anf Al-Hajar og Wajh Al-Hajar («Steinansiktetes nese»). Korsfarerne kalte den for Konstablens kirkebenk og Generalens ås. Mamlukkene og osmanerne gikk tilbake til dets arabiske navn Wajh Al-Hajar.

Den franske historikeren Laurent d’Arvieux skrev i 1660 at frankerne ga navnet Cape Rouge, en korrupsjon av det libanesiske arabiske ordet wež («ansikt»). Jean de La Roque, i 1688, ga odden ytterligere to navn, Capo Pagro og Cappouge, som sannsynligvis var en korrupsjon av Cap Rouge. 

Cappouge kan også komme fra Capo poggio («Åsens eller Klippens klippe»), som samsvarer med det nåværende navnet på den, Râs Shekka («Steinklippens klippe»). Dette refererer trolig til den gresk ortodokse klosteret Vår frue av lyset, som ble bygget på den tiden. Odden huser i dag flere badesteder. Det er også et populært kristent pilgrimssted hvor troende besøker helgenskrinet og klosteret til Vår frue av Nourieh, som befinner seg i landsbyen Hamat.

Odden ligger mellom de gamle byene Batroun og Tripoli. Under antikken eksisterte en vei som gikk parallelt med havet, noe som gjorde det mulig å omgå Lithoprosopon, men et jordskjelv som førte til jordras og sprekker i Lithoprosopon fant sted i 551. Man antar at Batroun led store skader og at den store naturlige havnen i Batroun ble dannet under jordskjelvet.

Jordskjelvet forårsaket et skred, noe som fikk veien til å synke permanent i sjøen og dermed isolerte Tripoli fra Batroun og Byblos. Etter sammenbruddet av odden Ras Shekka forsvant kystveien som forbinder byene Batroun, El-Heri og Tripoli fullstendig, og forvandlet den nordlige strandlinjen til en høy sjøklippe. Det ble skapt en massiv barriere som skjærer gjennom Libanon-kysten, noe som gjør det umulig for reisende å omgå. Dagens moderne, kystnære motorvei går gjennom to tunneler.

En ny vei som kunne gjøre det mulig å komme forbi odden var derfor nødvendig for å sikre kommunikasjon mellom Batroun og Nord. Veien krysser Nahr el-Jawz dalen for så å svinge rundt Ras Shekka odden for å nå den andre siden på et sted i nærheten av El-Heri kalt Bab el-Hawa (som betyr «vindens dør»). Å bygge en festning langs med den nye veien var av stor strategisk og militær betydning for å bevare sikkerhet og sikre kommunikasjon og reisemuligheter.

Navnet Batroun stammer fra det arabiske al-Batroun, som kommer fra det greske navnet Botrys (også stavet Bothrys), som senere ble latinisert til Botrus. Historikere mener at det greske navnet på byen stammer fra det fønikiske ordet, bater, som betyr å kutte, og at det refererer til den maritime muren som fønikerne bygde i havet for å beskytte dem mot tidevannsbølger.

Batroun er trolig byen «Batruna», som blir nevnt i Amarnabrevene på 1300-tallet fvt. Byen blir nevnt av de gamle greske geografene Strabon, Plinius, Ptolemaios, Stefanos Byzantius og Hierokles. Theofanes bekjenneren (758/760-817/818), som var en bysantinsk aristokrat som ble munk og chronicler kalte byen «Botrys». Etter den muslimske erobringen av regionen ble navnet arabifisert til Batroun.

Batroun er sagt å ha blitt grunnlagd av Ithobaal I (915-847 f.vt.), en konge av Tyr som skapte et nytt dynasti, og hans datter Jezabel av Sidon (897-866 f.vt.), som giftet seg med Ahab, ifølge hebreiske skrifter den syvende kongen av Israel siden Jeroboam I, den første kongen av Israels nordlige kongedømme, samt sønn og etterfølger til Omri.

Under styret til Ithobaal I ekspanderte Tyr sin makt på fastlandet og gjorde hele Fønikia til sittså langt nord som til Beirut, inkludert Sidon, og selv deler av Kypros. Samtidig skapte Tyr nye oversjøiske kolonier, inkludert Botrys og Auza i Libya.

Batroun var under romersk styre en del av provinsen Fønikia Prima, og senere, etter at regionen var blitt kristen, ble byen et underbispedømme av patriarkatet i Antiokia. Batroun er et romersk-katolsk bispesete og innbyggerne er for det meste maronittisk-katolske, gresk-katolske og gresk-ortodokse. I følge en gresk Notitia episcopatuum skal det gresk-ortodokse bispesetet ha eksistert i Batroun siden 900-tallet, da byen ble kalt Petrounion’.

Under osmansk styre ble byen setet for de osmanske myndighetene i Libanon, samt sete for et maronittisk bispedøme, som var underlagt Det maronittiske patriarkatet. Byen har vært setet for et maronittisk eparki siden 1999.

Tripoli

I det nordlige Libanon besøkte vi også byen Tripoli (Arabisk: ṭrāblus, av gammelgresk Tripolis), som er den største byen i det nordlige Libanon og den nest største byen i landet. Byen ligger ved Middelhavskysten, 70 kilometer nord for Beirut og er det administrative senteret i Nord provinsen og Tripoli distriktet. Det er en viktig havneby og et kommersielt og industrielt senter.

Tripoli har hatt en rekke forskjellige navn helt tilbake til den fønikiske perioden. Byen var i antikken et senter for et fønikisk forbund som omfattet Tyr, Sidon og Arados, og ble derfor kalt Tripoli, som betyr «trippel by» på gresk.

I Amarna-brevene ble navnet Derbly, muligens en semittisk kognat av byens moderne arabiske navn Ṭarābulus, nevnt på 1300-tallet f.vt., og andre steder ble Ahlia eller Wahlia nevnt. I en gravering om invasjonen av Tripoli av den assyriske kongen Ashurnasirpal II (888–859 f.vt.) blir den Kaltt Mahallata eller Mahlata, Mayza og Kayza.

Under fønikerne ble navnet Athar brukt. Da grekerne bosatte seg i byen kalte de den Tripolis, som betyr «tre byer», påvirket av det tidligere fonetisk like, men etymologisk ikke-relaterte navnet Derbly. Araberne kalte den for Ṭarābulus og Ṭarābulus al-Šām med henvisning til bilād al-Šām, for å skille den fra den libyske byen med samme navn.

I dag er Tripoli også kjent som al-fayḥā, som er et begrep hentet fra det arabiske verbet faha som brukes til å indikere diffusjon av en duft eller lukt. Tripoli var en gang kjent for sine enorme oransje frukthager. I løpet av blomstringssesongen ble det sagt at pollen av oransje blomster ble ført i luften og skapt en fantastisk parfyme som fylte byen og forstedene. 

