Here is a list of many of the world's deities that I found interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GodsGreek Mythology - the beliefs and ritual observances of the ancient Greeks, who became the first Western civilization about 2000 BC. It consists mainly of a body of diverse stories and legends about a variety of gods. Greek mythology had become fully developed by about the 700's BC.
Three classic collections of myths - Theogony by the poet Hesiod and the Iliad and the Odyssey by the poet Homer - appeared at about that time.
Greek mythology emphasized the weakness of humans in contrast to the great and terrifying powers of nature. The Greeks believed that their gods, who were immortal, controlled all aspects of nature. So the Greeks acknowledged that their lives were completely dependent on the good will of the gods. In general, the relations between people and gods were considered friendly. But the gods delivered severe punishment to mortals who showed unacceptable behavior, such as indulgent pride, extreme ambition, or even excessive prosperity.
The ancient Greeks themselves offered some explanations for the development of their mythology. In Sacred History, Euhemerus, a mythographer from the 300s BC, recorded the widespread belief that myths were distortions of history and the gods were heroes who had been glorified over time. The philosopher Prodicus of Ceos taught during the 400s BC that the gods were personifications of natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, winds, and water. Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived during the 400s BC, believed that many Greek rituals were inherited from the Egyptians.
As Greek civilization developed, particularly during the Hellenistic period, which began about 323 BC, the mythology also changed. New philosophies and the influence of neighboring civilizations caused a gradual modification of Greek beliefs. However, the essential characteristics of the Greek gods and their legends remain unchanged.
http://www.crystalinks.com/greekmythology.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 137 | From: Mt. Olympus | Registered: Sep 2005 | Logged: 209.88.103.12 |
docyabut
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I think the Titians could have been a tribe in early Greece, as history says there were only tribes and herdsmen, that were living there around 2,300 bc. However they must have been known across the Mediterranean because the celts had their own gods, still spoke of the Titians battle and of having ships.
Celtic:
Heaven and Earth were great giants, and Heaven lay upon the Earth so that their children were crowded between them, and the children and their mother were unhappy in the darkness. The boldest of the sons led his brothers in cutting up Heaven into many pieces. From his skull they made the firmament. His spilling blood caused a great flood which killed all humans except a single pair, who were saved in a ship made by a beneficent Titan. The waters settled in hollows to become the oceans. The son who led in the mutilation of Heaven was a Titan and became their king, but the Titans and gods hated each other, and the king titan was driven from his throne by his son, who was born a god. That Titan at last went to the land of the departed. The Titan who built the ship, whom some consider to be the same as the king Titan, went there also.
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Posts: 6921 | From: toledo .ohio | Registered: Mar 2000 | Logged: 205.188.116.67 |
Smiley4554
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I don't think we've delved into these 2 writings by Homer, Doc, as it relates (possibly) to be an even older record of Atlantis.
Doc, you've given me an idea. Why don't we explore Homer's Odyssey - and the Illiad, but for our purposes, the Odyssey is probably the better one to explore.
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"It is not what happens to you in life that matters. It's how you handle what happens to you that counts." Kim
http://www.panoramio.com/user/120220 Please contact me by using the PM on the site. I will respond much faster. Thanks! Kim
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Artemis
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posted 01-13-2006 06:15 PM
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Once again, I would like to delve into this for research purposes and see if anyone has any new ideas on the subject. I'll add more myself on it later.
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Herr_Saltzman
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posted 01-13-2006 06:59 PM
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Regarding the Illiad, it is highly significant that the Atlantaean army has the same figures as the Trojan army -it signifies that many details about the country were not known, and were substituted with details from other myths. It also shows that the exact size of the Atlantaean army was not known.
In the Odyssey, we have an island called Thrinicia, thought by some to be Sicily, that is home to the God Helios and his cattle. It is the island of the sun, in the west, and associated with cattle -and with Atlantis, in my mind. So where is Thrinicia?
Sicily may have three corners, but these are not visible by sea -Thrinicia to my mind is smaller. Perhaps it is one of the islands between Italy and Sicily? This is significant because Italy was called Attalia, when it was thought to be at the far west, and when geographic knowledge is extended, Attalia was moved to Morocco, and so perhaps was Thrinicia. Maybe New Thrinicia is Cerne?
