Common cultural heritage between the Hopi, Sumerians, Mayans, Tibetans, and others..

Originally posted by ChemBreather
Hmm, I'm still stuck at : Enki and Enlil, two brothers at war, one is known to the western world as God (Enki) and the other is known as Allah (Enlil) for muslims.

Just scratching the surface of researching I don't find any evidence of this association. So you have a link to this in a 'scholarly' document?

This from New World Encyclopedia

Enlil's legacy: Like his counterparts Anu and Enki/Ea, several of Enlil's characteristics formed the theological background of later Canaanite and Israelite traditions. The Hebrew patriarch Abraham was said to have come from "Ur of the Chaldeans," directly downriver from Nippur, where Enlil's center of worship lay. Abraham's family certainly knew the stories of Enlil, Anu, and Enki. While Abraham rejected the polytheism of Babylonian religion, certain stories involving Enlil seem to have found their way into Israelite tradition. The clearest of these is the story of Enlil sending the Great Flood to destroy mankind. However, in the Hebrew version, there is only one God; and thus Yahweh is both the originator of the flood (Enlil's role) and the deity who warns Noah of its coming (Enki's role).

As Ellil, Enlil may have been influenced the development of the concept of El, the head of the assembly of the gods in Canaanite religion, and the object of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's devotion in the Hebrew Bible. Some scholars have seen a parallel between Marduk's rise to the kingship of the gods over Enlil and the older gods in Babylonian mythology and Yahweh's rise in Israelite tradition. As the sky deity and earlier king of the gods, Enlil may also have influenced the Greek concept of Zeus, although it was Marduk who was directly associated with the planet Jupiter.

Furthermore, from A History of God by Karen Armstrong (pg 158):

...Like many of the Arabs, Muhammad had come to believe that al-Lah, the High God of the ancient Arabian pantheon whose name simply meant 'the God', was identical to the God worshiped by the Jews and the Christians.

So it is somewhat more complicated than you assert, but Enlil is clearly both the God of the Jews and Allah of the Muslims. The word 'El' was common to most of the semitic peoples, including Caananites, Hebrews, Arabs, and etc and means simply 'God' or 'the God' when referring to a particular tribe version of 'El'. Thus, 'El' was the first Hebrew name of God and 'al-Lah' (literally Arabic for 'the God') became Allah. Elohim is the plural form: 'the Gods' some think it always refer to false gods, not the one true God 'El', but not modern Jews who recognize Elohim as one of the unspeakable names of God. The Yahweh concept is a later absorption from the Judeans (I think).

But he may have had a little help from Enki when it came to saving Noah from the flood. Furthermore, Enki is associated with knowledge, science and with giving this information to mankind. Um...who was it that did this in the Garden of Eden again?

Finally, Enki is also associated with the Egyptian Ptah and Khnum.

Originally posted by YukaiHenjin
Harte, do you think that the "iron eagle" refers to airplanes or some type of aircraft? It is a prophecy, and prophecies are about the future, so that is my guess on what it means. The original author probably had no other way to describe an airplane, and I can't think of anything else that would be called an "iron eagle."

Meteorite?

Originally posted by YukaiHenjin

Surely no one is suggesting that the Hopi were not here until after then?

I think the Hopi arrived across the Bering Strait with the Aztecs and other Native Americans. I was talking about the Pahana, who was described as a white man, and whether the Pahana came more recently from Europe/Middle East. All I know is that they came before the Spanish, but I'd like to know when the Hopi first prophecized about Pahana.

"White" is relative.

Also, I sincerely doubt the veracity of this so-called "Hopi prophecy."
If it was actually made at all, how do we know it wasn't made last year?

Someone here at ATS once contacted the Hopi nation on some other "prophecy" that was claimed here. The response was they'd never heard of it.

This info can be found here at ATS.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte
Meteorite?

Possibly, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of a prophecy. In prophecies, people describe future events only with the words they had back then. Today, if someone was making a prophecy, we have words like "space ship," "time machine," and "teleporter" that can refer to things that might exist in the future, but for people who only know about birds, horses, and chariots, they have to relate all vehicles to those.