Det finnes rester etter bosetninger tilbake til tidlig steinalderen, og byen dateres minst tilbake til 1400-tallet f.vt. Fønikerne etablerte en handelsstasjon i byen på 900-tallet f.vt., og under navnet Athar var den sentrum i det fønikiske handelsforbund mellom 700 og 300 f.vt.

Den ble senere underlagt Det assyriske riket, og persisk herredømme ble den senter for en konføderasjon bestående av de fønikiske bystatene Sidon, Try og Arados øya. Under hellenistisk herredømme ble byen brukt som skipsverft og opplevde en periode med autonomi før den ble underlagt romersk herredømme i 64 f.vt. Jordskjelvet i Beirut og den påfølgende tsunamien i 551, ødela den bysantinske byen Tripoli sammen med en rekke andre middelhavsbyer.

Tripoli ble havneby for Damaskus og et viktig handelssentrum for hele Middelhavet i etterkant av de arabiske erobringene under omayyadene i 646. Den fungerte som den andre militære havnen i den arabiske marinen, etter Alexandria. Byen hadde semi-uavhengighet under Fatimid-styre. Det var et velstående fyrstedømme under emirene fra Kutama Ismaili Shia Banu Ammar. Juridisk sett var den en del av jurisdiksjonen til den militære provinsen Damaskus.

Korsfarerne erobret byen i 1109, noe som forårsaket omfattende ødeleggelser, inkludert forbrenningen av Tripolis berømte bibliotek, Dar al-‘Ilm («Kunnskapens hus»), med tusenvis av bind. Under korsfarernes styre ble den i perioden 1109–1289 hovedstad i korsfarerstaten Grevskapet Tripoli. I 1289 falt den til Mamlukkene og den gamle havnedelen av byen ble ødelagt. En ny innlandsby ble deretter bygget i nærheten av det gamle slottet. Tripoli er den nest største byen i verden (etter Kairo) med mamelukkarkitektur.

Tripoli har den største festningen i Libanon; Raymond de Saint-Gilles-festningen, som er oppkalt etter Raymond de Saint-Gilles, som dominerte byen i 1102 og fikk bygd en festning han kalte Mont Pelerin (Pilegrimsfjellet). Den opprinnelige borgen ble brent ned i 1289, men den ble bygd opp igjen flere ganger, inkludert i 1307-08, av emir Essendemir Kurgi.

Senere, etter at Tripoli sammen med Egypt og Syria hadde blitt erobret av osmanerne i 1516, ble festningen delvis bygd opp igjen av Det osmanske riket, slik den framstår i dag, med massive osmanske porter, der man kan se en gravering frå Süleyman den store som ga ordre om restaureringen. Den ble også restaurert av den osmanske guvernøren i Tripoli, Mustafa Agha Barbar, tidlig på 1800-tallet. 

Tripoli fungerte under osmansk styre som provinshovedstad og beholdt sin velstand og kommersielle betydning fram til 1918. Den inngikk sammen med resten av Libanon i et fransk mandat fra 1920 til 1943, da Libanon oppnådde uavhengighet. En tidligere rask økonomisk utvikling og utbygging ble hemmet da Beirut ble hovedstad i Republikken Libanon, og ytterligere som en følge av borgerkrigen i Libanon i 1975–1990. 

De fleste av innbyggerne i byen er sunnimuslimer. I tillegg kommer 10 prosent kristne og en liten alevittisk minoritet konsentrert rundt en høyde sentralt i byen. På grunn av den sunnimuslimske majoriteten var Tripoli et senter for motstand mot den kristendominerte og høyreorienterte sentralregjeringen i 1958 og under de første årene av borgerkrigen i 1975–1976.

I 1982–1983 var Tripoli hovedsete for den palestinske frigjøringsorganisasjonen PLO og ble deretter okkupert av syriske styrker i 1985. Av politiske grunner er forholdet mellom sunnimuslimske islamister og alevitter i Tripoli spent, og det har vært gjentatte voldelige sammenstøt mellom gruppene helt siden utbruddet av borgerkrigen.

Byblos

Vi dro også til byen Byblos (arabisk: Jubayl), en by ved Middelhavet i provinsen Libanonfjellene 41 km nord for Beirut. Byblos er med sin gamle havn, ruinene fra fønikisk og romersk tid, samt korsfarertiden, sandstrendene og de vakre fjellene, et utmerket mål for turister. Byen er kjent for sine restauranter, barer og utendørskafeer.

Det har i Byblos blitt gjort funn fra bygninger fra neolittisk tid, også kjent som bondesteinalderen eller yngre steinalder, som var en periode hvor mennesket gikk gradvis over fra jeger- og samlersamfunnet til et samfunn fast bosetning hvor mennesket først og fremst forsørget seg gjennom jordbruk og husdyrhold for rundt 10.000 år siden.

Tidlig utvikling skjedde i det fruktbare halvmåne-området, det sørøstlige Anatolia og i det nordlige Mesopotamia og spredde seg derfra både østover og vestover. Befolkningen økte og nye redskaper ble utviklet. Perioden ble avsluttet med at nye redskaper av metall ble utviklet, noe som innledet overgangen til bronsealderen eller for enkelte folkeslag, avhengig av den geografiske region, direkte inn i jernalderen.

Byblos er attesteret som et arkeologisk sted fra tidlig bronsealder. Den ble kalt Gubal under bronsealderen og Gubla i Amarnabrevene. I jernalderen ble den kalt Gebal på fønikisk og Geval i den hebraiske Bibelen. Under korstogene ble den omtalt som Gibelet. 

Navnet Byblos er gresk. Papyrus fikk det greske navnet sitt (byblos, byblinos) fordi det ble eksportert til Egeerhavet gjennom Byblos. Det greske ordet biblion (flertall; biblia), og til slutt ordet «Bibel» («papyrusboken»), kommer fra det samme navnet.

Kardialkeramikk, eller kardium-keramikk, kulturen, en neolittisk kultur med opprinnelse ved den østre middelhavskysten i Levanten, som området Byblos, oppsto i 6400-5500 f.vt. Den ekspanderte via adriaterhavskysten til de østlige kystene av Spania og til atlanterhavskysten i Portugal og sør til Marokko, noe som tyder på en ekspansjon til sjøs ved å plante kolonier langs kysten.

Dens navn, kardium eller kardial keramikk kulturen, henviser til en dekorativ stil ved fremstilling av steintøy og keramikk. Navnet kommer fra å dekorere keramikken ved å prege eller trykke den med hjerteskjell, en spiselig saltvannsmusling som tidligere på latinsk var kjent som Cardium edulis (nå Cerastoderma edule). 