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Cheers, and Good Mental Health,
Herr Saltzman
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rockessence
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posted 01-13-2006 08:05 PM
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Artemis,
If you want to blow the lid off the "common knowledge" about the Iliad and the Odyssey, check out Felice Vinci's new book on the subject. Below I put the link to the thread elsewhere on this forum that has his preface and a lot of further discussion. Have fun!!
"The real scene of the Iliad and the Odyssey can be identified not in the Mediterranean Sea, where it proves to be weakened by many incongruities, but in the north of Europe. The sagas that gave rise to the two poems came from the Baltic regions, where the Bronze Age flourished in the 2nd millennium B. C. and many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified. The blond seafarers who founded the Mycenaean civilization in the 16th century B. C. brought these tales from Scandinavia to Greece after the decline of the "climatic optimum". Then they rebuilt their original world, where the Trojan War and many other mythological events had taken place, in the Mediterranean; through many generations the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved, and handed down to the following ages. This key allows us to easily open many doors that have been shut tight until now, as well as to consider the age-old question of the Indo-European diaspora and the origin of the Greek civilization from a new perspective."
HOMER IN THE BALTIC -Summary
(Felice Vinci)
http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000927--------------------
"Illigitimi non carborundum!"
All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17
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Herr_Saltzman
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posted 01-13-2006 09:06 PM
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Rockessence,
The theory that the Illiad and Odyssey is anywhere but the Aegean is utter rubbish.
I am sorry that the North (Scandinavia) do not have much of a history, as they were primitive barbarians until well into the 14th century AD, but that is not an excuse to steal other people's history, and make up "facts" to support it.
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Cheers, and Good Mental Health,
Herr Saltzman
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Posts: 1245 | From: Vienna, Austria | Registered: Sep 2005 | Logged: 71.130.92.224 |
Boreasi
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posted 01-13-2006 10:52 PM
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Guter Herrn Saltzmani,
Ignorance is the twin-brother of Arrogance.
You better do a minimum check on the sources in question, if not your motives - before you express yourself publically about the history of the Hyperboreans.
Since there are no one - fo far - that have traced and mapped their origin and history - in a truly clear and confirmed scientific concept.
Within European Archeology and History its a long accepted fact that we do NOT really have had sufficent material to establish clear pictures of the first migrations, the spread of settlements and the further development of the cultures that once populated The Northern Countries. In fact we still dont know enough about this area - in the period between 10.000 BP and 1000 BP - to establish the basic events and the succesional development of this cultures, along a verifieble time-line.
Not until recently.
Thus a few of us have dwelled into thiz field, as we have followed comtermporary research in this area - of both myth, folklore and archaeology - during the last decade(s).
(The primitivism of mideval Europe was even more apparent in the Mediterranean area and Midle Europe, than in the north. The history of pre-religious Europe shows that the Baltics have been a stronghold for the old culture - until they are the last populations to give up the old ("heathen") pantheons, folklore culture and traditions, as well as an incredibly rich oral culture of story- and history-telling, as part of the seasonal holidays, etc. I was guessing that this was legio to the Guter Herrn Professor, but I should obviously not insist of being rigth about that...)
You may check on my thread ("New Info on Atlantis) to find a updated collection of the most significant discoveries that recently have established the technically and physically proven basis for the litterature of pioneers like Felice Vinci and other contemporary historians.
Further I was expecting that you were familiar with the nationality and citizenship of Dr. Felice Vinci. So how could - and WHY should - an Italian researcher "steal" the history of Troy, to place it in The Baltics?!
Or maybe you find comfort in the modern myth that was created after Schliemann found the golden necklaces from the periods of the old Greek kingdom. Since he presumed that he was looking for Troy everybody seem to have agreed to the tempting fascination of "baptizing" this jewelry as the necklace from Helen of Troy.
THAT`is a nice story - but it is definitly no prove that Herrn Schlieman found anything like the real Troy. We still dont KNOW enough to conclude on that question - either.
Luckily we have been seeing great progress within these topics over the last two decades. And the total amounts of finds are giving us a good row of clues to the whereabouts of Modern Man in Eurasia - AND the north - during the last 40.000 years.
Meanwhile I could be interesting to know what basis you THINK you have for the statements above...