I think that if you were right, the translator would have known that "iron eagle" really meant "meteorite" (for example, or any other natural phenomenon). Since meteorites have been falling for millions of years, the Hopi/Tibetans should use the same word they used before. Of course some people would use the literal "firewagon" (火車) instead of "train" in a translation of Chinese, but if this translator did that here, it would be misleading since most people wouldn't know what they really mean, unless the translator did this on purpose to make things seem mysterious.

"White" is relative.

The Hopi called the Spanish "Pahana" on the first visit. There are documented sources. The Uto-Aztecan Hopi and the Uto-Aztecan Aztec both share the Pahana/Quetzalcoatl legend. Montezuma refused to attack the Spanish because they believed that Cortes was Quetzalcoatl. Even if Pahana wasn't "white" like today's definition, he still looked different enough from the other tribes and similar enough to the Spanish that the Spanish were equated to Pahana, but no nearby tribe was.

Also, I sincerely doubt the veracity of this so-called "Hopi prophecy."
If it was actually made at all, how do we know it wasn't made last year?

Someone here at ATS once contacted the Hopi nation on some other "prophecy" that was claimed here. The response was they'd never heard of it.

I agree that in order to see if this is true or not, somebody would have to find supporting sources, a book, the Hopi themselves, someone (legitimate) who studies the Hopi, etc. If the only source is this website or the same information copied to other sites (like with the Sumerian), then it could have been made up when the site was. I knew that there were problems with the Sumerian because I read books on it, but I know very little about Hopi mythology, so I didn't find anything unbelievable there.

This info can be found here at ATS.

Harte

I'll go look for it.

Thank you for this thread, it provides much food for thought. I'm new to this forum, so forgive me if I repeat something that has already been said, but here are some things I think are important to consider when studying Sumeria, especially Sumerian languages.

1) There are no Sumerian experts. It simply isn't possible, unless they have had access to something the public doesn't know about, which, is possible. But considering the sheer amount of historical data, cuneiform tablets and things yet to be studied, the current consensus knowledge is limited. Which means that new discoveries could be being made as I write.

2) The actual study of Sumerian tablets is extremely limited. The institutions in charge of handling the classifications of tablets basically break them down into two categories. A) lists, resources, records, the "mundane" things that paint a picture of everyday life. Which are so called fact. and B) Mythology. Everything else gets lumped in as myth and fiction, which effects the mindset of the researcher and sets a value or priority of A) over B). We are basically discounting thousands of tablets, which means many of them haven't even been touched yet, let alone taken seriously. This is important to the language factor in many ways. A.K.A. Dialects etc. For example, when speaking of latin, words in poetic latin may have slightly or entirely different meaning the seemingly same word in "standard latin" ( i.e: in Ovid's Metamorpheson, 'nec opina' means 'unthought of', poetic latin, but in standard modern latin, 'nec opina' means 'unthinking'. Similar, but truly different meanings.)


In conclusion, we don't know the extent of the similarities in language yet, because we have barely scratched the surface of the wealth of info the Sumerians and the subsequent empires following them have left. But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't discourse on the subject, for that is how we learn. Thanks for sharing all the comments and the original post.

reply to post by Anamnesis

Interesting - the Egyptian word for soul is KA
Also some other shared or similar ideas regarding stars such as Sirius

reply to post by gazerstar

Celtic mythology is wonderful and rich in meaning
No one can tell story's like the Celtic storytellers
Leaving children wide eyed and agog with their tales of adventure
Yet they had a deep underlying knowledge within them

Originally posted by Savageamberq

1) There are no Sumerian experts. It simply isn't possible, unless they have had access to something the public doesn't know about, which, is possible. But considering the sheer amount of historical data, cuneiform tablets and things yet to be studied, the current consensus knowledge is limited. Which means that new discoveries could be being made as I write.

I would say that an assyriologist who can read Sumerian, Akkadian and Bablyonian and has studied the subject for fourty years is an expert

2) The actual study of Sumerian tablets is extremely limited. The institutions in charge of handling the classifications of tablets basically break them down into two categories. A) lists, resources, records, the "mundane" things that paint a picture of everyday life. Which are so called fact. and B) Mythology. Everything else gets lumped in as myth and fiction, which effects the mindset of the researcher and sets a value or priority of A) over B). We are basically discounting thousands of tablets, which means many of them haven't even been touched yet, let alone taken seriously. This is important to the language factor in many ways. A.K.A. Dialects etc. For example, when speaking of latin, words in poetic latin may have slightly or entirely different meaning the seemingly same word in "standard latin" ( i.e: in Ovid's Metamorpheson, 'nec opina' means 'unthought of', poetic latin, but in standard modern latin, 'nec opina' means 'unthinking'. Similar, but truly different meanings.)