Det første dynastiet i Egypt utnyttet tømmer fra Byblos, og et av de eldste egyptiske ordene for en havgående båt var «Byblos-skip». Byblos var alliert med Egypt i mange hundre år, men ble under Det gamle riket i Egypt (ca. 2686–2181 f.vt.), som refererer til en periode på nesten 500 år i Egypts oldtid og dekker det tredje til det sjette dynasti, en egyptisk koloni.

Byblos var en velstående by og herskerne i Byblos hadde nære bånd til faraoene i Det nye riket, som er en epoke i oldtidens egyptiske historie. Perioden fulgte den andre mellomepoke, og omfattet det 18, 19 og 20 dynasti i perioden mellom 1550 til 1069 f.vt. 

Tekster skrevet ved hjelp av det fønikisk alfabetet har blitt funnet i Byblos datert til omkring 1200 f.vt. Bruken av alfabetet ble spredd av fønikiske kjøpmenn gjennom sjøhandel til deler av Nord-Afrika og Europa. Et av de viktigste monumentene fra denne perioden er tempelet til Resheph, en kanaanittisk krigsgud, men dette hadde falt i ruiner i tiden til Aleksander den store.

I Egypt ble Det nye riket etterfulgt av den tredje mellomepoke, som begynte med farao Ramesses XI død i 1070 f.vt., noe som avsluttet Det nye riket, og endte med assyrernes bortvisning av de nubiske kus

Scientists find that tin found in Israel from 3,000 years ago comes from Cornwall. Tin ingots from more than 3,000 years ago found in Israel are actually from Cornwall, a ceremonial county in South West England. It proves that complex trade routes existed as far back as the Bronze Age.

According to John T. Koch and others, Cornwall in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age (1300–700 BC), in modern-day Ireland, England, Wales, France, Spain and Portugal. Commercial contacts extended from Sweden and Denmark to the Mediterranean.

The period was defined by a number of distinct regional centres of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products. The major centres were southern England and Ireland, north-western France, and western Iberia.

It is marked by economic and cultural exchange that led to the high degree of cultural similarity exhibited by the coastal communities, including the frequent use of stones as chevaux-de-frise, the establishment of cliff castles, or the domestic architecture sometimes characterized by the round houses.

The origins of the Celts were attributed to this period in 2008 by John T. Koch and supported by Barry Cunliffe, who argued for the past development of Celtic as an Atlantic lingua franca, later spreading into mainland Europe. However, this stands in contrast to what remains the more generally accepted view that Celtic origins lie with the Central European Hallstatt C culture.

They argue that communities adopted early Late Bronze Age Urnfield (Bronze D and Hallstatt A) elite status markers such as grip-tongue swords and sheet-bronze metalwork, along with new specialist know-how needed for their production and ritual knowledge about their ‘proper’ treatment upon deposition, which they see as indicating possible processes linked to language shift.

The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western and Central European culture of Late Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B ) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe (Hallstatt C, Hallstatt D) from the 8th to 6th centuries BC. Linguistic evidence and continuity with the following Hallstatt culture suggests that the people of this area spoke an early form of Celtic, perhaps originally proto-Celtic.

The Hallstatt culture developed out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC (Late Bronze Age). Hallstatt A–B are part of the Bronze Age Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC – 750 BC), a late Bronze Age culture of central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition, while horizons Hallstatt C–D are the type site for the Iron Age Hallstatt culture.

The Hallstatt culture followed in much of its area by the La Tène culture, a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BCE to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BCE). It succeeded the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul, the Etruscans, and Golasecca culture.

The name of the Urnfield culture comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields. Over much of Europe, the Urnfield culture followed the Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture.

The Tumulus culture (German: Hügelgräberkultur) dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600 to 1200 BC). As the name implies, the Tumulus culture is distinguished by the practice of burying the dead beneath burial mounds (tumuli or kurgans).

The Tumulus culture was eminently a warrior society, which expanded with new chiefdoms eastward into the Carpathian Basin (up to the river Tisza), and northward into Polish and Central European Únětice territories. The culture’s dispersed settlements centred in fortified structures.

Some scholars see Tumulus groups from southern Germany in this context as corresponding to a community that shared an extinct Indo-European linguistic entity, such as the hypothetical Italo-Celtic group that was ancestral to Italic and Celtic.

This particular hypothesis, however, conflicts with suggestions by other Indo-Europeanists. For instance, David W. Anthony suggests that Proto-Italic (and perhaps also Proto-Celtic) speakers could have entered Northern Italy at an earlier stage, from the east (e.g., the Balkan/Adriatic region).

It was the descendant of the Unetice culture. Its heartland was the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture besides Bavaria and Württemberg. It was succeeded by the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture. The Únětice culture is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600 BC. The eponymous site for this culture, the village of Únětice, is located in the central Czech Republic, northwest of Prague.

The Únětice culture originated in the territories of contemporary Bohemia. The famous Sky Disk of Nebra is associated with the Central Germany groups of the Únětice culture. The disk is attributed to a site in present-day Germany near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, and dated by Archaeological association to c. 1600 BC. Researchers suggest the disk is an artifact of the Bronze Age Unetice culture.

The Nebra sky disk features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world. In June 2013 it was included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register and termed “one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century.”

A 2015 study published in Nature found the people of the Unetice culture to be closely genetically related to the Corded Ware culture, the Beaker culture and the Nordic Bronze Age. In a 2015 study published in Nature, the Y-DNA of three males of the Unetice culture from Esperstedt, Germany and Eulau, Czech Republic, was analyzed. The two individuals of Esperstedt were found to be carrying the haplgroups I2c2 and I2a2, while the individual from Eulau carried haplogroup I2.

The study found that Unetice people, similarly to the contemporary Beaker people, had less ancestry from the Yamnaya culture than the earlier Corded Ware culture. The authors of the study took this to be a sign of a resurgence of the indigenous inhabitants of Western Europe in the aftermath of the Yamnaya expansion.

The Bell Beaker culture or short Beaker culture, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from around 2800 BC, and lasting in continental Europe until 2300 BC, succeeded by the Unetice culture, in Britain until as late as 1800 BC.

The Bell Beaker culture follows the Corded Ware culture and for north-central Europe the Funnelbeaker culture. The culture was widely scattered throughout Western Europe, from various regions in Iberia and spots facing northern Africa to the Danubian plains, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and also the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

As the Beaker culture left no written records, all theories regarding the language or languages they spoke is highly conjectural. It has been suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture; more specifically, an ancestral proto-Celtic.