[ 01-13-2006, 11:14 PM: Message edited by: Boreasi ]
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Posts: 1330 | From: Norway | Registered: Apr 2005 | Logged: 80.213.50.160 |
rockessence
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posted 01-14-2006 03:10 AM
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Artemis,
Again, I urge you to explore the link I gave you above to learn more about Homer's links to the Baltic area.
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"Illigitimi non carborundum!"
All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17
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Posts: 3108 | From: Port Townsend WA | Registered: Feb 2004 | Logged: 64.40.51.64 |
Herr_Saltzman
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posted 01-14-2006 10:00 AM
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It is utter nonsense.
As I said before, the Norse feel obligated to steal other people's history to make up for their own. I don't know why.
Reminds me of Hitler and his Aryan propoganda.
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Cheers, and Good Mental Health,
Herr Saltzman
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Posts: 1245 | From: Vienna, Austria | Registered: Sep 2005 | Logged: 71.130.92.224 |
rockessence
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posted 01-14-2006 10:43 AM
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Herr,
I don't blame you for your opinion. This is par for the course relative to this information. Also why it is "the few" who venture to learn something in the face "scholarly" opposition.
Perhaps in spite of your "scholarly" opposition, some will venture to learn something.
Cheers and Good Mental Health to you too!!!
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"Illigitimi non carborundum!"
All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17
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Posts: 3108 | From: Port Townsend WA | Registered: Feb 2004 | Logged: 64.40.51.134 |
Boreasi
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posted 01-14-2006 11:00 AM
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Saltz,
I am sorry to see that you are stuck with the quasi- or pseudo-science of your political past. I do understand - and fell sorry about - that the legacy of the Roman fascism and the German nazism still seems to cloud your counscious and observant participation in cultural and historical debates.
I do understand that the social and cultural impact of both these movements have weighed much more heavyly into the Austrian population than we Scandinavains may be able to really understand.
Up here we sure feel utterly embarrased about the fact that Hitler used our common, Eur-Asian symbols and mythology - to establish a "Nordic" diversion of our common, "indo-european" herritage.
Moreover it feels awkaward that the Nazis used some of the symbols that - at that time - was basicly known from the Scandinavian countries only, to establish arguments for his political project - which included invading, bombing, killing, molesting, prisoning and torturing quantities of honest citizens of both Denmark and Norway. Thus we had a parable about the Nazis and their allies - appearing in the post-war Norway, saying; "They had to shoot us - and keep us captive - to become good Norwegians, themselves..."
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Good they didnt get to know the real story behind the Norse myths and The Indo-European legends, as they still consecute the basic traditions of culture still left in and around Europe. I mean, such as Easter, Midsummer, Thanksgiving and - not to forget - Christmess.
They have been celebrated ever since modern man started to establish organised settlements and cultures - all over the Eursian continent.
[ 01-14-2006, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: Boreasi ]
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Posts: 1330 | From: Norway | Registered: Apr 2005 | Logged: 85.167.112.78 |
Brig
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Ancient Egyptians believed their pharoahs were gods. Some of the more egotistical roman emperors thought they were gods and even commanded the people to worship them as such. Alexander the arrogant (he thought he was great) wanted his people to think he was a god. This deofication of certain people and military heros is not that unknown or unheard of. Even in modern times we have egotistical blowhards presenting themserlves as gods and a few foolish hero worshippers who follow them. Sun yun Moon or whatever his name is for one. A few beetle camp followers tried to form a church based on John Lennon . The ancient greek and roman gods were based on military leaders and others that, for whatever reason, seemed greater than general humanity. The collapse of Atlantis and the leaders of that period would have been great examples of people that survivors mythed into godhood.
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Posts: 8445 | From: Old Washington, Ohio , USA | Registered: Apr 2002 | Logged: 64.12.116.139 |
Herr_Saltzman
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posted 01-14-2006 12:08 PM
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Again, rubbish.
The fact that the Norse feel the need to rewrite history, and to write their own parts in, is childish.
Tall blond blue-eyed Mycenaean seafareres??? Try olive-skinned, with dark hair, medium height and build. Please.