I believe you are miscatagorizing the separation of the materials into two parts, as I understand it the vast majority of the materials are accounting lists and a small part is considered not myths but literature and basicly non-accounting, however perhaps you can point to a paper that outlines that they used the limited catagories you have stated?

In conclusion, we don't know the extent of the similarities in language yet, because we have barely scratched the surface of the wealth of info the Sumerians and the subsequent empires following them have left. But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't discourse on the subject, for that is how we learn. Thanks for sharing all the comments and the original post.

Could you let us know what you are basing this opinion on? How is 'scratching the surface' equal to the publishing of the Sumerian dictionary, grammar and lexicon?

On the old thread itself

A lot of incorrect assumption made in regards to the meaning of Sumerian words

Tiamat for one

Originally posted by Hanslune


Could you let us know what you are basing this opinion on? How is 'scratching the surface' equal to the publishing of the Sumerian dictionary, grammar and lexicon?

I am referring to the fact that we (as a collective) haven't had the time, nor the resources, to go over everything. I'm not making judgement. Honestly, it is the same with every other ancient culture. We can be (or you, perhaps, I do not know ) can be an expert(s) relatively speaking. And I know that someone who has been studying these cultures for 42 years would know A LOT more than someone like me who has only been studying it for several years, but I define it in the sense of consensus mainstream. We have only been studying this, what, from 1942? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm thinking back on dates off the top of my head.

That is only scratching the surface compared to actual timeline we are talking about here. Can any culture truly understand a 1000+ years of history in less than a hundred?

Also, there are socio-economic-politcal considerations as well. What cultural perspectives are the experts coming from? Anthropology, linguistics, archeology are not unbiased. They can be, but often times they aren't.

Again, I'm not making a judgement, only sharing my opinion and knowledge.

As for the classifications, I will delve back into my research and post relevant info I find. I know I should have included it in my original post, but to be honest, I was being lazy, and excited. Lazy and excited don't always equal the best combination and usually sum up to impatient.

Also, to clarify, I'm not saying anyone is wrong. I don't believe in black and white, truth is relevant and there are only shades of gray.

Anyhoo, would you mind explaining Tiamat? I have read several opinions on the word and subject. I would be interested to see what your knowledge on it is.

reply to post by Savageamberq


Thanks for the reply. I'm very interested in what you have to say on this matter. I have to run and will reply Thursday or Friday in detail

And welcome to the forum

Howdy

Referred that question to an expert in Sumerian history, the Assyriologist, his reply was:

Hehe, someones been paying too much attention to Robert Morningsky

Tiamat according to legend (Enuma Elish) was killed by Bel Marduk and from her corpse he created the vault of heaven and earth, this happens at the end of the story, the story begins

Quote:
When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
so you can see that Tiamat is not associated with the Earth itself as it already exists at the start, there is a general belief that Tiamats body was used to create the earth, this was because people misread "the vault of heaven and earth" as "heaven and earth", the vault is actually the wall that surrounds the planet which keeps the water (which in those days was believed to fill outer space because the sky is blue) from rushing in.

Now heres the definitive answer youre looking for, the Sumerians didn't associate Tiamat with the earth, because the Sumerians were all dead and buried by the time the Babylonians came up with the story. Even then the Babylonians never equated Tiamat with the earth because the Sumero-Babylonian word for "the Earth" was Kisar, which is a misture of two words "Ki" which basically meant "mud/soil" and "Sar" which in this context means "all of it/totality". The general date of the first appearance of Tiamat in mesopotamian mythology is around 1800-1500BCE. Sumer collapsed around 2400bce giving rise to the Akkadian period

his own research has shown that the concept of the dragon, didn't even exist in the Sumerian period, it was most likely bought back from India by Sargon the Great, circa 2300BCE

Oh and Tiamat wasn't ever worshipped as a God, though she did come to symbolise Bel Marduk, her name is never preceeded by the dingir symbol in text.

dingir