Mallory has more recently suggested that the Beaker culture was possibly associated with a European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed “North-west Indo-European”, ancestral to not only Celtic but equally Italic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic.

In its early phase, the Bell Beaker culture can be seen as the western contemporary of the Corded Ware culture of Central Europe. From about 2400 BC, however, the “Beaker folk” expanded eastwards, into the Corded Ware horizon. In parts of Central and Eastern Europe – as far east as Poland – a sequence occurs from Corded Ware to Bell Beaker.

In a 2015 study published in Nature, the remains of a later Bell Beaker male skeleton from Quedlinburg, Germany dated to 2296–2206 BC were analyzed. The individual was found to be carrying haplogroup R1b1a2a1a2. The study found that the Bell Beakers and people of the Unetice culture had less ancestry from the Yamnaya culture than the earlier Corded Ware culture.

The authors of the study took this to be a sign of a resurgence of the indigenous inhabitants of Western Europe in the aftermath of the Yamnaya expansion. Another 2015 study published in Nature found the people of the Beaker culture to be closely genetically related to the Corded Ware culture, the Unetice culture and the Nordic Bronze Age.

In yet another 2015 study published in Nature, the remains of eight individuals ascribed to the Beaker culture were analyzed. Two individuals were determined to belong to Haplogroup R1, while the remaining six were determined to belong to haplogroup R1b1a2 and various subclades of it. A study published in Nature in February 2018 confirmed that Bell Beaker males carried almost exclusively R1b.

The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between c. 2900 BCE – circa 2350 BCE, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the Rhine on the west to the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

According to Haak et al. (2017), the Corded Ware people carried mostly Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry and were closely related to the people of the Yamna culture (or Yamnaya), “documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery,” the Eurasiatic steppes.

The Corded Ware culture may have disseminated the Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic Indo-European languages. The Corded Ware Culture also shows genetic affinity with the later Sintashta culture, where the Proto-Indo-Iranian language may have originated.

The Yamnaya culture, also known as the Yamnaya Horizon, Yamna culture, Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC.

Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Ямна (romanization: yamna) is a Ukrainian adjective that means ‘related to pits (yama)’, and these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.

The people of the Yamnaya culture were likely the result of a genetic admixture between the descendants of Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers[a] and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus. People with this ancestral component are known as Western Steppe Herders.

Their material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo.

The Yamnaya culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans, and is the strongest candidate for the urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. They lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts that allowed them to manage large herds.

According to Haak et al. (2015), “Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers” who inhabited today’s Russia were a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high genetic affinity to a c. 24,000-year-old Siberian from Mal’ta–Buret’ culture, which in turn resembles other remains of Siberia, such as the Afontova Gora.

Remains of the “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” have been found in Mesolithic or early Neolithic sites in Karelia and Samara Oblast, Russia, and put under analysis. Three such hunter-gathering individuals of the male sex have had their DNA results published. Each was found to belong to a different Y-DNA haplogroup: R1a, R1b, and J.

The Near East population were most likely hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG), though one study suggested that farmers dated to the Chalcolithic era from what is now Iran may be a better fit for the Yamnaya’s Near Eastern descent.

Jones et al. (2015) analyzed genomes from males from western Georgia, in the Caucasus, from the Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old) and the Mesolithic (9,700 years old). These two males carried Y-DNA haplogroup: J* and J2a. The researchers found that these Caucasus hunters were probably the source of the Near Eastern DNA in the Yamnaya.

Recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions of a Caucasian homeland for a ‘proto-proto-Indo-European’. It also lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language “no later than the 4th millennium BCE.”

Haak et al. (2015) states that “the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility” since the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. Yet, they also state that “the question of what languages were spoken by the ‘Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers’ and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open.”

Haplogroup R1b is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among both the Yamnaya and modern-day Western Europeans. It has been hypothetised that R1b people (perhaps alongside neighbouring J2 tribes) were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago.

The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs. The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains.

The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja’de el-Mughara in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding – or in other words the “original homeland” of R1b.

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the partially reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis, or vocabulary, can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics, in the same manner as Proto-Indo-European or PIE, the ancient language which has been most thoroughly re-constructed.

The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, closely associated with subsequent civilizations found on the Armenian Highlands. This is evident with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets, which closely resemble Armenian tonirs.

It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. The earliest known kurgans are dated to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus. Kurgan barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Altay Mountains, Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. Kurgans were used in Ukrainian and Russian steppes, their use spreading with migration into eastern, central, and northern Europe in the 3rd millennium BC.

In 2006, a French–Azerbaijani team discovered nine kurgans at the cemetery of Soyuqbulaq, a village in the Agstafa Rayon of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, which makes it the oldest kurgan cemetery in Transcaucasia. Similar kurgans have been found at Kavtiskhevi, Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia.

Several other archaeological sites seem to belong to the same ancient cultural tradition as Soyuq Bulaq. They include Berikldeebi, Kavtiskhevi, Leilatepe, Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa, and are characterized by pottery assemblages “mainly or totally in the North Mesopotamian tradition”.

Leyla-Tepe metalwork tradition was very sophisticated right from the beginning, and featured many bronze items. Later, the quality of metallurgy increased in both sophistication and quality with the advent of the Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC.

The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC. Altogether, the early trans-Caucasian culture enveloped a vast area and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories, the Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), northwestern Iran, the northeastern Caucasus, eastern Turkey, and as far as Syria.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Kura–Araxes culture is sometimes known as Shengavitian, Karaz (Erzurum), Pulur, and Yanik Tepe (Iranian Azerbaijan, near Lake Urmia) cultures. It gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak-ware culture found in Syria and Canaan.

Shulaveri-Shomu culture preceded the Kura–Araxes culture in the area. There were many differences between these two cultures, so the connection was not clear. Later, it was suggested that the Sioni culture of eastern Georgia possibly represented a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

At many sites, the Sioni culture layers can be seen as intermediary between Shulaver-Shomu-Tepe layers and the Kura-Araxes layers. This kind of stratigraphy warrants a chronological place of the Sioni culture at around 4000 BCE.

Nowadays scholars consider the Kartli area, as well as the Kakheti area (in the river Sioni region) as key to forming the earliest phase of the Kura–Araxes culture. To a large extent, this appears as an indigenous culture of Caucasus that was formed over a long period, and at the same time incorporating foreign influences.

There are some indications (such as at Arslantepe) of the overlapping in time of the Kura-Araxes and Uruk cultures; such contacts may go back even to the Middle Uruk period. Some scholars have suggested that the earliest manifestation of the Kura-Araxes phenomenon should be dated at least to the last quarter of the 5th millennium BC. This is based on the recent data from Ovçular Tepesi, a Late Chalcolithic settlement located in Nakhchivan by the Arpaçay river.