Carrying a cultural tale from the Norse? About the most cultured thing the Norse ever produced was the longboat -which is admired by scholars far beyond proportion. Throw together a few sticks and paint a dragon and you have a longboat. These same scholars look at ruins of some stones in England, and put it ON PAR with the Egyptian Pyramids.
I am reminded of a quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding:
(The Greek dad to his northern European-American son-in-law): "My people were inventing philosophy when your people were still swinging from trees."
No offense to the Norse in general, but complete offense to the Norse "academia" who revolve around a man who believes he is descended from a Finnish god.
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Cheers, and Good Mental Health,
Herr Saltzman
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Posts: 1245 | From: Vienna, Austria | Registered: Sep 2005 | Logged: 71.130.92.224 |
Huggy
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posted 01-14-2006 12:33 PM
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http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/archeol/odysseus.htmOdysseus and the Sea Peoples
Homer writes that Odysseus was the king of the small island of Ithaka, today still called Ithaki by the Greek inhabitants. It is ocated west of the Greek mainland in the Ionian Sea. In Odysseus' own words, Homer provides us with a clear description of the island and its location; however, this description does not seem to fit the island of Ithaki in Greece. Furthermore, Nyland (2002) noted that modern Ithaki shows no archaeological evidence of the palace and village as described in the epic. Also, Homer's description of the climate of Odysseus' home island in no way seems to belong in the Mediterranean. [Note: at the time the Odyssey was believed to have taken place around 1186-1177 B.C., the earth’s average temperature was about one degree Centigrade COLDER than by the year 2000—See Climate. Thus, the Mediterranean region then could have resembled more northerly climates of modern times.] He tells us about storms, fog, tides, hoarfrost, and the endless gray ocean, all with distinctive north Atlantic characteristics. Translator Lattimore wrote:
"Homer seems to know his Ithaka, and what it is like, only he does not seem to know where it is. Listen to Odysseus himself who ought to know": "I am at home in sunny Ithaka. There is a mountain there that stands tall, leaf-trembling Neritos, and there are islands settled around it, lying one very close to the other. There is Doulichion and Same, wooded Zakinthos, but my island lies low and away, last of all on the water toward the dark, with the rest below facing east and sunshine" (IX: 21-26).
Lattimore then comments: "This simply will not do for Ithaka, though it has the landmarks, for it lies tucked close in against the eastern side of the far larger Kephallenia" (Odyssey p.14). To Lattimore and other classicists it is obvious that there is something wrong here. As we will see later, Odysseus' description, quoted above, contains some evidence needed to show the real location of Homer's Ithaka; it is not in Greece at all, in fact it is nowhere near it, as Homer himself admits when he writes that:
"The name of Ithaka has gone even to Troy, though they say that it is very far from Achaian country" (XIII: 248-9).
Ithaki was part of the Achaian region, but Ithaka was not. We are also told that Odysseus is married to Penelope and that they have a young son, Telemachus. Penelope, which means:
.pe - ene - elo - ope
epe - ene - elo - ope
epeatzeratu - -enetan - elorritsu - operatxo
to postpone - every time - thorny - operetta
"Every time she postpones the thorny operetta".
Odysseus then leaves his devoted wife and child and, according to Homer, joins the Achaeans in their brutal attack on Troy, where he supposedly spends the next ten years fighting. This blood and gore episode is the topic of another of Homer's epics, the Iliad. We know that Troy existed and archaeologists have shown that the ruins of the town show plenty of evidence of violent destruction by fire, war and earthquake. Also, the historical records found in Egypt and elsewhere appear to support the fighting in Asia Minor and provide likely dates for Odysseus' travels. The trouble is that these dates do not correspond to the date the excavating archaeologist assigned to the Troy of the Iliad, as will be explained. Odysseus' subsequent history certainly does not support Homer's insistence that Odysseus was an Achaian or a Greek.
THE ODYSSEY SUBDIVIDED
The epic which was passed on to us through the ages, can be subdivided in chronological order starting with his departure from Troy and arrival on Kalypso's island; then from there to the land of the Phaiakians and Odysseus' homecoming on Ithaka.
A: The Great Wanderings, as told by Odysseus, from Book IX: 37 to the end of XII.
B: The Homecoming, as told by Homer, Book V to VIII and XIII: 1-187.
C: The Telemachy, Book I to IV.