Proto-Celtic is a descendant of the Proto-Indo-European language and is itself the ancestor of the Celtic languages which are members of the modern Indo-European language family, the most commonly spoken language family.

Modern Celtic languages share common features with Italic languages that are unseen in other branches and according to one theory they may have formed an ancient Italo-Celtic branch. In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others.

The duration of the cultures speaking Proto-Celtic was relatively brief compared to PIE’s 2,000 years. The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered as Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe c.1300 BCE. By the Iron Age Hallstatt culture of around 800 BC these people had become fully Celtic.

The Babylonian Map of the World (or Imago Mundi) is a Babylonian clay tablet containing a labeled depiction of the known world, with a short and partially lost description, dated to roughly the 6th century BC (Neo-Babylonian or early Achaemenid period).

This cuneiform map of the Babylonian world is an archeological treasure on a par with the Rosetta Stone and the code of Hammurabi. It is the one of the oldest known world maps and certainly the most famous.

The tablet is oriented toward the northeast. It shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by a circular landmass with Assyria, Urartu (Armenia), Ocean and islands arranged around, forming a seven-pointed star.

Urartu is a geographical region commonly used as the exonym for the Iron Age kingdom also known by the modern rendition of its endonym, the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands (present-day eastern Anatolia).

It is unknown what language was spoken by the peoples of Urartu at the time of the existence of the kingdom, but there is linguistic evidence of contact between the proto-Armenian language and the Urartian language at an early date.

The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but went into gradual decline and was eventually conquered by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC. The geopolitical region would re-emerge as Armenia shortly after.

In the 6th century BC, with the emergence of Armenia in the region, the name of the region was simultaneously referred to as variations of Armenia and Urartu. Being heirs to the Urartian realm, the earliest identifiable ancestors of the Armenians are the peoples of Urartu.

In the trilingual Behistun Inscription, carved in 521 or 520 BC by the order of Darius I, the country referred to as Urartu in Akkadian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in the Elamite language.

The mentions of Urartu in the Books of Kings and Isaiah of the Bible were translated as “Armenia” in the Septuagint. Some English language translations, including the King James Version follow the Septuagint translation of Urartu as Armenia. The identification of the biblical “mountains of Ararat” with the Mt. Ararat (Turkish: Ağrı Dağı) is a modern identification based on postbiblical tradition.

Reality show star Kourtney Kardashian posted a photo of pakhlava (baklava), one of the most famous and exquisite dishes of Armenian cuisine, on her Instagram page.”Homemade Armenian Pakhlava”, wrote Kourtney Kardashian.

According to Ermenihaber, this post has angered Turk users. They wrote various comments under the photo. Here are some of the comments: “Pakhlava is our red line. Don’t go overboard”. “Pakhlava is ours, ours will remain”.

Pakhlava is one of the most famous and exquisite dishes of Armenian and eastern cuisine. In Armenia, there are several widespread variations of pakhlava, including Yerevan and Gavar.

Baklava is a rich, sweet dessert pastry made of layers of filo filled with chopped nuts and sweetened and held together with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the Levant and the broader Middle East, along with Greece, the South Caucasus, Balkans, Maghreb, and Central Asia.

The word baklava is first attested in English in 1650, a borrowing from Ottoman Turkish. The name baklava is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations. Linguist Sevan Nişanyan considers its oldest known forms (pre-1500) to be baklağı and baklağu, and labels it as being of Proto-Turkic origin.

Historian Paul D. Buell argues that the word “baklava” may come from the Mongolian root baγla- ‘to tie, wrap up, pile up’ composed with the Turkic verbal ending -v; baγla- itself in Mongolian is a Turkic loanword. Another form of the word is also recorded in Persian bāqlabā. Though the suffix -vā might suggest a Persian origin, the baqla- part does not appear to be Persian and remains of unknown origin.

Although the history of baklava is not well documented, its current form was probably developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace, or the Seraglio, that has served as the main residence and administrative headquarters of the Ottoman sultans, in Istanbul. The Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the Baklava Alayı.

There are three proposals for the pre-Ottoman roots of baklava: the Roman placenta cake, as developed through Byzantine cuisine,  the Central Asian Turkic tradition of layered breads, or the Persian lauzinaq.

The oldest (2nd century BCE) recipe that resembles a similar dessert is the honey covered baked layered-dough dessert placenta of Roman times, which Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava: “The Greeks and the Turks still argue over which dishes were originally Greek and which Turkish. Baklava, for example, is claimed by both countries.

Greek and Turkish cuisine both built upon the cookery of the Byzantine Empire, which was a continuation of the cooking of the Roman Empire. Roman cuisine had borrowed a great deal from the ancient Greeks, but placenta (and hence baklava) had a Latin, not a Greek, origin—please note that the conservative, anti-Greek Cato left us this recipe.”

The history of Armenian brandy started in 1887 when Nerses Tairyan, very famous Armenian trader, founded the first Wine and Brandy Factory in Yerevan. In 1890 Shustov presented the brandy in Paris exhibition and recognized the best factory, winning Grand Prix. In 1945, during the Yalta’s conference, Winston Churchill first time tasted “Dvin” brandy and “fell in love” with this Armenian beverage. Years later, when Churchill was asked what his secret of longevity was, he answered: ” Never be late for dinner, smoke Hawaiian cigar and drink Armenian cognac.”

The Arch of Charents was erected in 1957 and named in honour of the outstanding Armenian poet, patriot and public activist Yeghishe Charents (1897-1937), who wrote the best poem, dedicated to Armenia, full of true love and pride. Visiting these areas he often used to admire the incredible landscapes.

The stone arch literally situated on the highway opens up a wonderful view of the holy Ararat mountain. There is a quote from Charents ‘ famous work written on the 1957 arch by the famous Soviet Armenian architect Rafayel “Rafo” Israyelian (1908-1973) in which the poet glorifies Ararat’s beauty.

Charents’ literary subject matter ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialist revolution, and frequently Armenia and Armenians. He is recognized as “the main poet of the 20th century” in Armenia. An early supporter of communism, Charents joined the Bolshevik party, but as the Stalinist terror began in the 1930s, he gradually grew disillusioned with Stalinism and died during the 1930s purges.

Charents Arch is one of the most famous tourist spots visiting it to admire the incredible scenic view and take pictures in memory of the beautiful Armenia. “One of the most peaceful places, and the clouds came in front of the Mount Ararat (Masis), but still looked beautiful”, – writes National Geographic about this wonderful place.

If you ever thought that the ones that rule in the U.S. is interested in freedom and democrazy – or peace and human rights for that matter – then think again – if they were they would have implemented such matters for long time ago in the U.S…

A plutocracy (Greek: outos, ‘wealth’ + kratos, ‘power’) or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.

The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy.

Plutocracy is linked to the term dynastic wealth. The concept of plutocracy may be advocated by the wealthy classes of a society in an indirect or surreptitious fashion since the term itself is almost always used in a pejorative sense.

One modern, formal example of a plutocracy, according to some critics, is the City of London. The City (also called the Square Mile of ancient London, corresponding to the modern financial district) has a unique electoral system for its local administration, separate from London proper.

According to Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, the modern day U.S. resembles a plutocracy, though with democratic forms. Former Chairman of the federal reserve, Paul Volcker, also believes the US is developing into a plutocracy.

Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression.

President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the “trust-buster” for his aggressive use of United States antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company.

In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, TR recounted: «…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.»

The U.S. instituted progressive taxation in 1913, but according to Shamus Khan, in the 1970s, elites used their increasing political power to lower their taxes, and today successfully employ what political scientist Jeffrey Winters calls “the income defense industry” to greatly reduce their taxes.

In 1998, Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as “The Donor Class” (list of top donors) and defined the class, for the first time, as “a tiny group – just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population – and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. But its money buys plenty of access.”

When the Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote the 2011 Vanity Fair magazine article entitled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%”, the title and content supported Stiglitz’s claim that the U.S. is increasingly ruled by the wealthiest 1%.

According to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a “fusion of money and government.”

Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, says that the present trend towards plutocracy occurs because the rich feel that their interests are shared by society.

According to Freeland: «You don’t do this in a kind of chortling, smoking your cigar, conspiratorial thinking way. You do it by persuading yourself that what is in your own personal self-interest is in the interests of everybody else.

So you persuade yourself that, actually, government services, things like spending on education, which is what created that social mobility in the first place, need to be cut so that the deficit will shrink, so that your tax bill doesn’t go up.

And what I really worry about is, there is so much money and so much power at the very top, and the gap between those people at the very top and everybody else is so great, that we are going to see social mobility choked off and society transformed.»

Some contemporary authors have characterized current conditions in the U.S. as oligarchic in nature. Some researchers have said the US may be drifting towards a form of oligarchy, as individual citizens have less impact than economic elites and organized interest groups upon public policy.

Oligarchy (from Greek oligarkhía); from olígos (few) and arkho (to rule or to command) is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, education or corporate, religious, political, or military control.

Such states are often controlled by families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.

Throughout history, oligarchies have often been tyrannical, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as meaning rule by the rich, for which another term commonly used today is plutocracy.

In the early 20th century Robert Michels developed the theory that democracies, as all large organizations, have a tendency to turn into oligarchies. In his “Iron law of oligarchy” he suggests that the necessary division of labor in large organizations leads to the establishment of a ruling class mostly concerned with protecting their own power.

This was already recognized by the Athenians in the fourth century BCE: After the restoration of democracy from oligarchical coups, they used the drawing of lots for selecting government officers to counteract that tendency toward oligarchy in government.

They drew lots from large groups of adult volunteers to pick civil servants performing judicial, executive, and administrative functions. They even used lots for posts, such as judges and jurors in the political courts (nomothetai), which had the power to overrule the Assembly.

A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern University), which was released in April 2014, stated that their “analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts”.

Gilens says that average citizens only get what they want if wealthy Americans and business-oriented interest groups also want it; and that when a policy favored by the majority of the American public is implemented, it is usually because the economic elites did not oppose it. Other studies have questioned the Page and Gilens study.

Gilens and Page do not characterize the U. S. as an “oligarchy” or “plutocracy” per se; however, they do apply the concept of “civil oligarchy” as used by Jeffrey A. Winters with respect to the US.

Winters has posited a comparative theory of “oligarchy” in which the wealthiest citizens – even in a “civil oligarchy” like the United States – dominate policy concerning crucial issues of wealth- and income-protection.

Simon Johnson wrote that “the reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent”, a structure which he delineated as being the “most advanced” in the world. Jeffrey A. Winters wrote that “oligarchy and democracy operate within a single system, and American politics is a daily display of their interplay.”

French economist Thomas Piketty states in his 2013 book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that “the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed.”

The top 1% of the U.S. population by wealth in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928. In 2011, according to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans “have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.”

In a 2015 interview, former President Jimmy Carter stated that the United States is now “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” due to the Citizens United ruling which effectively removed limits on donations to political candidates.

The US has made us all live in perpetuate war even if we want it or not – all because of its permanent war economy which continuously draws resources into the military sector at the expense of the private economy, even in times of peace, and because of war profiteers who makes profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war.

Perpetual war, endless war, or a forever war, is a lasting state of war with no clear conditions that would lead to its conclusion. These wars are situations of ongoing tension that may escalate at any moment, similar to the Cold War. Poor military planning is one of the major reasons that a forever war can occur.

A very large defense budget may also be a factor in the transpiration of a forever war. This allows a country to fight several forever wars. As of 2018, the United States has a high military budget that is larger than their budget for World War II, allowing for inflation, which enables them to fight wars forever in Iraq and other countries.

Politically, forever wars can occur in order to keep money flowing into institutions, such as the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC). The term military-industrial complex was first used by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961.

Eisenhower warned that “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” had emerged as a hidden force in US politics and that Americans “must not fail to comprehend its grave implications”.

He warned that the United States must “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex,” that could lead to a state of perpetual war as the big armament industry will continue to profit from warfare.

This complex consists of members of Congress from districts dependent on military industries, the Department of Defense (along with the military services), and privately owned military contractors (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman).

Eisenhower believed that the military-industrial complex tended to promote policies that might not be in the country’s best interest (such as participation in the nuclear arms race), and he feared that its growing influence, if left unchecked, could undermine American democracy.

The concept of a military-industrial complex was first suggested by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the idea that military action can be seen as a form of market-creation goes back at least as far as speeches beginning in 1930 prior to the publication of War Is a Racket in 1935.

While recognizing the boom in economic growth after the war, he reminded the people of U.S. that this was a way of profiting off warfare and that if not regulated enough it could lead to the “grave” expansion of the armaments industry.

For his warning of the thirst to profit from warfare through weapon production, Eisenhower coined the term “military industrial complex”. He said, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Although Eisenhower is credited with the phrase and many scholars regarded the phenomenon as new, elements of the domestic and international military-industrial complex predate his landmark address.

From the late 20th century, the concepts have been used to critique the U.S. Armed Forces interventions in foreign nations and the military–industrial complex, or wars with ambiguous enemies such as the War on Terror, War on Poverty and the War on Drugs.