D: The Murder of the Suitors, Book XIII: 187 to the end of XXIV
A: THE GREAT WANDERINGS
In spite of being only one week sailing away from his supposed home on Ithaki, it took Odysseus ten years to get there. The citadel of Troy had been conquered, the people massacred and the young women acquired as slaves or concubines by some of the Achaean chiefs, but apparently none by Odysseus or his men, because when Odysseus' ships leave Troy they sail into a very different world of adventure, of fairy tales and magic and head strong women in positions of command, and they meet strange and wild characters. The women taken from the Kikonians are no longer mentioned. He loses eleven of his twelve ships with all the crew members when giant cannibals pelted them with huge rocks from the cliffs above in the "beautiful harbor". Any other captain who met with such a fate would surely have returned back home but not Odysseus; he manages to escape and sails on with one ship and crew to an unknown island where Odysseus climbs a steep mountain and sees the sea all around him. From his high perch, he sees smoke rising in the middle of the island and after a day or two meets a lovely Goddess called Kirke (the Latin spelling Circe did not appear until some six centuries after Homer lived). She then proceeds to turn half of the crew into pigs but relents, when Odysseus draws his sword, and orders her to return the men to human shape. The two then go happily to bed and after their love making is done, Kirke takes command and gives the great Odysseus a number of tasks to do, which he meekly accomplishes with great fear in his heart. Certainly a rather strange scenario.
Following Kirke's orders, he sails away, visits Hades where he meets Teiresias, the seer and keeper of Hades, the underworld, who retained his powers even in the land of death. During his visit to Hades Odysseus meets his mother and other deceased ancestors, his fallen Troy comrades and sails back to Kirke. In all this activity Homer seems to omit critical detail; the reasons which explain why all this is happening are not there. Kirke then gives Odysseus a new set of instructions that take him to the island where the alluring Sirens sing, after which he sails onto Charybdis where he loses six of his best seamen to a six-headed monster lurking in a cave above the water. When he reaches land, he has a big meal of beef at the expense of Helios' holy cattle, gets shipwrecked and in the accident sees all his remaining crew drown. Then he drifts alone for nine days on some flotsam that he manages to save from the wreck before he is rescued by the amorous nymph Kalypso, who proceeds to keep him for seven years, supposedly as a love-slave. No explanation of any kind is given for this time of imprisonment. It is all very nebulous and confusing, however, much good information had been supplied for Kirke's island, geographical, mythological and linguistic, but the story does not seem to flow logically because again there are major gaps in the story. Up to now, all these roving adventures have been told in the first person, but his stay with Kalypso signals the end of the "Great Wanderings" and Odysseus' own story telling.
B: THE HOMECOMING OR NOSTOI
When he leaves Kalypso, the story from then on is told in the third person by Homer. This part is called the "Nostoi" or Homecoming, even though it really is part of the Great Wanderings. Ordered by Zeus, Kalypso gives Odysseus the tools and the necessary wood to build a small sailboat which he sails due east for 18 days, to the land of the oar-loving Phaiakians, following an accurate star bearing. Homer then tells the story of the difficult trip to the Phaiakians and the warm welcome Odysseus received there. He tells about the adventures and his hosts apparently like Odysseus so much that they load him with treasures; but Homer gives no explanation why these were given. The Phaiakians deliver him back to Ithaka, which appears to be described as only an overnight trip away, certainly not the very long way to Greece. In all secrecy, Odysseus is put ashore with his treasures and the Goddess Athena comes to help him carry it all into a beautiful and very deep cave which cuts clear through the island from north to south. Deep in the cave they store it all in a niche and place a large rock in front. What were these treasures and why was the Goddess Athena involved in taking care of them? They must have been very important and probably related to the early religion. Is there a chance that some of the treasures may still be where she and Odysseus placed them? This possibility may exist because the location of the cave is now known and may not have been entered or explored for centuries.