Fifty years and some later, Americans find themselves in what seems like perpetual war. No sooner do we draw down on operations in Iraq than leaders demand an intervention in Libya or Syria or Iran.

While perpetual war constitutes perpetual losses for families, and ever expanding budgets, it also represents perpetual profits for a new and larger complex of business and government interests.

A war economy or wartime economy is the set of contingencies undertaken by a modern state to mobilize its economy for war production. In short it is a system of producing, mobilizing and allocating resources to sustain the violence.

War is often used as a last ditch effort to prevent deteriorating economic conditions or currency crises, particularly by expanding services and employment in the military, and by simultaneously depopulating segments of the population to free up resources and restore the economic and social order.

During the century and more of the development of modern capitalism, since the first industrial crisis of 1825, the capitalist sought his profit in the marketplace through the production of consumer goods and services.

Some capitalists, of course, made a profit through the production of means of production (fixed capital) but such machinery was intended for the use of other capitalists who, in turn, would employ the machines to produce consumer commodities more profitably than could otherwise be done.

This was the typical modus operandi of capitalism up to and into the period of its decline, except in wartime, until the beginning of the Permanent War Economy. It governed all phases of the business cycle.

A war economy exists whenever the government’s expenditures for war (or ‘national defense’) become a legitimate and significant end-purpose of economic activity. The dominant characteristic of the Permanent War Economy is that war output becomes a legitimate end-purpose of economic activity.

The Permanent War Economy of the United States has endured since the end of World War II in 1945. The New Deal did not end the Depression; World War II did, and the memory of that fact has had a profound effect on postwar politics.

The U.S. has been involved in numerous military endeavours within the Middle East and Latin America since the 1960s and have been in a continuous state of war since the September 11 Attacks.

Since then the U.S. has been at war–somewhere–every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan–all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama.

Critics of the enormous military establishment have pointed out the evil things it can cause (Asian war, nuclear annihilation) and the noble things it prevents from doing (housing for the poor, etc.), but the critics have not managed to shake the unspoken public belief that large‐scale, even profligate military spending is a cornerstone of American prosperity.

Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy. Civilian manufacturing industries are being swept away as a war-focused White House and a compliant Congress sponsor deindustrialization of the U.S.

As production of both consumer goods and capital goods is moved out of the U.S., unions and whole communities are decimated. Ghost towns are created across the country at the samt time as shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city.

State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military–giving automatic approvals to its spending without limit. The same officials cannot find money for affordable housing.

There is no public “space” for dialogue on how to improve the quality of the living standard. Such topics are subordinate to “how to make war”. Congress under both Republican and Democratic control has voted the same war priorities into the federal budget.

Military forces have been funded overwhelmingly by national governments, which historically have been the target of lobbying efforts by bureaucrats in military-related ministries, by legislators from districts containing military bases or major military manufacturing plants, and by representatives of private firms involved in the production of weapons and munitions.

Because the goals and interests of these various actors broadly coincide, they tend to support each other’s activities and to form mutually beneficial relationships—what some critics have called an “iron triangle” between government officials, legislators, and military-industrial firms.

For example, legislators who receive campaign contributions from military firms may vote to award funding to projects in which the firms are involved, and military firms may hire former defense-ministry officials as lobbyists.

While few politicians are willing to admit it, we don’t just endure wars we seem to need war – at least for some people. A study showed that roughly 75 percent of the fallen in these wars come from working class families. They do not need war. They pay the cost of the war.

Eisenhower would likely be appalled by the size of the industrial and governmental workforce committed to war or counter-terrorism activities. Military and homeland budgets now support millions of people in an otherwise declining economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars flow each year from the public coffers to agencies and contractors who have an incentive to keep the country on a war-footing – and footing the bill for war.

Across the country, the war-based economy can be seen in an industry which includes everything from Homeland Security educational degrees to counter-terrorism consultants to private-run preferred traveller programmes for airport security gates.

Recently, the “black budget” of secret intelligence programmes alone was estimated at $52.6bn for 2013. That is only the secret programmes, not the much larger intelligence and counterintelligence budgets.

There are 16 spy agencies that employ 107,035 employees. This is separate from the over one million people employed by the military and national security law enforcement agencies. The core of this expanding complex is an axis of influence of corporations, lobbyists, and agencies that have created a massive, self-sustaining terror-based industry.

The economic war-dependence is matched by political war-dependence. Many members represent districts with contractors that supply homeland security needs and on-going wars.

Even with polls showing that the majority of Americans are opposed to continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new military-industrial complex continues to easily muster the necessary support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

It is a testament to the influence of this alliance that hundreds of billions are being spent in Afghanistan and Iraq while Congress is planning to cut billions from core social programmes, including a rollback on Medicare due to lack of money. None of that matters.

The military budget is the portion of the discretionary United States federal budget allocated to the Department of Defense, or more broadly, the portion of the budget that goes to any military-related expenditures.

The United States spends more on their defense budget than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan combined. The 2018 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 36% of global arms spending (for comparison, U.S. GDP is only 24% of global GDP).

The US also maintains the largest number of military bases on foreign soil across the world. While there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the United States, there are now around 800 U.S. bases in foreign countries.

Military spending makes up nearly 16% of entire federal spending and approximately half of discretionary spending. In a general sense discretionary spending (defense and non-defense spending) makes up one-third of the annual federal budget.

For 2019 the Department of Defense’ budget authority is approximately $693,058,000,000. Approximately $684,985,000,000 is discretionary, approximately $8,081,000,000 is mandatory. The Department of Defense estimates that $652,225,000,000 will actually be spent (outlays).

Beside death and destruction, mental illness and suffering, military activity has significant impacts on the environment. Indeed, the US military is also considered to be the number one fossil fuel consumer and one of the largest generators of pollution in the world.

Not only can war be destructive to the socioenvironment, but military activities produce extensive amounts of greenhouse gases (that contribute to anthropogenic climate change), pollution, and cause resource depletion, among other environmental impacts.

Military pollution is a worldwide occurrence. Armed forces from around the world were responsible for the emission of two thirds of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were banned in the 1987 Montreal Protocol for causing damage to the ozone layer.

It is what Eisenhower described as the “misplaced power” of the military-industrial complex – power that makes public opposition and even thousands of dead soldiers immaterial. War may be hell for some but it is heaven for others in a war-dependent economy.

The earliest known swastika is from 10,000 BCE – part of “an intricate meander pattern of joined-up swastikas” found on a late paleolithic figurine of a bird, carved from mammoth ivory, found in Mezine, Ukraine.

It has been suggested that this swastika may be a stylized picture of a stork in flight. As the carving was found near phallic objects, this may also support the idea that the pattern was a fertility symbol.