C: THE MURDER OF THE SUITORS
In the last section of the Odyssey, Homer suddenly turns our hero into a bloodthirsty murderer who kills 108 unarmed young men, the flower of the island. The only reason given is that they ate some of Odysseus' sheep and pigs, and had vied for the hand of Penelope, the still beautiful wife of Odysseus, after his 20 year absence (10 fighting at Troy, ca 10 away on the Wanderings). Throughout the years that Odysseus was away on his wanderings, they had always respected Penelope's person and her privacy and were at worst no more than a bad nuisance, which makes the grisly murders so totally out of character for Odysseus. The story does not ring true, no matter what way you slice it. When the epic, centuries later, was translated into Latin, the awful murder episode was used by some Roman to give Odysseus a derogatory new name: Ulysses, uli-is.-.se-es.
uli - is. - .se - es.
uli - isi - ise - esi
uli - isilkari - izentxarreko - ezigabe
coward - sneaky - infamous - savage
"Sneaky, infamous and savage coward."
Whoever made up this name did an enormous injustice to this great and courageous individual. When the Greek island off the west coast of Greece was chosen to be Odysseus' home, Homer named it Ithaka, meaning "Senseless deluge of death". The meaning of the name tells us that even the person who made up the name agreed that the mass murder was totally unwarranted. As a matter of interest, the name Ithaki, used by the modern population, comes from izakide meaning coexistent, referring to its proximity with the much larger island Kefallinia lying west of Ithaki.
D: THE TELEMACHY
Translator Richmond Lattimore has his doubts about the authenticity of the Telemachy, the four books of the Odyssey which tell about Odysseus' faithful son Telemachus, who searches far and wide for information about his father, and in the process nearly gets finished off by the suitors who had lain in wait for him when he returns from his trip to sandy Pylos. Compared with the wanderings, this part of the Odyssey is disjointed and artificial, as Lattimore says in his "Introduction".
"The obviousness of the joins and the bulk of the material not specifically related to Odysseus in Books III - IV, his absence from Books I - II, have suggested that the Telemachy was an independent poem which was, at some stage, incorporated more or less wholly in the Odyssey" (p.4).
A Canaanite legend describes the same brawling and killing tactics, specifically the throwing of furniture, as used by Odysseus and Telemachus when they supposedly were massacring the suiters of Penelope:
She fights violently, She hurls chairs at the soldiers,
Hurling tables at the armies, Footstools at the troops.
Much she fights and looks, slays and views. Anath swells her liver with laughter,
Her heart is filled with joy. For in the hand of Anath is victory.
For she plunges knee-deep in the blood of soldiers, Neck-high in the gore of troops.
Until she is sated, She fights in the house, Battles between the tables.
("Mythologies of the Ancient World" Edited by Samuel Noah Kramer, Doubleday, New York, 1961. (p. 198)
Male domination had turned the caring priestesses into brawlers and fighters. Everything in the Odyssey points to the conclusion that the Telemachy cannot be part of Odysseus' epic voyage. Odysseus was not married, he had neither son nor wife, otherwise he would never have been chosen for a starring role in the Sacred Marriage, about which much more later. It appears obvious that the ancient Canaanite legend was adapted by Homer and included in the Odyssey for a very specific purpose. With all the additions and alterations in the original epic and the pall of brutality this has cast over Odysseus' character, our hero was never given the chance to set the record straight, All indications therefore are that neither wife Penelope, nor his son Telemachos, belong in the epic and they will no longer be mentioned.
THE REAL ODYSSEUS
It will soon become clear to the reader that Odysseus could not have belonged to the patriarchal, woman-despising new world of the eastern Mediterranean sky gods. Homer repeatedly tried to convince us of this, by inserting Zeus as the all-knowing supreme father, philanderer and rapist, assisted by a variety of less important deities who did his bidding. Instead, Odysseus clearly belonged to the earlier trusting and caring world of the Great Goddess, who was still adored in much of Europe and especially on the Atlantic islands of Britain, Ireland and in Scandinavia. The Goddess Athena who sheltered him during his adventures had no father Zeus to supervise her, because she was the Goddess Ashera herself, in her role as protectress of the sailors. Zeus was only fully introduced to the Greek people after Homer had identified and described him in his epics. In a way, the two books by Homer were like a bible for the classical Greeks, designed and written to provide the people with an entirely fictitious pre-history designed to bury the true religion and accomplishments of the people of.the Goddess. The new legends and the pantheon created to cover up the illustrious past could hardly be called a religion, not even a cult, in spite of all the beautiful statues which were made of the heroes, gods and goddesses.
Based on historical and archaeological information, and the writings in the Odyssey, Nyland (2002) discussed how Odysseus was a Pict born on Barra in the village of Borve. Being a skillful sailor and a smart tactician, be was placed in charge of the fleet of ships from the Hebridean islands and NW Ireland, assembled to be sent to the Near East to once and for all destroy the unwanted upstart pre-Judaic patriarchal religion. Many battles were fought, all initially very successful, but Egypt's Ramses III turned the last one into terrible tragedy, as depicted by the pharaoh in such elaborate detail on his Medinet Habu temple. An effort is made to describe these happenings, the difficult times Odysseus lived in, and how the tribes thrived and worshiped in his island civilization of the Goddess.
HOMER’S IDENTITY
Everyone studying Homer's writing has been asking the same question. Even though there is next to nothing to go by, many suggestions have been made over the centuries. He has been called a blind poet as Wilkins comments:
"According to some, Homer was in fact the blind bard Demodocus, who sings the end of the Trojan War at the court of Alcinous (Odysseus IIX: 44-108). This would amount to Homer having 'signed' his work.... For the ancients, the mention of blindness merely referred to the capacity of clairvoyance of many seers and poets, for it was believed that the blind could 'see' the future because they were more receptive than other people". (Page 269)
To others he was an illiterate memory man, who dictated his oral wisdom to a scribe. Others say that Homer represented several people because of the different writing styles and the sheer size of the epics. However, Nyland (2002) showed that the Odyssey was a much older epic, orally passed on, which played mostly in the North Atlantic and which was deliberately altered, probably by Homer himself, and mutilated for the single purpose of destroying all references to the Neolithic Goddess religion and civilization of the Atlantic, which was guided by women. Homer's orders must have been to eliminate the memory of the enormous effort of the Sea Peoples to wipe the upstart patriarchy off the face of the earth. Wherever possible, male domination, female subservience and helplessness, male chivalry and aggressiveness is stressed by Homer, while prominent and independent women in positions of command such as Kirke, Medea and Kalypso are reduced to witches, magicians and eccentrics. Stories belonging in other countries, such as the massacre of the Kikones, the mass murder of the suitors and the blinding of the wheel-eyed Cyclops, were inserted to give the impression that Odysseus was firmly located in the aggressive camp of the male sky gods. All these tales were blended masterfully into one most readable fairy tale, using a characteristic style of poetry, which we now have as the Odyssey. It is therefore clear that Homer cannot have been the blind, illiterate poet who simply passed on his memorized knowledge to a scribe. Instead, he may well have been a highly literate priest of the new proto-Judaic religion of the jealous sky gods. His assigned task would then have been to mask and distort the true origin of, and the history told in, the original travelogue. However, some parts of the older story he removed can at least be partly recovered by reading between the lines, by translating the original names and words used, and by tieing in information given to us in other documents, on tablets, using legends and inscribed on temples.
Although the wanderings took place approximately 1180 B.C., Odysseus' travel account may not have been written until about 750 or 700 B.C. The name Homer is usually said to have originated from 'homeros' normally accepted to be a Greek word meaning "hostage", which could have been a pseudonym for one person or even a group of "gogogizonak" (memory men), however, hostage is also a rather inappropriate name for a literary giant. In the universal language underlying Greek, using the VCV Formula vowel-interlocking formula, "Homer" is the agglutination of three words:
ho - ome - er.
hoberen - omenezko - erakasle
the best/most - honorable - teacher
the most honorable teacher
LINGUISTIC ARCHAEOLOGY
In Nyland’s (2002) book, words and names used by Homer are decoded and translated. They are an important part of the solution of the question "Where did Odysseus go?" The explanation of the system of translation used is discussed elsewhere in this homepage, under Ogam. The reader who is interested in knowing how the names were assembled by the people who first wrote the epic, is urged to read the chapter on Linguistic Archaeology first. Decoding the meaning of the words is no exact science, it was not intended to be, and only that much can be deducted from them as the composition of the names permit. However, the highly organized and logical structure of the ancient language (Genesis 11:1) that we call Basque today, makes this process in general feasible. Sometimes more than one logical translation appears but this is something that cannot be avoided but solutions are possible with practice.
Bibliography
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As Above So Below.