The Stork is traditionally considered a sacred animal in Armenian legends and mythology. Aragil means Stork in Armenian language. A bird that has no claims, but always selects the highest and best places to build its nest.

In ancient Armenian mythology the stork “Aragil” was considered to be the messenger of Ara the Beautiful, as well as the defender of fields. According to ancient mythological conceptions, two stork symbolize the sun.

Storks are found in abundance on Armenia Highlands, of particular importance are the wetlands of the Ararat valley. Even today Armenia is a proud residence for a sizable population. They are seldom persecuted and often nest close to people, on anything from telegraph poles to roofs.

A stork nest on your house is seen as a sign of good luck. As such the stork has often been a source of inspiration from the times immemorial, revered in ancient folk tales, legends, mythology and folk songs.

The origin is uncertain. It has been linked to Ancient Greek “pelargós” by de Lagarde. Ačaṙyan accepts the connection, positing an earlier “*peraglós” or “*paraglós” for Ancient Greek, and deriving the words from a substrate source in Asia Minor.

Another proposal supported by Łapʿancʿyan derives it from Sumerian (through intermediation of Urartian or Hurrian) “arikgilim”, “arakgilim”, “a kind of long-legged bird”, literally “stork cross (holding leg in cross posture)”.

Shala was an ancient Sumerian goddess of grain and the emotion of compassion. The symbols of grain and compassion combine to reflect the importance of agriculture in the mythology of Sumer, and the belief that an abundant harvest was an act of compassion from the deities.

She is associated with the constellation Virgo and vestiges of symbolism associated with her have persisted in representations of the constellation to current times, such as the ear of grain, even as the deity name changed from culture to culture.

In ancient depictions, she carries a double-headed mace or scimitar embellished with lion heads. Sometimes she is depicted as being borne atop one or two lionesses.

Ninurta, also known as Ninĝirsu, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer.

Nintinugga was a Babylonian goddess of healing, the consort of Ninurta. She is identical with the goddess of Akkadian mythology, known as Bau or Baba though it would seem that the two were originally independent.

She is later known as Gula and in medical incantations, Bēlet or Balāti, also as the Azugallatu the “great healer”. Other names borne by this goddess are Nin-Karrak, Nin Ezen, Ga-tum-dug and Nm-din-dug.

Her epithets are “great healer of the land” and “great healer of the black-headed ones”, a “herb grower”, “the lady who makes the broken up whole again”, and “creates life in the land”, making her a vegetation/fertility goddess endowed with regenerative power.

After the Great Flood, she helped “breathe life” back into mankind. The designation well emphasizes the chief trait of Bau-Gula which is that of healer. She is often spoken of as “the great physician,” and accordingly plays a specially prominent role in incantations and incantation rituals intended to relieve those suffering from disease.

She is, however, also invoked to curse those who trample upon the rights of rulers or those who do wrong with poisonous potions. She had sometimes violent nature as the “queen whose ‘tempest’, like a raging storm, makes heaven tremble, makes earth quake”.

Virgo is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for virgin. Lying between Leo to the west and Libra to the east, it is the second-largest constellation in the sky (after Hydra) and the largest constellation in the zodiac.

It can be easily found through its brightest star, Spica (designated α Virginis; Latinised to Alpha Virginis, abbreviated Alpha Vir, α Vir), a system whose two stars are so close together they are egg-shaped rather than spherical, and can only be separated by their spectra.

In the Babylonian MUL.APIN (c. 10th century BC), part of this constellation was known as “The Furrow”, representing the goddess Shala and her ear of grain.

One star in this constellation, Spica, retains this tradition as it is Latin for “ear of grain”, one of the major products of the Mesopotamian furrow. For this reason the constellation became associated with fertility.

The constellation of Virgo in Hipparchus corresponds to two Babylonian constellations: the “Furrow” in the eastern sector of Virgo and the “Frond of Erua” in the western sector.

Early Greek astronomy associated the Babylonian constellation with their goddess of wheat and agriculture, Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter who married Hades and resided in the Underworld during summer.

Alternatively, the constellation was sometimes identified as the virgin goddess Iustitia or Astraea (“star-maiden” or “starry night”), a daughter of Astraeus and Eos.

Astraea is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity and precision. She is closely associated with the Greek goddess of justice, Dike (daughter of Zeus and Themis).

She is holding the scales of justice, that now are separated as the constellation Libra, in her hand. During the Middle Ages, Virgo sometimes was associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Traditions identify Shala as wife of the fertility god Dagon, or consort of Haddu (Ugaritic), Adad, Haddad (Akkadian) or Iškur (Sumerian), the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions.

He is identified with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub, whom the Mitannians designated with the same Sumerogram dIM. Occasionally Adad/Iškur is identified with the god Amurru, the god of the Amorites.

Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun.

In Norse mythology, Sif is a goddess associated with earth. In both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, Sif is the wife of the thunder god Thor and is known for her golden hair.

The name Sif is the singular form of the plural Old Norse word sifjar. Sifjar only appears in singular form when referring to the goddess as a proper noun. Sifjar is cognate to the Old English sibb and modern English sib (meaning “affinity, connection, by marriage”).

Sifjar appears not only in ancient poetry and records of law, but also in compounds (byggja sifjar means “to marry”).

Using this etymology, scholar John Lindow gives the meanings “in-law-relationship”, scholar Andy Orchard provides “relation”, and scholar Rudolf Simek gives “relation by marriage”.

Daroun-Harissa is a municipality that consists of two villages, Harissa and Daraoun, in the Keserwan District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon. The municipality is located 27 km north of Beirut. Harissa is accessible from the coastal city of Jounieh either by road or by a nine-minute journey by a gondola lift, known as the Téléphérique.

Harissa is home to an important Christian pilgrimage site with a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Lebanon (Notre Dame du Liban). It attracts both pilgrims and tourists who want to enjoy views of the bay of Jounieh. When it was inaugurated in 1908 the Patriarch dedicated Lebanon to the Virgin Mary: “Oh Mary, Queen of mountains and seas and Queen of our beloved Lebanon …”

Our Lady of Lebanon is one of the most important shrines in the world honoring the Virgin Mary. The shrine is highlighted by a huge, 15-ton bronze statue of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of God. It is 8.5 m high, and has a diameter of five meters. The Virgin Mary stretches her hands towards Beirut. The shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon draws millions of faithful both Christians and Muslims from all over the world.

“For there were among them such innumerable horns and trumpets, which were being blown at the same time from all parts of their army, and their cries were so loud and piercing, that the noise seemed to come not from human voices and trumpets, but from the whole countryside at once”. (Polybius, Histories, II, 29)